Socca

Socca is a specialty of southeastern French cuisine, particularly in and around the city of Nice. Its primary ingredients are chickpea flour and olive oil, like the northern Italian farinata. After being formed into a flat cake and baked in an oven, often on a cast iron pan more than a meter in diameter, the socca is seasoned generously with black pepper and eaten while hot with the fingers. Socca is considered by some to be a chickpea crepe, as the preparation and consistency of the batter is similar.

Idiotville, Oregon

Idiotville is a ghost town and former community located in Tillamook County, Oregon, United States, near the mouth of Idiot Creek on the Wilson River, on the route of Oregon Route 6.Idiotville's elevation is 1200 feet.
It is in the Tillamook State Forest, along the Tillamook-Washington county line, approximately 50 miles west northwest of Portland. Nothing remains at the site.
The nearby stream was named Idiot Creek after the community and was added to the official United States Board on Geographic Names list in 1977. About a half mile up Idiot Creek was a logging camp called Ryan's Camp, which was part of the salvage operations following the Tillamook Burn. Since the spot was so remote, it was said that only an idiot would work there, so the camp was popularly known as Idiotville. The name was eventually applied to the stream.

Larch

The Larch is a conifer in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south. Larch are among the dominant plants in the immense boreal forests of Russia and Canada.

Although a conifer, the larch is a deciduous tree and loses its leaves in the fall. The shoots are dimorphic, with growth divided into long shoots typically 10–50 centimetres long and bearing several buds, and short shoots only 1–2 mm long with only a single bud. The leaves are needle-like, 2–5 centimetres long, slender (under 1 cm wide). They are borne singly, spirally arranged on the long shoots, and in dense clusters of 20–50 needles on the short shoots. The needles turn yellow and fall in the late autumn, leaving the trees leafless through the winter.

Larch is a wood valued for its tough, waterproof and durable qualities; top quality knot-free timber is in great demand for building yachts and other small boats, for exterior cladding of buildings and interior panelling. The timber is resistant to rot when in contact with the ground, and is suitable for use as posts and in fencing. The hybrid Dunkeld Larch is widely grown as a timber crop in northern Europe, valued for its fast growth and disease resistance.

Larch has also been used in herbal medicine; see Bach flower remedies for details.

In central Europe larch is viewed as one of the best wood materials for the building of residences. Planted on borders with birch, both tree species were used in pagan "sagged" cremations. One "sąg" (pronounced song) of wood was required for a cremation stack. Sąg is used today as a Polish forestry unit measuring approximately 3 × 1 × 1 m.

In Siberia young larch leaves are harvested in spring, preserved by lactobacillus fermentation, and used for salads during winter.

Larches are often used in bonsai culture, where their knobby bark, small needles, fresh spring foliage and especially autumn colour are appreciated. European Larch, Japanese Larch and Tamarack Larch are the species most commonly trained as bonsai.

Hooliganism

Hooliganism refers to unruly, destructive, aggressive and bullying behaviour. Such behaviour is commonly associated with sports fans, particularly supporters of association football and university sports. The term can also apply to general rowdy behaviour and vandalism, often under the influence of alcohol and or drugs.

There are several theories about the origin of the word hooliganism. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary states that word may originate from the surname of a fictional rowdy Irish family in a music hall song of the 1890s. Clarence Rooks, in his 1899 book, Hooligan Nights, claimed that the word came from Patrick Hoolihan (or Hooligan), an Irish bouncer and thief who lived in the London borough of Southwark. Another theory is that the term came from a street gang in Islington named Hooley. Yet another theory is that the term is based on an Irish word, houlie, which means a wild, spirited party.

The term hooligan has been used since at least the mid 1890s - when it was used to describe the name of a street gang in London - at approximately the same time as Manchester's street gangs, known as the "Scuttlers" were gaining notoriety. The first use of the term is unknown, but the word first appeared in print in London police-court reports in 1894 referring to the name of a gang of youths in the Lambeth area of London - the Hooligan Boys. In August 1898 a murder in Lambeth committed by a member of the gang drew further attention to the word which was immediately popularized by the press.

Later, as the meaning of the word shifted slightly, none of the possible alternatives had precisely the same undertones of a person, usually young, who is a member of an informal group and commits acts of vandalism or criminal damage, starts fights, and who causes disturbances but is not a thief.

The word hooliganism and hooligan began to be associated with violence in sports, in particular from the 1980s in the UK with football hooliganism. However, one of the earliest known instances of crowd violence at a sporting event took place in ancient Constantinople. Two chariot racing factions, the Blues and the Greens, were involved in the Nika riots which lasted around a week in 532 C.E.; nearly half the city was burned or destroyed in addition to tens of thousands of deaths.

Cloud Forest

A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, in which case they are also referred to as mossy forests. Mossy forests usually develop on the saddles of mountains, where moisture introduced by settling clouds is more effectively retained.

Dependent on local climate, which is affected by the distance to the sea, the exposition and the latitude, the altitude varies from 500 m to 4000 m above sea level. Typically, there is a relatively small band of altitude in which the atmospheric environment is suitable for cloud forest development. This is characterized by persistent mist or clouds at the vegetation level, resulting in the reduction of direct sunlight and thus of evapotranspiration. Within cloud forests, much of the precipitation is in the form of fog drip, where fog condenses on tree leaves and then drips onto the ground below.

Tropical cloud forests extend from 23°N to 25°S latitudes and occur in a relatively narrow altitudinal zone with a special atmospheric environment which is characterized by at the vegetation level. Annual rainfall can range from 500 to 10000 mm/year and mean temperature between 8 to 20°C.

The definition of cloud forest can be ambiguous, with many countries not using the term (preferring such terms as Afromontane forest and upper montane rain forest, or more localised terms such as the Bolivian yungas, and the laurisilva of the Atlantic Islands), and occasionally subtropical and even temperate forests in which similar meteorological conditions occur are considered to be cloud forests.

Only 1% of the global woodland is covered by cloud forests.

Important areas of cloud forest are in Central- and South America, East- and Central Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, at the Philippines, Papua-New Guinea and in the Caribbean.

The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1990. While apparently based on some of O'Brien's own experiences, the title page refers to the book as "a work of fiction." The story "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" was made into a film in 1998, titled A Soldier's Sweetheart starring Kiefer Sutherland.

Before publication in 1990, five of the stories, including "The Things They Carried," "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," "The Ghost Soldiers," and "The Lives of the Dead," had been published in Esquire. "Speaking of Courage" was originally published (in heavily modified form) as a chapter of O'Brien's earlier novel Going After Cacciato.

In the short story "Good Form", the narrator makes a distinction between "story truth" and "happening truth." O'Brien feels that the idea of creating a story that is technically false yet truthfully portrays war, as opposed to just stating the facts and creating no emotion in the reader, is the correct way to clear his conscience and tell the story of thousands of soldiers. Critics often cite this distinction when commenting on O'Brien's artistic aims in The Things They Carried and, in general, all of his fiction about Vietnam, claiming that O'Brien feels that the realities of the Vietnam War are best explored in fictional form rather than the presentation of precise facts. O'Brien's fluid and elliptical negotiation of truth in this context finds echoes in works labeled as 'non-fiction novels.'

The Things They Carried was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger.

In 2010 on the twentieth anniversary of its publication, The Things They Carried returns to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in paperback. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has reissued both the hardcover and paperback with new jackets. The book is also available as an ebook for the Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader, and in the iBookstore for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Queen

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), John Deacon (bass guitar), and Roger Taylor (drums, vocals). Queen's earliest works were heavily influenced by progressive rock; in the mid-1970s, the band ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works, bringing them greater commercial success. It also became something of a trademark to incorporate more diverse and innovative styles in their music, exploring the likes of vaudeville, gospel music, electronic music and funk.

Brian May and Roger Taylor had been playing together in a band named Smile. Freddie Mercury (then known by his birth name of Farrokh, or Freddie, Bulsara) was a fan of Smile, and encouraged them to experiment with more elaborate stage and recording techniques. Mercury himself joined the band shortly thereafter, changed the name of the band to 'Queen' and adopted his familiar stage name. John Deacon was recruited prior to recording their first album. Queen enjoyed success in the UK during the early 1970s, but it was the release of Sheer Heart Attack (1974) and A Night at the Opera (1975) that gained the band international success. The latter featured "Bohemian Rhapsody", which stayed at number one in the UK charts for nine weeks.

In 1991 Mercury died of bronchopneumonia, a complication of AIDS, and Deacon retired in 1997. Since then May and Taylor have infrequently performed together, including a collaboration with Paul Rodgers under the name Queen + Paul Rodgers.

