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A WOMAN BILLIARDIST ALLISON FISHER In school, Allison was a very competitive team sport player and almost pursued a career as a physical education teacher, but snooker was the game she excelled in. She got her start in Snooker by simply falling in love with the game. “My first interest in snooker occurred when I was seven years old. My dad was watching a snooker competition on the television, and I liked what I saw so much that I asked for a table. Being the youngest and spoilt, my with was granted. I became the proud owner of the smallest competitive table on earth: 1.5 long. I graduated to a 6’ x 3’ table when I was eleven years old, and challenged everyone who entered our house. Whether they liked it or not! When I was twelve years old, I went to the Peacehaven Central Club with my parents where, for the first time I saw a full size snooker table(12’×6’). I had a burning desire to play on it. I went home that night and I was crying in bed. My mum came in and asked me what was wrong. “I want to play on the big table.’ I replied. So she asked my dad to ask the owner, John Copper, if I could play on it. And he made my dreams come true.” At thirteen Allison got into a league, and at fifteen she was seriously competing in the world of Snooker. By the age of seventeen, she had won her first world title and never looked back. From then until the age of twenty-seven. Allison Fisher was a dominant force in the world of Snooker, She left Snooker, winning over 80 national titles and eleven world championships, including three mixed doubles and the only Ladies Mixed Doubles event ever held. She played in her first Women’s Professional Billiards Association (WPBA) Tournament in October 1995. This newcomer startled everyone by winning two of her four events, and by placing third in the World Pool Association (WPA) World 9-Ball Championship In 1996 Allison continued to storm the tour with seven first place finishes, and a # I ranking. As she would for the next three years, Allison earned Player of the Year honors from Billiards Digest and Pool and Billiard Magazine. She also won her first WPA World 9-Ball championship, and her first WPBA Championship. She kept up her stellar performances in 1997 by winning six of eleven WPBA events. Allison defended her championship when she again won the WPA World 9-Ball title. As in 1996, this year saw Allison Fisher end with the # I ranking in the WPBA. Her peers also honored her with a “Most Congenial Player” award from the Year-End Billiards Digest Awards. On the personal side, Allison is British enough to miss her Mom’s pot roast, the atmosphere in pubs, small villages, lifelong friends and family, and Alfie, her dog. Never one for the “bar scene,” a great evening for Allison is to have good food, good friends, and a night of laughter ····· As good as she has been for the game. Allison is quick to point out that it has been even to her. Allison Fisher has always counted her blessings and since her beginning, she has never
hesitated to give her time to worthy charities. She has a heart of gold and never hesitates to involve herself where she can help others. Her sponsors are proud to have her associated with them, and Allison only promotes what she believes in .Be sure and take a peek at her sponsor page, as well as Allison’s new line of signature cues. Allison is also developing a new series of instructional videotapes that are intensely focused on the fundamentals, concentration and technique that have made her game what it is today. With Pool and Billiards on the rise with Olympic recognition. And even more television exposure thanks to the WPBA; Allison Fisher continues to be at the top of her game. Her desire is to see the sport enjoy the same “boom” in popularity that tennis enjoyed in the 1970’s. For Allison the sport itself comes ahead of the player. Family, friends, her new home and the intense level of competition keep her on her toes and enjoying life to its fullest. As Allison would say “Cheers all! Hope to see you soon!”
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FREUD’S DISCOVERY In April 1884 Freud read of a German army doctor who had successfully employed cocaine as a means of increasing the energy and endurance of soldiers. He determined to obtain some for himself and try it as a treatment for other conditions—heart disease, nervous exhaustion and morphine addiction. It was little known at that time and the extensive ethical and methodological rules governing modern drug trials did not exist. Freud took some himself and was immediately impressed with the sense of well-being it engendered, without diminishing his capacity for work. Having read a report in the Detroit Medical Gazette concerning its value in the treatment of addictions his next step was to recommend the substance as a harmless substitute to his friend and colleague, Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow. Fleischl. Who had become a morphine addict following repeated therapeutic administrations for intractable neurological pain and was in desperate straits, took to cocaine with enthusiasm and was soon consuming it in large quantities. Meanwhile Freud continued to extol the virtues of the drug, writing a review essay on the subject, taking it himself and pressing it upon his fiancee, friends as a panacea for all ills, He had gone overboard with enthusiasm, writing to Martha when he heard she had lost her appetite,“Woe to you, my Princess. When I come. I will kiss you quite red and fees you ‘till you are plump. And if you are forward you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.’’ Among the people to whom Freud introduced cocaine was his colleague Carl Koller, a young doctor working in the department of ophthalmology. Freud published his essay in the July issue of the Centralblatt für Therapie, concluding it by drawing attention to the possible future uses of the drug as a local anaesthetic. Koller was impressed, thought it likely to be useful in
eye operations and two months later tried it out , first on animals and then on his own eyes with complete success. He was quick to publish his findings, thus securing a place in world history as the discoverer of what turned out to be virtually the only medical use for the substance. Freud had missed his chance, but worse was to follow. Fleischl’s temporary improvement on taking cocaine was short lived. Within a week his condition deteriorated, his pain became unbearable and he relapsed into morphine consumption. He now had not one addiction but two, taking cocaine in doses a hundred times larger than Freud used to do. He suffered toxic confusional states in which he became agitated, experiencing severe anxiety and visual hallucinations. Yet Freud continued to advocate the use of cocaine in morphinism, presumably on the basis that (as had been reported by others) it was beneficial in selected cases. His paper On the General Effect of Cocaine. Written in the spring of 1885, was published in August and subsequently abstracted in the Lancer, By the following year, however, cases of cocaine addiction and intoxication were being reported from all over the world. Freud came under severe criticism for his advocacy of the drug and defended himself by claiming(inaccurately)that he had never advised its use in subcutaneous injections. He expressed the following view, “Theory is fine but it doesn’t stop facts from existing.” This became a favorite warning against the uncritical acceptance of received wisdom.
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I LIVE ENTIRELY IN MY MUSIC—BEETHOVEN Beethoven probably began to go deaf after what he called his ‘terrible typhus’ of 1797, but he tried to keep it a secret, while consulting doctors and trying various remedies, such as the application of almond oil. He was extremely anxious about its possible effect on his career as a musician, and embarrassed by its effect on his social life. In the summer of 1801 he wrote to tow friends. To Franz Wegeler in Bonn he wrote that he was very busy, with more commissions than he could cope with,and publishers competing to get hold of his latest works, but he was worried about his health, and particularly about his gradual loss of hearing. He had been leading a miserable life for the previous two years because of his deafness, and had avoided human company because he found it hard to tell people that he was deaf. He would always say, “I live entirely in my music.” Two days later he wrote to Karl Amenda, a more recent friend. On the same lines, expressing the anxiety that his best years would pass “without my being able to achieve all that my talent and my strength have commanded me to do.” His fear that his deafness would prevent him from realizing his artistic potential led him to contemplate taking his own artistic life, but in the so-called ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’, addressed to his brothers and found
among his papers after his death, which he wrote in the depths of despair in October 1802, he said that he had rejected suicide, and was resigned to his condition. He explained that his deafness was the reason why he had been withdrawing from people’s company, because he found it so humiliating not being able to hear, but he did not want to tell people about it. Although tempted to kill himself, “the only thing that held me back was my art. For indeed it seemed to me impossible to leave this world before I had produced all the works that I felt the urge to compose.” During the summer of 1802 he had spent six months in Heiligenstadt, thirteen miles outside Vienna, on the advice of one of his doctors who thought that his hearing might improve in the peace and quiet away from Vienna. But his pupil, Ferdinand Ries (son of the leader of the Bonn court orchestra) visited him in the summer, and during a walk in the summer, and during a walk in the woods pointed out o fan elder twig. Beethoven could not hear it, and this made him very morose , As the winter approached he realized that his hearing was no better, and that it was likely to get worse, and he might end up totally deaf. It could be argued that Beethoven’s deafness helped the development of his art: isolated from the world, and unable to perform, he could devote all his time to composing, He was already composing less at the piano, and the first of his bound sketchbooks, in which he made detailed drafts of the works in progress. Date from 1798. In his panic, at the beginning, Beethoven may have believed himself to be deaf. He suffered from tinnitus ( humming and buzzing in the ears), and loud noises caused him pain. In 1804 his friend Stephan von Breuning, with whom he briefly shared lodgings, wrote to Franz Wegler about the terrible effect his gradual loss of hearing was having on Beethoven: it had caused him to distrust his friends, and he was becoming very difficult to be with. But Beethoven did not start using an ear trumpet until 1814. But above all else, Beethoven was dedicated to his art and the urge to compose remained with him throughout his life. It may be that he shielded away form the commitment of marriage because he knew it would interfere with his art. From a very early age he wanted to compose and, although he needed to earn a living, he wrote ‘I love my art too dearly to be activated solely by self-interest.’
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GIFT FOR MUSIC— LEONARD BERNSTEIN In 1986, Leonard Bernstein said, “God knows, I should be dead by now. I smoke, I drink, I stay up all night… I was diagnosed as having emphysema in my mid-20s. I was told that if II didn’t stop smoking, I’d be dead at 35. Well. I beat the rap.” But in recent months he canceled engagements and a fortnight age announced that, on his doctor’s advice, he was retiring as a conductor, In 1990, Leonard Bernstein, 72, died in his Manhattan apartment after a heart attack brought on by lung failure. Perhaps to abandon conducting was to end a love affair, to
give up life. A first-generation Jewish American, Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Mass. In 1918. His father, Samuel, who was in the beauty-supplies business. Hoped his son would someday work with him. But at 10 Lenny discovered the piano. When he used his allowance to pay for lessons his father stopped doling it out— but reinstated it after discovering his son was playing in a dance and to earn money. At the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia (after graduating from Harvard, at 20. with honors), Bernstein was the most gifted pupil of the great Fritz Reiner. This so enraged one student that he threatened homicide. Contrary to legend, the golden boy did have some lean times. In 1942. Bernstein moved to New York City armed with glowing references, but couldn’t find work. Lyricist Irving Caesar happened to hear him play the piano and thought he resembled his former collaborator George Gershwin. Bernstein told him that he needed $10 a week to stay alive. “What!” Caesar exclaimed. “You, a genius, starving? Ten dollars a week for a genius? I’ll get you fifty!” And promptly got him a job transcribing music. Within two years Bernstein had published his first symphony, written a successful ballet (“Fancy Free”), had a hit Broadway show (“In the Town”) and made his now legendary New York Philharmonic conducting debut in Carnegie Hall. Filling in for an ailing maestro, the dashing 25-year-old(who had a fierce hangover) was such a smash he got as much front-page space in New York Times as the American submarines that sank seven Japanese ships. The great creative output of the late ‘40s and ‘50s— the musicals “Candide”, “Wonderful Town” and “West Side Story”, the film score for “ On the Waterfront,” the ballet “The Age of Anxiety”— came, with good reason, before Bernstein acquired an orchestra. In 1958, he became music director of the New York Philharmonic — the first American-born conductor to head a top symphony orchestra. He revived the works of Mahler and Nielsen and programmed such contemporary music, even if he, a dedicated tonalist, was uncomfortable with it. Bernstein, says Leonard Slatkin, music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. “not only opened doors for all of us, but was the musical conscience of this country for years. We couldn’t have had a better spokesman.” After leaving the Philharmonic in 1969, Bernstein, the original globe-trot-ting maestro, maintained close ties with many orchestras, including (with typical Bernstein irony) the Israel Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. Since the late ‘50s his compositions have often been disappointing, but he was back in form in some recent works, especially the delicious Arias and Barcarolles. Though he had become white-haired and craggy, he retained the passion and quickness of a wunderkind, and no one could dispute the depth of understanding he brought to the podium, particularly in recent years, when his interpretive powers were sharper than ever.
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An Impressionist — Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Van Gogh was a man in a hurry, an artist of tremendous energy and prodigious output. He killed himself when he was only 37, but he left behind him more than 2,000 paintings and drawings, which established his reputation in a way he would never have considered possible. Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1835 at Groot Zundert in the Dutch province of Noord Brabant. He was the son of a clergyman. His first artistic impressions were formed as a boy, from his uncle who was an art dealer. The motivation bore early fruit and from the age of 12 the young Vincent was drawing. The interest led to an apprenticeship in an art dealer’s firm, Groupil’s, in the Hague. When he was only 20, he was transferred to the firm’s London office. In London Van Gogh faced his first major crisis, when he was rejected in love. After that, he turned to religion, expressed disapproval with art-dealing and neglected his work, Groupil transferred him from London to Paris but, when his work was still unsatisfactory, dismissed him in 1876. The young Van Gogh made religion a consuming interest and during the next few years traveled in Britain, Belgium and Holland, trying to establish himself as a preacher, but without success. He developed strong opinions on social morality, customs and church life and alienated those he mixed with by an uncompromising attitude. In 1880, at the age of 27, he found himself drawn back to art. He had a job as an assistant evangelist in the mining village of Borinage in Belgium but realized an artistic drive which was to motivate him unceasingly until his death 10 years later. Although he returned to Noord Brabant and his family early in 1881, his first recognized works were set in Borinage and reflected the rural culture in which he was living and his belief in order and symmetry in both society and art. The period resulted in what became known as the Brabant canvases. At this time he was becoming obsessed with artistic development. Although he was limited in practical experience, his work showed confidence and maturity from the start, no doubt influenced by the strength of his personal convictions. It was not an easy time, however, emotionally. There were tensions within the family, now that he was living back with his parents in Brabant. He was short of money and rebelling against social and academic standards. Late in 1881 he moved to the Hague and established a relationship with a woman, Christine Hoornik, with whom he lived for a time. He broke with her in 1883, however, and never again established a significant intimate relationship with a woman.
Between 1883 and 1886, at Noord Brahant again, his painting developed into characteristic dark landscapes and scenes of country life. He stressed character and expression rather than perspective and physical accuracy; he was already experimenting with impressionism. In 1886 Van Gogh left Holland forever and traveled via Antwerp to Paris, and to major changes in artistic style. Van Gogh’s work became more youthful in Paris. He lived with his brother, Theo, who managed the modern department of an art dealer’s. A new, more animated, painting style emerged and the impressionist tendencies of earlier work weakened somewhat. Van Gogh developed a taste for personalized brushwork and brilliant, unmixed colours. Among his most prominent experiments with colour were a series of some 30 flower paintings, a fascination which stayed with him until his death.