Ken or KEN may refer to:

Technology

People

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The ken (間) is a traditional Japanese unit of length, equal to six Japanese feet (shaku). The exact value has varied over time and location but has generally been a little shorter than 2 meters (6 ft 7 in). It is now standardized as 1 ⁹/₁₁meter.

Although mostly supplanted by the metric system, this unit is a common measurement in Japanese architecture, where it is used as a proportion for the intervals between the pillars of traditional-style buildings. In this context, it is commonly translated as "bay". The length also appears in other contexts, such as the standard length of the bō staff in Japanese martial arts and the standard dimensions of the tatami mats. As these are used to cover the floors of most Japanese houses, floor surfaces are still commonly measured not in square meters but in "tatami" which are equivalent to half of a square ken.

Word

Among English loanwords of Japanese origin, both ken and ma are derived from readings of the same character 間.

This kanji graphically combines 門 "door" and 日 "sun". The earlier variant character 閒 was written with 月 "moon" rather than "sun", depicting "A 門 door through the crevice of which the 月 moonshine peeps in".

Ken was a short-lived illustrated magazine first issued on April 7, 1938. It was a controversial, political, large format magazine with full page photo spreads, published every two weeks on Thursdays. It contained both articles and stories.

History and profile

Ken was founded in 1938 by publisher David A. Smart and editor Arnold Gingrich, who earlier had founded Esquire. Initial publication was delayed due to difficulties in assembling an editorial team. Jay Allen was the first editor hired, and he began to assemble a staff drawing heavily from the political left. Smart and Gingrich found his work unsatisfactory and quickly fired Allen and most of his new men, replacing him with George Seldes; but as Seldes's left-wing views provoked little sympathy from potential advertisers, he was soon downgraded although not fired. Microbe Hunters author Paul de Kruif was brought on as an editor, but was not able to devote full time to the project.

Smart and Gingrich then took more direct editorial control and launched the magazine with contributors including Seldes, Ernest Hemingway, John Spivak, Raymond Gram Swing, Manuel Komroff, critic Burton Rascoe, and sportswriter Herb Graffis.Sam Berman contributed caricatures, and David Low cartoons.

Fire!! was an African-American literary magazine published in New York City in 1926 during the Harlem Renaissance. The publication was started by Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas, John P. Davis, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, Lewis Grandison Alexander, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes. After it published one issue, its quarters burned down, and the magazine ended.

History

Fire!! was conceived to express the African-American experience during the Harlem Renaissance in a modern and realistic fashion, using literature as a vehicle of enlightenment. The magazine's founders wanted to express the changing attitudes of younger African Americans. In Fire!! they explored edgy issues in the Black community, such as homosexuality, bisexuality, interracial relationships, promiscuity, prostitution, and color prejudice.

Langston Hughes wrote that the name was intended to symbolize their goal "to burn up a lot of the old, dead conventional Negro-white ideas of the past ... into a realization of the existence of the younger Negro writers and artists, and provide us with an outlet for publication not available in the limited pages of the small Negro magazines then existing.". The magazine's headquarters burned to the ground shortly after it published its first issue. It ended operations.

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion.

Fire may also refer to:

Music

Groups

Albums

Songs

Fire is a 1985 Dora Award winning musical by Paul Ledoux and David Young. The musical is based loosely on the story of Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin Jimmy Swaggart and the divergent paths their lives took.

The musical follows the lives of the character "Cale Blackwell", based on real-life story of Jerry Lee Lewis and his brother "Herchel Blackwell" which is based on Lewis' real-life cousin Jimmy Swaggart. Herchel follows in the footsteps of his father, the reverend Blackwell's, as a preacher. Herchel's father is proud of him but does not approve of his son's use of the radio and then television while pioneering televangelism. The Reverend JD Blackwell is almost immediately disappointed with Cale who quickly finds fame as a Boogie-Woogie star and wallows in an accompanying life of rebellion against society and his own upbringing. Both brothers fall in love with their mutual childhood sweetheart "Molly King".

Ultimately neither brother can claim to have led a moral life, and both had succumbed to their own flaws.

A spread is a food that is literally spread, generally with a knife, onto food products such as bread and crackers. Spreads are added to food in order to enhance the flavor and/or texture of the food, which may be considered bland without it. Spreads should be distinguished from dips, such as salsa, which are generally not applied to spread onto food but have food dipped into them instead.

Common spreads include dairy spreads (such as cheeses, creams, and butters - although the term butter is broadly applied to many spreads), plant-derived spreads (such as jams, jellies, and hummus), yeast spreads (such as Vegemite and Marmite), and meat-based spreads (such as pâté).

See also

References