This book tells the story of the Mwandishi band; the author examines the ingredients that would come to form this band's sound. He analyzes the group's instrumentation, their use of electronics, and their transformation of the studio into a compositional tool.
An in-depth exploration of the style and influence of Pat Metheny, a truly distinctive musical voice of our time. Guitarist and composer Pat Metheny, among the most acclaimed, visionary musicians of our time, has for five decades toured with his many creative musical projects, most prominently the Pat Metheny Group, while collaborating with celebrated artists, including Charlie Haden, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, and Steve Reich. Bob Gluck, whose perspective as pianist, composer, and educator has illuminated the music of Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis in his two previous books, now focuses his lens on the music of Metheny. Neither a biography nor chronological record of Metheny’s musical output, Pat Metheny: Stories beyond Words instead captures Metheny’s self-conception as a musician and the threads that unite and distinguish his creative process. Drawing upon a wealth of new interviews and close readings of musical examples, Gluck offers a bird’s-eye view of Metheny’s musical ideas. Among these are the metaphor of storytelling, the complementarity of simplicity and complexity, and the integrated roles of composer, performer, and band leader. Much like Metheny’s signature style, this book is accessible to a wide range of readers, presenting new clarity, musical insight, and historical perspective about the legacy of Metheny’s groundbreaking music.
Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew is one of the most iconic albums in American music, the preeminent landmark and fertile seedbed of jazz-fusion. Fans have been fortunate in the past few years to gain access to Davis’s live recordings from this time, when he was working with an ensemble that has come to be known as the Lost Quintet. In this book, jazz historian and musician Bob Gluck explores the performances of this revolutionary group—Davis’s first electric band—to illuminate the thinking of one of our rarest geniuses and, by extension, the extraordinary transition in American music that he and his fellow players ushered in. Gluck listens deeply to the uneasy tension between this group’s driving rhythmic groove and the sonic and structural openness, surprise, and experimentation they were always pushing toward. There he hears—and outlines—a fascinating web of musical interconnection that brings Davis’s funk-inflected sensibilities into conversation with the avant-garde worlds that players like Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane were developing. Going on to analyze the little-known experimental groups Circle and the Revolutionary Ensemble, Gluck traces deep resonances across a commercial gap between the celebrity Miles Davis and his less famous but profoundly innovative peers. The result is a deeply attuned look at a pivotal moment when once-disparate worlds of American music came together in explosively creative combinations.
(Book). Bernie Williams' ability to play major league baseball at a high level was directly influenced by his musical training and his deep understanding of the similarities between musical artistry and athletic performance. Through a series of conversations, narratives, and sidebars, the authors (Bernie Williams, Dave Gluck, and Bob Thompson) discover and reveal the influence of music and its rhythms on the game of baseball. Readers of Rhythms of the Game will gain an insight into the similarities between musical artistry and athletic performance. The book is written for musicians and athletes looking to improve their level of performance on the stage or on the field, as well as for a general audience interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying influence of music on the game of baseball.
If you're like most people, you feel that the creativity you were born with has long since been squelched by family, social, and work expectations. This ground-breaking work by two veteran coaches and motivators will help you recapture and channel your creative energy, through twelve elegant practices associated with the vowels of personal power: A for awareness; E for engagement; O for openness; U for understanding; and, bringing them all together, I for Integrity. These practices will change your life!
This book tells the story of the Mwandishi band; the author examines the ingredients that would come to form this band's sound. He analyzes the group's instrumentation, their use of electronics, and their transformation of the studio into a compositional tool.
Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew is one of the most iconic albums in American music, the preeminent landmark and fertile seedbed of jazz-fusion. Fans have been fortunate in the past few years to gain access to Davis’s live recordings from this time, when he was working with an ensemble that has come to be known as the Lost Quintet. In this book, jazz historian and musician Bob Gluck explores the performances of this revolutionary group—Davis’s first electric band—to illuminate the thinking of one of our rarest geniuses and, by extension, the extraordinary transition in American music that he and his fellow players ushered in. Gluck listens deeply to the uneasy tension between this group’s driving rhythmic groove and the sonic and structural openness, surprise, and experimentation they were always pushing toward. There he hears—and outlines—a fascinating web of musical interconnection that brings Davis’s funk-inflected sensibilities into conversation with the avant-garde worlds that players like Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane were developing. Going on to analyze the little-known experimental groups Circle and the Revolutionary Ensemble, Gluck traces deep resonances across a commercial gap between the celebrity Miles Davis and his less famous but profoundly innovative peers. The result is a deeply attuned look at a pivotal moment when once-disparate worlds of American music came together in explosively creative combinations.
(Book). Bernie Williams' ability to play major league baseball at a high level was directly influenced by his musical training and his deep understanding of the similarities between musical artistry and athletic performance. Through a series of conversations, narratives, and sidebars, the authors (Bernie Williams, Dave Gluck, and Bob Thompson) discover and reveal the influence of music and its rhythms on the game of baseball. Readers of Rhythms of the Game will gain an insight into the similarities between musical artistry and athletic performance. The book is written for musicians and athletes looking to improve their level of performance on the stage or on the field, as well as for a general audience interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying influence of music on the game of baseball.
If you're like most people, you feel that the creativity you were born with has long since been squelched by family, social, and work expectations. This ground-breaking work by two veteran coaches and motivators will help you recapture and channel your creative energy, through twelve elegant practices associated with the vowels of personal power: A for awareness; E for engagement; O for openness; U for understanding; and, bringing them all together, I for Integrity. These practices will change your life!
In the 1960s, Andy Warhol’s paintings redefined modern art. His films provoked heated controversy, and his Factory was a hangout for the avant-garde. In the 1970s, after Valerie Solanas’s attempt on his life, Warhol become more entrepreneurial, aligning himself with the rich and famous. Bob Colacello, the editor of Warhol’s Interview magazine, spent that decade by Andy’s side as employee, collaborator, wingman, and confidante. In these pages, Colacello takes us there with Andy: into the Factory office, into Studio 54, into wild celebrity-studded parties, and into the early-morning phone calls where the mysterious artist was at his most honest and vulnerable. Colacello gives us, as no one else can, a riveting portrait of this extraordinary man: brilliant, controlling, shy, insecure, and immeasurably influential. When Holy Terror was first published in 1990, it was hailed as the best of the Warhol accounts. Now, some two decades later, this portrayal retains its hold on readers—as does Andy’s timeless power to fascinate, galvanize, and move us.
Everything You Need to Finish Your Woodworking Projects Like a Pro No more mystery. No more hype. Told as it is. Take control of finishing by learning how to use the many finishes available—and what those products actually are. In this book, his first since Understanding Wood Finishing, Bob Flexner delves deeper into many of the issues woodworkers struggle with and he does it with an authority that leaves no doubt. Inside, you'll discover the truth about: • Wood Preparation • Choosing a Finish • Coloring Wood • Brushing & Spraying • Overcoming Finishing Problems • Finishing Myths • Repairing Finishes • And So Much More! BONUS CHAPTER on Furniture Repair!
There are many introductions to the animal ethics literature. There aren’t many introductions to the practice of doing animal ethics. Bob Fischer’s Animal Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction fills that gap, offering an accessible model of how animal ethics can be done today. The book takes up classic issues, such as the ethics of eating meat and experimenting on animals, but tackles them in an empirically informed and nuanced way. It also covers a range of relatively neglected issues in animal ethics, such as the possibility of insect sentience and the ethics of dealing with pests. Finally, the book doesn’t assess every current practice using standard ethical theories, but tries to evaluate some of them using the moral frameworks endorsed by those involved. So, for instance, there is a chapter on the way that animal care and use committees try to justify some of the educational uses of animals, and the chapter on zoos considers the way that international zoological societies justify compromising animal welfare. The book wraps up with a discussion of the future of animal ethics. Each chapter opens with a helpful initial overview of the chapter and ends with a list of suggested readings to help students go further on their own. Key Features Covers animal ethics from an empirically informed perspective, bringing philosophy into conversation with key issues in animal science, conservation biology, economics, ethology, and legal studies, among other fields Provides ample coverage of the most salient current topics, including, for example: Debates about which animals are sentient The suffering of wild animals Research ethics The boundaries of activism Avoids suggesting that animal ethics is simply the practice of applying the right general theory to a problem, instead allowing readers to first work out the specific costs and benefits of making ethical decisions Impresses upon the reader the need for her to work out for herself the best way forward with difficult ethical issues, suggesting that progress can indeed be made Includes summaries and recommended readings at the end of each chapter
[Stanley is] as clear-eyed about music as he is crazy in love with it." —Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times A monumental work of musical history, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! traces the story of pop music through songs, bands, musical scenes, and styles from Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock around the Clock” (1954) to Beyoncé’s first megahit, “Crazy in Love” (2003). Bob Stanley—himself a musician, music critic, and fan—teases out the connections and tensions that animated the pop charts for decades, and ranges across the birth of rock, soul, R&B, punk, hip hop, indie, house, techno, and more. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! is a vital guide to the rich soundtrack of the second half of the twentieth century and a book as much fun to argue with as to quote.
Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure New York Times bestseller The Soprano State--now a major documentary film. It's not a joke New Jersey leads the country in corruption The Soprano State details the you-couldn't-make-this-up true story of the corruption that has pervaded New Jersey politics, government, and business for the past thirty years. From Jimmy Hoffa purportedly being buried somewhere beneath the end zone in Giants Stadium, through allegations of a thoroughly corrupt medical and dental university, through Mafia influence at all levels, the Garden State might indeed be better named after the HBO mobsters. Where else would: - A state attorney general show up after police pulled over her boyfriend who was driving without a valid license? - A state senator and mayor of Newark (the same guy) spend thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money on a junket to Rio days before leaving office? - A politically connected developer hire a prostitute to tape sex acts with his own brother-in-law and then send the tape to his sister? Only in the Soprano State.
Do you want to be successful? Of course, you say, everyone wants to be successful, yet how many people know what it takes or how to develop what it takes or even know what it looks like? Is success fame or wealth, or is it something else? Not everyone can be famous or rich, yet everyone can be successful. Success is within the grasp of anyone who learns how to turn the cards they were dealt into a winning hand. Winning at the Card Game of Life not only identifies the behaviors and approach involved in someone being successful, but also how you can develop those same skills yourself. Through the example of everyday people who achieved success, you can see how you too can win at the card game of life. *********************** Everyone wants to succeed . . . and everyone can. Winning at the Card Game of Life shows how success does not depend upon the cards you were dealt, but rather how you play them. Success starts with learning how commitment, attitude, resources, decision making, and scheme (CARDS) make up the foundation of all successful people. A journey through the lives of twenty-three seemingly commonyet also dedicated, inspirational, and successful peopleconfirms the books premise that there are many roads to success. To help the reader with their own journey to success, there are exercises included in the book for self-exploration and skill development. The lessons, role models, and tools found in Winning at the Card Game of Life show how anyone can turn the cards they were dealt into a winning hand. ************************ Winning at the Card Game of Life is a book that was designed with the young adult in mind but is applicable to anyone who is seeking the road to success. The basic premise of the book is that Success depends not on the cards you were dealt, but rather on how you play them. There are twenty-three stories of successful people, such as a circus clown, a chief of police, and a POW who, through the course of their lives, reached a level of personal success. The book reveals that their success is hidden in the CARDS, which stands for: commitment, attitude, resources, decision making, and scheme. The book concludes with identifying how the reader can develop and apply these attributes to their journey to success. There are also exercises in the book that can be used in the classroom to teach theses concepts. Winning at the Card Game of Life is for anyone who wants to create and achieve a successful life. Based upon the basic premise that Success depends not on the cards you were dealt, but rather on how you play them, the book reveals how everyone can be successful. Through the use of twenty-three life stories of noncelebrity yet successful people as examples, Dr. McGlenn develops the concept that success is hidden in the CARDS and how everyone can design their own blueprint for success.
Most poets define poetry by creating it. Bob Perelman creates it by defining it, and is thus one step ahead of all the other poets under the sun, one step closer to colliding with Zeno's vanishing point, to merging coyote with road runner, to winning the hand."—John Ashbery "Profound, subtle, and wonderfully written—this is a book from which anyone interested in the twentieth century can learn."—Marjorie Perloff
He's been dubbed "Chainsaw Al" and "Rambo in Pinstripes". His techniques have been called brutal and ruthless. Now Al Dunlap delineates the Four Simple Rules he uses to revitalize dying companies: get the right management team; pinch pennies; understand your business; and get a real strategy.
The history of American Indians on screen can be compared to a light shining through a prism. We may have seen bits and pieces of the genuine culture portrayed, but rarely did we see a satisfying and informative whole picture. Savages and Saints deals with the changing image of the American Indian in the Western film genre, contrasting the fictionalized images of native Americans portrayed in classic films against the historical reality of life on the American frontier. The book tells the stories of frontier warriors, Indian and white, revealing how their stories were often drastically altered on screen according to the times the films were made, the stars involved in the film's production, and the social/political beliefs of the filmmakers. Studio correspondence, letters from government files, and passages from western novels adapted for the screen are used to illustrate the various points. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
“Everybody has to start somewhere. Businessmen start on the ground floor and try to work their way up the corporate ladder. Baseball players bide their time in the minor leagues wishing for an opportunity to move up and play in the majors. Musical compositions aren’t very different—some songs just don’t climb the charts the first time they’re recorded. However, with perseverance, the ideal singer, the right chemistry, impeccable timing, vigorous promotion, and a little luck, these songs can become very famous.” So writes Bob Leszczak in the opening pages of Who Did It First? Great Pop Cover Songs and Their Original Artists. In this second volume in the Who Did It First?series, Leszczak explores the hidden history of the most famous, indeed legendary, pop songs and standards. As he points out, the version you purchased, swayed to, sang to, and grew up with is often not the first version recorded. Like wine and cheese, some tunes do get better with age, and behind each there is a story. Included are little-known facts and amusing anecdotes, often gathered through Leszczak’s vast archive of personal interviews with the singers and songwriters, record producers and label owners, who wrote, sang, recorded, and distributed either the original first cut or one of its classic covers. The second in a series of titles devoted to the story of great songs and their revival as great covers, Who Did It First?Great Pop Cover Songs and Their Original Artists is the perfect playlist builder. So whether quizzing friends at a party, answering a radio station contest, or just satisfying an insatiable curiosity to know who really did do it first, this work is a must-have.
The power of the illustration is brilliantly demonstrated in another compact volume from New York designer Bob Gill. In this book, simply but eloquently entitled Illustration, he features many of his favorite works, completed between 1952 and 2004. Subje
Pop culture is the heart and soul of America, a unifying bridge across time bringing together generations of diverse backgrounds. Whether looking at the bright lights of the Jazz Age in the 1920s, the sexual and the rock-n-roll revolution of the 1960s, or the thriving social networking websites of today, each period in America's cultural history develops its own unique take on the qualities define our lives.American Pop: Popular Culture Decade by Decade is the most comprehensive reference on American popular culture by decade ever assembled, beginning with the 1900s up through today. The four-volume set examines the fascinating trends across decades and eras by shedding light on the experiences of Americans young and old, rich and poor, along with the influences of arts, entertainment, sports, and other cultural forces. Whether a pop culture aficionado or a student new to the topic, American Pop provides readers with an engaging look at American culture broken down into discrete segments, as well as analysis that gives insight into societal movements, trends, fads, and events that propelled the era and the nation. In-depth chapters trace the evolution of pop culture in 11 key categories: Key Events in American Life, Advertising, Architecture, Books, Newspapers, Magazines, and Comics, Entertainment, Fashion, Food, Music, Sports and Leisure Activities, Travel, and Visual Arts. Coverage includes: How Others See Us, Controversies and scandals, Social and cultural movements, Trends and fads, Key icons, and Classroom resources. Designed to meet the high demand for resources that help students study American history and culture by the decade, this one-stop reference provides readers with a broad and interdisciplinary overview of the numerous aspects of popular culture in our country. Thoughtful examination of our rich and often tumultuous popular history, illustrated with hundreds of historical and contemporary photos, makes this the ideal source to turn to for ready reference or research.
The must-read music book of the year—and the first such history bringing together all musical genres to tell the definitive narrative of the birth of Pop—from 1900 to the mid-1950s. Pop music didn't begin with the Beatles in 1963, or with Elvis in 1956, or even with the first seven-inch singles in 1949. There was a pre-history that went back to the first recorded music, right back to the turn of the century. Who were these earliest record stars—and were they in any meaningful way "pop stars"? Who was George Gershwin writing songs for? Why did swing, the hit sound for a decade or more, become almost invisible after World War II? The prequel to Bob Stanley’s celebrated Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!, this new volume is the first book to tell the definitive story of the birth of pop, from the invention of the 78 rpm record at the end of the nineteenth century to the beginnings of rock and the modern pop age. Covering superstars such as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra, alongside the unheralded songwriters and arrangers behind some of our most enduring songs, Stanley paints an aural portrait of pop music's formative years in stunning clarity, uncovering the silver threads and golden needles that bind the form together. Bringing the eclectic, evolving world of early pop to life—from ragtime, blues and jazz to Broadway, country, crooning, and beyond—Let's Do It is essential reading for all music lovers. "An encyclopaedic introduction to the fascinating and often forgotten creators of Anglo-American hit music in the first half of the twentieth century."—Neil Tennant (The Pet Shop Boys)
Following in the footsteps of the X-O MANOWAR CLASSIC OMNIBUS VOL. 1, it?s the complete, oversized omnibus collection of the series Ain?t It Cool News calls ?the best buddy team book of all time""""! Obadiah Archer, left for dead as a boy by his corrupt evangelist parents, has spent the last decade honing his innate abilities in a monastery deep in the mountains of Ladakh before emerging now as the world?s greatest hand-to-hand fighter and marksman. His body a temple, his every movement in harmony and his mind perfectly serene? except for the overriding desire to avenge his own murder. Armstrong is a 10,000-year-old libertine who may be as strong as a battalion, but abandoned idealism millennia ago. Now he spends his days drinking, carousing and telling tales of outrageous adventures throughout history to anyone who will listen ? that is, when he?s not on the run from an ancient cult whose bumbling agents have been hunting him for two thousand years. But Armstrong counts as the worst day of all his days the one when Archer turned up and decided that they were partners ? a team chosen by fate to save the world! Featuring work from iconic Valiant creators Barry Windsor-Smith (Conan,?Weapon X), Jim Shooter (Secret Wars), Bob Layton (Iron Man), Mike Baron (Nexus), and more, the groundbreaking adventures of the original conspiracy-smashing duo are brought together in their entirety for the very first time right here in this massive, oversized volume. Collecting?ARCHER & ARMSTRONG (1992) #0?26?and?ETERNAL WARRIOR (1992) #25,?CHAOS EFFECT: OMEGA?along with?ARCHER & ARMSTRONG: THE FORMATION OF THE SECT.
Der Adler was the official magazine of the Luftwaffe in World War II. In the years before Hitler declared war on America an English language edition of Der Adler costing eight cents was published and widely sold in the USA. The magazine was available on American news stands and the surviving English language editions provide readers who do not speak German with a fascinating primary source from inside the Third Reich. The magazine was at its best and most interesting during the years of German ascendancy between 1940 and 1942. From that point onwards the Luftwaffe had less and less to celebrate and Der Adler tended to concentrate on the exploits of the Luftwaffe ground forces especially the burgeoning Falshirmjaeger divisions. This selection of the best of the English language articles from Der Adler provides a privileged glimpse inside the Luftwaffe during its years of triumph between 1940 and 1942.
Germany isn't all fairy-tale castles, beer halls and boat trips along the Rhine. Without at least some knowledge of the language, and therefore the ability to raise yourself above the immediate tourist circuit, the essence of the country will pass you by. Even in Germany, a great many people don't speak enough English to hold a proper conversation and even if your own German is limited, you'll get people on your side by at least making the effort. You'd be amazed how much goodwill a basic knowledge of German is worth. Kauderwelsch language guides focus on the really important things you need to know about a language, somewhere between your standard travel phrase book and a self-study book. ---------------- Kauderwelsch Sprachführer bieten einen schnellen Einstieg in fremde Sprachen und vermitteln Wissenswertes über Land und Leute. Alle fremdsprachigen Sätze im Buch werden zusätzlich zur sinngemäßen Übersetzung ins Deutsche auch einmal Wort für Wort übersetzt. Dadurch wird das Verständnis für die fremde Sprache erleichtert, und einzelne Wörter lassen sich schnell austauschen. Die Grammatik wird kurz und verständlich erklärt, soweit es für einen einfachen Sprachgebrauch nötig ist. Das Wörterbuch am Ende hält einen Grundwortschatz und wichtige Begriffe für Reisende bereit. Kauderwelsch-Bücher sind viel mehr als übliche Reisesprachführer. Ziel ist es, schon nach kurzer Zeit tatsächlich sprechen zu können, wenn auch nicht immer druckreif. Kauderwelsch Sprachführer von Reise Know-How: handlich, alltagstauglich, für über 150 Sprachen.
A thoroughly entertaining exploration, this book travels back in time to shed light on the snowman's enigmatic past -- from the present day, in which the snowman reigns as the King of Kitsch, to the Dark Ages, with the creation of the very first snowman. Eckstein's curiosity began playfully enough, but soon snowballed into a (mostly) earnest quest of chasing Frosty around the world, into museums and libraries, and seeking out the advice of leading historians and scholars. The result is a riveting history that reaches back through centuries and across cultures -- sweeping from fifteenth-century Italian snowballs to eighteenth-century Russian ice sculptures to the regrettable "white-trash years" (1975-2000). The snowman is not just part of our childhood memories, but is an integral part of our world culture, appearing -- much like a frozen Forrest Gump -- alongside dignitaries and celebrities during momentous events. Again and again, the snowman pops up in rare prints, paintings, early movies, advertising and, over the past century, in every art form imaginable. And the jolly snowman -- ostensibly as pure as the driven snow -- also harbors a dark past full of political intrigue, sex, and violence. With over two hundred illustrations, The Illustrated History of the Snowman is a truly original winter classic -- smart, surprisingly enlightening, and quite simply the coolest book ever.
Who made the first snowman? Who first came up with the idea of placing snowballs on top of each other, and who decided they would use a carrot for a nose? Most puzzling of all: How can this mystery ever be solved, with all the evidence long since melted? The snowman appears everywhere on practically everything -- from knickknacks to greeting cards to seasonal sweaters we plan to return. Whenever we see big snowballs our first impulse is to deck them out with a top hat. Humorist and writer Bob Eckstein has long been fascinated by this ubiquitous symbol of wintertime fun -- and finally, for the first time, one of the world's most popular icons gets his due. A thoroughly entertaining exploration, The History of the Snowman travels back in time to shed light on the snowman's enigmatic past -- from the present day, in which the snowman reigns as the King of Kitsch, to the Dark Ages, with the creation of the very first snowman. Eckstein's curiosity began playfully enough, but soon snowballed into a (mostly) earnest quest of chasing Frosty around the world, into museums and libraries, and seeking out the advice of leading historians and scholars. The result is a riveting history that reaches back through centuries and across cultures -- sweeping from fifteenth-century Italian snowballs to eighteenth-century Russian ice sculptures to the regrettable "white-trash years" (1975-2000). The snowman is not just part of our childhood memories, but is an integral part of our world culture, appearing -- much like a frozen Forrest Gump -- alongside dignitaries and celebrities during momentous events. Again and again, the snowman pops up in rare prints, paintings, early movies, advertising and, over the past century, in every art form imaginable. And the jolly snowman -- ostensibly as pure as the driven snow -- also harbors a dark past full of political intrigue, sex, and violence. With more than two hundred illustrations and a special section of the best snowman cartoons, The History of the Snowman is a truly original winter classic -- smart, surprisingly enlightening, and quite simply the coolest book ever.
Day By Day in Jewish Sports History covers every day of the year and includes thousands of names, records, events, and achievements of all kinds, from virtually every sport you can think of and some you can't, this book is the definitive picture of the role Jews have played in world sports - informative, enlightening, easy to read, and entertaining in a 432-page calendar book format including over 100 photographs." "It gives all the basic information and statistics, from baseball to figure skating, from boxing to track and field, from hockey to bowling, tennis, gymnastics, soccer, Olympic winners, including 160 sports quiz questions and sports trivia, American and international, amateur and professional."--BOOK JACKET.
The Specific Gravity of Water is a comic fantasy for adults. Mr. Trout is a misfit teaching creative writing at a minor state college who infringes the right-thinking mores of academe and must go on the run. He escapes to another country, almost entirely his own invention, called Ishkastan. There every citizen is considered an artist and paid to do nothing, the novel idea of the country’s president, a lugubrious poet and Nobel Prize winner. Ishkastan’s only abundant resource is fresh mountain water, the new oil of a polluted and thirsting planet. The result is unimaginable prosperity for the citizens and satisfying profits for the global corporations who run the place. All menial jobs are done by colour-coded immigrants. Trout introduces the principle of ‘a stack-up of tolerances’ and catastrophe results.
A rookie outsider chases his sports-obsessed dream to relive his football glory days in “the ultimate fan book” (The New York Times). Bob Cowser, Jr. is a happy husband, father, and English professor in upstate New York. Only one thing is missing: the exhilaration he felt as a young man in sports-crazy Tennessee when he took the field for high school football games. In what is every Monday morning quarterback’s fantasy, Bob joins the Watertown Red & Black, the country’s oldest semi-professional football team, hungry to win its first championship in two decades. Over the next five months, and with the hesitant blessing of his wife, Candace, Cowser drives the lonely sixty miles for try-outs in a former mill town of soldiers, corrections officers, and blue-collar workers. A far cry from his leafy campus, the “Professor,” as his teammates call him, must work hard to earn the respect of these hard-edged men—some of them local celebrities—and the confidence of his coach, a former mill worker who has never used a playbook. Balancing the demands of family and academe with the rigors of practice and game play, Cowser must find a way to fit his childhood dream into his real life as an adult. “Deserv[ing] to join the ranks of great football books like George Plimpton’s Paper Lion, Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, and William Morris’s The Courting of Marcus Dupree” (Publishers Weekly), Dream Season invites us onto the line of scrimmage for each heartbreaking loss and breathtaking win, into the locker room of a fabled team challenged by a roller-coaster season, and ultimately into the heart of a man with a persevering thirst for glory. “Real, vivid, sensitive, accessible, warm, brutal, and wholly consuming,” this remarkable story reminds us why we love the games we play (Lee Gutkind, author of Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather).
The first work of its kind, this encyclopedia provides 360 brief biographies of African American film and television acPER010000tresses from the silent era to 2009. It includes entries on well-known and nearly forgotten actresses, running the gamut from Academy Award and NAACP Image Award winners to B-film and blaxpoitation era stars. Each entry has a complete filmography of the actress's film, TV, music video or short film credits. The work also features more than 170 photographs, some of them rare images from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Visionary composer, theorist, and creator of musical instruments, Harry Partch (1901-1974) was a leading figure in the development of an indigenously American contemporary music. A pioneer in his explorations of new instruments and new tunings, Partch created multimedia theater works that combine sight and sound in a compelling synthesis. He is acknowledged as a major inspiration to postwar experimental composers as diverse as György Ligeti, Lou Harrison, Philip Glass, and Laurie Anderson, and his book Genesis of a Music, first published in 1949, is now considered a classic. This book is the first to tell the complete story of Partch's life and work. Drawing on interviews with many of Partch's associates and on the complete archives of the Harry Partch Estate, Bob Gilmore provides a full and sympathetic portrait of this extraordinary creative artist. He describes Partch's complicated relationships with friends, patrons, the musical establishment, and the world at large. He traces Partch's upbringing in the remote desert towns of the Southwest, his explosive encounter with formal music education in Los Angeles, and his revolutionary course as a composer that began with an interest in the musicality of speech patterns. After immersing himself in hobo subculture during the Depression, Partch came to occupy a lonely and uncompromising position as a cultural outsider. Richly fascinating in themselves, Partch's compositions, writings, and life also have much to reveal about American society and the creative impulses of the artistic avant-garde.
Philosophers Bob Fischer and Anja Jauernig agree that human society often treats animals in indefensible ways and that all animals morally matter; they disagree on whether humans and animals morally matter equally. In What Do We Owe Other Animals?: A Debate, Fischer and Jauernig square off over this central question in animal ethics. Jauernig defends the view that all living beings morally matter equally and are owed compassion, on account of which we are also obligated to adopt a vegan diet. Fischer denies that we have an obligation to become vegans, and argues for the position that humans morally matter more than all other living creatures. The two authors each offer a clear, well-developed opening statement, a direct response to the other’s statement, and then a response to the other’s response. Along the way, they explore central questions, like: What kind of beings matter morally? What kind of obligations do we have towards other animals? How demanding can we reasonably expect these obligations to be? Do our individual consumer choices, such as the choice to purchase factory-farmed animal products, make a difference to the wellbeing of animals? The debate is helpfully framed by introductions and conclusions to each of the major parts and by smaller introductions to each of the sub-sections. A Foreword by Dustin Crummett sets the context for the debate within a larger discussion of sentience, moral standing, reason-guided compassion, and the larger field of animal ethics. Key Features • Showcases the presentation and defense of two points of view on the moral worth of non-human animals • Provides frequent summaries of previously covered material • Includes a topically-organized list of Further Readings and a Glossary of all specialized vocabulary
An in-depth exploration of the style and influence of Pat Metheny, a truly distinctive musical voice of our time. Guitarist and composer Pat Metheny, among the most acclaimed, visionary musicians of our time, has for five decades toured with his many creative musical projects, most prominently the Pat Metheny Group, while collaborating with celebrated artists, including Charlie Haden, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, and Steve Reich. Bob Gluck, whose perspective as pianist, composer, and educator has illuminated the music of Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis in his two previous books, now focuses his lens on the music of Metheny. Neither a biography nor chronological record of Metheny’s musical output, Pat Metheny: Stories beyond Words instead captures Metheny’s self-conception as a musician and the threads that unite and distinguish his creative process. Drawing upon a wealth of new interviews and close readings of musical examples, Gluck offers a bird’s-eye view of Metheny’s musical ideas. Among these are the metaphor of storytelling, the complementarity of simplicity and complexity, and the integrated roles of composer, performer, and band leader. Much like Metheny’s signature style, this book is accessible to a wide range of readers, presenting new clarity, musical insight, and historical perspective about the legacy of Metheny’s groundbreaking music.
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