title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: Robert Copsey also of "Digital Spy" called it "one of [Aguilera's] most understated outings in recent memory, and it's all the better for it." Jon O'Brien of "Yahoo! Music" noted that the song features Aguilera's "most restrained and indeed impressive vocal in years", calling the song " as emotive as it is theatrical." Melinda Newman of "HitFix" praised Aguilera for "show[ing] admirable restraint vocally, beautifully pairing with Axel's vocals." Sam Lansky of "Idolator" wrote that the song "was already pretty heartrending, but Aguilera's vocals provide some lovely support and additional pathos; it's a relief to hear that she enriches, rather than overwhelms, the track." Bradley Stern of "MuuMuse" praised the "slow, sad piano melody", the "mournful strings," calling it "a haunting production – made even better by the "Stripped" diva, proving once again that less is often more." Stern also praised Aguilera for showing a simple side of her voice, writing that she "doesn't even have her own verse or chorus – she resigns to delivering subtle, yet effective, backing vocals for the entirety of the re-recording. It's only in the song's final few moments that she allows her powerhouse pipes to blow in the background. And those whispers at the very end? 'Say something, I'm giving up on you...' Gulp."


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: The original version of the song had sold only 52,000 downloads before the version with Christina Aguilera was released, according to Nielsen SoundScan. "Say Something" debuted at number 16 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, following the impact of the performance on "The Voice," as the song started at number-one on Digital Songs with 189,000 sold, with the remix featuring Aguilera accounting for 86% of the song's overall download sales in the chart's tracking week. The song was also a success on the Canadian Hot 100, debuting at number 9 and peaking at number one.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: After the performance on the AMAs, the song jumped to number 3 on the Digital Songs chart, with 197,000 copies. It also jumped from number 18 to number 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, becoming A Great Big World's first top-ten single and Aguilera's 11th and last top 10 and second in 2013 (with the other being "Feel This Moment" at number eight), becoming the second time she achieved multiple top 10s in a single year, with the first being in 2000, when 'What a Girl Wants' (number-one for two weeks), 'I Turn To You' (number three) and 'Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)' (number-one for four weeks), all from her self-titled debut album, reached the top tier. The song is also Aguilera's first top 10 with lead billing since October 2008, when her single "Keeps Gettin' Better" debuted at its number seven peak.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: "Say Something" also became Epic's first top-ten hit since 2008 with You Found Me by The Fray. "Say Something" peaked at number 4 on the chart in the sixth week of release, with 39 million radio plays and sales of 233,000 copies for the week. The following week, the song sold 355,000 downloads and climbed to number 14 on Radio Songs, although it fell to number five. In February 2014, the song reached the Radio Songs top 10, becoming the band's first top 10 and Aguilera's ninth, marking her first Radio Songs top 10 in a lead role since "Beautiful" in 2003. The song reached its 3 million sales mark in February 2014, and was certified triple platinum on March 5, 2014. In June of the same year, the single was certified 4× Platinum. As of December 2014, the song had sold about 4 million copies in the US. In May 2017 the single was certified 6× platinum in the United States for sales in excess of 6 million units.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: In Australia, "Say Something" debuted at number 47 on the week of December 29, 2013. Later, it re-entered at number 45, on January 19, 2014. The song went to jump from number 50 to number 9, on the week of February 2, 2014, until it reached the top of the ARIA Charts on the week February 16, 2014. It became A Great Big World's first number-one single and Aguilera's third number-one single (the last being "Beautiful" in 2003). The song became Aguilera's 18th Top 10 single in Australia, her last entry was on the Pitbull song "Feel This Moment" which made it to number six in March 2013. In New Zealand, the single debuted at number 18, on December 16, 2013, while on February 10, 2014, the song reached a peak of number two; Aguilera's highest charting-single since her collaboration with Maroon 5 in "Moves Like Jagger" (2011), and her 14th top-five single.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: In Europe, the song managed to become a huge success. In Austria, the song peaked at number four on the Austrian Singles Chart, while in Norway, the song peaked at number eight on the Norwegian Singles Chart and in Sweden, "Say Something" became a success, peaking at number four on the Swedish Singles Chart. In other countries, "Say Something" was a moderate success, where in Spain, it peaked at number 24, in Switzerland, the song reached a peak of number 31 and in France, the song is currently at number 29, as of March 1, 2014.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: In the United Kingdom, "Say Something" debuted and peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Aguilera's 24th Top 40 hit in Britain and A Great Big World's debut there.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: A music video, directed by Christopher Sims, was already shot on November 8, 2013, with Aguilera posting a picture of her standing next to a piano, where the duo is playing the track, to her Twitter, Facebook and Instagram page. The music video, which was shot in Los Angeles, was released on November 19, 2013, exclusively on Entertainment Tonight, while VEVO premiered the video on November 20, 2013. The video features Aguilera in a simple black dress and natural make-up, reminiscent of her "Beautiful" days, according to MTV's Natasha Chandel. In the video, the trio perform the ballad as people — a child whose parents won't stop fighting, a young couple lying coldly side by side, an older man bidding his dying wife goodbye — act out the heartbreaking lyrics.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: The video received widespread acclaim from critics. For Jason Lipshut of "Billboard Magazine", "Aguilera and AGBW's Ian Axel look utterly sorrowful as they croon the break-up ballad together, with Axel carefully pounding away at the grand piano and Aguilera appearing on the verge of tears as the song reaches its climax. Meanwhile, various tear-inducing images accompany the majestic track, often in slow motion – most strikingly, an older man climbing into a hospital bed with his peaceful female counterpart and emitting a silent shout." Peter Gicas of "E! Online" praised Aguilera's emotion on the video, writing that she "serves up a certain subtleness to the clip, which is definitely appropriate given the tone of both the ballad and the video itself." Bradley Stern of "MuuMuse" agreed, writing that, "Armed with nothing else but a piano and an old bed frame by her side, the 'Lotus' legend bares her soul and gives you pure "Stripped"-era vulnerability, conjuring the simple-yet-effective one-take video for 'The Voice Within.' No over-the-top diva theatrics, no wigs — just raw emotion and a genuinely powerful performance."


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: John Walker of "MTV Buzzworthy" called the video "equal parts tragically beautiful and beautifully tragic. Like, hand us a bucket, because we are ugly-crying from our eyes, noses, mouths, ears, and at least 17 other places where tear ducts biologically shouldn't be located.” Mike Wass of "Idolator" also praised the video, writing that, "In keeping with the song's soft and subtle tone, the visual is understated and classy. It centers around a bed and the universality of its occupants' grief. Interspersed with those scenes is footage of the New York-based duo at the piano and Xtina looking utterly perfect in a sleek black dress. Grab a tissue and watch the emotional clip up top." Natasha Chandel of "MTV" praised "a rare moment, when Xtina breaks down on camera as the hook, 'Say something, I'm giving up on you' crescendos, exposing a tender side to the singer that we haven't seen since her album "Stripped".


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: On November 5, 2013, on the 14th episode from the fifth season of "The Voice", Christina Aguilera (one of the competition's coaches) performed "Say Something" with A Great Big World. The performance consisted of a piano, some strings and a keyboard for instrumentation, while Aguilera "reining in her voice's natural power", according to "Billboard"s Jason Lipshutz. The performance was lauded by critics and other artists, such as OneRepublic, Christina Perri, Ingrid Michaelson, Cee Lo Green and Carson Daly. Caila Ball of "Idolator" wrote that, "She was legendary, obviously." Michelle Stark of "Tampa Bay Times" wrote the performance "gives us all of the goosebumps." Douglas Cobb of "Las Vegas Guardian Express" called it "a very emotional, low-key, cool performance. It was a very tender, touching song — Christina did great, as usual, singing it." Bradley Stern of "MuuMuse" called the performance "perfect", writing that, "Christina keeps it as stripped as the studio version, allowing her naturally beautiful vocals to sound a whole lot more vulnerable than usual. The result? One powerful, devastating performance – you'll be seeing your reflejo in the tears streaming down your face in no time."


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: A Great Big World and Aguilera also performed the song at the 2013 American Music Awards on November 24, 2013. With her hair in a braid and wearing a muted black dress, Aguilera sang an original verse midway through the performance, which included a string section and a fairly bare stage. With A Great Big World's Chad King manning the keyboard, the group's Ian Axel sat at the grand piano and stamped his feet furiously as 'Say Something' approached its emotional climax," according to "Billboard"s Jason Lipshutz. Lindsay Dreyer of "Wetpaint" wrote that "Taking her rightful place center stage in a floor-length black dress and braided updo, the 32-year-old pop diva harmonized perfectly with the group's lead singer Ian Axel, who worked the piano with passion and poise. Xtina's rich yet breathy tone offered just the right amount of strength and vulnerability — a side of Christina we haven't seen in a really long time." Dreyer finished the review stating, "If tonight's AMA performance is any indication, Christina is on the brink of a major music comeback — and we can't wait!." The band also performed the song at the 2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on December 10, 2013. However, Aguilera did not perform the song with them as a duet, due to scheduling conflicts of "The Voice". Aguilera also performed the song in Malaysia in a private concert without the band on March 28. The duo and Aguilera also performed the song during the New Orleans Jazz Festival. She gave a one-and-a-half-hour-long show and then invited the band to perform the song in front of a large crowd on May 2, 2014. The band (sans Aguilera) sang the song on the September 6 episode of "Last Week Tonight" in a duet with comedian John Oliver to mourn the loss of the Russian space geckos.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: The song was performed live on the premiere episode of "Late Night with Seth Meyers" on February 24, 2014. In July 2021, Aguilera performed "Say Something" for two nights at the Hollywood Bowl with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: Dutch disc jockey and producer Tiësto included a cover version of "Say Something" as bonus track from a special version of his 2014 album "A Town Called Paradise". The vocals are provided by Canadian singer Emily Rowed. The song was released as a single on 25 August 2014 only in the United States.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: American pop duo Alex & Sierra performed the song twice on third season of "The X Factor" (U.S.), where they were contestants and eventually won the show. During the sixth week, the duo performed the song for the first time, with Sierra on the piano and Alex on guitar. The performance was praised by the judges, with Kelly Rowland, one of them, feeling like she was watching an awards show performance. Catriona Wightman of "Digital Spy" called it "pretty simple, but showed how genuinely talented they are." The cover version of the song surpassed A Great Big World and Aguilera's version on iTunes, climbing to number 1 the morning after they sang it onstage. Series creator and head judge Simon Cowell, who mentored the group, claimed that the duo success is proof that the show is still capable of turning small-town kids into bankable stars. The duo performed the song once again on the finale of the show, eventually winning the competition.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: American progressive metal band Redemption includes their own cover version of the song on the vinyl version of their album "The Art of Loss". On January 19, 2014, "The Voice of the Philippines" coaches Sarah Geronimo and Bamboo performed their own rendition of the song on ABS-CBN's Sunday variety show ASAP 19. Right after the performance, the hashtag 'SaySomethingAshBoo' trended on Twitter. Joe Brooks and Tammin Sursok released a pop rock version of the song on March 29, 2014, as a single. The song was released under Independent record label Fantastik Music and was distributed by TuneCore. Jackie Evancho and Cheyenne Jackson performed the song on August 21, 2014, at Longwood Gardens, as part of the recording of the PBS special "Jackie Evancho: Awakening – Live in Concert" supporting Evancho's "Awakening" album and tour.


