The King of Pain


Book Description

"One of 2012's most enjoyable novels." --Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times "This is a dark, sharp, very funny novel about imprisonment, torture and the dangerous pleasures of stories." --Zoe Heller, Notes on a Scandal A riotously funny portrait of an out-of-control entertainment mogul and a dazzlingly original look at incarceration, The King of Pain is part Jennifer Egan, part Italo Calvino, part "Entourage," and 100% marvelous. Rick Salter is a man everybody loves to hate. But that’s fine; in fact, it’s become a way of life for Rick ever since the launch of his outrageous – and outrageously successful – reality TV show about torture, The King of Pain. So when one Saturday morning Rick comes to on his living room floor, he’s not really bothered that cultural critics have put him on top of the list of “people who will hasten the demise of civilization” – no, his real problem is that he appears to be trapped under his gigantic home entertainment system. Which is no longer attached to the wall, but to him. With no phone or BlackBerry within reach, and with his housekeeper Marta off for the weekend, Rick has 48 long hours ahead of him before he can hope for rescue. 48 hours of pain and bad memories. Thank god there’s a book lying around to pass the time. It’s called A History of Prisons and the stories in the book seem to be strangely relevant to Rick’s own predicament. "Required reading" --N.Y. Daily News




There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today


Book Description

Sting’s evocative lyrics from "King of Pain" are powerfully transformed into minimalistic illustrations by Sven Völker, who gives voice to his son's journey from illness to health in this extraordinary and deeply moving collaboration that explores pain’s sadness, beauty, and wonder.




King of Pain


Book Description

Poetry. Christine Kanownik's debut book, KING OF PAIN, wrestles with heavy themes while maintaining a wry grace that carries us effortlessly into a kind of fatalistic enlightenment. Brave, lyrical, and wonderfully direct, KING OF PAIN is one of those books that leaves you feeling more real after reading it. Filled with crass human truths and deep emotional beauty, KING OF PAIN is a book of highly original work by one of the most exciting new poets of our generation. In her poem "The Flower is a Jerk" she meditates with Wordsworthian bravado on flowers; then writes "but this isn't about flowers / it is about our perverse relationship / with the one flower." In the long, luscious poem, "I Don't Know," the speaker tells us, wisely, "it is because of love we get this way / In this new era of unbelievable pain." Christine Kanownik's poems see the world- weary humanity in all things. She sees beauty in pain. And pain in beauty. And of those, she is king. "KING OF PAIN is like Game of Thrones meets Ariel. It's like if the Earth elected a king and then Christine staged a revolution to usurp the throne. If she did, you wouldn't resent the act, but you would respect the power she wields: a bright force made of attention and sudden acts of kindness. Here is a real poet. Here is a life: "anyway / living / this long / it is a project." Paul Legault"




African Americans and the Culture of Pain


Book Description

In this compelling new study, Debra Walker King considers fragments of experience recorded in oral histories and newspapers as well as those produced in twentieth-century novels, films, and television that reveal how the black body in pain functions as a rhetorical device and as political strategy. King's primary hypothesis is that, in the United States, black experience of the body in pain is as much a construction of social, ethical, and economic politics as it is a physiological phenomenon. As an essential element defining black experience in America, pain plays many roles. It is used to promote racial stereotypes, increase the sale of movies and other pop culture products, and encourage advocacy for various social causes. Pain is employed as a tool of resistance against racism, but it also functions as a sign of racism's insidious ability to exert power over and maintain control of those it claims--regardless of race. With these dichotomous uses of pain in mind, King considers and questions the effects of the manipulation of an unspoken but long-standing belief that pain, suffering, and the hope for freedom and communal subsistence will merge to uplift those who are oppressed, especially during periods of social and political upheaval. This belief has become a ritualized philosophy fueling the multiple constructions of black bodies in pain, a belief that has even come to function as an identity and community stabilizer. In her attempt to interpret the constant manipulation and abuse of this philosophy, King explores the redemptive and visionary power of pain as perceived historically in black culture, the aesthetic value of black pain as presented in a variety of cultural artifacts, and the socioeconomic politics of suffering surrounding the experiences and representations of blacks in the United States. The book introduces the term Blackpain, defining it as a tool of national mythmaking and as a source of cultural and symbolic capital that normalizes individual suffering until the individual--the real person--disappears. Ultimately, the book investigates America's love-hate relationship with black bodies in pain.




