text:
Explosion Impending
Delta Spirit Feels Your Pain, Even If You Don't
By David McGee
Delta Spirit's Matt Vasquez appealing to the sellout house at New York City's Bowery Ballroom to "be quiet and be real, for once," while the band played a new song. From the back of the room a party girl shouted, 'Fuck you!' (Photo by Noahm, www.noahm.com)
A sellout house at New York's Bowery Ballroom was primed for headliners Delta Spirit. An almost totally unknown band from Los Angeles, Dawes, had opened with an astonishing "I saw the future of rock and roll"-type set of penetrating, lacerating original songs by lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Taylor Goldsmith, whose supporting musicians—drums, bass, organ—played with a tight, focused determination, filling the room with a sound melded together from a variety of sources ranging from southern soul to The Band's richly hued Americana to the Springsteen of Darkness On the Edge of Town to the Paul Simon of "Duncan," and made a lasting impression, to say the least (see related story in this issue). From that high it was a long way down to the buzzkill of Other Lives and its mopey, hippy-dippy, artsy-fartsy, narcosis-inducing, folk-classical meanderings (during which a patron was heard to invoke the "Kansas" [the band] rule: "Just because a song has 20 tempo changes doesn't make it a good song." Later in the set, the same patron expressed the hope that the Other Lives cellist, a young lady inexplicably adorning her head with antlers, might take a cue from the classic Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Opera, Doc?" and liven up the joint by breaking into a rendition of Elmer Fudd's "Kill the Wabbit.") So when Delta Spirit charged onto the stage following some five minutes of PA assault of thundering jungle drums, the audience was practically begging for an adrenalin rush. The band didn't disappoint, tearing into the songs from its startling debut album on Rounder, Ode To Sunshine, with sustained fury, the sturdy figure of matinee idol lead singer Matt Vasquez at the forefront, in non-sagging blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt, dancing around behind the mic, leaning into it to deliver a howling, anguished vocal, stepping back to allow the band's glorious wash of rock 'n' roll level the crowd. Delta Spirit attacks every song with an unfettered urgency that infuses even the rare quiet moments with the ominous specter of an impending explosion.
During one such moment, the band got back maybe more than it had anticipated. In introducing a brand-new song, "Blood From a Stone," Vasquez, arms folded across the top of his Gibson Byrdland guitar (so named after two of the greatest country guitar players in history, Billy Byrd and Hank Garland, although that has nothing to do with Vasquez's affection for the instrument. "I wish I could tell you I played it because the Nuge—Ted Nugent—plays it," he says, "but it's really because I need something a little more mid- to low-endy, like a full kind of mellower tone for Shawn, and Kelly when he plays guitar, to cut through over me"), unflinchingly beseeched the audience to "be quiet now and be real, for once, and listen to this new song we've written. We're really proud of the lyrics." From the back of the room came the shouted response courtesy a party girl in no mood or shape to listen to lyrics: "FUCK YOU!" The disheveled vixen at her side muttered, sotto voce, the same sentiment. This bunch, including the party boys circling around it, eyes ablaze with unrequited lust, beers aloft, was all too willing to let Delta Spirit feel the pain the revelers chose to defer. Welcome back to New York, Matt.
"I really wanted them to quiet down," Vasquez stated emphatically a couple of days later in a phone interview from Charlottesville, Virginia, where the band had alighted for a show on its winding journey back to the west coast. "I was just saying how it was. Couldn't be more proud of that song, and if they want to get drunk and talk through the whole thing-people got valid reasons to go to shows. One of 'em is that. If they don't want to listen to me, they still paid their money."
Delta Spirit (from left, Jonathan Jameson, Kelly Winrich, Sean Walker, Matt Vasquez, Brandon Young): Attacking every song with an unfettered urgency that infuses even the rare quiet moments with the ominous specter of an impending explosion.
If Vasquez reveals some moral relativism in his attitude towards audience behavior, the same is not evident in the music he and his Delta Spirit mates craft collectively. Something is at stake in almost every one of their songs: "People, C'mon" rails against an apathetic populace; "Bleeding Bells," stark and restrained, acoustically driven with elegiac "Ring of Fire" mariachi horns humming a sad refrain, chronicles the spiritual weariness inherent in the pamphleteer's calling. The solemn, intermittently surging blues-based ballad "House Built for Two" is Vasquez's admitted chronicle of family devastation in the wake of his mother and father splitting up, with the sub-plot of his own prodigal return to the fold following his "lost" mid-teen years "when I was really young and doing a lot of drugs and stuff and being real stupid." Though it starts with a desolate Neil Young-like harmonica and acoustic guitar strum, "People Turn Around" rises and subsides on Vasquez's vocal dynamics, morphing from a dry, reportorial litany of horrors afflicting the land (murder, rape, robbery, drug addiction) to an anthemic cry for vigilance and activism directed at the dark angels of our nature: "It's time all you people turn around!" Vasquez wails over Kelly Winrich's jittery, ostinato piano riff as the other band members raise their voices with his, "for the life we've been livin' and messin' around/the blood we've been spillin' will bleed us dry/the life we've been killin' is your life, like mine"—all leading to a final, subdued benediction, sung not with '60s idealism but rather from a perspective informed by the world's current calamitous condition: "Hoping for love to find a new voice/the song that needs singin' has already been sung before."
"It's going on everywhere," Vasquez explains of the issues animating "People Turn Around." Even at 10:30 in the morning (an ungodly hour for rock 'n' roll musicians), he speaks with the same strength he projects as a vocalist, and with the swagger of a lead singer, but without attitude; with confidence, not arrogance. "Doesn't matter whether you're in Afghanistan fighting, or Iraq, or Baltimore, D.C. or Los Angeles." And of its bittersweet conclusion (including the lyric, "the years are not coming the way I thought they would"), he admits to embracing an immutable truth: "All the idealism doesn't really pan out the way you think it will when you're a kid. You think you're going to be a spaceman, and you'll get a Michael J. Fox hoverboard by the year 2000 and the year 2000 comes and you don't get your Michael J. Fox Back To The Future hoverboard. It's one of those things like, why can't we be nicer to each other? Why can't we carry each other's burdens? Everybody loves the idea of carrying each other's burdens, but once they have to, they kind of opt out."
On first listen, the "Be My Baby" intro to "Streetwalker," leading to its jittery, anxious rush once underway, betrays nothing of the song railing in specific about the sexual exploitation of minors and in general about sexual trafficking. As the first verse unfolds, we learn that the streetwalker in question has a history: stolen from her home, she winds up "homeless, beat to death or put out/homeless, greedy and cruel/oh why"—and here, behind Vasquez's heavy, twanging guitar riff, the music begins to fight against its restraints, until Vasquez moans, "oooh whoaaa..." and guitarist Sean Walker comes slicing into the soundscape with a searing, plaintive Tele solo. The second verse recounts a rape, and introduces a six-year-old boy, "wearing a dress/look at his face, you won't see no innocence/he's got so much experience," leading Vasquez to cry out, "Oh, why, can't I feel? Why-I-I-I"—as if he's struggling for words—"what can I do? Oh, whoaaa, set me free! Set me free! C'mon and set me free!", the music soaring behind him, drums booming, voices aloft, Walker winding the tension tighter with his solo before Vasquez jumps in with a twangy, low-end retort on the Byrdland. Here enters a signature marking of Delta Spirit's songs, namely parallel construction in the choruses that makes everyone complicit in the horror, not only a tune's subjects, but the singer and, by implication, the listener as well: Vasquez's cry of "Set me free," articulated three times, gives way to "Set them free/set them free/yeah, it could've been me." The third verse brings a "German Casanova" to the underground, where "the law will never find him" and he can indulge his sexual peccadilloes unfettered, a scene that prompts from Vasquez a blistering wail: "It's a sin to sit and just do nothin'/yeah, there's a special place in Hell for me/oh, God, I just gotta do something/I swear to God this is happenin', oh-whooaaa....set me free/set me free/c'mon and set me free/oh, whooaaa, set them free/set them free/yeah, it could've been me."
A similar ethos informs the relentless juggernaut that is "Children." With drummer Brandon Young setting the pace with a rush of eighth notes played in 4/4 time and Walker letting loose with a sustained banshee wail on the Tele, the song starts and develops feverishly, suggesting a frantic urge to get the word out. In this case it's about religious extremism and its effect on personal liberty, sung specifically to the younger generation, Vasquez very deliberately holding back in the verses, singing with what is, for him, moderation—"They rob you from the truth/and they steal from our house/the blind leading the blind/don't hang around with their kind..." until he hits the chorus and cuts loose with a fiery burst of angry declaiming that brings everyone to account: "'cause I love the life I lead/and I know my enemy/well, God is on our side/that's all you really need/that's all we really need/that's all I really need." Frailing furiously, Walker's guitar rises out of the mix and surges, surges and launches out of the soundscape as a harmonica, piercing and urgent, supplants it ahead of Vasquez's re-entry with a pungent, "You make your own stand/and you take your own stand/and I like my own stand! And I take my own stand!"
"It's a song about coming up, being told to think one way, told to think a lot of different ways," says Vasquez. "First verse is kind of about being raised as an atheist, then telling your son or your daughter never to be around anyone who has any kind of religion because they're all crazy whack nut jobs. Then the second verse is the exact opposite, then the third verse is kind of the summing up saying 'You know what? It doesn't matter where you come from, and a good person is a good person.'"
Matt Vasquez: 'Why can't we carry each other's burdens? Everybody loves the idea of carrying each other's burdens, but once they have to, they kind of opt out.' (Photo by Noahm, www.noahm.com)
The music, especially on "Streetwalker," is impeccably crafted and impressively structured, with resonant melodies and evocative, sometimes anthemic choruses redolent of a British influence (blatantly obvious on the tender acoustic love ballad opening the album, "Tomorrow Goes Away," with its gentle, lilting rhythm, overtly Beatles-esque melody—so overt it cribs a fleeting passage from "Michelle"—silky, close-knit harmony and cautiously sunny assessment of a troubled relationship, to wit: "Perhaps things are getting better/but how can one be so sure/so I will take it slowly/so that I can rest assured/in the evening when I wake up I would love to hear you say/ooohhh-oooohhh/wait until tomorrow goes away"); the dynamics—the contrast in texture between the red-hot verses and the white-hot choruses, the overlapping entrances and exits of guitars and voices, and the savvy use of tension and release as cathartic devices—are the stuff of classic American rock 'n' roll, embracing all of its history but leaning on early Beatles and Stones, Creedence, Neil Young. Not least of all is the writing itself, confronting real issues afflicting the world (the music may sound specifically American, but the song's narratives reflect global concerns). Writers have been falling all over themselves to describe the myriad influences in the songs, with the consensus being that Delta Spirit is channeling 30 years of punk rock history. Fine, but that statement is wrong by about half, because the band's roots run considerably deeper and richer than what punk can provide.
"I think what comes through is just bands" is Vasquez's take on Delta Spirit's inspiration. "It's not even a specific genre. It's people that do what they want to do, whether it's Nirvana or guys like Willie Nelson and Neil Young, or CCR, the Beatles, the Kinks, the Boss. Or Dylan. Or Nick Cave. Or Tom Waits. Tons of people who do exactly what they wanna do. Coming from that it's really like you can listen to anything and be influenced by it and somehow put it together."
How Delta Spirit put it together is a happy confluence of design and accident. Bassist Jonathan Jameson and drummer Brandon Young were together in one of the early 2000s' most promising young bands, Noise Ratchet, from San Diego, CA. purevolume.com reports that "Noise Ratchet died on December 12, 2004," and adds that three members, including Jameson, were forming a band called The Life, which proved to be a stillborn project. A year later Young, Jameson and their friend Sean Walker teamed up to start a new band. The missing link turned out to be Matt Vasquez, whom they happened upon by chance playing music on the streets of San Diego. Vasquez lived in Dana Point, CA, "a rich area," he says, but his own family "was skimming by, five people in a small apartment, my parents sleeping in the kitchen, my brother and I sharing a room, my sister had her own room."
Though born in California, Vasquez had been raised in Austin, TX, "through all my troubles. I came up running around, smoking pot and doing all sorts of really stupid shit." His father had been a military man, serving two and a half tours in Vietnam, Airborne, and had been planning a career in same when Matt's mother became pregnant and the senior Vasquez "decided he wasn't going to do it anymore. So he went in to aerospace, started selling like Star Wars stuff that Reagan wanted to use, ended up working for Lockheed and helping out with skunk works and a bunch of really fun things. When I was a kid I used to watch VHS tapes of satellite guided missiles and bombs blow up tanks. Futuristic stuff for that era, a lot of stuff we use now. He definitely was involved in it. Pretty cool. I don't know a lot, he won't tell me everything. He's that kind of guy. I'm proud he's that kind of guy."
Delta Spirit, "People Turn Around"
As a kid he also benefited from his grandmother having been the sixth employee hired at the Leo Fender company. From her every male member of the family, including grandsons, received a guitar, as a present. To the eight-year-old Matt she gave a three-quarter size GnL Stratocaster prototype. The first song he learned was "Come As You Are," by Nirvana. "It was everybody's first song. If you're 25 years old, your first song was 'Come As You Are.' Second one was 'All Apologies.' I love Nirvana."
The Vasquez parents' splitting up was a signal moment in the family's history and dynamic, partly documented in unsparing detail on "House Built For Two." Matt, so emphatic in stressing that Delta Spirit's music is written and shaped by all five musicians, won't lay this one on anyone else, owing to its deeply personal nature. The song tells the twin tales of his parents' split and his own drug-fueled rebellion. "You left me at home/to carve my own stone," he sings in the voice of his shattered father early on; later: "Our son is losing his mind/his drugs that he hides/you could see in his veins/the steps he's needin' to take/his back it might break/we both need you here"—one parent appealing to, pleading with his absent partner to come to her son's aid.
Matt: "The song is basically about how my mom left my dad. But it kind of quotes from the time when I was really young and doing a lot of drugs and stuff and being real stupid at the wee age of 15, 14. I was living in Dripping Springs, Texas, because we moved from Austin and both my parents moved in with their parents at the ages of like 45 and 40, so it got really weird and I started living with my grandma in California, but my mom didn't come out. And I didn't really like California, so I ended up flying back to Texas, and instead of living in Austin I lived in Dripping Springs, which is out towards where Willie Nelson lives, like west, southwest Austin. So I was out there and I did a bunch of LSD one day in high school, woke up in the hospital and two days later I got flown back to California. My mom thought she was going to lose a little boy, so she flew out and, you know, stayed, sucked it up for the rest of the years of my high school career, and lived in the kitchen. She's not a bad woman; it just wasn't going to work out. The song was for my dad, because of what he went through. Now he's great, but he was a real hard man before my mom left him. When she took off he became this big old softie, just a sweetheart. He's so funny and he's a complete bachelor now. He called me today, 'Matt! I just bought a Nissan 350Z!' I said, 'No way!' He goes out and dances and stuff, hangs out at Cougar Bars and stuff. He's not a dirty man; he just likes to come out. He loves dancing, loves people, he's super-extroverted. Plays tons of tennis; he'll give anybody a tennis lesson, doesn't matter who or how old you are. My mom and I reconciled probably four years ago. I still wrote that song for my dad. I was going to write a song for my mom, from her perspective, but the music didn't go along with the words well enough to do it. So it's on the backburner."
At the Dana Point home, Matt found he had no place to play music. So as a newly licensed 18-year-old driver (he's 25 now), he did the normal thing: "I got in the car and drove two hours away to go downtown by myself." He was busking on the streets of San Diego when he met Brandon Young, who was heading to a store with a friend in tow. They complimented Matt on his music, he thanked them in return and everyone went their own way. While Matt was hanging out at his friend Jon Jameson's house, Brandon came by, and the die was cast, so to speak. Brandon spent a week hanging out with Matt and "that's kind of how the band got started. Kelly (Winrich, keyboards) and I went to rival high schools and ended up being friends through music."
The band took its name from Jameson's great uncle, Red, who operated the Delta Spirit Taxidermy Station of North Central Alabama. In 2006, recording for Monarch Music, Delta Spirit debuted on disc with a six-song EP, I Think I've Found It, which includes an early version of "Streetwalker." The Delta Spirit on EP contrasts sharply with the group that emerged on Ode to Sunshine. It's a good band, a solid contemporary rock band, distinct from its contemporaries in its pronounced electrified bluesiness and unamabiguous nods to specific influences: the aformentioned "Streetwalker" is not the soaring, anthemic cri de coeur heard on the Rounder album, but rather a dark, snarling, early '70s Stones strut through a malevolent underworld, whereas the driving, swaggering "Gimme Some Motivation" and the lowdown, swinging blues and stinging guitar riffing on "When In Roam" channel the Kinks and the Stones all at once; only the acoustic-based original version of "People, Turn Around" hints at (in spite of its low-fi audio quality) the grander ambitions and sense of mission fueling the band's attack on its debut album. "We wrote all the songs on the EP," Vasquez says, "and decided might as well track 'em and put our foot down where we are. That's where we were as a band, really."
Nevertheless, the EP brought labels a-calling, even as Delta Spirit was getting material together for what it thought would be another EP, which they decided to record at a cabin in the San Diego Mountains rented from a fellow named Derek Shaw, whom Vasquez describes as "this cool guy, one of those guys from San Diego who dresses like Neil Young, or at least a wizard. He was writing a book when he decided to get this cabin. He was sitting out there by himself, and we ended up calling because we were looking for a cabin to record in. So he let us come down and record for free. It was awesome.
"At the time we were shopping for record labels, talking to people and we'd met a bunch of people that were just like 'blah-blah-blah, we think you're great,' 'blah-blah-blah, that's cool that you want to produce yourself,' 'blah-blah-blah, if you could have any producer in the world, who would it be?' They'll tell you anything to get you to sign on the dotted line. So we're like, 'Great, if we sign with one of these record labels, one, we're gonna get lowballed; two, we're gonna get stuck with Mutt Lange and end up with like a Metallica record or a Shania Twain record,' so we ended up recording it ourselves. Originally it was going to be an EP, then we decided to keep going with it. San Diego Mountains, they're great. Real pretty apple pie country, weekend warrior, motorcycle club joint, real old town, the cabin was great. They had horseshoes and a black Lab named Spot. It was awesome. We cooked for each other and recorded. Most of the recordings were done with a P.A. Especially in 'Strange Vine' you can hear the overdubbed vocal. That's actually the drum mic that's picking up the PA vocal, and then I sing over it."
During this process the collaborative songwriting effort was refined. To some press claims that he is the principal lyricist, Vasquez offers an instant and emphatic, "That is a falsehood.
"Lyrically it's either Kelly or I and we can share that any way that it come to us. Like we'll write the bones of a song, where it's like, here's the verses, here's the chorus, here's the middle eight or here's all the verses, or, here's the ditty I came up with on the guitar but I can't figure out the words, and Kelly will finish it for me. Or he'll present that and I'll finish it for him. It's a Lennon-McCartney situation where any one of us can help finish a song with the other and do all that stuff, but we never ever complete it so that Sean, John and Brandon can come in and help rearrange everything and change it."
So, given the Lennon-McCartney reference, which one is the acerbic Lennon, which the more sweet-natured McCartney?
"I don't know," Vasquez says with a slight laugh. "I think we're both a bunch of jerks, and if one is being too jerky the other person turns around and will be the nice guy. Good cop, bad cop."
Apart from musical influences, the literary bent of Delta Spirit's lyrics suggests the influence of authors and composers, sometimes more so than other songwriters. The strong spiritual undercurrent in some of the musings about the breakdown of civility and public apathy, the suggestions of discontent with popular culture and so-called civic leaders, begins to make more sense when Vasquez reveals he's come under the sway of Russian authors—not through their works, mind you, but through the lives they lived as detailed in biographies.
"I'm really into Russian writers at the moment. Guys like Tolstoy, who started crazy ideas like Christian anarchism and communal living, and influenced guys like Ghandi towards passive resistance. That's awesome, those ideas and the way he went about it. Dostoevsky was so awesome. His final days are pretty radical. I'm more interested in how they lived than in what they wrote about or how great their writing is. I just got a bio on Gogol. I hear he's buried alive. That's crazy!"
Rounder made the best impression with everyone ("every time they were a round we always said, 'That label rules!'"), and it didn't hurt that A&R rep was Dave Godowsky, who plays the part of Izzy Stradlin in a Guns N' Roses tribute band called Mr. Brownstone (they've been on Letterman). "He's a funny guy. Great musician and one of the very few people in the music industry that will let you do whatever you want to do. Within reason. If I wanted to do a hip-hop record he'd probably let me do it."
Vasquez pauses. "But I would never make a hip-hop record."
'Family's important, people are important,' Vasquez offers. 'And not taking for granted the opportunity we have. As tired as we get, if we can sincerely appreciate everything that comes our way, that's good. And take for what it's worth any kind of criticism or hardship that comes upon us, we'll be alright.' (photo by Noahm, www.noahm.com)
Ode To Sunshine, featuring a 1978 self-shot photo of Winrich's uncle, Dr. Thomas L. Payne, on the cover, laughing and holding up a glass of red wine, and on the back a pic of Dr. Payne and his wife playing Chinese checkers in the bathtub, was initially a self release that the band sold while on the road, to the tune of 10,000 copies by the time it signed with Rounder. Constant touring got the buzz going underground and it went mainstream big time last year when the band toured nationally as a Rounder act, late in the year opening for Nada Surf, and now, for the first time, as a headliner. With the pace quickening and acclaim mounting, all the band members are trying to stay focused on what got them to this point, and on what endures in their lives that was true before the spotlight shone so bright on them.
"Family's important, people are important," Matt offers. "And not taking for granted the opportunity we have. As tired as we get, if we can sincerely appreciate everything that comes our way, that's good. And take for what it's worth any kind of criticism or hardship that comes upon us, we'll be alright. That's some big words. But true."
Living in the moment, he says he "couldn't be more pleased" with how far and how fast the band has come since those carefree days at the cabin. There Delta Spirit crafted one of the best debut albums in rock 'n' roll history, emerging as a band capable of greatness, if not Beatles-like dominance, as if any band ever will do that again. But a band that could make a difference in people's lives, could distill the issues of its time down to The Word? As far away as they may be from such an exalted plateau, Delta Spirit is closer to scaling it, and abiding there, than anyone can imagine.
"You know, I think that whole thing, like a spokesman for anything, we are what we are and some folks get behind it and we all get together and I think there's a lot of commonality," Matt observes. "It's really cool to see like frat guys and hipsters and bluegrass guys, folkies, rockers and metalheads. Any one of those groups like our band. And when they come to a show it's always a very motley group and I'm probably the most proud about that. It makes it more about everyone. It's the kind of music, if you believe in it, then it works. If you don't, then maybe you kind of like it, maybe you think it's kind of fun.
"You know what I mean?"
Delta Spirit, "House Built for Two"
An intense live performance from Feb. 20, 2009
Contributing Editors: Billy Altman, Derk Richardson


