This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since April 2009. It is written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Tagged since April 2009. It may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources. Tagged since April 2009.

To think good thoughts requires effort. This is one of the things that disciprine – training – is about.

In its original sense, discipline is systematic instruction given to disciples to train them as students in a craft or trade,or any other activity which they are supposed to perform, or to follow a particular code of conduct or "order". Often, the phrase "to discipline" carries a negative connotation. This is because enforcement of order – that is, ensuring instructions are carried out – is often regulated through punishment. Discipline is also believed to be one of the main pillars of modern life, according to many different religious beliefs.

Methods of discipline[link]

Military discipline[link]

Military discipline refers to the regulation of the behaviors of members of any military, involving rules that govern goal orientation and behavior inside and outside the institution, including the socialization processes that happen in military training^[1] Rules of discipline are firmer or laxer depending on the prevalent culture of the military's country or institution.^[2] As early as the time of the Roman Army, discipline was enforced through military justice, but broader compilations of laws such as the Codex Theodosianus contained provisions dealing with military discipline.^[3]

Church discipline[link]

Church discipline is a response of an ecclesiastical body to some perceived wrong, whether in action or in doctrine. Its most extreme form in modern churches is excommunication. Discipline is the assertion of willpower over more base desires, and is usually understood to be synonymous with self control. Self-discipline is to some extent a substitute for motivation, when one uses reason to determine the best course of action that opposes one's desires. Virtuous behavior is when one's motivations are aligned with one's reasoned aims: to do what one knows is best and to do it gladly. Continent behavior, on the other hand, is when one does what one knows is best, but must do it by opposing one's motivations.^[4] Moving from continent to virtuous behavior requires training and some self-discipline.

Child Discipline[link]

Child discipline is used in varying circumstances. This is often done with punishment, either physical or involving loss of property or privileges. It is a vital factor in shaping one’s personality. It is inculcated in the pupils not as an imposition but as a normal growth under the process of training in self discipline and self help through every activity.

Self-discipline[link]

Self-discipline can be defined as the ability to motivate oneself in spite of a negative emotional state. Qualities associated with self-discipline include willpower, hard work, and persistence.

Self-discipline is the product of persisted willpower. Whereas willpower is the strength and ability to carryout a certain task, self-discipline is the ability to use it routinely and even automatically (as if through reflex). An analogy for the relationship between the two might be defined as follows: Where willpower is the muscle, self-discipline is the structured thought that controls that muscle. In most places it is believed self discipline is the ultimate path to success.

References[link]

Look up discipline in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Discipline

Napoleon Hill
Portrait of a young Napoleon Hill
Born	(1883-10-26)October 26, 1883 Pound, Virginia
Died	November 8, 1970(1970-11-08) (aged 87)
Occupation	author, journalist, attorney, lecturer
Nationality	United States
Period	1928–1970
Genres	non-fiction, how-to, treatise
Subjects	personal development, self-help, motivation, finance, investment
Literary movement	personal development, self-help
Notable work(s)	Think and Grow Rich The Law of Success Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude
Influences Andrew Carnegie, W. Clement Stone, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller
Influenced W. Clement Stone Og Mandino
Signature
The Napoleon Hill Foundation naphill.org the napoleon hill foundation
Literature portal

Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success.^[1] His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich (1937), is one of the best-selling books of all time (at the time of Hill's death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold 20 million copies).^[2] Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He became an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1936. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" is one of Hill's hallmark expressions.^[3][4] How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach of the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books.

Life and works[link]

According to his official biographer, Tom Butler-Bowdon, Napoleon Hill was born in a one-room cabin near the Appalachian town of Pound, in Southwest Virginia.^[5] Hill's mother died when he was eight years old, and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County, Virginia. He later used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon he had to withdraw for financial reasons.^[6]

Influence of Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)[link]

Andrew Carnegie

Hill considered the turning point in his life to have occurred in the year 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous and successful men, to interview the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. At the time, Carnegie was one of the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and achieve. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie asked him if he was up to the task of putting together this information, to interview or analyze over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.^[7]

As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and Jennings Randolph. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[8]

The Philosophy of Achievement[link]

Napoleon Hill holding his book Think and Grow Rich

As a result of Hill's studies via Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie, published initially in 1925 as a multi-volume study course called The Law of Success, later re-released in 1928 in an abridged version under the same title. The Achievement formula was detailed further and published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.

