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When Princeton undergraduate Tanyaradzwa Ashleigh Tawengwa — Tanya to family and friends — was a toddler growing up in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, her mother played Whitney Houston tapes in the car. Tawengwa would sit in the back seat, humming along, memorizing every song.
When she was 3, she sang her first solo in church: Houston's "Who Would Imagine a King?" from the film "The Preacher's Wife." "That's when people realized that I had some form of musical inclination," Tawengwa said.
Nearly two decades later, Tawengwa is pursuing her dream of becoming, in her own words, "a superstar." This video chronicles how she has embraced numerous performance opportunities at Princeton — and found her own voice.
Tawengwa, a 2012 recipient of an Alex Adam '07 Award from Princeton's Lewis Center for the Arts, spent last summer studying ethnomusicology; the mbira, the national instrument of Zimbabwe — a kind of finger piano made from a large gourd; and folk guitar at the Zimbabwe College of Music. She is using this musical training to compose an opera, "The Dawn of the Rooster," based on the music of the Zimbabwe liberation struggle, for her senior thesis.
She also recorded a CD of original songs in both English and Shona, her native language, at a studio in Harare; the recording engineer was Clive "Mono" Mukundu, a well-known musician in Zimbabwe. After dropping off her eponymous CD, "Tanyaradzwa," at radio stations on a whim, Tawengwa returned to Princeton to begin her junior year — and soon learned her CD had hit the pop charts at home. Reporters and radio deejays began calling from Zimbabwe.
The Alex Adam '07 Award, which annually supports three undergraduates over the summer to create a work of art, was named for Alexander Jay Adam, a former Princeton student who was active in the campus theater community and died in 2007.
Tawengwa said that winning the award was a "tipping point" in the many ways Princeton has enabled her to explore her love of music. "To know that an institution like Princeton could invest so much in someone who just wants to sing helped me know I could realize my dream of becoming a performer," she said.
At Princeton, Tawengwa has been involved in a wide range of performing groups: the Princeton University Opera; the Princeton University Glee Club (she is the newly elected president); the African a cappella group Umqombothi, which she founded; L'Avant Scene French Theater Workshop; the Afro-beat band Sensemaya; the African ensemble Earthtones; and Black Arts Company Dance.
As a child, Tawengwa studied science and at first wanted to become a doctor. "People close to me said, 'Why would you want to study music? It's a waste of time.' I came to Princeton knowing that I wanted to be a music major but was never OK in saying that all I want to do the rest of my life is perform," she said. In addition to her major, she is pursuing certificates in vocal performance, theater, French and African studies.
Being at Princeton built her confidence, Tawengwa said. "People who I looked up to, people I really respected, made the proclamation for me and helped me make it for myself. My voice trainer David Kellett said, 'You could be this if you want to.' That encouragement played in my head like a record. With Gabriel Crouch [director of the Glee Club], same thing. He said, 'You want to sing forever? You can do it!' It was as if he read my mind."
Tawengwa began writing songs at Princeton. "Writing for me has been part of my development, getting to know myself better; it's a voice I never knew I had. When I write, I feel connected to my source, God. I know this is what I am supposed to be doing," she said.
One song on the CD was inspired by the death of her brother, Itayi Tawengwa, in March 2012. "With grief, you don't know how to express it," Tawengwa said. "That song was borne out of a certain amount of frustration of the world continuing but my world having been stopped in that moment," she said. Click here to see a performance of "With You."
The song's message is for "people to feel encouraged and liberated to be the people they were created to be," Tawengwa said. "One thing I've definitely learned at Princeton is that it's OK to be you."
Tawengwa, the youngest of seven, comes from a musical family. She began to study piano at age 10, cello at 13, and recently added guitar. Her childhood was filled with song, in church and on the family farm her grandfather built outside of the city.
Tawengwa arrived at Princeton as a Davis UWC Scholar, having studied for two years at the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West in Montezuma, N.M. As a high school student, she had her first taste of stardom when she was cast in a touring production of American activist and playwright Eve Ensler's "Emotional Creature," a series of monologues about and for girls. She performed with Ensler at a luncheon in Beverly Hills attended by Jane Fonda, Charlize Theron, Rosario Dawson and other celebrities.
After her freshman year at Princeton, she toured with "Emotional Creature" in South Africa over the summer. She continues to work as an action team leader with V-Girls, an organization Ensler founded to help empower girls around the world, performing in V-Girls music videos and at TedX Women in Washington, D.C., and the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.
In addition to social issues, Tawengwa said faith has played an important role in her life. When she found herself waitlisted at all seven schools she had applied to, including Princeton, she said she was in despair. "I called my mom, sobbing. She said, 'Tanya, faith is a big part of who you are. So take a moment and ask yourself, what is it that you used to do for God that you don't do anymore?'"
Tawengwa realized that while she had attended a Methodist church in Montezuma sporadically, she had not taken part in the worship services. One Sunday morning in May the minister called and asked if she would sing a solo before the congregation that day. She sang "My Redeemer Lives" by Nicole Mullen, "the last song I sang before I left Zimbabwe," she said.
The next morning Tawengwa got a call from Princeton offering her a place in the Class of 2014 and a financial aid package. "I was laughing and crying, everything in one moment," she said.
This past winter break, she flew home for the holidays and a round of media interviews. On Dec. 31 — her 21st birthday — Tawengwa had a CD launch party at a popular café in Harare, attended by family, friends, reporters and fans. "That day I really felt like a superstar," she said.
Tawengwa plans to go to conservatory after graduating. She has not forgotten the self-doubt she had in school and has these words of advice for students who may feel they could never go to Princeton. "You can do anything you want to do. You can be exactly who you want to be. You can push, you can work hard and you can make it. Even when things get hard at Princeton, this is where I'm supposed to be," she said.

subset: commoncrawl


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BOSTON — A howling storm across the Northeast left the New York-to-Boston corridor shrouded in 1 to 3 feet of snow Saturday, stranding motorists on highways overnight and piling up drifts so high that some homeowners couldn't get their doors open. More than 650,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity.
At least three deaths in the U.S. were blamed on the wind-whipped snowstorm, including that of a New York man killed when the tractor he was using to plow his driveway ran off the edge of the road.
More than 38 inches of snow fell in Milford, Conn., and an 82 mph gust was recorded in nearby Westport. Areas of southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire got at least 2 feet of snow, with more falling. Portland, Maine, received 29.3 inches, breaking the record set in 1979.
Roads in many places were impassable. Across much of New England, snowed-over cars looked like white blobs. Streets were mostly deserted save for snowplow crews and a few hardy souls walking dogs or venturing out to take pictures. In Boston's Financial District, the only sound was an army of snowblowers clearing sidewalks.
The digging-out went more smoothly in some places than in others.
A little more than 11 inches fell in New York, but the city "dodged a bullet" and was "in great shape," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, predicting streets would be cleared by the end of the day. The New York region's three major airports — LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark, N.J. — were up and running again by late morning after shutting down the evening before.
But hundreds of motorists abandoned their vehicles on New York's Long Island, which got 2½ feet of snow, and even snowplows were getting stuck. Emergency workers used snowmobiles to try to reach stranded motorists, some of whom spent the night in their cars.
Richard Ebbrecht, a chiropractor, left his office in Brooklyn at 3 p.m. on Friday and head for his home in Middle Island, N.Y., but got stuck six or seven times on the Long Island Expressway and other roads.
"There was a bunch of us Long Islanders. We were all helping each other, shoveling, pushing," he said. He finally gave up and settled in for the night in his car just two miles from his destination. At 8 a.m., when it was light out, he walked home.
"I could run my car and keep the heat on and listen to the radio a little bit," he said. "It was very icy under my car. That's why my car is still there."
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut closed roads to all but essential traffic.
The Interstate 95 corridor from the New York metropolitan area to Boston, with a population of roughly 25 million, appeared to take the brunt of the storm. One of hardest-hit places was Connecticut, where even emergency responders found themselves stuck on highways all night. In Fairfield, police and firefighters could not come in to work, so the overnight shift stayed on.
Several state police cars were also stuck in deep snow in Maine, where stranded drivers were warned to expect long waits for tow trucks.
Nearly 22 inches of snow fell in Boston and more was expected, closing in on the 2003 record of 27.6 inches. The archdiocese in the heavily Roman Catholic city reminded parishioners that under church law, the requirement to attend Sunday Mass "does not apply when there is grave difficulty in fulfilling this obligation." Logan Airport was not expected to resume operations until late Saturday night.
Flooding fears along the Massachusetts coast led to the evacuation of two neighborhoods in Quincy, south of Boston, and of 20 to 30 people in oceanfront homes in Salisbury.
But around the New York metropolitan area, many victims of Superstorm Sandy were mercifully spared another round of flooding, property damage and power failures.
"I was very lucky and I never even lost power," said Susan Kelly of Bayville on Long Island. "We were dry as anything. My new roof was fantastic. Other than digging out, this storm was a nice storm." As for the shoveling, "I got two hours of exercise."
The Postal Service closed post offices and suspended mail delivery Saturday in New England.
"This is crazy. I mean it's just nuts," Eileen O'Brien said in blacked-out Sagamore Beach, Mass., as she cleared heavy snow from her deck for fear it might collapse.
As the pirate flag outside her door snapped and popped in gale-force winds Saturday, she said: "My thermostat keeps dropping. Right now it's 54 inside, and I don't have any wood. There's nothing I can do to keep warm except maybe start the grill and make some coffee."
In South Windsor, Conn., Bill Tsoronis used a snowblower to carve paths through huge snowdrifts in his neighborhood.
"I thought we might have 18 or 20 inches, but in some places it's up to my waist. It's more than I expected," he said. Still, he said the storm was not much more than a nuisance, since the neighborhood still had power, and he said he might gather with neighbors for cocktails later in the day.
His neighbor Mike Schroder said as he brushed snow off cars in his driveway that the storm lived up to the hype.
"This is finally one they got right," he said. He said the cleanup will take some time:


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Bob Gordon is making a big splash with a new paper, Is US Growth Over?
Gordon's paper is about the biggest and most important economic question of all: Long-run growth. It's easy to forget that per-capita income, the overall standard of living, only started to increase steadily in about 1750. The Roman empire lasted centuries, but the average person at the end of it did not live better than at the beginning.
Gordon's Figure 1, reproduced here shows how growth picked up in the mid 1700s, reached 2.5% per year -- which made us dramatically better off than our great-grandparents -- and now seems to be tailing off.
As Bob reminds us with colorful vignettes of 18th and 19th century living, nothing, but nothing, is more important to economic well being than long-run growth.
And modern growth economics is pretty clear on where the goose is that lays this golden egg: Innovation. New ideas, embodied in new products, processes and businesses. For example, see Bob Lucas' "Ideas and Growth" which starts
What is it about modern capitalist economies that allows them, in contrast to all earlier societies, to generate sustained growth in productivity and living standards? It is widely agreed that the productivity growth of the industrialized economies is mainly an ongoing intellectual achievement, a sustained flow of new ideas
Growth theory neatly divides economics into "growth effects," which is really how fast new ideas are born and implemented, versus "level effects." Many economic distortions screw up the level, making an area or a country less well off than its neighbors. But so long as the frontier keeps growing, even level effects only retard a country a few decades.
Here's a picture. The red line represents 2% growth (real, per capita), starting at $100,000 income. By 2100 your great grandchildren are earning $738,000. The blue line shows a "level effect." Suppose some set of harebraned policies is so awful that it reduces the level of GDP by 20% -- but does not interfere with the growth mechanism. It's pretty bad. But the blue line is really just shifted to the right, lagging a decade or so behind but still participating in the eventual miracle.
By contrast, the black line says, what if there is a policy or change in the environment that has no effect on the level of GDP, but lowers the long-run growth rate to 1%. 2%, 1%, what's the difference? Cumulate that over a century, and your great grandchildren make $300,000, not $738,000.
OK, so, to Bob's first thesis: Long-run growth is slowing down. The big ideas of the first two industrial revolutions, roughly the harnessing of energy, urbanization, clean water, have been used as far as they can. The computer revolution, to Bob, seems to running out of its ability to raise productivity. 20-somethings updating their facebook profiles instead of paying attention class are not the jet-packs and rocket ships we thought we were going to have by 2001.
I think Bob has the right question here. And his warning is well-taken. Just because growth has been steady does not mean it's assured. The "trend" does not come for free. Each improvement in productivity takes hard work, and disruptive new companies putting established incumbents out to pasture.
But I think -- or at least I hope -- he has the wrong answer (and he freely admits this is speculative).
My pet theory is that the real defining innovation of growth was Gutenberg. Science gives us real knowledge, at last, by controlled experimentation. But controlled experimentation is extraordinarily expensive. A farmer can't afford to test which crops grow best, a country doctor can't do clinical trials. For society to gain knowledge by scientific method, we need communication. One doctor's clinical trials inform another doctor's practice a thousand miles away. Gutenberg made that possible.
More generally, the process of growth, of incorporating new ideas into the economy, almost always represents standing on the shoulders of giants, appropriating, slightly improving, and implementing someone else's ideas. That, for example, is why we see clusters of innovation such as Silicon Valley.
Well, if Gutenberg (and subsequent innovations that used his ideas, the newspaper, the scientific journal, and the public library) lowered the costs of communicating ideas and widened the community of people that a given idea could reach, the internet just did that tenfold. As I look at the cool stuff -- nanotechnology, genetic engineering etc. -- underway and the instant worldwide communication of ideas, I have hope we'll see that 2.5 percent again. If we let the process run.
For example, think how Bob's idea got to your desk. When I was a young economist, before the internet, he would have mailed a paper to the NBER, a month or two later the working paper would have been distributed. The internet buzz I saw that got me to go look at it would have taken a few more months to percolate to me by older information networks, then I'd have to go read it in the library. Finally, who knows how I would have gotten to you. That all happened in a week. The diffusion of ideas is on steroids.
Well, maybe my pet theory is wrong. Still, long-run growth is the issue, it is not guaranteed but hard-won, we didn't always have it and we could lose it, and that would be a catastrophe.
Bob prognosticates not only that we seem to have run out of productivity-increasing ideas, but that "six headwinds" stand in the way. His headwinds are 1) Demographics: aging and reduced labor-force participation 2) Plateau in US educational attainment 3) "The most important quantitatively in holding down the growth of our future income is rising inequality." 4) Globalization and outsourcing 5) Energy and enviroment 6) Household and government debt.
Here I think Bob is mostly confusing "level" effects with "growth" effects. He is also mixing constraints -- run out of ideas -- with self-inflicted wounds -- dysfunctional public education, refusing to let in immigrants, refusing to use nuclear power or GM foods. And, I don't see how he can focus on the US. Suppose we cede the frontier to, say, China, as the UK ceded the frontier to us in Bob's graph. But as long as we still use China's ideas and technology, and they grow at 2.5 percent, so do we.
The optimistic lesson of growth theory is that, no matter how badly you screw up level effects, growth will bail you out eventually. So, any "headwinds" need to be clearly linked to the possibility that economic distortions lower the rate of finding new ideas and incorporating them. The whole point of growth theory is that, in the long run, that's all that matters.
Do they? My impression of modern growth theory is that the economics of innovation production and adoption are not well understood. Do the distortions of a high-tax, regulated, crony-capitalist, welfare state, just screw up levels? Or do they reduce the spread of ideas behind long-run growth? My fear is "yes."
In any case, just posing the question this way argues that the dangerous "headwinds" are entirely different from the ones that Bob highlights. The returns from innovation, starting new companies, introducing new products and processes -- and in that process making established incumbents very unhappy -- are the most likely targets.
But it's also clear that ideas are public goods, or high fixed cost zero marginal cost goods. Their production and diffusion depends a lot on non-market structures, like, say, universities. (Don't jump from that observation to "they need to be subsidized," as it it's all to easy to subsidize bad ideas too.) That's another lesson of Bob Lucas' paper, which is remarkably free of economic incentives.
Finally, a warning about statistics. Here is my last picture, blown up.
As you can see, if you're just looking at GDP trends, it's hard to tell a "level" effect from a "growth" effect for several decades.
Much discussion of our current slump presumes it's a temporary "level" shock; the blue line will go back up quickly to the red line. The "stagnation" hypothesis is that we're on the blue line -- we lost about 5% of GDP in the recession, and now we're on the growth path with a lower level. That's disastrous enough. Bob warns us that we might be on the worst of the blue and black lines. That would be a huge disaster.
All said before. The graph reminds us is that it takes a long time to figure out which it is based on just eyeballing the GDP or productivity data. We have to think. Which Bob is prodding us to do.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home price gains cooled in February from the previous year for the third month in a row, as harsh winter weather and high buying costs have slowed sales.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 12.9 percent in February compared with 12 months earlier. While healthy, that is down from a 13.2 percent gain in January.
And home prices fell in 13 of the 20 cities in February compared with the previous month. The index is not adjusted for seasonal variations, so those declines partly reflect weaker sales in the winter.
In addition to bad weather, sales have been held back by a limited supply of available homes, which has forced potential buyers to bid up prices. That's caused prices to increase even as sales have slowed. Sales of existing homes fell to their lowest level in 20 months in March.
With sales slowing, many economists forecast that price gains will keep dropping this year into the mid-single digits.
Higher prices may also be discouraging investors from buying homes, contributing to slower sales. Investors accounted for 17 percent of sales in March, according to the National Association of Realtors, down from 21 percent in February.
"The housing market is showing signs of slowing, but this was expected and is part of a broader return to normal," said Stan Humphries, chief economist at real estate data provider Zillow.
Prices in Las Vegas dipped 0.1 percent in February from the previous month, the city's first monthly decline in nearly two years. And home prices fell 1.6 percent in Cleveland and 0.7 percent in Tampa, Florida. Both monthly drops were the largest for those two cities since January 2012.
Las Vegas still posted the biggest 12-month gain, with an increase of 23.1 percent. But that's down from 24.9 percent in January. Many investors had snapped up homes in Las Vegas after prices plunged in the housing bust, causing sharp price gains.
Home sales and construction started recovering about two years ago after being hammered by the housing bust and Great Recession. But a jump in mortgage rates last spring caused sales of existing homes to start falling in the summer.
Sales have now fallen in seven of the past eight months. But the sales decline in March was small and many economists said it showed that existing-home sales had likely bottomed out.
Contracts to buy homes posted a healthy gain last month, the Realtors' group said yesterday. Signed contracts typically result in sales one to two months later, so the increase points to higher sales in the coming months.
New home sales, meanwhile, plunged 14.5 percent in March to the slowest pace in eight months, according to a government report last week. A jump in prices contributed to the decline.
The Case-Shiller index covers roughly half of U.S. homes. The index measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The February figures are the latest available.


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Little Africa - Geigel Woods
Algona, Iowa
This site is said to be very active with spirits, in part because the old bridge was the site of two hangings. Car accidents have been caused by apparitions standing in the middle of the road. Also, at the old farm house, the husband is said to have killed the ...
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Plum Creek Pits
Algona, Iowa
7.2 miles from Irvington, IA
Locals say a little boy's ghost appears at this popular fishing spot. Some say the boy was once accidentally impaled by a stick when he fell while running nearby. The ghost has been seen walking along the bank of the pit.
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Gypsy Cemetery - Union Township Cemetery
Algona, Iowa
9.8 miles from Irvington, IA
This small gypsy cemetery is said to be haunted by a gypsy queen, who is guarded by a murder of crows. Legend has it that in the 1800s gypsies came through here often with their wagons. If any member of their group was sick and dying, they would simply bury ...
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Grotto of the Redemption
West Bend, Iowa
13 miles from Irvington, IA
This sacred site was constructed over a 42-year period, beginning in 1912, using semiprecious stones from every state in the U.S. and every world region. The Christmas Chapel contains a 300-lb. amethyst, and Bethlehem Cave contains 65 tons of petrified wood. The spiritual place has tons of statues depicting the ...
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Humboldt County Historical Museum
Humboldt, Iowa
19.7 miles from Irvington, IA
Lights are seen in the building at night and some people claim the ghost of a man who drowned in the nearby river has also been spotted roaming the grounds.
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Lot Behind Nauss Oil
Emmetsburg, Iowa
25 miles from Irvington, IA
A motel once stood in this vacant lot, but it has since been demolished. The foundation/drive-/walkway is still there. Locals say the spirit of an old man in a plaid shirt and chinos walks along the way, stopping several times as if he is checking to make sure the motel ...
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Hawkeye Community Theatre
Fort Dodge, Iowa
34.3 miles from Irvington, IA
This historic theatre is believed to be haunted by the apparition of a young girl who was murdered nearby. Witnesses claim to have seen her sitting in the hall after hours, and have felt her brush past them in the corridors. The chandelier at the entrance also moves of ...
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Hawkeye Theatre
Fort Dodge, Iowa
34.3 miles from Irvington, IA
Reports say visitors to the theater get the feeling of being watched, and have seen a ghostly little girl. Also, some say if you are alone here you will feel the not-so-gentle touch of an invisible hand.
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Bannwell Bridge - Terror Bridge
Barnum, Iowa
35.6 miles from Irvington, IA
Local legend maintains that a woman once killed her 3 kids here. Some reports say she hung them from the bridge and they were hit by a train coming through. Her ghostly head is said to follow you down the road, and if you don't have your doors and windows ...
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Oak Hill Cemetery
Estherville, Iowa
42.7 miles from Irvington, IA
A couple of spooky stories surround this cemetery's hill, and the fact that your car, when put in neutral, will seem to travel up it by itself. According to one story, a car full of football players was in an accident here when the car stalled. While they were pushing ...
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Buddy Holly Memorial
Clear Lake, Iowa
43.6 miles from Irvington, IA
Buddy Holly may be alive beyond the grave. According to reports, some have seen a phantom plane crashing that matches the one involved in the 1959 tragedy. Also, 3 orbs have been caught on tape in the spot where Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens died.
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Moose Pond
Spencer, Iowa
48.3 miles from Irvington, IA
Locals tell a story of harrowing events that happen at 8:47 p.m. on December 23. If you visit the iced-over pond on that night, you can hear pounding on the ice and hear the screams of a young boy trapped beneath the ice. According to the story, the young boy ...
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Vegors Cemetery
Lehigh, Iowa
49.4 miles from Irvington, IA
The cemetery is said to be haunted by the spirits of restless Native Americans and Mrs. Henry Lott, the wife of a man who was known to cheat the Native Americans and steal their horses. She was killed while trying to escape from angry Native Americans seeking revenge, although her ...
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Swope Hall - Buena Vista University
Storm Lake, Iowa
57.2 miles from Irvington, IA
A ghost named Mary is said to haunt this hall. Legend says her house once stood in the very spot where Swope Hall stands today. She died of lead poisoning, which caused her to become mentally unstable and leap from a 3rd-story window. Phenomema experienced here involve the opening and ...
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Thompson Hall Dormitory
Iowa Falls, Iowa
57.5 miles from Irvington, IA
The dorm at Ellsworth Community College and Union Cemetery across the street are both said to be haunted. The spirit of town benefactor Mr. Ellsworth himself has been seen, and footsteps and voices have been heard in the dorm's basement.
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Loon Lake Cemetery
Jackson, Minnesota
57.7 miles from Irvington, IA
Loon Lake Cemetery is said to be haunted--and dangerous. According to local lore, three witches were violently executed and were buried here, but not before threatening to curse anyone who desecrated their graves. Mary Jane, beheaded in 1881, was said to be the most powerful of the witches. Legend has ...
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Rainbow Bridge
Lake City, Iowa
60.8 miles from Irvington, IA
A chocolate-loving spirit resides at this old bowstring bridge. Stories say that if you bring an unopened chocolate bar to the bridge at midnight, lay it in the center of the bridge, and exit the bridge, after 5 minutes you will find an unopened and intact wrapper, but the chocolate ...
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Kate Shelly High Bridge
Boone, Iowa
66.5 miles from Irvington, IA
Local legend tells the tale of 15-year-old Kate Shelley, who in 1881 crawled across a badly damaged bridge during a terrible storm to warn an oncoming train that the bridge was out. This bridge, built in 1901, is said to be her ghost's home. Phantom trains also have been seen ...
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Hazel Green Cemetery
Ackley, Iowa
66.9 miles from Irvington, IA
The gazebo in this old cemetery seems to be the central spot for the spiritual activity. In it, visitors have reported seeing an elderly woman's ghost sitting in a rocking chair, holding a baby. It is said that those who see her feel sadness, rather than fear. Reports say that ...
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Boone County Historical Society - Masonic Temple
Boone, Iowa
67.3 miles from Irvington, IA
Dating back to 1907, the historic former masonic temple and museum may have a resident ghost. Known as 'Frank', the poltergeist frequently slams doors and turns on lights after the place has been closed up for the night. Disembodied footsteps have also been heard on the second floor, and ...
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The Boone News-Republican
Boone, Iowa
67.8 miles from Irvington, IA
Employees who work late have heard unexplained footsteps and, at times, have heard their names called. The phenomena seem to occur only when the place is nearly empty of people.
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American Theatre
Cherokee, Iowa
70.9 miles from Irvington, IA
Staff at the theatre maintain that it is haunted by previous owner Mr. Goldie. A seat has been seen rocking, slowly, all by itself, and it is said that the theatre's employees have many more stories to tell.
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Cherokee Mental Health Institute Cemetery
Cherokee, Iowa
72.3 miles from Irvington, IA
Behind the MHI on the north side there Is a locked gate about 4 feet tall, if you follow that path down about a foot ball field distance you should cross a small bridge,and there is a small cemetery that is home to nameless graves. It is said that if you ...
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J L Reece Memorial Park
New Providence, Iowa
72.8 miles from Irvington, IA
According to reports, a young woman committed suicide in the cornfield at this site. Witnesses have seen her appear in the field and have heard her screaming.
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Farm House Museum
Ames, Iowa
73.3 miles from Irvington, IA
The spirits of two sisters are believed to reside at the museum; details of the hauntings are unknown.
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Friley Hall - Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
73.4 miles from Irvington, IA
One dormitory room is nicknamed Satan's Legion. Rumor has it that a student killed himself there, and everyone who is assigned to that room either dies or disappears. Reports say many students are afraid to go into the room, and some maintain that because of this, the university stopped assigning ...
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Iowa State University - Memorial Union
Ames, Iowa
73.5 miles from Irvington, IA
The hall is a tribute to graduate soldiers who died at war. According to reports, a strange low moan can be heard constantly here. Some say is it the voice of the only woman who ever graduated from the school who died in World War I.
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Fisher Theatre - Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
73.8 miles from Irvington, IA
Named for contributor J.W. Fisher, the 1974 theater is rumored to be haunted by Frederica Shattuck, another university theater department contributor. So the story goes, the ghost took up residence in the Fisher Theatre after her Shattuck Theater was demolished.
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Iowa State University - C.Y. Stephens Auditorium
Ames, Iowa
73.9 miles from Irvington, IA
A friendly ghost, C.Y. Stephens himself, in fact, is known to haunt this auditorium. He has been seen in the basement tunnels or sitting in the back right corner of the 3rd balcony. He also makes himself known by cold spots and the sound of footsteps. When performers see him, ...
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Stage Coach Inn
Ida Grove, Iowa
79.2 miles from Irvington, IA
The Stage Coach Inn was built in 1856 by John and Martha Moorhead; The Inn served a stage coach stop and the first court house in Ida County Iowa and was also the church, School as well as the first hospital in Ida grove were amputations sometimes accrued on the ...
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Minnesota State University Mankato
Mankato, Minnesota
79.4 miles from Irvington, IA
Minnesota State University Mankato is said to have a ghost who rings buzzers and another who steals toilet paper in the Crawford Dorm. And in the Crawford-McElroy Complex, there is a ghost stuck in the 1960s who goes on panty raids.
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R.D Hubbard House Museum
Mankato, Minnesota
80.3 miles from Irvington, IA
This historic mansion is currently operated as a museum by the Blue Earth County Historical Society, and staff claim that even after the building has closed down for the night, some still walk the halls of the old house. Visitors claim to have heard ghostly laughter, running footsteps in ...
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Mt Hope Cemetery
Madrid, Iowa
81.3 miles from Irvington, IA
The ghost of a child named Sara resides at this cemetery. She and four other children from her family are buried near the back. Sara is said to follow around visitors and ask for someone named Ree. She is also known to touch people and tug at clothing if her ...
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Calvary Cemetery
Mankato, Minnesota
81.5 miles from Irvington, IA
At Calvary Cemetery, you can find the visuals for many stories told by school kids. There are several about an evil doctor who appears as a ghost-devil, and some about Hell Road, a nearby path where animal sacrifices were allegedly performed. Ghost hunters determined that no such devilish behavior really ...
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Le Sueur County Historical Society Museum
Elysian, Minnesota
86.5 miles from Irvington, IA
Some odd things have been reported at this museum: disembodied voices, a typewriter and a record player that worked by themselves, and a service bell that rang on its own.
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West Hills
Owatonna, Minnesota
88.8 miles from Irvington, IA
Ghosts of orphaned children are rumored to linger in this former orphanage, laughing audibly. Witnesses also have seen the floor move and warp and smelled phantom cigar smoke. Books also have moved, temperature has been known to change drastically, and phone calls have been made to the police department from ...
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It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere
Owatonna, Minnesota
88.8 miles from Irvington, IA
The bar called It's Five O'Clock Somewhere is said to be haunted. Reports say the apparition of a man in old-fashioned duds and a puddle of blood appear out of nowhere. The bar was a funeral home and a used furniture store in past incarnations.
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Elk Grove Cemetery - Union Township Cemetery
Coon Rapids, Iowa
91.2 miles from Irvington, IA
According to local legend there is a small headstone with an eerie ability: If you position yourself the right way in front of it, after a few minutes it will begin to glow.
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Lambrecht's Gift Store
New Ulm, Minnesota
91.3 miles from Irvington, IA
This gift store is housed in a historic building, which has a darker history in relation to the murder of a woman that occurred in the building many years before. The apparition of a pale-faced woman with a terrified expression has been seen knocking on the window of the ...
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Riverside Cemetery
Marshalltown, Iowa
92.5 miles from Irvington, IA
It is said that in the older part of the cemetery there was a chair that looked as if it had been made of wood, although it was concrete. Urban legend said that those who sat in the chair would die within a year. There are contradicting reports as to ...
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Union Cemetery - The Devil's Chair
Guthrie Center, Iowa
92.9 miles from Irvington, IA
It is said that those who sit in the cement chair will receive a spell of bad luck. The Devil's Chair has no markings, and sits between the Peterson and Miller graves. According to reports, the chair has been believed to be cursed for at least 35 years.
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Farrar Schoolhouse
Maxwell, Iowa
93.2 miles from Irvington, IA
This building, formerly a middle school, has been a private residence since 2008. Please respect the owners' privacy. Witnesses have seen the ghost of a small boy in the stairwell; one has also appeared in a photo sitting on the edge of the auditorium stage. Voices of children talking and ...
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The Historic Klondike Hotel
Manilla, Iowa
93.6 miles from Irvington, IA
The Klondike Hotel was built on the street that in 1897 was named Railroad Street. It faced to the west toward the bustling Milwaukee tracks and depot. An access road was completed shortly after the hotel was built which directly connected the Hotel with the Depot. The ...
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Green Lawn Cemetery - CSAH 20 Cemetery
St. Peter, Minnesota
94.6 miles from Irvington, IA
Green Lawn Cemetery, aka CSAH (County State Aid Highway) 20 Cemetery and Traverse de Sioux Cemetery, is rumored to be haunted and a spot for animal sacrifices. People have reported apparitions, photo anomalies and other strange phenomena here.
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Van Fossen Cemetery
Adel, Iowa
96.8 miles from Irvington, IA
Since the 1850's, the Van Fossen cemetery has had many names, from Rodenbaugh Cemetery, the Old Adel Cemetery, to the "official" name recorded by the state, the Gibson Cemetery. Along old highway 6, the cemetery is sometimes just called the Bilderback Cemetery, after the massive headstones that mark the ...
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Merle Hay Mall
Des Moines, Iowa
98.5 miles from Irvington, IA
The mall and its tower are rumored to be built over a monastery that was closed in the 1950s. According to the stories, some nuns became pregnant and had miscarriages, and the babies were buried in unmarked graves at this site. Reports say ghosts of both nuns and infants have ...
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Old Red Horse Armory
Des Moines, Iowa
99.8 miles from Irvington, IA
This old cavalry armory is now the housing for city school buses. There have been reports that members of the National Guard, when they occupied the building, heard ghostly sounds from long ago: clopping of horses' hooves and jingling of harnesses. An apparition of an older man in cavalry garb ...
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Spooky Table at the Weaver House
Des Moines, Iowa
100.3 miles from Irvington, IA
Local legend has it that when the Weavers purchased a table in 1937, they bought a ghost along with it. The table is said to have made rapping noises and caused other disturbances until a minister's wife quieted it by reading from the Bible. A spiritualist consulted by the Weavers ...
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Smelly Ghost of University Avenue
Des Moines, Iowa
100.4 miles from Irvington, IA
Locals say a cloudlike presence occurs here, and it smells of kerosene. Sometimes within the cloud is the form of a man or several tiny flickering lights. Reports tell of a man who died nearby in 1881 as a result of his kerosene-soaked clothes catching fire.
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Drake Municipal Observatory
Des Moines, Iowa
100.9 miles from Irvington, IA
Dr. Robert Morehouse was the first chairman of the Astronomy and Physics department, and he discovered a comet in the 1920s. He also haunts the observatory, according to local legend, perhaps because the remains of Dr. Morehouse and his wife are buried in the entryway wall. Students working in the ...
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In this article, I am going to explore the ViewState. ViewState is one thing that I always like to use. It makes life easier. As we all know, Viewstate is one way of maintaining the state in web applications.
As we know, a web page is created every time when a page is posted to the server. This means the values that the user entered in the webpage are going to vanish after the postback or submit. To get rid of this problem, the ASP.NET framework provides a way to maintain these values by virtue of ViewState. When we enable the viewstate of any control, the value is going to be maintained on every postback or server roundtrip.
But how are these values maintained? It doesn't come free. ViewState uses a hidden variable that resides on the page to store control values. This means that if a page has lots of controls with viewstate enabled, the page size would become heavy, in several kilobytes; i.e., it will take longer to download the page. And also, on every postback, all the data is posted to the server, increasing the network traffic as well.
In new era applications, we use lots of heavy controls like gridviews etc., on our pages which makes the page size exponentially heavy. It is always recommended to use View State judiciously, and some programmers try to avoid using it because of the performance overhead.
Here, I am going to discuss how we can reduce the performance overhead caused by View State.
As we all know, the Web is a stateless medium; i.e., states are not maintained between requests by default. A web page is created every time a page is posted to the server. The ASP.NET framework provides us several ways to maintain the state. These are:
Here, we going to discuss one of the client state management techniques: ViewState. We can persist data during postbacks with the help of ViewState. Why do we call ViewState as client-side? Because the data is stored on the page, and if we move from one page to another, the data would be lost.
So where does the ViewState gets stored? The ViewState is stored on the page in a hidden field named __viewstate.
I will not discuss the basics of ViewState in detail; for details, have a look at a very good article here on CodeProject: Beginner's Guide To View State [^].
In new era applications, we generally have lots of rich and heavy controls on our page, and also provide lots of functionality on the page with the help of latest technologies like AJAX etc. To accomplish our tasks, we use ViewState a lot, but as we know, it doesn't come free - it has a performance overhead.
The ViewState is stored on the page in the form of a hidden variable. Its always advised to use the ViewState as little as possible. We also have other ways to reduce the performance overhead. Here, I am going to discuss the following ways:
We will see all these with an example.
First, let's see a normal scenario!!
Here, I have a webpage with a GridView which shows a lot of data (16 rows). I have enabled ViewState so that I don't need to repopulate the whole grid on every postback. But what am I paying for that? Let's see the example.
First, let's see the page size on postback with enableviewstate=true, which is true by default.
Here we can see the request size is 4.9 K. Also, we can see the ViewState of the page by viewing the View Source. Let's see it:
You can see the __viewstate variable on the screen and the amount of data it has. If we have several controls like this, imagine your page size will be.
But the benefit is, we dont need to hit the database to fetch the data and bind it on every postback.
Now, let's see what happens when we disable the viewstate; i.e., set enableviewstate=false.
and there is no data on the page because I loaded the data for the first time on page load. On subsequent postbacks, I don't bind it. That's why when I click on PostBack, the data gets lost, but the page size is here is just 773 B. Also, let's examine the View Source of the page:
We see the __viewstate variable, but with very less data. Although we have disabled viewstate, ASP.NET uses viewstate for some data to maintain the page state, but this is very little and not going to cause any performance overhead.
Now we can imagine the overhead of viewstate. You can check your application (if you are using viewstate) and see the page size is increased by the viewstate. Now we will discuss one way to reduce the page size.
We can compress the viewstate to reduce the page size. By compressing the viewstate, we can reduce the viewstate size by more than 30%. But here, the question arises, when do we compress and decompress the viewstate? For that, we have to dig into the page life cycle. As we know, viewstate is used by ASP.NET to populate controls. So we should compress the viewstate after all the changes are done in the viewstate, and save it after compression, and we have to decompress the viewstate just before it is used by ASP.NET to load all the controls from the viewstate. Let's jump to the page life cycle and see how we can fit our requirement.
As we can see, there are two methods. SaveViewState is responsible for collecting the view state information for all of the controls in the control hierarchy and persist it in the __viewstate hidden form field. The view state is serialized to the hidden form field in the SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium() method during the save view state stage, and is deserialized by the Page class' LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium() method in the load view state stage. In these methods, we can compress and decompress the viewstate. Let's take a pictorial view.
here, we need to override the methods SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium() for compressing the viewstate, and SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium() for decompressing the viewstate. I am going to use GZip for compression (provided by .NET). And this is available in the namespace System.IO.Compression. Let's jump to the code.
I have a class CompressViewState that is inherited from System.Web.UI.Page. I have overridden the above two methods. I also made two private methods: for compressing a byte stream, and for decompressing it. Let's have a look at the compressing one:
/// This Method takes the byte stream as parameter /// and return a compressed bytestream. /// For compression it uses GZipStream private byte[] Compress(byte[] b) { MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(); GZipStream zs = new GZipStream(ms, CompressionMode.Compress, true); zs.Write(b, 0, b.Length); zs.Close(); return ms.ToArray(); }
As you can see, the Compress method takes a byte array as a parameter and returns compressed data in byte array form. In the method, I have used GZipStream for compressing the data. Now, let's look at the decompressing one:
/// This method takes the compressed byte stream as parameter /// and return a decompressed bytestream. private byte[] Decompress(byte[] b) { MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(); GZipStream zs = new GZipStream(new MemoryStream(b), CompressionMode.Decompress, true); byte[] buffer = new byte[4096]; int size; while (true) { size = zs.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length); if (size > 0) ms.Write(buffer, 0, size); else break; } zs.Close(); return ms.ToArray(); }
As you can see, this method takes compressed data as a parameter and returns decompressed data.
Let's now look at the overridden methods. First, LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium:
protected override object LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium() { System.Web.UI.PageStatePersister pageStatePersister1 = this.PageStatePersister; pageStatePersister1.Load(); String vState = pageStatePersister1.ViewState.ToString(); byte[] pBytes = System.Convert.FromBase64String(vState); pBytes = Decompress(pBytes); LosFormatter mFormat = new LosFormatter(); Object ViewState = mFormat.Deserialize(System.Convert.ToBase64String(pBytes)); return new Pair(pageStatePersister1.ControlState, ViewState); }
As you can see, in this method, we have taken the viewstate in a string variable from PageStatePersister, decompressed it (as it is compressed in the Save viewstate stage; we'll discuss after this), and deserialized it in an Object, and returned the new Pair.
new Pair
Now moving to SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium.
protected override void SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium(Object pViewState) { Pair pair1; System.Web.UI.PageStatePersister pageStatePersister1 = this.PageStatePersister; Object ViewState; if (pViewState is Pair) { pair1 = ((Pair)pViewState); pageStatePersister1.ControlState = pair1.First; ViewState = pair1.Second; } else { ViewState = pViewState; } LosFormatter mFormat = new LosFormatter(); StringWriter mWriter = new StringWriter(); mFormat.Serialize(mWriter, ViewState); String mViewStateStr = mWriter.ToString(); byte[] pBytes = System.Convert.FromBase64String(mViewStateStr); pBytes = Compress(pBytes); String vStateStr = System.Convert.ToBase64String(pBytes); pageStatePersister1.ViewState = vStateStr; pageStatePersister1.Save(); }
Here, we read the viewstate information from pageStatePersister and then serialize it, and finally, after compressing it, save it in a page persister.
This is all about compressing and decompressing the viewstate. I have put the class in the App_Code folder so that it is available to the entire application. And wherever we need to use it, we should inherit it from CompressViewState. Thus, we can reduce the viewstate size significantly and make our applications perform much better :).
Now, let's move to another methodology: saving the viewstate into the file system.
This methodology should be used only if you have enough data in the viewstate; else, you will need more time in compressing and decompressing the viewstate between requests without much gain.
I am going to explain two approaches here:
This way, we can reduce the viewstate size to zero. There is no performance overhead on a round trip to the server. Still, there is a bit of overhead in reading and saving the viewstate to the file system. We'll discuss this later.
Now in this methodology, we need to use two methods:
Now we will see how to save the viewstate to the file system. But how will we save the ViewState? What would be the name of the file? Does it have to be unique for every user? Do we need multiple files for the same user session.
There are a lot of questions. One answer, we don't need multiple files for the same user at the same time because ViewState is confined to every page, and when the user moves to another page, the previous page's ViewState gets ripped off. At a time, we just need to save the current page's ViewState.
As session ID is unique for every user, why should we not use the session ID in the file to make it unique, and whenever we'll need to get the file, we'll just pick it by using the session ID.
Let's jump to the code.
Here, I have a file name PersistViewStateToFileSystem that is inherited from System.web.UI.Page and resides in the App_code folder so that it is available through the whole application. Here, we have a property which returns the full path of the ViewState file. I used the session ID as a name of the file, and .vs as the extension. We also have a property that returns the path of the ViewState file:
public string ViewStateFilePath { get { if (Session["viewstateFilPath"] == null) { string folderName = Path.Combine(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath, "PersistedViewState"); string fileName = Session.SessionID + "-" + Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(Request.Path).Replace("/", "-") + ".vs"; string filepath = Path.Combine(folderName, fileName); Session["viewstateFilPath"] = filepath; } return Session["viewstateFilPath"].ToString(); } }
Again, here we have implemented both the functions.
LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium loads the file from the ViewState file, if it exists. Let's have a look at the code for LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium:
protected override object LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium() { // determine the file to access if (!File.Exists(ViewStateFilePath)) return null; else { // open the file StreamReader sr = File.OpenText(ViewStateFilePath); string viewStateString = sr.ReadToEnd(); sr.Close(); // deserialize the string LosFormatter los = new LosFormatter(); return los.Deserialize(viewStateString); } }
and SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium saves the file in the file system instead of pagepersister. Moving to the code for LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium:
protected override void SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium(object state) { LosFormatter los = new LosFormatter(); StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(); los.Serialize(sw, state); StreamWriter w = File.CreateText(ViewStateFilePath); w.Write(sw.ToString()); w.Close(); sw.Close(); }
We need to inherit our page from the class PersistViewStateToFileSystem to use it.
What is the best time to remove the ViewState file from the server? Our requirement is to remove the file at session end. So we can use the Application level Session_End (that is defined in the Global.asax file) to remove the file from the web server. I save the ViewState file path in the session, and access the file path from there. Let's see the code for Session_End.
void Session_End(object sender, EventArgs e) { //Deleting the viewstate file string filePath = Session["viewstateFilPath"] as string; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(filePath) && File.Exists(filePath)) { File.Delete(filePath); } }
You can get the full sample application in the attachment.
Now, let's move to our example. Let's see the request size.
It's just 2.5 K. We can see that our page size has reduced dramatically. Let's now see the View Source of the page:
Cool! There is no data in the ViewState variable.
First, I would say thanks to all who shared their valuable feedback. I am adding a section because of them. As the session ID approach has many limitations as mentioned in the Points to Remember section, I have added the following new approach.
We can use a GUID instead of session ID to uniquely identify the ViewState file. And to get the GUID, we will use a hidden field to store the GUID so that we can get the file name as and when we require. So now here, we only need to change the View State file path property, and need to have a hidden field on every page. The hidden field on the page can be as:
<asp:hiddenfield runat="server" id="hfVSFileName">
So actually, in my demo application, I have added a key isSessionId in the app.config section of web.config; if it set true, then we are using the Session ID approach, else the hidden field approach. Let's look at the property code:
public string ViewStateFilePath { get { bool isSessionId = Convert.ToBoolean( System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["isSessionId"]); string folderName = Path.Combine(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath, "PersistedViewState"); string fileName = string.Empty; string filepath = string.Empty; if (!isSessionId) { HiddenField hfVSFileName = null; string VSFileName = ""; // Get the HiddenField Key from the page hfVSFileName = FindControl(this, "hfVSFileName") as HiddenField; // Get the HiddenField value from the page string hfVSFileNameVal = GetValue(hfVSFileName.UniqueID.ToString()); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(hfVSFileNameVal)) { VSFileName = hfVSFileNameVal; } if (!Page.IsPostBack) { VSFileName = GenerateGUID(); hfVSFileName.Value = VSFileName; //Removing files from Server RemoveFilesfromServer(); } fileName = VSFileName + "-" + Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension( Request.Path).Replace("/", "-") + ".vs"; filepath = Path.Combine(folderName, fileName); return filepath; } else { if (Session["viewstateFilPath"] == null) { fileName = Session.SessionID + "-" + Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension( Request.Path).Replace("/", "-") + ".vs"; filepath = Path.Combine(folderName, fileName); Session["viewstateFilPath"] = filepath; } return Session["viewstateFilPath"].ToString(); } } }
In the hidden field approach, I am creating a GUID for uniqueness of the filename, and also, it is created only once on page load.
I have made a change regarding removing files from the server. Here, I am removing files from the server which are older than 3 days:
private void RemoveFilesfromServer() { try { string folderName = Path.Combine(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath, "PersistedViewState"); DirectoryInfo _Directory = new DirectoryInfo(folderName); FileInfo[] files = _Directory.GetFiles(); DateTime threshold = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-3); foreach (FileInfo file in files) { if (file.CreationTime <= threshold) file.Delete(); } } catch (Exception ex) { throw new ApplicationException("Removing Files from Server"); } }
I am calling this method once on every new page request. You can call this method based on your design. We can also make the number of days configurable.
At last, I just want to say, since we generally use lots of ViewState controls on our page, at least we should use one of the discussed approaches.
Feedback is the key for me. I would request to you all to share your feedback and give me suggestions which would encourage and help in writing more.
This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)
LouisDupont wrote:not having ViewState would be better but usually that is not an option for old projects and for productivity purposes
LouisDupont wrote:Finally, it would be appreciable to have Links from those who said about JQuery or comming new technologies to achieve ViewState reductions or elimination..
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The story of Noah's Ark is getting blockbuster treatment in Hollywood's new biblical epic Noah. Darren Aronofsky's film about the Old Testament shipbuilder has been sparking controversy — but there's no denying that the Great Flood, digitized, is a pretty great flood.
"In the beginning there was ... nothing," say the first words you see on-screen, and then there's, well, everything: a swirling cosmos, Adam and Eve, a fall from grace, a fall of angels, teeming industrial cities spreading so much sin and darkness that the creator has second thoughts — which he communicates to 500-year-old family man Noah in a nightmare.
Noah sees a planet submerged and, inspired by that vision, tells his wife and three sons they have work to do. If only it were that simple.
The Old Testament story is short on the sort of detail required to flesh out two-plus hours, but the filmmakers have happily supplied it — everything from why the lions wouldn't just eat the gazelles to what a real ark might look like (no prow, because it's not going anywhere, it just has to float). Also, how much help a family of five would need to build a structure 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits.
You may not remember the movie's six-limbed stone giants from Sunday school — a bunch of literally earthbound angels who can trace their cinematic lineage to those talking trees in The Lord of the Rings — but they're certainly helpful in ark-building, and in ark-protecting when a snarling king from Cain's side of the family of man shows up with an army.
There is a lot of inventing going on here, raising a flood of criticism in literalist circles that did not flow when, say, Danny Kaye played a musical-comedy Noah in Two By Two, or when Bill Cosby did his "What's a cubit?" routine.
Take the Bible seriously, without winks or jokes, and you court arguments with traditionalists about whether you've gotten it right. Darren Aronofsky's tree-hugging, intimately intense move, I'd argue, gets things righter than it's reasonable to expect a big Hollywood blockbuster to. Oh, there are things I wish the director hadn't done — when a little girl asks Russell Crowe's Noah to sing her to sleep, all I could think was, "Didn't she see Les Miserables?" And Anthony Hopkins' Methuselah does more scrounging for berries than is entirely seemly. But when the deluge comes, it lives up to Scripture: "All the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens opened."
At which point, we and the family are sharing an ark with an unraveling Noah, barely post-traumatic in his stress, and seemingly channeling his biblical forebears Abraham and Job, and maybe a couple of the unhinged characters from previous Aronofsky movies. All of which makes the film Noah psychologically credible — his behavior is very much what you might expect of a man who has just condemned millions of screaming souls to watery graves. And it makes the film unpredictably suspenseful, which is dramatically the most welcome thing you could ask of a biblical epic.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Looking for fun on Long Island? Look no further than The Big Bounce Theory, a full-service, family-owned and operated party, and event rental company. Offering a wide assortment of supplies, including bounce house rentals, water slide rentals, carnival games, concession stands, tables, chairs, tents, movie screens, inflatable rentals, and everything else you could possibly need, they'll make sure that your event is entertaining, safe, and an affair to remember. Whether you're in Montauk, Manhattan, or anywhere in between, contact The Big Bounce Theory for all of your event rental needs.
As soon as anyone catches sight of an inflatable – whether it's a bounce house, a water slide, an obstacle course, or anything else that's bright, colorful, and filled with air and tons of fun – they can't help but feel excited. Kids and kids at heart can't wait to kick off their shoes and join in on the fun!
From carnivals to festivals, from birthday parties to graduations, and even corporate events, an inflatable will boost the fun factor at any event and make it an affair to remember. If you've never used one before, here's a look at seven great reasons why you should consider inflatable rentals for your next event (or even just an ordinary day).
They're Fun!
It goes without saying, but we're going to say it anyway: inflatables are tons of fun! People of all ages, young and old, just can't help but get excited when they see a bounce house, water slide, obstacle course, or any other inflatable. It's totally understandable, too! Who wouldn't love soaring through the air, flying down a huge slide, or leaping over obstacles in a big, colorful, air-filled space?
They're Safe
Have you ever been inside an inflatable? They're made of smooth materials and filled with air, which means that there's no hard surfaces or sharp corners to bump into. Kids and adults can bounce, slide, hop, and even do cartwheels without having to worry about getting hurt! You definitely can't say the same thing for sand, gravel, concrete, grass, or any other hard surface.
Plus, if you rent an inflatable from a reputable company, you'll have peace of mind knowing that you'll get the highest quality, most secure equipment possible, which further ups the safety factors.
They Encourage Socialization
Inflatable equipment invites people to interact with each other. The give kids and adults the opportunity to socialize with their peers, get to know them, and even practice social etiquette skills. But you didn't realize that an inflatable could provide life skills, huh?
There are Tons of Options
There are so many different types of inflatables; bounce houses, obstacle course, water slides, combo inflatables (slides and bouncers in one, for example), bungee runs, basketball, life-sized foosball… You'll be able to find an inflatable that will offer tons of fun. There are different sizes and themes, too; superheroes, princesses, cartoon characters, oversized bouncers, indoor bouncers; whatever your needs may be, there's sure to be an inflatable that will dazzle and delight.
They Make Lasting Memories
The memories that are made in an inflatable will last a lifetime! Kids will always remember that awesome bounce house that played in at a birthday party, a festival, or on a random afternoon in their backyard or living room. Adults and coworkers will look back on bouncing, sliding, zip lining, participating in obstacle courses, and playing interactive games with fondness. Whoever uses an inflatable will make memories that they can hold onto forever.
They Offer Parents Peace of Mind
Parents can have peace of mind knowing that their children are playing in a safe and secure environment. Plus, when their little ones are bouncing, they will have confidence knowing that they are having a great time. As an added bonus, moms and dads can enjoy some adult socialization when their kids are playing in a safe location.
They're Affordable
You can't put a price on fun, memories, safety, and peace of mind; but if you could, inflatables are certainly an affordable way to ensure all of these things. No matter what your budget may be, there's an inflatable that will fit your needs.
They're Versatile
Inflatable rentals are the perfect addition for any event; birthday parties, barbecues, holiday gatherings, block parties, corporate functions, festivals, graduations, and any other event you can think of! Heck, you can even rent an inflatable just because and turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary one.
The Big Bounce Theory: Long Island's Most Trusted Source for Inflatable Fun
Given all of the benefits that inflatables provide, if you're planning an event or you're just looking for something fun to do, you should definitely consider renting one. If you're interested in inflatable rentals, contact The Big Bounce Theory, the most trusted party and event rental company on Long Island. They offer tons of inflatable options and have something for every event and budget.
To learn more about The Big Bounce Theory's inflatable rentals, visit TheBigBounceTheory.com or call 631.778.6861 today! One of their friendly associates will be more than happy to assist you.


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Hewick (Gavin Sheehan) wins the King George VI Chase Kempton 26.12.23 Pic: Edward Whitaker
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Pittsburgh police said a determined 6-year-old girl didn't hurt anyone when she crashed her mother's car while trying to drive across town to visit her father.
Police haven't released the name of the girl whose mother was reportedly still sleeping when the girl took the woman's car keys about 9 a.m. Sunday.
Police Sgt. Jerry Parker said the little girl is tall for her age, though that doesn't quite explain how she learned to drive, saying, "How she knew how to operate a car, your guess is as good as mine."
According to police, the girl hit two parked vehicles, pushing one of them into a third, before hitting a utility pole.
Police and the girl's father arrived to take her home after the accident.
Authorities are still investigating, but haven't said if anyone will face charges.