Waltz

The waltz (from German: "Walzer") is a smooth, progressive ballroom and folk dance, normally in  triple  time, performed primarily in closed position.

Introduction and acceptance

There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance—a waltz—from the 16th century, including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim. The French philosopher Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in Augsburg, where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas (of approximately the same period) wrote, "Now they are dancing the godless Weller or Spinner." "The vigorous peasant dancer, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, utilizes his surplus energy to press all his strength into the proper beat of the measure, thus intensifying his personal enjoyment in dancing".

The peasants of Bavaria, Tyrol, and Styria began dancing a dance called Walzer, a dance for couples, around 1750. The Ländler, also known as the Schleifer, a country dance in 3
4 time, was popular in Bohemia, Austria, and Bavaria, and spread from the countryside to the suburbs of the city. While the eighteenth century upper classes continued to dance the minuet, bored noblemen slipped away to the balls of their servants.

XO (Elliott Smith album)

XO is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. It was recorded from 1997 to 1998 and released on August 25, 1998 by record label DreamWorks; Smith's first solo album on a major record label. Two singles, "Waltz #2 (XO)" and "Baby Britain", were released.

Content

An early working title for the album was Grand Mal.

The title of the first track, "Sweet Adeline", was inspired by Smith’s recollections of his grandmother singing in her glee club, Sweet Adelines International. "Amity" is believed to be named after a friend who can be seen in photographs from Smith's 1997 tour.

Release

XO was released by DreamWorks Records on August 25, 1998. It was Smith's first solo record on a major record label, though he had previously released music on a major label with his band Heatmiser final album, Mic City Sons (1996).

Singles released from the album were "Waltz #2 (XO)" in the same year and "Baby Britain" the following year.

Reception

XO was well received by critics upon its release. Pitchfork wrote, "Smith's songwriting continues to improve, as each of [the album's] fourteen tracks displays his inarguable mastery of the pop song structure more clearly than ever." The album placed at number 5 on the 1998 end-of-year Pazz & Jop poll.

The Demonata

The Demonata is a series of books by best selling author Darren Shan. It deals with the world of demons (as opposed to his other series, The Saga of Darren Shan, which involves vampires). The series is told by three different protagonists: Grubbs Grady, Kernel Fleck, and Bec MacConn, the last of whom is the first female protagonist in a Darren Shan book. The series contains ten books.

The Books

Released

Cover illustration copyright Melvyn Grant

Chronological Order

Vein (album)

Vein is the thirteenth album by Japanese experimental band Boris. The album was released on vinyl on October 2006 through Important Records and was limited to 1500 copies only. Vein became somewhat controversial for the long delays prior to the release but most importantly for presenting two different albums under the album's title. As the label in charge of the release explained, "Every aspect of this beautiful release was planned and designed by Boris and they have stated that it has very special meaning for them".

In 2013, the band announced that the album would be released as a 2-CD set but that this was not a reissue of the album, but rather a re-arrangement of both albums combined. The label in charge of this release explained that this release sounds different from the previous versions. The album was packaged in two 3" CDs with the same printed outer edge as the vinyl release to make them appear to be traditional 5" CDs.

Part of track A7 of the hardcore vinyl version is used in the untitled final track of Smile. It is present unadulterated, but as an alternate, bass-heavy mix, on the Southern Lord US vinyl pressing of Smile as "VEIN;" it is thus removed from the untitled song. The 2013 CD pressing of Vein moves this to track 11 and is yet another mix, this one even incorporating the backwards guitar melody from the untitled Smile track. This creates a circle of sampling that intermingles the two albums.

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot.Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves collectively.

Typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Most leaves have distinctive upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) surfaces that differ in colour, hairiness, the number of stomata (pores that intake and output gases) and other features. In most plant species, leaves are broad and flat. Such species are referred to as broad-leaved plants. Many gymnosperm species have thin needle-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates frequented by snow and frost. Leaves can also have other shapes and forms such as the scales in certain species of conifers. Some leaves are not above ground (such as bulb scales). Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, and spines). Furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems (called phylloclades and cladodes), and phyllodes (flattened leaf stems), both of which differ from leaves in their structure and origin. Many structures of non-vascular plants, and even of some lichens, which are not plants at all (in the sense of being members of the kingdom Plantae), look and function much like leaves. The primary site of photosynthesis in most leaves (palisade mesophyll) almost always occurs on the upper side of the blade or lamina of the leaf but in some species, including the mature foliage of Eucalyptus palisade occurs on both sides and the leaves are said to be isobilateral.

Silver (Andrew Motion novel)

Silver, subtitled Return to Treasure Island, is a novel by former British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, published by Jonathan Cape on 15 March 2012. The book follows Jim Hawkins, son of the character of the same name in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel Treasure Island, as he and Nat, daughter of Long John Silver, also a character in Treasure Island, return to the island visited by their fathers to claim abandoned bar silver.

Silver (film)

Silver - shirubaa is a 1999 Japanese crime film directed by Takashi Miike.

Cast

External links