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Three weeks ago, we asked International Business Times readers to vote for the places they most wanted to see before they died. Hundreds of ticked boxes later, we’re back with the top 20 responses to our poll, which make up an alluring collection of ancient wonders, modern marvels and natural landmarks, in addition to a few amusing surprises along the way. Now, without any further ado, we bring you the ultimate global bucket list:

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 20 Angkor Wat (Cambodia)

Angkor Wat (Cambodia) Angkor Wat (Cambodia) Photo: Reuters

You often hear about the grandeur of Angkor Wat, but nothing can quite prepare you for that special morning when you watch the saffron sun peek over the world's most audacious religious beacon and bathe the surrounding countryside in its sizzling glow. Spiraling out from Angkor Wat are as many as 200 other equally imposing temples constructed between the 9th and 15th centuries, which collectively comprise the largest-known pre-industrial settlement complex in the world. You'll need at least one battery-operated fan, two memory chips and three days to navigate the 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of the former Khmer Empire, and though it may be the most hyped set of ruins in the world, it wasn’t built to disappoint.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 19 Sydney Opera House (Australia)

Sydney Opera House (Australia) Sydney Opera House (Australia) Photo: Reuters

What do you get when you mix a handful of orange peels, a bushel of palm fronds and a Maya temple? If you’re Danish architect Jørn Utzon, you dream up an opera house that will, almost single-handedly, turn a faraway city into a global capital. The Sydney Opera House is a landmark on the city skyline, a lighthouse for ferries entering the harbor, a projection screen for Sydney’s myriad festivals and a barometer of global artistic talent. Utzon’s dream building is many things, but above all, it’s an architectural marvel that was built well ahead of its time, far ahead of the available technology, and one that changed the image of an entire country.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 18 Easter Island (Chile)

Easter Island (Chile) Easter Island (Chile) Photo: Reuters

It’s one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world, boasts 887 monolithic stone “heads” and is a cautionary tale of the effects of overpopulation and depletion of resources. Easter Island could easily evoke the inner mythbuster in even the most empty-headed of visitors.  Within its vast open-air museum of archaeological marvels, perhaps nothing is more famous than the mysterious moai, which were transported throughout the island from a single quarry site using an as-yet unknown method that has left historians scratching their heads for decades. Known alternatively as Rapa Nui or Isla de Pascua, this triangular speck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is as beguiling a place as you will find anywhere on earth.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 17 Berlin Wall (Germany)

Berlin Wall (Germany) Berlin Wall (Germany) Photo: Reuters

The Berlin Wall was the setting for one of the most defining moments of living memory when, on Nov. 9, 1989, it “fell” after nearly three decades dividing Germany into East and West. At least 136 people died trying to cross it between 1961 and 1989, and the barrier is remembered today more for what it was than what it is. Presently, just two sizable sections remain as memorials: the Bernauer Strasse section in the city’s north, which acts as an exhibition about city life in the time of the Berlin Wall, and the East Side Gallery, which is full off colorful murals, including the famous Fraternal Kiss, depicting Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev smooching Erich Honecker, his East German counterpart.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 16 The Louvre (France)

The Louvre (France) The Louvre (France) Photo: Reuters

Though Mona Lisa continues to underwhelm nearly 9 million tourists a year, the world’s most visited museum has some 380,000 other artifacts on display to wow discerning guests. Indeed, from Ancient Egyptian antiquities to decorative arts of the Middle Ages, this gargantuan former palace is a perpetual jaw-dropper, and one that’s best digested in small doses. Highlights include Venus de Milo, Rembrandt’s self-portraits, Michelangelo’s The Slaves and the chapel of the tomb of Akhethetep.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 15 Venice Canals (Italy)

Venice Canals (Italy) Venice Canals (Italy) Photo: Reuters

If there were a more romantic place on earth than the canals of Venice, surely we’d see that destination replicated in every casino the world over. But since there are arguably more faux canals and Roman statues in global casinos than anything else, it’s safe to say that the real Venice is the romantic winner. And why wouldn’t it be? Who doesn’t want to transport themselves into a gondola for a lazy ride around the “floating city” past its famed Gothic and Byzantine palazzos, bohemian shops and alluring cafes? This city is an engineering marvel, a marble masterpiece, and a sight that won’t be around forever.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 14 Mount Fuji (Japan)

Mount Fuji (Japan) Mount Fuji (Japan) Photo: Reuters

Japan’s tallest mountain -- which, although dormant since 1707, remains classified as an active volcano -- finally joined UNESCO’s prestigious World Heritage List in 2013 after decades mysteriously absent. Home to five major lakes, Shiraito Falls and eight Shinto shrines, adoration of this towering icon appears in the some of Japan’s earliest recorded literature when Fuji-san, as it is known locally, was said to puff clouds of smoke across Honshu. Today, it is one of Japan’s most visited attractions, with hundreds of thousands of tourists enduring the grueling climb to the top each year for a moment of peace and quiet as they look back out over Japan’s most populous island.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 13 Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)

Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) Photo: Reuters

Charles Darwin once called the Galapagos Islands “a little world within itself.” The famed naturalist would develop his theory of evolution by natural selection not long after his visit to these quixotic isles in 1835, and nearly two centuries later, it’s still possible to catch a glimpse of the very oddball creatures that amazed him so. The Galapagos is a melting pot of marine life thanks to its location at the confluence of three ocean currents. Above the crystalline waters, this 19-island archipelago is home to a cornucopia of colorful species, many endemic, including the pink iguana, blue-footed booby and giant green tortoise, which can live more than 170 years. That means that some of the giant tortoises wandering around the islands today may have been born around the time of Darwin’s visit.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 12 Stonehenge (UK)

Stonehenge (UK) Stonehenge (UK) Photo: Reuters

Stonehenge represents one of the most striking prehistoric megalithic monuments in the world on account of the sheer size of its megaliths and the sophistication of its concentric plan. Built sometime between 3,000 B.C. and 2,000 B.C., this ancient complex is today a spiritual site of pilgrimage in Neo-Druidry, as well as one of England’s most iconic attractions. Just what exactly prehistoric Britons built it for, however, remains one of archeology’s great mysteries. Was it a celestial timepiece? A sacrificial burial ground? The answer could be discovered any day now.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 11 Taj Mahal (India)

Taj Mahal (India) Taj Mahal (India) Photo: Reuters

If ever there was a more beautiful monument to love than India’s Taj Mahal, it has long since faded to dust. Mughal emperor Shah Jahan commissioned this immense marble-white mausoleum in memory of his beloved third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, in 1632. The resulting structure, designed by Afghan Ustad-Ahmad Lahori, has been called the jewel of Muslim art in India, an architectural masterpiece and one of the most romantic buildings in the world.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 10 The Eiffel Tower (France)

The Eiffel Tower (France) The Eiffel Tower (France) Photo: Reuters

When Gustave Eiffel announced that he would build the tallest tower in the world for the 1889 World’s Fair, he expected a euphoric response. What he got instead was skepticism, virulent criticism and even protests “on artistic grounds.”  History, however, would prove his critics to be a pack of fools. The Eiffel Tower is now not only the world’s most-visited paid monument, but also its most valuable at $561.9 billion, according to a 2012 report, making it a crucial cog in the French economy and one of the most beloved sites in Europe.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 9 Yellowstone National Park (USA)

Yellowstone National Park (USA) Yellowstone National Park (USA) Photo: Reuters

It was the wild plains of buffalo, bears, wolves and elk and the extraordinary natural art gallery of geysers, hot springs and scorched, bubbling earth that spurred U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant to create the world’s first national park in March 1872 and name it Yellowstone. Conservation efforts here would be replicated the world over, while the name Yellowstone itself would conjure up images of America’s Wild West. Today, it remains one of the most fabled spots on the U.S. map, and a Mecca for outdoor enthusiasts, who gush over its flora, fauna and geothermal unpredictability.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 8 Bora Bora (French Polynesia)

