Bringing a poet’s perspective to an artist’s archive, this highly original book examines wordplay in the art and thought of American artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978). A pivotal figure in the postminimalist generation who was also the son of a prominent Surrealist, Matta-Clark was a leader in the downtown artists' community in New York in the 1970s, and is widely seen as a pioneer of what has come to be known as social practice art. He is celebrated for his “anarchitectural” environments and performances, and the films, photographs, drawings, and sculptural fragments with which his site-specific work was documented. In studies of his career, the artist’s provocative and vivid language is referenced constantly. Yet the verbal aspect of his practice has not previously been examined in its own right. Blending close readings of Matta-Clark’s visual and verbal creations with reception history and critical biography, this extensively researched study engages with the linguistic and semiotic forms in Matta-Clark’s art, forms that activate what he called the “poetics of psycho-locus” and “total (semiotic) system.” Examining notes, statements, titles, letters, and interviews in light of what they reveal about his work at large, Frances Richard unearths archival, biographical, and historical information, linking Matta-Clark to Conceptualist peers and Surrealist and Dada forebears. Gordon Matta-Clark: Physical Poetics explores the paradoxical durability of Matta-Clark’s language, and its role in an aggressively physical oeuvre whose major works have been destroyed.
While vacationing in Florida, Mr. and Mrs. North investigate a doctor’s murder It’s morning in Key West, and Pamela North has gone fishing for pelicans. Her husband, Jerry, insists it’s impossible to go fishing for birds, but when he finds her later on, she’s surrounded by pelicans on all sides. He shouldn’t be surprised; Pamela has made a career out of doing the impossible—and she’s not finished yet. A blizzard is battering New York City, but the Norths have come south for sun and sand and a spot of tennis in old Key West. Murder wasn’t on their agenda, but Pamela has a way of finding it wherever she goes. She’s just gone out for another morning of luring pelicans when she finds a local physician at the end of the pier, a bullet in his chest and his blood all over the dock. The birds will have to wait; the Norths are about to go fishing for a killer. Murder by the Book is the 26th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
When a cat-show judge is murdered, Mr. and Mrs. North are drawn into a hairy homicide There are three things Pamela North can’t resist: cocktails, kittens, and murder. Today, she’ll get all three. Still mourning the death of her beloved cat, Martini, Pamela gathers the strength to attend the fifty-third annual Colony Cat Club championship show, where she meets tomcats and tabbies of every stripe. Each one is more adorable than the last, but one of them might just be worth killing for. Those who dedicate their lives to breeding felines would do anything for one of the Colony’s blue ribbons. So when one of the judges is accused of corruption, Pamela writes it off as sour grapes. But when the judge is found with his head bashed in and his precious kitties mewling beside his body, Pamela and her husband, Jerry, jump at the chance to investigate. For Mrs. North, this kind of killing is catnip. The Judge Is Reversed is the 24th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mrs. North comes to the aid of a young boy accused of murdering his beloved Cleo Harper is nineteen, and pretty enough to catch any boy’s eye. But when the police find her, there’s a gash in her throat and blood on her clothes. Cleo’s been dead for just a few minutes. She’d been eating lunch in a coffee shop when she was stabbed in the neck, and all the evidence paints Franklin Martinelli as the killer. Every kid in the neighborhood knew he loved her; every diner in the restaurant saw them arguing before she died. To the police, it’s cut and dried. But Pamela North isn’t convinced. A vivacious, if occasionally scatterbrained, amateur sleuth, Mrs. North hears the story straight from her friend Lt. William Weigand, and she doesn’t believe a word of it. Her reasons may not make any sense, but Pamela is determined find the truth, even if nobody understands how she gets there. Killing the Goose is the 7th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
For Mr. and Mrs. North, there’s no vacation from murder In a remote cabin far from New York City, Jerry and Pamela North are getting killed. On the brink of annihilation, they grit their teeth and battle back. In a minute, the fight is finished—and the Norths are named mixed doubles champions. It’s a happy moment during a splendid vacation, but off the tennis court, all is not well. Following an afternoon of fun and games, the evening’s entertainment will be murder. Mr. and Mrs. North have invited their closest friends—an ex-aviator, a mysterious doctor, and NYPD’s own Lt. William Weigand—to join them on this glittering retreat, but the joviality ends when Weigand finds Helen Wilson lying across the path, a knife buried in her neck. A member of the group surely killed her, and unless the Norths act quickly, the murderer will strike again.
A death threat concealed in a term paper brings Mr. and Mrs. North back to campus All semester Prof. John Leonard has directed his lectures at Peggy Mott. Not because she’s beautiful—although that doesn’t hurt—but because she has the sharpest mind he’s encountered in all his years teaching psychology. When she turns in her final assignment, a paper on human emotions, Leonard expects a brilliant essay, but what he reads shocks him to the core: There’s someone Peggy detests. And based on her paper, Professor Leonard believes she hates enough to kill. When Peggy’s husband is found with a steak knife buried in his neck, the comely young student is the only suspect. But Jerry and Pamela North see it differently. Mrs. North has a mind that could drive any psychologist batty, but for the sake of a shining pupil, she’ll find out the truth. Murder Is Served is the 12th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mr. and Mrs. North chase a gunman who killed an author in the middle of his book launch Looking around the Hotel Dumont, Pamela North sees plenty of people she might like to murder. That’s what happens when she’s left alone at a book party, bored to tears. Her husband is a publisher, and when he’s late to an event, all she can do is look from critic to critic and think that, as messy as it can be, homicide has its advantages. She needn’t worry; a good killing will come along soon. The party to celebrate Anthony Payne’s latest release is just winding down when the shooter strikes. Payne is midsentence when he drops, a bullet hole in his bald head. And with a single shot, there’s more than enough blood to wash away all the evening’s tedium—and send the Norths on the hunt for a long-distance killer. Murder Has Its Points is the 25th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mr. and Mrs. North win front-row seats to a murder on Broadway Dorian Hunt intends to marry Lt. William Weigand, and she doesn’t care how many murderers get in the way. Every time they’ve tried to tie the knot, her fiancé has let Jerry and Pamela North sweep him up in another mystery, and Dorian has had enough. Today, she’s demanding a wedding—murder or no murder—but before the couple can find a minister, Lieutenant Weigand gets sidetracked again. A dead man is found sitting in the West 45th Street Theatre, a stab wound in the back of his neck. As Dorian expects, the Norths are tied to the case—Mr. North represents the play’s author—and they plan on helping Weigand solve the caper, whether he likes it or not. The bride-to-be will soon find that solving mysteries is a cakewalk, but getting married can be murder. Death on the Aisle is the 4th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
For the sake of a Broadway hit, Mr. and Mrs. North search for a playboy’s killer Naomi Shaw has taken the stage in Around the Corner one hundred times. And with every performance, she has brought the audience to tears. But while she’s an angel onstage, she’s rather harder to like once the curtain drops. Nevertheless, the play is a hit. The critics are awed, the crowds are lively, the producers are happy, and Around the Corner could run forever—as long as it has its star. At the celebration following the hundredth performance, Naomi announces she’s going to marry one of the show’s backers, slimy playboy Bradley Fitch. He’s rich enough that Naomi will never have to act again, which means that Around the Corner will die as soon as their vows are read. But when someone murders Bradley in order to stop the wedding, it falls to Pamela and Jerry North to find the killer and ensure that the show will go on. Death of an Angel is the 20th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
When an old widow is murdered, Mr. and Mrs. North work to prove a trio of aunts innocent of the crime Jerry and Pamela North have tangled with countless murderers, blackmailers, and thieves, but nothing could prepare them for a weekend with Pamela’s aunts. Thelma, Lucinda, and Pennina sweep into town like hurricanes, and take no notice of the destruction they cause. No amount of martinis can soothe Pamela and Jerry’s rattled nerves, and when the martinis stop working, the Norths are in trouble. The aunts are in town to see their old friend Grace Logan, a widow whose temperament is as cold as iced gin. But while sipping tea, Grace does something terribly out of character. She seizes up, gasps for air, and dies. When the trio of aunts is implicated in her poisoning, it falls to the Norths to clear their names—and get them out of Manhattan forever. Murder Comes First is the 15th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
The murder of a notorious practical joker is no laughing matter in this “excellent series” starring a husband-and-wife detective team (The New Yorker). Byron Wilmot will do anything for a laugh. He’s a legend of practical jokes, notorious for once using a dummy to stage a kidnapping so realistic it fooled the police. So when Pamela and Jerry North are invited to a party at Wilmot’s home, Mrs. North braces herself for an evening of snakes in a can, rubber spiders, and the like. But tonight, a murderer will get the last laugh. When Wilmot’s secretary finds her boss lying in a pool of blood with a knife sticking out of his chest, she assumes it’s just another highly realistic gag. But Wilmot doesn’t move. He’s dead and the Norths will have think quickly if they’re going to find the killer—and make it to the punch line of Wilmot’s last great joke. Curtain for a Jester is the 17th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
From the authors of the “excellent” Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries: Captain Heimrich investigates family secrets behind closed doors (TheNew Yorker). Capt. M. L. Heimrich of the New York State Police may not have the flash of hard-boiled city detectives, but there’s no lead the intrepid investigator won’t follow until his every hunch is satisfied . . . After four years serving as a lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve, all World War II widow Jane Phillips wants is to reunite with her great-aunt Susan Meredith at her home in Westchester, New York. But Jane’s journey soon proves to be fraught with danger. First, a series of unfortunate events almost causes Jane to miss her train. Then, another passenger attempts to trick her into a premature disembarkation. Jane would like to think the mishaps are simple coincidence, but what she doesn’t know is someone doesn’t want her to make it home at all . . . When Susan’s grandson insists the family matriarch is being poisoned to death, police detective Captain Heimrich is duty bound to investigate. And soon he’ll uncover a dastardly plot involving greedy relatives, a woman in peril, and the kind of wealth some people would kill for. I Want to Go Home is the 1st book in the Captain Heimrich Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
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