Woody Allen: Television as Crisis

HomeFeature Articles Woody Allen: Television as Crisis Alex Munt October 2019 Feature Articles Issue 92 “Renata Adler said television was an appliance rather than an artform.” Woody Allen in Meetin’ WA, Jean-Luc Godard, 1986 It was in high-school that a precocious Woody Allen (Allan Stewart Konigsberg) started writing jokes for print media.1 At seventeen he was published in Nick Kenny’s column for the New York Daily Mirror, then Earl Wilson’s column at the New York Post.2 Allen recalls, “One day after school I started typing jokes out and looking at them. And I immediately sold them at ten cents a crack to newspaper columns. I was working immediately so there was never any doubt about what I was going to do.”3 This early commitment to a life of writing would find a diversity of creative outputs: print media, stand-up comedy, radio, theatre, essays, prose and screenwriting for television and feature film – which is the focus of this article. In 1953, Allen enrolled at New York University, taking an arts degree with a major in film production. He lasted just two semesters.4 After abandoning a formal education, and harbouring ambitions as a playwright, he turned to private tuition from Lajos Egri, having been an admirer of The Art of Dramatic Writing.5 However, Allen quit this path to formal screenwriting education and confirmed his ongoing commitment to autodidacticism. Some decades later, the character Gabe (Allen) in Husbands and Wives (1992) reiterates this, “You can’t teach writing…it’s not something you can teach…y’know you can only expose the students to good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can write can write when they come to my class and the others never learn.” It was the momentum of the first “Golden Age” of television (the late 1940s to early 1960s) which propelled Woody Allen to screenwriting, and from New York to California. In 1955, he was selected to participate in a new NBC Writer’s Development Program (Brunette 2006: xv) for NBC Comedy Hour (1956), The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950-55) and Caesar’s Hour (1954-57), mingling with Bob Hope, Pat Boone, Mel Brooks – with Sid Caesar as his favourite.6 Allen biographer, John Baxter notes of Allen’s formative experience in writing for television that it, “…soured Allen not only on Los Angeles, but on the craft of writing comedy for TV.”7 Allen purportedly said, “You hack around from show to show and you’re always worried – is the comedian you’re writing for going to be dropped because of bad ratings?”8 He would contribute to The Ed Sullivan Show (1948-71) and The Tonight Show (1954 – ongoing). In 1962, Allen remarked he had contributed 20,000 jokes for comedians

Extreme intensity pulses in a semiconductor laser with a short external cavity

We present a numerical study of the pulses displayed by a semiconductor laser with optical feedback in the short cavity regime, such that the external cavity round trip time is smaller than the laser relaxation oscillation period. For certain parameters there are occasional pulses, which are high enough to be considered extreme events. We characterize the bifurcation scenario that gives rise to such extreme pulses and study the influence of noise. We demonstrate intermittency when the extreme pulses appear and hysteresis when the attractor that sustains these pulses is destroyed. We also show that this scenario is robust under the inclusion of noise

The Relationship between Type-Preference Scores and Reading Comprehension Achievement Scores

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether or not cognitive preferences, as measured by an indicator of psychological type, have a significant relationship to performance on standardized reading comprehension tests. The subjects of this study were a group of one hundred college freshmen randomly selected from an incoming population at a mid-sized technical institution. All students were administered both the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1962) and the Nelson-Denny Reading Comprehension Subtest (Brown, Bennett, & Hanna, 1981). The scoring of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator resulted in a four-letter type composite made up of two attitude preference scores and two function preference scores for each student. The Nelson-Denny scores were broken down into percent correct on the literal questions, percent correct on the inferential questions, percent correct of those attempted, and a percentile ranking. Chi-square tests of independence were done to see if significant relationships existed at the .05 level. The results indicated that a significant relationship did exist between S/N type-preferences and scores on the inferential questions. Also, there was a significant relationship between J/P type-preferences and percentile rankings. Recommendations for future research is this area, as well as implications for the findings of this study, were discussed

Cinematic virtual reality: Towards the spatialized screenplay

© 2018 Intellect Ltd Article. This article considers how screenwriting might operate in the newly established medium of cinematic virtual reality (CVR). In Part One, we take a wide view of ways to consider screenwriting and development for CVR. Our approach theorizes CVR in the tradition of picture-making (or image-making) practices that can be traced within a broader history of the visual arts -from painting, to photography and contemporary art. In this way, we lay open the possibility for CVR to find diverse paths as it responds to narrative concerns rather than suggest it should merely repeat the consolidation of narrative that occurred with the transition of exploratory early cinema to the dominant Classical Hollywood system. In Part Two, our case study approach considers co-author, Miriam Ross’, CVR practice-based research to allow a discussion of the format that can be used for delivery of the CVR screenplay. Our aims are to connect a historically based spatialization of the image with the question of the spatialization of the screenplay for CVR 360-degrees media. The agenda is to expand the conversation around CVR to reflect upon, and inspire, new ways of thinking (and seeing) the potential for the development of screen ideas in this medium

Extreme intensity pulses in a semiconductor laser with a short external cavity

We present a numerical study of the pulses displayed by a semiconductor laser with optical feedback in the short-cavity regime, such that the external cavity round-trip time is shorter than the laser relaxation oscillation period. For certain parameters there are occasional pulses, which are high enough to be considered extreme events. We characterize the bifurcation scenario that gives rise to such extreme pulses and study the influence of noise. We demonstrate intermittency when the extreme pulses appear and hysteresis when the attractor that sustains these pulses is destroyed. We also show that this scenario is robust under the inclusion of noise. © 2013 American Physical Society.This work was supported in part by Grant No. FA8655-12-1-2140 from EOARD US, Grant No. FIS2012-37655-C02-01 from the Spanish MCI, and Grant No. 2009 SGR 1168 from the Generalitat de Catalunya. C. Masoller acknowledges support from the ICREA Academia programe. J.Z.M. acknowledges support from FISICOS Grant No. FIS2007-60327 of the Spanish MCI and INTENSE@COSYP Grant No. FIS2012-30634 of the FEDER. J.A.R. acknowledges support from Grant No. BES-2008-003398 and thanks the UPC for hospitality during his visit, during which part of this work was done.Peer Reviewe

Parts Unknown

Visual Arts: Solo curated exhibition of 19 artworks (photographs) Curator: Elizabeth Reidy, Waverley Counci

Active deformation in the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Anatolia inferred from numerical modeling and geodetic and seismological data

From Gibraltar to Anatolia, the active tectonics in the Mediterranean is studied by means of an integrated approach based on geophysical, geodetic, and seismological methodologies. The aim of this study is to gain a deep insight into the kinematics and dynamics of the crustal and lithospheric processes affecting the Mediterranean. Major tectonic processes, such as continental collision and subduction, characterize this region, which marks a broad transition zone between the African/Arabian and Eurasian plates. A thin-shell finite element approach allows us to simulate the deformation pattern in the Mediterranean, from 10°W to 40°E and from 30° to 50°N. The global plate motion model NUVEL-1A is used to account for the convergence, while the relative velocities of the overriding and subduction plates are obtained from another family of models. These models simulate the effects of the negatively buoyant density contrasts of the subducted lithosphere on the horizontal velocity at the surface. A systematic comparison between model results and the seismic strain rates obtained from the National Earthquake Information Center catalog, the geodetic velocity field and strain resulting from GPS, satellite laser ranging, and very long baseline interferometry analyses and the World Stress Map, indicate that Africa/Arabia versus Eurasia convergence and subduction in the Aegean Sea and Calabrian Arc are the major tectonic mechanisms controlling the deformation style in the Mediterranean. It is shown that in order to carry into coincidence the modeled and the seismic strain rate patterns and the geodetically retrieved strain rate tensors, a deep subduction in the Aegean Arc must be included in the modeling.This work is supported by the COFIN2000 project of the Italian Ministry of the Instruction, University and Research, “Active deformation at the northern boundary of Adria.” This has also been supported by the contract ASI-1998-2000-Working group on measurements and methods of high precision Space Geodesy.Peer reviewe

A cytoplasmic peptide of the neurotrophin receptor p75NTR: induction of apoptosis and NMR determined helical conformation

AbstractThe neurotrophin receptor (NTR) and tumor necrosis factor receptor family of receptors regulate apoptotic cell death during development and in adult tissues [Beutler and van Huffel, Science 264 (1994) 667–668]. We have examined a fragment of p75NTR from the carboxyl terminus of the receptor and a variant form of this peptide via NMR techniques and in vitro assays for apoptotic activity. The wild type peptide induces apoptosis and adopts a helical conformation oriented parallel to the surface of lipid micelles, whereas the variant form adopts a non-helical conformation in the presence of lipid and shows no activity. These experiments suggest a link between structure and function of the two peptides

Clinical debriefing during the COVID-19 pandemic: hurdles and opportunities for healthcare teams

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent pressures on healthcare staff and resources have exacerbated the need for clinical teams to reflect and learn from workplace experiences. Surges in critically ill patients, the impact of the disease on the workforce and long term adjustments in work and life have upturned our normality. Whilst this situation has generated a new 'connectedness' within healthcare workers, it also continues to test our resilience. An international multi-professional collaboration has guided the identification of ongoing difficulties to effective communication and debriefing, as well as emerging opportunities to promote a culture of dialogue. This article outlines pandemic related barriers and new possibilities categorising them according to task management, teamwork, situational awareness and decision making. It describes their direct and indirect impact on clinical debriefing and signposts towards solutions to overcome challenges and, building on new bridges, advance team conversations that allow us to learn, improve and support each other. This pandemic has brought clinical professionals together; nevertheless, it is essential to invest in further developing and supporting cohesive teams. Debriefing enables healthcare teams and educators to mitigate stress, build resilience and promote a culture of continuous learning and patient care improvement

Modal scattering at an impedance transition in a lined flow duct

An explicit Wiener-Hopf solution is derived to describe the scattering of duct modes at a hard-soft wall impedance transition in a circular duct with uniform mean flow. Specifically, we have a circular duct r = 1,-8 <x <8 with mean flow Mach number M > 0 and a hard wall along x <0 and a wall of impedance Z along x > 0. A minimum edge condition at x = 0 requires a continuous wall streamline r = 1 + h(x, t ), no more singular than h = O(x1/2) for x ¿ 0. A mode, incident from x <0, scatters at x = 0 into a series of reflected modes and a series of transmitted modes. Of particular interest is the role of a possible instability along the lined wall in combination with the edge singularity. If one of the "upstream" running modes is to be interpreted as a downstream-running instability, we have an extra degree of freedom in the Wiener-Hopf analysis that can be resolved by application of some form of Kutta condition at x = 0, for example a more stringent edge condition where h = O(x3/2) at the downstream side. The question of the instability requires an investigation of the modes in the complex frequency plane and therefore depends on the chosen impedance model, since Z = Z(¿) is essentially frequency dependent. The usual causality condition by Briggs and Bers appears to be not applicable here because it requires a temporal growth rate bounded for all real axial wave numbers. The alternative Crighton-Leppington criterion, however, is applicable and confirms that the suspected mode is usually unstable. In general, the effect of this Kutta condition is significant, but it is particularly large for the plane wave at low frequencies and should therefore be easily measurable. For ¿ ¿ 0, the modulus tends to |R001| ¿ (1 + M)/(1 - M) without and to 1 with Kutta condition, while the end correction tends to8without and to a finite value with Kutta condition. This is exactly the same behaviour as found for reflection at a pipe exit with flow, irrespective if this is uniform or jet flow