You know the old curse: May you live in interesting times.

As the pandemic rages, there seems to be an all-pervasive sense of sadness in the air. Americans are less happy than theyve been since happiness started to be measured, says New York Times columnistDavid Brooks.

It isnt just the one plague. Theres also a sense of dread about the political scene and the disorientation about how Americas overdue reckoning with racism and the legacy of slavery will play out. It seems almost impossible to live ones life outside of that troika of troubles these days.

Its not a cloud of doom, certainly, more a feeling of fraughtness. Is the trip to the grocery store a journey to COVID country? Will the 2020 election be a repeat of 2016 despite the polls? What is our proper response to the killing of George Floyd and the rise of Black Lives Matter?

But those are only the obvious sources of where we stand this summer. The existential grip on our senses and our place in the world is more pervasive and melancholy. On a personal level I feel it listening to Bob Dylans great new album, Rough and Rowdy Ways; reacting to deaths in my old Boston Globe family; reading the books on my nightstand, from Albert Camus The Plague to Ford Madox Fords The Good Soldier (which he wanted to call The Saddest Story); and, more obviously, watching the nightly news.

Yet none of this is crushing. In some way, its even inspiriting. Take "The Plague," speaking of existentialism and the pandemic. Although written in part as a post-war metaphor for the Nazis and their enablers in Vichy France, Camus always meant for it to speak to future generations.

Seems like he got his wish. There are the obvious parallels between the shutdown of the Algeriantown of Oran because of a rat-born virus and todays pandemic. Such as the line Stupidity has a knack of getting its way. Or the way Camus describes the war between the individualists and those who argue that the only way of defeating the plague is to realize that were all in this together, which President Trump acknowledgedafter months of denial.

Then theres Camus life-long rebellion against the silence of God. Just as prayer is useless in The Plague, religion is downright lethal against the amoral randomness of the pandemic. Gatherings for prayer, in fact, are among the most hard-hit in America and the world, regardless of religion.

The ineffectiveness of prayer could drive one to despair, particularly if one is a true believer, but the lessons for Camus are different. We have to forge our own meaning and morality rather than rely on puritanical religious bodies. Another lesson is that we need to recognize the front-line workers and scientists. Dr. Rieux in The Plague and Ed, a paramedic in the wrenching play "The Line" from the Public Theater, eschew the idea of heroism, but its Dr. Fauci, I mean Dr. Rieux, who proves to be the shaman of Oran. For all the sadness in the world, there is a resistance to plagues and self-aggrandizing politicians that is inspiring. You can say the same thing about how Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements have turned tragedy into galvanized political action today.

The pandemic also has those of us of a certain age thinking about our own mortality. Three friends from the Boston Globe died during the pandemic, though none from the plague. (A great guy, Ron Hutson, did die of COVID-19, but I unfortunately didnt know him well.) I worked at the paper from 1971 to 2006 and copy editorsLouis Bell, Al Rossi and writerBob Levey defined what a fun, extended family the paper was when it operated on Morrissey Boulevard. Normally, a Globe funeral or memorial celebration turns into a kind of alumni/alumnae party with remembrances galore, often fueled by adult beverages.

I can imagine the gales of laughter about Bell sending a smoke bomb down on what was called the bunwarmer to his antagonists in the composing room; Rossi thinking he was sending an email about a coworker farting to a friend only to discover he had sent it to the wind-passer; and Levey telling jokes with the panache of Mort Sahl.

Still, theres something almost holy about remembering them by myself. They kind of encapsulate my 35 years at the Globe Bell driving me and my roommates home in the 70s where hed get stoned and often pass out on the couch; Rossi and me having a wild weekend in Las Vegas in the 80s; telling Levey a joke that made him roar in the 90s when we both made career changes and became critics in the Living Arts section, he with food and me with television. These memories are somehow dearer to me for thinking about them in confinement they define me as well as them. Obviously Im sad that theyre gone, but the smile on my face when I think of them is different than those gales of laughter at the memorial services that weren't to be.

And, of course, their deaths presage my mortality as well. Its hard not to think about that while readingJohn Williams "Stoner" or Joseph O'Connors "Shadowplay" as protagonists (including Bram Stoker in "Shadowplay") reflect on what their lives have amounted to or come down to. (Talk about sad, Stoker was not a literary success. "Dracula" rose from the dead 10 years after he died.)

Bob Dylans Rough and Rowdy Ways has mortality writ large from the opening lines Today and tomorrow, and yesterday, too/ The flowers are dyin like all things do to the final 17-minute "Murder Most Foul," ostensibly about the assassination of John Kennedy.

Almost every song speaks in stoical terms of loneliness, bitterness, sad guitars, dark days, killing frost, the age of the Antichrist and approaching death. Yet the whole album is both consolation and celebration. It is, among other things, a celebration of the Anglo-American 20th-century songbook, with Beethoven, Chopin and Liberace thrown in for good measure. Name a musical strain worth celebrating and its in Rough and Rowdy Ways, the title nodding Dylans head to Jimmie Rodgers and continuing through Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Etta James, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Oscar Peterson and countless great jazz pianists, Sun Records, gospel, Leonard Cohen, Rick Nelson, the Everly Brothers, Rodgers & Hammerstein, the Beatles and the Stones and countless others. (The 21st-century songbook is for others to write, Dylan implied in a recent New York Times interview with Douglas Brinkley.)

Are Dylans references just name-dropping? No. Its a look back at his life, his life in song, the life of America in the 20th and 21st centuries and what lives they were and are. Hes a man of many muses and many moods, as he says in I Contain Multitudes. The influence of Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass is everywhere in Rough and Rowdy Ways.

And like Whitman hes also a man of contradictions. Some observers have said that the album sounds like a farewell, but as one critic observed in the 1970s, many of his songs are suitable for both funerals and weddings. Like Camus and his Dr. Rieux, Dylan has to embrace the sadness of his days in order to come out the other side in a search for meaning and a kind of immortality.

As he sings in I Contain Multitudes:

I go right to the edge, I go right to the endI go right to where all things lost are made good again.

So for all the sadness and intimations of mortality that he faces in Rough and Rowdy Ways, there is a full embrace of life in all its melancholy and all its merriment.

Robert F. Kennedy makes a cameo in Murder Most Foul. RFK has been cited as the person who popularized the "interesting times" quote, in a 1966 address in South Africa: There is a Chinese curse which says 'May he live in interesting times.' Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history.

Though South Africa was still in the grip of apartheid, Kennedy delivered the plea to end discrimination on what he called a Day of Affirmation. We, too, live in interesting times and its up to us, like Kennedy and Camus, to see it not as a curse but as a personal and political affirmation.

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From Camus' 'The Plague' To Dylan's 'Rough And Rowdy Days,' Sad Is The New Happy - WBUR

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The scholars of ancient Rome believed that every man has agenius; a guardian angel who blesses the household, ensures its prosperity, and protects it from bad spirits and harm. The modern interpretation of the word speaks to something entirely different, of course: an exceptional creative power or natural ability, one that spurs advances in a particular field. The greatest midfielder in Real Madrids modern history meets both definitions.

Fernando Carlos Redondo was born in Adrogu, a leafy suburb of Buenos Aires, in 1969. He had a middle-class childhood. There were no dodgypotrerosto escape from here; no deprived communities or rasping poverty to rail against.

Little Fernando couldve done anything, but it was clear from an early age that football was his passion. His father, a former midfielder himself, was a rabid Independiente fan who would gather his family around the television forgames. Together, they would be transfixed as Ricardo Bochini and Daniel Bertoni ledEl Rojoto successive Copa Libertadores trophies in the 1970s. Bewitched, Fernando would emulate their triumphs in the back garden with his brother Leo, before seeking more organised competition with the local youth team.

It was inevitable that he would be noticed. Even as a child he stood apart, spindly yet authoritative, slight but imposing.Fernando didnt have much in the way of pace orstrength, but there was something glacial in his technique, something implacable about his decision-making. Every pass was precise and intelligent, every dip into space the product of a decision that had been taken two seconds before everyone else.

Aged 11, Argentinos Juniors scout Oscar Refojos had seen enough. He visited the Redondo home, imploring that their son be allowed to join the same club that had nurtured talents like Jos Pekerman and Diego Maradona.In the Redondofamily, commitment means something. It explained why Redondos father also called Fernando, like his own father before him thought nothing of the hour-long commutes to his sons training sessions in La Paternal. It explained, too, why his son had raced straight from the chapel on the day of his first communion to take part in a youth game. Redondos turned up and did the work, no matter what got in the way.

It was just as well because coach Fernando Cornejoknew there was more to be done. The Argentinos trainer, who had first spotted Maradona as a grubby eight-year-old, was quick to see the qualities of his clubs bristling young recruit. But he was too flashy, using tricks and flicks when a simple pass would do. I always had a tendency to use the gambeta, Redondo admitted to Argentine reporters years later.He told me it was a weapon that you have to use at certain times.

It says something about Redondo that he won aninternational trophy five months before his professional debut. In April 1985, he had been the best player in an Argentina team that lifted the prestigious Under-16 South American championship. In front of 40,000 fans at the Estadio Jos Amalfitani, he had outshone Diego Maradonas brother Hugo in a 3-2 victory over Brazil, proceeding to give a valedictory speech to pitchside reporters after the game. Lithe and good-looking, the TV cameras couldnt help but be drawn to this precocious teenager on a path to legend.

It was no surprise, then, when Redondo finally made his debut as a professional against Gimnasia that September. Thirty minutes into the match, coach Jos Ydica threw him on in place of Armando Dely Valds.Unruffledby the occasion, the youngster delivered a calm, mature performance in the 1-1 draw that followed, but he would only become a first-team regular upon the departure of Sergio Batista to River Plate in 1988.

Read | Valdano, Redondo, Rafa and Rocha: the unforgettable rise and fall of Tenerife in the 1990s

Asked about the archetype of an Argentine player,Redondo would later tell journalist Daniel Balmaceda that he had to be, Skilled, talented, with character. A winning player who overcomes difficult moments. Intelligent, knows how to read the game. Without even trying, he had summed up the very qualities that made him the first name on the Argentinos teamsheet. By 1990, it was clear to every pundit and commentator that he was ready to make the jump to Europe.

Argentinos had inadvertently helped grease the wheels by forgetting to issue contract renewals to their players at the end of the season. As a result, the entire squad was released. To the relief of the club administrators, they all returned except for one.

Redondo had been approached by Jorge Solari uncle of future Real Madrid winger Santiago and a respected player and manager himself who had just been appointed boss of LaLiga side Tenerife. Having barely survived relegation the previous year, the islanders were determined to build a side capable of reaching the European places.Promising young talents like Albert Ferrer arrived on loan, as well as more exotic imports like Tata Martino. It was the arrival of the latters youthful compatriot, however, that would really set theTenerfioson the path to success.

All eyes were drawn to the young midfielder, and not just because of the luscious brown hair that rolled down his shoulders. Redondo was very much a number 5, but not in the traditional Argentine sense. Much of that countrys footballing identity can be summed up by the eternalbattle between the practicality and aggression of thecinco,and the effervescent creativity of thepibe.

Yet Redondo, as his performances at Tenerife would attest, was a devastating amalgam of both. He was an excavator of space, unearthing pockets of the pitch with a flick of movement or a chisel of a backheel. He was almost feminine in the way he glided across the Canarian pitch, his elegance given ballast by a winners temperament and a simmering aggressive streak. On one occasion in a match against Osasuna, he had even got into an altercation with an irate opponent, sending him crashing to the floor before throwing a clump of grass in his direction and telling him to eat, donkey!

Despite all the investment, however, Tenerife failed to rise beyond mid-table. The only highlight of the following year had been a final-day victory over Real Madrid that had deniedthem the title. By then, Solari had been sacked, replaced by Jorge Valdano.

The Argentine had barely retired when he was offered the job as a 36-year-old. His arrival brought an instant upturn in fortunes, with Tenerife narrowly escaping relegation, but it was the following year when they really wowed onlookers, storming to fifth and a place in the UEFA Cup. Redondo was ever-present, the lynchpin of an aggressive and dynamic midfield. If there is one thing I have to say to him, Valdano would later confess, its that hes one of the few players who can do with their feet what they think with their heads. He is the only player I ever wanted in my team.

It was only natural, then, that he should take Redondo with him when he accepted the Real Madrid job in the summer of 1994. TheMadrileosnew number 6 became an instant favourite at the Bernabu, and no wonder. Rarely has matrimony between club and player felt so natural. Redondos style was all about class and sophistication; his talents were pristine, almost regal.

That, and his movie-star features, had led international teammate Diego Simeone to jokingly christen him as El Principeduring a tournament in Saudi Arabia two years earlier. It was a fitting sobriquet, with Redondo ruling benignly over LaLigas footballing serfs. With his long, straight hair and all-white outfit, he looked more like a bride on a wedding day, pledging everlasting love to the ball at his feet.

Read | Predrag Mijatovi: the LaLiga diaries

Needless to say, Valdanos Real side secured the title at the first time of asking. At times, the football was breathtaking, Ivn Zamorno and Michael Laudrup the beneficiaries of Redondos vision and accuracy from deep. I loved playing there, Redondo would later gush to journalist Diego Berlinsky about his role at the base of midfield. It is a position from which you have a very important vision of your team and the game. There are times when you have to slow down, and others to deepen and accelerate. The 5 gives defensive balance to the team and contributes to the elaboration of the game. It seems to be a key position.

As welcome as the league title had been, a millstone hung steadfastly on Real Madrids neck. The Champions Leaguetrophy had eluded them for three decades. Despite domestic success, Valdano hadnt been able to crack the code, departing midway through a wayward sophomore campaign. His successor, Fabio Capello, had struggled too, even as he managed to nab another league trophy. By the beginning of the 1997/98 campaign, Reals image was in real danger of being tarnished.How could a club that was synonymous with success fail so abjectly to win the Champions League?

It was a question on Redondos mind too. He had been a mainstay of Capellos team, with the Italian leaning heavily on a player he gushingly described as tactically perfect.Yet one world-class talent does not a team make. Whilst Real Madrid faltered on the grandest stage, Silvio Berlusconis AC Milan raced to the fore. The Italians now had five European Cups to the Spaniards six. A new hegemony was being threatened, with Real Madrids disastrous domestic campaign suggesting little in the way of opposition.

Indeed, manager Jupp Heynckes was virtually assured of the sack even as his side progressed through the knockout rounds against Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund. In the first leg against Matthias Sammers reigning champions, Redondo had been superb, single-handedly inspiring a 2-0 victory.

But fellow finalists Juventus were stronger in every department: better players, better tactics, better manager. On the eve of the final in Amsterdam, Reals nail-bitten players skulked the corridors of their hotel, staying upuntil 4aminthe lobby exchanging stories. They convinced themselves that they werent afraid, that they were ready to turn the page on a calamitous season.

The 1998 Champions League final was possibly the most important game in Real Madrids history, club captain Manolo Sanchs later admitted toESPN. Thats not to say that the others werent, but the club had been waiting for 32 years.In all that time the hunger had been growing among the fans, the players and the club, and you can imagine the desire we had when the day came.

Redondo faced arguably the greatest challenge of all. His direct opponent was Zinedine Zidane alongside Ronaldo the best player in the world at the time a man who would shortly lead France to World Cup glory. In the opening half, the Argentine struggled to contain him, left gasping as Zidane summoned all of his powers.

Gradually, however, Redondo gained a foothold, gently constricting his opponent until there was simply no air left for Zidane to breathe.As the Frenchmans confidence waned, Real Madrids determination grew. With 67 minutes gone, Predrag Mijatovi scored the goal that brought the club back to the promised land.

Read | Ral, Fernando Morientes and the reshaping of Real Madrid as a continental power

Half a million people poured onto the streets of Madrid in the parties that followed. It was a night of vindication for club president Lorenzo Sanz, whod been elected in 1995 on the promise of European glory. It was justification, too, for the millions he had spent in recruiting the likes of Roberto Carlos, Clarence Seedorf andDavor uker.Mostly, however, it was a rendezvous with fate. Real Madrid, the club of the European Cup, had reclaimed its legacy after decades of yearning and strife.Redondo, selfless in his dedication to the cause, had been at the centre of it all.

Having already resigned to his fate, Heynckes left the club. His replacement, Jos Antonio Camacho, fared little better, sacked after less than a month due to a fall out with the president. Guus Hiddink arrived to a group that had become complacent and unfit, with his normally telepathic sense for player management having little effect on a squad that was bloated and bereft.

By February 1999, he too was gone after publicly criticising the efforts of his wayward stars. When I arrived at the end of February, it was a very difficult time, revealed interim coach John Toshack in the bookToshacks Way. There was no drive among the players. There was a general malaise caused by a few bad apples in the group. It was enough to drag the team down and keep them there. Most of them were not training hard enough and they were not as fit as they should have been.

Toshack setting about stomping on his players egos, seeing fit to run them into the ground during every training session. By seasons end, the Welshmansltigo(whip) had salvaged a second-placed finish in the league.He made way in the summer another presidential fall-out, another departure, another interim hire.

Vicente del Bosque was placid and demurring, a man Sanz could mould to his will. Hewas a guarantee of tranquillity at a club in increasing danger of becoming a basketcase.Redondo identified a kindred spirit in his new coach, however.Del Bosque had the same temperament: respectful and decent, almost introverted. He had been a left-footed playmaker too, reliant on technical gifts rather than physical prowess.

Del Bosque, in return, singled out the Argentine as the key to his rebuilding effort. Redondo was the player with the most personality, the Spaniard would later reveal, calling him an inspiring footballer who dominates the centre of the field by himself.

Personality wouldnt be enough to get Real winning again, however. The team needed strengthening. Nicolas Anelka was the headline recruit of a hectic summer, but equally important were the captures of Michel Salgado and Ivan Hlguera for a combined fee of 10m. Steve McManaman, meanwhile, was captured on a free from Liverpool.

Del Bosque had done much to reinvigorate the dressing room, but results still faltered. By Christmas, Real had succumbed to embarrassing home defeats to Valencia and bitter rivals Atltico.The club had stumbled through the Champions League group stages, chastened by twin collapses to Bayern Munich. When they were drawn against title holders Manchester United in the quarter-finals, mostMadridistasresigned themselves to another year of hurt. A goalless draw at home in the first leg only worsened that fear. Some bookies gave them long odds of 66-1 to progress.

Read | Nine trophies in 342 games: the colossal legacy of Vicente del Bosque

It feels reductive to say thathistory was made in a single moment. We all know that events are influenced by a myriad of factors; a network of often unrelated happenings, coinciding to produce art, love, even time itself. Yet there is an undeniable weight about one moment in particular from that second leg at Old Trafford.

You already know what it is. You are conjuring the visitors black and gold jersey in your minds eye, imagining the slick of Redondos hair as he runs towards the touchline with 52 minutes gone. You are imagining Henning Berg, expertly closing down the space. Reals number 6, for the first time all night, has nowhere to go.What happens next is part instinct, true but what happens next also sums up Redondos most brilliant strengths.

His peerless positioning and angelic technique; his understated arrogance and unfathomable cojones.Attempting to describe El Taconazo(The Heel)with mere words does no justice to its phenomenon; only YouTube clips, circulated on 19April every year, come anywhere close. If there were one moment, from one player, in one match to sum up an entire clubs ethos, this was it.

It didnt matter if you were the reigning European champions, managed by the most successful coach in modern history; it didnt matter if you were Henning Berg, Roy Keane, or David Beckham. In one stunning moment, Redondo reminded the world that Real Madrid was the only show in town. An entire stadium was left delirious as he ran to the byline, rolling a clever ball to Ral: 3-0 on the night, and one of footballs greatest moments captured in all its floodlit glory.

United rallied but it was to no avail. The champions were out, Old Trafford defying itself to offer a round of applause to their conquerors. Berg, in the words of his teammate Raymond van der Gouw, would be killed by the moment that so crystallised Redondos quality. But the Real man had no time for praise and accolades vengeance was on his mind.

The semis pitted Real against a team that had already scored eight goals against them that year. Stefan Effenberg, Ottmar Hitzfeld and Lothar Matthus were the scions of a Teutonic dynasty, keen on their own revenge after a disastrous final defeat the season before. On this occasion, however, their desires would not be sated.

In front of 95,000 supporters at the Bernabu, Redondo was one player in a team of 11 captains. The semi-final performance spoke to Reals transformation under Del Bosque and the influence of his on-field lieutenant. Each player hounded and fought, launching salvos from the safety of Redondos steadying presence in the middle of the field.

Inevitably, he was involved in the first goal, building the play neatly with McManaman before the Englishman shifted the ball to Ral. The Argentine, seeing Anelka break away from the Bayern defence, pointed urgently into space, imploring his teammate to put the ball through.Ral obeyed and Madrid took the lead.

Read | Juan Romn Riquelme: the dream comes first

Jens Jeremies own goal set up a comfortable lead for the return-leg but that didnt stop the Germans going straight for their opponents throat from the off. Carsten Jancker scored first, but Anelkas equaliser was the heartbreaker.Even as lber nodded in a second, Real clung on. It was their first final since1998.

Valencia offered one final hurdle. They were younger, fitter and in better form, with Gaizka Mendieta on an upward curve that would see him voted UEFA Midfielder of the Year. Yet Redondo, 30 years old and with several finals already behind him, had time for one last lecture.On a warm evening in Paris, one of the most lopsided finals in European history unfolded. Valencia were fretful and jittery, juxtaposed perfectly with the wise old heads in white. Redondo, ably assisted by McManaman and Ral, led a meticulous obliteration of the opposing midfield.

The first goal from Fernando Morientes effectively killed the game. Normally defensive and stern, Hctor Cpers men didnt know how to take the game to their masters.Two more goals from McManaman and Ral followed, and Los Blancos for the eighth time in their history were European champions.

Perhaps it is too simplistic to say that Sanz losing the presidential election that summer put paid to Redondos time at the club. Perhaps it is too crude to say thatLos Merengues, with all their politicking, backstabbing and favour-currying, sunk to a new low by jettisoning their best player, the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year in the off-season.

Perhaps it isnt, though. In the build-up to the vote between Sanz and challenger Florentino Prez, Redondo had nailed his colours firmly to the formers mast. And why wouldnt he? Sanz, after all, was the president who had deliveredLa Sptima.His was the tenure that had brought the current European title too, not to mention luminaries like Capello, Roberto Carlos, Seedorf and Morientes. Redondo knew a winner when he saw one, even if there had been a few too many errant league campaigns and managerial casualties along the way.

It was probably fitting, however, that Redondo departed the club before it became a parody of itself. He had been the visionary director of an arthouse feature and had no meaningful place in the brainless franchise of theGalcticosera that followed.The least he deserved, though, was to be informed about his own departure before the club announced it.

Reals new president denied him that courtesy. It didnt matter when Redondo protested publicly: Real is my home and as far as it depends on me, I see no reason to desire another. If Real do not want me, it is clear that one way is to get rid of me.The club even tried to spin the departure as being of Redondos own making; Real fans, knew better. He left the city having returned its biggest club, across six glorious seasons, to the pinnacle of the European game.

In another sense, though, Redondo never left Madrid. He will never leave. His elegance still haunts the vaulted corridors of the twinkling Bernabu. His charisma still suffuses the famous old pitch, his legacy recalled in every world-class signing, every first-place finish, every Real captain who gets to hold the Champions League aloft. His legacy lives on in Real Madrid hearts, minds and trophy cabinets alike.

By Christopher Weir @chrisw45

Art by Tom Griffiths @ArTomGriffiths

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Fernando Redondo and the rise to immortality at Real Madrid - These Football Times

FromSoftware games are known to feature lots of parallels to previous titles, but could one of the studio's most famous enemies pop up in Elden Ring?

From Dark SoulstoBloodborne,Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and (hopefully soon enough)Elden Ring, studio FromSoftware has created some of the most visually-distinct and intricately-designed video games ever made. Although many of its gamestake place in their own, self-contained universes, the developer is wont to sprinkle inan Easter egg or two every now again, leading players to wonder whether the worlds of the undead, hunters and samurai may be connected after all.

Unless FromSoftware breaks this tradition, their upcoming open world RPG Elden Ring is sure to feature a few leftovers from previous projects. How prominent a role these leftovers will play in the story and gameplay is, however, another question altogether. While players should probably expect to find the rusted armor set of an Ashen One discarded by some smoldering camp fire, they could very well get to face off against one of the developer's oldest and most iconic enemies, too.

Related: Elden Ring Might Be A Sci-Fi RPG Disguised As Fantasy (Really)

That enemy is, of course, Seath the Scaleless. First introduced in the original Dark Souls, Seath was one of the Everlasting Dragons who allied himself with the game's final boss, Lord Gwyn, and turned against his own kind. Born, as his name suggests, without the powerful and magical scale armor of his brethren, the monster would go on to spend the rest of his life in search of immortality a right which, unlike other dragons, he had been denied.

Why would Seath appear in Elden Ring? For one, he fits the setting. Not only is the world of Elden Ringmodeledafter a medieval society filled withfantastical creatures, said world has also been designed by none other than George R.R. Martin, the writer behind the popular fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire and, by extension, HBO's hit show Game of Thrones. As dragons feature prominently in Martin's work, chances are they will show up in Elden Ring as well.

Of course, just because dragons could show potentially up in the game that does not mean one of them is going to be Seath. And yet, the preliminary themes of Elden Ring clearly resemble those of Seath's own story. Not only has FromSoftware's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, stated the game will be a "natural evolution" of the Dark Souls series in particular, he has also said that the game is going to center aroundideas of will and ambition. On top of that, the game's trailer promises asociety whose balance has been tipped. Sound familiar?

Even if Seath will not make a direct appearance in Elden Ring, the game will likelyfeature a character similar to him as the narratives of FromSoftware's various games, despite being set in different universes, frequently parallel one another. In each game the studio has ever made, the player character has a tenuous relationship with death, and ventures through a kingdom in decay in search of salvation.If Seath won't make a direct appearance, then, surely his spiritual successor will.

Next: Will Elden Ring Have Difficulty Settings?

Halo Infinite Campaign Demo Brought To PS4 In Gorgeous Dreams Creation

Tim is a Dutch journalist living in New York. He studied film and literature at NYU, his favorites movies are Kung Fu Panda and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and his writing has appeared in PopMatters, History Today and The New York Observer among others.

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Will Seath the Scaleless Be In FromSoftware's Elden Ring Too? - Screen Rant

When an event is unexplained, it cant be repeated. Cubas astonishing internationalism, the good news of the pandemic, is talked about (outside Cuba) as if a miracle, without cause. Support grows for the Nobel Prize nomination but the justification for the Henry Reeve Brigade, established in 2005, is left out. The explanation is ideas.

It is urgent according to Eddie Glaude in a new book on James Baldwin.[1] Well, he doesnt exactly say that. But for Baldwin, what kind of human beings we aspire to be is most important and the explanation for Cubas success is precisely that. In Zona Roja, Enrique Ubieta Gmez says Cuban medical workers fighting Ebola in 2014 know about existence: We exist interdependently. Ubieta describes Cuban internationalism as an inescapable ethic. Once youve lived it, you cannot not live it.

You know human connection a fact of science and you learn its energy.

Ubietas explanation is existential. Baldwin used similar language. In 1963, he wrote, Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we imprison ourselves to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. Glaude supports Baldwins call to begin again, with the America idea, shedding its old ideas. He might look South. Latin American independistas raised precisely Baldwins question: how to resist the lie at the heart of the [imperialist] nation when it is about love, life and death, that is, everything.

Truth is not enough. If Galileo had just provided truths, he wouldnt have been condemned. Galileo became threatening when he made those truths plausible with a larger picture of cosmic humility, contradicting the establishments comforting identity. One thing we might learn from Galileo, according to astrophysicist Mario Livio in a new book, is that he didnt just observe truths and tell stories about them. His phenomenal capacity for abstraction let him see where those truths led. [2]

Truths are easy when unexplained. Consider Olga Tokarczuks Flights. It gives truth about people traveling everywhere escaping their own lives, and then being safely escorted right back to them.[3] We see people running through airports with flushed red faces, their straw hats and souvenir drums and masks and shell necklaces. All this moving around in a chaotic fashion [to] increase their likelihood of being in the right place at the right time even has meaning. A travel psychologist explains that such chaos appears to call into question the existence of a self understood non-relationally.

It is funny to expect deeper meaning regarding people moving around in a chaotic fashion to increase their likelihood of being in the right place at the right time from a travel psychologist at an airport between flights. We laugh because we do in fact expect that, absurdly.

