title: The Lego Group

text: The Lego Group has built eight amusement parks around the world, each known as Legoland. Each park features large-scale Lego models of famous landmarks and miniature Lego models of famous cities, along with Lego themed rides. The first Legoland park was built in Lego's home town of Billund in Denmark. This was followed by Legoland Windsor in England, Legoland California in Carlsbad, US and Legoland Deutschland in Günzburg, Germany. In addition, Legoland Sierksdorf was opened in 1973, but soon closed in 1976.


title: The Lego Group

text: In July 2005, the Lego Group announced that it had reached a deal with private investment company the Blackstone Group to sell all four parks for to the Blackstone subsidiary Merlin Entertainments. Under the terms of the deal, The Lego Group would take a share in Merlin Entertainments and positions on their board. The sale of the theme parks was part of a wider strategy to restructure the company to focus on the core business of toy products.


title: The Lego Group

text: In 2010, Merlin Entertainments opened the first Legoland water park at the Legoland California site. On 15 October 2011, Merlin Entertainments opened their first new Legoland park, Legoland Florida, in Winter Haven, Florida. It is the largest Legoland opened to date at 145 acres, and also only one of the Legoland parks opened in the United States. The other Legoland (opened at a later date) water park was opened near the same location on 26 May 2012 after only four months of construction.


title: The Lego Group

text: Merlin Entertainments opened their second new Legoland park in Nusajaya, Malaysia under the name Legoland Malaysia on 22 September 2012. It is the first Legoland in Asia and was quickly followed by another Lego-themed water park in the same area. The first Lego hotel has also opened near the site. People who stay in the hotel will also get tickets to the theme park and water park. The September 2016 they opened Legoland Dubai. In addition, they opened four new Legoland Discovery Centres, which take the Legoland concept and scale it down to suit a retail park environment.


title: The Lego Group

text: In June 2019, The Lego Group purchased the remaining shares in Merlin Entertainments which they did not own and privatised the company. This returned the operation of the Legoland parks to the control of The Lego Group.


title: The Lego Group

text: The Lego Group operates 171 retail stores in North America and Europe (96 in the United States, 19 in the United Kingdom, 17 in Germany, 13 in Canada, 9 in France, 5 in Poland, 3 in Denmark, 3 in the Netherlands, 2 in Austria, 2 in Belgium, 2 in Sweden,1 in Spain and 1 in Ireland.). The Lego Group also franchised its store brand to Majid Al Futtaim Group, which opened 6 stores in 2015 (4 in the United Arab Emirates, and 2 in Kuwait). As of 2021 there is a total of 389 stores operated by franchisees, mostly in Australia, Asia and South America.


title: The Lego Group

text: October 2002 saw a significant change in The Lego Group's direct retail policy with the opening of the first so-called "Lego Brand Store" in Cologne, Germany. The second, in Milton Keynes, UK, followed quickly – several dozen more opened worldwide over the next few years, and most of the existing stores have been remodelled on the new "Brand Store" template. One of the distinctive features of these new stores is the inclusion of a "Pick-A-Brick" system that allows customers to buy individual bricks in bulk quantities. How a customer buys Lego pieces at a Pick-A-Brick is quite simple: customers fill a large or small cup or bag with their choice of Lego bricks from a large and varied selection and purchase it. The opening of most of these stores, including the 2003 opening of one in the Birmingham Bull Ring shopping centre in England, have been marked by the production of a new, special, limited edition, commemorative Lego Duplo piece.


title: The Lego Group

text: Lego opened the first brand store in its home country Denmark in Copenhagen on 13 December 2010. There are two stores in Austria, one store in Belgium, twelve stores in Germany, seventeen stores in the United Kingdom, six stores in France, five stores in Spain, two stores in Serbia, one store in Sweden, one store in Denmark, and one store in Lithuania for a total of 41 stores in Europe. In 2016, three stores opened in Italy: one in Milan, one in the shopping center near the Orio al Serio International Airport in Bergamo, and another in Verona. On the 18 August 2022, Ireland's first Lego store was opened in Dublin on Grafton Street. On 2 December 2022 an official store was opened in Brescia, bringing the total number of Lego stores in Italy to 24.


title: The Lego Group

text: In 1992, when the Mall of America opened in Bloomington, Minnesota, one of its premier attractions was the Lego Imagination Center (LIC). An imagination centre is a large Lego store with displays of Lego sculptures and a play area with bins of bricks to build with. The store inventory includes a large selection of Lego sets for sale, including sets which are advertised in Lego catalogues as "Not Available in Any Store". A second imagination centre opened at the Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. Between 1999 and 2005, Lego opened 24 further stores in North America in 23 states. As of 2016, there are 90 Lego stores operating or soon-to-be operating in North America in 32 US states and five Canadian provinces. These stores sell various Lego merchandise, including minifigures, Pick-a-Brick, and custom packaged minifigures.


title: The Lego Group

text: The first Lego store in India was opened in Chennai, Tamil Nadu in March 2014 by Funskool, under licence from the Lego Group.


title: The Lego Group

text: Lego Interactive (formerly Lego Media and later Lego Software) was the video game publishing division of The Lego Group. The company was founded as Lego Media in 1996 and headquartered in London, England. In February 1999, Lego Media announced their move into the girls' software industry, starting with "Lego Friends". In May 2002, the company announced to begin distributing their titles through Electronic Arts. Eventually, The Lego Group opted out of the video game business and Lego Interactive was shut down in 2004. Former Lego Interactive staff opened Giant Interactive Entertainment to publish future "Lego" titles, which later became part of TT Games.


title: The Lego Group

text: Lego Media also operated a motion picture division, which produced the BBC children's series "Little Robots" for Cosgrove Hall Films. In 2003, this division was rebranded to Create TV and Film Limited, and became independent from The Lego Group under Lego's majority owner Kirkbi A/S, which allowed Create TV and Film to branch onto other projects. The company later produced "", "" and "" for Creative Capers Entertainment. In 2005, Kirkbi A/S sold Create TV and Film to its chief executive officer, Vanessa Chapman, and the company was renamed Create Media Ventures Limited. The sale included "Little Robots" but excluded the Bionicle movies, which were retained by The Lego Group. Create was later dissolved in August 2016.


title: The Lego Group

text: Lego Produktion AG was a major production facility for Lego. It was founded in Switzerland in 1974. At the time of its announced closing in 2001, 30% of the world production of Lego was produced at the Swiss facility in Baar. The Baar facility eventually closed in 2004.


title: The Lego Group

text: In April 1962, the Lego Group began producing miniature tires; it became the largest tire manufacturing company in 2011, when it produced 381 million tires that year.


title: The Lego Group

text: Lego acknowledges the impact of its operations on the environment, in particular in areas such as climate change, resource and energy use and waste. All manufacturing sites are certified according to the environmental standard ISO 14001. The first Borkum Riffgrund 1 wind turbines off the coast of Germany began producing electricity in February 2015, which will help The Lego Group reach its goal of being based 100% on renewable energy by 2020. The company claims to recycle 90% of its waste and that it had made its operations nearly one-third more energy efficient over the five-year period ending on 31 December 2013. It is seeking alternatives to crude oil as the raw material for its bricks. In June 2015, this results in the establishment, named the Lego Sustainable Materials Centre, which is expected to recruit more than 100 employees, as a significant step towards the 2030 ambition of finding and implementing sustainable alternatives to current materials.


title: The Lego Group

text: In January 2014, a handwritten letter to Lego from a seven-year-old American girl, Charlotte Benjamin, received widespread attention in the media. In it the young author complained that there were "more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls" and observed that "all the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs, but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people … even swam with sharks".


title: The Lego Group

text: In June 2014, it was announced that Lego would be launching a new "Research Institute" collection featuring female scientists including a female chemist, palaeontologist, and astronomer. The science-themed project was selected as the latest Lego Ideas winner, and was submitted by Ellen Kooijman, a geochemist in Stockholm. Lego denied claims that the set was introduced to placate criticism of the company by activists, pointing to its Lego Ideas origins. The Research Institute range sold out within a week of its online release in August 2014. The BBC's Tom de Castella reported that Kooijman was pleased with the set's final design, despite the addition of face make-up to her original proposal, and that Becky Francis, professor of education and social justice at King's College London, who had been "very, very disappointed" by Lego Friends, is a fan.


title: The Lego Group

text: In 2021, Lego released a set entitled "Everyone Is Awesome" to celebrate and recognize the LGBTQ+ community. The set includes over 300 pieces and has 11 monochrome minifigures in the colours of the rainbow.


title: The Lego Group

text: In October 2021, Lego Group launched a campaign named "Ready for Girls" as part of its celebration of the UN's International Day of the Girl. The company also announced its plan to remove gender stereotypes from the toy(s) following a review of a study commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.


title: The Lego Group

text: In April 2022, The LEGO foundation announced the launch of the companies $20 million play-based learning initiative. The grant program launched as part of Autism Acceptance month, is in support of innovative play-based learning for neurodivergent children and in turn will award funding to 25 enterprises in support of the innovative learning for autistic children and children with ADHD.


title: The Lego Group

text: On 3 March 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the LEGO Foundation stated it would donate approximately US$16.5million to organizations including UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Danish Red Cross for emergency relief efforts.


title: The Lego Group

text: BrickLink is the largest online marketplace for reselling Lego products. Its website also offers resources for Lego fans, including an extensive catalog of products and parts and community forums.


title: The Lego Group

text: BrickLink was founded by Dan Jezek on June 19, 2000, as BrickBay, a marketplace modeled after his own custom store website. After online retailer eBay challenged the use of "Bay" in the name, it was renamed BrickLink in 2002.


title: The Lego Group

text: In 2010, Jezek died suddenly, and his mother Eliska Jezkova succeeded him as CEO. In 2013, the site was acquired by Nexon founder and CEO Jung-Ju "Jay" Kim, who transferred its assets into BrickLink Limited, a Hong Kong-based company. Kim, a Lego fan himself, created some of the most important features of the current BrickLink website, including the BrickLink AFOL Designer Program (now the BrickLink Designer Program) which sold top-rated fan designs as packaged, unofficial sets, and the BrickLink Studio digital design software.


title: The Lego Group

text: In January 2022, The Lego Group announced that BrickLink Studio would replace the Lego Digital Designer (LDD) software as the official virtual LEGO building software going forward.


title: The Lego Group

text: Today, BrickLink is the largest online marketplace dedicated to Lego reselling. Its primary competitor is UK-based BrickOwl


title: Kleptocracy

text: Kleptocracy (from Greek κλέπτης "kléptēs", "thief", κλέπτω "kléptō", "I steal", and -κρατία -"kratía" from κράτος "krátos", "power, rule") is a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land they govern, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population. Thievocracy means literally the rule by thievery and is a term used synonymously to kleptocracy. One feature of political-based socioeconomic thievery is that there is often no public announcement explaining or apologizing for misappropriations, nor any legal charges or punishment levied against the offenders.


title: Kleptocracy

text: Kleptocracy is different from plutocracy (rule by the richest) and oligarchy (rule by a small elite). In a kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes, and special favors, or they simply direct state funds to themselves and their associates. Also, kleptocrats often export much of their profits to foreign nations in anticipation of losing power.


title: Kleptocracy

text: According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the first use in English occurs in the publication "Indicator" of 1819: "Titular ornaments, common to Spanish kleptocracy."


title: Kleptocracy

text: Kleptocracies are generally associated with dictatorships, oligarchies, military juntas, or other forms of autocratic and nepotist governments in which external oversight is impossible or does not exist. This lack of oversight can be caused or exacerbated by the ability of the kleptocratic officials to control both the supply of public funds and the means of disbursal for those funds.


title: Kleptocracy

text: Kleptocratic rulers often treat their country's treasury as a source of personal wealth, spending funds on luxury goods and extravagances as they see fit. Many kleptocratic rulers secretly transfer public funds into hidden personal numbered bank accounts in foreign countries to provide for themselves if removed from power.


title: Kleptocracy

text: Kleptocracy is most common in developing countries and collapsing nations whose economies are reliant on the trade of natural resources. Developing nations' reliance on export incomes constitute a form of economic rent and are easier to siphon off without causing the income to decrease. This leads to wealth accumulation for the elites and corruption may serve a beneficial purpose by generating more wealth for the state.


title: Kleptocracy

text: In a collapsing nation, reliance on imports from foreign countries becomes likely as the nation's internal resources become exhausted, thereby contractually obligating themselves to trading partners. This leads to kleptocracy as the elites make deals with foreign adversaries to keep the status quo for as long as possible.


title: Kleptocracy

text: To some observers, a thievery society allows the politically connected to redirect wealth to those deemed worthier by state apparatchiks. According to some pundits, one reason governmental bodies subscribe to theft-prone policies is to lay the groundwork for the socialization of labor and property in an effort to permit thievocrats to make the populace "subservient to an institutionalized authority." Newspaper columnist Paul Greenberg, in writing against the idea of the United States sending large amounts of foreign aid to Poland in 1989, argued that Poland was emerging from "40 years of a Communist thievocracy that has obliterated not only economic progress but also the idea of a modern economy."


title: Kleptocracy

text: A specific case of kleptocracy is "Raubwirtschaft", German for "plunder economy" or "rapine economy", where the whole economy of the state is based on robbery, looting and plundering the conquered territories. Such states are either in continuous warfare with their neighbours or they simply milk their subjects as long as they have any taxable assets. Arnold Toynbee has claimed the Roman Empire was a "Raubwirtschaft."


title: Kleptocracy

text: Contemporary studies have identified 21st century kleptocracy as a global financial system based on money laundering, which "depends on the services of the world's largest banks and expert financial professionals". The International Monetary Fund has suggested it could be a consensus of estimates, that money laundering made up 2–5 percent of the global economy in 1998. Kleptocrats engage in money laundering to obscure the corrupt origins of their wealth and safeguard it from domestic threats such as economic instability and predatory kleptocratic rivals. They are then able to secure this wealth in assets and investments within more stable jurisdictions, where it can then be stored for personal use, returned to the country of origin to support the kleptocrat's domestic activities, or deployed elsewhere to protect and project the regime's interests overseas.


title: Kleptocracy

text: Kleptocrats abuse the freedoms found in Western countries by transferring funds out of a kleptocracy and into Western jurisdictions for money laundering and asset security. Since 2011, more than $1 trillion has left developing countries annually in illicit financial outflows. A 2016 study found that $12 trillion had been siphoned out of the kleptocracies of Russia, China, and developing economies. Western professional services providers are taken advantage of by kleptocratic Russians and Chinese, exploiting legal and financial loopholes in the West to facilitate transnational money laundering. The kleptocratic financial system typically comprises four steps according to one opinion.


title: Kleptocracy

text: In a 2011 forensic study of grand corruption cases, the World Bank found the United States was the leading victim of illegal incorporation of entities involved in money laundering schemes. The Department of Treasury estimates that $300 billion is laundered annually in the United States in violation of US law.


title: Kleptocracy

text: This kleptocratic financial system flourishes in the United States by illegally abusing the United States' liberal economic structure for two reasons.


title: Kleptocracy

text: Currently, there are only around 1,200 money laundering convictions per year in the United States and money launderers face a less than five percent chance of conviction. Raymond Baker estimates that law enforcement fails in 99.9% of cases to detect money laundering by kleptocrats and other financial criminals.


title: Kleptocracy

text: Other Western jurisdictions favoured by kleptocrats include South Africa, the United Kingdom, and its dependencies, especially the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, and Jersey. Jurisdictions in the European Union which are particularly favoured by kleptocrats include Cyprus, the Netherlands, and its dependency the Dutch Antilles.


title: Kleptocracy

text: Other forms of a thievery society that can induce a "culture of systematic fraud" has been described as "political and corporate kleptomania." In this case the plunder and looting enriches not only high government officials, but a narrow class of plutocrats, who usually represent wealthy individuals and families who have amassed great assets through the usage of political favoritism, special interest legislation, monopolies, special tax breaks, state intervention, subsidies or outright graft. This type of economic system of political spoils is sometimes referred to as crony capitalism.


title: Kleptocracy

text: The effects of a kleptocratic regime or government on a nation are typically adverse in regards to the welfare of the state's economy, political affairs, and civil rights. Kleptocratic governance typically ruins prospects of foreign investment and drastically weakens the domestic market and cross-border trade. As kleptocracies often embezzle money from their citizens by misusing funds derived from tax payments, or engage heavily in money laundering schemes, they tend to heavily degrade quality of life for citizens.


title: Kleptocracy

text: In addition, the money that kleptocrats steal is diverted from funds earmarked for public amenities such as the building of hospitals, schools, roads, parks – having further adverse effects on the quality of life of citizens. The informal oligarchy that results from a kleptocratic elite subverts democracy (or any other political format).


title: Kleptocracy

text: The political system in Russia has been described as a Mafia state where president Vladimir Putin serves as the "head of the clan".


title: Kleptocracy

text: In early 2004, the German anti-corruption NGO Transparency International released a list of ten self-enriching leaders in the two decades previous to the report. Transparency International acknowledged that they were "not necessarily the 10 most corrupt leaders" and noting that "very little is known about the amounts actually embezzled".


title: Kleptocracy

text: A narcokleptocracy is a society in which criminals involved in the trade of narcotics have undue influence in the governance of a state. For instance, the term was used to describe the regime of Manuel Noriega in Panama in a report prepared by a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.


