The Stunt Double in Winter


Book Description

modern poetry, English




When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double


Book Description

Poems about being a survivor and the choices we make to protect ourselves, our homes, and our hearts. Who wouldn't want a metaphorical stunt double to take the perilous fall that comes with the pain of loss or profound disappointment? The poems in When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double by Diane DeCillis consider resourceful ways in which we become our own stunt double and explore through a poet's eyes the anatomy of the mind, body, and soul. Although many of these poems investigate loss and heartbreak, this book is not about being a victim. It's about how we not only survive our most challenging moments but how we thrive in spite of them. These are poems about all of the ways our hearts both help us and betray us during major life events: dealing with divorce, the death of a loved one, separation from those closest to you, or with the agonizing experience of memory loss. The speaker appreciatively observes "how hard the muscle has worked / lifting and lowering the weight of love and sorrow." DeCillis writes that loss can feel like your heart is limping "like a wounded animal / before you sink into the shelter of your own shadow." But with every loss in these poems comes rebirth—a beautiful, sensory-rich wildflower garden of new breaths and experiences. The character of the heart is depicted as a piece of human anatomy at the same time it's portrayed as its own world; an entire planet. DeCillis personifies the mitral, aortic, and pulmonary valves, describing our bodies as blooming with vegetation, a recursive image of living things thriving inside living things. When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double takes us on a journey of what it means to be fully human. It touches upon the gifts we find in humor, nature, art, food, and how we celebrate the beauty of our scars. These are love poems: to others, to the self, to the body. DeCillis makes it clear that wounds need attention and care, but that loss always strengthens us. This collection will be admired by poetry lovers of all kinds, and those who enjoy modern and corporeal love poems.




Steve Rogers


Book Description

Collecting Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier #1-4, Captain America Comics #1. Originally a 90-pound weakling from New York City's Lower East Side, Steve Rogers was transformed into Captain America by the legendary Super-Soldier serum - shortly before the formula was lost, seemingly forever. But now, years later, the grandson of the treatment's creator has rediscovered the serum and plans to sell it to the highest bidder. Suddenly, Rogers is confronted with the possibility of a world overrun by Super-Soldiers, in which any despot willing to pony up the cash could have his very own unstoppable army. Can Rogers prevent the formula from changing hands before it's too late?




Maine Metaphor: Maine in Winter


Book Description

Maine in Winter bears toward the new millennium and beyond, heading into maturity of body, soul, and insight. Here are thoughts and experiences from entries in S. Dorman's everyday winter and reader’s journals. Here are themes of snowy twilight since stopping in Maine, just so, at the beginning of her family's first winter in the Northeast—when the Salvation Army came to their rescue, and the in-laws, and their old friend God. After midlife and reflecting on the Big Winter—what is sometimes called Old Age—this book cycles back toward the beginning, to a flight in celebration of the New Year, new life in Maine.




The Winter's Tale


Book Description

'The work of Shakespeare is virtually infinite' Jorge Luis Borges A jealous king, convinced that his wife has been unfaithful and is having another man's baby, imprisons her and puts her on trial. The child is abandoned to die, but when she is found and raised by a shepherd, it seems redemption may be possible. A bravura blend of tragedy, comedy and romance, Shakespeare's emotionally potent late play explores artifice and nature, mortality and renewal, and the destructive and consoling effects of time. Used and Recommended by the National Theatre General Editor Stanley Wells Edited by Ernest Schanzer Introduction by Russ McDonald




Terror Television


Book Description

Although horror shows on television are popular in the 1990s thanks to the success of Chris Carter's The X-Files, such has not always been the case. Creators Rod Serling, Dan Curtis, William Castle, Quinn Martin, John Newland, George Romero, Stephen King, David Lynch, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, Aaron Spelling and others have toiled to bring the horror genre to American living rooms for years. This large-scale reference book documents an entire genre, from the dawn of modern horror television with the watershed Serling anthology, Night Gallery (1970), a show lensed in color and featuring more graphic makeup and violence than ever before seen on the tube, through more than 30 programs, including those of the 1998-1999 season. Complete histories, critical reception, episode guides, cast, crew and guest star information, as well as series reviews are included, along with footnotes, a lengthy bibliography and an in-depth index. From Kolchak: The Night Stalker to Millennium, from The Evil Touch to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks, Terror Television is a detailed reference guide to three decades of frightening television programs, both memorable and obscure.




Stuntman!


