text:
Lucilia Illustris
by Leena Krohn, recommended by Jeff VanderMeer
AN INTRODUCTION BY JEFF VANDERMEER
Jump to Story
Issue No 186
Written by Leena Krohn
Recommended by Jeff VanderMeer
Leena Krohn, one of Finland's most decorated writers, is the kind of storyteller who rewires your brain. She forces you to adapt to her pace, her particular and unique ideas of urgency. The ceaseless roving, testing, and journeying that manifests in Krohn's fiction originates from a fierce intellect. Krohn is curious about the world, and she has the kind of philosophical mind to make that exploration fascinating to readers. Her fictions aren't abstractions, however, but alive with details of character and setting and situation that display a keen eye for observation of the world around her.
Krohn's usual form is a kind of "mosaic" novel, in which short chapters advance the overall story arc but also form complete tales in and of themselves. Her adoption of this structure is wise — the rate of ideas and images conveyed in a typical chapter, even when playful, has a density that might overwhelm in longer increments, but seems layered and useful at the short length. It also creates a puzzle aspect respectful of reader intelligence and imagination.
The story reprinted here, "Lucilia Illustris," was first published in Mathematical Creatures or Shared Dreams (Matemaattisia olioita tai jaettuja unia), Leena Krohn's seventh prose work for adults and the winner of the 1992 Finlandia Prize. The book consists of twelve prose pieces that occupy the ground between the essay and the short story, thematically linked by a discussion of the relationship between self and reality.
Some readers of Krohn's other work in English may be surprised by the tactile, visceral aspect of "Lucilia Illustris," which could be read as a wide-angle meditation on crime scenes. But, in fact, this quality of the practical and specific occurs throughout Krohn's fiction. It just isn't always on evidence in the small selection of her work published in English to date.
A vein of the horrific occurs also in her novel Gold of Ophir, in its description of an airplane disaster and in its ruminations on the explorations of a tuatara reptile. It also can be found in other of her fictions that deal with terrorism and with biotech. To some extent, the grotesque occurs in Krohn's work because it is an important part of the world, and Krohn's explorations in fiction tend to interrogate the world from many different angles. The nod to Decadent literature demonstrates, too, that Krohn's influences are wider than English-language readers may have assumed. But it is also a nod to Decadent-era (pre-vaccination) views of decay and the human body.
What will not surprise readers is Krohn's focus on the natural world in "Lucilia Illustris." Nor will readers of her prior, World Fantasy Award-finalist novel Tainaron be surprised by the role of insects in the story. In Tainaron, intelligent insects rule a city named Tainaron and the nameless human narrator comes to understand her hosts and to be transformed by them. In "Lucilia Illustris," the process is merely more literal.
Krohn has never been "just" a humanist in her fiction and other writings. She generally takes a view of the universe that pulls back from the human to encompass other animals and environments that do not privilege human concerns — even while acknowledging those concerns. She is trying to push past the human gaze, in many cases, to try to get somewhere new and fresh.
In "Lucilia Illustris," the long view is implicit in the main character's job as a forensic entomologist. Yet little human moments become amplified by that focus and, in typical Krohn fashion, these small moments in the surface of the text take on more emphasis than they would otherwise. The narrator is always coming up against the human gaze and in needing to explain her own approach we get both a human and post-human view of the world.
Most of Krohn's fiction, visceral or not, has moments where it challenges the reader, but also enthralls, horrifies, or delights the reader. In creating these effects, Krohn is trying to show the underlying beauty and complexity of the world, this universe, that we inhabit.
Author, The Southern Reach Trilogy
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by Leena Khron
Translated by Viivi Hyvönen
Do you remember, my love, the object we saw, on that temperate summer morn:
-Charles Baudelaire
The unused sidetrack led to an overgrown yard of a derelict factory. This was the Ultima Thule of the city, the kind of neighborhood people moved into only if they had no alternative. It had housing projects, a supermarket, a primary school, two kiosks, a bus terminus, some paint factories and National Railways' storage areas.
The last thing to have been manufactured in the low factory halls were Christmas ornaments, and if you bothered to look in through one of the broken windows you could still see a length of silver tinsel glimmering on the dusty floor.
I know this, because I looked in — because I saw that forgotten glimmer.
Behind the barracks that had served as a canteen, the yard sloped down steeply and soon crumbled into a sandpit.
The neighborhood residents used the sandpit as an unauthorized dump. All the usual junk had been thrown in: fridges, tires and hubcaps, defective office equipment, corroded oil containers, and leaky canisters, the contents of which were best forgotten. There were parts of things so far removed from their original form that it was no longer possible to guess their function. A living room suite in plush was covered in stains not only of mold but also of wine and sperm spilled at some party, decades ago.
In summer, mayweed and willowherb and mugwort seemed to do all they could to hide the things discarded by people, but it was not enough by far.
And it was summer. One of the armchairs of the suite had been placed on the rusty tracks. It looked as if it had been brought there for a performance, a bluff, a cheap jest. As if the onlooker was supposed to think of it as a private vehicle that might, at any moment, speed away southward, to where the old sidetrack met with the main line, and still onward, all the way to the railway station in the city.
Behind the armchair, between a burned Datsun and a Strömberg electrical stove, there was something else. Admittedly it was peculiar that it had lain unobserved for so long. Now it was the center of all our attention.
A cotton blanket, which had once been yellow and flower patterned, was wrapped around it tightly and bound repeatedly with plastic cord. The blanket was already partially decomposed, it had been soaked both in rain and in the fluids secreted by its contents.
Not even the highest of fevers in a living being can rise as high as the heat of decomposition. Its furnace had consumed not only its very source but also the blanket covering it. The colors had faded and merged, the patterns could barely be guessed at, only fuzzy blotches remained. But the havoc was not wreaked by bacterial activity alone. Insects, too, flies and their larvae, beetles and many other species, had participated in the destruction.
Summer was at its peak, the morning so early that the city had not yet woken. A bird I didn't know chirped on the bank of the sandpit in an elder shrub, its berries already reddening. Some sand slid down as if under someone's steps. I looked up, but there was no one. The sand shifted by itself.
The shutter of a camera clicked repeatedly. The photographer performed a complicated choreography around his subject, crouching down, shooting a short hand-held series, setting up his pedestal in a new spot, and shooting again.
The rest of us — the inspector and I, and the two patrolmen, who had been alerted to the scene by an anonymous phone call — looked at the bundle in silence, without an objective, until one of the patrolmen retched. At that moment, as if in mutual agreement, all the men moved, almost started, back, away from the source of the stench.
I could not. I was already pulling on rubber gloves. On the contrary, I had to step closer and bend down over the roll. I had to do my due. Despite having felt weary as soon as I saw the bundle. It meant weeks of toil.
– A fucked up job, one of the patrolmen said in a thick voice.
I glanced at him coldly and opened my tool bag to choose the right pincers.
Although I would gladly have sat down in the worn armchair, where someone had read quietly on winter nights long gone by. I would have sought the hidden switch to make it shoot forward, dug my head deep into the headrest, and sped away from the officials and the unknown cadaver, as far as the tracks went.
But soon I forgot the armchair and was captivated by the wrapped up world, which emitted a buzzing tune. I didn't open the package yet. It wasn't time to open it yet. The others were already too far, they didn't hear the tune, and had they heard it, it would have driven them even further. I have never been able to close my ears from it. It was the sound of decomposition, which is the sound of life in death.
Once a man, a poet of sorts himself and my lover at the time, read the poem "A Carcass" by Charles Baudelaire aloud to me while drunk with whisky. I had not heard of it before.
– It's for you, he said, — remember it always.
I will. I can estimate that the corpse that the narrator of the poem and his lover saw at a bend in the path, on a bed sown with gravel, had lain dead for no more than a few days. It had reached the second stage of putrefaction, was soon to reach the third, for it reeked and the inner gases still distended it, but its skin was already starting to tear: "opened her stench-swollen belly."
I have also heard the sound Baudelaire writes about, "a curious music," which resembles the wind, or a stream, or the rustle of grains. Its source is the movement of insects, the overlapping of sheets of insects, their swarming, digging, feeding, breeding, hatching, growing, and preying.
When I first heard its tune, my innards almost overturned. Now it doesn't have this effect on me anymore.
I'm an entomologist. In my youth my studies took me to many countries. In one small town, the name of which I have forgotten, I had lunch in an untidy café. On the wall of the ladies' room someone had written in a swift, sketchy hand: Time is nature's way of preventing everything from happening at once.
To me it seemed odd that graffiti of such consequence was to be found in the restroom of such an inconsequential lunch bar. When I read those words it was as if they had been written just for me. I was unable to imagine the person who had written them. I only saw the hand that wrote.
I have kept both the poem and this sentence in mind all these years.
Timing — that is my task. The wall of the restroom told the truth: If time didn't exist, everything would happen at once. There would be no separate cause and effect. There would be no infinite chains of causality. But now: things follow each other in a definite order so that the effect never comes before the cause. This applies not only to life but to dying and death, too.
You may want to ask: Why do you state the obvious? I answer you: Because in it lies the real secret.
As a side job I participate in forensic examinations. I am called whenever a body is found whose time of death needs to be narrowed down and who, usually, has died of unnatural causes. This occurs four or five times a year. I have to resist, overcome, or at least set aside my revulsion, my pity, my fear, and my grief. Yet it would be foolish to think that I've become free of them over the years. They remain, but I can act in spite of them.
I am summoned to the scene as soon as the body is discovered. I travel around the country carrying a bag with tens of small boxes. They're for the insects. In them I collect all the insects I can find on the surface of the body and in its vicinity.
Only then is the body taken to the forensic department. There I resume my examination: I go, so to say, deeper than skin, I take samples, analyze insects, determine their species, and relative amounts, and stages of development. Of course, all the other routine tests that the pathologists consider necessary are also performed at the department. Only when I am finished and they are will the remains be handed over to the next of kin and the mortician.
Most of the victims are women or girls. Some are homeless men. Once I had to analyze an already mummified body of an infant.
In a sense my position is similar to that of the meteorologist. The further into the future the weathermen have to forecast, the less accurate their predictions become. It is like moving away from a radio station: the static increases until the transmission is lost altogether. This happens very quickly: even a month away is too far to predict. The countless different variables turn estimates into mere guesses.
I "predict" backwards and my task is the easier of the two: the timing of a single phenomenon, the death of a certain organism. Still, my observations are subject to the same laws. The longer the body has been left to lie, the less accurately can I state its time of death. If the body is found in four or even five days, my accuracy is within hours. If it is found after weeks, then we are speaking of days, if months, then weeks.
And there comes a time when I hold my peace.
I work neither for the prosecutor nor for the defense attorney. But my expertise can be used to prove both the guilt of the guilty and the innocence of the innocent. As an entomologist, though, I am not interested in matters of guilt and innocence.
All I want is to answer the question: When?
To the deceased I say: Tell me when you died so that they may know who killed you.
Some childish person once asked me: Don't the victims come to haunt you?
Why in god's name would they haunt me? I didn't kill them. I don't fear them. I may fear and despise the ones who have brought their bodies into the state in which I find them. But the victims I hardly even pity. They have felt blind terror and unbearable pain, but now it's over. It's truly over. No, they are no longer where I see them. They are not the ones to fret over whether their remains lie in a family grave under a block of granite behind a wrought-iron fence, or rot nameless among the trash of a landfill.
The victims don't rise from their graves like the horror characters of B movies as seething, mottled shapes with beetles for eyes, their noses devoured into a single cavity, their skin — or what once was skin — shifting in slow waves to the pulse of an armada of maggots.
Those who have met a violent end do not differ from those who have died of so-called natural causes. All death is violence.
But if another person has brought about the end, the aftermath lasts longer. Sorrow cuts more excruciatingly, tears stay hot longer. And the burning furnace of fury. Its is a heat very different from the fumes of decomposition that cleanse, loosen, and, in the end, renew.
Decay is the prerequisite for all spring.
Still, nothing is more abhorred and recoiled from as decay when it concerns our own material: human flesh.
The different stages of decomposition vary depending on the temperature and the surroundings. I have to be well versed not only in taxonomy and the duration of the various stages of insect life, but also in the circumstances and conditions of each scene. As they say, a body cools after death. But before long, although the warmth of life has left the skin, the body's inner temperature begins to rise. As I said: Not even the highest of fevers in a living being can be as high as this afterglow, the fire of rot.
And now begins life in death and after death, although — as it has been said — everything doesn't happen at once. It should be understood that the insects come in waves, which follow one another in a predictable order. Although decomposition is a continuous process, to facilitate the investigation it is best divided into several stages.
In my investigations I follow the five-stage system of M. Lee Goff.
At the fresh stage, which lasts between a day and a week depending on the surroundings and the weather, the first wave arrives. How swift they are! How, in fact, do they know? I don't have the expertise to answer. I doubt anyone has. Blowflies land in just ten minutes, before a human nose could detect even the faintest of odors. The process has begun. From then on the activity is incessant. Such thorough, meticulous and methodical purification is nowhere else to be found.
The first wave insects, which are mostly none other than blowflies, are sometimes called "the garbage men." They assault and swiftly destroy the soft tissues. They are interested in all body orifices, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth. As they toil, they make way to the ones that come after and prefer cartilage or dry skin.
The next phase of decomposition is the bloated stage, in which the temperature of the body rises and the inner gases cause it to swell. Still, flies and maggots are the prevailing species.
