Straight Man (other)
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Straight Man (other)
''Straight Man'' (New York: Random House, 1997) is a novel by American writer Richard Russo set at the fictional West Central Pennsylvania University in Railton, Pennsylvania. A campus novel, the book was inspired by Russo's experiences teaching at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Southern Connecticut State University, and Penn State Altoona. Synopsis ''Straight Man'' chronicles the mid-life crisis of William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the unlikely interim chairman of the English department at the fictional West Central Pennsylvania University in Railton, Pennsylvania. Notable moments include Devereaux hiding in the rafters as the faculty vote on his dismissal, and his threat to kill a duck in the campus pond each day until his department receives a budget. The novel discusses flirtations between faculty and students, satirizes academic scholarship and stardom, and portrays love and health in the season of grace. Reception ''Straight Man'' was well received by critics, inc ...
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Richard Russo
Richard Russo (born July 15, 1949) is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher. In 2002, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel '' Empire Falls''. Several of his works have been adapted into television series and movies. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural, small-town life in the Northeastern United States, particularly in Maine, Pennsylvania, and Russo's native Upstate New York. Early life and education Russo was born in Johnstown, New York, and raised in nearby Gloversville. He earned a bachelor's degree, a Master of Fine Arts degree, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Arizona, which he attended from 1967 through 1979. The subject of his doctoral dissertation was the works of the early American writer, historian and editor Charles Brockden Brown. Career Russo was teaching in the English department at Southern Illinois University Carbondale when his first novel, '' Mohawk'', was published, in 1 ...
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Aaron Zelman
Aaron Zelman is an American television writer and producer. He has worked in both capacities on the series ''Law & Order'', ''Criminal Minds'' and ''Damages''. He has been nominated for an Emmy Award and a Writers Guild of America Award for his work on ''Damages''. He created ''Resurrection'' for ABC. He co-created and serves as co-showrunner of upcoming AMC series ''Lucky Hank'', based on the novel ''Straight Man'' by Richard Russo, starring Bob Odenkirk. Career Zelman began writing for television with the eleventh season of ''Law & Order'' in 2000. He wrote the episodes "Return", "Teenage Wasteland", "White Lie", "Whiplash" and "Judge Dread". He became a story editor for the twelfth season in 2001 and wrote the episodes "Myth of Fingerprints", "3 Dawg Night" and "DR1-102". He was promoted to executive story editor for the thirteenth season in 2002 and wrote the episodes "American Jihad" and "Suicide Box". He became a producer for the fourteenth season in 2003 and wrote the episod ...
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Random House Books
In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of definite pattern or predictability in information. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are, by definition, unpredictable, but if there is a known probability distribution, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events (or "trials") is predictable.Strictly speaking, the frequency of an outcome will converge almost surely to a predictable value as the number of trials becomes arbitrarily large. Non-convergence or convergence to a different value is possible, but has probability zero. Consistent non-convergence is thus evidence of the lack of a fixed probability distribution, as in many evolutionary processes. For example, when throwing two dice, the outcome of any particular roll is unpredictable, but a sum of 7 will tend to occur twice as often as 4. In this view, randomness is not haphazardne ...
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Novels About Midlife Crisis
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term ''romance''. Such romances should not be confused with ...
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Campus Novels
A campus traditionally refers to the land and buildings of a college or university. This will often include libraries, lecture halls, student centers and, for residential universities, residence halls and dining halls. By extension, a corporate campus is a collection of buildings and grounds that belong to a company, particularly in the technology sector. Examples include Bell Labs, the Googleplex and Apple Park. Etymology Campus comes from the , meaning "field", and was first used in the academic sense at Princeton University in 1774. At Princeton, the word referred to a large open space on the college grounds; similarly at the University of South Carolina it was used by 1826 to describe the open square (of around 10 acres) between the college buildings. By the end of the 19th century, the term was used widely at US colleges to refer to the grounds of the college, but it was not until the 20th century that it expanded to include the buildings as well. History The tradition of ...
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Novels Set In Pennsylvania
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and Publication, published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek novel, Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term Romance (literary fiction) ...
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1997 American Novels
Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 16 – Murder of Ennis Cosby: Near Interstate 405 (California) on a Los Angeles freeway, Bill Cosby's son Ennis is shot in the head in a failed robbery attempt. * January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes, shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral. * January 18 – In northwest Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 6 Spanish aid workers and three soldiers, and seriously wound another. * January 19 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years, and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city. (→ Hebron Agreement) * January 23 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State of the United States, after confirmation by the United States Senat ...
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Suzanne Cryer
Suzanne Rossell Cryer (born January 13, 1967) is an American actress known for her roles as Ashley on the ABC sitcom '' Two Guys and a Girl'' and as Laurie Bream on the HBO original series ''Silicon Valley''. She featured in " The Yada Yada", an award-winning and fan favorite episode of ''Seinfeld''. She has also performed on Broadway. Early life Cryer was born in Rochester, New York. She graduated from Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1984 and then attended Yale University, where she attained a degree in English literature. She went on to study for a master's degree from the Yale School of Drama. During this time she spent a summer performing at the Utah Shakespeare Festival where her roles included Rosalind in ''As You Like It'', and Anne in ''Richard III.'' Career After graduation, Cryer appeared at Hartford Stage in ''The Rivals'', Baltimore Center Stage in ''Don Juan'', and began making guest appearances on television series. She won critical acclaim ...
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Cedric Yarbrough
Cedric Yarbrough (; born March 20, 1973) is an American actor and comedian. He has starred in the series ''Reno 911!'' as Deputy S. Jones and as Kenneth on the ABC sitcom '' Speechless'', as well as voicing Gerald Fitzgerald on the Netflix comedy '' Paradise PD'', Officer Meow Meow Fuzzyface on the Netflix comedy-drama ''BoJack Horseman'', and Tom DuBois and Colonel H. Stinkmeaner on the Adult Swim sitcom ''The Boondocks''. Early life Yarbrough, who is of African American heritage, was born in Burnsville, Minnesota. He attended Burnsville Senior High School and later Minnesota State University, Mankato. He is also an alumnus of Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis. Career Yarbrough starred on the Comedy Central television series ''Reno 911!'' as Deputy S. (Sven) Jones which aired from 2003 to 2009 on Comedy Central. The series returned for a seventh season in 2020 on Quibi and for an eighth season in 2022 on The Roku Channel as ''Reno 911! Defunded''. He also appear ...
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Diedrich Bader
Karl Diedrich Bader (born December 24, 1966) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his comedic and voice acting roles. He has appeared as a series regular in television sitcoms ''The Drew Carey Show'', '' American Housewife'', and '' Outsourced'', along with recurring roles in '' Better Things'' and '' Veep.'' His film credits include '' The Beverly Hillbillies'', '' Office Space'', and ''Napoleon Dynamite''. He has had a prolific voiceover career, playing characters such as Hoss Delgado in '' The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'', Zeta in '' The Zeta Project'', Tank Evans in the films '' Surf's Up'' and '' Surf's Up 2: WaveMania'', Dr. Meridian/Mandroid in '' Transformers: EarthSpark'', and provided the voice of Bruce Wayne / Batman in multiple animated films and television series, beginning in 2008 with '' Batman: The Brave and the Bold''. Early life Karl Diedrich Bader was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on Christmas Eve, 1966, the son of Gretta Bader (; 1 ...
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Mireille Enos
Marie Mireille Enos (; born September 22, 1975) is an American actress known for the lead role as homicide detective Sarah Linden in the drama series '' The Killing.'' Early life Enos was born on September 22, 1975, in Kansas City, Missouri. She is the daughter of Monique, a French teacher, and Jon Goree Enos. Her father is American, from Texas, and her mother is from France. Enos speaks French fluently. Enos has two brothers and two sisters. Her older sister, Veronique Enos Kaefer, is the vice president of philanthropy at The Michael J. Fox Foundation. Her family moved to Sugar Land, Texas, when she was five years old. She attended Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where she underwent acting training. Enos studied theater at Brigham Young University (BYU) but left during her third year to pursue acting in New York City. While a BYU student, she won the Irene Ryan Award at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., an award annually presented to the n ...
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