Today, The Grandma has joined to Claire Fontaine, Tina Picotes and TonyiTamaki. They have gone shopping along one of the most beautiful avenues of Barcelona, Passeig de Gràcia, where all expensive boutiques are found.
The Grandma has wanted to buy a new Gucci handbag for her to commemorate the anniversary of his designer, GuccioGucci, the founder of the world-renowned fashion brand Gucci, who was born on a day like today in 1881.
Before going out, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her IntermediateLanguage Practice manual (Grammar45).
Guccio Gucci (26 March 1881-2 January 1953) was a Tuscan businessman and fashion designer, the founder of The Fashion House of Gucci.
Gucci was born in Florence, Tuscany, the son of a Tuscan leather craftsman from the country's central manufacturing region.
As a teenager in the early 1900s, Guccio Gucci was a lift boy at the Savoy Hotel in London. Inspired by the elegant upper class guests and by luggage companies such as H.J. Cave & Sons, he returned to Florence and started making travelbags and accessories.
He founded the House of Gucci in Florence in 1921 as a small family-owned leather saddlery shop. He began selling leather bags to horsemen in the 1920s. As a young man, he rapidly built a reputation for quality, hiring the best craftsmen he could find to work in his atelier.
In 1938, Gucci expanded his business to Rome. Soon his one-man business turned into a family business, when his sons Aldo, Vasco, Ugo and Rodolfo, former actor, joined the company.
In 1951, Gucci opened their store in Milan and two years later, the company expanded overseas with the opening of the Manhattan store.
Gucci and his wife, Aida Calvelli, had six children. His sons, Vasco, Aldo, Ugo and Rodolfo, held prominent roles in his company. In his final years, he lived near Rusper, West Sussex, England.
Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
Aldo Gucci
As
you have seen, The Grandma's post is too short today. The Grandma wants
to protest and express her rejection to Article 13 approved by the European Union,
an article that delimitates Internet as a free space where you can share
contents. This is a clear act of censorship that we mustn't accept.
Today, Joseph de Ca'th Lon has invited The Grandma to go to Castelltallat, in SantMateu de Bages, near Barcelona. In this beautiful town, there is an AstronomicalObservatory.Joseph wants to explain to The Grandma more things about Titan, the Saturn'smoon, and about Christiaan Huygens, the astronomer who discovered it on a day like today in 1655. During the travel from Barcelona to Castelltallat, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 44).
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest natural satellite in the Solar System. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.
Titan is the sixth gravitationally rounded moon from Saturn. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan is 50% larger than Earth's moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and is larger than the planet Mercury, but only 40% as massive. Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, Titan was the first known moon of Saturn, and the sixth known planetary satellite, after Earth's moon and the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. Titan orbits Saturn at 20 Saturn radii. From Titan's surface, Saturn subtends an arc of 5.09 degrees and would appear 11.4 times larger in the sky than the Moon from Earth.
Titan & Saturn
Titan is primarily composed of ice and rocky material. Much as with Venus before the Space Age, the dense opaque atmosphere prevented understanding of Titan'ssurfaceuntil the Cassini–Huygens mission in 2004 provided new information, including the discovery of liquid hydrocarbon lakes in Titan's polar regions. The geologically young surface is generally smooth, with few impact craters, although mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes have been found. The atmosphere of Titan is largely nitrogen; minor components lead to the formation of methane and ethane clouds and nitrogen-rich organic smog. The climate -including wind and rain- creates surface features similar to those of Earth, such as dunes, rivers, lakes, seas -probably of liquid methane and ethane-, and deltas, and is dominated by seasonal weather patterns as on Earth. With its liquids, both surface and subsurface, and robust nitrogen atmosphere, Titan's methane cycle is analogous to Earth's water cycle, at the much lower temperature of about 94 K (−179.2 °C; −290.5 °F).
Titan was discovered on March 25, 1655, by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens. Huygens was inspired by Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's four largest moons in 1610 and his improvements in telescope technology. Christiaan, with the help of his older brother Constantijn Huygens, Jr., began building telescopes around 1650 and discovered the first observed moon orbiting Saturn with one of the telescopes they built. It was the sixth moon ever discovered, after Earth's Moon and the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
Christiaan Huygens
Huygens named his discovery Saturni Luna or Luna Saturni, Latin for Saturn's moon,publishing in the 1655 tract De Saturni Luna Observatio Nova, A New Observation of Saturn's Moon. After Giovanni Domenico Cassini published his discoveries of four more moons of Saturn between 1673 and 1686, astronomers fell into the habit of referring to these and Titan as Saturn I through V, with Titan then in fourth position. Other early epithets for Titan include Saturn's ordinary satellite. Titan is officially numbered Saturn VI because after the 1789 discoveries the numbering scheme was frozen to avoid causing any more confusion, Titan having borne the numbers II and IV as well as VI. Numerous small moons have been discovered closer to Saturn since then.
The name Titan, and the names of all seven satellites of Saturn then known, came from John Herschel, son of William Herschel, discoverer of two other Saturnian moons, Mimas and Enceladus, in his 1847 publication Results of Astronomical Observations Made during the Years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope. He suggested the names of the mythological Titans (Ancient Greek: Τῑτᾶνες),brothers and sisters of Cronus, the Greek Saturn. In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age.
Titan is the only known moon with a significant atmosphere, and its atmosphere is the only nitrogen-rich dense atmosphere in the Solar System aside from Earth's. Observations of it made in 2004 by Cassini suggest that Titan is a super rotator, like Venus, with an atmosphere that rotates much faster than its surface. Observations from the Voyager space probes have shown that Titan'satmosphere is denser than Earth's, with a surface pressure about 1.45 atm. It is also about 1.19 times as massive as Earth's overall, or about 7.3 times more massive on a per surface area basis. Opaque haze layers block most visible light from the Sun and other sources and obscures Titan's surface features. Titan's lower gravity means that its atmosphere is far more extended than Earth's. The atmosphere of Titan is opaque at many wavelengths and as a result, a complete reflectance spectrum of the surface is impossible to acquire from orbit. It was not until the arrival of the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft in 2004 that the first direct images of Titan'ssurface were obtained.
Spotting dust storms on Titan
Titan's surface temperature is about −179.2 °C. At this temperature, water ice has an extremely low vapor pressure, so the little water vapor present appears limited to the stratosphere. Titan receives about 1% as much sunlight as Earth. Before sunlight reaches the surface, about 90% has been absorbed by the thick atmosphere, leaving only 0.1% of the amount of light Earth receives. Atmospheric methane creates a greenhouse effect on Titan'ssurface, without which Titan would be far colder. Conversely, haze in Titan'satmosphere contributes to an anti-greenhouse effect by reflecting sunlight back into space, cancelling a portion of the greenhouse effect and making its surface significantly colder than its upper atmosphere.
Titan's clouds, probably composed of methane, ethane or other simple organics, are scattered and variable, punctuating the overall haze. The findings of the Huygens probe indicate that Titan's atmosphere periodically rains liquid methane and other organic compounds onto its surface.
Titan is never visible to the naked eye, but can be observed through small telescopes or strong binoculars. Amateur observation is difficult because of the proximity of Titan to Saturn's brilliant globe and ring system; an occulting bar, covering part of the eyepiece and used to block the bright planet, greatly improves viewing. Titan has a maximum apparent magnitude of +8.2, and mean opposition magnitude 8.4. This compares to +4.6 for the similarly sized Ganymede, in the Jovian system.
Observations of Titan prior to the space age were limited. In 1907 Catalan astronomer Josep Comas i Solà observed limb darkening of Titan, the first evidence that the body has an atmosphere. In 1944 Gerard P. Kuiper used a spectroscopic technique to detect an atmosphere of methane.
