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Destination Moon (film)

Destination Moon (a.k.a. Operation Moon) is a 1950 American Technicolor science fiction film, independently produced by George Pal and directed by Irving Pichel, that stars John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, and Dick Wesson. The film was distributed in the United States and the United Kingdom by Eagle-Lion Classics.

Destination Moon was the first major U.S. science fiction film to deal with the practical scientific and engineering challenges of space travel and to speculate on what a crewed expedition to the Moon would look like. Noted science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein contributed to the screenplay.

The film's premise is that private industry will mobilize, finance, and manufacture the first spacecraft to the Moon, and that the U.S. government will be forced to purchase or lease the technology to remain the dominant power in space. Different industrialists cooperate to support the private venture.

In the final scene, as the crew approaches the Earth, the traditional "The End" title card heralds the dawn of the coming Space Age: "This is THE END...of the Beginning".

Plot
When their latest rocket test fails and government funding collapses, rocket scientist Dr. Charles Cargraves and space enthusiast General Thayer enlist the aid of aircraft magnate Jim Barnes. With the necessary millions raised privately from a group of patriotic U.S. industrialists, Cargraves, Thayer, and Barnes build an advanced single-stage-to-orbit atomic powered spaceship, named Luna, at their desert manufacturing and launch facility.

The project is soon threatened by a ginned-up public uproar over "radiation safety" but the three circumvent legal efforts to stop their expedition by launching the world's first Moon mission ahead of schedule. As a result, they must quickly substitute Joe Sweeney as their expedition's radar and radio operator, a replacement for Brown, now in the hospital with appendicitis.

En route to the Moon they are forced to spacewalk outside. They stay firmly attached to Luna with their magnetic boots so they can easily walk up to and free the frozen piloting radar antenna that the inexperienced Sweeney innocently greased before launch. In the process, Cargraves becomes untethered in free fall and is lost overboard. He is retrieved by Barnes, who cleverly uses a large oxygen cylinder with nozzle, retrieved by General Thayer, as an improvised propulsion unit to return them to Luna.

After achieving lunar orbit, the crew begins the complex landing procedure, but expedition leader Barnes uses too much fuel during the descent. Safely on the Moon, they explore the lunar surface and describe by radio their view of the Earth, as contrasted against the star-filled lunar night sky. Using forced perspective, Barnes photographs Sweeney pretending to "hold up" the Earth like a modern Atlas. Events take a serious turn for the crew, however, when they realize that with their limited remaining fuel they must lighten Luna in order to achieve lunar escape velocity.

No matter how much non-critical equipment they strip and discard on the lunar surface, the hard numbers radioed from Earth continue to point to one conclusion: One of them will have to remain on the Moon if the others are to safely return to Earth. With time running out for their return launch window, the crew continues to engineer their way home. They finally jettison the ship's radio, losing contact with Earth. In addition, a spent oxygen cylinder is used as a tethered, suspended weight to pull their sole remaining space suit outside through the open airlock, which is then remotely closed and resealed. With the critical take-off weight finally achieved, and with all her crew safely aboard, Luna blasts off from the Moon for home.

Cast

 * John Archer as Jim Barnes
 * Warner Anderson as Dr. Charles Cargraves
 * Tom Powers as General Thayer
 * Dick Wesson as Joe Sweeney
 * Erin O'Brien-Moore as Emily Cargraves
 * Franklyn Farnum as Factory Worker (uncredited)
 * Everett Glass as Mr. La Porte (uncredited)
 * Knox Manning as Knox Manning (uncredited)
 * Kenner G. Kemp as Businessman at meeting (uncredited)
 * Mike Miller as Man (uncredited)
 * Irving Pichel as Narrator of Woody Woodpecker Cartoon (uncredited)
 * Cosmo Sardo as Businessman at Meeting (uncredited)
 * Bert Stevens as Businessman at meeting (uncredited)
 * Ted Warde as Brown (uncredited)
 * Grace Stafford as Woody Woodpecker (voice) (uncredited)
 * Mel Blanc as Woody Woodpecker's trademark laugh (uncredited)

Production
Before Destination Moon, there were very few serious science fiction films: 1929's Frau im Mond (English Woman in the Moon), 1931's Frankenstein, and 1936's Things to Come are antecedents (though containing fantasy elements). However, the more juvenile-oriented Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers stories of the 1930s syndicated science fiction newspaper comic strips that were both adapted into radio serials and Universal Pictures film serials.

George Pal was a Hungarian who made commercials that played as short subjects with feature films in Europe. He later advanced into animated cartoon-like short features that were made using carefully hand-manipulated tiny sculptures instead of drawings; these shorts were called “Puppetoons”, and they became popular in Europe. Pal was in the U.S. when Hitler invaded Poland. He was offered a contract to produce his Puppetoons for Paramount Pictures, some of which were later nominated for Academy Awards.

Development
By 1949, Pal wanted to get into feature film production. He convinced the independent Eagle-Lion Films to co-finance his own two-picture deal, with him putting up half of the money. Part of the finance came from Peter Rathvorn and Floyd Odlum, who used to run RKO. The first of the two films, The Great Rupert, about a Puppetoon-like dancing squirrel, starring popular comic Jimmy Durante, flopped at the box office. But his second feature, Destination Moon, was a major hit.

Eagle-Lion's publicity department saw the promotional possibilities for a film about a rocket expedition to the Moon. They promoted the film heavily in both general family magazines and in many science fiction digest magazines, emphasizing its Technicolor visuals and expert consultants. Destination Moon was constantly in the limelight of the era's popular press, including the high-profile Life magazine; by the time the film was shown in theaters, its success seemed a foregone conclusion.

Pal commissioned an initial screenplay from screenwriters James O'Hanlon and Rip Van Ronkel, but science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein contributed significantly to Destination Moon's final screenplay, and also served as the film's technical adviser. Certain story elements from Heinlein's 1947 juvenile novel Rocket Ship Galileo were adapted for use in the film, and in September, 1950, he published a tie-in novella, "Destination Moon", based on the screenplay. The film's storyline also resembles portions of Heinlein's novel The Man Who Sold the Moon, which he wrote in 1949 but did not publish until 1951, a year after the Pal film opened.

Matte paintings by Bonestell
Destination Moon uses matte paintings by noted astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell. These were used for the departure of the Luna from Earth; its approach to the Moon; the spaceship's landing on the lunar surface; and a panorama of the lunar landscape. An oft-noted criticism of the film is the fact that the lunar surface is crisscrossed with gaping cracks. Mudcracks would imply that the surface was once mud, which requires water, and the Moon does not have water. Bonestell, who painted the large backdrop that mimicked lunar crags and mountains, was unhappy with the cracks, which were designed by art director Ernst Fegté. “That was a mistake”, he insisted to Gail Morgan Hickman, author of The Films of George Pal. But Pal explained to Hickman, “Chesley was right, of course ... but we were shooting on a small sound stage because of our limited budget. We had to make the set look bigger. Chesley designed a beautiful backdrop, but it needed something to give it depth. That’s why we made the cracks. The cracks in the foreground were big and those in the distance were small, so it gave a real feeling of perspective. For some scenes we even used midgets in small spacesuits to add to the feeling of depth”.

Director
Irving Pichel began his Hollywood career as an actor during the 1920s and early 1930s, in such films as Dracula's Daughter and The Story of Temple Drake. He began directing in 1932; Destination Moon was his 30th film. Pichel was blacklisted after he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, despite having never been called to testify. He directed five more films after Destination Moon before his death in 1954.

Woody Woodpecker
George Pal and Walter Lantz, who created the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker, had been close friends ever since Pal left Europe and arrived in Hollywood. Out of friendship and for good luck, Pal always tried to include Woody in all his films. (On the commentary track of the Special Collector's DVD Edition of George Pal's science fiction film The War of the Worlds (1953), actors Ann Robinson and Gene Barry point out that Woody can be seen in a tree top, center screen, near the beginning of their film.)

Pal incorporates Woody (voiced by Grace Stafford) in a cartoon shown within the film that explains, in layman's terms to a 1950 movie theater audience, the scientific principles behind space travel and how a trip to the Moon might be accomplished. The cartoon is shown to a gathering of U.S. industrialists who, it is hoped, will patriotically finance such a daring venture before an unnamed, non-western power can do so successfully.

Production credits

 * Director — Irving Pichel
 * Producer — George Pal
 * Writing — Rip Van Ronkel, Robert A. Heinlein, and James O'Hanlon (screenplay), Robert A. Heinlein (underlying novel)
 * Cinematography — Lionel Lindon (photography)
 * Art direction — Ernst Fegté (production designer), George Sawley (set decoration)
 * Film editor — Duke Goldstone
 * Production supervisor — Martin Eisenberg
 * Cartoon sequences — Walter Lantz
 * Technicolor color consultant — Robert Brower
 * Assistant director — Harold Godsoe
 * Special effects — Lee Zavitz
 * Makeup artist — Webster Phillips
 * Sound — William Lynch
 * Music — Leith Stevens (music), David Torbett (orchestration)
 * Technical — Chesley Bonestell (technical advisor of astronomical art), Robert A. Heinlein (technical advisor), John S. Abbott (technical supervisor)

Soundtrack
The soundtrack music, written by composer Leith Stevens, is noteworthy for its atmospheric themes and musical motifs, all of which add subtle but important detail and emotion to the various dramatic moments in the film. According to George Pal biographer Gail Morgan Hickman, "Stevens ... consulted with numerous scientists, including Wernher von Braun, to get an idea of what space was like in order to create it musically." The Stevens Destination Moon film score had its first U.S. release in 1950 on a 10-inch 33 rpm Monaural LP by Columbia Records (#CL 6151):

Later in the 1950s, the score was re-released on a 12-inch high-fidelity mono LP by Omega Disk (#1003). Omega Disk re-released it in 1960 as a stereophonic 33 1/3 LP (#OLS-3). In 1980, the score was re-released on stereo LP by Varèse Sarabande (#STV 81130) and again in 1995 on stereo LP by Citadel Records (#STC 77101). An expanded and complete 56.32 minute version of Steven's original film score, limited to 1,000 copies, was released on CD in 2012 by Monstrous Movie Music (#MMM-1967); also on the CD is Clarence Wheeler's incidental music used for the film's Woody Woodpecker cartoon. An illustrated 20-page booklet of liner notes is also included.

Release
Despite a budget of approximately $500,000 and a large national print media and radio publicity campaign preceding its delayed release, Destination Moon ultimately became the "second" space adventure film of the post-World War II era. Piggybacking on the growing publicity and expectation surrounding the Pal film, Lippert Pictures quickly shot Rocketship X-M in 18 days on a $94,000 budget. The film, about the first spaceship to land on Mars, opened theatrically 25 days before the Pal feature. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Destination Moon was indeed the second space film of the era to be released to theaters, its two years of production, hefty budget, its use of Technicolor, its significant influence in the film industry, and the technical consultation by important scientists and engineers during production—the ultimate value of the picture, also its priority, transcends the mere physical fact that it was second in the marketplace. Certainly, Rocketship X-M itself would never have been made if the highly probable success of Destination Moon had not caught Robert Lippert's attention.

Critical reaction
The film has had numerous admirers and detractors over the years.

Contemporary reviews
Bosley Crowther in his review of Destination Moon for The New York Times, opined, "... we've got to say this for Mr. Pal and his film: they make a lunar expedition a most intriguing and picturesque event. Even the solemn preparations for this unique exploratory trip, though the lesser phase of the adventure, are profoundly impressive to observe".

Science writer, science fiction novelist, and early space enthusiast Arthur C. Clarke wrote: "[T]his [is a] remarkable exciting and often very beautiful film, the first Technicolor expedition into space. After years of comic strip treatment of interplanetary travel, Hollywood has at last made a serious and scientifically accurate film on the subject, with full cooperation of astronomers and rocket experts. The result is worthy of the enormous pains that have obviously been taken, and it is a tribute to the equally obvious enthusiasm of those responsible".

Later 20th century reviews
“Trivial in plot ... viewed today Destination Moon is less than impressive; the rocket journey is ploddingly consistent with the scientific standards of 1950... Destination Moon makes rather dull viewing nowadays”. —John Baxter in Science Fiction in the Cinema (1970)

In his 1979 autobiography, science writer and science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov called the Pal film "the first intelligent science-fiction movie made".

"Today it seems dated and slow-moving with flat characters". —John Brosnan in The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (1979)

Peter Nicholls in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) said, “Destination Moon is a film with considerable dignity and, in a quiet way, a genuine sense of wonder”.

“The Destination Moon script seems colorless and wooden”. —Phil Hardy in The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction (1994)

21st century reviews
“Destination Moon now seems tame”. —John Stanley in Creature Features: The Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Movie Guide (2000)

“The visual effects in Pal’s [Destination Moon] were art. They are aesthetically stunning ... they bear the imprint of gifted artists’ hands.... The Luna rocket of Destination Moon still [has] the capacity to astonish”. —Justin Humphreys in “A Cinema of Miracles: Remembering George Pal”, from the memorial program notes for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ George Pal: Discovering the Fantastic: A Centennial Celebration, August 27, 2008

In 2010, author and film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film two-and-a-half out of four stars, calling it "modestly mounted but still effective". He also praised Bonestell's lunar paintings as being visually striking.

“Destination Moon has aged badly ... [it] seems old hat and pedestrian to today’s viewers... But make no mistake about it, this picture, flaws and all, is a very important step in the evolution of the serious, special effects-laden science fiction motion picture that reached its peak with ... 2001: A Space Odyssey”. — Barry Atkinson in Atomic Age Cinema (2014)

Awards and honors
Destination Moon won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects in the name of the effects director, Lee Zavitz. The film was also nominated for the Art Direction Academy Award, by Ernst Fegté and George Sawley.

At the 1st Berlin International Film Festival it won the Bronze Berlin Bear Award, for "Thrillers and Adventure Films".

Retro Hugo Awards: A special 1951 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation was retroactively awarded to Destination Moon by the 59th World Science Fiction Convention (2001) exactly 50 years later for being one of the science fiction films eligible in calendar year 1950. (50 years, 75 years, or 100 years govern the time periods when a Retro Hugo can be awarded by a Worldcon for the years prior to 1953 when the Hugos were established and first awarded.)

Adaptations
Episode 12 of the Dimension X radio series was called Destination Moon and was based on Heinlein's final draft of the film's shooting script. During the broadcast on June 24, 1950, the program was interrupted by a news bulletin announcing that North Korea had declared war on South Korea, marking the beginning of the Korean War.

Robert A. Heinlein published a short story adaptation of his screenplay in the September 1950 issue of Short Stories magazine.

A highly condensed version of the Dimension X Destination Moon radio play was adapted by Charles Palmer and was released by Capitol Records for children, who had become familiar with their recordings through a Bozo the Clown-approved record series. The series featured 7-inch, 78-rpm recordings and full-color booklets which children could follow as they listened to the stories. The Destination Moon record was narrated by Tom Reddy, and Billy May composed the incidental and background music. The record's storyline took considerable liberties with the film's plot and characters, although the general shape of the film story remained.

In 1950, Fawcett Publications released a 10-cent Destination Moon film tie-in comic book. DC Comics also published a comic book preview on the Pal film; it was the cover feature of DC's brand new science fiction anthology comic book Strange Adventures # 1 (September 1950).

title: Destination Moon (film)


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House of Scindia

House of Scindia (anglicized from Shinde) is a Hindu Maratha Royal House that ruled the erstwhile Gwalior State in central India. It had the Patil-ship of Kanherkhed in the district of Satara and was founded by Ranoji Shinde, who started as a personal servant of the Peshwa Bajirao I. Ranoji and his descendants, along with their rivals the Holkars, played a leading role during the Maratha ascendancy in northern India in the 18th-century. The Gwalior State became a princely state during the British Raj in the 19th and the 20th-centuries. After India's independence in 1947 and the abolition of princely states, several members of the Scindia (Shinde) family went on to enter Indian politics.

Foundation
The Scindia (Shinde) dynasty was founded by Ranoji Shinde, a personal servant and soldier of Peshwa Bajirao I. Ranoji prospered early under Bajirao because of the favorable circumstances created by the appointment of Bajirao as the Peshwa at the age of twenty. This had evoked jealousy from senior officials like Anant Ram Sumant, Shripatrao Pant Pratinidhi, Khanderao Dabhade and Kanhoji Bhosle.This led Baji Rao to promote as commanders of his troops, talented young men who were barely out of teens such as Malhar Rao Holkar, the Pawar (Puar) brothers, Pilaji Jadhav, Fateh Singh Bhosale and of course, Ranoji. None of these men belonged to families that held hereditary Deshmukhi rights under earlier rulers such as the Deccan Sultanates. The Shindes or Scindias had served as shiledars (cavalrymen) under the Bahmani Sultanate and played an important role in the state of affairs and held Patilki of Kumberkerrab.

There are otherwise several anecdotes about the origin of the Scindhias (Shindes), especially those recorded by Sir John Malcolm. Stewart Gordon states the cultivator, etc. origin of other Marathas.

Maratha Period
The Scindia dynasty was founded by Ranoji Scindia, who was the son of Jankojirao Scindia, the Patil of Kanherkhed, a village in Satara District, Maharashtra. Peshwa Baji Rao's career saw the strengthening of the Maratha Empire. Ranoji was in charge of the Maratha conquests in Malwa in 1726. Ranoji established his capital at Ujjain in 1731. His successors included Jayajirao, Jyotibarao, Dattajirao, Jankojirao, Mahadji Shinde and Daulatrao Scindia.The Scindias became a major regional power in the latter half of the 18th century, and figured prominently in the three Anglo-Maratha Wars.They held sway over many of the Rajput states, and conquered north India. In 1818, after accepting the terms of a subsidiary alliance with the British, the family shifted their base from Ujjain to Gwalior.

Rulers of Gwalior state under the British
After the defeat of the allied Maratha states by the British in the Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1818, Daulatrao Shinde was forced to accept local autonomy as a princely state within British-occupied India and to give up Ajmer to the British. After the death of Daulatrao, Maharani Baiza Bai ruled the empire, saving it from the British power, till the adopted child Jankoji Rao took over the charge. Jankoji died in 1843, and his widow Tarabai Raje Scindia successfully maintained the position and adopted a child from close lineage named Jayajirao.

Accession of Gwalior state into Independent India
The Scindia family ruled Gwalior until India's independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, when the Maharaja Jivajirao Scindia acceded to the Government of India. Gwalior was merged with a number of other princely states to become the new Indian state of Madhya Bharat. Jiwajirao Scindia served as the state's rajpramukh, or appointed governor, from 28 May 1948 to 31 October 1956, when Madhya Bharat was merged into Madhya Pradesh.

Political careers of family members
In 1962, Vijayraje Scindia, the widow of Maharaja Jiwajirao, was elected to the Lok Sabha, beginning the family's career in electoral politics. She was first a member of the Congress Party, and later became an influential member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Her son Madhavrao Scindia was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971 representing the Jansangh Party, he joined Congress in 1980 and served until his death in 2001. His son, Jyotiraditya Scindia, joined the Congress Party and was elected to the seat formerly held by his father in 2004. He later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on 11 March 2020.

Vijayaraje's daughters have supported the Bharatiya Janata Party. Vasundhara Raje Scindia contested and won five parliamentary elections from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Under the Vajpayee government from 1998 onwards, Vasundhara was in charge of several different ministries. In 2003 she led the Bharatiya Janata Party to its largest majority in Rajasthan, and became the state's Chief Minister. In 2013 again, she led Bharatiya Janata Party to a thumping win in the state of Rajasthan, winning over 160 out of the 200 seats in the assembly elections. Her other daughter, Yashodhara Raje Scindia, contested assembly elections from Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh and won in 1998, 2003 and 2013 and also lok sabha 2004, 2009 from Gwalior. Upon the BJP's win in the state, she became the state's Minister for Tourism, Sports and Youth Affairs. Vasundhara's son Dushyant Singh entered the Lok Sabha in 2004 from Rajasthan.

Shinde Maharajas of Ujjain and Gwalior
The heads of the Royal House of Scindia include:
 * Ranoji Rao Shinde (1731 – 19 July 1745). Died 19 July 1745.
 * Jayappa Rao Shinde (1745 – 25 July 1755). Born c. 1720, died 25 July 1755.
 * Jankoji Rao Scindia I (25 July 1755 – 15 January 1761). Born in 1745. died 15 January 1761.
 * Dattaji Rao Scindia (Regent 1755 – 10 January 1760). Died 10 January 1760.
 * Vacant 15 January 1761 – 25 November 1763
 * Kadarji Rao Scindia (25 November 1763 – 10 July 1764) Died ?.
 * Manaji Rao Scindia (10 July 1764 – 18 January 1768) Died ?.
 * Mahadaji Scindia (18 January 1768 – 12 February 1794). Born 3 December 1730, died 12 February 1794.
 * Daulat Rao Shinde (12 February 1794 – 21 March 1827). Born 1779, died 21 March 1827.
 * Jankoji Rao Scindia II (18 June 1827 – 7 February 1843). Born 1805, died 7 February 1843.
 * Jayaji Rao Scindia (7 February 1843 – 20 June 1886). Born 19 January 1835, died 20 June 1886.
 * Madho Rao Scindia (20 June 1886 – 5 June 1925). Born 20 October 1876, died 5 June 1925.
 * Jivajirao Scindia (Maharaja 5 June 1925 – 15 August 1947, Rajpramukh 28 May 1948 – 31 October 1956. Last Maharaja, later Rajpramukh) Born 26 June 1916, died 16 July 1961.
 * Madhavrao Scindia (1961–2001), the last reigning Maharaja, before the abolishment of the monarchy in 1971.

Titular Maharajas

 * Jyotiraditya Scindia (2001–present)
 * Mahaaryaman Scindia (heir apparent)

Orders of chivalry
The Royal House of Scindia awards two orders of chivalry; these knighthoods were instituted by Maharaja Madho Rao Scindia in 1900 and 1907, respectively, and include:

 * Mansab-i-Aswadi (Order of the Snake), awarded in three grades
 * Gwalior Medal, awarded in three grades

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

title: House of Scindia


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Philippine English

Philippine English (similar and related to American English) is a variety of English native to the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos and English learners in the Philippines from adjacent Asian countries. English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the country, the other being Filipino, a sandardized form of Tagalog. Due to the influx of Philippine English teachers overseas, Philippine English is also becoming the prevalent variety of English being learned in the Far East as taught by Filipino teachers in various Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Thailand among others. Due to the highly multilingual and bilingual nature of the Philippines, code-switching such as Taglish (Tagalog-infused English) and Bislish (English infused with any of the Bisayan languages is prevalent across domains from casual settings to formal situations.

History
Filipinos were first introduced to English when the British invaded and occupied Manila and Cavite in 1762 as part of the Seven Years' War. Still, this occupation had no lasting effect on English in the country. A national variety called Philippine English evolved as a result of American colonization and was arguably one of the fastest to develop in the postcolonial world. Its origins as an English language spoken by a large segment of the Philippine population can be traced to the American introduction of public education, taught in the English medium of instruction. This was marked by the arrival of the Thomasites in 1901, immediately during re-colonization after the Philippine Revolution in the late 19th century up to early 1900. After a tumultuous period of colonial transition, Filipino leaders and elites, and the American colonial government alike began discussing the formation of a Philippine national language. The retained high ethnolinguistic diversity of the new colony was due to a low penetration of Spanish under Spain's rule. Spanish was limited to a medium of instruction for the landed elites and gentry. By the end of Spanish colonization and the Philippine–American War in 1903, only 10% of the colonial population could speak Spanish. The lingering effects of Spanish amongst the general population nevertheless had notable effects on the lexical development of many Philippine languages, and even Philippine English, in the form of Hispanisms. Tagalog was selected as the basis for a national language in 1937, and has since remained so. It was re-labelled as Pilipino in 1959, and Filipino in 1987. With the successful establishment of American-style public education with English as a consequential medium, more than 20% of the Philippine population was reported to be able to understand and speak English just before the turn of the mid-20th century. This meteoric growth was sustained post-World War II, much further through Philippine mass media (e.g., newsprint, radio, television), where English also became the dominant language, and by the ratification into the current Philippine Constitution in 1987, both Filipino and English were declared co-official languages, while removing Spanish as an official language. In 2020, the Philippines was ranked 27th worldwide (among 100 countries ranked) in the EF English Proficiency Index. In the same report, it was ranked 2nd in Asia next only to Singapore.

Today Philippine English, as formally called based on the World Englishes framework of linguist Braj Kachru, is a recognized variety of English with its distinct lexical, phonological, and grammatical features (with considerable variations across socioeconomic groups and level of education being predictors of English proficiency in the Philippines). As the English language became highly embedded in Philippine society, it was only a matter of time before the language was indigenized to the point that it became differentiated from English varieties found in the United States, United Kingdom, or elsewhere. This, along with the formal introduction of the World Englishes (WE) framework to English language scholars in the Philippines, opened the floodgates to research on this new emerging English, which has since been branded as such as Philippine English.

Philippine English in the services sector
The abundant supply of English speakers and competitive labor costs enabled the Philippines to become a choice destination for foreign companies wishing to establish call centers and other outsourcing. English proficiency sustains a major call center industry and in 2005, America Online had 1,000 people in what used to be the US Air Force's Clark Air Base in Angeles City answering ninety percent of their global e-mail inquiries. Citibank does its global ATM programming in the country, and Procter & Gamble has over 400 employees in Makati, a central Manila neighborhood, doing back office work for their Asian operations including finance, accounting, human resources and payments processing.

An influx of foreign students, principally from South Korea, has also led to growth in the number of English language learning centers, especially in Metro Manila, Baguio, Metro Cebu and Metro Bacolod.

Positioning
In 2003, Edgar W. Schneider defined a Dynamic Model of the evolution of Postcolonial Englishes, positioning Philippine English in Phase 3, Nativization. In 2016, Ariane Macalinga Borlongan argued in a research article that that Philippine English had met the parameters set for repositioning into Phase 4, Endonormative stabilization.

Orthography
Philippine laws and court decisions, with extremely rare exceptions, are written solely in English. English is also used in higher education, religious affairs, print and broadcast media, and business. Most well-educated Filipinos are bilingual and speak English as one of their languages. For highly technical subjects such as nursing, medicine, computing and mathematics, English is the preferred medium for textbooks and communication. Very few would prefer highly technical books in either Filipino or the regional language. Movies and TV shows in English are usually not dubbed in most cable channels except a few such as Tagalized Movie Channel.

Because English is part of the curricula from primary to secondary education, many Filipinos write and speak in fluent Philippine English, although there might be differences in pronunciation. Most schools in the Philippines, however, are staffed by teachers who are speakers of Philippine English and hence notable differences from the American English from which it was derived are observable.

Grammar
Philippine English traditionally follows American English spelling and grammar while it shares some similarity to Commonwealth English. Philippine English follows the latter when it comes to punctuation as well as date notations. For example, a comma almost never precedes the final item in an enumeration (much like the AP Stylebook and other style guides in English-language journalism generally).
 * Dates are often read with a cardinal instead of an ordinal number. (Example: January 1 is pronounced as "January one" instead of "January first" or "the first of January".)
 * Tautologies like redundancy and pleonasm are common despite the emphasis on avoiding them, stressing brevity and simplicity in making sentences; they are common to many speakers, especially among the older generations. The possible explanation is that the English language teachers who came to the Philippines were taught old-fashioned grammar, thus they spread that style to the students they served.
 * Examples are "At this point in time" and ".. will be the one ..." (or "... will be the one who will ...") instead of "now" and "... will ..." respectively - e.g., "I will be the one who will go ...", rather than "I will go ...".
 * Collective nouns are generally singular in construction, e.g., my family is doing well as opposed to my family are doing well or the group was walking as opposed to the group were walking following American English.
 * The past tense and past participles of the verbs learn, spell and smell are often regular (learned, spelled, smelled) in Philippine English. These are also the case in American English.
 * River follows the name of the river in question following American English, e.g., Pasig River, rather than the British convention of coming before the name, e.g., River Thames.
 * Abbreviations such as Mr and Mrs are spelled with a final period (cf. Mr., Mrs.) following American spelling.
 * While prepositions before days may be omitted in American English, e.g., She resigned Thursday, they are usually retained in Philippine English: She resigned on Thursday. However, those prepositions are usually omitted in journalistic writing.
 * The institutional nouns hospital and university sometimes do not take the definite article, e.g. He's in hospital and She's at university, while sometimes they do, e.g. He's in the hospital and She's at the university.
 * Ranges of dates use to, e.g., Monday to Friday, rather than Monday through Friday. This is shared with British English and is in contrast to American English.
 * When speaking or writing out numbers, and is not inserted before the tens, i.e., five hundred sixty-nine rather than five hundred and sixty-nine. This is in contrast to British English. Additionally, the insertion of and is also common in American English.
 * The preposition to in write to (e.g. I'll write to you [something]) is always retained, as opposed to American usage where it may be dropped.
 * When referring to time, Filipinos refer to 12:30 as half past twelve or, alternatively, twelve thirty and do not use the British half twelve. Similarly, (a) quarter to twelve is used for 11:45 rather than (a) quarter of twelve, which is found in American English.
 * To take a shower or take a bath are the most common usages in Philippine English, following American English, whereas British English uses have a shower and have a bath. However, bathe is as often as similar to American or British usage, but not widespread.
 * Directional suffix -ward(s) generally found in British English is the primary usage in Philippine English, therefore towards, afterwards and upwards over the American toward, afterward and upward. However, forward is more prevalent than the chiefly British forwards. Philippine English speakers drop the -s when using phrasal verbs such as look forward to.
 * When reading decimal numerals that are usually two or three digits, each numeral is read like a whole number rather than by each digit, e.g. (0).99 is (zero) point ninety-nine, instead of (zero) point nine nine or, especially in schools, ninety-nine hundredths in both British and American English. Additionally, four-digit decimals are also treated similar to how Americans read four-digit numbers with non-zero tens and ones as pairs of two-digit numbers without saying "hundred" and inserting "oh"; 3.1416 is thus "three point fourteen sixteen" and not "three point one four one six" as pronounced.

