Clutch (mascot)

Clutch the Rocket Bear is the mascot for the NBA's Houston Rockets.

The informal nickname "Clutch City" was given to Houston, Texas after the Rockets won their first NBA championship in the 1993-94 season. The moniker was adopted in response to a front-page headline in the Houston Chronicle declaring Houston to be "Choke City" after blowing a 20-point lead earlier in that postseason. The Rockets' bear, appropriately named "Clutch," was introduced on March 14, 1995.

Clutch was named the 5th-most recognizable mascot in sports by USA Today in February 2005, and was inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame in 2006. He also became the 2005 NBA Mascot of the Year. He also won the 2013 NBA Mascot of the Year.

He received even more attention in an Internet meme that involved a man being shot down during a halftime marriage proposal at a Rockets game in 2008. After the woman said "no" and stormed off the court, Clutch consoled him and walked him off, grabbing somebody's beer on the way out and giving it to the man. Some have questioned whether or not the incident was actually staged.

Clutch (web series)

Clutch is a Canadian crime/thriller web series created by Jonathan Robbins. It premiered on Vimeo in May 2011, but has since found a home on other broadcast sites such as Koldcast TV, Blip and JTS.TV. The webisodes are also available via DVD and special, purchasable USB keys.

The show follows the exploits of Kylie (Elitsa Bako), a pickpocket, forced to go on the run from a crime syndicate run by Marcel Obertovitch (Peter Hodgins), after her boyfriend, Matt (Matthew Carvery), betrays him. She teams up with a prostitute named Bridget (Lea Lawrynowicz) and fellow pickpocket Mike (Jeff Sinasac) to go on the offensive and rob Marcel.

As of the summer of 2013, two seasons have been released.

History

Clutch was inspired by the short film Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, previously written and produced by Jonathan Robbins. Shooting began in November 2010.

Format

Those episodes which require it begin with a warning that "This Episode of Clutch contains scenes with Violence, Nudity and Coarse Language. Viewer Discretion is advised."

Clutch (literary magazine)

Clutch was a literary magazine begun in 1991 by co-editors Daniel Hodge and Lawrence Oberc in Lexington, Kentucky.

The magazine grew out of the editors' interests and experiences in the subculture of alternative presses and little magazines, as well as their previous experience in working on the staffs of literary journals at the University of Kentucky. After the first issue was published in 1991, the magazine moved its editorial headquarters to San Francisco, where it resided for the remainder of its history. The sixth and final issue was published with an imprint date of 1997/1998.

Clutch published original poetry and prose by writers including Charles Bukowski, Kurt Nimmo, Lorri Jackson, Peter Plate, John Bennett, Poe Ballantine, Simon Perchik, Robert Peters, Denise Dee and Todd Moore, as well as Hodge and Oberc. A small press imprint, Drill Press, was originally created as a publishing vehicle for CLUTCH, and also produced some small chapbooks of poetry featuring writers that had appeared in CLUTCH, including Moore and Oberc.

Elephant

Elephants are large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Two species are traditionally recognised, the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), although some evidence suggests that African bush elephants and African forest elephants are separate species (L. africana and L. cyclotis respectively). Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephantidae is the only surviving family of the order Proboscidea; other, now extinct, members of the order include deinotheres, gomphotheres, mammoths, and mastodons. Male African elephants are the largest extant terrestrial animals and can reach a height of 4 m (13 ft) and weigh 7,000 kg (15,000 lb). All elephants have several distinctive features the most notable of which is a long trunk or proboscis, used for many purposes, particularly breathing, lifting water and grasping objects. Their incisors grow into tusks, which can serve as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. Elephants' large ear flaps help to control their body temperature. Their pillar-like legs can carry their great weight. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs while Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs.

Elephant (public information film)

Elephant is the title of a British public information film about the importance of wearing a seatbelt in the rear of a car. It was first broadcast in 1993 and continued until 1998, when it was replaced by the Julie campaign.

The film, shot entirely in black and white (save for a streak of red in the closing shot), shows four friends driving along an ordinary street. The driver and the passenger sitting behind him are not wearing their seatbelts. When the car crashes into another vehicle ahead, computer imagery shows the unrestrained back seat passenger morphing into an elephant to demonstrate that in a collision at 30 miles per hour, a passenger not wearing a seatbelt can be thrown forward at the force of 3 and a half tons, equivalent to an elephant charging directly at the person in front. The weight of the "elephant" forces the driver through the windscreen, and the front seat passenger gapes in horror as the camera closes in on the driver's body and the wreckage of the car.

Elephant (pharaoh)

Elephant (maybe read as Pen-abw) is the provisional name of a predynastic ruler. But since the incarved rock inscriptions and ivory tags showing his name are either drawn sloppy, or lacking any royal crest, the reading and thus whole existence of king "Elephant" are highly disputed.

Identity

The proposed existence of Elephant is based on Gunter Dreyer's and Ludwig David Morenz essays. They are convinced that Elephant was a local king who ruled at the region of Qustul. According to Dreyer, Elephant's name appears in incised rock inscriptions at Qustul and Gebel Sheikh-Suleiman, where the hieroglyphs are put inside a royal serekh. On ivory tags found at Abydos, the Elephant appears without any other royal crest. Dreyer sees a cube-shaped throne seat and a walking Elephant beneath it and reads Pen-abu ("Great one from the (throne) seat"). Morenz thinks alike but is highly uncertain about the reading of the name. He prefers to use the neutral provisional name "King Elephant". Alternatively, he proposes a rhinoceros as a royal animal. Morenz points out, that it became a remarkable fashion during the Naqada-III-epoch to choose dangerous and unpredictable animals (such as lions, crocodiles, elephants and rhinoceros') for building up royal names.