Amsterdam

Amsterdam (English /ˈæmstərdæm/ or /ˌæmstərˈdæm/;Dutch: [ɑmstərˈdɑm]) is the capital city and most populous city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the Dutch capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands though it is not the seat of the Dutch government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 834,119 within the city proper, 1,329,779 in the urban area and 1,603,531 in the metropolitan area. The city region has an approximate population of 2,431,000. The city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country, and is also North Holland's largest city. It comprises much of the northern part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe, with a population of approximately 7 million.

Amsterdam's name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the city's origin as a dam of the river Amstel. Originating as a small fishing village in the late 12th century, Amsterdam became one of the most important ports in the world during the Dutch Golden Age (17th century), a result of its innovative developments in trade. During that time, the city was the leading center for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighbourhoods and suburbs were planned and built. The 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Real Housewives

The Real Housewives is an American media franchise consisting of several reality television series broadcast on Bravo; they document the lives of several affluent housewives residing in varying regions throughout the United States. The first version The Real Housewives of Orange County premiered in 2006; its success resulted in spin-off series located in New York City and Atlanta in 2008; New Jersey in 2009; Washington, D.C. and Beverly Hills in 2010; Miami in 2011; Potomac and Dallas in 2016. The subsequent installments have proven similarly successful, and have resulted in several spin-off series of their own.

International versions are broadcast by several television channels worldwide, including The Real Housewives of Athens and Me'usharot (The Real Housewives of Israel) in 2011; The Real Housewives of Vancouver in 2012; Les Vraies Housewives (The Real French Housewives of Hollywood) in 2013; The Real Housewives of Melbourne in 2014; and The Real Housewives of Cheshire in 2015.

The Real

The Real refers to that which is authentic, the unchangeable truth in reference both to being/the Self and the external dimension of experience, also referred to as the infinite and absolute—as opposed to a reality based on sense perception and the material order.

In psychoanalysis

Lacan

For Jacques Lacan, the order of the real is not only opposed to the imaginary but is also located beyond the symbolic. Unlike the symbolic, which is constituted in terms of oppositions such as "presence" and "absence", there is no absence in the real. The symbolic opposition between "presence" and "absence" implies the possibility that something may be missing from the symbolic, the real is "always in its place: it carries it glued to its heel, ignorant of what might exile it from there." If the symbolic is a set of differentiated signifiers, the real is in itself undifferentiated: "it is without fissure." The symbolic introduces "a cut in the real," in the process of signification: "it is the world of words that creates the world of things." Thus the real emerges as that which is outside language: "it is that which resists symbolization absolutely." The real is impossible because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the symbolic order. This character of impossibility and resistance to symbolization lends the real its traumatic quality.

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood. Originally a Spanish ranch where lima beans were grown, Beverly Hills was incorporated in 1914 by a group of investors who had failed to find oil, but found water instead and eventually decided to develop it into a town. By 2013, its population had grown to 34,658. Sometimes referred to as "90210", one of its primary ZIP codes, it is home to many actors and celebrities. The city includes the Rodeo Drive shopping district and the Beverly Hills Oil Field.

History

Early history

Gaspar de Portolá arrived in the area that would become Beverly Hills on August 3, 1769, travelling along native trails which followed the present-day route of Wilshire Boulevard.

The area was settled by Maria Rita Quinteros de Valdez and her husband in 1828. They called their 4,500 acres (18 km²) of property the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. in 1854, she sold the ranch to Benjamin Davis Wilson (1811–1878) and Henry Hancock (1822–1883). By the 1880s, the ranch had been subdivided into parcels of 75 acres (0.30 km²) and was being rapidly bought up by anglos from Los Angeles and the East coast.

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of narrative, typically fictional, represented in performance. The term comes from the Greek word δρᾶμα, drama, meaning action, which is derived from the verb δράω, draō, meaning to do or to act. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC) by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama. A modern example is Long Day's Journey into Night (1956) by Eugene O’Neill.

The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene, the Muse of comedy represented by the laughing face, and the Muse of tragedy represented by the weeping face, respectively. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.