title: Philadelphia Museum of Art

text: The Philadelphia Museum of Art organizes several special exhibitions each year. Special exhibitions have featured Salvador Dalí in 2005, Paul Cézanne in 2009, Auguste Renoir in 2010, Vincent van Gogh in 2012, Pablo Picasso in 2014, John James Audubon and Andy Warhol (et al.) in 2016, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent in 2017, and the Duchamp siblings—Marcel, Gaston, Raymond and Suzanne—in 2019. A Jasper Johns exhibition is planned for 2021.


title: Philadelphia Museum of Art

text: In 2009, the museum organized "Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens", the official United States entry at the 53rd International Art Exhibition, more commonly known as the Venice Biennale, for which the artist Bruce Nauman was awarded the Golden Lion.


title: Philadelphia Museum of Art

text: Besides being known for its architecture and collections, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has in recent decades become known due to the role it played in the "Rocky" films"Rocky" (1976) and six of its seven sequels, "II", "III", "V", "Rocky Balboa", "Creed", and "Creed II". Visitors to the museum are often seen mimicking Rocky Balboa's (portrayed by Sylvester Stallone) famous run up the east entrance stairs, informally nicknamed the Rocky Steps. Screen Junkies named the museum's stairs the second most famous movie location behind only Grand Central Station in New York.


title: Philadelphia Museum of Art

text: An tall bronze statue of the Rocky Balboa character was commissioned in 1980 and placed at the top of the stairs in 1982 for the filming of "Rocky III". After filming was complete, Stallone donated the statue to the city of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Art Commission eventually decided to relocate the statue to the now-defunct Spectrum sports arena due to controversy over its prominent placement at the top of the museum's front stairs and questions about its artistic merit. The statue was placed briefly on top of the stairs again for the 1990 film "Rocky V" and then returned to the Spectrum. In 2006, the statue was relocated to a new display area on the north side of the base of the stairs.


title: Philadelphia Museum of Art

text: The museum provides the backdrop for concerts and parades because of its location at the end of the Ben Franklin Parkway. The museum's east entrance area played host to the American venue of the international Live 8 concert held on July 2, 2005, with musical artists including Dave Matthews Band, Linkin Park and Maroon 5. The Philadelphia Freedom Concert, orchestrated and headlined by Elton John, was held two days later on the same outdoor stage from the Live 8 concert while a preceding ball was held inside the museum.


title: Philadelphia Museum of Art

text: On September 26, 2015, the "Festival of Families" event, attended by Pope Francis, was held along the Ben Franklin Parkway with musical performances by various acts within Eakins Oval in front of the museum, as well as in Logan Square.


title: Philadelphia Museum of Art

text: On February 8, 2018, the victory parade for the Philadelphia Eagles' win in Super Bowl LII finished upon the museum steps, where players and team personnel gave speeches from a lectern to the large crowd gathered along Ben Franklin Parkway.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: In optics, the Fraunhofer diffraction equation is used to model the diffraction of waves when plane waves are incident on a diffracting object, and the diffraction pattern is viewed at a sufficiently long distance (a distance satisfying Fraunhofer condition) from the object (in the far-field region), and also when it is viewed at the focal plane of an imaging lens. In contrast, the diffraction pattern created near the diffracting object (in the near field region) is given by the Fresnel diffraction equation.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The equation was named in honor of Joseph von Fraunhofer although he was not actually involved in the development of the theory.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: This article explains where the Fraunhofer equation can be applied, and shows Fraunhofer diffraction patterns for various apertures. A detailed mathematical treatment of Fraunhofer diffraction is given in Fraunhofer diffraction equation.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: When a beam of light is partly blocked by an obstacle, some of the light is scattered around the object, light and dark bands are often seen at the edge of the shadow – this effect is known as diffraction. These effects can be modelled using the Huygens–Fresnel principle; Huygens postulated that every point on a wavefront acts as a source of spherical secondary wavelets and the sum of these secondary wavelets determines the form of the proceeding wave at any subsequent time, while Fresnel developed an equation using the Huygens wavelets together with the principle of superposition of waves, which models these diffraction effects quite well.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: It is generally not straightforward to calculate the wave amplitude given by the sum of the secondary wavelets (The wave sum is also a wave.), each of which has its own amplitude, phase, and oscillation direction (polarization), since this involves addition of many waves of varying amplitude, phase, and polarization. When two light waves as electromagnetic fields are added together (vector sum), the amplitude of the wave sum depends on the amplitudes, the phases, and even the polarizations of individual waves. On a certain direction where electromagnetic wave fields are projected (or considering a situation where two waves have the same polarization), two waves of equal (projected) amplitude which are in phase (same phase) give the amplitude of the resultant wave sum as double the individual wave amplitudes, while two waves of equal amplitude which are in opposite phases give the zero amplitude of the resultant wave as they cancel out each other. Generally, a two-dimensional integral over complex variables has to be solved and in many cases, an analytic solution is not available.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The Fraunhofer diffraction equation is a simplified version of Kirchhoff's diffraction formula and it can be used to model light diffraction when both a light source and a viewing plane (a plane of observation where the diffracted wave is observed) are effectively infinitely distant from a diffracting aperture. With a sufficiently distant light source from a diffracting aperture, the incident light to the aperture is effectively a plane wave so that the phase of the light at each point on the aperture is the same. At a sufficiently distant plane of observation from the aperture, the phase of the wave coming from each point on the aperture varies linearly with the point position on the aperture, making the calculation of the sum of the waves at an observation point on the plane of observation relatively straightforward in many cases. Even the amplitudes of the secondary waves coming from the aperture at the observation point can be treated as same or constant for a simple diffraction wave calculation in this case. Diffraction in such a geometrical requirement is called "Fraunhofer diffraction", and the condition where Fraunhofer diffraction is valid is called "Fraunhofer condition", as shown in the right box. A diffracted wave is often called "Far field" if it at least partially satisfies Fraunhofer condition such that the distance between the aperture and the observation plane formula_1 is formula_2.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: For example, if a 0.5 mm diameter circular hole is illuminated by a laser light with 0.6 μm wavelength, then Fraunhofer diffraction occurs if the viewing distance is greater than 1000 mm.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The derivation of Fraunhofer condition here is based on the geometry described in the right box. The diffracted wave path "r" can be expressed in terms of another diffracted wave path "r" and the distance "b" between two diffracting points by using the law of cosines;


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The phase difference between waves propagating along the paths "r" and "r" are, with the wavenumber where λ is the light wavelength,


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: If formula_8 so formula_9, then the phase difference is formula_10. The geometrical implication from this expression is that the paths "r" and "r" are approximately parallel with each other. Since there can be a diffraction plane - observation plane diffracted wave path which angle with respect to a straight line parallel to the optical axis is close to 0, this approximation condition can be further simplified as formula_11 where "L" is the distance between two planes along the optical axis. Due to the fact that an incident wave on a diffracting plane is effectively a plane wave if formula_11 where "L" is the distance between the diffracting plane and the point wave source is satisfied, Fraunhofer condition is formula_11 where "L" is the smaller of the two distances, one is between the diffracting plane and the plane of observation and the other is between the diffracting plane and the point wave source.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: In the far field, propagation paths for wavelets from every point on an aperture to a point of observation are approximately parallel, and a positive lens (focusing lens) focuses parallel rays toward the lens to a point on the focal plane (the focus point position on the focal plane depends on the angle of the parallel rays with respect to the optical axis). So, if a positive lens with a sufficiently long focal length (so that differences between electric field orientations for wavelets can be ignored at the focus) is placed after an aperture, then the lens practically makes the Fraunhofer diffraction pattern of the aperture on its focal plane as the parallel rays meet each other at the focus.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: In each of these examples, the aperture is illuminated by a monochromatic plane wave at normal incidence.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The width of the slit is . The Fraunhofer diffraction pattern is shown in the image together with a plot of the intensity vs. angle . The pattern has maximum intensity at , and a series of peaks of decreasing intensity. Most of the diffracted light falls between the first minima. The angle, , subtended by these two minima is given by:


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: Thus, the smaller the aperture, the larger the angle subtended by the diffraction bands. The size of the central band at a distance is given by


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: For example, when a slit of width 0.5 mm is illuminated by light of wavelength 0.6 μm, and viewed at a distance of 1000 mm, the width of the central band in the diffraction pattern is 2.4 mm.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The fringes extend to infinity in the direction since the slit and illumination also extend to infinity.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: If , the intensity of the diffracted light does not fall to zero, and if , the diffracted wave is cylindrical.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: We can find the angle at which a first minimum is obtained in the diffracted light by the following reasoning. Consider the light diffracted at an angle where the distance is equal to the wavelength of the illuminating light. The width of the slit is the distance . The component of the wavelet emitted from the point A which is travelling in the direction is in anti-phase with the wave from the point at middle of the slit, so that the net contribution at the angle from these two waves is zero. The same applies to the points just below and , and so on. Therefore, the amplitude of the total wave travelling in the direction is zero. We have:


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: We can develop an expression for the far field of a continuous array of point sources of uniform amplitude and of the same phase. Let the array of length "a" be parallel to the y axis with its center at the origin as indicated in the figure to the right. Then the differential field is:


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The form of the diffraction pattern given by a rectangular aperture is shown in the figure on the right (or above, in tablet format). There is a central semi-rectangular peak, with a series of horizontal and vertical fringes. The dimensions of the central band are related to the dimensions of the slit by the same relationship as for a single slit so that the larger dimension in the diffracted image corresponds to the smaller dimension in the slit. The spacing of the fringes is also inversely proportional to the slit dimension.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: If the illuminating beam does not illuminate the whole vertical length of the slit, the spacing of the vertical fringes is determined by the dimensions of the illuminating beam. Close examination of the double-slit diffraction pattern below shows that there are very fine horizontal diffraction fringes above and below the main spot, as well as the more obvious horizontal fringes.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The diffraction pattern given by a circular aperture is shown in the figure on the right. This is known as the Airy diffraction pattern. It can be seen that most of the light is in the central disk. The angle subtended by this disk, known as the Airy disk, is


