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Talk:Cymbal alloys

While I'm delighted to have information added to this page and corrected, there have been some errors introduced by recent changes.

Things that I'm really glad someone picked up:
 * Saluda Glory is now correctly listed as b8, I had said b20. Dunno how I got this wrong, I have only their (awesome) Mist and Voodoo series in my current set and just slipped up somehow.

Things I've changed:
 * The wiki link to phases of matter was unhelpful IMO. The usage here is a specialised one of metallurgy, and isn't the same term at all.
 * The comment "traditional and brilliant" against Saluda Glory was unnecessary. Many different lines from other makers are also available in optional finishes, but AFAIK the alloy is the same regardless of finish in all cases. So I don't think we want to list all the available finishes here.
 * There was one example out of order (Saluda SSX). This ordering is not so much for the reader as for the editor, to make it easy to avoid duplication. Generally people seem to have got the hang of it.

Things I'm not sure about:
 * I've left Saluda SSX listed as Nickel-Silver, but I wonder where this info came from. The Saluda website doesn't say. If we don't know for sure, better not to say. The lists are not complete by any means, but they are as comprehensive as I can make them.

It may well be true, it would be quite revolutionary and Saluda are just the crew to do it.

Andrewa 17:34, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm afraid I think the changes from nickel silver to Nickel Bronze are just plain wrong. I think I know what you're trying to get at, but cymbal makers all over the world (and many metallurgists and metal supply companies) all call the stuff nickel silver. See the Paiste and Meinl web pages for a start, or go into any drum shop that stocks Meinl NS (note the 'S') or Paiste 402 series cymbals and have a look. I've added a comment to the article on nickel silver to point out that nickel bronze might be a better name. But it's not our job here to campaign to change it! (I notice there are some inaccuracies added to the nickel silver article too but this is not the place to deal with those.) Andrewa 19:13, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Removed text:

Nickel bronze is also called "nickel silver" by mistake - nickel silver is a stainless alloy of copper, nickel and zinc.

Such prescriptive linguistics are a bit old-fashioned IMO! But maybe this text or something like it (and some expansion) could go into the nickel bronze and nickel silver articles. Andrewa 19:34, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

More removed text:

''It also leads to wear-out, therefore a professionally used tsching cymbal or church bell made of bell bronze does not last more than half a a men´s lifetime, statistically. The metal gets hair cracks which impair the sound and finally breaks visibly.''

''In ancient times silver was the most valuable metal, even more precious than gold,. And silver does not help a clear sound. Therefore, the silver was rather a sacrifice than actually mixed into the alloy.''

There may be some truth in these claims, but I'd like some evidence, and the claim about men's lifetimes seems particularly suspicious... surely it depends on how often and hard it's hit or struck? There are bell-metal cymbals from the 1920s still playing well! They also need some rephrasing... what does than actually mixed into the alloy mean? Andrewa 20:56, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

More thinking... the first passage of removed text above seems to be suggesting that bell bronze has no fatigue limit, and that other cymbal alloys and particularly malleable bronze do. This may be true. Whether this technology has yet found its way into cymbal manufacture is another question.

As a first step, I'm researching whether any cymbal alloys have fatigue limits. Some copper-based alloys do and most do not.

 * This 487KB PDF looks a good start. Andrewa 14:49, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

IMO a far more interesting aspect of this is, if it's true that fine cymbals are operating outside the fatigue limits of the metal (which they certainly are if the material doesn't have one!) and if this is significant enough to cause failure of some cymbals in half a man's lifetime (a much bigger if - aluminium used in aircraft bodies has no fatigue limit, but there are Dakotas still flying safely), then this would probably produce an ageing effect long before failure. Such ageing might be a very desirable feature in cymbals (but not in bells) if properly controlled.

My reaction at this stage remains that this is the sort of hearsay often heard in drum shops and quite commonly printed in cymbal catalogues (written I can only assume by cynical sales folk who safely assume that few drummers know any metallurgy) and I'd like some evidence. Andrewa 14:32, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

With much regret I have reverted more changes made by an anonymous editor. This time, many examples were removed from the lists of examples.

Please, if you make corrections of this sort, give some justification. Do you have some old Foremost cymbals, for example (I have)? Have you had them examined by a metallurgist (I have)? Or do you rely on some other cymbal site (if so please cite it, either in the article or here)? Andrewa 20:59, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Another reversion of work by the same IP as before:

...Saluda Mist Brilliant, Saluda Mist Hybrid, Saluda Voodoo Brilliant, Saluda Voodoo, Saluda Voodoo EX Brilliant and Saluda Voodoo EX...

It's pointless listing for example Mist and Mist Brilliant as separate series. It's the same alloy throughout the series, only the finish is different. Many other manufacturers offer optional brilliant finishes as well, plus Paiste offers coloursound and Meinl offeres Champagne Finish. The Meinl Champagne Finish does subtly but significantly effect the sound, to my ears the coloursound doesn't, and whether the brilliant/traditional option does probably depends on the manufacturer. But here we're interested in the alloy. AFAIK, no manufacturer uses a different alloy for brilliant finish to the one they use for traditional finish within the same series of cymbals, so there's no point in separate listings.

The Hybrid, just BTW, is brilliant top and trad bottom. Saluda claim this affects the sound, and I'm quite happy to believe them, they seem to have their act together. In fact I know not everyone likes them, but personally I've found their organisation a pleasure to deal with and their cymbals a joy to play. But I also rather like my UFIP Naturals hats, splash and crash, which are unlathed top and trad bottom, sort of the opposite idea to the Saluda hybrid finish, and the UFIP sound is superb. My advice is, let your ears choose your cymbals and look at thr brand afterwards! End of POV rave. Andrewa 07:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Before you add your favourite cymbals to the top of the examples list...
Most if not all of the readers and editors of this page are drummers I guess. And we care about our cymbals. Yay team! And we have some varying opinions.

The list of examples is aphabetical. Putting your favourite brand at the front of the list is not NPOV, and will be corrected occasionally.

The other thing is, the list is minimal. There's no call to list for example both Saluda Mist Traditional and Saluda Mist Brilliant as examples of B20 cymbals. If there were Saluda Mist cymbals that were not B20, fair enough. But there ain't.

Don't get me wrong, I love Saluda B20 cymbals. I love my 12" Voodoo China and 10" Voodoo EX China Splash so much that when they first said they might produce a thin trad 12" B20 I committed to buying two of the first batch by return email. These were duly delivered almost a year later and are superb. Put either of them in the same kit as my 11" Paiste trad thin splash and ask which cymbal is three times the price of the other and you'll get it wrong every time (the answer is that the Paiste is the overrated, expensive one - but still a sound I'm keeping, obviously). If you're a really big hitter you will smash them (and the Paiste for that matter) clean in half first stroke, sure, but if you're that big a hitter your handler should buy you nothing thinner than medium thin splashes, and in stronger alloys (-> ! That's what they're made for.

The point is not what cymbals you like. The point is, Wikipedia is not the place to promote them. Happy Hitting! Andrewa 17:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

or remove ones you don't like
I guess that someone doesn't like Saludas. No surprise, I think you either love or hate them. The big cymbal companies hate them, and so do drummers who are big hitters, or believe drum shop jive, or both. Lots of both categories around.

