|
Feathertop
"Feathertop" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1852. The moral tale uses a metaphoric scarecrow named Feathertop and its adventure to offer the reader a conclusive lesson about human character. It has since been used and adapted in several other media forms, such as opera and theatre. Plot In seventeenth century New England, the witch Mother Rigby builds a scarecrow to protect her garden. She is so taken with her own handiwork that she whimsically decides to bring the scarecrow to life and send it into town to woo Polly Gookin, the daughter of Judge Gookin, with whom Mother Rigby had unspecified prior dealings. Once the stuffed man does come alive, Mother Rigby gives him the appearance of a normal human being and provides a pipe, on which the scarecrow must puff to keep himself alive. Judge Gookin meets the scarecrow, whom Mother Rigby has named Feathertop. Feathertop is introduced to Polly, and the two begin to fall in love. But when Polly and Featherto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. He published his first work in 1828, the novel '' Fanshawe''; he later tried to suppress it, feeling that it was not equal to the standard of his later work. He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as ''Twice-Told Tales''. The following year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. ''The Scarlet Letter'' was published in 1850, followed by a suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Valency
Maurice Valency (22 March 1903 – 28 September 1996) was a playwright, author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, best known for his award-winning adaptations of plays by Jean Giraudoux and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. He wrote several original plays, but is best known for his adaptations of the plays of others. Valency's version of ''The Madwoman of Chaillot'' would become the basis of the Jerry Herman musical ''Dear World'' on Broadway. He is also noted for his book ''The Flower and the Castle: An Introduction to Modern Drama''. John Gassner in his review of this book said that Mr. Valency brought to his work "a lifetime of study and experience as well as a viewpoint both Olympian and engaged." Valency also wrote television plays, adaptations of librettos, novels, and academic works on Anton Chekhov, Chekhov, August Strindberg, Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, Shaw. Life Maurice Valency was educated in New Yo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mosses From An Old Manse
''Mosses from an Old Manse'' is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846. Background and publication history The collection includes several previously published short stories, and was named in honor of The Old Manse where Hawthorne and his wife lived for the first three years of their marriage. The first edition was published in 1846. Hawthorne seems to have been paid $75 for the publication. Analysis Many of the tales collected in ''Mosses from an Old Manse'' are allegories and, typical of Hawthorne, focus on the negative side of human nature. Hawthorne's friend Herman Melville noted this aspect in his review "Hawthorne and His Mosses": William Henry Channing noted in his review of the collection, in '' The Harbinger'', its author "had been baptized in the deep waters of ''Tragedy''", and his work was dark with only brief moments of "serene brightness" which was never brighter than "dusky twilight". Critical reception After the book's first pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scarecrow
A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesley Brown (ed.). (2007). "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles". 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . Scarecrows are used around the world by farmers, and are a notable symbol of farms and the countryside in popular culture. Design The common form of a scarecrow is a humanoid figure dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds such as Corvus, crows or Old World sparrow, sparrows from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops. Machinery such as windmills have been employed as scarecrows, but the effectiveness lessens as animals become familiar with the structures. Since the invention of the humanoid scarecrow, more effective methods have been developed. On California far ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and is usually higher than a hill, typically rising at least 300 metres (1,000 feet) above the surrounding land. A few mountains are Monadnock, isolated summits, but most occur in mountain ranges. Mountain formation, Mountains are formed through Tectonic plate, tectonic forces, erosion, or volcanism, which act on time scales of up to tens of millions of years. Once mountain building ceases, mountains are slowly leveled through the action of weathering, through Slump (geology), slumping and other forms of mass wasting, as well as through erosion by rivers and glaciers. High elevations on mountains produce Alpine climate, colder climates than at sea level at similar latitude. These colder climates strongly affect the Montane ecosystems, ecosys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh O'Brian
Hugh O'Brian (born Hugh Charles Krampe; April 19, 1925 – September 5, 2016) was an American actor and humanitarian, best known for his starring roles in the ABC Western television series ''The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp'' (1955–1961) and the NBC action television series ''Search'' (1972–1973). His notable films included the adaptation of Agatha Christie's ''Ten Little Indians'' (1965); he also had a notable supporting role in John Wayne's last film, ''The Shootist'' (1976). He created the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit youth leadership-development program for high-school scholars. It has sponsored more than 500,000 students since O'Brian founded the program in 1958, following an extended visit with physician and theologian Albert Schweitzer. Life and career Early life and military service O'Brian was born Hugh Charles Krampe in Rochester, New York, the son of Hugh John Krampe, who served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network's secondary offices, and headquarters of its news division, are in New York City, at its broadcast center at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Since 2007, when ABC Radio (also known as Cumulus Media Networks) was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, ABC has reduced its broadcasting operations almost exclusively to television. It is the fifth-oldest major broadcasting network in the world and the youngest of the American Big Three television networks. The network is sometimes referred to as the Alphabet Network, as its initialism also represents the first three letters of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emory Parnell
Emory Parnell (December 29, 1892 – June 22, 1979) was an American vaudeville performer and actor who appeared in over 250 films in his 36-year career. Early years Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Parnell trained as a musician at Morningside College, a Methodist institution in Sioux City, Iowa. He spent eight months in the Arctic in 1929, looking for gold in that area's wastelands. He also worked as a telegrapher. Music Parnell spent his early years as a concert violinist. He performed on the Chautauqua and Lyceum circuits until 1930, when he relocated to Detroit, Michigan, to narrate and act in commercial and industrial films. A 1923 newspaper article described an upcoming Lyceum performance of "Emory Parnell, the one man band," saying that Parnell "plays an accordion, the snare drum and base icdrum, all at the same time." During part of the Chautauqua years, Parnell had a family act that included his wife. In 1970, she recalled, " covered every state as well as Canada, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Elliott
Richard Damon Elliott (April 30, 1886 – December 22, 1961) was an American character actor who played in over 240 films from the 1930s until the time of his death. Early years Elliott was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Career Elliott played many different roles, typically as a somewhat blustery sort, such as a politician. A short, fat man, Elliott played Santa Claus on the Jimmy Durante, Red Skelton, and Jack Benny programs. Elliott had a couple of memorable lines in ''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946), in which he scolded James Stewart, who was trying to say goodnight to Donna Reed, advising him: "Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?" He also had a few memorable appearances in episodes of the '' Adventures of Superman'' television series. He appeared three times as Stanley on the CBS sitcom '' December Bride'', as well as on two of ABC/Warner Brothers' western series, ''Sugarfoot'' and ''Maverick''. He was cast as the prospector Peter Cooper and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carleton Carpenter
Carleton Upham Carpenter Jr. (July 10, 1926 – January 31, 2022) was an American film, television and stage actor, magician, songwriter, and novelist. Early and personal life Carpenter was born in Bennington, Vermont, where he attended Bennington High School. He was the son of Carleton Upham Carpenter Sr. He was bisexual. Carpenter lived in Warwick, New York, where he died on January 31, 2022, at the age of 95. Military service Carpenter served as a Seabee in the U.S. Navy during World War II and helped to build the airstrip from which the ''Enola Gay'' took off for its flight to bomb Hiroshima. Acting career Carpenter began his performing career as a magician and an actor on Broadway, beginning with David Merrick's first production, ''Bright Boy'', in 1944, followed by co-starring appearances in ''Three to Make Ready'' with Ray Bolger, ''John Murray Anderson's Almanac'', and ''Hotel Paradiso''. He was a featured player on the early television program '' Campus Hoopla'', w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood ( Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring role at age 8 in ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947). As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in ''Rebel Without a Cause'' (1955), followed by a role in John Ford's ''The Searchers'' (1956). Wood starred in the musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''Gypsy'' (1962), and received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in ''Splendor in the Grass'' (1961) and ''Love with the Proper Stranger'' (1963). Her career continued with films such as ''Sex and the Single Girl'' (1964), ''Inside Daisy Clover'' (1965), and ''Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'' (1969). During the 1970s, Wood began a hiatus from film and had two daughters: one with her second husband ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.png "Click for more on -> Carleton Carpenter")
