Mikveh or mikvah is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. After the destruction of the Temple, the mikveh's main uses remained as follows: by Jewish women to achieve ritual purity after menstruation and childbirth before they and their husbands may resume marital relations. Most forms of ritual impurity can be purified through immersion in any natural collection of water. However, some impurities, such as a zav, require "living water", such as springs or groundwater wells. Living water has the further advantage of being able to purify while flowing, as opposed to rainwater which must be stationary in order to purify; the mikveh is designed to simplify this requirement, by providing a bathing facility that remains in contact with a natural source of water. In Orthodox Judaism, these regulations are steadfastly adhered to, the mikveh is central to an Orthodox Jewish community; the existence of a mikveh is considered so important that a Jewish community is required to construct a mikveh before building a synagogue, must go to the extreme of selling Torah scrolls or a synagogue if necessary, to provide funding for its construction.

In the Hebrew Bible, the word is employed in its broader sense, but means a collection of water. Before the beginning of the first century BCE, neither written sources, nor archaeology gives any indication about the existence of specific installations used for ritual cleansing. Mikvoth appear at the beginning of the first century BCE, from on, ancient mikvoth can be found throughout the land of Israel, as well as in historic communities of the Jewish diaspora; the traditional rules regarding the construction of a mikveh are based on those specified in classical rabbinical literature. According to these rules, a mikveh must be connected to a natural spring or well of occurring water, thus can be supplied by rivers and lakes which have natural springs as their source. A cistern filled by the rainwater is permitted to act as a mikveh's water supply so long as the water is never collected in a vessel. Snow and hail are allowed to act as the supply of water to a mikveh no matter how they were transferred to the mikveh.

A river that dries up upon occasion cannot be used because it is presumed to be rainwater and not spring water, which cannot purify while in a flowing state. Oceans and seas for the most part have the status of natural springs. A mikveh must, according to the classical regulations, contain enough water to cover the entire body of an average-sized person; the exact volume referred to by a seah is debated, classical rabbinical literature specifies only that it is enough to fit 144 eggs. This volume of water can be topped up with water from any source, but if there were less than 40 seahs of water in the mikveh the addition of 3 or more pints of water, at any time intentionally collected in any vessel or transferred by a human, would render the mikveh unfit for use, regardless of whether water from a natural source was added to make up 40 seahs from a natural source. Although not accepted, at least one American Orthodox rabbi advocated a home mikvah using tap water; as water flows through only pipes that open at both ends, the municipal and in-home plumbing would be construed as a non-vessel.

So long as the pipes and fittings are all freestanding and not held in the hand, they could be used to fill a mikvah receptacle that met all other requirements. There are classical requirements for the manner in which the water can be stored and transported to the pool, it was forbidden for the water to pass through any vessel which could hold water within it or is capable of becoming impure As a result, tap water could not be used as the primary water source for a mikveh, although it can be used to top the water up to a suitable level. To avoid issues with these rules in large cities, various methods are employed to establish a valid mikveh. One is that tap water is made to flow into a kosher mikveh, through a conduit into a larger pool. A second method is to create a mikveh in a deep pool, place a floor with holes over that and fill the upper pool with tap water. In this way, it is considered as if the person dipping is "in" the pool of rain water. Most contemporary mikvoth are indoor constructions involving rainwater collected from a cistern and passed through a duct by gravity into an ordinary bathing pool.

Roger Leloup is a Belgian comic strip artist, a former collaborator of Hergé, who would rely upon him to create detailed, realistic drawings and elaborate decoration for The Adventures of Tintin. He is most famous for the Yoko Tsuno comic series. Roger Leloup was born in Verviers, Belgium in 1933. Fascinated by trains and planes since his youth, he studied Decoration and Publicity at the Institut Saint-Luc in Liège. By accident, he came into contact with the Franco-Belgian comics scene when his neighbour, Jacques Martin, told him that he needed a colourist. Leloup got the job and started colouring the Alix album L'ïle maudite in 1950. Jacques Martin was one of the main artists of the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin, when Hergé was looking for someone to help him with the drawings of vehicles for a series, Martin brought him in contact with Leloup. From 15 February 1953 on, Leloup worked for several years at Studios Hergé, where he drew detailed backgrounds and vehicles for Hergé's comics series The Adventures of Tintin.

His work is seen in a wide variety of drawings, such as the Genève-Cointrin airport in The Calculus Affair and the impressive swing-wing supersonic business jet, the Carreidas 160 in Flight 714 to Sydney. Leloup worked for both Jacques Martin, with Alix and Lefranc, for Hergé, but as the production at the Studios Hergé slowed down, Leloup came into contact with other artists, he worked for a period with Francis, collaborated with Peyo on his less well-known series Jacky and Célestin. Here, he created a Japanese female character that would become the inspiration for his own series. On 31 December 1969, Leloup left Studios Hergé to work full-time on his own series, Yoko Tsuno, with a focus on technology and science fiction; the character Yoko Tsuno, a Japanese woman living in Brussels, is one of the leading examples of the female-fronted comics that appeared in the European juvenile magazines during this period. All Yoko Tsuno stories first appeared in Spirou magazine and as an album series published by editions Dupuis.

He has an adopted Korean daughter, who inspired him to draw the character Morning Dew, the little Chinese girl from Le Dragon de Hong Kong, adopted by Yoko Tsuno. Yoko Tsuno, 1970–, 28 albums, Dupuis, ISSN 0772-0866Roger Leloup has written two novels, including one featuring Yoko Tsuno: —. Le pic des ténèbres. Travelling. Duculot. ISBN 2-8011-0812-X. —. L'Écume de l'aube. Travelling. Duculot. ISBN 2-8011-0990-8. 1972, European SF special award for Belgian comics for Yoko Tsuno at the first Eurocon in Trieste, Italy 1974: Prix Saint-Michel, Belgium, for Best Comic 1990: Grand Prix de la Science Fiction Française, category "Youth", for his novel Le pic des ténèbres, France Roger Leloup biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia Roger Leloup biography Dupuis Roger Leloup biography BDparadisio 1972 European Science Fiction Society At Eurocon: Trieste Leloup was recognised for Yoko Tsuno

Buddy Boy is a 1999 psychological thriller film written and directed by Mark Hanlon. The film premiered to a standing ovation at the Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 1999 in the Cinema del Presente section, it subsequently bowed at the Toronto International Film Festival and South by Southwest Film Festival before being released theatrically by Fine Line Features in North America on March 24, 2000. Rex Reed of the New York Observer called it "a curious, darkly conceived and fascinating little film. Not since Roman Polanski at the pinnacle of his European weirdness have I seen a film this strange and riveting." Following its North American premiere, Buddy Boy was released theatrically worldwide. International DVD releases have been made in Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom; the special edition DVD was released in North America by Image Entertainment on September 25, 2005. On September 11, 2007 it was released as part of a three-film DVD triptych along with Antonia Bird's Face and Peter Medak's Let Him Have It.

The film's title character, lives with his invalid, abusive mother in a dingy tenement apartment, has suffered a life of unrelenting misfortune and brutality, further impacted by a stutter. Over time, he has withdrawn from the world and into himself, silently observing others rather than interacting with them, his only solace has been his Catholic faith, but he has begun to question his belief in a loving God who could countenance so much evil and pain. When he discovers he can see into the apartment of a beautiful, mysterious woman from his own back stairs, Francis cannot stop watching her after he meets her and they become romantically involved. Unable or unwilling to believe that she could love him, he becomes more obsessive in his voyeurism, and it is what Francis sees – or thinks he sees – that leads to his undoing. NEW YORK OBSERVER review by Rex Reed PREVIEW ONLINE Repulsion Meets Rear Window Buddy Boy on IMDb Buddy Boy at AllMovie