Super Monkey Ball (video game)

is a 2001 platform party video game developed by Amusement Vision and published by Sega. The game debuted in Japan at the 2001 Amusement Operators Union trade show as Monkey Ball, an arcade cabinet running on Sega's NAOMI hardware and controlled with a distinctive banana-shaped analog stick. Due to the failure of Sega's Dreamcast home console and the company's subsequent restructuring, an enhanced port dubbed Super Monkey Ball was released as a launch title for the GameCube in late 2001, garnering interest as Sega's first game published for a Nintendo home console.

Conceived by Amusement Vision head Toshihiro Nagoshi, Super Monkey Ball involves guiding a transparent ball containing one of four monkeys—AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, and GonGon—across a series of maze-like platforms. The player must reach the goal without falling off or letting the timer reach zero to advance to the next stage. There are also several multiplayer modes: independent minigames as well as extensions of the main single-player game.

Super Monkey Ball received highly positive reviews from critics, who praised the simplicity and subtle depth of its control scheme as well as the new multiplayer modes not present in its arcade counterpart, although some felt its presentation was lacking. The game was commercially successful and remained one of Sega's best-sellers in the United States for much of 2002, eventually spawning a direct sequel, Super Monkey Ball 2, and an entire Super Monkey Ball franchise.

Modes
Super Monkey Ball has three game modes: main game, party games, and mini-games. The mini-games are unavailable at first, and must be unlocked by earning 2,500 "play points" through playing the main game in single-player mode.

Main game

Reminiscent of Marble Madness and Labyrinth, the objective of the main game is to guide one of four playable monkeys (AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, and GonGon) encased in a transparent ball across a suspended series of platforms and through a goal. By moving the analog stick, the player tilts the entire set of platforms that make up a level, called a floor, and the ball rolls accordingly. If the ball falls off a floor (an event dubbed a fall out) or the in-game timer reaches zero, the player loses one of their three lives. The speed, in miles per hour, at which the ball is moving is displayed in the corner of the screen. Pausing the game and selecting the "View Stage" option allows one to rotate the camera around and examine the floor. A replay is presented after a floor's goal has been reached; replays can be saved to a memory card and viewed at whim. Every second remaining on the timer when a floor is completed adds 100 points to the player's score. Collectible bananas found throughout the game are also worth 100 points, while multipliers increasing the player's score by a factor of two or four are activated when a floor is finished in under half the allotted time or via a warp gate. The player receives an extra life for every 100 bananas collected.

The main game features three difficulty levels—Beginner, Advanced, and Expert, consisting of 10, 30, and 50 floors each—as well as three modes—Normal, Practice, and Competition. Normal mode allows one to four players to take turns progressing through the arcade Monkey Ball, whereas competition mode involves two to four player simultaneous split screen races across a selection of floors. In practice mode, any floor already played in normal mode can be repeated indefinitely with no penalties for failure. In normal mode, the player experiences a "Game Over" when they have lost all of their lives, but is allowed six opportunities to continue; eventually, unlimited "continues" can be unlocked. Beginner Extra, Advanced Extra and Expert Extra floors are unlocked when each respective difficulty level is completed without a single fall out (or a single continue in Expert)—and a hidden set of Master floors can be unlocked through playing the Extra floors without using a continue.

Party games
The following party games are available:
Monkey Race: One to four players simultaneously race across six courses divided into three difficulty levels. Steering is handled with the analog stick, while the A button is used to activate items (if enabled) that can be used to produce an increase in speed or to adversely affect opponents. A Time Attack mode involves the careful use of three available speed items to achieve faster times.
Monkey Fight: One to four players simultaneously engage in combat by rolling in any direction with the analog stick and using the A button to punch opponents with a boxing glove attached to their monkey's ball. Points are awarded for knocking opponents off one of the three available arenas, with more points being awarded when the player currently in the lead is knocked off. The player with the most points is declared the winner of a round when the in-game timer reaches zero. Items can be used to extend the reach, size, and strength of one's boxing glove.
Monkey Target: One to four players take turns rolling their monkey down a ramp, launching it into the sky. The monkey's ball opens on command to resemble a pair of wings, allowing it to fly. The monkey's trajectory is manipulated with the analog stick. Wind direction and strength, altitude, and speed (in addition to random hazards selected by an optional "Wheel of Danger" feature before each flight) impact the player's ability to land the monkey on one of several dartboard-like targets in the middle of the ocean. Bananas collected while airborne enable the use of items in later rounds that can eliminate wind resistance, control the ball's roll, multiply the player's score, or ensure a sticky landing.

Mini-games
The mini-games are based on real sporting activities, but with the player's ball containing their monkey. The following mini-games are available, once unlocked through the earning of play points:
Monkey Billiards: One to two players take turns competing in a game of nine-ball. The analog stick determines the direction of each shot and the A button is used to stop the moving gauge that determines shot speed. A tournament mode featuring four AI challengers is also available.
Monkey Bowling: One to four players take turns competing in a game of ten-pin bowling. The analog stick is used to move left and right, the A button sets the direction and strength for each throw, and the L or R buttons apply spin to the ball. A challenge mode featuring 10 pin arrangements and permitting only 12 throws is also available.
Monkey Golf: One to four players take turns competing across 18 holes in a game of golf with stroke play scoring, or two players compete using match play scoring. The direction and general rolling distance of each shot is arranged with the analog stick, and the shot's strength is set by the A button.

Development

Super Monkey Ball was developed by Amusement Vision, a branch of the Japanese video game publisher Sega that was created in 2000 and composed of about fifty people. Amusement Vision president Toshihiro Nagoshi, who had previously worked under Sega AM2's Yu Suzuki and been credited as the creator of the arcade titles Daytona USA and Virtua Striker, devised the concept of rolling spheres through mazes based on his desire to create a game that was instantly possible to understand and play, as a contrast to increasingly complex games at Japanese arcades at the time. Prototypes involving a plain ball or a ball with an illustration were considered visually unappealing due to difficulties in perceiving its movement, so after a series of revisions monkey characters previously created by an Amusement Vision designer named Mika Kojima were placed inside the ball, with their appearance being altered to include their "distinctive" ears. Intended to feature a "cute" aesthetic and accurate physics engine, the game debuted at the 2001 Amusement Operator Union trade show as Monkey Ball, a single-player arcade cabinet controlled with a distinctive banana-shaped analog stick.

In early 2001, Sega announced that it was discontinuing its Dreamcast home console and restructuring itself into a "platform-agnostic" third-party publisher. As a result, an enhanced version of Monkey Ball dubbed Super Monkey Ball was released for the GameCube as a launch game in Japan on September 14, 2001 and North America on November 18, 2001. The GameCube version was demonstrated to the public at E3 in May 2001 and at Nintendo's Space World show in August 2001; Sega confirmed that it would arrive in time for the GameCube's launch at the June 2001 World Hobby Fair. As the first game Sega published for a Nintendo home console, Super Monkey Ball was considered a milestone for the company. Although Monkey Ball had been developed for Sega's NAOMI arcade board, which shared technology with the Dreamcast and was optimized to ensure games could be easily ported between the two platforms, Nagoshi commented that Nintendo's young demographic made the GameCube an even more fitting console for the title. According to Nagoshi, Amusement Vision staff felt more comfortable with the GameCube than Sega's own hardware and this ease of development contributed to their decision to focus on the system over the PlayStation 2 or Xbox; he also joked that Nintendo was the only hardware manufacturer the staff did not "hate". Out of a team composed of ten to twenty individuals, it took four Amusement Vision employees between several weeks and two months to port Monkey Ball to the GameCube. Its graphics were enhanced with new background details as well as reflections and particle effects. Moreover, the developers spent an additional six months incorporating six extra modes into the game, with an emphasis on multiplayer competition and the introduction of GonGon as a fourth playable character.

The bananas in the game display the Dole Food Company logo, but this was removed in Super Monkey Ball Deluxe due to a licensing dispute. A theme song called "Ei Ei Puh!", which was arranged by Cheru Watanabe and featured vocals by Yu Abiru, was created for the Japanese version of Super Monkey Ball but removed from its U.S. release. The voice behind the game's narration was uncredited. However, on 7 December 2019 YouTuber Nick Robinson published a video which reported that the narrator had been Tokyo-based voice actor Brian Matt.

Reception

Sales
Super Monkey Ball was commercially successful upon release and remained one of Sega's best-selling titles in the United States through much of 2002. While it sold well in all major territories, Nagoshi was disappointed by the game's performance in Japan, where he had expected it would be most successful; weak GameCube launch sales were cited as negatively impacting its performance in the country.

Critical reception
Released to positive reviews, with aggregated scores of 87/100 on Metacritic and 88.7% on GameRankings, some journalists considered Super Monkey Ball the highlight of the GameCube's launch lineup. Edge praised the main game as "absorb[ing]" due to its high level of difficulty, noting that the trial and error required to complete challenging levels forces one to learn the nuances of its "reductive control system" and eventually enables the player to perform seemingly impossible tasks with increasing ease: "Once a level falls, the mysticism around it vanishes. It's beatable; it's an afterthought on the route to your next impossible hurdle." Ben Turner (GameSpy) commented on the "excellent progression of difficulty" engendered by three distinct difficulty modes and thoughtful stage design, expounding "most levels introduce some new idea or concept to the game" and "every single level played adds to your skill." Matt Casamassina (IGN) commended the "great level variation", with "well created mazes and puzzles that must be completed using a combination of physics calculations, careful planning and a huge helping of patience." Turner complimented the frequent introduction of incentives to keep playing such as additional continues and hidden levels, adding that a high "ceiling of mastery" enhanced the game's longevity through a "simple but well conceived" scoring system and the ability to test strategies in practice mode. Edge and Casamassina thought similarly, with the latter stating "there are shortcuts that can be carved out by the crafty player, physics to be considered when navigating and more." Tim Knowles (N-Sider) pointed out that "the latter levels in the game get extremely difficult and you will often get frustrated", while Casamassina felt "it may be a little too difficult for the casual gamer." However, Mark Medina (N-Sider) called the learning curve "perfectly spot on": "Any falling off the platforms feels entirely your fault and at the same time, you always get the sense that you're just that little bit closer to that elusive goal." Edge and Jason Nuyens and Will Stevenson (N-Sider) agreed with this sentiment, with the latter two emphasizing the addictive quality of the gameplay. On a technical note, Four-Eyed Dragon (GamePro) faulted the camera system, which "can get out of position, making it hard to maneuver in tight spots." Steven L. Kent (The Japan Times) described the game as "a test of nerve" requiring "advanced eye–hand coordination." Turner reflected on the game's ability to evoke feelings of "nervous excitement", "intensity", and "electrifying, stomach-wrenching fear": "It's a thrilling feeling to be winding down a paper-thin path with ten seconds on the clock, hoping against hope that you can keep your balance for just a few more seconds and make it to the goal before time expires." Edge opined that the game is "defined" by "unrefined and angular" emotions:
"Every second brings another jagged spike of highrise elation or freefall despair, and that's what makes the game so superb ... when you finally beat a maze on your 15th try, on the last life of your last continue, it's all worth it. If that experience could be distilled into a single word, it would be euphoria; reducing Super Monkey Ball to one word is simpler. It's genius."

On the party and mini games, Kent asserted "All of the activities ... were designed with an unerring eye for quality", Edge contended "none are half-assed throwaway rewards", and Nintendo Power remarked "each one is a fully realized activity that you could play for hours." Ricardo Torres (GameSpot) called Monkey Race "a solid little racer", and Casamassina recounted it felt "polished and finely tuned." Stevenson "loved Monkey Fight", while Casamassina and Kent highlighted the use of a crown to identify the player currently in the lead as encouraging "players to gang up on each other." Casamassina hailed Monkey Fight as "a thing of beauty", but Turner dismissed it as "a dud, as it's too much frantic button smacking and not enough skill or thought." Monkey Target, lauded by Kent as the "most addictive interactive activity of 2001" and considered "the most complex" of the party games by Turner, was complimented by Casamassina for its "simple and brilliantly intuitive" control scheme and "careful science of when to use an item and when to forgo it." Nintendo Power and Medina, respectively, described Monkey Billiards as "a full-blown pool game" and "a very fun alternative to the real game"; Casamassina applauded its "ultra-realistic physics engine that perfectly mimics how pool balls would react ...  it all works just as good if not better than any pool simulation available to home consoles." Casamassina was further impressed by the physics of Monkey Bowling, elaborating that "when the pins break apart one would swear it's the real deal", but Turner criticized its physics as "slightly wonky". Medina singled out Monkey Bowling's "nailbiting" challenge mode as a personal favorite, while Nintendo Power considered Monkey Bowling "as good as tenpin gets" and Kent wrote it "is one of the most robust bowling simulations I have ever played." Finally, Four-Eyed Dragon conveyed that Monkey Golf provided "a humongous challenge" with "crazy, lopsided miniature golf course[s]", while Kent called it an "absolutely infuriating ... test [of] your aim and your logic."

Although "not extremely complex or technically impressive in the way that many other launch titles strive to be" Turner believed the graphics were "extremely well-realized and perfectly suited to the game." According to Torres, "while the four selectable monkey models and the various levels are simple in design, they are generously modeled with well-textured and shaded polygons and have a very rich look." Four-Eyed Dragon spoke highly of the "hilarious" monkey animations, "sharp reflections and cool water effects". Likewise, Casamassina enjoyed the dances performed by the monkeys after winning a match and cited the water effects as "particularly incredible". The game was described by Turner as "colorful" and "crisp" and by Torres as "cartoony" and "clean". Edge likened the game's aesthetic to Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series: "Every surface is bright and solid and shiny, every aspect impeccably presented." Casamassina, Turner, and Torres all praised the consistent frame rate, with Casamassina emphasizing "it truly, always runs at a full 60 frames per second." However, Four-Eyed Dragon noted the visuals were "not greatly detailed" and Casamassina observed "there isn't much geometry being drawn at any single point in the title and the backgrounds are often barren, whether it be for power or stylistic purposes." Moreover, Casamassina was disappointed that the three difficulty modes reused level themes and by the absence of progressive scan support. Torres regarded the game's sound as "good" but "probably [its] weakest aspect", calling the music "catchy" but finding the monkey noises repetitive and the remaining sound effects "unspectacular." Conversely, Blue-Eyed Dragon was favorable to the "boisterously entertaining monkey sounds that can be heard once a chimp hits a wall or falls off a ledge" as well as the "eclectic mix of instrumental tunes". Turner "thought the music ... set the mood perfectly, but some may find it annoying".

Kent named Super Monkey Ball "the best party game of all time." Torres opined that the game "makes a strong case for the power of simple yet incredibly addictive gameplay." Knowles stated it represented "Sega at its pure best." Famitsu "liked the mini-games in addition to the regular modes." Nintendo Power hailed the game as "one of the ultimate party games" and "the best in serious gaming, too." Turner declared it "that rarity of rarities: a perfectly-realized launch title", with a "bounty of extras" that set "a new standard for arcade to home conversions". According to Medina, "probably the greatest thing about this game is that it's so unassuming, in that you are genuinely very surprised at its extremely high quality."

Legacy
 The success of the game spawned a franchise, with 16 sequels or spin-offs released to date. Due to its complex physics engine and abundance of possible shortcuts, Super Monkey Ball has been popular with professional speedrunners. A 2006 study conducted by the Beth Israel Medical Center found that surgeons who played the game for 20 minutes prior to performing a surgical drill finished slightly faster and made fewer mistakes. Super Monkey Ball inspired Neverball, a free game for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Dreamcast, and iOS. In 2006, Nintendo Power ranked it the 38th best game available on Nintendo platforms, commenting "who knew that such cute characters with cinnamon roll ears could be the source of so much tension (when the clock is ticking) and so much relief (when they finally break the ribbon)?" In 2009, Edge ranked the game #39 on its list of "The 100 Best Games To Play Today", stating "Seeing its sturdy physics model being used to perform incredible acrobatic feats shows just how finely honed it is." Writing in 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, Christian Donlan described Super Monkey Ball as "one of Sega's grade-A triumphs."

Notes

References

External links
Super Monkey Ball at MobyGames
Monkey Ball at the Killer List of Videogames

Category:2001 video games
Category:Amusement Vision games
Category:Arcade games
Category:GameCube games
Category:Sega arcade games
Category:Sega video games
Category:Super Monkey Ball
Category:Video games featuring anthropomorphic characters
Category:Video games developed in Japan
Category:Cancelled Dreamcast games


Māras

Māras ()  or Māra Day (; sometimes referred as Great Māra Day or Mother Day) was a Latvian festival, devoted to Māra, an ancient deity, and was celebrated on 15 August.  According to solar calendar, Māras marks the midpoint between Jāņi, which is summer solstice, and Miķeļi, that represents the end of the harvest season. The actual date, likely, is the result of Christian influence, identifying Māra with Virgin Mary, whose devoted holiday (Assumption of Mary) is observed on 15 August.