title: Kleptocracy

text: In 2020, the United States charged the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro with Drug Trafficking, as well as many officials and head figures of his administration.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: My Own Private Idaho is a 1991 American independent adventure drama film written and directed by Gus Van Sant, loosely based on Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part 1", "Henry IV, Part 2", and "Henry V". The story follows two friends, Mike Waters and Scott Favor, played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves respectively, as they embark on a journey of personal discovery that takes them from Portland, Oregon, to Mike's hometown in Idaho, and then to Rome in search of Mike's mother.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Van Sant wrote the screenplay in the 1970s, but discarded it after reading John Rechy's 1963 novel "City of Night" and concluding that Rechy's treatment of the subject of street hustlers was better than his own. Over the years, Van Sant rewrote the script, which comprised two stories: that of Mike and the search for his mother, and Scott's story as an update of the "Henry IV" plays. Van Sant had difficulty getting Hollywood financing, and at one point considered making the film on a minuscule budget with a cast of actual street kids. After he sent his script to Reeves, and Reeves showed it to Phoenix, both agreed to star in the film.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: "My Own Private Idaho" had its premiere at the 48th Venice International Film Festival, and received largely positive reviews from critics, including Roger Ebert and those of "The New York Times" and "Entertainment Weekly". The film was a moderate financial success, grossing over $6.4 million in North America, above its estimated budget of $2.5 million. Phoenix received several awards for his performance in the film, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival, Best Male Lead from the Independent Spirit Awards, and Best Actor from the National Society of Film Critics.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: "My Own Private Idaho" is considered a landmark film in New Queer Cinema, an early 1990s movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking. Since its release, it has grown in popularity and been deemed a cult classic, especially among LGBT audiences. The film is notable for its then-taboo subject matter and avant-garde style.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Mike, a street hustler, stands alone on a deserted stretch of highway. He starts talking to himself and notices that the road looks "like someone's face, like a fucked-up face." He then experiences a narcoleptic episode and dreams of his mother comforting him as home movies of his childhood play in his mind.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Later, after being fellated by a client in Seattle, Mike returns to his favorite spots to pick up clients. He is picked up by a wealthy older woman who takes him to her mansion, where he finds two fellow hustlers she also hired. One of them is Scott Favor, Mike's best friend, and the other is Gary. While preparing to have sex with the woman, Mike has another narcoleptic episode and awakens the next day with Scott in Portland, Oregon.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Mike and Scott are soon reunited with Bob Pigeon, a middle-aged mentor to a gang of street kids and hustlers who live in an abandoned apartment building. Scott, the son of the mayor of Portland, confides to Bob that when he turns 21, he will inherit his father's fortune and retire from street hustling. Meanwhile, Mike yearns to find his mother, so he and Scott leave for Idaho to visit Mike's older brother, Richard. Along this journey Mike confesses to Scott that he is in love with him, and Scott gently reminds Mike he only sleeps with men for money. Richard tells a story of a man he claims is Mike's father, but Mike says that he knows it is Richard. Richard informs Mike that their mother works as a hotel maid; when Mike and Scott visit her workplace, they learn she went to Italy in search of her own family. At the hotel, they meet Hans, the man who drove them to Portland, and prostitute themselves to him.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: With the money they receive from Hans, Mike and Scott travel to Italy. They find the country farmhouse where Mike's mother worked as a maid and English tutor. Carmela, a young woman who lives there, tells Mike that his mother returned to the United States months ago. Carmela and Scott fall in love and return to the US, leaving a brokenhearted Mike to return on his own. Scott's father dies, and Scott inherits his fortune.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Back in Portland, Bob and his gang confront a reformed Scott at a fashionable restaurant, but he rejects them. That night Bob has a fatal heart attack. The next day the hustlers hold a rowdy funeral for Bob, while in the same cemetery, a few yards away, Scott attends a solemn funeral for his father. At the end of the film, Mike is back on the deserted stretch of Idaho highway. After he falls into another narcoleptic stupor, two strangers pull up in a truck, take his backpack and shoes, and drive away. Moments later, an unidentified figure pulls up in a car, picks the unconscious Mike up, places him in the vehicle, and drives away.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: "My Own Private Idaho" originated from John Rechy's 1963 novel "City of Night", which featured street hustlers who did not admit to being gay. Van Sant's original screenplay was written in the 1970s, when he was living in Hollywood. After reading Rechy's book, Van Sant felt it was considerably better than what he was writing, and shelved the script for years. In 1988, while editing "Mala Noche", Van Sant met street kid Michael Parker, who inspired the character of Mike in "My Own Private Idaho". Parker also had a friend named Scott, a street kid like himself. In the script, Van Sant made the Scott character a rich kid, also fashioned after street hustlers Van Sant had met in Portland.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Early drafts of the screenplay were set on Hollywood Boulevard, not Portland, with working titles such as "Blue Funk" and "Minions of the Moon". Rechy's novel inspired Van Sant to change the setting to Portland. The script originally consisted of two separate scenarios: the first ("Modern Days)" recounted Mike's story; the second updated the "Henry IV" plays with Scott's story. Van Sant realized he could blend the two stories together in the manner of William S. Burroughs' "cut up" technique. In essence, this method involves various story fragments and ideas mixed and matched together to form a unique story. The idea to combine the two scenarios occurred to Van Sant after seeing Orson Welles's "Chimes at Midnight". He has said, "I thought that the "Henry IV" plays were really a street story. I also knew this fat guy named Bob, who had always reminded me of Falstaff and who was crazy about hustler boys". Van Sant realized that Prince Hal in the plays resembled Scott and the sidekick was Mike. His script ended up as a restructuring of the "Henry IV" plays. Van Sant got the idea for Mike's narcolepsy from a man who was a guide of sorts when the director was gathering material for the film and who always looked like he was about to fall asleep. The film's title is derived from the song "Private Idaho" by the B-52's that Van Sant heard while visiting the state in the early 1980s.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Van Sant showed the script to a 20th Century Fox executive who liked Shakespeare. Eventually, he toned down the Shakespearean elements and modernized the language. Van Sant was also working on a "My Own Private Idaho" short story that he intended to film. Twenty-five pages long, it concerned two Latino characters on the Portland streets who go in search of their parents and travel to a town in Spain. One falls in love with a girl and leaves the other behind. Van Sant had another script, "The Boys of Storytown", containing the Mike and Scott characters, as well as Hans and Bob; Van Sant wanted to make the film but felt the script was unfinished. Ultimately, while editing "Drugstore Cowboy", he combined the scripts for "Modern Days" and "Storytown" with the "Idaho" short story.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Initially, no studio would finance the film because of its controversial and offbeat subject matter. After "Drugstore Cowboy" received favorable critical raves and awards, studios started to show some interest, but they all wanted revisions. Frustrated, Van Sant attempted to make the film on a shoestring budget with a cast of actual street kids, including Michael Parker and actor Rodney Harvey, who was going to play Scott.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Van Sant faced the problem of casting the two central roles. He decided to send the script to the agents of Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, figuring that their agents would reject the script. Reeves's agent was amenable to the project, but Phoenix's would not even show it to him. Not to be deterred, Van Sant got the idea for Reeves to personally deliver the film treatment to Phoenix at his home in Florida. Reeves did so over the Christmas holidays, riding his 1974 Norton Commando motorcycle from his family home in Canada to the Phoenix family ranch in Micanopy, Florida, outside Gainesville. Reeves was no stranger to River Phoenix or his family, having worked previously with River on Lawrence Kasdan's "I Love You to Death" and with his brother Joaquin Phoenix and girlfriend Martha Plimpton on Ron Howard's "Parenthood". After reading the treatment, Phoenix agreed to play Scott, but since Van Sant had already cast Reeves in the role, they had to convince River to take the edgier role of the drug-addicted hustler Mike. Van Sant promised not to make either actor do anything embarrassing. He got an offer of $2 million from an outside investor but when he put off production for nine months so that Phoenix could make "Dogfight", the investor and his money disappeared. Producer Laurie Parker shopped the script around and, at the time, New Line Cinema was in the process of branching out into producing arthouse films and decided to back Van Sant's vision with a $2.5 million budget. In a 2012 interview, Kiefer Sutherland said that he declined Van Sant's offer to star in the lead role because he wanted to go skiing, a decision he has said he regrets.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Principal photography took place from November to December 1990, primarily in Portland, Seattle and Rome. Scenes of the Idaho road depicted in the film were shot near Maupin, Oregon, on Oregon Route 216. Phoenix arrived in Portland two weeks before principal photography was to begin to do research and Van Sant remembered, "He seemed to be changing into this character". One of the film's directors of photography, Eric Alan Edwards, recalled that Phoenix "looked like a street kid", and "in a very raw way he wore that role. I've never seen anybody so intent on living his role". Several cast and crew members, including Michael Parker, Phoenix, Reeves and Flea lived together in a house in Portland during filming. A couple of times a week they would play music together. Due to the low budget, a typical day of shooting started at 6 am and ended at 11 pm.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: The film was not storyboarded and was made without a shot list. The campfire scene, originally just three pages, was expanded by Phoenix into an eight-page scene in which Mike professes his love for Scott, thereby making the character's homosexuality obvious, as opposed to Van Sant's more ambiguous original version. Phoenix described his process as his "own stream-of-consciousness, and this just happened to be one that was more than actor notes. Then Keanu and I refined it, worked on it but it was all done quickly. It was something I wrote down a night, two nights, before, and then I showed it to Keanu and Gus. And Gus kept the whole thing. He didn't pare it down. It's a long scene." Phoenix has said that neither he nor Reeves felt uncomfortable with "Idaho"s queerness. When asked if he was worried that playing a gay prostitute might hurt his public image, Reeves said, "Hurt my image? Who am I—a politician? [laughs softly] No. I'm an actor. That wasn't a problem."


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Eric Edwards shot the time-lapse photography shots on his own. They were not in the script and the film's producer was worried that he was using too much film. Van Sant originally had the screen go black when Mike passed out but was not satisfied with this approach. He used Edwards's footage to present Mike's perspective of "an altered sense of time". Some New Line executives disliked the Shakespeare scenes and wanted Van Sant to cut them, but foreign distributors wanted as much Shakespeare in the film as possible.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: The film's score was composed by pedal steel guitarist Bill Stafford. He recorded various arrangements for the film, including instrumental adaptations of "Home on the Range" and "America the Beautiful". Stafford won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film Music in 1992 for his score. Other original and selected songs from various artists were also featured in the film, including:


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: "My Own Private Idaho" premiered at the 48th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 1991. It also received screenings at the 17th Deauville Film Festival, 16th Toronto International Film Festival and the 29th New York Film Festival. The film was released in limited theaters in the United States on September 29, 1991. It grossed $6.4 million in North America, above its estimated budget of $2.5 million.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: The film achieved critical acclaim. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "The achievement of this film is that it wants to evoke that state of drifting need, and it does. There is no mechanical plot that has to grind to a Hollywood conclusion, and no contrived test for the heroes to pass."


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: In his review for "Rolling Stone" magazine, Peter Travers wrote, "Van Sant's cleareyed, unsentimental approach to a plot that pivots on betrayal and death is reflected in magnetic performances from Reeves and Phoenix." Vincent Canby, in his "New York Times" review, wrote, "The performances, especially by the two young stars, are as surprising as they are sure. Mr. Phoenix ("Dogfight") and Mr. Reeves (of the two "Bill and Ted" comedies) are very fine in what may be the two best roles they'll find in years. Roles of this density, for young actors, do not come by that often".


