title: Old Tjikko

text: The tree has survived for so long due to vegetative cloning. The visible tree is relatively young, but it is part of an older root system that dates back thousands of years. The trunk of the tree may die and regrow multiple times, but the tree's root system remains intact and in turn sprouts another trunk. The trunk may only live for about 600 years, and when one trunk dies another eventually grows back in its place. Also, each winter, heavy snow may push the tree's low-lying branches to ground level, where they take root and survive to grow again the next year in a process known as layering. Layering occurs when a tree's branch comes in contact with the earth, and new roots sprout from the contact point. Other trees, such as coast redwoods and western red cedars are known to reproduce by layering. The tree's age was determined by carbon-14 dating of the root system, which found roots dating back to 375, 5,660, 9,000, and 9,550 years ago. Carbon dating is not accurate enough to pin down the exact year the tree sprouted from seed; however, given the estimated age, the tree is supposed to have sprouted around 7550 BC. For comparison, the invention of writing (and thus, the beginning of recorded history) did not occur until around 4000 BC. Researchers have found a cluster of around 20 spruce trees in the same area, all over 8,000 years old.


title: Old Tjikko

text: The estimated age of Old Tjikko is close to the maximum possible for this area, as the last ice age's receding Fenno-Scandian ice sheet only released the Fulufjället Mountain around 10,000 years ago.


title: Old Tjikko

text: Nature conservancy authorities considered putting a fence around the tree to protect it from possible vandals or trophy hunters.


title: Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly

text: The Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Arunachal Pradesh state in north-eastern India. The seat of the Legislative Assembly is at Itanagar, the capital of the state. The Legislative Assembly comprises 60 Members of Legislative Assembly directly elected from single-seat constituencies.


title: Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly

text: On 29 December 1969, the Agency Council, an apex advisory body for the governance of the North-East Frontier Agency (present-day Arunachal Pradesh), came into existence, with the Governor of Assam as its chairman. The Agency Council was replaced by the Pradesh Council on 2 October 1972. On 15 August 1975 the Pradesh Council was converted to the Provisional Legislative Assembly. Initially, the Legislative Assembly comprised 33 members, of which, 30 members were directly elected from single-seat constituencies and 3 members were nominated by the Union government. On attainment of the statehood on 20 February 1987, the number was raised to 60.


title: Deixis

text: In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words "tomorrow", "there", and "they". Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denoted meaning varies depending on time and/or place. Words or phrases that require contextual information to be fully understood—for example, English pronouns—are deictic. Deixis is closely related to anaphora. Although this article deals primarily with deixis in spoken language, the concept is sometimes applied to written language, gestures, and communication media as well. In linguistic anthropology, deixis is treated as a particular subclass of the more general semiotic phenomenon of indexicality, a sign "pointing to" some aspect of its context of occurrence.


title: Deixis

text: Although this article draws examples primarily from English, deixis is believed to be a feature (to some degree) of all natural languages. The term's origin is , the meaning "point of reference" in contemporary linguistics having been taken over from Chrysippus.


title: Deixis

text: Charles J. Fillmore used the term "major grammaticalized types" to refer to the most common categories of contextual information: person, place, and time. Similar categorizations can be found elsewhere.


title: Deixis

text: Personal deixis, or person deixis, concerns itself with the grammatical persons involved in an utterance: (1) those directly involved (e.g. the speaker, the addressee), (2) those not directly involved (e.g. those who hear the utterance but who are not being directly addressed), and (3) those mentioned in the utterance. In English, the distinctions are generally indicated by pronouns (personal deictical terms are in "italics"):


title: Deixis

text: In many languages with gendered pronouns, the third-person masculine pronouns ("he/his/him" in English) are used as a default when referring to a person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant:


title: Deixis

text: In contrast, English for some time used the neuter gender for cases of unspecified gender in the singular (with the use of the plural starting in around the fourteenth century), but many grammarians drew on Latin to come to the preference for "he" in such cases. However, it remains common to use the third-person plural ("they/their/them/theirs") even when the antecedent is singular (a phenomenon known as "singular they"):


title: Deixis

text: In languages that distinguish between masculine and feminine plural pronouns, such as French or Serbo-Croatian, the masculine is again often used as default. ""Ils vont à la bibliothèque"", ""Oni idu u biblioteku"" ("They go to the library") may refer either to a group of masculine nouns or a group of both masculine and feminine nouns. ""Elles vont..."", ""One idu..."" would be used only for a group of feminine nouns. In many such languages, the gender (as a grammatical category) of a noun is only tangentially related to the gender of the thing the noun represents. For example, in French, the generic "personne", meaning a person (of either sex), is always a feminine noun, so if the subject of discourse is "les personnes" (the people), the use of "elles" is obligatory, even if the people being considered are all men.


title: Deixis

text: Spatial deixis, or place deixis, concerns itself with the spatial locations relevant to an utterance. Similarly to personal deixis, the locations may be either those of the speaker and addressee or those of persons or objects being referred to. The most salient English examples are the adverbs "here" and "there," and the demonstratives "this", "these", "that", and "those," although those are far from exclusive.


title: Deixis

text: Unless otherwise specified, spatial deictical terms are generally understood to be relative to the location of the speaker, as in:


title: Deixis

text: where "across the street" is understood to mean "across the street from where I [the speaker] am right now." Although "here" and "there" are often used to refer to locations near to and far from the speaker, respectively, as in:


title: Deixis

text: "there" can also refer to the location of the addressee, if they are not in the same location as the speaker, as in:


title: Deixis

text: The above utterance would generally denote the speaker's "going" home from their own point of reference, yet it appears to be perfectly normal for one to project his physical presence to his home rather than away from home. Here is another example:


title: Deixis

text: Despite its common usage to address people who call when no one answers the phone, the "here" here is semantically contradictory to the speaker's absence. Nevertheless, this is considered normal for most people as speakers have to project themselves as answering the phone when in fact they are not physically present.


title: Deixis

text: Languages usually show at least a two-way referential distinction in their deictic system: proximal, i.e. near or closer to the speaker; and distal, i.e. far from the speaker and/or closer to the addressee. English exemplifies this with such pairs as "this" and "that", "here" and "there", etc.


title: Deixis

text: In other languages, the distinction is three-way or higher: proximal, i.e. near the speaker; medial, i.e. near the addressee; and distal, i.e. far from both. This is the case in a few Romance languages and in Serbo-Croatian, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Filipino, Macedonian, Yaqui, and Turkish. The archaic English forms "yon" and "yonder" (still preserved in some regional dialects) once represented a distal category that has now been subsumed by the formerly medial "there". In the Sinhala language, there is a four-way deixis system for both person and place; near the speaker /me_ː/, near the addressee /o_ː/, close to a third person, visible /arə_ː/ and far from all, not visible /e_ː/. The Malagasy language has seven degrees of distance combined with two degrees of visibility, while many Inuit languages have even more complex systems.


title: Deixis

text: Temporal deixis, or time deixis, concerns itself with the various times involved in and referred to in an utterance. This includes time adverbs like "now", "then", and "soon", as well as different verbal tenses. A further example is the word "tomorrow", which denotes the next consecutive day after any day it is used. "Tomorrow," when spoken on a day last year, denoted a different day from "tomorrow" when spoken next week. Time adverbs can be relative to the time when an utterance is made (what Fillmore calls the "encoding time", or ET) or the time when the utterance is heard (Fillmore's "decoding time", or DT). Although these are frequently the same time, they can differ, as in the case of prerecorded broadcasts or correspondence. For example, if one were to write (temporal deictical terms are in "italics"):


title: Deixis

text: the ET and DT would be different, with "now" referring to the moment the sentence is written and "when" referring to the moment the sentence is read.


title: Deixis

text: Tenses are generally separated into absolute (deictic) and relative tenses. So, for example, simple English past tense is absolute, such as in:


title: Deixis

text: Though the traditional categories of deixis are perhaps the most obvious, there are other types of deixis that are similarly pervasive in language use. These categories of deixis were first discussed by Fillmore and Lyons, and were echoed in works of others.


title: Deixis

text: Discourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse that contain the utterance—including the utterance itself. For example, in:


title: Deixis

text: Distinction must be made between discourse deixis and anaphora, which is when an expression makes reference to the same referent as a prior term, as in:


title: Deixis

text: In this case, "he" is not deictical because, within the above sentence, its denotative meaning of "Matthew" is maintained regardless of the speaker, where or when the sentence is used, etc.


title: Deixis

text: Lyons points out that it is possible for an expression to be both deictic and anaphoric at the same time. In his example:


title: Deixis

text: "here" or "there" function anaphorically in their reference to London, and deictically in that the choice between "here" or "there" indicates whether the speaker is or is not currently in London.


title: Deixis

text: The rule of thumb to distinguish the two phenomena is as follows: when an expression refers to another linguistic expression or a piece of discourse, it is discourse deictic. When that expression refers to the same item as a prior linguistic expression, it is anaphoric.


title: Deixis

text: Switch reference is a type of discourse deixis, and a grammatical feature found in some languages, which indicates whether the argument of one clause is the same as the argument of the previous clause. In some languages, this is done through same subject markers and different subject markers. In the translated example "John punched Tom, and left-[same subject marker]," it is John who left, and in "John punched Tom, and left-[different subject marker]," it is Tom who left.


title: Deixis

text: Discourse deixis has been observed in internet language, particularly with the use of iconic language forms resembling arrows.


title: Deixis

text: Social deixis concerns the social information that is encoded within various expressions, such as relative social status and familiarity. Two major forms of it are the so-called T–V distinctions and honorifics.


title: Deixis

text: T–V distinctions, named for the Latin "tu" and "vos" (singular and plural versions of "you"), is the name given to the phenomenon when a language has at least two different second-person pronouns. The varying usage of these pronouns indicates something about formality, familiarity, and/or solidarity between the interactants. So, for example, the T form might be used when speaking to a friend or social equal, whereas the V form would be used speaking to a stranger or social superior. This phenomenon is common in European languages.


title: Deixis

text: Honorifics are a much more complex form of social deixis than T–V distinctions, though they encode similar types of social information. They can involve words being marked with various morphemes as well as nearly entirely different lexicons being used based on the social status of the interactants. This type of social deixis is found in a variety of languages, but is especially common in South and East Asia. Persian also makes wide use of honorifics.


title: Deixis

text: Technological deixis is a reference to the forms and purposes literacy takes as technology changes the nature of literacy in general (e.g., how one reads a webpage, navigates new software, etc.), how those literacies might be expressed, and the speed and efficiency with which those literacies might change (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, and Cammack, 2004; http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/RT/3-01_Column/index.html).


title: Deixis

text: A deictic center, sometimes referred to as an origo, is a set of theoretical points that a deictic expression is 'anchored' to, such that the evaluation of the meaning of the expression leads one to the relevant point. As deictic expressions are frequently egocentric, the center often consists of the speaker at the time and place of the utterance and, additionally, the place in the discourse and relevant social factors. However, deictic expressions can also be used in such a way that the deictic center is transferred to other participants in the exchange or to persons / places / etc. being described in a narrative. So, for example, in the sentence;


title: Deixis

text: the deictic center is simply the person at the time and place of speaking. But say two people are talking on the phone long-distance, from London to New York. The Londoner can say;


title: Deixis

text: in which case the deictic center is in New York. Similarly, when telling a story about someone, the deictic center is likely to switch to him, her or they (third-person pronouns). So then in the sentence;


title: Deixis

text: it is understood that the center is with the person being spoken of, and thus, "to the left" refers not to the speaker's left, but to the object of the story's left, that is, the person referred to as 'he' at the time immediately before he ran twenty feet.


title: Deixis

text: It is helpful to distinguish between two usages of deixis, gestural and symbolic, as well as non-deictic usages of frequently deictic words. Gestural deixis refers, broadly, to deictic expressions whose understanding requires some sort of audio-visual information. A simple example is when an object is pointed at and referred to as "this" or "that". However, the category can include other types of information than pointing, such as direction of gaze, tone of voice, and so on. Symbolic usage, by contrast, requires generally only basic spatio-temporal knowledge of the utterance. So, for example


title: Deixis

text: is a non-deictic usage of "this", which does not identify anywhere specifically. Rather, it is used as an indefinite article, much the way "a" could be used in its place.


title: Deixis

text: The terms deixis and indexicality are frequently used almost interchangeably, and both deal with essentially the same idea of contextually-dependent references. However, the two terms have different histories and traditions. In the past, deixis was associated specifically with spatiotemporal reference, and indexicality was used more broadly. More importantly, each is associated with a different field of study. Deixis is associated with linguistics, and indexicality is associated with philosophy as well as pragmatics.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is also the county seat of the surrounding Rockingham County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. At the 2020 census, the population was 51,814. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Harrisonburg with Rockingham County for statistical purposes into the Harrisonburg, Virginia Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 126,562 in 2011.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Harrisonburg is home to James Madison University (JMU), a public research university with an enrollment of over 20,000 students, and Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), a private, Mennonite-affiliated liberal arts university. Although the city has no historical association with President James Madison, JMU was nonetheless named in his honor as Madison College in 1938 and renamed as James Madison University in 1977. EMU largely owes its existence to the sizable Mennonite population in the Shenandoah Valley, to which many Pennsylvania Dutch settlers arrived beginning in the mid-18th century in search of rich, unsettled farmland.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The city has become a bastion of ethnic and linguistic diversity in recent years. Over 1,900 refugees have been settled in Harrisonburg since 2002. As of 2014, Hispanics or Latinos of any race make up 19% of the city's population. Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS) students speak 55 languages in addition to English, with Spanish, Arabic, and Kurdish being the most common languages spoken. Over one-third of HCPS students are English as a second language (ESL) learners. Language learning software company Rosetta Stone was founded in Harrisonburg in 1992, and the multilingual "Welcome Your Neighbors" yard sign originated in Harrisonburg in 2016.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The earliest documented English exploration of the area prior to settlement was the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition, led by Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood, who reached Elkton, and whose rangers continued and in 1716 likely passed through what is now Harrisonburg.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Harrisonburg, previously known as "Rocktown," was named for Thomas Harrison, a son of English settlers. In 1737, Harrison settled in the Shenandoah Valley, eventually laying claim to over situated at the intersection of the Spotswood Trail and the main Native American road through the valley.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In 1779, Harrison deeded of his land to the "public good" for the construction of a courthouse. In 1780, Harrison deeded an additional .


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In 1849, trustees chartered a mayor–council form of government, although Harrisonburg was not officially incorporated as an independent city until 1916. Today, a council–manager government administers Harrisonburg.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: On June 6, 1862, an American Civil War skirmish took place at Good's Farm, Chestnut Ridge near Harrisonburg between the forces of the Union and the forces of the Confederacy at which the C.S. Army Brigadier General, Turner Ashby (1828–1862), was killed.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: On October 17, 2020, the city was the scene of a massive explosion and fire at a small shopping center at Miller Circle in the South Main St. area.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: When the slaves of the Shenandoah Valley were freed in 1865, they set up near modern-day Harrisonburg a town called Newtown. This settlement was eventually annexed by the independent city of Harrisonburg some years later, probably around 1892. Today, the old city of Newtown is in the Northeast section of Harrisonburg and which is referred to as Downtown Harrisonburg. It remains the home of the majority of Harrisonburg's predominantly black churches, such as the First Baptist and Bethel AME. The modern Boys and Girls Club of Harrisonburg is located in the old Lucy Simms schoolhouse used for the black students in the days of segregation.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: A large portion of this black neighborhood was dismantled in the 1960s when – in the name of urban renewal – the city government used federal redevelopment funds from the Housing Act of 1949 to force black families out of their homes and then bulldozed the neighborhood. This effort, called "Project R-4", focused on the city blocks east of Main, north of Gay, west of Broad, and south of Johnson. This area makes up 32.5 acres. "Project R-16" is a smaller tag on project which focused on the 7.5 acres south of Gay street.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: According to Bob Sullivan, an intern working in the city planner's office in 1958, the city planner at the time, David Clark had to convince the city council that Harrisonburg even had slums. Newtown, a low socioeconomic status housing area, was declared a slum. Federal law mandated that the city needed to have a referendum on the issue before R4 could begin. The vote was close with 1,024 votes in favor and 978 against R4. Following the vote, the Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority was established in 1955 to carry out the project. All of the members were white men. The project began and, due to eminent domain, the government could force the people of Newtown to sell their homes. They were offered rock bottom prices for their homes. Many people couldn't afford a new home and had to move into public housing projects and become dependent on the government. Other families left Harrisonburg. It is estimated between 93 and 200 families were displaced.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In addition to families, many of the businesses of Newtown that were bought out could not afford to reestablish themselves. Locals say many prominent black businesses like the Colonnade which served as a pool hall, dance hall, community center, and tearoom were unable to reopen. Kline's, a white-owned business, was actually one of the few businesses in the area that was able to reopen. The city later made $500,000 selling the seized property to redevelopers. Before the project, the area brought in $7000 in taxes annually. By 1976, The areas redeveloped in R4 and R16 were bringing in $45,000 in annual taxes. These profit gains led Lauren McKinney to regard the project as “one of only two ‘profitable’ redevelopment schemes in the state of Virginia.”


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Cultural landmarks were also influenced by the projects. Although later rebuilt, The Old First Baptist Church of Harrisonburg was demolished. Newtown Cemetery, a Historic African American Cemetery, was also impacted. It appears no Burials were destroyed, however, the western boundary was paved over and several headstones now touch the street.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Major highways in Harrisonburg include Interstate 81, the main north–south highway in western Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. Other significant roads serving the city include U.S. Route 11, U.S. Route 33, Virginia State Route 42, Virginia State Route 253 and Virginia State Route 280.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In early 2002, the Harrisonburg community discussed the possibility of creating a pedestrian mall downtown. Public meetings were held to discuss the merits and drawbacks of pursuing such a plan. Ultimately, the community decided to keep its Main Street open to traffic. From these discussions, however, a strong voice emerged from the community in support of downtown revitalization.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: On July 1, 2003, Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the mission of rejuvenating the downtown district.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In 2004, downtown was designated as the Harrisonburg Downtown Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places and a designated Virginia Main Street Community, with the neighboring Old Town Historic District residential community gaining historic district status in 2007. Several vacant buildings have been renovated and repurposed for new uses, such as the Hardesty-Higgins House and City Exchange, used for the Harrisonburg Tourist Center and high-end loft apartments, respectively.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In 2008, downtown Harrisonburg spent over $1 million in cosmetic and sidewalk infrastructure improvements (also called streetscaping and wayfinding projects). The City Council appropriated $500,000 for custom street signs to be used as "wayfinding signs" directing visitors to areas of interest around the city. Another $500,000 were used to upgrade street lighting, sidewalks, and landscaping along Main Street and Court Square.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In 2014, Downtown Harrisonburg was named a Great American Main Street by the National Main Street Association and downtown was designated the first culinary district in the commonwealth of Virginia.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Norfolk Southern also owns a small railyard in Harrisonburg. The Chesapeake and Western corridor from Elkton to Harrisonburg has very high volumes of grain and ethanol.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The railroad serves two major grain elevators inside the city limits. In May 2017 Norfolk Southern 51T derailed in Harrisonburg spilling corn into Blacks Run. No one was injured.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Shenandoah Valley Railroad interchanges with the NS on south side of Harrisonburg and with CSX and Buckingham Branch Railroad in North Staunton.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Harrisonburg Transit provides public transportation in Harrisonburg. Virginia Breeze provides intercity bus service between Blacksburg, Harrisonburg, and Washington, D.C.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Harrisonburg has won several awards in recent years, including "#6 Favorite Town in America" by Travel + Leisure in 2016, the "#15 Best City to Raise an Outdoor Kid" by Backpacker in 2009, and the "#3 Happiest Mountain Town" by Blue Ridge Country Magazine in 2016.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Harrisonburg holds the title of "Virginia's first Culinary District" (awarded in 2014). The "Taste of Downtown" (TOD) week-long event takes place annually to showcase local breweries and restaurants. Often referred to as "Restaurant Week," the "TOD" event offers a chance for culinary businesses in downtown Harrisonburg to create specials, collaborations, and try out new menus.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The creative class of Harrisonburg has grown alongside the revitalization of the downtown district. The designation of "first Arts & Cultural District in Virginia" was awarded to Downtown Harrisonburg in 2001. Contributing to Harrisonburg's cultural capital are a collection of education and art centers, residencies, studios, and artist-facilitated businesses, programs, and collectives.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The modern city of Harrisonburg grew up around this modest stone house, which until recently was thought to have been erected for Thomas Harrison ca. 1750. But new research and a dendrochronology study completed by James Madison University in 2018 has determined that it was built ca. 1790; Harrison died in 1785. Harrison laid out the town that was to bear his name on fifty acres of his holdings and was also instrumental in having Harrisonburg established as the Rockingham County seat in 1780. Prior to confirmation of the date of construction, it was believed that the first courts were held in this building, which is also associated with Bishop Francis Asbury, a pioneer leader of the Methodist Episcopal church, who often visited Harrison and conducted some of the county's first Methodist services. While the original Thomas Harrison house no longer exists, this building remains an early example of stone vernacular architecture in the Shenandoah Valley, and a contributing building in the Harrisonburg Downtown Historic District. Its window architraves are cut from solid walnut timbers. This house remained in the Harrison family until 1870, which is probably why it was long-thought to have been Thomas Harrison's.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Home to Harrisonburg's first mayor Isaac Hardesty, the house bears his name and the name of the physician, Henry Higgins, who began construction in 1848. Isaac Hardesty was born in 1795 and became the city's first Mayor by charter on March 16, 1849, incorporating the town of Harrisonburg. Hardesty completed construction of the home by 1853 and lived in the house with his wife, Ann, and two children. He was a successful business man, apothecary, and merchant, and he served on the board of directors of the Valley Turnpike Company.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Isaac Hardesty supported the Union and moved from Harrisonburg during the early part of the Civil War. The Strayer sisters occupied the house and, during their stay, the sisters hosted Union General Nathaniel Banks. The house served as an inn after the war and was home to the Virginia Craftsman, makers of handcrafted furniture, from the 1920s to the 1980s.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The approximately 100 acre Harrisonburg Downtown Historic District embraces the historic commercial and institutional core of the city. The principal axis of the district is Main Street, which runs approximately north–south through the district. Another principal thoroughfare is Liberty Street, which parallels Main Street. The principal cross axis is Market Street (US Highway 33), which intersects with Main Street on the east side of Court Square. The Romanesque Revival/Renaissance Revival 1896-97 Rockingham County Courthouse commands the square, and surrounding blocks arc densely developed with early twentieth century high-rise bank buildings and other commercial buildings from the 1870s through the 1950s. Most residential buildings dates to after the Civil War, when South Main Street developed as Harrisonburg's elite residential avenue. Notable houses from the period include Victorian/Queen Anne masterpieces such as Ute 1890 Joshua Wilton House and rarities such as the late 1880s Octagon House. Several fine Gothic Revival churches date to the early years of the twentieth century. Industrial buildings and warehouses date largely to the first half of the twentieth century and include the 1908 City Produce Exchange, a poultry shipping plant, and the late 1920s Maphis Chapman Co. gas storage tank factory. A complex of mid-twentieth century cinder block warehouses clusters near the 1913 Chesapeake Western Railway Station and the 1920-21 Rockingham Milling Co. roller mill on Chesapeake Avenue. Alter World War I automobile dealerships appeared in the downtown area. An outstanding example is the 1920 Rockingham Motor Co., an inspired Tudor Revival/Art Deco design. Architectural modernism achieved popularity in the 1940s and early 1950s at the end of the period of significance. Harrisonburg's downtown experienced a number of losses during the late twentieth century, but the recent rehabilitation of several key buildings demonstrates a growing commitment to the preservation of the district's historic character.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In addition to the Thomas Harrison House, Hardesty-Higgins House, Harrisonburg Downtown Historic District, and Old Town Historic District, the Anthony Hockman House, Rockingham County Courthouse, Lucy F. Simms School, Whitesel Brothers, and Joshua Wilton House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.3%) is water. The City of Harrisonburg comprises six watersheds, with Blacks Run being the primary watershed with 8.67 miles of stream and a drainage area of over 9000 acres. The city also drains into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Harrisonburg is in the western part of the Shenandoah Valley, a portion of the Valley and Ridge physiographic province. Generally, the area is a rolling upland with local relief between 100 and 300 feet.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: As of the census of 2010, 48,914 people, 15,988 households, and 7,515 families resided in the city. The population density was 2,811.1/mi (1087.0/km). The 15,988 housing units averaged 918.9/mi (355.3/km). The racial makeup of the city was 78.4% White, 6.4% Black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 3.5% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 8.2% from other races, and 3.1% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 15.7% of the population, up from 8.85% according to the census of 2000.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Of the 15,988 households, 22.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 32.7% were married couples living together, 10.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 53.0% were not families. About 27.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 17.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.59, and the average family size was 3.06.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: In the city, the population was distributed as 15.0% under the age of 18, 48.9% from 18 to 24, 21.2% from 25 to 44, 13.2% from 45 to 64, and 9.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 22.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.3 males.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The median income for a household in the city was $37,850, and for a family was $53,642. The per capita income for the city was $16,992. About 11.5% of families and 31.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19.6% of those under age 18 and 9.5% of those age 65 or over.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Like most of the Shenandoah Valley, Harrisonburg has traditionally been a Republican stronghold. It was one of the first areas of Virginia where old-line Southern Democrats began splitting their tickets. The city went Republican at every presidential election from 1944 to 2004. In 2008, however, Barack Obama carried the city by a margin of 16 percent—exceeding the margin by which George W. Bush carried it four years earlier. The city has gone Democratic in every presidential election since then, and has become one of the few Democratic mainstays in one of the more conservative parts of Virginia.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: Serving about 4,400 students (K–12), Harrisonburg City Public Schools comprises six elementary schools, two middle schools, and a high school. Eastern Mennonite School, a private school, serves grades K–12 with an enrollment of about 386 students.


title: Harrisonburg, Virginia

text: The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally cool to cold winters. Harrisonburg has a humid subtropical climate, "Cfa" on climate maps according to the Köppen climate classification, but has four clearly defined seasons that vary significantly, if not having brief changes from summer to winter. The USDA hardiness zone is 6b, which means average minimum winter temperature of .


title: Pinto Colvig

text: Vance DeBar Colvig Sr. (September 11, 1892 – October 3, 1967), professionally Pinto Colvig, was an American voice actor, newspaper cartoonist, and circus and vaudeville performer whose schtick was playing the clarinet off-key while mugging. Colvig was the original performer of the Disney characters Goofy and Pluto, as well as Bozo the Clown. In 1993, he was posthumously made a Disney Legend for his contributions to Walt Disney Films, including "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Fun and Fancy Free".


title: Pinto Colvig

text: Colvig was born Vance DeBar Colvig in Jacksonville, Oregon, one of seven children of William Mason "Judge" Colvig (1845–1936) and his wife, Adelaide ( Birdseye) Colvig (1856–1912).


title: Pinto Colvig

text: William Colvig was a pioneer, an attorney and a distinguished Oregonian, he was never actually a judge. Pinto attended but did not graduate from Medford High School. Pinto was accepted and attended, sporadically from 1910 to 1913, Oregon State University, in Corvallis, where he took art classes and played clarinet in the band. He drew cartoons for the Oregon Agricultural College Barometer newspaper, and the yearbook.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: I was born in Jacksonville and named Vance DeBar Colvig. At age 7 (because of too many freckles, and goony antics) I was nicknamed 'Pinto the Village Clown' (which I have used professionally during my circus and other show business activities, besides occasional jobs as a newspaper cartoonist.— "'Pinto' Colvig Writes About Names, History of Clowning", "Medford Mail Tribune", July 12, 1961.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1913, Colvig worked the Pantages Theatre Circuit, briefly, before leaving for clarinetist in the Al G. Barnes Circus band for part of a season. In 1914 he was a newspaper cartoonist in Reno, Nevada and then in Carson City, then again clarinetist in the Al G. Barnes Circus band for part of the 1915 season.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: I didn't know when I was going to school whether I wanted to be a clown, draw cartoons, write, hobo, or be a musician. So I wrapped it all up and made stew out of it. — Pinto Colvig


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1916, Pinto Colvig worked at the Animated Film Corporation in San Francisco with Byington Ford and Benjamin Thackston Knight (1895–1977), aka "Tack" Knight at the Animated Film Corporation, a company which produced animated cartoons years before Walt Disney. The company produced animated cartoons several years before Walt Disney did and was the oldest known studio of its kind established in the West Coast. That year Colvig at Animated Film Corporation produced "Creation," reported to be the world's first feature-length cartoon. Only five 35 mm frames survive, housed at the Southern Oregon Historical Society.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1919, Pinto produced "Pinto's Prizma Comedy Review," the first color cartoon, it is now considered a lost film, and published in the San Francisco Bulletin (May 1919—February 1920), the "Bulletin Boob" column, and photographs.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1922, Colvig created a newspaper cartoon panel titled "Life on the Radio Wave" for the "San Francisco Chronicle". The feature ran three or four times per week on the newspaper's radio page, was syndicated nationally, and lasted six months. In 1922, Colvig and his family moved to Hollywood, working as an animator, title writer, and comedian in silent comedies and on sound cartoons, working first for Mack Sennett.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: By the late 1920s, Colvig became associated with Walter Lantz, with whom he attempted to establish a cartoon studio, creating a character called "Bolivar, the Talking Ostrich", which would have appeared in sound shorts. When Lantz became producer of Universal's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons in 1929, Colvig was hired as an animator, also working as a storyman and voice artist, briefly voicing Oswald.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1930, Colvig signed an eight-year contract with Walt Disney Productions as a writer, also providing sound effects, including the barks for Pluto the Pup. The following year he began voicing Goofy, originally known as Dippy Dawg. Other notable characters he voiced include Practical Pig, the pig that built the "house of bricks" in the Disney short "Three Little Pigs", and both Sleepy (originally to be voiced by Sterling Holloway) and Grumpy in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". He also provided Ichabod Crane's screams in "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" in 1949. He directed (along with Erdman Penner and Walt Pfeiffer) the 1937 Mickey Mouse short "Mickey's Amateurs". Colvig would be associated with Disney for most of his career.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: Between 1937 and 1940, Colvig did not work for the Disney studio, after falling out with Walt Disney. He was offered a job with Fleischer Studios, then planning to produce a competing feature-length animation film in the wake of Disney's success with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," moving to Miami in early 1938. For Fleischer, he worked on 1939's "Gulliver's Travels", for which he voiced town crier Gabby, who was spun off into his own short-lived series. He also voiced Bluto for the studio's "Popeye the Sailor" cartoons, replacing Gus Wickie, who had decided to stay in New York rather than move to Miami. Colvig's departure from Disney meant that the increasingly popular Goofy went voiceless for a number of years. A select few shorts during the interim period of leave featured a soundalike voice for Goofy provided by impersonator Danny Webb, who also did the voice of Egghead in "Looney Tunes". He began working on radio, providing voices and sound effects, including the sounds of Jack Benny's Maxwell on "The Jack Benny Program", later performed by Mel Blanc.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1939, Colvig returned to California, and began to devote himself to acting, appearing for the Warner Bros. animation studio and MGM, where he voiced a Munchkin in the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz".


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1946, Colvig was cast as Bozo the Clown for Capitol Records. He played the role for a full decade, which also included portraying the character on television. During this period, Colvig also recorded the "Filbert the Frog" song, which featured Colvig's virtuoso use of the glottal stop as a musical instrument in itself.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: In 1967, Colvig's last known performance, as Goofy, was for the Telephone Pavilion at Expo 67. Colvig's dialogue for this exhibit was recorded six months before his death.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: Colvig married Margaret Bourke Slavin (1892–1950) in 1916, and settled with her in San Francisco, where four of their five boys were born; later, their last son was born in Los Angeles.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: Colvig was the father of the character and voice actor Vance Colvig, who also later portrayed Bozo the Clown on a live TV program.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: A lifelong smoker, Colvig was one of the pioneers in advocating warning labels about cancer risk on cigarette packages in the United States.


title: Pinto Colvig

text: Colvig died of lung cancer on October 3, 1967 at Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, at age 75. He was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.


title: Hostile witness

text: A hostile witness, also known as an adverse witness or an unfavorable witness, is a witness at trial whose testimony on direct examination is either openly antagonistic or appears to be contrary to the legal position of the party who called the witness. This concept is used in the legal proceedings in the United States, and analogues of it exist in other legal systems in Western countries.


title: Hostile witness

text: During direct examination, if the examining attorney who called the witness finds that their testimony is antagonistic or contrary to the legal position of their client, the attorney may request that the judge declare the witness "hostile". If the request is granted, the attorney may proceed to ask the witness leading questions. Leading questions either suggest the answer ("You saw my client sign the contract, correct?") or challenge (impeach) the witness's testimony. As a rule, leading questions are generally allowed only during cross-examination, but a hostile witness is an exception to this rule.


title: Hostile witness

text: In cross-examination conducted by the opposing party's attorney, a witness is presumed to be hostile and the examining attorney is not required to seek the judge's permission before asking leading questions. Attorneys can influence a hostile witness's responses by using Gestalt psychology to influence the way the witness perceives the situation, and utility theory to understand their likely responses. The attorney will integrate a hostile witness's expected responses into the larger case strategy through pretrial planning and through adapting as necessary during the course of the trial.


title: Hostile witness

text: In the state of New South Wales, the term 'unfavourable witness' is defined by section 38 of the Evidence Act which permits the prosecution to cross-examine their own witness. For example, if the prosecution calls all material witnesses relevant to a case before the court, and any evidence given is not favourable to, or supports the prosecution case, or a witness has given a prior inconsistent statement, then the prosecution may seek leave of the court, via section 192, to test the witness in relation to their evidence.


title: Hostile witness

text: In New Zealand, section 94 of the Evidence Act 2006 permits a party to cross-examine their own witness if the presiding judge determines the witness to be hostile and gives permission.


title: Shelby Chong

text: Shelby Chong (née Fiddis; born February 1, 1948) is an American comedian, actress and producer who was the executive producer of "Best Buds" (2003) and the associate producer of four Cheech & Chong films. She is the wife of comedian and actor Tommy Chong.


title: Shelby Chong

text: Shelby (Sharon) Fiddis was born in Los Angeles, California in 1948. She attended Gladstone Secondary School in Vancouver, BC from Grade 7 to 12, graduating in 1966.


title: Shelby Chong

text: Shelby Chong acted in "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie" (1980), "Nice Dreams" (1981) and "Things Are Tough All Over" (1982). She was associate producer for "Still Smokin'" (1983) and "Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers" (1984). and in "Far Out Man" (1990) as Tree. Her notable acting roles include "Nancy Reynolds" in "Sandman" (1993), “Professor Jones” in "" (1991), credited as “Shelby Shepherd”.


title: Shelby Chong

text: Shelby Chong performed as Tommy's opening act at his comedy shows from 1996 to 2000, when she became his comedy partner. Since Cheech and Chong's reunion in 2008, Shelby performed as their opening act at sold-out comedy shows on their cross-country tour.


title: Shelby Chong

text: In 1975 in Los Angeles, Fiddis married Canadian actor and comedian Tommy Chong, becoming his second wife. They adopted Marcus Wyatt (b. 1967) in 1978. They have three additional children together: Precious (b. 1968), Paris (b. 1974), and Gilbran (b. 1981). Shelby Chong is the stepmother to Tommy's two daughters from his first marriage, Rae Dawn and Robbi.


title: Shelby Chong

text: Marcus took the surname of his adoptive parents and siblings when he turned eighteen. He and three of his sisters have each pursued acting careers, and his two brothers have acted in occasional family movie productions.


title: Billy Bones

text: Billy Bones is a fictional character appearing in the first section of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel "Treasure Island".


title: Billy Bones

text: Billy Bones appears at the very outset of the story with a mysterious sea chest, looking for a wayside inn with a view of the sea. Bones decides upon the Admiral Benbow Inn where he asks to be addressed merely as "Captain". Though his down-payment for lodgings is adequate, even generous, he stays for many months and browbeats Jim Hawkins' father out of asking for more money even when his deposit has been spent. He does, however, pay Jim fourpence a month to keep watch for "a seafaring man with one leg". Though he seems sometimes on the verge of deciding this was a waste of money, he invariably relents. Most of the daytime is spent walking the cliffs and looking out to sea.


title: Billy Bones

text: A habitual drunkard, the Captain terrorizes the customers of the Benbow with his swearing, singing and general bullying. Yet he begins to attract customers by his very notoriety, and earns some admiration from locals who consider him a "real old salt". The winter after his arrival, the Captain is visited by Black Dog, a villainous-looking man with two fingers missing from his hand. There is a noisy argument between the two, which turns into a lively sword fight and the Captain drives off a wounded Black Dog. As soon as the unwelcome visitor is gone, the Captain suffers a stroke. He is tended to by Dr. Livesey, who discovers the real name of the Captain to be Billy Bones when his arm is bared as a prelude to a surgical bloodletting and the name is found tattooed there.


title: Billy Bones

text: The doctor saves Bones' life and tells him to lay off the alcohol, but Bones does not heed Livesey's warning. He is plainly weakened by his stroke and the shock of Black Dog's visit, and at one point Hawkins even hears him sing a country love song, a gentle relic of his innocent days as a youth. He admits to Jim Hawkins that he sailed with Captain Flint, the notorious pirate, and was first mate on his ship. This explains much of the mysterious circumstances and solitary behavior of the early part of the story.


title: Billy Bones

text: A few days later, a blind pirate known only as Pew reaches the inn, and Bones is plainly terrified. Pew slips a Black Spot into Bones' hand and departs. Immediately, Bones suffers a second stroke and dies. The pirates come nonetheless and ransack the inn. The attackers fail to find the map, as it is now in Hawkins' possession, but they destroy the inn, ruining the Hawkins' livelihood. This prompts Hawkins and his companions to embark on a search for the treasure.


title: Billy Bones

text: Bones' account book, read by Jim Hawkins and Dr. Livesey, says that Bones was a pirate for nearly 20 years.


title: Billy Bones

text: According to the map notes of Treasure Island, Captain Flint hid his treasure in August 1750 and Bones received the Map in July 1754 while Flint was dying.


title: Billy Bones

text: According to Long John Silver's conversation with Dick Johnson, Blind Pew spent his share of treasure in one year and that for two years until his accidental death under the Revenue Officer's horse, he was starving and murdering—thus a tentative date for Treasure Island is 1756–1757.


title: Will Eisner

text: William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series "The Spirit" (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book "A Contract with God". He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book "Comics and Sequential Art" (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner's father, Shmuel "Samuel" Eisner, was born March 6, 1886, in Kolomyia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Ukraine), and was one of eleven children. He aspired to be an artist, and as a teenager painted murals for rich patrons and Catholic churches in Vienna. To avoid conscription in the army, he moved to New York before the outbreak of World War I. There he found getting work difficult, as his English skills were poor. He made what living he could painting backdrops for vaudeville and the Jewish theater.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner's mother, Fannie Ingber, was born to Jewish parents from Romania April 25, 1891, on a ship bound for the US. Her mother died on her tenth birthday and was quickly followed by her father. An older stepsister thereafter raised her and kept her so busy with chores that she had little time for socializing or schooling; she did what she could later in life to keep knowledge of her illiteracy from her children.


title: Will Eisner

text: Family introduced Shmuel and Fannie, who were distant relatives. They had three children: son Will Erwin, born on his father's birthday in 1917; son Julian, born February 3, 1921; and daughter Rhoda, born November 2, 1929.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner was born in Brooklyn, New York City. He grew up poor, and the family moved frequently. Young Eisner often got into physical confrontations when subjected to antisemitism from his schoolmates. His family were not orthodox followers of Judaism; Eisner himself, while he prided his cultural background, turned against the religion when his family was denied entry to a synagogue over lack of money for admission.


title: Will Eisner

text: Young Eisner was tall and of sturdy build, but lacked athletic skills. He was a voracious consumer of pulp magazines and film, including avant-garde films such as those by Man Ray. To his mother's disappointment, Eisner had his father's interest in art, and his father encouraged him by buying him art supplies.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner's mother frequently berated his father for not providing the family a better income, as he went from one job to another. Without success he also tried his hand at such ventures as a furniture retailer and a coat factory. The family situation was especially dire following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that marked the beginning of the Great Depression. In 1930, the situation was so desperate that Eisner's mother demanded that he, at thirteen, find some way to contribute to the family's income. He entered working life selling newspapers on street corners, a competitive job where the toughest boys fought for the best locations.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner attended DeWitt Clinton High School. With influences that included the early 20th-century commercial artist J. C. Leyendecker, he drew for the school newspaper ("The Clintonian"), the literary magazine ("The Magpie") and the yearbook, and did stage design, leading him to consider doing that kind of work for theater. Upon graduation, he studied under Canadian artist George Brandt Bridgman (1864–1943) for a year at the Art Students League of New York. Contacts made there led to a position as an advertising writer-cartoonist for the "New York American" newspaper. Eisner also drew $10-a-page illustrations for pulp magazines, including "Western Sheriffs and Outlaws".


title: Will Eisner

text: In 1936, high-school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane, of future Batman fame, suggested that the 19-year-old Eisner try selling cartoons to the new comic book "Wow, What A Magazine!" "Comic books" at the time were tabloid-sized collections of comic strip reprints in color. By 1935, they had begun to include occasional new comic strip-like material. "Wow" editor Jerry Iger bought an Eisner adventure strip called "Captain Scott Dalton", an H. Rider Haggard-styled hero who traveled the world after rare artifacts. Eisner subsequently wrote and drew the pirate strip "The Flame" and the secret agent strip "Harry Karry" for "Wow" as well.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner said that on one occasion a man whom Eisner described as "a Mob type straight out of Damon Runyon, complete with pinkie ring, broken nose, black shirt, and white tie, who claimed to have "exclusive distribution rights for all Brooklyn" asked Eisner to draw Tijuana bibles for $3 a page. Eisner said that he declined the offer; he described the decision as "one of the most difficult moral decisions of my life".


title: Will Eisner

text: "Wow" lasted four issues (cover-dated July–September and November 1936). After it ended, Eisner and Iger worked together producing and selling original comics material, anticipating that the well of available reprints would soon run dry, though their accounts of how their partnership was founded differ. One of the first such comic-book "packagers", their partnership was an immediate success, and the two soon had a stable of comics creators supplying work to Fox Comics, Fiction House, Quality Comics (for whom Eisner co-created such characters as Doll Man and Blackhawk), and others. Turning a profit of $1.50 a page, Eisner claimed that he "got very rich before I was 22," later detailing that in Depression-era 1939 alone, he and Iger "had split $25,000 between us", a considerable amount for the time.


title: Will Eisner

text: Among the studio's products was a self-syndicated Sunday comic strip, "Hawks of the Sea", that initially reprinted Eisner's old strip "Wow, What A Magazine!" feature "The Flame" and then continued it with new material. Eisner's original work even crossed the Atlantic, with Eisner drawing the new cover of the October 16, 1937 issue of Boardman Books' comic-strip reprint tabloid "Okay Comics Weekly."


title: Will Eisner

text: In 1939, Eisner was commissioned to create Wonder Man for Victor Fox, an accountant who had previously worked at DC Comics and was becoming a comic book publisher himself. Following Fox's instructions to create a Superman-type character, and using the pen name Willis, Eisner wrote and drew the first issue of "Wonder Comics." Eisner said in interviews throughout his later life that he had protested the derivative nature of the character and story, and that when subpoenaed after National Periodical Publications, the company that would evolve into DC Comics, sued Fox, alleging Wonder Man was an illegal copy of Superman, Eisner testified that this was so, undermining Fox's case; Eisner even depicts himself doing so in his semi-autobiographical graphic novel "The Dreamer". However, a transcript of the proceeding, uncovered by comics historian Ken Quattro in 2010, indicates Eisner in fact supported Fox and claimed Wonder Man as an original Eisner creation.


title: Will Eisner

text: In "late '39, just before Christmas time," Eisner recalled in 1979, Quality Comics publisher Everett M. "Busy" Arnold "came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom," In a 2004 interview, he elaborated on that meeting:


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner negotiated an agreement with the syndicate in which Arnold would copyright "The Spirit," but "[w]ritten down in the contract I had with 'Busy' Arnold —and this contract exists today as the basis for my copyright ownership—Arnold agreed that it was my property. They agreed that if we had a split-up in any way, the property would revert to me on that day that happened. My attorney went to 'Busy' Arnold and his family, and they all signed a release agreeing that they would not pursue the question of ownership". This would include the eventual backup features "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck".


title: Will Eisner

text: Selling his share of their firm to Iger, who would continue to package comics as the S.M. Iger Studio and as Phoenix Features through 1955, for $20,000, Eisner left to create "The Spirit." "They gave me an adult audience", Eisner said in 1997, "and I wanted to write better things than superheroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began The Spirit. They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he'd have a costume. And I put a mask on him and said, 'Yes, he has a costume!'"


title: Will Eisner

text: "The Spirit", an initially eight- and later seven-page urban-crimefighter series, ran with the initial backup features "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck" in a 16-page Sunday supplement (colloquially called "The Spirit Section") that was eventually distributed in 20 newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies. It premiered June 2, 1940, and continued through 1952. Eisner has cited the Spirit story "Gerhard Shnobble" as a particular favorite, as it was one of his first attempts at injecting his personal point of view into the series.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner was drafted into the U.S. Army in "late '41, early '42" and then "had about another half-year which the government gave me to clean up my affairs before going off" to fight in World War II. He was assigned to the camp newspaper at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where "there was also a big training program there, so I got involved in the use of comics for training. ... I finally became a warrant officer, which involved taking a test – that way you didn't have to go through Officer Candidate School."


title: Will Eisner

text: En route to Washington, D.C., he stopped at the Holabird Ordnance Depot in Baltimore, Maryland, where a mimeographed publication titled "Army Motors" was put together. "Together with the people there ... I helped develop its format. I began doing cartoons – and we began fashioning a magazine that had the ability to talk to the G.I.s in their language. So I began to use comics as a teaching tool, and when I got to Washington, they assigned me to the business of teaching – or selling – preventive maintenance."


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner then created the educational comic strip and titular character "Joe Dope" for "Army Motors", and spent four years working in The Pentagon editing the ordnance magazine "Firepower" and doing "all the general illustrations – that is, cartoons" for "Army Motors". He continued to work on that and its 1950 successor magazine, "PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly", until 1971. Eisner also illustrated an official Army pamphlet in 1968 and 1969 called "The M16A1 Rifle" specifically for troops in Vietnam to help minimize the M16 rifle's notorious early reliability problems with proper maintenance. Eisner's style helped to popularize these officially-distributed works in order to better educate soldiers on equipment maintenance.


title: Will Eisner

text: While Eisner's later graphic novels were entirely his own work, he had a studio working under his supervision on "The Spirit". In particular, letterer Abe Kanegson came up with the distinctive lettering style which Eisner himself would later imitate in his book-length works, and Kanegson would often rewrite Eisner's dialogue.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner's most trusted assistant on "The Spirit," however, was Jules Feiffer, later a renowned cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter in his own right. Eisner later said of their memories of their working methods on the feature, "You should hear me and Jules Feiffer going at it in a room. 'No, you designed the splash page for this one, then you wrote the ending – I came up with the idea for the story, and you did it up to this point, then I did the next page and this sequence here and...' And I'll be swearing up and down that 'he' wrote the ending on that one. We never agree."