King of Pain


Book Description

Welcome To a World of Unbridled Psychological Horror KING OF PAIN - The Descent is Book 1 of the series, 'A Journey to Hell & Back Through the Mind's Eye.' It is the haunting story of a nameless, faceless character caught in the grip of nihilism and horrific self-destruction. You are invited into the character's twisted and tormented mind, where you'll experience evil, madness and atrocities unspeakable. Always in the company of his Russian Blue cat 'Uncle Joey,' he travels through the dregs of humanity and finds solace in all that is filthy and deplorable; the junkie ecosystem, a throng of parasitical people feeding off of each other in Building #1, the abode of a certain old man named Ralphy, known by all as The Cockroach Prince. As the maze of characters gets more dangerous and some seek to destroy him, there are players behind the scenes that believe he can overcome, including his eccentric mother Marina, an unknown yet benevolent ghost, Father Corbin, an unconventional priest with unique spiritual abilities and insight, and Slade, the Indian Warrior who tries to introduce him to the purging ceremonies of his people. The character's only human support comes from friends like Jim, a half-white, half-Cherokee freight train of violence and frantic drug consumption; Martin, the chronically-addicted former mob boss and city overlord, and Jonathon, a newly-orphaned youth who admires the main character and has himself given up on life. But time is running out. As the character’s self destruction breeds more intense psychological suffering, the visions turn darker and more sinister; demonic apparitions begin to appear in his Mind's Eye and even in his tangible reality. . He is thus catapulted into the very center of his existence where he comes face to face with the ultimate archenemy.. Encounter angels and demons, experience the end of the world and enter the character's soul, where he comes face-to-face with CEO, his personal and self-devised Satan. Will he make it out of this nightmarish world of insanity? Or will his enemies triumph and drag his soul to hell? Sometimes Reality, Is The Hardest Thing to Face From the Author: KING OF PAIN: What would it be like to travel into a world of death, insanity, depravity and violence INSIDE the human soul? Plagued by endless painful emotions, confusion, hatred and rage, a mind can, in essence, create an inner world of death more terrifying and vile than any movie or news report. That internal film is always playing; unfettered by human laws or reasons to restrain, this 'soul footage' can roll horrific scenes of unrestrained mass murder and human debasement. Who is the wiser if he pillages and murders inside of his own mind? Who can imprison him for perpetrating these despicable yet abstract deeds? What of this inner world... this inner hell where everything and anything can come to pass? Is it all in the imagination, or are there (real) malevolent forces behind the curtain? And so I was intrigued by "The Mind's Eye," the lens that goes above and beyond three-dimensional reality; a razor-sharp, ocular blade that severs all that is illusory. But what happens when, upon closer scrutiny, we discover that illusion is, perhaps, more real than what the naked eye can see. Yet the horrors that appear before the Mind's Eye are a mere reflection of the destructive choices that the character makes. So what if we took this character and placed him in a hopeless path of self - destruction, a path so irrevocable and vile that it actually fueled the mental machinations? And this inner hell that he creates is the only outlet that he has for the suffering and psychological pain that assaults him day and night, a direct result of the insanely-destructive choices that he makes, knowing that his demise looms, but pressing on nonetheless, and with glee and defiance. What can he do to find relief but to reach out and soothe the misery with liquids, powders, pebbles and any other compounds he can find? But that is not enough; the more he partakes, the more he craves, and the more he craves, the more his life falls apart, and the more he loses control, the more he is consumed with hate and rage. As his emotions collapse and humanity disappears, the character is assaulted by horrifying visions, dreams and spiritual apparitions. And this blood-paved road leads to the very place that he always shunned; yes, this road leads to the center of himself. There, for the first time, he finds himself standing face-to-face with his loving enemy and indefatigable tormentor. And so, towards the end of this volume, our nameless character says: "I crown myself KING OF PAIN, walking down my self-made Calvary with the world's crosses on my back, on the pathway to becoming my own self-righteous martyr." This statement was somewhat of a shock to me when it came because it showed that, somewhere inside his corrupted mind, there is an awareness that shows him flashes of truth and clarity. But will that be enough to uproot and destroy an evil so deeply rooted? While a betting man would put his money on violent death and eternal perdition for our character, the force of free-will, coupled with love rediscovered, could very well equal or even surpass the power of E=Mc2, could it not? Together, we shall discover his fate.