We get truth from Flights but its dismissible. Annushka, for instance, escapes her unbearable life : to go, sway, walk, run, take flight. She finds happiness when she does not have a single thought in her head, a single care, a single expectation or hope. Shes happy, free of her identity, her life, her responsibilities. But she is also cold, hungry, dirty, alone, tired, and homeless. The image is silly.

In fact, the idea underlying it is silly, namely, that to have no thoughts, you should have no identity, no responsibilities. Its as pervasive as friction, from which Galileo abstracted to get truth about inertia. In fact, to be happy with no expectations or hope, as Annushka is, is not silly. But understanding how that is so requires a phenomenal capacity for abstraction from social expectations.

Flights doesnt do that. It responds to an expectation identified by Cuban philosopher and diplomat Ral Roa in 1953 as the worlds gravest crisis.[4] It was indeed the America idea: Human beings imprisoned in discrete selves, defined by action and results. It is not humanist, as claimed, Roa argues, because it omits the fact of death, as Baldwin recognized. There were few dissenters to the man of action during the Renaissance, and Roa saw there would now be none because of US power.

Baldwin tried to escape that power by living outside the US. He struggled with what it had made of him. But American power follows one everywhere.

Emily Dickinson, the greatest poet in the English language, abstracts from expectations Flights dignifies. According to biographer Martha Ackman, Dickinson lived as if busyness and travel is not progress.[5] She never apologized for, nor defended, the priority she gave to silence and solitude. As result, we get truth from her poetry: about what it means to be human. For, she was in fact not detached from a world she never visited physically or had any desire to.

She lived as if isolation and detachment are not synonymous. But to know where this leads, you must abstract from the America idea that equates human worth and utility. Comfortably, though, Dickinson is odd Americas most enigmatic and mysterious poet and her way of life therefore dismissible.

Lord of all the Dead, like Flights, leaves comforting old ideas in place. [6]Javier Cercas tells the story of his great-uncle who fought a useless war for Franko. His memoire does give truth but doesnt explain it, so his story, which for him is just a story, cannot itself explain, and is dismissible.

Achilles in The Odyssey is lord of all the dead because he died young and beautiful, and gained immortality. That his great uncle was politically mistaken, theres no doubt. But was he a human failure? Cercas answer is no. At one level, Cercas rejects the Greeks ideal of beautiful death because it denies the existential reality of decrepitude: There is no escaping it. But on the other hand, Cercas assumes the separation of mind and body that makes beautiful death worth speculating about: the idea that the body decays and that the mind somehow escapes natures universal laws of causation.

He ends the book speculating about immortality. Nobody dies, he writes. Were just transformed, physically. He himself, at books end, is in the eternal present. It doesnt explain what needs to be explained, given the real story of this book which is what Cercas calls the silent wake of hatred, resentment and violence left over by the war. The silent wake is explained by ignorance precisely of shared humanity Cercas names but doesnt explain. It is decrepitude: the fact of death.

It is known by every human being. Cercas tells a story about his great uncle but denies the significance of that story because he tells it with the old ideas in place, the ones Glaude says need to be shed, like swaddling clothes to begin again as Baldwin urged. Glaude is not sure it can happen. But it has happened. Thats the good news about the Henry Reeve Medical brigade, if it were explained.

On Friday, March 20, Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, speaking nationally, outlined new measures to slow the pandemic. The good news, he said, is that Cuban people supported the decision to accept the Braemar, a UK cruise ship refused docking elsewhere because of infected passengers. A century ago, another ship sought aid from Cuba. Its passengers were Jews. It was turned away.

That, Diaz-Canel said, was before the Revolution. The good news was the expectation that the Braemar should be helped. That expectation is the success of the Cuban revolution. It explains the Henry Reeve Brigade. Expectations come from practises, from what is lived. Diaz-Canel then said, one day the truth will be known. But what truth? Its not the truth that solidarity is good. No, the truth that will be known is not moral. Instead, it is what that truth the moral one about solidarity does existentially when acted upon, and lived, and why that matters in a global crisis.

Baldwins humanism wasnt easy to understand. Glaudes thoughtful book goes some distance toward explaining. Its not clear, though, whether he knows the consequences. Bill V. Mullen, in a 2019 book, says Baldwin should be understood the way we understand Fanon, Garca Marquez, Assata Shakur: They wrote outside the US, aware of imperialism. [7]

It may be what it takes for Cuba to cease being a dismissible miracle.

Notes.

1) Begin Again: James Baldwins America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie Glaude Jr.(Penguin Random House, 2020). See review: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/begin-again-james-baldwins

2) Galileo and the Science Deniers by Mario Livio (Simon and Schuster, 2020) 181

3) tr. Jennifer Croft (NY: Riverhead Books, 2017) 62

4) Grandeza y servidumbre del humanismo, Viento Sur (Havana: Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau, 2015) 44-62

5) These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson by Martha Ackman ( W.W. Norton & Company, 2020).

6) Lord of all the Dead by Javier Cercas, tr. Anne McLean (Alfred A Knopf, 2020). See review: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/lord-all-dead

7) James Baldwin: Living in Fire by Bill V. Mullen (Pluto Press: 2019) xv

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Cuba's Nobel Nomination and Baldwin's Call to Begin Again - CounterPunch

Given the suspension of athletics in the county, the Daily Journal decided to dive into our 20-year archives to bring readers some of our favorite stories over the years.

AUG. 2, 2012 There are certain images that deserve a form of immortality.

At Carlmont High School, a quick lap around the small gymnasium will provide you with one such image. Its of Justine Record high off the ground and in the process of sending a missile over the net for a score. From 2005 to 2008, it happened over and over again, much to the chagrin of the opposition.

Fast forward four years, Record is taking her high-flying act overseas after a stellar career at Virginia Tech that included the programs first ever trip the NCAA tournament. Record, who graduated in May with a degree in English, announced shell be playing professionally for Toulon Provence Mediterranean Var Volleyball located in Toulon, France.

Im excited for this opportunity and the experience to go over there and the chance to continue to play, Record said. I mean, why not play the game you love for as long as you can? I remember I started playing volleyball when I was 14 in an area league and it never occurred to me that I would be playing professionally. I was just playing for fun. And I still am.

Much like her legendary leaps on the volleyball court, Records career appears to do nothing but ascend.

A starter for her four years as a Hokie, Record ended her career ranked fourth on Techs all-time service aces list with 176 and seventh all-time in digs with 1,238. She also concluded her career with 1,121 kills and 133 blocks.

She appeared in all 31 matches her senior season, missing just one start while playing in 115 sets. Her final year at Tech concluded with 257 kills, 48 aces, 380 digs and 51 blocks and a team-leading 12 double-doubles. Record was also a preseason All-ACC team member.

I think going away to college was probably one of the best opportunities that ever happened to me, Record said. I initially didnt want to be so far away from home, but I ended up going to a volleyball program that wanted me and offered me a full ride as a player at the Division I level.

It definitely wasnt an easy transition. But a lot of my teammates were from out of state which was nice because everyone was going through the same experience that I was and I think thats why our team was so close everyone was from a different area.

Record went to Tech after a jaw-dropping four years at Carlmont that included a 2006 Daily Journal Volleyball Player of the Year award.

They were coaches that I admire because they pushed me to play different positions that I never played before, Record said of her time as a Scot. I was an outside hitter at the high school level, but I also played right side during the club season. At one point I played middle in high school. And it was because of their coaching and their belief in me as a player that I realized that the only limitations you have are the ones you create for yourself.

Heading into Tech, there were questions about Records size. But Record said she was lucky to have coaches who believed in her regardless of her frame.

They embraced my role and I was really thankful for that because there arent a lot of coaches who view a left-handed player as an outside hitter, especially at 5-8, thats the big thing, she said. I was playing at the DI level and coaches dont expect a short lefty on the outside.

For most hitters, the biggest transition is the speed of the game and how big the block is. I definitely struggled with hitting around the block and hitting high-hand, finding ways to score that way.

But Records hard work and efforts helped the Virgina Tech program reach new heights.

I feel very proud to be a part of the first team to make the NCAA tournament, Record said. Our teams has improved and I think the program got better each year. I definitely think a lot of it has to do with the coaching. And I think I improved because my teammates, we pushed each other a lot. Its just kind of contagious.

Volleyball appears to be one of those good diseases Record cant seem to shake. As her career with Tech wound down, phone calls to friends playing overseas and the subsequent advice that followed landed her with the opportunity to continue to make French fans ohh and ahh with her explosive play in the future.

This is the right fit for now, Record said. After youre done playing for four years, some players dont want to play overseas and dont want to continue their careers. But for me, I love playing volleyball so much I just couldnt get enough. I think my main objective at this point is just taking this opportunity to gain life experience, to travel and to go play where I possibly can, reaching my full potential.

For Record, that potential is way up in the clouds. And given her reputation, Record definitely has the hops to reach it.

See more here:

From the sports archives: Record takes game to overseas - San Mateo Daily Journal

The Old Guard's Andromache the Scythian is over 6000 years old, and her friends are no spring chickens either. Here's how old the other immortals are.

Warning: SPOILERS ahead for The Old Guard.

The Old Guard's Andromache the Scythian a.k.a. Andy (Charlize Theron) is 6,732 years old according to the comic books upon which the Netflix movie is based - and her immortal companions are pretty ancient as well. Though Andy's age is deliberately kept ambiguous in the movie, marketing materials for the other characters in The Old Guardmake it possible to work out exactly how old they are.

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and based on the comics by Greg Rucka andLeandro Fernndez, The Old Guard follows a team of warriors who have lived in the shadows for centuries, taking part in conflicts on whichever side they feel is right. The movie is set in the modern day, where a new immortal - soldier Nile Freeman (Kiki Layne) - joins the group after miraculously healing from having her throat cut. While she's still learning about her new family, they come under threat from a greedy pharmaceutical executive called Steven Merrick (Harry Melling), who hopes to discover the secret to their immortality, bottle it, and put a price tag on it.

Related:The Old Guard: How Old Andy Really Is

Unfortunately for Merrick, he's not the first bad guy that the Old Guard have run into during their very long lifetimes. Here's a breakdown of when each member of the group besides Andy was born, and how old they are in the modern day setting of the movie.

Seen only in flashbacks and in The Old Guard'sfinal scene, Quynh's (Veronica Ngo) age is perhaps the hardest to pin down out of all the immortals. In the comics she's called Noriko, and Andy recalls that they first metat the end ofAmr ibn al-As al-Sahmi's conquest of the Byzantine Empire in 642, at which point Noriko had already been an immortal for a century. That puts her date of birth some time in early 500 AD,which would make her around 1500 years old during the events of The Old Guard.

However, in the movie it's not specified exactly when or where Andy and Quynh met, except that Andy found Quynh when she was wandering through the desert, and that she was the first other immortal that Andy ever met. In the comics, Andy met Lykon (Micheal Ward) before she met Noriko, and they fought together for two thousand years before his wounds finally stopped healing during the Italian Renaissance. Lykon also appears briefly in a flashback in The Old Guard, with Andy and Quynh both being present at the time of his death. If Quynh has been aged up in order to have been born before Lykon, she could actually be several thousand years old during the events of the movie. Hopefully we'll learn more about her backstory - including her age - in The Old Guard 2.

According to his character poster, Joe (Marwan Kenzari) was born in 1066, making him 954 years old at the time The Old Guard takes place, andin his earlythirties at the time of his first death. Originally called Yusuf Al-Kaysani before he changed his name to Joe Jones (in order to attract less attention), Joe was a Muslim warrior during the First Crusade, who met the love of his life on the battlefield... and then killed him. Fortunately for both of them, fate chose them as the next immortals to join the Old Guard, and after repeatedly slaying each other they realized that neither they nor the enemy soldier could be killed - at which point their enmity turned to love.

Related:The Old Guard Cast Guide: Where You've Seen Each Actor Before

Younger than Joe by only a few years (which grew even less significant as the centuries pass), Nicky (Luca Marinelli) is 951 years old during the events of The Old Guard, based on a character poster that gives his year of birth as 1069. This means that he would have been in his late twenties - 30 at most - the first time he died. Like Joe and Andy, Nicky changed his name at some point from Nicol of Genoa to the more common name ofNick Smith, in order to aid his anonymity. Hailing from the city of Genoa, in what would later become the unified country of Italy, Nicky fought in theFirst Crusadeuntil he fell in love with one of the enemy, and instead began fighting new battles alongside him. After settling their differences, Joe and Nicky both met Andy and became part of the Old Guard alongside her and Quynh.

The baby of the group (at least, until Nile comes along), Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) is 250 years old during the events of The Old Guard, with his character poster marking his year of birth as 1770. Born Sebastien le Livre (his nickname comes from his surname, which is French for "Book"), Booker was a soldier under Napoleon who deserted during the campaign into Russia. He was caught and hanged, but came back to life still hanging from the noose, being 42 years old at the time of this first death in 1812. As he lived on without ageing, Booker experienced the trauma of watching his sons die and being helpless to stop them, even as they grew to hate him for not sharing his gift of immortality. Being a young immortal,the 100-year penance that Booker is sentenced to at the end of The Old Guard would still be a significant amount of time for him.

A brand new member of the Old Guard, Nile Freeman is 26 years when she dies for the first time, having her throat cut while trying to save the life of a man she has just shot. After she wakes up in the infirmary without a mark to show for her injury, she's shunned by her fellow soldiers and about to be sent away for some probably very unpleasant testing when she's abducted by Andy. Nile has a military legacy to uphold, with her father having been killed in action, but also has a family that she's at first keen to return to. By the end of the movie, however, she has decided to stick with Andy and the other immortals, having seen the good that they've managed to do in the world.

More:The Old Guard Ending & Sequel Setup Explained

GI Joe Spinoff Movie Snake Eyes May Be Delayed

Hannah has been with Screen Rant since the heady days of 2013, starting out as a humble news writer and eventually clawing her way up the ladder through a series of Machiavellian schemes and betrayals. She's now a features writer and editor, covering the hottest topics in the world of nerddom from her home base in Oxford, UK.Hannah enjoys weird horror movies, weirder sci-fi movies, and also the movie adaptation of Need for Speed - the greatest video game movie of all time. She has lived and studied in New York and Toronto, but ultimately returned home so that she could get a decent cup of tea. Her hobbies include drawing, video games, long walks in the countryside, and wasting far too much time on Twitter.Speaking of which, you can follow Hannah online at @HSW3K

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The Old Guard: How Old The Other Immortals Are (Besides Andy) - Screen Rant

The human race is a diverse species. We come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but there is one thing we all have in common: All who live will eventually die.

It is not a pleasant thought to dwell on. We seek to distract ourselves from death by surrounding ourselves with entertainment and busyness. If we can keep from thinking about it, then it is not real.

It was Woody Allen who said: I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

It is a funny saying, and yet it may reflect an uncomfortable truth within many of us.

I need to be clear about what I am trying to communicate. The purpose of my words is not to scare people into a life of faith motivated by a fear of death. As a university student, some well-meaning Christians tried to get me to convert with threats of hell. It only delayed my spiritual journey.

My only goal is to remind us of the lie of a this-world immortality. Even with all our advances in medicine and improvements in the standard of living, we will all die at some point.

I once led a funeral for a man who died at 100 years of age. He lived a long and healthy life. He and his wife lived in their own home right until a few months before his death. He was sharp in mind and strong in body.

He seemed to have had the ideal life, and yet there were those who were shocked at his death. It was more than missing a man who was beloved; his death had seemed unexpected.

We will all experience last things. There will be our last time kissing our spouse. There will be our last time hugging our children. There will be our last time driving a car. There will be a last time going for a walk.

There are three ways for us to respond to death. One is to ignore it and hope it never happens. One is to live in fear of death so that we never truly live. But there is also the option to live a life of hope.

Hope is the ability to move beyond the negative feelings or experiences of the moment. In the context of death, hope can include a belief that we have done some good in the world or that our friends and family will be OK even after we are gone.

As a Christian, I also have hope that death is not the end of existence. I cannot say that I fully understand what that will look like. Will we recognize our loved ones? Will we even recognize ourselves?

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This is not about being so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. A worldview that includes hope in the face of death should be a benefit to this world. This type of hope should help us to get out of bed and help others even when we are overwhelmed by life circumstances.

You are dying. Most people reading this will be dead within 80 years. Neither ignoring nor despairing are helpful options. But faith is. Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

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Faith Matters: Hope in the face of death benefits the world - StCatharinesStandard.ca

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros

Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Matthew and Saint Paraskevi

July 26, 2020

Saint Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Church and Shrine - Greenlawn, NY

My Beloved Christians,

It is a joy to be with you today at this Temple and Shrine dedicated to the Great Virgin-Martyr Paraskevi, and especially on her feastday. We assemble as best we can in these days, when the pandemic has yet to abate in our land, and you all honor the Saint with your presence and prayerfulness today.

We honor Saint Paraskevi as a Martyr who bore witness to Christ through unimaginable suffering.

We honor Saint Paraskevi as a Healer, particularly of the eyes. And by the liturgical rhythm of the Church, we read of the healing of the two blind men by our Lord Jesus Christ in todays Gospel.

We honor Saint Paraskevi, who was given this name by her pious parents, to give glory to God for the Friday, the Holy and Great Friday, (in Greek, ), the day on which our Lord Jesus Christ gave up His life, for the life of the world. But is not only the Day of Redemption upon the Cross of Golgotha, it is also the Sixth Day of Creation, when our humanity was created, according to the Book ofGenesis.[1]

Therefore, is the day of our creation and re-creation. It is the day of beginning, the beginning of life, purpose, and meaning. And it is the day of ending, the ending of the tyranny of sin, hades and death. Yet in both cases, it is a day of Preparation, for this is the most basic meaning of the word. is in fact the Jewish Day of Preparation in advance of the Sabbath, Saturday.

As the Sixth Day of Creation, it is the Day of Preparation for the reign of humankind as the pinnacle of creation. As the Fathers teach, the human being was formed by God on the last Day of the Creation. For the entire world and Paradise was made like a palace, in which the human person would reign as a monarch, in the image of Gods rule of the universe.

But this Sixth Day proved to be the day of our downfall. We were created for immortality, but through the love of only ourselves, which in Greek is, we deserted our divine calling, and we became subject to sin and death.

Thus, our day of preparation had to be drawn out over the millennia, and our salvation readied in the fullness of time.[2]The entire Old Testament, with all its laws and regulations, exists to bring about the pure and Holy Virgin. For she became the chariot that would carry our Champion, the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the preparation of the Gospel.

Then, on the Sixth Day of the Week of Holy Week, the Lord took our humanity, which was given up to death unwillingly by disobedience and pride. He took our human nature to the Cross to willingly die for each and every one of us. And by that willing death on the day of Preparation, he prepared for us to enter Paradise, as he promised the Thief who was crucified at His side.[3]

But even His death on the Cross was a preparation, a preparation for His Divine Rest on the Holy Great Sabbath. For this is the Seventh Day of the new creation, when the Lord Jesus Christ rested from His labors to remake us in His image, according to His likeness.

It was a Divine rest, a sleep in death from which the Lord arose on the First Day of the Week like a lion roused from slumber.[4]He arose and by His Glorious Resurrection He conquered once and for all sin, and hades, and death. He shattered the gates of hell and brought up from the grave all who had been waiting for redemption from ages past.

This moment of theAnastasisis nowhere more spiritually and more magnificently portrayed than at the Church of Chora. You all know the image, the Risen Lord aglow with light divine lifting Adam and Eve up out their tombs, as He tramples down death. But this Sacred, like our Hagia Sopha, has been seized and converted to an alien purpose, which I shall not name here out of respect and honor for these sacredof our Holy Orthodox Faith.

Therefore, I ask each and every one of you, as we honor your Saint : how will you prepare yourself?

How will you prepare to receive the great gift of salvation and eternal life, which is ever offered in our Churches through the Holy Eucharist?

How will you prepare your life to ultimately meet your death? For if the Lord and Creator of Life Himself submitted unto death, none of us can escape this passage to the next and everlasting world.

And how will you prepare to live your life as an Orthodox Christian, who knows their faith and is aware of, and alive to, the vital issues of the day?

We all bear the responsibility, the privilege, to live our lives as best we can, so that at the moment we shall all eventually face, we may hear the words: Well done, good and faithful servant![5]

My beloved Christians, as we honor your Matronal Saint, the Holy , I pray that through her inspired prayers, she may be the channel of divine grace to each and every one of you and your families. May you all receive her blessing and strength, and bepreparedin your life to be the Orthodox Christian that God has called you to be.

Amen.

The rest is here:

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Matthew and Saint Paraskevi - Homilies - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Until recently, it was a safe bet that people rarely noticed the statues around them. They stood, scattered all over the citys parks and public spaces: statues of people like Floyd B. Olson, Charles Lindbergh, Leif Erikson, or Nathan Hale in St. Paul; or Mary Tyler Moore, Kirby Puckett, Hiawatha, and Hubert Humphrey over in Minneapolis. Especially these days, with most noses buried in smartphones, theyve been the often-unseen background of everyday life.

Photo by Meg Spielman Peldo

Colleen Sheehy

I really dont think about statues that much, said Colleen Sheehy, when I asked the other day. Theyve really become a less important part of contemporary public art.

Sheehy is the executive director of Public Art Saint Paul, a nonprofit that has been dedicated to improving and maintaining art in the citys public realm. For Sheehy, statues are an old-fashioned idea of public art that does not reflect how she thinks about its role these days.

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Theyre upholding a longstanding tradition going back to ancient times of depicting people, most often historical leaders, and reifying official and authoritative perspectives on history, she explained. Public art has really moved away from that. Its not that treating a figurative sculpture never happens, but its not at the forefront of what public art is today.

Large statues of people are, indeed, a very old idea. They date back millennia the oldest life-size statue dates to 9,000 BC in modern-day Turkey but, as Sheehy describes, literal pillars of the community have mostly served the purposes of symbolizing power. For example, in a New York Times op-ed earlier this summer, art historian Erin L. Thompson defined a statue as a bid for immortality, a way of solidifying an idea and making it present to other people.

For some reason, maybe it was childhood memories from once being lost at Camp Snoopy, it wasnt the historical statues that bothered me. Instead, Ive always thought my least favorite St. Paul statues were the diminutive Peanuts characters scattered around the fringes of Rice Park. For years, Ive literally looked down at them as a clumsy attempt at placemaking, artificial vitality in a city that could use actual street life instead.

MinnPost photo by Bill Lindeke

Snoopy statues along Rice Park in St. Paul. Leif Erikson and Floyd B. Olson statues outside the Minnesota State Capitol.

You rarely see children depicted in public space, Sheehy explained. Theyre iconic figures that people know around the world, and it is sort a democratic gesture to have these children from the Peanuts comic strip, who are very philosophical, and youre just at their level. It creates a different kind of atmosphere in downtown thats friendly, that incorporates humor.

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Perhaps the best part of the Peanuts statues, their democratic playfulness, is anathema to the history of Western monumental culture. Statues are typically placed on a high dais, out of reach and imposing, and surrounded by stony inscriptions like He Discovered America. But it doesnt have to be that way, and one of Sheehys favorite St. Paul statues is more down-to-earth.

MinnPost photo by Bill Lindeke

Michael Price's F. Scott Fitzgerald statue in Rice Park, St. Paul.

I love that its at ground level, said Sheehy, referring to the sculpture of F. Scott Fitzgerald in Rice Park. [Price] really captures Fitzgerald as a regular person. I like that he is looking over the panoply of life and activity in Rice Park, and you can almost imagine that he might be thinking of writing a short story about it .

The other issue, of course, is who is depicted by our figurative monuments. For example, other than the former Twins greats around Target Field, its all but impossible to find a person of color or nonfictional Indigenous person in a statue. According to Sheehy, statues and monuments have an important quality, and the way that they symbolize social values can be both inspiring and incredibly oppressive. The ambiguity is certainly a feeling that holds true for many of the Twin Cities Black public artists.

I never had a great concern about statuesbecause I never saw me in them, said Ta-Coumba Aiken, a visual artist based in St. Paul. What I mean by that is, I did not see my African-American self in them, so I refuse to look at them. I refuse to believe they were greater than me or my people, so I did not study them.

Walker Art Center/Bobby Rodgers

In keeping with its democratic spirit, Shadows at the Crossroads is accessible, even in the age of COVID-19.

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It is an unconventional yet contemporary approach to how a memorial is bestowed and defined, said Christopher Harrison, a Minneapolis artist, who cited Shadows at the Crossroads as his favorite statue-adjacent public artwork. For Harrison, the grounded approach makes the Walker piece particularly poignant, and runs counter to a history of symbolism that has long neglected the lives of people of color and other marginalized communities.

I see statues and other monuments as encased historical records, archival institutions within the communal space, Harrison explained. How statues speak to truth from antiquity to present and future time for me determines their power and validity, their potency lying in how accurately they represent the character of the subject and the life that they portray.

Perhaps its the notion of permanence that is really the difference between a classical statue and contemporary public art likely to challenge, rather than reify, power structures. How can we assume that any statue erected in 2020 will still be relevant in a century?

Photo by Christopher Harrison

Come Together, a mural series, 2020 on Nicollet Mall.

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Instead of statues, after the George Floyd killing, artists like Harrison spent the last few weeks and months creating temporary murals. And, for a while, Harrisons work sat on Nicollet Mall, depicting timely messages. With downtown often deserted these days, I imagine that there were times when their only audience was Mary Tyler Moore.

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Twin Cities statues: ubiquitous but 'not at the forefront' of public art - MinnPost

Thirty years ago this month (July 1990), President George H.W. Bush signed a rare bipartisan law that stillimpacts the lives of all Americans: the American Disabilities Act (ADA). For example, the ADA required curb cuts so wheelchair users could cross streets independently also benefit bicyclists and parents pushing strollers.

I am a public health physician living with both colon cancer and multiple sclerosis, so I greatly appreciate the benefits of the ADA. Unfortunately,as a result ofmy colon cancer, I can too easily imagine that my final days may bring great suffering. If that suffering becomes unbearable, I hope that I will be able to choose froma full range of care options, and I hope that such a choice will be available to all people in that situation.

Thatswhy I support legislation in 20 states nationwide that would authorize mentally capable, terminally ill adults to have the option to get prescription medication to peacefully end their suffering if it becomes intolerable. The states that have considered medical aid-in-dying bills during their 2019-2020 legislation sessions include:Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Utah,andVirginia.

Bothnational and state pollsshow voters across our country support medical aid in dying. AGallup Poll Social Surveyconducted in May showed that 74 percent ofU.S. residents agree that: When a person has a disease that cannot be cureddoctors should be allowed by law to end the patients life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it? Majority support included every demographic group measured in the survey: gender, ethnicity, age, education, and political party affiliation (if any), ranging from conservatives to liberals.

While there are no national polls of people with disabilities on this issue, Purple Insights conducted surveys in 2013 and 2014 showing that voters with disabilities inConnecticut,Massachusetts, andNew Jerseysupported medical aid in dying by 63 to 74 percent, very similar to the support level of voters overall in those states of 62 to 71 percent. Finally, a 2018Medscape surveyshowed that 58 percent of doctors nationwide saidthat physician-assisted dying should be made legal for terminally ill patients.

Medical aid in dying has been authorized in Washington, D.C., and nine states, starting more than two decades ago with Oregon in 1997, without one documented case of misuse.

In fact,Disability Rights Oregons (DRO)Executive Director confirmed in a letter last year that:

DRO has never to my knowledge received a complaint that a person with disabilities was coerced or being coerced to make use of the [Oregon Death with Dignity] Act.

In addition, according to a 2007Journal of Medical Ethicsreportabout this Oregon law:

Rates of assisted dying in Oregon...showed no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured...people with low educational status, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses including depression, or racial or ethnic minorities, compared with background populations.

The purpose of the American Disabilities Act: is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else, according to theAmerican Disabilities Act National Network. Medical aid-in-dying legislation honors this historic laws mission, by providing people with disabilities the same autonomy and freedom as everyone else to make our own healthcare decisions at lifes inevitable end.

While medical science can seemingly work miracles, we need to remember that the thing most people want at the end of life is NOT one more try at immortality, but rather a peaceful death surrounded by loved ones.

------------------

Mary Applegate, MD, MPH is a clinical professor at the University of Albany School of Public Health.

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People With Disabilities Want Same Peaceful Dying Option as Anyone Else - Thirty years ago this month (July 1990) President George H.W. Bush signed a...

From humble beginnings as a New Zealand short film back in 2005, vampiric mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows has risen to become an unlikely multimedia franchise.

