title: Chaise Longue (song)

text: The song was released on 15 June 2021. "Chaise Longue" has been described as a tongue-in-cheek post-punk song. The track starts with a minimalistic drum beat and bass line, with the vocals sung in a deadpan style and a guitar joining in later in the song. The lyric "Is your muffin buttered?/Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?" is a direct quotation from the 2004 teen comedy "Mean Girls".


title: Chaise Longue (song)

text: It was written in 2019 in a single day by vocalist Rhian Teasdale while she was sitting on an actual chaise longue owned by guitarist Hester Chambers' grandfather. A music video, also directed by Teasdale, was released on the same day as the release of the single.


title: Hesychasm

text: Hesychasm (; Greek: Ησυχασμός) is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church in which stillness ("hēsychia") is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer. While rooted in early Christian monasticism, it took it's decisive form in the 14th century at Mount Athos.


title: Hesychasm

text: Hesychasm (, Modern ) derives from the word "hesychia" (, ), meaning "stillness, rest, quiet, silence" and "hesychazo" ( ) "to keep stillness".


title: Hesychasm

text: Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, a scholar of Eastern Orthodox theology, distinguishes five distinct usages of the term "hesychasm":


title: Hesychasm

text: Christian monasticism sarted with the legalisation of Christianity in the 4th century. The term "hesychast" is used sparingly in Christian ascetical writings emanating from Egypt from the 4th century on, although the writings of Evagrius and the "Sayings of the Desert Fathers" do attest to it. In Egypt, the terms more often used are "anchoretism" (Gr. , "withdrawal, retreat"), and "anchorite" (Gr. , "one who withdraws or retreats, i.e. a hermit").


title: Hesychasm

text: The term "hesychast" was used in the 6th century in Palestine in the "Lives" of Cyril of Scythopolis. Many of the hesychasts Cyril describes were his own contemporaries; several of the saints about whom Cyril was writing, especially Euthymios and Savas, were in fact from Cappadocia. The laws "(novellae)" of the emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) treat "hesychast" and "anchorite" as synonyms, making them interchangeable terms.


title: Hesychasm

text: The practice of inner prayer, which aims at "inward stillness or silence of the heart," dates back to at least the 4th century. Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), John Climacus (St. John of Sinai)(6th-7th century), Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), and Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) are representatives of this hesychast spirituality. John Climacus, in his influential "Ladder of Divine Ascent", describes several stages of contemplative or hesychast practice, culminating in "agape".


title: Hesychasm

text: The earliest reference to the Jesus prayer is in Diadochos of Photiki (c. 450); Evagrius, Maximus, nor Symeon refer to the Jesus prayer. Saint John Cassian (c. 360–435), who transmitted Evagrius Pontikos' ascetical teachings to the West, forming the basis of much of the spirituality of the Order of Saint Benedict and the subsequent western mystical tradition, presents as the formula used in Egypt for repetitive prayer "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me."


title: Hesychasm

text: St. Nicephorus the Hesychast (13th century), a Roman Catholic who converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith and became a monk at Mount Athos, advised monks to bend their heads toward the chest, “attach the prayer to their breathing” while controlling the rhytm of their breath, and "to fix their eyes during prayer on the 'middle of the body',” concentrating the mind within the heart in order to practice "nepsis" (watchfulness). While this is the earliest attestation of psychosomatic techniques in hesychast prayer, according to Kallistos Ware "its origins may well be far more ancient," influenced by the Sufi practice of "dhikr", " the memory and invocation of the name of God," which in turn may have been influenced by Yoga practices from India, though it's also possible that Sufi's were influenced by early Christian monasticism.


title: Hesychasm

text: In the early 14th century, Gregory Sinaita (1260s–1346) learned a form of disciplined mental prayer from Arsenius of Crete, rooted in the tradition of John Climacus. In 1310, he went to Mount Athos, where he remained until 1335 as a monk at the Skete of Magoula near Philotheou Monastery, introducing hesychast practice there. The terms "Hesychasm" and "Hesychast" were used by the monks on Mount Athos to refer to the practice and to the practitioner of a method of mental ascesis that involves the use of the Jesus Prayer assisted by certain psychophysical techniques.


title: Hesychasm

text: About the year 1337, hesychasm attracted the attention of Barlaam of Seminara, a Calabrian monk who at that time held the office of abbot in the Monastery of St Saviour in Constantinople and who visited Mount Athos. Mount Athos was then at the height of its fame and influence, under the reign of Andronicus III Palaeologus and under the leadership of the "Protos" Symeon. On Mount Athos, Barlaam encountered hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices, also reading the writings of the teacher in hesychasm of St Gregory Palamas, himself an Athonite monk. Trained in Western Scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalized by hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the hesychasts taught.


title: Hesychasm

text: Barlaam took exception to the doctrine entertained by the hesychasts as to the nature of the light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of hesychast practice, regarding it as heretical and blasphemous. It was maintained by the hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to the light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God.


title: Hesychasm

text: On the hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by St Gregory Palamas, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. St Gregory himself was well-educated in Greek philosophy. St Gregory defended hesychasm in the 1340s at three different synods in Constantinople, and he also wrote a number of works in its defense.


title: Hesychasm

text: In these works, St Gregory Palamas uses a distinction, already found in the 4th century in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, between the energies or operations (Gr. "energeiai)" of God and the essence of God. St Gregory taught that the energies or operations of God were uncreated. He taught that the essence of God can never be known by his creature even in the next life, but that his uncreated energies or operations can be known both in this life and in the next, and convey to the hesychast in this life and to the righteous in the next life a true spiritual knowledge of God. In Palamite theology, it is the uncreated energies of God that illumine the hesychast who has been vouchsafed an experience of the uncreated light.


title: Hesychasm

text: In 1341, the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and presided over by the Emperor Andronicus III; the synod, taking into account the regard in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held, condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming a bishop in the Catholic Church.


title: Hesychasm

text: One of Barlaam's friends, Gregory Akindynos, who originally was also a friend of St Gregory Palamas, took up the controversy, which also played a role in the civil war between the supporters of John Cantacuzenus and John V Palaiologos. Three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a brief victory. But in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, hesychast doctrine was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church.


title: Hesychasm

text: St Paisius Velichkovsky and his disciples made the practice known in Russia and Romania, although hesychasm was already previously known in Russia, as is attested by St Seraphim of Sarov's independent practice of it.


title: Hesychasm

text: The hesychast interprets Jesus's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to "go into your closet to pray" to mean that one should ignore the senses and withdraw inward. Saint John of Sinai writes:


title: Hesychasm

text: "Theosis" is obtained by engaging in contemplative prayer resulting from the cultivation of watchfulness (Gk: "nepsis"). According to the standard ascetic formulation of this process, there are three stages:


title: Hesychasm

text: Sobriety contributes to this mental ascesis that rejects tempting thoughts; it puts a great emphasis on focus and attention. The hesychast is to pay extreme attention to the consciousness of his inner world and to the words of the Jesus Prayer, not letting his mind wander in any way at all. While he maintains his practice of the Jesus Prayer, which becomes automatic and continues twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the hesychast cultivates "nepsis", watchful attention, to reject tempting thoughts (the "thieves") that come to the hesychast as he watches in sober attention in his hermitage. St. John of Sinai describes hesychast practice as follows:


title: Hesychasm

text: The hesychast is to attach Eros (), that is, "yearning", to his practice of sobriety so as to overcome the temptation to acedia (sloth). He is also to use an extremely directed and controlled anger against the tempting thoughts, although to obliterate them entirely he is to invoke Jesus Christ via the Jesus Prayer.


title: Hesychasm

text: Much of the literature of hesychasm is occupied with the psychological analysis of such tempting thoughts (e.g. St. Mark the Ascetic). This psychological analysis owes much to the ascetical works of Evagrius Pontikos, with its doctrine of the eight passions.


title: Hesychasm

text: The primary task of the hesychast is to engage in mental ascesis. The hesychast is to bring his mind (Gr. "nous)" into his heart so as to practise both the Jesus Prayer and sobriety with his mind in his heart. In solitude and retirement, the hesychast repeats the Jesus Prayer, ""Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner."" The hesychast prays the Jesus Prayer 'with the heart'with meaning, with intent, "for real" (see ontic). He never treats the Jesus Prayer as a string of syllables whose "surface" or overt verbal meaning is secondary or unimportant. He considers bare repetition of the Jesus Prayer as a mere string of syllables, perhaps with a "mystical" inner meaning beyond the overt verbal meaning, to be worthless or even dangerous. This emphasis on the actual, real invocation of Jesus Christ mirrors an Eastern understanding of mantra in that physical action/voice and meaning are utterly inseparable.


title: Hesychasm

text: The descent of the mind into the heart is not taken literally by the practitioners of hesychasm, but is considered metaphorically. Some of the psychophysical techniques described in the texts are to assist the descent of the mind into the heart at those times that only with difficulty it descends on its own.


title: Hesychasm

text: The goal at this stage is a practice of the Jesus Prayer with the mind in the heart, which practice is free of images (see "Pros Theodoulon"). By the exercise of sobriety (the mental ascesis against tempting thoughts), the hesychast arrives at a continual practice of the Jesus Prayer with his mind in his heart and where his consciousness is no longer encumbered by the spontaneous inception of images: his mind has a certain stillness and emptiness that is punctuated only by the eternal repetition of the Jesus Prayer.