Hill later called his personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement", and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony to be important contributing elements to this philosophy. Hill claimed throughout his writings that without these foundations upon which to build, successful personal achievements were not possible. He contrasted his philosophy with others' and thought that the Achievement Philosophy was superior. He felt that it was responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries. Negative emotions such as fear, selfishness, etc., had no part to play in his philosophy. Hill considered those emotions to be the source of failure for unsuccessful people.^[9]

The secret of achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, but Hill felt readers would benefit most if they discovered it for themselves. Although most readers feel that he never explicitly identified this secret, he offers these words about 20 pages into the book: If you truly desire money so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to be so determined to have it that you convince yourself that you will have it. . . You may as well know, right here, that you can never have riches in great quantities unless you work yourself into a white heat of desire for money, and actually believe you will possess it.

He presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers in order to make them ask themselves, "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, 98% of people had few or no firm beliefs, and this alone put true success firmly out of their reach.^[10]

One of Hill's most moving stories was about his own son, Blair. He tells how his son was an inspiration to him, because although Blair was born without ears, without any normal hearing organs at all, even though his doctor told Hill that his son would neither be able to hear nor speak, Blair grew up to be able to hear and speak almost normally. Hill tells how his son, in his last year of college, picked up the manuscript of chapter two of Think and Grow Rich, discovered Hill's secret for himself and went on to be an inspiration for hundreds and thousands of people who could not hear or speak.^[11]

From 1952 to 1962, Hill taught his Philosophy of Personal Achievement – Lectures on "Science of Success" in association with W. Clement Stone.^[12] In 1960, Hill and Stone co-authored the book, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. Norman Vincent Peale stated "These two men [Hill and Stone] have the rare gift of inspiring and helping people...In fact, I owe them both a personal debt of gratitude for the helpful guidance I have received from their writings." ^[13]

Think and Grow Rich remains the top seller of Napoleon Hill's books – a perennial best-seller after 70 years (Business Week Magazine's Best-Seller List ranked Think and Grow Rich as the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was first published).^[14] Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List. ^[15]

Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, showing that the secret of achievement is still highly sought-after by many today. Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles using the Philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every human.^[10]

Today's philosophy-of-success teachers still use the research formulas taught by Hill to expand their students' knowledge of personal development.^[15]

Bibliography[link]

• The Law of Success (1928)
• The Magic Ladder To Success (1930)
• Think and Grow Rich (1937)
• How to Sell Your Way through Life (1939)
• Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (1960)
• You Can Work Your Own Miracles (1971)
• Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement
• Grow Rich!: With Peace of Mind
• The Master-Key to Riches
• Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion
• Outwitting the Devil (2011) ISBN 978-1-4027-8453-8

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Napoleon Hill

• Napoleon Hill Quotes
• Article on Hill's life from Success magazine
• Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) – Find A Grave Memorial

This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (February 2011)

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Gus Van Sant
Van Sant at a screening of Paranoid Park, December 2007
Born	Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. (1952-07-24) July 24, 1952 (age 59) Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1982 - present
Notable work(s)	Drugstore Cowboy, Good Will Hunting, My Own Private Idaho, Milk, Elephant
Influenced by	Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas

Gus Green Van Sant, Jr.^[1] (born July 24, 1952) is an American film director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director — for Good Will Hunting (1997) and Milk (2008), both of which were also nominated for Best Picture — and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Elephant (2003).^[2] He lives in Portland, Oregon.

His early career was devoted to directing television commercials in the Pacific Northwest. In his films, he has dealt with themes concerning homosexuality and other marginalized subcultures.

His filmography as writer and director includes a 1994 adaptation of Tom Robbins' 1976 novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which features a diverse cast (Keanu Reeves, Roseanne Barr, Uma Thurman, and k.d. lang, with cameos by William S. Burroughs and Heather Graham, among others); and My Own Private Idaho (1991), also starring Reeves as well as River Phoenix.

He wrote the screenplays for most of his early movies, and wrote one novel, Pink.^[3] A book of his photography has also been published, called 108 Portraits.^[4]

Early life[link]

Van Sant was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Betty (née Seay) and Gus Green Van Sant, Sr, a clothing manufacturer^[1] and traveling salesman who rapidly worked his way up the corporate ladder into middle class prosperity. As a result of his father's job, the family moved continually during Van Sant's childhood. Van Sant is an alumnus of Darien High School in Connecticut and The Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon. One constant in the director's early years was his interest in painting and Super-8 filmmaking; while still in school he began making semi-autobiographical shorts costing between 30 and 50 dollars. Van Sant's artistic leanings took him to the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970, where his classmates included David Byrne and other members of Talking Heads. It was also at RISD that Van Sant received an introduction to avant-garde directors like Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, and Andy Warhol; this introduction quickly inspired him to change his major from painting to cinema.

Early career (1978–1989)[link]

After spending time in Europe, Van Sant went to Los Angeles in 1976. He secured a job as a production assistant to writer/director Ken Shapiro, with whom he developed a few ideas, none of which came to fruition. In 1981, Van Sant made Alice in Hollywood, a film about a naïve young actress who goes to Hollywood and abandons her ideals. It was never released. During this period, Van Sant began to spend time observing the denizens of the more down-and-out sections of Hollywood Boulevard. He became fascinated by the existence of this marginalized section of L.A.'s population, especially in context with the more ordinary, prosperous world that surrounded them. Van Sant would repeatedly focus his work on those existing on society's fringes, beginning with his 1985 film Mala Noche.

Mala Noche was made two years after Van Sant went to New York to work in an advertising agency. He saved $20,000 during his tenure there, enabling him to finance the majority of his tale of doomed love between a gay liquor store clerk and a Mexican immigrant. The film, which was taken from Portland street writer Walt Curtis' semi-autobiographical novella, featured some of the director's hallmarks, notably an unfulfilled romanticism, a dry sense of the absurd, and the refusal to treat homosexuality as something deserving of judgment. Unlike many gay filmmakers, Van Sant—who had long been openly gay—declined to use same-sex relationships as fodder for overtly political statements, although such relationships would frequently appear in his films.

Shot in black-and-white, Mala Noche earned its director almost overnight acclaim on the festival circuit, with the Los Angeles Times naming it the year's Best Independent Film. The film's success attracted Hollywood interest, and Van Sant was briefly courted by Universal; the courtship ended after Van Sant pitched a series of project ideas (including what would later become Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho) that the studio declined to take interest in.

Van Sant moved back to Portland, Oregon, where he set up house and began giving life to the ideas rejected by Universal. With the assistance of independent production company Avenue, the director made Drugstore Cowboy, his 1989 film about four drug addicts who rob pharmacies to support their habit. Cowboy met with great critical success; in addition to furthering Van Sant's reputation as a gifted director, it helped to revive the career of Matt Dillon, who played the junkie leader of the gang.

Indie and arthouse success (1990–1995)[link]

Drugstore Cowboy's exploration of the lives of those living on society's outer fringes, as well as its Portland setting, were mirrored in Van Sant's next effort, the similarly acclaimed My Own Private Idaho (1991). Only with the success of Cowboy was Van Sant now given license to make Idaho (a project he had originally pitched but was knocked back several times as the script was deemed 'too risky' by studios). Now New Line Cinema had given Van Sant the green light, he was on a mission to get the Idaho script to his first choices for his two young leads. After months of struggle with agents and managers over the content of the script, Van Sant finally secured River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in the roles of Mike Waters and Scott Favor. Centering around the dealings of two male hustlers (played by Phoenix and Reeves), the film was a compelling examination of unrequited love, alienation, and the concept of family (a concept Van Sant repeatedly explores in his films). The film won him an Independent Spirit Award for his screenplay (he had won the same award for his Drugstore Cowboy screenplay), as well as greater prestige. The film also gained River Phoenix best actor honors at the Venice Film Festival among others. In addition, it helped Reeves—previously best-known for his work in the Bill and Ted movies—to get the critical respect that had previously eluded him.

