title: Case-hardening

text: This process produces a thin, hard shell (between 0.25 and 0.75 mm, 0.01 and 0.03 inches) that is harder than the one produced by carburizing, and can be completed in 20 to 30 minutes compared to several hours so the parts have less opportunity to become distorted. It is typically used on small parts such as bolts, nuts, screws and small gears. The major drawback of cyaniding is that cyanide salts are poisonous.


title: Case-hardening

text: Carbonitriding is similar to cyaniding except a gaseous atmosphere of ammonia and hydrocarbons is used instead of sodium cyanide. If the part is to be quenched, it is heated to ; if not, then the part is heated to .


title: Case-hardening

text: Ferritic nitrocarburizing diffuses mostly nitrogen and some carbon into the case of a workpiece below the critical temperature, approximately . Under the critical temperature the workpiece's microstructure does not convert to an austenitic phase, but stays in the ferritic phase, which is why it is called "ferritic" nitrocarburization.


title: Case-hardening

text: Parts that are subject to high pressures and sharp impacts are still commonly case-hardened. Examples include firing pins and rifle bolt faces, or engine camshafts. In these cases, the surfaces requiring the hardness may be hardened selectively, leaving the bulk of the part in its original tough state.


title: Case-hardening

text: Firearms were a common item case-hardened in the past, as they required precision machining best done on low carbon alloys, yet needed the hardness and wear resistance of a higher carbon alloy. Many modern replicas of older firearms, particularly single action revolvers, are still made with case-hardened frames, or with "case coloring", which simulates the mottled pattern left by traditional charcoal and bone case-hardening.


title: Case-hardening

text: Another common application of case-hardening is on screws, particularly self-drilling screws. In order for the screws to be able to drill, cut and tap into other materials like steel, the drill point and the forming threads must be harder than the material(s) that it is drilling into. However, if the whole screw is uniformly hard, it will become very brittle and it will break easily. This is overcome by ensuring that only the surface is hardened, and the core remains relatively softer and thus less brittle. For screws and fasteners, case-hardening is achieved by a simple heat treatment consisting of heating and then quenching.


title: Case-hardening

text: For theft prevention, lock shackles and chains are often case-hardened to resist cutting, whilst remaining less brittle inside to resist impact. As case-hardened components are difficult to machine, they are generally shaped before hardening.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: The Sputnik crisis was a period of public fear and anxiety in Western nations about the perceived technological gap between the United States and Soviet Union caused by the Soviets' launch of "Sputnik 1", the world's first artificial satellite. The crisis was a significant event in the Cold War that triggered the creation of NASA and the Space Race between the two superpowers. The satellite was launched on October 4, 1957, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This created a crisis reaction in national newspapers such as "The New York Times", which mentioned the satellite in 279 articles between October 6, 1957, and October 31, 1957 (more than 11 articles per day).


title: Sputnik crisis

text: In the early 1950s, Lockheed U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union provided intelligence that the US held the advantage in nuclear capability. However, an education gap was identified when studies conducted between 1955 and 1961 reported that the Soviet Union was training two to three times as many scientists per year as the US. The launch and orbit of "Sputnik 1" suggested that the Soviet Union had made a substantial leap forward in technology, which was interpreted as a serious threat to US national security, which spurred the US to make considerable federal investments in research and development, education, and national security. The Juno I rocket that carried the first US satellite Explorer 1 had been ready to launch in 1956, but the fact was classified and unknown to the public. The Army's PGM-19 Jupiter from which Juno was derived had been shelved on the orders of Defense Secretary Charles Erwin Wilson amid interservice rivalry with the US Air Force's PGM-17 Thor.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: The Soviets used ICBM technology to launch Sputnik into space, which gave them two propaganda advantages over the US at once: the capability to send the satellite into orbit and proof of the distance capabilities of their missiles. That proved that the Soviets had rockets capable of sending nuclear weapons to Western Europe and even North America. That was the most immediate threat that "Sputnik 1" posed. The United States, a land with a history of geographical security from European wars because of its distance, suddenly seemed vulnerable.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: A contributing factor to the Sputnik crisis was that the Soviets had not released a photograph of the satellite for five days after the launch. Until then, its appearance remained a mystery to Americans. Another factor was its weight of , compared to US plans to launch a satellite of . The Soviet claim seemed outrageous to many American officials, who doubted its accuracy. US rockets then produced of thrust, and US officials presumed that the Soviet rocket that launched Sputnik into space must have produced of thrust. In fact, the R-7 rocket that launched "Sputnik 1" into space produced almost of thrust. All of those factors contributed to the Americans' perception that they were greatly behind the Soviets in the development of space technologies.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Hours after the launch, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Astronomy Department rigged an "ad hoc" interferometer to measure signals from the satellite. Donald B. Gillies and Jim Snyder programmed the ILLIAC I computer to calculate the satellite orbit from this data. The programming and calculation was completed in less than two days. The rapid publication of the ephemeris (orbit) in the journal "Nature" within a month of the satellite launch helped to dispel some of the fears created by the Sputnik launch. However, Sputnik was not part of an organized effort to dominate space according to a Soviet space scientist.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: The successful launch of "Sputnik 1" and then the subsequent failure of the first two Project Vanguard launch attempts greatly accentuated the US perception of a threat from the Soviet Union that had persisted since the Cold War had begun after World War II. The same rocket that launched Sputnik could send a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes, which would strip the Continental United States of its oceanic defenses. The Soviets had demonstrated that capability on 21 August by a test flight of the R-7 booster. The event was announced by TASS five days later and was widely reported in other media.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Five days after the launch of "Sputnik 1", the world's first artificial satellite, US President Dwight Eisenhower addressed the American people. After being asked by a reporter on security concerns about the Soviet satellite, Eisenhower said, "Now, so far as the satellite itself is concerned, that does not raise my apprehensions, not one iota."


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Eisenhower made the argument that Sputnik was only a scientific achievement and not a military threat or change in world power. He believed that Sputnik's weight "was not commensurate with anything of great military significance, and that was also a factor in putting it in [proper] perspective".


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Eisenhower followed this statement by saying that the United States needed to meet these challenges with "resourcefulness and vigor". The president also noted the importance of education for the Russians in their recent scientific and technological progress, and for America's response to the Russians. He remarked, "we need scientists in the ten years ahead...scrutinize your school's curriculum and standards. Then decide for yourselves whether they meet the stern demands of the era we are entering." His ability to project confidence about the situation was limited because his confidence was based on clandestine reconnaissance, so he failed to quell the fears that there was a shift in power between the Americans and Soviets. The launch of "Sputnik 1" also impacted Eisenhower's ratings in his polls, but he eventually recovered.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: The media stirred a moral panic by writing sensational pieces on the event. In the first and second days following the event, "The New York Times" wrote that the launch of "Sputnik 1" was a major global propaganda and prestige triumph for Russian communism. Further, Fred Hechinger, a noted American journalist and education editor, reported, “hardly a week passed without several television programs examining education". It was after the people of the United States were exposed to a multitude of news reports that it became a "nation in shock". The media not only reported public concern but also created the hysteria. Journalists greatly exaggerated the danger of the Soviet satellite for their own benefit. On October 9, 1957, the notable science fiction writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke said that the day that Sputnik orbited around the Earth, the US became a second-rate power.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Politicians used the event to bolster their ratings in polls. Research and development was used as a propaganda tool, and Congress spent large sums of money on the perceived problem of US technological deficiency. After the launch of "Sputnik 1" national security advisers overestimated the Soviets' current and potential rocket strength, which alarmed portions of Congress and the executive branch. When these estimations were released, Eisenhower was forced into an accelerated missile race to appease those concerned with America's safety. Sputnik provoked Congress into taking action on improving the US standing in the fields of science.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, reflected on the event by saying, "It always sounded good to say in public speeches that we could hit a fly at any distance with our missiles. Despite the wide radius of destruction caused by our nuclear warheads, pinpoint accuracy was still necessary – and it was difficult to achieve." At the time, Khrushchev stated that "our potential enemies cringe in fright". The political analyst Samuel Lubell conducted research on public opinion about Sputnik and found "no evidence at all of any panic or hysteria in the public's reaction", which confirmed that it was an elite, not a popular, panic.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: The launch spurred a series of US initiatives ranging from defense to education. Increased emphasis was placed on the US Navy's Project Vanguard to launch an American satellite into orbit. There was a renewed interest in the existing Explorer program, which launched the first American satellite into orbit on January 31, 1958. In February 1958, Eisenhower authorized formation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was later renamed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), within the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop emerging technologies for the US military. On July 29, 1958, he signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, the creation of NASA.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Less than a year after the Sputnik launch, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). It was a four-year program that poured billions of dollars into the US education system. In 1953, the government spent $153 million, and colleges took $10 million of that funding, but by 1960, the combined funding grew almost six-fold because of the NDEA. After the initial public shock, the Space Race began, which led to the first human launched into space, Project Apollo, and the first humans to land on the Moon in 1969.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Campaigning in 1960 on closing the "missile gap", Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy, promised to deploy 1,000 Minuteman missiles. That was many more ICBMs than the Soviets had at the time. Though Kennedy did not favor a massive US manned space program when he was in the US Senate during Eisenhower's term, public reaction to the Soviet's launch of the first human into orbit, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961, led Kennedy to raise the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing men on the Moon. Kennedy claimed, "If the Soviets control space they can control the earth, as in past centuries the nation that controlled the seas dominated the continents." Eisenhower disagreed with Kennedy's goal and referred to it as a "stunt". Kennedy had privately acknowledged that the space race was a waste of money, but he knew there were benefits from a frightened electorate. The Space Race was less about its intrinsic importance and more about prestige and calming the public.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: The Sputnik crisis sparked the American drive to retake the lead in space exploration from the Soviets, and it fueled its drive to land men on the Moon. American officials had a variety of opinions at the time, some registering alarm and others dismissing the satellite. Gerald Ford, a Republican US representative from Michigan, had stated, "We Middle Westerners are sometimes called isolationists. I don't agree with the label; but there can be no isolationists anywhere when a thermonuclear warhead can flash down from space at hypersonic speed to reach any spot on Earth minutes after its launching." Former US Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett, chief of naval operations, stated that Sputnik was a "hunk of iron almost anybody could launch".


title: Sputnik crisis

text: The Sputnik crisis also spurred substantial transformation in the US science policy, which provided much of the basis for modern academic scientific research. By the mid-1960s, NASA was providing almost 10% of the federal funds for academic research.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: Further expansion was made in the funding and research of space weapons and missile defense in the form of anti-ballistic missile proposals. Education programs were initiated to foster a new generation of engineers and support was dramatically increased for scientific research. Congress increased the National Science Foundation (NSF) appropriation for 1959 to $134 million, almost $100 million higher than the year before. By 1968, the NSF budget stood at nearly $500 million.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: According to Marie Thorsten, Americans experienced a "techno-other void" after the Sputnik crisis and still express longing for "another Sputnik" to boost education and innovation. In the 1980s, the rise of Japan (both its car industry and its 5th generation computing project) served to fan the fears of a "technology gap" with Japan. After the Sputnik crisis, leaders exploited an "awe doctrine" to organize learning "around a single model of educational national security, with math and science serving for supremacy in science and engineering, foreign languages and cultures for potential espionage, and history and humanities for national self-definition". US leaders were not able to exploit the image of Japan as effectively, despite its representations of super-smart students and a strong economy.


title: Sputnik crisis

text: In Britain, the launch of the first Sputnik provoked surprise, combined with elation at experiencing the dawn of the Space Age. It was also a reminder of the decline in the British Empire's world influence. The crisis soon became part of the broader Cold War narrative.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: The 59th Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 30, 1987, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 23 categories honoring films released in 1986. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and directed by Marty Pasetta. Actors Chevy Chase, Paul Hogan, and Goldie Hawn co-hosted the show. Hawn hosted the gala for the second time, having previously been a co-host of the 48th ceremony held in 1976. Meanwhile, this was Chase and Hogan's first Oscars hosting stint. Eight days earlier, in a ceremony held at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on March 22, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Catherine Hicks.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: "Platoon" won four awards, including Best Picture. Other winners included "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "A Room with a View" with three awards, "Aliens" with two, and "", "The Assault", "Children of a Lesser God", "The Color of Money", "Down and Out in America", "The Fly", "A Greek Tragedy", "The Mission", "Precious Images", "Round Midnight", "Top Gun", and "Women – for America, for the World" with one.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: The nominees for the 59th Academy Awards were announced on February 11, 1987, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Robert Wise, president of the Academy, actor Don Ameche, and actress Anjelica Huston. "Platoon" and "A Room with a View" led all nominees with eight each.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 30, 1987. Marlee Matlin was the first deaf performer to win an Oscar and the youngest winner in the Best Actress category. Best Actor winner Paul Newman was the fourth actor to have been nominated for portraying the same character in two different films, having previously earned a nomination for his role as "Fast Eddie" Felson in 1961's "The Hustler". By virtue of his victory in the Best Actor category, Newman and wife Joanne Woodward, who won Best Actress for her performance in 1957's "The Three Faces of Eve", became the second married couple to win acting Oscars. "" and "Down and Out in America"s joint win in the Best Documentary Feature category marked the fourth occurrence of a tie in Oscar history.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: Determined to revive interest surrounding the awards and reverse declining ratings, the Academy hired Samuel Goldwyn Jr. in November 1986 to produce the telecast for the first time. The following March, Goldwyn announced that comedian Chevy Chase, actress and Academy Award winner Goldie Hawn, and actor and Best Original Screenplay nominee Paul Hogan would share co-hosting duties for the 1987 ceremony. Actor Robin Williams was initially named a co-host, but he was forced to withdraw from emceeing duties due to his commitment toward his role in the upcoming film "Good Morning, Vietnam".


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: One of the biggest priorities for Goldwyn was to shorten the length of the show to at least three hours or less. In view of his goal, he told reporters regarding winner's acceptance speeches, "We are actually going to give them 45 seconds. The light (next to the camera) will start blinking at 45 seconds and go red at 55 seconds. After one minute we will either cut to a commercial or go to something else. We've also asked multiple winners to flip a coin and pick a spokesman." Furthermore, instead of each Best Original Song nominee being performed separately, all five songs were performed as part of a musical number featuring actress Bernadette Peters singing brief introductions to each one. Although Goldwyn attempted to move the Documentary and Short Film Categories to a separate ceremony from the broadcast, the AMPAS Board of Governors refused to do so.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: Several other people were involved with the production of the ceremony. Oscar-winning costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge was hired as fashion consultant for the awards ceremony and supervised a "fashion show" segment showcasing the five nominees for Best Costume Design. Lionel Newman served as musical director and conductor for the ceremony. Actors Dom DeLuise, Pat Morita, and Telly Savalas performed the song "Fugue for Tinhorns" from the musical "Guys and Dolls" at the start of the ceremony.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: At the time of the nominations announcement on February 11, the combined gross of the five Best Picture nominees at the US box office was $119 million with an average of $23.9 million. "Platoon" was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $39.3 million in the domestic box office receipts. The film was followed by "Hannah and Her Sisters" ($35.4 million), "Children of a Lesser God" ($22.1 million), "A Room with a View" ($11.5 million), and "The Mission" ($11.1 million).


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: Of the 50 grossing movies of the year, 55 nominations went to 18 films on the list. Only "Crocodile Dundee" (2nd), "Aliens" (6th), "The Color of Money" (11th), "Stand By Me" (12th), "Peggy Sue Got Married" (18th), "Platoon" (23rd), "Hannah and Her Sisters" (29th), "The Morning After" (38th), "The Color of Money" (40th), and "Crimes of the Heart" (43rd) were nominated for Best Picture, directing, acting, or screenplay. The other top 50 box office hits that earned nominations were "Top Gun" (1st), "The Karate Kid Part II" (3rd), "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (4th), "An American Tail" (5th), "Heartbreak Ridge" (17th), "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" (19th), "The Fly" (22nd), and "Little Shop of Horrors" (30th).


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: The show received a mixed reception from media publications. Some media outlets were more critical of the show. Columnist Jerry Roberts of the "Daily Breeze" remarked "The whole mess was like some kind of geek show from a carnival row that had incestuously multiplied itself into a gargantuan sequin-lined ego battle royal accompanied by a firestorm of ballyhooing." Despite Chase and Hawn's best efforts to liven up the broadcast, he commented, "The lumbering procedure completely defeated them." Television critic Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" wrote, "As usual, the Academy Awards show was marked by missed cues, noisy moving scenery, plunging necklines, inane scripted chatter and, as has often happened in recent years, few galvanizing or gratifying surprises." He also quipped that the segment showcasing the Best Costume Design nominees slowed down the ceremony's pace. "The Philadelphia Inquirer"s film critic Carrie Rickey observed, "As pace goes, the Academy Awards show was like watching a race between slugs and snails." She later wrote, "Oscarsclerosis is the show's most critical condition, the result of a telecast larded, once again, with too many Vegas-style production numbers."


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: Other media outlets received the broadcast more positively. Film critic John Hartl of "The Seattle Times" noted that the ceremony "was well-paced and filled with comics and comic film clips." He also complimented producer Goldwyn for hiring comics including host Chase and presenters such as Rodney Dangerfield for helping "to keep the show light and funny." "The New York Times" columnist Janet Maslin wrote, "This was the trimmest, most varied and best-paced program in years." She also commented that without the witty banter of hosts Hogan and Chase, "The show would have seemed notably lacking in luster." Television editor Michael Burkett of the "Orange County Register" commented, "Monday night's 59th installment was very nearly everything you could have wished it to be: quite entertaining, relatively fast-moving, unusually short on tastelessness and tackiness drenched in nostalgia, and featuring enough superbly chosen film clips for a monster round of Visual Trivial Pursuit.


title: 59th Academy Awards

text: The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 37.19 million people over its length, which was a 2% decrease from the previous year's ceremony. However, the show drew higher Nielsen ratings compared to the previous ceremony with 27.5% of households watching over a 43 share. Many media outlets pointed out that the broadcast earned higher ratings compared to the final game of the 1987 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament which was airing on CBS that same night.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: Tenacious D is the debut studio album by American comedy rock band Tenacious D, released on September 25, 2001 by Epic Records. The album's polished production was a departure from the band's acoustic origins, due in part to the production of the Dust Brothers.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: "Wonderboy" was the first single released from the album, followed by "Tribute". Both singles had music videos filmed for them, with the Liam Lynch-directed "Tribute" video achieving cult status. While "Tenacious D" did not achieve chart success after its release, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) by the end of 2005. Despite only peaking at number 38 in the UK, it had sold 426,000 copies countrywide by 2006.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: For their first album, they enlisted the help of drummer Dave Grohl, keyboardist Page McConnell of Phish, guitarist Warren Fitzgerald, and bass player Steven Shane McDonald. The Dust Brothers produced the album. The majority of the songs on their debut album stem from early versions as seen on their HBO TV series, "Tenacious D". The record itself does not list the song titles on the back cover as is the convention but instead on the back cover of the jacket; therefore one must open the CD (after presumably buying it) to read them. This is perhaps to allow songs with expletives or words otherwise deemed offensive to escape censorship or omission.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: The recording session for the album began with a two-day session at Neil Diamond's ArcAngel studio in Los Angeles where initial drum tracks were recorded. They were able to use the studio because Diamond had just appeared with Black in the film "Saving Silverman", in which Black plays a Neil Diamond cover singer. "Diamond claims it was the Liberty Records studio," King says. "It's a really old place." At least one song was cut from the final release of the album. A studio recording of "Jesus Ranch," the final song from the HBO shorts (the closing credits feature the end of "The Road"), was omitted from the album because "it just didn't cut the mustard" (quoted by the D in the FAQ section of their website). The HBO version can be found on their DVD, "The Complete Masterworks", and a recorded studio demo can be found on their 2002 EP, "D Fun Pak".


