Official Great Works Draft (11 Viewers)

[Big Rocks]

Drive-by pick:

40.12 12 Angry Men, movie (1957 version)

Wiki link

12 Angry Men is a 1957 American drama film adapted from a play. Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or innocence of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt. The film is notable for its almost exclusive use of one set: with the exception of two short scenes at the beginning and the end of the film set on the steps of the court building and two short scenes in an adjoining washroom, the entire movie takes place in the jury room. The book written by the author is also used in the Ontario Cirriculm.

 

[thatguy]

MisfitBlondes' Pick

40.07 Cheers (TV Show)

Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with CBS Television Studios for NBC, having been created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles. The show is set in the Cheers bar (named for the toast "Cheers") in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals meet to drink and have fun. The show's theme song was written by Judy Hart Angelo and Gary Portnoy and performed by Portnoy;[1] its famous refrain, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" also became the show's tagline.

After premiering on September 30, 1982, it was nearly cancelled during its first season when it ranked dead last in ratings (77th out of 77 shows).[2][3][4] However, Cheers eventually became a highly rated television show in the United States, earning a top-ten rating during eight of its eleven seasons, including one season at #1, and spending the bulk of its run on NBC's "Must See Thursday" lineup. Its widely watched series finale was broadcast on May 20, 1993. The show's 273 episodes have been successfully syndicated worldwide, and have earned 26 Emmy Awards from a record 111 nominations.[5] The character Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was featured in his own successful spin-off, Frasier, which included guest appearances by most of the major Cheers characters.

I am really surprised this show lasted this long.

dammit. i was all set to take this like ten rounds ago and i forgot about it.

 

[thatguy]

MisfitBlondes' Pick

40.07 Cheers (TV Show)

Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with CBS Television Studios for NBC, having been created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles. The show is set in the Cheers bar (named for the toast "Cheers") in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals meet to drink and have fun. The show's theme song was written by Judy Hart Angelo and Gary Portnoy and performed by Portnoy;[1] its famous refrain, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" also became the show's tagline.

After premiering on September 30, 1982, it was nearly cancelled during its first season when it ranked dead last in ratings (77th out of 77 shows).[2][3][4] However, Cheers eventually became a highly rated television show in the United States, earning a top-ten rating during eight of its eleven seasons, including one season at #1, and spending the bulk of its run on NBC's "Must See Thursday" lineup. Its widely watched series finale was broadcast on May 20, 1993. The show's 273 episodes have been successfully syndicated worldwide, and have earned 26 Emmy Awards from a record 111 nominations.[5] The character Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was featured in his own successful spin-off, Frasier, which included guest appearances by most of the major Cheers characters.

I am really surprised this show lasted this long.

dammit. i was all set to take this like ten rounds ago and i forgot about it.

From Misfit and Chiwawa:

 

[Chiwawa]

MisfitBlondes' Pick

40.07 Cheers (TV Show)

Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with CBS Television Studios for NBC, having been created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles. The show is set in the Cheers bar (named for the toast "Cheers") in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals meet to drink and have fun. The show's theme song was written by Judy Hart Angelo and Gary Portnoy and performed by Portnoy;[1] its famous refrain, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" also became the show's tagline.

After premiering on September 30, 1982, it was nearly cancelled during its first season when it ranked dead last in ratings (77th out of 77 shows).[2][3][4] However, Cheers eventually became a highly rated television show in the United States, earning a top-ten rating during eight of its eleven seasons, including one season at #1, and spending the bulk of its run on NBC's "Must See Thursday" lineup. Its widely watched series finale was broadcast on May 20, 1993. The show's 273 episodes have been successfully syndicated worldwide, and have earned 26 Emmy Awards from a record 111 nominations.[5] The character Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was featured in his own successful spin-off, Frasier, which included guest appearances by most of the major Cheers characters.

I am really surprised this show lasted this long.

dammit. i was all set to take this like ten rounds ago and i forgot about it.

From Misfit and Chiwawa:

 

[Bonzai]

Have had this one planned for this category since the start.

Wasn't sure if it would be on anyone else's radar, until Bonzai's last post.

Here's his other philosophical backbone.

40.08 Tao (Philosophical/Political Idea)

Tao (道, pinyin: dào (help·info) ) is a concept found in Taoism, Confucianism, and more generally in ancient Chinese philosophy. While the character itself translates as 'way', 'path', or 'route', or sometimes more loosely as 'doctrine' or 'principle', it is used philosophically to signify the fundamental or true nature of the world. The concept of Tao differs from Western ontology, however; it is an active and holistic conception of the world, rather than a static, atomistic one.

Tao both precedes and encompasses the universe. As with other nondualistic philosophies, all the observable objects in the world - referred to in the Tao Te Ching as 'the named' or 'the ten thousand things' - are considered to be manifestations of Tao, and can only operate within the boundaries of Tao. Tao is, by contrast, often referred to as 'the nameless', because neither it nor its principles can ever be adequately expressed in words. It is conceived, for example, with neither shape nor form, as simultaneously perfectly still and constantly moving, as both larger than the largest thing and smaller than the smallest, because the words that describe shape, movement, size, or other qualities always create dichotomies, and Tao is always a unity.

