Utopia is the fifth studio album by industrial metal band Gothminister, released on 17 May 2013 on the label AFM Records. It is their first album following the signing with AFM in December 2012.
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Bjørn Alexander Brem.
Reception
The album got a mixed review by Ulf Kubanke for the website laut.de while Eric May of the New Noise Magazine gave it a rather positive review.
The game, taking place in the future, on a new planet, is open-ended.
It is the player's task to colonize the new planet, manage the colony and raise the quality of life for the citizen in order to reach utopia.
Initially the player has a few colonists with a lot to do. The player needs to build everything from scratch. Building takes time and free colonists, in addition to money. Buildings under construction are depicted by scaffold.
However certain buildings require personnel (hospitals, labs, mines, factories, shipyards ...) and therefore the player has to engage in population management. The player also has to micromanage features such as tax rate, birth rate and trade.
Utopia, titled Dreamland in the UK and US, is a Logie Award winning Australian television comedy series by Working Dog Productions which premiered on ABC1 on 13 August 2014. The eight-part series follows the working lives of a team in the Nation Building Authority, a newly created government organisation. The Authority is responsible for overseeing major infrastructure projects, from announcement to unveiling. The series explores the collision between bureaucracy and grand ambitions. The second series aired in 2015, beginning with the first episode on 19 August 2015.
Background
Utopia is written and produced by three of the founding members of Working Dog Productions: Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner. It is produced by Michael Hirsh, directed by Sitch who also stars as one of the main characters Tony, and casting managed by Jane Kennedy. When casting, Sitch wanted to have actors that possessed a certain acting style, that appeared as if nothing absurd was going on. Sitch described the series as being about "the currency of grand dreams". He described that the idea of the "Nation Building Authority" was to portray it as one of those things that got set up in a bit of a mad rush and that under all the grand dreams there was a white elephant waiting to appear.Utopia continues on the satirical themes of other Working Dog works such as Frontline and The Hollowmen. Sitch also noted that the series was more observational than satirical and that it depicted how organisations may or may not function. When creating the show, Gleisner said the production team spoke to people who worked with government authorities and had experienced for themselves the daily unpredictabilities of working in these environments.
A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event, or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or as an example of historic architecture. The term 'monument' is often applied to buildings or structures that are considered examples of important architectural and/or cultural heritage.
Etymology
The origin of the word "monument" comes from the Latin moneo, monere, which means 'to remind', 'to advise' or 'to warn', suggesting a monument allows us to see the past thus helping us visualize what is to come in the future. In English the word "monumental" is often used in reference to something of extraordinary size and power, as in monumental sculpture, but also to mean simply anything made to commemorate the dead, as a funerary monument or other example of funerary art.
Creation and functions
Monuments have been created for thousands of years, and they are often the most durable and famous symbols of ancient civilizations. Prehistoric tumuli, dolmens, and similar structures have been created in a large number of prehistoric cultures across the world, and the many forms of monumental tombs of the more wealthy and powerful members of a society are often the source of much of our information and art from those cultures. As societies became organized on a larger scale, so monuments so large as to be difficult to destroy like the EgyptianPyramids, the GreekParthenon, the Great Wall of China, IndianTaj Mahal or the Moai of Easter Island have become symbols of their civilizations. In more recent times, monumental structures such as the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower have become iconic emblems of modern nation-states. The term monumentality relates to the symbolic status and physical presence of a monument.
Grafotechna (Grafotechna n. p., Závod 5, Výroba písma, mosazných linek a matric) was a Czechoslovakian type foundry, created in 1951. It ceased to exist after 1990. It was the only manufacturer of metal types in the former Czechoslovakia.
Among other things, it manufactured fonts designed by Czech type designers Oldřich Menhart and Josef Týfa.
Monument is a science fiction novel written by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. and published in 1974. The subject of destructive tourism is serious, but as usual with Biggle, the treatment is in a lighter vein, and at times frankly humorous.
Monument was based on a short story (novelette) of the same name published in Analog magazine in 1961. The novel was optioned in 1979 and was to be the premiere film of Spacefilms, but never materialized. The film was co-written by Biggle and Spacefilms founder John Flory. The novel is dedicated "To John, Bee and Jack Flory, who had a vision."
Plot summary
A nondescript spacer with little education named Cerne Obrien finds a cache of extremely valuable "retron crystals", but crashes on an idyllic planet before he can sell them. The planet has a single continent, inhabited by humans with a Polynesian culture. The natives live contented lives, hunting a horrific sea-creature called the koluf, which constitutes almost their entire diet. Obrien uses his surviving technology to rid the area of several pests, and eventually marries. The natives come to call him the "Langri", a title of deep respect.
I got the message in my mailbox Nobody goes to church no more They're closing down your little altar They've locked the sanctuary door Don't fight it Who can say that you didn't try Don't fight it Old soldiers never die Where will I go to leave my offering To think about how life's so queer And listen to the little choir The sermon I don't care to hear Don't fight it Who can say that it's not the end Don't fight it And if we don't meet again I know somewhere a monument Stands in the name of our love Somewhere are monuments Standing in the name of our love I've seen such strange times Seems like lifetimes Sometimes good and sometimes bad And I don't see how it could Have been much different
Terrace on the Park, Flushing Meadows, Queens. Photo. Owen Davies... Here they kind of soak up the light and it really amplifies the texture, so I started to see them as monuments left behind from some kind of a failed utopia.” ... Photo. Owen Davies ... Photo.
In between, we are treated to a smorgasbord of writing which relates, either directly or indirectly, to the collection’s theme — Utopia. Or, in the words of the blurb, “Twidle, in quixotic mood, sets out to snatch utopia from the jaws of dystopia.”.
Its subtitle, In Search of Britain’s Utopias, leads us to expect one of those comic Brysonesque travel books, a road trip in search of idealists and eccentrics ... Their mission is to discover utopia ... Utopia is nowhere.
“They’re clearing the way for the Olympic Games,” Yann Manzi, a member of the migrant aid group Utopia 56, told the Associated Press during Wednesday’s police operation in central Paris.
Adding to the tour’s buzz is the monumental success of UTOPIA, deemed the biggest hip-hop release of 2023 ... Don’t miss your chance to experience the UTOPIA – Circus Maximus Tour.
Show additional share options ... The 32-year-old hip-hop star kicked off his Utopia tour at the Italian capital’s monumental site — once the Roman Empire’s chariot racecourse — to a crowd of around 60,000 eager fans ... ....
Travis Scott’s monumental album UTOPIA has secured its place as the standout hip-hop release of 2023, boasting an impressive 500,000 album units sold in its debut week and a staggering 650 million global streams.
Wanetta Hillis (not pictured) and the late Harvey Donoho were also instrumental in organizing making the monument a reality ... Veterans Sid Chaney and JohnnyAbbott with the newly-dedicated veterans’ monument on the UtopiaTown Square.
They were not as hardy as their counterparts in Cades Cove, but they left behind a beautifully-preserved trove of buildings as a monument to their good intentions — and the folly of utopia.
On mainstream news programmes this week, reporters and commentators have enthused about the monumental symbolism of Sunak becoming PM – a fact that was compounded by the coincidence of the announcement falling on Diwali.
Keep UtopiaBeautiful ... Funds from the BigGive this year are designated toward the purchase and erection of a monument on the Town Square honoring veterans from the Utopia and Vanderpool communities.
The Maryville Daily Times
11 May 2023
The Maryville Daily Times
11 May 2023