Not only has Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's story of the everyday trials and tribulations of the suburban undead spawned a cult favourite movie, but also a pair of TV shows (the other being oddball Kiwi cop show Wellington Paranormal). With consistent rumours of a further movie sequel or spinoff, the WWDITS cinematic universe is thriving like a Nosferatu newly feasting on virgin's blood.

And why shouldn't it when the New York-set TV show remains one of the most inventively funny things on the small screen? Coming on like an unholy mashup of Being Human, Flight Of The Concords, and Peep Show, the misadventures of ineffectual bloodsuckers Nandor, Laszlo and Nadja are full of amusing failures to navigate the complexities of the modern world; not to mention how the petty tensions of house sharing are hugely exacerbated by immortality.

Whether it's an age-old blood feud or just a night out on the town, our three night stalking heroes (plus energy vampire Colin Robinson and human familiar Guillermo) never fail to make a bizarre mess of things in unpredictably amusing ways.

With their show already picked up for a third season, let's take a look back at which episodes from the first two have already staked a claim for classic status.

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What We Do In The Shadows - 10 Best Episodes So Far - WhatCulture

The Hulk may struggle to defeat Thanos in a fistfight, but when he met his brother Starfox, the former Avenger almost killed him with one blow.

Since 1962, The Incredible Hulk has been a hero known for committing daring feats of strength and overcoming massive adversity. But nearly killing the younger brother of Thanos? That's a feat worthy of specific attention in Hulk's long, exemplified superhero career.

Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema's The Incredible Hulk #300 was a crossover issue which saw Hulk, no longer coexisting with Bruce Banner, go up against every Earthbound Marvel superheroin New York City. That includes bouts with Spider-Man (wearing the symbiote), Doctor Strange, Human Torch, S.H.I.E.L.D., Heroes for Hire, and even Hulk's former colleagues The Avengers. But one particular Avenger who has the unfortunate turn of running into the green goliath is the brother of the Mad Titan Thanos, Eros a.k.a. Starfox. And he would never forget it.

Related: How Powerful The Hulk Really Is In Each MCU Movie

For those who may not know, Starfox and his brother Thanos are members of the Eternals race, with Eros being born the ideal Eternal in every way... while Thanos was created deformed and much more in line with the monstrous Deviant counter race. Though Starfox comes with the standard skill set of an Eternal such as super strength, super speed, flight, teleportation, and immortality, Eros' main asset is his pleasure stimulation technique. The technique allows Eros to make other beings feel pleasure by stimulating the brain's pleasure centers of those within about 25 feet of him, which backfires on Eros when the Eternal uses the power on the insusceptible Hulk, who responds by smashing Starfox into the arms of fellow Avenger Thor, nearly taking the brother of Thanos off the table completely.

Though Starfox's Eternal lineage ultimately saves his life in the end, the Hulk once more truly shows where his strength lies by defeating Starfox with relative ease. Without Banner anchoring the beast within, the Hulk is allowed to brawl with the Titan born hero without holding back. Similar to Spider-Man, who constantly holds back on his opponents for fear of potentially killing them, the Hulk's connection to Bruce Banner throughout the years somewhat restrains the raw potential of Hulk's power.

There are forces in the Marvel Universe that can easily match the power of The Incredible Hulk, but there is not a force that the Hulk cannot match in his own way. As far as opponents go, Hulk has faced several superheroes and aliens but defeating a royal Eternal as swiftly as he did Starfox is an impressive feat. While Thanos would prove much more of a worthy threat, the Hulk can at least mark off one Eternal as a win.

Next: Thanos vs Hulk: Who Would Win (in The Comics)?

Spider-Man Can Beat Up Superman (On ONE Condition)

Hello world, enter Bryce Morris. Bryce is currently a college sophomore attending Rowan University with experience in writing for an online blog as well as an advertising agency. One day in the not too distant future, Bryce aspires to become a comic book writer. Bryce has always had his sights set on writing and in his down time can be found either watching a Marvel movie, reading a Marvel comic, or writing for Screen Rant... either or is acceptable.

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Hulk Almost Killed Thanos' Brother With A SINGLE Punch - Screen Rant

True Blood was one of those shows that seemed to do the impossible: it did something new with the idea of the vampire. With its unique blend of genres, it managed to create a show that was, for its first few seasons, eminently watchable, even for those who didnt like vampires and stories about them. While it eventually lost control of its own narrative-wandering in all sorts of bizarre directions before its overdue finale-theres no question that the series still managed to produce some of the most fascinating characters on television.

RELATED:True Blood: 5 Best & 5 Worst Episodes, Ranked (According To IMDb)

And, looking at them through the lens of the zodiac allows for a more sophisticated appreciation of these individuals and their strange characteristics.

Played with inimitable flair by Denis OHare, Russell was a powerful vampire king who also developed a taste for fairy blood. Though he only appeared in two seasons of the show, he still managed to capture the imaginations of many fans, who responded to the ways in which he seemed to wield power with an effortlessness that was as beguiling as it was dangerous.

Unfortunately, his hard headed ways ended up getting him staked by none other than his old nemesis Eric.

For most of the series, Bill was the main character Sookies abiding love interest (for both better and worse). A Civil War soldier who was turned into a vampire against his wishes, he has a deeply conflicted relationship with his own immortality and with his need to feed on blood to survive.

RELATED:The Vampire Diaries: The Best Episode of Each Season, According To IMDb

Hes also notoriously stubborn, and this resulted in quite a few spats between him and Sookie (as well as with his own fellow vampires, including Eric).

Tara is a bit of a wild child. Its not really hard to see why, really, particularly since he relationship with her mother is, to put it mildly, deeply antagonistic.

Time and again as the series progressed she found herself caught up in forces that she couldnt control, and yet she still seemed to have a pathological desire to get mixed up with exactly the wrong sort of people. Like so many Geminis, she just couldnt seem to get her life in control.

Sooke Stackhouse is, at the beginning of the series, the main character around whom all of the action revolves. She soon makes it clear that, like many a Cancer before her, shes very concerned about her own feelings, and this often leads her to do and say things that are hurtful (and sometimes downright deadly) to the people that surround her.

Eventually she became one of those characters who audiences loved to hate, precisely because she seemed to only care about her own feelings.

Jason, Sookies brother, is about as different from her as it is possible to be. With his seemingly insatiable sex drive, Jason was always getting involved with some woman or other, usually resulting in all sorts of trouble for him (and for them).

Like any other Leo, however, he also had something irrepressibly charming and charismatic about him, which made it impossible for anyone, either in the audience or in the series, to really hate him or resent him for his actions.

With his cold demeanor, icy eyes, and blonde hair (all stemming from his Nordic ancestry),Eric is the quintessential Virgo.

Its not that he doesnt have feelings or emotions; its that, for the most part, he manages to keep them under a tight leash, only releasing them when he sees some advantage to do so. Its not hard to see why hes a compelling love interest for Sookie, since that cold Virgo exterior gives him all of the appeal of the unknowable.

One of the series ongoing conceits was Sookies ability to draw very handsome men to her, despite the fact that she almost always ended up breaking their hearts. No one suffered from this more than Alcide, the werewolf that pretty firmly gave his love to Sookie.

RELATED:True Blood: 5 Couples That Are Perfect Together (& 5 That Make No Sense)

As a Libra, he really does strive for balance in his life, both between his human and wolf sides and in his relationships with the various people in his life, including and especially Sookie.

Though she was originally just a side character in service to Eric Northman, it quickly became clear that Pam had that extra something that meant she was fated to be a fan favorite.

Part of it, no doubt, stems from the fact that she has some hard edges that no amount of immortality has been able to smooth away. Its also the fact that she seems to take a delight in being a vampire and, in true Scorpio fashion, bending humans to her will.

In the zodiac, the Sagittarius is known for being a bit of an unstable sign. Theyre not bad people, exactly, but they do sometimes make themselves hard to live with because of their penchant to make bad decisions.

This is a spot-on description of Jessica, the young woman that Bill is compelled to make into a vampire. Throughout her time in the series, Jessica just couldnt seem to decide what it was that she wanted from her immortal life.

Though she only appears in the first season, Adele, Sookies grandmother, casts a pretty long shadow over the series.

Alone among the many characters that appear, she seems to actually have a good head on her shoulders, and shes often been a source of stability for Sookie, both in childhood and in adulthood. Even after her death, Sookie looks back at the time that they spent together and appreciates all of the support that her grandmother gave her.

Lafayette was another of those characters that seemed fated to be a fan favorite, despite the fact that his character actually dies in the first novel that the series is based off of.

Its hard not to love Lafayette, with his signature sass and his willingness to speak truth to anyone who asks it (and even those who dont). Like most of those who are born under the sign of Aquarius, he does have a tendency to be a bit mystical as well.

Sam Merlotte is one of those characters who just cant seem to make a decision that isnt bad. Like every Pisces, he insists on seeing the world as he wants it to be rather than as it is, and this leads him to do some pretty terrible things.

Whats more, he seems to steadfastly refuse to accept the fact that, sometimes, its best to take the logical step rather than the one based on emotion.

NEXT:True Blood Characters Sorted Into Their Hogwarts Houses

Next Scooby-Doo: Every TV Series (In Chronological Order)

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Which True Blood Character Are You Based On Your Zodiac? - Screen Rant

Olivia de Havilland, an actress who gained movie immortality in Gone With the Wind, then built an illustrious film career, punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios grip on contract actors, died on Sunday at her home in Paris. She was 104 and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywoods fabled Golden Age.

Her death was confirmed by her publicist Lisa Goldberg.

Ms. de Havilland was both a classic Hollywood beauty and an honored screen actress whose very name and bearing suggested membership in a kind of aristocracy of moviedom. Though she was typecast early in her career as the demure ingnue, she went on to earn meatier roles that led to five Academy Award nominations, two of which brought her the Oscar, for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949).

Those roles came to her in no small part because of the resolve she showed when she stood up to the studios and won a battle that helped push Hollywood into the modern era, surprising the movie moguls, who may not have expected such steel in an actress so softly attractive and, at 5-foot-3, so unintimidatingly petite.

She had shown similar grit a decade earlier, in her breakthrough role, when she held her own against her formidable co-stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard in Gone With the Wind.

The 1939 Civil War epic was briefly pulled from the HBO Max streaming service last month and returned with an introduction saying that the film presents the Georgia plantation at its center as a world of grace and beauty, without acknowledging the brutalities of the system of chattel slavery upon which this world is based.

As Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, the fiance and then wife of Mr. Howards Ashley Wilkes, she brought intelligence and grace to her portrait of a woman whose shy, forgiving, almost too kindly nature stood in sharp contrast to the often venomous jealousy of her high-spirited sister-in-law, Scarlett OHara (Ms. Leigh).

Ms. de Havillands performance led to an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress, though the award went to another member of the cast, Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, Scarletts housekeeper. (Ms. Leigh won in the best-actress category.)

Ms. de Havilland was under contract to Warner Bros. when the films original director, George Cukor, working for MGM, invited her to audition for the role of Melanie. (He was later replaced by Victor Fleming.) After getting the part, she had to plead with her studio boss, Jack Warner, to lend her to the MGM production, which was being overseen by David O. Selznick.

By then she had established herself at Warner as a familiar heroine in some 20 films and had begun a long collaboration with the prolific director Michael Curtiz, encompassing nine films. Most notable was a string of action features and costume dramas opposite the dashing Errol Flynn, among them Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), in which she played Maid Marian.

Ms. de Havilland and Flynn were such a popular onscreen couple that rumors flew of an on-set romance, fueled in part by Flynns reputation for bedding his co-stars and reports that he was infatuated with her. By all accounts there was no truth to the whisperings of an affair, though some years later Ms. de Havilland admitted to having had a great crush on Flynn and suggested that circumstances at the time he was married when they met stood in the way of a romance.

So naughty and so charming, she said of him.

Warner had signed Ms. de Havilland to a seven-year contract in 1935 on the strength of her performance that year as Hermia, the defiant daughter who resists an arranged marriage, in Max Reinhardts film adaptation of A Midsummer Nights Dream. (The year before, she had made her professional stage acting debut in the same role in a Hollywood Bowl production by Reinhardt.)

After her success in Gone With the Wind, Ms. de Havilland returned to Warner with the expectation of more challenging roles. For the most part, they did not materialize.

One exception was Hold Back the Dawn (1941), in which she played an American schoolteacher who is seduced in Mexico by a wily European exile (Charles Boyer). Her performance earned her another Oscar nomination, but this time she lost to her sister, Joan Fontaine, who won for Suspicion. The two were rarely on speaking terms after that. (They are the only sisters to win best-actress Academy Awards, and their sibling rivalry was called the fiercest in Hollywood history.)

The formula roles kept coming. When Ms. de Havilland complained, she was told that she had been hired because she photographed well and that she wasnt required to act.

The studio had misread her determination. She began to refuse roles she considered inferior. Warner retaliated by suspending her several times, for a total of six months, and, after her contract expired, insisting that because of the suspensions she was still the studios property for six more months.

Ms. de Havilland sued. The case dragged on for a year and a half but David finally beat Goliath when the California Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling in her favor in 1945. What became known as the de Havilland decision established that a studio could not arbitrarily extend the duration of an actors contract.

When she resumed her career, Ms. de Havilland appeared in four films in rapid succession, all released in 1946. In one, The Dark Mirror, she played twins, one good and one evil. In her Oscar-winning performance in To Each His Own, she was an unwed mother who must give up her infant son when his father, her lover, a World War I flying ace, is killed in action.

Ms. de Havilland soon took on one of her most demanding roles, that of a young bride who becomes mentally ill and is sent to an institution, in The Snake Pit (1948). The film, directed by Anatol Litvak, was an unflinching study of mental illness and the treatments available then, from narcotics to electroshock. Ms. de Havilland was nominated for a best-actress Oscar but did not win.

She captured her second Oscar the next year with The Heiress, directed by William Wyler and adapted by Ruth and Augustus Goetz from their Broadway play based on Henry Jamess Washington Square. Ms. de Havilland presented an affecting portrait of a repressed, spinsterish young woman dominated by her rigidly protective father (Ralph Richardson).

It was one of Ms. de Havillands favorite roles. The films I loved, she said in 1964, the great loves, are The Snake Pit, The Heiress and, of course, Gone With the Wind.

But she did not love Hollywood, and in the 1950s she startled the town when she abandoned it to live in Paris with a new husband, though she kept her American citizenship.

For Olivia, William Stadiem wrote in a profile of her in Vanity Fair magazine in 2016, there was a whiff of decay and disappointment about Hollywood.

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916, to British parents in Tokyo, where her father, Walter, a cousin of the aviation pioneer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, ran a firm of patent lawyers, though he was not a lawyer himself. In 1919 her mother, the former Lillian Ruse, an elocution teacher, moved with Olivia and Joan, her younger sister by 15 months, to Saratoga, Calif., near San Francisco. The de Havillands divorced and Lillian married George M. Fontaine, a department store executive, whose surname Joan later took as her stage name.

Ms. de Havilland was married twice. Both marriages ended in divorce. The first, in 1946, was to Marcus Aurelius Goodrich, a Texas-born novelist, screenwriter and journalist; they had a son, Benjamin, and divorced in 1952. She married Pierre Galante, the author of military histories and at one point editor of the magazine Paris Match, in 1955 after the couple met in France. They moved to Paris, had a daughter, Gisele, and divorced in 1979. Ms. de Havillands son died of Hodgkins disease in 1991.

Before she was married, Ms. de Havilland had romantic relationships with James Stewart, Howard Hughes and the director John Huston, with whom she reunited for a time after her first divorce. By her account she also turned away a smitten young John F. Kennedy, who was visiting Hollywood after his PT-boat service in World War II.

She is survived by her daughter, Giselle Galante Chulack. Joan Fontaine died in 2013 at 96.

Though she had decamped to Paris, Ms. de Havilland remained a creature of Hollywood for most of her career. But she did try her hand at theater again, making her Broadway debut in 1951, to good reviews, as Juliet in a short-lived production of Romeo and Juliet.

She returned to Broadway in 1952 for another brief run in Shaws Candida and was last seen there in 1962, when she starred with Henry Fonda in A Gift of Time, adapted by Garson Kanin from Lael Tucker Wertenbakers book Death of a Man, about the last days of the authors husband, Charles, who died of cancer.

The movies kept calling, however. In 1952 she starred in My Cousin Rachel, based on the best-selling novel by Daphne du Maurier. She played the bride of an older man, and Richard Burton, in his Hollywood debut, played the son who thinks his attractive new stepmother may be capable of murder.

By the time she traveled to Italy to film The Light in the Piazza (1962), in which she played the protective mother of a beautiful but mentally impaired young woman (Yvette Mimieux), Ms. de Havilland had appeared in some 40 movies and was living in semiretirement in Paris. She also published a book in 1962, a collection of lighthearted observations about life in France titled Every Frenchman Has One.

Ms. de Havilland made only a handful of films after that. She was in her mid-40s by then, receiving fewer acting offers and finding many scripts too prurient for her tastes.

One she liked, however, was Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), which gave her the opportunity to co-star with Bette Davis, another Hollywood legend nearing the end of her career.

The film, a weaker echo of the similarly gothic Bette Davis-Joan Crawford melodrama, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, tells the tale of an increasingly demented woman (Ms. Davis) and a scheming relative who comes to live with her (Ms. de Havilland, who replaced Ms. Crawford after filming began).

From the mid-60s onward, Ms. de Havillands acting was largely confined to sporadic roles in television series like The Love Boat; television movies like The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982), in which she played the Queen Mother; and mini-series like Roots: The Next Generation (1979). Her work in the 1986 NBC mini-series Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, in which she played a Russian empress, brought her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination.

In 1965 she became the first woman to head the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

She returned to feature films only occasionally, among them the hugely successful 1977 disaster movie Airport 77, in which she joined a ensemble cast of veteran actors. Her last Hollywood film was The Fifth Musketeer (1979), in which she played the mother of Louis XIV (Beau Bridges).

But even when she was well into her 80s, she had not entirely given up the idea of returning to the spotlight. She was a presenter at the Academy Awards in 2003. She narrated I Remember Better When I Paint, a 2009 documentary about the positive impact of art therapy on people with Alzheimers disease.

In Paris, Ms. de Havilland had lived in a five-story townhouse, built around 1880, since 1958 (in recent years next door to the former French president Valry Giscard dEstaing), all the while never missing Hollywood, she said.

I loved being around real buildings, real castles, real churches not ones made of canvas, she told Vanity Fair.

She maintained an active lifestyle there into her second century, defying her advancing years.

Olivia doesnt seem 99, Mr. Stadiem wrote in his 2016 Vanity Fair profile. Her face is unlined, her eyes sparkling, her fabled contralto soaring (only Orson Welles had an equally imposing instrument), her memory photographic. She could easily pass for someone decades younger.

She was in the news and in court once again in 2018, when she sued the FX network and Ryan Murphy Productions over her portrayal by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the mini-series Feud: Bette and Joan, about the rivalry between Davis and Crawford.

She maintained that her portrayal constituted unauthorized use of her name and likeness and showed her in a false light as a hypocrite with a public image of being a lady and a private one as a vulgarity-using gossip. A California appellate court dismissed the suit, ruling that the portrayal was not highly offensive to a reasonable person as a matter of law.

Ms. de Havillands readings of scripture on Christmas and Easter at the American Cathedral, on the Avenue George V, became annual events in Paris. In 2010, Nicolas Sarkozy, then the president of France, awarded her the Lgion dHonneur. And her association with a distant era of Hollywood glamour made her a living legend in her adopted city.

In 1999 she was honored with a party in Paris to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Gone With the Wind. At one point, one of the hosts recalled, with a glass in hand, she toasted the film and its leading actors, reminding the room that she was the last one still standing.

Let us raise a mint julep to our stars, she proclaimed, on that great veranda in the sky!

Allyson Waller contributed reporting.

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Olivia de Havilland, a Star of Gone With the Wind, Dies at 104 - The New York Times

A person named James was pronounced clinically dead following complications during surgery, before being resuscitated. However, while he was briefly dead, James believes he was offered a glimpse of the afterlife, and claimed it to be the most peaceful yet emotional time he has ever experienced. Writing on the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF), James said: The first thing I remember was seeing a huge, round, and colourful opening or pathway. At the end of the pathway was a white church and other small white buildings.

The sky was blue. I no longer felt anger, sadness, or regret. I also had a strange feeling that I cant explain. I dont know what love is, but I guess that this feeling ws tht someone loved me nd forgve me. I bdly wnted to sty.

The emotions were so strong. There were four mle figures on my left side. They were dressed in long grey overcots. They didnt hve fces s we know them. Rther, their fces were glowing with strong, bright light shining from their fce.

We didnt hve verbl communiction. We communicted through emotionl feelings. Three other figures ppered on my right side. They looked like the other figures with the sme colour cots nd fces of bright light. They cme towrds me in non-thretening wy.

Then I woke up. The doctor told me wht hppened, but I didnt cre becuse I wnted to go bck there.

Before, I didnt believe in life fter deth. But now, I m confused. This ws not hllucintion becuse it ws so rel. I cn never forget the feelings, wrmness, nd the knowledge tht I ws loved.

I did not wnt to tlk to nyone bout this, but I mde n ppointment to spek to priest.

I m not frid of deth now.

Some reserchers, however, hve sid these visions re norml phenomenon nd not necessrily sign of n fterlife.

Dr Sm Prni, director of criticl cre nd resuscittion reserch t NYU Lngone School of Medicine in New York City, told n Oz Tlk: People describe senstion of bright, wrm, welcoming light tht drws people towrds it.

They describe senstion of experiencing their decesed reltives, lmost s if they hve come to welcome them.

They often sy tht they didnt wnt to come bck in mny cses, it is so comfortble nd it is like mgnet tht drws them tht they dont wnt to come bck.

A lot of people describe senstion of seprting from themselves nd wtching doctors nd nurses working on them.

Dr Prni sid there re scientific explntions for the rection, nd sys seeing people is not evidence of the fterlife, but more likely the brin just scnning itself s survivl technique.

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Life after fatality: Male's shock experience of immortality 'I terribly wanted to remain' - Entertainment Overdose

A friend recently asked me where I was from. I said, New Hampshire. He seemed puzzled, so I told him what that meant.

I said, the people of New Hampshire are tough but kind, frugal but generous, honest, hard-working, and dedicated to our nation, and you better love the Patriots, Bruins, Red Sox, and Celtics or find another place to have a beer. He laughed and said I sounded proud. I said I am.

Four years after I graduated from Manchester West in the patriotic class of 1976, I joined the Air Force. Over the next 29 years, I was honored to serve with the greatest soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen the world has ever seen, living in 13 states and with duty in 75 countries. I retired as a brigadier general, grateful for every day I was privileged to serve my nation.

My service with so many great Americans in uniform affirmed what I learned growing up in New Hampshire. That character, based on integrity, human decency, physical and moral courage, and hard work is the foundation of sustained servant leadership. It is what our Constitution demands of our elected leaders, and it is what you and your children deserve.

The values that are found from Coos to Rockingham and from Grafton to Strafford and all counties in between, are the values that make New Hampshire citizens so similar to those who have served, fought, and died in uniform for our freedom. These values are the essence of character, and they have guided American servicemen and servicewomen in war and peace, around the world for decades.

Of values and character, our own native son, Daniel Webster said, What a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality. President Teddy Roosevelt said, Character is, in the long run, the decisive factor in the life of individuals and of nations alike. Vice President Joe Biden counseled, The American presidency is an office of immense power. That is why character matters. And President Eisenhower said, A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Today, we are confronted with a growing gap between our values and the values of our elected leaders. For example, we value the American flag not as a prop or as a possession to be hugged; we value it as the symbol of our freedom. We all know people who have buried friends under that draped flag. I have done that. The people of New Hampshire understand what that means.

Likewise, the American people do not want to fall in love with a dictator who threatens our nation. The men and women I served with would never abandon Kurdish partners on battlefields, show disinterest in the possible release of ISIS prisoners into the heart of our European allies, or ignore intelligence that the Russians were paying bounties to Taliban fighters who kill our servicemen and servicewomen. These bounties may have targeted the moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and children of New Hampshire, and no one who shares New Hampshire values would ever let that stand.

I understand the people of New Hampshire want results. Some say that is what we are getting today. But are we really? Did Mexico pay for the wall or did you? Are North Korea, Iran, or Syria more stable? Is your health care fixed? Is the opioid crisis resolved? Are you and your neighbors really being led through this pandemic, or abandoned? To quote President Ronald Reagan, Are you better off than you were four years ago?

I hope every American citizen exercises his or her right to vote. Many sons and daughters of New Hampshire have shed blood for that right. I also hope that when that vote is cast, it is done with our values in mind. We are tough but kind, frugal but generous, honest, hard-working, and dedicated to our nation. That is why I will forever be proud to be from New Hampshire.

(Dan Woodward is a retired brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He grew up in New Hampshire.)

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My Turn: The New Hampshire qualities a president must have - Concord Monitor

(Ed. Note: With high school sports currently on hiatus, please join me in a look back at some of the finest teams our coverage area has produced this century. To help us get through the summer, each week, Ill present the top 10 teams from a different sportfour honorable mentions, then our Super Six, These rankings are put together with help from coaches and others, including a Twitter poll each week at twitter.com/foresports, but the final decision is mine. This week its field hockey. Volleyball is on deck)

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For years, while the likes of Skowhegan and York have stolen the field hockey headlines state-wide, there have been plenty of memorable moments produced by local squads, not to mention championships won.

The quality of play has long been excellent and there have been far more than 10 transcendent teams over the past two decades, but this list has room for only 10 and while winnowing it down proved to be a challenging task, heres one writers stab at the finest squads weve seen over the past 20 years:

Greely Rangers, 14-4, 2002 Western Class B champion

The Rangers shocked the world in 2001, winning a regional championship for the first time before losing on penalty corners to Winslow in the state final. In 2002, Greely proved that was no fluke, fielding an even better team which again got to the state final, only to run into the same team and suffer another painful loss. The Rangers featured Miss Maine Field Hockey finalist and Western Maine Conference Class B Player of the Year Amanda Chase, All-State selection Hayly Ross, league all-star Gessy LePage (now Greelys coach), top scorer Sara Dimick and a plethora of other top multi-sport athletes who knew how to have fun, as well as get serious and win games.

Greely roared out of the gate with wins in its first five games, outscoring the opposition, 17-2, in the process. After sandwiching one-goal losses to Cape Elizabeth and Gorham around a 4-0 win over Falmouth, the Rangers were victorious five more times, including an overtime win at Yarmouth, before falling at home to York in the final, 2-1, in double-overtime. As the top seed for the Western B tournament, Greely then avenged two of its losses en route to the regional title.

In the quarterfinals, the Rangers blanked Yarmouth, 2-0, behind goals from Chase and Maryette Stuart. Cape Elizabeth was next in the semifinals and Greely handled the Capers with surprising ease, 6-0, as Dimick scored twice, Julia Chase, Brigitte Demers, Lindsey McKay and Stuart each had one goal and Abby Chapman added two assists. Then, as now, York found its way to the regional final and more than 60 minutes were needed for the Rangers to advance. The Wildcats stunned the partisan Greely crowd with a goal 32 seconds in, but Chapman tied the score late in the first half. Neither team scored in the second half and the contest went to overtime, where Julia Chase set up Dimick for the winning goal and a 2-1 victory which sent the Rangers back to the state final. This time, only 60 minutes would be needed, but again, Winslow left Greely frustrated and heartbroken. The game would be decided on a Black Raiders penalty stroke early in the second half and despite nine shots on goal, the Rangers couldnt finish in an agonizing 1-0 loss. Greelys championship dream would have to wait for another year. Just one more year as it turned out.

Coach Robyn Thayer: We played well as a team. Our ultimate goal was to get to the state final. Last year was a lot easier for us. We just went out and played and when we won, that was great. This year, it was more like we thought about the expectations on us and halfway through the season, I think we had a breakdown. The kids had been focused very much on the win because they thought they needed to focus on the win, instead of how they were playing. After we lost a couple, we decided we had to focus more on playing the best we could possibly play and the wins would come.

Deering Rams, 16-2, 2003 Western Class A champion

After consecutive losses in the regional final, the Rams, in the midst of a phenomenally successful school year for the Deering athletic program, broke through and reached the state game for the only time. The Rams, paced by All-State selections Bronwyn Potthoff and Casey Smith, the teams lone returning starter, Sarah White, league all-stars Lauren Cash and Becky Nickerson, and goalie Megan Urban, embarked on a run that surprised almost everyone, stumbled just twice, in the opener and state final, and set a benchmark for the program which hasnt been matched.

