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Intermodal container

An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, or cargo container, (or simply “container”) is a large metal crate designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – such as from ships to trains to trucks – without unloading and reloading their cargo. Intermodal containers are primarily used to store and transport materials and products efficiently and securely in the global containerized intermodal freight transport system, but smaller numbers are in regional use as well. It is like a boxcar that does not have wheels. Based on size alone, up to 95% of intermodal containers comply with ISO standards, and can officially be called ISO containers. These containers are known by many names: freight container, sea container, ocean container, container van or sea van, sea can or C can, or MILVAN, or SEAVAN. The term CONEX (Box) is a technically incorrect carry-over usage of the name of an important predecessor of the ISO containers: the much smaller steel CONEX boxes used by the U.S. Army.

Intermodal containers exist in many types and standardized sizes, but 90 percent of the global container fleet are "dry freight" or "general purpose" containers: durable closed rectangular boxes, made of rust-retardant Corten steel; almost all 8 ft wide, and of either 20 or standard length, as defined by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 668:2020. The worldwide standard heights are 8 ft and 9 ft – the latter are known as High Cube or Hi-Cube (HC or HQ) containers. Depending on the source, these containers may be termed TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), reflecting the 20- or 40-foot dimensions.

Invented in the early 20th century, 40-foot intermodal containers proliferated during the 1960s and 1970s under the containerization innovations of the American shipping company SeaLand. Like cardboard boxes and pallets, these containers are a means to bundle cargo and goods into larger, unitized loads that can be easily handled, moved, and stacked, and that will pack tightly in a ship or yard. Intermodal containers share a number of construction features to withstand the stresses of intermodal shipping, to facilitate their handling, and to allow stacking. Each has a unique ISO 6346 reporting mark.

In 2012, there were about 20.5 million intermodal containers in the world of varying types to suit different cargoes. Containers have largely supplanted the traditional break bulk cargo; in 2010, containers accounted for 60% of the world's seaborne trade. The predominant alternative methods of transport carry bulk cargo, whether gaseous, liquid, or solid—e.g., by bulk carrier or tank ship, tank car, or truck. For air freight, the lighter weight IATA-defined unit load devices are used.

Origins
Containerization has its origins in early coal mining regions in England beginning in the late 18th century. In 1766 James Brindley designed the box boat 'Starvationer' with ten wooden containers, to transport coal from Worsley Delph (quarry) to Manchester by Bridgewater Canal. In 1795, Benjamin Outram opened the Little Eaton Gangway, upon which coal was carried in wagons built at his Butterley Ironwork. The horse-drawn wheeled wagons on the gangway took the form of containers, which, loaded with coal, could be transshipped from canal barges on the Derby Canal, which Outram had also promoted.

By the 1830s, railroads were carrying containers that could be transferred to other modes of transport. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the UK was one of these, making use of "simple rectangular timber boxes" to convey coal from Lancashire collieries to Liverpool, where a crane transferred them to horse-drawn carriages. Originally used for moving coal on and off barges, "loose boxes" were used to containerize coal from the late 1780s, at places like the Bridgewater Canal. By the 1840s, iron boxes were in use as well as wooden ones. The early 1900s saw the adoption of closed container boxes designed for movement between road and rail.

Creation of international standards
The first international standard for containers was established by the Bureau International des Containers et du Transport Intermodal (B.I.C.) in 1933, and a second one in 1935, primarily for transport between European countries. American containers at this time were not standardized, and these early containers were not yet stackable – neither in the U.S. nor Europe. In November 1932, the first container terminal in the world was opened by the Pennsylvania Rail Road Company in Enola, Pennsylvania. Containerization was developed in Europe and the US as a way to revitalize rail companies after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, in New York, which resulted in economic collapse and a drop in all modes of transport.

Mid 20th century innovations
In April 1951 at Zürich Tiefenbrunnen railway station, the Swiss Museum of Transport and the Bureau International des Containers (BIC) held demonstrations of container systems for representatives from a number of European countries, and from the United States. A system was selected for Western Europe, based on the Netherlands' system for consumer goods and waste transportation called Laadkisten (lit. "Loading chests"), in use since 1934. This system used roller containers for transport by rail, truck and ship, in various configurations up to 5500 kg capacity, and up to 3.1 x in size. This became the first post World War II European railway standard of the International Union of Railways – UIC-590, known as "pa-Behälter". It was implemented in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.

The use of standardized steel shipping containers began during the late 1940s and early 1950s, when commercial shipping operators and the US military started developing such units. In 1948 the U.S. Army Transportation Corps developed the "Transporter", a rigid, corrugated steel container, able to carry 9000 lb. It was 8 ft long, 6 ft wide, and 6 ft high, with double doors on one end, was mounted on skids, and had lifting rings on the top four corners. After proving successful in Korea, the Transporter was developed into the Container Express (CONEX) box system in late 1952. Based on the Transporter, the size and capacity of the Conex were about the same, but the system was made modular, by the addition of a smaller, half-size unit of 6 ft long, 4 ft wide and 6 ft high. CONEXes could be stacked three high, and protected their contents from the elements. By 1965 the US military used some 100,000 Conex boxes, and more than 200,000 in 1967, making this the first worldwide application of intermodal containers. Their invention made a major contribution to the globalization of commerce in the second half of the 20th century, dramatically reducing the cost of transporting goods and hence of long-distance trade.

From 1949 onward, engineer Keith Tantlinger repeatedly contributed to the development of containers, as well as their handling and transportation equipment. In 1949, while at Brown Trailers Inc. of Spokane, Washington, he modified the design of their stressed skin aluminum 30-foot trailer, to fulfil an order of two-hundred 30 x containers that could be stacked two high, for Alaska-based Ocean Van Lines. Steel castings on the top corners provided lifting and securing points.

In 1955, trucking magnate Malcom McLean bought Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, to form a container shipping enterprise, later known as Sea-Land. The first containers were supplied by Brown Trailers Inc, where McLean met Keith Tantlinger, and hired him as vice-president of engineering and research. Under the supervision of Tantlinger, a new 35 ft x 8 ft x 8 ft Sea-Land container was developed, the length determined by the maximum length of trailers then allowed on Pennsylvanian highways. Each container had a frame with eight corner castings that could withstand stacking loads. Tantlinger also designed automatic spreaders for handling the containers, as well as the twistlock mechanism that connects with the corner castings.

Modern form
Containers in their modern 21st-century form first began to gain widespread use around 1956. Businesses began to devise a structured process to utilize and to get optimal benefits from the role and use of shipping containers. Over time, the invention of the modern telecommunications of the late 20th century made it highly beneficial to have standardized shipping containers and made these shipping processes more standardized, modular, easier to schedule, and easier to manage.

Two years after McLean's first container ship, the Ideal X, started container shipping on the US East Coast, Matson Navigation followed suit between California and Hawaii. Just like Pan-Atlantic's containers, Matson's were 8 ft wide and 8 ft high, but due to California's different traffic code Matson chose to make theirs 24 ft long. In 1968, McLean began container service to South Vietnam for the US military with great success.

Modern ISO standards
ISO standards for containers were published between 1968 and 1970 by the International Maritime Organization. These standards allow for more consistent loading, transporting, and unloading of goods in ports throughout the world, thus saving time and resources. The International Convention for Safe Containers (CSC) is a 1972 regulation by the Inter-governmental Maritime Consultative Organization on the safe handling and transport of containers. It decrees that every container traveling internationally be fitted with a CSC Safety-approval Plate. This holds essential information about the container, including age, registration number, dimensions and weights, as well as its strength and maximum stacking capability.

Impact of industry changes on workers
Longshoremen and related unions around the world struggled with this revolution in shipping goods. For example, by 1971 a clause in the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) contract stipulated that the work of "stuffing" (filling) or "stripping" (emptying) a container within 50 mi of a port must be done by ILA workers, or if not done by ILA, that the shipper needed to pay royalties and penalties to the ILA. Unions for truckers and consolidators argued that the ILA rules were not valid work preservation clauses, because the work of stuffing and stripping containers away from the pier had not traditionally been done by ILA members. In 1980 the Supreme Court of the United States heard this case and ruled against the ILA.

Impact in worldwide supply shortage of 2020 to present
Some experts have said that the centralized, continuous shipping process made possible by containers has created dangerous liabilities: one bottleneck, delay, or other breakdown at any point in the process can easily cause major delays everywhere up and down the supply chain.

The reliance on containers exacerbated some of the economic and societal damage from the 2021 global supply chain crisis of 2020 and 2021, and the resulting shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2021, for example, a shortage of shipping containers at ports caused shipping to be backlogged.

Marc Levinson, author of Outside the Box: How Globalization Changed from Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas and The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, said in an interview:

Because of delays in the process, it's taking a container longer to go from its origin to its final destination where it's unloaded, so the container is in use longer for each trip. You've just lost a big hunk of the total capacity because the containers can't be used as intensively.

We've had in the United States an additional problem, which is that the ship lines typically charge much higher rates on services from Asia to North America than from North America to Asia. This has resulted in complaints, for example, from farmers and agricultural companies, that it's hard to get containers in some parts of the country because the ship lines want to ship them empty back to Asia, rather than letting them go to South Dakota and load over the course of several days. So we've had exporters in the United States complaining that they have a hard time finding a container that they can use to send their own goods abroad.

Description

Ninety percent of the global container fleet consists of "dry freight" or "general purpose" containers – both of standard and special sizes. And although lengths of containers vary from 8 to 56 ft, according to two 2012 container census reports about 80% of the world's containers are either 20- or 40-foot standard-length boxes of the dry freight design. These typical containers are rectangular, closed box models, with doors fitted at one end, and made of corrugated weathering steel (commonly known as CorTen) with a plywood floor. Although corrugating the sheet metal used for the sides and roof contributes significantly to the container's rigidity and stacking strength, just like in corrugated iron or in cardboard boxes, the corrugated sides cause aerodynamic drag, and up to 10% fuel economy loss in road or rail transport, compared to smooth-sided vans.

Standard containers are 8 ft wide by 8 ft high, although the taller "High Cube" or "hi-cube" units measuring 9 ft have become very common in recent years. By the end of 2013, high-cube 40 ft containers represented almost 50% of the world's maritime container fleet, according to Drewry's Container Census report.

About 90% of the world's containers are either nominal 20 ft or 40 ft long, although the United States and Canada also use longer units of 45 ft, 48 ft and 53 ft. ISO containers have castings with openings for twistlock fasteners at each of the eight corners, to allow gripping the box from above, below, or the side, and they can be stacked up to ten units high.

Although ISO standard 1496 of 1990 only required nine-high stacking, and only of containers rated at 24,000 kg, current Ultra Large Container Vessels of the Post New Panamax and Maersk Triple E class are stacking them ten or eleven high. Moreover, vessels like the Marie Maersk no longer use separate stacks in their holds, and other stacks above deck – instead they maximize their capacity by stacking continuously from the bottom of the hull, to as much as 21 high. This requires automated planning to keep heavy containers at the bottom of the stack and light ones on top to stabilize the ship and to prevent crushing the bottom containers.

Regional intermodal containers, such as European, Japanese and U.S. domestic units however, are mainly transported by road and rail, and can frequently only be stacked up to two or three laden units high. Although the two ends are quite rigid, containers flex somewhat during transport.

Container capacity is often expressed in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU, or sometimes teu). A twenty-foot equivalent unit is a measure of containerized cargo capacity equal to one standard 20 ft long container. This is an approximate measure, wherein the height of the box is not considered. For example, the 9 ft tall high-cube, as well as 4 ft 20 ft containers are equally counted as one TEU. Similarly, extra long 45 ft containers are commonly counted as just two TEU, no different from standard 40 ft long units. Two TEU are equivalent to one forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU).

In 2014 the global container fleet grew to a volume of 36.6 million TEU, based on Drewry Shipping Consultants' Container Census. Moreover, in 2014 for the first time in history 40-foot High-Cube containers accounted for the majority of boxes in service, measured in TEU. In 2019 it was noted by global logistics data analysis startup Upply that China's role as 'factory of the world' is further incentivizing the use of 40-foot containers, and that the computational standard 1 TEU boxes only make up 20% of units on major east–west liner routes, and demand for shipping them keeps dropping. In the 21st century, the market has shifted to using 40-foot high-cube dry and refrigerated containers more and more predominantly. Forty-foot units have become the standard to such an extent that the sea freight industry now charges less than 30% more for moving a 40-ft unit than for a 1 TEU box. Although 20-ft units mostly have heavy cargo, and are useful for stabilizing both ships and revenue, carriers financially penalize 1 TEU boxes by comparison.

For container manufacturers, 40-foot High-Cubes now dominate market demand both for dry and refrigerated units. Manufacturing prices for regular dry freight containers are typically in the range of $1750–$2000 U.S. per CEU (container equivalent unit), and about 90% of the world's containers are made in China. The average age of the global container fleet was a little over 5 years from end 1994 to end 2009, meaning containers remain in shipping use for well over 10 years.

Gooseneck tunnel
A gooseneck tunnel, an indentation in the floor structure, that meshes with the gooseneck on dedicated container semi-trailers, is a mandatory feature in the bottom structure of 1AAA and 1EEE (40- and 45-ft high-cube) containers, and optional but typical on standard height, forty-foot and longer containers.

Types

Other than the standard, general purpose container, many variations exist for use with different cargoes. The most prominent of these are refrigerated containers (also called reefers) for perishable goods, that make up 6% of the world's shipping boxes. Tanks in a frame, for bulk liquids, account for another 0.75% of the global container fleet.

Although these variations are not of the standard type, they mostly are ISO standard containers – in fact the ISO 6346 standard classifies a broad spectrum of container types in great detail. Aside from different size options, the most important container types are:
 * General-purpose dry vans, for boxes, cartons, cases, sacks, bales, pallets, drums, etc., Special interior layouts are known, such as:
 * rolling-floor containers, for difficult-to-handle cargo
 * garmentainers, for shipping garments on hangers (GOH)
 * Ventilated containers. Essentially dry vans, but either passively or actively ventilated. For instance for organic products requiring ventilation.
 * Temperature controlled – either insulated, refrigerated, and/or heated containers, for perishable goods
 * Tank containers, for liquids, gases, or powders. Frequently these are dangerous goods, and in the case of gases one shipping unit may contain multiple gas bottles
 * Bulk containers (sometimes bulktainers), either closed models with roof-lids, or hard or soft open-top units for top loading, for instance for bulk minerals. Containerized coal carriers and "bin-liners" (containers designed for the efficient road and rail transportation of rubbish from cities to recycling and dump sites) are used in Europe.
 * Open-top and open-side containers, for instance for easy loading of heavy machinery or oversize pallets. Crane systems can be used to load and unload crates without having to disassemble the container itself. Open sides are also used for ventilating hardy perishables like apples or potatoes.
 * Log cradles for cradling logs
 * Platform based containers such as:
 * flat-rack and bolster containers, for barrels, drums, crates, and any heavy or bulky out-of-gauge cargo, like machinery, semi-finished goods or processed timber. Empty flat-racks can either be stacked or shipped sideways in another ISO container
 * collapsible containers, ranging from flushfolding flat-racks to fully closed ISO and CSC certified units with roof and walls when erected.
 * trash containers, for carrying trash bags and cans to and from Recycling factories and landfills.

Containers for offshore use have a few different features, like pad eyes, and must meet additional strength and design requirements, standards and certification, such as the DNV2.7-1 by Det Norske Veritas, LRCCS by Lloyd's Register, Guide for Certification of Offshore Containers by American Bureau of Shipping and the International standard ISO10855: Offshore containers and associated lifting sets, in support of IMO MSC/Circ. 860

A multitude of equipment, such as generators, has been installed in containers of different types to simplify logistics – see for more details.

Swap body units usually have the same bottom corner fixtures as intermodal containers, and often have folding legs under their frame so that they can be moved between trucks without using a crane. However they frequently do not have the upper corner fittings of ISO containers, and are not stackable, nor can they be lifted and handled by the usual equipment like reach-stackers or straddle-carriers. They are generally more expensive to procure.

Specifications

Basic terminology of globally standardized intermodal shipping containers is set out in standard: From its inception, ISO standards on international shipping containers, consistently speak of them sofar as 'Series 1' containers – deliberately so conceived, to leave room for another such series of interrelated container standards in the future.
 * ISO 830:(1999) Freight containers – Vocabulary, 2nd edition; last reviewed and confirmed in 2016.

Basic dimensions and permissible gross weights of intermodal containers are largely determined by two ISO standards:
 * ISO 668:2013–2020 Series 1 freight containers—Classification, dimensions and ratings
 * ISO 1496-1:2013 Series 1 freight containers—Specification and testing—Part 1: General cargo containers for general purposes

Weights and dimensions of the most common (standardized) types of containers are given below. Forty-eight foot and fifty-three foot containers have not yet been incorporated in the latest, 2020 edition of the ISO 668. ISO standard maximum gross mass for all standard sizes except 10-ft boxes was raised to 36,000 kg per Amendment 1 on ISO 668:2013, in 2016. Draft Amendment 1 of ISO 668: 2020 – for the eighth edition – maintains this. Given the average container lifespan, the majority of the global container fleet have not caught up with this change yet.

Values vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer, but must stay within the tolerances dictated by the standards. Empty weight (tare weight) is not determined by the standards, but by the container's construction, and is therefore indicative, but necessary to calculate a net load figure, by subtracting it from the maximum permitted gross weight.

The bottom row in the table gives the legal maximum cargo weights for U.S. highway transport, and those based on use of an industry common tri-axle chassis. Cargo must also be loaded evenly inside the container, to avoid axle weight violations. The maximum gross weights that U.S. railroads accept or deliver are 52,900 lb for 20-foot containers, and 67,200 lb for 40-foot containers, in contrast to the global ISO-standard gross weight for 20-footers having been raised to the same as 40-footers in the year 2005. In the U.S., containers loaded up to the rail cargo weight limit cannot move over the road, as they will exceed the U.S. 80000 lb highway limit.

Australian RACE containers
Australian RACE containers are also slightly wider to optimise them for the use of Australia Standard Pallets, or are 41 ft long and 2.5 m wide to be able to fit up to 40 pallets.

European pallet wide containers
European pallet wide (or PW) containers are minimally wider, and have shallow side corrugation, to offer just enough internal width, to allow common European Euro-pallets of 1.20 m long by 0.80 m wide, to be loaded with significantly greater efficiency and capacity. Having a typical internal width of 2.44 m, (a gain of ~10 cm over the ISO-usual 2.34 m, gives pallet-wide containers a usable internal floor width of 2.40 m, compared to 2.00 m in standard containers, because the extra width enables their users to either load two Euro-pallets end on end across their width, or three of them side by side (providing the pallets were neatly stacked, without overspill), whereas in standard ISO containers, a strip of internal floor-width of about 33 cm cannot be used by Euro-pallets.

As a result, while being virtually interchangeable:

 * A 20-foot PW can load 15 Euro-pallets – four more, or 36% better than the normal 11 pallets in an ISO-standard 20-foot unit
 * A 40-foot PW can load 30 Euro-pallets – five more, or 20% better than the 25 pallets in a standard 40-foot unit, and
 * A 45-foot PW can load 34 Euro-pallets – seven more, or 26% better than 27 in a standard 45-foot container.

Some pallet-wides are simply manufactured with the same, ISO-standard floor structure, but with the side-panels welded in, such that the ribs/corrugations are embossed outwards, instead of indenting to the inside. This makes it possible for some pallet-wides to be just 2.462 m wide, but others can be 2.50 m wide.

The 45 ft pallet-wide high-cube container has gained particularly wide acceptance, as these containers can replace the 13.6 m swap bodies that are common for truck transport in Europe. The EU has started a standardization for pallet wide containerization in the European Intermodal Loading Unit (EILU) initiative.

Many sea shipping providers in Europe allow these on board, as their external width overhangs over standard containers are sufficiently minor that they fit in the usual interlock spaces in ship's holds, as long as their corner-castings patterns (both in the floor and the top) still match with regular 40-foot units, for stacking and securing.

North American containers
The North American market has widely adopted containerization, especially for domestic shipments that need to move between road and rail transport. While they appear similar to the ISO-standard containers, there are several significant differences: they are considered High-Cubes based on their 9 ft ISO-standard height, their 102 in width matches the maximum width of road vehicles in the region but is 6 in wider than ISO-standard containers, and they are often not built strong enough to endure the rigors of ocean transport.

48-foot containers
The first North American containers to come to market were 48 ft long. This size was introduced by container shipping company American President Lines (APL) in 1986. The size of the containers matched new federal regulations passed in 1983 which prohibited states from outlawing the operation of single trailers shorter than 48 feet long or 102 inches wide. This size being 8 ft longer and 6 in wider has 29% more volume capacity than the standard 40-ft High-Cube, yet costs of moving it by truck or rail are almost the same.

53-foot containers

In the late 1980s, the federal government announced it would once again allow an increase in the length of trailers to 53 ft at the start of 1990. Anticipating this change, 53 foot containers were introduced in 1989. These large boxes have 60% more capacity than 40' containers, enabling shippers to consolidate more cargo into fewer containers.

In 2007, APL introduced the first 53-foot ocean-capable containers designed to withstand voyages on its South China-to-Los Angeles service. In 2013, APL stopped offering vessel space for 53-foot containers on its trans-Pacific ships. In 2015 both Crowley and TOTE Maritime each announced the construction of their respective second combined container and roll-on/roll-off ships for Puerto Rico trade, with the specific design to maximize cubic cargo capacity by carrying 53-foot, 102 in containers. Within Canada, Oceanex offers 53-foot-container ocean service to and from Newfoundland. 53-foot containers are also being used on some Asia Pacific international shipping routes.

Canadian 60-foot containers
In April 2017, Canadian Tire and Canadian Pacific Railway announced deployment of what they claimed to be the first 60-foot intermodal containers in North America. The containers allowed Canadian Tire to increase the volume of goods shipped per container by 13%.

Small containers
The ISO 668 standard has so far never standardized 10 ft containers to be the same height as so-called "Standard-height", 8 ft, 20- and 40-foot containers. By the ISO standard, 10-foot (and previously included 5-ft and 61⁄2-ft boxes) are only of unnamed, 8-foot (2.44 m) height. But industry makes 10-foot units more frequently of 8 ft height, to mix, match (and stack) better in a fleet of longer, 8 ft 6 in tall containers. Smaller units, on the other hand, are no longer standardized, leading to deviating lengths, like 8 ft or 6+1/2 ft, with non-standard widths of 2.20 m / 86.6 in and 1.95 m / $10 1/2$ in respectively, and non-standard heights of 2.26 m / 7 ft 5 in and 1.91 m / 6 ft 3.2 in respectively, for storage or off-shore use.

U.S. military

The United States military continues to use small containers, strongly reminiscent of their Transporter and Conex boxes of the 1950s and 1960s. These mostly comply with (previous) ISO standard dimensions, or are a direct derivative thereof. Current terminology of the United States armed forces calls these small containers Bicon, Tricon and Quadcon, with sizes that correspond with (previous) ISO 668 standard sizes 1D, 1E and 1F respectively. These containers are of a standard 8 ft height, and with a footprint size either one half (Bicon), one third (Tricon) or one quarter (Quadcon) the size of a standard 20-foot, one TEU container. At a nominal length of 10 ft, two Bicons coupled together lengthwise match one 20-foot ISO container, but their height is 6 in shy of the more commonly available 10-foot ISO containers of so-called 'standard' height, which are 8 ft tall. Tricons and Quadcons however have to be coupled transversely – either three or four in a row – to be stackable with twenty foot containers. Their length of 8 ft corresponds to the width of a standard 20-foot container, which is why there are forklift pockets at their ends, as well as in the sides of these boxes, and the doors only have one locking bar each. The smallest of these, the Quadcon, exists in two heights: 96 in or 82 in. Only the first conforms to ISO-668 standard dimensions (size 1F).

ABC bulk containers
ABC containers are small containers, typically 20 ft long and 5 ft high, used for hauling dense materials. The smaller size reduces the tare weight (as compared to using a half-full standard height container). They are normally shipped on specialized railroad flatcars, where 6 containers can be carried in the space of 4 standard containers.

Japan: 12-foot containers
In Japan's domestic freight rail transport, most of the containers are 12 ft long in order to fit Japan's unique standard pallet sizes.

Reporting mark

Each container is allocated a standardized ISO 6346 reporting mark (ownership code), four letters long ending in either U, J or Z, followed by six digits and a check digit. The ownership code for intermodal containers is issued by the Bureau International des Containers (International container bureau, abbr. B.I.C.) in France, hence the name "BIC-Code" for the intermodal container reporting mark. So far there exist only four-letter BIC-Codes ending in "U".

The placement and registration of BIC Codes is standardized by the commissions TC104 and TC122 in the JTC1 of the ISO which are dominated by shipping companies. Shipping containers are labelled with a series of identification codes that includes the manufacturer code, the ownership code, usage classification code, UN placard for hazardous goods and reference codes for additional transport control and security.

Following the extended usage of pallet-wide containers in Europe the EU started the Intermodal Loading Unit (ILU) initiative. This showed advantages for intermodal transport of containers and swap bodies. This led to the introduction of ILU-Codes defined by the standard EN 13044 which has the same format as the earlier BIC-Codes. The International Container Office BIC agreed to only issue ownership codes ending with U, J or Z. The new allocation office of the UIRR (International Union of Combined Road-Rail Transport Companies) agreed to only issue ownership reporting marks for swap bodies ending with A, B, C, D or K – companies having a BIC-Code ending with U can allocate an ILU-Code ending with K having the same preceding letters. Since July 2011 the new ILU codes can be registered, beginning with July 2014 all intermodal ISO containers and intermodal swap bodies must have an ownership code and by July 2019 all of them must bear a standard-conforming placard.

Handling

Containers are transferred between rail, truck, and ship by container cranes at container terminals. Forklifts, reach stackers, straddle carriers, container jacks and cranes may be used to load and unload trucks or trains outside of container terminals. Swap bodies, sidelifters, tilt deck trucks, and hook trucks allow transfer to and from trucks with no extra equipment.

ISO-standard containers can be handled and lifted in a variety of ways by their corner fixtures, but the structure and strength of 45-foot (type E) containers limits their tolerance of side-lifting, nor can they be forklifted, based on ISO 3874 (1997).

Transport
Containers can be transported by container ship, truck and freight trains as part of a single journey without unpacking. Units can be secured in transit using "twistlock" points located at each corner of the container. Every container has a unique BIC code painted on the outside for identification and tracking, and is capable of carrying up to 20–25 tonnes. Costs for transport are calculated in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).

Rail
When carried by rail, containers may be carried on flatcars or well cars. The latter are specially designed for container transport, and can accommodate double-stacked containers. However, the loading gauge of a rail system may restrict the modes and types of container shipment. The smaller loading gauges often found in European railroads will only accommodate single-stacked containers. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, there are sections of the rail network through which high-cube containers cannot pass, or can pass through only on well cars. On the other hand, Indian Railways runs double-stacked containers on flatcars under 25 kV overhead electrical wires. The wires must be at least 7.45 m above the track. China Railway also runs double-stacked containers under overhead wires, but must use well cars to do so, since the wires are only 6.6 m above the track.

Sea
About 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container, and the largest container ships can carry over 19,000 TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent, or how many 20 foot containers can fit on a ship). Between 2011 and 2013, an average of 2,683 containers were reported lost at sea. Other estimates go up to 10,000; of these 10% are expected to contain chemicals toxic to marine life. Various systems are used for securing containers on ships. Losses of containers at sea are low.

Air
Containers can also be transported in planes, as seen within intermodal freight transport. However, transporting containers in this way is typically avoided due to the cost of doing such and the lack of availability of planes which can accommodate such awkwardly sized cargo.

There are special aviation containers, smaller than intermodal containers, called unit load devices.

Securing containers and contents
There are many established methods and materials for stabilizing and securing intermodal containers loaded on ships, as well as the internal cargo inside the boxes. Conventional restraint methods and materials such as steel strapping and wood blocking and bracing have been around for decades and are still widely used. Polyester strapping and lashing, and synthetic webbings are also common today. Dunnage bags (also known as "air bags") are used to keep unit loads in place.

Flexi-bags can also be directly loaded, stacked in food-grade containers. Indeed, their standard shape fills the entire ground surface of a 20 ft ISO container.

Containerized equipment

Container-sized units are also often used for moving large pieces of equipment to temporary sites. Specialised containers are particularly attractive to militaries already using containerisation to move much of their freight around. Shipment of specialized equipment in this way simplifies logistics and may prevent identification of high value equipment by enemies. Such systems may include command and control facilities, mobile operating theatres or even missile launchers (such as the Russian 3M-54 Klub surface-to-surface missile).

Complete water treatment systems can be installed in containers and shipped around the world.

Electric generators can be permanently installed in containers to be used for portable power.

Repurposing

Half the containers that enter the United States leave empty. Their value in the US is lower than in China, so they are sometimes used for other purposes. This is typically but not always at the end of their voyaging lives. The US military often used its Conex containers as on-site storage, or easily transportable housing for command staff and medical clinics. Nearly all of the more than 150,000 Conex containers shipped to Vietnam remained in the country, primarily as storage or other mobile facilities. Permanent or semi-permanent placement of containers for storage is common. A regular forty-foot container has about 4000 kg of steel, which takes 8000 kWh of energy to melt down. Repurposing used shipping containers is increasingly a practical solution to both social and ecological problems.

Shipping container architecture employs used shipping containers as the main framing of modular home designs, where the steel may be an integrated part of the design, or be camouflaged into a traditional looking home. They have also been used to make temporary shops, cafes, and computer datacenters, e.g. the Sun Modular Datacenter.

Intermodal containers are not strong enough for conversion to underground bunkers without additional bracing, as the walls cannot sustain much lateral pressure and will collapse. Also, the wooden floor of many used containers could contain some fumigation residues, rendering them unsuitable as confined spaces, such as for prison cells or bunkers. Cleaning or replacing the wood floor can make these used containers habitable, with proper attention to such essential issues as ventilation and insulation.

Single-time use
The City of Göttingen has deployed containers for the disablement of unexploded ordnance: either FIBCs filled with sand or IBCs filled with water. When the bomb squad performs controlled detonations, such prepared containers absorb shock and fragments. This use requires level, load-bearing ground. The deformed containers are unsuitable for further circulation.

International standards

 * ASTM D5728-00 Standard Practices for Securement of Cargo in Intermodal and Unimodal Surface Transport
 * ISO 668:2013 Series 1 freight containers – Classification, dimensions and ratings
 * ISO 830:1999 Freight containers – Vocabulary
 * ISO 1161:1984 Series 1 freight containers – Corner fittings – Specification
 * ISO 1496 – Series 1 freight containers – Specification and testing
 * ISO 1496-1:2013 – Part 1: General cargo containers for general purposes
 * ISO 1496-2:2008 – Part 2: Thermal containers
 * ISO 1496-3:1995 – Part 3: Tank containers for liquids, gases, and pressurized dry bulk
 * ISO 1496-4:1991 – Part 4: Non-pressurized container for dry bulk
 * ISO 1496-5:1991 – Part 5: Platform and platform based containers
 * ISO 2308:1972 Hooks for lifting freight containers of up to 30 tonnes capacity – Basic requirements
 * ISO 3874:1997 Series 1 freight containers – Handling and securing
 * ISO 6346:1995 Freight containers – Coding, identification and marking
 * ISO 9897:1997 Freight containers – Container equipment data exchange (CEDEX) – General communication codes
 * ISO/TS 10891:2009 Freight containers – Radio frequency identification (RFID) – Licence plate tag
 * ISO 14829:2002 Freight containers – Straddle carriers for freight container handling – Calculation of stability
 * ISO 17363:2007 Supply chain applications of RFID – Freight containers
 * ISO/PAS 17712:2006 Freight containers – Mechanical seals
 * ISO 18185-2:2007 Freight containers – Electronic seals

title: Intermodal container


text:
Tinn

Tinn is a municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is located in the traditional districts of Aust-Telemark and Upper Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Rjukan. Some of the villages in Tinn include Atrå, Austbygde, Hovin, and Miland.

The 2045 km2 municipality is the 34th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Tinn is the 172nd most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 5,546. The municipality's population density is 3 PD/km2 and its population has decreased by 7.1% over the previous 10-year period.

The Krossobanen is the oldest aerial tramway in Northern Europe. It was built in 1928 as a gift from Norsk Hydro. The Hardangervidda National Park center is located at the lake Møsvatn, just east of Tinn.

General information
The parish of Tind (later spelled "Tinn") was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). In 1860, the southeastern area of the municipality around the village of Hovin (population: 815) was separated from Tinn to become part of the newly created Gransherad Municipality. On 24 March 1903, an unpopulated area of Tinn Municipality was transferred to Hovin Municipality. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the neighboring municipality of Hovin was dissolved. All of Hovin located east of the lake Tinnsjå (population: 461) was merged into Tinn Municipality (the rest of the old Hovin municipality became part of Notodden Municipality).

Name
The municipality (originally the parish) comes from an old name for the area (Tinnr) or an old name for the local Tinnsjå. The name is possibly derived from the word which means "small lake" or "pond". Historically, the name was spelled Tind.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms was granted on 25 November 1994. The official blazon is "Argent, five gouttes de larmes, three and two" (I sølv fem blå dråper, 3-2). This means the arms have a field (background) has a tincture of argent which means it is commonly colored white, but if it is made out of metal, then silver is used. The charge is a set of five gouttes (droplets) of water. This design was chosen to represent the five rivers in the municipality and the hydropower plants near Rjukan. The arms were designed by Halvor Holtskog. The municipal flag has the same design as the coat of arms.

Churches
The Church of Norway has two parishes (sokn) within the municipality of Tinn. It is part of the Øvre Telemark prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark.

History
The Rjukan Falls, located on the Måna river, allowed construction of Vemork, the largest power station in the world in 1911. The station has become a museum where one can explore the history of the energy and see exhibits about the industrial development in Norway and in the town of Rjukan.

The museum at Vemork is most famous for its presentation of Rjukan's war history. During World War II, Vemork was the site of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage, when Norwegian saboteurs prevented the Germans from producing nuclear weapons from the heavy water which was produced here. The exhibit Atomkappløpet ("The nuclear race") presents the four heavy water sabotages and the allied efforts to develop a nuclear bomb.

Government
Tinn Municipality is responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, welfare and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads and utilities. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of directly elected representatives. The mayor is indirectly elected by a vote of the municipal council. The municipality is under the jurisdiction of the Telemark District Court and the Agder Court of Appeal.

Municipal council
The municipal council (Kommunestyre) of Tinn is made up of 25 representatives that are elected to four-year terms. The tables below show the current and historical composition of the council by political party.

Mayors
The mayors (ordfører) of Tinn:

 * 1838-1839: Ole Nilsen Besager
 * 1840-1841: Halvor Torgersen Rollag
 * 1842-1843: Gjermund S. Graver
 * 1844-1845: Søren Schive
 * 1846-1849: Tore Hemsen
 * 1850-1853: Gjermund S. Graver
 * 1854-1861: Ole Knudsen
 * 1862-1863: Ole Gjermundsen Bakke
 * 1864-1881: Ole Knudsen
 * 1882-1883: Ole Gjermundsen Bakke
 * 1884-1885: Hølje H. Klonteig
 * 1886-1895: Ole Knudsen
 * 1896-1899: Ola O. Haugan
 * 1899-1900: Kristen O. Bøen
 * 1901-1916: Knut H. Klonteig
 * 1917-1919: Ole O. Bakke
 * 1920-1937: Johan O. Bryn (V)
 * 1938-1940: Kristen Vaalund (Bp)
 * 1945-1945: L.P. Petersen
 * 1946-1946: Kristen Vaalund (Bp)
 * 1946-1959: Isak Bergan (Ap)
 * 1960-1967: Sigurd Kolltveit (Ap)
 * 1968-1973: Reidar Engell Olsen (Ap)
 * 1974-1987: Einar Haatvedt (Ap)
 * 1987-1993: Øystein Dahle (LL)
 * 1993-1999: Olav Ulleren (Sp)
 * 1999-2003: Berit Stormoen (H)
 * 2004-2010: Erik Haatvedt (Ap)
 * 2010-2011: Turid Opedal (Ap)
 * 2011-2015: Steinar Bergsland (H)
 * 2015-2019: Bjørn Sverre Birkeland (Sp)
 * 2019–2023: Steinar Bergsland (H)
 * 2023-present: Kathrine Haatvedt (Ap)

Geography
Tinn borders the municipality of Nore og Uvdal (in Buskerud county) to the north; Rollag and Flesberg (also in Buskerud) to the east; Notodden, Hjartdal, and Seljord to the south, and Vinje to the west.

Most of Tinn is quite rural. The town of Rjukan is the largest settlement. It is located in the Vestfjorddalen valley, through which the Måna river flows.

Tinn stretches deeply into the Hardangervidda landscape. One landmark in Tinn is the 1883 m tall mountain Gaustatoppen, which is climbed by 30,000 people each year. On clear days it is possible to see one sixth of Norway from its summit. Other areas include the Blefjell mountains, with Bletoppen being the highest mountain in that area and also the Vegglifjell mountains, with Skirveggen being the highest mountain in that area.

There are several large lakes in Tinn, including Tinnsjå and Kalhovdfjorden.

WWII heavy water saboteurs

 * Arne Kjelstrup MM (1913 in Rjukan – 1995), a Norwegian resistance member during WWII who participated in the Norwegian heavy water sabotage in 1942–1943
 * Knut Lier-Hansen (1916 in Rjukan – 2008), a Norwegian resistance member during WWII and Army sergeant who participated in the sinking of SF Hydro as a part of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage
 * Jens-Anton Poulsson (1918 in Tinn – 2010), a military officer and Norwegian resistance member who participated in the Norwegian heavy water sabotage in 1942–1943
 * Claus Helberg (1919 in Rjukan – 2003), a Norwegian resistance member and mountain guide who participated in the Norwegian heavy water sabotage

Other public Service

 * Sam Eyde (1866–1940), an engineer and industrialist who developed Rjukan Falls to produce hydro electrical power
 * Albert Sund (1884–?), a trade union leader, Labour politician, and chairman of the Øst-Telemark faglige Samorg for three years
 * Knut Haugland DSO, MM, (1917 in Rjukan – 2009), a WWII resistance fighter and explorer who accompanied Thor Heyerdahl on his famous 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition
 * Einar-Fredrik Ofstad (1916 in Rjukan – 1998), a Norwegian diplomat
 * Gunnar Sønsteby DSO (1918 in Rjukan – 2012), a member of the Norwegian resistance movement and Norway's most highly decorated citizen
 * Petter Graver (1920 in Tinn – 1995), a jurist, diplomat from 1947 to 1988, and a lawyer
 * Gunnar Odd Hagen (1921–1997), a politician and a dentist in Tinn
 * Reidun Røed (1921 in Rjukan – 2009), a female Norwegian resistance member
 * Bjørn Bruland (1926 in Rjukan – 2014), a Norwegian admiral and politician
 * Reidar Engell Olsen (born 1933), a politician and Mayor of Tinn
 * Jostein Børtnes (born 1937 in Hovin, Telemark), a literary historian and Slavist
 * Signe Howell (born 1942 in Tinn), a social anthropologist and academic
 * Bernt Ivar Eidsvig (born 1953 in Rjukan), a prelate of the Catholic Church and Bishop of Oslo
 * Øystein Mæland (born 1960 in Rjukan), a psychiatrist, civil servant, and former politician

