title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In late June, Shanghai police detained four senior executives of Tangxiaoseng, an online lending platform controlled by Zibang Financial Service Internet Technology Co. Ltd. and told investors on June 28, 2018 that Zibang Financial was suspected of "illegally raising funds from the public." On July 20, 2018, iqianbang.com, a Beijing-based P2P lending platform announced to close down, citing "deteriorating online lending environment and drying up liquidity."


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: People's Bank of China announced in early July 2018 said that regulators will extend a two-year-old nationwide campaign to clean up fraud and violations in the online financial market, targeting P2P and other online lending and financial activities. More than 5,000 operations have been shut down since the campaign began in 2016.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In April 2019, one of China's top peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, tuandai.com, collapsed, resulting in financial losses for scores of Chinese investors.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In 2012 Australia's first peer to peer lending platform, SocietyOne, was launched. As of June 2016 the Australian Government has been encouraging the development of financial technology and peer to peer lending startups through its 'regulatory sandbox' program.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In New Zealand, peer-to-peer lending became practicable on April 1, 2014, when the relevant provisions of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 came into force. The Act enables peer-to-peer lending services to be licensed.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: The Financial Markets Authority issued the first peer-to-peer lending service licence on July 8, 2014, to Harmoney. Harmoney officially launched its service on October 10, 2014.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In India, peer-to-peer lending is currently regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, India's Central Bank. It has published a consultation paper on regulation of P2P lending and the final guidelines were released in 2017. There were over 30 peer-to-peer-lending platforms in India in 2016. Even with first-mover advantage many sites were not able to capture market share and grow their user base, arguably because of the reserved nature of Indian investors or lack of awareness of this type of debt financing. However, peer-to-peer lending platforms in India are helping a huge section of borrowers who have previously been rejected or have failed to qualify for a loan from banks.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Peer-to-peer-lending in Sweden is regulated by Finansinspektionen. Launched in 2007, the company Trustbuddy AB was first out on the Swedish market for peer-to-peer-lending, providing a platform for high risk personal loans between 500SEK and 10,000SEK. Trustbuddy filed for bankruptcy by October 2015, a new board cited abuses by outgoing leadership.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Several peer-to-peer lending services initiated operation and loan origination during 2014, Following the economic uprising of 2011, and public opinion regarding these platforms is positive. The maximum interest rate in Israeli P2P Arenas is limited by the "Extra-Banking Lending Regulations".


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Loans made under peer-to-peer lending are considered securities and as such P2P platforms must register with securities regulators and adapt themselves to existing regulatory models. This means limiting investors to some institutional investors or finding novel approaches in tandem with regulators. Canadian Capital Markets Securities Regulators (members of the Canadian Securities Administrators) are recent entrants to Canadian Peer-to-Peer P2P lending and are only issuing interim approvals "in order to test their products, services and applications throughout the Canadian market on a time limited basis." through "Regulatory Sandbox" programs including the CSA Regulatory Sandbox and the Ontario Securities Commission Sandbox, branded as "OSC Launchpad".


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Since April 2018, Brazilian p2p lending companies may operate directly without the intermediation of a bank or other financial institution.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: By means of the Resolution 4656/2018, the Central Bank of Brazil created a new type of institution called SEP (personal lending society) that aims to provide a platform for direct negotiation of loans between individuals and companies. A SEP cannot lend using its own resources but only operate as an intermediary. The borrower must be Brazilian individual or company, but there isn't a restriction regarding lenders nationality.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Latvian P2P lending market is developing rapidly. In Q2 2018 Latvian P2P platforms lent Eur 271.8 million and Eur 1.7 Billion cumulatively. Currently, the most active investors in Latvia's peer-to-peer lending platforms are residents of Germany, Great Britain, and Estonia.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: The two biggest P2P platforms are Mintos and Twino taking over 60% and 20% of market share respectively. Around nine companies that qualify as P2P investment platform currently operate in Latvia. Mintos was founded in 2015. In September 2018 the total amount of loans funded through Mintos have surpassed Eur 1 billion. Most of the loans funded through Mintos are personal loans with car loans coming second. In 2016 Mintos has raised Eur 2 million in funding from Latvian-based Venture Capital Skillion Ventures. Twino investment platform was launched in 2015, although the company has been operating since 2009 as a loan originator. Since the inception in 2009 Twino has lent more than Eur 500 million in loans. More than 90% of all loans that are on Twino platform are short maturity from one to three months.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In 2015, the Ministry of Finance of Latvia initiated development of a new regulation on the peer-to-peer lending in Latvia to establish regulatory requirements, such as rules for management compliance, AML requirements and other prudential measures.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: The Irish P2P lending platform Linked Finance was launched in 2013. In 2016, Linked Finance was also authorised to operate in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority. In 2015, Initiative Ireland launched the first property-backed secured lending P2P platform in Ireland.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In Indonesia, P2P lending is growing fast in recent years and is regulated under OJK since 2016. As of April 2019, there are 106 P2P platforms registered in OJK. P2P platforms provide loans targeting particularly into unbanked population, which is estimated to be around 100+ million in Indonesia.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Thousands of P2P platforms are illegal. Their applications are believed to be stealing customer's data such as phone contacts and photos. These are then used by the debt collectors to intimidate the customers. The debt collectors contact family members, friends, and even employers of the customers then telling them that the customers have debt that needs to be paid. Some of them commit suicide due to the pressure. Many cases are reported in the Indonesia's complaint handling system. Yet the police have not taken serious actions against these cases.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: There is no specific Peer-to-Peer lending regulation in Bulgaria. Currently, Klear Lending is the only Bulgarian platform. It was launched in 2016 and provides personal loans to prime customers. The Peer-to-Peer lending platform is operated by Klear Lending AD, a financial institution registered in the Register per art. 3a of the Credit Institutions Act maintained by the Bulgarian National Bank.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In Korea, Money Auction and Pop Funding are the very first peer to peer lending companies founded in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Korean P2P lending industry did not attract much public attention until late 2014 and early 2015, during which period a number of new fintech companies were founded underpinned by the global fintech wave with the emergence of Lending Club as the mainstream P2P lending player in the US. New P2P lending companies launched in Korea during this period include 8 Percent, Terafunding, Lendit, Honest Fund and Funda. At the beginning, 8 Percent, Lendit and Honest Fund focused on personal loan origination and Terafunding was the only P2P platform dedicated to the real estate backed loan origination, founded by ex-real estate broker and investor, Tae Young Yang.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: There was a brief period of regulatory uncertainty on the P2P business model as the P2P lending model was not officially legalized under the then regulatory regime. 8 percent was briefly shut down by the regulator in Feb 2015 and was reopened again. Korean P2P industry saw an explosive growth in a year. According to the regulator, cumulative P2P lending platform loan origination increased to KRW 311,800,000,000 as of December in 2016 from KRW 72,400,000,000 in March and there was a debate as to whether the industry was getting overheated, with questions on whether the industry offered appropriate investor protection. To respond to these concerns, as of February 2017, Korean regulator imposed an annual investment limit of KRW 10,000,000 for a retail investor on these lending platforms, and KRW 40,000,000 for certain qualified investors.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: As of April 2017, there are 148 P2P lending companies in Korea. However, only 40 companies are official members of the Korea P2P Finance Association. These members include Lendit, Roof Funding, Midrate, HF Honest Fund, Villy, 8 Percent, Terafunding, Together Funding and People Funding. According to the Korea P2P Finance Association, cumulative loan lent by its member P2P companies stands at c. KRW 2.3 TRN as of March 2018. By origination category, real estate project financing origination constitutes c. KRW 768,500,000,000, real estate asset backed origination is KRW 611,500,000,000, other asset backed KRW 472,400,000,000 and personal loan origination stands at KRW 443,200,000,000. Average interest yield offered by the member companies is 14.32%.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In Germany, P2P lending is growing fast in recent years and is regulated under Federal Financial Supervisory Authority. The transaction volume will reach an estimated value of €252 million in 2020.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In many countries, soliciting investments from the general public is considered illegal. Crowd sourcing arrangements in which people are asked to contribute money in exchange for potential profits based on the work of others are considered to be securities.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Dealing with financial securities is connected to the question of ownership: in the case of person-to-person loans, the problem is who owns the loans (notes) and how that ownership is transferred between the originator of the loan (the person-to-person lending company) and the individual lender(s). This question arises especially when a peer-to-peer lending company does not merely connect lenders and borrowers but also borrows money from users and then lends it out again. Such activity is interpreted as a sale of securities, and a broker-dealer license and the registration of the person-to-person investment contract is required for the process to be legal. The license and registration can be obtained at a securities regulatory agency such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S., the Ontario Securities Commission in Ontario, Canada, the Autorité des marchés financiers in France and Québec, Canada, or the Financial Services Authority in the UK.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Securities offered by the U.S. peer-to-peer lenders are registered with and regulated by the SEC. A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office explored the potential for additional regulatory oversight by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, though neither organization has proposed direct oversight of peer-to-peer lending at this time. In 2016, New York state sent "warning letters" threatening to require 28 peer-to-peer lenders to obtain a license to operate unless they "immediately" complied with responses to demands to disclose their lending practices and products available in the state.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: In the UK, the emergence of multiple competing lending companies and problems with subprime loans has resulted in calls for additional legislative measures that institute minimum capital standards and checks on risk controls to preclude lending to riskier borrowers, using unscrupulous lenders or misleading consumers about lending terms.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: One of the main advantages of person-to-person lending for borrowers can sometimes be better rates than traditional bank rates can offer. The advantages for lenders can be higher returns than obtainable from a savings account or other investments, but subject to risk of loss, unlike a savings account. Interest rates and the methodology for calculating those rates varies among peer-to-peer lending platforms. The interest rates may also have a lower volatility than other investment types.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: For investors interested in socially conscious investing, peer-to-peer lending offers the possibility of supporting the attempts of individuals to break free from high-rate debt, assist persons engaged in occupations or activities that are deemed moral and positive to the community, and avoid investment in persons employed in industries deemed immoral or detrimental to community.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Peer-to-peer lending also attracts borrowers who, because of their credit status or the lack thereof, are unqualified for traditional bank loans. Because past behavior is frequently indicative of future performance and low credit scores correlate with high likelihood of default, peer-to-peer intermediaries have started to decline a large number of applicants and charge higher interest rates to riskier borrowers that are approved.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: It seemed initially that one of the appealing characteristics of peer-to-peer lending for investors was low default rates, e.g. Prosper's default rate was quoted to be only at about 2.7% in 2007.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: The actual default rates for the loans originated by Prosper in 2007 were in fact higher than projected. Prosper's aggregate return (across all credit grades and as measured by LendStats.com, based upon actual Prosper marketplace data) for the 2007 vintage was (6.44)%, for the 2008 vintage (2.44)%, and for the 2009 vintage 8.10%. Independent projections for the 2010 vintage are of an aggregate return of 9.87. During the period from 2006 through October 2008 (referred to as 'Prosper 1.0'), Prosper issued 28,936 loans, all of which have since matured. 18,480 of the loans fully paid off and 10,456 loans defaulted, a default rate of 36.1%. $46,671,123 of the $178,560,222 loaned out during this period was written off by investors, a loss rate of 26.1%.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Since inception, Lending Club's default rate ranges from 1.4% for top-rated three-year loans to 9.8% for the riskiest loans.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: The UK peer-to-peer lenders quote the ratio of bad loans at 0.84% for Zopa of the £200m during its first seven years of lending history. As of November 2013, Funding Circle's current bad debt level was 1.5%, with an average 5.8% return after all bad debt and fees. This is comparable to the 3–5% ratio of mainstream banks and the result of modern credit models and efficient risk management technologies used by P2P companies.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: At the other end of the range are places such as Bondora that do lending to less credit-worthy customers, with default rates varying up to as high as 70+% for loans made to Slovak borrowers on that platform, well above those of its original Estonian market.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Because, unlike depositors in banks, peer-to-peer lenders can choose themselves whether to lend their money to safer borrowers with lower interest rates or to riskier borrowers with higher returns, in the US peer-to-peer lending is treated legally as investment and the repayment in case of borrower defaulting is not guaranteed by the federal government (U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) the way bank deposits are.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: A class action lawsuit, "Hellum v. Prosper Marketplace, Inc.", was held in Superior Court of California on behalf of all investors who purchased a note on the Prosper platform between January 1, 2006, and October 14, 2008. The plaintiffs alleged that Prosper offered and sold unqualified and unregistered securities, in violation of California and federal securities laws during that period. Plaintiffs further allege that Prosper acted as an unlicensed broker/dealer in California. The Plaintiffs were seeking rescission of the loan notes, rescissory damages, damages, and attorneys' fees and expenses. On July 19, 2013, the class action lawsuit was settled. Under the settlement terms Prosper will pay $10 million to the class action members.


title: Peer-to-peer lending

text: Peer-to-peer lending sponsors are organizations that handle loan administration on behalf of others including individual lenders and lending agencies, but do not loan their own money. Notable peer-to-peer lending sponsors include:


title: What's the 411?

text: What's the 411? is the debut album by American R&B singer Mary J. Blige. It was released on July 28, 1992, by Uptown Records and MCA Records. After signing a record contract with Uptown, Blige began working on the album with producer Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. Other producers and songwriters included DeVante Swing, Tony Dofat, Dave Hall, Mark Morales and Mark "Cory" Rooney. The resulting music covered hip hop soul, contemporary R&B, and new jack swing styles.


title: What's the 411?

text: "What's the 411?" was also met with positive reviews from critics, who applauded Blige's singing and the combination of hip hop and soul music, which led to her being named the "Queen of Hip Hop Soul". The album peaked at number six on the US "Billboard" 200 and topped the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and eventually sold 3.4 million copies.


title: What's the 411?

text: At the age of 17, Blige recorded a cover version of Anita Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture" in a recording booth at a local mall. Her mother's boyfriend at the time later played the cassette to recording artist and A&R runner for Uptown Records, Jeff Redd. Redd then sent it to the president and chief executive officer of the label, Andre Harrell. Blige met with Harrell in 1990 and performed the song for him. She was signed to Uptown and became the label's youngest and third female recording artist (after Finesse N' Synquis).


title: What's the 411?

text: After being signed to Uptown Records, Blige began working with record producer Puff Daddy. He became the executive producer and produced a majority of the album. The title, "What's the 411?", derived from Blige's past occupation as a 4-1-1 operator; it was also an indication by Blige of being the "real deal". The music was described as "revelatory on a frequent basis". Blige was noted for having a "tough girl persona and streetwise lyrics". The album begins with "Leave a Message", a collection of Blige's answering machine messages over a drum beat. The following two tracks, "Reminisce" and "You Remind Me", are melancholy songs that are overlaid with hip hop beats. A cover of Chaka Khan's "Sweet Thing" followed.


title: What's the 411?

text: "What's the 411?" was released on July 28, 1992. It peaked at number six on the "Billboard" 200 and topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It also peaked at number 53 on the UK Albums Chart. The first single released to promote the album was "You Remind Me", originally from 1991 film "Strictly Business". It reached the number 29 position on the pop charts and number 1 on the R&B charts in 1992. The next single, "Real Love" (#7 pop, #1 R&B, 1992), made Blige one of the year's biggest crossover successes.


title: What's the 411?

text: With the album, Blige became the most successful new female R&B artist of 1992 in the United States, according to music scholar Dave McAleer. Reporting on the album's commercial success for "Entertainment Weekly" that year, Dave DiMartino said Blige's "powerful, soulful voice and hip-hop attitude" made her "solidly connected with an audience that has never seen a woman do new jack swing but loves it just the same". The following year, a remix album was released to further market "What's the 411?", while "Sweet Thing" reached number 28 on the pop charts as a single.


title: What's the 411?

text: In 2000, "What's the 411?" was certified triple platinum by the RIAA for shipments of over three million copies. By August 2010, it had sold 3,318,000 copies in the United States.


title: What's the 411?

text: "What's the 411?" received positive reviews from contemporary critics. Reviewing the album for "Entertainment Weekly" in 1992, Havelock Nelson hailed it as "one of the most accomplished fusions of soul values and hip-hop to date" while comparing Blige's "powerful voice" to Khan, Anita Baker, and Caron Wheeler. Connie Johnson from the "Los Angeles Times" was particularly impressed by her rendition of "Sweet Thing" and "You Remind Me", calling the latter track "one of those perfect singer-to-song matches". "People" magazine said the album succeeded because of Blige's "fly-girl attitude" and singing ability, even though "she may not be Chaka Khan or Gladys Knight". Mitchell May was more critical in the "Chicago Tribune", writing that aside from the title track and "Sweet Thing", "What's the 411?" was marred by dull production and "silly lyrics" depriving the singer of self-esteem. "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau was largely unimpressed, grading the album a "dud" in his consumer guide. He later upgraded his score to a one-star honorable mention—indicating "a worthy effort that consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like"; he named "Sweet Thing" and "Real Love" as highlights while writing that "real is not enough, but attached to the right voice it's something to build on".


title: What's the 411?

text: The album was voted the year's 30th best in the Pazz & Jop—an annual poll of American critics nationwide, published by "The Village Voice". It also earned Blige two Soul Train Music Awards in 1993: Best New R&B Artist and Best R&B Album, Female.


title: What's the 411?

text: "What's the 411?" has since been viewed by critics as one of the 1990s' most important records. Blige's combination of vocals over a hip hop beat proved influential in contemporary R&B. With the album, she was dubbed the reigning "Queen of Hip Hop Soul", Stanton Swihart wrote in a retrospective review for AllMusic. He called it "the decade's most explosive, coming-out displays of pure singing prowess". According to David O'Donnell from BBC Music, "What's the 411?" was groundbreaking in its fusion of R&B hooks and hip hop beats, creating the formula for the contemporary R&B of the following decade. He complimented Blige's "sweet, soulful vocals", in line with Puff Daddy's "rough, jagged, hip-hop beats made for a winning combination that remains one of Blige's finest albums". In "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), Tom Moon wrote that with the album, Blige offered "a gritty undertone and a realism missing from much of the devotional love songs ruling the charts at that time."


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: American Football, also known retrospectively as LP1, is the debut studio album by American rock band of the same name, released on September 14, 1999, through Polyvinyl. It was recorded shortly after the band released their debut self-titled EP through Polyvinyl in October 1998. The group, consisting of vocalist/guitarist Mike Kinsella, guitarist Steve Holmes, and drummer Steve Lamos, recorded their debut album at Private Studios in Urbana, Illinois, with production from Brendan Gamble.


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: "American Football" was positively received by critics and US college radio stations, but the band split up soon after its release. The album has since received further critical acclaim and attained cult status and is today considered one of the most important math rock and Midwest emo records of the 1990s. A deluxe edition was released by Polyvinyl in May 2014 shortly after American Football announced their reunion, the demand for which crashed the label's website, and peaked at number 68 on the US "Billboard" 200. A month later, a music video was released for the song "Never Meant", directed by Chris Strong, who created the cover artwork for "American Football".


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: Frontman Mike Kinsella previously played in Chicago-based bands Cap'n Jazz and Joan of Arc alongside his brother Tim. Mike played drums for both bands. In 1997 Kinsella started The One Up Downstairs, whose line-up consisted of Allen Johnson on bass, Steve Lamos on drums, David Johnson on guitar, and Kinsella himself on vocals. The One Up Downstairs recorded three songs that were planned for a 7" vinyl release by Polyvinyl. However, the band broke up before it was pressed, thus the record was shelved. Shortly afterwards, Lamos was jamming with guitarist Steve Holmes, who was Kinsella's college roommate. Kinsella thought he "could add something", resulting in the trio forming American Football. The band got their name from a poster that Lamos' girlfriend had spotted. The poster read, "Come see American Football, the most overpaid athletes in the world."


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: The first time the group met it was "pretty casual", and their "[musical] ideas were noodly and meandering", according to Kinsella, who "started putting some notes to them." The trio was based in Champaign, Illinois while Kinsella was attending the University of Illinois. American Football was initially a side project, not intending to become a full-time commitment, as Holmes comments, due to them "always half-assing things". The first song the group wrote together was the instrumental "Five Silent Miles". At the time they were listening to Steve Reich, attempting to work out interplay between two guitars. The band released a 3-track self-titled EP in October 1998 which included "Five Silent Miles".


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: Kinsella used American Football in an attempt to revive the more rock-oriented sound of Joan of Arc's earlier material. The album is a stripped-back approach to later-day Joan of Arc, resulting in an emocore-sounding album, which also mixed with indie rock and math rock. At the time, Kinsella liked The Cure, The Smiths and "super sad shit." Holmes and Kinsella were also into punk and hardcore music, while Lamos was into jazz. The band concentrated on interaction between the two guitars, basing their timing on musical cues. According to Lamos the song titles were made up a couple of hours "before we finished the artwork." Lamos also mentioned that the band simply referred to the material as "the B song or the C-sharp song." Each song is in a different tuning. Kinsella had a journal that he used lyrics from, though they were written "from years before that, so it was just like, 'Yeah, that’ll work.'." After writing the lyrics and melodies, Kinsella would "just screech...them out." While practicing the material, they didn't have a PA system and thus Holmes and Lamos did not know the lyrics until the group did live performances.


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: "American Football" was made "literally in the last four days" before two-thirds of the band had to move back home, according to Kinsella. The album was recorded in May 1999 at Private Studios in Urbana, Illinois on a TASCAM 85 16B analog tape recorder, and was produced by Brendan Gamble. Gamble previously produced the band's self-titled EP. Not all of the material was in a finished state by the time the band went to record and they agreed to simply "finish [writing] these songs in the studio and put out the record." The group didn't have a bass player and decided to thicken the sound by doubling the guitar tracks. In addition to their usual instruments, each member provided further instrumentation: Holmes played the Wurlitzer while Lamos played trumpet, and Kinsella played bass. The album was mastered by Jonathan Pines at Private Studios in July 1999.


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: The house on the artwork, located on 704 W. High St in Urbana, Illinois, is within walking distance of the University of Illinois. Photography was done by Chris Strong and was designed by Strong and Suraiya Nathani. None of the band members lived in the house; according to Kinsella, "it was friends of friends" who lived in the house when they went to college. Joe Goggins, writing for "The Line of Best Fit", wrote that "Like all the best cover shots," the photo symbolizes "the music it prefaces in such an intangible, elusive way". Also noting that the album ""sounds" like it could only have been made in small-town America," and that the cover art ""looks" as if it could only really have been taken in similar surroundings." The house became a landmark for emo music fans, who often visit the house to take photos. Music journalist Sean Neumann, who documented the history of the house for "Vice", noted that fans have carved markings into the sidewalk in front of the home where Strong took the original photograph. The house would later take a leading position in the band's reunion, and the interior of the house later used for the cover of their eponymous second album. Kinsella revealed that the repeated references to the house was due to the fact it was one of the few images related to the band.


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: "American Football" was released on Polyvinyl Record Co. on September 14, 1999. According to a contemporary in the "CMJ New Music Report", the album performed well at college radio stations, perhaps due to Kinsella's musical past. Despite its minor success, the band broke up due to the members no longer living in the same city and their college courses coming to an end. Kinsella has since stated that the band knew when they were recording the album that they were going to break up. Kinsella also said that they "never had any ambitious goals. [W]e weren't kids who wanted to...tour all summer." Kinsella and Holmes both moved to Chicago and remained in contact at first. Meanwhile, Lamos moved to Colorado, later becoming a professor. Kinsella wanted to form a new group where he had full creative control, and formed the Owen project, while Holmes and Lamos later played together with The Geese. In 2004 Kinsella recorded an acoustic version of "Never Meant" for a split release between Owen and Rutabega. Also that year, the "American Football" album was pressed on vinyl for the first time and released on Polyvinyl.


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: In a 2019 interview with "Noisey", Polyvinyl co-founder Matt Lundford described the album's subsequent sales figures and influence in the years following its release as "a constant climb upwards." Lunford recalled that "American Football" "just kept organically being discovered by people, and then inspiring people and inspiring bands, and then being rediscovered."


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: In April 2014, American Football announced they were reuniting for live performances. Holmes said the group realised that "the time was ripe for three middle aged dudes to play some old songs about teenage feelings, and stand around tuning guitars for a long time." Polyvinyl released a deluxe edition of two discs containing various demos and live tracks with expanded packaging on May 20. Demand for the re-release had crashed Polyvinyl's website. The reissue came about when Holmes found cassette tapes of demos and showed them to Polyvinyl. Polyvinyl, who first teased a possible release back in 2012, asked if the band wanted to do anything with the tapes. The group were initially unaware of the album's anniversary. One of the live recordings was "The 7's"; it was one of the first songs the band ever wrote and was used to close their live performances. The song was "one of the more interesting things" the band ever wrote, according to Holmes and showcases the band's interest in different time signatures.


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: On June 5, 2014, a music video was released for "Never Meant". Directed by Chris Strong, the video was filmed inside and around the house that features on the album cover artwork. The video was set in Urbana, Illinois, around 1999. Strong revealed that the storyline was "about a brief relationship occurring between two characters at the end of their college experience". Strong had other people portray the band. American Football, with the addition of Kinsella's cousin Nate playing bass, played a surprise show in August in Chicago. They then followed this up with playing a festival in September and three nights at New York's Webster Hall. Further dates running into December were also played. In December, a live video was released for "Never Meant", filmed in October at New York's Webster Hall. The band played their first ever UK shows in May 2015.


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: "American Football", with the help of word-of-mouth, gained cult status since its release. AllMusic reviewer Fred Thomas stated that "Every song here manages to sound meticulously constructed without diminishing the easy, often dreamlike feel of the album. The record is defined by a sense of possibility and youthful discovery, and stands out not just as an anomalistic emo-jazz hybrid but as a lasting, iconic statement in the often blurry history of independent music".


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: "Stereogum" listed "Never Meant" as one of "30 Essential Songs From The Golden Era Of Emo" and "The Summer Ends" as one of "30 Essential Post-Rock Songs". "NME" listed the album as one of "20 Emo Albums That Have Resolutely Stood The Test Of Time". "Rolling Stone" ranked the album at No. 6 on their list of the 40 Greatest Emo Albums of All Time. "Never Meant" appeared on a best-of emo songs list by "Vulture".


title: American Football (1999 album)

text: The reissue charted at number 68 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, number 5 on the Catalog Albums chart and number 22 on the Tastemaker Albums chart. The reissue was ranked at number 1 on "Paste" magazine's "Five Recent Reissues Worth Owning" list.


title: Chicle

text: Chicle () is a natural gum traditionally used in making chewing gum and other products. It is collected from several species of Mesoamerican trees in the genus "Manilkara", including "M. zapota", "M. chicle", "M. staminodella", and "M. bidentata".


title: Chicle

text: The tapping of the gum is similar to the tapping of latex from the rubber tree: zig-zag gashes are made in the tree trunk and the dripping gum is collected in small bags. It is then boiled until it reaches the correct thickness. Locals who collect chicle are called "chicleros".


title: Chicle

text: The word "chicle" comes from the Nahuatl word for the gum, , which can be translated as "sticky stuff". Alternatively, it may have come from the Mayan word . Chicle was well known to the Aztecs and to the Maya, and early European settlers prized it for its subtle flavor and high sugar content. The word is used in the Americas and Spain to refer to chewing gum, being a common term for it in Spanish and being the Portuguese term (both in Brazil and in parts of Portugal; other areas also use the term ). The word has also been exported to other languages such as Greek, which refers to chewing gum as ().


title: Chicle

text: Both the Aztecs and Maya traditionally chewed chicle. It was chewed as a way to stave off hunger, freshen breath, and keep teeth clean. Chicle was also used by the Maya as a filling for tooth cavities.


title: Chicle

text: The American company American Chicle Company, incorporated in June 1899, was the first prominent commercial user of this ingredient in the production of chewing gum. Its brand name, Chiclets, is derived from the word chicle.


title: Chicle

text: In response to a land reform law passed in Guatemala in 1952 which ended feudal work relations and expropriated unused lands and sold them to the indigenous and peasants, the William Wrigley Company discontinued buying Guatemalan chicle. Since it was the sole buyer of Guatemalan chicle, the government was forced to create a massive aid program for growers.


title: Chicle

text: By the 1960s, most chewing gum companies had switched from using chicle to butadiene-based synthetic rubber, which was cheaper to manufacture. Only a handful of small gum companies still use chicle, including Glee Gum, Simply Gum, and Tree Hugger Gum.


title: Price Club

text: Price Club was an American warehouse store chain. It merged with its competitor, Costco Wholesale, in 1993 and adopted the Costco name in 1997. The original Price Club warehouse is still open, operating as Costco location #401.


title: Price Club

text: Sol Price founded Price Club, creating the concept in 1975 after being forced out of FedMart, another retail chain he founded. He and several friends invested $2.5 million. The first Price Club on July 12, 1976, in San Diego, California, the former site of a manufacturing building previously owned by Howard Hughes.


title: Price Club

text: Club membership was initially only available to business customers, but was later opened to certain groups, such as employees of local businesses, nonprofits, and government. The company charged shoppers a $25 annual membership fee to purchase bulk products at discount prices in a no-frills warehouse setting. Price Club's high sales volume enabled Sol Price to give his employees more benefits and higher wages than typical retailers. The company expanded to 94 locations throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico (joint venture with Controladora Comercial Mexicana). In 1992, Price Club generated $6.6 billion in revenue and $134.1 million in profit.


title: Price Club

text: Price Club merged with rival Costco in 1993 and the combined company was known as PriceCostco. Price Club and Costco continued to operate as separate stores with members of either chain being able to shop at both stores with their membership cards. In 1997, PriceCostco became Costco Wholesale Corporation and the remaining Price Clubs were rebranded as Costco.


title: Bialy (bread)

text: Bialy (), a Yiddish word short for "bialystoker kuchen" (), from the city of Białystok in Poland, is a traditional bread roll in Polish Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine.


title: Bialy (bread)

text: A chewy yeast roll bearing similarity to the bagel, the bialy has a diameter of up to . Unlike a bagel, which is boiled before baking, a bialy is simply baked, and instead of a hole in the middle it has a depression. Before baking, the depression is filled with diced onion and other ingredients, sometimes including garlic, poppy seeds, or bread crumbs.


title: Bialy (bread)

text: The bialy was brought to the United States by Polish Jewish immigrants in the late 1800s, and became a staple of Jewish bakeries in the Northeastern United States. Bialys became a popular breakfast bread in New York City and its suburbs, especially among American Jews. Bialys are often made by bagel bakeries, but the bialy has failed to reach mainstream popularity. Preparing bialys in the traditional manner is time-consuming, so many bakeries now use dough mixers, as is common in bagel making. Bialys are considered an iconic New York City food, and can be difficult to find outside that area. However, bialys are sold frozen by a number of brands, such as "Ray’s New York", in supermarkets across the US.


title: Bialy (bread)

text: In 2000, former "New York Times" food writer Mimi Sheraton wrote a book dedicated to the bialy and its role as a symbol of the Jewish heritage of Białystok, entitled "The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World".


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The Mumbai–Pune Expressway (officially Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway) is India's first 6-lane wide concrete, access-controlled tolled expressway. It spans a distance of 94.5 km connecting Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra state and the financial capital of India, with Pune, the cultural and educational capital of Maharashtra. The expressway, which was fully operationalized in 2002, introduced new levels of speed and safety in automobile transportation to Indian roads. It is one of India's busiest roads.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The expressway starts at Kalamboli in Navi Mumbai and ends at Kiwale in Pune. It cleaves through the scenic Sahyadri mountain ranges through passes and tunnels. It has five interchanges: Kon (Shedung), Chowk, Khalapur, Kusgaon and Talegaon. The expressway has two carriageways, each with three concrete lanes, separated by a central divider and a tarmac or concrete shoulder on either side. Pedestrians, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, bullock carts and tractors are not permitted, although tractor-trailers (semi-trailer rigs) are permitted. Vehicles are also prohibited from halting on the expressway. The expressway handles about 43,000 PCUs daily, and is designed to handle up to 1,00,000 PCUs.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The expressway has reduced the travel time from Kalamboli in Mumbai to Kiwale in Pune to about two hours. It has largely supplemented the Mumbai-Pune section of NH 48 which had become extremely congested and accident-prone.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The expressway is not part of NHAI highway network NH 48 and has been built, operated and maintained wholly by the Government of Maharashtra via Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation. NH 48 is another separate older national highway. The NH 48 merges with this expressway for a short distance near Khandala. Due to the winding route taken as the road climbs up the hills, traffic congestion occurs on that part of expressway where NH 48 merges. To alleviate this, a 'missing link' (bypass) project is under construction. This will allow traffic to bypass the hill (ghat) section, reducing the distance by about 6 km and travel time by an estimated 25 minutes.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The government of Maharashtra appointed RITES in 1990 to carry out feasibility studies for the new expressway to be operated on toll basis. RITES submitted its report in 1994 with the estimated cost of project at .


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The government of Maharashtra entrusted the work of the construction of the expressway to MSRDC in March 1997 on Build-Operate-Transfer basis with permission to collect toll for 30 years. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India gave environmental clearance on 13 October 1997 and forest clearance on 11 November 1997.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The tender notice was published in leading newspapers all over India and also on the Internet. Due to the wide publicity, 133 tenders were sold and 55 tenders were received on 18 December 1997. After technical and financial evaluation, work orders were given on 1 January 1998 to four contractors. Thereafter tenders for widening of Khandala and Lonavala-Khandala bypass works were invited. The tenders were received on 24 August 1998 and orders were issued on 4 September 1998.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: This six-lane project was completed under the stewardship of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). The expressway cost to construct. The first sections opened in 2000, and the entire route was completed, opened to traffic and made fully operational from April 2002. The entire length of expressway has a single layer of barbed wire fencing to keep out stray animals.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The expressway was conceived and the work started when a coalition of BJP and Shiv Sena governed Maharashtra. Eventually, in 2009, the then ruling coalition (INC, NCP) named the expressway after the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Yashavantrao Chavan, who was a member of the Congress.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The expressway was opened to public in April 2002. The expressway initially opened without a posted speed limit. However, in 2009, a speed limit of 80 km/h (50 mph) was enacted as private vehicles got more powerful and could hit higher speeds more easily. In July 2019, a panel of experts agreed to further increase the speed limit to 120 km/h (75 mph). This increase was short lived, and four months later in November 2019, the Highway Police slashed down the speed limit to 100 km/h (60 mph) for cars and 80 km/h (50 mph) for trucks on flat terrain, and half of that as a speed limit for hilly terrain.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: It has six illuminated, ventilated tunnels totaling 5,724 metres. These tunnels were built by the Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: Toll is collected at Khalapur (Pali Phata) (for the Mumbai-Pune direction) and at Talegaon (for the Pune-Mumbai direction). The toll ranges from for private cars, to for multi-axle trailer trucks. The toll collection data is kept as secret as per the RTI inquiry raised by activist Vivek Velankar. The expressway contract with the Ideal Road Builders (IRB) has been uploaded but the toll collection details are not there. There is no plan to give toll waiver for this expressway.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The expressway has witnessed a large number of road accidents, attributed to human errors and the large volume of traffic. In the first 10 years since its opening, there were 1,758 accidents with more than 400 fatalities.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: The heavy rains in June and July 2015 caused heavy landslides at Khandala and Adoshi tunnels, which prompted the PWD to remove loose rocks to prevent further landslides. To carry out such works, the expressway near to the Lonavala exit till Khopoli exit was closed from 10 am to 5 pm for 10 days after the landslide near Adoshi tunnel on 18 July 2015 which took three lives and halted the traffic for two months. The boulders fell on both carriageways which caused huge diversion of traffic towards the old highway.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: SaveLIFE Foundation, with support from Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. and the MSRDC, initiated the 'Zero Fatality Corridor' project to make the expressway fatality-free by 2020. Since August 2016, over a thousand engineering errors on the expressway have been fixed. As a part of this project, the 'Safety Under 80' campaign was also jointly launched by SLF, MSRDC and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. The initiative aimed at creating mass awareness on the dangers of speeding and the consequences of speeding were exhibited through outdoor hoardings and installation of crashes cars on both the corridors of the expressway.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: On 6 April 2020, during the lockdown during COVID-19, a section of the 190 year old Amrutanjan Bridge, a popular out of use railway bridge on the Bhor Ghat, was demolished by the MSRDC with the help of Maharashtra Police Highway Traffic department. The bridge was a major bottleneck on the ghat section, which caused traffic snarls and posed a safety issue for wide vehicles and trucks carrying wide goods. Post demolition, the safety and flow of traffic through the ghat section has improved.


title: Mumbai–Pune Expressway

text: MSRDC is planning to widen the expressway from current 6 lane to 8 lane. The proposal has been presented in Maharashtra Cabinet for approval.


title: Praveen Sattaru

text: Praveen Sattaru is an Indo-American film director, screenwriter and producer, known for his works in Telugu cinema. He made his directorial debut with the 2011 film, "". In 2014, he directed the critically acclaimed anthology film, "Chandamama Kathalu" which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu for that year.


title: Praveen Sattaru

text: Praveen Sattaru was born in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, India. He holds MS degree in Chip Designing, and has worked as SAP consultant in IBM for about 10 years. He is an Indian immigrant to the United States. He is married to Archana.


title: Oleum

text: Oleum (Latin "oleum", meaning oil), or fuming sulfuric acid, is a term referring to solutions of various compositions of sulfur trioxide in sulfuric acid, or sometimes more specifically to disulfuric acid (also known as pyrosulfuric acid). Oleum is identified by the CAS number 8014-95-7 (EC/List number: 616-954-1 ; ECHA InfoCard: 100.116.872).


title: Oleum

text: Oleums can be described by the formula "y"SO·HO where "y" is the total molar mass of sulfur trioxide content. The value of "y" can be varied, to include different oleums. They can also be described by the formula HSO·"x"SO where "x" is now defined as the molar free sulfur trioxide content. Oleum is generally assessed according to the free SO content by mass. It can also be expressed as a percentage of sulfuric acid strength; for oleum concentrations, that would be over 100%. For example, 10% oleum can also be expressed as HSO·"0.13611"SO, "1.13611"SO·HO or 102.25% sulfuric acid. The conversion between % acid and % oleum is: % acid = 100 + 18/80 × % oleum


title: Oleum

text: For "x" = 1 and "y" = 2 the empirical formula HSO for disulfuric (pyrosulfuric) acid is obtained. Pure disulfuric acid is a solid at room temperature, melting at 36 °C and rarely used either in the laboratory or industrial processes.


title: Oleum

text: Oleum is produced in the contact process, where sulfur is oxidized to sulfur trioxide which is subsequently dissolved in concentrated sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid itself is regenerated by dilution of part of the oleum.


title: Oleum

text: The lead chamber process for sulfuric acid production was abandoned, partly because it could not produce sulfur trioxide or concentrated sulfuric acid directly due to corrosion of the lead, and absorption of NO gas. Until this process was made obsolete by the contact process, oleum had to be obtained through indirect methods. Historically, the biggest production of oleum came from the distillation of iron sulfates at Nordhausen, from which the historical name Nordhausen sulfuric acid is derived.


title: Oleum

text: Oleum is an important intermediate in the manufacture of sulfuric acid due to its high enthalpy of hydration. When SO is added to water, rather than dissolving, it tends to form a fine mist of sulfuric acid, which is difficult to manage. However, SO added to concentrated sulfuric acid readily dissolves, forming oleum which can then be diluted with water to produce additional concentrated sulfuric acid.


title: Oleum

text: Typically, above concentrations of 98.3%, sulfuric acid will undergo a spontaneous decomposition into sulfur trioxide and water


title: Oleum

text: This means that sulfuric acid above said concentration will readily degenerate until it reaches 98.3%; this is impractical in some applications such as synthesis where anhydrous conditions are preferred (like alcohol eliminations). The addition of sulfur trioxide allows the concentration to be increased by means of Le Chatelier's principle.


title: Oleum

text: Oleum is a useful form for transporting sulfuric acid compounds, typically in rail tank cars, between oil refineries (which produce various sulfur compounds as a byproduct of refining) and industrial consumers.


title: Oleum

text: Certain compositions of oleum are solid at room temperature, and thus are safer to ship than as a liquid. Solid oleum can be converted into liquid at the destination by steam heating or dilution or concentration. This requires care to prevent overheating and evaporation of sulfur trioxide. To extract it from a tank car requires careful heating using steam conduits inside the tank car. Great care must be taken to avoid overheating, as this can increase the pressure in the tank car beyond the tank's safety valve limit.


title: Oleum

text: In addition, oleum is less corrosive to metals than sulfuric acid, because there is no free water to attack surfaces. Because of that, sulfuric acid is sometimes concentrated to oleum for in-plant pipelines and then diluted back to acid for use in industrial reactions.


title: Oleum

text: In Richmond, California in 1993 a significant release occurred due to overheating, causing a release of sulfur trioxide that absorbed moisture from the atmosphere, creating a mist of micrometre-sized sulfuric acid particles that formed an inhalation health hazard. This mist spread over a wide area.


title: Oleum

text: Oleum is a harsh reagent, and is highly corrosive. One important use of oleum as a reagent is the secondary nitration of nitrobenzene. The first nitration can occur with nitric acid in sulfuric acid, but this deactivates the ring towards further electrophilic substitution. A stronger reagent, oleum, is needed to introduce the second nitro group onto the aromatic ring.


title: Oleum

text: Oleum is used in the manufacture of many explosives with the notable exception of nitrocellulose. (In modern manufacturing of nitrocellulose, the HSO concentration is often adjusted using oleum.) The chemical requirements for explosives manufacture often require anhydrous mixtures containing nitric acid and sulfuric acid. Ordinary commercial grade nitric acid consists of the constant boiling azeotrope of nitric acid and water, and contains 68% nitric acid. Mixtures of ordinary nitric acid in sulfuric acid therefore contain substantial amounts of water and are unsuitable for processes such as those that occur in the manufacture of trinitrotoluene.


title: Oleum

text: Anhydrous nitric acid, referred to as white fuming nitric acid, can be used to prepare water-free nitration mixtures, and this method is used in laboratory scale operations where the cost of material is not of primary importance. Fuming nitric acid is hazardous to handle and transport, because it is extremely corrosive and volatile. For industrial use, such strong nitration mixtures are prepared by mixing oleum with ordinary commercial nitric acid so that the free sulfur trioxide in the oleum consumes the water in the nitric acid.


title: Oleum

text: Like concentrated sulfuric acid, oleum is such a strong dehydrating agent that if poured onto powdered glucose, or virtually any other sugar, it will draw the hydrogen elements of water out of the sugar in an exothermic reaction, leaving a residue of nearly pure carbon as a solid. This carbon expands outward, hardening as a solid black substance with gas bubbles in it.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: The 1996 Australian federal election was held to determine the members of the 38th Parliament of Australia. It was held on 2 March 1996. All 148 seats of the House of Representatives and 40 seats of the 76-seat Senate were up for election. The centre-right Liberal/National Coalition led by Opposition Leader John Howard of the Liberal Party and coalition partner Tim Fischer of the National Party defeated the incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party government led by Prime Minister Paul Keating in a landslide victory.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: The election marked the end of the 5-term, 13-year Hawke-Keating Government that began in 1983. Howard was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Australia on 11 March 1996, along with the First Howard Ministry. This election was the start of the 11-year Howard Government; the Labor party would spend this period in opposition and would not return to government until the 2007 election.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: This was the first federal election that future Prime Minister Tony Abbott contested as a member of parliament, having entered parliament at the 1994 Warringah by-election. Future Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and future opposition leader Brendan Nelson also entered parliament at this election.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: Howard became the first Liberal leader to win an election from opposition since Robert Menzies in 1949. (Malcolm Fraser was caretaker prime minister in the 1975 election.)


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: John Howard, who had previously led the Liberal Party from 1985 to 1989, had returned to the leadership in January 1995 following a disastrous 8 months under the leadership of Alexander Downer. Downer and Peter Costello had succeeded Dr. John Hewson and Michael Wooldridge early in 1994 and were touted as the leaders of the new-generation Liberals. In the end, the party opted for the seasoned Howard, perhaps an acknowledgment that he was the only one left standing after a decade of party infighting.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: Howard approached the campaign with a determination to present as small a target as possible. Throughout 1995, he refused to detail specific policy proposals, focusing the Coalition's attacks mainly on the longevity and governing record of the Labor government. By 1996, however, it was clear that the electorate had tired of Labor and Paul Keating in particular. "The recession we had to have" line resonated with deadly force throughout the electorate. Although Keating's big picture approach to republicanism, reconciliation with Australia's Indigenous peoples and engagement with Asia galvanised support within Labor's urban constituencies, Howard was able to attract support amongst disaffected mainstream Australians – including traditionally Labor-voting blue-collar workers and middle-class suburban residents. He also promised to retain Medicare and hold a constitutional convention to decide whether Australia would become a republic.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: The election-eve Newspoll reported the Liberal/National Coalition held an estimated 53.5 percent two-party-preferred vote.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: Overall the coalition won 29 seats from Labor while the ALP won 4 seats from the Liberals. These 4 seats were Canberra and Namadgi in the ACT and Isaacs and Bruce in Victoria. The ACT seats, which had been won by the Liberals in a by-election, fell to Labor due to a strong return to the ALP in a traditional Labor town by public servants fearing conservative cuts. The division of Brendan Smyth's seat of Canberra into the two new (of the three) ACT seats limited his campaign to the southernmost Tuggeranong seat of Namadgi where the ACT Labor right wing stood former MLA Annette Ellis who ran a tight grassroots campaign. Isaacs and Bruce fell to Labor due to demographic changes due to a redistribution of electoral boundaries.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: Labor lost five percent of its two-party vote from 1993, and tallied its lowest primary vote since 1934 (an additional eight percent coming from preferences). The swing against Labor would not normally have been enough in and of itself enough to cause a change of government. However, Labor lost 13 of its 33 seats in New South Wales, and all but two of its 13 seats in Queensland. The 29-seat swing was the second-largest defeat, in terms of seats lost, by a sitting government in Australia. Three members of Keating's government—including Attorney-General Michael Lavarch —lost their seats. Keating resigned as Labor leader on the night of the election, and was succeeded by former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kim Beazley.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: Due in part to this large swing, Howard entered office with a 45-seat majority, the second-largest in Australian history (behind only the 55-seat majority won by Malcolm Fraser in 1975). The Liberals actually won a majority in their own right at this election with 75 seats, the most the party had ever won. Although Howard had no need for the support of the Nationals, the Coalition was retained. , this was the last time the Liberals have won a majority in their own right at a federal election.


title: 1996 Australian federal election

text: Exit polling showed the Coalition winning 47 percent of the blue-collar vote, compared with Labor's 39 percent; there was a 16-point drop in Labor's vote among members of trade unions. The Coalition won 48 percent of the Catholic vote and Labor 37 percent, a reversal of the usual figures.


title: Vaaraahi Chalana Chitram

text: Vaaraahi Chalana Chitram () is a leading Indian film production house in India that produces Telugu films. It was established by Sai Korrapati.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: The AN/SPY-1 is a United States Navy 3D radar system manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The array is a passive electronically scanned system and a key component of the Aegis Combat System. The system is computer controlled and uses four complementary antennas to provide 360-degree coverage. The system was first installed in 1973 on and entered active service in 1983 as the SPY-1A on . The -1A was installed on ships up to CG-58, with the -1B upgrade first installed on in 1986. The upgraded -1B(V) was retrofitted to existing ships from CG-59 up to the last, .


title: AN/SPY-1

text: The first production model of the SPY-1 series is SPY-1, which forms the baseline configuration of all subsequent SPY-1 radars. SPY-1A has four antenna arrays in two separate deckhouses, with each antenna array containing 148 modules. Each module contains up to 32 radiating elements and phase shifters, and modules are paired to form transmitting and receiving sub-arrays, which are grouped into 32 transmitting and 68 receiving arrays. Transmitting arrays are driven by eight transmitters, each with four crossed-field amplifiers (CFAs). Each CFA produces a peak power of . There are 4,096 total radiators, 4,352 receivers, and 128 auxiliary elements on each antenna array. The power requirement of SPY-1A is four times that of the AN/SPS-48. The AN/UYK-7 computer controls SPY-1.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1A is a development of SPY-1, resulting from the deployment of SPY-1-equipped off the Lebanese coast. It was discovered that the false alarm rate was high because the radar would pick up swarms of insects and clutter from mountainous terrain. The solution was to allow the operator to change the sensitivity profile of radar by periodically reducing attenuation, and setting threat and non-threat sectors according to changing environment. The result was more efficient utilization of resources. About 10% of the software totaling thirty thousand lines were rewritten to accommodate the necessary upgrade. In 2003, the U.S. Navy donated a SPY-1A antenna to the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, making it one of the first stationary phased arrays used in weather forecasting. The Multifunction Phased Array Radar was decommissioned and removed in 2016.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1B adopts VLSI, resulting in increased performance and reduced size and weight. For example, the electronic cabinets area was reduced from 11 to 5, with the corresponding weight reduced from to , and separate digital modules are reduced from 3,806 to 1,606. A 7-bit phase shifter replaced the 4-bit phase shifter in earlier models, with the corresponding weight of phase shifters in the face of the antenna reduced from to , and a reduction of the side lobe by . There are 4,350 radiators with two side lobe cancellation antennae, each with two elements, and the radar uses eleven 16-bit microprocessors. The ability to counter steep diving missiles was improved with more energy at higher elevations or longer pulse.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1B(V) is a development of earlier SPY-1B with moving target indication capability incorporated in 1997.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1D was first installed on (DDG-51) in 1991, with all antennas in a single deckhouse. It is a variant of the -1B to fit the using the UYK-43 computer, with the main antenna also used as missile uplinks, thus eliminating the need for separate missile uplinks in earlier models. The UYA-4 display in earlier models is replaced by the UYQ-21 display. Starting with Flight III (DDG-125), the "Arleigh Burke" class is being equipped with AN/SPY-6(V)1 radar from Raytheon; Flight IIA (DDG-79 to DDG-124) will be retrofitted with the AN/SPA-6(V)4 variant.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1D(V), the Littoral Warfare Radar, was an upgrade introduced in 1998 with a new track initiation processor for high clutter near-coast operations, where the earlier "blue water" systems were especially weak. The waveform is coded and signal processing is improved. The ability to resist electronic attack was also improved.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1E SBAR (S-Band Active Array) is the only active phased array model in the SPY-1 series. SPY-1E utilizes commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) subsystems, and a single-faced demonstration unit was built in 2004. The weight of the antenna remains the same, but the weight below the deck is greatly reduced. It was later renamed the AN/SPY-2 and subsequently developed into AN/SPY-4 Volume Search Radar (VSR) for s and s to complement their AN/SPY-3 X-band radar. VSR was removed from the "Zumwalt" class due to budgetary concerns and will be replaced with Raytheon AN/SPY-6(V)4 on the "Ford" class starting with .


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1F FARS (frigate array radar system) is a smaller version of the 1D designed to fit frigates. It is used in Norwegian "Fridtjof Nansen"-class frigates. The origin of the SPY-1F can be traced back to the FARS proposed to the German Navy in the 1980s. The size of the antenna of SPY-1F is reduced from the original with 4,350 elements to 8 ft (2.4 m) with 1,856 elements, and the range is of the SPY-1D. It is not used by the U.S. Navy, although there were proposals to retrofit "Freedom"-class littoral combat ships.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1F(V) is a derivative of SPY-1F with improved capability against littoral targets and cruise missiles and better multi-mission capability.


title: AN/SPY-1

text: SPY-1K is the smallest version of the radar currently offered, based on the same architecture as the 1D and 1F. It is intended for use on very small vessels such as corvettes, where the SPY-1F would be too large. The size of the antenna is further reduced to with 912 elements. As of 2007, none were in service, although the radar is incorporated into the design of the yet-unbuilt .


title: AN/SPY-1

text: In July 2009, Lockheed Martin was one of three companies awarded contracts to study the development of a new Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) to be composed of an S-Band radar, an X-Band radar, and a Radar Suite Controller to defend against evolving anti-ship and ballistic missile threats.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Daniel Bilson (born July 26, 1956) is an American writer, director, and producer of movies, television, video games, and comic books. Together with his frequent collaborator, Paul De Meo, he is best known as the writer for the film "The Rocketeer" (1991) and creator, writer, producer and director for the television series "Viper" (1994, 1996)", The Sentinel" (1996) and "The Flash" (1990). He has written multiple issues of the comic book "The Flash", as well as scripts for multiple video games, including "" (2003). "Da 5 Bloods" (2020), based on a screenplay written by Bilson & De Meo, was released following De Meo's death.


title: Danny Bilson

text: While actively working as a writer and producer, Bilson is also a tenured faculty member at the University of Southern California (USC), where he holds the positions of Director of USC Games and the Chair of USC's School of Cinema's Interactive Media and Games Division.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Bilson was born into a show business family in Los Angeles, California, the son of Mona (Weichman) and the director Bruce Bilson ("Bewitched", "Get Smart", "Hogan's Heroes"). As a child, he discovered his passion for both storytelling and games, both of which would greatly influence his career.


title: Danny Bilson

text: He has three daughters; his eldest, Rachel Bilson (born on August 25, 1981) is an actress, notable for her role in "The O.C." and "Hart of Dixie". He, his wife Heather Medway, and two younger daughters, Hattie “Stinker” Elizabeth Bilson, born December 19, 2001, and Rosemary, born February 10, 2007, reside in Los Angeles.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Bilson graduated from California State University, San Bernardino. There he met and teamed up with his best friend and long-time writing partner, Paul DeMeo, and together they founded Pet Fly Productions.


title: Danny Bilson

text: After graduating from college, Bilson worked aggressively to build a career in the movie business, working as an extra while writing screenplays. Bilson and DeMeo produced their first script, "Trancers" (1985), a noir tale about a time-travelling detective from the future. The movie became a cult classic, and the narrative was so engaging that it evolved into a franchise that generated five sequels. Trancers currently holds an 83% Freshness Score on Rotten Tomatoes.


title: Danny Bilson

text: In 2021, Bilson appeared on late night radio show, The Ghost of Hollywood, where he would discuss his work on Trancers.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Bilson debuted as a director for another cult classic "Zone Troopers" (1985), also co-written by DeMeo, a tale of American World War II soldiers who find an alien spacecraft. The movie was filmed in Italy.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Following this, the duo performed the same roles in "The Wrong Guys" (1988) a comedic spoof of boy scouting.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Bilson and DeMeo began their screenplay adaptation of the comic book "The Rocketeer" in 1985. While writing for Disney, the partners weathered the ups and downs of five years of movie development. The film was released in theaters in 1991, missing key deleted scenes that were only restored years later as part of the home video release. "The Rocketeer" has become one of the most beloved Disney live action films of the '90s, with a recent announcement to reboot it as a film franchise as well as an animated series.


title: Danny Bilson

text: For most of the 1990s, Bilson and DeMeo worked as Executive Producers and creators on various action-adventure and sci-fi series for multiple studios and networks, including the first TV incarnation of The Flash, and multiple action series "Viper", "Human Target," and "The Sentinel."


title: Danny Bilson

text: During an interview on The Ghost of Hollywood, Bilson discusses he and DeMeo's transition into writing for television and video games after their time working for Empire Pictures.


title: Danny Bilson

text: After a chance meeting with then-President of Electronic Arts in 2000, Don Mattrick, Bilson—an avid tabletop and video gamer his entire life—was brought on as a production lead to focus on guiding creative and narrative IP development at EA. During that time, he was a consulting producer for the video game "The Sims" (2000), as well as creative executive on the EA's Harry Potter video game franchise, working directly with JK Rowling and acting as a liaison between the acclaimed author, EA, and Harry Potter film distributor Warner Bros. He also wrote for multiple EA game franchises, including "Command & Conquer", "Medal of Honor", and "James Bond 007".


title: Danny Bilson

text: In 2008, THQ approached Bilson to take on the role of VP of Creative Production, formally taking on the same function there as he had done informally at EA. Executives at the company, after seeing the positive impact his input had on titles in their development pipeline, and his leadership skills when it came to interacting with developers as well marketing staff, promoted him to Executive Vice President of Global Production and Marketing.


title: Danny Bilson

text: In that role, Bilson led over a dozen internally owned production studios, and 30+ marketing, administrative and operations staff at THQ's headquarters in Agoura Hills. One of his first tasks was to develop a clear strategic framework for the inherited portfolio of studios the company owned, as many had previously been purchased without one in place, resulting in the company owning over 20 studios at its peak.


title: Danny Bilson

text: After the painful process of having to streamline staff and studios, Bilson—with his partner DeMeo acting as a narrative design executive—focused on building and cultivating "Core game" franchises, lobbying executives for sufficient production and marketing funds to launch and/or maintain new and ongoing franchises such as Saints Row, Red Faction, Darksiders, MX vs ATV, Homefront, De Blob, and Metro 2033. He also led the launches for new installments of Core licensed IP such as WWE Smackdown vs Raw and the successful launch of the UFC video game franchise.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Despite the positive early results in the Core Business Unit that Bilson managed, the company's outsize investments in its separately led, declining Kids & Family Business Unit continued to drag on its overall financials. After successfully launching a Nintendo Wii peripheral—the uDraw Gaming Tablet—in 2010, executives at THQ made an aggressive investment in launching a uDraw peripheral for the then-new consoles Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2011. The product did not sell, resulting in a massive write-off, the shuttering of the Kids & Family division, and sole reliance on the Bilson's Core Games business to drive the company's revenue.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Unfortunately the $100 million shortfall created by uDraw, coupled with ongoing Kids and Family licensing expenses, put the company in dire financial straits from which it never recovered. Bilson left THQ in 2012, succeeded by Jason Rubin, who was the president of THQ before its closure due to bankruptcy on January 23, 2013.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Overlapping with his time at EA and THQ, Bilson and DeMeo continued writing comics, sometimes to support internal THQ IP, but also co-writing "" for DC Comics with actor Adam Brody, as well a mini-series for Wildstorm Comics "called Red Menace".


title: Danny Bilson

text: During his time at EA, Bilson began teaching at the University of Southern California, after being encouraged to do so by his friend and "World of Warcraft" guildmate, Bing Gordon. There he instructs as an adjunct professor at USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he teaches traditional screenwriting, as well as character development and storytelling for video games.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Bilson continues to work full-time as a screenwriter and producer, while teaching part-time at USC, where he was appointed Chair of the USC's Interactive Media and Games Division in 2017.


title: Danny Bilson

text: He was appointed Director of USC Games, a joint education program co-managed by USC's School of Cinematic Arts and USC Viterbi School of Engineering, in March 2019.


title: Danny Bilson

text: Bilson's lifelong writing partner and best friend of over 40 years, Paul De Meo, died in 2018, just prior to the finalization of the sale of a script they co-wrote--"Da 5 Bloods"—to acclaimed writer/director/producer Spike Lee, fresh off his 2019 Academy Award win for Best Adapted Screenplay for the critically acclaimed film "BlacKkKlansman". "Da 5 Bloods" was distributed by Netflix and the film starred Chadwick Boseman, along with Delroy Lindo and Jean Reno.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and Elyria, Ohio. In 1912, Anderson had a nervous breakdown that led him to abandon his business and family to become a writer.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: At the time, he moved to Chicago and was eventually married three additional times. His most enduring work is the short-story sequence "Winesburg, Ohio," which launched his career. Throughout the 1920s, Anderson published several short story collections, novels, memoirs, books of essays, and a book of poetry. Though his books sold reasonably well, "Dark Laughter" (1925), a novel inspired by Anderson's time in New Orleans during the 1920s, was his only bestseller.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Sherwood Berton Anderson was born on September 13, 1876, at 142 S. Lafayette Street in Camden, Ohio, a farming town with a population of around 650 (according to the 1870 census). He was the third of seven children born to Emma Jane (née Smith) and former Union soldier and harness-maker Irwin McLain Anderson. Considered reasonably well-off financially, Anderson's father was seen as an up-and-comer by his Camden contemporaries, but the family left town just before Sherwood's first birthday. Reasons for the departure are uncertain; most biographers note rumors of debts incurred by either Irwin or his brother Benjamin. The Andersons headed north to Caledonia by way of a brief stay in a village of a few hundred called Independence (now Butler). Four or five years were spent in Caledonia, years that formed Anderson's earliest memories. This period later inspired his semi-autobiographical novel "" (1926). In Caledonia Anderson's father began drinking excessively, which led to financial difficulties, eventually causing the family to leave the town.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: With each move, Irwin Anderson's prospects dimmed; while in Camden he was the proprietor of a successful shop and could employ an assistant, but by the time the Andersons finally settled down in Clyde, Ohio, in 1884, Irwin could get work only as a hired man to harness manufacturers. That job was short-lived, and for the rest of Sherwood Anderson's childhood, his father barely supported the family as an occasional sign-painter and paperhanger, while his mother took in washing to make ends meet. Partly as a result of these misfortunes, young Sherwood became adept at finding various odd jobs to help his family, earning the nickname "Jobby".


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Though he was a decent student, Anderson's attendance at school declined as he began picking up work, and he finally left school for good at age 14 after about nine months of high school. From the time he began to cut school to the time he left town, Anderson worked as a "newsboy, errand boy, waterboy, cow-driver, stable groom, and perhaps printer's devil, not to mention assistant to Irwin Anderson, Sign Painter", in addition to assembling bicycles for the Elmore Manufacturing Company. Even in his teens, Anderson's talent for selling was evident, a talent he would later draw on in a successful career in advertising. As a newsboy he was said to have convinced a tired farmer in a saloon to buy two copies of the same evening paper. With the exception of work, Anderson's childhood resembled that of other boys his age.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: In addition to participating in local events and spending time with his friends, Anderson was a voracious reader. Though there were only a few books in the Anderson home, the youth read widely by borrowing from the school library (there was not a public library in Clyde until 1903), and the personal libraries of a school superintendent and of John Tichenor, a local artist, who responded to Anderson's interest.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: By Anderson's 18th year in 1895, his family was on shaky ground. His father had started to disappear for weeks. Two years earlier, in 1893, Karl, Sherwood's elder brother, had left Clyde for Chicago. On May 10, 1895, his mother succumbed to tuberculosis. Sherwood, now essentially on his own, boarded at the Harvey & Yetter's livery stable where he worked as a groom—an experience that would translate into several of his best-known stories. (Irwin Anderson died in 1919 after having been estranged from his son for two decades.) Two months before his mother's death, in March 1895, Anderson had signed up with the Ohio National Guard for a five-year hitch, while he was going steady with Bertha Baynes, an attractive girl and possibly the inspiration for Helen White in "Winesburg, Ohio", and he was working a secure job at the bicycle factory. But his mother's death precipitated his leaving Clyde. He settled in Chicago around late 1896 or the spring or summer of 1897, having worked a few small-town factory jobs along the way.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson moved to a boardinghouse in Chicago owned by a former mayor of Clyde. His brother Karl lived in the city and was studying at the Art Institute. Anderson moved in with him and quickly found a job at a cold-storage plant. In late 1897, Karl moved away, and Anderson relocated to a two-room flat with his sister and two younger brothers newly come from Clyde. Money was tight—Anderson earned "two dollars for a day of ten hours"— but with occasional support from Karl, they got by. Following the example of his Clyde confederate and lifelong friend Cliff Paden (later to become known as John Emerson) and Karl, Anderson took up the idea of furthering his education by enrolling in night school at the Lewis Institute. He attended several classes regularly including "New Business Arithmetic" earning marks that placed him second in the class. It was also there that Anderson heard lectures on Robert Browning and was possibly first introduced to the poetry of Walt Whitman. Soon, however, Anderson's first stint in Chicago would come to an end as the United States prepared to enter the Spanish–American War.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Although he had limited resources while in Chicago, Anderson bought a new suit and returned to Clyde to join the military. Once home, the company he joined mustered into the army at Camp Bushnell, Ohio on May 12, 1898. Several months of training followed at various southern encampments until early in 1899, when his company was sent to Cuba. Fighting had ceased four months prior to their arrival. On April 21, 1899, they left Cuba having seen no combat. According to Irving Howe, "Sherwood was popular among his army comrades, who remembered him as a fellow given to prolonged reading, mostly in dime westerns and historical romances, and talented at finding a girl when he wanted one. For the first of these traits he was frequently teased, but the second brought him the respect it usually does in armies."


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: After the war, Anderson resided briefly in Clyde performing agricultural work before deciding to return to school. In September 1899 Anderson joined his siblings Karl and Stella in Springfield, Ohio where, at the age of twenty-three he enrolled for his senior year of preparatory school at the Wittenberg Academy, a preparatory school located on the campus of the Wittenberg University. In his time there he performed well, earning good marks and participating in several extracurricular activities. In the spring of 1900 Anderson graduated from the Academy, offering a discourse on Zionism as one of the eight students chosen to give a commencement speech.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: During his time in Springfield, Anderson stayed and worked as a "chore boy" in a boardinghouse called The Oaks among a group of businessmen, educators, and other creatives types many of whom became friendly with the young Anderson. In particular, a high school teacher named Trillena White and a businessman Harry Simmons played a role in the author's life. The former who was ten years Anderson's senior would walk—raising eyebrows among the other boarders—with the young man in the evenings. More importantly, according to Anderson, she "first introduced me to fine literature" and would later serve as inspiration for a number of his characters including the teacher Kate Swift in "Winesburg, Ohio". The latter, who worked as the advertising manager for Mast, Crowell, and Kirkpatrick (later Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, publishers of the "Woman's Home Companion") and occasionally took meals at The Oaks, was so impressed by Anderson's commencement speech that he offered him a job on the spot as an advertising solicitor at his company's Chicago office. Thus, in the summer of 1900, Anderson returned to Chicago where most of his siblings were now living, intent on achieving success in his new white-collar occupation.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Though he performed well, problems with his boss and a dislike for the office routine and for the style of correspondence, which caused the ultimate rift, caused Anderson to leave Crowell in mid-1901 for a position set up for him by Marco Marrow, another friend from The Oaks, at the Frank B. White Advertising Company (later the Long-Critchfield Agency). There the author stayed until 1906, selling ads and writing advertising copy for manufacturers of farming implements and articles for the trade journal, "Agricultural Advertising". In this latter magazine Anderson published his first professional work, a February 1902 piece called "The Farmer Wears Clothes." What followed were approximately 29 articles and essays for his company's magazine, and two for a small literary magazine published by the Bobbs-Merrill Company called "The Reader". According to scholar Welford Dunaway Taylor, the two monthly columns ("Rot and Reason" and "Business Types") Anderson wrote for "Agricultural Advertising" exemplified the "character writing" (or character sketches) that would later become a notable part of the author's approach in "Winesburg, Ohio" and other works.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Part of Anderson's job in those early years of his career was making trips to solicit potential clients. On one of these trips around May 1903 he stopped in the home of a friend from Clyde, Jane "Jennie" Bemis, then living in Toledo, Ohio. It was there that he met Cornelia Pratt Lane (1877–1967), the daughter of wealthy Ohio businessman Robert Lane. The two were married a year later, on the 16th of May, in Lucas, Ohio. They would go on to have three children—Robert Lane (1907–1951), John Sherwood (1908–1995), and Marion (aka Mimi, 1911–1996). After a short honeymoon, the couple moved into an apartment on the south side of Chicago. For two additional years, Anderson worked for Long-Critchfield until an opportunity came along from one of the accounts he managed and so on Labor Day 1906, Sherwood Anderson left Chicago for Cleveland to become president of United Factories Company, a mail-order firm selling various items from surrounding firms.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: While his new job, which amounted to the position of sales manager, could be stressful the happy home life Cornelia had fostered in Chicago continued in Cleveland; "his wife and he entertained frequently. They went to church on Sundays, with Anderson decked out in morning clothes and top hat. On occasional Sunday afternoons Cornelia taught him French. She also helped with his advertising work." Unfortunately, his home life could not sustain him when one of the manufacturers United Factories marketed produced a large batch of defective incubators. Soon, letters addressed to Anderson (who personally guaranteed all products sold) began to arrive from customers both desperate and angry. The strain from months of answering hundreds of these letters while continuing his demanding schedule at work and home led to a nervous breakdown in the summer of 1907 and eventually his departure from the company.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: His failure in Cleveland did not delay him for long, however, because in September 1907, the Andersons moved to Elyria, Ohio, a town of approximately ten thousand residents, where he rented a warehouse within sight of the railroad and began a mail-order business selling (at a markup of 500%) a preservative paint called "Roof-Fix". The first years in Elyria went very well for Anderson and his family; two more children were added for a total of three in addition to a busy social life for their parents. So well, in fact, did the Anderson Manufacturing Co. do that Anderson was able to purchase and absorb several similar businesses and expand his firm's product-lines under the name Anderson Paint Company. Carrying on that momentum, in late 1911 Anderson secured the financial backing to merge his companies into the American Merchants Company, a profit-sharing/investment firm operating in part on a scheme he developed around that time called "Commercial Democracy".


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: It was then, at what seemed the pinnacle of his business achievements, when the stresses of Anderson's professional life collided with his social responsibilities and his writing, that Anderson suffered the breakdown that has remained paramount in the "myth" or "legend" of his life.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: On Thursday, November 28, 1912, Anderson came to his office in a slightly nervous state. According to his secretary, he opened some mail, and in the course of dictating a business letter became distracted. After writing a note to his wife, he murmured something along the lines of, "I feel as though my feet were wet, and they keep getting wetter." He then left the office. Four days later, on Sunday, December 1, a disoriented Anderson entered a drug store on East 152nd Street in Cleveland and asked the pharmacist to help figure out his identity. Unable to make out what the incoherent Anderson was saying, the pharmacist discovered a phone book on his person and called the number of Edwin Baxter, a member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce. Baxter came, recognized Anderson, and promptly had him checked into the Huron Road Hospital in downtown Cleveland, where Anderson's wife, whom he would hardly recognize, went to meet him.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: But even before returning home, Anderson began his lifelong practice of reinterpreting the story of his breakdown. Despite news reports in the "Elyria Evening Telegram" and the "Cleveland Press" following his admittance into the hospital that ascribed the cause of the breakdown to "overwork" and that mentioned Anderson's inability to remember what happened, on December 6 the story changed. All of a sudden, the breakdown became voluntary. The "Evening Telegram" reported (possibly spuriously) that "As soon as he recovers from the trance into which he placed himself, Sherwood Anderson ... will write a book of the sensations he experienced while he wandered over the country as a nomad." This same sense of personal agency is alluded to thirty years later in "Sherwood Anderson's Memoirs" (1942) where the author wrote of his thought process before walking out: "I wanted to leave, get away from business. ... Again I resorted to slickness, to craftiness...The thought occurred to me that if men thought me a little insane they would forgive me if I lit out..." This idea, however, that Anderson made a conscious decision on November 28 to make a clean break from family and business is unlikely. In the first place, contrary to what Anderson later claimed, his writing was no secret. It was known to his wife, secretary, and some business associates that for several years Anderson had been working on personal writing projects both at night and occasionally in his office at the factory. Secondly, although some of the notes he wrote were to himself during his journey, notes he mailed to his wife on Saturday, addressing the envelope "Cornelia L. Anderson, Pres., American Striving Co.", show that he had some semblance of memory. The general confusion and frequent incoherence the notes exhibit is unlikely to be deliberate. While diagnoses for the four days of Anderson's wanderings have ranged from "amnesia" to "lost identity" to "nervous breakdown", his condition is generally characterized today as a "fugue state." Anderson himself described the episode as "escaping from his materialistic existence," and was admired for his action by many young male writers who chose to be inspired by him. Herbert Gold wrote, "He fled in order to find himself, then prayed to flee that disease of self, to become 'beautiful and clear.'" After having moved back to Chicago, Anderson formally divorced Cornelia.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson's first novel, "Windy McPherson's Son", was published in 1916 as part of a three-book deal with John Lane. This book, along with his second novel, "Marching Men" (1917), are usually considered his "apprentice novels" because they came before Anderson found fame with "Winesburg, Ohio" (1919) and are generally considered inferior in quality to works that followed.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson's most notable work is his collection of interrelated short stories, "Winesburg, Ohio" (1919). In his memoir, he wrote that "Hands", the opening story, was the first "real" story he ever wrote.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: "Instead of emphasizing plot and action, Anderson used a simple, precise, unsentimental style to reveal the frustration, loneliness, and longing in the lives of his characters. These characters are stunted by the narrowness of Midwestern small-town life and by their own limitations."In addition, Anderson was one of the first American novelists to introduce new insights from psychology, including Freudian analysis.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Although his short stories were very successful, Anderson wanted to write novels, which he felt allowed a larger scale. In 1920, he published "Poor White", which was rather successful. In 1923, Anderson published "Many Marriages"; in it he explored the new sexual freedom, a theme which he continued in "Dark Laughter" and later writing. "Dark Laughter" had its detractors, but the reviews were, on the whole, positive. F. Scott Fitzgerald considered "Many Marriages" to be Anderson's finest novel.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Beginning in 1924, Sherwood and Elizabeth Prall Anderson moved to New Orleans, where they lived in the historic Pontalba Apartments (540-B St. Peter Street) adjoining Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter. For a time, they entertained William Faulkner, Carl Sandburg, Edmund Wilson and other writers, for whom Anderson was a major influence. Critics trying to define Anderson's significance have said he was more influential through this younger generation than through his own works.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson referred to meeting Faulkner in his ambiguous and moving short story, "A Meeting South." His novel "Dark Laughter" (1925) drew from his New Orleans experiences and continued to explore the new sexual freedom of the 1920s. Although the book was satirized by Ernest Hemingway in his novella "The Torrents of Spring", it was a bestseller at the time, the only book of Anderson's to reach that status during his lifetime.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson and Cornelia Lane married in 1904, had his only 3 children, and divorced in 1916. Anderson quickly married the sculptor Tennessee Claflin Mitchell (1874–1929), obtaining a divorce from her in Reno, Nevada in 1924.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: In 1924, Anderson married Elizabeth Norma Prall (1884–1976), a friend of Faulkner's whom he had met in New York before his divorce from Mitchell. After several years that marriage also failed, and they divorced in 1932.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: In 1928 Anderson became involved with Eleanor Gladys Copenhaver (1896–1985), whom he married in 1933. They traveled and often studied together, and were both active in the trade union movement. Anderson also became close to Copenhaver's mother, Laura.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson frequently contributed articles to newspapers. In 1935, he was commissioned to go to Franklin County, Virginia to cover a major federal trial of bootleggers and gangsters, in what was called "The Great Moonshine Conspiracy". More than 30 men had been indicted for trial. In his article, he said Franklin was the "wettest county in the world," a phrase used as a title for a 21st-century novel by Matt Bondurant.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: In the 1930s, Anderson published "Death in the Woods" (short stories), "Puzzled America" (essays), and "Kit Brandon: A Portrait" (novel). In 1932, Anderson dedicated his novel "Beyond Desire" to Copenhaver. Although by this time he was considered to be less influential overall in American literature, some of what have become his most quoted passages were published in these later works. The books were otherwise considered inferior to his earlier ones.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: "Beyond Desire" built on his interest in the trade union movement and was set during the 1929 Loray Mill Strike in Gastonia, North Carolina. Hemingway referred to it satirically in his novel, "To Have and Have Not" (1937), where he included as a minor character an author working on a novel of Gastonia.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: In his later years, Anderson and Copenhaver lived on his Ripshin Farm in Troutdale, Virginia, which he purchased in 1927 for use during summers. While living there, he contributed to a country newspaper, columns that were collected and published posthumously.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson died on March 8, 1941, at the age of 64, taken ill during a cruise to South America. He had been feeling abdominal discomfort for a few days, which was later diagnosed as peritonitis. Anderson and his wife debarked from the cruise liner "Santa Lucia" and went to the hospital in Colón, Panama, where he died on March 8. An autopsy revealed that a swallowed toothpick had done internal damage resulting in peritonitis.


title: Sherwood Anderson

text: Anderson's body was returned to the United States, where he was buried at Round Hill Cemetery in Marion, Virginia. His epitaph reads, "Life, Not Death, Is the Great Adventure".


And Now for Something Completely Different is a 1971 British sketch comedy film based on the television comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus" featuring sketches from the show's first two series. The title was taken from a catchphrase used in the television show.