Firefly (TV series)
Firefly is an American space Western drama television series which ran from 2002–2003, created by writer and director Joss Whedon, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as an executive producer, along with Tim Minear; the series is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship. The ensemble cast portrays the nine characters. Whedon pitched the show as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things"; the show explores the lives of a group of people, some of whom fought on the losing side of a civil war, who make a living on the fringes of society as part of the pioneer culture of their star system. In this future, the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures. According to Whedon's vision, "nothing will change in the future: technology will advance, but we will still have the same political and ethical problems as today".
Firefly premiered in the U. S. on the Fox network on September 20, 2002. By mid-December, Firefly had averaged 4.7 million viewers per episode and was 98th in Nielsen ratings. It was canceled. Despite the short life span of the series, it received strong sales when it was released on DVD and has large fan support campaigns, it won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2003 for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. TV Guide ranked the series at No. 5 on their 2013 list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon". The post-airing success of the show led Whedon and Universal Pictures to produce Serenity, a 2005 film which continues from the story of the series, the Firefly franchise expanded to other media, including comics and a role-playing game; the series takes place in the year 2517, on a variety of moons. The TV series does not reveal whether these celestial bodies are within one star system, only saying that Serenity's mode of propulsion is a "gravity-drive"; the film Serenity makes clear that all the planets and moons are in one large system, production documents related to the film indicate that there is no faster-than-light travel in this universe.
The characters refer to "Earth-that-was", the film establishes that, long before the events in the series, a large population had emigrated from Earth to a new star system in generation ships: "Earth-that-was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many". The emigrants established themselves in this new star system, with "dozens of planets and hundreds of moons". Many of these were terraformed, a process in which a moon is altered to resemble Earth; the terraforming process was only the first step in making a planet habitable and the outlying settlements did not receive any further support in the construction of their civilizations. This resulted in many of the border planets and moons having forbidding, dry environments, well-suited to the Western genre; the show takes its name from the "Firefly-class" spaceship Serenity that the central characters call home. It resembles a firefly in general arrangement, the tail section, analogous to a bioluminescent insectoid abdomen, lights up during acceleration.
The ship was named after the Battle of Serenity Valley, where then-Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds and then-Corporal Zoe Alleyne were among the few survivors on the losing side. It is revealed in "Bushwhacked" that the Battle of Serenity Valley is considered to have sealed the fate of the Independents. Throughout the series, the Alliance is shown to govern the star system through an organization of "core" planets, following its success in forcibly unifying all the colonies under a single government. DVD commentary suggests that the Alliance is composed of two primary "core" systems, one predominantly Western in culture, the other pan-Asian, justifying the mixed linguistic and visual themes of the series; the central planets are under Alliance control, but the outlying planets and moons resemble the 19th-century American West, under little governmental authority. Settlers and refugees on the outlying worlds have relative freedom from the central government, but lack the amenities of the high-tech civilization that exists on the inner worlds.
In addition, the outlying areas of space are inhabited by the Reavers, a cannibalistic group of nomadic humans that have become savage and animalistic. The captain of Serenity is Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds and the episode "Serenity" establishes that the captain and his first mate Zoe Washburne, née Alleyne are veteran "Browncoats" of the Unification War, a failed attempt by the outlying worlds to resist the Alliance's control. A episode, "Out of Gas", reveals that Mal bought the spaceship Serenity to continue living beyond Alliance control. Much of the crew's work consists of smuggling. A main story arc centers on her brother Simon. River is a child prodigy, whose brain was subjected to experiments at the hands of Alliance scientists at a secret government institution; as a result, she displays symptoms of schizophrenia and hears voices. It is revealed that she is a "reader", one who possesses telepathic abilities. Simon gave up a career as a successful trauma surgeon in an Alliance hospital to rescue her, they are both wanted fugitives.
In the original pilot, "Serenity", Simon joins the crew as a paying passenger with River smuggled on board as cargo. As Whedon states in an episodic DVD commentary, every show he does is about creating family. By the last episode, "Objects in Space", the fractured cha
Nadia Azzi
Nadia Azzi is an American classical pianist of Lebanese-Japanese origin. Fluent in Japanese and English, she began playing piano at age four and a half and has won many awards since then, she resides in Los Angeles. A student of the Colburn School, Azzi studies with Fabio Bidini, she had been a pre-college student of The Juilliard School, studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky, graduated high school at the Professional Performing Arts School. Azzi had studied during the summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, among others, she is on the Duke University Talent Identification Program listing for the most academically gifted students and is a member of the American Mensa. She promotes music through numerous outreach programs and community services both in solo and chamber music performances. In 2010, she made her New York City debut performing at Carnegie Hall, she returned to Carnegie Hall for performances on two other occasions. In the summer of 2010, Azzi had her European debut at the Teatro Communale in Italy.
