Summary:

Each chapter of Cosmicomics begins with a blurb which sounds like the dry, tasteless extract of a physics, astronomy or geology textbook, describing how solar systems formed from nebula, the universe started from a point smaller than an atom, the orbit of the moon changed long ago, dinosaurs became extinct, space is curved, expands, etc. On each of these topics, our narrator, Qfyfq, immediately launches. His idiosyncratic voice, omniscient, blithering, self-centered, unerring, ridiculous, is recognizable, exactly consistent, no matter if he is talking about his life as a mollusk, a dinosaur, a moon-being before color, or life before there was form, when the whole family lived on a nebula, or in the point before space.

Most of Qfyfq’s friends and relatives have unpronounceable names. Xlthlx, Rwzfs, Mrs. Vhd Vhd, the beloved Mrs. Ph (i) Nk0 (actually a special typeset must have been developed, now that I think about it, since my keyboard doesn’t have all the options necessary to even write these names), Z’zu, De XuaeauX, etc. However, they, and he, have distinctly human foibles (neuroses, competitiveness, love triangles, gambling, boredom, incomprehension of their bodies and environment), although in most cases they are not human. And while Qfyfq tells tales of many different lives, seemingly beginningless, which seem to imply transmigration and transformation, all mention of death and birth is conspicuously absent.

about book:

Cosmicomics is a book of short stories by Italo Calvino first published in Italian in 1965 and in English in 1968. Each story takes a scientific “fact” (though sometimes a falsehood by today’s understanding), and builds an imaginative story around it. An always extant being called Qfwfq narrates all of the stories save two, each of which is a memory of an event in the history of the universe. Qfwfq also narrates some stories in Calvino’s t zero. All of the stories in Cosmicomics, together with those from t zero and other sources, are now available in a single volume collection, The Complete Cosmicomics (Penguin UK, 2009).

...

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Writer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Stars: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and George Sanders

Summary:

Aspiring actress Eve Harrington maneuvers her way into the lives of Broadway star Margo Channing, playwright Lloyd Richards and director Bill Sampson. This classic story of ambition and betrayal has become part of American folklore. Bette Davis claims to have based her character on the persona of film actress Talullah Bankhead. Davis' line "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night" is legendary, but, in fact, all of the film's dialog sparkles with equal brilliance.

Michael Shaara

Plot :

On the second to last day of the season, Chapel's team, the Atlanta Hawks, are about to play against the New York Yankees. Chapel receives news from a friend in the media that is about to be traded. Just the night before, his girlfriend Carol did not show up at his hotel room, and Chapel reaches the conclusion that it is time to move on and finally make the transition from boyhood to manhood. Over half the book tells the story of that final game, with flashbacks from the pitching mound and dugout to incidents throughout Chapel's life. Chapel is determined that his last game will also be his greatest, even though, with all the young new players on the Yankees, they are a far superior team. As he strikes out his opponents one after the other, he soon becomes aware of the fact that he has held the Yankees at bay thus far, not allowing one hit from the more talented Yankees team. He soon becomes determined to pitch a perfect game. Meanwhile, he reflects on his personal life, and especially on Carol, whom he finally realizes that he loves, even though he has never shown her that he really does. That morning Carol told him she was going to London and was leaving immediately, so the two key passions of his life, Carol and baseball, are about to vanish forever...

Michael Shaara (June 23, 1928 - May 5, 1988) was an American writer of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction. He was born to Italian immigrant parents (the family name was originally spelled Sciarra, which in Italian is pronounced the same way) in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated from Rutgers University in 1951, and served as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne division prior to the Korean War.

Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines in the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. The stress of this and his smoking caused him to have a heart attack at the early age of 36; from which he fully recovered. His novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Shaara died of another heart attack in 1988.

Shaara's son, Jeffrey Shaara, is also a popular writer of historical fiction; most notably sequels to his father's best-known novel. His most famous is the prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals. Jeffrey was the one to finally get Michael's last book, For Love of the Game, published three years after he died. Today there is a Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, established by Jeffrey Shaara, awarded yearly at Gettysburg College.

William "Bill" Conti (born April 13, 1942) is an American film music composer who is frequently the conductor at the Academy Awards ceremony. Conti, an Italian American, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Lucetta and William Conti.[1] He is a graduate of Louisiana State University, and also studied at the Juilliard School of Music. He is a past winner of the Silver Knight Award presented by the Miami Herald. His big break into celebrity came in 1976, when he was hired to compose the music for a small United Artists film called Rocky. The film became a phenomenon, and Conti's training montage tune, "Gonna Fly Now" topped the Billboard singles chart in 1977. He also composed music for the sequels Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky V (1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006). Bill Conti has received many award nominations for his work. He received a Best Song nomination for "Gonna Fly Now." He won an Oscar for the largely electronic score for The Right Stuff. On April 22, 2008 before a packed house at the LSU Union Theatre at Louisiana State University, Bill Conti was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

1-       "Gonna Fly Now (Theme from "Rocky")"  2:48

2-          "Philadelphia Morning" 2:22

3-           "Going the Distance" 2:39

4-           "Reflections" 3:19

5-           "Marines' Hymn/Yankee Doodle" 1:44

6-           "Take You Back (Street Corner Song from "Rocky")" 1:49

7-           "First Date" 1:53

8-           "You Take My Heart Away" 4:46

9-           "Fanfare for Rocky" 2:35

10-       "Butkus" 2:12

11-       "Alone in the Ring" 1:10

12-       "The Final Bell" 1:56

13-       "Rocky's Reward" 2:02

Plot :

English gangster Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) has taken over the high-class Le Hollandais Restaurant, run by French chef Richard Borst (Richard Bohringer). Spica makes nightly appearances at the restaurant with his retinue of thugs. His oafish behavior causes frequent confrontations with the staff and his own customers, whose patronage he loses, but whose money he seems not to miss.

Forced to accompany Spica is his reluctant, well-bred wife, Georgina (Helen Mirren), who soon catches the eye of a quiet regular at the restaurant, bookshop owner Michael (Alan Howard). Under her husband's nose, Georgina carries on an affair with Michael with the help of the restaurant staff. Ultimately Spica learns of the affair, forcing Georgina to hide out at Michael's bookshop. Borst sends food to Georgina through his young employee, a boy soprano who sings while working. Spica tortures the boy before finding the bookstore's location written in a book the boy is carrying. Spica's men storm Michael's bookshop while she is away and torture him to death by force-feeding him pages from his books. Georgina discovers his body when she returns.

Overcome with rage and grief, she begs Borst to cook Michael's body, and he eventually complies. Together with all the people that Spica wronged throughout the film, Georgina confronts her husband at the restaurant and forces him to eat a mouthful of Michael's cooked body. Spica complies, gagging, before Georgina shoots him in the head.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is probably Peter Greenaway's most famous (or infamous) film, which first shocked audiences at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and then on both sides of the Atlantic. A gang leader (Michael Gambon), accompanied by his wife (Helen Mirren) and his associates, entertains himself every night in a fancy French restaurant that he has recently bought. Having tired of her sadistic, boorish husband, the wife finds herself a lover (Alan Howard) and makes love to him in the restaurant's coziest places with the silent permission of the cook (Richard Bohringer). Though less cerebral than Greenaway's other films, featuring deadly passions reminiscent of Jacobean revenge tragedies of the early 17th century, the picture still offers the director's usual ironic and paradoxical comments on the relations between eating and sex, love and death. The film is at once funny and horrific, and those who are not used to Greenaway's peculiar style might be even disgusted or shocked; however, one might mention Sacha Vierny's brilliant camerawork, Jean-Paul Gaultier's gaudily stylized costumes, and Michael Nyman's somber, pulsating music, which will haunt the viewer long after the film's end.

Peter Greenaway (born 5 April 1942 in  Newport, Wales) trained as a painter and began working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information in 1965. Shortly afterwards he started to make his own films. He has produced a wealth of short and feature-length films, but also paintings, novels and other books. He has held several one-man shows and curated exhibitions at museums world-wide.

In 1962, Greenaway began studies at Walthamstow College of Art, where a fellow student was musician Ian Dury (later cast in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover). Greenaway trained as a muralist for three years; he made his first film, Death of Sentiment, a churchyard furniture essay filmed in four large London cemeteries. In 1965, he joined the Central Office of Information (COI), working there fifteen years as a film editor and director. In that time he created a filmography of experimental films, starting with Train (1966), footage of the last steam trains at Waterloo station, (situated behind the COI), edited to a musique concrète composition. Tree (1966), is a homage to the embattled tree growing in concrete outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in London. By the 1970s he was confident and ambitious and made Vertical Features Remake and A Walk Through H. The former is an examination of variations of arithmetical editing structure, and the latter is a journey through the maps of a fictitious country.

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post-punk - gothic rock

Daniel Ash, his friend David J. Haskins, and Haskins's younger brother Kevin Haskins had played together in various bands since childhood. One of the longer-lived of these was a band called The Craze, which performed a few times around Northampton in 1978. However, the Craze still split up fairly quickly, and Ash once again tried to convince his old school friend Peter Murphy to join him, simply because Ash thought he had the right look for a band.[1] Murphy, who was working in a printing factory, decided to give it a try, despite never having written any lyrics or music. During their first rehearsal, he co-wrote the song "In the Flat Field". Ash's old bandmate Kevin Haskins joined as the drummer. Ash made a point of not inviting David J, the driving force in their previous bands, because he wanted a band he could control. After only a few weeks though, Ash reconsidered and invited Haskins to replace original bassist Chris Barber. Haskins had already agreed to tour American airbases with another band, but decided that joining his friends' group was "the right thing to do." With their lineup complete, the unnamed band played their first gig at the Cromwell pub in Wellingborough on New Year's Eve 1978.

The band chose the name Bauhaus 1919, a reference to the German Bauhaus art movement of the 1920s, because of its "stylistic implications and associations", according to David J.The band also chose to use the same typeface used on the Bauhaus college building in Dessau, Germany. Bauhaus associate Graham Bentley said that the group was unlike any Northampton band of the time, most of which played predominantly cover songs. Bentley videotaped a performance by the group, which was sent to several record labels in the hope of obtaining a contract. This approach was hindered partly because many record companies at the time did not have home video equipment or Bentley had to provide it himself, so the group decided to record a demo.

Bauhaus were an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. The group consisted of Peter Murphy (vocals), Daniel Ash (guitar), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass). The band was originally Bauhaus 1919 before they dropped the numerical portion within a year of formation. With their dark and gloomy sound and image, Bauhaus are generally considered the first gothic rock group. Bauhaus first broke up in 1983. Peter Murphy began a solo career while the other members continued as Tones on Tail and, later, Love and Rockets. Both enjoyed greater commercial success in the United States than Bauhaus had, but disappeared from the charts in their homeland. The band reunited for a 1998 tour and on a more permanent basis in 2005. The group announced plans to disband again following the release of their final album, Go Away White, in 2008.

The Sky's Gone Out is the third studio album by British post-punk and gothic rock band Bauhaus, released in 1982 on Beggar's Banquet Records. The initial limited edition of the LP included the live album Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape as a bonus disc. The compact disc reissue of the album dropped the run-out audio from the final track "Exquisite Corpse", the vinyl edition containing a short recording of drummer Kevin Haskins reading from the play Baal. The Canadian edition of this album also contained a free 12" single featuring "Ziggy Stardust", "Kick in the Eye" and "Lagartija Nick". This version did not have the distinctive artwork from the US and UK editions, but was instead an enlargement of the cover art from the "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" single.

1-          "Third Uncle" – 5:14

2-        "Silent Hedges" – 3:09

3-         "In the Night" – 3:05

4-      "Swing the Heartache" – 5:51

5-       "Spirit" – 5:28

6-      "The Three Shadows Part I" – 4:21

7-       "The Three Shadows Part II" – 3:12

8-       "The Three Shadows Part III" – 1:36

9-      "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" – 3:49

10-    "Exquisite Corpse" – 5:39

 Plot :

A woman has been murdered in London. A young couple, Mollie and Giles Ralston, have started a guest house in the converted Monkswell Manor. Their first four guests arrive: Christopher Wren, Mrs. Boyle, Major Metcalf and Miss Casewell. Mrs. Boyle complains about everything, and Giles offers to cancel her stay, but she refuses the offer. They become snowed in together and read in the newspaper of the murder. An additional traveller, Mr. Paravicini, arrives stranded after he ran his car into a snowdrift, but he makes his hosts uneasy.

The imposing Mrs Boyle complains to the other guests, first to Metcalf and then to Miss Casewell, who both try to get away from her. Wren comes into the room claiming to have fled Mrs. Boyle in the library. Shortly afterwards, the police call on the phone, creating great alarm amongst the guests. Mrs. Boyle suggests that Mollie check Wren's references. Detective Sergeant Trotter arrives on skis to inform the group that he believes a murderer is at large and on his way to the hotel, following the death of Mrs Maureen Lyon in London. When Mrs Boyle is killed, they realise that the murderer is already there.

Ten minutes later, the investigation is ongoing. Each character is scrutinized and suspected. Mollie and Giles get into a fight, and Chris Wren and Giles argue over who should protect Mollie. Suspicion falls first on Christopher Wren, an erratic young man who fits the description of the supposed murderer. However, it quickly transpires that the killer could be any one of the guests, or even the hosts themselves. The characters re-enact the second murder, trying to prevent a third...

The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with over 24,000 performances so far. It is the longest running show (of any type) of the modern era. The play is also known for its twist ending, which at the end of every performance the audience is asked not to reveal. For the last 34 years the St Martin's has been the home of The Mousetrap, more than half of its record breaking run! The Mousetrap has been thrilling audiences from around the world for as long as HRH Queen Elizabeth II has been on the throne. On the 25th of November 2002 a Royal Gala Performance was held, attended by Her Majesty The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh.During this phenomenal run there have been no fewer than 382 actors and actresses appearing in the play, 116 miles of shirts have been ironed and over 415 tons of ice cream sold.

Agatha Christie, (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 80 detective novels—especially those featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple—and her successful West End theatre plays.

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories. Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Tuesday Night Club in 1927 (short story) and was based on women like Christie's grandmother and her "cronies". During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain and Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, respectively. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike Conan Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot. In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective’s titles outnumber the Marple titles more than two to one. This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s. Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording, recently rediscovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady". Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain in 1975. Following the great success of Curtain, Dame Agatha gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976 but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in St. Mary Mead. On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. The evidence of Christie's working methods, as described by successive biographers, contradicts this claim.

Wikipedia                 johnn harry           virtual globe trotting

raleigh little theatre            St. Martin's theatre

Alec Coppel, Samuel A. Taylor, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac  and Maxwell Anderson

Stars :

 James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore ...

Plot :

A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

Vertigo is a type of dizziness, where there is a feeling of motion when one is stationary. The symptoms are due to a dysfunction of the vestibular system in the inner ear. It is often associated with nausea and vomiting as well as difficulties standing or walking.

The most common causes are benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, concussion and vestibular migraine while less common causes include Ménière's disease and vestibular neuritis. Excessive consumption of ethanol (alcoholic beverages) can also cause notorious symptoms of vertigo. (For more information see Short term effects of alcohol). Repetitive spinning, as in familiar childhood games, can induce short-lived vertigo by disrupting the inertia of the fluid in the vestibular system.

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. In 1956 he became an American citizen while retaining his British citizenship. Over a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a distinctive and recognizable directorial style. He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. He framed shots to maximize anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing. His stories frequently feature fugitives on the run from the law alongside "icy blonde" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of violence, murder, and crime, although many of the mysteries function as decoys or "MacGuffins" meant only to serve thematic elements in the film and the extremely complex psychological examinations of the characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and feature strong sexual undertones. Through his cameo appearances in his own films, interviews, film trailers, and the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he became a cultural icon.

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Wikipedia 

IMDB

Webmaster Dictionary

Claper board

Newyork Film Critics

Being educated since childhood at very prestigious schools has made him into a grand maestro, winning awards in various countries and composing in varied styles. He studied at the Academy and Conservatories of Music in Vienna, Austria, and received several important scholarships and awards both in Europe and United States. These include the A.K.M Scholarship, Vienna, Austria, and the ASCAP Scholarship, Los Angeles, California.

Mr. Rohani is the music director and conductor of the COTA symphony orchestra in Los Angeles. He has appeared as a guest conductor with a number of prestigious orchestras including London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Zagreb Philharmonic, the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras and many others.

In December 1998 Mr. Rohani was commissioned by the government of Thailand and the committee of the 13th Asian Olympic Games to compose and conduct the music for opening ceremonies. The composition became the most popular song of the Asian Games.

Mr. Rohani has recorded several classical CDs with the Slovak Radio Symphony orchestra for Discover/Koch International including the Tchaikovsky Ballet music which received raging reviews by the media including the Intune Magazine in Japan.

In 1999 Mr. Rohani received the Thailand's Pikanes award, the country's most prestigious music award for an outstanding orchestral performance. The award is considered the highest artistic achievement.

Mr. Rohani is especially well known to the world for conducting film music.

  1. Eternity      6:04

  2. Whispers of a Dream   4:40

  3. Sweet Sorrow  5:13

  4. Land of Mystery  6:41

  5. Rhapsody   4:35

  6. Odyssey   5:35

  7. Silent Ballad  5:10

  8. Voice of the Meadows  4:17

  9. Paradise   3:20

The Final Frontier

Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six compilations.

Pioneers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden achieved success during the early 1980s. After several line-up changes, the band went on to release a series of platinum and gold albums. These include the U.S. platinum-selling The Number of the Beast in 1982, Piece of Mind in 1983, Powerslave in 1984, the live release Live After Death in 1985, Somewhere in Time in 1986, and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son in 1988. The band are currently undergoing a resurgence in popularity, with their 2006 album A Matter of Life and Death peaking at number nine on the Billboard 200 and at number four in the UK. Their latest studio offering, The Final Frontier, was released worldwide on 16 and 17 August 2010, peaking at number one in 40 different countries and receiving universal acclaim from reviewers. The album's second track, "El Dorado", won in the Best Metal Performance category at the 53rd Grammy Awards.

Considered one of the most successful heavy metal bands in history, Iron Maiden have reportedly sold over 85 million records worldwide with little radio or television support. The band won the Ivor Novello Award for international achievement in 2002, and were also inducted into the Hollywood RockWalk in Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California during their United States tour in 2005. As of October 2009, the band has played over 2000 live shows during their career.

For the past 30 years, the band has been supported by their famous mascot, "Eddie", who has appeared on almost all of their album and single covers, as well as in their live shows.

The Final Frontier is the fifteenth studio album by British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released on 13 August 2010 in Germany, Austria and Finland, 17 August in North America, and 16 August worldwide. At 76 minutes and 39 seconds, it is the band's longest to date and their first since A Matter of Life and Death in 2006 (the longest gap to date between two consecutive Iron Maiden studio releases). The North American leg of their tour in support of the album started in Dallas, Texas on 9 June, with a European tour beginning in Dublin on 30 July, and served as a preview, with only one track (El Dorado) being played. The full album tour began in Moscow on February 11, 2011, and would see the band tour extensively in South East Asia, Australia, South America and Florida,as well as returning to Europe. Melvyn Grant, a long-time contributor to the band's artwork, created the cover art.

Plot:

The poor d'Artagnan travels to Paris to join the Musketeers. He suffers misadventure and is challenged to a duel by each of three musketeers (Athos, Aramis and Porthos). Attacked by the Cardinal's guards, the four unite and escape.

D'Artagnan and his new love interest, Constance, help the French queen give a particular piece of jewelry to her paramour, the Duke of Buckingham. The Cardinal learns of this and coaxes the French king to hold a ball where the queen must wear the jewelry; its absence will reveal her infidelity. The four companions retrieve the jewelry from England.

The Cardinal kidnaps Constance who is later rescued by the queen. D'Artagnan meets Milady de Winter and discovers she is a felon, the ex-wife of Athos and the widow of Count de Winter. The Cardinal recruits Milady to kill Buckingham, also granting her a hand-written pardon for the future killing of d'Artagnan. Athos learns of this, takes the pardon but is unable to warn Buckingham. He sends word to Lord de Winter that Milady is arriving; Lord de Winter arrests her on suspicion of killing Count de Winter, his brother.

She seduces her guard and escapes to the monastery in France where the queen secreted Constance. Milady kills Constance. The four companions arrive and Athos identifies her as a multiple murderess. She is tried and beheaded.

