text:
A golem (/ˈɡoʊləm/ GOH-ləm; Hebrew: גּוֹלֶם, romanized: gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague. According to Moment magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."[1]
A Prague reproduction of the Golem
The word golem occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16,[2] which uses the word גלמי (golmi; my golem),[3] that means "my light form", "raw" material,[4] connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes.[3] The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", (שבעה דברים בגולם) (Avot 5:7 in the Hebrew text; English translations vary).
In Modern Hebrew, golem is used to mean "dumb" or "helpless" and also to describe an insect in its inactive immature form between larva and adult. Similarly, it is often used today as a metaphor for a mindless lunk or entity that serves a man under controlled conditions, but is hostile to him under other conditions.[1] "Golem" passed into Yiddish as goylem to mean someone who is lethargic or beneath a stupor.[5]
Earliest storiesEdit
The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud by those close to divinity, but no anthropogenic golem is fully human. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin 65b describes Rava creating a man (gavra). He sent the man to Rav Zeira. Rav Zeira spoke to him, but he did not answer. Rav Zeira said, "You were created by the sages; return to your dust" (Imperial Aramaic: הוה קא משתעי בהדיה ולא הוה קא מהדר ליה אמר ליה מן חבריא את הדר לעפריך).
During the Middle Ages, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) were studied as a means to create and animate a golem, although little in the writings of Jewish mysticism supports this belief. It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritualistic use of various letters of the Hebrew alphabet[6] forming a "shem" (any one of the Names of God), wherein the shem was written on a piece of paper and inserted in the mouth or in the forehead of the golem.[7]
A golem is inscribed with Hebrew words in some tales (for example, some versions of Chełm and Prague, as well as in Polish tales and versions of the Brothers Grimm), such as the word emét (אמת, "truth" in Hebrew) written on its forehead. The golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א) in emét,[8] thus changing the inscription from "truth" to "death" (mét מת, meaning "dead").
The earliest known written account of how to create a golem can be found in Sodei Razayya by Eleazar ben Judah of Worms of the late 12th and early 13th centuries.[9]
Samuel of Speyer (12th century) was said to have created a golem.
One source credits 11th-century Solomon ibn Gabirol with creating a golem,[10] possibly female, for household chores.[11]
In 1625, Joseph Delmedigo wrote that "many legends of this sort are current, particularly in Germany."[12]
The Golem of ChełmEdit
The oldest description of the creation of a golem by a historical figure is included in a tradition connected to Rabbi Eliyahu of Chełm (1550–1583).[6][3][12][13]
A Polish Kabbalist, writing in about 1630–1650, reported the creation of a golem by Rabbi Eliyahu thusly: "And I have heard, in a certain and explicit way, from several respectable persons that one man [living] close to our time, whose name is R. Eliyahu, the master of the name, who made a creature out of matter [Heb. Golem] and form [Heb. tzurah] and it performed hard work for him, for a long period, and the name of emet was hanging upon his neck until he finally removed it for a certain reason, the name from his neck and it turned to dust."[6] A similar account was reported by a Christian author, Christoph Arnold, in 1674.[6]
Rabbi Jacob Emden (d. 1776) elaborated on the story in a book published in 1748: "As an aside, I'll mention here what I heard from my father's holy mouth regarding the Golem created by his ancestor, the Gaon R. Eliyahu Ba'al Shem of blessed memory. When the Gaon saw that the Golem was growing larger and larger, he feared that the Golem would destroy the universe. He then removed the Holy Name that was embedded on his forehead, thus causing him to disintegrate and return to dust. Nonetheless, while he was engaged in extracting the Holy Name from him, the Golem injured him, scarring him on the face."[14]
According to the Polish Kabbalist, "the legend was known to several persons, thus allowing us to speculate that the legend had indeed circulated for some time before it was committed to writing and, consequently, we may assume that its origins are to be traced to the generation immediately following the death of R. Eliyahu, if not earlier."[6][15]
The classic narrative: The Golem of PragueEdit
Rabbi Loew statue at the New City Hall of Prague
Rabbi Loew and Golem by Mikoláš Aleš, 1899
Old New Synagogue of Prague with the rungs of the ladder to the attic on the wall. In the legend, the Golem was in the loft
The Úštěk Synagogue with a statue of a Golem in Úštěk
The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly "created a golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava River and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations to defend the Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks and pogroms".[16][17] Depending on the version of the legend, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. The Golem was called Josef and was known as Yossele. He was said to be able to make himself invisible and summon spirits from the dead.[17] Rabbi Loew deactivated the Golem on Friday evenings by removing the shem before the Sabbath (Saturday) began,[7] so as to let it rest on Sabbath.[7]
One Friday evening, Rabbi Loew forgot to remove the shem, and feared that the Golem would desecrate the Sabbath.[7] A different story tells of a golem that fell in love, and when rejected, became the violent monster seen in most accounts. Some versions have the golem eventually going on a murderous rampage.[17] The rabbi then managed to pull the shem from his mouth and immobilize him[7] in front of the synagogue, whereupon the golem fell in pieces.[7] The Golem's body was stored in the attic genizah of the Old New Synagogue,[17] where it would be restored to life again if needed.[18]
Rabbi Loew then forbade anyone except his successors from going into the attic. Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, a successor of Rabbi Loew, reportedly wanted to go up the steps to the attic when he was Chief Rabbi of Prague to verify the tradition. Rabbi Landau fasted and immersed himself in a mikveh, wrapped himself in phylacteries and a prayer-shawl and started ascending the steps. At the top of the steps, he hesitated and then came immediately back down, trembling and frightened. He then re-enacted Rabbi Loew's original warning.[19]
According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic.[7][17] When the attic was renovated in 1883, no evidence of the Golem was found.[20] Some versions of the tale state that the Golem was stolen from the genizah and entombed in a graveyard in Prague's Žižkov district, where the Žižkov Television Tower now stands. A recent legend tells of a Nazi agent ascending to the synagogue attic, dying under suspicious circumstances thereafter.[21] The attic is not open to the general public.[22]
Some Orthodox Jews believe that the Maharal did actually create a golem. The evidence for this belief has been analyzed from an Orthodox Jewish perspective by Shnayer Z. Leiman.[23][24]
Sources of the Prague narrativeEdit
The general view of historians and critics is that the story of the Golem of Prague was a German literary invention of the early 19th century. According to John Neubauer, the first writers on the Prague Golem were:
1837: Berthold Auerbach, Spinoza
1841: Gustav Philippson, Der Golam, eine Legende
1841: Franz Klutschak, Der Golam des Rabbi Löw
1842: Adam Tendlau Der Golem des Hoch-Rabbi-Löw
1847: Leopold Weisel, Der Golem[25]
A few slightly earlier examples are known, in 1834[26][27] and 1836.[28][29]
All of these early accounts of the Golem of Prague are in German by Jewish writers. They are suggested to have emerged as part of a Jewish folklore movement parallel with the contemporary German folklore movement.[13]
The origins of the story have been obscured by attempts to exaggerate its age and to pretend that it dates from the time of the Maharal. Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (1859–1935)[30] of Tarłów, before moving to Canada where he became one of its most prominent rabbis, is said to have originated the idea that the narrative dates from the time of the Maharal. Rosenberg published Nifl'os Maharal (Wonders of Maharal) (Piotrków, 1909),[30] which purported to be an eyewitness account by the Maharal's son-in-law, who had helped to create the Golem.
Rosenberg claimed that the book was based upon a manuscript that he found in the main library in Metz. Wonders of Maharal "is generally recognized in academic circles to be a literary hoax".[6][24][31] Gershom Sholem observed that the manuscript "contains not ancient legends, but modern fiction".[32] Rosenberg's claim was further disseminated in Chayim Bloch's (1881–1973) The Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague, English edition 1925.
The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 cites the historical work Zemach David by David Gans, a disciple of the Maharal, published in 1592.[7][33] In it, Gans writes of an audience between the Maharal and Rudolph II: "Our lord the emperor ... Rudolph ... sent for and called upon our master Rabbi Low ben Bezalel and received him with a welcome and merry expression, and spoke to him face to face, as one would to a friend. The nature and quality of their words are mysterious, sealed, and hidden."[34][better source needed]
But it has been said of this passage, "Even when [the Maharal is] eulogized, whether in David Gans' Zemach David or on his epitaph ..., not a word is said about the creation of a golem. No Hebrew work published in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries (even in Prague) is aware that the Maharal created a golem."[25] Furthermore, the Maharal himself did not refer to the Golem in his writings.[23] Rabbi Yedidiah Tiah Weil (1721–1805), a Prague resident, who described the creation of golems, including those created by Rabbis Avigdor Kara of Prague (died 1439) and Eliyahu of Chelm, did not mention the Maharal. Rabbi Meir Perils' biography of the Maharal[35] published in 1718 does not mention a golem.[13][23]
The Golem of VilnaEdit
A similar tradition relates to the Vilna Gaon or "the saintly genius from Vilnius" (1720–1797). Rabbi Chaim Volozhin (Lithuania 1749–1821) reported in an introduction to Sifra de Tzeniuta that he once presented to his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, ten different versions of a certain passage in the Sefer Yetzira and asked the Gaon to determine the correct text.[36] The Gaon immediately identified one version as the accurate rendition of the passage.[36]
The amazed student then commented to his teacher that, with such clarity, he should easily be able to create a live human. The Gaon affirmed Rabbi Chaim's assertion and said that he once began to create a person when he was a child, under the age of 13, but during the process, he received a sign from Heaven ordering him to desist because of his tender age.[36]
Theme of hubrisEdit
A statue of the Prague Golem created for the film The Emperor and the Golem
The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent, and if commanded to perform a task, they will perform the instructions literally. In many depictions, golems are inherently perfectly obedient. In its earliest known modern form, the Golem of Chełm became enormous and uncooperative. In one version of this story, the rabbi had to resort to trickery to deactivate it, whereupon it crumbled upon its creator and crushed him.[3]
A similar theme of hubris is seen in Frankenstein, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and some other stories in popular culture, such as The Terminator. The theme manifests itself in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), Karel Čapek's 1921 play that coined the term robot. The play was written in Prague, and while Čapek denied that he modeled the robot after the golem, many similarities are seen in the plot.[37]
Culture of the Czech RepublicEdit
The golem is a popular figure in the Czech Republic. The 1915 novel by Gustav Meyrink (The Golem) was briefly popular and did much to keep the imagination about the golem going. Several restaurants and other businesses have names that make reference to the creature. A Czech strongman, René Richter goes by the nickname "Golem",[17] and a Czech monster truck outfit calls itself the "Golem Team".[38]
Abraham Akkerman preceded his article on human automatism in the contemporary city with a short satirical poem on a pair of golems turning human.[39]
Clay Boy variationEdit
A Yiddish and Slavic folktale is the Clay Boy, which combines elements of the golem and The Gingerbread Man, in which a lonely couple makes a child out of clay, with disastrous or comical consequences.[40]
In one common Russian version, an older couple, whose children have left home, make a boy out of clay and dry him by their hearth. The Clay Boy (Russian: Гли́няный па́рень, Glínyanyĭ párenʹ) comes to life; at first, the couple is delighted and treats him like a real child, but the Clay Boy does not stop growing and eats all their food, then all their livestock, and then the Clay Boy eats his parents. The Clay Boy rampages through the village until he is smashed by a quick-thinking goat.[41]
Golem in popular cultureEdit
Film and televisionEdit
Golems are frequently depicted in movies and television shows. Programs with them in the title include:
The Golem (German: Der Golem, shown in the United States as The Monster of Fate), a 1915 German silent horror film, written and directed by Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen.[42]
The Golem and the Dancing Girl (German: Der Golem und die Tänzerin), a 1917 German silent comedy-horror film, directed by Paul Wegener and Rochus Gliese.[43]
The Golem: How He Came into the World (German: Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam, also referred to as Der Golem), a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese.[44]
Le Golem (Czech: Golem), a 1936 Czechoslovak monster movie directed by Julien Duvivier in French.[45]
Other references to golems in popular culture include:
The Golem (German: Der Golem), the first novel by Gustav Meyrink and adapted for television in 1967, for film in 1980, and for the stage in 2013.
Daimajin, a 1966 Japanese kaiju film directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda.[46]
It!, a 1967 British horror film directed by Herbert J. Leder.[47]
"Kaddish", a 1997 episode of The X-Files.[48]
The 1995 Gargoyles episode "Golem" featured a golem made in the image of a stone statue that was created by Rabbi Loew (voiced by Victor Brandt) to defend the Jewish inhabitants of Prague from raiders and had been passed down to his ancestor Max Loew (voiced by Scott Weil). The golem was stolen by Tomas Brod (voiced by Clancy Brown) and his men so that Halycon Renard can transfer his soul into its body. Renard briefly caused havoc in his body before Goliath persuaded him to undo the transfer. Once that was done, Max used the golem to defeat Brod.
You Gotta Know When to Golem is a short story during Treehouse of Horror XVII, part of the long-running series of The Simpsons Halloween specials. The Golem, voiced by Richard Lewis, is controlled via paper notes by Bart and used to wreak havoc on the citizens of Springfield.
"Denial, Anger, Acceptance", a 1999 episode of The Sopranos.[49] Tony Soprano is approached by a Hasidic business owner with a troublesome son-in-law he wants intimidated into giving up his claim on the business he's helped build up. When confronted by members of Tony's crew, the enraged man tells his father-in-law he's created a Golem, and later, when Tony insists on claiming the 25% of the business that was offered in exchange, the businessman realizes the metaphoric truth of this, calling Tony a monster of his own creation, made of mud, a Golem—when Tony asks what's that, he says a Frankenstein (since many believe the Golem legend partly inspired Mary Shelley to write her novel).
In the 4th episode of season 4 of Grimm (TV series) (episode Dyin' on a Prayer), a golem plays an important role.
The 2013 Supernatural episode "Everybody Hates Hitler" features a golem (portrayed by John DeSantis) who had been used to fight the Nazis in Belarus during World War II. In the present, the golem has been passed down from Rabbi Bass (portrayed by Hal Linden) to his grandson Aaron Bass (portrayed by Adam Rose). While Aaron had a hard time controlling the golem at first, they did help Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester fight against a group of Nazi necromancers led by Commandant Eckhart (portrayed by Bernhard Forcher).
In the SyFy series The Magicians there is a golem made of a main character. It appears in the episodes "Homecoming" and "Be The Penny."
The 2019 Netflix series The Order features a recurring character (portrayed by Dylan Playfair) who is revealed to be a golem in season 1.
The majority of the CW series Legacies (a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries) centers around defeating a golem.
"The Golem", a 2018 Israeli horror film features a golem in the form of a dead child.
Movie poster for Der Golem (1920)
The Hebrew letters on the creature's head read "emét", meaning "truth". In some versions of the Chełm and Prague narratives, the Golem is killed by removing the first letter, making the word spell "mét", meaning "dead".
LiteratureEdit
Marge Piercy's 1991 science fiction novel, He,She,and It, features intertwined narratives, one of which is a retelling of the story of Rabbi Loew and his creation of a golem in medieval Prague.
Sir Terry Pratchett's 1996 Discworld novel Feet Of Clay feature a number of Golems who reside in the city of Ankh-Morpork. Golems also appear in Making Money and make cameos throughout the remainder of the series.
The 2004 book The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud features a magically rendered golem as the main threat.
The Marvel Comics superhero, Captain America, as the character's creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, originally conceived of him, has been described as a variant of the Golem concept: a protector of the Jewish community created by one of its elders (Dr. Abraham Erskine)[50]
The Golem and the Jinni (published as The Golem and the Djinni in the United Kingdom) is a debut novel written by Helene Wecker, published by Harper in April 2013. It combines the genre of historical fiction with elements of fantasy, telling the story of two displaced magical creatures in 19th century New York City. A sequel, The Hidden Palace, was published in June 2021[citation needed]
Tabletop and video gamesEdit
Golems appear in the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (first published in the 1970s), and the influence of Dungeons & Dragons has led to the inclusion of golems in other tabletop role-playing games, as well as in video games.[51] There are many varieties of golems in the game.[52] The clay golem is based on the golem of Medieval Jewish folklore, though changed from "a cherished defender to an unthinking hulk".[53][54] The flesh golem is related to Frankenstein's monster as Universal's 1931 film, seen in e.g. being empowered by electricity,[55] though again with the difference of being essentially an unthinking machine in the game.[56] D&D's golems are also rooted in Gothic fiction more generally, and are typical denizens of the Ravenloft setting.[57] The flesh golem was ranked ninth among the ten best mid-level monsters by the authors of Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies for both 3rd[56] and 4th edition.[58]
MusicEdit
A number of scores have been written to accompany or based on the 1920 film, including by Daniel Hoffman and performed by the San Francisco-based ensemble Davka[59] and by Karl-Errnst Sasse.[60]
In 1962, Abraham Ellstein's opera The Golem, commissioned by the New York City Opera, premiered at City Opera, New York.[61]
In 1994, composer Richard Teitelbaum composed "Golem", based on the Prague legend and combining music with electronics.[62]
Brazen head
Czech folklore
The Gingerbread Man and Kolobok (edible golems)
Pygmalion and Galatea (mythology)
Creation of life from clay
Shabti
Tulpa
Tupilaq
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^ Bible: Psalm 139:16
^ a b c d Introduction to "The Golem Returns" Archived 12 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
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^ a b c Gelbin, C . S., The Golem Returns – From German Romantic Literature to Global Jewish Culture, 1808–2008 Archived 14 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine, University of Michigan, 2011
^ שו"ת שאילת יעב"ץ, ח"ב, סי' פ"ב Archived 2013-05-09 at the Wayback Machine. Cf. his בירת מגדל עוז, Altona, 1748, p. 259a; מטפחת ספרים, Altona, 1768, p. 45a Archived 2013-05-09 at the Wayback Machine; and מגילת ספר, ed. Kahana, Warsaw, 1896, p. 4 Archived 2013-05-09 at the Wayback Machine. See also שו"ת חכם צבי, סי' צ"ג Archived 2013-05-09 at the Wayback Machine, and the references cited in שו"ת חכם צבי עם ליקוטי הערות, Jerusalem, 1998, vol. 1, p. 421 and in the periodical כפר חב"ד, number 351 (1988), p. 51. Cited by Leiman, S.Z., "Did a Disciple of the Maharal Create a Golem?" Archived 2012-01-11 at the Wayback Machine
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^ a b c d e f Bilefsky, Dan (10 May 2009). "Hard Times Give New Life to Prague's Golem". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 May 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2013. According to Czech legend, the Golem was fashioned from clay and brought to life by a rabbi to protect Prague's 16th-century ghetto from persecution, and is said to be called forth in times of crisis. True to form, he is once again experiencing a revival, and in this commercial age, has spawned a one-monster industry.
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^ Mysteries of the Unknown: Inside the World of the Strange and Unexplained. Time-Life. 16 September 2014. ISBN 978-1618933522.
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^ a b Neubauer, J., "How did the Golem get to Prague?" Archived 14 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine, in Cornis-Pope, M., and Neubauer, J. History of The Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, John Benjamins, 2010, see also: Dekel E., Gurley D.E., "How Did Golem \came to Prague", JQR, Vol. 103, No. 2 (Spring 2013), pp. 241–258 [1] Archived 9 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine
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^ Ginsburg, Mirra (1997). Clay Boy. New York: Greenwillow. ISBN 9780688144098.
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^ Ishii et al., 1997, 日本特撮・幻想映画全集, p.170, Keibunsha, ISBN 4766927060
^ "It! (1967): The Golem Movie That Time Forgot – Ryan Harvey". 10 October 2020. Archived from the original on 5 January 2022. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
^ "Kaddish (The X-Files)". IMDb. 16 February 1997. Archived from the original on 13 April 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
^ "Denial, Anger, Acceptance (The Sopranos)". IMDb. 24 January 1999. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
^ Isaak, Joshua (3 December 2021). "Captain America Is A Jewish Golem - Theory Explained". Screenrant. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
^ "How Dungeon & Dragons shaped the modern videogame". PC Gamer. 8 February 2007. Retrieved 3 April 2007.
^ Doug Stewart, ed. (June 1993). Monstrous Manual. TSR, Inc. ISBN 1-5607-6619-0.
^ Silver, Eric (28 January 2021). "Dungeons & Dragons Has an Antisemitism Problem". Alma. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
^ DeVarque, Aardy. "Literary Sources of D&D". Retrieved 12 December 2019.
^ Forest, Richard W. (2014). "Dungeons & Dragons, Monsters in". In Weinstock, Jeffrey (ed.). The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters. Ashgate Publishing.
^ a b Slavicsek, Bill; Baker, Rich; Grubb, Jeff (2006). Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies. For Dummies. p. 373. ISBN 978-0-7645-8459-6.
^ Rangel Jiménez, Mauricio (2021). Lanzando los dados: aproximaciones académicas a los juegos de rol (in Spanish). Universidad Iberoamericana. ISBN 978-607-417-763-3.
^ Slavicsek, Bill; Baker, Rich; Mearls, Mike (January 2009). "31: The Ten Best Mid-Level Monsters". Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
^ "Davka - the Golem - Amazon.com Music". Amazon. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
^ "Der Golem". Amazon. Archived from the original on 13 March 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
^ "Abraham Ellstein's the Golem".
^ "Teitelbaum: Golem". Amazon. 1995. Archived from the original on 12 March 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
Baer, Elizabeth R. (2012). The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University. ISBN 978-0814336267.
Bilski, Emily B. (1988). Golem! Danger, Deliverance and Art. New York: The Jewish Museum. ISBN 978-0873340496.
Bloch, Chayim; tr. Schneiderman, H. (1987). The Golem: Mystical Tales of the Ghetto of Prague (English translation from German. First published in 'Oestereschischen Wochenschrift' 1917). New York: Rudolf Steiner Publications. ISBN 0833400258.
Bokser, Ben Zion (2006). From the World of the Cabbalah. New York: Kessinger. ISBN 9781428620858.
Chihaia, Matei (2011). Der Golem-Effekt. Orientierung und phantastische Immersion im Zeitalter des Kinos. Bielefeld: transcript. ISBN 978-3-8376-1714-6.
Faucheux, Michel (2008). Norbert Wiener, le golem et la cybernétique. Paris: Editions du Sandre.
Dennis, Geoffrey (2007). The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism. Woodbury (MN): Llewellyn Worldwide. ISBN 978-0-7387-0905-5.
Winkler, Gershon (1980). The Golem of Prague: A New Adaptation of the Documented Stories of the Golem of Prague. New York: Judaica Press. ISBN 0-910818-25-8.
Goldsmith, Arnold L. (1981). The Golem Remembered 1909–1980: Variations of a Jewish Legend. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0814316832.
Montiel, Luis (30 June 2013). "Proles sine matre creata: The Promethean Urge in the History of the Human Body in the West". Asclepio. 65 (1): 001. doi:10.3989/asclepio.2013.01.
Idel, Mosche (1990). Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. Albany (NY): State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-0160-X.
Rosenberg, Yudl; tr. Leviant, Curt (2008). The Golem and the Wondrous deeds of the Maharal of Prague (first English translation of original in Hebrew, Pietrkow, Poland, 1909). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12204-6.
Salfellner, Harald (2016). The Prague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto. Prague: Vitalis. ISBN 978-80-7253-188-2.
Tomek, V.V. (1932). Pražské židovské pověsti a legendy. Prague: Končel. Translated (2008) as Jewish Stories of Prague, Jewish Prague in History and Legend. ISBN 1-4382-3005-2.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Golem.
"Golem of Prague, Fact or Ficton?" on Yutorah.org


Millennial workers want silence (not snacks) in their offices–here's how to design for it.
Do expensive amenities like great food and game rooms really attract the best employees? That's been the conventional wisdom for the past decade. But more and more offices are rethinking what the most meaningful perks are–doing away with cafeterias for more vacation time, for example.
While some argue that unlocking engagement from millennial workers lies in playground-like offices, CityLab highlights a new survey that says that it's peace and quiet that's the real key. Carried out by Oxford Economics (a spin-off organization of Oxford University), the results revealed that uninterrupted work time was at the top of most of the 1,200 respondents' wish lists. Meanwhile, none said that free food was the most important.
Surprisingly, the study revealed that millennial workers were the most vocal about noise complaints: 74% of people surveyed worked in open offices–a once-popular design strategy that's seeing more and more backlash. Because of the rising cost of real estate, it's unlikely that we'll all receive private offices anytime soon, but there are some design strategies that can mitigate noise and distractions to help people concentrate and get more work done. We share 10 ideas below, ranging from larger interventions to quick fixes.
The Zones furniture collection by Teknion includes a high-backed settee to help eliminate visual distractions.
The furniture company Steelcase and writer Susan Cain collaborated on these workspaces (also shown above) that offer communal semi-private space that's still visually connected to the rest of the office. In renovating its HQ in Minnesota, 3M is dedicating communal spaces for either quiet work or conversational, collaborative work to help control activity and noise.
Rockwell Group and Knoll recently collaborated on a collection of more than 30 different office furnishings, which were conceived as stage set-style pieces that offices could pick and choose from to create flexible work areas that make the most sense for their specific needs. For example, a modular wall panel system offers the ability to create semi-private rooms within an open office and movable sound-absorbing privacy screens–like the ones shown above–offer diversity to an office's layout.
Yammering on the horn is a necessity for many jobs, yet there are few things more annoying than hearing one side of the conversation from a loud talker.
"When we first started designing office spaces, we would focus on bare minimum needs: a few break-out spaces, conference rooms, and smaller break-out rooms," says Shelly Lynch-Sparks, head of commercial design at the interior design agency Homepolish. "Now we are installing more phone rooms." She recommends freestanding, acoustically insulated booths from Framery. If those are too bulky for an office, Lynch-Sparks also recommends the wall-mounted Buzzihood to help muffle sound from phone calls.
The Swedish brand Glimarka makes handsome workstations and storage cabinets covered with plush acoustic panels, which help absorb sound.
For both visual and acoustic separation, Layer–an industrial design firm fronted by Benjamin Hubert–designed modular acoustic panels for the textile brand Woven Image that clip together like a honeycomb. The system is freestanding so it doesn't involve intensive installation, and can be moved if needed and easily expanded.
The Italian furniture company Arper recently released the freestanding Parentesit wall system by the design firm Lievore Altherr Molina, which is inspired by Japanese architecture. The wall assemblies are modular, so users can customize their size and configuration.
If the barrage of a noisy office is too much, how about a restorative nap? The company MetroNaps makes Space Age pods that allow employees to nab 40 winks comfortably.
While freestanding wall systems might work for offices with room to spare, the reality is that most are crunched for space. A student at Lund University developed a clever solution: a lamp with an enormous shade that's set on a hinge so users can angle it to block their field of vision.
If your office isn't going to invest in a renovation or new furniture anytime soon, there are always headphones. A word of advice: spring for noise canceling.