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: In his review for "Newsweek", David Ansen praised Phoenix's performance: "The campfire scene in which Mike awkwardly declares his unrequited love for Scott is a marvel of delicacy. In this, and every scene, Phoenix immerses himself so deeply inside his character you almost forget you've seen him before: it's a stunningly sensitive performance, poignant and comic at once." "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A−" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "When Van Sant shows us speeded-up images of clouds rolling past wheat fields, the familiar device transcends cliché, because it's tied to the way that Mike, in his benumbed isolation, experiences his own life—as a running piece of surrealism. The sheer, expressive beauty of those images haunted me for days." J. Hoberman, in his review for "The Village Voice", wrote, "While Phoenix vanishes with reckless triumph into his role, Reeves stands, or occasionally struts, uneasily beside his, unable to project even the self-mocking wit of Matt Dillon's star turn in "Drugstore Cowboy"." Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" wrote, "Gus Van Sant's sensibility is wholly original, wholly fresh. "My Own Private Idaho" adds a new ingredient: a kind of boho sweetness. I loved it."


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: Conversely, "USA Today" gave "My Own Private Idaho" two and half stars out of four, calling it "nothing but set pieces; tossed into a mix whose meaning is almost certainly private".


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: "Time" magazine's Richard Schickel wrote, "What plot it has is borrowed, improbably, from "Henry IV", and whenever anyone manages to speak an entire paragraph, it is usually a Shakespearean paraphrase. But this is a desperate imposition on an essentially inert film."


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: In his review for "The New Yorker", Terrence Rafferty wrote, "Van Sant has stranded the actor in a movie full of flat characters and bad ideas, but Phoenix walks through the picture, down the road after road after road, as if he were surrounded by glorious phantoms."


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "A tantalizing glimpse of a talented director and his stars all at the top of their respective games, Gus Van Sant's loose reworking of Henry IV is smart, sad and audacious." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 77 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: In 2005, the film was remastered by The Criterion Collection and released on a two-disc DVD set. The second disc features new interviews, outtakes and more information about the movie. This DVD set is accompanied by an illustrated 64-page-booklet featuring previously published articles, interviews with cast and crew, new essays by JT LeRoy and Amy Taubin, a 1991 article by Lance Loud, and reprinted interviews with Gus Van Sant, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. "Entertainment Weekly" gave the DVD a "B+" rating and wrote, "While you may enjoy watching "My Own Private Idaho", whether you choose to view this two-disc Criterion edition in its entirety depends on how much you enjoy watching people talking about "My Own Private Idaho"", and concluded, "But with all the various interpretations and influences, this is definitely a film worth talking about".


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: In 2015 The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray, based on a restored 4K digital transfer.


title: My Own Private Idaho

text: "My Own Private Idaho" received the Showtime International Critics Award at the 1991 Toronto Film Festival. River Phoenix received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival. In response, he said, "I don't want more awards. Venice is the most progressive festival. Anything else would be a token". Phoenix was the Best Actor runner-up in the 1991 New York Film Critics Circle awards and received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, becoming the second-youngest winner of the former. The film's six nominations at the 7th Independent Spirit Awards tied with "Hangin' with the Homeboys" for the most nominations at that ceremony. Winning three, it tied with "Rambling Rose" for the most awards.


title: Sukumar

text: Bandreddi Sukumar (born 23 January 1970) is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who works in Telugu cinema. He is known for his complex, multi-layered screenplays and for infusing grey shades in the character sketches of his protagonists. He is one of the highest paid directors in South Indian cinema.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar worked as a mathematics and physics lecturer at a junior college in Kakinada for nearly seven years before pursuing a directional career in films. He began working as a writer and worked with Editor Mohan before assisting V. V. Vinayak on "Dil" (2003). Sukumar made his directorial debut with "Arya" in 2004, whose success catapulted him to stardom. Sukumar won the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu and Nandi Award for Best Screenplay Writer for his work on "Arya".


title: Sukumar

text: His other notable films include "Arya 2" (2009), "100% Love" (2011), "" (2014), "Nannaku Prematho" (2016), "Rangasthalam" (2018), and "" (2021). "Rangasthalam" was the third highest grossing Telugu film at the time behind the "Baahubali" duology"." "Pushpa: The Rise" is the highest-grossing Indian film of 2021, and ranks among the highest-grossing Telugu films of all time.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar made his debut as a film producer under the banner Sukumar Writings with "Kumari 21F" (2015), whose story and screenplay were penned by him. In 2014, he received the K. V. Reddy Memorial award for his contributions to Telugu cinema.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar was born on 11 January 1970, in Mattaparru, a village near Malikipuram in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. His father Tirupathi Rao Naidu was a rice trader and his mother Veera Veni was a homemaker. Sukumar was the youngest of the six children of Naidu and Veni. At the age of 6, following the slaughter of a rooster he loved, Sukumar practiced vegetarianism for a long time.


title: Sukumar

text: He did his schooling from Zilla Parishad High School, Razole and graduated with a master's degree in mathematics. He later worked as a mathematics and physics lecturer in Aditya Junior college, Kakinada. After nearly seven years, Sukumar and his junior Prakash Toleti decided to do something creative as they opined that their life has become too mundane as a lecturer.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar and Toleti began their career as writers in Telugu cinema and worked as writers for a few films. After writing three scenes for Jayanth C. Paranjee "Bavagaru Bagunnara?" (1998), they were summoned by the college to help them in recruiting students. They walked out of the film on moral grounds. Due to lack of earnings, Sukumar briefly continued to teach students, earned money, and returned to film industry. He worked as an assistant director for "Manasichi Choodu" (1998). Sukumar later assisted Editor Mohan for "Kshemamga Velli Labhamga Randi" (2000) and "Hanuman Junction" (2001). Before making his directorial debut, Sukumar worked under V. V. Vinayak for "Dil" (2003) as an assistant director.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar began working on the script of his directorial debut "Arya" (2004) in Visakhapatnam before joining the sets of Vinayak's "Dil". Its producer Dil Raju assured that he would produce the film if "Dil" becomes a commercial success. Sukumar chose to narrate the story of a boy who confess his love to a girl right in the beginning, opposed to films like "Darr" (1993), "Kabhie Haan Kabhie Naa" (1994), and "Kaadhal Kondein" (2003) where the protagonist's love/obsession for the female lead is revealed towards the end, as he found that idea an "obsolete" one. Raju was impressed with Sukumar's script and Allu Arjun was selected as its protagonist after considering Ravi Teja, Nithin, and Prabhas. Anuradha Mehta and Siva Balaji were chosen for the other two lead roles. R. Rathnavelu and Devi Sri Prasad were chosen as the film's director of photography and music director respectively; they both collaborated with Sukumar in many of his future projects. "Arya" was commercially successful; it grossed 16 crore on a budget of 4 crore. The success of "Arya" catapulted Sukumar into stardom overnight. He earned the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu at the 52nd Filmfare Awards South ceremony, and the Best Screenplay Writer award at the annual Nandi Awards ceremony.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar then began working on the script of "Jagadam" (2007), a crime film starring Ram Pothineni and Isha Sahni. Unlike "Arya", "Jagadam" focused more on violence and in an interview with South Scope, Sukumar called the film an "act of bravado", adding that he "made it with an innocent passion", without thinking about the audience's response. "Jagadam" received mixed reviews and was a commercial failure. While Sify called the film a "not so much a plot-driven film" albeit praising the work of its technical crew, Rediff called it a "good effort". He then wrote and directed "Arya 2" (2009), which was promoted as the namesake sequel of his debut "Arya". It featured Allu Arjun, Kajal Aggarwal, and Navdeep in the lead roles and narrated the story of Arya, a psychotic orphan whose love for his friend Ajay and his colleague Geetha is never reciprocated. The film received mixed reviews from critics. However, "Arya 2" became one of the few successful Telugu films of the year, and was praised for its style quotient and music. Sukumar received a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu at the 57th Filmfare Awards South ceremony, but lost it to S. S. Rajamouli for "Magadheera". Rajamouli stated that he regards Sukumar as the best of the lot after watching "Arya 2", which according to Sukumar "was the most precious and sweetest thing I have heard about myself".


title: Sukumar

text: After a gap of two years, Sukumar's next directorial film "100% Love" (2011) was released. Sukumar envisioned the film's concept 15 years ago, which dealt with the simple conflicts couples face and the way they solve them, and made changes based on the technological and behavioural developments of the students in the colleges. "100% Love" featured Naga Chaitanya and Tamannaah in the lead roles and was produced by Allu Aravind and Bunny Vasu. "100% Love" was commercially successful; it received the Best Home-viewing Feature Film award at the annual Nandi Awards ceremony. Sukumar earned another nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu at the 59th Filmfare Awards South, and a nomination for the Best Director – Telugu at the 1st South Indian International Movie Awards.


