Erte: My Life, My Art
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Erte: My Life, My Art
    Erte
    Manufacturer: E. P. Dutton
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

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    1. Erte's Seven Deadly Sins and Other Great Graphics in Full Color Erte's Seven Deadly Sins and Other Great Graphics in Full Color
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    ASIN: 0525248080

    Book Description

    The story of Erte's life is a chronicle of the worlds of fashion, theater, and elegance in the Twentieth Century. In My Life/My Art (for Erte his life is his art, and vice versa) he takes us through these worlds introducing us in words and photographs to the fabulous people he has known: Poret, Mata Hari, William Randolph Hearst, George White, Lucrezia Bori, Louis B. Mayer, Ramon Novarro, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Elsa Schiaparelli, Cecil Beaton, Diaghilev, Billy Rose, Barbra Streisand, and amny more. This volume absorbs and updates Erte's 1874 memoir Things I Remember and brings the story up to the present.
    My Life and Hard Times (Perennial Classics)
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Amusing introduction to beloved wit
    • A fun Thurber book for all his fans
    • An old, old fashioned read.
    • Still funny after all these years!
    • Dated but funny still
    My Life and Hard Times (Perennial Classics)
    James Thurber
    Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    5. My World-and Welcome to It (Harvest Book) My World-and Welcome to It (Harvest Book)

    ASIN: 0060933089
    Release Date: 1999-10-06

    Book Description

    Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the same humor and sharp wit that defined his famous sketches and writings. In My Life and Hard times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, and the foibles of human nature.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Amusing introduction to beloved wit .......2007-09-23

    Should be required reading for all folks of any age looking for an introduction to life in these United States, for those learning to overcome despair and disaster with humor and grace, for any and all learning the English language.

    4 out of 5 stars A fun Thurber book for all his fans.......2007-09-18

    Thurber is a great favorite of mine, and this was another fun book to read.

    3 out of 5 stars An old, old fashioned read........2006-08-24

    Take your mind back half a century and read these mildly amusing essays about life in the 1920s and 1930s. The style is so different from modern prose, but it is well worth the read.

    5 out of 5 stars Still funny after all these years!.......2006-08-17

    I am 52 yrs. old. I read this book in High School and couldn't put it down. When I read it again as adult, I laughed even harder because somehow it made having the weirdest family in the whole world a joke instead of a hardship. It made Thurber's family, the Coneheads, the Simpsons, and the Osbornes seem like life is good as long as you can laugh once in a while, and even better if you can laugh at yourself.

    4 out of 5 stars Dated but funny still.......2006-06-14

    In a kinder and gentler age (if ever there was one), MLHT was doubtless considered very funny. Indeed, the book has its moments even today. By and large, however, it is slim in every sense of the word. As a lighthearted bit of nostalgia reflecting upon an America and upon sensibilities that, alas, are no more, it is well-worth the read. And one can expect the occasional laugh, too. Thurber is fun. But judging from MLHT alone, he's no Twain.
    My Life
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • One Of Those Books
    • A lyric story of the artist's youth
    • Evocative Word-Pictures
    • Marc Chagall, the poetry of reality.
    My Life
    Marc Chagall
    Manufacturer: Da Capo
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0306805715

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars One Of Those Books.......2007-06-01

    One may hear this many times about Marc Chagall's autobiography My Life but it truly is pure poetry. Reading this book I found I didn't have to think at all. His words just sank into my head. He writes about his childhood and the difficulties growing up poor while struggling to make it as an artist. Every word seems to throw you directly into his very thoughts and feelings as he describes his memories growing up. It's a book I would not expect to come from a man whose voice is heard mainly through his paintings. While it's a delightful treat for his fans, it is also an excellent and inspirational read for those who intend to pursue their own love for the arts. Pictures of his artwork are printed throughout the book lending to it, a part of Chagall that many people know and love him for. But in this piece of artwork it's his words not his paintings that are absolutely captivating.

    5 out of 5 stars A lyric story of the artist's youth .......2005-01-09

    This small autobiography is a poetic inspiring work. It tells of Chagall's childhood in Vitebsk and his first youthful efforts as an artist. And it also contains within it the great love story of Chagall's life with his first wife Bella. Chagall writes with intensity and strength much the way he paints. The difficulty of his early years is somehow transcended by his devotion to his artistic vocation. This is a recommended work for all those who care about the relation of the artist to his life, and of the creator of great beauty to his artistic task.

    5 out of 5 stars Evocative Word-Pictures.......2002-12-18

    MY LIFE is unlike any other autobiography I've read. Who would have thought of Chagall as a poet? As a master of word pictures? There is not a dry, boring sentence in the entire book. Instead, Chagall paints verbal pictures of his youth, his family, his struggles to become an artist. It's must reading for anyone who aspires to remain an artist (painter, writer, dancer . . .). Although the book reads very, very quickly, the poignant feelings it evokes cannot end so quickly. I am haunted by Chagall's painful youth-the poverty, the discouragement he received from many quarters. And yet the autobiography is inspirational, because as a writer, I know that one cannot let go of an unshakable faith in one's calling.

    5 out of 5 stars Marc Chagall, the poetry of reality........2000-05-13

    This book is an autobiography by Marc Chagall himself. Its a wonderful exploration of Chagall's jewish-russian memories of his beloved village Vitebsk and of his first encounters with the avant-garde in the Paris of the early 20th century. Its a good example of Chagall's sensitivity and of his spirituality. It should be a highly readable book for it is full of poetry, phantasy and hope. At the same time, the reader will be able to meet one the 20th century leading colorists.
    My Art, My Life: An Autobiography
    Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
    • Fact and Fiction
    • Strictly Fantasy
    My Art, My Life: An Autobiography
    Diego Rivera , and with Gladys March
    Manufacturer: Dover Publications
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    1. Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Discovery Series) Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Discovery Series)
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    ASIN: 0486269388

    Book Description

    A richly revealing document offering many telling insights into the mind and heart of a giant of 20th-century art. "There is no lack of exciting material. A lover at nine, a cannibal at 18, by his own account, Rivera was prodigiously productive of art and controversy." — San Francisco Chronicle. 21 halftones.

    Customer Reviews:

    4 out of 5 stars Fact and Fiction.......2003-01-21

    This book is a mixture of fact and fantasy, the real real and imagined world as conjured by the mind of Diego Rivera as told to Gladys March. The invention of facts, the fabrication of the bits of truth to create a colorful story are the result of a newspaper interview that flourished into a series of interviews over many years. Beginning in 1944 and continuing until his death in 1957 Gladys March spent several months each year collecting over 2000 pages of notes that eventually formed the basis of this book. As another customer reviewer stated this is not the place to start when you reading about the life of Rivera since the lines between fact and fiction are blurred at best. A more accurate picture can be found in "dreaming With His Eyes Open" by Patrick Marnham. If you have a foundation in the life and times of one of the great Mexican artists than this book reflects a colorful and imaginative mind. The brillance of his art aside Diego reveals himself and makes no excuses for the parts of his pesonality that are less than desireable. He talks about his experiment in cannanbilsm, witchcraft, his blaphemous treatment of religion and the church, the communist party, his relationships with world leaders, artists and women, his advetures in Europe, the United States and Mexico, his troubles and ills , including his bout with cancer of the penis and in general the things that made his life as large as his physical presence. A very entertaining book that is easy to read because each small chapter deals with an extensive period of his life. All in all this is a good book to compliment other books on Rivera to get an even more accurate but distorted view of his brilliance. Included are several pictures and paintings from throughout his life. The man , the myth and the artist are here for you to decipher the truth and paint your own picture.

    3 out of 5 stars Strictly Fantasy.......1999-09-01

    If you have not yet read anything about the life of Diego Rivera, don't start with this book. While Rivera's re-imagining of his life is riveting, it is merely one more tall tale. Rivera is known for many talents, however, sticking to the truth is not one of them.

    If you already have a solid background in the artists life, then by all means read this book to get a sharper insight into his mental inner-workings!
    The Desire of My Eyes: The Life & Work of John Ruskin
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Very good book.
    The Desire of My Eyes: The Life & Work of John Ruskin
    Wolfgang Kemp
    Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0374523487

    Book Description

    This "tour de force of analysis" (Joel Agee) examines the life and work of the prolific, visionary writer, painter and critic. Kemp finds in Ruskin's life -- which spanned the same years as Queen Victoria's and thus embodied the Victorian era itself -- a faithful mirror of the history and psychological evolution of his age.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Very good book........1999-05-19

    This is really good book
    My Life (Oxford World's Classics)
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • A page turning pleasure.
    • Ian Myles Slater on: A Benvenuto (Welcome) New Version
    My Life (Oxford World's Classics)
    Benvenuto Cellini
    Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0192828495

    Book Description

    'You should know that men like Benvenuto, unique in their profession, need not be subject to the law.' Thus spoke Pope Paul III on learning that Cellini had murdered a fellow artist, so great was his reputation in Renaissance Florence. A renowned sculptor and goldsmith, whose works include the famous salt-cellar made for the King of France, and the statue of Perseus with the head of the Medusa, Cellini's life was as vivid and enthralling as his creations. A man of action as well as an artist, he took part in the Sack of Rome in 1527; he was temperamental, passionate, and conceited, capable of committing criminal acts ranging from brawling and sodomy to theft and murder. He numbered among his patrons popes and kings and members of the Medici family, and his autobiography is a fascinating account of sixteenth-century Italy and France written with all the verve of a novel. This new translation, which captures the freshness and vivacity of the original, is based on the latest critical edition. It examines in detail the central event in Cellini's narrative, the casting of the statue of Perseus.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars A page turning pleasure........2005-10-01

    I was in Florence recently, when my eyes came across this book. I'am no expert in art, history or biography, but this was a great read. I chuckled often as Cellini vividly portrayed the many adventures of his life. The one amazing thing about this book is, how real Cellini becomes. You feel his many pains and triumphs. Cellini is very normal and flawed, which make him more endearing. I love the guy and wish he were alive today, cause he's the type of guy you'd enjoy a beer with. Buy this book. For everyone.

    5 out of 5 stars Ian Myles Slater on: A Benvenuto (Welcome) New Version.......2004-08-01

    This much-translated book is the story, in his own words, of a real person whose life seems more like fiction. For clarity, I am going to offer readers unfamiliar with the work some facts, before briefly describing the excellent Oxford World's Classics version (the sixth in English), translated and annotated by the team of Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella. I hope that this will help others find their way through a confusing bibliography. (Those familiar with Cellini should skip to the end.)

    Benvenuto Cellini, Florentine goldsmith, sculptor, and enthusiastic self-promoter, can safely be described as a man of the sixteenth century, since he was, conveniently, born, in November 1500, and died in February 1571. Other statements about him, however truthful, often sound like fiction. The autobiography he wrote and (he says mainly) dictated between 1558 and 1566 breaks off in November 1562. It covers several tumultuous decades in later Renaissance and early Counter-Reformation Italy, with excursions into the Swiss Alps and France. Alongside Cellini's frequent descriptions of his own prowess as an artist, a duelist and brawler, and a lover, it is notable for Cellini's almost equally frequent confrontations with celebrated figures; it sometimes seems the most appropriate title would be "And Then I *Told-Off* the Pope, the Emperor, the King and Queen, the Duke and Duchess, and the Judge." Amazingly, a lot of it can be confirmed from contemporary documents; Cellini's penchant for getting into trouble, and the fact that he worked in precious metals, both helped leave paper trails.

    Cellini's treatises on goldsmithing and sculpture were published in his lifetime and include autobiographical passages; his account of his life had a limited circulation in manuscript, including one corrected by his own hand, until it was published, from an inferior copy, in 1728. A series of Italian critical and popular editions have followed, up to the present. He has yet to achieve the status of Michelangelo and Raphael, which he coveted, but he is being read. His great bronze statue of Perseus, the casting of which he told and retold, was recently restored. Unfortunately, this was soon overshadowed by the theft of his last surviving goldwork, the "salt-cellar" he created for Francis I of France (not the original patron for which it was designed, as usual).

    [Stolen in 2003, the ten-inch high object was finally recovered in January 2006; at which time its worth was estimated at 60 million dollars. Or -- in the same BBC story -- as either 33.9 or 36 million pounds; I'm sure Cellini would have insisted on the higher figure. He certainly would have been delighted by the constant repetition that it is "the Mona Lisa" of sculpture," until he decided that the reference should be the other way around.]

    The first English translation, by Thomas Nugent, appeared in 1771. A German rendering (serialized beginning in 1796, according to the Bondanellas), published in book form in 1798, ensured the work immediate European attention; the translator was Goethe, THE international best-selling celebrity author of the age. A second English version, by Thomas Rosco, appeared in 1822 ("Memoirs"). By this time a specifically Romantic vision of Cellini was developing, immortalized in Hector Berlioz's splendid opera of 1838, "Benvenuto Cellini." (Was Berlioz's own highly entertaining autobiography influenced by Cellini's example? Or Goethe's?)

    The classic rendering in English, by John Addington Symonds, "The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, Written by Himself," was published in 1888. The Bondanellas attribute Cellini's present fame in the English-speaking world to this translation. It has certainly appeared in a variety of forms, including abridgments, and under various titles, and is sometimes listed by editor. It is still in print; there is a Gutenberg e-text available on-line, which is easily searchable, but you need to know Symonds' renderings of Cellini's sixteenth-century spellings of names. (There was even an edition of the Symonds translation illustrated by -- Salvador Dali!)

    Unfortunately, the popularity of Symonds' translation overshadowed a richly documented fourth translation, with extensive commentary, by Robert H. Hobart Cust, published in 1910 (as "The Life of ... "); I remember consulting its notes in a library reserve copy, but have no impression of its quality as a translation. (I also have no idea why Dover never picked it up for reprinting, when they offered a translation of the Treatises.) According to the Bondanellas, Cust's version is still, for most purposes, *the* scholarly edition, in any language (Italian included), although more often used than cited.

    Since 1956, editions of Symonds have had to compete with George Bull's translation, for the Penguin Classics, as "The Autobiography," which also was the basis of a Folio Society illustrated edition of 1970. Bull's version seems to be regarded as more accurate than Symonds'. Some (myself included) prefer Symonds' prose style; I have adapted much of this review from my notes comparing these two versions. (In revising, I have drawn heavily on the Bondanella's documentation, using their spellings and dates for other translators and editions.) Unhappily, like most Penguin editions of its vintage, it lacked notes or an index; a limited bibliography was supplied in some later printings. It was not until 1999 that the Penguin Classics edition was reissued in a revised version, with extensive notes and a detailed index. There are slight changes in pagination between the two editions of the Penguin translation, but it is my impression that Bull's translation was supplemented, rather than extensively revised. The Penguin edition may or may not be in print as you read this; anyone ordering a used copy should be aware of the difference. (The last page of the original version is 397, of the revised is 496.) For the notes and index, I prefer the 1999 edition to any form of the Symonds translation currently available. And now there is a third choice.

    The Bondanella translation is based on the latest critical editions of the Italian text, and, quite explicitly, on Cust's documentation and explication. I am delighted with the result. The translation is more to my taste than that of Bull, or even Symonds. The Introduction and Chronology are clear, and the Select Bibliography is an invitation to further reading. The index is extremely useful. The annotations are tightly integrated with the text, and concisely explain allusions, identify people, supply facts, and answer many questions. (There are, inevitably, a very few points I would question: shouldn't the note on "unicorn's horn" on page 408 have mentioned that it may have been a narwhal tusk?) They even briefly discuss some problems with Cellini's breezy Italian (composed at the same time other Florentines were writing the first "official" grammars of the language), pointing out alternative understandings. A first-rate addition to the World's Classics list.
    When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School (P.S.)
    Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
    • an interesting glimpse of a little known slice/phase of Beat history
    • epitome magazine says "Read This!"
    • Cool? No. Warm-hearted? Yes.
    • His subjects much much richer than he
    • WHEN WAS HE COOL?
    When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School (P.S.)
    Sam Kashner
    Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 006000567X
    Release Date: 2005-02-01

    Book Description

    First student of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Sam Kashner tells with humor and grace his life with the Beats. But the best story is Kashner himself -- the coming-of-age of a young man in the chaotic world of the very idols he hoped to emulate.

    This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

    Customer Reviews:

    3 out of 5 stars an interesting glimpse of a little known slice/phase of Beat history.......2006-10-20

    And I do mean glimpse...
    There are flashes here of great insights into the personas of Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso
    You see the psycho-sexual strands of Ginsberg/Orlovsky partnership played out in their gaudy technicolor glory (this is also a weakness...more on that later) and you get a real sense of G. Corso's suspicions and insecurities but to me the real value of this book is the insight it sheds on William Burroughs and his life during this period (tearfully reading Jack London) and in particluar his tempestous relationship with his son Bill Jr.
    These insights were valuable to me as a huge Burroughs fan and were the main things I took away from this book...especially because most accounts of WSB's life and work in the 70's focus exclusively on the NYC Bunker period...
    some negative aspects of this book are:
    as R.Rhodes mentions in the review further down the page there is somewhat of a high school note-passing he has a crush on him style narrative that is tiresome
    Anne Waldman and the whole who did or didn't sleep with Bob Dylan angle is irritating as is the narrator (unfortunately)
    he seems like a genuinely decent guy but his tone is fairly off-putting most of the time and he and his observations are ultimately not that interesting.
    I would recommend for diehard Beat collectors and/or Burroughs fans only

    5 out of 5 stars epitome magazine says "Read This!".......2006-05-04

    WHEN I WAS COOL: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. A Memoir by Sam Kashner.
    A memoir of a then skinny, naive teenage boy, from a liberal, fairly well-off Jewish family, who goes from thinking Walt Whitman "had something to do with food - Maybe the Whitman Sampler box of chocolates." to being the author of 3 nonfiction books and a novel. Kashner convinces his parent to allow him to enroll in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodies Poetics, (of which he was the very first and, at the time, only one to do so), in lieu of conventional college. In the spring of 1976, Kashner's life has just begun. Hanging out with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky and Anne Waldman, as well as cameos by the remaining Beat and non-Beat writers and muscians of the era, Kashner interweaves Beatlore with his own innocent reflections in a frank, humorous and extremely entertaining and informative platitude. A free-spirited "Kiss & Tell" theme runs through the pages as openly as the heroin in Burroughs veins. Hailed as a hero with his father's Diner's Club card, Kashner is called upon repeatedly to aid and abet the shenanigans of this anti-normal group of word artists. Between editing Ginsberg & Corso's manuscripts, baby-sitting Billy Burroughs the JR., backing way too many monetary expenses, one wonders who is actually benefiting from his enrollment. Intimacies of thwarting sexual advances from Ginsberg to succumbing to di Prima, are embarrassingly shared in all their sordid, ribald and ultimately bodacious glory. A "he loves him but he loves her" floats through this stew in chunks while Kashner ponders the directed aloofness of Walkman, while impregnating one of her troup. Marijuana fields, whores, drug houses, theft and mayhem.. all the elements of prime-time are just casual actualities of extra curriculum. Kashner also stands by, silently, as Ginsberg and his ilk follow the teachings of their oft drunk Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher Chogyam Trungpa, Rinoche - who pounds on Ginsberg to "lose your ego" as he pads his own pockets and libido with admiration and servitude. Reflections from the Beats are also placed abundantly within as all give their good, bad or indifferent memories of Kerouac and Cassady an ear. One of the best "Beat" books I've read. Used and abused, we go from day one to graduation with his zany encounters and events, all the while hoping the school gets it's accreditation before he graduates. Reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's days of entrenchment with Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters, it's a fun, fast paced-read that shows us what happens when literary renegades become our teachers.

    4 out of 5 stars Cool? No. Warm-hearted? Yes........2006-02-08

    There are a lot of things to like about Sam Kashner's coming-of-age memoir, "When I Was Cool." First: Mr. Kashner wasn't cool and probably knows it. Second: he doesn't go through detox or recovery. Halleluia! A memoir without a recovery center or AA meeting. Third: his affection for these old lions, of whom only Peter Orlovsky is still with us. Fourth: the look at their everyday lives, from hemorrhoids to the keystone cops comedy of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Fifth: Mr. Kashner's long suffering, very cool, and funny parents. And Sixth: Mr. Kashner's teenaged, wide-eyed, intimidated, growing-up self.

    Its not the last book that will be written about Naropa or any of the characters, but it's the only book written by the first (and for a long time only) student of the Kerouac school, and is sometimes lovely, often funny, and very easy - it's "a report of an intimate nature," i.e., gossip.

    3 out of 5 stars His subjects much much richer than he.......2006-01-13

    Kashner has the distinction of writing a book that is both priceless and very forgettable at same time. His anecdotes about his time at the Kerouac school in the late 1970s with Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs, and Huncke are the priceless part. He gives us a real gift in these, a special glimpse of these lives as older and quirkier and more human than is easy to find. This is Kashner's gift and alone justifies the price of the book. This is what will ensure it's place in the Beat library.

    But as for the rest... Kashner was a young man out of high school studying with tired writer-celebrities. Yet he endlessly bemoans the old Beats' disinterest in letting him into their inner circle of confidences and plans. One can forgive the young Kashner his dissapointment that his grumpy middle age teachermen didn't leap to treat the 19-year-old Kashner as the equal in life and thought that he was not. But the now middle-age Kashner who reflects for us still smarts about it, annoyingly still snaps at his old teachers for being too self absorbed to take him into their fold as a brother.

    Kashner doesn't seem up to the task of elucidating on his old idols, doesn't seem to grasp their real richnesses among their messiness. At book's end, Kashner details how he eventually gave up on poetry and switched to fiction and prose when he became convinced he'd never find fame or fortune in it. That's just what's annoying about Kashner throughout this book: He went to study with the Beats to soak in the fame and get a piece, not for love of poetry or authentic living, nor the need to create and live as such. He criticizes this idols' selfishness and seeking of public love in fame. But these odd old men also had a fire in them for creation and expression and the poet's attentiveness to life and authentic living. They wrote poetry because they needed to, they felt the world as they did and needed to express it for themselves. They hungered for it. And Kashner will have none of it. He fell in love with the image and the dream of being a poet, and when he paid his tuition to the Jack Kerouac School he expected he was buying his place in the lineage of great poets. But he didn't feel what it was all about then and he doesn't now in this book, he has no feel for it or the folk who write it.

    I think this is why Kashner's thoughts and critiques of the Beats fall so hollow. I closed the book glad it was over -- sad there would be no more rare humanizing glimpses and funny stories of my favorites, but glad to no longer be subject to Kashner's simplistic stabs at all the old men, glad to be done with his self interested narration. Read the book for the anecdotes, for a special outsider's look at very human myths, Kashner relays these funny stories competently enough. Leave the rest as Kashner himself seems to, without any real warmth or connection or depth.

    2 out of 5 stars WHEN WAS HE COOL?.......2005-10-13

    Sam Kashner seems to want everything to be as it had been before his birth, but his timidity prevented him from acting out the 50's, 60's or the 70's. He didn't "get his hands dirty" as Naropa student Peter Marti put it, a poet who crawled from some serious wreckage to a sanity beyond shooting drugs and a heterosexuality based on what he wanted, not what he feared.

    We'll skip the list of details Sam gets wrong (for example, Burroughs did not shoot an apple, but a shot glass, from his wife's head), but suffice it say there are enough of them to indicate he's not a scholar of the situation. The fact that he is actually a professional journalist who writes for GQ and VANITY FAIR confirms my worst fears about articles in these magazines. On the plus side, Sam's magazine background makes this as breezily readable as the best pop journalism. First, however, we are forced to examine some of the remarks reserved for women. Anne Waldman is glamorous and unavailable, thus a vain bitch. Diane di Prima has become heavy, and thus disappoints.

    It is almost grim that Sam is in the middle of such interesting history and seems to be blowing it by insisting on his preconceptions. I visited Naropa in 1978. I'd known Allen for 4 years, and had already filmed Burroughs in NYC. Corso was a scary guy I'd met in SF and regarded as a great poet but I was never in his court, though I saw him at least a dozen times over the years. Naropa was an extension of what I already knew, and was for the brief week I stayed there, both a heaven and hell for me. In memory, it is a legend I brushed against gratefully.
    Tim Davis: My Life in Politics
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Tim Davis: My Life in Politics
      Jack Hitt , and Tim Davis
      Manufacturer: Aperture
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover

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      ASIN: 1597110116
      Release Date: 2006-05-01

      Book Description

      This first in-depth publication of photographer Tim Davis's work dissects the disenchantment and dissociation that have come to dominate American civil life. It is Davis's treatise on the state of contemporary politics, politics as an aestheticized banality abstracted from real issues of power. He finds freedom of expression exhibited at its most casual and cursory, with political, commercial and populist signage jostling for space and attention in the social landscape: His documentation of that landscape, as Peter Eeley of Frieze magazine interprets it, asks, "What if campaign signs, badges, bumper stickers and flags aren't simply the ephemera of Americans' political lives, but their substance as well?" My Life in Politics represents photographic seeing at its finest and most subtle. Davis continues Stephen Shore's colorist tradition, meshing the careful management of a quotidian palette with an incisive eye for those points at which light bends and refracts, becoming something other than mere illumination.
      Henry Moore: My Ideas, Inspiration And Life As An Artist
      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      • Beauty, Vitality, Intelligence, Inspiration
      Henry Moore: My Ideas, Inspiration And Life As An Artist
      Henry Moore , and John Hedgecoe
      Manufacturer: Sterling
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

      GeneralGeneral | Sculpture | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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      ASIN: 1855857359

      Book Description

      "...suddenly the most commonplace objects came to have for me such significance that they no longer existed as just objects, but as shape and form in space."--Henry Moore. One of the world's greatest sculptors and a renowned photographer--close friends for thirty years--combine forces to provide insight into what makes a great creative artist. Part personal history and part stunning presentation of Moore's work and inspirations, striking photographs show his major sculptures and collected art, as well as the landscape and natural forms that indelibly influenced him. Compare Moore's own sculpted masks with the African and Mexican tribal pieces he so admires, or his figures--filled with energy--with Hedgecoe's nude studies. Close-ups focus in on small, fine details. Plus: a treasured glimpse of Moore in his workshop. 208 pages (16 in color), 230 b/w illus., 8 1/8 x 11 3/8.

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars Beauty, Vitality, Intelligence, Inspiration.......2004-02-26

      Henry Moore is a wise man and it is nice to know that his words do justice to his talent as a sculptor. Musings is too light a term to use for the warm, down-to-earth essays that Moore provides us as he shares his thoughts and experiences with life, art, and aesthetics. With the words are page after page of photos of Moore, his work, along with images of things that have been his inspirations. This is a book about art appreciation, but grounded in the practicality of a working, master artist who is humble and thoughtful. It is hard to imagine how any sculptor who hopes to create works of lasting greatness could not profit and indeed be inspired by knowing this book. But Moore's basic, fundamental philosophies about art and life make this a book of vital inspiration for just about anyone who likes to think of, and operate in the world, along artistic terms. It is a warm, friendly unimposing book grounded with the weight of deep truth and careful observation.
      Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth
      Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
      • Wonderful reflection!
      • Tucker Gnaw
      • Room for a 4th
      • what a hog!
      • tasty
      Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth
      Tucker Shaw
      Manufacturer: Chronicle Books
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      ASIN: 0811847721

      Book Description

      Tucker Shaw is a man who loves to eat. And for 365 days, from January 1 to December 31st, he has photographed every nibble, entr e, side dish, and snack, every slice of birthday cake, poached egg, mango pavlova, and bacon cheeseburger. Everything I Ate is Tucker's personal homage to food, and in a culture where food is so often the enemy, where so many of us seek to suppress our appetites and conceal our guilty pleasures, this curiously intimate food diary is an out-and-out celebration of the joys of eating. Arranged in chronological order and featuring short captions including date, time, food, place, and any company enjoyed, the photographs reveal one man's rituals and patterns (he has a brief love affair with a morning brioche, but it is his midnight bowl of cereal that really stands by him in the end). What exactly does this food play-by-play prove? The simple truth that personal data is extraordinarily universal. Here is a tribute to the ways in which food sustains us, connects us, and makes us human. With 2500 color images packed into nearly 500 pages (and too many calories to count), Everything I Ate is a fast-paced ride through one man's year-long culinary adventure.

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars Wonderful reflection!.......2006-11-04

      Fun! That's the best way to describe it. It's amazing to take a look at the way we live and how we eat! Tucker has done a great job, although eating some things I would never dream of, describing the food and the timeline of a day in the life! Makes you stand back and take a look at yourself as well. Thanks for the fun!

      5 out of 5 stars Tucker Gnaw.......2006-01-10

      Have you ever wondered what other people do when they're alone? If so, then you're going to love this book because Tucker Shaw divulges every detail of his life. Well, every detail of his gustatory life. I don't know much about Tucker Shaw, but he sure does love to eat. Shaw decided to take a picture of everything he ate for 2004. Every single item. Every single day. Day in. Day out. The idea probably sounds ridiculous to most people, but the execution of "Everything I Ate" is excellent and I enjoyed it immensely. Each picture is accompanied with a blurb detailing what, where, and with whom he ate.

      Given that Shaw lives in NYC, it's not surprising that what he eats is pretty diverse. Sure, he often snacks on potato chips and Entenmann's pastry, but he also eats at quite a few upscale restaurants on a regular basis. Clearly, he has access to diverse ethnic foods, and he takes full advantage of it. However, people are certainly creatures of habit, and Shaw seems to be more than a little obsessed with cereal (300 bowls during the year).

      Whether you read each page or just skim the pictures, it's a fascinating book. I was left wanting to know more. Who are these people with whom he eats? (Some little snippets of his friends can be seen throughout). Why did he eat trail mix almost every day for several months and then never again? How in the world can he eat so much oatmeal?!?!? Like any good book, "Everything I Ate" leaves you begging for more table scraps.

      3 out of 5 stars Room for a 4th.......2005-09-21

      I also took a picture of everything I ate from May 29th 2003 until december 31, 2004 and posted it to my website. I think it was the screen savers made fun of me for doing it on one of there episodes. I used my Nokia 3650 Camera phone. Good for him for being getting it out to print. His book has a nice format. It reminds us we could all use some more variety in what we eat.

      5 out of 5 stars what a hog!.......2005-08-11

      this boy eats way too much food! wish i could eat like that. i wonder if he's fat.

      5 out of 5 stars tasty.......2005-08-09

      i got this book as a belated birthday present last week and i can't stop flipping thru. i thought it would be dumb and silly but its completely addictive. and honest. this guy eats so much. i just wish he wrote more words instead of just putting the pictures. i recommend this for anyone because it's really funny and it makes you think about food and everything that you eat and do..i looked at what he ate on my birthday and his appetite is even bigger than mine. get it now you wont believe it!

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