Sarvvam Cast: Arya, Trisha, JD Chakravarthy, Indrajeet, Rohan Director: Vishnu Vardhan Nirav Shah’s splendid camera and Yuvan’s music & BGM A slow second half BO verdict : Good opening
Ayan Ayan Cast: Surya, Prabhu, Tamannaah, Jagan, Renuka, Karnas Director: KV Anand Surya, racy presentation Drags a bit in the second half BO verdict : Blockbuster
Pasanga Cast: Kishore, Sriram, Dharani, Pandian, Murugesh Director: Pandiraj Good script and the climax Lengthy first half, needs editing BO verdict : Above Average
Watchmen Presented by: Warner Bros. Good story and presentation Too long at 2.43 hours, gory violenc BO verdict : Hit
Rajathi Raja Cast: Lawrence, Mumtaz,Karunas, Meenakshi , Kamna, Sniggda Director: Sakthi Chidambaram None Plenty BO verdict : Average
WASHINGTON — Cool and collected, Kavya Shivashankar wrote out every word on her palm and always ended with a smile. The 13-year-old Kansas girl saved the biggest smile for last, when she rattled off the letters to "Laodicean" to become the nation's spelling champion.
The budding neurosurgeon from Olathe, Kan., outlasted 11 finalists Thursday night to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, taking home more than $40,000 in cash and prizes and, of course, the huge champion's trophy.
"I can't believe it happened," Kavya said. "It feels kind of unreal."
After spelling the winning word, which means lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics, Kavya got huge hugs from father Mirle, mother Sandy and little sister Vanya.
"The competitiveness is in her," Mirle Shivashankar said. "But she doesn't show that. She still has that smile. That's her quality."
Kavya won in her fourth appearance at the bee, having finished 10th, eighth and fourth over the last three years. She enjoys playing the violin, bicycling, swimming and learning Indian classical dance, and her role model is Nupur Lala, the 1999 champion featured in the documentary "Spellbound."
"This is the moment we've been waiting for; it's a dream come true," Mirle said. "We haven't skipped meals, we haven't lost sleep, but we've skipped a lot of social time."
That would be any kind of celebration for Kavya's birthday. She turned 13 last week but was too busy planning for the bee to have a party.
At 7′9′ tall (236cm), Sun Mingming is the world’s second tallest man and the tallest professional basketball player ever.
Many of you may have heard of Sun, and likely to have seen him in his guest appearance on Rush Hour 3 or in the documentary, “Anatomy of a Giant,” that aired on theDiscovery Health channel, but rarely anyone has ever seen the 7-9 Chinese giant play basketball.
That doesn’t mean that the nearly-400lb, 25 year old hasn’t been playing basketball in attempts to reach his goal of the NBA. (Follow Sun Mingming’s journey around the world)
“The NBA is a realistic goal.” said Sun. “I love playing basketball and will do anything the NBA asks of me in order to get an opportunity.”
If Mingming ever makes it, he will be the tallest player in the NBA history, surpassing 7-7 players’ Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan. Sun’s countryman, Yao Ming, is the tallest active NBA player at 7′6.
A Long Three Years Back in 2005, when Sun was 22 years old, he came to the United States and declared for the NBA Draft, but Sun was not selected due to his lack of speed and mobility at his size.
Within the same year, doctors discovered a benign brain tumour pressing against Sun’s pituitary gland. The tumour was preventing the proper production of testosterone, decreasing his stamina and endurance. Sun would have successful surgery to remove the tumor.
Undaunted, Mingming continued with his dream; he would spend the next several years on the move, playing in professional leagues around the world.
Sun first joined the USBL where he played for the Dodge City Legend.
He where he missed the first game because none of the uniforms fit him. Uniform or not, Ming would play sparingingly (and sometimes not at all) throughout the season registering 9 DNPs out of 32 games. And out of the 23 games Mingming did get into, he saw less than 5 minutes in half those game (13).
Sun Mingming’s best game came in a win over Long Island, he registered 4 points, 3 rebounds, and 1 block in 8 minutes of play. In 23 games of action, Sun totaled just 28 points, 25 rebounds, and 8 blocks.
After an unspectacular debut season in the USBL, Sun went to another professional league, and was signed by the Maryland Nighthawks of the ABA.
Then in March of 2007, Sun was signed by the Grand Rapids Flight (IBL) amidst much fanfare. After 14 games, he left Michigan to play for Fuerza Regia of the Mexican basketball league (LNBP).
After showing potential in 25 games for Fuerza, Sun would be forced to leave the league to have surgery done to his feet.
After recovering from his surgery, Sun would move back east, donning the jersey of Hamamastu Phoenix of the Japanese Basketball League (BJ).
In 49 games, Sun averaged 7.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game as well as 67 dunks. The numbers don’t seem like much, but compared to where he was when he started with the USBL, it’s a significant improvement (and are likely career highs).
“I just want to keep playing basketball,” Sun said after the final game of the season. “Whether it’s here in Japan or in the United States, I hope to keep playing for at least 10 more years.”
Despite the stares, laughter, ignorance, XXXXXXL sweat shirts being too small and feet that are essentially mangled from wearing shoes that were always too small for him (size 20), Sun Mingming persists towards his goal of playing in the NBA.
Rodney Rogers accident! Today we got an update on Rodney Rogers accident on TNT. Rodney talked to Chris Webber in an interview that will be shown during the NBA Eastern Conference finals today, Thursday.
As you may remember, Rodney Rogers suffered a motorcycle accident that left him quadriplegic. He was paralyzed from the waist down. He was already a veteran in the NBA having played for 12 seasons, since 1993.
He then proceeded to work for City of Durham’s Public Works Department, but not because of money (he saved a lot of money), but to keep himself busy. His boss didn’t even know he had so much money! Don’t miss the Rodney Rogers accident interview today!
Thirteen-year-old Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, spelled "laodicean," Thursday night to take top honors in the 82nd annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, reacts to winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night.
Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, reacts to winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night.
The eighth-grader won $40,000 in cash and prizes for nailing the final word. Pronounced lay-odd-uh-see-an, the word means lukewarm or indifferent, particularly in matters of politics or religion.
This year's bee -- an event that has skyrocketed in popularity, thanks to exposure on television and in movies -- started on Tuesday in Washington with a record 293 spellers.
The competition went 15 rounds. Spellers ranged from 9 to 15 years old. According to the contest's Web site, 117 of the spellers speak languages other than English, and English was not the first language of 33 of the spellers.
The first National Spelling Bee was in 1925 and featured nine contestants.
In an event that has seen contestants visibly crack under the strain of the national spotlight in past years, Shivashankar -- competing in her fourth national finals -- appeared composed throughout.
As she spelled words that included "phoresy," "hydrargyrum" and "huisache," she calmly went through the routine of asking each word's pronunciations, origin and roots before ticking them off for the judges.
Her father, who is her spelling coach, would tap his foot in time as she spelled the words and at one point appeared so confident that he waved to someone while his daughter was in the middle of spelling a word.
Second-place finisher Tim Ruiter of Reston, Virginia, bowed out after misspelling "Maecenas," a generous patron of the arts.
Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, was in the audience to watch the finals, which were nationally televised on ABC.
Shivashankar attends California Trail Junior High School. Her hobbies including swimming, cycling and traditional Indian dance, according to the contest's Web site. She plans to become a neurosurgeon.
May 22, 1842: Lester Howe goes to investigate why his cows stand at the bottom of the hill in the hot summer months. Lester owned a farm about 40 miles west of Albany, the capital of New York. Lester's cows grazed in the same spot during heat waves. Lester went to investigate the area and a strong, cool breeze came from behind a stand of bushes. He dug out the bushes and found an entrance to a cave. He and his neighbor, Henry Wetsel, excavated and explored the find. The entrance was on Henry's property and Lester bought the land in February 1843 for $100 (≈ $2,200 today).
The cave was opened to visitors in 1843 and as business improved, a hotel was built over the entrance. Howe ran into financial difficulties and sold part of his land and then a limestone quarry purchased the remainder. Since the quarry owned the property with the natural entrance, the Howe Caverns were closed to the public. In 1927, an organization formed to re-open the caverns. They spent two years creating a second entrance. They installed elevators, brick walks, lighting, and handrails. The site re-opened on Memorial Day in 1929.
The caverns reach 156 feet below the surface. The walls are made from two types of limestone (Coeymans and Manilus) from two different periods of Earth's history, as well as rock called Rondout waterred. The rock layers formed during the Silurian and Devonian periods more than 400 million years ago. There are few fossils, indicating the rocks are older than most fossils. However long ago they started, the caverns are still "under construction." Water continues to ooze, seep, drip, and flow changing ever so slowly, the cavern's configuration.