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: The front cover features Black and Gass standing naked below the Devil. The pose is similar to that shown on some Devil tarot cards. Due to the Satanic nature of the cover, the album was briefly recalled from stores. The band performed in front of this at concerts.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: "Tribute", the first single from the album, discusses the "greatest song in the world" written to save the souls of Gass and Black from a demon but later forgotten. The song dropped guitar riffs from Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" which had appeared in early versions. The single, the band's most successful, achieved Tenacious D's only chart top-ten peaking at number 4 in Australia. The video, directed by Liam Lynch, was voted by Kerrang! readers as the fifth best music video.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: The second single "Wonderboy", a biographical ballad, was critically well-received, with the BBC describing it as "endearing". In 2002, the video, directed by Spike Jonze, won a Music Video Production Association for "Best Direction of a Music Video". The third music video for "Fuck Her Gently", a song described as an "underground hit" and, according to Black, lauded by women's groups depicted an animated Black and Gass as cherubs by John Kricfalusi, the creator of "Ren and Stimpy".


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: The album opens with "Kielbasa", a song discussing anal sex. The previously popular pseudo-science book, "" is also mentioned, as well as Krishna. "Dio" is a tribute to Ronnie James Dio that calls for the singer to "pass the torch" on to Tenacious D. Black has said that this was a compliment as they could have asked others for the torch but "ultimately, we were bestowing an honor upon him." Reportedly, Dio approved of the song and let Tenacious D appear in the video for his single, "Push". In addition, Dio also appeared in the 2006 film "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny", playing himself. "Explosivo" was originally intended as a tribute to Kurt Cobain.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: Seven of the tracks on the album are comedy skits: "One Note Song", "Hard Fucking", "Inward Singing", "Cock Pushups", "Friendship Test", "Karate Schnitzel" and "Drive-Thru".


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: "Double Team" is another song on the topic of sex, in particular threesomes. "The Road" deals with groupies whilst touring. "Lee", named after their "no 1 fan" Lee, is a song from the short "The Fan", in which the band stalk their biggest fan, and sing an obsessive song about him. "Karate" is described as an aggressive song taken from the short "Angel in Disguise" in which Black and Gass fight. The song ends with Black saying the words 'donkey crap' in reverse audio. "Kyle Quit The Band", from "The Search for Inspirado", is a song which documents the band reuniting after breaking up.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: "Rock Your Socks" with Tenacious D's desire to prove its classical and rock prowess through giving "a taste" of Bach's "Bourrée in E minor" from "Suite in E minor for Lute", BWV 996, also used in another of Tenacious D song – "Classico". ("That is Bach and it rocks..."), popularized by one of the most famous classical guitarists: Andrés Segovia and prog rock band, Jethro Tull. The song features a shock comedy climax when lead singer Jack Black asks for the listener, in return for their troubles in playing to them, to perform a coprophilic ritual (referred to colloquially as a Cleveland steamer).


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: In "City Hall", the longest song on the album – described as epic – lead singer Black calls for the legalisation of cannabis. The song is described by the band, and others as a rock opera.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: Some critics have lamented that songs performed live and featured on the TV series were not included on the album. These include "Jesus Ranch" and "Cosmic Shame". Black accounted for the band's decision not to include "Jesus Ranch" saying "it just didn't cut the mustard". A demo recording of "Jesus Ranch" was later released on the "D Fun Pak".


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: In support of the album, the band embarked on a national tour. All the songs were performed acoustically. The band covered Queen's "Flash" and The Beatles "You Never Give Me Your Money".


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: Tenacious D shows featured "City Hall" in the encore, a song about rioting against the government, and it played at shows until the events of September 11 attacks. The band initially removed the song from the set, but would eventually return it in the spring of 2002.


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: Tenacious D's first album garnered critical acclaim. Review aggregate website Metacritic gave the album a score of 85 out of 100, signifying "universal acclaim". "Entertainment Weekly" described the release as being "hilarious," and "no mere comedy record." AllMusic said it "rocks so damn hard" but it reflects on the lack of some of the songs from the HBO episodes. "The A.V. Club" wrote that Black and Gass manage "an odd simultaneous fusion of stupid and clever", while "Time" wrote, "The pleasures of "Tenacious D"... flow from a similar revelation: Black and Gass set themselves up as buffoons with titles like Karate Schnitzel, then proceed to defy expectations with precise guitars, polished vocal harmonies and slamming backup musicians".


title: Tenacious D (album)

text: "Splendid" magazine said of Tenacious D, "As entertainment, Tenacious D succeeds surprisingly well – for the first few listens... The only long-term replay value you'll get from this record will come from playing it for friends who haven't heard it." "Flak Magazine" criticised the band's use of skits between songs, describing them as "distracting" and a "nuisance". In addition, Andy Gill of "The Independent" remarked that the album was full of "swearing and scatology" and was "bereft of even the slightest skidmark of humour".


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andrew Maxwell Dwyer KBE () is a fictional character in the NBC comedy "Parks and Recreation" portrayed by Chris Pratt. Originally meant to be a temporary character, Andy was so likable that producers asked Pratt back as a series regular. He appears in the first season as Ann Perkins' (Rashida Jones) unemployed, slacker boyfriend, then takes a job as a shoe-shiner at Pawnee City Hall in the second season. Andy eventually marries April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) and is later promoted to Leslie Knope's (Amy Poehler) assistant. Pratt was credited as a guest star for the first season, despite appearing in every episode; he is part of the main cast for every season after season one.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy is one of the few starring characters not to appear in every episode, as he was absent for a multi-episode arc in season six while Pratt was filming "Guardians of the Galaxy". He also did not appear in the season 2 episode "Practice Date."


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Pratt summarized Andy Dwyer as "dim-witted and guileless and a real idiot, but lovable." At the start of the series, Andy Dwyer is dating Ann Perkins. Ann matured faster than Andy did; while Ann entered into a career in nursing, Andy was lazy and unmotivated. After being dumped by Ann, Andy begins living in the pit adjacent to Ann's house.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy remained unemployed after school but was the lead singer and guitarist for his rock band, which underwent numerous name changes (starting with "Teddy Bear Suicide" prior to the show's first season), including "MouseRat," "God Hates Figs," "Department of Homeland Obscurity," "Flames For Flames," "Muscle Confusion," "Nothing Rhymes With Orange" (then, "Everything Rhymes With Orange"), "Punch Face Champions," "Rad Wagon," "Puppy Pendulum," "Possum Pendulum," "Penis Pendulum," "Handrail Suicide," "Angel Snack," "Just The Tip," "Jet-Black Pope," "Four-Skin" (later "Three-Skin" when one member quit), "MouseRat" (again), "RatMouse" (without Dwyer), "Scarecrow Boat," "Tackleshaft" and then "MouseRat" (yet again).


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy later gets work shining shoes at city hall, where he becomes friends with April Ludgate, whom he later marries after one month of dating. Though absentminded and possessing an extremely short attention span, Andy is shown to have a savant-like memory. For instance, he received the highest grade the police academy had ever seen on the written entrance test, has an uncanny ability to remember movies word for word, and is able to memorize a long list of facts for his feminist college class in the episode, "Smallest Park." Andy also had perfect SAT scores, but mentioned it was probably due to broken Scantron machines.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy also possesses a wild imagination, which helps him become a children's performer named Johnny Karate and then get his own children's television show. Occasionally, Andy goes into character as his alter ego, covert FBI agent Burt Macklin, whenever he and April role play or to solve local mysteries.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Before the start of the first season, a drunken Andy fell into a large construction pit and broke both his legs while attempting to retrieve a discarded toaster from the bottom of the pit. Ann is at first unaware that Andy was drunk at the time of the fall, and the incident inspires her to attend Parks and Recreation meetings to advocate for filling in the pit. It is at these meetings that Ann first befriends Parks Deputy Director Leslie Knope.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: With both of Andy's legs in casts, Ann pampers him, bringing him food and letting him play video games all day. When the doctors inform Andy that the casts can be removed, he delays their removal for several weeks so he can continue receiving this treatment from Ann. After the casts are removed, Ann discovers the truth and furiously breaks up with Andy.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy moves into a tent pitched in the pit and watches Ann, claiming to be protecting her. He makes many failed attempts to reconcile with Ann. After Mark Brendanawicz (Paul Schneider) begins dating Ann, Andy grows to hate him, but pretends to like him whenever Ann is around. Andy is injured in the pit a second time when Leslie arranges to have it filled with dirt, unaware that Andy is still in the pit. Andy considers suing the town with the hopes of getting money and winning Ann back, but Leslie convinces him to settle out of court in exchange for having the pit filled in. Leslie gives Andy a job as the shoe-shiner at the Pawnee City Hall as part of his settlement. April Ludgate, the parks department intern, begins to develop a crush on Andy, but he is for a long time unaware of her feelings toward him. As time goes on, Andy begins to develop feelings for April, though he is unsure about dating her due to their age difference and his own unresolved feelings for Ann. Simultaneously, Ann begins to show similar feelings for Andy. At the end of the season, having broken up with Mark, Ann kisses Andy, who does not reciprocate. This later causes him problems with April, who continues to believe he is still in love with Ann.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy has been unsuccessfully trying to get in touch with April. When she finally returns from Venezuela, she arrives with a new boyfriend, Eduardo (Carlo Mendez). Leslie encourages Andy to not give up. In the episode "Time Capsule", Andy befriends Eduardo at the advice of Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe). As a result, April begins hating her new boyfriend, and he moves back to Venezuela. Andy also becomes the new coach of one of the two youth basketball teams, with Parks Director Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) serving as the other coach. Andy's coaching style is much lazier than Ron's strict style. He is also briefly Ron's receptionist in "Flu Season". In the episode "Media Blitz", April leads Andy to believe that if he completes the tasks she hates every day for a month, she will consider being with him. In the same episode, it is hinted at that he has a cousin called Clara Dwyer. This, however, was never expanded upon further. Although she begins this as a bluff, after seeing Andy complete even the most humiliating of these tasks happily, she kisses him. In the episode "Andy and April's Fancy Party" Andy reveals that he had proposed to April a day earlier after only one month of dating to which April replied, "Fine." They are married at the end of the episode in a surprise ceremony.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: At the beginning of season four, Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) asks Andy to join his new company. He declines Tom's offer and instead joins Leslie's campaign as her assistant and head of security, a role he enjoys very much. At the end of the season, he is encouraged by April to pursue a career as a police officer as all his "dream jobs," with the exception of rock star, revolve around law enforcement.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: During the fifth season, Andy continues to pursue his ambition to become a police officer and seeks help from others to better his chances of passing the police academy entrance exams. He asks Chris to help him get fit enough to pass the police physical. His marriage to April is not strained by the distance between them: they exchange care packages and he visits her in Washington, DC.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy earns a perfect score on the written portion of the police officers' exam. When he fails the personality portion of the exam, he gets a rousing pep talk from Chris. Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) then gives Andy a job working with him at the Sweetum's charity foundation.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy's role is reduced in the sixth season, as Chris Pratt was busy with filming commitments to "Guardians of the Galaxy". Andy spends the early part of season 6 in England attending to Sweetum's charity work. Before he went to England, he loses 50 pounds after giving up beer (offered as an in-show explanation for Pratt's weight loss associated with his "Guardians of the Galaxy" role). He briefly visits Pawnee and does not want to return to England, but April convinces him to go back. Once he returns, he becomes part of a committee in the Parks department in charge of organising a concert to unite the recently merged towns of Pawnee and Eagleton. In the season finale, Andy reunites with MouseRat and sings a memorial song for 'Lil Sebastian, Pawnee's beloved, recently deceased mini-horse, at the Pawnee Unity concert.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Andy remains married to April Ludgate, and the two have become responsible adults, to their horror. He has a TV show on public access, "The Johnny Karate Super Awesome Musical Explosion Show", where he is knighted by Lord Edgar Covington (Peter Serafinowicz) in its final episode, and later works part-time at the National Parks service. His friendship with Tom has grown since the previous seasons. After April decides to leave for a new job in Washington, D.C., Andy goes with her.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: In a series of flash-forwards in the final episode, April and Andy ask Leslie and Ben for advice regarding the prospect of having children, which Andy very much wants but April does not. They decide to try for it and their son, Burt Snakehole Ludgate Karate Dracula Macklin Demon Jack-o-Lantern "Jack" Dwyer, is born on Halloween 2023. By 2025 the couple is expecting their second child.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Chris Pratt was credited as a guest star throughout the entire first season, but was promoted to the main cast in the second season. The Andy character was originally supposed to appear only in the first season, but the producers liked Pratt so much that almost immediately after casting him, they decided to make Andy a regular character.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: As the focus of the series was supposed to be on local city government, the writers came up with ideas to keep Andy's character in the show after his breakup with Ann. He eventually gets a job at City Hall, first as a shoeshiner and then as Leslie Knope's assistant during her campaign, and later Ben Wyatt's assistant at the Newport Foundation. Showrunner Michael Schur said that during the second season, the writers had an idea that "if we stayed with him for a long time he was going to be this real Horatio Alger kind of guy - a guy pulling himself up, like a Charles Dickens character or something. At one time early on in Season 2, we were like, 'The end of the show is Andy is the mayor!' That was what we thought because he was going to shine people's shoes, and everyone was going to love him, and he was going to get to know everyone. That's why we kind of we kept we hung onto that for a long time. We had him be people's assistants, and it was like, 'Oh, he's meeting people,' and everyone who meets him loves him. At one point like in Season 2, Season 3, we were like, 'Andy is going to be the mayor someday,' and he was going to be this real like old-timey 19th century [scenario], like, 'He started as the shoeshine boy!'"


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Pratt purposely gained weight for the role during the first season, which he felt was right for the character of Andy Dwyer. "I'm not saying that fat is funny, but misplaced confidence is funny, and Andy is someone who is not fit but walks around like he is. So I went back the next day, and I told Mike Schur I wanted to gain 20 to 30 pounds. He said great." However, the weight gain nearly prevented Pratt from getting film roles, first as baseball player Scott Hatteberg in "Moneyball" (2011) and then as Star-Lord in "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014). After crash dieting for "Moneyball", he got into much better shape to play a Navy SEAL in "Zero Dark Thirty"; but subsequently regained the weight to resume portraying Andy. His weight loss for "Guardians of the Galaxy" was written into the script, when Andy claims he lost 50 lbs. in one month by giving up beer.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Pratt took a hiatus from the show during the sixth season in order to film "Guardians of the Galaxy". The sixth-season opener, "London," partially took place in London in order to accommodate Pratt's filming schedule, as well as explain Andy's absence from Pawnee after he gets a temporary job offer in England.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: In the second season, Pratt did a scene with Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones in which Andy shows up at Ann's house totally naked. Pratt wore skin-tone briefs which were supposed to be pixelated for television to imply he was naked. After several takes of Poehler opening the door to see him naked, Pratt felt that Poehler did not seem convincingly surprised, so he took off the briefs. Poehler's reaction was so genuine that this was the take later aired on TV. However, Pratt was formally reprimanded for the prank in a letter from NBC.


title: Andy Dwyer

text: Although Pratt became a movie star by the end of the series, he said he never considered leaving the show.


title: Tower Hill

text: Tower Hill is the area surrounding the Tower of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is infamous for the public execution of high status prisoners from the late 14th to the mid 18th century. The execution site on the higher ground north-west of the Tower of London moat is now occupied by Trinity Square Gardens.


title: Tower Hill

text: Tower Hill rises from the north bank of the River Thames to reach a maximum height of 14.5 metres (48 ft) Ordnance Datum. The land was historically part of the Liberties of the Tower of London, an area the Tower authorities controlled to keep clear of any development which would reduce the defensibility of the Tower. Building has encroached to a degree, but a legacy of this control is that much of the hill is still open. The hill includes land on either side of the London Wall, a large remnant of which is visible.


title: Tower Hill

text: Generally speaking, the name Tower Hill informally applies to those parts of the Tower Liberty that are outside the Tower of London and its moat. "Great Tower Hill" is the land lying inside (or west) of the line of the London Wall whereas "Little Tower Hill" is the land outside (or east) of the wall.


title: Tower Hill

text: Public executions of high-profile traitors and criminals, often attainted peers, as well as innocent Catholics in the 16th century, were carried out on Tower Hill. The backgrounds to these ranged from the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 to the Wars of the Roses; Lollardism; claims to the throne by Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel; Reformation; Pilgrimage of Grace; Monmouth Rebellion; Jacobite Rising and the Gordon Riots of 1780. Lord Lovat’s execution for high treason in 1747 was the last judicial beheading in England while the final executions on Tower Hill were hangings in 1780. Some 120 executions are chronicled and they include:-


title: Tower Hill

text: After the abandonment of Tower Hill as a site for public executions, Trinity Square and Gardens were laid out in 1797 by Samuel Wyatt as the setting for Trinity House, completed a year earlier as headquarters of the Corporation of Trinity House.


title: Tower Hill

text: In the 1880s, a section of the London Underground Circle Line was constructed beneath Trinity Square Gardens. In the first decade of the 20th century small buildings, courts and yards bordering Trinity Square were cleared to make way for the construction of the Port of London Authority headquarters at 10 Trinity Square. Begun in 1912 and completed in 1922, the Grade II* building is now a Four Seasons hotel which opened as such on 26th January 2017.


title: Tower Hill

text: The Merchant Navy Memorial, First World War section, Grade I-listed, was unveiled by Queen Mary (deputising for her husband, King George V) on 12th December 1928. To avoid overshadowing this, the Grade II* Second World War section is In the form of a sunken garden and was unveiled by HM The Queen on 5th December 1955 while that commemorating merchant seamen killed in the 1982 Falklands War was unveiled on 4th September 2005 by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan West.


title: Tower Hill

text: In October 1933, Reverend P B (“Tubby”) Clayton of All Hallows by the Tower and Dr B R Leftwich published “The Pageant of Tower Hill”, which included the outline of a scheme to improve Tower Hill. In December 1933 the inaugural meeting of the Tower Hill Improvement Fund was held. Lord Wakefield was elected President and launched an appeal at the Guildhall in January 1934.


title: Tower Hill

text: One of the Trust's first actions was to create a beach on the north bank of the Thames between St Katherine’s Steps and the Tower for families from the East End.


title: Tower Hill

text: In 1937 the Fund became the Tower Hill Improvement Trust and set about purchasing a number of buildings it considered eyesores. These were demolished in order to provide gardens and open public spaces. Among the buildings demolished was the giant Myer’s tea warehouse, which stood next to All Hallows and blocked the view of the Tower from the west.


title: Tower Hill

text: The street of Tower Hill, within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, adjoins the City of London at Byward Street and runs eastwards to Minories and Tower Bridge Approach. It replaced Postern Row in the 1880s and was widened and extended a decade later. Tower Hill is in the London congestion charge zone from its junction with Minories westwards.


title: Tower Hill

text: A pedestrian subway links Tower Hill tube station to the boundary of the Tower of London where the remains of the south tower of the medieval postern gate are visible.


title: Tower Hill

text: Tower Hill Terrace is the pedestrian way that runs south off Tower Hill to Gloucester Court and also the adjoining paved public space, redeveloped in 2019, atop the Tower Vaults shopping complex. A floor plaque in Tower Vaults commemorates its re-opening in 1991 as the surviving part of the 1864 George Myers built Mazawattee Tea Warehouse, extensively bomb-damaged in Second World War air raids and later demolished.


title: Tower Hill

text: No. 7 of the original 31 Tower Liberty boundary markers is sited at the bottom of the steps linking Gloucester Court to Tower Hill Terrace and no. 8 is positioned at the base of the circular concrete air duct adjoining Tower Hill.


title: Tower Hill

text: Immediately east of the Tower of London Welcome Centre on Great Tower Hill are the buried structural remains of the medieval Bulwark Gate and bastion. The lower half of Tower Hill was enclosed in the late 15th century to protect the western entrance to the Tower of London. The large brick bastion commissioned by Edward IV extended part way up Tower Hill from Tower Dock, but was demolished in 1668.


title: Tower Hill

text: Tower Subway is a tunnel under the Thames running from Tower Hill to Vine Lane in Southwark. The round brick-built entrance building near the Tower of London's ticket office was constructed in 1926 by the London Hydraulic Power Company. The year of 1868 visible on the structure refers to the Tower Subway Act of 1868 which authorised the construction of the tunnel.


title: Tower Hill

text: The grade II listed former pump house (Tower of London shop) was built in 1863 and designed by the architect Anthony Salvin.


title: Tower Hill

text: London Buses route 15 east to Blackwall and west to Trafalgar Square runs along Tower Hill. Tower Hill tube station is adjacent and Tower Gateway DLR station close by as is Tower Pier for London River Services.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The Connecticut Sun are an American professional basketball team based in Uncasville, Connecticut that competes in the Eastern Conference of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The team was established as the Orlando Miracle in 1999, during the league's expansion from ten to twelve teams, as a sister team to the NBA's Orlando Magic. In 2003, as financial strains left the team on the brink of disbanding, the Mohegan Indian tribe purchased and relocated the team to Mohegan Sun, becoming the first Native American tribe to own a professional sports franchise. The team's name comes from its affiliation with Mohegan Sun and its logo is reflective of a modern interpretation of an ancient Mohegan symbol. Capitalizing on the popularity of women's basketball in the state, as a result of the success of the UConn Huskies, the Sun held the distinction of being the only WNBA franchise not to share its market with an NBA team, until the relocation of the Seattle SuperSonics in 2008 left the Storm as an independent team in Seattle.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: Before the franchise relocated to Connecticut in 2003, the team operated as the Orlando Miracle. The Miracle played their home games at TD Waterhouse Centre in Orlando, Florida, as the sister team of the Orlando Magic. After the 2002 season, the NBA sold off all of the WNBA franchises to the operators of the respective teams, which placed the league in the middle of team contractions, relocations, and potential labor strife. Since Magic ownership was no longer interested in retaining the rights to the Miracle and no local partnership was reached, the organization ceased operations and was purchased by the Mohegan Tribe. On January 28, 2003, it was announced that the Miracle would immediately move to Uncasville, Connecticut and change its nickname to the Sun (in reference to the Mohegan Sun casino). The Sun's nickname, color scheme and logo are similar to that of another defunct Florida-based franchise, the Miami Sol, which folded at the same time as the Miracle's relocation to Connecticut.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: With a new home in Uncasville and two former UConn Huskies on the roster, the Sun entered the 2003 season looking to build upon a 2002 campaign in which they missed the playoffs due to a tiebreaker with Indiana. The Sun underwent a total overhaul during the off-season – selecting Debbie Black in the dispersal draft and acquiring former Connecticut star Rebecca Lobo to add another local attraction to join Nykesha Sales. General manager Chris Sienko named Mike Thibault, a coaching veteran with two NBA titles as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, as the first head coach for the franchise.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: On May 24, 2003, the Sun hosted the first regular season game of its inaugural season, which was shown on ABC, the league's new broadcast partner. The Sun yielded to the two-time defending champion Sparks before a sellout crowd of 9,341. At the conclusion of the 2003 season, the Sun finished with an 18–16 record, which clinched the first playoff berth since the franchise relocated. The Sun swept the second-seeded Sting in the first round of the playoffs, and before being swept by the Detroit Shock in the Eastern Conference Finals.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: Rebecca Lobo announced her retirement after seven seasons in the WNBA. The Sun returned Katie Douglas, Nykesha Sales and Taj McWilliams-Franklin, the group that formed Thibault's nucleus. General manager Chris Sienko fortified that core with former UConn product Asjha Jones, who was acquired in a three-team trade, and Minnesota Golden Gophers phenom Lindsay Whalen, who was taken with the fourth overall pick in the 2004 Draft. The Sun managed to snag a top pick in one of the deepest draft classes in league history by trading perennial all-star point guard Shannon Johnson, a move that was universally panned by Sun fans. The Sun selected Lindsay Whalen amidst rumors they would trade her to the Minnesota Lynx. However, she remained on the team as the Sun posted an 18–16 record in an equally-talented Eastern Conference, winning the #1 seed. In the first round, the Sun defeated the Washington Mystics 2–1. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Sun rolled on, sweeping the New York Liberty. The Sun had made it to the WNBA Finals in their second season of existence. In the Finals, their run would end, as they lost a hard-fought three-game series, 2–1, to the Seattle Storm.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: In the 2005 off season, the Sun acquired 7'2" (2.18 m) center Margo Dydek. With a dominant post presence, the Sun controlled the Eastern Conference, posting a 26–8 record, the best regular season record for an Eastern Conference team in WNBA history. In the playoffs, the Sun flew to the finals, sweeping the Detroit Shock and the Indiana Fever. In the 2005 WNBA Finals, the Sun were matched up against an equally dominant Sacramento Monarchs team. Also against the Sun's luck, Lindsay Whalen played through the series with injuries. The Sun had home-court advantage, but it was of no use; the Sun lost the Finals for the second straight year, 3 games to 1, in the first WNBA Finals played in a best-of-five format.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The success of the franchise was rewarded in 2005, when the Sun were selected to host the annual WNBA All-Star Game. The All-Star game was arguably the most exciting in WNBA history with the two teams combining for 221 points. At the end of the game, Lisa Leslie became the first woman to ever dunk in an All-Star Game.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: In 2006, the Sun would match their 2005 record and it looked like a return trip to the Finals was certain. Mike Thibault received the WNBA Coach of the Year Award, and it appeared as if no team could stop the Sun. All five starters were named to the WNBA Eastern Conference All-Star team: Katie Douglas, Margo Dydek, Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Nykesha Sales and Lindsay Whalen. This feat had never before been achieved in WNBA history. In the playoffs, the Sun would quickly sweep the Washington Mystics. But in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Sun were upset by the Detroit Shock, 2 games to 1, on the Sun's home floor.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The Sun stumbled out of the gate in 2007, posting a dismal 5–10 record by late June. However, the Sun stormed back into playoff contention by winning 11 of their next 13 games, to finish the regular season at 18–16, good enough to win the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference. In the playoffs, the Sun faced the Indiana Fever in the first round. The Sun came into the series having won all four regular season contests against the Fever. In Game 1, despite holding a 17-point lead in the third quarter, the Sun allowed the Fever to force the first triple-overtime game in WNBA playoff history, ending with a 93–88 victory for the Sun. However, the Fever would respond by winning the next two games and therefore the series, including a playoff record 22-point come-from-behind win in Game 3.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The front office knew something had to be done to save the team from another disappointing finish. During the 2007–08 off-season, the Connecticut Sun made major changes to their roster in an effort to win that ever-elusive championship title. The Sun made three trades, one sending Katie Douglas, the face of the franchise, to the Indiana Fever, a deal that signaled the end of the partnership that led the Sun to consecutive WNBA Finals appearances. In return, the Sun received Tamika Whitmore who would surely create a physical presence in the paint, something that the Sun had been lacking in previous years. Following that monumental trade, Nykesha Sales announced she would sit out the 2008 season due to multiple nagging injuries. 7'2" center Margo Dydek also took the season off due to her pregnancy. With three former starters missing from the Sun lineup, most sports critics and publications predicted the team to finish fourth in the East. Some even claimed the Sun would finish sixth, only ahead of the expansion Atlanta Dream.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: Contrary to these predictions, the Sun started the season with an outstanding 8–1 record. Soon, however, the team found itself in a disappointing slump. The Sun went on a five-game losing streak, the worst ever for a team under Mike Thibault. The team finished the regular season with a 21–13 record which placed them second in the Eastern Conference, only one game out of first place. In the playoffs, the Sun's youth and inexperience caught up to them; the New York Liberty won game three on the Sun's home floor and for the second straight year, the Sun failed to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: Exceeding many expectations during the 2008 rebuilding season, the Sun looked to come back even stronger in 2009. There was no reason to believe the Sun would not contend for playoff position. During the first six seasons the team has been in Connecticut, the Sun have tied the highest winning record of any team in the WNBA during that time period, posting a record of 127–77, translating into a winning percentage of .623, with the Detroit Shock having the same exact record for those six years. That success has reflected itself in the team's attendance, which has surged from 6,025 in 2003 to 7,644 in 2008.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The 2009 WNBA All-Star Game was held on July 25 at 3:30pm in the Mohegan Sun Arena. It was the second time the Sun had hosted the game. It was broadcast nationally on ABC (HD). Like the two previous seasons, they would start the season on a struggling note. But they later won 7 out of their next 10 games, putting them in playoff position. Halfway through the season, however, there was a three-way tie for second place which included the Sun, the Dream, and the Mystics. The Sun, plagued by a late-season injury to all-star Asjha Jones missed the playoffs for the first time since moving from Orlando. Sun fans found an unwelcome and unfamiliar ending to the 2009 season. They finished overall with a 16–18 record and finished 6th in the East. After the team was ousted from playoff contention, Thibault said there would be changes.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: After a late-season implosion in 2009, head coach Mike Thibault had to make some crucial decisions for a team whose culture completely broke down last year. Connecticut started its rebuilding process quickly, acquiring DeMya Walker in the Monarchs' dispersal draft. The Sun then snagged the first overall pick in the 2010 collegiate draft in a trade with the Minnesota Lynx; a trade that would have the Sun's most recognizable face in starting point guard Lindsay Whalen, along with the second overall pick, shipped to Minneapolis. This package netted the Sun Renee Montgomery, who would prove to be luxury in the deal. Thibault continued to reshape his roster after introducing Kara Lawson at a press conference as a new member of the Sun. Lawson was formerly a member of the Monarchs' team that decimated the Sun's chances of a WNBA title. Lawson, along with Montgomery, formed a backcourt that would be able to dictate pace and bolster the Sun's perimeter arsenal attack. The Sun also signed reserves Anete Jēkabsone-Žogota and Tan White to multiyear contracts to solidify the Sun's revamped backcourt.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The Sun came into the 2010 WNBA Draft with two picks in the first round – the first and seventh overall picks, the latter of which was acquired one day prior to the draft from Tulsa. With its first overall selection in franchise history, the Sun took UConn standout and Player of the Year recipient, Tina Charles, the consensus top prospect available. By playing alongside premier talent at the collegiate level, Charles had shown that she was ready to pilot an offense and lead this franchise into the post-Sales era. After the selection of Charles, Thibault had the remainder of the draft to fortify the weapons around his newly acquired center. To diminish the losses of Amber Holt and Chante Black, both of whom were part of the package deal with the Shock, the Sun selected Kansas product Danielle McCray. Prior to the draft, it was understood that McCray wouldn't be available to participate in the upcoming season due to an ACL injury she sustained in college. There was risk involved concerning her durability, but McCray's potential as a superstar was reason enough to take the leap of faith. The Sun cemented its guard corps with the selection of Allison Hightower in the second round. Thibault wasn't finished making a mark on draft day as he maneuvered around the draft board to address the Sun's suspect defense. He nabbed former Cornhusker Kelsey Griffin, who was taken third overall, in a trade once again involving the Lynx. This trade would have the Sun relinquishing their first and second round picks in next year's draft. The acquisition of coveted players through the draft and free agency capped an off-season of change that had transformed a franchise for the future. Although the reconstruction of the Sun remained a work in progress, this talented class of prospects would serve as the foundation for a team that jumped back into contention quicker than anyone anticipated.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: After the 2010 WNBA season, news surfaced that the Connecticut Sun was the first franchise in WNBA history to turn a profit.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The 2011 season started well for the Sun. Few changes were made in the off-season, which gave the team some consistency and a year of experience on which to build. Sandrine Gruda and Anete Jēkabsone-Žogota decided to sit out the season, so the Sun looked elsewhere, adding Jessica Moore and relying on rookie Danielle McCray to step up and score. In a tough Eastern Conference, the Sun held a 9–5 record going into the All-Star break.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: In his decade-long pursuit of an elusive title, Mike Thibault found himself in the proverbial hot seat to engineer a deep run. But an absence of urgency was reflected in the team's free agency approach – making small waves to pry Thompson and Cash from their respective teams – to solely ink rugged forward Mistie Mims in relief of Charles. Sticking with the status quo meant the roster was set so much so that the Sun drafted an unheralded Malian prospect. Going into the season, Thibault had assembled a deep roster that necessitated only a couple minor moves to cap the off-season process. The coach's patience paid dividends when his burgeoning core bolted to a 6–1 start highlighted by a chafed Montgomery turning the starting reins over to Hightower. Leading into the 1-month Olympic hiatus, the Sun strung together a five-win streak to improve to a league-best 15–4 mark. Following the ill-timed Games, which saw the club's Jones-Charles tandem help capture gold for Team USA, Connecticut continued to perform superbly while short-handed. They finished the season 25–9, with a better road record (13–4) than as hosts. The Sun fended off late Liberty rallies to sweep their way into a joust with the Fever in what was the team's first Conference finals since 2010's radical facelift. In the series, the Sun took themselves to the doorstep of a Finals berth after notching a decisive Game 1 rout. But building on a stirring two-point Game 2 win and a rally cry after losing Douglas, Indiana derailed the Sun's seemingly predestined trip in a 71–87 home romp, a defeat that essentially cost longtime coach Thibault his job. The lion's share of the season's fortunes came from the talented triumvirate of Lawson, Jones and league MVP Tina Charles flanked by Mims and sixth woman Montgomery carving a niche as an energy duo off the pines. Though failure was what came to mind in taking stock of the team's decade season; the Fever capturing the year's title being emblematic of that.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: On November 20, 2012, Mike Thibault was relieved of his duties as head coach for the franchise. While at the helm, he amassed a 206–134 record en route to 8 playoff appearances, four Eastern Conference titles and reaching the WNBA Finals twice in his ten-year tenure. However, Thibault's squads have had the notoriety for failing to flip their proverbial switch to close games; honing a burgeoning reputation for folding under pressure. This dubious distinction, coupled with the failure of achieving a franchise-first championship, led to the coach's dismissal. With an eye to accomplishing the objective of a WNBA title, the team hired Hall of Famer, Anne Donovan, as Thibault's successor. Among other WNBA stints, Donovan was the head coach of the '04 Seattle Storm team that captured the league title over, ironically, the Sun. Donovan hired Catherine Proto and Jennifer Gillom as her assistant coaches for her initial season. In 2014, Proto became Scouting and Video Operations Manager for the Sun and Steven Key replaced her as an assistant coach. During Anne Donovan's run as head coach she had gone 38-64 in three seasons with the Connecticut Sun before resigning as the head coach in 2015. Curt Miller would be named head coach of the Connecticut Sun starting in the 2016 WNBA Season.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: With Curt Miller at the helm of the Connecticut Sun moves had to be made in the off-season to show early signs of improvement. Elizabeth Williams was sent to the Atlanta Dream for the 2016 fourth overall pick in Rachel Banham. In April 2016 the Sun traded Chelsea Gray to the Los Angeles Sparks along with two second round picks in the 2016 WNBA Draft and a 2017 first round pick for Jonquel Jones and the Sparks second round selection in the 2016 WNBA Draft. In the 2016 WNBA Draft, the Connecticut Sun selected Morgan Tuck with their third overall draft pick. After getting three wins in sixteen games on the 2016 season, the Sun moved Kelsey Bone to the Phoenix Mercury for Courtney Williams and a second round draft selection in the 2017 WNBA Draft. Closing out the 2016 WNBA Season the sun would win eleven out of the remaining twenty games finishing with a record of 14-20 missing out on the postseason by three wins. In February 2017, the Sun would trade Camille Little to the Phoenix Mercury for Lynetta Kizer from the Indiana Fever and eighth overall draft selection Brionna Jones in the 2017 WNBA Draft from a three team trade. Ahead of the 2017 WNBA Season, Chiney Ogwumike was suspended due to an injury she suffered overseas causing her to miss the 2017 WNBA Season. It would only take a 1-5 record in the month of May to turn the early start of the season around for Connecticut finishing with 6-2 and 7-2 record in June, July, and August to clinch a playoff spot. The Sun would finish the season going 21-13 just one win short of tying the New York Liberty for the Eastern Conference Regular Season Title. With the recent changes in 2016 to the playoff format, Connecticut got a bye to the second round of the WNBA Playoffs against the Phoenix Mercury. The Sun went on to lose their second round game 88-83 and despite that loss more success was soon to come. Chiney returned to action in the 2018 WNBA Season while Stricklen resigned for another run with the Connecticut Sun.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: The Sun play in the Mohegan Sun Arena. Mohegan Sun is owned by the Mohegan tribe. The arena is located at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. Despite the inclusion of “Connecticut” in the name, the team technically isn’t under the jurisdiction of the State of Connecticut as Native American tribes are sovereign entities and the Mohegan Sun Arena is located on the Mohegan reservation, though the team is still considered to be located in Connecticut. Mohegan Sun Arena is smaller than most other WNBA arenas, with the maximum capacity (lower and upper levels) for a basketball game being 9,323. The Sun is one of the only top-level professional sports franchises located in the state of Connecticut, along with the New England Black Wolves of the National Lacrosse League, which are also owned by the Mohegan Tribe and also play at the Mohegan Sun Arena, and the Connecticut Whale of the Premier Hockey Federation, which are located in Danbury.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: As of the 2021 season the television home of the Sun is NESN. For the 2021 season NESN will air 22 games, 7 on the regular network and 15 on NESN+.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: Previously, Connecticut Sun games aired on WCTX (MyTV 9), a local television station for the state of Connecticut. It was the second time WCTX had aired Sun matches. They were also the original home of Sun matches prior to the 2010 season. More often than not, NBA TV picked up the feed from the local broadcast, which are shown nationally. Broadcasters for the Sun games on WCTX consisted of Bob Heussler and Rebecca Lobo, Jennifer Rizzotti or Kara Wolters. From 2012–2014 Sun games were broadcast on CPTV Sports (CPTV-S). For the 2011 season, Sun games were broadcast on Comcast Sports Net New England, with Mike Gorman as an announcer. In addition to Mike Gorman, broadcasters in the past have included Leah Secondo and Kara Wolters.