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The Airy disk can be an important parameter in limiting the ability of an imaging system to resolve closely located objects.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The diffraction pattern obtained given by an aperture with a Gaussian profile, for example, a photographic slide whose transmissivity has a Gaussian variation is also a Gaussian function. The form of the function is plotted on the right (above, for a tablet), and it can be seen that, unlike the diffraction patterns produced by rectangular or circular apertures, it has no secondary rings. This technique can be used in a process called apodization—the aperture is covered by a Gaussian filter, giving a diffraction pattern with no secondary rings.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The output profile of a single mode laser beam may have a Gaussian intensity profile and the diffraction equation can be used to show that it maintains that profile however far away it propagates from the source.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: In the double-slit experiment, the two slits are illuminated by a single light beam. If the width of the slits is small enough (less than the wavelength of the light), the slits diffract the light into cylindrical waves. These two cylindrical wavefronts are superimposed, and the amplitude, and therefore the intensity, at any point in the combined wavefronts depends on both the magnitude and the phase of the two wavefronts. These fringes are often known as Young's fringes.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The fringes in the picture were obtained using the yellow light from a sodium light (wavelength = 589 nm), with slits separated by 0.25 mm, and projected directly onto the image plane of a digital camera.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: Double-slit interference fringes can be observed by cutting two slits in a piece of card, illuminating with a laser pointer, and observing the diffracted light at a distance of 1 m. If the slit separation is 0.5 mm, and the wavelength of the laser is 600 nm, then the spacing of the fringes viewed at a distance of 1 m would be 1.2 mm.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The difference in phase between the two waves is determined by the difference in the distance travelled by the two waves.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: If the viewing distance is large compared with the separation of the slits (the far field), the phase difference can be found using the geometry shown in the figure. The path difference between two waves travelling at an angle is given by


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: When the two waves are in phase, i.e. the path difference is equal to an integral number of wavelengths, the summed amplitude, and therefore the summed intensity is maximal, and when they are in anti-phase, i.e. the path difference is equal to half a wavelength, one and a half wavelengths, etc., then the two waves cancel, and the summed intensity is zero. This effect is known as interference.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: When the distance between the slits and the viewing plane is , the spacing of the fringes is equal to and is the same as above:


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: A grating is defined in Born and Wolf as "any arrangement which imposes on an incident wave a periodic variation of amplitude or phase, or both".


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: A grating whose elements are separated by diffracts a normally incident beam of light into a set of beams, at angles given by:


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: This is known as the grating equation. The finer the grating spacing, the greater the angular separation of the diffracted beams.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The detailed structure of the repeating pattern determines the form of the individual diffracted beams, as well as their relative intensity while the grating spacing always determines the angles of the diffracted beams.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: The image on the right shows a laser beam diffracted by a grating into = 0, and ±1 beams. The angles of the first order beams are about 20°; if we assume the wavelength of the laser beam is 600 nm, we can infer that the grating spacing is about 1.8 μm.


title: Fraunhofer diffraction

text: A simple grating consists of a series of slits in a screen. If the light travelling at an angle from each slit has a path difference of one wavelength with respect to the adjacent slit, all these waves will add together, so that the maximum intensity of the diffracted light is obtained when:


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited the Americas as far north as the Northern United States and as far south as Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with "Mammuthus subplanifrons" in the early Pliocene. DNA studies show that the Columbian mammoth was a hybrid species between woolly mammoths and another lineage descended from steppe mammoths; the hybridization happened more than 420,000 years ago. The pygmy mammoths of the Channel Islands of California evolved from Columbian mammoths. The closest extant relative of the Columbian and other mammoths is the Asian elephant.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Reaching at the shoulders and in weight, the Columbian mammoth was one of the largest species of mammoth. It had long, curved tusks and four molars, which were replaced six times during the lifetime of an individual. It most likely used its tusks and trunk like modern elephants—for manipulating objects, fighting, and foraging. Bones, hair, dung, and stomach contents have been discovered, but no preserved carcasses are known. The Columbian mammoth preferred open areas, such as parkland landscapes, and fed on sedges, grasses, and other plants. It did not live in the Arctic regions of Canada, which were instead inhabited by woolly mammoths. The ranges of the two species may have overlapped, and genetic evidence suggests that they interbred. Several sites contain the skeletons of multiple Columbian mammoths, either because they died in incidents such as a drought, or because these locations were natural traps in which individuals accumulated over time.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: For a few thousand years prior to their extinction, Columbian mammoths coexisted in North America with Paleoamericans – the first humans to inhabit the Americas – who hunted them for food, used their bones for making tools, and possibly depicted them in ancient art. Columbian mammoth remains have been found in association with Clovis culture artifacts; these remains may have stemmed either from hunting or scavenging. The Columbian mammoth disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene around 11,500 years ago, most likely as a result of habitat loss caused by climate change, hunting by humans, or a combination of both.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The Columbian mammoth was first scientifically described in 1857 by naturalist Hugh Falconer, who named the species "Elephas columbi" after the explorer Christopher Columbus. The animal was brought to Falconer's attention in 1846 by Charles Lyell, who sent him molar fragments found during the 1838 excavation of the Brunswick–Altamaha Canal in Georgia, in the southeastern United States. At the time, similar fossils from across North America were attributed to woolly mammoths (then "Elephas primigenius"). Falconer found that his specimens were distinct, confirming his conclusion by examining their internal structure and studying additional molars from Mexico. Although scientists William Phipps Blake and Richard Owen believed that "E. texianus" was more appropriate for the species, Falconer rejected the name; he also suggested that "E. imperator" and "E. jacksoni", two other American elephants described from molars, were based on remains too fragmentary to classify properly. More complete material that may be from the same quarry as Falconer's fragmentary holotype molar (which is cataloged as specimen BMNH 40769 at the British Museum of Natural History) was reported in 2012, and could help shed more light on that specimen, since doubts about its adequacy as a holotype have been raised.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: In the early 20th century, the taxonomy of extinct elephants became increasingly complicated. In 1942, paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn's posthumous monograph on the Proboscidea was published, wherein he used various generic and subgeneric names that had previously been proposed for extinct elephant species, such as "Archidiskodon", "Metarchidiskodon", "Parelephas", and "Mammonteus". Osborn also retained names for many regional and intermediate subspecies or "varieties", and created recombinations such as "Parelephas columbi felicis" and "Archidiskodon imperator maibeni". The taxonomic situation was simplified by various researchers from the 1970s onwards; all species of mammoth were retained in the genus "Mammuthus", and many proposed differences between species were instead interpreted as intraspecific variation. In 2003, paleontologist Larry Agenbroad reviewed opinions about North American mammoth taxonomy, and concluded that several species had been declared junior synonyms, and that "M. columbi" (the Columbian mammoth) and "M. exilis" (the pygmy mammoth) were the only species of mammoth endemic to the Americas (as other species lived both there and in Eurasia). The idea that species such as "M. imperator" (the imperial mammoth) and "M. jeffersoni" (Jefferson's mammoth) were either more primitive or advanced stages in Columbian mammoth evolution was largely dismissed, and they were regarded as synonyms. In spite of these conclusions, Agenbroad cautioned that American mammoth taxonomy is not yet fully resolved.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The earliest known members of Proboscidea, the clade that contains the elephants, existed about 55 million years ago around the Tethys Sea area. The closest living relatives of the Proboscidea are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes (an order of small, herbivorous mammals). The family Elephantidae existed six million years ago in Africa, and includes the living elephants and the mammoths. Among many now extinct clades, the mastodon ("Mammut") is only a distant relative, and part of the distinct family Mammutidae, which diverged 25 million years before the mammoths evolved. The Asian elephant ("Elephas maximus") is the closest extant relative of the mammoths. The following cladogram shows the placement of the Columbian mammoth among other proboscideans, based on characteristics of the hyoid bone in the neck:


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Since many remains of each species of mammoth are known from several localities, reconstructing the evolutionary history of the genus is possible through morphological studies. Mammoth species can be identified from the number of enamel ridges (or lamellar plates) on their molars; primitive species had few ridges, and the number increased gradually as new species evolved to feed on more abrasive food items. The crowns of the teeth became taller in height and the skulls became taller to accommodate this. At the same time, the skulls became shorter from front to back to reduce the weight of the head. The short, tall skulls of woolly and Columbian mammoths are the culmination of this process.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The first known members of the genus "Mammuthus" are the African species "M. subplanifrons" from the Pliocene, and "M. africanavus" from the Pleistocene. The former is thought to be the ancestor of later forms. Mammoths entered Europe around 3 million years ago. The earliest European mammoth has been named "M. rumanus"; it spread across Europe and China. Only its molars are known, which show that it had 8–10 enamel ridges. A population evolved 12–14 ridges, splitting off from and replacing the earlier type, becoming "M. meridionalis" about 2.0–1.7 million years ago. In turn, this species was replaced by the steppe mammoth ("M. trogontherii") with 18–20 ridges, which evolved in eastern Asia around 2.0–1.5 million years ago. The Columbian mammoth evolved from a population of "M. trogontherii" that had crossed the Bering Strait and entered North America about 1.5 million years ago; it retained a similar number of molar ridges. Mammoths derived from "M. trogontherii" evolved molars with 26 ridges 400,000 years ago in Siberia and became the woolly mammoth ("M. primigenius"). Woolly mammoths entered North America about 100,000 years ago.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: A population of Columbian mammoths that lived between 80,000 and 13,000 years ago on the Channel Islands of California, away from the mainland, evolved to be less than half the size of the mainland Columbian mammoths. They are, therefore, considered to be the distinct species "M. exilis", the pygmy mammoth (or a subspecies, "M. c. exilis"). These mammoths presumably reached the islands by swimming there when sea levels were lower, and decreased in size due to the limited food provided by the islands' small areas. Bones of larger specimens have also been found on the islands, but whether these were stages in the dwarfing process, or later arrivals of Columbian mammoths is unknown.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: A 2011 ancient DNA study of the complete mitochondrial genome (inherited through the female line) showed that two examined Columbian mammoths, including the morphologically typical "Huntington mammoth", were grouped within a subclade of woolly mammoths. This suggests that the two populations interbred and produced fertile offspring. One possible explanation is introgression of a haplogroup from woolly to Columbian mammoths, or vice versa. A similar situation has been documented in modern species of African elephant ("Loxodonta"), the African bush elephant ("L. africana") and the African forest elephant ("L. cyclotis"). The authors of the study also suggest that the North American type formerly referred to as "M. jeffersonii" may have been a hybrid between the two species, as it is apparently morphologically intermediate. These findings were not expected by scientists; nuclear DNA and more specimens will have to be examined to clarify the situation.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: A 2015 study of mammoth molars confirmed that "M. columbi" evolved from Eurasian "M. trogontherii", not "M. meridionalis" as had been suggested earlier, and noted that "M. columbi" and "M. trogontherii" were so similar in morphology that their classification as separate species may be questionable. The study also suggested that the animals in the range where "M. columbi" and "M. primigenius" overlapped formed a metapopulation of hybrids with varying morphology. In 2016, a genetic study of North American mammoth specimens confirmed that "M. columbi" and "M. primigenius" interbred extensively, were both descended from "M. trogontherii", and concluded that morphological differences between fossils may, therefore, not be reliable for determining taxonomy. The authors also questioned whether "M. columbi" and "M. primigenius" should be considered "good species", considering that they were able to interbreed after supposedly being separated for a million years, but cautioned that more specimens need to be sampled.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: In 2021, DNA older than a million years was sequenced for the first time, from two mammoth teeth of Early Pleistocene age found in eastern Siberia. One tooth from Adyocha (1-1.3 million years old) belonged to a lineage that was ancestral to later woolly mammoths, whereas the other from Krestovka (1.1–1.65 million years old) belonged to new lineage, possibly a distinct species, perhaps descended from steppe mammoths that had become isolated. The study found that half of the ancestry of Columbian mammoths came from the Krestovka lineage, and the other half from woolly mammoths, with the hybridization happening more than 420,000 years ago, during the Middle Pleistocene. Later woolly and Columbian mammoths also interbred occasionally, and mammoth species perhaps hybridized routinely when brought together by glacial expansion. These findings were the first evidence of hybrid speciation from ancient DNA. The study also found that genetic adaptations to cold environments, such as hair growth and fat deposits, were already present in the steppe mammoth lineage, and was not unique to woolly mammoths.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The Columbian mammoth was about tall at the shoulder and weighed about . It was about the same size as the earlier mammoth species "M. meridionalis" and "M. trogontherii", and was larger than the modern African elephant and the woolly mammoth, both of which reached about . Males were generally larger and more robust. The best indication of sex is the size of the pelvic girdle, since the opening that functions as the birth canal is always wider in females than in males. Like other mammoths, the Columbian mammoth had a high, single-domed head and a sloping back with a high shoulder hump; this shape resulted from the spinous processes (protrusions) of the back vertebrae decreasing in length from front to rear. Juveniles, though, had convex backs like Asian elephants. Other skeletal features include a short, deep rostrum (front part of the jaws), a rounded mandibular symphysis (where the two halves of the lower jaw connected) and the coronoid process of the mandible (upper protrusion of the jaw bone) extending above the molar surfaces.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Apart from its larger size and more primitive molars, the Columbian mammoth also differed from the woolly mammoth by its more downturned mandibular symphysis; the dental alveoli (tooth sockets) of the tusks were directed more laterally away from the midline. Its tail was intermediate in length between that of modern elephants and the woolly mammoth. Since no Columbian mammoth soft tissue has been found, much less is known about its appearance than that of the woolly mammoth. It lived in warmer habitats than the woolly mammoth, and probably lacked many of the adaptations seen in that species. Hair thought to be that of the Columbian mammoth has been discovered in Bechan Cave in Utah, where mammoth dung has also been found. Some of this hair is coarse, and identical to that known to belong to woolly mammoths; however, since this location is so far south, it is unlikely to be woolly mammoth hair. The distribution and density of fur on the living animal is unknown, but it was probably less dense than that of the woolly mammoth due to the warmer habitat. An additional tuft of Columbian mammoth hair is known from near Castroville in California, the hair was noted to be red-orange and was described as being similar in colour to a Golden Retriever.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Columbian mammoths had very long tusks (modified incisor teeth), which were more curved than those of modern elephants. The largest known mammoth tusk, long, belonged to a Columbian mammoth, and others range from long. Columbian mammoth tusks were usually not much larger than those of woolly mammoths, which reached . The tusks of females were much smaller and thinner. About a quarter of the tusks' length was inside the sockets; they grew spirally in opposite directions from the base, curving until the tips pointed towards each other, and sometimes crossed. Most of their weight would have been close to the skull, with less torque than straight tusks would have generated. The tusks were usually asymmetrical, with considerable variation; some tusks curved down, instead of outwards, or were shorter due to breakage. Columbian mammoth tusks were generally less twisted than those of woolly mammoths. At six months of age, calves developed milk tusks a few centimeters long, which were replaced by permanent tusks a year later. Annual tusk growth of continued throughout life, slowing as the animal reached adulthood.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Columbian mammoths had four functional molar teeth at a time, two in the upper jaw and two in the lower. About of the crown was within the jaw, and was above. The crowns of the lower jaw were pushed forward and up as they wore down, comparable to a conveyor belt. The teeth had separated ridges of enamel, which were covered in "prisms" directed towards the chewing surface. Wear-resistant, they were held together with cementum and dentin. A mammoth's molars were replaced five times over the animal's lifetime. The first molars were about the size of those of a human, ; the third ones were long, and the sixth ones were about long and weighed . With each replacement, the molars grew larger and gained more ridges; the number of plates varied between individuals. Growing of ridge took about 10.6 years.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Like that of modern elephants, the mammoth's sensitive, muscular trunk was a limb-like organ with many functions. It was used for manipulating objects and social interaction. Although healthy adult mammoths could defend themselves from predators with their tusks, trunks, and size, juveniles and weakened adults were vulnerable to pack hunters such as wolves and big cats. Bones of juvenile Columbian mammoths, accumulated by "Homotherium" (the scimitar-toothed cat), have been found in Friesenhahn Cave in Texas. Tusks may have been used in intraspecies fighting for territory or mates and for display, to attract females and intimidate rivals. Two Columbian mammoths that died in Nebraska with tusks interlocked provide evidence of fighting behavior. The mammoths could use their tusks as weapons by thrusting, swiping, or crashing them down, and used them in pushing contests by interlocking them, which sometimes resulted in breakage. The tusks' curvature made them unsuitable for stabbing.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Although to what extent Columbian mammoths migrated is unclear, an isotope analysis of Blackwater Draw in New Mexico indicated that they spent part of the year in the Rocky Mountains, away. The study of tusk rings may aid further study of mammoth migration. On Goat Rock Beach in Sonoma Coast State Park, blueschist and chert outcrops (nicknamed "Mammoth Rocks") show evidence of having been rubbed by Columbian mammoths or mastodons. The rocks have polished areas above the ground, primarily near their edges, and are similar to African rubbing rocks used by elephants and other herbivores to rid themselves of mud and parasites. Similar rocks exist in Hueco Tanks, Texas, and on Cornudas Mountain in New Mexico.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Like modern elephants, Columbian mammoths were probably social and lived in matriarchal (female-led) family groups; most of their other social behavior was also similar to that of modern elephants. This is supported by fossil assemblages such as the Dent site in Colorado and the Waco Mammoth National Monument in Waco, Texas, where groups consisting entirely of female and juvenile Columbian mammoths have been found (implying female-led family groups). The latter assemblage includes 22 skeletons, with 15 individuals representing a herd of females and juveniles that died in a single event. The herd was originally proposed to have been killed by a flash flood, and the arrangement of some of the skeletons suggests that the females may have formed a defensive ring around the juveniles. In 2016, the herd was suggested to have died by drought near a diminishing watering hole; scavenging traces on the bones contradict rapid burial, and the absence of calves and the large diversity of other animal species found gathered at the site support this scenario. Another group, consisting of a bull and six females, was found at the same site; although both groups died between 64,000 and 73,000 years ago, whether they died in the same event is unknown. At the Murray Springs Clovis Site in Arizona, where several Columbian mammoth skeletons have been excavated, a trackway similar to that left by modern elephants leads to one of the skeletons. The mammoth may have made the trackway before it died, or another individual may have approached the dead or dying animal—similar to the way modern elephants guard dead relatives for several days.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Accumulations of modern elephant remains have been called "elephants' graveyards", because these sites were erroneously thought to be where old elephants went to die. Similar accumulations of mammoth bones have been found; these are thought to be the result of individuals dying near or in rivers over thousands of years and their bones being accumulated by the water (such as in the Aucilla River in Florida), or animals dying after becoming mired in mud. Some accumulations are thought to be the remains of herds that died at the same time, perhaps due to flooding. Columbian mammoths are occasionally preserved in volcanic deposits such as those in Tocuila, Texcoco, Mexico, where a volcanic lahar mudflow covered at least seven individuals 12,500 years ago. How many mammoths lived at one location at a time is unknown, but the number likely varied by season and lifecycle. Modern elephants can form large herds, sometimes consisting of multiple family groups, and these herds can include thousands of animals migrating together. Mammoths may have formed large herds more often than modern elephants, since animals living in open areas are more likely to do this than those in forested areas.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Many specimens also accumulated in natural traps, such as sinkholes and tar pits. The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota, is a 26,000-year-old, roughly -long sinkhole that functioned for 300 to 700 years before filling with sediment. The site is the opposite scenario of that in Waco; all but one of the at least 55 skeletons—additional skeletons are excavated each year—are male, and accumulated over time rather than in a single event. Like modern male elephants, male mammoths primarily are assumed to have lived alone, to be more adventurous (especially young males), and to be more likely to encounter dangerous situations than the females. The mammoths may have been lured to the hole by warm water or vegetation near the edges, slipping in and drowning or starving. Isotope studies of growth rings have shown that most of the mammoths died during spring and summer, which may have correlated with vegetation near the sinkhole. One individual, nicknamed "Murray", lies on its side, and probably died in this pose while struggling to get free. Deep footprints of mammoths attempting to free themselves from the sinkhole's mud can be seen in vertically excavated sections of the site.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Since the early 20th century, excavations at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles have yielded of fossils from 600 species of flora and fauna, including several Columbian mammoths. Many of the fossils are the remains of animals that became stuck in asphalt puddles that seeped to the surface of the pits, 40,000 to 11,500 years ago. Dust and leaves likely concealed the liquid asphalt, which then trapped unwary animals. Mired animals died from hunger or exhaustion; their corpses attracted predators, which sometimes became stuck, themselves. The fossil record of the tar pits is dominated by the remains of predators, such as large canids and felids. Fossils of different animals are found stuck together when they are excavated from the pits. The tar pits do not preserve soft tissue, and a 2014 study concluded that asphalt may degrade the DNA of animals mired in it after an attempt was made to extract DNA from a Columbian mammoth.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: A site in at airport construction area in Mexico nicknamed "mammoth central" is believed to have been the boggy shores of an ancient lake bed where animals were trapped 10,0000 to 20,000 years ago. Human tools have been found at the site. It remains unclear whether the 200 Columbian mammoths found there died of natural causes and were then carved by humans. Some have hypothesized that humans drove the Columbian mammoths into the area to kill them. The site is only from artificial pits which were once used by humans to trap and kill large mammals.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: An adult Columbian mammoth would have needed more than of food per day, and may have foraged for 20 hours a day. Mammoths chewed their food using their powerful jaw muscles to move the mandible forward and close the mouth, then backward while opening; the sharp enamel ridges thereby cut across each other, grinding the food. The ridges were wear-resistant, enabling the animal to chew large quantities of food that contained grit. The trunk could be used for pulling up large tufts of grass, picking buds and flowers, or tearing leaves and branches from trees and shrubs, and the tusks were used to dig up plants and strip bark from trees. Digging is indicated on preserved tusks by flat, polished sections of the surface that would have reached the ground. Isotope studies of Columbian mammoths from Mexico and the United States have shown that their diet varied by location, consisting of a mix of C3 (most plants) and C4 plants (such as grasses), and they were not restricted to grazing or browsing.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Stomach contents from Columbian mammoths are rare, since no carcasses have been found, but plant remains were discovered between the pelvis and ribs of the "Huntington mammoth" when it was excavated in Utah. Microscopy showed that these chewed remains consisted of sedges, grasses, fir twigs and needles, oak, and maple. A large amount of mammoth dung has been found in two caves in Utah. The dry conditions and stable temperature of Bechan Cave ("bechan" is Navajo for "large faeces") has preserved 16,000- to 13,500-year-old elephant dung, most likely from Columbian mammoths. The dung consists of 95% grasses and sedges, and varies from 0 to 25% woody plants between dung boluses, including saltbush, sagebrush, water birch, and blue spruce. This is similar to the diet documented for the woolly mammoth, although browsing seems to have been more important for the Columbian mammoth. The cover of dung is thick, and has a volume of 227 m³ (8,000 cubic ft), with the largest boluses in diameter. The Bechan dung could have been produced by a small group of mammoths over a relatively short time, since adult African elephants drop an average of of dung every two hours and each day.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Giant North American fruits of plants such as the Osage-orange, Kentucky coffeetree, pawpaw and honey locust have been proposed to have evolved in tandem with now-extinct American megafauna such as mammoths and other proboscideans, since no extant endemic herbivores are able to ingest these fruits and disperse their seeds. Introduced cattle and horses have since taken over this ecological role.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The lifespan of the Columbian mammoth is thought to have been about 80 years. The lifespan of a mammal is related to its size; Columbian mammoths are larger than modern elephants, which have a lifespan of about 60 years. The age of a mammoth can be roughly determined by counting the growth rings of its tusks when viewed in cross section. However, ring-counting does not account for a mammoth's early years; early growth is represented in tusk tips, which are usually worn away. In the remainder of the tusk, each major line represents a year, with weekly and daily lines found in between. Dark bands correspond to summer, making determining the season in which a mammoth died possible. Tusk growth slowed when foraging became more difficult, such as during illness or when a male mammoth was banished from the herd (male elephants live with their herds until about the age of 10).


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Mammoths continued growing during adulthood, as do other elephants. Males grew until age 40, and females until age 25. Mammoths may have had gestation periods of 21–22 months, like those of modern elephants. Columbian mammoths had six sets of molars in the course of a lifetime. At 6–12 months, the second set of molars would erupt, with the first set worn out at 18 months of age. The third set of molars lasted for 10 years, and this process was repeated until the sixth set emerged at 30 years of age. When the last set of molars wore out, the animal would be unable to chew, and would die of starvation.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Almost all vertebrae of the "Huntington mammoth", a very aged specimen, were deformed by arthritic disease, and four of its lumbar vertebrae were fused; some bones also indicate bacterial infection, such as osteomyelitis. The condition of the bones suggests the specimen died of old age and malnutrition.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Columbian mammoths inhabited the southern half of North America, ranging from the northern United States across Mexico as far south as Costa Rica. One Costa Rican specimen, a molar, was reported in 1963, but has since been lost. The environment in these areas may have had more varied habitats than those inhabited by woolly mammoths in the north (the mammoth steppe). Some areas were covered by grasses, herbaceous plants, trees, and shrubs; their composition varied from region to region, and included grassland, savanna, and aspen parkland habitats. Wooded areas also occurred; although mammoths would not have preferred forests, clearings in them could provide the animals with grasses and herbs.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The Columbian mammoth shared its habitat with other now-extinct Pleistocene mammals such as "Glyptotherium", "Smilodon", ground sloths, "Camelops", mastodons, horses, and bison. It did not live in Arctic Canada or Alaska, which was inhabited by woolly mammoths. Fossils of woolly and Columbian mammoths have been found in the same place in a few areas of North America where their ranges overlapped, including the Hot Springs Site. Whether the two species were sympatric and lived there simultaneously, or if the woolly mammoths entered southern areas when Columbian mammoth populations were absent is unknown. The Columbian mammoth coexisted with the other extinct proboscideans "Stegomastodon mirificus" and "Cuvieronius tropicus" at sites in Texas and New Mexico during the early Irvingtonian.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Humans entered the Americas through the Beringia landbridge, and evidence documents their interactions with Columbian mammoths. Tools made from Columbian mammoth remains have been discovered in several North American sites. At Tocuila, Mexico, mammoth bones were quarried 13,000 years ago to produce lithic flakes and cores. At the Lange-Ferguson Site in South Dakota, the remains of two mammoths were found with two 12,800-year-old cleaver choppers made from a mammoth shoulder blade; the choppers had been used to butcher the mammoths. At the same site, a flake knife made from a long mammoth bone was also found wedged against mammoth vertebrae. At Murray Springs, archeologists discovered a 13,100-year-old object made from a mammoth femur; the object is thought to be a shaft wrench, a tool for straightening wood and bone to make spear-shafts (the Inuit use similar tools).


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The earliest suggested evidence of Columbian mammoth butchering in America (from Lovewell, Kansas) dates from 18,000 to 21,000 years ago. Paleoamericans of the Clovis culture, which arose roughly 7,000 years later, may have been the first humans to hunt mammoths extensively. These people are thought to have hunted Columbian mammoths with Clovis pointed spears which were thrown or thrust. Although Clovis points have been found with Columbian mammoth remains at several sites, archeologists disagree about whether the finds represent hunting, scavenging dead mammoths, or are coincidental. A female mammoth at the Naco-Mammoth Kill Site in Arizona, found with eight Clovis points near its skull, shoulder blade, ribs, and other bones, is considered the most convincing evidence for hunting. In modern experiments, replica spears have been able to penetrate the rib cages of African elephants with reuse causing little damage to the points.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Other sites show more circumstantial evidence of mammoth hunting, such as piled bones bearing butcher marks. Some of these sites are not closely associated with Clovis points. The Dent site (the first evidence of mammoth hunting in North America, discovered in 1932) and the Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site, where multiple juvenile and adult mammoths have been found with butcher marks and in association with Clovis points, were once interpreted as the killing of entire herds by Clovis hunters. However, isotope studies have shown that the accumulations represent individual deaths at different seasons of the year, so are not herds killed in single incidents. Many other such assemblages of bones with butcher marks may also represent accumulations over time, so are ambiguous as evidence for large-scale hunting.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: A 2021 article by the American paleontologist Metin I. Eren and colleagues suggested mammoths were not very susceptible to Clovis point weapons due to their thick skin, hair, muscles, ribs, and fat, which would have impeded most types of attacks humans could pull off at that time. Experiments wherein most spear points used to calculate their effectiveness against simulated mammoth skin shattered on impact rather than penetrating, suggested to these researchers that ancient humans probably preferred to scavenge mammoth carcasses for their meat and other resources and threw spears to drive other scavengers away from carcasses before butchering the corpse with their stone tools. While the study does not rule out the hunting of mammoths by early humans, it instead indicates that such an event was probably rare and potentially more dangerous and less rewarding than scavenging. In response, other scientists found no reason to abandon the traditional idea that Clovis points were used to hunt big-game, one suggesting that such spears could have been thrown or thrust at areas of the torso that were not protected by ribs, with the wounds not killing the mammoths instantly, but the hunters could follow their prey until it had bled to death.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Petroglyphs in the Colorado Plateau have been interpreted as depictions of either Columbian mammoths or mastodons. A bone fragment from Vero Beach, Florida, estimated to be 13,000-years old and possibly the earliest known example of art in the Americas, is engraved with either a mammoth or a mastodon. While the authenticity of this depiction is based on continuity of mineralisation across the markings, other possible indicators are inconclusive at present. Petroglyphs from the San Juan River in Utah have been suggested to be 11,000–13,000-years old and to include depictions of two Columbian mammoths; the mammoths' domed heads distinguish them from mastodons. They are also shown with two "fingers" on their trunks, a feature known from European depictions of mammoths. The tusks are short, which may indicate they are meant to be females. A carving of a bison (possibly the extinct "Bison antiquus") is superimposed on one of the mammoth carvings and may be a later addition. Geological dating of the San Juan River depictions in 2013 have shown them to be less than 4000 years old, after mammoths and mastodons went extinct, and they may instead be an arrangement of unrelated elements. Other possible depictions of Columbian mammoths have been shown to be either misinterpretations or fraudulent.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: The Columbian mammoth is the state fossil of Washington and South Carolina. Nebraska's state fossil is "Archie", a Columbian mammoth specimen found in the state in 1922. "Archie" is currently on display at Elephant Hall in Lincoln, Nebraska, and is the largest mounted mammoth specimen in the United States.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Columbian and woolly mammoths both disappeared during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, alongside most of the Pleistocene megafauna. The most recent Columbian mammoth remains have been dated around 10,900 years ago. This extinction formed part of the Quaternary extinction event, which began 40,000 years ago and peaked between 14,000 and 11,500 years ago. Scientists do not know whether these extinctions happened abruptly or were drawn out. During this period, 40 mammal species disappeared from North America, almost all of which weighed over ; the extinction of the mammoths cannot be explained in isolation.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: Scientists are divided over whether climate change, hunting, or a combination of the two, drove the extinction of the Columbian mammoths. According to the climate-change hypothesis, warmer weather led to the shrinking of suitable habitat for Columbian mammoths, which turned from parkland to forest, grassland, and semidesert, with less diverse vegetation. The "overkill hypothesis" attributes the extinction to hunting by humans, an idea first proposed by geoscientist Paul S. Martin in 1967; more recent research on this subject has varied in conclusions.


title: Columbian mammoth

text: A 2002 study concluded that the archeological record did not support the "overkill hypothesis", given that only 14 Clovis sites (12 with mammoth remains and two with mastodon remains) out of 76 examined provided strong evidence of hunting. In contrast, a 2007 study found that the Clovis record indicated the highest frequency of prehistoric exploitation of proboscideans for subsistence in the world, and supported the "overkill hypothesis". A 2019 study that used mathematical modelling to simulate correlations between migrations of humans and Columbian mammoths also supported the "overkill hypothesis". Whatever the actual cause of extinction, large mammals are generally more susceptible to hunting pressure than smaller ones due to their smaller population size and low reproduction rates. On the other hand, large mammals are generally less vulnerable to climatic stresses since they have greater fat deposits at their disposal and can migrate long distances to escape food shortages.


title: Empire of Pain

text: Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty is a 2021 book by Patrick Radden Keefe. The book examines the history of the Sackler family, including the founding of Purdue Pharma, their role in the marketing of pharmaceuticals, and the family's central role in the opioid epidemic. The book followed Keefe's 2017 article on the Sackler family in "The New Yorker", titled "The Family That Built an Empire of Pain".


title: Empire of Pain

text: Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler were children of Jewish immigrants that were raised in Brooklyn. All three brothers became medical doctors but the eldest son Arthur, showed a particular talent for advertising, combining both his passions by joining, and later owning, the William Douglas McAdams Inc., an advertising firm that exclusively handled medicinal clients and pioneered the technique of advertising medication directly to doctors. Despite having many conflicts of interest Arthur was able to keep these associations hidden by leaving his brothers, friends, and ex-wife as figureheads for various companies. As Arthur continued to amass his fortune, he and his younger brothers begin to make important philanthropic contributions, donating money to museums and for scholarships. The brothers eventually grew estranged; when Arthur died in 1987, his complicated legacy was left to multiple heirs including his brothers, his wife, an ex-wife and his four children. When the fight to split the assets devolved into acrimony his children agreed to sell their shares in Purdue Frederick, a small drug manufacturer to Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler.


title: Empire of Pain

text: Mortimer and Raymond Sackler invested in research into opioids with their investment in research eventually leading to Oxycodone. After Mortimer and Raymond Sackler joined the board at Purdue Frederick the family began to roll out a sales force to sell Oxycodone using techniques pioneered by Arthur in order to influence politicians, government officials and doctors into endorsing the pill. Their new drug was an immediate success but almost equally quickly users began to abuse the drug. In 2010 the company discontinued their initial version of the drug and made a version that was impossible to crush; this led to a 25% drop in sales and a rise in heroin which was arguably caused by opioid abuse. As lawsuits began to build against Purdue Frederick the Sackler family sought to insulate themselves both financially and publicly from the drug. All Sacklers declined interviews and the Sacklers on the board of the company repeatedly voted to give themselves huge financial bonuses.


title: Empire of Pain

text: By 2017 a series of articles linking the Sacklers to Oxycodone as well as a public campaign by photographer Nan Goldin to link the Sacklers to the opioid crisis, led to stigmatization of the Sackler name with many museums and universities refusing financial gifts from the Sacklers.


title: Empire of Pain

text: While the family was eventually sued they used their company to declare bankruptcy, linked their personal finances to the fortunes of Purdue Frederick, and ultimately managed to escape any financial consequences at all. The family continued to maintain that they knew nothing about the abusive and deceptive marketing practices of the company and maintained the lie that their opioids were not addictive and that the few people who abused their drugs were already addicts to begin with.


title: Empire of Pain

text: The book received critical acclaim." New York" noted that "Empire of Pain" differs from other coverage of the Sackler's role in the opioid crisis, calling the book "principally a family history". Zachary Siegel, writing in "The New Republic", called the book an "important record of private greed facilitated by a corrupted government". "Publishers Weekly" called the book a "damning review" of the family's involvement in the opioid epidemic.


title: Empire of Pain

text: The book won the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction and the Goodreads Choice Award for History & Biography, was shortlisted for the 2021 "Financial Times" and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, and longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. It was also selected for "The Washington Post"s "10 Best Books of 2021" list.


title: Wiffle ball

text: Wiffle ball, a team sport developed in 1953 in Fairfield, Connecticut, is a scaled back variation of baseball designed for playing in a confined space. The sport is played using a perforated light-weight plastic ball and a long hollow plastic bat. Two teams of one to five players each attempt to advance imaginary runners to home plate, and score, based on where each batter places the ball on the field. The term "Wiffle ball" may refer to the sport as a whole, or the ball used in the sport. Wiffle is a registered trademark of "Wiffle Ball, Inc." and was derived from the slang word "whiff" meaning to strikeout.


title: Wiffle ball

text: Miniature versions of baseball have been played for decades, including stickball, improvised by children, using everything from rolled up socks to tennis balls. The ball most commonly used in the game was invented by David N. Mullany at his home in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1953 when he designed a ball that curved easily for his 12-year-old son. It was named when his son and his friends would refer to a strikeout as a "whiff". The Wiffle Ball is about the same size as a regulation baseball, but is hollow, lightweight, of resilient plastic, and no more than 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick. One half is perforated with eight oblong holes; the other half is non-perforated. This construction allows pitchers to throw a tremendous variety of curveballs and risers.


title: Wiffle ball

text: In April 2011, the government of the State of New York proclaimed that wiffle ball, as well as kickball, freeze tag and dodgeball were a "significant risk of injury" for children, and declared that any summer camp program that included two or more of such activities would be subject to government regulation. The story became a frequent source of ridicule and amusement, with Parenting.com sarcastically commenting, "According to new legislation introduced in New York State, to survive classic schoolyard games like capture the flag is to cheat death." Wiffle ball executives originally thought the order was a joke. The company has never been sued over safety issues in its 50+ year history. The disapproval of people from across the nation pressured the New York legislature to remove wiffle ball and other entries such as archery and scuba diving from the list of high-risk activities, that require state government oversight.


title: Wiffle ball

text: The game became popular nationwide by the 1960s, and is played in backyards, on city streets, and on beaches. The game is similar to baseball, and is designed for 2–10 players. A single game of wiffle ball consists of 7 innings or 60 minutes, whichever is earlier.


title: Wiffle ball

text: To play the game, get a wiffle ball and a bat. If a bat is not available, a broomstick or other such stick may be used. Marking a playing field is not necessary, but if a field is marked, it is shaped like an isosceles triangle. The batter stands at the top of the triangle looking down the two equal sides that are about 60 feet in length. A ball hit about thirty feet counts as a "single" and a ball hit about 45 feet counts as a "double." When a ball is hit outside of the sides of the triangle, it counts as a foul ball. The line across the bottom of the triangle is about twenty feet in length, and a ball hit across this line counts as a "home run." Scoring of this game is similar to scoring in baseball as are the terms used, i.e., "single," "double," "foul ball" and "home run." However, there is no running around bases for the batter(s), and there is no chasing the ball for the pitcher and fielders.


title: Wiffle ball

text: Tournaments have been the driving force in modern wiffle ball and have been held in the United States and Europe since 1977. That year, Rick Ferroli began holding tournaments in his backyard tribute to Fenway Park in Hanover, Massachusetts. In 1980, the World Wiffle Ball Championship was established in Mishawaka, Indiana by Jim Bottorff and Larry Grau. With the explosion of the Internet in the 1990s, there are now hundreds of Wiffle ball tournaments played in the United States, most in the same place every year, with a few tournament "circuits". The World Wiffle Ball Championship remains the oldest tournament in the nation, having moved to the Chicago suburbs in 2013, after introducing regional stops over three decades in Baltimore; Los Angeles; Indianapolis; Eugene, Oregon; and Barcelona, Spain. The tournament is featured at #27 in the book, "101 Baseball Places to Visit Before You Strike Out."


title: Wiffle ball

text: There is a national fast pitch tournament every summer held in Morenci, Michigan as well. This tournament determines which league is the best in the country. It is called the NWLA Tournament.


title: Wiffle ball

text: The first United Wiffle National Championship Tournament was held at PeoplesBank Park in York, Pennsylvania in 2020.


title: Wiffle ball

text: There are many competitive wiffle ball leagues in the United States, which include the prominent American Wiffle Association (AWA) or Major League Wiffle Ball (MLW), although they are unrelated. Another one was a small wiffleball league started in June 2000 by Shaun Breen in the town of Cohoes, New York. The league operated until June 2004 and in its three years of operation it attracted players from Long Island, New York and garnered the attention of ESPN Magazine.


title: Wiffle ball

text: The most viewed professional Wiffle Ball league as of 2022, is AWA Wiffle Ball, established by Jack Blahous in Edmonds, Washington in 2020. The league consists of six teams: Northern Nighthawks, Southern Stingers, Eastern Enforcers, Western Wolf Pack, Central Cyclones, and Pacific Pilots. The league broke onto the scene in August of 2022 by becoming the first Wiffle Ball league to play on ESPN. As well as being featured on ESPN's First Take .


title: Wiffle ball

text: MLW was established by Kyle Schultz in Brighton, Michigan in 2009. As of 2022, the league has eight teams: Eastern Eagles, Midwest Mallards, Great Lakes Gators, Downtown Diamondbacks, Western Wildcats, Pacific Predators, Metro Magic, and the Coastal Cobras. MLW has a strong following on social media, uploads highlights of all of their games to YouTube, and has also hosted open public tournaments in 8 different states (Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania). The league gained notoriety throughout its 2020 season, after several other professional sports were postponed or cancelled. The league has been featured by TBS, The Athletic, Whistle Sports, and twice been highlighted on ESPN's SportsCenter Top 10 Plays. The most recent champions are the Downtown Diamondbacks, managed by Jimmy Knorp.


title: Wiffle ball

text: The name has also been associated with a small league in the southwestern Illinois city of Granite City, which has come to be a hub of the sport with the Lakeside Kings having won multiple world championships in the Wiffle Ball National Championship Series. The League's inaugural national championship was held in October 2001 in Granite City,


title: Wiffle ball

text: whose wiffle only stadium has long been known for its similarity to Fenway Park and Busch Stadium. The national championship was launched following a decade long increase in interest in the sport, among fans and players of all ages.


title: Wiffle ball

text: As of 2015, there was also a sixty player league in Havre de Grace, Maryland, which featured former NBA player Gary Neal.


title: Wiffle ball

text: In 2013, the Greater Cincinnati Wiffleball League was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio. The GCWL season runs from May through October. Averaging 10 teams and over 50 players each season, it is recognized as one of the premier wiffleball leagues in the United States.


title: Wiffle ball

text: Some wiffle ball players have built fields to resemble major league ballparks. Thomas P. Hannon, Jr. authored a book, "Backyard Ball", on his experiences building a smaller version of Ebbets Field. Patrick M. O'Connor wrote a book, "Little Fenway", about building his versions of Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. But not all wiffle ball fields have been modeled from major league ball parks. Some have created original fields, Strawberry Field in Encino, California being the most exquisite. Rick Messina spent over $700,000 constructing Strawberry Field, which features lights for night games, bleachers, and a press box. He also converted a neighboring house into a clubhouse/pub.


title: Wiffle ball

text: Building fields can lead to controversy and legal issues. In 2008, "The New York Times" published an article about Greenwich, Connecticut teenagers who were forced by the city to tear down a wiffle ball field they had built because of neighbor complaints.


title: Wiffle ball

text: In 1965 a wiffle ball was initially used when developing the sport of pickleball, but it was eventually replaced with a more durable ball.


title: Wiffle ball

text: In his 2003 book "The Complete Far Side", cartoonist Gary Larson reproduces a letter he received after including a "wiffle swatter" in his cartoon. The letter contains language from Wiffle Ball Incorporated's attorneys: "In the future, when you use the brand name WIFFLE, the entire brand should be capitalized, and it should only be used in reference to a product currently manufactured by The Wiffle Ball, Inc." In 2009, video game developer Skyworks Technologies released a game based on Wiffle ball, simply titled "Wiffle Ball".


title: Wiffle ball

text: In science, it is frequently used by marine biologists as a size reference in photos to measure corals and other objects.


title: E. C. Segar

text: Elzie Crisler Segar (; December 8, 1894 – October 13, 1938), known by the pen name E. C. Segar, was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Popeye, a pop culture character who first appeared in 1929 in Segar's comic strip "Thimble Theatre".


title: E. C. Segar

text: Charles M. Schulz said of Segar's work: "I think "Popeye" was a perfect comic strip, consistent in drawing and humor". Carl Barks described Segar as ""the" unbridled genius as far as I was concerned".


title: E. C. Segar

text: Segar was born on December 8, 1894, and raised in Chester, Illinois, a small town near the Mississippi River. The son of Erma Irene (Crisler) and Amzi Andrews Segar, a handyman, his earliest work experiences included assisting his father in house painting and paper hanging. Skilled at playing drums, he also provided musical accompaniment to films and vaudeville acts in the local theater, where he was eventually given the job of film projectionist at the Chester Opera House, where he also did live performances. At age 18, he decided to become a cartoonist. He took a correspondence course in cartooning from W. L. Evans of Cleveland, Ohio. He said that after work he "lit up the oil lamps about midnight and worked on the course until 3 a.m." During this time, Segar also began studying the work of cartoonists that he would later cite as influences on his work, including Rube Goldberg, George McManus and George Herriman (especially Herriman's strip "Stumble Inn").


title: E. C. Segar

text: Asked how to say his name, he told "The Literary Digest" it was "SEE-gar". He commonly signed his work simply Segar or E. Segar above a drawing of a cigar.


title: E. C. Segar

text: Segar moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he met Richard F. Outcault, the creator of "The Yellow Kid" and "Buster Brown". Outcault encouraged him and introduced him at the "Chicago Herald". On March 12, 1916, the "Herald" published Segar's first comic, "Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers", which ran for a little over a year. In 1917, Segar created "Barry the Boob", about an incompetent soldier. Segar also originated two other, short-lived comics for the "Herald's" Sunday magazine. These were "The Mistakes of Mr. Muddle" and the Rube Goldberg-inspired "And They Get By With It". In 1918, he moved on to William Randolph Hearst's "Chicago Evening American", for which he created "Looping the Loop" and worked as a second-string drama critic. "Looping the Loop" was a comic strip that gave a whimsical take on the events in Chicago's "Loop" district. "Looping the Loop" made jokes about such issues as silent movies, plays, and the changing seasons; it proved popular with the "Herald's" readers. Segar married Myrtle Johnson that year; they had two children. In October 1919, Segar covered that year's World Series, creating eight cartoons for the sports pages.


title: E. C. Segar

text: "Evening American" managing editor William Curley thought Segar could succeed in New York, so he sent him to King Features Syndicate, where Segar worked for many years. King Features asked Segar to create a comic strip to replace "Midget Movies" by Ed Wheelan, who had recently resigned from the syndicate. Segar created "Thimble Theatre" for the "New York Journal", as the replacement for Wheelan's strip. The "Thimble Theatre" strip made its debut on December 19, 1919, featuring the characters Olive Oyl, Castor Oyl and Harold Hamgravy, whose name was quickly shortened in the strip to simply "Ham Gravy". They were the strip's leads for about a decade. Segar began writing long storylines or "continuities" for "Thimble Theatre" in 1922. In these, the characters would have lengthy adventures in Africa and the Wild West. In one storyline, the characters encountered a superhuman "tough guy" named Harry Hardegg, who was able to break a moving buzz saw with his head. Comics historian Bill Blackbeard has described Harry Hardegg as a "prototype" for Popeye.


title: E. C. Segar

text: Segar also created "The Five-Fifteen" for King Features in 1920; it was retitled "Sappo" in 1926, although numerous newspapers had already retitled the strip 'Sappo the Commuter' by 1924. "The Five-Fifteen" started its run as a Monday-through-Saturday strip, concluding its initial daily run in February 1925. In 1926, the strip, now officially retitled, was revived as a Sunday-only topper to the "Thimble Theatre" Sunday pages. Initially, this strip revolved about the exploits of suburban couple John and Myrtle Sappo. In May 1932, however, Segar introduced the eccentric scientist and inventor (and self-proclaimed "genius") O.G. Wotasnozzle into the strip as a regular. Wotasnozzle's bizarre machines soon became the focus of the strip, with John Sappo frequently cast as his test subject and straight man.


title: E. C. Segar

text: On January 17, 1929, when Castor Oyl needed a mariner to navigate his ship to Dice Island, Castor picked up a weatherbeaten sailor named Popeye in the docks. Popeye's first line in the strip, upon being asked if he was a sailor, was "'Ja think I'm a cowboy?" At first Segar intended Popeye to be a once-off character, but after large numbers of newspaper readers wrote in requesting the character's return, Segar reintroduced Popeye as a full-time regular in August 1929, eventually enabling the sailor to become the focal point of the strip. Segar initially depicted Popeye as a quarrelling antihero. Segar's storylines for the Popeye-focused "Thimble Theatre" drew on several fictional genres, including Westerns, pirate swashbucklers, Sports stories, and fantasy stories. Some of the other notable characters Segar created include J. Wellington Wimpy and Eugene the Jeep.


title: E. C. Segar

text: In 1929, Segar and his friend, screenwriter Norton S. Parker, began work on "The Sea Hag", a prose novel for adults that would have featured both Popeye and the villainess the Sea Hag. However, King Features refused to grant Segar and Parker permission to publish the novel. "The Sea Hag" has never been put into print.


title: E. C. Segar

text: In 1934, King Features (noting the increasing popularity of the Popeye character with children) ordered Segar to tone down Popeye's swearing and brawling. Although irritated by the order, Segar complied, and made Popeye more of a straightforward hero, more ubiquitously emphasizing his already-established affinity for aiding children and animals rather than his more violent and irascible tendencies, which persisted in a somewhat reduced form.


title: E. C. Segar

text: Segar continued to produce "Thimble Theatre", published in five hundred newspapers globally by 1938, until his death. Beginning in 1933, Popeye was adapted into a series of cartoons by the Fleischer Studios, which exponentially increased the character's already-ascendant popularity further. Popeye was also licensed by King Features for hundreds of toys, games and other products. The commercial success of these products ensured King Features paid Segar highly for his work; by 1938, the syndicate was giving Segar a salary of $100,000 a year.


title: E. C. Segar

text: Segar and his family later moved to Santa Monica, California. According to Segar's assistant, Bud Sagendorf, Segar lived near George Herriman. However, although the two cartoonists admired each other's work, they never visited each other in this period.


title: E. C. Segar

text: Comics creators who cited E.C. Segar's work as an influence included Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Boody Rogers, Charles M. Schulz, Carl Barks, and Robert Crumb.


title: E. C. Segar

text: A revival of interest in Segar's creations began with Woody Gelman's Nostalgia Press. Robert Altman's live-action film "Popeye" (1980) is adapted from E. C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip. The screenplay by Jules Feiffer was based directly on Gelman's "Thimble Theatre Starring Popeye the Sailor", a hardcover reprint collection of 1936–37 Segar strips published in 1971 by Nostalgia Press. In 2006, Fantagraphics published the first of a six-volume book set reprinting all "Thimble Theatre" daily and Sunday strips from 1928 to 1938, beginning with the adventure that introduced Popeye.


title: E. C. Segar

text: In 1971, the National Cartoonists Society created the Elzie Segar Award in his honor. According to the Society's website, the award was "presented to a person who has made a unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning." The NCS board of directors chose the first winners, while King Features selected recipients in later years. Honorees have included Charles Schulz, Bil Keane, Al Capp, Bill Gallo and Mort Walker. The award was discontinued in 1999.


title: E. C. Segar

text: In 2012, cartoonists Roger Langridge and Bruce Ozella teamed to revive the spirit of Segar in a 12-issue limited series, "Popeye", published by IDW.


title: E. C. Segar

text: In 2018, Sunday Press Books published "Thimble Theatre & The Pre-Popeye Comics of E.C. Segar", collecting Segar's early comic strip work, primarily the "Thimble Theatre" Sunday pages published between 1925 and 1930.


title: E. C. Segar

text: In 1977, Segar's hometown of Chester, Illinois, named a park in his honor. The park contains a six-foot-tall bronze statue of Popeye. The annual Popeye Picnic, a weekend-long event that celebrates the character with a parade, film festival and other activities, is held the first weekend after Labor Day. In 2006, Chester launched the "Popeye & Friends Character Trail", which links a series of statues of Segar's characters located throughout town. Each stands on a base inscribed with the names of donors who contributed to its cost and is unveiled and dedicated during the Popeye Picnic. The 2006 debut sculpture of hamburger-loving Wimpy stands in Gazebo Park. A statue of Olive Oyl, Swee'Pea and the Jeep, located near the Randolph County Courthouse, followed in 2007. In 2008, a Bluto statue was dedicated at the corner of Swanwick and W. Holmes Streets, in front of Buena Vista Bank. The 2009 statue of Castor Oyl and Bernice the Whiffle Hen stands in front of Chester Memorial Hospital. One additional statue has been unveiled each year.


title: E. C. Segar

text: On December 8, 2009, Google celebrated Segar's 115th birthday with a Google Doodle of Popeye. The doodle used Popeye's body as the 'g', had 'oogl', drawn to resemble Segar's drawing style, and a spinach can as the 'e', and featured Popeye punching the 'oogl' to cause the spinach to fly at him through the air.


title: Tha Carter II

text: Tha Carter II is the fifth studio album by American rapper Lil Wayne. It was released on December 6, 2005, by Cash Money Records, Young Money Entertainment and Universal Records. Recording sessions took place from 2004 to 2005, with Birdman and his brother Ronald "Slim" Williams serving as the record's executive producers. Additional producers on the album included The Runners and The Heatmakerz, among others. The album serves as a sequel to his fourth album "Tha Carter" (2004), and was supported by three singles ("Fireman", "Hustler Musik" and "Shooter").


title: Tha Carter II

text: "Tha Carter II" received critical acclaim and ranks highly in retrospectives of Lil Wayne's best work. The album debuted at number two on the US "Billboard" 200 chart. The album was later certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in September 2020.


title: Tha Carter II

text: The lead single from the album, called "Fireman" was released on October 25, 2005. The song was produced by DVLP and Filthy. While they were recording the song at the time, both DVLP and Filthy first burst into a music scene as the production duo, called Doe Boys.


title: Tha Carter II

text: The album's second single, "Hustler Musik" was released on January 10, 2006. The song was produced by T-Mix and the unknown producer named Batman.


title: Tha Carter II

text: The album's third single, "Shooter" was released on April 9, 2006. The song features guest vocals from an American R&B singer-songwriter Robin Thicke, who also produced this track. The song also was later included on Thicke's then-upcoming album, titled "The Evolution of Robin Thicke" (2006).


title: Tha Carter II

text: Upon its release, "Tha Carter II" received widespread acclaim from music critics, with several praising the lyricism and artistic growth demonstrated by Wayne on the album. AllMusic's David Jeffries praised the album's balance of "hookless, freestyle-ish tracks" and "slicker club singles", commenting that "the well-rounded, risk-taking, but true-to-its-roots album suggests he can weather the highs and lows like a champion." "Entertainment Weekly"s Ryan Dombal wrote that "Tha Carter II" "transcends [Wayne's] inflated ego" and complimented the album's "sturdy funk-blues tracks... that offer genuine value". David Drake of "Stylus Magazine" called the album "one of the year's best releases" and lauded his "entire persona, an aura, a rap creation that seems developed and fascinating". Despite writing that "Wayne's verses need a good polish", Nick Sylvester of "Pitchfork" wrote that the album contains "jaw-droppers aplenty" and complimented Wayne's growth as a lyricist, stating:


title: Tha Carter II

text: "IGN" writer Jim During gave the album an eight out of ten and commented that Wayne "[punishes] the mic with hard-hitting verbal tenacity", and wrote that the album shows him "at his most focused, and is a strong next step for a relatively young career." Matt Cibula of "PopMatters" wrote ambivalently towards that album's production, writing that "the producers here are mostly no-namers who do their jobs well but not spectacularly", but praised Wayne's "amazing" words and remarked that "Straws really IS the best rapper alive, at least when he tries".


title: Tha Carter II

text: In 2020, "Rolling Stone" ranked it the 370th best album of all time. It was one of only 86 albums from the 21st century to be added to the list.


title: Tha Carter II

text: "LA Weekly" included the track "Best Rapper Alive" in their list of "Ten Rap-Rock Songs That Are Actually Awesome".


title: Tha Carter II

text: "Tha Carter II" debuted at number two on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 240,000 copies in its first week. This became Wayne's fourth US top-ten debut. The album also debuted at number one on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, becoming Wayne's third number-one album on this chart. As of March 2008, the album has sold 1.3 million copies in the US. On September 25, 2020, the album was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over two million units in the United States.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Maniac is a 1980 American psychological slasher film directed by William Lustig and written by C. A. Rosenberg. It stars Joe Spinell as Frank Zito, an Italian-American serial killer residing in New York City who murders and scalps young women. Spinell was also co-writer of the film.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: With a minuscule budget, many scenes in the film were shot guerrilla style. Originally considered an exploitation film, "Maniac" has since attained a cult following despite receiving polarized reviews. The film was remade in 2012 by director Franck Khalfoun and produced by Alexandre Aja, starring Elijah Wood in the lead role.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: While not prosecuted for obscenity nor officially listed as a video nasty, "Maniac" was seized by various police forces across Greater Manchester and Lancashire during the video nasty panic, presumably based on the film's notorious reputation overseas.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Frank Zito was abused as a child by his prostitute mother, and as a result, becomes a serial killer who murders young women, scalps them and attaches their hair to mannequins. After he awakens from a nightmare about killing a couple on a beach, he dresses himself, revealing terrible scars on his torso, and leaves his apartment towards Manhattan into Times Square. When Frank is randomly invited inside a hotel by a prostitute, she kisses him before he abruptly strangles and scalps her. He returns home, dresses a mannequin with the dead prostitute's clothing and nails her scalp to its head. Frank tells himself that beauty is a crime punishable by death.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Sometime later, he dresses again and takes a collection of weaponry with him, including a double-barrelled shotgun, before leaving. He drives around Brooklyn and the Queens area, where he finds a couple exiting a local disco and parking near the side of the Verrazano Bridge. When the boyfriend starts up the vehicle after his date sees Frank spying on them, Frank kills the couple with his shotgun and then adds the woman to his mannequin collection. After seeing his recent crime on television, he talks to himself and the mannequins as he sobs himself to sleep.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: During the next day in Central Park, Frank follows a photographer named Anna after she takes a photo of him and a little girl riding a bicycle in the distance. At night, Frank sees a nurse leaving the Roosevelt Hospital, where he then stalks her inside the subway station and murders her with a bayonet before adding her to his mannequin collection. Days later, Frank heads to Anna's apartment and is invited inside by Anna after she recognizes him from the photo she took of him. Upon him asking her out to dinner, he later shows her a photo of his mother who died in a car crash years ago. A few days later, Frank is invited by Anna to a studio during a photography session, and she introduces one of her models Rita to him. After seeing the two talking and holding hands, he steals Rita's necklace and leaves. Later that same night, he arrives at Rita's apartment to give her the necklace, before then attacking her and tying her to the bed. Frank begins talking and addresses her as his mother and stabs her with a switchblade before scalping her for his collection.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: One night, Frank takes Anna on a date and they stop by a cemetery to visit his mother's grave. While laying some flowers beside the headstone, Frank begins to mourn over one of his early victims and attacks Anna. He chases her around the cemetery, but she hits him in the arm with a shovel before fleeing. He hallucinates his decomposing mother attacking him from the grave. He runs back to his apartment, where he sees his mannequins suddenly coming alive. They mutilate Frank with his weapons before ultimately tearing off his head.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: The next morning, two police officers break into Frank's apartment and see Frank lying dead on his bed, having committed suicide by stabbing himself. After the officers leave, Frank's eyes suddenly open.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Director William Lustig, who previously had worked as a director of pornographic films, used profits from his 1977 film "Hot Honey" to make "Maniac".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Principal photography began on October 21, 1979, and wrapped on January 18, 1980. Many scenes had to be filmed guerrilla-style because the production could not afford city permits, including the shotgun sequence, which was filmed in just an hour.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: The infamous sequence where Frank murders the boyfriend (played by Tom Savini) was loosely inspired by the "Son of Sam" murders committed by serial killer David Berkowitz, who shot people in parked cars with a .44 Special revolver. Savini, who served as the film's make-up artist, received the role for the male victim from him having already made a cast of his own head, which was filled inside with leftover food and fake blood. Since Savini used live ammunition for the scene, he immediately threw the shotgun into the trunk of a waiting car driven by an assistant Luke Walter, who was a friend of Spinell, to avoid being caught by the police.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: "Maniac" was one of the three films that Spinell and co-star Caroline Munro worked together; the other films being "Starcrash" and later "The Last Horror Film".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: According to "Variety" report, "Maniac" was scheduled for a midnight screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 10, 1980. The film had its U.S. premiere in New York City on January 30, 1981, followed by a Los Angeles premiere on March 6.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Since the film was not submitted to the MPAA, the film was released unrated, with the designation "For adults only". Despite the poster stating "No one under 17 will be admitted", a severely-edited version of the film received an R-Rating in the South and was distributed in March 1981 in several other States such as California, of the unrated version shortly after its first U.S. domestic release in New York in January 1981.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: The film was refused a classification by the British Board of Film Classification upon its original cinema release and was additionally banned for video in 1998, but was later passed at an 18 certificate in 2002 with 58 seconds of cuts. Passed uncut by the BBFC for 2022 release from 88 Films.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: In Australia, the film's promotional campaign featured a censored version of the theatrical poster image, which blacked out the scalp held in the killer's hand.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: The film was released on DVD and VHS in North America by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2001. Blue Underground re-released "Maniac" on Blu-ray on October 26, 2010.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Upon its theatrical release, "Maniac" received numerous unfavorable reviews, with many critics lambasting the film for its depiction of violence. Gene Siskel did a TV piece for the CBS affiliate in New York City where he strongly criticized the use of TV kiosks that showed graphically violent and gory scenes from the film outside a theatre in Times Square; he later picked the movie as one of his "Dogs of the Week" on his show with Roger Ebert, stating that he walked out of the movie after 20 minutes because he felt it could not redeem itself at that point.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote: "Good sense, if not heaven, should protect anyone who thinks he likes horror films from wasting a price of admission on "Maniac", a movie that shows how an aging, pot-bellied maniac slices up young women of no great intelligence".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Maniac" holds a 40% approval rating based on 20 critic reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Stuart Galbraith IV ("DVD Talk") said of the film: "Despite some good direction and a sincere, even daring performance by character actor Joe Spinell ("Rocky"), who also co-produced and co-wrote its screenplay, "Maniac" (1980) is alternately repellent and boring, despite the obvious intelligence that went into its making. A low-budget slasher film notable for its extremely graphic splatter effects by Tom Savini - who also appears in the picture - Maniac is mostly a character study, anticipating the much superior (if no less unpleasant) "" (1986)".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Tom Becker of "DVD Verdict" said "that the film is so effective is due in no small part to the performance of Joe Spinell as Frank, the schlubby-looking guy whose darkness overwhelms him. This is not the standard, amateurish, paint-by-numbers horror villain turn. Spinell creates a fully formed portrait of this monster that goes far beyond the surface. He mutters to himself, talks to mannequins, growls like an animal when stalking his prey—yet he can be charming as well, and while the pairing of Spinell and Munro as lovers has a definite "Beauty and the Beast" quality to it, it's not entirely unbelievable. Had "Maniac" been more of a mainstream film, Spinell might have been remembered as one of the great horror heavies".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Film scholar John Kenneth Muir wrote that the film "positively oozes sleaze and despair, and that's a compliment...After watching "Maniac", you'll want to take a deep breath, maybe even a shower, but you won't have wasted ninety minutes on something that has no meaning, no pulse, and no heart". Jim Harper, in his book "Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies", praised Spinnell's performance, noting it as the "centerpiece" of the film.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: "Maniac" has been cited by some media outlets as one of the greatest slasher/horror films ever made. "Esquire" placed it at #18 in their list of "The 55 Scariest Movies of All Time". It was ranked at #44 in "Paste" magazine's "50 Best Slasher Movies of All Time".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: The film is discussed, in contrast with Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artwork "Surrounded Islands", in David Antin's poem "what it means to be avant-garde".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: A horror short promotional film was shot in 1986 by Joe Spinell and director Buddy Giovinazzo entitled "Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie" as a remake of the 1973 film "The Psychopath", about a psychopathic children's television show host who murders abusive parents. The short was done to raise financing for a sequel to "Maniac".


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Lustig planned a remake. During the 2009 edition of the New York Horror Film Festival, while receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award, Lustig announced that the deal for a remake has been sealed. During a Q&A session at the Sunshine Cinema in New York City in November 2010, Lustig announced that the remake rights had been acquired by a French production company with Alexandre Aja attached. He also stated that he would love to see Tom Sizemore take over the Frank Zito role, as he feels Sizemore is a lot like Spinell, and that he had recommended as much to the French production company.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Elijah Wood was cast as Frank Zito and the plan was to begin filming later in the year. Aja produced the film and Franck Khalfoun was signed on to direct the remake. America Olivo and Morgane Slemp were cast, alongside Nora Arnezeder and Genevieve Alexandra.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: Arnezeder discussed of the remake using POV shots and Elijah Wood's character as half-angel/half-devil. Arnezeder described her role in the film as an artist who develops a friendship with Wood's character. She declined to reveal more, but hinted at a different take on the original. She said she was drawn to the concept of the film as a psychological horror, stating it would not be that interesting if the movie was just blood and screams. The film finished shooting in Los Angeles in December 2011 and was released in 2012.


title: Maniac (1980 film)

text: "Maniac" was nominated for a Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA, for Best Low-Budget Film in 1981.


title: Kitty Aldridge

text: Aldridge was born in Bahrain. After training as an actress at the Drama Centre London, Aldridge went on to work in film, theatre and television as an actress for 15 years. In her thirties she began to write fiction. Her first novel, "Pop", published in 2001, was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002 and shortlisted for the Pendleton May First Novel Award 2002. Her second novel, "Cryers Hill", was published in March 2007.


title: Kitty Aldridge

text: Her third novel, "A Trick I Learned from Dead Men", was published in 2012. It was longlisted for the 2013 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and "The Guardian" newspaper's Not The Booker Prize 2012.


title: Kitty Aldridge

text: Aldridge married the former guitarist frontman of Dire Straits Mark Knopfler on Valentine's Day 1997 in Barbados. They have two daughters.


title: Pholcus phalangioides

text: Pholcus phalangioides, commonly known as daddy long-legs spider or long-bodied cellar spider, is a spider of the family Pholcidae. It is also known as the skull spider, since its cephalothorax resembles a human skull. This is the only spider species described by the Swiss entomologist Johann Kaspar Füssli, who first recorded it in 1775. Its common name of "daddy long-legs" should not be confused with a different arachnid group with the same common name, the harvestman (Opiliones).


title: Pholcus phalangioides

text: Females have a body length of about 8 mm while males tend to be slightly smaller. The length of the spider's legs are on average 5 or 6 times the length of its body. "Pholcus phalangioides" has a habit of living on the ceilings of rooms, caves, garages or cellars.


title: Pholcus phalangioides

text: This spider species is considered beneficial in parts of the world because it preys on other spiders, including species considered dangerous such as redback spiders. "Pholcus phalangioides" is known to be harmless to humans and a potential for the medicinal use of their silk has been reported.