【推荐1】The Best Things to Experience in River City

String Thing

Caroline Shaw, who won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for music, has composed many famous contemporary songs. Her lively compositions will be performed in a concert by Richmond's dynamic Rosette String Quartet as part of its So Hot Right Now series. The concert takes place on Monday,（October 25, from 7: 00 pm to 10: 00 pm, at the Hofheimer Building's Dark Room. The Rosettes are Ellen Cockerham Riccio (violin), Treesa Gold (violin), Kimberly Ryan (viola) and Steph Barrett (cello).

Cooking and Comedy

After visiting the River City in 2014, Alton Brown, who is the Bill Nye of the culinary (烹饪的) world and longtime host of shows including Iron Chef America and Good Eats, will return on Thursday, October 28, during his fall tour, Beyond the Eats. The show at Dominion Energy Center's Carpenter Theatre promises a mixture of cooking, comedy and audience interaction.

Opera Man

The Metropolitan Opera's production of Fire Shut up in My Bones marked a historic first as the only opera performed by African American composer Terence Blanchard on that stage earlier this year. The star of that show, Will Liverman, comes to the University of Richmond's Modlin Center at 7: 30 pm on October 28. His performance will include songs by composers Shawn E. Okpebholo, H. Leslie Adams and Damien Sneed, as well as works by Schubert, Loewe, Rachmaninoff, Britten and Bolcolm. Tickets are $10 to $25.

Night of the Picture Show

George Romero's 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead, will be played at the Byrd Theatre at 6: 00 pm on October 31. Make it a double feature and catch the Yes and Theatrical Co. performance and screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at 10: 00 pm. This event features the theater company's cast accompanied by the Trunk Show Band performing the film's soundtrack live.

【推荐3】No one was bigger.

The Stones were bolder. The Who was louder. But the Beatles simply ruled the music industry, from their first single until their breakup. Everyone knew them, or thought they did. However, to understand them, you must push past the news, the myths and the lies to dig deep.

It was July 6, 1957, when the Beatles began. John Lennon, nearly 17, was performing at a school event. Paul McCartney, just 15, watched nervously. Afterward, McCartney worked up the nerve to introduce himself! He played a few songs. "He was as good as me," Lennon was impressed. "I'd have to keep him in line. He also looked like Elvis."

Just like that, McCartney was in the band. Soon, he brought along a friend, George Harrison, 14. By 1960, they had added a drummer, Pete Best. Calling themselves the Beatles, they turned professional.

By the spring of 1963, the Beatles' first album had gone to No. 1 in Britain, with several singles hitting the Top Ten. By the next year, when they reached America, they were already legends （传奇）.The Beatles were here, and so was Beatlemania. Their success opened the charts, and the world, for other British bands;

As the years went on, the Beatles' popularity held firm. But they changed and, after they quit touring in 1966, began going after separate interests.

After one more album “Abbey Road" was recorded while the tapes for “Let It Be" sat on a dusty shelf, the band split in 1969. Lennon wanted to leave earlier, privately telling McCartney. But it was McCartney who went public six months later. He also did it via a press release, using it to promote his new solo album. Both characters were then firmly on different paths, and the legendary Lennon and McCartney partnership was done.

But their songs would outlast everything.

【推荐1】Car companies such as Tesla and Nissan have been leading the way in electric car technology. What makes these car “green” is that because they run on electricity instead of gas, they do not give off any polluting greenhouse gases. The Toyota Mirai is also a kind of green car, since it is powered by a hydrogen fuel battery(氢燃料电池).

Hydrogen, as you know, exists in large quantities on the earth. It was used to power gaslights for centuries before electric lights came along. Hydrogen fuel can be made from many sources including water, natural gas and even rubbish. As for energy contained, 9.5kg of hydrogen is similar to 25kg of gas. According to Toyota, the two tanks on the Mirai hold 5kg of hydrogen, and can cover a distance of over 300 miles. This is twice the output of gas cars.

In a hydrogen fuel battery, the one proton (质子)and one electron in a hydrogen atom(原子) are broken up. While the electrons power the car, the hydrogen protons work with the oxygen atom to produce water. At the same time, it also produces a lot of heat which turns this water into water vapor. This is the reason why cars running on hydrogen fuel batteries give off water vapor from their exhaust pipes when running.

According to Toyota, it takes only 5 minutes to refill a hydrogen tank, which is much quicker than charging (充电) electric cars. However, the biggest difficulty for the company is the availability of hydrogen-charging stations. California and the New England states are in the process of building a hydrogen superhighway—with charging stations along the way. Countries like Germany, Japan and UK are also adding more charging stations.

The Toyota Mirai will be available in the U.S. in the second half of 2015 for $ 58,000. This hydrogen-fueled car will probably take the place of gas cars in the near future. After all, it is an energy-saving and environment-friendly car.

【推荐3】Mass communication is a very broad field which includes advertising, mass promotion, political campaigns, public relations, mass education and even the way you interact with other people. It covers just about everything you do in your daily life. Some characteristics of mass communication are: communication, information overload, group effort and feedback. There are some more that are less often mentioned but are just as important as the ones that have been listed above.

The most basic feature of communication is interaction. Interaction takes the form of communication where you can interpret what someone is trying to say. For example, when a person says “How are you?” and you respond in a loud voice or in a concerned manner, it’s considered interaction.

Another characteristic of mass communication that you’ll come across is a large number of receivers. When communicating with a group of people, it is important to keep in mind that each receiver will bring different characteristics to the table when communicating. Different receivers will take up different topics and bring a different set of characteristics to the table. In some cases, you will need to communicate with many different types of receiver in order for your communication ideas to be fully expressed and taken into full effect. You should therefore consider the characteristics of your receivers when planning your communication strategies.

New media is also impacting communication. Each type of new medium has diverse different ways in which it can deliver messages. You can make use of several types of communication in many cases and reach a wide range of target audiences. For example, you can use the Internet in order to communicate with your audience. As a result, the amount of information also in turn becomes too much for the human mind to process in a timely and effective manner. This overload is not only unsound, but it also tends to make people impatient, which finally takes the form of arguments and other types of exchanges that are based on facts, assumptions or personal experiences. However, although you may have to deal with some constraints, the Internet is still a very powerful tool that should not be ignored.

【推荐3】On November 14, I met an author and civil rights hero who changed the world at the age of six. Ruby Bridges became the first Black student to attend an all-White school in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1960.

The civil rights hero’s courage is now recognized yearly on Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day. We spoke at a school in Alameda, California, where students participated in the event and also got a chance to meet Bridges. I asked her about the spirit behind the day, which included more than 325,000 schoolchildren nationwide this year.

“There was a fifth-grade class,” Bridges explained, “and a very special student who was so connected to my story, she said, ‘Ruby Bridges should have her own holiday.’”

That was in 2018. The students wrote to their state government. After three years of effort, Ruby Bridges Walk to School was established in their home state of California. Bridges hopes that it will become nationwide. “If it does,” she added, “I want it to really mean something.”

Bridges imagines “a day of dialogue, where students can sit down and really talk about how they can make a difference in the world.” Just one small act, like cleaning up a park or helping feed people, she added, would be meaningful.

We also talked about I Am Ruby Bridges, her latest book. I asked Bridges how it differs from other stories she has written.

“What a lot of people don't know is that I have a sense of humor,” Bridges said. “So I thought, I’ m going to write this particular version of my story, when I was six, and how funny my thoughts were.”

More than 60 years ago, Bridges changed the world with her walk into an all-White school. Her quest for social justice continues. “I will bridge the gap between Black and White,” she said, “and hopefully between all people. ” Students today are hoping to follow in her footsteps.