Only in the third phase of decomposition, the decay stage, does the body start to reek perceivably. The body wrapped inside the blanket is in this stage. Its skin tears and the gases are released. At this stage the maggots are at their most numerous both on the surface and on the inside of the carcass. Before long, though, they give way to an army of beetles. In this phase all flesh is consumed and only skin, cartilage, and bone remain.
During the first stages of decomposition, predatory insects emerge to prey on the aforementioned, and the parasites and the omnivores, who feed on both the cadaver and other insects, make their appearance.
There is one more group of insects that do not really have anything to do with the matter at hand: those who stray onto the carcass by coincidence, inadvertently, and gain nothing of it. You might think these insects have nothing to tell me. But this assumption is false. Sometimes I find insects that do not naturally occur at the scene.
What can I conclude from this? A fact that is of utmost interest to the police: that the body has been brought to the scene from somewhere else. All in all, there can be eight or nine separate waves of insects. At certain stages of decomposition several hundreds of different species of insect may be found on the body.
The process is unfaltering in its course, even though the duration of its stages varies from one case to the other. The lengths of these periods depend on the environmental circumstances, the temperature and its variations during the time. But the proliferation of insects, the maturation of eggs, the development of larvae into adult individuals also occurs according to the same laws. Note this: NATURE NEVER MISSES A STEP AND IT NEVER TURNS BACK. Never, nowhere. Or, to be more cautious, let us say: nowhere here, never in time.
And we can do nothing, absolutely nothing to make it miss a step any more than turn back. It is capable of neither. The most we can do is to regulate the circumstances so that the processes are slowed down or sped up.
A crop is not harvested in spring. A child turns into an adult only through puberty, and an insect only becomes an imago once it has passed through the pupal stage. No stage is missed and every stage occurs in a designated order. In the right and unwavering order. In the only possible order.
Upon this fact all my certainty and uncertainty is founded.
As the waves follow one another, the post-decay stage is soon reached when even skin and cartilage disappear. Only the durable parts remain, the ones that may keep for centuries, even millennia: bones and hair.
Then everything is finished. Liquids and gases have evaporated, the temperature has come down, the slime has dried, the stench has vanished. Everything is clear and irrevocable. Cold and dry, clean and brittle. We look at the remains calmly and without disgust.
The insects have left, and I, too, am long gone. Everything is finished. If something remains, it is invisible even as grief and the soul are invisible.
Sometimes they are unable to answer even who the deceased was while still alive. Such was the case with this woman. She had been left to lie where she was for three weeks in the middle of high summer. Thus the insects had labored for a long time, and I could give no more than a rough estimate.
The police went to a lot of trouble to identify her. But very little was learned. She had traveled to that part of town on the day she was killed, taking the last night bus. She had been alone, and if anyone had spoken to her, the bus driver hadn't noticed. She was a foreigner, but from which country, no one knew. As far as I know, her identity was never verified.
Who was she? And what does it really mean? Officially it means a name, an address, a place and a time of birth, height, hair color, and distinctive features, if any. To be even more specific it also means the names of parents, occupation, and marital status. Once these facts have been established, we suppose to know who she was
We saw her brown hair, her size, her bare feet, the already torn skin under which seethed the living sheet of insects.
The cup was her body. The spirit had left it, making room for other forms of life. It was no longer alive, but it had life. Life that may seem despicable and disgusting to us but is nevertheless indispensable.
The rains and the fermentative secretions of the cadaver had soaked the bundle and stiffened it. But the person who had been violated was long gone.
Lucilia illustris. Necrophobus vespillo. Emus hirtus. Insects are not individuals. They are, so to say, statistical beings. They do not know what they do. They only know what they want, which is what they must do: feed, mate, breed, flee death as long as they possibly can. But in addition to this — no, in doing this — they perform a wonderful, essential function, the only true catharsis.
To purify. To equalize. To return. To unite. This is the goal, which the insects themselves know nothing of but which they show to whomever willing to see. For this universal unity they toil while trying to preserve and continue their own petty, statistical existence.
How tempting it would be to believe that human beings, just by being what they are, as wholly as possible, elaborate and faithful to themselves, would fulfill a more important task, of which they know as little as insects of human life.
I rarely have to deal with the victims' families. Or with those who were suspected, or those who actually killed. What would I have to do with them? This dead woman was an exception.
– Are you aware that I'm suspected of her death?
Startled, I took my eye off the ocular of a microscope. A man I didn't know stood at the door of my office, his gaze stern and demanding.
– What do you want, and who are you? I asked, rather harshly. His steps had been so soundless that I hadn't noticed him until he spoke.
He told me his name and repeated his question. He was no bum. He dressed smartly and his phrasing was refined. I had heard his name mentioned in the investigation. He had been questioned, but there had been no arrest, and what I knew of the hearings anyone could read in the tabloids. Just that this man had been on the same bus with the victim and had gotten off at the same stop.
– My only concern is to determine the developmental stages of insects. I am not an officer of the law.
– But you do know?
This I admitted to, albeit reluctantly. — Why do you come to me? What does it matter if I've heard your name or not?
I fell silent and looked at him, expectant and somewhat suspicious. He was fairly young, tall, and blonde. Was this person trying to affect me and was the timing of the woman's death of consequence to him?
He lowered his gaze and said glumly: — I was just asking.
– I ascertain the species and age of the insects. When I know them, I can give a rough estimate of the time of death.
I have no idea why I didn't end the conversation, why I told this stranger about the requirements of my office.
– I work neither for the prosecutor nor for the defense attorney, I went on. — It's for others to make the final conclusions. Flies don't lie. Undoubtedly, other truths than theirs exist, but they are no concern of mine.
– What will happen to me?
– It depends on what you did.
– If everyone dies anyway, he said — and in manners that are all more or less cruel, why is it so horrifying that it should happen by someone else's hand? Perhaps they are only put out of their misery, who knows.
– Is this a confession? I asked and stood up. The conversation had started to horrify me.
– Quite the opposite, he said quickly. — I didn't do it.
– But why do you come here to philosophize? I said, suddenly angry. I felt myself stiffen and blush. — You speak rubbish and you know it. If you have anything real to impart on this subject, go to the police.
– How do you know the murderer didn't do her a favor?
– Do you still go on? Men love their yoke, I told him. — Hasn't it been said that evil must come, but woe to him by whose hand it does? Go to the police.
– Now you think I'm guilty, admit it. I didn't even know her. I didn't speak a word to her.
– So what? Not all murderers know their victims. You must have something to relate about this matter, or you wouldn't have come. But I am not police, surely you understand that.
– Are you going to tell them about this conversation?
– I don't need to, I said. — You will tell them all they need to know.
Why was I so sure? He glanced at me and was about to say something more, but changed his mind for some reason.
– Well? I have work to do, as you can see, I said and gestured at my desk.
He turned and left the office without saying goodbye.
As a matter of fact I think there is nothing but life. Many forms of life. It is called birth, growth, and death.
People who have looked upon their deceased sometimes say: "Then I saw that there is no resurrection. That there can be none. Nothing as lifeless as that can ever have been alive."
You might think that someone who has seen death in all its — not nakedness, but in its wealth, diversity, activity, intensity — would see things in the same way. That someone like that, if anyone, would be predestined to the most severe form of materialism.
The idea of resurrection is foreign to me, too. But always when I witness the absoluteness of the change that occurs in death, and its irrevocable consequences, I cannot help but wonder. As anyone would, I keep repeating the question: What happened to the life that was here just a moment ago? Where is the self that only yesterday aspired, desired, loved and remembered?
How could one, who has seen what I have seen, so closely, not believe in perpetuity? For if it exists in matter, how could it not exist in spirit?
The spirit is like the queen of an anthill. No one sees it, for it lives in the most hidden cave. Yet its effect is what keeps the body healthy, whole, intact. It moves the body. It alone makes the nest alive. When the queen is removed, the nest disintegrates with unbelievable rapidity. Soon it is only dust.
Yet the queen itself may remain inviolate.
I saw the man who had come to my room one more time. I saw him outside a movie theater, with a party of friends engaged in lively conversation, and I recognized him at once. He wore the same clothes as when last we met.
He said something to a woman, who glanced at me with curiosity and then turned away. He came to me.
– Yes? I said.
– You still do what you used to?
– Still. That is my office, you see, I said.
– I hear the incident last summer was never solved, he said. — A pity.
– Yes, I said. — It's a pity.
He hesitated and glanced at his companions, who had fallen silent and seemed to be waiting for him. Then he said: — I just wanted to apologize for intruding into your office so rudely back then. But the hearings had put me slightly off balance. It is not every day one is suspected of murder.
– Most certainly not, I said. — But I never did understand why you came.
– It was just a whim. Coincidence, really, he said. — Someone mentioned your name, and what you do. I was intrigued.
– Really? Is your opinion still the same?
– About what? he asked.
– You philosophized about the justification of killing.
– Is that what I said?
Now he seemed to panic a little. Maybe he regretted coming to me.
– I was a little drunk. Please forget about it.
I looked at him and considered whether I should have reported the conversation to the police after all.
– I hate to think that her killer is still on the loose, he said.
His name was called. The movie was about to begin. He nodded, joined his party, and disappeared into the lobby of the theater. At the door I saw him turn back and look at me, as though expecting or even inviting me to follow him. As if he was slightly disappointed that I didn't.
I can picture the past, translucent form of your hands, their slenderness instead of this current shape. Only dry, blackened tatters of skin that don't even cover your finger bones.
Who knows whether you were killed by a man you once loved, whom you trusted more deeply than anyone on earth. Or did that blonde stranger follow you from the bus stop, did he grab you and throw you down, hit you, hit you, over and over again, kick you, rape you and finally strangle you.
– You lived, I said in my mind to this eaten, emptied shape. — You lived like I live now. Where did you go now that you are no longer there? Where will I go when I'm no longer here?
Her hair still had vigor, it shone amid the twigs and the dry hay, even though her skin was already torn, even though her face had bloated and blackened beyond recognition.
But still I see a look on the face. That look — I have seen the same look on the faces of other dead, at the first or second stage of decomposition. How can it be described?
It is a seriousness devoid of all moral judgment. No hatred, no fear, no pain. Concentration, that is the right word. Such complete concentration can only be seen in the eyes of very small children or, sometimes, at a moment of ecstasy, in someone listening to music. Something that is left as proof of what is and what may persist. As if something crucial had been revealed to them.
It is the look of knowledge. The mouth half open. And the eyes, most of all — they are open. The vitreous humor is of course less clear than that of a living person. The eyes never blink and the mouth will not tell what they have seen. Still they keep the knowledge that no longer seeks or needs to be expressed. It will stay to trouble the onlooker as an inextinguishable question.
I would like to know what she looked at. Not at her murderer any more. What happened to her no longer interested her. It had already happened, was over at last. The worst had happened. All had happened that could happen to her on Earth.
What were her eyes in fact fixed on at that final moment, when all her muscles slackened from their frantic convulsion? On a branch of a tree, at the edge of the pit, that kept swaying gently, incessantly even as the hands closed around her throat? The wind, forever roaming the Earth, brushed the tops of the bushes as well as both their foreheads. "Still, the moor-wind remains…"
Where she was dumped and hidden, whence she was carried, the first snow now falls. The rusty tracks, the car tires, the oil containers will soon be covered under the humble forms of the snowdrifts. The armchair on the tracks will get a luminous cushion. How unresisting and at the same time irresistible is the on-going snowfall. The meadow fescues, which yellowed and flattened under her ravaged corpse, are coated in snowflakes. When they rise again in the spring, no trace of the shape of her body will be visible.
Queen, where did you go?
About Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading is the weekly fiction magazine from Electric Literature, publishing here every Wednesday morning. In addition to featuring our own recommendations of original, previously unpublished fiction, we invite established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommend great work from their pages, past and present. Sign up for our Recommended Reading newsletter to get every issue straight to your inbox, or join our membership program for access to year-round submissions. EL's literary magazines are supported in part by the Amazon Literary Partnership, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Leena Krohn (born in 1947 in Helsinki) is a critically acclaimed Finnish author. Her large and varied body of work includes novels, short stories, children's books, and essays. In her books she deals with topics that include the relationship between imagination and morality, the evolution of synthetic forms of life, and the future of our species.
Krohn has received several prizes for both adult and children's fiction, including the Finlandia Prize for literature in 1992, the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland (1997; returned in protest for ethical reasons), and the Aleksis Kivi Fund Award for lifetime achievement in 2013. Her short novel Tainaron: Mail From Another City was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2005. Her books have been translated into English, German, Bulgarian, French, Estonian, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Swedish and Italian. Leena Krohn used digital tools in her literary work well before they became popular in mainstream literary circles.
About the Translator
Viivi Hyvönen is a Finnish writer best known for her novel The Monkey and the New Moon, which has sometimes been categorized as "new weird" literature.
About the Guest Editor
Jeff VanderMeer's most recent fiction is the NYT-bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), which won the Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award. The trilogy also prompted The New Yorker to call the author "the weird Thoreau." VanderMeer's nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, the Washington Post, the Atlantic.com, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife, the noted editor Ann VanderMeer.
"Lucilia Illustris" is excerpted from LEENA KROHN: THE COLLECTED FICTION (Cheeky Fawg Books, 2015) by permission of the publisher and the translator.
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Oct 1 - Richa Kaul Padte