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Sustainably Ushering in the Titanium Age
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Our goal is to create a domestic U.S. circular, closed loop titanium metal supply chain from mineral to metal, with a focus on environmental sustainability and social equity. Our proposed operations will also generate highly valuable, sustainable and low carbon by-product critical minerals, including rare earth elements.
Our vision for sustainability is not just decarbonization or sustainable mineral extraction practices, but to also create a culture that supports new sustainable economies of scale in industries that require titanium and other critical metals.
The technologies allow the potential for the substitution of existing materials with titanium metal in many applications, allowing for longer product life and closed loop recyclability.
Our goal is to sustainably usher in the Titanium Age, and we've incorporated sustainability into our core business strategy since we were founded. The inaugural 2022 Sustainability Report highlights our approach to important issues that matter most to our business and our internal and external stakeholders. This report shares a high-level overview of our sustainability journey, including our commitments to and management of material environmental, social, and governance matters.
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Tag: Hatred
The Hatred
I originally wrote this post with the intention of publishing it prior to the anniversary of the January 6 Insurrection. But I found I couldn't bear to start the year on so sad and awful a note.
A few years back, pre-Pandemic (since that is how we all now date everything in our lives) an acquaintance informed me that we would not fall out over my blog post, "The Benefit of the Doubt", written concerning his experience with the so-called "Love" booth at an Indy Pride event. As I explained in that earlier essay, it wasn't entirely clear, from his description, what this "Love" booth was actually all about. I assumed that it promulgated love and acceptance of the LGBTQ community. Or perhaps, I thought a bit wildly, the people manning the booth were there just to give hugs, like the great church-wide hugging plague of the 1980s. Still another possibility was that the stall provided information on ways the community might demonstrate love and acceptance to everyone of every race, creed and gender. My friend's description of the booth left its purpose unclear, but he'd been very upset by the individuals operating the Love booth.
It seemed that, as he'd listened throughout the day to many very liberal, far-left comments by the people manning the stall (which was positioned right next to his own booth), he'd found himself wondering, was still wondering: Had he strolled over to that stall, wearing his MAGA hat, and explained to them his adamant view that then-President Trump was "our greatest President ever", what would their reaction have been? Would the people manning the Love booth have considered him loveable, or even likeable? Or would they have reacted with anger? He was extremely doubtful, he said, that love would have been their reaction.
My blog post about that situation explored the idea that my friend assumed their response, rather than put his question to the test. He didn't engage with the people manning the Love booth, providing them a chance to refute his position without rejecting him personally, or to talk through their differences.
So a few weeks after that event, when my blog post on the subject was published, my friend magnanimously explained to me that we would not fall out over my remarks, because: "You weren't there. You didn't hear it—the hatred".
Unfortunately, once again, he made an unwarranted assumption. Because I was hearing it—hearing and reading and seeing the hatred every day. At the time, restrictions to written news commentary had not been established. Every news story could be commented upon; one rarely even needed to register on most news sites to leave a comment. Those comment pages were filled with sadistic, trolling statements; rife with cruelty that the overwhelmed moderators could not screen out. My highly-political and extremely conservative father constantly forwarded e-mails to me that, remarking viciously upon the viewpoints I held, made me cry. And while I personally eschewed social media, friends told me of the brutal statements that were posted to their pages. I'd even once sat, helpless and cringing, while two acquaintances nearly came to blows over their opposing viewpoints.
Hatred, I discovered, was not confined to any one group or any single position. People from both sides and corners of the fence slung insults and violent verbiage at one another. And all of it was escalating.
Trying to establish a middle-of-the-road position for myself, I read the news from multiple sources, both left and right, and was on each part equally horrified. What had happened to compromise, to the art of listening? How had our constitutional right to free speech fallen so far?
Then we held a free, fair and, yes, honest election, and Trump lost the popular vote for the second time, this time losing the electoral vote, as well. He had paved the way for doubt on the part of his followers by claiming the election to be rigged even before it happened. Having genuinely lost, he then totally refused to accept his failure. He did not even pretend to be anything other than that entity so despised throughout my childhood: a sore loser.
And so January 6th happened. Sitting paralyzed with horror, clutching my toddler grandchild within the protective circle of my arms, I sat watching while tears rained down my face. I watched it: the hatred, and the horrific violence fueled by hatred.
Months later, still engaged in attempting to maintain a fair and balanced vision of all that was happening in my country, I sat watching once more as Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham viciously mocked the PTSD suffered by those who had gallantly struggled to defend our Capitol on that ghastly day. Observing her derisive facial expressions, listening to her contemptuous remarks, I experienced it yet one more time: the hatred.
"You weren't there. You didn't hear it—the hatred."
No, my friend, I did not need to be there on that long ago Indy Pride day to hear, to experience, the hatred. I have seen it a hundred, a thousand times, then and since: In banned books. In violent attacks on minority individuals and elected officials and their families. In defamatory comments toward those who hold differing viewpoints. In incitement to violence. In bigotry and racism from and toward people of every color, creed and gender.
I have seen it everywhere, on every face; heard it in every voice: the hatred.
And I despair.
You may read the original essay, "The Benefit of the Doubt", by scrolling to the archived blog posts, below. It was published on July 31, 2019
North Wynde Whispers Personal philosophy, True Stories 2 Comments January 11, 2023 January 28, 2023 4 Minutes
The Many Faces of Hate
I'd originally planned a different post for today. But in honor of the innocent victims of the Uvalde mass shooting, I chose to rerun this post from June 24, 2020. It may not seem apropos at first, but please just keep reading…
While a young woman, I had a coworker—let's call her Angela–who endured troubling memories of her paternal grandmother. At the time I knew Angela, I'd just begun re-establishing a close relationship with my own paternal grandmother; years of family squabbles had kept us apart. So I was shocked to hear of the treatment this likeable woman had received from her grandmother.
Angela explained that Grandmother absolutely despised Angela's mother—had hated her from the very day Mom and Dad began dating. It's been 40-odd years since our conversation, but I still recall the troubled expression on Angela's face as she told me that her mother and father tried countless times to heal the sorry situation. Sadly, nothing had ever worked.
But Grandmother's hatred extended to, when they arrived, the children of the marriage. She never put aside her contempt for her daughter-in-law for the sake of her grandchildren, who were, after all, her son's children. No, in ways both overt and subtle, Grandmother made certain that those youngsters knew that they did not measure up to her other grandchildren. Her favored grandchildren were not "contaminated" by a birth relationship to the despised daughter-in-law.
Angela recounted Mean Grandmother's worst insult, which centered on the kids' school photos. One wall of Grandmother's house displayed her grandchildren's school pictures. But the photos of Angela and her siblings were not flaunted among the rest. Instead, they were hung in the bathroom, facing the toilet.
Hearing the ache and indignation in Angela's voice as she described this stinging memory, I felt heartsick on her behalf. To be the victim of such spite and cruelty from a person who should have loved her unconditionally—well, it stunned me.
The memory of that conversation has never left me. Many times after our discussion I daydreamed, inventing scenarios to bring resolution and revenge to my coworker's bitter experience: Of all the Grandmother's children, only the marriage of her son and despised daughter-in-law thrived. The marriages of all her other children failed, and bitter divorces meant that she was separated from her favorite grandchildren. Or: Mean Grandmother lived out her final days quite alone and helpless in a substandard nursing home, visited by no one except the despised daughter-in-law. Or, best of all: Those other, favored grandkids all grew up to be ungrateful little wastrels who scammed Grandmother for money, became drug addicts and alcoholics, and were jailed for multiple crimes. Meanwhile, Angela and her siblings lived quietly successful, happy lives, but obviously never bothered with the Mean Grandmother who had treated them so badly.
That's not the way life works, of course. Mean Grandmother probably wound down her life warmly surrounded by the love and attention of the children, in-laws and grandkids she preferred, smugly self-satisfied with her contemptible treatment of her reviled daughter-in-law and unloved grandchildren.
Hatred can wear so many faces! It can be disguised as the face of a grandparent or an in-law; someone who should be both loving and beloved, but is instead malevolent. It can wear the face of an abusive spouse or parent, or even a job supervisor. It can focus on skin color, or ethnic origin. It can manifest as religious or even generational intolerance. It can be masked in passive aggression, calling itself teasing when it is in fact intentional torment and insults.
Or it can wear the face of a total stranger.
This last really struck me, and is the reason I recalled my former coworker's sad little tale, as I sat one recent morning watching a video examining the causes and motives behind the many mass shootings of recent times. Unlike the malicious Grandmother, these cases so often involve total strangers who go on a rampage, wounding and murdering innocents with whom they have absolutely no connection. Is it easier, I wondered, to do so? To harm those with whom a person has absolutely no relationship? To wear the mask of a stranger, and see, not other human beings with lives and loves of their own, but merely unimportant specks on the rim of the mask's limited vision? Is exterminating unknown strangers guilt-free?
Or does it all—murdering strangers or murdering the spirit of those who should be loved ones—come with consequence?
I have no answers. I only know that I clicked off that video, and sat, remembering Angela's long-lasting emotional wounds. Then I sighed and selected some financial work I needed to do on my computer. But as I tapped the mouse, I noticed in surprise that my face was wet, and that tears had splashed onto my keyboard.
I had not even realized that I was crying.
Hard as it is to believe sometimes, there are also faces of kindness in this world. If you want to believe in that, please read the true story of "The Miracle on Route 16". You may locate it by scrolling to the Archives, below. It was published on November 4, 2017.
North Wynde Whispers Personal philosophy, True Stories Leave a comment June 1, 2022 May 29, 2022 4 Minutes
§ To wear the mask of a stranger is to see merely unimportant specks on the rim of the mask's limited vision. §
But Grandmother's hatred extended to, when they arrived, the children of the marriage. She never put aside her contempt for her daughter-in-law for the sake of her grandchildren, who were, after all, her son's children. No, in ways both overt and subtle, Grandmother made certain that those youngsters knew that they did not measure up to her other grandchildren. Her favored offspring were not "contaminated" by a birth relationship to the despised daughter-in-law.
Angela recounted Grandmother's worst insult, which centered on the kids' school photos. One wall of Grandmother's house displayed her grandchildren's school pictures. But the photos of Angela and her siblings were not flaunted among the rest. Instead, they were hung in the bathroom, facing the toilet.
North Wynde Whispers True Stories 1 Comment June 24, 2020 June 24, 2020 3 Minutes


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More on "What if the Palestinians Don't Want a State?"
By David Bernstein on April 16, 2010 12:23 am in Israel
Yesterday, I wondered whether the Obama Administration has pondered whether the Palestinians are at this point willing to accept a state based on the formula that "everyone knows" is the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A Palestinian state in all of Gaza, and 90%+ of the West Bank, plus land swaps to make up for West Bank land that would be incorporated into Israel, with the Palestinians giving up the right of return.
I pointed out that surveys suggesting that Palestinians support establishing a state based on the '67 boundaries does not answer the question, because such surveys don't ask whether the Palestinians are willing to accept this as a final resolution of the conflict.
So here are some interesting data from a recent poll conducted by a Palestinian polling outfit based at a university in Nablus. The (relatively) good news: Do you accept the creation of a Palestinian state on the total area of the 1967 borders as a final solution for the Palestinian problem? Yes 51.7 No 44.7
The bad news: Do you accept the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with some land exchange as a final solution for the Palestinian problem [the far more plausible scenario]? Yes 28.3% No 66.7%
The really bad news: Do you support or reject making Jerusalem a capital for two states: Palestine and Israel? Support 20.8% Reject 77.4%
These data raise serious issues regarding whether an Israeli-Palestinian settlement can currently be reached. Israel is not under any conceivable scenario going to uproot the almost 200,000 Jewish residents of East Jerusalem, nor is it going to evacuate the major settlement blocs. Yet only 20% or so of Palestinians would support a peace agreement that did not include these concessions, which suggests that the Palestinians support only a hypothetical peace settlement which they are aware is not within reach. If these poll numbers are an accurate reflection of Palestinian public opinion, the Obama Administration should spend its political capital elsewhere; pressuring Israel is not going to lead to a permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
H/T: Daled Amos
Jotwell
Dubious Grousing over the Percentage of African-American Players in Major League Baseball


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View from the top of the new propertyI'm embarrassed to admit that I can only remember three specific things that I learned in the Ecology program that I attended for a semester at the Evergreen State College many years ago. The first is that ecological succession is often guided simply by seed source, rather than any other more complex or mysterious mechanism. The second is the idea from Edgar Anderson's book, Plants, Man and Life; that our crop plants very likely originated from the sloppy habits of early villagers, who kept dumping their garbage in the same places near their homes-- an early unconscious, creative venture between people and Nature. And the third is my favorite-- the scientific definition of an Ecological Niche: an n-dimensional hyperspace--(where n is an unknown and potentially infinite number). This definition, from the heart of science itself, is at once an elegant description and a stark admission that all creatures live and function in more dimensions than we can perceive or measure, and so are ultimately unknowable to us.
These three ideas may seem like a small amount of knowledge to glean from a semester's work, but they have served me very well indeed as the basis of practical work in agriculture and beekeeping; and have bolstered my steady conviction, from those early days until now, that the best intellectual support for practical work in farming and beekeeping comes from Ecology and the work of the very best farmers (and beekeepers) rather than the scientific study of agriculture or the methods of the vast majority of farmers trying to function as part of a culture based on exploitation and abuse.
It was the greatest thrill of my life to watch my bees begin to recover and expand after being exposed to the unchecked ravages of out-of-balance varroa mites, and then begin to evolve into something potentially better than I had before the mites arrived. During all this time, it was very helpful and comforting to know that, in any case, I would never be able to understand everything that was going on. My honeybees are refilling their niche now. I tried to help them by watching constantly; by exploring any leads they suggested; using the best practices I knew of; and by applying the principles I learned from people with greater experience and success than myself. But in the end, I'm not really sure how the bees did it.
This whole process reminded me that beekeepers have a niche to fill too, and also have to operate somehow in more dimensions than they can know or understand. I was reminded of this when the simple tasks I had worked so hard on for years were suddenly the focus of two extreme and determined groups-- one, weighing in from every continent, insisting that I had given birth to a miracle; and the other full of resentment that escalated into harassment requiring the involvement of the police. In the first case they were trying to make something that should be ordinary into something extraordinary. In the second, I don't think the real reasons deserve any mention here. But in both instances the real problem is that answers to our practical biology problems have to come from making the world of Nature more important than ourselves-- and how in blazes can we do this and allow it to spread within a culture that exists by exploiting natural resources and abusing other people? The question now is not whether honeybees can refill their niche as pollinators in the food chain, but whether people can refill their niche as aware and decent human beings.
The rest of this story is definitely a tale of: "Be careful what you wish for... it may come true." In 1999 and 2000, I published in the Small Farmer's Journal an essay titled: "The Best Kept Secret"* It was written right at the end of American beekeeping's honeymoon with Apistan, and in anticipation of the difficult time ahead searching for real solutions to the varroa problem. Before this struggle began in earnest, I wanted to record the wonderful things I had learned about farming as a way of life-- and also the difficulties of pursuing that life in a neurotic culture that depends absolutely upon farmers, and simultaneously seeks to destroy them. A part of this essay was a detailed, year by year description of how my apiary developed. At the time, I wasn't sure the apiary would survive the coming struggle with the new super-parasites.
"Right now I'm focusing on making the apiary even more productive and efficient, and making the work easier; so I can continue to raise bees and honey when I'm older. If I ever expand again, it's going to be on a different basis: The details have escaped me so far, but if there are young people anymore, interested in beekeeping as a way of life, I'd like to have a few of them come here to learn the trade, and be able to propagate the bees they need to start on their own. I'm not sure if such young people still exist, but if so I'd like them to get a better start and a better grasp of the basics than I did-- at a time when they can make the best use of such things. This one's still in the planning stage, but it should be possible to expand the apiary, within its existing locations, enough to support one or two apprentices, then spin off the excess bees as the young folks return home to start propagating bees and producing honey on their own. If even one or two full-time apiaries resulted from this process, I'd be able to at least approach my own definition of successful beekeeping."
I thought all this would remain permanently in the idea stage, but three years ago, some of my friends convinced me to write down a more detailed description of my ideas, which I passed on to a few friends to get some feedback. By an by, it fell into the hands of the author and activist Bill McKibben, who I had come to know through working with some of his students at the Middlebury College Organic Garden Project. If his name doesn't ring a bell, you might just say that he did for Global Warming what Garrison Keillor did for the radio. Bill spends most of his time now with his activist group: 350.org. I was quite surprised when he took a serious interest in my proposal, and he helped me to negotiate a lifetime lease to a very interesting piece of property, where I might finally be able to have a better situation for my helpers, where the apiary can be preserved over the long run, and where the end products will include new beekeepers as well as honey and bees. The key concept here is to have a place where all the participants can live and work on the same property, and create Nature-based alternatives for more of life's arenas than just the workday.
After many years of observation and reflection, I don't believe that a healthy agriculture for the future can emerge from the current structure and function of our society. A Nature-based and regenerative agriculture that can help us make the transition to a fossil fuel-poor world has to come from a place with some degree of separation from the destructive and predatory practices that surround us now. I'm much happier working directly on practical problems than I am talking or writing about them. So my idea is to have a place where myself and two or three helpers can live, and where we can cultivate not only bees, but also the attitudes and habits necessary for bringing Nature to a central place in our families and living successfully that way. This also means having a place where the connection between healthy farming and healthy beekeeping can be made and demonstrated.
And I have to tell the story of my friend Andrew. After working for a few of the "Living History" farms in the Mid-west-- doing the farm work with horses and Civil War-era technology-- he and his wife developed a very successful farm producing meat for local people on a subscription basis. But undiagnosed Lyme Disease ruined their health, and forced them to abandon farming. I first met Andrew when he came offering to help--and hoping to find out if beekeeping was something he could still do, at least as a hobby. He worked a couple of days helping me make nucs-- not saying too much, just watching and helping. Eventually, I gave him one (1) nucleus colony. As I got to be friends with the family, I knew there was some beekeeping going on there, but I didn't really pay much attention. So I was astonished to find out recently that he had, in three years, propagated that one colony up into 70 nucleus colonies. These bees drew all their own combs, and were never treated at any time. The new queens came from a variety of sources--only a few of them came from me. (Come on graduate students--here is your chance--the first one who can show that the mites are evolving as well as the bees will have made his or her career.) If his present progress continues, in a few years he will have enough bees for four or five locations, and considerably more income from bees than his present low-wage job provides. Maybe there is hope for beekeeping's future.
Andrew obviously has a knack for beekeeping. But I also attribute his success to his training, experience, and love for animal-powered agriculture--which requires constant and year-round attention to many different living things. My hope is to find out whether this kind of attention can still be cultivated in younger people, and if they can use it as the basis of a really good life, during the rapid changes sure to come as fossil fuels become more scarce and expensive. There are still some big transitions to get through in order to set this whole thing in motion--moving to the new location, and building the necessary buildings there. If I survive these, you may hear more about this. In the meantime, I always enjoy hearing from people with an honest interest in this approach. And it's very true what they say: "Be careful what you wish for...."
*Small Farmer's Journal, Sisters, Oregon 97759, 541-549-2064. Summer and Fall issues 1999.


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Mild Suggestive Themes
Final Fantasy III is rated 3.8 out of 5 by 4.
Ages ago, evil beings created powerful creatures called Espers and unleashed them against each other. The resulting battles turned their world into smoldering rubble. Legend has it that the Espers destroyed themselves and most of humanity. Magic disappeared forever.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Seanmcc18 from Great game in great shape!! Bought the game, came cartridge only....but it was in pristine shape! Worked great!
Rated 5 out of 5 by terrisus from The final Fantasy for SNES, and the series' best The Final Fantasy series had taken a rather involved route up to this point. It originally started with the Famicom and NES game Final Fantasy, which served as a huge boost to Square, giving the company a solid foundation to start working with. They certainly took advantage of it, releasing Final Fantasy 2 and 3 for Famicom soon after. These games, unfortunately, were only released in Japan then, and didn't make their way over to the NES. With Final Fantasy 4 for Super Famicom, the series finally made its way back over to the US, as Final Fantasy 2 for SNES. After that, however, Final Fantasy 5 for Super Famicom didn't make its way out for the SNES, leaving another gap in the series. With Final Fantasy 6, however, many of the best elements were mixed together into a wonderful game which, fortunately, did make its way over to the US as well, as Final Fantasy 3 for SNES. The game starts off, after a brief introduction, by dropping right into the middle of the action, with an unnamed girl being controlled by two soldiers, all fighting in mechanical armor, marching their way through a small village searching for something. Soon after this rather strange beginning, the girl is freed from their control and is rescued by another character and ends up in a house, in a more friendly situation, and things are explained a bit more. It seems that, 1000 years ago a war had broken out over the power of Magic, which caused a great deal of destruction and other problems, and so Magic was locked away out of the reach of humans, and things became more peaceful. As is often the case, peace isn't going to last for long, and now some people in control, "The Empire," are trying to rediscover Magic for their own uses. The girl who had started off the game appears to be the key to uncovering the secrets, and was being used by them for this goal. The people who have rescued her are on the other end of this issue, trying to stop the Empire from bringing back Magic, and all the destructions and problems that had went along with it. This is how the initial group of people ends up coming together. Throughout the course of the game, however, numerous other people will be added to the party, each with their own backgrounds, stories, and reasons for getting involved in this whole ordeal. At any given time the active party is only going to consist of a maximum of four people, but, one will gain control of more than a dozen people who can be selected, depending on the situation, to make up the party. The basic play of the game is a straightforward turn-based RPG with random encounters, like previous ones in the series and many other RPGs. As one wanders around the world, through caves or castles or many other places, randomly an enemy will engage a battle. In the battle, the characters have a gauge which will fill up, at which point they can attack, by choosing from a number of different attack options, such as a normal attack, a magic attack, or some other special skills depending on the character. After the battle, characters will get experience, which leads to gaining levels and advancing in statistics, and gold which can be used to buy weapons, armor, items, and other useful things. There is a bit more involved as well, which will be discussed in a moment. For the most part though, the basic play of the game is fairly similar to many other RPGs that one may have played. As noted previously, after starting off the game with just a couple of characters for the party, along the course of the journey a number more characters will be added to the group. Some will come fairly soon, while others won't join until much later along in the story. Unlike some other games with many characters where many of them feel generic and just added in to bring up the total, however, almost none of the characters here feel tacked-on, and all of them have a very compelling story behind who they are, what they are doing, and why they are in this gathering. Most characters are added by playing through a certain segment of story which relates directly to them and how they're being added to the group, and a number of them have specific events which transpire later in the game which are focused on them as well. In addition to that, depending on the characters in the party at a given time or during a certain occurrence, one will often see different dialog or have slightly different things take place, where different things might have happened had the party arrangement been different. As noted above all of the characters can learn all of the magic in the game, but, many of the characters have a particular skill or ability which is unique to them as well, which still serves to set apart the different members as helpful to the group for their own particular reason. Simply playing through multiple times using different members when possible can give things a whole new look and feel. In addition to the stories involved in getting all of these characters into the group, the overarching storylines within the game are absolutely spectacular as well. One definitely doesn't feel as if just going from place to place for no apparent reason, but instead feeling a direct and specific reason for doing what needs to be done at any given time, and a desire to accomplish it based on what it will cause to happen. The direct passage of one event into another continues through much of the game, but, later on due to some things which take place, toward the end there will be the option to do things in a number of different orders, or even not do some things if one chooses not to do them and just go and beat the game. As well, there will be a mode of transportation which makes it possible to go to any place at any time, as opposed to having to walk around with most things being in a direct or logical path from one another. This open-endedness does make things seem a bit loose toward the end, but, having options of different places to go can be nice as well. Not to mention, the individual stories that go along with all the different pieces are still as well done as the rest of the story - just that it's not in a set order with it being necessary to do everything. One can choose to beat the game without doing most of these, not only does the extra experience and other things gained from going through all of these places make the final area much easier, but, it is definitely interesting to see all the different things going on as well. During the course of the journey, the adventurers will pass through a wide variety of different areas, which are not only very interesting to explore, but also look very nice as well. In battles, there are different backgrounds depending on the type of land on which one had encountered the enemy, and while the focus is of course on the actual battle itself, the backgrounds serve to make for a perfect backdrop for the battles. They definitely help to give the feeling that one is really wandering through a desert, as a battle rages among the trees, or trekking through a desert as wind-swept sand dunes surround the fight. While walking around exploring, there are a wide variety of areas to pass through, each with its own unique look and feel. As well, every area is finely laid with details. There are slivers of light, colorful sunsets, broken stones, cascading waterfalls, furnished houses, and all sorts of other intricate touches. While doing all of this wandering around and exploring, there is also a wonderful musical arrangement playing for each of places. Each area has its own particular music, which always fits it perfectly, and helps to draw one into the surroundings and the game. One could easily sit there for a while listening to the music, before remembering that one should be doing something as well. Of course, if one isn't a fan of RPGs in general, this probably isn't the sort of game one would find appealing. It still does have that base of random encounters and turn-based battles (although with the meter to make things a bit more interesting, but still no moving around or any of that stuff) that form the core of the gameplay. If one isn't the sort of person who finds that sort of thing to be interesting, there really isn't any getting around it. For anyone who is a fan or RPGs, however, this is certainly one of the best, and many would argue the best, out there. It's part of a great series in general, and if one has enjoyed other games in the series but hasn't played this yet, it's definitely something to check out. If one has enjoyed other RPGs and hasn't had the chance to try the series yet, this is certainly as good a place as any to start in on it. An absolutely spectacular game, which mixes together many of the best elements of the previous games in the series and many new things of its own, to come out with what still shines today as one of the most remarkable games ever.
Why does say online only, then unavailable online? Is this out of stock? I'd understand if it was. My question is, since i don't see an out of stock then i see two contradicting lines.
Asked by: Wolfay
co_hasquestions, tq_1
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Toyota tops Interbrand's green brand rankings; Honda, VW and BMW in the top 10
03/07/2012 - 09:30 | Toyota, Awards | Kaustubh Shinde
The world is running from pillar-to-post holding banners of doomsday due to global warming. Automotive manufacturers are always at the receiving end of most of the criticism.
In such scenarios, it is good to know that four automotive manufacturers have made it to the top 10 list of Interbrand's recently-released Best Global Green Brands for 2012.
Toyota has topped the list for the second time in the row. The best news of all is that 3 new automotive brands - Honda, Volkswagen and BMW, have entered the top 10.
In the last year's survey only Toyota was in the top 10 list. The next automotive brand - Mercedes Benz - was at number 12. Sadly Mercedes Benz has slipped out of the Top 10 positions this year.
In this year's survey, Honda bagged the third position. Volkswagen was 4th and BMW finished in 10th place. Ford (#15), Mercedes-Benz (#16), Hyundai (#17), and Nissan (#21) featured in the list of 50 brands.
Interbrand's Best Global Green Brands survey is in its second year. The survey weighs environmental protection and sustainability efforts of global brands in addition to the perception 10k+ people have about these companies in the world's 10 most industrialized nations.
Images - Toyota Dear Qin Concepts from the Beijing Auto Show
[Source: Interbrand.com]
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