She performed in many places in Aspen, Colorado. Azzi's Canadian debut was featured on Radio Canada International, she was featured on the "Impromptu" program on 98.7 WFMT in Chicago, carrying classical music programming. Her orchestral debut at the age of 12 led her to perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Boston Neapolitan Chamber Orchestra in Cambridge, MA under the baton of conductor Jon Ceander Mitchell. She has been a soloist with several other orchestras since including the Tampa Bay Symphony, Northwest Indiana Symphony, New Philharmonic Orchestra, Juilliard Pre-College String Ensemble under distinguished conductors, she performed in Montreal on July 2014 at the Salle Bourgie with the Orchestre de la Francophonie under conductor Jean-Philippe Tremblay. In 2012, she made her debut at the Newport Music Festival. In 2012, Azzi played on NPR's From the Top radio program. In 2013 and 2014, she performed at the Junior Piano Academy Eppan in Italy, the Bravo Niagara International Music Festival in Canada, the 15th Youth America Grand Prix Anniversary Celebration at David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center, Aspen Music Festival, in Washington, D.
C. by an invitation from the Florida House on Capitol Hill. Nadia appeared on Arabs Got Talent in 2015 and got the golden buzz from MBC Group TV Director Ali Jaber, automatically qualifying her to the semi-final round. Co-host Raya Abirached dubbed her the "golden girl." Jaber told her, "Nadia, you are magnificent, you raise the name of Lebanon. I am so proud of you." She placed in the top 3 in the semi-final round. Gold Medal at the 2010 and 2012 "Passion of Music" Festival by the American Association for the Development of the Gifted and Talented Youngest winner of the 2010 Orfeo International Music Festival Competition in Italy. First prize in the Overall and the ART New Music Awards at the 2011 New Music National Young Artist Competition in Chicago, Illinois. Winner of the 2011 Tampa Bay Symphony Young Artist Competition. Grand Prize Winner of the 2012 Crescendo International Music Competition. First Prize Winner of the 2013 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition Second Prize and Audience Prize Winner of the 2013 Thousand Islands International Chopin Piano Competition First Prize of the 2014 Nordmann Scholarship Competition, which gave her a full tuition merit scholarship to continue her study at Juilliard Pre-College Division First Prize at the Western instrument category of 2014 Sinovision Teen's Talent Show official website YouTube Facebook Twitter Instagram NBC News interview Channel 14 interview St. Petersburg Times Article Tampa Tribune Article Dunedin Beacon Article From the Top broadcast Pasco Tribune Article Talent Notes iaam
Manhattan
Manhattan referred to locally as the City, is the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City and its economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U. S. state of New York. The borough consists of Manhattan Island, bounded by the Hudson and Harlem rivers. S. mainland, physically connected to the Bronx and separated from the rest of Manhattan by the Harlem River. Manhattan Island is divided into three informally bounded components, each aligned with the borough's long axis: Lower and Upper Manhattan. Manhattan has been described as the cultural, financial and entertainment capital of the world, the borough hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, Manhattan is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization: the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.
Many multinational media conglomerates are based in Manhattan, the borough has been the setting for numerous books and television shows. Manhattan real estate has since become among the most expensive in the world, with the value of Manhattan Island, including real estate, estimated to exceed US$3 trillion in 2013. Manhattan traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan. Manhattan is documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders, which equals $1038 in current terms; the territory and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York, based in present-day Manhattan, served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790; the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a world symbol of the United States and its ideals of liberty and peace.
Manhattan became a borough during the consolidation of New York City in 1898. New York County is the United States' second-smallest county by land area, is the most densely populated U. S. county. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with a census-estimated 2017 population of 1,664,727 living in a land area of 22.83 square miles, or 72,918 residents per square mile, higher than the density of any individual U. S. city. On business days, the influx of commuters increases this number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York City's five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, is the smallest borough in terms of land area. Manhattan Island is informally divided into three areas, each aligned with its long axis: Lower and Upper Manhattan. Many districts and landmarks in Manhattan are well known, as New York City received a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017, Manhattan hosts three of the world's 10 most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, Grand Central Terminal.