title: Will Eisner

text: So trusted were Eisner's assistants that Eisner allowed them to "ghost" "The Spirit" from the time that he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942 until his return to civilian life in 1945. The primary wartime artists were the uncredited Lou Fine and Jack Cole, with future "Kid Colt, Outlaw" artist Jack Keller drawing backgrounds. Ghost writers included Manly Wade Wellman and William Woolfolk. The wartime ghosted stories have been reprinted in DC Comics' hardcover collections "The Spirit Archives" Vols. 5 to 11 (2001–2003), spanning July 1942 – December 1945.


title: Will Eisner

text: On Eisner's return from service and resumption of his role in the studio, he created the bulk of the "Spirit" stories on which his reputation was solidified. The post-war years also saw him attempt to launch the comic-strip/comic-book series "Baseball," "John Law," "Kewpies," and "Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy;" none succeeded, but some material was recycled into "The Spirit".


title: Will Eisner

text: "The Spirit" ceased publishing in 1952. During the 1960s and 1970s, various publishers reprinted the adventures, often with covers by Eisner and with a few new stories from him.


title: Will Eisner

text: During his World War II military service, Eisner had introduced the use of comics for training personnel in the publication "Army Motors", for which he created the cautionary bumbling soldier Joe Dope, who illustrated various methods of preventive maintenance of various military equipment and weapons. In 1948, while continuing to do "The Spirit" and seeing television and other post-war trends eat away at the readership base of newspapers, he formed the American Visuals Corporation in order to produce instructional materials for the government, related agencies, and businesses.


title: Will Eisner

text: One of his longest-running jobs was "PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly," a digest sized magazine with comic book elements that he started for the Army in 1951 and continued to work on until the 1970s with Klaus Nordling, Mike Ploog, and other artists. In addition, Eisner produced other military publications such as the graphic manual in 1969, "The M-16A1 Rifle: Operation and Preventative Maintenance", which was distributed along with cleaning kits to address serious reliability concerns with the M16 Rifle during the Vietnam War.


title: Will Eisner

text: Other clients of his Connecticut-based company included RCA Records, the Baltimore Colts NFL football team, and New York Telephone.


title: Will Eisner

text: In the late 1970s, Eisner turned his attention to longer storytelling forms. "A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories" (Baronet Books, October 1978) is an early example of an American graphic novel, combining thematically linked short stories into a single square-bound volume. Eisner continued with a string of graphic novels that tell the history of New York's immigrant communities, particularly Jews, including "The Building", "A Life Force", "Dropsie Avenue" and "To the Heart of the Storm". He continued producing new books into his seventies and eighties, at an average rate of nearly one a year. Each of these books was done twice – once as a rough version to show editor Dave Schreiner, then as a second, finished version incorporating suggested changes.


title: Will Eisner

text: Some of his last work was the retelling in sequential art of novels and myths, including "Moby-Dick". In 2002, at the age of 85, he published "Sundiata", based on the part-historical, part-mythical stories of a West African king, "The Lion of Mali". "Fagin the Jew" is an account of the life of Dickens' character Fagin, in which Eisner tries to get past the stereotyped portrait of Fagin in "Oliver Twist".


title: Will Eisner

text: His last graphic novel, "", an account of the making, and refutation, of the anti-semitic hoax "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", was completed shortly before his death and published in 2005.


title: Will Eisner

text: In 2008, Will Eisner's "The Spirit: A Pop-Up Graphic Novel" was published, with Bruce Foster as paper engineer.


title: Will Eisner

text: In his later years especially, Eisner was a frequent lecturer about the craft and uses of sequential art. He taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he published "Will Eisner's Gallery", a collection of work by his students and wrote two books based on these lectures, "Comics and Sequential Art" and "Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative", which are widely used by students of cartooning. In 2002, Eisner participated in the Will Eisner Symposium of the 2002 University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner died January 3, 2005, in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, of complications from a quadruple bypass surgery performed December 22, 2004. DC Comics held a memorial service in Manhattan's Lower East Side, a neighborhood Eisner often visited in his work, at the Angel Orensanz Foundation on Norfolk Street.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner was survived by his wife, Ann Weingarten Eisner, and their son, John. In the introduction to the 2001 reissue of "A Contract with God", Eisner revealed that the inspiration for the title story grew out of the 1970 death of his leukemia-stricken teenaged daughter, Alice, next to whom he is buried. Until then, only Eisner's closest friends were aware of his daughter's life and death.


title: Will Eisner

text: Eisner has been recognized for his work with the National Cartoonists Society Comic Book Award for 1967, 1968, 1969, 1987 and 1988, as well as its Story Comic Book Award in 1979, and its Reuben Award in 1998. In 1975, he was awarded the Inkpot Award and the second Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême.


title: Will Eisner

text: He was inducted into the Academy of Comic Book Arts Hall of Fame in 1971, and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1987. The following year, the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were established in his honor. In 2015, Eisner was posthumously elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.


title: Will Eisner

text: Comics by Will Eisner are archived in the James Branch Cabell Library of Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU's James Branch Cabell Library has served as the repository for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards since 2005. Each year following Comic-Con, nominated and award-winning titles are donated to the library's Special Collections and Archives and made available to researchers and visitors. Approximately 1,000 comic books, graphic novels, archival editions, scholarly titles, and journals are included in the VCU library's expansive Comic Arts Collection.


title: Will Eisner

text: On the 94th anniversary of Eisner's birth, in 2011, Google used an image featuring the Spirit as its logo.


title: Will Eisner

text: With Jack Kirby, Robert Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman, Gary Panter, and Chris Ware, Eisner was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the Jewish Museum in New York City, from September 16, 2006, to January 28, 2007. In honor of Eisner's centennial in 2017, Denis Kitchen and John Lind co-curated the largest retrospective exhibitions of Will Eisner's original artwork, shown simultaneously at The Society of Illustrators in New York City and Le Musée de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême, France. Both exhibitions were titled "Will Eisner Centennial Celebration" and collectively over 400 original pieces were included. A catalogue of the same name was released by Dark Horse Books and nominated for multiple Eisner Awards in 2018.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Evelyn Ntoko Mase (18 May 1922 – 30 April 2004), later named Evelyn Rakeepile, was a South African nurse. She was the first wife of the anti-apartheid activist and the future president Nelson Mandela, to whom she was married from 1944 to 1958.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Born in Engcobo, Transkei, Mase was orphaned as a child. She moved to Johannesburg to train as a nurse, and there met and married Mandela. Living together in Soweto, they raised four children, three of whom—Thembekile, Makgatho, and Makaziwe—survived into adulthood. She trained to be a midwife while working as a nurse. In the 1950s, her relationship with Mandela became strained. He was becoming increasingly involved in the African National Congress and its campaign against apartheid; Mase eschewed politics and became a Jehovah's Witness. She also accused him of adultery with several women, an accusation endorsed by later biographies, and of being physically abusive, something he always denied. They separated in 1956. She initially filed for divorce, but did not go through with the legal proceedings. In 1958, Mandela, who was hoping to marry Winnie Madikizela, obtained an uncontested divorce from Mase.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Taking the children, Mase moved to Cofimvaba and opened a grocery store. She generally avoided publicity, but spoke to South African reporters when Mandela was released from prison after 27 years in 1990. Deepening her involvement with the Jehovah's Witnesses, in 1998 she married a businessman, Simon Rakeepile. She died in 2004 following a respiratory illness. Her funeral attracted international media attention and was attended by Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and Mandela's third wife, Graça Machel.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Evelyn Mase was born in 1922 in Engcobo, Transkei. Her father was a mineworker and her mother was his second wife; they had six children, three of whom died in infancy. Mase's father died when she was still a child. Mase's mother then died when she was 12, leaving her under the care of her older brother, Sam Mase. A devout Christian, Sam had a close friendship with former schoolmate Walter Sisulu; they were cousins, as their mothers were sisters. In 1928, Sisulu moved to the Soweto area of Johannesburg, obtaining a house in the Orlando East township. Sam joined him there and, becoming politicised, encouraged Sisulu to read left-wing literature.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: In 1939, Evelyn joined her brother and Sisulu in Johannesburg. She trained as a nurse in the city's non-European hospital at Hillbrow, fulfilling the wishes of her late mother that she would enter that profession. There, she befriended Walter's girlfriend Albertina, whom he met in 1941 and married in 1944. Mase was a bridesmaid at the Sisulus' wedding. Writing in his later autobiography, Nelson Mandela recounted that the Sisulus treated Mase "as if she was a favorite daughter". At the hospital she worked alongside Rosemary Mda, the wife of anti-apartheid activist A. P. Mda.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: When the Sisulus moved to a larger home, they gave their old house to Sam. Evelyn and Sam continued to visit the Sisulus at their new house, 7372 Orlando West, meeting their lodger, Nelson Mandela. At this point he was studying law at the University of Witwatersrand. Mandela later related that at that time, Mase was "a quiet, pretty girl from the countryside". She later informed Fatima Meer that "I think I loved him the first time I saw him", and they started dating after a few days. Within several months, Mandela proposed marriage to Mase, delighting her brother and the Sisulus. Their civil wedding took place on 5 October 1944 at Johannesburg's Native Commissioner's Court. There were no traditional Xhosa elements in the ceremony; they could not afford a wedding feast.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: The newly married couple had little money; Mase earned 18 pounds a month from nursing while Mandela worked part-time. They moved into a room at the house of Evelyn's sister Kate, where they lived alongside her husband Mgudlwa, a clerk at City Deep Mines, and two children. They did not pay rent, but shared what money they had. Mase later claimed that their relationship in these early years was happy, commenting that "Everyone we knew said that we made a very good couple."


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Mase became pregnant, and on 23 February 1946 she gave birth to a son, Thembekile, at Bertram's Nursing Home. Requiring greater space, the couple moved to a two-roomed house at 719 Orlando East for several months before relocating to 8115 Orlando West circa early 1947, where they paid rent of 17 shillings and 6 pence a month. The accommodation was basic, with a cement floor, tin roof, and a bucket toilet; it was in the black residential area that later became known as Soweto. Both Mandela's mother Nosekeni, and his sister Leabie, came to live with them; Nosekeni got on well with Evelyn.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Mase gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Makaziwe, in 1947. Makaziwe was in poor health and died nine months later. Mase later noted the cause of death as meningitis. A third child, the son Makgatho Lewanika, was born in August 1950.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: In 1953, Mase decided to upgrade her nursing certificate so that she could become a midwife, enrolling at the King Edward VII Hospital in Durban. This meant that she was away from her home for several months, during which time her children were cared for by Mandela's mother and sister. Mandela visited her in Durban at least once, staying in the home of Fatima and Ismail Meer. Fatima later recalled Mase as being "a simple person, a good person, nice, very sociable; very easy to get to know and very easy going". When Mase returned to Johannesburg in late 1953, she was pregnant, subsequently giving birth to a second daughter, whom the Mandelas also named Makaziwe in honour of their first daughter. This daughter's birth reaffirmed Mase's faith in the Anglican beliefs that had dwindled over the course of her marriage. She gave this new child the second name of Phumla ("God has rested her soul").


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Mandela became increasingly interested in political activism in the early 1950s, adopting an African nationalist ideology and joining the banned African National Congress (ANC). In his autobiography, published in 1995, Mandela alleged that Mase wanted him to abandon this activism, resulting in them having many arguments about his political activities. Leabie also noted that Evelyn "didn't want to hear a thing about politics". Mase was not wholly apolitical; she attended meetings of the ANC Women's League with Albertina, dressing in the colours of the ANC (green, black, and yellow) for many of their events. She also joined the nursing union.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: While Mandela became increasingly politicised, Mase converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses and publicly distributed their magazine, "The Watchtower". She also made her two sons distribute copies in the township around their home. Mandela later noted that Mase urged him to convert, but that he refused. He recalled that although he "found some aspects of the Watch Tower's system to be interesting and worthwhile, I could not and did not share her devotion. There was an obsessional element to it that put me off. From what I could discern, her faith taught passivity and submissiveness in the face of oppression, something I could not accept." Mandela also claimed that they argued over their respective attempts to promote their views to their children; Mandela encouraging them to embrace African nationalist opinions and Mase seeking to convert them into Jehovah's Witnesses.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: In his autobiography, Mandela claimed that he would often attend political meetings late at night and that this led Mase to accuse him of having an extra-marital affair. He implied that these accusations were untrue. This account, written shortly after his release from a 27-year imprisonment but before his election as President of South Africa, may have aimed to avoid damaging his heroic reputation. Later biographers highlighted further evidence that suggested Mase's accusation of adultery was correct; Mandela admitted to fellow activist Mac Maharaj that during the early 1950s he had led "a thoroughly immoral life". Several biographers, including David James Smith and Martin Meredith, argued that while married to Mase, Mandela was having affairs with both his secretary, Ruth Mompati, and with the ANC activist Lillian Ngoyi. At one point, Mase warned Mandela that if he ever brought Mompati back to their house again she would pour boiling water over her. There were rumours among those close to Mandela that Mompati bore him a child; Smith believed that Mompati's son, Mompati Neo Matsuone, who was born in April 1955, was Mandela's. Mase told Walter Sisulu about the affairs; this angered Mandela, who did not want news of his infidelity shared with others. Nosekeni disapproved of her son's behaviour and because of this, Smith argued, she returned to the Transkei. Leabie suspected that the marriage was being damaged by "umuthi" (witchcraft).


title: Evelyn Mase

text: According to Mandela's autobiography, in 1955 Mase presented him with an ultimatum: he had to either give up his political activism or she would leave him. He chose the latter option. The Sisulus were upset by this, and Walter tried talking to Mandela about it; this angered him. According to his autobiography, in December 1956, the police arrested Mandela and imprisoned him for two weeks before he was allowed out on bail. Returning home, he found that Mase had left him and taken their children with her. At this point, Mandela stated, Mase temporarily moved in with her brother. Scrutinising this account of events, Smith noted that this chronology did not match that from other sources, and that, as far as he could tell, "that scene [of Mandela coming out of prison to find his wife had left him] never happened".


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Records indicate that it was Mase who first initiated divorce proceedings. She lodged a particular of claims report at the Native District Court in May 1956, in which she stated that she was seeking a divorce because Mandela had repeatedly physically assaulted her. In her report, Mase made no allegation of adultery against her husband. Instead, she claimed that Mandela had deserted her in February 1955 and then physically assaulted her in July, August, and October of that year, and again in February 1956 after she refused to leave their house. She added that in March 1956 he had threatened to kill her with an axe unless she left his house. She stated that she then took refuge with a neighbour before moving in with her brother. Mase's claims of assault were never subjected to scrutiny in court; Smith later noted that it is "entirely possible that Evelyn imagined all those stories of assault, out of malice or revenge, but the fact she alluded to them outside the divorce papers and that the neighbours were involved, lends at least some credence to her account". As part of her claim, Mase sought custody of her children, formal separation from Mandela, and a £50 monthly maintenance payment from him.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Mandela responded to Mase's report with his own petition, filed in August 1956. There, he denied her claims of assault. He also informed his friend, the ANC activist Ahmed Kathrada, that the only time he had used physical force against his wife was when she was threatening him with a red hot poker and he had to disarm her. In his 1956 petition, Mandela did not seek custody of his daughter but did so for his two sons, arguing that they would be better off living with him as their school was only 150 yards from his home, as opposed to two miles from Sam Mase's house. He also argued that, as his mother was living with him, he was in a better position to care for his sons than Mase, who was working full-time. He also claimed that his children were presently looking dirty and neglected at Sam Mase's overcrowded home, where Evelyn and her children were cohabiting with Sam, his wife, and their four children.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Mase and Mandela separated, although the former continued to regard herself as married. Before the hearing, Mandela received custody of their sons with visitation by Mase. In November 1956, Mase withdrew her petition for divorce, for reasons unknown. Smith thought that Mase was hoping for reconciliation with her husband, while Mandela wanted to avoid a public divorce hearing which would damage his standing in the ANC. Their children went back and forth between the two homes over the coming months. Mandela later acknowledged that their children were emotionally traumatised by the separation.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: After Mandela met Winnie Madikizela and embarked on a relationship with her, he filed for a divorce from Mase, which Mase did not contest. Their marriage was formally dissolved on 18 March 1958. Mase was granted custody of all three children; Mandela agreed to pay her a £50 lump sum and then a monthly maintenance stipend of £15. Mase took much of the furniture from their Orlando home and the title deeds to a plot of land Mandela owned in Umtata. In his autobiography, Mandela noted that his first wife "was a very good woman, charming, strong and faithful, and a fine mother. I never lost my respect for her, but in the end we could not make our marriage work." His close comrade, Maharaj, noted that Mandela always spoke respectfully of Mase after their divorce. Similarly, Mase told Fatima Meer that Mandela had been "a wonderful husband and a wonderful father".


title: Evelyn Mase

text: With her children, Evelyn moved to Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape, where she opened a grocery shop. She was assisted in obtaining the shop from its white owners by Kaiser Matanzima, a local politician who was Mandela's kinsman. When it came to raising her children, Mase was a disciplinarian influenced by her religious values; she for instance forbade them to watch films. After Mandela was arrested in August 1962, he was interned in a Johannesburg prison. Mase travelled there to meet with him, but Mandela refused to see her. Mase's son, Thembekile, became a bootlegger and ran an illegal shebeen; Mase disapproved of this but did not turn down the money it generated, which helped to pay for Makgatho and Makaziwe's education in Swaziland. Due to the apartheid restrictions, Mase could not visit her children when they were studying there. In January 1969, when he was 24, Thembekile was killed in a car accident while driving home from Durban. From prison, Mandela wrote Mase a letter trying to comfort her. This was the first contact Mase had had with Mandela since their divorce.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Winnie Mandela later claimed that despite rumours of discord with Mase, the two had a good relationship. She said that she had tried to encourage good relations with Mase and her children, telling her own two children, Zenani and Zindziswa, that they should refer to her predecessor as "Mama Evelyn". Some members of Mase's family believed that Winnie was preventing them from receiving financial support that Mandela had arranged for them; moreover, some blamed Winnie for breaking up Mandela's first marriage, although Mandela had already separated from Mase before meeting Winnie. There remained some ill-feeling between Mase's family and Winnie's into later decades. The former felt that they had been disposed and written out of public narratives about Mandela's life; the latter felt that Mase's children sometimes used Mandela's name for their own financial and political advancement. Mase's children also expressed some bitterness to Mandela himself.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: Amid growing speculation that Mandela would be released from prison in 1990, Mase pinned a notice to the gate of her house asking media to leave her alone. One reporter, Fred Bridgland, did manage to obtain an interview. Mase was angry at the way Mandela's release was being anticipated, believing that it was being treated like the second coming of Christ and proclaiming: "How can a man who has committed adultery and left his wife and children be Christ? The whole world worships Nelson too much. He is only a man." After Mandela became South Africa's first black president following the 1994 general election, Mase again spoke to a journalist, noting that when she was going door to door to spread the Jehovah's Witness message, she often saw Mandela's picture adorning people's walls. She stated that Mandela's "strength has come from God" and that "God uses people to do his work even if they are not righteous."


title: Evelyn Mase

text: In 1998 Mase married the retired Soweto businessman Simon Rakeepile, who was also a Jehovah's Witness. He insisted that she took his surname, perhaps because he did not want to live under the shadow of the famous Mandela name. In later years, Mase became a Pioneer, a position within the Jehovah's Witness organisation necessitating greater commitment to the religion. She died on 30 April 2004, having suffered from a respiratory illness. She was survived by Makaziwe and Makgatho, and by her second husband. Her body was buried at West Park Cemetery. Mandela attended the funeral along with Winnie Madikizela and his third wife, Graça Machel.


title: Evelyn Mase

text: In March 2009, the Soweto Heritage Trust opened the township home where Mandela and Mase had lived together as a tourist attraction named Mandela House.


title: Fates Warning

text: Fates Warning is an American progressive metal band, formed in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1982 by vocalist John Arch, guitarists Jim Matheos and Victor Arduini, bassist Joe DiBiase, and drummer Steve Zimmerman. There have been numerous lineup changes over the course of their -year career, and Matheos is the only constant member. As of 2020, the band consists of Matheos, vocalist Ray Alder (who replaced Arch in 1987), bassist Joey Vera (who replaced DiBiase in 1996), drummer Bobby Jarzombek and guitarist Michael Abdow. Fates Warning also had a revolving cast of drummers and guitarists by the time Jarzombek and Abdow joined the band in 2007 and 2020 respectively.


title: Fates Warning

text: A pioneer of the progressive metal movement, Fates Warning has been referred to as one of the "Big Three" of the genre, creating and popularizing the style along with Queensrÿche and Dream Theater. Their early work, influenced by the new wave of British heavy metal, is also important in the development of American power metal. Fates Warning has released thirteen studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, one VHS cassette, three DVDs (each featuring live concerts) and four demo tapes. The band experienced its first commercial success with the 1986 release of their third studio album, "Awaken the Guardian", which peaked at No. 191 on the "Billboard" 200 and became the first album released on Metal Blade to enter that chart. Their next three albums—"No Exit" (1988), "Perfect Symmetry" (1989) and "Parallels" (1991)—were also successful; the first two peaked at No. 111 and No. 141 on the "Billboard" 200, respectively. By 2001, Fates Warning had sold over a million albums worldwide. Their thirteenth studio album, "Long Day Good Night", was released on November 6, 2020.


title: Fates Warning

text: The first album, "Night on Bröcken", was released in 1984 on the Metal Blade label. The album was mainly influenced by Iron Maiden and other heavy metal bands, in songs like the title track and "Damnation" in particular. There were prog aspects that would be further developed in subsequent albums. "The Spectre Within" (1985) featured a more progressive approach with songs like "The Apparition", "Epitaph", "Pirates of the Underground" and "Traveler in Time", with many tempo changes, a greater complexity in the arrangements, and fantasy lyrics full of symbolism and double meaning. During this period, Fates Warning had become a live staple in the East Coast and Midwest areas of the US, sharing the stage with numerous bands like Motörhead, Queensrÿche, Anthrax, Overkill, Anvil and Armored Saint.


title: Fates Warning

text: In 1986, original guitarist Victor Arduini left the band and was replaced by Frank Aresti, and the third Fates Warning album, "Awaken the Guardian", was released in November of that year. It has been regarded as a groundbreaking and essential progressive metal release, working towards creating a more mythical atmosphere and a more fully realized progressive approach in song form; with complex and unusual riffs, and numerous tempo changes amidst frenetic and evocative vocal lines, however maintaining a basic fluidity. "Awaken the Guardian" also made history by becoming the first album released on Metal Blade to enter the "Billboard" 200 chart, and saw Fates Warning sharing the stage with bands like Queensrÿche and Saxon.


title: Fates Warning

text: In 1987, original vocalist John Arch left the band prior to the start of work on the band's next album, and was replaced by Ray Alder. Their first album with Alder, "No Exit" was released in March 1988 and further developed the direction taken by the prior album with a more powerful sound all the while setting aside the fantasy themes and atmospheres. It featured one of the first prog metal suite of the genre, "The Ivory Gate of Dreams," which is based on the Gates of horn and ivory. "No Exit" gave Fates Warning their highest chart position to date on the "Billboard" 200, entering at number 111 and staying on the chart for thirteen weeks; it also helped build the band's popularity worldwide, with the videos for "Anarchy Divine" and "Silent Cries" receiving considerable airplay on MTV's "Headbangers Ball", and Fates Warning touring almost non-stop in support of the album, playing with bands like Krokus, Savatage, Armored Saint and Flotsam and Jetsam.


title: Fates Warning

text: Following the tour in support of "No Exit", original drummer Steve Zimmerman left the band in 1988 and was replaced by Mark Zonder, just as Fates Warning was preparing for their fifth studio album. The resulting album, "Perfect Symmetry", was released in August 1989. The album abandoned the aggressive sound of "No Exit", in favor of a more melodic and experimental one along with a melancholic atmosphere and intimate lyrics. "Perfect Symmetry" was full of extremely complex arrangements and an unusual and very articulated rhythm section, and is often regarded as a seminal prog metal album, "which laid the foundations of the sound of the 90s". Kevin Moore (keyboardist for Dream Theater at the time) was featured as a guest on the song "At Fate's Hands", while the cover was designed by Hugh Syme, famous for his work with the Canadian progressive rock band Rush. Although "Perfect Symmetry" was not as successful as "No Exit", the album nonetheless charted for nine weeks on the "Billboard" 200, while its only music video "Through Different Eyes" managed to get some airplay on "Headbangers Ball". The album also saw the band embark on their first full-length world tour, which lasted for a year between November 1989 and November 1990; they opened for Manowar in Europe and toured there again with Sanctuary, who had also opened for Fates Warning in the US in early 1990.


title: Fates Warning

text: 1991 saw the release of "Parallels", distributed by Warner. The album, which started the collaboration with Rush producer Terry Brown, contains more accessible and streamlined songs than in the past, except for tracks such as "The Eleventh Hour" and "Life in Still Water", which features guest vocals by James LaBrie (who had just joined Dream Theater). "Parallels" is considered by some an essential album that "has influenced a great amount of subsequent musicians" and is possibly the band's most commercially successful record, despite the fact that it did not enter the "Billboard" 200 chart like the previous three albums did and was released during the grunge breakout; it did, however, chart on the "Billboard" Heatseekers chart and reach the top 10 on the Heatseekers – Northeast chart. With "Parallels", Fates Warning's popularity was still dominant in the US and Europe, with the videos for "Point of View" and "Eye to Eye" receiving heavy rotation on "Headbangers Ball", and the band going on high-profile tours with the likes of Pantera and Savatage during 1992 as well as headlining the second night of the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany in 1993.


title: Fates Warning

text: Slowing down after the commercial success of previous releases, the follow-up to "Parallels" took two and a half years for Fates Warning to make. The resulting album, "Inside Out" (1994), continued in the general vein of the previous album while adding more melody to their songs. The band's lineup also remained intact between albums for the first time since "Spectre Within". Band members have attributed the album's comparative lack of success to confusion while writing this album in the wake of the success of "Parallels" and their subsequent failure to maintain creative momentum. Just like "Parallels", "Inside Out" entered the Top 10 on "Billboard" Heatseekers – Northeast chart in spite of little or no airplay due to the increasing popularity of grunge and alternative, and following its release, the band opened for Dream Theater in the U.S. and Europe on their "Awake" tour.


title: Fates Warning

text: A compilation album, "Chasing Time", was released in 1995 and included two previously unreleased songs.


title: Fates Warning

text: In 1996, both Joe DiBiase and Frank Aresti left the group. The three remaining members, Alder, Matheos and Zonder, joined by new member Joey Vera on bass and Kevin Moore as a guest keyboardist, released "A Pleasant Shade of Gray" the following year. Written as a concept album, "A Pleasant Shade of Gray" revealed a much darker and bleaker mood in writing style than had been heard before from the band. The album consists of a single 53-minute song split into twelve parts, making it the longest track Fates Warning has ever recorded.


title: Fates Warning

text: A live two-CD set, "Still Life", was released in 1998, containing "A Pleasant Shade of Gray" performed live in its entirety. Joey Vera (bass), Bernie Versailles (guitars) and Jason Keazer (keyboards) accompanied the group on this album. A Japanese version included a studio cover of the Scorpions' "In Trance".


title: Fates Warning

text: The lineup for A Pleasant Shade of Gray consisting of Alder, Matheos, Zonder, Vera, and Moore, returned to record "Disconnected" in 2000. In 2003, Frank Aresti was asked to fill in on a tour with Dream Theater and Queensrÿche. He officially rejoined the band as a full time member in 2005.


title: Fates Warning

text: Their tenth studio release "FWX" was released in 2004. Drummer Mark Zonder stated it would be his last album with the band, as he wished to pursue other interests, and left in 2005. Although an official member again, Frank Aresti did not appear on the album because the writing had been completed and contracts had been signed already.


title: Fates Warning

text: "Live in Athens", a concert DVD, was released in 2005; this DVD included guest drummer Nick D'Virgilio.


title: Fates Warning

text: In the liner notes to the 2005 expanded edition of "Awaken the Guardian", Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy noted that "very often fans and critics credit Dream Theater for creating a whole new genre of progressive metal music in the late '80s/early '90s, [...] but the truth is Fates Warning were doing it years before us."


title: Fates Warning

text: The band provided the song "Nothing Left to Say" to the soundtrack to the 1991 movie , and also has recorded songs for various "tribute" albums, including the tracks "Closer to the Heart" on the tribute to Rush, "Working Man", "Saints in Hell" on the 1997 "Legends of Metal", a Judas Priest tribute, and "Sign of the Southern Cross" on the 2000 "Holy Dio" Ronnie James Dio tribute.


title: Fates Warning

text: In 2010, Fates Warning played select dates with the "Parallels" lineup (Alder, Matheos, Zonder, Aresti and DiBiase) to celebrate the reissued, remastered and expanded edition of the classic album.