title: Memory Stick

text: As of early 2008, Mark 2-certified versions of the Memory Stick PRO Duo became available. The Mark 2 designation indicates the Memory Stick is suitable for use with AVCHD recording products or other faster Memory Stick enabled devices by providing appropriate minimum write performance.


title: Tonight, Tonight (The Smashing Pumpkins song)

text: "Tonight, Tonight" is a song by American alternative rock band the Smashing Pumpkins, written by the band's frontman, Billy Corgan. It was the fourth single and second track on the first disc from their third album, "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", and was released in May 1996 in Europe. "Tonight, Tonight" was critically acclaimed and commercially well-received upon its release, reaching number one in Iceland, number two in New Zealand, number seven in the United Kingdom and number 36 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. The music video accompanying the song was also successful and won several awards.


text: A shorter acoustic version of the song, "Tonite Reprise", was included as a B-side to the single and on the triple LP version of "Mellon Collie". This single also later appeared in an extended form on the box set "The Aeroplane Flies High". Additionally, the song appears on the band's greatest hits release, "Rotten Apples".


text: Billy Corgan began writing for the follow-up to "Siamese Dream" after the tour in support of that album; however, the recording of "Tonight, Tonight" first began while the Pumpkins were still on the "Siamese Dream" tour when Corgan booked the band into a local Chicago studio to record all of their song ideas on tape.


text: On "The Howard Stern Show", Corgan has said that the song pays homage to Cheap Trick, with its black humoresque lyrics and theme, and that the song is addressed to himself, who escaped from an abusive childhood against all odds, so as to keep him believing in himself.


text: "Tonight, Tonight" is written in the key of G, performed on instruments tuned down a half-step so the actual pitch is G/F #. In the original recording sessions, "Tonight, Tonight" was initially written in the key of C instead of G. However, since Corgan was unable to sing the song in C, he wrote a version during the "Mellon Collie" recording sessions to suit his range. The strings for the song were arranged by Billy Corgan and Audrey Riley, and recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Corgan said that recording with a 30-piece string-section for the song "was probably one of the most exciting recording experiences I have ever had."


text: Lyrically, "Tonight, Tonight" hangs together with the rest of the "Mellon Collie". The lyrics of the song have been compared to Robert Herrick's poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time".


text: "Tonight, Tonight" was met with critical acclaim. AllMusic reviewer Amy Hanson stated that the song "packs an emotional punch". Jim Alexander of "NME" regarded the song as "swirling [and] grand". "Music Week" rated it four out of five, adding, "A powerful vocals-led single with ferocious driving guitars. Their most commercial release to date which should gain a high chart placing." "Time"'s reviewer Christopher John Farley called the song "an expansive rock anthem, complete with soaring guitars and a 30-piece string section." "Entertainment Weekly"'s reviewer David Browne praised the use of strings in the song, saying that it was "whipped into a frenzy by hurricane-like strings". On "Mellon Collie"s entry in "Rolling Stone"s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, "Tonight, Tonight" was praised as "the Pumpkins at their finest".


text: While "Tonight, Tonight" never approached the chart success of "1979", it was among the most successful singles from "Mellon Collie". Its highest position on any national chart was a number two peak on the New Zealand Singles Chart. Its highest position in the United States was at number four on "Billboard" Mainstream Rock Tracks. It also achieved number five on the Modern Rock Tracks and number 36 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The song also charted at number 7 on the UK Singles Chart, and peaked at number 21 on the Australian Singles Chart on June 9, 1996. It placed at 50th in a list of best rock songs of all time broadcast by Kerrang! TV.


text: The music video, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, starred Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, a married couple who were, at the time, cast members on the sketch comedy program "Mr. Show with Bob and David" and would later gain international fame for their voicework on "SpongeBob SquarePants". The original idea for the music video was for a Busby Berkeley-style video, complete with "people diving into champagne glasses". The band was set to begin production on the video when they discovered that the Red Hot Chili Peppers had done a similarly styled video for their song "Aeroplane", which was almost identical to what they had wanted to do. The second idea for the video was that as the band played on a surreal stage, the camera would go into audience members' eyes and the viewer would see that person's vision of the song. The third and final concept, inspired by Georges Méliès's silent film "A Trip to the Moon", came from directors Dayton and Faris, whose inspiration for the video came from the album cover for "Mellon Collie", which reminded them of early silent films. Hence, the video was filmed much like a turn-of-the-century silent film using theater-style backdrops and primitive special effects, with most of the backdrops and puppetwork created by artist Wayne White.


text: Dayton and the production crew initially had problems locating costumes for the video because the movie "Titanic" was being shot at the same time in Los Angeles. "Titanic" director James Cameron rented nearly every turn-of-the-century prop and costume in the city, leaving the "Tonight, Tonight" production crew little to work with. Dayton and Faris compromised by renting the leftover costumes and hiring designers to remake them into the elaborate period clothing seen in the video, which took three days to shoot.


text: The video, which debuted in May 1996, begins with a group of people celebrating the launch of a zeppelin to the moon. Kenny's character kisses Talley's character's hand as the two enter the zeppelin, which was being held to the ground by people dressed as sailors using rope. The zeppelin approaches the Moon, which has a face like the Moon's face in "A Trip to the Moon". Shots of the band performing in similar, turn-of-the-century attire using older, acoustic instruments are interspersed. The two characters jump off the zeppelin and land onto the Moon's surface, slowing their descent using umbrellas. Suddenly, several hostile humanoid aliens appear, surrounding the couple. Kenny's character gets ready to defend them, but Talley's character intervenes and hits a few creatures with her umbrella, which vaporizes them, but the two are trapped and tied. The two form a plan, and then break free of the ropes and attack the aliens with their umbrellas. The couple escapes on a rocket similar to the one in "A Trip to the Moon" and land in the sea, where a merman resembling the sea-god Poseidon puts on a performance for them, including an octopus, singing mermaids, and starfish, before sending them back to the surface in a bubble. In the end, the ship "S.S. Méliès", named after the movie director, rescues the couple.


text: The music video was heavily aired on MTV and won several awards. Corgan remarked that "I don't think we've ever had people react [like this]...it just seemed to touch a nerve." It won six awards at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards: Video of the Year, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction in a Video , Best Special Effects in a Video , Best Art Direction in a Video and Best Cinematography in a Video . "Tonight, Tonight" was nominated for Best Editing in a Video and Viewer's Choice, and was also nominated for Best Music Video, Short Form at the 39th Annual Grammy Awards. It is still considered one of the greatest music videos of all time, ranking number 40 on "Stylus Magazine"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s list of the top 100 music videos of all time.


text: Though regular 6-string acoustic guitars and electric bass guitar was used in the original studio recording of the song, in the music video, befitting the turn-of-the-century theme, some interesting instruments were used as 'props'; James Iha can be seen using a Gibson harp guitar and D'arcy Wretzky is seen playing an instrument that resembles the 1924 Gibson mandobass.


text: The "Tonight, Tonight" single was released with two different versions containing different b-sides, one as a standard single and the other as a CD included in the singles box set, "The Aeroplane Flies High". All songs written by Billy Corgan.


text: "Tonight, Tonight" has been covered by electropop band Passion Pit, whose version was featured on Levi's "Pioneer Sessions 2010 Revival Recordings" and was also featured during the season 1, episode 3 of MTV's "Teen Wolf" ("Pack Mentality".); Their cover plays near the end of the movie "10 Years". Panic! at the Disco, as a live recording, wherein they replaced the lyrics "The place where you were born" with "The place where Jon Walker [former Panic! at the Disco bassist] was born", and "The Voice U.S" contestant Katrina Parker, who covered this song on the show's first live round.


title: Veteran (2015 film)

text: Veteran () is a 2015 South Korean action comedy film written and directed by Ryoo Seung-wan. It drew 13.4 million admissions, making it the 5th all-time highest-grossing film in South Korean cinema history. "Veteran" also won the Casa Asia Award at the Sitges Film Festival.


title: Veteran (2015 film)

text: Seo Do-cheol is a merciless police detective, who investigates the suicide of a truck driver named Bae, where he learns from Bae's son that Jo Tae-oh, the sadistic third-generation heir to powerful conglomerate "Sinjin Group" has assaulted Bae as Bae protested against the conglomerate for back-payment . Do-cheol personally begins the investigation. Threatened due to Do-cheol's interference, Tae-oh uses his influence and makes Do-cheol to handle another case. He also tries to bribe Do-cheol's wife with the help of his conglomerate's SVP Choi Dae-woong, but she refuses, where Do-cheol threatens Tae-oh after learning this.


title: Veteran (2015 film)

text: Do-cheol takes the help of a reporter to publish the news, but to no avail. Tae-oh hires a logistics contractor named Jeon to finish Do-cheol and also makes the Internal affairs to interrogate him, but is timely saved by his team leader Oh. Do-cheol escapes a murder attempt by Jeon, where a cop gets stabbed. Using the opportunity, Da-cheol and his team discover the evidence and gets approval for the investigation against Tae-oh, but Tae-oh's father and the conglomerate chairman Jo makes Dae-woong to take the blame. With his team's help, Do-cheol learns that Bae was killed after he tried to seek revenge for assaulting him, and was made it as a suicide.


title: Veteran (2015 film)

text: After inquiring Dae-woong, Do-cheol learns that Tae-oh is headed for Singapore. Tae-oh throws a party before leaving where Tae-oh meets his former girlfriend Jeong Da-hye (who is pregnant with his child) and tries to kill her when she abuses him. Do-cheol prepares a plan where they plant a false case against Tae-oh for assaulting his girlfriend, where the cops fight with the bodyguards to arrest him. After an intense car chase, Do-cheol and Tae-oh engage in a hand-to-hand combat where despite brutal injuries, Do-cheol manages to arrest Tae-oh, who is produced for a trial at the Supreme Court along with Dae-woong and are sentenced to prison. Do-cheol recovers from his injuries in the hospital and returns back to duty.


title: Veteran (2015 film)

text: "Veteran" opened in South Korea on August 5, 2015. It grossed () from 2.75 million admissions over its first five days of release. By November 6, it had grossed from 13,411,343 admissions and is currently the 5th all-time highest-grossing film in Korean cinema history.


title: Veteran (2015 film)

text: Ryoo Seung-wan and production company "Filmmaker R&K" confirmed that they agreed to make a sequel, which was supposed to hit theaters within two to three years of announcement. It was reported that Hwang Jung-min and Oh Dal-su will reprise their roles, and actor Jung Hae-in is also being considered to succeed Yoo Ah-in as the antagonist. It began filming as "Veteran 2" in December 2022 with the cast of Hwang Jung-min, Oh Dal-su, Jang Yoon-ju, Oh Dae-hwan, and Kim Si-hoo.


title: Veteran (2015 film)

text: A Chinese remake starring Sun Honglei was scheduled for release in China in 2017. Eventually, the remake "The Big Shot" was released in 2019 and starred Wang Qianyuan.


title: Web traffic

text: Web traffic is the data sent and received by visitors to a website. Since the mid-1990s, web traffic has been the largest portion of Internet traffic. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular and if there are any apparent trends, such as one specific page being viewed mostly by people in a particular country. There are many ways to monitor this traffic, and the gathered data is used to help structure sites, highlight security problems or indicate a potential lack of bandwidth.


title: Web traffic

text: Some companies offer advertising schemes that, in return for increased web traffic (visitors), pay for screen space on the site.


title: Web traffic

text: Sites also often aim to increase their web traffic through inclusion on search engines and through search engine optimization.


title: Web traffic

text: Web analytics is the measurement of the behavior of visitors to a website. In a commercial context, it especially refers to the measurement of which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives of Internet marketing initiatives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase.


title: Web traffic

text: The amount of traffic seen by a website is a measure of its popularity. By analyzing the statistics of visitors, it is possible to see shortcomings of the site and look to improve those areas. It is also possible to increase the popularity of a site and the number of people that visit it.


title: Web traffic

text: It is sometimes important to protect some parts of a site by password, allowing only authorized people to visit particular sections or pages.


title: Web traffic

text: Some site administrators have chosen to block their page to specific traffic, such as by geographic location. The re-election campaign site for U.S. President George W. Bush (GeorgeWBush.com) was blocked to all internet users outside of the U.S. on 25 October 2004 after a reported attack on the site.


title: Web traffic

text: It is also possible to limit access to a web server both based on the number of connections and the bandwidth expended by each connection.


title: Web traffic

text: The majority of website traffic is driven by search engines. Millions of people use search engines every day to research various topics, buy products, and go about their daily surfing activities. Search engines use keywords to help users find relevant information, and each of the major search engines has developed a unique algorithm to determine where websites are placed within the search results. When a user clicks on one of the listings in the search results, they are directed to the corresponding website and data is transferred from the website's server, thus counting the visitors towards the overall flow of traffic to that website.


title: Web traffic

text: Search engine optimization (SEO), is the ongoing practice of optimizing a website to help improve its rankings in the search engines. Several internal and external factors are involved which can help improve a site's listing within the search engines. The higher a site ranks within the search engines for a particular keyword, the more traffic it will receive.


title: Web traffic

text: Web traffic can be increased by the placement of a site in search engines and the purchase of advertising, including bulk e-mail, pop-up ads, and in-page advertisements.


title: Web traffic

text: Web traffic can be increased not only by attracting more visitors to a site, but also by encouraging individual visitors to "linger" on the site, viewing many pages in a visit. ("see Outbrain for an example of this practice")


title: Web traffic

text: If a web page is not listed in the first pages of any search, the odds of someone finding it diminishes greatly (especially if there is other competition on the first page). Very few people go past the first page, and the percentage that go to subsequent pages is substantially lower. Consequently, getting proper placement on search engines, a practice known as SEO, is as important as the website itself.


title: Web traffic

text: Too much web traffic can dramatically slow down or prevent all access to a website. This is caused by more file requests going to the server than it can handle and may be an intentional attack on the site or simply caused by over-popularity. Large-scale websites with numerous servers can often cope with the traffic required, and it is more likely that smaller services are affected by traffic overload. Sudden traffic load may also hang your server or may result in a shutdown of your services.


title: Web traffic

text: Denial-of-service attacks (DoS attacks) have forced websites to close after a malicious attack, flooding the site with more requests than it could cope with. Viruses have also been used to coordinate large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks.


title: Web traffic

text: A sudden burst of publicity may accidentally cause a web traffic overload. A news item in the media, a quickly propagating email, or a link from a popular site may cause such a boost in visitors (sometimes called a flash crowd or the Slashdot effect).


title: Web traffic

text: Interactive Advertising Bureau estimated in 2014 that around one third of Web traffic is generated by Internet bots and malware.


title: Web traffic

text: According to Mozilla since January 2017, more than half of the Web traffic is encrypted with HTTPS. Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, and it secures information and data transfer between a user's browser and a website.


title: Professional Performing Arts School

text: The Professional Performing Arts School, colloquially known as PPAS, is a public middle and high school in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City.


title: Professional Performing Arts School

text: PPAS was created in 1990 to meet the needs of two groups of students: those who wanted to pursue professional work in the arts as they earned a junior/senior high school diploma and those who wanted to study the arts as an avocation.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: Lee attended Catholic High School and National Junior College before graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge with a double first in engineering science under the President's Scholarship and Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship awarded by the Public Service Commission.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: Lee served in command and staff positions in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and held the rank of Brigadier-General. After leaving the military, he joined SingTel in April 1994 as the Executive Vice President of Local Services. In May 1995, he became its Chief Executive Officer and held this appointment until March 2007.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: In September 2007, Fraser and Neave appointed Lee as a Non-Executive Director and Chairman-Designate with effect from 6 September 2007. Lee assumed the position of Non-Executive Chairman of the Company and Consultant on 15 October 2007. On 1 July 2009, Lee was appointed as the Chairman of the restructured Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) by Singapore's Transport Minister Raymond Lim. On 26 February 2013, it was announced that Lee had stepped down from the board of Fraser and Neave.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: Lee has held other positions such as: Board Member and Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Singapore Exchange; Independent Director of the Islamic Bank of Asia (a subsidiary of DBS Bank) and the Australian & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ); Member of the Governing Board of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy; Member of the Board of Asia Pacific Investment; Chairman of Republic Polytechnic; Member of Rolls-Royce Holdings's international advisory board.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: On 24 June 2020, Lee joined the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) led by the former Member of Parliament (MP) Tan Cheng Bock, citing that the People's Action Party (PAP) has lost its way, it is no longer the People's Action Party of its founding principles that Mr Lee Kuan Yew had envisioned. The PSP is one of the opposition parties that are running against the incumbent PAP government, which is led by Lee's elder brother, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: Lee decided not to run as a candidate for the 2020 Singaporean general election, stating that "Singapore doesn't need another Lee".


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: Lee is the younger son and youngest child of former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew and Kwa Geok Choo. His elder brother, Lee Hsien Loong, is the current Prime Minister. His elder sister, Lee Wei Ling, is a former director of the National Neuroscience Institute.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: Lee first met Lim Suet Fern, the daughter of the economist Lim Chong Yah, while he was studying at University of Cambridge, they were married in July 1981. Lim would later become the founder and managing partner of Stamford Law Corporation and a president of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA). The couple have three sons: Li Shengwu, Li Huanwu, and Li Shaowu. Their eldest son, Li Shengwu, is currently serving as Assistant Professor in Economics at Harvard University. He graduated from Balliol College of the University of Oxford as the top student in the Philosophy, Politics and Economics programme in 2009, received an MPhil degree in Economics from Oxford in 2011, and received a PhD degree from Stanford University in 2016.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: His child Li Huanwu came out as gay in July 2018. Li Huanwu married his partner, Heng Yirui, a vet working for Mandai Wildlife Group, in South Africa on 24 May 2019.