Education

 * The word course in the Philippines generally means the entire program of study, which may extend over several years and be made up of any number of modules, hence it is also practically synonymous to a degree program. This usage is due to indirect influence from Spanish curso and its borrowed forms in Philippine languages. The usage is shared with British English.
 * In the Philippines, a student studies or majors in a subject (although a student's major, concentration or, less commonly, emphasis is also used in Philippine colleges or universities to refer to the major subject of study). To major in something refers to the student's principal course of study; to study may refer to any class being taken.
 * Grade levels in the Philippines are named grade one and grade two as opposed to first grade and second grade like in Canadian English.
 * Graduating classes in the Philippines are called batches. Thus, A student in the same batch is called a batchmate.
 * In the Philippines, a group of students in a regularly scheduled meeting in a classroom with a teacher in a certain school year or semester or school quarter year is called a section. The teacher in charge of a specific section in a grade level where the students for each class in a certain school year or semester does not typically change per class in a system where each subject is taught by different teachers is called a class adviser or simply, an adviser.
 * A school where primary and secondary students study together is called an integrated school.

Church

 * The name of a Catholic cardinal is almost always in the pattern "[first name] Cardinal [last name]", for example, Juan Cardinal de la Cruz, similar to the syntax in German and Latin, unlike "Cardinal [first name] [last name]" in non-Philippine English.
 * Catholic priests, both diocesan and those of a religious order, are titled "Reverend Father", abbreviated as "Rev. Fr." before their first and then last names, in contrast to practice in some other English-speaking nations. By contrast, "Reverend" or "Rev." before a personal name is only for deacons, for example, "Reverend Juan de la Cruz", unlike their counterparts in the United States. "The Rev." alone before priests' names is usually found in articles sourced from non-Philippine media, like the Associated Press (AP), in Philippine newspapers.

Monetary units

 * Philippine English speakers would often say two hundred fifty or two fifty over the British and alternatively American two hundred and fifty. In British and sometimes American English, the "and" comes after the hundreds (one thousand, two hundred and thirty dollars). Philippine English does not observe this.
 * Philippine English speakers would often say one hundred fifty instead of the American a hundred (and) fifty.
 * In Philippine English, particularly in television or radio advertisements, integers can be pronounced individually in the expression of amounts. For example, on sale for ₱399 might be expressed on sale for three nine nine, though the full three hundred and ninety-nine pesos is also common. Philippine English follows the American English on sale for three ninety-nine, which is understood as ₱399; In the past this may have been understood as ₱3.99, however due to inflation, ₱3.99 is no longer a common price for goods.

Spelling and style
Philippine spelling usually follows American spellings, following the reforms promulgated in Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary.

 * Words which in British English (except in Oxford spelling) end with ise, such as realise, recognise and organise are spelt with ize following American English: realize, recognize and organize (exercise, however, is universal in all varieties).
 * Words which in British English are spelled with -ae-/-oe- such as oestrogen and mediaeval are spelled with e alone as in American English as estrogen and medieval. Exceptions are aesthetic, amoeba and archaeology which follow common usage in American English, but can be spelled with just an e.
 * French-derived words which in British English end with our, such as colour, honour and labour, are spelled with or following American English: color, honor and labor. British -our spellings are sometimes used as an affectation.
 * French-derived words which in British English end with re, such as fibre, centre and metre are usually spelled with er as in American English as fiber, center and meter. The word theater (American spelling) is also often spelled theatre (British spelling), with no preference in spelling. The British spelling centre is also used, but it is rarely used and not accepted in many settings such as schools.
 * Words which in British English end with yse, such as analyse, paralyse and catalyse are spelled with yze following American English as analyze, paralyze and catalyze.
 * There is no preference for words spelled with -log in American English or -logue in British English in Philippine English. Some words are usually spelled with -log, like catalog and analog, while others are typically spelled with -logue, like monologue or dialogue.
 * A double-consonant l (primarily used in British and Commonwealth English) is usually retained in Philippine English when adding suffixes to words ending in l where the consonant is unstressed, contrary to common American practice. Therefore, Philippine English favors cancelled and travelling over the American canceled and traveling.
 * Where British English uses a single-consonant l in the words skilful, wilful, enrol, distil, enthral, fulfil and instalment, Philippine English typically uses a double consonant following American English: skillful, willful, enroll, distill, enthrall, fulfill and installment.
 * The Commonwealth English defence and offence are spelled defense and offense following American English.
 * Philippine English uses practice and license for both nouns and verbs, following American English, rather than licence for the second noun and practise for the first verb as in Commonwealth English.
 * Philippine English prefers spellings with silent e in some words such as acknowledgement, judgement and loveable, as opposed to acknowledgment, judgment and lovable.
 * In all other cases, Philippine English prefers the American English spelling where it differs from current British spelling, as in program (in all contexts) for British English programme, and guerrilla for British English guerilla. However, programme is often used in the sense of a leaflet listing information about a play, game or other activity for distinguishment.
 * Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr are mostly spelled without the hyphen and the first A is replaced with an apostrophe as Eid'l Adha and Eid'l Fitr respectively as opposed to the rest of the world.
 * The abbreviations natl and govt are often written with an apostrophe before the last letter (as nat'l and gov't) in Philippine English.
 * The elements aluminium and caesium are spelled as aluminum and cesium following American English.

Date and time notation
The MM/DD/YYYY and DD/MM/YYYY date format are used in the Philippines for date notation and the 12-hour clock for time notation.

Keyboard layout
There are two major English language keyboard layouts, the United States layout and the United Kingdom layout. Keyboards and keyboard software for the Philippine market universally use the US keyboard layout. Common special characters such as Ñ (used in proper nouns and Spanish loanwords) or the Philippine peso sign (₱, used in prices), however, are not indicated on Philippine keyboards; these are usually entered through dead keys, keyboard shortcuts or character input aids.

Phonology
Philippine English is a rhotic accent mainly due to the influence of Philippine languages, which are the first language of most of its speakers. Another influence is the rhotic characteristic of American English, which became the longstanding standard in the archipelago since Americans introduced the language in public education. This is contrary to the majority of Commonwealth English varieties spoken in neighboring countries such as Malaysia or Singapore. The only exception to this rule is the word Marlboro, which is frequently read as Malboro. Therefore, phonemes are pronounced in all positions. However, some children of Overseas Filipinos who are educated in Commonwealth countries (such as Australia, New Zealand, or the United Kingdom) may speak in a non-rhotic accent unless taught otherwise. Native and well-educated speakers (also called acrolectal speakers ) may also feature flapping and vowel sounds resembling the California vowel shift due to the influence of Hollywood movies and call center culture mostly pegged towards the American market.

For non-native speakers, Philippine English phonological features are heavily dependent on the speaker's mother tongue, although foreign languages such as Spanish also influenced many Filipinos on the way of pronouncing English words. This is why approximations are very common, along with hypercorrections and hyperforeignisms. The most distinguishable feature of Philippine English is a lack of fricative consonants, including, , , , , and often. Another feature is a general absence of the schwa ; it is instead pronounced by its respective equivalent full vowel, although the r-colored variant has been increasingly popular in recent years.

Consonants
The following consonant changes apply for most non-native speakers of the language:
 * The rhotic consonant may vary between a trill, a flap  and an approximant . The English approximant  is pronounced by many speakers in the final letters of the word or before consonants, while the standard dialect prefers to pronounce the approximant in all positions of.
 * The fricatives and  are approximated into the stop consonants  and, respectively.
 * Th-stopping: The dental fricatives and  become the stop consonants  and, respectively. This can be also observed from speakers of Hiberno-English dialects and a number of American English speakers.
 * Yod-coalescence: Like most Commonwealth English variants outside Canada and sometimes in Irish English, the, and  clusters become ,  and  respectively. This makes the words dew, tune and pharmaceutical are pronounced as ,  and , respectively. Yod-coalescence also occurs in some other words where other English variants either resist it or do not call for it, e.g. Calcium and celsius are respectively  and . Because of these, the use of yod-coalescence is another case of approximation for aspirated consonants which Philippine languages lack in general in words such as twelve and top and the influence of the phonology of the mother tongues of many speaks of it.
 * Yod-retention is usually practiced selectively, similar to the historical mid-Atlantic accent in the U.S., Irish or British and Commonwealth English, and to a lesser extent, some speakers of English in Canada, in certain words such as new(s) but not student. For that reason, the maneuver is mainly pronounced also with a yod, somewhat in a hyperforeign manner, whereas all other accents drop it intrinsically. However, yod-dropping is often common due to influence of modern General American. The yod as retained in many words is sometimes coalesced; see "Yod-coalescence" above.
 * The fricative may be devoiced into  in words such as measure or affricated into  in words such as beige.
 * Alternatively it can be affricated into in words such as beige.
 * The phoneme is devoiced into an . This also includes intervocalic  and the $⟨ss⟩$ in examples such as dissolve, possess and their derivatives, brassiere, dessert, dissolution, Missouri(an), possession and scissors, which are usually pronounced as a  in most other accents of English. However, Aussie is usually pronounced with  as in the United States.
 * Older speakers tend to add an i or e sound before the syllable-initial clusters sl-, sm-, sn-, sp- and st- due to Spanish influence, so the words star and lipstick sounds like (i/e)star and lip(i/e)stick respectively.
 * Like most non-native speakers of English elsewhere, the "dark l" is merged into the usual "light"  equivalent.
 * The compound $⟨ll⟩$ is pronounced as a palatal lateral approximant in between vowels (e.g. gorilla), especially to those who were exposed to Spanish orthography. This is negligible among younger well-educated speakers.
 * The letter "z" is usually pronounced (and sometimes spelled) as a "zey" like in Jamaican English. However, in standard Philippine English, it is pronounced and spelled as the American "zee".

