title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: SNDT Women's University renamed the Institute of Technology for Women (ITW) as Usha Mittal Institute of Technology after a large donation from the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal Foundation.


title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: He completed his Primary and Secondary school from Nopany High formerly known as Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya.


title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: In 2008, the Mittals made a donation of £15 million to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, the largest private contribution the hospital had ever received. The donation was used to help fund their new facility, the Mittal Children's Medical Centre.


title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: Mittal was born on 15 June 1950 in Rajasthani Marwari family in Sadulpur, Rajasthan. He is married to Usha. They have a son Aditya Mittal and a daughter Vanisha Mittal.


title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: Lakshmi Mittal has two brothers, Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal, and a sister, Seema Lohia, who married Indonesian businessman, Sri Prakash Lohia. His residence at 18–19 Kensington Palace Gardens—which was purchased from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2004 for £67 million (US$128 million)—made it the world's most expensive house at the time. The house is decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal. The extravagant show of wealth has been referred to as the "Taj Mittal". It has 12 bedrooms, an indoor pool, Turkish baths and parking for 20 cars. He is a lacto-vegetarian.


title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: Mittal bought No. 9A Palace Greens, Kensington Gardens, formerly the Philippines Embassy, for £70 million in 2008 for his daughter Vanisha Mittal who is married to Amit Bhatia, a businessman and philanthropist. Mittal threw a lavish "vegetarian reception" for Vanisha in the Palace of Versailles, France.


title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: In 2005, he also bought a colonial bungalow for $30 million at No. 22, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi, one of the most exclusive streets in India, occupied by embassies and billionaires, and rebuilt it as a house.


title: Lakshmi Mittal

text: According to the "Sunday Times Rich List 2016", Mittal and his family had an estimated personal net worth of 7.12 billion, a decrease of $2.08 billion on the previous year. Meanwhile, in 2016 "Forbes" magazine's annual billionaires list assessed estimated Mittal's wealth in 2016 at as the 135th-wealthiest billionaire with a net worth of 8.4 billion. Mittal's net worth peaked in 2008, assessed by "The Sunday Times" at £27.70 billion, and by "Forbes" at 45.0 billion, and rated as the fourth-wealthiest individual in the world.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. The United States Navy's hull classification symbols for ballistic missile submarines are SSB and SSBN – the "SS" denotes submarine, the "B" denotes ballistic missile, and the "N" denotes that the submarine is nuclear powered. These submarines became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their nuclear deterrence capability. They can fire missiles thousands of kilometers from their targets, and acoustic quieting makes them difficult to detect (see acoustic signature), thus making them a survivable deterrent in the event of a first strike and a key element of the mutual assured destruction policy of nuclear deterrence.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The deployment of SSBNs is dominated by the United States and Russia (following the collapse of the Soviet Union). Smaller numbers are in service with France, the United Kingdom, China and India; North Korea is also suspected to have an experimental SSBN.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The first sea-based missile deterrent forces were a small number of conventionally powered cruise missile submarines (SSG) and surface ships fielded by the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s, deploying the Regulus I missile and the Soviet P-5 Pyatyorka (SS-N-3 Shaddock), both land attack cruise missiles that could be launched from surfaced submarines. Although these forces served until 1964 and (on the Soviet side) were augmented by the nuclear-powered Project 659 (Echo I class) SSGNs, they were rapidly eclipsed by SLBMs carried by nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) beginning in 1960.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: Imperial Japanese Navy s are considered the strategic predecessors to today's ballistic submarines, especially to the Regulus missile program begun about a decade after World War II.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: During World War II, also German researchers developed the A4 (V2), the first ballistic missile. Toward the end of the war, a V2 version was developed at the Peenemünde Army Research Station to be towed in a launch container behind a submarine. Each submarine was to tow up to three of these 36-meter containers, manned by ten soldiers, through the North Sea. Off England, the container would have been brought to the surface and the missiles fired. Prototypes were already being tested on the Baltic coast before the project had to be abandoned in 1945 with the evacuation of Peenemünde. Three containers were already under construction at that time. The commander of the Army Experimental Station, Walter Dornberger, described the project as "not unpromising".


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The first nation to field real ballistic missile submarines (SSB) was the Soviet Union, whose first experimental SSB was a converted Project 611 (Zulu IV class) diesel-powered submarine equipped with a single ballistic missile launch tube in its sail. This submarine launched the world's first SLBM, an R-11FM (SS-N-1 Scud-A, naval modification of SS-1 Scud) on 16 September 1955.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: Five additional Project V611 and AV611 (Zulu V class) submarines became the world's first operational SSBs with two R-11FM missiles each, entering service in 1956–57. They were followed by a series of 23 specifically designed Project 629 (Golf class) SSBs completed 1958–1962, with three vertical launch tubes incorporated in the sail/fin of each submarine. The initial R-13 (SS-N-4) ballistic missiles could only be launched with the submarine on the surface and the missile raised to the top of the launch tube, but were followed by R-21 (SS-N-5) missiles beginning in 1963, which were launched with the submarine submerged.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The world's first operational nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) was with 16 Polaris A-1 missiles, which entered service in December 1959 and conducted the first SSBN deterrent patrol November 1960 – January 1961. The Polaris missile and the first US SSBNs were developed by a Special Project office under Rear Admiral W. F. "Red" Raborn, appointed by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke. "George Washington" was redesigned and rebuilt early in construction from a fast attack submarine, USS "Scorpion", with a missile compartment welded into the middle. Nuclear power was a crucial advance, allowing a ballistic missile submarine to remain undetected at sea by remaining submerged or occasionally at periscope depth () for an entire patrol.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: A significant difference between US and Soviet SLBMs was the fuel type; all US SLBMs have been solid fueled while all Soviet SLBMs before 1980 were liquid fueled. The USSR and subsequently Russia deployed 3 different SLBM types with solid fuel (R-31 in 1980, R-39 Rif in 1983, and RSM-56 Bulava in 2018). However, these did not replace liquid fuel SLBM in service, and new liquid fuel SLBM were developed and introduced (R-29RM introduced in 1986, R-29RMU introduced in 2007) after deployment of the R-31 and R-39.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: With more missiles on one US SSBN than on five Golf-class boats, the Soviets rapidly fell behind in sea-based deterrent capability. The Soviets were only a year behind the US with their first SSBN, the ill-fated "K-19" of Project 658 (Hotel class), commissioned in November 1960. However, this class carried the same three-missile armament as the Golfs. The first Soviet SSBN with 16 missiles was the Project 667A (Yankee class), the first of which entered service in 1967, by which time the US had commissioned 41 SSBNs, nicknamed the "41 for Freedom".


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The United Kingdom's first SSBN was the "Resolution" class of four submarines built for the Royal Navy as part of the UK Polaris programme. The first to be completed was "", laid down in February 1964 and launched in September 1966. After commissioning in 1967, a period of sea trials followed, culminating in the test firing of a Polaris missile from the USAF Eastern Test Range off Cape Kennedy in February 1968. "Resolution" commenced her first operational patrol in June 1968.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The short range of the early SLBMs dictated basing and deployment locations. By the late 1960s the UGM-27 Polaris A-3 missile was deployed on all US and UK SSBNs. Its range of was a great improvement on the range of Polaris A-1. The A-3 also had three warheads that landed in a pattern around a single target. The Yankee class was initially equipped with the R-27 Zyb missile (SS-N-6) with a range of .


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The US was much more fortunate in its basing arrangements than the Soviets. Thanks to NATO and the US possession of Guam, US SSBNs were permanently forward deployed at Advanced Refit Sites in Holy Loch, Scotland; Rota, Spain; and Guam by the middle 1960s, resulting in short transit times to patrol areas near the Soviet Union. With two rotating crews per SSBN, about one-third of the total US force could be in a patrol area at any time. The Soviet bases, in the Murmansk area for the Atlantic and the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky area for the Pacific, required their SSBNs to make a long transit (through NATO-monitored waters in the Atlantic) to their mid-ocean patrol areas to hold the Continental United States (CONUS) at risk.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: That resulted in only a small percentage of the Soviet force occupying patrol areas at any time and was a great motivation for longer-range Soviet SLBMs, which would allow them to patrol close to their bases in areas sometimes referred to as "deep bastions". The missiles were the R-29 Vysota series (SS-N-8, SS-N-18, SS-N-23), equipped on Projects 667B, 667BD, 667BDR, and 667BDRM (Delta I through Delta IV classes). The SS-N-8, with a range of , entered service on the first Delta-I boat in 1972, before the Yankee class was even completed. A total of 43 Delta-class boats of all types entered service 1972–1990, with the SS-N-18 on the Delta III class and the R-29RM Shtil (SS-N-23) on the Delta IV class. The new missiles had increased range and eventually Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV), multiple warheads that could each hit a different target.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The Delta I class had 12 missiles each; the others have 16 missiles each. All Deltas have a tall superstructure (aka casing) to accommodate their large liquid-fueled missiles.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: Although the US did not commission any new SSBNs from 1967 through 1981, they did introduce two new SLBMs. Thirty-one of the 41 original US SSBNs were built with larger diameter launch tubes with future missiles in mind. In the early 1970s the Poseidon (C-3) missile entered service, and those 31 SSBNs were backfitted with it. Poseidon offered a massive MIRV capability of up to 14 warheads per missile. Like the Soviets, the US also desired a longer-range missile that would allow SSBNs to be based in CONUS. In the late 1970s the Trident I (C-4) missile was backfitted to 12 of the Poseidon-equipped submarines. The SSBN facilities of the base at Rota, Spain were disestablished and the Naval Submarine Base King's Bay in Georgia was built for the Trident I-equipped force.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: Both the United States and the Soviet Union commissioned larger SSBNs designed for new missiles in 1981. The American large SSBN was the , also called the "Trident submarine", with the largest SSBN armament ever of 24 missiles, initially Trident I but built with much larger tubes for the Trident II (D-5) missile, which entered service in 1990. The entire class was converted to use Trident II by the early 2000s. When the commenced sea trials in 1980, two US SSBNs had their missiles removed to comply with SALT treaty requirements; the remaining eight were converted to attack submarines (SSN) by the end of 1982. These were all in the Pacific, and the Guam SSBN base was disestablished; the first several "Ohio"-class boats used new Trident facilities at Naval Submarine Base Bangor, Washington. Eighteen "Ohio"-class boats were commissioned by 1997, four of which were converted as cruise missile submarines (SSGN) in the 2000s to comply with START I treaty requirements.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The Soviet large SSBN was the Project 941 "Akula", more famously known as the Typhoon class (and not to be confused with the Project 971 "Shchuka" attack submarine, called "Akula" by NATO). The Typhoons were the largest submarines ever built at 48,000 tons submerged. They were armed with 20 of the new R-39 Rif (SS-N-20) missiles. Six Typhoons were commissioned 1981–1989.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: New SSBN construction terminated for over 10 years in Russia and slowed in the US with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991. The US rapidly decommissioned its remaining 31 older SSBNs, with a few converted to other roles, and the base at Holy Loch was disestablished. Most of the former Soviet SSBN force was gradually scrapped under the provisions of the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement through 2012.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The Russian SSBN force then stood at six Delta IVs, three Delta IIIs, and a lone Typhoon used as a testbed for new missiles (the R-39s unique to the Typhoons were reportedly scrapped in 2012). Upgraded missiles such as the R-29RMU Sineva (SS-N-23 Sineva) were developed for the Deltas. In 2013 the Russians commissioned the first , also called the "Dolgorukiy" class after the lead vessel. By 2015 two others had entered service. This class is intended to replace the aging Deltas, and carries 16 solid-fuel RSM-56 Bulava missiles, with a reported range of and six MIRV warheads. The US designed the to replace the "Ohio"-class and began construction in 2020.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: In 2009, India launched the first of its indigenously-built s. North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles from submarines in 2021 and 2022.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: Ballistic missile submarines differ in purpose from attack submarines and cruise missile submarines. Attack submarines specialize in combat with other vessels (including enemy submarines and merchant shipping), and cruise missile submarines are designed to attack large warships and tactical targets on land. However, the primary mission of the ballistic missile is nuclear deterrence. They serve as the third leg of the nuclear triad in countries that also operate nuclear-armed land based missiles and aircraft. Accordingly, the mission profile of a ballistic missile submarine concentrates on remaining undetected, rather than aggressively pursuing other vessels.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: Ballistic missile submarines are designed for stealth to avoid detection at all costs, and that makes nuclear power, allowing almost the entire patrol to be conducted submerged, very important. They also use many sound-reducing design features, such as anechoic tiles on their hull surfaces, carefully designed propulsion systems, and machinery mounted on vibration-damping mounts. The invisibility and mobility of SSBNs offer a reliable means of deterrence against an attack (by maintaining the threat of a second strike), as well as a potential surprise first strike capability.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: In most cases, SSBNs generally resemble attack subs of the same generation, with extra length to accommodate SLBMs, such as the Russian R-29 (SS-N-23) or the NATO-fielded and American-manufactured Polaris, Poseidon, and Trident-II missiles. Some early models had to surface to launch their missiles, but modern vessels typically launch while submerged at keel depths of usually less than . Missiles are launched upwards with an initial velocity sufficient for them to pop above the surface, at which point their rocket motors fire, beginning the characteristic parabolic climb-from-launch of a ballistic missile. Compressed air ejection, later replaced by gas-steam ejection, was developed by Captain Harry Jackson of Rear Admiral Raborn's Special Project Office when a proposed missile elevator proved too complex. Jackson also derived the armament of 16 missiles used in many SSBNs for the in 1957, based on a compromise between firepower and hull integrity.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: "SSBN" is the US Navy hull classification symbol for a nuclear-powered, ballistic missile-carrying submarine. The "SS" denotes "submarine" or "submersible", the "B" denotes "ballistic missile," and the "N" denotes "nuclear powered." The designation "SSBN" is also used throughout NATO under STANAG 1166.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: In the US Navy, SSBNs are sometimes called Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines, or FBMs. In US naval slang, ballistic missile submarines are called "boomers". In the UK, they are known as "bombers". In both cases, SSBN submarines operate on a two-crew concept, with two complete crews – including two captains – called "Gold" and "Blue" in the United States, "Starboard" and "Port" in the United Kingdom.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The French Navy commissioned its first ballistic missile submarines as "SNLE", for "Sous-marin Nucléaire Lanceur d'Engins" (lit. "nuclear-powered device-launching submarines"). The term applies both to ballistic missile submarines in general (for instance "British SNLE" occurs ) and, more technically, as a specific classification of the . The more recent is referred to as SNLE-NG ("Nouvelle Génération", "New Generation"). The two crews used to maximise the availability time of the boats are called "blue" and "red" crews.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: The Soviets called this type of ship "RPKSN" (lit. "Strategic Purpose Underwater Missile Cruiser"). This designation was applied to the . Another designation used was "PLARB"("«ПЛАРБ»" – подводная лодка атомная с баллистическими ракетами, which translates as "Nuclear Submarine with Ballistic Missiles"). This designation was applied to smaller submarines such as the Delta class. After a peak in 1984 (following Able Archer 83), Russian SSBN deterrence patrols have declined to the point where there is less than one patrol per sub each year and at best one sub on patrol at any time. Hence the Russians do not use multiple crews per boat.


title: Ballistic missile submarine

text: On 4 February 2009, the British and the French collided in the Atlantic. "Vanguard" returned to Faslane in Scotland, under her own power, and "Triomphant" to Île Longue in Brittany.


title: Maia Mitchell

text: Maia Mitchell (born 18 August 1993) is an Australian actress and singer. She is known for her roles as Brittany Flune in the children's television series "Mortified" for the Nine Network, and as Natasha Ham in the Seven Network's teen drama "Trapped". For American audiences, she played the role of Callie Adams Foster in the Freeform drama "The Fosters" (2013–18) and its spin-off series "Good Trouble" (2019–22). She also co-starred with Ross Lynch in the Disney Channel original films "Teen Beach Movie" (2013) and "Teen Beach 2" (2015) as McKenzie/Mack.


title: Maia Mitchell

text: Mitchell was born in Lismore, New South Wales. Her father, Alex, is a taxi driver while her mother, Jill, works in the education system. Mitchell has one younger brother, Charlie. She plays guitar, which has been demonstrated in her film and television work. She learned to play at a young age. She attended Trinity Catholic College, Lismore.


title: Maia Mitchell

text: Mitchell first began acting by performing in school plays and also in local theatre productions. She was discovered by talent agencies and got her big break at age 12, when she was cast as Brittany Flune in the Australian children's television series "Mortified". "Mortified" ended after two seasons and a total of 26 episodes, which ran from 30 June 2006 to 11 April 2007. Due to her success on "Mortified", she also starred in the Australian TV series "Trapped" and its sequel series "Castaway" as the character Natasha Hamilton. She was also in the TV series "K-9", a spin-off of the popular British TV series "Doctor Who" which focuses on the robot dog K9.


title: Maia Mitchell

text: Her first television role in the U.S. was in the Disney Channel TV series "Jessie". She then made her film debut by starring as the main character McKenzie/Mack in the Disney Channel original movie "Teen Beach Movie" and reprising her role in "Teen Beach 2". From 2013 to 2018 she starred in the ABC Family later Freeform drama series "The Fosters" as Callie Jacob, who would later change names to Callie Adams Foster. During the show's fifth and last season, it was announced that Mitchell and Cierra Ramirez would be spun off into their own series, titled "Good Trouble" which premiered in January 2019. She starred for over three seasons, leaving the series in the fourth season's second episode, as Mitchell chose to move back home to Australia.


title: Maia Mitchell

text: In 2022, Mitchell announced that she had permanently moved back to her native Lismore, Australia, to be with her family amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 Australian flood crisis.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: "Dancing in the Moonlight" is a song written by Sherman Kelly, originally recorded in 1970 by Kelly's band Boffalongo, and then a hit single by King Harvest in 1972, reaching number 5 in Canada and number 13 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. In 2000, a cover by English band Toploader became a worldwide hit and achieved multi-platinum status in the United Kingdom. A version by Swedish EDM duo Jubël, released in 2018, was a hit in Europe.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: Sherman Kelly wrote the song in 1969. While recovering from a vicious assault by a gang, he "envisioned an alternate reality, the dream of a peaceful and joyful celebration of life." Kelly wrote:


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: On a trip to St. Croix in 1969, I was the first victim of a vicious St. Croix gang who eventually murdered 8 American tourists. At that time, I suffered multiple facial fractures and wounds and was left for dead. While I was recovering, I wrote "Dancin in the Moonlight" in which I envisioned an alternate reality, the dream of a peaceful and joyful celebration of life. The song became a huge hit and was recorded by many musicians worldwide. "Dancin In The Moonlight" continues to be popular to this day.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: He recorded it singing lead with his band Boffalongo, who were active from 1968 to 1971; it was their final single. The song was also recorded by High Broom and released in 1970 on Island Records. It failed to reach the UK Singles Chart.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: Sherman Kelly's brother Wells Kelly introduced the song to the Paris-based band King Harvest in which he was drummer, and former Boffalongo member Dave "Doc" Robinson was lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist. King Harvest recorded and released "Dancing in the Moonlight" as a single with "Lady, Come On Home" on the B-side in 1972. Steve Cutler, a jazz drummer from New York City (standing on the base of the pole in the cover picture), played drums on the tracks and toured France and the UK with the band. The group disbanded after six months and the single languished for a year until it was bought and released worldwide by Perception Records. In Canada, the song reached number 5 on the weekly charts and number 71 on the year-end chart for 1973.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: In 2000, English band Toploader released a cover of "Dancing in the Moonlight". It was originally released on February 21, 2000, as the third single from their debut studio album, "Onka's Big Moka" (1999), and peaked at number 19 on the UK Singles Chart. It was then re-released in November of the same year with new production from Stargate and reached number seven on the same chart. The song has been certified 3× Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry for sales of over 1,800,000 copies. Worldwide, the song reached the top 20 in Australia, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: Swedish record producer duo Jubël released a dance cover in 2018 featuring Neimy. It peaked at number 9 on Sverigetopplistan, the official Swedish Singles Chart. It also charted in Belgium's Ultratip Bubbling Under chart in both Flanders and Wallon francophone markets.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: The song garnered the attention of British radio DJs in 2020 and as a result the Jubël version gained more popularity two years after its initial release in Sweden. The song was rereleased for the British market giving it a much bigger international audience. It peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart, and the Irish and Scottish singles charts as well. The song was used in series 6 of the reality show "Love Island" in 2020 and spread to TikTok, while reaching the top of the British radio list. The song also charted on the ARIA Australian Official Singles Chart, also in 2020.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: In 1994, a version by Bahamian group the Baha Men reached No. 18 in New Zealand and No. 42 in Canada.


title: Dancing in the Moonlight

text: In 2009 American actress/singer Alyson Stoner covered the song. Scenes from the film "Space Buddies" appear in the music video for this version; the music video is a special feature on the DVD release of the film.


title: Blues rock

text: Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes with keyboards and harmonica). From its beginnings in the early to mid-1960s, blues rock has gone through several stylistic shifts and along the way it inspired and influenced hard rock, Southern rock, and early heavy metal.


title: Blues rock

text: Blues rock started with rock musicians in the United Kingdom and the United States performing American blues songs. They typically recreated electric Chicago blues songs, such as those by Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Reed, at faster tempos and with a more aggressive sound common to rock. In the UK, the style was popularized by groups such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals, who put several blues songs into the pop charts. In the US, Lonnie Mack, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Canned Heat were among the earliest exponents. Some of these bands also played long, involved improvisations as were then commonplace on jazz records. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the style became more hard rock-oriented. In the US, Johnny Winter, the early Allman Brothers Band, and ZZ Top represented a hard rock trend, along with Ten Years After, Savoy Brown, and Foghat in the UK.


title: Blues rock

text: In the 1980s, more traditional blues styles influenced blues rock, which continues into the 2000s, with more of a return to basics. Along with hard rock, blues rock songs became the core of the music played on album-oriented rock radio in the United States, and later the classic rock format established there during the 1980s.


title: Blues rock

text: Blues rock can be characterized by bluesy improvisation, extended boogie jams typically focused on electric guitar solos, and often a heavier, riff-oriented sound and feel to the songs than found in typical Chicago-style blues. Blues rock bands "borrow[ed] the idea of an instrumental combo and loud amplification from rock & roll". It is also often played at a fast tempo, again distinguishing it from the blues.


title: Blues rock

text: Blues rock songs often follow typical blues structures, such as twelve-bar blues, sixteen-bar blues, etc. They also use the I-IV-V progression, though there are exceptions, some pieces having a "B" section, while others remain on the I. The Allman Brothers Band's version of "Stormy Monday", which uses chord substitutions based on Bobby "Blue" Bland's 1961 rendition, adds a solo section where "the rhythm shifts effortlessly into an uptempo 6/8-time jazz feel". The key is usually major, but can also be minor, such as in "Black Magic Woman".


title: Blues rock

text: One notable difference is the frequent use of a straight eighth-note or rock rhythm instead of triplets usually found in blues. An example is Cream's "Crossroads". Although it was adapted from Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues", the bass "combines with drums to create and continually emphasize continuity in the regular metric drive".


title: Blues rock

text: Rock music uses driving rhythms and electric guitar techniques such as distortion and power chords already used by 1950s electric blues guitarists, particularly Memphis bluesmen such as Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson and Pat Hare. Characteristics that blues rock adopted from electric blues include its dense texture, basic blues band instrumentation, rough declamatory vocal style, heavy guitar riffs, string-bending blues-scale guitar solos, strong beat, thick riff-laden texture, and posturing performances. Precursors to blues rock included the Chicago blues musicians Elmore James, Albert King, and Freddie King, who began incorporating rock and roll elements into their blues music during the late 1950s to early 1960s.


title: Blues rock

text: 1963 marked the appearance of American rock guitar soloist Lonnie Mack, whose idiosyncratic, fast-paced electric blues guitar style came to be identified with the advent of blues rock as a distinct genre. His instrumentals from that period were recognizable as blues or rhythm and blues tunes, but he relied heavily upon fast-picking techniques derived from traditional American country and bluegrass genres. The best-known of these are the 1963 "Billboard" hit singles "Memphis" and "Wham!". Around the same time, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was formed. Fronted by blues harp player and singer Paul Butterfield, it included two members from Howlin' Wolf's touring band, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, and later two electric guitarists, Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. In 1965, its debut album, "The Paul Butterfield Blues Band" was released. AllMusic's Michael Erlewine commented, "Used to hearing blues covered by groups like the Rolling Stones, that first album had an enormous impact on young (and primarily White) rock players." The second album "East West" (1966) introduced extended soloing – the 13 minute instrumental title track included jazz and Indian raga influences – that served as a model for psychedelic and acid rock. In 1965, avid blues collectors Bob Hite and Alan Wilson formed Canned Heat. Their early recordings focused heavily on electric versions of Delta blues songs, but soon began exploring long musical improvisations ("jams") built around John Lee Hooker songs. Other popular mid-1960s groups, such as the Doors and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, also adapted songs by blues artists to include elements of rock. Butterfield, Canned Heat, and Joplin performed at the Monterey (1967) and Woodstock (1969) festivals.


title: Blues rock

text: In the UK, several musicians honed their skills in a handful of British blues bands, primarily those of Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner. While the early British rhythm and blues groups, such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals, incorporated American R&B, rock and roll, and pop, John Mayall took a more distinctly electric blues approach. In 1966, he released "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton", the first of several influential blues rock albums. When Eric Clapton left Mayall to form Cream, they created a hybrid style with blues, rock, and jazz improvisation, which was the most innovative to date. British band Fleetwood Mac initially played traditionally-oriented electric blues, but soon evolved. Their guitarist Peter Green, who was Clapton's replacement with Mayall, brought many innovations to their music. Chicken Shack, early Jethro Tull, Keef Hartley Band and Climax Blues Band recorded blues rock songs.


title: Blues rock

text: The electric guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix (a veteran of many American rhythm and blues and soul groups from the early-mid-1960s) and his power trios, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys, had a broad and lasting influence on the development of blues rock, especially for guitarists. Clapton continued to explore several musical styles and contributed to bringing blues rock into the mainstream. In the late 1960s, Jeff Beck, with his band the Jeff Beck Group, developed blues rock into a form of heavy rock. Jimmy Page, who replaced Beck in the Yardbirds, followed suit with Led Zeppelin and became a major force in the 1970s heavy metal scene. Other blues rock musicians in the 1970s include Dr. Feelgood, Rory Gallagher and Robin Trower.


title: Blues rock

text: Beginning in the early 1970s, American bands such as Aerosmith fused blues with a hard rock edge. Blues rock grew to include Southern rock bands, like the Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd, while the British scene, except for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat, became focused on heavy metal innovation.


title: Blues rock

text: While blues rock and hard rock shared many similarities in the early 1970s, more traditional blues styles influenced blues rock in the 1980s, when the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Georgia Satellites and Robert Cray recorded their best-known works, and the 1990s, which saw guitarists Gary Moore, Jeff Healey, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd become popular concert attractions. Female blues singers such as Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, Sue Foley and Shannon Curfman recorded blues rock albums. Groups such as the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the White Stripes brought an edgier, more diverse style into the 2000s, while the Black Keys returned to basics.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: Pleasure is a 2021 erotic drama film written and directed by Ninja Thyberg in her feature directorial debut. The film is based on Thyberg's 2013 short of the same name, and is about a young woman from a small Swedish town who moves to Los Angeles to become a porn star. It stars Sofia Kappel, Revika Anne Reustle, Evelyn Claire, Chris Cock, Dana DeArmond and Kendra Spade.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: "Pleasure" was selected for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival before premiering at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on 1 February 2021 in the "World Cinema Dramatic Competition" section.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: 19-year-old Linnéa, working under the stage name "Bella Cherry", is a naive, confident girl from a small town in Sweden who travels to Los Angeles in the hopes of becoming the next big porn star. Under the guidance of her manager, she begins to navigate the challenging world of the porn industry and is determined to land more significant roles and video views by pushing herself to ignore personal boundaries and limits. Bella shares a house with a group of other young actresses attempting to become famous, and though she is standoffish and private at first, she eventually bonds with one of her housemates, Joy, who supports her and helps Bella build her brand. At a party, the girls spot Mark Spiegler, one of the most successful and demanding agents in the porn industry; he is joined by Ava, one of the biggest names in the local porn scene. Bella attempts to start a conversation with Ava, who ignores her. Joy tries to flirt with a famous male actor, Caesar, but when he cruelly rejects her, she retaliates by pushing him into the pool.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: Bella works on several shoots, including a BDSM scene with a female director who encourages Bella in positive, healthy ways, enforcing safety and consent on the set. However, Bella is determined to push herself further, and she requests hardcore scenes from her manager. While filming a rape scene with two male actors, she becomes overwhelmed and breaks down, repeatedly interrupting filming. Initially, her co-stars and the director seem encouraging, but they quickly grow hostile and dismissive when she struggles to finish the scene. Bella reluctantly agrees to complete the shoot and later confronts her manager, who reminds her that she requested harder material. Upset, Bella fires him as her manager.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: Now working independently, Bella attempts to acquire Spiegler as her new manager, but he turns her down, saying she has a weak social media following and insisting he only accepts actresses willing to do extreme scenes. In order to prove herself, Bella participates in an interracial threesome, which includes a first-ever "interracial, double anal penetration", boosting her following considerably. Spiegler is impressed and agrees to hire Bella. As a way to repay her friend, Bella requests that Joy be part of her next scene. Joy is initially thrilled, but hesitates when the lead actor withdraws at the last minute and is replaced by Caesar. Bella implores Joy to go through with the shoot, but soon observes Caesar harassing Joy off-camera. During the scene, which involves degradation and humiliation, Caesar begins to legitimately abuse Joy, who stops the scene in anger. Joy insists to the director that Caesar is harming her, but when she asks Bella to confirm Caesar's earlier harassment, Bella, worried about her reputation, balks. Furious, Joy upbraids Bella for her betrayal and storms off the set.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: Bella is given a chance to film a scene with Ava, but Ava humiliates her when she refuses to perform oral sex on Bella, claiming she has a yeast infection. The scene is changed so that Bella will penetrate Ava with a strap-on, but Bella quickly lets her anger and frustration take over, acting violently and aggressively towards Ava without warning or consent, just as many of her male co-stars and directors did to her since her arrival. When Bella tries to apologize to Ava later en route to a party, Ava nonchalantly dismisses her as if nothing had bothered her, which disturbs Bella. Bella is further disillusioned when she spots her old housemates at the party, all of whom are enjoying their time at the party opposite of Bella who is essentially now locked in the VIP area. On the ride back from the party, Bella abruptly asks the car to stop so that she can get out.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: "Pleasure" was selected for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival before premiering at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on 1 February 2021. On 8 February 2021, A24 acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. However, on 7 October 2021, it was announced that Neon had acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film, reportedly due to conflicts over A24's plans to release an edited, R-rated theatrical cut in addition to an uncensored version; Neon stated it would not mandate any alternate edit. The film was screened at the 2021 AFI Fest in Los Angeles on 13 November. The film was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on 13 May 2022.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: The film was released in Sweden on 8 October 2021 by SF Studios, in France on 20 October 2021 by The Jokers, and in the Netherlands on 4 November 2021 by Gusto Entertainment.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: At the 57th Guldbagge Awards, the film received seven nominations, including Best Film and Best Director for Thyberg, and won three, including Best Actress for Kappel. Other awards nominations the film has received include the 2021 British Independent Film Award for Best International Independent Film as well as Best Director for Thyberg and Best Supporting Female for Reustle at the 37th Independent Spirit Awards.


title: Pleasure (2021 film)

text: After the film's release, actors Lance Hart and Axel Braun both tweeted critically of the film, saying they felt "duped" and that the film was "a cheap shot making us look bad". Since then, however, Braun has expressed support for the film and was in attendance for its U.S. premiere.


title: David Oakes

text: Rowan David Oakes (born 14 October 1983) is a British actor. He is best known for his roles in the series "The Pillars of the Earth", "The Borgias", "The White Queen", "Victoria", "", and for his discursive Natural History podcast, "Trees A Crowd".


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes grew up in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.He was head boy at Bishop Wordsworth's School, in Salisbury. His first job was backstage at the Salisbury Playhouse. Oakes graduated with a First in English Literature from the University of Manchester. He graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 2007.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes began his career at Shakespeare's Globe, before taking roles at the Almeida Theatre and the Old Vic. Since appearing at Shakespeare's Globe at the outset of his career, Oakes has frequently performed in numerous rehearsed readings as part of their "Read Not Dead" initiative, including their landmark 200th reading of Philip Massinger's "A New Way To Pay Old Debts"; Oakes played Wellborn alongside a cast including Benjamin Whitrow, Alan Cox, and Nicholas Rowe.


title: David Oakes

text: In 2006, Oakes performed a 90-minute abridged version of "Much Ado About Nothing" as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Complete Works" festival along with his final year graduates from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He alternated between playing Claudio and Verges alongside fellow graduate Matt Barber.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes was present to accept the Jury Prize at the 2011 Romy Awards in Vienna alongside Donald Sutherland and Natalia Wörner.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes came to prominence when he played the villainous William Hamleigh in the television miniseries "The Pillars of the Earth" (2010). The following year, Oakes was cast in the television series "The Borgias" (2011), airing on Showtime. Whilst shooting the second season, Oakes performed a cameo in the sequel to "The Pillars of the Earth", "World Without End" (2012).


title: David Oakes

text: Between 2010 and 2013, Oakes had several roles playing villains on television—such as William Hamleigh in "The Pillars of the Earth" (2010), Juan Borgia in "The Borgias" (2011), and George, Duke of Clarence in "The White Queen" (2013). When he played Mr. Darcy in an adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" at Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in 2013, he said, "I've been playing bad guys back to back, so Darcy's a bit of an antidote!" In 2014, he starred in the original West End production of "Shakespeare in Love" at the Noël Coward Theatre as Christopher Marlowe. Oakes was nominated for both WhatsOnStage and Broadway World awards for his performance in "Shakespeare in Love" in 2015.


title: David Oakes

text: Other performances between 2008 and 2013 for "Read Not Dead" include an early quarto edition of "Henry IV: Part One" as Prince Hal opposite Benjamin Whitrow's Falstaff, Calderon's "Life is a Dream (La Vida Es Sueno)" as Segismundo, "Taming Of A Shrew" as Aurelias, "The Spanish Tragedy" as Lorenzo, "The Return from Parnassus" as Ingenioso, "Bassianus" as Geta, "Gorboduc" as a "smooth, almost oily" Arostus, John Lyly's "Love's Metamorphosis" as Montanus, and Thomas Middleton's "Your Five Gallants" as Tailby.


title: David Oakes

text: In a return to TV period dramas in 2015, Oakes guest-starred in both the third season of "Endeavour" with Shaun Evans and in BBC's limited series "The Living and the Dead" with Colin Morgan. He played Prince Ernest, brother of Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert, in the 2016 ITV series "Victoria". The role reunited Oakes with his "Trinity" co-star Tom Hughes, and "Pillars of the Earth" co-star Rufus Sewell.


title: David Oakes

text: In 2017, Oakes starred in the film adaptation of Albert Sánchez Piñol's novel "Cold Skin", directed by Xavier Gens and co-starring Ray Stevenson and Aura Garrido. He also starred as Thomas Novachek in the London West End premiere of David Ives's play "Venus in Fur" at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. This production was directed by Patrick Marber and co-starred Natalie Dormer as Vanda.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes set up a theatre company called Dog Ate Cake with a long-term theatrical collaborator Henry Bell.


title: David Oakes

text: In 2015 Oakes starred as Banquo in a charity fundraiser for the Shakespeare Schools Festival. The event was largely improvised by the actors and lawyers involved, but based on a framework written by Jonathan Myerson. The cast also included Christopher Eccleston as Macbeth, Haydn Gwynne as Lady Macbeth, Paterson Joseph as MacDuff, and Pippa Bennett-Warner as one of the Weird Sisters. The event interrupted the events of the original play following the death of Duncan, placing Macbeth on trial for murder. Oakes, Joseph, and Gwynne appeared as witnesses for the prosecution while Eccleston and Bennett-Warner played witnesses for the defence. The event was overseen by High Court Judge Sir Michael Burton; the QCs were John Kelsey-Fry, Jonathan Laidlaw, Dinah Rose, and Ian Winter, and the foreman of the jury was Jeremy Paxman.


title: David Oakes

text: In 2019, Oakes played Hamlet at Shakespeare's Rose Theatre, York. "The Stage" wrote that he "plays Hamlet with natural ease: he is clearly comfortable with the cadences of the language and he conveys meaning well." Both "WhatsOnStage" and the "British Theatre Guide" praised Oakes' performance, particularly his rapport with the audience, despite the production's more light-hearted take on the play.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes has directed a number of theatre pieces alongside his acting career. In 2003 he took a stage adaptation of "The Wicker Man" to the Epping Forest Theatre Festival. Rehearsing in and around his hometown of Salisbury, Oakes "got kicked out of the [Cathedral] Close for rehearsing pagan rituals for [his] open-air production of "The Wicker Man"."


title: David Oakes

text: While at university, Oakes directed numerous plays including Martin McDonagh's "Beauty Queen of Leenane", Harold Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter" and Anthony Minghella's "Whale Music".


title: David Oakes

text: Also whilst at University in 2005, Oakes assisted director Natalie Wilson on a production of "Smilin' Through" that was co-produced by the Truant Company, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and Contact Theatre, Manchester. Later that year, Oakes once again turned to literary adaptation, taking a production of Stephen King's "The Boogeyman" to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.


title: David Oakes

text: With his and Bell's theatre company, Dog Ate Cake, in 2009 Oakes directed a small tour revival of John Maddison Morton's "Box and Cox".


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes frequently directs at Shakespeare's Globe extending their "Read Not Dead" series, a study devoted to performing fully staged readings of the entirety of the Early Modern Canon of Drama. Most recently Oakes directed Robert Greene's "The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay" and Lewis Theobald's "Happy Ending" version of John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi", "The Fatal Secret".


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes recently directed an extract of Robert Daborne's "A Christian Turn'd Turk" as part of a special "Read Not Dead" event at Shakespeare's Globe. Four directors with four scholars were teamed up with actors and presented their arguments and selected scenes at a special hustings event on Thursday 29 May 2014. Winning the event, teamed with Dr Emma Smith of Oxford University, Oakes directed the full play on Sunday 5 October 2014 in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.


title: David Oakes

text: In 2020, Oakes narrated an episode of Historic Royal Palaces' "Outliers" podcast. He appeared as Thomas Phelippes, a spy and code breaker in the court of Elizabeth I plotting the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes is the presenter of the natural history podcast "Trees A Crowd". The first episode was released on 25 February 2019 and featured Mark Frith.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes has been in a relationship with actress Natalie Dormer since 2018. Dormer gave birth to their daughter in 2021.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes plays both the clarinet and bass clarinet, and is a bass singer. He is an avid follower of folk music, and continues to support the Bristol folk group Sheelanagig.


title: David Oakes

text: He has an extensive collection of canoes and is currently developing a comedy pilot based on this interest. His preferred canoe method is kayak but he also enjoys Canadian canoeing.


title: David Oakes

text: Oakes, following his infant niece being diagnosed with a lung condition, has been heavily involved with raising awareness for and fundraising on behalf of the British Lung Foundation.


title: David Oakes

text: In 2013, Oakes collaborated with his "Borgias" castmate Holliday Grainger to make the short comedy film "Goblin". Directed by Christian James, the film was screened at the 2014 Film 4 Fright Fest in their Shorts Showcase, and all profits from the sale of this film were donated to the British Lung Foundation.


title: David Oakes

text: Later in 2014, Oakes ran the length of the country to raise awareness for infant lung diseases for both the British Lung Foundation and ChILD Lung Foundation UK. In 2016m he joined with the BLF to promote their new Children's Hub to provide families with information and support.


title: David Oakes

text: Since 2014, Oakes has also been a friend of Anno's Africa, an arts-based charity working with Kenyan orphans and slum children, and has supported the UK based Shakespeare Schools Festival, most notably with and surrounding their "Trial of Macbeth" and "Trial of Richard III". In 2019, Oakes helped organise, and alongside Michael Palin, Twiggy and others, appeared in the "Just A Book" poster campaign on the London Underground. The campaign was created to support independent businesses and bookshops on British highstreets and also to raise funds for Anno’s Africa.


title: David Oakes

text: Since 2019, Oakes has been an Ambassador for the Woodland Trust. On 9 October 2019, Oakes hosted a discussion at the 70th Cheltenham Literature Festival on the subject of "The Art of Trees".


title: David Oakes

text: On 30 January 2020, Oakes was a co-signatory, with the CEOs of The Wildlife Trusts, the National Trust, the Woodland Trust, the RSPB, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Buglife and Butterfly Conservation, and other notable environmental ambassadors and activists, on a letter written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and published in "The Times", to get the UK government to rethink its stance on the second UK High Speed Rail Link along environmental and biodiversical lines.


title: David Oakes

text: On 21 June 2020, Oakes co-hosted the live-stream event The Big Wild Quiz for The Wildlife Trusts as part of their "30 Days Wild" campaign. Nine days later, on 30 June, alongside environmentalists and activists, including Chris Packham and Ellie Goulding, Oakes took part in the Climate Coalition's mass virtual lobby to focus the MPs to put people, climate and nature at the heart of the British nation’s recovery. He also hosted The Big Wild Quiz in 2021.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Gravity's Rainbow is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the ("black device"), which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000".


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Traversing a wide range of knowledge, "Gravity's Rainbow" transgresses boundaries between high and low culture, between literary propriety and profanity, and between science and speculative metaphysics. It shared the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction with "A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories" by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as 'unreadable,' 'turgid,' 'overwritten' and in parts 'obscene'. No Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction that year. The novel was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: "Time" named "Gravity's Rainbow" one of its "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels", a list of the best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 and it is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest American novels ever written.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: "Gravity's Rainbow" carries the dedication "For Richard Fariña". Pynchon had been a good friend of Fariña, a folk singer and novelist, since they had attended Cornell University together. Fariña had died in a motorcycle accident in 1966.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: "Gravity's Rainbow" is composed of four parts, each segmented into a number of episodes. In the original editions of the book, the episodes were separated by a row of seven small squares. Many readers, reviewers, and scholars, such as Richard Poirier, have suggested that the squares resemble the film perforations known as "sprocket holes" that engage with the teeth in a film camera or projector to advance the strip of film. The squares, however, were inserted by Edwin Kennebeck, an editor at the book's original publisher, Viking Press. Kennebeck denied that the layout was intentional, and later editions of the novel separate the segments with only one square.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The name "Beyond the Zero" refers to lack of total extinction of a conditioned stimulus. The events of this part occur primarily during the Christmas Advent season of 1944 from December 18–26, coinciding in part with the Battle of the Bulge. The epigraph is a quotation from a pamphlet written by the rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and first published in 1962: "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death." The epigraph reflects themes of anticipated redemption and blurring of the sacred and secular, both of which pervade Part 1. The epigraph is also potentially ironic, given von Braun's central role in the development of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: "" is French for "A Furlough at the Hermann Göring Casino". The events of this section span the five months from Christmas 1944 through to Whitsunday the following year, May 20, 1945. The misrepresentation or reinterpretation of identity is reflected in Slothrop's journey as well as the epigraph, attributed to Merian C. Cooper, speaking to Fay Wray prior to her starring role in "King Kong", as recounted by Wray in the September 21, 1969, issue of "The New York Times": "You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood."


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Part 3 is set during the summer of 1945 with analepses (literary flashbacks) to the time period of Part 2 with most events taking place between May 18 and August 6; the day of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima and also the Feast of the Transfiguration. The epigraph is taken from "The Wizard of Oz", spoken by Dorothy as she arrives in Oz and shows her disorientation with the new environment: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas any more...".


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Part 4 begins shortly after August 6, 1945, and covers the period up to September 14 of that same year; the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, with extended analepses to Easter/April Fool's weekend of 1945 and culminating in a prolepsis to 1970. The simple epigraphical quotation, "What?" is attributed to Richard M. Nixon, and was added after the galleys of the novel had been printed to insinuate the President's involvement in the unfolding Watergate scandal. The original quotation for this section (in the advance reading copies of the book) was an excerpt from the lyrics to the Joni Mitchell song "Cactus Tree" ("She has brought them to her senses/They have laughed inside her laughter/Now she rallies her defenses/For she fears that one will ask her/For eternity/And she’s so busy being free"), so the change in quotation jumped a large cultural divide.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Part 1: "Beyond the Zero": The opening pages of the novel follow Pirate Prentice, an employee of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.), first in his dreams, and later around the house in wartime London that he shares with several others in the S.O.E. He soon is driven to the site of a V-2 rocket strike. Pirate's associate Teddy Bloat photographs a map depicting the sexual encounters of U.S. Army Lt. Tyrone Slothrop, an employee of a fictional technical intelligence unit, ACHTUNG. Slothrop and his background are detailed through discussions by some of his co-workers and through references to his family's history, reaching back to early colonial times, in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. (There are loose parallels to Pynchon's own family history.) Slothrop's (fictional) home town of Mingeborough is mentioned for the first time (although the town and a young boy named Hogan Slothrop had previously been featured in Pynchon's short story, "The Secret Integration"). That family setting will be mentioned several times much later in the novel, following the family's decline over time within a Puritan legacy of sterility and death.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Employees of a fictional top secret psychological warfare agency called PISCES, headquartered at a former insane asylum known as "The White Visitation", investigate Slothrop's map of his presumed sexual encounters in London, finding that each location appears to precede a V-2 rocket strike in the same place by several days. This coincidence intrigues Pavlovian behavioral psychologist Edward W. Pointsman, who thinks there may be a direct causal relationship between Slothrop's erections and the missile strikes, and his associate, statistician Roger Mexico, who suggests that the relationship is only a random coincidence of probabilities, as seen in Poisson distributions, leading to further reflections in this section and later on topics as broad as the occult, Determinism, the reverse flow of time, and the sexuality of the rocket itself. Pointsman is all the more intrigued to find that as a baby, Slothrop had been subjected to behavioral experiments conducted by a Dr. Laszlo Jamf that involved the stimulation of his penis to erections.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Many characters not significant until later are introduced in "Beyond the Zero", including one of Dr. Jamf's former students, Franz Pökler, a German engineer who has worked on early German experiments in rocketry and later on the V-2 rocket, and Pökler's wife Leni, a former student radical. Others who appear significant in Part One, such as Pointsman's associate Thomas Gwenhidwy and Roger Mexico's girlfriend Jessica Swanlake, vanish from the narrative and don't re-appear until much later. Indeed, most of the 400 named characters make only single appearances, serving merely to demonstrate the sheer scope of Pynchon's universe. Character names sometimes consist of outrageous puns (such as "Joaquin Stick") but may also relate to particular traits of that character or to themes within the novel. Some names of historical characters also have thematic relevance. Under the influence of sodium amytal administered through Pointsman's maneuvers, Slothrop has a hallucinatory flashback to a scene in Boston's Roxbury district. References here include "Red, the Negro shoeshine boy," who will much later be known as the Black Power leader Malcolm X, and jazz saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, both of whom represent a threat to white racism. Another fictional character, Katje Borgesius, is contacted in this section by Pirate in order to bring her to safety from the Continent to England. Katje had been a Dutch double agent who infiltrated a V-2 rocket-launching battery commanded by a sadistic SS officer named Captain Blicero. Blicero had kept Katje and a young soldier named Gottfried as sex slaves in a perverse enactment of the Hansel and Gretel story. However, Blicero (a Teutonic name connoting Death) is also revealed to be the code name of a former Lieutenant Weissman ("White Man") who earlier appeared in Pynchon's first novel, "V." He has had an ongoing but now-severed relationship with Enzian, a Herero he had brought to Germany from German South West Africa (now Namibia), and who is the leader of a group of Herero rocket technicians known as the Schwarzkommando, who had been helping Blicero in his own project to create and fire a rocket. Katje, on the other hand, will come under Pointsman's control in England, while, as the Christmas season ends, Roger Mexico worries about losing Jessica Swanlake to her other, bureaucratic and sedate, boyfriend, Jeremy (also referred to as "Beaver" because of his beard).


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Part Two: "Une Perm au Casino Hermann Goering": Slothrop is sent away by his superiors under mysterious circumstances to a casino on the recently liberated French Riviera, in which almost the entirety of Part Two takes place. He is in fact being monitored by associates of Pointsman, including Katje and a linguist named Sir Stephen Dodson-Truck. One of the more bizarre Pavlovian episodes involves the conditioning of octopus Grigori to attack Katje. Early in part two, the octopus attacks Katje on the beach in France, and Slothrop is "conveniently" at hand to rescue her. Katje and Slothrop eventually have sex. At the Casino, he learns of a rocket with the irregular serial number 00000 (Slothrop comments that the numbering system doesn't allow for four zeroes in one serial, let alone five), which features a mysterious component called the S-Gerät (short for Schwarzgerät, 'black device'), made out of the hitherto unknown plastic Imipolex G. It is hinted that Slothrop's prescience of rocket hits is due to being conditioned as an infant by the creator of Imipolex G, Laszlo Jamf. Later, the reality of this story is called into question, as is the very existence of Slothrop's original sexual exploits.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Meanwhile, at The White Visitation, Pointsman brings the unit and its mission under his control. The unit's nominal commander, Brigadier General Ernest Pudding, who is haunted by his traumatic memories of World War I, is brought to (literal) submission through sado-masochistic rituals with Katje, engineered by Pointsman.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Slothrop becomes increasingly paranoid, as old associates disappear. He begins to suspect he is being monitored and adopts the persona (one of many) of "Ian Scuffling," a British war correspondent. He escapes from the casino into "The Zone", the coalescing post-war wasteland of Europe, first to Nice in France and then to Switzerland, searching for the 00000 and S-Gerät. In the closing of Part Two, Katje is revealed to be safe in England, enjoying a day at the beach with Roger Mexico and Jessica, as well as Pointsman, who is in charge of Slothrop's furtive supervision. While unable to contact Slothrop (or prohibited from contacting him), Katje continues to follow his actions through Pointsman, who is showing greater signs of mental instability.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Part Three, "In The Zone": Slothrop's quest continues for some time as he meets or is chased by other characters, compared at various times to such characters as Orpheus and Wagner's Tannhauser. He learns more about his own past, Dr. Jamf's experiments on him, and his father's apparent complicity. In this section, Slothrop comes to doubt that his search for the S-Gerat is a Grail quest and finds his paranoia ("the fear that everything is connected") succumbing to "anti-paranoia" ("the fear that nothing is connected"). On the way he meets Geli Tripping, a self-described witch in love with a Russian colonel, Vaslav Tchitcherine, who had previously worked for the Soviet state bringing the New Turkic Alphabet to central Asia, especially Khirghizstan, where he had sought a mystical experience referred to as the "Khirghiz Light". Slothrop and Geli have a near-mystical experience at the summit of the Brocken, the German mountain that was the setting for Walpurgisnacht in Goethe's "Faust". Slothrop's travels bring him to Nordhausen, in Germany, and the Mittelwerk, where V-2 rockets were assembled using slave labor from the Dora concentration camp. Confronted by the racist American Major Duane Marvy, he escapes in a slapstick chase.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Slothrop meets members of the Schwarzkommando, a fictional cadre of African rocket technicians, descended from survivors of the Herero genocide of 1904 who were brought to Europe by German colonials. An extensive subplot details a schism within the Schwarzkommando; one faction is bent on a program of racial suicide, while the other finds mystical, semi-religious meaning in the V-2 rocket. Another long subplot details Tchitcherine's past and his quest to hunt and kill Enzian, leader of the latter group of Schwarzkommando and, it turns out, Tchitcherine's half-brother.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: With papers identifying him as former German film star Max Schlepzig in Berlin, Slothrop adopts an operatic Viking costume with the horns removed from the helmet, making it look like a rocket nose-cone and is given the name "Rocketman". One of the people he meets is the American sailor Pig Bodine (who or whose ancestors appear in most of Pynchon's other works). Bodine commissions Slothrop to retrieve a large stash of hashish from the centre of the Potsdam Conference. In the nearby abandoned movie studio that was once the center of the German film industry, Slothrop meets Margherita (Greta) Erdmann, a former silent film actress from the era of German Expressionist film, now in physical and mental decline. Slothrop also comes to meet Gerhardt von Göll, a megalomaniac German director who had previously been seen in Britain, directing a fake propaganda film featuring Black soldiers in Germany. Von Göll is now involved in black market activities. In the longest episode of the book, we learn more of the history of Franz Pökler, who fathered a child, Ilse, with his wife Leni after being aroused by Greta's image in an erotic scene in "Alpdrücken", von Göll's "masterpiece". Greta had also become pregnant in the filming of that scene, producing a daughter of her own, Bianca. While working on the V-2 project, Pökler had been coerced into working on the S-Gerät by Blicero, who was holding Ilse in a concentration camp, allowing her to visit Pökler only once a year. As Ilse ages over several years, however, Pökler becomes increasingly paranoid that she is really a series of impostors sent each year to mollify him. Pökler's work for Blicero is tied to the history of organic chemistry, with its own outcomes in the production of dyes and plastics and the international cartels that would come to control them, such as I.G. Farben, and a culture of death-in-life.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Slothrop is led by Margherita to northern Germany and onto the "Anubis", a private yacht (named for the Egyptian god of the dead) filled with uninhibited European aristocrats. Here, Slothrop has sex with Margherita's teenage daughter, Bianca. Margherita, along with her partner, Thanatz, are revealed to know more about the 00000, S-Gerät, and Imipolex G than they let on. Ensign Morituri, a Japanese liaison officer, tells Slothrop about how Margherita and Thanatz had brought their traveling sado-masochistic act to Captain Blicero's rocket battery, from which Rocket 00000 had apparently been fired in the Spring of 1945, towards the end of the war. Margherita spent many days in a mysterious and ambiguously described factory, where she was clothed in an outfit made from the "erotic" plastic Imipolex G. Slothrop falls overboard and is rescued by black marketeers heading towards Peenemünde, the test site for the V-2 rocket, now occupied by Soviet forces.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Slothrop later returns to the "Anubis" to find Bianca dead, possibly hastening his already hinted-at decline. He continues his pilgrimage through northern Germany, having changed clothing with Tchitcherine, arriving at Lüneberg Heath and the town of Cuxhaven, also sites of tests and launches by Allied forces of captured V-2 rockets. On the way, he again meets Major Marvy, who fails to recognize him. At a village festival, he is invited by children to don the costume of a pre-Christian Pig Hero, "Plechazunga." Meeting Pökler at the abandoned amusement park where Ilse used to meet her father, Slothrop finds out more about his childhood and the 00000. It becomes steadily apparent that Slothrop is connected to Laszlo Jamf through Lyle Bland, a Slothrop family friend who apparently played a role in funding Jamf's experiments on the infant Slothrop. Bland, in turn, is connected to many threads, including pinball machines and the Masons, that implicate him as part of an international conspiracy of industrial cartels.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Slothrop is introduced to and sleeps with Solange, a prostitute who is actually Leni Pökler, recently freed from a concentration camp herself. In the same building, Major Marvy has found Slothrop's pig costume and dons it, only to be caught, sedated, and castrated by agents working for Pointsman, who believe that Slothrop is still in the suit. Major political and social realignments have been taking place throughout The Zone. Towards the end of this section, several characters not seen since early in the novel make a return, including Pointsman, who is now in official disgrace, as bureaucratic operatives consider how to deal with him. Other characters, including Pirate Prentice and Katje Borgesius, begin to coalesce as a group styling itself as the "Counterforce" in resistance to the emerging post-war industrial-military complex.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Part Four: The Counterforce: Elements in this section become increasingly fantastic and sometimes self-referential, the narrator at one point saying, "You will want cause and effect. All right" (page 663 in the Viking edition) before explaining how certain events in Part 3 tie in. Despite the efforts of some to save him, Slothrop is repeatedly sidetracked until his persona fragments totally, more than one hundred pages before the novel's end. A flashback reveals how Roger Mexico, now in Germany, has come to join the Counterforce despite its inherent contradictions as a group organizing against international organizations. A long digression gives the story of "Byron the Bulb," a sentient, seemingly immortal lightbulb whose existence links with Dr. Jamf and his experiments and to the integration of power companies and their Grid to the network of cartels. The Schwarzkommando become reunited and finish construction of their own version of the 00000 rocket.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: There are several brief, hallucinatory stories of comic, fallible superheroes; silly Kamikaze pilots; and an "Incident in the Transvestites' Toilet" where Slothrop has been hiding in drag. Such incidents may be products of Slothrop's finally collapsed mind; or of the increasingly chaotic state of affairs outside the realm of a rising technological class and society that comes to be labeled the "Raketen-Stadt" (Rocket-State) of the future. For Slothrop, these scenes more or less culminate with his finding, and failing to understand, a headline announcing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Tchitcherine is told by his superior officer that he is to head back to the U.S.S.R. with some German rocket scientists, despite his own misgivings about Marxist dialectics. A conference is held by members of the Counterforce, which now includes some with questionable pasts, personalities, or motives, such as von Göll. Jessica tells Roger that she is going to marry Jeremy/Beaver. Invited to a dinner at the home of a German industrialist, Roger and Pig Bodine manage to escape with the help of some disgusting culinary repartee, but it becomes increasingly clear that the Counterforce does not have the capacity to counter the emerging Rocket State, in part because "the Man has a branch office in each of our brains."


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Some individuals, however, provide some hope. Earlier, Slothrop had encountered a young boy on what seems to be a futile quest to find his lost pet lemming. Meeting once again, it turns out that the lemming has been found. Geli Tripping's complete love for Tchitcherine and her connection with the natural organic world contrasts with a flashback in which Blicero explains to Gottfried his obsessive desire to transcend nature and "its cycle of infection and death." Geli does cast a spell on Tchitcherine that (perhaps) keeps him from recognizing Enzian when they finally meet, averting a potentially fatal encounter.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The final identification of Slothrop of any certainty is his picture on the cover of an album by obscure English band "The Fool" (another allusion to Tarot, which becomes increasingly significant), where he is credited as playing the harmonica and kazoo. The hundred pages or so of the novel include titled vignettes that summarize events in Slothrop's home town of Mingeborough; offer a (self-referential) reading of the Tarot cards for Weismann/Blicero, who also prepares for a final launch of the 00000 rocket with Gottfried in the nosecone; describe failed last-minute non-rescues by popular culture heroes; and allude to the Sacrifice of Isaac and the mythical figures of Apollo and Orpheus.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: As the novel draws to an ambiguous close, the launch of the rocket with Gottfried is intercut with scenes contemporary to the novel's publication, at the (fictional) Orpheus (movie) Theater in Los Angeles, managed by a character named "Richard M. Zhlubb," a thinly-veiled parody of President Richard Nixon. Zhlubb is running a "Bengt Ekarot / Maria Casares Film Festival." Both actors played personifications of Death, in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, respectively, overt examples of several possible references in the novel to European modernist cinema. The novel concludes as a rocket (perhaps Weissman's) is frozen in its last moment of descent above the theater, where the film being projected has broken, and a hymn composed by Slothrop's heretical colonial ancestor, William Slothrop, is offered.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Poet L. E. Sissman, in his "Gravity's Rainbow" review for "The New Yorker", said of Pynchon: "He is almost a mathematician of prose, who calculates the least and the greatest stress each word and line, each pun and ambiguity, can bear, and applies his knowledge accordingly and virtually without lapses, though he takes many scary, bracing linguistic risks. Thus his remarkably supple diction can first treat a painful and delicate love scene and then roar, without pause, into the sounds and echoes of a drudged and drunken orgy."


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The plot of the novel is complex, containing over 400 characters and involving many different threads of narrative which intersect and weave around one another. The recurring themes throughout the plot are the V-2 rocket, interplay between free will and Calvinistic predestination, breaking the cycle of nature, behavioral psychology, sexuality, paranoia and conspiracy theories such as the Phoebus cartel and the Illuminati. "Gravity's Rainbow" also draws heavily on themes that Pynchon had probably encountered at his work as a technical writer for Boeing, where he edited a support newsletter for the Bomarc Missile Program support unit. The Boeing archives are known to house a vast library of historical V-2 rocket documents, which were probably accessible to Pynchon. The novel is narrated by many distinct voices, a technique further developed in Pynchon's much later novel "Against the Day". The style and tone of the voices vary widely: Some narrate the plot in a highly informal tone, some are more self-referential, and some might even break the fourth wall. Some voices narrate in drastically different formats, ranging from movie-script format to stream of consciousness prose.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The narrative contains numerous descriptions of illicit sexual encounters and drug use by the main characters and supporting cast, sandwiched between dense dialogues or reveries on historic, artistic, scientific, or philosophical subjects, interspersed with whimsical nonsense-poems and allusions to obscure facets of 1940s pop culture. Many of the recurring themes will be familiar to experienced Pynchon readers, including the singing of silly songs, recurring appearances of kazoos, and extensive discussion of paranoia. According to Richard Locke, megalomaniac paranoia is the "operative emotion" behind the novel, and an increasingly central motivator for the many main characters. In many cases, this paranoia proves to be vindicated, as the many plots of the novel become increasingly interconnected, revolving around the identity and purpose of the elusive 00000 Rocket and "Schwarzgerät". The novel becomes increasingly preoccupied with themes of Tarot, Paranoia, and Sacrifice. All three themes culminate in the novel's ending, and the epilogue of the many characters. The novel also features the character Pig Bodine, of Pynchon's novel "V." Bodine would later become a recurring avatar of Pynchon's complex and interconnected fictional universe, making an appearance in nearly all of Pynchon's novels thereafter.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Several characters and situations from Pynchon's earlier works make at least brief appearances in the novel. Slothrop's (fictional) home town of Mingeborough, Massachusetts was the setting for his short story "The Secret Integration," which featured a young character named Hogan Slothrop, who in retrospect would seem to be Tyrone's nephew. Weismann (aka Blicero) and the story of the Herero genocide appeared in the chapter "Mondaugen's Story" in "V." The eponymous character Kurt Mondaugen also reappears in "Gravity's Rainbow". Some early reviewers even suggested that "Gravity's Rainbow" was a sequel to Pynchon's first novel, playing on the term "V-2". In "Gravity's Rainbow", Clayton "Bloody" Chiclitz is a toy manufacturer accompanying Major Marvy, but he appeared later as a defense contract magnate in "The Crying of Lot 49", and his company. Yoyodyne, was introduced in "V." Pig Bodine also appeared in "V." but had his origin in Pynchon's early short story "Low-Lands." Bodine or variants on his name and character also appear in later Pynchon novels. A very minor character in "Gravity's Rainbow", Ronald Cherrycoke, would seem to be a descendant of the Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke, who narrates Pynchon's later novel "Mason & Dixon".


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: On the novels publication in 1973, it was reviewed in the New York Times by Richard Locke under the headline "One of the Longest, Most Difficult, Most Ambitious Novel in Years". Locke compared Pynchon's writing to that of Vladimir Nabokov's, and that "its technical and verbal resources bring to mind Melville and Faulkner. Immersing himself in 'the destructive element' and exploring paranoia, entropy and the love of death as primary forces in the history of our time, Pynchon establishes his imaginative continuity with the great modernist writers of the early years of this century." Locke noted that "Pynchon is obviously capable of the most intricate literary structures--plots and counterplots and symbols that twist and tangle in time and space", but was less impressed by the novels form: "the structure is strained beyond the breaking point. Reading it is often profoundly exasperating; the book is too long and dense; despite the cornucopia of brilliant details and grand themes, one's dominant feelings in the last one to two hundred pages are a mounting restlessness, fatigue and frustration."


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Reviewing the novel in the Saturday Review in March 1973, Richard Poirier stated that "At thirty-six, Pynchon has established himself as a novelist of major importance." In the highly positive review, Poirier compared "Gravity's Rainbow" to "Moby Dick" and "Ulysses", and that it "marks an advance beyond either book in its treatment of cultural inheritance". Poirier noted the wide range of Pynchon's writing and said that "Pynchon is willing and able, that is, to work from a range of perspectives infinitely wider, more difficult to manage, more learned than any to be found elsewhere in contemporary literature. His genius resides in his capacity to see, to see feelingly, how these various perspectives, apparently so diverse and chaotic, are begotten of the same technology, the same supportive structures that have foundations in the theology of the seventeenth century and the science of the nineteenth." (...) "Pynchon is almost unbearably vulnerable to every aspect of contemporary experience, open to every form of sight and sound, democratically receptive to the most common and the most recondite signatures of things."


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The novel is regarded by many scholars as the greatest American novel published after the end of the Second World War, and is "often considered as "the" postmodern novel, redefining both postmodernism and the novel in general". Literary scholar Tony Tanner has hailed it as "both one of the great historical novels of our time and arguably the most important literary text since "Ulysses"."


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Though the book won the National Book Award for 1974, Pynchon chose neither to accept nor acknowledge this award. Thomas Guinzberg of the Viking Press suggested that the comedian "Professor" Irwin Corey accept the award on his behalf. Pynchon agreed, which led to one of the most unusual acceptance speeches of all time, complete with a streaker crossing the stage in the middle of Corey's musings.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: "Gravity's Rainbow" has been translated to many languages, including French (as "Rainbow", 1975), Spanish (as "El arco iris de la gravedad", 1978), German (as "Die Enden der Parabel", 1981) and Serbian (as "Duga gravitacije", 2019). Episodes of the novel have been translated to Japanese.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: "Gravity's Rainbow" was translated into German by Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, and some critics think that it has had a large influence on Jelinek's own writing.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: According to Robert Bramkamp's docudrama about the V2 and "Gravity's Rainbow", entitled "Prüfstand VII", the BBC initiated a project to produce a film adaptation of "Gravity's Rainbow" between 1994 and 1997. Some unfinished footage is included in Bramkamp's film. The Bramkamp movie includes other dramatized sequences from the novel as well, while the main focus is on Peenemünde and the V2. The 2011 film "Impolex" by Alex Ross Perry is loosely inspired by "Gravity's Rainbow", the title referring to the fictional polymer Imipolex G used to condition Slothrop in the novel. To commemorate 75 years since the end of World War II, in 2019, German public radio broadcasters SWR 2 and Deutschlandfunk produced a 14-hour radio play in German language which was aired in April 2020.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The lyrics of Devo's song "Whip It" were inspired by "Gravity's Rainbow" parodies of limericks and poems; Gerald Casale specified:


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The lyrics were written by me as an imitation of Thomas Pynchon's parodies in his book "Gravity's Rainbow". He had parodied limericks and poems of kind of all-American, obsessive, cult of personality ideas like Horatio Alger and "You're #1, there's nobody else like you" kind of poems that were very funny and very clever. I thought, "I'd like to do one like Thomas Pynchon," so I wrote down "Whip It" one night.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The novel inspired the 1984 song "Gravity's Angel" by Laurie Anderson. In her 2004 autobiographical performance "The End of the Moon", Anderson said she once contacted Pynchon asking permission to adapt "Gravity's Rainbow" as an opera. Pynchon replied that he would allow her to do so only if the opera was written for a single instrument: the banjo. Anderson said she took that as a polite "no."


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: German avant-rock group Cassiber incorporated text from the novel in their 1990 album "A Face We All Know". The use of the text was cleared with Pynchon's agent.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Pat Benatar released a 1993 album called "Gravity's Rainbow" after reading Thomas Pynchon's novel. "Gravity's Rainbow" is a song by the British band Klaxons, from the album "Myths of the Near Future" (2007).


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: American progressive rock group Coheed and Cambria's song "Gravity's Union", from their science fiction concept album "" (2013), is named in honor of the novel.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Canadian experimental rock group Rei dos Leitoes's song "Silent on the Island" (2010) incorporates themes from "Gravity's Rainbow" in its second and fourth Verse passages.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: David Lowery of the American alternative rock group Camper Van Beethoven cites "Gravity's Rainbow" as an inspiration for the song "All Her Favorite Fruit" (1989).


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: The group TV Girl's song "Taking What's Not Yours" references having left "Gravity's Rainbow" at an ex-girlfriend's apartment.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: British punk/new wave band The Paranoids released 'Theme From Gravity's Rainbow' as the 'B' side to 'The Love Job' (Hurricane Records (2) – FIRE 14 1980) with a lyric inspired by the novel. Produced by Roy Wood.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: American Rock Band The Used released a song sharing the same title as part of their 2020 Album Heartwork. Bert McCracken, the band's lead singer, said that "Gravity's Rainbow" is one of his favorite books of all time.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: New York artist Zak Smith created a series of 760 drawings entitled, "One Picture for Every Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel "Gravity's Rainbow"", also known by the title "Pictures of What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel "Gravity's Rainbow"". Occupying eleven rows and over eleven meters of wall space, the drawings attempt to illustrate, as literally as possible, every page of the book. The piece includes palm trees, shoes, stuffed toys, a lemon meringue pie, Richard Nixon, Sigmund Freud, an iron toad wired to an electric battery, a dominatrix, and other images from the novel. The series had a successful reception at New York's 2004 Whitney Biennial event, and was described "as a tour de force of sketching and concept" (Abbe 2004). In November 2006, Tin House Books published, "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel "Gravity's Rainbow"", the book of Smith's "Gravity's Rainbow" drawings .


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: In 1999 a painting by the American artist Fred Tomaselli, inspired by the novel and titled "Gravity's Rainbow (Large)", was added to the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City.


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: Speaking about his video game "The Witness", director Jonathan Blow said "I want to make games for people who like to read "Gravity's Rainbow"". He later elaborated:


title: Gravity's Rainbow

text: "Gravity's Rainbow" is a very free book in a certain way. It doesn't care if you're following along exactly. It has a certain freedom and joy to it while also being pretty dark a lot of the time. I can't think of a game that has managed this emotional pan-spectrality of being very joyful and playful while simultaneously being bleak.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The Academy Award for Best Original Score is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer. Some pre-existing music is allowed, though, but a contending film must include a minimum of original music. This minimum since 2021 is established in 35% of the music, which is raised to 80% for sequels and franchise films. Fifteen scores are shortlisted before nominations are announced.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The Academy began awarding movies for their scores in 1935. The category was originally called Best Scoring. At the time, winners and nominees were a mix of original scores and adaptations of pre-existing material. Following the controversial win of Charles Previn for "One Hundred Men and a Girl" in 1938, a film without a credited composer that featured pre-existing classical music, the Academy added a Best Original Score category in 1939. In 1942, the distinction between the two Scoring categories changed slightly as they were renamed to Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. This marked the first time the category was split into separate genres, a distinction that technically still lasts today, although there haven't been enough submissions for the musical category to be activated since 1985. From 1942 to 1985, musical scores had their own category, with the exception of 1958, 1981, and 1982. During that time, both categories had many name changes:


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Following the wins of four Walt Disney Feature Animation films in six years from 1990 to 1995 ("The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", and "The Lion King") during a period called the Disney Renaissance, it was decided to once again split the Best Original Score category by genres, this time by combining comedies and musicals together. As Alan Bergman, the chairman of the Academy's music branch said, "People were voting for the songs, not the underscores. We felt that Academy members outside the music branch didn't distinguish between the two. So when a score like "The Lion King" is competing against a drama like "Forrest Gump," it's apples and oranges – not in the quality of the score, but in the way it functions in the movie. There's a big difference." The category was therefore split into Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score in 1996. This change proved unpopular in the other branches of the Academy as Charles Bernstein, chairman of the Academy's rules committee, noted that "no other Oscar category depended on a film's genre" and "the job of composing an underscore for a romantic comedy is not substantially different from working on a heavy drama." This split was reverted in 2000.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: In 2020, rules were changed to require that a film's score include a minimum of 60% original music. Franchise films and sequels must include a minimum of 80% new music. In 2021, the rules were changed again, lowering the minimum percentage of original music from 60% to 35% of the total music in the film.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The Academy Award for Best Original Musical is a category that was re-established in 2000 after the Best Original Musical or Comedy Score category was retired. It has never been awarded in its present form due to a prolonged drought of films meeting the sufficient eligibility requirements. The Music Branch Executive Committee of the Academy decides whether there are enough quality submissions to justify its activation.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The following is the list of nominated composers organized by year, and listing both films and composers. The years shown in the following list of winners are the production years, thus a reference to 1967 means the Oscars presented in 1968 for films released in 1967.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: These are only for nominations in the Scoring categories. Nominations in other categories, such as the Original Song category, are not included.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Only one composer has won two Scoring Oscars the same year: in 1973, Marvin Hamlisch won Original Dramatic Score for "The Way We Were" and Best Adaptation Score, for "The Sting". Hamlisch also won Best Song that year for "The Way We Were", making him the only composer to win three music Oscars in the same year.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Only one composer has won Oscars three years in a row: Roger Edens won for "Easter Parade" (1948), "On the Town" (1949) and "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950).


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: As of 2022, only ten women have been nominated in music score categories: Ann Ronell, Tylwyth Kymry aka Meg Karlin, Angela Morley, Marilyn Bergman, Rachel Portman, Anne Dudley, Lynn Ahrens, Mica Levi, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Germaine Franco. Kymry, Bergman, and Ahrens were nominated for their contribution as lyricists.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Four women have won in the scoring categories. Three are composers: Rachel Portman, who won for "Emma" (1996); Anne Dudley, who won for "The Full Monty" (1997); and Hildur Guðnadóttir, who won for "Joker" (2019). The fourth is lyricist Marilyn Bergman, who won for "Yentl" (1983) in the Original Song Score category, sharing the award with co-lyricist Alan Bergman (her husband) and composer Michel Legrand. Guðnadóttir is the only woman to win the award under no qualifications; Bergman won for Best Song Score while Portman and Dudley won for Best Musical or Comedy Score.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The female composers nominated for multiple Scoring Oscars are Rachel Portman, who was nominated for "Emma" (1996) (for which she won for Best Musical or Comedy Score), "The Cider House Rules" (1999), and "Chocolat" (2000); and Angela Morley, who was nominated twice in the Original Song Score or Adaptation Score category for "The Little Prince" (1974) and "The Slipper and the Rose" (1976).


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Dmitri Shostakovich and Duke Ellington were both nominated the same year but lost to the arrangers of "West Side Story".


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The scores of "Midnight Express" by Giorgio Moroder in 1979, "Slumdog Millionaire" by A. R. Rahman in 2009, and "The Social Network" by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross in 2011 are the only scores with electronic-based music ever to win the award. In addition, the electronic-based scores of "Witness" by Maurice Jarre in 1986, "Rain Man" by Hans Zimmer in 1989, and "Her" by William Butler, and Owen Pallett in 2014 have also been nominated.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Noted nominated composers known for their music mostly outside the film world include: Aaron Copland, Kurt Weill, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Peter Maxwell Davies, Randy Newman, Richard Rodney Bennett, Stephen Schwartz, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Artie Shaw, Trent Reznor, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, and Jonny Greenwood.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Rock musicians and pop stars are most often nominated in the songwriting category. A handful that were nominated in the Scoring categories includes: The Beatles, Prince, Pete Townshend, Rod McKuen, Isaac Hayes, Kris Kristofferson, Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, Anthony Newley, Paul Williams, Tom Waits, David Byrne, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Trent Reznor, Jon Batiste, and Matthew Wilder.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: Record producers George Martin (The Beatles) and Jerry Wexler (Atlantic Records) also received nominations in the Scoring categories.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: At the age of 87, Ennio Morricone became the oldest winner in Oscar history at the time for a competitive award.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The following is a list of composers nominated more than once and winning at least one Academy Award (in this category). This list is sorted by number of awards, with the number of total nominations listed in parentheses. These do not include nominations (or awards) in the Best Original Song category.


title: Academy Award for Best Original Score

text: The following composers have been nominated for a Best Original Score Oscar more than once but have yet to garner one. The number of nominations is listed in parentheses. These do not include nominations (or awards) in the Best Original Song category.


title: Tootsie

text: Tootsie is a 1982 American satirical romantic comedy-drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Dustin Hoffman. Its supporting cast includes Pollack, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Bill Murray, Charles Durning, George Gaynes, Geena Davis (in her debut) and Doris Belack. The film tells the story of a talented but volatile actor whose reputation for being difficult drives him to adopt a new identity as a woman to land a job. The film was adapted by Larry Gelbart, Barry Levinson (uncredited), Elaine May (uncredited) and Murray Schisgal from a story by Gelbart and Don McGuire.


title: Tootsie

text: "Tootsie" was a major critical and financial success, the second most profitable film of 1982, and was nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Picture. Lange was the only winner, for Best Supporting Actress. In 1998, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Its theme song, "It Might Be You", performed by Stephen Bishop, was a Top 40 hit in the United States.