title: Say Something (A Great Big World song)

text: Collabro, the winners of the 2014 edition of "Britain's Got Talent", performed the song at the "Royal Variety Performance" on December 8, 2014. Polish singer Łukasz Tokarski covered the song in 2017, and Johnny Mathis also covered "Say Something" for his 2017 album "Johnny Mathis Sings the Great New American Songbook". KZ Tandingan was the fourth person to perform such song on Singer 2018 where she ranked fourth on Episode 7. Pentatonix covered the song on their 2014 studio album "PTX, Vols. 1 & 2", reaching No. 89 on the Canadian Hot 100.


title: Rebis

text: The Rebis (from the Latin "res bina", meaning dual or double matter) is the end product of the alchemical "magnum opus" or great work.


title: Rebis

text: After one has gone through the stages of putrefaction and purification, separating opposing qualities, those qualities are united once more in what is sometimes described as the divine hermaphrodite, a reconciliation of spirit and matter, a being of both male and female qualities as indicated by the male and female head within a single body. The sun and moon correspond to the male and female halves, just as the Red King and White Queen are similarly associated.


title: Outsider music

text: Outsider music (from "outsider art") is music created by self-taught or naïve musicians. The term is usually applied to musicians who have little or no traditional musical experience, who exhibit childlike qualities in their music, or who suffer from intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses. The term was popularized in the 1990s by journalist and WFMU DJ Irwin Chusid.


title: Outsider music

text: Outsider musicians often overlap with lo-fi artists, since their work is rarely captured in professional recording studios. Examples include Daniel Johnston, Wesley Willis, and Jandek, who each became the subjects of documentary films in the 2000s.


title: Outsider music

text: The term "outsider music" is traced to the definitions of "outsider art" and "naïve art". "Outsider art" is rooted in the 1920s French concept of "L'Art Brut" ("raw art"). In 1972, academic Roger Cardinal introduced "outsider art" as the American counterpart of "L'Art Brut", which originally referred to work created exclusively by children or the mentally ill. The word "outsider" began to be applied to music cultures as early as 1959, with respect to jazz, and to rock as early as 1979. In the 1970s, "outsider music" was also a "favorite epithet" in music criticism in Europe. By the 1980s and 1990s, "outsider" was common in the cultural lexicon and was synonymous with "self-taught", "untrained", and "primitive".


title: Outsider music

text: Although outsider music has existed since before written history, it was not until the advent of sound reproduction and music exchange networks that such a genre was recognized. Music journalist Irwin Chusid is credited with adapting "outsider art" for music in a 1996 article for the Tower Records publication "Pulse!". As a DJ on the New Jersey radio station WFMU in the 1980s, he had been an influential figure in independent music scenes. In 2000, he authored a book titled "Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music", which attempted to introduce and market outsider music as a genre. He summarized the concept thus:


title: Outsider music

text: As was common with journalists who championed musical primitivism in the 1980s, Chusid considered outsiders more "authentic" than artists whose music is "exploited through conventional music channels" and "revised, remodeled, and re-coifed; touched-up and tweaked; Photoshopped and focus-grouped" by the time it reaches the listener, to the point that it is "Music by Committee". On the other hand, outsider artists have much "greater individual control over the final creative contour", either because of a low budget or because of their "inability or unwillingness to cooperate with or trust anyone but themselves."


title: Outsider music

text: Outsider music does not generally include avant-garde music, world music, songs recorded solely for their novelty value, or anything self-consciously camp or kitsch; Chusid uses the term "incorrect music" for music that is intentionally recorded to draw bad reactions, from non-musician celebrity entertainers attempting to cross over into music, or from artists who are talented and self-aware enough not to produce such music but do so anyway. Works are usually sourced from home recordings or independent recording studios "with no quality control". In "Songs in the Key of Z", Chusid explicitly avoided discussing "unpopular", "uncommercial", or "underground" artists, and disqualified "just about anyone who could keep an orchestra or band together." He did include a few acts in the definition that broke through to mainstream fame as novelty acts; Tiny Tim, for example, is included despite a consistent three-decade career in the music industry that included a major chart hit, Joe Meek was one of the United Kingdom's most influential and successful sound engineers of the 1960s, and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy had a brief moment of widespread fame in the 1960s with several national television appearances.


title: Outsider music

text: Chusid posited that the biggest-selling artist fitting of the "outsider" label could be Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, citing the widely circulated bootlegs of his unreleased 1970s and 1980s demos. However, "considering the level on which he's been embraced by the public, it's difficult to make a case for him as an outsider." Similarly, Chusid avoided covering "other outré icons who have achieved wide public exposure, such as Frank Zappa, Sun Ra, Marilyn Manson, and the Butthole Surfers, to name a few. Many (if not most) major figures in the arts began their rise to stardom as nominal outsiders."


title: Outsider music

text: Chusid credited outsider musicians for the existence of dub reggae ("invented by an outsider, Lee "Scratch" Perry"), the K Records and Sub Pop record labels, and the "punk/new-wave/no-wave upheaval that undermined prog-rock and airbrush-pop in the mid- to late-1970s [and] hyped itself with the defiant notion that anyone―regardless of technical proficiency or lack thereof―could make music as long as it represented genuine, naturalistic self-expression." Specific acts that "significantly contributed―directly and indirectly―to contemporary popular music" include Syd Barrett, Captain Beefheart, the Shaggs, Harry Partch, Robert Graettinger, and Daniel Johnston. Conversely, the book "Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music" (2007) argues that "few of the outsiders praised by their fans can be called innovators; most of them are simply naïve."


title: Outsider music

text: Skip Spence's "Oar" (1969), Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" (produced by Frank Zappa, 1969), and Barrett's "The Madcap Laughs" (1970), according to music historian John Encarnacao, "were particularly important in helping to define a framework through which outsider recordings are understood ... [They] seeded many ideas and practices, affirming them as desirable in the context of rock mythology." In 1969, Zappa co-founded Bizarre Records, a label dedicated to "musical and sociological material that the important record companies would probably not allow you to hear," and approached the production of "Trout Mask Replica" like an anthropological field recording. Beefheart was not on the Bizarre label, but Larry "Wild Man" Fischer was. Fischer was a street performer discovered by Zappa and is sometimes regarded as "the grandfather of outsider music". In the liner notes of the 1968 album "An Evening with Wild Man Fischer", Zappa writes: "Please listen to this album several times before you decide whether or not you like it or what Wild Man Fischer is all about. He has something to say to you, even though you might not want to hear it." According to musicologist Adam Harper, the writing prefigures similar commentary on "the also mentally ill Daniel Johnston."


title: Outsider music

text: After a 1980 reissue on NRBQ's Red Rooster Records (distributed by Rounder Records), The Shaggs attracted notoriety for their 1969 album "Philosophy of the World", which received prominent national coverage. It was referred to as "the worst rock album ever made" by the "New York Times" and later championed in published lists such as "the 100 most influential alternative albums of all time", "the greatest garage recordings of the 20th century", and "the fifty most significant indie records". Lester Bangs famously praised the band as better than the Beatles, and Zappa also held the band in high regard, much higher than the Shaggs themselves, who were embarrassed by the record. In the 1990s, interest in outsider music was spurred by books such as "Incredibly Strange Music" (1994) and compilations devoted to obscure musicians such as B. J. Snowden, Wesley Willis, Lucia Pamela, and Eilert Pilarm.


title: Outsider music

text: Outsider musicians tend to overlap with "lo-fi" artists since their work is rarely captured in professional studios. Harper credits the discourse surrounding Daniel Johnston and Jandek with "form[ing] a bridge between 1980s primitivism and the lo-fi indie rock of the 1990s. ... both musicians introduced the notion that lo-fi was not just acceptable but the special context of some extraordinary and brilliant musicians." Critics frequently write about Johnston's "pure and childlike soul" and describe him as the "Brian Wilson" of lo-fi.


title: Outsider music

text: R. Stevie Moore, who pioneered lo-fi/DIY music, was affiliated with Irwin Chusid as well as being associated with the "outsider" tag. He recalled "always ha[ving] the dilemma that [Irwin] did not want to present me as an outsider, like a Wesley Willis or a Daniel Johnston, or these people that are touched in the head and have a certain gift. I love outsider music ... but they have no concept as to how to write or arrange a Brian Wilson song." (Moore's father, Bob Moore, was a consummate musical insider, having worked as a session musician with the Nashville A-Team.)


title: Tiwanaku

text: Tiwanaku ( or ) is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and include decorated ceramics, monumental structures, and megalithic blocks. The site's population probably peaked around AD 800 with 10,000 to 20,000 people.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The site was first recorded in written history in 1549 by Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de León while searching for the southern Inca capital of Qullasuyu.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Jesuit chronicler of Peru Bernabé Cobo reported that Tiwanaku's name once was "taypiqala", which is Aymara meaning "stone in the center", alluding to the belief that it lay at the center of the world. The name by which Tiwanaku was known to its inhabitants may have been lost as they had no written language. Heggarty and Beresford-Jones suggest that the Puquina language is most likely to have been the language of Tiwanaku.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The dating of the site has been significantly refined over the last century. From 1910 to 1945, Arthur Posnansky maintained that the site was 11,000–17,000 years old based on comparisons to geological eras and archaeoastronomy. Beginning in the 1970s, Carlos Ponce Sanginés proposed the site was first occupied around 1580 BC, the site's oldest radiocarbon date. This date is still seen in some publications and museums in Bolivia. Since the 1980s, researchers have recognized this date as unreliable, leading to the consensus that the site is no older than 200 or 300 BC. More recently, a statistical assessment of reliable radiocarbon dates estimates that the site was founded around AD 110 (50–170, 68% probability), a date supported by the lack of ceramic styles from earlier periods.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Tiwanaku began its steady growth in the early centuries of the common era. From approximately 375 to 700 AD, the city grew to significance in the Andes. At its height, the city of Tiwanaku spanned an area of roughly 4 square kilometers (1.5 square miles) and had a population greater than 10,000 individuals. The growth of the city was due to its complex agropastoral economy, supported by trade.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The site appeared to have collapsed around 1000 AD, however the reasoning behind this is still open to debate. Recent studies by geologist Dr. Elliott Arnold of the University of Pittsburgh have shown evidence of a greater amount of aridity in the region around the time of collapse. A drought in the region would have affected local systems of agriculture and likely played a role in the collapse of Tiwanaku.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The people of Tiwanaku held a tight relationship with the Wari culture. The Wari civilizations contained types of architecture similar to what's found in Tiwanaku. The relationship between the two civilizations is presumed to be trade based or military based. The Wari aren't the only other civilization that Tiwanaku could have had contact with. Inca cities also contained similar types of architecture Infrastructure seen in Tiwanaku. From this it can be expected that the Inca took some inspiration from the city of Tiwanaku and other early civilizations in the Andean basin.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The structures that have been excavated by researchers at Tiwanaku include the terraced platform mound Akapana, Akapana East, and Pumapunku stepped platforms, the Kalasasaya, the Kantatallita temple, the Kheri Kala, and Putin enclosures, and the Semi-Subterranean Temple. These may be visited by the public.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The Akapana is an approximately cross-shaped structure that is 257 m wide, 197 m broad at its maximum, and 16.5 m tall. At its center appears to have been a sunken court. This was nearly destroyed by a deep looters excavation that extends from the center of this structure to its eastern side. Material from the looter's excavation was dumped off the eastern side of the Akapana. A staircase with sculptures is present on its western side. Possible residential complexes might have occupied both the northeast and southeast corners of this structure.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Originally, the Akapana was thought to have been developed from a modified hill. Twenty-first-century studies have shown that it is an entirely manmade earthen mound, faced with a mixture of large and small stone blocks. The dirt comprising Akapana appears to have been excavated from the "moat" that surrounds the site. The largest stone block within the Akapana, made of andesite, is estimated to weigh 65.7 tons. Tenon stone blocks in the form of puma and human heads stud the upper terraces.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The Akapana East was built on the eastern side of early Tiwanaku. Later it was considered a boundary between the ceremonial center and the urban area. It was made of a thick, prepared floor of sand and clay, which supported a group of buildings. Yellow and red clay was used in different areas for what seems like aesthetic purposes. It was swept clean of all domestic refuse, signaling its great importance to the culture.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The Pumapunku is a man-made platform built on an east-west axis like the Akapana. It is a T-shaped, terraced earthen platform mound faced with megalithic blocks. It is 167.36 m wide along its north-south axis and 116.7 m broad along its east-west axis and is 5 m tall. Identical 20-meter-wide projections extend 27.6 meters north and south from the northeast and southeast corners of the Pumapunku. Walled and unwalled courts and an esplanade are associated with this structure.


title: Tiwanaku

text: A prominent feature of the Pumapunku is a large stone terrace; it is 6.75 by 38.72 meters in dimension and paved with large stone blocks. It is called the ""Plataforma Lítica"" and contains the largest stone block found in the Tiwanaku site. According to Ponce Sangines, the block is estimated to weigh 131 metric tonnes. The second-largest stone block found within the Pumapunku is estimated to be 85 metric tonnes.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Scattered around the site of the Puma Punku are various types of incredibly cut stones. Due to the complexity of the stonework many have theorized the existence of aliens, however many stones are left unfinished and show how they might have been cut.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The Kalasasaya is a large courtyard more than 300 feet long, outlined by a high gateway. It is located to the north of the Akapana and west of the Semi-Subterranean Temple. Within the courtyard is where explorers found the Gateway of the Sun. Since the late 20th century, researchers have theorized that this was not the gateway's original location.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Near the courtyard is the Semi-Subterranean Temple; a square sunken courtyard that is unique for its north-south rather than east-west axis. The walls are covered with tenon heads of many different styles, suggesting that the structure was reused for different purposes over time. It was built with walls of sandstone pillars and smaller blocks of Ashlar masonry. The largest stone block in the Kalasasaya is estimated to weigh 26.95 metric tons.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Within many of the site's structures are impressive gateways; the ones of monumental scale are placed on artificial mounds, platforms, or sunken courts. Many gateways show iconography of the Staff God. This iconography also is used on some oversized vessels, indicating an importance to the culture. This iconography is most present on the Gateway of the Sun.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The unique carvings on the top of the Gate of the sun depict animals and other beings. Some have claimed that the symbolism represents a calendar system unique to the people of Tiwanaku, although there is no definitive evidence that this theory is correct.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The Gateway of the Sun and others located at Pumapunku are not complete. They are missing part of a typical recessed frame known as a chambranle, which typically have sockets for clamps to support later additions. These architectural examples, as well as the recently discovered Akapana Gate, have unique detail and demonstrate high skill in stone-cutting. This reveals a knowledge of descriptive geometry. The regularity of elements suggests they are part of a system of proportions.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Many theories for the skill of Tiwanaku's architectural construction have been proposed. One is that they used a "luk’ a," which is a standard measurement of about sixty centimeters. Another argument is for the Pythagorean Ratio. This idea calls for right triangles at a ratio of five to four to three used in the gateways to measure all parts. Lastly, Protzen and Nair argue that Tiwanaku had a system set for individual elements dependent on context and composition. This is shown in the construction of similar gateways ranging from diminutive to monumental size, proving that scaling factors did not affect proportion. With each added element, the individual pieces were shifted to fit together.


title: Tiwanaku

text: As the population grew, occupational niches developed, and people began to specialize in certain skills. There was an increase in artisans, who worked in pottery, jewelry, and textiles. Like the later Inca, the Tiwanaku had few commercial or market institutions. Instead, the culture relied on elite redistribution. That is, the elites of the empire controlled essentially all economic output but were expected to provide each commoner with all the resources needed to perform his or her function. Selected occupations include agriculturists, herders, pastoralists, etc. Such separation of occupations was accompanied by hierarchical stratification within the empire.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Some authors believe that the elites of Tiwanaku lived inside four walls that were surrounded by a moat. This theory is called "Tiwanaku moat theory". This moat, some believe, was to create the image of a sacred island. Inside the walls were many images devoted to human origin, which only the elites would see. Commoners may have entered this structure only for ceremonial purposes since it was home to the holiest of shrines.


title: Tiwanaku

text: In many Andean cultures, mountains are venerated and may be considered sacred objects. The site of Tiwanaku is located in the valley between two sacred mountains, Pukara and Chuqi Q’awa. At such temples in ancient times, ceremonies were conducted to honor and pay gratitude to the gods and spirits. They were places of worship and rituals that helped unify Andean peoples through shared symbols and pilgrimage destinations.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Tiwanaku became a center of pre-Columbian religious ceremonies for both the general public and elites. For example, human sacrifice was used in several pre-Columbian civilizations to appease a god in exchange for good fortune. Excavations of the Akapana temple at Tiwanaku revealed the remains of sacrificial dedications of humans and camelids. Researchers speculate that the Akapana temple may also have been used as an astronomical observatory. It was constructed so that it was aligned with the peak of Quimsachata, providing a view of the rotation of the Milky Way from the southern pole. Other temples like Kalasasaya are positioned to provide optimal views of the sunrise on the Equinox, Summer Solstice, and Winter Solstice. Although the symbolic and functional value of these monuments can only be speculated upon, the Tiwanaku were able to study and interpret the positions of the sun, moon, Milky Way and other celestial bodies well enough to give them a significant role in their architecture.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Aymara legends place Tiwanaku at the center of the universe, probably because of the importance of its geographical location. The Tiwanaku were highly aware of their natural surroundings and would use them and their understanding of astronomy as reference points in their architectural plans. The most significant landmarks in Tiwanaku are the mountains and Lake Titicaca. Although the shores of Lake Titicaca are now located 20 kilometers west of Tiwanaku, the lake has decreased in size due to drought. In ancient times, it likely extended to Tiwanaku. The spiritual importance and location of the lake contributed to the religious significance of Tiwanaku. In the Tiwanaku worldview, Lake Titicaca is the spiritual birthplace of their cosmic beliefs. According to Incan mythology, Lake Titicaca is the birthplace of Viracocha, who was responsible for creating the sun, moon, people, and the cosmos. In the Kalasasaya temple at Tiwanaku, carved atop a monolith known as the Gate of the Sun, is a deity holding a lightning bolt and snuff. Many speculate that this is a representation of Viracocha because the figure is depicted wearing a sun crown. However, it is also possible that this figure represents a deity that the Aymara refer to as “Tunuupa” who, like Viracocha, is associated with legends of creation and destruction.