Even with the data provided by the Voyagers, Titan remained a body of mystery -a large satellite shrouded in an atmosphere that makes detailed observation difficult. The mystery that had surrounded Titan since the 17th-century observations of Christiaan Huygens and Giovanni Cassini was revealed by a spacecraft named in their honor.
The Cassini–Huygens spacecraft reached Saturn on July 1, 2004, and began the process of mapping Titan's surface by radar. A joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, Cassini–Huygens proved a very successful mission. The Cassini probe flew by Titan on October 26, 2004, and took the highest-resolution images ever of Titan's surface, at only 1,200 kilometers, discerning patches of light and dark that would be invisible to the human eye.
Today, The Grandma homages one of her idols, Johan Cruyff, the Dutch professional football player and coach who played and managed AmsterdamscheFootball Club Ajax and FutbolClub Barcelona. Johan was a genius and a visionary in the world of sport and his loss was a terrible tragedy for everybody because he was one of the most brilliant and intelligent minds of our age. The Grandma is deeply sad with the absence of her greatest idol. Before remembering Johan Cruyff, TheGrandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practicemanual (Grammar 43).
Hendrik Johannes Cruijff (25 April 1947-24 March 2016) was a Dutchprofessional football player and coach. As a player, he won the Ballon d'Or three times, in 1971, 1973, and 1974. Cruyff was the most famous exponent of the football philosophy known as Total Football explored by Rinus Michels, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in football history.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dutch football rose from obscurity to become a powerhouse in the sport. Cruyff led the Netherlands to the final of the 1974 FIFA World Cup and received the Golden Ball as player of the tournament. At the 1974 finals, he executed a feint that subsequently was named after him, the Cruyff Turn, a move widely replicated in the modern game. Wearing the number14 jersey, he set a trend for wearing shirt numbers outside the usual starting line-up numbers of one to eleven.
At club level, Cruyff started his career at Ajax, where he won eight Eredivisie titles, three European Cups and one Intercontinental Cup. In 1973, he moved to Barcelona for a world record transfer fee, winning La Liga in his first season and was named European Footballer of the Year. After retiring from playing in 1984, Cruyff became highly successful as manager of Ajax and later Barcelona; he remained an influential advisor to both clubs. His son Jordi also played football professionally.
Johan Cruyff, Ajax
In 1999, Cruyff was voted European Player of the Century in an election held by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics, and came second behind Pelé in their World Player of the Century poll. He came third in a vote organised by the French magazine France Football consulting their former Ballon d'Or winners to elect their Football Player of the Century. He was chosen on the World Team of the 20th Century in 1998, the FIFA World Cup Dream Team in 2002, and in 2004 was named in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.
Considered to be one of the most influential figures in football history, Cruyff's style of play and his football philosophy has influenced managers and players, including the likes of Arrigo Sacchi, Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, Pep Guardiola, Frank Rijkaard, Michael Laudrup, Eric Cantona and Xavi.
Ajax and Barcelona are among the clubs that have developed youthacademies based on Cruyff's coaching methods. His coaching philosophy helped lay the foundations for the revival of Ajax's international successes in the 1990s. Spanish football's successes at both club and international level during the years 2008 to 2012 have been cited by many as evidence of Cruyff's impact on contemporary football. France Football ranked him at No. 4 on their list of the Top 50 football managers of all time.
Hendrik Johannes Johan Cruijff was born on 25 April 1947 in Amsterdam, on a street five minutes away from Ajax's stadium, his first football club. Johan was the second son of Hermanus Cornelis Cruijff and Petronella Bernarda Draaijer, from a humble, working-class background in east Amsterdam. Cruyff, encouraged by his influential football-loving father and his close proximity in Akkerstraat to the De Meer Stadium, played football with his schoolmates and older brother, Henny, whenever he could, and idolised the prolific Dutch dribbler, Faas Wilkes.
In 1959, Cruyff's father died from a heart attack. His father's death had a major impact on his mentality. As Cruyff recalled, in celebration of his 50th birthday, My father died when I was just 12 and he was 45. From that day the feeling crept stronger over me that I would die at the same age and, when I had serious heart problems when I reached 45, I thought: 'This is it.' Only medical science, which was not available to help my father, kept me alive.
Johan Cruyff, Dutch National Team
Viewing a potential football career as a way of paying tribute to his father, the death inspired the strong-willed Cruyff, who also frequently visited the burial site at Oosterbegraafplaats.
His mother began working at Ajax as a cleaner, deciding that she could no longer carry on at the grocer without her husband, and in the future, this made Cruyff near-obsessed with financial security but also gave him an appreciation for player aids. His mother soon met her second husband, Henk Angel, a field hand at Ajax who proved a key influence in Cruyff's life.
Cruyff joined the Ajax youth system on his tenth birthday. Cruyff and his friends would frequent a playground in their neighbourhood and Ajax youth coach Jany van der Veen, who lived close by, noticed Cruyff's talent and decided to offer him a place at Ajax without a formal trial.
In total that season, Cruyff scored 25 goals in 23 games, and Ajax won the league championship. In the 1966–67 season, Ajax again won the league championship, and also won the KNVB Cup, for Cruyff's first double. Cruyff ended the season as the leading goalscorer in the Eredivisie with 33. Cruyff won the league for the third successive year in the 1967–68 season. He was also named Dutch footballer of the year for the second successive time, a feat he repeated in 1969. On 28 May 1969, Cruyff played in his first European Cup final against Milan.
In the 1969–70 season, Cruyff won his second league and cup double; at the beginning of the 1970–71 season, he suffered a groin injury. Cruyff wore number 14, even with the Dutch national team.
On 2 June 1971, in London, Ajax won the European Cup by defeating Panathinaikos 2–0. He signed a seven-year contract at Ajax. At the end of the season, he was named the Dutch and European Footballer of the Year for 1971.
In 1972, Ajax won a second European Cup, beating Inter Milan 2–0 in the final, with Cruyff scoring both goals. This victory prompted Dutch newspapers to announce the demise of the Italian style of defensive football in the face of Total Football.
Ajax won the Intercontinental Cup, beating Argentina's Independiente 1–1 in the first game followed by 3–0, and then in January 1973, they won the European Super Cup by beating Rangers 3–1 away and 3–2 in Amsterdam.
Johan Cruyff, FC Barcelona
In mid-1973, Cruyff was sold to Barcelona for US$2 million in a world record transfer fee. On 19 August 1973, he played his last match for Ajax where they defeated FC Amsterdam 6–1, the second match of the 1973–74 season.
Cruyff endeared himself to the Barcelona fans when he chose a Catalan name, Jordi, for his son. He helped the club win La Liga for the first time since 1960, defeating their deadliest rivals Real Madrid 5–0 at their home of the Santiago Bernabéu.
Thousands of Barcelona fans who watched the match on television poured out of their homes to join in street celebrations. A New York Times journalist wrote that Cruyff had done more for the spirit of the Catalan people in 90 minutes than many politicians in years of struggle.
Football historian Jimmy Burns stated, with Cruyff, the team felt they couldn't lose. He gave them speed, flexibility and a sense of themselves. In 1974 Cruyff was crowned European Footballer of the Year.
During his time at Barcelona, Cruyff scored one of his most famous goals, The Phantom Goal. In a game against Atlético Madrid, Cruyff leapt into the air, twisted his body so he was facing away from the goal, and kicked the ball past Miguel Reina in the Atlético goal with his right heel, the ball was at about neck height and had already travelled wide of the far post.
At the age of 32, Cruyff signed a lucrative deal with the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League (NASL).
After his spell in the U.S. and a short-lived stay in Spain, Cruyff returned to play in his homeland, rejoining Ajax on 30 November 1980 as technical advisor to trainer Leo Beenhakker.
At the end of the 1982–83 season, Ajax decided not to offer Cruyff a new contract. This angered Cruyff, who responded by signing for Ajax's archrivals Feyenoord. Cruyff's season at Feyenoord was a successful one in which the club won the Eredivisie for the first time in a decade, part of a league and KNVB Cup double.
Johan's Homage, Camp Nou, Barcelona
As a Dutch international, Cruyff played 48 matches, scoring 33 goals. The national team never lost a match in which Cruyff scored. On 7 September 1966, he made his official debut for the Netherlands in the UEFA Euro 1968 qualifier against Hungary, scoring in the 2–2 draw. In his second match, a friendly against Czechoslovakia, Cruyff was the first Dutch international to receive a red card. The Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) banned him from Ajax games but not internationals.
Cruyff led the Netherlands to a runners-up medal in the 1974 World Cup and was named player of the tournament. Cruyff retired from international football in October 1977, having helped the national team qualify for the upcoming World Cup.
After retiring from playing, Cruyff followed in the footsteps of his mentor Rinus Michels, coaching a young Ajax side to victory in the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1987 (1–0). In May and June 1985, Cruyff returned to Ajax again.
After having appeared for the club as a player, Cruyff returned to Barcelona for the 1988–89 season, this time to take up his new role as coach of the first team. Before returning to Barcelona, however, Cruyff had already built up plenty of experience as a coach/manager.
With Cruyff, Barça experienced a glorious era. In the space of five years (1989–1994), he led the club to four European finals, two European Cup Winners' Cup finals and two European Cup/UEFA Champions League finals. Cruyff's track record includes one European Cup, four Liga championships, one Cup Winners' Cup, one Copa del Rey and four Supercopa de España.
Under Cruyff, Barça's Dream Team won four La Liga titles in a row (1991–1994), and beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 European Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley Stadium.
The legacy that Cruyff gave Barcelona, however, was about more than just trophies and records, as he gave Barça a winning mentality and footballingidentity/ideology that runs through the club till this day.
With 11 trophies, Cruyff was Barcelona's most successful manager, but has since been surpassed by his former player Pep Guardiola, who achieved 15.
Later in his reign as Barcelona manager, Cruyff suffered a heart attack and was advised to quit coaching by his doctors. He left in 1996, and never took another top job, but his influence did not end there. It was his first managing job for 13 years.
As well as representing Catalonia on the pitch in 1976, Cruyff also managed the Catalonia national team from 2009 to 2013, leading the team to a victory over Argentina in his debut match.
Johan Cruyff, Catalan National Team
Throughout his career, Cruyff became synonymous with the playing style of TotalFootball. It is a system where a player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus allowing the team to retain their intended organizational structure. In this fluid system, no footballer is fixed in their intended outfield role. The style was honed by Ajax coach Rinus Michels, with Cruyff serving as the on-field conductor.
Cruyff was known for his technical ability, speed, acceleration, dribbling and vision, possessing an awareness of his teammates' positions as an attack unfolded. Despite his relatively unimpressive stature and strength, Cruyff'stactical brain and reading of the game were exceptional. Football consists of different elements: technique, tactics and stamina, he told.
Cruyff always considered aesthetic and moral aspects of the game; it is not just about winning, but about winning with right style/way. He also always spoke highly of entertaining value of the game. The beautiful game, for him, is about as much the entertainment and joy as the results. In thinking of Cruyff, the victory is truly meaningful when it can fully capture the minds and hearts of competitors and spectators.
In his autobiography, Cruyff explained why he made a set of 14 basic rules, which are displayed at every Cruyff Court in the world.
Cruyff is widely seen as an iconic and revolutionary figure in history of Ajax, Barça, and the Oranje.
Cruyff was also well known for his vocal criticism and uncompromising attitude. A perfectionist, he always had a strong opinion about things and was even loyal to his principles more than any thing else in the football world.
Cruyff once described himself as not religious. Cruyff is also said to have had an attachment to Jewish culture, having grown up in the Amsterdam municipal Betondorp populated by a sizeable Jewish community, and more prevalently because of his lifelong connections with Ajax Amsterdam -a football club with such strong Dutch Jewish influences that some have even dubbed it a Jewish club.
Cruyff's death shocked the football world. Within a week after his death, there were numerous individuals, including players and managers, and organizations, including clubs, paying tribute to him, especially via social media. Thousands of Barcelona fans passed through the memorial to Cruyff, opened inside the CampNou stadium, to pay tribute.
Yesterday, The Grandma went to visit the library to search information about Patrick Henry, an American attorney, a Founding Father, and orator known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention (1775) Give me liberty, or give me death!
Before going to the library to search more information about Henry, The Grandma studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 42).
Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736–June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, and orator best known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): Give me liberty, or give me death!A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786.
Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, and was for the most part educated at home. After an unsuccessful venture running a store, and assisting his father-in-law at Hanover Tavern, Henry became a lawyer through self-study. Beginning his practice in 1760, he soon became prominent through his victory in the Parson's Cause against the Anglican clergy. Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he quickly became notable for his inflammatory rhetoric against the Stamp Act of 1765.
In 1774 and 1775, Henry served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, but did not prove particularly influential. He gained further popularity among the people of Virginia, both through his oratory at the convention and by marching troops towards the colonial capital of Williamsburg after the Gunpowder Incident until the munitions seized by the royal government were paid for.
Patrick Henry
Henry urged independence, and when the Fifth Virginia Convention endorsed this in 1776, served on the committee charged with drafting the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the original Virginia Constitution.
Henry was promptly elected governor under the new charter, and served a total of five one-year terms. After leaving the governorship in 1779, Henry served in the Virginia House of Delegates until he began his last two terms as governor in 1784. The actions of the national government under the Articles of Confederation made Henry fear a strong federal government and he declined appointment as a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
He actively opposed the ratification of the Constitution, a fight which has marred his historical image. He returned to the practice of law in his final years, declining several offices under the federal government. A slaveholder throughout his adult life, he hoped to see the institution end, but had no plan for that beyond ending the importation of slaves.
Henry is remembered for his oratory, and as an enthusiastic promoter of the fight for independence.
Give me liberty, or give me death! is a quotation attributed to Patrick Henry from a speech he made to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.
Henry is credited with having swung the balance in convincing the convention to pass a resolution delivering Virginian troops for the Revolutionary War. Among the delegates to the convention were future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
The speech was not published until The Port Folio printed a version of it in 1816. The version of the speech that is known today first appeared in print in Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, a biography of Henry by William Wirt in 1817. There is debate among historians as to whether and to what extent Henry or Wirt should be credited with authorship of the speech and its famous closing words.
Thomas Marshall told his son John Marshall, who later became Chief Justice of the United States, that the speech was one of the most bold, vehement, and animated pieces of eloquence that had ever been delivered.
More immediately, the resolution, declaring the United Colonies to be independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, passed, and Henry was named chairman of the committee assigned to build a militia.
Phrases equivalent to liberty or death have appeared in a variety of other places:
The Grandma, Viurem lliures o morirem
The national anthem of Uruguay, Orientales, la Patria o la Tumba, contains the line ¡Libertad o con gloria morir!, Liberty or with glory to die!.
The Declaration of Arbroath made in the context of Scottish independence in 1320 as a letter to the Pope contained the line It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. The Declaration is commonly cited as an inspiration for the United States Declaration of Independence by many, including the US Senate and it is possible that Henry knew of the Declaration when he wrote his speech.
During the Siege of Barcelona (25 August 1713-11 September 1714) the Barcelona defenders and the Maulets used black flags with the motto Live free or die, in Catalan Viurem lliures o morirem.