Bora Bora may as well be shorthand for paradise. It’s the Ferrari of exotic locales, dripping with luxury and dotted with glass-bottomed bungalows that boast endless vistas of aquamarine sea and jagged volcanic peaks. Of course, this is a dream that comes with a hefty price tag, but the location of this Society Island of French Polynesia, smack dab in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, ensures that you leave all your struggles and your cares thousands of miles away.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 7 The Sistine Chapel (Vatican City)

The Sistine Chapel (Vatican City) The Sistine Chapel (Vatican City) Photo: Reuters

Four years in the making, Michelangelo’s interpretation of some of the Old Testament’s most powerful stories -- three each from the creation, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the story of Noah -- has become one of the iconic sets of images in Western art. While it was certainly the talk of the town in 1512, 501 years later, the Sistine Chapel is so renown it attracts as many as 20,000 tourists each day, who line up to take a peek at the world’s most visited room.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 6 The Colosseum (Italy)

Though completed in 80 A.D., Rome’s Colosseum remains the world’s largest amphitheater nearly 2,000 years later, and a towering testament to the technological prowess of the Roman Empire. Its walls have seen both heroic and barbaric acts, including violent bouts of gladiatorial combat and thousands of slaughtered animals. The structure today, however, is known less for its bloody “sports” and more for its giddy, camera-toting tourists.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 5 Great Barrier Reef (Australia)

Great Barrier Reef (Australia) Great Barrier Reef (Australia) Photo: IBTimes/Felipe Bascunan

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is 2,600 kilometers (1,680 miles) in length and easily the largest living structure on earth. It’s also the only living thing visible from outer space -- though it’s best appreciated in person off the Queensland coast on one of the many dive trips or snorkel safaris. This massive underwater wonderland is composed of more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands that house a whopping 1,500 fish species, 30 species of whales and dolphins, six species of sea turtles and more than 215 species of birds. If you’re looking for the New York or Tokyo of the ocean, this is it.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 4 Pyramids of Giza (Egypt)

Pyramids of Giza (Egypt) Pyramids of Giza (Egypt) Photo: Reuters

Spent your whole life looking at images of Egypt’s Great Pyramids and figured them to be in the middle of the dessert? Their proximity to modern Cairo may shock you. But the somewhat urban setting does not take away from the reality that these massive limestone beacons, and their guard cat, the Great Sphinx, are more than 4,500 years old (by most estimates) and still standing as the only surviving wonders of the ancient world. For modern day time travel, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 3 Grand Canyon (USA)

Grand Canyon (USA) Grand Canyon (USA) Photo: Reuters

It’s one of the seven wonders of the natural world, but it doesn’t need any titles to impress; the numbers speak for themselves. The formidable Grand Canyon is 446 river kilometers (227 miles) long, up to 29 kilometers (18 miles) wide and 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) deep, and its walls offer a striking mosaic of geological colors and erosional forms that could put any museum to shame -- particularly when the colors change at sunrise and sunset. Add to the mix a few curtain-like waterfalls, Native American ruins and curious desert-dwellers, and you’ve got yourself a postcard-perfect vacation.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 2 Machu Picchu (Peru)

Machu Picchu (Peru) Machu Picchu (Peru) Photo: Reuters

It has been some five centuries since the fall of the Inca Empire and one century since U.S. historian Hiram Bingham “rediscovered” the civilization's most famous citadel, Machu Picchu, and history has come full circle. The once bustling Inca estate, abandoned and forgotten, is now busier than it’s ever been, with as many as 2,500 visitors a day. The hike up to these pre-Columbian ruins (which lie at 2,430 meters, or nearly 8,000 feet above sea) is, quite literally, breathtaking. And what you’ll see from the top is a serene spot that’s frequently shrouded in an ethereal fog and perpetually blanketed in emerald green grass. It’s a place fit for a king, which of course is exactly why it was built in the first place.

Places To See Before You Die -- No. 1 The Great Wall of China (China)

The Great Wall of China (China) The Great Wall of China (China) Photo: Reuters

The Great Wall of China is so grand in its scale that it snakes its way through the People’s Republic, in various tangents, for more than 20,000 kilometers (12,425 miles). As UNESCO notes, “its historic and strategic importance is matched only by its architectural significance.” Construction began around 220 B.C. under Qin Shi Huang and continued all the way up to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), reflecting the military might and political strength of the central empires in ancient China. Though you’ll have to cast your preconceived notions of a single wall aside, each of the many barricades that make up The Great Wall of China have their own stories to tell, and each offer a fascinating look at dynastic China.


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Ten years ago, LucasArts and Pandemic Studios gave the world "Star Wars: Battlefront," one of the best Star Wars video games ever released. A year later, LucasArts published the console-only sequel "Battlefront II." Since then, other iterations developed by a myriad of studios have been greenlighted, but nothing has lived up to the legacy of the original title.

At E3 2013, Electronic Arts, which currently has the rights to the Star Wars video game franchise, showed a teaser trailer for a game it titled “Star Wars: Battlefront.” EA was mum on details, but it at least said that DICE, the studio behind "Mirror’s Edge" and "Battlefront," would develop the new "Star Wars: Battlefront" game, not as a direct sequel to the original in the franchise, but as a reinterpretation of it by DICE.

At E3 2014, Election Arts once again teased some footage from the upcoming "Battlefront" title, although it was mostly comprised of pre-rendered cutscenes spliced with some behind-the-scenes storytelling from the DICE team, who provided details on some of the game’s development processes. It's trying hard to keep true to the spirit of the original game and stick to the first six "Star Wars" movies for inspiration. But as great as DICE’s intentions may be, it’s worth remembering that it's not writing the check for this.

Electronic Arts is. And in past years, EA forced out "Battlefield 4" and "SimCity" before they were ready, effectively charging customers for games they couldn’t play. The company’s shady business practices haven’t exactly inspired consumer confidence, either: EA is frequently in the running for “Worst Gaming Company in America.” Electronic Arts won the honors in 2012, after the release of Origin, EA’s service that competes with Steam. The company stopped selling PC versions of its games except on its own game service. EA successfully defended its dishonorable title in 2013.

So with the new footage shown at E3 2014, the question is, will EA mess up "Star Wars: Battlefront," too? The game is slated for release in Q2 or Q3 2015 (January 1 to June 30), which means the game should have had a development period of two or three years.

"Battlefield 4," an unfinished product shipped to stores last October, had a two-year development period and runs on the same Frostbite 3 engine that "Star Wars: Battlefront" will run on. With that track record, it’s hard to have faith in a publishing company that's bungled multiple games recently just to ship products in a hurry.

Electronic Arts -- if you have to delay the "Star Wars: Battlefront" reboot until Q4 2015 or even Q1 2016, that’s okay. Just don’t turn this into "Battlefield 4" all over again.

It’s better to be late than broken. And we deserve a great "Star Wars" game.

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U.S. manufacturers were busy in April as factories ramped up production to rebuild inventories though soft labor markets still point to a relatively slow economic recovery.

Data on Thursday indicated manufacturing may continue leading growth for a while. Analysts said recovery should then shift from government stimulus and stockpiling to consumers once hiring picks up in the factory sector.

With the manufacturing sector accelerating, it's likely the overall economy will continue to grow at an above trend growth for the time being, said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities International in New York. The handoff from fiscal policy to underlying domestic growth should happen at some point this year.

Expansion in manufacturing was highlighted by the New York Federal Reserve's Empire State general business conditions index which rose to a six-month high of 31.86 in April from 22.86 last month. Markets had expected a reading of 24.

Separately, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's business activity index rose to the highest level in four months during April. The rise in the index to 20.2 from 18.9 the prior month was a touch above market expectations.

A report from the Federal Reserve showed overall industrial production rose only 0.1 percent in March as heating needs fell, manufacturing output increased 0.9 percent led by widespread gains among durable goods industries.

The strong manufacturing data prompted Goldman Sachs to raise its forecast for second quarter gross domestic product growth to an annual rate of 3 percent from a 2 percent pace.

Although our 2.5 percent estimate for annualized first-quarter real GDP growth still looks right, the U.S. economy appears to be headed for stronger growth in the second quarter, said Edward McKelvey, an economist with the bank.

But there was still plenty of slack in the labor market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 484,000 last week. A Labor Department official attributed the spike to a backlog in applications from the Easter holiday and saw no unusual economic factors.

U.S. stocks posted their sixth straight day of gains as an upbeat profit forecast from United Parcel Service pushed up transportation shares and offset concerns about the rise in jobless claims. U.S. Treasury debt prices rose, while the U.S. dollar was up versus the euro and yen.

Clearly the factory sector is enjoying a robust turnaround, driven by inventory rebuilding at home and strong final demand abroad, said Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics in Toronto.

In a sign of strengthening demand overseas, China recorded surprisingly strong annual growth of 11.9 percent in the first quarter. The rate of expansion was the fastest since 2007.

Although applications for jobless benefits surged last week, they were unlikely to derail the nascent jobs recovery, analysts said. Signs of the improving labor market tone were also evident in the New York Fed survey, where the employment index jumped to a four-year high in April.

Labor market sluggishness has raised doubts about the durability of the economy's recovery from its worst downturn in 70 years. Firming domestic demand is reducing some of the skepticism, however.

We are going to see improvement in jobs even though we saw a jump in jobless claims earlier today. Other indicators show the labor market is improving, said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

President Obama's popularity has taken a hit along with that of fellow Democrats given growing public impatience over slow economic recovery and high unemployment. This is threatening the Democratic Party's prospects in the November congressional elections.

Retail sales surged in March, government data showed on Wednesday, and businesses have started rebuilding inventories.

Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Dennis Lockhart said on Thursday while the economy was doing much better, it still needs the strong medicine of low interest rates to deal with problems in housing an commercial real estate.

Resource usage, one of the factors being watched by the U.S. central bank to determine when to lift interest rates from near zero, edged up in March. Capacity utilization edged up to 73.2 percent from 73.0. It was still 7.4 percentage points below the 1972-2009 average.

Labor market woes continue to cause problems as a growing number of homeowners struggle to pay mortgages.

U.S. home foreclosures jumped 19 percent to a monthly record in March, driving first-quarter actions up 7 percent from the prior quarter, RealtyTrac said late on Thursday.

But there was a ray of hope for the troubled housing market. Home-builder sentiment rose to a seven-month high this month as consumers rushed to take advantage of the home buyer tax credit. An improving economic picture also helped to lift confidence.

(Writing by Lucia Mutikani; Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser in Washington, John Parry, Wanfeng Zhou and Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Andrew Hay)


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Whirlpool Corp's quarterly profit and full year forecast surpassed Wall Street estimates, helped by sales in Brazil, Asia and North America, sending shares in the world's largest appliance maker up 14 percent.

The results boosted shares of the maker of Maytag and KitchenAid appliances to an all-time high and also propped up shares of rival Electrolux , which is due to report earnings on Tuesday.

Whirlpool benefited from its presence in fast-growing Latin American and Asian markets, fueled by the purchasing power of a growing middle class.

A sluggish economy and weak housing market had dented sales in North America, its largest market. But the company is profiting from new signs of a recovering U.S. economy, stronger demand for energy-efficient products and a federal stimulus program.

Caterpillar Inc , the world's largest maker of earth-moving equipment, also reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Monday and raised its full-year forecast.

Whirlpool sees full-year 2010 U.S. industry unit shipments up 3 percent to 5 percent, up from its prior outlook of a 2 percent to 4 percent rise.

While economic uncertainty remains, Whirlpool is well positioned to substantially grow earnings from prior-year levels, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Fettig said in a statement.

First-quarter net income rose to $164 million, or $2.13 a share, from $68 million, or 91 cents a share, a year ago. Excluding items, it earned $2.51 a share, beating the analysts' average estimate of $1.33, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For 2010, Whirlpool forecast earnings at $8 to $8.50 a share, up from its prior outlook of $6.50 to $7.00. Analysts had forecast earnings of $7.08 a share.

Wall Street Strategies analyst Brian Sozzi said the outlook was realistic and applauded Whirlpool's cost-cutting efforts, adding they should give the company an edge over rivals even when commodity costs go up later this year.

Even with higher input costs, they still have visibility into a further ... reasonable strength in the topline and also more productivity coming up from their model, Sozzi said.

He has a buy rating on the stock, which he believes has more room to grow at current valuation levels.

Whirlpool shares were up more than 14 percent at $116.89 on Monday and touched a high of $118.44 earlier in the session.

The company has shut plants, cut jobs and moved some manufacturing to low cost-centers like Mexico. It has also started using common parts across its portfolio of dishwashers, refrigerators and washing machines.

Whirlpool's sales rose about 20 percent to $4.27 billion, while analysts expected $3.79 billion. Sales in North America rose 7 percent to $2.3 billion, while unit shipments there rose 11 percent.

Sales rose 65 percent in Latin America and increased 60 percent in Asia. For the full year, the company now expects its shipments to rise about 10 percent in Brazil and 5 percent to 8 percent in Asia.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; Additional reporting by James B. Kelleher in Chicago, Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Derek Caney)


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a feature-length documentary film
  about Simon Rodia and the Watts
    Towers of South Central Los Angeles

by Edward Landler and Brad Byer

Latest News

The Watts Towers  make a brief cameo appearance

in the Oscar-nominated hit movie  La La Land

 Also appearing in  La La Land  is bass player

Nedra Wheeler

who was part of the ensemble that played the jazz arrangements

of Verdi aria themes for

I Build the Tower

 She is also a Founding Member of the Jazz Mentorship Program at the Watts Towers Arts Center

We also mourn the death of Dr. Frank Preusser, the lead scientist and project manager for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's team of conservators working on the Watts Towers over the past five years.

One of the world's preeminent figures in the field of conservation science, Frank applied his insight and expertise to bring to Rodia's work a solid long-range plan to ensure their longevity and stability.

  Home     The Film     News     The Music     Buy DVD / CD     Links     Filmmakers     Contact Us

Copyright © 2006-2016 by Edward Landler and Brad Byer, all rights reserved


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Samsung Impression A877 Blue

April 9, 2009 by

Samsung Impression A877 Want to show off and make a great impression? We have just the right phone for you. Samsung Impression A877 Blue is available now online for only $99 without rebates here. It’s currently selling for $250 at or in store. This is simply the best deal on Samsung Impression today. So, why not save yourself at least $150 instantly?

Let’s check out some very impressive specs from Samsung Impression A877 Blue – it has nation’s first AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) 3.2 inch touch screen that can provide the crispest and brightest viewing pleasure on a powerful multimedia cell phone. 3.0 megapixel camera is something that even some of most sophisticated smartphones don’t offer. Our take, the new Samsung Impression for AT&T is simply the perfect choice for mobile entertainment. And for $99, it’s a steal.

Bookmark and Share

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!


text:
New Website for Horns Bridge

David Charlesworth

After many months of preparation, a new website for Horns Bridge has been released by Peter Maycock and Les Elson. Railway enthusiasts will be aware of Horns Bridge, the third most popular attaction in the Chesterfield area.

The website boasts one of the largest, if not THE largest collection of Horns Bridge photographs on the Internet.

The new site can be viewed at


text:
Beth Jacob Congregation of Oakland

Nonprofit or community organization

Right now we don’t have any job openings, volunteer opportunities, or upcoming events.

Log in or sign up to be among the first to know when new openings or events are added!

About us

Beth Jacob Congregation has been a leading presence in the Oakland community for over 110 years. Our community takes great pride in its deep roots and is ever-evolving to best serve the needs of the members. Shabbat at Beth Jacob is more than just services; most weeks a lively sponsored kiddush follows services, giving members and visitors time to catch up and get to know each other.

We are committed to getting our children off on the right foot in life at our pre-school, Gan Mah Tov. Our Youth and Teen Programs provide fun and educational social activities for children K-12.

We also offer a robust series of adult education classes ranging from weekly Torah Class, Talmud and Study of Jewish Law to seminars on contemporary and scholarly subjects. We take great pride in the warmth of our community and welcome visitors to Shabbat services and events. Please join us!

Contact information

Email: Log in to view email addresses.

Phone: 510-482-1147

3778 Park Boulevard, Oakland, CA, 94610, US

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Sustainable Endowments Institute

Nonprofit or community organization

Right now we don’t have any job openings, volunteer opportunities, or upcoming events.

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About us

The Sustainable Endowments Institute is a nonprofit organization engaged in research and education to advance sustainability in campus operations and endowment practices. Founded in 2005, the Institute is a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

For more information on the Sustainable Endowments Institute, visit and

Contact information

Date Founded: 2005

Email: Log in to view email addresses.

Phone: 617-528-0010

18 Tremont Street, Suite 930, Boston, MA, 02108, US

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text:
Chapter Three

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Well, fighting Dark Bahamut certainly screwed things up around Spira, didn't it? There will be three different Hotspots to travel to. Things have gone nuts, so it's time for the Friendly Neighborhood Gullwings to clean up the mess, since you started it and all. One thing you'll want to do here is to talk to Shinra every time you get into a new location. He installs what's called a Commsphere in every area of the game. This is important for accessing all of the areas in Chapter 4. Go loot the engine room again.

EditMushroom Rock Road or Bevelle - Hotspot!

The location of this Hotspot depends on who you chose to give the Awesome Sphere from Chapter 1 to, New Yevon or the Youth League. Either way, you'll find out that Nooj and Baralai are missing in action, and both sides are going nuts over it. Go see Gippal at Djose Temple next. That's it for the hotspot...there's no mission here. Once you've talked to Gippal, just head to Besaid Island or Kilika Island.

EditBesaid Island - Hotspot!

You can go finish the Search Sphere quest before speaking to Lulu and entering the temple for the Raging Giant Garment Grid if you like. Uh oh, trouble in paradise! Seems that fiends are crawling out of Besaid Temple, so Yuna and company have no choice but to exterminate whatever's in the temple, unless you want Beclem to burn it down, of course. Get into the temple and fight your way through until you find Wakka. Talk to him then take the lift down to the Chamber of the Fayth.

Fortunately, before you fight this boss you'll have the time to equip yourself. Make sure you're fully healed and that you have the appropriate gear equipped, particularly accessories that boost magic defense.

EditBoss Battle - Dark Valefor

Enemy HP MP Drop Steal
Dark Valefor 8340 999 Moon Bracer Healing Spring

While Valefor's regular attacks are physical in nature, her overdrives (Energy Ray and Energy Blast) are magic-based. Have a Warrior use Break abilities, while others use whatever class that do the most damage.

It is recommended that if you have the Dark Knight Dressphere from Chapter 2 that you use it here. The defensive and offensive rating of the Dark Knights are excellent, and will definitely come in very handy here.

EditKilika Island - Hotspot!

When you get to Kilika Island, head over to Summoner Dona's house. She'll tell you what's going on in the temple, and will help you out (wow, how come she couldn't have done this in FFX?). It's time for yet another mini-game! You'll have to sneak past the guards that are patrolling outside of Kilika Temple without getting caught. Use the R1 trigger to switch views, and the X button to sneak through the gate. If successful, you'll find a chest with the Bushido Lore at the start of the woods area.

This mini-game can be frustrating, but is much easier if you take the time to practice it before doing the real thing. Once you are past the gate, you'll have to find some way to get to Kilika Temple, but all of the paths are closed off. Go through all three routes to trigger scenes at the gates blocking the paths. Once you've done that, walk around the paths a bit longer and then the Gullwings will remember some words of advice from Dona, and you'll go through the treetops to the temple.

Get to the temple and you'll discover that like Besaid Temple, Kilika is overrun with fiends. It's time for you to do some more extermination work! Make your way through the temple and you'll run into Barthello, Dona's former bodyguard. You will have to fight some fiends here to save him, but they are not very strong. Approach the blue flames to activate battles with Varunas, when you've taken care of them you'll be able to move on.

You'll get the Samurai Dressphere for your trouble though. Once you have done this, you will have to go through towards the Chamber of Fayth once again. Unfortunately, you will not be be able to prepare for battle. Word of advice here: equip any and all accessories that give you NulFire (better yet Fire Eater) or allow you to attack with Ice based elements. It's time for a fight against Dark Ifrit!

EditBoss Battle - Dark Ifrit

Enemy HP MP Drop Steal
Dark Ifrit 8820 9999 Angel Earrings Fiery Gleam

Like Dark Valefor, a lot of Ifrit's attacks are physical based, but he also uses quite a lot of magic too. For a quick solution, use two Warriors here, one using Power Break and the other using Mental Break. Have your third character as a Dark Knight. A nice strategy to use here (and in subsequent boss fights) is to use Rikku as your main attacker and healer.

Equip her with a Garment Grid that gives you Cure or Cura when you have switched classes. The Healing Wind or Healing Light Garment Grids would do just fine. Start her off as a thief because it's the fastest class, then have her switch immediately to Dark Knight. Now not only is Rikku able to do tons of damage, but she'll also be able to heal your other characters at the same time. Getting back to Ifrit, he has all the same attacks that he did in FFX, so watch out for his Hellfire Overdrives, which he will get to use more or less three times throughout this battle.

EditDjose Temple - Hotspot!

Seems like Djose Temple is having a problem with the fiends as well, now that Gippal is also missing in action. Like the two other temples, head over to the Chamber of the Fayth. In order to take out the electric barrier guarding the Aeon, you'll have to activate all five pedestals located on the floor below. Of course, every time you activate one you'll have to fight some fiends which shouldn't be too hard at this point of the game.

Before walking up the stairs, make sure to prepare for the Aeon here. If you haven't played Final Fantasy X, the Aeon in Djose is Ixion, and uses Thunder elements. Make sure to equip any NulThunder (Lightning Eater) accessories or anything that allows you to attack with Water elements.

EditBoss Battle - Dark Ixion

Enemy HP MP Drop Steal
Dark Ixion 12380 9999 Soul of Thamasa Sprint Shoes.

Use the same strategy that you had with Valefor and Ifrit here. Take his offensive power down with Power and Magic Break to minimize the damage he does, and nail him with your highest attacking classes.

If you were able to get through Ifrit and Valefor without any trouble, Ixion will not be much of a problem. Cast Shell for defense vs Thor's Hammer. You will then be rewarded with the Unwavering Guard Garment Grid.

After defeating Ixion, you'll enter the last scene of Chapter 3. Yuna will receive two Crimson Spheres (Crimson Sphere 2, Crimson Sphere 3) from Nooj and Gippal, who are chasing after Baralai and Vegnagun.

After this scene, you'll notice that you'll be able to control Yuna. And once she says "I'm all alone", start pressing X. Keep doing so until you hear a total of four whistles and the figure leads Yuna out of the Farplane. This event is one of the four requirements needed to unlock the good ending.

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Apartment Camping del Sole - 09  3 stars — Apartment Camping del Sole - 09

25049 Iseo, Italy   –
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Quick descriptionSet in Iseo, this apartment is 29 km from Bergamo. The unit is 48 km from Sirmione. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property.

The kitchenette comes with a fridge and a stovetop, as well as a coffee machine. Other facilities at Apartment Camping del Sole - 09 include an outdoor pool.

Brescia is 19 km from Apartment Camping del Sole - 09, while Desenzano del Garda is 44 km away. The nearest airport is Orio Al Serio International Airport, 26 km from Apartment Camping del Sole - 09.
Important informationPlease note that:
Bed linen are not included in the room rate. Guests can rent them at the property for an additional charge of 8 EUR per person per stay or bring their own.
Consumption costs are not included in the room rate and will be charged according to guest use, within 3 weeks after check-out. Please note that the full amount of the reservation is due before arrival. NOVASOL will send a confirmation with detailed payment information. After full payment is taken, the property's details, including the address and where to collect keys, will be emailed to you.

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AVS Video Editor: Free Video Editing Software

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User Ratings:
[Total: 0    Average: 0/5]

Update: This program is actually not free. We apologize for listing it as free.

AVS Video Editor is a free video editing software that allows the user to edit, move , split, merge, rotate, cut and trim videos effortlessly. Video editors are required to edit and add effects to the videos , in order to make them more concise and specific. This free video editing tool is one such editing tool that comes with a number of features and tools that enable the user to add a number of effects and edit the videos effortlessly.

This free video editing application comes packed with a number of inbuilt features and options, making the editing process extremely simple. The user can add subtitles, change the resolution, mix videos, insert menus, all with simple mouse clicks.

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You can also try SolveigMM AVI Trimmer + MKV and Avidemux

The Minimum System Requirements are:

  • CPU:  Intel / AMD processor compatible at a minimum clock speed 2500 MHz or higher
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  • Sound:  Windows compatible sound card
  • Display:  32-bit color depth
  • CD recorder:  for importing media files from CD
  • DVD recorder:  for importing files from DVD and creating / burning a Video DVD
  • Video capture device:  required for capturing the video.
  • A standard Windows Media Player 11 or higher for WMV video playback
  • DirectX:  Microsoft DirectX version 9.0c or higher.
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  • Internet connection to activate the software before use.

Windows 7 would require a compatible sound card and a minimum RAM size of 1.5 GB.

Some of the Remarkable Features of AVS Video Editor are:

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AVS Video Editor is available on avs4you.com and it can be downloaded for free. The size of the installer is about 140 MB and it can be run on various Windows Operating system versions including Windows 7, XP and Vista.

Editor Ratings:
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Works With: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
Free/Paid: Paid
  • Michael

    This program is not free

    • @Michael: Thanks for pointing that out. We somehow missed that. We have updated the article to reflect that it is not free.

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The Rock of Cashel, Ireland

The Rock of Cashel also known as Cashel of the Kings and St. Patrick's Rock, is a historic site located at Cashel, South Tipperary, Ireland.

The oldest and tallest of the buildings is the well preserved round tower (28 metres, or 90 feet), dating from c.1100. Its entrance is 12 feet from the ground, necessitated by a shallow foundation (about 3 feet) typical of round towers. The tower was built using the dry stone method. Modern conservationists have filled in some of the tower with mortar for safety reasons.

The entire plateau on which the buildings and graveyard lie is walled. In the grounds around the buildings an extensive graveyard includes a number of high crosses. Scully's Cross, one of the largest and most famous high crosses here, originally constructed in 1867 to commemorate the Scully family, was destroyed in 1976 when lightning struck a metal rod that ran the length of the cross. The remains of the top of the cross now lie at the base of the cross adjacent to the rock wall.

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Independent Catholic News logo Welcome Visitor
Thursday, March 23, 2017
A Cornish pilgrimage to Ladye Parke, Liskeard
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On Sunday, on a magnificent summer's day, forty pilgrims from one end of Devon to the other end of Cornwall, gathered in Liskeard and proceeded to the west of the town and out into the country to what was in the Middle Ages a royal deer park known as Ladye Park. This place lies in a beautiful valley flanked by steep slopes covered in a variety of tall and majestic trees. A small rivulet runs through the valley. However, this was more than just a park, for in its grounds there lay a modest chapel in which as records show: "in 1378, Bishop Brantyngham granted Richard Lagge, Priest, license to say Mass in the chapel 'infra vetus parcum de Lyskerde' for the good state of King Richard. In 1441 Bp Lacy licensed two hermits and a chaplain to celebrate Divine Service three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday."

The Parochial History of the County of Cornwall, 1870, states: ''The Chapel of Our Lady in the Park of Liskeard is often mentioned in the records of the see, and appears to have been very often frequented by devotees In it were also great oblations which had been contributed at different times'. In the 1970s, Dr Margaret Pollard (1903-1996) uncovered much evidence to suggest that pilgrimages had once centred on Ladye Park. She felt that it was Our Lady's will to 'take me back to Liskeard', and set about trying to promote the shrine, suppressed since the Reformation, by re-establishing pilgrimage of an ecumenical nature and dedicating the shrine of Our Lady of the Park for 'Unity'. In 1979, she organized the first modern pilgrimage to Ladye Park.

Attempts having been made by her to secure the site for the Church, seemed to have failed and yet, after a gap of nineteen years, a second pilgrimage ensued in 1998, and thanks to most sympathetic owners, there has been a pilgrimage during each year ever since except where a change of owners made this temporarily impossible, and even then a service of dedication was held by the new owners. What is there to see of the past at Ladye Parke?

Well, the end wall of the chapel, where the altar once stood, is still intact with a niche and one or two molded stones lie about. Built into the old farmhouse, adjoining this, may be seen remnants of mullions and an arch from the old chapel. But to visit Ladye Park is to feel the past. It is a peaceful and isolated vale with numerous water features to remind the beholder of the 'water of life'. There is the well which may well have stood at the end of the chapel. One enters the grounds by crossing a small river which runs along the outer edge of the grounds and into a small, still lake. By the entrance lies a domed, corbelled structure over the stream which clearly seems to have been the site of a baptistery.

Two weeks before the 1999 pilgrimage, the then-owner had discovered a new spring which has since been formed into a leat by the subsequent owner and runs out and over a granite outlet into the lake. This year's pilgrimage was the tenth. Several of the pilgrims arrived before Ladye Park's grounds having left the top road and descended the steep and somewhat rugged path between fields which, from mediaeval times, has been known as the 'Mass Path'. These then joined forces with the others at the end of a lane which leads to Ladye Park.

At 3pm a procession started wending its way along the valley, a 'seamless' group of Catholic and Anglican pilgrims, among them and robed up, an Orthodox priest and an Anglican canon. They sang words by Dr Margaret Pollard to the tune of 'Daily, daily, sing to Mary' as they followed behind a banner woven many years ago by Dr Pollard, and depicting the Madonna and Child. A second hymn, 'Come, O Queen, into the Garden' composed by Dr Pollard, with all its stirring seven verses and a chorus in the Cornish language, brought us all into the grounds of Ladye Park welcomed by owners, John and Judith Wilks. The sheer verdant beauty of Ladye Park on a perfect summer's day set a spiritual tone from the outset.

The pilgrims gathered in the sun to begin to pray the Rosary and individuals led a selection of five decades of 'Hail Mary's from the different mysteries, each decade chanted from different sections of the grounds: 'The Annunciation' from the centre of the large lawn, 'The Birth of Jesus' from beside the lake, 'The Baptism of Jesus from the Jordan' from the stream and baptistery, 'The Crucifixion and Death of Our Lord' by the well, and 'The Resurrection' from the site of the chapel. A charismatic group from Truro then led us in hymns of praise led by a singer/guitarist and leading on to a sharing on the theme of the Magnificat. It was notable that among the pilgrims and prayer leaders there was an impressive cross section of people and ages, as many young as old, and all clearly moved by the occasion. Having attained to the spiritual heights, we were gently brought down to the material earth by a splendid and generous array of coffee, cakes and a cream tea which permitted us to wind down in good company with pleasant conversation.

The proceedings were brought to an end by a blessing in the form of 'Nunc Dimittis' from our Orthodox priest and friend, and, fittingly, on this the tenth pilgrimage in what is a particularly Cornish, Marian setting, with the 'Our Father' (Pader Agan Arloedh) and 'Hail Mary' (Hayl Maria) said in Cornish by one of the company. Philip Knight, is a parishioner of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Penzance

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Human Capital Staffing, LLC - Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
Human Capital Staffing is a workplace staffing solutions company led by a dedicated team of highly experienced staffing professionals....
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Our major automotive client in Detroit, MI is looking for a Software Engineer. Major Duties and Responsibilities a. Define, design, build, test, deploy, and
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Stonecrest Center - 14 reviews - Detroit, MI 48205
The position will work four days per week, 10 hours per day = 40 Hours Under minimal supervision and/or established procedures, works as a team member to
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Arthur J. Gallagher & Co - 151 reviews - Saint Clair Shores, MI
Include those with non-immigrant work authorization (F, J, H or L visas),. & Co., one of the world's largest insurance brokers, provides a full range....

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C o m . Th r ou g hout t h e wo r ld, t he Compa n y p r ovides i n nov a t i ve supp l y c h a in m a n a g e ment s e rvi ce s to r e du c e its c usto m e r...

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Botsford Hospital - 56 reviews - Farmington Hills, MI
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Christine Brooke-Rose was a richly innovative novelist and a formidable critic. She moved between languages, countries and identities without securing a fixed place in a literary canon or a national culture, but this mobility, combined with her inventiveness, humour and insight, madeher particularly well-equipped to grasp the contemporary world of signs and simulations.

Christine Frances Evelyn Brooke-Rose was born in Geneva in 1923, the younger of two daughters of an Englishman, Alfred Northbrook Rose (who had been both an Anglican Benedictine monk and an inmate of Parkhurst prison) and a Swiss-American, Evelyn Blanche Brooke (who later became a Benedictine nun). Brooke-Rose learnt English, French and German early but her childhood was marked by frequent moves, her father's desertion and death, and financial privation.

She went to school in London, Brussels and Folkestone and joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in the Second World War. She was posted to Bletchley Park, her "first university", which, by showing her the German perspective on the war, taught her "to imagine the other", a good training for a novelist. At Bletchley she met Rodney Bax, and they married in 1944.

Brooke-Rose read English at Somerville College, Oxford from 1946 to 1949. In 1948 she divorced Bax and married the Polish poet and novelist Jerzy Pietrkiewicz (later Peterkiewicz). After graduating, she went to London to live with Pietrkiewicz and to pursue a PhD in medieval literature at University College, which she completed in 1954. Unable to find an academic post, she became a freelance literary journalist, contributing to the New Statesman, Observer, Sunday Times and the Times Literary Supplement.

Her first book, Gold (1955), was a pastiche in the manner of the medieval religious poem Pearl, and she also published a critical study, The Grammar of Metaphor (1958). But she made her greatest mark with four novels: The Languages of Love (1957), The Sycamore Tree (1958), The Dear Deceit (1960) and The Middlemen (1961). Though she later repudiated these as lightweight, they are accomplished works; The Dear Deceit is especially interesting for its reverse chronology, which reconstructs the life of Alfred Northbrook Hayley from death to birth.

Brooke-Rose's fiction then took an abrupt turn. While recovering from a kidney operation, she wrote her first innovative novel, Out (1964), which used the present tense to evoke the consciousness of its elderly protagonist in a world of inverted prejudice where the "colourless", victims of a strange radiation sickness, are the objects of discrimination. Out won the Society of Authors Travelling Prize.

Her next novel, Such (1966), which shared the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, deployed astrophysical metaphors to portray a psychiatrist reawakening from death to life and seeing people as a radio telescope sees the stars. Between (1968) eschews the verb "to be" and makes its nameless female narrator a French-German interpreter moving constantly between languages and cultures. Brooke-Rose also won the 1969 Arts Council Translation Prize for her version of Alain Robbe-Grillet's Dans le labyrinthe, and published a short-story collection, Go When You See the Green Man Walking (1970).

Brooke-Rose's marriage to Pietrkiewicz collapsed in the later 1960s and she accepted Hélène Cixous's offer of a post at the new University of Vincennes (Paris VIII), plunging into literary theory at its headiest moment and producing her most inventive fiction, Thru (1975), a free-floating campus novel whose fragmentary discourses and typographical devices can variously be attributed to students in a creative writing class, their tutor, his ex-partner, and the Master in Diderot's Jacques le fataliste.

After Thru, Brooke-Rose went on teaching at Vincennes, produced critical books and essays, made guest appearances at universities in America, Israel, Montreal and Switzerland, and was briefly to married her cousin Claude Brooke, from 1981-82. But nine years passed before she published her next novel, Amalgamemnon (1984). Its protagonist, Mira Enketei, is a teacher of literature and history facing redundancy whose narrative creates a sense of uncertainty by only using tenses, such as the future and the conditional, which describe possible rather than actual states of affairs.

Xorandor (1986) consists of adialogue, spoken into a pocket computer, between two children who discover an intriguing form of extraterrestrial life, a computer-rock, in a Cornish village, while Verbivore (1990) envisages a world in which computers, facing system overload, start to consume words and produce chaos. Textermination (1991) portrays a host of literary characters, from Homer's Odysseus to Salman Rushdie's Gibreel Farishta, who assemble to pray for the readers they need to keep them alive.

Brooke-Rose had retired to Provence in 1988 and her next book, Remake (1996), was an unusual third-person autobiography which reminds the reader that it is remaking rather than revealing a life – and "a remake is never as good as the original". Next (1998) is a mystery story without a solution which depicts homelessness in London, eschewing the verb "to have" to signal the dispossession of its 26 characters, each of whom corresponds to one letter of the alphabet. Subscript (1999) is an epic of prehuman history, tracing the development of life from one-celled organisms to early tribal culture. Her last book, Life, End of (2006) largely avoids the pronoun "I", except in dialogue, and sharply evokes the plight of the alert mind in an increasingly infirm body, "living on the razor's edge". But that, in a sense, was where Brooke-Rose had lived all her life.

Christine Frances Evelyn Brooke-Rose, novelist and critic: born Geneva 16 January 1923; Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Paris 1975–88 (Lecturer, 1968–75); married 1944 Rodney Bax (marriage dissolved), secondly Jerzy Pietrkiewicz (divorced 1975), 1981 Claude Brooke (divorced 1982); died 21 March 2012.


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Obituary: John Wain

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John Barrington Wain, writer: born Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire 14 March 1925; Fereday Fellow, St John's College, Oxford 1946-49 (Honorary Fellow 1985-94); Lecturer in English Literature, Reading University 1947-55; Fellow in creative arts, Brasenose College, Oxford 1971- 72 (Supernumerary Fellow 1973-94); Professor of Poetry, Oxford University 1973-78; books include Hurry On Down 1953, Sprightly Running 1962, Samuel Johnson 1974 (James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Heinemann Award 1975), Poems 1949-79 1981, Young Shoulders 1982 (Whitbread Prize 1982), Dear Shadows: portraits from memory 1986; married 1947 Marianne Urmston (marriage dissolved 1956), 1960 Eirian James (died 1988; three sons), 1989 Patricia Dunn; died Oxford 24 May 1994.

JOHN WAIN is often thought of as one of the group of angry young novelists, and poets too, which in the Fifties was known as the Movement. There was too much variety, as Philip Larkin pointed out, for any joint declaration or policy of intent, or even of much uniformity in a group that comprised poets and novelists as different as Larkin, Elizabeth Jennings, Iris Murdoch, Kingsley Amis and Wain himself.

Wain's was also a gregarious and affable personality who had no interest in grumbling and complaining about society, or in the self- cherished gloom that surrounded his friend Larkin. Indeed, his sociable, outgoing qualities were the most evident feature of Wain when an undergraduate. He got on extremely well with his tutor, CS Lewis, which might seem surprising since Wain himself had no interest in religion or in Lewis's somewhat medieval attitudes to modern life. But they loved drinking beer and discussing affairs and literature together, for both of them had a robust Johnsonian curiosity and pleasure in many different books and subjects; and both were clubbable and convivial in disposition. Indeed, Wain's book on Dr Johnson, Samuel Johnson (1974), is one of his best, for he understood and loved the man and would have held it an honour to try in part to resemble him and take the same kind of sturdy and downright moral stance.

Wain also used to frequent the Inklings, the literary circle who met in Oxford's pubs to discuss literature and to read their own work. The circle was inaugurated by Lewis and JRR Tolkien, of whom Wain used to give an accurate but benevolent imitation when he was reading his work in progress, The Lord of the Rings. Neither Larkin nor Amis, who had been rather older fellow-students of Wain at St John's College, would have cared much about that kind of thing, but Wain always had a broader and more catholic outlook than they had: nor was his independent political attitude, often radical and usually unorthodox, ever fixed in the kind of Toryism which the other two came to adopt.

The mid-Fifties were a time of change and enterprise in writing and the younger English novelists, for all their obvious dissimilarities, did also have something in common. They had an irreverent and iconoclastic attitude to the novel form and to writing generally. Wain's first novel, Hurry On Down (1953), has a good deal in common with Amis's Lucky Jim, published the following year, except that its hero, Charles Lumley, samples a greater variety of occupations - as burglar, hospital worker and window cleaner - than does the pseudo-academic Jim Dixon, nor is he presented with the same contrived fortunate solution to his problems. The humour of the novel is subtly different too - more verbal and less slapstick - nor is there anything naive about the presentation of domestic life. The put-upon young father is admirably done, and there is a splendid moment when a meek little man who has been telling a stately American woman an interminable anecdote about giving a watch to his fiancee is suddenly heard saying loudly 'I'll give the works after we get married.'

For sheer zany wit and liveliness, Wain's early novels certainly vie with those of Amis, and survive much better today than the more ponderous and complacent offerings of John Braine, whose Room at the Top appeared four years after Hurry On Down.

Wain's poetry at the time also showed a strong personality of its own and a marked sense of form. Nevill Coghill, the Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford, who translated The Canterbury Tales and was both friend and admirer and no mean judge, considered collections such as Weep Before God (1961) to be some of the best poetry to have come from a young poet since the Second World War. Certainly Wain later made an excellent Professor of Poetry himself at Oxford, bringing out a candid and searching volume of essays on the office called Professing Poetry (1977), and giving much help and encouragement to younger colleagues and aspirants of the literary arts. He was at his best a brilliant lecturer and teacher, and I shall always remember a talk he gave on Dickens's Our Mutual Friend which seemed to me to sum up the whole genius of that novel. Wain's friend and one-time colleague Professor Wallace Robson, who died last year, always spoke of Wain's inspirative conversation and teaching in terms of the highest praise.

Wain's sturdy personality made him less supple in moving with the times than were some of his contemporaries. His own deep admiration for novelists like Arnold Bennett inclined him to develop and continue with a style that was no less his own for becoming distinctly old-fashioned and out of tune with post-modernist devices. His series of novels about Oxford town, as opposed to university, typified by Young Shoulders (1982) and Where the Rivers Meet (1988), concerned a young student who moves between two worlds - the academic and the plebeian - and gives a strikingly vivid picture of the town 20 years ago: it may well remain readable when much of today's more modish fiction has been forgotten.

Matrimonially Wain had his ups and downs, but always retained the affection and loyalty of the women in his life. He grieved greatly at the death of his second wife, Eirian, with whom he had lived in Oxford for many years, and he was extremely happy in his third marriage. His sudden death will shock his many friends, young and old.

(Photograph omitted)


text:
Football: Reality tempers Keegan's fervour

England's Euro 2000 hopes remain in jeopardy, but Glenn Moore finds the coach in his usual high spirits
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WHEN KEVIN KEEGAN left Sofia last June following England's disappointing draw with Bulgaria he looked tired and a little disillusioned. His honeymoon as England coach was not just over - some observers were already suggesting a divorce.

Seven weeks of R&R later, his natural optimism is back. With 11 days to the start of the season he is already trying to work out how to see all the matches he wants to.

"It's a fantastic early season," he said yesterday, as he sat in the Sir Stanley Rous room at the Football Association's Lancaster Gate head- quarters. "I'm having a problem with the fixtures, thinking, `What's the biggest game here?' Some Saturdays you pick three matches you want to go to and you are glad there is one on a Sunday and another on Monday. Then you think, `I am watching six games this week and they are all good games.' That's exciting."

But Keegan's enthusiasm is now tempered with a greater sense of the realities of his position. Yesterday he issued another ebullient rallying cry, but added a cautious rider or two.

England, he said, can be ranked within the world's elite, but much depends on the availability and fitness of players. David Seaman's calf injury, suffered in a friendly on Monday, made him the third key player on the injury list after Tony Adams and Michael Owen.

"Of course it affects me when I see Seaman coming off," Keegan said, "but it is still just over a month before I have to announce my squad. With Owen it has already gone from `He will definitely miss the start of the season' to `There is a possibility he will play'."

Once picked there is no guarantee, of course, that all the squad will turn up. "One of the things that amazes me about this job," he added, "is that you get your squad together on a Sunday night but it's Wednesday before you even have a clue of the team. There's games on a Sunday and Monday to be played so you think, `It's no good getting the players together on a Sunday night when seven or eight aren't going to be there, let's give them another day off'. But that takes another day of time that you could have preparing them.

"I would like to have a full squad to pick from, but I accept that that's probably never going to happen. I am going to always end up with about 16 of the original 22; on average about a quarter pull out through injuries or whatever."

The suspicion is that this is through overuse, with the hamstring injuries suffered by Owen and David Beckham at the tail end of last season being cited for the prosecution.

Keegan is unconvinced, but is aware that players are now being stretched to the limit. The back-pass rule and the proliferation of ball-boys and spare balls around the touchline have speeded up the game. Overseas tours, like Manchester United's recently concluded trip to Australia and Asia, may not be helping but, again, he can understand why.

"The game has got quicker. The ball's actually in play for 60 minutes but in that 60 minutes, [the players] are on the move all the time. It used to be possible to kill a game. Not now.

"You can say it is down to playing too much but sometimes if you rest players and then they come back into a game, having got used to playing game on game on game, they can do their hamstrings as well.

"They are fit boys, they are finely tuned but if you look at athletes, the difference is that they pick their matches. When Linford Christie was at his best, he would choose to miss Zurich and go to Copenhagen. It's difficult to do that with football.

"Some of the tours are because the clubs have commercial commitments, like Brazil did with Nike, and I think that's a dangerous line to go down. I certainly wouldn't want the sponsors telling me where I have to go and play.

"But we have to accept football has changed. If [sponsors] are putting vast amounts of money in they are going to make demands. Players cannot then say, `I want more money but less games'. It doesn't fit, does it? If you say to players: `Ideally, how many matches would you like in a season?', they say: `I don't want to play 60 games, I would like to play 40'. So you say, `Right, would you take a cut in wages of a third?', the answer, you know and I know, would be no."

But that was enough moaning. Problems or not, Keegan was looking forward with optimism. Even the continued influx of foreign players could be a plus.

"It may be harder for young Englishmen to force their way into a side but when they do you know you have a real England player. If Stephen Hughes [currently on loan to Fulham] gets in the Arsenal side and puts out Emmanuel Petit - that's when you know you have got an England player."

Other players are closer to selection, with the form of Chris Sutton and Kieron Dyer, following their moves to Chelsea and Newcastle respectively, of interest to Keegan.

"It's a big move for Chris Sutton, Chelsea are a club that have ambition and I want to see what he is all about in that side. I think Sutton can adapt.

"Dyer going to Newcastle is interesting one because he is now playing in the Premiership, so we won't need to guess whether he can play there any more. Kevin Phillips and Michael Gray are also back playing in the Premiership [with Sunderland]."

Further afield Keegan has already asked for a fixture list from Spain and will be booking a flight as soon as Steve McManaman gets in to the Real Madrid team.

"I am still very optimistic, I think we have had a good rest and I believe in the players, I really do. We have got work to do to justify being at Euro 2000 but we have still got that opportunity and if we qualify, we will have as much chance as anybody else. We are ranked 14th in the world now but I look at some of the teams above us and I think, `if we had to play them...'.

"I don't make any argument with Brazil, but you look at those below them and I think we are as good as anybody. I see us as a top four team in the world."


text:
That ‘love’ features less in modern pop music shouldn't break anyone's heart

Perhaps it's a sign of maturity, of a willingness to countenance the outside world

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What’s love got to do with it? Not much these days, apparently. In a study carried out by the Journal of Advertising Research, the lyrics of every No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 were analysed on computer. The days when love was all we needed are long gone, it seems.

In the 1960s, the study found, romance dominated – as you might expect – though a whiff of rebellion crept in as it developed into the decade with a conscience. In the darker 1970s people were still singing about love, but from a more jaded perspective: loss and break-ups loomed large.

That development continued into the 1980s – when aspiration also became a common theme – and by the 1990s “love” was no longer the most-used word. In the 2000s it didn’t even make the top eight (while “nigga” did).

The survey detects a very modern element in contemporary lyrics. “The desperation theme generally is under-represented until the 2000s, where it dominates,” said the Journal’s David Henard. “This ... could track closely to the post-9/11 social environment.”

If this is true – and it is possible to over-analyse these things – then it might mean that pop-chart lyric-writing is growing up, looking at the world and not liking what it sees. This is surely to be commended.

In any case, most of those old-time lyrics weren’t really about love. They were about “love”, written to order, not to purge the soul, not so much self-expression as the communication of a set of narrative conventions using a rhyming dictionary.

And what a picture of the world they painted: women were living dolls, puppets on a string. In the former, Cliff Richard planned to lock his girl in a trunk; in the latter Sandie Shaw freely admitted “there is never a doubt just who’s pulling the strings”.

But if romance provided most of pop music’s subject matter, even then it wasn’t all moon and June. Once the Beatles had established that you could reach the toppermost of the poppermost by singing your own songs, not ones written by middle-aged men in suits, lyrics began to look beyond the manufactured horizons of Hollywood-style romance and out towards the real world.

While the Moptops were setting the musical agenda, for the first few years their lyrics, while adroitly crafted, didn’t stray far from Tin Pan Alley. But the likes of Pete Townshend, and Jagger and Richards, were singing – shouting – about the anger and frustrations of youth. In fact it was inevitable, once the DIY ethic had taken over songwriting, that things would change, that lyrics would become more honest, more authentic.

The kitsch-romance model hasn’t disappeared, and love and relationships still find a place on today’s agenda, but it’s not Tin Pan Alley any more. Adele sings exclusively about affairs of the heart, but her hit album 21 is about love lost rather than love gained. There’s a significant boy-girl element to several of the songs on Kylie Minogue’s new album, Kiss Me Once, for example. But, as perhaps befits someone who’s survived serious illness, the overriding theme seems to be resilience in the face of adversity. If it’s no longer sufficient to sing “Love, love me do,” that’s fine by me.

We should be careful of grand conclusions, though. The No 1 back in the 1960s was a more informative barometer than it could possibly be today. Popular culture has become so fragmented and disparate – the music industry, especially – that any take on the nation’s tastes through the perspective of one aspect of it is bound to be skewed.

One other caveat: we don’t buy the kinds of records that get to No 1 because of their lyrics (in fact, I can safely say I’ve never bought any record because of the words alone, but that’s a discussion for another day). If “Happy”, Pharrell Williams’ recent feelgood smash, was about pigeon-racing or stamp-collecting, I’m pretty sure it would still have been No 1. In the end it’s the music that really counts.


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Thursday 23 March 2017

Critics' guide to going out: 19/02/2010

Victor and Gord, Project Arts Centre

If you'd had an ear to the ground of Dublin's theatre scene in the last while, you couldn't have avoided hearing mutterings about these odd-sounding folk, Victor and Gord. They first surfaced at one of the Project Brand New evenings a year ago, reappeared at the Queer Notions festival and then at Dublin's Fringe, and now they're back at the Project Arts Centre. But who the hell are they? Apparently, they're real-life folk: director Una McKevitt cast her sister and her sister's friend in a documentary-style play about their friendship, and it's touched some kind of nerve. See for more or call (01) 881 9613 for tickets. It runs until February 27 in the smaller Cube space at Project, and is quite likely to sell out.

Lady Gaga, The O2, Dublin

Stefani Germanotta has gone from obscurity to become arguably the world's biggest star in just 18 months. It has been an extraordinary rise for the 24-year-old New Yorker who has become almost as celebrated for her singular dress sense as for her chart-friendly dance-pop. This tour -- The Monster Ball -- is ostensibly to support The Fame Monster album, which was released at the end of last year. Featuring reworked versions of tracks from her debut, The Fame, plus eight bonus songs, it wasn't just the commercial cash-in that many thought, but a fascinating album in its own right and one that allowed Gaga to push the proverbial boat out. Expect huge theatrics from her live shows tonight and tomorrow, with pyrotechnics and costume changes aplenty.

Telling Images of China, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle

Okay, okay, so our own tiger may have fled the land, but this is no time for anti-feline thoughts, this is the Year of the Tiger after all. And what better time to welcome a treasure trove of ancient Chinese art from the world-renowned Shanghai Museum. Many of the masterpieces in this rather spectacular exhibition have never been seen outside China before and our very own Chester Beatty Library has been selected as the only location in Europe to host it. The theme of the exhibition is storytelling and each painting tells a story from folklore. There's the Laughing Budda, the Drunken Immortal, as well as China's Valentine's Day equivalent -- the Weaver Girl -- and the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove -- seven cultured individuals who turned their backs on the corrupt politics of their time and opposed social injustice. If only they were more than myths.

Crazy Heart, Cinemas nationwide

Some of you will have heard advance rumblings about this film because of the awards buzz that Jeff Bridges' lead performance has generated. He's in contention for this year's Best Actor Oscar, and if there's any justice in the world, he'll win it, because he's quite brilliant as down and out country singer Bad Blake. Bad used to be a big shot, but now he's a half-forgotten singer reduced to playing gigs in obscure dive bars in New Mexico and Texas. He drinks whiskey like it's going out of fashion and seems hell bent on self-destruction until a meeting with a young female journalist provides faint hope of redemption. With original songs from T-Bone Burnett, Crazy Heart has the grimy ring of country and western authenticity, as does Bridges' totally committed performance. With Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall.

Rough, Axis Arts Centre, Ballymun

So theatre is a safe, middle-class thing, and young people think it's boring? THEATREclub beg to disagree. Actually, they're a little more insistent: they're taking conventional notions of theatre and its audience and shoving them back in our faces, with a few expletives thrown in. This young collective has been agitating to shake up the Dublin theatre scene of late, and now they're taking their Fringe-award winning play, Rough, to the Axis in Ballymun. "We're setting up camp and staying there until we get them in the theatre," they say. Rough, by Grace Dyas, is about young life in Dublin, or as they put it, "a story about taxis, downing double vodka and waking up in someone else's suburbs". That's definitely worth a trip to the burbs.

Stage & Screen Season, National Library of Ireland, Dublin 2

The art of writing for stage and screen will be dissected by an impressive array of top writers in this new season of interviews at the National Library. First up to explain how the words make it first onto page and then into celluloid is writer/director John Carney. Having originally made his mark over a decade ago with the film November Afternoon, Carney then wrote and directed the disturbing Park, before delving even deeper into psychological drama with On the Edge, centred on a performance by then rising star Cillian Murphy. Carney really came to Irish audience's attention with the television series Bachelors Walk, but he hit the international big time with his Oscar-winning Once and is about to release his latest film, Zonad. And Carney will be followed onto the library stage by such luminary authors as Mark O'Halloran (Adam & Paul and Garage) and Paul Mercier (Studs).

Kells Comedy Festival, The Headfort Arms Hotel, Co Meath

Comedy high jinx is the name of the game as the Kells Comedy Festival sets out to tickle your ribs. For its second annual outing, they've managed to assemble quite the impressive line up of Irish funnymen -- yes, there is a discernible absence of any laughing ladies on the bill, but let's not hold that against them. Opening tonight with a performance by those armchair sportsmen, Apres Match, it runs all weekend and also features a comedy showdown and a triple headliner event entitled Stars from the Savage Eye, which features the three leading men from the TV show of the same name, Patrick McDonnell, John Colleary and the eponymous David McSavage, pictured above. For ticket details, call 0818 222800.

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