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aachen-schmiedstrasse.de
Basic grind guide
hello so today I'm going to explain to you how to grind in soccer spirit I know a lot of you have seen guides on the internet and what I'm going to say is going to be very similar if not the same thing so you're going to read but I'm gonna do it by showing you to you something that a lot of people are not going to be able to understand when reading it is what everything means as I know it can be very overwhelming and sometimes extremely unclear what the guide is saying a lot of people have asked me question this is why I decided to make this video so as you will see in the top bar in the game there are an average 5 kinds of resources there's match loss points there's GP gold crystal and dimension steps so let's start from the easiest to the hardest Gold is very simple to do us a bunch of small operation selling already gaming it just need gold it's something you're always going to need at the end of every match or basically every match it certain special matters don't have it you're gonna end up with gold so it's something that along the game you're gonna get but at some point you're gonna need to grind it to do certain special things some training and equip your improve your equipment that in these games are called spirit stones the second resource is GP this is a resource you're gonna get from selling free star rebuff cards or you can get in different locations I'm going to explain later on how to grind it but it's one use isn't something called the Scout that you can access just by clicking on it we're here you can buy any card you see by fit by paying the amount of GP the highest price you will ever see is a thousand eight hundred and that's for a manager on average you're gonna try get stay around a thousand six hundred to a 2 mm just like this in case you see a card you really want it you can just leave with it so after looking at guides and understanding the players you're going to want to be able to just buy the card when it finally appears because let's just say getting five cards in the five star cards in this game is actually very hard the third resource is going to be crystals so this is or we're going to consider the premium currency something that you're usually not a waiting to get well in this game to be honest they're pretty generous there's a bunch of tax you can get but if you want to pay and supported devs I'm gonna advise only paying for a single one of them and it's the one that's right here you can see I had to renew it it's for the month every day for a month you're gonna get 20 crystals it's extremely cheap depending on the currency it might be a little bit more expensive I mean from what I understood in the u.s. costs $7 in Canada is around 11 and basically I consider it a subscription to the game it allows to up the dance and compare to a price ratio to the amount of crystals and resource you get from it it's really great but if you don't want to pay there is a way because the game's generous there is a daily achievement so you will want to complete it every single day and be careful to always do it I haven't gotten it yet but if I spend five minutes I'll be able to they're very easy to make in two connections max you're gonna be able to get them all if for example you need to do ten matches in story mode it costs twenty strengths at the beginning of the game you can already spend that in around let's say five minutes of gameplay and leave with those five crystals but what's really nice is there is a bunch of consecutive achievements we're gonna give you a lot of crystals while my numbers are higher than what you're gonna see at the beginning of the game but mine are harder to get so there's going to be grades of achievements for example you see here galaxy conquest free meaning there was one and two so again more you go late game the longer it's gonna take for you to get there but when you're gonna get them it's gonna be much more rewarding and this is a currency you're gonna spend when you want to buy skins when you want to do special draws when you want to spend on stuff there's the buy gold buy it by basically any resource in the game except GP and well dimension stone is something even more premium then we have the boss once you will see in a top left corner very often you're gonna have something called a boss match or a million match so the boss match is only going to be on the weekend and a minion match gonna be for five days during the week so it's usually gonna be in different chairs uh and when you win the match you will only be able to get one of the four minions so there's always one free star and three four stars one's gonna give on average ten thousand gold one ten to twenty GP what's going to be experienced and the last one is going to be something tiny whose the free star but what's interesting is every time you complete it you're gonna get some points if you lose you get last but ideally you're going to take a difficulty you
can master so as you see on top left its I have only twenty-one points that's because I've already collected everything I cared about I wanted to swirly the belzebub the four star penguins and I've already purchased one time the player you can purchase them up to three times or on the week and match there's a chance they will drop but the week in match is extremely hard and for a lot of new players it is not an option and our event Scout but that is an entirely different story that is just based on the fact that you spend strength doing any kind of match whatsoever and then we have dimension swords on the top right it's very simple you do not spend them ever and I'm not I'm not saying this to be the complaining old person is just to say everything you can by spending them it's never going to be as interesting as a last deal the one right here if you are able to save up 900 of them you can choose a legendary card of your choice you're gonna say it's interesting yeah but when you you start advancing you understand how powerful they are it's extremely interesting sadly you can get season two legendaries but to be honest except for maybe one of them they're all extremely strong and as you'll see your team formation advance your question is going to be which one's the best and you're going to find that pretty clear for example William and lavador are some great shooters baltar is the only legendary pastor in my eyes one of the strongest in the game as from what I've seen he can do up to 3,000 fact who is extremely powerful knowing some of them are going to be in the hundreds so saving these points for these players is much more reward now you're not going to get a lot of them they're only gonna fall doing other tasks so grinding for them is not even something you're going to be looking at until you've really advanced in the game don't even start whining until you hit six seven hundred because grinding them by itself is only doable by one method it's completing chains but until you've had a lot of cards it's meaningless and you'll be getting one two dimensions so and you're gonna get extremely frustrated I have a lower amount because I've actually just purchased a legendary a while back you can also get some bonus ones if you make a paid purchase except for the daily pack as is very cheap and it's already a good part so now what you want to do is for the gold is look at the matches two things aren't poured on the weekend we're what we call the gold batch it's extremely good to spend some some strength the level of the match is actually not important you want to of course try it do the highest one because they're gonna get your better rewards but if you look at the base cost for the amount of gold you're gonna get it's very good if it costs six strengths you're getting around free files eight strengths 4010 strength five files so basically one strengths 500 goal it's an approximate amount but it's it's not a bad deal if you're weak to just do the weak that the smallest one the normal difficulty a lot of people can pull that off well the hell one is even at my level can sometimes be a little bit challenging when I mix up a few players so you want to usually try go for the lowest one but if you're able to go further I mean you're gonna get a better amount of swirlies so something you're gonna want to farm later on as they're going to help you evolve player and they're also going to allow you to to give them some bonus stat points but that's gonna cost you goal to get so sometimes you're gonna start a week in grinding goal then you're gonna leave the week in with less gold and you began by doing these matches ironically your team's gonna be stronger but that's just a detail and you're gonna have what we're gonna call flat Gold matches they're going to be happening for only one hour there are none on the weekend if you go to the bottom of the schedule they're the very last match and the gold matches the special one yield more gold around 10 to 20% last time I did one I think I got around 6,400 gold while when I do the weekend one for the exact same match I get five thousand four hundred so it's a round of fouls and I'm saying this approximately so it's even better if you can do those but if you can't you want to do the weekend once and there's a lot of different matches are very often you're gonna have a daily match who's gonna be a weekday Gold Limited match always do those you can only do it three times but it's a great bargain for the amount of strength is gonna cost you and there's no better match for gold except the Sunday special gold match that happens only three times but that's the best deal of gold you're ever gonna get so again just as you can see they're flashing green that means we can use them and you see again my gold going up for these two managers they really shine
when you rank up over a certain level because they're based on the amount of friends you have no you do not need real friends in real life for this it's not important whenever you play a match unless you have maxed out friends is going to propose you to use units who belong to people who are not in your friend list if you do that at the end of the match you can press add so not having 100 friends playing this game makes no difference and currently it's capped at Ferdie if they ever increase that amount I'm gonna make more money I'm not gonna complain and sometimes when you grind it can be frustrating do not have enough friend slots because in certain conditions you want some friends who have certain types of aces and it doesn't always work out so you got to call your friend please switch your A's or message him online who's very popular with this game here again as I said his ability is to use the ability of my equip trainer and as we're gonna see him is going to give me 30 strength at this is the equip trainers ability so he is very good for grind he is considered a best Scout grinder um if you don't need stones anymore and you want to get rid of Marion echo or just for the grinding on a certain point in time after using her you can switch her back out for a sigmund he allows your max strength to go up all the way up to 20 when he's maxed out completely she'll equip the skill of your sponsor so he's even going to give you an extra bunch of gold so it's a pretty decent deal but Marion echo is the stone master so again it really depends the point in time when your ad when you're desperate looking at your first stone or to upgrade the ones you currently have now when when you're not in an event when there's no flash anything and you want to still make gold what has been advised a lot is to go into story mode into the very first one why is this is because a lot of people do not want to level up because when you're gonna go in PDP there's gonna try to match you people at the same level as you and I'm not talking about player level or ability level it's gonna be your rank and a lot of people don't want to rank I personally don't care so much about the rank that's why I've gone all the way up over a hundred I don't find that it's PvP is that valuable so I'm fixed my team specifically for it on PV I'm doing very well and I'm eventually just gonna finish shell just to get that swirly but it's pretty decent the PvP experience can be frustrating as certain things are going to be nerfed and in my case that's healing who men who enters my entire team Ajoke in PvP well in PvE it's extremely strong so you want to do one one to finish the gold now I'm going to go to a different unit there's a lot of different ways to find gold that if the one I said is not in your list that is completely fine of course I'm going to point out again there's PvP well I'm think if a lot to talk about it so whenever you win one of these PvP matches I'm going to do a random one again proving that the sadness of the limitations of a team of course what you can do was a very good method is you can keep refreshing the list until you see a bunch of teams you can beat ideally four of them because after two wins you get a bonus amount of gold and GP on the web was extremely interesting because for literally doing nothing you're going to gain more so on top of it those match is going to be faster and you have a higher chance of way so it's gonna take a few second just do them on automatic it's it's not really worth wasting time on in the worst case scenario you're gonna lose but if you were able to select your team correctly it's gonna do it right when you want to do this more professionally you can look at the enemy team check their stones check exactly what strategy they're using move your players accordingly looking at elemental resistances I am not really doing that currently I'm just having fun so later on what I'm going to be doing this the player versus player more competitively I'll look at it so again as maybe you've noticed dirty legendaries in my front line it works very well they're not they're not going to win and a lot of players more the advanced more legendary they're going to have so you're going to have to build up your defense and legendaries or or possible to get for free so again it's not a pay to win wall it's a grind to win but not pay to it and yes ping does help out I'm not gonna lie but it's not the true source so as you see I got 3,300 goal and won GP for doing this so this is one of the best ways to find cold now that we've finished talking about gold I'm going to talk to you about GP because you love the idea of choosing your own card I do you do everybody does now GP can be obtained by selling cards so you're going to want to be able to get cards that are free stars and above they need to be player cards and it can be special cards those are the conditions or you're
not gonna get anything done a GP when selling them is just a rule I know it's annoying we've all wished we could just throw everything we own and left with 100 GP and it says zero and we're frustrated so if you want to just make a small amount what's very popular is to go to Coliseum the higher you go up the more GP it's actually going to give you as you see it uses BP who's a different type of strength who recharges at a different rate so on average is going to take two hours for a person to max it back out and late it's going to take you around three hours to fully refill it because the max amount will go up as you level up now I think that a lot of people haven't realized it is especially important early game is that when you can't win the Coliseum of despair anymore and you will hit that point everyone hits it in my case it's at around 35 I'll always try to at least hit your highest rank as there is a reward weekly that is going to give you some crystals and dimension stones currently I'm at the 6 to 10% but I'm working up my way slowly slowly every week I try to go one up I've been pretty progressive but let's say you hit your limit what are you going to do just wait for the new day to happen and then finally be able to press the reset button you can press it now but it's going to propose you to pay for decreased crystals was not a good deal never buy it please don't do that it's it's not worth it but what you can do to still eat a bit of GP it's not going to be as interesting you can go to Coliseum of trials again this is a bunch of small missions try to clear them but even if you've cleared them there's one that is impossible to fail in automatic it's match 1 – you're going to say why do we care first of all doing any later matches is only going to give you 1 GP if you've already cleared it the first time so whatever one you're making unless you're in the fives makes no difference and if you're in the fives knowing the amount of conditions you're not Auto in this it's very clear so this one's only condition is wimpy for 20 minutes and when shooting one two three shots so it's ridiculously easy you just start you can throw any blur ideally a friend player to get a bit of friendship points but you can really do what you want it it honestly doesn't matter in this match what you're doing all you need is basically a level 20 mid line and a level 20 frontline that's all you're ever gonna need they're weak and it's made at the beginning for players to have a chance to try this mode and see if they want to do the more advanced challenge so again like I said you just Auto it again I'm saying Auto because this is a game mode where you're gonna want to read every condition very freely but not this one so again bass buncha shoots it's over again those are two Legendary's but if you don't have legend there is it's still gonna work that easily and like that you got one GP who a lot of people don't get because they say oh I've reached my limit I'm coming back to this tomorrow it takes just a few seconds and you're going to be able to get that extra GP so that's how you get GP and again as I told you a lot of people like to farm the match 1-1 in story mode so the one one is always going to be farmed because in the drop list it doesn't drop stones it only drops player and there's a three star player so if you ever get something above a two star it's automatically going to be a player is going to give you GP so the thing is that the amount of card is something that made highly vary depending on your setup I said earlier barrel will increase the chance of getting a bonus clock but there's a second type of bonus card you can get and that's what we call the clover card so when you look at the picture of any player you've got you're gonna see a little bit under their element a number of clover and a clover is gonna allow you to get additional rewards so for example we're you to have a 99 clover and ideally you need to choose this player as your ace for it to really work the best player Firdous is always going to be Elizabeth and when you hit 99 offer yes I know I'm not at 99 but I'm slowly getting there she's gonna give you an extra card now for a lot of you who have this great belief that taking two stars making them 99 having a full 99 team is a way of life it is not the base star level of a player is what matters you may special trade them you may do what you want but nothing's gonna be a five star whose native 5 star with a 99 and even if you level up to becoming a 6 star it means nothing of course the dream for grinding would be a full 99 Legend team sadly no person is crazy enough to try to pull that one off because the way you get you get some extra clovers is by giving a second time the
car to itself meaning a dupe or what we call a leader of course both of them are on average very rare when you go about four-star so you're not going to be able to just throw them around and then you're going to make a formation and make it an ace this is one of my formations when you do this on average your backline doesn't matter so you can try to just level random players or try to train them or do anything you want do chains it's very popular when you're grinding one want to also complete change of your players what are the finest chains is when you're going story this is a list of players if you fulfill the condition for type of possessing at any point in time meaning you've already sold some all five of these you can complete a chain it's going to give you the conditions underneath sadly for this one I cannot do it because it says which player I'm missing on average is winning ten to twenty matches of the player but the amount of stars is gonna fake the amount of matches you need to win now a big misconception a lot of players have had is you don't need every player in the chain to get a chain bonus all you need is one play I'm just putting that out there because actually a lot of people tell me oh there's five players but I only own four I'm never gonna get the chain you only need one it's something very simple and chaining is the only way you can far dimension stumps because when you complete all four chains of a player it's going to give you an amount of dimension stone the thing is that this amount is going to be based on their base level so let's say that you're going to do a two star and you complete all its chains you're getting two dimension stones a free star for a four star six a five star eight and a six star ten the thing is the lower the star the easier two chains so you're gonna notice that you're going to finish all the chains of the two stars first except for one or two of them who felt that one of their children Derry who on average you're basically never going to oh well you're gonna own some after a certain point but it's gonna take time oh and if you look at my screen you also see that there seems to be a bug as this is supposed to have text not just be a white blob now for crystals we've explained the ways the achievements and there's also going to be some consecutive achievements and end-of-season achievements there's one for getting 300 GP is pretty decent and very often in events there's going to be some sort of crystal reward at one point it will on average require a decent amount of grinding and you're not going to be so happy about it but it's usually pretty doable after a while it's made just for not everyone to finish up all the crystals because that is technically where they make their money so they're gonna give you some but they're gonna make you play for it so if you're not paying at least you're playing the game that's kind of the idea behind it so lately we're having an operation where every 24 hours we get rewards for completing a small mission and if you look on the fourth day for getting thirty thousand gold we got an extra 20 crystal but this game is very often under an event extremely rare you don't have much so you need to check constantly the event tab and slowly read the details I know it's annoying but you need to do it and the last way is going to be in PvP in something called Galaxy super late you're not going to win them every round you're only going to win them when you rack up in the league the thing is that ranking up is extremely hard because on average is going to require you to have an AAA to pass the first rank and then it's going to require higher amounts of team ability or extremely hard even with my team with four legendaries I'm having a pretty tough time getting to dime and that's saying nothing about the following leaks but again as you notice it gives Crystal and dimension stone and at the very end of the season you're gonna get some leaders who are used to special trained or not special trained what am i say to count as duplicates toward characters and we'll give them also the same amount of clover as the leader so I hope this answered all the main questions that you can have about the game if you have any other question just notice me and I'll try to make a very honest but I think this was something that you need to be shown in video as a lot of people through time have had the exact same questions and I know that it can be extremely overwhelming when you're just reading a five-page article say you should do this you should do that and have the time you don't even know what the hell were talking about so thank you very much and I hope you'll enjoy us
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Full length play 2023
Student Directed One Act
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Theatre Student Officers
Oak creek high school
Oak Creek High School Theatre is THE ever-growing home of plays, musicals, improv showcases, and so much more!
There is a spot for everyone here! We have shows to audition for, as well as all-inclusive events to partake in.
If you are simply interested in seeing some great theatre, we put on some extremely successful shows.
Thank you so much for your support of our program!
Girls in the Boat
by Alice Austen
Audition & Interview Workshop: Thursday, February 2 3:30-5pm Little Theater
Come join Girls in the Boat Production Team, Lindsay Gleason (Director) and Jon McIntosh (Technical Director) as they review expectations and helpful tips for the upcoming audition/ interview season! The workshop will include an overview of what to expect from the auditions/interviews, tips for a successful audition or interview, and a review of audition materials. The workshop will take place in the Little Theatre from 3:30-5pm on Thursday, 2/2.
Cast Auditions: 2/13 3-6pm
Audition Sides Link
Script Preview Link
Possible Cast Callbacks: 2/14 3-6pm
Crew Interviews: 2/15 3-6pm
Performances: April 21-23, 2023
GIRLS IN THE BOAT WAS INSPIRED BY THE TRUE STORIES OF THE U.S. WOMEN'S OLYMPIC ROWING TEAM. A GROUP OF SMART, FIERY YOUNG WOMEN FIGHT DISCRIMINATION AND PREJUDICE TO COMPETE IN THE MALE-DOMINATED SPORT OF ROWING, FINDING AN UNLIKELY ALLY IN A TACITURN MEN'S COACH. TOGETHER, THEY CONFRONT RIDICULE AND OVERCOME OBSTACLES. THE WOMEN REFUSE TO SIT ON A BUS AND WAIT THEIR TURN IN A BATTLE FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN A SPORT THAT MAKES NATIONAL NEWS AND TAKES THEM ALL THE WAY TO THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS. AGAINST THE RHYTHM OF THEIR OARS, THESE WOMEN FORGE BONDS AND OVERCOME DISAGREEMENTS IN THEIR SEARCH FOR GREATNESS. DESPITE THEIR DIVERSE BACKGROUNDS AND POLITICS, THEY LITERALLY PULL TOGETHER TO REACH THEIR GOALS IN A FAST-PACED DRAMA THAT REMINDS US OF WHAT WE CAN ALL DO IF WE HAVE A COMMON PURPOSE. AS OUR HEROINES BREAK BARRIERS OF RACE AND GENDER, THEIR NEWLY MINTED U.S. WOMEN'S ROWING TEAM GOES ON TO BECOME THE MOST WINNING SPORTS TEAM IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
Have Questions? Email Lindsay at lindsayrosegleason@outlook.com
2023 Full length Play


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Mary Sue Welsh Discusses Her New Book One in a Hundred: Edna Phillips and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Darryle Royal March 27, 2013 10:00AM
Out of the 500 companies in the Fortune 500, only 21 of them are led by a female chief executive officer. When Edna Phillips joined the Philadelphia Orchestra -- an equally illustrious group in her time -- as principal harpist, she was the ensemble's first female member, becoming one in 100. And not only was she the group's first female player, she was the first woman to hold a principal position in any major American orchestra.
Author Mary Sue Welsh recently penned Phillips' biography, One Woman in a Hundred: Edna Phillips and the Philadelphia Orchestra, about Phillips' life in the orchestra, how she survived in a world dominated by men, and why her story is relevant for today's women.
See also: ASU Alumnus Darian Lane Discusses His New Book Flashy Fiction, Working With Muhammad Ali, and His Next Projects The Best Equality Memes from Around the Web 10 Films We Can't Wait to See at the Phoenix Film Festival
Welsh says when she started working with Phillips on the book in 1990, it was to help her write her memoir, but when Phillips became ill, they put the book aside. After she passed away, Welsh says, she still wanted to tell the stories.
"She had a wonderful memory, and she just remembered it all," says Welsh. "They're such good, wonderful, important stories. I thought, well, I could go ahead and write them as a biography. So I went and did a lot more research and backed them up."
Welsh says she originally wanted to help Phillips with her memoir because she was fascinated by her stories.
"She knew such great people, and frankly she remembered such funny things about them," says Welsh. "She had the sharpest eye, and she would catch funny mistakes, personality quirks. And I thought it was wonderful, because they were great musicians but they were also human."
Phillips joined the Philadelphia Orchestra when she was just 23 years old, after the famous conductor Leopold Stokowski discovered her through her teacher and Stokowski's friend Carlos Salzedo, who is generally regarded as history's greatest harpist.
Phillips had been practicing the harp for only five years and was still in the midst of learning under Salzedo at the Curtis Institute of Music when she received the audition with Stokowski.
Welsh says Phillips thought she was auditioning for the second harp position, but Stokowski being the great innovator he was, recognized her talent and hired her as principal harpist, to the shock of everyone.
Even though Stokowski was used to taking risks and being cutting edge in the musical world, Welsh says he was still a little worried about hiring Phillips.
"He did so many adventurous things that you wouldn't think he'd be so worried about it, but he was apparently," says Welsh. "And, yes, it was a risk. But it was just one more thing he did that was groundbreaking. He pioneered ways to record music, and he was very interested in technology. He was using synthesizers and would experiment with electronic things, so he was a big trailblazer, that's for sure."
And he would have to be, considering it was 1930 and not only were women not allowed in the great orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, or the Boston Symphony, women weren't expected to have careers at all.
Phillips wasn't entirely a novice when it came to performing with an orchestra. She had been a member of the orchestra at The Roxy Theatre, a premier movie palace in New York City known for its theatrical and lavish performances.
Welsh says that during Phillips' time at The Roxy she was second harpist, and the orchestra did four shows a day, seven days a week. Phillips was chased by many of the men, says Welsh, and while their come-ons and the lifestyle surrounding the theatre actually frightened her, they helped prepare her for how to act once she joined the Philadelphia Orchestra.
"When she came to Philadelphia, she was kind of prepared and she stayed aloof," says Welsh. "She didn't want to mix up with the men; she wanted them to know she was serious about her work. And, heavens, she really was, because she had to work so hard to live up to this high, wonderful orchestra."
Her aloofness didn't allow her to escape the advances of Stokowski, however. Welsh says that Stokowski was known as quite the playboy and ended up having three wives, including Gloria Vanderbilt, plus an affair with Greta Garbo.
"She was very savvy, and when he made advances at her, she got out of it and without getting fired, which is a difficult thing," says Welsh. "She had this wonderful teacher [Salzedo], and he warned her not to get mixed up with any of them, but he was really meaning Stokowski. He warned her not to get involved with him or she'd be thrown away like an old shoe."
Welsh says that through outwitting Stokowski's advances she actually gained his respect, and eventually she gained the respect and even friendships of her fellow players.
Phillips' achievements in her career and her work ethic can still provide great lessons for women today, says Welsh.
"It was hard work, and she worked very hard," says Welsh. "She just made sure that she was going to be the best at what she did, and she was very courageous. And, quite frankly, she was savvy not to get involved with anybody. Because she had to have their respect to move forward, otherwise she really wouldn't have had such a good career."
Phillips didn't believe there was any reason she shouldn't be allowed to perform with the orchestra, regardless of its history of not allowing women, says Welsh. She felt that if she could play well enough, she should be able to perform with the orchestra.
Welsh says that despite her hard-working mentality and desire to remain aloof in the beginning, she still had a lot of fun, and she loved her life around her. Eventually her demanding schedule did prove to be difficult, particularly once she had children and was traveling so much after the World War II. Phillips ended up retiring and went on to do other things in the music world, says Welsh.
Although the premier orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, were extremely popular during Phillips' era, Welsh says, the general public has sort of lost touch with them now.
"While she was there, Stokowski made it the hottest ticket in town," says Welsh. "They say his second wife married him to get into the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was a very big deal at the time. The music was great, and he was showman. He knew how to attract crowds. It became a very important part of Philadelphia's life."
After Phillips, Stokowski hired a few more women through the 1930s, but the other larger orchestras wouldn't have female principal players until 1952, says Welsh. It wasn't until the orchestras started holding blind auditions that women started to represent a larger, more equal number.
Phillips' talent and ability to gain entry into the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra at such a restrictive time, plus her savvy intelligence, which allowed her to maneuver through the male-dominated world, is what makes her story so appealing.
Welsh, who met Phillips during her time as executive director for the Bach Festival of Philadelphia, says one of her favorite memories of Phillips is her laugh.
"She had a warm, wonderful laugh," says Welsh. "She was so perceptive and fun, and she was kind of a profound person, very thoughtful."
Tenth of December, a bunch of short stories by George Saunders, and Brick Lane by Monica Ali.
What was the last book you read?
Let's see, before this, I don't know. I read so many books for this book that I'm not sure. Oh, you know, it was Tina Fey's BossyPants.
What are your favorite kinds of books to read?
I'm an English major, as they say, so I like literature. I like a lot, but I'm also not good with names. But F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby has to be my all-time favorite book.
How do you pick your next book?
Well, just what I hear about, through reviews, and I belong to some book clubs, which I haven't had time to do because I was writing so much. But I look forward to that now. I'm enjoying not writing for a minute.
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Darryle Royal
Contact: Darryle Royal
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\section{Introduction}

A Dyck language (cf. \cite{Be}, p.27) consists of "well-formed" words over a finite number of pairs
of parentheses. The restricted or one-sided Dyck languages $D_n^{'*}, n \geqslant 1$ are formed of the words over $n$ pairs of
parentheses which are "correct" in the usual sense, i.e. in each pair of canceling brackets
an opening bracket precedes the closing bracket.  Thus $( [ ( ) ( ) ] \{  \} [ ] ) ( )$ is a word in $D_3^{'*}$.

For the unrestricted or two-sided Dyck languages $D^*_n, n \geqslant 1$, the interpretation of the parentheses
is different. Two parentheses of the same type are considered as formal
inverses for each other. A word is considered as "correct" if and only if successive
deletion of pairs of associated parentheses of the form $()$ and of the form $)($ yields the
empty word. Thus $)()(][  )($ is a word in $D_2^*$.

Note that the word $)($ is a word in the two-sided Dyck language, but not in the one-sided Dyck language.

Let $D^*_2$ be a two-sided (unrestricted) Dyck language on  two pairs
of letters $\{ a, \bar{a} \}$ and $\{ b, \bar{b} \}$. Denote by $D^{'*}_2$ the corresponding one-sided (restricted)
Dyck language.

Let $M= \{ a, \bar{a}, b, \bar{b} \}^*$ be the free monoid on $\{ a, \bar{a}, b, \bar{b} \}$ and let $F$ be the free group on the free generators
$\{ a, \bar{a}, b, \bar{b} \}$. We endow $F$ with the profinite topology in which all the subgroups of finite index in $F$ are the open neighborhoods of $1_F$. We consider the topology on $M$ induced by the embedding $M \rightarrow F$.

The main result of this paper is the following theorem.

\begin{theorem}
The closure of $D^{'*}_2$ in $M$ is $D^*_2$.
\end{theorem}

\section{Proof of Theorem 1}

Let $F_2$ be the free group on the generators $x$ and $y$. Let $\phi : F \rightarrow F_2$ be the homomorphism given by
$\phi(a)=x, \phi(\bar{a})=x^{-1}, \phi(b)=y$, and $\phi(\bar{b})=y^{-1}$. Then $Ker(\phi) \cap M = D^*_2$ because $Ker(\phi)$ consists of words in $F$ which reduce to $1_F$ when we delete the subwords $a \bar{a}, \bar{a} a, b \bar{b}, \bar{b} b, a^{-1} (\bar{a})^{-1}, (\bar{a})^{-1} a^{-1},
 b^{-1}(\bar{b})^{-1}$, and $(\bar{b})^{-1} b^{-1}$. All such words constitute the two-sided Dyck language $D^*_2$.

The homomorphism $\phi$ is continuous in the profinite topologies on $F$ and $F_2$ because a preimage of a subgroup of finite index in $F_2$ is a subgroup of finite index in $F$. Therefore, $Ker(\phi)$ is closed in $F$ and $Ker(\phi) \cap M =D^*_2$ is closed in the induced topology on $M$.
Thus, the closure of $D^{'*}_2 $ in $M$ is a subset of $D^*_2$.

On the other hand, let $U$ be a normal subgroup of finite index in $F$. There exists $n$ such that $(aU)^n =( \bar{a} U)^n=(bU)^n =(\bar{b}U)^n=U$.
It follows that $a^{n-1}\equiv a^{-1}(mod U), (\bar{a})^{n-1} \equiv (\bar{a})^{-1}(mod U), b^{n-1} \equiv b^{-1} (mod U), (\bar{b})^{n-1} \equiv (\bar{b})^{-1} (mod U)$.
Hence $\bar{a} a = ({(\bar{a}a)^{-1})}^{-1} = {(a^{-1} (\bar{a})^{-1})}^{-1} \equiv
{(a^{n-1} (\bar{a})^{n-1})}^{-1}(mod U)$ and $\bar{b} b = ({(\bar{b}b)^{-1})}^{-1} = {(b^{-1} (\bar{b})^{-1})}^{-1} \equiv
{(b^{n-1} (\bar{b})^{n-1})}^{-1}(mod U)$.

Therefore $D^*_2 \subseteq \langle D^{'*}_2 \rangle U$, where $\langle D^{'*}_2 \rangle $ is the subgroup of $F$ generated by $ D^{'*}_2 $ in $F$.
It follows that the closure of $D^*_2$ in $F$ is a subset of the closure of $\langle D^{'*}_2 \rangle $ in $F$.

So ${\overline{D^*_2}}^M = {\overline{ D^{'*}_2}}^F \cap M = \overline{ D^{'*}_2}^M =  D^{'*}_2 $.
Hence, ${\overline{ D^{'*}_2}}^M = {\overline{ D^*_2}}^M = D^*_2$, as required.

