Paradise (Persian: پردیس, Paradise garden) is the term for a place of timeless harmony. The Abrahamic faiths associate paradise with the Garden of Eden, that is, the perfect state of the world prior to the fall from grace, and the perfect state that will be restored in the World to Come.
Paradisaical notions are cross-cultural, often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury and idleness. Paradise is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell. In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead. In Christian and Islamic understanding, Heaven is a paradisaical relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the otherworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisaical land of plenty where the heroic and righteous dead hoped to spend eternity. The Vedic Indians held that the physical body was destroyed by fire but recreated and reunited in the Third Heaven in a state of bliss. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the "Best Existence" and the "House of Song" are places of the righteous dead. On the other hand, in cosmological contexts 'paradise' describes the world before it was tainted by evil.
Paradise is the debut studio album by Australian recording artist Cody Simpson, released on 28 September 2012 by Atlantic Records.
On 12 June 2012, Simpson released Preview to Paradise, a four song teaser EP. The EP featured the songs "Got Me Good", "So Listen", "Wish U Were Here", and "Gentleman". All of the songs, besides "So Listen" were released as a part of Paradise. Simpson stated the reason behind only having a few collaborations on the album is because "I wanted my debut full length album to be a representation of me." It is rumored that Simpson could perform a one off song with JLS star Aston Merrygold once Surfers Paradise has been released.
On 25 May 2012, the lead single, "Got Me Good" was released as a teaser on Simpson's official website and radio. The accompanying music video was released on 5 June.
"Wish U Were Here", which features American YouTube singer Becky G, was the second official single off the album, released on 12 June 2012. The music video debuted on 7 August 2012. Four days later, three remixes of the song were released.
Paradise is a historical novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah. The novel was nominated for both the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Fiction.
The novel follows the story of Yusuf, a boy born in the fictional town of Kawa in Tanzania at the turn of the Twentieth century. Yusuf's father is a hotelier and is in debt to a rich and powerful Arab merchant named Aziz. Early in the story Yusuf is pawned in exchange for his father's owed debt to Aziz and must work as an unpaid servant for the merchant. Yusuf joins Aziz's caravan as they travel into parts of Central Africa and the Congo Basin that have hitherto not been traded with for many generations. Here, Aziz's caravan of traders meets hostility from local tribes, wild animals and difficult terrain. As the caravan returns to East Africa, World War I begins and Aziz encounters the German Army as they sweep Tanzania, forcibly conscripting African men as soldiers.
African literary scholar J U Jacobs writes that Gurnah is writing back to Joseph Conrad's famous 1902 novel Heart Of Darkness. In Aziz's easterly journey to the Congo, Jacobs says that Gurnah is challenging the dominant Western images of the Congo at the turn of the twentieth century that continue to pervade the popular imagination.
Elysium or the Elysian Fields (Ancient Greek: Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, Ēlýsion pedíon) is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by some Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life.
The Elysian Fields were, according to Homer, located on the western edge of the Earth by the stream of Okeanos. In the time of the Greek oral poet Hesiod, Elysium would also be known as the Fortunate Isles or the Isles (or Islands) of the Blessed, located in the western ocean at the end of the earth. The Isles of the Blessed would be reduced to a single island by the Thebean poet Pindar, describing it as having shady parks, with residents indulging their athletic and musical pastimes.
Elysium (/iˈlɪziəm/) is the eleventh studio album by English synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. Released on 5 September 2012, it is the duo's final album with Parlophone. The album was produced during 2012 in Los Angeles by Andrew Dawson and Pet Shop Boys.
"When we were trying to think the title I kept saying if we were George Michael we'd call this album Deep, because he tends to give things a direct title. And it is deep in terms of the sound—got a lot of sub-bass—it's sort of deep in terms of subject matter, the way it's expressed. But I think it's the Pet Shop Boys' most beautiful album."
Pet Shop Boys began writing the songs for the album during a period of five weeks in Berlin, Germany in the beginning of 2011. Most of the album was written during the Progress Live concert tour with Take That from May to July 2011. In January 2012, Pet Shop Boys went to Los Angeles to work with American producer Andrew Dawson for three months. The duo were interested in working with Dawson after seeing his name in the credits for the Kanye West albums 808s & Heartbreak (2008) and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010).Chris Lowe has described Elysium as having the same feel as Behaviour (1990), but "sonically I think it's very different." Pet Shop Boys considered Happy Sad as title of the album, but came up with the title Elysium during a walk in Elysian Park in Los Angeles. Lyrically the album can be interpreted as "about being us at our stage in our life, doing what we do", according to Neil Tennant.
Elysium is a 2013 American science fiction action thriller film produced, written and directed by Neill Blomkamp. It stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga and Sharlto Copley. The film takes place on both a ravaged Earth, and a luxurious space habitat (Stanford torus design) called Elysium. It explores political and sociological themes such as immigration, overpopulation, health care, exploitation, the justice system, and social class issues. The film was released on August 9, 2013 by TriStar Pictures, in both conventional and IMAX Digital theaters. It was a commercial success and received generally positive reviews from critics, even though many considered it a disappointment after Blomkamp's first film District 9. Elysium was released on DVD and Blu-ray discs in Region 1 on December 17, 2013.
In 2154, Earth is overpopulated and polluted. Most of the earth's citizens live in poverty, on the edge of starvation, and with little technology and medical care. The rich and powerful live on Elysium — a gigantic, terraformed space habitat located in Earth's orbit. Elysium is technologically advanced with some of its technology including Med-Bays: medical machines that can cure all diseases, reverse the aging process and regenerate new body parts. A long-running feud exists between the wealthy residents of Elysium and the citizens of Earth, who want Elysian technology to cure their medical ailments.