On Friday I started the day with three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence in Broadcasting on America's Number One radio show. The Mueller Report predominated, but we got to other topics as well: You can find a few moments from Open Line Good Friday here. Thank you as always to Mr Snerdley and the rest of the gang: the best team in radio, no question.
~The moronization of society proceeds apace. As we mentioned on the show, a bigshot New York Times correspondent thinks that playing "Edelweiss" at the White House is some kind of Nazi dog-whistle to Trump supporters. It is tragic and profound the way even small artifacts of our inheritance get trashed in these witless arguments, so, if you want to know the real story of the very last song in the Oscar Hammerstein catalogue, here's what I had to say a couple of years back:
Not long after Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote the song, Theodore Bikel was leaving the theatre when he found a fan and fellow immigrant waiting at the stage door for his autograph: 'I love that "Edelweiss",' said the theatregoer. 'Of course, I have known it a long time, but only in German.'
Not for the first time, Hammerstein had done too good a job. Just as his 'Ol' Man River' for Show Boat is assumed by many to be an authentic Negro spiritual, so 'Edelweiss' is assumed to be an authentic Austrian folk song. Not so. In both cases, a great craftsman manufactured them to solve a structural problem with the storytelling. But he did it so well that they have become for real what they were only intended to simulate. Some years ago 'Edelweiss' was played at the White House, at a state dinner for Austria's President Kirschschlager, and everyone but the Austrians stood up for the national anthem. Actually, no. The current Austrian anthem is 'Land der Berge, Land am Strome', and the only official anthem by Rodgers & Hammerstein is their title number for their very first show, which serves as the state song of Oklahoma.
Speaking of that very first R&H show, I also mentioned on air the new revival thereof - a full-blown Woke-lahoma!, which production Terry Teachout rightly calls a travesty before wondering why the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization would ever have licensed such a thing. Likewise, I'm not sure why they would have approved the use of "Edelweiss" as the theme music of The Man in the High Tower, thereby linking it indelibly for the NYT's Maggie Haberman and other myopic solipsists of our hyper-present-tense culture with fascism and Nazism and racial superiority. Some years ago I had a fair bit of contact with Ted Chapin, who runs R&H, and he was a prudent steward of a great legacy. Of course, back then the authors' kids, Mary Rodgers and Bill and Jamie Hammerstein, were still around to keep an eye on things, too. I find it hard to imagine any of them agreeing to license either of the above. But times change, and they seem to figure a joyless social-justice deconstruction of Oklahoma! in which "The land we belong to is grand!" is rendered as dark, mocking Trumpist triumphalism is better than no Oklahoma! at all. Like the man says: Sad!
~On the other hand, maybe R&H have concluded that in today's world you're either woke or purged. The latest to be banished from public life is the great Kate Smith, the burly contralto who walloped "God Bless America" into public consciousness. Which is why until yesterday both the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Yankees played it at their games.
Unfortunately, Miss Smith made the mistake of recording other songs, too, including one called "That's Why Darkies Were Born", written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown for George White's Scandals of 1931. Her fellow singer, the hardcore Communist Paul Robeson, who happens to be black, also made a famous recording of it. Why? Because he understood it to be a sardonic number by a couple of wise-guys for a sophisticated Broadway audience on the pathetic justifications offered for southern racism. Here's the entire lyric:
Someone had to pick the cotton
Someone had to pick the corn
Someone had to slave and be able to sing
That's Why Darkies Were BornSomeone had to laugh at trouble
Though he was tired and worn
Had to be contented with any old thing
That's Why Darkies Were BornSing, sing, sing when you're weary
And sing when you're blue
Sing, sing, that's what you taught
All the white folks to doSomeone had to fight the Devil
Shout about Gabriel's Horn
Someone had to stoke the train
That would bring God's children to green pastures
That's Why Darkies Were Born.
It was part of a little group of Broadway revue songs of the late Twenties and early Thirties ("Black and Blue", "Supper Time") prodding audiences to address a persistent and ugly aspect of American life - back when it took a certain amount of courage to do so. Eighty years later, the social-justice wankers can barely comprehend anything written before 2008. So it's not enough that, hedged in by the ever narrowing restraints of correct attitudes, our age cannot make anything of its own; it is also necessary that the entirety of the past be erased. Hence, at top right, that ludicrous cover-up of the Kate Smith statue in Philly. As I said on Rush, she looks like the third child bride of Mullah Omar.
But that's what pop culture is reduced to in 2019: a literal cover version of Kate Smith. Incidentally, if Miss Smith's "God Bless America" cannot be heard because she also sang "That's Why Darkies Were Born", why should Bing Crosby get away with singing "White Christmas" on the all-holiday radio playlists every December? After all, in the very film where he introduced that song to the world, he also appeared in blackface!!!
So "White Christmas" should also be banned - unless, of course, Bing happens to be a Democrat Governor of Virginia.
We are in Pol Pot's Year Zero. The demolishers (as Victor Hugo calls them in our Notre Dame Tale for Our Time) are determined to ensure there will be nothing left.
~One more: The world these totalitarians are building for us will be one without not only song but also jokes - see the "Last Laughs" section of The [Un]documented Mark Steyn. I have a huge amount of respect for the brilliant Barry Humphries - notwithstanding that years ago he left a foul-mouthed tirade on my answering machine, which utterly flummoxed me when I returned home and hit the "Play" button. Ten minutes later, he left a second message saying sweetly, "Pay no attention to my last message. Dialed the wrong number. Sorry about that." Notwithstanding whatever that was about, Humphries' comic creations Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson are two of the great Australian contributions to the world, and I will always treasure him for dispatching Sir Les to Bill Leak's book launch, just thirty-six hours before Bill died.
Thirty years ago Barry Humphries helped set up the Melbourne Comedy Festival and agreed to lend his name to its most glittering prize - the Barry Humphries Award for Comedy. Alas and alack, Barry gave an interview to The Spectator, which has been declared by the new commissars of comedy to be "transphobic". Mr Humphries feels that transgenderism is a "fashion", and further outraged the pearl-clutchers of edgy comedy festivals by characterizing Caitlyn Jenner as a "publicity-seeking ratbag".
So now his name has been removed from the comedy award he founded and it has been renamed the Melbourne Comedy Festival Award or something equally insipid. Edgy, hip, boundary-pushing, transgressive comedy has no place for disrespecting Caitlyn Jenner; edgy, hip, boundary-pushing, transgressive comedy is all about sticking safely to the approved script.
~It is Easter and Passover at SteynOnline and we shall have some special programming later today. Don't forget our unusually timely Tale for Our Time, in which, after the incendiary eruptions of Holy Week, I read some pertinent parts of Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Tales for Our Time is made possible through the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club, now approaching its second birthday. For more information on the club, see here.
Just a month ago we officially announced the Second Annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise, following last year's successful maiden voyage. Cabins are going spectacularly fast - and we're very nearly sold out. If your preferred accommodations are showing up online as unavailable, do call Cindy, our excellent cruise manager, and she might be able to pull a few strings: If you're dialing from beyond North America, it's +1 (770) 952-1959; if you're calling from Canada or the US, it's 1-800-707-1634. Or you can email your query here.
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The new of the post mortem lynching of Kate Smith doesn't shock too much sadly, because I have grown to accept such idiocy from mainstream culture. Even Leftists like Bill Maher are denouncing the lack of a sense of nuance and context, and the vindictive paranoia of it all.
For Heaven's sake, singing a satirical song about racism makes you a racist? What next? Will we be banning Jonathan Swift's essay A Modest Proposal because it's allegedly an incitement to child cannibalism?
Dear Mark Steyn: If only Maggie Haberman were a regular reader of yours, she would know of Edelweiss and so many other songs, and avoid such gaffes. She can stick to the show biz columns (don't think she can handle the "woke" she'd get from reading your political/culture columns). Her loss. Mark, serious proposition, can I buy her a gift membership?
I'm a little late to the party but if a song about a flower that symbolizes a homeland country that is over-run by Nazis is a tribute to Naziism, then surely Un Bel Di is a tribute to Kokka Shinto and Trump will surely be playing Madame Butterfly next https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oRUyT5NOOA
Fitting for Easter and to give us all hope " For ye have the stupid with you always"
Also fitting they would never be able to figure out how to proof that ...
Mark, how come we as a society allow this to go on unchecked? It will not end well, especially for The Left!
Richard, been to SF, LA, Chicago, Washington, or any large US city lately? Been on any college campus, even hick colleges in the hinterland? And you ask why "this" goes on unchecked? The socialists Democrats and fellow travellers who run every large city, state, and university in this country are not trying to check "this" but are actively promoting it. Better to destroy, supress, and rule the deploralble and irredeemable pesantry, don't you know.
Don't count on the left losing, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." --- Edmund Burke.
When the woke wake, it will be 1440 AH or soon after.
When The Left goes too far, pushes US too far, there will be an armed response eventually. That is not me threatening. That is me saying what I truly believe will happen. Good men WILL do something!
I hope you are right.
If, after those horrible reviews, the producers of Woke-lahoma! need a play doctor, I'm available:
Poor Jud is gay
He lives in Frisco Bay.
His gourmet cakes are known for miles around.
He's going to the dance
In a pair of leather pants.
The gals now know just why they've been turned down.
If someone made a 'woke' version of 7 brides for 7 brothers and played it for laughs, it might be kinda funny.
A few years ago, Mark himself suggested an updated version entitled "Seven Bribes for Seven Clinton Brothers."
That's way too 2016. We need to go right to "Seven Brides for Five Transpeople and One Who Insists On Being Referred To As 'They'".
How about "Seven Theys for seven Thems"... Sorry, I'm not sure how pluralize these pronouns that were previously pluralized forms of pronouns.
I wonder how many of our elite sophisticates, unfamiliar with Cole Porter, believe that the "Wunderbar" is the Munich drinkery from which the Beer Hall Putsch was launched. I'll bet you could sell that idea to the staff at the New York Times without breaking a sweat.
Or "der Wunderground" is a secret society for promoting climate change.
By the way, there's a thought-provoking article on YouTube where a major university physics professor describes the earth as experiencing a CO2 drought.
A few years ago, a NY Times "sportswriter" referred to NY Yankee Iron Man Lou Gehrig as a third baseman. I mean, any 10-year old baseball fan knows who Lou Gehrig was.
Any time you hear that a classic musical has been "re-imagined for a contemporary audience," you know it's going to be horrible. A few years ago, "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,' got that same Woke treatment. The Woke twist was that the patient with past lives is a gay man, and (surprise!) the formerly heterosexual doctor falls madly in love with him. I recall thinking that even Broadway's gay audience is not going to buy that malarkey, and sure enough, it was a major-league flop.
The thing is, when you hear about a new woke "Oklahoma!," and speculate as to what changes they are going to make, there's nothing you can come up with that's more absurd than what the directors have come up with. Here's what Rex Reed had to say about this new miserable mutant:
"It had to happen. The miserable fools who are hell-bent on changing the theater world by destroying timeless classics in a misguided effort to make them relevant, trendy and politically correct (whatever that means) finally got around to screwing up Oklahoma!."
The current crop of 'comedians' here at the Melbourne Comedy Festival are nothing more than woke activists, and don't have a thing on Barry Humphries! Sir Les Patterson is one of the greatest comic characters ever created- here's a clip I recently uploaded from 'Barry Humphries Flashbacks' of Sir Les describing his time in the high spending Whitlam Government of the mid-1970s, and one of his pet projects (which would no doubt trigger the woke comedians of today):
https://youtu.be/Qa_vjVrgLCQ
Les is (was) hideously brilliant. His poem for Bill Leak (he mentioned Gough!) was absolutely hilarious. Bill's speech was brilliant too. (YouTube - Bill Leak book launch - with Sir Les Patterson.)
Mark wondering "whatever that was about" - the polite voice message after the abusive one - makes me wonder if it's a very local type of humour. Too funny!
Barry Humphries' "Sir Les" ode to Bill Leak - the video in the link - was absolutely brilliant!! "We've all put our hand on the wrong knee from time to time" etc was pre-#MeToo comic genius.
The Left is moving from the past to the present... whether you're a transgressive comedian or devout Christian rugby player: Everything Must Go.
They don't hate Kate Smith because she was "bad". They are doing it because she was talented and contributed to America in a major cultural way. Same with Columbus to Washington to Jefferson to Stephen Foster to Cecil Rhodes to Rudyard Kipling to whoever the next one is they go after in either the USA, the EU or other Western nations. The statues were put there to remind people of how great they were. Some people don't like that. This is especially prevalent in immigrant circles, as some newer additions to these countries don't like being reminded of who built the country they just moved to, because it hurts their egos.
Your old country was poor. This new one is wealthy. How to cope with what that does to your pride? Aha! You point out that all of the giants that founded your new country (without your help) are really evil people that didn't legitimately build anything. Bang! You just turned the tables on them! Your lack of history in your new country is a good thing now, because you can just chastise the legacy citizens as being the privileged spawn of evildoers while you are free from the original sins of the founding generations and can carry on guilt-free.
So it is not about attacking Thomas Jefferson because he owned slaves. It is about nullifying and erasing the brilliance of Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries, and their accomplishments, and merely using the slavery issue in order to accomplish that.
Yes, Mike!
I knew our national affliction of Trump Derangement Syndrome had taken a turn for the worse when a lefty person of my acquaintance declared that the red MAGA hat was the Klan hood of our generation. How many St. Louis Cardinal fans have been suspected of white supremacist leanings? (Among the woke crowd, most.) Or Cincinnati Reds fans? Or Anaheim Angels, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Philadelphia Phillies fans? Even my Boston Red Sox wear the triggering, dog-whistling red cap on certain occasions. In researching this comment (what, you don't?), I note that no less than the state media of Woke-istan, CNN, sells a fetching red topper at its online store. Imagine some antifa lowlife (redundant! ed.) sneaking up behind you with a lead pipe, ready to scatter your brains across the sidewalk, only for you to turn around with the biggest excrement-ingesting smirk on your face, proudly displaying the logo of Anderson Cooper's and Don Lemon's employer, the resonant tones of James Earl Jones echoing silently in the scruffy liberal-fascist's mind, "This is CNN." Even the most rigid lead pipe would go soft.
Courage, mon vieux! You know what to do to statues of offending figures in American history. Stiffen your sinews and your blunt instrument. Smite with mighty blows the despicable depictions of such scoundrels as Thomas Jefferson. Christopher Columbus, Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen Foster, Abraham Lincoln--and Kate Smith (taking great care not to harm our sister commenter here, Kate Smyth). For as Obama's pastor taught us: "No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America!" If the police detain you (unlikely, given the leniency shown toward the Berkeley bike-lock assailant), just tell the judge you "saw red". No jury would convict.
I'd say that this nullifying of American symbols comes out of leftism more so than the immigrant community, but there is very much truth in Mike's comment. They also do it to annoy and antagonize every-day Americans and to let us know that they are in charge and they matter more than we do.
Well-said Mike. That is an accurate description of 'human nature'.
Interesting and alarming comments on the current scene. We really do live in repulsive times. I was moved to tears when I first saw Kate Smith's rendition of God Bless America* so the attack on her is especially painful. All those folks who suffered so in the 1940s – suffered in vain evidently now.
*From 1943 movie This is the Army
Heh! When we saw the subject "Edelweiss" we instantly knew it all, thanks totally to last year reading M. Mark's music column about it. Had that grab-the-lawn-chair-and-popcorn-in-the-know laugh when M. Mark was then swooped up on screen to have at it. The problem with the Left wiping the past is that they'll never see it coming when yielded like a sandbag at the side of the head.
"The problem with the Left wiping the past is that they'll never see it coming when yielded like a sandbag at the side of the head". Yep. Thanks for the chuckle P. Gao:))
Unfortunately the link to "Woke-lahoma!" is not populated, meaning it goes nowhere. Please fix. Thank you.
Now working. Thank you Mr Moderator.
I just LOVE the way that the media parroted the line that "Edelweiss" was some sort of counterpart to the "Horst Wessel Lied." It's too hilarious for words. I wonder what Theodore Bikel, a principled lefty, would have thought of this.
I hate how the left keeps taking things and ruining them: the rainbow, every color in the rainbow, comedy, the definition of "liberal", etc...and now "Edelweiss". Will anyone ever be able to hear that song again without associating it with the New York Times? Will every future production of "The Sound of Music" have to replace it with the left's favorite "woke" anthem...maybe "Imagine" (at least until John Lennon is accused of some sort of posthumous hate speech)?
So the current New York Yankees management says Kate Smith once sang a song which is now considered offensive, so she is a racist, no forgiveness or redemption is possible, and anything she has ever done must be banned.
At the time Kate Smith sang the offending song the New York Yankees, and all major league baseball teams, did far worse than hurt peoples' feelings. They actively discriminated against African-American baseball players. For decades they refused to let them play in the major leagues, regardless of how skilled they might be. How many talented African-American athletes were denied the opportunity to earn a living playing baseball by the openly racist New York Yankees? And by all major league baseball teams.
Just as with Kate Smith there should be no forgiveness and no redemption. The current New York Yankees and their management exist on a legacy built on racism and bigotry that can never be expunged. The Yankees and all other major league teams should be disbanded and all records that they ever existed should be destroyed.
Mark replies:
Indeed, Mango. By their own logic, the Yankees should close up shop immediately, and their stadium be demolished - or be sheathed in a giant burqa.
The Philadelphia Flyers, of course, are much worse since they try to pretend they aren't racist. According to information gleaned online, a total of 622 players have played for the Flyers since the team was founded in 1967. How many were of African descent? Five. They'll no doubt hide behind the old trope "we only judge on individual performance" which as we all know is just code talk for racism.
Yes, and in the spirit of AOC's victory against Amazon, just think of all the poor people who could be helped with the money that isn't being squandered on lavish sports venues with luxury boxes. Never mind the huge sums paid to players and coaches as well as the advertising.
We joke about this now, or at least speak of it glibly, but we may well see this type of attack on iconic sports brands in the near future. Would anyone be surprised? The woke generation is moving to soccer anyway. So how many more "old white guys" need to die off before Major League Baseball can safely become a target?
"...we may well see this type of attack on iconic sports brands in the near future." I think you are absolutely right. The first sports to be challenged will be those which openly and proudly practiced racial discrimination. Major league baseball is one example; another is golf. The PGA was primarily a Caucasian-only organization from its inception. It made racial discrimination official in 1943 with its Article 3, stating membership was open only to Caucasians. The article was not withdrawn until 1961.
Thank you for the news about Barry Humphries. I was unaware of his petty removal from the Melbourne Comedy celebration of conformity - but your mention of him reminded me to book a ticket for his appearance next Sunday at the London Palladium. BTW Dame Edna and Sir Les are brilliant creations, but I hold a soft spot for Sandy Stone.
The "Edelweiss" item exercised my blood-pressure. I think we're simply too kind with the sad specimens inhabiting the spineless fringe of humanity.
"Dog-whistles" and "micro-aggression" are the lexicon of feebs determined to reduce all discourse to their own preciously-cultivated sensitivities. Such feebs are not a new phenomenon: what has changed is that we now take their pathetic emotional needs seriously. In bygone times they'd have been cut dead and left to moulder in their self-pity (or grow up) outside the realms of adult conversation.
Or as we say in the north of England............shuddup and gerronwiit.
Thanks, L. No comeback on that.
I knew that FDR had presented Kate Smith to King George VI by saying, "This is Kate Smith. Miss Smith is America."
Kate Smith was an American patriot, who during WW II traveled over a half million miles to entertain troops whie raising hundreds of millions of dollars in war bonds, serious money back then. As a child I played my parents' 78s of both her and Bing Crosby singing a patriotic song that started with the line "My great-great-great-great grandfather came to America because in America a man was free..." (I've yet to retrieve it on the Internet).
In a 1938 survey, "Kate Smith and Babe Ruth ranked higher as outstanding personalities than any scientists and men of letters."
Yes, she's almost an ideal target in this ongoing campaign, isn't she?
Mark replies:
Happy to help you out there, Brian. Although the first line of the chorus is as you recall it, the actual song title is "My Great-Great-Grandfather" - written in 1942 by Edna Fischer and Al Garman. You can find Bing's version here.
Thanks, Mark! You're amazing, but I already knew that.
Your hint re the actual title caused me to try again after listening to Der Bingle crooning it. I managed to find Kate Smith's recording, and listening to it for the first time in close to 70 years I still get goose bumps listening to her rendition of the last line: "What a fool some guy would be to try to take this land away from me."
The line does strike me as bitterly ironic, because that's pretty well what's occurring on an ongoing basis, isn't it?
https://archive.org/details/78_my-great-great-grandfather_kate-smith-jack-miller-e-fischer-garman_gbia0014447b/My+Great%2C+Great%2C+Grandfather+-+Kate+Smith.flac
Pretty great inspiring song, Brian! Thanks for posting.
The burqa-esqe covering of Kate Smith's statue is indeed scarily emblematic of the tyranny that the Post Modern Left shares with the Pre-Enlightenment Islamists. How ironic that God Bless America should suddenly be pulled from the American songbook by this group of tyrants during Passover and a Holy Week that culminates in Easter Sunday when we celebrate our objective redemption from bondage and our reconciliation with our Creator solely through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Right on, David
In Italy, crosses in a cemetery in Bologna have been covered with black cloth to avoid offending persons of a certain faith, and "motorised blackout curtains have been installed in a local chapel following renovations to hide Roman Catholic symbols during ceremonies involving other denominations." (Breitbart- Chris Tomlinson- 9/4/19).
After objects and symbols, the enforced burkarisation of people won't seem so strange. As you note, it's proof that Islam and the Left are a perfect match.
Wow, Kate, I did not realize how far the tyranny has advanced in places like Bologna. The Left may be a perfect match for Islam but Islam is not an ideal match for the Left. I believe Islam sees the Left as useful idiots and once the Left is no longer useful Islam will eat them for lunch.
The sources that do report these things will be increasingly censored, while the mainstream media increasingly turns a blind eye. MSM reporting on Sri Lanka has deliberately obscured jihadist terrorism when that fact was established soon after. Was it Tamil separatists targeting Christians and western tourists? Militant Buddhists? This garbage is still being perpetuated even after the arrest of Mohammedans named Mohammed. The imam who self-detonated in the breakfast buffet queue at one of the hotels had been using YouTube to disseminate his slaughter-the-infidels message for who knows how long?
Will we see people throughout the West visiting local churches with floral tributes in a show of solidarity with Christians? Or social media selfies promoting a Crucifix-for-Coexist movement?
As for the Left vs Islam, you're absolutely spot on, David. I know there've been comments at SteynOnline to suggest otherwise, citing the support of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib for "womens' right to control their own bodies" as evidence of Islam knowing its place; but western women killing their own infidel offspring is something that Islam is absolutely in favour of, actually. The prominence of these two elected representatives in American politics with their Islamophobia-is-everywhere agenda is a very ominous sign.
The Left and Islam make for a classic example of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" because both groups consider traditional America, or better yet Christendom and Western Civilization in general, to be their primary enemy.
The Left is just too short sighted to understand its place on Islam's enemies list once the West is gone.
C'mon everyone knows "Edelweiss" is a Nazi song. It has white nationalism and white supremacy written all over it, especially the very, very white part. Who can tell your Austrians and Germans apart anyway? Everything is politically defined and motivated isn't it? Meaning doesn't derive from any other sources. There is no excuse for not being woke about this. I hope no one assumes I'm being serious here.
Correction: "White Christmas" the song was introduced to the world not in the movie "White Christmas" but in the movie "Holiday Inn" Bing and the crew were in the minstrel show in "White Christmas" the movie. Small correction, but important to keep the history straight. See you on the cruise.
Mark replies:
Correction to your correction, Edmond. "White Christmas" was introduced in Holiday Inn - which is the film I was referring to. The song which Bing sings in blackface in Holiday Inn is "Abraham".
The minstrel sequence in White Christmas is, in fact, in whiteface - with rather lurid chartreuse and green outfits, as I recall. As I mentioned to Tucker one night, somewhere between those two films blackface ceased to be acceptable for mainstream movies.
Thanks to you for correcting my incorrect correction. I'll still see you on the cruise, though. No correction there.