\section{Acknowledgment}

The first author would like to thank the Albert Einstein Institute of Mathematics
of the Hebrew University for generous support.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Faith and Politics
It's not the virus spreading exponentially but the number of tests, study shows
As the number of Covid-19 tests increases worldwide, what are they telling us? If the mainstream media are to be believed they are showing an epidemic that is spreading exponentially. But what if that is an illusion?
It sounds strange, but a German researcher, Dr Richard Capek, has analysed the tests in the United States and found that although the number of confirmed cases of the virus has been increasing exponentially, that's because the number of tests has been increasing exponentially. If you look only at the proportion of those tested who test positive then that so far has stayed the same. The latest data from the Robert Koch Institute in Germany agrees with this finding.
What this suggests is that the virus itself is not currently spreading exponentially, possibly because, as a number of virologists have argued, it has been around longer than we have been testing for it.
Dr Capek himself describes it as not so much a viral epidemic but an 'epidemic of tests'.
A German Virology professor, Dr Carsten Scheller from the University of Würzburg, agrees, explaining in a podcast that the apparent exponential spread of Covid-19 as presented in the media is more to do with the increasing number of tests than with the spread of the virus itself. In his view the Wuhan coronavirus is comparable with influenza and so far seems less lethal.
Two Stanford professors of medicine, Dr Eran Bendavid and Dr Jay Bhattacharya, writing in the Wall Street Journal add their voices to this message, arguing that the lethality of Covid-19 is overestimated by several orders of magnitude and is below that of influenza. The reason for the overestimation, they say, is the greatly underestimated number of people already infected but without symptoms.
But if this is the case, what on earth is going on in Italy and Spain, with hospitals overrun and deaths in the hundreds per day – so many they have now begun registering in Italy's overall death statistics?
Some have suggested this is not just due to the virus but also to poor air quality, low hospital capacity, a panic-induced collapse of the health system and to the lockdown itself. Dr Gerald Gass, President of the German Hospital Association, has argued that 'the extreme situation in Italy is mainly due to the very low intensive care capacities'.
There are currently many mysteries about the virus and why some countries are affected so much worse than others, and many theories competing to explain the differences, with a hope of getting clues as to how more effectively to counter it.
A key piece of evidence is how widespread the virus really is and how many have already been infected. This is where testing is moving next, with the World Health Organisation urging countries to conduct 'serosurveys' that test the blood of a sample of the population to estimate how widely the virus has spread. Such surveys will finally answer the crucial question of how common non-symptomatic infections are and thus give an accurate indication of the true mortality rate of the virus.
For the moment, however, the priority must be to get the world back to work again, and to bring the level of public concern back into proportion with the real level of threat. This includes encouraging those most at risk to self-isolate during the epidemic as much as possible, those with symptoms staying at home, and boosting health services so they are better able to cope with the increased demand. It also includes restricting travel from heavily infected regions and screening and isolating arrivals (a precaution the UK still has not implemented). But it doesn't include such costly extreme measures as overriding basic liberties or bringing the economy to a near halt. Such a 'cure' is clearly worse than the disease, not least in its impact on people's health as social distancing hits people's incomes and mental health (creating suicide risk) and leaves vulnerable people isolated.
Now that even the lead author of the Imperial College study that first spooked the UK government into extreme action has revised down his estimate of deaths from 500,000 to 20,000 (including those who would die this year anyway), it's time to get things back into proper perspective.
Published by Will Jones
View all posts by Will Jones
Ventilators aren't the answer – save just 1 in 10 coronavirus patients, data shows
European death rates remain below average in March despite coronavirus. What's really going on?
6 thoughts on "It's not the virus spreading exponentially but the number of tests, study shows"
Stephen Wigmore says:
The fact most tests continue to come back negative is strong evidence the virus is not massively more prevalent in society than believed and that the death rate is significant.
Otherwise you have the believe the virus is incredibly infectious and there are already 18 million cases in Europe!
If that is true then there's no need to worry about restrictions affecting the economy because the whole of Europe will be infected in 14 days and the whole business will be over by the end of April.
Hi Stephen.
I'm not sure about this; lets imagine another scenario. We are testing for a common flu. It's enedemic in the population but not everyone is going to have it. We start testing in hospitals. We get alarmed – 10% of people with the flu are dying! (this is the usual death rate if you get the flu in hospital; if you're ill it's a really dangerous disease) We increase our testing exponentially, and we get an exponential curve of cases! It's a pandemic!
But actually we're just picking up the usual 5% case load. The actual death rate is 0.02. Some young and healthy people get it – very few – and die. It's tragic – but sometimes that happens. But before we started testing for the new flu we just assumed that the deaths were part of the usual cycle of winter excess mortality and didn't think much of it.
Maybe this isn't what is happening, but it is one reasonable explanation for the data there. If the Oxford simulation is correct (or even one with a lower % of the population infected) we could have a stable population with the disease already.
JohnAllman.UK says:
@ Stephen Wigmore
Unless, that is, many of those who test negative for this virus (having been tested because they have symptoms due to a different virus) have already had this virus and developed immunity to it, before catching the other virus that causes symptoms.
Without testing a sample of the population repeatedly (say once a week), for symptoms consistent with the virus, for the virus itself (even if they have no symptoms) and for antibodies to the virus, over a period of months, I don't see how we can learn enough about the disease the virus causes to become able to infer anything useful at all from the kind of different-priority-criterion-driven testing that is being done haphazardly, ad hoc, in this or that jurisdiction.
glynnallenerasmus says:
You are doing an important service with this info Will. Don't know if you saw this article from the Spectator https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think
Let me tell you, lockdown here in South Africa, with a collapsed economy and no provision for self-employed people like me, and the masses of poor people, is serious. Worse still, if you raise objections or dissent from Covid orthodoxy you are shunned as a heretic. Yesterday we were told of the first death here – my wife tells me that it was later revealed by the victim's husband that she had a heart condition. One suspect death, in an immunosuppressed population with high HIV and TB rates.
Except that requires all the Doctors around the world to be total idiots, who can't tell a new form of Coronavirus when they see one.
It looks as though there has been an exponential growth in the number of people who met the criteria for being tested. Why? What were those criteria, and did they evolve over the course of the period to which the data relate, or remain the same throughout?
It looks as though the virus wasn't the cause of most of that growth in the numbers meeting the criterion for being tested. So, what was?
We have no data to inform us how many people have had the virus without developing symptoms which caused them to meet the criteria for being tested.
My impression is that the haphazard manner in which data is being compiled makes it impossible to formulate a unique hypothesis which alone predicts the data we've got. Even if it were, that is cheating. One should use statistics to show a correlation that a hypothesis predicts, rather than search with hindsight for a hypothesis that predicts a correlation one has already observed.
I don't see how anybody can learn anything worthwhile from the data.
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text:
REPORT: New Roadrunner Signing KING 810 Has Two Members Arraigned For October Beating Outside Of Club
Saturday, 14th June 2014 By Dead Rhetoric
Blabbermouth is reporting Two members of the Flint, Michigan metal band KING 810 were arrested in a connection with the 2013 critical beating of a man outside of a bar in their hometown. The group's vocalist David Gunn and bassist Eugene Gill, both of whom are 28 years old, were picked up at the Detroit Metro Airport on Thursday (June 12) as they were making their way to the United Kingdom to perform at this year's Download festival.
Gunn and Gill were arraigned on Friday (June 13) on assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder charges. They are suspected of attacking a man last October and leaving him in critical condition outside The Loft in downtown Flint. A police investigation led to warrants being issued for the two musicians.
Assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder (also known as "assault GBH") is a felony criminal offense in Michigan, according to Michigan Compiled Law 750.84. Assault GBH carries a potential punishment of up to 10 years in prison, and a fine of not more than $5,000. Previous felony convictions could have the accused facing life in state prison if he or she is charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder as a Habitual Offender.
The pre-trial for Gunn and Gill is scheduled for June 17.
KING 810's "Proem" EP was made available on iTunes on May 13.
KING 810: "Memoirs Of A Murderer" Due In August
Members Of KING 810 To Have Their Day In Court Next Monday
KING 810 Inks Deal With Roadrunner Records


text:
Monks and laypeople, men and women,
gathered beforehand;
Ministers and nobles assembled in numbers.
Lying on his right side with head to the north,
He observed the manner of the Tathagata's passing into
nirvana.
Amida Tathagata comes forth from suchness and manifests various bodies - fulfilled, accommodated, and transformed.1
Reflecting within myself, I see that in the various teachings of the path of sages, practice and enlightenment died out long ago, and that the true essence of the Pure Land way is the path to realization now vital and flourishing.
Monks of Sakyamuni's tradition in the various temples, however, lack clear insight into the teaching and are ignorant of the distinction between true and provisional; and scholars of the Chinese classics in the capital are confused about practices and wholly unable to differentiate right and wrong paths. Thus, scholar-monks of Kofuku-ji presented a petition to the retired emperor in the first part of the second month, 1207.
The emperor and his ministers, acting against the dharma and violating human rectitude, became enraged and embittered. As a result, Master Genku - the eminent founder who had enabled the true essence of the Pure Land to spread vigorously [in Japan] - and a number of his followers, without receiving any deliberation of their [alleged] crimes, were summarily sentenced to death or were dispossessed of their monkhood, given [secular] names, and consigned to distant banishment. I was among the latter. Hence, I am now neither a monk nor one in worldly life. For this reason, I have taken the term Toku ["stubble haired"] as my name. Master Genku and his disciples, being banished to the provinces in different directions, passed a period of five years [in exile].
On the seventeenth day of the eleventh month, 1211, during the reign of the emperor Sado-no-in, Genku received an imperial pardon and returned to Kyoto. Thereafter, he lived in the capital, at Otani, north of Toribeno in the western foothills of Higashiyama. In 1212, during the midday hour of the twenty-fifth day of the first month, he passed away. The auspicious signs [that occurred then], too numerous to record here, may be found in his biography.2
I have quoted these passages from Shinran Shonin's Kyo-Gyo-Shin-Sho to show why it is that I believe that Shinran Shonin thought of Honen Shonin's passing into nirvana as the dying of the light. He tells us that it was the final triumph of ignorance (mumyo, Sk. avidya). In these moments the light of Amida Buddha that was repeatedly evident in the world, through the agency of the seven dharma masters, finally - in a dignified and solemn way, implicity recognised by all ranks of society - was extinguished.
From this verse on, Shinran speaks as one who feels the darkness, as a palpable reality all around him. The light can only now be known to us in the form of namu-amida-butsu, the form taken by the Buddha as the means by which he manifests himself to us. It is namu-amida-butsu that is root and branch of his Kyo-Gyo-Shin-Sho, for this book culminates in the claim that nembutsu is now the only way that we can be carried to nirvana - and, even then, on condition that we allow its dynamic power to awaken Amida Buddha's shinjin in our hearts. All that remains for us, should this realisation come to pass for us, is the saying of the Name in remembrance of our dire need and of our appreciation of its power. In this way the light is known in the world; the fulfilment of the seventeenth Vow, the Vow that all Buddhas say the Name. Thus in saying the Name we practice Great Compassion.
For Shinran, there is now no sangha to cherish, protect and propagate the dharma in the world, there is only the Larger Sutra, which Shakyamuni has told us will be the last Sutra to remain in the world. The dharma now resides in those ancient texts produced by the ancient sangha (Shakyamuni and the seven dharma masters) which serve to expound the Larger Sutra. The two other sutras - the Amida Sutra and the Contemplation Sutra are valid, in Shinran's view, only to the extent that they point the way ultimately to the Name in the Primal Vow and carry implicit truths in support of the Larger Sutra.
As we begin to move on to the Shozomatsu Wasan, we will discover that Shinran did not only feel that darkness had finally descended upon the world around him, but he saw evidence of it within his own heart. The Shozomatsu Wasan were composed during the final two years of Shinran's ninety year life; a life in which he felt all of the pains and joys known to all men and women of all ages. We will also discover that, within this darkness of the world and - in a manner of speaking - of the soul, there is light, there is hope, there is joy and there is transcendence.
With the passing of Honen, however, we are alone in the world. There is darkness all around, darkness in our hearts, there is little we can trust - but in Namu-amida-butsu the light reaches out to us, calls us to itself; calls us to turn and face it. Hopeless as it seems, yet there is hope; but in the passing of Honen we are finally abandoned by our parent, left to our own devices and bereft of guidance. For this reason, if nothing else, the nembutsu way enjoins upon us a measure of courage and maturity that is so great that it can only be accomplished as we rely upon the power of the Primal Vow.
Readers will have guessed by now that Shinran was not present at Honen's death. His knowledge of the events that surrounded these moments depended on hearsay and a hagiography called Saiho Shinan Sho. This book tells us that Honen slipped quietly into nirvana. He was wearing the kesa that Master Jikaku had given him. As he lay in the same position as Shakyamuni did, when he passed into nirvana, he continued to say the nembutsu.
Afterwards many people came to pray by his bedside. For something deep and momentous had occurred.
Light had finally gone from the world of humankind.
1: CWS p. 153.


Great Board Meeting last Thursday!
Thank you very much for the terrific presentation you gave to the Board last Thursday. It was very helpful and while there is a lot to absorb, especially for the Board the first time through, the potential benefit for our members is going to be remarkable.
Again, thank you for taking the time to meet with us. It was very much appreciated.


Re: Showtime for Fantasy Football 2015!
We have 6 people in so far... nice.
@VOLTAN how do I invite other people into this thing?
@Phoog and @Vapor .. hurry and accept your invites if possible! Thanks!
ok so the draft is 10 tomorrow? crap, i always get screwed on draft day, im either at work or have to work, i gotta get up at 5:30 on thursday morning.
don't worry isn't.. auto draft still works. seems not to mess people up that bad.
Have you seen my teams for the last couple years? Auto does just as bad as I do.
if yall need another body, i'll give it a try.
Love those divisions Voltan! LOL!


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Sir Edwin Landseer's, Monarch of the Glen. Our wall murals are printed on self-adhesive, luxurious fabric which allows the easiest of installations along with giving the classic look of an actual canvas painting. Our wall murals are green, and will not damage your paint or walls during installation or removal. Every wall mural is removable and repositionable.
W 36" / H 24"


text:
Home > Journals > Ecoscience > Volume 16 > Issue 2 > Article
1 June 2009 The Relationship of Amphibian Abundance to Habitat Features Across Spatial Scales in the Boreal Plains
Constance L. Browne, Cynthia A. Paszkowski, A. Lee Foote, Alissa Moenting, Shelly M. Boss
Constance L. Browne,1,* Cynthia A. Paszkowski,1 A. Lee Foote,2 Alissa Moenting,3 Shelly M. Boss4,3
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada, e-mail:
2Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H1, Canada.
3Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada.
43Present address: Environmental Protection Operations, Environment Canada, Edmonton, Alberta T6B 2X3
*Author for correspondence.
Ecoscience, 16(2):209-223 (2009). https://doi.org/10.2980/16-2-3220
We examined the relationship between amphibian abundance and habitat features at 8 spatial scales in boreal Alberta, Canada. Twenty-three local pond variables and 15 landscape variables at 7 scales (50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 m) were incorporated into a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for each scale. We analyzed amphibian relative abundance against the PC axis scores using regression for each species and each scale. We found that each species' abundance was best described at different spatial scales. Wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) abundance was best predicted by local, pond-linked variables, boreal chorus frog (Pseudacris maculata) abundance by 1000-m-scale landscape variables, and western toad (Anaxyrus boreas) by the 100-m scale. We found significant positive relationships with amphibian relative abundance and dissolved oxygen, deciduous forest cover, mixed forest cover, and urban cover. Pond depth, conductivity, total dissolved solids, aquatic plant density, low-shrub cover, and conifer cover showed negative relationships with abundance. We also investigated relationships between landform type and amphibian relative abundance. All 3 species were most abundant on wetlands in the moraine landform. Our research highlights the importance of developing conservation plans based on knowledge of individual species' biology because amphibians do not all respond to the same spatial scale.
Nomenclature: Crother et al., 2000; Frost et al., 2006.
Constance L. Browne, Cynthia A. Paszkowski, A. Lee Foote, Alissa Moenting, and Shelly M. Boss "The Relationship of Amphibian Abundance to Habitat Features Across Spatial Scales in the Boreal Plains," Ecoscience 16(2), 209-223, (1 June 2009). https://doi.org/10.2980/16-2-3220
Received: 4 September 2008; Accepted: 1 March 2009; Published: 1 June 2009
Ecoscience
anoure
anuran
boréal
milieu humide
Constance L. Browne, Cynthia A. Paszkowski, A. Lee Foote, Alissa Moenting, Shelly M. Boss "The Relationship of Amphibian Abundance to Habitat Features Across Spatial Scales in the Boreal Plains," Ecoscience, 16(2), 209-223, (1 June 2009)


text:
Q: Generate headline for each month, sorted by month I use for() to generate headlines for each months and select corresponding data from a database like this:
$year = '2013';

for ($i = 12; $i > 0; $i--) {
    $sql = "SELECT stuff
    FROM table
    WHERE year(date) = '".$year."'
    and month(date) = '".$i."'
    ORDER BY date ASC";
    $result = mysql_query($sql) or print ("Unable to select data.
" . $sql . "
" . mysql_error());
    $num = mysql_num_rows($result);
    if ($num > 0) {
        echo '
'.date('F', mktime(0, 0, 0, $i, 1, $year)).'
';
        while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
            // stuff
        }
    }
}

This works perfectly fine. However, the monthly grouped datasets are sorted DESC (December 2013, November 2013, October 2013, etc). I would like to sort them the other way around: January 2013, February 2013, March 2013, etc. How do I do this?

A: Just change the for loop as follows?
for ($i = 1; $i < 13; $i++) {
....
}

A: for ($i = 1; $i < 13; $i++)

Isn't what you're looking for ?

A: Do it like this without a loop:
$sql = "SELECT stuff, month(date) AS month
FROM table
WHERE YEAR(date) = '".$year."'
ORDER BY date ASC";

And then loop all your results and compare field "month" to process every month as you wish...
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    switch($row["month"]) {
        case "1":
              //Process January...
             break;
        case "2":
              //Process Fenriary...
             break;
        //And so on...
    }
}

This is ALOT! more performant because multiple queries (especially queries in a loop) are never good for your MySQL server. It can slow down loading time of your website drastically and eats alot of resources.

A: Why use the loop?
$sql = "SELECT stuff
FROM  table
ON year(date) = '".$year."'
ORDER BY date ASC";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or print ("Unable to select data.
" . $sql . "
" . mysql_error());
$num = mysql_num_rows($result);
if ($num > 0)
{
    echo '
'.date('F', mktime(0, 0, 0, $i, 1, $year)).'
';
    while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
    {
        // stuff
    }
}

Or if you want to force a row back even when there is nothing for that month:-
$year = '2013';

$sql = "SELECT stuff
FROM (SELECT 1 i UNION SELECT 2 UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5 UNION SELECT 6 UNION SELECT 7 UNION SELECT 8 UNION SELECT 9 UNION SELECT 10 UNION SELECT 11 UNION SELECT 12) poss_months
LEFT OUTER JOIN table
ON year(date) = '".$year."'
and month(date) = poss_months.i
ORDER BY date ASC";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or print ("Unable to select data.
" . $sql . "
" . mysql_error());
$num = mysql_num_rows($result);
if ($num > 0)
{
    echo '
'.date('F', mktime(0, 0, 0, $i, 1, $year)).'
';
    while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
    {
        // stuff
    }
}

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