Eiko on Stage

Book Description

One of the most influential designers of this century draws from a wide range of cultural and historical sources to create images that are provocative, emotional, sometimes shocking, and always beautiful. This new book chronicles nine of her most dynamic stage and screen productions from the past fifteen years, including: Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, M. Butterfly, starring Anthony Hopkins, Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung, and The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez.

In the accompanying text, Eiko takes us into her creative process and the harmonies and discords of her fascinating, explosive collaborations with such artists as Paul Schrader, David Copperfield, and Philip Glass, among many others. In counterpoint, Francis Ford Coppola shares his personal experience of a unique creative collaboration.

Customer Reviews:

One of the most amazing costume resources.......2006-01-06

Covers all the movies she has contributed to and her stage work. A gorgeous presentation, oversized, quality glossy paper, with numerous color photographs and design sketches. If you love Eiko, this is the book for you !

Every page I turned made me gasp in awe. Phew!.......2000-11-03

Let me say at once: this is the most incredible, most beautiful book I own. And I've collected quality illustrated books for years. It stands between Avedon's "Observations" and Damien Hirst's "I want to be with everybody blah blah..." on my (reinforced) bookshelf--and right now it tops either of them in its artistry, design, and sheer beauty.

I'm getting carried away. So... this is a breathtaking journey through 10 of the projects that this artist/ costume designer/ set designer has undertaken in the last fifteen years--in sketches, photographs, and her own narrative--from creating the look of Paul Schrader's Mishima, to dressing Jennifer Lopez in The Cell. Between times, she has lent her incredible vision to theatre, film, opera, and installation art.

I think she's been so successful because she's never compromised her vision. It inspires me (as an artist) to not give in. Eiko Ishioka won an Oscar for her costumes for Dracula. No doubt she'll be nominated again for her work on The Cell. According to the flap text, she has also won a Grammy, and a Cannes Film Festival Award. I expect to see her win an award also for this book--It's as good as any of her big-name, big-budget projects. Good for her!

Book Description

This is the catalog for an exhibition of ninety nineteenth-century photographs drawn primarily from the world-class collection of Michael G. Wilson. Included are the starkly beautiful photographs of Sergeant James McDonald's surveys of Palestine and Jerusalem; recently discovered photographs by Ernest Benecke; and the rare photographs by Maxime Du Camp taken in 1850 as he traveled with Flaubert.
With the invention of photography and the increasing popularity of travel in the mid-nineteenth century, the Holy Land became one of the most photographed places on earth. Interest in Jerusalem and Palestine was particularly pronounced in England, partly because of England's need to control its routes to the riches of India, but also because of Britain's cultural identification with the people and lands of the Bible. Imperial ambition and deeply ingrained cultural associations resulted in a surge of photographic activity in Palestine. McDonald's photographs from surveys of Jerusalem and the Sinai epitomize the dual imperatives of Bible and Empire.
Photography provided a new standard for authenticity in pictorial representations. Early photographs were considered the ultimate bearers of "reality" at a time when viewers had not yet lost their naïve faith in the objective accuracy of photography. Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, the Holy Land drew legions of photographers: amateurs recording a stop on the Grand Tour, academics pursuing archaeological theories, military surveyors--all trying to capture the truthfulness of a land that had enormous spiritual, emotional, and political connotations for most of the Western world. What they saw, and how they saw it, are the themes of this beautifully recorded collection.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful reproduction.......1998-08-02

This catalog of a traveling exhibition beautifully reproduces nearly 100 early photographs, most of Jerusalem and its environs, others of the Sinai Peninsula. The accompanying text puts the photographs in historical context, and discusses the ways in which the choices and treatments of subject reflect both the technological and ideological choices of the photographers. --Aramco World

Customer Reviews:

To "A reader".......2005-06-05

I am sorry for your loss and will make no positioning to state I in any way know how you feel. However, if you had taken the tiny extra bit of time to look at this graphic novel you would have noticed that not a single artist or writer made money on this. It was all a voluntary work basis and all the profits, every last dime, went to charities to help those that lost loved ones in this human atrocity.

Peace be with you.

Hard to keep the moisture from your eyes.......2005-03-24

It is natural to flash back to that fateful day when you read these cartoons. With that in mind, it is hard to keep the moisture out of your eyes. Like everyone else, I was astonished at the fall of the twin towers, it stunned us all in a way that goes to the depth of our being. These are some of the most powerful cartoons that have ever been published. Not necessarily on their own, but in the context of the times, they cannot help but move you.

