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"The Mayor of Candor Lied" is a song written and sung by Harry Chapin. It was released on his 1976 album On the Road to Kingdom Come. The song tells the story of a poor farm boy anxious to marry the daughter of the town's mayor, even if he must go so far as to blackmail the mayor to get his way.
Set in "the little town of Candor" (possibly referring to Candor, NY, though more likely playing on the other meaning of the word; frank honesty), the narrator introduces himself by stating that his father is a farmer and that his mother is "a neighbor who goes visiting around." However, none of that seems to bother the narrator as his focus is on the mayor's daughter, Coleen. The mayor is against the courtship of the two and plans to see his daughter married "to a better man than a boy with farmer's hands."
One day, the narrator decides to work things out with the mayor. He searches for him at his home and office with no success, only to discover the mayor out in the countryside having an affair with the narrator's mother. The narrator becomes angry with the mayor and decides to blackmail him by stating that he will keep this incident a secret to protect him in his upcoming re-election as long as the mayor promises to let him be with Coleen. The Mayor agrees, reasoning that "this piper must be paid."
One month later, the mayor is re-elected, and to celebrate, he decides to take his family (including Coleen) on a "month-long foreign vacation." The narrator waits for their return; when they finally do return, Coleen is not with them. The mayor states that Coleen decided to stay to finish her schooling and tells the narrator that he will no longer be seeing his daughter. In an ironic twist, the mayor also reveals his long-kept secret—in that he is, in fact, the narrator's biological father ("Of course, dear son, where do you think you came from in the first place?") and that they are "two of a kind."
The song's chorus is heard three times throughout the song, and in shortened form two more times. The first two times the chorus is heard, it foreshadows the song's ending with the revelation that the mayor's daughter may be traveling overseas:
Jean Valjean is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. The story depicts the character's struggle to lead a normal life and redeem himself after serving a 19-year-long prison sentence for stealing bread to feed his sister's starving children and attempting to escape from prison. Valjean is also known in the novel as Monsieur Madeleine, Ultime Fauchelevent, Monsieur Leblanc, and Urbain Fabre.
Seussical is a musical comedy by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, based on the many children's stories of Dr. Seuss, with most of its plot being based on Horton Hears a Who!, Gertrude McFuzz, and Horton Hatches the Egg while incorporating many other stories. The musical's name is a portmanteau of "Seuss" and the word "musical". Following its Broadway debut in 2000, the show was widely panned by critics, and closed in 2001 with huge financial losses. It has spawned two US national tours and a West End production, and has become a frequent production for schools and regional theatres.
Kate Vaiden (1986) is the 6th novel by American author Reynolds Price. The novel focuses on the life of a white woman from the American South who, after a teenage pregnancy, abandons her son shortly after giving birth to him and who does not get in touch with him for four decades.
Její pastorkyňa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the National Theatre, Brno on 21 January 1904. Composed between 1896 and 1902, it is among the first operas written in prose.
Dyskolos is an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander, the only one of his plays, and of the whole New Comedy, that has survived in nearly complete form. It was first presented at the Lenaian festival in Athens in 316 BC, where it won Menander the first prize.
"Seven Drunken Nights" is a humorous Irish folk song most famously performed by The Dubliners. It is a variation of the Scottish folk song "Our Goodman". It tells the story of a gullible drunkard returning night after night to see new evidence of his wife's lover, only to be taken in by increasingly implausible explanations.
The Informers is a collection of short stories, linked by the same continuity, written by American author Bret Easton Ellis. The collection was first published as a whole in 1994. Chapters 6 and 7, "Water from the Sun" and "Discovering Japan", were published separately in the UK by Picador in 2007. The stories display attributes similar to Ellis's novels Less than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and, to a lesser extent, American Psycho. Like many of Ellis's novels, the stories are set predominantly in California.
Dirty Beasts is a 1983 collection of Roald Dahl poems about unsuspecting animals. Intended to be a follow-up to Revolting Rhymes, the original Jonathan Cape edition was illustrated by Rosemary Fawcett. In 1984, a revised edition was published with illustrations by Quentin Blake. An audiobook recording was released in the 1980s read alternately by Prunella Scales and Timothy West; Scales narrated "The Pig", "The Scorpion", "The Porcupine", "The Cow" and "The Tummy Beast", while West narrated the rest. Later in 1998 Puffin Audiobooks published a recording featuring Pam Ferris and Geoffrey Palmer, and in 2002 Harper Audio released a recording of Alan Cumming reading both Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts.
Falling Up is a 1996 poetry collection primarily for children written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein and published by HarperCollins. It is the third poetry collection published by Silverstein, following Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974) and A Light in the Attic (1981), and the final one to be published during his lifetime, as he died just three years after its release. Falling Up was the recipient of the Booklist Editors' Award in 1996.. In 2015, a special edition of the book was published, with 12 new poems.
The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004) is a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The name of its title story comes from a phrase in English meaning a sought after and fancy thing. Another collection by the same name was published in the same year by fellow science fiction author James Morrow.
Max Branning is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Jake Wood. He made his first appearance on 27 June 2006. Wood took a four-month break from the show in 2011 and the character was absent between August and November 2011. Wood took a year long break from the show in 2015, with Max departing on 1 October. He returned on 24 December 2016. Wood took another short break from the show in 2018; Max departed on 16 February and returned on 23 April. It was announced in 2018 that Max would be taking a break from the soap in early 2019. He left on 14 February 2019 and returned on 7 May 2019. Max served as the show's main antagonist of 2017 following his release from prison and planning revenge on all his family, friends and neighbours. On 16 September 2020, it was announced that Wood would be departing from the role of Max after more than 14 years. Wood's final scenes aired on 19 February 2021.
"Motorpsycho Nitemare", also known as "Motorpsycho Nightmare", is a song written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan that was released in 1964 on his fourth studio album Another Side of Bob Dylan.
Riding High is a 1950 black-and-white musical racetrack film featuring Bing Crosby and directed by Frank Capra. The songs were performed live during filming instead of the customary lip-synching to studio recordings. The film is a remake of an earlier Capra film with screenwriter Robert Riskin titled Broadway Bill (1934). While the film is generally a light musical comedy, its plot contains an unexpected tragic turn.
Griefshire is the third album by the gothic metal band Elis. It's their first concept album, and the last before Sabine Dünser's death. Because Sabine Dünser was the creator of the concept of Griefshire and the main songwriter of the songs on it, the other members decided, after her death, to release Griefshire in her memory.
State Fair is a 1945 American Technicolor musical film directed by Walter Lang with original music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is a musical adaptation of the 1933 film of the same name starring Janet Gaynor and Will Rogers, itself an adaptation of the 1932 novel by Phil Stong. The 1945 film stars Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Fay Bainter, and Charles Winninger. State Fair was remade in 1962, that time starring Pat Boone and Ann-Margret.
Maisie Foster is a fictional character from the British soap opera Emmerdale, played by Alice Coulthard. The character was introduced by series producer Anita Turner and first appeared in 2009. It was announced on 30 June 2010 that Alice Coulthard had quit the show and her character would be written out later in the year.
Dreams of My Russian Summers is a French novel by Andrei Makine, originally published in 1995. It won two top French awards, the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Médicis. The novel is told from the first-person perspective and tells the fictional story of a boy's memories and experiences with his French grandmother in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and '70s.
Atlántida (Atlantis) is an opera in a prologue and three parts, by Manuel de Falla, based on the Catalan poem L'Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer. Falla worked on the score for twenty years but had not completed it at his death in Argentina in 1946; his disciple Ernesto Halffter prepared the score for performance.
The Stone Boy is an Indo-Mauritius short film broadcast as a children's television series that aired on the Indian television channel DD National in 1991. It was directed by T.S. Nagabharana. The story was based on a fantasy story of a poor farmer/milkman boy who was cursed by fairies.
Creatures of Circumstance is a collection of 15 short stories by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, first published by William Heinemann in 1947. It was the last collection of stories prepared by the writer.