title: Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku

text: Reviewing the first volume for Anime News Network, Rebecca Silverman and Faye Hopper both gave it 3.5 stars out of 5. Both critics praised the main characters Sagiri and Gabimaru and their relationship, with Hopper stating the way their struggles mirror and allow each other to empathize and grow despite their opposed roles is executed with "thoughtfulness and real power, and imbues a gritty, gory seinen with heart." Silverman felt that despite containing some elements derivative of other works, "Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku" manages to make them into "a story worth paying attention to" and is entertaining. Hopper wrote that while the violent manga is not for everyone, it has terrific, macabre art, a solid hook, and rich characters, and she admires it for showing how "casual, uncritical brutality hurts the soul, and that revulsion to it is normal and should be accepted."


title: Abigail Adams

text: Abigail Adams ("née" Smith; November 22,  1744 – October 28, 1818) was the wife and closest advisor of John Adams, as well as the mother of John Quincy Adams. She was a founder of the United States, and was the first second lady of the United States and second first lady of the United States, although such titles were not used at the time. She and Barbara Bush are the only two women to have been married to U.S. presidents and to have been the mothers of other U.S. presidents.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Adams's life is one of the most documented of the first ladies: she is remembered for the many letters she wrote to her husband john adams while he stayed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Continental Congresses. John frequently sought the advice of Abigail on many matters, and their letters are filled with intellectual discussions on government and politics. Her letters also serve as eyewitness accounts of the American Revolutionary War home front.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Surveys of historians conducted periodically by the Siena College Research Institute since 1982 have consistently found Adams to rank among the three most highly regarded first ladies by the assessments of historians.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Abigail Adams was born on November 22, 1744, at the North Parish Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts, to William Smith (1707–1783) and Elizabeth (née Quincy) Smith. On her mother's side, she was descended from the Quincy family, a well-known political family in the Massachusetts colony. Through her mother she was a cousin of Dorothy Quincy, who was married to John Hancock. Adams was also the great-granddaughter of John Norton, founding pastor of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, the only remaining 17th-century Puritan meetinghouse in Massachusetts. Smith married Elizabeth Quincy in 1740, and together they had three daughters: Mary born in 1741, Abigail born in 1744 and Elizabeth born on November 22, 1744. As with several of her ancestors, Adams's father was a liberal Congregational minister: a leader in a Yankee society that held its clergy in high esteem. Smith did not focus his preaching on predestination or original sin; instead he emphasized the importance of reason and morality. In July 1775 his wife Elizabeth, with whom he had been married for 35 years, died of smallpox. In 1784, at age 77, Smith died.


title: Abigail Adams

text: The Smith family were slaveholders and are known to have enslaved at least four people. An enslaved woman named Phoebe took a caretaking role to Abigail and other children; later on she would work as a paid servant for Abigail after she became free. Abigail would come to express anti-slavery beliefs as an adult.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Abigail did not receive formal schooling; she was frequently sick as a child, something which may have been a factor preventing her from receiving an education. Later in life, Adams would also consider that she was deprived an education because females were rarely given such an opportunity. Although she did not receive a formal education, her mother taught her and her sisters Mary (1739–1811) and Elizabeth (1742–1816, known as Betsy) to read, write and cipher; her father's, uncle's and grandfather's large libraries enabled the sisters to study English and French literature. Her grandmother, Elizabeth Quincy, also contributed to Adams's education. As she grew up, Adams read with friends in an effort to further her learning. She became one of the most erudite women ever to serve as first lady.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Abigail Smith first met John Adams when she was 15 years old in 1759. John accompanied his friend Richard Cranch to the Smith household. Cranch was engaged to Abigail's older sister, Mary Smith, and they would be the parents of federal judge William Cranch. Adams reported finding the Smith sisters neither "fond, nor frank, nor candid".


title: Abigail Adams

text: Although Adams's father approved of the match, her mother was appalled that her daughter would marry a country lawyer whose manner still reeked of the farm, but eventually she gave in. The couple married on October 25, 1764, in the Smiths' home in Weymouth. Smith, Abigail's father, presided over the marriage of John Adams and his daughter. After the reception, the couple mounted a single horse and rode off to their new home, the saltbox house and farm John had inherited from his father in Braintree, Massachusetts (a location that is now part of Quincy). Later they moved to a second home in Boston, where his law practice expanded. The couple welcomed their first child nine months into their marriage.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Her childrearing style included relentless and continual reminders of what the children owed to virtue and the Adams tradition. Adams was responsible for family and farm when her husband was on his long trips. "Alas!", she wrote in December 1773, "How many snow banks divide thee and me." Abigail and John's marriage is well documented through their correspondence and other writings. Letters exchanged throughout John's political obligations indicate his trust in Abigail's knowledge was sincere. Like her husband, Abigail often quoted literature in her letters. Historian David McCullough claims that she did so "more readily" than her husband. Their correspondence illuminated their mutual emotional and intellectual respect. John often excused himself to Abigail for his "vanity", exposing his need for her approval.


title: Abigail Adams

text: He moved the family to Boston in April 1768, renting a clapboard house on Brattle Street that was known locally as the "White House". He and Abigail and the children lived there for a year, then moved to Cold Lane; still later, they moved again to a larger house in Brattle Square in the center of the city.


title: Abigail Adams

text: John's growing law practice required changes for the family. In 1771, he moved Abigail and the children to Braintree, but he kept his office in Boston, hoping the time away from his family would allow him to focus on his work. Nevertheless, after some time in the capital, he became disenchanted with the rural and "vulgar" Braintree as a home for his family. In August 1772, therefore, Adams moved his family back to Boston. He purchased a large brick house on Queen Street, not far from his office. In 1774, Abigail and John returned the family to the farm due to the increasingly unstable situation in Boston, and Braintree remained their permanent Massachusetts home.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Abigail also took responsibility for the family's financial matters, including investments. Investments made through her uncle Cotton Tufts in debt instruments issued to finance the Revolutionary War were rewarded after Alexander Hamilton's First Report on the Public Credit endorsed full federal payment at face value to holders of government securities. One recent researcher even credits Abigail's financial acumen with providing for the Adams family's wealth through the end of John's lifetime.


title: Abigail Adams

text: In 1784, she and her daughter Nabby joined her husband and her eldest son, John Quincy, at her husband's diplomatic post in Paris. Abigail had dreaded the thought of the long sea voyage, but in fact found the journey interesting. At first she found life in Paris difficult, and was rather overwhelmed by the novel experience of running a large house with a retinue of servants. However, as the months passed she began to enjoy herself: she made numerous friends, discovered a fondness for the theatre and opera, and was fascinated by Parisian women's fashions, although she ruefully admitted that she "would never be in the mode".


title: Abigail Adams

text: After 1785, she filled the role of wife of the first U.S. minister to the Court of St James's (Britain). In contrast to Paris, Abigail disliked London, where she had few friends and was, in general, cold-shouldered by polite society. One pleasant experience was her temporary guardianship of Thomas Jefferson's young daughter Mary (Polly), for whom Abigail came to feel a deep and lifelong love.


title: Abigail Adams

text: She and John returned in 1788 to their home in Quincy, Peacefield (also known as the "Old House"), which she set about vigorously enlarging and remodeling. It still stands and is open to the public as part of Adams National Historical Park.


title: Abigail Adams

text: John Adams was inaugurated as the second president of the United States on March 4, 1797, in Philadelphia. Abigail was not present at her husband's inauguration as she was tending to his dying 89-year-old mother. When John was elected President of the United States, Abigail continued a formal pattern of entertaining. She held a large dinner each week, made frequent public appearances, and provided for entertainment for the city of Philadelphia each Fourth of July.


title: Abigail Adams

text: She took an active role in politics and policy, unlike the quiet presence of Martha Washington. She was so politically active, her political opponents came to refer to her as "Mrs. President". As John's confidant, Abigail was often well informed on issues facing her husband's administration, at times including details of current events not yet known to the public in letters to her sister Mary and her son John Quincy. Some people used Abigail to contact the president. At times Abigail planted favorable stories about her husband in the press. Abigail remained a staunch supporter of her husband's political career, supporting his policies, such as passing the Alien and Sedition Acts.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Adams brought the children of her brother William Smith, her brother-in-law John Shaw, and her son Charles to live in the President's House during her husband's presidency because the children's respective fathers all struggled with alcoholism. Charles's daughter, Suzannah, was just 3 years old in 1800 when Adams brought her to live in the President's House in Philadelphia days before Charles's death.


title: Abigail Adams

text: With the relocation of the capital to Washington, D.C., in 1800, she became the first First Lady to reside at the White House, or President's House as it was then known. Adams moved into the White House in November 1800, living there for only the last four months of her husband's term. The city was wilderness, the President's House far from completion. She found the unfinished mansion in Washington "habitable" and the location "beautiful"; but she complained that, despite the thick woods nearby, she could find no one willing to chop and haul firewood for the First Family. Abigail used the East Room of the White House to hang up the laundry. Adams's health, never robust, suffered in Washington.


