Red carpet

A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events.

History

The earliest known reference to walking a red carpet in literature is in the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus, written in 458 BC. When the title character returns from Troy, he is greeted by his vengeful wife Clytemnestra who offers him a red path to walk upon:

Agamemnon, knowing that only gods walk on such luxury, responds with trepidation:

Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting often show rugs and carpets, patterned but with red often the main background colour, laid on the steps to a throne, or on a dais where rulers or sacred figures are placed.

A red carpet was rolled out to a river to welcome the arrival of United States president James Monroe in 1821. In 1902, The New York Central Railroad used plush crimson carpets to direct people as they boarded their 20th Century Limited passenger train. This is believed to be the origin of the phrase "red-carpet treatment". Film premieres are often laid down with red carpets.

Carpet

A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug", although the term "carpet" can be applied to a floor covering that covers an entire house. Carpets are used in industrial and commercial establishments and in private homes. Carpets are used for a variety of purposes, including insulating a person's feet from a cold tile or concrete floor, making a room more comfortable as a place to sit on the floor (e.g., when playing with children or praying in Arabic culture) and adding decoration or colour to a room.

Carpets can be produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric, made using needle felts, knotted by hand (in oriental rugs), made with their pile injected into a backing material (called tufting), flatwoven, made by hooking wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric or embroidered. Carpet is commonly made in widths of 12 feet (3.7 m) and 15 feet (4.6 m) in the USA, 4 m and 5 m in Europe. Where necessary different widths can be seamed together with a seaming iron and seam tape (formerly it was sewn together) and it is fixed to a floor over a cushioned underlay (pad) using nails, tack strips (known in the UK as gripper rods), adhesives, or occasionally decorative metal stair rods, thus distinguishing it from rugs or mats, which are loose-laid floor coverings.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially "the Met", located in New York City, is the largest art museum in the United States and among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is by area one of the world's largest art galleries, at 2 million square feet. There is also a much smaller second location at The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan which features medieval art.

Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met's galleries.

Film festival

A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon the festival's focus, can include international and domestic releases. Some festivals focus on a specific film-maker or genre (e.g., film noir) or subject matter (e.g., horror film festivals). A number of film festivals specialise in short films of a defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events. Some film historians do not consider Film Festivals as official releases of film, like Jerry Beck. The best known film festivals are the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and the Berlin International Film Festival, the latter being the largest film festival worldwide, based on attendance. The Venice Film Festival is the oldest major festival. The Melbourne International Film Festival is the largest film festival in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the oldest in the world. A 2013 study found 3,000 active films festivals worldwide—active defined as having held an event in the previous 24 months.

Social media

Social media are computer-mediated tools that allow people or companies to create, share, or exchange information, career interests, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks. Social media is defined as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Furthermore, social media depend on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content. They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between businesses, organizations, communities, and individuals. These changes are the focus of the emerging field of technoself studies. Social media differ from traditional or industrial media in many ways, including quality,reach, frequency, usability, immediacy, and permanence. Social media operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers). This is in contrast to traditional media that operates under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers).