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In This
Issue
Looking
Back: 1967-68
Community
Arts Council Leaders Networking Lunches
Arts
Scholarship for High School Seniors
Do You Know…Ai?
Public Invited
to Grant Review Meetings
“ICE” Film
Festival Seeks to Break Cinematic Boundaries
Musician
Brings Recognition to Ragtime Greats
Brown
Receives Harry Oster Award
In
Memoriam: Sharilyn Bell
Iowa Roots
Pieces Available as MP3s
IAC Staff Out
& About
Meet Your IAC
Board Members
Arts
Organizations, Be Sure You’re Listed as a Tourism Destination!
October is
National Arts & Humanities Month!
River of Words
Brings Together Environment, Poetry & Art
AEI
Fall Conference/Nature Retreat Oct. 12-14
IAC
Calendar
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Oct. 18: Grant Writing Workshop, 1-4 p.m., Fairfield Public Library, 104 W. Adams.
Oct. 20: Poetry Out
Loud Teacher Workshop, 10 a.m.-Noon, Giggles Coffee Shop, 322 E. Coolbaugh,
Red Oak. For more information, contact Dawn Martinez Oropeza at Dawn.Oropeza@iowa.gov.
Oct. 24: Grant Writing Workshop, hosted by artsLIVE,
9 a.m.-Noon, Spencer
School Administrative
Building, 23 E. 7th St.,
Spencer.
Oct. 24: Community
Arts Council Leaders Networking Lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Revelations
Bookstore, 112 N. Main, Fairfield.
To reserve a spot, contact Dawn Martinez Oropeza at Dawn.Oropeza@iowa.gov.
Ongoing: Mini Grants. Applications due the first of each month. Apply for up to
$1,500 in matching funds for arts-related projects.
Ongoing:
Applications for Big Yellow School Bus and EZ 1-2-3 Grants.
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Links
Buyiowaart.com
In-Box of Artist Opportunities
Internships
Other Arts Events
Contact Us
www.iowaartscouncil.org
600 E. Locust
Des Moines,
IA 50319
(515) 242-6194
Office Hours: Monday-Friday, 8
a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Newsletter Editor:
Sarah.Oltrogge@iowa.gov
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Looking Back:
1967-68
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During Iowa Arts Council’s first year, the fledging agency
specifically targeted colleges and universities to submit project proposals
for possible funding. Some of these first projects included a symposium on
the arts in Iowa at Drake
University’s College
of Fine Arts and a community arts
council symposium hosted by the Waterloo Arts Council and the Waterloo
Recreation and Arts
Center.
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Today, the IAC accepts proposals not only from schools,
but also from nonprofit organizations, area education agencies, local, county,
state and federal governmental agencies and tribal councils.
Also during that year, the Artists-in-Schools Program
was initiated in Iowa,
with assistance from the National Endowment for the Arts. The first teacher
to participate in the program was Leonard Good, a painting instructor from Drake University, who conducted the program
in the Shenandoah schools.
Governor Robert D. Ray showed his support for visual
artists by showcasing nine Iowa artists at
the Capitol Building. “Governor’s Exhibit: Nine
Iowa Artists” included works by Byron Burford, Stuart Edie, John Gordon, M.J.
Kitzman, Jules Kirschenbaum, James Lechay, Maricio Lasansky, Virginia Myers
and John Page.
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Community Arts Council Leaders
Networking Lunches
Since taking the position as Community Programs
Coordinator for IAC, Dawn Martinez Oropeza has looked for ways to better
serve arts councils and their communities. As such, she has talked, visited,
sent out surveys and provided services with many different agencies.
In the last few months, Oropeza has been meeting with
specific representatives from alliances and agencies to find ways in which all
groups can all work together, network and find solutions to each one’s individual
needs.
The solution? The IAC is starting a series of round
table lunches, patterned after a similar series at which businesspeople pay
thousands of dollars to sit down with top executives to share ideas and
solutions. The goal will be to openly communicate about needs and wants and
how the Iowa Arts Council can better serve community arts agencies across Iowa.
“I am thrilled to take part in the quarterly Community
Arts Council lunches put together by Dawn,” said Joe Jennison, executive
director of the Iowa Cultural Corridor Alliance. “If our statewide arts
community is going to compete with other Midwestern states for cultural
tourism, it is imperative that we all begin to work together. I encourage
every arts organization, large and small, to join us in the ongoing
discussions of how we can make this state a cultural leader. Together we can
do so much more than any of us can do alone.”
The meetings are free to attend, but lunch and travel
expenses are not included. The first meeting will be held Oct. 24 from 11:30
a.m.-2 p.m. at Revelations Bookstore, 112 N. Main in Fairfield. To RSVP, contact Dawn Oropeza by
Oct. 15 via e-mail, Dawn.Oropeza@iowa.gov.
Future meetings are also being planned:
Winter: Des
Moines (February)
Spring: Corning
(April)
Summer: Spencer (June)
More details will be available at www.iowaartscouncil.org as dates,
times and locations are set. Check back often for more information.
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Arts Scholarship for High School
Seniors
Iowa high school
students planning to enter college with a major in an arts discipline are
invited to apply for the 2008 Iowa Scholarship for the Arts.
Offered annually by the Iowa Arts Council, the award is
given to Iowa residents who will graduate
from an Iowa
high school during the 2007-2008 academic year and have proven artistic
ability in dance, literature (creative writing), music, theater, traditional
arts or visual arts. Each recipient will receive $1,000 toward his or her
college tuition and related expenses as a full-time undergraduate at a
fully-accredited Iowa
college or university with a major in one or more of the disciplines
considered for the award. Last year, IAC received nearly 100 scholarship
award applications from Iowa
students.
To be considered for the award, students must complete
the scholarship application available at www.iowaartscouncil.org,
write an essay about their future career goals in the arts, and include two
letters of recommendation. Applications and attachments are due by 4:30 p.m.,
December 10, 2007 in the Iowa Arts Council offices at 600 E. Locust Street, Des Moines,
IA 50319
(this is not a postmark deadline). Incomplete, illegible, handwritten, faxed
or emailed applications will not be accepted. Application review, criteria,
approval and notification process information is also available on the Web
site. Please contact Sarah Ekstrand at (515) 281-4657 or sarah.ekstrand@iowa.gov
for more information.
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The National Endowment for the Arts & Poetry
Foundation’s Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest strives to educate
young people about great poetry through memorization and performance. A list
of poems for high school students to choose from is available at www.poetryoutloud.org. While some
names may be familiar, others may not.
Meet Ai, one of the poets whose work is included in the
Poetry Out Loud catalog. Ai was born Florence Anthony in 1947 in Albany, Texas.She
adopted the name Ai, which means love in Japanese, to acknowledge her mixed
ancestry and to challenge conventional racial stereotypes. Her poems are
often dramatic monologues, told by scoundrels, dealing with dark themes such
as cruelty, sin and greed, which are also titles of her collections. She won
the National Book Award for Vice in
1999, in which she acknowledged that violence is a part of American culture that must be addressed.
Here is a sample of her work entitled Conversations:
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We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don’t tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of silk dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreaths of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that’s where I’m floating,
and that’s what it’s like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?
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Iowa Arts News will
continue to feature a Poetry Out Loud poet per month through April, National
Poetry Month. The Poetry Out Loud
state-level contest will be held in Des
Moines Saturday, March 8. Iowa
high school teachers interested in having their students participate in the
program have until Nov. 1 to contact Donna Davilla at ddavilla@mchsi.com for information and
materials.
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Public Invited to Grant Review Meetings
The Iowa Arts Council will be holding review meetings
for the second round of FY08 major grant applications Wednesday, Oct. 17 at
the State Historical
Building in Des Moines. From 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., sub-panels
will meet to discuss each grant application. The afternoon session from 1:30-3:30
p.m. will bring the full panel together to discuss funding recommendations.
Members of the public may attend and observe, but not speak at or participate
in these meetings. Contact Staci Nevinski
at (515) 281-3293 or Staci.Nevinski@iowa.gov for
information.
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“ICE” Film Festival Seeks to Break
Cinematic Boundaries
This weekend, Iowa
City will be home to the first Iowa City
Experimental (ICE) Film Festival, bringing much-needed exposure to a
little-known, and little-understood genre.
“Experimental film festivals like this provide
opportunities to exhibit films from smaller niches, unheard voices in unheard
parts of the world,” said Lisa Danker who, along with Charlotte Taylor, is
co-director of the Festival. “The thriving artistic communities in the rural Midwest are too often overlooked and we aim to
challenge this shortsightedness.”
Of more than 180 national and international submissions
received, 64 will be screened Oct. 4-6 at various venues in Iowa
City and on the University
of Iowa campus. The
event received a $1,500 mini grant in September from the Iowa Arts Council.
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“People who attend the festival can expect to see
films and videos that break cinematic conventions and question the limitations
of traditional film,” Taylor
said. “We want to open the dialogue between the international experimental
filmmaking community and the Iowa
City community.”
No one knows more about the
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struggle of experimental filmmaking than the ICE Film
Festival’s two jurors, Naomi Uman and Bill Brown. Both received M.F.A.
degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and both have received
Fulbright grants. Brown’s work can be characterized as personal-essay
documentaries appealing to a wide audience while Uman’s have crossed from
hand-painted artistic films to documentaries.
“The experience and expertise of these two accomplished
filmmakers bestows recognition upon the winners of the Festival,” Danker
added. “Ultimately, we are striving to stimulate discussion between these
accomplished filmmaker and novice enthusiasts about the possibilities of
experimental film and to inspire the practice of creative, low-budget, low-tech
experimental filmmaking.”
For a schedule of screening and more information about
the Iowa City Experimental Film Festival, visit www.icefilmfest.org or www.myspace.com/icefilmfest.
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Musician Brings Recognition to
Ragtime Greats
Around the turn of the century, it was a common
perception that blacks were incapable of formal music composition and
notation. But a group of African Americans
persevered against prejudice and outright thievery of their intellectual
property to find sympathetic businessmen who would publish and promote their
music. The result of their persistence was a musical revolution that began in
the Midwest and swept through America – thrusting the United States
into international prominence as the source of an exciting new music called
Ragtime.
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Brent Watkins performs during “Eagles and Ivories
Weekend” in Muscatine.
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More than 100 years later, the music is being kept
alive by Iowa
musician and pianist Brent Watkins. Featured on the Iowa Arts Council’s
Performing Artist Roster, Watkins has created The Heroes of Parlor Town, a presentation featuring a live piano
performance interspersed with oral history that traces the transformation
of American popular music by
African-American composers from
the 1890s to the early 1920s.
“Most people will recognize the name Scott Joplin as
one of the most prolific and popular ragtime composers,” Watkins said.
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“But there are
other ‘heroes’ who helped change the musical landscape as well: Arthur
Marshall, Scott Hayden, James Scott are just a few. Many African American composers overcame great odds in order to
bring music from their culture into the urban parlors of Middle
America.”
Watkins was raised in Cedar Rapids where he studied piano
beginning at age eight. Trained in the classics, as a young teenager, he fell
in love with ragtime piano in the early 1970s, when music from the motion
picture “The Sting” was played on a local radio station. The Heroes of Parlor Town was a natural progression for Watkins
to explore the history of the African American
composers and the early jazz era.
In 2006, The
Heroes of Parlor Town received a major grant from Humanities Iowa and the
National Endowment for the Humanities, allowing Watkins to complete the
production of a short film documenting the role African Americans played in the ascendancy of American popular music during the early 20th
century. Additionally, his music has been featured on National Public Radio’s
All Songs Considered and KSUI’s Talk of Iowa. He currently lives in Cedar Rapids with his
wife and five children.
To learn more about Watkins and The Heroes of Parlortown, visit www.heroesofparlortown.org
or Iowa Arts
Council Roster Web page. To listen to samples of his music, visit http://www.heroesofparlortown.org/html/cd_vol_1.html.
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Brown Receives Harry Oster Award
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Iowa-based musician Greg Brown was presented with the
2007 Harry Oster Award by the Iowa Friends of Old-Time Music Sept. 16.
Brown is a prolific songwriter whose work has been
performed by Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Michael Johnson, Shawn Colvin
and Mary Chapin Carpenter. He has recorded more than a dozen albums,
including his latest release, Live
from the Big Top, a recording of Brown’s 2005 concert at the Big Top
Chautauqua in Bayfield,
Wis.
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He is a regular contributor to Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion radio show on
National Public Radio.
The Harry Oster Friend of Old-Time Music Award is
presented to individuals who have made an extraordinary contribution to the
music scene in eastern Iowa,
their lasting impact on fellow musicians and on the music and folk traditions
of the area. Dr. Harry Oster was a highly regarded American
folklorist, musicologist, musician, record producer, concert promoter,
professor, instrument collector and co-founder of the Iowa Friends of
Old-Time Music. His accomplishments include publishing numerous books and
articles on music and folklore, including Living Country Blues (1969) and the
Penguin Dictionary of American
Folklore (2000). Oster died in 2001 at the age of 77.
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Sharilyn Bell
Sharilyn Bell
passed away at the end of July 2007 after a valiant fight against
cancer. She was and is the
acknowledged heart and soul of Psalms, a family-based, African-American gospel group quartet that performs contemporary
music, spirituals and hymns for family reunions, festivals, benefits and
church. The parents of several in the group sang in the renowned
Zionettes.
Sharilyn grew
up singing with her siblings, Sandy Reed and Allen Bell, before graduating to
the junior choir in their Cedar
Rapids church. After World War II, the Bell family moved to Iowa
from Kirksville, Mo.
Psalms was
Sharilyn’s baby in particular. She taught herself the piano and for years
would get together with Sandy, and their cousin Mona to sing in the living
room. After several family deaths, Allen finally joined the group, then Paul
(Mona’s brother), and finally Mike Cole. In 1988, the group met Ron Teague, gospel
choir director at the University
of Iowa who became their
trainer and began booking them more frequently.
Psalms was a
featured group at the Smithsonian’s 1996 Festival of American
Folklife, the Sesquicentennial Festival of Iowa Folklife, and the 2001
Festival of Iowa Folklife. Their renditions of Go Tell It On the Mountain and Ain’t No Devil can be heard on the CD Iowa State Fare. An
interview with Psalms can be heard on the Iowa
Arts Council Web site; Sharilyn is the final speaker of the piece.
Donations in Sharilyn Bell’s honor can be made to
Hospice of Cedar Rapids.
Arnold E. Levine
The Iowa Arts Council also notes with regret the
death of Arnold E. Levine, Des
Moines, on August 14, 2007. Mr. Levine was a
former member of the Iowa Arts Council board and a longstanding supporter of
the arts in Des Moines and Iowa.
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Iowa Roots Pieces Available as MP3s
Season four of Iowa
Roots is now in MP3 format and available for downloading.
Iowa Roots is
a production of the Iowa Arts Council and WOI Radio that features stories,
music and talk with traditional artists from a variety of ethnic, geographic,
occupational and religious groups found in Iowa. Season four includes interviews with
the Matney Sisters (Siouxland Anglo-American
gospel and boogie-woogie), Les Ackerman (Amana wine maker), Dawn Suzanne
Wanatee (Meskwaki traditions) and Gene Mealhow (K&K Tiny But Mighty
Popcorn®).
Visit the Iowa
Roots Web site to hear the interviews or download the MP3 files.
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Oct. 1-2: Bruce
Williams to Muscatine for CLP applicant site
visit with Muscatine
Art Center
Oct. 1: Riki
Saltzman to Iowa City to speak to an
anthropology class about Iowa
place-based foods
Oct. 3: Cyndi
Pederson, Mary Sundet Jones, and Bruce Williams to Storm Lake
for the 3rd of three regional meetings with Cultural Leadership
Partner organizations
Oct. 4: Dawn
Martinez Oropeza to Marshalltown
to meet with art teachers and students to present a lecture on Dia de los
Muertos and how they can create their own altars for the Latino Conference
Oct. 5: Staci Nevinski to Storm
Lake for Buena Vista University
Career Day
Oct. 5: Dawn
Martinez Oropeza presents information about Poetry Out Loud at the Iowa
Council of Teachers of English Conference and Poetry Slam
Oct. 5-6: Riki
Saltzman to attend the NE Iowa Artists' Studio Tour
Oct. 8: Riki
Saltzman to Pella to present information to
arts management class at Central
College
Oct 9: Bruce
Williams to Lake Rathburn Fish Hatchery to attend Honey Creek Resort Park Art
in State Building advisory committee meeting
Oct 10: Bruce
Williams attends Toledo Art in State
Building advisory committee meeting
in Des Moines
Oct. 12-14: Dawn
Martinez Oropeza to Boone to present two workshops at Art Educators of Iowa
Retreat
Oct. 13: Mary
Sundet Jones presents information about Poetry Out Loud at Iowa High School
Speech Association Coaches Conference in Des Moines
Oct. 17-22: Riki
Saltzman to chair a forum on foodways and public programming and present
a paper for American Folklore
Society
Oct. 18: Sarah
Ekstrand and Dawn Martinez Oropeza to Fairfield
for Grant Writing Workshop
Oct. 18-19: Bruce
Williams to Cedar Rapids
for CLP applicant site visit with Brucemore
Oct. 20: Dawn
Martinez Oropeza leads Poetry Out Loud Teachers Workshop in Red Oak
Oct. 24: Sarah
Ekstrand and Mary Sundet Jones to Spencer for Grant Writing Workshop
Oct. 24: Dawn
Martinez Oropeza to Fairfield
for lunch meeting with community arts council representatives
Oct. 25-26: Bruce
Williams – CLP applicant site visit in Des
Moines with Salisbury House
Oct 26: Sarah
Ekstrand to Sioux City
for YP Iowa Conference
Oct. 28-29: Cyndi
Pederson and Bruce Williams to Spencer for CLP site visit with Spencer
Community Theatre
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Meet Your IAC Board Members
Do you want to know who’s on the Board of Directors for
the Iowa Arts Council? You may be surprised to see they are from all over the
state – probably closer than you think! The Iowa Arts Council Web site
includes the listing of board members’ names and complete contact information
at www.iowaartscouncil.org/about/board-of-directors.
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Arts organizations – be sure you’re
listed as a tourism destination!
Guidepost USA
is offering a FREE basic listing on their web site, www.GuidepostUSA.com
for tourism destinations in Iowa.
Basic listings include name, address and phone numbers, a brief description
as well as an automatically generated geocode (latitude and longitude) and an
interactive map. For an example of a basic listing, click here.
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October is National Arts &
Humanities Month!
Each year since 1993, National Arts and Humanities Month
has helped give millions of Americans
the opportunity to explore new facets of the arts and humanities in their
lives and has encouraged them to begin a lifelong habit of active
participation. It has become the nation’s largest collective annual
celebration of the arts and humanities.
From arts center open houses to mayoral proclamations to
storefront banners and newspaper articles, thousands of communities across
the U.S.
are recognizing the cultural gems all around them.
The Iowa Arts Council encourages local participation in
National Arts & Humanities Month. If you’re part of an arts or humanities
organization looking for ideas, visit the Americans
for the Arts Web site for some great ideas.
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River
of Words Brings
Together Environment, Poetry & Art
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River
of Words is an annual
environmental poetry and art contest for youth aged 5-19 in grades K-12.
The contest is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural
history of their own watershed and to express what they discover through
poetry and art.
Each year, eight U.S. winners, one international
winner and a “ROW Teacher of the Year” are selected to be
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honored during National Poetry Month (April) at an award
ceremony at The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. River of Words also
publishes an annual poetry book of winning submissions, selected by Robert
Hass, and exhibits the children’s paintings at museums, libraries,
conferences and other venues around the world.
The contest is free to enter, and every child is
acknowledged with a personalized “Watershed Explorer” certificate. Children
may enter on their own or through schools, nature centers, libraries, youth
clubs and other organizations. River
of Words is coordinated in Iowa by IOWATER.
Entries not chosen as finalists or grand prize winners in the international
contest are returned to IOWATER, where they are judged in a statewide River of Words contest. For specific
information, visit the ROW Web site at www.riverofwords.org.
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AEI Fall Conference/Nature
Retreat Oct. 12-14
Return to the camp days of your childhood summers during
Art Educators of Iowa Fall Conference/Retreat Oct. 12-14 at the YMCA Camp in
Boone. Sleep in a cabin with friends. Sing around the campfire. Hike in the
woods. Draw. Canoe. Make new friends. Renew old friendships. Make sculpture.
Dance around the campfire. Relax. Dye a t-shirt. Listen to story tellers.
Giggle after the lights are out. Learn new ideas and skills. Share your ideas
and skills. Have a massage. Write a postcard home. Look at the stars. Get
recertification credit. Re-energize. Bid on a silent auction item or two.
Photograph your friends and their art. A variety of workshops are available.
Costs vary. AEI members and nonmembers welcome. Visit www.artedia.org for details.
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