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Talk:Baku (mythology)

Tapir
What exactly is the relationship between the baku and the tapir? The Japanese Wikipedia article on tapirs uses the same Chinese character. — Pekinensis 05:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Japanese names many same name on mythical and real animals. The Japanese text for Kirin is the same as giraffe.  How do you explain that?  I thought if you can share your name with a vegetable, you would know what is going on.  :-)  Kowloonese 07:19, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

 * I had always heard that Baku IS a tapir... (sry I don't have a log-in, just passing thru)

The relationship between the "baku" and the tapir is NOT simple. Yes, it is like the word "kirin," which has several meanings. Lots more on this below and on the Tapir talk page, plus a reference on the Kirin page. Timothy Perper 16:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Baku, tapirs, and references
Two years later... the Nakagawa reference is not very useful. It says only (in footnote 39, if anyone is interested) that the baku is "...believed to devour bad dreams." Believed by whom? On what basis did Nakagawa say this? We need more information.

Timothy Perper 19:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

 * You should be looking at creature number 30, the "mo", which is the Chinese reading of the "baku" character. Kotengu 小天狗 20:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

 * That's the creature I'm looking at -- and it is NOT a tapir. For more information, see the discussion page for "tapir," where I've posted more detailed comments. The gist of it is as follows.

 * Here is a reference to an image from 1791 that shows a “dream-eating” Japanese supernatural creature that has an elephant’s trunk and tusks. It is NOT a zoological tapir.

 * Kern, Adam L. 2007 Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook culture and the kibyoshi of Edo Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Asian Center. page 236, figure 4.26.

 * It has tusks, a long trunk, a semi-human face, horns, and a body drawn in swirls and whorls rather like a dragon. Kern calls this creature a “baku.” I’d download the image except that that really would be copyright violation.

 * By contrast, *modern* dream-eating creatures in manga and anime are unmistakably zoological tapirs. Here’s a reference to Takahashi Rumiko’s dream-eating tapir (the original dates from the early 1980s):

 * Takahashi Rumiko 1995 Waking to a nightmare. In: The Return of Lum: Urusei Yatsura. San Francisco: Viz. pages 141-156.

 * So there you have it. The Edo period dream-eater was drawn in at least some contemporary Japanese sources with an elephant’s head. Modern Japanese dream-eaters are zoological tapirs. They are NOT the same.
 * Timothy Perper 14:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Wait, what's the problem here? I understand (and fully support) your disdain for anime-lore, but the word for the folklore critter and the zoological animal are the same, so an overlaping of the terms is to be expected, nes pa? TomorrowTime 22:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the question. It's a matter of keeping words straight and it's why Wikipedia has a disambiguation feature if the confusion amongst words is great enough to create problems. Note, though, that I don't think we need to go THAT far in this case.

 * For example, Cadillac the car, Cadillac the town in Michigan, and Cadillac the explorer are not the same. So, when people on the Internet cite Wikipedia to "prove" that in Japan "people" believe that tapirs, biological ones, eat dreams, well, it's not so. The Japanese FOLK belief refers to a creature called a baku, which has a history prior to 1854 in Japanese art and (we assume) folklore as a chimera with an elephant's head, tiger's claws, and so on. That beast simply isn't a zoological tapir, no matter what word is used.

 * Well, OK, the article needs to say that and cite some references. I haven't had the time to make the changes but I will over the next week or so.

 * Do you see what I'm driving at? There's more material on this in the Tapir discussion page, with a bunch of references. You might want to read it.

 * Timothy Perper 23:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a detailed reference about baku
Hori, Tadao 2005 Cultural note on dreaming and dream study in the future: Release from nightmare and development of dream control technique. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, Volume 3, pages 49-55.

Hori provides some detailed history of Japanese beliefs in dream-eating and/or nightmare-neutralizing amulets, talismans, and supernatural creatures, including the baku. It's a lot more complicated than merely believing that zoological tapirs eat dreams. Timothy Perper 01:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Who exactly is saying that zoological tapirs eat dreams? Quoting that article:
 * I introduce two examples, Baku and Dream Catcher, that are still popular in Japan. The Baku, an existing animal (a tapir), from the horse family. It is a chubby animal, about 1.5-2 m long, with a stretched nose. It lives in the Malaysian mountains in Asia. According to "Nihon-Saiji-ki" written by Yosifuru Kaibara (1664-1700), the Baku used to be regarded as a charm animal in China, and was later introduced to Japan, but with extreme exaggerations: the nose of an elephant, the eyes of a rhinoceros, the tail of a cow, the legs of a tiger, the hair of a lion, the spot in black and white. The Baku used to be believed to eat bizarre foods, eating irons, coppers, and bamboos.
 * So a folkloric, supernatural alteration of the actual natural tapir by people who lived very far away from the real thing. What exactly are you trying to argue here, that the two creatures are completely unrelated? I'm not seeing that in this reference or anywhere else. Kotengu 小天狗 03:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I won't include references here, since I’ve put them onto the talk pages before, both for tapir and baku (spirit).

Let’s look at this again. On the one hand, there is good evidence in (older) Japanese folklore and art that a supernatural creature called a “baku” could neutralize and/or devour dreams and nightmares. The descriptions and artwork show a chimerical beast, with the head of an elephant, long trunk, tusks, head, and so on. Nakagawa and Hori both describe the baku this way, and artists like Hokusai and the artist who drew the kibyoshi reproduced in Kern’s book draw this creature. Whatever its origins (the references say it’s originally Chinese), it is not a zoological tapir.

On the other hand, there are a good many (recent) drawings in manga and anime, as well as in various websites (some of them citing Wiki as proof), that show the baku as a zoological tapir that quite explicitly eats/neutralizes dreams. The earliest I have so far found is Takahashi’s manga, but there may be earlier examples.

Thus, what I’m doing is a kind of disambiguation or clarification. None of it implies anything about the relationship between the two kinds of baku. We’re free to speculate, but speculation isn’t Wiki-verifiable, so we can skip it. Let’s get the facts straight first: dream-eating baku have been depicted in two distinctly different ways in modern and in traditional Japanese art and folklore.

And also let’s discuss why the entry on “Baku (spirit)” needs some editing. It’s my belief that any entry should be as precise and as well-referenced as we can make it, and that holds not merely for Wikipedia but for any piece of intellectual-scholarly work. However, I strongly believe that merely making changes without prior discussion is not a good idea. The Wiki-injunction to be bold in editing is *sometimes* a good idea but I think some degree of consensus first is better. And therefore I’ve been putting the raw material on the talk pages first, so that anyone interested can read and comment.

Are we in agreement or do you have a different view?

Timothy Perper 14:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I have a revision of the Baku (spirit) article
I put all the comments I've been making into a single coherent article, including most (but not all) of the original article plus a bunch of new material, like references.

As you've figured out, if you've read any of this, I'm not a Wikipedian, and don't know much at all about the mechanics of editing. I'm a subject matter expert. So, a question -- what do I do next? Go into the article, highlight everything, delete it, and paste in the revision?

Timothy Perper 16:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, with the help of Twooars, I've made the changes in the article. It still needs a few fix-ups, but they're trivial. The links all worked when I just tested them. Timothy Perper 20:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Corrected a mistake and clarified the references
Someone recently added something to the article that is inaccurate, and I corrected the error. I also clarified the referencing, since this person said that tapir-like baku appeared in anime but not manga even though the article already cited two examples from manga. Now it's very clear that tapir-like baku appear in manga. I hope it's clear... (sigh) I wish people would read articles before they "correct" them and add mistakes (sigh).

I also fixed up = wikified some of the references. The entry still needs more citations.

Timothy Perper 22:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Added a reference to a manga with a baku
Hakase Mizuki 2007. Ba_ku. Los Angeles, CA: TokyoPop..

Yes, the underscore is correct. The title is Ba_ku.

Timothy Perper 16:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Korean counterpart
From the article introduction:
 * "The Japanese term baku has two current meanings, referring to both the traditional dream-devouring creature and to the zoological tapir (e.g., the Malaysian tapir). In Korean, the term is maek (Hangul: 맥, Hanja: 貊). In recent years, there have been changes in how the baku is depicted."

Ok, so what exactly does maek refer to? The folkloric beast or tapir, the animal? It's difficult to tell from the way the thing is phrased now (I suppose the beast from folklore is meant, but I honestly have no way of being certain). Furthermore, why does the Korean counterpart have to be here? No notability is proven. I'm not saying the article needs to be purged of the Korean equivalent, but I do have a problem with the kind of hit-and-run aproach this sentence seems to have been inserted with - there doesn't seem to be much rationale in having the sentence in there, besides: "Koreans have one too !!1!". If maek is a notable beast in Korean folklore (again, I'm assuming it's folklore we're speaking here), let's have an expanded view of this Korean counterpart, and maybe a section on how it passed from the mainland to Japan. If not, I don't see much point in this particular non sequitor sentence in the introduction. TomorrowTime (talk) 16:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

 * Can't say I disagree. If you want to remove the reference to maek I won't stop you. I don't know anything at all about them, and can't add anything to the article about maek. As I remember, it was something that the original article had in it, and it remained after I did some editing a while ago. So we agree about this. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

 * I just googled maek and "dreameater" and got a bunch of websites quoting this Wiki article. So someone who knows more than I do will have to step in here. However, the lack of a reference to the Korean term or concept means that we have another reason to remove it -- original research. I think I'll let this sit a few days and let other people comment if they want to. Then I'll take out the maek sentence. Thanks for bringing this up, TomorrowTime -- good catch. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'd wager that "maek" is the Korean word for Baku, question is, however, how prominent is the creature in Korean folklore. Does it only come up in stories that are translations of Chinese/Japanese traditional stories or does it have older stories of it's own, or is the word possibly just a term used recently to translate anime versions of the baku? TomorrowTime (talk) 09:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

 * Good questions, but I have no idea at all. The "maek" word was in the article when I made some edits on the page a while ago, and I just left it. Whaddya say we just remove it? Timothy Perper (talk) 14:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

 * I just removed the sentence mentioning maek. It seems irrelevant to the main point of the article (which is about Japanese baku) and lacks any source or description of the kind TomorrowTime discussed above. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleted Unreferenced Opinion
A while ago, I had flagged a sentence as needing a reference. No one added one and I was not able to find a reliable source that Drowzee from Pokemon was a tapir. In fact, I found a reliable source that said Drowzee was an elephant.
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=6txO1UzgOmEC&pg=PA38&dq=drowzee&hl=en&ei=yxGWTt-ME6Hd0QGRwOG6Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=drowzee&f=false

"Improving Writing at KS2 getting it right for the boys and girls" by Kirklees Children & Young People Service, page 38. So out it goes. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:26, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

 * I also deleted a dead link and repaired an out-of-date link. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Drowzee
Here's a cute little mess. Drowzee is a dream-devouring creature from Pokemon who looks like a cross between a tapir and an elephant. For some time (over the years since 2007-2008), a large variety of mostly anonymous people have added unreferenced sentences about Drowzee to the Baku article. That's fine with me --  IF  -- we had some reliable sources for Drowzee's identity or heritage. I found one source, which sounds authoritative -- the so-called "Pokedex" (for "Pokemon Index") -- which lists all the Pokemon characters, including #096, Drowzee. Problem is that the source is the Pokemon wiki, which goes by the name of Bulbapedia (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Drowzee_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29) which is user generated and hence not reliable by Wikipedia standards even if it's quoting material that's part of the TV show. I haven't found any other sources, except one that says that Drowzee is an elephant. So I'm going to leave it out until either I stumble on a reliable source or someone else does. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:55, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I found a reliable source for Drowzee, so I added it with the reference. It's to the Pokemon website itself, making it as reliable as we can expect. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

some more popculture uses of this spirit
the pokemons Musharna and Munna, and baku is the personal summon of Danzō Shimura.88.91.186.130 (talk) 01:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The article needs reliable sources for these statements before they can be added. Otherwise, who knows? Timothy Perper (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of Documented Material
A well-meaning editor deleted some reliably documented material, and I reverted the deletions. This article concerns a variety of dream-eating characters in Japanese folklore and modern manga and anime, for which reliable documentation exists and was cited. The point is that the concept of the "baku" -- the "yumekui" or "dream-eater" -- has changed in Japanese history. If the article omits that fact, it falsifies the phenomenon. We might regret these historical changes or we might not -- but they have occurred, and the article must reflect that fact. Timothy Perper (talk) 14:11, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

 * That was me. I'm very sorry for deleting without bringing it up here first. I definitely should have done that! My reason is that the references mentioned, particularly the Paprika one, are not baku. The Paprika reference feels like a random pop-culture list to me. If you've seen the movie, you'll note that the "dream-eating" scene is a very brief section at the end, and has nothing to do with the character of Paprika at all. It's just a visualization of her ending the dream-state of the main villain. Paprika herself is just the alterego of a psychotherapist. Calling her a kami of dreams and a baku just does not seem to fit with this page. (Maybe that belongs on the Paprika page.) The connection to baku is so vague and so forced that I think it makes the article weaker. The baku is a very specific folkloric monster with roots in Chinese mythology, and religious connotations in Japan. It is not solely defined by the fact that it eats dreams. This would be putting something on the "Lions" page that says "some lions don't look like lions. For example, bears are lions that look very different from lions, but they also eat meat so they are lions." Eating dreams does not a baku make. --- Osarusan 00:30, 30 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Osarusan (talk • contribs)
 * I agree that discussion is best. You asked if I had seen the film; I guess you didn't read the paper on Paprika cited -- I wrote it myself. It was published in Mechademia, and it explicitly refers to Paprika as a dream-eater, in particular a baku, the same kind of yumekui as the Hokusai baku illustrated in the article. There are, nowadays, other kinds of human-shaped baku in manga, and the article mentions some of them. I looked at your website, and see that you have drawn a number of illustrations of classical Japanese supernatural beings -- so I can understand your preferences for the older characterizations of these beings, the baku included. But the fact is that these traditional depictions of folkloric beings have changed considerably in the last 50 and more years in Japan. In Hokusai's day, the baku were depicted one way; by the time Takahashi and Oshii drew them, they had become tapirs; more recently they are human. So I can understand that you'd prefer it, perhaps, if the baku was still drawn only as a Hokusai-style yokai, but it isn't. We can't omit that fact without falsifying the data, and that I won't do. Another way of saying the same thing is that you, as an artist, will probably choose to draw the baku one way, but other artists have drawn them differently in recent years. It's the kind of historical change we have to live with -- we can't remove it. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:15, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree that we can't try to fight culture. I'm not trying to change the definition or anything, and it's not that I have a personal attachment for the animalian/spirit baku; I just honestly don't believe they are the same thing. I feel it should be deleted (or moved to a separate "yumekui" page about eating dreams in Japanese culture?) for the same reason I wouldn't want to put the "angels" from Neon Genesis Evangelion on the page for the Angel Gabriel, or Gizmo from the move Gremlins on a page about the belief in mechanical spirits called gremlins during the early 20th century. There's a connection, sure, but it's not at all the same thing. (I just read your article on Paprika -- very cool, by the way!)

 * The link between Paprika and baku is weak. The spirit has a long history that dates back thousands of years to ancient China. They both ate dreams, but there is nothing else to link them. I really do not think it is strong enough to warrant including her on the baku page as a baku. I wouldn't argue that Paprika could be called a yumekui, but in all of my research and in my years living in Japan, I have never heard of anything other dream eater except for the folkloric animal referred to as a baku. I realize you have done research of your own -- have you come up with other references?

 * Eating dreams certainly may be a recurring theme, and characters with traits similar to a baku may have been created, but I disagree that they belong under the "baku" taxonomy. Just as we don't call all creatures that breathe fire dragons, or all one-eyed creatures cyclops, not all creatures that eat dreams are baku. It muddies up the definition and implies more of a connection than there truly is.  Osarusan (talk) 08:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

 * Here's another -- and there are more in the article (I added most of the references in this article). It's to the character in the manga/anime Yu-Gi-Oh named Bakura (獏良了), which means "Good Baku Ryo" (Ryo = his name). The kanji for "baku" (獏) means dream-eater, yumekui. Here's another picture of him . Since I've been the only person working systematically on this article over the years, I decided that we don't need every example we can find of baku. But you seem to have missed many examples of baku who are not the folkloric animal -- the article give a number of examples, all referenced. I know you'd like a definition that's clean and neat, but that doesn't work for "baku." Once again, we might not like that, but it's a fact nonetheless. So far as Paprika is concerned, the paper of mine that I cited is as good a reference as any, so although you might disagree with my conclusion, it still is a reliable reference for the issue at hand. I'm quite sympathetic, BTW, to your rather classical or traditional view of what and who these beings are and how they should be portrayed, but other artists have done it quite differently. I wish you had an illustration of a traditional baku on your website, because I'd include it as an example of a Western artist's vision of a baku. Timothy Perper (talk) 14:19, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

 * You're wrong about the kanji for baku -- there is nothing about eating dreams in it. In fact, the kanji specifically implies that we are talking about an animal, not a person. The 犭 that you see as the left part of the kanji means "dog," and specifically refers to the baku as a kind of animal. The other parts of the kanji mean "big," "sun," and "grass;" not something that eats dreams. The word itself implies that we are talking about an animal here. Eating dreams was secondary a trait of the mythical animal known as baku; it was not a dream-eating spirit that later took on an animal form.

 * I don't we should be putting Yu-Gi-Oh characters on the page either, regardless of whether they use the baku kanji in their name. Bakura Ryo may be based on a baku, but is he a baku? No. He's an anime/manga character with the word baku in his name. Put that as a fact on the individual character's page and link here, but it isn't relevant to this page.

 * I understand that you put a lot of time and though into the page, but citing an article that you yourself wrote is not going to convince me unless you can show me an external source that refers to Paprika as a baku (and further, that Paprika herself is relevant enough to the definition of baku to be included in the article, rather than mentioning her baku connection on the Paprika page instead). It could be that Yasutaka Tsutsui was inspired by legends of the baku when he invented the character of Paprika, but unless he specifically calls her a baku, I don't think that is relevant information for this page. I think you may be drawing a connecting where there actually is none.

 * I'm not questioning that ideas change over time, and I am not trying to enforce one specific vision of the baku. I am challenging that Paprika belongs here. The only citation you have for that is an article you wrote yourself, and that article does not cite any other references for Paprika being a baku. The only conclusion I can make is that you drew the connection yourself -- which is fine, but that does not make it fact and I don't think warrants its inclusion in the article. Surely you can see where problems would arise if we all simply cited our own articles as reasons to add anything we wanted to Wikipedia? Someone else could very well do the same thing, and write a blog article himself stating that Santa Claus is a type of Cookie Monster because he primarily eats cookies and milk, and cite that as a source on the Cookie Monster page... but would we accept that? Not at all.

 * The other modern examples, the Pokemon Drowzee, for instance, are very clearly modern re-imaginations of the monster. Does it belong on the baku page? Maybe, maybe not. I would say it fits better on the page for that specific pokemon instead of here, but I don't necessarily see a problem with it being on both pages, because it very clearly is a re-imagining of the baku. I haven't seen all of the other characters that you refer to, so I can't comment fairly on all of them. The Paprika, one, though, I really think needs some more citations that one article that you wrote yourself for it to be included. I love Paprika -- it's one of my favorite movies -- but she is not a baku any more than Santa Claus is a Cookie Monster. Osarusan (talk) 05:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Hoary, for helping out. There's more work to be done on this article, and I'm glad to see a few other people involved. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

 * Timothy, what you are doing here is the very definition of original research. You wrote a paper in which you claimed that Paprika is a baku, which is of course fine. But you can't then turn around and edit a Wikipedia article, citing your own paper as proof that Paprika is a baku. Apart from the ethical questionability of citing yourself in an article you are editing, it should be patently obvious that since you are, as far as I know, the only person on the planet who has claimed that Paprika is a baku, the reference has no place in this article. Find another human being, anywhere, who has made the same claim, in print (and without being urged to do so by you), and then you would have something. As it stands, what you are doing is using a Wikipedia article to put forth an opinion. And it's not the first time you've done this. I don't understand why you don't see what makes this questionable. If another person, who has no connection to you, independently referenced your article here, I don't think there would be a problem. There's an article about me here on Wikipedia that contains outdated information and minor errors, but I would never dream of editing the article myself, or even asking anyone else to, unless there was blatant slander there. Similarly, there are articles here on subjects that I have written or spoken about, but I would never add a reference to my own work. If someone else does (and they have, several times), then great. But it's not my place to go around pushing my own ideas into Wikipedia articles. Which is precisely what you are doing. To be blunt, it's embarrassing to watch, and frustrating, as a Wiki editor, to deal with.Matt Thorn (talk) 07:58, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Osarusan and Matt Thorn. Using an article written by yourself as a source would be WP:COI. I also think the addition would be WP:OR. The third-party and independent published sources are needed. Besides, the kanji 獏 does not mean "dream eater". See also . Oda Mari (talk) 08:15, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Matt, you're simply wrong. Here's the guideline on COI and on citing oneself:
 * Citing oneself
 * Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion. In any case, citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work, giving proper due to the work of others as in a review article.
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Citing_oneself
 * If you disagree with my assessment of "Paprika," then publish a rebuttal in Mechademia or elsewhere in the professional literature. And, in that larger context, I'm not the only one who identified the little girl in "Paprika" as a baku = yumekui, but this is not the place to debate that issue. Concerning the kanji 獏, my source is the Breen-Monash dictionary . I don't have the time to look it up in the Kōjien.
 * And I'm fed up with endless Wiki-lawyering. I'm working now on another book, and don't have the time or interest to argue. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:49, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Pop Culture References
The "modern representations" section is a mess to look at, and it constantly gets filled by well-meaning people inserting walls of text on the latest manga character who is based on a baku or even just ever so slightly resembles it. It's essentially become a "pop culture list" and is already longer than the actual article itself (let alone the couple of massive edits that I've undone recently referencing this or that character. Is there something we can do to improve this section so it doesn't become a magnet for a million minor references with no paragraph flow at all?

If we include every time a baku is referenced in pop culture, this page will be miles long and have no really useful information on it. That's why I've been deleting new material added to that section that doesn't have a significant cultural impact. If I've undone your edit, I meant no offense. I really don't like to mess with other people's edits, but there has to be a point where we protect the integrity of page over any pride its readers may have. These references should go on the Wikipedia page for those individual mangas or manga character, mentioning that there is a character based on a baku; not vice-versa (linking to every single manga/video game character from this page). Osarusan (talk) 16:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ditto, Please see guidelines WP:TRIVIA or the essays WP:LISTCRUFT and WP:POPCULTURE • Serviceable†Villain 01:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The pop culture section has basically become a game of whack-a-mole, with people adding new insignificant mentions of baku or baku-like creatures from every anime and manga that they can see. It has gotten out of hand. Since none of the pop culture/modern baku really added anything to the article at all, other than just being a trivia list, I have removed that section to discourage the constant posting of new anime baku sightings. It would be better to link those pages to baku, unless we are talking about a particular anime/manga in which the baku plays a major role. Osarusan (talk) 01:15, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Ditto (I'm ServceableVillain above; username changed) • Arch♦Reader 04:56, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I get that the "in popular culture" sections are generally useless trivia, but this is a perfect example of how they can often contain useful and relevant information. This article should mention drowzee/pokemon in some way. It is relevant information to the topic at hand. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 10:21, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

 * What's useful or relevant about including pokemon information on the baku page? It's neither. Pokemon on the whole may be a cultural phenomenon, but Drowzee is not a majorly important element of Pokemon nor significant on its own. We don't put lists of movies that include elephants in the background on the Elephant page, so why would we include minor pop culture figures that are slightly based on a folkloric creature on its page? The connection just isn't strong; and to the extent that there is a connection, it's entirely one way. Drowzee is based on a baku, but the baku has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Drowzee. There's no value in including lists of bird-like pokemon on the Bird page, or lists of dog-like pokemon on the Dog page. So why would we include a baku-like pokemon on the Baku page? It's not relevant or valuable information. Osarusan (talk) 00:11, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

 * There is not an abundance of Baku-like pokemon. Your comparisons are moot. A japanese cultural phenomenon bears mention as modern interpretation or use of Baku mythology. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 09:07, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

 * If it were a major character like Pikachu you might have an argument. But it's not. Drowzee is not a cultural phenomenon by any measure. Go post a link to Pikachu on the page for Mouse and see what kind of reaction that gets you. It doesn't belong. It's an irrelevant pop culture reference, and the reference is only one-way. Keep the insignificant anime references off of this page please. Osarusan (talk) 09:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

 * This is not insignificant or irrelevant. The cultural phenomenon is Pokémon, not Drowzee, and Drowzee has been featured in a prominent enough role within the franchise to qualify according to WP:POPCULTURE. Not sure what a "one-way" reference is, this is how references work. Please reread the relevant guidelines. This article fails to inform if it does not include any reference to modern interpretation and usage of the mythology. I understand that there is no reason to include a list of every reference, and this is not what I'm advocating for, but simply removing every single one instead of cleaning up the section is not the right approach. This is a detriment to Wikipedia. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 19:34, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

 * This has been discussed ad nauseum already. See guidelines WP:TRIVIA or the essays WP:LISTCRUFT and WP:POPCULTURE. Pokemon links do not belong here. Osarusan (talk) 00:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

 * Yeah it keeps getting brought up because you're wrong. Please review WP:POPCULTURE and WP:POPCULTURE, as well as WP:TRIVIA. This absolutely belongs here and you clearly have a conflict of interest. Additionally, upon review of the edit history for this page, you are in violation of WP:3RR. Please refrain from further removal of this content. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 19:40, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

 * I don't know what conflict of interest you think I have, but please bring another editor in on this if you think I'm acting inappropriately. You continue to re-add the same material over and over again. There's at least one other user in this discussion in agreement with me, while you are the only person who has voiced an opinion to the contrary. The same rules are followed on every other folklore page as well. Touhou video game cruft and pokemon are not relevant to this page about folklore. The relevant Wikipedia guidelines have been supplied earlier in the thread, please review them. Also please review the 3RR rule which you posted, as it very clearly states what it is and does not apply to anything I did. You don't need to take this personally or make this into an edit war. Osarusan (talk) 06:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Baku (mythology)


text: User talk:203.113.234.8

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

title: User talk:203.113.234.8


text:
Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:Ansel Adams - Farm workers and Mt. Williamson.jpg

Ansel Adams - Farm workers and Mt. Williamson.jpg
Umm... Famous photo. Ansel Adams. Used on Ansel Adams and Manzanar. Do I need to say anything else? --Dmcdevit 05:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'''Update: New version uploaded to the Commons. Purge your caches.'''

 * Nominate and support. --Dmcdevit 05:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose picture has little appeal by itself and I'm not even sure it adds significantly. Circeus 16:24, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Really good photograph though. Jonas Olson 17:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * If it's a good photo why are you opposing it? --Fir0002 08:46, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

+3 / -7 -- Solipsist 20:12, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. not appealling Enochlau 23:48, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I still oppose the new image... I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but I just don't find it appealing... what in your mind makes this a good picture? Enochlau 03:13, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Too dark shadows. --Fir0002 08:46, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose -- too dark. - Longhair | Talk 11:58, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Big Fat Rant: Do not oppose for easily fixable technical reasons. It's a public domain image; if you think it's too dark, say so and fix it, or wait for someone else to fix it. Can't we treat this process more like the FAC process and try to nudge an image along to featured status in a constructive manner? --MarkSweep 17:21, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I added this picture to the Ansel Adams out of desperation for finding a PD example of his work. However, although it is has an echo of Adams' style, it isn't really a good representation of the work he his known for. Some web sites claim the image of 'The Tetons an Snake River' (eg. http://www.inkjetart.com/2450/48bit/page4.html) is public domain. But I couldn't find enough evidence to verify this. If anyone can confirm that it is PD, I would support the Snake River picture. -- Solipsist 15:40, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah that snake river photo is fantastic. I have a similar one for my desktop background but it isn't PD Snake River --Fir0002 01:01, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * That one looks like a modern version of the Adams classic. In fact I've read that there is a marker on the road side indicating where to place your tripod if you want to get the same angle that Adams used. -- Solipsist 07:16, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * That image is in fact available from the US National Archives and Records Administration, here. However, the copyright status is still a bit unclear: Adams donated prints to NARA but kept the negatives. The prints held by NARA are in the public domain. So as long as we start from scans of those prints, we might be Ok. However, the only digital scans available from the NARA site seem to be tiny, low-quality GIFs. --MarkSweep 17:21, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I think you are on the right track Mark. On the Library of Congress site all the Adams shots except for the Manzanar War Relocation Center photos have this copyright explanation. However the good stuff is on the NARA site even though the scans they make easily available are not so great. The instructions on how to find them are here, and the details for the Snake River picture (#148 in their standard search) are at basic-seach and enter 519904. The usage restrictions are marked as 'Unrestricted', which coupled with the evidence that he was working for the National Park Service in the early 1940s is good enough to state {PD}. So all we need now is any good scan of this picture. This site gives some good pointers and this is the best version I can find, which will do just fine. -- Solipsist 07:16, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * NARA provides two versions (scans of their print, I assume): a small but decent GIF version and a larger but too contrasty JPEG version. I strongly prefer the GIF version, since the JPEG scan doesn't look like an Adams print at all. I'm not so sure about the rationale for the {PD} tag. If Adams was commissioned by the NPS, his estate may still hold the copyright to the images; if he was employed by the government, he never held the copyright in the first place. What NARA is claiming is that the prints were gifts to the NPS and are in the public domain, whereas the negatives are not. I'm not sure if that is a defensible position, but we could take the view that if it's good enough for the US government, it's good enough for us. --MarkSweep 19:44, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. This is from the Library of Congress digital archive. A large high-quality scan is available. I'll adjust the contrast and upload a new version to the Commons. --MarkSweep 17:21, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Done. See note above. --MarkSweep 18:18, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. ugen 64 03:53, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Adams deserves a better example of his work to be featured (hence the nom above.) Matthewcieplak 11:07, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * This contest is not "pick the one most representative example of Adams's work". First, this is not about Adams, but about striking illustration irrespective of who produced them. Second, what would be wrong with designating more than one example of someone's work as featured pictures? Just because an entirely different sort of picture (landscape, as opposed to documentary/photojournalism) by the same photographer was been nominated later doesn't mean this one here has to be voted down. I think it's best to consider each picture independently and in the context of the articles it occurs in. --MarkSweep 12:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Da Vinci Charter Academy

why?
Why did this page have a bunch of empty sections, including one titled "Lotus Notes"? Cmouse 05:53, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Several Reasons; like I said earlier, it was probably started as a class project, and someone obviously did not finish the article to the extent that they had planned. Anyway, I have extended the article in my latest edit, and so it should be a little more helpful.206.15.239.253 19:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Delete it
Personally, I'd like to see this not noteworthy school stub deleted. 09:43, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

 * Just to let you know, this is an incredibly revolutionary school. The article does need some help, though... Anyway, the reason this page was made was becuase we had an assignment to make or overhaul a Wikipedia page. Just thought I'd let you know. TrogdorPolitiks 19:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry. That was me. I forgot to log in. ;-)TrogdorPolitiks 19:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Toytoy, this is an encyclopedia. It's meant to provide information on topics. It's not meant to cover the most important things, but instead to provide information on things. Of course, it's not a bucket of raw information, but any article that follows the guidelines is worth keeping. Also, this school is noteworthy. Project based learning is a big thing, bro. --Guugolpl0x (talk) 21:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge?
Please finish merging or do it off the page. Thanks. Cmouse 00:00, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Subjective
"Here is a student's remark: "I thought DVHS would be a cool place to learn new stuff. But I soon found out that because disciplinary action is not taken seriously, the campus not only was disrupted frequently, but also had unexperianced teachers who made all classes boooringg.""--This sentence in the first paragraph strikes me as extremely one-sided. As a student who attends Da Vinci high, I ask other viewpoints be added in or the above remark be taken out. Plus, the comment was unrelated compared to the rest of the paragraph.

 * Sorry, I didn't see that get added. Real life has got a bit busy lately.  You can always change it yourself next time - anyone can edit wikipedia.  :) Cmouse 08:28, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandals
This self-referencing article when compared with shows a huge disparity between the lip-mouth-keyboard self-service of the article and the behavior of the student corps vis-á-vis the Wikipedia. Please, complain to the principal/director at the email address listed in the reference and re-cast accordingly this article or delete it forever. Irresponsible students shouldn't have IP-use privilidges [sic] and should spell better. Jclerman 17:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm a little confused about what you're asking people to do with this article. If you could clarify your request, that would be great. By the way, I was looking into the vandalism issue, and the IP address for this school may also serve another school of 2000+ students, so communicating with this school's director may not solve the problem. TrogdorPolitiks 18:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Is it the same IP as Davis High as well as you are suggesting? I honestly don't know. If you want to find out, go make an edit from one of the computers in the Davis High library without logging in and see what IP made it. The Ungovernable   Force  05:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I think what he's getting at is that he sees a stark disparity between the block log and the claim that Leonardo Da Vinci High School students are responsible for their actions. However, both of you need to remember that a) teenagers have never been responsible, b) Students cannot legally be refused acess to a public connection without both significant reason and previous action, c) the actions of one individual do not ncessarily represent the maturity of an entire school of three hundred, and d) it's al right if there are spelling errors etc, there are other editors and bots that fix problems like that. Oh, and also, I would blame the students for having bad spelling; if they do it's probably their teacher's fault. ;-) And remember, everybody makes mistakes and bad judgments, that sort of thing is unavoidable. Ahudson 20:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

"Environment" section
For reference, here is the section:
 * "The environment at DVHS is very informal. Students sit in table groups, but are allowed to sit on the floor if they wish. They are allowed to listen to music during worktimes, and many often do. CD players and iPods, while not allowed at most schools, are commonly used during class time at DVHS. This creates a more relaxed work environment, and it also allows students to feel more in control and exercise responsibility more often.

''The eight classrooms are arranged in a ring, with a courtyard in the middle. The floor of the courtyard is painted blue, and it has several tables. All of the doors in the classrooms have been artistically designed and painted by students, with whimsical colors and shapes on several of them. Two of the classrooms also function as a lounge while they don't have classes in them, so they have several couches, a snack vending machine, and a fish tank''."

Bolded text has verifiability and/or neutrality problems; italicized text has notability and/or verifiability problems.

First, to say that the environment is very informal is unverifiable and biased. An expert could be quoted as calling the school "very informal", but it is not verifiable fact.

Next, the discussion of portable music players. Whether they are allowed in other schools is difficult but theoretically possible to verify (i.e. "A 2005 Gallup poll reported that the overwhelming majority of schools in all sovereign states do not allow portable music players. ") Finally, whether this creates a relaxed work environment or allows students to feel in control is unverifiable and biased.

Next, we come to descriptions of the school. Such descriptions lack notability and can not be verified with reliable sources. TrogdorPolitiks has kindly offered to take photos of the school to back up such claims. I quote the previous link: "We may not use primary sources whose information has not been made available by a reliable publisher." Such issues may seem trivial, but physical environments are subject to change. To illustrate the notability question: If some New Yorker added a section to the Empire State Building article saying "The chairs in the lounges are mauve. Vending machines abound, though no offices have animal life", that section would be reverted in minutes.

Some of this content is reasonable enough, but just doesn't stand on its own. Deltabeignet 05:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

 * The reason the section was included is that it is one of the more important things about the school, other than the technology used. The environment at the school is one of the main factors separating it from the adjacent Davis Senior High School, and is the product of one of the most important parts of the school's philosophy, to simulate a real-life work environment.

 * I don't see how the statements made in the article are biased; the environment that the administration has constructed, including the technological tools available, is why the school is notable. Since the school is only two years old, there is no published content that I have been able to find to back this up. But, not all article content is referenced, even on articles more important than this one. See Antonín Dvořák for a random example of an article with no references, even though many assertions are made that are not necessarily verifiable (for example, that one of his symphonies is better than another, or that he is incredibly important in music history),

 * I response to Deltabeignet's argument about notability, his Empire State Building example has absolutely no relevance; the Empire State Building probably has several lounges, and different-colored chairs in each. Besides, the fact that mauve chairs and vending machines exist in one part of the building is not part of the reason the building exists; however, the environment at DVHS is one of the major reasons that the school is notable and therefore deserves an article.

 * If there is someone who can contradict any of the information stated, than I will stop arguing for it's inclusion. If, for any reason, any of it is not true, than it obviously should not be included. However, it is all true, and though because of the school's brief history there is not published material supporting it, it is still relevant information that should be included in the article.
 * Heavy Metal Cellist talkcontribs
 * Besides, I was under the impression that more heinous problems should be corrected before minor questions like this one. I don't understand why this particular article must be so heavily policed when many of the pop culture articles (especially about music) are much worse than this article. Heavy Metal Cellist talkcontribs

 * Argh, the "why don't you fix the other pages?" shtick. What happens in other articles is irrelevant. (Honestly, I try to fix the pop culture and music articles, but I'm only one man.) I admit that the core policies are regularly flouted in articles, but that means those articles should be fixed, not used as a benchmark.

 * To clarify: The bold sentences are biased because 1)they express a point of view, and 2)they can not be factually established using reliable sources. No book, article, or webpage could possibly change that. Whether or not a place is informal is not quantitative; it can't be measured.

 * I didn't write "Articles may not contain any unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas"; I just enforce it. The standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is not truth; it is verifiability. If something can't be verified, special circumstances (i.e. the school being recent) don't matter. It simply doesn't belong, true or not.

 * Some of this content probably is notable and/or relevant. However, is it permanent school policy to let students listen to music? What stops someone from moving the fish tank? That's the problem with using personal experience to write articles.

 * I really am sorry that this whole thing snowballed the way it did. Deltabeignet 06:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment

 * See Requests for comment/Society, law, and sex. Deltabeignet 06:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Um... this whole thing is a bit outrageous. All you need to do is correct it so that its a statment of intention, instead of fact (i.e. "This is INTENDED to create a more relaxed....").

However, this section should not be deleted because it is a major factor of why the article (and school) are important, and deserves to have an article. On another note, if you're looking for a source, I'd recommend, Davis' web-based wiki (rather extensive, actually, I'm sure you can find something). But seriously, Deltabeignet, you're an administrator, surely you have better things to do than bully an editor about verifiability in one statement... there are much worse cases of this, and other things that need far more attention (see japanese war crimes, that's one that does need attention from a few editors) Ahudson 20:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I'd also like to question the comepetence of deltabeignet for the following reasons: a) In my understanding, it is general practice to add a "citation needed" tag instead of merely deleting two paragraphs of information, without any discussion or compensation to the content. A lack of a source is no reason to delete infromation, unless the information can be proven to be correct; b) the deleted section is one of the core values centered in the article, it is information necessary to understand the topic; c) it appears that deltabeignet did absolutely no research before taking action.
 * It is my understanding that an administrator is supposed to be an experienced contributor that knows how wikipedia works, not one that goes around deleting material that he deems trivial. How did you become an editor, deltabeignet? Ahudson 21:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyone can edit. However, I'm guessing you're wondering how I became an administrator. The answer can be found here. More importantly, my position as an administrator has nothing to do with this page; I haven't protected the page, blocked TrogdorPolitiks or rolled back his edits. My roles as an editor and as an admin are separate; here, I have acted only as a regular user.

 * I do use on articles sometimes. You say that a lack of a source is no reason to delete content. I quote Verifiability: "Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed." In addition to rigorously applying the original research and verifiability policies, I take WP:BOLD to heart. School articles in particular are barraged with well-meaning students adding unverifiable content. Personal experience is no way to write a professional-grade encyclopedia.

 * As a side note, questioning the competence of other editors may be taken as a breach of Civility.

 * Long story short, the section has some importance to the article, and parts of it are reasonable enough. My original position was a bit harsh. With this edit, I believe I can accept the paragraph. Truce? Deltabeignet 01:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

 * The article is fine now. Thanks for trying so hard to solve this. I will find a citation or something to clarify the article. Heavy Metal Cellist talkcontribs

first U.S. high school to issue laptops?
Using Google, I already found half a dozen American high schools that did that by at least fall of 2004. A citation needs to be provided for this claim in the intro paragraph. --C S (Talk) 06:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

bakit?? tagalog no
 * I am positive that there are numerous high schools that have issued laptops to their students, but I believe that Da Vinci High is the first non-vocational public high school to do so. I'll check, though. Heavy Metal Cellist talkcontribs

 * I removed it for now, since the tag had been there a while. --C S (Talk) 19:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Come ON
I don't have time right now, but I would really like this page improved. Could some of you Da Vinci Wikipedians out there cite alot of the unverified statements out there? I don't have time. --Guugolpl0x (talk) 19:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC) Bold text

Please delete this
Really, a small charter school in the small town of Davis, California is insignificant. Nothing about it makes it stand out. I think it should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.93.23.117 (talk) 01:26, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Da Vinci Charter Academy


text:
User:MethodicEvolution

I am Jake. . . I was raised in a small town and grew up in the big city.

I like science. . . I like social science. . . I like other knowledge.

I have many eccentric ambitions. . . I have many strange tendencies. . . I have an esoteric purpose. ..

I live in California, I live in my mind, I live in my room.

I spend my time learning and creating. . . I spend my money learning and creating. . . I spend my life learning and creating. ..

I am Jake. . . I come from nowhere, and I’m definitely going somewhere. . . MethodicEvolution 06:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: User:MethodicEvolution


text:
Talk:Ken Kifer

The greatest non-racing cyclists
Ken Kifer was certainly one of the top three non-racing cyclists in the US. Only John Forester and Sheldon Brown would be ahead of him in my opinion.

 * Where do you rank Dan Henry? --Teratornis 23:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Accolades for Ken
Man, I just have so much respect for Ken. He's really made an impact on me. --WAZAAAA 23:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Ken was the fellow who inspired me to get into cycling, not just bicycle touring, and who rekindled my interest in Thoreau. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.58.205.94 (talk) 19:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Ken inspired me to ride from home instead of transporting my bicycle somewhere else to ride. He may not be the greatest bicyclist in the world, but he certainly deserves a mention on wikipedia. - Pacneil (talk) 22:07, http://www.stringbike.com/11 September 2011 (UTC)

"One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility" By Zack Furness - pg 72

The Cyclist's Manifesto: The Case for Riding on Two Wheels Instead of Four By Robert Hurst - pg 82 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gam3 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

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text:
Cape Coral Bridge

The Cape Coral Bridge is a bridge located in Southwest Florida. It spans the Caloosahatchee River connecting McGregor and Cape Coral. It is made up of two parallel fixed spans, each 3400 ft long.

History
The original span opened for traffic on March 14, 1964, with one lane in each direction. In 1989, a second parallel span opened south of the first span, with two lanes for eastbound traffic, and westbound traffic using both lanes on the original span. In conjunction with the new eastbound span, a four lane overpass was constructed over the intersection of State Road 867 (McGregor Boulevard) just east of the bridge.

The Cape Coral Bridge was the only link between Fort Myers and Cape Coral until 1997, when the Midpoint Memorial Bridge opened just north of the Cape Coral Bridge on the Caloosahatchee River.

The bridge is owned by the Lee County Department of Transportation. There is currently a two dollar toll in effect for westbound vehicles only, and there is no tolls for eastbound traffic. Florida's statewide SunPass prepaid electronic toll collection system is accepted on the Cape Coral Bridge, along with Lee County's "Leeway" prepaid toll system, which is also used on the Midpoint Bridge, and the Sanibel Causeway. However, there is a variable pricing scheme in effect.

Future
Due to the age of the 1964 structure, there are currently plans to rebuild the Cape Coral Bridge. Initially, plans included replacing the westbound Cape Coral Bridge with a new three-lane bridge and widening the eastbound bridge (built in 1989) to three lanes on both direction. In 2023, the county instead decided to replace both bridges with new three-lane bridges for a total of six lanes. Additionally, the project will also allow pedestrian access to the bridge, improve bicycle lanes and improve the intersection between Cape Coral Parkway and Del Prado Boulevard. The project is expected to begin in 2026.

title: Cape Coral Bridge


text: Category:Toll bridges in Florida

title: Category:Toll bridges in Florida


text:
Larry Laffer

Lawrence Laffer is a player character and the protagonist in the Leisure Suit Larry series of adventure video games, created by Al Lowe and Mark Crowe for Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards in 1987 and later voiced by Jan Rabson. A man approaching middle-age, Larry is a balding nerd who, following a lifelong virginity, has suddenly become obsessed with sex and now lives a new life, awkwardly trying and usually badly failing to seduce attractive women. Due to the popularity of the series in the later 1980s and early 1990s, Larry was one of the well known video game characters during that era.

Appearances
In his backstory, Larry Laffer had been a nerdy geek all his life and eventually became a computer programmer. He never had close relations with friends, women, or his colleagues, and every day of his life was identical as he lived with his mother. Around his 38th birthday, his brain hit a sexual alarm and started having his first kinky thoughts, when he started reading adult magazines and could not concentrate on his work. Because of this his life was destroyed: he was fired from his job, and upon returning home he found his house had been sold and his mother had gone on vacation. Larry then decided to turn a page forward in his life, and he left everything to move to the city of Lost Wages (a pun on Las Vegas), where, assuming that 1970s styles were still trendy, he bought a polyester leisure suit. He sold his Volkswagen Bug to a junkyard for $94 and ended up outside Lefty's Bar, where the first game, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, begins.

During the course of the series of games, Larry loses his virginity, is married twice (and dumped twice), becomes a hero of the tropical island Nontoonyt in Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places), and eventually, in Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals, meets his semi-other half, a beautiful woman known as Passionate Patti (who, for some parts of this game as well as of Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work, is controlled by the player). However, in his more recent games, Patti is absent and Larry roams alone again. The Official Book of Leisure Suit Larry, which was written between Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! and Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail!, hints that Larry was still engaged with Patti during that period, but Al Lowe said in 1999, "I doubt Patti will return to haunt Larry again." Outside of his adventure game series, appears in Sierra's Hoyle Book of Games, Volume I, The Laffer Utilities, Larry Pops Up!, Leisure Suit Larry's Casino, Leisure Suit Larry's Sexy Pinball, Leisure Suit Larry Bikini Beach Volley, the mobile game version of Love for Sail, and the online casino Larry Casino.

Conception and design
Regarding Larry's male chauvinism, his designer Al Lowe said that Larry is intended as a satire of that type of man, rather than an endorsement of it. Lowe said he looked for an unconventional adventure game protagonist that could be "butt of all the jokes" in a game that would not be about saving the world or rescuing princesses but would rather deal with adult themes using humor. He recalled: "I tried to make him the opposite of a GQ model: short, overweight, balding, with comb-over hair, and so on. Larry is out of shape, losing his hair, not very successful with women, always thinking about sex - in other words, he's exactly like most guys. (...) The tough part was making Larry likable, since at first glance, he comes off as smarmy, sexist, and unlikable. I tried to make Larry resemble most guys I know: neither morons nor geniuses, basically honest and good, with a desire for more sex than they actually get. Men relate to Larry because no matter how big a loser you are, you're not as bad off as Larry!"

In Lowe's words, Larry was "modeled after a salesman for [Lowe's game company] Sierra On-Line that shall remain nameless. He would return from sales trip and brag to us about how much ass he had gotten. Those of us sitting there coding hated him." While making Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, Sierra On-Line staff had to decide the character's name. They agreed that he should be named after a certain Jerry (Lowe never made his last name known to the public), who had visited him at work and became well known in the Sierra studios. Jerry thought of himself as a great lover and became an infamous point of comical reference among the staff, so the game creators agreed that since Jerry's character suited the game's protagonist, they should jokingly tribute him. However, since they thought it would be immoral to use a real person's full name as a comical reference, "Jerry" was then altered to "Larry", a similar name, in honor of injury attorney Larry H. Parker, a childhood friend of Lowe. Lowe had to find a new surname, and having in mind the many L-words of the title, skimmed through the 'L' volume of an encyclopedia in order to find a suitable word or name. He fell on the entry of Arthur Laffer, and the name caught his attention due to its phonetic resemblance to 'laugher'. Arthur Laffer for years had no idea about the existence of the games until much later when Lowe sent a letter asking his permission for the publication of a program under the title Laffer Utilities, a Larry spin-off which could potentially confuse the public due to the ambiguous title. Laffer asked his secretary if she knew about the games and she told him that she had played them for years, but never made a connection. Laffer gave the permission and also paid a visit to the Sierra studios.

One of Larry's trademarks is his manner of introducing himself: "Hi, my name is Larry; Larry Laffer", a reference to James Bond's introduction style, "My name is Bond; James Bond". The "Leisure Suit" part came from Al Lowe's statement to Sierra founder Ken Williams that the series' predecessor Softporn Adventure was so dated that it should be wearing a leisure suit. The rest of his look includes "a Hawaiian shirt, a gold medallion, and a chest toupee because [Lowe] wanted him to be as out of it as possible." Originally, Larry was a typical 16-colored sprite, although on box covers he was seen as a cartoon with huge triangular head and nose. Lowe said about Larry's nose: "When we started, [Sierra artist] Mark Crowe gave me a choice: Larry could have either a huge nose or no nose because with only 160 pixels horizontally, his 'nose pixel' could be either on or off. Later, as graphics developed, Larry's look became more refined, but always in keeping with his loser image." As technology advanced to allow more cartoon-like graphics, the VGA games updated the sprite to resemble the depiction of Larry on the covers. In the latter games with full voice-over soundtrack, Larry is voiced by actor Jan Rabson in all games except Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, where he is voiced by Jeffrey Tambor.

Reception
According to Zero in 1992, Larry Laffer has been "a favourite among PC users for years" and GameSpot later recalled how Larry's personality flaws helped to "turn the unappealing antihero into a cash cow" for Sierra On-Line at the time. In 1995, Next Generation stated that "It's widely believed that Larry (Leisure Suit and all) is the most widely played computer game character ever, thanks to the game's early introduction, its multitude of sequels, and good old-fashioned piracy." Lowe said "Sierra surveyed Larry players and found that they strongly match the gameplaying population in general, with one exception: A higher proportion are women! My theory is that women relate to Larry because at least once they've all dated a jerk like him."

German magazine PC Games ranked Larry sixth on their 2002 list of the best game characters of all time, as "nobody fails as funny as Al Lowe's notorious adventure hero." Retro Gamer included him in their 2004 list of top 50 game heroes, noting that "after several episodes, Larry is still as balding and hapless as ever, but he's just never going to stop on his endless quest for lurve." He was voted the 45th top video game character of all time in a 2011 online poll on the website of Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition.

Arcade magazine ranked him sixth on their top list of "videogame characters who live for the thrill of the chase" in 2000 and ScrewAttack placed him third on their 2010 list of the gaming's top perverts in gaming. Complex ranked him as the third top "really ugly good guy" in 2011, as well as second among top "pervs in video games" in 2012. In 2012, Zoomin.TV ranked him as number one pervert in games, ScrewAttack placed him as sixth on their list of top "hoes of gaming" and GamesRadar included him among the "13 unluckiest bastards in gaming". In 2013, Game Informer called him "one of gaming's more infamous characters, at least among the people who still remember him by name," and Complex gave him their "Mr. Thirst" award for the most lustful video game character of all time.

Larry made a homage-type cameo appearance in the Spaceballs: The Animated Series episode "Grand Theft Starship" and was referenced by Charles Stross in Asimov's Science Fiction. A "lecherous" octopus at the Seattle Aquarium was named after the character.

title: Larry Laffer


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User talk:Judea~enwiki

Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Fuzheado | Talk 06:05, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Judea. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Judea~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 00:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 14:39, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Judea~enwiki


text:
Morris Lurie

Moses "Morris" Lurie (30 October 1938 – 8 October 2014) was an Australian writer of comic novels, short stories, essays, plays, and children's books. His work focused on the comic mishaps of Jewish-Australian men (often writers) of Lurie's generation, who are invariably jazz fans.

Biography
Lurie was born Moses Lurie in 1938 to Arie and Esther Lurie (Jewish emigrants from Poland) at the Royal Women's Hospital in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne. He was named after an uncle who had died in Poland. He was schooled at Elwood Central School, Prahran Technical School and Melbourne High School, and then studied architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology before working in advertising.

His first novel was the comic Rappaport (Hodder and Stoughton, 1966) and focused on a day in the life of a young Melbourne antique dealer and his immature friend, Friedlander. The characters, transplanted to London, were further chronicled in Rappaport's Revenge (1973). Lurie's self-exile from Australia to Europe, the UK and Northern Africa provides much of the material for his fiction. His second novel was The London Jungle Adventures of Charlie Hope (Hodder and Stoughton, 1968). Flying Home (1978) was named by the National Book Council as one of the ten best Australian books of the decade. Subsequent novels are Seven Books for Grossman (1983)—really a novella parodying the styles of various authors—and Madness (1991), about a writer dealing with a mentally unstable girlfriend.

Lurie is best known for his short stories. In 2000 he wrote an instructional guide When and How to Write Short Stories and What They Are. His stories have been published in many prestigious magazines, including The New Yorker, The Virginia Quarterly, Punch, The Times, The Telegraph Magazine, Transatlantic Review, Island, Meanjin, Overland, Quadrant and Westerly.

In his 2008 novel, To Light Attained, Lurie deals with the subject of suicide. His daughter Rachel had died by suicide in 1993, aged 23. A review of the novel described it as "a father's anguish in words".

Lurie succumbed to cancer on 8 October 2014, at the Wantirna Hospice in Melbourne's eastern suburbs.

Awards

 * 1973 – FAW State of Victoria Short Story Award: winner for 'Skylight in Lausanne'
 * 1978 – National Book Council Award for Australian Literature: highly commended for 'Flying Home : a novel'
 * 1983 – Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award: commended for 'Toby's Millions'
 * 1985 – National Book Council Award for Australian Literature, 1985: joint second for 'The Night We Ate the Sparrow : A Memoir and Fourteen Stories'
 * 1986 winner of the inaugural Young Australian's Best Book Award for 'The 27th Annual Hippopotamus Race'
 * 1988 – NBC Banjo Awards: second for 'Whole Life : An Autobiography'
 * 1991 – KOALA, Primary Readers: winner for 'The Twenty-Seventh Annual African Hippopotamus Race '
 * 1994 – Island-North Essay Competition: runner-up for The Fat Kid's Revenge
 * 1994 – Ulitarra-Sheaffer Pen Short Story Competition: winner for 'Towards a New Definition of Radical Feminism'
 * 2006 – Patrick White Award for under-recognised, lifetime achievement in literature

Works
Novels and short story collections
 * Rappaport (Hodder and Stoughton, 1966)
 * The London Jungle Adventures of Charlie Hope (Hodder and Stoughton, 1968)
 * Happy Times (Hodder and Stoughton, 1969)
 * Rappaport's Revenge (Angus & Robertson, 1973)
 * Home is (1974)
 * Inside the Wardrobe (Outback Press, 1975)
 * Flying Home (Outback Press, 1978)
 * Running Nicely (Thomas Nelson, 1979)
 * Dirty Friends (Penguin Books, 1981)
 * Seven Books for Grossman (Penguin Books, 1983)
 * Outrageous Behaviour (a collection of best stories, Penguin Books, 1984)
 * The Night We Ate the Sparrow (McPhee Gribble, 1985)
 * Two Brothers, Running (Penguin Books, 1990)
 * Madness (Angus & Robertson, 1991)
 * The String (McPhee Gribble, 1995)
 * Welcome to Tangier (Penguin Books, 1997)
 * The Secret Strength of Children (Bruce Sims Books, 2001)
 * Seventeen Versions of Jewishness: Twenty Examples (Common Ground, 2001)
 * To Light Attained (Hybrid Publishers, 2008)
 * Hergesheimer Hangs In (Arcadia/Australian Scholarly, 2011)
 * Hergesheimer in the Present Tense (Hybrid Publishers, 2014)

Essays and journalism
 * The English in Heat (Angus & Robertson, 1972)
 * Hack Work (Outback Press, 1977)
 * Public Secrets (1981)
 * Snow Jobs (1985)
 * My Life as a Movie (1988)

Other books include a collection of plays called Waterman (1979); an autobiography Whole Life (1987); and a number of children's books, including the popular Twenty-Seventh Annual African Hippopotamus Race (1969), which schoolchildren in Victoria voted their favourite young storybook by an Australian author.

title: Morris Lurie


text:
User talk:Jnestorius/Capitalization (rewrite WIP)

All nouns
says
 * "German is the only language in which all nouns begin with a capital letter."
 * "Before 1948 the å was written aa [in Danish]. The spelling reform of that year also abolished the German practice of beginning all nouns with a capital letter."


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City Market (US grocery store chain)

City Market is a supermarket chain operating in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. City Market, Inc. has its headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado. It is a subsidiary of Kroger.

City Market was founded by the Prinster family in 1924, when four brothers—Paul, Frank, Leo and Clarence—moved to Grand Junction from La Junta, Colorado. Tony Prinster's father, Frank Prinster Jr., was also president of the City Market, serving from 1961 to 1978. Joseph C. Prinster was president from 1978 to 1987, and Leo T. Prinster served as president from 1987 to 1990. Tony Prinster was president from 1990 until 2001. He joined the company in 1987 after practicing law.

Phillis Norris took the presidency February 4, 2001, and was the first non-member of the Prinster family to do so. She began her City Market career in 1974 as a store checker. She moved through the ranks of store management, eventually becoming vice president of retail operations in 1994, a position she held for five years.

In 1969, the company was acquired by the Dillon Companies. City Market became part of The Kroger Co. when Dillon and Kroger merged in 1983. City Market currently operates 38 stores in western and central Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. It formerly operated a location in New Mexico (located in Shiprock, on the Navajo Reservation), which was sold to Arizona-based Bashas in 2022.

title: City Market (US grocery store chain)


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Talk:John Paxson

Untitled
The "Family" section has mistakes in it.

Untitled
John Paxson is a very nice guy. I met him at a Notre Dame basketball game when I was a junior and he was a freshman. My roommate, Beth, was the Sports Editor of the Notre Dame student newspaper, and she often hung out with athletes at games. She kept calling him Johnny, and introduced me to this really young kid who was hobbling around with a broken leg. He was very low-key, courteous, and kind. Once he got back to playing condition, he'd started making his mark on Notre Dame, and later on the Bulls. And I knew him when he was just a very nice freshman named Johnny, with a broken leg.

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 22:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

management section
Much of this section as currently configured is more a recent history of the Chicgao Bulls rather than any real encyclopaedic reference to Paxson's GM tenure. I'd expect to find most of this information on the Chicago Bulls page rather than Paxson's. I don't really care enough to edit it, just an observation.Zerotta (talk) 16:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:John Paxson


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Ivo Pelay

Ivo Pelay (May 5, 1893 – August 28, 1959) was one of Argentina's most prolific playwrights of the early 20th century.

Born Guillermo Juan Robustiano Pichot in Buenos Aires, Pelay wrote over 200 plays in his lifetime, beginning with La Mala Vida in 1911. Perhaps his most famous work is his 1925 nationalist dramedy La canción de los barrios ("Song of the Streets"). In addition, a number of his plays documenting the political and economic woes of Argentina in the 1930s were very popular.

While most of his plays were satires or straight comedies, he wrote a number of popular local musicals, which helped popularize the tango style of music. In addition, he worked as a writer for radio, as a journalist, and as a director on a number of his plays. He also served as the chief manager of the Teatro Nacional, which showcased many of his plays.

Pelay was also a prolific lyricist, notably in the tango and milonga styles, with over 100 songs to his credit. His best-known works include Todo te Nombra, Soñar y nada mas and above all Se dice de me.

Pelay died in 1959 as one of the legends of Argentine theater. He was 66.

He is buried at La Chacarita Cemetery.

Selected filmography

 * Honeysuckle (1938)
 * The Song of the Suburbs (1941)
 * The New Bell (1950)

title: Ivo Pelay


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Joe Mangrum

Joe Mangrum (born February 10, 1969) is an installation and multiple-medium artist who is particularly known for his large-scale colored sand paintings. He resides in New York City. Using a wide spectrum of components, his work often includes organic materials, such as flowers, food and sand, in addition to deconstructed computer parts, auto-parts and a multitude of found and collected objects. His installations often include mandala-like forms, pyramids, maps, grids and mushroom clouds and the Ouroboros.

Early life and education
Joe Mangrum was born in Florissant, Missouri, near St. Louis. He started taking oil painting lessons when he was 8. At age 16 he won a trip to India, in an art competition sponsored by the Asia Society. His entry in the contest was a painting which portrayed a series of baskets representing his limited knowledge of India. The trip sparked an interest in travel and multicultural influences. Mangrum attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1991. His focus of study was on painting and photography, though after art school he began to expand his work into site-specific, environmental and ephemeral installations.

Sand paintings
Joe Mangrum has created hundreds of sand paintings in public spaces of New York City. Each large scale sand painting is spontaneously created by pouring colored sand into multiple patterns over the course of a day and is often fifteen to twenty feet in diameter. He cites influences from many sources in what he calls, “...organic symmetry where the feeling of the design is of a living being outstretched on the pavement...images may intertwine like a Celtic knot or represent nature like a sea anemone, DNA strands or some biomorphic form, sometimes very psychedelic.” He also describes "... an urban free-style and combined with bright 'Pop Art' colors, fractal variations and circuitry. My paintings are influenced by an abundant world of undersea creatures, carnivorous plants emanating electrical impulses, a living mathematical amalgam and botanical geometry stemming cross-cultural metaphors..." He also cites influences such as Rangoli, Buddhist mandalas, Navajo sand paintings, mosaics in Islamic art and the rose windows of European cathedrals.

He has been commissioned to create site-specific sand paintings for The Museum of Arts and Design, FLAG Arts Foundation, Corcoran Gallery Rotunda, Asia Society, United Nations School and Adelphi University. Mangrum has also produced sand paintings in San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit and San Cristobal, Mexico.

Early work and California
After graduating from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mangrum traveled for over four years in Europe and throughout the United States. Eventually he settled in Laguna Beach, California and began to arrange floral and natural materials into installations in public spaces. These often, circular forms have been called mandalas, though Mangrum has more recently chosen to describe them as biomorphic or organic installations. His first installations in Laguna Beach stemmed from a desire to draw attention to the impending San Joaquin Hills Toll Road(California State Route 73) in 1994. The road would divide one of the last major open green spaces in Orange County, California. His newly found activism propelled his determination to examine environmental issues in the forum of public art. He began to create organic forms at Main Beach Park, a public space in Laguna Beach. His art work was swept up by the Parks Department, so he continued to create new pieces and they were relentlessly swept up again. This resulted in a visit to a city council meeting by Mangrum. The council demanded that he provide one million dollars worth of liability insurance. The story was picked up by the L.A. Times and thereby sparked further discussion about art, its expression and the right to protest. Mangrum was invited to produce his first solo show at San Francisco State University in 1995. This show marked his first usage of found objects, auto parts and money in addition to his organic materials. It consisted of five biomorphic forms on the ground with a wall painting in binary code of the story of the Lorax by Dr. Seuss, contained in an enlarged image of Mangrum’s thumbprint. Once Mangrum had acquired insurance, he returned to Laguna beach and created installations titled “Creation, Capitalism and Corrective Surgery,” and “Echoes of Corrective Surgery” based on his observations of life in Southern California.

A second L.A. Times article in 1995 caught the eye of art gallerist, Daniel Arvizu, who invited Mangrum to install a solo show at his gallery in Santa Ana, California. Mangrum created an ephemeral installation inspired by Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights using molasses (as a substitute for oil) and orange slices in an interpretation of observations of the oil industry and its environmental “purgatories” in Orange County. Mangrum continued his use of Molasses in combination with wheat grass and piano parts in a group show entitled “The Embarrassment of Riches,” at Huntington Beach Art Center curated by Marilu Knode.

San Francisco
Mangrum took up residence in San Francisco in the mid-1990s after many years of traveling and continued to make public art both spontaneously and commissioned projects by the city of San Francisco. He was commissioned for two permanent terrazzo artworks that can be found on opposite corners of Mission and 22nd streets in San Francisco. In addition, an ephemeral installation titled “ Trans-mission 98”, was created at Justin Herman Plaza. This temporary installation consisted of dismantling the artist’s car and arranging it as a cityscape with organic elements of sod in Justin Herman Plaza. A reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle hastily ran the license plate number of the car and wrote an article incorrectly stating that a deal had been struck between the city and Mangrum to exchange his commission fee for absolution of multiple parking tickets. The article was picked up by various papers and blogs including “News of the Weird.” This controversy resulted in Ralph Guggenheim, the chair of the visual arts committee at the Art Commission, clarifying in a letter to the editor that “...The San Francisco Art Commission did not, and does not cut deals with artists. Mr. Mangrum, like any citizen, is responsible for paying his parking tickets. The implication that the commission approved this work instead of paying the tickets is ridiculous.”

In 2005, in celebration of World Environment Day, Mangrum created a 40 ft tall and 16 ft wide Mushroom Cloud of live wheatgrass. The project was grown over a 2-week period in various locations in San Francisco and contained 300 lbs of dry wheatgrass seed. The cloud towered over an artificial cityscape made from industrial parts. The title of the project was "Detonation Earth" and was installed at Red Ink Studios in San Francisco.

Mangrum continued to utilize organic elements such as wheatgrass, flowers and palm leaves with car parts, bullets, machine wheels, and sand in his large scale ephemeral installations. He created site specific works for SFMOMA Gallery at Fort Mason San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Bioneers Conference and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. Mangrum also continued to produce three-dimensional installations at local galleries such as Urbis Artium, (now Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art), pop up exhibits and festivals.

Additionally, he founded an alternative warehouse space known as Facility 3 from 1997 to 2003, which functioned as a multi-use art studio and event space that hosted many performers and theatrical groups like Shotgun Players and musicians such as Sean Hayes (musician), Jolie Holland, Extra Action Marching Band; various Burning Man and DJ events, including the late DJ Cheb i Sabbah and Lorin aka Bassnectar.

New York
In 2008, Mangrum moved to New York. He had installed a solo show titled, “Impressions” at Chi Contemporary Gallery (now Causey Contemporary) in Brooklyn, 2006. This solo show marked the emergence of sand painting as a primary feature in his work. He produced a second solo show at Chi Contemporary in 2009, titled “Chrysalis Stage.” Mangrum began his series of over 700 sand paintings in public spaces of New York City in 2009 and continues currently. The public is most likely to view these paintings periodically in Washington Square Park and Union Square, Manhattan. In 2010, he created a sand runway for designer Jen Kao during Fashion Week which landed him Vanity Fair as a cartoon. In 2018, for Fashion Week NYC Mangrum was commissioned by Designer Prabal Gurung to create 3 sand paintings for a fashion runway featured in NY Times Mangrum has appeared on multiple media outlets and blogs. He regularly posts updates of his works in progress live on social media and his website. His sand-stained hands were included on the cover of Humans of New York (HONY), by photographer, Brandon Stanton,and later appeared in Episode 1 "Time" (19:20-21:20) of Humans of New York: The Series

Broadcasts
After a brief appearance in 2012, where a time lapse was created at Washington Square Park for the "Word on the Street", Joe was a guest on Sesame Street in 2013 featured in the "People in Your Neighborhood segment with Murray and Ovejita, creating a portrait of the pair of Muppets in sand with a distinctive background of The Mona Lisa. He has also been interviewed for the PBS art program, Spark on KQED, 2006 and PBS, Chicago Tonight WTTW, 2013.

Festivals
Joe Mangrum has designed and created sculptural installations and architectural pieces for Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, The Electric Daisy Carnival, The Mile High Music Festival and All Points West Music & Arts Festival among many others.

Academia

 * Academic Article on ephemeral art

title: Joe Mangrum


text:
Talk:Malmoe

On 2 Apr 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. See Votes for deletion/Malmoe

title: Talk:Malmoe


text:
Adam Lazzara

Adam Lazzara is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist of the rock band Taking Back Sunday. Along with singing lead vocals, Lazzara plays guitar and occasionally the harmonica.

Joining the band
Adam Lazzara initially met the members of Taking Back Sunday at a show in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the performance, Phil Hanratty of the band Errortype:11 was filling in for Taking Back Sunday’s bassist. Lazzara, whose high school band had performed in a show earlier that year with Errortype:11, connected with Hanratty before the show. Hanratty informed Lazzara that Taking Back Sunday’s bassist, Jesse Lacey, had recently left to start his own band, "Brand New," and Taking Back Sunday was looking for a new bassist. He stayed after the show to meet them and asked to try out for the open bassist slot. They said yes, and about a month later, Lazzara drove from North Carolina to Long Island to try out. A week after that, Eddie Reyes, the guitarist of Taking Back Sunday at the time, called Lazzara and asked if he wanted to play with them for a couple of shows. Lazzara booked a flight to New York in 2001 and by the end of that year, he had gone from temporary bassist to the band's frontman.

Early years
Taking Back Sunday recorded their first album with Mike Sapone, which was then burned onto CD’s at band members Shaun Cooper and Mark O'Connell’s apartment. In the Spring of 2002, they released their debut album "Tell All Your Friends" with Victory Records. They did two tours after that release and began selling out venues they opened for only a year before. In 2004, they went on to release “Where You Want To Be” which became one of the top-selling independently released rock records of the year. It debuted at No. 3 on Billboard 200 and reached No. 16 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. In the following year, they signed with Warner Bros.

Breakout album
In April of 2006, Taking Back Sunday put out their third album, "Louder Now". The album contained the hit song "Make Damn Sure" which is largely thought of as their breakout song and is their most successful song to date. It peaked at number 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 8 on the Alternative charts, and ranked number 52 on Rolling Stone's "The 100 Best Songs of 2006"

Taking Back Sunday today
Today, the current members of Taking Back Sunday are: Adam Lazzara (lead vocals), John Nolan (lead guitar, keyboards, vocals), Shaun Cooper (bass guitar) and Mark O'Connell (drums), accompanied by Nathan Cogan (guitar) for their live performances

Personal life
Adam Lazzara was born September 22, 1981 in Sheffield, AL. His family moved to High Point, North Carolina when he was a young child and he attended Southwest Guilford Elementary School, Middle School and High School. Looking back at this time, Lazzara has described himself as a quiet, shy kid who had a stutter and wanted to be a dolphin trainer. At age 13, he was introduced to Nirvana for the first time and began to "live and breathe rock music." He started playing in bands throughout highschool and was inspired by artists like Nirvana, Michael Jackson, and Lifetime and "skateboarded everywhere until I was probably 19 or 20."
 * "I heard Nirvana and my whole world changed forever. Later on, maybe when I was about 14 years old, an older friend of mine let me borrow Earth Crisis’ Destroy The Machines and Lifetime’s Hello Bastards. [...] that Lifetime record changed my whole world all over again. Even when I listen to it now, it gives me this feeling that I can’t describe. That lead me to searching out bands on labels like Jade Tree and so on."
 * – Adam Lazzara, interviewed by Mischa Pearlman.

Lazzara was briefly engaged to Chauntelle Dupree, guitarist of Eisley, in 2007, but the pair split before marrying.

He went on to meet Misha Vaagen, a student at UT Tyler and bartender at a local restaurant. They were married in June 2008 and had their first child in January 2009. They currently live in North Carolina with their three children. Misha is the author of Manmade Constellations.

In February 2015, Lazzara was arrested for a DWI while in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was released on a $2,500 bond.

Discography
With Taking Back Sunday
 * Tell All Your Friends (2002)
 * Where You Want To Be (2004)
 * Louder Now (2006)
 * New Again (2009)
 * Taking Back Sunday (2011)
 * Happiness Is (2014)
 * Tidal Wave (2016)
 * 152 (2023)

Solo
 * "Because It Works" (2013)

title: Adam Lazzara