While the Tao cannot be expressed, Taoism holds that it can be known, and its principles can be followed. Much of Taoist writing focuses on the value of following the Tao - called Te (virtue) - and of the ultimate uselessness of trying to understand or control Tao outright. This is often expressed through yin and yang arguments, where every action creates a counter-action as a natural, unavoidable movement within manifestations of the Tao.

TaijituTao is often compared to water: clear, colorless, unremarkable, yet all beings depend on it for life, and even the hardest stone cannot stand in its way forever.

The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.

The name is the mother of the ten thousand things.

Send your desires away and you will see the mystery.

Be filled with desire and you will see only the manifestation.

As these two come forth they differ in name.

Yet at their source they are the same.

This source is called a mystery.

Darkness within darkness, the gateway to all mystery.

Great pick. I didn't consider taking it for this category, though. Not sure why. I did strongly consider one of the concepts listed in your write up, though.

 

[Bonzai]

My ruling is that Laissez-faire cannot be drafted as it essentially means the same thing as free markets.

Poop.

 

[Big Rocks]

Drive-by pick:

40.12 12 Angry Men, movie (1957 version)

Wiki link

12 Angry Men is a 1957 American drama film adapted from a play. Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or innocence of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt. The film is notable for its almost exclusive use of one set: with the exception of two short scenes at the beginning and the end of the film set on the steps of the court building and two short scenes in an adjoining washroom, the entire movie takes place in the jury room. The book written by the author is also used in the Ontario Cirriculm.

Great pick man.

 

[BobbyLayne]

Think ToW times out at 3:45 p.m. EDT.

I'm here, will make my pick shortly.

 

[Postradamus]

so tim's up?

after BL of course...

 

[timschochet]

BL is on the clock, after that I guess it's me. Thanks for the heads up, Postadamus!

 

[Postradamus]

I'm here to help. And to make great picls.

 

[TidesofWar]

Sorry I missed - got a couple of things going on, will pick later

 

[BobbyLayne]

A classic story about what happens when a government attempts to outlaw desire. Had this one in my top five Greek tragedies, so I better quit playing with fire and snap it up.

40.14 (794th pick) - The Bacchae - Play

Euripides

The Bacchae (Greek: Βάκχαι / Bakchai; also known as The Bacchantes) is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BCE as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which Euripides' son or nephew probably directed. It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition.

The tragedy is based on the mythological story of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agavë, and their punishment by the god Dionysus (who is Pentheus' cousin) for refusing to worship him.

Background

The Dionysus in Euripides' tale is a young god, angry that his mortal family, the royal house of Cadmus, has denied him a place of honor as a deity. His mother, Semele, was a mistress of Zeus, and while pregnant, she was killed because she looked upon Zeus in his divine form. Most of Semele's family, however, including her sister Agave, refuse to believe that Dionysus is the son of Zeus, and the young god is spurned in his home. He has traveled throughout Asia and other foreign lands, gathering a cult of female worshippers (Bacchantes), and at the start of the play has returned to take revenge on the house of Cadmus, disguised as a stranger. He has driven the women of Thebes, including his aunts, into an ecstatic frenzy, sending them dancing and hunting on Mount Cithaeron, much to the horror of their families. Complicating matters, his cousin, the young king Pentheus, has declared a ban on the worship of Dionysus throughout Thebes.

Plot

Dionysus first comes on stage to tell the audience who he is and why he decided to come to Thebes. He explains the story of his birth, how his mother Semele had enamoured the god Zeus, who had come down from Mount Olympus to lie with her. She becomes pregnant with a divine son; however none of her family believe her, thinking the illicit pregnancy of the more usual sort. Hera, angry at her husband Zeus' betrayal, convinces Semele to ask Zeus to appear to her in his true form. Zeus appears to Semele as a lightning bolt and kills her instantly. At the moment of her death however, Hermes swoops down and saves the unborn Dionysus. To hide the baby from Hera, Zeus has the fetus sewn up in his thigh until the baby is ready to be born. However, Semele's family—her sisters Agave, Autonoe, and Ino, and her father, Cadmus—still believe that Semele blasphemously lied about the identity of the baby's father and that she died as a result. Dionysus comes to Thebes to vindicate his mother Semele.

The old men Cadmus and Tiresias, though not under the same spell as the Theban women (who include Cadmus' daughters Ino, Autonoe and Agave, Pentheus' mother), have become enamored of the Bacchic rituals and are about to go out celebrating when Pentheus returns to the city and finds them dressed in festive garb. He scolds them harshly and orders his soldiers to arrest anyone else engaging in Dionysian worship.

The guards return with Dionysus himself, disguised as his priest and the leader of the Asian maenads. Pentheus questions him, still not believing that Dionysus is a god. However, his questions reveal that he is deeply interested in the Dionysiac rites, which the stranger refuses to reveal fully to him. This greatly angers Pentheus, who has Dionysus locked up. However, being a god, he is quickly able to break free and creates more havoc, razing the palace of Pentheus to the ground in a giant earthquake and fire. Word arrives via a herdsman that the Bacchae on Cithaeron are behaving especially strangely and performing incredible feats, putting snakes in their hair in reverie of their god, suckling wild wolves and gazelle, and making wine, milk, honey and water spring up from the ground. He tells that when they tried to capture the women, the women descended on a herd of cows, ripping them to shreds with their bare hands (Sparagmos). Those guards who attacked the women were unable to harm them with their weapons, while the women could defeat them with only sticks. Dionysus wishes to punish Pentheus for not worshipping him or paying him libations. He uses Pentheus' clear desire to see the ecstatic women to convince the king to dress as a female Maenad to avoid detection and go to the rites, as is shown in the dialogue:

Stranger: Ah! Would you like to see them in their gatherings upon the mountain?

Pentheus: Very much. Ay, and pay uncounted gold for the pleasure.

Stranger: Why have you conceived so strong a desire?

Pentheus: Though it would pain me to see them drunk with wine-

Stranger: Yet you would like to see them, pain and all.

Dionysus dresses Pentheus as a woman and gives him a thyrsus and fawn skins, then leads him out of the house. Pentheus begins to see double, perceiving two Thebes and two bulls (Dionysus often took the form of a bull) leading him.

The god's vengeance soon turns from mere humiliation to murder. A messenger arrives at the palace to report that once they reached Cithaeron, Pentheus wanted to climb up an evergreen tree to get a better view of the Bacchants. The blonde stranger used his divine power to bend the tall tree and place the king at its highest branches. However, once he was safely at the top, Dionysus called out to his followers and showed the man sitting atop the tree. This, of course, drove the Bacchants wild, and they tore the trapped Pentheus down and ripped his body apart piece by piece.

After the messenger has relayed this news, Pentheus' mother, Agave, arrives carrying the head of her son. In her possessed state she believed it was the head of a mountain lion, and she killed him with her bare hands and pulled his head off. She proudly displays her son's head to her father, believing it to be a hunting trophy. She is confused when Cadmus does not delight in her trophy, his face contorting in horror. By that time, however, Dionysus' possession is beginning to wear off, and as Cadmus reels from the horror of his grandson's death, Agave slowly realizes what she has done. The family is destroyed, with Agave and her sisters sent into exile. Dionysus, in a final act of revenge, returns briefly to excoriate his family one more time for their impiety. Cadmus and his wife Harmonia are turned into snakes. Tiresias, the old, blind Theban prophet, is the only one not to suffer.

Modern interpretations

Binary divisions of the Self and the Other: In the Bacchae, Dionysus is the protagonist; furthermore, he embodies aspects of both, the Self ( for example, part Greek god and Male) and the Other (of Asian descent and effeminate characteristics). When Pentheus unknowingly talks of Dionysus, he describes him as ‘some Asian foreigner, masquerading as a priest…too womanish to be a proper man’. So he insults his ethnicity, appearance, manliness and even his higher godly status.

The Bacchae can be said to enact a clash between two opposing ethnic groups; Greek and Asian. Cadmus tries to dissuade Pentheus from his quest into the unknown, urging him to stray within the safe sanctuary that is home: ‘Dwell within the temple of our beliefs, not in the wilderness that lies beyond’. Pentheus is adamant on hunting the impostor, who is actually Dionysus in disguise, declaring: ‘He’ll soon regret the day he brought his filthy foreign practices to our city in the West’. He later interrogates Dionysus: ‘Where are you from?’; ‘Why then bring your practices to my home?’ These foreign practices are especially threatening as they stand to corrupt all the women folk, sending them into frenzied worship practices; Pentheus: ‘…this foreigner who dares infect our women’s minds and bodies and our beds’. Bacchae is an occasion when some women revolted against male authority and broke the bonds tying them to their clearly (narrowly) defined domestic sphere within a patriarchal society.

The Theater as the Other: To be gazed upon by the mask of Dionysus is to cross the threshold between sanity and madness, between the real and unreal. When an actor put on his mask at the festival of Dionysus he marked an eruption into the heart of public life of a real of being totally alien to the everyday world of the city. In Bacchai, an actor must assume the mask of Dionysus himself; as the god himself is the protagonist. Both actors and audiences must put their fate with Dionysus and allow themselves to be taken into the imaginative world of ‘the other’ in theatrical illusion. When Dionysus goes against such accepted polarizations, he is questioning human perceptions of reality and what we see in the world; namely, a fundamentally empirical method is a weak tool, when compared to the unlimited illusion of the theater. He subverts these binaries and turns hierarchy on its head –he allows women to question the supremacy of men, but then punishes them by sending them mad-he contradicts himself, as he himself is contradictory in his nature (he is symbolized by giant phallus but his masculinity is compromised by his long hair, delicate beauty and decorative clothing; he is worshiped in the wild hillside but is central to an important and organized cult in the heart of the city; he blurs the division between comedy and tragedy).

