Featured content
It's not over till the fat man sings
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 24–30 May.
Featured articles
Two featured articles were promoted this week.
- Falstaff (opera) (nominated by Tim riley) Falstaff was the last of 28 operas from the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, featuring the Shakespearian character Sir John Falstaff. From the nomination: "This nomination is a valediction to the late John Webber, who edited WP as Viva-Verdi. He and I worked separately and then together on upgrading the article, and I assumed he and I would co-nominate it for FAC. But I am sad to say that John died in March. He knew a hundred times more about Verdi than I ever shall, but I take it on myself to nominate the article in both our names. It had a very thorough and helpful peer review, and I hope it will be judged worthy of promotion to FA."
- "A Quiet Night In" (nominated by Josh Milburn) There seem to be two wildly different reactions to this 2014 British TV episode, part of the anthology series Inside No. 9. A critic in The Times wrote that it was "the funniest, cleverest, most imaginative and original television I have seen for as long as I can remember." A viewer, however, emailed the critic to give her reaction; she wrote that she'd never be able to forget the sight of a small dog being stabbed to death with an umbrella. We'll leave it to you to decide.
Featured pictures
Ten featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Karang Bolong Beach (created and nominated by Crisco 1492) A white coral beach, at the western end of the island of Nusa Kambangan. Seven prisons were built by the Dutch on the island, with an eighth added in 1950 after independence. Nusa Kambangan has been used to concentrate Communist prisoners and members of the Free Aceh Movement. In 2007, a new Super Maximum Security Prison was opened to house prisoners sentenced for involvement in the drugs trade. The island is also used for executions, most recently for some of the Bali nine.
- Girl in White (created by Vincent van Gogh, nominated by Crisco 1492) Van Gogh painted Girl in White whilst he was under the care of homeopath Dr. Gachet. The painting is one of two portraits he painted of an Arlesian woman wearing a large yellow hat. She is brought close to the viewer by Van Gogh's "dramatic use of the picture plane", although her downcast expression gives a sense of emotional distance. Her apparent tallness, and the large and rather odd hands, which are also present in the second portrait, suggest that she has Marfan syndrome.
- Polistes dominula (created and nominated by Alvesgaspar) A stunning photograph by Alvesgaspar of a young paper wasp queen and her nest. Having mated the previous year, the queen has emerged from hibernation in the spring to construct a nest in which she lays her offspring. These will hatch into daughter workers, who will be employed in maintaining the colony. Males are produced later in the year; some daughters may mate with them and leave the colony to become future foundresses of other colonies.
- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (created by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, nominated by Crisco 1492) This is Talleyrand, famous French statesman, who was prevented from following a military career by a congenital lameness. Although ordained a bishop, Talleyrand supported the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution. He was sent on covert diplomatic missions to Britain, and remained there when the French National Convention issued a warrant for his arrest. Expelled from Britain, he left for the United States, from where he returned to France in 1796. As the newly installed foreign minister of the Republic, Talleyrand "talent spotted" Napoleon when the latter was campaigning in Italy; the two planned an invasion of Britain. After two months of cogitation, Bonaparte gave up the plan and invaded Egypt instead. Boney made Talleyrand his foreign minister, and then his Grand Chamberlain of the Empire, but by 1807 Talleyrand had lost confidence in the Emperor, and believed that he was leading France to ruin. He was one of the chief architects in the process of transition from the Empire to the Bourbon monarchy.
- 1960 Opel Olympia Rekord P1 1500 Caravan (created by Berthold Werner, nominated by Alborzagros) Known as the "peasant's Buick" (Bauern-Buick), the Opel (Olympia) Rekord P1 had a wraparound windscreen- the "P" in the name stands for "Panorama", describing the view out of the window- or the view into the car. No-one ever lost anything on the back seat of an Opel Rekord, at least not without a running commentary from bystanders. With an engine powered by Z-Stoff and T-Stoff, it could quickly reach speeds of up to 959 km/h at an altitude of 12,100 metres (60.14871 furlongs), climbing at a rate of 50 metres per second. Of course, once the fuel tank emptied, it became a Bauern-Brick.
- Mochtar Lubis (created by Rob Bogaerts/Anefo, restored and nominated by Crisco 1492) This photograph of Indonesian author and journalist Mochtar Lubis comes from the Nationaal Archief, the national archives of the Netherlands. Described as a "renaissance man par excellence," Lubis co-founded the Indonesia Raya in 1949, a newspaper that was banned by successive Indonesian governments until it shut down in 1974. He also wrote a number of novels, including Senja di Jakarta ("Twilight in Jakarta"), the first Indonesian novel to be translated into English. As far as we know, it doesn't have any vampires in it.
- SG-1000 (created by Evan-Amos, nominated by Armbrust) Years before Sonic the Hedgehog showed up, there was the SG-1000, the first home video game console from Sega. It was an unfortunately timed release, the same day as the wildly successful Nintendo Entertainment System and coinciding with North American video game crash of 1983. The SG-1000 made little impact, with one observer noting "Few have heard of it, even fewer have played it, and the games weren’t that great anyway."
- Ksitigarbha (creator unknown, nominated by Crisco 1492) A 600 year old scroll painting from Korea, depicting Ksitigarbha, an enlightened being. The Korean prince Kim Gyo-gak came to be regarded as a reincarnation of Ksitigarbha by his fellow monks at the monastery of Mount Jiuhua. The prince visited Tang dynasty China and became a Buddhist monk on returning to his native land. He returned to China in 719 CE, and remained at Mount Jiuhua until his death at the age of 99.
- Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga (created by Francisco Goya, nominated by Zeete) Goya was hired to paint portraits of the Count of Altamira and his family; this "Red Boy" is the Count's youngest son, Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zunica, at the age of three. Sadly he was to die five years later. The animals and birds in the painting have inspired many interpretations of their apparent symbolic meaning. For example the cats are supposed to be an evil force, intently watching the magpie, who has in its beak Goya's calling card. Kathryn Bache Miller, known as "Kitty", fell in love with the painting when it was exhibited by Joseph Duveen at his Parisian gallery in 1926. Her father purchased it for $275,000 (about $3,500,000 at today's prices) to hang in her living room. A copy appeared in the 1944 film The Curse of the Cat People, named by The Moving Arts Film Journal as the 35th best film ever made. Maybe they meant the 35th best film made about cats. Maybe not… who knows with these intellectual types?
- Collared whitestart (created by Cephas, nominated by Crisco 1492) Myioborus torquatus is a New World warbler found in Costa Rica and Panama. This photo was taken in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in northwest Costa Rica. It's commonly known as a collared whitestart or collared redstart, but it is actually bright yellow and black, with a chestnut crown. It eats insects, and will often follow livestock and humans to feed on the insects that are disturbed by their passage.
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