OPM (band)

OPM is an American band based in Los Angeles, California. OPM has a distinctive sound, combining hip hop, rock music, and pop with laid-back reggae.

Band history

Originally called "Stash", the name OPM, according to the band's frontman John E. Necro, is an abbreviation of the phrase "Open People's Minds" (originally "Other People's Money"). This was stated during an interview with MarijuanaRadio.com. The name also sounds like the drug opium. The band's original members were John E. Necro, Matthew Meschery and Geoff Turney, with Gary Dean and Etienne Franc later appointed permanent members in 2001. John E. and Geoff aka Casper first met on a bus ride through 2 girls they were dating in 1996. At the time John E. was a label scout at Island Records and Geoff was in a band called "Alpha Jerk". In 1997 John E. invited Geoff to do some recordings with him and his then brother-in-law Matthew Meschery. After 2 years they finally managed to start writing songs and sent a 3 track demo to Atlantic Records, leading them to get signed despite having never played live together. OPM released their debut album, Menace to Sobriety, in August 2000 on Atlantic Records. Their debut single "Heaven Is a Halfpipe" charted worldwide and won the Kerrang! Award for Best Single. They performed their hit single on Top of the Pops on July 20, 2001.

Snow

Snow is precipitation in the form of flakes of crystalline water ice that falls from clouds.

Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft, white, and fluffy structure, unless subjected to external pressure. Snowflakes come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Types that fall in the form of a ball due to melting and refreezing, rather than a flake, are hail, ice pellets or snow grains.

The process of precipitating snow is called snowfall. Snowfall tends to form within regions of upward movement of air around a type of low-pressure system known as an extratropical cyclone. Snow can fall poleward of these systems' associated warm fronts and within their comma head precipitation patterns (called such due to the comma-like shape of the cloud and precipitation pattern around the poleward and west sides of extratropical cyclones). Where relatively warm water bodies are present, for example because of water evaporation from lakes, lake-effect snowfall becomes a concern downwind of the warm lakes within the cold cyclonic flow around the backside of extratropical cyclones. Lake-effect snowfall can be heavy locally. Thundersnow is possible within a cyclone's comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy snow is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, if the atmosphere is cold enough. Snowfall amount and its related liquid equivalent precipitation amount are measured using a variety of different rain gauges.

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain is a 1992 collection of short stories by Robert Olen Butler. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1993.

Each story in the collection is narrated by a different Vietnamese immigrant living in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The stories are largely character-driven, with cultural differences between Vietnam and the United States as an important theme. Many of the stories were first published in journals such as The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. The collection was re-released in 2001 with two additional stories, "Salem" and "Missing".

Synopsis

Open Arms

The opening story is set during the Vietnam War. The narrator, a translator for the Australian forces, recounts the story of a North Vietnamese communist named Thập who joins the Australian forces as a spy, after the communists massacre his family. When the Australian soldiers bring him to a screening of pornographic films, Thập seems overwhelmed and disgusted. The narrator speculates that, as a former Communist, he considers pornography immoral, and that it simultaneously reminds him of his longing for his dead wife. Thập later kills an Australian soldier and himself.

Snow cream

Snow cream can be one of two distinct desserts.

The cream-based dessert

The cream-based variety of Snow "Cream" is an old English recipe. It is known in continental Europe at least as early as the late 15th or early 16th century where it can be found in the Dutch recipe collection now known as KANTL Gent 15. It has been suggested that "Snow" may be even older than that.

The common ingredients for early recipes are cream, rosewater and sugar, whipped until stiff. Other flavouring agents, e.g., cloves or ginger, are also known from various recipes. It is the process of whipping cream until stiff that is often likened to snow as can be seen in passages such as "Beat your cream with a stick until the Snow rises ...". It was often draped over another item to give the appearance of snow having fallen over the item.