On the road, d'Artagnan is arrested. Taken before the Cardinal, d'Artagnan relates recent events and reveals the Cardinal's pardon. Impressed, the Cardinal offers him a blank musketeer officer's commission. D'Artagnan's friends refuse the commission, each retiring to a new life, telling him to take it himself, and so he takes it and later on he becomes a well known lieutenant.

Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870)[1] was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were originally serialized. He also wrote plays and magazine articles and was a prolific correspondent.

Writer: Ingmar Bergman

Stars: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot

Storyline:

John William Coltrane (also known as "Trane"; September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He was prolific, organizing at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk.

As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. His second wife was pianist Alice Coltrane, and their son Ravi Coltrane is also a saxophonist. Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in jazz history. He received many posthumous awards and recognition, including canonization by the African Orthodox Church as Saint John William Coltrane. In 2007, Coltrane was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."

1-  "Like Someone in Love" - 5:00

2-     "I Love You" - 5:33

3-    "Trane's Slo Blues" - 6:05

4-     "Lush Life" - 14:00

5-    "I Hear a Rhapsody" - 6:01

Plot summary

 The novel's narrative is divided into three distinct strands. One is centred on Urania Cabral, a fictional Dominican character; another deals with the conspirators involved in Trujillo's assassination; and the third focuses on Trujillo himself. The novel alternates between these storylines, and also jumps back and forth from 1961 to 1996, with frequent flashbacks to periods earlier in Trujillo's regime.

 The Feast of the Goat begins with the return of Urania to her hometown of Santo Domingo, a city which had been renamed Ciudad Trujillo during Trujillo's time in power. This storyline is largely introspective and deals with Urania's memories and her inner turmoil over the events preceding her departure from the Dominican Republic thirty-five years earlier. Urania escaped the crumbling Trujillo regime in 1961 by claiming she planned to study under the tutelage of nuns in Michigan. In the following decades, she becomes a prominent and successful New York lawyer. She finally returns to the Dominican Republic in 1996, on a whim, and finds herself compelled to confront her father and elements of her past she has long ignored. As Urania speaks to her ailing father, Agustin Cabral, she recalls more and more of the anger and disgust that led to her thirty-five years of silence. Urania retells her father's descent into political disgrace, and the betrayal that forms the crux of both Urania's storyline and that of Trujillo himself.

 The second and third storylines are set in 1961, in the weeks prior to and following Trujillo's assassination on the 30th of May. Each assassin has his own background story, explaining his motivation for his involvement in the assassination plot. Each has been wronged by Trujillo and his regime, by torture and brutality, or through assaults on their pride, their religious faith, their morality, or their loved ones. Vargas Llosa weaves the tale of the men as memories recalled on the night of Trujillo's death, as the conspirators lie in wait for "The Goat". Interconnected with these stories are the actions of other famous Trujillistas of the time; Joaquín Balaguer, the puppet president, Johnny Abbes García, the merciless head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), and various others—some real, some composites of historical figures, and some purely fictional.

 The third storyline is concerned with the thoughts and motives of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina himself. The chapters concerning The Goat recall the major events of his time, including the slaughter of thousands of Dominican Haitians in 1937. They also deal with the Dominican Republic's tense international relationships during the Cold War, especially with the United States under the presidency of John F. Kennedy, and Cuba under Castro. Vargas Llosa also speculates upon Trujillo's innermost thoughts and paints a picture of a man whose physical body is failing him. Trujillo is tormented by incontinence and impotence; and this storyline intersects with Urania's narrative when it is revealed that Urania was sexually assaulted by Trujillo. He is unable to achieve an erection with Urania, and in frustration and anger he rapes her with his hands. This event is the core of Urania's shame, and her hatred towards her father. In addition, it is the cause of Trujillo's repeated anger over the "anemic little bitch" that witnessed his impotence and emotion, and the reason he is en route to sleep with another girl on the night of his assassination.

 In the novel's final chapters, the three storylines intersect with increasing frequency. The tone of these chapters is especially dark as they deal primarily with the horrific torture and death of the assassins at the hands of the SIM, the failure of the coup, the rape of Urania, and the concessions made to Trujillo's most vicious supporters allowing them to enact their horrific revenge on the conspirators and then escape the country. The book ends as Urania prepares to return home, determined this time to keep in touch with her family back on the island.

Like many Latin American authors, Vargas Llosa has been politically active throughout his career; over the course of his life, he has gradually moved from the political left towards liberalism or neoliberalism, a definitively more conservative political position. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with the Cuban dictator and his authoritarian regime. He ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 with the center-right Frente Democrático (FREDEMO) coalition, advocating neoliberal reforms. He has subsequently supported moderate conservative candidates.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writers: Krzysztof Kieslowski , Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Stars: Irène Jacob, Wladyslaw Kowalski , Halina Gryglaszewska

Storyline

Exodus is an American thrash metal band formed in 1980 in the San Francisco Bay Area, California by guitarist Gary Holt, current Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, and drummer Tom Hunting.

In 1980, Kirk Hammett met El Cerrito resident Paul Baloff at a North Berkeley house party, a friendship that was started - according to aspiring guitarist Hammett - by both's admiration for punk rock and 1970's heavy metal music. With intentions to start a band based on these influences, Hammett recruited his Richmond and El Sobrante-area friends Tim Agnello on second guitar and Tom Hunting on drums. Initial bassist Carlton Melson would soon be replaced by Jeff Andrews.[1][2] Before deciding the band name "Exodus" or any songwriting had completed, Agnello would leave the group (and music) forever to pursue a life of ministry in Stockton, California, and would be replaced by Hammett's guitar technician, Gary Holt.

After the release of Good Friendly Violent Fun, the band toured sporadically for a year and released another studio album, Force of Habit. This album was a departure for the band, containing several slower, "heavier" songs with less emphasis on the speed/thrash basis of their older material. The 11-minute song "Architect of Pain", is a good example of the change of direction, being a much slower, grindier song than the usual high speed thrash they were known for. After a few dormant years, Exodus released another live album in 1997 titled Another Lesson in Violence and featuring the return of vocalist Paul Baloff. Exodus disintegrated again, partly due to a falling out with record label Century Media over the way the live album was promoted, and over an aborted attempt at a live concert video which was filmed but never released due to a financial dispute.

neo-progressive rock

Marillion are a British rock group, formed in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England in 1979. Their recorded studio output comprises sixteen albums and is generally regarded as comprising two distinct eras, delineated by the departure of original vocalist & frontman Fish in late 1988 after their first four albums, and the subsequent arrival of replacement Steve Hogarth ("h") in early 1989.

Clutching at Straws is the fourth studio album by neo-progressive rock band Marillion, and is a concept album. Released in 1987, it was the last album with lead singer Fish who left the band in 1988. Although commercially not quite as successful as its 1985 predecessor Misplaced Childhood - Clutching at Straws spent 15 weeks on the UK album chart (the shortest chart residency of any of Marillion's first four studio albums) - it still reached number two (the second highest chart placing for a Marillion album) and it is considered to be among the best work of Marillion's "Fish era" by many fans and critics, and also Fish himself, as he has stated in several interviews.

Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish avant-garde writer, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human culture, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.

Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by James Joyce, he is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His work became increasingly minimalist in his later career.

Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation."

Plot :

Malone is an old man who lies naked in bed in either asylum or hospital--he is not sure which. Most of his personal effects have been taken from him, though he has retained some, notably his exercise book, brimless hat, and pencil. He alternates between writing his own situation and that of a boy named Sapo. When he reaches the point in the story where Sapo becomes a man, he changes Sapo's name to Macmann, finding Sapo a ludicrous name. Not long after, Malone admits to having killed six men, but seems to think it not a big deal—particularly the last, a total stranger whom he cut across the neck with a razor.

 Eventually, Macmann falls over in mud and is taken to an institution called St. John's of God. There he is provided with an attendant nurse—an elderly, thick-lipped woman named Moll, with crosses of bone on either ear representing the two thieves crucified with Jesus on Good Friday, and a crucifix carved on her tooth representing Jesus. The two eventually begin a stumbling sexual affair, but after a while she does not return, and he learns that she has died.

 The new nurse is a man named Lemuel, and there is an animosity between the two. Macmann (and sometimes Malone drifts into the first-person) has an issue with a stick that he uses to reach things and Lemuel takes it away.

 At the end of the novel …

Malone Dies contains the famous line:

"Nothing is more real than nothing"

(New York: Grove, 1956; p. 16).