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Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a novel published in December 1871 by Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford. It was the sequel to his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), in which many of the characters were anthropomorphic playing cards. In this second novel the theme is chess. As in the earlier book, the central figure, Alice, enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a large looking-glass (a mirror)[n 1] into a world that she can see beyond it. There she finds that, just as in a reflection, things are reversed, including logic (for example, running helps one remain stationary, walking away from something brings one towards it, chessmen are alive and nursery-rhyme characters are real).

Among the characters Alice meets are the severe Red Queen,[n 2] the gentle and flustered White Queen, the quarrelsome twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the rude and opinionated Humpty Dumpty, and the kindly but impractical White Knight. Eventually, as in the earlier book, after a succession of strange adventures, Alice wakes and realises she has been dreaming. As in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the original illustrations are by John Tenniel.

The book contains several verse passages, including "Jabberwocky", "The Walrus and the Carpenter" and the White Knight's ballad, "A-sitting On a Gate". Like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the book introduces phrases that have become common currency, including "jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day", "sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast", "un-birthday presents", "portmanteau words" and "as large as life and twice as natural".

Through the Looking Glass has been adapted for the stage and the screen and translated into many languages. Critical opinion of the book has generally been favourable and either ranked it on a par with its predecessor or else only just short of it.

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Alicia is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter and pianist Alicia Keys. It was primarily recorded at Oven Studios and Jungle City Studios, both in New York, after her 2016 album Here and her judgeship on the singing competition series The Voice, before being released by RCA Records on September 18, 2020. Written and produced largely by Keys, the album also features songwriting and production contributions from Swizz Beatz, Ryan Tedder, Johnny McDaid, Ed Sheeran, and The-Dream, among others. Keys collaborated with more artists on the recording than in her previous albums, enlisting vocalists such as Sampha, Tierra Whack, Diamond Platnumz, Snoh Aalegra, and Jill Scott for certain tracks.

Alicia's mostly low-tempo and melodically subtle music reconciles the experimental direction of Here with her earlier work's bass drum-driven R&B and piano-based balladry. Throughout, individual songs incorporate sounds from a wide range of other genres, including orchestral pop, progressive soul, funk, ambient, country, and Caribbean music. Thematically, they explore identity as a multifaceted concept, sociopolitical concerns, and forms of love within the framework of impressionistic lyrics, personal narratives, and self-knowledge. Keys has described the album as therapeutic and reflective of greater introspection in herself, expressing ideas and feelings of hope, frustration, despair, ambivalence, and equanimity shared in her memoir More Myself (2020), which was written during Alicia's recording.

The album was originally scheduled to be released on March 20, 2020, then May 15, before being delayed indefinitely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was marketed with an extended traditional rollout campaign that featured various media appearances by Keys and the release of seven singles, including the Miguel duet "Show Me Love", "Time Machine", "Underdog", and "So Done" (with Khalid). After a surprise announcement of its impending release in September, Alicia debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 in its first week and became Keys' eighth top-10 record in the US, while charting in the top 10 in several other countries. However, it fell off the US chart a few weeks later.

A critical success, Alicia received praise for Keys' nuanced vocal performances and the music's broad appeal, while her thematic messages were considered balanced, healing, and timely against the backdrop of unfolding world events. The singles "Good Job" and "Perfect Way to Die" resonated especially with the importance of essential workers during the pandemic and with the 2020–2021 racial unrest over police brutality in the US, respectively. The album also won the Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards. In further support of the album, Keys performed in concert from June to November 2022 and in May 2023 on the Alicia + Keys World Tour, which had been postponed from 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

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Homer Jay Simpson is the main protagonist of the American animated television series The Simpsons. Part of the titular family, Homer made his television debut in the short "Good Night" on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening created and designed Homer while waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office. Initially called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip Life in Hell, Groening instead developed a new set of characters. After two years on The Tracey Ullman Show, the Simpson family received their own series, which premiered on Fox on December 17, 1989.

Homer is the patriarch of the family; he is married to Marge, with whom he has three children, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. As the family's primary provider, Homer primarily works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. He embodies numerous American working-class stereotypes: he is overweight, balding, immature, unintelligent, outspoken, aggressive, lazy, ignorant, unprofessional, and deeply fond of beer, junk food, and television. Despite these flaws, Homer is fundamentally a good-hearted man and fiercely protective of his family, especially during critical moments.

In the shorts and early episodes of The Simpsons, Dan Castellaneta voiced Homer with a loose impression of Walter Matthau. However, starting with the second season of the full-length series, Homer's voice evolved into a more robust tone to better convey a broader range of emotions. Homer has also appeared in various Simpsons-related media, including video games, The Simpsons Movie (2007), The Simpsons Ride, commercials, and comic books, and has inspired a wide range of merchandise. His iconic catchphrase, the annoyed grunt "D'oh!", has been recognized in linguistics, appearing in The New Oxford Dictionary of English since 1998 and the Oxford English Dictionary since 2001.

Homer is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential television characters of all time and is widely recognized as an American cultural icon. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Homer ninth on their list of the "50 Greatest TV Icons", and in 2010, placed him first on their list of the "Top 100 Characters of the Past Twenty Years". The Sunday Times referred to him as "the greatest comic creation of [modern] time",[1] while TV Guide, in 2002, called him the second-greatest cartoon character (after Bugs Bunny). Castellaneta has received four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, along with a special-achievement Annie Award. In 2000, Homer and the family were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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Myst V: End of Ages is a 2005 adventure video game and the fifth and final installment in the Myst series. The game was developed by Cyan Worlds, published by Ubisoft, and released for Macintosh and Windows PC platforms in September 2005. End of Ages's gameplay consists of navigating worlds known as "Ages" via the use of special books and solving puzzles in each Age. In a departure from previous titles in the series, End of Ages replaces pre-rendered graphics with worlds rendered in real-time, allowing players to freely navigate the Ages. Also new to the series are puzzles based around a species known as the Bahro, who respond to symbols carved into tablets. Control of the tablet, and thus the Bahro, is central to the game's story.

The faces of actors were digitally mapped onto three-dimensional character models to preserve realism. The game also includes multiple methods of navigation and an in-game camera.

End of Ages was positively received, despite complaints such as lessened interactivity compared to previous games and poorer graphics. After End of Ages's release, Cyan abruptly announced the end of software development and the layoff of most of its staff, but was able to rehire much of the development team a few weeks later.

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The Caerleon pipe burial is a second-century Roman grave from a cemetery associated with the former legionary fortress and settlement, Isca Augusta, in what is now Caerleon, Wales, United Kingdom. The main site, including its large amphitheatre, was excavated in the early twentieth century, largely by the archaeologist Tessa Wheeler, but its surrounding cemeteries were mainly known only through casual finds.

In 1927, building works on a site across the River Usk from the fortress led to the discovery of a grave containing a stone-lined tomb. Within the tomb was a lead canister containing cremated bone fragments and a piece of linen bearing traces of frankincense. Also present was a 3.8 cm (1.5 in) broken lead pipe which would originally have reached the surface. This type of burial is rare in Britain and was investigated at the time of its discovery by the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler. He consulted the anatomist Arthur Keith, who determined that the bone fragments belonged to a single adult, findings confirmed at re-examination in 2001 by Alice Roberts.

Tombs with vertical lead or earthenware pipes are found throughout the Roman Empire, and graves featuring other means of partial access from the surface also occur widely. These features are believed to have facilitated sacrifices and other offerings to the departed. In particular, pipe burials are thought to have allowed relatives to pour blood or wine into the container to nourish the soul of the deceased.

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Thomas Jerome Hudner Jr. (August 31, 1924 – November 13, 2017) was a United States Navy officer and naval aviator. He rose to the rank of captain, and received the Medal of Honor for his actions in trying to save the life of his wingman, Ensign Jesse L. Brown, during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War.

Born in Fall River, Massachusetts, Hudner attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and the United States Naval Academy. Initially uninterested in aviation, he eventually took up flying and joined Fighter Squadron 32, flying the F4U Corsair at the outbreak of the Korean War. Arriving near Korea in October 1950, he flew support missions from the aircraft carrier USS Leyte.

On December 4, 1950, Hudner and Brown were among a group of pilots on patrol near the Chosin Reservoir when Brown's Corsair was struck by ground fire from Chinese troops and crashed. In an attempt to save Brown from his burning aircraft, Hudner intentionally crash-landed his own aircraft on a snowy mountain in freezing temperatures to help Brown. In spite of these efforts, Brown died of his injuries and Hudner was forced to leave Brown's body behind, as a rescue helicopter could not fly in the dark and Hudner had suffered his own injuries in the landing.

Following the incident, Hudner held positions aboard several U.S. Navy ships and with a number of aviation units, including a brief stint as executive officer of USS Kitty Hawk during a tour in the Vietnam War, before retiring in 1973. In subsequent years, he worked for various veterans' organizations in the United States. The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner is named for him.

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20 Exchange Place, originally the City Bank–Farmers Trust Building, is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1931, it was designed by Cross & Cross as the headquarters of the City Bank–Farmers Trust Company, predecessor of Citigroup. The building, standing at approximately 741 feet (226 m) with 57 usable stories, was one of the city's tallest buildings and the world's tallest stone-clad building upon its completion. While 20 Exchange Place was intended to be the world's tallest building when built, the plan was scaled back because of the Great Depression.

The building has a granite and limestone facade, while its internal superstructure is made of steel. The lower section of the facade fills the entirety of an irregular quadrilateral city block and contains piers with figures depicting the "giants of finance", as well as decorations designed by the British sculptor David Evans. The main entrance on Exchange Place has a round arch with granite medallions representing the countries where City Bank Farmers Trust had offices. The upper stories, consisting of a square tower with chamfered corners, are offset from the base.

The City Bank–Farmers Trust Building was built between 1930 and 1931 for the newly merged National City Bank of New York and the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company. It remained the company's headquarters until 1956 and was sold in 1979. The 16th through 57th floors of the building, originally used as offices, were converted to residences by Metro Loft Management during the 1990s. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 20 Exchange Place as an official city landmark in 1996, and it is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007.

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Burger's Daughter is a political and historical novel by the South African Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Nadine Gordimer, first published in the United Kingdom in June 1979 by Jonathan Cape. The book was expected to be banned in South Africa, and a month after publication in London the import and sale of the book in South Africa was prohibited by the Publications Control Board. Three months later, the Publications Appeal Board overturned the banning and the restrictions were lifted.

Burger's Daughter details a group of white anti-apartheid activists in South Africa seeking to overthrow the South African government. It is set in the mid-1970s, and follows the life of Rosa Burger, the title character, as she comes to terms with her father Lionel Burger's legacy as an activist in the South African Communist Party (SACP). The perspective shifts between Rosa's internal monologue (often directed towards her father or her lover Conrad), and the omniscient narrator. The novel is rooted in the history of the anti-apartheid struggle and references to actual events and people from that period, including Nelson Mandela and the 1976 Soweto uprising.

Gordimer herself was involved in South African struggle politics, and she knew many of the activists, including Bram Fischer, Mandela's treason trial defence lawyer. She modelled the Burger family in the novel loosely on Fischer's family, and described Burger's Daughter as "a coded homage" to Fischer.[2] While banned in South Africa, a copy of the book was smuggled into Mandela's prison cell on Robben Island, and he reported that he "thought well of it".[3]

The novel was generally well-received by critics. A reviewer for The New York Times said that Burger's Daughter is Gordimer's "most political and most moving novel",[4] and a review in The New York Review of Books described the style of writing as "elegant", "fastidious" and belonging to a "cultivated upper class".[5] A critic in The Hudson Review had mixed feelings about the book, saying that it "gives scarcely any pleasure in the reading but which one is pleased to have read nonetheless".[6] Burger's Daughter won the Central News Agency Literary Award in 1980.

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Joan (Autumn/Winter 1998) was the twelfth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. Continuing McQueen's dual fascination with religion and violence, it was inspired by imagery of persecution, most significantly the 1431 martyrdom of French Catholic saint Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake. The collection's palette was mainly red, black, and silver; colours which evoked notions of warfare, death, blood, and flames. Many looks referenced ecclesiastical garments and medieval armour, including several items that mimicked chainmail and one ensemble that had actual silver-plated armour pieces.

The runway show was staged on 25 February 1998 at Gatliff Road Warehouse in London. McQueen caused an upset by banning several tabloid journalists, one of whom responded with an angry editorial. Production was handled by McQueen's usual creative team. The set design for Joan was sparse and industrial: a dark room lit by metal lamps suspended over the runway. The 100-foot (30 m) runway was covered in black ashes, and models entered through a black backdrop backlit in red. Ninety-one looks were presented; primarily womenswear with some menswear.[a] The show concluded with model Svetlana wearing a red beaded dress which covered her face, swaying in a circle of flames.

Critical response to the clothing and the runway show for Joan was positive, and it is regarded as one of McQueen's most memorable shows. Academic analysis has focused on interpretation of the styling, the finale, and the meaning of several garments printed with a photograph of children. Several items from Joan have appeared in museum exhibitions, including Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty and Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse.