A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America.
Edward Elgar composed his Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, popularly known as the Enigma Variations, between October 1898 and February 1899. It is an orchestral work comprising fourteen variations on an original theme.
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.
The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff for piano and orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto, all in a single movement. Rachmaninoff wrote the work at his summer home, the Villa Senar in Switzerland, according to the score, from 3 July to 18 August 1934. Rachmaninoff himself, a noted performer of his own works, played the piano part at the piece's premiere on 7 November 1934, at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore, Maryland, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
John Carroll O'Connor was an American actor whose television career spanned over four decades. O'Connor found widespread fame as Archie Bunker, the main character in the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1979) and its continuation, Archie Bunker's Place (1979–1983). O'Connor later starred in the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995), where he played the role of police chief William "Bill" Gillespie. In the late 1990s, he played Gus Stemple, the father of Jamie Buchman on Mad About You. In 1996, O'Connor was ranked number 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. He won five Emmys and one Golden Globe Award.
Frank O'Connor was an Irish author and translator. He wrote poetry, dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on aspects of Irish culture and history, criticism, long and short fiction, biography, and travel books. He is most widely known for his more than 150 short stories and for his memoirs. The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award was named in his honour.
"Chopsticks" is a simple, widely known waltz for the piano. Written in 1877, it is the only published piece by the British composer Euphemia Allen. Allen—whose brother, Mozart Allan, was a music publisher—was sixteen when she composed the piece, with arrangements for solo and duet. The title "Chop Waltz" comes from Allen's specification that the melody be played in two-part harmony with both hands held in a vertical orientation, little fingers down and palms facing each other, striking the keys with a chopping motion. The similar "The Coteletten Polka" also was first heard in 1877, with the piano collection Paraphrases elaborating on the theme by 1879.
Antonio de Cabezón was a Spanish Renaissance composer and organist. Blind from childhood, he quickly rose to prominence as a performer and was eventually employed by the royal family. He was among the most important composers of his time and the first major Iberian keyboard composer.
The Wednesday Play is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic adaptations of fiction also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen.
Weasels Ripped My Flesh is the eighth album by the American rock group the Mothers of Invention, and the tenth overall by Frank Zappa, released in 1970. It was the second of two albums - the first being its predecessor Burnt Weeny Sandwich - assembled by Zappa from unreleased leftover recordings by the band after their late 1969 split. Burnt Weeny Sandwich focuses mostly on studio recordings and tightly arranged compositions, while Weasels Ripped My Flesh focuses mostly on live recordings and loose/improvisational pieces.
It Happened on 5th Avenue is a 1947 American comedy film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Victor Moore, Ann Harding, Don DeFore, Charles Ruggles and Gale Storm. Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story, losing to Valentine Davies for another Christmas-themed story, Miracle on 34th Street.
G.I. Joe Adventure Team is a line of action figures produced by the toy company Hasbro. The line is well remembered by the inclusion of features such as "Kung-Fu Grip", "Life-Like Hair" and "Eagle Eyes".
Campbell's Soup Cans is a work of art produced between November 1961 and June 1962 by the American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches (51 cm) in height × 16 inches (41 cm) in width and each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can—one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time. The works were Warhol's hand-painted depictions of printed imagery deriving from commercial products and popular culture and belong to the pop art movement.
The Baby Train, or simply Baby Train, is an urban legend told in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. The legend first appeared in Christopher Morley's 1939 novel Kitty Foyle. According to the legend, a certain small town had an unusually high birth rate. This was allegedly caused by a freight train passing through the town and blowing its whistle, waking up all the residents. Since it was too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up, couples would have sex. This resulted in a mini-baby boom.
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is a Southern gothic short story first published in 1953 by author Flannery O'Connor who, in her own words, described it as "the story of a family of six which, on its way driving to Florida [from Georgia], is slaughtered by an escaped convict who calls himself the Misfit".
Cynthia Flood is a Canadian short-story writer and novelist. The daughter of novelist Luella Creighton and historian Donald Creighton, she grew up primarily in Toronto. After attending the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley she spent some years in the United States, where she married Maurice Flood before moving to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1969.
The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award—named in honour of Frank O'Connor, who devoted much of his work to the form—was an international literary award presented for the best short story collection. It was presented between 2005 and 2015. The prize amount, €25,000 as of 2012, is one of the richest short-story collection prizes in the world. Each year, roughly sixty books were longlisted, with either four or six books shortlisted, the ultimate decision made by three judges.
Not Safe After Dark (1998) is the first collection of short stories by Peter Robinson; stories previously published in crime anthologies and magazines. They include three Inspector Banks short stories, one previously unpublished. The 1998 edition published by Crippen & Landru, Virginia as Not Safe After Dark and Other Stories included thirteen stories ; the 2004 edition published by Macmillan, London as Not Safe After Dark and Other Works included twenty stories. Robinson is the writer of the Inspector Banks series of novels.
Angela's Christmas is a 2017 Irish-Canadian animation film directed by Damien O'Connor, written by Will Collins and Damien O'Connor and starring the Oscar nominees Ruth Negga in the role of Angela’s mother, and Lucy O'Connell as Angela. The plot is based on the children's story from Pulitzer Prize winning Irish author Frank McCourt, and is set in Limerick, Ireland in the 1910s. The story revolves around Angela's desire to make sure everyone is having a great Christmas. The film's cast and production team received three nominations at the 46th Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards and three at the 2018 Emile Awards.