title: Lee Hsien Yang

text: Lee and his sister, Lee Wei Ling, are the joint administrators and executors of Lee Kuan Yew's will. However, they were in a dispute in 2017 with Lee Hsien Loong over their late father's will with regard to the house at 38 Oxley Road. They "felt threatened by Lee Hsien Loong's misuse of his position and influence over the Singapore government and its agencies to drive his personal agenda". They alleged that their brother thwarted the will of their father in order to use the house as a monument to milk his father's legacy. They also criticised the influence of Ho Ching over the government, and alleged that the Prime Minister harboured political ambitions for his son, Li Hongyi. A special parliamentary session was held to clear the Prime Minister of any wrongdoings and the siblings agreed to keep the dispute private after the session.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: The 2018 Elimination Chamber (known as No Escape in Germany) was the eighth Elimination Chamber professional wrestling pay-per-view and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw brand division. The event took place on February 25, 2018, at the T-Mobile Arena in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada. It was the final Raw-exclusive pay-per-view under the second brand split as following WrestleMania 34 in April, WWE discontinued brand-exclusive PPVs. The 2018 event was also the first to feature a seven-man Elimination Chamber match, the first event to include a women's Elimination Chamber match, and the first Raw-exclusive pay-per-view since the 2016 reintroduction of the brand extension to not feature any cruiserweight division matches.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Six matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, Roman Reigns won the first-ever seven-man Elimination Chamber match to become the number one contender against Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 34. On the undercard, Alexa Bliss retained the Raw Women's Championship in the first-ever women's Elimination Chamber match, and Asuka defeated Nia Jax to extend her undefeated streak and to prevent Jax from being added to her WrestleMania 34 championship match. The event was also notable for Ronda Rousey signing her Raw contract, where she had a confrontation with Chief Operating Officer Triple H and Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon, which was the former's first appearance since the night after Survivor Series in November 2017.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Elimination Chamber is a gimmick pay-per-view (PPV) and WWE Network event first produced by WWE in 2010. It has been held every year since, except in 2016, generally in February. The concept of the show is that one or two main event matches are contested inside the Elimination Chamber, either with championships or future opportunities at championships at stake. While the 2017 event was a SmackDown-exclusive show, the 2018 event was held exclusively for the Raw brand. The 2018 event was the eighth event under the Elimination Chamber chronology and took place on February 25, 2018, at the T-Mobile Arena in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: In 2011 and since 2013, the show has been promoted as "No Escape" in Germany as it was feared that the name "Elimination Chamber" may remind people of the gas chambers used during the Holocaust.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: The card comprised six matches, including one on the Kickoff pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches, with results predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw brand. Storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television show "Monday Night Raw". The card was highlighted by two Elimination Chamber matches, one of which was the first to involve women, and the men's chamber match was the first to have seven participants.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: At the Royal Rumble, Shinsuke Nakamura won the men's Royal Rumble match and decided to stay on SmackDown to challenge for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 34. This left Brock Lesnar, who retained his Universal Championship in a triple threat match against Braun Strowman and Kane at the same event, without an opponent at WrestleMania. In response, Raw General Manager Kurt Angle scheduled an Elimination Chamber match to determine the number one contender for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania. Six qualification matches were scheduled. The first three were contested on the January 29 episode of "Raw". In the first, Strowman defeated Kane in a last man standing match to qualify. Elias then qualified by defeating "Woken" Matt Hardy after a distraction from Bray Wyatt, and free agent John Cena defeated Finn Bálor to qualify. The following week, Elias defeated Cena and Strowman in a triple threat match to determine who would enter the chamber last. That same episode, Roman Reigns and Intercontinental Champion The Miz qualified by defeating Wyatt and Apollo Crews (whose ringname was later shortened to Apollo), respectively. On the next episode, Cena defeated The Miz in a match where the loser would be one of the starting participants in their chamber match. Later, the final qualification match took place in what was originally a second chance fatal four-way match between Bálor, Wyatt, Hardy, and Apollo. However, Angle added Seth Rollins, thus making it a fatal five-way. Rollins and Bálor both simultaneously pinned Wyatt, and it was decided that both would be a part of the Elimination Chamber match, marking the first seven-man chamber match. The following week, all seven men participated in a gauntlet match that began with Reigns and Rollins. Reigns was eliminated followed by Cena. Elias then eliminated Rollins, but was in turn eliminated by Bálor, who was eliminated by The Miz. Strowman won the gauntlet match by pinning The Miz in what was the longest match in WWE history, lasting nearly two hours.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: On the January 29 episode of "Raw", Commissioner Stephanie McMahon convinced Asuka, who won the inaugural women's Royal Rumble match the previous night at the Royal Rumble, to wait until after Elimination Chamber to pick which championship to challenge for at WrestleMania 34, as Raw Women's Champion Alexa Bliss was scheduled to defend her title in the first-ever women's Elimination Chamber match. The following week, General Manager Kurt Angle announced that Bayley, Mandy Rose, Mickie James, Sasha Banks, and Sonya Deville would be the other competitors in the match. Bliss came out and questioned Angle as to why she had to defend her title in the Elimination Chamber match while Universal Champion Brock Lesnar did not and accused Angle of sexism. Angle retorted that Lesnar retained his title at the Royal Rumble, but Bliss had not defended her title since in October. Bliss made the point that she was not the one who schedules matches. Angle then took an audience vote if Bliss should defend the title, and the audience agreed that she should. The following week, Bayley defeated Banks, and Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville defeated Bliss & James, who Bliss tried to befriend. The next episode, Bayley, Banks, and James defeated Bliss, Rose, and Deville by submission, after which, the women brawled.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: On the January 15 episode of "Raw", Asuka defeated Nia Jax after the referee stopped the match, who deemed Jax unable to continue. Both then competed in the inaugural women's Royal Rumble match at the Royal Rumble, which Asuka won for the right to challenge for either the Raw Women's Championship or SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania 34. On the February 5 episode of "Raw", General Manager Kurt Angle announced that Jax would face Asuka at Elimination Chamber and if she were to defeat Asuka, Jax would be added to Asuka's championship match at WrestleMania to make it a triple threat match. The following week, after a match between Bayley and Sasha Banks, Jax attacked both women to send a message to Asuka. Whilst walking up the ramp, she proclaimed that she would be the one to end Asuka's undefeated streak. The following week, Jax attacked and laid out Asuka during her interview with Renee Young.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Following Asuka's Royal Rumble match victory at the Royal Rumble, former UFC star Ronda Rousey made an appearance and interrupted Asuka, Raw Women's Champion Alexa Bliss, and SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair. Rousey's appearance confirmed that she had signed full-time with WWE. On the February 12 episode of "Raw", it was announced that Rousey would sign her Raw contract at Elimination Chamber.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: After losing a feud to Elias, Matt Hardy was defeated by Bray Wyatt on the November 27, 2017 episode of "Raw". Following the match, Hardy had a mental breakdown where he sat in the corner and repeatedly shouted "delete" with an arm gesture. This would be the genesis of Hardy's transition into "Woken" Matt Hardy (WWE's version of his "Broken" gimmick from Total Nonstop Action Wrestling) where he debuted as the character the following week, interrupting a promo by Wyatt. Over the following month, the two went back and forth in promos as well as a couple of in-ring confrontations, and they finally had a match on "Raw 25" on January 22, 2018 in which Wyatt defeated Hardy once again. The two then faced off in the Royal Rumble match, where they eliminated each other. On the February 19 episode of "Raw", another match between the two was scheduled for Elimination Chamber.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Prior to the Royal Rumble, Titus Worldwide (Apollo and Titus O'Neil) gained two consecutive wins over number one contenders Cesaro and Sheamus. At the Royal Rumble, Cesaro and Sheamus eventually won the Raw Tag Team Championship from Jason Jordan and Seth Rollins to become record four-time champions as a team, and a record fifth reign for Cesaro individually. Titus Worldwide received a title opportunity on "Raw" immediately following the Royal Rumble, but were unsuccessful, and Cesaro and Sheamus also retained their titles in Jordan and Rollins' contractual rematch, though Roman Reigns subbed for an injured Jordan. On the February 19 episode of "Raw", Titus Worldwide defeated Cesaro and Sheamus in a non-title match. Afterwards, they challenged Cesaro and Sheamus for the Raw Tag Team Championship at Elimination Chamber for being 3-1 over the champions, which was made official on February 23.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: On February 23, Bálor Club members Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson were scheduled to face The Miztourage (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel) on the Elimination Chamber Kickoff pre-show.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: During the Elimination Chamber Kickoff pre-show, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson of the Bálor Club faced The Miztourage (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel). In the climax, Gallows and Anderson performed the "Magic Killer" on Axel for the win.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: The actual pay-per-view opened with the first-ever women's Elimination Chamber match in which Alexa Bliss defended the Raw Women's Championship against Bayley, Sonya Deville, Sasha Banks, Mandy Rose, and Mickie James. Bayley and Deville were the first two contestants. Rose entered next, assisting Deville in attacking Bayley. Banks entered third and immediately attacked both Deville and Rose. Rose was eliminated by Banks after submitting to the "Bank Statement". James then entered and eliminated Deville after a diving seated senton off a pod. Following this, Bayley performed a "Bayley-to-Belly" on James to eliminate her. Defending champion Bliss entered last and was hesitant to enter so Bliss climbed the pod instead; Banks was able to knock her down on top of a pod. Banks then turned her attention to Bayley and Bayley subsequently gave Banks a "Bayley to Belly". Bliss eliminated Bayley with a roll-up. Bliss then performed " Twisted Bliss" off a pod on Banks, who applied the Banks Statement on Bliss; Bliss was able to escape. Bliss then won the match after performing a spike DDT on Banks to retain her title. After the match, an elated Bliss said that nobody thought that she would remain champion and that she proved why she is the ultimate goddess of the Women's Division.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Next, Cesaro and Sheamus defended the Raw Tag Team Championship against Titus Worldwide (Apollo and Titus O'Neil). In the end, Cesaro and Sheamus performed a "White Noise"/diving neckbreaker combination on Apollo to retain the title.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: After that, Asuka faced Nia Jax where if Jax won, she would be added to Asuka's championship match at WrestleMania 34. After dominating most of the match, Jax attempted a powerbomb, but Asuka countered into a roll up for the win, keeping Jax out of her WrestleMania championship match. After the match, Jax tackled Asuka through the barricade. Bliss was later interviewed and looked pleased with what transpired between Asuka and Jax. Bliss then mocked Asuka by declaring that no one is ready for her.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: In the fourth match, "Woken" Matt Hardy fought Bray Wyatt. Hardy won after a "Twist of Fate" on Wyatt.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Next was the Raw contract signing of Ronda Rousey. General Manager Kurt Angle, Commissioner Stephanie McMahon, and WWE's Chief Operating Officer Triple H bragged about Rousey before introducing her. However, before Rousey signed her contract, Triple H confirmed that there were no special stipulations in Rousey's contract, but she would compete in a match at WrestleMania 34. Angle then brought up the incident from WrestleMania 31 where Rousey and The Rock embarrassed Stephanie and Triple H, and said that Triple H and Stephanie were now glad that they owned Rousey so they could manipulate her. Triple H and Stephanie tried to calm the situation, however, Angle instigated the tension more, which resulted in Rousey throwing Triple H through a table. Stephanie then slapped Rousey, but retreated before Rousey could attack her. Rousey then signed her contract.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: The main event was the first-ever seven-man Elimination Chamber match with the victor becoming the number one contender against Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 34. Due to the extra participant, three men began the match instead of two, which were The Miz, Seth Rollins, and Finn Bálor. John Cena entered the match as the fourth entrant, followed by Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman. Strowman performed a running powerslam on The Miz to eliminate him. The last man to enter the match was Elias. Cena performed AA and Reigns performed a Spear on Strowman able kickout. Strowman then eliminated Elias, Cena, Bálor, and Rollins by performing a running powerslam on each of them. The final two were Strowman and Reigns. In the climax, Reigns performed three superman punches and two spears on Strowman to win the match and earn the right to challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 34. After the match, Strowman attacked Reigns with two running powerslams and tackled Reigns through a pod.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Universal Champion Brock Lesnar and his advocate Paul Heyman were advertised to be on the following night's episode of "Raw" to confront the winner of the Elimination Chamber match, but no-showed. Roman Reigns cut a promo on his WrestleMania 34 opponent, calling Lesnar entitled and that he hides behind his contract, which allows him to show up whenever he wants. He said Lesnar does not respect the WWE and that he has no respect for Lesnar, but he would defeat Lesnar at WrestleMania and become the Universal Champion.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Raw Women's Champion Alexa Bliss, along with Mickie James, gloated about retaining her title in the first-ever women's Elimination Chamber match. She said at WrestleMania 34, if Asuka chose her, she would end her undefeated streak. Asuka then came out, but Nia Jax was close behind and the three women teamed up on Asuka until Bayley and Sasha Banks came out for the save, with James turning heel in the process. Asuka, Banks, and Bayley then teamed up to face Bliss, James, and Jax in a six-woman tag team match. During the match, Banks went to tag Bayley, but Bayley refused the tag. Asuka won the match for her team by making James submit. Asuka and Jax had a rematch the following week where Asuka was again victorious. Asuka then decided that she would challenge Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania. Jax would then be granted a Raw Women's Championship match at WrestleMania after Bliss revealed her true feelings about Jax.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Ronda Rousey, General Manager Kurt Angle, Commissioner Stephanie McMahon, and Chief Operating Officer Triple H had a segment to apologize for what happened at Elimination Chamber. During the segment, Angle, in an attempt to keep his job, said that he lied about Triple H and Stephanie's supposed plan against Rousey. Stephanie thanked Angle for clearing the air, however, Rousey said everything was addressed except for Stephanie slapping her in the face. Rousey wanted an apology from Stephanie, who complied and said she only did it because Rousey put her husband through a table. As Stephanie and Triple H were leaving, Triple H punched Angle. The following week, Stephanie confirmed that Rousey could choose any member of the active Raw roster as her WrestleMania 34 opponent except the champion; Rousey chose Stephanie. Angle reminded Stephanie that although she was an executive, she had a contract to compete as a wrestler. Angle also reminded Triple H of his warning from Survivor Series where if Triple H were to attack him again, he would retaliate. He also reminded Triple H that he too had a contract to compete as a wrestler and then scheduled Triple H and Stephanie to face himself and Rousey at WrestleMania.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Intercontinental Champion The Miz said that he should be in the main event of WrestleMania 34 and said that he had made the Intercontinental Championship more important than the Universal Championship. He was told by General Manager Kurt Angle that his opponent that night might determine his WrestleMania opponent. Seth Rollins then came out and defeated The Miz in a match. Finn Bálor then came out to also have a match with Miz, which confused Rollins. The Miztourage attacked Bálor right after the match started, causing a disqualification, and Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson came to Bálor's aid. Angle appeared on the TitanTron and banned The Miztourage and Gallows and Anderson from ringside and restarted the match, stating that there would be a winner or else Miz would not have a match at WrestleMania. Bálor then defeated Miz. The following week, Angle scheduled Miz to defend the title in a triple threat match against Rollins and Bálor at WrestleMania.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Bray Wyatt was scheduled to have a match with Heath Slater, but the match did not happen as he attacked Slater and his tag team partner Rhyno before the match could begin. Afterwards, he said his war with "Woken" Matt Hardy was not over. The following week, after defeating Rhyno, Wyatt called out Hardy, who appeared on the TitanTron and challenged Wyatt to an "Ultimate Deletion" match at the Hardy Compound (WWE's version of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's "Final Deletion" match, a Falls-Count-Anywhere Hardcore match fought at Hardy's house). Wyatt accepted the challenge. The "Ultimate Deletion" match aired on the March 19 episode where Hardy defeated Wyatt by pinfall, then Wyatt disappeared after being thrown into the "Lake of Reincarnation".


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Titus Worldwide (Apollo and Titus O'Neil) had a rematch against Cesaro and Sheamus for the Raw Tag Team Championship in a two-out-of-three falls match where Cesaro and Sheamus again retained. The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson) then had a non-title match with the champions where had they won, they would have received a championship match at WrestleMania 34, but the champions were victorious. Braun Strowman, who settled his differences with Elias, then won a tag team battle royal by himself to determine Cesaro and Sheamus' challengers at WrestleMania. Angle declared that Strowman had to find a partner, and Strowman said he would.


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: Despite being the third competitor on the receiving end of a pinfall loss to Braun Strowman in the Elimination Chamber match, John Cena still wanted a match at WrestleMania 34 and challenged The Undertaker. However, he revealed that he was told that the match was impossible. He then said that he would use his free agent status to go to "SmackDown Live" the following night to earn a match at WrestleMania. On "SmackDown", Cena was given the opportunity to be added to the WWE Championship match at SmackDown's pay-per-view Fastlane if he could defeat WWE Champion AJ Styles in a non-title match. Cena defeated Styles, making the WWE Championship match at Fastlane a Six-Pack Challenge (the other participants were Baron Corbin, Kevin Owens, Dolph Ziggler, and Sami Zayn).


title: Elimination Chamber (2018)

text: The 2018 Elimination Chamber would be the final Elimination Chamber event to be brand-exclusive, and subsequently the final Raw-exclusive PPV of the second brand split, as following WrestleMania 34 in April, WWE discontinued brand-exclusive pay-per-views.


title: Charlie Shotwell

text: Charlie Shotwell (born July 17, 2007) is an American actor. He started acting professionally at the age of six. His first notable role being the young Nai Cash in the 2016 comedy-drama film "Captain Fantastic" for which he received nominations for SAG Awards and Young Artist Awards. He was lead of the Netflix horror film "Eli" and the coming-of-age psychological thriller "John and the Hole", and appeared in the comedy film "Troop Zero".


title: Charlie Shotwell

text: Shotwell was born in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2015, Shotwell made his acting debut with the war-drama "Man Down", playing the son of Shia LaBeouf and Kate Mara's character; Dito Montiel directed the film. He then starred as the youngest member of a survivalist left-wing philosophers' family in the Matt Ross directed comedy-drama "Captain Fantastic". In 2017, Shotwell played the young Brian Walls in the Destin Daniel Cretton drama "The Glass Castle". Later, he appeared in the Tali Shalom Ezer romance-drama "My Days of Mercy". Soon after, Shotwell guest-starred in the episode "Lily's Law" of the tv-series "Chicago Justice". Shotwell soon gained further recognition as a young John Paul Getty III in the 2017 Ridley Scott thriller "All the Money in the World". Then in 2018, he performed as an English convict in the drama-thriller "The Nightingale".


title: Charlie Shotwell

text: In 2019, Shotwell starred in the title role of the Netflix horror film "Eli", directed by Ciarán Foy. Also that year, he played Joseph in the Amazon Studios comedy film "Troop Zero", about 1970s girl scouts. In 2020 appears in family-thriller "The Nest", playing Benjamin O'Hara, directed by Sean Durkin. Also in 2020, Shotwell appears on the horror podcast "Borrasca" by QCODE, and in the pilot episode "Staged Dad" on "YouTube".


title: Charlie Shotwell

text: In 2021 he plays John, in the coming-of-age psychological thriller "John and the Hole", directed by Pascual Sisto and written by Nicolás Giacobone. Commenting on Charlie Shotwell's performance in "Variety", Peter Debruge said that "child actor (...) goes deep in creepy family portrait [a] remarkable new talent Pascual Sisto's feature debut offers an unsettling look at a kid with something missing where his conscience should be." Also in 2021, he plays Hurley, in the horror film "The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre", by Max Martini.


title: Charlie Shotwell

text: In February 2022, a short film "Whiskey Pete" was released on "YouTube", directed by Stefan Colson, where Shotwell plays the kid. Still in 2022, Shotwell will play the young Michael Morbius in the upcoming superhero film "Morbius", and Jules Brennen in "Chorus", short by Daniel J. Egbert.


title: Charlie Shotwell

text: Charlie Shotwell has three siblings, who are also actors: Jimmy and Henry Shotwell, and a step sister, Shree Crooks, who is Greg Crooks' daughter. They worked acting together in the pilot episode of "Staged Dad" and the short film "Whiskey Pete".


title: Liz Rose

text: Elisabeth Wagner (born September 6, 1957), known professionally as Liz Rose, is an American country music songwriter, best known for her work with Taylor Swift. She has co-written seventeen of Swift's officially released songs, including "You Belong with Me", which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, "Teardrops on My Guitar", "White Horse", which won both Swift and her a Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 2010 and "All Too Well (Taylor's Version)", which reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 2021 and has been nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2023. She works regularly alongside songwriters Lori McKenna and Hillary Lindsey, collectively calling themselves The Love Junkies and notably writing songs for Little Big Town and Carrie Underwood, among others.


title: Liz Rose

text: Rose was born in Dallas, Texas, and raised in Irving, Texas. Rose moved to Nashville, Tennessee, with her then-husband, Johnny Rose, and began writing songs through the suggestion of a friend. One of her first cuts was "Elisabeth," which was recorded by Billy Gilman. In 2003, Gary Allan took Rose's "Songs About Rain" (co-written with Pat McLaughlin) into the country's top 20. Rose spoke in the podcast Broken Record about being married 4 times.


title: Liz Rose

text: Rose began writing songs with Taylor Swift on Swift's 2006 self-titled debut album, on which Rose has seven co-writer's credits. Among those cuts were the album's first two singles, "Tim McGraw" and "Teardrops on My Guitar", which helped Rose win a Songwriter of the Year award from SESAC in 2007. Rose continued to collaborate with Swift on her second album, 2008's "Fearless". Swift and Rose co-wrote the singles, "White Horse" and "You Belong with Me" as well as the title track. "White Horse" won both of them the Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 2010, and "You Belong with Me" was nominated for Grammy Award for Song of the Year. On Swift's fourth album, 2012's "Red", Rose co-wrote one song, entitled "All Too Well".


title: Liz Rose

text: She has also worked with songwriting for Swedish country singer Jill Johnson and Nashville-based band Mockingbird Sun, co-writing their second single "Lucky Guy".


title: Liz Rose

text: With regular collaborators, Lori McKenna and Hillary Lindsay as part of The Love Junkies, she co-wrote the song "Girl Crush" performed by Little Big Town. For the song, she won the 2015 CMA Song of the Year and was nominated at the 2016 Grammy Awards for Song of The Year and Best Country Song, winning the latter.


title: Liz Rose

text: She also contributed to Carrie Underwood's album "Storyteller" with the song "Like I'll Never Love You Again".


title: Takemikazuchi

text: He is otherwise known as "The "kami" of Kashima"" (Kashima-no-kami), the chief deity revered in the Kashima Shrine at Kashima, Ibaraki (and all other subsidiary Kashima shrines). In the "namazu-e" or catfish pictures of the Edo period, Takemikazuchi/Kashima is depicted attempting to subdue the giant catfish supposedly dwelling at the of the Japanese landmass and causing its earthquakes.


title: Takemikazuchi

text: In the "Kojiki", the god is known as Takemikazuchi-no-o no kami (建御雷之男神 – "Brave Mighty Thunderbolt Man"). He also bears the alternate names and .


title: Takemikazuchi

text: In the Kamiumi ("birth of the gods") episodes of the "Kojiki", the god of creation Izanagi severs the head of the fire deity Kagu-tsuchi, whereupon the blood from the sword (Totsuka-no-Tsurugi) splattered the rocks and gave birth to several deities. The blood from the sword-tip engendered one triad of deities, and the blood from near the base of the blade produced another triad that included Takemikazuchi (here given as "Brave-Awful-Possessing-Male-Deity" by Chamberlain).


title: Takemikazuchi

text: The name of the ten-fist sword wielded by Izanagi is given postscripturally as , otherwise known as Itsu-no-ohabari. (Accordingly, Takemikazuchi is referred in some passages as the child of Itsu-no-o habari. See next section).


title: Takemikazuchi

text: The "Nihon Shoki" gives the same episode in the same general gist, albeit more vaguely regarding this deity.


title: Takemikazuchi

text: In the episodes where the gods of the heavenly plains (Takama-ga-hara) contemplate and execute the conquest of the terrestrial world known as Middle Country (Ashihara no Nakatsukuni), Takemikazuchi is one of the chief delegates sent down to subjugate the terrestrial deities ("kuni-tsu-kami").


title: Takemikazuchi

text: In the "Kojiki" (Conquest of Izumo chapter), the heavenly deities Amaterasu and Takamusubi decreed that either Takemikazuchi or his father ("Heaven-Point-Blade-Extended") must be sent down for the conquest. Itsu-no-ohabari (who appeared previously as a ten-fist sword) here has the mind and speech of a sentient god, and he volunteered his son Takemikazuchi for the subjugation campaign. Takemikazuchi was accompanied by "Deity Heavenly-Bird-Boat" (which may be a boat as well as being a god)


title: Takemikazuchi

text: The two deities reached the land of Izumo at a place called , and stuck a "ten-fist sword" (Totsuka-no-Tsurugi) upside-down on the crest of the wave, and sat atop it, while demanding the local god Ōkuninushi to relinquish the Izumo province over to them. Ōkuninushi replied he would defer the decision to his child deities, and would follow suit in their counsel. One of them, Kotoshironushi or Yae-Kotoshironushi ("Eight-Fold-Thing-Sign-Master") who had been out fishing, was easily persuaded to forfeit his authority and retire into seclusion.


title: Takemikazuchi

text: The other, Takeminakata would not concede without testing his feats of strength against Takemikazuchi. When the challenger grabbed Takemikazuchi's hand it turned as if into an icicle and then a sword, making him cringe. Takemikazuchi then grabbed Takeminakata's hand, crushing it like a young reed. The challenger, chased to the sea near , asked for clemency on his life, promising to hold himself in exile in that region (in this way, the defeated Takeminakata became chief deity of the Suwa Grand Shrine in Nagano Prefecture).


title: Takemikazuchi

text: The "Nihon Shoki" names a different partner for Takemikazuchi in the task of conquering lands of the Middle Country. That partner is Futsunushi (a god who goes unmentioned in the "Kojiki" in the gods' birth episode as well as this episode).


title: Takemikazuchi

text: Just as Takemikazuchi was chief deity of Kashima Shrine, this Futsunushi was the chief of the Katori Shrine. In the early centuries, when the Yamato rulers campaigned in the Kantō and Tōhoku regions, they would pray to these to war gods for military success, so that subsidiary shrines of the two gods are scattered all over these regions. The enshrinement of the deities at Kashima and Katori is mentioned briefly in the "Kogo Shūi" (807).


title: Takemikazuchi

text: The "Nihon Shoki" account has other discrepancies. The beach where the gods stuck the "ten-fist sword" is here called "Itasa". The chief god of Izumo (Ōkuninushi) is called by the name of Ōanamuchi. The wrestling match with Takeminakata is missing. In the end, Ōanamuchi/Ōkuninushi gave sign of his obeisance by presenting the broad spear he used to pacify the land with. Jumping to a later passage (after digressing on other matters), the "Nihon Shoki" retells Takemikazuchi and Futsunushi's landing on the beach, this time stating that Ōanamuchi verbally expressed resistance to relinquish his rule, until the heavenly gods promised him palatial residence to recompense his abdication.


title: Takemikazuchi

text: Appended to the two passages is the mention of a star deity named Amatsu-Mikaboshi who resisted till the end, and whom Takemikazuchi and Futsunushi were particularly eager to vanquish. The latter passage states that the being who subdued the star god, referred to as is enshrined at Katori, hinting that it might be Futsunushi. However, the earlier passage says a god named was the vanquisher of the star god.


title: Takemikazuchi

text: Takemikazuchi's sword aided Emperor Jimmu in his subjugation of the east. At Kumano, the Emperor and his troops were either struck unconscious by the appearance of a bear ("Kojiki") or severely debilitated by the poison fumes spewed out by local gods ("Nihon Shoki"). But a man named Takakuraji presented a gift of a sword, the emperor awoke, and without him hardly brandishing this weapon, the evil deities of Kumano were spontaneously cut down. When Jimmu inquired, Takkuraji explained that he had a vision in a dream where the supreme deities Amaterasu and Takamusubi were about to command Takemikazuchi to descend to earth once again to pacify the lands, this time to assist the emperor. However, Takemizuchi replied that it would be sufficient to send down the sword he used during his campaigns, and, boring a hole through Takakuraji's storehouse, deposited the sword, bidding the man to present it to Emperor Jimmu. That sword bore the names of , , and . This sword is the main dedication (goshintai) kept at Isonokami Shrine.


title: Takemikazuchi

text: Takemikazuchi was originally a local god ("kuni-tsu-kami") revered by the , and was a god of maritime travel. However, the Nakatomi clan who also has roots in this region, and when they took over control of priestly duties from the Ō clan, they also instituted Takemikazuchi as the Nakatomi clan's ujigami (clan deity). Or so this is the observation by in his "Jinja to kodai ōken saishi" (1989). He goes on to theorize that the Ō clan was originally , but was usurped by the Nakatomi who were among the "lesser priesthood" (the latter claims descent from the ).


title: Takemikazuchi

text: The Nakatomi clan, essentially the priestly branch of the Fujiwara clan, also placed the veneration of Takemikazuchi in the Kasuga-taisha in Nara. (The thunder god is one of several gods enshrined.)


title: Takemikazuchi

text: When the expanded control into the easterly dominions, Kashima (Kashima, Ibaraki) became a crucial base. Yamato armies and generals often prayed to the Kashima and Katori deities for military success against the intransigents in the east. In these ways, Takemikazuchi became an important deity for the Yamato dynasty.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: Vladimir II Monomakh (Old East Slavic: Володимѣръ Мономахъ, "Volodiměrŭ Monomakhŭ"; ; ; Christian name: "Vasiliy", "Vasyl", or "Basileios") (26 May 1053 – 19 May 1125) reigned as Grand Prince of the Medieval Rus' from 1113 to 1125. He is considered a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and is celebrated on May 6.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: He was the son of Vsevolod I (married in 1046) and a relative of Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, from whom Vladimir obtained his sobriquet. Contemporary Byzantine naming practice allowed the adoption of a maternal surname if the mother's family was perceived to be of a more exalted origin than that of the father.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: In his famous "Instruction" (also known as "The Testament") to his own children, Monomakh mentions that he conducted 83 military campaigns and 19 times made peace with the Polovtsi. At first he waged war against the steppe jointly with his cousin Oleg, but after Vladimir was sent by his father to rule Chernigov and Oleg made peace with the Polovtsi to retake that city from him, they parted company. Since that time, Vladimir and Oleg were bitter enemies who would often engage in internecine wars. The enmity continued among their children and more distant posterity.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: From 1094, his chief patrimony was the southern town of Pereiaslav, although he also controlled Rostov, Suzdal, and other northern provinces (see Principality of Pereyaslavl). In these lands he founded several towns, notably his namesake, Vladimir, the future capital of Russia. In order to unite the princes of Rus' in their struggle against the Great Steppe, Vladimir initiated three princely congresses, the most important being held at Lyubech in 1097 and Dolobsk in 1103.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: In 1107 he defeated Boniak, a Cuman khan who led an invasion on Kievan Rus'. When Sviatopolk II died in 1113, the Kievan populace revolted and summoned Vladimir to the capital. The same year he entered Kiev to the great delight of the crowd and reigned there until his death in 1125. As may be seen from his "Instruction", he promulgated a number of reforms in order to allay the social tensions in the capital. These years saw the last flowering of Ancient Rus, which was torn apart 10 years after his death.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: Vladimir Monomakh is buried in the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. Succeeding generations often referred to his reign as the golden age of that city. Numerous legends are connected with Monomakh's name, including the transfer from Constantinople to Rus of such precious relics as the Theotokos of Vladimir and the Vladimir/Muscovite crown called Monomakh's Cap.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: Vladimir married three times. The 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus reported that, in what would have been his first marriage, Vladimir wed Gytha of Wessex, daughter of Harold, King of England, who had fallen at Hastings in 1066 and of Edith Swannesha. This marriage is not reported by any contemporary sources, and none of the Russian sources report the name or parentage of Vladimir's first wife. The "Testament of Vladimir Monomakh" records the death of the mother of Vladimir's son Yuri on 7 May 1107, but it does not mention her name. Most historians agree it was more likely Yuri's mother was Gytha, based upon Yuri's acceptable marriage age in 1108.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: Vladimir's second wife, Eufimia, is considered to have been a Byzantine noblewoman. This marriage produced at least five children:


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: Vladimir's third marriage is thought to have been to a daughter of Aepa Ocenevich, Khan of the Cumans. Her paternal grandfather was Osen. Her people belonged to the Kipchaks, a confederation of pastoralists and warriors of Turkic origin.


title: Vladimir II Monomakh

text: However the "Primary Chronicle" identifies Aepa as father-in-law to Yuri Dolgoruki, with Vladimir negotiating the marriage in name of his son. Whether father and son married sisters or the identity of intended groom was misidentified remains unclear.


title: All the President's Men

text: All the President's Men is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists who investigated the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate Office Building and the resultant political scandal for "The Washington Post". The book chronicles the investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein from Woodward's initial report on the Watergate break-in through the resignations of Nixon Administration officials H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in April 1973, and the revelation of the Oval Office Watergate tapes by Alexander Butterfield three months later. It relates the events behind the major stories the duo wrote for the "Post", naming some sources who had previously refused to be identified for their initial articles, notably Hugh Sloan. It also gives detailed accounts of Woodward's secret meetings with his source Deep Throat, whose identity was kept hidden for over 30 years. Gene Roberts, the former executive editor of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and former managing editor of "The New York Times", has called the work of Woodward and Bernstein "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time."


title: All the President's Men

text: A film adaptation, produced by Robert Redford, starring Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively, was released in 1976. That same year, a sequel to the book, "The Final Days", was published, which chronicled the last months of Richard Nixon's presidency, starting around the time their previous book ended.


title: All the President's Men

text: Woodward and Bernstein had considered the idea of writing a book about Watergate, but did not commit until actor Robert Redford expressed interest in purchasing the film rights. In "Telling the Truth About Lies: The Making of "All the President's Men,"" Woodward noted that Redford played an important role in changing the book's narrative from a story about the Watergate events to one about their investigations and reportage of the story.


title: All the President's Men

text: The name of the book alludes to the nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty ("All the king's horses and all the king's men / Couldn't put Humpty together again"). An allusion similar to that was made more explicitly a quarter-century earlier in Robert Penn Warren's 1946 novel "All the King's Men", which describes the career of a fictional corrupt governor, loosely based on Huey Long.


title: All the President's Men

text: Dick Snyder of Simon & Schuster purchased the right to publish the book through the agent David Obst. The authors received an advance of $55,000. In his memoir, Michael Korda said of the book's publication that it "transformed book publishing into a red-hot part of media" and books became "news" instead of history.


title: All the President's Men

text: Because the book was embargoed until publication day, there were no advance copies for reviewers. Simon & Schuster became known as the "Watergate" publisher by following up "All the President's Men" with books by John Dean, Maureen Dean, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Menen Asfaw (baptismal name: Walatta Giyorgis; 25 March 1889 – 15 February 1962) was Empress consort of the Ethiopian Empire. She was the wife of Emperor Haile Selassie.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Menen Asfaw was born in Ambassel, located in Wollo Province of Ethiopian Empire on 25 March 1889. She was the daughter of Asfaw, Jantirar of Ambassel and Woizero Sehin Michael. Her mother was the daughter of the King Mikael of Wollo and her uncle was Lij Iyasu.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: According to both published and unpublished reports, the then Woizero Menen Asfaw was first given in marriage by her family to the prominent Wollo nobleman, Dejazmach Ali Mohammed of Cherecha at a very young age, as was the prevailing custom. She bore him two children, a daughter, Woizero Belaynesh Ali, and a son, Jantirar Asfaw Ali. This first marriage ended in divorce, and her natal family then arranged for Woizero Menen to marry Dejazmach Amede Ali Aba-Deyas, another very prominent nobleman of Wollo. She bore her second husband two children as well, a daughter, Woizero Desta Amede, and a son, Jantirar Gebregziabiher Amede. Following the sudden death of her second husband, Woizero Menen's grandfather, "Negus" Mikael arranged her marriage to Ras Leulseged Atnaf Seged, a prominent Shewan nobleman, who was considerably older than Woizero Menen in late 1909 or early 1910. It is unclear whether Woizero Menen was married to the aged nobleman (and secured a divorce shortly afterwards to marry her royal groom) or whether there was only an engagement between them which was broken without ado.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Woizero Menen probably met Dejazmach Tafari Makonnen (later the Emperor Haile Selassie) at the home of her uncle, Lij Iyasu. The rapport between the two may have inspired Lij Iyasu to attempt to bind Dejazmach Tafari to him more firmly through marriage ties. He therefore terminated the arrangement (whether marriage or engagement) between Woizero Menen and Ras Leulseged, and sent her to Harar to marry Dejazmach Tafari Makonnen. Ras Leulseged apparently did not hold a grudge against Dejazmach Tafari for this circumstance, blaming it entirely on Lij Iyasu who had ordered it. Indeed, he was among the leaders who fought on the side of Dejazmach Tafari Makonnen in the Battle of Segale, and died in that battle.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: The account given in the Autobiography of the Emperor, "My Life and Ethiopia's Progress", mentions no previous marriage or children of Empress Menen and no such order by Iyasu, but states only that at the age of 20, they were married by their own mutual consent, and describes her as "a woman without any malice whatsoever". When Tafari Makonnen became Emperor of Ethiopia as Haile Selassie I, Menen Asfaw was crowned as Empress at his side. Empress Menen had no children by Ras Leulseged.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Empress Menen was active in promoting women's issues in Ethiopia, was Patroness of the Ethiopian Red Cross, and the Ethiopian Women's Charitable Organization. She was also patroness of the Jerusalem Society that arranged for pilgrimages to the Holy Land. She founded the Empress Menen School for Girls in Addis Ababa, the first all-girls school which had both boarding and day students. Girls from all over the Empire were brought to the school to receive a modern education, encouraged by the Empress who visited it often and presided over its graduation ceremonies. The Empress gave generously, as well as sponsored programs for the poor, ill and disabled. She was also a devoutly religious woman who did much to support the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. She built, renovated and endowed numerous churches in Ethiopia and in the Holy Land. Prominent among these are the St. Raguel Church in Addis Ababa's Merkato district, the Kidane Mehret (Our Lady Covenant of Mercy) Church on Mount Entoto, and the Holy Trinity Monastery on the banks of the River Jordan in the Holy Land. She gave generously from her personal funds towards the building of the new Cathedral of St. Mary of Zion at Axum, but did not live to see it completed and dedicated.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: When the Empress was exiled from Ethiopia during the Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941, she made a pledge to the Virgin Mary at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, promising to give her crown to the church if Ethiopia were liberated from occupation. The Empress made numerous pilgrimages to Holy Sites in then British-ruled Palestine, in Syria and in Lebanon, during her exile to pray for her occupied homeland. Following the return of Emperor Haile Selassie I and his family to Ethiopia in 1941, a replica of the crown was made for future Empresses, but the original crown that Empress Menen was crowned with at her husband's side in 1930 was sent to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Empress Menen, although often seen wearing a tiara at public events that called for it, would never again wear a full crown.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Empress Menen performed perfectly in the role of Empress-consort. In her public role she combined religious piety, concern for social causes, and support for development schemes with the majesty of her Imperial status. Outwardly she was the dutiful wife, visiting schools, churches, exhibitions and model farms, attending public and state events at her husband's side or by herself. She took no public stand on political or policy issues. Behind the scenes however, she was the Emperor's most trusted advisor, quietly offering advice on a whole range of issues. She avoided the publicly political role that her predecessor as Empress-consort, Empress Taytu Betul, had taken, which had caused deep resentment in government circles during the reign of Menelik II.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: The Empress and some of her family were placed under house arrest briefly during the 1960 Imperial Guard coup attempt against her husband at her villa outside the Guenete Leul Palace grounds in northern Addis Ababa. Following the return of the Emperor and the crushing of the coup attempt, there was much speculation as to the conduct of the Crown Prince, who had been proclaimed monarch by the coup leaders. It was noted that the Crown Prince had accompanied his mother in a drive through the palace grounds, making stops at Imperial Guard posts to exchange pleasantries with the guards, on the night before the coup was launched. The ailing Empress had been urged to visit the posts by security officials, who were concerned about the soldiers' morale, and perhaps had an idea that something was brewing. The appearance of the Empress with the Crown Prince at her side may have been used by coup leaders as an indication to their followers that the Empress might sympathise with a movement that brought her favored son to the throne. It is extremely unlikely that either the Empress or the Prince had any idea of what was being plotted. However, a cloud of suspicion never left the Crown Prince, and the Empress was deeply saddened by this.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Following her death in 1962, the Empress was buried in the crypt of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa among the tombs of her children. Prime Minister Aklilu Hapte-Wold delivered her eulogy paying tribute to her charity, her piety, and her role as advisor and helpmate to the Emperor, as well as her personal kindness and goodness. On the third day memorial and commemoration after the funeral, the Emperor himself paid tribute to his wife by saying that although the Prime Minister had aptly described what kind of person his late wife had been, he wanted to say that during their five decades of marriage, not once had it been necessary to have a third party mediate between him and his wife, and that their marriage had been one of peace and mutual support.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Later, the Emperor built a pair of grand sarcophagi in the north transept of Holy Trinity Cathedral's nave, in order to transfer his wife's remains there and eventually be buried at her side himself. But due to the revolution, the Emperor was not buried there after his death, and the Empress remained in her original tomb in the crypt. During the ceremonial burial of her husband's remains in November 2000, the remains of Empress Menen were also disinterred from the crypt tomb, and placed in the sarcophagus next to her husband in the nave of the cathedral, as he had originally intended.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: As the consort of Emperor Haile Selassie I, Empress Menen is highly venerated by members of the Rastafari movement. One name Rastas bestow on the Empress is "Queen Omega" which complements one of the names they give to the Emperor "King Alpha" (as in "Alpha and Omega"). The later name is used to refer to the emperor in the original version of the reggae song "Rivers of Babylon" by The Melodians but all mention of him was removed from the more popular version by Boney M.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Empress Menen and Emperor Haile Selassie were the parents of six children: Princess Tenagnework, Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen, Princess Tsehai, Princess Zenebework, Prince Makonnen, and Prince Sahle Selassie.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Empress Mene was step-mother to the Emperor's eldest child Princess Romanework. Princess Romanework was the daughter of a previous union of the emperor with Woizero Woinitu Amede (also known as Woizero Altayech). The emperor's own autobiography mentions that his joy in 1941 following Ethiopia's liberation from Fascist Occupation was tempered by the grief of learning that his eldest child, Princess Romanework, had died under detention in Italy. Princess Romanework had been imprisoned along with her four sons, two of whom also died in Italy. The remaining two, Dejazmatch Samson Beyene Merid, and Dejazmatch Merid Beyene Merid, were repatriated from Italy after the war and were raised by the Emperor and Empress.


