The difference between the Islamic hammam and the Victorian Turkish bath is the air. The hot air in the Victorian Turkish bath is dry; in the Islamic hammam the air is often steamy. The bather in a Victorian Turkish bath will often take a plunge in a cold pool after the hot rooms; the Islamic hammam usually does not have a pool unless the water is flowing from a spring. In the Islamic hammams the bathers splash themselves with cold water.
Jude Law and Nicole Kidman play lovers in Civil War North Carolina in the movie Cold Mountain which, like the novel which inspired it, is loosely based on The Odyssey.
In addition to being made into a movie, the short story Brokeback Mountain was also adapted as an opera by the same name, composed by Charles Wuorinen with a libretto in English by Proulx. It premiered at the Teatro Real in Madrid on January 28, 2014.
The surname “Proulx” originates in western France from where it was carried to Quebec and is fairly common.
It is a dialect variant of the adjective “preux”, meaning valiant or honourable. It probably began as a nickname which then was adopted as a surname.
Bertie Wooster repeatedly states that he aspires to be a “preux chevalier,” his role model of chivalric behaviour.
Jeeves and Wooster was a British comedy-drama series adapted by Clive Exton from P. G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves” stories. which aired on the ITV network from April 22, 1990 to June 20, 1993. It starred Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, a young gentleman with a “distinctive blend of airy nonchalance and refined gormlessness”, and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, his improbably intelligent and bold valet.
David Wooster was an American general who served in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolutionary War. He died of wounds sustained during the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1777. The city of Wooster, Ohio is named after him, along with other sites.
John Lea and William Perrins, the originators of Worcestershire sauce, were not happy with the original flavor of their concoction, so they just set it aside, only coming back months later to find it had fermented into a pleasant taste.
In 1968, a scientist at 3M in the United States, Dr. Spencer Silver, was attempting to develop a super-strong adhesive. Instead he accidentally created a “low-tack”, reusable, pressure-sensitive adhesive. For five years, Silver promoted his “solution without a problem” within 3M both informally and through seminars but failed to gain acceptance. In 1974 a colleague who had attended one of his seminars, Art Fry, came up with the idea of using the adhesive to anchor his bookmark in his hymnbook. Fry then utilized 3M’s officially sanctioned “permitted bootlegging” policy to develop the idea. The original notes’ yellow color was chosen by accident, as the lab next-door to the Post-It team had only yellow scrap paper to use.
3M launched the product as “Press 'n Peel” in stores in four cities in 1977, but results were disappointing. A year later 3M instead issued free samples directly to consumers in Boise, Idaho, with 94 percent of those who tried them indicating they would buy the product. The product was sold as “Post-Its” in 1979 when the rollout introduction began, and was sold across the United States from April 6, 1980. Thus, it took 7 years to come up with the idea, and another 5 years to marker it properly.
“Little Miss Marker”, a 1934 comedy-drama based on a short story of the same name by Damon Runyon, stars Shirley Temple and Adolphe Menjou in a story about a little girl held as collateral by gangsters. It was Temple’s first starring role in a major motion picture and established her as a film star.
In New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, one block of West 45th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues) is named “Runyon’s Way”, after Damon Runyon.
Damon Bailey was drafted out of Indiana University by the Indiana Pacers in the second round of the 1994 NBA Draft, 44th overall. He spent a season on the team’s injured list and played in a few preseason games the following year before being cut. He never played a regular-season NBA game.
The AMC Pacer was one of the first compact cars made in the US. It was featured in the movie Wayne’s World.
The use of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the film Wayne’s World propelled the song to number two on Billboard singles charts seventeen years after its first release, when it had peaked at number nine in the U.S.
In her first feature film, Parton portrayed a secretary in a leading role with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the comedy film 9 to 5 . She received nominations for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress. Parton wrote and recorded the film’s title song, which received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Song and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Released as a single, the song won both the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and the Grammy Award for Best Country Song. It also reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart and it was No. 78 on the “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs” list released by the American Film Institute in 2004. 9 to 5 became a major box office success, grossing over $3.9 million its opening weekend, and over $103 million worldwide. Parton was named Top Female Box Office Star by the Motion Picture Herald in both 1981 and 1982 due to the film’s success
Pentatonix and Dolly Parton won a Grammy Award in this recent awards show, for their performance of the Parton hit song “Jolene”. It was Pentatonix’s third Grammy and Parton’s ninth, including a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dolly the Sheep, named after Dolly Parton, was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell
In their 1999 hit “The Bad Touch”, off the album Hooray for Boobies, Temple University-based rappers Bloodhound Gang implored:
You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals
So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel
As of June 2012, the Discovery Channel is the third most widely distributed cable channel in the United States, behind Turner Broadcast System (TBS) and The Weather Channel.
The French term for the English Channel is “La Manche”, which literally means “sleeve”.
Manicotti is the plural of the Italian word manicotto, meaning literally, “little sleeve” or “little shirtsleeve”. It also means “cooked hands” (mani = hands, cotti = cooked), referring to hands being burnt when making the crepes traditionally used to create this dish. It is also an Italian pasta, shaped like a large tube, usually ridged, intended to be stuffed and baked. The filling is generally ricotta cheese mixed with cooked chopped spinach, and possibly ground meat such as veal. The manicotti are then covered with sauce and cheese, and baked.