title: Wine

text: Regulations govern the classification and sale of wine in many regions of the world. European wines tend to be classified by region (e.g. Bordeaux, Rioja and Chianti), while non-European wines are most often classified by grape (e.g. Pinot noir and Merlot). Market recognition of particular regions has recently been leading to their increased prominence on non-European wine labels. Examples of recognized non-European locales include Napa Valley, Santa Clara Valley, Sonoma Valley, Anderson Valley, and Mendocino County in California; Willamette Valley and Rogue Valley in Oregon; Columbia Valley in Washington; Barossa Valley in South Australia; Hunter Valley in New South Wales; Luján de Cuyo in Argentina; Vale dos Vinhedos in Brazil; Hawke's Bay and Marlborough in New Zealand; Central Valley in Chile; and in Canada, the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, and the Niagara Peninsula and Essex County regions of Ontario are the three largest producers.


title: Wine

text: Some blended wine names are marketing terms whose use is governed by trademark law rather than by specific wine laws. For example, Meritage is generally a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, but may also include Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. Commercial use of the term Meritage is allowed only via licensing agreements with the Meritage Association.


title: Wine

text: France has various appellation systems based on the concept of "terroir", with classifications ranging from "Vin de Table" ("table wine") at the bottom, through "Vin de Pays" and "Appellation d'Origine Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure" (AOVDQS), up to "Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée" (AOC) or similar, depending on the region. Portugal has developed a system resembling that of France and, in fact, pioneered this concept in 1756 with a royal charter creating the Demarcated Douro Region and regulating the production and trade of wine. Germany created a similar scheme in 2002, although it has not yet achieved the authority of the other countries' classification systems. Spain, Greece and Italy have classifications based on a dual system of region of origin and product quality.


title: Wine

text: New World wines—those made outside the traditional wine regions of Europe—are usually classified by grape rather than by "terroir" or region of origin, although there have been unofficial attempts to classify them by quality.


title: Wine

text: According to Canadian Food and Drug Regulations, wine in Canada is an alcoholic drink that is produced by the complete or partial alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes, grape must, products derived solely from fresh grapes, or any combination of them. There are many materials added during the course of the manufacture, such as yeast, concentrated grape juice, dextrose, fructose, glucose or glucose solids, invert sugar, sugar, or aqueous solutions. Calcium sulphate in such quantity that the content of soluble sulphates in the finished wine shall not exceed 0.2 percent weight by volume calculated as potassium sulphate. Calcium carbonate in such quantity that the content of tartaric acid in the finished wine shall not be less than 0.15 percent weight by volume. Also, sulphurous acid, including salts thereof, in such quantity that its content in the finished wine shall not exceed 70 parts per million in the free state, or 350 parts per million in the combined state, calculated as sulphur dioxide. Caramel, amylase and pectinase at a maximum level of use consistent with good manufacturing practice. Brandy, fruit spirit or alcohol derived from the alcoholic fermentation of a food source distilled to not less than 94 percent alcohol by volume. Prior to final filtration may be treated with a strongly acid cation exchange resin in the sodium ion form, or a weakly basic anion exchange resin in the hydroxyl ion form.


title: Wine

text: In the United States, for a wine to be vintage-dated and labeled with a country of origin or American Viticultural Area (AVA; e.g., Sonoma Valley), 95% of its volume must be from grapes harvested in that year. If a wine is not labeled with a country of origin or AVA the percentage requirement is lowered to 85%.


title: Wine

text: Vintage wines are generally bottled in a single batch so that each bottle will have a similar taste. Climate's impact on the character of a wine can be significant enough to cause different vintages from the same vineyard to vary dramatically in flavor and quality. Thus, vintage wines are produced to be individually characteristic of the particular vintage and to serve as the flagship wines of the producer. Superior vintages from reputable producers and regions will often command much higher prices than their average ones. Some vintage wines (e.g. Brunello), are only made in better-than-average years.


title: Wine

text: For consistency, non-vintage wines can be blended from more than one vintage, which helps wine-makers sustain a reliable market image and maintain sales even in bad years. One recent study suggests that for the average wine drinker, the vintage year may not be as significant for perceived quality as had been thought, although wine connoisseurs continue to place great importance on it.


title: Wine

text: Wine tasting is the sensory examination and evaluation of wine. Wines contain many chemical compounds similar or identical to those in fruits, vegetables, and spices. The sweetness of wine is determined by the amount of residual sugar in the wine after fermentation, relative to the acidity present in the wine. Dry wine, for example, has only a small amount of residual sugar. Some wine labels suggest opening the bottle and letting the wine "breathe" for a couple of hours before serving, while others recommend drinking it immediately. Decanting (the act of pouring a wine into a special container just for breathing) is a controversial subject among wine enthusiasts. In addition to aeration, decanting with a filter allows the removal of bitter sediments that may have formed in the wine. Sediment is more common in older bottles, but aeration may benefit younger wines.


title: Wine

text: During aeration, a younger wine's exposure to air often "relaxes" the drink, making it smoother and better integrated in aroma, texture, and flavor. Older wines generally fade (lose their character and flavor intensity) with extended aeration. Despite these general rules, breathing does not necessarily benefit all wines. Wine may be tasted as soon as the bottle is opened to determine how long it should be aerated, if at all. When tasting wine, individual flavors may also be detected, due to the complex mix of organic molecules (e.g. esters and terpenes) that grape juice and wine can contain. Experienced tasters can distinguish between flavors characteristic of a specific grape and flavors that result from other factors in wine-making. Typical intentional flavor elements in wine—chocolate, vanilla, or coffee—are those imparted by aging in oak casks rather than the grape itself.


title: Wine

text: Vertical and horizontal tasting involves a range of vintages within the same grape and vineyard, or the latter in which there is one vintage from multiple vineyards. "Banana" flavors (isoamyl acetate) are the product of yeast metabolism, as are spoilage aromas such as "medicinal" or "Band-Aid" (4-ethylphenol), "spicy" or "smoky" (4-ethylguaiacol), and rotten egg (hydrogen sulfide). Some varieties can also exhibit a mineral flavor due to the presence of water-soluble salts as a result of limestone's presence in the vineyard's soil. Wine aroma comes from volatile compounds released into the air. Vaporization of these compounds can be accelerated by twirling the wine glass or serving at room temperature. Many drinkers prefer to chill red wines that are already highly aromatic, like Chinon and Beaujolais.


title: Wine

text: The ideal temperature for serving a particular wine is a matter of debate by wine enthusiasts and sommeliers, but some broad guidelines have emerged that will generally enhance the experience of tasting certain common wines. White wine should foster a sense of coolness, achieved by serving at "cellar temperature" (). Light red wines drunk young should also be brought to the table at this temperature, where they will quickly rise a few degrees. Red wines are generally perceived best when served "chambré" ("at room temperature"). However, this does not mean the temperature of the dining room—often around —but rather the coolest room in the house and, therefore, always slightly cooler than the dining room itself. Pinot noir should be brought to the table for serving at and will reach its full bouquet at . Cabernet Sauvignon, zinfandel, and Rhone varieties should be served at and allowed to warm on the table to for best aroma.


title: Wine

text: Outstanding vintages from the best vineyards may sell for thousands of dollars per bottle, though the broader term "fine wine" covers those typically retailing in excess of US$30–50. "Investment wines" are considered by some to be Veblen goods: those for which demand increases rather than decreases as their prices rise.


title: Wine

text: Particular selections such as "Verticals", which span multiple vintages of a specific grape and vineyard, may be highly valued. The most notable was a Château d'Yquem 135-year vertical containing every vintage from 1860 to 2003 sold for $1.5 million.


title: Wine

text: The most common wines purchased for investment include those from Bordeaux and Burgundy; cult wines from Europe and elsewhere; and vintage port. Characteristics of highly collectible wines include:


title: Wine

text: Investment in fine wine has attracted those who take advantage of their victims' relative ignorance of this wine market sector. Such wine fraudsters often profit by charging excessively high prices for off-vintage or lower-status wines from well-known wine regions, while claiming that they are offering a sound investment unaffected by economic cycles. As with any investment, thorough research is essential to making an informed decision.


title: Wine

text: Wine grapes grow almost exclusively between 30 and 50 degrees latitude north and south of the equator. The world's southernmost vineyards are in the Central Otago region of New Zealand's South Island near the 45th parallel south, and the northernmost are in Flen, Sweden, just north of the 59th parallel north.


title: Wine

text: Wine-consumption data from a list of countries by alcohol consumption measured in liters of pure ethyl alcohol consumed per capita in a given year, according to the most recent data from the World Health Organization. The methodology includes persons 15 years of age or older. About 40% of individuals above the legal drinking age consider themselves "wine drinkers", which is higher than all other alcoholic beverages combined (34%) and those who do not drink at all (26%).


title: Wine

text: Wine is a popular and important drink that accompanies and enhances a wide range of cuisines, from the simple and traditional stews to the most sophisticated and complex haute cuisines. Wine is often served with dinner. Sweet dessert wines may be served with the dessert course. In fine restaurants in Western countries, wine typically accompanies dinner. At a restaurant, patrons are helped to make good food-wine pairings by the restaurant's sommelier or wine waiter. Individuals dining at home may use wine guides to help make food–wine pairings. Wine is also drunk without the accompaniment of a meal in wine bars or with a selection of cheeses (at a wine and cheese party). Wines are also used as a theme for organizing various events such as festivals around the world; the city of Kuopio in North Savonia, Finland is known for its annual Kuopio Wine Festivals ("Kuopion viinijuhlat").


title: Wine

text: Wine is important in cuisine not just for its value as a drink, but as a flavor agent, primarily in stocks and braising, since its acidity lends balance to rich savory or sweet dishes. Wine sauce is an example of a culinary sauce that uses wine as a primary ingredient. Natural wines may exhibit a broad range of alcohol content, from below 9% to above 16% ABV, with most wines being in the 12.5–14.5% range. Fortified wines (usually with brandy) may contain 20% alcohol or more.


title: Wine

text: The use of wine in ancient Near Eastern and Ancient Egyptian religious ceremonies was common. Libations often included wine, and the religious mysteries of Dionysus used wine as a sacramental entheogen to induce a mind-altering state.


title: Wine

text: Wine is an integral part of Jewish laws and traditions. The "Kiddush" is a blessing recited over wine or grape juice to sanctify the Shabbat. On Pesach (Passover) during the Seder, it is a Rabbinic obligation of adults to drink four cups of wine. In the Tabernacle and in the Temple in Jerusalem, the libation of wine was part of the sacrificial service. Note that this does not mean that wine is a symbol of blood, a common misconception that contributes to the Christian beliefs of the blood libel.


title: Wine

text: "It has been one of history's cruel ironies that the blood libel—accusations against Jews using the blood of murdered gentile children for the making of wine and matzot—became the false pretext for numerous pogroms. And due to the danger, those who live in a place where blood libels occur are halachically exempted from using red wine, lest it be seized as "evidence" against them."


title: Wine

text: In Christianity, wine is used in a sacred rite called the Eucharist, which originates in the Gospel account of the Last Supper (Gospel of Luke 22:19) describing Jesus sharing bread and wine with his disciples and commanding them to "do this in remembrance of me." Beliefs about the nature of the Eucharist vary among denominations (see Eucharistic theologies contrasted).


title: Wine

text: While some Christians consider the use of wine from the grape as essential for the validity of the sacrament, many Protestants also allow (or require) pasteurized grape juice as a substitute. Wine was used in Eucharistic rites by all Protestant groups until an alternative arose in the late 19th century. Methodist dentist and prohibitionist Thomas Bramwell Welch applied new pasteurization techniques to stop the natural fermentation process of grape juice. Some Christians who were part of the growing temperance movement pressed for a switch from wine to grape juice, and the substitution spread quickly over much of the United States, as well as to other countries to a lesser degree. There remains an ongoing debate between some American Protestant denominations as to whether wine can and should be used for the Eucharist or allowed as an ordinary drink, with Catholics and some mainline Protestants allowing wine drinking in moderation, and some conservative Protestant groups opposing consumption of alcohol altogether.


title: Wine

text: The earliest viticulture tradition in the Southwestern United States starts with sacramental wine, beginning in the 1600s, with Christian friars and monks producing New Mexico wine.


title: Wine

text: Alcoholic drinks, including wine, are forbidden under most interpretations of Islamic law. In many Muslim countries, possession or consumption of alcoholic drinks carry legal penalties. Iran had previously had a thriving wine industry that disappeared after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In Greater Persia, "mey" (Persian wine) was a central theme of poetry for more than a thousand years, long before the advent of Islam. Some Alevi sects – one of the two main branches of Islam in Turkey (the other being Sunni Islam) – use wine in their religious services.


title: Wine

text: Certain exceptions to the ban on alcohol apply. Alcohol derived from a source other than the grape (or its byproducts) and the date is allowed in "very small quantities" (loosely defined as a quantity that does not cause intoxication) under the Sunni Hanafi "madhab", for specific purposes (such as medicines), where the goal is not intoxication. However, modern Hanafi scholars regard alcohol consumption as totally forbidden.


title: Wine

text: Wine contains ethyl alcohol, the chemical in beer and distilled spirits. The effects of wine depend on the amount consumed, the span of time over which consumption occurs, and the amount of alcohol in the wine, among other factors. Drinking enough to reach a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.03%-0.12% may cause an overall improvement in mood, increase self-confidence and sociability, decrease anxiety, flushing of the face, and impair judgment and fine motor coordination. A BAC of 0.09% to 0.25% causes lethargy, sedation, balance problems and blurred vision. A BAC from 0.18% to 0.30% causes profound confusion, impaired speech (e.g. slurred speech), staggering, dizziness and vomiting. A BAC from 0.25% to 0.40% causes stupor, unconsciousness, anterograde amnesia, vomiting, and death may occur due to respiratory depression and inhalation of vomit during unconsciousness. A BAC from 0.35% to 0.80% causes coma, life-threatening respiratory depression and possibly fatal alcohol poisoning. The operation of vehicles or machinery while drunk can increase the risk of accident, and many countries have laws against drinking and driving. The social context and quality of wine can affect the mood and emotions.


title: Wine

text: The main active ingredient of wine is ethanol. A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis found that moderate ethanol consumption brought no mortality benefit compared with lifetime abstention from ethanol consumption. A systematic analysis of data from the Global Burden of Disease study found that consumption of ethanol increases the risk of cancer and increases the risk of all-cause mortality, and that the most healthful dose of ethanol is zero consumption. Some studies have concluded that drinking small quantities of alcohol (less than one drink daily in women and two drinks daily in men) is associated with a decreased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and early death. Ethanol consumption increases the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, and stroke. Some studies that reported benefits of moderate ethanol consumption erred by lumping former drinkers and life-long abstainers into a single group of nondrinkers, hiding the health benefits of life-long abstention from ethanol. Risk is greater in younger people due to binge drinking which may result in violence or accidents. About 3.3 million deaths (5.9% of all deaths) annually are due to ethanol use.


title: Wine

text: Alcohol use disorder is the inability to stop or control alcohol use despite harmful consequences to health, job, or relationships; alternative terms include alcoholism, alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, or alcohol addiction. and alcohol use is the third leading cause of early death in the United States. No professional medical association recommends that people who are nondrinkers should start drinking wine.


title: Wine

text: Excessive consumption of alcohol can cause liver cirrhosis and alcoholism. The American Heart Association "cautions people NOT to start drinking ... if they do not already drink alcohol. Consult your doctor on the benefits and risks of consuming alcohol in moderation."


title: Wine

text: Although red wine contains more of the stilbene resveratrol and of other polyphenols than white wine, the evidence for a cardiac health benefit is of poor quality and at most, the benefit is trivial. Grape skins naturally produce resveratrol in response to fungal infection, including exposure to yeast during fermentation. White wine generally contains lower levels of the chemical as it has minimal contact with grape skins during this process.


title: Wine

text: Incidents of fraud, such as mislabeling the origin or quality of wines, have resulted in regulations on labeling. "Wine scandals" that have received media attention include:


title: Wine

text: Most wines are sold in glass bottles and sealed with corks (50% of which come from Portugal). An increasing number of wine producers have been using alternative closures such as screwcaps and synthetic plastic "corks". Although alternative closures are less expensive and prevent cork taint, they have been blamed for such problems as excessive reduction.


title: Wine

text: Some wines are packaged in thick plastic bags within corrugated fiberboard boxes, and are called "box wines", or "cask wine". Tucked inside the package is a tap affixed to the bag in box, or bladder, that is later extended by the consumer for serving the contents. Box wine can stay acceptably fresh for up to a month after opening because the bladder collapses as wine is dispensed, limiting contact with air and, thus, slowing the rate of oxidation. In contrast, bottled wine oxidizes more rapidly after opening because of the increasing ratio of air to wine as the contents are dispensed; it can degrade considerably in a few days. Canned wine is one of the fastest-growing forms of alternative wine packaging on the market.


title: Wine

text: Environmental considerations of wine packaging reveal the benefits and drawbacks of both bottled and box wines. The glass used to make bottles is a nontoxic, naturally occurring substance that is completely recyclable, whereas the plastics used for box-wine containers are typically much less environmentally friendly. However, wine-bottle manufacturers have been cited for Clean Air Act violations. A "New York Times" editorial suggested that box wine, being lighter in package weight, has a reduced carbon footprint from its distribution; however, box-wine plastics, even though possibly recyclable, can be more labor-intensive (and therefore expensive) to process than glass bottles. In addition, while a wine box is recyclable, its plastic bladder most likely is not. Some people are drawn to canned wine due to its portability and recyclable packaging.


title: Wine

text: Wine cellars, or wine rooms, if they are above-ground, are places designed specifically for the storage and aging of wine. Fine restaurants and some private homes have wine cellars. In an active wine cellar, temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate-control system. Passive wine cellars are not climate-controlled, and so must be carefully located. Because wine is a natural, perishable food product, all types—including red, white, sparkling, and fortified—can spoil when exposed to heat, light, vibration or fluctuations in temperature and humidity. When properly stored, wines can maintain their quality and in some cases improve in aroma, flavor, and complexity as they age. Some wine experts contend that the optimal temperature for aging wine is , others .


title: Wine

text: Wine refrigerators offer a smaller alternative to wine cellars and are available in capacities ranging from small, 16-bottle units to furniture-quality pieces that can contain 500 bottles. Wine refrigerators are not ideal for aging, but rather serve to chill wine to the proper temperature for drinking. These refrigerators keep the humidity low (usually under 50%), below the optimal humidity of 50% to 70%. Lower humidity levels can dry out corks over time, allowing oxygen to enter the bottle, which reduces the wine's quality through oxidation. While some types of alcohol are sometimes stored in the freezer, such as vodka, it is not possible to safely freeze wine in the bottle, as there is insufficient room for it to expand as it freezes and the bottle will usually crack. Certain shapes of bottle may allow the cork to be pushed out by the ice, but if the bottle is frozen on its side, the wine in the narrower neck will invariably freeze first, preventing this.


title: Wine

text: There are a large number of occupations and professions that are part of the wine industry, ranging from the individuals who grow the grapes, prepare the wine, bottle it, sell it, assess it, market it and finally make recommendations to clients and serve the wine.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: Andrew D. Huberman (born September 26, 1975, in Palo Alto, California) is an American neuroscientist and tenured associate professor in the department of neurobiology and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine who has made contributions to the brain development, brain plasticity, and neural regeneration and repair fields. Much of his work is focused on the visual system, including the mechanisms controlling light-mediated activation of the circadian and autonomic arousal centers in the brain, as well as brain control over conscious vision or sight. Huberman has been credited with coining the term "Non-Sleep Deep Rest" (NSDR), referring to practices that place the brain and body into shallow sleep to accelerate neuroplasticity and help offset mental and physical fatigue.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: Huberman graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School in 1993. He received a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1998, an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000, and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of California, Davis, in 2004.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: From 1998 to 2000, Huberman worked in the laboratory of Irving Zucker, as well as working with Marc Breedlove, at University of California, Berkeley, as part of a team that defined how early androgen exposure impacts development, and he performed the first experiments defining the structure of binocular visual pathways that set the circadian clock in the hypothalamus. From 2000 to 2004, working as a PhD student in the laboratory of Barbara Chapman at the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis, Huberman discovered that neural activity and axon guidance molecules work in concert to ensure proper wiring of binocular maps in the brain. Huberman was a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow researcher in the laboratory of Ben A. Barres from 2005 to 2010.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: Huberman was an assistant professor of neurobiology and neuroscience at University of California, San Diego, from 2011 to 2015. His lab pioneered using genetic tools to study the visual system function, development and disease. Among the Huberman Lab's discoveries was the finding that specific types of retinal neurons degenerate early in glaucoma a common blinding disease depleting sight in over 70 million people, for which there is no cure.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: After moving to Stanford in 2016, Huberman discovered and published the use of non-invasive methods such as visual stimulation can enhance regeneration of damaged retinal neurons, leading to partial recovery from blindness, especially when the stimulation is paired with specific forms of gene therapy. The work was covered extensively in the popular press, including "Time" magazine and "Scientific American" and is part of the National Eye Institute's Audacious Goals Initiative to restore vision to the blind . The Huberman Lab extended those findings to develop a human clinical trial using virtual reality technology to stimulate regeneration and plasticity of damaged retinal and other visual system neurons.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: In 2017, the Huberman Lab created a virtual reality platform for probing the neural mechanisms underlying pathological fear and anxiety. That work involved collecting 360-degree video of various fear-inducing scenarios such as heights and claustrophobia as well as atypical fear-inducing situations such as swimming with great white sharks. The Huberman VR platform is aimed at making discoveries that will lead to developing new tools for humans to adjust their state in order to promote adaptive coping with stress. The first installment of that work was published in "Current Biology", in 2021 as a collaboration with neurosurgeon and neuroscientist Edward Chang (UCSF), wherein they reported that specific patterns of insular cortex brain activity correlate with and may predict anxiety responses.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: In May, 2018, Huberman Laboratory published an article in the journal "Nature" reporting their discovery of two new mammalian brain circuits: one that promotes fear and paralysis, and another that promotes "courageous"/confrontational reaction, to visually-evoked threats. That discovery prompted the now ongoing exploration of how these brain regions may be involved in humans suffering from anxiety-related disorders such as phobias and generalized anxiety.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: In 2020, Huberman initiated a collaboration with the laboratory of David Spiegel in the Stanford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, to systematically study how particular patterns of respiration (i.e., breathing/breathwork) and the visual system influence the autonomic nervous system, stress, and other brain states, including sleep.


title: Andrew D. Huberman

text: In 2021, Huberman launched the "Huberman Lab" podcast with the goal of translating neuroscience into tools that can be applied in everyday life. It is a top podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. He was originally inspired to start the podcast after his appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast.


title: The 48 Laws of Power

text: The 48 Laws of Power (1998) is a non-fiction book by American author Robert Greene. The book is a "New York Times" bestseller, selling over 1.2 million copies in the United States; it is popular with prison inmates and celebrities.


title: The 48 Laws of Power

text: Greene initially formulated some of the ideas in "The 48 Laws of Power" while working as a writer in Hollywood and concluding that today's power elite shared similar traits with powerful figures throughout history. In 1995, Greene worked as a writer at Fabrica, an art and media school, and met a book packager named Joost Elffers. Greene pitched a book about power to Elffers and six months later, Elffers requested that Greene write a treatment.


title: The 48 Laws of Power

text: Although Greene was quite unhappy in his job, he was comfortable and saw the time needed to write a proper book proposal as too risky. However, at the time Greene was rereading his favorite biography about Julius Caesar and took inspiration from Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon River and fight Pompey, thus inciting the Great Roman Civil War. Greene wrote the treatment, which will later become "The 48 Laws of Power". He would note this as the turning point of his life.


title: The 48 Laws of Power

text: "The 48 Laws of Power" has sold over 1.2 million copies in the United States and has been translated into 24 languages. "Fast Company" called the book a "mega cult classic", and "The Los Angeles Times" noted that "The 48 Laws of Power" turned Greene into a "cult hero with the hip-hop set, Hollywood elite and prison inmates alike".


title: The 48 Laws of Power

text: "The 48 Laws of Power" has been reported to be much requested in American prison libraries, and has been studied as a first-year text in some US colleges. Rapper 50 Cent stated that he related to the book "immediately", and approached Greene with the prospect of a potential collaboration, which would later become "The 50th Law", another "New York Times" bestseller. Busta Rhymes and Derrius Jackson used "The 48 Laws of Power" to deal with problematic movie producers. DJ Premier has a tattoo inspired from Law #5, "Reputation is the cornerstone of power", on his arm and DJ Calvin Harris has an "Enter with boldness" arm tattoo based on Law #28. "The 48 Laws of Power" has also been mentioned in songs by UGK, Jay Z, Kanye West, Central Cee, MF DOOM, and Drake.


title: The 48 Laws of Power

text: "The 48 Laws of Power" has been referenced, or bought by 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Michael Jackson (who wrote in the margins), Courtney Love (who was photographed carrying it on the way to court when facing a drugs charge), and Will Smith.


title: The 48 Laws of Power

text: Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer said that Greene's so-called laws are based on isolated examples, and not on solid research. "Kirkus Reviews" said Greene offers no evidence to support his world view, Greene's laws contradict each other, and the book is "simply nonsense". "Newsweek" also points out ways it says the laws contradict each other and says, "Intending the opposite, Greene has actually produced one of the best arguments since the New Testament for humility and obscurity." "Director" magazine states "some of Greene's 'laws' seem contradictory" and the work is "plodding and didactic".


title: Matt Lauer

text: Matthew Todd Lauer (; born December 30, 1957) is an American former television news personality, best known for his work with NBC News. After serving as a local news personality in New York City on WNBC, his first national exposure was as the news anchor for "The Today Show" from 1994 to 1997. In 1997, he was moved from the news desk to the host's chair, and served as the co-host of NBC's "Today" show from 1997 to 2017. He was also a frequent contributor for the evening news magazine "Dateline NBC". With NBC, Lauer hosted the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and co-hosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympic Games.


title: Matt Lauer

text: Following allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior, Lauer's contract was terminated by NBC in November 2017 after the network reported receiving "a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace" and added that the network had "reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident".


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer was born in New York City, the son of Marilyn Lauer, a boutique owner, and Jay Robert Lauer, a bicycle-company executive.


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer's father was of Romanian Jewish ancestry, as seen on the "Today Show"s "Finding Our Roots." Lauer said, "My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that."


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer earned his undergraduate degree from Ohio University at age 39 in 1997; he had studied at the school's Scripps College of Communication, School of Media Arts and Studies. He had previously dropped out of the same institution in the spring of 1979 to begin his television career, after he was hired as a producer of the noon newscast for WOWK-TV in Huntington, West Virginia. By 1980, he had become an on-air reporter for the station's 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.


title: Matt Lauer

text: He then started to move around the East Coast, hosting a number of daily information and talk programs. He was a co-host of "PM Magazine" in several cities, beginning in Richmond (1980–1981), then Providence (1981–1984), and then New York City (1984–1986). After the New York edition of "PM Magazine" was canceled by WNYW in 1986, Lauer and co-host Jill Rappaport worked on a new show for the station, "Made in New York", which ran for fifteen weeks. This was followed by Lauer gaining his first national television exposure, as he joined Robin Leach in co-hosting ABC's short-lived daytime series "Fame, Fortune and Romance", a spin-off of the syndicated "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". Lauer then returned to local television, hosting programs in Philadelphia and Boston for a two-year period between 1987 and 1989, during which time he reported for ESPN and anchored entertainment news segments for HBO.


title: Matt Lauer

text: In September 1989, Lauer returned to New York City, this time to WWOR-TV, where he hosted "9 Broadcast Plaza", a three-hour live interview program. He departed that series as it took a turn in booking "tabloid" guests and topics, and for what he relayed as a refusal to live-read ads on the show for Dial-a-Mattress. WWOR-TV replaced Lauer with Richard Bey, and "9 Broadcast Plaza" eventually morphed into "The Richard Bey Show".


title: Matt Lauer

text: In 1990, he was hired by the Kushner-Locke Company to host a pilot called "Day in Court", executive-produced by veteran producer David Sams, who helped to launch "The Oprah Winfrey Show" into national syndication. The program was retitled "Trial Watch" when it went to series, and ran on the NBC network for two seasons. NBC hired Robb Weller as host over Lauer when the program was picked up as a daily series.


title: Matt Lauer

text: The same year, he filmed a pilot for the World Wrestling Federation's bodybuilding spinoff, the World Bodybuilding Federation for USA Network known as "WBF BodyStars", though WWF owner/chairman Vince McMahon later decided to host the program himself. In 1991, Lauer appeared as the co-host (along with Willow Bay) of "Etc., Etc.", a show on the Travel Channel.


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer joined NBC in 1992, when he became co-anchor of the early weekday news show "Today in New York" on the network's New York flagship station WNBC. After a year, he also filled the role of "Live at Five" co-anchor with Sue Simmons, eventually taking the role permanently and giving up the morning shift by 1994; he was replaced on "Today in New York" by Maurice DuBois. Lauer remained on "Live at Five" until 1996.


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer's on-camera presence would soon provide him many opportunities with NBC News. Lauer filled in as the newsreader on "The Today Show" for Margaret Larson when needed from 1992 to 1993. This "audition" period allowed him to join "The Today Show" full-time in January 1994 as news anchor, while still co-anchoring "Today in New York" and "Live at Five".


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer stepped in for Scott Simon, Mike Schneider and Jack Ford as the co-host of "Weekend Today", and for Ann Curry as anchor of the former NBC News program "NBC News at Sunrise" from 1992 to 1997. He had also filled in for Tom Brokaw on "NBC Nightly News". As the "Today Show" news anchor, he also substituted for Bryant Gumbel on the "Today Show" before being named the official co-anchor on January 6, 1997, after Gumbel stepped down. On top of Lauer's duties on "The Today Show", he also hosted programming on Discovery Channel and MSNBC.


title: Matt Lauer

text: From 1998 until 2011, Lauer embarked on what was generally an annual five-day, globe-spanning adventure called "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" on the "Today Show" during TV sweeps. The segment was named after the PBS game show "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" from which it borrowed the theme song. This segment sent Lauer to various locations around the world, from where he reported on the importance of each location. He broadcast from locations including Bhutan, Easter Island, the Panama Canal, Iran, Hong Kong, Croatia, and the Great Wall of China. In 2011, NBC News postponed the segment in consideration of the stagnant, unstable U.S. economy.


title: Matt Lauer

text: On some occasions, Lauer conducted interviews that escalated into tense exchanges. During a June 2005 interview with Tom Cruise, Lauer argued with Cruise about psychiatry and postpartum depression, and Cruise called Lauer "glib." In December 2008, Cruise said he regretted the exchange.


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer co-hosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympic Games, carrying on what his former co-host Katie Couric had done since the 2000 Summer Olympics. He co-hosted the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the 2010 Winter Olympics, the 2012 Summer Olympics, the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics. His commentary on the 2012 opening ceremonies, along with that of co-hosts Meredith Vieira and Bob Costas, came under fierce criticism, being described as "ignorant" and "banal".


title: Matt Lauer

text: On the April 5, 2012, program, Lauer announced that he had signed a new contract with NBC News through 2017. "Forbes" estimated that the contract paid Lauer $25 million a year.


title: Matt Lauer

text: It has been widely reported that Lauer had influenced co-anchor Ann Curry's departure from "The Today Show", executed by its executive producer Jim Bell under the name called "Operation Bambi."


title: Matt Lauer

text: During the 2014 Winter Olympics, Lauer replaced prime-time host Bob Costas from February 11–14, after Costas suffered a major eye infection.


title: Matt Lauer

text: In November 2015, Lauer hosted an interview with Charlie Sheen, during which Sheen revealed that he was HIV-positive.


title: Matt Lauer

text: On September 8, 2016, Lauer conducted separate 30-minute interviews with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both of which were met with much criticism. Lauer devoted much of the Clinton interview to questions about her e-mail server, and according to critics, appeared to rush through audience-led topics such as domestic terror attacks and veterans' affairs, implying that there was not enough time to cover these in detail. Many also felt that Lauer failed to challenge Trump on alleged inaccuracies, such as his statement that he was "totally against the war in Iraq," which other sources called "lies." CNN reported that the short amount of time for the interviews, the short notice with which they were conducted, and the small amount of audience questions were a major reason for the poor reviews.


title: Matt Lauer

text: On November 30, 2016, it was revealed that Lauer had signed a new contract up to 2018. "Variety" reported that his salary was $20 million a year. On January 6, 2017, Lauer celebrated his 20th anniversary on "The Today Show" with a look back at some of his most memorable moments on the show.


title: Matt Lauer

text: On November 29, 2017, NBC News announced that Lauer's employment had been terminated after an unidentified female NBC employee reported that Lauer had sexually harassed her during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and that the harassment continued after they returned to New York. Andrew Lack, chairman of NBC News, sent a memorandum to his staff that said, in part, "On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. ... While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he's been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident." A network executive said Lauer would not receive any form of monetary settlement because he was fired "for cause". His contract had been scheduled to run through the end of 2018.


title: Matt Lauer

text: NBC News management said it had been aware that "The New York Times" and "Variety" had been conducting independent investigations of Lauer's behavior, but that management had been unaware of previous allegations against Lauer. Later reporting disputed this; Linda Vester, a former NBC News correspondent, said that management had to have known and that "everybody knew" that Lauer was dangerous. In the 2019 book "", Ronan Farrow cited multiple sources who stated that NBC News was not only aware of Lauer's misconduct beforehand, but that Harvey Weinstein used this knowledge to pressure the program into killing a story that would have outed his own sexual assaults. "Variety" reported allegations by at least ten of Lauer's current and former colleagues. Additional accusations went public in the ensuing days. NBC acknowledged three additional cases from 2000 to 2007.


title: Matt Lauer

text: In "Catch and Kill", Farrow reveals one of the alleged victims as Brooke Nevils, who says Lauer anally raped her in his hotel room while the two were in Sochi covering the 2014 Winter Olympics for NBC. Farrow also writes in his book that Nevils had additional sexual encounters with Lauer after the initial incident, but she characterized those encounters as "transactional", and consented only out of fear that Lauer had control over her career.


title: Matt Lauer

text: In a statement made after his firing, Lauer apologized for his actions, saying, "Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed." Following Nevils' allegation of sexual assault that was published in Farrow's book, Lauer issued an open letter confirming that he had a consensual sexual relationship with Nevils and that the relationship started in 2014 in Sochi, but denying that the initial encounter was non-consensual.


title: Matt Lauer

text: Two weeks after Lauer's firing, Addie Zinone, a former "Today" production assistant, made an additional accusation, saying that she had a consensual sexual relationship with Lauer in June 2000. Zinone claimed that the relationship was an "abuse of power" on Lauer's part because Zinone said that she felt that turning down Lauer's advances would have hurt her career.


title: Matt Lauer

text: According to Farrow, "Today" show booker Melissa Lonner claims that Lauer exposed himself to her in 2010 at an NBC cocktail party. He denies this claim and through his lawyer said, "he will not take part in the marketing circus of this book."


title: Matt Lauer

text: In 2008, Lauer was the subject of a roast by the New York Friars Club where several of his colleagues made jokes about his reputation for having relationships with his staff.


title: Matt Lauer

text: In November 2006, Lauer and his daughter Romy hosted the "Sesame Street" direct-to-DVD show "Sesame Beginnings: Exploring Together". Lauer hosted "The Greatest American" on the Discovery Channel, which used internet and telephone voting by viewers to select the winner. Lauer was critical of his own program, since it tended to favor well-known figures over others who had less influence in pop culture.


title: Matt Lauer

text: He served as the 2009 Class Day speaker at Harvard University's undergraduate commencement ceremonies on June 3, 2009.


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer has appeared as himself in the 2009 film "Land of the Lost", the 2011 film "The Beaver" and voiced reporter Hark Hanson in the direct–to–DVD animated sequel "". He also made appearances in the 2011 films "Drew Peterson: Untouchable" and "Tower Heist"; archival footage of Lauer is shown in the 2015 film "Straight Outta Compton" and the 2017 films "Lady Bird" and "I, Tonya". He also appeared as himself in the TV movies "" and "".


title: Matt Lauer

text: Lauer was married to television producer Nancy Alspaugh from 1982 to 1989. They had no children. He later married Dutch model Annette Roque, whom he met on a blind date in July 1997. Lauer proposed to Roque after five months of dating, and the two wed in Bridgehampton, New York on October 3, 1998. They have three children together: son Jack (b. June 26, 2001), daughter Romy (b. October 2, 2003), and son Thijs (b. November 28, 2006). In 2006, while pregnant with her son Thijs, Roque filed for divorce due to "mental abuse, extreme mental and emotional distress, humiliation, torment, and anxiety" by Lauer. Weeks later, they reconciled. On September 7, 2019, Lauer and Roque officially divorced, following nearly two years of separation in the wake of his 2017 sexual harassment allegations.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, "The Scream" (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images.


title: Edvard Munch

text: His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inheriting a mental condition that ran in the family. Studying at the Royal School of Art and Design in Kristiania (today's Oslo), Munch began to live a bohemian life under the influence of the nihilist Hans Jæger, who urged him to paint his own emotional and psychological state ('soul painting'). From this emerged his distinctive style.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Travel brought new influences and outlets. In Paris, he learned much from Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, especially their use of color. In Berlin, he met the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, whom he painted, as he embarked on a major series of paintings he would later call "The Frieze of Life", depicting a series of deeply-felt themes such as love, anxiety, jealousy and betrayal, steeped in atmosphere.


title: Edvard Munch

text: "The Scream" was conceived in Kristiania. According to Munch, he was out walking at sunset, when he 'heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature'. The painting's agonized face is widely identified with the "angst" of the modern person. Between 1893 and 1910, he made two painted versions and two in pastels, as well as a number of prints. One of the pastels would eventually command the fourth highest nominal price paid for a painting at auction.


title: Edvard Munch

text: As his fame and wealth grew, his emotional state remained insecure. He briefly considered marriage, but could not commit himself. A mental breakdown in 1908 forced him to give up heavy drinking, and he was cheered by his increasing acceptance by the people of Kristiania and exposure in the city's museums. His later years were spent working in peace and privacy. Although his works were banned in Nazi-occupied Europe, most of them survived World War II, securing him a legacy.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Edvard Munch was born in a farmhouse in the village of Ådalsbruk in Løten, Norway, to Laura Catherine Bjølstad and Christian Munch, the son of a priest. Christian was a doctor and medical officer who married Laura, a woman half his age, in 1861. Edvard had an elder sister, Johanne Sophie, and three younger siblings: Peter Andreas, Laura Catherine, and Inger Marie. Laura was artistically talented and may have encouraged Edvard and Sophie. Edvard was related to the painter Jacob Munch and the historian Peter Andreas Munch.


title: Edvard Munch

text: The family moved to Christiania (renamed Kristiania in 1877, and now Oslo) in 1864 when Christian Munch was appointed medical officer at Akershus Fortress. Edvard's mother died of tuberculosis in 1868, as did Munch's favorite sister Johanne Sophie in 1877. After their mother's death, the Munch siblings were raised by their father and by their aunt Karen. Often ill for much of the winters and kept out of school, Edvard would draw to keep himself occupied. He was tutored by his school mates and his aunt. Christian Munch also instructed his son in history and literature, and entertained the children with vivid ghost-stories and the tales of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe.


title: Edvard Munch

text: As Edvard remembered it, Christian's positive behavior towards his children was overshadowed by his morbid pietism. Munch wrote, "My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born." Christian reprimanded his children by telling them that their mother was looking down from heaven and grieving over their misbehavior. The oppressive religious milieu, Edvard's poor health, and the vivid ghost stories helped inspire his macabre visions and nightmares; the boy felt that death was constantly advancing on him. One of Munch's younger sisters, Laura, was diagnosed with mental illness at an early age. Of the five siblings, only Andreas married, but he died a few months after the wedding. Munch would later write, "I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies—the heritage of consumption and insanity."


title: Edvard Munch

text: Christian Munch's military pay was very low, and his attempts to develop a private side practice failed, keeping his family in genteel but perennial poverty. They moved frequently from one cheap flat to another. Munch's early drawings and watercolors depicted these interiors, and the individual objects, such as medicine bottles and drawing implements, plus some landscapes. By his teens, art dominated Munch's interests. At 13, Munch had his first exposure to other artists at the newly formed Art Association, where he admired the work of the Norwegian landscape school. He returned to copy the paintings, and soon he began to paint in oils.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 1879, Munch enrolled in a technical college to study engineering, where he excelled in physics, chemistry and mathematics. He learned scaled and perspective drawing, but frequent illnesses interrupted his studies. The following year, much to his father's disappointment, Munch left the college determined to become a painter. His father viewed art as an "unholy trade", and his neighbors reacted bitterly and sent him anonymous letters. In contrast to his father's rabid pietism, Munch adopted an undogmatic stance towards art. He wrote his goal in his diary: "In my art I attempt to explain life and its meaning to myself."


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 1881, Munch enrolled at the Royal School of Art and Design of Kristiania, one of whose founders was his distant relative Jacob Munch. His teachers were the sculptor Julius Middelthun and the naturalistic painter Christian Krohg. That year, Munch demonstrated his quick absorption of his figure training at the academy in his first portraits, including one of his father and his first self-portrait. In 1883, Munch took part in his first public exhibition and shared a studio with other students. His full-length portrait of Karl Jensen-Hjell, a notorious bohemian-about-town, earned a critic's dismissive response: "It is impressionism carried to the extreme. It is a travesty of art." Munch's nude paintings from this period survive only in sketches, except for "Standing Nude" (1887). They may have been confiscated by his father.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Impressionism inspired Munch from a young age. During these early years, he experimented with many styles, including Naturalism and Impressionism. Some early works are reminiscent of Manet. Many of these attempts brought him unfavorable criticism from the press and garnered him constant rebukes by his father, who nonetheless provided him with small sums for living expenses. At one point, however, Munch's father, perhaps swayed by the negative opinion of Munch's cousin Edvard Diriks (an established, traditional painter), destroyed at least one painting (likely a nude) and refused to advance any more money for art supplies.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch also received his father's ire for his relationship with Hans Jæger, the local nihilist who lived by the code "a passion to destroy is also a creative passion" and who advocated suicide as the ultimate way to freedom. Munch came under his malevolent, anti-establishment spell. "My ideas developed under the influence of the bohemians or rather under Hans Jæger. Many people have mistakenly claimed that my ideas were formed under the influence of Strindberg and the Germans … but that is wrong. They had already been formed by then." At that time, contrary to many of the other bohemians, Munch was still respectful of women, as well as reserved and well-mannered, but he began to give in to the binge drinking and brawling of his circle. He was unsettled by the sexual revolution going on at the time and by the independent women around him. He later turned cynical concerning sexual matters, expressed not only in his behavior and his art, but in his writings as well, an example being a long poem called "The City of Free Love". Still dependent on his family for many of his meals, Munch's relationship with his father remained tense over concerns about his bohemian life.


title: Edvard Munch

text: After numerous experiments, Munch concluded that the Impressionist idiom did not allow sufficient expression. He found it superficial and too akin to scientific experimentation. He felt a need to go deeper and explore situations brimming with emotional content and expressive energy. Under Jæger's commandment that Munch should "write his life", meaning that Munch should explore his own emotional and psychological state, the young artist began a period of reflection and self-examination, recording his thoughts in his "soul's diary". This deeper perspective helped move him to a new view of his art. He wrote that his painting "The Sick Child" (1886), based on his sister's death, was his first "soul painting", his first break from Impressionism. The painting received a negative response from critics and from his family, and caused another "violent outburst of moral indignation" from the community.


title: Edvard Munch

text: He paints, or rather regards, things in a way that is different from that of other artists. He sees only the essential, and that, naturally, is all he paints. For this reason Munch's pictures are as a rule "not complete", as people are so delighted to discover for themselves. Oh, yes, they are complete. His complete handiwork. Art is complete once the artist has really said everything that was on his mind, and this is precisely the advantage Munch has over painters of the other generation, that he really knows how to show us what he has felt, and what has gripped him, and to this he subordinates everything else.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch continued to employ a variety of brushstroke techniques and color palettes throughout the 1880s and early 1890s, as he struggled to define his style. His idiom continued to veer between naturalistic, as seen in "Portrait of Hans Jæger", and impressionistic, as in "Rue Lafayette". His "Inger On the Beach" (1889), which caused another storm of confusion and controversy, hints at the simplified forms, heavy outlines, sharp contrasts, and emotional content of his mature style to come. He began to carefully calculate his compositions to create tension and emotion. While stylistically influenced by the Post-Impressionists, what evolved was a subject matter which was symbolist in content, depicting a state of mind rather than an external reality. In 1889, Munch presented his first one-man show of nearly all his works to date. The recognition it received led to a two-year state scholarship to study in Paris under French painter Léon Bonnat.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch seems to have been an early critic of photography as an art form, and remarked that it "will never compete with the brush and the palette, until such time as photographs can be taken in Heaven or Hell!"


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch's younger sister Laura was the subject of his 1899 interior "Melancholy: Laura". Amanda O'Neill says of the work, "In this heated claustrophobic scene Munch not only portrays Laura's tragedy, but his own dread of the madness he might have inherited."


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch arrived in Paris during the festivities of the Exposition Universelle (1889) and roomed with two fellow Norwegian artists. His picture "Morning" (1884) was displayed at the Norwegian pavilion. He spent his mornings at Bonnat's busy studio (which included female models) and afternoons at the exhibition, galleries, and museums (where students were expected to make copies as a way of learning technique and observation). Munch recorded little enthusiasm for Bonnat's drawing lessons—"It tires and bores me—it's numbing"—but enjoyed the master's commentary during museum trips.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch was enthralled by the vast display of modern European art, including the works of three artists who would prove influential: Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—all notable for how they used color to convey emotion. Munch was particularly inspired by Gauguin's "reaction against realism" and his credo that "art was human work and not an imitation of Nature", a belief earlier stated by Whistler. As one of his Berlin friends said later of Munch, "he need not make his way to Tahiti to see and experience the primitive in human nature. He carries his own Tahiti within him." Influenced by Gauguin, as well as the etchings of German artist Max Klinger, Munch experimented with prints as a medium to create graphic versions of his works. In 1896 he created his first woodcuts—a medium that proved ideal to Munch's symbolic imagery. Together with his contemporary Nikolai Astrup, Munch is considered an innovator of the woodcut medium in Norway.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In December 1889 his father died, leaving Munch's family destitute. He returned home and arranged a large loan from a wealthy Norwegian collector when wealthy relatives failed to help, and assumed financial responsibility for his family from then on. Christian's death depressed him and he was plagued by suicidal thoughts: "I live with the dead—my mother, my sister, my grandfather, my father…Kill yourself and then it's over. Why live?" Munch's paintings of the following year included sketchy tavern scenes and a series of bright cityscapes in which he experimented with the pointillist style of Georges Seurat.


title: Edvard Munch

text: By 1892, Munch formulated his characteristic, and original, Synthetist aesthetic, as seen in "Melancholy" (1891), in which color is the symbol-laden element. Considered by the artist and journalist Christian Krohg as the first Symbolist painting by a Norwegian artist, "Melancholy" was exhibited in 1891 at the Autumn Exhibition in Oslo. In 1892, Adelsteen Normann, on behalf of the Union of Berlin Artists, invited Munch to exhibit at its November exhibition, the society's first one-man exhibition. However, his paintings evoked bitter controversy (dubbed "The Munch Affair"), and after one week the exhibition closed. Munch was pleased with the "great commotion", and wrote in a letter: "Never have I had such an amusing time—it's incredible that something as innocent as painting should have created such a stir."


title: Edvard Munch

text: In Berlin, Munch became involved in an international circle of writers, artists and critics, including the Swedish dramatist and leading intellectual August Strindberg, whom he painted in 1892. He also met Danish writer and painter Holger Drachmann, whom he painted in 1898. Drachmann was 17 years Munch's senior and a drinking companion at Zum schwarzen Ferkel in 1893–94. In 1894 Drachmann wrote of Munch: "He struggles hard. Good luck with your struggles, lonely Norwegian."


title: Edvard Munch

text: During his four years in Berlin, Munch sketched out most of the ideas that would comprise his major work, "The Frieze of Life", first designed for book illustration but later expressed in paintings. He sold little, but made some income from charging entrance fees to view his controversial paintings. Already, Munch was showing a reluctance to part with his paintings, which he termed his "children".


title: Edvard Munch

text: His other paintings, including casino scenes, show a simplification of form and detail which marked his early mature style. Munch also began to favor a shallow pictorial space and a minimal backdrop for his frontal figures. Since poses were chosen to produce the most convincing images of states of mind and psychological conditions, as in "Ashes", the figures impart a monumental, static quality. Munch's figures appear to play roles on a theatre stage ("Death in the Sick-Room"), whose pantomime of fixed postures signify various emotions; since each character embodies a single psychological dimension, as in "The Scream", Munch's men and women began to appear more symbolic than realistic. He wrote, "No longer should interiors be painted, people reading and women knitting: there would be living people, breathing and feeling, suffering and loving."


title: Edvard Munch

text: "The Scream" exists in four versions: two pastels (1893 and 1895) and two paintings (1893 and 1910). There are also several lithographs of "The Scream" (1895 and later).


title: Edvard Munch

text: The 1895 pastel sold at auction on 2 May 2012 for US$119,922,500, including commission. It is the most colorful of the versions and is distinctive for the downward-looking stance of one of its background figures. It is also the only version not held by a Norwegian museum.


title: Edvard Munch

text: The 1893 version was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo in 1994 and was recovered. The 1910 painting was stolen in 2004 from the Munch Museum in Oslo, but recovered in 2006 with limited damage.


title: Edvard Munch

text: "The Scream" is Munch's most famous work, and one of the most recognizable paintings in all art. It has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Painted with broad bands of garish color and highly simplified forms, and employing a high viewpoint, it reduces the agonized figure to a garbed skull in the throes of an emotional crisis.


title: Edvard Munch

text: With this painting, Munch met his stated goal of "the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self". Munch wrote of how the painting came to be: "I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature." He later described the personal anguish behind the painting, "for several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, 'The Scream?' I was stretched to the limit—nature was screaming in my blood… After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again."


title: Edvard Munch

text: "Whistler's Mother", Wood's "American Gothic", Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Edvard Munch's "The Scream" have all achieved something that most paintings—regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary value—have not: they communicate a specific meaning almost immediately to almost every viewer. These few works have successfully made the transition from the elite realm of the museum visitor to the enormous venue of popular culture.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In December 1893, Unter den Linden in Berlin was the location of an exhibition of Munch's work, showing, among other pieces, six paintings entitled "Study for a Series: Love." This began a cycle he later called the "Frieze of Life—A Poem about Life, Love and Death". "Frieze of Life" motifs, such as "The Storm" and "Moonlight", are steeped in atmosphere. Other motifs illuminate the nocturnal side of love, such as "Rose and Amelie" and "Vampire". In "Death in the Sickroom", the subject is the death of his sister Sophie, which he re-worked in many future variations. The dramatic focus of the painting, portraying his entire family, is dispersed in the separate and disconnected figures of sorrow. In 1894, he enlarged the spectrum of motifs by adding "Anxiety", "Ashes", "Madonna" and "Women in Three Stages" (from innocence to old age).


title: Edvard Munch

text: Around the start of the 20th century, Munch worked to finish the "Frieze". He painted a number of pictures, several of them in bigger format and to some extent featuring the Art Nouveau aesthetics of the time. He made a wooden frame with carved reliefs for the large painting "Metabolism" (1898), initially called "Adam and Eve". This work reveals Munch's pre-occupation with the "fall of man" and his pessimistic philosophy of love. Motifs such as "The Empty Cross" and "Golgotha" (both ) reflect a metaphysical orientation, and also reflect Munch's pietistic upbringing. The entire "Frieze" was shown for the first time at the secessionist exhibition in Berlin in 1902.


title: Edvard Munch

text: "The Frieze of Life" themes recur throughout Munch's work but he especially focused on them in the mid-1890s. In sketches, paintings, pastels and prints, he tapped the depths of his feelings to examine his major motifs: the stages of life, the femme fatale, the hopelessness of love, anxiety, infidelity, jealousy, sexual humiliation, and separation in life and death. These themes are expressed in paintings such as "The Sick Child" (1885), "Love and Pain" (retitled "Vampire"; 1893–94), "Ashes" (1894), and "The Bridge". The latter shows limp figures with featureless or hidden faces, over which loom the threatening shapes of heavy trees and brooding houses. Munch portrayed women either as frail, innocent sufferers (see "Puberty" and "Love and Pain") or as the cause of great longing, jealousy and despair (see "Separation", "Jealousy", and "Ashes").


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch often uses shadows and rings of color around his figures to emphasize an aura of fear, menace, anxiety, or sexual intensity. These paintings have been interpreted as reflections of the artist's sexual anxieties, though it could also be argued that they represent his turbulent relationship with love itself and his general pessimism regarding human existence. Many of these sketches and paintings were done in several versions, such as "Madonna", "Hands" and "Puberty", and also transcribed as wood-block prints and lithographs. Munch hated to part with his paintings because he thought of his work as a single body of expression. So to capitalize on his production and make some income, he turned to graphic arts to reproduce many of his paintings, including those in this series. Munch admitted to the personal goals of his work but he also offered his art to a wider purpose, "My art is really a voluntary confession and an attempt to explain to myself my relationship with life—it is, therefore, actually a sort of egoism, but I am constantly hoping that through this I can help others achieve clarity."


title: Edvard Munch

text: While attracting strongly negative reactions, in the 1890s Munch began to receive some understanding of his artistic goals, as one critic wrote, "With ruthless contempt for form, clarity, elegance, wholeness, and realism, he paints with intuitive strength of talent the most subtle visions of the soul." One of his great supporters in Berlin was Walther Rathenau, later the German foreign minister, who strongly contributed to his success.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 1896, Munch moved to Paris, where he focused on graphic representations of his "Frieze of Life" themes. He further developed his woodcut and lithographic technique. Munch's "Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm" (1895) is done with an etching needle-and-ink method also used by Paul Klee. Munch also produced multi-colored versions of "The Sick Child", concerning tuberculosis, which sold well, as well as several nudes and multiple versions of "Kiss" (1892). In May 1896, Siegfried Bing held an exhibition of Munch's work inside Bing's Maison de l'Art Nouveau. The exhibition displayed 60 works, including "The Kiss, The Scream, Madonna, The Sick Child, The Death Chamber, and The Day After." Bing's exhibition helped to introduce Munch to a French audience. Still, many of the Parisian critics still considered Munch's work "violent and brutal" even if his exhibitions received serious attention and good attendance. His financial situation improved considerably and, in 1897, Munch bought himself a summer house facing the fjords of Kristiania, a small fisherman's cabin built in the late 18th century, in the small town of Åsgårdstrand in Norway. He dubbed this home the "Happy House" and returned here almost every summer for the next 20 years. It was this place he missed when he was abroad and when he felt depressed and exhausted. "To walk in Åsgårdstrand is like walking among my paintings—I get so inspired to paint when I am here".


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 1897 Munch returned to Kristiania, where he also received grudging acceptance—one critic wrote, "A fair number of these pictures have been exhibited before. In my opinion these improve on acquaintance." In 1899, Munch began an intimate relationship with Tulla Larsen, a "liberated" upper-class woman. They traveled to Italy together and upon returning, Munch began another fertile period in his art, which included landscapes and his final painting in "The Frieze of Life" series, "The Dance of Life" (1899). Larsen was eager for marriage, but Munch was not. His drinking and poor health reinforced his fears, as he wrote in the third person: "Ever since he was a child he had hated marriage. His sick and nervous home had given him the feeling that he had no right to get married." Munch almost gave in to Tulla, but fled from her in 1900, also turning away from her considerable fortune, and moved to Berlin. His "Girls on the Jetty", created in 18 different versions, demonstrated the theme of feminine youth without negative connotations. In 1902, he displayed his works thematically at the hall of the Berlin Secession, producing "a symphonic effect—it made a great stir—a lot of antagonism—and a lot of approval." The Berlin critics were beginning to appreciate Munch's work even though the public still found his work alien and strange.


title: Edvard Munch

text: The good press coverage gained Munch the attention of influential patrons Albert Kollman and Max Linde. He described the turn of events in his diary, "After 20 years of struggle and misery forces of good finally come to my aid in Germany—and a bright door opens up for me." However, despite this positive change, Munch's self-destructive and erratic behavior led him first to a violent quarrel with another artist, then to an accidental shooting in the presence of Tulla Larsen, who had returned for a brief reconciliation, which injured two of his fingers. Munch later sawed a self-portrait depicting him and Larsen in half as a consequence of the shooting and subsequent events. She finally left him and married a younger colleague of Munch. Munch took this as a betrayal, and he dwelled on the humiliation for some time to come, channeling some of the bitterness into new paintings. His paintings "Still Life (The Murderess)" and "The Death of Marat I", done in 1906–07, clearly reference the shooting incident and the emotional after-effects.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 1903–04, Munch exhibited in Paris where the coming Fauvists, famous for their boldly false colors, likely saw his works and might have found inspiration in them. When the Fauves held their own exhibit in 1906, Munch was invited and displayed his works with theirs. After studying the sculpture of Rodin, Munch may have experimented with plasticine as an aid to design, but he produced little sculpture. During this time, Munch received many commissions for portraits and prints which improved his usually precarious financial condition. In 1906, he painted the screen for an Ibsen play in the small Kammerspiele Theatre located in Berlin's Deutsches Theater, in which the "Frieze of Life" was hung. The theatre's director Max Reinhardt later sold it; it is now in the Berlin Nationalgalerie. After an earlier period of landscapes, in 1907 he turned his attention again to human figures and situations.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In the autumn of 1908, Munch's anxiety, compounded by excessive drinking and brawling, had become acute. As he later wrote, "My condition was verging on madness—it was touch and go." Subject to hallucinations and feelings of persecution, he entered the clinic of Daniel Jacobson. The therapy Munch received for the next eight months included diet and "electrification" (a treatment then fashionable for nervous conditions, not to be confused with electroconvulsive therapy). Munch's stay in hospital stabilized his personality, and after returning to Norway in 1909, his work became more colorful and less pessimistic. Further brightening his mood, the general public of Kristiania finally warmed to his work, and museums began to purchase his paintings. He was made a Knight of the Royal Order of St. Olav "for services in art". His first American exhibit was in 1912 in New York.


title: Edvard Munch

text: As part of his recovery, Dr. Jacobson advised Munch to only socialize with good friends and avoid drinking in public. Munch followed this advice and in the process produced several full-length portraits of high quality of friends and patrons—honest portrayals devoid of flattery. He also created landscapes and scenes of people at work and play, using a new optimistic style—broad, loose brushstrokes of vibrant color with frequent use of white space and rare use of black—with only occasional references to his morbid themes. With more income Munch was able to buy several properties giving him new vistas for his art and he was finally able to provide for his family.


title: Edvard Munch

text: The outbreak of World War I found Munch with divided loyalties, as he stated, "All my friends are German but it is France I love." In the 1930s, his German patrons, many Jewish, lost their fortunes and some their lives during the rise of the Nazi movement. Munch found Norwegian printers to substitute for the Germans who had been printing his graphic work. Given his poor health history, during 1918 Munch felt himself lucky to have survived a bout of the Spanish flu, the worldwide pandemic of that year.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch spent most of his last two decades in solitude at his nearly self-sufficient estate in Ekely, at Skøyen, Oslo. Many of his late paintings celebrate farm life, including several in which he used his work horse "Rousseau" as a model. Without any effort, Munch attracted a steady stream of female models, whom he painted as the subjects of numerous nude paintings. He likely had sexual relationships with some of them. Munch occasionally left his home to paint murals on commission, including those done for the Freia chocolate factory.


title: Edvard Munch

text: To the end of his life, Munch continued to paint unsparing self-portraits, adding to his self-searching cycle of his life and his unflinching series of takes on his emotional and physical states. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis labeled Munch's work "degenerate art" (along with that of Picasso, Klee, Matisse, Gauguin and many other modern artists) and removed his 82 works from German museums. Adolf Hitler announced in 1937, "For all we care, those pre-historic Stone Age culture barbarians and art-stutterers can return to the caves of their ancestors and there can apply their primitive international scratching."


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 1940, the Germans invaded Norway and the Nazi party took over the government. Munch was 76-years old. With nearly an entire collection of his art in the second floor of his house, Munch lived in fear of a Nazi confiscation. Seventy-one of the paintings previously taken by the Nazis had been returned to Norway through purchase by collectors (the other 11 were never recovered), including "The Scream" and "The Sick Child", and they too were hidden from the Nazis.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch died in his house at Ekely near Oslo on 23 January 1944, about a month after his 80th birthday. His Nazi-orchestrated funeral suggested to Norwegians that he was a Nazi sympathizer, a kind of appropriation of the independent artist. The city of Oslo bought the Ekely estate from Munch's heirs in 1946; his house was demolished in May 1960.


title: Edvard Munch

text: When Munch died, his remaining works were bequeathed to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum at Tøyen (it opened in 1963). The museum holds a collection of approximately 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings, and 18,000 prints, the broadest collection of his works in the world. The Munch Museum serves as Munch's official estate; it has been active in responding to copyright infringements as well as clearing copyright for the work, such as the appearance of Munch's "The Scream" in a 2006 M&M's advertising campaign. The U.S. copyright representative for the Munch Museum and the Estate of Edvard Munch is the Artists Rights Society.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch's art was highly personalized and he did little teaching. His "private" symbolism was far more personal than that of other Symbolist painters such as Gustave Moreau and James Ensor. Munch was still highly influential, particularly with the German Expressionists, who followed his philosophy, "I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of Man's urge to open his heart." Many of his paintings, including "The Scream", have universal appeal in addition to their highly personal meaning.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch's works are now represented in numerous major museums and galleries in Norway and abroad. His cabin, "the Happy House", was given to the municipality of Åsgårdstrand in 1944; it serves as a small Munch Museum. The inventory has been maintained exactly as he left it.


title: Edvard Munch

text: One version of "The Scream" was stolen from the National Gallery in 1994. In 2004, another version of "The Scream", along with one of "Madonna", was stolen from the Munch Museum in a daring daylight robbery. These were all eventually recovered, but the paintings stolen in the 2004 robbery were extensively damaged. They have been meticulously restored and are on display again. Three Munch works were stolen from the Hotel Refsnes Gods in 2005; they were shortly recovered, although one of the works was damaged during the robbery.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In October 2006, the color woodcut "Two people. The lonely" ("To mennesker. De ensomme") set a new record for his prints when it was sold at an auction in Oslo for 8.1 million kroner (US$1.27 million ). It also set a record for the highest price paid in auction in Norway. On 3 November 2008, the painting "Vampire" set a new record for his paintings when it was sold for US$38,162,000 () at Sotheby's New York.


title: Edvard Munch

text: Munch's image appears on the Norwegian 1,000-kroner note, along with pictures inspired by his artwork.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In February 2012, a major Munch exhibition, "Edvard Munch. The Modern Eye", opened at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; the exhibition was opened by Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In May 2012, "The Scream" sold for US$119.9 million (), and is the second most expensive artwork ever sold at an open auction. (It was surpassed in November 2013 by "Three Studies of Lucian Freud", which sold for US$142.4 million).


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 2013, four of Munch's paintings were depicted in a series of stamps by the Norwegian postal service, to commemorate in 2014 the 150th anniversary of his birth.


title: Edvard Munch

text: On 14 November 2016 a version of Munch's "The Girls on the Bridge" sold for US$54.5 million () at Sotheby's, New York, making it the second highest price achieved for one of his paintings.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In April 2019 the British Museum hosted the exhibition, "Edvard Munch: Love and Angst", comprising 83 artworks and including a rare original print of "The Scream".


title: Edvard Munch

text: In May 2022 the Courtauld Gallery hosted the exhibition, "Edvard Munch. Masterpieces from Bergen", showcasing 18 paintings from Norwegian industrialist Rasmus Meyer’s collection.


title: Edvard Munch

text: In 1911 the final competition for the decoration of the large walls of the University of Oslo Aula (assembly hall) was held between Munch and Emanuel Vigeland. The episode is known as the "Aula controversy". In 1914 Munch was finally commissioned to decorate the Aula and the work was completed in 1916. This major work in Norwegian monumental painting includes 11 paintings covering . "The Sun", "History" and "Alma Mater" are the key works in this sequence. Munch declared: "I wanted the decorations to form a complete and independent world of ideas, and I wanted their visual expression to be both distinctively Norwegian and universally human". In 2014 it was suggested that the Aula paintings have a value of at least 500 million kroner.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: Maxwell T. Friedman (born March 15, 1996), better known by his ring name Maxwell Jacob Friedman (often abbreviated to MJF), is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed with All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he is the current AEW World Champion in his first reign, and holds the AEW Dynamite Diamond Ring, which he has won for four consecutive years.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: He previously worked for Major League Wrestling (MLW), where he is a former MLW World Tag Team Champion, while also being a former one-time and inaugural MLW World Middleweight Champion. He departed MLW in January 2020. Friedman has also worked on the American independent circuit appearing most notably for Combat Zone Wrestling, where he is a former one-time CZW World Heavyweight Champion and a two-time CZW Wired Champion.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: Maxwell T. Friedman was born into an American Jewish family in the suburbs of Plainview, New York, on Long Island, on March 15, 1996. He graduated in 2014 from Plainview – Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, where he was a member of the football team. During his senior year, he was named Honorable Mention, All County, for football. He briefly attended Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: In 2001, Friedman appeared on an episode of "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", singing "You Are My Sunshine" after his parents submitted a tape of him singing it in an operatic style while eating a pear. After a video of his performance resurfaced in 2019, Friedman (while in character) initially denied the appearance before admitting it, stating that Rosie O'Donnell was trying to cling onto her fading star and that he "didn't have the nerve" to tell Britney Spears (who appeared on the same episode) that she "wasn't going to make it as a singer".