title: Sukumar

text: After completing "100% Love", Sukumar began working on "", a psychological thriller keeping Mahesh Babu in mind as the protagonist as he felt that Mahesh had a universal appeal in terms of looks. The incident of a bus driver talking about a young boy who claims that his parents were murdered in that bus was taken as the story's base. He worked on the film's script for two months, and considered it as his dream project. "1: Nenokkadine" was released on 10 January 2014 globally and received mixed reviews from the critics. While Suresh Kavirayani of "Deccan Chronicle" opined that Sukumar "fails to deliver" and the story is "run of the mill", Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of "The Hindu" stated, "Habitual to watching films that begin with a great premise only to fall into the commercial trap of force-fit comic situations, it comes as a relief when Sukumar laces the psychological thriller with subtle wit that never takes the focus away from the plot". "1: Nenokkadine" collected approximately 28.9 crore share worldwide on a budget of 6070 crore, thus becoming a commercial failure. In 2014, he wrote and directed a 2.5 minute short film "I Am That Change" produced by and starring Allu Arjun. Upon its release, the short film received viral response online and was acclaimed by many including celebrities for its concept and execution.


title: Sukumar

text: Following the demise of his father Tirupathi Naidu, Sukumar decided to direct "Nannaku Prematho" starring N. T. Rama Rao Jr. and Rakul Preet Singh in the lead roles. "Nannaku Prematho", which was Rama Rao Jr.'s 25th film as an actor, dealt with an emotional relationship between a father and his son spanning the last 30 days of the father's life. Released on 13 January 2016, "Nannaku Prematho" received positive reviews from the critics. Pranita Jonnalagedda of "The Times of India" stated that the viewers see ups every time when Sukumar "decides to listen to his inner self and gives us some interestingly conceived sequences" and downs come whenever he "gives in to the prerequisite mandates of Telugu cinema". An above average grosser at the domestic box office, "Nannaku Prematho" became the third highest grossing Telugu film of all time in the overseas market. His 2018 period action film with Ram Charan titled "Rangasthalam" received positive critical feedback with particular praise for Ram Charan's performance, and Sukumar's direction and screenplay. "Rangasthalam" ended up as one of the highest-grossing Telugu films of all time.


title: Sukumar

text: Post the success of "Rangasthalam", Sukumar started working on the period action drama, , starring Allu Arjun and Rashmika. Budgeted between 170200 crores, it was released as a pan-Indian film and went on to get amazing commercial reception in Telugu, Hindi, and Tamil languages to earn more than 350 crores by the end of its run. Post the pan-Indian success of Pushpa: The Rise, Sukumar announced that the sequel, Pushpa 2: The Rule, would commence production from summer 2022. In 2020 September, Sukumar announced that he would be collaborating with Vijay Devarakonda after completing the Pushpa duology. In 2022 February, he announced his collaboration with Chiranjeevi, which will commence post the completion of his film with Vijay Devarakonda.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar had a relationship with Thabitha, whom he met first at the Sudarshan Theatre, RTC X Roads, Hyderabad during the screening of his directorial debut "Arya" (2004). They married in 2009 in the presence of his parents and sister. Though Thabitha's parents opposed Sukumar for being a film technician, they accepted their alliance later. The couple have a daughter and a son.


title: Sukumar

text: As a writer, Sukumar is influenced by the works of Gudipati Venkatachalam, Yandamuri Veerendranath, and Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani. In an interview with "Deccan Chronicle", he revealed that each of the romantic scenes in his films are inspired from the writings of either Veerendranath or Sulochana Rani. Sukumar mentioned that Martin Scorsese has had a huge influence on him. He uses non-linear screenplay for most of his films and few sequences of most of his films involve revelation of finest details and re-visiting a scene again and again. His screenplays are mostly complex and multi-layered which earned him the reputation of being an intelligent screenplay writer. In an interview of "The Times of India" in January 2014, Sukumar said that emotions play a key role in his films, stating that a film "may have multiple subplots, but in the end, it's the emotional curve that connects with the audience". Because of improvising the sequences on the sets and making changes to already filmed portions, his films took long time to complete their production phases.


title: Sukumar

text: In most of his films, Sukumar's protagonists are shown to be characterised with grey shades. Y. Sunita Chowdary of "The Hindu" commented that Sukumar "revels in giving a slight twist to his protagonist, in his background and character" and leaves the audience to understand him as he "unties the knots during narration and justifies his behaviour and makes us root for him". Karthik Keramalu of CNN-IBN, in his review of "Kumari 21F", stated that Sukumar's lead characters are "psychologically wired differently", adding that at least one of the characters in his films "behaves in a way that will amuse the audience and the other characters present in the film". Regarding the same, Sukumar said, "We all have a lot of emotions and we suppress most of them fearing rejection. Instead we sport a smile and move on in this world. Problems arise when we don’t enjoy all feelings like jealousy, selfishness and don’t express them. To achieve something, there must be a driving force and that could be jealousy which you term as negative".


title: Sukumar

text: Except for the short film "I Am That Change" whose music was composed by Sai Karthik, Sukumar chose Devi Sri Prasad to compose the soundtrack and background score for all the films he directed. Sukumar worked with cinematographer R. Rathnavelu for "Arya", "Jagadam", and "1: Nenokkadine". When Raju asked Sukumar about the budget to be allotted to "Arya", Sukumar said that he first wants Rathnavelu on board. In an interview to "The Hindu" in March 2012, Rathnavelu said, "Sukumar's speciality is he can give you five different ways to solve every problem you encounter. He can get to the crux of the problem and figure out the best possible method to resolve it". Because of their friendship with Sukumar, neither Rathnavelu nor Prasad charged any remuneration for his maiden production venture "Kumari 21F". He worked with Venkat R. Prasad, Vijay C Chakravarthy, and Mirosław Kuba Brożek for "100% Love", "Nannaku Prematho", and "" respectively.


title: Sukumar

text: "Sukumar Writings" (or "SW") is the production company of Sukumar. Sukumar Writings' first venture was Kumari 21F, which had Devi Sri Prasad as the music composer and R. Rathnavelu as the director of cinematography. Ashok Banreddi and Thomas Reddy joined as co-producers with P.A. Motion pictures. The film was co-produced by Vijaya Prasad Bandreddi and Thomas Reddy.


title: Sukumar

text: Sukumar provided the story and screenplay for "Kumari 21F", his debut feature film as a co-producer which was directed by his assistant Palnati Surya Pratap. He took inspiration from his college days in Razole where a young woman went to a picnic with some young men; a major undertaking for a woman at the time. Rumours were spread and the woman was labelled as a "loose" character, which stayed in Sukumar's mind. Produced on a budget of 615 crore, "Kumari 21F" grossed 38 crore and became the 12th highest grossing Telugu film of the year. Siddharth Rao of "The Times of India" stated, "In an industry where a damsel-in-distress-wooed-and-saved-by-an-angry-young-man is the norm, this is refreshing. Kudos to the writer Sukumar for giving yet another off-beat story with characters that can't be put into a box".


title: René Magritte

text: René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.


title: René Magritte

text: René Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in 1898. He was the oldest son of Léopold Magritte, a tailor and textile merchant, and Régina (née Bertinchamps), who was a milliner before she got married. Little is known about Magritte's early life. He began lessons in drawing in 1910.


title: René Magritte

text: On 24 February 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre at Châtelet. It was not her first suicide attempt. Her body was not discovered until 12 March. According to a legend, 13-year-old Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water, but recent research has discredited this story, which may have originated with the family nurse. Supposedly, when his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte's paintings in 1927–1928 of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including "Les Amants".


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. During 1916–1918, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring. He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz. The paintings he produced during 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger.


title: René Magritte

text: From December 1920 until September 1921, Magritte served in the Belgian infantry in the Flemish town of Beverlo near Leopoldsburg. In 1922, Magritte married Georgette Berger, whom he had met as a child in 1913. Also during 1922, the poet Marcel Lecomte showed Magritte a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico's "The Song of Love" (painted in 1914). The work brought Magritte to tears; he described this as "one of the most moving moments of my life: my eyes "saw" thought for the first time." The paintings of the Belgian symbolist painter William Degouve de Nuncques have also been noted as an influence on Magritte, specifically the former's painting "The Blind House" (1892) and Magritte's variations or series on "The Empire of Lights".


title: René Magritte

text: In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, "The Lost Jockey" ("Le jockey perdu"), and held his first solo exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition.


title: René Magritte

text: Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years. In 1929, he exhibited at Goemans Gallery in Paris with Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp, de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Picabia, Picasso and Yves Tanguy.


title: René Magritte

text: On 15 December 1929, Magritte participated in the last publication of La Revolution Surrealiste No. 12, where he published his essay "Les mots et les images", where words play with images in sync with his work "The Treachery of Images".


title: René Magritte

text: Galerie Le Centaure closed at the end of 1929, ending Magritte's contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising. He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932, Magritte joined the Communist Party, which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years. In 1936 he had his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, followed by an exposition at the London Gallery in 1938.


title: René Magritte

text: Between 1934 and 1937, Magritte drew film posters under the pseudonym 'Emair' for the German sound film distributor Tobis Klangfilm. The Leuven City Archive preserves seven posters designed by Magritte.


title: René Magritte

text: During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent-free in his London home, where Magritte studied architecture and painted. James is featured in two of Magritte's works painted in 1937, "Le Principe du Plaisir" ("The Pleasure Principle") and "La Reproduction Interdite", a painting also known as "Not to Be Reproduced".


title: René Magritte

text: During the of Belgium in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his "Renoir period", as a reaction to his feelings of alienation and abandonment that came with living in German-occupied Belgium.


title: René Magritte

text: In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto "Surrealism in Full Sunlight". During 1947–48, Magritte's "Vache period," he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques, and de Chiricos—a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period. This venture was undertaken alongside his brother Paul and fellow Surrealist and "surrogate son" Marcel Mariën, to whom had fallen the task of selling the forgeries. At the end of 1948, Magritte returned to the style and themes of his pre-war surrealistic art.


title: René Magritte

text: In France, Magritte's work has been showcased in a number of retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2016–2017). In the United States his work has been featured in three retrospective exhibitions: at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992, and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. An exhibition entitled "The Fifth Season" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018 focused on the work of his later years.


title: René Magritte

text: Politically, Magritte stood to the left, and retained close ties to the Communist Party, even in the post-war years. However, he was critical of the functionalist cultural policy of the Communist left, stating that "Class consciousness is as necessary as bread; but that does not mean that workers must be condemned to bread and water and that wanting chicken and champagne would be harmful. (...) For the Communist painter, the justification of artistic activity is to create pictures that can represent mental luxury." While remaining committed to the political left, he thus advocated a certain autonomy of art. Spiritually, Magritte was an agnostic.


title: René Magritte

text: Popular interest in Magritte's work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced pop, minimalist, and conceptual art. In 2005 he was 9th in the Walloon version of "De Grootste Belg" ("The Greatest Belgian"); in the Flemish version he was 18th.