text:
By bicycle in the Nebbiolo hills
Why Alba
Because this is the production area of excellent wines such as Nebbiolo
To discover one of the most beautiful areas in Italy
To discover the unique flavors of the Piedmontese tradition
To admire wonderful views in the hills of the Langhe
Why know the history of Italian wine
A bike ride through the lands of Nebbiolo, in the Langhe, in Piedmont
The hills of Nebbiolo production become the starting point for a bicycle tour in the Langhe. An excursion is recommended on a racing bike, but if the training is good it can also be tackled with the mountain bike. But not only. This is a very suitable route also for those who love motorized two wheels, indeed it is a good route to do by motorbike. In this way, the times are shortened and you have the opportunity to visit the villages touched along the way.
Nebbiolo tour, panorama
We set the departure from Alba, the capital of the Langhe. Town of Roman foundation (Alba Pompeia) rich in medieval towers and churches. A city that deserves a thorough visit. We will do this in a future article.
Alba is the starting point and the path leads us immediately to the Altavilla hill, where the landscape is filled with the rows of Nebbiolo da Barbaresco, a wine that is produced only in a few municipalities in the area, then we descend towards Pertinace, this locality, which it gave birth to the Roman emperor Publio Elvio. His was a short reign, he was assassinated on March 28, 193, having ruled for only 87 days.
Treiso
Following in the footsteps of the fleeting Roman emperor, we go up to Treiso, the village where the writer Beppe Fenoglio set the novel " A private matter " . From the breathtaking landscape of the vineyards and part of the Langhe, the former hamlet of Barbaresco has a square, a church and many hills, fabulous cuisine and if you go to the Canta hamlet here is a ravine overlooking both sides of the road, or the Rocca of the Seven Brothers. Legend has it that it would open to swallow seven blasphemous brothers. The only survivor of the family, a woman, would have been saved because she remained on the thin strip of land that divides the ravine
Towards Barbaresco
From Treiso our journey continues towards Tre Stelle. The valley towards the Tanaro once hosted the imperial Villa Martis, while what can be seen today is one of the most evocative natural amphitheaters of the Langhe. Not far away we arrive in Barbaresco which we admire from afar also for the shape of its famous tower. Here the stop is a must. There is the Barbaresco Regional Enoteca, but also the Castle, the Tower, and the naturalistic oasis of the Tanaro Park.
Neive
Tour of Nebbiolo, Neive, municipal tower
We ride to Neive, defined as the town of the " lords ". This is evident from the wealth of a prestigious building in the historic center closed by two doors and where the clock tower dominates. In spring and summer, you can enjoy a pleasant stroll along the cobbled streets of the center. They are well cared for and enriched with flowers that color their appearance. From time to time a glimpse of the countryside appears. These lands were colonized by Benedictine friars in the Middle Ages Right here in Neive the friars founded the Convent of Santa Maria del Piano. Unfortunately, the building no longer exists. As evidence remains the Romanesque bell tower.
Towards Benevello
The road continues towards Trezzo then climbs towards Cappelletto, dominated by cultivated hills and vines and hazelnuts, and reaches the hairpin bends of Mompiano, the monument to the Woman of the Langa, or rather to the one who is the founding base of peasant society. Then the Cascina della Langa, the Boscasso where the panorama is 360 degrees, and at the crossroads of San Bovo we arrive in Manera, where the Stone Towers peep out which were part of a defensive and communication system and which were a reference point for the Del Carretto family who dominate from Asti to Finale Ligure, joining the plain to the sea.
Once in Benevello, they are perhaps on the most panoramic balcony in the area. On clear days the view reaches Cuneo, Turin, Asti, and half of Piedmont.
UNIQUE EXPERIENCES IN Alba
Grinzane Cavour
Nebbiolo tour, Grinzane Cavour, castle
Before returning to Alba, our starting point, we pass Montelupo and Diano and arrive at the Castle of Grinzane Cavour. Count Camillo Benso was Mayor here for 17 years. But this is also the place where Cavour tried to create red wine, graded and full-bodied as the French already did at the time. He, together with the Marchesa di Barolo (Giulia Falletti Colbert) and Carlo Alberto Savoia-Carignano, gave life to Barolo, also known as the wine of the Kings, or the King of Wines ". Today the Castle houses the Piedmontese Regional Enoteca, a restaurant, and the Conte Museum.
The end of the path
Giro del Nebbiolo, tour map (google maps)
Our tour ends at the Alba . The 61.8 kilometers are covered in about 5 hours without stopping. But the advice is to follow this route in stages, even stopping just for the weekend to enjoy all the beauties of the Langhe and calmly taste the wine that is produced in this area of Italy.
How do I get to Alba
Alba can be reached from the A21 Torino Piacenza motorway, Asti est exit, then follow the A33 towards Cuneo / Alba. By train, once you reach Turin Porta Nuova station, continue by bus. The departure station is in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II at the corner with Corso Massimo D'Azeglio.
Tamsui Budget Day Trip from Taipei
The most difficult route of a train called The Devil's Nose.
UNRAVELLING MICHOLI
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron
Jonathan Cedernaes, Wenyu Huang, Kathryn Moynihan Ramsey, Nathan Waldeck, Lei Cheng, Biliana Marcheva, Chiaki Omura, Yumiko Kobayashi, Clara Bien Peek, Daniel C. Levine, Ravindra Dhir, Raj Awatramani, Christopher A. Bradfield, Xiaozhong A. Wang, Joseph S. Takahashi, Mohamad Mokadem, Rexford S. Ahima, Joseph Bass
The alignment of fasting and feeding with the sleep/wake cycle is coordinated by hypothalamic neurons, though the underlying molecular programs remain incompletely understood. Here, we demonstrate that the clock transcription pathway maximizes eating during wakefulness and glucose production during sleep through autonomous circadian regulation of NPY/AgRP neurons. Tandem profiling of whole-cell and ribosome-bound mRNAs in morning and evening under dynamic fasting and fed conditions identified temporal control of activity-dependent gene repertoires in AgRP neurons central to synaptogenesis, bioenergetics, and neurotransmitter and peptidergic signaling. Synaptic and circadian pathways were specific to whole-cell RNA analyses, while bioenergetic pathways were selectively enriched in the ribosome-bound transcriptome. Finally, we demonstrate that the AgRP clock mediates the transcriptional response to leptin. Our results reveal that time-of-day restriction in transcriptional control of energy-sensing neurons underlies the alignment of hunger and food acquisition with the sleep/wake state. The central molecular clock aligns feeding with the sleep/wake state. Cedernaes et al. employ RNA sequencing in AgRP neurons across different nutrient states, revealing time-of-day-dependent enrichment of circadian and bioenergetic gene networks. They discover that the behavioral and transcriptional response to leptin varies from morning to evening, as the AgRP clock coordinates the leptin response and glucose metabolism with arousal.
1078-1091.e5
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023
AgRP
RiboTag
circadian
suprachiasmatic nucleus
time-restricted feeding
10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023
Dive into the research topics of 'Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Hunger Medicine & Life Sciences 100%
Neurons Medicine & Life Sciences 50%
Leptin Medicine & Life Sciences 48%
Energy Metabolism Medicine & Life Sciences 44%
Ribosomes Medicine & Life Sciences 34%
Fasting Medicine & Life Sciences 26%
Glucose Medicine & Life Sciences 20%
Cedernaes, J., Huang, W., Ramsey, K. M., Waldeck, N., Cheng, L., Marcheva, B., Omura, C., Kobayashi, Y., Peek, C. B., Levine, D. C., Dhir, R., Awatramani, R., Bradfield, C. A., Wang, X. A., Takahashi, J. S., Mokadem, M., Ahima, R. S., & Bass, J. (2019). Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron. Cell Metabolism, 29(5), 1078-1091.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023
Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron. / Cedernaes, Jonathan; Huang, Wenyu; Ramsey, Kathryn Moynihan et al.
In: Cell Metabolism, Vol. 29, No. 5, 07.05.2019, p. 1078-1091.e5.
Cedernaes, J, Huang, W, Ramsey, KM, Waldeck, N, Cheng, L, Marcheva, B, Omura, C, Kobayashi, Y, Peek, CB, Levine, DC, Dhir, R, Awatramani, R, Bradfield, CA, Wang, XA, Takahashi, JS, Mokadem, M, Ahima, RS & Bass, J 2019, 'Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron', Cell Metabolism, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 1078-1091.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023
Cedernaes J, Huang W, Ramsey KM, Waldeck N, Cheng L, Marcheva B et al. Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron. Cell Metabolism. 2019 May 7;29(5):1078-1091.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023
Cedernaes, Jonathan ; Huang, Wenyu ; Ramsey, Kathryn Moynihan et al. / Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron. In: Cell Metabolism. 2019 ; Vol. 29, No. 5. pp. 1078-1091.e5.
@article{962f0ca768d34596b78fcbfefb797f52,
title = "Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron",
abstract = "The alignment of fasting and feeding with the sleep/wake cycle is coordinated by hypothalamic neurons, though the underlying molecular programs remain incompletely understood. Here, we demonstrate that the clock transcription pathway maximizes eating during wakefulness and glucose production during sleep through autonomous circadian regulation of NPY/AgRP neurons. Tandem profiling of whole-cell and ribosome-bound mRNAs in morning and evening under dynamic fasting and fed conditions identified temporal control of activity-dependent gene repertoires in AgRP neurons central to synaptogenesis, bioenergetics, and neurotransmitter and peptidergic signaling. Synaptic and circadian pathways were specific to whole-cell RNA analyses, while bioenergetic pathways were selectively enriched in the ribosome-bound transcriptome. Finally, we demonstrate that the AgRP clock mediates the transcriptional response to leptin. Our results reveal that time-of-day restriction in transcriptional control of energy-sensing neurons underlies the alignment of hunger and food acquisition with the sleep/wake state. The central molecular clock aligns feeding with the sleep/wake state. Cedernaes et al. employ RNA sequencing in AgRP neurons across different nutrient states, revealing time-of-day-dependent enrichment of circadian and bioenergetic gene networks. They discover that the behavioral and transcriptional response to leptin varies from morning to evening, as the AgRP clock coordinates the leptin response and glucose metabolism with arousal.",
keywords = "AgRP, Agouti-related protein, RNA sequencing, RNA-seq, RiboTag, SCN, circadian, metabolism, suprachiasmatic nucleus, time-restricted feeding",
author = "Jonathan Cedernaes and Wenyu Huang and Ramsey, {Kathryn Moynihan} and Nathan Waldeck and Lei Cheng and Biliana Marcheva and Chiaki Omura and Yumiko Kobayashi and Peek, {Clara Bien} and Levine, {Daniel C.} and Ravindra Dhir and Raj Awatramani and Bradfield, {Christopher A.} and Wang, {Xiaozhong A.} and Takahashi, {Joseph S.} and Mohamad Mokadem and Ahima, {Rexford S.} and Joseph Bass",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Grant Barish and members of the Bass laboratory for helpful discussions and Mia Andreoli, Varun Mehta, Celestine He, Paul Brandfonbrener, and Weimin Song for technical assistance. This research was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) grants R01DK090625, R01DK113011, R01DK100814, and P01DK049210; the National Institute on Aging grant P01AG011412; the National Institute of Mental Health grant R01MH110556; the Chicago Biomedical Consortium S-007; the University of Chicago Diabetes Research and Training Center grant P60DK020595 (J.B.); the NIDDK award K01DK105137-02 (C.B.P.); the Swedish Research Council grant 2014-6888 (J.C.); and the Swedish Society for Medical Research (J.C.). Research by J.C. is also supported by the Swedish Brain Foundation. This research was also supported by the Northwestern University RHLCCC Flow Cytometry Facility and a Cancer Center Support Grant (NCI CA060553). Conceptualization, J.C. W.H. K.M.R. and J.B.; Formal Analysis, J.C. W.H. and N.W.; Investigation, J.C. W.H. N.W. D.C.L. C.B.P. C.O. L.C. Y.K. R.D. and M.M.; Resources, C.A.B, X.A.W. and J.S.T.; Writing, J.C. W.H. K.M.R. and J.B.; Visualization, B.M.; Supervision, J.C. W.H. R.A. and J.B.; Funding Acquisition, J.C. C.B.P. and J.B. The authors declare no competing interests. Funding Information: We thank Grant Barish and members of the Bass laboratory for helpful discussions and Mia Andreoli, Varun Mehta, Celestine He, Paul Brandfonbrener, and Weimin Song for technical assistance. This research was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) grants R01DK090625 , R01DK113011 , R01DK100814 , and P01DK049210 ; the National Institute on Aging grant P01AG011412 ; the National Institute of Mental Health grant R01MH110556 ; the Chicago Biomedical Consortium S-007; the University of Chicago Diabetes Research and Training Center grant P60DK020595 (J.B.); the NIDDK award K01DK105137-02 (C.B.P.); the Swedish Research Council grant 2014-6888 (J.C.); and the Swedish Society for Medical Research (J.C.). Research by J.C. is also supported by the Swedish Brain Foundation . This research was also supported by the Northwestern University RHLCCC Flow Cytometry Facility and a Cancer Center Support Grant ( NCI CA060553 ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Elsevier Inc.",
doi = "10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023",
pages = "1078--1091.e5",
journal = "Cell Metabolism",
publisher = "Cell Press",
T1 - Transcriptional Basis for Rhythmic Control of Hunger and Metabolism within the AgRP Neuron
AU - Cedernaes, Jonathan
AU - Huang, Wenyu
AU - Ramsey, Kathryn Moynihan
AU - Waldeck, Nathan
AU - Cheng, Lei
AU - Marcheva, Biliana
AU - Omura, Chiaki
AU - Kobayashi, Yumiko
AU - Peek, Clara Bien
AU - Levine, Daniel C.
AU - Dhir, Ravindra
AU - Awatramani, Raj
AU - Bradfield, Christopher A.
AU - Wang, Xiaozhong A.
AU - Takahashi, Joseph S.
AU - Mokadem, Mohamad
AU - Ahima, Rexford S.
AU - Bass, Joseph
N1 - Funding Information: We thank Grant Barish and members of the Bass laboratory for helpful discussions and Mia Andreoli, Varun Mehta, Celestine He, Paul Brandfonbrener, and Weimin Song for technical assistance. This research was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) grants R01DK090625, R01DK113011, R01DK100814, and P01DK049210; the National Institute on Aging grant P01AG011412; the National Institute of Mental Health grant R01MH110556; the Chicago Biomedical Consortium S-007; the University of Chicago Diabetes Research and Training Center grant P60DK020595 (J.B.); the NIDDK award K01DK105137-02 (C.B.P.); the Swedish Research Council grant 2014-6888 (J.C.); and the Swedish Society for Medical Research (J.C.). Research by J.C. is also supported by the Swedish Brain Foundation. This research was also supported by the Northwestern University RHLCCC Flow Cytometry Facility and a Cancer Center Support Grant (NCI CA060553). Conceptualization, J.C. W.H. K.M.R. and J.B.; Formal Analysis, J.C. W.H. and N.W.; Investigation, J.C. W.H. N.W. D.C.L. C.B.P. C.O. L.C. Y.K. R.D. and M.M.; Resources, C.A.B, X.A.W. and J.S.T.; Writing, J.C. W.H. K.M.R. and J.B.; Visualization, B.M.; Supervision, J.C. W.H. R.A. and J.B.; Funding Acquisition, J.C. C.B.P. and J.B. The authors declare no competing interests. Funding Information: We thank Grant Barish and members of the Bass laboratory for helpful discussions and Mia Andreoli, Varun Mehta, Celestine He, Paul Brandfonbrener, and Weimin Song for technical assistance. This research was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) grants R01DK090625 , R01DK113011 , R01DK100814 , and P01DK049210 ; the National Institute on Aging grant P01AG011412 ; the National Institute of Mental Health grant R01MH110556 ; the Chicago Biomedical Consortium S-007; the University of Chicago Diabetes Research and Training Center grant P60DK020595 (J.B.); the NIDDK award K01DK105137-02 (C.B.P.); the Swedish Research Council grant 2014-6888 (J.C.); and the Swedish Society for Medical Research (J.C.). Research by J.C. is also supported by the Swedish Brain Foundation . This research was also supported by the Northwestern University RHLCCC Flow Cytometry Facility and a Cancer Center Support Grant ( NCI CA060553 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Elsevier Inc.
N2 - The alignment of fasting and feeding with the sleep/wake cycle is coordinated by hypothalamic neurons, though the underlying molecular programs remain incompletely understood. Here, we demonstrate that the clock transcription pathway maximizes eating during wakefulness and glucose production during sleep through autonomous circadian regulation of NPY/AgRP neurons. Tandem profiling of whole-cell and ribosome-bound mRNAs in morning and evening under dynamic fasting and fed conditions identified temporal control of activity-dependent gene repertoires in AgRP neurons central to synaptogenesis, bioenergetics, and neurotransmitter and peptidergic signaling. Synaptic and circadian pathways were specific to whole-cell RNA analyses, while bioenergetic pathways were selectively enriched in the ribosome-bound transcriptome. Finally, we demonstrate that the AgRP clock mediates the transcriptional response to leptin. Our results reveal that time-of-day restriction in transcriptional control of energy-sensing neurons underlies the alignment of hunger and food acquisition with the sleep/wake state. The central molecular clock aligns feeding with the sleep/wake state. Cedernaes et al. employ RNA sequencing in AgRP neurons across different nutrient states, revealing time-of-day-dependent enrichment of circadian and bioenergetic gene networks. They discover that the behavioral and transcriptional response to leptin varies from morning to evening, as the AgRP clock coordinates the leptin response and glucose metabolism with arousal.
AB - The alignment of fasting and feeding with the sleep/wake cycle is coordinated by hypothalamic neurons, though the underlying molecular programs remain incompletely understood. Here, we demonstrate that the clock transcription pathway maximizes eating during wakefulness and glucose production during sleep through autonomous circadian regulation of NPY/AgRP neurons. Tandem profiling of whole-cell and ribosome-bound mRNAs in morning and evening under dynamic fasting and fed conditions identified temporal control of activity-dependent gene repertoires in AgRP neurons central to synaptogenesis, bioenergetics, and neurotransmitter and peptidergic signaling. Synaptic and circadian pathways were specific to whole-cell RNA analyses, while bioenergetic pathways were selectively enriched in the ribosome-bound transcriptome. Finally, we demonstrate that the AgRP clock mediates the transcriptional response to leptin. Our results reveal that time-of-day restriction in transcriptional control of energy-sensing neurons underlies the alignment of hunger and food acquisition with the sleep/wake state. The central molecular clock aligns feeding with the sleep/wake state. Cedernaes et al. employ RNA sequencing in AgRP neurons across different nutrient states, revealing time-of-day-dependent enrichment of circadian and bioenergetic gene networks. They discover that the behavioral and transcriptional response to leptin varies from morning to evening, as the AgRP clock coordinates the leptin response and glucose metabolism with arousal.
KW - AgRP
KW - Agouti-related protein
KW - RNA sequencing
KW - RNA-seq
KW - RiboTag
KW - SCN
KW - circadian
KW - metabolism
KW - suprachiasmatic nucleus
KW - time-restricted feeding
U2 - 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023
DO - 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.01.023
SP - 1078-1091.e5
JO - Cell Metabolism
JF - Cell Metabolism


PORT MORESBY, 01 October 2018: The Chairman of Nambawan Super Limited, Mr. Anthony Smaré, today congratulated the Prime Minister Peter O'Neil, Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel, and the government of Papua New Guinea on the successful issue of the US$500 million sovereign bond. This follows several previously unsuccessful attempts to tap international credit markets, and Nambawan Super regards it is a sign of confidence in the economic prospects of Papua New Guinea (PNG) that the state was able to place USD 500 million of 10 year bonds at 8.375% to international investors.
PNG's local credit markets had shown signs of reaching saturation point over the past few years, as banks and superannuation funds were approaching their maximum exposure limits in regard to investing in Treasury Bills and Government Inscribed Stock (GIS). By approaching international capital markets, the State was able to seek alternative sources of financing, unavailable to the State by further issues of local currency instruments. This is unambiguously a good thing, and in the interests of Nambawan's members and the Fund's ongoing local investments.
Firstly, international investors have been able to assess the ability of PNG to fund the bonds over ten years, and have clearly liked what they saw as the bond offering was several times oversubscribed. This bodes well for the bonds just issued, as a healthy appetite seems likely in the secondary market. International investors have seen the figures, and supported the bonds on the basis that the government's fiscal discipline has led to stabilizing budget deficits and gross debt to GDP at sustainable levels. International investors have this year been reluctant to finance emerging market and frontier market bonds and equities, so it is significant that the State of PNG was able to tap such an uncertain global market.
Secondly, by increasing the sources of funding available to the State, it is very possible that the State can reduce the issue of expensive local funding. Department of Treasury and Bank of PNG are well aware of the maturity profile of State debt, and this issue will lengthen the debt profile with guaranteed longer term funding. We note that the US dollar bonds have been issued at 8.375% pa, of course in US dollars, and this compares very favourably with the most recent issue of GIS at 12.58% pa. So whilst there is currency risk, the fact remains that the US dollar bonds have been issued at a cheaper rate than local issues – a clear benefit from widening the sources of funding.
Thirdly, this issue will help alleviate the shortage of foreign exchange that has hampered business activity over the past few years. ANZ Bank recently issued a report that suggested the local currency will once again be in demand as and when large projects take off, so this supply of currency is timely. Nambawan Super's investee companies such as Paradise Foods, Laga Industries, SP Breweries, Ela Motors and the Fund's property developments will benefit from the availability of this foreign exchange support and this will support the Fund's goals of delivering sustained strong returns to its members over the next 10 years.
Finally, we encourage the government to maintain its fiscal discipline, which encouraged international investors to commit to funding the sovereign bond last week. Particularly, we encourage the State to use a large portion of the bond proceeds for servicing existing expensive local debt commitments. Continued discipline is required, which will increase confidence further and improve the ability of the State to finance its debt obligations, without risking our proud history of not defaulting on such obligations.