The borough hosts many prominent bridges, such as the Brooklyn Bridge. Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, part of the Stonewall National Monument, is considered the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement; the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the city's government. Numerous colleges and universities are located in Manhattan, including Columbia University, New York University, Cornell Tech, Weill Cornell Medical College, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top 40 in the world; the name Manhattan derives from the Munsee dialect of the Lenape language'manaháhtaan'. The Lenape word has been translated as "the place where we get bows" or "place for gathering the bows". According to a Munsee tradition recorded in the 19th century, the island was named so for a grove of hickory trees at the lower end, considered ideal for the making of bows.
It was first recorded in writing as Manna-hata, in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen. A 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. Alternative folk etymologies include "island of many hills", "the island where we all became intoxicated" and "island", as well as a phrase descriptive of the whirlpool at Hell Gate; the area, now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – became the first documented European to visit the area that would become New York City, he entered the tidal strait now known as The Narrows and named the land around Upper New York
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money and Betrayal, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits, it stars Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book; the film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010. The Social Network garnered considerable acclaim, with critics praising its direction, acting and score; the film appeared on 78 critics' Top 10 lists for 2010. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2010. At the 83rd Academy Awards, the film received eight nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Eisenberg, won three: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing.
The film received awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Original Score at the 68th Golden Globe Awards. In 2016, it was voted 27th among 100 films considered the best of the 21st century by 117 film critics from around the world. In October 2003, 19-year-old Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg is dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright. Returning to his dorm, Zuckerberg writes an insulting entry about Albright on his LiveJournal blog and creates a campus website called Facemash by hacking into college databases to steal photos of female students allowing site visitors to rate their attractiveness. After traffic to the site crashes parts of Harvard's computer network, Zuckerberg is given six months of academic probation. However, Facemash's popularity attracts the attention of Harvard upperclassmen and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their business partner Divya Narendra; the trio invites Zuckerberg to work on Harvard Connection, a social network featuring the exclusive nature of Harvard students and aimed at dating.
After agreeing to work on the Winklevoss twins' concept, Zuckerberg approaches his friend Eduardo Saverin with an idea for what he calls Thefacebook, an online social networking website that would be exclusive to Ivy League students. Saverin provides $1,000 in seed funding, allowing Mark to build the website, which becomes popular; when they learn of Thefacebook, the Winklevoss twins and Narendra are incensed, believing that Zuckerberg stole their idea while keeping them deliberately in the dark by stalling on developing the Harvard Connection website. They raise their complaint with Harvard President Larry Summers, dismissive and sees no value in either disciplinary action or Thefacebook website itself. Saverin and Zuckerberg meet fellow student Christy Lee, who asks them to "Facebook me", a phrase which impresses both of them; as Thefacebook grows in popularity, Zuckerberg extends the network to Yale University, Columbia University and Stanford University. Lee arranges for Saverin and Zuckerberg to meet Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who presents a "billion-dollar" vision for the company that impresses Zuckerberg.
He suggests dropping "The" from Thefacebook, just calling it Facebook. At Parker's suggestion, the company moves to Palo Alto, with Saverin remaining in New York to work on business development. After Parker promises to expand Facebook to two continents, Zuckerberg invites him to live at the house he is using as company headquarters. While competing in the Henley Royal Regatta for Harvard against the Hollandia Roeiclub, the Winklevoss twins discover that Facebook has expanded to Oxford, Cambridge and LSE, decide to sue the company for theft of intellectual property. Meanwhile, Saverin objects to Parker making business decisions for Facebook and freezes the company's bank account in the resulting dispute, he relents when Zuckerberg reveals that they have secured $500,000 from angel investor Peter Thiel. However, Saverin becomes enraged when he discovers that the new investment deal allows his share of Facebook to be diluted from 34% to 0.03%, while maintaining the ownership percentage of all other parties.
