The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts (types). Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at design time the application contains no data. In this case the correct description would be "data about the containers of data". Descriptive metadata, on the other hand, is about individual instances of application data, the data content. In this case, a useful description (resulting in a disambiguating neologism) would be "data about data content" or "content about content" thus metacontent. Descriptive, Guide and the National Information Standards Organization concept of administrative metadata are all subtypes of metacontent.

Metadata (metacontent) is traditionally found in the card catalogs of libraries. As information has become increasingly digital, metadata is also used to describe digital data using metadata standards specific to a particular discipline. By describing the contents and context of data files, the quality of the original data/files is greatly increased. For example, a webpage may include metadata specifying what language it's written in, what tools were used to create it, and where to go for more on the subject, allowing browsers to automatically improve the experience of users.

Definition[link]

Metadata (metacontent) is defined as data providing information about one or more aspects of the data, such as:

• Means of creation of the data
• Purpose of the data
• Time and date of creation
• Creator or author of data
• Location on a computer network where the data was created
• Standards used

For example, a digital image may include metadata that describes how large the picture is, the color depth, the image resolution, when the image was created, and other data. A text document's metadata may contain information about how long the document is, who the author is, when the document was written, and a short summary of the document.

Metadata is data. As such, metadata can be stored and managed in a database, often called a Metadata registry or Metadata repository.^[1] However, without context and a point of reference, it can be impossible to identify metadata just by looking at it.^[2] For example: by itself, a database containing several numbers, all 13 digits long could be the results of calculations or a list of numbers to plug into an equation - without any other context, the numbers themselves can be perceived as the data. But if given the context that this database is a log of a book collection, those 13-digit numbers may now be ISBNs - information that refers to the book, but is not itself the information within the book.

The term "metadata" was coined in 1968 by Philip Bagley, in his book "Extension of programming language concepts" ^[3] where it is clear that he uses the term in the ISO 11179 "traditional" sense, which is "structural metadata" i.e. "data about the containers of data"; rather than the alternate sense "content about individual instances of data content" or metacontent, the type of data usually found in library catalogues. ^[4][5] Since then the fields of information management, information science, information technology, librarianship and GIS have widely adopted the term. In these fields the word metadata is defined as "data about data".^[6] While this is the generally accepted definition, various disciplines have adopted their own more specific explanation and uses of the term.

Libraries[link]

Metadata has been used in various forms as a means of cataloging archived information. The Dewey Decimal System employed by libraries for the classification of library materials is an early example of metadata usage. Library catalogues used 3x5 inch cards to display a book's title, author, subject matter, and a brief plot synopsis along with an abbreviated alpha-numeric identification system which indicated the physical location of the book within the library's shelves. Such data helps classify, aggregate, identify, and locate a particular book. Another form of older metadata collection is the use by US Census Bureau of what is known as the "Long Form." The Long Form asks questions that are used to create demographic data to create patterns and to find patterns of distribution.^[7] For the purposes of this article, an "object" refers to any of the following:

• A physical item such as a book, CD, DVD, map, chair, table, flower pot, etc.
• An electronic file such as a digital image, digital photo, document, program file, database table, etc.

Photographs[link]

Metadata may be written into a digital photo file that will identify who owns it, copyright & contact information, what camera created the file, along with exposure information and descriptive information such as keywords about the photo, making the file searchable on the computer and/or the Internet. Some metadata is written by the camera and some is input by the photographer and/or software after downloading to a computer. However, not all digital cameras enable you to edit metadata^[8]; this functionality has been available on most Nikon DSLRs since the Nikon D3 and on most new Canon cameras since the Canon EOS 7D.

Photographic Metadata Standards are governed by organizations that develop the following standards. They include, but are not limited to:

• IPTC Information Interchange Model IIM (International Press Telecommunications Council),
• IPTC Core Schema for XMP
• XMP – Extensible Metadata Platform (an Adobe standard)
• Exif – Exchangeable image file format, Maintained by CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) and published by JEITA (Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association)
• Dublin Core (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative – DCMI)
• PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System).

Video[link]

Metadata is particularly useful in video, where information about its contents (such as transcripts of conversations and text descriptions of its scenes) are not directly understandable by a computer, but where efficient search is desirable.

Web pages[link]

Web pages often include metadata in the form of meta tags. Description and keywords meta tags are commonly used to describe the Web page's content. Most search engines use this data when adding pages to their search index.

Creation of metadata[link]

Metadata can be created either by automated information processing or by manual work. Elementary metadata captured by computers can include information about when a file was created, who created it, when it was last updated, file size and file extension.

Metadata types[link]

The metadata application is manyfold covering a large variety of fields of application there are nothing but specialised and well accepted models to specify types of metadata. Bretheron & Singley (1994) distinguish between two distinct classes: structural/control metadata and guide metadata.^[9] Structural metadata is used to describe the structure of computer systems such as tables, columns and indexes. Guide metadata is used to help humans find specific items and is usually expressed as a set of keywords in a natural language. According to Ralph Kimball metadata can be divided into 2 similar categories—Technical metadata and Business metadata. Technical metadata correspond to internal metadata, business metadata to external metadata. Kimball adds a third category named Process metadata. On the other hand, NISO distinguishes between three types of metadata: descriptive, structural and administrative.^[6] Descriptive metadata is the information used to search and locate an object such as title, author, subjects, keywords, publisher; structural metadata gives a description of how the components of the object are organised; and administrative metadata refers to the technical information including file type. Two sub-types of administrative metadata are rights management metadata and preservation metadata.

Metadata structures[link]

Metadata (metacontent), or more correctly, the vocabularies used to assemble metadata (metacontent) statements, is typically structured according to a standardized concept using a well-defined metadata scheme, including: metadata standards and metadata models. Tools such as controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, thesauri, data dictionaries and metadata registries can be used to apply further standardization to the metadata. Structural metadata commonality is also of paramount importance in data model development and in database design.

Metadata syntax[link]

Metadata (metacontent) syntax refers to the rules created to structure the fields or elements of metadata (metacontent).^[10] A single metadata scheme may be expressed in a number of different markup or programming languages, each of which requires a different syntax. For example, Dublin Core may be expressed in plain text, HTML, XML and RDF.^[11]

A common example of (guide) metacontent is the bibliographic classification, the subject, the Dewey Decimal class number. There is always an implied statement in any "classification" of some object. To classify an object as, for example, Dewey class number 514 (Topology) (e.g. a book has this number on the spine) the implied statement is: "<book><subject heading><514>. This is a subject-predicate-object triple, or more importantly, a class-attribute-value triple. The first two elements of the triple (class, attribute) are pieces of some structural metadata having a defined semantic. The third element is a value, preferably from some controlled vocabulary, some reference (master) data. The combination of the metadata and master data elements results in a statement which is a metacontent statement i.e. "metacontent = metadata + master data". All these elements can be thought of as "vocabulary". Both metadata and master data are vocabularies which can be assembled into metacontent statements. There are many sources of these vocabularies, both meta and master data: UML, EDIFACT, XSD, Dewey/UDC/LoC, SKOS, ISO-25964, Pantone, Linnaean Binomial Nomenclature etc. Using controlled vocabularies for the components of metacontent statements, whether for indexing or finding, is endorsed by ISO-25964: "If both the indexer and the searcher are guided to choose the same term for the same concept, then relevant documents will be retrieved." This is particularly relevant when considering that the behemoth of the internet, Google, is simply indexing then matching text strings, there is no intelligence or "inferencing" occurring.