title: Hesychasm

text: This stage is called the "guard of the mind". This is a very advanced stage of ascetical and spiritual practice, and attempting to accomplish this prematurely, especially with psychophysical techniques, can cause very serious spiritual and emotional harm to the would-be hesychast. St. Theophan the Recluse once remarked that bodily postures and breathing techniques were virtually forbidden in his youth, since, instead of gaining the Spirit of God, people succeeded only "in ruining their lungs."


title: Hesychasm

text: The guard of the mind is the practical goal of the hesychast. It is the condition in which he remains as a matter of course throughout his day, every day until he dies.


title: Hesychasm

text: There is a very great emphasis on humility in the practice of the Jesus Prayer, great cautions being given in the texts about the disaster that will befall the would-be hesychast if he proceeds in pride, arrogance or conceit. It is also assumed in the hesychast texts that the hesychast is a member of the Orthodox Church in good standing.


title: Hesychasm

text: The hesychast usually experiences the contemplation of God as light, the "uncreated light" of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas. The hesychast, when he has by the mercy of God been granted such an experience, does not remain in that experience for a very long time (there are exceptionssee for example the "Life" of St. Savas the Fool for Christ (14th century), written by St. Philotheos Kokkinos (14th century)), but he returns "to earth" and continues to practise the guard of the mind.


title: Hesychasm

text: The uncreated light that the hesychast experiences is identified with the Holy Spirit. Experiences of the uncreated light are allied to the 'acquisition of the Holy Spirit'. Notable accounts of encounters with the Holy Spirit in this fashion are found in St. Symeon the New Theologian's account of the illumination of "George" (considered a pseudonym of St. Symeon himself); in the "conversation with Motovilov" in the "Life" of St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833); and, more recently, in the reminiscences of Elder Porphyrios (Bairaktaris) of Kafsokalivia ("Wounded by Love" pp. 27–31).


title: Hesychasm

text: Orthodox tradition warns against seeking ecstasy as an end in itself. Hesychasm is a traditional complex of ascetical practices embedded in the doctrine and practice of the Orthodox Church and intended to purify the member of the Orthodox Church and to make him ready for an encounter with God that comes to him when and if God wants, through God's grace. The goal is to acquire, through purification and grace, the Holy Spirit and salvation. Any ecstatic states or other unusual phenomena which may occur in the course of hesychast practice are considered secondary and unimportant, even quite dangerous. Moreover, seeking after unusual "spiritual" experiences can itself cause great harm, ruining the soul and the mind of the seeker. Such a seeking after "spiritual" experiences can lead to "spiritual delusion" (Ru. "prelest," Gr. "plani)"the antonym of sobrietyin which a person believes himself or herself to be a saint, has hallucinations in which he or she "sees" angels, Christ, etc. This state of spiritual delusion is in a superficial, egotistical way pleasurable, but can lead to madness and suicide, and, according to the hesychast fathers, makes salvation impossible.


title: Hesychasm

text: Hesychasts fully participate in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Orthodox Church, including the daily cycle of liturgical prayer of the Divine Office and the Divine Liturgy. However, hesychasts who are living as hermits might have a very rare attendance at the Divine Liturgy (see the life of Saint Seraphim of Sarov) and might not recite the Divine Office except by means of the Jesus Prayer (attested practice on Mt Athos). In general, the hesychast restricts his external activities for the sake of his hesychastic practice.


title: Hesychasm

text: Books used by hesychasts include the "Philokalia", a collection of texts on prayer and solitary mental ascesis written from the 4th to the 15th centuries, which exists in a number of independent redactions; the "Ladder of Divine Ascent;" the collected works of St. Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022); and the works of St. Isaac the Syrian (7th century), as they were selected and translated into Greek at the Monastery of St. Savas near Jerusalem about the 10th century.


title: Hesychasm

text: Oriental Orthodox Christian clerics are "wary of the hesychastic practices of the Jesus Prayer that developed later in the Eastern churches". Fr. Matta el-Meskeen, a Coptic Orthodox clergyman, commented that hesychasm rid the concept of unceasing prayer from its simplicity, shifting "its ascetical position as a humbling practice by itself to a mystical position, with programs, stipulations, technical and mechanical bases, degrees, objectives, results".


title: Hesychasm

text: Western theologians have tended to reject hesychasm and the contention that, in the case of God, the distinction between essence and energies is real rather than, albeit with a foundation in reality, notional (in the mind). In their view, affirming an ontological essence-energies distinction in God contradicted the teaching of the First Council of Nicaea on divine unity. Adrian Fortescue, writing in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" (1909), claimed that "the real distinction between God's essence and operation remains one more principle, though it is rarely insisted on now, in which the Orthodox differ from Catholics." According to Fortescue, the Scholastic theory that God is pure actuality prevented Palamism from having much influence in the West, and it was from Western Scholasticism that hesychasm's philosophical opponents in the East borrowed their weapons.


title: Hesychasm

text: In some instances these theologians equated hesychasm with quietism, an 18th century mystical revival codemned by the Catholic Church, perhaps because "quietism" is the literal translation of "hesychasm". However, according to Kallistos Ware, "To translate 'hesychasm' as 'quietism,' while perhaps etymologically defensible, is historically and theologically misleading." Ware asserts that "the distinctive tenets of the 17th-century Western quietists is not characteristic of Greek hesychasm."


title: Hesychasm

text: The Roman Catholic Church has never expressed any condemnation of Palamism, and uses in its liturgy readings from the work of Nicholas Kabasilas, a supporter of Palamas in the controversy that took place in the East. Its Liturgy of the Hours includes extracts from Kabasilas's "Life in Christ" on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter in Year II of the two-year cycle for the Office of Readings.


title: Hesychasm

text: The later 20th century saw a remarkable change in the attitude of Roman Catholic theologians to Palamas, a "rehabilitation" of him that has led to increasing parts of the Western Church considering him a saint, even if uncanonized. Some Western scholars have argued that there is no conflict between Palamas's teaching and Roman Catholic thought. According to Kallistos Ware, some Western theologians, both Roman Catholic and Anglican, see the theology of Palamas as introducing an inadmissible division within God; however, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking.


title: Unforgettable Love

text: Unforgettable Love (Chinese: 贺先生的恋恋不忘) is a 2021 Chinese romance television series, starring Wei Zheming, Hu Yixuan, co-starring Sheng Huizi, Yu Yijie, Shi Qingyan, Wu Chongxuan and Sun Sicheng. The series is based on the novel "Mr He's Love is Not Forgotten (贺少的闪婚暖妻)" by Qin Ye. It revolves around He Qiaoyan, CEO of Heshi Group, and Qin Yiyue, a child psychologist. The series airs on Mango TV from July 10, 2021, and is also available on iQiyi app and iQ.com.


title: Unforgettable Love

text: He Qiaoyan (Wei Zheming), CEO of Heshi Group, and Qin Yiyue (Hu Yixuan), a child psychologist, start a contract marriage for Xiaobao (Sun Sicheng) at the beginning. But the rational, distant, indifferent CEO and the soft, optimistic, considerate, and meticulous psychologist finally fall in love with each other.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The "Mars" trilogy is a series of science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars through the personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries. Ultimately more utopian than dystopian, the story focuses on egalitarian, sociological, and scientific advances made on Mars, while Earth suffers from overpopulation and ecological disaster.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The three novels are Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), and Blue Mars (1996). The Martians (1999) is a collection of short stories set in the same fictional universe. "Red Mars" won the BSFA Award in 1992 and Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1993. "Green Mars" won the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1994. "Blue Mars" also won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1997.


title: Mars trilogy

text: "Icehenge" (1984), Robinson's first novel about Mars, is not set in this universe but deals with similar themes and plot elements. The trilogy shares some similarities with Robinson's more recent novel "2312" (2012); for instance, the terraforming of Mars and the extreme longevity of the characters in both novels.


title: Mars trilogy

text: "Red Mars" starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the "Ares", the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. The ship was built from clustered space shuttle external fuel tanks which, instead of reentering Earth's atmosphere, had been boosted into orbit until enough had been amassed to build the ship. The mission is a joint American–Russian undertaking, and seventy of the First Hundred are drawn from these countries (except, for example, Michel Duval, a French psychologist assigned to observe their behavior). The book details the trip out, construction of the first settlement on Mars (eventually called Underhill) by Russian engineer Nadia Cherneshevsky, as well as establishing colonies on Mars' hollowed out asteroid-moon Phobos, the ever-changing relationships between the colonists, debates among the colonists regarding both the terraforming of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun and that it is humanity's obligation to spread life as it is the most scarce thing in the known universe, and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Russell's view is initially purely scientific but in time comes to blend with the views of Hiroko Ai, the chief of the Agricultural Team who assembles a new belief system (the "Areophany") devoted to the appreciation and furthering of life ("viriditas"); these views are collectively known as the "Green" position, while Clayborne's naturalist stance comes to be known as "Red." The actual decision is left to the United Nations Organization of Mars Affairs (UNOMA), which greenlights terraforming, and a series of actions get underway, including the drilling of "moholes" to release subsurface heat; thickening of the atmosphere according to a complicated bio-chemical formula that comes to be known as the "Russell cocktail" after Sax Russell; and the detonation of nuclear explosions deep in the sub-surface permafrost to release water. Additional steps are taken to connect Mars more closely with Earth, including the insertion of an areosynchronous asteroid "Clarke" to which a space elevator cable is tethered.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Against the backdrop of this development is another debate, one whose principal instigator is Arkady Bogdanov of the Russian contingent (possibly named in homage to the Russian polymath and science fiction writer Alexander Bogdanov - it is later revealed in Blue Mars that Alexander Bogdanov is an ancestor of Arkady's.). Bogdanov argues that Mars need not and should not be subject to Earth traditions, limitations, or authority. He is to some extent joined in this position by John Boone, famous as the "First Man on Mars" from a preceding expedition and rival to Frank Chalmers, the technical leader of the American contingent. Their rivalry is further exacerbated by competing romantic interest in Maya Katarina Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent. (In the opening of the book, Chalmers instigates a sequence of events that leads to Boone being assassinated; much of what follows is a retrospective examination of what led to that point.)


title: Mars trilogy

text: Earth meanwhile increasingly falls under the control of transnational corporations (transnats) that come to dominate its governments, particularly smaller nations adopted as "flags of convenience" for extending their influence into Martian affairs. As UNOMA's power erodes, the Mars treaty is renegotiated in a move led by Frank Chalmers; the outcome is impressive but proves short-lived as the transnats find ways around it through loop-holes. Things get worse as the nations of Earth start to clash over limited resources, expanding debt, and population growth as well as restrictions on access to a new longevity treatment developed by Martian scientists—one that holds the promise of lifespans into the hundreds of years. In 2061, with Boone dead and exploding immigration threatening the fabric of Martian society, Bogdanov launches a revolution against what many now view as occupying transnat troops operating only loosely under an UNOMA rubber-stamp approval. Initially successful, the revolution proves infeasible on the basis of both a greater-than-expected willingness of the Earth troops to use violence and the extreme vulnerability of life on a planet without a habitable atmosphere. A series of exchanges sees the cutting of the space elevator, bombardment of several Martian cities (including the city where Bogdanov is himself organizing the rebellion; he is killed), the destruction of Phobos and its military complex, and the unleashing of a great flood of torrential groundwater freed by nuclear detonations.


title: Mars trilogy

text: By the end, most of the First Hundred are dead, and virtually all who remain have fled to a hidden refuge established years earlier by Ai and her followers. (One exception is Phyllis Boyle, who has allied herself with the transnats; she is on Clarke when the space elevator cable is cut and sent flying out of orbit to a fate unknown by the conclusion of the book.) The revolution dies and life on Mars returns to a sense of stability under heavy transnat control. The clash over resources on Earth breaks out into a full-blown world war leaving hundreds of millions dead, but cease-fire arrangements are reached when the transnats flee to the safety of the developed nations, which use their huge militaries to restore order, forming police-states. But a new generation of humans born on Mars holds the promise of change. In the meantime, the remaining First Hundred —including Russell, Clayborne, Toitovna, and Cherneshevsky— settle into life in Hiroko Ai's refuge called Zygote, hidden under the Martian south pole.


title: Mars trilogy

text: "Green Mars" takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed plants to grow. It picks up the story 50 years after the events of "Red Mars" in the dawn of the 22nd century, following the lives of the remaining First Hundred and their children and grandchildren. Melting ice causes the top of the dome of Hiroko Ai's base under the south pole to collapse, forcing the survivors to escape into a (less literal) underground organization known as the Demimonde. Among the expanded group are the First Hundred's children, the Nisei, a number of whom live in Hiroko's second secret base, Gamete.


title: Mars trilogy

text: As unrest in the multinational control over Mars's affairs grows, various groups start to form with different aims and methods. Watching these groups evolve from Earth, the CEO of the Praxis Corporation sends a representative, Arthur Randolph, to organize the resistance movements. This culminates into the Dorsa Brevia agreement, in which nearly all the underground factions take part. Preparations are made for a second revolution beginning in the 2120s, from converting moholes to missiles silos or hidden bases, sabotaging orbital mirrors, to propelling Deimos out of Mars' gravity well and out into deep space so it could never be used as a weapons platform as Phobos was.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The book follows the characters across the Martian landscape, which is explained in detail. Russell's character infiltrates the transnat terraforming project, with a carefully crafted fake identity as Stephen Lindholm. The newly evolving Martian biosphere is described at great length and with more profound changes mostly aimed at warming up the surface of Mars to the brink of making it habitable, from continent-sized orbital mirrors, another space elevator built (using another anchored asteroid that is dubbed "New Clarke"), to melting the northern polar ice cap, and digging moholes deep enough to form volcanoes. A mainstay of the novel is a detailed analysis of philosophical, political, personal, economic, and geological experiences of the characters. The story weaves back and forth from character to character, providing a picture of Mars as seen by them.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Sax, alias Stephen, eventually becomes romantically involved with Phyllis, who had survived the events of 2061 from the end of the first novel, but she discovers his true identity and has him arrested. Members of the underground launch a daring rescue from the prison facility where Sax suffers torture and interrogation that causes him to have a stroke; Maya kills Phyllis in the process of the rescue.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The book ends on a major event which is a sudden catastrophic rise in Earth's global sea levels not caused primarily by any greenhouse effect but by the eruption of a chain of volcanoes underneath the ice of West Antarctica, disintegrating the ice sheet and displacing the fragments into the ocean. The resultant flooding causes global chaos on Earth, creating the perfect moment for the Martian underground to seize control of Martian society from Earth. Following a series of largely bloodless coups, an extremist faction of Reds bombs a dam near Burroughs, the major city where the remaining United Nations forces have concentrated, in order to force the security forces to evacuate. The entire city is flooded and the population of the city has to walk a staggeringly long distance in the open Martian atmosphere (which just barely has the temperature, atmospheric pressure, and gas mixture to support human life) to Libya Station, in order to resettle in other locations. With this, control of Mars is finally wrested away from Earth with minimal loss of life, leaving the weary survivors hopeful about the prospects of their newfound political autonomy.


title: Mars trilogy

text: "Blue Mars" takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed atmospheric pressure and temperature to increase so that liquid water can exist on the planet's surface, forming rivers and seas. It follows closely in time from the end of "Green Mars" and has a much wider scope than the previous two books, covering an entire century after the second revolution. As Earth is heavily flooded by the sudden melting of the Antarctic ice cap, the once mighty metanats are brought to their knees; as the Praxis Corporation paves a new way of "democratic businesses". Mars becomes the "Head" of the system, giving universal healthcare, free education, and an abundance of food. However, this sparks illegal immigration from Earth, so to ease the population strain on the Blue Planet, Martian scientists and engineers are soon put to the task of creating asteroid cities; where small planetoids of the Belt are hollowed out, given a spin to produce gravity, and a mini-sun is created to produce light and heat.


title: Mars trilogy

text: With a vast increase in sciences, technologies, and spacecraft manufacturing, this begins the "Accelerando"; where humankind spreads its civilization throughout the Solar System, and eventually beyond. As Venus, the Jovian moons, the Saturnian moons, and eventually Triton are colonized and terraformed in some way, Jackie Boone (the granddaughter of John Boone, the first man to walk on Mars from the first book) takes an interstellar vessel (made out of an asteroid) to another star system twenty light-years away, where they will start to terraform the planets and moons found there.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The remaining First Hundred are generally regarded as living legends. Reports of Hiroko's survival are numerous, and purported sightings occur all over the colonized solar system, but none are substantiated. Nadia and Art Randolph lead a constitutional congress in which a global system of government is established that leaves most cities and settlements generally autonomous, but subject to a central representative legislature and two systems of courts, one legal and the other environmental. The environmental court is packed with members of the Red faction as a concession (in exchange for their support in the congress, as much of their power was broken when they attempted and failed to violently expel remaining UN forces early on after the second revolution of Green Mars; yet they still retained enough power to stymie constitutional negotiations). Vlad, Marina, and Ursula, the original inventors of the longevity treatments, introduce a new economic system that is a hybrid of capitalism, socialism, and environmental conservationism. During a trip to Earth occurring alongside the congress, Nirgal (one of the original children to be born on Mars to the First Hundred, and something of a Mars-wide celebrity), Maya, and Sax negotiate an agreement that allows Earth to send a number of migrants equal to 10% of Mars' population to Mars every year. Following the adoption of the new constitution, Nadia is elected the first president of Mars and serves competently, although she does not enjoy politics. She and Art work together closely, and eventually fall in love and have a child.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Sax Russell devotes himself to various scientific projects, all the while continuing to recover from the effects of his stroke. Since the second revolution, he feels enormous guilt that his pro-terraforming position became the dominant one at the expense of the goals of Ann's anti-terraforming stance, as Sax and Ann have come to be regarded as the original champions of their respective positions. Sax becomes increasingly preoccupied with seeking forgiveness and approval from Ann, while Ann, depressed and bitter from her many political and personal losses, is suicidal and refuses to accept any more longevity treatments. However, when Sax witnesses Ann collapse into a coma during an attempt to demonstrate to her the beauty of the terraformed world, he arranges for her to be resuscitated and to be treated with the longevity treatment, both against her will.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The longevity treatments themselves begin to show weaknesses once those receiving them reach the two-century mark in age. The treatments reduce most aging processes to a negligible rate, but are much less effective when it comes to brain function, and in particular memory. Maya in particular suffers extreme lapses in memory, although she remains high functioning most of the time. Further, as people age, they begin to show susceptibility to strange, fatal conditions which have no apparent explanation and are resistant to any treatment. Most common is the event that comes to be known as the "quick decline", where a person of extremely advanced age and in apparently good health suffers a sudden fatal heart arrythmia and dies abruptly. The exact mechanism is never explained. Michel dies of the quick decline, while attending the wake of another First Hundred member. Russell speculates that Michel's quick decline was brought on by the shock of seeing Maya fail to remember Frank Chalmers (who was killed while escaping security forces in the first revolution) upon looking at a treasured photo of him on her refrigerator. As a result of this and Russell's own problems with memory, he organizes a team of scientists to develop medicine that will restore memory. The remaining members of the First Hundred, of which there are only 12, congregate in Underhill, and take the medicine. It works so well that Russell remembers his own birth. He and Ann Clayborne finally recall that they had been in love prior to leaving Earth the very first time, but both had been too socially inept and nervous about their chances for selection for the Mars voyage to reveal this to each other. Their famous argument over terraforming had been a mere continuation of a running conversation they had been having since they still lived on Earth. Through the memory treatment it is also revealed that Phyllis had been lobbying to free Sax from his torturers when she was murdered by Maya. Maya herself declines the treatment. Sax also distinctly recalls Hiroko assisting him in finding his rover in a storm before he nearly froze to death before disappearing once again and is convinced she remains alive, although the question of whether she is actually alive is never resolved.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Eventually, the anti-immigration factions of the Martian government provoke massive illegal immigration from Earth, risking another war; however, under the leadership of Ann and Sax, who have fallen in love again following their reconciliation, along with Maya, the Martian population unites to reconstitute the government to accept more immigration from Earth, defusing the imminent conflict and ushering in a new golden age of harmony and security on Mars.


title: Mars trilogy

text: "The Martians" is a collection of short stories that takes place over the timespan of the original trilogy of novels, as well as some stories that take place in an alternate version of the novels where the First Hundred's mission was one of exploration rather than colonization. Buried in the stories are several hints about the eventual fate of the Martian terraforming program.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Trans-national Corporations, nicknamed "transnats", are extremely powerful multinational corporations that first emerge in the mid-21st century. Robinson tracks the evolution of the transnats into what he terms "metanats" (metanational). These multinational corporations have grown so large as a result of globalization that they have sufficient economic power to take over or strongly manipulate national governments, initially only relatively small third-world governments, but later, larger developed governments too, effectively running whole countries. In Robinson's future history, the metanational corporations become similar to nation-states in some respects, while continually attempting to take over competitors in order to become the sole controller of the interplanetary market. As the "Mars" trilogy draws to a close in the mid-23rd century, the metanational corporations are forced by a global catastrophe to concede more democratic powers to their workforces.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Although there are many transnational and metanational corporations mentioned, two play an active role in the development of the plotline: Praxis, a largely benevolent and relatively democratic firm, and Subarashī, which plays a large role in the maltreatment of the citizens of Mars.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Genetic engineering is first mentioned in "Red Mars"; it takes off when Sax creates an alga to withstand the harsh Martian temperature and convert its atmosphere into breathable air. Eventually this is done on a massive scale, with thousands of types of GE algae, lichen and bacteria being created to terraform the planet. In "Green Mars", GE animals began to be created to withstand the thin Martian atmosphere, and to produce a working planetary-biosphere. By "Blue Mars", GE is commonly being done on humans, willingly, to help them better adapt to the new worlds; to breathe thinner air (e.g. Russell), or to see better in the dimmer light of the outer planets.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The books also speculate on the colonization of other planets and moons in the Solar System, and include descriptions of settlements or terraforming efforts on Callisto, Mercury, Titania, Miranda and Venus. Toward the end of the last novel, humans are taking sub-light colony ships to other stars, taking advantage of the longevity treatments to survive the trip to their destinations.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A great portion of "Blue Mars" is concerned with the effects of extreme longevity on its protagonists, most of whom have lived over two hundred years as a result of repeated longevity treatments. In particular, Robinson speculates on the psychological effects of ultra-longevity, including memory loss, personality change, mental instability, and existential boredom.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The initial colonists from the "Ares" who established a permanent colony. Many of them later become leaders or exemplary figures in the transformation of Mars or its new society. The "First Hundred" actually consisted of 101, with Coyote being smuggled aboard the Ares by Hiroko.


title: Mars trilogy

text: An American astronaut, who was the first human to walk on Mars in the year 2020. He returns a public hero and uses his considerable influence to lobby for a second mission, this time one of colonization. Boone received a large amount of radiation on his first trip to Mars, more than the recommended dosage according to medical regulations. However, his celebrity status allows him to skirt this. On the second voyage, Boone is one of the "First Hundred" colonists sent to permanently colonize Mars. His accomplishments and natural charm yield him an informal leadership role. In the first chapter of "Red Mars", John Boone is assassinated in a plot instigated by Frank Chalmers. The narrative then steps back to the First Hundred's voyage to Mars aboard the spaceship "Ares". His ideas continue as a point of reference for the remainder of the trilogy. Boone's character portrayal is complex; in one light, Boone is a stereotypically simple, heroic figure, an everyman hero: his first words on his first trip to Mars are "Well, here we are." He is almost uniformly cheerful and good-natured, and approaches everything he undertakes with hale bonhomie. But later in "Red Mars", Robinson switches to Boone's point of view, and it is in this section that it is revealed that late in life, Boone is addicted to omegendorph, a fictional drug that is based on endorphins in the human brain. In addition, it reveals that at least some of his seeming simplicity might simply be an act designed to further his political goals. Overall, Boone is presented as larger-than-life.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Head of the American contingent, he is Machiavellian in his use of power. However, his cynicism is later shown to be a form of self-defense; Chalmers is at least partly driven by a hidden idealistic side. Early in the voyage to Mars, he becomes sexually involved with Maya Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent of the mission. During the second half of the voyage, Toitovna becomes involved with Boone. Already bitter that Boone became the first to walk on Mars instead of him as they were both candidates for the mission and that he was allowed to join the colonization trip despite his manipulations, Chalmers further despises Boone because of Toitovna's affection. His dislike culminates in his involvement in a plot to assassinate Boone, which ultimately succeeds and allows him to take over handling major affairs on Mars. This ultimately becomes his undoing, as his ruthless governance and aggressive diplomatic work backfire on him during the revolution of 2061. In the final chapters of "Red Mars", Chalmers flees with Toitovna and other members of the First Hundred to join the hidden colonists at the polar ice cap but dies along the way when he is caught outside their vehicle during an aquifer flood in Valles Marineris.


title: Mars trilogy

text: An emotional woman who is at the center of a love triangle between Boone and Chalmers, she begins as head of the Russian contingent. The novels hint that she used both wit and seduction to rise through the ranks of the Russian space agency to become the leader of the first colonization mission. After the first revolution, she flees with other members of the First Hundred to the hidden colony in the pole. She becomes a school teacher of the children of the hidden colonists but later becomes a powerful political force. After the deaths of Chalmers and Boone, she falls in love with Michel Duval. She suffers heavily from bipolar disorder and from memory-related psychological disorders with growing age, which often lead her to isolate herself from others and sometimes turn violent. Throughout the novels, Maya takes an active political role, helping to keep the surviving First Hundred together during the failed revolution of 2061 and guiding the successful revolutions that occur decades later, despite her psychological problems.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A Russian engineer who started out building nuclear reactors in Siberia, during the voyage and initial exploration of Mars, she does her best to avoid the squabbles of the other members of the First Hundred. Instead, she busies herself by building the first permanent habitation of Mars, Underhill, using programmed automated robots. She also helps to construct a new and larger habitat, and research facility in a nearby canyon. In the later books, she becomes a reluctant politician. Chernyshevski is in love with Bogdanov and is devastated when he is killed in an attack by anti-revolutionary forces associated with UNOMA, the transnationals and Phyllis Boyle during the first Martian revolution. In retaliation for Bogdanov's murder, she activates his hidden weapon system, built into Phobos, which causes the entire moon (a UNOMA/transnational military base) to decelerate in orbit and destructively aerobrake in Mars' atmosphere, utterly destroying it. In "Blue Mars", she falls in love with Art Randolph, with whom she eventually starts a family. After Martian independence, she grudgingly becomes the first president of Mars.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A mechanical engineer with anarchist leanings, possibly based on the Russian Machist, Alexander Bogdanov (the character's ancestor) and Arkady Strugatsky, he is regarded by many other members of the First Hundred, particularly Boyle, as a troublemaker. He leads the team which establishes an outpost on the moon Phobos, and leads an uprising against the transnational corporation towards the end of first novel. Like Boone (with whom he was good friends), his political ideas (later known as Bogdanovism) weigh heavily on characters later in the series. In love with Nadia Chernyshevski, he is killed during the first Martian revolution in 2061.


title: Mars trilogy

text: An American physicist, he is a brilliant and creative scientist, and is greatly respected for his intellectual gifts. However, he is socially awkward and often finds it difficult to understand and relate to other people. Russell is a leader of the Green movement, the goal of which is to terraform Mars. During "Green Mars", Sax suffers a stroke while being tortured by government security forces and fellow member of the First Hundred, Phyllis Boyle (although it is later revealed that she actually opposed Sax's torture). He subsequently suffers from Expressive aphasia and has to relearn how to speak and becomes less predictable in his actions. Originally apolitical, this event and a growing attachment to Mars itself leads Russell to become the physical architect of the second revolution. After memory issues become apparent in many of the remaining first hundred including Sax he begins work on an ambitious project to gather the remaining first hundred and have them try an experimental treatment he helped to develop. It is after this that Sax realizes his persistent attempts to please Ann are actually because he is also secretly in love with Ann Clayborne, who cannot stand him at first, but after decades on Mars, eventually reconciles. Saxifrage means "stonebreaker" and is the name for an Alpine plant that grows between stones.


title: Mars trilogy

text: An American geologist, Clayborne is one of the first areologists and maintains a stalwart desire to see Mars preserved in the state it holds when humans arrive. Clayborne early on debates Saxifrage Russell over the proper role of humanity on Mars and though initially apolitical, this stance marks her as the original "Red," while Russell's hands-on terraforming reflects the antithesis of these views. Clayborne is shown to prefer solitude during much of the series, and even her relationship with fellow First Hundred settler Simon (with whom she has a child) is subject to introspective silence in most cases. Simon's death and the estrangement she finds from their son Peter when the latter emerges as a leading moderate "green" drive her to further isolation. Clayborne's relationship with Russell is shown to be complex, the two of them taking early opposite views but the situation slowly changing as Russell comes to appreciate what has been unleashed and what has indeed been lost as science gives way to commercial exploitation that he cannot control. During the events of "Blue Mars", Russell intervenes to save Clayborne's life; later, the two are revealed to have once shared an attraction that went astray because of a casual misinterpretation between them. Ann undergoes a drastic change toward Blue Mars due to the emergence of something inside of her that she describes as anti-Ann and something else that she can't quite describe.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A Japanese expert on biology, agriculture, and ecological systems, it was Ai who smuggled Desmond "Coyote" Hawkins onto the "Ares" (the two were friends and lovers as students in London). She is the charismatic leader of the farm team, one of the important work groups and cliques among the First Hundred. She thus becomes the focus of many of the trilogy's central themes. Most importantly, she teaches the importance of maintaining a respectful relation with one's planet. On Mars, this is called the Areophany. In the secret colony Zygote, which Hiroko established, the first generation of children of the First Hundred, the ectogenes, are all the product of artificial insemination outside of any human body. Hiroko uses the ova of the female members of the First Hundred as the female genetic material and uses the sperm of the male members of the First Hundred to fertilize the ova. Although Hiroko is seldom at the center of the narrative, her influence is pervasive. She disappears for the final time in "Green Mars". Her ultimate fate is left unresolved. "Ai" (愛) is the Japanese word for love.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A French psychologist pivotally involved in the early psychological screening of the First Hundred candidates in Antarctica, which he describes as being a collection of double-blind requirements. Duval is assigned to accompany the Mars mission and is treated as an observer rather than as a member of the team during the early events of "Red Mars". His aloof personality enforces this ostracism and also subverts his relationships with others, but in time it becomes clear that Duval is struggling with his own psychological issues perhaps more than anyone else from the expedition. During the first disappearance of the farm team, he is invited by Hiroko to flee with the farm team and establish Zygote, the first hidden colony. Duval desperately wants to return to Provence as he remembers it, and after visiting as a part of the Martian diplomatic mission to Earth, he becomes even more homesick. Duval falls in love with Maya Toitovna and guides her through particularly challenging psychological episodes throughout most of the series, dying late in "Blue Mars" of heart arrhythmia when Maya displays signs of very heavy temporary memory loss.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Nearly sixty when he arrives on Mars, a Russian biological scientist who is the oldest of the First Hundred. Taneev heads medical treatment and most research projects on Mars, becoming famous as the creator of the gerontological treatment used to regenerate human cellular systems and ushering in a new era of longevity. He lives in Acheron on the Great Escarpment in the north of Mars before fleeing to the hidden colony after the First Revolution but later returns to his research, falling victim to "quick decline" late in the events of "Blue Mars". For much of his Mars-centric life, Taneev lives in a ménage à trois with Ursula and Marina, the exact nature of which is never resolved.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A Christian American geologist with a harsh personality that does not win her many friends among the First Hundred and gains particular enmity from Ann Clayborne. As the Mars situation develops, Boyle sides against most of the First Hundred in favor of the increasingly authoritarian United Nations Office of Mars Affairs (UNOMA) and its successor, the corporate/quasi-fascist United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTA). Her influence is strongest during the later events of "Red Mars", where by the 2061 revolution she has been placed in charge of the asteroid Clarke that serves as the counterweight of the First Space Elevator. The events of the revolution send Clarke (and Boyle) spinning off into the outer Solar System at the end of "Red Mars"; "Green Mars" finds her back in the equation, but her influence is greatly reduced against the backdrop of a much-expanded UNTA presence. Boyle engages in a brief sexual relationship with Saxifrage Russell (who despises her) while the latter is living under an assumed identity and is singularly capable of discerning who he really is, turning him over the UNTA. She is later present at a session in Kasei Vallis where Russell is being tortured, and is killed by Maya Toitovna. Later, as his memory recovers, Russell reveals that Boyle had been opposed to his torture and was demanding that he be released at the time that Maya's team freed him.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A Trinidadian stowaway, he is a friend and supporter of Hiroko, and a fervent anarchist communist. Present in "Red Mars" only as a stowaway who eventually blends effortlessly into the Martian background, he is not even identified as anything more than Coyote until the beginning of "Green Mars". He becomes a leading figure in the underground and an unofficial coordinator of a developing gift economy.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Since the trilogy covers over 200 years of human history, later immigrants and the children and grandchildren of the First Hundred eventually become important characters in their own right.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The Martians use the same terminology for different generations as Japanese Americans. People who immigrated from Earth are called issei, the first generation born on Mars are nisei, and the second-generation Martians are sansei. Third-generation Martians are called yonsei.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Kasei is the son of Hiroko and John Boone and the father of Jackie Boone. Kasei is the leader of the Kakaze, a radical Red faction. His name is Japanese for the planet Mars. He dies during the second revolution, after an unsuccessful attack on the second space elevator.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The son of Hiroko and Coyote, he is raised communally by Hiroko and her followers in Zygote. He is a good-natured wanderer who eventually becomes a political leader advocating ties with Earth. He is one of the founders of the Free Mars movement and is famous for his running technique that allows him to run all day for days on end. As Nadia's assistants, he and Art are instrumental in getting the Martian constitutional declaration written. Later he is sent on a diplomatic mission to Earth but nearly dies from an infection. His name is ancient Babylonian for Mars (the planet and the war-god).


title: Mars trilogy

text: The granddaughter of Hiroko and John Boone (raised with Nirgal), she emerges as a leader of the Free Mars movement, but is seen to change her platform based on whatever keeps her in power (e.g. changing from banning Earth immigration to allowing almost unlimited immigrants). After her daughter Zo's death, she retires in grief and joins a one-way expedition to an extrasolar planet near Aldebaran.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Peter Clayborne is the son of Ann Clayborne and Simon Frazier, being one of the first children born on Mars. Peter holds a position of older brother to all of the following first generation. Many revolutionary and later political decisions of the Mars First movement are influenced by his opinions and judgment. He works part-time as an engineer and a green politician.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Jackie's daughter; she has feline traits (purring) inserted into her genome via the gerontological longevity treatment. In "Blue Mars", she travels the solar system running political errands for Jackie, although the two do not get along particularly well. Her character is portrayed as hedonistic and explicitly nihilistic, making sexual satisfaction a priority and seemingly having little regard for the feelings of others. On the other hand, she apparently has a conscience, risking her life to rescue a man on Mercury and later dying in an attempt to save a distressed flier.


title: Mars trilogy

text: A representative of the Praxis corporation sent to contact the Martian underground movement on a quasi-diplomatic mission in an attempt to create a system of ecological capitalism based on democratic corporations. Like the other metanationals, it takes on intensive economic and political ties with governments, but Praxis aims for partnerships rather than exploitive relationships.


title: Mars trilogy

text: Bedouin nomads who originally emigrated from Egypt and respected figures in the Arab Martian community. Zeyk is a close friend of Chalmers. His eidetic memory becomes a minor plot point.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The founder of Praxis, one of the huge multinational corporations. He embraces a fusion of Eastern and Western lifestyles.


title: Mars trilogy

text: In an interview at UCSD, Robinson said that he was looking at a satellite photo of Mars and thought that would be a great place to go backpacking. He said the Mars trilogy grew out of that urge.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The series has had difficulty moving into film and TV for over two decades. The Mars trilogy screen production rights were held by James Cameron in the late 1990s, who conceived a five-hour miniseries to be directed by Martha Coolidge, but he subsequently passed on the option. Later, Gale Ann Hurd planned a similar mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel, which also remained unproduced. Then, in October 2008, it was reported that AMC and Jonathan Hensleigh had teamed up and were planning to develop a television mini-series based on "Red Mars".


title: Mars trilogy

text: In September 2014, SpikeTV announced it was working with producer Vince Gerardis to develop a TV series adaptation of "Red Mars" and in December 2015, formally greenlit a ten-episode first season of a TV series based on the novels, with J. Michael Straczynski serving as showrunner and writer. However, in March 2016, "Deadline" reported that Straczynski had left his position as showrunner with Peter Noah replacing him, but he too left due to creative differences with Spike. Spike then put the series on hold for further development.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The content of "Green Mars" and the cover artwork for "Red Mars" are included on the Phoenix DVD, carried on board "Phoenix", a NASA lander that successfully touched down on Mars in May 2008. The First Interplanetary Library is intended to be a sort of time capsule for future Mars explorers and colonists.


title: Mars trilogy

text: The trilogy has been translated into Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Hebrew, Japanese, Italian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Serbian, among others.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since it was opened in 1845. It was the first ground in England to host international Test cricket in September 1880. The final Test match of the English season is traditionally played there.


title: The Oval

text: In addition to cricket, The Oval has hosted a number of other historically significant sporting events. In 1870, it staged England's first international football match, versus Scotland. It hosted the first FA Cup final in 1872, as well as those between 1874 and 1892. In 1876, it held both the England v. Wales and England v. Scotland rugby international matches and, in 1877, rugby's first varsity match. It also hosted the final of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval is built on part of the former Kennington Common. Cricket matches were played on the common throughout the early 18th century. The earliest recorded match was the London v Dartford match in June 1724. However, as the common was also used regularly for public executions of those convicted at the Surrey Assizes (it was the south London equivalent of Tyburn), cricket matches had moved away to the Artillery Ground by the 1740s. Kennington Common was eventually enclosed in the mid-19th century under a scheme sponsored by the royal family.


title: The Oval

text: In 1844, the site of the Kennington Oval was a cabbage patch and market garden owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy was willing to lease the land for the purpose of a cricket ground, and on 10 March 1845 the first lease, which the club later assumed, was issued to Mr. William Houghton (then president of the progenitor Montpelier Cricket Club) by the Otter Trustees who held the land from the Duchy "to convert it into a subscription cricket ground", for 31 years at a rent of £120 per annum plus taxes amounting to £20. The original contract for turfing The Oval cost £300; the 10,000 grass turfs came from Tooting Common and were laid in the spring of 1845 allowing for the first cricket match to be played in May 1845. Hence, Surrey County Cricket Club (SCCC) was established in 1845.


title: The Oval

text: The popularity of the ground was immediate and the strength of the SCCC grew. On 3 May 1875 the club acquired the remainder of the leasehold for a further term of 31 years from the Otter Trustees for the sum of £2,800.


title: The Oval

text: In 1868, 20,000 spectators gathered at The Oval for the first game of the 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour of England, the first tour of England by any foreign side. Thanks to C.W. Alcock, the Secretary of Surrey from 1872 to 1907, the first Test match in England was played at The Oval in 1880 between England and Australia. The Oval, thereby, became the second ground to stage a Test, after Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). In 1882, Australia won the Test by seven runs within two days. "The Sporting Times" printed a mocking obituary notice for English cricket, which led to the creation of the Ashes trophy, which is still contested whenever England plays Australia. The first Test double century was scored at The Oval in 1884 by Australia's Billy Murdoch.


title: The Oval

text: Surrey's ground is noted as having the first artificial lighting at a sports arena, in the form of gas-lamps, dating to 1889. The current pavilion was completed in time for the 1898 season.


title: The Oval

text: In 1907, South Africa became the second visiting Test team to play a Test match at the ground. In 1928, the West Indies played its first Test match at The Oval, followed by New Zealand in 1931. In 1936, India became the fifth foreign visiting Test side to play at The Oval, followed by Pakistan in 1954 and Sri Lanka in 1998. Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Ireland have yet to play a Test match at The Oval.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval is referenced by the poet Philip Larkin in his poem about the First World War, "MCMXIV". During World War II, The Oval was requisitioned, initially housing anti-aircraft searchlights. It was then turned into a prisoner-of-war camp, intended to hold enemy parachutists. However, as they never came, The Oval was never actually used for this purpose.


title: The Oval

text: The first One Day International match at this venue was played on 7 September 1973 between England and West Indies. It hosted matches of the 1975, 1979, 1983, and 1999 World Cups. It also hosted five of the fifteen matches in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy, including the final. The Oval once held the record for the largest playing area of any Test venue in the world. That record has since been surpassed by Gaddafi Stadium in Pakistan, although The Oval remains the largest in Great Britain.


title: The Oval

text: Billionaire Paul Getty, who had a great affinity for cricket and was at one time SCCC President, built a replica of The Oval on his Wormsley Park estate.


title: The Oval

text: The famous gasholders just outside the ground were built around 1853. With the gasholders long disused, there was much speculation as to whether they should be demolished; however, many believe they are an integral part of The Oval's urban landscape and, therefore, their future looks secure. In 2016 the main gasholder was given official protected status as a historically important industrial structure.


title: The Oval

text: On 20 August 2006, The Oval saw the first time a team forfeited a Test match. Pakistan were upset after umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove docked them five runs and changed the ball after ruling that the team had tampered with it on the fourth day of the final Test against England. Pakistan debated the matter during the tea break and then refused to come out for the final session in protest. By the time they relented and decided to resume, the umpires had already called time on the match and awarded the game to England by default.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval hosted its hundredth Test, against South Africa, on 27 July 2017, becoming the fourth Test venue in the world after Lord's, MCG and SCG to do so. Moeen Ali also became the first player to ever take a Test hat-trick at The Oval, bowling out South Africa in the second innings to win the match.


title: The Oval

text: In Tests, the highest team score at The Oval is 903/7 declared by England against Australia on 20 August 1938. The leading run scorers are Len Hutton (1,521 runs), Alastair Cook (1,217 runs) and Graham Gooch (1,097 runs). The leading wicket takers are Ian Botham (52 wickets), Derek Underwood (45 wickets) and James Anderson (44 wickets).


title: The Oval

text: In ODIs, the highest team score at The Oval is 398/5 by New Zealand against England on 12 June 2015. The leading ODI run scorers are Eoin Morgan (630 runs), Marcus Trescothick (528 runs) and Joe Root (480 runs). The leading ODI wicket takers are James Anderson (30 wickets) and Darren Gough (13 wickets).


title: The Oval

text: In 2021, the Oval Invincibles were formed as a team in the newly-launched The Hundred competition. The initial games in both the men's and women's competition were played on the ground.


title: The Oval

text: The north-western end of The Oval is traditionally known as the "Vauxhall End", as it is nearer to the district of Vauxhall and its railway station. The opposite end (south-east) is known as the "Pavilion" "End" as it is the location of the Members' Pavilion.


title: The Oval

text: At the end of the 2002 cricket season, Surrey started redeveloping the Vauxhall End. The development included demolishing the outdated Surridge, Fender, Jardine, and Peter May north stands, and creating in their place a single four-tier grandstand, currently known as the OCS stand, as it is sponsored by Outsourced Client Solutions International Facilities Management Services. This work was completed in May 2005 and increased ground capacity to around 23,000.


title: The Oval

text: In January 2007, Surrey CCC, announced plans to increase capacity by a further 2,000 seats, this time by redeveloping the Pavilion End. The Lock, Laker, and Peter May south stands were to be replaced by a new stand, which would have a hotel backing on to it. The Surrey Tavern at the entrance to the ground would be demolished, and a new pedestrian plaza would be created in its place, improving access to the ground and opening up views of the historic pavilion. These plans were delayed by objections raised by the Health & Safety Executive as the ground is close to a gasometer. Planning permission was eventually granted, but not before the credit crunch struck, as a result of which this development did not proceed.


title: The Oval

text: In 2009, four masts of semi-permanent telescopic floodlights costing £3.7m were installed for use in late-day through evening matches. The floodlights were especially designed to comply with strict residential planning regulations to lessen their visual impact and any light overspill to residents, as well as to improve the game experience within the ground by reducing excess glare that can affect players, umpires, broadcasters and spectators. Precision reflector systems were fitted for tight beam control to decrease overspill and direct light only where needed. Each mast was made extendable to a maximum height of and, when not in use, retractable to . At the end of each season, all four masts can be removed and stored away.


title: The Oval

text: After the 2013 season, a new project was started to add 'wings' to either side of the OCS Stand at the Vauxhall End of the ground. The development was finished in time for the start of the 2014 season. Each 'wing' added 500 seats, increasing the capacity from 23,500 to 24,500.


title: The Oval

text: In September 2015, the Peter May and Tony Lock stands were demolished, to be replaced by a single new and much larger stand named after Peter May. May led Surrey to their sixth and seventh consecutive County Championships in 1957 and 1958 and also captained England from 1955 to 1961, winning the Ashes in 1956. Construction of the new stand, which cost around £10m, began in September 2015. It officially opened on 15 May 2016, increasing the capacity of the ground by 1,300 seats to 25,300.


title: The Oval

text: Following the demolition of the Tony Lock stand, the club renamed the Laker Stand as the Lock/Laker Stand, continuing to honour the contribution made by the spin partnership of Tony Lock and Jim Laker, who collectively took 3,108 wickets for the club.


title: The Oval

text: The Lock/Laker stand was itself demolished in September 2019, and work began on the construction of a new development in its place, initially named "One Oval Square". The new structure will include a three-tier stand that will increase the ground's total capacity to almost 28,000, as well as providing state-of-the-art facilities for the Club’s hospitality, conference and events businesses, and provide improved facilities for Members. The new stand is due to be completed in mid 2021. The project is part of a planned £50m long-term redevelopment of the ground by Surrey County Cricket Club which will see The Oval transformed into the largest cricket stadium in the western hemisphere, with a capacity of 40,000.


title: The Oval

text: Floodlights were added in the shape of an O for oval on one side of the ground to emulate the e-shaped floodlights at Edgbaston.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval was also an important site in the historical development of football in England. Football had been played in this part of London for many years prior to the inauguration of The Oval: "The Gymnastic Society", arguably the world's first organised football club, met regularly at nearby Kennington Common during the second half of the eighteenth century to play the game.


title: The Oval

text: Between 1950 and 1963, amateur club Corinthian Casuals played their home matches at The Oval, with the pitch at the Vauxhall End.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval was the venue for the first representative football match in the world on 5 March 1870, England against Scotland, organised by The Football Association. The game resulted in a 1–1 draw, but is not recognised by FIFA as the first official international match because the Scotland team was selected only from London-based Scottish players. Similar representative international matches between England and Scotland took place at The Oval until February 1872.


title: The Oval

text: On 8 March 1873, the England national team beat Scotland 4–2 in the first officially recognised international match to be played in England. England continued to play occasionally at The Oval until 1889.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval was the site of the first FA Cup final, and also both semi-final matches. On 16 March 1872, The Wanderers beat the Royal Engineers 1–0 to win the first FA Cup. This final was notable for the Engineers' then innovative footballing style of teamwork rather than individual play. C. W. Alcock, Secretary of The Football Association, was the prime mover in the creation of the competition. He had also just become Secretary of Surrey CCC, so The Oval was the natural choice of venue for the final. Alcock was also captain of the successful Wanderers side. Apart from 1873, The Oval hosted all subsequent FA Cup finals until 1892.


title: The Oval

text: Between 1872 and 1879, The Oval held seven full cap international rugby union matches. The final of the United Hospitals Challenge Cup, the oldest rugby union cup competition in the world, was also first held at The Oval on Wednesday 3 March 1875.


title: The Oval

text: From 1935 to 1949 England women's international hockey matches were played at The Oval. One of these matches, in 1938, was the first match in any team sport to be televised by the BBC, as a trial for broadcasting the Oval Test later that year.


title: The Oval

text: On March 12, 1889, the Oval hosted an exhibition baseball game between the Chicago Whitestockings and an "All-American" team as part of Albert Spalding's 1888-1889 baseball world tour. The Oval was reported to have been full, and the match was attended by the Prince of Wales who greeted the players following the game.


title: The Oval

text: As well as being an international sporting venue, The Oval has a conference and events business. The Corinthian Roof Terrace built on the OCS Stand in 2013 features panoramic views of the London skyline.


title: The Oval

text: On September 18, 1971, a day-long rock concert was held at The Oval to raise funds for famine relief in war-torn Bangladesh. Featuring The Faces and headlined by The Who, a crowd of over 40,000 people attended, with the stage sited at the Vauxhall End. The following year, two more successful concerts were held; the first featuring Frank Zappa and Hawkwind, the second featuring Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Genesis.


title: The Oval

text: The Oval has hosted exhibition matches for Australian rules football. The first such match was held between and a team of All-Stars in 1972. In 1987, the Oval hosted what became known as the Battle of Britain between Carlton and North Melbourne, which included numerous fights and future multiple AFL Premiership coach Alastair Clarkson, at the time only a teenager, breaking Ian Aitken's jaw. In 2005, a record crowd for Australian rules football in England (18,884) saw Fremantle defeat the West Coast Eagles in the Western Derby (thus far, the only edition of the fixture to not be played in Perth). In 2012, approximately 10,000 attended a post-season exhibition match between Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs, which Port Adelaide won by 1 point.


title: The Oval

text: In 2011, ahead of an NFL International Series game at Wembley Stadium, the Chicago Bears used The Oval as a practice facility.


title: The Oval

text: A tall Victorian gasometer, sited less than 50 metres beyond the north-eastern stadium wall, has been a dominating feature of the view from the ground since the mid 1800s. A movement to preserve iconic gasometers across the UK as important and historic monuments of Britain's industrial heritage has emerged in recent years, with the one visible from The Oval often cited as a particularly notable example. The skeletal but decorative wrought iron structure is a landmark in the area and has become an intrinsic part of The Oval's history and urban allure. The cricket commentator Henry Blofeld once said in a broadcast, "As the bowler runs in, it's so quiet you can hear the creak of the gasometer."


title: The Oval

text: Although long unused as a gas holder, the aging structure was only officially decommissioned in 2014, with plans to demolish it being announced in 2013. Blofeld stated: "In comparison, pulling down the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace would be child's play.". After local public protest at the proposed demolition, in March 2016 the structure was given Grade II listed status to protect its future.


title: Brasserie Les Halles

text: Brasserie Les Halles was a French-brasserie-style restaurant located on 15 John Street (between Broadway & Nassau Street; in the Financial District) in Manhattan, New York City. Previous locations were on Park Avenue South in Manhattan, in Tokyo, Miami, and Washington, D.C. Author and television host Anthony Bourdain was the predecessor to the executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles, Carlos Llaguno. The restaurant went bankrupt in August 2017.


title: Brasserie Les Halles

text: The restaurant was named after Les Halles, the historic central wholesale marketplace in Paris, France. The restaurant served simple and classic French dishes such as escargot, foie gras, and steak tartare, which was prepared to order at tableside, and was renowned for its pommes frites. The original Park Avenue location featured a butcher shop that specialized in French cuts of meat. The Park Avenue location was featured prominently in the book "" by Anthony Bourdain, who also detailed many of Les Halles' recipes in "Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook". The Downtown New York branch occupied the site of the former John Street Theatre, "Birthplace of American Theatre."


title: Brasserie Les Halles

text: The Park Avenue location of Les Halles closed in March 2016. The Washington, D.C. location of Les Halles closed in mid-November 2008 following a fifteen-year run. Owner Philippe Lajaunie cited difficulty obtaining a new lease as the reason. The Miami location is now closed as well.


title: Brasserie Les Halles

text: In 2022, Les Halles reopened after being renamed La Brasserie, under the ownership of Francis Staub, the founder of Staub cookware. Some iconic dishes by Anthony Bourdain, such as the Steak Frites, are kept on the menu as an homage.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: The meeting of Diogenes of Sinope and Alexander the Great is one of the most discussed anecdotes from philosophical history. Many versions of it exist. The most popular relate it as evidence of Diogenes' disregard for authority, wealth, and decorum.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Plutarch and Diogenes Laërtius report that Alexander and Diogenes died on the same day, in 323 BC. Although this coincidence is suspect (since neither man's date of death can be conclusively verified), the anecdote, and the relationship between the two people, has been the subject of many literary and artistic works over the centuries, from the writings of Diogenes Laërtius to David Pinski's 1930 dramatic reconstruction of the encounter, "Aleḳsander un Dyogenes"; including writings from the Middle Ages, several works of Henry Fielding, and possibly even Shakespeare's "King Lear" along the way. The literature and artwork influenced by this story are extensive.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Versions upon versions of the anecdote exist, with the origins of most appearing to be, either directly or indirectly, in the account of the meeting given by Plutarch, whose actual historicity has also been questioned. Several of the embellished versions of the anecdote do not name either one or both of the protagonists, and some indeed substitute Socrates for Diogenes.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: According to legend, Alexander the Great came to visit the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope. Alexander wanted to fulfill a wish for Diogenes and asked him what he desired. According to the version recounted by Diogenes Laërtius, Diogenes replied "Stand out of my light." Plutarch provides a longer version of the story:


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Thereupon many statesmen and philosophers came to Alexander with their congratulations, and he expected that Diogenes of Sinope also, who was tarrying in Corinth, would do likewise. But since that philosopher took not the slightest notice of Alexander, and continued to enjoy his leisure in the suburb Craneion, Alexander went in person to see him, and he found him lying in the sun. Diogenes raised himself up a little when he saw so many people coming towards him, and fixed his eyes upon Alexander. And when that monarch addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, "Yes," said Diogenes, "stand a little out of my sun." It is said that Alexander was so struck by this, and admired so much the haughtiness and grandeur of the man who had nothing but scorn for him, that he said to his followers, who were laughing and jesting about the philosopher as they went away, "But truly, if I were not Alexander, I wish I were Diogenes."


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: There are many minor variants of what Diogenes is supposed to have replied to Alexander. According to Cicero, Diogenes answered Alexander with the words, "Now move at least a little out of the sun". According to Valerius Maximus, Diogenes answered: "To this later, for now I just want you not to stand in the sun." The statement by Alexander, "if I were not Alexander the Great, I would like to be Diogenes," also crops up in some other versions of the anecdote.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Arrian referred to the episode when recording the similar encounters of Indian philosophers with Alexander occurred during Alexander's campaigns in his book "The Campaigns of Alexander".


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: In his biography of Alexander, Robin Lane Fox sets the encounter in 336, the only time Alexander was in Corinth. The Alexander of the story is not this great king, ruler of Greece and Asia, but the promising but brash 20-year-old son of Philip of Macedon, first proving his mettle in Greece. One of Diogenes' pupils, Onesicritus, later joined Alexander and will have been the original source of this story, embellished in the retelling, which appears in Ptolemy (14.2), Arrian, ("Anabasis Alexandri", 7.2.1) and "Plutarch" "Moralia", 331. The other major accounts of the tale are Cicero "Tusculanae Disputationes" 5.32.92; Valerius Maximus "Dictorum factorumque memorabilium" 4.3. ext. 4; Plutarch "Alexander" 14; and Diogenes Laërtius 6.32, 38, 60, and 68.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: The historicity of the accounts by Plutarch and others has been questioned, not least by G. E. Lynch in his article on Diogenes in the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology". Lynch points out the problem that Alexander did not have the title given to him until after he had left Greece, and considers this enough of a problem with the anecdote such that it (alongside the notion that Diogenes lived in a barrel) should be "banish[ed ...] from the domain of history". "[C]onsidering what rich materials so peculiar a person as Diogenes must have afforded for amusing stories," he continues, "we need not wonder if a few have come down to us of somewhat doubtful genuineness." A. M. Pizzagalli suggests that the account has its origins in the meeting between Alexander and the Gymnosophists in India, and was handed down in Buddhist circles.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: There are significant variations of fact amongst the accounts. Some have Diogenes and Alexander meeting at Corinth, some in Athens, and some at the Metroön. Further, as noted earlier, Diogenes Laërtius' rendition of the account is broken up into two parts. At 6.38 there is Alexander's request and Diogenes's "Stand out of my light!" reply. Alexander's aside to his followers is, however, at 6.32. At 6.68, D.L. has a third version of the anecdote, with Alexander responding that he is "a good thing" to an inquiry by Diogenes. At 6.60, D.L. has yet a fourth version, this time with the two exchanging introductions: "I am Alexander the great king." "I am Diogenes the dog.".


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: In his "Dialogues of the Dead" (13), Lucian imagines a meeting between Alexander and Diogenes in the underworld. The philosopher once more punctures Alexander's pretensions and prescribes him a stiff draught from the water of Lethe.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Dio Chrysostom, in his fourth oration on kingship, ascribes a simple moral to the anecdote: people who are naturally outspoken and forthright respect others like themselves, whereas cowards regard such people as enemies. A good king will respect and tolerate the candour of a morally sincere critic (albeit that they must take care to determine which critics truly are sincere, and which are simply feigning sincerity), and Diogenes' remark to Alexander is a test of Diogenes. His bravery in risking offending Alexander, without knowing whether he would be tolerant of such behaviour beforehand, marks him as honest.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: According to Peter Sloterdijk, in his "Critique of Cynical Reason", this is "perhaps the most well known anecdote from Greek antiquity, and not without justice". He states that "It demonstrates in one stroke what antiquity understands by philosophical wisdom not so much a theoretical knowledge but rather an unerring sovereign spirit [... T]he wise man [...] turns his back on the subjective principle of power, ambition, and the urge to be recognized. He is the first one who is uninhibited enough to say the truth to the prince. Diogenes' answer negates not only the desire for power, but the power of desire as such."


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Samuel Johnson wrote about this anecdote. Rather than relating it to Diogenes' cynicism, Johnson relates the story to time, relating the taking away of the sunlight by Alexander to the wasting of people's time by other people. "But if the opportunities of beneficence be denied by fortune," wrote Johnson, "innocence should at least be vigilantly preserved. [...] Time [...] ought, above all other kinds of property, to be free from invasion; and yet there is no man who does not claim the power of wasting that time which is the right of others."


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: In 2005, Ineke Sluiter analysed the proxemics of the encounter, observing that a common feature of the anecdotes was that Alexander approached Diogenes, reversing the usual stances of royalty and commoner in which the latter would be physically submissive. By such means, Diogenes communicated his cynical indifference to convention and status in a non-verbal way.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: The anecdote was popular amongst medieval scholars, because of its mention in the writings of authors who were popular in that period: Cicero, Valerius Maximus, and Seneca. Valerius Maximus comments ""Alexander Diogenem gradu suo diuitiis pellere temptat, celerius Darium armis"" (4.3. ext. 4). Seneca says ""multo potentior, multo locupletior fuit [Diogenes] omnia tunc possidente Alexandro: plus enim erat, quod hic nollet accipere quam quod ille posset dare."", and adds ""Alexander Macedonum rex gloriari solebat a nullo se beneficiis uictum."" ("De beneficiis" 5.4.3; 5.6.1).


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: These comments were widely reproduced. Philosophical thought in the Middle Ages agreed with Seneca in particular: Alexander, who boasted that no-one could surpass him when it came to liberality, was surpassed by Diogenes, who proved himself the better man by refusing to accept from Alexander everything except those things that Alexander could not give. Diogenes requests that Alexander return the sunshine to him, it being something that Alexander cannot give to him in the first place.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Diogenes' answer circulated as an aphorism in western Britain in the early Middle Ages, but it does not seem to have been understood or else had become completely divorced from the story. In the 9th-century dialogue "De raris fabulis", "don't stand between me and the light" is the response of friend who is refusing a request for help because "other work engages me". In a later dialogue by Ælfric Bata, the aphorism is used to mean "stand a little further off", the advice to a younger monk of an elder using the latrine.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: A different version of the anecdote, which included new material, changed the focus of the story. This version reached Europe through the "Disciplina Clericalis" and is also to be found in the "Gesta Romanorum". In it, the incident of the sunlight is pushed into a subordinate position, with the main focus instead being upon Diogenes identifying Alexander as "the servant of his servant". In this modified anecdote, Diogenes states to Alexander that his (Diogenes') own will is subject to his reason, whereas Alexander's reason is subject to his will. Therefore, Alexander is the servant of his servant. The story of blocking the sunlight, in this version, is a brief introductory matter only; and, indeed, the tale is not even told as a meeting between Diogenes and Alexander, but as a meeting between Diogenes and Alexander's servants.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: It was this latter form of the anecdote that became popular outside of scholarly circles in the Middle Ages. The former form, focused on the sunlight incident, was primarily confined to popularity amongst scholars. John Gower presents this form of the anecdote in his "Confessio Amantis". In the "Confessio" the meeting is a meeting of opposites. Alexander embodies a driven, restless and worldly conqueror, whereas Diogenes is the embodiment of philosophical virtue: rational control, "patience" and "sufficiency". Alexander covets the world and laments the fact that he has no more to conquer ("al the world ne mai suffise To will which is noght reasonable" — "Confessio Amantis" III 2436–2437) whereas Diogenes is content with no more than the few necessities of nature.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Gower's re-telling of the anecdote names Diogenes and Alexander, and these are the two characters in most medieval versions of the anecdote. However, this is not the case for the "Disciplina Clericalis" nor for the "Gesta Romanorum", this modified anecdote's earliest appearances. In the former, the meeting is between an unnamed king and Socrates; in the latter, it is between Socrates and Alexander. According to John David Burnley, this suggests that the anecdote, at least in this form, is meant to be an exemplar, rather than a literal truth. It does not matter precisely which characters are involved, as they are idealised forms rather than literal historical figures. They symbolize the conflict between a philosopher/critic and a king/conqueror, and it is the structure of the anecdote that is important, rather than the specific identities of the participants. Socrates is as good as Diogenes for this purpose; although Alexander is favoured as the king simply because by the Middle Ages he had already become the archetypical conqueror, and was considered the most famous one in history.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: The encounter appears in numerous Elizabethan works such as John Lyly's play "Campaspe". Shakespeare's play "King Lear" may have been intended to parody this when the King meets Edgar, son of Gloucester, dressed in rags and says "Let me talk with this philosopher".


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Henry Fielding retells the anecdote as "A Dialogue between Alexander the Great, and Diogenes the Cynic", printed in his "Miscellanies" in 1743. Fielding's version of the story again uses Alexander as an idealistic representation of power and Diogenes as an idealistic representation of intellectual reflection. However, he portrays both men as fallible. Both are verbally adept, and engage one another, but both are dependent from the support of others for their weight of argument. Fielding likes neither character, and in his version of the anecdote each serves to highlight the cruelty and meanness of the other. The false greatness of the conqueror is shown opposed to the false greatness of the do-nothing philosopher, whose rhetoric is not carried through to action.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: In the Chapter XXX of François Rabelais' "Pantagruel" (c.1532), Pantagruel's tutor Epistemon had his head cut off after a battle. After he had his head reattached and was brought back to life, he recounts his experience of the damned in hell: "Their estate and condition of living is but only changed after a very strange manner; for I saw Alexander the Great there amending and patching on clouts upon old breeches and stockings, whereby he got but a very poor living."..."After this manner, those that had been great lords and ladies here, got but a poor scurvy wretched living there below. And, on the contrary, the philosophers and others, who in this world had been altogether indigent and wanting, were great lords there in their turn. I saw Diogenes there strut it out most pompously, and in great magnificence, with a rich purple gown on him, and a golden sceptre in his right hand. And, which is more, he would now and then make Alexander the Great mad, so enormously would he abuse him when he had not well patched his breeches; for he used to pay his skin with sound bastinadoes."


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Flemish-German Renaissance painter Marten Van Valckenborg represented the anecdotic allegory from 330BC of Alexander, approaching the celebrated Cynic philosopher Diogenes. Ref Oil painting on wood, Alexander the Great visiting Diogenes, circa 1585, Private collection.


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Puget's bas relief, pictured at right, is widely regarded as a chef d'oeuvre. Étienne Maurice Falconet described it as Puget's "sublime error". Daniel Cady Eaton, art historian and professor of the History and Criticism of Art at Yale University, observed that the work is not in keeping with the anecdote, with Diogenes portrayed as a pitiable old man extending his arms and Alexander portrayed as mounted on a horse with a hand to his breast in mockery. The horses are too small for the riders, and the chain by which the dog is held is "big enough for a ship's anchor". Eugène Delacroix wrote of the work:


title: Diogenes and Alexander

text: Edwin Landseer's "Alexander and Diogenes" presents the encounter between the twain as between two dogs. Alexander is a white bulldog with a military collar who looks down haughtily upon Diogenes, represented as a scruffy farrier's dog in a barrel. Landseer was inspired to create the painting when he encountered two dogs in the street, one observing the other from within a barrel, and was reminded of the encounter between Alexander and Diogenes. The painting in turn was to become the inspiration for the anthropomorphic dogs in Disney's "Lady and the Tramp". Charles Darwin and Briton Rivière agreed with each other that the hair of the Alexander dog was inaccurately represented.


title: Occupation of Alcatraz

text: The Occupation of Alcatraz (November 20, 1969 – June 11, 1971) was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island. The protest was led by Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, and others, while John Trudell served as spokesman. The group lived on the island together until the protest was forcibly ended by the U.S. government.


title: Occupation of Alcatraz

text: The protest group chose the name Indians of All Tribes (IOAT) for themselves. IOAT claimed that, under the Treaty of Fort Laramie between the U.S. and the Lakota tribe, all retired, abandoned, or out-of-use federal land was to be returned to the Indians who once occupied it. As Alcatraz penitentiary had been closed on March 21, 1963, and the island had been declared surplus federal property in 1964, a number of Red Power activists felt that the island qualified for a reclamation by Indians.


title: Occupation of Alcatraz

text: The Occupation of Alcatraz had a brief effect on federal Indian Termination policies and established a precedent for Indian activism. Oakes was shot to death in 1972, and the American Indian Movement was later targeted by the federal government and the FBI in COINTELPRO operations.