George Harrison “never thought he was any good” as a guitarist, says his son Dhani, and so “he focused on touch and control… not hitting any off notes, not making strings buzz, not playing anything that would jar you.” Harrison himself put it this way, in typically self-effacing, mystical fashion: “I play the notes you never hear.” Of course, as most every thoughtful guitar player will tell you, these are exactly the makings of a good—and in Harrison’s case, great—guitarist. A dime a dozen are players who can play speed runs and flashy solos, who have learned every lick from their favorite songs and can re-produce them exactly. But it’s the sensitivity—the personal “touch and control” over the instrument—that matters most, and that can make a player’s tone impossible to duplicate. Harrison’s playing, Dhani says, “is the reason no one can really cover the Beatles faithfully…. At some point there’s going to be a George Harrison solo, and that solo is usually perfect.”
I would certainly say that is the case with the guitar solo in “Here Comes the Sun.” Oh, you’ve never heard it? That’s because the song, as it was originally released on 1969’s Abbey Road didn’t have one. For whatever reason, George Martin decided to leave it out, and the song, we might agree, is perfect without it. But the solo—rediscovered by Martin and Dhani Harrison—is also perfect. You can hear a version of the song with the solo restored at the top of the post, courtesy of Youtube user Kanaal van DutchDounpour. And above, see Dhani, Martin, and Martin’s son Giles rediscovering the solo, which Martin had forgotten about, while playing around with the master tracks of the song in 2012. (The second video first appeared on our site that same year.) At 1:01, the solo suddenly appears. Martin leans in and listens attentively and Dhani says, “It’s totally different to anything I’ve ever heard.” It’s unmistakable Harrison, the “liquid quality” Jayson Greene identified in a Pitchfork appreciation, more evocative of “a zither, a clarinet—something more delicate, nuanced and lyrical than an electric guitar.”
Impossible, I’d say, to duplicate. Even the younger Harrison—perhaps the most faithful interpreter of George’s music—finds himself fudging his father’s solos when covering his songs, playing his own instead. Harrison, says Tom Petty, always had a way of “finding the right thing to play. That was part of the Beatles magic.” He may not be remembered as the most virtuoso of guitarists, he may not have thought much of his own playing, but no one has ever played like him, before or since. See Harrison play an acoustic rendition of “Here Comes the Sun”—sans solo—above at the concert for Bangladesh.
(Note: some readers have pointed out that the solo at the top of the post sounds out of tune. We do not doubt that it is George Harrison’s playing, but it has been edited and possibly even sped up to match the final mastered recording. This is not a professional remix, but only a rough recreation of what the song might have sounded like had the lost solo been included.)
“It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard—even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope.”
The secessionist battle cry has long captivated Civil War scholars. A fixture of literature as well as eyewitness accounts, its actual sound was a matter of conjecture. It lent itself to colorful description. Phonetic renderings could not hope to reproduce the chilling effect:
“Rrrrrr-yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip!” -H. Allen Smith
Of course, the Rebel Yell is far from the only sound to have struck a note of dread during The Civil War. Hoofbeats, the crackle of flames, a white voice commanding you to leave your hiding place…
By the time the harmless-looking grandpas in the archival footage above donned their old uniforms to demonstrate the yell, the war had been over for sixty-five years.
There’s a clear sense of occasion. The old fellows’ pipes are impressive, though one begins to understand why there was never consensus regarding the actual sound of the thing.
Linguist Allen Walker Read concluded that the yell—aka the “Pibroch of the Confederacy,” a vocal legacy of blue painted Celtic warriors facing down the Roman army—was a stress-related, full body response. Ergo, any hollering done after 1865 was a facsimile.
At least one veteran agreed. In Ken Burn’s Civil War documentary, Shelby Foote recalled how one of them refused to oblige eager listeners at a society dinner, claiming he could only execute it at a run, and certainly not with “a mouth full of false teeth and a belly full of food.”
I had to remind my boy that this was once a serious thing. To quote Henry “Dr. Livingston, I Presume” Stanley, who participated in the Battle of Shiloh as a 21-year-old enlistee on the Southern side:
It drove all sanity and order from among us. It served the double purpose of relieving pent-up feelings, and transmitting encouragement along the attacking line. I rejoiced in the shouting like the rest. It reminded me that there were about four hundred companies like the Dixie Greys, who shared our feelings. Most of us, engrossed with the musket-work, had forgotten the fact; but the wave after wave of human voices, louder than all other battle-sounds together, penetrated to every sense, and stimulated our energies to the utmost.
Note: Anyone with an Amazon account (at least in the US) can watch this pilot in HD for free here.
This week, The New Yorker officially celebrates its 90th anniversary with an expanded edition that revisits its many accomplishments since it first printed copies on February 21, 1925. Led by David Remnick, only the magazine’s fifth editor, The New Yorker has a rich past. But it has a future to consider too. Recently, the magazine launched the pilot of The New Yorker Presents — a “docu-series” that brings The New Yorker aesthetic to film. The 30-minute pilot (above, and also free on Amazon here) “features a doc from Oscar winner Jonathan Demme based on Rachel Aviv’s article ‘A Very Valuable Reputation,’ writer Ariel Levy interviewing artist Marina Abramovic, a sketch from Simon Rich and Alan Cumming, poetry read by Andrew Garfield, and cartoons by Emily Flake.”
If you like what you see, you’re in luck. The show, produced by Amazon Studios, has been greenlit for a full season. According to Real Screen, the new episodes will debut exclusively on Amazon Prime’s video-on-demand service in the U.S., UK and Germany later this year. When the episodes are out, we’ll let you know.
In November, we presented for you a quick way to download The Complete Sherlock Holmes — not knowing that, a few months later, a lost Sherlock Holmes story, seemingly attributed to Arthur Conan Doyle, would be discovered in an attic in Scotland.
The story, The Guardian writes, was “part of a pamphlet printed in 1903 to raise money to restore a bridge in the Scottish border town of Selkirk.” Discovered by the historian Walter Elliot, the tale entitled “Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, By Deduction, the Brig Bazaar” can be read below, thanks to Vulture.
In 2013, a US judge ruled that Sherlock Holmes stories now belonged in the public domain. The same would appear to hold true for this happily discovered, 1300-word story. You can find more Sherlock Holmes stories in our collection of Free eBooks.
“Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, By Deduction, the Brig Bazaar”
We’ve had enough of old romancists and the men of travel” said the Editor, as he blue-pencilled his copy, and made arrangements for the great Saturday edition of the Bazaar Book. “We want something up-to-date. Why not have a word from ‘Sherlock Holmes?’ ”
Editors have only to speak and it is done, at least, they think so. “Sherlock Holmes!” As well talk of interviewing the Man in the Moon. But it does not do to tell Editors all that you think. I had no objections whatever, I assured the Editor, to buttonhole “Sherlock Holmes,” but to do so I should have to go to London.
“London!” scornfully sniffed the Great Man. “And you profess to be a journalist? Have you never heard of the telegraph, the telephone, or the phonograh? Go to London! And are you not aware that all journalists are supposed to be qualified members of the Institute of Fiction, and to be qualified to make use of the Faculty of Imagination? By the use of the latter men have been interviewed, who were hundreds of miles away; some have been ‘interviewed’ without either knowledge or consent. See that you have a topical article ready for the press for Saturday. Good day.”
I was dismissed and had to find copy by hook or by crook. Well, the Faculty of Imagination might be worth a trial.
The familiar house in Sloan Street met my bewildered gaze. The door was shut, the blinds drawn. I entered; doors are no barrier to one who uses the Faculty of Imagination. The soft light from an electric bulb flooded the room. “Sherlock Holmes” sits by the side of the table; Dr Watson is on his feet about to leave for the night. Sherlock Holmes, as has lately been shown by a prominent journal, is a pronounced Free Trader. Dr. Watson is a mild Protectionist, who would take his gruelling behind a Martello tower, as Lord Goschen wittily put it, but not “lying down!” The twain had just finished a stiff argument on Fiscal policy. Holmes loq—
“And when shall I see you again, Watson? The inquiry into the ‘Mysteries of the Secret Cabinet’ will be continued in Edinburgh on Saturday. Do you mind a run down to Scotland? You would get some capital data which you might turn to good account later.”
“I am very sorry,” replied Dr Watson, “I should have liked to have gone with you, but a prior engagement prevents me. I will, however, have the pleasure of being in kindly Scottish company that day. I, also, am going to Scotland.”
“Ah! Then you are going to the Border country at that time?”
“How do you know that?”
“My dear Watson, it’s all a matter of deduction.”
“Will you explain?”
“Well, when a man becomes absorbed in a certain theme, the murder will out some day. In many discussions you and I have on the fiscal question from time to time I have not failed to notice that you have taken up an attitude antagonistic to a certain school of thought, and on several occasions you have commented on the passing of “so-called’ reforms, as you describe them, which you say were not the result of a spontaneous movement from or by the people, but solely due to the pressure of the Manchester School of politicians appealing to the mob. One of these allusions you made a peculiar reference to ‘Huz an’ Mainchester’ who had ‘turned the world upside down.’ The word ‘Huz’ stuck to me, but after consulting many authors without learning anything as to the source of the word, I one day in reading a provincial paper noticed the same expression, which the writer said was descriptive of the way Hawick people looked at the progress of Reform. ‘Huz an’ Mainchester’ led the way. So, thought I, Watson has a knowledge of Hawick. I was still further confirmed in this idea by hearing you in several absent moments crooning a weird song of the Norwegian God Thor. Again I made enquires, and writing to a friend in the South country I procured a copy of ‘Teribus.’ So, I reasoned, so — there’s something in the air! What attraction has Hawick for Watson?”
“Wonderful,” Watson said, “and —”
“Yes, and when you characterised the action of the German Government in seeking to hamper Canadian trade by raising her tariff wall against her, as a case of ‘Sour Plums,’ and again in a drawing room asked a mutual lady friend to sing you that fine old song, ‘Braw, braw lads,’ I was curious enough to look up the old ballad, and finding it had reference to a small town near to Hawick, I began to see a ray of daylight. Hawick had a place in your mind; likewise so had Galashiels — so much was apparent. The question to be decided was why?”
“So far so good. And—”
“Later still the plot deepened. Why, when I was retailing to you the steps that led up to the arrest of the Norwood builder by the impression of his thumb, I found a very great surprise that you were not listening at all to my reasoning, but were lilting a very sweet — a very sweet tune, Watson — ‘The Flowers of the Forest;’ then I in turn consulted an authority on the subject, and found that that lovely if tragic song had a special reference to Selkirk. And you remember, Watson, how very enthusiastic you grew all of a sudden on the subject of Common-Ridings, and how much you studied the history of James IV., with special reference to Flodden Field. All these things speak, Watson, to the orderly brain of a thinker. Hawick, Galashiels, and Selkirk. What did the combination mean? I felt I must solve the problem, Watson; so that night when you left me, after we had discussed the “Tragedy of a Divided House,” I ordered in a ton of tobacco, wrapped my cloak about me, and spent the night in thought. When you came round in the morning the problem was solved. I could not on the accumulative evidence but come to the conclusion that you contemplated another Parliamentary contest. Watson, you have the Border Burghs in your eye!”
“In my heart, Holmes,” said Watson.
“And where do you travel to on Saturday, Watson?”
“I am going to Selkirk; I have an engagement there to open a Bazaar.”
“Is it in aide of a Bridge, Watson?”
“Yes,’ replied Watson in surprise; “but how do you know? I have never mentioned the matter to you.”
“By word, no; but by your action you have revealed the bent of your mind.”
“Impossible!”
“Let me explain. A week ago you came round to my rooms and asked for a look at ‘Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome.’ (You know I admire Macaulay’s works, and have a full set.) That volume, after a casual look at, you took with you. When you returned it a day or two later I noticed it was marked with a slip of paper at the ‘Lay of Horatius,’ and I detected a faint pencil mark on the slip noting that the closing stanza was very appropriate. As you know, Watson, the lay is all descriptive of the keeping of a bridge. Let me remind you how nicely you would perorate —
When the goodman mends his armour And trims his helmet’s plume,
When the goodwife’s shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the loom,
With weeping and with laughter.
Still the story told —
How well Horatius kept the bridge,
In the brave days of old.
Could I, being mortal, help thinking you were bent on some such exploit yourself?”
“Very true!”
“Well, goodbye, Watson; shall be glad of your company after Saturday. Remember Horatius’ words when you go to Border Burghs: ‘How can man die better than facing fearful odds.’ But there, these words are only illustrations. Safe journey, and success to the Brig!”
Turns out you can burn some good calories when you’re Burning Down the House. Enjoy a fun clip from Funny or Die, and some other great Talking Heads material from our archive below.
When Plato defined humans as two-legged animals without feathers, I suspect he was only half serious. Or if he was as humorless as some suppose, his antagonist Diogenes the Cynic certainly picked up on the joke, pointing out that the description sounds pretty much like a plucked chicken. The ancient back and forth illustrates a question that has occupied philosophers for many thousands of years: what separates humans from animals? Is it a soul? Rationality? Tool-making? Most accounts, especially most modern accounts, settle on one crucial difference—language. Although animals can communicate with each other perfectly well, they do so without this amazingly sophisticated faculty we so often take for granted.
In the animated video at the top, part of the BBC and Open University’s A History of Ideas series, Gillian Anderson, in her British rather than American accent, explains the well-known theory of language acquisition proposed by linguist Noam Chomsky in the 60s. Chomsky argued for what is known as a “universal grammar,” a kind of template in the structure of the brain that allows every person of normal ability to learn their native language with relative ease as a child. Chomsky referred to these structures as a “language acquisition device” that organizes grammar and syntax independently of experience or outside stimuli, of which we have precious little in our formative years. Doubtless Chomsky’s theory would have persuaded Plato, though probably not the British empiricists of the 17th century, who argued that the human mind has no innate ideas—that all of our abilities are learned.
Such was the argument, much simplified, of John Locke, physician, philosopher, and political theorist. In his far-ranging philosophical text An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and the more focused and digestible Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Locke discussed in depth his theories of human cognition and identity, proposing not only that the mind could be written upon like a tabula rasa—or “blank slate”—but that the key to human identity, that which makes us the same person from moment to moment, is memory. We are—and are responsible for, Locke argued—what we remember. Conversely, we are not responsible for what we don’t remember. Locke’s theory presents us with some very thorny ethical problems, which the video above mostly avoids, but like Chomsky’s intervention into debates about human vs. animal intelligence, Locke’s discussion of the nature of human “personhood” remains a timely concern, and an endlessly contentious one.
Other videos in the series take on equally contentious, and equally timely, issues. Above, Anderson briefly explains Karl Marx’s theory of the alienation of labor under an exploitative capitalist system, and below, she discusses the role of culture as a uniquely human trait that animals do not possess. Each video addresses, in some small part, the question “What Makes Me Human?” and the series as a whole follows quickly on the heels of A History of Ideas’ previous set of Anderson-narrated animations on the origins of the universe: “How Did Everything Begin?”
Once again drawing on the skilled work of animator Andrew Park and scripts by independent philosopher Nigel Warburton, this latest series of videos offers a number of fascinating appetizers in the ways philosophy, science, and religion have approached life’s biggest questions. Like any starter course, however, these are but a taste of the complexity and richness on offer in Western philosophical history. To become a true intellectual gourmand, browse our menu of free philosophy courses and dig in to the work of thinkers like Chomsky, Locke, Marx, and so many more.
Having just begun rewatching season 3 of the always-relevant The Wire—the season to first introduce Reg E. Cathey’s super-smooth character, mayoral aide Norman Wilson—I was delighted to find an episode of Studio 360 that features the actor reading a text by jazz great Charles Mingus. Even more delightful is the subject of his text: instructions for toilet training your cat. I cannot testify to their efficacy; it seems like a labor-intensive process, and my own cats seem pretty content with their litterbox. But if anyone could accomplish such a feat, it was Mingus, a man who once ripped the strings from a piano with his bare hands (so it’s said in the documentary 1959: The Year that Changed Jazz), and who won a Grammy for an essay defining jazz, written just a few years after he helped redefine it.
Mingus may have had a notoriously short temper, but as a composer, he was infinitely patient. Apparently this also goes for his role as a cat trainer. He spent weeks teaching his cat, Nightlife, to use human facilities, and detailed the process in a pamphlet, The Charles Mingus CAT-alogue for Toilet Training Your Cat, available for cat fanciers and Mingus fans by mail order.
Hear Cathey read the instructions in part in the video at the top and in full in the audio above. Studio 360 describes this odd document as “full of charming advice and meticulous pedagogical detail.” It is indeed that. In four concise steps, Mingus lays out the program, simple as can be—or so he makes it seem.
Mingus writes, “It took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, Nightlife.” He also admits that aspiring trainers may need to modify the program somewhat, “in case your cat is not as smart as Nightlife was.” One can imagine less gifted cats struggling with this unusual method. One can also imagine more ornery, less cooperative breeds simply refusing to play along. Like Mingus himself, cats have a well-deserved reputation for doing their own thing. Should you be intrepid enough to attempt the Mingus method with your own feline companion, all I can say to you is what Mingus says at the end of his instructions—Good Luck.
I hope Orson Welles got used to seeing his name on top-ten-films-of-all-time lists. He became a mainstay as soon as critical consensus declared his debut Citizen Kane probably the most important motion picture ever made, and some cinephiles give special notice to his subsequent works, such as The Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil, F for Fake, and — for true contrarians only — The Trial. So what does a man whose projects appear on so many top-ten lists from critics and other filmmakers alike put on his own?
“I don’t like cinema,” goes one perhaps-apocryphal Welles quote. “I like making cinema.” (Sometimes-heard variation: “I don’t like cinema unless I shoot it.”) But even if he actually said and believed that, he still managed to put together the following list of favorites in the early 1950s, about a decade after having entered the filmmaking game but with most of the cinema he would make still to come:
If Citizen Kane opened up the possibilities of cinema — and to get an idea of just how much influence it has had from its release to this day, simply watch any film made before it — the pictures Welles puts onto his list, in large part a classicist’s even in the 50s, gave cinema its form in the first place. If you plan on doing a self-administered course in film history, you could do much worse than beginning with the favorite films of Orson Welles — then moving on, of course, to the films of Orson Welles.
I can well remember the first time I read Mad Magazine. I was probably around Bart Simpson’s age, but nowhere near his degree of wiseass-ness. I found the humor of the adult world mostly mystifying and also pretty tame, given my rather sheltered existence. It was my discovery of Mad—stacks and stacks of old Mads, to be precise, in the rec room of a family acquaintance—that cracked the shell, one of those formative loss-of-innocence moments that are ultimately edifying. At the time, I couldn’t tell sophisticated satire from puerile parody, and the average issue of Mad was no Gulliver’s Travels. Nonetheless, its gleeful skewering of the American civil religion of politics, celebrity, professional sports, commerce, and middle class comfort hooked me instantly, and taught me about the value of freethought before I’d ever heard the name Jonathan Swift.
Founded as a comic book by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952, Mad and its gap-toothed mascot Alfred E. Newman (still active today!) pioneered populist satire and inspired many lesser imitators. One distinctive feature of the magazine for almost its entire existence was its ability to run without advertising, allowing it to tear apart materialist culture without fear of biting the hands that fed it. Instead, for decades, the magazine ran fake spoof ads like those you see here. At the top, for example, see a 1963 ad for the “1963 ¾ Edsel,” an update of the “1963 ½ models—which made all ’63 models obsolete.” The text goes on to state frankly, “we’re taking the first steps toward “Planned Monthly Obsolescence—when every car owner will be shamed into trading in his old June ’64 car for a brand new shiny July ’64 model.” Apple, take note.
In the 1960 spoof ad above, military culture gets a send-up with “Aspire Boot-Lick Polish,” made for “The Man in Command: Pompous… Pig-headed… Pathological.” The flavored boot polish—“licorice, caviar, chocolate, caramel, molasses, borscht, halavah, and Moxie in a base of chicken fat”—is said to make “boot-licking a little more tasty when you gotta do it.” A clever inset links the U.S. chain of command with previous empires, showing a cartoon European naval officer of centuries past getting his boots licked by a subordinate sailor.
Just above, the disturbing 1969 fake ad for “Cemetery Filler Cigarettes” predates the tobacco trials of the 1990s by decades. Long promoted for their health benefits, calming effects, sophistication, and taste—as in that memorable first episode of Mad Men—cigarettes are exposed for the mass killers they are by none other than “Adolph Hitler”. (Another 1970 fake ad for “Winsom Cigarettes” uses an actual cemetery to similar effect.)
While cigarette companies were a frequent target of Mad’s fake ads, just as often they took on the inanity of the entire ad industry itself, as in the above 1965 meta-ad for “Let’s Kill Off Ridiculous Ad Campaigns.” The text reads, “If you advertisers have to blow your own horns, why tie your products to unrelated activities? Mainly, what’s eating a Breakfast Cereal got to do with playing a musical instrument? Boy… we just can’t swallow that!” Another regular feature was “Mad’s Great Moments in Advertising,” a kind of highlight blooper reel of ads gone wrong. The example below, also from 1965, spoofs the promises of cleaning product ads to make the lives of housewives easier with a product that works just a little too well.
Image by Luigi Novi. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Making the rounds today on the Internet is a poignant letter from Oliver Sacks, announcing that he has terminal cancer. An NYU professor of neurology who has published several bestselling books (including one that became the basis for the 1990 film, Awakenings, starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro) Sacks first developed ocular melanoma nine years ago, and it apparently, sadly, metastasized to the liver.
Perhaps mortality is something you think about fairly often; or maybe you haven’t reached that point in life yet. Either way, I’d recommend giving his letter a read, and then maybe tucking it away. Because when — as is inevitable — you find yourself facing mortality head on, Sacks’ thoughts and outlook may help guide you through. His letter concludes:
I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.
Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
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Toward the end of 2013, we featured a series of video essays by Matt Zoller Seitz on the films of Wes Anderson. They first came out to accompany The Wes Anderson Collection, the critic’s coffee-table retrospective of that auteur of whimsical handcrafted films’ career to date — to the date of late 2013, anyway. Even then, fans had already geared themselves up in anticipation of the then-imminent release of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson’s eighth and latest picture, which at the moment has resurfaced in awards-season buzz.
The diminishing number of you who have proven still impervious to Anderson’s peculiar brand of movie magic might, actually, feel you’ve heard a bit too much about The Grand Budapest Hotel over the past year or so. What, pray tell, is the big deal? Here to answer that question, we have Zoller Seitz’s brand new video essay on Anderson’s tale of that titular once-grand mountain hotel and the 20th-century Europe of the imagination (eventually giving way to the 20th-century Europe of history) that swirls around and through it.
“All of Wes Anderson’s films are comedies,” says Zoller Seitz, “and none are.” Throughout the following fifteen minutes, he analyzes exactly how, with The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson climbs to the top of both of his personal twin peaks of frivolity and seriousness — or seriousness expressed through frivolity, or vice versa. In the director’s “most structurally ambitious film,” we see not just layers of comedy and melancholy but of history, literature, artistry, and anxiety, all tied in with the Andersonian characters’ endless quest to master their own sense of loss by mastering the world around them — which Anderson shows us, to a fuller extent in The Grand Budapest Hotel, than in any of his live-action movies before, with his own mastery of the world he and his collaborators create.
For another look into what this requires in filmmaking terms, see also “Here’s How Wes Anderson Uses Matte Paintings in His Incredible Set Designs” by The Creators Project’s Beckett Mufson. That interview with Grand Budapest Hotel matte painter Simone de Salvatore reveals, by looking at just one aspect of the whole, how much goes into the design of a Wes Anderson production. Viewers who love Anderson’s pictures, of course, love them in large part for exactly that, and even viewers who hate them have to concede their impeccability on that count. Both groups now have only to wait for this Sunday to see how the Academy feels about it.
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