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte married Georgette Berger in June 1922. Georgette was the daughter of a butcher in Charleroi, and first met Magritte when she was 13 and he was 15. They met again seven years later in Brussels in 1920 and Georgette, who had also studied art, became Magritte's model, muse, and wife.


title: René Magritte

text: In 1936, Magritte's marriage became troubled when he met a young performance artist, Sheila Legge, and began an affair with her. Magritte arranged for his friend, Paul Colinet, to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between Georgette and Colinet. Magritte and his wife did not reconcile until 1940.


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on 15 August 1967, aged 68, and was interred in Schaerbeek Cemetery, Evere, Brussels.


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, "The Treachery of Images" ("La trahison des images"), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe ""Ceci n'est pas une pipe"" ("This is not a pipe"), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an "image" of a pipe. It does not "satisfy emotionally"—when Magritte was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco.


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte's work has been described by Suzi Gablik as "a systematic attempt to disrupt any dogmatic view of the physical world." Therefore, when Magritte painted rocks – which are commonly understood to be heavy, inanimate objects – he often painted them floating cloud-like in the sky, or painted scenes of people and their environment turned to stone.


title: René Magritte

text: Among Magritte's works are a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings, such as "Perspective I" and "Perspective II", which are copies of David's "Portrait of Madame Récamier" and Manet's "The Balcony", respectively, but with the human subjects replaced by coffins. Elsewhere, Magritte challenges the difficulty of artwork to convey meaning with a recurring motif of an easel, as in his "The Human Condition" series (1933, 1935) or "The Promenades of Euclid" (1955), wherein the spires of a castle are "painted" upon the ordinary streets which the canvas overlooks. In a letter to André Breton, he wrote of "The Human Condition" that it was irrelevant if the scene behind the easel differed from what was depicted upon it, "but the main thing was to eliminate the difference between a view seen from outside and from inside a room." The windows in some of these pictures are framed with heavy drapes, suggesting a theatrical motif.


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte's style of surrealism is more representational than the "automatic" style of artists such as Joan Miró. Magritte's use of ordinary objects in unfamiliar spaces is joined to his desire to create poetic imagery. He described the act of painting as "the art of putting colors side by side in such a way that their real aspect is effaced, so that familiar objects—the sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffiti—become united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new."


title: René Magritte

text: René Magritte described his paintings as "visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?'. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte's constant play with reality and illusion has been attributed to the early death of his mother. Psychoanalysts who have examined bereaved children have hypothesized that Magritte's back and forth play with reality and illusion reflects his "constant shifting back and forth from what he wishes—'mother is alive'—to what he knows—'mother is dead'."


title: René Magritte

text: More recently, Patricia Allmer has demonstrated the influence of fairground attractions on Magritte’s art – from carousels and circuses to panoramas and stage magic.


title: René Magritte

text: Contemporary artists have been greatly influenced by René Magritte's stimulating examination of the fickleness of images. Some artists who have been influenced by Magritte's works include John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Jan Verdoodt, Martin Kippenberger, Duane Michals, Storm Thorgerson, and Luis Rey. Some of the artists' works integrate direct references and others offer contemporary viewpoints on his abstract fixations.


title: René Magritte

text: Magritte's use of simple graphic and everyday imagery has been compared to that of the pop-artists. His influence in the development of pop art has been widely recognized, although Magritte himself discounted the connection. He considered the pop artists' representation of "the world as it is" as "their error," and contrasted their attention to the transitory with his concern for "the feeling for the real, insofar as it is permanent." The 2006–2007 LACMA exhibition "Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images" examined the relationship between Magritte and contemporary art.


title: René Magritte

text: The 1960s brought a great increase in public awareness of Magritte's work. Thanks to his "sound knowledge of how to present objects in a manner both suggestive and questioning", his works have been frequently adapted or plagiarized in advertisements, posters, book covers and the like. Examples include album covers such as "Beck-Ola" by The Jeff Beck Group (reproducing Magritte's "The Listening Room"), Alan Hull's 1973 album Pipedream which used "The Philosopher's Lamp", Jackson Browne's 1974 album "Late for the Sky", with artwork inspired by "The Empire of Light", Oregon's album "Oregon" referring to "Carte Blanche", the Firesign Theatre's album "Just Folks... A Firesign Chat" based on "The Mysteries of the Horizon", and Styx's album "The Grand Illusion" incorporating an adaptation of the painting "The Blank Signature (Le Blanc Seing)". The Nigerian rapper Jesse Jagz's 2014 album "" has cover art inspired by Magritte's works. In 2015 the band Punch Brothers used "The Lovers" as the cover of their album "The Phosphorescent Blues".


title: René Magritte

text: The logo of Apple Corps, The Beatles' company, is inspired by Magritte's "Le Jeu de Mourre", a 1966 painting. Paul Simon's song "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War," inspired by a photograph of Magritte by Lothar Wolleh, appears on the 1983 album "Hearts and Bones". John Cale wrote a song titled "Magritte". The song appears on the 2003 album "HoboSapiens". Tom Stoppard wrote a 1970 Surrealist play called "After Magritte". John Berger scripted the book "Ways of Seeing" using images and ideologies regarding Magritte. Douglas Hofstadter's 1979 book "Gödel, Escher, Bach" uses Magritte works for many of its illustrations. "The Treachery of Images" was used in a major plot in L. J. Smith's 1994 novel "The Forbidden Game". Magritte's imagery has inspired filmmakers ranging from the surrealist Marcel Mariën to mainstream directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Bernardo Bertolucci, Nicolas Roeg, John Boorman and Terry Gilliam.


title: René Magritte

text: According to the 1998 documentary "The Fear of God: 25 Years of "The Exorcist"", the iconic poster shot for the film "The Exorcist" was inspired by Magritte's "The Empire of Light".


title: René Magritte

text: In the 1992 movie "Toys", Magritte's work was influential in the entire movie but specifically in a break-in scene, featuring Robin Williams and Joan Cusack in a music video hoax. Many of Magritte's works were used directly in that scene. In the 1999 movie "The Thomas Crown Affair" starring Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo and Denis Leary, the Magritte painting "The Son of Man" was prominently featured as part of the plot line.


title: René Magritte

text: Gary Numan's 1979 album "The Pleasure Principle" was a reference to Magritte's painting of the same name.


title: René Magritte

text: In John Green's fictional novel (2012) and movie (2014), "The Fault in Our Stars", the main character Hazel Grace Lancaster wears a tee shirt with Magritte's, "The Treachery of Images", (This is not a pipe.) Just prior to leaving her mother to visit her favorite author, Hazel explains the drawing to her confused mother and states that the author's novel has "several Magritte references", clearly hoping the author will be pleased with the reference.


title: René Magritte

text: The official music video of Markus Schulz's "Koolhaus" under his Dakota guise was inspired from Magritte's works.


title: René Magritte

text: The Magritte Museum opened to the public on 30 May 2009 in Brussels. Housed in the five-level neo-classical Hotel Altenloh, on the Place Royale, it displays some 200 original Magritte paintings, drawings and sculptures including "The Return", "Scheherazade" and "The Empire of Light". This multidisciplinary permanent installation is the biggest Magritte archive anywhere and most of the work is directly from the collection of the artist's widow, Georgette Magritte, and from Irene Hamoir Scutenaire, who was his primary collector. Additionally, the museum includes Magritte's experiments with photography from 1920 on and the short Surrealist films he made from 1956 on.


title: René Magritte

text: Another museum is located at 135 Rue Esseghem in Brussels in Magritte's former home, where he lived with his wife from 1930 to 1954. "Olympia" (1948), a nude portrait of Magritte's wife reportedly worth about US$1.1 million, was stolen from this museum on the morning of 24 September 2009 by two armed men. It was returned to the museum in January 2012, in exchange for a 50,000-Euro payment from the museum's insurer. The thieves reportedly agreed to the deal because they were unable to sell the painting on the black market due to its fame.


title: René Magritte

text: The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas holds one of the most significant collections of dada and surrealist work in the United States, including dozens of oil paintings, gouaches, drawings, and bronzes by René Magritte. John de Menil and Dominique de Menil initiated and funded the catalogue raisonné of Magritte's oeuvre, published between 1992 and 1997 in five volumes, with an addendum in 2012. Major oil paintings in the Menil Collection include: "The Meaning of Night" (1927), "The Eternally Obvious" (1930), "The Rape" (1934), "The Listening Room" (1952), and "Golconda" (1953) which are typically exhibited a few at a time on a rotating basis with other surrealist works in the collection.


title: Santería

text: Santería (), also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional Yoruba religion of West Africa, the Roman Catholic form of Christianity, and Spiritism. There is no central authority in control of Santería and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as "creyentes" ("believers").