title: Tiwanaku

text: The Aymara, who are thought to be descendants of the Tiwanaku, have a complex belief system similar to the cosmology of several other Andean civilizations. They believe in the existence of three spaces: Arajpacha, the upper world; Akapacha, the middle or inner world; and Manqhaoacha, the lower world. Often associated with the cosmos and Milky Way, the upper world is considered to be where celestial beings live. The middle world is where all living things are, and the lower world is where life itself is inverted.


title: Tiwanaku

text: As the site has suffered from looting and amateur excavations since shortly after Tiwanaku's fall, archeologists must attempt to interpret it with the understanding that materials have been jumbled and destroyed. This destruction continued during the Spanish conquest and colonial period, and during 19th century and the early 20th century. Other damage was committed by people quarrying stone for building and railroad construction, and target practice by military personnel.


title: Tiwanaku

text: No standing buildings have survived at the modern site. Only public, non-domestic foundations remain, with poorly reconstructed walls. The ashlar blocks used in many of these structures were mass-produced in similar styles so that they could possibly be used for multiple purposes. Throughout the period of the site, certain buildings changed purposes, causing a mix of artifacts found today.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Detailed study of Tiwanaku began on a small scale in the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1860s, Ephraim George Squier visited the ruins and later published maps and sketches completed during his visit. German geologist Alphons Stübel spent nine days in Tiwanaku in 1876, creating a map of the site based on careful measurements. He also made sketches and created paper impressions of carvings and other architectural features. A book containing major photographic documentation was published in 1892 by engineer Georg von Grumbkow, With commentary by archaeologist Max Uhle, this was the first in-depth scientific account of the ruins.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Von Grumbkow had first visited Tiwanaku between the end of 1876 and the beginning of 1877, when he accompanied as a photographer the expedition of French adventurer Théodore Ber, financed by American businessman Henry Meiggs, against Ber’s promise of donating the artifacts he will find, on behalf of Meiggs, to Washington's Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Ber’s expedition was cut short by the violent hostility of the local population, instigated by the Catholic parish priest, but von Grumbkow’s early pictures survive.


title: Tiwanaku

text: In the 1960s, the Bolivian government initiated an effort to restore the site and reconstruct part of it. The walls of the Kalasasaya are almost all reconstructed. The original stones making up the Kalasasaya would have resembled a more "Stonehenge"-like style, spaced evenly apart and standing straight up. The reconstruction was not sufficiently based on research; for instance, a new wall was built around Kalasasaya. The reconstruction does not have as high quality of stonework as was present in Tiwanaku. As noted, the Gateway of the Sun, now in the Kalasasaya, is believed to have been moved from its original location.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Modern, academically sound archaeological excavations were performed from 1978 through the 1990s by University of Chicago anthropologist Alan Kolata and his Bolivian counterpart, Oswaldo Rivera. Among their contributions are the rediscovery of the suka kollus, accurate dating of the civilization's growth and influence, and evidence for a drought-based collapse of the Tiwanaku civilization.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Archaeologists such as Paul Goldstein have argued that the Tiwanaku empire ranged outside of the altiplano area and into the Moquegua Valley in Peru. Excavations at Omo settlements show signs of similar architecture characteristic of Tiwanaku, such as a temple and terraced mound. Evidence of similar types of cranial vault modification in burials between the Omo site and the main site of Tiwanaku is also being used for this argument.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Today Tiwanaku has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, administered by the Bolivian government.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Recently, the Department of Archaeology of Bolivia (DINAR, directed by Javier Escalante) has been conducting excavations on the terraced platform mound Akapana. The Proyecto Arqueologico Pumapunku-Akapana (Pumapunku-Akapana Archaeological Project, PAPA) run by the University of Pennsylvania, has been excavating in the area surrounding the terraced platform mound for the past few years, and also conducting Ground Penetrating Radar surveys of the area.


title: Tiwanaku

text: In former years, an archaeological field school offered through Harvard's Summer School Program, conducted in the residential area outside the monumental core, has provoked controversy amongst local archaeologists. The program was directed by Dr. Gary Urton, of Harvard, who was an expert on quipus, and Dr. Alexei Vranich of the University of Pennsylvania. The controversy was over allowing a team of untrained students to work on the site, even under professional supervision. It was so important that only certified professional archaeologists with documented funding were allowed access. The controversy was charged with nationalistic and political undertones. The Harvard field school lasted for three years, beginning in 2004 and ending in 2007. The project was not renewed in subsequent years, nor was permission sought to do so.


title: Tiwanaku

text: In 2009 state-sponsored restoration work on Akapana was halted due to a complaint from UNESCO. The restoration had consisted of facing the pyramid with adobe, although researchers had not established this as appropriate.


title: Tiwanaku

text: In 2013, marine archaeologists exploring Lake Titicaca's Khoa reef discovered an ancient ceremonial site and lifted artifacts such as a lapis lazuli and ceramic figurines, incense burners and a ceremonial medallion from the lake floor. The artifacts are representative of the lavishness of the ceremonies and the Tiwanaku culture.


title: Tiwanaku

text: When a topographical map of the site was created in 2016 by the use of a drone, a "set of hitherto unknown structures" was revealed. These structures spanned over 411 hectares, and included a stone temple and about one hundred circular or rectangular structures of vast dimensions, which were possibly domestic units.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Between 2005 and 2007 various types of aerial surveillance methods were used by UNESCO to create an aerial picture of the site. Lidar, aerial photography, drones, and terrestrial laser scanning were all used in this process. Data concluded from this research includes topographical maps that show the principal structures at the site along with mapping of multiple structures in the Mollo Kuntu area. Over 300 million data points were placed from these methods and have helped redefine main structures that have not fully been excavated such as the Puma Punku.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Tiwanaku is home to many types of beautiful sculptures and architecture that inspired many other cultures. Being that Tiwanaku is one of the earliest known South American civilizations it inspired later civilizations such as the Inca. The agricultural system of Tiwanaku known as flooded raised fields was a first of its kind and was seen in many civilizations after.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Today the remains of the city still act as important places for the indigenous people of Bolivia known as the Aymara. Bolivia's 65th president Evo Morales became the first indigenous president when he was elected in 2006 and held his inauguration at the site of Tiwanaku.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Alan Kolata of the University of Chicago conducted research at Tiwanaku in the late 1900’s from which he made descriptions of the City and its structure and culture in his book The Tiwanaku. He later published "Valley of The Spirits" which described more aspects of Tiwanaku culture such as astrology and mythology.


title: Tiwanaku

text: John Wayne Janusek of Vanderbilt University spent time in the late 1900’s as well at the site of Tiwanaku recording findings of the excavations going on. In 2008 he published "Ancient Tiwanaku" which described his findings on the architecture, agriculture and other aspects of Tiwanaku life.


title: Tiwanaku

text: Jean-Pierre Protzen was an architecture professor of the University of California at Berkeley and spent much of his life studying the architecture of Tiwanaku. In 2013, he published "The Stones of Tiahuanaco" which gives great descriptions of the architecture and stonework seen at Tiwanaku. His work has played a huge role in creating potential reconstructions of what many of the structures look like, especially the puma punku.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Brett Peter Cowan (born 18 September 1969) is an Australian murderer and child rapist. He was convicted of the murder of Daniel Morcombe, a 13-year old boy who disappeared from the Sunshine Coast on 7 December 2003. His abduction led to an eight-year investigation involving various suspects, until a mysterious informant in 2007 revealed Cowan as the perpetrator. He was charged with the murder that same month and Morcombe's remains were discovered days later on 17 August. Cowan was sentenced to life imprisonment, (being eligible for parole in 2031) on 13 March 2014 in a trial that attracted worldwide attention. Cowan had two previous convictions for sexually abusing children, the earliest dating back to 1987.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: The investigation into Morcombe's disappearance became Queensland's highest profile crime case in the state's history.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Cowan was born on 18 September 1969 in Bunbury, Western Australia, to Marlene, a homemaker and RSL worker, and Peter Cowan, an Australian Army Major and Vietnam veteran. He was the third of four boys. The Cowans headed a strict household and gave their children a Catholic upbringing, and were, by many accounts, a "good family". Cowan's father was often absent due to his Army responsibilities, and suffered from PTSD. In the early 1970s, the family relocated to Brisbane, Queensland, eventually settling in the suburb of Everton Park.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Cowan and his three brothers attended Marcellin College, now known as Mt Maria College, an independent Catholic high school in Mitchelton in northside Brisbane. Cowan's year nine English teacher claimed that Cowan was something of a bully who taunted other students, who would proudly parade around with erections and was "despised by his peers". Conversely, other students at his school remembered him as being an "ordinary guy" with few hobbies or social interests who "seemed alright".


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Cowan dropped out of school in year ten and began working odd jobs throughout his late teens, never holding down employment in one position for longer than a few months. Cowan also struggled to come to terms with his bisexuality. He proved difficult for his mother who said he was a "handful" as a child, becoming a difficult teenager, occasionally stealing from her. His problems escalated as he became involved in petty crime; his first criminal conviction came at the age of 17. By that time he regularly used LSD, cocaine and methamphetamines. He later stated of his drug use: "They do fuck your inhibitions up … you know, your boundaries." He was in the Boys Brigade.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Cowan's theft and drug offences with the law had resulted in him performing community service duties at a public park in Brisbane. On 5 December 1987, during one of these community service sessions, when Cowen was 18 years old, he took a 7-year-old child from the park into a toilet cubicle and raped him. Cowan's demeanour subsequent to the attack was casual, as he proceeded to watch television inside the childcare centre where he was performing maintenance duties. Cowan was sentenced to two years jail in 1989, but only served half of that sentence.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: In September 1993, while living at a Darwin caravan park with his 18-year-old girlfriend Tracey Haneveld, Cowan lured a 6-year-old boy into an abandoned car yard and raped him. The boy was left in an abandoned car in the bush with a punctured lung due to the force of the act and several cuts. The boy stumbled into a petrol station, dazed and distraught, and the police were called immediately. They initially assumed the boy had been hit by a car because of the extent of his injuries. Cowan initially denied his involvement, going to considerable length to portray his innocence by stating to the police, "I hope you catch the bastard". However, the officers quickly discovered that Cowan was the only man in the caravan park not to offer up a DNA sample after semen was found on the boy's discarded underwear. A background check conducted by the officers also revealed his former molestation conviction in 1987. Police contacted him once again with the evidence, and he quickly confessed to the rape.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Cowan was sentenced in 1994 in the Northern Territory Supreme Court to serve seven years in jail for various charges: grievous harm, deprivation of liberty and gross indecency; however, more severe charges, such as attempted murder, were dropped prior to the trial. He was then only required to serve 3.5 years. Psychological assessments followed, and Cowan was deemed as a pathological liar who lived a "parasitic existence", relying mostly on his parents to support him. The psychologist also discovered a gross lack of awareness on behalf of Cowan, who believed that his victim "would not report the case" because he "probably enjoyed" the experience.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Haneveld confronted Cowan in prison and asked if he was involved. He did not respond, and as his guilt became clear to her, she left the prison distraught. This was her last contact with Cowan. In March 2014, prior to his sentencing in the Morcombe case, Haneveld spoke to "60 Minutes" about her relationship with him, which she claimed was full of infidelity on his behalf. During the trial, Cowan stated to the sentencing judge that his "years of heavy poly drug use" was an explanation for his assault history.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: "Cowan's behaviour began to deteriorate at home [with his uncle and aunt], particularly after he had his own vehicle. While still on parole, he was staying out late and going out at unusual times of night, using the excuse of catching up with mates or going fishing.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: "'After addressing him over some personal issues that were of great concern to us, including lying, our relationship began to become strained and eventually he moved out to his own flat and the rest is history.'"


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Following his release from jail in 1997, Cowan professed his desire for rehabilitation and said that he recognised that his sexual deviancy was a problem. He was ordered to attend a sexual offenders treatment program and moved in with his pastor aunt and uncle, Jenny and Keith Philbrook, on the Sunshine Coast, becoming a reformed Christian. In 1998, 29-year-old Cowan moved into the suburb of Beerwah with Tracey Lee Moncrieff, another churchgoer. The two were married the following year and had two children. Cowan regularly attended church services and no criminal convictions were reported from this time up until 2003. During that year Cowan also stopped attending church and the couple divorced in 2004.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Cowan had signed up to a number of gay dating websites, including Gaydar and Manhunt. He was using one of these profiles from Perth just before his arrest under fake names. The "Sunday Mail" discovered the profile, under a variation of the name "Shaddo N’unyah Hunter". Cowan sought out a long list of extreme sex acts and said he was open to meeting anyone up to the age of around mid-50s.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: On 7 December 2003, 13-year-old schoolboy Daniel Morcombe left his home and planned to catch the 1:35 pm bus to the Sunshine Plaza Shopping Centre for a haircut and to buy Christmas presents for his family, but he failed to return. A bus had broken down on the side of the road and a replacement bus was later sent to pick up the passengers. The replacement bus drove past Daniel and shortly after, in just a three-minute time span, Cowan is believed to have abducted him. Cowan was living in the town of Beerwah around the time of Morcombe's disappearance. He was approached by police because of his criminal history and his proximity to the area in which Morcombe was last seen. Just days after the disappearance, however, he denied his involvement. A former police officer believed Cowan to be suspect from just one encounter: he stated that "Look, if he's not good for that, he's good for something. I left with the distinct impression of guilt." A police interview with Cowan was conducted in July 2005 in the Gold Coast. Detective Tracey Barnes, who handled the interview, asked Cowan if he would admit being involved and he responded with "probably not".


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Over the following years, the case shifted its attention from Cowan to convicted sex offender Douglas Jackway. Witnesses reported seeing a blue vehicle near the location of Morcombe's disappearance and Jackway had a vehicle that very closely matched witness descriptions. However, Cowan was brought before the Daniel Morcombe coroner's inquest six years later, where he was referred to as P7. Cowan stated he had driven along the road where Morcombe was last seen, but he was only travelling along there to pick up a mulcher. He also provided this as an alibi for the missing time, and said he had visited his cannabis dealer during the time Daniel was supposedly taken. Further police investigation revealed that Cowan's dealers were not home during the time Morcombe disappeared, meaning that Cowan could not have been with them. However, despite an unreliable alibi, police had no real forensic evidence to charge Cowan with the abduction and murder of the teenager. During this time, Cowan changed his name to Shaddo N-unyah Hunter, possibly to evade police. He later remarked that 'Shaddo' was his dog's name and 'N-unyah' a euphemism which translates to the idiom "none of your business". Moncrieff, Cowan's wife at the time, later admitted in court that she lied about her husband's whereabouts on the day of Morcombe's disappearance because she was "blinded by love". After their divorce, she revealed in court that he was gone for up to five hours that day.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: A covert police operation that had been used in Canada drew the attention of an investigator involved in Morcombe's case. The procedure, known as Mr. Big, consists of police officers who pose as members of a corrupt criminal gang to gain the confidence of the alleged suspect, enlisting the suspect's participation in an escalating series of often elaborate fictional crimes, particularly theft, prostitution and the drug trade. Once the suspect's trust has been gained, the police persuade the suspect to confess to the earlier, real crime. In this case, an undercover police officer, posing as a crime boss known as "Paul Fitzsimmons" or "Fitzy", befriended Cowan on a flight to Perth in April 2011. Fitzsimmons gained the trust of Cowan and the two became friends. Due to the absence of any physical evidence, a confession by Cowan was needed. Over the following months, Cowan's gang of friends initiated him through an array of fake criminal scenarios. Cowan was issued a subpoena for his alibi in Morcombe's case; however, he denied any involvement. In August 2011, at an interview at the Perth Hyatt Hotel, an undercover officer gained Cowan's trust, saying he "only wanted to help Cowan", and that Cowan could trust him with anything. Cowen subsequently disclosed his involvement in Morcombe's abduction and the confession was captured on video.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Over the next few days, Cowan led the undercover police officers to the site of Morcombe's remains. At the site, several undercover police officers arrested Cowan. On 13 August 2011, Cowan was taken into custody and charged with Morcombe's murder and other offences, including child stealing, deprivation of liberty, indecent treatment of a child under 16, and interfering with a corpse. In 2006, Cowan had admitted to police that he travelled on the road from which Morcombe disappeared on the same day, on his way to purchase marijuana from a drug dealer. Around this time, a white Mitsubishi Pajero was seized from a property on Russell Island. The vehicle was believed to have been involved in Morcombe's abduction after a witness at the coroner's inquest in April 2011, reported seeing a vehicle of similar description parked north of the site where Morcombe was last seen.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: On 7 February 2013, Cowan was ordered to stand trial. He was charged with murder, indecently dealing with a child under the age of 16 and improperly dealing with a corpse. The trial, at the Supreme Court of Queensland in the state's capital Brisbane, began on 10 February 2014 under Justice Roslyn Atkinson. Cowan stated he only confessed because of the lucrative money deal that was offered to him. The undercover policeman posing as 'Arnold' agreed that the fake crime gang had "dangled a carrot in the form of big money in front of Cowan".


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: The prosecution closed its case on 7 March. 116 witnesses gave evidence and over 200 exhibits were tendered in evidence. Cowan pleaded not guilty and declined to give evidence. Bruce and Denise Morcombe, as well as Daniel's brothers, gave lengthy victim impact statements. Cowan stated he had no remorse. On 13 March 2014, Cowan was found guilty of all charges. On 14 March 2014, Cowan was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years. He was also sentenced to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment for indecently dealing with Morcombe and two years for interfering with his corpse, those sentences to be served concurrently. Judge Roslyn Atkinson said "I don't think you should be released in 20 years time" which could affect Cowan's prison term.


title: Brett Peter Cowan

text: Cowan has undergone multiple psychiatric examinations since his first offences in the late 1980s and early 90s. The psychologist who had assessed him after his second molestation conviction in 1993 claimed he was a pathological liar with low level psychopathic features or mild psychopathy indicating a severe lack of empathy. Despite this, a concrete psychiatric diagnosis on him has been elusive and inconclusive. Acquaintances of Cowan, particularly his ex-girlfriends, had described him as initially being "charming", seeming "confident" and as being "handsome", which made it easy for him to gain the trust of his victims. The judge of the trial remarked to Cowan that he "did not look like a monster or a pedophile, he looked like an ordinary person". Furthermore, she remarked that he was a "convincing and adaptable liar". In a psychologist's report compiled in 2007, Cowan stated: "I always worry, if things got bad, I could offend again. I could never do this against my own flesh and blood." He has also expressed his belief that years of habitual drug use motivated or contributed to his attacks. Cowan's reputation as a charismatic, "every day" individual was of particular focus in the media during the investigations and arrest.


title: Satoshi Hino

text: Hino was born in the United States and raised in Tokyo. He lived in San Francisco until the age of five.


title: Satoshi Hino

text: He was a member of the Children's Theater Company when he was a teenager. Hino originally aimed to be a stage actor, but changed goals to become a voice actor in earnest following his participation in the dubbing of the American drama television series "ER". In 2001, he played his first lead role as Eddie in the overseas drama "Wanda Eddy" broadcast on NHK Educational TV.


title: Satoshi Hino

text: While initially not aware of dubbing's connection to anime, he was called to the audition for, and eventually secured a role in, "Ikki Tousen", a work in which the dubbing director participated.


title: Satoshi Hino

text: Hino has performed as a voice actor in various fields such as dubbing, animation, games and narration. Until June 2011, he was affiliated with Production Baobab. Since July 2011, Hino has been affiliated with Axl-One.


title: Satoshi Hino

text: On September 3, 2020, Both Hino and Nakajima formally announced that not only are they parents, but also tweeted the arrival of their second child.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Brâncuși sought inspiration in non-European cultures as a source of primitive exoticism, as did Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, André Derain and others. However, other influences emerge from Romanian folk art traceable through Byzantine and Dionysian traditions.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși grew up in the village of Hobița, Gorj, near Târgu Jiu, close to Romania's Carpathian Mountains, an area known for its rich tradition of folk crafts, particularly woodcarving. Geometric patterns of the region are seen in his later works such as the Endless Column created in 1918.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: His parents Nicolae and Maria Brâncuși were poor peasants who earned a meagre living through back-breaking labor; from the age of seven, Constantin herded the family's flock of sheep. He showed talent for carving objects out of wood and often ran away from home to escape the bullying of his father and older brothers.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: At the age of nine, Brâncuși left the village to work in the nearest large town. At the age of eleven, he went into the service of a grocer in Slatina; and then he became a domestic in a public house in Craiova, where he remained for several years. When he was 18, Brâncuși created a violin by hand with materials he found around his workplace. Impressed by Brâncuși's talent for carving, an industrialist enrolled him in the Craiova School of Arts and Crafts ("școala de arte și meserii"), where he pursued his love for woodworking, graduating with honors in 1898.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: He then enrolled in the Bucharest School of Fine Arts, where he received academic training in sculpture. He worked hard and quickly distinguished himself as talented. One of his earliest surviving works, under the guidance of his anatomy teacher, Dimitrie Gerota, is a masterfully rendered écorché (statue of a man with skin removed to reveal the muscles underneath) which was exhibited at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903. Though just an anatomical study, it foreshadowed the sculptor's later efforts to reveal essence rather than merely copy outward appearance.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: In 1903, Brâncuși traveled to Munich, and from there to Paris. In Paris, he was welcomed by the community of artists and intellectuals brimming with new ideas. He worked for two years in the workshop of Antonin Mercié of the École des Beaux-Arts, and was invited to enter the workshop of Auguste Rodin. Even though he admired the eminent Rodin he left the Rodin studio after only two months, saying, "Nothing can grow under big trees."


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: After leaving Rodin's workshop, Brâncuși began developing the revolutionary style for which he is known. His first commissioned work, "The Prayer", was part of a gravestone memorial. It depicts a young woman crossing herself as she kneels, and marks the first step toward abstracted, non-literal representation, and shows his drive to depict "not the outer form but the idea, the essence of things." He also began doing more carving, rather than the method popular with his contemporaries, that of modeling in clay or plaster which would be cast in metal, and by 1908 he worked almost exclusively by carving.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: In the following few years he made many versions of "Sleeping Muse" and "The Kiss", further simplifying forms to geometrical and sparse objects.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: His works became popular in France, Romania, and the United States. Collectors, notably John Quinn, bought his pieces, and reviewers praised his works. In 1913 Brâncuși's work was displayed at both the Salon des Indépendants and the first exhibition in the U.S. of modern art, the Armory Show.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: In 1920, he developed a notorious reputation with the entry of "Princess X" in the Salon. The phallic appearance of this large, gleaming bronze piece scandalized the Salon and, despite Brâncuși's explanation that it was simply meant to represent the essence of womanhood, it was removed from the exhibition. "Princess X" was revealed to be Princess Marie Bonaparte, direct descendant of the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The sculpture has been interpreted by some as symbolizing her obsession with the penis and her lifelong quest to achieve vaginal orgasm, with the help of Sigmund Freud.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Around this time Brâncuși began crafting the bases for his sculptures with much care and originality because he considered them important to the works themselves.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: One of his major groups of sculptures involved the "Bird in Space" — simple abstract shapes representing a bird in flight. The works are based on his earlier "Măiastra" series. In Romanian folklore the Măiastra is a beautiful golden bird who foretells the future and cures the blind. Over the following 20 years, Brâncuși made multiple versions of "Bird in Space" out of marble or bronze. Athena Tacha Spear's book, "Brâncuși's Birds," (CAA monographs XXI, NYU Press, New York, 1969), first sorted out the 36 versions and their development, from the early "Măiastra", to the "Golden Bird" of the late teens, to the "Bird in Space", which emerged in the early 1920s and which Brâncuși developed throughout his life.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: One of these versions caused a major controversy in 1926 when photographer Edward Steichen purchased it and shipped it to the United States. Customs officers did not accept the "Bird" as a work of art and assessed customs duty on its import as an industrial item. After protracted court proceedings, this assessment was overturned, thus confirming the Bird's status as a duty-exempt work of art. The verdict was somewhat influenced by the Judge Justice Waite's personal appreciation of the art calling it 'beautiful', 'symmetrical', and 'ornamental'. The ruling also established the important principle that "art" does not have to involve a realistic representation of nature, and that it was legitimate for it to simply represent an abstract concept – in this case "flight".


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: His work became increasingly popular in the U.S, where he visited several times during his life. Worldwide fame in 1933 brought him the commission of building a meditation temple, the Temple of Deliverance, in India for the Maharajah of Indore, Yeshwant Rao Holkar. Holkar had commissioned three "L'Oiseau dans l'Espace"—in bronze, black and white marble—previously, but when Brâncuși went to India in 1937 to complete the plans and begin construction, the Mahrajah was away and, supposedly, lost interest in the project which was to be an homage to his wife, the Maharani Margaret Holkar, who had died when he returned. Of the three birds, the bronze one is in the collection of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, and the two marble birds are currently in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, Australia.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: In 1938, he finished the World War I monument in Târgu-Jiu where he had spent much of his childhood. "Table of Silence", "The Gate of the Kiss", and "Endless Column" commemorate the courage and sacrifice of Romanians who in 1916 defended Târgu Jiu from the forces of the Central Powers. The restoration of this ensemble was spearheaded by the World Monuments Fund and was completed in 2004.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: The Târgu Jiu ensemble marks the apex of his artistic career. In his remaining 19 years he created fewer than 15 pieces, mostly reworking earlier themes, and while his fame grew he withdrew. Brâncuși received his first retrospective in 1955 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 1955 "Life" magazine reported, "Wearing white pajamas and a yellow gnome-like cap, Brâncuși today hobbles about his studio tenderly caring for and communing with the silent host of fish, birds, heads, and endless columns which he created."


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși was cared for in his later years by a Romanian refugee couple. He became a French citizen in 1952 in order to make the caregivers his heirs, and to bequeath his studio and its contents to the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși dressed simply, reflective of his Romanian peasant background. His studio was reminiscent of the houses of the peasants from his native region: there was a big slab of rock as a table and a primitive fireplace, similar to those found in traditional houses in his native Oltenia, while the rest of the furniture was made by him out of wood. Brâncuși would cook his own food, traditional Romanian dishes, with which he would treat his guests.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși held a large spectrum of interests, from science to music, and was known to play the violin. He would sing old Romanian folk songs, often expressing his feelings of homesickness. After the installment of communism, the artist never permanently returned to his native Romania, but did visit eight times.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: His circle of friends included artists and intellectuals in Paris such as Amedeo Modigliani, Ezra Pound, Henri Pierre Roché, Guillaume Apollinaire, Louise Bourgeois, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Rousseau, Peggy Guggenheim, Tristan Tzara and Fernand Léger. He was an old friend of Romany Marie, who was also Romanian, and referred Isamu Noguchi to her café in Greenwich Village.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Although surrounded by the Parisian avant-garde, Brâncuși never lost contact with Romania and had friends from the community of Romanian artists and intellectuals living in Paris, including Benjamin Fondane, George Enescu, Theodor Pallady, Camil Ressu, Nicolae Dărăscu, Panait Istrati, Traian Vuia, Eugène Ionesco, Emil Cioran, Natalia Dumitresco and Paul Celan. Another Romanian scholar wrote on Brancusi, Mircea Eliade.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși held a particular interest in mythology, especially Romanian mythology, folk tales, and traditional art (which also had a strong influence on his works), but he became interested in African and Mediterranean art as well.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: A talented handyman, he built his own phonograph and made most of his furniture, utensils, and doorways. His worldview valued "differentiating the essential from the ephemeral," with Plato, Lao-Tzu, and Milarepa as influences. Reportedly, he had a copy of the first ever translation from the Tibetan into French of Jacques Bacot's Le poete tibetain Milarepa: ses crimes, ses épreuves, son Nirvana that he kept by his bedside. He identified closely with Milarepa's mountain existence since Brancusi himself came from the Carpathian Mountains of Romania and he often thought he was a reincarnation of Milarepa. He was a saint-like idealist and near ascetic, turning his workshop into a place where visitors noted the deep spiritual atmosphere. However, particularly through the 1910s and 1920s, he was known as a pleasure seeker and merrymaker in his bohemian circle. He enjoyed cigarettes, good wine, and the company of women. He had one child, John Moore, with the New Zealand pianist Vera Moore, whom he never acknowledged.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși died on March 16, 1957, aged 81. He was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. This cemetery also displays statues that Brâncuși carved for deceased artists.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: In 1962, Georg Olden used Brâncuși's "Bird in Space" as the inspiration behind his design of the Clio Award statuette.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: At his death Brâncuși left 1200 photographs and 215 sculptures. He bequeathed part of his collection to the French state on condition that his workshop be rebuilt as it was on the day he died. This reconstruction of his studio, adjacent to the Pompidou Centre, is open to the public. Brâncuși's studio inspired Swedish architect Klas Anshelm's design of the Malmö Konsthall, which opened in 1975.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși's works are housed in the National Museum of Art of Romania (Bucharest), the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and other museums around the world. The Philadelphia Museum of Art holds the largest collection of Brâncuși sculptures in the United States.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: In 2015 the Romanian Parliament declared February 19 "The Brâncuși Day", a working holiday in Romania.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Director Mick Davis plans to make a biographical film about Brâncuși called "The Sculptor", and British director Peter Greenaway said in 2017 that he is working on a film called "Walking to Paris", a film which shows Brâncuși's journey from Bucharest to Paris.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Brâncuși's piece "Madame L.R." sold for €29.185 million ($37.2 million) in 2009, setting a record price for a sculpture sold at auction.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: In May 2018, "La Jeune Fille Sophistiquée" ("Portrait de Nancy Cunard"), a polished bronze on a carved marble base (1932), sold for US$71 million (with fees) at Christie's New York, setting a world record auction price for the artist.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: Both "Bird in Space" and "Sleeping Muse I" are sculptures of animate objects; however, unlike ones from Ancient Greece or Rome, or those from the High Renaissance period, these works of art are more abstract in style.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: "Bird in Space" is a series from the 1920s. One of these, constructed in 1925 using wood, stone, and marble (Richler 178) stands around 72 inches tall and consists of a narrow feather standing erect on a wooden base. Similar models, but made from materials such as bronze, were also produced by Brâncuși and placed in exhibitions.


title: Constantin Brâncuși

text: "Sleeping Muse I" has different versions as well; one, from 1909 to 1910, is made of marble and measures 6 ¾ in. in height (Adams 549). This is a model of a head, without a body, with markings to show features such as hair, nose, lips, and closed eyes. In "A History of Western Art", Adams says that the sculpture has "an abstract, curvilinear quality and a smooth contour that create an impression of elegance" (549). The qualities which produce the effect can particularly be seen in the shape of the eyes and in the set of the mouth.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: Aspartate transaminase (AST) or aspartate aminotransferase, also known as AspAT/ASAT/AAT or (serum) glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT, SGOT), is a pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)-dependent transaminase enzyme () that was first described by Arthur Karmen and colleagues in 1954. AST catalyzes the reversible transfer of an α-amino group between aspartate and glutamate and, as such, is an important enzyme in amino acid metabolism. AST is found in the liver, heart, skeletal muscle, kidneys, brain, red blood cells and gall bladder. Serum AST level, serum ALT (alanine transaminase) level, and their ratio (AST/ALT ratio) are commonly measured clinically as biomarkers for liver health. The tests are part of blood panels.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: The half-life of total AST in the circulation approximates 17 hours and, on average, 87 hours for "mitochondrial" AST. Aminotransferase is cleared by sinusoidal cells in the liver.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: Aspartate transaminase catalyzes the interconversion of aspartate and α-ketoglutarate to oxaloacetate and glutamate.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: As a prototypical transaminase, AST relies on PLP (Vitamin B6) as a cofactor to transfer the amino group from aspartate or glutamate to the corresponding ketoacid. In the process, the cofactor shuttles between PLP and the pyridoxamine phosphate (PMP) form. The amino group transfer catalyzed by this enzyme is crucial in both amino acid degradation and biosynthesis. In amino acid degradation, following the conversion of α-ketoglutarate to glutamate, glutamate subsequently undergoes oxidative deamination to form ammonium ions, which are excreted as urea. In the reverse reaction, aspartate may be synthesized from oxaloacetate, which is a key intermediate in the citric acid cycle.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: These isoenzymes are thought to have evolved from a common ancestral AST via gene duplication, and they share a sequence homology of approximately 45%.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: AST has also been found in a number of microorganisms, including "E. coli", "H. mediterranei", and "T. thermophilus". In "E. coli", the enzyme is encoded by the "aspC"gene and has also been shown to exhibit the activity of an aromatic-amino-acid transaminase ().


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: X-ray crystallography studies have been performed to determine the structure of aspartate transaminase from various sources, including chicken mitochondria, pig heart cytosol, and "E. coli". Overall, the three-dimensional polypeptide structure for all species is quite similar. AST is dimeric, consisting of two identical subunits, each with approximately 400 amino acid residues and a molecular weight of approximately 45 kD. Each subunit is composed of a large and a small domain, as well as a third domain consisting of the N-terminal residues 3-14; these few residues form a strand, which links and stabilizes the two subunits of the dimer. The large domain, which includes residues 48-325, binds the PLP cofactor via an aldimine linkage to the ε-amino group of Lys258. Other residues in this domain – Asp 222 and Tyr 225 – also interact with PLP via hydrogen bonding. The small domain consists of residues 15-47 and 326-410 and represents a flexible region that shifts the enzyme from an "open" to a "closed" conformation upon substrate binding.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: The two independent active sites are positioned near the interface between the two domains. Within each active site, a couple arginine residues are responsible for the enzyme's specificity for dicarboxylic acid substrates: Arg386 interacts with the substrate's proximal (α-)carboxylate group, while Arg292 complexes with the distal (side-chain) carboxylate.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: In terms of secondary structure, AST contains both α and β elements. Each domain has a central sheet of β-strands with α-helices packed on either side.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: Aspartate transaminase, as with all transaminases, operates via dual substrate recognition; that is, it is able to recognize and selectively bind two amino acids (Asp and Glu) with different side-chains. In either case, the transaminase reaction consists of two similar half-reactions that constitute what is referred to as a ping-pong mechanism. In the first half-reaction, amino acid 1 (e.g., L-Asp) reacts with the enzyme-PLP complex to generate ketoacid 1 (oxaloacetate) and the modified enzyme-PMP. In the second half-reaction, ketoacid 2 (α-ketoglutarate) reacts with enzyme-PMP to produce amino acid 2 (L-Glu), regenerating the original enzyme-PLP in the process. Formation of a racemic product (D-Glu) is very rare.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: The specific steps for the half-reaction of Enzyme-PLP + aspartate ⇌ Enzyme-PMP + oxaloacetate are as follows (see figure); the other half-reaction (not shown) proceeds in the reverse manner, with α-ketoglutarate as the substrate.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: This mechanism is thought to have multiple partially rate-determining steps. However, it has been shown that the substrate binding step (transaldimination) drives the catalytic reaction forward.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: AST is similar to alanine transaminase (ALT) in that both enzymes are associated with liver parenchymal cells. The difference is that ALT is found predominantly in the liver, with clinically negligible quantities found in the kidneys, heart, and skeletal muscle, while AST is found in the liver, heart (cardiac muscle), skeletal muscle, kidneys, brain, and red blood cells. As a result, ALT is a more specific indicator of liver inflammation than AST, as AST may be elevated also in diseases affecting other organs, such as myocardial infarction, acute pancreatitis, acute hemolytic anemia, severe burns, acute renal disease, musculoskeletal diseases, and trauma.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: AST was defined as a biochemical marker for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction in 1954. However, the use of AST for such a diagnosis is now redundant and has been superseded by the cardiac troponins.


title: Aspartate transaminase

text: Laboratory tests should always be interpreted using the reference range from the laboratory that performed the test. Example reference ranges are shown below:


title: Dude (film)

text: Dude is a 2018 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Olivia Milch and written by Milch and Kendall McKinnon. The film stars Lucy Hale, Kathryn Prescott, Alexandra Shipp, Awkwafina, Austin Butler and Michaela Watkins.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily, Chloe, Amelia, and Rebecca are at junior prom. Chloe's brother Thomas takes Lily onto the field and she tells him she cannot imagine leaving. They almost kiss when Rebecca and the others tell them the limo arrived.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily takes Rebecca and Amelia home, taking Chloe to meet Thomas in the mountains. The three separate and Thomas is killed in a car crash on the way home. At the funeral, Chloe hugs her mom, crying as Lily remains silent.


title: Dude (film)

text: One year later the girls arrive at school stoned. Lily talks with Noah about prom, then she and Chloe walk down the halls recalling how many times they've done so.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily then arranges parties at various houses. When the girls get back to the car they see their "Donkey Bong". Amelia tells Rebecca her parents are divorcing, saying they only see her as an extension of their ego. Lily and Chloe see their pot dealer friend Biff who reminds them of Thomas's favourite strain “cough”.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily argues with the principal about her strengths and weaknesses. Chloe walks onto the field remembering the previous year, playing Thomas's last voice message. Sam consoles her, asking her to prom. Noah serenades Lily as a promposal but fails. As she and Chloe talk, Rebecca barges in, telling them someone caught her masturbating over the school librarian, Bemis.


title: Dude (film)

text: The girls then go to a house party. Noah arrives, apologising to Lily by offering her a joint and then makes out with her. The cops arrive to break up the party.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily and Sam sell prom tickets the next day when Lily finds out that Liv was traumatised by James, who got her in trouble by writing a dirty joke on an essay. After she scolds him, Noah texts her to come over to fool around. The next day his ex threatens Lily.


title: Dude (film)

text: The girls go to another party, Chloe tells Lily she got into NYU but wants to go to UCSB. Lily freaks out, going to a room with a boy from another school, Mike, and is raped. Chloe, Rebecca and Amelia all ditch her, so she calls a taxi and cries all the way home.


title: Dude (film)

text: The next morning everyone goes to her house and she flips out at Amelia and Rebecca for not telling her about Chloe's acceptance letter. They all start badmouthing Lily, so she walks away. Chloe stops her, saying she is being selfish for wanting her to not be friends with people who did not know Thomas.


title: Dude (film)

text: Angry Lily drives down the street with a flashback of Thomas, stoping when she sees Rebecca at a coffee shop with her potential roommate and mocking them until a police officer comes up. Meaning to ask her why she is illegally parked, he then notices Donkey Bong in the back. Lily panics until the officer tells her that he won't ruin her life forever but will mess it up for at least a week.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily is forced by her mum to smash the bong. The girls all dodge her calls, leaving her alone. Noah tries to talk to Lily but she remains stubborn, forcing him to walk away.


title: Dude (film)

text: James helps Lily see she has been selfish. At prom alone, she eventually goes to the bathroom to cry. Rebecca talks to Bemis while Lily has a flashback of her and Thomas on the field declaring their love.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily apologises to Chloe for being intense about Thomas, saying the pain will never go away but that she cannot mourn what she could’ve been. They make up and go inside, where Lily apologises to Amelia and Rebecca. There, Chloe kicks Mike in the balls and Noah's girlfriend breaks up with him. Sam takes a picture of the girls who then bury the remains of Donkey Bong with Jon Bong Jovi, Sean Bongery and Bong Connery.


title: Dude (film)

text: Lily practices her graduation speech in front of her friends, then the entire school. At their family graduation party, Bemis arrives, introducing himself as “Immanuel”. Noah congratulates Lily on her speech and they kiss, and she gets a photo taken with her brother and sister. Amelia then notices their marijuana brownies were given to their parents. Looking off into the sky and distant Los Angeles, the story ends.


title: Dude (film)

text: On November 2, 2015, it was announced that Olivia Milch would make her directorial debut with the comedy film, titled "Dude", based on her own script about four best high school girlfriends, with Lucy Hale starring. The script was listed in the 2013 Black List of best unproduced scripts. Heather Rae, Langley Perer, Jimmy Miller, Andrew Duncan, and Jen Isaacson produced the film. The same month, Kathryn Prescott, Alexandra Shipp, Awkwafina, Alex Wolff, Satya Bhabha, Ronen Rubinstein and Austin Butler joined the cast of the film. In December 2015, Austin Abrams and Jerry McKinnon were also added.


title: Dude (film)

text: In May 2017, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film. They released the film on their service on April 20, 2018.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: Born in the Bronx to a Jewish family, Jaffe grew up in New York City. Having fulfilled his high school requirements at the age of sixteen, Jaffe left New York to attend Penn State University, where he studied American history and literature, art history, and modern philosophy.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: Jaffe left Penn State at the age of 19, returned briefly to New York where he played harmonica and guitar in various bands, and then picked up suddenly and moved to Brazil. Through the music scene there, he was introduced into a circle of friends making experimental films. There, he directed such films as the 16 mm film "Nine Ways of Dying", created in the remote mountains of Brazil. Jaffe became close to the influential Brazilian filmmaker Neville d’Almeida and the artist Hélio Oiticica, with whom he collaborated in the April 1970 exhibition “From Body to Earth” in Belo Horizonte.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: When Jaffe returned in New York in 1971, he continued making films, such as "Impact", with the conceptual artist Vito Acconci, and "Brooklyn Bridge", with Gordon Matta-Clark. In 1971, he also participated in the landmark conceptual exhibition “Projects: Pier 18” for the Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by Willoughby Sharp.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: In 1972, while working with Island Records, he met Bob Marley in a hotel room in New York. He followed Marley back to Jamaica on what was originally a two-week vacation, but ended up staying for the next five years. Jaffe lived with Marley, managing the Wailers, playing harmonica on the album "Natty Dread", and organizing their North American tour. In Jamaica, Jaffe also met Peter Tosh, and he produced his album "Legalize It" and shot the iconic cover in 1977.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: Jaffe moved back to New York in 1977, while still working with Peter Tosh. In 1983 Jaffe turned to painting. His works have been characterized as “large scale, multi-media historical assemblage.” Through his work, he has explored various themes of marginalization in American history, such as “the exploitation of the black performer in America, the cruelty of the fur industry, the relationship of the Native American to his environment, the ambiguity of America's traitors.” Jaffe has exhibited at major museums worldwide, including Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: In the mid-80s, Jaffe produced records for reggae pioneer Joe Higgs, Grammy-nominated The Wailing Souls, and dancehall innovator Barrington Levy. In 2003, he wrote "ONE LOVE: Life with Bob Marley and the Wailers", published by W.W. Norton and Sons.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: In 2013, Jaffe co-wrote a book with French scholar and Jamaican popular music specialist, Jérémie Kroubo Dagnini, "Bob Marley and the Wailers: 1973-1976", published by Camion Blanc (French language). This book is a sort of autobiography in which Jaffe reveals precious details about his meetings and relations with Bob Marley and other extraordinary artists including Peter Tosh, Hélio Oiticica, Vito Acconci, and Jean-Michel Basquiat just to name a few.


title: Lee Jaffe

text: Jaffe lives today in New York, where he continues to produce films and create his large-scale painting and assemblage.


title: History of Sweden

text: The history of Sweden can be traced back to the melting of the Northern Polar Ice Caps. From as early as 12000 BC, humans have inhabited this area. Throughout the Stone Age, between 8000 BC and 6000 BC, early inhabitants used stone-crafting methods to make tools and weapons for hunting, gathering and fishing as means of survival. Written sources about Sweden before AD 1000 are rare and short, usually written by outsiders. It was not until the 14th century that longer historical texts were produced in Sweden. It is therefore usually accepted that Swedish recorded history, in contrast with pre-history, starts around the 11th century, when sources are common enough that they can be contrasted with each other.


title: History of Sweden

text: The modern Swedish state was formed over a long period of unification and consolidation. Historians have set different standards for when it can be considered complete, resulting in dates from the 6th to 16th centuries. Some common laws were present from the second half of the 13th century. At this time, Sweden consisted of most of what is today the southern part of the country (except for Scania, Blekinge, Halland and Bohuslän), as well as parts of modern Finland. Over the following centuries, Swedish influence would expand into the North and East, even if borders were often ill-defined or nonexistent.


title: History of Sweden

text: In the late 14th century, Sweden was becoming increasingly intertwined with Denmark and Norway, with the three eventually uniting in the Kalmar Union. During the following century, a series of rebellions lessened Sweden's ties to the union, sometimes even leading to the election of a separate Swedish king. The fighting reached a climax following the Stockholm Bloodbath in 1520, a mass execution of accused heretics orchestrated by Christian II of Denmark. One of the few members of the most powerful noble families not present, Gustav Vasa, was able to raise a new rebellion and eventually was crowned King in 1523. His reign proved lasting and marked the end of Sweden's participation in the Kalmar Union. Gustav Vasa furthermore encouraged Protestant preachers, finally breaking with the papacy and establishing the Lutheran Church in Sweden, seizing Catholic Church property and wealth.


title: History of Sweden

text: During the 17th century, after winning wars against Denmark-Norway, Russia, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden emerged as a great power by taking direct control of the Baltic region. Sweden's role in the Thirty Years' War determined the political and religious balance of power in Europe. The Swedish state expanded enormously into the modern Estonia and Latvia, northern Germany, and several regions that to this day are part of Sweden.


title: History of Sweden

text: Before the end of the 17th century, a secret alliance was formed between Denmark-Norway, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Russia against Sweden. This coalition acted at the start of the 18th century when Denmark-Norway and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth launched surprise attacks on Sweden. In 1721, Russia and its allies won the war against Sweden. As a result, Russia was able to annex the Swedish territories of Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and Karelia. This effectively put an end to the Swedish Empire, and crippled her Baltic Sea power. Sweden joined in the Enlightenment culture of the day in the arts, architecture, science, and learning. Between 1570 and 1800, Sweden experienced two periods of urban expansion. Finland was lost to Russia in a war in 1808–1809.


title: History of Sweden

text: In the early 19th century, Finland and the remaining territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost. Sweden's last war was the Swedish–Norwegian War (1814). Sweden was victorious in this war, leading to the Danish king being forced to cede Norway to Sweden. Norway was then forced to enter into a personal union with Sweden that lasted until 1905. Since 1814, Sweden has been at peace, adopting a non-aligned foreign policy in peacetime and neutrality in wartime. During World War I, Sweden remained neutral, but let the Germans travel in the country. Post-war prosperity provided the foundations for the social welfare policies characteristic of modern Sweden. During World War II, Sweden once again remained neutral, avoiding the fate of occupied Norway.


title: History of Sweden

text: The country attempted to stay out of alliances and remain officially neutral during the entire Cold War, and declined to join NATO. The social democratic party held government for 44 years (1932–1976). The 1976 parliamentary elections brought a liberal/right-wing coalition to power. During the Cold War, Sweden was suspicious of the superpowers, but this sentiment lessened as the situation progressed, and Sweden continued to remain neutral.


title: History of Sweden

text: Sweden has a large number of petroglyphs ("hällristningar" in Swedish), with the highest concentration in the province of Bohuslän and the northern part of the county of Kalmar, also called "Tjust". The earliest images can be found in the province of Jämtland, dating from 5000 BC. They depict wild animals such as elk, reindeer, bears and seals. 2300–500 BC was the most intensive carving period, with carvings of agriculture, warfare, ships, domesticated animals, etc. Petroglyphs with themes have also been found in Bohuslän, dating from 800 to 500 BC.


title: History of Sweden

text: For centuries, the Swedes were merchant seamen well known for their far-reaching trade. During the 11th and 12th centuries, Sweden gradually became a unified Christian kingdom that later included Finland. Until 1060, the kings of Uppsala ruled most of modern Sweden except for the southern and western coastal regions, which remained under Danish rule until the 17th century. After a century of civil wars, a new royal family emerged, which strengthened the power of the crown at the expense of the nobility, while giving the nobles privileges such as exemption from taxation in exchange for military service. Sweden never had a fully developed feudal system, and its peasants were never reduced to serfdom. The Vikings from Sweden partly took part in the raids of the Western and Southern regions of Europe, but mainly traveled east to Russia, Constantinople and the Muslim world (Serkland). The large Russian mainland and its many navigable rivers offered good prospects for merchandise and plundering. During the 9th century, extensive Scandinavian settlements began on the east side of the Baltic Sea.