title: The Nightly News

abstract: The Nightly News is a six-issue American comic book limited series written and drawn by Jonathan Hickman and published by Image Comics.

text:
# The Nightly News

***The Nightly News*** is a six-issue American comic book limited series written and drawn by Jonathan Hickman and published by Image Comics.

## Plot

At an anti-globalisation rally in New York City, a sniper called John Guyton — who calls himself "The Hand of The Voice" — shoots a protestor, causing panic. However, his true target is soon revealed when he, along with a couple of allies, proceeds to gun down multiple reporters and camera crews who arrive to cover the story. All three, along with their fellow "brothers" and "sisters", are members of a revolutionary cult made up of individuals whose lives were destroyed when they were targets of sensationalistic, irresponsible and/or fraudulent media coverage, and all are determined to destroy the mainstream media under the guidance of The Voice, their messianic leader who communicates with them only by cassette tape.

As more attacks on journalists occur, including the bombing of a bar frequented by reporters, high-ranking media moguls begin to pressure Senator Jay Rector, Chairman of the Senate FCC Oversight Committee, for increased protections for journalists. Their true motives, however, are more cynical; they want protect their organization's profits and abilities to continue with their reckless, profit-driven approaches to journalism in the face of a new threat and possible public discontent. Meanwhile, disgraced journalist James Andrews is approached by Guyton and recruited into the cult, and is gradually indoctrinated into their methods and motives until faced with his ultimate recruitment test — murdering fellow journalist Warner Rogers, the *New York Times* reporter who broke the story of the journalistic fraud that ruined Andrews’ life.

Andrews shoots Rogers, but soon after overpowers Guyton and brings him to a cult deprogrammer; it is revealed that Andrews and Rogers had been working together after Andrews, learning of the cult's existence, had decided to go undercover to expose them. In response to the attacks, Senator Rector has drafted legislation called the Freedom of Media Act, but in addition to increased protections for journalists informs the media moguls that they must accept either increased government oversight or weaker protections against liability for the stories they publish; the moguls, viewing it as a safer "public-friendly" option with little teeth, choose the latter option.

After being freed from his brainwashing, Guyton is overcome with remorse at his actions and agrees to go with Andrews to the police and confess what he has done. Before he can, however, he is intercepted by a limo owned by The Voice, leaving Andrews to face the police by himself. When Andrews’ links to the cult are uncovered by the police, they accuse him of being the ringleader of the cult. As Rogers is dead and there is no other evidence that Andrews was undercover, Andrews realizes that the cult has set him up as a fall guy. Guyton speaks to The Voice via speakerphone, who urges him to follow through with their plan; when Guyton resists, The Voice gives him the address of Elias Lee, the reporter who broke the story that ruined Guyton's life. Guyton confronts Lee, who eventually admits that his main motivation for writing the story and destroying Guyton was for power, profit and because he could. Guyton kills Lee and decides to complete The Voice's plan.

A series of coordinated attacks on the media occur, killing all of the media moguls and several well-known journalists; Senator Rector, holding an interview with one of them, narrowly escapes death. During the attacks, most of the members of the cult are killed, including Guyton; no longer brainwashed, Guyton admits to himself before his death that he is no longer certain of the righteousness of his actions, but feels that he has at least done something to protect innocent people from experiencing what he did at the hands of the media.

Following the attacks, the Freedom of Media Act is passed by the US Congress; however, the weakened liability protections have proved to be more damaging against the media than expected, as thousands have launched lawsuits against media organisations for unfair and unethical reporting. James Andrews has been convicted of being The Voice, despite his protestations of innocence. After his conviction, Senator Rector visits Andrews in prison and reveals that he is The Voice, and set Andrews up because he knew all along that Andrews was a reporter. Rector experienced an epiphany after a bout of late-life depression and decided to spend his remaining years destroying the institutions he thought were corrupting America, using weak and easily manipulated victims of the media as his tools. Leaving Andrews in prison, Rector meets with the surviving members of the cult to plan a campaign against his next target — lawyers.

## Awards

## Collected editions

The series has been collected into a trade paperback:

### Interviews

### Reviews

## InfoBox

| *The Nightly News* | |
| --- | --- |
| Cover of the first issue | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Image Comics |
| Schedule | Monthly |
| Format | Limited series |
| Publication date | November 2006 – June 2007 |
| No. of issues | 6 |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Jonathan Hickman |
| Written by | Jonathan Hickman |
| Artist(s) | Jonathan Hickman |
| Letterer(s) | Jonathan Hickman |
| Colorist(s) | Jonathan Hickman |
| Editor(s) | Jonathan Hickman |
| Collected editions | |
| *The Nightly News* | ISBN 1-58240-766-5 |


title: The Phantom Empire

abstract: The Phantom Empire is a 1935 American Western serial film directed by Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason and starring Gene Autry, Frankie Darro, and Betsy King Ross. This 12-chapter Mascot Pictures serial combined the Western, musical and science-fiction genres. The duration of the first episode is 30 minutes, while that of the rest is about 20 minutes. The serial film is about a singing cowboy who stumbles upon an ancient subterranean civilization living beneath his own ranch that becomes corrupted by unscrupulous greedy speculators from the surface. In 1940, a 70-minute feature film edited from the serial was released under the titles Radio Ranch or Men with Steel Faces. This was Gene Autry's first starring role, playing himself as a singing cowboy. It is considered to be the first science-fiction Western.

text:
# The Phantom Empire

***The Phantom Empire*** is a 1935 American Western serial film directed by Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason and starring Gene Autry, Frankie Darro, and Betsy King Ross. This 12-chapter Mascot Pictures serial combined the Western, musical and science-fiction genres. The duration of the first episode is 30 minutes, while that of the rest is about 20 minutes. The serial film is about a singing cowboy who stumbles upon an ancient subterranean civilization living beneath his own ranch that becomes corrupted by unscrupulous greedy speculators from the surface. In 1940, a 70-minute feature film edited from the serial was released under the titles *Radio Ranch* or *Men with Steel Faces*. This was Gene Autry's first starring role, playing himself as a singing cowboy. It is considered to be the first science-fiction Western.

## Plot

Gene Autry (Gene Autry) is a singing cowboy who runs Radio Ranch, a dude ranch from which he fulfils a contract to makes a daily live radio broadcast starting at 2:00 pm. Gene has two kid sidekicks, Frankie Baxter (Frankie Darro) and Betsy Baxter (Betsy King Ross), who lead a club, the Junior Thunder Riders, in which the kids play at being armored knights of an unknown civilization, the mysterious Thunder Riders who make a sound like thunder when they ride. The kids, dressing up in capes and water-bucket helmets, play at riding "To the rescue!" (their motto).

A chance to become real heroes occurs when Betsy, Frankie, and Gene are kidnapped by the real Thunder Riders from the super-scientific underground empire of Murania, complete with towering buildings, robots, ray-guns, advanced television, elevator tubes that extend miles from the surface, and the icy, blonde, evil Queen Tika (played with relish by Dorothy Christie). On the surface, criminals led by Professor Beetson (Frank Glendon) plan to invade Murania and seize its radium wealth, while in Murania, Lord Argo (Wheeler Oakman) plots to overthrow Queen Tika.

The inhabitants of Murania are the lost tribe of Mu, who went underground in the last glacial period 100,000 years ago, and now live in a fantastically advanced city 25,000 feet below the surface. They cannot now breathe the air at ground level and must wear oxygen masks. (Surface dwellers have no trouble breathing Muranian air.) The Thunder Guard emerges to the surface world from a cave with a huge rock door that swings up like a garage door. Both Muranians and Professor Beetson want to get rid of Autry, the latter so that he loses his radio contract and Radio Ranch is vacated.

## Cast

## Production

### Story

The idea for the plot came to writer Wallace MacDonald when he was under gas having a tooth extracted.

### Filming and budget

*The Phantom Empire* was filmed in late 1934. The film had an operating budget of $75,000 (equal to $1,708,209 today). The budget was originally reported to have been "no more than" $100,000.

### Filming locations

* Agoura Ranch, Agoura, California, USA
* Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park, 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA
* Griffith Observatory, Griffith Park, 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA
* Iverson Ranch, 1 Iverson Lane, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA
* Keystone Studios, 1712 Glendale Blvd., Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California, USA

### Stuntwork

* Ken Cooper
* Richard Talmadge
* Jack Jones
* George Magrill
* Wally West

Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross did their own stunt riding in this serial. Ross was an experienced rodeo performer and was billed as the "World's Champion Trick Rider".

### Soundtrack

* "Uncle Noah's Ark" (Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Nick Manoloff) by Gene Autry and band (chapter 1)
* "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine" (Gene Autry, Jimmy Long) by Gene Autry and band (chapter 1)
* "I'm Oscar, I'm Pete" (Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette) by Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, and William Moore (chapter 2)
* "No Need to Worry" (Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette) by the Radio Rangers (chapter 4)
* "Uncle Henry" (Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette) by Gene Autry (chapter 4)
* "I'm Getting a Moon's Eye View of the World" (Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette) by Gene Autry (chapter 8)
* "My Cross Eyed Gal" (Gene Autry, Jimmy Long) by the Radio Rangers (chapter 8)
* "Just Come On Back" (Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette) by the Radio Rangers (chapter 8)

## Chapter titles

1. The Singing Cowboy
2. The Thunder Riders
3. The Lightning Chamber
4. Phantom Broadcast
5. Beneath the Earth
6. Disaster from the Skies
7. From Death to Life
8. Jaws of Jeopardy
9. Prisoners of the Ray
10. The Rebellion
11. A Queen in Chains
12. The End of Murania

## Reception

*The Phantom Empire* was released in theaters on February 23, 1935. The serial was a "marked box office success."

## Cultural references

The 1979 television series *Cliffhangers*, which attempted to recreate the old movie serial feel by showing three serial chapters in each episode, included a serial titled "The Secret Empire", a pastiche of *The Phantom Empire*. Events in the underground empire were shown in color, but events on the surface were "in glorious black and white". Stock footage from the serial and other serials was used in the animated series *Muppet Babies*.

Fred Olen Ray in 1988 filmed a movie called *The Phantom Empire* about treasure hunters braving a cavern system populated by troglodytes and other subterranean hazards to finally encounter an underground lost civilization. The movie makes reference to the serial and was itself in the end credits planned to have sequels that never were produced.

Alejandro Pérez Cervantes' short story collection, *Murania*, was inspired by the aesthetic of Murania and the lost continent of Mu as depicted in the film. It received the 2006 Julio Torri national award for short fiction in Mexico.

The web series *The Sam Plenty Cavalcade of Action Show Plus Singing!* was inspired by the serial.

The UK Channel 4 show *Exploitica* lampooned the serial, adding comedic sound effects, thought bubbles and captions to each episode.