The Arts

 * Knut Luraas (1782 in Tinn – 1843), a Hardingfele fiddler and artist
 * Thomas Luraas (1799 in Tinn – 1886), a rose painter and clarinetist
 * Else Poulsson (1909 in Rjukan – 2002), a painter and textile artist
 * Jørn Lande (born 1968 in Rjukan), a hard rock and heavy metal singer and songwriter
 * Linnea Dale (born 1991 in Tinn), a singer

Sport

 * Snowshoe Thompson (born 1827 in Austbygdi, Telemark as Jon Torsteinsson Rue – 1876), a Norwegian-American who was considered the father of California skiing
 * Jon Terje Øverland (born 1944 in Rjukan), an alpine skier who competed at the 1964 Winter Olympics and 1968 Winter Olympics

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Tinn


text:
User:Olivia Curtis

I only discovered Wikipedia two days ago (as of 2 February 2003) and think it's amazing! Why hasn't everyone heard of it?

fr:Utilisateur:Olivia Curtis

title: User:Olivia Curtis


text:
Léo Delibes

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes (21 February 1836 – 16 January 1891) was a French Romantic composer, best known for his ballets and operas. His works include the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876) and the opera Lakmé (1883), which includes the well-known "Flower Duet".

Born into a musical family, Delibes enrolled at France's foremost music academy, the Conservatoire de Paris, when he was twelve, studying under several professors including Adolphe Adam. After composing light comic opérettes in the 1850s and 1860s, while also serving as a church organist, Delibes achieved public recognition for his music for the ballet La Source in 1866. His later ballets Coppélia and Sylvia were key works in the development of modern ballet, giving the music much greater importance than previously. He composed a small number of mélodies, some of which are still performed frequently.

Delibes had several attempts at writing more serious operas, and achieved a considerable critical and commercial success in 1883 with Lakmé. In his later years he joined the faculty of the Conservatoire, teaching composition. He died at his home in Paris at the age of 54. Coppélia and Sylvia remain core works in the international ballet repertoire, and Lakmé is revived from time to time in opera houses.

Early years
Delibes was born in Saint-Germain-du-Val, now part of La Flèche (Sarthe), on 21 February 1836; his father worked for the French postal service and his mother was a talented amateur musician, the daughter of an opera singer and niece of the organist Édouard Batiste. Delibes was the couple's only child. His father died in 1847 and the family moved to Paris, where soon after his twelfth birthday Delibes was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. He studied first with Antoine-Jules Tariot (music theory), and then with Félix Le Couppey (piano), François Benoist (organ), François Bazin (harmony) and, at eighteen, Adolphe Adam (composition).

As a boy, Delibes had an unusually fine singing voice; he was a chorister at the church of La Madeleine and sang in the première of Meyerbeer's Le prophète at the Paris Opéra in 1849. While still a student Delibes became organist of and accompanist at the Théâtre Lyrique. At the latter he took part in the preparation of most of the operas in the theatre's repertoire, including classics such as The Marriage of Figaro and Fidelio and new works such as Louis Clapisson's La Fanchonnette, Victor Massé's La Reine Topaze and Gounod's Faust. His biographer Hugh Macdonald writes that although Delibes remained a church organist until 1871 (he held several posts, the last of them at the church of Saint Jean-Saint François from 1862), he was "clearly drawn more to the theatre [and] found his métier at Hervé's highly successful Folies-Nouvelles".

Composer
In 1856 Delibes' first stage work was premiered at the Folies-Nouvelles: Deux sous de charbon (Two sous-worth of coal), a one-act comic piece to a libretto by Jules Moinaux, described as an "asphyxie lyrique". Over the next fourteen years he produced more comic operas, at an average rate of about one a year. Many were written for the Bouffes-Parisiens, the theatre run by Jacques Offenbach, including Deux vieilles gardes ("Two Old Guards"), Delibes's second opera, which enjoyed enormous success, attributable in Macdonald's view to the composer's gift for "witty melody and lightness of touch". In addition to composing, Delibes earned a living as a critic (briefly in 1858); inspector of school music; and accompanist and later chorus master at the Opéra (from 1862 or 1863).. His appointment at the Opéra led to a new career as a composer of ballet music. In 1866 he was commissioned to compose two acts of La Source, the other two being written by Ludwig Minkus. In the view of the musicologist and critic Adolphe Jullien, Delibes "displayed such a wealth of melody as a composer of ballet music" that Minkus was "completely eclipsed". Delibes was immediately invited to compose a waltz-divertissement called Le Pas de Fleurs to be introduced into the ballet of his former teacher Adam, Le Corsaire, for a revival in 1867. The piece was later incorporated into Delibes' music for La Source when it was revived.

In 1869 Delibes composed his last opérette, La Cour du roi Pétaud, for the Variétés. The following year he came to wider public notice with his score for the ballet Coppélia, first performed at the Opéra in May 1870. It was an immediate success, and has remained among the most popular works in the classical ballet repertoire. The following year he resigned from the musical staff of the Opéra and devoted himself wholly to composition. In that year he married Léontine Estelle Denain.

Not wishing to be typecast as a ballet composer, Delibes next turned to mélodies. In 1872 he published a collection including the songs "Myrto", "Les Filles de Cadiz" and "Bonjour Suzon". In 1873 he produced at the Opéra-Comique a comic opera in three acts, Le Roi l'a dit (The King has Said It). Le Figaro thought the libretto weak, but praised Delibes' music: "his melodic vein, his impeccable taste, his scenic skill, his beautiful humour saved a work which, without him, would have gone unnoticed". The work was a success in Paris and in German opera houses, but did not establish itself in the international repertory. Its first performances in Britain (1894) and the US (2016) were by students of, respectively, the Royal College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. Delibes returned to the Opéra in 1876, with a grand mythological ballet, Sylvia, which in Jullien's view confirmed Delibes' superiority in dance music. It was well received by the press and public. In 1877 Delibes was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur.

Despite the success of his two ballets, Delibes was still anxious to write a serious vocal work, and composed a grand scena, La Mort d'Orphée (The Death of Orpheus), given at the Trocadéro Concerts in 1878 during the Exposition Universelle. He followed that with a serious opera, Jean de Nivelle, a medieval patriotic romance, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1880. Reviewers found the piece too episodic but praised the composer for "the rare and precise quality" of his melodies and "the delicate style in his writing" for the public. The Parisian critic for The Era considered it "the best opera, the one most likely to attain a world-wide popularity, since Bizet's ...Carmen", premiered five years previously. The piece ran for more than a hundred performances, and was revived in Paris in 1908 but has not (in 2020) been staged there since then.

Later years
In 1881 Delibes succeeded Napoléon Henri Reber as professor of composition at the Conservatoire, despite his own admission that he knew nothing of fugue and counterpoint. He took his duties with great seriousness. The music critic Charles Darcours recalled Delibes' concern for his students and his anxiety for them to succeed in France's most prestigious musical award, the Prix de Rome. In 1882 Delibes composed incidental music for a revival of Victor Hugo's play Le Roi s'amuse at the Comédie-Française, consisting of a suite of pastiche medieval dances for orchestra ("Six airs de danse dans le style ancien") and a song with mandolin accompaniment ("Quand Bourbon vit Marseille").

Delibes' opera Lakmé was premiered at the Opéra-Comique on 14 April 1883. Léon Carvalho, the manager, was not known for extravagance in his productions, but for this opera he surprised his audiences by the lavish staging. Macdonald writes:

"Its success was lasting; the oriental colour, the superb part for the title role, a well-constructed libretto and the real charm of the music, all contributed to a work on which, with the ballets, Delibes' fame has rested."

Lakmé was quickly taken up by opera houses across Europe, and productions followed in London (1885) and New York (1886); reviews of the American production were highly enthusiastic; those of the British production were less so, but in both cities it prospered at the box-office.

Delibes' last years were financially comfortable and socially secure. In 1884 he was elected to the Institut de France. His last work, incomplete when he died, was another opera, Kassya. Delibes, who had been intermittently ill for some time, died at his home in Paris after a sudden collapse shortly before his 55th birthday. He was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.

Music
In Macdonald's view, Delibes' early compositions are clearly influenced by and in the tradition of Boieldieu, Hérold and Adam, Delibes' composition teacher at the Conservatoire, from whom he had the example of "a sparkling operetta style". Later, consciously seeking to move from light popular works into a more elevated genre, his works show the influence of Meyerbeer and Gounod, as well as the slightly younger Bizet and Lalo. Macdonald observes that in notices of Delibes' early music the same terms frequently recur: "wit, charm, elegance, grace, colour, lightness". The Musical World said of him, "If not the greatest French composer of his day, Delibes was the most characteristically French, and it can hardly be said that in his own line he leaves any successor of equal excellence".

Opera
Le Roi l'a dit is a light opera in which "elaborate vocal ensembles and witty pastiche play a major part" (Macdonald). The more serious Jean de Nivelle, one of the works showing the influence of Meyerbeer and Lalo, is generally weightier in tone, with some lapses into the composer's lighter style in such pieces as the Act III couplets, "Moi! j'aime le bruit de bataille". The chorus "Nous sommes les reines d'un jour" in the Act I finale continually switches between and  with what Macdonald calls "a modal melody of striking originality".