Dramatic versions

Joe Orton's play The Erpingham Camp (television broadcast 27 June 1966; opened at the Royal Court Theater on 6 June 1967) relocates The Bacchae to a British Butlin's-style holiday camp. An author's note at the beginning of the text of the play states that: "[n]o attempt must be made to reproduce the various locales in a naturalistic manner. A small, permanent set of Erpingham's office is set on a high level. The rest of the stage is an unlocalised area. Changes of scene are suggested by lighting and banners after the manner of the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of Shakespeare's histories."

In 1970 Brian de Palma filmed Richard Schechner's dramatic re-envisioning of the work, Dionysus in '69, in a converted garage.

Wole Soyinka adapted the play as The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite with the British National Theatre in London in 1972, incorporating a second chorus of slaves to mirror the civil unrest in his native Nigeria.

Caryl Churchill and David Lan used the play as the basis of their 1986 dance-theatre hybrid A Mouthful of Birds.

Brad Mays directed his own adaptation of the play at the Complex in Los Angeles in 1997, where it broke all box office records and was nominated for three LA Weekly Theater Awards: for Best Direction, Best Musical Score and Best Production Design. Because the production featured several scenes with levels of violence and nudity rare for even the most experimental of theater pieces, it was widely discussed in print, and even videotaped for the Lincoln Center's Billy Rose Collection in NYC. The production was eventually fashioned into an independent feature film which, interestingly, featured Will Shepherd — the Pentheus of Richard Schechner's Dionysus in '69 — in the role of Cadmus.

The Bacchae 2.1, a theatrical adaptation set in modern times, was written by Charles Mee and first performed in 1993.

In 2007 David Greig wrote an adaptation of The Bacchae for the National Theater of Scotland starring Alan Cumming as Dionysus, with ten soul-singing followers in place of the traditional Greek chorus. A critically-praised run at New York's Lincoln Center Rose Theater followed the show's premiere in Scotland.

Luigi Lo Cascio 's multimedia adaptation La Caccia (The Hunt) won the Biglietto d' Oro del Teatro prize in 2008. The free adaptation combines live theater with animations by Nicola Console and Desideria Rayner's video projections. A revised 2009 version is currently on tour and features original music by Andrea Rocca .

Operatic versions

Harry Partch composed an opera based on The Bacchae titled Revelation in the Courthouse Park. It was first performed in 1960, and a recording was released in 1987.

Another opera based on The Bacchae, called The Bassarids, was composed in 1965 by Hans Werner Henze. The libretto was by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman.

Musical versions

Peter Mills created the musical "The Rockae" using the "The Bacchae" as its foundation. Dionysus, a glamorous rock star in every sense of the word, seeks revenge on those who denied him as a babe. The performance is complete with a swarm of groupie dancers dancing wildly to the electric guitar numbers.

Significant quotations

Dionysus: "It's a wise man's part to practise a smooth-tempered self-control."

Dionysus: "Your [Pentheus'] name points to calamity. It fits you well." (The name "Pentheus" derives from πένθος, pénthos, grief)

Messenger: "Dionysus' powers are manifold; he gave to men the vine to cure their sorrows."

Dionysus: "Can you, a mortal, measure your strength against a god?"

Dramatic Structure

In a play that follows a climatic plot construction, Dionysus the Protagonist, instigates the unfolding action by simultaneously emulating the play's author, costume designer, choreographer and artistic director. Helen P. Foley wrote of the links between the importance of Dionysus as the central character and his effect on the play's structure, she writes: "the poet uses the ritual crisis to explore simultaneously god, man, society, and his own tragic art. In this protodrama Dionysus, the god of the theatre, stage-directs the play." At the start of the play, Dionysus gives us the exposition and from which we can highlight the play's central conflict; the invasion of Greece by an Asian religion.

Critical Review

Up until the late nineteenth century The Bacchae's themes were considered far too gruesome to be studied and appreciated. It was Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" in 1872 that reposed the question of Dionysus's relation with the theatre that elevated interest in The Bacchae. In the twentieth century performances of The Bacchae had become quite fashionable, particularly so in the opera due to the dramatic choruses found throughout The Bacchae's story. R.P Winnington-Ingrams review in 1948 praises the work of Euripides, he writes: "On its poetical and dramatic beauties he writes with charm and insight; on more complex themes he shows equal mastery."

FYI - if you live around NYC or are visiting later this summer, a production of this play by the Public Theater will run August 11-30 ('featuring a lush choral score by Philip Glass') at Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Tickets are free and available the day of the performance. Highly recommended. :(

ETA: formatting

 

[Genedoc]

I'm back stateside. I was in the air, over the Atlantic Ocean, on my way to Paris last week when that Air France flight crashed. Our European partner has a Brazilian wife and he's flown that exact flight no less than 20 times.

I'm recovering from the jet lag and exhaustion. We drove nearly 2,000 km from Paris to Avignon and much of the way back, stopping in Sancerre, Beaune, Thomery, Lyon, Cote Rotie, Cornas, Mt. Ventoux, Chateauneuf du Pape, and Avignon. We tasted 150+ wines in 6 days.

