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2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/21379 | Shig’s Review first appeared in 1960 as two volumes of poetry edited by Shig and published by Adler Press. These printed publications featured poets such as Vincent McHugh, C. H. Kwock, and brothers Vincent and Sean McBride—poets not found in City Lights publications.
Marvin Friedman, one of the poets featured in Shig’s Review #1, had moved from New York to San Francisco in 1957. His literary idols were Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud rather than Ginsberg and the Beats.
Friedman and Phil Leider, who had come from New York together, had a few drinks one night and headed for City Lights, only to find it closed. They penned a few parodies of Ginsberg on the spot, and taped them to the door of City Lights. They returned to City Lights a few days later, and found, to their horror, that their parodies had been mimeographed and were being given away at the bookstore. Shig subsequently invited them to submit poems for Shig’s Review #1.
(Friedman later became a lawyer, and when a friend of Ginsberg’s got in trouble with the cops, Shig put Ginsberg in touch with Friedman, who resolved the situation. As payment, Friedman requested inscribed copies of some of Ginsberg’s books.)
The third issue of Shig’s Review, published by City Lights in 1969, purported to include poems by Shigeyoshi Murao, Yoshi Murao, Yoshi Murao Shigi, and other variations on Shig’s name. But instead of poems, the volume features a single photo cropped in different ways. In the image, Shig sits on the edge of a bed. He holds a stick with a bird figure at the end, probably a child’s toy from his Japanese folk art collection.
After his first stroke in 1975, Shig found creative outlets in practicing calligraphy and playing the flute. In August 1983 he suffered a second stroke, which left him too impaired to do either. He seemed especially shaken about giving up his shakuhachi, the Japanese flute. Undaunted, Shig found a way to express his artistic bent. After fourteen years he resurrected Shig’s Review and did it in his own unorthodox fashion. This involved selecting a small collection of poems, photos, woodcuts, letters, or previously published articles, typing the poems on the Royal typewriter that Ginsberg used during visits, and taking them to a local copy shop to make twenty or thirty copies—copies of such poor quality that parts of them were nearly illegible. The final touch was Shig’s hanko—a character used as a signature in Japan— stamped in red on the front page. (Some issues also included a “Shigspeer Press” rubber-stamp logo.)
When he finished each issue of Shig’s Review, he would put a supply in a shoulder bag, walk down to the Trieste and give them to people he liked. There was no pretense in these offerings; as his nephew John explains it, Shig saw them as gohobi, Japanese for a small gift or prize. In all, Shig produced about eighty issues of the quirky review. Issue #4 featured poems about Shig by Tony Dingman; #13 was devoted to a Ginsberg photo of Shig, three photos of Ginsberg, and a Time magazine article on Ginsberg dated February 4, 1985. Issue #7 was devoted to Masayuki Koga, Shig’s shakuhachi teacher, and included photocopies of the letter that Ginsberg had sent from Boulder after hearing Koga’s performance. The letter is signed by Ginsberg, Peter Orlofsky, and Koga, and dated June 18, 1978. Another of Shig’s interests that was reflected in Shig’s Review was photo collage, a passion that grew out of his love for David Hockney’s work (and his doctor’s suggestion that Shig find ways to use his hands). He purchased single lens reflex and Polaroid cameras and began to create collages from photos, publishing several of them in Shig’s Review.
Shig’s Review #11 includes an extraordinary self-portrait for which he cut a photo of himself into thin horizontal strips, reassembled them, and fanned them out. This collage would later appear in one of the postcard editions of Shig’s Review, for which he would replace the usual 8½” x 14” sheets stapled in the corner with four or five postcards bundled together with a band of paper.
In preparing #45, Shig visited the Trieste with an American flag hat made of cardboard and took snapshots of himself and several regulars wearing the hat. Shig marked poet Bob Kaufman’s death with issue #70, dated April 13, 1987, and including three hand-colored Xerox postcards of Kaufman. Shig’s Review #80, titled “Five North Beach Cappiccino Artists,” was another postcard edition. Included were images by Trieste regular Don Moses (a charcoal pencil drawing of Shig); a woodcut by his friend Mary Boyd Ellis; and Norman Quebedeau’s obsessively detailed psychedelic drawing of the Trieste, “Life Among the Cappuccino People.” Shig’s Review exhibits a randomness that would have pleased John Cage. Some have cover sheets, some don’t. Some are dated, many aren’t. Some have a clear theme, others feel like random elements thrown together by consulting the I Ching. There are two #13s and three #35s, and #22 is identical to #23 and #24. Two issues appear to be one-of-a-kind collaborations with mail art enthusiast Alton Hunt, aka Lord Byron. Hunt would create elaborate two-sided collages on cardboard and mail them to friends. Shig collected more than twenty of Hunt’s collages, two of which appear to be collaborative efforts including Shig’s hanko and identified as Shig’s Review #35 and #64. It doesn’t appear that Shig made photocopies of these for distribution to his usual network. Some of the collages reproduced in Shig’s Review show a real talent for the medium, but it was the creative process that interested Shig. Once he had photocopied one of his collages he lost all interest in it. For the most part, the originals ended up in the copy shop wastebasket. Previous Chapter Next Chapter
Copyright information here.
Shig’s Review #70, a collection of three hand colored postcards remembering Bob Kaufman. View the full issue here.
Shig’s Review was one of the ways of beginning to share all the things Shig had acquired over twenty years of really intimate discussions with some of the primary cultural figures of the Beat scene.
—City Lights book buyer Paul Yamazaki
Shig’s Review #80 offered a collection of five postcards featuring North Beach artists. View full issue here.
Page from Shig’s Review #22. View the whole issue here.
Collage of Caffe Trieste customers wearing American flag hat.
SHIG’S STORY
A VISIT TO JAPAN(1986)
Shig’s Review #35 (like #64) was a collaborative effort with Alton Hunt, aka Lord Byron. It is two-sided and mounted on cardboard. These are one-of-a-kind issues, which Shig does not appear to have photocopied and distributed through his usual channels. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/21464 | Zane Grey, the acclaimed western novelist, provided the most complete first-hand account of the attempted deer drive. His tale, although accepted largely as fiction, resulted from the novelist's direct participation in the actual planning of the drive and corresponded closely with reports from official participants in the event. One such official, M. E. Musgrave, leader of predatory animal control for the Biological Survey, recounted how men began to gather in a camp on the east side of the Kaibab Plateau on December 12, 1924. Over the next few days, it became apparent to Musgrave and others that the drive would be impossible. Several inches of snow had already fallen; the terrain was extremely rough; the crew lacked sufficient "manpower;" the deer seemed skittish; and George McCormick showed a complete lack of organization. The Biological Survey leader later reflected that with enough men they might have succeeded in driving the deer from one part of the range to another. Realistically, however, the attempt to drive them over a narrow trail or into any place where they would be crowded would prove impossible. Attempting the impossible, then, the men found that the deer ran and jumped right past them, either on foot or on horseback. Musgrave concluded, therefore, that shooting the deer in congested areas would be "one of the best possible solutions."
Please for more information.
Zane Grey was on the scene both to witness the event for use in his next western novel and to secure movie footage to accompany the story. The narrative, first published serially in Country Gentleman in 1925 and titled The Deer Stalker, became the unofficial source of information on the failed drive.20 Grey's fictional account, however imaginative, is firmly grounded in the actual events of 1924 on the Kaibab. His main character, Thad Eburne, represents an amalgam of the young foresters on Buckskin Mountain. Grey also infuses an extra dose of conservation ideals in this character, enough to make the fictional forester unpopular with other Forest Service officers in the story. These ideals undoubtedly reflect Grey's own feelings toward the wildlife of Arizona and the West. Eburne becomes a hero in the story by rescuing a damsel in distress, avoiding the pitfalls created by political tensions between government agencies, and correctly predicting the ultimate failure of the deer drive. Another character, Jim Evans, fills the role of real-life lion hunter Uncle Jim Owens. Grey knew Owens personally from many trips through Arizona, beginning back in the days when Uncle Jim and Buffalo Jones began their bison ranch in Houserock Valley. These events play in the background of The Deer Stalker. Evans declares that humans have upset the balance of nature by "killin' off the varmints, specially the cougars." The fictional hunter continues, "These heah deer ain't had nothin' to check their overbreedin' an' inbreedin'." The hero Eburne agrees whole-heartedly, as does Zane Grey. A character named Bill McKay represents George McCormick as the man who came up with the deer drive idea. McKay convinces the governor of the feasibility of driving the deer off Buckskin Mountain. The governor is "agin' the shootin' of deer" and dislikes the federal agencies arguing over his state's wildlife. Eburne pitches the idea to the Forest Service with considerable conviction and surprising success. In the story, most of his colleagues are "favorable disposed" to the proposition. Grey explains, "They spoke of it as preposterous, yet undoubtedly were intrigued by the originality, the audacity of the idea."
In Grey's novel, as was the case in real life, there is a desperation to see the situation resolved before winter. The Investigating Committee -- Grey quotes directly from their final report in the book -- did not offer solutions but created an atmosphere of urgency. The western novelist adds to the suspense by focusing attention on a large cattle company (ostensibly the Grand Canyon Cattle Company), which had forced smaller operations out of the area but subsequently had to remove its own stock from Buckskin Mountain when quality grazing range became scarce. In the story, greedy ranchers want the deer killed to make room for more cattle. They oppose the deer drive, and Eburne suspects that the ranchers are actively undermining his own and McKay's efforts to organize the event. These suspicions go unproven in the book, and there was no corresponding evidence of a conspiracy in actual fact. Grey's notorious distaste for the Mormon ranchers of southern Utah undoubtedly led him to sensationalize that drama. The feature of the controversy that Grey captures best is how the urgency of getting deer off of Buckskin made otherwise unlikely proposals appealing, for ranchers, foresters, and conservationists alike.
The idea that deer could be trapped and shipped by truck or railway to other parts of the region or even across the country intrigued many bystanders as a particularly humane solution. In Grey's book, however, the unpleasant details of terrified deer captured in small traps points out the gruesome reality of such efforts. Of trapped adult deer, more die of accidental, self-inflicted injuries than survive to reach a new home on distant ranges. Eburne repeatedly lobbies for the deer drive on the grounds that trapping is much more dangerous to the deer. Killing the deer outright is equally abhorrent to the hero. The thought of hunting on Buckskin Mountain makes Eburne "feel so helpless and hopeless that I became almost physically ill." He compares it to the kind of legalized murder only a government-authorized army can perform during wartime. When hunting begins, as described by Grey, the hero is caught in a bind. He championed the governor's opposition to the hunt, but his duty to the Forest Service requires him to prevent the state from arresting hunters. The operation had been planned in secret, to catch the state off-guard -- an accurate portrayal of exactly what had happened in November 1924.
After the substantial failure of the hunt and the unresolved legality of the state's arrests, the deer drive seemed to be the only option left to get the deer off of the mountain before winter. In the book, Grey describes numerous delays in obtaining funds for the operation. Some of those funds were to come from a motion picture company that hopes to film the event. In actual events, that motion picture company, owned by Jesse L. Lasky formerly of Paramount Pictures, responded to Grey's appeal for a contract that would promote his book. The delays make skeptics of the drive even more pessimistic. McKay experiences difficulty moving supplies from Flagstaff to the North Rim. Grey adds drama by repeatedly suggesting that the cattle men, who would rather see the deer killed than driven, are behind these logistical problems. Once the deer drivers are assembled, they find the animals surprisingly scarce and skittish, possibly the result of more agitation by uncooperative ranchers. Grey tells of reports that a few men heard gunshots over the previous few days, which apparently made the deer even more wary.
When the drive finally commences, Grey recounts with great climactic flair, the hero Eburne has resigned from the Forest Service to take a more active part in the drive. A first attempt at keeping the deer in front of a line of men on foot and on horseback proves that the deer will trot unconcernedly along, then jump through even the smallest opening. In larger groups, the deer make like a stampede, reverse directions, and soon disappear into the forest behind the men. A second attempt to drive the deer a day later coincides with the winter's first blizzard. The men are blinded by the snow and frozen by the wind. Worst of all, the motion picture company fails to get a single frame of the deer. Grey's hopes for the drive are dashed. In his book, the denouement involves only a happy ending for Eburne, who finds himself unhindered by his Forest Service job and is able to go to work for the wealthy woman from New York who buys a ranch near Flagstaff and marries him.
Grey's repeated comments in the book about the balance of nature and the problems caused by removing cougars reflected his real-life insistence that the Forest Service had mismanaged the preserve by killing the predatory animals. The author told Biological Survey predatory animal leader Musgrave in 1924 that he had taken the matter up with the federal government years earlier. According to Musgrave, "[Grey] recommended that they allow the lions to increase in order to hold a balance of nature." This was a dangerous idea for a government predatory animal hunter to consider because there would be no direct control over the deer herd. Musgrave wrote that "if the lions were allowed to increase and anything should happen to a part of the deer [the lions] would practically exterminate them before the lions could be gotten under control." Musgrave remained committed to the Biological Survey's policy on predatory animals. He concluded, "We also explained to [Grey] that it would be much better for people to be allowed to eat the meat of excess deer rather than to feed mountain lions."
Grey used the plight of the Kaibab deer to suggest to the broader public the potential role of mountain lions in the balance of nature. He received no satisfaction from the Biological Survey, so he wrote an article that appeared on the front page of the Arizona Republican. There, Grey recalled his advice to the government a full fifteen years earlier, that mountain lions not be exterminated. He added, "It is a fact that man cannot destroy the balance of Nature without dire results." He concluded, "This whole matter of the deer situation on Buckskin Mountain proves how futile it is for men to interfere with the laws of Nature."
Last updated: September 19, 2002; Created: 20 April 2001. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/21465 | Original Art Available For Purchase
As I've previously mentioned, I moved to Minneapolis and have finished unpacking and all that, and have now sorted through various drawings and paintings to make available to you for purchase. Currently, I have 18 works up right now. Spread the word. One of a kind weirdness to enjoy forever. To view all these rare as hell artifacts, click Here.
Derek Van Gieson
Derek Van Gieson,
Eel Mansions Panels (early draft)
I jumped ahead a bit, but anyway, from a work in progress. The first chapter of this should be done by the end of June.
Eel Mansions
Bored Games fer Lovers
Sasquatch Verde No.5
All Three Lost At Sea
The Haps: May Edition
I'm all unpacked and enjoying the neighborhood, which is unbelievably beautious. I'm about to hunt down some manner of labor to bring in some fresh scratch, but before I do that, I'd like to lay out what's happening and what is in the works.
The big project- a new series of oil paintings, my first since 2006, that's about to start. I'm setting up the studio this week. I'll post more on that and some upcoming studies when that's more evolved.
As I previously posted, what was once called Enough Astronaut Blood To Last The Winter has now been folded into my new ongoing art book series called Sasquatch Verde. It's more in the hardcover/nice paper/color/coffee table vein than the old b&w pulp/paperback/format. It serves as a handy reference series for me, as a significant amount of my work tends to wander or get misplaced. Since I'm more productive these days, I'll be working on putting out four volumes of Sasquatch verde a year and they'll have everything-the drawings/watercolors/oils/photography/writing/collage, whatever I've been doing, it'll be in there. No more of this every five or six years business. The Minneapolis work will start appearing in Sasquatch Verde No.5. Volumes 3 & 4 are devoted to the New York period (Astro Blood) from 2006-2011. Volumes 1 & 2 are redesigns of my first two books Shutdown Vol.3 and Journey By Ferry. Why? I want to bring them into the 8x10 format. I like my work to be uniform. So yes, five volumes of Sasquatch Verde are being worked on at once. I'm also working on the first chapter of the Eel Mansions story. That should be around 24 pages or so. I was taking a break from it for a bit as I wanted to get a better handle on some of the character and story elements, but now I'm ready to bet back to work. That will be put together with a Tales of Abstraction story and a Doomin piece to bring it to 32 pages. Looks like I'm still on track for the end of June to wrap up the drawing part.
The Roman Invasion Suite remasters is still waiting on the remastering part. All of the tracks have been found, selected, and collected, and so it is now in the capable hands of Romans drummer Bryan, to see it through to the end. I've been working on a book that collects all the old art & whatnot. Some interviews with the group. I'm still waiting on some of that.
And, that's about it. Maybe I'll join some old punkers softball league, I dunno.
Below is a quick watercolor sketch of my view from the front porch. That Iris is everywhere.
Eel Mansions,
Enough Astronaut Blood To Last the Winter,
Journey By Ferry To Celibate City or Thigh Town,
Sasquatch Verde,
Shutdown Vol.3,
The Roman Invasion Suite
notes about the author
Artist, writer, and musician, Derek Van Gieson has been published by The New Yorker, Fantagraphics, Uncivilized Books, and The New York Times, amongst others. He is the author of three art/lit books, Shutdown Vol. 3, Journey By Ferry To Celibate City or Thigh Town, Enough Astronaut Blood To last The Winter, a graphic novel, Eel Mansions and a current member of Murder Shoes, as well as a former member of bands The Bridge Over River Qua, The Roman Invasion Suite, and The Paraguay City Rollers. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/21534 | Jackson Pollock's Mural
Jackson Pollock's MuralMarch 11–June 1, 2014 at the Getty Center
Mural, 1943, Jackson Pollock. Oil and casein on canvas. University of Iowa Museum of Art, Gift of Peggy Guggenheim, 1959.6. Reproduced with permission from the University of Iowa
Commissioned by art collector and dealer Peggy Guggenheim for the entry to her New York City apartment in 1943, Mural by Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956) is considered one of the iconic paintings of the twentieth century. Now in the collection of the University of Iowa Museum of Art, it represents a transitional moment in Pollock's career, as he moved toward an experimental application of paint. Following extensive study and treatment at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute, this exhibition presents the newly conserved work alongside findings from the Getty's research.
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Listen to Getty Museum curator emeritus Scott Schaefer describe the figures he sees in Pollock's work.
Hear Jackson Pollock discuss his philosophy and technique in excerpts from a 1950 interview.
Mural came to the Getty in July 2012 for study and conservation, providing a rare opportunity to look closely at the painting's material structure, and to explore the paints Pollock used and how they were applied. The study reveals an artist who combined traditional materials and methods of application with more-unconventional ones. It is one of the artist's largest paintings, and the scale of Mural allowed Pollock to develop innovative methods of paint application that would later become the hallmark of his style.
Watch these videos to learn more about the discoveries made by conservation scientists and curators.
This project has been generously supported by the J. Paul Getty Museum's Paintings Conservation Council and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Publications
Jackson Pollock's Mural: The Transitional Moment
Yvonne Szafran, Laura Rivers, Alan Phenix, Tom Learner, Ellen G. Landau, and Steve Martin | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/21667 | News tagged with expression
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Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality.Expressionism was developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War. It remained popular during the Weimar Republic, particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including painting, literature, theatre, dance, film, architecture and music.The term is sometimes suggestive of emotional angst. In a general sense, painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though in practice the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as naturalism and impressionism. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/21844 | Share Literature / The Call of Cthulhu
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.— Opening linesThe Call of Cthulhu is arguably the most famous short story by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. It is also the first story to refer to and the only piece written by Lovecraft himself to actually feature the famous Eldritch Abomination who would later name the Cthulhu Mythos as other writers took over.The story is presented as a manuscript found among the belongings of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, which is used as a narrative which joins together three short stories, each bigger, darker, bleaker, and more memorable than the last. The first part begins with a document found by Thurston among the belongings of his late granduncle Professor Angell, which describes a series of conversations with a young sculptor named Henry Wilcox, who has been experiencing a series of strange dreams on March 1st 1925, which have inspired him to carve a disturbing bas-relief. Over the course of several weeks, Wilcox and Angell meet, and the former describes his bizarre dreams in which he finds himself exploring the ruins of an unknown forgotten city. The next part reveals why this is of interest to Professor Angell.The second story tells of Inspector Legrasse, a police officer in New Orleans whose investigation of a series of disappearances leads him to a rather sinister cult worshiping a strange idol. The cultists are immediately arrested and taken to prison and the idol is confiscated. Legrasse then shares the idol among various archaeologists, including Professor Angell, hoping to gain answers as to its nature. Eventually through one man's testimony and the questioning of some of the cultists, Legrasse learns that the idol is "Great Cthulhu", a being worshiped by this cult which has presumably lived for centuries.In the third and final part of the story, Thurston encounters a newspaper clipping describing the rescue of the lone survivor of the crew of Alert, a Norwegian sailor named Gustaf Johansen. Thurston is eventually able to recover a journal Johansen wrote, which tells the tale of how he and his crew commandeered a yacht from a particularly sinister crew of men (implied to be cultists), and their arrival at the sunken city of R'lyeh, where Cthulhu himself is nearly released by mistake.Adapted in 2005 into a film by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. There are also at least two radio adaptations; one by the Atlanta Radio Theater Company, and the other by Dark Adventure Radio Theater. Dramatically read by Chilling Tales for Dark Nights.Not to be confused with the roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu, or the YouTube series Calls for Cthulhu.This story provides examples of: Action Survivor: Johansen manages to escape from R'lyeh while his crewmates are unable to navigate its geometry and fall to their deaths, gets back to his ship, and rams Cthulhu himself ''head on''. Adaptation Distillation: Lovecraft himself sketched Cthulhu in 1937◊ with at least six eyes. Nearly all illustrators have given it two eyes, to allow facial expressions readable by humans. So we have aggressive Cthulhus◊, furious Cthulhus◊, comic Cthulhus◊, but in the author's view the entity had no understandable expression and it's completely alien. Adaptation Expansion: The Dark Adventure Radio Theater version adds a framing device about two police officers who investigate Thurston's death. Alien Geometries: R'lyeh is said to defy any known dimensions, to the point where the sailors can't tell if a door is supposed to be a conventional door that opens horizontally, or a trapdoor that opens vertically, and a sailor is killed by Cthulhu when he fails to get past a corner which appears to be acute but acts as if it was obtuse. This is downplayed in the movie due to the low-budget 1920s style, though strongly alluded to with frequent shots of strange angles. Anachronic Order: The three stories are presented in the order which Thurston finds them. Chronologically "The Tale of Inspector Legrasse" would actually come first, while "The Horror in Clay" and "The Madness From the Sea" happen around the same time. Apocalyptic Log: The story itself could count, since it is implied that everything that the narrator is caught up in leads to his murder by cultists. Gustaf Johansen's journal also comes close. Apocalypse Cult: The cultists apparently want to raise Cthulhu from the depths. Breakout Character: Considering the title character of the story had an entire mythos named after him. Breakout Villain: Cthulhu is the breakout character and a villain. Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Gustaf Johansen manages to survive against all odds and presumably stops Cthulhu from bringing about the end of the world. However, Cthulhu is still very much alive, and Johansen not only goes insane as a result of the experience but it is suggested that he was murdered by cultists. Composite Character: The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company's adaptation has Thurston playing the role originally played by Gustaf Johansen. Cosmic Horror Story: One of the original examples and possible Trope Namer.Was I tottering on the brink of cosmic horrors beyond man's power to bear? Cult: The second part of the story involves a group of police officers arresting a cult of Cthulhu while investigating a series of disappearances - victims of said cult, sacrifices made for Cthulhu. It is strongly suggested that they are behind the murders of Professor Angell, Johansen, and possibly the narrator. Death by Adaptation: Inspector Legrasse in the 2005 film, though his death happens off-screen and is only referred to at the end. Also Captain Collins did die in the book, but he was killed in the battle for Alert. In the movie the crewmen simply find the derelict ship abandoned at sea, meaning that Collins instead dies by the hand of Cthulhu himself. Castro in the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company adaptation. Deliberately Monochrome: Invoked in the film in keeping with the style of 1920s cinema. The Determinator: Inspector Legrasse, otherwise described in the story as a very mundane man and police officer, is so impressed with the cult's monstrosity that he invests a lot of time, energy and money to discover what lies behind it. Lampshaded in the 2005 film, when he says to the archaeologists the investigation turned into his own personal crusade. Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Johansen successfully prevents Cthulhu from ending the world though at the cost of his sanity and soon after his life. Downer Ending The narrator finally understands what is really going on, but he also realizes that both the cult and Cthulhu himself are still alive, and realizes to his horror that he may die very soon. The movie expands on this by showing him to be institutionalized, and the implication that his psychiatrist will soon follow the same path. Dreaming of Things to Come: Sort of. Wilcox is influenced to create a disturbing bas-relief by a series of weird dreams. The dreams themselves don't actually predict the future, but the impact they have helps to foretell the inevitable rise of Cthulhu. Eldritch Abomination: Cthulhu himself. A, if not the, Trope Codifier. Eldritch Location: R'lyeh. Extra Eyes: Lovecraft originally sketched Cthulhu with six eyes, but most illustrations and adaptations give him two eyes. Foregone Conclusion: When we hear the story of Johansen, we already know from the newspaper clipping found earlier that none of the other crew members will make it, though one other man survives the actual ordeal only to die of fear afterwards. The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The final lines of the story involve Thurston realizing that he knows too much, and that it is very likely that he will meet his end by cultists. Then suddenly you realize you now know too much. Humans Are Cthulhu: According to Old Castro, by the time the Great Old Ones awoke human beings would be very much like them, "free and wild and beyond good and evil", to the point that they'd welcome them as kindred spirits. Gender Flip: Castro in the Atlanta Radio Theater Company Adaptation. The nickname is changed from "Old Castro" to "Mother Castro". Go Mad from the Revelation: Gustaf Johansen. The Trope Namer. His crewmate William Briden also ends up in a similar predicament, and two of his men (Rodriguez and Hawkins) outright die from seeing Cthulhu. This also happens to Thurston in the 2005 film. He Knows Too Much: Thurston notices that the cult apparently makes a habit of murdering those who get too close to the truth about Cthulhu, and he expresses fear that it might also happen to him too. The fact that he is listed as dead at the beginning of the story implies that it indeed did. Island of Mystery: The island that pops up with R'lyeh on it. Literary Agent Hypothesis: Taken to an almost mythical extreme. The principal narrator of the story is one "Francis Wayland Thurston of Boston", but much of the narrative is simply his relating the account of his great-uncle, George Gammell Angell, who at one point acts as the literary agent for an Inspector John Raymond Legrasse, who narrates the account of a sailor and cult member named Castro, who in turn claims to have gained his knowledge from immortal cult members in China, who, arguably, received their knowledge from Cthulhu himself. The final link in the chain is you, the reader, as the intro gently reminds us that Francis Wayland Thurston is in fact the late Francis Wayland Thurston, whose account closes with the ominous suggestion that anyone who reads these documents is likely to end up dead. Karma Houdini: While a number of its members were arrested by Legrasse, the cult is still at large. It's also mentioned that the coroners examining both Professor Angell and Gustaf Johansen couldn't determine a cause of death, removing any chance of convicting those responsible. Cthulhu himself is only temporarily stopped, and it is said to be inevitable that he will one day rise again. Posthumous Character: Professor Angell, the narrator's uncle. The narrator himself, given the manuscript was simply found among his belongings. Gustaf Johansen also turns out to be an example. Ramming Always Works: Temporarily, at least. Cthulhu regenerates seconds after being rammed by the ship, but he's definitely knocked out for the moment. Religion of Evil: The Cthulhu Cult is built up as such. In the 2005 film one of a swamp family even mentions that they normally don't want to associate themselves with the police, but are willing to do so at this point because of them. Significant Background Event: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it during the cults' arrest/beating, Shub-Niggurath's tentacles are visible in the swamp forest in the background. Spared By Adaptation: The narrator in the 2005 film. Though the final scene implies that he won't last much longer. Sole Survivor: It's stated early on that Johansen was the only surviving crew member when the Alert was found. Not that it lasted long. The Unpronounceable: "Cthulhu" is an approximation of an alien language, that humanity lacks the necessary body components to pronounce. You Are in Command Now: After Captain Collins and First Mate Green, die fighting the crew of the Alert, Johansen is promoted to leader. Alternative Title(s):
Call Of Cthulhu, The Call Of Cthulhu :: Indexes ::
Burmese Days
Captain Blood: His Odyssey At the Mountains of Madness
Creator/H.P. Lovecraft
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward At the Mountains of Madness
Horror Literature
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward TVTROPES
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/21924 | The Sunday Gazette Arts & Entertainment 02/13/05, G-0?
By JACK RIGHTMYER, Staff Writer
An Interview with Susan Cheever It was January 2000 when Susan Cheever's agent was asked to find a writer for an introduction to a new edition of the classic nineteenth century book Little Women. "By accident I happened to call my agent with a question only a few minutes after, and she asked if I'd do it," said Cheever in a recent phone interview from her home in New York City. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott was one of Cheever's favorite books as a child so she decided to write the introduction. "But first I wanted to re-read it," said Cheever, "and when I did I was amazed at how well written it was." She did some research and soon discovered that Laurie, the boy next door in Little Women, was probably based on Henry David Thoreau or it might have been Ralph Waldo Emerson, who actually lived next door to the Alcott family in Concord, Massachusetts. "Soon I was reading everything I could find about these Transcendental writers who all lived in Concord in the 1840's," said Cheever. "I wrote that introduction and then just kept on writing." Her research about these writers was the basis of her latest nonfiction book "American Bloomsbury" (200 pages, $26, Simon and Schuster). On Thursday she will read from the book at 8 pm at the Recital Hall in the Performing Arts Center at the University at Albany's uptown campus. Earlier that day she will present an informal seminar at 4:15 at Assembly Hall. Both talks are free, open to the public, and presented by the New York State Writers Institute. This is Cheever's fifth work of nonfiction. It follows her 2001 bestselling biography of Bill Wilson, who created Alcoholics Anonymous, and her four recent memoirs most notably her 1999 book "Note Found in a Bottle: My Life as a Drinker," about her near-fatal battle with alcoholism, and "Home Before Dark" (1984), a loving but unsparing portrait of her father, John Cheever, the Pulitzer Prize winning author known for his stories of American suburbia. "My first five books were all fiction," she said, "but since my second child was born I've found it impossible to write fiction." Cheever said that when she's writing fiction she lives in a parallel universe. "I spend many hours daydreaming about my characters and the world I've created. I can't afford that luxury with my children around. I have to deal with my kids and their homework and the plumber, and I just can't write fiction." This most recent book seemed like a type of destiny for her. "Ten years ago I would have never been interested in writing about these authors and this time period," said Cheever, "but I can now look back and see that it was all fate for me to call my agent at that time and then re-read Little Women." The book re-kindled some childhood memories. "I remembered the first trip my dad ever took me on when I was eleven and we went to Concord," said Cheever. "We visited Old Manse and the Orchard House, and after that trip I read 'The Scarlet Letter' and 'Walden.'" In college at Brown University she wrote her thesis on Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe. "And as I began to read about these writers I remembered a trip with my family to Italy when I was thirteen where I became obsessed with Nathaniel Hawthorne. So it seemed that since childhood I was destined to write this book." Cheever titled the book American Bloomsbury in homage of the London neighborhood which was home to a group of writers including Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster in the early 1900's. "There's been a lot of research lately about genius clusters," said Cheever," and I think Concord clearly was one at that time. Genius often attracts genius, and for Concord Emerson was the guiding genius who brought everyone together." Henry James referred to Concord as "...the biggest little place in America," and at one time some of our nation's greatest writers and intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller, all lived in the same community. "The late 1830's and 1840's was a time like the 1960's when individual adventure was prized," said Cheever. "These writers were intoxicated with freedom, a love of the outdoors, and the possibility of a life devoted to thought and pleasure." Cheever would have loved to live in Concord at that time. "I'd love to sit on the grass in the shade of an oak tree and have a conversation with Hawthorne and Fuller," she said, "but it was also a time when living conditions were still very primitive. Most people didn't even live to what we consider middle age, but Concord was also a community that cared about each other." As she was writing the book it occurred to her that Concord was very much like her many experiences at Yaddo, the artist's retreat in Saratoga Springs. "Yaddo is a magical place that brings together writers, painters, composers, and it creates a community that can have an explosion of creativity. My father went there quite a lot, and most of this last book was written there." It still amazes Cheever that she ever became a writer. "At sixteen I was adamant that I was not going to be a writer," she said, "and after I graduated from college I worked as an English teacher for many years, and then I got married and became a housewife." Her husband at the time was a writer. "He was having a difficult time supporting the family so I decided to go back to work." Cheever took a job as a reporter at the Tarrytown Daily News. "And I fell completely in love with journalism," she said. She loved going to work every day and covering school board and town board meetings. "I used to tell people I'm not a writer. I'm a journalist, and I've never been read with such intensity as I was then. I once saw a man reading one of my columns and he was so involved he actually fell off a curb reading it." She has never shied away from writing about some painful and embarrassing personal moments. "I have an obligation to my reader to tell the truth," said Cheever, "and in the process if I write something embarrassing about me I'll do it because that's what a good writer must do." Cheever has always been able to look at herself honestly. "I never became what my parents wanted me to be," she said. "I was never popular, slender, beautiful or athletic. I can write about who I am, but I will definitely protect my two children. I show them everything I'm writing, and if it's too embarrassing to them I'll take it out." This last book was a difficult book to write because she had trouble finding the right structure. "I basically had five short biographies to write, and I wanted to do it chronologically," said Cheever. "I fell in love with the people, and I enjoyed my research trips to Concord." She believes all the writers would be horrified to see what's become of Concord. "But they'd love to know that their homes are shrines," she said. "They'd be delighted to know they were still being read especially Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott, who'd love to know that 35,000 children a year visit her house." Cheever hopes her book will inspire contemporary readers to seek out these authors and read some of their incredible books. Copyright � - The Gazette Newspapers
Daily Gazette | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22020 | The Tiger's Wife : A Novel
by Téa Obreht and Susan Duerden and Robin Sachs
Overview - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal O: The Oprah Magazine The Economist Vogue Slate Chicago Tribune The Seattle Times Dayton Daily News Publishers Weekly Alan Cheuse, NPR's All Things Considered SELECTED ONE OF THE TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Entertainment Weekly The Christian Science Monitor The Kansas City Star Library Journal Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker 's twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation. Read more...
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Language: Language: More About The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht; Susan Duerden; Robin Sachs
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OverviewNATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street JournalO: The Oprah MagazineThe EconomistVogueSlateChicago TribuneThe Seattle TimesDayton Daily NewsPublishers WeeklyAlan Cheuse, NPR's All Things Considered SELECTED ONE OF THE TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesEntertainment WeeklyThe Christian Science MonitorThe Kansas City StarLibrary JournalWeaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker's twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather's recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel. Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather's final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weeklytrips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with "the deathless man," a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. "These stories," Natalia comes to understand, "run like secret rivers through all the other stories" of her grandfather's life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.From the Hardcover edition.
Details Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing GrDate: Mar 2011
ExcerptsFrom the book1The Coastthe forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death. That first night, before its forty days begin, the soul lies still against sweated-on pillows and watches the living fold the hands and close the eyes, choke the room with smoke and silence to keep the new soul from the doors and the windows and the cracks in the floor so that it does not run out of the house like a river. The living know that, at daybreak, the soul will leave them and make its way to the places of its past—the schools and dormitories of its youth, army barracks and tenements, houses razed to the ground and rebuilt, places that recall love and guilt, difficulties and unbridled happiness, optimism and ecstasy, memories of grace meaningless to anyone else—and sometimes this journey will carry it so far for so long that it will forget to come back. For this reason, the living bring their own rituals to a standstill: to welcome the newly loosed spirit, the living will not clean, will not wash or tidy, will not remove the soul's belongings for forty days, hoping that sentiment and longing will bring it home again, encourage it to return with a message, with a sign, or with forgiveness.If it is properly enticed, the soul will return as the days go by, to rummage through drawers, peer inside cupboards, seek the tactile comfort of its living identity by reassessing the dish rack and the doorbell and the telephone, reminding itself of functionality, all the time touching things that produce sound and make its presence known to the inhabitants of the house.Speaking quietly into the phone, my grandma reminded me of this after she told me of my grandfather's death. For her, the forty days were fact and common sense, knowledge left over from burying two parents and an older sister, assorted cousins and strangers from her hometown, a formula she had recited to comfort my grandfather whenever he lost a patient in whom he was particularly invested—a superstition, according to him, but something in which he had indulged her with less and less protest as old age had hardened her beliefs.My grandma was shocked, angry because we had been robbed of my grandfather's forty days, reduced now to thirty-seven or thirty-eight by the circumstances of his death. He had died alone, on a trip away from home; she hadn't known that he was already dead when she ironed his clothes the day before, or washed the dishes that morning, and she couldn't account for the spiritual consequences of her ignorance. He had died in a clinic in an obscure town called Zdrevkov on the other side of the border; no one my grandma had spoken to knew where Zdrevkov was, and when she asked me, I told her the truth: I had no idea what he had been doing there."You're lying," she said."Bako, I'm not.""He told us he was on his way to meet you.""That can't be right," I said.He had lied to her, I realized, and lied to me. He had taken advantage of my own cross-country trip to slip away—a week ago, she was saying, by bus, right after I had set out myself—and had gone off for some reason unknown to either of us. It had taken the Zdrevkov clinic staff three whole days to track my grandma down after he died, to tell her and my mother that he was dead, arrange to send his body. It had arrived at the City morgue that morning, but by then, I was already four hundred miles from home, standing in the public bathroom at the last service station before the border, the pay phone against my ear, my pant legs rolled up, sandals in hand, bare feet slipping on the green tiles under the broken sink.Somebody had fastened a bent hose onto the faucet, and...
Reviews"Of the books I read this year by people I've never laid eyes on, the most peculiar and brilliant may have been The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht. Constructed from anecdote and fable, it is sometimes written in a kind of medical poetry, its main characters being doctors whose attention to the permeable line between life and death suits the tales of old and new Yugoslavia that Obreht wishes to tell." - Lorrie Moore, New Yorker online"Stunning...Obreht writes with an angel's pen on this tiger's tale within the novel, and on myriad other matters, from birth, death and immortality, creating a skein of descriptive passages flush with brilliant detail and ringing with lyrical diction."--NPR.org, Alan Cheuse's Top 5 Fiction Picks of 2011 "Attention all book groups: The Tiger's Wife is an ideal book for discussion, and not only because of the handy reader's guide included, or because of the nifty conversation between Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan and Tea Obreht...A beguiling blend of realism, myth and legend, this novel possesses a presence and force, essential ingredients for a novel that is very much rooted in reality yet transcends time." --Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune Editor's Choice "Sentence by sentence, no fictional debut in 2011 was more arresting than this novel." - Cleveland Plain Dealer Holiday Books Round-up"[A] brilliant debut...[Téa] Obreht is an expert at depicting history through aftermath, people through the love they inspire, and place through the stories that endure; the reflected world she creates is both immediately recognizable and a legend in its own right. Obreht is talented far beyond her years, and her unsentimental faith in language, dream, and memory is a pleasure." - Publishers Weekly, starred review"Not even Obreht's place on The New Yorker's current "20 Under 40" list of exceptional writers will prepare readers for the transporting richness and surprise of this gripping novel of legends and loss...[Contains] moments of breathtaking magic, wildness and beauty...Every word, every scene, every thought is blazingly alive in this many-faceted, spellbinding, and rending novel of death, succor, and remembrance." - Booklist, starred review"Dizzyingly nuanced yet crisp, [and] muscularly written...This complex, humbling, and beautifully crafted debut from one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 is highly recommended for anyone seriously interested in contemporary fiction." - Library Journal, starred review"A cracking, complex, gorgeously wrought saga that resonates as a meditation on life, love...and our responsibility to the stories we inherit from our grandparents...Obreht is a natural literary descendant of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Gabriel Garcia Marquez....The Tiger's Wife is an original and wonderful novel...It makes for a thrilling beginning to what will certainly be a great literary career." - Kate Christensen, Elle "Deftly walks the line between the realistic and the fantastical...In Obreht's expert hands, the novel's mythology, while rooted in a foreign world, comes to seem somehow familiar, like the dark fairy tales of our own youth, the kind that spooked us into reading them again and again...[Reveals] oddly comforting truths about death, belief in the impossible, and the art of letting go." - O: The Oprah Magazine"Téa Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years." - Colum McCann"A novel of surpassing beauty, exquisitely wrought and magical. Téa Obreht is a towering new talent." - T. C. Boyle"A marvel of beauty and imagination. Téa Obreht is a tremendously talented writer." - Ann Patchett"It is difficult, maybe impossible, when reading a hotly anticipated first novel by a celebrated 25-year-old-writer, not to think about her age, to subconsciously search for evidence of callowness, inexperience and showiness...I opened The Tiger's Wife prepared to empathize with [Téa] Obreht's youth, and to temper my reaction if the novel didn't, as a whole, stand up to the expectations and hype. Because, really how could it? But the book does, and then some. Obreht is a natural literary descendant of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Gabriel G - Kate Christensen, reviewing for Elle | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22106 | Chausson Reviews
Symphony in B Flat Major
Poème
Poème de l'amour et de la mer
Chantal Juillet, violin
François Le Roux, baritone
Montréal Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit
Decca 458010-2 DDD 77:21
I've heard the Poème de l'amour et de la mer sung by a soprano (Victoria de los Angeles) and by two mezzo-sopranos (Janet Baker and Gladys Swarthout). This is the first time I've heard of a baritone singing it. It makes sense for a man to take it on, though; Bouchor's text is an address to something feminine, and it is unlikely that he and Chausson intended to rock the boat, as it were, with lesbian content. My research – limited to what I have lying around the house – sheds no light on whether Chausson sanctioned a baritone in this work; does anyone have any information pro or con? At any rate, Le Roux is a success. He sings like a youth with his heart in his throat. He replaces the plushness of Baker and the sustained gleam of de los Angeles with a more overtly dramatic plaint. Although this breaks the vocal line somewhat, it makes the singer into a sympathetic character, and not just a lighthouse pouring out beams of continuous tone. In short, Le Roux is very boyish and likeable, if not the final word in vocalism per se.
Actually, much the same can be said about violinist Chantal Juillet in her Poème. Just about everyone who can hold a fiddle has recorded this work, and I haven't heard a bad recording of it yet. Many violinists, however, interpret it as a virtuoso showpiece; it is no wonder that it frequently appears on disc with Ravel's Tzigane and with Saint-Saëns' Havanaise or Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, which all are enjoyable but rather surface-y works. Juillet's more intimate rendition is not lacking in rapture, and she rather cleverly holds back during the first part of the work to make its final climax more shattering… and it is shattering here. This is a very emotional work, and Juillet gives it its due with violin-playing that is less about technique than about French style.
It was a great idea to place Chausson's three most popular works on a single CD. I think there is no precedent for this. There have been a number of good recordings of the Symphony, which remains a somewhat elusive composition, sitting, as it does, in the shadow of Franck's sole symphony. In the stereo age, Charles Munch (with Boston) and Paul Paray (with Detroit) have stood the test of time – no wonder, as these were North America's best "French" orchestras of the era. Earlier, Pierre Monteux and the San Francisco Symphony did well by Chausson's symphony, as did Dimitri Mitropoulos with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (studio recording) and the New York Philharmonic ("unofficial" recording). Now that Montréal is home to North America's best "French" orchestra, it is natural that the OSM and Dutoit should record Chausson's work; in fact, I am surprised that they waited so long. Dutoit's performance isn't as transparent as Munch's or Paray's, and the OSM's brass doesn't have the pleasantly nasal quality of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's. Dutoit makes all the right moves, although he is a little restrained. He seems to highlight the work's Wagnerian undertones, and to prefer mass to velocity. Even if this isn't the most preferable recording of Chausson's Symphony, the two accompanying works ensure that this CD will find its rightful place in listeners' collections.
Copyright © 2000, Raymond Tuttle | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22141 | College of Saint Benedict Literary Arts Institute
Sister Mariella Gable Series
Welle Book Arts Studio
Writers at Home
Kevin Dixon
Kim Scott
Pablo García and Miguel Ángel Oxlaj Cúmez
Kunal Basu
Zoe Wicomb
Jeff O'Connell
Mitsuyo Kakuta
Amitav Ghosh and Deborah Baker
Writers Writing
Kim Scott Kim Scott
Spring 2012 in Australia
"A writer of arresting talent... Scott's fiction is innovative but inspired by a passion for truth" - The Australian
Scott descended from the indigenous Noongar tribe, which lived on the southwestern coast of Australia before colonization. He has written four novels and a children's book; his poetry and short stories have been included in many anthologies as well. Published in 1993, Scotts's first novel, True Country, was based on his family's history and semi-autobiographical, as was his second novel, Benang. For his second novel, Scott received the 1999 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, 2000 Miles Franklin Award, and 2001 RAKA Kate Challis Award. Scott worked with Noongar elder Hazel Brown in order to write his third novel, Kayang and Me, which details the oral history of his family. His newest novel, That Deadman Dance, examines the interactions between the Noongar, British colonists, and American whalers in the early nineteenth century. Scott received the 2011 Miles Franklin Award for That Deadman Dance, making him the first as well as the second indigenous writer to receive the award. Presently, Scott serves as an Associate Professor at Curtin University in Western Australia and lives in Coolbellup, Australia, with his wife and two children.
In the spring of 2012, Scott came to the University of Notre Dame Australia Fremantle (UNDA) campus to address the 29 CSB/SJU study abroad students as well as 25 faculty, staff, and students from UNDA. The intimate crowd made for a two hour event that included a reading from That Deadman Dance, discussion of Scott's work in recovering the Noongar language and stories, and question and answer session. At the light reception that followed the event, Scott signed books sold by the New Edition Bookshop and engaged in further conversations about That Deadman Dance and his other novels. Student Testimonials
"Being an American I find that it is sometimes a challenge to fully understand Australia's history and the relationship between those of European descent and those of Aboriginal descent... I found that Scott's book was able to transport me to the time of early settlement and helped me to understand the development of interaction between Europeans and Aborigines. To have Kim Scott with us to discuss his work and his dedication to preservation of Aboriginal culture was a pleasure and enriched the experience of reading the novel." Riley Johnson, CSB/SJU '13 "Reading Kim Scott's novel provided me with an artistic outlook on the Aboriginal heritage of Western Australia. Kim Scott provided an amazing presentation filled with humour and continued insight into his novel, That Deadman Dance. After hearing him speak, I realized how poetic and insightful he is which lent itself to discovery all the hidden meanings within his novel." Christine Schneider, CSB/SJU '13
Posters to advertise the Kim Scott event on the University of Notre Dame Australia Fremantle (UNDA) campus. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22452 | Insurance returns: Masanori Aoyagi, director of the National Museum of Western Art and the current chairperson of the Japanese Council of Museums, explains that the new art indemnity system will likely improve the standards of practice in museums. | EDAN CORKILL PHOTO Art | INSIDE ART
Public to benefit from art indemnity system
Staff Writer Jul 7, 2011 Article history
If you’ve ever thought that the ¥1,500 admission ticket at the average touring exhibition in Tokyo is too expensive, consider this: The cost of insuring artworks for trips to Japan is around 0.2 percent of their appraised value.
So, imagine a Vincent van Gogh exhibition with 20 paintings, each valued at $50 million, or ¥4 billion (many of van Gogh’s works are worth more). The museum will be forking out ¥160 million to insurance companies. To cover that cost alone, it would have to sell more than 100,000 of those ¥1,500 tickets. That’s more than most exhibitions in Japan achieve, and of course there are many other expenses to be met.
Now you might be thinking, “Well, if Japan followed the lead of every other country in the G8 (except Russia) and created a national indemnity system, then museums wouldn’t have to pay to insure touring artworks.”
Guess what? It just did.
Attempts to change the law in Japan tend to progress like giant oil tankers. They are excruciatingly slow to start, but once they’ve hit a decent speed, there isn’t much that can stop them.
Thus, the move to create a national indemnity system — where the national government guarantees the safety of borrowed artworks and pays out should any liability arise, thus obviating the need for private insurance — started way back in 2001. By the beginning of this year it had finally built up enough momentum that even the March 11 disaster couldn’t stop it. The law was enacted on March 29 and came into force in early June.
Unfortunately, many countries, including France, are now reluctant to lend works of art to Japan because of fears of radiation leaks. Those concerns aside, it has just become a whole lot easier for Japanese museums to borrow works from overseas.
“A national indemnity system is part of the essential infrastructure that allows museums to host large international exhibitions,” explained art-policy expert Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, of Tokyo-based NLI Research Institute. “Knowing that the Japanese government will cover the costs of damage or loss to the artworks will also make major lenders more comfortable about lending works to Japan.”
Insurance costs generally take up 20 to 30 percent of an exhibition’s budget. Under the new system, which was modeled on the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program in the United States, museums will still be required to take out private insurance for the first ¥5 billion of the borrowed works’ value. Thus, with the van Gogh exhibition envisaged above, if the total value of the show is ¥80 billion, the museum will still have to pay ¥10 million in private insurance (0.2 percent of ¥5 billion). But that is a lot less than the ¥160 million they would have to pay to insure the works at their full value.
The museums set to benefit from the system are currently trying to work out a unified strategy by which this saving can be made to benefit the populace.
Masanori Aoyagi, director of the National Museum of Western Art and the current chairperson of the Japanese Council of Museums, which had lobbied the government for national art indemnity since 2001, explained to The Japan Times that, “Our member institutions may decide to extend the free admission program for students so it includes all students of high school age and below.”
Now that the law has been put into force, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, which is operating the new system, is seeking applications from museums interested in taking advantage of it.
Museums have until the end of this month to apply for exhibitions commencing between October this year and January 2012.
Not all exhibitions will be accepted.
It has been decided that each year the government will announce the value to which it is able to indemnify artworks for that financial year. This year, they announced that the total value of all works indemnified must not surpass ¥550 billion. In other words, seven exhibitions, each valued at ¥80 billion, could be covered.
The Agency has established a set of criteria to determine what kinds of artworks, exhibitions and borrowing institutions will be eligible for coverage by the system.
Hence, the exhibition must be for more than 20 days and must be open to the public. The organizer must have demonstrated proficiency at hosting similar exhibitions. The artwork must be tangible and have been made or at least been added to by the hand of an artist (a dinosaur fossil, for example, would not be eligible).
Applications will be assessed by a committee of experts set up within the Agency’s chief advisory body, the Council for Cultural Affairs.
Once an exhibition is selected for coverage by the indemnity system, the organizer will be required to follow a strict regimen for exhibition operation. Condition reports for each of the artworks in the exhibition will need to be submitted, as will a facility report documenting the temperature, humidity and other particulars of the museum environment.
Aoyagi explained that the implementation of the system should result in better standards of practice at museums throughout Japan.
“This is something we discovered when researching the U.S. system,” he said. “Once that system had been implemented, there was a great improvement in security and other measures taken at museums.”
One group that stands to benefit from the new system, in addition to the museums themselves, are media companies involved in staging large-scale exhibitions.
Exhibitions such as the National Art Center, Tokyo’s “Post-Impressionism: 115 Masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay,” which was co-hosted with Nikkei Inc. last year, will be eligible for the system.
To insure that the savings accruing from the implementation of the indemnity system are not pocketed by the private sector, however, the law stipulates that revenue generated as a result of the new system must be fed back into art exhibition management. Hence the suggestion of granting high school students free admission at the museums in question.
“The idea of the program is to help maintain the cultural richness of the life of the people,” Aoyagi said. “We hope to make that happen.”
Sci-fi and fact at the Okayama Art Summit
Getting site-specific installations down to a fine art
Marie-Antoinette, a Queen in Versailles
The Anatomy of Colors | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22469 | Annals of the Association of American Ge...
Vermont and the Imag...
Vermont and the Imaginative Geographies of American Whiteness
Robert M. Vanderbeck
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers
Coverage: 1911-2010 (Vol. 1 - Vol. 100, No. 5)
The U.S. state of Vermont is often portrayed as a place where "race" is of little significance, yet notions of whiteness are central to how the state has been represented and represents itself. A critical analysis of historical and contemporary economies of representation examines how Vermont has been imagined as one of the last remaining spaces of authentic Yankee whiteness while more recently becoming an imagined homeland for particular brands of white liberal politics and social practice in the United States. Narratives of white Vermont identity have often explicitly drawn on oppositions to other forms of whiteness, particularly those associated with the U.S. South, in constructing an image of a comparatively racially benign Yankee whiteness. Recent right-wing discourses have explicitly attempted to construct Vermont whiteness as outside the American mainstream (not least through its discursive association with gay and lesbian sexualities), suggesting a need for geographical work on the (re)configuration of whiteness to reconsider where "normal" American whiteness is imagined to reside. The examination of the case of Vermont highlights the need for future geographical research to attend to continuities between various territorialized constructions of whiteness as well as contestations within whiteness.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers © 2006 Association of American Geographers | 文学 |
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Photograph by Kevin Berne
Balancing Act: The Rep's artistic director, Timothy Near
Good theater doesn't come cheap; San Jose Repertory Theatre tries to right its financial ship without selling out its artistic soul By Marianne Messina
IT IS not so unusual that the San Jose Repertory Theatre Company is in financial trouble. (The group needs a "bail-out" or loan of at least $1 million—the San Jose City Council is scheduled to vote on the request Oct. 17.) According to the Theatre Communications Group report Theatre Facts 2005, 43 percent of the not-for-profit theaters in the country joined the Rep in the red. The picture painted by the report shows an entire industry staying afloat by the slimmest of margins through a series of weaves and dodges. Since 2001, "Ticket sales cover a decreasing proportion of expenses." If a theater is lucky, sales from tickets and subscriptions will cover about half their expenses. "Theatres are seeing declining audiences despite increases in the number of performances offered." Advertiser Links
On average, 63 percent of subscribers nationwide renewed their subscriptions during the year of the survey (by contrast, San Jose Rep has a 75 percent renewal rate). As for operating costs, "Theatres apparently employed their cash reserves in 2005 to meet their cash-flow needs. As a result, reserves were at a five-year low." Not-for-profit theater is a risky business. "Risk is a necessary part of what we do," says Mark Bernstein, managing director of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. He worried this season about the new play his company produced, Ace. "Any time you do a new show, the risk is higher." The Rep has gone up against this risk with some new productions in recent years, including The Haunting of Winchester, and Making Tracks, which involved local theater groups.
Still holding his breath as San Jose Stage Company runs the new work Lil' Darlin', artistic director Randall King amplifies Bernstein's concerns. "A nonprofit theater has a snowball's chance in hell."
Though most theaters aren't anxious to talk about their horror stories and close calls, almost every theater has them. King remembers "the feeling we had that it was over" back in the 1980s. The company had to make drastic, chancy moves and walk away from a deal for a new theater space. "We had to pull up roots and go on the road." But solutions are not simply about cutting costs or retreating into the kind of mainstream entertainment that some critics think audiences crave. In fact, the Stage Company took a huge financial risk, scraping together enough to put up Angry Housewives as a "homeless" company in a borrowed space. "It was the 11th hour," King recalls, "and we almost closed the production, and then in the seventh week it took off." Angry Housewives went on to a three-year run, and ultimately got the company both into the black and into their new space on First Street.
A good artistic director has to have the instincts of a high roller to make the risks pay off, but the payoff isn't always cash in hand. For example, a risk that San Jose Repertory Theatre artistic director Timothy Near took in the 2003-2004 season is still reaping benefits today, even though inviting the intensely creative Anne Bogart and her troupe, SITI Company, was extremely costly. Doing things Bogart's way comes with the territory. "You can't squeeze her into a box," Near explains.
To mount Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Near chose the play), Bogart required everything from stainless-steel floors to a sound man in rehearsals on a daily basis. But Near had planned the season to offset those costs by filling the other slots with large-drawing comedies like Noises Off.
Still, A Midsummer Night's Dream was itself a success, drawing the second-largest audiences of the season (more than 16,000) after Noises Off. Now, as it happens, SITI is touring that version of A Midsummer Night's Dream throughout New England. "That production was born in San Jose," Bogart says. "People are hearing that everywhere it goes." People also heard about the Rep's Iphigenia at Aulis, another costly production, as it picked up at least one international award. What exactly is a nationally or internationally recognized theater worth to a city like San Jose? "It shows we're a big city, that we support that kind of culture," says Dan Fenton, executive director of the San Jose Convention and Visitor's Bureau. A well-respected theater, he maintains, is "part of coming to a city, even for a business convention; there's still a cachet." Fenton says that visitors look for experiences they won't get at home. That fact combines with the recent trend in business travel to bundle work with vacation to make the Rep a potential selling point for San Jose. Colorful images from the Rep's past performances show up in Fenton's PowerPoint presentations, and the city got great mileage from the Rep's "high-profile performances" by Lynn Redgrave and Holly Hunter. Fenton also cites the recent City Lights production of Jesus Christ Superstar as a big out-of-town seller. With a huge cast and more floor space than the company has stage, Superstar was another big risk (artistic director Lisa Mallette often refers to Near as a mentor for encouraging her to make bold moves). In response to what losing San Jose Rep would mean in his industry, Fenton replies, "It's a major offering. If you think of it from a product perspective, it's like somebody said, 'You're going to take a major thing off your shelf.'" Number Crunching
In terms of financing day-to-day operations, theater fiscal practices would make most number crunchers' hair stand on end. Theatre Facts reports that "borrowing funds to meet daily operating needs," has been a fact of life for theaters lately, 2005 in particular. The average working capital (over all theaters studied) was about negative half a million. And theaters the size of the San Jose Rep "experienced particularly acute negative working capital, leaving them with little financial flexibility." Not only that, but if you simply take the city/county contributions away from the nonprofit theaters' balance sheets, the average "group 5" (the size of San Jose Rep) theater would not be bringing in enough to meet expenses. Call it charity or a city's marketing expenses, not-for-profit theaters rely heavily on contributions. According to Scott Knies of the San Jose Downtown Association, the city is committed to the arts, even though the city's hotel tax took a hit after 9/11: "Our hotel occupancy tax, our business travel just fell off the table. And that was a major source of funding for operating grants for arts groups." Explaining how that situation affected San Jose Rep, Timothy Near likened it to traveling full speed ahead, coming to a cliff and just not putting the brakes on in time. Not to mention that more recently the Rep lost a substantial contributor in Knight Ridder, when the San Jose Mercury was sold to MediaNews. "You don't recover from those cuts in 24 months," King comments.
In spite of the downturn, Knies believes that the dotcom boom got something started in San Jose that other cities work much longer to achieve: "Our arts groups are on their path." And San Jose Rep (founded in 1980) itself is relatively young compared to 50-year-old East Coast theaters supported by self-sustaining endowments and foundations that can cover up to two-thirds of their expenses. Amid all this, an artistic director's balancing act includes costs, audience expectations, artistic merit, topical interests, investment in the local community—and reputation. As an artistic director himself, Knies, whose organization also offers Music in the Park and other series, enjoys balancing the tensions of a multicultural city: "You have to give the people what they want, but you also have to keep to your artistic vision." Artistic vision is at the core of any arts group's mission. It's an artistic director's expertise (and often obsession), it's that intangible that gives the city its "cachet.
"I'm in heaven when we're doing something enormously entertaining," says Near, "that has a message, that is going to get people talking and arguing and stimulated, whether they're mad or happy—that they're excited." Yet artistic vision never comes up in discussions of "fiscal responsibility" and "mismanagement." Instead, finger pointers suggest that if only the company would present familiar comedies and uplifting dramas, ticket sales would soar.
Well. It's hard to call what patrons want to see. In letters and blogs of support for the Rep, subscribers reported enjoying shows that, on paper, they thought they wouldn't like at all. And Near reports that some of the most heartwarming audience responses have come from heavy-content shows that large numbers of people stayed away from, for example, The Tricky Part, a one-man production that dealt with child abuse. "It was about healing," says Near, who thought its spiritual value made it important. "After the show, people would gather around the stage, and he would hold people's hand while they told their stories."
Anne Bogart views the partnership between fiscal managers and artistic managers as a union between those who function primarily from the right brain and those who function primarily from the left. As managing director of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Bernstein balks when you ask him about play selection. "That's something you'd be better off asking Steve [Woolf, the company's artistic director]." He and Woolf have been putting up seasons for 20 years in a relationship as rare as a healthy 20-year marriage. "You have to find two people who have a common vision," Bernstein admits. Bernstein reports that he has rarely, if ever, nixed a project Woolf proposed, because he sees his job as "trying to make these things happen." It was this rare kind of relationship that existed between Near and Alexandra Urbanowski, the Rep's longtime managing director. Like Bernstein and Woolf, Near and Urbanowski shared a vision. "[For] 16 years—which included building advocacy for this building, fundraising for this building, and the next wave of the New Plays Festival, putting on new work, reaching for the vision—Alexandra was right by my side through all of those achievements," Near says. Near admits that "this was [Urbanowski's] first career out of college, so I always knew that she would want to eventually go on." Still, Near reports that her overall feeling she had on Urbanowski's departure at the end of 2004 was one of sadness.
Near estimates that the company was adrift for nearly six months between the time Urbanowski announced her departure and the arrival of her replacement, David Jobin, not to mention that Jobin naturally had a learning curve, which was spent "under duress."
It's tempting to view a sort of "fiscal depression" as a metaphorical response to the loss of such a rare partnership. For San Jose, Near's artistic vision is a statement rising up from the city's heart in the form of the Rep's building itself, which she helped design. The building—like the city, she thought—cuts a creative, high-tech profile outside; inside, the seating sections curve in what Near calls "embraces." She wanted audience members to be aware of each other. Near is visually perspicacious. Her theatrical ideal has many layers, a lot of visual tension and movement that speak on many levels. It's the sort of vision that brought San Francisco's sensational Dance Brigade into the award-winning production of Iphigenia at Aulis.
Anne Bogart talks about how this sort of inspiration comes from very early experiences: "Your life is changed by something," and you want to pass it on. Tracing the roots of her own inspiration, Near recalls watching a "dance" on the lawn of her childhood home between her dog and a skunk, approaching in curiosity, darting away in fear. "They both were in great danger and this emotion created this physical dance." An artistic director works to keep that moment of fascination alive and re-create it for audiences. Solutions
Studying the turn-arounds of the many once-drowning theaters across the country may offer some solutions for the serious fiscal shortfall facing San Jose Rep. For example, Providence's prestigious Trinity Theater turned itself around by establishing a cooperative program with Brown University's Theater Department. Perhaps there's something similar to be done with San Jose State University. Already, in early September, the Rep and American Musical Theatre of San Jose (another group with financial issues) initiated a project to cut costs by combining their box office and costume and scenery shops.
Everyone who spoke for this article feels certain (even optimistic) that creative solutions can be found. Without exception, discussions of the Rep's difficulties came around to the idea of "pulling together." Both Fenton and Knies said their organizations are prepared to work with the city and the Rep to help keep the company afloat, and Fenton specifically said his organization could help by booking events into the Rep when it's not in session. Randall and Cathleen King (a literal marriage between executive and artistic director) would like to see San Jose's theater community pooling resources. With Theatre Bay Area as a catalyst, Cathleen worked on a prototype for this idea, supported by the Packard Foundation. She points out that with a little financial support, this and similar creative, cooperative efforts could continue and benefit all South Bay theaters. The Kings admit that as a flagship theater, San Jose Rep helps attract the talent pool their company draws from.
Even in light of a possible city-sponsored bailout, others beside the Kings supported the additional stipulation that the city use its financial leverage to foster cooperative efforts within the South Bay's rich theater community. Imagine putting all those creative minds in a room and letting the ideas fly: Maybe we'd see the Renegade Theatre Company in a play-within-a-play at San Jose Stage, and Ballet San Jose in a San Jose Rep production of a play about ballet performers, and a City Lights production of The Tempest or The Merchant of Venice, with Teatro Visión interspersing a "street" version of events between each act. And the new-works festival that the Rep tried to foster—maybe we'd see a citywide New Works Event, or a theatrical potluck, marathon style, where people come from all over to San Jose, going from theater to theater. After all, whoever believes in theater knows we are such stuff as dreams are made on.
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2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22633 | Wisconsin museum features color photos in 20th century
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- - An exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum will look at the evolution of color photography in the 20th century.It will explore the historical developments from 1907 to 1981 that led to color photography becoming the norm in popular culture and fine art.It will feature nearly 200 objects, including framed photographs, publications, slide shows and film clips, from nearly a dozen artists. They include Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan and Saul Leiter.Exhibition co-curator Lisa Hostetler, who is former curator of photographs at the Milwaukee museum, says the years mark the introduction of the first commercially available color photographic process.The exhibit, called "Color Rush: 75 Years of Color Photography in America," runs Feb. 22 through May 19. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22741 | HomeBlogPoemsPoetsClassical18th century19th centuryHaikuFunny QuotesQuotesKidzCornerTools
Home > Poets > 18th Century > Lord Byron > Lord Byron Biography
Biography of Lord Byron
Lord Byron was born as George Gordon on January 22, 1788 in London, England. As the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his second wife, Lady Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight, Aberdeenshire, he suffered a deformation of his feet, known as club foot.
Gordon was christened as George Gordon after his grandfather, a descendant of James I. When his grandfather committed suicide in 1779, Gordon's mother, Catherine sold her land and title to pay for her father's debts.
John Byron later married Gordon's mother Catherine for her money, however soon he squandered it and deserted her. This and Catherine's father's suicide led to little guidance for her son George. This led to a spirit of revolt and lifelong consequences.
The two separated before George's birth. After, the two moved to Scotland and lived on what was left of her fortune. But on May 21, 1798, at age ten, George's uncle had died leaving him as the sixth Baron Byron.
Lord Byron received his education at the Grammar School in Aberdeen until 1801, when he was sent to Harrow and remained there until 1805. After, he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge and became fascinated with history, fiction and extravagant life.
In 1806, Byron's first verses were published and in 1807 published Hours of Idleness, which was greatly criticized. However, in reply to such criticism, Byron published English Bards and Scotch Reviewers in 1809 and went through five editions.
In the meantime, Byron left to Newstead Abbey, the family seat until 1809. He then left England and traveled through Spain and Greece until his return in 1812. During this time Byron wrote Childe Harold and published it on his return only to receive great reviews. He followed up Childe Harold with more amazing short poems; The Corsair, Lara. Around this time he met and befriended his future biographer, Thomas Moore.
On February 27, 1812 Lord Byron took his seat at the House of Lords and made his first speech there.
Byron then became the most popular person in Regency London, writing poetry and carrying on illicit affairs, most notably with Lady Caroline, wife of future Prime Minister, William Lamb. Lady Caroline also inspired the epigram "Caro Lamb, Goddamn." There are also rumors of Byron's involvement with a choir boy and an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, however many scholars dispute this.
To help avoid scandal, Byron chose to marry Anne Isabella Milbanke (Annabella), cousin of Lady Caroline who refused him a year earlier. The two married at Seaham Hall, County Durham on January 2, 1815. As a stipulation in her mother's will, Annabella's beneficiaries must take her family name. Lord Byron then became known as George Gordon Noel Byron in 1822.
Continue reading: Lord Byron biography
Poems by Lord Byron
The Destruction of Sennacherib
Epitaph to a Dog
I Watched Thee
She Walks in Beauty
Sonnet to Chillon
There be None of Beauty's Daughters
We'll Go No More A-Roving
When We Two Parted
Next: John Clare
William BlakeJohann Wolfgang GoetheJohn KeatsAlexander PopeWilliam Wordsworth
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2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22769 | Home > News > Publisher News Roxana Robinson Elected President of Authors Guild Mar 17, 2014
At its annual meeting, Authors Guild members elected Roxana Robinson as their president, succeeding Scott Turow. Judy Blume, Richard Russo, and James Shapiro will serve as v-p's. During his four year term, Turow oversaw “orphan works” lawsuits against Google and HathiTrust. Courts ruled against the Guild in the cases in 2012 and 2013, and the Guild is appealing both decisions.“American writing is alive and well," said Turow at the meeting. "There is no question about the vitality of our literary community or the vitality of the literary impulse in the United States. There will always be authors, there will always books. We need to continue the struggle in order to protect writing as a livelihood.” Robinson is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, and a biography, Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life, which was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. After her election, Robinson commented that “As writers, we are living in very interesting times. The challenges are huge, and I am thrilled to be a part of it all.” In addition, CJ Lyons, a former pediatric ER doctor and New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-one novels, joined the Guild's executive council, becoming the first self-published author on the Guild's board. Guild members re-elected Peter Petre as treasurer and Pat Cummings as secretary, and re-elected Council members Peter Gethers, Annette Gordon-Reed, Nicholas Lemann, Douglas Preston, Michelle Richmond, Cathleen Schine, and Monique Truong. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22907 | Roma Downey Quotes
"The role was written American. Suddenly the dialogue came off the page and came to life in a way that really lent itself to the lyricism of the brogue. It just worked, it really clicked. I knew the role was going to be mine, and sure enough they made an offer."
Author: Downey Quotes
"I grew up in Ireland, and the ocean was never more than an arm's length away. As lovely as the mountains are and as friendly as the people of Utah are, I feel a bit landlocked there from time to time."
"My family still lives in Ireland-and my sisters are always terribly interested in who the next guest star might be. When they got the call that Richard Chamberlain was coming on the show, it was met with squeals of delight."
"I have an 8-year-old, Reilly. She has been very active in her own little world."
"If you heard me sing, you wouldn't ask me if I would ever sing!"
"In an interesting way, the operation becomes almost a metaphor for hope and optimism. A little child can have a new face with a smile restored, and suddenly his mother's smile is restored and his father's and the outer family's... and they bring him back to the village and the village is delighted... The ripples and effects of this are fantastic."
"Richard Chamberlain was a joy to work with-extremely gracious-generous actor. I was thrilled to meet him. I have very fond memories of being madly in love with him during the time of The Thorn Birds."
"We have a rolling gag on the show. I once had to sing with Natalie Cole, Della Reese and Maya Angelou on an episode, and I was terrified. I was trying to carry a tune, and people thought I was trying to be funny. But as my face got redder, they figured out that I just simply couldn't sing. I wasn't trying to be funny!"
"You know, it's very deep in everyone's secret longings to be a recording star. I know I used to hold a hairbrush and lip-sync with songs on the radio. So making this album was great fun and allowed me the opportunity to work with a family friend."
"I do my best thinking by the ocean. As much as I enjoy church service, I've always felt closer to God by the sea." | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/22992 | Authors! Authors! series to present David McCullough
Tahree Lane
For six years he has marinated in the 18th-century world of John and Abigail Adams, listening to their music, walking where they did, and reading the books they loved.In a few weeks, history sleuth David McCullough, will finish his examination of the amazing Adamses and their dramatic times. Expected to be published in mid-2001, it's his seventh book and his favorite project to date.“I like the work I'm doing. And Rosalee would tell you that's what I always say,” said McCullough, 67, referring to his wife of 45 years.The Pulitzer-prize-winning author will appear Wednesday at the Authors! Authors! series sponsored by The Blade and the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. He'll speak about the inspiration of the Adamses and other great Americans, and the riches to be found in history.Time, like space, is a dimension that begs exploration. “Harry Truman said the only new thing in the world is the history you don't know,” he said. “To shut yourself off from the past is a terrible thing to do to yourself.”He has profiled Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, brought to life the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the construction of the Panama Canal. With well over 1 million copies sold, Truman is his most popular work. For 12 years, he was host of The American Experience, a documentary series on public television.McCullough has a simple criterion for selecting his subjects:“What I really like best is a great story. And I want a lot of material.”He embarked on a biography of Pablo Picasso but decided he didn't like the artist enough to spend years recreating him.“He wasn't really a story of a kind I like to tell. I didn't like his cruelty to his family. His repetitious affairs with women got boring. He was very selfish.”He planned a book on Adams and Jefferson because it had a terrific ending: They were dear friends who became intense rivals and both died on the Fourth of July precisely 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “But once I started, I realized I really wanted to write about Adams.”In Adams (1735-1826), McCullough found an ideal candidate. John and Abigail wrote and kept thousands of letters over the course of their long lives, unlike Jefferson, who destroyed all correspondence with his wife. “They're brilliant, wonderful letters. They take you into their confidence,” he said.The Adamses didn't have money but were well-read and gifted with expansive minds. Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Adams alone did not have slaves.Moreover, the times were compelling: the Revolutionary War, the beginning of the presidency with Washington, Adams as second president, and his defeat by Jefferson. Adams was the first American ambassador to England after the war. He made trips to Paris and Amsterdam. And in his old age, he saw his son become president.McCullough immersed himself in John and Abigail's difficult, adventurous lives. He went where they lived and traveled. He learned to speak as they did, relying on the Samuel Johnson dictionary. When Adams attended a Catholic mass, he wrote Abigail that he found it both “moving and awful.” Awful, at that time, meant full of awe, he said.Adams was a man of “earthy passion,” he says. “He was irritable, touchy, quick-tempered, and warm-hearted and affectionate and loveable. And lots of people at the time said so.”McCullough was impressed by the president's independence, honesty, and his courage of his convictions. “And I greatly admire his intellectual vitality, the range and reach of his mind. ... I like his flinty integrity. And I like very much his devotion to his family.”The indefatigable Abigail was home-schooled. “She was smart as a whip. She was brave, uncomplaining. And in many ways, she had better judgment than her husband,” he said. “She wasn't necessarily easy to be around because she expected everybody to measure up. And she was very cheerful, especially in the face of adversity.”McCullough begins a book by researching about 60 per cent of the material and grouping it into three parts. Then he starts typing.The hardest part is to make it an exciting read. “To give what you're writing a feeling that it's happening as it happened on the page and that you're inside that other time. And to do that without any hokum,” he said.A typical day: breakfast, a walk out to the small building behind the old farmhouse where he'll write, read, and review until a break for lunch and phone calls in the house. Then back to the cottage for more writing until 6:30 p.m. There's no phone in his writing place. “I tried it for a while, but people called and interrupted. And, I like to talk on the phone,” he said.And there is no computer. He has written every book on a beloved 1940s-vintage Royal typewriter that he picked up second-hand about 1965.“It's a beautiful piece of machinery,” he says. “Sometimes I think it's writing the books.” He's stockpiled a year's supply of black ribbons.He's been told he could work faster on a computer. “I don't want to write faster. I don't think that fast.”The couple read aloud everything he writes.“She's been my partner, my editor, my brave cohort. She has helped with the research. She has traveled to do what digging was needed.” Earlier this month they went to Washington for the 200th birthday of the White House.The McCulloughs have five children and 15 grandchildren. In 1972, after two successful books, he quit his job as a writer for American Heritage magazine and the family moved from New York City to Martha's Vineyard, Mass.And lest he appear completely enthralled by history, he also likes nautical antiques, photography, gardening, sailing, architecture, going out to dinner, and travel, including trips to Wyoming, Montana, San Francisco, New York City, Italy, London, and Paris.“I walk. I sit in the parks. Go to old bookstores, theaters, galleries, eat well. We see friends. We take rides in boats. Rent a car and drive out in the country,” he said. “I just like to hang out and talk to people.”David McCullough speaks at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Stranahan Theater. Tickets, at $8, are available at all Toledo-Lucas County Public Library locations and at the door. Information: 259-5207. | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/23039 | Open Space reshapes the artistic landscape
Open Space staff say their first year has been rich and fulfilling. Front row, left to right: Karen Biondo, Janet McAlpin and Leslie Shattuck. Back row, left to right: Jon Schroeder, David Godsey, Kai Godsey and John Runyan.— image credit: Leslie Brown/staff photo
by ELIZABETH SHEPHERD, Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber Staff Sep 15, 2009 at 2:03PM
It’s an oft-quoted line from a movie about baseball, but as it turns out, it also applies to a cavernous former coffee warehouse on Vashon: “If you build it, they will come.”
This month marks the first anniversary of the inauguration of Open Space for Arts and Community — a 15,000-square-foot Vashon venue, tucked among warehouses on 103rd Avenue S.W., that has established itself as the go-to spot for a wide range of cultural and community events. For David Godsey, who founded Open Space along with his wife Janet McAlpin, it’s all part of a dream come true.
“It’s been satisfying and exhilarating, keeping track of who’s coming and going,” Godsey said as he reeled off a list of organizations that have used the building in the past year.
Godsey is also excited about the space’s burgeoning roster of upcoming events, which will include UMO Ensemble’s 20th anniversary production, “El Dorado,” a choral performance by the Seattle Men’s Chorus group Captain Smartypants, a gallery installation being mounted to benefit Vashon Maury Community Food Bank and a touring production of “Red Ranger Came Calling,” produced by Seattle’s Book-It Theatre.
According to Godsey, almost 6,000 people have passed through Open Space’s doors since last September, attending auctions and benefits for groups, including the Backbone Campaign, Islewilde, PTSA and Vashon Island Pet Protectors.
The public has also streamed into the space to attend flea markets, clothes swaps, poetry nights, theater rehearsals and classes. And that’s not all.
“The last year has had surprises we could have never planned for, yet they happened,” Godsey explained, as he recounted a March appearance at the space by the Slaughter County Roller Vixens. “Having a roller derby was just one of those right things at the right time,” he said. “And it turned out to be something a lot of people on the Island wanted to see.”
Many Islanders first became aware of Open Space on Election Day 2008, when they came to the space in droves to attend an election night party thrown by the Backbone Campaign. More than 500 people gathered that evening to celebrate Barack Obama’s historic victory, and for Godsey, the night provided an affirmation of his hopes for the building. “‘Yes we can’ became a mantra for me about the space,” he said. “It set a tone for the possibility, hope, for celebration and diverse elements coming together for a common purpose. That’s what we’re looking for all the time.”
Open Space’s story began in 2005, when Godsey and McAlpin — who are both founding members of UMO, a nationally celebrated physical theater group — purchased the former Seattle’s Best Coffee warehouse and packaging plant with money McAlpin inherited after a relative passed away. The couple’s vision for the building included renovations that would allow them to practice and present circus arts, including trapeze, acrobatics and aerial work. But they also wanted to make the facility available to other Islanders — a place, said Godsey, where people could “realize a dream.” For many Island organizations crimped for space, Open Space is already on its way to fulfilling that goal. Godsey said that according to his calculations, Island groups have raised a total of $233,000 at Open Space in the past year.
“We’re really happy there is a venue like that on the Island,” said Elaine Summers, a Vashon Island Pet Protectors volunteer who helped organize the group’s 2009 Fur Ball, held at Open Space. “It was a great step up for us, because it was big enough to accommodate everybody.”
Bill Moyer, executive director of the Backbone Campaign, concurred. “It’s awesome to have a space that could handle the scale of spectacle that we are expert in,” Moyer said. Godsey credits Open Space’s staff and a growing list of consultants for helping define the space in its first year, despite unexpected challenges, including the rocky economy.
Private investments he and McAlpin were using to keep the space afloat have diminished considerably in the past year, he said. Despite that setback, changes and improvement to the space are still under way. “We’re finding ways to keep our costs down, to be fleet of foot and thrifty and responsible,” he said, adding that he and McAlpin don’t anticipate breaking even financially on the building for the first five years. Godsey said he has been able to outfit the space with used items, including theater seats, lighting instruments, curtains and even a sound system. “Open Space is homemade, and so it has all of those idiosyncrasies,” he said. “We’re working in Island mode.” That’s a quality that suits many community members just fine.
Martin Koenig, who has an extensive background in arts presentation both on the Island and in New York City, had high praise for Open Space — and Godsey and McAlpin.
“They are community-minded, they have high artistic values, they are filling a void on the Island ... and they’re doing it without millions of dollars,” Koenig said. “They’ve made a gift to the community.”
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD, Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber Staff [email protected] or 206-463-9195 0
'Manufactured Landscapes' at Luna
Open Space brings theater magic to town
Acclaimed poet will slam at the Open Space | 文学 |
2016-44/2143/en_head.json.gz/23168 | You are here: Home » An Irish ‘Special Artist’ with the Army of the Potomac
January 5, 2011 | 4 Comments
An Irish ‘Special Artist’ with the Army of the Potomac
The 3rd June 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly captured the role of the Special Artist in the Civil War: The soldiers are marching home, and with them the noble army of artists. There never was a war before of which the varying details, the striking and picturesque scenes, the sieges, charges, and battles by land and sea have been presented to the eye of the world by the most skillful and devoted artists. They have made the weary marches and the dangerous voyages. They have shared the soldiers’ fare; they have ridden and waded, and climbed and floundered, always trusting in lead pencils and keeping their paper dry. When the battle began, they were there.(1)
Halt of Wilcox's Troops in Caroline Street previous to going into Battle, 13th December 1862 (Arthur Lumley, Library of Congress)
One of the very first of these artists was Irishman Arthur Lumley. He was born in Dublin in 1837 and emigrated to the United States while still a child. Settling in Brooklyn, New York, he entered the National Academy of Design in the 1850s to study art. At the age of 21 he became a US Citizen. He began to illustrate for books, and spent the pre-war years engaged in works for titles such as The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson and Wild Life; or Adventures of the Frontier. (2)
A Sutler's tent near H.Q., August 1862 (Arthur Lumley, Library of Congress)
The outbreak of war found him working for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. In April of 1861 Leslie sent Lumley to Washington D.C. to become the first Special Artist attached to what became the Union Army of the Potomac. He was an eyewitness to Bull Run, the first battle of the war, of which he produced a number of sketches showing the initial Federal success and subsequent retreat. 1862 found Lumley with the New York Illustrated News, who published no less than 298 of his wartime illustrations. (3)
Building 'corderoy' roads from Belle Plain to Fredericksburgh (Arthur Lumley, Library of Congress)
The life of a Special Artist was not an easy one. They experienced many of the hardships of frontline troops, and during battle had to sketch the action as quickly as possible. These men often received no credit for the publicized image, which could be significantly altered and adapted prior to release. Lumley managed to do this at some of the most horrendous engagements of the war, such as Antietam and Fredericksburg. In addition he sent back reports of the events he witnessed, which helped the illustrated papers to communicate to their readers the particulars of the war.
Breaking up the camps of the Army of the Potomac, February 1863 (Arthur Lumley, Library of Congress)
Not all of the artist’s images would make it to final publication, and indeed some would never make it as far as the editor’s desk. Brigadier-General Alpheus S. Williams was pleased with the sketch that Lumley made of his division wading across the Rapidan during the Chancellorsville Campaign of 1863, but noted that the Irishman lost his entire portfolio of sketches in the defeat and retreat that followed. (4)
Bringing wounded soldiers to the cars after the Battle of Seven Pines, 3rd June 1862 (Arthur Lumley, Library of Congress)
Lumley had a productive career as an artist, and during his life he also worked for publications such as Harper’s Weekly, The London Illustrated News, La Monde Illustrate and Fine Arts. In his later life he would turn to painting, particularly landscape work and portraits. He did not have any family and spent his final months in the Mary Fisher Home in Mount Vernon, New York, where he died aged 75 on 27th September 1912. (4) Although his life has not been the subject of major study, he has nonetheless left a lasting legacy in some of the finest and most important surviving sketches of life and death during the American Civil War. (1) Time Magazine 1961; (2) Gallagher 2007, New York Times obituary 1912; (3) Gallagher 2007, New York Times obituary 1912; (4) Sears 1996: 164; (5) New York Times obituary 1912
References & Further Reading
Gallagher, Sheila 2007. Artist Biography: Arthur Lumley
Sears, Stephen W. 1996. Chancellorsville
New York Times 28th September 1912 ‘Arthur Lumley Artist Dies’
Time Magazine 17th February 1961 ‘Artist-Journalists of the Civil War’
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
New York Times Archive 1851- 1980
The Becker Collection
Moore, James 1865. Kilpatrick and our Cavalry. (Illustrations by Arthur Lumley)
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated History of the Civil War (with Illustrations by Arthur Lumley amongst others)
Tags: Alpheus S. Williams, American Civil War, Artist, Harper's Weekly, National Academy of Design, New York Illustrated, New York Times, United StatesCategories: Illustration, Non Combatant
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4 Comments on “An Irish ‘Special Artist’ with the Army of the Potomac”
Reply R. Mahoney
I have an oil painting by Arthur Lumley of what appears to be a Civil War officer after a night of card playing and eating and drinking- Can anyone help me to identify who this could be? The face looks strikingly similar to Gen. Irvin McDowell of Bull Run/Battle of Manassas fame, a battle which Mr. Lumley was present with his work. Is there a catalog of Mr. Lumley’s paintings? Thank you for any help that you could be to me.
Reply Damian Shiels
Thanks for the comment! What a fantastic image to have- I would love to see it! I am not aware of any full catalogue of his work but it might be worth getting in touch with the Becker Collection to see can they help out at http://idesweb.bc.edu/becker/ I am sure they could provide some good advice- I would be interested in finding out how you got on!
Damian.
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The ‘Peacemakers’& the American Civil War – comics in wartime propaganda -
[…] illustrators such as Thomas Nast, and especially classical painters such as Winslow Homer and Arthur Lumley — This is a critical consideration, as it represents classical art being adapted for new mass […] | 文学 |
2016-44/2144/en_head.json.gz/15 | Morning News Calender Photo Contest! Friday night football scores Craft fair You are hereHome » Author got start in grade school
Author got start in grade school BLACKFOOT — When he was in sixth grade, Kirby Jonas fell in love with writing.
Jonas, a Pocatello firefighter, was at Stinkin' Cute signing his latest novel, "The Secret of Two Hawks" on Saturday. It is his 11th book.
Kirby said a teacher in Shelley, whose name he doesn't remember, assigned his students to write a short story. He wrote four words, including "stream," as a possible theme.
"I thought "stream," I can write a Western story about that," Jonas said. He did, the teacher liked it and Jonas' career as an author began. "From then on, I had the urge.
"I used to read a lot of Louis L'Amour books," Jonas said of his love of Westerns.
He wrote his first novel while he was a junior in high school. It was set in Arizona.
After serving an LDS Church mission to France, Jonas moved to Arizona and began researching archives. His first three novels are set there.
Research, Jonas said, is an important element of believable story-telling.
"I go to the archives, the newspapers, for the time period I've decided to set my stories in," he said. "I pay attention to the ads, too, because they add authenticity."
For instance, he said, he discovered an ad for oleomargarine in an 1885 newspaper and mentioned that product in one of his books.
A graduate of Shelley High School and the grandson of former Bingham County Sheriff Arch Hess, Jonas dreamed of becoming a game warden or a lawman while growing up.
He worked for Idaho Fish and Game for awhile, then, with the encouragement of a Soda Springs Police Chief, he attended the police academy at Idaho State University.
Then came three years of service with the Pocatello Police Department before he changed to the fire service. He has served with the Pocatello Fire Department for 20 years.
"It was a neat job," he said of his time with the police force, "but, with 6-year-old kids (displaying their dislike for policemen), I decided it wasn't my bag."
Jonas found a publisher for his first two books, but has since self-published once he understood his market.
Jonas said he hopes to have another book ready by March of 2013.
It normally takes him about a year to produce each novel, he said. That time includes time to do the research, develop the plot and to weave his story.
Jonas is proud that his books are appropriate to all ages.
"My books are clean," he said. "Anybody from your 9-year-old to your grandma can read them without blushing."
His wife Debbie works with him in their publishing endeavors. They have been married for 24 years and have four children.
During Saturday's book-signing, several people told Jonas how much they or family members enjoyed his stories. | 文学 |
2016-44/2144/en_head.json.gz/105 | Comments from Scott
Riviera Theatre
Here is a list of all of the architectural tours by the Chicago Architectural Foundation. The tours for neighborhoods and theaters are spotty, so there may not be anything available for next weekend. You may have to go on your own. Have fun!
http://www.architecture.org/tours.aspx
I just found a postcard showing the Pantheon theater from about 1918. It was an imposing structure with, what looked to be statues along the top edge of the roof. It is such a shame that Uptown has lost many of these grand buildings. That area is now just a jumble of fast-food restaurants and parking lots.
It is too bad that photos cannot be posted onto this site, otherwise I would add the postcard image.
The Y-intersection you mention across the street from the Riviera has been given a huge restoration and make-over the past 5 years. There were three connected buildings that made the Goldblatt’s department store from the 1930s until the late 1990s. At that point, the masonry building toward the south was torn down and rebuilt as condos (it is a shame because that beautiful building should have been restored). The middle building and corner building toward the north were restored and turned into a Borders bookstore and more condos.
The Buena Memorial church was at the Y-intersection you mention at Montrose and Broadway. That building had a structural flaw and the roof collapsed in the mid-1990s. The remaining walls of the church were torn down and the lot sat empty for years. Just recently, a non-descript condo building was built on the site. It is too bad, because that site deserves a building that is architecturally significant like the old church.
I checked again and I was able to see the 1924 photo. In the 1957 photo, there is a Peter Pan clothing store on the first floor retail space.
I am so happy that the Riviera theater never was “modernized!”
What is the story on the bar on the main floor in the Riviera? It looks old, but it cannot be older the the 1980s. Was it just designed to go with the rest of the interior?
I agree, this renovation is better than any of us could have expected for this building. You are right about the windows. Also, the window details are too thin when compared with the originals. I wish that contemporary window manufacturers could duplicate the thicknesses used on vintage windows. It would make restoration projects look much better.
BW, I tried to open your photos from your Dec. 3 comment, but it says that I need permission to view them (this is after signing into Yahoo). Can you tell me how to view the photos.
By the way, the Jewel at Broadway and Montrose has a great photograph of the Riviera building from about 1957. It shows all of the details perfectly. Until I saw this photo, I assumed that the facade was put up sometime in the 1930s, but it was put up after 1957. From the photo, the building does not look like it was in bad condition. I guess they wanted to “modernize” it.
Sheridan Theatre
The last incarnation of the Sheridan Theater was as a Mexican movie theater called the Palacio. I am not sure when it stopped being used as a synagogue, but it was the Palacio by the time I moved into the neighborhood. The Palacio closed sometime in the early 1990s and the building was boarded up. It was constantly being broken into and used by vagrants. And, from what I understand a human torso left over from a murder was found in the building. By the 1990s, It was hard to make out how beautiful the building had been because most of the original terra cotta had been covered with marble or granite slabs to make it into a synagogue. In fact, there were menorah symbols carved on the stone around the entrance. It was not until the building was being torn down that you could once again see the original terra cotta and the building’s splendor.
“Rehabbers” or developers dismantling or covering up decorative details on historic buildings is a classic scenario Chicago. When parapet walls need to be rebuilt or terra cotta needs to be repaired, many building owners take the least-expensive way out and remove or cover these details. Soon, no one realizes how beautiful these buildings once were and they eventually get torn down. One of my favorite recent Chicago preservation success stories is the Riveria Building at Lawrence and Broadway. This beautiful masonry and terra cotta building was covered with a glass and steel structure in the late 1950s. When they covered the building, any terra cotta details that stuck off beyond the surface were literally “shaved” down. This building looked like a wreck during the past 10 years and surely was a prime candidate to be torn down. Fortunately, a bank decided to move into the building and they removed the glass facade and restored the exterior with new brick and terra cotta. The only detail they did not restore was a terra cotta cap along the edge of the roof line.
I am so happy they renovated the Riviera Building. In fact, I am shocked that this happened. I always assumed this building eventually would be torn down because it looked so far gone.
My only regret is that they did not replace the terra cotta detail that was originally along the top edge of the roof. Other than that, the renovation is spot-on.
Mode Theatre
When I first moved to Chicago in 1985, I looked at an apartment at 3934 Sheridan! You’re right, the L came way to close to the apartments. So, I had to pass and find another place.
Let me know when you post that film. It will be fun to see!
Actually Charles, Daley and the alderman still have all of the power. You will note that even though there was a neighborhood meeting, and many people protested the condo development, the Rowland Funeral Home was torn down. I went to meetings when they were deciding what to do with lot for the recently torn-down Sheridan Theater. The alderman wanted a senior citizens home to go on the site. She actually bussed seniors into the meeting so they could argue with many of the neighborhood residents who wanted some other type of building to go into the site.
There was a recent series of articles in the Chicago Tribune about how the alderman get much of their campaign funds from developers who want to change zoning codes and get permission to build whatever they want, even if the residents do not want it.
In fact, when the neighborhood was down and out in the 1960s and 70s, two huge high rise subsidized buildings were built right on Buena and the street behind my building. So, there are now two 20-story buildings in a neighborhood of 2 to 4 story buildings. These buildings look absolutely ridiculous, they block the sun, they create their own wind tunnel effect, and they have ruined the scale of the neighborhood forever. All thanks to whatever brilliant alderman was in office at the time.
On a brighter note, I went to the Ace hardware store today, that is across the street from the Mode theater. I was delighted to find that a grocery store and fruit market still exists at 3942 Sheridan, right under the L tracks. It’s amazing that this address has been a small grocery store since the 1930s. 3944-46, the address of the old Sheridan Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge still exists as the Sheridan “L” Lounge and Liquor Store. It’s in sorry shape, but the facade still has broken pieces of the black Vitrolite that I am sure was there when it was a restaurant.
You can see the Sheridan Restaurant postcard on the compassrose blog. I will post a photo of the 3942 Sheridan grocery store advertising thermometer soon.
Charles, I went to the neighborhood meetings when the developer was seeking permission to tear down the Rowland Funeral Home for condos. Many people wanted to see the old house saved, since it was last remaining mansion on the Sheridan from the 1880s and 90s. Of course, those favoring the condos said that the house had little historic significance and was not worth saving. From your last visit to the neighborhood, you know who won that battle.
Is the St. Mary of the Lake convent to the north of the church? As far as I know, it is still a convent, but I will have to check the next time I drive by (maybe this afternoon).
Does anyone know what was on the southwest and northeast corners of Buena and Broadway. The northeast corner is now a parking lot. The southwest corner is a KFC, that recently closed (they say that condos are going to be built there). All I know is that what probably was once a vibrant corner is now a visual mess. At least the Broadena building is still on the northwest corner. I would love to see that building rehabbed someday. It has a lot of nice terra cotta details.
Yes, in the Hutchinson historic district (the area surrounded by Broadway, Montrose, Buena and Marine Drive) there is a large group of mansions that somehow escaped the ravages of time. They sell for between 2 to 3 million dollars, or more, when they come up for sale, but nowhere near the amount they would fetch if they were located in another area.
This area is officially part of Uptown, but called Buena Park. Before it was annexed into Chicago, it was part of the town, or village, called Lakeview. It was an grand area, with the Montrose Clarendon beach, the beautiful US Marine Hospital. The Frank Lloyd Wright Husser house, was built in 1899 on Buena at the lake. I am not sure when it was torn down, but it certainly wasn’t around for long.
I own a huge 3-flat building on Buena Avenue that was built in 1907. From what I have found out, it was one of the first apartment buildings built in the neighborhood. It’s a beautiful, grand building, but was a harbinger of how the neighborhood was about to change from single residences to apartment buildings. By the 1920s, apartment buildings were springing up everywhere in the neighborhood, and many of the old mansions (although at that point they were only 20 to 40 years old) were being torn down in the name of progress.
You’re welcome. I think the best link is the arial view of Uptown and Buena Park from 1936. It’s amazing what kind of detail you can see.
Charles and Sharon: Here are a few links that will get your heart pumping about Uptown’s history…
http://uptownhistory.compassrose.org
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org
Thanks for the information, Sharon. Actually, Biasetti’s was still open until a few years ago, when it closed and reopened as the Cordis Brother’s restaurant.
It’s sorry to say that the last vestige of the Chateau area is the Chateau Hotel. From the reviews that I have read online, it’s nothing but a bug and drug infested dive.
BW, thanks for your post on the Philips-Overland dealership. Do you have any photos of the building from that time?
I have always thought that the Nick’s Uptown looked like an auto dealership. After the dealership closed, it must have become the Cairo restaurant. When the building to the north was torn down to make way for Howard Brown, I took photos of the Cairo restaurant sign that was painted on the side of the Egyptian building. If I find the photos (they are missing in my many piles), I will post them.
I did not grow up in the area, and I am too young to remember when the Mode was open, but I have been collecting postcards from Uptown and Lakeview businesses from the 1910s through the 1960s. My goal is to piece together the business history of the area through postcards and brochures.
The Chateau area that has been mentioned probably refers to the corner where Sheridan and Clarendon Avenue came together. There was a huge English tudor style courtyard apartment building at that corner with tennis courts, a conservatory and lagoon. That building was torn down and replaced with a Chicago park district building and park. In the early 1930s, the Chateau Hotel was built at 3838 Broadway. That building is still there and exists as an SRO.
At 3944-46 Sheridan Road, there was the Sheridan Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge. The postcard I have, which looks like it’s from the mid- to late-1940s, says that the restaurant had been in business for over 40 years. That address no longer exists, but it seems like it was almost at the southwest corner of Sheridan and Irving Park Road.
One door south, at 3942 Sheridan Road, there was the Chicago Fruit Market. I have a advertising thermometer from that store. It says the store was a member of Grocerland and they sold all kinds of fruits, vegetables and fancy groceries. Their number was LAKeview 7406.
North of Irving Park Road, in the building where Nick’s Uptown is today, there was a place called the Cairo Restaurant. The building has some very distinctive Egyptian terra cotta details. About 10 years ago, they tore down a building next door, and you could easily see a painted sign for the restaurant. It looks like it was from the 1920s.
Across the street from the Sheridan theater, and just a little farther north, there was the Hotel Stratford at 4131 Sheridan Road. The postcard I have says it was an elegantly furnished hotel of 200 rooms situated in the finest section of uptown Chicago. Convenient to all transportation. Bathing beach nearby. This building is still there, but it is now a rehabilitation center.
Nortown Theater under demolition
I know that it is hard to find use for these big, old theaters, but it just broke my heart to see the Nortown get torn down this summer. Another Chicago landmark gone forever.
It was kind of scary going into the Mode Theater building when it was in the final stages of demolition, but I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. There was not much left by the time I got in there to take the photos. I wanted to try to remove the top of the remaining column, but there was no way I could get to it without making a public spectacle of myself.
I spent a lot of time in the Sheridan Theater, the summer that it was torn down, and it was an amazing experience. I was able to get quite a lot of plaster and terra-cotta goodies (the pieces that Architectural Artifacts left behind). It still makes me sad every time I drive down Sheridan and see the Ruth Shermer retirement building (that is what was built on the site).
I added a few more Mode Theater demolition photos to the file, so check them out. The link is two posts above this one.
Here are some photos of the Mode Theater as it was being torn down. It was a very sad summer to see that building come down. Another victim of urban development.
I have lived in Buena Park for 17 years and have seen both the Sheridan Theater and the Mode Theater torn down.
The Sheridan was torn down after the alderman decided that the site would be better served by a generic-looking senior citizen’s building. It took over 6 months to tear down the impressive building. During that time most of the important terra-cotta was removed by Architectural Artifacts, including the huge frieze at the top of the building. I managed to salvage many pieces of decorative plaster and terra-cotta. However, my biggest thrill was be able to roam throughout the building (dangerous, I know) as it was being torn down. Early in the dismantling process, it was possible to go up into the catwalk surrounding the suspended plastic ceiling. The orchestra pit and the dressing rooms were still intact. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. But, I recall being extremely sad realizing that this landmark building would be no more.
I took many photos of the building as it was being torn down, but I will have to locate them. They are packed away in storage.
The Mode Theater was located to the south of Irving Park Road on Sheridan Road—about two blocks from the Sheridan. In its later years, it was a Mexican grocery store. However, you could still tell that it had been a theater at a previous time. This theater was much smaller than the Sheridan, so it was probably easier to convert to another business.
This theater was torn down about 2 years ago to make way for a luxury condo development. I was able to take some photos of the structure after the grocery store effects had been removed. You could still see many of the details from the original theater. Another sad day. Here are some photos that I took of the building as it was being torn down.
I am sure that this theater was called something other than Mode in its early years. Does anyone know the name? | 文学 |
2016-44/2144/en_head.json.gz/271 | Boston's Art Museums Offer Free Admission To Provide A 'Place Of Respite' By Linda Holmes
Apr 16, 2013 ShareTwitter Facebook Google+ Email The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston is offering free admission Tuesday.
Lisa Poole
Originally published on April 16, 2013 3:11 pm UPDATE, 4:08 p.m.: In addition to the institutions mentioned below, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has announced that admission will be free on Wednesday, April 17. At least two art museums in Boston, the Museum Of Fine Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art, have announced that admission on Tuesday will be free as a service to a city still dealing with the trauma of the explosions Monday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Admission to the MFA is normally $23-25, while admission to the ICA is normally $10-15. According to its website, the MFA is currently featuring exhibitions of samurai armor, Bruce Davidson's photographs of East Harlem in the 1960s, and Paul Cezanne's The Large Bathers, on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among many, many other offerings. The ICA, meanwhile, has an exhibit featuring San Francisco graffiti artist Barry McGee and an installation by visual artist Haegue Yang that incorporates trees as well as sculptures and collages. Both museums announced the day of free admission on Twitter in similar terms: The MFA said, "The MFA will be free today. We hope the Museum will be a place of respite for our community." The ICA said, "ICA admission is free for all visitors today. We hope the museum will offer a place of community & reflection." They hashtagged their announcement, "#WeAreBoston." The decision is reminiscent of one made by some New York museums after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Back then, NPR's Susan Stamberg reflected on the issue of art as a source of comfort after she visited the Phillips Collection in Washington, where the arrival of some of the elements for an exhibition of French paintings had been delayed by the airport restrictions in place at the time. While not all the planned works were there, Stamberg had this to say: What is on display is a cornucopia of 19th-century beauty — and, yes, comfort. Paintings from museums and collectors in Paris, Orleans, Amsterdam, Boston, St. Louis, Denver — so many places. Paintings by the French masters — bruised pears and an exuberance of flowers by Courbet, two white Manet peonies in close-up that swirl like satin ballgowns. Van Gogh is there: Tahitian oranges that look as if Gauguin painted them with sunset; and moonlight colors some Cezanne apples. Simple objects we all know — plums, onions, a paring knife, shoes — celebrated in oil paint by artists who were making revolution with their quick brush strokes. Seeing them now is a reminder of the ordinary things that make up and pleasure our lives — and, through art, last. Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. © 2016 KMUW | 文学 |
2016-44/2144/en_head.json.gz/340 | Review The Muslim Jesus By Tarif
Review: The Muslim Jesus By Tarif Khalidi Essay, Research Paper Jesus the prophet The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature Tarif Khalidi
Review: The Muslim Jesus By Tarif Khalidi Essay, Research Paper Jesus the prophet The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature Tarif Khalidi 224pp, Harvard Fatehpur Sikri is the ruined Mughal capital built by the emperor Akbar just outside Agra at the end of the 16th century. At its centre lies the Buland Darwaza or Gate of Victory, one of the great masterpieces of Indian architecture and the most imposing monument in the city. A towering archway topped with lines of minars and chattri cupolas, it exudes the sort of refined arrogance that defines Muslim architecture at its most self-confident and imperial. It is about the last place on earth you would expect to find an overtly Christian inscription. But emblazoned all the way around the arch is a panel of kufic script which reads: “Jesus, Son of Mary (on whom be peace) said: The World is a Bridge, pass over it, but build no houses upon it. He who hopes for a day, may hope for eternity; but the World endures but an hour. Spend it in prayer, for the rest is unseen.” Sixteen years ago, as a backpacker on my first trip to India, I remember standing in front of the panel, puzzling over the translation given in my dog-eared Lonely Planet. It was doubly surprising: not only did it seem odd to find an apparently Christian quotation given centre stage in a major Muslim monument, but the quotation itself was totally unfamiliar. It sounded like the sort of thing Jesus might have said, but I certainly couldn’t remember hearing any reading in which Christ had said the world was like a bridge – which I thought was a shame because it was a nice image, and certainly one that appealed to an itinerant backpacker. But even if the quote was authentic, why would a Muslim emperor want to place such a phrase over the entrance to the main mosque in his capital city? Weren’t Christians always regarded as the enemies and rivals of the Muslims – and vice versa? A copy of Tarif Khalidi’s The Muslim Jesus would have answered all those questions. For as Khalidi makes clear, the aphorism is only one of several hundred sayings and stories of Jesus that fill Arabic and Islamic literature. There is no one source. Some derive from the four canonical gospels, others from now rejected early Christian apocrypha like the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, others again from the wider Helleno-Christian culture-compost of the near east – possibly authentic sayings and stories, in other words, which Islam has retained but which western Christianity has lost. There are also some aphorisms that were clearly written much later in a Muslim environment – probably eighth-century Iraq – which portray Jesus reincarnated in the somewhat surprising garb of a Muslim prophet who reads the Koran and goes on hajj to Mecca. Whatever their origin, these sayings of Jesus circulated around the Muslim world from Spain to China, and many are still familiar to educated Muslims today. They fill out and augment the profoundly reverential picture of Christ painted in the Koran, in which Jesus is called the Messiah, the Messenger, the Prophet, Word and Spirit of God, though – in common with many currents of heterodox Christian thought in the early Christian period – his outright divinity is questioned. Nevertheless, the Koran calls Christians the “nearest in love” to Muslims, whom it instructs in Surah 29 to “dispute not with the People of the Book [that is, the Jews and Christians] save in the most courteous manner”, and to tell them: “We believe in what has been sent down to us and what has been sent down to you; our God and your God is one.” The Jesus of the Sayings – or what Khalidi calls the Muslim Gospel – is a figure subtly distinct from the Jesus of the Gospels. As in the Gospels, he is seen as a healer and a miracle-worker as well as a model of good conduct, renowned for his gentleness and his compassion. But he is also portrayed as the Lord of Nature, a sort of souped-up St Francis figure who can talk with animals and command the hills and stones to obey him. First and foremost, however, the Muslim Jesus is the patron saint of asceticism, who renounces the world, lives in abandoned ruins, identifies with the poor and champions the virtues of poverty, humility, silence and patience. “Jesus was a constant traveller in the land,” reads one saying, “never abiding in a house or a village. His clothing consisted of a cloak made of coarse hair or camel stub. Whenever night fell, his lamp was the moonlight, his shade the blackness of the night, his bed the earth, his pillow a stone, his food the plants of the fields.” “Jesus used to eat the leaves of the trees,” reads another, “dress in hair shirts, and sleep wherever night found him. He had no child who might die, no house which might fall into ruin; nor did he save his lunch for his dinner or his dinner for his lunch. He used to say, ‘Each day brings with it its own sustenance.’” In this ascetic role, he is seen as a sort of Sufi grandmaster, what Khalidi calls “the Prophet of the Soul par excellence – understanding the mysteries of the heart and its innermost nature beyond the reach of human intellect”. The Muslim Jesus is as fascinating as it is timely. The sayings are remarkable and often beautiful literary artifacts in their own right; but more importantly, they demonstrate that the links that bind Christianity and Islam are much deeper, more complex, and far more intricately woven, that most of us would expect. Indeed, the relationship between these two Middle Eastern religions as portrayed in these sayings seems at times so porous and syncretic that the occasional confrontations between the two begin to appear more like a civil war between two different streams of the same tradition than any essential clash of incompatible civilisations. When the early Byzantines were first confronted by the Prophet’s armies in the seventh century, they assumed that Islam was merely a variant form of Christianity. In many ways, they were not far wrong: Islam accepts much of the Old and New Testaments, obeys the Mosaic laws about circumcision and ablutions, and venerates both Jesus and the ancient Jewish prophets. The early life of Muhammad relates how, when Muhammad entered Mecca in triumph and ordered the destruction of all idols and images, he came upon a picture of the Virgin and Child inside the Kaíba. Reverently covering the icon with his cloak, he ordered all other images to be destroyed, but the image of the Madonna to be looked on as sacrosanct. It was a tradition that was carried on by his successors. When the first caliph, Abu Bakr, stood on the borders of Syria, he gave very specific instructions to his soldiers. “In the desert,” he said, “you will find monks who have secluded themselves in cells; let them alone, for they have secluded themselves for the sake of God.” As late as AD649 a Nestorian bishop wrote: “These Arabs fight not against our Christian religion; nay, rather they defend our faith, they revere our priests and saints, and they make gifts to our churches and monasteries.” Sadly, the recent demonisation of Islam in Christendom, and deep and growing resentment felt in the Islamic world against the Christian west, has created an atmosphere where few on either side are still aware of, or even wish to be aware of, this deep kinship between Christianity and Islam. As Khalidi says in his thoughtful introduction: “Amid the current tensions between Christianity and Islam, it is salutary to remind ourselves of an age and a tradition when Christianity and Islam were more open to one another, more aware of and reliant on each other’s witness.” The Muslim Jesus, reminding us as it does of Islam’s “intense devotion, reverence and love” for Christ, goes a long way also to remind us of the profound links between these two Middle Eastern faiths. Now of all times, it should be welcomed as a book of the greatest importance.
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Capturing & Preserving Memories – Paintings by Artist Kristin Texeira
My creativity has been slightly lacking as of late. I tend to dip in and out of a creative streak, and at this moment in time I feel like I’ve hit a particular plateau. I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t be successful in your creative endeavours without constant application of self. You have to take time out and dedicate yourself to the process, a consistent effort to do work even when you’re not necessarily feeling up to it. So I’ve started to make my schedule fit around the creative aspects of my work, which in turn drew me to this work by American artist Kristin Texeira.
Kristin lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her paintings are vibrant and abstract, using contrasting colours to depict certain moments in her life. Although not physical representations of the memory itself, she uses blocks of paint, collage, sketching and writing to retell the stories from her point of view. Retelling stories in such a way is interesting because I think it’s a simple starting point for any budding artist. All you need to do is pick up a set of paints and put some strokes down on a canvas. Obviously Kristin and her own style and aesthetic taste that she’s developed over many years, but the simplicity in her idea is still evident and is very inspiring to see. Personally, I like her use of colour, but I also sense the graphical nature of the work and it reminds me of those vintage posters and other media that Charles and Ray Eames were producing in their prime. Simple shapes with bright colours, you can’t really go wrong. I hope you like these and will view more of her work on her website, she’s a real talent.
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by Mark Robinson
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2016-44/2144/en_head.json.gz/666 | The Art Institute of Chicago Home > Exhibitions > Winslow Homer: Behind the Scenes > Resources > Resource details
Overview: Homer's The Water Fan An overview of Homer's artistic work in the Bahamas and his ability to capture, with watercolors, the brilliant reflection of the tropical sun on the warm waters of the Caribbean.
Book: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
Art Institute of Chicago. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in The Art Institute of Chicago. Art Institute of Chicago, 2000, p. 97. In The Water Fan, Winslow Homer captured the brilliant reflection of the tropical sun on the warm waters of the Caribbean. He achieved this effect with an economy of means—a simple composition and a limited palette—but his expert handling of watercolor gives the image subtlety and strength. To convey the glassy depths of the water, Homer exploited the natural translucence of his medium, layering thin washes of blue. He added tints of gray, highlights of white, and saturated strokes of pure, bright pigment over the delicate wash. He used the same range of hues in the sky, incorporating the off-white of the bare paper into his color scheme. The dazzling white of the fisherman’s shirt provides a stunning contrast to the rest of the composition’s tranquil blue tonality, while a more subtle note is struck by the pale piece of coral in the prow of the boat, the "water fan" that gives the image its name. Homer first visited the Bahamas in the winter of 1884–85, stopping in Nassau and Cuba, where the luminous skies and turquoise seas added a new dimension to his work in watercolor. He returned to Nassau in December 1898 and, during a two-month sojourn, painted many of the subjects that immediately intrigued him: lush vegetation, seaside vistas, and fishermen working along the shore. In terms of color and light, Homer’s later Bahamian watercolors suggest a sensuous departure from the hard realism of the marine scenes he produced at home in Prout’s Neck, Maine. But the monumentality of the figure in The Water Fan—strong, solid, and purposeful—reveals that Homer discerned the same epic sensibility in Caribbean fishermen that he respected in the men who fished the North Atlantic. About Contact Image Licensing Terms of Use SAIC Employment E-news © 2013 The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60603-6404
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2016-44/2144/en_head.json.gz/684 | Martina Arroyo (Soprano)
Born: February 2, 1937 - New York City, New York, USA
Martina Arroyo is an operatic soprano of Puerto Rican and African-American descent who had a major international opera career during the 1960�s through the 1980�s. She was part of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve wide success and is viewed as part of an instrumental group of performers who helped break down the barriers of racial prejudice in the opera world.
Arroyo first rose to prominence at the Zürich Opera between 1963-1965, after which she was one of the Metropolitan Opera's leading sopranos between 1965 and 1978. During her years at the Metropolitan Opera she was also a regular presence at the world's best opera houses, performing on the stages of La Scala, Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Colón, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the San Francisco Opera to name just a few. She is best known for her performances of the Italian spinto repertoire and in particular her portrayals of Verdi and Puccini heroines. Her last opera performance was in 1991, after which she has devoted her time to teaching singing on the faculties of various universities in the USA and Europe.
Early Life and Education
Martina Arroyo was born in New York City, the younger of two children of Demetrio Arroyo, an immigrant from Puerto Rico, and Lucille Washington, a native of Charleston, South Carolina. Her older brother grew up to become a Baptist minister. The family lived in Harlem near St. Nicholas Avenue and 111th Street. Demetrio was a mechanical engineer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and earned a good salary which enabled Arroyo's mother to stay at home with their children. His job also allowed the family to experience New York's fine cultural offerings and the family frequented museums, concerts, and the theatre. It was attending several performances of Broadway shows during the 1940s that first inspired Arroyo's interest in becoming a performer. Her mother humored her dreams and allowed Arroyo to take ballet classes. Her mother was also a talented amateur classical pianist and taught her daughter to play the instrument. Arroyo's other musical experiences as a child were largely through singing in the choirs at her Baptist church and as a student at Hunter College High School.
After finishing high school in 1953, Martina Arroyo attended Hunter College where she earned a B.A. in Romance languages in 1956 at the young age of 19. While there she studied voice as a hobby in an opera workshop with Joseph Turnau. Turnau recognized that Martina was a major talent that just needed proper training, and, after the workshop ended, he introduced her to voice instructor Marinka Gurewich. Gurewich immediately took Arroyo on as a student but she did not take her training as seriously as Gurewich wanted and Gurewich eventually threatened to end their lessons. Gurewich's threat, however, forced her to take her studies more seriously and she continued to study with her until Gurewich's death in 1990. Another important partnership formed around this time was with concert manager Thea Dispeker who, after attending one of Arroyo's recitals, offered her services at no charge until Arroyo's career took off. Dispeker helped manage much of Arroyo's career over the next several decades.
After graduating from college, Martina Arroyo was faced with the difficulty of working while trying to study singing. Under the advice of her mother, she became an English teacher at Bronx High School in the Fall of 1956 but found it difficult to balance her teaching responsibilities with continued training under Gurewich. She decided to leave her teaching position and take work as a social worker at the East End Welfare Center. For two years, she managed a case load of over 100 welfare recipients while continuing her voice training. In 1957 Martina Arroyo auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera but was not accepted. Somewhat disheartened, Arroyo flirted with the idea of becoming an academic and began working on a Masters degree in comparative literature at New York University with a dissertation on Ignacio Silone's Pane e Vino and Vino e Pane. The following year she competed in and won the Metropolitan Opera's Audition of the Air competition (pre-cursor to the National Council Auditions), earning a $1,000 cash prize and a scholarship to the Met's Kathryn Long School. She dropped out of NYU and entered the Kathryn Long School in the Fall of 1957 where she studied singing, drama, German, English diction, and fencing. While at the school, she was offered the role of the First coryphée in the American premiere of Ildebrando Pizzetti's Murder in the Cathedral to be performed at a festival in upstate New York. The concert, however, was rained out and was rescheduled for a performance at Carnegie Hall instead on September 17, 1958. The performance marked Arroyo's first professional appearance singing in an opera. The New York Times said of her performance, "Martina Arroyo is a gifted soprano who appears to have remarkable potential, and she sang with a voice of amplitude and lovely color."
In February 1959 Martina Arroyo sang the title role in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride in a concert version with the Little Orchestra Society at Town Hall. Shortly thereafter she made her debut on the opera stage at the Metropolitan Opera as the Celestial Voice in Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo on March 14, 1959 with Eugenio Fernandi in the title role, Leonie Rysanek as Elizabeth, Robert Merrill as Rodrigo, and Nell Rankin as Princess Eboli. This was the beginning of a long association with the Met and the beginning of a lengthy career on the opera stage.
Musical Career
After having made her Met debut, Martina Arroyo moved to Europe where she began to appear in roles with minor opera houses in 1959. While performing in Italy of that year she met her future husband, professional violist Emilio Poggioni. Over the next several years Arroyo worked mostly in Europe in mostly smaller roles, failing to land the larger name-making roles. Those larger parts which she did get were mostly in more obscure works. During 1961 and 1962 she went back and forth between Europe and the Metropilitan Opera frequently, with her roles at the Met during this period being in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and in reprisals of Don Carlo. Her roles in the Der Ring des Nibelungen included the Third Norn and Woglinde in R. Wagner's Götterdämmerung, Woglinde in R. Wagner's Das Rheingold, Ortlinde in Wagner's Die Walküre, and the Forest Bird in Siegfried.
In 1963 her first major break came when she was offered a contract to join the Zürich Opera as a principle soprano. She made her debut there in the title role of Verdi's Aida where she was received enthusiastically. She continued to sing regularly at that opera house through 1968.
Aida became an important role for Martina Arroyo early in her career, serving as a calling card for her at many major opera houses during the 1960�s. She sang the role for her first appearance at the Hamburg State Opera in 1963 and at both the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Vienna State Opera in 1964. In February of the following year she sang Aida in her first starring role at the Met as a last minute replacement for Birgit Nilsson. The performance received rave reviews with The New York Times praising Arroyo as "one of the most gorgeous voices before the public today." Rudolph Bing, the Met's director, immediately offered her a contract to join the roster of the company's principle sopranos which extended for several years.
Martina Arroyo began the 1965-1966 season at the Met in October with a critically acclaimed performance of Elizabeth in Don Carlo. She immediately became a favorite singer at that house portraying mostly Verdi heroines and the Met became her principle home from that point up until 1978. Her other roles at the Met during these 13 years included Aida, Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, Cio-Cio-San in Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butter, Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Elvira in Verdi's Ernani, Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth, Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore, Leonora in Verdi's La forza del destino, Liù in Puccini's Turandot, Maddalena in Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier, Santuzza in Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, and the title role in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda among others. She was also notably the first black person to portray the role of Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin in 1968, not just at the Met, but in all of opera history.
During her years at the Met, Martina Arroyo would frequently travel to perform at other houses both in the USA and internationally. In 1968 she sang for the first time in Israel and made her first appearance in the UK as Valentine in a London concert performance of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. Later that year she made her debut at the Royal Opera at Covent Garden and the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company, both singing the role of Aida. She returned to both companies a number of times during the 1970�s as Verdi heroines and in parts like the title roles in Puccini's Tosca and Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. She sang Amelia in Un ballo in maschera for her debuts with both the San Francisco Opera (1971) and the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972). She returned to Chicago to sing her first Amelia Grimaldi in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra in 1974. In 1972 she sang Aida for her debut at La Scala opposite Plácido Domingo as Radames. In 1973 she made her first appearances at the Opéra National de Paris and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In 1977 she made her debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia portraying Senta in Wagner's The Flying Dutchman and in 1979 made her debut with Michigan Opera Theatre as Lenora in Il trovatore. She remained very busy in the world's major opera houses through 1979 singing mostly Verdi, Puccini, and Strauss heroines and other roles from the lirico-spinto repertoire.
Famous for her interpretations of Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and Mozart, Martina Arroyo has had the honor of three opening night performances at the Metropolitan Opera, two of them in consecutive seasons. At ease with contemporary music, she has premiered works of William Bolcom and Carlo Franci and was chosen to present the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Andromache's Farewell as well as Karlheinz Stockhausen�s Momente. She later recorded both pieces and performed them throughout the USA and Europe.
By 1980, Martina Arroyo's career had started to slow down and she was much more selective in what roles she chose to take. She returned to the Met in 1986 to sing Aida and Santuzza; making her last appearance and 199th performance at that house on October 31, 1986. In 1987 she sang her last portrayal of the title role in Turandot with the Seattle Opera and in 1989 she announced her retirement from the opera stage. She came out of retirement in 1991 for one last performance in the world premiere of Leslie Adams's Blake, an opera whose story is set in pre-Civil War America when slavery was still a reality.
Throughout her carer Martina Arroyo was also a frequent performer of the concert repertoire and appeared with many of the world's leading symphony orchestras. She performed often with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Leonard Bernstein who particularly admired her voice in such repertoire as L.v. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis.
Martina Arroyo is a recipient of a 2010 Opera Honors Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Having performed in the major opera houses and with the greatest symphony orchestras of the world, Martina Arroyo has left a legacy of more than 50 recordings, including major operas and orchestral works with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Karl Böhm, Rafael Kubelík, Zubin Mehta, Thomas Schippers, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, James Levine and Colin Davis.
Her recordings of Verdi's Messa da requiem, Aïda (La Scala, Munich and Teatro Colón), Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino (in both the standard and the 1862 revised versions) and I vespri siciliani; Mozart's Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira for Karl Böhm and Donna Anna for Sir Colin Davis); L.v. Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony; George Frideric Handel's Judas Maccabeus (twice) and Samson; Gustav Mahler's massive Eighth Symphony (the Symphony of a Thousand); Rossini's Stabat Mater and Arnold Schoenberg�s Gurrelieder have all been recently reissued on CD.
She has also recorded important 20th century music, including Arnold Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder and Carlo Franci's African Oratorio and two works she "created" in their world premieres: Karlheinz Stockhausen's Momente and Samuel Barber's Andromache's Farewell.
Martina Arroyo's discography (which also includes an aria recital), though enviable, does not encompass anything like the full range of roles she essayed onstage. At the Metropolitan Opera alone, these are the operas she performed but never recorded commercially: Verdi's Ernani, Macbeth, Il trovatore, Don Carlos (the Celestial Voice as well as Elizabeth, both in Italian), and Aida; Wagner's Lohengrin and Der Ring des Nibelungen (featured roles in all four operas); Ponchielli's La Gioconda; Giordano's Andrea Chénier; and Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Turandot (as Liù; she played the title role in Toronto).
Teaching Career
Since her official retirement from singing in 1989 Martina Arroyo has amassed significant teaching credits She has taught at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Delaware, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, as well as the International Sommerakademie-Mozarteum in Salzburg and the School of Music of Indiana University where she remains Distinguished Professor of Music Emerita. She has also served on the Harvard College Board of Overseers for the Department of Music.
Appointed in 1976 by President Gerald Ford, Martina Arroyo served on the National Endowment for the Arts Washington, D.C. for six years and continues to participate as an invited panelist and moderator. In addition, she remains actively associated with the National Council on the Arts as an Ambassador for the Arts. She sits on the Board of Directors of Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Opera Guild, and The Collegiate Chorale, as well as The Voice Foundation, which presented her with the V.E.R.A award in 2006.
A Trustee Emerita of the Hunter College Foundation, she has also served as an artistic advisor of the Harlem School of the Arts, the Singers Development Foundation, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, among others. In 2002 Martina Arroyo was inducted as a Fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Amici di Verdi in London, Citizens Committee for New York City and Opera Index are a few of the many other groups that have honored her.
Martina Arroyo has served as an adjudicator of many prestigious international competitions such as the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium, George London Competition, the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.
Having delighted television and radio audiences with ovtwenty appearances on the Tonight Show on NBC-TV, she is a frequent guest and moderator on radio�s Singers Roundtable, the live intermission feature of the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera.
While she continues to present master-classes and lectures at many institutions throughout the world, she is most passionate about the program she created in New York City. In 2003, she established The Martina Arroyo Foundation in order to offer a structured curriculum, focusing on the study and preparation of complete operatic roles, to emerging young artists at the inception of their professional careers. Whether as educator or performer of operatic roles, song literature or contemporary music, Martina Arroyo continues to share her superb artistry with the public.
With Dr. Willard L. Boyd, former President of the University of Iowa, she co-authored the Task Force Report on Music Education in the U.S.
Source: Martina Arroyo Website (2009); Wikipedia Website (October 2010)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (October 2010)
Paul Boepple
Martina Arroyo | Opera Singer | Spinto Soprano (Official Website)
Amartina Arroyo Foundation
2010 National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors recipient Martina Arroyo
Martina Arroyo (Wikipedia)
Martina Arroyo (Encyclopedia of World Biography)
Extravagant Crowd: Martina Arroyo
Martina Arroyo (Answers.com)
Last update: �July 8, 2012 �12:23:52 | 文学 |
2014-35/0960/en_head.json.gz/8398 | Hard-boiled, two-fisted, whodunnits and noir. Items 1 to 10 of 250 total Show
Name Price Winter's Bone
Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. Learn More
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In trouble more often than not, guilty of assault, manslaughter, and honorably discharged from the military by the skin of his teeth, David "Bugs" McKenna can't seem to help doing the right thing at the wrong time--or the wrong thing, every chance he gets.
White Jazz: A Novel
Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns--it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer--a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire. Learn More
When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories
Elmore Leonard, a literary icon praised by The New York Times Book Review as "the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever," has captured the imagination of millions of readers with his more than three dozen books. Learn More
What The Dead Know: A Novel (mmpb)
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Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. Learn More
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In this gripping novel of motherhood gone awry, Lionel Shriver approaches the tragedy of a high-school massacre from the point of view of the killer's mother. Learn More
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From Rob Thomas, the creator of the television series and movie phenomenon Veronica Mars, comes the first book in a thrilling mystery series that picks up where the feature film left off. Learn More
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Turn of Mind $15.00 Add to Cart
A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia, Turn of Mind has already received worldwide attention. Learn More | 文学 |
2014-35/0960/en_head.json.gz/8431 | The Gift of Christmas (Harlequin Bestselling Author Series) by
Debbie Macomber,
Linda Goodnight
Overview PEACE ON EARTH
And good will to men. Especially one man—Cooper Masters. But Ashley Robbins would like to be the recipient of more than good will from him
. This year Ashley has finished her education, launched her career and affirmed her faith. And she's now in a position to pay Cooper back the money he lent her for college. She's achieved all her goals—except one, and it has to do with Cooper, the man she ...
Paperback (Mass Market Paperback)
The Gift of Christmas (Harlequin Bestselling Author Series) (Mass Market Paperback)
The Gift of Christmas (Mass Market Paperback)
The Gift of Christmas (Large Prin)
Marriage Between Friends:...Debbie Macomber
Dark Witch (Cousins O'Dwyer...Nora Roberts
Starry Night: A Christmas NovelDebbie Macomber
Christmas in Snowflake Canyon...RaeAnne Thayne
Secret SantaFern Michaels
The Perfect MatchKristan Higgins
The Trouble with ChristmasDebbie Mason
Christmas on Main StreetJoAnn Ross
Season of AngelsDebbie Macomber
Seaview Inn (Seaview Key...Sherryl Woods
And good will to men. Especially one man—Cooper Masters. But Ashley Robbins would like to be the recipient of more than good will from him
.
This year Ashley has finished her education, launched her career and affirmed her faith. And she's now in a position to pay Cooper back the money he lent her for college. She's achieved all her goals—except one, and it has to do with Cooper, the man she fell in love with years ago. The man whose love she craves.
Cooper gave her the gift of her education and Ashley would like to return the favor—and offer him her love. But the greatest gift she can give him this Christmas is her own knowledge of God's love
.
Harlequin Bestselling Author Series Format: Mass Market PaperbackPages: 448Sales rank: 308,671Product dimensions: 4.14 (w) x 6.18 (h) x 1.21 (d)
Love Letters (Rose Harbor Series #3)
Love Letters (Signed Book) (Rose Harbor Series #3)
Rose Harbor in Bloom (Rose Harbor Series #2)
Ready for Romance
The Inn at Rose Harbor (Rose Harbor Series #1)
Debbie Macomber, with more than 100 million copies of her books sold worldwide, is one of today's most popular authors. The #1 New York Times bestselling author is best known for her ability to create compelling characters and bring their stories to life in her books. Debbie is a regular resident on numerous bestseller lists, including the New York Times (70 times and counting), USA TODAY (currently 67 times) and Publishers Weekly (47 times). Visit her at www.DebbieMacomber.com.
Winner of the RITA Award for excellence in fiction, Linda Goodnight has won various other highly acclaimed awards, and her romance novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. A country girl, she lives in Oklahoma. Readers may contact her through her website: www.lindagoodnight.com
Publishing did not come easy to self-described "creative speller" Debbie Macomber. When Macomber decided to follow her dreams of becoming a bestselling novelist, she had a lot of obstacles in her path. For starters, Macomber is dyslexic. On top of this, she had only a high school degree, four young children at home, and absolutely no connections in the publishing world. If there's one thing you can say about Debbie Macomber, however, it is that she does not give up. She rented a typewriter and started writing, determined to break into the world of romance fiction. The years went on and the rejection letters piled up. Her family was living on a shoestring budget, and Debbie was beginning to think that her dreams of being a novelist might never be fulfilled. She began writing for magazines to earn some extra money, and she eventually saved up enough to attend a romance writer's conference with three hundred other aspiring novelists. The organizers of the conference picked ten manuscripts to review in a group critique session. Debbie was thrilled to learn that her manuscript would be one of the novels discussed. Her excitement quickly faded when an editor from Harlequin tore her manuscript to pieces in front of the crowded room, evoking peals of laughter from the assembled writers. Afterwards, Macomber approached the editor and asked her what she could do to improve her novel. "Throw it away," the editor suggested. Many writers would have given up right then and there, but not Macomber. The deeply religious Macomber took a lesson from Job and gathered strength from adversity. She returned home and mailed one last manuscript to Silhouette, a publisher of romance novels. "It cost $10 to mail it off," Macomber told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2000. "My husband was out of work at this time, in Alaska, trying to find a job. The children and I were living on his $250-a-week unemployment, and I can't tell you what $10 was to us at that time." It turned out to be the best $10 Macomber ever spent. In 1984, Silhouette published her novel, Heartsong. (Incidentally, although Heartsong was Macomber's first sale, she actually published another book, Starlight, before Heartsong went to print.) Heartsong went on to become the first romance novel to ever be reviewed in Publishers Weekly, and Macomber was finally on her way. Today, Macomber is one of the most widely read authors in America. A regular on the New York Times bestseller charts, she is best known for her Cedar Cove novels, a heartwarming story sequence set in a small town in Washington state, and for her Knitting Books series, featuring a group of women who patronize a Seattle yarn store. In addition, her backlist of early romances, including several contemporary Westerns, has been reissued with great success. Macomber has made a successful transition from conventional romance to the somewhat more flexible genre known as "women's fiction." "I was at a point in my life where I found it difficult to identify with a 25-year-old heroine," Macomber said in an interview with ContemporaryRomanceWriters.com. "I found that I wanted to write more about the friendships women share with each other." To judge from her avid, ever-increasing fan base, Debbie's readers heartily approve.
Some outtakes from our interview with Macomber: "I'm dyslexic, although they didn't have a word for it when I was in grade school. The teachers said I had 'word blindness.' I've always been a creative speller and never achieved good grades in school. I graduated from high school but didn't have the opportunity to attend college, so I did what young women my age did at the time -- I married. I was a teenager, and Wayne and I (now married nearly 37 years) had four children in five years." "I'm a yarnaholic. That means I have more yarn stashed away than any one person could possibly use in three or four lifetimes. There's something inspiring about yarn that makes me feel I could never have enough. Often I'll go into my yarn room (yes, room!) and just hold skeins of yarn and dream about projects. It's a comforting thing to do." "My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers -- it's what my children call my ‘dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few." "I'm morning person, and rip into the day with a half-mile swim (FYI: a half mile is a whole lot farther in the water than it is on land) at the local pool before I head into the office, arriving before eight. It takes me until nine or ten to read through all of the guest book entries from my web site and the mail before I go upstairs to the turret where I do my writing. Yes, I write in a turret -- is that romantic, or what? I started blogging last September and really enjoy sharing bits and pieces of my life with my readers. Once I'm home for the day, I cook dinner, trying out new recipes. Along with cooking, I also enjoy eating, especially when the meal is accompanied by a glass of good wine. Wayne and I take particular pleasure in sampling eastern Washington State wines (since we were both born and raised in that part of the state). Read More
Port Orchard, Washington
Yakima, Washington
Graduated from high school in 1966; attended community college
http://www.debbiemacomber.com
Ashley Robbins clenched her hands together as she sat in a plush velvet chair ten stories up in a Seattle high-rise. The cashier's check to Cooper Masters was in her purse. Rather than mail him the money, Ashley had impulsively decided to deliver it herself.
People moved about her, in and out of doors, as she thoughtfully watched their actions. Curious glances darted her way. She had never been one to blend into the background. Over the years she'd wondered if it was the striking ash blond hair that attracted attention, or her outrageous choice of clothes. Today, however, since she was meeting Cooper, she'd dressed conservatively. Never shy, she was a hit in the classroom, using techniques that had others shaking their heads in wonder. But no one doubted that she was the most popular teacher at John Knox Christian High School. Cooper had made that possible. No one knew he had loaned her the money to complete her studies. Not even Claudia, her best friend and Cooper's niece.
Ashley and Cooper were the godparents to John, Claudia's older boy. Being linked to Cooper had pleased Ashley more than her friend suspected. She'd been secretly in love with him since she was sixteen. It amazed her that no one had guessed during those ten years, least of all Cooper.
"Mr. Masters will see you now," his receptionist informed her.
Ashley smiled her appreciation and followed the attractive woman through the heavy oak door.
"Ashley." Cooper stood and strode to the front of his desk. "What a pleasant surprise."
"Hello, Cooper." He'd changed over the last six months since she'd seen him. Streaks of silver ran through his hair, and tiny lines fanned out from his eyes. But it would take more than years to disguise his strongly marked features. He wasn't a compellingly handsome man, not in the traditional sense, but seeing him again stirred familiar feelings of admiration and appreciation for all he'd done for her.
"Sit down, please." He indicated a chair not unlike the one she'd recently vacated. "What can I do for you? Any problems?"
She responded with a slight shake of her head. He had always been generous with her. Deep down, she doubted that there was anything she couldn't ask of this man, although she didn't expect any more favors, and he was probably aware of that.
"Everything's fine." She didn't meet his eyes as she opened the clasp of her purse and took out the check. "I wanted to personally give you this." Extending her arm, she handed him the check. "I owe you so much, it seemed almost rude to put it in the mail." The satisfaction of paying off the loan was secondary to the opportunity of seeing Cooper again. If she'd been honest with herself, she would have admitted she was hungry for the sight of him. After all these months she'd been looking for an excuse.
He glanced at the check and seemed to notice the amount. Two dark brows arched with surprise. "This satisfies the loan," he said thoughtfully. Half turning, he placed the check in the center of the large wooden desk. "Your mother tells me you've taken a second job?" The intonation in his voice made the statement a question.
"You see her more often than I do," she said in an attempt to evade the question. Her mother had been the Masters' cook and housekeeper from the time Ashley was a child.
He regarded her steadily, and although she could read no emotion in his eyes, she felt his irritation. "Was it necessary to pay this off as quickly as possible?"
"Fast? I've owed you this money for over four years." She laughed lightly. Someone had once told her that her laugh was one of the most appealing things about her. Sweet, gentle, melodic. She chanced a look at Cooper, whose cool dark eyes revealed nothing.
"I didn't care if you ever paid me back. I certainly didn't expect you'd half kill yourself to return it."
The displeasure in his voice surprised her. Taken aback, she watched as he stalked to the far corner of the office, putting as much distance between them as possible. Was it pride that had driven her to pay him back as quickly as possible? Maybe, but she doubted it. The loan to finish her schooling had been the answer to long, difficult prayers. From the time she'd been accepted into the University of Washington, she had attended on faith. Faith that God would supply the money for books and tuition. Faith that if God wanted her to obtain her teaching degree, then He would meet her needs. And He had. In the beginning things had worked well. She roomed with Claudia and managed two part-time jobs. But when Claudia and Seth got married, she was forced to find other accommodations, which quickly drained her funds. Cooper's offer had been completely unexpected. The loan had come at a time when she'd been hopeless and had been preparing to withdraw from classes. They'd never discussed terms, but surely he'd known she intended to repay him.
A tentative smile brushed her lips. She'd thought he would be pleased. His reaction amazed her. She attempted to keep her voice level as she assured him, "It was the honorable thing to do."
"But it wasn't necessary," he answered, turning back to her.
Again she experienced the familiar twinge of awareness that only Cooper Masters was capable of stirring within her.
"It was for me," she countered quickly.
"It wasn't necessary," he repeated in a flat tone.
Ashley released a slow breath. "We could go on like this all day. I didn't mean to offend you, I only came here today because I wanted to show my appreciation."
He stared back at her, then slowly nodded. "I understand."
Silence stretched between them.
"Have you heard from Claudia and Seth?" he asked after a while.
Ashley smiled. They had so little in common that whenever they were together that the conversation invariably centered around Claudia and their godson. "The last I heard she said something about coming down for Christmas."
"I hope they do." His intercom buzzed, and he leaned over and pressed a button on the phone. "Yes, Gloria?"
"Mr. Benson is here."
Taking her cue, Ashley stood. "I won't keep you." Her fingers brushed her wool skirt. She'd been hoping he would notice the new outfit and comment. He hadn't. "Thank you again. I guess you know that I wouldn't have been able to finish school without your help."
"I was wondering
" Cooper moved to her side, his look slightly uneasy, as if he was unsure of himself. "I mean, I can understand if you'd rather not."
"Rather not what?" She couldn't remember him ever acting with anything but supreme confidence. In control of himself and every situation.
"Have dinner with me. A small celebration for paying off the loan."
"I'd like that very much. Anytime." Her heart soared at the suggestion; she wasn't sure how she managed to keep her voice level.
"Tonight at seven?"
"Wonderful. Should I wear something
formal?" It wouldn't hurt to ask, and he hadn't mentioned where he intended they dine.
"Dress comfortably."
"Great."
An hour later Ashley's heart still refused to beat at a normal pace. This was the first time Cooper had asked her out or given any indication he would like to see her socially. The man was difficult to understand, always had been. Even Claudia didn't fully know him; she saw him as dignified, predictable and overly concerned with respectability. In some ways he was, but through the years Ashley had seen past that facade. He might be refined, and sometimes overly proper, but he was a man who'd been forced to take on heavy responsibility at an early age. There had been little time for fun or frivolity in his life. Ashley wanted to be the one to change that. She loved him. Her mother claimed that opposites attract, and after meeting Cooper, Ashley had never doubted the truth of that statement.
Ashley chose to wear her finest designer jeans, knowing she looked good. At five foot nine, she was all legs. Her pink sweatshirt contained a starburst of sequins that extended to the ends of the full length sleeves. Her hair was styled in a casual perm, and soft curls reached her shoulders. Her perfume was a fragrance Cooper had given her the previous Christmas. Although not imaginative, the gift had pleased her immeasurably, even though he hadn't given it to her personally, but to her mother, who'd passed it on. When she'd phoned to thank him, his response had been clipped and vaguely ill-at-ease. Politely, he'd assured her that it was his duty, since they were John's godparents. He'd also told her he'd sent the same fragrance to Claudia. Ashley had hung up the phone feeling deflated. The next time she'd seen him had been in June, when her mother had gone to the hospital for surgery. Cooper had come for a visit at the same time Ashley had arrived. Standing on opposite sides of the bed, her sleeping mother between them, Ashley had hungrily drunk in the sight of him. Their short conversation had been carried on in hushed tones, and after a while they hadn't spoken at all. Afterward he'd had coffee out of a machine, and she'd sipped fruit juice as they sat talking in the waiting area at the end of the corridor. She hadn't seen him again until today.
Over the months she had dated several men, and she'd recently been seeing Dennis Webb, another teacher, on a steady basis. But no one had ever attracted her the way Cooper did. Whenever a pensive mood overtook her, she recognized how pointless that attraction was. Whole universes stretched between them, both social and economic. For Ashley, loving Cooper Masters was as impossible as understanding income tax forms.
The doorbell chimed precisely at seven. Claudia had claimed that she could set her watch by Cooper. If he said seven, he would arrive exactly at seven.
A sense of panic filled Ashley as she glanced at her wristwatch. It couldn't possibly be that time already, could it? With one red cowboy boot on and the other lying on the carpet, she looked around frantically. The laundry still hadn't been put away. Quickly she hobbled across the floor and shoved the basket full of folded clean clothes into the entryway closet, then closed the door with her back as she conducted a sweeping inspection of the apartment. Expelling a calming sigh, she forced herself to smile casually as she opened the door.
He greeted her with a warm look, that gradually faded as he handed her a florist's box.
To Cooper, apparently informal meant a three-piece suit and flowers. Glancing down at her jeans and sweatshirt, one cowboy boot on, the other missing, she smiled weakly and felt wretched. "Thank you." She took the small white box. "Sit down, please." Hurrying ahead of him, she fluffed up the pillows at the end of the sofa, then hugged one to her stomach. "I'm running a little late tonight. If you'll give me a few minutes I'll change clothes."
"You look fine just the way you are," he murmured, glancing at his watch.
What he was really saying, she realized, was that they would be late for their reservation if she took the time to change clothes. After glancing down at the hot pink sweatshirt, she raised her gaze to meet his. "You're sure? It'll only take a minute."
His nod seemed determined. Self-conscious, embarrassed and angry with herself, Ashley sat at the opposite end of the sofa and slipped her foot into the other boot. After tucking in her denim pant leg, she sat up and reached for the florist's box. A lovely white orchid was nestled in a bed of sheer green paper. A gasp of pleasure escaped her.
"Oh, Cooper," she murmured, feeling close to tears. No one had ever given her an orchid. "Thank you."
"Since I didn't know the color of your dress
" He paused to correct himself. "
your outfit
this seemed appropriate." He remained standing, studying her. "It's the type women wear on their wrist."
As Ashley lifted the orchid from the box, its gentle fragrance drifted pleasantly to her. "I'm always having to thank you, Cooper. You've been very good to me."
He dismissed her appreciation with a hard shake of his head. "Nonsense."
She knew that further discussion would only embarrass them both. Standing, she glanced at the closet door, knowing nothing would induce her to open it and expose her folded underwear to Cooper. "I'll get my purse and we can go."
"You might want to wear a coat," he suggested. "I heard something about the possibility of snow over the radio this afternoon."
"Yes, of course." If he remained standing exactly as he was, she might be able to open the door just enough to slip her hand in and jerk her faux fur jacket off the hanger. Somehow she managed it. Turning, she noted that Cooper was regarding her curiously. Rather than fabricate a wild excuse about why she couldn't open the closet all the way, she decided to say nothing.
He took the coat from her grasp, holding it open for her to slip her arms into the sleeves. It seemed as if his hands lingered longer than necessary on her shoulders, but it could have been her imagination. He had never been one to display affection openly.
"Where are we going?" she asked, and her voice trembled slightly, affected by even the most impersonal touch.
"I chose an Italian restaurant not far from here. I hope that suits you."
"Sounds delicious. I love Italian food." Her tastes in food were wide and varied, but it wouldn't have mattered. If he had suggested hot dogs, she would have been thrilled. The idea of Cooper eating anything with his fingers produced a quivering smile. If he noticed it, he said nothing.
Cooper parked outside the small, family-owned restaurant and came around to her side of the car, opening the door for her. It was apparent when they were seated that he had never been there before. The thought flashed through her mind that he didn't want to be seen with her where he might be recognized.
But she quickly dismissed the idea. If he didn't want to be with her, then he wouldn't have asked her out. Those thoughts were unworthy of Cooper, who had always been good to her.
"Is everything all right?" As he stared across the table at her, a frown drew his brows together.
"Yes, of course." She looked down at her menu, guiltily forcing a smile on her face. "I wonder how long it'll be before we know if Claudia will be coming for Christmas," she said, hoping to resume the even flow of conversation.
"Time's getting close. I imagine we'll know soon."
Thanksgiving was the following weekend, but Christmas displays were already up in stores; some had shown up as early as Halloween. Doubtless Seth and Claudia would let them know by the end of next week. The prospect of sharing the holiday with her friend—and therefore Cooper—produced a glow of happiness inside Ashley.
The waiter took their order, then promptly delivered their fresh green salads.
"It's been exceptionally chilly for this time of the year," Cooper commented, lifting his fork, his gaze centered on his plate.
Ashley thought it was a sad commentary that their only common ground consisted of Claudia and the weather. "Yes, it has." She looked up to note that a veiled look had come over his features. Perhaps he was thinking the same thing.
Not Macomber's best Christmas offering. Never really identified
Not Macomber's best Christmas offering. Never really identified with or cared about the characters or story line. However, the bonus story by Linda Goodnight was much better. Glad it was included; made the book worth reading. | 文学 |
2014-35/0960/en_head.json.gz/8557 | Show Me the Errors
Show Me the Errors invites readers to join the editing staff of ColumbiaMissourian.com and have an opportunity to win prizes. In this contest, readers will earn points for every error they find in online content at ColumbiaMissourian.com – whether that be a subject-verb agreement mistake, a misspelling or an erroneous pronoun usage. If you are an exceptionally eagle-eyed reader who wants to generously point out more than one error per story, that’s great. But only one point will be awarded per person for each submitted online entry.
Every month, the names of all participants will be entered into a drawing – one entry for each submission to the contest, and one name will be drawn from the pool to select the winner. The winner will receive a Missourian T-shirt and a copy of "The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson.
The contest is for factual errors only, not opinions or comments. If you want to submit a comment, please return to the story and follow the directions there.
Please be civil and refrain from profanities and name-calling; in other words, don't say anything you wouldn't otherwise say in public.
The Show Me the Errors contest is not open to Missourian employees. | 文学 |
2014-35/0960/en_head.json.gz/8559 | TV Vet Jeff Kline Pursues Comics Passion with IDW's Darby Pop Imprint
Tue, December 17th, 2013 at 12:58pm PST
Updated: December 17th, 2013 at 12:58pm Comic Books
Albert Ching, Managing Editor
Jeff Kline has had a long, successful career in animation, working as a producer and writer on shows including "Extreme Ghostbusters," "Dragon Tales" and, most recently, "Transformers: Prime" and "Transformers: Rescue Bots." And with about 20 years of TV experience to his credit, he's now set to enter another entertainment field for the very first time: comic books. He's behind IDW Publishing's freshly launched Darby Pop imprint, which debuted last week with "Indestructible" #1.
But while Kline is a comic book newcomer, he's enlisted a true veteran as Darby Pop's editor-in-chief -- David Wohl, the former Top Cow president who's also worked as an editor and writer at Marvel, Radical and Aspen Comics.
Comic book fans have seen their fair share of Hollywood carpetbaggers using the medium as an attempt to get an intellectual property optioned, but Kline is adamant that's not why he started Darby Pop. The three launch books -- "Indestructible," written by Kline and illustrated by Javi Garron and Salvi Garcia; February's "City: Mind in the Machine" written by Eric Garcia and illustrated by Javier Fernandez; and the not-yet solicited "7th Sword, written by John Raffo and illustrated by Nelson Blake II -- all feature creators with connections to film and TV, but Kline says they've brought their ideas to Darby Pop due to a desire to specifically tell comic book stories.
CBR News spoke with Kline and Wohl days before the release of "Indestructible" #1 to discuss what they're hoping to accomplish with Darby Pop, and the long-brewing story that inspired the publisher's launch title. Story continues below CBR News: Jeff, David, the Darby Pop imprint was first announced in July at Comic-Con International in San Diego, and presumably you were working on it for several months before that. How does it feel now, being so close to the line's debut? Darby Pop kicks off its line-up December 18 with "Indestructible" #1 by Jeff Kline and Javi Garron. Variant cover by Bernard Chang
David Wohl: It's really exciting. I'm sure for Jeff it's a little different, being from television, because it takes longer for things to develop and come out. But even for us, we started the process over a year ago. Seeing it come to fruition is very cool. This is the first time I've been with [a company] from the very beginning, to sow the seeds for a whole new publishing entity. It's very exciting to be part of it.
Jeff Kline: It seemed like we had so much time, and now we're just a few days away, and I have no idea where that time went. How did the two of you come together for this project -- Jeff being a newcomer and David with years of experience? Kline: It actually came together just the way you described. I started asking around if friends could introduce me to experienced people in the comic book world, because it was a world I really wanted to get into. Working in television, especially in animation, a lot of the artists I work with work in comics, a lot of the writers I work with work in comics. I was often working on a show that also had a comic book running concurrently to it. It was always a world that I grew up loving and wanted to be a part of; it just never quite worked that way. When I decided last year that it was something I really wanted to dig into, I asked some people, "Who can I meet who would let me ask a lot of really stupid questions?" because I'm so relatively naïve about this world. I talked to a couple of different people, then I got introduced to David, and for as much in this kind of thing it can be love at first sight, it really was. His breadth of experience speaks for itself, but I just felt like we really clicked immediately on what we thought would make a book, what makes for interesting characters -- setting the bar pretty high from the very beginning, and even starting bigger than maybe either of us had ever anticipated. We're at a point now where we're already deep in the mix on books five and six. Wohl: Over the years, people have often come to me to get involved in projects. It could have been a video game that someone wanted to turn into a comic; film people who want to do comics. Usually, there wasn't much affection for the comics industry -- it was more seeing it as some kind of marketing tool. "If there was an existing product, we want to put out a comic to try to stir up some interest, or we want to make a comic so someone will buy it as a film or a TV show."
Prior to meeting Jeff, my assumption was that's what he wanted to do, too. After talking to him for a while, I realized that he really did have a love for comics, something he's had since he was a kid. He sees this is a way to launch these properties, and he wants them to grow. The fact that we're talking about issues #5 and #6 -- most people just want to do their thing and get out. Sometimes the comics don't even come out, because they sell the property as an option, and they are like, "Forget about the comic, we don't care about it anyway." Jeff really impressed me with his willingness to jump into this, and create a publishing entity that we could all be proud of, and let the fans come to us, and stick with us.
EXCLUSIVE: Pages from "Indestructible" #1
Jeff, given your career in television, how much of your time and energy right now is dedicated to the publishing entity?
Wohl: More than he thought it was going to be. [Laughs]
Kline: If the people that employ me in television are reading this, then it's taking very little time. [Laughs] But the reality is, launching a company, especially on the scale we decided we wanted to do it, is pretty much a full-time job. So I have two full-time jobs, and that's OK with me, actually. David, from your perspective as a guy who's worked at editorial positions in several different publishers over the years, what about this feels different to you -- both from your experience, and in what a reader would notice?
Wohl: I really think Jeff brought a fresh eye. When I worked at Top Cow, Marc Silvestri was the head of the company. He's an artist, an amazing artist, and we were a very artist-driven company. I found a lot of guys who have gone on to have some success, we had a bullpen with all these different artists. The art was always the thing that set us apart.
I feel like Jeff has a really cool storytelling sense. When we're developing these properties, it's coming at it from a different angle. A lot of stuff we did at Top Cow looked really good, but sometimes the storytelling was sacrificed for the double-page spread. There's nothing wrong with that, and obviously fans like that, but I feel like here the story is really important. Obviously, we want the art to be great, and we're bringing in a lot of good talent, but we're paying a lot of attention to the story and the storytelling. The way that pages are laid out is coming from a different angle, just making sure that everything is clear, and the stories are interesting enough for people to grab them. I also like the fact that we can start with something totally new. There's no template we're working from. We're trying to create an environment that everyone will want to come to. It's a fun place to work, and there's not much pressure. Everyone has the same goals -- make the books as good as they can be. EXCLUSIVE ART: While Hollywood isn't out of the picture, Darby Pop titles are created as comics, period
There is a lot of comic book material coming out right now, both in print and digital, that it's likely a challenge to ask, "What can we do that's different?" What niche are you looking to fill with the books that you're launching? Wohl: We're not beholden to any particular genre. We're really, intentionally, trying to put out different types of books every time we launch one. Kline: In my TV career, I've always been a believer in, "You do the show that you believe in." The audience either follows or they don't, but that's all you can do. At least you failed admirably. I've never really believed in chasing other shows' trends. For whatever reason, that's never been particularly interesting to me. All of these books that we're in process on right now are driven by a creator with a really cool idea, at least an idea we think is really cool.
Our core team of David and Renae Geerlings, who's our managing editor, and Jason Enright [marketing director], and our development guy Mark Wheeler, we actually all sit around and talk about how passionate we are about this idea, or that idea. It's really only when everybody raises their hand and says, "That's cool, I'd like to read that," that we push a button on it. Wohl: I think that's the difference. We're never trying to chase a trend or anything; we're just doing what we think is cool, and we're hoping once fans pick it up, they'll feel the same. We know it's really competitive, and we don't have an intention of doing a licensed book, which comes with an audience. Our goal is always to grow an audience from the books we put out.
Kline: Quite honestly, we may stumble. David's been pretty honest with me that this can be, at times, a brutal business. We're sort of prepared for that, although we're hoping we're an exception to what's seemed to have been the rule for a lot of smaller companies over the last number of years.
The three titles that have been announced so far all look different in terms of genre, art style, content -- since they are the first three titles for the imprint, do you see some sort of common quality between the three of them that you'd like to see continue throughout the line?
John Raffo and Nelson BLake II's "7th Sword" is one of Darby Pop's launch titles Cover art by Andrew C. Robinson
Kline: From my perspective, they definitely all started with really strong characters put in unusual situations. That is not Earth-shattering, by any means, in the world of storytelling, but it is absolutely the foundation of everything we've got in our plans so far. The one thing they all have in common is a really strong character up against really high odds, in an unusual or slightly twisted world. In all three of the books, there's a little bit of a commentary on society, a little bit of a commentary on where things might be going in the future. I don't know if that's intentional or if we're drawn as a group to that material, but there's definitely something in that.
Wohl: And they're all grounded. There are high concepts in every one of them, but they're all very grounded stories. They're realistic in their way. Even "The 7th Sword," which is futuristic and on a different planet -- the characters, we try to make as real as we can. I feel readers relate to that, more so than things that are so crazily unbelievable. Kline: I'm much more drawn to either a fantastical character in a realistic setting, or a realistic character in a fantastical setting. For whatever reason, I've never been as interested in a fantastical character in a fantastical setting.
You're partnered with IDW. What made them the right choice?
Wohl: I've known [IDW founder/CEO] Ted Adams since I started at Image, probably 20 years. I've watched IDW grow from when it was like three guys, and now it's grown into this big publishing entity. They have a good bookstore presence. There was a very limited number of publishers that we wanted to work with. We toyed with the idea of publishing ourselves, but it's already a lot of work as it is to just work on all of these books and get them out. Having a publisher that's one of the premier Diamond publishers have our backs was important to us. Out of all the publishers out there, IDW just seemed like the one our sensibilities matched with the most.
Kline: I also think we got fortunate in the timing. I've heard IDW mention in interviews and at cons that they were looking to create more of a presence in original material versus licensed material, and we perhaps came along at just the right moment for them.
Wohl: From an editorial standpoint, we pretty much work on our own. We finish the books and then send them to them. Sarah Gaydos, who is our editor over there, proofreads it and gives notes, trying to help us make the story even better. It's been a great experience so far.
Nelson Blake II's subscription variant for "7th Sword" #1
You've addressed that Jeff being a comic book fan was the starting point of this endeavor, but at the same time, when you look at the current industry -- there are about 15 comic book-based TV shows in development right now -- you'd be foolish not to pursue those types of opportunities if possible. Does that figure into your current outlook with Darby Pop? Pursuing projects that could potentially be developed to other mediums?
Wohl: Everyone has to think that. There's a limited amount of success that you could hope for in comics. It seems like if you're looking at "Walking Dead" as a template, that became a TV show, and the comic has just rolled on through it all. It brings new fans to the book. It's cool if you could sell it as a film or a TV show, and get that ancillary top part out there, but it's random. You never know whether that's going to happen or not. I feel like the hope is there, but at the same time, all we're worried about at this moment is making sure the comics are as good as they can be. But I think we'll all be happy if it becomes a film or a TV show.
Kline: Honestly, for better or for worse, I have and continue to have that experience in movie and television. I've been fortunate enough to have a career in those worlds. So for me, I wanted to get into this because it was comic books, not because it was comic books that were going to lead to movies or TV. I could jump over the comic book stuff and get to movies and TV, I wanted to work in comics.
What was the experience like, putting together the three initial launch titles, deciding which creators to talk to and what book to come out of the gate with at the start?
Kline: Quite honestly, when David and I first started talking, we really were talking about maybe just one book. Maybe just "Indestructible," and we see what happens with that, and then maybe we grow it into something more. As I started talking to some of my writer friends from various disciplines -- whether they're novelists or feature writers or TV writers -- and started telling them what I was doing, they started paying a lot more attention to me than they usually do when I speak. One of those guys was Eric Garcia, who's an old friend of mine, a fantastic novelist and movie and TV writer. When I told him what I was doing, he was like, "I want to do that. I've been sitting on this idea for a while, and I would love to do it as a comic book. Actually, I always thought it would make sense as a comic book, but I didn't know how to enter that world." And quite honestly, if you're not in comics, it can seem a little bit like a closed club. Eric Garcia and Javier Fernandez join Darby Pop with the sci-fi "City"Cover by Tommy Lee Edwards
That's how we found our first five or six titles -- it was basically conversations with friends or acquaintances or people we got introduced to. John Raffo happens to have the same manager I do, he's the creator of "7Th Sword." It really grew organically that way -- the more friends we told what we had planned, the more people who were coming to us and saying, "I've go this idea, do you think it would work?"
Wohl: And, unfortunately, I have to turn a lot of them down. [Laughs] But the ones we kept were the ones we all liked and thought would make good comics.
Kline: I think that's really important. We didn't look at them [as], "Oh, this will make a good comic that can become a TV series," or, "This will a good comic that can become a movie." We're mostly dealing with people who've been in that world. They want to make good comics, and that's our primary goal. So, do you see the launch titles representing both of your areas of expertise coming together -- people Jeff knew from his world, and David's years of comic book experience -- blending together?
Wohl: I try to always think about what has worked in the past, and bringing that forward. I really want this to be successful. We're already proud of it, but it'll be great to build a line that fans will come to more and more as they start to have faith in us. At this moment, we're still an unknown quality. It's weird for us; we've been working on it for so long.
Let's talk more about "Indestructible" -- the launch book and the book Jeff is writing -- Jeff, as a lifelong comic book fan, is this an idea that you've had kicking around for a while that you've been waiting for the right way to tell? Kline: That's absolutely what it is. What usually happens is nine out of ten ideas you have go away and you don't really miss them. One of them won't go away. And for me, that's what "Indestructible" has always been. It's an idea that just will not go away, and I had to get it out of my head -- and the best way I could do that was by sharing it with others through comic books. Maybe now it will quiet the voices in my head. [Laughs]
I could put this out there, and everyone else could go, "Yeah, it's not a very good idea." It would make me very sad, but at least I tried. All of Darby Pop's comics are launched with the intent of being ongoing series.
It appears to be a superhero comic that doesn't take itself too seriously, at least based on the initial covers and solicitations.
Kline: For me, it's really important that it's not a spoof. At least the way I define a spoof is, you're making fun of something. And the truth is, I love superhero comics, I don't want to make fun of them. But I feel like there's a lot of humor to be had within the conventions and expectations of a superhero comic book. I tend to read a superhero book and I wonder what goes on between the panels that isn't spoken of. That's kind of what "Indestructible" grew out of. Nobody talks about the fact that if you were a superhero in a world where superheroes existed, and you had the kind of celebrity that a lot of superheroes have, then you probably have an agent. And a manager. Maybe a publicist. And you'd have to do mall openings, and you'd probably have a clothing deal with some manufacturer. Maybe you'd do some advertising. How much of your life would you spend doing that versus helping people and saving lives? If you really don't want to put yourself into too much danger, how can you balance being a superhero and keeping all those perks with not really wanting to get out of bed in the morning? Wohl: I feel like this will be the closest we'll ever get to a superhero book.
Are the launch titles all ongoings? Miniseries? Kline: Everything we're launching at the moment is an ongoing. We're obviously breaking it into arcs, but at the moment we are already in script on issue #6 of "Indestructible," we're in script on issue #5 of "City," we have an outline that takes us through issue #7 of "7th Sword." We're in this for the long haul. The marketplace may speak to us and we may need to change our plans, but for the moment, we're going to move forward as if we're going to have enough success to continue doing what we want to try to do.
Based on this conversation, it seems you're already working on expansions beyond these first three titles.
Kline: We actually have our fourth, fifth and sixth titles already in process.
Do you have an idea at this point how big you'd like the line to be, or is it still to be determined? Wohl: I don't think we'll expand much more beyond that. We'll obviously have new titles, and get a sense of what the fans are liking and what they might not be, and then we'll be able to adjust our line based on that. Kline: I think both David and I feel like we'd like to grow this as big as we are allowed to, and that'll really depend on how many issues of each of our books people buy. David's been at big companies -- the biggest company -- and smaller companies. I don't know if David's been at something quite this small yet, but I'd love to get it to a place where it's Top Cow level, or beyond. That'd be fantastic. TAGS: darby pop, idw publishing, jeff kline, david wohl, indestructible | 文学 |