Author : Jean-Claude Baker
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 594 pages
File Size : 36,73 MB
Release : 2001
Category : African American entertainers
ISBN : 0815411723
This revelatory biography of Folies Bergere dancer Josephine Baker (1906-1975) is a study of struggle, truimph and tragedy.
Author : James Grissom
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 46,58 MB
Release : 2016-08-09
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1101972777
This remarkably illuminating portrait of Tennessee Williams lifts the veil on the heart and soul of his artistic inspiration: the unspoken collaboration between playwright and actor. At a low moment in Williams’s life, he summoned to New Orleans a young twenty-year-old writer, James Grissom, who had written him a letter asking for advice. After a long, intense conversation, Williams sent Grissom on a journey on his behalf to find out if he or his work had mattered to those who had so deeply mattered to him. Among the more than seventy women and men with whom Grissom talked were giants of American theater and film: Lillian Gish, (“the escort who brought me to Blanche”), Jessica Tandy (the original Blanche DuBois on Broadway), Eva Le Gallienne (“She was a stone against which I could rub my talent and feel that it became sharper”), Maureen Stapleton, Julie Harris, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud, and many more. Follies of God provides dazzling insight into how Williams conjured the dramatic characters and plays that so transformed American theater.
Author : Bruce Benderson
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 10,54 MB
Release : 2006-02-02
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1440628262
Winner of the 2004 Prix de Flore—one of France's most distinguished literary prizes—a wildly romantic, true-life love story “History follows a trail of sputtering desire, often calling upon the delusions of lovers to generate the sparks. If it weren’t for us, the world would suffer from a dismal lack of stories," writes Bruce Benderson in this brutally candid memoir. “What astonishes and intrigues is Benderson’s way of recounting, in the sweetest possible voice, things that are considered shocking,” wrote Le Monde. What’s so shocking? It’s not just Benderson’s job translating Céline Dion’s saccharine autobiography, which he admits is driving him mad; but his unrequited love for an impoverished Romanian in “cheap club-kid platforms with dollar signs in his squinting eyes,” whom he meets while on a journalism assignment in Eastern Europe. Rather than retreat, Benderson absorbs everything he can about Romanian culture and discovers an uncanny similarity between his own obsession for the Romanian (named Romulus) and the disastrous love affair of King Carol II, the last king of Romania (1893-1953). Throughout, Benderson—“absolutely free of bitterness, nastiness, or any desire to protect himself,” wrote Le Monde—is sustained by little white codeine pills, a poetic self-awareness, a sense of humor, and an unwavering belief in the perfect romance, even as wild dogs chase him down Romanian streets.
Author : Marina Belozerskaya
Publisher : Getty Publications
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 33,25 MB
Release : 2005-10-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 0892367857
Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.
Author : Simone de Beauvoir
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 791 pages
File Size : 19,5 MB
Release : 1989
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0679724516
The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.
Author : Daniel Coyle
Publisher : Bantam
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 13,79 MB
Release : 2009-04-28
Category : Self-Help
ISBN : 0553906496
What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? This groundbreaking work provides readers with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others. Whether you’re coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism. Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world’s talent hotbeds—from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York—Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything. • Deep Practice Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn’t know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice. • Ignition We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development. • Master Coaching What are the secrets of the world’s most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these “talent whisperers” to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students. These three elements work together within your brain to form myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movements and thoughts. Scientists have discovered that myelin might just be the holy grail: the foundation of all forms of greatness, from Michelangelo’s to Michael Jordan’s. The good news about myelin is that it isn’t fixed at birth; to the contrary, it grows, and like anything that grows, it can be cultivated and nourished. Combining revelatory analysis with illuminating examples of regular people who have achieved greatness, this book will not only change the way you think about talent, but equip you to reach your own highest potential.
Author : James Donald
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 358 pages
File Size : 30,47 MB
Release : 1998-01-01
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780304335169
Between 1927 and 1933, the journal "Close Up" championed a European avant-garde in film-making. This volume republishes articles from the journal, with an introduction and a commentary on the lives of, and complex relationships between, its writers and editors.
Author : Charles A. Fleming
Publisher :
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 43,67 MB
Release : 1978
Category : Government publications
ISBN :
Author : Church Publishing,
Publisher : Church Publishing, Inc.
Page : 798 pages
File Size : 40,67 MB
Release : 2010
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0898696372
Fully revised and expanded, this new work is the first major revision of the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in more than 40 years! It is the official revision of Lesser Feasts and Fasts and authorized by the 2009 General Convention. All commemorations in Lesser Feasts and Fasts have been retained, and many new ones added. Three scripture readings (instead of current two) are provided for all minor holy days. Additional new material includes a votive mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, many more ecumenical commemorations, plus a proper for space exploration. For years the oft revised volume, Lesser Feasts and Fasts (LFF), has served parishes and individuals mark part of the holiness of each day by providing Scripture readings, a collect, a Eucharistic preface, and a narrative about those remembered on the church's calendar that day whose lives have witnessed to the grace of God. Holy Women, Holy Men (HWHM) is a major effort to revise, but also to expand and enrich LFF. Where LFF provided two readings (gospel and other New Testament) plus a psalm, HWHM adds an Old Testament citation. Where LFF was limited to few non-Anglicans in the post-reformation period (and few non-Episcopalians after 1789), HWHM dramatically broadens appreciation for other Christians and their traditions. Over-emphasis on clergy is redressed by additional laity, males by females, and "in-church" activities by contributions well beyond the workings of institutional agendas. These almost daily commemorations occupy over 600 of the book's 785 pages, by far the lion's share of its content. Remaining sections address: principles of revision and guides for future revision; liturgical propers for seasons (Advent/Christmas, Lent, and Easter); and new propers for a miscellany of propers usable with individuals (or events) not officially listed in the formal calendar. Two cycles of propers for daily Eucharist are also included, one covering a six week period, the other a two year cycle.
Author : Suzanne Corkin
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 14,64 MB
Release : 2013-05-14
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0465033490
In 1953, 27-year-old Henry Gustave Molaison underwent an experimental "psychosurgical" procedure -- a targeted lobotomy -- in an effort to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was unexpected -- when Henry awoke, he could no longer form new memories, and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Henry's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity. As renowned neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin explains in Permanent Present Tense, she and her colleagues brought to light the sharp contrast between Henry's crippling memory impairment and his preserved intellect. This new insight that the capacity for remembering is housed in a specific brain area revolutionized the science of memory. The case of Henry -- known only by his initials H. M. until his death in 2008 -- stands as one of the most consequential and widely referenced in the spiraling field of neuroscience. Corkin and her collaborators worked closely with Henry for nearly fifty years, and in Permanent Present Tense she tells the incredible story of the life and legacy of this intelligent, quiet, and remarkably good-humored man. Henry never remembered Corkin from one meeting to the next and had only a dim conception of the importance of the work they were doing together, yet he was consistently happy to see her and always willing to participate in her research. His case afforded untold advances in the study of memory, including the discovery that even profound amnesia spares some kinds of learning, and that different memory processes are localized to separate circuits in the human brain. Henry taught us that learning can occur without conscious awareness, that short-term and long-term memory are distinct capacities, and that the effects of aging-related disease are detectable in an already damaged brain. Undergirded by rich details about the functions of the human brain, Permanent Present Tense pulls back the curtain on the man whose misfortune propelled a half-century of exciting research. With great clarity, sensitivity, and grace, Corkin brings readers to the cutting edge of neuroscience in this deeply felt elegy for her patient and friend.
