Star Maker

Star Maker is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon, published in 1937. The book describes a history of life in the universe, dwarfing in scale Stapledon's previous book, Last and First Men (1930), a history of the human species over two billion years. Star Maker tackles philosophical themes such as the essence of life, of birth, decay and death, and the relationship between creation and creator. A pervading theme is that of progressive unity within and between different civilizations. Some of the elements and themes briefly discussed prefigure later fiction concerning genetic engineering and alien life forms. Arthur C. Clarke considered Star Maker to be one of the finest works of science fiction ever written.

Plot

The book begins with a single human narrator from England who is, via unexplained means, transported out of his body and finds himself able to explore space and other planets. After exploring a civilization on another planet in our galaxy at a level of development similar to our own that existed millions of years ago thousands of light years from Earth (the "Other Earth") in some detail, his mind merges with that of one of its inhabitants, and as they travel together, they are joined by still more minds or group-minds. This snowballing process is paralleled by the expansion of the book's scale, describing more and more planets in less and less detail.

Happy (Alexia album)

Happy is the third studio album by Italian singer Alexia released in 1999, and would be her final studio album to be written and produced by Robyx and the DWA team. The album continued to see Alexia have a broad range of styles, though the move away from eurodance was not as dramatic as it had been with The Party. It was Alexia's first album on the Sony Epic label. Alexia's management team had boasted that every track on the album was good enough to be released as a single, yet only two tracks were released as singles.

Initially, "Change Your Life" was planned as the lead single, but instead "Goodbye" was released. "Happy" followed as the second single. Sony Music Finland announced plans to release "Baby Baby Baby" as the third single in early 2000, though DWA denied this. No record can be found of the track being released physically or as a radio promo, though the Italian Alexia Wikipedia page lists the song as a radio promotional CD and the track was included on Alexia's Hits album.

Happy (disambiguation)

To be happy is to experience happiness: a feeling of contentment or joy.

Happy may also refer to:

Film and television

Music

Bands

Albums

Songs

Happy (Michael Jackson song)

"Happy" is a song recorded by Michael Jackson for the Motown label in 1973. The song featured on Jackson's album Music & Me. Its full title is "Happy (Love Theme from Lady Sings the Blues)", although it was never featured in the film or the soundtrack for Lady Sings the Blues. The song was released as a single in Australia, backed by "In Our Small Way".

Jackson continued to perform the track in concert as late as 1977, citing it as one of his favorite songs.

The song was not released as a single in the UK until 1983 to promote Motown's 18 Greatest Hits compilation album, on which the song was included. Upon its release, "Happy" (credited to Michael Jackson plus The Jackson 5) peaked at #52 on the British pop chart. It was also issued as a single by Bobby Darin and included on his posthumous Motown LP Darin: 1936-1973. It was later recorded by the song's composer, Smokey Robinson, and appeared on his landmark solo album A Quiet Storm.

According to Robinson, the song was inspired by the film's melody, which was originally composed by Michel Legrand. He explained, "I was looking at the movie one day, and I was listening to that melody, and I thought it was just such a beautiful melody, until I wanted to write some words for that melody, which I did, and I went and I sang them for Berry Gordy, and he was really upset because I didn't write them before he finished the movie so they could've been in the movie."