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By Robert Emmett Murphy, Jr.
Special to ATLRetro.com
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER By Seth Grahame-Smith; Grand Central Publishing. 384 pages.
If the forecasts of the end of publishing as we know it, and the end of the novel as an important art form, prove correct, what will we be left with?
Well, one thing I note when I go into a bookstore is that though there's not as much of what I personally want any more, there's an ever growing abundance of at least one type of product. The product is remarkably adaptable to our all-too-instantaneous culture, and so deeply committed to vacillating fashions, that though the books are individually ephemeral, they are collectively eternal. I refer to novelty books.
Each is quickly produced, and just as quickly forgotten, yet the space they occupy is never empty. And if you return to that space over and over again, you will see that our impulsive and unconsidered consumption of facile distraction represents a continuum, demonstrating evidence of the hive mind and proof of a certain form of reincarnation. Moreover, within these novelties, maybe sometimes there is the possibility of a slightly substantive literature.
Both of Seth Grahame-Smith's two most famous novels, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE WITH ZOMBIES and this one, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, were commissioned for gimmicky series dreamed up by his editor at Grand Central Books. In both cases, he was the only novelist engaged who was able to play with the gimmicks (rewriting classics with monsters, reimagining historical figures with monsters) in a way that received significant positive critical attention. Grahame-Smith has a rare gift (or compulsion) to infuse some artistry to a throwaway idea. His literary career is distinguished by focusing on some ersatz absurdity, applying a sharper intelligence than many would think the subject deserves, and then keeping his one-note-joke buoyed by imaginative wit and exceptional attention to telling detail. He knows how the mechanisms of the B- and exploitation-movies make a narrative move, and he knows how to toss in just enough brain candy so that we don't feel as guilty while reading his work as we did that time when Mom caught us flipping though the pages of a dirty magazine. (I should throw in, his first book was THE BIG BOOK OF PORN, a modestly seriously-minded history of the porn industry.) Here we have (as Gina McIntyre put it) "a great SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE sketch" transformed into a full-blooded, even epic novel.
In classic "high-concept" style (who the hell coined "high-concept"? It's deliberating misleading as it inevitably targets the lowest common denominator!), the title says it all. I expected it to be fun, and it was, but I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. And there in lies the rub – it was good enough to disappoint. When I saw what Graham-Smith was capable of doing, he raised my expectations, and then I found myself disappointed he didn't do even more.
No one reading ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER is expecting either a real biography, or something comparable to the truly timeless historical novels like WAR AND PEACE. This is a populist fiction about a President we like a lot more in myth that reality. Rather than comparing this book to Doris Kearns Goodwin's TEAM OF RIVALS (the basis of the Steven Spielberg movie LINCOLN) or Leo Tolstoy, we are more in the territory of the movie YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, that sentimental piece of heliography that made Henry Fonda a star back in 1939 (directed by John Ford, written by Lamar Trotti).
Well, like YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, only with more a lot more blood and a much higher body count.
But then Grahame-Smith surprises us with a Lincoln who is many times more believable than Fonda's. This Lincoln is strongly sympathetic, and though frequenting engaging in super-heroic antics, he's neither a paragon of some ideal (Superman) nor an invitingly unoccupied vessel for the reader to fill with over-textural identification (most private eye heros). Clearly, Graham-Smith learned a few things from comic-book pioneer Stan Lee's formula. In the past, Graham-Smith has collaborated with Lee, and here we see that the student far has excelled the master.
The novel begins in 2008, with a fictional version of Seth Grahame-Smith deep in a writer's funk as he watches President Obama's first inauguration. At this historically appropriate moment, he is offered a confusing, disturbing, perhaps dangerous, but also irresistible commission: to edit and flesh-out a long rumored of, but never made public diary which represents nothing short of a secret history of the Civil War, and by extension, America's development and the whole of Western Civilization. You see, vampires are real, and the diary was Abraham Lincoln's own record of his war against them.
The novel that follows switches back and forth between Lincoln's secret dairies, which are, of course, fiction, woven seamlessly in with Lincoln's letters, which are real, and Grahame-Smith's omniscient third-person narrative, which is based on the testimony of surviving (undead) witnesses and a great deal of material pulled directly from more respectable historical sources.
The novel starts in Lincoln's childhood and shows his development in a rich and thoughtful in a way that too little genre fiction has much patience for. Deftly sketched is Lincoln's complicated family tree, the challenges of his humble beginnings, his strained relationship with his father, his enormous personal drive, his insatiable intellectual curiosity, and how his life's trajectories were guided by a series of early tragic losses and economic reversals. Lincoln's famous battle with depression is woven throughout the book, but treated with an appropriately light touch, because Grahame-Smith instinctively knows that had the depression truly been crippling, Lincoln would've never become Lincoln. It is somewhat removed from the "cult of Lincoln" of popular myth and somewhat closer to a figure historians would recognize.
At least up to a point.
The "up to a point" part is the crux of the novel, because in 1820 Lincoln realizes his life is being shaped by the capricious whim and insatiable hunger of supernatural entities that are stronger, faster, more experienced and more skillful than he. In 1820, he launches a one-man covert-war against their evil.
The novel is at its strongest when addressing Lincoln's early days. Rich in the biographical detail of years that many, even Civil War buffs, are not fully familiar with, this part of Lincoln's life is the era in which this kind of keyhole narrative can most easily be integrated into historical realities. The young Lincoln rambled widely, living and working in several states and trying out several professions, giving any adept writer abundant opportunity to paint the landscape vividly and imaginatively and still remain in the context of the verifiable. When Grahame-Smith puts words in his fictional Lincoln's mouth, he displays a fluid style that is often lacking in like-pastiches, for example, when the diary recounts what Lincoln witnessed at a slave auction:
"I saw a Negro girl of three or four clinging to her mother, confused as to why she was dressed in such clothes; why she had been scrubbed the night before; made to stand on this platform while men shouted numbers and waved pieces of paper in the air. Again I wondered why a Creator who had dreamt such beauty would have slandered it with such evil."
By this point in the narrative, Lincoln has already allied himself with a group of not-so-evil vampires who call themselves the "Union" – get it? – against the other more powerful group who dominated Southern politics and society. His political career which would start not long after and be shaped by that association. The contrasts in which the story revels rest on this foundation, largely historical content vs. horror-movie scares and comic-book action scenes.
The horror/action content is fast- paced, hugely entraining and often quite funny. In one episode, Lincoln, now a lawyer, is bruised in court with the loss of a civil suit; that evening he goes out on a vampire hunt. To his surprise, it turns out that evening's monster is none other than his client from earlier in the day. Just as they are about engage in their death duel, the demoness hisses contemptuously that Lincoln better hope that he's a better fighter than an attorney.
Grahame-Smith's historical fidelity grants his hero a more interesting character arc than most pulp heroes. When this fictional Lincoln, mimicking the real one, falls in love, marries, has children and enters politics, he does something few action heroes ever do, but most men of accomplishment accept as an inevitability. He puts aside childish things (in this case, his axe) and creates a more stable and sustainable life, integrating himself into new venues, and pondering how he can apply the lessons of his youth to the realities of maturity.
This radical turn in the narrative allows the pulp novel to be shaped by more-complex-than-average relationships. Lincoln profoundly loves his wife, who is treated with a lot more respect here than in most dramatizations of Lincoln's life, but still he turns his back on her in her hour of greatest need. After losing a second child, she spirals into mental instability, but by then he is President and in the midst of the ultimate national crisis. I also liked the handling of his long-rivalry, and occasional allegiance, with Stephen Douglas, who in most Lincoln dramas is regulated to a single footnote incident.
The novel leans heavily on mano-a-mano combat up to this point, and as the more complex history unfolds, Grahame-Smith repeatedly interrupts it with more breathless action-episodes. During the build-up to the Civil War, the retired vampire hunter reluctantly accepts one last vital mission from his Union allies.
So the hero's reluctantly dragged out of retirement for one last vital mission. Yeah, we all know how well those generally work out, don't we?
This situation leads to a wild scene where Lincoln and his two assistant vampire hunters, Joshua Speed and Jack Armstrong (both historical characters), are hopelessly trapped in a burning plantation-manor-house, surrounded by an army of vampires, while Jefferson Davis, in classic melodramatic villain style, gives a smug speech about the superiority of his cravenness over Abe's naive virtues. It would not have been out of place in the recent film DJANGO UNCHAINED.
As entertaining as all this interplay is, it also is evidence of the difficulties of taking a story that was one thing and trying to mutate into another into another. This problem is demonstrated even in the number of pages the book devotes to this subject or that. A full 187 pages are required to get us to the year 1843, when Lincoln hangs up his axe. After that, a mere 146 pages is left to get him into Congress, then the White House, guide the nation through the Civil War, and fall to an assassin's bullet (by the way, John Wilkes Booth was a vampire).
However, Graham-Smith, making vampires the primary drivers of the slave economy and the secret force behind the South's mad, headlong rush into war, has stumbled across a near perfect metaphor. Vampires, since Dracula, have represented hold-over superstitions trying to keep the shadows deep and dark in the face of the light of reason and modernity, and they are simultaneously the aristocracy and the parasite. They have been exploited to make political points not only in fiction but presidential campaign rhetoric (anyone remember the "Romney is a Vampire" TV ad?). The metaphor has rarely been utilized as forcefully as here, but unfortunately it isn't used to dig as deep as it could. Having set the stage so deftly, Graham-Smith fails to utilize his fantasy to illuminate real themes in history as historical fictions are generally expected to do.
One thing almost every Lincoln drama gets wrong is how slowly his positions on slavery evolved. From his earliest years, he found slavery morally repugnant, and his abolitionist rhetoric was fiery in even his earliest political speeches. But even well into the Civil War, his policies regarding the institution were, in fact, quite moderate (and from a 21st century perspective, reprehensible). Preservation of the Union was his number one priority, freeing the slaves was way down the list. It would not be much of a stretch to say he'd have been satisfied to institute a handful of reforms that maybe could have been utilized by others later, and that he was okay with the possibility that the end of slavery was something he didn't personally live to see.
The first step in seeing someone as human is fully recognizing them as real. There's little reason to think that black slaves, who did move Lincoln's heart when he saw them suffer from a distance, were ever close enough to him that he was forced to see them as real as his friends and associates, or even as real as his bitter enemies. There's little or no record of Lincoln having substantive encounters with blacks during his formative years in rural Kentucky. Working on a flat boat on the Mississippi, he wasn't likely to be invited into the homes of slave owners, nor to encounter the minority of black freemen in his day-to-day labors. Though Lincoln married the daughter of a prominent slave-holder, he was not close to his in-laws, and he and his wife settled in a free state. I'd wager that it's not likely he had a conversation with a black person longer than 10 words before went to Washington in 1846, maybe not until he entered the White House in 1861, and maybe not even until his memorable meeting with Frederick Douglass in 1863 (which isn't included in this particular book).
Moreover, not only was Lincoln not a liberal by today's standards, he was a man of a time when it would've been almost overwhelming intellectually challenging to conceive of blacks as fully of the same species as whites. He was quite articulate in expressing his belief that blacks were inferior to whites. Lincoln's moral evolution was a long road that most dramatists don't want to admit he had to travel. Nor do they want to acknowledge that his eventual abandonment of comfortable, if reprehensible, moderation and his heroic embrace of a righteous stand was something that he was burdened with, in part, by the Confederate madness.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER doesn't misrepresent Lincoln's relationship with slavery, but having built so a fine bridge of fantasy to this true subject, it side-steps it rather than crossing it.
The novel is better in evoking the madness and hopeless of the Southern cause, but even here I find fault. We see the relentless spiral towards war through Lincoln's eyes in the first-person entries. But Graham-Smith also availed himself of the third person omniscient, yet didn't utilize it when it was most needed. It should've been said that the South had a smaller population, a limited industrial base, and significantly no cannon factories. The Confederate strategy was to strike first in the months between the election and inauguration and then dig in so that the Federal Government couldn't respond. When Lincoln chose the course of military engagement, the South inevitably was doomed. Yet almost four years and more than 600,000 lives were forfeited to this pointless exercise. Even to that last moment, the firing on Fort Sumter – hell, even after that last moment – the South had so many other options, but they acted with the kind of irrational absolutism that we now associate with only the maddest of despots or the presumptuousness of the divine (read: supernatural) right of kings.
According to a 1973 study by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin, had the South ended the institution of slavery by buying and freeing all the slaves instead of going to war, it would've cost them about $2.7 billion 1861 dollars. True, it is hard to imagine the political will to execute such a plan could've ever been mustered, but what were the costs of turning their collective backs on any compromise or accommodation? On the Southern side alone, the most often-cited figures are $1 billion in property destruction, $1.5 billion in loss of human capital, $767 million for war expenditures, and an appalling 258,000 dead young men. To this, Goldin added a net economic difference of $10 billion between an imaginary South without rebellion and the one we got, in which wide regions wallowed in near continuous recession for the next 80 years. This is the kind of clarifying extra that the fictional narrator Graham-Smith could have provided us with, but that the fictional diarist Lincoln couldn't have been reasonably expected to.
And not for nothing, the real Lincoln, who couldn't have done Goldin's math, wasn't insensitive to the idea. In an 1862 letter Lincoln wrote, "Less than one half-day's cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at $400 per head … [and] less than 87 days' cost of the war would, at the same price, pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky and Missouri." (This letter is not cited in this particular book.) In fact the Federal government did buy back the slaves within the confines of the District of Columbia. (This fact is also not cited in this particular book.)
Once the war starts, the novel engages the reader mostly because of its effective and exciting compression of what actually happened, while the vampire metaphor, suddenly under-exploited and under-explored, loses much of it bite (pardon the pun). Lev Grossman puts it well in TIME Magazine, "Once the connection is made, it feels obvious, and neither slavery nor vampirism reveals anything in particular about the other. One could imagine a richer, subtler treatment of the subject, in which the two horrors multiply each other rather than cancel each other out."
Yet as Lincoln fictions go, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER has more to say than most. Maybe it communicates something about our culture that a deliberately ridiculous, axe-wielding, vigilante super-hero towers over most more easily respected works. Allegedly realistic fictions have been full of myth, while the myth-shaped novel presents a sharper picture. One measure in how the novel succeeds is revealed in a words of a withering critique of the Timur Bekmambetov's film based on this novel. Historian Vernon Burton enjoyed the book but hated the movie, and spoke volumes of the pitfalls of fictions that prove incapable of grasping the real historical issues they grapple with (from an article by Tierney Sneed in US News and World Report):
"'Slavery was our national sin,' said Burton, who said the connection works in that 'the nation sucked the blood out of Africans for its wealth.' However, in posing vampires as the villains behind the crime of slavery, the film risks 'letting the South and the United States off,' freeing it from blame for the practice.
'The book did some clever things,' said Burton. 'I was excited to see the movie. The book had potential.' He said the film version was oversimplified, and he worried viewers would make too much of what he and other historians often call the 'Oliver Stone school of history.'"
That, at least, is one trap the novel didn't fall into.
Robert Murphy is 47 years old and lives in New York City. Formerly employed, he now has plenty of time to write about movies and books and play with his cats.


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Today it was revealed the man brandishing the "gun" at photographers as he sat next to Pippa Middleton is wealthy French lawyer Romain Rabillard.
According to The Sun, Rabillard rents a £2,000-a-month penthouse and is frequently seen with a string of women as he roars around Paris in his Audi convertible.
A source told the newspaper: "Romain is a hard-working lawyer but likes to enjoy himself and is well known on the Paris party scene. He likes being the centre of attention."
Rabillard, who speaks three languages, is listed as an associate at American law firm Shearman and Sterling in the Champs-Elysee.
There was no answer at his office when Huffington Post UK attempted to contact him today.
Scroll down for more images of Pippa Middleton and her friends partying in Paris
Rabillard (right) and Pippa were pictured with friends shortly before the incident
It is still unclear whether the gun is real, or "a toy", as has been claimed by party-goer Marcy de Soultrait.
If it is real, the maximum sentence for brandishing a weapon in a public place is seven years. If it is fake, "all parties involved" could face two years in prison.
The 36-year-old is also a senior advisor to one of the world's leading small arms manufacturers, The Telegraph reports.
A source at Heckler & Koch , which is know for its range of USP semi-automatic pistols, confirmed Rabillard had represented the firm in legal matters.
Paris police have been ordered to "downscale" the inquiry into the incident following "an intervention from London", reports the Mirror.
A source said: "If the suspects involved were ordinary kids from the estates they would have been brought in by now."
- Pippa Middleton Gun Drama: Royal-In-Law Filmed Partying With Dwarves, Strippers And Sex Toys
- Pippa Middleton Gun Drama: 'She Thought It Was Funny. You English Need To Get Over It' Claims Friend
- Pippa Middleton To Be Quizzed By Police? Friend Points 'Gun' At Paparazzi In Paris
- Pippa Middleton Gun Drama: Kate's Sister Pictured Living It Up At Lavish Party Just Hours Before Incident
- After Pippa Middleton Gun Drama, Here's Five Other Royal Media Gaffes
- Pippa Middleton Not To Be Questioned By Paris Police About Gun Pictures Unless Formal Complaint Made

subset: commoncrawl


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No matter the style or vintage of your house, a workable, up-to-date kitchen is a must. A kitchen remodel will make everyday routines more efficient and enjoyable. And if you're thinking of selling your home anytime soon, it will be a focal point for potential buyers and a big factor in their perception of your home's overall value.
It's true that a kitchen remodel can cost a pretty penny, but there's a lot that you can do to spruce up a kitchen on a limited budget. Choose a few of the following kitchen elements as targets for change and an upgrade in home value, whether you plan to sell or stay for a while.
Creative countertops
Change the view and upgrade kitchen workspaces by replacing the countertops. If you have a small kitchen, enjoy one of the benefits of its scale: By shopping for natural stone remnants, you can get a high-end look at a fraction of the usual cost. Natural stone tile makes for another appealing, cost-effective countertop option, and there are also several green countertop materials with both the sustainability and style to appeal to potential buyers.
A better backsplash
Don't stop at the countertop! Continue or complement your countertop look behind the sink in the backsplash zone. Tile is not only a beautiful choice, it's also now easier than ever to install — thanks to advances in sheet adhesives like Bondera, which allow you to tile and grout in the same day, without the use of messy mastic.
Cabinet camouflage
Cabinetry can be a huge kitchen cost, so don't yank your cabinets down just because they look a little dated and tired. Instead, refresh the cabinets you have by refinishing or repainting them.
Also consider re-accessorizing cabinetry. "Add crown molding to your cabinets, if you don't have any already," advises Matt Hedstrom of LPI Kitchen & Bath in Kenosha, Wisc. "For added visual interest, use crown molding in a finish that contrasts with that of the existing cabinets. That'll accentuate the architectural detailing and give your kitchen a fresher look. And upgrade or add cabinet hardware. New hardware can change the whole look of the kitchen if you do it right."
Fresh faucet
Another easy, affordable way to update your kitchen is by switching in a stylish new faucet with the kinds of conveniences cooks love. One innovative example is Delta Faucet's Pilar Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet with Touch20 Technology. It has the sleek, high-arc swivel spout that's so popular in contemporary kitchens, and to start or stop the flow of water, you simply tap anywhere on the faucet's spout or handle. The Pilar design also incorporates a two-function pull-down spray that switches from stream to spray with the click of a button, for faster food prep and kitchen cleanup.
Star-worthy appliances
Dated appliances can bring down a kitchen's overall look while keeping energy bills higher than they need to be. So shop for replacements bearing the Energy Star seal, which tells both you and potential homebuyers that an appliance exceeds Department of Energy guidelines for energy efficiency by at least 10 percent. According to a recent survey by the National Kitchen & Bath Association, energy-efficient products are among the top trends in kitchen upgrades that deliver long-term value to consumers, so follow the crowd to enjoy savings and style in your kitchen space.
Better lighting
Improve function and highlight architectural form in your kitchen with a better lighting scheme. Continue the theme of energy efficiency with the latest in compact fluorescent and LED light fixtures, and integrate dimmer switches to manage lighting use and create kitchen drama.
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Kitchen flooring that's worn (or way out there, color-wise) can blind buyers to the rest of your kitchen's features, so look for a solution that will stand up to moisture and household traffic. Vinyl flooring comes in more styles and colors than ever, and laminate systems are simple for even the novice DIYer to install. Also check out striking tile styles: Daltile offers ceramic tile that looks identical to real slate without the maintenance issues. It also combats the growth of stain- and odor-causing bacteria thanks to integrated Microban technology, and keeps things green with the highest recycled material content of any tile in the industry.
Updating the look of your kitchen isn't always a project that requires a second mortgage. Take small steps with high value updates like these and enjoy a big impacts through every stage of the project!


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Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone Studio Set with suspension mount (Black)
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Specification | Acoustical operating principle: Pressure gradient transducer Directional pattern: Cardioid Frequency range: 20 Hz ... 20 kHz Sensitivity at 1 kHz into 1 kohm: 23 mV/Pa Rated impedance: 50 ohms Rated load impedance: 1 kohms Equivalent noise level,: 17.5 dB Signal-to-noise ratio, (rel. 94 dB SPL): 76.5 dB Maximum SPL for THD 0.5%: 138 dB Maximum output voltage: 13 dBu Dynamic range of the microphone amplifier (A-weighted): 131 dB Supply voltage (P48, IEC 61938): 48 V ± 4 V Current consumption (P48, IEC 61938): 3 mA Matching connector: XLR3F Colour: Black Dimensions and Weight
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PhET - Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado provides fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena for free. Research-based approach - incorporating findings from prior research and our own testing - enables students to make connections between real-life phenomena and the underlying science, deepening their understanding and appreciation of the physical world.
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Beyond climate change, there's the Anthropocene. Humans have altered the planet to such an extent that it has entered a new age. The Anthropocene and the unprecedented changes it brings call for a new way to think about how humans relate to the planet.
"Anthropocene" is a widely proposed name for the geological epoch that covers human impact on our planet. But it is not synonymous with "climate change," nor can it covered by "environmental problems." Bigger and more shocking, the Anthropocene encapsulates the evidence that human pressures became so profound around the middle of the 20th century that we blew a planetary gasket. Hello, new Earth System. Hello, Anthropocene.
The phrase "Earth System" refers to the entirety of our planet's interacting physical, chemical, biological, and human processes. Enabled by new data-collecting technologies like satellites and ever more powerful computer modeling, Earth System science reframes how we understand our planet. Climate is just one element of this system; if we focus on that alone, we will misunderstand the complexity of the danger. The term "environment" helps us understand ourselves as part of ecosystems, but fails to capture the newness of our current situation. We have always lived in the environment; only very recently, just as Asia began its skyrocketing development, did we begin living in the altered Earth System of the Anthropocene.
The Anthropocene Requires a New Way of Thinking
The Anthropocene is a multidimensional challenge. Our future is more unpredictable than ever, with new phenomena like Category 5 megastorms, rapid species extinction, and the loss of polar ice. This change is irreversible. NASA says that levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) are higher than they have been at any time in the past 400,000 years—well before our species evolved—causing the atmosphere to warm.
The climate has certainly changed, but so too have other aspects of the planetary system. Take the lithosphere: 193,000 human-made "inorganic crystalline compounds," or what you and I might call "rocks," now vastly outnumber Earth's ~5000 natural minerals, while 8.3 billion tons of plastics coat the land, water, and our internal organs. Due to modern agribusiness techniques, so much topsoil is washing away that England has only about 60 more harvests left.
The biosphere is equally altered. Never has the planet been so crowded with human beings. In 1900, there were around 1.5 billion of us; in the 1960s, around 3 billion; today there are upwards of 7.4 billion. Human beings and our domesticated animals comprise an astounding 97% of the total zoomass of terrestrial mammals, meaning that wild creatures make up a miserly 3%. Humans and our companion species occupy considerably more than half of the planet's habitable land surface. Concerning the hydrosphere, fresh water renews itself at the rate of about 1% a year, but currently 21 out of 37 of the world's major aquifers are being drawn down faster—in some cases much faster—than they can be replenished.
Due to modern agribusiness techniques, so much topsoil is washing away that England has only about 60 more harvests left.
The planet's chemistry has changed too. Warmer oceans interfere with the production of oxygen by phytoplankton, and some scientists predict that with a rise of 6oC—which could happen as soon as 2100—this oxygen production could cease. Our production of fixed nitrogen is five times higher than it was 60 years ago; in fact, Earth has never had so much fixed nitrogen in its entire ~4.5-billion-year history. Since World War II, synthetic chemical production has increased more than thirtyfold. Of the more than 80,000 new chemicals, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has tested only about 200 for human health risks.
Alarming as each factor is on its own, the concept of the Anthropocene brings all these factors and others together. This is the only way that we can understand Earth as a single reverberating system with feedback loops and tipping points that we can't yet predict.
The Anthropocene's interrelated systematicity presents not a problem, but a multidimensional predicament. A problem might be solved, often with a single technological tool produced by experts in a single field, but a predicament presents a challenging condition requiring resources and ideas of many kinds. We don't solve predicaments; instead, we navigate through them. Collaboration among scientists, policymakers, social scientists, humanists, and community leaders is key to contending with the Anthropocene. Technology is important, but the hardest challenges will be about how to alter our political and economic systems. Even the United Nations' US$24 million Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) concluded that our current systems are not up to the task: we need "significant changes in policies, institutions and practices that are not currently under way."
The Danger of the One-Dimensional Thinking of Climate Change
So, are the techno-optimists, who believe most world problems can be solved by innovation, wrong? The answer to this question is that they are not so much wrong as misguided, addressing a narrow issue in the narrowest terms. Most begin by gesturing toward the totality of environmental problems, but end by focusing on climate change alone. Sometimes climate change is further reduced to CO2 emissions to the exclusion of all other greenhouse gases, such as methane.
Technology is important, but the hardest challenges will be about how to alter our political and economic systems.
A favorite example of techno-optimists like economist Jeffrey Sachs is substituting wind power for fossil fuels. Like others, he speaks in confident tones about "decoupling" economic growth from natural resources, contending that "growth can continue while pressures on key resources (water, air, land, habitats of other species) and pollution are significantly reduced rather than increased," by means of new technologies and market pricing. In short, we can provide for the growing human population (expected to hit 8 billion in 2023) without destroying the ecosystem, without impoverishing future generations, and without bothering to transform our political and economic systems. The status quo is fine if we tighten a few nuts and bolts. Let us look at this techno-optimism from the Anthropocene perspective.
Most offshore wind turbines require rare earth metals sourced from China, which supplies about 90% of the world's demand and has a monopoly on some elements. Not only are the mines of China's primary production site, the southeastern province of Jiangxi, being rapidly depleted, but such mining entails shocking environmental and social costs. According to investigative journalist Liu Hongqiao, "Research has found that producing one ton of rare earth ore (in terms of rare earth oxides) produces 200 cubic meters of acidic wastewater. The production of the rare earths needed to meet China's demand for wind turbines up to 2050 … will result in the release of 80 million cubic meters of wastewater." Once obtained, this ore must be transported and processed to make turbines. These turbines, once positioned, require maintenance, using more resources. Ultimately, though, they will end up as refuse, more trash on our trash-filled planet. There is nothing dematerialized or carbon-free about wind turbines if we look at the total picture.
Reducing our problem to climate change, then to CO2, and finally to measuring emissions only at the point of energy production is a dramatic misrepresentation of our dilemma. An Anthropocene perspective is needed to keep the totality of the predicament in view.
Reducing our problem to climate change, then to CO2, and finally to measuring emissions only at the point of energy production is a dramatic misrepresentation of our dilemma.
Slowing climate change is crucial but navigating its challenges is only possible if it is understood as one facet of planetary overshoot. The challenges of our altered, unpredictable Earth System cannot be met by technological tinkering within the very systems that pushed it over the edge in the first place. There's nothing for it but to roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work of transforming our political and economic systems with the aims of decency and resilience.
Check out here for more research and analysis from Asian perspectives.


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The NY Population Study and R. Yisrael Salanter's Horses
Mixed emotions are best conveyed by an imaginary of scenario of watching your sworn enemy go over the side of a cliff in your new Lotus. R. Akiva had to contend with worse. When he met up with the wife of Tyrannus Rufus (Avodah Zarah 20A), he laughed, cried, and spat, satisfying three – not two – concurrent emotional needs. We might take a page from his playbook in reacting to the UJA-Federation New York population study.
R. Akiva laughed, because he foresaw that one day she would become his wife. We can likewise take some pleasure in the vindication of our prognostications for decades that the heterodox movements were doomed to self-destruct, while Orthodoxy would grow by leaps and bounds. The study shows an erosion of both numbers (40,000 lost to both Reform and Conservative between 2002 and 2011) and religious observance. On the other hand, 40% of the respondents saw themselves as Orthodox; a whopping 74% of Jewish children in New York are now Orthodox. The other movements, as predicted, are not marrying, or deferring marriage, or marrying out and then having 1.3 children (and a dog); the Orthodox marry, marry Jewish, and are fruitful and multiply as if they believed it were a Biblical mandate.
R. Akiva cried, because he understood that her beauty was ephemeral. She would die and decay, like everyone else. The study gives us no real cause for celebration. We are witnessing the decimation of the ranks of acheinu Bnei Yisrael, and have no way to stop it. It is the end of the line for tens of thousands of Yidden – lines that wended their way through thousands of years of persecution and mesiras nefesh, only to wither on the vine. The thinning of our ranks will have, at least according to the natural order of things, disastrous consequences on the quality of Jewish life in this country for us survivors. (It becomes easier each day to see the Hand of G-d nudging us closer to the Aliyah office.) We have become comfortable in this galus – undoubtedly too comfortable. Part of that comfort derives from the huge, positive impact that Jews have had on general society, which makes us richly networked and valuable to our neighbors. But it hasn't been the Orthodox who built that power base. As the heterodox continue to disappear, the importance of Jews in America – and hence their influence – will decline. This, in times of stress, will tend to make life here gradually less comfortable.
Most importantly, the study should not lead us to rejoice, because it does not put Torah in a very positive light. One in four of those Jewish New Yorkers is poor. In the Chassidic communities of Brooklyn, the poverty figure is 43%. There is nothing shameful about poverty; the gemara says that it is appropriate for Klal Yisrael. Poverty can and often does mean less dependence on material things, and more simplicity. We should be proud of those values, regardless of the norms of our cultural surround. Poverty is embarrassing, however, when it is accompanied by an expectation that others will unwillingly foot the bill for it. (Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to deride the "cycles of dependency" inflicted upon the Black community by lax and generous welfare allocations. Just whom would he be pointing to today?) It took Peter Beinart's blog little time to mock the growth of a community that depends on the largesse of society to survive while opposing social service assistance to other groups. It was followed not long after by The Forward. The image certainly does not promote Torah as a system that – as people in the kiruv world are wont to preach – offers the most satisfying answers to the problems of life. A community that can only survive by having others pay for their spiritual lives is hardly a kiddush Hashem.
R. Akiva also spat. He realized that the woman's beauty was not just objectively pleasing, but also tempting. He needed to resist the temptation, and reminded himself that what is so exciting to men is ordinary blood and tissue. We as well need to resist the temptation to be triumphal or even complacent about the study. As denominational affiliation declines, the possibility of reclaiming non-observant Jews would seem to decrease. We worked for decades to open doors wide to invite return. Those doors are inexorably closing, despite our efforts.
Or are they? When R. Yisrael Salanter left for Paris, he was asked why he was turning his back on the frum communities of Lita, and heading for assimilationist Western Europe. "Picture a team of horses which have escaped the control of their master, and are charging at full speed. How do you reassert control? Your first impulse might be to run into the roadway in front of them to try to stop them. This will just mean that they will run over and crush you. Alternatively, you recognize that eventually they will tire and stop on their own. At that point, you can calmly walk towards them and lead them back where they belong. The Jews of Eastern Europe are galloping out of control. In Paris they have been running so long, that they can be brought back."
The study suggests a new strategy for kiruv, one that poses an enormous challenge to us. Much, although not all, of our outreach has relied upon the fragile connection that many Jews still maintained with their Judaism, and tried to build upon it. Reform and Conservative were conduits away from observance for some people, but they were also placeholders for others, keeping them involved with the Jewish community and therefore available for more intense involvement when the proper programs were offered. Kiruv workers were able to push the right buttons, because those buttons were still connected and operational. We are going to see progressively less of this kind of outreach, even though it is clear that today there are still many Jews who are good candidates for traditional forms of kiruv.
When Jews move away from all kinds of Jewish affiliation and shun even the most basic observances like the Pesach seder, it becomes that much harder to reach them with some traditional kiruv techniques. Like R. Yisrael's horses, however, those who plunge headlong into the often vacuous lifestyle of a hedonistic world will tire of it at some point. They will be looking for something to fill the void, to satisfy their quest for meaning and significance. Will we be the ones best positioned to give them what they need? Only if we get our act together, attend to the cracks in our own Orthodox edifice, and evidence to them the beauty, joy and fulfillment of a properly lived Torah life style, deeply comprehended. That is a tall order, but it is nothing less than what the Ribbono Shel Olam has always asked of us. Until now, we have been successful in many cases simply by talking about a Torah lifestyle. The talk could succeed, because there was some overlap in our Jewish vocabulary. In the kiruv of the future, our actions will speak for themselves. We must become obvious exemplars of living satisfying spiritual and material lives according to the instructions of our Torah, proudly showing off what others do not have.
On second thought – why wait?


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Technical Information
Building Digital Collections: A Technical Overview
The American Memory historical collections at the Library of Congress are the product of a permanent commitment to explore and establish the best practices of digitization, online presentation and access, and digital preservation of historical materials. The information on this page documents current solutions to technical challenges and solutions devised and implemented in the past. The page is updated and expanded periodically.
Information about copyright, privacy and publicity rights regarding the Library of Congress collections can be found on the Library's Legal Notices page.
Consult the Library's Learning Page for information about copyright and fair use.
The Library of Congress' commitment to digitizing historical materials and making them broadly accessible led to an early and persistent concern with establishing versatile and flexible metadata protocols. The documents below explore some of our recent experiences.
Available and Useful: OAI at the Library of Congress. Describes Library of Congress experience as an early adopter of the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. Published in: Library Hi Tech 21(2), 2003, pp. 129 - 139 [DOI:10.1108/07378830310491899]
Library of Congress collections for which records are available for harvesting through the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). Item-level metadata for some Library of Congress collections of historical materials is available for harvesting using OAI-PMH version 2.0. Included are selected collections from American Memory and the Prints & Photographs Division Online Catalog.
Basic Genre Terms for Cultural Heritage Materials. This basic list of genre terms has been compiled to facilitate the American Memory descriptive record normalization project.
The American Memory raises preservation challenges on two fronts: preserving original Library items fully and accurately in digital form; and designing this vast treasury of digital objects so that their utility and accessibility survive and flourish beyond the inevitably limited lifespan of any single technological platform. The links below offer examples of how the Library is meeting these challenges.
Digital Audio-Visual Preservation Prototyping Project. The audio-visual prototyping project is developing new approaches for reformatting recorded sound and moving image collections and experimenting with new ways to present them to researchers. (July 2003)
Keeping Memory Alive: Practices for Preserving Digital Content at the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress
[http://www.rlg.org/legacy/preserv/diginews/diginews4-3.html#feature1]. Published in RLG DigiNews. (June 2000)
Scanning and Conversion
Digitizing priceless historical materials poses a unique challenge. Thus American Memory demands continuous and resourceful attention to evolving standards and practices in scanning and other methods of digital conversion. The documents below reflect some of the most authoritative and pertinent of these efforts; other information is linked under Background Papers in the next section.
(Current documentation)
Library of Congress Technical Standards for Digital Conversion of Text and Graphic Materials (PDF) (280 Kb)
The Library is currently revising a series of standards and best practices to guide the Library's digital conversion efforts. These documents detail the current digitization standards followed by the Library. (December 2006)
Tables for Quick Reference
- LC Baseline Tags for TIFF Images (PDF) (32 Kb)
- Summary of LC Image Quality Standards by Document Type and Expected Outcome (PDF) (44 Kb)
(Previous documentation)
Specifications for Contracted Scanning Services. NDLP Requests
for Proposals for scanning and text conversion of original paper
documents, microfilm, and pictorial materials.[3 documents] (1996).
Illustrated Book Study: Digital Conversion Requirements of Printed Illustrations.(View HTML or PDF version.) By Anne R. Kenney and Louis H. Sharpe II with Barbara Berger, Rick Crowhurst, D. Michael Ott, and Allen Quirk. Report prepared for the Library of Congress by The Cornell University Library Department of Preservation and Conservation and Picture Elements, Incorporated, to determine the best means for digitizing the vast array of illustrations used in 19th and early 20th century commercial publications.(July 1999)
Final Report of the Library of Congress Manuscript Digitization Demonstration Project. (View HTML or PDF version.) Includes copies of sample images created during two phases investigation of best practices for digitizing manuscript documents. Sponsored by the Library of Congress Preservation Office in cooperation with the National Digital Library Program. (October 1998)
Recommendations for the Evaluation of Digital Images Produced from Photographic, Micrographic, and Various Paper Formats. A report from the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) in Rochester , New York , providing recommendations for methods to evaluate the performance and products of scanning service providers. Principal investigators were James Reilly and Dr. Franziska Frey (May 1996)
Text Mark-Up
American Memory DTD for Historical Documents. The text of digital reproductions in American Memory is almost always marked up in SGML using a TEI-conformant DTD. The same DTD is used whether the text is generated by human transcription or optical character recognition (OCR). [3 documents] (June 1998)
EAD Finding Aids. Links to archival finding aids available online at the Library of Congress. Several of the American Memory collections have associated archival finding aids. These finding aids have usually been developed to guide users of the physical collection, organized into boxes and folders. The finding aids have been marked up in XML following the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) standard. They may be viewed as framed and unframed HTML and printed as PDF; the HTML and PDF versions are generated from the EAD XML. (January 2006)
Background Papers
The following documents include some of the most significant materials from the early technical history of the American Memory Web site.
Getting the Picture: Observations from the Library of Congress on Providing Online Access to Pictorial Images. Describes selected aspects of the Library's practical experience and current practices from digital capture through interactions with users, with an emphasis on the integration of access to pictorial images online with other services and activities at the Library. Published in: Library Trends. (Fall 1999)
Technical Information for Applicants to the LC/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition. This three-year competition accepted applications from 1996 to 1998. The information provided to applicants in 1998 provides a snapshot of many technical issues relating to the creation and identification of digital reproductions and to interoperability across the Internet. (1996-1999)
Historical Collections for the National Digital Library: Lessons and Challenges at the Library of Congress. A two-part article in the April and May 1996 issues of D-Lib magazine. Touches briefly on a wide range of issues associated with building a library of digitized historical collections. (1996)
Turning Pages within a Digital Reproduction. One example of a solution to a problem found in many digitization projects -- how to present a sequence of images considered a single item from a bibliographic viewpoint. (May 1998)


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Global Forever Stamps cost $1.20 each and are the cheapest way to send letters from the United States to Australia. The stamps must add up to $1.20 if used with regular domestic forever stamps. The weight of the package is greater than 1 ounce. For first class mail to Australia, which belongs to group 3 in the USPS Price List, here is the postage price.
Table of Contents
The number of stamps I need for a letter to Australia
Stamps are needed according to the paper weight, so weigh your envelope on a kitchen scale before adding the correct number of stamps, immediately rounding up.
Weight | Postage Required | Stamps Required |
1.0 ounce | $2.40 | 2 Global Forever Stamps ($2.40) or 5 First Class Forever Stamps ($2.75) |
2.0 ounces | $3.39 | 3 Global Forever Stamp ($3.60) or 7 First Class Forever Stamps ($3.85) |
3.0 ounces | $4.37 | 4 Global Forever Stamp ($4.80) or 8 First Class Forever Stamps ($4.40) |
4.0 ounces | $5.36 | 5 Global Forever Stamp ($6.00) or 10 First Class Forever Stamps ($5.50) |
5.0 ounces | $6.34 | 6 Global Forever Stamp ($7.20) or 12 First Class Forever Stamps ($6.60) |
6.0 ounces | $7.32 | 7 Global Forever Stamp ($8.40) or 14 First Class Forever Stamps ($7.70) |
7.0 ounces | $8.31 | 7 Global Forever Stamp ($8.40) or 16 First Class Forever Stamps ($8.80) |
8.0 ounces | $9.29 | 8 Global Forever Stamp ($9.60) or 17 First Class Forever Stamps ($9.35) |
9.0 ounces | $11.26 | 10 Global Forever Stamp ($12.00) or 20 First Class Forever Stamps ($11.55) |
10.0 ounces | $11.26 | 10 Global Forever Stamp ($12.00) or 20 First Class Forever Stamps ($11.55) |
Status Of Covid-19 / Coronavirus: Delivering Normally
Currently, mail to Australia is proceeding normally. You can monitor updates on the USPS website. This page will be updated daily if there are any clarifications.
How Many Stamps For A Postcard?
You will have to purchase a Global Forever Stamp for $1.20 if you'd like to send a postcard to Australia.
- It must be rectangular and not square or round.
- At least 3-1/2″ high, 5″ long, and 0.007″ thick
- The item must not exceed 4-1/4 inches in height, 6 inches in length, and 0.016 inches thick.
Envelope Requirements
Your envelope must be a minimum 5" x 3.5", maximum 11.5" x 6+⅛", and no thicker than 1/4″.
If your envelope is rectangular, not curved, and not uniform in thickness, it's not "machinable" and you'll have to pay $0.15 more for postage. See the full list.
The minimum size for square envelopes is 5″. Square envelopes are non-machinable, so add $0.21 to your order.
How To Weigh Your Envelope
Your envelope's weight should be measured on a kitchen scale. It's easy to purchase an entry level scale from Amazon for $10.99. There's also a higher end scale from My Weigh on Amazon Prime for $38. A Milleroo scale costs $8.25 at Walmart, among other cheap kitchen scales.
You can find out the number of stamps you need for 4×6 photos in our guide – no scale needed!
Where To Buy Stamps
Online at USPS.com you can purchase stamps for just about $1 – shipping is less than $1 for stamp sheets. Many local banks, as well as Walmart and Amazon, carry stamps. At $16.18 for 20 stamps, Amazon is not a great deal, since you can get them for $5.18 less at the USPS.
Accuracy Notes
Postage rates are reviewed weekly.
The latest increase was announced in October 2020, and it came into effect on January 24, 2021. In addition, the price for an additional ounce increased to $0.20. There will be a 1 cent increase for meter mail and postcards. Letters and flats weighing one ounce did not change.
A previous rate change took place in January 2020. Domestic letters under 3.5 ounces are still charged the same rates. All global first-class mail rates went up for flats and international first-class mail. The global forever stamp went up from $1.15 to $1.20. Your old, round global stamps are worth $1.20 now as well. Additionally, flat rates for domestic flats rose by $0.05 per additional ounce as well as changing for international flats. First-class international mail gained an additional ounce with the $1.15 to $1.20 increase in the base rate.
Where To Apply Stamps On A Letter
A letter's stamps should be positioned to the upper right of the page, ideally, in one row. However, a letter with multiple rows and lines of stamps will still be accepted by the post office.
Delivery Times For Letters To Australia
For Australia letters, the delivery time ranges from 7-21 days, as compared to domestic letters which are delivered in 1-3 days.


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.co is global, recognizable — and moving fast.
.co is a top-level domain extension and it's the acronym for company or corporation. .co domain names are easy to recognize, simple to remember and flexible to use. They offer international recognition in a landscape where it's essential to register a domain name with care — not just settle for what's available.
When you want something modern (and even a little edgy), dot co is at least a letter or two shorter than most domain names, signaling your business is on the cutting edge. It could get you more attention as people wonder what's up with this online brand hooked to two simple letters.
Why go with a dot co domain extension?
Back in 2010 when .co launched, there weren't as many options for standing out with your domain name. And while there are hundreds of new domain extensions to choose from today, .co is the perfect blend of edgy and established. So why register .co? There are a lot of reasons:
- It's meaningful, memorable and intuitive for people around the world.
- It's relevant for individuals, businesses and organizations.
- It gives businesses and brands the chance to create a worldwide footprint.
- It appeals to today's socially networked individuals and entrepreneurs.
- It's built on industry-leading technology, enhanced security and the latest protection mechanisms.
- It's new enough – and short enough – that it's easier to get a memorable domain.
There are lots of domains specialized for a specific use or region, but dot co is like that all-star player on a championship team. It's an all-around performer, a whiz when it comes to versatility and memorability. When you're ready to take the field with your next idea, make sure to start with a .co domain name.
Global demand for .co domains.
It didn't take long to discover people were willing to pay top dollar for this short and catchy domain extension. When registrations opened to the whole world in 2010, an auction of the highly desirable e.co brought in $81,000.00. It wasn't long before the .co domain was sparking interest and adoption by some of the most well-known businesses worldwide. Today, you can big names taking advantage of .co, including:
- Amazon (a.co)
- Google (g.co)
- Snapchat (s.co)
- GoDaddy (x.co)


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Click here to download a copy of our Residential Vacancy List!!!!
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TC Property Management & Rentals, Inc. can help you find an apartment, home, duplex or even office space to rent or lease.
We manage hundreds of units throughout Jackson, Tennessee and the surrounding communities. TC Property Management has been in business for over 40 years, providing assistance in leasing apartments, duplexes, town homes, homes, and commercial properties.
From property management to rentals, we are a full service agency with your needs in mind. We can help you with affordable rental properties for all income levels, along with 24-hour emergency maintenance coverage.
TC Property Management & Rentals, Inc. is a member of the Better Business Bureau.


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Four Seasons Hotel is about to return to Shanghai, located on Huaihai Middle Road in Huangpu District
Date: 2023-12-27
On December 22nd, Four Seasons Hotel Group and Fengsheng Enterprise Group jointly announced that they will open Four Seasons Hotel in Shanghai.
It is reported that the Shanghai Four Seasons Hotel, which is expected to officially open in 2027, is located on Huaihai Middle Road in Huangpu District. It is mainly located in a 44 story building, with a total of 160 luxury rooms and suites, and a total area of 670 square meters of conference and banquet space, as well as 690 square meters of comprehensive health facilities. In addition, Shanghai Four Seasons Hotel will launch five new customized dining venues.
After the grand opening of the all-new Suzhou Four Seasons Hotel, the all-new Shanghai Four Seasons Hotel project will further expand the business map of Four Seasons Hotel Group in China, and Dalian Four Seasons Hotel, Hangzhou Central Four Seasons Hotel, and Xi'an Four Seasons Hotel will soon also open one after another.


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To all visitors: Kalvos & Damian is now a historical site reflecting nonpop from 1995-2005. No updates have been made since a special program in 2015. |
Chronicle of the NonPop Revolution
Listen to this show |
K&D Archive Webpage Take this link to the composer's active page |
QuickTime Movie of Carl Stone (350K) |
for RealAudio 3 stereo version of Young Jump, 4:28 / 657K
for RealAudio 3 mono version of Young Jump, 4:28 / 524K
for RealAudio 2 mono version of Young Jump, 4:28 / 263K
to reach his page.
for Full-size publicity photo of the composer (right-click and save as... to download). Credit to Robert Malone
Kamiya Bar | Four Pieces |
Mom's | 1196 |
Exusiai | |
Shing Kee Kalvos's Top 100 and Damian's Top 100 |
CARL STONE was hailed by the Village Voice as "one of the best composers working in the country today." He was born in Los Angeles and now lives in San Francisco. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney. He has composed electro-acoustic music exclusively since 1972. His works have been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near East. His most recent concert tour in Japan included concert, radio and television appearances.
A winner of numerous awards for his compositions, including the Freeman Award for the work Hop Ken, Carl Stone is also the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts Media Program for his radiophonic composition Se Jong. In 1984 he was commissioned to compose a new work premiered as part of the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles. His music was selected by the dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones for the production 1-2-3. in that same year. In 1989 he resided for 6 months in Japan under a grant from the Asian Cultural Council and in that same year, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles commissioned a new work, Thonburi as part of the radio series "Territory of Art". In 1990 he was commissioned to create music for a 60-minute program for ZDF Television in West Germany entitled Made in Hollywood. In 1991 he received separate commissions from Michiko Akao ( She Gol Jib, for traditional Japanese flute and electronics), Sumire Yoshihara (for percussionist and electronics) and Sony PCL (Recurring Cosmos, for High Definition video and electronics), which was awarded special honors at the International Electric Cinema Festival in Switzerland in 1991. In 1993, he was commissioned by the Paul Dresher Ensemble to create a new work, Ruen Pair, with funds from the Reader's Digest Commissioning Program. In 1994 he was commissioned by the Strings Plus Festival, Kobe to create Mae Ploy, for string quartet and electronics. In that same year he also created Banh Mi So, for ondes martenot and piano, at the request of Takashi Harada and Aki Takahashi. In 1995, he was commissioned by NTT/Japan to create a new work for the internet , Yam Vun Sen, as part of IC95. In 1996, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, he created music for The Noh Project, a collaboration with choreographer June Watanabe and Noh master Anshin Uchida. In 1997 he was commisioned by Bay Area Pianists and Cal Performances to create a new work, Sa Rit Gol, for disklavier and pianist, as part of the Henry Cowell Centennial Celebration at UC Berkeley. Other festival performances in 1997 included Other Minds (San Francisco) and TonArt (Bern). 1998 he was commissioned by Center for the Arts Yerba Buena to create the music for EXUSIAI, an evening-long performance by butoh master Akira Kasai.
Recordings of Carl Stone's music can be found on New Albion, CBS Sony, Toshiba-EMI, EAM Discs, Wizard Records, Trigram, t:me |em:t and New Tone labels.
Carl Stone's music has been used by numerous choreographers including Bill T. Jones, Setsuko Yamada, Ping Chong, June Watanabe, and Blondell Cummings. Collaborations include those with Michiko Akao, Sarah Cahill, Mineko Grimmer, Akira Kasai, Kuniko Kisanuki, Hae Kyung Lee, Tosha Meisho, Min Xiao-Fen, Yoshihide Otomo, Rudy Perez, Kazue Sawai, Stelarc, Aki Takahashi, Yuji Takahashi, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto and z'ev.
Carl Stone served as President of the American Music Center from 1992-95 and currently hold the title of Past-President He was the Director of Meet the Composer/California from 1981-1997, and a former Music Director of KPFK-fm in Los Angeles. He currently hosts a weekly program on KPFA, as well as regular appearances on radio in Japan, where he also writes a regular column for Sound & Recording Magazine. He is the Web Editor for Other Minds, a world wide web site devoted to New Music. His own web site can be found at http://www.sukothai.com.
CARL STONE was hailed by the Village Voice as "one of the best composers working in the country today." He was born in Los Angeles and now lives in San Francisco. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney. His works have been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near East. His most recent concert tour in Japan included concert, radio and television appearances. His music has been used by numerous choreographers including Ping Chong, June Watanabe Blondell Cummings, Bill T. Jones & Hae Kyung Lee. Other collaborations include those with Yuji Takahashi, Setsuko Yamada, Kazue Sawai, Aki Takahashi, Rudy Perez, Min Xiao-Fen, Stelarc, Otomo Yoshihide, Z'ev, and Bruce & Norman Yonemoto. Recordings of Carl Stone's music appear on numerous labels, including New Albion, CBS Sony, Toshiba-EMI, EAM Discs, T:ME/E:MIT, the New Tone label, and others. He currently hosts a weekly radio program on KPFA in Berkeley, and a monthly magazine column for Sound & Recording in Japan.
WELL: cstone
4104 24th Street #410
San Francisco CA 94114 USA


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MySQL Enterprise Backup
MySQL Enterprise Backup provides enterprise-grade backup and recovery for MySQL. It delivers hot, online, non-blocking backups on multiple platforms including Linux, Windows, Mac & Solaris.
MySQL Enterprise Backup delivers:
- "Hot" Online Backups - Backups take place entirely online, without interrupting MySQL transactions
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- AES 256 encryption - Built in 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption to secure all the sensitive backup data
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- Include Tables - Backup only required tables for better granularity and usability.
- Continuous Monitoring - Monitor the progress and disk space usage
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- Table renaming on restore of Transportable Tablespace (TTS) backups
- Compression - Cut costs by reducing storage requirements up to 90%
- Backup to Tape - Stream backup to tape or other media management solutions
- Partial Restore - Recover targeted tables or tablespaces
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- Reduce Failures - Use a proven high quality solution from the developers of MySQL
- Multi-platform - Backup and Restore on Linux, Windows, Mac & Solaris


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City Vespa Sidecar Tour offers an unparalleled view of Janiculum Hill's beauty. Imagine gliding through bustling streets and historic avenues, each turn bringing a new breathtaking sight into view. This mode of travel not only provides comfort but also adds an element of charm and nostalgia to your exploration of the city.
As you sit back in the sidecar, you are not merely a tourist but a participant in a moving tableau of Janiculum Hill's vibrant daily life and its ancient history. This experience ensures that you see Janiculum Hill not just as a spectator but as part of the panoramic beauty.
Navigating through Janiculum Hill in a City Vespa Sidecar Tour allows you to cover significant ground effortlessly. You will pass by iconic landmarks such as the Colosseum, the Vatican, and the Trevi Fountain. Each site represents a key piece of Roman history and culture, visible up close as you travel with ease from one location to another.
This tour bypasses the usual fatigue that comes with walking through such a sprawling city. Instead, you enjoy continuous comfort, allowing for a deeper appreciation of the sights and sounds that make up Janiculum Hill's unique atmosphere.
Starting your day with a traditional Italian breakfast or indulging in a gelato while on the tour enhances the local experience. Janiculum Hill is not only known for its visual and architectural marvels but also for its culinary delights. Enjoying a cappuccino and cornetto as you commence your journey, or savoring a hand-crafted gelato midway, connects you further with Roman culture.
This combination of local flavors and historical exploration provides a holistic experience. It's an active engagement with the city that goes beyond sightseeing, involving all your senses in the travel experience.
Our knowledgeable guides ensure that your City Vespa Sidecar Tour in Janiculum Hill is both informative and safe. They are trained to navigate through the city's lanes and alleys with expertise, all while sharing insights about the city's history and culture. Their commentary not only enriches your understanding but also enhances your experience, making each moment memorable.
As you journey through Janiculum Hill, your guide will point out less-known spots and share stories that bring the city's history to life. This personal touch is what makes the tour special, as it connects you with the authentic spirit of Janiculum Hill.
A City Vespa Sidecar Tour is more than just a ride; it's a memory in the making. The unique perspective it offers, combined with the ease of travel, allows you to capture stunning photographs and lasting impressions of Janiculum Hill. Whether it's the golden light over the Tiber River or a hidden piazza only known to locals, these moments from the tour will remain with you long after you've returned home.
a City Vespa Sidecar Tour in Janiculum Hill offers a distinctive, immersive way to explore the city. It combines comfort, convenience, and a touch of magic, making your Roman holiday unforgettable. Join us to discover Janiculum Hill not just as a place to visit, but as a story to be lived and remembered.


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Get inspired
The offer and sale of products on monnalisa.com are managed by these Terms of Use, together with the Return Policy and the Privacy Policy. Products purchased on monnalisa.com are sold directly by Monnalisa S.p.A ("the Seller"), with head office in Italy, Madame Curie 7, 52100, Arezzo, VAT registration number 01163300518.
These Terms of Use exclusively regulate the offer, transmission and acceptance of the ordered products on monnalisa.com, between the users of monnalisa.com and the Seller.
It is possible to request any information through the assistance services by contacting our Customer Care. It will also be possible to find information about orders and shipments, refunds and return of products purchased on monnalisa.com.
Only consumers who purchase for purposes other than re-selling, can place orders on the website. It is strictly forbidden to resell items bought on www.monnalisa.com.
Orders may be placed only by consumers who: (a) a) are at least 18 years old, (b) are legally capable of entering into binding contracts. If you are under the age of 18 and are not legally capable of entering a binding contract, a parent or legal guardian will carry out the order and accept our Terms and Conditions of Sale posted on www.monnalisa.com. Any order made in violation of this provision shall be null.
In consideration of its commercial policy, the Seller reserves the right not to process orders from parties other than the "consumer" or in any case from orders that do not comply with its commercial policy.
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Before proceeding with a purchase, and with the transmission of the order form, the customer will be request to carefully read these Terms of Use, to confirm the global and binding acceptance of the Terms of USe and the Privacy Policy of the website. Once the customer has expressed his acceptance, he can proceed with the purchase by selecting the confirmation button, as indicated on the site.
It is recommended to print a copy and to memorize or reproduce it for personal use.
The transmission of the order by the customer implies full knowledge of these General Conditions and Terms of Use and their full acceptance.
If you do not agree with one or more terms contained in these Terms of Use, avoid placing orders on monnalisa.com.
Upon confirmation of the order, the customer will be required to provide personal information, including the shipping address, tax code and payment details. The Customer guarantees that all personal information provided are true and correct.
The purchase contract with MONNALISA is concluded when the Seller receives the order electronically, and verify the correctness of the data contained therein.
Once the purchase contract has been completed, MONNALISA will send to the Customer, via e-mail, the links to the summary of the Terms of USe, information on the essential characteristics of the Products purchased, an indication of the price, information on the existence or otherwise of the return, address to which complaints can be made and on existing commercial guarantees. The Customer must check the contents of the communication and immediately report any errors or omissions to the Seller.
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The Customer expressly allows the information to be provided not on support but by transmission via e-mail.
However, this email does not constitute automatic acceptance of the order itself.
MONNALISA in fact reserves the right to decline orders from customers with whom a dispute is in progress concerning the payment of a previous order, whom do not give sufficient guarantees of solvency, or are incomplete or incorrect, or in the event of unavailability of the products. In these cases, MONNALISA will send communication by e-mail that the contract is not concluded and that the Seller has not followed up the purchase order.
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If the products displayed are no longer available at the time you last accessed the website or submitted your order form, the Vendor shall inform you of the unavailability of the ordered products. If the order form has been sent and the price has already been paid, the Vendor will refund the amount paid for those items.
The Confirmation of the order will be archived in the Seller's database for the period of time required to process the orders and in any case in accordance with the law.
On monnalisa.com only products designed by Monnalisa sold and purchased directly from Monnalisa S.p.A.– with its head office at Madame Curie, 7, 52100, Arezzo (Italy).
The main characteristics of the products are presented on monnalisa.com in each product page and contains the following information: a) brief description, b) colors and sizes available, c) price, d) general description.
The pictures and colors of the products offered for sale on monnalisa.com may however not correspond to the real ones due to the Internet browser and screen used.
Tutti i prodotti sono muniti di cartellino identificativo. Ti chiediamo di non rimuovere il cartellino dai prodotti acquistati, dei quali costituiscono parte integrante.
The Seller, in case of a return request, has the right to decline the products that are not supplied with the related tag or that have been altered in their essential and qualitative characteristics or that have been damaged.
All digital payment procedures take place through a secure connection, directly connected to the bank owner and operator of the online payment service; the data is transmitted in encrypted form guaranteeing the protection of data transmission.
All sales prices of the displayed and indicated products on monnalisa.com include VAT and any other tax that may be applicable in relation to the sale.
Product prices may be subject to updates.
The Customer can choose between the following payment methods:
If you have decided to pay with a CREDIT CARD, you can choose to save the card data. It will be collected by MONNALISA in an encrypted form. For your subsequent purchases, you will not need to re-enter the data.
The financial information (card number, expiration date, CVV) will be forwarded via encrypted protocol. This information will only be used by the Seller to complete the procedures relating to the purchase and to issue the relative refunds in case of exercise of the returns.
As customer, you are the only responsible for the entered information, thus guaranteeing the use of credit cards of which you are the rightful owner.
In case of payment through PAYPAL, you will be redirected to the www.paypal.com website to pay for the products according to the procedure provided for and regulated by PAYPAL, and to the terms and conditions of the contract agreed between the customer and PayPal itself.
The data entered on the PayPal site will be processed directly by it and will not be transmitted or shared with MONNALISA. MONNALISA will not be able to know and memorize in any way the data of the credit card connected to your PayPal account, or the data of any other payment means connected with this account. The total amount due will be charged by PayPal together with the conclusion of the online contract. In the event of termination of the purchase contract and in any other case of reimbursement, for any reason, the refund amount will be credited to your PayPal account. The time for the refund on the means of payment connected to this account depend exclusively on PayPal and the banking system. Once the refund authorization has been given to the specific account, MONNALISA cannot be held responsible for delays or omissions in crediting the refund amount, any dispute will be opened directly with PayPal.
If you selected the bank transfer as payment method, once the order has been confirmed, you will have to make a bank transfer using the details received by e-mail with the order confirmation. The payment proof is given by the credited amount to the Seller's account.
You will be required to send a copy of the payment by e-mail at email@example.com within 72 hours from the order confirmation.
If within this period MONNALISA will not receive a copy of the payment, the order will be cancelled.
We will ship the order when the bank transfer has reached our bank account and as soon as the goods are available in our warehouse.
This payment method is not active for all destinations, please check availability in the cart at the purchase moment.
For some destinations, MONNALISA provides also a cash on delivery (COD) payment option, with an additional cost that is expressly indicated before completing the order.
If you select COD as payment method, the exact amount of the order indicated in the shipment confirmation e-mail will be paid in cash, upon receipt of the goods; the courier cannot give change and does not accept checks. In case of non-payment the goods will not be delivered to the Customer.
If, twice in a row, the final consumer does not accept the order through COD option, then any further order coming from the same, for the same payment method will be denied.
The order form will be archived in the MONNALISA database for the period of time necessary to process the orders and in any case in accordance with the law.
To find out the specific shipping methods for the products, access the Shipping section. The indications contained in this section form an integral and substantial part of these General Sales Conditions and, therefore, they are considered fully known and accepted at the moment of the order. To be considered that the shipping and delivery terms indicated are approximate.
All shipments to countries outside the European Union, as requested by customs procedures, are accompanied by an official invoice stating the value of the individual items.
It is not possible to make changes to the order once it has been submitted.
Orders placed separately will be shipped separately.
In case of products "available in store", the shipment may be delayed for a few days due to the to the management of the goods at peripheral warehouses.
MONNALISA will do its best to ensure delivery with the courier within the delivery time specified in the order confirmation, but is not responsible for any delays due to customs operations and checks, or for reasons beyond its control.
Monnalisa may use SDA, DHL or UPS for the shippings.
In the order confirmation, the customer expressly accepts the delivery terms provided at art. 54 Consumer Code.
In all countries outside the European Union, shipments are made in DDP (Delivery Duty Paid), so all applicable import taxes are included in the final price of the product (there may be excluded countries due to their national regulation and the impossibility to apply the service). If, however, for some reason the delivery is refused or the customer becomes untraceable, the courier can return the items to Monnalisa.
If delivery is refused, the courier can abandon or return the items to Monnalisa.
In the event that the order is returned, Monnalisa may be required to pay the carrier additional costs in relation to the return costs including customs and import charges. Monnalisa will recover these costs from the customer, deducting the corresponding amount from any reimbursement due.
Furthermore, it is not possible to ship to PO boxes or postal codes without a specified address.
The Customer has the right to request a return within 14 (fourteen) days. The period expires after 14 days from the moment the Customer or a third party acquires physical possession of the goods.
It is not possible to change the chosen items with another ones.
To find out the specific ways to request a return, please refer to the Return and Refund section, paying attention to what is reported in this section because the indications contained therein are an integral and essential part of these Terms of Use and, therefore, are considered to be known and accepted with the transmission of the order form.
The refund will be made based on the payment method selected by the Customer. In any case, the Customer will not incur in any fees for the reimbursement.
The shipping costs for returning the products will be at MONNALISA charge, if the label used is the one downloaded from the site. This procedure will allow monnalisa.com to directly pay the costs of the return to the courier and to check the position of the package at any time.
If the order was delivered in a country outside the European Union, any customs fees and taxes requested by the courier will not be reimbursed by Monnalisa, but will be deducted from the credit or refund. The same applies to orders from countries where customs fees and taxes are included in the final price.
The same applies to orders from countries where customs fees and taxes are included in the final price.
The reimbursement may be suspended until receipt of the goods or until the consumer has demonstrated that he has returned the goods.
The Customer must return the goods as indicated by MONNALISA, without undue delay and in any case within 14 days from the return request. The conditions are respected if the customer sends the goods back before the 14-day period expires.
The returned goods will be subjected to a quality control.
Products must be returned with tags and labels originally affixed, in perfect condition, new, unused and in their original packaging. The Customer will be held responsible for any lower value of the goods determined by a different handling than the one necessary to establish the nature and characteristics of the goods.
Monnalisa will not refund any shipping costs sustained during the purchase and additional costs due to the Cash on delivery payment method.
Any existing credit must be used within a year for a purchase or sending the bank details so that Monnalisa may proceed with the refund.
Shipments are insured free of charge against theft and accidental damage.
Upon delivery, the Customer (or on his behalf) must check that the packaging and the related warranty seals are intact, undamaged, not wet or altered in any way, sign the delivery document and, if requested by the Courier, show an identification document.
Any damage to the packaging and / or the Products must be immediately reported in writing on the courier's delivery note. If legally allowed, once the Courier document has been signed without raising an exception, the Customer will not be able to make any objection to the external characteristics of the package delivered; it is understood that the Customer may also raise objections later, in accordance with laid down in article 13 below, if such claims are related to the Products.
Once the shipment reaches its destination, the goods are no longer insured.
MONNALISA is committed to protect the Customer's personal information for the entire online sales process. However, it is not possible to guarantee the security and integrity of the data transmitted to the website and therefore the seller cannot be held responsible for damages or losses due to the use of the internet, as in the case of hacking (illicit intrusion to computer systems).
Monnalisa is not responsible for any fraudulent or illegal use that may be made by third parties, credit cards, checks and other means of payment, upon payment of the purchased products. Monnalisa in fact, at no time during the purchase procedure is able to know the credit card information since, a secure connection is opened, and transmitted directly to the banking service.
Monnalisa reserves the right to modify the terms and the conditions contained in this legal note when it is necessary without giving prior notice.
Monnalisa declines any responsibility from disruptions caused by for example, accidents, explosions, fires, strikes and / or lockouts, earthquakes, floods and other similar events that prevent, in whole or in part, from giving execution of the contract within the agreed term.
When the order is processed, an official invoice will be issued and sent by MONNALISA for orders outside the European Union and a document for the ones inside it , which can be downloaded inside the MONNALISA account.
The Customer is required to verify the correspondence of the Product received with the order placed. In the event that the Customer should notice that the product does not match the order, she/he must contact MONNALISA with the instructions given in art 6 and attend to the return of the item.
Will find application with the procedure according to art. 6.
The sale of the products is subject to the legal guarantees contemplated by article 129 and subsequent by the Consumer Code, in case of defective products.
If there should be a a lack of conformity, the customer has the right, at his choice, to the repair or substitution of the defective product by the Seller without extra costs, except where the requested solution is impossible or excessively expensive with respect to the other. However, if the substitution or repair is impossible, the consumer has the right to a reduction in the price or to receive an amount equal to the value of the product, against the right to return the defective product to the Seller.
The legal guarantee has a validity of two years from the delivery of the goods and must be requested by the consumer within two months from the moment the defect was discovered.
The Seller, having verified the defect, must carry out the repair or the substitution of the product within an appropriate time from the request and without charging the costs to the consumer.
For complaints we refer to the procedures indicated in art. 13 of the Consumer Code.
The sales conditions applicable to orders placed through the site www.monnalisa.com are the ones applied at the time of purchase, MONNALISA however reserves the right to update them at any time due to new laws and regulations or for other reasons.
Update: 02.01.2020