title: Audiobook

text: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFBD, later renamed Learning Ally) was founded in 1948 by Anne T. Macdonald, a member of the New York Public Library's Women's Auxiliary, in response to an influx of inquiries from soldiers who had lost their sight in combat during World War II. The newly passed "GI Bill of Rights" guaranteed a college education to all veterans, but texts were mostly inaccessible to the recently blinded veterans, who did not read Braille and had little access to live readers. Macdonald mobilized the women of the Auxiliary under the motto "Education is a right, not a privilege". Members of the Auxiliary transformed the attic of the New York Public Library into a studio, recording textbooks using then state-of-the-art six-inch vinyl SoundScriber phonograph discs that played approximately 12 minutes of material per side. In 1952, Macdonald established recording studios in seven additional cities across the United States.


title: Audiobook

text: Caedmon Records was a pioneer in the audiobook business. It was the first company dedicated to selling spoken work recordings to the public and has been called the "seed" of the audiobook industry. Caedmon was formed in New York in 1952 by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney. Their first release was a collection of poems by Dylan Thomas as read by the author. The LP's B-side contained "A Child's Christmas in Wales", which was added as an afterthought. The story was obscure and Thomas himself couldn't remember its title when asked what to use to fill up the B-side—but this recording went on to become one of his most loved works, and launched Caedmon into a successful company. The original 1952 recording was a selection for the 2008 United States National Recording Registry, stating it is "credited with launching the audiobook industry in the United States". Caedmon used LP records, invented in 1948, which made longer recordings more affordable and practical, however most of their works were poems, plays and other short works, not unabridged books due to the LP's limitation of about a 45-minute playing time (combined sides).


title: Audiobook

text: Listening Library was also a pioneering company, it was one of the first to distribute children's audiobooks to schools, libraries and other special markets, including VA hospitals. It was founded by Anthony Ditlow and his wife in 1955 in their Red Bank, New Jersey home; Ditlow was partially blind. Another early pioneering company was Spoken Arts founded in 1956 by Arthur Luce Klein and his wife, they produced over 700 recordings and were best known for poetry and drama recordings used in schools and libraries. Like Caedemon, Listening Library and Spoken Arts benefited from the new technology of LPs, but also increased governmental funding for schools and libraries beginning in the 1950s and 60s.


title: Audiobook

text: Though spoken recordings were popular in vinyl record format for schools and libraries into the early 1970s, the beginning of the modern retail market for audiobooks can be traced to the wide adoption of cassette tapes during the 1970s. Cassette tapes were invented in 1962 and a few libraries, such as the Library of Congress, began distributing books on cassette by 1969. However, during the 1970s, a number of technological innovations allowed the cassette tape wider usage in libraries and also spawned the creation of new commercial audiobook market. These innovations included the introduction of small and cheap portable players such as the Walkman, and the widespread use of cassette decks in cars, particularly imported Japanese models which flooded the market during the multiple energy crises of the decade.


title: Audiobook

text: In the early 1970s, instructional recordings were among the first commercial products sold on cassette. There were 8 companies distributing materials on cassette with titles such as "Managing and Selling Companies" (12 cassettes, $300) and "Executive Seminar in Sound" on a series of 60-minute cassettes. In libraries, most books on cassette were still made for blind and disabled people, however some new companies saw the opportunity for making audiobooks for a wider audience, such as Voice Over Books which produced abridged best-sellers with professional actors. Early pioneers included Olympic gold medalist Duvall Hecht who in 1975 founded the California-based Books on Tape as a direct to consumer mail order rental service for unabridged audiobooks and expanded their services selling their products to libraries and audiobooks gaining popularity with commuters and travelers. In 1978, Henry Trentman, a traveling salesman who listened to sales tapes while driving long distances, had the idea to create quality unabridged recordings of classic literature read by professional actors. His company, the Maryland-based Recorded Books, followed the model of Books on Tape but with higher quality studio recordings and actors. Recorded Books and Chivers Audio Books were the first to develop integrated production teams and to work with professional actors.


title: Audiobook

text: By 1984, there were eleven audiobook publishing companies, they included Caedmon, Metacom, Newman Communications, Recorded Books, Brilliance and Books on Tape. The companies were small, the largest had a catalog of 200 titles. Some abridged titles were being sold in bookstores, such as Walden Books, but had negligible sales figures, many were sold by mail-order subscription or through libraries. However, in 1984, Brilliance Audio invented a technique for recording twice as much on the same cassette thus allowing for affordable unabridged editions. The technique involved recording on each of the two channels of each stereo track. This opened the market to new opportunities and by September 1985, "Publishers Weekly" identified twenty-one audiobook publishers. These included new major publishers such as Harper and Row, Random House, and Warner Communications.


title: Audiobook

text: 1986 has been identified as the turning point in the industry, when it matured from an experimental curiosity. A number of events happened: the Audio Publishers Association, a professional non-profit trade association, was established by publishers who joined to promote awareness of spoken word audio and provide industry statistic. Time-Life began offering members audiobooks. Book-of-the-Month club began offering audiobooks to its members, as did the Literary Guild. Other clubs such as the History Book Club, Get Rich Club, Nostalgia Book Club, Scholastic club for children all began offering audiobooks. Publishers began releasing religious and inspirational titles in Christian bookstores. By May 1987, "Publishers Weekly" initiated a regular column to cover the industry. By the end of 1987, the audiobook market was estimated to be a $200 million market, and audiobooks on cassette were being sold in 75% of regional and independent bookstores surveyed by "Publishers Weekly". By August 1988 there were forty audiobook publishers, about four times as many as in 1984.


title: Audiobook

text: By the middle of the 1990s, the audio publishing business grew to 1.5 billion dollars a year in retail value. In 1996, the Audio Publishers Association established the Audie Awards for audiobooks, which is equivalent to the Oscar for the audiobook industry. The nominees are announced each year by February. The winners are announced at a gala banquet in May, usually in conjunction with BookExpo America.


title: Audiobook

text: With the spread of the Internet to consumers in the 1990s, faster download speeds with broadband technologies, new compressed audio formats and portable media players, the popularity of audiobooks increased significantly during the late 1990s and 2000s. In 1997, Audible pioneered the world's first mass-market digital media player, named "The Audible Player", it retailed for $200, held 2 hours of audio and was touted as being "smaller and lighter than a Walkman", the popular cassette player used at the time. Digital audiobooks were a significant new milestone as they allowed listeners freedom from physical media such as cassettes and CD-ROMs which required transportation through the mail, allowing instead instant download access from online libraries of unlimited size, and portability using comparatively small and lightweight devices. Audible.com was the first to establish a website, in 1998, from which digital audiobooks could be purchased.


title: Audiobook

text: Another innovation was the creation of LibriVox in 2005 by Montreal-based writer Hugh McGuire who posed the question on his blog: "Can the net harness a bunch of volunteers to help bring books in the public domain to life through podcasting?" Thus began the creation of public domain audiobooks by volunteer narrators. By the end of 2021, LibriVox had a catalog of over 16,870 works.


title: Audiobook

text: The transition from vinyl, to cassette, to CD, to MP3CD, to digital download has been documented by Audio Publishers Association in annual surveys (the earlier transition from record to cassette is described in the section on the 1970s). The final year that cassettes represented greater than 50% of total market sales was 2002. Cassettes were replaced by CDs as the dominant medium during 2003–2004. CDs reached a peak of 78% of sales in 2008, then began to decline in favor of digital downloads. The 2012 survey found CDs accounted for "nearly half" of all sales meaning it was no longer the dominate medium (APA did not report the digital download figures for 2012, but in 2011 CDs accounted for 53% and digital download was 41%). The APA estimates that audiobook sales in 2015 in digital format increased by 34% over 2014.


title: Audiobook

text: The resurgence of audio storytelling is widely attributed to advances in mobile technologies such as smartphones, tablets, and multimedia entertainment systems in cars, also known as connected car platforms. Audio drama recordings are also now podcast over the internet.


title: Audiobook

text: In 2014, Bob & Debra Deyan of Deyan Audio opened the Deyan Institute of Vocal Artistry and Technology, the world's first campus and school for teaching the art and technology of audiobook production.


title: Audiobook

text: In 2018, approximately 50,000 audiobooks were recorded in the United States with a sales growth of 20 percent year over year. U.S. audiobook sales in 2019 totaled 1.2 billion dollars, up 16% from the previous year. In addition to the sales increase, Edison Research's national survey of American audiobook listeners ages 18 and up found that the average number of audiobooks listened to per year increased from 6.8 in 2019 to 8.1 in 2020.


title: Audiobook

text: The evolution and use of audiobooks in Germany closely parallels that of the US. A special example of its use is the West German Audio Book Library for the Blind, founded in 1955. Actors from the municipal theater in Münster recorded the first audio books for the visually impaired in an improvised studio lined with egg cartons. Because trams rattled past, these first productions took place at night. Later, texts were recorded by trained speakers in professional studios and distributed to users by mail. Until the 1970s recordings were on tape reels, then later cassettes. Since 2004, the offerings have been recorded in the DAISY Digital Talking Book MP3 standard, which provides additional features for visually impaired users to both listen and navigate written material aurally.


title: Audiobook

text: Audiobooks in India started to appear somewhat later than in the rest of the world. Only by 2010 did Audiobooks gain mainstream popularity in the Indian market. This is primarily due to lack of previous organized efforts on the part of publishers and authors. The marketing efforts and availability of Audiobooks has made India as one of the fastest growing Audiobooks markets in the world.


title: Audiobook

text: The lifestyle of urban Indian population and one of the highest daily commute time in the world has also helped in making Audiobooks popular in the region. Business and Self Help books have widespread appeal and have been more popular than fiction/non-fiction. This is because Audiobooks are primarily seen as an avenue for self-improvement and education, rather than entertainment.


title: Audiobook

text: Audio books are being released in various Indian languages. In Malayalam, the first audio novel, titled Ouija Board, was released by Kathacafe in 2018. Now Indian companies are working towards Audio Books generation in the Indian Vernacular Languages. Listen Stories By Sahitya Chintan is an Android audio book library allowing listing 1000+ Hindi Audio Books. They are offering ample audio books freely. To access the entire catalog they are charging nominal membership of Rs. 199/ Year for Indian audio book listener and $5.99/Year for Rest of World.


title: Audiobook

text: Producing an audiobook consists of a narrator sitting in a recording booth reading the text, while a studio engineer and a director record and direct the performance. If a mistake is made the recording is stopped and the narrator reads it again. With recent advancements in recording technology, many audiobooks are also now recorded in home studios by narrators working independently. Audiobooks produced by major publishing houses undergo a proofing and editing process after narration is recorded.


title: Audiobook

text: Narrators are usually paid on a finished recorded hour basis, meaning if it took 20 hours to produce a 5-hour book, the narrator is paid for 5 hours, thus providing an incentive not to make mistakes. Depending on the narrator they are paid per finished hour to (). Many narrators also work as producers and deliver fully produced audiobooks, which have been edited, mastered, and proofed. They may charge an extra $75-$125 per finished hour in addition to their narration fee to coordinate and pay for the post-production services. The overall cost to produce an audiobook can vary significantly, as longer books require more studio time and more well known narrators come at a premium. According to a representative at Audible, the cost of recording an audiobook has fallen from around in the late 1990s to around - in 2014.


title: Audiobook

text: Audiobooks are distributed on any audio format available, but primarily these are records, cassette tapes, CDs, MP3 CDs, downloadable digital formats (e.g., MP3 (.mp3), Windows Media Audio (.wma), Advanced Audio Coding (.aac)), and solid state preloaded digital devices in which the audio content is preloaded and sold together with a hardware device.


title: Audiobook

text: In 1955, a German inventor introduced the "Sound Book" cassette system based on the where instead of a magnetic tape the sound was recorded on a continuous loop of grooved vinylite ribbon similar to the old 8-track tape. Even though the original Tefifon upon which it was based ran at 19 CPS and could hold a maximum of 4 hours, one Sound Book could hold eight hours of recordings as it ran at half the speed or 9.5 CPS. However, just like the Tefifon, the format never became widespread in use.


title: Audiobook

text: A small number of books are recorded for radio broadcast, usually in abridged form and sometimes serialized. Audiobooks may come as fully dramatized versions of the printed book, sometimes calling upon a complete cast, music, and sound effects. Effectively audio dramas, these audiobooks are known as full cast audio books. BBC radio stations Radio 3, Radio 4, and Radio 4 Extra have broadcast such productions as the William Gibson novel "Neuromancer".


title: Audiobook

text: An "audio first production" is a spoken word audio work that is an original production but not based on a book. Examples include Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King, who released a Vinyl First audiobook called "Dark Carousel" in 2018. It came in a 2-LP vinyl set, or as a downloadable MP3, but with no published text. Another example includes "Spin, The Audiobook Musical" (2018), a musical rendition of Rumpelstiltskin narrated by Jim Dale, and featuring a cast of Broadway musical stars.


title: Audiobook

text: Audiobooks have been used to teach children to read and to increase reading comprehension. They are also useful for the blind. The National Library of Congress in the U.S. and the CNIB Library in Canada provide free audiobook library services to the visually impaired; requested books are mailed out (at no cost) to clients. Founded in 1996, Assistive Media of Ann Arbor, Michigan was the first organization to produce and deliver spoken-word recordings of written journalistic and literary works via the Internet to serve people with visual impairments.


title: Audiobook

text: About 40 percent of all audiobook consumption occurs through public libraries, with the remainder served primarily through retail book stores. Library download programs are currently experiencing rapid growth (more than 5,000 public libraries offer free downloadable audio books). Libraries are also popular places to check out audio books in the CD format. According to the National Endowment for the Arts' study, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America" (2004), audiobook listening increases general literacy.


title: Audiobook

text: Audiobooks are considered a valuable tool because of their format. Unlike traditional books or a video program, one can listen to an audiobook while doing other tasks. Such tasks include doing the laundry, exercising, weeding and similar activities. The most popular general use of audiobooks by adults is when commuting with an automobile or while traveling with public transport, as an alternative to radio or music. Many people listen as well just to relax or as they drift off to sleep.


title: Audiobook

text: A recent survey released by the Audio Publishers Association found that the overwhelming majority of audiobook users listen in the car, and more than two-thirds of audiobook buyers described audiobooks as relaxing and a good way to multitask. Another stated reason for choosing audiobooks over other formats is that an audio performance makes some books more interesting.


title: Audiobook

text: Founded in 1948, Learning Ally serves more than 300,000 K–12, college and graduate students, veterans and lifelong learners—all of whom cannot read standard print due to blindness, visual impairment, dyslexia, or other learning disabilities. Learning Ally's collection of more than 80,000 human-narrated textbooks and literature titles can be downloaded on mainstream smartphones and tablets, and is the largest of its kind in the world.


title: Audiobook

text: Founded in 2002, Bookshare is an online library of computer-read audiobooks in accessible formats for people with print disabilities.


title: Audiobook

text: Founded in 2005, LibriVox is also an online library of downloadable audiobooks and a free non for profit organisation developed by Hugh McGuire. It has public domain audiobooks in several languages.


title: Audiobook

text: Calibre Audio Library is a UK charity providing a subscription-free service of unabridged audiobooks for people with sight problems, dyslexia or other disabilities, who cannot read print. They have a library of over 8,550 fiction and non-fiction titles which can be borrowed by post on MP3 CDs and memory sticks or via streaming.


title: Audiobook

text: Listening Books is a UK audiobook charity providing an internet streaming, download and postal service to anyone who has a disability or illness which makes it difficult to hold a book, turn its pages, or read in the usual way, this includes people with visual, physical, learning or mental health difficulties. They have audiobooks for both leisure and learning and a library of over 7,500 titles which are recorded in their own digital studios or commercially sourced.


title: Audiobook

text: The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is a UK charity which offers a Talking Books library service. The audio books are provided in DAISY format and delivered to the reader's house by post as a CD or USB memory stick. There are over 30,000 audio books available to borrow, which are free to print disabled library members. RNIB subsidises the Talking Books service by around £4 million a year.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: The Wave is a sandstone rock formation located in Arizona, United States, near its northern border with Utah. The formation is situated on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness of the Colorado Plateau. The area is administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument visitor center in Kanab, Utah.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: The formation is well-known among hikers and photographers for its colorful, undulating forms and the difficult hike required to reach it. Due to the fragile nature of the formation and the large number of people wishing to visit it, a daily lottery system is used to dispense permits for up to 16 people and/or 4 groups (whichever comes first) two days before (visitors must apply within a geofence area encompassing the greater Kanab visitor center, Vermilian Cliffs, and Page areas). Additionally, 48 people and/or 12 groups (whichever comes first) online permits for each date are available four months in advance of a planned trip. A map and information about the hike are supplied to those who have obtained permits.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: "The Wave" consists of intersecting U-shaped troughs that have been eroded into Navajo Sandstone of Jurassic age. The two major troughs which comprise this rock formation are wide by long and wide by long. Initially, infrequent runoff eroded these troughs along joints within the Navajo Sandstone. After their formation, the drainage basin, which fed rainwater to these troughs, shrank to the point that the runoff became insufficient to contribute to the cutting of these troughs. As a result, the troughs are now almost exclusively eroded by wind, as indicated by the orientation of erosional steps and risers cut into the sandstone along their steep walls. These erosional steps and risers are oriented relative to the predominant direction of the wind as it is now naturally funneled into and through these troughs.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: The Wave exposes large-scale sets of cross-bedded eolian sandstone composed of rhythmic and cyclic alternating grainflow and windripple laminae. The rhythmic and cyclic alternating laminae represent periodic changes in the prevailing winds during the Jurassic period as large sand dunes migrated across a sandy desert. The thin ridges and ribbing seen within the Wave are the result of the differential erosion of rhythmic and cyclic alternating grainflow and windripple laminae within the Navajo Sandstone. These laminae have differing resistance to erosion as they have been differentially cemented according to variations in the grain size of the sand composing them. The soft sandstone is fragile, especially the ridges and ribbing of the Wave. As a result, visitors must walk carefully to avoid breaking the small ridges.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: In some areas the Wave exposes deformed laminae within the Navajo Sandstone. These laminae were deformed prior to the lithification of the sand to form sandstone. Judging from their physical characteristics, this deformation likely represents the trampling and churning of these sands by dinosaurs after their deposition. Dinosaur tracks and the fossil burrows of desert-dwelling arthropods, such as beetles and other insects, have been found in the Navajo Sandstone within the North Coyote Buttes Wilderness Area.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: An ideal time to photograph the Wave is the few hours around midday when there are no shadows in the center, although early morning and late afternoon shadows can also make for dramatic photos. After a rain storm, numerous pools form which can contain hundreds of tadpole shrimps (Lepidurus apus). These pools can be present for several days.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: Above and slightly west of the Wave is what many call "the Second Wave", or "the middle Wave", which has fainter colors but is still of interest to most visitors and photographers. Hugo Martin from the "Los Angeles Times" said, "You can't call yourself a landscape photographer if you haven't snapped a photo or two of the Wave."


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: The Wave is located within the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. This wilderness is administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of the United States Department of the Interior. A day-use permit from BLM is required to visit the Wave.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: BLM limits access to the North Coyote Buttes Wilderness Area to just 64 permits per day. 48 of the permits are available in advance by an online lottery conducted four months before the month for which the permit is sought. The remaining 16 permits are made available by geofenced daily lottery two day's before one's intended hike. The legacy walk-in lottery has transitioned to the new Daily Lottery. While within the geofence area on a mobile device this lottery is only available by going to Recreation.gov in your browser or by installing the Recreation.gov app. Spring and autumn are the most popular times of year to visit, but the popularity of the Wave is such that the chances of obtaining a permit by either advance lottery or the day-before lottery are much less than 50% from March through November. The Wave is particularly well known among European tourists, partly because it appeared in the German documentary film "Fascinating Nature" (1996) and a compilation called "Faszination Natur – Seven Seasons" (2004).


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: There are four trailheads which provide access to Paria Canyon and the Wave. However, in an effort to maintain the natural integrity of the region, there are no formal trails or signage to guide hikers to the Wave from any of the trailheads. The White House trailhead is the main entrance, and the one most commonly used. The Buckskin Gulch and Wire Pass trailheads offer more experienced hikers access to Buckskin Gulch, the main tributary of Paria Canyon. The Lee's Ferry trailhead, located at the lower end of Paria Canyon is the normal exit point for hikers traveling the entire length of the canyon.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: The shortest hike to the Wave begins at the Wire Pass Trailhead, about south of U.S. Route 89 along House Rock Valley Road, a dirt road about west of Page, Arizona or east of Kanab, Utah that is accessible to most vehicles in good weather. During and after a storm the road may be impassable, even with a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The Wire Pass Trailhead includes a wide parking lot with restrooms, but no water. It is also accessible from the Arizona side by taking U.S. Route 89A from Jacob Lake on the Kaibab Plateau toward Navajo Bridge, turning north onto the House Rock Valley Road, after descending from the Kaibab. This is a longer access route over dirt road than from the Utah side.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: From the Wire Pass Trailhead, the Wave can be reached by hiking approximately across open desert, making the round-trip to and from the Wave nearly , climbing about in altitude. Although this is the shortest route, it is also a slightly more challenging hike than several of the other available routes. Temperatures in this area typically climb above in the summer, so it is best to start the hike early. Anyone attempting the hike in any season is wise to be prepared for harsh desert conditions, including fierce winds, blowing sand, and little shade.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: The Wave can be challenging to locate due to the lack of an established, marked trail. Hikers must choose their own route across the open desert, which requires traversing exposed sandstone, sand dunes, and sandy wash bottoms. A formal guide sheet for navigating to the Wave is now provided to every permitted hiker by the BLM. The guide is designed for use with compass, GPS, or visual navigation. There are six checkpoints each for the outbound hike to the Wave and the return to the trailhead. Each checkpoint includes a marked color photo of the terrain ahead, azimuth, latitude, longitude, UTM, northing, and easting. Visitors are well advised to closely study the guide sheet before starting their hike.


title: The Wave (Arizona)

text: While not required, the Bureau of Land Management provides a list of authorized guides for those hikers who may be uncomfortable in a wilderness situation.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: Joseph Bishara (born July 26, 1970) is an American composer, music producer, and actor, best known for his work scoring films such as "Insidious", "11-11-11", "Dark Skies", and "The Conjuring". Although his career began with the 1998 Biblical drama "Joseph's Gift," he composes music for mainly horror and thriller films, and has collaborated several times with director James Wan. Projects by directors John Carpenter and Joseph Zito, and musicians Ray Manzarek and Diamanda Galás have incorporated his work. In addition to composing, he frequently appears in films he is involved in, usually made up as a demon or other supernatural creature. He has also been a producer on "Repo! The Genetic Opera" and other projects.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: After an early influence of classical music, Bishara began experimenting with electronic and experimental music, becoming interested in Tangerine Dream. He became engrossed in horror film scores after watching the silent film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" of 1920 and the 1922 horror classic "Nosferatu". In the late 1980s he became a member of the industrial band Yesterday's Tear, later known as Drown. By around 1994, he was signed to a record and touring contract with Drown. He also briefly toured with Prong.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: Although Bishara's film score work began with the Biblical drama "Joseph's Gift" in 1998, most of his subsequent work has comprised horror films starting with "Unearthed" and "The Gravedancers" in 2006 and "Night of the Demons" in 2009. His collaborations with filmmaker James Wan led to his prominence as a film score composer and popularity in the industry.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: He began to be the subject of more media attention with the Wan-directed film "Insidious" in 2011. "The New York Times" film critic Mike Hale remarked that Bishara's score helped the film recover from some of its negative attributes such as "pedestrian camerawork". Writing for Howlin' Wolf Records, Jason Comerford referred to the film soundtrack as a "dense, bristling effort jam-packed with invention and energy". Journalist Jonathan Barkan of Dread Central and Bloody Disgusting named the musical accompaniment as "one of the great masterpieces of horror music from this century". The score was performed by a string quartet accompanied by Bishara producing sounds on a rusted piano using hammers, files, and other "experimental instruments" of his design. Much of the music was recorded before Wan began shooting the film, the musicians improvising some parts as they went along but following Bishara's broad structure and concept. Bishara began sending completed recordings to Wan as he was editing the film so Wan could work the score into the film according to the structure he desired. Though film composers are typically more involved in music placement, Bishara noted the process used on "Insidious" felt "free". He also acted in the film, portraying a demon that served as the film's main antagonist.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: Bishara went on to score the Darren Lynn Bousman film "11-11-11". In 2013, he worked with Scott Stewart to write the music for the science fiction horror film "Dark Skies". Writing for "Film Journal International", critic Justin Lowe referred to the score as "unnerving" but suitable within the background of the action. Bishara then reunited with Wan to compose the music for "The Conjuring". He also portrays an entity named Bathsheba in the film. Wan's producers gave him wide latitude to decide who he wanted to work with him on the film, so he brought back many of the crew from "Insidious", including Bishara. Bishara composed the music for the sequel to "Insidious", "" (2013), but did not return to portray the demon.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: In 2014, Bishara scored the John R. Leonetti horror film "Annabelle", for which he received an ASCAP Top Box Office Films award. He next composed the music for a segment of the 2014 anthology film "", "Gorgeous Vortex", as well as the Wan production "", and another horror film, "The Vatican Tapes", on which he replaced Mike Patton of Faith No More. Bishara scored the music for the 2016 horror thriller "The Other Side of the Door" and returned to work with Wan, composing for "The Conjuring 2" and appearing in the film as an entity named the "Winged Creature" (credited as "Demon"). He also scored the 2018 installment in the "Insidious" film series, "".


title: Joseph Bishara

text: Bishara announced in August 2018 that his label, Void Recordings, would release a 27-track compilation of developmental and unreleased music from the "Insidious" film series, "More Music From the Further". Writing for the horror web site Bloody Disgusting, producer Brad Miska said that the compilation carried an avant-garde style over its entirety. He compared it to works by Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter, and said it also bore elements of classical, early goth, and industrial music.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: In addition to composing, Bishara has worked in other aspects of film production, providing sound design services for John Carpenter's "Ghosts of Mars" and acting as music producer for "Repo! The Genetic Opera". The "Ghosts of Mars" project involved programming and remixing music composed by Carpenter and determining how it would be integrated into the film. In 2015, Bishara helped produce the song "Shroud" on rapper Tech N9ne's album "Special Effects". He worked with Tech N9ne in 2018 to produce and co-write the song "Brightfall" for the "Planet" album. The song inspired a series of horror shorts starring Tech N9ne and Bishara.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: Bishara acts in several of the films he is musically involved in, usually portraying demons or other supernatural entities. Miska refers to him as a "creature performer". His debut performance was as the main antagonist in "Insidious", the Lipstick-Face Demon, a role he reprised in "Insidious: Chapter 2" and "Insidious: The Last Key". He portrayed Bathsheba in "The Conjuring", and demonic creatures in "The Conjuring 2" and the "Annabelle" film series.


title: Joseph Bishara

text: Bishara is known to be fond of horror, and he has said he favors composing for the genre above others: "It is the one that had the most energy for me. There always just seemed to be something a little bit more compelling about being on the edge of everything going away." He is known for his avant-garde style and unique approach to instrumentation and composition that suits horror films particularly well. Music journalists have noted his disregard for horror film score conventions, employing "gut-wrenching string dissonance, haunting electronic sounds and sudden crescendoes" and using strings and percussion to create effects designed to evoke "maximum shock effect" in the listener. Marine Wong Kwok Chuen of "Score It Magazine" wrote that "Bishara's distinctive sounds of fear have become instant classics in modern horror", citing the distinctive styles of the "Insidious" and "Conjuring" films, while journalist Jonathan Barkan wrote "There is no safety in Bishara’s music... nor should there be."


title: Alex Polizzi

text: Alessandra Maria Luigia Anna Polizzi di Sorrentino (born 28 August 1971), better known as Alex Polizzi, is an English hotelier, businesswoman, and television personality. Since 2008, she has appeared on "The Hotel Inspector" on Channel 5, in which she is the central figure.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: Polizzi comes from a family of hoteliers. Her mother is the Hon. Olga Polizzi, a hotel designer who is a daughter of Lord Forte and the sister of Sir Rocco Forte. Her father was Italian marquess Alessandro di Sorrentino, who died in a car accident in 1980.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: Polizzi read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford. She trained at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, and worked for Marco Pierre White.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: Polizzi and a baker boyfriend started a wholesale bakery, Millers Bespoke Bakery, supplying bread to Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Fortnum & Mason.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: She managed the Hotel Endsleigh in Milton Abbot, near Tavistock in Devon, which is owned by her mother Olga. In 2021, Polizzi and her mother opened The Star in Alfriston, in East Sussex, in their first joint venture.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: Since 2008, Polizzi has presented the Channel 5 series "The Hotel Inspector", replacing Ruth Watson. The show sees Polizzi visiting struggling British hotels to try to turn their fortunes around by giving advice and suggestions to the owners/managers, and often undertaking renovation projects on their behalf.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: She also fronts the BBC Two series, "", which focuses on her turning around family businesses, not just hotels. The first series aired in 2012; the second in 2013; a third in 2014 and a fourth in 2015. Polizzi also presented a revisited series called "The Fixer Returns" in 2013, as well as a Christmas special, which aired in December 2013.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: In October 2014, Polizzi launched a new Channel 5 series, "Alex Polizzi's Secret Italy", where she visits either lesser-known places within Italy or well-known towns and cities and, using local connections, shows areas that tourists would not ordinarily experience. In October 2014, it was announced that Polizzi would host a new BBC Two series, "", where she visits various food outlets. The series began airing on 20 April 2015.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: In March 2017, Polizzi released "Spectacular Spain with Alex Polizzi" and then "Our Dream Hotel" on 6 June. From February 2018, she invited her Irish brother-in-law, the restaurateur Oliver Peyton, to join her in a new Channel 5 series "Peyton And Polizzi’s Restaurant Rescue", where they pool their experience to play firefighters and turn around failing restaurants.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: In August 2021, "Alex Polizzi: My Hotel Nightmare" aired on Channel 5, which chronicled the renovation of The Star during the COVID-19 pandemic prior to its opening.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: Polizzi lives in London with her husband Marcus Miller, whom she married in 2007, along with their daughter and son. Polizzi is bilingual, being fluent in English and Italian. Her sister Charlotte is married to Oliver Peyton, an Irish restaurateur and a judge on the BBC television series "Great British Menu". Sir Rocco Forte is her uncle.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: She had a Roman Catholic upbringing, and spent "every Sunday of her childhood" at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Farm Street, London.


title: Alex Polizzi

text: Polizzi backed the Leave campaign during the 2016 British referendum on membership of the EU, but has spoken subsequently of her concern that Brexit could threaten the supply of labour into the hospitality and hotel industry.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The Call of Duty League (CDL) is a professional esports league for the video game series "Call of Duty", produced by its publisher Activision. The Call of Duty League follows the model of the Overwatch League as well as other traditional North American professional sporting leagues by using a set of permanent, city-based teams backed by separate ownership groups. In addition, the league plays in a tournament point system and playoffs format rather than the use of promotion and relegation used commonly in other esports and non-North American leagues, with players on the roster being assured a minimum annual salary, benefits, and a portion of winnings and revenue-sharing based on how that team performs. The League was announced in 2019 with its inaugural season starting in 2020.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The Call of Duty League is owned by Activision Blizzard and is the company's second franchise-based esports league. The league plays out similar to most North American professional sports leagues, in which all teams play scheduled games against other teams to vie for position in the season's playoffs, rather than the approach of team promotion and relegation more commonly used in other esports leagues. The league currently features twelve teams.


title: Call of Duty League

text: Each match between two teams consists of a best-of-five through different games based on gameplay modes and maps within the "Call of Duty" game. The inaugural season used the 2019 release, "", played on standard PlayStation 4 consoles and other equivalent equipment for all players. The three multiplayer modes used by the CDL include: "Search & Destroy", where one team attempts to plant a bomb and defend it at one of two control points while the other team tries to eliminate the bomb team, or if the bomb is activated, to defuse it in time; "Hardpoint", where a rotation control point appears on the map, and teams earn points for maintaining control on that point; and "Domination", where three control points appear on the map, and teams are awarded points by maintaining control of one or more of these points. In the case of "Search & Destroy" and "Domination", multiple rounds are played, switching the role of each team, while "Hardpoint" is played until a point limit is reached. Once a team has won three games in a match, the match is over, and that team given the match victory. Coaches for teams have a limited number of time outs which they can use during a game, and can substitute players during this time; this is in contrast to the OWL format where play substitutions may only occur between games.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The 2020 season schedule is evenly divided into two splits for spring and summer, with a mid-season all-star event taking place after the spring split, and culminates in the Championship Weekend. Each team will host a weekend tournament-style event in their home city, and the top teams from the weekend earns points. The top eight teams at the end of season based on points claim a berth in the playoffs. A total prize pool is available to teams in the inaugural season. To standardize play at each homestand weekend, Activision constructed a transportable esports stage with input from each of the teams. To support viewership, Activision studios Infinity Ward and Beenox created a server architecture for the "Call of Duty" games, the CODCaster, that enables a match to be viewed from multiple different angles and identify which angles have the most exciting action to follow, as to allow the commentators and producers of the broadcast events to help show key action in the match. CODCaster also compiles key in-game statistics, and is able to render the team's characters in their team's colors for the viewing audience, though players themselves will not have this benefit.


title: Call of Duty League

text: Each team must have a minimum of seven players with a maximum of ten. Players are guaranteed a minimum salary with health and other benefits, though players may negotiate for higher salaries. At least 50% of the winnings a team earns must be shared with the team members. Players are not required to live in the city/region that the team represents. Teams are not required to providing housing for players during the season, and if they do not choose to offer it, the team must instead offer a means and stipend to help players to find such housing with approval from Activision.


title: Call of Duty League

text: Activision also established a Call of Duty Challengers series for amateur players to compete in matches and potentially be played into teams that vie for a prize pool alongside the main League season. This provides the League teams with a pool of talent that they can draw from for their teams.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The 2021 season will be played on the 2020 release, "Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War", played on PC, using any league approved controller. This season competitive Call of Duty will make the switch back to 4v4, after two seasons on 5v5. The three modes used this season will include: "Search & Destroy"; "Hardpoint"; and "Control", where one team attempts to capture two points on the map, while the other team defends them. The round can end with the attackers capturing both zones within the allotted time, the defenders winning by the time expiring or by either team killing the other thirty times.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The 2021 season schedule is split into five stages, with each ending with a Major Tournament. In each stage the teams will be split into groups, determined by the teams themselves, via a draft system. Every team will complete in each homestand event with the finals of each event being a meeting between teams from the opposite group. During each homestand teams will earn CDL points and the top eight teams at the end of the season will enter the playoffs to compete for the CDL Championship.


title: Call of Duty League

text: Challengers is the amateur division of competitive Call of Duty. Challengers contains all of the up-and-coming players that are striving to enter the official Call of Duty League. The 2020 Challengers season offered a massive prize pool of $1,000,000 to be given out through a series of tournaments. The Challengers division is run through a format of "Pro points" or "Challenger points" which are virtual points given out to people based on their placing in tournaments. Owing to the vast number of people trying to make it to the Call of Duty League, it would be very difficult to find the best players without the addition of these points. This allows for franchised teams such as Optic Gaming or Seattle Surge to have academy teams equipped with the best players in Challengers. This allow for greater branding and the players based on the placing of their academy teams.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The events for Challengers are held offline in special locations. The dates of these events is in accordance to the actual Call of Duty League events. The first event of Modern Warfare was the Minnesota Launch Weekend event where there were professional pro league matches being played as well as Challengers events being held. However, before the first LAN (Local Area Network) event during that weekend. Challengers players have to play in two online ladder tournaments to compete for Challengers points. This points are individual to each person and the sum of those points in accordance to everyone else on the team decides the seeding for the LAN events at home series events. However, in the middle of the 2020 season and beginning in the 2021 season, Challengers will be played in an online format due to the COVID-19 virus. This has changed the format to where players will play in a "Cup" or tournament every weekend in order to compete for prizes and pro points. On top of the cups, the home series events will also be played online as compared to when they were played on LAN in the beginning of the MW season.


title: Call of Duty League

text: Call of Duty is an international game, even though the North American challengers are the most widely watched. There are several different regions that follow the same format as the Challengers Circuit. There are the regions of APAC, South America, and Europe. There is a large representation of international countries within the CDL. There are several teams within the actual CDL that have players from the international regions. There are even teams from London and Paris to represent these players and places. In terms of players, there is also a representation for them. Players like Hydra, Skrapz, Afro, Bance, Cammy, and Dylan are all players that made their way through the international Challengers or amateur circuit in order to enter the pro league and eventually transfer over to the CDL. Recently, the EU, APAC, and South America Challengers were introduced. There are dedicated streams for each region in partnership with YouTube Gaming. The greatest achievement out of all 3 regions dates back to the Black Ops 4 Pro League season where Team Heretics which consisted of a full South American team qualified for the Pro League which brought over much viewership from South America and helped the league grow.


title: Call of Duty League

text: Activision Blizzard, the publishers of the Call of Duty series launched the Call of Duty League and focused on a plan to try to make the league as presentable as possible. They first started the league by announcing a partnership with Google to allow YouTube Gaming to have exclusive streaming rights for all of their leagues. This was a major announcement as this was the major way that spectators would be able to watch the league from home. This was especially advantageous when the CDL went to online only due to the COVID-19 virus. The growth of the league coincides with the growth of Activision Blizzard. In comparison to the Overwatch League, the CDL has made a lot more revenue and has reached a larger audience due to several aspects. The Overwatch League which is Activision Blizzard's other franchised league, did not report any substantial or revenue growth for the game itself as well as for the league. As compared to the CDL, which is based on the legendary gaming franchise Call of Duty. Even for the 2020 CDL Modern Warfare season, the game ended up being the top-selling game of the year with 172 million downloads and $87 million in global consumer spending in the first two months of release.


title: Call of Duty League

text: In February 2019, Activision Blizzard officially confirmed their intention to launch a city-based, franchised league for "Call of Duty", marking their second such organization following the Overwatch League, founded in 2017. To prepare for establishing the League, Activision terminated both the Call of Duty Pro League and Call of Duty World League in mid-2019.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The first five teams to purchase a spot for the league was announced in May 2019; the companies – OverActive Media, Atlanta Esports Ventures, Envy Gaming, c0ntact Gaming LLC, and Sterling.VC – were also parent companies for teams in Activision Blizzard's other franchised league, the Overwatch League. All twelve franchises were finalized in October 2019, with a majority of the franchised having never professionally competed in "Call of Duty". "The Washington Post" estimated that the franchise cost was .


title: Call of Duty League

text: Initially, the CDL announced that they would be running a regular season format culminating in postseason playoffs. However, after criticism from the "Call of Duty" esports community, the league elected to switch to a tournament system, which was officially announced in January 2020.


title: Call of Duty League

text: In the days prior to the launch of the inaugural season, Activision announced it had made a multiyear deal with Google for all of its esports content, including the CDL, to be exclusively shown through YouTube. Prior Activision esports, particularly OWL, had used Twitch. Activision also announced other official sponsors of the league on eve of the first season: On March 9, Activision announced partnerships with both Twitter and the United States Army.


title: Call of Duty League

text: On March 13, 2020, the Call of Duty League released a statement entailing that all live home series events were cancelled due to concerns over the novel COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak, to which they said that upcoming events will be done via online play and possibly return to live events if logistically and feasibly possible. On May 19, 2020, the Call of Duty League announced changes to the 2020 Call of Duty League Championship. Instead of 8 teams making it to the Championship weekend all 12 teams would now compete for the Championship in a double-elimination tournament. A prize pool was announced, with the winning team taking home .


title: Call of Duty League

text: On July 5, 2020, the Call of Duty league announced that the postseason would also be played online as a result of the pandemic. Additional measures to further protect the competitive integrity of the league were also announced. All competitors are to be provided with a universal camera which will need to be activated throughout all matches with the camera providing league officials visibility each competitor's console, controller and monitor.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The Call of Duty League follows the model of the Overwatch League as well as other traditional North American professional sporting leagues by using a set of permanent, city-based teams backed by separate ownership groups. The CDL launched in January 2020 with twelve teams, each based in a global city. Of the twelve teams, nine are based in the United States, while the remaining three are based in Canada, the United Kingdom, and France.


title: Call of Duty League

text: On November 6, 2020, 100 Thieves announced that they would join the league under the name of the Los Angeles Thieves after acquiring OpTic Gaming Los Angeles slot. For the 2021 season, the Chicago Huntsmen rebranded to OpTic Chicago, as Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez reacquired the OpTic Gaming brand.


title: Call of Duty League

text: Following the 2021 season, OpTic Gaming and Envy Gaming announced a merger, causing a spot in the league up for sale, which the Kraft Group later acquired. With this, the Boston Breach was announced as the new team heading into the 2022 season.


title: Call of Duty League

text: On June 1, 2022, Paris Legion announced that following the 2022 season, the team would be relocating to Las Vegas for the 2023 season.


title: Call of Duty League

text: As of the 2022 season, 14 different teams have competed in the league, with three having won at least one Grand Finals title.


title: Call of Duty League

text: This is a list of each team by stage titles won. Stage titles are won by being the champion of the major at the end of the stage. Stage titles started with the 2021 season.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The regular season began January 24 and continued through July 2020, with a two-week post season playoffs to crown the season winners in August. Teams were due to hold in person tournaments in their respective cities with a rotation of eight of the 12 teams in attendance for each event. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic only 3 homestand style events were held, with team owners and players voting to have the league move online for the remainder of the season. The Grand Finals were held online, on August 30, in which the regular season number 2 seed Dallas Empire defeated the regular season number 1 seed Atlanta FaZe 5–1 to become the first Call of Duty League champions.


title: Call of Duty League

text: The 2021 season had a similar structure to the previous season. However, some things changed and updated since the last season. This season had several stages where teams were randomly picked and put into groups to play each other in official matches for CDL points which dictated the seeds for the teams in the CDL major events when they happened. The CDL points decide if a team starts in the losers or winners bracket at the start of the tournament. To start off the 2021 season group selections, the 2020 CDL champions Dallas Empire will made the first pick of the teams they want in their group and the runner up at the 2020 CDL championships Atlanta Faze made the 2nd pick. There was a snake draft between those two teams until all teams were put into a group. In addition, the top two finishing teams in stage 1 were then the two teams for group selection in stage 2. The 2021 season consisted of 5 stages until the CDL playoffs which is the biggest tournament with the biggest prize pool.


title: Gorgoneion

text: In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion (Greek: Γοργόνειον) was a special apotropaic amulet showing the Gorgon head, used by the Olympian deities Athena and Zeus: both are said to have worn the gorgoneion as a protective pendant, and often are depicted wearing it. It established their descent from earlier deities considered to remain powerful. Among other attributes, it was assumed by rulers of the Hellenistic age as a royal aegis to imply divine birth or protection, as shown, for instance, on the Alexander Mosaic and the Gonzaga Cameo.


title: Gorgoneion

text: According to Marija Gimbutas, "gorgoneia" represent certain aspects of the Mother Goddess cult associated with "dynamic life energy" and asserts that the images may be related to a cultural continuity persisting since the Neolithic period defining the "gorgoneion" as a quintessentially European image. Jane Ellen Harrison, on the other hand, claims that many primitive cultures use similar ritual masks in order to scare the owner from doing something wrong, or, as she terms it, to make an ugly face at the owner: "The ritual object comes first; then the monster is begotten to account for it; then the hero is supplied to account for the slaying of the monster".


title: Gorgoneion

text: Homer refers to the Gorgon on four occasions, each time alluding to the head alone, as if she had no body. Jane Ellen Harrison notes that "Medusa is a head and nothing more [...] a mask with a body later appended". Prior to the fifth century BC, she was depicted as particularly ugly, with a protruding tongue, boar tusks, puffy cheeks, her eyeballs staring fixedly on the viewer and the snakes twisting all around her.


title: Gorgoneion

text: The direct frontal stare, "seemingly looking out from its own iconographical context and directly challenging the viewer", was highly unusual in ancient Greek art. (The common depiction of the evil eye on sixth century drinking vessels, and particularly, eye-cups, like Gorgoneia, are assumed apotropaics.) In some instances, what sometimes appears as a beard (probably standing for stylized hair or streaks of blood) was appended to her chin, making her appear as an orgiastic deity akin to Dionysus.


title: Gorgoneion

text: Gorgoneia that decorate the shields of warriors on mid-fifth century Greek vases are considerably less grotesque and menacing. By that time, the Gorgon had lost her tusks and the snakes were rather stylized. The Hellenistic marble known as the Medusa Rondanini illustrates the Gorgon's eventual transformation into a beautiful woman.


title: Gorgoneion

text: Gorgoneia appear frequently in Greek art at the turn of the eighth century BC. One of the earliest representations is on an electrum stater discovered during excavations at Parium. Other early eighth-century examples were found at Tiryns. Going further back into history, there is a similar image from the Knossos palace, datable to the fifteenth century BC. Marija Gimbutas even argues that "the Gorgon extends back to at least 6,000 BC, as a ceramic mask from the Sesklo culture illustrates", and in her book, "Language of the Goddess", she also identifies the prototype of the Gorgoneion in Neolithic art motifs, especially in anthropomorphic vases and terracotta masks inlaid with gold.


title: Gorgoneion

text: In the sixth century, gorgoneia of a canonical "lion mask type" were ubiquitous on Greek temples, especially in and around Corinth. Pedimental gorgoneia were common in Sicily; probably the earliest occurrence being in the Temple of Apollo in Syracuse. Around 500 BC, they ceased to be used for the decoration of monumental buildings, but were still shown on antefixes of smaller structures throughout the next century.


title: Gorgoneion

text: Apart from temples, the Gorgon imagery is present on garments, dishes, weapons, and coins found across the Mediterranean region from Etruria to the Black Sea coast. The Gorgon coins were struck in 37 cities, making her image on coins second in numismatic ubiquity only to several principal Olympian deities. On mosaic floors, the gorgoneion usually was depicted next to the threshold, as if guarding it from hostile intruders. On Attic kilns, the gorgoneion over the kiln door protected from mishaps.


title: Gorgoneion

text: The Gorgon imagery remained popular even in Christian times, especially in the Byzantine Empire, including Kievan Rus, and was revived in the West by the Italian Renaissance artists.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" is a song by American hip hop group Public Enemy, released as a single in the summer of 1989 on Motown Records. It was conceived at the request of film director Spike Lee, who sought a musical theme for his 1989 film "Do the Right Thing". First issued on the film's 1989 soundtrack, a different version was featured on Public Enemy's 1990 studio album "Fear of a Black Planet".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" incorporates various samples and allusions to African-American culture, including civil rights exhortations, black church services, and the music of James Brown.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: As a single, "Fight the Power" reached number one on Hot Rap Singles and number 20 on the Hot R&B Singles. It was named the best single of 1989 by "The Village Voice" in their Pazz & Jop critics' poll. It has become Public Enemy's best-known song and has received accolades as one of the greatest songs of all time by critics and publications. In 2001, the song was ranked number 288 in the "Songs of the Century" list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2021, the song was ranked number two in "Rolling Stone" 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: In 1988, shortly after the release of their second album "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back", Public Enemy were preparing for the European leg of the Run's House tour with Run–D.M.C. Before embarking on the tour, film director Spike Lee approached Public Enemy with the proposition of making a song for one of his movies. Lee, who was directing "Do the Right Thing", sought to use the song as a leitmotif in the film about racial tension in a Brooklyn, New York neighborhood. He said of his decision in a subsequent interview for "Time", "I wanted it to be defiant, I wanted it to be angry, I wanted it to be very rhythmic. I thought right away of Public Enemy". At a meeting in Lower Manhattan, Lee told lead MC Chuck D, producer Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad, and executive producer Bill Stephney that he needed an anthemic song for the film.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: While flying over Italy on the tour, Chuck D was inspired to write most of the song. He recalled his idea, "I wanted to have sorta like the same theme as the original 'Fight the Power' by The Isley Brothers and fill it in with some kind of modernist views of what our surroundings were at that particular time." The group's bass player Brian Hardgroove has said of the song's message, "Law enforcement is necessary. As a species we haven't evolved past needing that. Fight the Power is not about fighting authority—it's not that at all. It's about fighting abuse of power."


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The Bomb Squad, Public Enemy's production team, constructed the music for "Fight the Power", through the looping, layering, and transfiguring of numerous samples. The track features only two live instrumentalists: saxophone, played by Branford Marsalis, and scratches provided by Terminator X, the group's DJ and turntabilist—Marsalis also played a saxophone solo for the extended soundtrack version of the song.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: In contrast to Marsalis' school of thought, Bomb Squad members such as Hank Shocklee wanted to eschew melodic clarity and harmonic coherence in favor of a specific mood in the composition. Shocklee explained that their musicianship was dependent on different tools, exercised in a different medium, and was inspired by different cultural priorities, different from the "virtuosity" valued in jazz and classical music. Marsalis later remarked on the group's unconventional musicality:


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: As with other Public Enemy songs, the Bomb Squad recontextualized various samples, and used them to complement the vocals and mood of "Fight the Power". The percussive sounds were placed either ahead of or behind the beat, to create a feeling of either easiness or tension. Particular elements, such as Marsalis' solo, were reworked by Shocklee so that they would signify something different from harmonic coherence. The Bomb Squad layered parts of Marsalis' D minor improvisations over the song's B♭7 groove, and vice versa. Regarding the production of the song, Robert Walser, an American musicologist, wrote that the solo "has been carefully reworked into something that Marsalis would never think to play, because Schocklee's goals and premises are different from his."


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: On August 24, 2014, Chuck D posted a photo on his Twitter profile of a cassette tape from the Green St. studio. The tape's label is branded with the studio's branding and a hand-written title suggests that the studio was used for the recording of the song.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: Although it samples many different works, the total length of each sample fragment is fairly short, as most span less than a second, and the primary technique used to construct them into the track was looping by Bomb Squad-producers Hank and Keith Shocklee. In looping, a recorded passage—typically an instrumental solo or break—could be repeated by switching back and forth between two turntables playing the same record. The looping in "Fight the Power", and hip hop music in general, directly arose from the hip hop DJs of the 1970s, and both Shocklees began their careers as DJs. Although the looping for "Fight the Power" was not created on turntables, it has a central connection to DJing. Author Mark Katz writes in his "Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music", "Many hip-hop producers were once DJs, and skill in selecting and assembling beats is required of both. ... Moreover, the DJ is a central, founding figure in hip-hop music and a constant point of reference in its discourse; producers who stray too far from the practices and aesthetics of DJing may risk compromising their hip-hop credentials".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: Chuck D recalled the track's extravagant looping and production, saying that "we put loops on top of loops on top of loops". Katz comments in an analysis of the track, "The effect created by Public Enemy's production team is dizzying, exhilarating, and tantalizing—clearly one cannot take it all in at once". He continues by discussing the connection of the production to the work as a whole, stating:


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" begins with a vocal sample of civil rights attorney and activist Thomas "TNT" Todd, speechifying in a resonant, agitated voice, "Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight. Matter of fact, it's safe to say that they would rather "switch" than fight". This 16-second passage is the longest of the numerous samples incorporated to the track. It is followed by a brief three-measure section (0:17–0:24) that is carried by the dotted rhythm of a vocal sample repeated six times; the line "pump me up" from Trouble Funk's 1982 song of the same name played backwards indistinctly. The rhythmic measure-section also features a melodic line, Branford Marsalis' saxophone playing in triplets that is buried in the mix, eight snare drum hits in the second measure, and vocal exclamations in the third measure. One of the exclamations, a nonsemantic "chuck chuck" taken from the 1972 song "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" by The Dramatics, serves as a reference to Chuck D.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The three-measure section crescendos into the following section (0:24–0:44), which leads to the entrance of the rappers and features more complex production. In the first four seconds of the section, no less than 10 distinct samples are looped into a whole texture, which is then repeated four more times as a meta-loop. The whole section contains samples of guitar, synthesizer, bass, including that of James Brown's 1971 recording "Hot Pants", four fragmented vocal samples, including those of Brown's famous grunts in his recordings, and various percussion samples. Although it is obscured by the other samples, Clyde Stubblefield's drum break from James Brown's 1970 song "Funky Drummer", one of the most frequently sampled rhythmic breaks in hip hop, makes an appearance, with only the break's first two eighth notes in the bass drum and the snare hit in clarity. This section has a sharp, funky guitar riff playing over staccato rhythms, as a course voice exhorts the line "Come on, get down". Other samples include "I Know You Got Soul", "Planet Rock" and "Teddy's Jam".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The song's lyrics features revolutionary rhetoric calling to fight the "powers that be". They are delivered by Chuck D, who raps in a confrontational, unapologetic tone. David Stubbs of "The Quietus" writes that the song "shimmies and seethes with all the controlled, incendiary rage and intent of Public Enemy at their height. It's set in the immediate future tense, a condition of permanently impending insurrection".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" opens with Chuck D roaring "1989!" His lyrics declare an African-American perspective in the first verse, as he addresses the "brothers and sisters" who are "swingin' while I'm singin' / Givin' whatcha gettin'". He also clarifies his group's platform as a musical artist: "Now that you've realized the pride's arrived / We've got to pump the stuff to make us tough / From the heart / It's a start, a work of art / To revolutionize". In addressing race, the lyrics dismiss the liberal notion of racial equality and the dynamic of transcending one's circumstances as it pertains to his group of people: "'People, people we are the same' / No, we're not the same / 'Cause we don't know the game". Chuck D goes on to call from the power structure to "give us what we want/ Gotta give us what we need", and intelligent activism and organization from his African-American community: "What we need is awareness / We can't get careless ... Let's get down to business / Mental self-defensive fitness". In the line, Chuck D references his audience as "my beloved", an allusion to Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of the "beloved community".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The samples incorporated to "Fight the Power" largely draw from African-American culture, with their original recording artists being mostly important figures in the development of late 20th-century African-American popular music. Vocal elements characteristic of this are various exhortations common in African-American music and church services, including the lines "Let me hear you say", "Come on and get down", and "Brothers and sisters", as well as James Brown's grunts and Afrika Bambaataa's electronically processed exclamations, taken from his 1982 song "Planet Rock". The samples are reinforced by textual allusions to such music, quoted by Chuck D in his lyrics, including "sound of the funky drummer" (James Brown and Clyde Stubblefield), "I know you got soul" (Bobby Byrd), "freedom or death" (Stetsasonic), "people, people" (Brown's "Funky President"), and "I'm black and I'm proud" (Brown's "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud"). The track's title itself invokes the Isley Brothers' song of the same name.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The song's third verse contains disparaging lyrics about iconic American entertainers Elvis Presley and John Wayne, as Chuck D raps, "Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me / Straight up racist, the sucker was / Simple and plain", with Flavor Flav following, "Fuck him AND John Wayne!". Chuck D was inspired to write the lines after hearing proto-rap artist Clarence "Blowfly" Reid's "Blowfly Rapp" (1980), in which Reid engages in a battle of insults with a fictitious Klansman who makes a similarly phrased, racist insult against him and boxer Muhammad Ali.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The third verse expresses the identification of Presley with racism—either personally or symbolically—and the fact that Presley, whose musical and visual performances owed much to African-American sources, unfairly achieved the cultural acknowledgment and commercial success largely denied to his black peers in rock and roll.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: Chuck D later clarified his lyric associating Elvis Presley with racism. In an interview with "Newsday" timed with the 25th anniversary of Presley's death, Chuck D acknowledged that Elvis was held in high esteem by black musicians, and that Elvis himself admired black musical performers. Chuck D stated that the target of his line about Elvis was the white culture which hailed Elvis as a "King" without acknowledging the black artists that came before him.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The line disparaging John Wayne is a reference to his controversial personal views, including racist remarks made in his 1971 interview for "Playboy", in which Wayne stated, "I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people."


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: Chuck D clarifies previous remarks in the verse's subsequent lines: "Cause I'm black and I'm proud / I'm ready and hyped, plus I'm amped / Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps / Sample a look back you look and find / Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check". Laura K. Warrell of "Salon" interprets the verse as an attack on embodiments of the white American ideal in Presley and Wayne, as well as its discriminative culture.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: On May 22, 1989, Professor Griff, the group's "Minister of Information", was interviewed by "The Washington Times" and made anti-Semitic comments, calling Jews "wicked" and blaming them for "the majority of wickedness that goes on across the globe", including financing the Atlantic slave trade and being responsible for South African apartheid. The comments drew attention from the Jewish Defense Organization (JDO), which announced a boycott of Public Enemy and publicized the issue to record executives and retailers. Consequently, the song's inclusion in "Do the Right Thing" led to pickets at the film's screenings from the JDO. Griff's interview was also decried by media outlets. In response, Chuck D sent mixed messages to the media for a month, including reports of the group disbanding, not disbanding, boycotting the music industry, and dismissing Griff from the group. In June, Griff was dismissed from the group, and "Fight the Power" was released on a one-off deal with Motown Records. Public Enemy subsequently went on a self-imposed break from the public in order to take pressure off of Lee and his film. Their next single for "Fear of a Black Planet", "Welcome to the Terrordome", featured lyrics defending the group and attacking their critics during the controversy, and stirred more controversy for them over race and antisemitism.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: During their self-imposed inactivity, "Fight the Power" climbed the "Billboard" charts. It was released as a 7-inch single in the United States and the United Kingdom, while the song's extended soundtrack version was released on a 12-inch and a CD maxi single.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" was well-received by music critics upon its release. Greg Sandow of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that it is "perhaps the strongest pop single of 1989". "Fight the Power" was voted the best single of 1989 in "The Village Voice"s annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it as the sixth best on his own list. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance at the 1990 Grammy Awards.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The lyrics disparaging Elvis Presley and John Wayne were shocking and offensive to many listeners at the time. Chuck D reflected on the controversy surrounding these lyrics by stating that "I think it was the first time that every word in a rap song was being scrutinized word for word, and line for line."


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: The song's music video was filmed in Brooklyn on April 22, 1989, and presented Public Enemy in part political rally, part live performance. Public Enemy biographer Russell Myrie wrote that the video "accurately [brought] to life ... the emotion and anger of a political rally".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: Spike Lee produced and directed two music videos for this song. The first featured clips of various scenes from "Do the Right Thing". In the second video, Lee opened the video with film from the 1963 March on Washington and transitioned to a staged, massive political rally in Brooklyn called the "Young People's March to End Racial Violence". Extras wearing T-shirts that said "Fight the Power" carried signs featuring Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, Muhammad Ali, and other black icons. Others carry signs resembling the signs used to designate state delegations at a national political convention. Tawana Brawley made a cameo appearance. Brawley gained national notoriety in 1987 when, at the age of 15, she accused several police officers and public officials from Wappingers Falls, New York of raping her. The charge was rejected in court, and she instead was sued for supposedly fabricating her story. Jermaine Dupri also made a cameo.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" plays through Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing". It plays in the opening credits as Rosie Perez's character Tina dances to the song, shadowboxing and demonstrating her personality's animus. The song is most prevalent in scenes with Bill Nunn's imposing character Radio Raheem, who carries a boombox around the film's neighborhood with the song playing loudly and represents Black consciousness.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: Additionally, "Fight the Power" was also featured in the opening credits of the PBS documentary "Style Wars" about inner-city youth using graffiti as an artistic form of social resistance.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" also appears in a season three episode of "The King of Queens", while Arthur, Doug, and Deacon are walking the streets to kill time while on strike.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: In 1989, "Fight the Power" was played in the streets of Overtown, Miami, in celebration of the guilty verdict of police officer William Lozano, whose shooting of a black motorist led to two fatalities and a three-day riot in Miami that heightened tensions between African Americans and Hispanics. That year, the song was also played at the African-American fraternity party Greekfest in Virginia Beach, where tensions had grown between a predominantly White police force and festival-attending African Americans. According to attendees, the Greekfest riots were precipitated by a frenzied crowd that had heard the song as it was played from a black van.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" also appears in the films "Jarhead" (2005), "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" (2009) and "Star Trek Beyond" (2016).


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: "Fight the Power" became an anthemic song for politicized youth when it was released in 1989. Janice C. Simpson of "Time" wrote in a 1990 article, "The song not only whipped the movie to a fiery pitch but sold nearly 500,000 singles and became an anthem for millions of youths, many of them black and living in inner-city ghetto's ." Laura K. Warrell of "Salon" writes that the song was released "at a crucial period in America's struggle with race", crediting the song with "capturing both the psychological and social conflicts of the time." She interprets it as a reaction to "the frustrations of the Me Decade", including the crack epidemic in the inner cities, AIDS pandemic, racism, and the effects of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush's presidencies on struggling urban communities. Warrell cites "Fight the Power" as Public Enemy's "most accessible hit", noting its "uncompromising cultural critique, its invigoratingly danceable sound and its rallying", and comments that it "acted as the perfect summation of [the group's] ideology and sound." It became Public Enemy's best-known song among music listeners. The group closes all their concerts with the song. Spike Lee and the group collaborated again in 1998 on the soundtrack album to Lee's film "He Got Game", also the group's sixth studio album.


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: Chuck D acknowledged that "Fight the Power" is "the most important record that Public Enemy have done".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: In 1996, the song was covered by D.C.K. for the electro-industrial various artists compilation "Operation Beatbox".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: In 2011, American mathcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan covered the song with Chuck D. on the album "Homefront: Songs for the Resistance"; a promo for the video game "Homefront".


title: Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)

text: In July 2020, Public Enemy did a live performance of "Fight the Power" at the 2020 BET Awards, alongside YG, Nas, Black Thought, and Rapsody, among others.


title: Kata

text: Kata is a Japanese word (型 or 形) meaning "form". It refers to a detailed choreographed pattern of martial arts movements made to be practised alone. It can also be reviewed within groups and in unison when training. It is practised in Japanese martial arts as a way to memorize and perfect the movements being executed. Korean martial arts with Japanese influence (hapkido, Tang Soo Do) use the derived term "hyeong" (hanja: 形) and also the term "pumsae" (hanja: 品勢 hangeul: 품새).


title: Kata

text: Kata are also used in many traditional Japanese arts such as theatre forms like kabuki and schools of tea ceremony ("chadō"), but are most commonly known in the martial arts. Kata are used by most Japanese and Okinawan martial arts, such as iaido, judo, kendo, kenpo, and karate.


title: Kata

text: Kata originally were teaching and training methods by which successful combat techniques were preserved and passed on. Practising kata allowed a company of persons to engage in a struggle using a systematic approach, rather by practising in a repetitive manner the learner develops the ability to execute those techniques and movements in a natural, reflex-like manner. Systematic practice does not mean permanently rigid. The goal is to internalize the movements and techniques of a kata so they can be executed and adapted under different circumstances, without thought or hesitation. A novice's actions will look uneven and difficult, while a master's appear simple and smooth.


title: Kata

text: "Kata" is a loanword in English, from the 1950s in reference to the judo kata due to Jigoro Kano, and from the 1970s also of karate kata; but the word has come to be used as a generic term for "forms" in martial arts in general, or even figuratively applied to other fields.


title: Kata

text: In Japanese martial arts practice, kata is often seen as an essential partner to "randori" training with one complementing the other. However, the actual type and frequency of kata versus "randori" training varies from art to art. In iaido, solo kata using the Japanese sword (katana) comprises almost all of the training. Whereas in judo, kata training is de-emphasized and usually only prepared for dan grading.


title: Kata

text: In kenjutsu, paired kata at the beginners level can appear to be stilted. At higher levels serious injury is prevented only by a high sensitivity of both participants to important concepts being taught and trained for. These include timing and distance, with the kata practised at realistic speed. This adjustability of kata training is found in other Japanese arts with roles of attacker and defender often interchanging within the sequence.


title: Kata

text: Many martial arts use kata for public demonstrations and in competitions, awarding points for such aspects of technique as style, balance, timing, and verisimilitude (appearance


title: Kata

text: The most popular image associated with kata is that of a karate practitioner performing a series of punches and kicks in the air. The kata are executed as a specified series of approximately 20 to 70 moves, generally with stepping and turning, while attempting to maintain perfect form. There are perhaps 100 kata across the various forms of karate, each with many minor variations. The number of moves in a kata may be referred to in the name of the kata, e.g., "Gojū Shiho", which means "54 steps." The practitioner is generally counselled to visualize the enemy attacks, and his responses, as actually occurring, and "karateka" are often told to "read" a kata, to explain the imagined events. Kata can contain techniques beyond the superficially obvious ones. The study of the meaning of the movements is referred to as the bunkai, meaning analysis, of the kata.


title: Kata

text: One explanation of the use of kata is as a reference guide for a set of moves. Not to be used following that "set" pattern but to keep the movements "filed". After learning these kata, this set of learned skills can then be used in a sparring scenario (particularly without points). The main objective here is to try out different combinations of techniques in a safe environment to ultimately find out how to defeat your opponent.


title: Kata

text: Recently, with the spread of extreme martial arts, or XMA, a style of kata called CMX kata has formed. These kata are performed in tournaments and include gymnastics related elements, such as backflips, cartwheels, and splits. These kata can also be performed with weapons such as the "bō" staff.


title: Kata

text: Judo has several kata, mostly created in the late 19th century by Kano Jigoro, the founder of judo. The judo kata involve two participants. Judo kata preserve a number of techniques that are not permitted in competition or in "randori", including punches, kicks, and the use of the katana and other weapons. The study of kata is usually begun typically at around the green belt level. The most commonly studied judo kata is Nage-no-kata, which consists of fifteen throwing techniques. The Katame-no-kata is composed of pinning techniques, chokes, and joint locks. Kime-no-kata is a long kata consisting of self-defense techniques against both unarmed attacks, and attacks with swords and knives.


title: Kata

text: While the Japanese term is most well known in the English language, forms are by no means exclusive to Japan. They have been recorded in China as early as the Tang dynasty, and are referred to in Mandarin as "taolu".


title: Kata

text: South and Southeast Asian martial arts incorporate both preset and freestyle forms. In silat these are referred to as "jurus" and "tari" respectively. Malay folklore credits the introduction of forms to the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma.


title: Kata

text: In such as taekwondo and Tang Soo Do, the word "hyung" or "hyeong" is usually employed, though in some cases other words are used. The International Taekwon-Do Federation uses the word "tul", while the World Taekwondo Federation uses the word "poomsae" or simply the English translations "pattern" or "form." Taekwondo patterns have multiple variations including "Palgwe" and the more popular "Taeguk" forms used by the WTF. Forms are included in certain taekwondo competitions and are a key element of gradings.


title: Kata

text: In Sanskrit, forms are known either as "yudhan" (combat form) or "pentra" (tactical deployment). Other Asian martial arts refer to forms by various terms specific to their respective languages, such as the Burmese word "aka", the Vietnamese "quyen" and the Kashmiri "khawankay".


title: Kata

text: In the Historical European martial arts and their modern reconstructions, there are forms, plays, drills and flourishes.


title: Kata

text: More recently kata has come to be used in English in a more general or figurative sense, referring to any basic form, routine, or pattern of behavior that is practised to various levels of mastery.


title: Kata

text: In Japanese language "kata" (though written as 方) is a frequently-used suffix meaning “way of doing,” with emphasis on the form and order of the process. Other meanings are “training method” and “formal exercise.” The goal of a painter's practising, for example, is to merge their consciousness with their brush; the potter's with their clay; the garden designer's with the materials of the garden. Once such mastery is achieved, the theory goes, the doing of a thing perfectly is as easy as thinking it.


title: Kata

text: Kata is a term used by some programmers in the Software Craftsmanship movement. Computer programmers who call themselves "Software Craftsmen" will write 'Kata' - small snippets of code that they write in one sitting, sometimes repeatedly, often daily, in order to build muscle memory and practise their craft.


title: Kata

text: In 1999, the term was used by Dave Thomas, co-author of the book "The Pragmatic Programmer". The concept was implemented by Laurent Bossavit and Emmanuel Gaillot who talked about it at XP2005 in Sheffield (UK). Following this conference, Robert C. Martin described the concept and initial usages in his article "The Programming Dojo".


title: Kata

text: One of the things that characterize an organization's culture is its kata – its routines of thinking and practice. Edgar Schein suggests an organization's culture helps it cope with its environment, and one meaning of "kata" is, "a way to keep two things in sync or harmony with one another." A task for leaders and managers is to create and maintain the organizational culture through consistent role modeling, teaching, and coaching, which is in many ways analogous to how kata are taught in the martial arts.


title: Kata

text: "Toyota Kata" is a 2009 management book by Mike Rother aiming to establish a routine for establishing a continuous improvement process.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance is a Gothic novel written beginning in mid-1850 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. The novel follows a New England family and their ancestral home. In the book, Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement, and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft. The setting for the book was inspired by the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, a gabled house in Salem, Massachusetts, belonging to Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll, as well as ancestors of Hawthorne who had played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The book was well received upon publication and later had a strong influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. "The House of the Seven Gables" has been adapted several times to film and television.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: The novel is set in the mid-19th century, but flashbacks to the history of the house, which was built in the late 17th century, are set in other periods. The house of the title is a gloomy New England mansion, haunted since its construction by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft, and sudden death. The current resident, the dignified but desperately poor Hepzibah Pyncheon, opens a shop in a side room to support her brother Clifford, who has completed a thirty-year sentence for murder. She refuses all assistance from her wealthy but unpleasant cousin, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon. A distant relative, the lively and pretty young Phoebe arrives and quickly becomes invaluable, charming customers and rousing Clifford from depression. A delicate romance grows between Phoebe and the mysterious attic lodger Holgrave, who is writing a history of the Pyncheon family.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: The house was built on ground wrongfully seized from its rightful owner, Matthew Maule, by Colonel Pyncheon, the founder of the Massachusetts branch of the family. Maule was accused of practicing witchcraft and was executed. According to legend, at his death Maule laid a curse upon the Pyncheon family. During the housewarming festivities, Colonel Pyncheon was found dead in his armchair; whether he actually died from the curse or from a congenital disease is unclear. His portrait remains in the house as a symbol of its dark past and the weight of the curse upon the spirit of its inhabitants.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: Phoebe arranges to visit her country home, but plans to return soon. Clifford, depressed by his isolation from humanity and his lost youth spent in prison, stands at a large arched window above the stairs and has a sudden urge to jump. The departure of Phoebe, the focus of his attention, leaves him bed-ridden.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: Judge Pyncheon arrives at the house hoping to find information about land in Maine, rumored to belong to the family. He threatens Clifford with an insanity hearing unless he reveals details about the land or the location of the missing deed. Clifford is unable to comply. Before Clifford can be brought before the Judge (which would destroy Clifford's fragile psyche), the Judge mysteriously dies while sitting in Colonel Pyncheon's chair. Hepzibah and Clifford flee by train. The next day, Phoebe returns and finds that Holgrave has discovered the Judge's body. The townsfolk begin to gossip about Hepzibah and Clifford's sudden disappearance. Phoebe is relieved when Hepzibah and Clifford return, having recovered their wits.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: New evidence in the crime that sent Clifford to prison proves his innocence. He was framed for the death of his uncle by Jaffrey (later Judge) Pyncheon, who was even then looking for the missing deed. Holgrave is revealed as Maule's descendant, but he bears no ill will toward the remaining Pyncheons. The missing deed is discovered behind the old Colonel's portrait, but the paper is worthless: the land is already settled by others. The characters abandon the old house and start a new life in the countryside, free from the burdens of the past.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: The Pyncheon family actually existed and were ancestors of American novelist Thomas Pynchon. Hawthorne, however, did not base the story on a real family and was surprised that several "Pynchon jackasses" claimed a connection. He considered changing the fictional family's name or adding a disclaimer in the preface, though no such edits were made.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts — today a museum accompanying a settlement house — was at one time owned by Hawthorne's cousin, Susanna Ingersoll, and she entertained him there often. Its seven-gabled state was known to Hawthorne only through childhood stories from his cousin; at the time of his visits, he would have seen just three gables due to architectural renovations. Reportedly, Ingersoll inspired Hawthorne to write the novel, though Hawthorne also stated that the book was a work of complete fiction, based on no particular house.


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: "The House of the Seven Gables" was Hawthorne's follow-up to his highly successful novel "The Scarlet Letter". He began writing it while living in Lenox, Massachusetts in August 1850. By October, he had chosen the title and it was advertised as forthcoming, though the author complained of his slow progress a month later: "I write diligently, but not so rapidly as I hoped... I find the book requires more care and thought than the 'Scarlet Letter'". He hoped the book would be complete by November but would not push himself to commit to a deadline. As he forewarned, "I must not pull up my cabbage by the roots, by way of hastening its growth." By mid-January 1851, he wrote to his publisher James T. Fields that the book was nearly finished, "only I am hammering away a little on the roof, and doing a few odd jobs that were left incomplete." He sent the finished manuscript to Fields by the end of the month. His wife Sophia Hawthorne reported to her mother on January 27 that he had read her the ending the night before: "There is unspeakable grace and beauty in the conclusion, throwing back upon the sterner tragedy of the commencement an ethereal light, and a dear home-loveliness and satisfaction."


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: "The House of the Seven Gables" was released in the second week of April 1851. Two printings were issued in the first month, a third in May, and a fourth in September 1851, totaling 6,710 copies in its first year (slightly more than "The Scarlet Letter" in its first year). Hawthorne earned 15% in royalties from the $1.00 cover price. After its publication, Hawthorne said, "It sold finely and seems to have pleased a good many people".


title: The House of the Seven Gables

text: Hawthorne's friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called it "a weird, wild book, like all he writes." Fanny Kemble reported that the book caused a sensation in England equal to "Jane Eyre". English critic Henry Chorley also noted that, with "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables", "few will dispute [Hawthorne's] claim to rank amongst the most original and complete novelists that have appeared in modern times." Some did not agree. "The book is an affliction", claimed fellow author Catharine Maria Sedgwick. "It affects one like a passage through the wards of an insane asylum." A review in the "Christian Examiner" complained the book was "more complex, the characterization more exaggerated, and the artistic execution less perfect" than the author's previous novel. Even so, Boston critic Edwin Percy Whipple simply called it his "greatest work". Hawthorne's friend Herman Melville praised the book for its dark themes in a letter to the author: