title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz's song "Just Did a Bad Thing" and the accompanying video spawned TikTok videos of people lip-syncing to the opening lines; in the platform, #ididabadthing became the top hashtag of March 2019. Following this, Wurtz would only post four more videos before his break, ending with "Might Quit". After "Might Quit" was released, Wurtz would not post any new videos to YouTube for nearly two years, before continuing to release music and videos animated in 3D with Blender.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz has developed an absurdist, surreal style on both his music and animation. Eddie Kim wrote for "MEL Magazine" that Wurtz "refuses to mimic anyone else's animation or musical style, but it's not weird for weirdness' sake alone", comparing him to Thundercat and Louis Cole and highlighting Wurtz's pretty pop melodies, unexpected chords and multi-layered rhythms as commonalities. Geoff Carter of "Las Vegas Weekly" stated: "Merge Don Hertzfeldt, Jenny Holzer and Thundercat and you might get someone a little bit like Bill Wurtz". Nick Douglas of "Lifehacker" summarized him as "somewhere between comedy and education and vaporwave."


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz's music has been classified as jazz-pop, incorporating elements of lo-fi music, smooth jazz, funk and easy listening. Wurtz tends to reject genre categorization, and does not consider himself to be a jazz musician. Overall, his music evokes malaise, self-deprecation, and a "blurring of the lines between irony, parody and honesty". This is often paired comedically with dire circumstances or sobering undertones. In an interview with Genius, Wurtz stated that "it's a good... songwriting technique to write about something bad with a good sounding melody, because if you can get people to feel good about something bad, then you're bulletproof in life." Wurtz's voice has been described as "silky tenor with range and energy". Artists who have expressed admiration for Wurtz's music include indie musicians Daði Freyr and Sidney Gish, fellow YouTube musician Adam Neely, DJ and producer Porter Robinson, as well as Australian singer Sia.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz started playing music at a very early age. He has claimed to be "wholly self-taught" as a musician, and regularly downplays the importance of music theory in songwriting and composition, insisting that the sound and feel of music should be prioritized over attempts to conform to theory. In fact, one of the defining characteristics of Wurtz's style is a subversion to conventional approaches to composition. One example is "I Wanna Be a Movie Star", highlighted in an article for the student newspaper "The Harbinger," where the author praised Wurtz's skill in incorporating complex time signatures without causing the music to feel "either incomplete or too long", instead achieving a sound that "feel[s] completely natural" and "pop-ish".


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz has used different programs to edit his music, including GarageBand from 2009 to 2010, and long-discontinued Logic Express 9 until at least 2016.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz's videos are typically in a lo-fi, neon aesthetic, and have been described as surreal and psychedelic. They range from "nonsensical" shorts to animated music videos, and often involve deadpan humor, dancing stick figures, vaporwave-like transitions and neon, sans-serif text on-screen. Wurtz often follows similar patterns in his videos such as multi-layering, and clip art images. He has stated the low-budget quality arose out of a necessity to publish videos regularly and evolved naturally.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: At Vidcon 2018, Wurtz was asked why his style is so different from other YouTube musicians. He stated that he chooses to "live under a rock" and produce his music in isolation rather than take inspiration from other creators on the platform. Wurtz publicly struggles with perfectionism, making use of schedules and deadlines to overcome it. In response to a fan question he explained that in the process of doing this he has "been forced to become an expert on carelessness".


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz is decidedly against running advertising on or accepting sponsorships for his videos, despite admitting an "enormous" pressure to do so. He has explained that advertisements make him "uncomfortable" and that he thinks they "suck". As a result, all of Wurtz's videos and music are available for free on his website. Wurtz does receive direct fan support, which includes crowdfunding on Patreon, streams on music streaming services, and merchandise sales, but does not heavily promote any of these revenue streams.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: From his first video up until early 2019, Wurtz used Final Cut Express 4, a program that was discontinued as far back as in 2011. In 2019, he switched to Final Cut Pro X. Wurtz also taught himself the 3D animation software Blender, which enabled him to create significantly more complex and realistic graphics for his videos.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: While Wurtz has a larger audience on external platforms like YouTube, he is the most active on his own website, "billwurtz.com". Despite being launched in 2014, it has been compared to a late 1990s website due to its simple design. Apart from containing all of his released songs and most of his videos dating back since 2002, the website also features many other types of content not available elsewhere. This includes a questions page, as well as an anagram page, where Wurtz allows fans to request words or phrases out of which he creates anagrams. Additionally, Wurtz vlog-style 'reality' videos depicting his creative process.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Bill Wurtz maintains a section on his website to answer anonymously submitted questions. Wurtz used to have an Ask.fm page, but he discontinued it and created his own questions page to allow for complete anonymous questions and to avoid ads. His answers to questions are considered an aspect of Wurtz's creative output; the style of his answers have been described as "verging on the poetic" and "earnest, if somewhat loopy-sounding". One such answer, highlighted in by the website "Ok Whatever", addresses a question concerning Wurtz's personality:


title: Bill Wurtz

text: From 2009 to 2014, Wurtz self-released his music on Bandcamp. Since then, he has eschewed the album format.


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Since March 2014, Wurtz has published numerous full-length music videos, following the same format as his shorter videos. He has made them available on his YouTube channel:


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Wurtz has published many other full-length songs not accompanied by music videos. They are all available on his website, and some are also available on streaming services. Songs include:


title: Bill Wurtz

text: Furthermore, Wurtz has published a myriad of shorter songs or jingles on his website ranging from a couple of seconds to up to a minute in length.


title: Musa acuminata

text: Musa acuminata is a species of banana native to Southern Asia, its range comprising the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Many of the modern edible dessert bananas are from this species, although some are hybrids with "Musa balbisiana". First cultivated by humans around 10 kya (8000 BCE), it is one of the early examples of domesticated plants.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" is an evergreen perennial, not a tree. The trunk (known as the pseudostem) is made of tightly packed layers of leaf sheaths emerging from completely or partially buried corms. The leaves are at the top of the leaf sheaths, or petioles and in the subspecies M. a. truncata the blade or lamina is up to22 feet (seven meters) in length and 39 inches (one meter) wide.


title: Musa acuminata

text: The inflorescence grows horizontally or obliquely from the trunk. The individual flowers are white to yellowish-white in color and are negatively geotropic (that is, growing upwards and away from the ground). Both male and female flowers are present in a single inflorescence. Female flowers are located near the base (and develop into fruit), and the male flowers located at the tipmost top-shaped bud in between leathery bracts.


title: Musa acuminata

text: The rather slender fruits are berries, the size of each depends on the number of seeds they contain. Each fruit can have 15 to 62 seeds. Each fruit bunch can have an average of 161.76 ± 60.62 fingers with each finger around in size.


title: Musa acuminata

text: The seeds of wild "Musa acuminata" are around in diameter. They are subglobose or angular in shape and very hard. The tiny embryo is located at the end of the micropyle. Each seed of "Musa acuminata" typically produces around four times its size in edible starchy pulp (the parenchyma, the portion of the bananas eaten), around . Wild "Musa acuminata" is diploid with 2"n"=2"x"=22 chromosomes, while cultivated varieties (cultivars) are mostly triploid (2"n"=3"x"=33) and parthenocarpic, producing fruit without seeds. The most familiar dessert banana cultivars belong to the Cavendish subgroup. Cultivars have accomplished this desired plant through natural mutations resulting from vegetative multiplication. The ratio of pulp to seeds increases dramatically in "seedless" edible cultivars: the small and largely sterile seeds are now surrounded by 23 times their size in edible pulp. The seeds themselves are reduced to tiny black specks along the central axis of the fruit.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" belongs to section "Musa" (formerly "Eumusa") of the genus "Musa". It belongs to the family Musaceae of the order Zingiberales. It is divided into several subspecies (see section below).


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" was first described by the Italian botanist Luigi Aloysius Colla in the book "Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino" (1820). Although other authorities have published various names for this species and its hybrids mistaken for different species (notably "Musa sapientum" by Linnaeus which is now known to be a hybrid of "Musa acuminata" and "Musa balbisiana"), Colla's publication is the oldest name for the species and thus has precedence over the others from the rules of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Colla also was the first authority to recognize that both "Musa acuminata" and "Musa balbisiana" were wild ancestral species, even though the specimen he described was a naturally occurring seedless polyploid like cultivated bananas.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" is highly variable and the number of subspecies accepted can vary from six to nine between different authorities. The following are the most commonly accepted subspecies:


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" favors wet tropical climates in contrast to the hardier "Musa balbisiana", the species it hybridized extensively with to provide almost all modern cultivars of edible bananas. Subsequent spread of the species outside of its native region is thought to be purely the result of human intervention. Early farmers introduced "M. acuminata" into the native range of "M. balbisiana" resulting in hybridization and the development of modern edible clones.


title: Musa acuminata

text: AAB cultivars were spread from somewhere around the Philippines about 4 kya (2000 BCE) and resulted in the distinct banana cultivars known as the Maia Maoli or Popoulo group bananas in the Pacific islands. They may have been introduced as well to South America during Precolumbian times from contact with early Polynesian sailors, although evidence of this is debatable.


title: Musa acuminata

text: Westward spread included Africa which already had evidence of "Musa acuminata" × "Musa balbisiana" hybrid cultivation from as early as 1000 to 400 BCE. They were probably introduced first to Madagascar from Indonesia.


title: Musa acuminata

text: From West Africa, they were introduced to the Canary islands by the Portuguese in the 16th century, and from there were introduced to Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1516.


title: Musa acuminata

text: Wild "Musa acuminata" is propagated sexually by seeds or asexually by suckers. Edible parthenocarpic cultivars are usually cultivated by suckers in plantations or cloned by tissue culture. Seeds are also still used in research for developing new cultivars.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" is a pioneer species. It rapidly exploits newly disturbed areas, like areas recently subjected to forest fires. It is also considered a 'keystone species' in certain ecosystems, paving the way for greater wildlife diversity once they have established themselves in an area. It is particularly important as a food source for wildlife due to its rapid regeneration.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" bears flowers that by their very structure, makes it difficult to self-pollinate. It takes about four months for the flowers to develop into fruits, with the fruit clusters at the bases ripening sooner than those at the tip.


title: Musa acuminata

text: A large variety of wildlife feeds on the fruits. These include frugivorous bats, birds, squirrels, tree shrews, civets, rats, mice, monkeys, and apes. These animals are also important for seed dispersal.


title: Musa acuminata

text: Mature seeds germinate readily 2 to 3 weeks after sowing. Unsprouted, they can remain viable from a few months to two years of storage. Nevertheless, studies show that clone plantlets are much more likely to survive than seedlings germinated from seeds.


title: Musa acuminata

text: In 1955, Norman Simmonds and Ken Shepherd revised the classification of modern edible bananas based on their genetic origins. Their classification depends on how many of the characteristics of the two ancestral species ("Musa acuminata" and "Musa balbisiana") are exhibited by the cultivars. Most banana cultivars which exhibit purely or mostly "Musa acuminata" genomes are dessert bananas, while hybrids of "M. acuminata" and "M. balbisiana" are mostly cooking bananas or plantains.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "Musa acuminata" is one of the earliest plants to be domesticated by humans for agriculture, 7,000 years ago in New Guinea and Wallacea. It has been suggested that "M. acuminata" may have originally been domesticated for parts other than the fruit. Either for fiber, for construction materials, or for its edible male bud. They were selected early for parthenocarpy and seed sterility in their fruits, a process that might have taken thousands of years. This initially led to the first 'human-edible' banana diploid clones (modern AA cultivars). Diploid clones are still able to produce viable seeds when pollinated by wild species. This resulted in the development of triploid clones which were conserved for their larger fruit.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "M. acuminata" was later introduced into mainland Indochina into the range of another ancestral wild banana species – "Musa balbisiana", a hardier species of lesser genetic diversity than "M. acuminata". Hybridization between the two resulted in drought-resistant edible cultivars. Modern edible banana and plantain cultivars are derived from permutations of hybridization and polyploidy of the two.


title: Musa acuminata

text: "M. acuminata" is one of several banana species cultivated as an ornamental plant, for its striking shape and foliage. In temperate regions it requires protection in winter, as it does not tolerate temperatures below . The cultivar "M. acuminata" 'Dwarf Cavendish' (AAA Group) has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


title: Media Player Classic

text: Media Player Classic (MPC), Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) are a family of free and open-source, compact, lightweight, and customizable media players for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The original MPC, along with the MPC-HC fork, mimic the simplistic look and feel of Windows Media Player 6.4, but provide most options and features available in modern media players. Variations of the original MPC and its forks are standard media players in the K-Lite Codec Pack and the Combined Community Codec Pack.


title: Media Player Classic

text: This project is now principally maintained by the community at the Doom9 forum. The active forks are Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) by clsid2 (same developer known as clsid responsible for MPC 6.4.9.1), and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) by aleksoid.


title: Media Player Classic

text: The original Media Player Classic was created and maintained by a programmer named "Gabest" who also created PCSX2 graphics plugin GSDX. It was developed as a closed-source application, but later relicensed as free software under the terms of the GPL-2.0-or-later license. MPC is hosted under the codice_1 project at SourceForge.net. The project itself is something of an umbrella organization for works by Gabest.


title: Media Player Classic

text: "Media Player Classic" development stalled in May 2006. Gabest, the main developer of the original version, stated in March 2007 that development of "Media Player Classic" is not dead but that he was unable to work on it. MPC 6.4.9.0, released March 20, 2006, is the final official version.


title: Media Player Classic

text: In August 2007, an unofficially patched and updated build became available, from Doom9 member clsid, hosted under the codice_2 project at SourceForge.net. Known as Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1, it was meant for fixing bugs and updating outdated libraries; its branch's development has been inactive since 2011. MPC 6.4.9.1 Revision 107, released February 14, 2010, is the final release version. The community at the Doom9 forum has since further continued the project with MPC-HC.


title: Media Player Classic

text: A fork, called "Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC)", adds new features, as well as fixes bugs and updates libraries. It also updated the license to GPL-3.0-or-later.


title: Media Player Classic

text: MPC-HC updates the original player and adds many useful functionalities including the option to remove tearing, additional video decoders (in particular H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 with DirectX Video Acceleration support), Enhanced Video Renderer support, and multiple bug fixes. There is also a 64 bit-version of "Media Player Classic - Home Cinema" for the various Windows x64 platforms. MPC-HC requires at least Windows XP Service Pack 3.


title: Media Player Classic

text: As of version 1.4.2499.0, MPC-HC implemented color management support, an uncommon feature that nearly all video players on Microsoft Windows lack. Windows 8 support was introduced in version 1.6.5. Beginning with version 1.6.6 the stable releases are signed.


title: Media Player Classic

text: Apart from stable releases as published, nightly builds are also publicly available. MPC-HC is also distributed in the PortableApps format. MPC-HC 1.7.8 released in 2015 was built with the MediaInfoLib 0.7.71.


title: Media Player Classic

text: MPC-HC 1.7.13 now requires SSE2 supporting CPU and no longer runs on Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP.


title: Media Player Classic

text: MPC-HC 1.7.13 is the final version and the program has been officially discontinued as of July 16, 2017, due to a shortage of active developers with C/C++ experience. Its source code on GitHub was last updated on August 27, 2017, a month and a half after the official final version.


title: Media Player Classic

text: MPC-HC 1.9.xx Black Theme added, modern toolbars, better subtitle handling, video preview on seekbar, improved translations, various small features, maintenance, bug fixes.


title: Media Player Classic

text: Updated builds of MPC-HC, a fork from the same developer (known as clsid2 on GitHub/SourceForge) responsible for MPC 6.4.9.1, started appearing in January 2018. This fork contains updated internal codecs (LAV Filters), AV1 support, youtube-dl integration, a new dark theme, video preview on seekbar, support for MPC Video Renderer, A-B Repeat, subtitle performance improvements, updates to some other external components, other improvements, and many bug fixes; support for Windows XP was also dropped in these builds. Binary releases are available, as well as source code.


title: Media Player Classic

text: "Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE)" is a fork of MPC and MPC-HC. It moved away from MPC's aim to mimic the look and feel of Windows Media Player with updated player controls and provides additional features on top of MPC-HC such as a video preview tooltip when hovering the mouse cursor over the seek bar, as known from video platforms such as YouTube and Dailymotion, though many of these features, including the video preview on seekbar, were added to MPC-HC at a later date.


title: Media Player Classic

text: MPC-BE, however, doesn't include LAV filters by default, making it less efficient than MPC-HC for decoding. This is most noticeable with higher resolution files, newer codecs, or on lower end hardware.


title: Media Player Classic

text: Player development began in February 2011. Developers used a modification of MPC-HC made by a programmer nicknamed "bobdynlan".


title: Media Player Classic

text: MPC-BE version 1.5.1 and newer require SSE2 supporting CPU and no longer run on Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP.


title: Media Player Classic

text: Media Player Classic is capable of VCD, SVCD, and DVD playback without installation of additional software or codecs. MPC has built-in codecs for MPEG-2 video with support for subtitles and codecs for LPCM, MP2, 3GP, AC3, and DTS audio; along with native playback of the Matroska container format. MPC also contains an improved MPEG splitter that supports playback of VCDs and SVCDs using its VCD/SVCD/XCD Reader. On October 30, 2005, Gabest added MP4 and MPEG-4 Timed Text support. Adobe Flash movies (SWF) can be played and frames jumped to.


title: Media Player Classic

text: Supported media formats within the latest builds of MPC-HC and MPC-BE have been considerably expanded compared to the original MPC, as these builds are bundled with iterations of libavcodec and libavformat. MPC-HC version 1.7.0 and newer utilize LAV filters, while MPC-BE uses FFmpeg directly. Consequently, they support all formats from those libraries.


title: Media Player Classic

text: Media Player Classic is primarily based on the DirectShow architecture and therefore automatically uses installed DirectShow decoding filters. For instance, after the open source DirectShow decoding filter ffdshow has been installed, fast and high quality decoding and postprocessing of the MPEG-4 ASP, H.264, and Flash Video formats is available in the original MPC. MPC-HC and MPC-BE, however, can play videos in these formats directly without ffdshow.


title: Media Player Classic

text: MPC-HC and MPC-BE also provide DXVA support for compatible Intel, NVIDIA, and ATI/AMD video cards when using a compatible codec. This provides hardware-acceleration for playback.


title: Media Player Classic

text: In addition to DirectShow, MPC can also use the QuickTime, RealPlayer, and SHOUTcast codecs and filters (if installed on the computer) to play their native files. Though some of these files may play without the external codecs or filters installed. Alternatively, QuickTime Alternative and Real Alternative can be used in place of their player installations for expanded support of their respective file formats.


title: Chile de árbol

text: The Chile de árbol (Spanish for "tree chili" is a small and potent Mexican chili pepper also known as bird's beak chile and rat's tail chile. These chilis are about long, and in diameter. Their heat index is between 15,000 and 30,000 Scoville units. The peppers start out green and turn a bright red color as they mature. Chile de árbol peppers can be found fresh, dried, or powdered. As dried chiles, they are often used to decorate wreaths because they do not lose their red color after dehydration.


title: School discipline

text: School discipline relates to actions taken by teachers or school organizations toward students when their behavior disrupts the ongoing educational activity or breaks a rule created by the school. Discipline can guide the children's behavior or set limits to help them learn to take better care of themselves, other people and the world around them.


title: School discipline

text: School systems set rules, and if students break these rules they are subject to discipline. These rules may, for example, define the expected standards of school uniform, punctuality, social conduct, and work ethic. The term "discipline" is applied to the punishment that is the consequence of breaking the rules. The aim of discipline is to set limits restricting certain behaviors or attitudes that are seen as harmful or against school policies, educational norms, school traditions, etc. The focus of discipline is shifting and alternative approaches are emerging due to notably high dropout rates, disproportionate punishment upon minority students, and other educational inequalities.


title: School discipline

text: Discipline is a set of actions determined by the school district to remedy actions taken by a student that are deemed inappropriate. It is sometimes confused with classroom management, but while discipline is one dimension of classroom management, classroom management is a more general term.


title: School discipline

text: Discipline is typically thought to have a positive influence on both the individual as well as classroom environment. Utilizing disciplinary actions can be an opportunity for the class to reflect and learn about consequences, instill collective values, and encourage behavior that is acceptable for the classroom. Recognition of the diversity of values within communities can increase understanding and tolerance of different disciplinary techniques. In particular, moderate interventions such as encouraging positive corrections of questionable behavior inside the classroom by clearly showing the boundaries and making it clear that the behavior is unacceptable, as opposed to more severe punishments outside the classroom such as detention, suspension, or expulsion, can promote learning and deter future misbehavior. Learning to "own" one's bad behavior is also thought to contribute to positive growth in social emotional learning.


title: School discipline

text: School discipline practices are generally informed by theory from psychologists and educators. There are a number of theories to form a comprehensive discipline strategy for an entire school or a particular class.


title: School discipline

text: Some scholars think students misbehave because of the lack of engagement and stimulation in typical school settings, a rigid definition of acceptable behaviors and a lack of attention and love in a student's personal life. In the United States, scholars have begun to explore alternative explanations for why students are being disciplined, in particular the disproportionate rate of discipline towards African-American and minority students.


title: School discipline

text: In the United States, many of the state and federal laws surrounding school discipline originate from zero-tolerance policies for student misconduct practiced by policy-makers from the 1980s and 1990s. With the increasing use of zero-tolerance policies, by 1997 the federal government was funding the use of police officers in schools, resulting in an increased use of discipline in schools across the country and an influx of students entering the juvenile justice system. By 2000, 41 states had laws in place requiring cases involving students who committed criminal violations in school, like drug possession, to be handled by law enforcement and juvenile courts, instead of the schools themselves. During this time, Black students accounted for over one-third of all corporal punishment and in-school and out-of-school suspensions, nearly one-third of all expulsions and school-related arrests, and over one-quarter of all referrals to law enforcement; rates around three times higher than that of white students.


title: School discipline

text: Public schools are prohibited from using disciplinary practices as a form of discrimination. The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights is tasked with deciding whether or not to investigate students' reports of disciplinary racial discrimination. Former United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos enacted delays and eliminations of student discipline guidance under the United States Education Department. In 2016, the Obama administration required states to address racial disparities in special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, but DeVos delayed the implementation of these requirements. In 2014, the United States Department of Justice and the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights issued guidance to reduce racial disparities in suspension and expulsion. In 2019, DeVos defended the Education Department's choice to repeal this guidance.


title: School discipline

text: Today, schools across the U.S. suspend, expel, and punish Black students at a higher rate than white students. Despite these rates, there are multiple federal laws against racial discrimination in schools. There are two groups for these laws: disparate treatment and disparate impact.


title: School discipline

text: Disparate treatment laws allow students the right to testify against schools and school districts for intentional racial discrimination. Under the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, students who feel they have been intentionally racially discriminated against can testify against their schools or school districts.


title: School discipline

text: Disparate impact laws, including the federal regulations of Title VI and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, allow federal agencies to testify against schools and school districts for policies they have put in place that ultimately result in racial discrimination, regardless of the intent behind the people practicing those policies. Violations of these regulations can cause schools and school districts to lose federal funding.


title: School discipline

text: Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) programs examine disciplinary issues, attempt to reduce the severity of punishment for students, and provide increased support for students who have emotional and behavioral disorders. PBIS programs are supported by the United States Department of Education Office of Special Education ProgramsTechnical Assistance Center and have been used by schools across the United States.


title: School discipline

text: Racial disparities in suspension and expulsion vary across the United States. Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; and St. Paul, Minnesota possess schools and school districts that, on average, suspend Black students at least six times more than white students. A study by the University of Pennsylvania concluded that Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia schools contribute over half of all suspensions and expulsions of Black students in America. In these thirteen states, Black students make up about 24% of the students in public schools, but 48% of suspension cases and 49% of expulsion cases. Today, 19 states allow the use of corporal punishment in schools, including Arkansas, a state that ranks 13th in the country for highest disciplinary disparity between Black and white students.


title: School discipline

text: In New York State, Black students are suspended at a rate over four times higher than white students; in New York City, this figure increases, with Black students being suspended at a rate over five times higher than white students. Schools in New York suspend nearly one in five Black male high-schoolers. In California, Black males are suspended more frequently than any other racial or gender group, and Black females are the third most often suspended group. Black students with disabilities in California lose about 44 more days of school instruction due to disciplinary consequences than their white peers with disabilities.


title: School discipline

text: Schools across the country are making efforts to reform their disciplinary systems and practices to reduce racial disparities. A study in North Carolina found that having Black teachers is associated with lowered amounts of exclusionary discipline for Black students, across all age, gender, and income ranges. To reduce its racial disciplinary disparity, Arkansas' state regulations are beginning to request that school districts make an effort to racially diversify their staff. School disciplinary policies in Arkansas are technically decided by state laws and the Arkansas Department of Education, but schools within Arkansas have some decision-making authority, which allowed them the power to suggest the diversification of their staff, as well as other policies that are being put into place to reduce racialized disciplinary disparities, including but not limited to:


title: School discipline

text: Similarly to Arkansas, schools in Virginia are attempting to improve training for teachers and administrators. In California, multiple school districts have completely eliminated suspensions for Kindergarten through twelfth grade in public schools. The New York State Education Department and the Board of Regents has included out-of-school suspensions in the Every Student Succeeds Act, attempting to hold schools accountable for the suspension rates of different groups of students, including Black students' higher suspension rates compared to that of other racial and ethnic groups.


title: School discipline

text: Within the United States of America, urban educational institutions service the largest portion of Black students in primary and secondary education. On a larger scale, urban educational institutions with a predominantly Black student body yield higher rates of punitive disciplinary actions in comparison to institutions with a predominantly white student body. Black students attending urban educational institutions are more likely to receive suspension and to be arrested than white students. On a smaller scale, rural school districts with a larger portion of Black students also yield higher rates punitive disciplinary actions than predominantly white school districts.


title: School discipline

text: Individual school districts within a state have jurisdiction to implement and enforce education-related policies within their educational institutions. Dependent on a school district's approach to resolving behavioral conflicts, the disparities between rates and intensity of discipline between white and Black students can intensify or lessen. The subjectivity of approach to behavioral policies allows for external factors such as socioeconomic and racial demographic to factor into an institution's utilization of disciplinary actions.


title: School discipline

text: An example of the varying racial disparities in discipline across U.S. counties and school districts is the different disciplinary approaches to solving truancy, "any intentional, unjustified, unauthorized, or illegal absence from compulsory education". The Los Angeles County District enacted punitive to decrease the rate of absenteeism occurring within the district's educational institutions. It piloted the Abolish Chronic Truancy (ACT) program that would discipline absenteeism through penal punishments for both students and their parental guardians. Punishments for parental guardians include legal prosecution with maximum penalty of a fine up to $2,500 per child and up to a year sentencing. For students, punishments may be prosecution in juvenile court with potential penalties including fines, probation, community service, and mandated attendance of a truancy education program. Socioeconomic factors--lack of transportation, acting as a caregiver for siblings, etc.-- that affect a student's attendance and likelihood of penal punishments disproportionately affects low-income black students.


title: School discipline

text: Another approach that some U.S. school districts have used to reduce truancy is rehabilitating students and accounting for external factors. For example, the office of Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Teresa Drenick within the Alameda County School District has piloted a diversion program to increase attendance. The program addresses students with high absenteeism rates with consistently absent students by providing access to therapy, health services, and resources such as bus passes. The county reports that the program has been "more than 90% successful at getting students back in class", decreasing absenteeism rates.