See also
 Māra
 Virgin Mary
 Assumption of Mary

Category:Observances in Latvia
Category:Christianity in Latvia
Category:Public holidays in Latvia
Category:August observances
Category:Summer holidays (Northern Hemisphere)


Crossroads Tavern (Crossroads, Virginia)

Crossroads Tavern, also known as Crossroads Inn, is a historic inn and tavern located at North Garden, Albemarle County, Virginia. It was built about 1820. In the mid nineteenth century, Clifton G. Sutherland, son of Joseph Sutherland, owned and ran the tavern which was located on the Staunton and James River Turnpike. It served as a tavern and overnight lodging for farmers and travelers using the turnpike. In 1889, Daniel B. Landes bought the land at the public auction of the estate of Clifton Sutherland. The property continued to be conveyed to various owners over the years. The Crossroads Tavern is an early nineteenth century two- to three-story, three bay, double pile brick structure. The building sits on top of a brick and stone foundation, is roofed with tin and has pairs of interior brick chimneys on either gable end. The brick is laid in five course American bond with Flemish variant. Windows on the basement level at the rear of the house (north side) are barred; other basement windows are nine-over-six sash. Put-holes are found at the west end of the building, formerly providing sockets for scaffold boards should repairs be necessary. The front facade is dominated by a porch on the second story extending the entire width of the south and east facades. It is supported by five rounded brick columns and the tin roof above is supported by simple square wooden pillars connected by horizontal rails. Doors of the front of the basement level open respectively into kitchen and dining room and into a spirits cellar with its original barrel racks as well as a laundry fireplace. Floors on this level were originally dirt but dining room and kitchen floors have been cemented. The main entrance door on the second level, with its multi-panes lights, opens onto a central stair hall with two main rooms on either side. This stair hall has an ascending stair at its front and both ascending and descending stairs toward its center. Formerly the ascending stairs led to upstairs areas which did not connect. There is no ridge pole in the three attic rooms. The interiors of windows and doors on the main entrance side have extremely long wooden lintels. With few exceptions, the interior woodwork is original, including floors, chair rails, mantels and built in cupboards. Also on the property is a two-story contributing summer kitchen, brick up to the second story and frame above, and with an exterior brick chimney at the rear gable with fireplaces on both floors. It is operated as a bed and breakfast.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Crossroads Tavern Inn is also part of the Southern Albemarle Rural Historic District.

References

External links
The Inn at the Crossroads website
Crossroads Tavern, State Route 692, North Garden, Albemarle County, VA at the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)

Category:Taverns in Virginia
Category:Bed and breakfasts in Virginia
Category:Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Category:Drinking establishments on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Category:Hotel buildings completed in 1820
Category:Buildings and structures in Albemarle County, Virginia
Category:National Register of Historic Places in Albemarle County, Virginia
Category:Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia


Silkroad (arts organization)

Silkroad, formerly the Silk Road Project, Inc., is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas. The project was first inspired by the cultural traditions of the historical Eurasian Silk Road trade routes and now encompasses a number of artistic, cultural and educational programs focused on connecting people and ideas from around the world. It has been described as an "arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences around the world" and "an initiative to promote multicultural artistic collaboration."

Recent events
In 2009, Silkroad began an educational pilot program for middle-school students in New York City public schools. The program, called Silk Road Connect, focuses on passion-driven education through arts integration and is being developed with help from education experts at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In July 2012, Silkroad and Harvard Graduate School of Education presented "The Arts and Passion-Driven Learning," an arts education institute that modeled the Silk Road Connect arts integration approach.<ref>[http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/08/inspiring-as-well-as-educating/ Inspiring as well as educating: Musicians, Ed School leaders probe teaching methods that turn 'have to' into 'want to'] — Harvard Gazette, August 3, 2012.</ref> The program has continued each year since.

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Silkroad presented performances and programs by the Silk Road Ensemble in North America, Asia and Europe from 2008 to 2010. Its anniversary season began with the Silk Road Ensemble's performance with Yo-Yo Ma of the United Nations Day Concert in October 2008. Tenth-anniversary activities also included a North American concert tour by the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma in March 2009, which featured the North American premiere of Layla and Majnun, a chamber arrangement for the Silk Road Ensemble of a traditional Azerbaijani opera.

The organization has published a book, Along the Silk Road, and commissioned more than 70 new chamber music compositions. Silkroad has also created educational materials entitled "Silk Road Encounters" and has partnered with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) to produce Along the Silk Road, a curriculum for students in grades six-10,<ref>New Curriculum Brings Cultural Exchange to Chicago Classrooms]  — Silk Road Project Newsletter, Summer 2007.</ref> and The Road to Beijing, a documentary made available with related lessons about Beijing in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Partnerships
Silkroad is affiliated with Harvard University; the organization moved its offices to the Harvard campus in Boston, Massachusetts, in July 2010 at the outset of a renewed five-year affiliation with the University, designed to enable new artistic and cultural opportunities at Harvard and in surrounding communities. Silkroad has been affiliated with both Harvard University and the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA, where the Silk Road Ensemble engaged with faculty and students in annual residencies. Silkroad's partnership with Rhode Island School of Design took place from 2005 through 2010. As part of Silkroad programming, the Silk Road Ensemble has also been involved in short-term residencies at Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland; The Art Institute of Chicago; University of California, Santa Barbara; Rubin Museum of Art in New York City; Nara National Museum in Nara, Japan; the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts; and the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

The Music of StrangersThe Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble is a documentary film about Silkroad directed by Morgan Neville, who also produced with Caitrin Rogers. The film was released in U.S. theaters starting in June 2016. The Orchard has acquired all worldwide rights to the film with the exception of U.S. domestic television rights, which HBO has acquired.

The Silk Road Ensemble

The Silk Road Ensemble is a musical collective and a part of Silkroad. The ensemble is not a fixed group of musicians, but rather a loose collective of as many as 59 musicians, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers from Eurasian cultures.

The Ensemble has regularly commissioned new works from across a broad musical spectrum, including works by Zhao Jiping and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, and is known for its series of interdisciplinary festivals and residencies presented in North America, Europe, and Asia. They have performed in many locations along the historic Silk Road, including Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, India, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan.

The Ensemble uses various instruments from the Silk Road region, including a pipa, a Chinese short-necked plucked lute; a duduk, an Armenian double reed woodwind; a Shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute; and a morin khuur, a Mongolian horse head fiddle; among many others.

Discography
The Silk Road Ensemble has recorded six CDs. The group's 2009 CD Off the Map was nominated in the Best Classical Crossover Album category at the 53rd Grammy Awards in 2011.

 2001 - Silk Road Journey: When Strangers Meet 2005 - Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon (released earlier in Japan in 2004 titled Enchantment)
 2007 - New Impossibilities 2008 - Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago 2009 - Off the Map 2013 - A Playlist Without Borders 2016 - Sing Me Home 2017 - The Vietnam War: A Film By Ken Burns & Lynn Novick [soundtrack

Members
In addition to Ma, performing members of the ensemble include:

Siamak Aghaei - santur/composer
Edward Arron - cello
Kinan Azmeh - clarinet
Jeffrey Beecher - double bass
Mike Block - cello
Nicholas Cords - viola
Gevorg Dabaghyan - duduk
Sandeep Das - tabla/composer
Joel Fan - piano
Haruka Fujii - percussion
Jonathan Gandelsman - violin
Joseph Gramley - percussion/composer
Ben Haggarty - storyteller
He Cui - sheng
Hu Jianbing - sheng, bawu
Rauf Islamov - kamancheh
Colin Jacobsen - violin/composer
Siamak Jahangiry - ney
Kayhan Kalhor - kamancheh/composer
Khongorzul Ganbaatar - urtiin duu (long song)
Dong-Won Kim - janggo, vocals/composer
Ji Hyun Kim - kayagum, vocals
You-Young Kim - viola
Li Hui - pipa
Liu Lin - sanxian
Ali Asgar Mammadov - tar
Max Mandel - viola
Gulia Mashurova - harp
Kevork Mourad - visual artist
Cristina Pato - Galician bagpipe /composer
Alim Qasimov - mugham vocals
Farghana Qasimova - mugham vocals
Bassam Saba - oud, ney/composer
Shane Shanahan - percussion/composer
Mark Suter - percussion/composer
Kojiro Umezaki - shakuhachi/composer
Wu Man - pipa
Wu Tong - sheng, bawu/composer
Betti Xiang - erhu
Yang Wei - pipa
DaXun Zhang - double bass
Reylon Yount - yangqin
Jason Duckles - Cello

Silk Road Ensemble composers and arrangers include:

Rabih Abou-Khalil
Christopher Adler
Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
Jia Daqun
Gabriela Lena Frank
Osvaldo Golijov
Jeeyoung Kim
Glenn Kotche
Angel Lam
Alisher Latif-Zadeh
Ljova (Lev Zhurbin)
Nurlanbek Nyshanov
Sangidorjiin Sansargereltekh
Vache Sharafyan
Byambasuren Sharav
Giovanni Sollima
Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky
Zhao Jiping
Zhao Lin
Evan Ziporyn

Silk Road Chicago
Silk Road Chicago was a yearlong, citywide celebration, from June 2006 to June 2007, with special events, performances, and exhibitions that explored cross-cultural discovery and celebrated the artistic legacy of the historic Silk Road. Silk Road Chicago was a partnership among Silkroad, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Chicago Office of Tourism, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

References

External links
Silkroad
Instruments from the Silk Road
Artists associated with the Silk Road Ensemble
Silk Road Chicago
Article from The World & I about Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project
Interview with Yo-Yo Ma about the  Silk Road Project - Weekend America

Category:Musical groups established in 1998
Category:Musical collectives
Category:Chamber music groups
Category:Grammy Award winners


Olexandr Kuzin

Oleksandr Leonidovych Kuzin (; born October 21, 1974) is a male long-distance runner from Ukraine who mainly competed in the marathon race. He set his personal best (2:07:33) in the classic distance on April 15, 2007 in Linz, Austria.

Achievements

External links

sports-reference

Category:1974 births
Category:Living people
Category:Ukrainian male long-distance runners
Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Category:Olympic athletes of Ukraine


People (play)

People is a play by the English playwright Alan Bennett. Dealing with the travails of a crumbling stately home and its ageing owner, the play premièred at the National Theatre in 2012. The production, directed by long-time Bennett collaborator Nicholas Hytner, featured Frances de la Tour, Nicholas le Prevost, Peter Egan and Linda Bassett. It received widespread acclaim from London's theatre critics. It toured the UK in 2013 with a cast including Siân Phillips, Brigit Forsyth and Selina Cadell.

References

category:English plays
category:2012 plays
category:Plays by Alan Bennett


Taxandria floribunda

Taxandria floribunda is a small tree or shrub species that is endemic to an area in southern Western Australia. This plant was previously classified as Agonis floribunda but is now part of the Taxandria genus.

Te erect shrub usually has a single stem and can grow to a height of . It blooms from October to December producing white-pink flowers.

The species is distinguished from other members of the genera by the flower clusters surrounded by conspicuous and persistent involucral bracts that also surround the fruits.

It is found on both the upper and lower parts of ranges, in wet depressions, swamps and stony areas in the northern part, in the Stirling Range and around Cranbrook, of the Great Southern region of Western Australia where it grows in sandy, clay or peat soils over quartzite.

First formally described as Agonis floribunda by the botanist Nikolai Turczaninow in 1849 as part of the work Decas sexta generum plantarum hucusque, non descriptorum in Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou. The plant was subsequently reclassified to T. linearifolia in a 2007 revision by Wheeler and Marchant into the new genus Taxandria.

References

floribunda
Category:Myrtales of Australia
Category:Rosids of Western Australia
Category:Trees of Australia
Category:Trees of Mediterranean climate
Category:Plants described in 1849


Danviken Hospital

Danvikens hospital was a historical Swedish hospital, insane asylum and retirement home in Stockholm, active in 1558–1861. The area belonged to Stockholms kommun until 1984, when it was transferred to Nacka kommun.

The Danvikens hospital was founded by the initiative of King Gustav Vasa in 1558. The current building is designed by Göran Josuæ Adelcrantz (1668–1739) and dates back to 1718–1725. From the 1740s, the hospital also functioned as an Insane asylum. The hospital is frequently mentioned within literature and during the 18th and 19th centuries; the name Danviken was used in common language as a synonym for a "Mad House". A famous description of the Danviken Asylum was Fältskärns berättelser (The tales of a Feldsher) by Zacharias Topelius from the 1780s. The facilities was emptied in 1861 and the asylum closed in 1863 because of the decaying buildings. It is now used as an Art Gallery.

References

Category:1558 establishments in Sweden
Category:1861 disestablishments in Sweden
Category:19th-century disestablishments in Sweden
Category:Psychiatric hospitals in Sweden
Category:Infrastructure completed in 1725
Category:Hospital buildings completed in the 18th century
Category:Defunct hospitals in Sweden
Category:Hospitals in Stockholm
Category:History of Stockholm
Category:Hospitals established in the 16th century
Category:16th century in Stockholm


Medicalization

Medicalization or medicalisation (see spelling differences) is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions, and thus become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. Medicalization can be driven by new evidence or hypotheses about conditions; by changing social attitudes or economic considerations; or by the development of new medications or treatments.

Medicalization is studied from a sociologic perspective in terms of the role and power of professionals, patients, and corporations, and also for its implications for ordinary people whose self-identity and life decisions may depend on the prevailing concepts of health and illness. Once a condition is classified as medical, a medical model of disability tends to be used in place of a social model. Medicalization may also be termed "pathologization" or (pejoratively) "disease mongering". Since medicalization is the social process through which a condition becomes a medical disease in need of treatment, medicalization may be viewed as a benefit to human society. According to this view, the identification of a condition as a disease will lead to the treatment of certain symptoms and conditions, which will improve overall quality of life.

Development of the concept
The concept of medicalization was devised by sociologists to explain how medical knowledge is applied to behaviors which are not self-evidently medical or biological. The term medicalization entered the sociology literature in the 1970s in the works of Irving Zola, Peter Conrad and Thomas Szasz, among others. According to Dr. Cassell's book, The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine (2004), the expansion of medical social control is being justified as a means of explaining deviance. These sociologists viewed medicalization as a form of social control in which medical authority expanded into domains of everyday existence, and they rejected medicalization in the name of liberation. This critique was embodied in works such as Conrad's "The discovery of hyperkinesis: notes on medicalization of deviance", published in 1973 (hyperkinesis was the term then used to describe what we might now call ADHD). Nevertheless, opium was used to pacify children in ancient Egypt before 2000 BC.

These sociologists did not believe medicalization to be a new phenomenon, arguing that medical authorities had always been concerned with social behavior and traditionally functioned as agents of social control (Foucault, 1965; Szasz,1970; Rosen). However, these authors took the view that increasingly sophisticated technology had extended the potential reach of medicalization as a form of social control, especially in terms of "psychotechnology" (Chorover,1973).

In the 1975 book Limits to medicine: Medical nemesis (1975), Ivan Illich put forth one of the earliest uses of the term "medicalization". Illich, a philosopher, argued that the medical profession harms people through iatrogenesis, a process in which illness and social problems increase due to medical intervention. Illich saw iatrogenesis occurring on three levels: the clinical, involving serious side effects worse than the original condition; the social, whereby the general public is made docile and reliant on the medical profession to cope with life in their society; and the structural, whereby the idea of aging and dying as medical illnesses effectively "medicalized" human life and left individuals and societies less able to deal with these "natural" processes.

The concept of medicalization dovetailed with some aspects of the 1970s feminist movement. Critics such as Ehrenreich and English (1978) argued that women's bodies were being medicalized by the predominantly male medical profession. Menstruation and pregnancy had come to be seen as medical problems requiring interventions such as hysterectomies.

Marxists such as Vicente Navarro (1980) linked medicalization to an oppressive capitalist society. They argued that medicine disguised the underlying causes of disease, such as social inequality and poverty, and instead presented health as an individual issue. Others examined the power and prestige of the medical profession, including the use of terminology to mystify and of professional rules to exclude or subordinate others.

Tiago Correia (2017) offers an alternative perspective on medicalization. He argues that medicalization needs to be detached from biomedicine to overcome much of the criticism it has faced, and to protect its value in contemporary sociological debates. Building on Gadamer's hermeneutical view of medicine, he focuses on medicine's common traits, regardless of empirical differences in both time and space. Medicalization and social control are viewed as distinct analytical dimensions that in practice may or may not overlap. Correia contends that the idea of "making things medical" needs to include all forms of medical knowledge in a global society, not simply those forms linked to the established (bio)medical professions. Looking at "knowledge", beyond the confines of professional boundaries, may help us understand the multiplicity of ways in which medicalization can exist in different times and societies, and allow contemporary societies to avoid such pitfalls as "demedicalization" (through a turn towards complementary and alternative medicine) on the one hand, or the over-rapid and unregulated adoption of biomedical medicine in non-western societies on the other. The challenge is to determine what medical knowledge is present, and how it is being used to medicalize behaviors and symptoms.

Professionals, patients, corporations and society
Several decades on the definition of medicalization is complicated, if for no other reason than because the term is so widely used. Many contemporary critics position pharmaceutical companies in the space once held by doctors as the supposed catalysts of medicalization. Titles such as "The making of a disease" or "Sex, drugs, and marketing" critique the pharmaceutical industry for shunting everyday problems into the domain of professional biomedicine. At the same time, others reject as implausible any suggestion that society rejects drugs or drug companies and highlight that the same drugs that are allegedly used to treat deviances from societal norms also help many people live their lives. Even scholars who critique the societal implications of brand-name drugs generally remain open to these drugs' curative effects — a far cry from earlier calls for a revolution against the biomedical establishment.  The emphasis in many quarters has come to be on "overmedicalization" rather than "medicalization" in itself.

Others, however, argue that in practice the process of medicalization tends to strip subjects of their social context, so they come to be understood in terms of the prevailing biomedical ideology, resulting in a disregard for overarching social causes such as unequal distribution of power and resources. A series of publications by Mens Sana Monographs have focused on medicine as a corporate capitalist enterprise.

The physician's role in this present-day notion of medicalization is similarly complex. On the one hand, the doctor remains an authority figure who prescribes pharmaceuticals to patients. However, in some countries, such as the USA, ubiquitous direct-to-consumer advertising encourages patients to ask for particular drugs by name, thereby creating a conversation between consumer and drug company that threatens to cut the doctor out of the loop. Additionally, there is a widespread concern regarding the extent of the pharmaceutical marketing direct to doctors and other healthcare professionals. Examples of this direct marketing are visits by salespeople, funding of journals, training courses or conferences, incentives for prescribing, and the routine provision of "information" written by the pharmaceutical company.

The role of patients in this economy has also changed. Once regarded as passive victims of medicalization, patients can now occupy active positions as advocates, consumers, or even agents of change.

The antithesis of medicalization is the process of paramedicalization, where human conditions come under the attention of alternative medicine, traditional medicine or any of numerous non-medical health approaches. Medicalization and paramedicalization can sometimes be contradictory and conflicting, but they also support and strengthen each other since they both ensure that questions of health and illness stay in sharp focus in defining human conditions and problems.

Areas
A 2002 editorial in the British Medical Journal warned of inappropriate medicalization leading to disease mongering, where the boundaries of the definition of illnesses are expanded to include personal problems as medical problems or risks of diseases are emphasized to broaden the market for medications. The authors noted:
Inappropriate medicalisation carries the dangers of unnecessary labelling, poor treatment decisions, iatrogenic illness, and economic waste, as well as the opportunity costs that result when resources are diverted away from treating or preventing more serious disease. At a deeper level it may help to feed unhealthy obsessions with health, obscure or mystify sociological or political explanations for health problems, and focus undue attention on pharmacological, individualised, or privatised solutions.

For many years, marginalized psychiatrists (such as Peter Breggin, Paula Caplan, Thomas Szasz) and outside critics (such as Stuart A. Kirk) have "been accusing psychiatry of engaging in the systematic medicalization of normality". More recently these concerns have come from insiders who have worked for and promoted the American Psychiatric Association (e.g., Robert Spitzer, Allen Frances).

Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, claimed that Black people had black skin because they were ill with hereditary leprosy. Consequently, he considered vitiligo as a "spontaneous cure".

According to Franco Basaglia and his followers, whose approach pointed out the role of psychiatric institutions in the control and medicalization of deviant behaviors and social problems, psychiatry is used as the provider of scientific support for social control to the existing establishment, and the ensuing standards of deviance and normality brought about repressive views of discrete social groups. As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic allegedly caused from the 1980s a "profound re-medicalization of sexuality". The diagnosis of premenstrual dysphoric disorder has caused some controversy, and psychologist Peggy Kleinplatz has criticized the diagnosis as the medicalization of normal human behavior, that occurred while fluoxetine (also known as Prozac) was being repackaged as a PMDD therapy under the trade named Sarafem. Although it has received less attention, it is claimed that masculinity has also faced medicalization, being deemed damaging to health and requiring regulation or enhancement through drugs, technologies or therapy.

According to Kittrie, a number of phenomena considered "deviant", such as alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, pedophilia, and masturbation ("self-abuse"), were originally considered as moral, then legal, and now medical problems. Innumerable other conditions such as obesity, smoking cigarettes, draft malingering, bachelorhood, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, kleptomania, and grief, have been declared a disease by medical and psychiatric authorities who hold impeccable institutional credentials. Due to these perceptions, peculiar deviants were subjected to moral, then legal, and now medical modes of social control. Similarly, Conrad and Schneider concluded their review of the medicalization of deviance by identifying three major paradigms that have reigned over deviance designations in different historical periods: deviance as sin; deviance as crime; and deviance as sickness.

According to Mike Fitzpatrick, resistance to medicalization was a common theme of the gay liberation, anti-psychiatry, and feminist movements of the 1970s, but now there is actually no resistance to the advance of government intrusion in lifestyle if it is thought to be justified in terms of public health. Moreover, the pressure for medicalization also comes from society itself. Feminists, who once opposed state intervention as oppressive and patriarchal, now demand more coercive and intrusive measures to deal with child abuse and domestic violence.

According to Thomas Szasz, "the therapeutic state swallows up everything human on the seemingly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of health and medicine, just as the theological state had swallowed up everything human on the perfectly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of God and religion".

See also

 Interventionism (medicine)
 Medical model
 Sociology of health and illness

References

Further reading

 Allan Horwitz and Jerome Wakefield, The Loss of Sadness:  How Psychiatry has Transformed Normal Sadness into Depressive Disorder  (Oxford University Press, 2007)
 Christopher Lane, Shyness:  How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness (Yale University Press, 2007)

Category:Medical sociology
Category:Medical controversies
Category:Social constructionism
Category:Social problems in medicine


Ian Stephen (rower)

Ian Robert George Stephen (19 November 1916 – 13 September 2000) was a South African rower who mostly competed in single sculls. He won a bronze medal at the 1950 British Empire Games and competed at the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics, finishing fifth in 1952.

References

Category:1916 births
Category:2000 deaths
Category:South African male rowers
Category:Rowers at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Category:Rowers at the 1948 Summer Olympics
Category:Olympic rowers of South Africa
Category:Rowers at the 1950 British Empire Games
Category:Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for South Africa
Category:Commonwealth Games medallists in rowing


Dudley Ward Way

Dudley Ward Way is a road tunnel through the south-eastern part of the Rock of Gibraltar. It is named after Sir Alfred Dudley Ward, Governor of Gibraltar from 8 June 1962 to 5 August 1965. The road running through the tunnel links the eastern side of The Rock (including Catalan Bay and Sandy Bay) via Sir Herbert Miles Road, with Europa Point, at the southern tip of Gibraltar via Europa Advance Road.

Opening
Dudley Ward Way was built during the 1956-1968 period by the British Army. After the end of military tunnelling and the departure of the Royal Engineer tunnellers the maintenance of the tunnel was transferred to the civilian authorities.

Closure
Following a rockfall on 18 February 2002 at the approach road to the tunnel from the North, which killed Gibraltarian Brian Navarro while he was travelling by car and exiting the tunnel, the Government of Gibraltar concluded that the risk of further such incidents was too great, and the tunnel was closed indefinitely.

Reopening
In 2007, its reopening was suggested by the Government in order to ease traffic flow in the area of the new Rosia residential developments. Works on the stabilisation of The Rock's cliff began in summer 2009 and the tunnel reopened to traffic on 2 November 2010. To commemorate Brian Navarro, who was killed following a rockfall at the approach road to the tunnel, a plaque was placed at the site and the section of road, from the Admiralty Tunnel entrance in Sandy Bay to Dudley Ward Way's northern
entrance, renamed Brian Navarro Way.

The total cost to the Government of the works to reopen the tunnel was £10.6 million.

References

Category:Tunnels in Gibraltar
Category:Tunnels completed in 1968
Category:Road tunnels


Zoumalou bamboo slips

Zoumalou bamboo slips () refers to cultural relics that were unearthed at Zoumalou, the urban central area of Changsha, Hunan, China in 1996. The discovery was one of the most important archaeological finds in China during the 1990s. All the historical artifacts from Zoumalou are displayed at the Changsha Bamboo Slips Museum. The important archaeological site of Mawangdui was also found in Changsha.

Zoumalou (走马搂) is located on the southeastern corner at the crossroad of Huangxing and Wuyi Road. In October 1996, at the Heiwado (平和堂) construction site there more than 140,000 pieces of bamboo and wooden slips were unearthed. The historical relics are bamboo slips (竹简), wooden slips (木简), wooden tablets (木牍), hand slip scripts (签牌) and seal slips (封检); they are documents which were mainly used to record administration and judicatory conditions in the Eastern Wu of the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). Because of this, the wooden and bamboo slips were also named Zoumalou Wu bamboo slips (走马楼吴简). The quantity of bamboo and wooden slips found numbered more than all of those previously discovered in China. This was the most important discovery of Chinese historical archives in the 20th century along with the Oracle bone script, the Dunhuang manuscripts and the discovery series of bamboo and wooden slips in the northwest.  The Changsha Bamboo Slips Museum was established in 2002. From their discovery in 1996, to the final clean up in 2015, archaeologists spent 19 years completing the arrangement of the cultural relics.

From 1996 to 2015, there were three other similar discoveries near or at Zoumalou. In 2003, more than twenty thousand bamboo slips were discovered at Zoumalou. These slips belonged to the Western Han period (202 BC – 8 AD). In 2004, 206 bamboo slips were discovered, with characters at Dongpailou (东牌楼), that belonged to the Eastern Han period (25–220 AD). On June 22, 2010, thousands of bamboo slips were found in an ancient well uncovered at a construction site at the southeast in the interchange of Wuyi road and Zoumalou lane, where the Metro Line 2 Wuyi Square station is located. It was determined that the bamboo slips belonged to the Eastern Han period.

References

Category:Bamboo and wooden slips
Category:Archaeological artifacts of China
Category:Han dynasty
Category:History of Changsha
Category:1996 archaeological discoveries
Category:Eastern Wu


Nimrod, Oregon

Nimrod is an unincorporated community in Lane County, Oregon, United States, on the McKenzie River. It is located along Oregon Route 126, between Vida and Blue River,  east of Eugene, in the Willamette National Forest. As of 2003, its population was roughly 190. Nimrod is the site of a former ferry that crossed the McKenzie. Nimrod is served by the Vida post office, zip code 97488.

History and name
The earliest reference to Nimrod in the locality was the Nimrod Inn, opened in the early 1900s by Alfred Parkhurst. Some historians think that the inn was named for the biblical character Nimrod, whose name was synonymous with "mighty hunter", in recognition of the excellent fishing on the McKenzie River. The community also may have been named after a fishing lure, to recognize the prowess of a local hunter or fisherman, or for one of Lane County's earliest settlers, Nimrod O'Kelley, who settled in the area in 1847. Nimrod is one of the few locations in Oregon not listed in Oregon Geographic Names, because a source for the name's origin has not been verified.

Because of the community's unusual name, now generally associated with the derogatory usage "fool" or "idiot", (perhaps due to Bugs Bunny using the term to refer to Elmer Fudd, when, in fact, he just meant "hunter", as associated with the biblical Nimrod), the main sign marking the location is a popular spot for photos, and is bolted to discourage theft.

References

External links

Historic photo of Nimrod ferry crossing

Category:Unincorporated communities in Lane County, Oregon
Category:Unincorporated communities in Oregon


Zhuyeping

Zhuyeping Township () is an rural township in Sangzhi County, Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, China.

Administrative division
The township is divided into 16 villages, the following areas: Zhengjiayu Village, Kangsanyu Village, Muyu Village, Liulangping Village, Chenzijie Village, Jigongya Village, Maohuajie Village, Chaya Village, Liushuta Village, Gandong Village, Qinyu Village, Sanbaidun Village, Majiaxi Village, Liuyangxi Village, Zhuyeping Village, and Nanhu Village.

References

SV WIKI DATA

Category:Divisions of Sangzhi County


Socovos

Socovos is a municipality in Albacete, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. It has a population of 1,986.

Category:Municipalities of the Province of Albacete
Category:Populated places in the Province of Albacete


Xiangkou

Xiangkou () is a town located in the Wulong District of Chongqing, China.

References

Category:Township-level divisions of Chongqing
Category:Towns in Chongqing


De la Concha

De la Concha may refer to:
Juan Antonio Gutiérrez de la Concha y Mazón de Güemes, Governor of Córdoba, Argentina.
Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha e Irigoyen, Marqués del Duero
Manuel de la Concha, Colonel of New Spain,
Manuel de Jesús Ulpiano Troncoso de la Concha, President of the Dominican Republic.
Felix de la Concha, painter.
Rafael Macedo de la Concha, army General and Attorney General in the cabinet of Vicente Fox.
Andrés de la Concha, Spanish painter of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
José Gutiérrez de la Concha, 1st Marquis of Havana.
Víctor García de la Concha, Director of Instituto Cervantes.
Juan Manuel Vidaurre Ugalde de la Concha
Lilian de la Concha.

See also
La Concha (disambiguation)
Concha (disambiguation)
José Antonio De la Cerda De Santiago Concha.

Carnaval de la Concha Fina.
Museo Gemológico de la Concha y el Caracol, museum in Managua, Nicaragua.
Kontxako Bandera, bandera de La Concha
Beach of La Concha, Playa de la Concha, other beaches with the same name.


Simeiz Observatory

Simeiz Observatory (also spelled Simeis or Simeïs) was an astronomy research observatory until the mid-1950s. It is located on Mount Koshka, Crimea,  by the town of Simeiz.

Part of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, it is currently used for laser based studies of the orbits of satellites.

The Minor Planet Center (MPC) credits Simeiz Observatory as the location where a total of 150 minor planets were discovered by astronomers Grigory Neujmin, Sergey Belyavsky, Vladimir Albitsky, Grigory Shajn, Nikolaj Ivanov, Pelageya Shajn, Praskov'ja Parchomenko, Alexander Deutsch and Evgenij Skvorcov.

As of 2017, the discovery of the minor planet  is directly credited to Simeiz Observatory by the MPC.

History

Simeiz observatory organized by an amateur astronomer and later Honored member of the Academy of Science, M. Maltsov. In 1900 he built a tower for refractor at his land plot near Simeiz. In 1906 – a tower with dome for Zeiss double astrograph. Both towers are preserved and being used nowadays. In 1908, M. Maltsov handed his observatory to Pulkovo observatory as a present. In 1912, the first astrophysical department of Pulkovo observatory was officially opened at the south of Russia. Simeiz observatory is situated at the level of 360m above sea level at southern mountainside of the Crimean mountains, at Koshka mountain. A main building was restored after the Second World War on the basis of old building in modernized style with balconies decorated by columns.

Research of interstellar space and star formation zones, discovery of star rotation, creation of stellar catalogues of radial velocities, study of chemical composition of stars and the Sun brought the world publicity to Simeiz observatory. The results of research of stars and the Sun represents an independent value.

The Department provides observing facilities for astronomers of international community and for its own staff. The following projects currently run:

1. Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). 2. Multi-wavelength monitoring of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). 3. Solar and stellar activity investigations. 4. Molecular lines observations at mm wavelengths.

Discoveries
Minor planets, whose discovery is directly credited to the observatory (rather than a particular astronomer).

See also

References

External links
 People and Stars History of Simeiz Observatory, Nikolay Semyon "Mirror of the week" No. 42, October 1998
 Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, a detailed history of Simeiz and Crimean Astrophysical Observatory by Petr Pavlovich Dobronravin .
 Brief history Brief history of Simeiz and Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.
 History of minor planet observations at the Crimean astrophysical observatory,  L. I. & N. S. Chernykh (2002)

Category:Astronomical observatories in Ukraine
Category:Astronomical observatories built in the Soviet Union
Category:Minor-planet discovering observatories
Category:Buildings and structures in Crimea


Samhwasa

Samhwasa is a Buddhist temple of the Jogye Order in Gangwon, South Korea.

History
Wang Geon's Prayers for the Unification of the Later Three Kingdoms

Samhwasa Temple (Korean: 삼화사, Chinese: 三和寺, Pronounced “Sam-hwa-sa”) was established by Ven. Jajang Yulsa in 642. Initially named Heungnyeondae it was renamed Samgongam Hermitage in 864 when National Preceptor Ven. Beomil Guksa  reconstructed it, and the temple's role also changed from being a Doctrinal School to a Seon School. It was in Samgongam Hermitage that Wang Geon, the future King Taejo of Goryeo, prayed for the unification of the later three kingdoms. When he actually achieved unification, he renamed the temple Samhwasa (lit. “Harmony of the Three” Temple) in the sense that Goryeo, Later Baekje and Silla would end their ongoing conflict and coexist in harmony.

