Fronting a country and western band called Bar-X Boys, Jack Linden wants out. The road is a bitch. Bed bugs and Gideon Bibles. Honky-tonks and tricks. He asks a talented kid thirteen years his junior to fill in on guitar for what he hopes will be the band's last hurrah, last tour. Pecos Farley welcomes the opportunity to hear his songs played live and to stretch his songwriting abilities with Jack. He puts his first year of college and girlfriend Ruth on hold. Can Ruth find solace elsewhere? Pecos does have a twin brother, Gila. Sharing lives, beds, and bodies and collaborating on songs, Pecos and Jack find themselves popular on the podunk circuit. Unexpectedly a single song catapults them to the heights of the politically-oriented rock music scene, and they become heroes of the anti-Vietnam war movement as well as rock stars. Pecos, influenced by zealous Students for a Democratic Society, begins thinking like them, spouting their rhetoric. Jack begins to feel he's just along for the ride, a hypnotic with guitar. The relationship is floundering on a more personal level as well, each knowing an inevitable split is coming, neither guessing how final and traumatic it will be.
This first separate publication of TOM'S SONGBOOK is for those readers who wish to have a copy but are not interested in the rest of his family memoir BAKER'S DAUGHTER, MILLER'S SON in which most of this work initially appeared. Much of this material is also available on the editor's Hollow Square Press website. Tom Miller, as he was known in everyday life, wrote a lot of song lyrics and four musical plays during his lifetime, only one of the latter (The Darwin Theory) ever being produced. This volume offers a selection of his work and excerpts from those musicals. Tom Canford (the name movie publicist Tom Miller used for his published writings) has to his credit another memoir, A FEVER OF THE MAD: A MOVIE PUBLICIST WORKS WITH FRANCIS COPPOLA, ELAINE MAY, JOHN CASSAVETES, PETER FALK, AND RICHARD GERE AND SURVIVES TO TELL THE TALE! as well as three novels, BOY AT SEA, THE CURSE OF VILMA VALENTINE, and GHOST GUITARS.
Lovers and adulterers, heroes and harlots, gossips and thieves, and maybe the occasional ghost (and certainly skeletons in the closets), the Miller and Baker families had their share, and Tom Miller, writing as Tom Canford, is willing to tell all. This memoir, initially written for distribution to family members, had been intended for publication, but the author did not get around to editing it before his death. His friend Jonathan May has managed that feat in part as a gift to Miller family members as well as to all readers intigued by the tale of a boy growing up and life in Southern Illinois and Las Cruces, New Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s (with family tales tall and otherwise taking it back further in time and the author's own musings bringing it well into the early 2000s). Since the author had always thought of himself primarily as a lyricist, a selection from his musical plays and his occasional lyrics appears at the end. The descriptions of life in Southern Illinois, particularly Carrier Mills, in the early part of the last century, and in Las Cruces, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas, in the 1930s and later will be of interest especially to people who know those areas and their inhabitants and also to anyone curious about family life and social life of the times. Readers who have met the author through his autobiographical World War II novel Boy at Sea and through A Fever of the Mad, his memoir about working as a publicist on movies with special emphasis on his experiences on Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky and Francis Coppola's The Cotton Club will be pleased to see this earlier version of the Tom they have come to know. His late sister Norma Miller was invaluable to him in providing stories from the past and reminders and refreshers on tales he remembered. Quotations from her diaries and from letters written by various family members and friends add to the pleasure of the work.
Adored by some, abhorred by others, actress Vilma Valentine is presumed dead after a fiery automobile collision in Mexico, her body never recovered. In the intervening years the fabled star is sighted more often than Bigfoot. Is it her ghost that crashes a party for Ronald Reagan in Juarez, appears at the deathbed of her estranged father in Rome, flees from Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst at the Parthenon? In 1969 Virginia Dofstader wins the Valentine lookalike contest publicizing The Curse of Vilma Valentine by literary heavyweight Gerald Carstairs. In the course of the book's promotion, it is discovered that Virginia's mother looks even more like Vilma than Miss Dofstader does. As notorious in death as in life, Vilma haunts the imagination of aficionados of 1940 movies. Did she really kill all those husbands? Was she a Nazi spy? Was she truly responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Her story, a suspenseful stew of WWII saboteurs, stolen European artworks, murders and massacres, is told in the words of major Hollywood figures-lovers, friends, enemies, and Vilma herself. It's all seasoned with a knowing dose of romantic comedy.
Movie publicist Tom Miller, writing under the name Tom Canford, tells of his experience working on films such as Francis Coppola's "The Cotton Club" and Elaine May's "Mikey and Nicky." He provides intriguing insight into the process of movie-making from a privileged position deep inside the productions and also sharp portraits of directors, actors both major and minor, and behind-the-scenes people involved in bringing their films to you. In addition to those mentioned in the subtitle of the work, many other artists and film personnel make their appearance: Robert Mitchum, Paul Newman, Diane Lane, Robert DeNiro, Gregory Hines, Bruce Dern, Lonette McKee, Barrie Osborne, Milena Canonero, Nicolas Cage, Robert Evans, Bobby Zarem, Julian Beck, Gwen Verdon, Herb Ritts, a very young Sophia Coppola. Editor Jonathan May in his introduction and afterword provides further information about the author.
Kenny Roper has seen too many movies about WWI to hang around and be caught in the draft of WWII. If he goes down, let it be in water and not in trenches. He joins the U. S. Coast Guard. He won't have to go overseas, will he? Guess again, Kenny. You're in for a rude awakening, as well as a riotous and raunchy adventure. "Do you like girls?" he is asked in the examination room. What do they think, he's antisocial? So begins Boy At Sea, a novel that, as the title suggests, is about conflicted sexuality as revealed through the picaresque adventures of a college freshman-turned-sailor. Kenny meets great guys on ship and on land, but none so intriguing or troubling as blond gunner's mate Blake, stationed aboard the same destroyer escort in the South Pacific. Kenny's travels take him from Wilmington and other parts of California to New York and Boston, Brisbane, Samoa, the Panama Canal Zone and Alaska. He experiences the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943 and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, but nothing sears itself into his consciousness like his relationship with Blake.
Fronting a country and western band called Bar-X Boys, Jack Linden wants out. The road is a bitch. Bed bugs and Gideon Bibles. Honky-tonks and tricks. He asks a talented kid thirteen years his junior to fill in on guitar for what he hopes will be the band's last hurrah, last tour. Pecos Farley welcomes the opportunity to hear his songs played live and to stretch his songwriting abilities with Jack. He puts his first year of college and girlfriend Ruth on hold. Can Ruth find solace elsewhere? Pecos does have a twin brother, Gila. Sharing lives, beds, and bodies and collaborating on songs, Pecos and Jack find themselves popular on the podunk circuit. Unexpectedly a single song catapults them to the heights of the politically-oriented rock music scene, and they become heroes of the anti-Vietnam war movement as well as rock stars. Pecos, influenced by zealous Students for a Democratic Society, begins thinking like them, spouting their rhetoric. Jack begins to feel he's just along for the ride, a hypnotic with guitar. The relationship is floundering on a more personal level as well, each knowing an inevitable split is coming, neither guessing how final and traumatic it will be.
Kenny Roper has seen too many movies about WWI to hang around and be caught in the draft of WWII. If he goes down, let it be in water and not in trenches. He joins the U. S. Coast Guard. He won't have to go overseas, will he? Guess again, Kenny. You're in for a rude awakening, as well as a riotous and raunchy adventure. "Do you like girls?" he is asked in the examination room. What do they think, he's antisocial? So begins Boy At Sea, a novel that, as the title suggests, is about conflicted sexuality as revealed through the picaresque adventures of a college freshman-turned-sailor. Kenny meets great guys on ship and on land, but none so intriguing or troubling as blond gunner's mate Blake, stationed aboard the same destroyer escort in the South Pacific. Kenny's travels take him from Wilmington and other parts of California to New York and Boston, Brisbane, Samoa, the Panama Canal Zone and Alaska. He experiences the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943 and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, but nothing sears itself into his consciousness like his relationship with Blake.
Adored by some, abhorred by others, actress Vilma Valentine is presumed dead after a fiery automobile collision in Mexico, her body never recovered. In the intervening years the fabled star is sighted more often than Bigfoot. Is it her ghost that crashes a party for Ronald Reagan in Juarez, appears at the deathbed of her estranged father in Rome, flees from Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst at the Parthenon? In 1969 Virginia Dofstader wins the Valentine lookalike contest publicizing The Curse of Vilma Valentine by literary heavyweight Gerald Carstairs. In the course of the book's promotion, it is discovered that Virginia's mother looks even more like Vilma than Miss Dofstader does. As notorious in death as in life, Vilma haunts the imagination of aficionados of 1940 movies. Did she really kill all those husbands? Was she a Nazi spy? Was she truly responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Her story, a suspenseful stew of WWII saboteurs, stolen European artworks, murders and massacres, is told in the words of major Hollywood figures-lovers, friends, enemies, and Vilma herself. It's all seasoned with a knowing dose of romantic comedy.
How are conductors' silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn't even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public. This is the first book to go inside the rehearsal rooms of some of the most inspirational orchestral partnerships in the world - how Simon Rattle works at the Berlin Philharmonic, how Mariss Jansons deals with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, and how Claudio Abbado creates the world's most luxurious pick-up band every year with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. From London to Budapest, Bamberg to Vienna, great orchestral concerts are recreated as a collection of countless human and musical stories.
This book is not a biography. I consider them to often times have too much dull material in them. Instead, this is a compilation of dozens and dozens of interesting, even spell binding events in my life, so much so, that readers tell me there isn't a dull paragraph in the 221 pages of my book! In addition to being very readable, I actually believe that any thoughtful person who reads this and wants to, can easily learn how to become physically stronger, mentally more serene and courageous, and even adept at becoming more spiritually oriented." So I say to you, "Read and enjoy!
Bowler's Name is a tale of a life in cricket's margins. Tom Hicks is no household name, but he often rubbed shoulders with cricketing royalty, going from the village green to walking out as captain at Lord's. As an ambitious youngster, Hicks dreamed of reaching the top. But trying to make it big and balance the demands of university, family, a full-time job and a penchant for post-match fun was no easy feat. Settling for an unglamorous life as a minor county player, cricket took him to all corners of the country, and then across the globe, getting an insight into the nether regions of a cricketing world that was rapidly vanishing. Through the eyes of a cricket nut, Bowler's Name takes us on a journey of success, failure, hilarity and often sheer madness. If you've ever wondered what it's like to face 90mph bowling, to have lunch with Mike Gatting or to infiltrate an England post-match party, Hicks is your man. Bowler's Name is for fans of cricket idiosyncrasies, lovers of the underdog and anyone who has tried and failed.
First published in 1924, 'Which School?' brings together in one volume a wide range of information and advice, updated annually, on independent education for children up to the age of 18 years.
The internationally bestselling thriller—an audacious blend of science, history, and suspense--from the author of The Marks of Cain and The Lost Goddess War-reporter Rob Luttrell is expecting a soft assignment when he's sent to Kurdistan to cover the excavation of the world's oldest human civilization. But, soon after he arrives, the site is violated, first by sabotage-and then by death. Meanwhile, a Scotland Yard detective investigating a series of spectacularly grisly murders discovers a link between the victims and what is happening in Kurdistan. As the two men race to prevent more deaths, they close in on a biblical era secret that will shake the foundations of the modern world. For readers of Raymond Khoury, Kate Mosse, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
There is currently much concern about our trees and woodlands. The terrible toll taken by Dutch elm disease has been followed by a string of further epidemics, most worryingly ash chalara – and there are more threats on the horizon. There is also a widely shared belief that our woods have been steadily disappearing over recent decades, either replanted with alien conifers or destroyed entirely in order to make way for farmland or development. But the present state of our trees needs to be examined critically, and from a historical as much as from a scientific perspective. For English tree populations have long been highly unnatural in character, shaped by economic and social as much as by environmental factors. In reality, the recent history of trees and woods in England is more complex and less negative than we often assume and any narrative of decline and loss is overly simplistic. The numbers of trees and the extent and character of woodland have been in a state of flux for centuries. Research leaves no doubt, moreover, that arboreal ill health is nothing new. Levels of disease are certainly increasing but this is as much a consequence of changes in the way we treat trees – especially the decline in intensive management which has occurred over the last century and a half – as it is of the arrival of new diseases. And man, not nature, has shaped the essential character of rural tree populations, ensuring their dominance by just a few indigenous species and thus rendering them peculiarly vulnerable to invasive pests and diseases. The messages from history are clear: we can and should plant our landscape with a wider palette, providing greater resilience in the face of future pathogens; and the most 'unnatural' and rigorously managed tree populations are also the healthiest. The results of an ambitious research project are here shaped into a richly detailed survey of English arboriculture over the last four centuries. Trees in England will be essential reading not only for landscape historians but also for natural scientists, foresters and all those interested in the future of the countryside. Only by understanding the essentially human history of our trees and woods can we hope to protect and enhance them.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.