title: Santería

text: Santería is polytheistic and revolves around deities called "oricha". Deriving their names and attributes from traditional Yoruba divinities, they are equated with Roman Catholic saints. Each human is believed to have a personal link to a particular oricha who influences their personality. Various myths are told about these oricha, who are regarded as subservient to Olodumare, a transcendent creator deity. Olodumare is believed to be the ultimate source of "aché", a supernatural force permeating the universe that can be manipulated through ritual actions. Practitioners venerate the oricha at altars, either in the home or in the "casa" (temple), which is run by a "santero" (priest) or "santera" (priestess). Membership of the casa requires initiation. Offerings to the oricha include fruit, liquor, flowers and sacrificed animals. A central ritual is the "toque de santo", in which practitioners drum, sing, and dance to encourage an oricha to possess one of their members and thus communicate with them. Several forms of divination are used, including Ifá, to decipher messages from the oricha. Offerings are also given to the spirits of the dead, with some practitioners identifying as spirit mediums. Healing rituals and the preparation of herbal remedies and talismans also play a prominent role.


title: Santería

text: Santería developed among Afro-Cuban communities following the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to 19th centuries. It formed through the blending of the traditional religions brought to Cuba by enslaved West Africans, the majority of them Yoruba, and Roman Catholicism, the only religion legally permitted on the island by the Spanish colonial government. In urban areas of West Cuba, these traditions merged with Spiritist ideas to form the earliest casas during the late 19th century. After the Cuban War of Independence resulted in an independent republic in 1898, its new constitution enshrined freedom of religion. Santería nevertheless remained marginalized by Cuba's Roman Catholic, Euro-Cuban establishment, which typically viewed it as "brujería" (witchcraft). In the 1960s, growing emigration following the Cuban Revolution spread Santería abroad. The late 20th century saw growing links between Santería and related traditions in West Africa and the Americas, such as Haitian Vodou and Brazilian Candomblé. Since the late 20th century, some practitioners have emphasized a "Yorubization" process to remove Roman Catholic influences and created forms of Santería closer to traditional Yoruba religion.


title: Santería

text: Practitioners of Santería are primarily found in Cuba's La Habana and Matanzas provinces, although communities exist across the island and abroad, especially among the Cuban diasporas of Mexico and the United States. The religion remains most common among working-class Afro-Cuban communities although is also practiced by individuals of other class and ethnic backgrounds. The number of initiates is estimated to be in the high hundreds of thousands. These initiates serve as diviners and healers for a much larger range of adherents of varying levels of fidelity, making the precise numbers of those involved in Santería difficult to determine. Many of those involved also identify as practitioners of another religion, typically Roman Catholicism.


title: Santería

text: The term "Santería" translates into English as the "way of the saints". This term was first used by scholarly commentators in the 1930s and later spread among the religion's practitioners themselves. It has become the most popular name for the religion, although some practitioners find it offensive. A common alternative is "Regla de Ocha", meaning "the rule of ocha", "ocha" being a term for the religion's deities. Some adherents regard this as the religion's "official" name. The tradition has also been called "Lucumí", in reference to the colonial Spanish term for the Yoruba people, or alternatively "La Religión Lucumí" ("the Lucumí religion") or "Regla Lucumí" ("the rule of Lucumí").


title: Santería

text: Santería is an Afro-Caribbean religion, and more specifically an Afro-Cuban religion. In Cuba it is sometimes described as "the national religion", although it has also spread abroad. Santería's roots are in the traditional religions brought to Cuba by enslaved West Africans, the majority of them Yoruba, between the 16th and 19th centuries. In Cuba, these religions mixed with the Roman Catholicism introduced by Spanish colonialists. Roman Catholic saints were conflated with West African deities, while enslaved Africans adopted Roman Catholic rituals and sacramentals. In the 19th century, elements from Spiritism—a French variant of Spiritualism—were drawn into the mix, with Santería emerging as a distinct religion in western Cuba during the late 19th century.


title: Santería

text: Although Santería is the best known of the Afro-Cuban religions, and the most popular, it is not the only one. Others include Palo, which derives from practices originating in the Congo Basin, and Abakuá, which has its origins among the secret male societies practiced among the Efik-Ibibio. Many practitioners of Palo and Abakuá also follow Santería. Another Afro-Cuban religion is Arará, which derives from practices among the Ewe and Fon; although its origins are not Yoruba, it is sometimes considered a branch of Santería rather than a separate system.


title: Santería

text: Santería also has commonalities with other West African and West African-derived traditions in the Americas which collectively form the "Orisha religion", "Orisha Tradition", or "Orisha worship." These include Haitian Vodou and Brazilian Candomblé, sometimes characterized as "sister religions" of Santería due to their shared origins in Yoruba traditional religion.


title: Santería

text: Santería is a flexible and eclectic tradition, with considerable variation in how it is practiced. There is no strict orthodoxy, no key sacred text, and no central authority in control of the entire religion. It has absorbed elements from many cultures that it has encountered, such as that of the Chinese migrants who came to Cuba in the 19th century, while in continental North America, Santería has also incorporated influences from Central American and Mexican religions as well as from New Age and modern Pagan practices. As well as it being common for Cubans to idiosyncratically blend ideas from different religions, many of Santería's practitioners claim multiple religious allegiances. Santería's adherents often consider themselves to be Roman Catholics—some priests and priestesses of Santería refuse to initiate anyone who is not a baptised Roman Catholic—and others consider themselves to be Spiritists, Hindus, Vodouists, or Jews.


title: Santería

text: Different vocabulary indicates the level of a practitioner's involvement, with the various terms sometimes reflecting different political and social agendas. Practitioners of both Santería and other Afro-Cuban religions are called "creyentes" ("believers"). Some people external to the religion have referred to its practitioners as "santerians" although this is not used by adherents themselves. A non-initiate, including those who may attend public Santería ceremonies, is an "aleyo" ("stranger"); these non-initiates make up the majority of people involved in the religion. Initiates are known as "santero" if male, and "santera" if female, although these two terms have sometimes been used for anyone, initiate or not, who participates in the religion. Alternative terms for an initiate are "babalocha" or "babaloricha" ("father-deity") if male and an "iyalocha" or "iyaloricha" ("mother-deity") if female. Those who have a sustained engagement with the religion are also referred to as "omoricha" ("children of the oricha"), "aboricha" ("one who worships the oricha"), and an "oloricha" ("one who belongs to the oricha").


title: Santería

text: Santería teaches the existence of an overarching divinity, known as Olodumare, Olofi, or Olorun. Practitioners believe that this divinity created the universe but takes little interest in human affairs. As this creator deity is inaccessible to humanity, no major offerings are dedicated to it. The three facets of this divinity are understood slightly differently; Olodumare represents the divine essence of all that exists, Olorun is regarded as the creator of all beings, while Olofi dwells in all creation. In taking a triplicate form, this deity displays similarities with the Christian Trinity.


title: Santería

text: Santeria is polytheistic, revolving around deities called "oricha", "ocha", or "santos" ("saints"). The term "oricha" can be both singular and plural, because Lucumí, the ritual language of Santería, lacks plural markers for nouns. Practitioners believe that some oricha were created before humanity, while others were originally humans who became oricha through some remarkable quality. Some practitioners perceive the oricha as facets of Olodumare, and thus think that by venerating them they are ultimately worshipping the creator god. Certain oricha are female, others male. They are not regarded as wholly benevolent, being capable of both harming and helping humans, and displaying a mix of emotions, virtues, and vices.


title: Santería

text: Origin myths and other stories about the oricha are called "patakíes". Each oricha is understood to "rule over" a particular aspect of the universe, and they have been described as personifications of different facets of the natural world. They live in a realm called "orún", which is contrasted with "ayé", the realm of humanity. Oricha each have their own "caminos" ("roads"), or manifestations, a concept akin to the Hindu concept of avatars. The number of caminos an oricha has varies, with some having several hundred. Practitioners believe that oricha can physically inhabit certain objects, among them stones and cowrie shells, which are deemed sacred. Each oricha is also associated with specific songs, rhythms, colors, numbers, animals, and foodstuffs.


title: Santería

text: Among the oricha are the four "warrior deities", or "guerrors": Eleguá, Ogun, Ochosi, and Osun. Eleguá is viewed as the guardian of the crossroads and thresholds; he is the messenger between humanity and the oricha, and most ceremonies start by requesting his permission to continue. He is depicted as being black on one side and red on the other, and practitioners will frequently place a cement head decorated with cowrie shells that represents Eleguá behind their front door, guarding the threshold to the street. The second "guerro" is Ogun, viewed as the oricha of weapons and war, and also of iron and blacksmiths. The third, Ochosi, is associated with woods and hunting, while the fourth, Osun, is a protector who warns practitioners when they are in danger.


title: Santería

text: Perhaps the most popular oricha, Changó or Shango is associated with lightning and fire. Another prominent oricha is Yemaja, the deity associated with maternity, fertility, and the sea. Ochún is the oricha of rivers and of romantic love, while Oyá is a warrior associated with wind, lightning, and death, and is viewed as the guardian of the cemetery. Obatalá is the oricha of truth and justice and is deemed responsible for helping to mould humanity. Babalú Ayé is the oricha associated with disease and its curing, while Osain is linked to herbs and healing. Orula is the oricha of divination, who in Santería's mythology was present at the creation of humanity and thus is aware of everyone's destiny. Ibeyi takes the form of twins who protect children. Olokún is the patron oricha of markets, while his wife Olosá is associated with lagoons. Agagyú is the oricha of volcanoes and the wasteland. Some oricha are deemed antagonistic to others; Changó and Ogun are for instance enemies.


title: Santería

text: Although in Santería the term "santo" is regarded as a synonym of "oricha" and is not a literal reference to Christian saints, the oricha are often conflated with one or more Roman Catholic saints based on similar attributes. For instance, the Holy Infant of Atocha, a depiction of Christ as a child, is conflated with Eleguá, who is seen as having a childlike nature. Babalú Ayé, who is associated with disease, is often identified with the Catholic Saint Lazarus, who rose from the dead, while Changó is conflated with Santa Barbara because they both wear red. Cuba's patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, is equated with Ochún. It has been argued that Yoruba slaves initially linked their traditional deities with Christian saints as a means of concealing their continued worship of the former from the Spanish authorities, or as a means of facilitating social mobility by assimilating into Roman Catholic social norms.


title: Santería

text: Santería's focus is on cultivating a reciprocal relationship with the oricha, with adherents believing that these deities can intercede in human affairs and help people if they are appeased. Practitioners argue that each person is "born to" a particular oricha, whether or not they devote themselves to that deity. This is a connection that, adherents believe, has been set before birth. Practitioners refer to this oricha as one that "rules the head" of an individual; it is their "owner of the head". If the oricha is male then it is described as the individual's "father"; if the oricha is female then it is the person's "mother". This oricha is deemed to influence the individual's personality, and can be recognised through examining the person's personality traits, or through divination.


title: Santería

text: To gain the protection of a particular oricha, practitioners are encouraged to make offerings to them, sponsor ceremonies in their honor, and live in accordance with their wishes, as determined through divination. Practitioners are concerned at the prospect of offending the oricha.


title: Santería

text: Creyentes believe that the oricha can communicate with humans through divination, prayers, dreams, music, and dance. Many practitioners also describe how they "read" messages from the oricha in everyday interactions and events. For instance, a practitioner who meets a child at a traffic intersection may interpret this as a message from Eleguá, who is often depicted as a child and who is perceived as the "guardian" of the crossroads. At that point the practitioner may turn to divination to determine the precise meaning of the encounter. The information obtained from these messages may then help practitioners make decisions about their life.


title: Santería

text: Santería teaches that the human head contains a person's essence, their "eledá" or "orí". It maintains that before birth, the eledá goes before Olodumare, where it is given its essential character, and forms a link with the oricha who becomes "the owner of the head". The concept of the eledá derives from Yoruba traditional religion, where it is seen as a person's "spiritual double". In Santería, this concept idea has syncretised with Roman Catholic beliefs about guardian angels and Spiritist notions of the "protecciones" or protector spirits. There is no strict orthodoxy on this issue and thus interpretations differ. Practitioners often believe that everyone has a specific destiny, their "destino" (destiny) or "camino" (road), although their fate is not completely predetermined.


title: Santería

text: Ancestor veneration is important in Santería. The religion entails propitiating the spirits of the dead, known as "egun", "espíritus", or "muertos". Practitioners believe that the dead must be treated with respect, awe, and kindness; they are consulted at all ceremonies. Although the dead are not deemed as powerful as the oricha, they are still thought capable of assisting the living, with whom they can communicate through dreams, intuition, and spirit possession. Santería teaches that a person can learn to both see and communicate with the dead. Practitioners will often provide offerings, typically seven glasses of water, to the egun to placate and please them. Especially propitiated are those egun regarded as ancestors; these ancestors can include both hereditary forebears or past members of one's congregation, with practitioners believing that a creyente becomes an ancestor when they die.


title: Santería

text: Adherents believe that everyone has a "cuadro espiritual" ("spiritual portrait" or "spiritual picture") of egun who protect them. Individuals can have as many as 25 "protectores", or protective spirits. The religion maintains that all people have multiple egun accompanying them at all times, and that these can be benevolent, malevolent, or a mix of both. Practitioners also believe that the number and identities of these spirits can be determined through divination. It draws a distinction between evolved spirits, who can help those they are attached to, and unevolved spirits, who lack the wisdom and skill to be useful and instead cause havoc. Santería teaches that through offerings and prayers, individuals can help some of their unevolved spirits to become evolved. Santería also divides the spirits into categories that each exhibit different traits, reflecting stereotypes about different social groups, with such spirits often portrayed as African, Haitian, Gypsy, Arab, or Plains Indian. The "gitano" (gypsy) spirits for instance are believed capable of foreseeing impending troubles and diagnosing illnesses while the "congo" spirits of Africa are perceived as strong-willed, powerful, and adept at guiding people through hostile circumstances.


title: Santería

text: "Aché" is a major cosmological concept in Yoruba traditional religion and has been transferred to Santería. Aché is regarded as the organizing power of the cosmos; the Hispanic studies scholars Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert referred to it as "a spiritual-mystical energy or power found in varying degrees and in many forms throughout the universe". The medical anthropologist Johan Wedel described it as "life force" or "divine force", while the folklorist Michael Atwood Mason called aché the "ritual generative power". The ethnomusicologist Katherine Hagedorn described aché as "the realized and inherent divine potential in all aspects of life, even in apparently inert objects." She added that ""Aché" is neither good nor bad; rather, "aché" is motion".


title: Santería

text: While deeming Olodumare the ultimate embodiment of aché, creyentes believe that aché permeates all life, and is present in both the visible and invisible world. It is nevertheless deemed to sometimes congregate more densely, for instance in the forces of nature, specific locales, and in certain human individuals; initiates are believed to attract more of it than other humans. Santería holds that aché can emanate from the human body via speech, song, dance, and drumming, and can be transmitted through such acts as singing praise songs for the oricha or sacrificing an animal. Among practitioners, aché is sometimes described as conveying notions of luck, health, and prosperity, and has the power to fortify a person's health.


title: Santería

text: Santería has standards for behavior expected of practitioners, encouraging behaviors influenced by the mythological stories about the oricha. The religion presents strict rules regarding how to interact with other people and with the supernatural, for instance placing emphasis on respect for elders and superiors. A general attitude in Santería is that if an individual maintains good character, the oricha will aid them. Practitioners generally take socially conservative stances, having high regard for traditional family structures, marriage, fidelity, and child-rearing; adherents in the United States often adopt more progressive stances on issues surrounding gender and sexuality than their counterparts in Cuba.


title: Santería

text: The religion is non-dualistic and does not view the universe as being divided between good and evil; rather, all things are perceived as being complementary and relative. Several academics have described Santería as having a "here-and-now" ethos distinct from that of Christianity, and the social scientist Mercedes C. Sandoval suggested that many Cubans chose Santería over Roman Catholicism or Spiritism because it emphasizes techniques for dealing with pragmatic problems in life. In the U.S., some African American adherents have contrasted what they regard as the African-derived ethos of Santería with the non-African origins of Christianity, thus adopting it as a religion readily combined with black nationalism.


title: Santería

text: The scholar of religion Mary Ann Clark labelled Santería a "female oriented and female normative" religion, arguing that all of its practitioners are expected to take on "female gender roles" during its rituals. Women can hold the highest leadership positions, although restrictions are placed on them while menstruating. Similar restrictions are also placed on homosexual males, traditionally prohibiting them from taking part in certain forms of divination and ritual drumming. Many gay men are nevertheless santeros, and some santeras are lesbians. A stereotype exists that all male Santería priests are homosexual, and members of other Afro-Cuban traditions with a more masculinist orientation, such as Palo, have often denigrated it for being dominated by women and men they consider to be "womanly".


title: Santería

text: Santería is a practice-oriented religion; ritual correctness is considered more important than belief. It has an elaborate system of ritual, with its rites termed "ceremonias" (ceremonies). Most of its activities revolve around the oricha and focus on solving the problems of everyday life. Practitioners usually use the term "work" in reference to ritual activity; thus "working "ocha"" describes its rites.


title: Santería

text: Santería is an initiatory religion, one which is organized around a structured hierarchy. An ethos of secrecy pervades many of its practices, with initiates often refusing to discuss certain topics with non-initiates. For this reason, Mason described Santería as a secret society. For ritual purposes, the Lucumí language is often used. Sometimes referred to as "la lengua de los orichas" ("the language of the oricha"), it is regarded as a divine language through which practitioners can contact the deities. Although some practitioners are uncomfortable using it, most initiates know tens or hundreds of Lucumí words and phrases. Most Cubans do not understand the Lucumí language, barring a few words that have filtered into Cuban Spanish. Lucumí derives from the Yoruba language, although it has become "increasingly fragmented and unintelligible" since the 19th century. As Yoruba transitioned into Lucumí, the Yoruba pronunciations of many words were forgotten, and in the early 21st century some practitioners have studied the Yoruba language to better understand the original meaning of Lucumí words.


title: Santería

text: Rituals take place in the "casa templo" ("house of worship"), "" ("house of saints"), "casa de religión" ("house of religion"), or "ilé" ("house"). This "casa" ("house") is usually the personal home of a santero or santera. It will typically have an inner room, the "igbodu" ("sacred grove of the festival"), where the most important rituals take place. There will also be an "eyá aránla" or "sala", often a living room, where semi-private rites can be conducted. Another space, the "iban balo", or patio, will be used for public occasions, as well as for the cultivation of plants and the housing of animals due to be sacrificed. The casa will typically include a place to store ritual paraphernalia, kitchen facilities, and space for visitors to sleep.


title: Santería

text: The "casa" refers not only to the building where ceremonies take place, but also the community of practitioners who meet there. In this sense, many casas trace a lineage back to the 19th century, with some santeros and santeras capable of listing the practitioners who have been initiated into it. In some ceremonies, the names of these individuals, who are regarded as the ancestors of the house, are recited in chronological order.