title: Connecticut Sun

text: Audio broadcasts for all home games are done by Bob Heussler, which (excluding blackout games, in which case are available on ESPN3.com) are streamed to the WNBA League Pass game feeds on the league website. Furthermore, some Sun games are broadcast nationally on CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. The WNBA has reached an eight-year agreement with ESPN, which will pay right fees to the Sun, as well as other teams in the league.


title: Unitary operator

text: In functional analysis, a unitary operator is a surjective bounded operator on a Hilbert space that preserves the inner product. Unitary operators are usually taken as operating "on" a Hilbert space, but the same notion serves to define the concept of isomorphism "between" Hilbert spaces.


title: Unitary operator

text: A unitary element is a generalization of a unitary operator. In a unital algebra, an element of the algebra is called a unitary element if ,


title: Unitary operator

text: Definition 1. A "unitary operator" is a bounded linear operator on a Hilbert space that satisfies , where is the adjoint of , and is the identity operator.


title: Unitary operator

text: The weaker condition defines an "isometry". The other condition, , defines a "coisometry". Thus a unitary operator is a bounded linear operator which is both an isometry and a coisometry, or, equivalently, a surjective isometry.


title: Unitary operator

text: Definition 2. A "unitary operator" is a bounded linear operator on a Hilbert space for which the following hold:


title: Unitary operator

text: The notion of isomorphism in the category of Hilbert spaces is captured if domain and range are allowed to differ in this definition. Isometries preserve Cauchy sequences, hence the completeness property of Hilbert spaces is preserved


title: Unitary operator

text: Definition 3. A "unitary operator" is a bounded linear operator on a Hilbert space for which the following hold:


title: Unitary operator

text: To see that Definitions 1 & 3 are equivalent, notice that preserving the inner product implies is an isometry (thus, a bounded linear operator). The fact that has dense range ensures it has a bounded inverse . It is clear that .


title: Unitary operator

text: Thus, unitary operators are just automorphisms of Hilbert spaces, i.e., they preserve the structure (the linear space structure, the inner product, and hence the topology) of the space on which they act. The group of all unitary operators from a given Hilbert space to itself is sometimes referred to as the "Hilbert group" of , denoted or .


title: Unitary operator

text: The linearity requirement in the definition of a unitary operator can be dropped without changing the meaning because it can be derived from linearity and positive-definiteness of the scalar product:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (also known as "Ode", "Immortality Ode" or "Great Ode") is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in "Poems, in Two Volumes" (1807). The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood. The first part of the poem was completed on 27 March 1802 and a copy was provided to Wordsworth's friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded with his own poem, "", in April. The fourth stanza of the ode ends with a question, and Wordsworth was finally able to answer it with seven additional stanzas completed in early 1804. It was first printed as "Ode" in 1807, and it was not until 1815 that it was edited and reworked to the version that is currently known, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality".


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The poem is an irregular Pindaric ode in 11 stanzas that combines aspects of Coleridge's Conversation poems, the religious sentiments of the Bible and the works of Saint Augustine, and aspects of the elegiac and apocalyptic traditions. It is split into three movements: the first four stanzas discuss death, and the loss of youth and innocence; the second four stanzas describes how age causes man to lose sight of the divine, and the final three stanzas express hope that the memory of the divine allow us to sympathise with our fellow man. The poem relies on the concept of pre-existence, the idea that the soul existed before the body, to connect children with the ability to witness the divine within nature. As children mature, they become more worldly and lose this divine vision, and the ode reveals Wordsworth's understanding of psychological development that is also found in his poems "The Prelude" and "Tintern Abbey". Wordsworth's praise of the child as the "best philosopher" was criticised by Coleridge and became the source of later critical discussion.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: Modern critics sometimes have referred to Wordsworth's poem as the "Great Ode" and ranked it among his best poems, but this wasn't always the case. Contemporary reviews of the poem were mixed, with many reviewers attacking the work or, like Lord Byron, dismissing the work without analysis. The critics felt that Wordsworth's subject matter was too "low" and some felt that the emphasis on childhood was misplaced. Among the Romantic poets, most praised various aspects of the poem however. By the Victorian period, most reviews of the ode were positive with only John Ruskin taking a strong negative stance against the poem. The poem continued to be well received into the 20th century, with few exceptions. The majority ranked it as one of Wordsworth's greatest poems.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: In 1802, Wordsworth wrote many poems that dealt with his youth. These poems were partly inspired by his conversations with his sister, Dorothy, whom he was living with in the Lake District at the time. The poems, beginning with "The Butterfly" and ending with "To the Cuckoo", were all based on Wordsworth's recalling both the sensory and emotional experience of his childhood. From "To the Cuckoo", he moved on to "The Rainbow", both written on 26 March 1802, and then on to "Ode: Intimation of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". As he moved from poem to poem, he began to question why, as a child, he once was able to see an immortal presence within nature but as an adult that was fading away except in the few moments he was able to meditate on experiences found in poems like "To the Cuckoo". While sitting at breakfast on 27 March, he began to compose the ode. He was able to write four stanzas that put forth the question about the faded image and ended, "Where is it now, the glory and the dream?" The poem would remain in its smaller, four-stanza version until 1804.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The short version of the ode was possibly finished in one day because Wordsworth left the next day to spend time with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Keswick. Close to the time Wordsworth and Coleridge climbed the Skiddaw mountain, 3 April 1802, Wordsworth recited the four stanzas of the ode that were completed. The poem impressed Coleridge, and, while with Wordsworth, he was able to provide his response to the ode's question within an early draft of his poem, "". In early 1804, Wordsworth was able to return his attention to working on the ode. It was a busy beginning of the year with Wordsworth having to help Dorothy recover from an illness in addition to writing his poems. The exact time of composition is unknown, but it probably followed his work on "The Prelude", which consumed much of February and was finished on 17 March. Many of the lines of the ode are similar to the lines of "The Prelude" Book V, and he used the rest of the ode to try to answer the question at the end of the fourth stanza.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The poem was first printed in full for Wordsworth's 1807 collection of poems, "Poems, in Two Volumes", under the title "Ode". It was the last poem of the second volume of the work, and it had its own title page separating it from the rest of the poems, including the previous poem "Peele Castle". Wordsworth added an epigraph just before publication, ""paulò majora canamus"". The Latin phrase is from Virgil's "Eclogue" 4, meaning "let us sing a somewhat loftier song". The poem was reprinted under its full title "Ode: Intimation of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" for Wordsworth's collection "Poems" (1815). The reprinted version also contained an epigraph that, according to Henry Crabb Robinson, was added at Crabb's suggestion. The epigraph was from "My Heart Leaps Up". In 1820, Wordsworth issued "The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth" that collected the poems he wished to be preserved with an emphasis on ordering the poems, revising the text, and including prose that would provide the theory behind the text. The ode was the final poem of the fourth and final book, and it had its own title-page, suggesting that it was intended as the poem that would serve to represent the completion of his poetic abilities. The 1820 version also had some revisions, including the removal of lines 140 and 141.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The poem uses an irregular form of the Pindaric ode in 11 stanzas. The lengths of the lines and of the stanzas vary throughout the text, and the poem begins with an iambic meter. The irregularities increase throughout the poem and Stanza IX lacks a regular form before being replaced with a march-like meter in the final two stanzas. The poem also contains multiple enjambments and there is a use of an ABAB rhyme scheme that gives the poem a singsong quality. By the end of the poem, the rhymes start to become as irregular in a similar way to the meter, and the irregular Stanza IX closes with an iambic couplet. The purpose of the change in rhythm, rhyme, and style is to match the emotions expressed in the poem as it develops from idea to idea. The narration of the poem is in the style of an interior monologue, and there are many aspects of the poem that connect it to Coleridge's style of poetry called "Conversation poems", especially the poem's reliance on a one sided discussion that expects a response that never comes. There is also a more traditional original of the discussion style of the poem, as many of the prophetic aspects of the poem are related to the Old Testament of the Bible. Additionally, the reflective and questioning aspects are similar to the Psalms and the works of Saint Augustine, and the ode contains what is reminiscent of Hebrew prayer.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: In terms of genre, the poem is an ode, which makes it a poem that is both prayer and contains a celebration of its subject. However, this celebration is mixed with questioning and this hinders the continuity of the poem. The poem is also related to the elegy in that it mourns the loss of childhood vision, and the title page of the 1807 edition emphasises the influence of Virgil's "Eclogue" 4. Wordsworth's use of the elegy, in his poems including the "Lucy" poems, parts of "The Excursion", and others, focus on individuals that protect themselves from a sense of loss by turning to nature or time. He also rejects any kind of fantasy that would take him away from reality while accepting both death and the loss of his own abilities to time while mourning over the loss. However, the elegy is traditionally a private poem while Wordsworth's ode is more public in nature. The poem is also related to the genre of apocalyptic writing in that it focuses on what is seen or the lack of sight. Such poems emphasise the optical sense and were common to many poems written by the Romantic poets, including his own poem "The Ruined Cottage", Coleridge's "" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" and "The Zucca".


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The ode contains 11 stanzas split into three movements. The first movement is four stanzas long and discusses the narrator's inability to see the divine glory of nature, the problem of the poem. The second movement is four stanzas long and has a negative response to the problem. The third movement is three stanzas long and contains a positive response to the problem. The ode begins by contrasting the narrator's view of the world as a child and as a man, with what was once a life interconnected to the divine fading away:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: In the second and third stanzas, the narrator continues by describing his surroundings and various aspects of nature that he is no longer able to feel. He feels as if he is separated from the rest of nature until he experiences a moment that brings about feelings of joy that are able to overcome his despair:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The joy in stanza III slowly fades again in stanza IV as the narrator feels like there is "something that is gone". As the stanza ends, the narrator asks two different questions to end the first movement of the poem. Though they appear to be similar, one asks where the visions are now ("Where is it now") while the other doesn't ("Whither is fled"), and they leave open the possibility that the visions could return:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The second movement begins in stanza V by answering the question of stanza IV by describing a Platonic system of pre-existence. The narrator explains how humans start in an ideal world that slowly fades into a shadowy life:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: Before the light fades away as the child matures, the narrator emphasises the greatness of the child experiencing the feelings. By the beginning of stanza VIII, the child is described as a great individual, and the stanza is written in the form of a prayer that praises the attributes of children:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The end of stanza VIII brings about the end of a second movement within the poem. The glories of nature are only described as existing in the past, and the child's understanding of mortality is already causing them to lose what they once had:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The questions in Stanza IV are answered with words of despair in the second movement, but the third movement is filled with joy. Stanza IX contains a mixture of affirmation of life and faith as it seemingly avoids discussing what is lost. The stanza describes how a child is able to see what others do not see because children do not comprehend mortality, and the imagination allows an adult to intimate immortality and bond with his fellow man:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The children on the shore represents the adult narrator's recollection of childhood, and the recollection allows for an intimation of returning to that mental state. In stanza XI, the imagination allows one to know that there are limits to the world, but it also allows for a return to a state of sympathy with the world lacking any questions or concerns:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The poem concludes with an affirmation that, though changed by time, the narrator is able to be the same person he once was:


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The first version of the ode is similar to many of Wordsworth's spring 1802 poems. The ode is like "To the Cuckoo" in that both poems discuss aspects of nature common to the end of spring. Both poems were crafted at times when the natural imagery could not take place, so Wordsworth had to rely on his imagination to determine the scene. Wordsworth refers to "A timely utterance" in the third stanza, possibly the same event found in his "The Rainbow", and the ode contains feelings of regret that the experience must end. This regret is joined with feelings of uneasiness that he no longer feels the same way he did as a boy. The ode reflects Wordsworth's darker feelings that he could no longer return to a peaceful state with nature. This gloomy feeling is also present in "The Ruined Cottage" and in "Tintern Abbey". Of the other 1802 poems, the ode is different from his "Resolution and Independence", a poem that describes the qualities needed to become a great poet. The poem argued that a poet should not be excessive or irresponsible in behaviour and contains a sense of assurance that is not found within the original four stanzas. Instead, there is a search for such a feeling but the poem ends without certainty, which relates the ode to Coleridge's poem "Dejection: An Ode". When read together, Coleridge's and Wordsworth's poem form a dialogue with an emphasis on the poet's relationship with nature and humanity. However, Wordsworth's original four stanzas describing a loss is made darker in Coleridge and, to Coleridge, only humanity and love are able to help the poet.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: While with Wordsworth, Coleridge was able to read the poem and provide his response to the ode's question within an early draft of his poem, "Dejection: an Ode". Coleridge's answer was to claim that the glory was the soul and it is a subjective answer to the question. Wordsworth took a different path as he sought to answer the poem, which was to declare that childhood contained the remnants of a beatific state and that being able to experience the beauty that remained later was something to be thankful for. The difference between the two could be attributed to the differences in the poets' childhood experiences; Coleridge suffered from various pain in his youth whereas Wordsworth's was far more pleasant. It is possible that Coleridge's earlier poem, "The Mad Monk" (1800) influenced the opening of the ode and that discussions between Dorothy and Wordsworth about Coleridge's childhood and painful life were influences on the crafting of the opening stanza of the poem. However, the message in the ode, as with "Tintern Abbey", describes the pain and suffering of life as able to dull the memory of early joy from nature but it is unable to completely destroy it. The suffering leads Wordsworth to recognise what is soothing in nature, and he credits the pain as leading to a philosophical understanding of the world.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The poem is similar to the conversation poems created by Coleridge, including "Dejection: An Ode". The poems were not real conversations as there is no response to the narrator of the poem, but they are written as if there would be a response. The poems seek to have a response, though it never comes, and the possibility of such a voice though absence is a type of prosopopoeia. In general, Coleridge's poems discuss the cosmic as they long for a response, and it is this aspect, not a possible object of the conversation, that forms the power of the poem. Wordsworth took up the form in both "Tintern Abbey" and "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", but he lacks the generous treatment of the narrator as found in Coleridge's poems. As a whole, Wordsworth's technique is impersonal and more logical, and the narrator is placed in the same position as the object of the conversation. The narrator of Wordsworth is more self-interested and any object beyond the narrator is kept without a possible voice and is turned into a second self of the poet. As such, the conversation has one of the participants lose his identity for the sake of the other and that individual represents loss and mortality.


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The expanded portion of the ode is related to the ideas expressed in Wordsworth's "The Prelude" Book V in their emphasis on childhood memories and a connection between the divine and humanity. To Wordsworth, the soul was created by the divine and was able to recognise the light in the world. As a person ages, they are no longer able to see the light, but they can still recognise the beauty in the world. He elaborated on this belief in a note to the text: "Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his own mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the "Immortality of the Soul", I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorising me to make for my purpose the best use I could of it as a Poet." This "notion of pre-existence" is somewhat Platonic in nature, and it is the basis for Wordsworth believing that children are able to be the "best philosopher". The idea was not intended as a type of metempsychosis, the reincarnation of the soul from person to person, and Wordsworth later explained that the poem was not meant to be regarded as a complete philosophical view: "In my Ode... I do not profess to give a literal representation of the state of the affections and of the moral being in childhood. I record my feelings at that time,--my absolute spirituality, my 'all-soulness,' if I may so speak. At that time I could not believe that I should lie down quietly in the grave, and that my body would moulder into dust."


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: Wordsworth's explanation of the origin of the poem suggests that it was inspiration and passion that led to the ode's composition, and he later said that the poem was to deal with the loss of sensations and a desire to overcome the natural process of death. As for the specific passages in the poem that answer the question of the early version, two of the stanzas describe what it is like to be a child in a similar manner to his earlier poem, "To Hartley Coleridge, Six Years Old" dedicated to Coleridge's son. In the previous poem, the subject was Hartley's inability to understand death as an end to life or a separation. In the ode, the child is Wordsworth and, like Hartley or the girl described in "We are Seven", he too was unable to understand death and that inability is transformed into a metaphor for childish feelings. The later stanzas also deal with personal feelings but emphasise Wordsworth's appreciation for being able to experience the spiritual parts of the world and a desire to know what remains after the passion of childhood sensations are gone. This emphasis of the self places mankind in the position of the object of prayer, possibly replacing a celebration of Christ's birth with a celebration of his own as the poem describes mankind coming from the eternal down to earth. Although this emphasis seems non-Christian, many of the poem's images are Judeo-Christian in origin. Additionally, the Platonic theory of pre-existence is related to the Christian understanding of the Incarnation, which is a connection that Shelley drops when he reuses many of Wordsworth's ideas in "The Triumph of Life".


title: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

text: The idea of pre-existence within the poem contains only a limited theological component, and Wordsworth later believed that the concept was "far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith." In 1989, Gene Ruoff argued that the idea was connected to Christian theology in that the Christian theorist Origen adopted the belief and relied on it in the development of Christian doctrine. What is missing in Origen's platonic system is Wordsworth's emphasis on childhood, which could be found in the beliefs of the Cambridge Platonists and their works, including Henry Vaughan's "The Retreate". Even if the idea is not Christian, it still cannot be said that the poem lacks a theological component because the poem incorporates spiritual images of natural scenes found in childhood. Among those natural scenes, the narrator includes a Hebrew prayer-like praise of God for the restoration of the soul to the body in the morning and the attributing of God's blessing to the various animals he sees. What concerns the narrator is that he is not being renewed like the animals and he is fearful over what he is missing. This is similar to a fear that is provided at the beginning of "The Prelude" and in "Tintern Abbey". As for the understanding of the soul contained within the poem, Wordsworth is more than Platonic in that he holds an Augustinian concept of mercy that leads to the progress of the soul. Wordsworth differs from Augustine in that Wordsworth seeks in the poem to separate himself from the theory of solipsism, the belief that nothing exists outside of the mind. The soul, over time, exists in a world filled with the sublime before moving to the natural world, and the man moves from an egocentric world to a world with nature and then to a world with mankind. This system links nature with a renewal of the self.