The motto of Greece is Liberty or Death, Eleftheria i thanatos. It arose during the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s, where it was a war cry for the Greeks who rebelled against Ottoman rule.
A popular and possibly concocted story in Brazil relates that in 1822, the emperor Pedro I uttered the famous Cry from Ipiranga, Independence or Death, Independência ou Morte, when Brazil was still a colony of Portugal.
During the Russian Civil War, the flag used by Makhno's anarchist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine had the dual slogans Liberty or Death and The Land to the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers.
In March 1941 the motto of the public demonstrations in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia against signing the treaty with Nazi Germany was Better grave than slave, Bolje grob nego rob.
During the Indonesian National Revolution the Pemuda used the phrase Merdeka atau Mati which means Freedom or Death.
More recently, in China, Ren Jianyu, a 25-year-old former college student village official was given a two-year re-education through labor sentence for an online anti-CPC speech. A T-shirt of Ren's saying Give me liberty or give me death! in Chinese, has been taken as evidence of his anti-social guilt.
Before the beginning, after the Great War between Heaven and Hell, Godcreated the Earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called
Man; and to each generation was born a creature of light and a creature
of darkness; and great armies clashed by night in the ancient war
between Good and Evil.
There was magic then, nobility, and unimaginable
cruelty; and so it was until the day that a false sun exploded over
Trinity, and Man forever traded away wonder for reason.
Today, The Grandma wants to spend the day at home watching TV. She has chosen one of her favourite American TV Series, Carnivàle, set in the United States Dust Bowl during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The series, created by Daniel Knauf, ran for two seasons between 2003 and 2005.
Before watching TV, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 40 & 41).
Carnivàle was produced by HBO and aired between September 14, 2003, and March 27, 2005. Its creator, Daniel Knauf, also served as executive producer along with Ronald D. Moore and Howard Klein. Jeff Beal composed the original incidental music. Nick Stahl and Clancy Brown starred as Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin Crowe, respectively. The show was filmed in Santa Clarita, California and nearby Southern California locations.
In tracing the lives of
disparate groups of people in a traveling carnival, Knauf's story
combined a bleak atmosphere with elements of the surreal in portraying
struggles between good and evil and between free will and destiny. The
show's mythology drew upon themes and motifs from traditional
Christianity and gnosticism together with Masonic lore, particularly
that of the KnightsTemplar order.
Early reviews praised Carnivàle
for style and originality but questioned the approach and execution of
the story. The first episode set an audience record for an HBO original
series and drew durable ratings through the first season. When the
series proved unable to sustain these ratings in its second season, the
series was cancelled. An intended six-season run was thus cut short by
four seasons.
Samson
In all, 24 episodes of Carnivàle were broadcast.In 2004 the series won five Emmys out of fifteen nominations. The show received numerous other nominations and awards between 2004 and 2006.
The two seasons of Carnivàle take place in the Depression-era Dust Bowl between 1934 and 1935, and consist of two main plotlines that slowly converge. The first involves a young man with strange healing powers named Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl), who joins a traveling carnival when it passes near his home in Milfay, Oklahoma. Soon thereafter, Ben begins having surrealistic dreams and visions, which set him on the trail of a man named Henry Scudder, a drifter who crossed paths with the carnival many years before, and who apparently possessed unusual abilities similar to Ben's own.
The second plotline revolves around a Father Coughlin-esque Methodist preacher, Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown), who lives with his sister Iris (Amy Madigan) in California. He shares Ben's prophetic dreams and slowly discovers the extent of his own unearthly powers, which include bending human beings to his will and making their sins and greatest evils manifest as terrifying visions. Certain that he is doing God's work, Brother Justin fully devotes himself to his religious duties, not realizing that his ultimate nemesis Ben Hawkins and the carnival are inexorably drawing closer.
The Carnivàle story was originally intended to be a trilogy of books, consisting of two seasons each. This plan did not come to fruition, as HBO canceled the show after the first two seasons. Each season consists of twelve episodes.
Airing on HBO benefited Carnivàle in several ways. Because HBO does not rely on commercial breaks, Carnivàle had the artistic freedom to vary in episode length. Although the episodes averaged a runtime of 54 minutes, the episodes Insomnia and Old Cherry Blossom Road were 46 minutes and 59 minutes, respectively. HBO budgeted approximately US$4 million for each episode, considerably more than most television series receive.
Carnivàle, The struggle between good and evil
Carnivàle's 1930s' Dust Bowl setting required significant research and historical consultants to be convincing, which was made possible with HBO's strong financial backing.
As a result, reviews praised the look and production design of the show as impeccable, spectacular and as an absolute visual stunner. In 2004, Carnivàle won four Emmys for art direction, cinematography, costumes, and hairstyling.
To give a sense of the dry and dusty environment of the Dust Bowl, smoke and dirt were constantly blown through tubes onto the set. The actors' clothes were ragged and drenched in dirt, and Carnivàle had approximately 5,000 people costumed in the show's first season alone. The creative team listened to 1930s' music and radio and read old Hollywood magazines to get the period's sound, language, and slang right.
The art department had an extensive research library of old catalogs, among them an original 1934 Sears Catalog, which were purchased at flea markets and antique stores.
The East European background of some characters and Asian themes in Brother Justin's story were incorporated into the show. Aside from the show's supernatural elements, a historical consultant deemed Carnivàle's historic accuracy to be excellent regarding the characters' lives and clothes, their food and accommodations, their cars and all the material culture.
Carnivàle's opening title sequence was created by A52, a visual effects and design company based in Los Angeles, and featured music composed by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman. The opening title sequence won an Emmy for Outstanding Main Title Design in 2004. The production team of A52 had intended to create a title sequence that grounded viewers in the mid-1930s, but that also allowed people to feel a larger presence of good and evil over all of time. Carnivàle
features instrumental music composed by Jeff Beal, as well as many
popular or obscure songs from the 1920s and 1930s, the time when Carnivàle's story takes place.
Tarot divination in Carnivàle
Although almost everyCarnivàleepisode has a distinctive story with a new carnival setting, all episodes are part of an overarching good-versus-evil story that only culminates and resolves very late in Season 2. The pilot episode begins with a prologue talking of a creature of light and acreature of darkness,also known as Avatars, being born to each generation preparing for a final battle. Carnivàle does not reveal its characters as Avatars beyond insinuation, and makes the nature of suggested Avatars a central question. Reviewers believed Ben to be a Creature of Light and Brother Justin a Creature of Darkness.
Other than through the characters, the show's good-and-evil theme manifests in the series' contemporary religion, the Christian military order Knights Templar, tarot divination, and in historical events like the Dust Bowl and humankind's first nuclear test.
The writers had established a groundwork for story arcs, character biographies and genealogical character links before filming of the seasons began, but many of the intended clues remained unnoticed by viewers. While Ronald D. Moore was confident that Carnivàle was one of the most complicated shows on television, Daniel Knauf reassured critics that Carnivàle was intended to be a demanding show with a lot of subtext and admitted that you may not understand everything that goes on but it does make a certain sense.
Knauf provided hints about the show's mythological structure to online fandom both during and after the two-season run of Carnivàle, and left fans a production summary of Carnivàle's first season two years after cancellation.
On the heels of the skirmish men foolishly called the War to End All Wars, the Dark One sought to elude his destiny, live as a mortal. So he fled across the ocean, to an empire called America. But by his mere presence, a cancer corrupted the spirit of the land.
People were rendered mute by fools who spoke many words but said nothing. For whom oppression and cowardice were virtues, and freedom… an obscenity.
And into this dark heartland, the prophet stalked his enemy, till, diminished by his wounds, he turned to the next in the ancient line of Light.
And so it was that the fate of mankind came to rest on the trembling shoulders of the most reluctant of saviors.