There is little biological life in the caverns. Some mold has grown around the lights and a few bats live near the unused natural entrance. Stalagmites (Speleothems) form in the caverns as carbon dioxide and water combine and dissolve limestone as gravity draws everything down. When the water reaches a cave, the carbon dioxide is released and the calcite re-deposits on the walls, ceilings, and floors. Tours at Howe Caverns are given every day. The tour takes about 80 minutes and includes walking and a boat ride. The tour takes the visitors past the Bridal Altar (almost 600 weddings have been performed there). The caverns remain at a constant 52º F and there is 70-75% humidity at all times, so dress appropriately.
Kavya Shivashankar, an eighth grader from Olathe, Kansas, correctly spelled L-a-o-d-i-c-e-a-n to win the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday night. Kavya won at the end of a championship round in which runner-up Tim Ruiter was eliminated on "maecenas" and third-place finisher Aishwarya Pastapur was eliminated on "menhir."
Making her fourth appearance in the national bee, Kavya looked calm and collected throughout, never wavering as she spelled words like "phoresy" in the championship round. (The other championship round words that were spelled correctly were antonomasia, bouquiniste, oriflamme, guayabera, isagoge and sophrosyne.)
In earlier rounds, Kavya effortlessly rattled off seemingly challenging words like "hydrargyrum," "blancmange" and "baignoire."
Having finished in the Top 10 each of the last three years, Kavya was considered one of the favorites entering the bee. A student at California Trail Junior High School, Kavya enjoys playing the violin, bicycling, swimming, and learning Indian classical dance. She plans to become a neurosurgeon.
the imagist has been becoming too much of a formula for me recently so I decided to look for a new challenge in writing. The only thing I can think of that is grueling but rewarding was long form prose. So here's the first excerpt from a burgeoning attempt to "fictionalize" some of my adventures in fashion. The following is an introduction to a seminal figure I met very early on when I first ventured into the business.
My maecenas, The Maven - to put it in her odd and reverse diction - was offering me this very old Stephen Sprouse coat.
“Vintage, ” she insisted “ From the S line which was downstairs in the 99 Wooster Street Store. The better things in the hundreds you'd find on the second floor and for that you got the double S ... and the gorgeous white blazers with the "God Save New York" graffiti and those brilliant safety pin jackets were all on the couture third floor. Full name! This, I think is SS . Yes it is , " she says, consulting the label at my nape.
Except this here particular Sprouse coat was made of a nubbly black fake fur better suited to an oversize teddy bear in FAO Schwartz
"I look like a pimp." I whined
"But a pimp with provenance. I got that from Slyvia Miles who bought it for Richard Gere."
"Funny how it ain't in Richard Gere's possession right now," I frowned
"Trust me, a vintage Sprouse is a good find. You'll thank me one day."
One far away day, I thought looking at my own self with complete suspicion. Shudder to think what the brothers on Nostrand were to do with me if I were to cross their path on some fateful night in this thing .Well I'll just have to not take shortcuts. Or the subway.
Her kindness was calculated to lessen the degree of embarrassment my lingering dedication to the grunge aesthetic may have brought her. And so she's given me in the past three years, everything from piles of beautifully cut double breasted coats that she made me wear over incredible plush Marc Jacobs cashmere sweaters. Then there were the suits custom made for her ex-husband, 20 pounds heavier than me but still...who was I to argue with a Huntsman and Row castoff. And it's true, in the years later I came to understand the true value of what she was giving me.
I called her "The Maven" , but her real name is Louisa Schiano, English born with Italian lineage, which she often times like to hint “went back ” though that's always a very easy thing to say, if not prove. Her time spent consorting with a melange of Latin drag queens in Escuelita and her minor key aristopals at Cipriani had corrupted her good middle class English diction into something schizophrenic. It was all the more entertaining for it. Its not so much that she had melded a myriad of linguistic styles into one, it's that she hop-scotched from one idiom to another, tangling slangs and tones and accents in a haphazard conversational spray. It was like listening to Anita Pallenberg in one of her drug addled free association drifts in "Performance" (Louisa's all time favorite film)
The same thing held for her styling,which could be just as addled as her speech. Showrooms might have admonished her upon penalty of blacklisting that she was not to mix designers but head to toe was anathema to her. In fact quite often the clothes would go out the window. We had met when she was styling a gig for Ike Ude's then fledgling magazine, aRUDE and I was the talent . She was very much Ike's friend long before she took me up. (Of course after she took up with me, the friendship with Ike quickly devolved into behind-the-back sniping and scurrulous rumors on his part, all of which only made me more interesting to her. Paulo was the photographer in question, and the next thing I knew Maven and Ike decided the clothes could not work and I was to do the shoot nude except for his body paint and some ready mades on her part.