text:
Protecting Personal Information
A new book on privacy and data protection available here.
And here is the full Introduction.
Questionable business models affect the perception of the new Facebook/Whatsapp Privacy Policy
Facebook changed its data management strategies and decided to use data generated by WhatsApp. The "people of the network" are up in arms. Many threaten to switch to Telegram or Signal. Some do so. Then everything goes back to the way it was. Originally published in Italian by Infosec.News
It is not the first time that 'alarms' about this or that fundamental right have provoked gut reactions that, in practice, translate into little. Once again, as shown by the many data theft cases by this or that multinational company, no one is shocked.
That is how it is, everyone thinks. However, does it have to be that way? Continue reading "Questionable business models affect the perception of the new Facebook/Whatsapp Privacy Policy"
An early reading of the Facebook v Business Competence trials
Unfair competition by feature plagiarism. The Courts of Milan issue two verdict that might pose severe problems to the software industry by Andrea Monti – originally published in Italian by Diritto di internet
The two judgments of the Tribunal and the Court of appeal of Milan rewrite the parameters for the assessment of software duplication in the context of deceptive conduct by favouring the external appearance (interface and functionality) over the traditional approach based on the comparison of the analysis (design) and the source code (implementation/expressive method).
The opportunity missed by the judgments, based as to the an on external similarities of the two pieces of software at issue, is to indicate how Article 2(I)(8) (which excludes from copyright protection
the ideas and principles underlying any element of a program, including those underlying its interfaces. The term program also includes the preparatory material for the design of the program itself
and Art. 45 of Legislative Decree 30/05 which, in paragraph II, excludes the legal protection of mathematical methods (i.e. algorithms).
The effects of these decisions on the software industry, historically based precisely on the replication of functionalities, and the structure of liability under industrial law are still to be assessed.
Where is the beef in the T&T (Twitter&Trump) outrage?
Some newspapers are outraged about the closure of the former US president's account. Instead, they should re-think their role and contents they deliver by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian by Infosec.News
Frankly, it is hard to understand the outrage about Twitter & Trump and, in general, about the "power" of social networks to silence anyone.
Unlike newspapers, Twitter, Facebook and Google are private companies. They provide services against the acceptance of a contract. The contract gives them the power to accept as a customer whomever they want, to do what they want with the published content and to close accounts at will. Not unlike proprietary software producers who reserve the right to withdraw – at their discretion – the licence they have paid for, which is often very expensive.
Twitter & C. do nothing different from newspapers and 'traditional' media. Indeed, one could even say that the latter do worse, in the name of adherence to the 'editorial line'. We witness political factionalism, superficial and coarse information, or 'free inspirations' from foreign newspapers passed off as original articles every day. Just as, daily, we witness the 'usual celebrities' talking about everything and anything on any television programme, even beyond their sectoral expertise. Continue reading "Where is the beef in the T&T (Twitter&Trump) outrage?"
The responsibility of media and intellectuals for the power of big-tech and the safety of Institutions
Media and intellectuals no longer anticipate reality, but merely follow it. The building of a civil conscience pays the price by Andrea Monti
After Twitter decided to close former US president Trump's accounts, Italian media and intellectuals "discovered" the power of technological platforms and launched a "democracy alarm".
They come good last and more than twenty years late (better late than never) on such an issue desperately signalled at international level by civil rights associations such as the American EFF, in Europe by EDRI) and, in Italy, since 1994, by ALCEI. Continue reading "The responsibility of media and intellectuals for the power of big-tech and the safety of Institutions"
The assault on the US Capitol and the culture of law and order
The handling of the assault by former President Trump supporters has provoked strong criticism of the American security apparatus, responsible for not having foreseen what would happen. Ensuring public order, however, requires means, but also a philosophical choice in the management of security by Andrea Monti Professor of Law and Order, University of Chieti-Pescara – Originally published in Italian by Formiche.net
The scenes of the assault on the American Capitol evoke images more suited to other latitudes than that of the country universally accredited as a flagship democracy. Leaving aside why such a disconcerting event happened, and therefore disregarding the political consequences of having triggered a violent protest, it is worth making a few considerations on "how" the public order emergency looks from an Italian perspective. Continue reading "The assault on the US Capitol and the culture of law and order"


text:
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------
// <copyright file="OAuthScopeExtensionMethods.cs" company="Hyperar">
//     Copyright (c) Hyperar. All rights reserved.
// </copyright>
// <author>Matías Ezequiel Sánchez</author>
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------
namespace Hyperar.HattrickUltimate.BusinessLogic.ExtensionMethods
{
    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using BusinessObjects.Enums;

    /// <summary>
    /// OAuth Scope extension methods.
    /// </summary>
    public static class OAuthScopeExtensionMethods
    {
        #region Public Methods

        /// <summary>
        /// Gets an OAuthScope object from a string array.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="values">OAuth scopes tags.</param>
        /// <returns>OAuthScope object.</returns>
        public static OAuthScope GetEnum(this List<string> values)
        {
            if (values == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(values));
            }

            // Having a valid token means at least having Read access, thus it's always ON.
            var result = OAuthScope.Read;

            foreach (string value in values)
            {
                switch (value)
                {
                    case Constants.OAuthScope.ManagerChallenges:
                        result |= OAuthScope.ManageChallenges;
                        break;

                    case Constants.OAuthScope.ManageYouthPlayers:
                        result |= OAuthScope.ManageChallenges;
                        break;

                    case Constants.OAuthScope.PlaceBid:
                        result |= OAuthScope.PlaceBid;
                        break;

                    case Constants.OAuthScope.SetMatchOrders:
                        result |= OAuthScope.SetMatchOrders;
                        break;

                    case Constants.OAuthScope.SetTraining:
                        result |= OAuthScope.SetTraining;
                        break;

                    default:
                        throw new NotImplementedException(
                                  string.Format(
                                             Localization.Messages.UnknownOAuthScope,
                                             value));
                }
            }

            return result;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Gets the Query String value of the current OAuthScope state.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="value">OAuthScope state to convert.</param>
        /// <returns>Query String value of the current OAuthScope state.</returns>
        public static string GetString(this OAuthScope value)
        {
            var result = new List<string>();

            if (value.HasFlag(OAuthScope.ManageChallenges))
            {
                result.Add(Constants.OAuthScope.ManagerChallenges);
            }

            if (value.HasFlag(OAuthScope.ManageYouthPlayers))
            {
                result.Add(Constants.OAuthScope.ManageYouthPlayers);
            }

            if (value.HasFlag(OAuthScope.PlaceBid))
            {
                result.Add(Constants.OAuthScope.PlaceBid);
            }

            if (value.HasFlag(OAuthScope.SetMatchOrders))
            {
                result.Add(Constants.OAuthScope.SetMatchOrders);
            }

            if (value.HasFlag(OAuthScope.SetTraining))
            {
                result.Add(Constants.OAuthScope.SetTraining);
            }

            return string.Join(
                              Constants.OAuthScope.Separator,
                              result.ToArray());
        }

        #endregion Public Methods
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


It's tough to say much about Beach House. They are one of the most consistent musical acts of the 2000s. They release new music every couple of years, play some shows, and get back to work. Any one of their albums could be your favorite. There is rarely a blip, let alone a miss. The soundtrack to your daydreams, the chillest of vibes, Beach House deliver once again with 7.
The aptly-titled 7 is Beach House's seventh album. Produced by Peter Kember (a.k.a. Sonic Boom, a vanguard of minimal psychedelia), it feels almost like bragging. Yes, this is our seventh great album in 12 years. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally could host a seminar on collaborating creatively. Both make beautiful marks all over their work, never shouting over each other, only highlighting their collective talent.
7 rolls out perfectly. It's the right length, each track lands in the right spot. "Dark Spring" is an upbeat opener that burns out into the slow, plodding Beach House we know on "Pay No Mind." Pure percussions lead the way, but slip back into the lazy, fuzzy haze Scally and Legrand have perfected over the past 10 years.
"Lemon Glow," the first single from 7, is murky Trap-pop. It's the kind of song that doesn't get old. It's a song that will show up on your algorithmically-generated playlists years from now.
But Beach House isn't just trudging drum machines and echo pedals. They'll find a sample, something that makes a good song great, like the groovy Latin beat on "Drunk in LA." "Dive" is long winding epic built on organ and drawn out chords. It's the formula that works well.
"L'Inconnue" (a delicious Francophile treat) has a goth vibe, like This Mortal Coil with shredding instead of strings. "Last Ride" has a lovely piano melody and several minutes of blissful feedback. "Woo" is a swirling dreamscape sprinkled with overheard soundbytes, like wearing headphones and watching a party in slow motion. It has strong Spiritualized vibes, perhaps the Kember influence, but is distinctively Beach House at the same time.
Lyrically, tracks like "Lemon Glow" and "Woo" are fine examples of what Beach House does so well. "I want it all, but I can't have it / It inches by but I cannot say much," are the broad, sweeping strokes Legrand and Scally are known for. Their lyrics paint an atmosphere, through repetition and obscurity. Their lyrical minimalism gives the music a timeless, inclusive quality, one of the keys to their consistency.
Beach House's album release schedule has been methodical and practical. They've been able to somehow milk the combination of reverb, echo pedals and ethereal vocals without it becoming formulaic. Despite the proverbial cleaning of the musical closet on their last album, B-sides and Rarities, 7 is not far from where Beach House started. After a decade, their sound isn't at all tired. How have they crafted so many beautiful albums, aging much better than several of their peers, out of gently leaning on an organ? It's shoegaze, dream pop, whatever you choose to call it, but still uniquely Beach House and done to perfection.


text:
A CG Replacement Head Helped Save Ryan Gosling's Face While Filming Blade Runner 2049
Filed to: Visual EffectsFiled to: Visual Effects
Rodeo FX
Universal Production Partners
GIF: Vimeo
Hollywood studios rarely let their A-list stars perform their own stunts. An injury could delay a film production, or worse, prevent a photogenic face from promoting a movie once it hits theaters. In this behind-the-scenes look at the VFX work on Blade Runner 2049 by Universal Production Partners, we see how Ryan Gosling's pretty face was protected by a stunt double and a CG head.
Producers usually try to cast stunt doubles that have a similar build and body to an actor, but these days it doesn't really matter what their face looks like. Long gone are the days of laughing at a stunt double in a movie that looks nothing like the star they're subbing for, as computer graphics and modern digital effects make flawless face replacements relatively easy.
And because Blade Runner 2049 was recently shortlisted for the 2018 Oscar for best visual effects, we've gotten another behind-the-scenes look at the film's wonderful effects, courtesy of Rodeo FX, who helped make the year 2049 look even more dystopic.
Unfortunately the film wasn't exactly a runaway success at the box office this summer, which means Blade Runner 2049 will have a hard time competing with other effects-laden blockbusters like Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel for that visual effects Oscar.
Is there a movie or TV show that doesn't rely on visual effects these days?
Filmmakers Built a Gigantic Fake Boat at an Airport For Kong: Skull Island's Ocean Scenes
Spoiler Alert: This Game of Thrones VFX Reel Exposes That Dragons, Sadly, Aren't Real
A Furless, Skinless CG Rocket Raccoon Will Fuel Your Nightmares Tonight


text:
<?php

namespace SlmQueueAmqTest\Asset;

use SlmQueue\Job\AbstractJob;

class SimpleJob extends AbstractJob
{
    /**
     * {@inheritDoc}
     */
    public function execute()
    {
    }
}


text:
Inside GOP Money Maven Emily Pitha's Descent Into Meth
Friends say a Republican fundraiser's boyfriend believed her Arizona political connections with John McCain and Jeff Flake would protect them from the cops.
M.L. Nestel
Updated Jul. 12, 2017 7:17PM ET / Published Apr. 29, 2016 6:56AM ET
He was her favorite drug.
Once Republican stalwart and John McCain fundraiser Emily Pitha fell for Chris Hustrulid, he promised to say goodbye to the narcotic nights and mixing records as a DJ, and began punching a clock and pushing hardware.
But friends of the couple told The Daily Beast that Hustrulid, 36, never stopped hustling and used his romance with Pitha and her political connections with the stars of the Arizona GOP—her LinkedIn also lists jobs with Sen. Jeff Flake and former Sen. Jon Kyl—for his personal gain.
"I got the impression from him that once he started dating Emily that his life was on easy street; that his life was kind of untouchable," one longtime friend, who wished to remain anonymous, said. "It wasn't that he wasn't doing any major crimes. It was just the way he talked. Everybody knew that Emily had pull."
Another source close to Pitha, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, told us Pitha, 34, drifted after hooking up with Hustrulid.
"Once they got together, she cut all her friends out of her life," said the friend. "He pretty much Svengali'd her."
Pitha was a catch.
She was also a political rainmaker tapped by GOP heavies from John McCain to Marco Rubio to court Arizona donors to fatten their election war chests.
Meanwhile, her new boyfriend told her he was making a fresh start.
He'd left behind Texas and a toxic relationship with the mother of his two young children because she couldn't kick her prescription-pill habit.
When the Hustrulid trio moved into Pitha's two-bedroom home on East Bethany Home Road three years ago in the Wrigley Terrace suburb of Phoenix, everything seemed very cozy.
That all changed Wednesday.
A brown parcel containing a jigsaw puzzle was shipped from the Netherlands from a "Peter De Groot" addressed to a "Gloria Mears" and headed straight to Hustrulid and Pitha's home, according to the incident report.
On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in San Francisco flagged and X-rayed it and determined the item wasn't a puzzle at all, but a puzzle box filled with a plastic baggie stuffed with 253 grams of ecstasy. According to the report, the ecstasy doses were purple-colored, pentagon-shaped tablets, each scored with a ram's head.
Other agencies were notified and a sting was organized.
Instead of the normal letter carrier, Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies (led by outspoken hardliner Sheriff Joe Arpaio) and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service sent an undercover agent in to deliver the drugs.
"When [Hustrulid] signed for the package, he signed his real name," Maricopa County Det. Doug Matteson told The Daily Beast, noting that Pitha arrived minutes afterward and joined her boyfriend in remaining silent after they were read their Miranda rights.
Armed with a warrant, authorities searched the house and allegedly discovered a meth lab in the rear. "It was a storage shed on the outside, behind the house," said Det. Matteson, who was present during the search. "It was a working meth lab. They had glasswares and oils and materials and explosive materials and there was a quarter-pound of meth there."
There were also signs of a plan to cultivate cannabis, according to the cops.
"They were building an addition and had one of those false walls that would have been for an illegal marijuana grow," Matteson said.
However, Hustrulid's mother, Joan Rhode, told us the deputies are confused. It wasn't a marijuana grow but rather the couple's planned renovation to the house to give the 10-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl their own separate rooms.
"I believe they were excavating because they were going to put in an addition to the house since they only had two bedrooms," she said. "I had just talked to them about giving a little antique dressing table to my granddaughter, but Chris said, 'We don't have the room for it now but we will in a few months when she has her own bedroom.'"
According to the incident report, the search didn't stop at meth or marijuana hallmarks.
They also evidence-tagged from Pitha's home (which was fit with security cameras) 5 grams of marijuana, 3 grams of heroin, 3 grams of cocaine, 10 acid hits, shatter, hash oil, and $7,000 in cash.
And both were slapped with charges of child endangerment, manufacturing narcotics, and possession of drug lab equipment among others. Pitha was bailed out Thursday, the AP reported. It's unclear if Hustrulid posted yet.
Earlier Thursday, Rhode admitted the family is going to struggle to spring her son. "The bail is $20,000 in cash and we don't have that kind of money. And I think her family is more affluent."
The 63-year-old retail manager said she had visited her grandchildren in February and said her son's surveillance cameras were installed to "protect his family" and the so-called meth lab wasn't filled with paraphernalia but common household clutter.
"The last time I looked in that back shed it was so full because that's where they store things," she said. "And it had bikes and just everything a family would have to store."
Since Pitha and Hustrulid were booked, the fallout has left Rhode shaken to the core after being forced to see her son's mugshot splashed on the evening news.
Pitha worked for the Arizona fundraising outfit Lovas Co., which boasted a client roster that included former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. She was quickly sacked by McCain's re-election fundraising campaign this week when news broke of her and her boyfriend being booked for cooking crank.
Long after deputies had turned the family home into a crime scene, the rest of the family had no idea what had happened.
"I know Emily [Pitha] called my ex-husband saying, 'There's a family emergency and can you pick up the kids from school,'" Rhode said of the frantic phone call before the couple was hauled away to the Maricopa County pen.
"They picked up the children and didn't know until they heard it on the news at 8-something that evening," she said. "It was very shocking and devastating to our family."
She stressed that whenever she visited, there were "never any comings and goings of outside people ever."
When her grandson's birthday arrived in February, Rhode wanted to get him something special and her son told her that he could use a little extra cash for summer soccer camp.
"He said, 'If you want to help out with soccer camp that would be appreciated.'
"So I gave him some money for him to play in the camp and it didn't pay for the whole thing. But if they're making money hand over fist dealing drugs, why would he feel the need to ask for money for the soccer camp?"
Rhode said that her son should be known as nothing less than a dutiful dad, religiously dropping off and picking up his kids every day to and from school, taking them to the dentist and Sunday church.
He even made sure that after they parted with their biological mother the kids received counseling.
"My son was 100 percent dedicated to his children," Rhode said. "He took the most active role. He felt it was his responsibility—they were his children."
A source close to both Pitha and Hustrulid agreed. "His kids are his thing," the source said. "Him and his son were really inseparable."
Still, there were times when even the way he cared for the kids surprised friends and neighbors. "He was always running around the street with his kids," the source close to Hustrulid said. "It would be like he was fucked up, like drunk or something, and I asked him, 'Why are you out running around in circle with a kid in a stroller. You don't jog, so what are you doing?'"
As for the political powerhouse Pitha, she welcomed the role of motherhood.
"She took the children in and she became a mother to them," Rhode said, fondly reflecting on how the children even gave her their own special name.
"My granddaughter at one time must have heard my son call Emily 'Honey' and it stuck so now both children call her 'Honey.'"
A source close to the couple also remembered how they turned into a nuclear family almost overnight. "Right after they met, Chris started devoting all his attention to her," the source said. "She was more the surrogate-type mom for his kids."
"I know they talked about getting married all the time," Rhode said. They also want to grow their family. "They talked about having another child together," she said.
The future seemed bright for her son being with Pitha.
Another source close to Hustrulid was less shocked by TV news.
"I wasn't surprised to see him in the news for what he was doing," they said. "That kind of scale was a little bit of a surprise. [But] Chris was like that—he's a hustler.
"He doesn't care. He has little-guy syndrome and consequences be damned."
The couple met and made their romance official at a company mixer hosted at a Tempe, Arizona, watering hole.
"They were partying that night and since then they stuck together like glue. They've been inseparable," a source close to Hustrulid said.
They were major opposites but weren't slow when it came to affection. "She just came and jumped on him and they've been together ever since," a source close to both Pitha and Hustrulid said. "I'm pretty sure they had sex the first time they met."
Hustrulid was a classic renegade who geeked out on electronics. Pitha was a reserved, well-educated rising political star.
"He was more street smarts and she was more book smarts—it was a weird combination," the source said. "She didn't seem like his type and he didn't seem like her type."
They were worlds apart.
"She was smarter than him," the source said. "But he's a slick talker. Not shy. Quick.
"He would always be messing with stuff, pulling electronics apart, and jumping on bicycles while she was pretty, wealthy, and well-connected but didn't talk much at all."
The friend tried to talk sense into Hustrulid after he had broken up with his children's biological mother. "I used to joke with him, 'You're just trying to get over your ex-wife. You should just kept moving.'"
But Hustrulid was head over heels for Pitha. "He definitely moved up when he got with her."
Hustrulid apparently spent his weekdays downing Adderall while working for a company called Better Direct (which he later sued for back pay and lost). He sold brand-name computers like Hewlett Packard and Lenovo to the General Services Administration—then he'd take off and go get tanked for the night. The next day he'd do it again.
He even boasted on an internal blog at the company where that he'd begun DJing again "by mere accident."
He wrote that he had earned top marks as the "head DJ at the famous Sam's Boat in Austin, Texas" but walked away from the hard partying after becoming a dad.
"When my first child was born in 2006, it was time to retire. No more crazy late nights (early mornings?). No more rooms full of amps, speakers and CDs."
"He and his roommate would go home and get fucked up," the source said. "They would get off work at 3 o'clock and get plastered until about 8 or 9 o'clock and go to work at 5 or 6 in the morning."
The friend claimed that it was during Hustrulid's daily benders that he adopted some of the narcotics tradecraft. "The mail thing was something that he learned from his roommate," the source said of the hardware salesman. "He would get packages of a pound of pot coming through the mail."
The source said the enterprising cohort would get these questionable packages monthly and specifically used the USPS because "they need a warrant to get into your package where DHL and FedEx don't."
As for Pitha's friends—at least one pre-Hustrulid (who she dubbed "a criminal") feels she lost a friend.
"I knew her before—she was a great person," the former friend said. "The person that is in the news is not the person that I knew.
"I never expected she would be involved with a meth lab."
Joan Rhode is hoping there is another explanation. "I'm considering the fact that because of her strong political affiliations there is always the possibility they were set up," she said.
But the facts weigh heavy and there's a hint that she has already given up when she talks about her son.
"He was a good man and a good father," she said. "I mean is a good man and father. In my mind I've lost him because he's incarcerated and I'm frightened for his future and frightened for my grandchildren."


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Since I got home from Seattle I just have not had time to go to the grocery store. Tuesday night after the red eye home I basically collapsed for the rest of the day, and since John was craving Chinese anyway, we ordered in. The last night we had plans at Towne (amazing! Review posted earlier today) and since we were aiming to be there on the early side, I skipped it. Let me tell you- big mistake to leave going to the store until today! With crazy Earl on his way, the store was a nut house with last minute preparations! Lines stretched down the aisles, and all seemed to dashing around clearing the shelves.
How bad do we think this storm will actually be? Any predictions?
Anyway after finally making it through the store, I headed home and made one of my classic dinners- pork chops lightly marinated in lime olive oil and raspberry vinegar, and then grilled in a grill pan, with a big salad on the side with tons of veggies. It was exactly what I needed. Salad is basically a comfort food for me, I make them so often that there is total therapy in chopping the veggies, whisking the dressing, and then tossing it all together. Tonight's was especially good with a dressing I made with a wedge of blue cheese Laughing Cow cheese, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Since The Laughing Cow wedges are just 35 calories a piece, they make a great substitute for rich creamy blue cheese dressing. Very delicious.
So now, I'm gearing up for the great storm, and the long weekend. So excited! Happy Thursday!


1WT Package, WT Convenience Package, Leather Seats, Heated Seats, Running Boards !
This black Double Cab pickup has an automatic transmission and is powered by a 285HP 4.3L V6 Cylinder Engine.
Our Silverado 1500's trim level is Work Truck. This full size Silverado 1500 work truck comes with some excellent standard equipment that includes a 4.2 inch colour audio display with USB ports, power door locks, electronic cruise control and air conditioning as part of its interior features. Additionally, this work truck also gives you StabiliTrak, a locking tailgate, and a tire pressure monitoring system. This vehicle has been upgraded with the following features: 1wt Package, Wt Convenience Package, Leather Seats, Heated Seats, Running Boards , Spray-on Bed Liner.
We've discounted this vehicle $2743. Total rebate of $10000 is reflected in the price. Credit includes $10,000 manufacturer rebate.
Buy this vehicle now for the lowest bi-weekly payment of $257.86 with $0 down for 84 months @ 5.99% APR O.A.C. ( Plus applicable taxes - $299 documentation fee ). Incentives expire 2019-12-31. See dealer for details.
* Every reasonable effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information listed above. Vehicle pricing, incentives, options (including standard equipment), and technical specifications listed is for the 2018 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Work Truck may not match the exact vehicle displayed. Please confirm with a sales representative the accuracy of this information.


What is the meaning of agency?
An administrative unit of government.
usage: "the Central Intelligence Agency"; "the Census Bureau"; "Office of Management and Budget"; "Tennessee Valley Authority"
A business that serves other businesses.
The state of being in action or exerting power.
usage: "the agency of providence"; "she has free agency"
The state of serving as an official and authorized delegate or agent.
How a result is obtained or an end is achieved.
usage: "a means of control"; "an example is the best agency of instruction"; "the true way to success"
Chicago WordNet. 2010. "agency" http://smartdefine.org/agency/definitions/1222568 (accessed April 22, 2019).
Harvard WordNet 2010, agency, Smart Define, viewed 22 April, 2019, <http://smartdefine.org/agency/definitions/1222568>.