title: Stirling Gallacher

text: Gallacher joined the cast of "Coronation Street" in August 2018 as Paula Martin, a love interest for established character Sophie Webster (Brooke Vincent). In February 2020, it was announced that Gallacher had joined medical drama "Casualty" as police officer Ffion Morgan, the wife of established character Jan Jenning (Di Botcher). Gallacher confirmed that she would not leave "Coronation Street" for the new role, but instead would appear in both shows simultaneously. Gallacher made her "Casualty" debut on 18 July 2020. For her role as Ffion, Gallacher stated that she wanted to appear different to her "Coronation Street" character, so she wears a wig due to having an allergy to hair dye.


title: Stirling Gallacher

text: Gallacher has a son, Ulysses, born in January 2004. On 20 June 2009, she married her former "Doctors" co-star, and on-screen husband, Seán Gleeson. This union produced a son (born 2009).


title: Psalm 151

text: Psalm 151 is a short psalm found in most copies of the Septuagint (LXX), but not in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible. The title given to this psalm in the Septuagint indicates that it is supernumerary, as no number is affixed to it. The psalm is ascribed to David. It is also included in some manuscripts of the Peshitta. The psalm concerns the story of David and Goliath.


title: Psalm 151

text: The Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Syrian Orthodox churches accept Psalm 151 as canonical. Catholics, Protestants, and most Jews consider it apocryphal. However, it is found in some Catholic Bibles, such as certain editions of the Latin Vulgate, as well as in some ecumenical translations, such as the Revised Standard Version. Psalm 151 is cited once in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Breviary, as a responsory of the series from the books of Kings, the second in the Roman Breviary, together with (Greek 1–2 Kings = trad. 1–2 Samuel; Greek 3–4 Kings = trad. 1–2 Kings) in a text slightly different from that in the Vulgate. Athanasius of Alexandria mentions this psalm as being "especially the Psalm of David," and as being suited to occasions in which, "weak as you are, you people are chosen for some position of authority among the brethren."


title: Psalm 151

text: The title of the psalm states that it was written by David after his battle with Goliath. The psalm assumes familiarity with other Biblical passages, from which it draws phraseology.


title: Psalm 151

text: A praise of Yahweh by David, son of Jesse. David’s first mighty deed after the prophet of God had anointed him. When he fought Goliath in a single combat.


title: Psalm 151

text: 1. I was the smallest of my brothers, the youngest of the sons of my father and the youngest in my father’s house. He made me shepherd of his flock and ruler over his kids. While I tended my father’s sheep, I discovered a lion and a wolf. Thus, I killed and rent them.


title: Psalm 151

text: 2. My hands made a flute, my fingers a lyre and so I offered glory to Yahweh. Thus, I said in my soul:


title: Psalm 151

text: 3. The mountains do not witness to him, nor do the hills proclaim, the trees praise my words and the flock my deeds.


title: Psalm 151

text: 5. Who will tell my Lord? And who will hear me? The Lord himself, it is he who hears. The Lord of all saw, the God of all. He heard me and he listened to everything.


title: Psalm 151

text: 6. He sent his messenger prophet Samuel to take me from my father’s flock and anointed me with his anointing oil. He removed me from the sheep of my father, to anoint me, to make me great.


title: Psalm 151

text: 8. Although they were tall of stature with beautiful and beauteous hair. Yahweh God did not choose them for the Lord was not pleased with them.


title: Psalm 151

text: 9. But he sent and fetched me from behind the flock, anointed me with holy oil. He made me a leader of his people and a ruler over the sons of his covenant.


title: Psalm 151

text: 10. Then I went out to meet the Philistine. I saw the Philistine uttering insults from the ranks of the enemy and he cursed me by his idols.


title: Psalm 151

text: 11. In the strength of Yahweh, I cast three stones at him. I smote him in the forehead and felled him to the earth.


title: Psalm 151

text: 12. But I drew out his own sword from him and with it I cut off his head. Thereby removed reproach from the sons of Israel and thereby removed reproach from the house of Israel.


title: Psalm 151

text: For many years scholars believed that Psalm 151 was originally composed in Greek, based on the view that "there is no evidence that Psalm 151 ever existed in Hebrew."


title: Psalm 151

text: However, Psalm 151 appears along with several canonical non-canonical psalms in the scroll known as "The Great Psalms Scroll" or "11Q5," a scroll, dating from the 1st century, that was discovered in 1956. The "editio princeps" of this manuscript was first published in 1963 by James A. Sanders. This scroll contains two short Hebrew psalms which scholars now agree served as the basis for Psalm 151.


title: Psalm 151

text: A Hebrew psalm known as “Psalm 151a” provides the source material for in verses 1–5 of the Greek Psalm 151, while the remaining verses are derived from another Hebrew psalm, known as “Psalm 151b,” which is only partially preserved. The composer of the Greek Psalm apparently brought the two Hebrew psalms together in a manner that significantly changes their meaning and structure, but the influence of the Hebrew originals is still readily apparent. Where parts of the Greek version sometimes seem to make little sense or are ambiguous, the Hebrew text sheds light on the intended message or meaning. In comparison to the Hebrew text, Sanders regards the Greek text of this psalm to be in places “desiccated,” “meaningless,” “truncated,” “absurd,” “jumbled,” and “disappointingly different,” all as a result of its having been “made from a truncated amalgamation of the two Hebrew psalms.” On details of translation, structure, and meaning of this psalm, see also the works of Skehan, Brownlee, Carmignac, John Strugnell, Rabinowitz, Dupont-Sommer, and Flint.


title: Psalm 151

text: In the Armenian Church, Psalm 151 is recited as part of the Matins sequence of biblical poetic material, which includes canticles from the Old and New Testaments, Psalms 51, 148–150, and 113 (numbering according to the Septuagint). The Armenian version of Psalm 151 is close to the Septuagint, with some variation. Where verse 2 in Greek reads αἱ χεῖρές μου ἐποίησαν ὄργανον οἱ δάκτυλοί μου ἤροσαν ψαλτήριον "My hands made an instrument, my fingers fashioned the lyre," the Armenian has, Ձերք իմ արարին զսաղմոսարանս եւ մատունք իմ կազմեցին զգործի աւրհնութեան "My hands made the lyres (Armenian զսաղմոսարանս can then means also 'Psalm-books' 'psalters') and my fingers fashioned the instrument of blessing."


title: Psalm 151

text: In the Coptic Church, Psalm 151 is recited at the start of the Bright Saturday Vigil, also known as the Apocalypse Vigil. The words of the psalm are interpreted as a Messianic prophecy concerning Christ's defeat of Satan.


title: Psalm 151

text: Besides being available in Orthodox or ecumenical editions of modern translations since 1977 (Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version, Orthodox Study Bible, Contemporary English Version, Common English Bible), there are a number of English translations now in the public domain. William Whiston included it in his "Authentic Records". It can be found in translations by Charles Thomson to Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, and in Adam Clarke's commentary. It is included in Sabine Baring-Gould's "Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets", William Digby Seymour's Hebrew Psalter, and William Ralph Churton's "Uncanonical and Apocryphal Scriptures". William Wright published a translation of the Syriac version in the "Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology", June 1887, and A. A. Brockway published a translation from the Coptic in the January 27, 1898 New York Times.


title: Psalm 151

text: At the beginning of his first address to his Council of State, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia recited this psalm in full.


title: Psalm 151

text: The TV show "Touched by an Angel", Season 5, Episode 9 (originally aired 15 November 1998) is titled "Psalm 151" with a song sung by Wynonna Judd called "Testify to Love". In the episode, she composes the song for her dying son.


title: Psalm 151

text: In 1993, Péter Eötvös composed "Psalm 151 – In Memoriam Frank Zappa" for solo or four percussionists.


title: Psalm 151

text: Christian rock band Jacob's Trouble wrapped up their 1989 "Door into Summer" LP with track 11, "Psalm 151."


title: Psalm 151

text: Rock artist Ezra Furman included a self-penned song entitled "Psalm 151" on her 2018 LP "Transangelic Exodus"; she later admitted she was unaware of Psalm 151's existence.


title: Psalm 151

text: The song "My Favorite Mutiny" from the album "Pick a Bigger Weapon" by The Coup (ft. Talib Kweli and Black Thought) contains the lyric "Tryin' to find Psalm number 151."


title: Kick

text: A kick is a physical strike using the leg, in unison usually with an area of the knee or lower using the foot, heel, tibia (shin), ball of the foot, blade of the foot, toes or knee (the latter is also known as a knee strike). This type of attack is used frequently by hooved animals as well as humans in the context of stand-up fighting. Kicks play a significant role in many forms of martial arts, such as capoeira, kalaripayattu, karate, kickboxing, kung fu, MMA, Muay thai, pankration, pradal serey, savate, sikaran, silat, taekwondo, vovinam, and Yaw-Yan. Kicks are a universal act of aggression among humans.


title: Kick

text: Kicking is also prominent from its use in many sports, especially those called football. The best known of these sports is association football, also known as soccer.


title: Kick

text: The English verb to kick appears only in the late 14th century, apparently as a loan from Old Norse, originally in the sense of a hooved animal delivering strikes with his hind legs.


title: Kick

text: Kicks as an act of human aggression have likely existed worldwide since prehistory. However, the earliest documentation of high kicks, aimed above the waist or to the head, comes from Asian martial arts. Such kicks were introduced to the west in the 19th century with early hybrid martial arts inspired by Asian styles such as Bartitsu and Savate. Practice of high kicks became more universal in the second half of the 20th century with the more widespread development of hybrid styles such as kickboxing and eventually mixed martial arts.


title: Kick

text: The history of the high kick in Asian martial arts is difficult to trace, it appears to be prevalent in all traditional forms of Indochinese kickboxing, but these cannot be traced with any technical detail to pre-modern times. In Muay Boran ("ancient boxing" in Thailand) was developed under Rama V (r. 1868–1910) and while it is known that earlier forms of "boxing" existed during the Ayutthaya Kingdom, the details regarding these techniques are unclear. Some stances that look like low kicks, but not high kicks, are visible in the Shaolin temple frescoes, dated to the 17th century. The "Mahabharata" (4.13), an Indian epic compiled at some point before the 5th century AD, describes an unarmed hand-to-hand battle, including the sentence "and they gave each other violent kicks" (without providing any further detail). Kicks including ones above the waist are commonly depicted in the stone carvings of the Khmer Empire temples in Cambodia.


title: Kick

text: As the human leg is longer and stronger than the arm, kicks are generally used to keep an opponent at a distance, surprise them with their range and inflict substantial damage. Stance is also very important in any combat system and any attempt to deliver a kick will necessarily compromise stability to some degree. The application of kicks is a trade-off between the power and range that can be delivered against the cost incurred to balance. As combat situations are fluid, understanding this trade-off and making the appropriate decision to adjust to each moment is key.


title: Kick

text: Kicks are commonly directed against helpless or downed targets, while for more general self-defense applications, the consensus is that simple kicks aimed at vulnerable targets below the chest may be highly efficient, but should be executed with a degree of care. Self-defense experts, such as author and teacher Marc Macyoung, claim that kicks should be aimed no higher than the waist/stomach. Thus, the fighter should not compromise their balance while delivering a kick and retract the leg properly to avoid grappling. It is often recommended to build and drill simple combinations that involve attacking different levels of an opponent. A common example would be distracting an opponent's focus via a fake jab, following up with a powerful attack at the opponent's legs and punching.


title: Kick

text: Further, since low kicks are inherently quicker and harder to see and dodge in general they are often emphasized in a street fight scenario.


title: Kick

text: The utility of high kicks (above chest level) has been debated. Proponents have viewed that some high front snap kicks are effective for striking the face or throat, particularly against charging opponents and flying kicks can be effective to scare off attackers. Martial arts systems that utilize high kicks also emphasize training of very efficient and technically perfected forms of kicks, include recovery techniques in the event of a miss or block and will employ a wide repertoire of kicks adapted to specific situations.


title: Kick

text: Detractors have asserted that the flying/jumping kicks performed in synthesis styles are primarily performed for conditioning or aesthetic reasons, while the high kicks as practiced in sport martial arts are privileged due to specialized tournament rules, such as limiting the contest to stand-up fighting, or reducing the penalty resulting from a failed attempt at delivering a kick.


title: Kick

text: Although kicks can result in an easy takedown for the opponent if they are caught or the resulting imbalance is exploited, kicks to all parts of the body are very present in mixed martial arts, with some fighters employing them sporadically, while others, like Lyoto Machida, Edson Barboza and Donald Cerrone rely heavily on their use and have multiple knockouts by kicks on their resume.


title: Kick

text: The attacker swings their leg sideways in a circular motion, kicking the opponent's side with the front of the leg, usually with the instep, ball of the foot, toe, or shin. It can also be performed is a 360-degree kick where the attacker performs a full circle with their leg, in which the striking surface is generally either the instep, shin or ball of the foot.


title: Kick

text: There are many variations of the roundhouse kick based on various chambering of the cocked leg (small, or full, or universal or no chambering) or various footwork possibilities (rear-leg, front-leg, hopping, switch, oblique, dropping, ground spin-back or full 360 spin-back). An important variation is the downward roundhouse kick, nicknamed the "Brazilian Kick" from recent K-1 use: A more pronounced twist of the hips allows for a downward end of the trajectory of the kick that is very deceiving.


title: Kick

text: Due to its power, the roundhouse kick may also be performed at low level against targets, such as the knees, calf, or even thigh, since attacking leg muscles will often cripple an opponent's mobility. It is the most commonly used kick in kickboxing due to its power and ease of use. In most Karate styles, the instep is used to strike, though use of the shin as an official technique for a street fight would mostly be allowed.


title: Kick

text: Delivering a front kick involves raising the knee and foot of the striking leg to the desired height and extending the leg to contact the target. The strike is usually delivered by the ball of the foot for a forward kick or the top of the toes for an upward kick. Taekwondo practitioners utilize both the heel and ball of the foot for striking. Various combat systems teach 'general' front kick using the heel or whole foot when footwear is on. Depending on the fighter's tactical needs, a front kick may involve more or less body motion and thrusting with the hips is a common method of increasing both reach and power of the kick. The front kick is typically executed with the upper body straight and balanced. Front kicks are typically aimed at targets below the chest: stomach, thighs, groin, knees or lower. Highly skilled martial artists are often capable of striking head-level targets with front kick.


title: Kick

text: The side kick is delivered sideways in relation to the body of the person kicking. A standard side kick is performed by first 'chambering' by raising the kicking leg diagonally across the body, then extending the leg in a linear fashion toward the target, while flexing the abdominals. The two common impact points in sidekicks are the heel or the outer edge of the foot, with the heel is more suited to hard targets such as the ribs, stomach, jaw, temple and chest. When executing a side kick with the heel, the toes should be pulled back so that they only make contact the heel and not with the whole foot as striking with the arch or the ball of the foot can injure the foot or break an ankle.


title: Kick

text: Another way of doing the side kick is to make it a result of a faked roundhouse. This technique is considered antiquated and used only after an opponent is persuaded to believe it is a roundhouse (a feint) and then led to believe that closing the distance is best for an upper body attack, which plays into the tactical position and relative requirement of this version of the side kick. In Korean, "yeop chagi and in" Okinawan fighting, it is sometimes called a "dragon kick". Some have called this side kick a "twist kick" due to its roundhouse like origins. This side kick begins as would a roundhouse kick however the practitioner allows the heel to move towards the center of the body. The kick is then directed outward from a cross-leg chamber so that the final destination of the kick is a target to the side, rather than one that is directly ahead.


title: Kick

text: Also referred to as a donkey kick, mule kick, horse kick or turning back kick. This kick is directed backwards, keeping the kicking leg close to the standing leg and using the heel as a striking surface. In wushu, this kick is called the "half-moon" kick but involves the slight arching of the back and a higher lift of the leg to give a larger curvature. It is often used to strike opponents by surprise when facing away from them.


title: Kick

text: These are often complicated variations of basic kicks, either with a different target or combined with another move, such as jumping.


title: Kick

text: In Japanese, "kakato-geri" or "kakato-otoshi"; in Korean, "doki bal chagi" or "naeryeo chagi" or "chikka chagi". In Chinese, "pigua tui" or "xiapi tui".


title: Kick

text: An axe kick, also known as a "hammer kick" or "stretch kick", is characterized by a straightened leg with the heel descending onto an opponent like the blade of an axe. It begins with one foot rising upward as in a crescent kick then the upward arc motion is stopped and then the attacking foot is lowered to strike the target from above. The arc can be performed in either an inward (counter-clockwise) or outward (clockwise) fashion.


title: Kick

text: A well-known proponent of the axe kick was Andy Hug, the Swiss Kyokushinkai Karateka who won the 1996 K-1 Grand Prix.


title: Kick

text: The butterfly kick is done by doing a large circular motion with both feet in succession, making the combatant airborne. There are many variations of this kick. The kick may look like a slanted aerial cartwheeland at the same time, the body spins horizontally in a circle. It begins as a jump with one leg while kicking with the other, then move the kicking leg down and the jumping leg up into a kick, landing with the first kicking leg, all while spinning. This kick involves also the arching the back backwards when airborne to give a horizontal body with high angled legs to the horizontal. It may also resemble a jumping spin roundhouse kick (developed by James 'Two Screens' Perkins) into a spinning hook kick, all in one jump and one spin although the difference is that both legs should remain in the air at the same time for a considerable amount of time.


title: Kick

text: First practiced in Chinese martial arts, the butterfly kick, or "xuan zi", is widely viewed as ineffective for actual combat. However, its original purpose was to evade an opponent's floor sweep and flip to the antagonist's exposed side or it may be used as a double aerial kick to an opponent standing off to the side. It is now widely used in demonstrative wushu forms (taolu) as a symbol of difficulty. Also note the similarity in execution when compared to an ice skating maneuver known as a flying camel spin (aka: Button Camel).


title: Kick

text: This strike is a low roundhouse kick that hits the backside of the calf with the shin. While a Calf Kick sacrifices range in comparison to a standard low roundhouse kick to the thigh, the Calf Kick can't be checked with a knee or grabbed with an arm making it a safer kick for a striker in MMA matches vs opponents capable of checking low kicks or grapplers looking for takedown opportunities. The kick was popularized by former UFC Lightweight champion Benson Henderson during his tenure in the UFC.


title: Kick

text: The crescent kick, also referred to as a "swing" kick, has some similarities to a hook kick and is sometimes practised as an off-target front snap kick. The leg is bent like the front kick, but the knee is pointed at a target to the left or right of the true target. The energy from the snap is then redirected, whipping the leg into an arc and hitting the target from the side. This is useful for getting inside defenses and striking the side of the head or for knocking down hands to follow up with a close attack. In many styles of T'ai chi ch'uan and Kalaripayattu, crescent kicks are taught as tripping techniques. When training for crescent kicks, it is common to keep the knee extended to increase the difficulty. This also increases the momentum of the foot and can generate more force, though it takes longer to build up the speed.


title: Kick

text: The inward/inner/inside crescent hits with the inside edge of the foot. Its arch is clockwise for the left leg and counter-clockwise for the right leg with force generated by both legs' movement towards from the midline of the body. The inward variant has also been called a "hangetsu geri" (Half moon kick) in karate and is employed to "wipe" an opponents hand off of the wrist. It can quickly be followed up by a low side-blade kick to the knee of the offender.


title: Kick

text: The outward/outer/outside crescent hits with the 'blade', the outside edge of the foot. Its path is counter-clockwise for the left leg and clockwise for the right leg and force is generated by both legs' hip abduction. This is similar to a rising side kick, only with the kicking leg's hip flexed so that the line of force travels parallel to the ground from front to side rather than straight up, beginning and ending at the side.


title: Kick

text: The hook kick strikes with the heel from the side. It is executed similar to a side kick. However, the kick is intentionally aimed slightly off target in the direction of the kicking foot's toes. At full extension, the knee is bent and the foot snapped to the side, impacting the target with the heel. In Taekwondo it is often used at the resulting miss of a short slide side kick to the head, but is considered a very high level technique in said circumstance. Practitioners of jeet kune do frequently use the term "heel hook kick" or "sweep kick". It is known as Gancho in Capoeira.


title: Kick

text: There are many variations of the hook kick, generally based on different foot work: rear- or front-leg, oblique or half-pivot, dropping, spin-back and more. The hook kick can be delivered with a near-straight leg at impact, or with a hooked finish (Kake in Japanese Karate) where the leg bends before impact to catch the target from behind. An important variation is the downward hook kick, delivered as a regular or a spin-back kick, in which the end of the trajectory is diagonally downwards for a surprise effect or following an evading opponent. Another important variation is the whip kick, which strikes with the flat of the foot instead of heel.


title: Kick

text: The hook kick is mainly used to strike the jaw area of an opponent, but is also highly effective in the temple region.


title: Kick

text: An L-kick, also called aú batido, is a movement in breakdancing, capoeira and other martial arts and dance forms. It is executed by throwing the body into a cartwheel motion, but rather than completing the wheel, the body flexes while supported by one hand on the ground. One leg is brought downwards and forwards in a kicking motion while the other remains in the air (giving rise to the name).


title: Kick

text: This kick is also known as a "heel kick", "turning kick", "reverse round kick", "spinning hook kick", "spin kick", or "wheel kick". A low reverse roundhouse is also known as a "Sweep Kick" or "Sitting Spin Kick", however, in some martial arts circles, when aimed at a downward angle to the anterior side of the knee it is commonly referred to as "The Shark Kick" due to its tendency to tear the anterior cruciate ligament.


title: Kick

text: The Reverse Roundhouse kick traditionally uses the protruding point on the backside of the heel to strike with, the kicking leg coming from around the kicker's back as they pivot and the knee remaining relatively straight on the follow through, unlike the leg position in a reverse hooking kick, despite the spinning motion and the part of the heel being roughly the same. See above for more on hook kicks. Variations exist for low, middle and high heights. Spinning and leaping variations of the kick are also popular and are often showcased in film and television media. At UFC 142, Edson Barboza knocked out Terry Etim using a wheel kick in the third round of their fight, the first such in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.


title: Kick

text: A similarly named but technically different kick, is a roundhouse kick performed by turning as if for a "back straight kick" and executing a roundhouse kick. It is known as a "Reverse Roundhouse Kick" because the kicker turns in the opposite, or "reverse", direction before the kick is executed. This kick strikes with the ball of the foot for power or the top of the foot for range. This was exhibited by Bruce Lee on numerous occasions in his films Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury and The Big Boss, Bill Wallace was also a great user of this kick, as seen in his fight with Bill Briggs, where he KO'd his opponent with the clocked 60 mph kick. The Jump Spin Hook Kick was popularized in the mid-eighties by Steven Ho in open martial art competitions.


title: Kick

text: In Olympic format (sport) taekwondo, this technique is performed using the balls of the feet and in a manner similar to a back thrust, rather than the circular technique adopted in other styles/Martial Arts.


title: Kick

text: A flying kick, in martial arts, is a general description of kicks that involve a running start, jump, then a kick in mid-air. Compared to a regular kick, the user is able to achieve greater momentum from the run at the start. Flying kicks are not to be mistaken for jumping kicks, which are similar maneuvers. A jumping kick is very similar to a flying kick, except that it lacks the running start and the user simply jumps and kicks from a stationary position. Flying kicks are often derived from the basic kicks. Some of the more commonly known flying kicks are the: flying side kick, flying back kick and the flying roundhouse kick, as well as the flying reverse roundhouse kick. Flying kicks are commonly practiced in Taekwondo, Karate, Wushu and Muay Thai for fitness, exhibitions and competition. It is known as in Japanese martial arts and in Taekwondo.


title: Kick

text: The Showtime kick gained notability after being used by mixed martial artist Anthony Pettis, during his fight against Benson Henderson on December 16, at WEC 53 for the WEC Lightweight Championship. In the fifth round Pettis ran up the cage, jumped off the cage, then landed a switch kick while airborne. Sports reporters later named this the Showtime Kick. The kick was also used by mixed martial artists: Zabit Magomedsharipov and others. The kick was featured in the movie Here Comes the Boom.


title: Kick

text: Several kicks may be called a scissor kick, involving swinging out the legs to kick multiple targets or using the legs to take down an opponent.


title: Kick

text: The popularized version of a scissor kick is, while lying down, or jumping, the kicker brings both legs to both sides of the opponent's legs or to their body and head, then brings both in as a take down (as the name states, leg motions are like that of a pair of scissors).


title: Kick

text: A spinning heel kick is where the artist turns their body 360 degrees before landing the heel or the ball of their foot on the target. It is found in Muay Thai and is known in Capoeira as armada.


title: Kick

text: The vertical kick involves bringing the knee forward and across the chest, then swinging the hip while extending the kicking leg outward, striking with the outside ("sword") edge of the foot. In karate this is called a "yoko geri keage," in Taekwondo it is referred to as "sewo chagi" and can be performed as either an inward ("anuro") or outward ("bakuro") kick.


title: Kick

text: In Japanese karate, the term "ren geri" is used for several kicks performed in succession. Old karate did not promote the use of the legs for weapons as much as modern karate does, seeing them as being too open for countering, in modern sport karate (non-traditional) competitions, however, the ability to use multiple kicks without setting the foot down has become a viable option, not only for effectiveness but also for stylish aesthetics.


title: Kick

text: One such Multiple Kick commonly seen in Taekwondo, is a slightly complex Side Kick where a High Side Kick is followed by a Low Side Kick which is in turn followed by a more powerful Side Kick. This combination is done rapidly and is meant not for multiple targets but for a single one. The Multiple Kick usually targets the face, thigh and chest, but in turn can be a multiple chest attack which is useful for knocking the breath out of an attacker. The Multiple Kick is usually done in the "second" style described in the Side Kick article which "involves shooting the leg forward as in a front kick and then pivoting and turning so" to actually deliver a side kick. That style "has far less power but is much faster and more deceptive", which is what the Multiple Kick was designed for. The Multiple Kick, unlike some Side Kicks or "side blade kicks", never uses the outer edge of the foot; it is intended solely for the heel to be used as the impact point. Depending on the strength and skill of the attacker and the attacked, the combination can be highly effective or highly ineffective when compared to more pragmatic attacks. In some encounters with highly trained and conditioned fighters, multiple side-kicks have seen disastrous results against the abs of their target.


title: C5H10

text: CH is the molecular formula' of 13 hydrocarbon isomers (represented by their CAS numbers on the chart). They can be divided into cycloalkanes and alkenes.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Sir John Seymour, Knight banneret (c. 1474 – 21 December 1536) was an English soldier and a courtier who served both Henry VII and Henry VIII. Born into a prominent gentry family, he is best known as the father of the Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, and hence grandfather of king Edward VI of England.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: The Seymours were descendants of an Anglo-Norman family that took its name from St. Maur-sur-Loire in Touraine. William de St. Maur in 1240 held the manors of Penhow and Woundy (now called Undy) in Monmouthshire. William's great-grandson, Sir Roger de St. Maur, had two sons: John, whose granddaughter conveyed these manors by marriage into the family of Bowlay of Penhow, who bore the Seymour arms; and Sir Roger (c. 1308 – before 1366), who married Cicely, eldest sister and heir of John de Beauchamp, 3rd Baron Beauchamp. Cicely brought to the Seymours the manor of Hache, Somerset, and her grandson, Roger Seymour, by his marriage with Maud, daughter and heir of Sir William Esturmy, acquired Wulfhall (or Wolf Hall) in the parish of Great Bedwyn in the Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. Sir John Seymour was a great-great-grandson of this Roger Seymour.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Sir John Seymour was born around 1474, the eldest son of John Seymour (c. 1450 – 26 October 1491) of Wulfhall, by his marriage to Elizabeth Darell (or Darrell) (born c. 1451). He married Margery, the daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk, and his wife Anne Say. Anne was the daughter of Sir John Say and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Lawrence Cheney (or Cheyne) (c.1396–1461) and Elizabeth Cokayne. Margery Wentworth's grandfather, Sir Philip Wentworth, had married Mary, daughter of John Clifford, 7th Baron de Clifford, whose mother Elizabeth was daughter of Henry Percy (Hotspur) and great-great-granddaughter of Edward III. Margery was renowned for her beauty as well as her quiet and gentle demeanour, and she came to the attention of the poet John Skelton.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Seymour succeeded his father in 1492 and was knighted in the field by Henry VII for his services against the Cornish rebels at Blackheath on 17 June 1497. He was made Knight banneret in 1513. He was present at the sieges of Thérouanne and Tournay in 1513 as well as the two meetings between Henry VIII and Francis I: the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and again in 1532.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Sir John Seymour married Margery Wentworth (c.1478–18 October 1550) on 22 October 1494. The couple had ten children:


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Of the ten children born at Wulfhall, six survived – three sons: Edward, Henry and Thomas, and three daughters: Jane, Elizabeth and Dorothy. Edward, Thomas, Jane and Elizabeth were courtiers. Edward and Thomas would both be executed during the reign of Edward VI. Henry Seymour, who lacked his brothers' ambition, lived away from court in relative obscurity.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Four of the Seymour children achieved prominence at the royal court: Edward, Thomas, Jane and Elizabeth.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Jane Seymour, the eldest surviving daughter, was a maid of honour to Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and later to Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII stayed at Wulfhall with Queen Anne in the summer of 1535 for a few days. In early 1536, Henry declared his love for Jane and began spending increasing amounts of time with her, chaperoned by her brother, Edward. Henry and Jane were formally betrothed the day after Anne Boleyn was arrested and executed on charges of treason, adultery and incest. After Jane became queen on 30 May 1536, her family scaled the social ranks, as was befitting the family of a royal consort.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Her eldest brother, Edward, was made an earl and eventually a duke and briefly ruled England on behalf of his nephew, King Edward VI. Her second brother, Thomas, was made a baron and Lord High Admiral, and in 1547 eloped with Henry VIII's widow, Queen Catherine Parr. Both Edward and Thomas were beheaded for treason, a few years apart.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Seymour's second daughter, Elizabeth, was first married to Sir Anthony Ughtred (c.1478 – 1534), secondly to Gregory Cromwell (c.1520 – 1551), son of Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, and for a third time to John Paulet, Baron St John (c.1510 – 1576), who succeeded his father as Marquess of Winchester in 1572.


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: Seymour died on 21 December 1536. By royal custom, his daughter Queen Jane did not attend the funeral. He was first buried in the church of Easton Priory, but following the collapse of that building was reburied in 1590 by his grandson, Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, in St Mary's Church, Great Bedwyn, the parish church of Wulfhall, where his monument survives. The monument gives his age at death as sixty:


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: His monument in Great Bedwyn church consists of a chest tomb displaying heraldic escutcheons, surmounted by his recumbent effigy, fully dressed in armour with hands in prayer, his head resting on his helm from which projects the sculpted Seymour crest of a pair of wings. His feet rest on a lion and a sword lies by his side. On the wall above is fixed a tablet inscribed as follows:


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: "Here lyeth intombed the worthie Sr John Seymour of Wolfhall, Knight, who by Margerie his wyfe, daughter of Sr Henry Wentworthe, Knight, from whome the nowe Lorde Wentworthe is discended, had sixe sonnes and fower daughters, to wete, John who dyed unmaryed; Edwarde, Duke of Somerset, Earl of Hertforde, Vicount Beauchampe and Baron Seymour, uncle to Kinge Edwarde the Sixt, Governor of his Royall Person, Protector of all his Dominions and Subjects, Lorde Treasorer and Earle Marshall of Englande; w(i)ch Duke maryed Anne, daughter of Sr Edwarde Stanhope, Knight, by Elizabeth his wyfe, daughter of Sr Foulke Burgchier, Lorde Filzwaryn, ("sic") from whome the moderne Earles of Bathe are discended; Sr Henry Seymour, Knight, who maried Barbara daughter of Thomas Morgan, Esquier; Thomas Lorde Seymour of Sudeley, Highe Admirall of Englande, who maryed Katherine, Queene of Englande, and wydow to Kinge Henry the Eight. One other Jhon, and Anthony, who dyed in theire infancy. Jane Qveene of Englande, wyfe to Kynge Henry the Eight, and mother to Kynge Edwarde the Sixt; Elizabeth, firste maryed to Sr Henry Ughtred,("sic") Knight, after to Gregorie, Lorde Cromwell, and last to Jhon Lorde Sainct John of Basinge,("sic") after Marquesse of Winchester; Margery, who dyed in her infancy, and Dorothe, maryed to Sr Clement Smythe, Knight. This Knight departed this lyfe at LX yeares of age, the XXI day of December, Anno 1536, and was firste buryed at Eston Priorie Churche amongst divers of his auncestors, bothe Seymours and Sturmyes. Howbeit that Churche beinge ruyned, and thereby all theire monumentes either whollie spoyled, or verie much defased duringe the mynoritie of Edwarde, Earle of Hertforde, sonne to the said Duke, the said Earle after, as well for the dutyfull love he beareth to his said grandefather, as for the better contynuans of his memory, did cause his bodie to be removed, and here to be intombed at his own coste and chardge, the laste daye of September, Anno 1590, in the XXXII yeare of the moste happye raigne of our gratious Soveraigne Ladie Queene Elizabeth."


title: John Seymour (1474–1536)

text: A transcript was made of the inscriptions of the Seymour monuments by the topographer John Aubrey on his visit to the church in 1672, who also recorded the heraldry on the monument at that date, much of which has been lost.


title: Savage Garden (Savage Garden album)

text: Savage Garden is the debut studio album by Australian pop duo Savage Garden. It was released on 4 March 1997 in Australia by Columbia Records and Roadshow Music. The album won the award for Highest Selling Album at the 12th Annual ARIA Music Awards, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide, according to "Billboard" magazine.


title: Savage Garden (Savage Garden album)

text: The band had formed in June 1994: multi-instrumentalist and producer Daniel Jones and vocalist Darren Hayes. In 1995, they entered the studio to work on their debut album with producer, Charles Fisher (Air Supply, Moving Pictures, 1927). After the success of "I Want You", a deal was struck with Columbia Records. The record label's executives sent Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones to Sydney for 8 months, tasking them with writing material. It was there that they would come up with most of the songs for their debut album, including "Truly Madly Deeply", for which Darren Hayes wrote the chorus while dining out in Kings Cross.


title: Savage Garden (Savage Garden album)

text: In March 1997, the duo's self-titled debut album, "Savage Garden", entered the Australian charts at No. 1 and peaked there for a total of 19 weeks. The album was released internationally two weeks later. The album reached No. 3 on the US "Billboard" 200 and was certified gold by RIAA.


title: Savage Garden (Savage Garden album)

text: In September, Savage Garden won a record ten ARIA Awards from 13 nominations for the album and associated singles. As of 2005, "Savage Garden" had been certified diamond in Canada, 12× platinum in Australia, 7× platinum in the US, 2× platinum in New Zealand, Singapore, and in the UK.


title: Savage Garden (Savage Garden album)

text: The album's track listing varies depending on territory. The original Australian version of the album includes the tracks "Mine" and "All Around Me", which were removed from the international track listing. "Mine" was removed due to concerns held by the record company over the line "crosses and crucifixes", and "All Around Me" was removed for being overtly sexual. The international version adds the track "Promises", which had previously been released in Australia as the B-side to "Truly Madly Deeply". Also, the version of "Truly Madly Deeply" on the international version has a new drum track, compared to the original Australian version, which has drum machine. Thus, this became the hit single version released outside Australia. The track order was also changed to give prominence to the three hit singles, which open the album. The Japanese version of the album uses the international track listing, however, includes "Mine" as a bonus track between "Promises" and "Santa Monica". In support of the group's Asian tour in 1998, a special double-album package was released in the region. The first disc features the international version of the album, and the second disc includes B-sides, remixes and rare tracks. Darren Hayes has noted that the international track listing was not what the band wanted (particularly because Mine was one of his favorite tracks, and because the band had laboured over the track order), but the US record label insisted.


title: Savage Garden (Savage Garden album)

text: It was thought by many that an arrangement of "A Thousand Words" was later used as the installation music for Microsoft's Windows XP, however that track was actually written by linear media composer Stan LePard around the same time.


title: Savage Garden (Savage Garden album)

text: This album fetched the duo a record of 10 awards at the ARIA Awards 1997, grabbing Best Album, Best Single, Best Group, Song of the Year, Best Debut Album, Best Independent Release, Best Pop Release and Highest Selling Single award—the most awards ever won by a single act in one year. The following year at the ARIA Awards 1998, the album won two more awards—Highest Selling Album award and Outstanding Achievement Award. In October 2010, "Savage Garden" was listed in the top 40 in the book, "100 Best Australian Albums". In December of 2021, the album was listed at no. 9 in Rolling Stone Australia’s ‘200 Greatest Albums of All Time’ countdown.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The Maya Hero Twins are the central figures of a narrative included within the colonial Kʼicheʼ document called Popol Vuh, and constituting the oldest Maya myth to have been preserved in its entirety. Called Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the Kʼicheʼ language, the Twins have also been identified in the art of the Classic Mayas (200–900 AD). The twins are often portrayed as complementary forces. The complementary pairings of life and death, sky and earth, day and night, Sun and Moon, among multiple others have been used to represent the twins. The duality that occurs between male and female is often seen in twin myths, as a male and female twin are conceptualized to be born to represent the two sides of a single entity.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The Twin motif recurs in many Native American mythologies; the Maya Twins, in particular, could be considered as mythical ancestors to the Maya ruling lineages.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: After being invited to Xibalba by One-Death and Seven-Death, the Lords of the Underworld, to a game of Pok Ta Pok, a Mayan Ballgame, Hun Hunahpu (lit. One-Hunahpu) and Vucub Hunahpu (lit. Seven-Hunahpu) were defeated and sacrificed. Hun-Hunahpu's head was put in a tree. When Blood Moon, the daughter of Blood Gatherer, one of the Lords of the Underworld, passes by the tree, he speaks to her and impregnates her with his spittle. Her father finds out that she is pregnant and convenes with One-Death and Seven-Death. They decide that if Blood Moon is not willing to tell them who the father is, she should be killed. Blood Moon truthfully answers that she has not slept with anyone, which is taken as a lie because she is visibly pregnant. Thus, they order their Owl Messengers to kill her and bring back her heart as proof. She tells the owls the truth and they agree to spare her. They create a faux heart out of red tree sap which they bring back to the Lords of the Underworld. The owls then show her the way to the world above. Here she goes to the house of Xpiyacoc, the mother of Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu, who lives with One-Monkey and One-Artisan, the first born children of Hun Hunahpu which he conceived with Egret Woman. Blood Moon tells Xpiyacoc she is pregnant with her grandchildren. Xpiyacoc at first does not believe her and orders her - as a trial - to pick a big netful of corn ears from the garden of One-Monkey and One-Artisan. When Blood Moon arrives in the garden, however, there is only one maize plant. She calls upon the Guardians of Food and the corn plant magically produces enough ears to fill the net. Xpiyacoc now recognizes that Blood Moon is telling the truth. She later gives birth to the children, Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The sons—or 'Twins'—grow up to avenge their father, and after many trials, finally defeated the lords of the Underworld in a ballgame. The Popol Vuh features other episodes involving the Twins as well (see below), including the destruction of a pretentious bird demon, Vucub Caquix, and of his two demonic sons. The Twins also turned their half-brothers into the howler monkey gods, who were the patrons of artists and scribes. The Twins were finally transformed into sun and moon, signaling the beginning of a new age. The Qʼeqchiʼ myth of Sun and Moon, where he is hunting for deer (a metaphor for making captives), and capturing the daughter of the Earth Deity. In these cases, Hunahpu has no role to play.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Another main source for Hero Twin mythology is much earlier and consists of representations found on Maya ceramics until about 900 AD and in the Dresden Codex some centuries later. Clearly recognizable are the figures of Hunahpu, Xbalanque, and the howler monkey scribes and sculptors. Hunahpu is distinguished by black spots on his skin, interpreted as the stains of a corpse or as pustules. On the Preclassic murals from San Bartolo, the king, marked with a black spot on the cheek, and drawing blood from his genitals in the four corners of the world, appears to personify the hero Hunahpu. Xbalanque—the 'War Twin'—is more animal-like, in that he is distinguished by jaguar patches on his skin and by whiskers or a beard.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Certain iconographic scenes are suggestive of episodes in the Popol Vuh. The Twins' shooting of a steeply descending bird (the 'Principal Bird Deity') with blowguns may represent the defeat of Vucub-Caquix, whereas the principal Maya maize god rising from the carapace of a turtle in the presence of the Hero Twins may visualize the resurrection of the Twins' father, Hun-Hunahpu. This second scene has also been explained differently, however. In any case, the Twins are often depicted together with the main maize god, and these three semi-divinities were obviously felt to belong together. Therefore, it is probably no coincidence that in the Popol Vuh, the Twins are symbolically represented by two maize stalks.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The name "Xbalanque" (pronounced ) has been variously translated as 'Jaguar Sun' ("x-balam-que"), 'Hidden Sun' ("x-balan-que"), and 'Jaguar Deer' ("x-balam-quieh"). The initial sound may stem from "yax" (precious), since in Classical Maya, a hieroglyphic element of this meaning precedes the pictogram of the hero (although it has also been suggested to be the female prefix "ix-"). For the combination of prefix and pictogram, a reading as "Yax Balam" has been proposed. The name "Hunahpu" (pronounced ) is usually understood as "Hun-ahpub" 'One-Blowgunner', the blowgun characterizing the youthful hero as a hunter of birds.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The head of Hunahpu is used as a variant sign for the 20th day in the day count or tzolkin, which in these cases may actually have been read as "(Hun)ahpu", rather than "Ahau" (Lord or King). The 20th day is also the concluding day of all vigesimal periods, including the katun and baktun. The head of Xbalanque is used as a variant for the number nine ("balan" being similar to "bolon" 'nine').


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The following is a detailed summary of the Popol Vuh Twin Myth, on from the death of the heroes' father and uncle.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Hunahpu and his brother were conceived when their mother Xquic, daughter of one of the lords of Xibalba, spoke with the severed head of their father Hun. The skull spat upon the maiden's hand, which caused the twins to be conceived in her womb. Xquic sought out Hun Hunahpu's mother, who begrudgingly took her as a ward after setting up a number of trials to prove her identity.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Even after birth, Hunahpu and Xbalanque were not well treated by their grandmother or their older half-brothers, One Howler Monkey and One Artisan. Immediately after their births, their grandmother demanded they be removed from the house for their crying, and their elder brothers obliged by placing them on an anthill and among the brambles. Their intent was to kill their younger half-brothers out of jealousy and spite, for the older pair had long been revered as fine artisans and thinkers and feared the newcomers would steal from the attention they received.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The attempts to kill the young twins after birth were a failure, and the boys grew up without any obvious spite for their ill-natured older siblings. During their younger years, the twins were made to labor, going to hunt birds which they brought back for meals. The elder brothers were given their food to eat first, in spite of the fact they spent the day singing and playing while the younger twins were working.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Hunahpu and Xbalanque demonstrated their wit at a young age in dealing with their older half brothers. One day, the pair returned from the field without any birds to eat and were questioned by their older siblings. The younger boys claimed that they had indeed shot several birds but that they had gotten caught high in a tree and were unable to retrieve them. The older brothers were brought to the tree and climbed up to get the birds when the tree suddenly began to grow even taller, and the older brothers were caught. This is also the first instance in which the twins demonstrate supernatural powers, or perhaps simply the blessings of the greater gods; the feats of power are often only indirectly attributed to the pair.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Hunahpu further humiliated his older brethren by instructing them to remove their loincloths and tie them about their waists in an attempt to climb down. The loincloths became tails, and the brothers were transformed into monkeys. When their grandmother was informed that the older boys had not been harmed, she demanded they be allowed to return. When they did come back to the home, their grandmother was unable to contain her laughter at their appearance, and the disfigured brothers ran away in shame.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: At a point in their lives not specified in the Popol Vuh, the twins were approached by the god Huracan regarding an arrogant god named Seven Macaw (Vucub Caquix). Seven Macaw had built up a following of worshipers among some of the inhabitants of the Earth, making false claims to be either the sun or the moon. Seven Macaw was also extremely vain, adorning himself with metal ornaments in his wings and a set of false teeth made of gemstones.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: In a first attempt to dispatch the vain god, the twins attempted to sneak up on him as he was eating his meal in a tree, and shot at his jaw with a blowgun. Seven Macaw was knocked from his tree but only wounded, and as Hunahpu attempted to escape, his arm was grabbed by the god and torn off.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: In spite of their initial failure, the twins again demonstrated their clever nature in formulating a plan for Seven Macaw's defeat. Invoking a pair of gods disguised as grandparents, the twins instructed the invoked gods to approach Seven Macaw and negotiate for the return of Hunahpu's arm. In doing so, the "grandparents" indicated they were but a poor family, making a living as doctors and dentists and attempting to care for their orphaned grandchildren. Upon hearing this, Seven Macaw requested that his teeth be fixed since they had been shot and knocked loose by the blowgun, and his eyes cured (it is not specifically said what ailed his eyes). In doing so, the grandparents replaced his jeweled teeth with white corn and plucked the ornaments he had about his eyes, leaving the god destitute of his former greatness. Having fallen, Seven Macaw died, presumably of shame.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Seven Macaw's sons, Zipacna and Cabrakan, inherited a large part of their father's arrogance, claiming to be the creators and destroyers of mountains, respectively. The elder son Zipacna was destroyed when the twins tricked him with the lure of a fake crab, burying him beneath a mountain in the process.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The Maya god Huracan again implored the young twins for help in dealing with Seven Macaw's younger son, Cabrakan, the Earthquake. Again, it was primarily through their cleverness that the pair were able to bring about the downfall of their enemy, having sought him out and then using his very arrogance against him; they told the story of a great mountain they had encountered that kept growing and growing. Cabrakan prided himself as the one to bring down the mountains, and upon hearing such a tale, he predictably demanded to be shown the mountain. Hunahpu and Xbalanque obliged, leading Cabrakan toward the non-existent mountain. Being skilled hunters, they shot down several birds along the way, roasting them over fires and playing upon Cabrakan's hunger. When he asked for some meat, he was given a bird that had been prepared with plaster and gypsum, a poison to the god. Upon eating it, he was weakened and the boys were able to bind him and cast him into a hole in the earth, burying him forever.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Sometime after the expulsion of their older siblings, the twins used their special powers or abilities to expedite their gardening chores for their grandmother—a single swing of the axe would do a full day's worth of clearing, for example. The pair covered themselves in dust and wood chippings when their grandmother approached to make it seem they had been hard at work, in spite of the fact they spent the whole day relaxing. However, the next day they returned to find their work undone by the animals of the forest. Upon completion of their work, they hid and lay in wait, and when the animals returned, they attempted to catch or scare them off.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Most animals eluded their capture. The rabbit and the deer they caught by the tail, but these tails broke off, thus giving all future generations of rabbits and deer short tails. The rat, however, they did capture, singeing his tail over the fire in revenge for the act. In exchange for mercy, the rat revealed an important piece of information: the gaming equipment of their father and uncle was hidden by their grandmother in her grief, for it was playing ball that was directly responsible for the deaths of her sons.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Again, a ruse was devised to get their equipment, the twins once more relying upon trickery to meet their goals. The pair snuck the rat into their home during dinner and had their grandmother cook a meal of hot chili sauce. They demanded water for their meal, which their grandmother went to retrieve. The jar of water, however, had been sabotaged with a hole, and she was unable to return with the water. When their mother left to find out why and the pair were alone in the home, they sent the rat up into the roof to gnaw apart the ropes that held the equipment hidden and were able to retrieve the equipment their father and uncle had used to play ball. It had long been a favorite past-time for their father, and soon would become a favored activity for them as well.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Hunahpu and Xbalanque played ball in the same court that their father and his brother had played in long before them. When One Hunahpu and his brother had played, the noise had disturbed the Lords of Xibalba, rulers of the Maya Underworld. The Xibalbans summoned them to play ball in their own court.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: When the twins began to play ball in the court, once again the Lords of Xibalba were disturbed by the racket, and sent summons to the boys to come to Xibalba and play in their court. Fearing they would suffer the same fate, their grandmother relayed the message only indirectly, telling it to a louse which was hidden in a toad's mouth, which was in turn hidden in the belly of a snake in a falcon. Nevertheless, the boys did receive the message, and much to their grandmother's dismay, set off to Xibalba.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: When their father had answered the summons, he and his brother were met with a number of challenges along the way which served to confuse and embarrass them before their arrival, but the younger twins would not fall victim to the same tricks. They sent a mosquito ahead of them to bite at the Lords and uncover which were real and which were simply mannequins, as well as uncovering their identities. When they arrived at Xibalba, they were easily able to identify which were the real Lords of Xibalba and address them by name. They also turned down the Lords' invitation to sit on a bench for visitors, correctly identifying the bench as a heated stone for cooking. Frustrated by the twins' ability to see through their traps, they sent the boys away to the Dark House, the first of several deadly tests devised by the Xibalbans.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Their father One Hunahpu and his brother had suffered embarrassing defeats in each of the tests, but again Hunahpu and Xbalanque demonstrated their prowess by outwitting the Xibalbans on the first of the tests, surviving the night in the pitch black house without using up their torch. Dismayed, the Xibalbans bypassed the remaining tests and invited the boys directly to the game. The twins knew that the Xibalbans used a special ball that had a blade with which to kill them, and instead of falling for the trick, Hunahpu stopped the ball with a racquet and spied the blades. Complaining that they had been summoned only to be killed, Hunahpu and Xbalanque threatened to leave the game.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: As a compromise, the Lords of Xibalba allowed the boys to use their own rubber ball, and a long and proper game ensued. In the end, the twins allowed the Xibalbans to win the game, but this was again a part of their ruse. They were sent to Razor House, the second deadly test of Xibalba, filled with knives that moved of their own accord. The twins, however, spoke to the knives and convinced them to stop, thereby ruining the test. They also sent leafcutting ants to retrieve petals from the gardens of Xibalba, a reward to be offered to the Lords for their victory. The Lords had intentionally chosen a reward they thought impossible, for the flowers were well guarded, but the guards did not take notice of the ants and were killed for their inability to guard the flowers.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The twins played a rematch with the Xibalbans and lost by intent again and were sent to Cold House, the next test. This test they defeated, as well. In turn, Hunahpu and Xbalanque deliberately lost their ballgames so that they might be sent to the remaining tests, Jaguar House, Fire House, Bat House, and in turn pass the tests of the Xibalbans. The Lords of Xibalba were dismayed at the twins success until the twins were placed in Bat House. Though they hid inside their blowguns from the deadly bats, Hunahpu peeked out to see if daylight had come, and was decapitated by the bat god Camazotz.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The Xibalbans were overjoyed that Hunahpu had been defeated. Xbalanque summoned the beasts of the field, however, and fashioned a replacement head for Hunahpu. Though his original head was used as the ball for the next day's game, the twins were able to surreptitiously substitute a squash or a gourd for the ball, retrieving Hunahpu's real head and resulting in an embarrassing defeat for the Xibalbans.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Embarrassed by their defeat, the Xibalbans still sought to destroy the twins. They had a great oven constructed and once again summoned the boys, intending to trick them into the oven and to their deaths. The twins realized that the Lords intended this ruse to be the end of them, yet, despite this, allowed themselves to be burned to death in the oven and the ashes of their bones ground into dust. The Xibalbans were elated at the apparent demise of the twins and cast their ashes into a river. This was, however, a part of the plan devised by the boys, for, once in the river, the ashes regenerated into bodies - at first those of a pair of catfish, which transformed in turn into those of a pair of young boys.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Unrecognised, the boys were allowed to remain among the Xibalbans. Tales of their transformation from catfish spread, as well as tales of their dances and the way they entertained the people of Xibalba. They performed a number of miracles, setting fire to homes and then bringing them back whole from the ashes, sacrificing one another and rising from the dead. When the Lords of Xibalba heard the tale, they summoned the pair to their court to entertain them, demanding to see such miracles for themselves.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: The boys answered the summons and volunteered to entertain the Lords at no cost. Their identities remained secret for the moment, claiming to be orphans and vagabonds, and the Lords were none the wiser. They went through their gamut of miracles, slaying a dog and bringing it back from the dead, causing the Lords' house to burn around them while the inhabitants were unharmed, and then bringing the house back from the ashes. In a climactic performance, Xbalanque cut Hunahpu apart and offered him as a sacrifice, only to have the older brother rise once again from the dead.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Enthralled by the performance, One Death and Seven Death, the highest lords of Xibalba, demanded that the miracle be performed upon them. The twins obliged by killing and offering the lords as a sacrifice, but did not bring them back from the dead. The twins then shocked the Xibalbans by revealing their identities as Hunahpu and Xbalanque, sons of One Hunahpu whom they had slain years ago along with their uncle Seven Hunahpu. The Xibalbans despaired, confessed to the crimes of killing the brothers years ago, and begged for mercy. As a punishment for their crimes, the realm of Xibalba was no longer to be a place of greatness, and the Xibalbans would no longer receive offerings from the people who walked on the Earth above. All of Xibalba had effectively been defeated.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Their mission accomplished, the pair left Xibalba, climbing back to the surface of the Earth; but they did not, however, stop there and continued climbing straight on up into the sky - one becoming the Sun, while the other became the Moon.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: For instance, in the creation myth of the Navajo (called the Diné Bahaneʼ) the hero twins Monster Slayer and Born for Water (sons of Changing Woman) acquire lightning bolt arrows from their father, the Sun, in order to rid the world of monsters that prey upon the people.


title: Maya Hero Twins

text: Ho-Chunk and other Siouan-speaking peoples have a tradition of Red Horn's Sons. The mythology of Red Horn and his two sons have some interesting analogies with the Maya Hero Twins mythic cycle.


title: Nara (city)

text: Nara was the capital of Japan during the Nara period from 710 to 794 as the seat of the Emperor before the capital was moved to Kyoto. Nara is home to eight temples, shrines, and ruins, specifically Tōdai-ji, Saidai-ji, Kōfuku-ji, Kasuga Shrine, Gangō-ji, Yakushi-ji, Tōshōdai-ji, and the Heijō Palace, together with Kasugayama Primeval Forest, collectively form the Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


title: Nara (city)

text: By the Heian period, a variety of different characters had been used to represent the name Nara: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .


title: Nara (city)

text: A number of theories for the origin of the name "Nara" have been proposed, and some of the better-known ones are listed here. The second theory in the list, from the notable folklorist Kunio Yanagita (1875–1962), is most widely accepted at present.


title: Nara (city)

text: The "flat land" theory is adopted by Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (the largest dictionary of Japanese language), various dictionaries for place names, history books on Nara, and the like today, and it is regarded as the most likely.


title: Nara (city)

text: By decree of an edict on March 11, 708 AD, Empress Genmei ordered the court to relocate to the new capital, Nara. Once known as Heijō or Heijō-kyō, the city was established as Japan's first permanent capital in 710 CE; it was the seat of government until 784 CE, albeit with a five-year interruption, lasting from 741–45 CE. Heijō, as the ‘penultimate court’, however, was abandoned by the order of Emperor Kammu in 784 CE in favor of the temporary site of Nagaoka, and then Heian-kyō (Kyoto) which retained the status of capital for 1,100 years, until the Meiji Emperor made the final move to Edo in 1869 CE. This first relocation was due to the court's transformation from an imperial nobility to a force of metropolitan elites and new technique of dynastic shedding which had refashioned the relationship between court, nobility, and country. Moreover, the ancient capital lent its name to Nara period.


title: Nara (city)

text: As a reactionary expression to the political centralization of China, the city of Nara (Heijō) was modeled after the Tang capital at Chang’an. Nara was laid out on a grid—which was based upon the Handen system—whereby the city was divided by four great roads. Likewise, according to Chinese cosmology, the ruler's place was fixed like the pole star. By dominating the capital, the ruler brought heaven to earth. Thus, the south-facing palace centered at the north, bisected the ancient city, instituting ‘Right Capital’ and ‘Left Capital’ zones. As Nara came to be a center of Buddhism in Japan and a prominent pilgrimage site, the city plan incorporated various pre-Heijō and Heijō period temples, of which the Yakushiji and the Todaiji still stand.


title: Nara (city)

text: A number of scholars have characterized the Nara period as a time of penal and administrative legal order. The Taihō Code called for the establishment of administrative sects underneath the central government, and modeled many of the codes from the Chinese Tang dynasty. The code eventually disbanded, but its contents were largely preserved in the Yōrō Code of 718.


title: Nara (city)

text: Occupants of the throne during the period gradually shifted their focus from military preparation to religious rites and institutions, in an attempt to strengthen their divine authority over the population.


title: Nara (city)

text: With the establishment of the new capital, Asuka-dera, the temple of the Soga clan, was relocated within Nara. The Emperor Shōmu ordered the construction of Tōdai-ji Temple (largest wooden building in the world) and the world's largest bronze Buddha statue. The temples of Nara, known collectively as the Nanto Shichi Daiji, remained spiritually significant even beyond the move of the political capital to Heian-kyō in 794, thus giving Nara a synonym of Nanto ( "the southern capital").


title: Nara (city)

text: Although Nara was the capital of Japan from 710 to 794, it was not designated a city until 1 February 1898. Nara has since developed from a town of commerce in the Edo and Meiji periods to a modern tourist city, due to its large number of historical temples, landmarks and national monuments. Nara was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in December 1998. The architecture of some shops, ryokans and art galleries has been adapted from traditional merchant houses.


title: Nara (city)

text: Nara holds traditional festivals every year, including the Neri-Kuyo Eshiki, a spring festival held in Todaiji temple for over 1,000 years; and the Kemari Festival, in which people wear costumes ranging across 700 years and play traditional games).


title: Nara (city)

text: In 1909, Tatsuno Kingo designed the Nara Hotel, whose architecture combined modern elements with traditional Japanese style.


title: Nara (city)

text: On 8 July 2022, former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe was shot and killed by Tetsuya Yamagami with a homemade firearm in Nara while campaigning. There is currently an ongoing investigation into the assassination.


title: Nara (city)

text: The city of Nara lies in the northern end of Nara Prefecture, directly bordering Kyoto Prefecture to its north. The city is from North to South, from East to West. As a result of the latest merger, effective April 1, 2005, that combined the villages of Tsuge and Tsukigase with the city of Nara, the city now borders Mie Prefecture directly to its east. The total area is .


title: Nara (city)

text: Nara city, as well as several important settlements (such as Kashihara, Yamatokōriyama, Tenri, Yamatotakada, Sakurai and Goze), are located in the Nara Basin. This makes it the most densely-populated region of Nara Prefecture.


title: Nara (city)

text: The downtown of Nara is on the east side of the ancient Heijō Palace site, occupying the northern part of what was called the , literally the outer capital area. Many of the public offices (e.g. the Municipal office, the Nara Prefectural government, the Nara Police headquarters, etc.) are located on , while Nara branch offices of major nationwide banks are on , with both avenues running east-west.


title: Nara (city)

text: The highest point in the city is at the peak of Kaigahira-yama at an altitude of (Tsugehayama-cho district), and the lowest is in Ikeda-cho district, with an altitude of .


title: Nara (city)

text: The climate of Nara Prefecture is generally temperate, although there are notable differences between the north-western basin area and the rest of the prefecture which is more mountainous.


title: Nara (city)

text: The basin area climate has an inland characteristic, as represented in the higher daily temperature variance, and the difference between summer and winter temperatures. Winter temperatures average approximately , and from in the summer with highest readings reaching close to . There has not been a single year since 1990 with more than 10 days of snowfall recorded by Nara Local Meteorological Observatory.


title: Nara (city)

text: The climate in the rest of the prefecture is that of higher elevations especially in the south, with being the extreme minimum in winter. Heavy rainfall is often observed in summer. The annual accumulated rainfall totals as much as , which is among the heaviest in Japan and indeed in the world outside the equatorial zone.


title: Nara (city)

text: Spring and fall temperatures are temperate and comfortable. The mountainous region of Yoshino has been long popular for viewing cherry blossoms in the spring. In autumn, the southern mountains are also a popular destination for viewing fall foliage.


title: Nara (city)

text: , the city has an estimated population of 359,666 and a population density of 1,300 persons per km. There were 160,242 households residing in Nara. The highest concentration of both households and population, respectively about 46,000 and 125,000, is found along the newer bedtown districts, along the Kintetsu line connecting to Osaka.


title: Nara (city)

text: There were about 3,000 registered foreigners in the city, of which Koreans and Chinese are the two largest groups with about 1,200 and 800 people respectively.


title: Nara (city)

text: According to the legendary history of Kasuga Shrine, the god Takemikazuchi arrived in Nara on a white deer to guard the newly built capital of Heijō-kyō. Since then, the deer have been regarded as heavenly animals, protecting the city and the country.


title: Nara (city)

text: Tame sika deer (also known as spotted deer or Japanese deer) roam through the town, especially in Nara Park. In 2015, there were more than 1,200 sika deer in Nara. Snack vendors sell "sika senbei" (deer crackers) to visitors so they can feed the deer. Some deer have learned to bow in order to receive "senbei" from people.


title: Nara (city)

text: Nara Women's University is one of only two national women's universities in Japan. Nara Institute of Science and Technology is a graduate research university specializing in biological, information, and materials sciences.


title: Nara (city)

text: Private high schools in Nara include the Tōdaiji Gakuen, a private school founded by the temple in 1926.


title: Nara (city)

text: The main central station of Nara is Kintetsu Nara Station with JR Nara station some 500m west and much closer to Shin-Omiya station.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: "The Garden of Forking Paths" (original Spanish title: "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan" (1941), which was republished in its entirety in "Ficciones" ("Fictions") in 1944. It was the first of Borges's works to be translated into English by Anthony Boucher when it appeared in "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" in August 1948.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: The story's theme has been said to foreshadow the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. It may have been inspired by work of the philosopher and science fiction author Olaf Stapledon.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: Borges's vision of "forking paths" has been cited as inspiration by numerous new media scholars, in particular within the field of hypertext fiction. Other stories by Borges that express the idea of infinite texts include "The Library of Babel" and "The Book of Sand".


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: The story takes the form of a signed statement by a Chinese professor of English named Doctor Yu Tsun, who is living in the United Kingdom during World War I. Tsun is a spy for "Abteilung IIIb", the military intelligence service of Imperial Germany.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: As the story begins, Doctor Tsun has realized that an MI5 agent called Captain Richard Madden is pursuing him, has entered the apartment of his handler, Viktor Runeberg, and has either captured or killed him. Doctor Tsun is certain that his own arrest is next. He has just discovered the location of a new British artillery park and wishes to convey that knowledge to Berlin before he is captured. He at last hits upon a plan to achieve this.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: Doctor Tsun explains that his spying has never been for the sake of the Kaiser's Germany, which he considers "a barbarous country." Rather, he says, he knows that Germany's intelligence chief, Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Nicolai, believes the Chinese people to be racially inferior. Doctor Tsun is, therefore, determined to be more intelligent than any White spy and to obtain the information Nicolai needs to save the lives of German soldiers. Doctor Tsun suspects that Captain Madden, an Irish Catholic in the employ of the British Empire, is similarly motivated.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: Taking his few possessions, Doctor Tsun boards a train to the village of Ashgrove. Narrowly avoiding the pursuing Captain Madden at the railway station, he goes to the house of Doctor Stephen Albert, an eminent Sinologist. As he walks up the road to Doctor Albert's house, Doctor Tsun reflects on his great ancestor, Ts'ui Pên, a learned and famous civil servant who renounced his post as governor of Yunnan Province to undertake two tasks: write a vast and intricate novel and construct an equally-vast and intricate labyrinth "in which all men would lose their way." Ts'ui Pên was murdered before he could complete his novel, however, and wrote a "contradictory jumble of irresolute drafts" that made no sense to subsequent readers, and the labyrinth was never found.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: Doctor Tsun arrives at the house of Doctor Albert, who is deeply excited to meet a descendant of Ts'ui Pên. Doctor Albert reveals that he has himself been engaged in a longtime study and an English translation of Ts'ui Pên's novel. Albert explains excitedly that at one stroke he has solved both mysteries: the chaotic and jumbled nature of Ts'ui Pên's unfinished book and the mystery of his lost labyrinth. Doctor Albert's solution is that they are the same, and the novel is the labyrinth.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: Basing his work on the strange legend that Ts'ui Pên had intended to construct an infinite labyrinth and on a cryptic letter from Ts'ui Pên himself stating, "I leave to several futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths," Doctor Albert realized that the "garden of forking paths" was the novel and that the forking takes place in time, rather than space. In most fictions, a character chooses one alternative at each decision point and eliminates all of the others. In Ts'ui Pên's novel, however, all possible outcomes of an event occur simultaneously, all of which themselves lead to further proliferations of possibilities. Albert further explains that the constantly-diverging paths sometimes converge again but as the result of a different chain of causes. For example, Doctor Albert says that in one possible timeline, Doctor Tsun has come to his house as an enemy but in another, he comes as a friend.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: Though trembling with gratitude at Doctor Albert's revelation and at his ancestor's genius, Doctor Tsun glances up the path to see Captain Madden rushing towards the door. Knowing that time is short, Doctor Tsun asks to see Ts'ui Pên's letter again. As Doctor Albert turns to retrieve it, Doctor Tsun draws a revolver and murders him in cold blood.


title: The Garden of Forking Paths

text: Completing his manuscript as he awaits death by hanging, Doctor Tsun explains that he has been arrested, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death. However, he has "most abhorrently triumphed" by revealing to Nicolai the location of the artillery park. Indeed, the park was bombed by the Imperial German Air Service during Tsun's trial. The location of the artillery park was in Albert, near the battlefield of the Somme. Doctor Tsun had known that the only way to convey the information to Berlin was to murder a person with the same name so that news of the murder would appear in British newspapers, which connected with the name of his victim.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Mervyn LeRoy (; October 15, 1900 – September 13, 1987) was an American film director and producer. In his youth he played juvenile roles in vaudeville and silent film comedies.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: During the 1930s, LeRoy was one of the two great practitioners of economical and effective film directing at Warner Brothers studios, the other his cohort Michael Curtiz. LeRoy's most acclaimed films of his tenure at Warners include "Little Caesar" (1931), "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" (1932), "Gold Diggers of 1933" (1933) and "They Won't Forget" (1937).


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy left Warners and moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in 1939 to serve as both director and producer. Perhaps his most notable achievement as a producer is the 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz", of which he was also uncredited as a director.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy was born on October 15, 1900, in San Francisco, California, the only child of Jewish parents Edna (née Armer) and Harry LeRoy, a well-to-do department store owner. Both his parents' families had fully assimilated, residing in the Bay Area for several generations. LeRoy described his relatives as "San Franciscans first, Americans second, Jews third."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's mother was a frequent attendee at San Francisco's premier vaudeville venues, the Orpheum and the Alcazar, often socializing with the theater's personnel. She arranged for the six-year-old LeRoy to serve as a Native-American papoose in the 1906 stage production of "The Squaw Man". LeRoy attributed his early interest in vaudeville to "my mother's fascination with it" and to that of his cousins, Jesse L. Lasky and Blanche Lasky, vaudevillians during LeRoy's youth.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's parents separated suddenly in 1905 for reasons that were not divulged to their son. They never reunited and his father Harry raised LeRoy as a single parent. His mother moved to Oakland, California with Percy Teeple, a travel agent and former journalist, who would later become LeRoy's stepfather after the death of Harry Leroy in 1916. LeRoy visited his mother as a child, regarding her more as "a grandparent or a favorite aunt."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire devastated the city when LeRoy was five-and-a-half years old. He was sleeping in his bed on the second floor when the quake struck in the early morning causing the house to collapse. Neither LeRoy nor his father suffered serious physical injury. His father's import-export store was completely destroyed. LeRoy retained vivid mental images of the city's devastation:


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Reduced to virtual penury, father and son lived as displaced persons at the military-run tent city on the Presidio for the next six months. The elder LeRoy obtained work as a salesman for the Heinz Pickle Company, but his business losses had left him "a beaten man." The young LeRoy emerged from the traumatic event with a sense of pride that he had survived the ordeal and to regard it as fortuitous: "The big thing in my life was the earthquake...it changed my life before I knew I even had one."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: At the age of twelve, with few prospects to acquire a formal education and his father financially strained, LeRoy became a newsboy and earned his first money. His father supported him in this endeavor. LeRoy hawked newspapers at iconic locations, including Chinatown, the Barbary Coast red-light district and Fisherman's Wharf, where he became educated as to the realities of life in the city:


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Selling newspapers near the Alcazar Theatre, LeRoy was spotted by stage star Theodore Roberts. A personable and attractive youth at age fourteen, LeRoy was engaged for a bit part in a 1914 stage production of Barbara Frietchie. Gratified by "that lovely feeling—audience approval", he performed in productions with the Liberty Theater in Oakland, playing the lead juvenile roles in Tom Sawyer and Little Lord Fauntleroy.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: As a 14-year-old, LeRoy carefully observed emerging screen star Charlie Chaplin at a number of film sets in the greater San Francisco area. From these studies, LeRoy devised a burlesque of the comedian, and perfected his imitation on the local amateur circuit. In 1915 he won a competition that hosted almost a thousand Chaplin imitators at the Pantages Theater. His outstanding performance earned him a slot as "The Singing Newsboy" in Sid Grauman's vaudeville show at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition titled "Chinatown by Night".


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: In 1916 his father died, leaving the 15-year-old LeRoy responsible for providing his own financial support.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Now a show-business professional, LeRoy left his newsboy job. Pairing with the 16-year-old actor-pianist Clyde Cooper, they formed a vaudeville routine "LeRoy and Cooper: Two Kids and a Piano." The duo struggled to find engagements, and LeRoy recalled "we would have played toilets if they had offered us some money." Soon they were discovered by the premier vaudeville circuits – Pantages, Gus Sun and Orpheum – and provided with regular bookings on national tours. LeRoy relished the lifestyle of a vaudevillian, occasionally appearing in shows that featured iconic performers of the era, among them Sarah Bernhardt, Harry Houdini and Jack Benny. After three years, and now "a fairly well-established act" in theater listings, the duo amicably disbanded after an unexpected death in Cooper's family.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy joined George Choos's mostly female troupe in musical comedies, and Gus Edwards act billed "The Nine Country Kids" in 1922. LeRoy's enthusiasm for the stage gradually waned and he left the troupe in 1923.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy accepted a bit role in a scene with former "The Perils of Pauline" (1914) star Pearl White filmed at Fort Lee, New Jersey. LeRoy was "thoroughly intrigued" by the filmmaking process, recalling "I knew I was finished with vaudeville. I knew, just as positively that I wanted to get into the movie business."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: In October 1919 LeRoy, just turned 19, approached his cousin Jesse L. Lasky, a former vaudevillian who was twenty years his senior. Lasky was a partner with rising movie moguls Samuel Goldwyn and Adolf Zukor at its New York headquarters at Famous Players-Lasky. Lasky furnished LeRoy with note to the employment department at their Hollywood studios. A week later LeRoy began working in the Wardrobe Unit folding costumes for the American Civil War picture "Secret Service" (1919), earning $12.50 a week.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: According to film historian Kingley Canham, Leroy's "enthusiasm, energy and push", in addition to a further appeal to Jesse Lasky, earned LeRoy promotion to lab technician in the film tinting unit.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's next advancement was achieved through his own initiative. Discovering that director William DeMille wished to create an illusion of moonlight shimmering on a lake to produce a romantic effect, LeRoy devised a technique in the lab:


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Despite LeRoy suffering a stern reprimand, DeMille was delighted with the effect and used the footage in the film. LeRoy was immediately promoted to assistant cameraman.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: After six months behind the camera, LeRoy experienced a disastrous "contretemps" when he improperly adjusted the camera focus settings, ruining footage on several scenes on a DeMille production. LeRoy describes it as "a horrible mess" which led to his dismissal in 1921 as cameraman.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy was soon hired as an extra on Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 epic "The Ten Commandments" LeRoy credits Cecil B. DeMille, for inspiring him to become a director: "As the top director of the era, DeMille had been the magnet that had drawn me to his set as often as I could go." LeRoy also credits DeMille for teaching him the directing techniques required to make his own films.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy worked intermittently in small supporting roles in film during the early 1920s. The youthful and diminutive LeRoy (at and just over ) was consistently cast in juvenile roles. appearing with film stars Wallace Reid, Betty Compson and Gloria Swanson (See Film Chronology table) He performed his last role in "The Chorus Lady" (1924) as "Duke".


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: During the filming of "The Ghost Breaker" (1922), bit actor LeRoy suggested a number of humorous skits, which were incorporated into the picture by director Alfred E. Green. Green offered him a position as "gag man". LeRoy recalled:


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: While working at First National Pictures, LeRoy wrote gags for comedienne Colleen Moore in several films including "Sally" (1925), "The Desert Flower" (1925), "We Moderns" (1925) and "Ella Cinders" (1926). LeRoy served as acting advisor and confidant to Moore. In 1927 her husband John McCormick, studio head at First National in Hollywood, asked LeRoy to direct Moore in a version of "Peg O' My Heart". When the project was cancelled studio president Richard A. Rowland, with Moore advocating, authorized LeRoy to direct a comedy, "No Place to Go", starring Mary Astor and Lloyd Hughes and launching LeRoy's filmmaking career at age twenty-seven.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: His success with "No Place to Go" (1927), was followed by "a string of comedies and jazz-baby dramas" that served as vehicles for actress Alice White and allowed LeRoy to hone his skills as director. His prolific output in the final years of the silent film era included the box-office successes "Harold Teen" with Arthur Lake and "Oh, Kay!" with Colleen Moore.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Warner Brothers acquired First National in 1925 as a subsidiary studio and producer Jack Warner became a mentor and in-law to LeRoy in subsequent years.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's early directing efforts at First National were largely limited to comedies. His movies from this period include "Gentleman's Fate" (1931) with John Gilbert (filmed at M-G-M studios), "Tonight or Never" (1931), with Gloria Swanson, "High Pressure", a proto-screwball comedy with William Powell and Evelyn Brent, and "The Heart of New York" (1932) with Joe Smith.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy embarked on a period of enormous productivity and inventiveness at Warner Studios, creating "some the most polished and ambitious" films of the Thirties. His only rival at Warner's was fellow director Michael Curtiz. Film historian John Baxter observes:


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: In the studio's competitive crucible produced by the Great Depression demanding profitable entertainment, LeRoy directed 36 pictures during the decade (Curtiz filmed an astounding 44 features during the same period). Baxter adds: "No genius could function without variation under such pressure." The social perspective of films favored at Warner Brothers was distinct from those of its chief rivals: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (M-G-M), uncontested for its "technical virtuosity" aimed to serve "middle-class tastes" and Paramount studios identified for its "sophisticated dialogue and baroque settings" that catered to European sensibilities. In contrast, Warner Brothers films carried themes appealing to the working classes.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's output in the early thirties was prodigious. The director attests to the rate of film production at the studios:


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy admits in retrospect that "I shot them so often and so fast that they tend to blend together in my memory."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's social realism mocked corrupt politicians, bankers and the idle rich, while celebrating the Depression Era experiences of "hard-working chorus girls...taxi-drivers and bell-hops struggling to make ends meet in the brawl of New York...gloss and polish were considered useless affectation."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy first departed from his comedy-romance themed films with his drama "Numbered Men" (1930), a character study of convicts shot on location at San Quentin prison. The depiction of criminal elements had enjoyed popularity with Josef von Sternberg's silent classic "Underworld" (1927), a fantasy treatment of his lone Byronic gangster "Bull" Weed. The gangster film as a genre was not achieved until LeRoy's 1930 "Little Caesar", starring Edward G. Robinson, the first time that "any real attempt was made by Hollywood to describe the brutal reality of the criminal world."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's "Little Caesar" established the iconography of subsequent films on organized crime, emphasizing the hierarchy of family loyalties and the function of violence in advancing criminal careers. LeRoy's adroit cinematic handling of Robinson's Rico incrementally shifts initial audience response from revulsion at the character's homicidal acts to a "grudging admiration" that provides for a measure of sympathy when the gangster meets his sordid death in a back alley. LeRoy recalled the topicality of his subject in 1930: "Al Capone was a household word and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre had happened only a year before."


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy further demonstrated his talent for delivering fast-paced and competently executed social commentary and entertainment with "Five Star Final" (1931), an exposé of tabloid journalism, and "Two Seconds" (1932), a "vicious and disenchanted" cautionary tale of a death row inmate, each starring Robinson.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Warner Brothers' most explosive social critique of the 1930s appeared with LeRoy's "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang", dramatizing the harsh penal codes in Georgia and starring Paul Muni as the hunted fugitive James Allen.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Historian John Baxter observes that "no director has managed to close his film on so cold a note as LeRoy." Muni's escaped convict, falsely condemned to hard labor, is reduced to furtive prey: Asked by his estranged sweetheart "how do you get along, how do you live?" he hisses "I steal" and retreats into the night.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: Muni continued to work effectively with LeRoy in "The World Changes" (1933) with Aline MacMahon and in "Hi, Nellie!" (1934) with Glenda Farrell.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: The versatile LeRoy portrayed both hard-boiled and clownish characters at Warner Brothers. His "Hard to Handle" (1933), James Cagney plays a fast-talking and remorselessly unscrupulous con-man, often to comic effect. His 1933 pictures "Tugboat Annie" (with LeRoy on loan to M-G-M), with Marie Dressler and "Elmer, the Great", the final of three pictures that LeRoy made with comic Joe E. Brown, stand in contrast with the director's gangster melodramas.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's socially-themed narrative is evident in his "Three on a Match" (1932) which follows the fates of three young women: a stenographer, a showgirl and a socialite played by Bette Davis, Joan Blondell and Ann Dvorak, respectively. His adroit transitions and cross-cutting provide quick and effective insights into his characters' social rise and fall. The "pitiless "mileau" of grimy backstreets and cheap motels" serve as an implicit social critique without making this the theme of the picture.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: The musical "Gold Diggers of 1933" is one of the outstanding examples of the genre released by Warner Brothers in the Thirties. While the dance stagings—"surreal, geometric, often erotically charged" by choreographer Busby Berkeley dominate the picture, Warner's musicals, according to historian John Baxter "are distinguished enough to be worth considering outside any discussion of Berkeley's dance direction. "The Gold Diggers of 1933" certainly deserves such attention." Offering more than mere depression era escapism, the musical depicts the mass unemployment of veterans of World War I and alludes to the recent Washington D.C. Bonus Army protests, violently suppressed by police and U.S. Army units. The movie closes with the "dark and pessimistic" number "Remember My Forgotten Man".


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy's control of the comedic elements and his direction of a cast endowed with "hard-boiled" heroines Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon and Ginger Rogers, would provide stand alone entertainment even if unencumbered by Berkeley's choreographed numbers. MacMahon, who plays the "ruthless" Trixie was later cast in the lead for LeRoy's dramatic Heat Lightning (1934) as a murderess. a picture which prefigures director Archie Mayo's "The Petrified Forest" (1936).


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy followed with musical-like comedies for Warners in 1934 "Happiness Ahead" with Dick Powell and Josephine Hutchinson, about a society heiress who woos a window washer.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: "Oil for the Lamps of China", an adaption of the Alice Tisdale Hobart novel, is an examination of an American oil company in China, centering on its paternalistic and humiliating treatment of an ambitious company man played by Pat O'Brien. Josephine Hutchinson portrays his long-suffering wife. LeRoy effectively employed cinematic techniques of montage, structural parallels in settings, chiaroscuro lighting and musical leitmotifs to develop atmosphere and convey O'Brien's struggle, ending in his vindication.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: LeRoy returned to light comedy and romance in 1935 with a film adaption of the 1929 Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II stage production of the same name starring Irene Dunne.


title: Mervyn LeRoy

text: and a Marion Davies vehicle "Page Miss Glory" (filmed at Hearst's Cosmopolitan Pictures) and "I Found Stella Parish", with a sentimental ""tour-de-force"" performance by Kay Francis.