title: Menen Asfaw

text: Prince Asfaw Wossen was first married to Princess Wolete Israel Seyoum and then following their divorce to Princess Medferiashwork Abebe. Prince Makonnen was married to Princess Sara Gizaw. Prince Sahle Selassie was married to Princess Mahisente Habte Mariam. Princess Romanework married Dejazmatch Beyene Merid. Princess Tenagnework first married Ras Desta Damtew, and after she was widowed later married Ras Andargachew Messai. Princess Zenebework married Dejazmatch Haile Selassie Gugsa. Princess Tsehai married Lt. General Abiye Abebe.


title: Mint (facility)

text: The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. In the beginning, hammered coinage or cast coinage were the chief means of coin minting, with resulting production runs numbering as little as the hundreds or thousands. In modern mints, coin dies are manufactured in large numbers and planchets are made into milled coins by the billions.


title: Mint (facility)

text: With the mass production of currency, the production cost is weighed when minting coins. For example, it costs the United States Mint much less than 25 cents to make a quarter (a 25 cent coin), and the difference in production cost and face value (called seigniorage) helps fund the minting body. Conversely, a U.S. penny ($0.01) cost $0.015 to make in 2016.


title: Mint (facility)

text: The earliest metallic money did not consist of coins, but of unminted metal in the form of rings and other ornaments or of weapons, which were used for thousands of years by the Egyptian, Chaldean and Assyrian empires. Metals were well suited to represent wealth, owing to their great commodity value per unit weight or volume, and their durability, divisibility and rarity. The best metals for coinage are gold, silver, platinum, copper, tin, nickel, aluminum, zinc, iron, and their alloys; certain alloys of gold, silver, copper and nickel have the best combination of the required qualities.


title: Mint (facility)

text: The first mint was likely established in Lydia in the 7th century BC, for coining gold, silver and electrum. The Lydian innovation of manufacturing coins under the authority of the state spread to neighboring Greece, where a number of city-states operated their own mints. Some of the earliest Greek mints were within city-states on Greek islands such as Crete; a mint existed at the ancient city of Cydonia on Crete at least as early as the fifth century BC.


title: Mint (facility)

text: At about the same time, coins and mints appeared independently in China and spread to Korea and Japan. The manufacture of coins in the Roman Empire, dating from about the 4th century BC, significantly influenced later development of coin minting in Europe.


title: Mint (facility)

text: The origin of the word "mint" is ascribed to the manufacture of silver coin at Rome in 269 BC at the temple of Juno Moneta. This goddess became the personification of money, and her name was applied both to money and to its place of manufacture. Roman mints were spread widely across the Empire, and were sometimes used for propaganda purposes. The populace often learned of a new Roman Emperor when coins appeared with the new Emperor's portrait. Some of the emperors who ruled only for a short time made sure that a coin bore their image; Quietus, for example, ruled only part of the Roman Empire from 260 to 261 AD, and yet he issued two coins bearing his image.


title: Mint (facility)

text: Ancient coins were made by casting in moulds or by striking between engraved dies. The Romans cast their larger copper coins in clay moulds carrying distinctive markings, not because they knew nothing of striking, but because it was not suitable for such large masses of metal. Casting is now used only by counterfeiters. The most ancient coins were cast in bulletshaped or conical moulds and marked on one side by means of a die which was struck with a hammer. The "blank" or unmarked piece of metal was placed on a small anvil, and the die was held in position with tongs. The reverse or lower side of the coin received a "rough incuse" by the hammer. Later a rectangular mark, a "square incuse", was made by the sharp edges of the little anvil, or punch. The rich iconography of the obverse of the early electrum coins contrasts with the dull appearance of their reverse which usually carries only punch marks. The shape and number of these punches varied according to their denomination and weight-standard. Subsequently, the anvil was marked in various ways, and decorated with letters and figures of beasts, and later still the anvil was replaced by a reverse die. The spherical blanks soon gave place to lenticular-shaped ones. The blank was made red-hot and struck between cold dies. One blow was usually insufficient, and the method was similar to that still used in striking medals in high relief, except that the blank is now allowed to cool before being struck. With the substitution of iron for bronze as the material for dies, about 300 AD, the practice of striking the blanks while they were hot was gradually discarded.


title: Mint (facility)

text: In the Middle Ages bars of metal were cast and hammered out on an anvil. Portions of the flattened sheets were then cut out with shears, struck between dies and again trimmed with shears. A similar method had been used in Ancient Egypt during the Ptolemaic Kingdom (c. 300 BC), but had been forgotten. Square pieces of metal were also cut from cast bars, converted into round disks by hammering and then struck between dies. In striking, the lower die was fixed into a block of wood, and the blank piece of metal laid upon it by hand. The upper die was then placed on the blank, and kept in position by means of a holder around which was placed a roll of lead to protect the hand of the operator while heavy blows were struck with a hammer. An early improvement was the introduction of a tool resembling a pair of tongs, the two dies being placed one at the extremity of each leg. This avoided the necessity of readjusting the dies between blows, and ensured greater accuracy in the impression.


title: Mint (facility)

text: Minting by means of a falling weight (monkey press) intervened between the hand hammers and the screw press in many places. In Birmingham in particular this system became highly developed and was long in use. In 1553, the French engineer Aubin Olivier introduced screw presses for striking coins, together with rolls for reducing the cast bars and machines for punching-out round disks from flattened sheets of metal. 8 to 12 men took over from each other every quarter of an hour to maneuver the arms driving the screw which struck the medals. Later, the rolls were driven by horses, mules or water-power.


title: Mint (facility)

text: Henry II came up against hostility on the part of the coin makers, so the process was largely discarded in 1585 and only used for coins of small value, medals and tokens. The system was reintroduced into France by Jean Varin in 1640 and the practice of hammering was forbidden in 1645. In England the new machinery was tried in London in 1561, but abandoned soon afterwards; it was finally adopted in 1662, although the old pieces continued in circulation until 1696.


title: Mint (facility)

text: Industrial techniques and steam-power was introduced to coin manufacture by Matthew Boulton in Birmingham in 1788. By 1786, two-thirds of the coins in circulation in Britain were counterfeit, and the Royal Mint responded to this crisis by shutting itself down, worsening the situation. The industrialist Mathew Boulton turned his attention to coinage in the mid-1780s as an extension to the small metal products he already manufactured in his factory in Soho. In 1788 he established a Mint as part of his industrial plant. He invented a steam driven screw press in the same year (his original machinery was being used at the Royal Mint until 1881, almost a century later), which worked by atmospheric pressure applied to a piston. The piston was in communication with a vacuum vessel from which the air had been pumped by steam power.


title: Mint (facility)

text: He installed eight of these state-of-the-art steam-driven presses in his factory, each with the capacity to strike between 70 and 84 coins per minute. The firm had little immediate success getting a license to strike British coins, but was soon engaged in striking coins for the British East India Company, Sierra Leone and Russia, while producing high-quality planchets, or blank coins, to be struck by national mints elsewhere. The firm sent over 20 million blanks to Philadelphia, to be struck into cents and half-cents by the United States Mint—Mint Director Elias Boudinot found them to be "perfect and beautifully polished".


title: Mint (facility)

text: These were the first truly modern coins; the mass-production of coinage with steam driven machinery organised in factories enabled the achievement of standardized dimensions and uniform weight and roundness, something no counterfeiter of the day could hope to achieve. Boulton also pioneered special methods to further frustrate counterfeiters. Designed by Heinrich Küchler, the coins featured a raised rim with incuse or sunken letters and numbers. The high-technology of Soho Mint gained increasing and somewhat unwelcome attention: rivals attempted industrial espionage, while lobbying with the Government for Boulton's mint to be shut down.


title: Mint (facility)

text: Boulton was finally awarded a contract by the Royal Mint on 3 March 1797, after a national financial crisis reached its nadir when the Bank of England suspended convertibility of its notes for gold. The twopenny coins measured exactly an inch and a half across; 16 pennies lined up would reach two feet.


title: Mint (facility)

text: Between 1817 and 1830 the German engineer Dietrich "Diedrich" Uhlhorn invented the Presse Monétaire, a level coin press which became known as the Uhlhorn Press. His steam driven knuckle-lever press made him internationally famous, and over 500 units had been sold by 1840. The advanced construction of the Uhlhorn press proved to be highly satisfactory, and the use of the screw press for general coinage was gradually eliminated.


title: Mint (facility)

text: This new technology was used at the Birmingham Mint, the largest private mint in the world for much of the 19th century, and was further improved at the Taylor and Challen who began to supply complete press room equipment to national mints around the world, such as Sydney Mint, Australia.


title: Mint (facility)

text: By the early 20th century, mints were using electrical power to drive rolls, the advantage being that each pair of rolls could be driven independently without the intervention of cumbrous shafting.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: The Cremaster Cycle is a series of five feature-length films, together with related sculptures, photographs, drawings, and artist's books, created by American visual artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: "The Cremaster Cycle" was made over a period of eight years (1994–2002) and culminated in a major museum exhibition organized by Nancy Spector of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, which traveled to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Musée d'art Moderne in Paris from 2002-03. Barney's longtime collaborator Jonathan Bepler composed and arranged the soundtracks for the films. The series incorporates a multidisciplinary narrative that heavily references connections between real people, real places and real things personal to Barney himself, but are all fictionalized to some extent.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector has described the "Cremaster" cycle (1994–2002) as "a self-enclosed aesthetic system." The cycle includes the films as well as photographs, drawings, sculptures, and installations the artist produced in conjunction with each episode. Its conceptual departure point is the male cremaster muscle, the primary function of which is to raise and lower the testes in response to temperature. The project is filled with anatomical allusions to the position of the reproductive organs during the embryonic process of sexual differentiation: "Cremaster 1" represents the most "ascended" or undifferentiated state, "Cremaster 5" the most "descended" or differentiated. The cycle repeatedly returns to those moments during early sexual development in which the outcome of the process is still unknown — in Barney's metaphoric universe, these moments represent a condition of pure potentiality. As the cycle evolved over eight years, Barney looked beyond biology as a way to explore the creation of form, employing narrative models from other realms, such as biography, mythology, and geology. Barney portrays, at various points, a satyr and Gary Gilmore. Ursula Andress portrays the Queen of Chain in "Cremaster 5". Norman Mailer, Patty Griffin, and Dave Lombardo portray Harry Houdini, Nicole Baker, and Johnny Cash respectively in "Cremaster 2". Richard Serra and Aimee Mullins portray Hiram Abiff and Sadhbh respectively, in "Cremaster 3".


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: While thematically the "Cremaster" films are chronological in the numbered order, they were not made or released in the same manner. The order in which they were made is as follows:


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: The numerical order is the thematic order, while in order of production the films increased in production quality, ambition and scope, and they can alternatively be viewed in any order, as different views of a set of themes and preoccupations.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: The films are significantly different in length; the longest (and last-made) is "Cremaster 3", at over three hours, while the remaining four are approximately an hour each, for a total of approximately seven hours – #3 alone makes up almost half the total length of the cycle. Like Barney's other works, most of the films lack any particular dialogue with the exceptions being "Cremaster 2" and "5," the latter of which is an opera sung in Hungarian.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: An important precursor of "The Cremaster Cycle" is "Drawing Restraint," which is also a biologically inspired multi-episode work in multiple media, also featuring the field emblem.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: The full series was released in a limited series of 20 sets of DVDs, sold for at least $100,000 each, in custom packaging and as fine art, rather than mass-market movies. In 2007 one disc ("Cremaster 2") sold for $571,000.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: The films are not available on mass-market DVDs, and according to the press release for the 2010 US tour, the cycle "is Not Now Nor Will it Ever be Available on DVD". The films are primarily available via periodic screenings. Palm Pictures, the distributor, has continued to comply with Barney's request, and has not made the series available on DVD, though there were some rumors and announcements to this effect in 2003. Only a 31-minute excerpt, the Guggenheim scene from "Cremaster 3" entitled “The Order,” was released on mass-market DVD in 2003.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: Reaction to the cycle is sharply divided – some consider it a major work of art, on a par with "Un Chien Andalou" and "The Waste Land," while others dismiss it as vapid, self-indulgent tedium. This is summarized by one critic as "Barney's cinematic art inspires both awe and revulsion, often simultaneously." Indeed, the "Village Voice" featured two reviews, with art critic Jerry Saltz praising the cycle, and film critic J. Hoberman panning it.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: Lavish praise includes: ""The Cremaster Cycle" by Matthew Barney is the first truly great piece of cinema to be made in a fine art context since Dali and Bunuel filmed "Un Chien Andalou" in 1929. It is one of the most imaginative and brilliant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema." In 1999, when three of its entries (the fourth, first, and fifth) had been made, Michael Kimmelman of "The New York Times" hailed Barney as "the most important American artist of his generation." It has also, on the other hand, received scathing criticism as "a mostly tedious succession of striking but vacant imagery whose effect diminishes the longer you look at it," from which "any sense of mystery or wonder is drained."


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: The visuals are roundly praised, however, and some (Hoberman) feel that the movies work well as parts of installations, due to visuals, though not as movies, due to poor editing and pacing.


title: The Cremaster Cycle

text: The large volume by then Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector, "Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle" (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2002), is the standard work on the "Cycle" and contains reproductions of production stills, concept drawings and an exegetical essay by Spector, "Only The Perverse Fantasy Can Still Save Us". Neville Wakefield has produced "The Cremaster Glossary", which is also included in the book.


title: Necessity is the mother of invention

text: "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a proverb. It states that the primary driving force for most new inventions is a need.


title: Necessity is the mother of invention

text: On Lexico, the proverb has been defined as "When the need for something becomes imperative, you are forced to find ways of getting or achieving it." According to the "Cambridge Dictionary", this is "an expression that means that if you really need to do something, you will think of a way of doing it." Longman dictionary has defined the proverb as: "if someone really needs to do something, they will find a way of doing it."


title: Necessity is the mother of invention

text: One of the earliest recorded instances of the proverb is in one of Aesop’s Fables, “The Crow and the Pitcher” from the mid 6th century BCE. Plato's "Republic" says "our need will be the real creator", which Jowett's 1894 translation rendered loosely as "The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention."


title: Necessity is the mother of invention

text: The connection of mother and necessity is documented in Latin and in English in the 16th century: William Horman quoted the Latin phrase "Mater artium necessitas" ("The mother of invention is necessity") in 1519; Roger Ascham said "Necessitie, the inventour of all goodnesse" in 1545. In 1608, George Chapman, in his two-part play "The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron", used a very similar phrase: "The great Mother / Of all productions, grave Necessity." And the exact phrase is used by Richard Franck in 1658.


title: Necessity is the mother of invention

text: The phrase was used in medieval French and can be found in a collection of proverbs dating to 1485-1490, and is included with another saying, "Hunger makes people resourceful," and an illustration of one man eating a carrot and another man eating grass.


title: Necessity is the mother of invention

text: In an address to the Mathematical Association of England on the importance of education in 1917, Alfred North Whitehead argued that "the basis of invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity," and in contrast to the old proverb "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer to the truth.


title: Judith Hill

text: Judith Glory Hill is an American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California. She has provided backing vocals for such artists as Michael Jackson, Prince, and Josh Groban. In 2009, Hill was chosen as Jackson's duet partner for the song "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" during his "This Is It" concerts. After Jackson's death in 2009, she, along with the rest of the "This Is It" cast members, performed at Jackson's memorial service and attracted global attention when she sang the lead on the song "Heal the World". Hill's rise to fame is recounted in "20 Feet from Stardom", a documentary film that tells the untold story of the backup singers behind some of the "greatest musical legends of the 21st century". She is also a featured artist on the film's soundtrack. She won the Grammy Award for Best Music Film for her performance in this film.


title: Judith Hill

text: A number of Hill's original ballads, including "Desperation" were featured in the 2012 Spike Lee film "Red Hook Summer". In March 2013, Hill became a contestant during the fourth season of "The Voice". Hill opened for Josh Groban during the third leg of his All That Echoes World Tour (North America) in Fall 2013. She also performed two duets with him in his set for "The Prayer" and "Remember When It Rained", the latter of which was released as a single. She also toured with John Legend on the UK leg of his "#AllOfMe" tour in the Fall of 2014.


title: Judith Hill

text: Her debut album "Back in Time", recorded at Paisley Park with Prince as co-producer, was officially released as a free download on Judith Hill's WeTransfer account on March 23 and made available until March 25, 2015, via a Livenation email with a note from Prince.


title: Judith Hill

text: Hill's mother Michiko Hill (née Yoshimura) is a pianist from Tokyo who met Hill's father Robert Lee "Pee Wee" Hill in a funk group in the 1970s. Judith's mother is Japanese and her father is African-American. She can speak and sing in both English and Japanese and is also fluent in French and Spanish.


title: Judith Hill

text: After a degree in music composition from Biola University, Hill went to France in 2007 to perform with the French singer Michel Polnareff. She began a career as a singer-songwriter when she returned to the United States.


title: Judith Hill

text: According to Tom Meek of "LA Weekly", Hill's voice is distinctive, soulful and has an earthy quality that makes it unique. She moves easily from R&B to funk to hip-hop to jazz to gospel.


title: Judith Hill

text: Hill is credited for singing backing vocals and/or choir for Gregg Allman ("Low Country Blues"); Anastacia ("Freak of Nature"); Patrizio Buanne ("Patrizio"); Andraé Crouch ("The Journey"); Harold Faltermeyer ("Copout"); Josh Groban ("All That Echoes"); Taylor Hicks ("Taylor Hicks"); Carole King ("A Holiday Carole"); Evelyn "Champagne" King ("Open Book"); Mike Oldfield ("Man on the Rocks"); Barry Manilow ("15 Minutes"); Dave Stewart ("The Ringmaster General" and "The Blackbird Diaries"); Rod Stewart ("Soulbook"); Robbie Williams ("Intensive Care"); Incubus ("Trust Fall (Side A)", song "Dance Like You're Dumb").


title: Judith Hill

text: She is a featured vocalist for albums such as "" by George Benson, "I'll Take Romance" by Steve Tyrell, "The Last Ai" by Ai and "That's Life" by Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. She has also provided vocals for soundtracks such as "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax: Original Songs from the Motion Picture" and "Happy Feet Two (Soundtrack)".


title: Judith Hill

text: A number of Hill's original ballads, including "Desperation" produced by Brian West, were featured in the 2012 Spike Lee film "Red Hook Summer" which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. About Hill, Lee said to "Rolling Stone": "She's a phenomenal talent. She can sing with the best of them."


title: Judith Hill

text: On February 9, 2014, Hill appeared as a back-up singer in the CBS show "The Beatles: A Night That Changed America".


title: Judith Hill

text: Hill was the featured singer on Gerard Way's original song titled "Here Comes the End", released July 8, 2020 and which appears on the second season of "The Umbrella Academy".


title: Judith Hill

text: In 2009, Hill was selected as Michael Jackson's duet partner for the "This Is It" concerts; she practiced for months with Jackson up until his death on June 25, 2009.


title: Judith Hill

text: Michael Jackson's death caused the concerts to be cancelled. Along with the rest of the "This Is It" cast members, Hill performed at Jackson's memorial service at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles on July 7, 2009. She attracted global attention when she sang the lead on the song "Heal the World" which was one of the climactic moments of the service.