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The African American Woman's Headwrap: Unwinding the Symbols

By: Helen Bradley Griebel

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN headwrap holds a distinctive position in the history of American dress both for its longevity and for its potent signification's. It endured the travail of slavery and never passed out of fashion. The headwrap represents far more than a piece of fabric wound around the head.

This distinct cloth head covering has been called variously "head rag," "head-

tie," "head handkerchief," "turban," or "headwrap." I use the latter term here. The headwrap usually completely covers the hair, being held in place by tying the ends into knots close to the skull. As a form of apparel in the United States, the headwrap has been exclusive to women of African descent.

The headwrap originated in sub-Saharan Africa, and serves similar functions for both African and African American women. In style, the African American woman's headwrap exhibits the features of sub-Saharan aesthetics and worldview. In the United States, however, the headwrap acquired a paradox of meaning not customary on the ancestral continent. During slavery, white overlords imposed its wear as a badge of enslavement! Later it evolved into the stereotype that whites held of the "Black Mammy" servant. The enslaved and their descendants, however, have regarded the headwrap as a helmet of courage that evoked an image of true homeland-be that ancient Africa or the newer homeland, America. The simple head rag worn by millions of enslaved women and their descendants has served as a uniform of communal identity; but at its most elaborate, the African American woman's headwrap has functioned as a "uniform of rebellion" signifying absolute resistance to loss of self-definition.'

This study examines the multi-layered meanings acquired by the headwrap over several centuries. The intent is to show that the headwrap is African in style; but, as worn by African American women, the traditions regarding its use could only have been forged in the crucible of American slavery and its aftermath.

The impetus for this research comes from the comments made by approximately two thousand formerly' enslaved African Americans who recounted their experiences and contributed their oral histories to the Federal Writers' Project in 1936 to 1938. The result was an abbreviated compendium entitled Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves (B.A. Botkin, Chief Editor, Washington, 1941). Subsequently, George P, Rawick assembled the entire body of material for publication as a forty-volume compilation, The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (1972, 1977, and 1979). Hereafter, I cite the Rawick volumes as Narratives.

STYLE

Tying a piece of cloth around the head is not specific to any one cultural group. Men and women have worn and continue to wear some type of fabric head covering in many societies. What does appear to be culturally specific, however, is the way the fabric is worn; in other words, the style in which the fabric is worn is the ultimate cultural marker. Here, .style" is not used to mean a particular fashion. Rather, I use the term to mean a studied way of presenting the self-an idea of how one ought to appear before others. In order to explore this concept, careful note must be taken of the significant difference between the style of cloth head coverings as worn by white women and the headwrap as styled by black women.

To wrap her head, a European or white American woman simply folds a square piece of fabric into a triangular shape and covers her hair by tying the fabric under her chin; or, less often, by tying it at the nape of the neck. In either case, the untied points of fabric are left to fall down over the back of the head. The Euro American style results in a head covering which flattens against the head and encloses the face, and thus visually seems to pull the head down. The terms "scarf" or "kerchief" usually denote this type of head covering. Scarves are not particularly popular items of white American women's fashion today, but when they are worn, they consistently are arranged in the manner just described.2

By contrast, a woman of African ancestry folds the fabric into a rectilinear shape rather than into a triangle. The most significant difference between the Euro- American and Afro-centric manner of styling the cloth is that rather than tying the knot under her chin, the African American woman usually ties the knots somewhere on the crown of her head, either at the top or on the sides, often tucking the ends into the wrap.

Although the African American woman sometimes ties the fabric at the nape of the neck, her form of styling always leaves her forehead and neck exposed; and, by leaving her face open, the headwrap visually enhances the facial features. The African American headwrap thus works as a regal coronet, drawing the onlooker's gaze up, rather than down. In effect, African and African American women wear the headwrap as a queen might wear a crown. In this way the headwrap corresponds to African and African American women's manner of hair styling, wherein the hair is pulled so as to expose the forehead and is often drawn to a heightened mass on top of the head. In striking comparison, the scarf worn by white women emulates the way in which the hair of people of European ancestry naturally grows: falling downward and often arranged to cover the forehead.

Another outstanding difference between the two ways of wearing the head- wrap is that, in contrast to the singular manner by which white women wrap their hair in fabric, African American women exhibit a seemingly endless repertoire of elaborations on the basic mode. One of the earliest extant group photographs of southern African Americans provides striking evidence for this very improvisation on the squared swatch of cloth. In the photo, taken in the early 1860s, the headwraps crafted by both black women and men are far more ornamental than the simple Euro American scarf. Most important, the photo shows twelve newly "freed" African Americans wearing headwraps in twelve different ways; none, however, tied below the head.

HEAD COVERINGS IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH

The thirty years before the Civil War is generally considered the antebellum period in American history. Throughout these decades, women's headcoverings served various purposes, just as they have over other historical periods and in other places. In addition to being simple fashion statements, women's head coverings have denoted age and religious beliefs as well as marital, gender and class status. Before focusing on the functions of the antebellum headwrap, it is necessary to look at the backdrop of hat styles favored by European and American white women previous to 1865.

African American dress, including head coverings, had elements common to that found in contemporary white America. The assimilation of European-American fashion reflects the universal human regard we all have for outward signs of stability; more to the point, it reflects an ability on the part of the displaced Africans to improvise and to creatively adopt new materials. Concerning head coverings, black women apparently took their cues from white women, just as white American women through the last century emulated their European counterparts by covering their hair for most public functions, as well as in the home. Enslaved women wore types of head coverings-from simple straw hats to the contemporary fashionable bonnets-that were similar to those worn by white women. At certain events, however, neither white nor black women were expected to cover their heads. At dances, for example, pictorial evidence shows both groups of women with only flowers adorning their hair. Lewis Miller's watercolor, Lynchburg-negro dance, 1853, is an African American example.

African American women might also uncover their hair for other occasions. For example, Elsie Clews Parsons, writing earlier in this century, said that South Carolina Sea Islands' "Women, old and young, quite commonly wear kerchiefs around the head and tied at the back" and the hair was wrapped in strings under the headwrap. Parsons significantly added the point that "often it will not be combed out until a person is 'going somewhere'" (1923:204). Similarly, Sylvia Boone's 1986 description of modem Mende women in Sierra Leone shows the headwrap may also serve to protect an African woman's well-groomed hair until it is time to expose it. Boone writes:

... a woman always goes to a man's room with her hair neat; and if she wants to make a special impression, she will sport a new and elegant style well done. Since the woman would have left her quarters with her head under wraps so that will not see her hair, the man will have the flattering feeling that she went through so much time and trouble to fashion herself for his eyes alone. Even in the mawe compound, when a wife has to walk only a few yards to her husband, she will follow the rituals of "going to a man's room" and arrive in a headtie covering her coiffure (189).

Thus, when nineteenth-century enslaved African American women wore hats or bonnets or left their hair uncovered, they not only conformed to normative customs in fashion prevalent for all Western women of the period, but also to an African aesthetic. What distinguished the black woman, of course, was that at certain times she, alone, donned a headwrap.

Because the headwrap is such an outstanding feature of the enslaved women's dress, it is important to note how they acquired them. During the period of enslavement, African American women came by the fabric for their headwraps in various ways. The anonymous Mississippi planter who wrote "Management of Negroes Upon Southern Estates" (1851) noted: "I give to my negroes four full suits of clothes with two pairs of shoes, every year, and to my women and girls a calico dress and two handkerchiefs extra" (624). The supposition that the women wore their "two handkerchiefs extra" as head- wraps is supported by J. C. Fumas who reports that among "(t)he annual issue for 200 slaves on the Coffin plantation on St. Helena island, South Carolina ... 100 turban hand- kerchiefs" were distributed (1956:94).

Besides the head handkerchiefs given to them by plantation "masters". black women supplemented headwraps by other means. Elizabeth Botume gives an example. In 1863, Botume arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, among the earliest of the Northern teachers who volunteered to teach black refugees during the "Port Royal Experiment." Botume wrote of her experiences with the newly "freed" blacks, and her observations offer invaluable, first-hand reports of a people who were on the cusp between one way

of life and a different one. Botume's description of the people who greeted her boat as it docked at Beaufort contains an itemization of the women's clothes: "Some of the women had on old, cast-off soldier's coats, with 'crocus bags,' fastened together with their own ravellings, for skirts, and bits of sailcloth for head handkerchiefs" (1893) 1968: 32).

Since most cloth was produced domestically, and quite often by black women, remnants for headwraps could be procured directly from weavers. Charlie Hudson, who was born in 1858, and enslaved in Georgia, remembered: "What yo' wore on yo' haid was a cap made out of scraps of cloth dey wove in de loom right dar on our plantation to make pants for de grown folks" (Narratives, Vol. 12.2:224).

Frederick Law Olmstead, a northern white who traveled in the South before the American Civil War, tells of yet another way in which blacks acquired headwraps: "(The negroes) also purchase clothing for themselves, and, I note especially, are well sup- plied with handkerchiefs, which the men frequently, and the women nearly always, wear on their heads" (82).

FUNCTIONS

Although the headwrap became a form of head covering specific to African American women, no clear-cut, single reason accounts for this long-standing item in their dress. In some instances, whites devised reasons for black women to wear the headwrap. In other instances, the purposes for donning the headwrap developed from within the black communities. No matter where these functions originated, the headwrap worked at several overlapping and sometimes conflicting levels ranging from the symbolic to the utilitarian.

One symbolic function of the headwrap was to maintain Southern white power in a society based economically and socially on racial slavery. Noteworthy in this respect are the ordinances which regulated African American dress throughout the South during the eighteenth century (Wares, 1981:131-136). In effect, whites used these dress codes to outwardly distinguish those without power from those who held it. The earliest, South Carolina's Negro Act of 1735, "specifically set a standard of dress for the enslaved and free African Americans" (ibid. 132). In 1740 amendments, South Carolina's slave code further elaborated the dress regulations (Genovese, 1974:359). In 1786, while Louisiana was a Spanish colony, the governor enacted a dress code which forbade: "females of color ... to wear plumes or jewelry"; this law specifically required "their hair bound in a kerchief" (Crete, 1981: 80-81; also Gayarre, 1885: 178-179 and Wares, 1981:135).

In the antebellum period, the Southern whites' concern regarding the symbol- ism inherent in the dress of African Americans continued. Citing one instance, Richard C. Wade writes that a Savannah editor bemoaned the "extravagant" dress of city blacks. Wade says that the journalist, " observing that a turban or handkerchief for the head was good enough for peasants,...noted that 'with our city colored population the old fashioned turban seems fast disappearing' " (Savannah Republican 6 June 1849, quoted in Wade, 1981:128-129).

The preceding codes and comments show that whites expected the headwrap to mark the black women's social status as different from that of women in the white community. In addition, headwraps functioned as status symbols within the African American communities Louis Hughes, born 1843, enslaved in Mississippi and Virginia, noted: "The cotton clothes worn by both men and women (house servants), and the turbans of the latter, were snowy white" (1897) 1969:43). After the family moved to the city, Hughes recalled, "Each of the women servants wore a new gay colored turban, which was tied differently from that of the ordinary servant, in some fancy knot" (42).

The type of labor expected of enslaved women offers several purely utilitarian functions for wearing the headwrap which was more easily acquired and of simpler material than were more ornate millinery items. Ebenezer Brown, enslaved in Mississippi, said: "(My mammy) wrap her hair, and tie it up in a cloth. My mammy cud tote a bucket of water on her head and never spill a drop. I seed her bring that milk in great big buckets from de pen on her head an' never lose one drop" (Narratives, Vol. S1.6.1:249). Brown's description offers one reason why the headwrap was a necessity; for, a thick headwrap offered protection when carrying loads on the head.

In the agrarian South, the headwrap also functioned to absorb perspiration in the same way that a bandana tied around the neck serves this purpose for farmers or ranchers working in the sun. In addition, headwraps protected woman's hair from grime. Testimony documents the paucity of bathing facilities available to the enslaved African Americans, as well as the lack of time necessary to keep themselves groomed and clean. The headwrap also served to keep the frequent infestations of lice under cover.3

The headwrap served in another purely expedient capacity as an article of clothing which could be used to cover the hair quickly when there was not adequate time to make it "presentable." Gloria Goode advances this argument in her recent dissertation on nineteenth-century African American women ministers wherein she includes a section on the costumes adopted by these women, all of whom were "free." Commenting on the biographical portrait of Hannah Tranks Carson (1864), Goode notes that Carson is shown "in a stereotypical manner in homely dress." Goode continues: "Obviously ... if she (Carson) had possessed the strength, she would have discarded the head kerchief for a bonnet." Goode then presents her rationale for this argument: "The kerchief is an adoption of the black woman's manner of dealing with her 'unpresentable' hair. It is tied in a traditional style covering the forehead" (1990: 388). The novelist Buchi Emecheta demonstrates a recent Nigerian example of the Afro-centric taboo against leaving unkempt hair uncovered: "(T)hey saw a young woman of twenty-five, with long hair not too tidily plaited and with no head-tie to cover it ... her hair (was) too untidy to be left uncovered..." (1988:8).

Well into the twentieth century, the headwrap continued to be used as a conveniently serviceable item used to cover "unpresentable hair." This is illustrated in the Narratives where a number of the interviews begin with the interviewer's own narrative

"pictures" of the interviewees. The following depictions aid in assessing the iconography which American whites applied to African American women. The descriptions are of equal importance because they show that seventy years after emancipation, older, southern black women continued to wear some form of hair covering similar to that worn by women during the period of enslavement-and that the headwrap remained the most common form.

From Georgia: "Aunt Fannie Hughes" was seated on the narrow front porch with two small piccaninnies playing at her feet when we made our visit. Her tall, gaunt figure was clothed in a neat plaid cotton dress ... On her head was a cloth sugar sack (Narratives, Suppl. Series 1. Vol. 3.1:329).

From Georgia: Martha Everettes ... was seated on the front porch of her son's home ... Her grizzled hair was covered by a white towel (S1.3.1:236(GA))

From Indiana, the interviewer paraphrased Callie Bracey's description of her

mother Louise Turrell who had been enslaved in Mississippi: "Louise ... never had a hat, always wore a rag tied over her head" (Narratives, Vol. 6.2:26).

From Georgia: Seemingly the only real wide awake person on the place was Aunt Jemirna, the housekeeper ... brown of complexion, with her kinky hair entirely hidden by a bright bandana, she was truly a picture (Narratives, Suppl. Series 1, Vol. 3.1:339).

From Ohio: Hanna Fambro, a checked gingham turban wound about her head ... presents the delightful picture of a real southern mammy (Narratives, Suppl. Series 1, Vol. 5.2:332).

From Georgia: A white cloth, tied turban fashion about her (Georgia Baker, 87 years) head ... completed her costume (Narratives, Vol. 12.1:38).

From Alabama: "Aunt Nicey" had on a blue dress, with a white head rag... (Narratives, Suppl. Series 1, Vol. 1:297).

From Mississippi: Her (Chaney Moore Williams, b. ca. 1852, d. 1937) hair was

gray and worn in small twists, her head was tied in a large "head rag" (Narratives, Suppl. Series 1, Vol. 10.5:2304).

From Georgia: Her (Callie Elder, 78 years) crudely fashioned blue dress was

of a coarse cotton fabric and her dingy head rag had long lost its original color (Narratives, Vol 12.1:306).

From Georgia: Camilla Jackson wears a white rag around her head and is always spotlessly clean (Narratives, Vol. 12.2:295).

From Mississippi: Harriet Walker, (b. ca. 1852) ... is about eighty-five years of

age, and is a typical "black mammy" type ... She wears a large cloth tied neatly and snugly around her head, which is called a "head rag" by the negroes (Narratives, Suppl. Series 1, Vol. 10.5: 2157).

From Georgia: A large checkered apron almost covered her (Lulu Battle) dress and a clean white headcloth concealed her hair (Narratives, Vol. 12.1:61).

From Georgia: Her (Julia Bunch, 85 years) head closely wrapped in a dark bandana, from which the gray hair peeped at intervals forming a frame for her face (Narratives, Vol. 12.1:155).

Margaret Davis Cate, observing African Americans on the Georgia Sea Islands in the 1930s, wrote:

Fashions come and go, but Sibby (Kelly) never changed from the old-fashioned method of tying up her head. A piece of white cloth folded smoothly above the forehead and tied in the back with the ends hanging down on the back of the neck was the proper method and she stuck to it (Cate, 1955: 195, photograph on facing page).

The preceding glosses by white observers offer a clear picture of the headwrap as an outstanding item of dress for Southern black women, but these comments also reflect that the headwrap provided an important material symbol by which whites have long stereotyped black women.

In addition to white-enforced dress codes, and the headwrap's more practical uses, under specific conditions, headwraps also functioned as significant additions to southern African American religious ceremonies during the last century. A New Orleans journalist reported on a "voodoo rite" that he witnessed in 1828. "Some sixty people were assembled, each wearing a white bandana carefully knotted around the head..." (Crete, 1981:172). At a given moment in the ceremony, one of the women "tore the white hand- kerchief from her forehead. This was a signal, for the whole assembly sprang forward and entered the dance" (173).

Headwraps were included as one of the several special head coverings worn for more ordinary Christian religious events. The interviewer paraphrased Edward Lycurgas (enslaved in Florida): "Lycurgas recalls ... the river baptisms! These climaxed the meetings ... All candidates were dressed in white gowns, stockings and towels would be about their heads bandana fashion" (Narratives, Vol. 17.1:209). John Dixon Long, a white observer, remarked on a prayer-meeting held by enslaved people in Maryland in 1857.

At a given signal of the leader, the men will take off their jackets, hang up their hats, and tie up their heads in handkerchiefs; the women will tighten their turbans, and the company will then form a circle around the singer, and jump and bawl to their heart's content ... (Long, Pictures of Slave7y in Church and State...,383, quoted to Epstein, 1963:387).

Women might wear headwraps for Sunday worship. Louis Hughes, born 1832, enslaved in Mississippi and Virginia, remembered "once when Boss went to Memphis and brought back a bolt of gingham for turbans for the female slaves. It was a red and yellow check, and the turbans made from it were only to be worn on Sundays" (1897) 1969:42). Fanny Kemble's description of the "grotesque" Sunday costume of the .poor" enslaved people on her husband's Georgia plantation included: "head handkerchiefs, that put one's very eyes out from a mile off..." (1863:93).4

In certain areas, customs related to head coverings for the religious camp meetings denoted the age of the women. For example, Gus Pearson, enslaved in South Carolina, remembered:

(De gals) took dey hair down out'n de string fer de (camp) meeting. In dern days all de darky wimmens wore dey hair in string 'cep' when dey 'tended church or a wedding. At de camp meetings de wimmens pulled off de head rags, 'cept de mammies. On dis occasion de mammies wore linen head rages fresh laundered (Narratives, Vol. 2.2:62).

The last function to be examined returns us to the symbolic-this time, to the

symbolic functions given the headwrap by African American women. In this case, some African American women played with the white "code" and, by flaunting the headwrap, converted it from something which might be construed as shameful into an -anti-style uniquely their own.

This particular function may be analyzed by examining a portrait painted by Adolph Rinck in 1844. Some scholars believe the subject was Marie Laveau, the famous voudon priestess of New Orleans. The portrait dates from the time when the New Orleans dress code legally required African American women (whether enslaved or "free") to wear some form of headwrap; but the painting's sitter took advantage of this supposed badge of degradation and transformed it into an emblem of self-determination and empowerment. The portrait shows a woman who most certainly was quite aware of how to style her "tignon" away from her face and high up on her head.5

If other black women wore the headwrap with less self-conscious concern for daring fashion than did Laveau, and with more concern for its utilitarian functions, nevertheless, they continued to wear it in particularly innovative ways, and always to wear it tied up and away from the face. In this manner, African American women demonstrated their recognition that they alone possessed this particular style of head ornamentation and thereby, donning the headwrap meant they were acknowledging their membership in an unique American social group. Whites misunderstood the self-empowering and defiant intent and saw the headwrap only as the stereotypic "Aunt Jemima" image of the black woman as domestic servant. This represents a paradox in so far as the headwrap acquired significance for the enslaved women as a form of self and communal identity and as a badge of resistance against the servitude imposed by whites.

AN AFRICAN WOMAN'S VOICE, 1992

Cassandra Stancil was born in 1954, and grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia.6 The most visible feature of Cassandra's dress is her headwrap which, as she says, she wears "more days out of the week than not". Cassandra uses two terms for the headwrap: if she purchases a finished scarf to wrap her head, she calls it a "scarf"; if she wraps it with an unfinished cloth, she calls this a "rag." She notes "Usually when people are talking to me about it, they call it a 'wrap.'" Cassandra calls the different ways she styles the headwrap "variations." The shape of the cloth is one determining factor for how she wears it; that is, the style of wrap depends on whether the fabric is "oblong or square." Fabric size is the other factor.

It varies-you could just use a big bandana to get a look, you know, if you just want something like a headband around your head. Or, if you really want to wrap and have fun with it, at least a couple of yards. If it is a short oblong piece, say about a yard long, that is more limiting.

Three cultural influences converge in Cassandra's choice of head covering. First, Cassandra consciously adopted the headwrap to mark her place as a modern African American and in recognition of black women who wore it in the past; here, the influence is African American. Second, as Cassandra explained her rationale for not wearing the headwrap in certain situations, the influence is "American" and, again, conscious. The third influence is Cassandra's subconscious heritage from Africa and concerns the particular way she styles her headwraps. In the following, Cassandra voices these conscious and subconscious values.

First, the African American cultural values. The headwrap represents the most overt and visible material manifestation of Cassandra's decision to identify herself as an African American. Confrontations with other black women have occurred concerning her headwrap, but Cassandra maintains her own personal sense of self as she wears the head- wrap no matter what negative connotations others may see in it.

I remember my mother wrapping her head every night and when I'd come to her in the morning she had it wrapped. And when she's out in the yard, her hair is wrapped. But once she leaves the confines of that yard, the wrap's off.

My mother is of a different generation and to her way of thinking to wear a headwrap is a kind of signal. She'll wear it in her house, not in public. It's not proper, more of a household thing. For her, it's not so formal, it would just be a rag tied around the head. Not respectable, not proper to go in the public eyes.

I've never cared about what people thought. And there are still fights today with my mother and I-about how I dress-not just about how I wrap my head-how I dress.

For some women today, it seems-let's begin with where I come from-hats on the bead are the thing if you want to consider yourself dressed. And I've seen some older women wearing fancy headwraps on occasions where they generally in the past might have worn a hat-to church, to social functions.

This is getting personal here-but one of the reasons-early on, and this is going way back in my history, say in the (early) 70s when I was wearing (head- wraps), like college and high school- and I remember friends commenting to me, 'You look like Aunt jemima'-and I guess that is what my mother might have had in mind, that was what she thought other people were seeing, and she took that as a critique that she really did not want aimed at her, so that she did not wear them in public. Again, I never cared, number one, about how other people perceived it and number two, I never thought it was necessary to distance myself from Aunt Jemima. I never considered her to be a negative person, it's just a stereotype that she represents is negative, so I don't have that problem.

It's more of a reclaiming of my southern heritage, it's not necessary going back to Africa. It's more valorizing the southern women that I know and still know who did this. It's like putting myself in the same boat with them which I don't have a problem with.

Cassandra wore a headwrap "on and off" from the early 1970s until 1989,

when she entered the University of Pennsylvania as a graduate student and decided to wear it anywhere and anytime and on any occasion. Earlier, she wore it depending on her place of work and mentioned that when she had a government job, a different sort of attire was expected. Here Cassandra acknowledges the second set of cultural standards which informed her decisions as to the appropriateness of wearing or not wearing the headwrap. These standards are "American", and perhaps ultimately derive from a different and Euro-centric system for coding dress.

It's according to the kind of interactions. (Entering Penn) was the time I felt most free. Not confined by my work situation or the people that I would be encountering in the work situation.

Where I've worked-I've been in rural parts of middle America-while on the one hand I could have chosen to play up the exoticism, I've never wanted to do that.

When asked why she always wears the headwrap tied up and on her head, and

not just tied under the chin, Cassandra clearly displayed a knowledge about the effect it produces in the way she styles it. just as clearly, however, Cassandra's answers demonstrate that she is completely unaware of the fact that her particular style in applying the headwrap is decidedly African, the third cultural marker.

It never occurred to me-but it wouldn't feel comfortable and I don't know- we don't wear-I'm thinking maybe-I mean, when you're a child you wear a hat tied under your chin to keep it on your head. Maybe that's a part of it. Ummm. But it looks dressy to me, when, you know, it's all on my head. To me, it's the same effect as if I had elaborate braids on my head, if I had the head wrap tied above my head and knotted above my head or had the ends worked into the actual wrap.

Numerous scholars recognize improvisation as a hallmark of Africa and African American performance style. In fact, improvisation is fundamental to the African and African American concept of successful communication in all its forms-from speech, to song, to instrumental music, to dance, to dress.

Cassandra Stancil: No, I never asked another woman how she tied it. I always figured I could do it. I could try and experiment and if not get that, get some- thing that I liked.

It's more an aesthetic thing, I've never looked it up. As I'm wrapping, I'm looking in the mirror to see what it looks like. And sometimes I'll go for something symmetrical, sometimes asymmetrical. Sometimes I'll let the ends be out, sometimes I'll tuck them up, sometimes I'll braid them so that they have some kind of a design and then I'll tuck them under, sometimes I'll want to hide how I've made them so I make sure everything's tucked under, and then sometimes I don't care, I want them out, and like, when I have a really short piece that will really just barely go around my head, I'll just go with the Aunt Jemima look and just let the knot be there-If it's up in front it's the Aunt Jemima look.

Thus, the seemingly limitless ways of attaching a piece of cloth to the head may be read as yet another expression of African aesthetic style, that of improvisation.

Another primary characteristic of African and African American performative style is call-and-response wherein no clear lines are drawn between the roles of "per- former" and "audience" as is often the expectation in Euro-centric performance (see; e.g. Allen, 1991: 85ff and Davis, 1987: 16fo. From an Afro-centric perspective, a successful performance demands audience response. The expectation is for both performer and audience to play roles, and this includes such an event as the wearing of a particular item of clothing.

Cassandra Stancil: I do get positive responses-and I don't know if I could categorize them. Yah-and it's generally in cultural settings, I guess, or at Penn I get a lot of responses, or when I go to other events where other people are dressed accordingly. But you know, if I'm in an environment where there's a greater "division" in points of view, then I don't get the responses at all. Having worn them so often, other women asked me how to wear them.

As African American communities in the South broke asunder with Emancipation, Reconstruction, and the Great Migration, the headwrap became, however consciously or unconsciously, one material link by which those women who came after could acknowledge a bond with those who preceded them.

Cassandra Stancil: It's kinda like the way we have, in the 60s, reappropriated the term "black" which was once pejorative, and once we reclaimed it and wore it as our banner, it became okay for us to call ourselves "black." Similarly, I see the same thing happening with headwraps and it may happen with braids, we've sort of taken back those, those, like-to have a "napped head" is how we use to call having dread-locks now, and it was very negative. 8 To have braids, that was something that only a child wore, but now it's something that older black women wear, and it's something we realize that it's something we have done in the past with our hair, whether or not it was the southern past or the African past, and it's something that is conducive to the way our hair is. So that now we wear it with those things in mind, sort of reappropriated it and used it to signify something different. And I guess that's how I would categorize how I see most people wearing them now. We have reappropriated it from the stereotypic views of it-we've reappropriated it from those who would say 'it's primitive' and so forth-and we valorized it, I think.

Today, the headwrap as emblematic of this bond seems to encompass not only the enslaved American ancestors, but those who remained in Africa as well. When I asked Cassandra if there were occasions, such as African American festivals, where any black women might wear a headwrap, she responded:

Definitely. Definitely. I mean those are the parts, I mean those are the ways that we have to re-incorporate the African dress into our everyday or fun-type dress...

CONCLUSION

During the period of enslavement, whites enacted codes that legally required black women to cover their heads with cloth wrappings, but these codes do not explain three other functions for the headwrap devised by the African Americans themselves. One pur- pose was purely practical: the cloth covered their hair when there was lack of time to prepare it for public view, the material absorbed perspiration and kept the hair free of grime during agricultural tasks, and the headwrap offered some protection against lice. Two additional functions-fashion and symbol-often overlapped. Within the African communities, the headwrap denoted sex, marital status, and the sexuality of the wearer.

These instances show that although the headwrap marked the social status of the wearer within the larger American society, the headwrap marked the wearer's status within black communities as well. For example, enslaved African American women practiced customs wherein certain types of headwraps were worn for special social events and for religious worship services, baptisms, and funerals.

In these usages, African American women demonstrated their recognition that they alone possessed their particular style of head ornamentation and thereby, donning the headwrap, meant they were acknowledging their membership in a unique American social group. For the enslaved women, the headwrap acquired significance as a form of self and communal identity and as a badge of resistance against the servitude imposed by whites. This represents a paradox in so far as the whites misunderstood the self-empowering and defiant intent and saw the headwrap only in the context of the stereotypical "Aunt jemima" image of black women as domestic servant.

After emancipation, the headwrap became a private matter possessing closely held meanings which were evident but mostly subconscious. In the 1970s, the headwrap re-emerged as an item of clothing worn publicly by some black women. When the head- wrap reappears, a white audience senses the true contradiction in the original paradox; it evokes the white's role in the system of slavery. While the headwrap still bears this metaphor for modem African Americans, it also represents a symbolic embrace of their enslaved American forebears; and, it now serves yet another function as an emblem of their West African ancestry. Thus, over time, the headwrap displays a dynamic quality in gathering new meanings and shedding older nuances.

NOTES

i .Bernard S. Cohn, 1991, uses the phrase "uniform of rebellion" in his argument for the meaning of the turban to modem Indian Sikhs (304).

2. Although they are less often seen in the United States at present, European peasant women engaged in household and agricultural tasks continue to wear such a hair covering. And, in Greece, it is still customary for widowed, rural women to cover their hair in public with a dark-colored scarf. For whatever purposes, when white women wear head scarves today, they always tie them in the Euro-centric style.

3. So prevalent were lice that they gave their name to a type of handwoven cloth because it resembled the ever-present pests. Clara Walker, enslaved in Arkansas, said: "Den I weaves nits and lice. Wat's dat-well you see it was kind corse cloth de used for clothes like overalls. It was sort of speckeldy all over-dat's why dey called it nits and lice" (Narratives,Vol. 11.7:22).

4. Frances Anne (Fanny) Kemble (1809-1893) was a British actress who made her American acting debut in New York City. Although an ardent abolitionist, Kemble married Pierce Butler, slave-holder and co-owner of a large plantation off the Georgia coast. Butler, an absentee landowner, resided in Philadelphia, but in 1838-1839, he brought his wife for a visit to the Georgia plantation. In 1863, Kemble's impressions of this sojourn were published. Kemble is a complex character. She exhibits a strong compassion for the enslaved, particularly the women; interwoven with these assets, however, Kemble's writings also show that she judged African Americans from a Euro- centric perception that they were in need of "civilizing."

5. Tignon is a local, New Orleans word for the headwrap, a variation on the French word, chignon (Campbell, ed., 1991:x). Chignon means a smooth knot or twist or arrangement of hair that is worn at the nape of the neck.

6. Because I wanted to understand what the headwrap means to a contemporary African American woman, I requested an interview on the subject with Cassandra Stancil who graciously consented. The following quotations are excerpts from our taped conversation on 27 March 1992, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

7. When I asked Ella Williams Clarke, age 70, who was reared in North Carolina about wearing a headwrap she said, "We always wore hats and gloves to church when I was growing up. When you were a teenager you wore a hat-not everywhere, but always to church." Conversation, 10 Sept. 1992.

8. In Ghana, Maya Angelou describes her similar reaction when a local woman gave her a Ghanaian hairstyle: "It was a fashion worn by the pickaninnies whose photographs I had seen and hated in old books. I was aghast" (1986:37).

REFERENCES

Allen, Ray. 1991. Singing in the Spirit. Afirican-American Sacred Quartets in New York City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

A Mississippi Planter. June 1851. "Management of Negroes Upon Southern Estates." De Bow's Southern journal and Western Review, 621-625.

Angelou, M. 1986. All God's Children Got Traveling Shoes. N.Y: Random House/ Vintage Books.

Boone, S. A. 1986. Radiance From the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Boturne, E. H. [189311968. First Days Among the Contrabands. N.Y: Arno Press and The New York Times.

Campbell, E. D. C., Jr., ed. 1991. Before Freedom Came: African-American Life in the Antebellum South. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press and Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond (exh. cat.).

Cohn, B. S. 1991. "Cloth, Clothes, and Colonialism: India in the Nineteenth Century." In Annette B. W. and J. Schneider, eds. Cloth and the Human Experience, Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 304-353.

Crete, L. 1981. Daily Life in Louisiana 1815-1830. Translated by Patrick Gregory, Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press.

Davis, G. L. 1987. 1 Got the Word in Me and I Can Sing It, You Know: A Study of the Performed African-American Sermon. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Emecheta, B. 1988. Tbejoys of Motherhood. London: Heinemann.

Epstein, D. J. Summer 1963. "Slave Music in the United States Before 1860. A Survey of Sources (Part 2)." Music Library Association Notes 20, 377-390.

Fumas, J. C. 1956. Goodbye to Uncle Tom. N.Y: William Sloane Associates.

Gayarre, C. 1885. Histo7y of Louisiana: The French Domination, Vol. III. New Orleans: Armand Hawkins.

Genovese, E. 1974. Roll, Jordan, Roll. NY. Pantheon.

Goode, G. 1990. "Preachers of the Word and Singers of the Gospel: The Ministry of Women Among Nineteenth Century African Americans." Dissertation: University of Pennsylvania.

Hughes, L. [1897] 1969. Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom. NY. Negro Universities Press Reprint.

Kemble, F A. 1863. A Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation, 1838-1839. N.Y: Harper & Brothers.

Olmstead, F. L. [1861] 1984. The Cotton Kingdom: A Travellers Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States. N.Y: Modem Library.

Parsons, E. C. 1923. Folk-lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina. N.Y: Creative Age Press.

Rawick, G. P., General Editor. 1972, 1977, 1979. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. Westport CT- Greenwood Press.

Wade, R. C. 1964. Slavery in the Cities: The South 1820-1860. N.Y: Oxford University Press.

Wares, L. J. 198 1. "Dress of the African-American Woman in Slavery and Freedom: 1500- 1935." Dissertation: Purdue University.

question: What is the subject of this document?

answer: The subject of this document is the history of headwraps.

question: Who is Elizabeth Botume?

answer: She was among one of the earliest Northern teachers who offered to teach black refugees in South Carolina. She wrote of her experiences with these newly "freed" black people and her documentation has proven an invaluable description of people who were in between a new and old way of life.

question: Describe style as it's depicted in this document.

answer: The author describes style as a studied way of presenting the self, an idea of how one should appear before others.

question: What headwrap originated in sub-Saharan Africa?

answer: There is no mention of a specific style (only that it completely covers the hear), only that African American women's headwraps exhibit the features of sub-Saharan aesthetics and worldview.

question: Describe some symbolic functions of the headwrap.

answer: There was the function of white people maintaining American Southern white power in a society based on racial slavery, and the function of African American women deciding to defy "white code" and wear headwraps to turn it from being shameful into something uniquely their own.

question: When did the headwrap originate?

answer: It's not said when the headwrap originated, but it originated in Sub-Saharan Africa.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The author writes about the African American headwrap and its history and significance.


split: train

text:
The CHURCH OF BENDITAS ALMAS () is a 19th-century church located in the civil parish of Caveira in the municipality of Santa Cruz das Flores, in the Portuguese island of Flores, in the archipelago of the Azores.

History

The beginnings of the church date back to 1767, to a small temple built by José António de Sousa Bettencourt, to the invocation of the _Blessed Souls_ () in the place today occupied by the parish cemetery; a temple long and wide.[1] The land that came to be the church was then the property of João António de Bettencourt, a descendant of its founder, and was it a reasonable state.[2]

On 19 December 1823, by regal charter, King D. John VI, elevated the locality to the status of parish, by request of rector of the neighbouring parish of Lomba, Father José Joaquim de Almeida.[3]

Beginning on 11 August 1835, the parish council and priest made a formal request to the office of the vacated bishopric of Angra, to change its patronage to that of _Our Lady of Deliverance_ ().[4] This was, as they alleged, because the feast day of _Beneditas Almas_ were those days used for funeral rites, and therefore inappropriate for celebrations.[5] The request was denied.[6]

By 1867, an inventory of religious buildings found the church in an almost state of ruin.[7] This was also confirmed in a report by the Civil Governor for the District of Horta, António José Vieira Santa Rita, who considered it lamentable the degree to which the spaces had been conserved.[8] Beginning that year, work began on the construction of the actual church, to the invocation of the _Blessed Souls_. But, the first stone was only laid on 13 June 1870.[9] The construction was slow and difficult, with much of the work completed through parish donations and from Azorean emigres in the United States, among them the Viscount of Silva Figueira. The church was inaugurated on 11 September 1880.[10]

Architecture

The church is implanted in the centre of the agglomeration known locally as Caveira de Cima, along the roadway connecting other arterials, over an elevated platform above the road.[11]

The rectangular church comprises a nave with belltower and presbytery, with a sacristy and annex addorsed to the main body, covered in tiled roof.[12] The principal facade is framed by stonework socles, cornerstones and cornices that encircle the structure over the tower and chapel.[13] Above the cornice is frontispiece divided in three, consisting of a central section decorated by star-shaped oculus flanked by two small stars framed by circumference.[14] At its apex is a cross over rectangular base.[15] The axial doorway with double lintel and cornice is surmounted by a guillotine window at the level of the high-choir.[16] This window, also with double lintel and cornice, have prolong jambs and is decorated in scrolls over the doorway. Above the window cornice are two pinnacles, and a small rosetta framed by circumference[17]

To the left of the facade is located a rectangular bell tower, divided into levels by cornices that encircle the building.[18] At the edge of the frontispiece, is a diamond frame, at the level of the high-choir, while at the belfry there are three faces with rounded archways.[19] The bell tower is also decorated by cornice and surmounted by a bulbous cupola.[20] Access to the belltower and upper body is made from an exterior staircase.[21] The lateral doorways have cornices are loose from the lintels, while overhead there are complementary windows.[22] Each of these have cornices surmounted by pinnacles with central rosetta in relief.

The nave's portico is protected by a wooden windbreak in the interior, that supports the rectangular high-choir (also in wood) with guardrails and balustrade. Six corbels support the structure along each wall.[23] The wall opposite the epistole, at ground floor, has a door that leads to the baptistry situated under the bell tower, and covered in vaulted ceiling.[24] The entirety of the interior is plastered and painted in white. Along the left wall is a pulpit over corbel and with wooden balustrade.[25] To the left of the triumphal archway is a doorway that provides access to the sacristy. Both the pulpit and sacristy doors are decorated within cornices.[26] In the sacristy, to the left of the door connecting it to the nave is a steep staircase to the pulpit protected by wooden balustrade, with a small storage area below it.[27] In the main altar there a doorway to storage and windows on either wall, while the space is dominated by a gilded and polychromatic retable in an eclectic Revivalist style. The ceiling of the nave is covered in wood formed to imitate a vaulted ceiling over cornices.[28]

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title: Church of Benditas Almas (Caveira)

question: Where is the church?

answer: In the civil parish of Caveira in the municipality of Santa Cruz das Flores on the Portuguese island of Flores in the archipelago of the Azores

question: When was the church built?

answer: A small temple was built in 1767, but by 1867 it was found to be in a state of near-ruin; construction began on the current building in 1870, but the church wasn't inaugurated until 1880

question: Why did the parish council and priest request to change the church's patronage?

answer: The fest day of Beneditas Almas fell on the days used for funeral rites, so it was inappropriate for celebrations

question: Who did the parish council and priest request as the new patron for the church?

answer: Our Lady of Deliverance

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The Church of Benditas Almas is a church in the municipality of Santa Cruz das Flores on the isle of Flores in the Azores archipelago. The modern church was constructed between 1870 and 1880, but a small temple existed near the current site about a century prior.


text:
[image]

_Freja Nicholson lost her life to melanoma at just 18 years old. (Photo: Facebook/Freja Nicholson)_

Although the American Cancer Society warns that melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young adults, we are still surprised to hear of cases affecting those under the age of 30. But Jennifer Nicholson from Leeds in the U.K. wants people to know that it can happen to you. Her daughter, Freja, passed away from skin cancer last November at the age of 18.

She says fair-skinned Freja frequently spent hot British summers outside. “There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t wish I could go back and just take five minutes to put sun cream on her delicate young skin when I mistakenly thought there was no danger,” Jennifer told the _Mirror_.

Nicholson spotted a mole on her daughter’s back four years before she died, and it grew from small and brown to lumpy and black. Doctors cut out the mole and did a biopsy on it, but the mole tested negative for cancer. A couple of years later, when Freja was getting pounding headaches, doctors discovered a new lump on her arm. It measured five centimeters, extending under the skin. It was melanoma.

The cancer spread to Freja’s brain, as a scan revealed a stage 3 tumor and a poor prognosis. Doctors removed the tumor, but the cancer returned in the brain, breast, arm, and lung. Even while Freja was ill, her mother recalled that she was in good spirits. She helped raise more than $10,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust before passing away in late 2015.

“It was only then I remembered that mole on her back,” Nicholson said. “I asked if they were related and doctors gently told me I should in no way have let our guard down. … If I’d known, I would have had her covered from head to toe — even in the U.K. sun — but I never dreamt it could lead to cancer.”

Nicholson remembers being extra cautious when her daughters were on vacation, making sure they wore sunscreen with ample SPF. However, at home in England, she mistakenly believed the sun was not “fierce enough to kill.” She told the _Mirror_ that she still suffers from guilt, wishing she could have helped prevent Freja’s death — and she is urging other parents to help guard their kids from the harsh effects of UV radiation. “Don’t make the same mistake, because you will never ever forgive yourself,” she said.

[image]

_Freja Nicholson (Photo: Facebook/Freja Nicholson)_

Like most cancers, skin cancer risk increases with age, according to J. Matthew Knight, MD, section chief of dermatology at Orlando Health. “Pediatric melanoma does happen, though, and it is devastating,” he tells Yahoo Beauty. “I tell people that skin cancer acts kind of like lung cancer does with smoking. You don’t get it right away. All the sun damage that we accumulate in our youth ‘hides’ in our DNA for an average of 25 to 30 years until the skin cancer forms.” Sometimes, that timeline speeds up and results in terrible consequences.

It’s incredibly important to protect adolescents from the sun, says Knight. “Once the damage occurs, there’s nothing that can be done to reverse it,” he says. “You just have to follow up carefully with your dermatologist and hope to catch something as early as possible.”

One in five Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer, and Knight says 90 percent of those cancers are directly attributable to UV exposure. “On average, a person’s risk for melanoma [like Freja had], one of the most serious skin cancers that can be fatal, doubles if they’ve had more than five sunburns,” he says. Tanning beds should also be avoided completely, especially by teens. Using one before age 35 increases your risk of melanoma by 75 percent.

Knight says daily application of sunscreen with SPF 15 or higheris one essential tool for preventing cancer — but not the only tool. “You have to make use of cover-ups, protective hats and shirts, umbrellas, and seek shade during the sun’s peak hours or 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” he says.

According to the CDC, only 13 percent of teen girls and seven percent of teen boys report swiping on SPF 15 sunblock when they’re outside on a sunny day. Over the past year, one third of teens between the ages of 14 and 17 have ended up with a sunburn, a major risk factor for skin cancer.

Nicholson does not want any other young people to suffer her daughter’s fate. She is determined to create a legacy for Freja and raise awareness about the risks of sun exposure. “I tell any parent to keep an eye on any moles on their children,” she told the _Mirror_, and “to do everything they can to protect the whole family from the sun, wherever you are.”

_LET’S KEEP IN TOUCH! FOLLOW YAHOO BEAUTY ONFACEBOOK,TWITTER,INSTAGRAM, ANDPINTEREST._

question: What is Jennifer Nicholson's relationship to Freja?

answer: Jennifer is Freja's mom.

question: How did Freja die?

answer: Freja died of melanoma.

question: How old was Freja?

answer: Freja was 18.

question: What is melanoma?

answer: Melanoma is a type of skin cancer.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Freja Nicholson, 18, died of melanoma. The article uses her case as a cautionary tale concerning the dangers of melanoma.


text:
NJ's community run fighting game tournament & fest. Be sure to check the Facebook event for the most up to date information https://facebook.com/events/1191237584278372

Events

SSB64 Singles - $10 entry - N64

SSB64 Teams - $10 per team - N64

Melee Singles - $10 entry - GC/W

Melee Teams - $20 per team - GC/W

Street Fighter V - $10 entry - PS4

GuiltyGearXrd Revelator - $10 entry - PS4

Skullgirls 2nd Encore - $10 entry - PS4

Side Events

Rivals of Aether - $5 entry - PC

Rivals of Aether Teams - $10 per team - PC

Blazblue: Central Fiction - $5 entry - PS4

The King of Fighters XIV - $5 entry - PS4

Streams / Brackets

Event & Stream Schedules: http://imgur.com/a/p2KDr

Brackets: quarterlyrapport.challonge.com

Stream 1: twitch.tv/8wayrun

Stream 2: twitch.tv/ssb64

Stream 3: twitch.tv/sigmelee

Schedule

Cutoff will be 15 MINUTES before posted start time! Cutoff/start times will be strictly enforced. Tell a TO if there is a chance you will be even slightly late. See Facebook event for the most up to date schedule. We have a lot to do in one day. All times EST / UTC-4

11:00 Venue opens

11:30

12:00 SSBM Teams Starts

12:30

13:00 SSB64 Teams Starts

13:30 GG XrdR Starts

14:00 KOF14 and RoA Teams Starts

14:30

15:00 SSBM Singles Starts

15:30 Skullgirls and SSB64 Singles Starts

16:00 BBCF Singles Starts

16:30 RoA Singles Starts

17:00 SFV Singles Starts

...

23:00 Venue Closes

question: Who is this article geared toward?

answer: This article is geared towards those interested in a fighting game tournament.

question: What are the entry prices for?

answer: The entry prices are for each event.

question: When is the main event?

answer: There is no specific main event.

question: How long does the schedule go on for?

answer: The schedule goes on from 11AM until 11PM.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A schedule with entry prices is listed for a New Jersey community run fighting game tournament and festival.


text:
LUCA DESIATA (born December 10, 1971) is an Italian CEO, latinist and art curator. He was the CEO of SOGIN between 2016 [1] [2] and 2019. [3]

He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine of Latin crosswords Hebdomada Aenigmatum [4][5][6][7][8] and of the magazine of crosswords in Ancient Greek Onomata Kechiasmena.[9] He is the curator of the “Corporate Art Awards”. He has been the CEO of SOGIN since 2016.[10]

Classical Languages

He founded Hebdomada Aenigmatum[11][12] in June 2014 under the pseudonym of Lucas Cupidus and Onomata Kechiasmena in May 2015 with the name of Λουκᾶς Δεσιάτα.

He organized numerous events for students and professionals, in order to foster the use of Latin and ancient Greek in modern society: the first _Certamen Aenigmatum Latinorum_ (Latin Enigmatic Olympiad[13][14]) at the X Festival Européen Latin-Grec at the École normale supérieure de Lyon; the seminar “Business Latin - Latin expressions for the modern manager” for the association of Enel executives;[15] several presentations about “Latin in the Internet age”, of which two in 2017 at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.[16][17]

On December 5, 2016 in Rome, he signed a memorandum of understanding with the Italian Ministry of Education to promote the use of Latin and Greek crosswords as a tool to facilitate learning ancient languages.[18]

Corporate Art

Under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Culture, in 2016 he organized the first edition of the “Corporate Art Awards”, with the aim to recognize the best art projects of the Corporate World.[19][20][21]

In the 2017 edition, the scope of the Corporate Art Awards was extended to include the Institutional world, too. Therefore the program was renamed “Mecenati of the XXI century”.[22][23][24] The 2017 Awards Ceremony was hosted by the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal Palace.[25]

In 2015 Desiata curated the Corporate Art exhibit at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome .[26][27][28]

He was a professor of Corporate art at LUISS Business School between 2014 and 2016. In 2014 he founded pptArt, the first art-crowdsourcing platform.[29][30]

Management

In July 2016 he was nominated Chief Executive Officer of SOGIN,[31] the Italian state owned company responsible for the decommissioning of the Italian nuclear plants. In September 2017, he submitted the Italian nuclear decommissioning program to an independent peer review of the International Atomic Energy Agency.[32][33][34]

From 1995 to 2002 he worked for Procter & Gamble, Accenture and Bain. From 2002 to 2006, he joined the World Bank in Belgrade as an advisor to the Privatization Agency of the Republic of Serbia. From 2006 to 2016 he held different roles in Enel. He holds an engineering degree at the University of Pisa, a diploma at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and an MBA at Insead Business School.

He was awarded the Italian national honour of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity in 2006.[35]

Forbes included him in the Italian list of the 2019 winning managers.[36] In May 2018 he ranked 24th in TopManager’s reputation ranking of Italian top managers.[37]

Other activities

He is the author of “Scacchi e strategie aziendali” (Chess and Corporate Strategy) with Anatoly Karpov, 12th chess world champion, and Rocco Sabelli, former Ceo of Alitalia .

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title: Luca Desiata

question: What does Luca Desiata do?

answer: He is a CEO, latinist and art curator.

question: What nationality does Luca Desiata hold?

answer: Italian.

question: What company was Luca Desiata the CEO of between 2016 and 2019?

answer: SOGIN.

question: What magazine did Luca Desiata found?

answer: A Latin crosswords magazine, Hebdomada Aenigmatum.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about Luca Desiata, an Italian CEO, Latinist and art critic.


text:
JOHN PATRICK GRECO, JR. (born March 24, 1985) is a former American football guard. He was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the third round of the 2008 NFL Draft. He played college football at the University of Toledo.

Early years

Greco was named First-team All-Conference and Second-team All-region as a senior and was Second-team All-Conference as a junior at Boardman High School in Youngstown, Ohio.

College career

At the University of Toledo, he was a three-time All-MAC honoree at left tackle. As a freshman, in 2004, he started at right tackle. In college, he allowed 6.5 sacks in two years. He started 36 games and recorded 275 knockdowns and 34 touchdown-resulting blocks during his three seasons at left tackle. In 2007, he started all 12 games for Toledo and earned First-team All-MAC for the third consecutive season and was a Third-team All-America by Rivals.com after allowing only three sacks on 411 pass plays. As a junior in 2006 he was the team co-captain started all 13 games at left tackle, earning First-team All-MAC honors. As a sophomore in 2005 Greco was First-team All-MAC in his first season at left tackle. He took over left tackle position after graduation of Nick Kaczur. He opened holes for an offense that ranked 13th in the nation in rushing (216.8 yards per game) and 10th in scoring (25.8 points per game). As a freshman in 2004 he started all 13 games at right tackle and earned the team's top freshman award. He redshirted as a true freshman in 2003.

Professional career

St. Louis Rams

Greco was selected 65th overall in the third round for the St. Louis Rams in the 2008 NFL Draft. On June 12, 2008, Greco signed a three-year, $1.794 million contract with the Rams, with the deal including a $644,000 signing bonus. He spent 2008 as a backup; due to injuries he started one game at the end of the 2008 NFL season.

Cleveland Browns

After three seasons in St. Louis, the Rams traded Greco to the Cleveland Browns for a conditional seventh round draft pick in the 2012 NFL Draft on July 31, 2011.[1] Greco started 12 games in the 2012 season, after an injury to Jason Pinkston. He played very well, finishing among the highest ranked guards in the league for blocking percentage.

On July 23, 2013, Greco signed a five-year contract extension with the Browns, worth a maximum of $13 million with $3 million guaranteed.[2][3] On October 12, 2014, Greco played at center for the first time of his career after Alex Mack left due to a broken fibula.

Greco would miss the last two games of the 2015 season due to spraining one of his MCLs.[4]

In 2016, Greco started 12 games at right guard and center and didn't miss an offensive snap all season before sustaining a foot injury in Week 12 of the 2016 season and was placed on injured reserve on November 28, 2016.[5]

On September 2, 2017, Greco was released by the Browns.[6]

New Orleans Saints

On October 4, 2017, Greco was signed by the New Orleans Saints.[7] He was released on November 8, 2017.[8]

New York Giants

On November 14, 2017, Greco signed with the New York Giants.[9]

On February 21, 2018, Greco re-signed with the Giants.[10] He played in 15 games, starting seven at both center and right guard.

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title: John Greco

question: Summarize the events that made Greco want to become a professional football player.


text:
[]

If there was an announcement made today that Sam Raimi was going to direct a movie from a screenplay written by The Coen Brothers (starring Bruce Campbell, no less), I don’t think there’s a film geek alive who wouldn’t lose their mind. Based on their impressive filmographies and the cult followings that both have amassed, a collaboration of this magnitude would be a cinematic event like no other. But what if I told you that such a movie already existed, and not only did it bomb at the box office, but still remains to this day, exceedingly hard to find on DVD?

Back at the beginning of their careers, Sam Raimi and The Coen Brothers were all a part of the same scene of up-and-coming Midwest filmmakers, and Joel Coen landed one of his first film gigs as assistant editor on _The Evil Dead_. A couple of years later, The Coen Brothers had written and directed their first film, _Blood Simple_, and Raimi was developing his next movie. He asked The Coens to write the script for him, and the result was _Crimewave_.

Originally titled _The XYZ Murders_, this was Raimi’s first time working with an actual studio, and it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Raimi described it as the worst time of his life, and Bruce Campbell has not so fond memories of a miserable winter shoot in Detroit and all kinds of studio interference, as told in his book _If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor_:

“Crimewave was a lesson about abject failure — no matter how you slice it, the film was a dog, and everyone involved can pretty much line up and take forty whacks. As filmmakers, we failed to execute a misguided concept and our studio refused us the benefit of any doubt.”

The movie follows two psychotic hitmen who double as exterminators (played by Brion James and Paul Smith). They are hired by the co-owner of a security company to eliminate his partner, who is trying to sell the business behind his back to Renaldo aka “The Heel” (Bruce Campbell). Along the way a number of people accidentally cross paths with the hitmen, leading to a series of goofy chase scenes and cartoony murders, until they encounter a nerdy security technician (Reed Birney) who is trying to win the heart of a girl (Sheree J. Wilson).

Raimi is known for his love of _The Three Stooges_, but I have never seen it shine through quite like it does in Crimewave. The movie is filled with all kinds of weird slapstick moments and cartoon sound effects. There are plenty of POV shots and silly set pieces, culminating in a pretty epic high-speed three car chase sequence. Some of the stunts are impressive, while others are pretty campy and fake-looking.

This is Sam Raimi at his most hyper real, and I can see it turning off a lot of viewers. Anyone who disliked the dance scene in the jazz club from _Spider-Man 3_, for example, will probably hate this movie. I still had a lot of fun to watching all the camera tricks and the hammy performances from Bruce Campbell et al, however the movie itself is very nearly incoherent.

It’s hard to say how much influence The Coen Brothers actually had on this movie. Their quirky sense of humour seems to permeate some of the proceedings, although the dialogue itself is certainly not on the same level of cleverness that they are known for today. The Coens would go on to direct _Hudsucker Proxy_ afterward, which Sam Raimi co-wrote and Bruce Campbell starred in (incidentally, Crimewave also has a prison in it called “Hudsucker Penitentiary”). Raimi would return to his independent roots to shoot _Evil Dead 2_.

I can certainly understand why Crimewave has been sort of abandoned, and left hidden from the public eye. It’s not a particularly brilliant movie, and it’s easily one of the weakest projects that any of these great filmmakers have been involved in. I can also understand why the studio execs might have been a little bit unhappy with the final product, especially considering that it went over budget (the Columbia Pictures logo at the start of the film seems very out of place). Still, this is a movie that will certainly be of interest to hardcore Sam Raimi fans, and it has its share of fun moments. If you can get your hands on a copy without paying through the nose, I’d still recommend giving it a chance.

question: Why is it special that Sam Raimi directs a movie written by the Coen brothers?

answer: All these people have impressive filmographies.

question: Explain the reasons behind Crimewave being terrible.

answer: The director was too new, the studio didn't trust in him, and the whole concept was misguided according to the movie's star Bruce Campbell.

question: Whose fault was it that made the movie terrible?

answer: Everyone involved bombed.

question: Summarize Crimewave's plot.

answer: The movie is about two psychotic hitmen hired by a co-owner of a security firm who wants to kill his partner to sell the firm behind his back to Renaldo. Several people cross their way, resulting in cartoonish murders and goofy chase scenes throughout.

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer: There's a movie directed by Sam Raimi, written by the Coen brothers, and starring Bruce Campbell. Most movie aficionados would be salivating, but it's Sam Raimi's first time working with a studio as a director. Bruce Campbell writes in his book that the entire film was a lesson about abject failure from start to finish. The movie is about two psychotic hitmen hired by a co-owner of a security firm who wants to kill his partner to sell the firm. The movie is goofy and often clunky. It's rare to find without paying through the nose, but Raimi fans may appreciate it still.


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Google is cracking down on cryptocurrency-related advertising.

The company is updating its financial services-related ad policies to ban any advertising about cryptocurrency-related content, including initial coin offerings (ICOs), wallets, and trading advice, Google's director of sustainable ads, Scott Spencer, told CNBC.

That means that even companies with legitimate cryptocurrency offerings won't be allowed to serve ads through any of Google's ad products, which place advertising on its own sites as well as third-party websites.

This update will go into effect in June 2018, according to a company post.

"We don't have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we've seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it's an area that we want to approach with extreme caution," Scott said.

Google's hard-line approach follows a similar ban that Facebook announced earlier this year.

While the crypto-currency boom has produced a lot of excitement and wealth, it's still a largely unregulated space and has spawned countless high-profile scams.

This news comes as Google releases its annual "trust and safety" ads report.

Google said it took down more than 3.2 billion ads in 2017 that violated its policies, which is nearly double the 1.7 billion it removed the year before.

Google parent company Alphabet makes roughly 84 percent of its total revenue from advertising, so convincing advertisers that its ecosystem is safe and effective is critically important.

WATCH: If you own bitcoin, here's how much you owe in taxes

question: What is Google trying to ban?

answer: Cryptocurrency advertising.

question: Why?

answer: They have seen enough consumer harm or potential consumer harm.

question: What are some cons of cryptocurrency?

answer: It's a largely unregulated space, vulnerable to spikes and scams.

question: How much money does Google parent company alphabet make off ads?

answer: 84% of its total revenue.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Google is trying to enact measures to inhibit and even ban the online advertising of cryptocurrency. While it is a hot topic and exciting to many, the largely unregulated space, Google argues, is vulnerable to spikes in price and high-profile scams. In 2017 alone Google says they removed 3.2 billion ads that violated their "trust and safety" policies, aimed at protecting consumers. Since their parent company, Alphabet, makes about 84% of its revenue from advertising, this is expected to be an ongoing conversation.


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The STANFORD UNIVERSITY ARRILLAGA FAMILY ROWING AND SAILING CENTER (or STANFORD ROWING AND SAILING CENTER) is a boating facility utilized by Stanford Cardinal Athletics for sailing and rowing sporting activities. It is located at the Port of Redwood City along Redwood creek in Redwood City, California.

History

The Stanford Rowing and Sailing Center has a long history dating back to 1905 when undergraduates at the university saw a need for a boathouse for intercollegiate competition.[1] The first boathouse was constructed along Redwood Creek and remained active for the next 10 years there.

In 1913, another boathouse was built on campus on the edge of Lake Lagunita for Freshmen, spring practice, and campus recreation.[2] Due to the onset of the World War I, rowing dwindled in popularity and revenues fell from sporting events; there was no longer any way to financially support the rowing team.[3]

In 1929, the student body voted to reinstate crew as a sport and acquiring boats and shells with which to compete. In 1940 the Cardinal Crew made a comeback once again and with a new boathouse at the Redwood City Harbor.[4] However, once again, the onset of war (this time World War II) brought the end of rowing, and the new boathouse was locked up. Use of the boathouse only resumed in 1947.[5]

Modern day

In 2004, there was resistance from homeowners in Redwood Shores to having Stanford boats stored near their properties.[6] This in part spurred forward the building of the current center which still stands today.

The modern Stanford Rowing and Sailing Center is located alongside Redwood Creek in Redwood City and was built in 2003 to replace older facilities.[7] It is a boathouse that cost to build. The building was designed by Hoover Associates and contains accommodation for both men's and women's crew and sailing with a second level with locker areas, exercise facilities, and a large function room.[8] The center also hosts many youth rowing and sailing groups, often sharing dock and launch space with the nearby Marine Science Institute.[9]

Gallery

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  File:Stanford boathouse 1913.png|Boathouse located on the edge of Lake Lagunita built in 1913. File:Stanford Rowing & Sailing Center pier 1.jpg|Launch piers File:Stanford Rowing & Sailing Center rear 1.jpg|Rear of the center File:Stanford Rowing & Sailing Center side 2.JPG|Side view with boats File:Stanford Rowing Camp 2010-07-13 4.JPG|Rowing on Redwood Creek File:Stanford sailing team practicing on Redwood Creek 2010-10-13 12.JPG|Close quarters sailing File:Stanford sailing team practicing on Redwood Creek 2010-10-13 9.JPG|Sailing practice
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question: What is the Arrillaga Family Rowing and Sailing Center?

answer: A boating facility

question: Where is the Arrillaga Family Rowing and Sailing Center located?

answer: The Port of Redwood City California.

question: When was the the Arrillaga Family Rowing and Sailing Center built?

answer: Presumably 1905, although that isn't explicitly stated.

question: What is the purpose of the Arrillaga Family Rowing and Sailing Center?

answer: It is used by Stanford Cardinal Athletics for sailing and rowing sporting activities

question: Summarize everything concerning the Arrillaga Family Rowing and Sailing Center in the year 1913.

answer: In 1913, another boathouse was built on compus. Rowing became less popular due to World War I.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The Arrillaga Family Rowing and Sailing Center is a boating facility that has been around since 1905. It is located in Redwood City, California and is used by Stanford Cardinal Athletics for sailing and rowing sporting activities.


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_PAPURANA DAEMELI_ is a species of “true frog”, family Ranidae. It is found in New Guinea, northern Australia, and some smaller islands (Yapen, New Hanover Island, New Britain).[1][2] It is the only ranid frog found in Australia.[3] In Australia, the species is restricted to the rainforest of northern Queensland and the eastern border of Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. In Australia, it is usually known as WOOD FROG[4][5][6] (though in North America this would refer to _Lithobates sylvaticus_) or sometimes as WATER FROG.[7] Other vernacular names are AUSTRALIAN WOOD FROG, AUSTRALIAN BULLFROG, and ARNHEM RANA.[8][9]

Description

Males can grow to and females to in snout–vent length;[10] typical size for Australia are in males and in females.[11] The body is elongated and the limbs are long and muscular.[12] The tympanum is distinct and relatively larger in males than in females.[13] A dorso-lateral skin fold runs from behind the eye to the hindlimb.[14] Skin is smooth or weakly granular. The face mask is not prominent; the dark loreal stripe is often incomplete and the post-ocular stripe is discontinuous and not clearly defined. The dorsum is dark brown above and usually becomes lighter on the sides. Ventral grounds colour varies from dirty white to light straw and is superimposed by some gray clouding.[15]

Males have paired, lateral vocal sacs.[16] The male advertisement call is a distinctive, 2–5 note pulsed call. It has been described sounding like duck quacking or exaggerated, sneering laugh.[17] Tadpoles can grow to in total length and have long tails.[18]

Ecology and behaviour

_Papurana daemeli_ is a semi-aquatic species. It occurs in rainforests, seasonally dry monsoon forests, and tropical woodlands, usually in association with permanent bodies of standing or slow-moving water (streams, swamps, lakes, pools, puddles, and lagoons). It can also occur in disturbed habitats, such as rural gardens and urban areas. Individuals usually hide among dense vegetation near water.[19] In New Guinea it has been found up to above sea level.[20] Males call from near water at different times of the year.[21][22]

_Papurana daemeli_ preys upon arthropods (spiders, shrimps, cockroaches, grasshoppers, beetles, moths) and other frogs.[23][24]

Conservation

_Papurana daemeli_ is one of the most common and widespread frogs in New Guinea.[25] In Australia it is locally common.[26] It is consumed as food in New Guinea, but no significant threats to it are known. It occurs in several protected areas.[27]

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title: Papurana daemeli

question: Describe the line behind the eyes.

answer: The stripe is discontinuous and not clearly defined.

question: What sound does the male frog make?

answer: It makes a 2 to 5 note pulsed call that sounds like the quack of a duck or an exaggerated sneering laugh.

question: What threatens the existence of the frogs.

answer: While the frogs have no significant threats, people eat them in New Guinea.

question: Where do the frogs live?

answer: It is found in New Guinea, northern Australia, and some smaller islands. It occurs in rainforests, seasonally dry monsoon forests, and tropical woodlands, usually close to permanent bodies of standing or slow-moving water (streams, swamps, lakes, pools, puddles, and lagoons). It can also occur in disturbed habitats, such as rural gardens and urban areas. Individuals usually hide among dense vegetation near water.

question: What colloquial names does the frog go by?

answer: The wood frog, the water frog, AUSTRALIAN WOOD FROG, AUSTRALIAN BULLFROG, and ARNHEM RANA


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November 27th, 1933 a sweet little girl with red hair and curls was born in County Cavan, Ireland. With the face of a cherub, this little girl had brothers and sisters and strong willed parents with a beautiful and interesting history following behind her. Born not only into a prominent family history, but money as well, this sweet little red headed girl with curls like ringlets went off to boarding school where the Nuns would teach her right from wrong, how to be a lady and where she would ask questions they would deem inappropriate. Running around with friends causing mayhem, this little girl would grow up with hands often touched by a ruler’s edge, and permanently scared knees due to kneeling on raw rice. As this tiny little girl began to grow into a woman, she began to experience changes-both emotionally, and physically-this was all under the wide umbrella of topics deemed inappropriate to discuss with anyone according to the Nun’s, so the little girl turning into a young lady remained silent. She remained silent for many moons, until one night on a train back from a field trip she went to use the train lavatory and ran out screaming and crying. She was bleeding to death. She was going to die. She wouldn’t make it home to see her family again. By now, a dear, lovely Nun found it impertinent to intervene and clear the matter up as efficiently as possible without going into too much detail about the inappropriate topic of womanhood.

“My dear little child, what are you screaming about?,” said the Nun.

“Oh Sister! I need you to give me my last rights! I’m bleeding to death!” said the young lady.

“You are? Where?”

“I’m bleeding…I’m bleeding from…” the young lady began to blush and could not finish her sentence without stumbling over her words.

“Yes child? I need you to tell me. Where are you bleeding from?

“I…I’m bleeding from…my genitals sister. I’m bleeding to death!” At this, the young girl began to sob with her face in her hands, and shoulders shaking profusely.

“Oh my child. You are not dying. But I do believe it is time we have a long talk. Come with me”

And that was the day this little girl, became a young lady.

Years later and this same young woman was carving a path for herself all through Europe, leaving a trail of blazing fire wherever she went. Full of life and love and adventures ready to be had she made her way to London at the very ripe age of 18. There may have been bad times happening, but my god she was not going to let that bring her down. With a wealthy family along side her, she was trailing through London leaving a string of broken hearted young men behind her. Until the day this fresh faced 18 year old beautiful woman met an American man here in the American Air force. It was a quick romance before, with the support of her family, this young and handsome couple decided to be joined in holy matrimony.  A few very short months later, the newly wedded couple was expecting their first child, but alas, the young husband had to fly home to America for his military and family duties. The young, pregnant wife was to follow shortly. At 8 months pregnant, she did. She missed her family and home in Europe already, but she was ready to join her husband and begin their American life together with their new baby. It was a future full of promises.

title: Joan Lovendoski, Part 1

question: Where was the girl sent off to?

answer: The girl was sent to boarding school.

question: Where did the girl become a woman?

answer: The girl became a woman on a train back from a field trip.

question: Where did the girl meet her husband?

answer: The girl met her husband in London.

question: Where does the husband work?

answer: The husband works in the American Air Force.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: A young girl was born and grows up in a boarding school, taught by nuns. When she grows up she moves to London and marries an American, and then moves to America.