title: School discipline

text: The disparity in punitive disciplinary actions between Black and white students is further widened for Black students with disabilities. National surveys on disparities in school discipline have found higher rates of suspension among Black students with disabilities. From 2014 to 2015, the national average of days lost per 100 enrolled for students with disabilities was 119.0 days for Black students and 43.0 days for white students.


title: School discipline

text: An existent effort to decrease rates of disciplinary actions for Black students with disabilities have examined the effects of same-race teachers within the classroom. For example, from 2014 to 2015, North Carolina had a wider gap in disparities than the national average in which Black students lost 158.3 days per 100 enrolled and white students lost 64.1 days. North Carolina, like many states, has local school districts with a higher percentage of Black staff and teachers than other districts. A study by researchers Constance A. Lindsey and Cassandra M. D. Hart demonstrates that Black females reduced disciplinary rates for Black male students with disabilities by a "2 percentage points to approximately 14 percent" decrease. Additionally, students with Black male teachers within the study had a reduced disciplinary rate by "15 to 13 percent". The study suggests that school districts with an increased percentage of Black students may exhibit lower rates of punitive disciplinary actions for Black students with disabilities and have a lessened gap between Black and white students.


title: School discipline

text: In the United States, African-American students, particularly boys, are disciplined significantly more often and more severely than any other demographic. This disparity is very well documented and contributes substantially to negative life outcomes for affected students. The resulting tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated is widely referred to as the "school-to-prison pipeline".


title: School discipline

text: According to data published by the U.S. Department of Education, African-American students are three times more likely to be suspended and expelled than their white peers. Research overwhelmingly suggests that when given an opportunity to choose among several disciplinary options for a relatively minor offense, teachers and school administrators disproportionately choose more severe punishment for African-American students than for white students for the same offense. Even when controlling for factors such as family income, African-American boys are more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions than white boys for the same behavior within the same school.


title: School discipline

text: A recent study published by the National Academy of Sciences, using U.S. federal data covering more than 32 million students and around 96,000 schools, showed that "the disciplinary gap between black and white students across five types of disciplinary actions is associated with county-level rates of racial bias." Other high-powered studies have shown "increased racial and gender disproportionality for subjectively defined behaviors in classrooms, and for incidents classified as more severe", and that "Black-White disciplinary gaps . . . emerge as early as in prekindergarten and widen with grade progression." Such disparities in exclusionary forms of discipline have been shown to be mitigated in classrooms run by African-American teachers, with especially strong mitigation of office referrals for subjectively defined behavior such as "willful defiance".


title: School discipline

text: When disparities occur within the classroom they are often covert and passive meaning that instead of outwardly discriminating against a student because of their color teachers discreetly give fewer advantages to students of color. Examples of this could include counselors or teachers influencing students of color to take easier classes or to not attend four-year universities, and teachers not learning the correct way to pronounce student names. This can also include white students being given more chances before serious discipline, such as suspension or expulsion, is enacted. According to a study published by the Association for Psychological Science, teachers often recognize second offenses in the classroom as the result of a pattern of wrongdoing when it comes to Black students while white students' offenses are often labeled as isolated incidents.


title: School discipline

text: While it has been proven that black boys in the U.S. tend to be disciplined more often and more severely, evidence also suggests that black girls experience more racial bias in their education. A research study conducted by the National Women's Law Center and the Education Trust observed that "Black girls are five times more likely than white girls to be suspended at least once and four times as likely as white girls to be arrested at school." The racial bias is compounded as girls also experience gender bias within the classroom, a phenomenon coined as educational inequality. Based on data published by The National Bureau of Economic Research on the short-term and long-term consequences of teachers' stereotypical biases, it was found that teacher biases have a positive effect on boys' achievements in class but have a negative effect on girls' achievements. This can have long-term consequences for the futures of Black girls as it can prevent them from enrolling in the advanced-level classes that are commonly required for STEM majors in college.


title: School discipline

text: Disciplinary methods also vary based on students' socioeconomic status. While high-income students are often reported to receive mild to moderate consequences (e.g. a teacher reprimand or seat reassignment), low-income students are reported to receive more severe consequences, sometimes delivered in a less-than-professional manner (e.g. being yelled at in front of class, being made to stand in the hallway all day, or having their personal belongings searched).


title: School discipline

text: Some researchers argue that zero-tolerance discipline policies in effect criminalize infractions such as dress-code violations or talking back to a teacher, and that these policies disproportionately target disadvantaged students.


title: School discipline

text: Due to increased suspension and expulsion rates, black students are losing instructional time by spending more time away from the classroom. Lost instructional time can result in lower retainment levels of educational material, lower graduation rates, and higher drop-out rates. Higher rates of punishment in schools can increase interactions between black students and law enforcement when black students are punished with referrals to law enforcement for disciplinary infractions. Referrals to law enforcement following the report of a student to a law enforcement agency or officer by a school employee can include citations, tickets, court referrals, and in some cases arrests, though not all referrals lead to arrests. These interactions with the law are a precursor for the school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionately affects black students.


title: School discipline

text: Throughout the history of education, the most common means of maintaining discipline in schools was corporal punishment. While a child was in school, a teacher was expected to act as a substitute parent, with many forms of parental discipline or rewards open to them. This often meant that students were commonly chastised with the birch, cane, paddle, strap or yardstick if they did something wrong. Around 69 countries still use school corporal punishment.


title: School discipline

text: Corporal punishment in schools has now disappeared from most Western countries, including all European countries. In the United States, corporal punishment is not used in public schools in 34 states, banned in 31, and permitted in 19, of which only 16 actually have school districts actively administering corporal punishment. Every U.S. state except New Jersey and Iowa permits corporal punishment in private schools, but an increasing number of private schools have abandoned the practice, especially Catholic schools, nearly all of which now ban. Thirty-one U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia have banned it from public schools, most recently New Mexico in 2011. The other 19 states (mostly in the South) continue to allow corporal punishment in public schools. Of the 19 which permit the practice, three – Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming have no public schools that actually use corporal punishment as of 2016. Paddling is still used to a significant (though declining) degree in some public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Private schools in these and most other states may also use it, though many choose not to do so.


title: School discipline

text: Official corporal punishment, often by caning, remains commonplace in schools in some Asian, African and Caribbean countries.


title: School discipline

text: Most mainstream schools in most other countries retain punishment for misbehavior, but it usually takes non-corporal forms such as detention and suspension.


title: School discipline

text: In China, school corporal punishment was completely banned under the Article 29 of the Compulsory Education Act of the People's Republic of China, but in practice, beating by schoolteachers is still common, especially in rural areas.


title: School discipline

text: In Australia, school corporal punishment has been banned in public schools in all states, but as of 2019, it is still permitted in private schools in Queensland and the Northern Territory.


title: School discipline

text: Detention, sometimes referred to as DT, is one of the most common punishments in schools in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and some other countries. It requires the pupil to report to a designated room (typically after the end of school, or during lunch or recess period) to complete extra work (such as writing lines or an essay, or the completion of chores). Detention can be supervised by the teacher setting the detention or through a centralised detention system. Detention may require a pupil to report at a certain time on a non-school day, e.g. "Saturday detention" at some US, UK, and Irish schools (especially for serious offences not quite serious enough for suspension).


title: School discipline

text: In UK schools, after-school detention can be held the same day as it is issued without parental consent, and some schools make a detention room available daily, but many will require a pupil to return to school 1–2 hours after school ends on a specific day, e.g. "Friday Night Detention". Failure to attend detention without a valid excuse can sometimes result in another being added, or a more severe punishment being administered.


title: School discipline

text: In Germany, detention is less common. In some states like Baden-Württemberg there is detention to rework missed school hours, but in others like Rheinland-Pfalz it is prohibited by law. In schools where some classes are held on Saturdays, pupils may get detention on a Saturday even if it is a non-school day for them.


title: School discipline

text: In China, long-time detention is perhaps less common than in the US, the UK, Ireland, Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and some other countries. However, short-time detention by the teachers is still common. Teachers may ask the students to do some missed work after school.


title: School discipline

text: In Australia, the school should consider circumstances when giving detentions. For example, in Victoria, it is recommended that no more than half the time for recess is used for detention, that detentions be held at a reasonable time and place, and when students are kept after school, parents should be informed at least the day before detention, and detention should not exceed 45 minutes.


title: School discipline

text: Counseling is also provided when students will have to see a school counselor (guidance counselor) for misbehavior. The purpose of counseling is to help the student recognize their mistakes and find positive ways to make changes in the student's life. Counseling can also help the student clarify the school's expectations, as well as understand the consequences of failing to meet those standards.


title: School discipline

text: Suspension or temporary exclusion is a mandatory leave assigned to a student as a form of punishment that can last anywhere from one day to a few weeks, during which the student is not allowed to attend regular lessons. In some US, UK, Australian and Canadian schools, there are two types of suspension: In-School (ISS, Internal Exclusion or Isolation) and Out-of-School (OSS, Off-Campus Suspension, External Exclusion). In-school suspension means that the student comes to school as usual, but must report to and stay in a designated room for the entire school day. Out-of-school suspension means that the student is banned from entering the school grounds. A student who breaches an out-of-school suspension (by attending the school during their suspension) may be arrested for trespassing, and repeated breaches may lead to expulsion and/or possible criminal penalties. Students are also not allowed to attend after-school activities (such as proms, sporting events, etc.) while suspended from school.


title: School discipline

text: Schools are usually required to notify the student's parents/guardians and sometimes social worker if the suspended student is in special education, and explain the reason for and duration of a suspension. Students involved in physical altercations on campus can be suspended from school for a period of 5 days, while students who throw temper tantrums on campus or direct foul language at school staff members can be suspended for 3 days. Students are often required to continue to learn and complete assignments during their suspension, sometimes receiving no credit for it. This could include a written essay or journal detailing the reason for the student being suspended from school, which they would be required to hand in to a school administrator upon returning to school following their suspension. Sometimes schools will have meetings with the suspended student, the student's parents, a school administrator, and sometimes a social worker in the case of a special education student to discuss and evaluate the matter following an out-of-school suspension. Studies suggest that school suspension is associated with increased risk of subsequent criminal justice system involvement and lower educational attainment.


title: School discipline

text: School suspension can also be associated with psychological distress, and to have a bi-directional link with mental illness. In the United Kingdom, excluded children have been targeted by "county lines" drug traffickers.


title: School discipline

text: Expulsion, dismissal, exclusion, withdrawing, or permanent exclusion terminates the student's education. This is the last resort, when all other methods of discipline have failed. However, in extreme situations, it may also be used for a single offense, such as setting fires on campus, the activation of false alarms, or assault and battery against faculty and staff members, or school administrators. Some education authorities have a nominated school in which all excluded students are collected; this typically has a much higher staffing level than mainstream schools. In some US public schools, expulsions are so serious that they require an appearance before the Board of Education or the court system. In the UK, head teachers may make the decision to exclude, but the student's parents have the right of appeal to the local education authority. It was completely banned for compulsory schools in China. This has proved controversial in cases where the head teacher's decision has been overturned (and his or her authority thereby undermined), and there are proposals to abolish the right of appeal. In the United States, when it comes to student discipline, there is a marked difference in procedure between public and private institutions.


title: School discipline

text: With public schools, the school must provide the student with limited constitutional due process protections as public educational institutions operate as an extension of state governments. Conversely, with private schools, the student can be expelled for any reason – provided that the expulsion was not “arbitrary and capricious.” In Virginia, as long as a private school follows the procedures in its student handbook, a court will likely not view its actions as arbitrary and capricious.


title: School discipline

text: In schools, restorative justice is an offshoot of the model used by some courts and law enforcement; it seeks to repair the harm that has been done by acknowledging the impact on the victim, community, and offender, accepting responsibility for the wrongdoing, and repairing the harm that was caused. Restorative practices can “also include preventive measures designed to build skills and capacity in students as well as adults." Some examples of preventative measures in restorative practices might include teachers and students devising classroom expectations together or setting up community building in the classroom. Restorative justice also focuses on justice as needs and obligations, expands justice as conversations between the offender, victim and school, and recognizes accountability as understanding the impact of actions and repairing the harm. Traditional styles of discipline do not always work well for students across every cultural community. As an alternative to the normative approaches of corporal punishment, detention, counseling, suspension, and expulsion, restorative justice was established to give students a voice in their consequences, as well as an opportunity to make a positive contribution to their community.


title: School discipline

text: Restorative justice typically involves peer-mediation or adult-supervised conversations surrounding a perceived offence. Each student has the ability to contribute to the conversation, the person who has misbehaved has the opportunity not only to give their side of the story but also has a say in their consequence. Consequences defy the traditional methods of punitive punishment and instead give students an opportunity for restoration. Restorative justice focuses on relationship building and the community as a whole over the individual student and their offence, creating a sense that everyone has a part in the community and it is everyone's responsibility to uphold the values of the particular community. This is a method that not only increases an understanding of perceived community values, but is also a method thought to work well in cultures and communities where there is a high value on the community, rather than just on the individual.


title: School discipline

text: In 2012, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report entitled "School Discipline and Disparate Impact," which was somewhat critical of the Department of Education's approach to school discipline.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: The fourth season of the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" premiered on October 5, 1999, on The WB and concluded its 22-episode season on May 23, 2000. It maintained its previous timeslot, airing Tuesdays at 8:00 pm ET. Beginning with this season, the character of Angel was given his own series, which aired on The WB following "Buffy". Various "Buffy" characters made appearances in "Angel", including Buffy herself; Cordelia Chase, formerly a regular in "Buffy", and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who appeared in "Buffy" season three.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Season four sees Buffy and Willow enroll at UC Sunnydale while Xander joins the workforce. The vampire Spike, having been left by Drusilla, returns to Sunnydale and is abducted by the Initiative, a top-secret military installation based beneath the UC Sunnydale campus, led by Maggie Walsh. They implant a microchip in his head which prevents him from harming humans. He reluctantly helps the Scooby Gang throughout the season and even begins to fight on their side after joyfully learning that he can harm fellow demons. Buffy and her friends still don't trust him, except Willow who opts to give him a chance to redeem himself, which he eventually does.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Oz leaves town after realizing that he is too dangerous as a werewolf and after an horrific encounter with the Initiative. Willow falls in love with Tara Maclay, another witch, and the two begin a relationship.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Another focus of the season is Xander's relationship with former vengeance demon Anya Jenkins, who becomes infatuated with him due to him making her feel human and Xander returns these feelings as she makes him feel like a man. Anya tries to get Xander off her mind, but feelings develop which they finally acknowledge and begin a relationship.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Buffy begins dating Riley Finn, a grad student who she later discovers is a member of the Initiative. Riley tries to involve Buffy in the organization, initially it seems successful, with Initiative leader Professor Walsh impressed with Buffy's incredible fighting skills, and allowing her a security pass and pager, but Buffy's questions and non-military free spirit worry Walsh who sees it as a threat to her plans and potential bad influence on Riley, threatening his allegiance to the Initiative. After Buffy and Riley's first sexual encounter, seen by Walsh via a hidden camera, Walsh plots to kill Buffy, which fails but causes Riley to cut ties with Walsh and the Initiative.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: The Initiative's more sinister secret purpose is revealed when its composite demonic cyborg, Adam, kills Walsh, then escapes and rampages through the town. After getting Spike to temporarily work for him, Adam plots to create others like him to overthrow humanity, although Adam sees Riley as his "brother".


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Buffy and her allies unite to defeat Adam and destroy the Initiative. The demons and other supernatural creatures fight back against their former captors, while the Scoobies temporarily transfer all their skills into Buffy to fight the physically superior Adam. Magically enhanced, she kills Adam by ripping out his uranium core. The Initiative is defeated and the Scoobies recover. The government recognizes that Prof. Maggie Walsh's plan is a failure, and orders her project to be terminated. The Scoobies later encounter the spirit of The First Slayer, who gives Buffy a cryptic message.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Series creator Joss Whedon served as executive producer and showrunner, and wrote and directed four episodes including the season premiere and finale. Marti Noxon was promoted to supervising producer and wrote or co-wrote five episodes. Jane Espenson was promoted to co-producer and wrote or co-wrote five episodes. David Fury, who as a freelancer had written or co-written three episodes in seasons 2 and 3, was hired as producer and wrote or co-wrote four episodes. Douglas Petrie was promoted to executive story editor and wrote three episodes. The only new addition was Tracey Forbes, who served as a staff writer and wrote three episodes.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: James A. Contner (also co-producer) directed the highest number of episodes in the fourth season, directing six episodes. Joss Whedon and David Grossman each directed four.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Beginning with this season, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and its spin-off "Angel" both aired on The WB Television Network. Both shows aired on Tuesdays, "Buffy" at 8:00 PM ET, and "Angel" at 9:00 PM ET. The fourth season of "Buffy" aired along with the first season of "Angel". Both shows featured crossover episodes, in which characters of one series appeared in the other. Angel (David Boreanaz), Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), who had been introduced in "Buffy", became main characters in the spinoff series.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: The first crossover appeared in the premiere episodes, where Angel calls Buffy but doesn't say anything; on "Buffy", she is seen answering the phone. After the events of "The Harsh Light of Day", Oz (Seth Green) visits Los Angeles in the "Angel" episode "In the Dark" to give Angel the Gem of Amara (a ring that makes vampires unkillable), and Spike (James Marsters) follows him.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: In the "Angel" episode "Bachelor Party", Doyle (Glenn Quinn) has a vision of Buffy in danger. This causes Angel to secretly visit Sunnydale in the episode "Pangs", to protect her. After learning that he was in town, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) visits L.A. in the "Angel" episode "I Will Remember You" to express her displeasure in his not telling her that he was there.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: "Buffy" season three recurring character Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) makes his first appearance on "Angel" in "Parting Gifts" and would become a series regular in the next episode for the remainder of the series.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: After the events of the two-part episode "This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You", Faith (Eliza Dushku) leaves Sunnydale and goes to L.A. in the "Angel" two-part episode "Five by Five" and "Sanctuary" and is hired by Wolfram & Hart to kill Angel. Buffy makes her second and final appearance on "Angel" in "Sanctuary".


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Angel visits Sunnydale again in "The Yoko Factor" to apologize to Buffy after the way he treated her in "Sanctuary". Angel meets Buffy's new boyfriend, Riley Finn (Marc Blucas).


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: The vampire Darla (Julie Benz), who was killed in "Buffy" episode "Angel", is resurrected by Wolfram & Hart in the "Angel" season one finale, "To Shanshu in L.A.", and subsequently becomes a recurring character there.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: The season received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, for Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series for "Beer Bad", Outstanding Cinematography for a Single Camera Series (Michael Gershman) for "Hush", and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (Joss Whedon) for "Hush".


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: The season was nominated for two Television Critics Association Awards, for Outstanding Achievement in Drama and Program of the Year.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: In particular, the episode "Hush" was highly praised when it aired. Robert Bianco from "USA Today" comments, "(i)n a medium in which producers tend to grow bored with their own creations, either trashing them or taking them in increasingly bizarre directions, Whedon continues to find new ways to make his fabulously entertaining series richer and more compelling. With or without words, he's a TV treasure." Alan Sepinwall in "The Star-Ledger" calls it a "magnificently daring episode", explaining "(w)hat makes it particularly brave is that, even when "Buffy" has been failing to click dramatically this year, the show has still been able to get by on the witty dialogue, which is all but absent after the first few scenes. Whedon finds ways to get around that, with several cast members—particularly Anthony Head as the scholarly Giles and Alyson Hannigan as nervous witch Willow—proving to be wonderfully expressive silent comedians." In the "New York Daily News", David Bianculli states that the episode is "a true tour de force, and another inventive triumph for this vastly underrated series." Robert Hanks from "The Independent" in the UK writes that ""Buffy the Vampire Slayer", in most weeks the funniest and cleverest programme on TV, reached new heights" with "Hush". Noel Murray in The A.V. Club calls it an "episode unlike any other, with a lusher score and some of the most genuinely disturbing imagery I’ve yet seen on "Buffy"." The episode was included among 13 of the scariest films or television shows by Salon.com, and justified by Stephanie Zacharek, who states it "scans just like one of those listless dreams in which you try to scream, and can't. Everybody's had 'em—and yet the way the eerie quiet of 'Hush' sucks you in, you feel as if the experience is privately, and unequivocally, your own." Following the series finale in 2003, "Hush" continued to receive praise. Lisa Rosen in the "Los Angeles Times" states that the episode is "one of TV's most terrifying hours". Smashing Magazine counted "Hush" as one of the top ten television episodes that inspire creativity. Keith McDuffee of TV Squad named it the best Buffy episode in the series, writing "(i)f someone who had never seen Buffy (blasphemy!) asked me to show them just one episode of the show to get them hooked, this would be it". TV.com named it as the fourth most frightening episode in television history.


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: Rotten Tomatoes gave season four a score of 67% with an average rating of 7 out of 10 based on 15 reviews. The site's critics consensus states, ""Buffy" enters its fourth season on shaky ground but finishes with a surprisingly satisfying season finale."


title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)

text: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer": The Complete Fourth Season was released on DVD in region 1 on June 10, 2003 and in region 2 on May 13, 2002. The DVD includes all 22 episodes on 6 discs presented in full frame 1.33:1 aspect ratio (region 1) and in anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio (region 2 and 4). Special features on the DVD include seven commentary tracks—"Wild at Heart" by creator Joss Whedon, writer Marti Noxon, and actor Seth Green (region 1 only); "The Initiative" by writer Doug Petrie; "Hush" by writer and director Joss Whedon; "This Year's Girl" by writer Doug Petrie; "Superstar" by writer Jane Espenson; "Primeval" by writer David Fury and director James A. Contner; and "Restless" by writer and director Joss Whedon. Scripts for "Fear, Itself", "Hush", and "Who Are You?" are included. Featurettes include, "Spike Me", which details the character of Spike; "Oz Revelations: A Full Moon", which details the departure of the character with insights by actor Seth Green; "Hush", where cast and crew members discuss the unique episode; ""Buffy": Inside Sets of Sunnydale" showcases all the sets on the show with tours of sets; ""Buffy": Inside the Music", which details the music and bands featured on the show; and "Season 4 Overview", a 30-minute featurette where cast and crew members discuss the season. Also included are cast biographies and photo galleries.


title: Operation (game)

text: Operation is a battery-operated game of physical skill that tests players' eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills. The game's prototype was invented in 1964 by John Spinello, a University of Illinois industrial design student at the time, who sold his rights to the game to renowned toy designer Marvin Glass for a sum of US$500 and the promise of a job upon graduation (a promise that was not upheld). Initially produced by Milton Bradley in 1965, "Operation" is currently made by Hasbro, with an estimated franchise worth of US$40 million.


title: Operation (game)

text: The game is a variant of the old-fashioned electrified wire loop game popular at funfairs. It consists of an "operating table", lithographed with a comic likeness of a patient (nicknamed "Cavity Sam") with a large red lightbulb for his nose. On the surface are several openings, which reveal cavities filled with fictional and humorously named ailments made of plastic. The general gameplay requires players to remove these plastic ailments with a pair of tweezers without touching the edge of the cavity opening.


title: Operation (game)

text: "Operation" includes two sets of cards, "Doctor" and "Specialist." The Specialist cards are dealt out evenly amongst the players at the start of the game, and any extra cards are removed from play. The Doctor cards are shuffled to form a deck and placed face-down.


title: Operation (game)

text: In the US and Australian versions, players take turns drawing the top Doctor card from the deck, offering a cash payment for removing a particular ailment. The player in control uses a pair of tweezers (dubbed "Electro Probe" in earlier versions), connected to the board by a wire, to remove the piece without touching the metal edges of the cavity in which it rests. Successfully doing so awards the value on the card, while a failure gives the player holding the Specialist card for that ailment (if any) a chance to remove it for double value. If the Specialist card holder also fails, or if no player is holding it, the Doctor card is returned to the bottom of the deck. Cards of both types are put out of play as their aliments are removed.


title: Operation (game)

text: If a player draws a particular Doctor card while holding the corresponding Specialist card, he/she may deliberately fail the first attempt in order to have a second chance for double value.


title: Operation (game)

text: The game can be difficult, due to the shapes of the plastic ailments and the fact that the openings are barely larger than the pieces themselves.


title: Operation (game)

text: In 2009, Hasbro released the first major update to Operation called Operation Sound FX. This is the first version of Operation to remove the buzzer and cards in place of a speaker. This meant that the game could call out the ailment needed to be removed by the player by using an audio cue, such as a "twang" sound for the rubber-band and a busy tone for the cell phone. Players have to press Sam's nose every time they successfully remove an ailment, if all the aliments were removed and Sam's nose was pressed on the final called ailment, the game would play a victory song. It also includes a standard game of Operation by sliding the power button to the "lightning bolt" setting.


title: Operation (game)

text: Licensed variations of "Operation", based on popular intellectual properties, also exist, such as multiple versions of a Spider-Man-themed "Operation" where the titular Marvel superhero is the patient the player must treat, as well as a "Fallout" one where the player must treat Vault-Tec's mascot, Vault Boy, in which a "rads" alarm replaces Sam's nose buzzer.


title: Operation (game)

text: In 2020, Hasbro introduced a new variation of the game called "Operation Pet Scan", in which players have to remove objects from a dog's digestive tract.


title: Hassan Al-Haydos

text: Hassan Khalid Hassan Al-Haydos (; born 11 December 1990) is a Qatari professional footballer who plays as a forward for Qatar Stars League club Al Sadd and the Qatar national team.


title: Hassan Al-Haydos

text: Al-Haydos started playing football for Al Sadd at the age of eight, advancing through the ranks until he reached the first team at age seventeen. He had support and guidance early on from Jafal Rashed Al-Kuwari.


title: Hassan Al-Haydos

text: He was one of the players to take a penalty kick in the penalty-shootout against Jeonbuk in the 2011 AFC Champions League, scoring after the ball deflected off the top post. The victory ensured Al Sadd would earn a place in the FIFA Club World Cup as the representative for Asia. In the third-place match between Al Sadd and Kashiwa Reysol, he was again selected to take one of the penalty kicks after the match had ended 0–0. The penalty shoot-out was won by Al Sadd 5–3.


title: Hassan Al-Haydos

text: He was voted as the 'Best Qatari Player' in 2014 in a poll conducted by Doha Stadium, receiving 58 out of 104 votes from a panel of analysts, coaches and administrators.


title: Hassan Al-Haydos

text: Al-Haydos made his debut for the Qatar Olympic team in 2007, coming off the bench to score a late goal against Japan in the 2008 Summer Olympic Qualifiers in order to help his team salvage a 2–1 win. He featured in two other matches in the competition, one against Saudi Arabia, and one against Vietnam, where he scored a goal; both as second-half substitutes. He also played a large part in the 2012 Summer Olympic Qualifiers as the captain, scoring a goal against India in the preliminary stage. He played all the matches in the group stage, scoring a goal against Oman, and scoring against Saudi Arabia after being set up by Saleh Badr to give Qatar a 2–1 win and a glance of hope for qualifying for the Olympics. He won the Man of the Match award.


title: Hassan Al-Haydos

text: Al-Haydos made his debut for the senior Qatar national football team in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Bahrain on 10 September 2008. He has since made 146 appearances and scored 32 goals for the national side, making him the most capped Qatari footballer ever and the joint-fourth highest goalscorer alongside Mohammed Salem Al-Enazi.


title: Thittam Irandu

text: Thittam Irandu () is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language crime thriller film written and directed by Vignesh Karthick. It is loosely based on a Thai film Slice(2009). It is produced by Dinesh Kannan's Sixer Entertainment and Vinod Kumar's Mini Studios. The film stars Aishwarya Rajesh while Pavel Navageethan, Subhash Selvam, Gokul Anand, Ananya Ramprasad, Murali Radhakrishnan, and Subash Selvam appear in pivotal roles. The film was released on 30 July 2021 on the streaming platform SonyLIV.


title: Thittam Irandu

text: Athira, a cop in Chennai, meets Arjun, an aspiring actor, during a bus travel. They both start a relationship and decide to marry each other after a while. One day, Athira is called to investigate her best friend Deepa Surya's missing case. Surya was married to Kishore, a doctor. Initial investigations point that Surya and her car went missing from her house. Soon enough, Athira finds the burnt-down car and a burnt female skeleton inside it. The autopsy reports show that the skeleton belongs to Surya and the case is believed to be a freak accident. However, Athira has strong suspicions of it being a murder. She finds fingerprints on the burnt car, belonging to one Barani, who is also a suspect in another very similar murder case. Barani is nabbed, and he confesses that both Surya and the other murdered woman were his ex-girlfriends who ruined his life, so he wanted to exact revenge. While accepting that he succeeded in murdering the other woman, Barani also says the attempt to murder Surya was foiled because of a stranger he saw inside her house that day. It is shown that Barani had left his fingerprints accidentally on Surya's car during the scuffle with the stranger, who chased him out of the house.


title: Thittam Irandu

text: While Athira and Arjun's wedding arrangements are being planned, Athira is always preoccupied with Surya's case. Further evidences lead Athira to reexamine Surya's corpse. The case takes a bizarre turn when, this time around, the pathologist reports that the victim is not Surya, the entire accident has been staged, and the previous reports were fake. Athira's suspicion now strongly falls on Kishore. When questioned, Kishore says that Surya was forcefully married to him by her parents but she was in love with someone else. Thinking about both of their future and happiness, Kishore sends Surya off to be with her boyfriend. To avoid suspicions from her parents and friends, he staged Surya's death with the help of his friends and faked the autopsy reports using his influence as a doctor. He shows Athira a video proof of Surya living happily with her boyfriend but refuses to disclose their location for safety sake.


title: Thittam Irandu

text: To confirm this story, Athira shows the video of Surya and her boyfriend to Barani. But shockingly enough, Barani says that this is not the man he saw in Surya's house, which leads to further confusions as to who the mystery man was. It is then revealed that the mystery man at Surya's house was Arjun. Unaware of this, Athira is still on the lookout, when she gets a text message from Surya asking to meet her in person. Athira goes in search of Surya and Arjun also tags along. When she reaches the location, Surya is nowhere to be seen, and Athira searches the place. She is taken by surprise when Kishore and mutual friends of Athira and Surya confront her suddenly. Coincidentally, Barani finds YouTube videos of Arjun from his acting days and informs Athira that this was the man he saw. Athira is mortified and wonders what is going on, when Arjun reveals a shocking truth, that he is none other than Surya herself. Kishore then explains that Surya was always a transgender man from childhood. He was attracted to women and was interested in becoming a man, but was forced to cover his identity and was forcefully married off. After their wedding, Surya bursts out to Kishore about this problem and tells that he was always in love with Athira, his only friend. He even warded off Barani's proposal because he had considered him only as a friend, but Barani mistook his friendship for love due to Surya's gender identity. Surya expresses his wish to live as a man. Kishore becomes an understanding friend and helps him deal with the situation and supports in his transformation as a man. Surya undergoes the necessary procedures and successfully transforms into Arjun, a man. And this was the real reason why Kishore and his friends had staged the accident as a cover up. Arjun comes clean to Athira and asks her to accept his love for her, as a man. Athira is overwhelmed at the sudden turn of events and miserably leaves without an answer. Despite his attempts to convince her, she cuts off all contacts with Arjun for a while and tries to process this mammoth revelation. One year later, she meets with Arjun with an answer to his proposal, but the viewers are left hanging as to what her decision would have been.


title: Thittam Irandu

text: Naveen Darshan of "Cinema Express" rated the film 3/5 and called "Thittam Irandu" "a solid social drama, well-made thriller weighed down by needless red herrings." Saibal Chatterjee of the NDTV lauded the Aishwarya's performance, writing that her "unwaveringly focused lead performance [..] ensures that the film's rough edges are smoothened out to a certain extent." "Deccan Herald" reviewer Roktim Rajpal stated that the film lacked a thrilling element that would've kept the narrative engaging. Rajpal, however, appreciated the film's climax, along with the performances and technical aspects.


title: Thittam Irandu

text: Sowmya Rajendran writing for "The News Minute", awarded the film 2 stars out of 5, and opined that it is "a classic case of good intentions gone horribly wrong." "Firstpost" critic Ranjani Krishnakumar who rated the film 1.5 out of 5 criticised the makers about being insensitive to spreading misinformation. "The only thing going for the film is that it holds up the suspense until the final reveal," she added. Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote "What bothered me most about Thittam Irandu is that nobody seems to even be trying. Everything, including how the plot strands unfold, is very functional and generic. If someone wants to say something, they say just that very thing without trying to sound interesting or dramatic. There's no attempt to make the scenes lively or interesting, and there’s a lot of audience-cheating."


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Niki de Saint Phalle (; born Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle; 29 October 193021 May 2002) was a French-American sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and author of colorful hand-illustrated books. Widely noted as one of the few female monumental sculptors, Saint Phalle was also known for her social commitment and work.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: She had a difficult and traumatic childhood and a much-disrupted education, which she wrote about many decades later. After an early marriage and two children, she began creating art in a naïve, experimental style. She first received worldwide attention for angry, violent assemblages which had been shot by firearms. These evolved into "Nanas", light-hearted, whimsical, colorful, large-scale sculptures of animals, monsters, and female figures. Her most comprehensive work was the "Tarot Garden", a large sculpture garden containing numerous works ranging up to house-sized creations.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Saint Phalle's idiosyncratic style has been called "outsider art"; she had no formal training in art, but associated freely with many other contemporary artists, writers, and composers. Her books and abundant correspondence were written and brightly-colored in a childish style, but throughout her lifetime she addressed many controversial and important global problems in the bold way which children often question and call out unacceptable neglect.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Throughout her creative career, she collaborated with other well-known artists such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, composer John Cage, and architect Mario Botta, as well as dozens of less-known artists and craftspersons. For several decades, she worked especially closely with Swiss kinetic artist Jean Tinguely, who also became her second husband. In her later years, she suffered from multiple chronic health problems attributed to repeated exposure to airborne glass fibers and petrochemical fumes from the experimental materials she had used in her pioneering artworks, but she continued to create prolifically until the end of her life.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: A critic has observed that Saint Phalle's "insistence on exuberance, emotion and sensuality, her pursuit of the figurative and her bold use of color have not endeared her to everyone in a minimalist age". She was well known in Europe, but her work was little-seen in the US, until her final years in San Diego. Another critic said: "The French-born, American-raised artist is one of the most significant female and feminist artists of the 20th century, and one of the few to receive recognition in the male-dominated art world during her lifetime".


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle was born on October 29, 1930, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris. Her father was Count André-Marie de Saint Phalle (1906–1967), a French banker, and her mother was an American, named Jeanne Jacqueline Harper (1908–1980). Marie-Agnès was the second of five children, and her cousins included the French novelist Thérèse de Saint Phalle (Baroness Jehan de Drouas), her double cousin, daughter of Count Alexandre de Saint Phalle (brother of Count André-Marie) and his wife Helene Georgia Harper (sister of Jeanne Jacqueline). Another cousin was the American-born investment banker, lawyer, and former Office of Strategic Services agent Thibaut de Saint Phalle, who served in the Carter administration as a director of the Export–Import Bank of the United States (1977-1981).


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Marie-Agnès was born one year after Black Tuesday, and the French economy was also suffering in the aftermath of the infamous stock market crash that initiated the Great Depression. Within months of her birth, her father's finance company closed, and her parents moved with her oldest brother to the suburbs of New York City; she was left with her maternal grandparents in Nièvre, near the geographical center of France. Around 1933, she rejoined her parents in Greenwich, Connecticut; her father had found work as manager of the American branch of the Saint Phalle family's bank. In 1937, the family moved to East 88th Street and Park Avenue in the affluent Upper East Side neighborhood of New York City. By this time, Marie-Agnès was known as "Niki", the name she would use from then on.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Niki grew up in a strict Catholic environment, against which she repeatedly rebelled. Her mother was temperamental and violent, beating the younger children, and forcing them to eat even if they were not hungry. Both of her younger siblings, Elizabeth and Richard de Saint Phalle, would later commit suicide as adults. The atmosphere at home was tense; the only place where Niki felt comfortable and warm was in the kitchen, overseen by a black cook. Decades later, Niki would reveal that she had suffered years of sexual abuse from her father, starting at the age of 11. She would later refer to the environment where she grew up as "enfer" ("hell").


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: She spent most of her childhood and adolescence in New York City, and summers in Connecticut or Long Island. She frequently returned to France to visit relatives, becoming fluent in both French and American English. In 1937, she attended school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart on East 91st Street in Manhattan. After she was expelled in 1941, she rejoined her maternal grandparents, who had moved to Princeton, New Jersey, and she briefly attended the public school there.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: She returned to the Upper East Side and studied there at the Brearley School from 1942 to 1944. There, she met Jackie Matisse, granddaughter of artist Henri Matisse; they would become lifelong friends. However, Saint Phalle was dismissed for painting in red the fig leaves on the school's classical statuary. Despite this, she would later say it was there “[that] I became a feminist. They inculcated in us that women can and must accomplish great things.” She was then enrolled in a convent school in Suffern, New York, but was expelled. She finally graduated from the Oldfields School in Glencoe, Maryland in 1947.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: During her late teenage years, Saint Phalle became a fashion model; at the age of 18, she appeared on the cover of "Life" (26 September 1949) and, three years later, on the November 1952 cover of "French Vogue". She also appeared in the pages of "Elle" and "Harper's Bazaar".


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: "At one point, Gloria Steinem spotted Saint Phalle walking down Fifty-seventh Street, purseless and in a cowboy getup. In an interview quoted by the show’s curator, Ruba Katrib, in the catalogue, Steinem recalled thinking, 'That is the first free woman I have ever seen in real life. I want to be just like her.'"


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: At the age of 18, Saint Phalle married Harry Mathews, whom she had first met at the age of 11 (he was 12) through her father. Six years later, they again encountered each other by chance on a train to Princeton, and soon became a couple. Initially, they had a civil ceremony on 6 June 1949 in New York City Hall. At the urging of Niki's mother, they also had a religious rite at the French Church of New York the following February.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Although her parents accepted the union, her husband's family objected to her Catholic background and cut them off financially, causing them to resort to occasional shoplifting. They moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts so Mathews could study music at Harvard University. Saint Phalle began to paint in oils and gouaches but aimed to pursue a career in acting. Their first child, Laura, was born in April 1951. In 1952, the small family moved to Paris, where Harry continued his studies in conducting at I’Ecole Normale de Musique. The new parents were casual, even negligent in their care, but their children would benefit from better financial circumstances after Mathews received an inheritance.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Saint Phalle rejected the staid, conservative values of her family, which dictated domestic positions for wives and particular strict rules of conduct. Poet John Ashbery recalled that Saint Phalle's artistic pursuits were rejected in turn by relatives: her uncle "French banker Count Alexandre de Saint-Phalle, ... reportedly takes a dim view of her artistic activities", Ashbery observed. However, after marrying young and becoming a mother, she found herself living the same bourgeois lifestyle that she had attempted to escape.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: For about a decade, the family would wander around France and Europe, living a bohemian lifestyle. In Nice, Saint Phalle and Mathews would have separate affairs in 1953; after she attacked her husband's mistress, she took an overdose of sleeping pills, but they had little effect because she was manic at the time. When Harry discovered a stash of knives, razors, and scissors under a mattress, he took his wife to a mental clinic in Nice, where she was treated with electroshock therapy and insulin shock therapy. Liberated from routine household work, she focused on creating artwork instead and improved enough to be discharged in six weeks. Around the same time, her husband abandoned his music studies and started to write his first novel, eventually switching to a career in writing.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: While in Paris on a modeling assignment in 1954, Saint Phalle was introduced to the American-French painter , who became both her friend and artistic mentor. He encouraged her to continue painting in her self-taught style.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In September 1954, the small family moved to Deià, Majorca, Spain, where her son Philip was born in May 1955. While in Spain, Saint Phalle read the works of Proust and visited Madrid and Barcelona, where she became deeply affected by the work of architect Antoni Gaudí. Gaudí's influence opened many previously unimagined possibilities for Saint Phalle, especially the use of unusual materials and "objets-trouvés" as structural elements in sculpture and architecture. Saint Phalle was particularly struck by Gaudí's "Park Güell" which would inspire her to one day create her own garden-based artwork that would combine artistic and natural elements.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Saint Phalle continued to paint, particularly after she and her family moved to Paris in the mid-1950s. Her first art exhibition was held in 1956 in Switzerland, where she displayed her naïve style of oil painting.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In 1956, she met the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely and his wife, artist Eva Aeppli. Saint Phalle attempted her first large-scale sculpture, enlisting Tinguely to make an iron armature, which she covered with plaster and paint.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In the late 1950s, Saint Phalle became ill with hyperthyroidism and tachycardia, which were eventually treated by an operation in 1958.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In 1959, Saint Phalle first encountered multiple artworks by Yves Klein, Marcel Duchamp, Daniel Spoerri, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns. Seeing these avant-garde works triggered her "first great artistic crisis". She switched from oil painting to gouaches and gloss paint, and began to produce assemblages from household objects and castoffs. By this time, she had decided to dedicate herself fully to creating art, free from the obligations of everyday family life.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In 1960, she and Harry separated by mutual agreement, and her husband moved to another apartment with their two children. At that time, her daughter Laura was nine, and her son Philip was five years old. Mathews would occasionally buy artworks from his wife as a way of providing her modest support, and she would visit him and the children periodically.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: She soon moved in with Jean Tinguely, who by then had separated from his own wife, Eva Aeppli. He was becoming well known for his kinetic sculptures made from cast-off mechanisms and junk. In many ways, the pair were opposites, and sometimes had violent disagreements, and frequent affairs with others. They would live together intermittently and collaborate closely on artistic projects for over a decade before marrying in 1971. Two years later they separated, but remained on good terms and continued to collaborate on various projects up through Tinguely's death in 1991.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In 1960, Tinguely introduced her to Pontus Hultén, then the director of the Moderna Museet (Modern Museum) in Stockholm, Sweden. Over the next few years, he would invite her to participate in important exhibitions, and acquire her artworks for the museum. He would later become the first director of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1974–1981), where he continued to be influential in promoting wider recognition of Saint Phalle's artwork.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Saint Phalle created a series of works in the early 1960s she called "Tirs" ("Shootings" or "Shots"). The series began as "target pictures", with painted bullseye targets prominently displayed within her painted collages, such as "Saint Sébastien (Portrait of My Lover / Portrait of My Beloved / Martyr nécessaire)" (1961), or "Assemblage (Figure with Dartboard Head)" (1962). She would invite viewers to throw darts at the dartboards embedded as faces in her figurative assemblages, which were influenced by the targets painted by her friend Jasper Johns.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Soon, she would start by embedding knives, razor blades, scissors, eggbeaters, baby-doll arms, and other household items in plaster covering a large board, along with bags filled with colorful paints, cans of spray paint, and sometimes tomato. Also, she might suspend bags of paint or cans of spray paint in front of the white-painted assemblage. She would then repeatedly shoot the assemblage with a pistol, rifle, or miniature cannon, causing the liquids to "bleed" or to spray out.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Her first staged public shooting event was in February 1961, attended by Jean Tinguely, Daniel Spoerri, and Pierre Restany, among others. Her early art performance/events took place in the "Impasse Ronsin", a trash-strewn back alley in the Montparnasse district of Paris. It was the site of the improvised studios of Constantin Brâncuși, Jean Tinguely, Yves Klein, Max Ernst, Les Lalanne, and other experimental artists in the 1950s and 1960s.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: As founder of the "Nouveau réalisme" ("New Realist") movement, Restany asked Saint Phalle to join this group of French artists upon seeing her performance; she would become the only female member of this group.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: The extreme expressions of violence attracted media attention, catapulting Saint Phalle into the ranks of avant-garde artistic rebellion. The "Tirs" combined performance, body art, sculpture, and painting, in the artistic ferment of the 1960s. Saint Phalle began to present variations on this process in art museums and galleries, and recruited other artists to join in staged public "happenings", where some of her colleagues would also pull the trigger. At American performances, she would meet many other emerging artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Frank Stella, and Ed Kienholz. She also organized indoors events at art galleries, where she would invite visitors to shoot at her assemblages.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: Saint Phalle participated in Spoerri's "Edition MAT" ("Multiplication d’Art Transformable") program of multiple artwork editions, supplying simpler versions of her "Tirs" works, with detailed instructions on how to shoot them with a .22 rifle. Saint Phalle carefully documented her artistic process in the "Tirs" with writing, still photos, and films. She would attach common readymade artifacts to a board, attach bags of colorful paint, whitewash everything, and then dip the assemblage into milk-white plaster. Once it had dried, the collection was ready for shooting by a purchaser.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In June 1961, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely joined Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg in a concert-happening called "Variations II", orchestrated by avant-garde American composer John Cage, and held at the American Embassy in Paris. While David Tudor played Cage compositions on the piano, the artists created their works of art on stage as the audience watched the proceedings.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In August 1961, Marcel Duchamp introduced Saint Phalle and Tinguely to Salvador Dalí, who invited them to create a life-sized exploding bull with fireworks ("Toro de Fuego"). This "Homenage a Dalí" ("Homage to Dalí") was wheeled out after the end of a traditional Spanish bullfight, in Figueras, Catalonia, Spain, and exploded in front of the audience.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In 1962, she had her first one-woman show in New York City, at the gallery run by Alexander Iolas. It included "Homage to Le Facteur Cheval", a shooting gallery where visitors could fire on one of her "Tirs" installations. This began her long working relationship with the gallerist, eventually comprising at least 17 exhibitions of her work.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: An exclusive 1962 open-air shooting event in the Malibu Hills above Los Angeles was attended by Hollywood celebrities, including Jane Fonda and John Houseman. Attendees from the art world included John Cage, Ed Ruscha, and Leo Castelli, while Ed Kienholz helped to manage the firearms.


title: Niki de Saint Phalle

text: In most of these public performances, Saint Phalle was impeccably dressed in a fashionable white pantsuit.