Valmont (film)

Valmont is a 1989 French-American romantic drama film directed by Miloš Forman and starring Colin Firth, Annette Bening, and Meg Tilly. Based on the 1782 French novel "Les Liaisons dangereuses" by Choderlos de Laclos, and adapted for the screen by Jean-Claude Carrière, the film is about a scheming widow (Merteuil) who bets her ex-lover (Valmont) that he cannot corrupt a recently married honorable woman (Tourvel). During the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont ends up falling in love with her. Earlier, Merteuil learns her secret lover (Gercourt) has discarded her and is about to marry her cousin's daughter- a virginal 15 year old Cécile. As revenge, the jilted Merteuil employs Valmont (during his pursuit of Tourvel) to seduce Cécile before her marriage to Gercourt.
"Valmont" received an Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design (Theodor Pištěk).
Plot.
In 18th century France, the Marquise de Merteuil (Annette Bening), a beautiful wealthy widow, learns from her cousin Madame de Volanges (Siân Phillips) that Volanges' 15-year-old daughter Cécile (Fairuza Balk) has been betrothed to a middle-age man named Gercourt (Jeffrey Jones), Merteuil's own secret lover. The arranged marriage required that Cécile be raised in a convent to ensure her chastity. Unaware that Merteuil is Gercourt's lover, Volanges reveals that according to Gercourt, he is having trouble breaking off relations with his "former" mistress who is mentally unbalanced. Angered over the hypocrisy of Gercourt's insistence on a virgin bride while keeping a lover of his own, his concealment of his upcoming marriage, and his slight of her character, Merteuil plans revenge.
Merteuil approaches her former lover, the notorious womanizer Vicomte de Valmont (Colin Firth), and proposes that he take Cécile's virginity before her wedding night to humiliate Gercourt. Valmont is not interested in seducing a child, whom he claims would be no challenge, but is pursuing Madame de Tourvel (Meg Tilly), a married woman staying at the estate of Madame de Rosemonde, Valmont's elderly aunt. Tourvel, well known for her virtue, had been warned of Valmont's debauchery and deliberately avoids him. Merteuil makes Valmont a wager: if Valmont succeeds in bedding Madame de Tourvel, he may also bed Merteuil; if he fails, he must consign himself to a monastery.
After learning that Cécile's teenage music teacher, Danceny (Henry Thomas), has been writing love letters to Cécile, Merteuil gains the confidence of the young girl who confesses she loves Danceny. Merteuil attempts to create opportunities for the two young lovers to consummate their love, but Cécile is too innocent and Danceny too honorable to take advantage. Frustrated, Merteuil takes Cécile on holiday to Madame de Rosemonde's country estate, where Valmont had gone to pursue Tourvel. Valmont is playful and with no intention treats Cecile like a child, who is happy for the attention. When Merteuil suggests that Valmont help Cécile write to Danceny, Valmont goes to Cécile's room to help her write a passionate letter and ends up taking her virginity, as just before Tourvel crying guilt-ridden that she is falling in love with Valmont but rejects him because she is married and leaves. Afterwards, a guilt-wracked Cécile runs to Merteuil for comfort, believing that neither her future husband nor Danceny will want her now. Merteuil encourages the girl to marry Gercourt and keep Danceny as her lover.
When Tourvel feels her defenses weakening against Valmont, she flees to the city early next morning to escape temptation. Valmont rides to her residence and is there when she arrives. Unable to resist, Tourvel finally makes love with him. In the morning, Tourvel writes to her husband about her new lover, then leaves for the market to prepare a meal. When she returns, Valmont has already left to collect his "prize" winning his wager from Merteuil.
Valmont arrives at Merteuil's residence, where Merteuil indifferently spreads herself on the bed and waits for Valmont to get on with it, causing Valmont to storm out. As revenge, he goes to Cécile and convinces her to write Danceny a letter explaining that Merteuil was behind the plan to cast Danceny as Cécile's lover instead of marrying him. Tourvel later comes to Valmont and spends the night, leaving before he wakes the next morning. Her loss causes Valmont to realize he truly cared for her. He goes to Touvel’s residence to find only her husband writing at his desk unaware. Valmont leaves roses for Touvel on her unkempt bed.
Valmont returns to Merteuil, but rather than insisting she keep her bargain, he proposes marriage, saying they would be better off working together than against one another. Merteuil sadly reminds him that she has already been married once. As they are so alike, if they were to marry they would always end up betraying one another. Merteuil invites Valmont to her bedroom, where Danceny is in her bed; he had come to threaten Merteuil, but she seduced him and told him everything. Valmont leaves in a fury and goes to Cécile, suggesting that they escape to the city where Cécile will be free to love whom she chooses. Instead, Cécile reveals (with Merteuil also present in the house) that she has confessed everything to her mother, who orders Valmont from the house.
The next day, Danceny challenges Valmont to a duel to avenge Cécile's honor. Valmont prepares for the duel by drinking himself into a stupor and arrives hung over. The honorable Danceny refuses to duel him in his condition and is willing to accept an apology. Instead, Valmont charges Danceny with sword drawn, forcing Danceny to kill him in self-defense.
Valmont's funeral is filled with his former lovers, including Merteuil, who finds herself devastated at the loss of her best friend and oldest rival. Cécile reveals to Madame de Rosemonde that she (Cécile) is carrying Valmont's child; Rosemonde is overjoyed by the news. Cécile and Gercourt are soon married in a grand ceremony in the presence of the king, with Danceny surrounded by a pack of eligible young women and Merteuil looking on, alone knowing she has lost Gercourt forever.
Some time later, Madame de Tourvel lovingly places a rose on Valmont's tomb before returning to her waiting husband.
Production.
Differences from the novel.
The plot of "Valmont" differs significantly from Laclos's novel. In the novel, Cécile miscarries Valmont's child, and at the end retires to a convent; in "Valmont" she is pregnant at her wedding. In the novel, letters between Valmont and Merteuil are exposed, and Merteuil is publicly ridiculed and humiliated; in "Valmont", the letters are not mentioned, and Merteuil has no downfall except in the eyes of Cécile and her mother. She also does not suffer from the physical disfigurement described by Laclos in the denouement. Madame de Tourvel's future is less tragic: instead of dying of a broken heart, she returns to her forgiving and understanding older husband.
Release.
Theatrical release.
"Valmont" was released to theaters in the United States on November 17, 1989, for a limited run.
Missing scenes on the Region 1 DVD.
The Region 1 DVD released in 2002 by MGM is missing a short sequence after Valmont wakes up alone from his last night with Tourvel. In the sequence, Valmont takes flowers to Tourvel's home later the same day, but on arrival discovers that she is back with her husband. Unseen by either, he leaves the flowers on her bed before heading off to confront Merteuil. The sequence is included in the 2000 MGM VHS release, and is also in the high-definition transfer shown on MGM HD.
Critical response.
"Valmont" received mixed reviews, as it has a score of 55% on Rotten Tomatoes from 29 critics, and a Metacritic score of 55 from 14 critics. The film was not as highly acclaimed as "Dangerous Liaisons", which was released less than a year earlier.
In his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of four stars. Comparing it to "Dangerous Liaisons", which was based on the play rather than the novel, Ebert wrote that "Valmont" was a much different film than its predecessor. Where "Dangerous Liaisons" was "cerebral and claustrophobic, an exercise in sexual mindplay", Forman's version was "more physical" and the seductions more arousing.
In his review for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers gave the film a mixed review. While observing that the film was "rapturously beautiful, enticing us into a lush, aristocratic world", he felt that there was "nothing funny in the sight of Merteuil's decking out Cécile like a whore, nothing sexy in Valmont's indifferent rape of Cécile, nothing heroic in Valmont's futile duel with Danceny." Travers concluded, "Overlong and marred by clashing accents and acting styles, "Valmont" lacks the wit and erotic charge of "Dangerous Liaisons". But Forman's vision is, finally, more humane, more devastating."
In her review in "The New York Times", film critic Janet Maslin observed that the film "contributes virtually nothing to the body of information surrounding "Les Liaisons Dangereuses"." Maslin's major complaint was that the film lacked the "bite" of its predecessor, trivialized its characters, and showed "a troubling lack of focus".
In her review in "The Washington Post", Rita Kempley was equally unimpressed with "Valmont", describing it as "sumptuous suds, a broadly played trivialization of de Laclos's 18th-century novel of boudoir intrigue". Kemply concluded:
The film was selected for screening as part of the Cannes Classics section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.


John Fleming (priest)

John Irving Fleming is an Australian priest and bioethicist. He was the founding president of Campion College. Fleming was originally an Anglican priest but later became a Roman Catholic priest. He is currently suspended from public ministry.
Early career and background.
The son of an Anglican priest, Fleming graduated with a B.A. from the University of Adelaide, a Licentiate in Theology from the Australian College of Theology and a PhD in philosophy and bioethics from Griffith University. His PhD thesis was titled "Human rights and natural law : an analysis of the consensus gentium and its implications for bioethics".
Career.
Fleming was a high-profile Anglo-Catholic priest in the Anglican Church of Australia's Adelaide diocese. He was ordained in 1970. He became a Roman Catholic in 1987. Although married with three children, he was given a papal dispensation permitting his ordination in the Catholic Church in 1995.
As an Anglican priest in the early 1970s he served as university chaplain and priest in charge of St Paul's Church in Adelaide and dean and vice-master of St Mark's College at the University of Adelaide. Between 1977 and 1978 he was assistant curate at St. Nicholas Church, Chiswick, in West London; and between 1978 and 1987 was the rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Plympton. As a Roman Catholic lay person, between 1987 and 1995, he was the founding director of Southern Cross Bioethics Institute. As a Roman Catholic priest, Fleming was director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute between 1995 and 2004; and from 2001, a faculty member of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family. He served as the founding president of Campion College between 2004 and 2009. He was an Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, until its closure in 2012.
He has served on a number of bioethics boards including as a foundation member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee (1992-1996); and between 13 July 1996 and 13 July 2016, a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Fleming was a member of the SA Council on Reproductive Technology (1998-2004) and a Member of the Gene Technology Ethics Committee (from 2002) set up under the Australian Gene Technology Act 2000.
Fleming was a weekly columnist of "The Advertiser" in Adelaide and presented radio programs for a number of years. In 2005, while the president of Campion College in Sydney, Fleming hosted a short-lived talkback radio program on 2UE.
Community.
Fleming was an elected delegate to the 1998 Australian Constitutional Convention associated with Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. In 2003, he was appointed by the Howard Government to the council of the National Museum of Australia with his term ending in 2009.
Personal.
Fleming is married to Alison and they have three children.
Allegations of abuse.
Five years after his appointment to Campion College, media reports were published alleging sexual impropriety by Fleming with 3 people when he was an Anglican priest some 37 years previously. Nigel Hunt, a journalist for "The Advertiser" and "Sunday Mail", wrote that these allegations were known to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, the Most Reverend Leonard Faulkner, at the time of his Roman Catholic ordination.
Three months after the accusations were made public, the South Australian Police wrote to Fleming's lawyer advising that the matter "has been finalised by police" and that "there will be no formal charges laid against Fleming".
In 2011, Fleming returned to Adelaide where he continued to work as a priest. He initiated a defamation case against the "Sunday Mail" regarding several stories published on the complaints and investigations. These matters had been finalised by SA Police and by the Catholic Church. The Anglican Church ceased investigations on 24 November 2020.
From 7 October 2014 and the end of September 2016, Fleming pursued a high profile, but unsuccessful, defamation action against "The Advertiser" and "Sunday Mail" in the Supreme Court of South Australia regarding reports of alleged sexual misconduct as an Anglican priest.
Fleming appealed against the dismissal of the claim for damages for defamation to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia. On 29 September 2016 this appeal was unanimously dismissed when the Full Court found no errors of law were made in the earlier judgement. Costs were awarded against him.
Fleming applied for special leave to appeal with the High Court of Australia, the application was refused because two judges stated that it did "not raise a question of general importance. None of the applicant's proposed appeal grounds enjoys sufficient prospects of success to warrant a grant of special leave. Special leave should be refused with costs."
In the judgements of the Supreme Court, it was ruled that the "Briginshaw" standard of proof (including the presumption of innocence) no longer applied in civil matters. This was the matter of general importance that the High Court refused to deal with. Subsequently, the Federal Court in New South Wales found that "Briginshaw" did apply in a civil case involving allegations of criminal sexual behaviour. Actor Geoffrey Rush successfully sued for defamation.
Fleming again sought leave to appeal to the High Court. The court denied leave again saying there was no matter of general importance involved.
Sixteen days after the High Court refused Fleming's second application for leave to appeal, the Full Court of the SA Supreme Court brought down their judgement in another defamation matter involving alleged criminal behaviour. The case was that of "Poniatowska v Channel Seven Sydney Pty Ltd" [2019] SASCFC 111 (27 September 2019). Here the same Supreme Court (SA), contrary to its ruling in the "Fleming" matter, ruled that Briginshaw did apply in a civil matter involving defamation and alleged criminal behaviour.
The controversial decision in "Fleming" was subsequently criticised by academics David Flint, Paul Collits and Augusto Zimmermann who stated that Fleming had been denied the presumption of innocence and that uncorroborated accusations against a Catholic priest are deemed to be "prima facie" true even though Fleming's evidence of his innocence was corroborated by eyewitnesses.
Concerning Fleming and the Catholic Church, the decree of 9 February 2017 was revoked on 26 August 2019. A new decree of the same date stated that "Reverend John Fleming has not been found guilty of a delict and that he is not under ecclesiastical censure" and that in the current climate generated by the media it is better "for the welfare of Father Fleming and for the common good of the Church in this archdiocese, in Australia" that he no longer exercise a public ministry. These restrictions "apply to the Archdiocese of Adelaide alone" and Fleming is free "to approach the local ordinary of any other diocese seeking permission to officiate as a priest". Fleming is free to appeal against the decree to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Holy See.


The Last Station (novel)

The Last Station is a novel by Jay Parini that was first published in 1990. It is the story of the final year in the life of Leo Tolstoy, told from multiple viewpoints, including Tolstoy's young secretary, Valentin Bulgakov, his wife, Sophia Tolstaya, his daughter Sasha, his publisher and close friend, Vladimir Chertkov, and his doctor, Dushan Makovitsky. The novel was an international best-seller, translated into more than thirty languages, and adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film of the same name ("The Last Station").
Plot.
Set in 1910, the novel tells the true story of Tolstoy's life in his last days, before he ran away from his wife and his family home, taking to the road, where he died in a small railway station called Astapovo, with only his doctor and his favourite daughter, Sasha, in attendance (the film of this novel add Valentin Bulgakov and others to the deathbed scene who were not, in fact, present).
The various narrators, and others in the Tolstoy household and outside of it, were pulling at him, trying to get his attention. He was pulled in a thousand directions at once, and this wore him down. In particular, he found the entreaties of his wife, Sofya, difficult, as she suspected (correctly) that he was plotting with his closest friend, Chertkov, to betray the family by giving away the copyright to his works. Sofya's main concern was the family and the difficulty of maintaining her style of life after her husband's death (he was, after all, 82).
A major subplot of the novel involves Tolstoy's young secretary, Valentin Bulgakov, who comes to work with his hero in 1910 and bears witness to the controversies and difficulties surrounding him. Bulgakov falls in love with Masha, a Tolstoyan, who lives at a nearby compound called Telyatink, where a group of “Tolstoyans” have gathered to live communally and put into practice his ideas: chastity, vegetarianism, and nonviolent resistance to evil. Like Tolstoy, these were pacifists who opposed the Tsarist regime.
The novel builds dramatically to a climax at the railway station at Astapovo, where Tolstoy thought he was dying alone, although a small army of reporters had gathered from around the world to report on the death of the famous author, who had the status of a saint or rock star in Russian society. His death was major news throughout the world.
This novel mines the contradictions between Tolstoy's religious and political convictions, and those of his followers, and the luxurious life he found himself living – having been born into the Russian aristocracy and inherited a major estate.
Reception.
"The Last Station" had consistent praise from critics at home and abroad.
On the front page of "The New York Times Book Review", Miranda Seymour wrote: “"The Last Station" one of those rare works of fiction that manages to demonstrate both scrupulous historical research and true originality of voice and perception. . . . What lifts this book high above most historical novels is Jay Parini’s remarkable ability to enter the minds of his characters.”
Gore Vidal called the novel “One of the best historical novels written in the past twenty years.”
Writing in the "Times Literary Supplement", John Bayley called this novel “a subtle masterpiece” and suggested that “Tolstoy himself would probably have recognized the work of a true artist.”
Reviewers consistently praised the lyrical quality of the writing. "The Sunday Times" of London said: “Jay Parini has written a stylish, beautifully paced and utterly beguiling novel.”
Adaptations.
The novel was made into an Academy Award-nominated film (also "The Last Station") that was released in 2009, directed by Michael Hoffman and starring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti, and James McAvoy.
"The Last Station" was adapted in 1999 for the stage by Blake Robison and Connan Morrissey.


Sudoku Mania

Sudoku Mania is a 2006 sudoku puzzle game developed by Frontline Studios and published by UFO Interactive Games. Released on June 30, 2006, "Sudoku Mania" received "generally unfavorable" reviews from critics, having a Metascore of 25/100 on review aggregator Metacritic. Critics criticized the game's controls for being "disappointingly" "simplistic" and "obtuse".
Gameplay.
"Sudoku Mania" gameplay is identical to that of the number-placement puzzle sudoku; players have to fill a 9×9 grid with numbers; however, no line or 3×3 box can feature multiple of the same number. The game is primarily controlled using the Nintendo DS' d-pad. The game's puzzles are randomly-generated and are divided into 4 different difficulty levels: simple, easy, medium, and hard. The game allows players to write down notes and possible solutions and has an optional "auto-solve" feature, which will automatically solve a puzzle. Two other modes are also included in the game: one where the player fills the grid with symbols, rather than numbers, and a local multiplayer mode, where two players take turns filling the grid, with the player who entered the most correct numbers winning.
Development and release.
"Sudoku Mania" was developed by the Frontline Studios, located in Poland and the United States. The California-based UFO Interactive Games published the game.
"Sudoku Mania" was originally intended to release on June 23, 2006, in North America; however, it was delayed to June 30.
Reception.
"Sudoku Mania" received "generally unfavorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. On the aggregator, the game has a Metascore of 25/100, based on 4 reviews. Critics criticized the game's controls; "GameZone" stated that the controls were "obtuse" and "counteractive" to the game's marketing, which advertised that the game had an "easy-to-use" touchscreen control scheme; "IGN" called the game's user interface "simplistic" and, when in comparison with other sudoku games on the Nintendo DS, "disappointing".
Chris Oder, in a review for "GameZone", called "Sudoku Mania" a "fad cash-in", stating that there are better alternatives to the game on the Nintendo DS, even if players are fans of sudoku. Oder rated the game's gameplay 3.5/10, stating that "Sudoku Mania" was one of the few times where a developer had messed-up a sudoku video game. Oder criticized the graphics due to the game's background and called the game's soundtrack "awful", and suggested that players should play "Sudoku Mania" with volume turned off. Oder was more positive towards the game's concept, rating it 6.1/10; Oder praised the game's randomly-generating puzzles for being unique.
Craig Harris of "IGN" stated that, even if it was the only sudoku game on the Nintendo DS, it'd be hard to recommend "Sudoku Mania", stating that players should "stock-up" on paperback versions of sudoku, rather than playing "Sudoku Mania". Harris called the game even worse when in comparison with other sudoku games on the Nintendo DS. Alike Oder, Harris was positive towards the game's concept of having randomly-generated puzzles, but criticized its execution, calling it "rudimentary" and noting how some puzzles could be solved in a "snap" due to their easiness.
Gracie Leach of "AllGame" noted how "Sudoku Mania" has similarities with Hudson Soft's "Sudoku Gridmaster", another sudoku puzzle game on the Nintendo DS.


Squash and stretch

Squash and stretch is the phrase used to describe "by far the most important" of the 12 basic principles of animation, described in the book "The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.
Basis.
The principle is based on observation that only stiff objects remain inert during motion, while objects that are not stiff, although retaining overall volume, tend to change shape in an extent that depends on inertia and elasticity of the different parts of the moving object. To illustrate the principle, a half-filled flour sack dropped on the floor, or stretched out by its corners, was shown to be retaining its overall volume as determined by the object's Poisson's ratio.
Examples of the elasticity of the human body in motion were found in photographs the animators found in newspaper sports pages. Using these poses as reference the animators were able to start "observing (the motion) in a new way". Author Walt Stanchfield said, "A simple shape plus squash and stretch are all the anatomy you need for cartoon characters."
Application.
The ball that would change shape, compressing ("squash") as it hit the ground, then extending (stretch) as it bounced up again, was the most simple example that was part of the preparatory training for Disney animators.
During the 1930s, the squash and stretch were exaggerated by Disney animators, making it ever more extreme, but they had to maintain the overall volume of an object so that it did not appear to change volume as well as shape.


Dermot Moran

Dermot Moran () is an Irish philosopher specialising in phenomenology and in medieval philosophy, and he is also active in the dialogue between analytic and continental philosophy. He is currently the inaugural holder of the Joseph Chair in Catholic Philosophy at Boston College. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Founding Editor of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.
Biography.
Dermot Moran was born in Stillorgan, Dublin, Ireland. He was educated at Oatlands College, Primary and Secondary Schools where he specialised in the sciences, but was also active in debating in English and Irish. He was awarded the Higgins Gold Medal for Chemistry there in 1968, as well as the Institute of Chemists of Ireland Gold Medal for Chemistry in 1970. He is a published poet and was awarded the Irish Press New Irish Writing literary award for his poetry. Having studied mathematics, applied mathematics, physics and chemistry for the Leaving Certificate examination, he decided to study languages and literature in university.
He entered University College Dublin in 1970 on the basis of a UCD Entrance Scholarship and completed his BA in 1973, graduating with a Double First Class Honours Degree in English and Philosophy. He was the recipient of Wilmarth Lewis Scholarship to Yale University for graduate study. He graduated from Yale University with MA (1974), MPhil (1976) and PhD (1986) degrees in Philosophy. He then returned to Ireland to take up a post at Queen's University of Belfast. He taught at Queen's Belfast from 1979 to 1982, and then moved to a permanent lectureship in St Patrick's College Maynooth, then a Recognised College of the National University of Ireland.
In 1989, he was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy (Metaphysics and Logic) at University College Dublin. In 1992–1993, he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Connecticut College, and in Fall 2003 and Spring 2006 he was Lynette S. Autry Professor of Humanities at Rice University. In 2007 he was Visiting Professor at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He is a visiting professor in other institutions around the world, including Sorbonne, University at Albany, SUNY, Catholic University of Leuven, Trinity College Dublin, and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
He has been an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy since March 2003, and has been involved in the Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie, the highest non-governmental world organisation for philosophy, since the 1980s.
He is the Founding Editor of International Journal of Philosophical Studies, founded in 1993 and published by Routledge, and co-editor of Contributions To Phenomenology book series, published by Springer.
His monograph "Introduction to Phenomenology" was awarded the Edward Goodwin Ballard Prize in Phenomenology (2001) and was translated into Chinese. A Turkish translation of the book is in preparation. Moran served both as President of the Programme Committee for the 23rd World Congress of Philosophy which took place in Athens from 4–10 August 2013, and as President of the 24th World Congress of Philosophy which took place in Beijing from 13–20 August 2018.
In 2010 he was guest Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for the Edwin Cheng Foundation Summer School in Phenomenology.


Froth on the Daydream

Froth on the Daydream (, "The froth of days") is a 1947 novel by French author Boris Vian. Though told as a linear narrative, the novel employs surrealism and contains multiple plot lines, including the love stories of two couples, talking mice, and a man who ages years in a week. One of the main plot lines concerns a newlywed man whose wife develops a rare and bizarre illness that can only be treated by surrounding her with flowers.
The book has been translated several times into English under different titles. Stanley Chapman's translation is titled Froth on the Daydream (Rapp & Carroll, 1967), John Sturrock's is called Mood Indigo (Grove Press, 1968), and Brian Harper's is named Foam of the Daze (TamTam Books, 2012). A 2014 edition based on the 2013 film adaptation and published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux is also titled "Mood Indigo".
"Froth on the Daydream" has been adapted into three feature films, two music albums, and an opera.
Plot.
In a surreal world where animals and inanimate objects reflect the emotions of humans, Colin is a wealthy young man with a resourceful and stylish valet, Nicholas, and a loyal best friend, Chick. Despite his significant fortune and luxurious lifestyle, Colin is desperate for a lover, even going so far as secretly pining for Chick's girlfriend, Alyssum. Consequently, this overpowering desire compels Colin to instantly fall in love with Chloe, whom he meets at a friend's party. After a whirlwind romance, Colin weds Chloe in a grand ceremony. Generously, Colin bequeaths a quarter of his fortune to Chick and Alyssum so they too may marry despite the former's reluctance to do so.
During the honeymoon, Chloe falls ill with a mysterious disease that primarily consists of coughing and chest pain, and she and Colin are forced to end their trip early. Upon returning home, Chloe begins to feel better. However, her recovery is short-lived, and she faints during a shopping trip and her coughing fits return. She is eventually diagnosed with a water lily in the lung, a painful and rare condition that can only be treated by surrounding her with flowers. The expense of the treatment is large and Colin soon exhausts his funds, compelling him to undertake low-paying jobs in an effort to accumulate more money for Chloe's remedy. As Chloe's disease progresses, the apartments of Colin, Chick, and Nicholas all begin to decay, and Nicholas suddenly ages years in a single week.
Meanwhile, Chick's obsession with a philosopher Jean-Pulse Heartre causes him to spend all his money, effort and attention on collecting Heartre's literature. Alyssum, who is resentful of Chick's neglect of her in favor of his burgeoning collection, attempts to save him financially and renew his interest in her by persuading Heartre to stop publishing books, whom she kills when he refuses. She then seeks revenge upon the booksellers carrying Heartre's works by murdering them and burning down their stores. Concurrently, Chick receives a surprise visit from the police for tax evasion and contraband tobacco smuggling. His refusal to turn over his Heartre books as payment for his crimes leads to his death from a gunshot fired by one of the policemen at the scene.
Ultimately, Colin struggles to provide flowers for Chloe to no avail, and his grief at her death is so strong that his pet mouse commits suicide to escape the gloom.
Themes and symbolism.
It is widely believed that Chloe's illness is a metaphor for cancer and terminal illness. A possible parallel between Chloe's disease and the chronic heart condition Boris Vian suffered from throughout his life has also been speculated.
Colin's copious spending on Chloe's treatment and his relentless job search for more money represent the financial struggle many families face with paying for their loved ones' treatments and medical bills. His desperation to keep his wife alive and his grief and depression after her death symbolize the emotional and psychological anguish faced by individuals who know or have lost someone to terminal illness. Ultimately, Colin's actions and fate at the end of the novel demonstrate that cancer not only devastates the life of the patient – it also does the same to the lives of the people surrounding him or her.
Meanwhile, Chick's compulsive fixation on Jean-Pulse Heartre is a metaphor for drug addiction. His subsequent neglect of Alyssum and the rapid depletion of his funds on Heartre's works both reflect common characteristics shared among the majority of drug addicts.
The physical deterioration of the apartments of Colin, Nicholas, and Chick mirrors the depression and gradual loss of hope brought about by a persistent disease, and Nicholas' sudden ageing represents trauma and stress.
Jean-Pulse Heartre is a spoonerism of the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's name. Throughout the novel, there are references to various works by Sartre, but like the philosopher's name, Boris Vian played with words to make new titles for "works" by Heartre. For example, sometimes Vian used a synonym, such as "Le Vomi" (Sartre's original, "La Nausée"), while other times he created titles that served as homonyms to those of original Sartre works, such as "La Lettre et le Néon" (The Letter and Neon), a pun on "L'Être et le Néant" (Being and Nothingness).
Background and publication history.
Boris Vian finished writing the novel in the spring of 1946. The book sold poorly when it was published in 1947 as "L'écume des jours" under his birth name, Vian, rather than under his more famous pseudonym, Vernon Sullivan.
The work was first published in English as "Froth on the Daydream" in November 1967. Other published English translations title the work "Foam of the Daze" and "Mood Indigo".
Critical reception.
Following its debut in France, "Froth on the Daydream" received little notice in the press and underperformed in sales. It garnered more attention after the publication of the first English translation in 1967. Over the years, the novel has received mostly positive reviews and is considered to be one of Vian's best works.
In his review for "The Independent", David Evans described "Froth on the Daydream" as "a mad, moving, beautiful novel." In another positive review for the "Los Angeles Times", James Sallis stated, "This ["Froth on the Daydream]" is a great novel...beneath are a host of ambiguities, digressions, levels of meaning. Not quite beneath, actually, for subtexts keep erupting to the surface. It is in many ways a novel built of eruptions." In her critique, Ruby Millar reported "Froth on the Daydream" as "a book in which every line has a bite" and also commended Chapman's translation. English writer and translator John Sturrock praised the novel for being "the most consistent and balanced of all of Boris Vian's novels", and John Whitley of "Sunday Times" commended it for being "as timeless as "Le Grand Meaulnes" or even "La Princesse de Clèves"."
Meanwhile, in a mixed review for "Review of Contemporary Fiction", Thomas Hove observed that "sometimes Vian's absurdist style creates an emotionally distant effect", but later asserted that "Froth on the Daydream's" "final chapters sustain a powerful note of sadness for two young loves ruined by mortality, rival intellectual obsessions, and a repressive work ethic."
In another lukewarm evaluation written for "The Harvard Crimson" in 1969, Nina Bernstein, a Harvard University undergraduate student at the time who later became a journalist, described "Froth on the Daydream" as "a disappointment" and subsequently predicted, "It's unlikely that Vian's novels will become particularly popular in this country: they're very French, and they suffer in translation." She also observed that the "puns and word games (unfortunately badly translated) shade into black humor which at the novel's end becomes a Kafkaesque surrealism that we find frightening rather than funny" and dismissed Colin and Chloe's romance as "simple to the point of banality." However, at the end of her review, Bernstein acknowledged that "Froth on the Daydream" "has a magic no heavy-handed translator can counteract. It's effective on so many levels that reading it is more than a pleasant pastime – it's like an initiation into Vian's way of responding to reality. And a very powerful one, too."
Accolades.
"Froth on the Daydream" was #10 on the "Le Monde"'s 100 Books of the Century list, which was compiled by the French retailer Fnac and the French daily newspaper "Le Monde." To assemble the list, both companies polled 17,000 people on the question "Which books have remained in your memory?" in the spring of 1999.


Last Contact

"Last Contact" is a 4347-word science fiction short story published in 2007 by Stephen Baxter. It was nominated for the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
Plot summary.
The story follows a mother and daughter, Maureen and Caitlin, as they live through the last few months of Earth's existence. Caitlin, an astrophysicist, has been involved with the recent discovery of the "Big Rip", a field of dark energy that is tearing the universe apart. The story chronicles the lives of Maureen and Caitlin, as well as the general public, as the event gets closer to Earth. Maureen is intent on fixing up her yard while Caitlin tries to help the public understand and cope with what is about to happen.


Hipira

 is a manga-style story book written by Katsuhiro Otomo and illustrated by Shinji Kimura. The manga is licensed in English by Dark Horse Comics. The manga was adapted into an anime and broadcast on NHK BS-2 from December 21–25, 2009.
Media.
Manga.
Shufu-to-Seikatsu Sha Ltd. released the manga on September 2002. The manga is licensed in English by Dark Horse Comics, which released the manga on August 24, 2005. Casterman released the manga on October 17, 2007.
Anime.
The manga was adapted into an anime and broadcast on NHK BS-2's "BS Fuyu Yasumi Anime Tokusen" program for five consecutive days starting from December 21, 2009. The anime featured Yumiko Kobayashi as Hipira, Sayaka Ohara as Soul, Bin Shimada as Chōrō, Chihiro Suzuki as Georuge and Ayumi Fujimura as Erena.
Reception.
"Newtype USA" magazine commends Shinji Kimura's artwork saying that his illustrations are both "creepy and cute".


Callippus

Callippus (; ; c. 370 BC – c. 300 BC) was a Greek astronomer and mathematician.
Biography.
Callippus was born at Cyzicus, and studied under Eudoxus of Cnidus at the Academy of Plato. He also worked with Aristotle at the Lyceum, which means that he was active in Athens prior to Aristotle's death in 322 BC. He observed the movements of the planets and attempted to use Eudoxus' scheme of connected spheres to account for their movements. However, he found that 27 spheres was insufficient to account for the planetary movements, and so he added seven more for a total of 34. According to the description in Aristotle's "Metaphysics" (XII.8), he added two spheres for the Sun, two for the Moon, and one each for Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
Callippus made careful measurements of the lengths of the seasons, finding them (starting with the spring equinox) to be 94 days, 92 days, 89 days, and 90 days. This variation in the seasons implies a variation in the speed of the Sun, called the "solar anomaly". He also followed up on the work done by Meton of Athens to measure the length of the year and construct an accurate lunisolar calendar. The Metonic cycle has 19 tropical years and 235 synodic months in 6940 days. The Callippic cycle synchronizes days per orbit and rotations per orbit within the Metonic cycle, noting the difference of one after 4 Metonic cycles, a duration of 76 years. Distinguishing rotations and days infers knowledge of the precession cycle.
Callippus started his observation cycle on the summer solstice in 330 BC (28 June in the proleptic Julian calendar). The cycle's begin position, the stellar position and sidereal hour timing the eclipse, are used by later astronomers for calibrating their observations in relation to subsequent eclipses. The Callippic cycle of 76 years appears to be used in the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient astronomical mechanical clock and observational aide of the 2nd century BC (discovered in Mediterranean waters off Greece). The mechanism has a dial for the Callippic cycle and the 76 years are mentioned in the Greek text of the manual of this old device. The crater Calippus on the Moon is named after him.


Rishi Puri

Rishi Puri is an Indian Sudoku solver. He is a two time Indian National Sudoku Champion. He was part of the top three from India along with Rohan Rao and Prasanna Seshadri at the national championships and the World Sudoku Championships. Rishi won the Indian Sudoku Championships in 2014 and 2015. He also won the Times Sudoku Championship in 2013.
Rishi has also won various international Sudoku competitions. He was twice runners up at the Brand's international Sudoku Competition held at Bangkok, Thailand in 2011 and 2012. Rishi also won the Times UK National Sudoku Championship in 2012.
Rishi was the first Indian to qualify for the World Puzzle Federation's Sudoku Grand Prix by finishing in the top 10 across the world where he finished 9th, in 2014. In 2015 at Sofia, Bulgaria, Rishi improved his standing at the Grand Prix by finishing at a career best rank of 7th. 2015 World Sudoku Championship was also the last one attended by Rishi, post which he retired.


Second Fiddle (novel)

Second Fiddle (1988) is a best-selling novel by British author Mary Wesley.
Plot summary.
Twenty-three years old Claud Bannister has just failed his exam to be an accountant and is determined to give up his studies and become a writer. He is introduced to Laura Thornby at a concert. Laura is forty-five, single and a notorious meddler. When she hears about Claud's plans, and learns that he is living with his mother, Laura immediately starts rearranging his life. In no time Claud finds himself installed in a rented loft and making a living by selling antiques from a stall in the market. Laura becomes so interested in Claud's welfare, and her own, that she even ends up in bed with him.
When Laura isn't visiting Claud in his loft, and he isn't working in the market, he is busy working on his novel, just as Laura had planned. But even Laura Thornby cannot foresee everything. Her affairs have always been brief and she has always been in total control, but with Claud she begins to lose control. When she sees what Claud has written, she realizes that he has a talent, and that she herself merely is playing second fiddle to his fictional characters.
Major Themes.
One of the most important recurring themes in Wesley's fiction is the conflict between "ambiguity" and "identity" originating in the question of "illegitimacy". Laura Thornby is painfully aware of the village gossip suggesting that Nicholas is not just her uncle, but also her father. When Laura as a teenager first learned about it, she had not confronted her mother, but had set off abroad, working her way across Europe. In a state of resentment against Nicholas and Emily she had stayed there for years. "Then with acceptance came resignation...a mode of survival".
Laura feels haunted by "guilt" in the relationship with her parents. When Nicholas and Emily are ill and ask her to come and look after them, she immediately feels responsible and rushes off to be with them. She tries to justify their behaviour and begins to reproach herself: "She had neglected...Emily and Nicholas, while enjoying herself...". "She had denied them love. Emily has grown old, Nicholas is old too". "Better...to love them as they are, stop judging".
Wesley's heroines often seem to have an air of "elusiveness" about them (the young Calypso in The Camomile Lawn, Rose in Not That Sort of Girl, Hebe in Harnessing Peacocks and Laura Thornby in "Second Fiddle"). Laura Thornby is never totally committed in her relationships, she is afraid of "getting-close" and consequently she always cuts her affairs short. "Intimacy is not my genre", she says. "I am emotionally parsimonious".


Conjugal Love (novel)

Conjugal Love was written in the original Italian ("L'amore conjugale"), by Alberto Moravia in 1947. It was first translated into English in 1951, and has since a new translation by Marina Harss as published by Other Press in 2007.
The novel is written in the first person by a rich Italian dilettante who has gone with his wife to the countryside to attempt to write a novel. The situation is complicated, however, by the couple's decision to remain abstinent throughout this period, and the wife's accusation that her husband's barber has tried to molest her.


Heiichi Sugiyama

 was a Japanese poet, film critic, and film theorist.
Career.
Born the son of a wealthy engineer in Fukushima Prefecture, Sugiyama studied art history at the University of Tokyo, and it was at that time that he was discovered by the poet Tatsuji Miyoshi. After graduating, he founded the literary journal "Osaka bungaku" with Sakunosuke Oda. He won the Nakahara Chuya Prize in 1941 and the Bungei Panron Prize in 1943 for his poetry. His father's factory, however, burned down during World War II and Sugiyama had to give up his creative activities in order to rebuild the family business, an endeavor that ended in failure in 1956 when the company had to declare bankruptcy after a series of labor conflicts and natural disasters. It took him 24 years to publish his second book of poetry. His poetry has been termed "short and crisp, witty, more visual than musical, philosophical and even metaphysical – without losing touch with day-to-day reality." He won the Gendai Shijin Award at age 97 in March 2012, two months before his death of pneumonia.
It was said that Sugiyama "spent his life between cinema and poetry". His poetry revealed "the eye of a cinematographer" and his first book, published in 1941, was on film. As a film theorist, he praised the long take and critiqued film montage before André Bazin did.
From 1966, he was a professor at Tezukayama Gakuin College.


Pudgala

In Jainism, Pudgala (or "") is one of the six Dravyas, or aspects of reality that fabricate the world we live in. The six "dravya"s include the jiva and the fivefold divisions of ajiva (non-living) category: "dharma" (motion), "adharma" (rest), "akasha" (space), "pudgala" (matter) and "kala" (time). "Pudgala", like other "dravya"s except "kala" is called "astikaya" in the sense that it occupies space.
Pudgala is derived from the words 'pud', which is defined as Supplement (Addition /Fusion), and gala, which is defined as Disintegrate, or Division or Fission. Therefore, Pudgalas are best defined as all things that are continuously changing by the process of Supplementation or Disintegration, namely matter.
The individual unit of Pudgala is the material from which all is made called a Paramanu, which, by the process of supplementation, can combine to form what can be roughly said is an aggregate, called a Skandha. It possesses at all times four qualities, namely, a color ("varna"), a taste ("rasa"), a smell ("gandha"), and a certain kind of palpability ("sparsha", touch).
In Buddhism, "Pudgala" means the entity that reincarnates as an individual or person, i.e., the "bundle of tendencies" that keeps an individual reincarnating until they attain enlightenment.


Virginio Cesarini

Virginio Cesarini (Rome, 20 October 1595 - Rome, 1 April 1624) was an Italian poet and intellectual.
Youth and Education.
The son of Giuliano Cesarini, duke of Civitanova, and his wife Livia Orsini, he was sent together with his brother Alessandro to study at Parma, where he was hosted by duke Ranuccio I Farnese. During this period, as a result of a fall from a horse and an inept operation, his health, already delicate, became even more fragile. He returned to Rome in 1610, and pursued a range of interests including theology, jurisprudence, mathematics and astronomy, as was consistent with prevailing ideas about a cultural education, founded on Aristotelian philosophy.
Career in Rome.
He was on friendly terms with Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII) as well as with Prince Federico Cesi, patron of the Accademia dei Lincei. In 1618, Cesarini became a member of the Accademia. It was here that he encountered both Galileo and Giovanni Ciampoli. Thus he became familiar with Galileo’s experimental methodology, which had a profound influence on him.
He served as chamberlain to Pope Gregory XV, and was confirmed in his post by his successor, Urban VIII and promoted to Chief Chamberlain. In the Accademia dei Lincei he served as a link between scientists who were working in different cities of Italy, and encouraged Galileo, who was facing criticism from conservative circles.
Friendship with Galileo.
In 1619, the Jesuit Orazio Grassi, writing under the pseudonym Lotario Sassi, published "Libra Astronomica ac Philosophica", which attacked Galileo. In May 1622, Cesarini wrote to Galileo asking him to publish a reply to Sarsi, which he owed it to the world to write. In October of the same year, Galileo’s response, "The Assayer", was ready. It was published the following year, in the form of a letter to Cesarini.


Octet (computing)

The octet is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that consists of eight bits. The term is often used when the term byte might be ambiguous, as the byte has historically been used for storage units of a variety of sizes.
The term "octad(e)" for eight bits is no longer common.
Definition.
A variable-length sequence of octets, as in Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), is referred to as an octet string.
The international standard IEC 60027-2, chapter 3.8.2, states that a byte is an octet of bits. However, the unit byte has historically been platform-dependent and has represented various storage sizes in the history of computing. Due to the influence of several major computer architectures and product lines, the byte became overwhelmingly associated with eight bits. This meaning of "byte" is codified in such standards as ISO/IEC 80000-13. While "byte" and "octet" are often used synonymously, those working with certain legacy systems are careful to avoid ambiguity.
Octets can be represented using number systems of varying bases such as the hexadecimal, decimal, or octal number systems. The binary value of all eight bits set (or activated) is , equal to the hexadecimal value , the decimal value , and the octal value . One octet can be used to represent decimal values ranging from 0 to 255.
The term "octet" (symbol: o) is often used when the use of "byte" might be ambiguous. It is frequently used in the Request for Comments (RFC) publications of the Internet Engineering Task Force to describe storage sizes of network protocol parameters. The earliest example is from 1974. In 2000, Bob Bemer claimed to have earlier proposed the usage of the term octet for "8-bit bytes" when he headed software operations for Cie. Bull in France in 1965 to 1966.
In France, French Canada and Romania, "octet" is used in common language instead of "byte" when the 8-bit sense is required, for example, a megabyte (MB) is termed a megaoctet (Mo).
Historically, in Western Europe, the term "octad" (or "octade") was used to specifically denote 8 bits; however, this usage is no longer common. Early examples of usage exist in British, Dutch and German sources of the 1960s and 1970s, and throughout the documentation of Philips mainframe computers. Similar terms are "triad" for a grouping of three and "decade" for ten.
Unit multiples.
Unit multiples of the octet may be formed with SI prefixes and binary prefixes (power of 2 prefixes) as standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission during 1998.
Use in internet protocol addresses.
The octet is used to represent Internet Protocol computer network addresses.
An IPv4 address consists of four octets, usually shown individually as a series of decimal values ranging from 0 to 255, each separated by a full stop (dot). Using octets with all eight bits set, the representation of the highest-numbered IPv4 address is 255.255.255.255.
An IPv6 address consists of sixteen octets, shown using hexadecimal representation (two hexits per octet) and using a colon character (:) after each pair of octets (16 bits also known as hextet) for readability, like this FE80:0000:0000:0000:0123:4567:89AB:CDEF. If two or more consecutive octets equal zero they may be replaced by two following colon characters (::) but this can be used only once in a given IPv6 address to avoid ambiguity. The previously given IPv6 address can thus also be written as FE80::0123:4567:89AB:CDEF. In addition leading zeroes may also be omitted as they are not significant bits in the address. Applying this to the previous example mentioned will result in an IPv6 address of FE80::123:4567:89AB:CDEF.


Molly Haskell

Molly Clark Haskell (born September 29, 1939) is an American feminist film critic and author. She contributed to "The Village Voice"—first as a theatre critic, then as a movie reviewer—and from there moved on to "New York" magazine and "Vogue". Her most influential book is "From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies" (1974; revised and reissued in 1987). She co-hosted Turner Classic Movies' "The Essentials" with Robert Osborne in 2006 for one season.
Early life.
Molly Haskell was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and grew up in Richmond, Virginia. She attended St. Catherine's School, Sweet Briar College, the University of London and the Collège de Sorbonne before settling in New York. In the 1960s, she worked for the French Film Office, where she wrote a newsletter about that country's films for the New York press and served as an interpreter for French film directors attending openings of their movies in New York.
Career.
Haskell then worked at "The Village Voice", and became a movie reviewer. Haskell finally found a steady career with "New York" magazine and "Vogue".
In the documentary "" (2009), Haskell discusses her time at "Village Voice" in the 1960s when she looked at film dually, "both as a film lover and as a feminist" and of how, at a young age, she was affected by the French film, "Les Diaboliques" (1955). She is one of the main contributors to the 2013 documentary "In Search of the Ideal Male: Made in Hollywood" where she explores the evolution of gender roles in Hollywood.
The publications Haskell has written for include "The New York Times", "The Guardian", "Esquire", "The Nation", "Town and Country Magazine", the "New York Observer", "The New York Review of Books", and "Film Comment". She was Artistic Director of the Sarasota French Film Festival, has served on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival, and been associate Professor of Film at Barnard College and Adjunct Professor of Film at Columbia University.
Haskell participated in the 2012 "Sight & Sound" critics' poll, where she listed her ten favorite films as follows: "À Nos Amours", "Au Hasard Balthazar", "The Awful Truth", "Chinatown", "Claire's Knee", "I Know Where I'm Going!", "Madame de...", "The Shop Around the Corner", "Sunrise", and "Vertigo".
Personal life.
Haskell was married to fellow film critic Andrew Sarris, who died on June 20, 2012.
Honors and awards.
In 2013, Haskell received an Athena Film Festival Award for her leadership, creativity and the extraordinary example she sets for other women in the field. She was American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow of 2019.


List of magical girl works

 is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media centered around young girls who use magic, often through an alter ego into which they can transform. Since the genre's emergence in the 1960s, media including anime, manga, OVAs, ONAs, films, and live-action series have been produced.


Sarawagi

The Sarawagi or Saraogi or Sarawgi Jain community, meaning a Jain Śrāvaka, is also known as the Khandelwal. They originated from Khandela, a historical town in northern Rajasthan.
The Sarawagi community owes its name to a strong historical association with Jainism. Also technically the term Sarawagi or shravaka is applicable to all Jains, the Khandelwal Jains is the only community that has used it extensively, although the term is sometimes also used by Jain Agrawals in Rajasthan.
The Khandelwals have 84 divisions. The legendary origin of these divisions is given in a 17th-century book, "Shravakotpatti Varnanam". It mentions how the ruler Girakhandel of Khandela was planning to sacrifice one thousand Jain monks in a naramedha yajña. However, with the assistance of goddess Chakreshvari, muni Jinasena persuaded the ruler to give up violence. The ruler along with his eighty-three chiefs became Jain Śrāvakas, giving rise to eighty-four gotra.
Organizations.
The Khandelwal Digambar Jain Mahasabha was founded by Lunkaran Pandya of Jhalarapatan and Padam Chand Benara of Agra (both then living in Bombay) on Feb. 28, 1916 in Bombay. The first convention of the Mahasabha was held in 1920, where the publication of "Khandelwal jain Hitechchhu" was initiated. Several regional branches of the Mahasabha were established, however they all became inactive around 1932. The Mahasabha has been revived recently, its current office is in Lucknow.
It has recently several published directories. So far the community count has been done for 1794 towns with 29,944 families and 185,556 individuals. This does not include the city of Jaipur, which is the largest center.
Agarwal Sarawagis.
The term Sarawagi is also used by are Agarwal Sarawagis from Churu as well as other districts of Rajasthan. They are a section of Agrawal Jain community.


Elvis Mitchell

Elvis Mitchell (born December 6, 1958) is an American film critic, host of the public radio show "The Treatment", and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram", the "LA Weekly", "The Detroit Free Press", and "The New York Times". In the summer of 2011, he was appointed as curator of LACMA's new film series, Film Independent at LACMA. He is also currently a Film Scholar and lecturer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Life and career.
Mitchell was born in Highland Park, Michigan, in the Metro Detroit area. He graduated in 1980 from Wayne State University, where he majored in English. He was a film critic for the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram", the "LA Weekly", "The Detroit Free Press", and "The New York Times".
In the 1990s, Mitchell was part of a short-lived PBS show called "Edge". On the series, he provided film commentary and general criticism. In one segment, Mitchell offered a quick run-down of all of director Oliver Stone's tropes, including "always keep that camera moving," which he said while moving a camcorder over a model of a Vietnam jungle and prison camp set up on a table.
In March 2005 Mitchell was announced as the co-head (along with producer Deborah Schindler) of a New York City office for Sony's Columbia Pictures. Mitchell's role would be to help scout new minority talent and make movies for minority audiences. Yet Mitchell simply disappeared, leaving Schindler to run the office alone and to this day refuses to discuss his odd behavior.
Mitchell produced "The Black List" in 2008, with director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, a documentary film about race, culture and the seeds of success. The film includes Toni Morrison, Chris Rock and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar among others. A follow-up film, "The Black List Part 2", was filmed in the same style with director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. The second film features Angela Davis, Tyler Perry and RZA.
Since 1996, Mitchell has been the host of Santa Monica, California, public radio station KCRW's pop culture and film interview program "The Treatment", which is nationally distributed and podcast. He served for a number of years as a pop culture commentator for "Weekend Edition" on NPR. In 2008, "Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence" began airing on Turner Classic Movies. On the program, Mitchell interviews actors and directors about their favorite classic films.
Mitchell is featured in the 2009 documentary film "" discussing how he was championed as a young writer by Pauline Kael, and the impact on him as an adolescent of the Herschell Gordon Lewis film, "Two Thousand Maniacs!".
On September 10, 2010, film critic Roger Ebert announced that he would be returning to television on a movie review show that he was producing for public television. He also announced that Mitchell, along with film critic Christy Lemire of the Associated Press, would be featured on the new program reviewing the new films released. On December 14, 2010, the "Chicago Sun-Times" reported that Mitchell would not be appearing on the new show.
In January 2011 it was announced that Mitchell had joined the Movieline as chief film critic, along with Stephanie Zacharek. Penske Media Corp terminated him after more than three months as Movieline.com's chief film critic.
Mitchell has been hired by the LACMA in partnership with "Film Independent" as curator of a new film series, Film Independent at LACMA. It was announced on June 16, 2011 that Mitchell would start his new job on the weekly film series this July. The series launched on October 13, 2011 with the world premiere of "The Rum Diary", an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel, by director Bruce Robinson, starring Johnny Depp.
On April 4, 2019, Mitchell was the moderator at the 2019 CinemaCon Filmmakers Forum, where the guests included Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, and the Russo brothers. On February 9, 2020, on the Red Carpet at the Oscars program, Mitchell said "capitalism is ruining humanity".
In popular culture.
In 2007, Mitchell appeared in an episode of the HBO TV series "Entourage", playing himself.
In 2014, Mitchell was mentioned as "the bad boy of public radio" during the FOX TV series "Bob's Burgers" episode "Friends With Burger-Fits."


Paperback Writer

"Paperback Writer" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership, the song was released as the A-side of their eleventh single in May 1966. It topped singles charts in the United Kingdom, the United States, Ireland, West Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Norway. On the US "Billboard" Hot 100, the song was at number one for two non-consecutive weeks, being interrupted by Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night".
"Paperback Writer" was the last new song by the Beatles to be featured on their final tour in 1966.
Inspiration and lyrical themes.
"Paperback Writer" was largely written by Paul McCartney, who based the lyrics on a challenge made to him by his Aunt Lil. McCartney recalled, "The idea's a bit different. Years ago, my Auntie Lil said to me, 'Why do you always write songs about love all the time? Can't you ever write about a horse or the summit conference or something interesting?' So, I thought, 'All right, Auntie Lil.' And recently, we've not been writing all our songs about love." Disc jockey Jimmy Savile also recalled McCartney citing the song being inspired by a request from McCartney's aunt who asked if he could "write a single that wasn't about love".
In 1966, McCartney discussed the song in an interview with the "NME", with Alan Smith writing:
The song's lyrics are in the form of a letter from an aspiring author addressed to a publisher. In a 2007 interview, McCartney recalled that he started writing the song after reading in the "Daily Mail" about an aspiring author, possibly Martin Amis. The "Daily Mail" was Lennon's regular newspaper and copies were in Lennon's Weybridge home when Lennon and McCartney were writing songs.
Aside from deviating from the subject of love, McCartney had it in mind to write a song with a melody backed by a single, static chord. "John and I would like to do songs with just one note like 'Long Tall Sally.' We got near it in 'The Word. McCartney claimed to have barely failed to achieve this goal with "Paperback Writer", as the verse remains on G until the end, at which point it pauses on C.
Lennon told "Hit Parader" in 1972 that "Paperback Writer" was primarily written by McCartney: "I think I might have helped with some of the lyrics. Yes, I did. But it was mainly Paul's tune." Lennon also told "Playboy" in 1980: "'Paperback Writer' is son of 'Day Tripper', but it is Paul's song."
Recording.
The Beatles recorded the track at EMI Studios in London on 13 and 14 April 1966. "Paperback Writer" is marked by the boosted bass guitar sound throughout, partly in response to John Lennon demanding to know why the bass on a certain Wilson Pickett record exceeded the bass on any Beatles records. This changed with the "Paperback Writer" single.
"'Paperback Writer' was the first time the bass sound had been heard in all its excitement," said Beatles' engineer Geoff Emerick in Mark Lewisohn's book "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions". "Paul played a different bass, a Rickenbacker. Then we boosted it further by using a loudspeaker as a microphone. We positioned it directly in front of the bass speaker and the moving diaphragm of the second speaker made the electric current." Further, McCartney's playing was more melodic and busy than on previous tracks.
According to McCartney, the harmony vocals on the track were arranged during the recording session. George Martin, the Beatles' producer, later commented: "The way the song itself is shaped and the slow, contrapuntal statements from the backing voices – no one had really done that before." In their backing vocals over the third verse, Lennon and George Harrison sing the title of the French nursery rhyme "Frère Jacques".
Emerick stated that the "Paperback Writer" / "Rain" single was cut louder than any other Beatles record up to that time, due to a new piece of equipment used in the mastering process, referred to as "Automatic Transient Overload Control", which was devised by the EMI maintenance department.
Promotion.
In Britain, the single was promoted with a photograph depicting the Beatles draped with pieces of raw meat and decapitated baby dolls. This photograph was later used, albeit briefly, as the "Yesterday and Today" album cover in the US, and in that capacity it became known as the "butcher cover". For the American release of the single, the picture sleeve depicted the Beatles playing live, but with Lennon and Harrison's images reflected so that it appeared they were playing left-handedly.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed four promotional films for the song shot on 19 and 20 May 1966. On the first day they recorded a colour performance at EMI Studios, for "The Ed Sullivan Show", which was shown on 5 June, and two black-and-white performance clips for British television. The latter were shown on "Ready Steady Go!" and "Thank Your Lucky Stars" on 3 and 25 June, respectively.
On 20 May, a second colour film was made at Chiswick House in west London. The Beatles mimed to the song, and they were shown in and around the conservatory in the grounds of the house. The clip was first broadcast in black and white on BBC-TV's "Top of the Pops" on 2 June. The 20 May promo clip was included in the Beatles' 2015 video compilation "1", and both the 19 May colour film and the 20 May film were included in the three-disc versions of the compilation, titled "1+".
The Beatles appeared on "Top of the Pops" to mime to "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" on 16 June. The band were introduced by DJ Pete Murray. This television appearance – which was the Beatles' only "in person" appearance on the BBC's flagship pop music show of the era – became infamous due to the BBC's decision to wipe the master recording to free up expensive video tape for re-use. In 2019, 11 seconds of the performance was unearthed by a collector; over 90 seconds' worth was found in the same year.
Release.
"Paperback Writer" was released as a single in the US by Capitol Records on 30 May 1966, with the catalogue number 5651 and "Rain" as the B-side. It was subsequently released in the UK by Parlophone on 10 June 1966, with the catalogue number R 5452. It later appeared on the 1966 UK compilation album "A Collection of Beatles Oldies" and the 1970 US compilation album "Hey Jude".
"Paperback Writer" has appeared on subsequent re-releases including "1962–1966" (1973), a re-released single (1976), "Past Masters, Volume Two" (1988) and "1" (2000). The single was released as part of a Record Store Day reissue in 2010. In 1995, a mix of the song featuring only vocals was among several tracks that were in the running for inclusion on the three "Beatles Anthology" compilation albums but were ultimately passed over.
Personnel.
There is some dispute over who played what on "Paperback Writer". In the July 1990 and the November 2005 issues of "Guitar Player" magazine, McCartney stated that he played the song's opening riff on his Epiphone Casino guitar, and photos from the recording session seem to be consistent with this. In the 2005 edition of his book "Revolution in the Head", Ian MacDonald gives Harrison as the sole lead guitarist, and Kenneth Womack similarly lists McCartney only on bass and lead vocal. Robert Rodriguez and Walter Everett each credit McCartney as the player of the song's main guitar riff, and state that Harrison added lead guitar "fills" over his initial rhythm part.
The following line-up is per Rodriguez:


Megabyte

The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix "mega" is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes of information. This definition has been incorporated into the International System of Quantities.
However, in the computer and information technology fields, two other definitions are used that arose for historical reasons of convenience. A common usage has been to designate one megabyte as (220 B), a measurement that conveniently expresses the binary multiples inherent in digital computer memory architectures. However, most standards bodies have deprecated this usage in favor of a set of binary prefixes, in which this quantity is designated by the unit mebibyte (MiB). In one context, the megabyte has been used to mean 1000×1024 () bytes.
Definitions.
The megabyte is commonly used to measure either 10002 bytes or 10242 bytes. The interpretation of using base 1024 originated as a compromise technical jargon for the byte multiples that needed to be expressed by the powers of 2 but lacked a convenient name. As 1024 (210) approximates 1000 (103), roughly corresponding to the SI prefix kilo-, it was a convenient term to denote the binary multiple. In 1998 the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) proposed standards for binary prefixes requiring the use of megabyte to strictly denote 10002 bytes and mebibyte to denote 10242 bytes. By the end of 2009, the IEC Standard had been adopted by the IEEE, EU, ISO and NIST. Nevertheless, the term megabyte continues to be widely used with different meanings:
In this convention, one thousand megabytes (1000 MB) is equal to one gigabyte (1 GB), where 1 GB is one billion bytes.
In this convention, one thousand and twenty-four megabytes (1024 MB) is equal to one gigabyte (1 GB), where 1 GB is 10243 bytes (i.e., 1 GiB).
Randomly addressable semiconductor memory doubles in size for each address lane added to an integrated circuit package, which favors counts that are powers of two. The capacity of a disk drive is the product of the sector size, number of sectors per track, number of tracks per side, and the number of disk platters in the drive. Changes in any of these factors would not usually double the size.
Examples of use.
Depending on compression methods and file format, a megabyte of data can roughly be:
The human genome consists of DNA representing 800MB of data. The parts that differentiate one person from another can be compressed to 4MB.


Slav squat


Shakespeare apocrypha

The Shakespeare apocrypha is a group of plays and poems that have sometimes been attributed to William Shakespeare, but whose attribution is questionable for various reasons. The issue is separate from the debate on Shakespearean authorship, which addresses the authorship of the works traditionally attributed to Shakespeare.
Background.
In his own lifetime, Shakespeare saw only about half of his plays enter print. Some individual plays were published in quarto, a small, cheap format. Then, in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell compiled a folio collection of his complete plays, now known as the First Folio. Heminges and Condell were in a position to do this because they, like Shakespeare, worked for the King's Men, the London playing company that produced all of Shakespeare's plays.
In addition to plays, poems were published under Shakespeare's name. The collection published as "The Passionate Pilgrim" contains genuine poems by Shakespeare along with poems known to have been written by other authors, along with some of unknown authorship. Unattributed poems have also been assigned by some scholars to Shakespeare at various times. See below.
The apocrypha can be categorized under the following headings.
Plays attributed to Shakespeare during the 17th century, but not included in the First Folio.
Several plays published in quarto during the seventeenth century bear Shakespeare's name on the title page or in other documents, but do not appear in the First Folio. Some of these plays (such as "Pericles") are believed by most scholars of Shakespeare to have been written by him (at least in part). Others, such as "Thomas Lord Cromwell" are so atypically written that it is difficult to believe they really are by Shakespeare.
Scholars have suggested various reasons for the existence of these plays. In some cases, the title page attributions may be lies told by fraudulent printers trading on Shakespeare's reputation. In other cases, Shakespeare may have had an editorial role in the plays' creation, rather than actually writing them, or they may simply be based on a plot outline by Shakespeare. Some may be collaborations between Shakespeare and other dramatists (although the First Folio includes plays such as "Henry VIII", "Henry VI, Part 1" and "Timon of Athens" that are believed to be collaborative, according to modern stylistic analysis). Another explanation for the origins of any or all of the plays is that they were not written for the King's Men, were perhaps from early in Shakespeare's career, and thus were inaccessible to Heminges and Condell when they compiled the First Folio.
C. F. Tucker Brooke lists forty-two plays conceivably attributable to Shakespeare, many in his own lifetime, but dismisses the majority on the face, leaving only most of those listed below, with some additions.
Plays attributed to "W.S." during the 17th century, and not included in the First Folio.
Some plays were attributed to "W.S." in the seventeenth century. These initials could refer to Shakespeare, but could also refer to Wentworth Smith, an obscure dramatist.
Plays attributed to Shakespeare after the 17th century.
A number of anonymous plays have been attributed to Shakespeare by more recent readers and scholars. Many of these claims are supported only by debatable ideas about what constitutes "Shakespeare's style". Nonetheless, some of them have been cautiously accepted by mainstream scholarship.
Hoaxes.
The dream of discovering a new Shakespeare play has also resulted in the creation of at least one hoax. In 1796 William Henry Ireland claimed to have found a lost play of Shakespeare entitled "Vortigern and Rowena". Ireland had previously released other documents he claimed were by Shakespeare, but "Vortigern" was the first play he attempted. (He later produced another pseudo-Shakespearean play, "Henry II".) The play was initially accepted by the literary community—albeit not on sight—as genuine. The play was eventually presented at Drury Lane on 2 April 1796, to immediate ridicule, and Ireland eventually admitted to the hoax.
Apocryphal poems.
Several poems published anonymously have been attributed by scholars to Shakespeare. Others were attributed to him in 17th century manuscripts. None have received universal acceptance. The authorship of some poems published under Shakespeare's name in his lifetime has also been questioned.
"The Passionate Pilgrim".
"The Passionate Pilgrim" is a collection of poems first published in 1599 by William Jaggard, later the publisher of Shakespeare's First Folio. Though the title page attributes the content to Shakespeare, many of the poems were written by others. Some are of unknown authorship and could be by Shakespeare. Jaggard issued an expanded edition of "The Passionate Pilgrim" in 1612, containing additional poems on the theme of Helen of Troy, announced on the title page ("Whereunto is newly added two Love Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and Hellen's answere back again to Paris"). These were in fact by Thomas Heywood, from his "Troia Britannica," which Jaggard had published in 1609. Heywood protested the unauthorized copying in his "Apology for Actors" (1612), writing that Shakespeare was "much offended" with Jaggard for making "so bold with his name." Jaggard withdrew the attribution to Shakespeare from unsold copies of the 1612 edition.
"A Lover's Complaint".
This poem was published as an appendix to Shakespeare's sonnets in 1609. Its authorship has been disputed by several scholars. In 2007 Brian Vickers, in his monograph, "Shakespeare, "A Lover's Complaint", and John Davies of Hereford", attributes the "Complaint" to John Davies. Other scholars continue to attribute it to Shakespeare.
"To the Queen".
"To the Queen" is a short poem praising Queen Elizabeth, probably recited as an epilogue to a royal performance of a play. It was first attributed to Shakespeare by American scholars William Ringler and Steven May, who discovered the poem in 1972 in the notebook of Henry Stanford, who is known to have worked in the household of the Lord Chamberlain. The attribution was supported by James S. Shapiro and Juliet Dusinberre. It was included in 2007 by Jonathan Bate in his complete Shakespeare edition for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The attribution has since been challenged by Michael Hattaway, who argued that the poem is more likely to be by Ben Jonson, and by Helen Hackett, who attributes it to Thomas Dekker.
"A Funeral Elegy".
In 1989, using a form of stylometric computer analysis, scholar and forensic linguist Donald Foster attributed "A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter", previously ascribed only to "W.S.", to William Shakespeare, based on an analysis of its grammatical patterns and idiosyncratic word usage. The attribution received extensive press attention from "The New York Times" and other newspapers.
Later analyses by scholars Gilles Monsarrat and Brian Vickers demonstrated Foster's attribution to be in error, and that the true author was probably John Ford. Foster conceded to Monsarrat in an e-mail message to the SHAKSPER e-mail list in 2002.
"Shall I Die".
This nine-verse love lyric was ascribed to Shakespeare in a manuscript collection of verses probably written in the late 1630s. In 1985 Gary Taylor drew attention to the attribution, leading to widespread scholarly discussion of it. The attribution is not widely accepted. Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells state that Shakespeare's authorship "cannot be regarded as certain".
Epitaphs.
Shakespeare has been identified as the author of two epitaphs to John Combe, a Stratford businessman, and one to Elias James, a brewer who lived in the Blackfriars area of London. Shakespeare certainly knew Combe and is likely to have known James. A joking epitaph is also supposed to have been created for Ben Jonson.
The was on a memorial in the church of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe. The memorial no longer exists but was recorded in the 1633 edition of John Stow's "Survey of London". The text is also present in the same manuscript which preserves "Shall I Die", where it is ascribed to Shakespeare. The epitaph is a conventional statement of James' godly life.
The are different. One is a satirical comment on Combe's money-lending at 10 per cent interest. The verse says that "he lent money at one-in-ten, and it's ten-to-one he'll end up in hell". This is recorded in several variant forms in the 17th and 18th centuries, usually with the story that Shakespeare composed it extempore at a party with Combe present. Shakespeare is said to have written another, more flattering, epitaph after Combe died in 1614. It praises Combe for giving money in his will to the poor. This was said to be affixed to his tomb, which is close to Shakespeare's. However, there is no sign of it in the surviving tomb. The first epitaph, in variations, has also been attributed to other writers, addressed to other alleged usurers.
An anecdote recorded in the mid-17th century has Jonson beginning an epitaph to himself with the conventional ""Here lies Ben Jonson" ...", and Shakespeare completing it with the words "... "who while he lived was a slow thing / And now being dead is no thing.""
A counter-orthodox Shakespeare canon and chronology.
Building on the work of W. J. Courthope, Hardin Craig, E. B. Everitt, Seymour Pitcher and others, the scholar Eric Sams (1926–2004), who wrote two books on Shakespeare, edited two early plays, and published over a hundred papers, argued that "Shakespeare was an early starter who rewrote nobody's plays but his own", and that he "may have been a master of structure before he was a master of language". Shakespeare found accusations of plagiarism (e.g. Greene's "beautified with our feathers") offensive (Sonnets 30, 112).
Trusting the early 'biographical' sources John Aubrey and Nicholas Rowe, Sams re-assessed Shakespeare's early and 'missing' years, and argued through detailed textual analysis that Shakespeare began writing plays from the mid-1580s, in a style not now recognisably Shakespearean. The so-called 'Source Plays' and 'Derivative Plays' ("The Famous Victories of Henry V", "The Taming of a Shrew", "The Troublesome Reign of King John", etc.), and the so-called 'Bad Quartos', are (printers' errors aside) his own first versions of famous later plays. As many of the Quarto title-pages proclaim, Shakespeare was an assiduous reviser of his own work, rewriting, enlarging and emending to the end of his life. He ""struck the second heat" / upon the Muses' anvil," as Ben Jonson put it in the Folio verse tribute.
Sams dissented from 20th-century orthodoxy, rejecting the theory of memorial reconstruction by forgetful actors as "wrong-headed". "Authorial revision of early plays is the only rational alternative." The few unofficial copies referred to in the preamble to the Folio were the 1619 quartos, mostly already superseded plays, for "Shakespeare was disposed to release his own popular early version[s] for acting and printing because his own masterly revision[s] would soon be forthcoming". Sams believed that Shakespeare in his retirement was revising his oeuvre "for definitive publication". The "apprentice plays" which had been reworked were naturally omitted from the Folio.
Sams also rejected 20th century orthodoxy on Shakespeare's collaboration: with the exception of "Sir Thomas More", "Two Noble Kinsmen" and "Henry VIII", the plays were solely his, though many were only partly revised. By Sams' authorship- and dating-arguments, Shakespeare wrote not only the earliest "modern" chronicle play, "The Troublesome Reign", c. 1588, but also "the earliest known modern comedy and tragedy", "A Shrew" and the Ur-"Hamlet" ( = the 1603 Quarto).
Sams also argued, more briefly, that "there is some evidence of Shakespearean authorship" of ""A Pleasant Commodie of Fair Em the Millers Daughter, with the loue of William the Conqueror", written before 1586, and of "The Lamentable Tragedie of Locrine" written mid-1580s and "newly set foorth, ouerseene and corrected, by W.S." in 1595.
Volume two was unfinished at the time of Sams' death.


Gary Chapman (CPSR)

Gary Chapman (1952 – 14 December 2010) was the first executive director of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR).
Chapman lectured at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in Austin, Texas where he was Director of The 21st Century Project.
He was the last recipient of the Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility when the CPSR was dissolved in May 2013.
He died of a heart attack while on a kayaking trip in Guatemala.


Harriet the Spy

Harriet the Spy is a children's novel written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh that was published in 1964. It has been called "a milestone in children's literature" and a "classic". In the U.S. it ranked number 12 in The 50 Best Books for Kids and number 17 in The Top 100 Children's Novels on two lists generated in 2012.
It was followed by two sequels or "companion books", "The Long Secret" (1965) and "Sport" (1979).
Plot summary.
In 1964, eleven-year-old Harriet M. Welsch is an aspiring writer who lives in New York City's Upper East Side. Harriet is precocious, ambitious and enthusiastic about her future career. Encouraged by her nanny, Catherine "Ole Golly," Harriet carefully observes others and writes her thoughts down in a notebook as practice for her future career, to which she dedicates her life. She follows an afternoon "spy route", during which she observes her classmates, friends, and people who reside in her neighborhood. One subject that Harriet observes is a local store, where the younger son Fabio cannot make anything of his career in contrast to the hardworking and loyal Bruno, and where the stock boy Joe Curry or "Little Joe" is eating in the storeroom and feeding homeless kids instead of working.
Harriet's best friends are Simon "Sport" Rocque, a serious boy who wants to be a CPA or a ball player, and Janie Gibbs, who wants to be a scientist. Harriet's enemies in her class are Marion Hawthorne, the teacher's pet and self-appointed queen bee of her class, and Marion's best friend and second-in-command, Rachel Hennessy.
Harriet enjoys having structure in her life. For example, she regularly eats tomato sandwiches and adamantly refuses to consume other types of sandwiches. She also resists "girlie" activities, as when her parents expect her to attend dance school and she stubbornly refuses. Ole Golly gets Harriet to change her mind on dance school by telling her the stories of Josephine Baker and Mata Hari.
Harriet's life changes abruptly when Ole Golly's suitor, Mr. Waldenstein, proposes and she accepts. Mrs. Welsch (who, ironically, had threatened to fire her earlier in a fit of panicked rage at finding Harriet missing in the middle of the night) exclaims, "You can't leave, what will we do without you?" Ole Golly replies that she had planned to leave soon anyway, because she believes Harriet is old enough to care for herself. Harriet is crushed by the loss of her nanny, to whom she was very close. Her mother and father, who have been largely absentee parents because of their obligations to work and social life, are at a loss to understand Harriet's feelings and are of little comfort to her.
At school, during a game of tag, Harriet loses her notebook. Her classmates find it and are appalled at her brutally honest documentation of her opinions of them. For example, in the notebook she compares Sport to a "little old woman" for his continual worrying about his father, and says that Marion Hawthorne is destined to grow up to be a "lady Hitler." The students form a "Spy Catcher Club" in which they think up ways to make Harriet's life miserable, such as stealing her lunch and passing nasty notes about her in class. When the kids orchestrate a prank to spill ink on Harriet and make it look like an accident, it backfires when she slaps Marion in revenge, leaving a blue hand print on Marion's face.
Harriet regularly spies on the Spy Catcher Club through a back fence and concocts vengeful ways to punish them. She realizes the consequences of the mean things she wrote, but because she is hurt and lonely, she thinks up special punishments for each member of the club. After getting into trouble for carrying out some of her plans, Harriet tries to resume her friendship with Sport and Janie as if nothing had ever happened, but they both reject her. Harriet stops doing schoolwork and spends all her time in class writing in her notebook, making plans against the Spy Catcher Club. She skips school for days at a time and stays in bed because of depression. When her grades go down, Harriet's parents confiscate her notebook, which only depresses her further.
Harriet's mother takes her daughter to see a psychiatrist, who advises Harriet's parents to get in touch with Ole Golly and ask her to write to Harriet. In her letter, Ole Golly tells Harriet that "if" anyone ever reads her notebook, "you have to do two things, and you don't like either one of them. 1: You have to apologize. 2: You have to lie. Otherwise you are going to lose a friend."
Meanwhile, dissent is rippling through the Spy Catcher Club. Marion and Rachel are calling all the shots, and Sport and Janie are tired of being bossed around. When they quit the club, most of their classmates do the same.
Harriet's parents speak with her teacher and the headmistress, and Harriet is appointed editor of the class newspaper, replacing Marion. The newspaper—featuring stories about the people on Harriet's spy route and the students' parents—becomes an instant success. Harriet also uses the paper to print a retraction of the things she had written in her journal. Harriet is forgiven by Sport and Janie.
Reception.
The book appeared on a 1964 list of "The Year's Best Juveniles" in "The New York Times Book Review". One 1965 reviewer called the book "a brilliantly written, unsparing realistic story, a superb portrait of an extraordinary child". Another reviewer found that it "captures the feelings, thoughts and situations of a modern city child with remarkable clarity and dimension". Nevertheless, at least one reviewer in 1965 felt that the book dealt with "disagreeable people and situations". Although it was not chosen as one of the American Library Association (ALA) Notable Books for Children for 1964, years later it was included in a retrospective 1960–1964 ALA Notable Books List.
It won a Sequoyah Book Award in 1967. The paperback version was selected as one of the "Best in the Field" published during the previous 16 months in a 1968 "New York Times" article. In 1995, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies claimed that 2.5 million copies of the book had been sold; however, the book did not appear on a 2001 "Publishers Weekly" list of "hardcovers that have sold 750,000 copies and paperbacks that have topped the one million copy mark."
Whitney Matheson wrote on the "USA Today" site in 2002 that Harriet "attracts dedicated, lifelong supporters". Anita Silvey in 2004 selected it as one of the 100 best books for children. In 2005, the ex-CIA officer Lindsay Moran cited the "Harriet the Spy" series of books as an inspiration for her career. It was included in a 2009 list of "Children’s Classics" by "The Horn Book Magazine".
In 2012 "Harriet the Spy" was ranked number 17 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by "School Library Journal". Earlier that year, "Time Out New York Kids" ranked it number 12 among "The 50 Best Books for Kids". Late in 2015 the same source ranked it number 34 in "The 73 best kids' books of all time for families".
Despite its popularity, the book has been banned from some schools and libraries "because it was said to set a bad example for children". Along with "Are You There God?", "Blubber", and "Where the Sidewalk Ends", the book was challenged at a 1983 school board meeting in Xenia, Ohio. Proponents of the Xenia ban stated that the book "teaches children to lie, spy, back-talk and curse", but the board voted to keep the books in the school libraries.
Although the book does not state the title character's sexuality, lesbians have identified with Harriet due to her being an "outsider" and due to her dressing like a boy. For example, Harriet wore high-top sneakers, a rarity for girls in the 1960s. Furthermore, Fitzhugh was known to be a lesbian, and the "Boy with the Purple Socks" character in the book may have been gay as the color purple is associated with the gay community. However, this was not confirmed as the boy later states his true name is Peter and he got lost in a crowd one day, and that his mother forced him to wear purple socks from that day forward as an immediate identifier to prevent future cases of getting lost. Harriet's friend Sport is not like 1960s gender norms, as he cooks and cleans in addition to taking care of other household tasks due to his absentee mother and stay-at-home father who is consumed with trying to get his novel published. At one point Harriet suggests to herself getting even with Sport by saying she should call him a "sissy" and spread rumors that he reads cook books. Sport, for his part, is not a total deviant from boyhood norms, saying that plenty of guys cook for a living, such as truck stop employees, and like many other boys, would love to have a career in professional sports. Sport is also a realist, saying that pro ball is probably not a part of his future, and believes he can parlay his early detail of family bookkeeping into an accounting career as an adult.
Series.
Fitzhugh wrote two sequels to the book: "The Long Secret" (1965) and "Sport" (1979, published posthumously). Both books received mixed reviews.
"Sport" is a spin-off that focuses on Simon "Sport" Rocque, expanding upon his brief family background covered in "Harriet the Spy". As his parents are divorced, Sport lives with his father who is a struggling writer who has been focusing on a book (a big gamble) rather than the steady income of journal/newspaper articles, with Sport managing their finances. Their financial problems are exacerbated once Sport's grandfather Simon Vane (from his mother's side) becomes terminally ill and stops sending regular payments to Sport. Things change for the better once Sport's father meets the kind Kate who becomes a good stepmother. However Simon's will has named Sport as the main beneficiary to the $30 million family fortune, much to the chagrin of Sport's mother Charlotte Vane and her sister. Charlotte, an absentee mother who has been living well abroad in Europe most of the time, returns to New York City upon hearing of her father's illness, scheming to increase her share of Simon's inheritance by kidnapping Sport and imprisoning him in the Plaza Hotel for a week.
In 2002, a sequel "Harriet Spies Again" appeared; written by Helen Ericson, it also received mixed reviews. Another sequel, "Harriet the Spy, Double Agent" by Maya Gold, was published in 2005; one review of that book stated "there's not much to interest readers here."
Adaptations.
Film rights to the novel were bought by Herbert Swope in 1964.
"Harriet the Spy" was made into a 1996 film of the same name. It starred Michelle Trachtenberg and was the first film to be produced by Nickelodeon's feature film division. It was close captioned by the National Captioning Institute with the new close captioning it developed for Kids WB in its original home video release.
In September 2004, Mainframe Entertainment announced that Protocol Entertainment will produce a new "Harriet the Spy" live-action television series, consisting of at least 22 half-hour episodes, with 2 Friends Entertainment acting as Executive Producers and US sales agent and
Mainframe retaining international distribution rights.
In March 2010, Disney Channel aired a version of the story, '. This starred "Wizards of Waverly Place" cast member Jennifer Stone as Harriet, Alexander Conti from "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" as Harriet's friend Sport, and "s Melinda Shankar as Janie. In this film Harriet competes against Marion Hawthorne to see who has a better blog.
In August 2020, it was announced that Apple TV+ had given the production a series order to an animated adaptation of the novel. The series will be produced by The Jim Henson Company and Rehab Entertainment with Will McRobb as writer, Sidney Clifton as producer and Terissa Kelton and John W. Hyde as executive producer and starring Beanie Feldstein as Harriet, Jane Lynch as Ole Golly, and Lacey Chabert as Marion Hawthorne.


Robert Allen Phillips

Robert Phillips (born April 18, 1968) is the George R. Gardiner Professor in Business Ethics and Professor of Strategic Management and Public Policy at the Schulich School of Business; York University. In 2016–17, he was the Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business. He has also taught at the University of Richmond, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (Shanghai, China), the University of San Diego, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
Phillips was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and received a B.S. from Appalachian State University, an M.B.A. from the University of South Carolina, and a Ph.D. from Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia in 1997. He is known for his work on stakeholder theory and organizational ethics. His published work includes four books (including "Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics" and "The Cambridge Handbook of Stakeholder Theory" and dozens of scholarly articles, several of which have been reprinted around the world in multiple languages. He is a senior fellow at the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics and section editor at Journal of Business Ethics. He was formerly associate editor of Business & Society, Representative-at-Large at the Strategic Management Society, and is past-president of the Society for Business Ethics