The serial was a childhood favorite of comic strip writer Tom Batiuk, and in tribute has been frequently referenced in his strips *Funky Winkerbean* and *Crankshaft*, predominantly as the favorite film of *Crankshaft* character Jeff Murdoch. Most notably, one 2020 storyline in *Funky* saw Jeff and his grandson seeking refuge from a wildfire in the cave used for the film as the entrance to Murania, where they imagine being rescued by the Thunder Riders and taken into the city.

Notes Citations  1. Magers 2007, p. 21.
2. Stedman 1971, 99–100.
3. Richardson, Jeffrey. ""Cowboys And Robots: the Birth of the Science Fiction Western" by Jeffrey Richardson | Crossed Genres". *Crossed Genres*. Retrieved March 13, 2023.
4. Broughton, Lee (September 19, 2016). *Critical Perspectives on the Western: From A Fistful of Dollars to Django Unchained*. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-4422-7243-9.
5. Magers 2007, p. 22.
6. Magers 2007, pp. 23–24.
7. Harmon 1972, pp. 61–62.
8. Cline 1997, p. 212.
Bibliography

## InfoBox

| The Phantom Empire | |
| --- | --- |
| Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by |  |
| Written by |  |
| Produced by | Nat Levine |
| Starring |  |
| Cinematography |  |
| Edited by |  |
| Music by | Hugo Riesenfeld |
| Distributed by | Mascot Pictures |
| Release date | * February 23, 1935 (1935-02-23) (USA) |
| Running time | 245 minutes (12 chapters) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75,000 |


title: The Pinnacle (Bristol, Tennessee)

abstract: The Pinnacle is a 240-acre (97 ha) shopping center and commercial development located in Bristol, Tennessee. Established by Johnson Commercial Development and Oldacre McDonald LLC, its first stores opened in 2014. It is a mixed-use complex, with 1.3 million square feet of retail, restaurant, hotel, and office space, as well as recreational areas. The Pinnacle is located off of U.S. Route 11W and Interstate 81. It is adjacent to the Virginia state line and is near the twin city of Bristol, Virginia. Anchor stores are Bass Pro Shops, Belk, Dick's Sporting Goods, CarMax and Marquee Cinemas. Its junior anchors are Old Navy, Michael's, ULTA, Kirkland's, and Marshall's.

text:
# The Pinnacle (Bristol, Tennessee)

**The Pinnacle** is a 240-acre (97 ha) shopping center and commercial development located in Bristol, Tennessee. Established by Johnson Commercial Development and Oldacre McDonald LLC, its first stores opened in 2014. It is a mixed-use complex, with 1.3 million square feet (appx. 121,000 square meters) of retail, restaurant, hotel, and office space, as well as recreational areas. The Pinnacle is located off of U.S. Route 11W and Interstate 81. It is adjacent to the Virginia state line and is near the twin city of Bristol, Virginia.

Anchor stores are Bass Pro Shops, Belk, Dick's Sporting Goods, CarMax and Marquee Cinemas. Its junior anchors are Old Navy, Michael's, ULTA, Kirkland's, and Marshall's.

## History

The $200,000,000 development was partially funded by the City of Bristol, which provided $25,000,000 for the Public Infrastructure portion of the project. Johnson estimates that the first phase of the complex will create 2000 jobs, and add $200 million in annual sales to the local economy. The first stores opened in 2014 and many have followed in 2015. Pinnacle 12 by Marquee Cinemas opened in October 2015.

## Recreation

Pinnacle Park is located near Bass Pro Shops. It is a 14-acre (5.7 ha) park with a lake and lakeside trail.

## InfoBox

The Pinnacle
|  | |
| --- | --- |
| Location | Pinnacle Parkway, Bristol, Tennessee |
| Coordinates | 36°35′34″N 82°15′29″W / 36.59283°N 82.25817°W / 36.59283; -82.25817 |
| Opening date | 2014–2015 |
| Developer | Johnson Commercial Development, Oldacre McDonald |
| No. of stores and services | 69+ |
| No. of anchor tenants | 4, plus 6 junior anchors |
| Total retail floor area | 1.3 million sq. ft |
| Website | thepinnacle.com |


title: The Modern Rake

abstract: The Modern Rake is an anonymous erotic novel with nine coloured illustrations which was printed at London by J. Sudbury in 1824. The title page describes the plot: The Modern Rake; or, the Life and Adventures of Sir Edward Walford: Containing a Curious and Voluptuous History of his luscious intrigues, with numerous women of fashion, his laughable faux pas, feats of gallantry, debauchery, dissipation, and concubinism! His numerous rapes, seductions, and amatory scrapes. Memoirs of the Beautiful Courtezans with whom he lived; with some Ticklish Songs, Anecdotes, Poetry, &c. Enriched with many Curious Plates.

text:
# The Modern Rake

***The Modern Rake*** is an anonymous erotic novel with nine coloured illustrations which was printed at London by J. Sudbury in 1824. The title page describes the plot: *The Modern Rake; or, the Life and Adventures of Sir Edward Walford: Containing a Curious and Voluptuous History of his luscious intrigues, with numerous women of fashion, his laughable faux pas, feats of gallantry, debauchery, dissipation, and concubinism! His numerous rapes, seductions, and amatory scrapes. Memoirs of the Beautiful Courtezans with whom he lived; with some Ticklish Songs, Anecdotes, Poetry, &c. Enriched with many Curious Plates* (J. Sudbury, Printer, Gate Street. 1824).

## Plot

Son of a lusty footman by the young wife of a debilitated old baronet, the hero displays early precocity, and having one day witnessed, himself unseen, the amorous encounter of a dustman and his "blowen", he returns home with his dress in disorder, and his erect member uncovered. The door is opened to him by a servant girl, with whom he at once proceeds to have connection. His father surprises the imprudent young couple, turns the girl out of doors, and determines to send the youth on a journey with his tutor. This gentleman proves to be a thorough libertine. On the packet they pick up a French courtesan, who accompanies them to Paris, and recounts her own adventures, which embrace some flagellation scenes, together with anecdotes of George IV, and of Rover, manager of Drury Lane Theatre. At Paris the hero lives very happily with his mistress, until one night he is robbed at a brothel, and has to regain his home in a state of complete nudity. His mistress is indignant at such conduct, and leaves him, being unwilling, as she writes, to "submit to have the leavings of any common strumpet". Tiring of Paris, young Walford passes into Spain, where he is captured by brigands. He manages however to effect his escape together with the niece of a Spanish nobleman. Hearing now of his mother's death, he hastens back to England, and is well received by his father, who, however, soon after expires. Sir Edward now reforms, and becomes a happy, married man.

## Appraisal

Henry Spencer Ashbee thinks the nine coloured illustrations "spirited, characteristic, and very obscene". The account of the French courtesan in the early part of the novel is "perhaps the most interesting part of the book" in his view. "Although no literary talent is displayed," he concludes, "the tale is fairly entertaining." Mention is made in the course of the story of *Fanny Hill*, *Bawdy House Dialogues*, *Letters of Two Cousins*, *Intrigues of a Lady of Fashion*, *The Ladies Tell Tale*, and *Chevalier de Faublas*.

## Printing

When printed by J. Sudbury in 1824, the book was advertised for the considerable sum of 3 guineas. The work was apparently reprinted a few years later by J. B. Brookes, with slight alterations in the wording of the title, the word "Adventures", for instance, being replaced by "Voluptuous Intrigues".

John Sudbury carried on business from about 1820 to 1830, chiefly at No. 252, High Holborn, and did not hesitate to attach his name to the erotic books he published. John Benjamin Brookes had a shop in the Opera Colonnade, whence he removed to 9, New Bond Street; he died in 1839.

## Sources

* Ashbee, Henry Spencer \[Pisanus Fraxi\] (1885). *Catena Librorum Tacendorum*. London: privately printed. pp. 125–6.  This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
* Skipp, Jenny (2016). "'The man of penetration and the girl of capacity': negotiating power in erotic culture". In Storey, John (ed.). *The Making of English Popular Culture*. Directions in Cultural History. Routledge. p. 26.

## Further reading


title: The Plumed Serpent

abstract: The Plumed Serpent is a 1926 political, mythological, and romance novel by D. H. Lawrence; The novel was published in January of 1926 and was reprinted in March of 1926. Lawrence conceived the idea for the novel while visiting Mexico in 1923, and its themes reflect his experiences there. The novel was first published by Martin Secker's firm in the United Kingdom and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States; an early draft was published as Quetzalcoatl by Black Swan Books in 1995. The novel's plot concerns Kate Leslie, an Irish tourist who visits Mexico after the Mexican Revolution. She encounters Don Cipriano, a Mexican general who supports a religious movement, the Men of Quetzalcoatl, founded by his friend Don Ramón Carrasco. Within this movement, Cipriano is identified with Huitzilopochtli and Ramón with Quetzalcoatl. Kate eventually agrees to marry Cipriano, while the Men of Quetzalcoatl, with the help of a new president, bring about an end to Christianity in Mexico, replacing it with pagan Quetzalcoatl worship. The novel received a varied reception. Novelists such as British writer E. M. Forster considered it Lawrence's best literary work. Literary critics have different opinions about its literary merit. Some have found it inferior to his other work, but others have considered it his greatest accomplishment as a novelist, an assessment shared by Lawrence himself. The novel received attention in Mexico, where its reception was positive, and it was praised by the Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. The Plumed Serpent has been compared to other works by Lawrence such as the novels Kangaroo (1923) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), and the essays Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays (1932), as well as to the work of the poet T. S. Eliot. Some commentators have characterised it as fascist and as an attack on Christianity, and others have discussed the supposed belief of women's submission to men that is allegedly present in the novel. It has also been interpreted as an expression of Lawrence's personal political ambition and as having homoerotic aspects.

text:
# The Plumed Serpent

***The Plumed Serpent*** is a 1926 political, mythological, and romance novel by D. H. Lawrence; The novel was published in January of 1926 and was reprinted in March of 1926. Lawrence conceived the idea for the novel while visiting Mexico in 1923, and its themes reflect his experiences there. The novel was first published by Martin Secker's firm in the United Kingdom and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States; an early draft was published as ***Quetzalcoatl*** by Black Swan Books in 1995. The novel's plot concerns Kate Leslie, an Irish tourist who visits Mexico after the Mexican Revolution. She encounters Don Cipriano, a Mexican general who supports a religious movement, the Men of Quetzalcoatl, founded by his friend Don Ramón Carrasco. Within this movement, Cipriano is identified with Huitzilopochtli and Ramón with Quetzalcoatl. Kate eventually agrees to marry Cipriano, while the Men of Quetzalcoatl, with the help of a new president, bring about an end to Christianity in Mexico, replacing it with pagan Quetzalcoatl worship.

The novel received a varied reception. Novelists such as British writer E. M. Forster considered it Lawrence's best literary work. Literary critics have different opinions about its literary merit. Some have found it inferior to his other work, but others have considered it his greatest accomplishment as a novelist, an assessment shared by Lawrence himself. The novel received attention in Mexico, where its reception was positive, and it was praised by the Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. *The Plumed Serpent* has been compared to other works by Lawrence such as the novels *Kangaroo* (1923) and *Lady Chatterley's Lover* (1928), and the essays *Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays* (1932), as well as to the work of the poet T. S. Eliot.

Some commentators have characterised it as fascist and as an attack on Christianity, and others have discussed the supposed belief of women's submission to men that is allegedly present in the novel. It has also been interpreted as an expression of Lawrence's personal political ambition and as having homoerotic aspects.

## Plot

*Note: this description of the plot is based on the version of the book published as The Plumed Serpent, not the version published as Quetzalcoatl.*

Shortly after Easter, a group of tourists visiting Mexico, including Kate Leslie, an Irishwoman, and her cousin, Owen Rhys, an American, attend a bullfight in Mexico City. Kate is thrilled at the prospect of witnessing the fight, but later leaves in disgust, after witnessing the violence suffered by a horse and a bull. As she leaves, she encounters Don Cipriano, a Mexican general, and invites him to meet her. Later, at a party in Tlacolula which she attends with Rhys, Kate listens to discussions of changes brought about by the Mexican Revolution, and encounters a Major Law, who states that there is a rumour that the recently elected Mexican President, Socrates Tomás Montes of the Labour Party, will be prevented from taking office by the military. She also meets Cipriano's friend Don Ramón Carrasco. Soon afterwards, she reads a newspaper report, "The Gods of Antiquity Return to Mexico", describing an incident in the village of Sayula, in which a man arose from a lake, then announced to a group of women that the Aztec gods Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc are ready to return to Mexico. Rhys returns to the United States, but Kate decides to stay in Mexico. Wanting to leave Mexico City because of rising social tensions, she travels to Sayula, with the encouragement of Cipriano. She learns of a religious movement, the Men of Quetzalcoatl, and, upon making inquiries about it, is told that it was founded by Ramón, who is suspected of having political ambitions. Kate begins to sympathise with Ramón, believing him to be a "great man". Receiving an invitation from Ramón, she meets him and his wife Doña Carlota, who tells her that he wants to be worshipped as a god and to destroy the belief of Mexicans in both Jesus and the Virgin Mary, objectives she deplores.

Cipriano tells Kate that he wants to marry her and make her a goddess in a pantheon of deities alongside himself and Ramón, explaining that this will help Ramón. Kate at first rejects these proposals and considers leaving Mexico. Meanwhile, the unpopular actions of the new president provoke a rebellion, and the Church moves against Ramón, denouncing him as an "Anti-Christ". Cipriano continues to support Ramón, despite being obliged to defend the Mexican government. Ramón tries to remain politically neutral. Cipriano arranges a meeting between Ramón and a bishop. Ramón tells Cipriano that every people in the world needs its own "Saviour", and that the "Teutonic world" should return to the worship of Thor and Wotan, just as other nations should return to the worship of their ancient gods. When Ramón and Cipriano meet the bishop, Ramón suggests to him that the Catholic Church should embrace all gods, including Quetzalcoatl; the bishop rejects this. Ramón tells the bishop that he intends to remove images from a church in Sayula, burn them, and replace them with images of Quetzalcoatl; the bishop warns him against this, but Ramón remains firm in his plans, and tells the bishop to advise his superiors of them.

Ramón tries to encourage Kate to marry Cipriano, but she still has doubts. He tells her of the dissatisfying nature of his relationship with Carlota, saying that the two of them never "met in our souls", and that her faith in Jesus and his role in the Men of Quetzalcoatl now makes this impossible. He explains to Kate that, for him, Quetzalcoatl is a "symbol of the best a man may be". Soon afterwards, a priest is attacked after preaching a sermon against Ramón and Quetzalcoatl, and later threatened with death. Priests denounce the Men of Quetzalcoatl. The church in Sayula is closed, and later entered by Ramón and a group of his followers, who remove images of Jesus, Mary, and several saints. The images are taken away and burned. These events are followed by further incidents of violence and unrest. Kate travels to Jamiltepec, where she meets Ramón and tells him that she approves of the removal of images from the church in Sayula. He encourages her to support his movement. When an attempt is made to assassinate Ramón, Kate becomes involved in the conflict, and he afterwards credits her intervention with saving his life. One of Ramón's followers tells Kate that priests and the Knights of Cortés are to blame for the attack.

Kate meets Ramón and Cipriano. Ramón tells her that just as he will be identified with Quetzalcoatl, Cipriano will be identified with Huitzilopochtli. Kate accepts Cipriano as Huitzilopochtli and they are married by Ramón. Afterwards, Kate returns to Sayula, where she learns that the church has been turned into a temple of Quetzalcoatl. A religious meeting presided over by Ramón and Cipriano is interrupted by Carlota, who calls on God to take Ramón's life. Carlota collapses and is taken to bed; she subsequently dies. Worship of Quetzalcoatl continues to spread through Mexico; Cipriano wants the President to declare it the official religion of Mexico, but Ramón disagrees, believing that it should be allowed to spread of its own accord. Cipriano gives Kate the name "Malintzi". Ramón later marries a young woman named Teresa. Kate tells first Teresa, then Cipriano, that she wants to leave Mexico. Later, an attempt is made to assassinate the President, and Mexico is taken to the point of religious war. In Mexico City, the Men of Quetzalcoatl turn a church into a Quetzalcoatl temple; the Archbishop of Mexico is arrested before he and his followers can attempt to retake the building for the Catholic Church. Eventually, the President has the Catholic Church made illegal and orders Quetzalcoatl worship made the official religion of Mexico; all churches are closed, and the Archbishop is deported. Kate and Cipriano are legally married. Ramón tells Kate to tell the Irish that they should follow their traditional gods and heroes. Kate is left conflicted about whether to leave Mexico or not.

## Background and publication history

In March 1923, Lawrence, accompanied by the poet Witter Bynner and Willard Johnson, visited Mexico. There, according to the biographer Brenda Maddox, the "sight of Aztec ruins and the lush countryside outside Mexico City" gave him the idea for a book. Lawrence began writing *The Plumed Serpent* in May 1923. Maddox states that writing the novel was exhausting for Lawrence, and that it "nearly killed him", owing to the illness he contracted upon finishing it, which he did not expect to survive. She notes that the character of Owen Rhys was based on Bynner, and that the bullfight that occurs early in *The Plumed Serpent* was based on an actual bullfight Lawrence attended with Bynner and Johnson. She maintains that the bullfight scene reflects the disturbing effect on Lawrence of travelling with Bynner and Johnson, a homosexual couple.

*The Plumed Serpent* was first published in 1926 by Martin Secker's firm in the United Kingdom and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States. The novel has also been published by Heinemann, Penguin Books, and Vintage Books. Lawrence wanted to call the book "Quetzalcoatl", after the Aztec god of that name, but Knopf insisted on "The Plumed Serpent", a title Lawrence disliked. An early draft of the book, different enough to be considered a distinct work, was published as *Quetzalcoatl* by Black Swan Books in 1995.

## Reception

Critics have disagreed about the literary merit of *The Plumed Serpent*, some, including the novelist E. M. Forster and the writer John Middleton Murry, praising it as Lawrence's best work and others dismissing it. According to John B. Vickery, while most critics admired "Lawrence's masterful descriptions, his evocation of place and his handling of individual scenes", many also criticised his "humorless obsession" with saving Mexico and the world. Lawrence's biographer Harry T. Moore states that *The Plumed Serpent* received negative reviews from P. C. Kennedy in the *New Statesman*, the journalist Katherine Anne Porter in the *New York Herald Tribune*, and the novelist L. P. Hartley in the *Saturday Review*. He adds that additional negative reviews appeared in *The Times Literary Supplement*, which described the novel as "feeble", and *The Spectator*, which described it as "verbose". However, Moore writes that it received a more mixed assessment, discussing both its good and bad aspects, from the poet Edwin Muir in *The Nation and Athenaeum*. Moore himself maintained that *The Plumed Serpent* could be considered a "magnificent failure" and that it was "a greater achievement than the smoother work of the lesser authors celebrated at that time." He considered its first six chapters to be its best part, writing that they contain "wonderful prose". He also noted that the novel sold well.

Maddox writes that the novel received a negative review from Charles Marriott in *The Manchester Guardian*, who deplored its failure to produce convincing characterizations, a response similar to that of Hartley in the *Saturday Review*. According to Maddox, Porter considered the novel inferior to Lawrence's earlier work *Sons and Lovers* (1913), and believed that the difference in quality between the two works showed "the catastrophe that has overtaken Lawrence." *The Plumed Serpent* received a mixed review from *Time*, which described it as "a strange, compelling state of affairs rather than a story", and wrote that it reflected the "physico-mysticism", and preoccupation with sexual psychology, of its author. *Time* wrote that Lawrence's work "moves many profoundly, puzzles others, and revolts the squeamish." Donald Douglas wrote in *The Nation* that *The Plumed Serpent* contains "passages of miraculous wonder and words like arrows tipped with light borrowed from the sun" and that "Lawrence has all his old infallible and inexhaustible knowledge of woman's nature and his Indians bear all the fascination of an alien life perfectly understood."

Later assessments of *The Plumed Serpent* include those of F. B. Pinion, who considered it the most ambitious and successful of Lawrence's novels written after *Women in Love* (1920). Brett Neilson compared *The Plumed Serpent* to *Women in Love*, arguing that they imagined "the primitive" in similar ways and that both involved the theme of an "eternal conjunction between two men". He compared Ramón to Rupert Birkin, a character of *Women in Love*, maintaining that they had similar "sexual philosophies". The critics F. R. Leavis and Harold Bloom have seen *The Plumed Serpent* as inferior to *Women in Love*, as well as to Lawrence's *The Rainbow* (1915). Bloom compared *The Plumed Serpent* to the novelist Norman Mailer's *Ancient Evenings* (1983), suggesting that it had a similar underlying motive. He has argued that Lawrence was writing as a political theorist in *The Plumed Serpent*, which he described as a "Fascist fiction".

The poet Richard Aldington described *The Plumed Serpent* as "curious and original". He compared it to Frederick Rolfe's novel *Hadrian the Seventh* (1904), arguing that "in both books the author imagines himself raised to a position of power which he never had the faintest chance of attaining in fact on this earth." He suggested that the novel shows Lawrence's "dissenting horror from the very things he is supposed to be preaching." He interpreted Cipriano and Ramón as projections of D. H. Lawrence. The writer Anthony Burgess maintained that *The Plumed Serpent* is the least liked of Lawrence's novels due to its lack of humour and its exploration of a theme of little interest to readers "with no knowledge of the ancient Aztec gods and what they could mean to a revitalized or Laurentianised Mexico." He called its ending unconvincing. Leavis and Burgess have compared *The Plumed Serpent* to *Kangaroo*, Burgess finding the similarity to be their shared emphasis on bloodshed. Leavis maintained that unlike *The Rainbow* and *Women in Love*, but like *Aaron's Rod* (1922) and *Kangaroo*, *The Plumed Serpent* was "exploratory and experimental." Though appreciating features such as its bullfight scene, he dismissed it as a bad book and the least complex of Lawrence's novels, arguing that it suffered from his single-minded concern with imagining a "revival of the ancient Mexican religion." Critics have offered differing interpretations of Kate Leslie. Aldington and Burgess saw the character as a representation of Frieda Lawrence, but Leavis maintained that Leslie was not a representation of Frieda Lawrence. The critic Frederick Crews argued that the character was simply an opportunity for Lawrence to present "Lawrentian doctrine."

*The Plumed Serpent* has been criticised by feminist authors such as the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and the activist Kate Millett. De Beauvoir compared Lawrence's view of female sexuality to that of the physician Gregorio Marañón. She argued that *The Plumed Serpent* was the novel that most fully expressed Lawrence's ideal of female behavior, according to which the "woman must renounce personal love" and abdicate all pride and will. Millett described the novel as homoerotic. She considered its "consecration scene" an example of the "symbolically surrogate" scenes of pederasty in Lawrence's novels. She suggested that the novel was deservedly neglected, criticising Lawrence's "protofascist tone", "fondness of force", "arrogance", and "racial, class, and religious bigotries." She maintained that the novel showed his search for triumph in politics and other areas of life, and that it records his invention of a religion of "male supremacy", with its prose celebrating "phallic supremacy". She described Leslie as a "female impersonator".

The English professor Marianna Torgovnick suggested that the novel "advocates women’s slavelike submission to men and surrender of the drive toward orgasm" and suffered from "overblown prose". She considered it, like *Lady Chatterley's Lover*, vulnerable to Millett's criticism. Torgovnick saw *The Plumed Serpent* and Lawrence's story "The Woman who Rode Away" (1925) as sharing an interest in "extremes of experience", and found both similar to the work of writers such as Bataille, and the dramatist Antonin Artaud, in their emphasis on human sacrifice. She wrote that *The Plumed Serpent* "has been charged with protofascism", adding that it "states its racialised theses quite clearly at times. It posts Lawrence's views, derived from theories circulating within his culture, of the fall and rise of races based upon energy and power. Lawrence's fear is specifically the fear that the white race will be supplanted". She characterised it as being, like *Aaron's Rod*, part of a phase of Lawrence's career during which he was suspicious of and hostile towards women.

L. D. Clark described *The Plumed Serpent* as "perplexing". He suggested that the work was both open to misinterpretation, and "a flagrant piece of propaganda", intended by Lawrence as a "new gospel to mankind." He believed that it suffered from faults such as "careless language", "wearisome repetitions", and the "confusion of practical with artistic ends"; he considered its "prophetic aspirations" a fault as well. However, he considered the novel redeemed by, "Lawrence's profound sympathy with the land he was writing about, and his uncanny skill at synthesizing form and setting and symbol." He argued that Lawrence was influenced by Blavatsky, and that his use of "bone symbolism" resembled Blavatsky's in *The Secret Doctrine* (1888). He suggested that Lawrence's interest in the symbol of the circle resulted in part from his reading of occult writers such as Blavatsky. He concluded that the novel's symbolism endowed it with "peculiar brilliance." He noted that one scene, involving Ramón and Cipriano, had been interpreted as evidence of Lawrence's "latent homosexuality", but rejected the interpretation.

The cultural critic Philip Rieff described the work as "a novel of pagan religiosity". Rieff stated that in his "imaginative rehabilitation" of Aztec ritual, Lawrence "rightly understands sun dancing as an imitation — or a dramatic representation — performed in substantiation of the divine concern with the human being." However, he saw the work as an embarrassment even to Lawrence's admirers. The critic Frank Kermode wrote that in 1928 Lawrence accepted Bynner's criticism of the "leadership mystique" advocated in the novel.

The philosopher Michel Foucault considered *The Plumed Serpent* an example of how the modern "deployment of sexuality" has encouraged "the desire for sex—the desire to have it, to have access to it, to discover it, to liberate it, to articulate it in discourse, to formulate it in truth".

The writer Henry Miller maintained that Lawrence showed "great creativity" in *The Plumed Serpent*, finding it apparent in the way Lawrence dealt with "the eternal duality in man's nature" by deifying it in the form of Quetzalcoatl. He compared its themes to those of Lawrence's *The Man Who Died* (1929), and praised the way in which Lawrence employed "the old myth of the dragon." The novelist William S. Burroughs was influenced by *The Plumed Serpent*.

The Mexican intellectual Enrique Krauze described *The Plumed Serpent* as "the most fascist" of Lawrence's writings, citing its "deification of violence and masculine power".

The critic William York Tindall compared *The Plumed Serpent* to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's *Kubla Khan*, Gustave Flaubert's *Salammbô*, and the paintings of Paul Gauguin. He called it a "great novel" and "metaphor for a feeling about reality". Maddox compared *The Plumed Serpent* to *Kangaroo*, describing both novels as successors to *Aaron's Rod*. She also compared it to *Lady Chatterley's Lover*, which likewise features a man who "condescendingly instructs a woman in how to be a woman." She stated that Frieda Lawrence, like D. H. Lawrence, considered it his greatest novel, and shared its message, which Maddox summarized as being that, "Christianity was outmoded and destructive and that the white races must find new modes of leadership to prevent the dark races from dragging them into anarchy." She observed that one scene featuring Ramón appearing before a rally evoked the Third Reich to later readers and encouraged the view that Lawrence was a fascist. She also stated that the work influenced Rolf Gardiner.

The cultural critic William Irwin Thompson that the novel shows that Lawrence misunderstood the religion of ancient Mexico. The English professor Louis L. Martz stated that *The Plumed Serpent* resembles the Bible in its "combination of prose and poetry, its mingling of narrative and description with songs and hymns, lyrical sermons and eloquent authorial ruminations, along with its frequent use of occult symbols". He found the work a success so long as it is "read as a novel of prophecy". However, he found the published version of *The Plumed Serpent* in some ways inferior to the early version titled "Quetzalcoatl", noting that the early version gave Leslie a more significant role.

Anne Fernihough described *The Plumed Serpent* as "stridently ideological", while Mark Kinkead-Weekes described it as more "ideologically elaborated" and assertive than its early version *Quetzalcoatl*, adding that Lawrence made a "deliberate and intransigent" attack on Christianity. He wrote that most reactions to it were either strongly positive or strongly negative, and stated that Lawrence later rejected "both the political and the sexual ideology" of the novel. Helen Sword compared *The Plumed Serpent* to *Lady Chatterley's Lover*, describing them both as novels in which, "Lawrence uses a woman's voice and consciousness to convey the message that women should submit physically and emotionally to men", while Paul Eggert described Lawrence's attempt to portray a "society renovated by a new religion" as pretentious and strained, Michael Bell called *The Plumed Serpent* strident and desperate in its rhetoric and maintained that, like *Kangaroo*, it showed sympathy for political authoritarianism, and Chris Baldick wrote that Leavis's dismissal of *The Plumed Serpent* has been accepted by most subsequent critics, including the philosopher Eliseo Vivas and Julian Moynahan, and has become part of a consensus.

Vickery considered it unfair to reduce the novel to a political plan, arguing that Lawrence's central concern was that people were being led "further and further away from the realization of their own essential nature", and that Lawrence's own views were different from those of Ramón. He considered Lawrence's approach to primitive myth and ritual in *The Plumed Serpent* consistent with that he later took in *Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays*, maintaining that Lawrence used the character Ramón to depict "the attainment of an integrated personality". He compared the novel to the poet T. S. Eliot's poem *The Waste Land* (1922), observing that both works juxtaposed "past and present".

Donna Przybylowicz maintained that the novel revealed a conflict between contradictory fascist and liberal humanist tendencies within Lawrence's work. She compared Lawrence to Leavis and Eliot, suggesting that like Eliot, Lawrence believed that "all crises of a capitalistic post-war society of class-conflict could be transcended by ignoring history and replacing it with myth", although with the difference that Eliot's views were Christian and Lawrence's "paganistic". She argued that *The Plumed Serpent*, by depicting the proletariat and Indian peasants as needing to be controlled by a dictatorial leader, revealed Lawrence as "basically anti-democratic and anti-socialist", and that it also presented a "Western stereotyped notion" of "the dark races" as "lazy, dirty, resentful, covetous, irresponsible, and aimless". She believed that Lawrence "correctly portrays the crisis of Mexican society as resulting from reification and social fragmentation", but criticised him for repudiating "revolutionary political change" and wanting to maintain class divisions.

Lydia Blanchard described the novel as "puzzling", and wrote that it was "infrequently admired even by Lawrence admirers", with most readers finding it flawed, due to its "turgid" language, "wooden" characters, and "improbable" plot. She observed that it had been seen as a "prelude to fascism". Karen McLeod Hewitt described the novel as "unpleasant nonsense", writing that most of it celebrated "a disgust for people which is also pretentious." However, she praised the "brief passages" in which Leslie's reactions to the cruelties of Mexico were "dramatized with passion" and showed respect for the character.

David Carroll maintained that compared to its early version *Quetzalcoatl*, the novel's published version showed "more intimate knowledge of Mexican culture" and explored "the confrontation of white and red consciousness" with greater complexity. Jad Smith wrote that *The Plumed Serpent* is often regarded as "the height of Lawrence’s interest in authoritarian politics" and was a "notorious instance of Lawrence’s proto-fascist leanings". However, he noted that Lawrence subsequently wrote letters, including one to Bynner, "that appear to repudiate his leadership vision". He argued that they did not represent a change in Lawrence's views, and stressed that Lawrence did not necessarily endorse fascist politics, despite the presence of "proto-fascist ideologies" in the novel and its racism. He also argued that it reflected "Lawrence’s familiarity with German thought and culture".

Duane Edwards described the novel as Lawrence's "most profound expression of what the human psyche is", and suggested that it prepared the way for Lawrence's later novel *Lady Chatterley's Lover*. He maintained that it was disturbing because it "makes readers aware of their primitive, pre-conscious self, which connects them with their most ancient ancestors". He observed that the novel had received a more negative response than any other work by Lawrence, finding it surprising that it had "so many detractors." He disputed the characterisation of the work as racist and fascist, maintaining that Lawrence's views should not be confused with those of his characters Cipriano and Ramón. Julianne Newmark compared the novel to Willa Cather's *The Professor's House* (1925), arguing that both were inspired by "engagement with evocative American places—specifically the high deserts and rugged expanses of the American southwest" and are concerned with "the ways place constitutes new identities." She questioned the charge that *The Plumed Serpent* is racist and that Lawrence's views resembled those of "white supremacists". Damien Barlow wrote that "a queer approach to reading Lawrence's modernist fiction" has been proposed.

Armando Pereira maintained that the novel reflected Lawrence's desire to "live in a creative way and free of the oppressive rationality, anxiety of technique and obsession of progress that had swallowed Europe up." Nora Marisa León-Real Méndez argued that Lawrence "confers significant meaning to the landmarks, constructing a narrative space that is particular as well as linked to the Mexico outside the text." Camelia Raghinaru argued that there was a connection between Lawrence's interest in the Kabbalah, which may have developed from his reading, early in the 20th century, of the occultist, and founder of the Theosophical Society, Helena Blavatsky, and his development of a "messianic utopia" in *The Plumed Serpent*. She saw the novel as dealing with "magical and mystical secrets whose purpose is to enact a messianic eschatology" and believed that it revealed Lawrence's preoccupation with "femininity and its mystical significance." She wrote that Lawrence saw *The Plumed Serpent* as "a magical incantation" intended to "change the world". She interpreted the novel in terms of the philosopher Julia Kristeva's emphasis on abjection in *Powers of Horror* (1980), and maintained that it emphasised "male sexuality and female submission".

Luis Gómez Romero compared the novel to *Kangaroo*, writing that in both works Lawrence, "exposes the advent of discrete crises resulting from the failure of human ideals and institutions to prevent and tame violence." He noted that critics had often regarded the work as a "direct expression of Lawrence’s proto-fascist propensities." He questioned the view that its plot had little to do with actual Mexican politics, arguing that it should be viewed "in a specifically Mexican context." He also observed that the early reception of *The Plumed Serpent* in Mexico was positive, citing the views of the newspaper *Excélsior* and the poet Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano, who both credited Lawrence with understanding Mexico and the Mexicans. He also noted the similar appreciative views of the intellectual Antonio Castro Leal and the poet Octavio Paz. However, he stated that "Mexican post-revolutionary nationalism and the rise of post-colonial studies" later displaced such positive views of the novel in Mexico. He noted the poet José Juan Tablada's accusation of plagiarism against Lawrence, but discounted it, writing that *The Plumed Serpent* had little in common with Tablada's *La Resurrección de los Ídolos* (1924). Vladimiro Rivas Iturralde maintained that Lawrence wrote about "the transformation of man in myth" in an "improbable way" and that *The Plumed Serpent* was an "artistic failure."

Debra A. Castillo compared the novel to the anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum's *Keep the River on Your Right* (1969) and the work of the intellectual Georges Bataille. She maintained that it "stands out among the hundreds of novels and stories written by Anglo-Americans and set in Mexico for the particular forcefulness of Lawrence's obsession with, and equally forceful rejection of, that country and its people." She considered the work racist, and deemed it unsurprising that Lawrence considered it his best novel, arguing that he did so because he found Mexico, as a foreign society, an ideal subject on which to project his personal "obsessions". Nevertheless, she believed that the novel contained valuable insights into the state of Mexico after the Mexican Revolution. She noted that of those Mexican writers who had discussed the novel, the poet José Emilio Pacheco warned against its "proto-fascism", while Paz praised its "depiction of landscape". David Barnes noted that while Lawrence regarded the novel as his most important, he made little reference to it after its publication, and that it is usually held that he later rejected its themes for new concerns in the late 1920s, expressed in works such as *Lady Chatterley's Lover*. He criticised the novel's "misogyny", "authoritarian politics", and "racial essentialism", but nevertheless saw it as part of an important "political debate about what forms of nationhood might emerge in the 1920s" and showed awareness of "the possibilities of nation as utopian community." He maintained that while Bynner's negative judgment of the novel, expressed in his memoir *Journeys with Genius*, had affected its reputation, Lawrence was more interested in "Mexican revolutionary culture" than Bynner's comments suggested. He argued that the novel's themes were to some extent similar to those of *Lady Chatterley's Lover*. He also compared the novel to *Kangaroo* and *Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays*.

Shirley Bricout argued that episodes in the novel such as the bullfight scene depict rites that both "act as catalysers of emotions" and "travesty these emotions as a submissive but passionate response." She compared the novel to *Kangaroo*. Juliette Feyel compared *The Plumed Serpent* to *Kangaroo*, describing them as Lawrence's "most explicitly political novels". She compared both work's to *Civilization and Its Discontents* (1930), by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, maintaining that Lawrence and Freud both "correlate individual neurosis with civilization."

### Bibliography

Books   Journals   Online articles

## InfoBox

The Plumed Serpent
| Cover of the first edition | |
| --- | --- |
| Author | D. H. Lawrence |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Political fiction Romance novel Mythological fiction |
| Publisher | Martin Secker |
| Publication date | January 1926 March 1926 (reprint) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 445 (Vintage international edition) |
| ISBN | 0-679-73493-7 (Vintage international edition) |


title: The Nature of Space and Time

abstract: The Nature of Space and Time is a book that documents a debate on physics and the philosophy of physics between the British theoretical physicists Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking. The book was published by Princeton University Press in 1996. The event that is featured in the book took place in 1994 at the University of Cambridge's Isaac Newton Institute. The debate was modeled on the series of debates between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.

text:
# The Nature of Space and Time

***The Nature of Space and Time*** is a book that documents a debate on physics and the philosophy of physics between the British theoretical physicists Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking. The book was published by Princeton University Press in 1996. The event that is featured in the book took place in 1994 at the University of Cambridge's Isaac Newton Institute. The debate was modeled on the series of debates between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.

## InfoBox

The Nature of Space and Time
|  | |
| --- | --- |
| Authors | Roger Penrose<br>Stephen Hawking |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Physics |
| Publisher | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date | 1996 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print, e-book |
| Pages | 160 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-0691145709 |


title: The Popcorn Kid

abstract: The Popcorn Kid is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from March 23, 1987 to April 24, 1987.

text:
# The Popcorn Kid

***The Popcorn Kid*** is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from March 23, 1987 to April 24, 1987.

## Premise

A 16-year-old working behind the candy counter of a movie theater in Kansas City dreams of someday being in show business.

## Cast

* Bruce Norris as **Scott Creasman**, the "Popcorn Kid" of the series' title and, of course, the protagonist. A well-meaning yet trouble-prone sixteen-year-old high school student living in Kansas City, he is also an avid film enthusiast with dreams of making it big in movies. So far though, the closest he has come to achieving that dream is working as an usher and manning the candy counter at the Majestic Theatre, a local movie theatre that has seen better days.
* Raye Birk as **Mr. Leonard Brown**, the balding, disgruntled manager of the Majestic Theatre. Although Scott is often skating on thin ice where he is concerned, Mr. Brown never carries out his frequent threats to fire him, probably because Scott has helped him to save some face on more than one occasion. When he is not at the ticket booth or shut up in his office going over the books, he is coming up with schemes to make more money for the theatre and impress the owner Mr. Tuttle, which usually prove ineffective. He is normally very conservative, but has been known to go berserk when things go really wrong. His one soft spot seems to be his wife Lorraine, whom he wants to please almost as badly as he wants to please Mr. Tuttle.
* Jeffrey Joseph as **Willie Dawson**, a football star at the same high school Scott attends, and the only other male usher at the Majestic. He views his potential career in football primarily as a means of attracting girls. Often he shows up late to work because of football practice, but invariably avoids getting caught by Mr. Brown.
* Penelope Ann Miller as **Gwen Stottlemeyer**, another student from the same high school as the other ushers at the Majestic Theatre. Although she sometimes comes across as snarky, she is a loyal friend to Scott, on whom she has a secret crush, and also has been known to offer help or advice to other people, even Mr. Brown. She frequently gets exasperated with her fellow usherette Lynn Holly over the fact that while Gwen is rarely recognized for the hard work she does, Lynn Holly effortlessly skates by on good looks and her parents' wealth.
* John Christopher Jones as **Marlin Bond**, the projectionist at the theatre. Although Marlin is older and a bit of an oddball, Scott shares a bond with him over their mutual love of movies, and often hangs out with him in the projection booth despite the fact he is not supposed to be there. Marlin lives in a perennial cloudland in and out of his booth, quoting and acting out scenes from old movies, but he occasionally drops some good advice amidst his ramblings.
* Faith Ford as **Lynn Holly Brickhouse**, a spoiled, ditzy blonde cheerleader at the same high school her co-workers at the Majestic go to. She is the newest member of the staff, and got the job through her wealthy parents' influence. Scott has a hopeless crush on her, but despite the fact that he sits behind her at school, she barely knows he's alive. She is often either sitting on the candy counter chatting with her friends on her cell phone or preening herself in front of the mirror in the staff washroom, much to the annoyance of the other ushers.

## Episodes

| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | "Pilot" | Will Mackenzie | Mark Ganzel & Barry Kemp | March 23, 1987 (1987-03-23) |
| Scott starts a campaign to prevent the renovation of the Majestic Theater. | | | | | |
| 2 | "There She Is, Vic Damone" | David Steinberg | Irene Mecchi | March 27, 1987 (1987-03-27) |
| Lynn Holly gets help from Scott to prepare for the Dream Queen Pageant. | | | | | |
| 3 | "Career Day" | Will Mackenzie | Mark Ganzel & Barry Kemp | April 3, 1987 (1987-04-03) |
| Scott's father wants him to attend career day and give up his dreams of show business. | | | | | |
| 4 | "The Break-Up" | Will Mackenzie | Mark Ganzel & Barry Kemp | April 10, 1987 (1987-04-10) |
| Lynn Holly dumps her Marine boyfriend to be with Scott. | | | | | |
| 5 | "A Day in the Life of Ed Asner" | James Gardner | Mark Egan & Mark Solomon | April 17, 1987 (1987-04-17) |
| Marlin arranges an Edward Asner film festival, which is threatened by a tornado. Edward Asner guest stars as himself. | | | | | |
| 6 | "A Car, a House, a Mouse and a Louse" | David Steinberg | Mark Ganzel & Barry Kemp | April 24, 1987 (1987-04-24) |
| The movie theater is held up by a mugger. | | | | | |

## InfoBox

| *The Popcorn Kid* | |
| --- | --- |
|  | |
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Created by | Barry Kemp
Mark Ganzel |
| Starring | Bruce Norris
Raye Birk
Jeffrey Joseph
Penelope Ann Miller
John Christopher Jones
Faith Ford |
| Theme music composer | Gary Portnoy
Judy Hart Angelo |
| Composer | Tim Truman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company | MTM Enterprises |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | March 23 (1987-03-23)
April 24, 1987 (1987-04-24) |


title: The Mountain Times (Vermont newspaper)

abstract: The Mountain Times is an American newspaper serving Killington, Vermont. The Times It is published each Wednesday and has a circulation of over 10,000. The paper is owned by Polly and Jason Mikula. The newspaper covers Killington and surrounding towns in Rutland and Windsor Counties. The current editor is Polly Lynn Mikula.

text:
# The Mountain Times (Vermont newspaper)

***The Mountain Times*** is an American newspaper serving Killington, Vermont.

The *Times* It is published each Wednesday and has a circulation of over 10,000. The paper is owned by Polly and Jason Mikula. The newspaper covers Killington and surrounding towns in Rutland and Windsor Counties. The current editor is Polly Lynn Mikula.

