York; Shadows in Siberia According to Kapuscinski

Two poems

New York City: 12 December, 1980

This article compares two documentary treatments of the Central Park vigil for John Lennon in 1980: Happy Birthday to John (Jonas Mekas, 1995, 16mm, 18 min.), and Dix minutes de silence pour John Lennon/Ten Minutes Silence for John Lennon (Raymond Depardon, 1980, 16mm, 10 min.). Mekas and Depardon might seem an improbable combination but as the article demonstrates there are affinities, if not direct points of convergence, in outlook and documentary method: both sensibilities have been shaped by migrant experiences, and much of their work, for all its formal and structural differences, is preoccupied with experiences of exile and displacement, rootedness and the meaning of home, the country and the city (and in Mekas’s case, the country in the city). Mekas and Depardon are also Europeans who have developed an intimate social and artistic relationship with New York City; both are concerned with the place of autobiography in their work, using captions, inter-titles, diary entries, photographs, and 1st person commentary to complicate relations between the imaginary and the documentary. In addition to discussing the significance of these preoccupations, and differences in the manner in which both filmmakers witness the apotheosis of Lennon as cultural martyr (and natural New Yorker), the article also examines the phenomenon of public mourning, and how it often displaces its ostensible subject: associatively, in the case of Mekas; incidentally, in the case of Depardon; and intentionally, in the case of the mass media, and popular culture.

Momentum Trading in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Energy Stocks

This paper investigates whether the momentum effect exists in the NYSE energy sector. Momentum is defined as the strategy that buys (sells) these stocks that are best (worst) performers, over a pre-specified past period of time (the 'look-back' period), by constructing equally weighted portfolios. Different momentum strategies are obtained by changing the number of stocks included in these portfolios, as well as the look-back period. Next, their performance is compared against two benchmarks: the equally weighted portfolio consisting of most stocks in the NYSE energy index and the market portfolio, and the S&P500 index. The results indicate that the momentum effect is strongly present in the energy sector, and leads to highly profitable portfolios, improving the risk-reward measures and easily outperforming both benchmarks.

Air pollutant contamination and acidification of surface waters in the North York Moors, UK: Multi-proxy evidence from the sediments of a moorland pool

Despite the extensive geographical range of palaeolimnological studies designed to assess the extent of surface water acidification in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, little attention was paid to the status of surface waters in the North York Moors (NYM). In this paper, we present sediment core data from a moorland pool in the NYM that provide a record of air pollution contamination and surface water acidification. The 41-cm-long core was divided into three lithostratigraphic units. The lower two comprise peaty soils and peats, respectively, that date to between approximately 8080 and 6740 cal. BP. The uppermost unit comprises peaty lake muds dating from between approximately ad 1790 and the present day (ad 2006). The lower two units contain pollen dominated by forest taxa, whereas the uppermost unit contains pollen indicative of open landscape conditions similar to those of the present. Heavy metal, spheroidal carbonaceous particle, mineral magnetics and stable isotope analysis of the upper sediments show clear evidence of contamination by air pollutants derived from fossil-fuel combustion over the last c. 150years, and diatom analysis indicates that the naturally acidic pool became more acidic during the 20th century. We conclude that the exceptionally acidic surface waters of the pool at present (pH=c. 4.1) are the result of a long history of air pollution and not because of naturally acidic local conditions. We argue that the highly acidic surface waters elsewhere in the NYM are similarly acidified and that the lack of evidence of significant recovery from acidification, despite major reductions in the emissions of acidic gases that have taken place over the last c. 30years, indicates the continuing influence of pollutant sulphur stored in catchment peats, a legacy of over 150years of acid deposition.