Book Description

The classic no-holds-barred memoir from Hollywood's most legendary stuntman -- an inspiration for Brad Pitt's character Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- is "full of incredible stories as told by a real man of action" (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Yep that's me, Hal Needham, on the cover doing a fire stunt. When you're on fire you don't dare breathe because if you do, you'll suck those flames right down your throat. I was Hollywood's highest paid stuntman so I should know. I wrecked hundreds of cars, fell from tall buildings, got blown up, was dragged by horses, and along the way broke 56 bones, my back twice, punctured a lung and knocked out a few teeth...I hung upside down by my ankles under a bi-plane in The Spirit of St. Louis, jumped between galloping horses in Little Big Man, set a world record for a boat stunt on Gator, jumped a rocket powered pick-up truck across a canal for a GM commercial, was the first human to test the car airbag-and taught John Wayne how to really throw a movie punch. Life also got exciting outside of the movie business. I had my Ferrari stolen right from under my nose, flew in a twin-engine Cessna with a passed out pilot, rescued the cast and crew from a Russian invasion in Czechoslovakia, and once took six flight attendants on a date. I owned the Skoal-Bandit NASCAR race team, the sound-barrier breaking Budweiser Rocket Car and drove a souped-up, fake ambulance in a "little" cross-country race called The Cannonball Run, which became the movie I directed by the same name. Oh yeah, I also directed Smokey and the Bandit, Hooper and several other action/comedy movies that I liked a bunch. I was a sharecropper's son from the hills of Arkansas who became a Hollywood stuntman. That journey was a tough row to hoe. I continually risked my life but that was the career I chose. I was never late to the set and did whatever I had to do to get the job done. Hollywood's not all sunglasses and autographs. Let me tell you a few stories...




Cold Days


Book Description

After a brief interlude in the afterlife, Harry Dresden’s new job makes him wonder if death was really all that bad in this novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Harry Dresden is no longer Chicago’s only professional wizard. Now, he’s Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. Her word is his command. And her first command is the seemingly impossible: kill an immortal. Worse still, there is a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could mean the deaths of millions. Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent an apocalypse, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound infinite powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own... His soul.




Captain America


Book Description

Collects Captain America (2004) #1-9, 11-14. Continuing the series of graphic novels handpicked by Marvel Editorial to showcase pivotal story lines written and drawn by some of Marvel’s most acclaimed creators! The instant-classic saga that brought Bucky Barnes back from the dead! The shocking murder of the Red Skull leaves an unfinished Cosmic Cube at large! Adding to the imminent danger, a cadre of the Skull’s followers sets in motion a plan to ignite bombs in the hearts of Paris, London and Manhattan! Racing against the rapidly ticking clock, the Star-Spangled Avenger must not only solve the mystery of his nemesis’ murder, but also find the Cube before it can be used to rewrite reality! But who is the Winter Soldier — a lethal killer with an all-too-familiar face? The questions plaguing Captain America’s dreams are answered in the most brutal way possible, tearing open old wounds and threatening to carve new scars that will never heal!




The Man Who Knew Hitchcock


Book Description

As a script supervisor, second unit director, producer, and director, Herbert Coleman's film career spanned seven decades. Active in Hollywood from 1926 through 1988, he enjoyed a lengthy and illustrious career, highlighted by an impressive string of commercial and critical successes with one of the greats of cinema, Alfred Hitchcock. In this memoir, Coleman describes working on such classics as The Big Clock, Carrie, Five Graves to Cairo, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Roman Holiday. Coleman also provides vivid portraits of the many celebrated stars he worked with, including Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Alan Ladd, Ray Milland, Shirley MacLaine, Steve McQueen, and Jimmy Stewart, as well as some of the greatest directors of the era, including Cecil B. DeMille, Erich von Stroheim, Billy Wilder, and William Wyler. Above all, Coleman discusses for the first time his long working relationship with Hitchcock during the director's most creatively fertile period. Coleman provides fresh insights into the making of some of Hitchcock's most celebrated films including Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, Vertigo, and North By Northwest. He also discusses his work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the director's long running television series. Not only an historical record of several important and dynamic periods in Hollywood, this memoir offers intimate insight about Hitchcock and other legendary filmmaking notables. Featuring many stories that would have been lost were it not for this book, The Man Who Knew Hitchcock: A Hollywood Memoir is sure to be of interest to film students, film buffs, and in particular to anyone fascinated by the master of suspense. Illustrated with photos. Published in hardcover as The Hollywood I Knew: A Memoir, 1916-1988 (0-8108-4120-7)