Lithe of build, graceful of tongue and carriage, dark, piercing eyes, and facial features cast from a prince of the underworld, Alexander Herrmann embodied the word "magician." His persona permeated the popular culture of his day, and his image still holds power in our present societal subconscious as the archetypal conjurer. A mesmeric personality both on and off the stage, he was ever the theatrical magician, ever the exhibitor of his craft. The book is intended to be a journey of Herrmann through the lens of his audience, as projected through the newsprint of the day. It does not seek to delve behind the scenes, but to hopefully paint a picture on the canvas of the goal of his craft - mystifying vast audiences of theatrical patrons. A fascinating progression of Herrmann's art and influence, as well as a glimpse of the ubiquitous theater and its value in bygone American culture.
Life in the Second Circle is the first collection from Michael Cantor, finalist in the 2011 Able Muse Book Award. Cantor's poetry globe-trots in time and place. It teems with such culturally diverse characters and scenes as Genghis Khan and Muhammad Ali; a pithy mise-en-scène of a Venice travelogue; Brighton Beach in Florida and its natives or turistas; and what can happen in Japan on tatami mats or behind shoji screens, whether you’re a geisha or samurai or gaijin. His themes span the mystical to the hard-edged and “badass,” fluently deployed in formal poems in received or nonce forms and free verse. From the narrative to the imagistic and even the surreal, Cantor's versecraft is eclectic, brimming with wit and wisdom, and realized with the craft of a master storyteller. He has created a collection of unique pleasures not to be missed. PRAISE FOR LIFE IN THE SECOND CIRCLE: Dante’s second circle of hell was reserved for sins of lust, but Cantor’s narrator does not judge his infernal cast of characters; rather, he causes us to identify with their essential human neediness. What’s more, he does so through a cinematic gift for storytelling and a mastery of poetic form. – Julie Kane Michael Cantor uses words to paint and sculpt the world. He writes the world too—which I don’t say as an afterthought, since verbal wit is Cantor’s forte. Life in the Second Circle is a sensory kaleidoscope where the poems are more like movies. – Deborah Warren (from the “Foreword”) To be called “a poet’s poet” passes for a compliment among poets. Michael Cantor is another, rarer kind of poet—let’s say “a novelist’s poet.” This poet knows things that writers of fiction know about writing, and that other poets ignore at their peril. This extraordinary collection is testament to his unaffected generosity and genuine interest in other people, qualities that make him good company in person and in print. – Alfred Nicol This is not your mother’s book of poems. – Wendy Videlock Like Muhammad Ali, one of the “Box Men” he celebrates in a virtuosic crown of sonnets, Cantor is a master of floating like a butterfly in a small, roped-off space. In his hands the most formidably difficult forms—villanelles, triolets, Petrarchan sonnets, sestinas, ballades, and equally rigorous stanzas of his own invention—become spurs to imaginative freedom. Like the vividly drawn characters who populate Life in the Second Circle, we are constantly reminded that one never knows where life will go, or how or when or where. But it’s a pleasure to be along for the ride. – Catherine Tufariello
Cantor's ideas formed the basis for set theory and also for the mathematical treatment of the concept of infinity. The philosophical and heuristic framework he developed had a lasting effect on modern mathematics, and is the recurrent theme of this volume. Hallett explores Cantor's ideas and, in particular, their ramifications for Zermelo-Frankel set theory.
A young social worker from Atlanta struggles to gain the trust of pregnant teens in rural Appalachia in this novel by the author of The Poisoned Table. In the early 1970s, Laura Bauer decides to leave college and head fifty miles north of her comfortable Atlanta home to manage a federally funded project aiding pregnant teenagers from the back roads of Appalachia. Almost as young as her clients, Laura is immediately confronted with—and almost overwhelmed by—a variety of young women in desperate circumstances, having no other source of prenatal care. When Nighttime Shadows Fall portrays the world of these girls with compassion, hardscrabble humor, and reverence for their families’ capacities to prevail despite hardships. Among the characters are Mavis, a defiant, tough-as-nails preacher’s daughter; Lisa, a victimized thirteen-year-old; Nell, a shy girl who is constantly berated by her domineering mother; and self-conscious Mandy, whose proud husband, twice her age, detests any form of charity. As an outsider whose urban upbringing is vastly different from those of her clients, Laura must win their trust and overcome her own inexperience and the magnitude of the need she finds. The novel follows Laura as she struggles to locate her clients during their first trimesters, when they are still eligible for the project’s services but often trying to conceal their pregnancies. As she overcomes their suspicions and tries to help them during those first critical months, Laura comes to realize she has prepared at least a few of them to open doors to their unexpected futures, just as they have helped her find the determination to face her own. When Nighttime Shadows Fall movingly portrays Laura’s clients as they search for love from boyfriends, husbands, and babies. Some find it, but ultimately, through powerful revelations, their strength comes from within. “I read When Nighttime Shadows Fall and was transported—first to the city where I was raised and, later, to the region where I began my career. Diane Michael Cantor’s touching portrait of Lauren Bauer is a call for compassion and a reminder of how much most of us take for granted every day.” —Allen Mendenhall, editor, Southern Literary Review “Cantor comes from the wide-awake lineage of writers Grace Paley and John Dos Passos, and we need more stories like this.” —Cynthia Shearer, author of The Wonder Book of the Air and The Celestial Jukebox
The Perfect Pet is a new book about a visit to Happy Farm, where readers will find one-of-a-kind animals with unique talents and personalities. The Perfect Pet will introduce children to a host of whimsical characters like Charlie the Cheetah, Finley the Llama from Old Yokohama, Leona the Lioness, Wally the Whale and their friends. Each page is wonderfully illustrated with bright vivid colors that animate the story.
This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, provides a wide context in which to consider the rise of “humanity” as one of the chief modern virtues. A relative of—and also a replacement for—formerly more prominent other-regarding virtues like justice and generosity, humanity and later compassion become the true north of the modern moral compass. Contributors to this volume consider various aspects of this virtue, by comparison with what came before and with attention to its development from early to late modernity, and up to the present.
If Michael Cantor's Furusato (Japanese for "Home Town") were only a dazzling display of formal verse at its most polished and expert, that in itself would make it worth owning and reading many times over. Its triolets, Asian forms, sestinas and experimental hybrids are as aesthetically satisfying as they are daring. But these poems are so much more that the reader ends by taking their miraculous skill for granted and focusing entirely on the dry, almost cruel humor with which they convey what "home" means, and how experience lived in our various homes shapes us, and then go on to create characters and narratives impossible to forget. The collection ends with a handful of masterpieces-"On Rolfe's Lane," "Lament," "The Historian," and "Clever," among many others earlier in the book-that outdo and outweigh the craftsmanship you will have forgotten to notice by then. -Rhina Espaillat Michael Cantor's poems in Furusato weave a mesmerizing story, a black-and-white film, that takes us to Japan, Manhattan, Santa Fe, and unnamed foreign cities, following a sometimes there, sometimes not urbane mystery man who is at home everywhere, and therefore nowhere. Furusato means "where my people lived, the place/that we are from; my ancestors lie here," and Cantor explores this theme beautifully and hauntingly. He uses form, free verse, Japanese stanzas and his own invented forms masterfully to introduce characters looking for their own homes: Sushi Sue, Tina the pole dancer, Bernie Madoff, Russian spies, and a somewhat older Rick and Ilse, meeting one last time in Casablanca. And at last we are granted a glimpse into his own furusato-his youth in the Bronx and his emotional home on the fictional Plover Island. For all of us traveling through life, Cantor's poems are a gift from a poet with the intelligence, wit, self-awareness, and insight to help us recognize our own furusato. -Midge Goldberg Michael Cantor's second book, Furasato, delivers what his readers have come to expect: fresh narratives, formal invention, a passion for all things Japanese, and imaginative attention to the details of his worlds. Furasato manages to be both timely and timeless.-A.M. Juster
An invaluable spiritual resource for all those who dedicate their time and talent to the ministry of cantor. Written by experienced cantor and choir director Michael Novak, these timely and thoughtful devotions are ideal for praying before or after a rehearsal or service, or when gathering with other parish musicians. Prayers are composed for the liturgical seasons, special occasions, and sacramental celebrations, and introduced with a passage from scripture.
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