But we really should cover all brands. I'll fix it when I get around to it. Andrewa 16:19, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Cymbal Secret Alloy section
whats this istanbul secret stuff? its horribly written, looks like it was from someone who had english as a second language, and looks utterly confusing... what gives?74.140.144.112 03:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Agree with above comments - a well-meaning contributor apparently wanted to help readers know what is the metallurgical content of Zildjian cymbal metal, but maybe it should remain a secret. Bigturtle 16:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Um, it's not a secret. The only people who will tell you that it is are jive-speaking sales types, and those they have fooled. But there are lots and lots of both categories around to listen to. Speaking as a drummer, I must confess that we're in general a gullible lot. Andrewa 16:14, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I've removed the section... which has been added three times now and removed twice by different editors, so I'm now the third... and also removed Istanbul Agop Cymbals from the See also section, where it was the only link!

The removed text is full of inaccuracies (as well as some pretty awful English). Not all of it is untrue of course, but I doubt it has any rescuable encyclopedic content. Some of it appears to be original research, some of it may just be drum shop jive promoting a particular line of (excellent) cymbals. Or it may even be written by a cymbalsmith... but cymbal making is an art as well as a science, and being a cymbalsmith doesn't mean you know everything about the history and metallurgy of cymbals.

I'm also working on some sources for this article... they weren't seen as important when it was written, but Wikipedia culture has changed and they are now very important indeed. Andrewa 07:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, the secret alloy section I removed before is back, rewritten a bit. We'll try again... here it is if you want it, there's encyclopedic stuff in there, albeit without citable sources, which could be added to the article. But as a whole, the section doesn't belong. Andrewa 16:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Paiste patent
The reference to Paiste patent 4,809,581 dated March 7, 1989 has been removed for some reason. This patent is for signature bronze which has several other names, and it's a very significant reference for many reasons. Looking into it; The US patent office database isn't easy to link to!

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,809,581.PN.&OS=PN/4,809,581&RS=PN/4,809,581 might work.

Or try http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm and put 4,809,581 (commas optional) in the search field.

It makes fascinating reading, is written largely in layman's terms, and covers not only the alloy composition but many details of the heat-treatment, hardness as tested, etc.. Andrewa (talk) 23:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Are there secrets?
It hasn't been possible to keep the composition of an alloy secret for more than a century now! It was once, and many 20th century cymbal company catalogues and brochures and perhaps even websites (I must check the wayback machine) made claims as to secret alloys. But by this time such claims were pure lies. I guess not many drummers are metallurgists or even have a metallurgist for a close relative, but my father is a metallurgist, and I grew up to the sound of his laughter at the absurd claims made in cymbal sales literature.

The problem is that there are now many "reliable sources" that fell for these claims, and I don't have one to quote refuting them. A good research project for someone if I don't get around to it first.

There are lots of secrets in cymbal making. Alloy composition is no longer one of them. Andrewa (talk) 23:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Other interesting sources

 * http://www.paiste.com/e/about_alloys.php?menuid=314 An interesting rewrite of history by Paiste.

 * http://www.drumsetconnect.com/drum-forum/cymbals/8489-cymbal-alloys-explained.html a non-compliant mirror with a previous version of our article... in some ways a better version than our current one.

 * http://www.moderndrummer.com/site/2011/10/what-you-need-to-know-about-cymbal-alloys/#.UIHUcG-Sqgs Excellent article from Modern Drummer.

More to follow... Andrewa (talk) 23:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

title: Talk:Cymbal alloys


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Karl Kraus (writer)

Karl Kraus (28 April 1874 – 12 June 1936) was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He directed his satire at the press, German culture, and German and Austrian politics. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times.

Early life
Kraus was born into the wealthy Jewish family of Jacob Kraus, a papermaker, and his wife Ernestine, née Kantor, in Jičín, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic). The family moved to Vienna in 1877. His mother died in 1891.

Kraus enrolled as a law student at the University of Vienna in 1892. Beginning in April of the same year, he began contributing to the paper Wiener Literaturzeitung, starting with a critique of Gerhart Hauptmann's The Weavers. Around that time, he unsuccessfully tried to perform as an actor in a small theater. In 1894, he changed his field of studies to philosophy and German literature. He discontinued his studies in 1896. His friendship with Peter Altenberg began about this time.

Before 1900
In 1896, Kraus left university without a diploma to begin work as an actor, stage director and performer, joining the Young Vienna group, which included Peter Altenberg, Leopold Andrian, Hermann Bahr, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Felix Salten. In 1897, Kraus broke from this group with a biting satire, Die demolierte Literatur (Demolished Literature), and was named Vienna correspondent for the newspaper Breslauer Zeitung. One year later, as an uncompromising advocate of Jewish assimilation, he attacked the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, with his polemic Eine Krone für Zion (1898) (A Crown for Zion). The title is a play on words, in that Krone means both "crown" and the currency of Austria-Hungary from 1892 to 1918; one Krone was the minimum donation required to participate in the Zionist Congress in Basel, and Herzl was often mocked as the "king of Zion" (König von Zion) by Viennese anti-Zionists.

On 1 April 1899, Kraus renounced Judaism, and in the same year he founded his own magazine, Die Fackel (German: The Torch), which he continued to direct, publish, and write until his death, and from which he launched his attacks on hypocrisy, psychoanalysis, corruption of the Habsburg empire, nationalism of the pan-German movement, laissez-faire economic policies, and numerous other subjects.

1900–1909
In 1901 Kraus was sued by Hermann Bahr and Emmerich Bukovics, who felt they had been attacked in Die Fackel. Many lawsuits by various offended parties followed in later years. Also in 1901, Kraus found out that his publisher, Moriz Frisch, had taken over his magazine while he was absent on a months-long journey. Frisch had registered the magazine's front cover as a trademark and published the Neue Fackel (New Torch). Kraus sued and won. From that time, Die Fackel was published (without a cover page) by the printer Jahoda & Siegel.

While Die Fackel at first resembled journals like Die Weltbühne, it increasingly became a magazine that was privileged in its editorial independence, thanks to Kraus's financial independence. Die Fackel printed what Kraus wanted to be printed. In its first decade, contributors included such well-known writers and artists as Peter Altenberg, Richard Dehmel, Egon Friedell, Oskar Kokoschka, Else Lasker-Schüler, Adolf Loos, Heinrich Mann, Arnold Schönberg, August Strindberg, Georg Trakl, Frank Wedekind, Franz Werfel, Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Oscar Wilde. After 1911, however, Kraus was usually the sole author. Kraus's work was published nearly exclusively in Die Fackel, of which 922 irregularly issued numbers appeared in total. Authors who were supported by Kraus include Peter Altenberg, Else Lasker-Schüler, and Georg Trakl.

Die Fackel targeted corruption, journalists and brutish behaviour. Notable enemies were Maximilian Harden (in the mud of the Harden–Eulenburg affair), Moriz Benedikt (owner of the newspaper Neue Freie Presse), Alfred Kerr, Hermann Bahr, and Johann Schober.

In 1902, Kraus published Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität (Morality and Criminal Justice), for the first time commenting on what was to become one of his main preoccupations: he attacked the general opinion of the time that it was necessary to defend sexual morality by means of criminal justice (Der Skandal fängt an, wenn die Polizei ihm ein Ende macht, The Scandal Starts When the Police Ends It). Starting in 1906, Kraus published the first of his aphorisms in Die Fackel; they were collected in 1909 in the book Sprüche und Widersprüche (Sayings and Gainsayings).

In addition to his writings, Kraus gave numerous highly influential public readings during his career, put on approximately 700 one-man performances between 1892 and 1936 in which he read from the dramas of Bertolt Brecht, Gerhart Hauptmann, Johann Nestroy, Goethe, and Shakespeare, and also performed Offenbach's operettas, accompanied by piano and singing all the roles himself. Elias Canetti, who regularly attended Kraus's lectures, titled the second volume of his autobiography "Die Fackel" im Ohr ("The Torch" in the Ear) in reference to the magazine and its author. At the peak of his popularity, Kraus's lectures attracted four thousand people, and his magazine sold forty thousand copies.

In 1904, Kraus supported Frank Wedekind to make possible the staging in Vienna of his controversial play Pandora's Box; the play told the story of a sexually enticing young dancer who rises in German society through her relationships with wealthy men but later falls into poverty and prostitution. These plays' frank depiction of sexuality and violence, including lesbianism and an encounter with Jack the Ripper, pushed against the boundaries of what was considered acceptable on the stage at the time. Wedekind's works are considered among the precursors of expressionism, but in 1914, when expressionist poets like Richard Dehmel began producing war propaganda, Kraus became a fierce critic of them.

In 1907, Kraus attacked his erstwhile benefactor Maximilian Harden because of his role in the Eulenburg trial in the first of his spectacular Erledigungen (Dispatches).

1910–1919
After 1911, Kraus was the sole author of most issues of Die Fackel.

One of Kraus's most influential satirical-literary techniques was his clever wordplay with quotations. One controversy arose with the text Die Orgie, which exposed how the newspaper Neue Freie Presse was blatantly supporting Austria's Liberal Party's election campaign; the text was conceived as a guerrilla prank and sent as a fake letter to the newspaper (Die Fackel would publish it later in 1911); the enraged editor, who fell for the trick, responded by suing Kraus for "disturbing the serious business of politicians and editors".

After an obituary for Franz Ferdinand, who had been assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, Die Fackel was not published for many months. In December 1914, it appeared again with an essay "In dieser großen Zeit" ("In this grand time"): "In dieser großen Zeit, die ich noch gekannt habe, wie sie so klein war; die wieder klein werden wird, wenn ihr dazu noch Zeit bleibt; … in dieser lauten Zeit, die da dröhnt von der schauerlichen Symphonie der Taten, die Berichte hervorbringen, und der Berichte, welche Taten verschulden: in dieser da mögen Sie von mir kein eigenes Wort erwarten." ("In this grand time, which I used to know when it was this small; which will become small again if there is time; … in this loud time that resounds from the ghastly symphony of deeds that spawn reports, and of reports that cause deeds: in this one, you may not expect a word of my own.") In the subsequent time, Kraus wrote against the World War, and censors repeatedly confiscated or obstructed editions of Die Fackel.

Kraus's masterpiece is generally considered to be the massive satirical play about the First World War, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind), which combines dialogue from contemporary documents with apocalyptic fantasy and commentary by two characters called "the Grumbler" and "the Optimist". Kraus began to write the play in 1915 and first published it as a series of special Fackel issues in 1919. Its epilogue, "Die letzte Nacht" ("The last night") had already been published in 1918 as a special issue. Edward Timms has called the work a "faulted masterpiece" and a "fissured text" because the evolution of Kraus's attitude during the time of its composition (from aristocratic conservative to democratic republican) gave the text structural inconsistencies resembling a geological fault.

Also in 1919, Kraus published his collected war texts under the title Weltgericht (World Court of Justice). In 1920, he published the satire Literatur oder man wird doch da sehn (Literature, or You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet) as a reply to Franz Werfel's Spiegelmensch (Mirror Man), an attack against Kraus.

1920–1936
During January 1924, Kraus started a fight against Imre Békessy, publisher of the tabloid Die Stunde (The Hour), accusing him of extorting money from restaurant owners by threatening them with bad reviews unless they paid him. Békessy retaliated with a libel campaign against Kraus, who in turn launched an Erledigung with the catchphrase "Hinaus aus Wien mit dem Schuft!" ("Throw the scoundrel out of Vienna!"). In 1926, Békessy indeed fled Vienna to avoid arrest. Békessy achieved some later success when his novel Barabbas was the monthly selection of an American book club.

A peak in Kraus's political commitment was his sensational attack in 1927 on the powerful Vienna police chief Johann Schober, also a former two-term chancellor, after 89 rioters were shot dead by the police during the 1927 July Revolt. Kraus produced a poster that in a single sentence requested Schober's resignation; the poster was published all over Vienna and is considered an icon of 20th-century Austrian history.

In 1928, the play Die Unüberwindlichen (The Insurmountables) was published. It included allusions to the fights against Békessy and Schober. During that same year, Kraus also published the records of a lawsuit Kerr had filed against him after Kraus had published Kerr's war poems in Die Fackel (Kerr, having become a pacifist, did not want his earlier enthusiasm for the war exposed). In 1932, Kraus translated Shakespeare's sonnets.

Kraus supported the Social Democratic Party of Austria from at least the early 1920s, but in 1934, hoping Engelbert Dollfuss could prevent Nazism from engulfing Austria, he supported Dollfuss's coup d'état, which established the Austrian fascist regime. This support estranged Kraus from some of his followers.

In 1933 Kraus wrote Die Dritte Walpurgisnacht (The Third Walpurgis Night), of which the first fragments appeared in Die Fackel. Kraus withheld full publication in part to protect his friends and followers hostile to Hitler who still lived in the Third Reich from Nazi reprisals, and in part because "violence is no subject for polemic." This satire on Nazi ideology begins with the now-famous sentence, "Mir fällt zu Hitler nichts ein" ("Hitler brings nothing to my mind"). Lengthy extracts appear in Kraus's apologia for his silence at Hitler's coming to power, "Warum die Fackel nicht erscheint" ("Why Die Fackel is not published"), a 315-page edition of the periodical. The last issue of Die Fackel appeared in February 1936. Shortly after, he fell in a collision with a bicyclist and suffered intense headaches and loss of memory. He gave his last lecture in April, and had a severe heart attack in the Café Imperial on 10 June. He died in his apartment in Vienna on 12 June 1936, and was buried in the Zentralfriedhof cemetery in Vienna.

Kraus never married, but from 1913 until his death he had a conflict-prone but close relationship with the Baroness Sidonie Nádherná von Borutín (1885–1950). Many of his works were written in Janowitz castle, Nádherný family property. Sidonie Nádherná became an important pen pal to Kraus and addressee of his books and poems.

In 1911 Kraus was baptized as a Catholic, but in 1923, disillusioned by the Church's support for the war, he left the Catholic Church, claiming sarcastically that he was motivated "primarily by antisemitism", i.e. indignation at Max Reinhardt's use of the Kollegienkirche in Salzburg as the venue for a theatrical performance.

Kraus was the subject of two books by Thomas Szasz, Karl Kraus and the Soul Doctors and Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry, which portray Kraus as a harsh critic of Sigmund Freud and of psychoanalysis in general. Other commentators, such as Edward Timms, have argued that Kraus respected Freud, though with reservations about the application of some of his theories, and that his views were far less black-and-white than Szasz suggests.

Character
Karl Kraus was a subject of controversy throughout his lifetime. Marcel Reich-Ranicki called him 'vain, self-righteous and self-important'. Kraus's followers saw in him an infallible authority who would do anything to help those he supported. Kraus considered posterity his ultimate audience, and reprinted Die Fackel in volume form years after it was first published.

A concern with language was central to Kraus's outlook, and he viewed his contemporaries' careless use of language as symptomatic of their insouciant treatment of the world. Viennese composer Ernst Krenek described meeting the writer in 1932: "At a time when people were generally decrying the Japanese bombardment of Shanghai, I met Karl Kraus struggling over one of his famous comma problems. He said something like: 'I know that everything is futile when the house is burning. But I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for if those who were supposed to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place, Shanghai would not be burning'."

The Austrian author Stefan Zweig once called Kraus "the master of venomous ridicule" (der Meister des giftigen Spotts). Up to 1930, Kraus directed his satirical writings to figures of the center and the left of the political spectrum, as he considered the flaws of the right too self-evident to be worthy of his comment. Later, his responses to the Nazis included The Third Walpurgis Night.

To the numerous enemies he made with the inflexibility and intensity of his partisanship, however, he was a bitter misanthrope and poor would-be (Alfred Kerr). He was accused of wallowing in hateful denunciations and Erledigungen [breakings-off]. Along with Karl Valentin, he is considered a master of gallows humor.

Giorgio Agamben compared Guy Debord and Kraus for their criticism of journalists and media culture.

Gregor von Rezzori wrote of Kraus, "[His] life stands as an example of moral uprightness and courage which should be put before anyone who writes, in no matter what language... I had the privilege of listening to his conversation and watching his face, lit up by the pale fire of his fanatic love for the miracle of the German language and by his holy hatred for those who used it badly."

Kraus's work has been described as the culmination of a literary outlook. Critic Frank Field quoted the words Bertolt Brecht wrote of Kraus, on hearing of his death: "As the epoch raised its hand to end its own life, he was the hand."

Selected works

 * Die demolierte Literatur [Demolished Literature] (1897)
 * Eine Krone für Zion [A Crown for Zion] (1898)
 * Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität [Morality and Criminal Justice] (1908)
 * Sprüche und Widersprüche [Sayings and Contradictions] (1909)
 * Die chinesische Mauer [The Wall of China] (1910)
 * Pro domo et mundo [For Home and for the World] (1912)
 * Nestroy und die Nachwelt [Nestroy and Posterity] (1913)
 * Worte in Versen (1916–30)
 * Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind) (1918)
 * Weltgericht [The Last Judgment] (1919)
 * Nachts [At Night] (1919)
 * Untergang der Welt durch schwarze Magie [The End of the World Through Black Magic] (1922)
 * Literatur (Literature) (1921)
 * Traumstück [Dream Piece] (1922)
 * Die letzten Tage der Menschheit: Tragödie in fünf Akten mit Vorspiel und Epilog [The Last Days of Mankind: Tragedy in Five Acts with Preamble and Epilogue] (1922)
 * Wolkenkuckucksheim [Cloud Cuckoo Land] (1923)
 * Traumtheater [Dream Theatre] (1924)
 * Epigramme [Epigrams] (1927)
 * Die Unüberwindlichen [The Insurmountables] (1928)
 * Literatur und Lüge [Literature and Lies] (1929)
 * Shakespeares Sonette (1933)
 * Die Sprache [Language] (posthumous, 1937)
 * Die dritte Walpurgisnacht [The Third Walpurgis Night] (posthumous, 1952)

Some works have been re-issued in recent years:

 * Die letzten Tage der Menschheit, Bühnenfassung des Autors, 1992 Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-22091-8
 * Die Sprache, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37817-1
 * Die chinesische Mauer, mit acht Illustrationen von Oskar Kokoschka, 1999, Insel, ISBN 3-458-19199-2
 * Aphorismen. Sprüche und Widersprüche. Pro domo et mundo. Nachts, 1986, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37818-X
 * Sittlichkeit und Krimininalität, 1987, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37811-2
 * Dramen. Literatur, Traumstück, Die unüberwindlichen u.a., 1989, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37821-X
 * Literatur und Lüge, 1999, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37813-9
 * Shakespeares Sonette, Nachdichtung, 1977, Diogenes, ISBN 3-257-20381-0
 * Theater der Dichtung mit Bearbeitungen von Shakespeare-Dramen, Suhrkamp 1994, ISBN 3-518-37825-2
 * Hüben und Drüben, 1993, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37828-7
 * Die Stunde des Gerichts, 1992, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37827-9
 * Untergang der Welt durch schwarze Magie, 1989, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37814-7
 * Brot und Lüge, 1991, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37826-0
 * Die Katastrophe der Phrasen, 1994, Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-37829-5

Works in English translation

 * No Compromise: Selected Writings of Karl Kraus (1977, ed. Frederick Ungar, includes poetry, prose, and aphorisms from Die Fackel as well as correspondences and excerpts from The Last Days of Mankind.)
 * In These Great Times: A Karl Kraus Reader (1984), ed. Harry Zohn, contains translated excerpts from Die Fackel, including poems with the original German text alongside, and a drastically abridged translation of The Last Days of Mankind.
 * Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus' Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry (1990) by Thomas Szasz contains Szasz's translations of several of Kraus' articles and aphorisms on psychiatry and psychoanalysis.
 * Half Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths: selected aphorisms (1990) translated by Hary Zohn. Chicago ISBN 0-226-45268-9.
 * Dicta and Contradicta, tr. Jonathan McVity (2001), a collection of aphorisms.
 * The Last Days of Mankind (1999) a radio drama broadcast on BBC Three. Paul Scofield plays The Voice of God. Adapted and directed by Giles Havergal. The 3 episodes were broadcast from 6 to 13 December 1999.
 * Work in progress. An incomplete and extensively annotated English translation by Michael Russell of The Last Days of Mankind is available at http://www.thelastdaysofmankind.org. It consists currently of Prologue, Act I, Act II and the Epilogue, slightly more than 50 percent of the original text. This is part of a project to translate a complete performable text with a focus on performable English that in some (modest) ways reflects Kraus's prose and verse in German, with an apparatus of footnotes explaining and illustrating Kraus's complex and dense references. The all-verse Epilogue is now published as a separate text, available from Amazon as a book and on Kindle. Also on this site will be a complete "working'" translation by Cordelia von Klot, provided as a tool for students and the only version of the whole play accessible online, translated into English with the useful perspective of a German speaker.
 * The Kraus Project: Essays by Karl Kraus (2013) translated by Jonathan Franzen, with commentary and additional footnotes by Paul Reitter and Daniel Kehlmann.
 * In These Great Times and Other Writings (2014, translated with notes by Patrick Healy, ebook only from November Editions. Collection of eleven essays, aphorisms, and the prologue and first act of The Last Days of Mankind)
 * www.abitofpitch.com is dedicated to publishing selected writings of Karl Kraus in English translation with new translations appearing in irregular intervals.
 * The Last Days of Mankind (2015), complete text translated by Fred Bridgham and Edward Timms. Yale University Press.
 * The Last Days of Mankind (2016), alternate translation by Patrick Healy, November Editions
 * Third Walpurgis Night: the Complete Text (2020), translated by Fred Bridgham. Yale University Press.
 * Third Walpurgis Night: the Complete Text (2020), translated by Fred Bridgham. Yale University Press.

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

title: Karl Kraus (writer)


text:
Michelle Bauer

Michelle Bauer (born October 1, 1958) is an American actress, model, and B movie scream queen.

Early life
Bauer was born and raised in Simi Valley, California. She is of Mexican heritage on her mother's side and Czechoslovakian heritage on her father's side.

Career
Bauer was Penthouse magazine's Pet of the Month for July 1981 and also appeared in many other adult magazines during the early to mid 1980s, under a number of different names.

Bauer also starred in the pornographic film Café Flesh (1982) under the name of Pia Snow. She states that she was happy to appear in the film, and on the covers of other films with an X rating, but insisted on a double for the sex scenes. Bauer appeared in several other pornographic titles under her Pia Snow moniker, including Bad Girls (1981), Nightdreams (1981), and others.

Bauer's Penthouse centerfold appearance led to acting for the Playboy Channel and a film try-out for director Fred Olen Ray. Ray liked her audition, and offered her the part if she would be willing to dye her hair black. Her first B movie was The Tomb (1986), it would be the first of many. Along with Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens, Bauer became one of the most prominent B movie scream queens in the late 1980s. In addition to multiple films for Ray, she has worked with cult directors David DeCoteau, Jesús Franco and Zalman King and shared the screen with genre stars such as Sybil Danning, Monique Gabrielle, Julie Strain, Lina Romay, George Kennedy, David Carradine, Gunnar Hansen, Paul Naschy and Erik Estrada.

Her life and career are one of the main subjects of the 2011 documentary Screaming in High Heels: The Rise and Fall of the Scream Queen Era by director Jason Paul Collum. She returned for the 2020 follow-up Screaming in High Heels: The Reunion which again reunited her with Quigley and Stevens.

Personal life
Bauer retained her married name as a screen name. After she and her husband divorced, he filed a lawsuit requesting she not use it for her films. She tried appearing as Michelle McClellan, using the name of her second husband, in Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988), but the press resisted, so she returned to Bauer, which the first husband eventually accepted.

Selected filmography

 * Bad Girls (1981)
 * Nightdreams (1981)
 * Café Flesh (1982)
 * Homework (1982)
 * Terror on Tape (1983)
 * Special Request (1984)
 * Tied & Tickled (1985)
 * Tomboy (1985)
 * Cavegirl (1985)
 * Beverly Hills Girls (1986)
 * Reform School Girls (1986)
 * The Tomb (1986)
 * Lust for Freedom (1987)
 * Night of the Living Babes (1987)
 * Terror Night (1987)
 * Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988)
 * Demonwarp (1988)
 * Nightmare Sisters (1988)
 * Death Row Diner (1988)
 * Lady Avenger (1988)
 * Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988)
 * Beverly Hills Vamp (1988)
 * Dr. Alien (1989)
 * Assault of the Party Nerds (1989)
 * The Phantom Empire (1989)
 * The Jigsaw Murders (1989)
 * Virgin High (1991)
 * Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991)
 * Camp Fear (1991)
 * Evil Toons (1992)
 * Naked Instinct (1993)
 * Dinosaur Island (1994)
 * Red Lips (1995)
 * Bikini Drive-In (1995)
 * Vampire Vixens from Venus (1995)
 * Assault of the Party Nerds Part 2: Heavy Petting Detective (1995)
 * Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold (1995)
 * Witch Academy (1995)
 * Mari-Cookie and the Killer Tarantula in 8 Legs to Love You (1998)
 * Lust for Frankenstein (1998)
 * Blood and Honor (2000)
 * Tomb of the Werewolf (2004)
 * The Naked Monster (2005)
 * The Bikini Escort Company (2006)
 * Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust (2008)
 * Voodoo Dollz (2008)
 * Megaconda (2010)
 * 1313: Actor Slash Model (2011)
 * 1313: Cougar Cult (2012)
 * 1313: Bermuda Triangle (2012)
 * The Trouble With Barry (2013)
 * 3 Scream Queens (2014)
 * Mark of the Devil 777: The Moralist, Part 2 (2022)
 * Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 2 (2022)

title: Michelle Bauer


text:
Adamantios Korais

Adamantios Korais or Koraïs (Ἀδαμάντιος Κοραῆς ; Adamantius Coraes; Adamance Coray; 27 April 1748 – 6 April 1833) was a Greek scholar credited with laying the foundations of modern Greek literature and a major figure in the Greek Enlightenment. His activities paved the way for the Greek War of Independence and the emergence of a purified form of the Greek language, known as Katharevousa. Encyclopædia Britannica asserts that "his influence on the modern Greek language and culture has been compared to that of Dante on Italian and Martin Luther on German".

Life and views
Korais was born in Smyrna, in 1748. His father Ioannis, of Chian descent, was demogérontas in Smyrna; a seat similar to the prokritoi of mainland Greece, but elected by the Greek community of the town and not imposed by the Ottomans.

He was exceptionally passionate about philosophy, literacy and linguistics and studied greatly throughout his youth. He initially studied in his hometown, Smyrna, where he graduated from the Evangelical Greek School.

After his school years, he lived for a while in Amsterdam as a merchant, but soon he decided that he wanted to study in a university. He studied also the Hebrew, Dutch, French and English languages, apart from his knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin.

Korais studied at the school of medicine of the University of Montpellier from 1782 to 1787. His 1786 diploma thesis was entitled Pyretologiae Synopsis, while his 1787 doctoral thesis was entitled Medicus Hippocraticus.

He traveled to Paris where he would continue his enthusiasm for knowledge. There he decided to translate ancient Greek authors and produced thirty volumes of those translations, being one of the first modern Greek philologists and publishers of ancient Greek literature.

After 1788 he was to spend most of his life as an expatriate in Paris. As classical scholar, Korais was repelled by the Byzantine influence on Greek society and was a fierce critic of the lack of education amongst the clergy and their subservience to the Ottoman Empire, although he conceded it was the Orthodox Church that preserved the national identity of Greeks.

Korais believed Western Europe was the heir of the ancient Greek civilization, which had to be transmitted to the modern Greeks through education. Additionally, he advocated the restoration and use of the term "Hellene" (Έλληνας) or "Graikos" (Γραικός) as an ethnonym for the Greeks, in the place of Romiós, that was seen negatively by him.

While in Paris, he was witness to the French Revolution. He was influenced by the revolutionary and liberal sentiments of his age. He admired Thomas Jefferson; and exchanged political and philosophical thoughts with the American statesman. A typical man of the Enlightenment, Korais encouraged wealthy Greeks to open new libraries and schools throughout Greece. Korais believed that education would ensure not only the achievement of independence but also the establishment of a proper constitution for the new liberated Greek state. He envisioned a democratic Greece, recapturing the glory of the Golden Age of Pericles.

Korais died in Paris aged 84 soon after publishing the first volume of his autobiography. In 1877, his remains were sent to Greece, to be buried there.

Publications

Korais's most lasting contributions were literary. Those who were instrumental in publishing, and presenting his work to the public were merchants from Chios. He felt eternally grateful to these merchants, since without them, it would have been financially impossible for him to publish his works. These works included Strabo in Greek, another on Marcus Aurelius, his translation of Herodotus, the translation of the Iliad, and his main literary work, the seventeen volumes of the "Library of Greek Literature".

His political writing begins with the publication at the opening of the nineteenth century of Asma Polemistirion ("War Chant") and Salpisma Polemistirion ("Military Bugal Call"), celebrating the presence of Greek troops fighting alongside the French in Egypt. Earlier he had confronted with his Adelphiki Didaskalia the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem for urging the Sultan's Christian subjects (with the religious brochure Patriki Didaskalia) to support the Ottomans in the war against the "atheistic" French. On contrary, he made a call to the Greeks to fight beside the French, "who have the military virtue of the ancient Greeks", against the Ottoman tyranny.

Korais went on to publish in 1803 his Report on the Present State of Civilization in Greece, based on a series of lectures he had given in Paris, extolling the link between the rise of a new Greek mercantile class and the advance of the Greek Enlightenment or Diafotismos. In What should we Greeks do in the Present Circumstances?, a work of 1805, he tried to win his compatriots over to Napoleon and away from the cause of their Russian co-religionists. In later years, though, his enthusiasm for the French Emperor diminished, and he ended by referring to him as the 'tyrant of tyrants.'

Away from contemporary politics, Korais did much to revive the idea of Greece with the creation of the Hellenic Library, devoted to new editions of some of the classic texts, starting with Homer in 1805. Over the following twenty years many others appeared, with lengthy prefaces by Korais entitled 'Impromptu Reflections', with his views on political, educational and linguistic matters. Although the broad mass of the Greek people was beyond his reach, he played an important part in the shaping of a new consciousness among the intelligentsia, which was to play a part in the creation of a new national movement.

With the breakout of the Greek revolution in 1821, he was too old to join the struggle. However his house in Paris became a centre for informations, meetings among the Parisian Greeks and financial aid. He wrote also many letters advising the revolutionaries. Initially a supporter of Kapodistrias, finally he opposed his policies.

On religion
Korais was a Greek Orthodox but also a critic of many practices of the Orthodox church. He was a fierce critic of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, considering it a useful tool in the hands of the Ottomans against the Greek independence. So, later, he was one of the supporters of the new established Church of Greece.

He was also critic of the monasticism, the lack of education in the clergy, and practices like that of the "Holy Fire". He was a supporter of religious freedom, empiricism, rationalism and tolerance. He set himself in opposition to some metaphysical ideals of Greek custom and sought to mould Greek Orthodoxy towards a more syncretic religious basis, in order to bring it under the auspices of liberal thought and government.

On Greek language

One of his most significant accomplishments was his contribution to the standardisation of the modern Greek language. During his lifetime, the Greeks were widely dispersed around the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, and the language they spoke contained many foreign elements, depending on the region and local traditions. Korais proposed a standard language purged of many such foreign elements (especially Turkish, but also Western words and phrases). Moreover, there was a variety of idioms spoken by Greeks in everyday life and no common agreement on which dialect should serve as the basis for Standard Modern Greek. Finally, people involved in the Greek language question were also divided between "archaists" and proponents of a simpler standard language.

Korais's solution was to take a middle path regarding all these issues. He cleansed his proposed standard language from elements that he considered too foreign or too vulgar. Moreover, he proposed the creation of a "katharevousa" (a "purified" version of modern Greek), based on the ecclesiastical language used by the Greek Orthodox Church, close to the Koine Greek. This standard was eventually adopted by scholars and the Greek state.

Influence on the Greek constitutional and legal system

Unknown to most, Korais held passionate views on how the legal system should function in a democracy (views which of course, were greatly influenced by the French Enlightenment, closer to Montesquieu than to Rousseau) and managed to have a great, albeit indirect, impact on the Constitutions of the Greek Revolution, but also, primarily, on the Constitution or Syntagma created after the end of the Greek Revolution. This element holds significant importance if one takes into consideration the fact that these meta-Revolution Constitutions still, to the present day, form the basis of the Greek Constitution and the philosophy on which the guiding principles of the Greek legal and judicial system are rooted in.

This influence Korais exercised on Greek Law, was due to a personal relationship the intellectual formed with another Greek intellectual, the legal scholar of international repute N. I. Saripolos, who, after the Greek Revolution, became the founding father of Greek Law and the "author" of the Greek Constitution. Proof of this relationship and of the strong and progressive views Korais held on how the legal system of the new Greek state should be formed, is based on correspondence exchanged between the two men, during a long period of time, beginning before the Greek Revolution. These letters which manifest the influence the older intellectual (Korais) had on the then aspiring lawmaker Saripolos, are in the possession of the archives of the Greek National Library, were discovered and brought to academic light, in 1996, by a Law School student, researching a project sponsored by the Faculty of Law of the University of Athens and the National Academy for Constitutional Research and Public Law (adjacent to the University of Athens). The ensuing thesis was published.

Legacy
Korais was declared Pater Patriae ("Pateras tis Patridos") by the revolutionaries at the Third National Assembly at Troezen. Korais' portrait was depicted on the reverse of the Greek ₯100 banknote of 1978–2001. Many streets all over Greece are named after him, while his archive can be found in Korais Library in Chios (town). "Korais" is also the name of a vessel of Zante Ferries.

title: Adamantios Korais


text:
Mark Shainblum

Mark Shainblum (born 1963 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian writer who now lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Though he has worked as a journalist and editor, Shainblum is best known as a science fiction and comic book writer.

Early life
In the early 1980s, Shainblum published two issues of a comics and science fiction fanzine called Orion: The Canadian Magazine of Time and Space, and later founded Matrix Graphic Series (later known as Matrix Comics), one of only a handful of independent comic book publishers in Canada at the time.

Career
His published works include:

 * Northguard, a post-modern Canadian superhero, created in the 1980s with illustrator Gabriel Morrissette. Though Northguard was published as an independent comic book series and didn't achieve the notoriety of better-known Canadian superheroes like Richard Comely's Captain Canuck or Marvel Comics' Alpha Flight, it was well received by critics and a core following of fans. The Quebec superheroine Fleur-de-Lys, a supporting character from the series, even made her way to a Canadian postage stamp in 1995.
 * Angloman, co-created with Gabriel Morrissette. A humorous parody of politics in Shainblum's native province of Quebec, Angloman was first published in book form and then made the leap to two Montreal newspapers, the alternative newsweekly Montreal Mirror and the mass-circulation daily Montreal Gazette.

With John Dupuis, Shainblum afor lso co-edited the 1998 short story collection Arrowdreams: An Anthology of Alternate Canadas, which garnered a Prix Aurora Award for Canadian science fiction in 1999. Shainblum was also a finalist in the 2001 international Mark Twain Writing Competition and recently published a story in Claude Lalumière's anthology Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantastic from Véhicule Press. In 2002–03, he served as president of SF Canada, Canada's national association of science fiction and fantasy authors. In 2017, he was nominated for the 2017 Aurora Awards for "Best Related Work" for "Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen." He co-authored this book with Claude Lalumière.

Current projects
Shainblum is collaborating on two webcomics projects: with artist Sandy Carruthers on a super-hero genre webcomic project entitled Canadiana, and on a mystery serial, The Haunting of MacGrath with artist Jeff Alward. He also works as a communications and media relations professional.

title: Mark Shainblum


text:
Otto Graham

Otto Everett Graham Jr. (December 6, 1921 – December 17, 2003) was an American professional football quarterback who played for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons. Graham is regarded by critics as one of the most dominant players of his era and one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, having taken the Browns to league championship games every year between 1946 and 1955, making ten championship appearances, and winning seven of them. With Graham at quarterback, the Browns posted a record of 105 wins, 17 losses, and 4 ties, including a 9–3 win–loss record in the AAFC and NFL playoffs. He holds the NFL record for career average yards gained per pass attempt, with 8.63. He also holds the record for the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback, at 81.0%. Long-time New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, a friend of Graham's, once called him "as great of a quarterback as there ever was."

Graham grew up in Waukegan, Illinois, the son of music teachers. He entered Northwestern University in 1940 on a basketball scholarship, but football soon became his main sport. After a brief stint in the military at the end of World War II, Graham played for the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League (NBL), winning the 1945–46 championship. Paul Brown, Cleveland's coach, signed Graham to play for the Browns, where he thrived. Graham's 1946 NBL and AAFC titles made him the first of only two people to have won championships in two of the four major North American sports (the second was Gene Conley). After he retired from playing football in 1955, Graham coached college teams in the College All-Star Game and became head football coach for the Coast Guard Bears at the United States Coast Guard Academy. After seven years there, he was hired as head coach of the Washington Redskins in 1966. Following three unsuccessful years with them, he resigned and returned to the Coast Guard Academy, where he served as athletic director until his retirement in 1984. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965.

Early life and college career
Born into a family of four boys in Waukegan, Illinois, Graham set a first state record at birth weighing 14 lbs 12 oz. Graham's first interest growing up was music; both parents were music teachers. Encouraged by his parents—his father having taught famous comedian Jack Benny— he took up several instruments: the piano, violin, cornet and French horn. Graham also excelled in athletics, and attended Northwestern University on a basketball scholarship in 1940. There he played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman and continued to study music. Graham did not take up football until his sophomore year, when Northwestern coach Pappy Waldorf saw him throwing in an intramural game and invited him to practice with the team. Northwestern's coaches were impressed with his running and passing, and Waldorf convinced him to sign up. Although football became Graham's primary sport, he also played baseball and continued on the basketball team. As a senior, he was named a first-team basketball All-American.

He was a member of Alpha Delta Phi social fraternity (formerly The Wranglers).

Graham's first game for the Northwestern Wildcats football team was on October 4, 1941, when he caught a Kansas State punt and returned it 90 yards for a touchdown. He ran and passed for two more touchdowns in the 51–3 victory. After scoring another pair of touchdowns in a win against Wisconsin, Graham passed to his wide receivers for two touchdowns in a victory over the Ohio State Buckeyes, coached by Paul Brown, the Buckeyes' only loss of the 1941 season. Northwestern ended the year with an 11th-place showing in the Associated Press Poll.

As America's involvement in World War II intensified after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Graham signed up for service alongside many fellow student-athletes, entering the U.S. Coast Guard. He was able to stay at Northwestern as he waited to be called for active duty. The Wildcats struggled in 1942 as their players joined the war effort, winning only one game. Graham still had 89 completions, setting a single-season passing record in the Big Ten Conference, a division of major college teams from the Midwestern United States.

The following year, Military Enlistees from other schools enrolled at Northwestern, where the U.S. Navy had a training station. The 1943 season was a strong one for Northwestern. The team beat Ohio State, the defending national champions, and a good military team at Great Lakes Naval Station. The Wildcats lost to Notre Dame and Michigan, however, and finished the season with an 8–2 record and a ninth-place ranking in the AP Poll. Graham set another Big Ten passing record, was named the conference's Most Valuable Player, received All-American honors and finished third in Heisman Trophy voting. By the end of his college career, he held a Big Ten Conference record for passing yards with 2,132.

Graham's career at Northwestern officially ended in February 1944, when he moved to Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, in the Navy's V-5 cadet program, a pilot training course. He played basketball for Colgate before moving to North Carolina Pre-Flight later in 1944, where he played on the Cloudbusters football team under coaches Glenn Killinger and Bear Bryant.

Impressed by Graham's performances in Northwestern's wins over Ohio State in 1941 and 1943, Paul Brown came and offered him a contract worth $7,500 per year ($0 in dollars) in 1945 to play for a professional team he would be coaching in Cleveland in the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Graham would not receive his salary until he started playing, however, and Brown added a monthly stipend of $250 ($0 in ) until the end of the war. It was a large amount of money at the time. "All I asked was, where do I sign?" Graham said later. "Some of the other navy men said I was rooting for the war to last forever." Graham was also drafted by the National Football League's Detroit Lions, but he did not sign a contract or play a game with the team as the war wore on.

Large numbers of athletes came home as the conflict wound down in Europe following Germany's surrender in mid-1945. The AAFC's first season was not set to start until the fall of 1946, and Graham occupied the intervening months by joining the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League (NBL), a forerunner of the National Basketball Association. In March 1946, the Royals swept a best-of-five series against the Sheboygan Red Skins to win the NBL title.

Cleveland Browns in the AAFC (1946–1949)
By the time Graham was discharged from the Navy late in the summer of 1946, training camp for Brown's new team, the Cleveland Browns, had already begun. Concerned that Graham was not ready to start, Brown put in Cliff Lewis at quarterback in the first game of the season. Graham, however, soon replaced Lewis in Brown's T formation offense. Handing the ball to fullback Marion Motley and throwing to ends Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie, Graham led the team to a 12–2 regular-season record and a spot in the championship game against the AAFC's New York Yankees. The Browns won that game, touching off a period of dominance. The team won each of the AAFC's four championships between 1946 and 1949, and had professional football's second perfect season in 1948 by finishing undefeated and untied. By doing this the Browns became pro football's first undefeated championship team. Between 1947 and 1949 the Browns played 29 consecutive games without a defeat.

Graham's play was crucial to Cleveland's success. He averaged 10.5 yards per pass and had a quarterback rating of 112.1 in 1946, a professional football record until Joe Montana surpassed it in 1989. Graham was named the AAFC's Most Valuable Player in 1947 and shared the Most Valuable Player award with Frankie Albert of the San Francisco 49ers in 1948. He led the league in passing yards between 1947 and 1949. The AAFC dissolved after the 1949 season, and three of its teams, including the Browns, merged into the more established National Football League. Graham was the AAFC's all-time leading passer, throwing for 10,085 yards and 86 touchdowns.

Graham became the Browns' uncontested leader, but he was also "just one of the guys", tackle Mike McCormack said in 1999. "He was not aloof, which you see a lot of times today." He was good at spinning and moving in the pocket, skills he learned playing basketball. In his autobiography, Paul Brown praised Graham's ability to anticipate his receivers' route-running by watching their shoulders. "I remember his tremendous peripheral vision and his great athletic skill, as well as his ability to throw a football far and accurately with just a flick of his arm", Brown said. His short passes were hard and accurate, teammates later said, and his long balls were soft. "I used to catch a lot of them one-handed", Lavelli said. "He had great touch in his hands." He was nicknamed "Automatic Otto" for his consistency and toughness.

Cleveland Browns in the NFL (1950–1955)
With Graham at the helm, the Browns continued to succeed when they joined the NFL in 1950. Graham was voted the United Press NFL Player of the Year and led the Browns to a 10–2 record, which set up a playoff against the New York Giants for a spot in the championship game. The Browns' only two losses of the season had come against the Giants, but in a frozen Cleveland Stadium on December 17, Cleveland beat New York. With the game tied 3–3 in the fourth quarter, Graham gained 45 yards by running with the ball on a long drive to set up a 28-yard Lou Groza field goal that put the Browns ahead 6–3. A safety after the ensuing kickoff made the final score 8–3.

The win put Cleveland in the NFL championship game against the Los Angeles Rams. Graham's rushing and passing were again key to the Browns' 30–28 victory. He drove the offense downfield as time expired to set up a last-minute Groza field goal that sealed the win. Graham had 99 yards rushing in the game, adding 298 yards of passing and four touchdowns.

Cleveland posted an 11–1 record in 1951, losing their only game to the San Francisco 49ers in the season opener. That gave the Browns another spot in the championship game, again against the Rams. This time, however, the Rams won 24–17. Graham fumbled the ball in the third quarter, setting up a touchdown that put the Rams ahead 14–10. Three of his throws were intercepted, but he put up 280 yards of passing and a touchdown. After the season, Graham was named the league's Most Valuable Player.

With Graham at quarterback, Cleveland finished the 1952 season with a 9–3 record and faced the Detroit Lions in the NFL championship game. Despite gaining 384 total yards to Detroit's 258, Graham, who was the NFL Player of the Year, and the Browns lost their second straight championship, 17–7. Cleveland had several long drives that ended with missed field goals, and a fourth-quarter touchdown was negated because Graham's throw to Pete Brewster was first tipped by receiver Ray Renfro; under rules in place at the time, balls deflected by offensive teammates were automatic incompletions. After the season, as Graham was practicing for the Pro Bowl in Los Angeles on January 2, 1953, his six-week-old son Stephen died from a severe cold.

The 1953 season began with a 27–0 win over the Green Bay Packers in which Graham passed for 292 yards and ran for two touchdowns. It was the first of 11 straight victories for the Browns, whose only loss came in the final game of the season to the Philadelphia Eagles. Near the end of the season in a game against the 49ers, Graham took a forearm to the face from Art Michalik that opened a gash on his chin requiring 15 stitches. Graham's helmet was fitted with a clear plastic face mask, and he came back into the game; the injury helped inspire the development of the modern face mask. Despite an 11–1 record, Cleveland lost in the championship game for the third year in a row, falling to the Detroit Lions 17–16. Two of Graham's passes were intercepted. He said after the game that he wanted to "jump off a building" for letting his teammates down. "I was the main factor in losing", he said. "If I had played my usual game, we would have won." Still, Graham finished the season as the NFL's leading passer and again won the Most Valuable Player award.

Before the start of the Browns' 1954 training camp, Graham was questioned as part of the Sam Sheppard murder case. Sheppard, an osteopath, was accused of bludgeoning his pregnant wife to death, and Graham and his wife, Beverly, were friends with the couple. Graham told police that while he and Beverly liked the Sheppards, they did not know much about their relationship.

The 1954 season was a transitional one for the Browns. Many of the players who joined the 1946 team had retired or were nearing the end of their careers. Graham, meanwhile, told Brown that he would retire after the season. After losing the first three games, Cleveland won eight in a row and earned another shot at the championship, again against the Lions. This time, the Browns won 56–10 as Graham ran for three touchdowns and passed for three more. He announced his retirement after the game. After Graham's potential replacements struggled during the 1955 training camp and preseason, Brown convinced Graham to come back and play one more year. He was offered a salary of $25,000 ($0 today), making him the highest-paid player in the NFL. The Browns lost the opener against the Washington Redskins, but went on to a 9–2–1 regular-season record and another chance at a championship. Graham threw two touchdowns and ran for two more as the Browns beat the Rams 38–14. When Brown took Graham out of the game in the fourth quarter, the crowd in the Los Angeles Coliseum gave him a standing ovation. It was the final performance of a 10-year career in which Graham's team reached the championship each year and won seven. "Nothing would induce me to come back", he said later. He was the NFL's passing leader and Most Valuable Player in 1955. He also won the Hickok Belt, awarded to the best professional athlete of the year. Without Graham, the Browns floundered the following year and posted a 5–7 record, their first losing season.

Graham and head coach Paul Brown created the modern T-formation quarterback position and the modern pro offense. Graham led his league in every major passing category each in multiple seasons and finished his career with a career all-time pro record Yds/Att of 9.0. Until 2016, he held the record for career rushing touchdowns by a pro quarterback with 44. The Browns' record with Graham as starting quarterback was 57–13–1, including a 9–3 record in the playoffs. He still holds the NFL career record for yards per pass attempt, averaging 8.63. He also holds the record for the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback, with 0.810. Graham was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965. Having won seven championships in 10 seasons and reached the championship game in every year he played, Graham is regarded by sportswriters as one of the greatest winners of all time and one of the best professional quarterbacks to play the game. He never missed a game in his career.

Graham wore number 60 for much of his career, but he was forced to change it to 14 in 1952 after the NFL passed a rule requiring offensive linemen to wear jersey numbers 50–79 so referees could more easily identify ineligible receivers. The Browns retired his number 14, while 60 remains in circulation. While at Northwestern, Graham wore number 48.

Coaching career
When Graham retired from football, he planned to focus on managing the insurance and appliance businesses he owned. However, in 1957 Graham signed on as an assistant coach for the college squad in the annual College All-Star Game, an exhibition contest no longer played between the NFL champion and a selection of the best collegiate players from around the country. The next year, he was named head coach of the team. With Graham coaching the all-stars in 1958, the team beat the Detroit Lions 35–19.

Coast Guard Academy
Following his convincing win in the all-star game, Graham's friend George Steinbrenner helped get him a job as the head football coach for the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. Graham, by then 37 years old, was also named athletic director and given a salary "in five figures". School officials said the hiring did not mean Coast Guard would "go big time"; the Division III school played a relatively short schedule at the time against smaller schools in New England. The Coast Guard team had a 3–5 record in Graham's first year as coach in 1959, but improved steadily over the ensuing three years. The team went undefeated in 1963, earning the academy its first-ever post-season bowl appearance. Coast Guard lost to Western Kentucky 27–0 in the Tangerine Bowl. Graham continued to coach in the College All-Star Game while at Coast Guard, and his college team beat Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers in a 20–17 upset in 1963. Graham was offered coaching jobs in the NFL numerous times during his tenure at Coast Guard, but he said in 1964 that he was content to stay at the small school on a $9,000 salary. He said he deplored the "win at all costs philosophy" that was necessary to be successful in the professional ranks.

Washington Redskins
Despite his reservations about the professional game, Graham, who moonlighted as a television and radio commentator for the American Football League's New York Jets in 1964 and 1965, left the Coast Guard Academy after seven years in 1966 to become head coach and general manager of the NFL's Washington Redskins, Graham's three seasons (1966–1968) were similarly unsuccessful, with an overall record of 17–22–3. With a 7–7 record in 1966, the Redskins slipped to 5–6–3 in 1967. Calls for his firing in 1968 intensified as the team's performance worsened to 5–9; The Washington Daily News called for his firing in a front-page editorial in November. With two years remaining on a five-year contract (and an option for another five years), Graham was displaced by Vince Lombardi in early February 1969.

Return to Coast Guard Academy
After being dismissed as the Redskins' coach, Graham returned to the Coast Guard Academy as athletic director and said he planned to stay there until he retired. He coached the college team in the College All-Star Game in 1970 for his tenth and final time. The college stars lost for the seventh time in a row that year, falling 24–3 to the Kansas City Chiefs. He was replaced in 1971 by Blanton Collier, who had retired after succeeding Brown as Cleveland's head coach.

In 1974, Graham was named Coast Guard's football coach once again, although he resigned two years later to focus on his duties as athletic director. In nine years of coaching, Graham's Coast Guard teams had a combined record of 44–32–1. After eight more years as the school's athletic director, Graham retired in 1984.

Later life and death
An avid golfer and tennis player, Graham partnered with New York Yankees great Joe DiMaggio in numerous golf tournaments later in life. He retired to a house on a golf course in Florida. Graham overcame colon cancer in 1977, but was later plagued by heart ailments and other health problems. He was diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease in 2001, and died of a heart aneurysm in Sarasota, Florida, on December 17, 2003. He had two sons and a daughter with his wife Beverly. In 2013, Northwestern's fundraising department created the Otto Graham Society to honor his achievements at the school and support its athletics programs. In 2014, a new gymnasium at Waterford Country School was dedicated to Otto Graham's memory.

title: Otto Graham