Tulku (novel)

Tulku is a children's historical novel by Peter Dickinson, published by Gollancz in 1979. Set in China and Tibet at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, it features a young teenage boy orphaned by the violence, who flees with others to a Buddhist monastery. Dickinson and Tulku won two major awards for British children's books, the Whitbread Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal. The Carnegie Medal from the Library Association then recognised the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject.

Dutton published a U.S. edition within the calendar year under its Unicorn imprint.

Plot summary

Thirteen-year-old Theodore lives in a remote region of China at his father's Mission. When the violence of the Boxer Rebellion finally reaches them, Theodore escapes alone from its destruction. He soon becomes one companion of a formidable Englishwoman, "painted, blasphemous, gun-toting Mrs Jones". She is an amateur botanist and a former actress with an entourage.

The party flees bandits into Tibet and take refuge at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Theodore is briefly seen to be the Tulku, a great lama reincarnated; then the recently conceived child of Mrs Jones and her Chinese lover is identified as the one. Theodore is exposed to the "magnetic, repugnant rituals of Buddhism" and develops as a "whole, willing Christian". Mrs Jones is recruited to remain on site and the boy finally returns to England with the fruit of her botanical expedition.

Tulku (film)

Tulku is a 2009 documentary film, written and directed by Gesar Mukpo. The film details the personal experiences of five young Western men who were identified in childhood as being tulkus, or reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist masters.

For over 700 years tulkus have been sought out as highly revered leaders and teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. Beginning in the 1970s, several tulkus have been identified as having incarnated in the West. These new, Western-born, very modern tulkus lead lives prone to culture clash and identity confusion.

Background

Gesar Mukpo, who wrote and directed Tulku, was born in 1973, the son of world-renowned Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his British wife Diana. At the age of three, Mukpo was identified by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche as the reincarnation of the late Shechen Kongtrul Rinpoche (the Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen), one of his own father's teachers in Tibet. Three-year-old Gesar was then enthroned as a tulku in Berkeley, California.

In the film, Mukpo's British mother describes her scandalous marriage to a Tibetan monk, and her vision in a dream of a being who asked to be her son. When Gesar was born and was identified as a tulku, his father believed he could be a great teacher, but did not send him away to a monastery, believing it would separate him from his environment too much.

Song

A song is a single (and often standalone) work of music intended to be sung by the human voice with distinct and fixed pitches and patterns using sound and silence and a variety of forms that often include the repetition of sections. Written words created specifically for music or for which music is specifically created, are called lyrics. If a pre-existing poem is set to composed music in classical music it is an art song. Songs that are sung on repeated pitches without distinct contours and patterns that rise and fall are called chants. Songs in a simple style that are learned informally are often referred to as folk songs. Songs that are composed for professional singers are called popular songs. These songs, which have broad appeal, are often composed by professional songwriters, composers and lyricists. Art songs are composed by trained classical composers for concert performances. Songs are performed live and recorded. Songs may also appear in plays, musical theatre, stage shows of any form, and within operas.

Song (airline)

Song, LLC was a low-cost air service within an airline brand owned and operated by Delta Air Lines from 2003 to 2006.

Song's main focus was on leisure traffic between the northeastern United States and Florida, a market where it competed with JetBlue Airways. It also operated flights between Florida and the West Coast, and from the Northeast to the west coast.

Song's aircraft were fitted with leather seats and free personal entertainment systems at every seat, with audio MP3 programmable selections, trivia games that could be played against other passengers, a flight tracker, and satellite television (provided by the DISH Network). Song offered free beverages, but charged for meals and liquor. Both brand-name snack boxes and healthy organic meals were offered. The flight safety instructions were sung or otherwise artistically interpreted, depending on the cabin crew. In addition to crew uniforms designed by Kate Spade, customized cocktails created by nightlife impresario Rande Gerber and an in-flight exercise program designed by New York City fitness guru David Barton, the airline created its own distinct mark in the industry. The Song brand was placed on more than 200 flights a day which carried over ten million passengers.

Song (album)

Song is the third and final album of Lullaby for the Working Class. It was released October 19, 1999 on Bar/None Records.

Track listing

Orca (novel)

Orca is the seventh book in Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series, set in the fantasy world of Dragaera. Originally published in 1996 by Ace Books, it was republished in 2003 along with Athyra in the omnibus The Book of Athyra. Following the trend of the Vlad Taltos books, it is named after one of the Great Houses and features that House as an important element to its plot.

Plot introduction

Vlad and his friend Kiera the Thief investigate a financial cover-up following the mysterious death of an Orca tycoon.

Plot summary

Reunions

Kiera the Thief sends a letter to Vlad's estranged wife Cawti, offering to meet and tell her of Vlad's most recent adventures. In return for not telling Vlad some of Cawti's secrets, Kiera insists on making some omissions from her story. The rest of the novel is Kiera's story, seemingly without the omissions she makes to Cawti.

Vlad contacts Kiera from the city of Northport and asks her a favor: break into the mansion of the late Orca businessman Fyres and take any documents she can find. She agrees if he will explain why. He tells her that he went to Northport to find a healer for Savn, a Teckla boy whose mind was damaged during the events of Athyra. A local healer, whom Vlad calls "Mother" because he cannot pronounce her name, agrees to help Savn if Vlad will help fix her problem: she's being evicted from her cottage. Vlad navigates through a labyrinth of business records to discover that Mother's land is ultimately owned by Fyres, who only a week ago died on his yacht.

Jaws (film)

Jaws is a 1975 American film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional New England summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. The film stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Murray Hamilton as Larry Vaughn, the mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife, Ellen. The screenplay is credited to both Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.

Shot mostly on location on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, the film had a troubled production, going over budget and past schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks suffered many malfunctions, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the animal's presence, employing an ominous, minimalistic theme created by composer John Williams to indicate the shark's impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of classic thriller director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures gave the film what was then an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture, over 450 screens, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with a heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.