title: Abigail Adams

text: After John's defeat in his presidential re-election campaign, the family retired to Peacefield in Quincy in 1800. Abigail followed her son's political career earnestly, as her letters to her contemporaries show. In later years, she renewed correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, having reached out to him upon the death of his daughter Maria Jefferson Eppes (Polly), whom Abigail had cared for and come to love when Polly was a small child in London, even though Jefferson's political opposition to her husband had hurt her deeply. She continued to raise her granddaughter Susanna. She also raised her elder grandchildren, including George Washington Adams and a younger John Adams, while their father John Quincy Adams was minister to Russia. Adams's 48-year-old daughter, Nabby, died of breast cancer in 1813, after having endured three years of severe pain.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Adams died in her home on October 28, 1818, of typhoid fever. She is buried beside her husband and near their son John Quincy and his wife Louisa in a crypt located in the United First Parish Church (also known as the "Church of the Presidents") in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was 73 years old, exactly two weeks shy of her 74th birthday. Her last words were, "Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long." Less than eight years later, on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, her husband died of heart failure at the age of 90. He was buried with his late wife and is not far from the grave of their son, John Quincy.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Biographer Lynne Withey argues for her conservatism because she: "feared revolution; she valued stability, believed that family and religion were the essential props of social order, and considered inequality a social necessity". Her 18th-century mindset held that "improved legal and social status for women was not inconsistent with their essentially domestic role."


title: Abigail Adams

text: Abigail Adams wrote about the troubles and concerns she had as an 18th-century woman. She was an advocate of married women's property rights and more opportunities for women, particularly in the field of education. Women, she believed, should not submit to laws not made in their interest, nor should they be content with the simple role of being companions to their husbands. They should educate themselves and thus be recognized for their intellectual capabilities so they could guide and influence the lives of their children and husbands. She is known for her March 1776 letter to John and the Continental Congress, requesting that they, "remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."


title: Abigail Adams

text: John declined Abigail's "extraordinary code of laws", but acknowledged to Abigail, "We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight."


title: Abigail Adams

text: Adams believed that slavery was evil and a threat to the American democratic experiment. A letter written by her on March 31, 1776, explained that she doubted most of the Virginians had such "passion for Liberty" as they claimed they did, since they "deprive[d] their fellow Creatures" of freedom.


title: Abigail Adams

text: A notable incident regarding this happened in Philadelphia in 1791, when a free black youth came to her house asking to be taught how to write. Subsequently, she placed the boy in a local evening school, though not without objections from a neighbor. Adams responded that he was "a Freeman as much as any of the young Men and merely because his Face is Black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood? ... I have not thought it any disgrace to my self to take him into my parlor and teach him both to read and write."


title: Abigail Adams

text: Adams was an active member of First Parish Church in Quincy, which became Unitarian in doctrine by 1753. Her theological views evolved over the course of her life. In a letter to her son near the end of her life, dated May 5, 1816, she wrote of her religious beliefs:


title: Abigail Adams

text: She also asked Louisa Adams in a letter dated January 3, 1818, "When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?"


title: Abigail Adams

text: Historian Joseph Ellis has found that the 1,200 letters between John and Abigail "constituted a treasure trove of unexpected intimacy and candor, more revealing than any other correspondence between a prominent American husband and wife in American history." Ellis (2011) says that Abigail, although self-educated, was a better and more colorful letter-writer than John, even though John was one of the best letter-writers of the age. Ellis argues that Abigail was the more resilient and more emotionally balanced of the two, and calls her one of the most extraordinary women in American history.


title: Abigail Adams

text: The Abigail Adams Cairn – a mound of rough stones – crowns the nearby Penn Hill from which she and her son, John Quincy Adams, watched the Battle of Bunker Hill and the burning of Charlestown. At that time she was minding the children of Dr. Joseph Warren, president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, who was killed in the battle.


title: Abigail Adams

text: One of the subpeaks of New Hampshire's Mount Adams (whose main peak is named for her husband) is named in her honor.


title: Abigail Adams

text: In 2022, a seven-foot tall bronze statue of Adams was unveiled in Quincy, Massachusetts, on the Hancock Adams Common.


title: Abigail Adams

text: An Adams Memorial has been proposed in Washington, D.C., honoring Adams, her husband, her son, and other members of their family.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Passages from Adams's letters to her husband figured prominently in songs from the Broadway musical "1776". Virginia Vestoff played Adams in the original 1969 Broadway production of "1776" and recreated the role for the film version in 1972. On television, Kathryn Walker and Leora Dana portrayed Adams in the 1976 PBS mini-series "The Adams Chronicles". In the mini-series "John Adams", which premiered in March 2008 on HBO, she was played by Laura Linney. Linney enjoyed portraying Adams, saying that "she is a woman of both passion and principle." A revolution-era Abigail, circa 1781, is portrayed by Michelle Trachtenberg, on the television series, "Sleepy Hollow", in the season 2 episode, "Pittura Infamante" (January 19, 2015), her assistance being crucial in ending a series of unexplained murders from the period. Adams is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece "The Dinner Party", being represented as one of the 999 names on the "Heritage Floor". Novelist Barbara Hambly, writing as Barbara Hamilton, wrote three historical mysteries set in the early 1770s told from Abigail Adams' perspective (and featuring Abigail as the detective): "The Ninth Daughter" (2009), "A Marked Man" (2010), and "Sup with the Devil" (2011).


title: Abigail Adams

text: The First Spouse Program under the Presidential $1 Coin Program authorizes the United States Mint to issue half-ounce $10 gold coins and bronze medal duplicates to honor the first spouses of the United States. The Abigail Adams coin was released on June 19, 2007, and sold out in just hours. She is pictured on the back of the coin writing her most famous letter to John Adams. In February 2009 "Coin World" reported that some 2007 Abigail Adams medals were struck using the reverse from the 2008 Louisa Adams medal, apparently by mistake. These pieces, called mules, were contained within the 2007 First Spouse medal set. The U.S. Mint has not released an estimate of how many mules were made.


title: Abigail Adams

text: Since 1982 Siena College Research Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. Consistently, Adams has ranked among the three-most highly regarded first ladies in these surveys. In terms of cumulative assessment, Adams has been ranked:


title: Abigail Adams

text: In the 2008 Siena Research Institute survey, Adams was ranked in the top-four of all criteria, ranking the 3rd-highest in of background, 2nd-highest in intelligence, 3rd-highest in value to the country, 3rd-highest in being her "own woman", 2nd-highest in integrity, 3rd-highest in her accomplishments, 3rd-highest in courage, 2nd-highest in leadership, 4th-highest in public image, and 2nd-highest in her value to the president. In the 2014 survey, Adams and her husband were ranked the 5th-highest out of 39 first couples in terms of being a "power couple".


title: Billy West

text: William Richard Werstine (born April 16, 1952), known professionally as Billy West, is an American voice actor. His voice roles include Bugs Bunny in the 1996 film "Space Jam" and several subsequent projects, the title characters of "Doug" and "The Ren & Stimpy Show", as well as the "Futurama" characters Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan. In commercials, he is the current voice of the Red M&M and formerly voiced Buzz for Honey Nut Cheerios. West also voices other such established characters such as Elmer Fudd, Popeye, Shaggy Rogers, Skeets, Tom, Muttley, and Woody Woodpecker. He was a cast member on "The Howard Stern Show", during which time he was noted for his impressions of Larry Fine, Marge Schott, George Takei, and Jackie Martling.


title: Billy West

text: William Richard Werstine was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 16, 1952. He is of Irish descent, and was born with ADHD and autism. He grew up in Boston, in the Roslindale neighborhood. After a semester at Berklee College of Music, West found himself in various bands, gigging the Boston scene by night, and selling guitars in a Harvard Square shop during the day.


title: Billy West

text: West has stated that during the Vietnam War, he was subject to the draft lottery under the Nixon administration, receiving a low draft number which would have resulted in his being drafted in 1970. West was ultimately classified "4-F" and excluded from enlistment on medical grounds as he had hypertension and flat feet. West described his later recurring role as Richard Nixon on "Futurama" as his "revenge" against Nixon. In a 2019 video post, West opined that the "biggest joke" about his experience was the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum subsequently including images and footage of the "Futurama" Nixon character as part of its "Nixon in Popular Culture" exhibit.


title: Billy West

text: In 1980, West was part of an oldies band called The Shutdowns. West worked at WBCN in Boston, performing daily comedic routines on "The Big Mattress" show, then moved to New York City in 1988, working at K-Rock Radio (92.3 FM WXRK). West became a regular on "The Howard Stern Show" at that time until leaving in 1995, where he gained notice for his impersonations of Three Stooges middleman Larry Fine, Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott and Stern's head writer Jackie Martling. West moved to Los Angeles, where he found success as a voice actor and performer.


title: Billy West

text: He left the radio station in 1988 to work on the short-lived revival of "Beany and Cecil", which was his first voice role in television. West's first major roles were on "Doug" and "The Ren & Stimpy Show", which were two of the first three Nicktoons on Nickelodeon (the other being "Rugrats"). Over his career, West has been the voice talent for close to 120 different characters including some of the most iconic animated figures in television history. He has become one of the few voice actors who can impersonate Mel Blanc in his prime, including characterizations of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, the voice Arthur Q. Bryan used for Elmer Fudd, as well as other characters from Warner Bros. cartoons. In 1998, "Entertainment Weekly" described West as "the new Mel Blanc" and noted his ability to mimic well-known voices, though he would rather develop original voices. West's favorite characters are Philip J. Fry and Stimpy, both of which he originated. West has been very outspoken over his displeasure about the influx of movie star actors providing voice-over for films and major shows. West has stated that he did not like the Disney version of "Doug" and that he "couldn't watch" the show. West was the voice of the show's namesake, Geeker, throughout "Project Geeker"s 13-episode run. West was the voice of Zim in the original pilot for "Invader Zim". Richard Steven Horvitz was chosen for the series role because West's voice was too recognizable, according to creator Jhonen Vasquez during DVD commentary. West is the voice of "Red" in numerous M&M commercials as well as the 3-D movie "I Lost my M in Vegas", currently playing at M&M's World in Las Vegas, Nevada. He also voices a number of minor characters in the series "". He voiced the character Moobeard in "Moobeard the Cow Pirate", a short animation featured on "Random! Cartoons" and reprises his role as Elmer Fudd in Cartoon Network's series "The Looney Tunes Show". In 1999, he also had a cameo in the Emmy Award-winning cartoon "Dilbert".


