What is "shangri-la"

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, and particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. In the ancient Tibetan scriptures, existence of seven such places is mentioned as Nghe-Beyul Khembalung. Khembalung is one of several beyuls ("hidden lands" similar to Shangri-La) believed to have been created by Padmasambhava in the 9th century as idyllic, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of strife (Reinhard 1978).

Some scholars believe that the Shangri-La story owes a literary debt to Shambhala, a mythical kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which was sought by Eastern and Western explorers.

Shangri-La is a fictional valley in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton. Shangri-La may also refer to:

Shangri-La is the fourth solo studio album by British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released on 28 September 2004 by Mercury Records internationally and Warner Bros. Records in the United States. Shangri-La received generally favorable reviews.

"Shangri-La" is a popular song written by Carl Sigman (lyricist), bandleader Matty Malneck, and Robert Maxwell in 1946. The term comes from "Shangri-La," the hidden valley of delight in James Hilton's 1933 novel "Lost Horizon." The term "Shangri-La," especially in the 1930s and 1940s, was slang for heaven or paradise, and the song is about the joy of being in love.

Composer Maxwell's instrumental version (saxophone/organ lead with brass and rhythm), which featured his harp solo, which is heard in the introduction as well as in the coda section of the song, charted in 1964, reaching #15, and #67 of the Top 100 instrumentals, 1960-69. Other popular versions (with lyrics) were recorded by The Four Coins in 1957 (#11 US) and by The Lettermen in 1969 (#64 US).

Jackie Gleason used "Shangri-La" on his 1950s-60s TV variety show as theme music for his popular millionaire character Reginald van Gleason III.

The song was also used as the opening and closing theme of Radio City Playhouse, a radio anthology series that aired in the late 1940s.

Category:1946 songs Category:1957 singles Category:1963 singles Category:1969 singles Category:The Lettermen songs Category:Songs with music by Robert Maxwell (songwriter) Category:Songs written by Carl Sigman

Shangri-La is a large, dark region of Saturn's moon Titan at . It is named after Shangri-La, the mythical paradise in Tibet. It is thought to be an immense plain of dark material. It is thought that these regions of Titan were seas, but that they are now dry.

Shangri-La is studded with bright 'islands' of higher ground. It is bounded by the larger regions of high ground: Xanadu to the east, Adiri to the west, and Dilmun to the north.

The Huygens probe landed on a westerly part of Shangri-La, close to the boundary with Adiri.

"Shangri-La" is a song written by Ray Davies of The Kinks. The song appeared on the 1969 concept album, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). The song's inspiration can be traced back to when the band visited the Davies brothers' sister, Rose, and her family in Australia, the "designed community" that the family lived in serving as the initial lyrical inspiration. The song's highly ironic lyrics comment on British class society while portraying Arthur, the album's ill-fated protagonist, and his empty life in the suburbs. The musical aspects of the song both reflect and comment on the mood of the lyrics.

"Shangri-La" was released as the second single from Arthur in the United Kingdom, backed with "This Man He Weeps Tonight." The single was a commercial failure, not reaching the charts in any countries besides the Netherlands. The members of the band, however, thought highly of the song, with both Dave Davies and John Dalton singling it out for praise.

"Shangri-La" was the Dutch entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1988, performed in Dutch by Gerard Joling.

The song is a dramatic ballad, with Joling describing his search for a Shangri-La of his own in life. He contrasts his desire to live in happiness and surrounded by love with the attitude of many in the modern world, which is described as being at least a belief that one does not require love for happiness. In the Dutch Top 40 it peaked at a #20 ranking.

Shangri-La (Kin'yû hametsu Nippon: Tôgenkyô no hito-bito) is a 2002 film directed by Takashi Miike.

Shangri-La is an album by Elkie Brooks. Recorded between 2001 and 2002 at Woody Bay Studios, it was released on CD in 2003 by Classic Pictures.

"Shangri-La" is a song by Japanese electropop duo Denki Groove, serving as their 8th single and the 1st single from their 7th album A. "Shangri-La" was Denki Groove's most successful single, reaching the top 10 of the Oricon. The song samples Bebu Silvetti's "Spring Rain" and Silvetti is included as a co-writer.

Shangri-La is the tenth album of Taiwanese-American R&B artist and composer, Leehom Wang. It was released on 31 December 2004 by Sony Music Taiwan.

In this album, Wang incorporated the often unheard music of the Chinese ethnic minorities and therefore began the first chapter of "chinked-out", a term he coined together to represent the ties between Chinese and Western music. He experimented with the tribal sounds of Taiwan, Tibet, and Mongolia, traveling the area carrying 15 kg of equipment while fighting bouts of altitude and food sickness.

Shangri-La is a musical with a book and lyrics by James Hilton, Jerome Lawrence, and Robert E. Lee and music by Harry Warren.

Based on Hilton's classic 1933 novel Lost Horizon, it focuses on Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, who stumbles across a utopian lamasery high in the Himalayas in Tibet after surviving a plane crash in the mountainous terrain. When the dying High Lama asks him to take charge after his death, Conway must decide between embracing the inner peace, love, and sense of purpose he has discovered in this mysterious world or attempt to return to civilization as he knows it.

The Broadway production, directed by Albert Marre and choreographed by Donald Saddler, opened on June 13, 1956 at the Winter Garden Theatre, where it ran for only twenty-one performances. The cast included Dennis King, Shirley Yamaguchi, Jack Cassidy, Alice Ghostley, Carol Lawrence, Berry Kroeger, Harold Lang, and Robert Cohan.

Irene Sharaff was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Costume Design.

An audiotape of the show was recorded live during a performance, but an original cast album never was released. The show was mounted for a 1960 television production as part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, with several new songs, starring Richard Basehart, Claude Rains, Gene Nelson, Helen Gallagher, and Ghostley reprising her Broadway role.

Shangri-La is the sixth and most recent studio album by The Blackeyed Susans, released in July 2003. After initial writing sessions in mid-1999, recording of the album was scheduled for 2000. It was postponed when the band’s then record company, Mds, was bought by Festival Records. The band eventually returned to the project in 2002, after their covers album Dedicated to the Ones We Love. It was released on their own label, Teardrop, the following year.

The title of the album Shangri-La, refers to an illusory island paradise, a lost utopia that exists only in imagination and metaphor an apt name considering it was almost abandoned as an impossible project. In an interview Phil Kakulas commented

"It was named before, back when I still had all faith that it would be released," Kakulas begins, "but it seems almost prophetic in that we did almost lose it. The name 'Shangri-La' seems to sum up a lot of what the album is about. The songs seem to deal with what happiness might be and where you might find happiness. Also I've been listening to a lot of the Shangri-Las, the girl group, and I like that seedy neon lights appeal. My vision of Shangri-La is much more like Vegas or something like that. It's a fools paradise."

Shangri-La was nominated for 'Best Adult Contemporary Album' at the 2003 ARIA Awards, missing out to John Farnham's The Last Time.

Shangri-La is the fourth album by Japanese pop-group BeForU and the first album featuring the third generation members of BeForU. It is also their first album to be released under the Gambit (Sheeps Eyes) label. It was released on October 8, 2008.

Planned to be included with the first pressing of the album is a 20-page color booklet as well as a box of mini-photos.

Shangri-La is the fifth album by Portland, Oregon-based musician Yacht (Jona Bechtolt), released on June 21, 2011. It is a concept album dedicated to the memory of the late Andrew Wood. This is Yacht's second album to include Claire L. Evans.

Shangri-La is Mucc's eleventh full-length album, released on November 28, 2012. It was released in three different versions, all of them with the thirteen regular tracks; the Limited and Complete Production versions including a bonus CD with recordings of their 15th Anniversary tour.

Shangr-La is an album by saxophonist Sonny Stitt featuring organist Don Patterson recorded in 1964 and released on the Prestige label.

is a Japanese science fiction light novel, written by Eiichi Ikegami and illustrated by Ken'ichi Yoshida. The novel was initially serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's '' Newtype'' magazine between April 2004 and May 2005. The chapters were collected into a single bound volume on September 23, 2005, and was later re-released in two volumes by Kadokawa both released on October 25, 2008. A manga series adaptation drawn by Tasuku Karasuma started serialization in Kadokawa's Ace Assault in January 2009, but was later transferred to Shōnen Ace. An anime television series, directed by Makoto Bessho, written by Hiroshi Ōnogi and featuring animation character designs by Range Murata, premiered in Japan on April 6, 2009.