Swan (disambiguation)

A swan is a bird of the genus Cygnus.

Swan or swans may also refer to the following:

Sport

Music and dance

Ships and boats

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More is a collection of seven short stories written by Roald Dahl. They are generally regarded as being aimed at a slightly older audience than many of his other children's books.

The stories were written at varying times throughout his life. Two of the stories are autobiographical in nature; one describes how he first became a writer while the other describes some of Dahl's experiences as a fighter pilot in World War II. Another piece in the collection is a non-fiction account of a British farmer finding a legendary haul of ancient Roman treasure. The book was first published in London in 1977 by Jonathan Cape.

Chapters

The Boy Who Talked with Animals

This is a first-person fiction piece of medium-length writing. The narrator, on advice from friends, decides to vacation in Jamaica. One night, a sea turtle, ancient and huge, is caught by a group of fisherfolk. Rich people want to buy it, while the manager of a nearby hotel wants to make turtle soup; but both plans are foiled when a little boy and his parents appear, and the child screams at the people, calling them "horrible and cruel". His parents reveal that the boy loves animals deeply, and even talks to them. His father pays off the fisherfolk and hotel manager, and the turtle is set free. The next day, the boy is missing, and the fisherfolk reveal that they have seen the child riding on the back of the sea turtle into the distance.

The Swan (TV series)

The Swan was a 2004 American reality television program broadcast on Fox in which women who were judged to be ugly were given "extreme makeovers" that included several forms of plastic surgery. The title of the series refers to the fairy tale The Ugly Duckling, in which a homely bird matures into a swan.

Each contestant was assigned a panel of specialists – a coach, therapist, trainer, cosmetic surgeons, and a dentist – who together designed a program of total transformation. The contestants' work ethic, growth, and achievement was monitored over the course of three months. Each week, two women were featured, and at the episode's conclusion, one went home while another was selected to move to compete in the Swan pageant at the end of the season for a chance to be deemed The Swan.

The first two seasons both aired in 2004. A third season was tipped to happen, but the show was cancelled in early 2005 after ratings continued to drop.

The plastic surgeons on the team were chosen for their ability to perform often startling transformations. Drs. Terry Dubrow and Randal Haworth, both board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, were selected by the producers of the show to perform the multiple plastic surgical operations for each of the two aired seasons.

Dharma Initiative

The Dharma Initiative, also written DHARMA (Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications), is a fictional research project featured in the television series Lost. It was introduced in the second season episode "Orientation". In 2008, the Dharma Initiative website was launched. Dharma's interests were directly connected with fringe science. Dharma is a Sanskrit term used in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The logo is a circle with the word "dharma" inside, all inscribed inside a bagua.

Background

The Dharma Initiative and its origins are first explored in the episode "Orientation" by an orientation film in the Swan Station. Dr. Marvin Candle (Francois Chau), explains that the project began in 1970, created by two doctoral candidates from the University of Michigan, Gerald and Karen DeGroot (Michael Gilday and Courtney Lavigne), and was funded by Alvar Hanso (Ian Patrick Williams) of the Hanso Foundation. They imagined a "large-scale communal research compound", where scientists and free thinkers from around the globe could research meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and a sixth discipline that the film begins to identify as "utopian social-" before being cut off.

The Dying Swan

The Dying Swan (originally The Swan) is a solo choreographed by Mikhail Fokine in 1905 to Camille Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux as a pièce d'occasion for the ballerina Anna Pavlova, who performed it about 4,000 times. The short ballet (4 minutes) follows the last moments in the life of a swan, and was first presented in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905. The ballet has since influenced modern interpretations of Odette in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and has inspired non-traditional interpretations and various adaptations.

Background

Inspired by swans that she had seen in public parks and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Dying Swan", Anna Pavlova (who had just become a ballerina at the Mariinsky Theatre) asked Michel Fokine to create a solo for her for a 1905 concert being given by artists from the chorus of the Imperial Mariinsky Opera. Fokine suggested Saint-Saëns's cello solo, Le Cygne (which Fokine had been playing at home on a mandolin to a friend's piano accompaniment) and Pavlova agreed. A rehearsal was arranged and the short dance completed very quickly. Fokine remarked in Dance Magazine (August 1931):

The Swan (film)

The Swan (1956) an Eastman Color in CinemaScope is a remake of The Swan (1925), a Paramount Pictures release. Another film version was released as One Romantic Night (1930).

The film is a romantic comedy released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Charles Vidor, produced by Dore Schary from a screenplay by John Dighton, and based on the play by Ferenc Molnár. The original music score was by Bronislau Kaper, the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg and Robert Surtees, the art direction by Randall Duell and Cedric Gibbons, and the costume design by Helen Rose.

The film stars Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness and Louis Jourdan with Agnes Moorehead, Jessie Royce Landis, Brian Aherne, Leo G. Carroll, Estelle Winwood, and Robert Coote.

Plot

The film, set in 1910, deals with the story of the daughter of a minor branch of a European royal house who is being considered as a wife for her cousin, the heir to the throne.

Princess Alexandra (Grace Kelly) is the princess, her cousin the crown prince, Albert (Alec Guinness), and her brothers' tutor Dr. Nicholas Agi (Louis Jourdan), a commoner for whom she thinks she may feel more affection than she does for the prince.