The band has released a total of 18 number one albums, 18 number one singles and 10 number one DVDs, and have sold over 300 million albums worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. They have been honoured with seven Ivor Novello awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer

Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer is a weekly comic strip written and drawn by Ben Katchor since 1988. It is published in The Forward and various alternative weekly newspapers.

Katchor embodies his love of the fading small-business community of New York City in the title character, a downtrodden schlep who wanders the streets taking pictures and being sidetracked into surreal escapades. Strips often depict Knipl's chance encounters with obscure, marginal businesses (e.g. a company that distributes newspaper weights to newsstands), eccentric hobbyists, and enigmatic details of the urban landscape. There is rarely continuity between the strips, and Knipl is the only recurring character.

A collection of Julius Knipl strips was published in 1991 by Penguin Books (as a RAW One-Shot) as Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay. Another collection was published in 1996 by Little, Brown and Company under the title Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: Stories. Pantheon Books published a third volume of strips, The Beauty Supply District, in 2000. Each book includes one long story in addition to the self-contained weekly strips. Translated collections of the strip in French and Japanese have also been released.

NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday ran audio versions of several Julius Knipl stories in 1995 and 1996, narrated by Ben Katchor and starring Jerry Stiller as Julius Knipl.

The word knipl means roughly "nest egg" in Yiddish.

Genius of Love

"Genius of Love" is a 1981 song by Tom Tom Club from their eponymous debut album, Tom Tom Club.
"Genius of Love" was Tom Tom Club's second single. Although the album had not been released in North America, over a hundred thousand copies of the single sold as imports from Island Records's UK, at which point Sire Records made a deal to release the single and the album in North America in late 1981.
"Genius of Love" was a huge hit (peaking at #31 on the US Billboard Hot 100) in the clubs and on the R&B and dance charts worldwide, soon earning the Tom Tom Club LP a Gold Sales Award in 1982. Despite its relatively low chart position in the United Kingdom, where it only reached #65, the song received a great deal of airplay on UK radio (although the radio version was heavily edited due to the song's length, and also in part due to its references to the recreational drug, cocaine) and the full-length version became a club favorite in Britain, helped by the popularity of the accompanying video.

The song is one of the most sampled rhythm tracks of the 1980s, particularly within the rap/R&B/hip-hop genre, with dozens of unsolicited remixes and versions.

The B-side of the "Genius of Love (Long Version)" 12" vinyl has a lesser-known underground hit called "Yella." On some pressings, the song is sometimes credited to Mr. Yellow and, on others, it is credited to Yella. It is assumed that this is really the Tom Tom Club using a pseudonym.

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, most often called The Large Glass, is an artwork by Marcel Duchamp.

Duchamp carefully created The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, working on the piece from 1915 to 1923. He executed the work on two panes of glass with materials such as lead foil, fuse wire, and dust. It combines chance procedures, plotted perspective studies, and laborious craftsmanship.

Duchamp's ideas for the Glass began in 1913, and he made numerous notes and studies, as well as preliminary works for the piece. The notes reflect the creation of unique rules of physics, and myth which describes the work. He published the notes and studies as The Green Box in 1934.

The notes describe that his "hilarious picture" is intended to depict the erotic encounter between the "Bride," in the upper panel, and her nine "Bachelors" gathered timidly below in an abundance of mysterious mechanical apparatus in the lower panel.

The Large Glass was exhibited in 1926 at the Brooklyn Museum before it was accidentally broken and carefully repaired by Duchamp. It is now part of the permanent collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is a complex piece which dominates the space around it. It consists of two glass panels, suspended vertically and measuring 109.25" x 69.25". The entire composition is shattered, but it rests sandwiched between two pieces of glass, set in a metal frame with a wooden base. The top rectangle of glass is known as the Bride's Domain; the bottom piece is the Bachelors' Apparatus. It consists of many geometric shapes melding together to create large mechanical objects, which seem to almost pop out from the glass and ever-changing background.

All forms on the glass are outlined with lead wire and filled in with earth tone oil paint. The colors range from pale gray to gold to dark brown and black. Some figures are bumpy and cloudy, and contain the dust left on them during the time which the unfinished work lay dormant, which seems to be an attempt at capturing the dynamic passage of time in a sedate work.

Duchamp sanctioned replicas of The Large Glass, the first in 1961 for an exhibition at Moderna Museet in Stockholm and another in 1966 for the Tate Gallery in London.