Van Sant's next project, a 1993 adaptation of Tom Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, was an excessive flop, both commercially and critically. Featuring an unusually large budget (for Van Sant, at least) of $8.5 million and a large, eclectic cast including Uma Thurman, John Hurt, Keanu Reeves and a newcomer in the form of River Phoenix's younger sister Rain (at Phoenix's suggestion). The film was worked and then reworked, but the finished product nonetheless resulted in something approaching a significant disaster.

Van Sant's 1995 film To Die For helped to restore his luster. An adaptation of Joyce Maynard's novel, the black comedy starred Nicole Kidman as a murderously ambitious weather girl; it also featured Van Sant favorite Matt Dillon as her hapless husband and, the third Phoenix sibling in as many projects, Joaquin Phoenix, as her equally hapless lover (River had died from a drug overdose a year and half earlier). It was Van Sant's first effort for a major studio (Columbia), and its success paved the way for further projects of the director's choosing. The same year, he served as executive producer for Larry Clark's Kids; it was a fitting assignment, due to both the film's subject matter and the fact that Clark's photographs of junkies had served as reference points for Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy.

Mainstream breakout (1997–2003)[link]

In 1997, the director gained mainstream acceptance thanks to Good Will Hunting, starring and written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The film—about a troubled, blue-collar mathematical genius—was a huge critical and commercial success. In addition to taking in more than $220 million worldwide, it received a number of Academy Award nominations, including a Best Director nomination for Van Sant. It won a Best Screenplay Oscar for Damon and Affleck, and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Robin Williams. Van Sant, Damon and Affleck parodied themselves and the film's success in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

The success of Good Will Hunting afforded Van Sant the opportunity to remake the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho. As opposed to reinterpreting the 1960 film, Van Sant opted to recreate the film shot-for-shot, in color, with a cast of young Hollywood A-listers. His decision was met with equal parts curiosity, skepticism, and derision from industry insiders and outsiders alike, and the finished result met with a similar reception. Starring Anne Heche, Vince Vaughn, and Julianne Moore, Psycho, if not exactly a failure, wasn't much of a triumph, either. However, its mixed reception didn't deter the director, who was soon busy again with a number of projects. In addition to directing, he also devoted considerable energy to releasing two albums and publishing a novel, Pink, which was a thinly veiled exploration of his grief over River Phoenix's 1993 death.

Van Sant fared somewhat better with 2000's Finding Forrester, a drama about a high-school student from the Bronx (Rob Brown) who becomes unlikely friends with a crusty, reclusive author (Sean Connery). Critical response was mixed but generally positive, singling out Van Sant's skill at melding the performance styles of first-time actor Brown and Hollywood legend Connery. However, those same reviewers were less impressed with the script's schematic Scent of a Woman-meets-Good Will Hunting template.

[edit] Return to arthouse cinema (2003–present)

Van Sant, longing to return to more intimate production methods, decided to leave behind big-budget studio filmmaking for his next two features. Inspired by the works of Hungarian director Bela Tarr and American maverick John Cassavetes,^{[citation needed]} Van Sant retreated to the deserts of Argentina, Utah, and Death Valley for 2002's Gerry, a loosely devised, largely improvised feature in which stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck—both playing characters named Gerry—wander through the desert, discussing Wheel of Fortune, video games, and nothing in particular. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, the film earned as much derision as it did praise, polarizing audiences with its elliptical, purposefully uneventful storyline, punctuated by cinematographer Harris Savides' stunning landscape photography.^{[citation needed]}

It took Gerry over a year to make it to theaters, in which time Van Sant began production on his next film, the controversial Elephant. Approached by HBO and producer Diane Keaton to craft a fictional film based on the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, the director chose to shoot in his hometown of Portland, employing dozens of untrained teen actors to chronicle an "ordinary" high-school day—albeit one underlined by an unexpected tragedy. Melding improvisational long takes like those in Gerry with Savides' fluid camerawork, the finished film provoked strong reactions from audiences at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, who either embraced or rejected Van Sant's aesthetic decision not to offer a definitive rationale for his characters' homicidal tendencies. The consensus from the Cannes jury was unanimous, however: in a surprise decision, they awarded Elephant with their top prize, the Palme d'Or, and Van Sant with his first Best Director statue from the festival.^[2] The success of Elephant led Van Sant to show the U.S. premiere of Elephant as a fundraiser for Outside In, an organization working to help youth living on the streets of Portland, Oregon.

In 2005 Van Sant released Last Days, the final component of what he refers to as his "Death Trilogy," (the other parts being Gerry and Elephant). It is a fictionalized account of what happened to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain in the days leading up to his death.

In 2006 Van Sant began work on Paranoid Park based on the book by Blake Nelson, about a skateboarding teenager who accidentally causes someone's death. The film was released in Europe in February 2008. He also directed the "Le Marais" segment of the omnibus film Paris, je t'aime.

Released in 2008, his feature film Milk is a biopic of openly gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, played by Sean Penn. The film was released to much acclaim and earned numerous accolades from film critics and guilds. Ultimately, it received eight Oscar nominations at the 81st Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning two for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Penn and Best Original Screenplay for writer Dustin Lance Black. Van Sant was nominated for Best Director.^{[citation needed]}

Van Sant's 2011 project Restless^[5] was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.^[6] Van Sant will begin production on Promised Land, starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski, in April 2012.^[7]

In media[link]

Van Sant has released two musical albums: Gus Van Sant and 18 Songs About Golf.

At the Broken Social Scene concert held in Singapore in July 2010, Kevin Drew said that the track Art House Director was written about Van Sant.

Van Sant plays himself in one episode of the HBO series Entourage.

Van Sant is directing the pilot for the Starz television program Boss, starring Kelsey Grammer.

Awards and nominations[link]

• Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
  • Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Screenplay^{[citation needed]}
  • National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director
  • National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay
  • New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay

• My Own Private Idaho (1991)
  • Venice Film Festival Official Selection
  • Toronto Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize

• Good Will Hunting (1997)
  • Berlin Film Festival Official Selection^[8]
  • Academy Award nomination for Best Director
  • Directors Guild of America (DGA) nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement In Motion Pictures
  • Satellite Award nomination for Best Director^{[citation needed]}

• Psycho (1998)
  • Razzie Award for Worst Director

• Finding Forrester (2000)
  • Berlin Film Festival Prize of the Guild of German Art House Cinemas

• Gerry (2002)
  • Toronto Film Festival Vision Awards - Special Citation^{[citation needed]}

• Elephant (2003)
  • Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or^[2]
  • Cannes Film Festival Prix de la mise en scène^[2]

• Last Days (2005)
  • Cannes Film Festival Official Selection^[9]

• Paranoid Park (2007)
  • Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director (also for Milk)
  • Cannes Film Festival Prix du 60ème anniversaire (also acknowledging his body of works)^[10]

• Milk (2008)
  • Academy Award nomination for Best Director
  • Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director (also for Paranoid Park)^{[citation needed]}
  • Broadcast Film Critics Association Award nomination for Best Director
  • Directors Guild of America (DGA) nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement In Motion Pictures
  • Satellite Award nomination for Best Director

Filmography[link]

Feature films[link]

• Mala Noche (1985)
• Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
• My Own Private Idaho (1991)
• Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)
• To Die For (1995)
• Good Will Hunting (1997)
• Psycho (1998)
• Finding Forrester (2000)
• Gerry (2002)
• Elephant (2003)
• Last Days (2005)
• Paranoid Park (2007)
• Milk (2008)
• Restless (2011)

Short films[link]

^[11]

• Fun with a Bloodroot (1967) (2 min 20 sec, 8 mm color)
• The Happy Organ (1971) (20 min, 16 mm black and white)
• Little Johnny (1972) (40 sec, 16 mm black and white)
• 1/2 of a Telephone Conversation (1973) (2 min, 16 mm black and white)
• Late Morning Start (1975) (28 min, 16 mm color)
• The Discipline of DE (1978) (9 min, 16 mm black and white, adaptation of William S. Burroughs' short story, narrated by Ken Shapiro)
• Alice in Hollywood (1981) (45 min, 16 mm color)
• My Friend (1982) (3 min, 16 mm black and white)
• Where'd She Go? (1983) (3 min, 16 mm color)
• Nightmare Typhoon (1984) (9 min, 16 mm black and white)
• My New Friend (1984) (3 min, 16 mm color)
• Ken Death Gets Out of Jail (1985) (3 min, 16 mm black and white)
• Five Ways to Kill Yourself (1986) (3 min, 16 mm black and white)
• Thanksgiving Prayer (1991) (2 min, 35 mm color, written by and starring William S. Burroughs)
• Four Boys in a Volvo (1996) (4min, color)
• Paris, je t'aime (2006) (segment "Le Marais")
• Chacun son cinéma / To Each His Own Cinema (2007) (segment "First Kiss") (3 min)
• 8 (2008) (segment "Mansion on the Hill")