"How Haring," I thought and said as much which led Ike to give me this long and stern lecture as to why body painting much more belonged to a Nigerian artist than it could ever to Kieth Haring via Bill T Jones. So I shut my mouth and turned my face to the seamless like a dunce in his punishment corner while they painted and snapped and stroked and tickled my then barely post-adolescent body. The Maven concocted a necklace made of gold safety pins and empty thread spools, chicken bones and rusty old keys that brought thoughts of tetanus to mind. Paulo sat back laughing at the silent duel as Ike applied yet more gold paint to and The Maven adjusted the thin cord around my waist, all to the endless loop of "Slave To The Rhythm" in the background.
8 hours later The Maven and I were pals particularly because I didn't bother to dress but slouched around comfortably naked while they changed film and ate lunch and discussed looks and consulted storyboards. After all that champagne my shyness about my thin build had ended and my long long career as an exhibitionist was off to a roaring start.
The best thing about The Maven in those early days was that she knew everything about everybody. How she could hold such a vast body of knowledge always led me to speculate about her age, which could be mid 40's though there were those who were pushing her chronological all the way up to 60. I told her about my travails with Claudia and of course she had information to impart.
“We love Claudia so but she's like the original automatic model. No matter what, there was nothing they could do to get the fraulein out of her at Chanel. Clomp Clomp Clomp. But its not her fault that she's never had any life experiences”
“I would say months of group hugs with the Wu Tang and love scenes with Allen Houston might give a fraulein some life experience.”
"Perhaps but I'm sure it was all an out of body for her. Did you ever hear about the showdown between her and Amanada Lear?"
"Amanda Lear?"
"Sex change 70's scene queen. Anyway we're at a very nice book party at Claridge's... Claudia to Amanda “I just read your book. Its wonderful. Who wrote it for you? Amanda to Claudia “ You bought my book! How wonderful darling. Who read it for you?”
"Was there hair pulling?"
"Not really . Just a lot of turning on the heels and tossing of blonde extensions"
"Wow..".was all I could muster picturing the showdown between mannequin and manque
"Yes I know. They did keep the entertainment going."
And that may have been Maven's crucible. I would see her at New York Fashion Week slumped front row after front row in her battered old Chanel motorcycle boots and massive black wraparounds in a style later to be made popular by U2's Bono, sulking without reservation at the beige parade marching past her.)
The new corporate order than ruled fashion bewildered her and very visibly so. This was not what she had signed on for. But how she loved a salon de refuse, especially when it was more refuse than salon . Anywhere she ought not to be was where she was front and center. She was there in a dusty East Village Legion Hall, when the last model came striding out for Miguel Androver in Quinten Crisps dusty mattress ticking redone as a coat. Via her tour of duty in Androver's showroom, she came back with the first reports of the epicene beauty of the Dominican androgyne Omahyra Mota and when British Vogue wouldn't touch the proposition, our Maven high tailed the concept over to Helmut Newton who of course got it at first glance for German Vogue.
She was the first to abandon Helmut Lang in lieu of Nicholas Ghesquiere even when his oevure for Balenciaga consisted mainly of those dubious oversize sweaters with kitsch prints of German shephards on the front. But she saw the future in them which makes her a genius in the eyes of her contemporaries.
She liked nothing appropriate. The only Prada she ever approved of was the bat cape collection with the short lived Spanish sensation Elenora in first exit and her favorite Gucci campaign ever was the coffin series lensed by Inez and Vinoodh and cast with a slightly plump Kate.
“I much prefer Kate plump , " she would growl, when the English icon tottered past in black jeans and ballet flats through the lobby of The Mercer. I believe The Maven still has that Pyrex breastplate from the Betty Catroux tribute debut Tom Ford YSL collection on a sideboard in her living room. She was a troubled woman and that was stirring to me