Vowels
Vowels in Philippine English are pronounced according to the letter representing each, so that $\langlea, e, i, o, u\rangle$ are generally pronounced as, respectively. The schwa —although a phonological feature across numerous Philippine languages such as Karay-a, Maranao, Kapampangan, or the Abagatan (Southern) dialect of Ilocano—is absent as a separate phoneme.

 * The following are the various approximations of the schwa:
 * Words that end in -le that succeeds a consonant (such as Google and castle) are generally pronounced with an, except for words that end -ple, -fle or -ble (apple, waffle and humble), which are pronounced with an.
 * The in words such as knowledge or college, it is pronounced as a diphthong, making it rhyme with age, cage, rage, page, and beige.
 * The rhotic vowels and  may be pronounced as an  (commander),  (circle) or an  (doctor), usually by non-native speakers outside urban areas or the elderly.
 * The $\langlea\rangle$ pronunciations are pronounced as central vowels  and . In the standard dialect, the open front vowel  may be pronounced as an allophone of.
 * For the above reason, words subject to the trap–bath split, e.g. basket(ball), bath, example, laugh, master and sample can be pronounced with but often not for e.g. answer(able), can't, chance and France.
 * The first $\langlea\rangle$ in some words such as patronage, patriot(ic/ism), (ex/re)patriate(d/s) and (ex/re)patriation usually have the sound of either, like in British/non-Canadian Commonwealth or Irish English, or sometimes , rather than in the United States and Canada. Moreover, the $\langlea\rangle$ in the unstressed -ative suffix is reduced to either the schwa or , becoming  as in Britain and Ireland, for words stressed on the second syllable such as administrative, investigative, qualitative, sometimes innovative, and  usually legislative. This does not apply to negative,  alternstive or initiative. $\langlea\rangle$ as the unstressed a- prefix, called alpha privative, is also the schwa or  before stems that begin with consonants, e.g. apolitical, asymmetric or asymmetry, asymptomatic, atypical, etc.
 * The phoneme may be merged or replaced by the longer  for some speakers. The words peel and pill might sound the same.
 * The may be enunciated as an  (color or even tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, etc. like in Canada) or an  (not).
 * The u sound from the digraph qu may be dropped before e and i in some words such as tranquilize(r) and colloquial likely due to Spanish influence.
 * The in namely couple and double may also be enunciated as an  or, rarely, as an.
 * The in namely culture and ultimate is sometimes enunciated as an, partly similar to accents in the United Kingdom (except Scotland) without the foot–strut split.

Emphasis

 * Distinct non-native emphasis or stress is common. For example, the words ceremony and Arabic are emphasized on the second syllable (as and  respectively) as another result of indirect Spanish influence. Additionally, words ending in -ary such as beneficiary, complementary, elementary, judiciary and supplementary are treated as paroxytones or stressed on the /a/, rather than as proparoxytones or the preceding syllable, a hyperforeignism from the Spanish-derived -aria/-arya and -ario/-aryo.

Pronunciation
Many Filipinos often have distinct non-native English pronunciation, and many fall under different lectal variations (i.e. basilectal, mesolectal, acrolectal). Some Philippine languages (e.g. Ibanag, Itawis, Surigaonon, Tausug) feature certain unique phonemes such as, , , and , which are also present in English. However, Filipinos' first languages (such as Tagalog) have generally different phonological repertoires (if not more simplified compared to English), and this leads to mis- or distinct pronunciations particularly among basilectal and to some extent mesolectal speakers.

title: Philippine English


text:
John Cho

John Cho (born Cho Yo-Han; June 16, 1972) is an American actor known for his roles as Harold Lee in the Harold & Kumar films, and Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek rebooted film series, the Asian-American film Better Luck Tomorrow, the film Columbus, and Searching, which made him the first Asian American actor in history to headline a mainstream thriller film in Hollywood. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his performance in Searching.

He also made history in American television in the 21st century as the first Asian American actor cast as a romantic lead in a romantic comedy series when he starred as Henry Higgs in the 2014 sitcom Selfie. In addition to his role in Selfie, Cho has had lead roles in series such as FlashForward, Off Centre, and The Afterparty, and recurring roles in Sleepy Hollow and Difficult People. In his early career, Cho attained recognition for his guest starring role in the fantasy television series Charmed.

Early life
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Cho moved to the United States in 1978. He was raised in Los Angeles, where his family settled after living in Houston, Seattle, Daly City, California, and Monterey Park, California. His father was a minister in the Church of Christ and was originally from North Korea. He grew up with one younger brother. Cho graduated from Herbert Hoover High School, in Glendale, California, in 1990.

Cho attended the University of California, Berkeley. In 1994, he toured nationally for a stage production of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. He graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature.

Career
After graduation, Cho taught English literature at Pacific Hills School in West Hollywood, California, while acting at East West Players in downtown Los Angeles. There, he appeared in Edward Sakamoto's The Taste of Kona Coffee in 1996 and in Euijoon Kim's film My Tired Broke Ass Pontificating Slapstick Funk in 2000.

Cho gained attention with a small role as "MILF Guy #2" in the 1999 comedy American Pie, in which he popularized the slang term MILF. Cho reprised the role in three sequels: American Pie 2, American Wedding, and the latest installment American Reunion in which he has a much larger role. His character initially had no name, but he was given the name "John" in the third film, named after Cho himself.

Cho guest-starred on Charmed as the ghost of Mark Chao, one of leading character Piper Halliwell's most prominent love interests, in the episode "Dead Man Dating" in 1998; he indicated in 2024 that it was a role that he "gets asked about... all the time". He was one of the stars of the short-lived situation comedy Off Centre from 2001 to 2002; his character, Chau Presley, became the series' breakout character.

He was a costar on the Fox sitcom Kitchen Confidential, based on Anthony Bourdain's best-selling book. He had supporting roles in the science fiction comedy Evolution, directed by Ivan Reitman; Down to Earth; and Bowfinger.

In 2002, Cho had a starring role in the ensemble cast of Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow, a drama focusing on the travails of a group of Asian Americans living in Southern California who are academically successful but socially discontented, and as a result engage in wantonly violent, criminal behavior. It was well received by critics, with Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times describing Cho's character's "lazy magnetism of which he is charmingly aware". Later that year, the movie Big Fat Liar was released, in which Cho played a Hong Kong-based film director. He refused to do the accent scripted for his character. The director worked with him to re-develop the role.

Cho had a successful starring role as Harold Lee in 2004's Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and reprised the role in 2008's Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay which earned $38million at the box office, and again in 2011's A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas which made $35million. Cho's role in the popular franchise was written specifically for him by Hayden Schlossberg, and Cho has recounted that when Schlossberg first approached him with the role, he was initially suspicious.

Cho appeared in the July 2004 issue of KoreAm Journal and, in September 2006, was cast in NBC's new comedy The Singles Table, but the series never aired due to changes in scheduling and production. In 2006 and again in 2009, Cho was selected as one of the sexiest men alive in People magazine.

In 2007, Cho was added to the cast of Ugly Betty as a recurring character. Cho plays Kenny, a best friend of accountant Henry Grubstick. Cho played helmsman Hikaru Sulu in J. J. Abrams's feature film Star Trek. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times praised him for making his role "ultimately and rather wonderfully [his] own".

Cho appeared in Nas's "Be a Nigger Too" music video along with various celebrities and had a guest appearance on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, in the episode "I'm Not That Guy" where he played a partner in an evil law firm. Of the latter, Staci Krause of IGN, wrote that Cho was "the scene stealer in this episode" and that she would "definitely like to see more of him" in the series.

From 2009 to 2010, Cho starred in the television series FlashForward as FBI Special Agent Demetri Noh. His character was originally slated to be killed off during what turned out to be the show's only season, but after his turn as Sulu in Star Trek boosted his popularity, the producers revised the show's storyline so that he survived, in an attempt to boost declining ratings.

In 2012, he was part of the cast ensemble of Go On as Steven.

Cho starred as Henry Higgs in the short-lived sitcom Selfie, a retooling of the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, becoming the first Asian American man to play a romantic lead on a U.S. romantic comedy television series in 2014. At the time, Keli Lee was the executive vice president of Talent and Casting at ABC who selected Cho as a candidate and also previously cast Cho in Flashforward. Julie Anne Robinson, one of the directors and executive producers of Selfie, revealed in 2021 interviews that she strongly supported casting Cho and had to persuade "top to bottom of everybody in that chain" that he was the perfect choice for the role, which took considerable time. Robinson fought for Cho and won, saying, "That's what I'm most proud of about that whole pilot." The show continued to have a dedicated fan following after its broadcast. In July 2022, when Cho was asked about his thoughts on the show's cancellation, he answered, "I'm still stunned to see how many people still love that series. And yeah, I was bummed when it got canceled. I just thought that was a good show." In January 2023, Cho mentioned he had not received many offers for romantic comedy roles since Selfie.

In 2016, he was a series regular for the television show as Andy Kim in the second season of The Exorcist television series.

In 2017, he starred in the film Columbus, which received critical acclaim.

In 2018, Cho starred in the film Searching, playing a man combing social media for clues to his daughter's disappearance. He was the first Asian American actor to headline a mainstream thriller in Hollywood. Also in 2018, he was presented with the Spotlight Award at the San Diego International Film Festival.

In April 2019, Variety reported that Cho had been cast as Spike Spiegel in a live-action version of the Cowboy Bebop series. However, production shut down when Cho suffered a knee injury in October and remained shut down until late September 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cowboy Bebop premiered on Netflix on November 19, 2021.

He wrote a middle school grade novel book for younger readers called Troublemaker on March 22, 2022.

In May 2022, Cho was cast in the second season of Apple TV+'s comedy series The Afterparty as "Funcle" Ulysses Zhu. The new season premiered in July 2023.

In 2024, the actor had a cameo in the television adaptation of The Sympathizer.

Cho will voice in the audiobook version of the romantic comedy book, Drop Dead, written by Lily Chu, which will be available on August 1, 2024.

He has an upcoming sci-fi horror film, Afraid, set to be released on August 30, 2024.

Musical career
Cho is the lead singer for Viva La Union (formerly known as Left of Zed), a Los Angeles garage rock band composed of former Berkeley and USC students. They have one album, self-titled, while their song "Chinese Baby" is on the Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay soundtrack.

Discography
Band: Left of Zed
 * Demo tape (1998)
 * Album: Furious Bloom (2004)

Band: Viva La Union
 * Album: Viva La Union (2009)

Personal life
Cho married actress Kerri Higuchi in 2006. They met at UC Berkeley and later dated when they moved to Los Angeles. They have a son, born in 2008, and a daughter, born in 2013. As of 2015, he and his family reside in Los Angeles, California. He is close to his father, a former preacher, and would like to play a role in the story of his father's generation, growing up in North Korea through the Korean War.

Cho has indicated he has found freedom in being Harold in the Harold and Kumar films because the stoner character goes against the grain of Asian Americans onscreen. He has said he has experienced racism throughout his career in Hollywood and that he tries to take roles that do not perpetuate Asian stereotypes. When asked to do an Asian accent for Big Fat Liar, Cho refused. "I don't want to do this role in a kid's comedy, with an accent, because I don't want young people laughing at an accent inadvertently", he wrote. In a 2015 tweet he said, "Stop turning Asian roles white. It's bullshit and we all know it." On being the first Asian to play a romantic lead on a U.S. romantic comedy television series, he described his casting in Selfie as being "revolutionary" and a "personal revolution" for him because of its uniqueness in Hollywood. "Asians narratively in shows are insignificant. They're the cop, or waitress, or whatever it is. You see them in the background. So to be in this position ... is bit of a landmark", he has said on the inability of Asians getting offered such roles.

In 2016, Cho was the face of the "#StarringJohnCho" social movement and hashtag campaign, created by William Yu, wherein Cho is Photoshopped onto existing movie posters as the male lead. The purpose of the project was to call attention to the lack of opportunities for Asian American actors in Hollywood.

Cho supported the 2012 re-election campaign of Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama.

Audiobooks

 * Troublemaker (2022) - author and narrator
 * Drop Dead (2024) - narrator

Book

 * Troublemaker (March 22, 2022) – middle school grade novel for younger readers

title: John Cho


text:
María Elena Holly

María Elena Holly (née Santiago; born December 20, 1932) is the widow of American rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly. As a receptionist at Peermusic, she met with Holly and his band the Crickets on June 19, 1958, and Holly proposed to her after five hours on their first date. Less than two months later, the couple married on August 15, 1958, in Lubbock, Texas. On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash along with fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper outside Clear Lake, Iowa. After learning of her husband's death from the television news, she suffered a miscarriage the following day and could not attend Holly's funeral in Lubbock.

In the following years, María Elena Holly married Puerto Rican government official Joe Diaz, with whom she had three children. In the 1978 film The Buddy Holly Story, she is portrayed by actress Maria Richwine. As Buddy Holly's widow, she owns the rights to his name, image, trademarks, and other intellectual property. In 2010, Santiago-Holly co-founded The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation with Peter Bradley.

Early life
María Elena Santiago was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her mother died when she was 6 years old, and in 1953, her father sent her to live with her aunt (Provi Garcia) in New York City. Santiago worked as a receptionist for music publisher Peermusic.

Marriage to Buddy Holly
As a receptionist at Peermusic, Maria Elena is believed to have met musician Buddy Holly in August 1957 when as rising stars he and the Crickets first visited Peer Southern Music in the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway to meet their publishing manager Murray Deutch, who was Maria's boss. On June 19, 1958, just before recording a cover of the Bobby Darin song "Early in the Morning" in New York's Pythian Temple, Holly asked her out on a date. Santiago had never been out on a date and told Holly he would have to ask her aunt for permission, which he received promptly. Five hours into their first date, Buddy handed a rose to Maria and asked her to marry him.

"'One day this guy comes in through the door of PeerSouthern Music, where I was working as a receptionist, and I acted very reserved — 'Can I help you?' — and he was with the Crickets and said, 'Oh, we're not in a hurry,' and then turned to them and said, 'You know what? I'm going to marry that girl.'"

On August 15, 1958, less than two months after their first date, she married Holly at Tabernacle Baptist Church in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas. They settled down in Lubbock until Buddy broke up with the Crickets, and they moved to New York. Santiago-Holly went on one tour (October 1958) with her husband and took on promotional duties. Buddy Holly also formed the Maria Music publishing company with which "Stay Close to Me" was filed. Holly produced Lou Giordano's version of the song, which was issued on Brunswick 55115 on January 27, 1959.

According to Santiago, before she agreed to marry Holly, she insisted he resolve the issues he was having with his manager and producer, Norman Petty, who was in control of the Crickets' finances and allegedly withholding royalty payments. Santiago told Holly: "I don't want to sit around all the time, waiting for handouts from Norman Petty." Eventually, the two of them "visited Petty at the studio to end their partnership, and seek his unpaid royalties." Santiago "recounted that Petty told his young protege, "You know what, Buddy? I'm gonna say this to you. I'd rather see you dead than to give you the money now." Santiago also claimed that Petty "tried to break us up [...] He told Buddy not to marry me because I was a whoreish kind of woman, that I'd slept with all kinds of other men who'd come in to Peer-Southern. Buddy knew that wasn't true, of course. He got so mad, he wanted to leave Norman right there and then." According to Petty's recollection of the meeting, "Elena did all the talking. She said, 'Buddy and I have decided that Buddy can do better — that you're not fit for Buddy's manager.' And I said, 'What's this — is it something I've done?' She said, 'It's what you haven't done — you haven't done near enough for him.'"

In the early morning hours of February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly was on tour when he and fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper died in an airplane crash along with pilot Roger Peterson outside Clear Lake, Iowa. At the time, Holly and Santiago had been married for only five months, and she learned of his death from the reports on television. As a result of psychological trauma from the incident, Santiago miscarried with her husband's child on February 4. Her husband was interred in Lubbock.

Santiago-Holly did not attend the funeral and has never visited the grave site. In a February 7, 1959, interview with the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, she said, "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."

Following the miscarriage suffered by Santiago-Holly and the circumstances in which she was informed of his death, a policy was later adopted by authorities not to disclose victims' names until after their families have been informed.

Later years
Santiago-Holly later married Joe Diaz, a Puerto Rican government official. Together, they had three children. Now divorced, she is a grandmother living in Dallas, Texas, and promotes her first husband's legacy. In 1989, The Smithereens paid honor to her with the song "Maria Elena" on their album 11. Actress Maria Richwine played Santiago-Holly's role in the 1978 movie The Buddy Holly Story. Jill Hennessy portrayed her in the Broadway production of Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.

In 1999, Santiago-Holly, along with Holly's siblings, filed a lawsuit against MCA, contending that the company was "defrauding them of royalties by using void contracts and forged signatures", had "grossly underpaid the fair market value of royalties" and had "stolen certain recordings and sold them." Santiago-Holly had raised concerns in the 1970s and 1980s "because the amount paid to her appeared "so miniscule" in comparison to what the market indicated they should be. However, she did not investigate based on her suspicions because she did not have the money to pursue the matter", and claimed that she "was ignored and stonewalled". The suit also named Joe B. Mauldin and Jerry Allison, Holly's fellow bandmates in the Crickets, and accused them "of unjustified claims to royalty rights for recording sessions they didn't take part in", Norman Petty was alleged to have "conspired with MCA to defraud the Holly heirs." On 11 April 2007, "the parties came to an agreement regarding the amount of royalties due", with the court declaring that "MCA owed the Petty estate and the Holly heirs a combined $251,325 in additional royalties".

In 2008, Santiago-Holly threatened legal action against Peggy Sue Gerron, the subject of the song "Peggy Sue", after the publication of Gerron's autobiography Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?

While visiting New York City in May 2008, Santiago-Holly visited Washington Square Park, where Holly often played his guitar. She observed musicians singing there, and later told the Avalanche-Journal: "I gave one musician $9 because 9 was Buddy's favorite number." She also visited the apartment building where she and Holly had lived. Santiago-Holly remarked it was the first time she had been back to the building since Holly's death.

The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation
In 2010, Santiago-Holly co-founded, with Peter Bradley, the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation. The foundation is a charitable corporation whose mission is to keep Buddy Holly's legacy alive by providing musical education to new generations regardless of income, ethnicity or educational limitations. Among the areas in the musical education provided are songwriting, production, arranging, orchestration and performance education. The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation co-hosts worldwide songwriting retreats with Chris Difford. They are organized by Peter Bradley Jr, board Director of the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation.

title: María Elena Holly


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User:Aethelflad

Mae govannen!

I am a junior at Texas A&M University in the lovely little city of College Station and am studying English with a minor in linguistics.

Favorite Authors
J.R.R. Tolkien - C.S. Lewis - Jane Austen - Flannery O'Connor - George MacDonald - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Dorothy Sayers - G.K. Chesterton - Charles Dickens - Edgar Allan Poe

title: User:Aethelflad


text:
Missile to the Moon

Missile to the Moon is a 1958 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film drama, produced by Marc Frederic, directed by Richard E. Cunha, that stars Richard Travis, Cathy Downs, and K. T. Stevens. The film was distributed by Astor Pictures and is a remake of an earlier Astor Pictures-distributed film, Cat-Women of the Moon (1953). Missile to the Moon was released in late 1958 as a double feature with Cunha's Frankenstein's Daughter.

A spaceship blasts off from Earth with five aboard, but one of them is secretly a Moon man returning home. He dies by accident during the trip to Luna. What the remaining four find waiting for them when they arrive on the Moon is well beyond their expectations: huge rock creatures, giant lunar spiders, and a cave-dwelling civilization made up of beautiful women.

Plot
Two escaped convicts, Gary (Tommy Cook) and Lon (Gary Clarke), are discovered hiding aboard a rocket by scientist Dirk Green (Michael Whalen), who then forces them to pilot the spaceship to the Moon. Dirk, who is secretly a Moon man, wants to return home.

Dirk's partner Steve Dayton (Richard Travis) and Steve's fiancée June (Cathy Downs) are accidentally trapped aboard just before the rocketship blasts off from Earth.

Moon man Dirk is later accidentally killed in a meteor storm during the lunar trip. Once they land on the Moon, the spaceship's reluctant crew encounter deception and intrigue when they discover an underground kingdom made up of beautiful women and their sinister female ruler, the Lido (K. T. Stevens).

While on the Moon, the Earthers encounter surface-dwelling, slow-moving, bipedal large rock creatures that try to crush them. They must also contend with a cave-dwelling, not-so-giant spider that attacks them.

Cast

 * Richard Travis as Steve Dayton
 * Cathy Downs as June Saxton
 * K. T. Stevens as the Lido
 * Tommy Cook as Gary Fennell
 * Gary Clarke as Lon
 * Michael Whalen as Dirk Green
 * Nina Bara as Alpha
 * Laurie Mitchell as Lambda
 * Marjorie Hellen (Leslie Parrish) as Zema
 * Henry Hunter as Colonel Wickers
 * Lee Roberts as Sheriff Cramer
 * Pat Mowry as Moon girl
 * Tania Velia as Moon girl
 * Sanita Pelkey as Moon girl
 * Lisa Simone as Moon girl
 * Mary Ford as Moon girl
 * Marianne Gaba as Moon girl
 * Sandra Wirth as Moon girl

Production
Missile to the Moon was an even lower-budget remake of the low-budget science fiction film drama Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) and closely follows the plot details of that earlier feature. That film offered 3D as its big attraction, but all its male characters were middle-aged. The 1958 remake opted to better appeal to a teenage audience by adding a pair of youthful escaped convicts, one a good kid who had made a mistake, the other an incorrigible crook, and providing them with lunar love interests in due course. In the 1953 film, the bit players portraying the minor Moon maidens are described as "Hollywood cover girls"; in the remake, they are credited as "international beauty contest winners".

A red camera filter was used to make the blue sky photograph very dark on the black-and-white film, but the result was still far from the ideal starry black. Bits of scrubby vegetation could be seen in the background of some shots. No attempt is made to convince the viewer that the Moon is an airless void where humans would weigh one-sixth their normal Earth weight. When one of the space-suited astronauts is forced into direct sunlight, unshielded from its intensity, he bursts into flames, despite the lack of an external oxygen atmosphere; in seconds he is reduced to a skeleton.

The large, slow-moving rock creatures have a passing resemblance to the shape of Gumby, the popular stop motion clay animation children's television character introduced in 1955.

The giant spider prop was wire-controlled from above; it is exactly the same "Moon spider" used five years earlier in Cat-Women of the Moon.

Nina Bara, in the role of the evil, scheming, back-stabbing Alpha, was familiar to genre audiences from her role as Tonga on the television series Space Patrol (1950-1955). Popular 1960s/1970s television and film star Leslie Parrish also co-stars, billed under her real name Marjorie Hellen.

Reception and legacy
The film is regarded as a drive-in camp classic. Film historians Kim R. Holston and Tom Winchester noted that the film was "... (a) low-budget, scientifically inaccurate hoot ..." Film reviewer Glenn Erickson commented on DVD Talk that the film "is nobody's idea of a good movie ... a hoot, a real knee-slapper," but added "how can the worst space movie ever made, be the worst space movie ever made, if it's such a delight?" Writing in AllMovie, critic Paula Gaita described the film as "woefully cheap and naïve," but noted that it "offers a wealth of juvenile delights, with its improbable monsters, wonky science, and serial-style hidden civilization." A review of the film in TV Guide described it as "a third-rate science fiction picture" that is "bad enough for a laugh."

The film was twice spoofed on RiffTrax

title: Missile to the Moon


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Talk:Borges on Martín Fierro

Current issues

 * I moved the section below from Talk:Jorge Luis Borges. In coming weeks/months, I hope to integrate it into the Borges on Martín Fierro page (after getting rid of any redundancy of course).
 * Sounds like a good plan.

 * As far as I'm aware, El "Martín Fierro" is unavailable in English translation. And I confess to have never read Hernández' "Martín Fierro". But the remarks in "The Argentine Writer and Tradition" seem to be important.
 * No idea on a translation: I've got it in the original Spanish, that's what I worked from in writing this article. -- Jmabel 00:51, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * English translation of Martin Fierro by Fran G. Carrino, Alberto J. Carlos, and Norman Mangouni. The Gaucho Martin Fierro.  State University of New York Press, Albany,1974. --13 Jan 2006

 * Can anyone verify there was/is a tradition of improvised singing or poetry in the Argentine countryside?! (As Borges alludes "The Argentine Writer and Tradition".) Any other references on that?
 * Verify in what sense? The tradition of payadas is well known, not at all a controversial assertion. Google "payada" or "payadas", you'll probably find plenty (though mostly in Spanish). -- Jmabel 00:51, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

 * Shazam! So if everybody in Argentina knows that, no wonder Borges didn't bother to explain. Would have been nice if the footnoters of the various English-language editions had pointed that out. --munge 22 August 2004

 * What do you think of Borges' reasoning—namely, that the song competition about universal themes reflects the real Argentine tradition, and that Hernández knew this very well and deliberately inserted it so as to pay tribute to the authentic tradition, as distinct from the supposedly artificial gauchesque style that was, according to Borges, really more of an urban fashion statement?
 * I think he's probably right: that plus a bit of showing off, that he could work in the pure payada form as well as the more artificial gauchesco. Hernández was pretty much the only author of gauchesque poetry who had actually been a gaucho. -- Jmabel 00:51, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

 * It may be worth while to add some remarks to this article about Borges short story take-off on Martín Fierro called "The End" (first published in English in Ficciones?) In that story, I take it that Martín Fierro and El Moreno have a further encounter.
 * Yes, probably worth a mention here. -- Jmabel 00:51, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

-munge 4 August 2004

Borges, Martin Fierro, and Tradition
Borges contributed to a few avant garde publications in the early 1920s, including one called Martín Fierro, named after the major work of nineteenth-century Argentine literature, Martín Fierro, a gauchesque poem by José Hernández, published in two parts, in 1872 and 1880. Initially, along with other young writers of his generation, Borges rallied around the fictional Martín Fierro as the symbol of a characteristic Argentine sensibility, not tied to European values. As Borges matured, he came to a more nuanced attitude toward the poem. Hernández' central character, Martín Fierro, is a gaucho, a free, poor, pampas-dweller, who is illegally drafted to serve at a border fort to defend against the Indians; he ultimately deserts and becomes a gaucho matrero, the Argentinian equivalent of a North American western outlaw. Borges' 1953 book of essays on the poem, El "Martín Fierro", separates his great admiration for the aesthetic virtues of the work from his rather mixed opinion of the moral virtues of its protagonist. He uses the occasion to tweak the noses of arch-nationalist interpreters of the poem, but disdains those (such as Eleuterio Tiscornia) who he sees as failing to understand its specifically Argentinian character.

In "The Argentine Writer and Tradition", Borges celebrates how Hernández expresses that character in the crucial scene in which Martin Fierro and El Moreno compete by improvising songs about universal themes such as time, night, and the sea. The scene clearly reflects the real-world gaucho tradition of payadas, improvised musical dialogues on philosophical themes—as distinct from the type of slang that Hernández uses in the main body of Martín Fierro. Borges points out that therefore, Hernández evidently knew the difference between actual gaucho tradition of composing poetry on universal themes, versus the "gauchesque" fashion among Buenos Aires literati. Borges goes on to deny the possibility that Argentine literature could distinguish itself by making reference to "local color", nor does it need to remain true to the heritage of the literature of Spain, nor to define itself as a rejection of the literature of its colonial founders, nor follow in the footsteps of European literature. He asserts that Argentine writers need to be free to define Argentine literature anew, writing about Argentina and the world from the point of view of someone who has inherited the whole of world literature.

title: Talk:Borges on Martín Fierro


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Mythopoeia

Mythopoeia, or mythopoesis, is a narrative genre in modern literature and film where an artificial or fictionalized mythology is created by the writer of prose, poetry, or other literary forms. The concept, which long preexisted him, was widely popularised by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s. The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction. Mythopoeia is also the act of creating a mythology.

Genre

The term mythopoeia comes from Hellenistic Greek (μυθοποιία), meaning 'myth-making'; an alternative is mythopoesis (μυθοποίησις) of similar meaning. The definition of mythopoeia as "a creating of myth" is first recorded from 1846. In early use, it meant the making of myths in ancient times.

While many literary works carry mythic themes, only a few approach the dense self-referentiality and purpose of mythopoesis. Mythopoeic authors include William Blake, H. P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Mervyn Peake, and Robert E. Howard. Tolkien adopted as the title of one of his poems, written in 1931 and published in Tree and Leaf.

Works of mythopoeia are often categorized as fantasy or science fiction but fill a niche for mythology in the modern world, according to Joseph Campbell, a famous student of world mythology. Campbell spoke of a Nietzschean world which has today outlived much of the mythology of the past. He claimed that new myths must be created, but he believed that present culture is changing too rapidly for society to be completely described by any such mythological framework until a later age.

The philosopher Phillip Stambovsky argues that mythopoeia provides relief from the existential dread that comes with a rational world, and that it can serve as a way to link different cultures and societies.

Mythopoeia is sometimes called artificial mythology, which emphasizes that it did not evolve naturally and is an artifice comparable with artificial language, and therefore should not be taken seriously as mythology. For example, the noted folklorist Alan Dundes argued that "any novel cannot meet the cultural criteria of myth. A work of art, or artifice, cannot be said to be the narrative of a culture's sacred tradition...[it is] at most, artificial myth."

Antecedents

William Blake set out his mythology in his "prophetic works" such as Vala, or The Four Zoas. These name several original gods, such as Urizen, Orc, Los, Albion, Rintrah, Ahania and Enitharmon. Later in the 19th century, stories by George MacDonald and H. Rider Haggard created fictional worlds; C. S. Lewis praised both for their "mythopoeic" gifts.

Lord Dunsany's 1905 book of short stories, The Gods of Pegana, is linked by Dunsany's invented pantheon of deities who dwell in Pegāna. It was followed by Time and the Gods, by some stories in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories, and by Tales of Three Hemispheres. In 1919, Dunsany told an American interviewer, "In The Gods of Pegana I tried to account for the ocean and the moon. I don't know whether anyone else has ever tried that before." Dunsany's work influenced J. R. R. Tolkien's later writings.

T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) was a deliberate attempt to model a 20th-century mythology patterned after the birth-rebirth motif described by the anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer.

J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a poem titled Mythopoeia following a discussion on the night of 19 September 1931 at Magdalen College, Oxford with C. S. Lewis and Hugo Dyson, in which he intended to explain and defend creative myth-making. The poem describes the creative human author as "the little maker" wielding his "own small golden sceptre" and ruling his "subcreation" (understood as a creation of Man within God's primary creation). Tolkien's wider legendarium includes not only origin myths, creation myths, and an epic poetry cycle, but also fictive linguistics, geology and geography. He more succinctly explores the function of such myth-making, "subcreation" and "Faery" in the short story Leaf by Niggle (1945), the novella Smith of Wootton Major (1967), and the essays Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1936) and On Fairy-Stories (1939). Written in 1939 for presentation by Tolkien at the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews and published in print in 1947, On Fairy-Stories explains "Faery" as both a fictitious realm and an archetypal plane in the psyche or soul from whence Man derives his "subcreative" capacity. Tolkien emphasizes the importance of language in the act of channeling "subcreation", speaking of the human linguistic faculty in general as well as the specifics of the language used in a given tradition, particularly in the form of story and song:

"Mythology is not a disease at all, though it may like all human things become diseased. You might as well say that thinking is a disease of the mind. It would be more near the truth to say that languages, especially modern European languages, are a disease of mythology. But Language cannot, all the same, be dismissed. The incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale are in our world coeval. The human mind, endowed with the powers of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faerie is more potent. And that is not surprising: such incantations might indeed be said to be only another view of adjectives, a part of speech in a mythical grammar. The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power—upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our minds awakes. It does not follow that we shall use that power well upon any plane. We may put a deadly green upon a man's face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine; or we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such 'fantasy,' as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator."

Tolkien scholars have likened his views on the creation of myth to the Christian concept of Logos or "The Word", which is said to act as both "the [...] language of nature" spoken into being by God, and "a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM".

Verlyn Flieger wrote that Elias Lönnrot intentionally created the Kalevala as a mythology for Finland, giving it "a world of magic and mystery, a heroic age of story that may never have existed in precisely the form he gave it, but nevertheless fired Finland with a sense of its own independent worth." In her view, Tolkien, who had read the Kalevala, "envisioned himself" doing exactly the same thing, except that the mythology would be entirely fictive. Lönnrot had travelled the backwoods of Finland for 20 years, collecting stories and songs "from unlettered peasants". Tolkien meant to invent both the collectors and the storytellers, in his case Elves: "he would be at once the singer and the compiler, the performer and the audience."

C. S. Lewis

At the time that Tolkien debated the usefulness of myth and mythopoeia with C. S. Lewis in 1931, Lewis was a theist and liked but was skeptical of mythology, taking the position that myths were "lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver. However Lewis later began to speak of Christianity as the one "true myth". Lewis wrote, "The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened." Subsequently, his Chronicles of Narnia is regarded as mythopoeia, with storylines referencing that Christian mythology, namely the narrative of a great king who is sacrificed to save his people and is resurrected. Lewis's mythopoeic intent is often confused with allegory, where the characters and world of Narnia would stand in direct equivalence with concepts and events from Christian theology and history, but Lewis repeatedly emphasized that an allegorical reading misses the point (the mythopoeia) of the Narnia stories. He shares this skepticism toward allegory with Tolkien, who disliked "conscious and intentional" allegory as it stood in opposition the broad and "inevitable" allegory of themes like "Fall" and "Mortality".

Superheroes of comic books
In The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints, Thomas Roberts observes that:

"To the student of myth, the mythos of the comics superheroes is of unique interest." "Why do human beings want myths and how do they make them? Some of the answers to those questions can be found only sixty years back. Where did Superman and the other superheroes come from? In his Encyclopedia of the Superheroes, Jeff Rovin correctly observes, "In the earliest days, we called them 'gods'."

The 1938-debuting Superman, for example, sent from the "heavens" by his father to save humanity, is a messiah-type of character in the Biblical tradition. Furthermore, along with the rest of DC Comic's Justice League of America, Superman watches over humanity from the Watchtower in the skies; just as the Greek gods do from Mount Olympus.

In film
Frank McConnell, author of Storytelling and Mythmaking and professor of English at the University of California, called film another "mythmaking" art, stating: "Film and literature matter as much as they do because they are versions of mythmaking." In his view, film is a perfect vehicle for mythmaking: "FILM...strives toward the fulfillment of its own projected reality in an ideally associative, personal world." In a broad analysis, McConnell associates the American western movies and romance movies with the Arthurian mythology, adventure and action movies with the "epic world" mythologies of founding societies, and many romance movies where the hero is allegorically playing the role of a knight, with "quest" mythologies like Sir Gawain and the Quest for the Holy Grail.

Star Wars

Filmmaker George Lucas speaks of the cinematic storyline of Star Wars as an example of modern myth-making. In 1999 he told Bill Moyers, "With Star Wars I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs." McConnell writes that "it has passed, quicker than anyone could have imagined, from the status of film to that of legitimate and deeply embedded popular mythology." John Lyden, the Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at Dana College, argues that Star Wars does indeed reproduce religious and mythical themes; specifically, he argues that the work is apocalyptic in concept and scope. Steven D. Greydanus of The Decent Film Guide agrees, calling Star Wars a "work of epic mythopoeia." In fact, Greydanus argues that Star Wars is the primary example of American mythopoeia:

"'The Force, the Jedi knights, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Princess Leia, Yoda, lightsabers, and the Death Star hold a place in the collective imagination of countless Americans that can only be described as mythic. In my review of A New Hope I called Star Wars 'the quintessential American mythology', an American take on King Arthur, Tolkien, and the samurai/wuxia epics of the East ...'"

Roger Ebert has observed of Star Wars that "It is not by accident that George Lucas worked with Joseph Campbell, an expert on the world's basic myths, in fashioning a screenplay that owes much to man's oldest stories." The "mythical" aspects of the Star Wars franchise have been challenged by other film critics. Regarding claims by Lucas himself, Steven Hart observes that Lucas didn't mention Joseph Campbell at the time of the original Star Wars; evidently they met only in the 1980s. Their mutual admiration "did wonders for [Campbell's] visibility" and obscured the tracks of Lucas in the "despised genre" science fiction; "the epics make for an infinitely classier set of influences."

In music
In classical music, Richard Wagner's operas were a deliberate attempt to create a new kind of Gesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art'), transforming the legends of the Teutonic past nearly out of recognition into a new monument to the Romantic project.

While ostensibly known for improvised jamming, the rock group Phish first cemented as a group while producing leading member Trey Anastasio's senior project in college, called The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday. The song cycle features narration of major events in a mythical land called Gamehendge, containing types of imaginary creatures and primarily populated by a race called the "Lizards". It is essentially a postmodern pastiche, drawing from Anastasio's interest in musicals or rock operas as much as from reading philosophy and fiction. The creation of the myth is considered by many fans the thesis statement of the group, musically and philosophically, as Gamehendge's book of lost secrets (called the "Helping Friendly Book") is summarized as an encouragement to improvisation in any part of life: "the trick was to surrender to the flow."

The black metal band Immortal's lyricist Harald Nævdal has created a mythological realm called Blashyrkh filled with demons, battles, winter landscapes, woods, and darkness, described by the band as a northern "Frostdemon" realm.

Organizations
The Mythopoeic Society exists to promote mythopoeic literature, with conferences, books, periodicals, and the Mythopoeic Awards.

title: Mythopoeia