An executive summary of what I missed would be swell.

 

[timschochet]

40.17 The Beatles- Rubber Soul

 

[Doug B]

40.16 - Petronas Towers, Building/Structure [4]

Super night pic

Huge day pic

The Petronas Twin Towers (also known as the Petronas Towers), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are twin towers and were (for six years) the world's tallest buildings ... However, the towers are still the tallest twin buildings in the world.

...

Designed by Argentine-American architect César Pelli, the Petronas Towers were completed in 1998 and became the tallest buildings in the world on the date of completion. They were built on the site of Kuala Lumpur's race track. Because of the depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the world's deepest foundations. The 120-meter foundations were built by Bachy Soletanche, and required massive amounts of concrete.

The 88-floor towers are constructed largely of reinforced concrete, with a steel and glass facade designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysia's Muslim religion. Another Islamic influence on the design is that the cross-section of the towers is based on a Rub el Hizb (albeit with circular sectors added to meet office space requirements). Due to a lack of steel and the huge cost of importing steel, the towers were constructed on a cheaper radical design of super high-strength reinforced concrete. High-strength concrete is a material familiar to Asian contractors and twice as effective as steel in sway reduction; however, it makes the building twice as heavy on its foundation than a comparable steel building. Supported by 23-by-23 meter concrete cores and an outer ring of widely-spaced super columns, the towers use a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides from 1300 to 2000 square metres of column-free office space per floor.

 

[Postradamus]

40.18

Time for steal, unless someone took this and I missed it. Any Great Works team should represent the greatest artists in their field, that said, I need me some Shakespeare. IMO this is da Bard's 3-4 best play:

HENRY V William Shakespeare

Believed to be written in 1599, it’s based on the life of King Henry V of England and focuses on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Year’s War. The play is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded by “Richard II,” “Henry IV, Part 1″ and “Henry IV, Part 2.” The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in the “Henry IV” plays as a wild, undisciplined lad known as “Prince Hal.” In “Henry V,” the young prince has become a mature man and embarks on an attempted conquest of France.

FULL SCRIPThttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewbu...;playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=40

YouTube vids

 

[El Floppo]

I'm back stateside. I was in the air, over the Atlantic Ocean, on my way to Paris last week when that Air France flight crashed. Our European partner has a Brazilian wife and he's flown that exact flight no less than 20 times. I'm recovering from the jet lag and exhaustion. We drove nearly 2,000 km from Paris to Avignon and much of the way back, stopping in Sancerre, Beaune, Thomery, Lyon, Cote Rotie, Cornas, Mt. Ventoux, Chateauneuf du Pape, and Avignon. We tasted 150+ wines in 6 days. An executive summary of what I missed would be swell.

You've been replaced by a collective made up equally from the Shark Pool, Baseball Forum and 9/11 Conspiracy threads.Did you dance on the bridge in Avignon?

 

[El Floppo]

40.17 The Beatles- Rubber Soul

you sneaky mofo.

 

[Uncle Humuna]

40.17 The Beatles- Rubber Soul

Freakin' ridiculous that this lasted till the 40th round.I've been debating grabbing it out of principal for the last 15 rounds.

 

[Bonzai]

I'm back stateside. I was in the air, over the Atlantic Ocean, on my way to Paris last week when that Air France flight crashed. Our European partner has a Brazilian wife and he's flown that exact flight no less than 20 times. I'm recovering from the jet lag and exhaustion. We drove nearly 2,000 km from Paris to Avignon and much of the way back, stopping in Sancerre, Beaune, Thomery, Lyon, Cote Rotie, Cornas, Mt. Ventoux, Chateauneuf du Pape, and Avignon. We tasted 150+ wines in 6 days. An executive summary of what I missed would be swell.

 

[Uncle Humuna]

40.12 12 Angry Men, movie (1957 version)

40.14 (794th pick) - The Bacchae - Play

40.17 The Beatles- Rubber Soul

40.16 - Petronas Towers, Building/Structure [4]

HENRY V William Shakespeare

That would have been a great run of picls in the 20th , nevermind the 40th round!

 

[Postradamus]

 

[Genedoc]

I'm back stateside. I was in the air, over the Atlantic Ocean, on my way to Paris last week when that Air France flight crashed. Our European partner has a Brazilian wife and he's flown that exact flight no less than 20 times. I'm recovering from the jet lag and exhaustion. We drove nearly 2,000 km from Paris to Avignon and much of the way back, stopping in Sancerre, Beaune, Thomery, Lyon, Cote Rotie, Cornas, Mt. Ventoux, Chateauneuf du Pape, and Avignon. We tasted 150+ wines in 6 days. An executive summary of what I missed would be swell.

You've been replaced by a collective made up equally from the Shark Pool, Baseball Forum and 9/11 Conspiracy threads.Did you dance on the bridge in Avignon?

Nope, we breezed through Avignon. We parked in a deck, spent a quick hour walking through the city, and bolted. Any sightseeing was drive by. I've some ridiculous images from the vineyards, though. If you've never seen the slopes of Cote Rotie or the rocks for soil in Chateauneuf du Pape, you're missing out. Whoever first thought to plant anything in places that inhospitable was insane. Even more amazing that it works.

 

[rodg12]

40.19 - Ohm's Law - Georg Ohm - Scientific Discovery

Ohm's law applies to electrical circuits; it states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference or voltage across the two points, and inversely proportional to the resistance between them.

The mathematical equation that describes this relationship is:

I = V/R

Ohm's law was probably the most important of the early quantitative descriptions of the physics of electricity. We consider it almost obvious today. When Ohm first published his work, this was not the case; critics reacted to his treatment of the subject with hostility. They called his work a "web of naked fancies" and the German Minister of Education proclaimed that Ohm was "a professor who preached such heresies was unworthy to teach science." The prevailing scientific philosophy in Germany at the time, led by Hegel, asserted that experiments need not be performed to develop an understanding of nature because nature is so well ordered, and that scientific truths may be deduced through reasoning alone. Also, Ohm's brother Martin, a mathematician, was battling the German educational system. These factors hindered the acceptance of Ohm's work, and his work did not become widely accepted until the 1840s. Fortunately, Ohm received recognition for his contributions to science well before he died.

Wiki

 

[Bonzai]

Sounds amazing, Gene.

So, any wine recommendations?

 

[krista4]

Since the consensus is to allow actions as wildcards, I'm going to take the one I still get chills reading about. I don't care that he was just the "first"--the boldness of what he did and the way he changed the world are astounding:

40.20 First solo transatlantic flight and first non-stop fixed-wing aircraft flight between America and mainland Europe - Charles Lindbergh (wildcard)

Virtually unknown before this, Lindbergh followed in the paths of at least six well-known and seemingly more accomplished aviators who had died in their attempt to win the Orteig Prize, which was to be awarded to the first person to make a non-stop flight between New York and Paris. The guy basically flew a lawnmower to Paris. He was sitting in a freakin' wicker chair rather than a leather pilot's seat.

From Wiki:

Burdened by its heavy load of 450 gallons of gasoline (2,709 lbs) and hampered by a muddy, rain soaked runway, Lindbergh's Wright Whirlwind powered monoplane gained speed very slowly as it made its 7:52 AM takeoff run from Roosevelt Field, but its J-5C radial engine still proved powerful enough to allow the "Spirit" to clear the telephone lines at the far end of the field "by about twenty feet with a fair reserve of flying speed." Over the next 33.5 hours he and the "Spirit"—which Lindbergh always jointly referred to simply as "WE"—faced many challenges including skimming over both storm clouds at 10,000 feet (3,000 m) and wave tops at as low at 10 ft (3.0 m), fighting icing, flying blind through fog for several hours, and navigating only by the stars (when visible) and "dead reckoning" before landing at Le Bourget at 10:22 PM on May 21. A crowd estimated at 150,000 spectators stormed the field, dragged Lindbergh out of the cockpit, and literally carried him around above their heads for "nearly half an hour." While some damage was done to the "Spirit" (especially to the fabric covering on the fuselage) by souvenir hunters, both Lindbergh and the Spirit were eventually "rescued" from the mob by a group of French military flyers, soldiers, and police who took them both to safety in a nearby hangar. From that moment on, however, life would never again be the same for the previously little known former Air Mail pilot who, by his successful flight, had just achieved virtually instantaneous—and lifelong—world fame.

The French Foreign Office flew the American flag, the first time it had saluted someone not a head of state. Gaston Doumergue, the President of France, bestowed the French Légion d'honneur on the young Capt. Lindbergh, and on his arrival back in the United States aboard the United States Navy cruiser USS Memphis (CL-13) on June 11, 1927, a fleet of warships and multiple flights of military aircraft including pursuit planes, bombers, and the rigid airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), escorted him up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross. On that same day the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-Cent Air Mail stamp (Scott C-10) depicting the Spirit of St. Louis and a map of the flight. On June 13, 1927, a ticker-tape parade was held for him down 5th Avenue in New York City. The following night the City of New York further honored Capt. Lindbergh with a grand banquet at the Hotel Commodore attended by some 3,600 people.

...

The winner of the 1930 Best Woman Aviator of the Year Award, Elinor Smith Sullivan, said that before Lindbergh's flight, "people seemed to think we [aviators] were from outer space or something. But after Charles Lindbergh's flight, we could do no wrong. It's hard to describe the impact Lindbergh had on people. Even the first walk on the moon doesn't come close. The twenties was such an innocent time, and people were still so religious – I think they felt like this man was sent by God to do this. And it changed aviation forever because all of a sudden the Wall Streeters were banging on doors looking for airplanes to invest in. We'd been standing on our heads trying to get them to notice us but after Lindbergh, suddenly everyone wanted to fly, and there weren't enough planes to carry them."

The ticker-tape parade held for him drew 4 million people and is said to be the largest in history. No matter what you think of Lindbergh as a person, what he accomplished was incredible.

 

[Abrantes]

40.06 - Throne of Blood (Kumonosu jô) - Akira Kurosawa - Movie

This is Kurosawa's film adaptation of Macbeth. It stars the legendary Toshirō Mifune as Taketori Washizu. I first saw it in a military history class in high school, and it's since become one of my favorite films. Some of the creepiest and most beautifully-shot scenes I've ever seen. Also, it was T.S. Eliot's favorite movie

If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's worth it.

SICKIncredible film. The madness on Mifune's face is a sight to behold, and as usual from Kurosawa's works, the use of weather to enhance the mood is perfect.

 

[krista4]

40.06 - Throne of Blood (Kumonosu jô) - Akira Kurosawa - Movie

This is Kurosawa's film adaptation of Macbeth. It stars the legendary Toshirō Mifune as Taketori Washizu. I first saw it in a military history class in high school, and it's since become one of my favorite films. Some of the creepiest and most beautifully-shot scenes I've ever seen. Also, it was T.S. Eliot's favorite movie

If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's worth it.

SICKIncredible film. The madness on Mifune's face is a sight to behold, and as usual from Kurosawa's works, the use of weather to enhance the mood is perfect.

Mifune is always incredible.

 

[Doug B]

That would have been a great run of picls in the 20th , nevermind the 40th round!

Our species has its bright spots

 

[timschochet]

Rubber Soul is often cited as one of the greatest albums in pop music history. In 2000, Q magazine placed it at number 2 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2001, VH1 placed it at number 6. In 2003, the album was ranked number 5 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Myself, I rank it somewhere between 10-20, not in the top ten. Even so, that's no slight.

 

[Fennis]

Since the consensus is to allow actions as wildcards, I'm going to take the one I still get chills reading about. I don't care that he was just the "first"--the boldness of what he did and the way he changed the world are astounding:40.20 First solo transatlantic flight and first non-stop fixed-wing aircraft flight between America and mainland Europe - Charles Lindbergh (wildcard)

He did a lot of great work to get across the Atlantic. Good pick I don't have a pick ready. I may skip for a bit... Ill post in a few either way.

 

[Doug B]

Krista ... I like that description ... "flying a lawnmower"

Great pick, now that this kind of thing is more or less approved to be taken in the WC category. A modern pilot -- even a crazed daredevil type -- would probably throw up in his/her mouth a little bit at the prospect of flying a Spirit of St. Louis replica across the Atlantic Ocean. No instruments, no radar, a sparse frame .... fabric, wood, and wicker, for Pete's sake.

 

[Fennis]

got my pick... upcoming in a few... going TV

 

[krista4]

Krista ... I like that description ... "flying a lawnmower"

Great pick, now that this kind of thing is more or less approved to be taken in the WC category. A modern pilot -- even a crazed daredevil type -- would probably throw up in his/her mouth a little bit at the prospect of flying a Spirit of St. Louis replica across the Atlantic Ocean. No instruments, no radar, a sparse frame .... fabric, wood, and wicker, for Pete's sake.

And thanks. That's what makes it so incredible to me. And here was a virtual unknown (outside of his local area) doing it after the world's best pilots had died trying.

 

[timschochet]

Lindbergh's later role as a Nazi sympathizer and defeatist really bothers me. But it takes nothing away from his accomplishment.

 

[krista4]

got my pick... upcoming in a few... going TV

 

[Genedoc]

Sounds amazing, Gene.So, any wine recommendations?

A few. The most amazing wine tasting experiences were tasting a Montrachet Grand Cru white Burgundy for the first time and tasting a Rhone Syrah from La Landonne. Both transcendent experiences. I also have a profound understanding for why French wine is so impenetrable to learn. There are ~ 150,000 producers in France compared to ~2,000 in North America. There are over 300 AOC's, and within each AOC, there are dozens of top vineyards. Then the final straw is that multiple wine makers will own rows in those vineyards. And because they're prohibited from watering, each vintage is radically different from the next. Take Montrachet for example. Montrachet is the pinnacle of white wine grapes in the world. Montrachet is in the region of Burgundy. It's in the Cote de Beaune, which is in the southern half of Cote d'Or. The entire vineyard is less than 20 acres, but it's split between Pugliny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. Within that 20 acres, there are 18 owners and nearly 30 producers. The land is literally divided row by row.

 

[Fennis]

41.01 Battlestar Galactica - TV Show (2004 version)

Literally the best and most compelling show on TV, quite possibly ever. One of my all time favorites. If you didn't watch the series, rent season 1 and you'll be hooked. Don't let the Sci Fi or the factor scare you off. The show is way more than that.

Season 1 trailer:

 

[Postradamus]

Sounds amazing, Gene.

So, any wine recommendations?

A few. The most amazing wine tasting experiences were tasting a Montrachet Grand Cru white Burgundy for the first time and tasting a Rhone Syrah from La Landonne. Both transcendent experiences.

I also have a profound understanding for why French wine is so impenetrable to learn. There are ~ 150,000 producers in France compared to ~2,000 in North America. There are over 300 AOC's, and within each AOC, there are dozens of top vineyards. Then the final straw is that multiple wine makers will own rows in those vineyards. And because they're prohibited from watering, each vintage is radically different from the next.

Take Montrachet for example. Montrachet is the pinnacle of white wine grapes in the world. Montrachet is in the region of Burgundy. It's in the Cote de Beaune, which is in the southern half of Cote d'Or. The entire vineyard is less than 20 acres, but it's split between Pugliny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. Within that 20 acres, there are 18 owners and nearly 30 producers. The land is literally divided row by row.

very interesting, sounds like an awesome trip

 

[Uncle Humuna]

40.20 First solo transatlantic flight and first non-stop fixed-wing aircraft flight between America and mainland Europe - Charles Lindbergh (wildcard)

41.01 Battlestar Galactica - TV Show (2004 version)

And it just keeps going!These were at the top of my lists for their respective categories.

 

[rodg12]

41.01 - A Dictionary of the English Language - Samuel Johnson - Non-fiction Book

Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language. It was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary for a full 150 years after its completion. The Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who labored under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time."

Johnson's dictionary was neither the first English dictionary, nor among the first dozen. Over the previous 150 years more than twenty dictionaries had been published in England. However, it set itself apart for its predecessors. The problem with the other dictionaries was that they tended to be little more than poorly organized, poorly researched, glossaries of "hard words": words that were technical, foreign, obscure or antiquated. But perhaps the greatest single fault of these early lexicographers was, as one historian put it, that they "failed to give sufficient sense of [the English] language as it appeared in use." In that sense Dr. Johnson's dictionary was the first to comprehensively document the English lexicon. Johnson added notes on a word's usage rather than being merely descriptive. Its definitions were also more meticulous than anything before.

- The word "turn" had 16 definitions with 15 illustrations

- The word "time" had 20 definitions with 14 illustrations

- The word "put" ran more than 5,000 words spread over 3 pages

- The word "take" had 134 definitions, running 8,000 words, over 5 pages

Wiki

 

[Fennis]

40.20 First solo transatlantic flight and first non-stop fixed-wing aircraft flight between America and mainland Europe - Charles Lindbergh (wildcard)

41.01 Battlestar Galactica - TV Show (2004 version)

And it just keeps going!These were at the top of my lists for their respective categories.

You are welcome to quit your team and join Team Fennis.

 

[Fennis]

41.01 - A Dictionary of the English Language - Samuel Johnson - Non-fiction Book

Write-up later. Gotta run for now.

nice pick rodg

 

[rodg12]

SKIPPED

38.11 - Thatguy (autoskip)

39.06 - Abrantes (autoskip)

39.10 - Thatguy

39.11 - El Floppo

39.19 - Tirnan (autoskip if not around)

40.02 - Tirnan (autoskip if not around)

40.09 - Team CIA (autoskip)

40.10 - El Floppo (autoskip if not here in first 15)

40.11 - Thatguy (autoskip)

40.15 - Abrantes (autoskip)

41.03 - Postradamus

41.04 - Timscochet

41.05 - Doug B (autoskip)

41.06 - Abrantes (autoskip)

41.07 - BobbyLayne

41.08 - Tides of War

41.09 - Big Rocks

 

[Postradamus]

41.03 Europe after the Rain II - Max Ernst (Painting)

I love this painting and can't risk one of you weasels taking it from me. This painting uses "decalcomania" where paint is layered on a sheet of glass then pressed against the canvas.

slightly larger image

 

[timschochet]

Wow, I'm glad you added "2004 Version," Fennis. I haven't seen that show, but I have to admit I did a doubletake because I was thinking of the 1970's show. That was a cheesy show.

 

[Uncle Humuna]

40.20 First solo transatlantic flight and first non-stop fixed-wing aircraft flight between America and mainland Europe - Charles Lindbergh (wildcard)

41.01 Battlestar Galactica - TV Show (2004 version)

And it just keeps going!These were at the top of my lists for their respective categories.

You are welcome to quit your team and join Team Fennis.

Does this come complete with admission to The Romp™?

 

[timschochet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwDN9UMMi3c

Over 70 years has passed since this song was composed (by Louis Prima), and the only word I can think of to describe it is dangerous. It's literally decades ahead of it's time. I give you the greatest classic of the Big Band era:

41.4 Benny Goodman- Sing Sing Sing (With A Swing)

 

[Fennis]

Wow, I'm glad you added "2004 Version," Fennis. I haven't seen that show, but I have to admit I did a doubletake because I was thinking of the 1970's show. That was a cheesy show.

I'm not a fan of the 70s version either, but the show had a lot of hard core fans. They were up in arms when they found out Starbuck (who in the original was a woman chasing, hard living, cigar smoker bad ###) was going to be made in to a woman. But after a few episodes no one complained.. mostly because the new Starbuck had the same characertisitcs... well except unfortunately, she's not much of a woman chaser.