Heartfelt Tales of September 11th and it's Aftermath.......2002-12-16

There's really not much I can say about this book. The stories contained in it are poignant and touching and heartbreaking and hopeful all at once, and each and every contributor has given not only their time and talent to the project, but clearly they've also given a piece of their hearts. Being born and raised in New York City, the events of September 11th are especially painful to me, but I came away from reading this book feeling just a little more hopeful than I did when I started it. Kudos to all involved for a magnificent effort. (And all of the money goes to a good cause, too!)

Amazing collectable, great read.......2002-07-16

Got this after a desire to collect the 9-11 comics as my ending run in comic collecting, and I must say I am impressed with not only the size of it, but the consitent and diverse work inside. Loads of unfamiliar work that perhaps wouldn't be seen on such a public level with such quality, and at 200 pages for the price its at, its damn good.

The stories themselves? Some make you think. Some make you wonder. All make you remember.

Personal Takes on a Tragic Event.......2002-04-05

The power of the comic book medium is that, by using drawings, they express emotions and reactions that are difficult to put down in words. Due to the extreme nature of this event, this is an excellent way to express what we have all been through.

The most impact is provided by the independent, i.e. non-superhero, writers who express what they went through with pictures and words. From the initial shock to the lingering malaise, the complete cycle is expressed. Reading this book brought back those feelings in me and, even though my emotions were swelling up, I kept reading. This event is now part of our collective experience and we are forever affected by it.

I recommend reading through when you need some perspective on what's important in life. Enjoy life, tell your friends and family that you love them because you never know when it may end.

This review doesn't get too into the content of the book but the impact that it had. As for me, that's the sign of a good read.

Average customer rating:

The writers and artists at DC respond to September 11th

some people need to take it for what the book was for

This is really very disappointing

Hmmm

Chicken Soup for the 9/11 Soul

9-11: September Eleventh, 2001 (Artists Respond)
Neil Gaiman
Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: School & Library Binding
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September 11, 2001

ASIN: 0613508556

Customer Reviews:

The writers and artists at DC respond to September 11th.......2004-01-19

"9-11: September 11, 2001: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember" collects original stories and illustrations from many of the top writers and artists from DC Comics, including Wildstorm, VERTIGO, and "MAD" magazine. But in addition to the likes of and Dan Jurgens, Neal Adams, Jim Lee, Neil Gaiman, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopze, Sergio Aragones, and Joe Kubert, you will also find contributions by Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Richard Corben, and Michael Moorcock. Unfortunately, the book's subtitle echoes badly, because even thought DC had a comic book entitled "World's Finest," which featured Superman and Batman team-ups for the most part, using that phrase to describe your own writers and artists on the same cover where Superman is impressed by those who were heroes on September 11th misses the obvious reason not to toot your own horn.

The volume is divided into section entitled Nightmare, Heroes, Recollections, Unity, and Dreams, which provide a rough thematic organization to the stories. There are stories dealing with what actually happened, such as James Denning and Guy Davis' "Walk," Josh Krach, Scott McDaniel James Pascoe's "The Job." and Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti's "Silver Linings in a Big Dust Cloud"), as well as stories that address the line between comic books and the real world created by 9-11 (e.g., "Unreal," "For Art's Sake" and "If Only"), while a few actually work DC superheroes into the story (e.g., "This, Too, Shall Pass" and Gaiman's "Endless" story, "The Wheel"). Unlike the Marvel universe, where Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers all work out of New York City, the DC superheroes inhabit an alternative, so there was not the need to have Superman, Batman, and the others deal with the destruction of the World Trade Center the way their competition had to. There are also a couple of stories that serve as reminders that there were dogs that were involved in the rescue efforts as well.

One of the other major differences between this and the first volume, which featured work by the talents at Chaos! Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and Image Comics, is that some of these stories are a bit more political. Neal Adams does a splash page supporting the Red Cross that shows Superman holding an American flag with scorch marks and Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves in front of the rescue workers at Ground Zero with the caption: "First Things First. Then We Come For You." Stan Lee and Marie Severin tell "A hitherto undiscovered Aesop's fable" entitled "The Sleeping Giant" whose moral is "Never awaken a sleeping giant!" There are several stories that make an argument for tolerance and objectivity, such as Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, and Prentis Rollins' "Wednesday Afternoon" and Geoff Johns, David S. Goyer, Humberto Romas and Sandra Hope's "A Burning Hate," while Ben Raab, Roger Robinson and Dennis Janke's "A Tale of Two Americans" makes a point about true patriotism. The final word goes to Joe Kubert, who points out "I've lived long enough to see the worst turn into something better."

Yeah, there are some misfires in this collection. "The Firsts Division" and "Spirit" both involve famous dead people, and while the latter is slightly better, neither really works. Paul Levitz and Jim Lee's "The American Dream" has some good points but could have found a better way to get them across than a lecture. But this just makes the simple elegance of Tim Sale's three-paneled page (from an idea by Chuck Kim), where a boy wearing a Superman t-shirt ducks into a telephone booth and changes into a FDNY t-shirt all the more effective. There are enough efforts within these 224 pages to find a few you will really like, and can forget about those you do not.

some people need to take it for what the book was for.......2002-09-12

I am using these two volumes to do my senior thesis and have read the other reviews and am convinced that some reviewers need to BACK OFF. This was written in commemoration for those who had a hard time dealing with the tragedy, not for you to criticize. The artists and comics who made these works did so as a way to understand and as a way to vent. I am sorry, but if you are going to criticize a creative effort to release you have no compassion. Some stories are disturbing, but the whole event was and has been disturbing. I am sure someone is going to think I am waving my flag a little to wildly, but you know what I am just calling it as I see it. Until you spent the day watching from your window as the towers fell down and smoked up the whole city to tell them how to do there job!

This is really very disappointing.......2002-05-01

There are a few really compelling stories here - mostly the ones that focus on the victims and the rescue workers. But there is also, sadly, a great deal of garbage.

There's actually a fair amount of America bashing here. Some stories are patriotic, but, for the most part, the people holding or displaying American flags are protrayed as ignorant bigots.

Now, the artists and writers have every right to express their views. If that sort of thing is your cup of tea, I suspect you'll regard the more anti-American stories as provocative and stimulating. To me, they seemed like more of the same tired cliches I used to hear all the time before 9-11.

There's also a fair amount of the mushy-headedness about Islam which seems popular in this country these days. ...

The worst stories were those that tried to make some sort of political point. In one, an alien shows up and explains why we are all doomed if we don't adopt the Democratic party platform. (I'm really sort of neutral on abortion, but I always have to shake my head when someone starts preaching about the need to take care of the poor, the weak, the children, the elderly, the fish, the birds, the dung beetles, and then insists, even by omission, that destroying a human fetus is just fine.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is a lot of this felt very contrived. The more powerful stories and pictures were the ones where the author/artist was writing/drawing from the heart. The worst were the ones were the author was "moralizing," for a lack of a better word.

Hmmm.......2002-04-20

Firstly - I bought this book. Therefore, my money went towards the funds that helped victims of the atrocities of 11th September. It was the least I could do. (I also signed a book of condolence, but we all know how practically useful _that_ is.)

Secondly, this book is a remarkable ragbag of responses to the attack. One of the striking thing about the 9-11 attack is that it was the first time in nearly 200 years that the US mainland had been attacked. (Pearl Harbour doesn't count because, at the time, Hawaii was not a state of the US, it was still a "dependency" - shorthand for "ex-colony".)

The best responses in this book are the ones that take a, shall we say, dialectical response to the attack - those that at once focus on the innocent victims (cause it was a terrorist attack, and terrorism by nature is aimed at targeting the innocent in order to make the guilty feel guilty) and that also have a longer historical perspective. Because, and I'm almost embarrassed to point this out - the 9-11 attack did not happen because some deluded lunatics somewhere took it into their heads to be mean to Americans. It was the ultimate suicide attack, the nec plus ultra of the recent bombings in Jerusalem.

The best pieces in this book do not merely recognise the heroism of New York firefighters and police personnel - which is a sort of heroism that I, for one, don't doubt. But the facts are, this kind of heroism has been displayed around the world by populations under attack from US-funded or US-trained forces. It's not a very nice fact to have to face, but unless it is faced, there is little chance of events like 9-11 never happening again.

The sad thing is, much of the more ambitious pieces in here rely on "private" tragedy (as if these events had no more significance than the deaths of people in New York) and public jingoism - witness Stan Lee's asinine allegory about sleeping elephants. Stan, if the elephant's population was happy, it's because it had stolen so much from other countries already. Learn a little history.

Those of us who have learned to live with the potential for terrorist attacks on a daily basis are a little less naive than much of the authorship of this book. I grieve as much as anyone else for the dead of 9-11. But I cannot pretend that it isn't the kind of thing that happens around the rest of the world, as a result of the insanely inequal distribution of wealth.

This is a good book. But it is as much symptom as it is diagnosis.

Chicken Soup for the 9/11 Soul.......2002-03-11

Some of the works in this collection are quite good...I especially enjoyed Will Eisner's contribution ("Give me real, people!") and the single panel work of a woman touching the other side of her half empty bed. That was an excellent demonstration on how subtlety can have a much greater impact than a sledgehammer.

By contrast, there's the story written by Stan Lee ("The Sleeping Giant" I believe it's called) which uses a simple animal metaphor to retell 9/11 past, present and possible future. It starts out interesting but never elaborates on 9/11, only simplies it and assumes we can't figure things out for ourselves (such as the terrorist mice wearing "666" T-shirts).

Most of the stories were in between the ones I mentioned. Sometimes the tales are clever and subtle, but usually there's just a small bit of creativity per story.

Granted, I don't think I'm the target audience of this book. If you're looking for stories of hope after the attacks, you might enjoy this book more than I did.

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Comic book illustrators and artists respond to 9-11

9-11: Artists Respond
Will Eisner
Manufacturer: Econo-Clad Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
ASIN: 0613508548

Customer Reviews:

Comic book illustrators and artists respond to 9-11.......2004-01-19

With a cover by "The New Yorker" artist Eric Drooker, "9-11: Artists Respond" features a collection assembled by Chaos! Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics and other publishers offering observations on the events surrounding September 11 by illustrators and comic aritsts. This collection is offered as "a stark exploration of grief and a vivid celebration of life," and includes work by Frank Miller, Trina Robbins, Will Eisner, Robert Smigel, Michael Kupperman, and dozens of others. The volume begins with P. Craig Russell's contemporary illustrations for the famous war poem "In Flanders Field," and ends with Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie thoughtful piece "This is Information." There are stories based on the actual events, such as Paul Chadwick's "Sacrifice" and a story by John Ostrander drawn by Mary Mitchell; stories based on reactions, such as "Please Stand By..." by Jeph Loeb and J. Scott Campbell, Doug Tenapel's "Pop-Greif," and Dave Cooper's "9/12"; as well as allegories by Mark Martin, Dave McKean, and Dave Alvarez.

As you would expect with over 100 pieces you will find those praising the heroes and condemning the terrorists, as well as those that attack the conditions and those who have created a world in which this could happen. There are a number of pieces that are aimed primarily at children to offer comfort and hope. There are a bunch of one page efforts, such as Steve Guaraccia's illustration of the exits on an airplane entitled "This is not a Bomb," as well as stories that are told on one to six pages. Volume II collects original stories and illustrations from many of the top writers and artists from DC Comics. With either volume the attempt to sit down and read the dozens of offerings collected in one sitting is impossible. These are books where you go through a few pieces at a time. Even a couple of years later the sentiments and ideas expressed in these books are worth remembering.

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9-11: Artists Respond, Vol. 1
Dark Horse Comics
Manufacturer: Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Amazon.com

Screening Space, the reprint classic from Rutger's University Press, has been significantly enlarged to update the science fiction film since the early 1980s, examining classic and contemporary sci-fi films as a significant genre. Winner of the 1995 Pilgrim Award, the book examines the differences between the religious themes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the clinical random evil depicted in Event Horizon. Vivian Sobchack's detailed analysis of a wide range of films and inclusion of black-and-white movie stills allows a better understanding of science fiction films as an art form that can often present its characters, a la Blade Runner, as "more human than human."

Customer Reviews:

A standard listing on Sci-fi bibliographies, but an odd hybrid of a book.......2006-10-16

Vivian Sobchack's survey of the Sci-fi film from its beginnings in the silent era through the 1970s remains a standard reference work on the genre. It was originally published in 1980 though later revised and expanded in 1987. Unfortunately, rather than attempt to rewrite the book, she left the 1980 text largely unchanged and instead added a long, new chapter that was different both in methodology and orientation than the three original chapters. The result is a book in which the new chapter has the feel of a not completely successful graft. The final chapter has a "stuck on" feel to it and doesn't really feel compatible with what went on before.

When the original edition of this book was published, it was important for two reasons. First, the genre studies approach to film, which is far more appropriate the evaluation of many films than the auteur criticism that had dominated from the 1950s even to the present, was still in its relative infancy. My own take on matters is that for certain directors with strong personalities, auteur criticism carries a great deal of validity, but that the weaker the director or the less predominant the director, the less help it is. Many film genres require less on the vision of a particular director than the dependence of the director and writer and producer on the history of that genre. Other films in the genre shape and mold and limit what can happen in other examples of the genre. Whether one considers the Western, the Mafia film, film noir, or Sci-fi, a discussion of the genre as a whole can provide considerable insight into any individual example of the genre. This was one of the first academic discussions of Sci-fi within that context. Second, the book was important for being one of the first academic studies that took the Sci-fi film seriously. In the late 1970s, when the original edition of the book was being prepared, Sci-fi was among the least respected genres in the movies. Though 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, STAR WARS, and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND was beginning to change things, Sci-fi was neither critically nor economically successful. Today we are used to the box office dominance of Sci-fi films, but with only two or three major exceptions in the late seventies, this was not the case then. Sobchack's book played a small but definite role in making the Sci-fi film more relevant to film studies.

The first three chapters of the book remain exceptionally helpful in analyzing the crucial nature of Sci-fi films before their emergence as big box office in the eighties and beyond. Many of the films she discusses were staples of Saturday afternoon TV movie slots, which is where I first saw many of them. THE THING, THEM!, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, DESTINATION MOON, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, and a host of other classics get extensive coverage in the book and she spends a great deal of time not only analyzing their essential characteristics but contrasting them with and comparing them to the creature films that were showing at the same time. In doing this Sobchack did her part in helping to establish a canon of Sci-fi films. The discussion takes her in the three original chapters through other classics such as WESTWORLD, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, PLANET OF THE APES, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, SILENT RUNNING, and THX 1138. I had only one quibble with these original three chapters: an artificial decision to discuss only American made films. A number of significant and influential (and their influentiality along made their exclusion arbitrary) British films were left out, including the Quatermass films, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, and others, as well as Jean Luc Goddard's ALPHAVILLE. It also meant that Andrei Tarkovsky's great 1972 Soviet masterpiece, SOLARIS, received no discussion. It also left the very low quality but exceptionally large body of Japanese films out of consideration.

The chapter added in the late 1980s is simply odd. For one thing, she seems to have read and not completely digested the work of Fredric Jameson. I have no complaints with her interest in Jameson, who is perhaps the most important academic of the past thirty years to have shown a sustained interest in Sci-fi. Both THE POLITICAL UNCONSCIOUS and POSTMODERNISM OR, THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM are well-thumbed volumes on my bookshelf. The problem is how dissonant this chapter is with the earlier chapters. It almost feels like the work of an entirely different author. Marxist ideas were completely absent from the first chapter, but predominant in the final one. Moreover, it is as if she hadn't completely interiorized Jameson and Mandel's ideas, but was instead almost parroting Jameson. Another problem here is that the first three chapters were models of clarity. Jameson is not an especially easy to read writer, and is very much a product of the European tradition of writing in which authors tend to encrust their ideas in difficult to decade jargon (a tradition opposed to other writers who strove for clarity of expression and lack of academic jargon and included writers such as David Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Wittgenstein, as opposed to Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Marx [who could write beautifully and simply when he wanted to], and Derrida who cannot be read so much as interpreted). This seems to have infected Sobchack and the final chapter is a chore to read. A number of additional films are discussed, including the STAR WAR films, E.T., BLADE RUNNER, and REPO MAN. I do not, however, believe that this was a successful chapter. It attempts to apply Jameson to the most recent changes in Sci-fi film in an effort to capture the movement of history. As a whole, I felt that this chapter significantly weakened the book as a whole.

Nonetheless, this is a must read book for anyone wishing to study the Sci-fi film. It definitely has its weaknesses, but it just as surely has its strengths. I would perhaps caution readers to focus mainly on the first three chapters and to consider skipping the last one.

Film criticism the way that it should be done........2005-11-02

Would-be film critics could take lessons in readability from Sobchack. She makes her point clearly, without excessively convoluted text. In addition to being thought-inspiring, it is genuinely well-written and often a pleasure to read.

Sobchack divides the books into chapters that address issues of definition, image, dialogue and sound in the science fiction film. It is the definitive book on the subject, and students of the genre should definitely begin here.

Note: I read the second edition of the book, rather than the third that is for sale at the time of writing this review. If the book has a serious flaw, it is simply that any take on futurism in science fiction goes out of date astoundingly quickly.

Worth reading if you enjoy Science Fiction and its phyche........2004-04-23

I recommend anyone who is interested in Science Fiction to at least glance at this book. Yes, glance. What I enjoy most from this book is how it provides pictures of movie scenes, corresponding them with the points and theories presented. It does it in a way to make what may seem overbearing (to some people mind you) rather interesting and insightful. The visualizations help things 'click' so well. The reading becomes more and more bareable as you read on once you get used to the structure. It's great. Even if you don't like reading, buy it for the pictures it presents; just by looking at them and the small, bold explainations below will help you gain a whole new outlook on Science Fiction. Besides the visuals, I would say it is the best critical response of the Science Fiction film I have read. Other books I checked out seemed boring and unattractive. This book caught me when I looked at it. In fact, I was doing a paper in college for a History through Film class and my Instructor asked for the Catalog information. So I guess I'm not the only one. Other then that, the seriousness of the book gives the genre what it diserves while retaining your interest to read on. Most importantly, though, it helps clear up thoughts I've had for years and makes it presentable in words. Very gratifying. Check it out.

Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film

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Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film
Vivian Sobchack
Manufacturer: Rutgers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NZUNRW

Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. Second Edition.

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Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. Second Edition.

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ICNU2U

Book Description

For the first time in paperback, 100 striking images of musicians and pop-culture heroes and their tattoos, from the editors at Rolling Stone. Tattoos, rock n roll, and Rolling Stonethe ideal combination for the ultimate book on celebrities and their tattoos. Tattoo Nation features candid photographs and equally revealing interviews that chronicle the gradual emergence of this dynamic art form into mainstream society via pop-culture icons. These edgy color and black-and-white photographic spreads present rock icons, ranging from counter-cultural pioneers Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix to todays trendsetters Bjrk and Lenny Kravitz, showing off their body artwork. Complementing the aesthetic portraiture are provocative interviews with, and quotes by, the subjects, photographers, and tattoo artists, talking openly about body art. Stories from the inkslingers, like LA based Rick Spellman and Roby Boy of Gary, Indiana, contain intriguing tidbits about some of their more recognizable celebrity customers. By mixing the elements of famous subjects, upfront interviews, and potent photographyall in an affordable and handsome paperback editionTattoo Nation will reach tattoo enthusiasts, photography aficionados, and music fans alike.

Customer Reviews:

Be a rebel!.......2003-09-08

Be a rebel - look like everyone else! Another lame book from Rolling Stone.

Beautiful Photography of American Culture.......2003-01-07

If you don't like tatoos, get this book for the wonderful photography. It portrays celebrities in their best light. It also features quotes about how each person feels about their tatoo and the reasoning and personal memories behind it. Tatoos are a growing part of American Culture, and it seems now that the peolple that are unique, are the ones that are un-inked. This a great and fun coffee-table book, and also makes an amazing gift.

Photographs of the famous..Oh yes and some tattoos........2002-12-26

I was disappointed when I received this book. The title is very deceitful. What the book really showed was posed photographs of rock stars and actors. What was not shown were detailed photographs of tattoos, nor was there really any explanation or narrative about the individual photograph itself. The book is weak and definately not for someone interested in tattoos. However, if your interested in photographs of a few famous people, you should buy the book.

very disappointing.......2002-10-27

I was totally psyched about this book when I first heard about it months ago,so I was keenly disappointed to find out that it's not at all what I thought it would be-see,since it's from the publishers of Rolling Stone I assumed it would feature photographs that have appeared in RS,by photographers like Mark Seliger and David LaChapelle...NOPE,the portaits you'll find in this book are ones you've seen a million times,in countless publications.The WORST thing about this book,the thing that really annoyed me,was how pathetically underrepresented WOMEN are.There are only a few women in the entire book,and the pictures aren't even good.A few of the portraits of male musicians are okay,which is why I gave this 2 stars rather than 1.But on the whole I wouldn't recommend buying this book.

Rolling Stone Tattoo Nation: Portraits of Celebrity Body Art

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Rolling Stone Tattoo Nation: Portraits of Celebrity Body Art
Bulfinch Press
Manufacturer: Bulfinch Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N6ZTYS

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Interesting positions. Good experience.

Simply Spectacular

Best Training Tool Yet!

If you aren't a Grandmaster, this great book will help you

A great chess puzzle book.

Chess Exam And Training Guide: Rate Yourself And Learn How To Improve
Igor Khmelnitsky
Manufacturer: IamCoach Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

This book will answer the two most common questions that players ask an experienced coach - what is my true rating (or strengths and weaknesses)? How do I improve?

You will find: - 100 diagrams & 200 total questions of various difficulty. - Comprehensive answers includes diagrams for easy reading away from the chessboard. - Distributions of answers, percentiles and other statistical reports by rating group from unrated to 2400+. Match yourself against players of all levels, up to grandmaster and see how you stock up. - Results evaluated and Rating assigned overall & by 12 distinct categories: Opening, Middlegame, Endgame, Attack, Defense, Counterattack, Tactics, Strategy, Calculations, Standard Positions (Endgame), Sacrifices, Recognizing Threats. - Comprehensive reports on each of the categories with examples, training recommendations and book/materials suggestions

Customer Reviews:

Interesting positions. Good experience........2007-07-31

I finished the 100 exercises in a total of 29 hours, what represents spending 17 minutes per exercise. It was a very interesting experience. My ICC rating (standard) is about 1750. The book estimated my rating as 1820. So, very close.

While I was doing the exercises I had the feelling that my game was improving. The positions presented are all very interesting. When you find yourself thinking: "this one is easy", analyse more carefully because there are a lot of "hidden ideas".

But don't think that the job is finished when you complete the tests. This is about 70% of the total job. Now you have to input your results in a table and calculate your score, overall and by 12 categories: opening, middlegame, endgame strategy, strategy, tactics, attack, defense, threat, counterattack, calculation, sacrifice and standard endgame positions.

For each of this 12 categories, the autor gives advices on training and books for reading. In my opinion, this is the differential of this book. After completing the tests, you have an idea of where your game is weaker and what to do to improve.

Now that I have finished the book I will follow his advices and maybe, in 1 or 2 years, I will be back here to say if my game improved or not.

I will not give 5 stars because of following reasons:
a) the process of inputing the scores into the tables (so that you can see your ratings) is very laborious and operational. You should be very careful to avoid mistakes. The book owners should have free access to a spreadsheet which would substitute this laborious process.
b) there are only 6 exercises on openings. I don't believe that with such a small number of exercises, one can evaluate properly the level of your opening play.
c) in the Tactical session the autor refers to "Tactical Motifs" from "Mr. Bloch". Actually the correct reference is "Combinative Motifs" from Mr. Blokh.

Afterall, I recommend this book for those who want to improve but does not know exactly how to do it. At the end, you will have a training plan to follow. No shortcuts. I don't recommend for begginers.

Simply Spectacular.......2007-07-01

This is not a typical chess book. It's more like a puzzle book. But instead of mate in 5 type of tactics problems, it covers all aspects of the game in 100 questions, opening, middlegame, endings, positional, tactical, planning (I wish there were more). It is so much fun to do the exercises and they are well chosen. It will definitely improve your play and identify your weak areas.

Another great thing about the book that makes it stand out is the answer keys. You have to come up with 2 answers, one is assessment and the second is the correct move. That eliminates the luck factor from the assessment. Also there's no true/false answer, but you get 5 points for the correct, 1 for the incorrect but close, and sometimes you get points deducted for those that are obviously wrong.

You can take this book with you anywhere you go, anywhere you have to wait for a long time and need some pass time. As for the assessment accuracy I will know when I'm done. But that's not a big concern for me. The interim
that comes after each 10 questions shows me 200 points below what I thought I am, but I am hoping this will increase later.

Strongly recommended.

Best Training Tool Yet!.......2007-05-26

This book examines your strengths and weaknesses through 100 different puzzles with varying stages of the game, motifs, and difficultys. Unlike most puzzle books, it is not just focused on tactics, but instead, on everything you need.

Some of the other reviews mentioned typos but i have not encountered any noticable errors yet. Anyhow, these miniscue mistakes should not detract from the quality of the book.

Khmelnitsky is a genius; realizing that people want immediate feedback, he puts "interim reports" after every 10 puzzles so you get an idea how you are doing. Each problem has two questions, most often, an evaluation question and a "find the best move" question". A number of different themes (e.g. opening, strategy, counterattack, calculation...) are related to each puzzle and after completing the book it will diagnose your misunderstandings and give you a rating. Unlike such given ratings in places like "solitaire chess" (where it said i was around 2400, fat chance!) it gives you a much more reasonable rating, so far I have gotten a range between 1900-2200.

The book is very interesting and fun to do as well as being a one of a kind training tool. For instance, by just looking at the type of problem and how i did on the percentile charts, I've learned that I have weak tactics but an endgame skill greater than I had ever imagined!

Not only does he diagnose your weaknesses, he gives you advice about how to solve them. If you are trying to improve your chess this is a MUST, I greatly underrestimated its value for quite some time.

This book will improve you significantly more than several sessions with a coach, which could cost 200-400 dollars! Anyone passing this up who wants to improve their chess should get this instantly.

If you are under 1500, you probably just need to work on your tactics; trust me, I've been there. Although dry, tactics puzzles WILL significantly help you much more than learning how to implement a minority attack which you might use in one game only to find that you dropped a pawn in the process to a simple fork. I didn't trust this advice either when i was 1000-1400, and i thought i had tactics down cold. Wrong how I was!

However if you are 1500-2200 then this book is an essential step to becoming a better player!

Highly Recommended!

If you aren't a Grandmaster, this great book will help you.......2007-02-10

I hesitated for months before buying this book. You shouldn't.

You should know that this is not a training manual or a tactics book. Its goal is to identify where your game is weak. If you are not already a Grandmaster, then it's certain that some areas of your game are weak. But which, and how weak are they? If club players, amateurs, even experts can focus their training on their weak spots, they will improve much more rapidly than if they get better in some area where they are already strong.

This book does a fantastic job of analyzing your game. Here is my experience. I don't get to play much in tournaments; my rating is in the high 1600's but my last major tournament I had a performance rating of 1820, and in club play that's about how I am doing. What should I work on to go farther?

I have done the first 40 problems in this book and scored them. Each has been given to a lot of players with a wide variety of ratings. By averaging how I performed on each of the problems, the author has assigned me an overall rating and a "rating" for how strong or weak I am in each of a dozen aspects of chess.

First, the overall estimate of my playing strength is right around 1800 -- consistent with my US Open performance and club play. But the breakdown -- wow! I rate a pathetic 1000 on pure calculating ability, and not much better on sacrifices. By contrast, the book rates me at 2400 on standard positions (like how to win a Bishop ending with only one pawn), reflecting the work I've done on such positions, and grasp of strategy and defense are both almost as high.

Interestingly, it rates my openings as the strongest phase of the game and endings as the weakest. Until the last US Open I thought the reverse was true, but in that tournament I consistently got strong middlegame positions against players rated up to 2100, only to collapse in the ending. The book accurately captures this relative weakness.

So my new training strategy is clear, and I bet it will work. For the next several months, I will be focusing on complex endings and doing intense practice in calculating them out to completion. That should address both of my weakest areas in one shot.

As part of my profession I have extensive training in developing tests to measure aspects of mental functioning. I am very impressed with this book, and would consider it a remarkable achievement for a psychology graduate student's dissertation.

A great chess puzzle book........2006-08-18

This is a unique chess puzzle book. I have to admit that I have not used this book to check my rating. I have only used it as a puzzle book. There are 100 positions in this book. For each position you must figure out the position (who is best) and choose between 4 candidate moves to find the best move. So this is a nice chess book to learn how to evaluate and calculate different position. There is one page for the problem and one page for a detailed solution, so this is definitely an instructive chess puzzle book. Highly recommended!

Chess Exam and Training Guide: Tactics: Rate Yourself and Learn How to Improve

Average customer rating:

Amazing experience!
Great Book

Chess Exam and Training Guide: Tactics: Rate Yourself and Learn How to Improve
igor Khmelnitsky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0975476114

Customer Reviews:

Amazing experience!.......2007-07-18

I loved this book. I could hardly put it down! You do all the problems, and fill out the graphs at the end (no cheating! you have to be honest). Then when you get is a scientific report of your strengths and weaknesses in different areas of chess. It's uncanny how accurrate this is. The best thing is you know where you need to focus your training, and he gives you advice for that. If you are interested in improvement, then this is a must.

Great Book.......2007-07-16

This book is much more than a typical tactics book of finding the best move. The positions really make you think and get deeper into the ideas and plans. The author has a great way of explaining the ideas and analysis of the positions. The layout of the book is really good with nice diagrams. The results from the exam clearly point out your weaknesses and then you know what you need to work on to get better. I found this book to be very enjoyable and I had trouble putting it down after each position I wanted to get more. I highly recommend this book it was very instructive and informative. A must buy!

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