Lakmé – which Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians ranks as Delibes' masterpiece, even above Coppelia and Sylvia – shows the influence of Bizet, with echoes of Carmen and Les pêcheurs de perles in the harmonic techniques and subtleties of orchestration. The opera is sometimes seen as a vehicle for a star soprano, but Macdonald writes that the two principal male characters, Nilakantha and Gérald, are strongly drawn, and the music is "melodic, picturesque and theatrically strong". Macdonald expresses reservations about the dramatic recitative, which he finds tending to the conventional; the work was originally conceived as an opéra-comique with spoken dialogue, and the recitatives were an afterthought. Lakmé remains on the fringes of the operatic repertoire. It was produced at the Opéra-Comique in 1995, starring Natalie Dessay, but has not been staged by the Metropolitan Opera since 1947, or at the Royal Opera House since 1910. Operabase and Les Archives du spectacle record details of occasional productions in Europe and elsewhere. The work was staged by the Seattle Opera in 1967 with Joan Sutherland in the title role, and in 2000 with Harolyn Blackwell, and by the New York City Opera in 1984.

Kassya, complete except for the orchestration when Delibes died, was edited and orchestrated by Jules Massenet, whose skilful work was praised by reviewers. It had its premiere two years after Delibes' death, and was respectfully received, but the general view was that it showed the composer's creative gifts in decline. It ran for twelve performances. Macdonald finds points to praise: the oriental inflections in the music, the vocal writing, and the "fine close to the first scene of Act 3, with snow falling on the deserted stage".

Ballet
Influenced by Adam, Coppélia makes extensive use of leitmotifs for character and mood, and contains some vivid musical scene-painting. Delibes greatly enlarged on Adam's modest use of leitmotifs: each leading character is accompanied by music that portrays him or her; Noël Goodwin describes them: "Swanilda in her entry waltz, bright and graceful; Dr. Coppélius in stiff, dry counterpoint, the canonic device ingeniously applied also to Coppélia, the doll he has created; Franz in two themes, each sharing the same melodic shape of the first four notes, but the second having a more sentimental feeling than the sprightly first theme". Delibes made extensive use of characteristic national dances, including the bolero, czardas, jig and mazurka, continually interspersed with waltz rhythms. In the opinion of several critics, the score of Sylvia surpasses that of Coppélia. Tchaikovsky was greatly impressed by it, calling Sylvia:

"The first ballet in which the music constitutes not just the main, but the sole interest. What charm, what grace, what melodic, rhythmic and harmonic richness. I was ashamed. If I had known this music earlier, then of course I would not have written Swan Lake."

Carl Van Vechten shared Tchaikovsky's view that Delibes revolutionised ballet composition: "Before he began to compose his ballets, music for dancing, for the most part, consisted of tinkle-tinkle melodies with marked rhythm." In Van Vechten's view, Delibes revolutionised ballet music by introducing in his scores "a symphonic element, a wealth of graceful melody, and a richness of harmonic fibre, based, it is safe to hazard, on a healthy distaste for routine". Van Vechten considers Delibes' scores to be the forerunners of 20th-century ballets such as Debussy's Jeux, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé and Stravinsky's Petrouchka.

After Sylvia, Delibes's only composition for dance was a suite of six dances for the Comédie-française production of Le Roi s'amuse, The dances, in a pastiche of antique style, show a keen ear for the nuances of period character in Goodwin's view. They are not often played in concert and are more familiar in recordings.

Mélodies
The pianist and musical scholar Graham Johnson quotes the musicologist Fritz Noske's view that Delibes' songs derive from the chansonnette, "lighter and more entertaining than the romance, and less susceptible to the German influence of the lied". In his songs, Delibes shares with Bizet "a natural feeling for the theatre, and an ability to spin local colour", as in his chanson espagnole "Les filles de Cadix". Of other early songs, Johnson describes "Eclogue" and "Bonjour, Suzon" as "charm[ing] us with their unpretentious gaiety and delicacy, as well as their economy of means". Some of the songs evoke the period style of the 16th century, such as "Avril", "Chanson de l'oiseleur" and "Myrto", the last of which is a pre-echo of mélodies by Gabriel Fauré. Johnson finds Delibes more suited to reflective than to passionate sentiments, and, in general, better in more of his earlier songs than his later. He brackets Delibes with his junior contemporary Reynaldo Hahn as songwriters – "charmers both [with] a similarly eighteenth-century idea of the role of music in refined society: the unashamed giving of pleasure".

title: Léo Delibes


text:
User talk:Olivia Curtis

Welcome to the 'pedia, Olivia Curtis! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit How does one edit a page and experiment at Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --Lorenzarius

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thanks for the typo fix on my page! BTW, in case you didn't already know: you can see exactly what changes someone has made to any page via the "older versions" link. For example, here's your change to my page: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Tarquin&diff=0&oldid=644337 -- Tarquin 17:26 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

If you'd not mentioned it was based on Bach, I would've probably never remembered myself (I've studied that movement, but it was a few years ago). We got there between us, though :) --Camembert

"Why hasn't everyone heard of it?" - And don't you go and tell everybody just yet, either.. :) - theres a long running issue that advertising (see VFD ) sometimes gets things out of hand here - too much clutter and crud to deal with at times... Its an interesting question you ask though .. :)-'Vert

Olivia, here's what you asked for above. I am not any kind of expert so the more knowledgeable can probably tear what follows to bits. Do so, by all means, but be gentle with me! I do know that my method produce a neat looking result on the page. This stuff is only about inserting pics with JPG extensions i.e. photographs.

HOW TO PUT A JPG ON A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE PAGE If you want to see examples of my work: For a scanned object look at the Lapis lazuli article, the blue elephant was laid on the scanner plate, this is NOT a photograph, it's a scan! For photos from my digital camera see Severn Bridge. For a scanned colour print see Kaprun disaster.

These instructions give a good appearance on my 1024 by 768 screen. Ideally I would check the appearance at the other common screen sizes but I can’t because changing screen size puts all my desktop icons into a heap in the corner and it takes too long to restore their positions when I return to 1024 by 768! Perhaps a peculiarity of my OS (Windows ME).

PREPARE THE PICTURES Pictures come off my digital camera at 2048 by 1536 pixels at 700K, far too big size-wise and memory-wise for Wikipedia. The output of my Epson flat-bed scanner (if I want to scan objects or colour prints) is often even bigger than that. Those of us with 56K modems won’t wait to upload such large pics so the size has to be reduced without sacrificing too much quality. There are dozens of graphics programs for resizing and quality reduction, I happen to have the big one – Photoshop - but the power of that program isn’t usually needed for Wikipedia illustrations. My standard pic sizes are a big pic at 750 pixels wide and a little pic (a thumbnail) exactly one third of that size, at 250 pixels wide. I used 800 pixels until recently but the re-sizing produced poor quality thumbnails, the one third cut-down seems to produce better quality. If the pic is portrait format, then use a lot less width for the big pic (say, 500 pixels) or the pic may be taller than the screen. Then the reader will have to scroll down to see it all (very irritating!). The big pic should be created at a quality producing a size not bigger than 100K and the little pic not bigger than 20K (15K would be better). Make the pic name descriptive – for example: old.severn.bridge.250pix.jpg and old.severn.bridge.750pix.jpg

UPLOAD THE PICS TO WIKIPEDIA The two pics are now ready for upload to Wikipedia. The little pic will go on the article page and big pic can be seen by clicking on a link called “Click here for larger version” (which I put below the caption). Now upload the two prepared pics to Wikipedia by going to this URL: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload. This screen requires three actions: . browse to one of the two files, say the 750 pixel one, . promise that you own the copyright by ticking a box, . put in a simple title such as “Pic of Severn Bridge”.

Then click UPLOAD FILE and wait awhile.

Your pic will be uploaded (with an on-screen complaint if it’s over 100K) and the screen will ask you to “Please follow this link”. This will take you to a screen carrying the famous slogan “EDIT THIS PAGE”. Click on that and then enter your description text in the Edit box, such as who took it, where and when, and if it’s public domain. Don’t forget to fill in the summary box with, for example, “Picture of the Severn Bridge”. A typical pic description would be: “The Severn Bridge seen from the English side of the river.Photographed by Adrian Pingstone in April 2002 and released to the public domain.” (you can see this message for anyones pic by clicking on the pic). PREVIEW until happy. To keep your description text for use with the second pic, select the text and do EDIT COPY. Finally, SAVE. Now go back to the upload page URL you used earlier and do exactly the same for the 250 pixel pic.

INSERT THE PICTURE CODE INTO THE ARTICLE Go to the article and note the area where the pic can best go, and if best on left or right of the page. Steal my picture code, here’s how: Go to Severn Bridge, click on EDIT THIS PAGE, copy the coding by selecting it with the mouse and choose EDIT COPY. You need the stuff between (and including) the words TABLE. In the code I know that “width=270” looks odd but it gives a better clearance between the pic and the text. Then paste it down into the articles Edit Page with EDIT PASTE. Modify the left or right instruction and the file names, type in your own caption and PREVIEW. Don’t forget the Summary. Modify as often as you like, finally SAVE.

If you have only a small pic and no large one then you probably just delete the “Click here” line in the coding (I haven’t tried this).

FOOTNOTE: I have a copy of this picture code pasted on to a Microsoft Word page and saved, then I do EDIT COPY/EDIT PASTE. I think that’s easier than going off to an article to steal it.

Done!! Enlightened, Olivia? Best Wishes -- Arpingstone 08:40 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Olivia - hopefully I'll get the basics of the other Mahler symphony articles (and Das Lied von der Erde) done over the weekend. I was going to expand the 5th Symphony article somewhat before starting on any of the others, but I've lost my copy of the score, so that's on hold for now. --Camembert

title: User talk:Olivia Curtis


text:
American Beauty (album)

American Beauty is the fifth studio album (and sixth overall) by rock band the Grateful Dead. Released in November 1970, by Warner Bros. Records, the album continued the folk rock and country music style of their previous album Workingman's Dead, issued earlier in the year.

