Tree

In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. Trees are not a taxonomic group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. In looser senses, the taller palms, the tree ferns, bananas and bamboos are also trees. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old. The tallest known tree, a coast redwood named Hyperion, stands 115.6 m (379 ft) high. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years. It is estimated that there are just over 3 trillion mature trees in the world.

A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk. This trunk typically contains woody tissue for strength, and vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark which serves as a protective barrier. Below the ground, the roots branch and spread out widely; they serve to anchor the tree and extract moisture and nutrients from the soil. Above ground, the branches divide into smaller branches and shoots. The shoots typically bear leaves, which capture light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the tree's growth and development. Flowers and fruit may also be present, but some trees, such as conifers, instead have pollen cones and seed cones; others, such as tree ferns, produce spores instead.

Trees (band)

Trees was an American new wave one-man band, fronted by Dane Conover, from San Diego, California. Trees only released one album on MCA Records, which was produced by Earle Mankey called Sleep Convention (1982). It was a critical success but a commercial failure. The band also filmed five low budget music videos.

Because of its album's commercial failure, Conover ended Trees to move on to other projects such as 'PopGems' with his wife Marisa, and both are still active in writing and recording pop music, and collaborating with other musicians. America Records had temporary rights from MCA to re-release five songs from the album from 1982 to 1984.

As of June 2007, Conover and his wife Marisa created a profile on YouTube and uploaded three of the Trees music videos. Two of the three had never been aired before, which were "Delta Sleep", and "India". "Shock of the New" however aired on MTV2 once. In November 2007, he uploaded the "Red Car" music video, and on September 18, 2008, he uploaded the "Come Back" music video.

Trees (poem)

"Trees" is a lyric poem by American poet Joyce Kilmer. Written in February 1913, it was first published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse that August and included in Kilmer's 1914 collection Trees and Other Poems. The poem, in twelve lines of rhyming couplets of iambic tetrameter verse, depicts a feminine personification of a tree pressing its mouth to the Earth's breast, looking at God, and raising its arms to pray.

Kilmer is most remembered for "Trees", which has been the subject of frequent parodies and references in popular culture. Kilmer's work is often disparaged by critics and dismissed by scholars as being too simple and overly sentimental, and that his style was far too traditional and even archaic. Despite this, the popular appeal of "Trees" has contributed to its endurance. Literary critic Guy Davenport considers it "the one poem known by practically everybody." "Trees" is frequently included in poetry anthologies and has been set to music several times—including a popular rendition by Oscar Rasbach, performed by singers Nelson Eddy, Robert Merrill, and Paul Robeson.

Embers

Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957. First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, the play won the RAI prize at the Prix Italia awards later that year. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack MacGowran – for whom the play was specially written – as "Henry", Kathleen Michael as "Ada" and Patrick Magee as "Riding Master" and "Music Master". Robert Pinget translated the work as Cendres and "The first stage production was by the French Graduate Circle of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival, 1977."

The most recent version of Embers was broadcast in 2006 on BBC Radio 3 and directed by Stephen Rea. The cast included Michael Gambon as Henry, Sinéad Cusack as Ada, Rupert Graves, Alvaro Lucchesi and Carly Baker. This production was rebroadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 16 May 2010 as part of a double bill with a 2006 production of Krapp's Last Tape.

Opinions vary as to whether the work succeeds. Hugh Kenner calls it "Beckett’s most difficult work" and yet maintains that the piece "coheres to perfection," John Pilling disagrees, remarking that Embers "is the first of Beckett’s dramatic works that seems to lack a real centre," whereas Richard N. Coe considers the play "not only minor, but one of [Beckett’s] very few failures."Anthony Cronin records in his biography of Beckett that "Embers met with a mixed reception [but tempers this comment by noting that] the general tone of English criticism was somewhat hostile to Beckett" at the time.

Embers (novel)

Embers is a 1942 novel by the Hungarian writer Sándor Márai. Its original Hungarian title is A gyertyák csonkig égnek, which means "Candles burn until the end". The narrative revolves around an elderly general who invites an old friend from military school for dinner; the friend had disappeared mysteriously for 41 years, and the dinner begins to resemble a trial where the friend is prosecuted for his character traits. The book was published in English in 2000.

Reception

Anna Shapiro reviewed the book for The Observer in 2002, and wrote: "Elegiac, sombre, musical, and gripping, Embers is a brilliant disquisition on friendship, one of the most ambitious in literature." Shapiro continued: "About a milieu and values that were already dying before the outbreak of World War II, it has the grandeur and sharpness of Jean Renoir's 1937 movie masterpiece La Grande Illusion, with which it shares, in both oblique and pronounced ways, some of its substance."

Stage Play

In 2006, Embers was adapted into a stage play by Christopher Hampton, starring Jeremy Irons and Patrick Malahide.

The Midsummer Station

The Midsummer Station is the fourth studio album by American electronica project Owl City, released on August 17, 2012.

Writing and development

After Owl City's previous album, All Things Bright and Beautiful (2011) sold only 143,000 copies in the United States, Adam Young began working on demo tracks for The Midsummer Station in January 2012. Unlike his previous albums, Young worked with different songwriters and producers for the first time, including Stargate and Emily Wright. However, Young again collaborated with Matthew Thiessen for his third album in a row along with Ocean Eyes and All Things Bright and Beautiful. Young was initially scared of the thought of collaborating with others, "I've never worked with anybody before. I've done everything myself except for mastering. It's a big job for one guy, especially a perfectionist, so I knew I wanted to try to experiment with other people." The song "Dementia", which features Blink-182 singer Mark Hoppus, was mixed by Chris Lord-Alge.