Deering lost, 2-1, to Westbrook in the opener, then rattled off 13 straight wins, including several in close games. In the regular season finale, Smith scored her 15th goal of the season in the second overtime for a 2-1 victory over South Portland. The Rams earned the top seed for the Western A playoffs, then fought off three upset bids to reach the big stage for the first time.

In the quarterfinals, unheralded Portland gave Deering fits, taking the Rams to overtime, but Whites second goal of the game, on a penalty stroke, allowed Deering to advance, 2-1. In the semifinals, preseason favorite Massabesic battled the Rams for 60 minutes, but Potthoffs goal proved to be the difference in a 1-0 victory. That sent Deering to the regional final for the third straight season and after losing to Sanford and Edward Little the two previous years, the third time proved to be the charm against South Portland. White scored the lone goal, from Smith, and the Rams defense did the rest in a 1-0 victory, Deerings 16th in succession. The last obstacle for the Rams, Skowhegan (some things never change), proved to be insurmountable, as Deering went down to a 5-0 defeat. The Rams had finally met their match, but what a run it was.

Coach Andrew Gordon: This is something weve been waiting for for a long time. Maybe we learned some lessons from the past. We know what its like to lose (the regional final). I really wanted (the players) to experience winning one. Its a reward and they earned it. This was a lot more than we hoped to accomplish at the beginning of the season. I think we learned a lot from this experience. This is not something I anticipated from this team, winning 16 in a row. Im very proud of what they have done.

North Yarmouth Academy Panthers, 16-2, 2008 Class C state champion

The Panthers captured their first championship in over a decade in memorable fashion, on an overtime goal in the state final. NYA had reached the regional final the year before, but would have no peer in 2008. The Panthers featured All-State selections Nicole Fuller and Lucy Gerrity, fabulous freshmen Kylie Dalbec and Katherine Millett, big-game goalie Hayley Bright, as well as a player, Frances Leslie, who would score one of the biggest goals in program history.

NYA started with wins over Poland, Waynflete and Old Orchard Beach, then its offense went cold in back-to-back 1-0 setbacks to Sacopee Valley and St. Doms. The Panthers would close the season on a 13-game win streak, however, and won their final nine regular season contests by a composite 38-1 margin, along the way avenging their losses to Sacopee Valley and St. Doms. NYA finished third in Western Class C and would embark on a thrilling title run which featured three one-goal contests.

In the quarterfinals, the Panthers had their only easy playoff win, 6-0, over Lisbon, as Fuller and Millett each scored three goals. Livermore Falls, which upset St. Doms in its quarterfinal, allowing NYA to host in the semifinals, proved to be a challenge, but the Panthers eked out a 1-0 victory on Fullers goal (assisted by Leslie). NYA won by a 1-0 score again in the regional final, this time beating Jay, which had upset top-ranked Telstar to again give the Panthers an unexpected home game, as Millett scored in the final minute of regulation and Bright turned aside several golden opportunities. NYA then met Dexter in the state final, which proved to be another thriller which needed more than 60 minutes to complete. The Panthers took a 1-0 lead on a Dalbec goal early in the second half, but Dexter tied it and the game went to overtime. There, Leslie broke free, went one-on-one with the goalie and put the ball into the cage, giving NYA a 2-1 victory and setting off a wild celebration. A mini-dynasty (three state titles in a four-year span) had begun.

Coach Julia Littlefield: This is the most exciting day of my life. We played really, really well together and we deserve it. Its improbable because we had such a young team. We came this far and not many NYA field hockey teams have. We had that attitude. Ive been coaching for 25 years and this is the least nervous team Ive ever had. They just wanted it right from the bus.

Cheverus Stags, 13-5, 2010 Western Class A champion

It took the Stags until the postseason to truly hit their stride, but once they did, they embarked on a magical run to the state final, one that was documented by a television show, Varsity. Cheverus, which made a surprise trip to the 2009 regional final before losing to eventual state champion Scarborough, featured All-State players Emily Sawchuck and Sarah LaQuerre, as well as league all-stars Gabi Cardona and Taylor Witham, and made for appointment TV by seasons end.

The Stags opened with five straight wins, then was upset by South Portland. After two more victories, Cheverus was blanked by Gorham. The Stags then downed Marshwood and McAuley before apparently being put in their place by Scarborough, 6-1. Cheverus bounced back to beat Portland, then stumbled into the playoffs after a loss to Thornton Academy. Despite being 10-4 and ranked fourth, the Stags proved to be the best team in Western Class A when all was said and done after a dizzying postseason run.

In the quarterfinals, Cheverus held off Kennebunk, 3-2, as Cardona scored early, Brooke Flaherty tied the game just before halftime and LaQuerre won it with 17:18 to go in regulation. That sent the Stags to top-ranked Scarborough for what most expected would be their doom, but just 15 days after losing by five goals at the Red Storm, Cheverus enjoyed the programs biggest win to date, shocking Scarborough, 2-1, as Sawchuck scored midway through the first half and after the Red Storm pulled even, Flaherty won it with a goal with 3:33 to play. The Stags returned to Scarborough for the regional final versus Bonny Eagle and this time, there would be no down-to-the-wire heroics, as Sawchuck cemented her status as an all-time great with four goals and LaQuerre struck as well in a decisive 5-2 victory. Cheverus was a decisive underdog in the state game versus Skowhegan and this time couldnt pull the upset, losing, 3-0. The Stags didnt take the final step, but the only regional champion in program history certainly stole headlines.

Coach Amy McMullin: It was a great, fun season. Im really proud of the girls. They played their hearts out. I couldnt be more proud. We exceeded all expectations. We completely jelled in the playoffs and played well. We had a lot of ups and downs, but thats the story of high school athletics. We didnt want an undefeated season. We completely regrouped coming into playoffs. It shows it really is a team game.

6) North Yarmouth Academy Panthers, 17-1, 2010 Class C state champion

The second of three NYA champions in a four-year span was bound and determined to get back to the pinnacle after having its undefeated season end with a state game loss to Dexter in 2009. Thanks in part to the effort of All-State talent Katherine Millett, as well as 2008 heroes Kylie Dalbec and Frances Leslie and league all-stars Megan Fortier and Renee Lamoureau, the Panthers scored in double figures in seven different contests, wound up nearly perfect and this time, capped the season with the big prize, but only after a grueling state final.

NYA opened with 10-1 wins over Freeport and Traip Academy. After holding off highly touted Sacopee Valley, 3-1, the Panthers put up 11 goals in a blanking of Poland, then shut out Old Orchard Beach, 6-0. NYAs 28-game regular season win streak finally came to a close with a 2-1 loss to Class B powerhouse York, but the Panthers wouldnt stumble again and they closed the year on an eight-game streak, outscoring the opposition, 56-3, to wind up 13-1 and third in Western Class C. The road to the championship wasnt easy, but NYA would show its grit and heart as it wound up atop the heap.

In the quarterfinals, the Panthers had one final offensive explosion, blanking Waynflete, 10-0, as Fortier rattled the cage five times and Millett added four goals. The going then got tough, as NYA had to go to Livermore Falls and got taken into overtime before surviving and advancing, 1-0, on Milletts rebound goal. The regional final saw the Panthers battle Telstar. Millett set up Fortier for an early goal, but the Rebels tied the game on a penalty corner after time expired in the first half. Millett then scored twice in the second half and that proved to be just enough as NYA held on for a 3-2 victory.

This time around, it wasnt Dexter standing in the way in the state game, it would be a Foxcroft Academy squad which was every bit the Panthers equal. Neither team scored in 60 minutes of regulation or in two eight-minute overtime sessions. The contest would be decided on penalty corners and it appeared NYA had the title when Dalbec scored, but the Ponies answered and it was on to another set. This time, Fortier scored and the Panthers defense and goalie Mariah Farrell slammed the door on Foxcroft Academys chance giving NYA the championship. It would prove to be coach Julia Sterlings final game as coach. She gave way to assistant Tracy Quimby, who led the Panthers to one more crown in 2011.

Coach Julia Sterling: Its so exciting. It sure wasnt easy. Weve worked hard from beginning to end. We had more experience this year. The juniors were there as freshmen and again as sophomores last year. Theyve gotten better each year. The younger kids are stepping in because they see where were going.

5) Scarborough Red Storm, 16-1-1, 2013 Western Class A champion

The second of three straight Red Storm regional champions, Scarborough wasnt able to go unbeaten and untied in the regular season like the year before, nor win the title like its successor, but this team was pretty darn impressive nonetheless. After falling to Skowhegan, 4-1, in the 2012 Class A state game, the Red Storm, featuring all-state selections Maddy Dobecki, Abby Walker and Rachael Wallace, as well as league all-stars Mikaela Coombs and Kristen Murray, regrouped and overwhelmed their regional foes en route to another date with the states premier power in the Class A final.

Scarborough opened with a hard-fought 2-1 win at Marshwood (Maggie Carbin scored twice), then handled Massabesic, Noble and Sanford by a composite 20-1 margin. Close calls ensued, but the Red Storm passed them, beating Windham (2-0), Thornton Academy (2-1) and Westbrook (2-0, on goals from Murray and Dobecki). Scarborough then dominated South Portland, Biddeford, Bonny Eagle and McAuley by a combined 37-1 score before settling for a 1-1 draw versus Cheverus, which snapped its 35-game regular season win streak. The Red Storm then closed with a 4-0 win over Deering to go 13-0-1 and earn the top seed for the Western A playoffs. Scarborough would be tested in the regional tournament, but wouldnt be denied its date with Skowhegan.

In the quarterfinals, the Red Storm blanked Gorham, 5-0, as Murray scored twice. Scarborough only managed one goal in the semifinals versus Marshwood, but it came from Wallace and was enough to advance. In the regional final, played against Massabesic in the freezing cold in Saco, the Red Storm rolled, 6-3, behind two goals apiece from Carbin and Walker and one apiece from Murray and Ashley Levesque.

Scarborough wanted to avenge its prior state game loss when it met Skowhegan on the big stage in Yarmouth, but despite some promising early chances, the Red Storm couldnt get the jump and wound up losing, 4-1 (Murray would score the lone goal, as she would do again in the 2014 state final which produced a happier result). Scarborough had fallen short, but in the process, had taken another step closer to its championship destiny.

Coach Kerry Mariello: We wanted another opportunity to play Skowhegan. We knew we didnt give them as good a game as we could have last year. We wanted to get back and prove it. The score didnt indicate how well we played. Hopefully this motivates the girls to work even harder. Were young. Well bounce back. Hopefully well be here again.

4) Scarborough Red Storm, 17-1, 2012 Western Class A champion

The nearly perfect Storm. Scarborough didnt just win its first 17 games, it didnt surrender a goal along the way, but the Red Storm finally met their match in the state final, losing to Skowhegan, a setback which kept them from placing higher on this list. After being upset by Windham in the quarterfinals the previous year, Scarborough, which featured All-State talents Karli-An Gilbert, Mikaela Gove and Molly Whelan, league all-stars Maddie Dobecki, Lauren Russell and Rachael Wallace, and goalie Shannon Hicks, was simply unstoppable until the final day of the season.

The Red Storm set the tone with a 10-0 victory ver McAuley in the opener. They were only seriously tested four times in the regular season, downing Westbrook and Windham by 2-0 scores and edging Sanford and Marshwood by 1-0 margins. Scarborough essentially locked up the top seed in Western Class A with a 4-0 victory at Cheverus, then closed the regular season with decisive shutouts of Noble (6-0) and Kennebunk (5-0). The regional tournament saw the Red Storm continue their dominance and keep the opposition off the scoreboard.

Scarborough blanked Thornton Academy, 4-0, in the quarterfinals, as Elly Walker scored twice and Emily Bunting and Kristen Murray also found the cage. Next up was Westbrook and again Hicks didnt allow a goal, while Bunting, Walker and Whelan scored for a 3-0 victory. In the regional final, Cheverus hoped to upset the Red Storm for the second time in three postseasons, but Scarborough wouldnt be denied, getting goals from Bunting, Ali Pelczar and Abby Walker for a 3-0 win and the programs third Western A crown.

The final piece of the puzzle wasnt to be, however, as the Red Storm surrendered their first goal all season (after 1,053 minutes and 15 seconds of play), early in the second half, then Skowhegan added two more, going on to a 3-0 victory and leaving Scarborough just short of immortality. The Red Storm would be heard from again, however.

Coach Kerry Mariello: The 17 games that got us to (states) were the most gratifying and team-oriented games that I have ever coached. I believe each person that was involved, whether it be the players, parents, peers, or community members all felt that sense of wholeness that this team created. It will go down as a season of a lifetime and I have been blessed to be a part of it. The seniors are a special group and will make a positive impact in all areas of their future lives. They have impacted me and this program in a way that is immeasurable.

3) Greely Rangers, 16-1-1, 2003 Class B state champion

The Rangers third trip to the state final was unquestionably the charm and a phenomenal team, filled with tremendous multi-sport athletes, captured the programs first and to date, only title in dominant and memorable fashion. After losing to Winslow on penalty corners in the 2001 Class B state final and to the Black Raiders again, on a second half penalty stroke, in 2002, Greely, led by All-State players Julia Chase, Sara Dimick and Hayly Ross, simply wouldnt be denied.

The season started slowly with a 1-1 tie against Gorham, but the Rangers then embarked on a 10-game win streak which saw them score 35 goals and surrender only four. The run came to a close with a 1-0 home loss to always-tough York, but Greely wouldnt stumble again and closed by downing Cape Elizabeth, 3-2, in overtime (on Abby Chapmans goal) and Fryeburg Academy, 2-1, to wind up a program-best 12-1-1 and first for the Western B tournament. There, the Rangers passed some stern tests and went on to fulfill their destiny.

Greely got a scare from Falmouth in the quarterfinals, but advanced, 4-2, thanks to late goals from Chapman and Chase. The Rangers only managed one goal in the semifinals versus Leavitt (from Chase), but it was enough to prevail, 1-0. That set up a third consecutive regional final versus York and while overtime was needed in 2001 and 2002, it wasnt this time, as goals from Chapman, Dimick and Maryette Stuart produced a 3-0 victory. That spelled another trip to the state final and another showdown with Winslow. And this time, sweet victory.

The contest was scoreless at the half when the team released 40 ladybugs for luck. It worked like a charm, as early in the second half, Dimick scored on a rebound off a penalty corner for the only goal Greely would need and less than two minutes later, off another corner, Dimick set up Kelly Saucier for an insurance goal. The title didnt come without some anxious moments down the stretch, but one year after surrendering the decisive penalty stroke goal, Rangers goalie Kristen Walker faced another and this time, made the save to all but end it and Greely went on to an exhilarating 2-0 triumph. Seventeen years later, this Rangers team stands alone in program annals. Their triumph was a sight to behold.

Coach Robyn Thayer: You dont realize how much emotion goes into this. These are the kids Ive had from the start. Theyre now seniors and its so good to see it happen to them. What an outstanding bunch of kids. Seeing their emotions after we won it made it all worth it. We wanted Winslow. If we had a choice, after losing to Winslow two years in a row, we wanted to see them again. This year we were much more confident. We knew what was at stake.

2) Scarborough Red Storm, 18-0, 2014 Class A state champion

After consecutive state game losses to Skowhegan, Scarborough broke through and won its second championship in breathtaking fashion. The Red Storm, paced by eventual Miss Maine Field Hockey winner Maddy Dobecki, as well as All-State selections Kaitlin Prince, Abby Walker and Kristen Murray, who would score the biggest goal of the season, survived a challenging series of postseason games and worked their way back to the Class A pinnacle and also received the most votes in our Twitter poll.

Scarborough opened with statement-making 3-0 wins over Marshwood (behind goals from Lily Nygren, Gabby Farino and Murray) and Massabesic, then began crushing just about every foe. The Red Storm were pushed by Sanford (winning, 2-1, on Walkers overtime goal), Thornton Academy (again going to OT before Walker scored to produce a 1-0 victory) and Cheverus (a 1-0 road win behind Walkers second half goal), but over the 14-game regular season, they outscored the opposition, 82-2. For just the second time in program history, Scarborough posted a 14-0 record and the Red Storm would be the top seed for the Western A playoffs, where they would embark on their run to their elusive crown.

In the quarterfinals, Scarborough got goals from Dobecki, Nygren and Walker and beat Biddeford, 3-1. The Red Storm then defeated Thornton by the same 3-1 margin in the semifinals, thanks to goals from Nygren, Murray and Kristen Levesque. Marshwood was next in the regional final and again, the 3-1 score was the charm, as Scarborough won its third straight regional championship behind two goals from Murray (both set up by Dobecki) and another from Levesque.

To no ones surprise, it was once again Skowhegan awaiting in the state final and after back-to-back losses, the Red Storm werent about to be denied. While Scarboroughs defense and goalie Alyssa Souza pitched their lone shutout of the postseason, Scarboroughs prolific offense couldnt find the cage either. Until just two seconds remained. With everyone on hand thinking overtime, Murray scored out of a scrum and just like that, the Red Storm were champions. What could possibly top that? How about an almost identical Scarborough victory just a few years before.

Coach Kerry Mariello: This means everything for us. The girls got the fairy tale ending they deserved. To have a vision to get this dream started, the motivation, conviction and confidence to reinforce that vision and to finish in such explosive fashion is indescribable. Each time we took the field, the flame grew and eventually grew to a point where it had completely taken over these girls hearts and soul. They were not going to lose. These girls are at the top of any game, especially life. Theres no group more deserving.

1) Scarborough Red Storm, 18-0, 2009 Class A state champion

The first time was the sweetest, as Scarborough captured its initial championship, at Skowhegans expense, on an improbable overtime goal. After losing an OT heartbreaker to Skowhegan in the 2008 state game, the Red Storm regrouped and didnt lose a game in 2009, a familiar theme for Miss Maine Field Hockey finalist Brittany Ross and fellow All-State selection Ellie Morin, who enjoyed a perfect school year. Scarborough, which also featured All-State selection Heather Carrier and league all-star Ashley Anastasoff, started the season fast and never looked back.

The Red Storm opened by dominating Portland, 12-0, as Ross hinted at a huge season to come by scoring six times. Scarborough outscored the opposition, 80-9, in the regular season and reached double digit goals on three occasions. The Red Storm won 10 of 14 games by at least three goals and were tested only by Sanford (a 4-2 victory), Westbrook (a 2-0 win), Cheverus (a 3-1 victory) and Gorham (a 2-0 win). Scarborough wound up 14-0 for the first time and locked up the top seed in Western Class A for the first time. The Red Storm were far from finished.

In the quarterfinals, Scarborough blanked Thornton Academy, 2-0, as Ross scored a first half goal and Morin added another in the second half. The Red Storm then had no trouble with Bonny Eagle in the semifinals, rolling, 6-0, behind two goals apiece from Morin and Ross, one each from Akashia Gergler and Mo Hannan and three assists from Carrier. Scarborough then got all it could handle from Cheverus in the regional final, falling behind, 2-1, before rallying for a 3-2 victory. Anastasoff tied the game just before halftime and Kelsey Howards second goal of the contest provided the winning margin.

The Red Storm then got the rematch they hoped for in the state game, but fell behind Skowhegan, 1-0, on a goal early in the second half. Just over five minutes from getting its heart broken again, Scarborough responded like the champion it would become, tying the game on Ross 31st goal of the season, then winning it in overtime on an improbable, controversial goal. Off a long hit from Carrier from beyond the circle, the ball rolled into the cage. Skowhegan thought it had been untouched, which would have disallowed the goal, but instead Morin began jumping and down and celebrating because she got a piece of the ball en route to the cage. The goal stood and the Red Storm had the championship, 2-1. Scarboroughs first champion will long be hailed.

Coach Kerry Mariello: Its overwhelming. Its a great feeling. The greatest feeling ever, right here. We made some adjustments and had perseverance for sure. We dug deep and we knew we had it. We fought all odds. We had a goal at the start of the year and pursued it. Theyre a special group. They deserved every ounce of this. Im so glad for them. They had so much grit and tenacity. You want to win like this. The surge of energy you feel at the end is something you keep for a lifetime and Im glad the girls got to experience that.

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The Best of the Best- Field hockey - Press Herald

CD Projekt RED's Cyberpunk 2077 has become one of the most highly anticipated titles this generation of consoles, and everything the developers have shown about the upcoming title is solid proof of why; it is the most ambitious video game from the studio that delivered the insanely ambitious The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.

The developers have poured their hearts and souls into making Cyberpunk 2077 one of the best games out there, and this is one of the many reasons why the game has taking its sweet time to finally hit store shelves. On top of this, CD Projekt RED keep adding new features that will likely make the waiting more than worth it.

One of the new features that CD Projekt RED is introducing in Cyberpunk 2077 will, more than likely, be a game-changing mechanic, as it will allow players to finish the game without actually having to complete its main quest. That's right, you didn't misread that.

In a recent interview with Polish website Spider's Web,Cyberpunk 2077Lead Quest Designer Pawel Sasko explained that this new feature comes from their experience working on The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, and is what ultimately made them rethink their approach to sub plots

"Webuilt the Cyberpunk structure based on the conclusions we drew from The Witcher III. The Witcher had the main stem of history and side threads departing from it, and this was our main structure, which we call the ear," explained Sasko.

"So in Cyberpunks structure we have this wheat spike, which serves as its center, the main storyline with different subplots surrounding it, which can be triggered in various ways.

Those subplots allow us to do something that we have never done before they change the main plot of the game and they are doing that in such a way that you may not even finish the main plot, but still finish the game and get a completely different epilogue than the player with a different lifepath who made different choices, met different characters and formed relationships with them."

Getting a completely different ending based on the decisions made by the player is actually quite an appealing idea, and it seems that the developers at CD Projekt RED have given this a lot of thought. Cyberpunk 2077 is expected to launch in November, so we'll still have to wait a little bit longer to see if this innovative idea eventually works out.

In the most dangerous megacity of the future, the real you is not enough. Become V, a cyber-enhanced mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant the key to immortality. Customize your cyberware and skillset, and explore a vast city of the future obsessed with power, glamour and body modification. The choices you make will determine the story and shape the world around you.

Cyberpunk 2077 will be releasing for thePlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on Thursday the 19th of November; PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X release date to be revealed.

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CYBERPUNK 2077: Players Will Be Able To Finish The Game Without Completing The Main Quest - GameFragger.com

Throughout history, longevity and eternal life have been the ultimate goal of humanity. From the king of the ancient Chinese Qin dynasty to the European alchemists during the medieval age, countless people have devoted their lives to unveil the secrets of immortality.

Although none of such efforts have been proven to grant eternal life, nowadays, modern scientists succeeded to elongate the lifespan of simple organisms, such as worms and flies, by a considerable amount with meticulous manipulation of our genes. Among many of those studies, there have been three main methods that held their significance even in the human body.

Enzyme regulation

Most notably, the Scripps Research team discovered that the disruption of enzymatic pathways by small molecules can affect the lifespan of an organism. The team used Caenorhabditis elegans, a type of a roundworm, to test their hypothesis.

According to Benjamin Cravatt, Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology at Scripps Research, C.elegans worms were used for their experiment due to their relatively short lifespans (typically lives only a few weeks). Cravatts research involved about 100 compounds that were known to inhibit serine hydrolases in mammals.

In his experiment, Cravatt used each of the 100 molecules to block the enzymatic pathway and observed their effects on the lifespan of the C.elegans. When the team treated the worms that were 1 day into adulthood with the inhibiting compounds, they found that some of the compounds extended the average lifespan of the worm by at least 15%, according to Alice Chen, a graduate student in the Cravatt lab.

Chen elaborated that among the compounds, a carbamate compound called JZL 184, even extended the lifespan by 45% when treated at the optimal dose. Through further analysis, the team concluded that JZL 184 extended the worms lifespan by inhibiting fatty acid amide hydrolase 4(FAAH-4), which is known to break down a molecule called 2-AG, a molecule linked to aging in mammals.

Whats fascinating about this finding is that monoacylglycerol lipase was not present in C.elegans worms. MAGL usually breaks down the 2-AG molecules in mammals, but in the case of Chens experiment, FAAH-4 substituted the role of MAGL.

While the findings only apply to C.elegans worms as of now, the team stated that the FAAH-4 and 2-AG pathways will suggest a new path in extending human life.

Calorie Regulation

In addition, a research team led by David Sinclair, assistant professor of pathology at HMS, found that calorie regulation extends the lifespan of yeast cells. According to Sinclair, the PNC1 protein regulates a vitamin called nicotinamide, which is an inhibitor of the Sir2 molecule. Sinclair further hypothesized that since Sir2 typically extends the lifespan of yeast cells by stabilizing the ribosomal DNA, the regulation of nicotinamide, which is its inhibitor, will consequently prolong the organisms lifespan.

While the team believed that such a regulation process was initiated by the severe calorie restriction in yeast cells, they later discovered that calorie restriction had no impact on the Sir2 level. Thus, Sinclairs team tested the effect of the molecule NAD on PNC1 levels to confirm that NAD was responsible for altering the Sir2 level. It turned out: NAD had no effect on the PNC1 level.

Undeterred, with more in-depth analysis, the team finally reached the conclusion that nicotinamide, which is one of the products of the reaction between Sir2 and NAD, was responsible for the change in Sir2 level. Based on the correlation they found between Sir2 level and nicotinamide facilitated by calorie restriction, Sinclairs team is now investigating human genes that play the same role as PNC1, according to Harvard Medical School.

Mifepristone

Finally, the research team led by John Tower, professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California, found that the drug mifepristone extends the lives of female flies that have mated.

Before the experiment, Tower had set a premise that the sex peptide in female flies from male flies reduces the lifespan of the female flies as it causes inflammation. In his study, he and his colleagues discovered that the drug mifepristone, also called RU-486, blocked the effects of the sex peptide during reproduction, which retained the female flies health and thus extended their lifespan.

What played the most significant role in the reaction was, according to Tower, a molecule called the Juvenile hormone.

According to Towers research team, the juvenile hormone is responsible for the growth and development of fruit flies throughout their life. The sex peptide, they elaborated, boosts the effect of the juvenile hormone, which causes harmful inflammation in the flies body and enervates the male flies by shifting the metabolic pathways.

Therefore, the inhibition of the sex peptide by mifepristone also regulates the level of juvenile hormone, consequently extending the lifespan of the flies. With their further testing of the drug on C.elegans, which has similar genes as those of humans, Tower suggested that their findings may be applicable to extending the lives of humans.

The life-extending technology is still in its burgeoning stage, as it only applies to simple organisms, such as worms and flies. However, while eternal life still seems improbable, humanity will proceed one step further to unveiling the secrets of longevity with scientists perpetual efforts.

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Opinion: The secrets behind longevity HS Insider - Los Angeles Times

Confident Beram Kayal reckons Neil Lennon being in place to mastermind Celtic's title tilt means there's "no doubt" his former team will secure 10 In A Row this season.

The Israeli international was a key player under the Irishman and played a vital role in securing the first three league triumphs.

And Kayal believes the Irishman's managerial ability leaves rivals Rangers facing a tall order in stopping Celtic securing Scottish football immortality.

Speaking to the Herald, he said: I enjoyed my time. We started something there and I think they will finish it this season by completing 10 In A Row.

"I have been really pleased to see the boys continue to do so well.

It hasnt been easy for them to change manager from Ronny Deila to Brendan Rodgers and now the main man Lenny is back.

"Neil Lennon is a super guy, he is hungry, he wants to win. I have no doubt Celtic are going to do it."

Despite the 32-year-old believing a title success for the ages is coming for his former team, the combative midfielder has nothing but praise for new Rangers defender Leon Balogun.

Kayal is certain Steven Gerrard has landed a player capable of competing for regular game time as Nigerian international inked a deal at Ibrox on Friday.

He said: Obviously, Rangers have made progress in the last few years. I havent been surprised by that. That is what happens when you bring in a legend like Stevie G.

"They are building something very good there at Ibrox.

I know Connor Goldson. He was with Brighton when we were in the Championship. He is a great talent and I havent been surprised that he has done so well at Rangers in the last couple of seasons.

"But a team like Rangers needs more than three centre backs, they need four or five. Competition has to be high.

But if Leon proves himself he should feature in the first team there. He is aninternationalfootballer who has played at a very high level in his career. He will be pushing hard to be in the starting XI in the new season.

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Beram Kayal sounds ominous Rangers title warning as Celtic hero reckons there's 'no doubt' about 10 In A Row - Daily Record