Music videos[link]

^[12]

• "Thanksgiving Prayer" by William Burroughs (1990)
• "Fame '90" by David Bowie (1990)
• "I'm Seventeen" by Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers (1991)
• "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers (1992)
• "Bang Bang Bang" by Tracy Chapman (1992)
• "Runaway" by Deee-Lite (1992)
• "The Last Song" by Elton John (1992)
• "San Francisco Days" by Chris Isaak (1993)
• "Just Keep Me Moving" by k.d. lang (1993)
• "Creep" (alternate version) by Stone Temple Pilots (1993)
• "Understanding" by Candlebox (1995)
• "The Ballad of the Skeletons" by Allen Ginsberg with Paul McCartney, Philip Glass, Lenny Kaye et al. (1996)
• "Weird" by Hanson (1998)
• "Who Did You Think I Was?" (turntable version) by John Mayer Trio (2005)
• "Desecration Smile" by Red Hot Chili Peppers (2007)

Executive producer[link]

• Kids (1995)
• Speedway Junky (1999)
• Tarnation (2003)
• Wild Tigers I Have Known (2006)
• Lightfield's Home Videos (2006)
• Howl (2010)
• What's Wrong with Virginia (2010)
• Act Up! (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gus Van Sant on Myspace
• Gus Van Sant at the Internet Movie Database
• Gus Van Sant on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Gus Van Sant in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Gus Van Sant collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Gus Van Sant at the New York Times Movies
• Future Movies Paranoid Park interview (01/2008)
• Interview (11/2003)
• Senses of Cinema essay
• Reverse Shot Gus Van Sant: Vague Recollections
• Literature on Gus Van Sant

Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin in March 2011
Background information
Birth name	Robert McFerrin, Jr
Born	(1950-03-11) March 11, 1950 (age 62) Manhattan, New York
Genres	Jazz, Reggae, World Music, Classical Music
Occupations	Musician Songwriter Conductor Arranger Producer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, bass guitar, clarinet
Years active	1977–present
Labels	Manhattan Records Blue Note Records Elektra Records Sony Classical
Associated acts	Chick Corea Herbie Hancock
Website	www.bobbymcferrin.com

Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is a virtuoso American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner. He is well known for his unique vocal techniques and singing styles.

Life[link]

Bobby McFerrin was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of operatic baritone Robert McFerrin and singer Sara Copper.^[1] Robert Sr. was the first African American to be a regular with New York's Metropolitan Opera. Sara is a former soloist with regional opera companies and in Broadway shows, and is a professor emeritus of music at Fullerton College in Fullerton, California.

Bobby McFerrin married Debbie Green in 1975. They have three children.^[2]

McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was a No. 1 U.S. pop hit in 1988 and won Song of the Year and Record of the Year honors. McFerrin has also worked in collaboration with instrumental performers, including pianists Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Joe Zawinul, drummer Tony Williams, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Vocal technique[link]

As a vocalist, McFerrin often switches rapidly between modal and falsetto registers to create polyphonic effects, performing both the main melody and the accompanying parts of songs. He makes use of percussive effects created both with his mouth and by tapping on his chest. McFerrin is also capable of multiphonic singing, as observed in his song "Drive" from the 2005 DVD Live in Montreal.^[3]

A notable document of McFerrin's approach to singing is his 1984 album The Voice, the first solo vocal jazz album recorded with no accompaniment or overdubbing.^[4]

Career[link]

