The Magic Christian


Book Description

DIVDIVIn this uproarious and wicked cult-classic, Southern skewers American greed and pomposity /divDIVGuy Grand, an eccentric billionaire prankster, is rich enough to do whatever he likes. And what he likes is to carefully execute projects where he can cauterize by ridicule what the rest of the world ignores: complacency, greed, corruption, and idiocy. Determined to “make it hot for people,” Grand spends his billions staging a series of hilarious, sometimes bewildering stunts, lampooning along the way the American holy cows of money, status, power, beauty, media, and stardom. Concocting deliciously perverse mayhem, he throws a million one-hundred-dollar bills into an enormous vat of steaming offal, proving just what people will do for money, and he promotes a new silky shampoo that turns hair to wire and a deodorant that becomes a time-released stench-bomb. He inserts subliminally suggestive and perverse images into well-loved classic films, takes a howitzer on safari, and brings a panther to a kennel club dog show. His most elaborate adventure is an ultra-exclusive cruise aboard the S.S. Magic Christian, where elite passengers are treated to a series of madcap indignities./divDIV /divDIV The Magic Christian is a hilarious and savagely satiric view of American commercialism, rich in Southern’s deft handling of detail, dialogue, and delightful deviancy./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate./div/div




The Magic Christian


Book Description




The Top Change


Book Description




Paul McCartney and His Creative Practice


Book Description

This book provides fresh insight into the creative practice developed by Paul McCartney over his extended career as a songwriter, record producer and performing musician. It frames its examination of McCartney’s work through the lens of the systems model of creativity developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and combines this with the research work of Pierre Bourdieu. This systems approach is built around the basic structures of idiosyncratic agents, like McCartney himself, and the choices he has made as a creative individual. It also locates his work within social fields and cultural domains, all crucial aspects of the creative system that McCartney continues to be immersed in. Using this tripartite system, the book includes analysis of McCartney’s creative collaborations with musicians, producers, artists and filmmakers and provides a critical analysis of the Romantic myth which forms a central tenet of popular music. This engaging work will have interdisciplinary appeal to students and scholars of the psychology of creativity, popular music, sociology and cultural studies.




Up Jumped the Devil


Book Description

Robert Johnson is the subject of the most famous myth about the blues: he allegedly sold his soul at the crossroads in exchange for his incredible talent, and this deal led to his death at age 27. But the actual story of his life remains unknown save for a few inaccurate anecdotes. Up Jumped the Devil is the result of over 50 years of research. Gayle Dean Wardlow has been interviewing people who knew Robert Johnson since the early 1960s, and he was the person who discovered Johnson's death certificate in 1967. Bruce Conforth began his study of Johnson's life and music in 1970 and made it his mission to fill in what was still unknown about him. In this definitive biography, the two authors relied on every interview, resource and document, most of it material no one has seen before. As a result, this book not only destroys every myth that ever surrounded Johnson, but also tells a human story of a real person. It is the first book about Johnson that documents his years in Memphis, details his trip to New York, uncovers where and when his wife Virginia died and the impact this had on him, fully portrays the other women Johnson was involved with, and tells exactly how and why he died and who gave him the poison that killed him. Up Jumped the Devil will astonish blues fans who thought they knew something about Johnson.




The Magic Bicycle


Book Description

The Spirit Flyer, a rusty old bicycle found in the city dump, surprises its new owner, John Kramar, when it magically lives up to its name, introducing John to an unknown world and changing his life for good.




The History and Practice of Magic


Book Description

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1870 Edition.




Ancient Christian Magic


Book Description

This thought-provoking collection of magical texts from ancient Egypt shows the exotic rituals, esoteric healing practices, and incantatory and supernatural dimensions that flowered in early Christianity. These remarkable Christian magical texts include curses, spells of protection from "headless powers" and evil spirits, spells invoking thunderous powers, descriptions of fire baptism, and even recipes from a magical "cookbook." Virtually all the texts are by Coptic Christians, and they date from about the 1st-12th centuries of the common era, with the majority from late antiquity. By placing these rarely seen texts in historical context and discussing their significance, the authors explore the place of healing, prayer, miracles, and magic in the early Christian experience, and expand our understanding of Christianity and Gnosticism as a vital folk religion.




Blue Movie


Book Description

DIVA darkly hilarious, wildly erotic satire of Hollywood/divDIV /divDIVKing B., the world’s most admired filmmaker—winner of a string of Oscars and awards from Cannes to Venice—takes on a new project: the most expensive, star-studded, high-quality, X-rated film ever made. He joins forces with producer Sid Krassman, who’s made a fortune with B movies, and Angela Sterling, a misunderstood sex symbol who longs to do “serious” work. After convincing the principality of Liechtenstein to host the production in exchange for a distribution exclusive to boost tourism, King B. and Krassman arrive with cast and crew to make The Faces of Love. While keeping the nature of the film secret from American bankers, King B. lines up a host of European and American big-name stars. But word leaks out to the local religious groups and possibly even the Vatican. Between the Cardinal’s attempts to sabotage production and the big egos and even bigger libidos behind the scenes, the enterprise plummets into hilarious anarchy./divDIV /divDIVBlue Movie is comic eroticism at its best—populated by over-the-top characters, memorable dialogue, and perverse vignettes, and colored by razor-sharp insights into the film industry./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate./div




Wicca and the Christian Heritage


Book Description

What is Wicca? Is it witchcraft, Paganism, occultism, esotericism, magic, spirituality, mysticism, nature religion, secrecy, gnosis, the exotic or 'other'? Wicca has been defined by and explored within all these contexts over the past thirty years by anthropologists, sociologists and historians, but there has been a tendency to sublimate and negate the role of Christianity in Wicca's historical and contemporary contexts. Joanne Pearson 'prowls the borderlands of Christianity' to uncover the untold history of Wicca. Exploring the problematic nature of the Wiccan claim of marginality, it contains a groundbreaking analysis of themes in Christian traditions that are inherent in the development of contemporary Wicca. These focus on the accusations which have been levelled against Catholisicm, heterodoxy and witchcraft throughout history: ritual, deviant sexuality and magic.