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: Friedman was trained by Brian Myers and Pat Buck and made his in-ring debut in their Create A Pro Wrestling Academy in Hicksville, New York. He also wrestled for Combat Zone Wrestling and Five Borough Wrestling during his debut year and went on to appear in numerous promotions across the northeastern independent wrestling circuit. In April 2015, WWE uploaded Friedman's entry for "WWE Tough Enough" to their YouTube channel.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: Friedman worked under the new ring name Pete Lightning in several CZW Dojo Wars events since 2015, usually in tag team matches with Hous Blazer and Penelope Ford. On the September 7, 2016 edition of CZW Dojo Wars, he returned to his previous ring name Maxwell Jacob Feinstein, he entered the Dramatic Destination Series tournament. On May 13, 2017, at CZW Sacrifices, Friedman defeated Johnny Yuma to win the CZW Wired Championship. He won his first title defense at CZW EVILution, defeating Trevor Lee. He successfully retained the title in further singles matches against Mike Del, John Silver, and Ace Romero. On October 14 at CZW The Wolf of Wrestling, Friedman lost the CZW Wired title to Joey Janela. Two months later at CZW Cage of Death 19, Friedman won the title back after defeating Janela in a rematch.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: Friedman returned on February 10, 2018, at CZW Nineteen, where he won the 27-Man Battle Royal to become the new number one contender for the CZW World Heavyweight Championship. He also successfully defended the CZW Wired Championship against Alex Colon on that date. He was the last Wired Champion before vacating the title on April 14 at CZW Best of the Best 17. There he defeated Rickey Shane Page to win the CZW World Heavyweight Championship for the first time.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On September 5, 2017, it was reported that Friedman signed a contract with the reinstated Major League Wrestling (MLW) to appear at its reunion event One Shot to compete in a match against Jimmy Yuta, which Friedman won. Friedman would then become a member of the MLW roster as he continued his winning streak against Joey Ryan at Never Say Never. MJF suffered his first loss in MLW against Brody King at Zero Hour on January 11, 2018. He then participated in a tournament for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship at "Road To The World Championship", losing to the British wrestler Jimmy Havoc in the opening round. Friedman would go on to defeat Lance Anoa'i at Spring Break. He made his "Fusion" debut on the May 11 episode by defeating Fred Yehi. He continued his success with an upset win over Montel Vontavious Porter at Intimidation Games.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On July 29, MJF defeated Joey Ryan to become the first-ever World Middleweight Champion at the Battle Riot special. Later that night, MJF participated in the namesake match as the #38 entrant and was eliminated by the eventual winner Tom Lawlor. On the August 10 episode of "Fusion", MJF made his first title defense against Joey Janela in a falls count anywhere match, which he retained after Janela's on-screen girlfriend Aria Blake turned on Janela by hitting him in the head with a bottle. This led to Blake becoming MJF's valet. On the September 21 episode of "Fusion", MJF and Blake defeated Joey Ryan and Taya Valkyrie in a mixed tag team match. MJF would make his second title defense of the World Middleweight Championship on the November 9 episode of "Fusion", where he successfully defended the title against Jason Cade and Jimmy Yuta in a three-way elimination match. On November 25, Friedman revealed that he had suffered a fractured elbow with a recovery time of 4–6 weeks. MLW later announced that the Middleweight title has been stripped from Friedman due not being cleared in time for his scheduled title defense at MLW's live Fusion December 14 episode.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: MJF returned from his injury on the February 16, 2019 episode of "Fusion", where he unsuccessfully challenged the new champion Teddy Hart for the World Middleweight Championship. After the match, Richard Holliday joined MJF in attacking Hart. As a result, the duo formed a team called The Dynasty and began feuding with the Hart Foundation. They were shortly after joined by the newcomer Alexander Hammerstone. He later won the MLW World Tag Team Championship with Richard Holliday as part of the Dynasty.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On January 7, 2019, it was announced that Friedman was signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) for a five-year deal. He debuted as a heel at Double or Nothing as a part of the pre-show Casino Battle Royale for an AEW World Championship opportunity. He lasted until the final two, before being eliminated by Adam Page. Friedman went on to compete in a four-way match against Page, Jimmy Havoc and Jungle Boy at Fyter Fest in June, which Page also won. The following month at Fight for the Fallen, he teamed with Shawn Spears and Sammy Guevara to defeat Havoc, Darby Allin, and Joey Janela in a six-man tag team match.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On the first episode of "Dynamite" on October 2, Friedman defeated Brandon Cutler by submission. The following week on "Dynamite", Friedman intervened in the attack of his "best friend" Cody by The Inner Circle, attacking Santana and Ortiz with a steel chair seemingly turning face. At Full Gear, he accompanied Cody in his AEW World Championship match against Chris Jericho. Cody lost the match after MJF threw in the towel when he was caught in the "Liontamer" and as a result, Cody was no longer allowed to challenge for the AEW World Championship again due to a pre-match stipulation. After the match, MJF turned heel on Cody by giving him a low blow and walked away. Shortly thereafter, MJF would find a bodyguard in the debuting Wardlow. On the November 20 episode of "Dynamite", MJF and Adam Page would be the final two entrants in the inaugural Dynamite Dozen Battle Royale. The two would meet in a singles match on the following "Dynamite", which MJF would win. Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) then awarded him the Dynamite Diamond Ring as a prize for defeating Page. On January 15, 2020, at Bash at the Beach, MJF teamed with The Butcher and The Blade to defeat DDP, Dustin Rhodes and Q. T. Marshall. MJF would rekindle his rivalry with Cody, and lay down three stipulations that Cody must follow to gain a match against him at Revolution which included not touching MJF till the match happened, facing Wardlow in a steel cage match and receiving ten lashes by MJF on live TV. On the February 5 episode of "Dynamite", Cody took the ten lashes from MJF, including one from Wardlow. Cody would then go on to beat Wardlow in the first steel cage match in AEW's history on the February 19 episode of "Dynamite" to make the match against MJF at Revolution official. At Revolution, MJF would defeat Cody by pinfall after hitting him on the face with the Dynamite Diamond Ring. MJF would then enter a feud with Jungle Boy, defeating him at Double or Nothing with a roll-up. On the May 27 episode of "Dynamite", MJF would unsuccessfully compete in a battle royal to face Cody for the AEW TNT Championship, being eliminated by Jungle Boy. At Fyter Fest, MJF and Wardlow were defeated by Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus. MJF then moved onto a feud with Jon Moxley, campaigning against Moxley's championship reign and decreed that fans deserved a better champion. The two faced at All Out on September 5, where MJF was defeated, marking his first loss in a singles match.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On the October 28 episode of "Dynamite", Chris Jericho and MJF agreed to wrestle each other at Full Gear during a confrontational "Town Hall Meeting" with Eric Bischoff. Should MJF win, he would join Jericho's Inner Circle. The previous week, Jericho and MJF had participated in "Le Dinner Debonair", a meeting over a steak dinner during which Jericho and MJF performed a modified rendition of "Me and My Shadow". Journalist Wesley Morris later named the performance one of the "Best Performances of 2020" in an article published by "The New York Times". At Full Gear, MJF, along with Wardlow, became members of Inner Circle after he pinned Jericho. On November 11 episode of "Dynamite", MJF appeared for the first time as a member of The Inner Circle, where he gave a speech talking the struggles he overcame to get this far in wrestling, and then brought out a surprise birthday party for Jericho, the group's leader, which involved free tickets to Las Vegas and leading the crowd in a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday". On December 2, at Winter Is Coming, MJF would once again become a number one contender for a Dynamite Diamond Ring after he and Orange Cassidy would be the final two entrants in the second "Dynamite Dozen Battle Royale". On the December 9 episode of "Dynamite", MJF would win his second Diamond Ring after pinning Cassidy.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On the January 20, 2021 episode of "Dynamite", a tag team battle royal was announced for Beach Break, with the winners getting an AEW World Tag Team Championship match against The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) at Revolution. The Young Bucks also participated and had they won, they could have chosen their opponents. Jericho last eliminated Dante Martin of Top Flight to win the battle royal, earning himself and MJF a title match at Revolution. On the February 10 episode of "Dynamite", following weeks of growing tension between MJF and Guevara, Guevara attacked MJF following a backstage confrontation, which gave MJF a kayfabe rib injury. Later on in the episode, following MJF and Jericho's victory against The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens and Max Caster) in a tag team match, Guevara announced his departure from The Inner Circle. In the lead-up to their match at Revolution, MJF and Jericho attacked The Young Bucks' father, Papa Buck, and bloodied him backstage, vowing to take the titles off them. At Revolution, however, MJF and Jericho were defeated by The Young Bucks.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On the March 10, 2021 episode of "Dynamite", MJF was kicked out from The Inner Circle after it was revealed that he was secretly planning to perform a coup of the group. However, he then revealed that he had been building his own group with Wardlow, Shawn Spears, Tully Blanchard and FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood), who appeared and violently attacked The Inner Circle. The stable would come to be known as The Pinnacle. At Blood and Guts on May 5, The Pinnacle defeated The Inner Circle in the inaugural Blood and Guts match. At Double or Nothing on May 30, The Pinnacle lost to The Inner Circle in a Stadium Stampede match. At All Out on September 5, MJF faced once again Jericho, with Jericho's career on the line. After a false victory for MJF, in which referee Aubrey Edwards counted the pin for MJF but did not see Jericho's foot placed on the rope, the match was restarted and Jericho forced MJF to submit to the "Walls of Jericho", losing for the first time against Jericho.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: On the November 17 episode of "Dynamite", MJF would begin a feud with CM Punk, after Punk interrupted his promo. On the February 2, 2022 episode of "Dynamite", MJF became the first person to defeat Punk in AEW and also the person to defeat him in a televised match since 2014. During the match, which was held in Punk's hometown of Chicago, Illinois, MJF scored a pinfall over Punk after Wardlow provided a ringside distraction and handed MJF his Dynamite Diamond Ring, which he then hit Punk with. On March 6 at Revolution, Wardlow, who began developing tension with MJF in December 2021, turned on MJF and helped Punk defeat him in a Dog Collar match by handing Punk the Dynamite Diamond Ring, which Punk then struck MJF with. On the May 18 episode of "Dynamite", Wardlow, as part of a set of contract stipulations which would make him able to wrestle MJF, was lashed 10 times by MJF. The following week on "Dynamite", Wardlow completed the final stipulation which guaranteed him a match with MJF at the upcoming Double or Nothing by defeating Shawn Spears in steel cage match, with MJF serving as the special referee and being unsuccessful in his effort to cost Wardlow the match after Spears accidentally knocked him out; should Wardlow win, he would be officially released from his contract with MJF, but would be banned from obtaining a new AEW contract and be required to remain under MJF's employment should he lose. At Double or Nothing, MJF lost to Wardlow after ten powerbombs, MJF's first clean loss in singles action in AEW.


title: Maxwell Jacob Friedman

text: During the Double or Nothing weekend of May, MJF legitimately no-showed a fan fest. This came after months of rumors about the backstage tension between MJF and AEW owner Tony Khan about MJF's contract and payment he felt he should have, as well as doing an interview with Ariel Helwani without telling management. On the June 1 episode of "Dynamite", MJF cut a worked shoot promo about not being respected by the fans and Khan. The segment ended with MJF demanding to be fired by Khan, calling Khan a "fucking mark", his microphone being cut off, quickly fading to commercial, and the commentators not referencing the situation after the break. The next day, his profile was removed from AEW’s website and his merchandise was pulled on AEW’s merchandise site as part of the storyline.