title: Billy West

text: West provided the voice of Stimpson J. Cat in Nickelodeon's "The Ren & Stimpy Show" from 1991 until 1996, and he later provided the voice of Ren Höek from 1993 to 1996 when Ren's original voice and series creator John Kricfalusi was fired by Nickelodeon (then a division of the original Viacom) for delivering late and objectionable episodes. He performed other characters on the series, such as Mr. Horse (another role he took over after Kricfalusi's departure) and the announcer for the "Log" ads (a voice West would use years later as the narrator for "The Weird Al Show").


title: Billy West

text: According to West, he was originally supposed to do the voice of both Ren and Stimpy (and performed both characters on the tape that was used to sell the show to Nickelodeon), but then Kricfalusi decided to do the voice of Ren himself once the show was sold and he had West on board as part of the selling point. However, West provided Ren's laughter with Kricfalusi as Ren's speaking voice.


title: Billy West

text: West's roles in "Futurama" include Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan, and Dr. Zoidberg, among others. As he and other "Futurama" cast and crew point out in DVD commentaries, he voiced so many characters throughout the series that conversations are often held entirely between characters he is voicing. West went into the "Futurama" auditions and was asked to try out for, as he says, "just about every part". He eventually landed the roles of Farnsworth, Zoidberg, and Brannigan. He later got the main role of Fry, which originally had gone to Charlie Schlatter. While West is known for his original voices, the voice he uses for Fry is often considered to be closer to his natural voice than any other character he has played; in an audio commentary, he states Fry is "just [himself] at age 25". This similarity, West acknowledges, was done purposefully in order to make it harder to replace him in the part along with placing more of himself personally into the role.


title: Billy West

text: The role of Zapp Brannigan was written for the late Phil Hartman, who died before the show started; West was given the role. West has described his interpretation of Zapp Brannigan's voice as an imitation of Hartman, but described the actual vocalizations of the character as being based on "a couple of big dumb announcers I knew." "Futurama" was renewed by Comedy Central as four direct-to-DVD films broken into 16 television episodes. West reprised his roles for these films and was signed on for two new 26-episode production seasons (four 13-episode air seasons) of "Futurama" which aired summers of 2010 to 2013.


title: Billy West

text: West was the announcer of the program "Screen Gems Network" which ran from 1999 to 2001. He was the promotional announcer for The Comedy Channel before it merged with HA! to become Comedy Central. Over his career, Billy West has voiced multiple characters in television commercials.


title: Billy West

text: West voiced the "Speed Racer" character in a late 1990s advertisement for Volkswagen, because the commercial's producers could not locate Peter Fernandez, the original voice of Speed. However, the producers did locate Corinne Orr, the original voice for the characters Trixie and Spritle.


title: Billy West

text: West voiced Graham and Julius F. in Eric Kaplan's web cartoon "Zombie College" and two characters in "Tofu the Vegan Zombie". He appeared on Ken Reid's "TV Guidance Counselor Podcast" on January 30, 2015. The episode was recorded live at The Smell in Downtown Los Angeles during the third annual Riot LA Comedy Festival.


title: Billy West

text: West began his own podcast show in July 2015. It features him doing numerous characters per episode, recurring segments such as "Song Demolition", "Billy Bastard – Amateur Human Being" and special guest Jim Gomez.


title: Billy West

text: In the 1996 film "Space Jam", West voiced Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. He reprised both roles in subsequent "Looney Tunes" feature-length films and returned as Fudd in the theatrically released "". In 1998, West starred in the direct-to-video film "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island" as Shaggy Rogers, becoming the second person to portray the character (the first being Casey Kasem). He was one of the top contenders to replace Kasem after his retirement in 2009 but lost the role to Matthew Lillard. He voiced role of Muttley in the Warner Bros. 2020' Scooby-Doo CGI film "Scoob!". In 2000, he provided additional voices in Disney's "Dinosaur". In 2004, West voiced the classic character Popeye in the 75th-anniversary film "", and made his live-action film debut in Mark Hamill's "". He also appeared in a cameo in "". Other films featuring West's vocal talents include "Joe's Apartment", "Cats & Dogs", "Olive, the Other Reindeer", "TMNT", "The Proud Family Movie" and several "Tom and Jerry" direct-to-video films.


title: Billy West

text: West is a guitarist and singer-songwriter with a band called Billy West and The Grief Counselors. They have released their first album, "Me-Pod". West has toured as a guitarist for Roy Orbison and Brian Wilson.


title: Billy West

text: In 1982, West sang lead, doing an impersonation of Mike Love, on a Beach Boys-inspired tune, "Another Cape Cod Summer This Year," by studio band ROUTE 28, written and produced by Erik Lindgren on his Arf! Arf! Records label.


title: Billy West

text: West has collaborated with Deborah Harry, Lou Reed, and Los Lobos, and he has played live on several occasions with Brian Wilson, including the guitar solo on the Beach Boys tune "Do it Again" on "Late Show with David Letterman", in the mid-1990s.


title: Billy West

text: The "Futurama" episode "Proposition Infinity" features the track "Shut up and Love Me" which was written and played by Billy West and Greg Leon, under the name "Wailing Fungus".


title: Billy West

text: Throughout the 1980s, West provided character voices on Charles Laquidara's "Big Mattress" radio show on Boston's WBCN. West was one-half of the award-winning WBCN Production team from 1980 to 1986. From 1989 through 1995, West provided "The Howard Stern Show" with character voices such as Jim Backus, Lucille Ball, Raymond Burr, Johnny Carson, Johnnie Cochran, Connie Chung, Pat Cooper, Jane Curtin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Doris Day, Louis "Red" Deutsch, David Dinkins, Mia Farrow, Larry Fine, Pete Fornatale, Frank Gifford, Kathie Lee Gifford, Rudolph Giuliani, Mark Goddard, Bobcat Goldthwait, the Greaseman, Jonathan Harris (as Dr. Zachary Smith), Leona Helmsley, Evander Holyfield, Shemp Howard, Lance Ito, Elton John, Don Knotts, Jay Leno, Nelson Mandela, Jackie Martling (as the Jackie puppet), Ed McMahon, Al Michaels, Bill Mumy (as Will Robinson), Cardinal O'Connor, Maury Povich, Soon-Yi Previn, Marge Schott, Frank Sinatra, Rae Stern (Howard Stern's mother), George Takei, Joe Walsh and Robin Williams until eventually leaving the show over money. West was an occasional contributor to "The Adam Carolla Show", a syndicated morning radio show that replaced Stern's show on CBS in LA. On February 19 and 20, 2007, "The Howard Stern Show" ran a special two-part retrospective of West's work with the show. It marked his first work with the show since leaving after his last show on November 1, 1995. On June 9, 2009, West appeared on Jackie Martling's "Jackie's Joke Hunt" on Stern's satellite radio channel Howard 101.


title: Billy West

text: West has spoken openly about the child abuse he experienced from his father. He says he developed his impressionist skills as a way to distract himself from his trauma.


title: Billy West

text: West has been critical of Dick Cheney and the Republican Party, describing Republican senators as "old men with bad breath and dandruff." He has also mocked the tweets of Donald Trump by reading them out in character as Zapp Brannigan, drawing similarities between Trump and the "Futurama" antagonist.


title: Billy West

text: West purchased a home in the Hollywood Hills West neighborhood of Los Angeles for $480,000 in 1998, and sold it for $1.18 million in March 2016.


title: The Way of Kings

text: The Way of Kings is an epic fantasy novel written by American author Brandon Sanderson and the first book in "The Stormlight Archive" series. The novel was published on August 31, 2010, by Tor Books. "The Way of Kings" consists of one prelude, one prologue, 75 chapters, an epilogue and 9 interludes. It was followed by "Words of Radiance" in 2014, "Oathbringer" in 2017 and "Rhythm of War" in 2020. A leatherbound edition was released in 2021.


title: The Way of Kings

text: In 2011, it won the David Gemmell Legend Award for best novel. The unabridged audiobook is read by narrator team Michael Kramer and Kate Reading.


title: The Way of Kings

text: Sanderson started working on pieces of "The Way of Kings" in the late 1990s and finished the first draft in 2003. Its publication was delayed when Sanderson instead decided to focus on his "Mistborn" trilogy. The original, non-canon version, "The Way of Kings Prime" is available on the official website of the author.


title: The Way of Kings

text: On June 10, 2010, the prologue and the first three chapters of the book were released, along with an introduction by Sanderson, as a preview on the Tor website. On July 8, 2010, the next three chapters (4–6) were released in audio format. On August 5, 2010, chapters 9 and 11 were released. Tor wrote that they did not release chapters 7, 8, and 10 because they wanted to focus on the storyline of Kaladin, one of the main characters. On August 26, 2010, chapters 12 and 13 were released.


title: The Way of Kings

text: The story rotates between the points of view of Kaladin, Shallan Davar, Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Dalinar Kholin, Adolin Kholin, and several other minor characters, who lead seemingly unconnected lives. Szeth, a Shin man cast out by his people and condemned to obey his constantly changing masters, is sent to assassinate the king of one of the world's most powerful nations, Alethkar. As the story progresses, he continuously changes hands, doing his best to hide the fact that he possesses an Honorblade, a mythical blade used by the Heralds that can cut through any material. He also possesses access to powers that are no longer available to normal humans (“Surgebinding”), once possessed by the Knights Radiant and thought lost, making him incredibly difficult to defeat in battle.


title: The Way of Kings

text: When Szeth was sent to kill the Alethi King Gavilar, the Parshendi, a race similar to the docile slaves of other nations, claimed responsibility for the assassination. Gavilar's son, Elhokar, then goes to war with the Parshendi. The story shifts to the viewpoint of Highprince Dalinar Kholin, the brother of the murdered king. Before he died, his brother directed Dalinar to an ancient tome called "The Way of Kings", which leads Dalinar to start questioning the warlike and competitive Alethkar way of life. He also begins to experience visions in which he sees the ancient Knights Radiant. For Dalinar, these visions not only cast doubt on the mistaken history of the Radiants, they also begin to reveal the truth about the Voidbringers and the current state of the world. All of these events make Dalinar reluctant to fight in battle. Dalinar's conviction is questioned by those closest to him, casting heavy doubt on his sanity and bringing into question his claim to leadership. In the political unrest of the age, perceived weakness is cause for others to attempt to eliminate him.


title: The Way of Kings

text: Meanwhile, the story also follows Kaladin, a darkeyed villager with a burning hatred for lighteyed nobles. Trained in his youth as a surgeon, Kaladin volunteered to go to war for the army of a local lord named Amaram, to watch over and protect his brother, Tien, on the field of battle. In his third battle, Kaladin fails to protect his brother, who is killed. This drives Kaladin to become a better fighter, resolving to protect others from the same fate. During a later battle, Kaladin succeeds in killing an enemy Shardbearer, and could claim the enemy's Shardblade and Shardplate by right, becoming a lighteyes himself. However, he rejects the Shardblade and Shardplate and is then betrayed by Brightlord Amaram, who takes the treasures for himself and brands Kaladin a slave to hide the theft. This event cements Kaladin's hatred for nobles and leaves deep emotional scars. After a number of escape attempts, he is forced into service as a bridgeman in an army battling the Parshendi on the Shattered Plains. Bridgemen are used strategically as bait for the opposing armies' archers, allowed to die so that the trained army can attack more easily. Kaladin manages to rally the other men in his group and turns them into a team that can survive. However, after he accidentally ruins a battle by changing tactics, he is beaten violently and left outside during a highstorm to die. However, he manages to survive. As a result of his unlikely survival, he begins to discover that he possesses the Surgebinding ability. As he struggles to find a way for his men to escape their lives as bridgemen, he comes to terms with his powers and begins to learn how to use them.


title: The Way of Kings

text: Shallan, a minor lighteyed woman whose family and lands are in danger, hatches a daring plot to switch a broken Soulcaster (a device that allows people to change objects to other things) with a working one belonging to Jasnah Kholin, sister of the Alethi king. She petitions Jasnah to become her ward, and through persistent effort she manages to gain Jasnah's confidence and becomes her apprentice. After successfully stealing the Soulcaster, she is frustrated by her inability to use it until one fateful day, when she accidentally turns a goblet into blood. Knowing Jasnah will soon arrive on the scene, Shallan breaks a pitcher and cuts herself to make it seem as though the blood was hers, which Jasnah mistakes for a suicide attempt. Shallan soon discovers that Jasnah's Soulcaster does not possess the ability to transmute, but instead hides her uncommon inherent ability to Soulcast. When Jasnah learns that Shallan also has the inherent ability to Soulcast, she forgives the girl for trying to steal her Soulcaster and begins instructing her in the proper use of their shared power. She also reveals her research into the origins of the Knights Radiant and Voidbringers and prepares Shallan and herself to travel to the Shattered Plains to meet with Jasnah's uncle Dalinar.


title: The Way of Kings

text: The backstory of the novel revolves around recurring disasters known as Desolations, where monstrous Voidbringers ravage the world and human survival hangs in the balance. To counter the threat, the Knights Radiant (so named for their glowing aura and eyes) possess magical armor and swords known as Shardplate and Shardblades as well as magical powers. The last Desolation was believed to be the final one, and has become a time of myths and legends, in particular as the Knights Radiant left behind their weapons and armor and disappeared into obscurity. Their discarded armor and swords remain as some of the most priceless heirlooms.


title: The Way of Kings

text: The magic of the world is based on gemstones that glow with light for many weeks after recurring, powerful storms known as highstorms. These commonplace gemstones are also used as mundane currency in merchant transactions, as well as interior lighting at night in wealthy houses and palaces. Drawing in this "stormlight" energy is what fuels the magical talismans of priest-wizards (the gem encrusted gloves called Soulcasters) that convert matter into another form, such as stone into grain, or people into stone, and powered gemstone constructs known as fabrials, such as a fabrial that creates red light and heat to replace wood in a fireplace. Soulcasting and fabrials are typically only owned by the nobility. In Alethkar, nobility is also based on eye color, blue eyes being seen as the purest royalty due to the association with the legendary Knights Radiant, who had glowing eyes.


title: The Way of Kings

text: The world itself has flora and fauna which have adapted to the common, and extremely powerful highstorms. Most animal life is based on crustaceans, most of which can burrow into the ground to survive a highstorm. Plant life is also mobile, in that it retracts into the ground to survive highstorms. Because all highstorms come from the eastern ocean and travel west, the western side of rocks and mountains harbor plant and animal life. Also, spirits called exist and react to the emotions of people and the environment. High wind will have in the form of ribbons of light that flow with it. Suffering from pain will cause red to appear around the wound, and giving a noble, heartfelt speech will have of golden, twinkling lights form a halo around the head of the speaker. are so common that many people take them for granted.


title: The Way of Kings

text: The primary chapters within the book are told from the viewpoint of several major characters, while the book's interludes are told from the viewpoint of other characters (not all of which repeat).


title: The Way of Kings

text: In its first week of release the book was #7 on The New York Times Best Seller list. In subsequent weeks the book was #11, #20, and #25.


title: The Way of Kings

text: The Way of Kings received critical acclaim and received praise for its extensive world-building. An early review from the website Unshelved gave the book a positive review. A review from Elitist Book Reviews pointed out some problems with the book, (black-and-white characters, too much exposition) but gave an overall positive opinion of the book. The website SFReviews.net gave the book a mixed review, praising Sanderson's writing and creativity, but criticizing its extreme length and overall dearth of action.


title: The Way of Kings

text: SF Reviews pointed out, "The ride is luxurious, the scenery is often breathtaking, but "The Way of Kings" is truly a long and winding road." KeepingTheDoor.com commented, ""The Stormlight Archive" is a series that, like Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time", George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" and Robin Hobb's "The Realm of the Elderlings" epics, every fantasy fan worth their salt must read and be familiar with. This will be one of the giant series that will help shape the entire scene."


title: The Way of Kings

text: An audiobook version was released in August 2010 by Macmillan Audio read by narrator team Kate Reading and Michael Kramer who have also read several other books written by Sanderson, including "The Wheel of Time" series. A 5-part GraphicAudio version of "The Way of Kings" was released from March to July 2016.


title: The Way of Kings

text: In October 2016, the rights to the entire Cosmere universe were licensed by DMG Entertainment. DMG is fast-tracking an adaptation of "The Way of Kings". Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan were hired as screenwriters. DMG founder Dan Mintz will produce the film, with Sanderson and Joshua Bilmes serving as executive producers.


title: The Way of Kings

text: A VR game, "The Way of Kings: Escape the Shattered Plains", developed by Arcturus VR, was released on March 2, 2018.


title: Flute

text: The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel–Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist or flutist.


title: Flute

text: Flutes are the earliest known identifiable musical instruments, as paleolithic examples with hand-bored holes have been found. A number of flutes dating to about 53,000 to 45,000 years ago have been found in the Swabian Jura region of present-day Germany. These flutes demonstrate that a developed musical tradition existed from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe. While the oldest flutes currently known were found in Europe, Asia, too, has a long history with the instrument that has continued into the present day. In China, a playable bone flute was discovered, dated approximately 9000 years old. The Americas also had an ancient flute culture, with instruments found in Caral, Peru, dating back 5000 years and in Labrador dating back approximately 7500 years.


title: Flute

text: Historians have found the bamboo flute has a long history as well, especially in China and India. Flutes have been discovered in historical records and artworks starting in the Zhou dynasty. The oldest written sources reveal the Chinese were using the kuan (a reed instrument) and hsio (or xiao, an end-blown flute, often of bamboo) in the 12th–11th centuries BC, followed by the chi (or ch'ih) in the 9th century BC and the yüeh in the 8th century BC. Of these, the chi is the oldest documented cross flute or transverse flute, and was made from bamboo.


title: Flute

text: The cross flute (Sanskrit: vāṃśī) was "the outstanding wind instrument of ancient India", according to Curt Sachs. He said that religious artwork depicting "celestial music" instruments was linked to music with an "aristocratic character". The Indian bamboo cross flute, Bansuri, was sacred to Krishna, and he is depicted in Hindu art with the instrument. In India, the cross flute appeared in reliefs from the 1st century AD at Sanchi and Amaravati from the 2nd–4th centuries AD.


title: Flute

text: Although there had been flutes in Europe in prehistoric times, in more recent millennia the flute was absent from the continent until its arrival from Asia, by way of "North Africa, Hungary, and Bohemia", according to historian Alexander Buchner. The end-blown flute began to be seen in illustration in the 11th century. Transverse flutes entered Europe through Byzantium and were depicted in Greek art about 800 AD. The transverse flute had spread into Europe by way of Germany, and was known as the German flute.


title: Flute

text: The word "flute" first entered the English language during the Middle English period, as "floute", or else "flowte", "flo(y)te", possibly from Old French "flaute" and from Old Provençal "flaüt", or else from Old French "fleüte", "flaüte", "flahute" via Middle High German "floite" or Dutch "fluit". The English verb "flout" has the same linguistic root, and the modern Dutch verb "fluiten" still shares the two meanings. Attempts to trace the word back to the Latin "flare" (to blow, inflate) have been pronounced "phonologically impossible" or "inadmissable". The first known use of the word "flute" was in the 14th century. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", this was in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Hous of Fame", c.1380.


title: Flute

text: Today, a musician who plays any instrument in the flute family can be called a flutist or flautist or simply a flute player. "Flutist" dates back to at least 1603, the earliest quotation cited by the "Oxford English Dictionary". "Flautist" was used in 1860 by Nathaniel Hawthorne in "The Marble Faun", after being adopted during the 18th century from Italy ("flautista", itself from "flauto"), like many musical terms in England since the Italian Renaissance. Other English terms, now virtually obsolete, are "fluter" (15th–19th centuries) and "flutenist" (17th and 18th centuries).


title: Flute

text: The oldest flute ever discovered may be a fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,000 years ago. However, this has been disputed. In 2008 another flute dated back to at least 35,000 years ago was discovered in Hohle Fels cave near Ulm, Germany. The five-holed flute has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is made from a vulture wing bone. The researchers involved in the discovery officially published their findings in the journal "Nature", in August 2009. The discovery was also the oldest confirmed find of any musical instrument in history, until a redating of flutes found in Geißenklösterle cave revealed them to be even older with an age of 42,000 to 43,000 years.


title: Flute

text: The flute, one of several found, was found in the Hohle Fels cavern next to the Venus of Hohle Fels and a short distance from the oldest known human carving. On announcing the discovery, scientists suggested that the "finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe". Scientists have also suggested that the discovery of the flute may help to explain "the probable behavioural and cognitive gulf between" Neanderthals and early modern human.


title: Flute

text: A three-holed flute, 18.7 cm long, made from a mammoth tusk (from the Geißenklösterle cave, near Ulm, in the southern German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swan bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments.


title: Flute

text: A playable 9,000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute") was excavated from a tomb in Jiahu along with 29 defunct twins, made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes with five to eight holes each, in the Central Chinese province of Henan.


title: Flute

text: The earliest extant Chinese transverse flute is a "chi" (篪) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in "Shi Jing", compiled and edited by Confucius, according to tradition.


title: Flute

text: The earliest written reference to a flute is from a Sumerian-language cuneiform tablet dated to c. 2600–2700 BC.


title: Flute

text: Flutes are also mentioned in a recently translated tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem whose development spanned the period of approximately 2100–600 BC. Additionally, a set of cuneiform tablets knows as the ""musical texts"" provide precise tuning instructions for seven scale of a stringed instrument (assumed to be a Babylonian lyre). One of those scales is named embūbum, which is an Akkadian word for ""flute"".


title: Flute

text: The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the "ugab" and the "kinnor"". The former Hebrew term is believed by some to refer to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is regarded in the Judeo-Christian tradition as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Elsewhere in the Bible, the flute is referred to as ""chalil"" (from the root word for "hollow"), in particular in 1 Samuel 10:5, 1 Kings 1:40, Isaiah 5:12 and 30:29, and Jeremiah 48:36. Archeological digs in the Holy Land have discovered flutes from both the Bronze Age (c. 4000–1200 BC) and the Iron Age (1200–586 BC), the latter era "witness[ing] the creation of the Israelite kingdom and its separation into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judea."


title: Flute

text: Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BC has made vague references to the cross flute.


title: Flute

text: A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. The airstream creates a Bernoulli or siphon. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The flutist changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flutist can also change the pitch by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic rather than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any of the holes.


title: Flute

text: Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radii or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute.


title: Flute

text: A study in which professional flutists were blindfolded could find no significant differences between flutes made from a variety of metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no flute was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver flute was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range".


title: Flute

text: In its most basic form, a flute is an open tube which is blown into. After focused study and training, players use controlled air-direction to create an airstream in which the air is aimed downward into the tone hole of the flute's headjoint. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece, with 1/4 of their bottom lip covering the embouchure hole. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician.


title: Flute

text: Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole.


title: Flute

text: Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, xun, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired.


title: Flute

text: Flutes may have any number of pipes or tubes, though one is the most common number. Flutes with multiple resonators may be played one resonator at a time (as is typical with pan pipes) or more than one at a time (as is typical with double flutes).


title: Flute

text: Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The flue pipes of organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans.


title: Flute

text: Usually in D, wooden transverse flutes were played in European classical music mainly in the period from the early 18th century to the early 19th century. As such, the instrument is often indicated as baroque flute. Gradually marginalized by the Western concert flute in the 19th century, baroque flutes were again played from the late 20th century as part of the historically informed performance practice.


title: Flute

text: The Western concert flute, a descendant of the medieval German flute, is a transverse treble flute that is closed at the top. An "embouchure hole" is positioned near the top across and into which the flutist blows. The flute has circular tone holes larger than the finger holes of its baroque predecessors. The size and placement of tone holes, key mechanism, and fingering system used to produce the notes in the flute's range were evolved from 1832 to 1847 by Theobald Boehm, who helped greatly improve the instrument's dynamic range and intonation over its predecessors. With some refinements (and the rare exception of the Kingma system and other custom adapted fingering systems), Western concert flutes typically conform to Boehm's design, known as the Boehm system. Beginner's flutes are made of nickel, silver, or brass that is silver-plated, while professionals use solid silver, gold, and sometimes even platinum flutes. There are also modern wooden-bodied flutes usually with silver or gold keywork. The wood is usually African Blackwood.


title: Flute

text: The standard concert flute is pitched in C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C or one half step lower when a B foot is attached. This means that the concert flute is one of the highest-pitched common orchestra and concert band instruments.


title: Flute

text: The piccolo plays an octave higher than the regular treble flute. Lower members of the flute family include the G alto and C bass flutes that are used occasionally, and are pitched a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, respectively. The contra-alto, contrabass, subcontrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass flutes are other rare forms of the flute pitched up to four octaves below middle C.


title: Flute

text: Other sizes of flutes and piccolos are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the G treble flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include D piccolo, E soprano flute (Keyed a minor 3rd above the standard C flute), F alto flute, and B bass flute.


title: Flute

text: The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu God Lord Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the bamboo flute. The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless.


title: Flute

text: Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri (बांसुरी), has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the eight-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century.


title: Flute

text: The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagercoil area of South India.


title: Flute

text: In 1998 Bharata Natya Shastra Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten 'thatas' currently present in Indian Classical Music.


title: Flute

text: In a regional dialect of Gujarati, a flute is also called Pavo. Some people can also play pair of flutes (Jodiyo Pavo) simultaneously.


title: Flute

text: In China there are many varieties of dizi (笛子), or Chinese flute, with different sizes, structures (with or without a resonance membrane) and number of holes (from 6 to 11) and intonations (different keys). Most are made of bamboo, but can come in wood, jade, bone, and iron. One peculiar feature of the Chinese flute is the use of a resonance membrane mounted on one of the holes that vibrates with the air column inside the tube. This membrane is called a "di mo", which is usually a thin tissue paper. It gives the flute a bright sound.


title: Flute

text: Commonly seen flutes in the modern Chinese orchestra are the bangdi (梆笛), qudi (曲笛), xindi (新笛), and dadi (大笛). The bamboo flute played vertically is called the xiao (簫), which is a different category of wind instrument in China.


title: Flute

text: The Korean flute, called the daegeum, 대금, is a large bamboo transverse flute used in traditional Korean music. It has a buzzing membrane that gives it a unique timbre.


title: Flute

text: The Japanese flute, called the fue, , encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan, include the end-blown shakuhachi and hotchiku, as well as the transverse gakubue, komabue, ryūteki, nōkan, shinobue, kagurabue and minteki.


title: Flute

text: The sodina is an end-blown flute found throughout the island state of Madagascar, located in the Indian Ocean off southeastern Africa. One of the oldest instruments on the island, it bears close resemblance to end-blown flutes found in Southeast Asia and particularly Indonesia, where it is known as the "suling", suggesting the predecessor to the sodina was carried to Madagascar in outrigger canoes by the island's original settlers emigrating from Borneo. An image of the most celebrated contemporary sodina flutist, Rakoto Frah (d. 2001), was featured on the local currency.


title: Flute

text: The sring (also called "blul") is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments.


title: Flute

text: There are several means by which flautists breathe to blow air through the instrument and produce sound. They include diaphragmatic breathing and circular breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing optimizes inhalation, minimizing the number of breaths. Circular breathing brings air in through the nose and out through the mouth, enabling a continuous sound.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Henry Enrique Estrada (born March 16, 1949) is an American actor and police officer. He is known for his co-starring lead role as California Highway Patrol officer Francis (Frank) Llewelyn "Ponch" Poncherello in the police drama television series "CHiPs", which ran from 1977 to 1983. He later became known for his work in Spanish-language "telenovelas", his appearances in reality television shows and infomercials and as a regular voice on the Adult Swim series "Sealab 2021".