## History

The paper was founded in 1971 by Ed Pickett as *Killington Pico-Paper*. Pickett, an advertising manager for the Mount Snow Ski Resort, also published *Ski Racer* and *Snow Valley News*. In 1976, Pickett sold the paper to Andrew Neisner, who changed the name to *The Mountain Times*.

In 1986, Royal and Zip Barnard bought *The Mountain Times*. They operated it for twenty-five years before selling it in 2011, to the Lynn/Mikula family. The sale of the paper in 2011 was delayed by significant flooding in Vermont from Tropical Storm Irene. The basement of the paper's printing office was damaged in the flood, but then-publisher Royal Barnard managed to publish an issue from his home that week.

Under the new management, the paper increased revenue by 15% by 2013.

## National coverage

*The Mountain Times* was the first to report about a proposal for Killington to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire in 2004.

*The New York Times* did a story on Polly Lynn Mikula and her family Aug. 15, 2013, titled "Vermont Sisters With Roots in News Embrace Small-Town Papers"

## Awards

New England Better Newspaper Competition
| Year | Award | Place | Recipient |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2016 | Most Creative Use of Small Print Space | 1st | *The Mountain Times* |
| 2016 | Digital Product Promotion to Readers | 1st | *The Mountain Times* |
| 2016 | Pure Advertising Niche Publication | 2nd | *The Mountain Times* |
| 2016 | Local Display Ad (color) | 2nd | *The Mountain Times* |
| 2014 | Overall Design and Presentation | 3rd | *The Mountain Times* |
| 2014 | Overall Mobile Application | 3rd | *The Mountain Times* |

1. "The Mountain Times timeline". *Timetoast*. January 1971. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
2. "Killington Mountain Times newspaper". *Mondo Times*. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
3. Haughney, Christine (16 August 2013). "Sisters with roots in news embrace small-town papers". *New York Times*. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
4. "About The Mountain Times". *The Mountain Times*. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
5. "Ski Packages Ease Weekend Pressure". *Boston Globe*. 26 January 1970.
6. *Skiing*. Ziff-Davis Publishing. September 1977.
7. Kumka, Cristina (11 August 2011). "Mt. Times paper sold". *Rutland Herald*. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
8. "'Addy Indy' owner buying Killington newspaper". *Addison Independent*. 11 August 2011.
9. "Newspapers try to recover from flooding". *Burllington Free Press*. 5 September 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
10. "Just Like Colonial Times". *Portsmouth Herald*. 10 January 2004.
11. "Vermont Sisters With Roots in News Embrace Small-Town Papers". *New York Times*. 15 August 2013.
12. "Addy Indy named best weekly newspaper in New England Addison County Independent". *addisonindependent.com*. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
13. "New England Better Newspapers Competition" (PDF). *New England Newspapers & Press Association*. 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2018.

## InfoBox

The Mountain Times
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
| --- | --- |
| Owner(s) | Polly Lynn Mikula |
| Publisher | Polly Lynn Mikula and Jason Mikula |
| Editor | Polly Lynn Mikula |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Killington, VT |
| Circulation | 10,000 |
| OCLC number | 44437619 |
| Website | mountaintimes.info |


title: The Mountain Sylph

abstract: The Mountain Sylph is an opera in two acts by John Barnett to a libretto by Thomas James Thackeray, after Trilby, ou le lutin d'Argail by Charles Nodier. It was first produced in London at the Lyceum Theatre in 1834 with great success. Often (mistakenly) cited as the first through-composed English opera of the 19th century, it was Barnett's only great success on the stage out of some 30 operas and operettas, and was perhaps the most effective work by an English composer in the style of Carl Maria von Weber. Rarely performed in the last century, its plot was parodied by W. S. Gilbert in his libretto for the Savoy Opera Iolanthe (1882).

text:
# The Mountain Sylph

***The Mountain Sylph*** is an opera in two acts by John Barnett to a libretto by Thomas James Thackeray, after *Trilby, ou le lutin d'Argail* by Charles Nodier. It was first produced in London at the Lyceum Theatre in 1834 with great success.

Often (mistakenly) cited as the first through-composed English opera of the 19th century, it was Barnett's only great success on the stage out of some 30 operas and operettas, and was perhaps the most effective work by an English composer in the style of Carl Maria von Weber. Rarely (if ever) performed in the last century, its plot was parodied by W. S. Gilbert in his libretto for the Savoy Opera *Iolanthe* (1882).

## Background

The story-line of *The Mountain Sylph*, based on Nodier's tale, had already been adapted in 1832 by the singer Adolphe Nourrit as the basis of the ballet *La Sylphide*, and it was probably the success of the ballet in Paris, where the cast included the famous ballerina, Marie Taglioni, which brought the subject to Barnett's attention. In any case, the opera more closely follows the story of the ballet than that of Nodier's story.

Before *The Mountain Sylph*, Barnett had mainly written comic operettas, incidental music and songs for plays, and burlesques and adaptations of popular foreign works, including the opera *Robert le diable* by his distant cousin Giacomo Meyerbeer. *The Mountain Sylph* owes its larger scale to a fortunate accident. As Barnett wrote in a note to the published score:

> The following (my first attempt at legitimate Opera), was, in its original form, intended as a Musical Drama for the Victoria Theatre, and written for an incomplete band; but, finding the difficulty of producing it at that theatre insurmountable, owing to the want of numbers, both on stage and in the orchestra, I was obliged to abandon my project; and this difficulty first suggested the idea of heightening it to an opera for the New Lyceum.

Barnett's opera was the second production at the Lyceum, following Edward Loder's *Nourjahad*. The proprietor of the Lyceum, Samuel James Arnold (to whom Barnett had been articled at the age of 11), had specifically relaunched the theatre as the 'English Opera House', and the *Sylph* provided him with a useful hit. On the hundredth performance, Arnold gave a large banquet for the composer, cast, musicians and production team.

Although Barnett made extended use in the opera of recitative, it has been shown that there was also spoken dialogue, and the palm for being the first through-composed opera of the period must go to Charles Horn's *Dirce* of 1823, which was unsuccessful and sank without trace. In *The Mountain Sylph*, the rich scoring and use of recurring motifs to suggest elements of the supernatural showed that the composer had well learnt the lessons of Weber, whose *Oberon* and *Der Freischütz* had been popular in London from the 1820s.

Barnett's contemporaries were aware of the opera's qualities; George Alexander Macfarren wrote that "its production opened a new period for music in this country, from which is to be dated the establishment of an English dramatic school". However, by 1949, the musicologist Edward J. Dent opined that "the libretto is ludicrously awkward" and "the construction is very amateurish and the music is always coming to a dead stop when it ought to go on". A 2002 assessment was that the music of the opera "is patchy, but often rather good, and well deserves a revival in an age interested in novelty and engaged (rather than rendered apoplectic) by lightweight prettiness.... where he lets us down, and lets us down consistently, is in the comparative flatness and sameness of his solo arias and in his frequent failure to inflect them with any kind of dramatic urgency.... But when he is able to get his teeth into the few big ensembles and scenas that Thackeray gave him, Barnett does evolve dynamic musical textures that glow, even if their fire is very pale."

In 1837 *The Mountain Sylph* was presented as a "grand melodramatic spectacle" at the National Theatre in Washington, DC, with Annette Nelson in the role of Aeolia. In the audience were a number of Native American chiefs, who presented Miss Nelson with traditional headwear in appreciation.

*The Mountain Sylph* was Barnett's only major operatic success. His other large scale operas (*Fair Rosamond* (1837) and *Farinelli* (1839)) flourished only briefly. *The Mountain Sylph* does not seem to have been revived since the early 20th century; the last known performance was in 1906 at the Guildhall School of Music. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera *Iolanthe* (1882) parodies themes from *The Mountain Sylph*. In that work, for the love of a mortal, the fairy Iolanthe is banished from fairy society with the consent of her Queen. Typically Gilbertian absurdities are introduced to fairyland: the shepherd, who is the son of Iolanthe and her mortal husband, turns out to be "half a fairy". That is, his body and brain are fairy, but his legs are mortal. Furthermore, the magical fairies are contrasted with the prosaic House of Lords, and ultimately they all fall in love.

## Roles

| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, August 25, 1834<br>(Conductor: Mr. Hawes) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Donald, a shepherd, engaged to Jessie | tenor | John Wilson |
| Hela, the Wizard of the Glen | baritone | Henry Phillips |
| Christie, Donald's rival for Jessie | tenor |  |
| Bailie McWhapple, a lawyer | baritone |  |
| Ashtaroth, Lord of the Underworld | baritone |  |
| Aeolia, the Mountain Sylph | soprano | Emma Romer |
| Etheria, Queen of the Sylphs | soprano |  |
| Jessie | soprano |  |
| Dame Gourlie, Jessie's mother | contralto |  |
| *Chorus: sylphs, peasants, witches, salamanders, spirits, etc.* | | |

## Synopsis

The opera is set in the highlands of Scotland.

### Act 1

A group of sylphs find Donald asleep. Aeolia falls in love with him and casts a spell on him. He is, however, due to marry Jessie. The envious Christie calls on Hela the Wizard to assist him in winning Jessie for himself. He is unexpectedly advantaged when Aeolia spirits Donald away at his wedding.

### Act II

Hela gives Donald a scarf, which he assures him will bind Aeolia to him. However, when she puts it on she is transported to the underworld of Ashtaroth. Etheria, Queen of the Sylphs, gives Donald a magic rose. With its help he enters the underworld and rescues Aeolia. On their return Etheria marries the couple, Aeolia accepting that she will lose her immortality. Jessie and Christie also marry.

## Recordings

The overture was included in *British Opera Overtures*, recorded by Victorian Opera Orchestra, with Richard Bonynge conducting.

* Barnett, John, *The Mountain Sylph*, (vocal score), London, 1834.
* Dent, Edward J. *Opera*, Harmondsworh: Pelican, 1949.
* Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. "The Mountain Sylph: A Forgotten Exemplar of English Romantic Opera", *The Opera Quarterly*, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 25–39 (2002)
* Oxford Music Online, *Barnett, John* and *The Mountain Sylph*.
* Pijpers Enzyklopädie des Musiktheaters (in German), (Munich, 1986), *John Barnett*
* Salaman, Charles Kensington, "English Opera" in *Musical Times*, vol. 18, no. 411 (1877)


title: The Prancing Elites Project

abstract: The Prancing Elites Project is an American reality television series that premiered on April 22, 2015, on Oxygen. Announced in September 2014, the series follows a five-member dance team as they juggle their personal and professional lives in Mobile, Alabama. The cast members include Adrian Clemons, Kentrell Collins, Kareem Davis, Jerel Maddox and Tim Smith. The dance team is described by the network as "the African American, gay and gender non-conforming." The show was subsequently renewed for a second season, which premiered on January 19, 2016. However, the show has been canceled and did not return after the summer of 2017.

text:
# The Prancing Elites Project

***The Prancing Elites Project*** is an American reality television series that premiered on April 22, 2015, on Oxygen. Announced in September 2014, the series follows a five-member dance team as they juggle their personal and professional lives in Mobile, Alabama. The cast members include Adrian Clemons, Kentrell Collins, Kareem Davis, Jerel Maddox and Tim Smith. The dance team is described by the network as "the African American, gay and gender non-conforming."

The show was subsequently renewed for a second season, which premiered on January 19, 2016. However, the show has been canceled and did not return after the summer of 2017.

## Cast

* Kentrell Collins
* Kareem Davis
* Jerel Maddox
* Tim Smith
* Adrian Clemons

## Episodes

### Series overview

| Season | Episodes | | Originally aired | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| | | First aired | Last aired |
|  | 12 | | April 22, 2015 (2015-04-22) | July 8, 2015 (2015-07-08) |
|  | 10 | | January 19, 2016 (2016-01-19) | March 22, 2016 (2016-03-22) |

### Season 1 (2015)

| No.
overall | No. in
season | Title | Original air date | U.S. viewers
(millions) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 1 | "We Came To Dance" | April 22, 2015 (2015-04-22) | 0.627 |
| 2 | 2 | "Prance to the Beat" | April 29, 2015 (2015-04-29) | 0.295 |
| 3 | 3 | "Buckin in the Bayou" | May 6, 2015 (2015-05-06) | N/A |
| 4 | 4 | "Secret Society Soiree" | May 13, 2015 (2015-05-13) | N/A |
| 5 | 5 | "Ready, J-Sette, GO!" | May 20, 2015 (2015-05-20) | N/A |
| 6 | 6 | "Prance on the Water" | May 27, 2015 (2015-05-27) | N/A |
| 7 | 7 | "Shatter the Stigma" | June 3, 2015 (2015-06-03) | N/A |
| 8 | 8 | "Beer, Bands and Bingo" | June 10, 2015 (2015-06-10) | N/A |
| 9 | 9 | "Wedding Crashers" | June 17, 2015 (2015-06-17) | N/A |
| 10 | 10 | "Prancing with the Stars" | June 24, 2015 (2015-06-24) | N/A |
| 11 | 11 | "Reignite the Spark" | July 1, 2015 (2015-07-01) | N/A |
| 12 | 12 | "Keep Prancing On..." | July 8, 2015 (2015-07-08) | N/A |

### Season 2 (2016)

| No.
overall | No. in
season | Title | Original air date | U.S. viewers
(millions) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 13 | 1 | "Prance to My Own Beat" | January 19, 2016 (2016-01-19) | N/A |
| 14 | 2 | "Its My Party and I'll Prance If I Want To" | January 26, 2016 (2016-01-26) | N/A |
| 15 | 3 | "Prancing with the Enemy" | February 2, 2016 (2016-02-02) | N/A |
| 16 | 4 | "Field Show of Dreams" | February 9, 2016 (2016-02-09) | N/A |
| 17 | 5 | "Are You Fo' Real" | February 16, 2016 (2016-02-16) | N/A |
| 18 | 6 | "The Art of the Prance" | February 23, 2016 (2016-02-23) | N/A |
| 19 | 7 | "So You Think You Can Prance?" | March 1, 2016 (2016-03-01) | N/A |
| 20 | 8 | "Prancing Queen" | March 8, 2016 (2016-03-08) | N/A |
| 21 | 9 | "To Be or Not to Newbie" | March 15, 2016 (2016-03-15) | N/A |
| 22 | 10 | "Prancing Near the Stars" | March 22, 2016 (2016-03-22) | N/A |

## InfoBox

| *The Prancing Elites Project* | |
| --- | --- |
| Genre | Reality television |
| Starring | * Adrian Clemons * Kentrell Collins * Kareem Davis * Jerel Maddox * Tim Smith |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 22 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | * Tom Cappello * Alana Goldstein |
| Running time | 42 minutes |
| Production company | * Crazy Legs Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | Oxygen |
| Release | April 23, 2015 (2015-04-23)
March 22, 2016 (2016-03-22) |


title: The One with the Monkey

abstract: "The One with the Monkey" is the tenth episode of the NBC television series Friends. It is the tenth episode of the show's first season and was broadcast on December 15, 1994. This episode marks the first appearance of Marcel, a monkey that Ross adopts to keep him company. Phoebe meets scientist David, though their relationship is short-lived, when David gets a grant to work in Minsk. The gang all make a no-date pact for their New Year's Eve party, though all of them save for Ross end up breaking it, with undesired consequences.

text:
# The One with the Monkey

"**The One with the Monkey**" is the tenth episode of the NBC television series *Friends*. It is the tenth episode of the show's first season and was broadcast on December 15, 1994. This episode marks the first appearance of Marcel, a monkey that Ross (David Schwimmer) adopts to keep him company. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) meets scientist David, though their relationship is short-lived, when David gets a grant to work in Minsk. The gang all make a no-date pact for their New Year's Eve party, though all of them save for Ross end up breaking it, with undesired consequences.

## Plot

In order to curb his loneliness after his divorce, Ross adopts a capuchin monkey named Marcel. Things start off on rocky footing – Marcel seems rebellious and unwilling to listen to Ross. However, Chandler bonds with him almost immediately. With New Year's fast approaching, Chandler proposes that the gang make a no-date pact and have dinner together on New Year's Eve, which everyone agrees to.

Phoebe sings 13 new songs she has written – all of them about her mother's suicide. During her set, she is interrupted by two scientists arguing over her performance. She goes to confront them, and finds out that one of them – David (Hank Azaria) – thinks that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen even though his partner, Max, begs to differ. Phoebe and David begin dating and she asks Chandler for permission to break the no-date pact for New Year's. He agrees as he has already asked Janice, having snapped at the thought of being alone despite how annoying she is.

As the days pass, Monica plans on bringing her ex-boyfriend Fun Bobby, Rachel learns that Paolo will catch an earlier flight back to the US from Italy for New Year's, and Joey invites Sandy, a single mom he meets while working as one of Santa's elves at the mall. When Ross objects to all his friends breaking their no-date pact, Rachel suggests turning their New Year's dinner into a New Year's party to compensate so no one knows who is with whom. Max arrives and tells Phoebe that he and David have gotten a grant to study in Minsk for three years, and will be leaving on New Year's Day. When she goes to congratulate David, he and Max inform her that he has rejected the opportunity to go, wishing to stay in New York with her.

The six friends end up keeping their no-date pact after all: Ross arrives at the party with only Marcel. Paolo has missed his flight, and Rachel gets attacked outside of the airport by a woman who thinks Rachel has stolen her cab. Max informs David that he is leaving for Minsk alone, and Phoebe convinces him to go with him, telling him he cannot stay just for her. Fun Bobby is depressed because his grandfather has just died, and makes the party even more depressing. Sandy not only brings her kids to the party, but she hooks up with Max. Chandler tries to tell Janice that he only invited her for New Year's, but she gets upset at him and storms off.

At midnight, Phoebe is too sad to kiss anyone, Rachel's lip was cut in the attack so she cannot kiss anyone, and Monica does not feel like kissing anybody. Chandler demands someone kiss him anyway – so Joey obliges.

## Reception

*Entertainment Weekly* gave the episode a B, saying the episode introduces the monkey that was "perhaps *Friends*' biggest blunder – forcing Schwimmer to do comedy opposite a simian is beneath him." The episode "illustrates the writer' tendency to overplot" (such as having Rachel get into a catfight at the airport), "and the multiple story lines never quite jell. Still, any ep that gives Phoebe center stage gets bumped up a grade."

Sam Ashurst from Digital Spy ranked it #120 on their ranking of the 236 *Friends* episodes, and called it a "strong, early episode".

*Telegraph & Argus* wrote that the show stealer was Chandler's line "You don't have to face the horrible pressures of this holiday: desperate scramble to find anything with lips just so you can have someone to kiss when the ball drops!! Man, I'm talking loud!"

Distractify ranked it the number one *Friends* Christmas episode.

## InfoBox

| "**The One with the Monkey**" | |
| --- | --- |
| *Friends* episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1<br>Episode 10 |
| Directed by | Peter Bonerz |
| Written by | Adam Chase & Ira Ungerleider |
| Original air date | December 15, 1994 (1994-12-15) |
|
|


title: The Quiet American (2002 film)

abstract: The Quiet American is a 2002 political drama film directed by Phillip Noyce, and stars Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, and Do Thi Hai Yen. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan is adapted from Graham Greene's bestselling 1955 novel of the same name set in Vietnam. In contrast to the prior 1958 film version, which abandoned Greene's cautionary tale about foreign intervention in favor of anticommunist advocacy of American power, the 2002 film is faithful to the source novel, illustrating the moral culpability of American agents in arranging terrorist actions aimed at the French colonial government and the Viet Minh. Going beyond Greene's original work, the film utilizes a montage ending with superimposed images of American soldiers from the intervening decades of the Vietnam War. Miramax paid $5.5 million for distribution rights in North America and some other territories, but the film was shelved after test audiences perceived it as unpatriotic in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The film finally received an Oscar qualification release in November 2002 and went on to gross US$12.9 million in limited theatrical release in the United States. The film received positive reviews from critics and Caine was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

text:
# The Quiet American (2002 film)

***The Quiet American*** is a 2002 political drama film directed by Phillip Noyce, and stars Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, and Do Thi Hai Yen. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan is adapted from Graham Greene's bestselling 1955 novel of the same name set in Vietnam.

In contrast to the prior 1958 film version, which abandoned Greene's cautionary tale about foreign intervention in favor of anticommunist advocacy of American power, the 2002 film is faithful to the source novel, illustrating the moral culpability of American agents in arranging terrorist actions aimed at the French colonial government and the Viet Minh. Going beyond Greene's original work, the film utilizes a montage ending with superimposed images of American soldiers from the intervening decades of the Vietnam War.

Miramax paid $5.5 million for distribution rights in North America and some other territories, but the film was shelved after test audiences perceived it as unpatriotic in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The film finally received an Oscar qualification release in November 2002 and went on to gross US$12.9 million in limited theatrical release in the United States. The film received positive reviews from critics and Caine was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

## Plot

The story is set in 1952 in Saigon, Vietnam (French Indochina at that time), toward the end of the First Indochina War (1946–1954) in which French forces fought the Communist-led Viet Minh rebels. On one level, *The Quiet American* is a love story about the triangle that develops between Thomas Fowler, a British journalist in his fifties; Alden Pyle, a young American idealist; and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman. On another level it is also about the growing American involvement that led to the full-scale American war in Vietnam.

Thomas Fowler, who narrates the story, is involved in the war only as a reporter, an unengaged observer, apart from one crucial event. He lives with a young Vietnamese mistress, Phuong. Pyle, who represents America and its policies in Vietnam, poses as an aid worker but is eventually exposed as a Central Intelligence Agency operative. Pyle is sent to steer the war according to America’s interests, and is passionately devoted to the ideas of an American foreign policy theorist who said that what Vietnam needed was a "third force" to take the place of both the colonialists and the Vietnamese rebels and restore order. Pyle sets about creating a "Third Force" against the French and the Viet Minh by using a Vietnamese splinter group headed by corrupt militia leader General Thé (based on the actual Trinh Minh Thế). His arming of Thé's militia with American weaponry leads to a series of terrorist bombings in Saigon. These bombings, blamed on the Communists in order to further American outrage, kill a number of innocent people, including women and children.

Meanwhile, Pyle has made advances towards Phuong, promising the marriage and security Fowler has thus far refused her. When Fowler discovers Pyle's involvement in the bombings, the reporter urges Pyle to express remorse for the civilian deaths he caused, or express doubts about the certainty of his actions. When Pyle refuses, Fowler tacitly agrees to enable his assistant Hinh, and Hinh's Communist colleagues, to take Pyle captive. When Pyle tries to flee, Hinh fatally stabs him. Phuong subsequently returns to Fowler, and while the local French police commander suspects Fowler had a role in Pyle's murder, he has no evidence and does not pursue the matter.

## Cast

## Production

The film was shot in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Ninh Bình and Hội An in Vietnam.

## Reception

The film earned positive reviews from critics, currently holding an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 156 reviews, and an average rating of 7.65/10, with the consensus: "Thoughtful and wonderfully acted, *The Quiet American* manages to capture the spirit of Green\[e\]'s novel." It also has a score of 84 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

The first rough cut was screened to a test audience on September 10, 2001 and received positive ratings. However, the September 11 attacks took place the next day, and audience ratings dropped with each subsequent screening. Reacting to audience perception that the film was not patriotic, Miramax shelved the film for a year. *The Quiet American* was finally screened publicly at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2002 to critical acclaim. The film received an Oscar qualification release in November 2002 and a limited release in January 2003.

The theatrical release ran 118 minutes. Subsequent television and video releases cut 17 minutes, and run 101 minutes. Cut were: love scenes between Fowler and his young mistress, Phuong; Pyle's courtship of Phuong while Fowler is away; and much of the exposition of the police investigation at the end of the film.

## Accolades

**Academy Awards**

**Golden Globe Awards**

**BAFTA Awards**

**American Film Institute Awards**

* Movie of the Year - **Won**

**London Film Critics' Circle Awards**

**National Board of Review**

**National Society of Film Critics Awards**

**Satellite Awards**

## InfoBox

| The Quiet American | |
| --- | --- |
| Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Phillip Noyce |
| Written by | Christopher Hampton
Robert Schenkkan |
| Based on | *The Quiet American*
by Graham Greene |
| Produced by | Staffan Ahrenberg
William Horberg |
| Starring | Michael Caine
Brendan Fraser
Do Thi Hai Yen |
| Cinematography | Christopher Doyle |
| Edited by | John Scott |
| Music by | Craig Armstrong |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release dates | * September 9, 2002 (2002-09-09) (TIFF) * November 22, 2002 (2002-11-22) (United States) * May 22, 2003 (2003-05-22) (Germany) |
| Running time | 101 minutes |
| Countries | Germany
United States
United Kingdom
France |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30 million |
| Box office | $27.7 million |


title: The Quiet Family

abstract: The Quiet Family is a 1998 South Korean black comedy horror film directed by Kim Jee-woon. The story centers on a family who owns a hunting lodge in a remote area, whose customers always happen to end up dying. Among the film's main cast are pre-stardom Choi Min-sik and Song Kang-ho. The film was loosely remade in Japanese as The Happiness of the Katakuris by Takashi Miike, in Indian Tamil as Yaamirukka Bayamey, in Kannada as Namo Bhootatma and in Telugu as Next Nuvve.

text:
# The Quiet Family

***The Quiet Family*** (Korean: 조용한 가족; RR: *Joyonghan Gajok*) is a 1998 South Korean black comedy horror film directed by Kim Jee-woon. The story centers on a family who owns a hunting lodge in a remote area, whose customers always happen to end up dying. Among the film's main cast are pre-stardom Choi Min-sik and Song Kang-ho.

The film was loosely remade in Japanese as *The Happiness of the Katakuris* by Takashi Miike, in Indian Tamil as *Yaamirukka Bayamey*, in Kannada as *Namo Bhootatma* and in Telugu as *Next Nuvve*.

## Plot

An extended family has moved from the city (presumably Seoul) to live in a large house out in the mountains, which they convert into a lodge for hikers. Consisting of a middle aged father Kang Dae-goo, mother Jeong Soon-rye, Dae-goo's younger brother Kang Chang-goo, and their adult children Kang Young-min, Kang Mi-soo, and Kang Mina, they suffer a string of misfortunes as various patrons come to stay.

Their first guest, a hiker, asks for a room and three beers. Left to himself, he spends the night forging his room key holder to be sharp enough to stab himself and is found dead the next morning. The father of the family decides on burying the body in the woods, under the assumption that no one would believe this to be a suicide. Later, a young couple drops in for a stay to have sex in the privacy of their room and end up dead together the next morning. A pair of friends from town stop by for drinks until one of the men falls for Mi-soo and subsequently attempts to rape her, but she is saved by Young-min, who accidentally ends up pushing the man off a cliff, while his friend is taken captive by the family to prevent him from calling the police.

Mr. Park, the benefactor of the family (providing them the house) later asks for their lodging for his younger (and illegitimate) half sister to have a hitman check into the neighboring room at midnight and murder her so he can be the only successor to the claim inheritance of the soon profitable land. Uninformed of the plan, Uncle Kang senses foul play and sends the half sister home to Seoul when she is found to be restless. The plan goes further awry when the hitman arrives fifteen minutes late, and the room had been taken by an undercover cop investigating the recent string of missing people, mistaken to be the hitman. The hitman thus ends up killing the cop instead, and is later killed by a suspicious Young-min.

A heavy rainstorm overnight nearly uncovers the buried corpses by morning, leaving the family no choice but to incinerate them. When Uncle returns from the trip to Seoul, he angers Dae-goo who had hoped to settle Mr. Park's plot without any trouble. A fight ensues as Uncle is beaten senseless but is saved from a blow to the head by Young-min who then trips, hitting his head on the stairs, he is whisked to the hospital, leaving the elderly parents the only ones left to finish the job. The local man, having been imprisoned, bound and gagged, tries to make his escape but gets his ropes tangled in several trees as he escapes the lodge.

Soon enough, Mr. Park drops in unannounced to check if his sister-in-law has been terminated as planned, but is in complete shock when he sees Mr. Kang and Mrs. Jeong carrying the corpse of the undercover cop, knowing that he wasn't the hitman. A brief struggle begins when Mr. Park tries to escape without trying to figure out just what exactly has happened, and ends after he accidentally falls to his death down the stairs, adding yet another body to be done away with for the family.

To drive away attention, Mrs. Jeong switches off the circuits throughout the lodge and outside storage where she and her husband are piling the corpses, dousing them in gasoline. Mina, trying to watch TV, asks for Uncle Kang to switch the circuits back on, inadvertently causing a socket in the storage to burst in flames, triggering the cremation fire prematurely, trapping the parents inside. Meanwhile, Young-min is in the hospital recovering from his concussion and laughing insanely over a news report on the shooting of a North Korean agent wandering through the forest.

After an uncertain amount of time later, Uncle Kang, Young-min, Mi-soo, and Mina are preparing to serve dinner, totally unaware of the fire in the storage building. The parents return, in bandages, having survived the fire. Without a single word, the family quietly has dinner until there is a sudden knock at the door. Unsure of what to do, they all stand quietly in the doorway of the dining room, waiting for whoever is at the door to go away. When the dog starts barking at the knocking, the family, in unison hushes the dog; they have become the quiet family.

The film ends with a wide shot of the lodge in winter, with Mina outside, looking at it, and then to the camera with an uncertain look on her face; all to the sound of The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You".

## Cast

* Park In-hwan as Kang Dae-goo
* Na Moon-hee as Jeong Soon-rye
* Song Kang-ho as Kang Young-min
* Choi Min-sik as Kang Chang-goo
* Go Ho-kyung as Kang Mina
* Lee Yoon-seong as Kang Mi-soo
* Gi Ju-bong as lonely man
* Choi Cheol-ho as man with pills
* Shin Young-ae as woman with
* Ji Su-won as Eun-soo
* Jung Woong-in as Mi-soo's admirer
* Jung Jae-young as Hyun-seok
* Jang Ka-hyeon as Hyun-seok's lover
* Lee Ki-young as killer
* Han Seong-sik as Police officer Oh
* Ha Deok-bu as Doctor
* Jo Deok-je as Police officer Jo
* Yoo Hyung-kwan as Mr. Jang
* Kim Jong-goo as substation chief

## Awards and nominations

Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref(s). |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1999 | 19th Fantasporto International Film Festival | Best Film Award | *The Quiet Family* | Won |  |
| 2000 | Málaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema | Best Film | *Kim Jee-woon* | Won |  |
| | Best Director | | Won | |

## InfoBox

| The Quiet Family | |
| --- | --- |
| Original Korean poster | |
|  | |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 조용한 가족 |
| Hanja | 조용한 |
| Revised Romanization | *Joyonghan Gajok* |
| McCune–Reischauer | *Choyonghan Kajok* |
|  | |
| Directed by | Kim Jee-woon |
| Written by | Kim Jee-woon |
| Produced by | Lee Eun |
| Starring |  |
| Cinematography | Jeong Kwang-seok |
| Edited by | Ko Im-pyo |
| Music by | Jo Yeong-wook<br>Jeon Sang-yoon |
| Distributed by | Myung Films |
| Release date | * April 25, 1998 (1998-04-25) |
| Running time | 99 minutes |
| Country | South Korea |
| Language | Korean |


title: The Quiet Feather

abstract: The Quiet Feather was a not-for-profit magazine that served as a showcase for new writing, illustration, photography and poetry. There were nine issues in all, published at somewhat irregular intervals between December 2003 and July 2007. The magazine featured short stories, poetry, travel writing, cartoon strips, lyrics and interviews with writers and musicians. The magazine is published in Cumbria, England, but included work from a worldwide network of contributors and subscribers. Back issues remain available through the magazine's website.

text:
# The Quiet Feather

***The Quiet Feather*** was a not-for-profit magazine that served as a showcase for new writing, illustration, photography and poetry. There were nine issues in all, published at somewhat irregular intervals between December 2003 and July 2007. The magazine featured short stories, poetry, travel writing, cartoon strips, lyrics and interviews with writers and musicians. The magazine is published in Cumbria, England, but included work from a worldwide network of contributors and subscribers. Back issues remain available through the magazine's website.