He confronts Zuckerberg and Parker, Saverin vows to sue Zuckerberg for all the company's shares before being ejected from the building. Subsequently, Saverin's name is removed from the masthead as co-founder. A cocaine possession incident involving Parker and his attempt to place the blame on Saverin convinces Zuckerberg to cut ties with him. Throughout the film, the narrative is intercut with scenes from depositions taken in the Winklevoss twins' and Saverin's respective lawsuits against Zuckerberg and Facebook; the Winklevoss twins claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea, while Saverin claims his shares of Facebook were unfairly diluted when the company was incorporated. At the end, Marylin Delpy, a junior lawyer for the defense, informs Zuckerberg that they will settle with Saverin, since the sordid details of Facebook's founding and Zuckerberg's own callous attitude will make him unsympathetic to a jury. After everyone leaves, Zuckerberg is shown sending a friend request to Albright on Facebook and refreshing the webpage every few seconds as he waits for her response.
The epilogue states that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss received a settlement of $65 million, signed a non-disclosure agreement, rowed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, placing sixth.
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". Although the original production was not a success, the 20-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. However, the complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies during the Christmas season in North America. Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker; the ballet's score has been used in several film adaptations of Hoffmann's story. Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda. After the success of The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the director of the Imperial Theatres, commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose a double-bill program featuring both an opera and a ballet.
The opera would be Iolanta. For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty; the material Petipa chose was an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", by Alexandre Dumas called "The Story of a Nutcracker"; the plot of Hoffmann's story was simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann's tale contains a long flashback story within its main plot titled "The Tale of the Hard Nut", which explains how the Prince was turned into the Nutcracker; this had to be excised for the ballet. Petipa gave Tchaikovsky detailed instructions for the composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars; the completion of the work was interrupted for a short time when Tchaikovsky visited the United States for twenty-five days to conduct concerts for the opening of Carnegie Hall. Tchaikovsky composed parts of The Nutcracker in Rouen, France; the first performance of the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera, Iolanta, on 18 December 1892, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Although the libretto was by Marius Petipa, who choreographed the first production has been debated. Petipa began work on the choreography in August 1892. Although Ivanov is credited as the choreographer, some contemporary accounts credit Petipa; the performance was conducted by Riccardo Drigo, with Antonietta Dell'Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince, Timofey Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer. Unlike in many productions, the children's roles were performed by real children – students of the Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg, with Belinskaya as Clara, Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz – rather than adults; the first performance of The Nutcracker was not deemed a success. The reaction to the dancers themselves was ambivalent. While some critics praised Dell'Era on her pointework as the Sugar Plum Fairy, one critic called her "corpulent" and "podgy". Olga Preobrajenskaya as the Columbine doll was panned by one critic as "completely insipid" and praised as "charming" by another.
Alexandre Benois described the choreography of the battle scene as confusing: "One can not understand anything. Disorderly pushing about from corner to corner and running backwards and forwards – quite amateurish."The libretto was criticized as "lopsided" and for not being faithful to the Hoffmann tale. Much of the criticism focused on the featuring of children so prominently in the ballet, many bemoaned the fact that the ballerina did not dance until the Grand Pas de Deux near the end of the second act; some found the transition between the mundane world of the first scene and the fantasy world of the second act too abrupt. Reception was better for Tchaikovsky's score; some critics called it "astonishingly rich in detailed inspiration" and "from beginning to end, melodious and characteristic". But this was not unanimous as some critics found the party scene "ponderous" and the Grand Pas de Deux "insipid". In 1919, choreographer Alexander Gorsky staged a production which eliminated the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier and gave their dances to Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, who were played by adults instead of children.
This was the first production to do so. An abridged version of the ballet was first performed outside Russia in Budapest in 1927, with choreography by Ede Brada. In 1934, choreographer Vasili Vainonen staged a version of the work that addressed many of the criticisms of the original 1892 production by casting adult dancers in the roles of Clara and the Prince, as Gorsky had; the Vainonen version influenced several productions. The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934, staged by Nicholas Sergeyev after Petipa's original choreography. Annual performances of the ballet have been staged there since 1952. Another abridged version of the ballet, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was staged in New York City in 1940, Alexandra Fedorova – again, after Petipa's version; the ballet's first complete United States performance was on 24 December 1944, by the San Francisco Ballet, staged by its
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
Julia Cumming
Julia Rachel Cumming is an American singer-songwriter, the frontwoman and bass player of the Brooklyn-based band Sunflower Bean. Cumming models and has modeled for several well known designers and has appeared in global campaigns for H&M and Diesel. Cumming is a political activist and is active in the Model Alliance, she has produced and directed a video featuring her fellow models, encouraging young people to become politically active. Cumming was born in Manhattan to Alec Cumming, a television writer/producer, Cynthia Harden, a physician and epileptologist. In the 1990s, Alec and Cynthia were a creative partnership as well as a marital one - writing and releasing songs in the alternative pop band Bite The Wax Godhead. Julia grew up in the East Village, attended New York City public schools, started a band - Supercute! - along with neighborhood friends June Lei and Rachel Trachtenburg in 2009. Supercute!, a bubblegum-girl-group-psychedelic-pop amalgam, created "ukelele rock operas". "It was an art project about not letting your age or being a girl stop you from trying anything," Julia told the New Musical Express in 2016.
Cumming and Trachtenburg co-hosted a talk show, on the Progressive Radio Network, aimed at encouraging fellow teens to become involved in art and political action. In 2014, Cumming graduated as a vocal music student at Professional Performing Arts School, made her acting debut in the movie short People Who Don't Know Me, performed solo gigs with original musical material at local clubs with her father accompanying her on bass, she interned at the Museum of Modern Art, where she curated an off-site show about instagram art. There she met choreographer Dean Moss, who cast her for a leading role in his dance piece johnbrown, which debuted at The Kitchen on October 16, 2014. In August 2013, Cumming joined guitarist Nick Kivlen and drummer Jacob Faber in Sunflower Bean, a power trio based in Glen Head, New York that had started off a spin-off of the band Turnip King. In the following year, the band moved to Bushwick and became a part of the borough's thriving "DIY" scene, playing over eighty shows that year and earning themselves title of New York City's "hardest-working band of 2014".
The band's appearance at the 2014 CMJ Music Marathon received good notices from All Songs Considered's Bob Boilen and from The New York Times's Jon Pareles, who wrote "New York is still home to bands as varied as Sunflower Bean, whose music suggests what might have happened if psychedelia had emerged after punk and the Police rather than before." The band recorded their debut EP Show Me Your Seven Secrets and was signed to Fat Possum Records that year. The album Human Ceremony was released on February 5, 2016, garnering positive reviews. Twentytwo In Blue was released on March 23, 2018 by Mom + Pop Music in the U. S. and Lucky Number Music worldwide. Although Cumming had done occasional modeling jobs in the Supercute! era, her fashion career was bolstered in February 2014, when she was asked to walk in Yves Saint Laurent's Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2014 show in Paris. Saint Laurent's creative director Hedi Slimane signed the musician to an exclusive modeling contract, using her in three campaigns and in six shows for Saint Laurent.
Since she has modeled for Anna Sui, Elsa Schiaparelli, Max Mara and Fausto Puglisi, appeared in global campaigns for H&M and Diesel, was seen on the cover of Harper's Bazaar Kazakhstan and in many fashion editorials, most notably in many of Vogue's international editions. In March 2017, Cumming appeared with Madonna for Vogue Germany in the news-making film and photo spread "Her Story", released on International Women's Day 2017. In 2017, Cumming founded Anger Can Be Power, a project that "endeavors to invoke the DIY spirit to inspire people to integrate political involvement in their lives". Cumming is active in the Model Alliance, directed and produced a video featuring fellow models that encourages young people to directly call their political representatives, she interviewed Iranian-American singer Rahill Jamalifard about her experiences as a volunteer Persian translator during the protests against Donald Trump's travel ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport. "When I was a little kid," Cumming told the New York Times, "my parents had a VHS tape called'Glam Rock.'
It was about 15 songs of Gary Glitter, T. Rex and Alice Cooper, I watched it every day until it broke." She has said that other influences include The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, The Beatles, Fat White Family, Carole King, The Kinks, Cate Le Bon, Mr Little Jeans, Joni Mitchell, Kate Nash, New York Dolls, Plastic Ono Band, Iggy Pop, The Sex Pistols, Tina Weymouth and Talking Heads, The Velvet Underground, The Waitresses and The Who. Rickenbacker 4003s Jetglo Black Bass Guitar Limited Edition Epiphone Thunderbird IV Silverburst Bass Guitar Fender American Professional Series Precision Bass Fender Rumble 50