Hierarchical, linear and planar schemata[link]

Metadata schema can be hierarchical in nature where relationships exist between metadata elements and elements are nested so that parent-child relationships exist between the elements. An example of a hierarchical metadata schema is the IEEE LOM schema where metadata elements may belong to a parent metadata element. Metadata schema can also be one dimensional, or linear, where each element is completely discrete from other elements and classified according to one dimension only. An example of a linear metadata schema is Dublin Core schema which is one dimensional. Metadata schema are often two dimensional, or planar, where each element is completely discrete from other elements but classified according to two orthogonal dimensions.^[12]

Metadata hypermapping[link]

In all cases where the metadata schemata exceed the planar depiction, some type of hypermapping is required to enable display and view of metadata according to chosen aspect and to serve special views. Hypermapping frequently applies to layering of geographical and geological information overlays.^[13]

Granularity[link]

Granularity is a term that applies to data as well as to metadata. The degree to which metadata is structured is referred to as its granularity. Metadata with a high granularity allows for deeper structured information and enables greater levels of technical manipulation however, a lower level of granularity means that metadata can be created for considerably lower costs but will not provide as detailed information. The major impact of granularity is not only on creation and capture, but moreover on maintenance. As soon as the metadata structures get outdated, the access to the referred data will get outdated. Hence granularity shall take into account the effort to create as well as the effort to maintain.

Metadata standards[link]

International standards apply to metadata. Much work is being accomplished in the national and international standards communities, especially ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) to reach consensus on standardizing metadata and registries.

The core standard is ISO/IEC 11179-1:2004 ^[14] and subsequent standards (see ISO/IEC 11179). All yet published registrations according to this standard cover just the definition of metadata and do not serve the structuring of metadata storage or retrieval neither any administrative standardisation. It is important to note that this standard refers to metadata as data about containers of data and not to metadata (metacontent) as data about data contents. It should also be noted that this standard describes itself originally as a "data element" registry, describing disembodied data elements, and explicitly disavows the capability of containing complex structures. Thus the original term "data element" is more applicable than the later applied buzzword "metadata".

Metadata usage[link]

Data Virtualization[link]

Data Virtualization has emerged as the new software technology to complete the virtualization stack in the enterprise. Metadata is used in Data Virtualization servers which are enterprise infrastructure components, alongside Database and Application servers. Metadata in these servers is saved as persistent repository and describes business objects in various enterprise systems and applications. Structural metadata commonality is also important to support data virtualization and data federation.

SVN Checkout Metadata[link]

.SVN hidden files created in the web root folder which can reveal crucial information of the code repositories.

Statistics and census services[link]

Standardization work has had a large impact on efforts to build metadata systems in the statistical community. Several metadata standards are described, and their importance to statistical agencies is discussed. Applications of the standards at the Census Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Statistics Canada, and many others are described. Emphasis is on the impact a metadata registry can have in a statistical agency.

Library and information science[link]

Libraries employ metadata in library catalogues, most commonly as part of an Integrated Library Management System. Metadata is obtained by cataloguing resources such as books, periodicals, DVDs, web pages or digital images. This data is stored in the integrated library management system, ILMS, using the MARC metadata standard. The purpose is to direct patrons to the physical or electronic location of items or areas they seek as well as to provide a description of the item/s in question.

More recent and specialized instances of library metadata include the establishment of digital libraries including e-print repositories and digital image libraries. While often based on library principles the focus on non-librarian use, especially in providing metadata means they do not follow traditional or common cataloging approaches. Given the custom nature of included materials metadata fields are often specially created e.g. taxonomic classification fields, location fields, keywords or copyright statement. Standard file information such as file size and format are usually automatically included.^[15]

Standardization for library operation has been a key topic in international standardization (ISO) for decades. Standards for metadata in digital libraries include Dublin Core, METS, MODS, DDI, ISO standard Digital Object Identifier (DOI), ISO standard Uniform Resource Name (URN), PREMIS schema, Ecological Metadata Language, and OAI-PMH. Leading libraries in the world give hints on their metadata standards strategies.^[16][17]

Metadata and the law[link]

United States[link]

Problems involving metadata in litigation in the United States are becoming widespread.^[when?] Courts have looked at various questions involving metadata, including the discoverability of metadata by parties. Although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have only specified rules about electronic documents, subsequent case law has elaborated on the requirement of parties to reveal metadata.^[18] In October 2009, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that metadata records are public record.^[19]

Document Metadata has proven particularly important in legal environments in which litigation has requested metadata, which can include sensitive information detrimental to a party in court.

Using metadata removal tools to "clean" documents can mitigate the risks of unwittingly sending sensitive data. This process partially (see Data remanence) protects law firms from potentially damaging leaking of sensitive data through Electronic Discovery.

Metadata in healthcare[link]

Australian researches in medicine started a lot of metadata definition for applications in health care. That approach offers the first recognized attempt to adhere to international standards in medical sciences instead of defining a proprietary standard under the WHO umbrella first.

The medical community yet did not approve the need to follow metadata standards despite respective research.^[20]

Metadata and data warehousing[link]

Data warehouse (DW) is a repository of an organization's electronically stored data. Data warehouses are designed to manage and store the data whereas the Business Intelligence (BI) focuses on the usage of data to facilitate reporting and analysis.^[21]

The purpose of a data warehouse is to house standardized, structured, consistent, integrated, correct, cleansed and timely data, extracted from various operational systems in an organization. The extracted data is integrated in the data warehouse environment in order to provide an enterprise wide perspective, one version of the truth. Data is structured in a way to specifically address the reporting and analytic requirements. The design of structural metadata commonality using a data modeling method such as entity relationship model diagraming is very important in any data warehouse development effort.

An essential component of a data warehouse/business intelligence system is the metadata and tools to manage and retrieve metadata. Ralph Kimball^[22] describes metadata as the DNA of the data warehouse as metadata defines the elements of the data warehouse and how they work together.

Kimball et al.^[23] refers to three main categories of metadata: Technical metadata, business metadata and process metadata. Technical metadata is primarily definitional while business metadata and process metadata are primarily descriptive. Keep in mind that the categories sometimes overlap.

• Technical metadata defines the objects and processes in a DW/BI system, as seen from a technical point of view. The technical metadata includes the system metadata which defines the data structures such as: Tables, fields, data types, indexes and partitions in the relational engine, and databases, dimensions, measures, and data mining models. Technical metadata defines the data model and the way it is displayed for the users, with the reports, schedules, distribution lists and user security rights.

• Business metadata is content from the data warehouse described in more user-friendly terms. The business metadata tells you what data you have, where it comes from, what it means and what its relationship is to other data in the data warehouse. Business metadata may also serves as documentation for the DW/BI system. Users who browse the data warehouse are primarily viewing the business metadata.

• Process metadata is used to describe the results of various operations in the data warehouse. Within the ETL process all key data from tasks are logged on execution. This includes start time, end time, CPU seconds used, disk reads, disk writes and rows processed. When troubleshooting the ETL or query process, this sort of data becomes valuable. Process metadata is the fact measurement when building and using a DW/BI system. Some organizations make a living out of collecting and selling this sort of data to companies - in that case the process metadata becomes the business metadata for the fact and dimension tables. Process metadata is in interest of business people who can use the data to identify the users of their products, which products they are using and what level of service they are receiving.

Metadata on the Internet[link]

The HTML format used to define web pages allows for the inclusion of a variety of types of metadata, from basic descriptive text, dates and keywords to further advanced metadata schemes such as the Dublin Core, e-GMS, and AGLS^[24] standards. Pages can also be geotagged with coordinates. Metadata may be included in the page's header or in a separate file. Microformats allow metadata to be added to on-page data in a way that users do not see, but computers can readily access.

Interestingly, many search engines are cautious about using metadata in their ranking algorithms due to exploitation of metadata and the practice of search engine optimization, SEO, to improve rankings. See Meta element article for further discussion. Studies show that search engines respond to web pages with metadata implementations^[25].

Metadata on the broadcast industry[link]

In broadcast industry, metadata are linked to audio and video Broadcast media to:

• identify the media: clip or playlist names, duration, timecode, etc.
• describe the content: notes regarding the quality of video content, rating, description (for example, during a sport event, keywords like goal, red card will be associated to some clips)
• classify media: metadata allow to sort the media or to easily and quickly find a video content (a TV news could urgently need some archive content for a subject). For example, the BBC have a large subject classification system, Lonclass, a customized version of the more general-purpose Universal Decimal Classification.

These metadata can be linked to the video media thanks to the video servers. All last broadcasted sport events like FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games use these metadata to distribute their video content to TV stations through keywords. It's often the host broadcaster^[26] who is in charge of organizing metadata through its International Broadcast Centre and its video servers. Those metadata are recorded with the images and are entered by metadata operators (loggers) who associate in live metadata available in metadata grids through software (such as Multicam(LSM) or IPDirector used during FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games).^[27][28]

Geospatial metadata[link]

Metadata that describe geographic objects (such as datasets, maps, features, or simply documents with a geospatial component) have a history dating back to at least 1994 (refer MIT Library page on FGDC Metadata). This class of metadata is described more fully on the Geospatial metadata page.

Ecological & environmental metadata[link]

Ecological and environmental metadata are intended to document the who, what, when, where, why, and how of data collection for a particular study. Metadata should be generated in a format commonly used by the most relevant science community, such as Darwin Core, Ecological Metadata Language,^[29] or Dublin Core. Metadata editing tools exist to facilitate metadata generation (e.g. Metavist,^[30] Mercury: Metadata Search System, Morpho^[31]). Metadata should describe provenance of the data (where it originated, as well as any transformations the data underwent) and how to give credit for (cite) the data products.

Metadata on CDs and DVDs[link]

CDs such as recordings of music will carry a layer of metadata about the recordings such as dates, artist, genre, copyright owner, etc. The metadata, not normally displayed by CD players, can be accessed and displayed by specialized music playback and/or editing applications.

Cloud applications[link]

With the availability of Cloud applications, which include those to add metadata to content, metadata is increasingly available over the Internet.

Metadata administration and management[link]

Metadata storage[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Metadata can be stored either internally,^[32] in the same file as the data, or externally, in a separate file. Metadata that is embedded with content is called embedded metadata. A data repository typically stores the metadata detached from the data. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages:

• Internal storage allows transferring metadata together with the data it describes; thus, metadata is always at hand and can be manipulated easily. This method creates high redundancy and does not allow holding metadata together.
• External storage allows bundling metadata, for example in a database, for more efficient searching. There is no redundancy and metadata can be transferred simultaneously when using streaming. However, as most formats use URIs for that purpose, the method of how the metadata is linked to its data should be treated with care. What if a resource does not have a URI (resources on a local hard disk or web pages that are created on-the-fly using a content management system)? What if metadata can only be evaluated if there is a connection to the Web, especially when using RDF? How to realize that a resource is replaced by another with the same name but different content?

Moreover, there is the question of data format: storing metadata in a human-readable format such as XML can be useful because users can understand and edit it without specialized tools. On the other hand, these formats are not optimized for storage capacity; it may be useful to store metadata in a binary, non-human-readable format instead to speed up transfer and save memory.

Database management[link]

Each relational database system has its own mechanisms for storing metadata. Examples of relational-database metadata include:

• Tables of all tables in a database, their names, sizes and number of rows in each table.
• Tables of columns in each database, what tables they are used in, and the type of data stored in each column.

In database terminology, this set of metadata is referred to as the catalog. The SQL standard specifies a uniform means to access the catalog, called the information schema, but not all databases implement it, even if they implement other aspects of the SQL standard. For an example of database-specific metadata access methods, see Oracle metadata. Programmatic access to metadata is possible using APIs such as JDBC, or SchemaCrawler.^[33]

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up metadata in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Mercury: Metadata Management, Data Discovery and Access, managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center
• Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia – Cory Doctorow's opinion on the limitations of metadata on the Internet, 2001
• Retrieving Meta Data from Documents and Pictures Online - AnonWatch
• Understanding Metadata - NISO, 2004
• DataONE Investigator Toolkit
• Journal of Library Metadata (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group). ISSN 1937-5034. http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=journal&issn=1938-6389. Retrieved 8 January 2010. 
• International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies (IJMSO) (Inderscience Publishers). ISSN 1744-263X. http://www.inderscience.com/ijmso. Retrieved 8 January 2010. 
• AFC2IC Vocabulary OneSource Tool
• On metadata and metacontent
• Managing Metadata blog

Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel (1933)
Background information
Born	(1890-12-11)11 December 1890 Toulouse, France
Died	June 24, 1935(1935-06-24) (aged 44) Medellín, Colombia
Genres	Tango
Occupations	Singer-Songwriter
Years active	1917–1935

Carlos Gardel (11 December 1890 – 24 June 1935) was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. The unerring musicality of Gardel's baritone voice and the dramatic phrasing of his lyrics made miniature masterpieces of his hundreds of three-minute tango recordings. Together with lyricist and long-time collaborator Alfredo Le Pera, Gardel wrote several classic tangos.

Gardel died in an airplane crash at the height of his career, becoming an archetypal tragic hero mourned throughout Latin America. For many, Gardel embodies the soul of the tango style. He is commonly referred to as "Carlitos", "El Zorzal" (The Song Thrush), "The King of Tango", "El Mago" (The Magician) and "El Mudo" (The Mute).

Early life[link]

Gardel was born to an unmarried woman, laundress Berthe Gardes; the baby registered under the name Charles Romuald Gardes in Toulouse, France, on 11 December 1890, although many Uruguayans argue that he was born earlier in Tacuarembó, Uruguay.^[1] The father of the baby boy is unknown. His mother traveled from France to the Rio de la Plata area because of the Tierra del Fuego gold rush. Gardel lived in Argentina from the age of two, and three decades later he acquired Argentine citizenship in 1923. He grew up in the Abasto neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He attended Pio IX Industrial high-school located in the Almagro neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

Career[link]

A statue of Gardel outside the Abasto Market in Buenos Aires, near where he grew up

Gardel began his singing career in bars and at private parties. He also sang with Francisco Martino and later in a trio with Martino and José Razzano. Gardel created the tango-canción in 1917 with his rendition of Pascual Contursi and Samuel Castriota's Mi Noche Triste. The recording sold 10,000 copies and was a hit throughout Latin America.^[2] Gardel went on tour through Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, and also made appearances in Paris, New York, Barcelona and Madrid. He sold 70,000 records in the first three months of a 1928 visit to Paris. As his popularity grew, he made a number of films for Paramount in France and the U.S. While sentimental films such as El día que me quieras and Cuesta abajo lack lasting dramatic value, they were outstanding showcases of his tremendous singing talents and movie star looks.

In 1915 Gardel was supposedly wounded after being shot by Che Guevara's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, as a result of a bar room brawl in the belle epoque Palais de Glace in the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires, although different versions assert that he was shot in the chest or in the leg. Yet another variation holds that it was not Che's father but rather Roberto Guevara, an upper-class boy often involved in quarrels, who shot him.^[3]

Death and ongoing profile[link]

Por una cabeza Carlos Gardel and Le Pera's 1935 tango, Por una cabeza. Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Gardel died in 1935 in an airplane crash in Medellín, Colombia. Le Pera, two of their guitarists (Guillermo Desiderio Barbieri and Ángel Domingo Riverol) and several business associates and friends of the group died in the crash as well.^[4] It is believed that a third guitarist, José María Aguilar, died a few days after the crash.^[4] Others state that Aguilar lived until 1951, although he never regained full use of his hands and sight.^[5][6]

Millions of his fans throughout Latin America went into mourning. Hordes came to pay their respects as his body was taken from Colombia through New York City and Rio de Janeiro. Thousands rendered homage during the two days he lay in state in Montevideo, the city in which his mother lived at the time. Gardel's body was laid to rest in La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires. In the neighborhood of Abasto, Buenos Aires, Gardel's childhood home, the Carlos Gardel Museum opened in 2003.

Gardel is still revered from Tokyo to Buenos Aires. A popular saying in Latin America, which serves as a testimony to his long-lived popularity, claims, "Gardel sings better every day." The fingers of his life-sized tuxedo-clad statue on his tomb nearly always hold a burning cigarette left by an admirer. Another commonly used phrase in Latin America, which asserts that Veinte años no es nada (Twenty years is nothing), comes from his song Volver. It is also common in Argentina, the phrase sos/soy Gardel y Le Pera (I'm/You are Gardel and Le Pera) referring to the greatness of both; used when somebody excels at something.

Statues in Scotland[link]

During 2009/2010 statues depicting Gardel were erected temporarily throughout twenty-five small villages and towns of Scotland, commemorating his tour of 1930 where the singer used funds from his well-paid appearances in Glasgow and Edinburgh to subsidize small unannounced concerts in rural venues. These impromptu (and free) appearances endeared him to the working population of Scotland and his legacy of passion and art endure through regular commemorative concerts and amateur productions.

Birthplace controversy[link]

Portrait of Gardel in the Gardel subway station (Buenos Aires)

The place of Gardel's birth is a matter of considerable controversy that still provokes passionate debate in Uruguay and Argentina.^[7]

After his death, his legal representative, Armando Defino, produced a handwritten will, which he assured was written by Gardel himself, claiming he was born in Toulouse, France, to Berthe Gardès (1865–1943), and baptized with the name of Charles Romuald Gardes.^[8] It is not known who Gardel's father was. There is an original birth certificate of a child, Charles Romuald Gardes, born in Toulouse to Berthe Gardès on December 11, 1890.^[1] On 14 April 1937, the government of Uruguay declared Berthe Gardès to be Gardel's sole heir.

Reporters often wrote that Gardel was Uruguayan, born in Tacuarembó. In the newspaper El Telégrafo (Paysandú, Uruguay, October 25, 1933), Gardel was reported as saying, "I'm Uruguayan, born in Tacuarembó" ["soy uruguayo, nacido en Tacuarembó"]. In the June 1935 issue of Caretas magazine of Antioquia, Colombia, Gardel was reported as saying, "My heart is Argentinian, but my soul is Uruguayan, because that is where I was born" ["Mi corazón es argentino, pero mi alma es uruguaya, porque allí nací"].

Legacy[link]

In literature[link]

Gabriel García Márquez mentions Gardel in his novel, Love in the Time of Cholera. When Florentino Ariza and doctor Juvenal Urbino meet at the former's office in the Caribbean Fluvial Company, doctor Urbino unexpectedly asks Ariza, "Do you like music?". After seriously thinking the issue, Ariza answers, "I like Gardel."

Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Ernesto Sábato, and Jimmy Buffett also mention Gardel in their works. Gardel appears as a fictionalized character in the play El día que me quieras (1979) by the Venezuelan writer José Ignacio Cabrujas.

António Lobo Antunes wrote a novel entitled The Death of Carlos Gardel^[9] in which one of the characters believes that Gardel didn't die in the plane crash in 1935.

In film[link]

Doble o Nada starring Dario Grandinetti and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón was released by Maverick in April 2003. It is a charming "what if" story about a struggling Argentinian tango singer, Renzo Franchi who looked and sang like Gardel, and a woman who was a passionate fan of Gardel and conflates Gardel and Franchi. The cult of Carlos Gardel in Argentina is like the US Elvis cult, only much more devoted and fanatical. As with other popular stars who die young (Gardel died in a plane crash while on tour), there is eternal speculation over what might have been. "Doble o Nada" takes that story line in a most enchanting way.

There were to have been other two films about Gardel, Gardel 2008 (July 2009), starring Gael García Bernal as Gardel,^[10] and Dare to Love Me (2010).^[11] Neither film was produced.

In postage stamps[link]

On March 16, 2011, the United States Postal Service issued a set of five "Latin Music Legends" stamps including one picturing Carlos Gardel. In the News Release announcing the U.S. Postage Commemorative Forever stamps, the Postal Service said "A superb and evocative singer, Carlos Gardel (1890?-1935) was one of the most celebrated tango artists of all time. Raised in Argentina, Gardel helped popularize the tango in the United States, Europe, and throughout Latin America through his performances and recordings. Known as 'the man with the tear in his voice,' he also achieved fame as one of the stars of Spanish-language cinema."^[12]

Music Compositions[link]

Gardel wrote the music and Alfredo Le Pera the lyrics for the following compositions:

Amargura (tango) Amores de Estudiante (waltz) Apure, delantero buey (song) Arrabal amargo (tango) Caminito soleado (song) Cheating muchachita Criollita, deci que si (song) Cuesta abajo (tango) El día que me quieras (song) Golondrinas (tango)

Guitarra, guitarra mia La criolla La vida en un trago Lejana tierra mia (song) Los panchos en Buenos Aires Melodia de arrabal (tango) Mi Buenos Aires querido (1934) (tango) Olvido Por tu boca roja Por una cabeza (tango)

Quiereme Recuerdo malevo (tango) Rubias de New York (foxtrot) Soledad (tango) Suerte negra (waltz) Sus ojos se cerraron (tango) Viejos tiempos (tango) Volver (tango) Volvio una noche (tango)

Filmography[link]

• Flor de Durazno (1917) (silent) - Gardel's first film, directed by Francisco Defilippis Novoa and was made in collaboration with Celestino Petray.^[13]
• Añoranzas (1930, short)
• Canchero (1930)
• El carretero (1930, short)
• El quinielero (1930, short)
• Enfundá la mandolina (1930, short)
• ¡Leguisamo solo! (1930, short)
• Mano a mano (1930, short)
• Padrino Pelado (1930, short)
• Tengo miedo (1930)
• Viejo smoking (1930, short)
• Yira, yira (1930, short)
• Luces de Buenos Aires (1931) (filmed in Paris)
• Esperame (1932)
• La Casa es seria (1932)
• Melodía de Arrabal (1932)
• Cuesta abajo (1934)
• El Tango en Broadway (1934)
• El día que me quieras (1935)
• Cazadores de estrellas (1935)
• Tango Bar (1935)

References[link]

• http://www.montevideo-tango.com/mvdt/Gardel.htm

1. ^ ^{a b} Bocaz, Luis (March 1986). "Tango Time", UNESCO Courier, p. 11.
2. ^ Carlos Gardel: The King of Tango
3. ^ Un balazo mudo (In Spanish)
4. ^ ^{a b} Clavell, M. (1996), Biografía. In: Los Mejores Tangos de Carlos Gardel. Alfred Publ. Van Nuys, California.
5. ^ Un hombre que nos evoca a Gardel prolonga en vida los resplandores de la tregedia en Medellín (In Spanish) Originally published in ANTENA 1950
6. ^ Carlos Gardel & his eight Guitarists
7. ^ Gardel Biografía web page
8. ^ Author's web page)
9. ^ [1]
10. ^ IMDB profile page for Gardel 2008
11. ^ IMDB profile page for Dare to Love Me
12. ^ USPS Postal News Release No. 11-024 (March 16, 2011): http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2011/pr11_024.htm
13. ^ Julián y Osvaldo Barsky (2004), Gardel la biografía, Taurus.

External links[link]

 Spanish Wikiquote has quotations related to: Carlos Gardel

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Carlos Gardel

• Carlos Gardel at Allmusic
• Carlos Gardel at the Internet Movie Database
• Carlos Gardel at cinenacional.com

v t e Cinema of Argentina Actors Awards Composers Directors Editors Films A–Z Cinematographers Festivals Producers Screenwriters Mar del Plata Film Festival Films by year: 1897–1929 1930s 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Persondata
Name	Gardel, Carlos
Alternative names
Short description	Singer, songwriter and actor
Date of birth	December 11, 1887
Place of birth	Toulouse, France
Date of death	June 24, 1935
Place of death	Medellín, Colombia