When Yi Seong-gye founded Joseon after destroying Goryeo's regal power, he had King Gongyang and the last of his followers drowned in the ocean in front of Samcheok. To console their ghosts, Samhwasa Temple was tasked with offering the Water and Land Ceremony (Suryukjae)  after the founding of Joseon.

Later in 1747, Samhwasa Temple was damaged by floods and landslides. After relocation to a higher site, it was destroyed by fire in 1820, but was reconstructed again in 1824. In 1907, the temple was torched by the Japanese army under the pretext that some militia men were staying there. Many buildings, including the Main Buddha Hall and Seon Hall, about 200 bays in size, were destroyed.

There are many historical relics and legends related to Samhwasa Temple. The Jewang ungi (帝王韻紀; Songs of Emperors and Kings) was written by Yi Seung-hyu  who promoted a spirit of nationalism in the later Goryeo era. After concentrating on reading sutras for 10 years in his house, he then donated it to Samhwasa Temple; it was later transformed into Ganjangam Hermitage

Cultural properties
Iron Rocana Buddha and Idu Script

Samhwasa Temple's cultural heritage includes: a Three-Story Stone Pagoda (Treasure No. 1277); an Iron Seated Rocana Buddha (Treasure No.1292) ; the stupa of Ven. Sangjun Daesa; and the stupa and stele of Ven. Wongokdang Daeseonsa. The Three-Story Stone Pagoda, which stands 4.95 meters (16 feet) high, and belongs to the Goryeo era, radiates stability with its well-balanced proportions.

The Rocana Buddha is an iron Buddha produced during the Unified Silla era. It was originally thought to be a Medicine Buddha, but later, an inscribed text was found on its back, revealing it was actually a Rocana Buddha (盧舍那佛) created in the mid-9th century. The text was inscribed in Idu script, an archaic writing system representing the Korean language using Chinese characters. As it shows an actual example of Idu script, which was used around the 10th century, the statue has significant meaning in terms of Korean linguistics as well; it was designated Treasure No. 1292 in 1998.

Tourism
It also offers temple stay programs where visitors can experience Buddhist culture.

Gallery

References

External links
 Samhwasa official website(in Korean)

Category:Buddhist temples of the Jogye Order
Category:Buddhist temples in South Korea


Moses Brewer House

The Moses Brewer House (also known as the Goulding House) is a historic late First Period house located at 88 Concord Road in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

Description and history
The oldest portion of this 2-1/2 story timber-framed house was built c. 1720–1730, and was apparently moved to its present site from its original location in Wayland sometime in the 18th century. It probably began as a "two cell" house (five bays wide and one deep) with central chimney, to which the rear leanto and a "Beverly jog" (a leanto portion that extends beyond the side of the house) were added later. The house underwent a major restoration in the 1920s. It has an original dog-leg staircase that ascends all the way into the attic, a relative rarity.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 9, 1990.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, Massachusetts

References

Category:Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Category:Sudbury, Massachusetts


Holy Redeemer Church

Holy Redeemer Church may refer to:

Belize
Holy Redeemer Cathedral

Canada
Church of the Holy Redeemer (Lillooet, British Columbia), Canada, an historic First Nations church, destroyed by forest fire in 1971

India
 Basilica of the Holy Redeemer, Tiruchirappalli

Ireland
Holy Redeemer Church, Bray

Thailand
 Holy Redeemer Church, Bangkok

United Kingdom
Our Most Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell, London
 Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More, Chelsea, London

United States
Most Holy Redeemer Church, San Francisco
Old Holy Redeemer Catholic Church (Kissimmee, Florida)
Most Holy Redeemer Church (Detroit, Michigan)
Holy Redeemer Church (Eagle Harbor, Michigan)
Holy Redeemer College (Oakland, California), built as a seminary in 1925.


Clyde J. Wright

Clyde James Wright (born 1878), was an American editor. He was responsible for the 1934, 71 page version of the antisemitic Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion. It was an imprint of the Pyramid Book Shop, its publisher which at the time was located in Houston, Texas, but operated out of a postal box in Fairview Station

Category:Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Category:1878 births
Category:Year of death missing
Category:American conspiracy theorists
Category:American editors
Category:Antisemitism in the United States


Siege of Gravelines (1644)

The 1644 Siege of Gravelines took place during the 1635 to 1659 Franco-Spanish War. A French army captured the port of Gravelines, then in the Spanish Netherlands, now the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France.

Siege operations began on 28 May 1644 and the town surrendered on 28 July. Recaptured by the Spanish in 1652, it changed hands again in 1658 and was ceded to France in the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees.

Background

17th century Europe was dominated by the struggle between the Bourbon kings of France, and their Habsburg rivals in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Habsburg territories in the Spanish Netherlands, Franche-Comté, and the Pyrenees blocked French expansion, and made it vulnerable to invasion. Despite their own Catholicism, the Bourbons supported Habsburg opponents irrespective of religion, including the Muslim Ottomans.

From 1622 to 1630, France was occupied suppressing Protestant revolts at home, while backing Protestant allies in the Dutch revolt, and 1618 to 1648 Thirty Years' War. In 1635, Louis XIII agreed to divide the Spanish Netherlands with the Dutch, and declared war on Spain.

The Spanish repulsed a French attack in the Netherlands and in 1636 took the offensive, reaching Corbie in Northern France before withdrawing. This led to a change in tactics; the French refocused on strengthening their borders, capturing Arras in 1640, then Perpignan two years later. On 19 May 1643, the main Spanish army was defeated by D'Enghien, later Le Grand Condé, at Rocroi, which was followed by advances in the strategic Lorraine region.

Shortly before Rocroi, Louis XIII died and was succeeded by his five year old son, Louis XIV. His minority led to a power struggle between his mother, Anne of Austria, supported by Cardinal Mazarin, and his uncle, Gaston, duc d'Orléans. Allegedly jealous of D'Enghien, Orléans insisted on an offensive in French Flanders, rather than consolidating the gains of 1643.

The main objective for 1644 was Gravelines, one end of a line of defences along the border between France and the Spanish Netherlands. The Dutch would simultaneously attack Sas van Gent in the north, while their fleet prevented the Spanish resupplying Gravelines. Faced by this double threat, Francisco de Melo, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, prioritised retaining the northern Flemish ports of Ghent and Antwerp; Gravelines could not expect to be relieved.

The siege

Its position and the marshy ground surrounding it meant besieging Gravelines required an army of around 20,000, which arrived in front of the town on 28 May. Nominally commanded by Orléans, operations were conducted by La Meilleraye, the Master of Artillery, and de Gassion, D'Enghien's deputy at Rocroi. Both were experienced and capable but proved unable to work together effectively.

The attackers first had to capture a small outer work known as Fort St Philippe; after it fell on 13 June, the siege of the town began. The French constructed two sets of trenches, one from the east, the other from the south, each supervised by one of the senior commanders. As Master of Artillery, La Meilleraye controlled trenching supplies, which de Gassion later claimed he refused to share.

A battery of 20 guns was constructed where the trenches met up, and began firing on 20th. Operations progressed slowly, the defenders repulsing four separate attacks before the French established themselves on the outer walls on 26 July. Under the rules of war, if the defenders surrendered once this happened, they could leave with their weapons and possessions; if not, they would be killed and the town sacked. With no hope of relief, and having held up the main French army for two months, the Spanish garrison 'beat the chamade' on 28 July, and received safe passage to Dunkirk. After nearly coming to blows over who should enter the town first, La Meilleraye returned to Paris, leaving De Gassion at Watten.

Aftermath

In September, the Dutch captured of Sas van Gent, but doing so absorbed the entire campaigning season; this was a reasonable exchange for the Spanish, who recaptured Gravelines in 1652. The failure to gain a decisive victory was in part due to competing objectives in the Spanish Netherlands, where the French wanted their own ports to control their trade. Much of it was currently handled by Amsterdam, which had become the richest city in Europe as a result. It was also capital of the States of Holland, whose taxes produced over 60% of the national budget.

In 1645, the French besieged Bruges, a town allocated to the Dutch in the 1635 treaty; in 1646, a combined attack on Antwerp was cancelled after news of a proposed marriage contract between seven year old Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain. Although Mazarin denied any such agreement, he admitted discussions had taken place, and that it had proposed that the Spanish Netherlands formed part of her dowry. As a result, the Dutch agreed the 1648 Peace of Münster with Spain, which confirmed their independence.

References

Sources

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External links

Category:1644 in Europe
Category:1644 in France
Gravelines
Category:1644 in Spain
Gravelines
Gravelines


Jean Filliozat

Jean Filliozat (4 November 1906 in Paris – 27 October 1982 in Paris) was a French author. He studied medicine and was a physician between 1930 and 1947. He learned Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan and Tamil. He wrote some important works on the history of Indian medicine. He taught at Collège de France from 1952 to 1978.

Biography
Jean Filliozat became a medical doctor in 1930, and was awarded a diploma from the École pratique des hautes études in 1934.  In 1935 he was awarded a diploma by the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales.  He was director of studies at the École pratique des hautes études from 1941 to 1978.  He established the Institut Français d'Indologie at Pondicherry in 1955 and was at the same time director of the École Française d'Extrême Orient from 1956 until 1977.  He became a member of the Academie in 1966 and vice president of the Societe Asiatique in 1974.

He was a member of the Legion d'honneur.

Works
 Magie et médecine, Paris, P.U.F., 1943, vil-147 p. (Collection mythes et Religions).
 Fragments de textes koutchéens de médecine et de magie, Paris, Adrien Maisonneuve, 1948, 157 p., 8 pl.h.t.
 La Doctrine classique de la médecine indienne. Ses origines et ses parallèles grecs, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1949 (2e édition, Paris, Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1975). English translation: The classical Doctrine of Indian medicine. Its origins and its Greek parallels. Translated from the original in French by Dev Raj Chanana, New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1964.
 Yogasataka. , 1979, XL-207 p.
(en coll. avec L. Renou et al.), L'Inde classique. Manuel des études indiennes, t. 1, Paris, Payot, 1949 ; t. 2, Paris, EFEO, 1953, [réimpr. régulièrement].
Studies in Asokan Inscriptions, translated by R. K. Menon, Calcutta, Indian Studies Past and Present. 1967
Un texte de la religion kaumâra. Le Tirumurukârrupatai, Pondicherry: Institut français d'indologie (PIFI, 49).1973
(en coll. avec J. André), L'Inde vue de Rome. Textes latins de l'antiquité relatifs à l'Inde, textes, trad. et comm., Paris, Les Belles Lettres. 1986
 Religion, Philosophy, Yoga: A Selection of Articles

External links
Biography in french
Another biography in french

Category:Linguists from France
Category:Historians of science
Category:French Indologists
Category:Writers from Paris
Category:Collège de France faculty
Category:Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
Category:Members of the Société Asiatique
Category:Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur
Category:Tamil scholars of non-Tamil background
Category:1906 births
Category:1982 deaths


The Orchid

The Orchid is an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts with music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton, a book by James T. Tanner, lyrics by Adrian Ross and Percy Greenbank, and additional numbers by Paul  Rubens. The story concerns marital mix-ups and the quest of a wealthy man for a $2,000 Peruvian orchid to be sent to France. When foul play keeps the flower from reaching its destination, it is discovered that a nearly identical orchid is growing in the garden of the horticultural college.

The musical opened on 26 October 1903 at London's Gaiety Theatre and ran for 559 performances. It starred Gertie Millar, Gabrielle Ray, Harry Grattan, Edmund Payne and George Grossmith, Jr. The show also had a successful Broadway run, revivals and a U.S. tour.

The Orchid was the first show produced at the renovated Gaiety Theatre. King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra both attended the opening night. Some of the show's most successful songs were "Liza Ann", "Little Mary", "Pushful" and "Fancy Dress".

Synopsis
Guy Scrymgeour is in love with Josephine Zaccary, but their union is opposed by his uncle, the rich and influential Mr. Chesterton, because she is the daughter of a mere orchid hunter. Meanwhile, a penniless young physician, Ronald Fausset, loves Lady Violet Anstruther. The two couples wed secretly, but the Registrar switches the names on the marriage certificates, so that Guy is joined to Lady Violet, and Ronald to Josephine.

Chesterton founds a horticultural college and sends Zaccary (Josephine's father) to Peru to seek a special $2,000 orchid, the orchid of his dreams. Zaccary is supposed to take the flower to Nice, France, for a competitive exhibition. However, Zaccary is unreliable and goes to Paris instead, in search of flowers of the human variety. Fortunately, it is discovered that Meakin, the gardener at the horticultural college, is growing a nearly identical orchid.

Roles and original cast

Lady Violet Anstruther (principal pupil at the horticultural college) – Gertie Millar
Caroline Twining (of a matrimonial turn) – Connie Ediss
Zelie Rumbert (an adventuress) – Hilda Jacobsen
Thisbe (private secretary to Mr. Chesterton) – Gabrielle Ray
Countess Anstruther (Violet's mother) – Phyllis Blair
Billy (Dr. Fausset's "Buttons") – Lydia West
Lady Warden (of the horticultural college) – Gertrude Aylward
Josephine Zaccary (pupil teacher at the horticultural college) – Ethel Sydney
The Hon. Guy Scrymgeour (Mr. Chesterton's nephew) – George Grossmith, Jr.
Dr. Ronald Fausset (a country practitioner) – Lionel Mackinder
Mr. Aubrey Chesterton (Minister of Commerce, and Guy's uncle) – Harry Grattan
Comte Raoul De Cassignat (of the Quai d'Orsay) – Robert Nainby
Zaccary (a professional orchid hunter) – Fred Wright, junr.
M. Frontenbras, M. Merignac (Comte Raoul's seconds) – George Gregory and Charles A. Brown
Registrar – Arthur Hatherton
Master Of Ceremonies – Will Bishop
M. D'auville (French minister of state) – H. Lewis
Meakin (gardener at the horticultural college) – Edmund Payne
Debutantes

Musical numbers

Act I – The Countess of Barwick's Horticultural College
No. 1. Chorus – "This high horticultural college is formed with the excellent plan"
No. 2. Thisbe & Chorus – "A statesman in the Cabinet wants plenty of assistance"
No. 3. Jo & Chorus – "If I could be a girl in high society, whose pedigree included a peer or two"
No. 4. Meakin & Chorus – "You amateurs who try to run a garden"
No. 5. Jo, Lady Violet, Guy, Ronald & Meakin – "For a stylish and up-to-date wedding"
No. 6. Débutantes – "Come! come! come! Come for confidential talks in the arbours and the walks"
No. 7. Chesterton & Chorus – "From the start of my existence I was noted for persistence"
No. 8. Lady Violet, Jo, Guy & Ronald – "Our marriage lines! our marriage lines! The magic in those simple signs"
No. 9. Caroline & Meakin – "The cuckoo is calling aloud to his mate, the turtle dove coos in its nest"
No. 10. Chorus – "Now the speechifying's done, and the prizes we have won have been given"
No. 11. Zaccary & Chorus – "I've travelled far where panthers are that jump on you and catch you!"
No. 12. Caroline & Chorus – "I was tired of living single, never putting up the banns"
No. 13. Finale Act I – "What a most romantic history!  Solving all the recent mystery!  Violet has played the run-away"

Act II – Various locations in Nice: Black Massena, Promenade des Anglais, & Interior of the Opera House

No. 14. horus – "Up and down, over the town, motley and merriment speed along."
No. 14a. Pas de Trois
No. 15. Caroline & Chorus – "I've a passion for fancy dress, more or less!"
No. 16. Lady Violet & Chorus – "There's a certain little lady who's already known to fame as Little Mary"
No. 17. Guy & Meakin – "We're true British labourers honest and free, but, alas, we are both unemployed"
No. 18. Zaccary & Chorus – "I'm monarch of many a million, especially put in francs"
No. 19. Ronald & Jo – "I never was so thoroughly wretched and sad in all my life"
No. 20. Lady Violet & Zaccary – "There's a Yorkshire town, very bleak and brown, where your life is not too gay"
No. 21. Guy – "There's a charming little lady who's a patron of the play"
No. 22. Jo – "I've been waiting for some sort of sign that you want this little heart of mine"
No. 23. Chorus – "We are going to the Ball all in white"
No. 24. Thisbe – "There's a girl I want you all to know, Rose-a-Rubie is her name"
No. 25. Octet – "Oh dear! have you heard of it? There's a ball we ought to see"
No. 26. Chorus – Bal Blanc – "Carnival is nearly ended, now we drop our colours splendid"
No. 27. Jo & Guy, with Chorus – "When I go to a ball, although I'm the keenest of the dancers"
No. 28. Lady Violet & Chorus – "When I was extremely small, only three or four"
No. 29. Ronald – "There are lots of fellows in the world today, but ther're very few about like me"
No. 30. Finale Act II – "At the fancy, fancy ball, happiness has come to all"

References

External links
Vocal score
Information about the Broadway production
Information about the show's US touring schedule
List of longest running plays in London and New York

Category:1903 musicals
Category:West End musicals
Category:Original musicals
Category:British musicals