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada was born on March 16, 1949, in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York, the son of Carmen Moreno, a seamstress, and Renildo Estrada. His parents are of Puerto Rican descent.


title: Erik Estrada

text: In the 1970 film version of "The Cross and the Switchblade", Estrada made his film debut in the role of Nicky Cruz alongside Pat Boone, who played the role of David Wilkerson.


title: Erik Estrada

text: In 1972, Estrada co-starred with George C. Scott and Stacy Keach as LAPD Officer Sergio Duran in the movie "The New Centurions".


title: Erik Estrada

text: In 1973, Estrada co-starred in season 5, episode 22, of the CBS TV series "Hawaii Five-O": "Engaged to be Buried".


title: Erik Estrada

text: In 1974, Estrada took part in the disaster film, "Airport 1975", where he played a role as Julio the flight engineer on a Boeing 747. His character was killed in a midair collision. Two years later, he was a player in the military historical epic "Midway", as a fictional airman Ens. "Chili Bean" Ramos.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Starting in 1977, Estrada co-starred as Frank "Ponch" Poncharello in the TV series "CHiPs". In 1978, he began training in martial arts with SeishinDo Kenpo instructor Frank Argelander (Frank Landers), to prepare for a two-part episode of the series. The two appeared on the cover of "Fighting Stars Magazine" that same year, discussing Estrada's training regimen. On Monday, August 6, 1979, Estrada was seriously injured while filming a scene on the set of "CHiPs", fracturing several ribs and breaking both wrists after he was thrown from his motorcycle.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Later in 1979, Estrada was voted one of "The 10 Sexiest Bachelors in the World" by "People" magazine and was featured on the cover of the November issue. Following a salary dispute with NBC in the fall of 1981, Estrada was briefly replaced by Olympic Gold Medalist and actor Bruce Jenner. "CHiPs" was eventually canceled in 1983. In the 1980s, Estrada appeared in a string of low-budget films. He made a return to series television in a 1987 three-part episode of the police drama "Hunter".


title: Erik Estrada

text: In the 1990s, Estrada played the role of Johnny, a Tijuana trucker, in the Televisa "telenovela" "Dos mujeres, un camino" ("Two women, one path"). He shared the main credits with Mexican actresses/singers Laura Leon and Bibi Gaytán. Originally slated for 100 episodes, the show went to 200-plus episodes and became the biggest "telenovela" in Latin American history. He was reportedly paid 1 million pesos for that role.


title: Erik Estrada

text: In 1994, Estrada began co-hosting the syndicated outdoor adventure show "American Adventurer", which ran until 2004. In 1995, he made a special guest appearance as Ponch in punk rock band Bad Religion's music video "Infected", as well as in the video for the Butthole Surfers's video for "Pepper". He has also been seen on a few episodes of "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch" as himself, seen in a daydream cloud in Hilda's mind and driving a car as Hilda zapped herself in his car.


title: Erik Estrada

text: In 1997, Estrada wrote his autobiography, "Erik Estrada: My Road from Harlem to Hollywood". In 1998, he returned as the character Francis "Ponch" Poncherello in the TNT made-for-TV movie "CHiPs '99", along with the rest of the original cast.


title: Erik Estrada

text: In 2001, Estrada landed a role on the daytime drama "The Bold and the Beautiful" as Eduardo Dominguez. In 2002, he played a game-show host on the Disney Channel series "Lizzie McGuire" with Hilary Duff. He also made a guest appearance on an episode of "Spy TV" in 2002. He has also had a regular role doing voiceovers for the Cartoon Network show "Sealab 2021", where he would parody himself. He also appeared in an episode of another Cartoon Network show, "", which features a character named Moltar who has an obsession with Estrada and" CHiPS", as a guest. Estrada has also guest-starred on the children's cartoon "Maya and Miguel".


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada has appeared in music videos, such as Eminem's music video "Just Lose It". A band named after him (Estradasphere) is based in Santa Cruz, California. Estrada also made guest appearances on "The Wayans Bros.", "Unhappily Ever After", the Nickelodeon comedy "Drake & Josh", NBC's "Scrubs" and "My Name is Earl", and ABC's "According to Jim".


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada has done a long-running series of infomercials as a national spokesman for National Recreational Properties, selling undeveloped real estate property in such locations as Siskiyou County, California; Lake Shastina, California; California City, California; Ocean Shores, Washington; Colorado; and recently, Tellico Village, Tennessee and Bella Vista, Arkansas.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada began appearing in Burger King TV commercials in September 2009 where he attended a class on endorsing products led by race car driver Tony Stewart. During the spoof, Estrada seeks to understand why American consumers were not interested in purchasing his "Estrada" sunglasses that noticeably had his last name written boldly across the lens.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada has appeared in recent years in a number of reality television shows. In 2004, he starred in both the second season of "The Surreal Life" and in "Discovery Health Body Challenge". He also starred in the short-lived CBS reality show, "Armed & Famous". In 2008, Estrada appeared in "Husband for Hire", a television movie starring Nadine Velazquez and Mario López. After a series of specials, in 2010, Estrada and Laura McKenzie began co-hosting a weekly series, "The World's Funniest Moments", which began as a myNetworkTV series hosted by Arsenio Hall.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Erik Estrada was a contestant on the second season of the Spanish Univision reality show "Mira Quien Baila", where 10 contestants are chosen to perform different styles of dancing, and each Sunday, one of them is eliminated. In 2013, he starred in "Finding Faith", a film about a young teenager who is kidnapped from a meeting planned online. The story of sexual predation is based on true incidents investigated by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Estrada toured with the film, aiming to educate parents and young people about the dangers of online grooming.


title: Erik Estrada

text: In 2000, Estrada was named the international "Face" of D.A.R.E. which is a campaign against drugs. He also speaks out for the American Heart Association, the United Way, and the C.H.P. 11-99 Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides benefits and scholarships to California Highway Patrol family members, as well as funeral expenses for fallen officers. Estrada's experience in "CHiPs" led him to become a reserve officer for the Muncie Police Department in Muncie, Indiana. Estrada became spokesperson for the C.H.P.'s "car seat inspection and installation" program. He has made numerous appearances supporting automobile child-seat safety checks across the country. He appeared in Española, New Mexico, on May 28, 2009, to promote the "100 Days and Nights of Summer" traffic safety and anti-DWI campaign that involves the New Mexico State Police.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada became a reserve police officer for the Muncie (Indiana) Police Department. From there, Estrada moved to Virginia, where he was an I.C.A.C. (Internet Crimes Against Children) investigator for eight years in Bedford County, Virginia. As of July 1, 2016, he was a reserve police officer in St. Anthony, Idaho. In the course of his duties, Estrada has been filmed patrolling on a police motorcycle.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada was married to Joyce Miller in November 1979; the couple divorced in 1980 and had no children. Estrada was married to Peggy Lynn Rowe, an entertainment executive, songwriter, and producer from 1985 until 1990, when they divorced. The couple had two sons, Anthony Erik (born 1986), and pole-vaulter Brandon Michael-paul (born 1987). In 1997, Estrada married film sound technician Nanette Mirkovich. They have one daughter, Francesca Natalia (born 2000). He lives in Studio City, California, U.S.


title: Erik Estrada

text: During an episode of "Watch What Happens Live" in January 2019 Marie Osmond told host Andy Cohen that she had briefly dated Erik.


title: Erik Estrada

text: Estrada is a member of the Blue Knights motorcycle club. He also rides with the Loyal Order of Moose fraternal and service organization.


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: "Eye of the Tiger" is a song by American rock band Survivor. It was released as a single from their third album of the same name and was also the theme song for the 1982 film "Rocky III", which was released a day before the single. The song was written by Survivor guitarist Frankie Sullivan and keyboardist Jim Peterik, and it was recorded at the request of "Rocky III" star, writer, and director Sylvester Stallone, after Queen denied him permission to use "Another One Bites the Dust", the song Stallone intended as the "Rocky III" theme. The version of the song that appears in the film is the demo version of the song. The film version also contained tiger growls, which did not appear on the album version. It features original Survivor singer Dave Bickler on lead vocals. The song is also the title song to the 1986 film of the same name. "Eye of the Tiger" is written in the key of C minor.


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: It gained tremendous MTV and radio airplay and topped charts worldwide during 1982. In the United States, it held No. 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart for six consecutive weeks (the band's only song to top the chart) and was the No. 2 single of 1982, behind Olivia Newton-John's "Physical". It spent fifteen consecutive weeks in the top ten, the second-longest run of 1982, behind "Hurts So Good" by John Mellencamp (which was prevented from reaching the top of the Hot 100 by "Eye of the Tiger"). This top ten run is tied with the aforementioned "Another One Bites the Dust" as well as "Physical" as the longest run in the top ten for a number one song during the entire 1980s decade. The band won an award for "Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal" at the 25th Annual Grammy Awards. In September 1982, it also peaked at No. 1 in the United Kingdom, remaining at the top of the UK Singles Chart for four consecutive weeks. The single sold 956,000 copies in United Kingdom in 1982.


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: It was certified platinum in August 1982 by the RIAA, signifying sales of 2 million vinyl copies. The song had sold over 4.1 million in digital downloads in the United States alone by February 2015. It was voted VH1's 63rd-greatest hard rock song.


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: In an interview with Songfacts, co-writer Jim Peterik, who shared writing credit with Frankie Sullivan, explained the song's title.


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: At first, we wondered if calling it "Eye of the Tiger" was too obvious. The initial draft of the song, we started with "It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the spirit of our rival, and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and it all comes down to survival." We were going to call the song "Survival". In the rhyme scheme, you can tell we had set up "rival" to rhyme with "survival". At the end of the day, we said, "Are we nuts?" That hook is so strong, and "rival" doesn't have to be a perfect rhyme with the word "tiger". We made the right choice and went with "Eye of the Tiger".


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: The song was nominated for the 1982 Academy Award for Best Original Song (the only Oscar nomination for "Rocky III"), but it lost to "Up Where We Belong" from "An Officer and a Gentleman".


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: The band won an award for "Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal" at the 25th Annual Grammy Awards. The song was also nominated for the 1983 Grammy Award for Song of the Year, but lost to the Willie Nelson hit "Always on My Mind".


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: In 2012, Survivor sued Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in Illinois federal court for using "Eye of the Tiger" without authorization as entrance music at his political rallies going back as far as 2009. The suit was later settled out of court.


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: The same year Sullivan also demanded that Mitt Romney, also a Republican candidate for president, should stop using "Eye of the Tiger" at his campaign rallies. Romney agreed to drop the song from the campaign's playlists.


title: Eye of the Tiger

text: Frankie Sullivan's company Rude Music filed a lawsuit in federal court in Chicago, Illinois, on November 18, 2015, against the former Governor of Arkansas and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's campaign organization for using "Eye of the Tiger" at a political rally without permission. The rally took place on September 8, 2015, when Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk, was released from jail after spending five days there for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky. In June 2016 it was reported by CNN that Huckabee had agreed, in a confidential, out-of-court settlement with Sullivan's Rude Music, to pay $25,000 in compensation.


title: Björn Andrésen

text: Björn Johan Andrésen (born 26 January 1955) is a Swedish actor and musician. He is best known for playing the 14-year-old Tadzio in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of the 1912 Thomas Mann novella "Death in Venice". He also played a minor role in Ari Aster's 2019 folk horror film "Midsommar".


title: Björn Andrésen

text: Andrésen's father has never been identified and his mother, Barbro Elisabeth Andrésen, took her own life when he was 10 years old. He was then brought up by his maternal grandparents. Part of his schooling was at a boarding school in Denmark. As a student Andrésen attended the Adolf Fredrik's Music School in Stockholm.


title: Björn Andrésen

text: Andrésen had only appeared in one film, "En kärlekshistoria" (1970), at the time he was cast in "Death in Venice", which gained him international recognition. Andrésen's role was as Tadzio, the beautiful young Polish boy with whom the film's older protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach (played by Dirk Bogarde) becomes obsessed. Film historian Lawrence J. Quirk commented in his study "The Great Romantic Films" (1974) that some shots of Andrésen "could be extracted from the frame and hung on the walls of the Louvre or the Vatican". Following the Cannes Film Festival a year after the premiere of "Death in Venice", Andrésen received international headlines as "the most beautiful boy in the world".


title: Björn Andrésen

text: Andrésen later described his discomfort with his role in "Death in Venice" and its director Luchino Visconti, stating that "When I watch it now, I see how that son of a bitch sexualized me." At the time of the film's release, rumours circulated in the United States that Andrésen was gay (as the role demanded that he appear to exchange romantic glances with the protagonist, and on another occasion, be kissed and caressed by another teenage boy), which Andrésen emphatically denied. After the film's premiere, Visconti pressured Andrésen to attend a gay club, where he was made uncomfortable by the staring of adult men; Andrésen later described the experience as "hell".


title: Björn Andrésen

text: Eager to dispel the rumours regarding his sexuality and to shed his "pretty boy" image, Andrésen avoided homosexual roles and parts which he felt would play off his good looks, and was irritated when feminist writer Germaine Greer used a photograph of him on the cover of her book "The Beautiful Boy" (2003) without his permission. Greer consulted photographer David Bailey (who owned the copyright for the image) before publishing the book. Andrésen maintained that it is common practice when a party uses an image of a person which has been copyrighted by a different individual to inform the individual and that he would not have given his consent for Greer to use his picture if she had informed him of her plans.


title: Björn Andrésen

text: After the release of "Death in Venice", Andrésen spent an extended period of time in Japan and appeared in a number of television commercials and also recorded several pop songs. It is said that his appearance as Tadzio in the film influenced many Japanese anime artists (known for their depictions of young, beautiful men known as "Bishōnen"), especially Keiko Takemiya. Andrésen has had a strong liking for Japan since then and has visited the country again over the years. Björn Andrésen's arrival in Tokyo has been described as being similar to the Beatles landing in the U.S. The young actor was met with mass hysteria and received an enormous amount of female attention.


title: Björn Andrésen

text: Andrésen has appeared in several other films. These include "Smugglarkungen" (1985), "Kojan" (1992), "Pelikaanimies" (2004), and "Midsommar" (2019).


title: Björn Andrésen

text: In addition to being an actor, Andrésen is a professional musician, and until recently performed and toured regularly with the Sven Erics dance band. In 2021 Andrésen was the focus of "The Most Beautiful Boy in the World", a documentary detailing his experiences post-fame after the premiere of "Death in Venice".


title: Björn Andrésen

text: Andrésen resides in Stockholm. He has a daughter, Robine (b. 1984), with his wife, the poet Susanna Roman. Andrésen and his wife Susanna had another child, a son named Elvin, who died of sudden infant death syndrome at 9 months of age. Andrésen fell into a long depression following the death of his son. In an interview in 2020, Andrésen stated that he believes he will meet his son again "in the afterlife". Andrésen has two grandchildren, a boy and a girl.


title: Jan Hooks

text: Janet Vivian Hooks (April 23, 1957 – October 9, 2014) was an American actress and comedian, best known for her work on "Saturday Night Live", where she was a repertory player from 1986 to 1991 and continued making cameo appearances until 1994. Her subsequent work included a regular role on the final two seasons of "Designing Women", a recurring role on "3rd Rock from the Sun," and a number of other film and television roles, including on "30 Rock" and "The Simpsons".


title: Jan Hooks

text: Hooks was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia, where she attended Canby Lane Elementary School and Towers High School. In 1974, her junior year, she moved to Fort Myers, Florida, when her father, a Sears employee, was transferred. She attended Cypress Lake High School, made her stage debut in a play there, and graduated in 1975. She attended Edison State College where she majored in theatre, but left to pursue acting full-time.


title: Jan Hooks

text: Hooks began her career as a member of the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe The Groundlings and in an Atlanta nightclub act called The Wits End Players.


title: Jan Hooks

text: From 1980 to 1981, she appeared in "Tush" on Ted Turner's television station, WTBS, which eventually became TBS. She gained attention in the early 1980s on the HBO comedy series "Not Necessarily the News" and made guest appearances on "Comedy Break with Mack & Jamie" in the mid-1980s. She made her film debut in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" as a know-it-all tour guide at the Alamo and appeared in the Goldie Hawn film "Wildcats".


title: Jan Hooks

text: In 1985, Hooks met with producer Lorne Michaels about a spot on "Saturday Night Live", but was passed over in favor of Joan Cusack. After the show's 1985–86 season was deemed a ratings disaster and the show was put on the chopping block for cancellation, Michaels offered Hooks another chance. This time, despite a six-minute audition she called "brutal", she was offered a contract along with fellow new recruits Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Victoria Jackson and Kevin Nealon. They helped lead the show to a sustained ratings increase and a return to the national spotlight. Hooks's characters included Candy Sweeney of The Sweeney Sisters. She also played famous political wives of the era, including Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Kitty Dukakis, Betty Ford, and Elizabeth Dole, and did notable impressions of Bette Davis, Sinéad O'Connor, Tammy Faye Bakker, Ivana Trump, Kathie Lee Gifford, and Diane Sawyer.


title: Jan Hooks

text: Tiring of the stress of performing on a live show, Hooks left "SNL" in 1991 after being asked by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason to replace Jean Smart on the CBS sitcom "Designing Women". Hooks played Carlene Dobber for the show's final two seasons. She also continued to make occasional appearances on "SNL" through 1994, usually playing Hillary Clinton.


title: Jan Hooks

text: Hooks continued to work in supporting roles and guest appearances for several years, but with declining frequency. She had a recurring role as Vicki Dubcek on "3rd Rock from the Sun", which earned her an Emmy Award nomination. She guest-starred on two Matt Groening-produced cartoons for the Fox Broadcasting Company: six episodes of "The Simpsons" between 1997 and 2002, as Apu's wife Manjula (although Tress MacNeille sometimes substituted for her, and eventually replaced her), and in the "Futurama" episode "Bendless Love", as the voice of the robot Angleyne. She starred as Dixie Glick in the series "Primetime Glick" and the movie "Jiminy Glick in Lalawood". She had small parts in several other movies, including "Batman Returns" as Jen, the Penguin's image consultant during his campaign to become mayor of Gotham City. She made two appearances on "30 Rock" in 2010, playing Jenna Maroney's mother, Verna, the last live-action spots Hooks did. She guest-starred in the 2013 "The Cleveland Show" episode "Mr. and Mrs. Brown", which was her final acting job.


title: Jan Hooks

text: According to a 2014 "Grantland" article about her career and death, Hooks's anxiety about acting and passive approach to her career led to her missing out on prestigious auditions and lucrative acting roles. Tina Fey said after her death that she was angry that Hooks didn't have a more successful career (Fey said that Hooks was a bigger star on "SNL" than Rob Schneider, and should have had at least as big a film career as he did). Hooks's friend, film critic Ann Hornaday, said that Hooks didn't have doors slammed in her face and often made no effort to seek out work. Hooks turned down a role in the 2003 television film "The Music Man" (which went to Molly Shannon) and declined to reprise her "SNL" sketch "The Sweeney Sisters" with Nora Dunn in a special appearance at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Hooks's friend Bill Tush speculated that her drinking had made her indifferent toward her career, but also said she might not have wanted more money or fame. Another friend said that Hooks had decided to work only enough to keep her Screen Actors Guild health insurance.