Pages of Pain


Book Description

On a mission sanctioned by the gods, an amnesiac warrior realizes he is woefully unprepared for a confrontation with the enigmatic Lady of Pain The Lady of Pain rules the city of Sigil from behind a veil of perfect silence. Feared by mortal and gods alike, she flays her worshipers alive and casts her foes into inescapable labyrinths of despair. Only fools dare ask her to speak. And the Amnesian Hero has come with a question. When the god Poseidon tells a man with no memory how to recover his past, the unwitting warrior seeks out the Lady of Pain and finds himself banished to the Mazes. With the help of a beautiful—but dead—tiefling sorceress, a horned fiend with a dark disposition, and a deranged wind-priest who claims top be the center of the multiverse, he must discover the secret of the Lady's past—or confront a memory so horrifying it could tear him apart.




The Sting of the Wild


Book Description

The “King of Sting” describes his adventures with insects and the pain scale that’s made him a scientific celebrity. Silver, Science (Adult Non-Fiction) Foreword INDIES Award 2017 Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it’s a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the test case. In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a “sting,” the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering. The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index, published here for the first time. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he’s sampled so far, Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: “Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless” and “Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel.” Schmidt explains that, for some insects, stinging is used for hunting: small wasps, for example, can paralyze huge caterpillars for long enough to lay eggs inside them, so that their larvae emerge within a living feast. Others are used to kill competing insects, even members of their own species. Humans usually experience stings as defensive maneuvers used by insects to protect their nest mates. With colorful descriptions of each venom’s sensation and a story that leaves you tingling with awe, The Sting of the Wild’s one-of-a-kind style will fire your imagination.




The King of Sting


Book Description

Wildlife expert and Emmy Award-winning Coyote Peterson brings his 12.5 million YouTube subscribers and legions of kid fans a full-color exploration of his "Sting Zone" adventure series, featuring shots from the episodes and culminating in his thrilling encounter with the "King of Sting"--the Executioner Wasp. Coyote Peterson, YouTube star, animal enthusiast, and creator of the Brave Adventure series, has tracked down some of the world's most painfully stinging insects and chronicled getting stung by each of them on his YouTube channel. Coyote has saved the best--or possibly the worst--for last, and he's finally ready to share his experience with the most painful sting in the world: the Executioner Wasp. Featuring full-color stills from his show, and packed with facts about nature's most misunderstood creatures, King of Sting is a dream book for any kid that loves animals, bugs, outdoor exploration, and danger!




Loving Through the Pain


Book Description

Many of us sweep our emotional pain "under the rug" or try to push through it, only to find out that it is still there. It follows us from relationship to relationship and we wonder why the same things keep happening over and over again. We ask ourselves "when will things get better?" When will we be able to find some peace in our relationships? Have you found yourself thinking about those questions? When your relationships end leaving you with pain, what do you do? Loving Through the Pain examines the pain which God's children experience when they are not properly instructed on how to deal with betrayal and hurt in relationships. By carrying distrust and old mindsets into each new relationship, we miss out on God's best for us. As you apply the principles in this book, you will be able to navigate through the pain that exist in every kind of relationship. You will learn how to forgive, let go, and move forward into the successful relationships that God wants you to have. As you learn how much God loves you, you will be able to love yourself, and in turn, love others - even when they cause you pain. I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I have been an elementary school teacher in the public school system for the past seventeen years. I resigned my teaching position to begin a new journey as a writer and public speaker. Three years ago I began writing this book out of a burden from the pain in my own relationships and what I've witnessed in other people's relationships. My goal is to continue to write to help people navigate through life's difficult times and encourage them in their walk with God.




Living Through Pain


Book Description

"In Living Through Pain, Kristin Swenson charts the multifaceted personal and social problems caused by chronic pain. This book also surveys professional efforts to mitigate and manage pain. Because the experience of pain involves all aspects of a person - body, mind, spirit, and community - Swenson consults an ancient resource for wisdom, perspective, and insight. Her close reading of selected psalms from the Hebrew Bible demonstrates that the challenge of living through pain is timeless. Living Through Pain chronicles how these ancient texts offer a vocabulary and grammar for understanding and expressing the contemporary experience of pain. Pain is a universal experience, and this book invites readers to consider more fully what is involved in the process of healing."--BOOK JACKET.