In 1986, McFerrin was the voice of Santa Bear in Santa Bear's First Christmas, and in 1987 he was the voice of Santa Bear/Bully Bear in the sequel Santa Bear's High Flying Adventure. That same year, he performed the theme song for the opening credits of Season 4 of The Cosby Show, as well as the music for a Cadbury chocolate commercial.^{[citation needed]}

In 1988, McFerrin recorded the hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy", which brought him widespread recognition across the world. However, the song's success "ended McFerrin's musical life as he had known it," and he began to pursue other musical possibilities – on stage and in recording studios.^[5] The song was used in George H. W. Bush's 1988 U.S. presidential election as Bush's 1988 official presidential campaign song, without Bobby McFerrin's permission or endorsement. In reaction, Bobby McFerrin publicly protested that particular use of his song, including stating that he was going to vote against Bush, and completely dropped the song from his own performance repertoire, to make the point even clearer.^{[citation needed]}

In 1989, he composed and performed the music for the Pixar short film Knick Knack. The rough cut to which McFerrin recorded his vocals had the words "blah blah blah" in place of the end credits (meant to indicate that he should improvise). McFerrin spontaneously decided to sing "blah blah blah" as lyrics, and the final version of the short film includes these lyrics during the end credits. Also in 1989, he formed a ten-person "Voicestra" which he featured on both his 1990 album Medicine Music and in the score to the 1989 Oscar-winning documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. The song "Common Threads" has frequently reappeared in some public service advertisements about AIDS. McFerrin also performed with the Vocal Summit.^{[citation needed]}

As early as 1992, widespread rumors circulated that falsely claimed McFerrin committed suicide. The rumors intentionally made fun of the distinctly positive nature of his popular song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by claiming McFerrin ironically took his own life.^[6]

In 1993, McFerrin sang Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther" theme for the movie Son of the Pink Panther.

In addition to his vocal performing career, in 1994, Mr. McFerrin was appointed as creative chair of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He makes regular tours as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the San Francisco Symphony (on his 40th birthday), the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and many others. In McFerrin's concert appearances, he combines serious conducting of classical pieces with his own unique vocal improvisations, often with participation from the audience and the orchestra. For example, the concerts often end with McFerrin conducting the orchestra in an a cappella rendition of the "William Tell Overture," in which the orchestra members sing their musical parts in McFerrin's vocal style instead of playing their parts on their instruments.

For a few years in the late 1990s, he toured a concert version of Porgy and Bess, partly in honor of his father, who sang the role for Sidney Poitier in the 1959 film version, and partly "to preserve the score's jazziness" in the face of "largely white orchestras" who tend not "to play around the bar lines, to stretch and bend". McFerrin says that because of his father's work in the movie, "This music has been in my body for 40 years, probably longer than any other music."^[7]

McFerrin also participates in various music education programs and makes volunteer appearances as a guest music teacher and lecturer at public schools throughout the U.S. McFerrin has collaborated with his son, Taylor, on various musical ventures. Taylor has recently been singing, rapping, and playing minimal keyboard accompaniment with Vernon Reid (leader-guitarist of Living Colour) in the eclectic metal-fusion-funk group Yohimbe Brothers.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, McFerrin and musician-scientist Daniel Levitin served as co-hosts of The Music Instinct, a two-hour award-winning documentary produced by PBS and based on Levitin's best-selling book This Is Your Brain On Music. Later that year, the two appeared together on a panel at the World Science Festival, where McFerrin demonstrated audience participation with the ubiquitous nature of human understanding of the pentatonic scale by singing and dancing, and having the audience sing while following his movements.^[8]

Discography[link]

As leader[link]

• Bobby McFerrin (1982)
• The Voice (1984)
• Spontaneous Inventions (1987)
• Elephant's Child (1987)
• Simple Pleasures (1988)
• Don't Worry, Be Happy (1988)
• How the Rhino Got His Skin/How the Camel Got His Hump (1990)
• Medicine Music (1990)
• Play, with Chick Corea, 1992
• Hush, with Yo-Yo Ma, 1992
• Many Faces of Bird (1991)
• "The Siamese Cat Song" on Simply Mad About the Mouse (1991)
• Sorrow Is Not Forever (1994)
• Paper Music (1995, Doick with the St. Paul Chamber orchestra)
• Bang! Zoom (1996)
• The Mozart Sessions, with Chick Corea, 1996
• Circlesongs (1997)
• Mouth Music (2001)
• Beyond Words (2002) – featuring Chick Corea, Cyro Baptista and Richard Bona
• Konzert für Europa -The Schönbrunn Concert (2004)
• VOCAbuLarieS (2010)

As sideman[link]

• Pharoah Sanders, Journey to the One, 1980
• Grover Washington, Jr., The Best Is Yet to Come, 1982
• Various Artists, The Young Lions, 1983
• Charles Lloyd Quartet, A Night in Copenhagen (Blue Note, 1984)
• Various Artists, A Tribute to Thelonius Monk, 1984
• Chico Freeman, Tangents, 1984
• Michael Hedges, Watching My Life Go By, 1985
• The Manhattan Transfer, Vocalese, 1985
• Joe Zawinul, Di•a•lects, 1986
• Weather Report, Sportin' Life, 1985
• Al Jarreau, Heart’s Horizon, 1988
• Quincy Jones, Back on the Block, 1989
• Laurie Anderson, Strange Angels, 1989
• Gal Costa, The Laziest Gal in Town, 1991
• Dizzy Gillespie, Bird Songs: The Final Recordings (Telarc, 1992), To Bird with Love (Telarc, 1992)
• Jack DeJohnette, Extra Special Edition (Blue Note, 1994)
• Yellowjackets, Dreamland, 1995
• George Martin, In My Life, 1998 – on "Come Together" with Robin Williams
• En Vogue, Masterpiece Theatre, 2000
• Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Little Worlds, 2003
• Chick Corea, Rendezvous in New York, 2003
• Wynton Marsalis, The Magic Hour, 2004
• size2shoes, 2006 (free track)^[9]

Grammys[link]

• 1985, Best Jazz Vocal Performance, male, "Another Night In Tunisia" with Jon Hendricks
• 1985, Best Vocal Arrangement for two or more voices, "Another Night In Tunisia" with Cheryl Bentyne
• 1986, Best Jazz Vocal Performance, male, "Round Midnight"
• 1987, Best Jazz Vocal Performance, male, "What Is This Thing Called Love"
• 1987, Best Recording for Children, "The Elephant's Child" with Jack Nicholson
• 1988, Song of the year, Best Pop Vocal Performance, male, Record of the year, "Don't Worry, Be Happy"
• 1988, Best Jazz Vocal Performance, male, "Brothers"
• 1992, Best Jazz Vocal Performance, "Round Midnight"

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bobby McFerrin

• Bobby McFerrin

Jane Nelsen, Ed.D., is a licensed marriage, family and child counselor in South Jordan, Utah and San Clemente, CA. She is the author or coauthor of many books on child discipline, and has also developed training workshops to complement her ideas. Jane holds a doctorate degree in Educational Psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1979, but considers this secondary to the education and experience she has achieved from her successes and failures as a mother of seven children. She now shares her experience through speeches and workshops around the United States.

Jane has been very well received by school districts, teachers' organizations, conferences, and parent education networks throughout the world. She has appeared on Oprah, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Twin Cities Live, and was the featured parent expert on the National Parent Quiz with Ben Vereen.

Works[link]

Books

• Positive Discipline
• Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World
• From Here to Serenity, Four Principles for Understanding Who You Really Are
• Positive Time Out and Fifty Other Ways to Avoid Power Struggles
• Positive Discipline for Teenagers
• Positive Discipline in the Classroom
• Positive Discipline A-Z
• Positive Discipline for Single Parents
• Positive Discipline for Preschoolers
• Positive Discipline The First Three Years
• Positive Discipline for Your Step Family
• Parents Who Love Too Much
• Positive Discipline for Parenting in Recovery
• Positive Discipline: A Teacher's A-Z Guide
• Positive Discipline for Christian Families
• Positive Discipline for Child Care Providers
• Positive Discipline for Working Parents

Workshops

• Teaching Parenting the Positive Discipline Way (a general process that also can focus on specific groups)
• Building a Positive Workplace: Empowering People for Increased Productivity
• Positive Discipline in the Classroom

External links[link]

• Official site