Upon release, American Beauty entered the Billboard 200 chart, ultimately peaking at number 30 during a nineteen-week stay in January 1971. On July 11, 1974, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, and it later reached Platinum and Double Platinum certification in 1986 and 2001, respectively. In 2003, the album was ranked number 258 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, 261 in a 2012 revised list, and 215 in a 2020 revised list.

Recording
American Beauty was the result of a prolific period of the songwriting partnership of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter – one that yielded two studio albums in one year for the Grateful Dead. This was the only time the band would return to the studio so quickly. However, unlike the previous effort, where almost all the songs were written solely by the pair, the album saw more input from the rest of the band. Included are Phil Lesh's "Box of Rain" and Bob Weir's "Sugar Magnolia", both written with Hunter, and "Operator", Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's only singing-songwriting effort on a Grateful Dead studio album.

The album was produced after the discovery that the band's manager, Lenny Hart (father of drummer Mickey Hart), had renewed their contract with Warner Brothers Records without their knowledge, and then skipped town with a sizable chunk of the band's wealth. In between near-constant touring and gigging, recording began only a few months after the release of Workingman's Dead – without their regular sound crew, who were out on the road as part of the Medicine Ball Caravan tour (which the Dead were originally scheduled to join). Instead, studio staff engineer Stephen Barncard replaced Bob Matthews as producer – "a move that irks Matthews to this day" (Matthews had co-produced the band's two previous albums ). Barncard also mused "I had heard bad stories about engineers' interactions with the Dead but what I found were a bunch of hardworking guys".

Both Workingman's Dead and American Beauty were innovative at the time for their fusion of bluegrass, rock and roll, folk, and, especially, country music. Lyricist Hunter commented "We went back into American folk tradition but, being experimenters, nothing would do but that we try to reinvent that." Compared to Workingman's Dead, American Beauty had even less lead guitar work from Jerry Garcia, who increasingly filled the void with pedal steel guitar. It was also during the recording of this album that Garcia first collaborated with mandolinist David Grisman, a friend who had recently relocated to California following the dissolution of Earth Opera. "I just bumped into Jerry at a baseball game in Fairfax, and he said, 'Hey, you wanna play on this record we're doing?' commented Grisman, whose playing is heard on "Friend of the Devil" and especially "Ripple". Howard Wales, another musician from outside of the band, added keyboards to three songs. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann commented, "Wales came to us through Jerry, who played with him in side projects. [He] had done session work with James Brown and the Four Tops before we brought him in for American Beauty." MIT student Ned Lagin, a jazz pianist who had corresponded with the band after attending their 1969 New Year's Eve concert at the Boston Tea Party, also contributed piano to "Candyman". Lagin subsequently sat in with the band on occasion from 1970 to 1975.

Phil Lesh, in his autobiography Searching for the Sound, commented "the magnetism of the scene at Wally Heider's recording studio made it a lot easier for me to deal with [the loss of my father] and my new responsibilities. Some of the best musicians around were hanging there during that period; with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, Santana, Crosby, Nash, and Neil Young working there, the studio became jammer heaven. Thank the Lord for music; it's a healing force beyond words to describe."

Though both albums focused on Americana songcraft, Workingman's Dead mixed the grittier Bakersfield sound with the band's psychedelic roots, whereas the mostly-acoustic American Beauty focused more on major-key melodies and folk harmonies, evincing the influence of Dylan and studio neighbors/friends Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. Kreutzmann later explained, "The singers in our band really learned a lot about harmonizing [from] Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who had just released their seminal album  Déjà Vu. Jerry played pedal steel... on that record. Stephen Stills lived at Mickey's ranch... and David Crosby enjoyed partying as much as we did. So our circles overlapped."

Crosby has demurred on this point: "Sometimes they have given us credit for teaching them how to sing and that's not true. They knew how to sing; they had their own style and they had the most important quality of it down already, which is tale-telling". However, he has also stated "The idea is – when you hang out with other musicians – to sort of cross-pollinate your idea streams, and that naturally happened between us on a level that was very rare. We would listen to what they were doing with time signatures and with breaking the rules, and it appealed to us a lot."

Release
American Beauty was released just over four months after Workingman's Dead. The title of the album has a double meaning, referring both to the musical focus on Americana and to the rose that is depicted on the front cover. Around the rose, the album title is scripted as a text ambigram that can also be read "American Reality". The back cover is a George Conger photograph of a diorama containing ferns, roses, a bust, shadowboxes and other curios. To each side of the photo are illustrated panels with a vaguely-shaped guitar, whose strings are also rose stems. The cover artwork was produced by Kelley–Mouse Studios.

"Truckin' ", a blues/boogie-based rock tune with a shuffle rhythm, was also released as a single (backed with "Ripple"), and the songs "Box of Rain", "Sugar Magnolia", and "Friend of the Devil" also received radio airplay. The single version of "Truckin is a completely different mix, with extra lead guitar fills throughout, reverb on Weir's vocals, fewer verses, and without Wales's organ part. The autobiographical song became the one most associated with the band, and their track most commonly played on FM radio classic rock formats. In his book on Garcia, Blair Jackson noted that "if you liked rock'n'roll in 1970 but didn't like the Dead, you were out of luck, because they were inescapable that summer and fall".

American Beauty peaked at No. 30 on Billboard 's Pop Albums chart, while the single, "Truckin, peaked at No. 64 on the Pop Singles chart. It was the final album with Mickey Hart until his return to the band four years later, in 1975. Eight of the album's ten songs would remain in live setlists throughout the band's history.

The album was remixed for 5.1 surround in 2001 by Mickey Hart. This version is heavy in reverb and bass drum, and received mixed reviews, with one reviewer calling it "musically and sonically goofy".

It was remastered and expanded with eight bonus tracks as part of the box set The Golden Road (1965–1973) in 2001. This version was released separately in 2003.

A 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of American Beauty was released as a three-disc CD on October 30, 2020. Disc one is a newly remastered version of the album. Discs two and three are a live concert by the band, recorded on February 18, 1971 at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York.

Reception
Andy Zwerling of Rolling Stone felt that the album was a continuation of Workingman's Dead, though there was more care and contentment in the singing, as well as the instrument playing being rich. Robert Christgau also compared the album to Workingman's Dead, feeling it was "sweeter vocally and more direct instrumentally". The Washington Post writer Tom Zito felt that the album showed "wisdom of age" when compared to their earlier works, while maintaining an "exuberance of youth." Jason Ankeny at AllMusic feels that the album is the Dead's "studio masterpiece", and in comparing it to Workingman's Dead, it is "more representative of the group as a collective unit".

In 2003, the album was ranked number 258 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The American National Association of Recording Merchandisers placed the album at number 20 in its 2007 list of "definitive 200 albums". The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and in 1991 Rolling Stone ranked American Beautys album cover as the 57th best of all time. It was voted number 103 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000).

Track listing

 * Sides one and two were combined as tracks 1–10 on CD reissues.

Notes

 * The final two tracks are unlisted

American Beauty: The Angel's Share
On October 15, 2020, a collection of demos and outtakes from the American Beauty recording sessions entitled American Beauty: The Angel's Share was released in streaming and digital download formats.

Personnel
Grateful Dead
 * Jerry Garcia – guitar, pedal steel, piano, vocals
 * Mickey Hart – percussion
 * Robert Hunter – lyrics
 * Bill Kreutzmann – drums
 * Phil Lesh – bass guitar, guitar, piano, vocals
 * Pigpen (Ron McKernan) – harmonica, vocals, lyrics on "Operator"
 * Bob Weir – guitar, vocals

Additional musicians
 * David Grisman – mandolin on "Friend of the Devil", "Ripple"
 * David Nelson – electric guitar on "Box of Rain"
 * Ned Lagin – piano on "Candyman"
 * Dave Torbert – bass guitar on "Box of Rain"
 * Howard Wales – organ on "Candyman", "Truckin'"; piano on "Brokedown Palace"

Technical personnel
 * Produced by Grateful Dead
 * Co-producer, audio: Stephen Barncard
 * Dave Collins – pre-mastering assistance
 * Artwork: Kelley/Mouse Studios
 * Rear photo: George Conger

Reissue personnel
 * James Austin – producer
 * David Lemieux – producer
 * Peter McQuaid – executive producer
 * Michael Wesley Johnson – associate producer, research coordinator
 * Eileen Law – archival research
 * Cassidy Law – project coordinator
 * Eric Doney – business affairs
 * Nancy Mallonee – business affairs
 * Malia Doss – business affairs
 * Dennis McNally – Grateful mentor
 * Jeffrey Norman – additional mixing
 * Joe Gastwirt – mastering, production consultant
 * Jimmy Edwards – project manager
 * Joe Motta – project coordinator
 * Gary Peterson – discography annotation
 * Shawn Amos – liner notes coordinator
 * Vanessa Atkins – editorial supervision
 * Daniel Goldmark – editorial research
 * Hugh Brown – reissue art direction
 * Greg Allen – reissue art direction
 * Rachel Gutek – reissue art direction
 * Design: Rachel Gutek – design
 * Greg Allen – design

Release history
The album has been released in a multitude of ways since its original release. In 2001, the CD version was remastered and expanded with live tracks and singles for The Golden Road (1965–1973) 12-CD box set. This version was given individual release in 2003. Additionally in 2001, a standalone DVD-Audio version was released including a 5.1 Surround Sound mix. On October 24, 2004, the album was released as a DualDisc recording, including a DVD side with interviews with Mickey Hart and Bob Weir, a photo gallery, and lyrics to all songs. In 2006 it was released in a CD replica of the original vinyl edition, with period labels and inner sleeve.

† Re-mastered edition with bonus tracks

title: American Beauty (album)


text:
Heathen Chemistry

Heathen Chemistry is the fifth studio album by English rock band Oasis. It was released on 1 July 2002 by Big Brother Recordings. It is the first Oasis studio album recorded with guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell, who both joined the band after work on previous album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants had been completed. It is the last album to feature longtime drummer, Alan White, who left in early 2004, with Noel Gallagher citing White's lack of commitment to the band as the reason for leaving.

Recording
Heathen Chemistry was recorded between 2001 and early 2002 and is the first Oasis album to have significant writing contributions from members other than chief songwriter Noel Gallagher. Front man Liam Gallagher contributed three songs, and new bassist Andy Bell and rhythm guitarist Gem Archer contributed one song each as well.

Although most of the song's instrumentation was complete by mid-to-late 2001, Noel indicated that the release date of the album was being needlessly delayed by Liam's apparent reluctance to lay down his vocal parts at recording sessions, and went on to state that he was "livid" at the lack of work being done:

 * I was really happy with (the album) until recently, but I'm fucking livid now. I finished my bits three-and-a-half months ago, and then we handed it over to Liam, and in three-and-a-half months he's done nothing. Just concentrated on his drinking habit again. It's just drifting at the moment.

 * All the backing tracks are done and it's a fantastic album of instrumentals. Hand it over to the singer and it just slows down and becomes this one really long, drawn-out, painful process. So, to be honest with you, I don't know when it'll come out now. It's down to him.

Despite the setbacks during the recording process, when the album was finally complete Noel was confident that it was the group's second best album to date, behind their debut Definitely Maybe.

The title of the album, according to Noel, came from a T-shirt he bought in Ibiza which featured a logo reading, "The Society of Heathen Chemists". Similarly, the name of the first single, "The Hindu Times", originated from a logo on a T-shirt that read the same thing, which Noel saw during a photo shoot for GQ's 100 Greatest Guitarists edition. The name was given to the track when it was just an instrumental and the name stuck once the track was finished.

Release
The release of the album was overshadowed by an Internet leak of all 11 songs almost three months prior to release, which was evident at a Las Vegas show the group performed where fans knew the words to several new songs before the album's release. However, listeners of the commercially released album heard slight differences to two tracks, "Little by Little" and "Better Man".

The length of track 11, "Better Man" is 38:03; this is because of a hidden track called "The Cage", which begins after 30 minutes of silence. In the Japanese and digital versions, "Better Man" and the hidden track "The Cage" were separated and the 30-minute silence was removed.

The album was certified triple platinum in UK, and 154,000 copies in the US. Upon release, Heathen Chemistry went straight to number one in the UK, though it fared rather poorly in the US, only entering at number 23.

It spawned four singles, each of which made the top three in the UK charts: "The Hindu Times", their sixth number one single in the UK; "Stop Crying Your Heart Out"; "Little By Little/She Is Love", the double A-side sung by Noel Gallagher; and "Songbird", the first single written by Liam.

Reception
Reception for the album varied wildly. On Metacritic it had a score of 55 out of 100 based on reviews from 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Some reviewers noted that it was better than the band's last effort, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, with Blender writing that Oasis was "a band back on track". However, a number of other reviewers offered scathing assessments of the album; notably, Drowned in Sound, Pitchfork, and Stylus Magazine.

In 2017, Liam Gallagher ranked Heathen Chemistry as his least favourite Oasis album.

Track listing
Notes In the Japanese and digital versions, "Better Man" and the hidden track "The Cage" were separated and the 30-minute silence was removed.

Oasis

 * Liam Gallagher – vocals, tambourine, acoustic guitar
 * Noel Gallagher – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, lead vocals on tracks 2, 6, 9, 13, drums on track 11
 * Gem Archer – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
 * Andy Bell – bass guitar
 * Alan White – drums, percussion

Additional musicians

 * Paul Stacey – mellotron on track 1, piano on tracks 2–3 and 11, Hammond organ on track 6
 * Mike Rowe – piano on tracks 4 and 10, pump organ on track 9, Hammond organ on tracks 8–10
 * Johnny Marr – guitar solo on track 8, slide guitar on track 10, guitar and backing vocals on track 11
 * London Session Orchestra – strings on track 4

title: Heathen Chemistry


text:
Religious ecstasy

Religious ecstasy is a type of altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and reportedly expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness, frequently accompanied by visions and emotional (and sometimes physical) euphoria.

Although the experience is usually brief in time, there are records of such experiences lasting several days or even more, and of recurring experiences of ecstasy during a person's lifetime.

In Sufism, the term is referred to as wajd.

Context
The adjective "religious" means that the experience occurs in connection with religious activities or is interpreted in the context of a religion. Journalist Marghanita Laski writes in her study "Ecstasy in Religious and Secular Experiences", first published in 1961: "Epithets are very often applied to mystical experiences including ecstasies without, apparently, any clear idea about the distinctions that are being made. Thus we find experiences given such names as nature, religious, aesthetic, neo-platonic, etc.. experiences, where in some cases the name seems to derive from a trigger, sometimes from the over belief."

Ancient
Yoga provides techniques to attain a state of ecstasy called samādhi. According to practitioners, there are various stages of ecstasy, the highest being Nirvikalpa samādhi. Bhakti Yoga in particular places emphasis on ecstasy as being one of the fruits of its practice.

In Buddhism, especially in the Pali Canon, there are eight states of trance also called absorption. The first four states are Rupa or, materially-oriented. The next four are Arupa or non-material. These eight states are preliminary trances which lead up to final saturation. In the Visuddhimagga, great effort and years of sustained meditation are practiced to reach the first absorption, and not all individuals can accomplish it at all.

In the Dionysian Mysteries of ancient Greece, initiates used intoxicants, ecstatic dance and music to remove inhibitions and social constraints.

Modern
Modern meditator experiences in the Thai Forest Tradition, as well as other Theravadan traditions, demonstrate that this effort and rarity is necessary only to become completely immersed in the absorptions and experience no other sensations. It is possible to experience the absorptions in a less intense state with much less practice.

In the monotheistic tradition, ecstasy is usually associated with communion and oneness with God. However, such experiences can also be personal mystical experiences with no significance to anyone but the person experiencing them. Some charismatic Christians practice ecstatic states (such as "being slain in the Spirit") and interpret these as given by the Holy Spirit. The firewalkers of Greece dance themselves into a state of ecstasy at the annual Anastenaria, when they believe themselves under the influence of Constantine the Great.

Historically, large groups of individuals have experienced religious ecstasies during periods of Christian revivals, to the point of causing controversy as to the origin and nature of these experiences. In response to claims that all emotional expressions of religious ecstasy were attacks on order and theological soundness from the Devil, Jonathan Edwards published his influential Religious Affections. Here, he argues, religious ecstasy could come from oneself, the Devil, or God, and it was only by observing the fruit, or changes in inner thought and behaviour, that one could determine if the religious ecstasy had come from God. In modern Pentecostal, Charismatic and Spirit-filled Christianity, numerous examples of religious ecstasy have transpired, similar to historic revivals. These occurrences have changed significantly since the time of the Toronto Blessing and several other North American so-called revivals and outpourings from the mid-1990s. From that time, religious ecstasy in these movements has been characterized by increasingly unusual behaviors that are understood by adherents to be the anointing of the Holy Spirit and evidence of God's "doing a new work". One of the most controversial and strange examples is that of spiritual birthing – a practice during which women, and at times even men, claim to be having actual contractions of the womb while they moan and retch as though experiencing childbirth. It is said to be a prophetic action bringing spiritual blessings from God into the world. Many believe spiritual birthing to be highly demonic and more occult-like than Christian. Religious ecstasy in these Christian movements has also been witnessed in the form of squealing, shrieking, an inability to stand or sit, uttering apocalyptic prophecies, holy laughter, crying and barking. Some people have made dramatic claims of sighting "gold dust", "angel feathers", "holy clouds", or the spontaneous appearance of precious gem stones during ecstatic worship events. Others have claimed to have received spontaneous gold tooth fillings.

In hagiographies (writings about Christian saints), many instances are recorded in which saints are granted ecstasies. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia religious ecstasy (called "supernatural ecstasy") includes two elements: one, interior and invisible, in which the mind rivets its attention on a religious subject, and another, corporeal and visible, in which the activity of the senses is suspended, reducing the effect of external sensations upon the subject and rendering him or her resistant to awakening. The witnesses of a Marian apparition often describe experiencing these elements of ecstasy.

Modern witchcraft traditions may define themselves as "ecstatic traditions", and focus on reaching ecstatic states in their rituals. The Reclaiming Tradition and the Feri Tradition are two modern ecstatic Witchcraft examples.

According to the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, God-intoxicated souls known in Sufism as masts experience a unique type of spiritual ecstasy: "[M]asts are desperately in love with God – or consumed by their love for God. Masts do not suffer from what may be called a disease. They are in a state of mental disorder because their minds are overcome by such intense spiritual energies that are far too much for them, forcing them to lose contact with the world, shed normal human habits and customs, and civilized society and live in a state of spiritual splendor but physical squalor. They are overcome by an agonizing love for God and are drowned in their ecstasy. Only the divine love embodied in a Perfect Master can reach them."

Notable individuals or movements

 * , a prophetic sect, founded by Montanus and two female colleagues, Prisca (or Priscilla) and Maximilla, who attained ecstatic visions through fasting and prayer.
 * , who intended his music to induce religious ecstasy.
 * experienced an ecstasy during a church-service towards the end of his life that caused him to stop writing.
 * , religious ecstasy and ritual madness.
 * , Mystic, first entered states of ecstasy while studying religious texts when taken ill in a Carmelite cloister.
 * , abbess and mystic.
 * , founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, immersed into deeper and deeper stages of ecstasy towards Krishna during the last 24 years of his life.
 * , mystic poet
 * , mystic poet
 * mystic poet
 * , burned at the stake for her writings.
 * , mystic poet
 * mystic poet
 * , burned at the stake for her writings.
 * , burned at the stake for her writings.

title: Religious ecstasy