title: Jan Hooks

text: Hooks's doctor had advised her to stop drinking due to liver damage, but she did not try to quit. She was diagnosed with leukemia in February 2009, which was treated and went into remission that May. In April 2014, Hooks discovered a bump on her throat. She was given a biopsy and treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, but the tumor was unresponsive to chemotherapy and continued to grow. Doctors said the only remaining option was a total laryngectomy, which Hooks declined. She arranged for hospice care and used prescription drugs, wine, and cigarettes to manage her pain. She wrote in an email, "my dependence on wine and cigarettes increases. Oh the irony! The things that soothe you mentally and spiritually destroy you physically. It's so unfair." Her ability to speak, eat and breathe declined.


title: Jan Hooks

text: On the evening of October 9, soon after watching "Late Show with David Letterman" with her brother Tom at her home in Woodstock, New York, Hooks collapsed walking back from the bathroom. Tom tried to lift her up to a wheelchair they had prepared for her, but she was completely unresponsive (to the point Tom joked she was "dead weight"), and Tom brought her a pillow and blanket to let her rest there; after a short wait, at 1AM, he checked on her and discovered her unresponsiveness had deteriorated to the point where she was not even breathing through her ventilator. Tom promptly called in the hospice care specialists, who, after failing to revive her, declared her dead shortly after 2AM, having succumbed to throat cancer at age 57. Her remains were interred in Northview Cemetery in Cedartown, Georgia.


title: Jan Hooks

text: "The Simpsons" episode "Super Franchise Me" memorialized her on October 12, 2014, with her longtime character Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon honored in the credits.


title: Jan Hooks

text: "SNL" paid tribute to Hooks in the third episode of its 40th season on October 11, 2014. Guest host Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig introduced a tribute in which "SNL" reaired a short she had filmed with Phil Hartman in 1988, "Love Is a Dream". This short film had also been reaired to honor Hartman following his death in 1998. It is described as "a sweet and melodramatic tribute to the 1948 film "The Emperor Waltz"", which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Bing Crosby and Joan Fontaine. The scene casts Hooks as an aging woman who vanishes into her own imagination to sing and share a dance with a long-lost lover (Hartman). Hooks and Hartman appear to lip-sync to the original singing voices from the 1948 film. One critic wrote that the "Jan Hooks tribute showed that Jan did not need to be funny in order to captivate the attention of her audience", as Hooks and Hartman were known to be quiet and reserved off screen.


title: Carrom

text: Carrom is a tabletop game of Indian origin in which players flick discs, attempting to knock them to the corners of the board. The game is very popular in the Indian subcontinent, and is known by various names in different languages. In South Asia, many clubs and cafés hold regular tournaments. Carrom is very commonly played by families, including children, and at social functions. Different standards and rules exist in different areas. It became very popular in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth during the early 20th century.


title: Carrom

text: The game of carrom originated in India. One carrom board with its surface made of glass is still available in one of the palaces in Patiala, India. It became very popular among the masses after World War I. State-level competitions were being held in the different states of India during the early part of the 20th century. Serious carrom tournaments may have begun in Sri Lanka in 1935 but by 1958, both India and Sri Lanka had formed official federations of carrom clubs, sponsoring tournaments and awarding prizes.


title: Carrom

text: The International Carrom Federation (ICF) was formed in the year 1988 in Chennai, India. The formal rules for the Indian version of the game were published in 1988. In the same year the ICF officially codified the rules. The game has been very popular throughout South Asia, mainly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives. The game is also popular in many of the countries in the Arabian Peninsula, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain. It has gained some popularity in United Kingdom, Europe, North America and Australia where it has been introduced by the Indian diaspora.


title: Carrom

text: The UKCF was formed in 1991 in London. The main work of this organisation is to promote the game of Carrom throughout the UK and ensure the participation of UK players in all major international championships.


title: Carrom

text: The UKCF have hosted 3 Euro cups in England and have had fantastic success in the tournament with UK players.


title: Carrom

text: The United States Carrom Association reports on competitions in the US and Canada and has a player ranking list as of the last tournament.


title: Carrom

text: A group of Carrom lovers grouped together in 2004 and established the Pakistani Carrom Federation or PCF.


title: Carrom

text: The German Carrom Federation was founded in 1986 with the objective of supporting and maintaining the game of Carrom. The federation oversees Germany Carrom Clubs and teams throughout Germany.


title: Carrom

text: The Italian Carrom Federation was founded in 1995 by a group of Carrom enthusiasts and is responsible for the spread of the game throughout Italy.


title: Carrom

text: The federation is supported by a large number of volunteers who regularly run events throughout Italy to teach and educate about the game.


title: Carrom

text: The Japan Carrom Federation was established in 1997. In 2001 they moved into their new headquarters in Tokyo from Hikone. Originally set up to allow players to compete in overseas tournament but held their first national championship in 2004 and now hold tournaments, demonstrations and training camps across Japan.


title: Carrom

text: The board and pieces can be bought in UK, Europe, North America or Australia and are usually imported from India. The most expensive boards are made to a high standard with high quality wood and decorations though cheaper boards are available. Some of the largest exporters of carrom boards are in India, e.g. Precise, Surco, Syndicate Sports and Paul Traders.


title: Carrom

text: The game is usually played on a square board made of plywood, with a pocket in each corner. The dimensions of the standardised board is a square playing surface. The edges are bounded by bumpers of wood, and the underside of each pocket is covered by a net which is 10 cm or larger.


title: Carrom

text: Carrom is played using small disks of wood or plastic known as "carrom men" (sometimes abbreviated CM, c.m. c/m, etc.). These pieces, aside from the special "queen", may also be known as "seeds", "coins", "pawns" (as in chess), or "pucks". Carrom men are designed to slide when struck and are made with a smooth surface that slides easily when laid flat on the board. They are struck by a "Striker" of a standard specification which is larger and heavier. Carrom follows similar "strike and pocket" games, like pool, with its use of rebounds, angles, and obstruction of opponent's carrom pieces.


title: Carrom

text: A carrom set contains 19 pieces (striker not included) in three distinct colours: one for each player, and another for the queen. The usual colours are white (or unstained) and black for the players and red for the queen.


title: Carrom

text: ICF-approved pieces must have a diameter of no more than 3.18 cm and no less than 3.02 cm. The pieces must be between 7 and 9 mm thick. The pieces have a plain, rounded edge. The mass of the pieces must be between 5.0 and 5.5 g.


title: Carrom

text: Striker pieces are used to hit the carrom men and the queen across the board to the pockets. The carrom striker normally weighs 15 grams of size 4.1 cm diameter.


title: Carrom

text: The red disk is called the queen; it is the most valuable piece. During board setup, it is placed at the centre of the circle. In accordance with the ICF rules, pocketing the queen adds 3 points to the player's total score. The dimensions of the queen must be the same as those of other carrom men.


title: Carrom

text: Fine-grained powder is used on the board to enable the pieces to slide easier. Boric acid powder is the most commonly used for this purpose. The EU has classified boric acid as a "Serious Health Hazard" and states that "this substance may damage fertility or the unborn child".


title: Carrom

text: In the UK, many players use a version of anti-set-off spray powder from the printing industry which has specific electrostatic properties with particles of 50 micrometres in diameter. The powder is made from pure, food-grade vegetable starch.


title: Carrom

text: The ICF promulgates International Rules of Carrom (also termed "The Laws of Carrom"). ICF acts as the governing body of carrom. The organisation also ranks players, sanctions tournaments and presents awards. ICF has many national affiliates such as the All-India Carrom Federation, Australian Carrom Federation, and United States Carrom Association.


title: Carrom

text: Order of play is determined by the process of "calling the carrom men" or "the toss". Before commencing each match, an umpire hides one black carrom in one hand and one white carrom man on the other hand. The players guess which color carrom men is being held in each hand. The player who guesses correctly wins the toss.


title: Carrom

text: The winner of the toss strikes first, which is called the opening break. The winner of the toss has the option to change sides from white to black and give up the opening break. The winner of the toss may not pass this decision to the other player. If the winner of the toss chooses to change sides then the loser must strike first.


title: Carrom

text: If that player cannot score any points then that player loses the turn and their opponent can choose to play any carrom man, Black or White in favour.


title: Carrom

text: A successful pot entitles the player to shoot again. This means that, as in pool and snooker, it is possible for a player to pot all his/her pieces and cover the queen from the start of the game without the opponent being given the chance to shoot.


title: Carrom

text: Any player pocketing the queen is required to "cover it" immediately by pocketing one of their carrom men on the entitlement shot. If after potting the queen the player fails to "cover it", then the queen is returned to the center of the table. It is illegal to pot the Queen after the last piece since the queen must always be "covered".


title: Carrom

text: Thumbing is allowed by International Carrom Federation which allows the player to shoot with any finger including the thumb (known as "thumbing", "thumbshot", or "thumb hit").


title: Carrom

text: Crossing the diagonal lines on the board by coming in touch with it, pocketing the striker is a foul. A player needs to ensure that his striking hand does not infringe/cross the diagonal lines aerially/physically. A player committing a foul must return one carrom man that was already pocketed.


title: Carrom

text: Point carrom is a variant that is popular with children or an odd number of players. Each player is allowed to pocket carrom men of any colour.


title: Carrom

text: Family-point carrom (also known as simple-point carrom) is an informal variant suitable for an odd number of players. Each player is allowed to pocket carrom men of any colour.