Asronian, false god, murderer, death bringer. He goes by many names and has many titles, but despite them all, the Myrmidon galaxy fears only one name, Orion, self-proclaimed God of Darkness. His will is unshakable; his power is unmeasurable; his revenge is undeniable. He is the destroyer of worlds and the breaker of families, and after two hundred years of isolation, he has returned from the shadows to claim his rightful place as the one true Creator. Only the most powerful of the Ashura Order can stand against him, and utilize both sides of Source Energy, gifted by the One Infinite Creator, to free the galaxy from Orion's eternal darkness.
The story of the director behind Harold and Maude, Being There, and other quirky classics: “A superb biography of this troubled, talented man.” —Tucson Citizen Hal Ashby set the standard for subsequent independent filmmakers by crafting unique, thoughtful, and challenging films that continue to influence new generations of directors. Initially finding success as an editor, Ashby won an Academy Award for editing 1967’s In the Heat of the Night, and translated his skills into a career as one of the quintessential directors of 1970s. Perhaps best remembered for the enduring cult classic Harold and Maude, Ashby quickly became known for melding quirky comedy and intense drama with performances from A-list actors such as Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail, Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn in Shampoo, Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in Coming Home, and Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine in Being There. But Ashby’s personal life was difficult. After enduring his parents’ divorce, his father’s suicide, and his own failed marriage all before the age of nineteen, he became notorious for his drug abuse, which contributed to the decline of his career near the end of his life. Ashby always operated outside Hollywood’s conventions, and though his output was tragically limited, the quality of his films continues to inspire modern directors as varied and talented as Judd Apatow and Wes Anderson, both of whom acknowledge Ashby as a primary influence. In Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel, the first full-length biography of the maverick filmmaker, Nick Dawson masterfully tells the turbulent story of Ashby’s life and career.
“An ardent fan letter from Hornby that makes you want to re-read Great Expectations while listening to Sign o’ the Times.” —Vogue "This pairing -- two magnificent creatives, centuries and genres apart -- makes stunning sense in the hands of their wisest, wittiest fan." -- People From the bestselling author of Just Like You, High Fidelity, and Fever Pitch, a short, warm, and entertaining book about art, creativity, and the unlikely similarities between Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and modern American rock star Prince Every so often, a pairing comes along that seems completely unlikely—until it’s not. Peanut butter and jelly, Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, ducks and puppies, and now: Dickens and Prince. Equipped with a fan’s admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centuries—each of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time. When Prince’s 1987 record Sign o’ the Times was rereleased in 2020, the iconic album now came with dozens of songs that weren’t on the original— Prince was endlessly prolific, recording 102 songs in 1986 alone. In awe, Hornby began to wonder, Who else ever produced this much? Who else ever worked that way? He soon found his answer in Victorian novelist and social critic Charles Dickens, who died more than a hundred years before Prince began making music. Examining the two artists’ personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries “lit up the world.” In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art.
Nick McLean was one of the most acclaimed camera operators in American cinema of the 1970s, during which time he shot many classics of the New Hollywood movement including McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Heaven Can Wait, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter, Marathon Man, and Being There. As a cinematographer throughout the 1980s, McLean would film blockbusters such as Cannonball Run II, City Heat, The Goonies, and Short Circuit before being lured into television to photograph some of the biggest shows in town, including Evening Shade, Cybill, and the pop culture phenomenon Friends, for which he was thrice Emmy-nominated.
IT had rained in torrents all the way down from Schenectady, so when Jack Duane glimpsed the lights of what looked to be a big house through the trees, he braked his battered, convertible sedan to a stop at the side of the road. Mud lay along the fenders and running boards; mud and water had spumed up and freckled Duane’s face and hat. He pulled off the latter—it was soggy—and slapped it on the seat beside him, leaning out and squinting through the darkness and falling water. He was on the last lap of a two weeks’ journey from San Francisco, his objective being New York City. There he hoped to wangle a job as foreign correspondent from an old crony, J. J. Molloy, now editor of the New York Globe. Adventurer, journalist, globetrotter, Duane was of the type that is always on the move. “It’s a place, anyway, Moses,” he said to the large black man beside him, his servitor and bodyguard, who had accompanied him everywhere for the past three years. “Somebody lives there; they ought to have some gas.” “Yasah,” said Moses, staring past Duane’s shoulder, “it’s a funny-looking place, suh.” Duane agreed. Considering that they were seventy miles from New York, in the foothills of the Catskills, with woods all around them and the rain pouring down, the thing they saw through the trees, some three hundred yards from the country road, was indeed peculiar. It looked more like a couple of Pullman cars coupled together and lighted, than like a farmer’s dwelling. “Fenced in, too,” said Duane, pointing to the high steel fence that bordered the road, separating them from the object of their vision. “And look there—” A fitful flash of lightning in the east, illuminating the distant treetops, showed up the towering steel and network of a high-voltage electric line’s tower. The roving journalist muttered something to express his puzzlement, and got out of the car. Moses followed him. “Well,” said Duane presently, when they had stared a moment longer, “whatever it is, I’m barging in. We’ve got to have some gas or we’ll never make New York tonight.” MOSES agreed. The two men started across the road—the big Negro hatless and wearing a slicker—the reporter in a belted trench coat, his brown felt hat pulled out of shape on his head. “It’s a big thing,” Duane said as he and Moses halted at the fence and peered through. Distantly, he could see now that the mysterious structure in the woods was at least a hundred yards long, flat-topped and black as coal except from narrow shafts of light that came from its windows. “And look at the light coming out of the roof.” That was, indeed, the most peculiar feature of this place they had discovered. From a section of the roof near the center, as though through a skylight, a great white light came out, illuminating the slanting rain and the bending trees.
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