Wakefulness

Wakefulness is a daily recurring brain state and state of consciousness in which an individual is conscious and engages in coherent cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world such as communication, ambulation, eating, and sex. Being awake is the opposite of the state of being asleep in which most external inputs to the brain are excluded from neural processing.

Effects upon the brain

The longer the brain has been awake, the greater the spontaneous firing rates of cerebral cortex neurons with this increase being reversed by sleep. Another effect of wakefulness (which may or may not be related to this) is that it lowers the small stores of glycogen held in the astrocytes that can supply energy to the brain's neurons—one of the functions of sleep, it has been proposed, is to create the opportunity for them to be replenished.

Maintenance by the brain

Wakefulness is produced by a complex interaction between multiple neurotransmitter systems arising in the brainstem and ascending through the midbrain, hypothalamus, thalamus and basal forebrain. The posterior hypothalamus plays a key role in the maintenance of the cortical activation that underlies wakefulness. Several systems originating in this part of the brain control the shift from wakefulness into sleep and sleep into wakefulness. Histamine neurons in the tuberomammillary nucleus and nearby adjacent posterior hypothalamus project to the entire brain and are the most wake-selective system so far identified in the brain. Another key system is that provided by the orexins (also known as hypocretins) projecting neurons. These exist in areas adjacent to histamine neurons and like them project widely to most brain areas and associate with arousal. Orexin deficiency has been identified as responsible for narcolepsy.

Klinik

Klinik, (sometimes called The Klinik), is an industrial music band from Belgium, originally formed around 1982 by electro-synthpop practitioner Marc Verhaeghen, who is the only constant member.

History

Marc Verhaeghen originally formed Klinik in the early-to-mid 1980s; the exact date varies depending on the source. The group is normally described as one of the most influential Belgian industrial bands in history.

In 1985, Verhaeghen joined forces with two other bands, Absolute Body Control (with Dirk Ivens and Eric van Wonterghem), and "The Maniacs" (Sandy Nys) to form one "super group" "Absolute Controlled Clinical Maniacs". This rather unwieldy name was soon dropped in favour of the shorter name "The Klinik". Nys soon left the band to form "Hybryds", followed in 1987 by van Wonterghem, leaving The Klinik as the "classic" duo of Dirk Ivens and Marc Verhaeghen.

The Klinik soon made a name for themselves with their cold and harsh EBM sound and their live shows, where both Ivens and Verhaeghen performed with their heads wrapped in gauze, wearing long black leather coats. Ivens' hissing vocals and minimalist lyrics were complemented by Verhaeghen's synthesizer skills and distorted trombone playing. This however, did not last forever; after Time, an album neither member was fully pleased with, musical differences became too great, and they decided to go their separate ways. In a 2013 interview, Ivens said the due were moving in different directions musically, and that compromise between only two members was challenging.

Awake (Crash Karma song)

"Awake" is the first single from Crash Karma's debut album, Crash Karma. It is about being aware of the world around you.

Chart positions

References

Winter

Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates, between autumn and spring. Winter is caused by the axis of the Earth in that hemisphere being oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. In many regions, winter is associated with snow and freezing temperatures. The moment of winter solstice is when the sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value (that is, the sun is at its farthest below the horizon as measured from the pole), meaning this day will have the shortest day and the longest night. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside the polar regions differ from the date of the winter solstice, however, and these depend on latitude, due to the variation in the solar day throughout the year caused by the Earth's elliptical orbit (see earliest and latest sunrise and sunset).

Winter (Tori Amos song)

"Winter" is a song by American singer-songwriter and musician Tori Amos, first released in 1992. The song was written about Amos' relationship with her father, who is a minister.

Release history

"Winter" was first released as the fourth single from Amos' debut studio album Little Earthquakes. It was released on March 9, 1992 by EastWest Records in the UK and Atlantic Records on November 24 in North America.

The song also appears on Amos' 2003 compilation, Tales of a Librarian. The music video can be seen on the two currently available video collections: Tori Amos: Complete Videos 1991–1998 and Fade to Red.

The single was released globally in a variety of formats with slightly differing artwork and track listings. The most commonly available version is the United States release, which is labeled as a "limited edition" release. That version comes in a digipak case with a compartment in which a "handwritten lyrics" insert is contained. The far more rare UK limited edition release features covers that would later appear on the Crucify EP which was released in the United States.

The Four Seasons (Vivaldi)

The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They were written about 1723 and were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional violin concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest Between Harmony and Invention").

The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi's works. Unusually for the time, Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was later called program music—music with a narrative element.

Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. In the middle section of the Spring concerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in the viola section. Other natural occurrences are similarly evoked. Vivaldi separated each concerto into three movements, fast-slow-fast, and likewise each linked sonnet into three sections. His arrangement is as follows: