Else/Where: Mapping New Cartographies of Networks and Territories

Book Description

ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING charts the ascendancy of mapping as a powerful interdisciplinary strategy, one that links people and places, data and organizations, and physical and virtual environments. Traditionally written by history's victors, maps are gaining new currency in our information-saturated age as a means of making arguments and processes visible. Mapping technologies today are as diverse as the agendas driving them: social networks are mapped with dynamic digital interfaces; buildings are mapped with lasers; cities and regions are mapped by satellite.

Illustrated with nearly 300 images, from archival woodcuts to Web-based maps and GPS drawings, ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING explores how cartographic techniques are being adapted to map the emerging landscapes of electronic communication. It showcases cutting-edge projects in graphic and industrial design, art, architecture, and technology by an international roster of writers, artists, and designers at the forefront of locative media practice.

ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING proposes—by visual example and written analysis—that mapping is a fundamental design process that increasingly shapes the physical and conceptual dimensions of contemporary society.

Deborah Littlejohn (designer) is design fellow at the University of Minnesota Design Institute.

Distributed for the University of Minnesota Design Institute by the University of Minnesota Press.

Customer Reviews:

"Else/Where: Mapping . . ." a huge disappointment.......2006-12-25

For a book on mapping the graphics are of extremely poor quality. It's really amazing that advocates of creative mapping would have so few interesting pictures and so little engaging text. There are a few worthwhile pages but not enough to justify the price of the book. I bought it on the basis of a NY Times review without seeing the book. A mistake.

Eye-opening, or is that i-opening?.......2006-08-15

What a fun book!

Plenty of new views of our connected world plus interviews with the authors/analysts/artists (yes, they are all three) who created the extreme maps.

You would think with the advent of cyberspace that maps would recede to the background and go the way of the floppy disk. No. Mapping is transformed and redefined. Interesting discussion of mapping vs. maps.

This should be a coffee table book in every building where intelligent people congregate.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Instructor (1990), published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2006. The length of the article is 629 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Frida Kahlo: self-portrait.(masterpiece poster)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: Instructor (1990) (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 116 Issue: 2 Page: 36(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes (and What the Neighbors Thought)

Average customer rating:

Artists' Private Lives: An amusing book
A Nice Introduction
What a fun, fun, book.. is it really for children?
Art book without art
Excellent Way to Get More Acuainted with the Great Artists!

Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes (and What the Neighbors Thought)
Kathleen Krull
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download

ASIN: B0000544NI

Book Description

In this entertaining, informative collection, readers discover the idiosyncrasies-sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic-of twenty famous artists, including Michelangelo, Cassatt, van Gogh, Kahlo, and Warhol. “Fresh, spirited, and unconventional.”--Kirkus Reviews

Customer Reviews:

Artists' Private Lives: An amusing book.......2007-04-14

Lives of the Artists is light reading with approx. 2 pages of facts per artist, so it is not an in-depth look at their private lives; however put it on your "Fun" reading list. It is a highly amusing book and a great source of dinner conversation. Also Check out Lives of the Musicians:Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neigbors Thought)

A Nice Introduction.......2006-03-13

I found this book while looking for a way to get my children more interested in art and famous artists from various periods. This book was exactly what I needed. It tells a little about each artist without being boring giving them a glimpse at each one. After reading this book to my 3 year old and then letting the 11 and 15 year old look it over, I was asked about various artists in the book which led us on hunts at the library for more information.

So this book makes a good introduction if you're wanting to just give your kids an idea of all the artists that have come and gone. I do agree with another reviewer that it would have been nice if they had included at least one piece of their artwork in the pages. Of course, that just means we will have to find them on our own which for us homeschoolers is part of the "thrill of the hunt".

What a fun, fun, book.. is it really for children?.......2005-12-13

I found this book in the children's section of the library, but this is not a children's book; although children might enjoy it. This book is very reminiscent of the "Politically Incorrect Bedtime Stories" series. It's a wonderfully campy little book full of facts about just how bizarre artists are. It would make a great coffee table book. I just loved it! I can't wait to read the companion book about musicians.

Art book without art.......2005-01-23

I have mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed it because it puts some of the humanity back into a subject many of whose personalities have been so lionized that they have become icons, non-people. However, I'm not certain to whom I might recommend it.

To begin with, the book has the direct, simple style of books written for children, grades 4-8. The language is a little too complex for those under age 8, the style a little too simple for those over age 13. Since I occasionally read children's books anyway, this did not stop me as an adult from reading the book and taking satisfaction from doing so. Nor would I have had any problem with recommending the volume for a school or public library, except....

I enjoyed the book primarily because I had already had a rather extensive exposure to art of all types through my mother, who was a working artist herself. Our house was littered with books about artists and their art works, and I started visiting museums in her company from the age of six. When Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes (and What the Neighbors Thought) discussed Rembrandt, I already possessed a pretty clear impression of his style and of some of his more famous works. The possibility that the he did not paint Man with a Golden Helmet surprised me, because I have a very clear picture of the work-one of my favorite Rembrandts-in my head. Someone who didn't would find it difficult to care; it would be just another bit of free-floating information.

In short, the book fails to fulfill a goal as a vehicle of teaching young people-or any people-about art because there are no illustrations of it. While there are entertaining anecdotes about a nice selection of famous people who perform a variety of styles of art, they might be anyone with eccentric behavior.

I'm not certain where the fault for this glaring defect lies. Perhaps it arises from an attempt to produce an interesting and attractive book that is still affordable, especially for children. Perhaps it was a matter of inability to procure a right to reproduce a work of art belonging to someone who has exclusive rights over it. Still, I find it difficult to believe that the museums of the world would be unwilling for their masterpieces to be represented in a book on famous art, especially for children, if only because it represents free publicity for their establishment. Certainly if any given museum is unwilling, there are other works of art from which to choose: therein lies a certain degree of leverage.

Whatever the reason for the lack of art in an art book, I can only suggest this book to schools that provide a thorough grounding in the subject. An art teacher might give lectures on periods of art, their characteristic works and personalities, and suggest that this book might be fun to read. For a young person who has been prepared, this might return "great" art once again to the realm of human endeavor.

Excellent Way to Get More Acuainted with the Great Artists!.......2004-05-04

It was interesting to read about the eccentric personality characteristics of the great artists and how they found their specialty areas of creativity. I especially enjoyed learning more about Cassatt and O'Keefe and how they encountered a lot of criticism during their time and how they were not afraid to be themselves and BE GREAT! I will share this book with my son when he is ready for it. Right now he is only nine, and too much into sports(ha.)

Ansel Adams should have been included.

Jeffrey McAndrew
author of "Our Brown Eyed Boy"

Book Description

Why does an "X" stand for a kiss?
Which fruits are in Juicy Fruit® gum?
Why do people cry at happy endings?
Why do you never see baby pigeons?

Pop-culture guru David Feldman demystifies these topics and so much more in Why Don't Cats Like to Swim? -- the unchallenged source of answers to civilization's most perplexing questions. Part of the Imponderables® series, Feldman's book arms readers with information about everyday life -- from science, history, and politics to sports, television, and radio -- that encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs just don't have. Where else will you learn what makes women open their mouths when applying mascara?

Customer Reviews:

Save your money.......2007-09-08

I have always been a big fan of the "imponderables" genre, but I had never read any by author David Feldman, an apparently prolific author in the that specific field. I thought the best place to start would be with his first Imponderalbes book, "Why Don't Cats Like to Swim?," which had apparently been originally published with the title, "Imponderables." I further assumed that an author's first venture into this genre would be the most interesting in that there was a high probability of an array of interesting subjects that eventually led to his writing the book. Well, I was wrong!

I finished this book in record time because I discovered that I couldn't care less about many of the alleged imponderables that were discussed. Really, who really cares about some of the following:

Why does root beer taste flatter than coke?
Which fruits are in Juicy Fruit chewing gum?
If trailer parks didn't exist, would tornadoes exist?
Why don't we ever see money from pay phones collected?
What is the purpose of the little slits in sugar cube wrappers?
What is a minor credit card?
Why are so many milk packages difficult to open and close?

If those and similar questions intrique you, you will probably enjoy this book.

About the only section that I found truly interesting was the section describing how stage hypnotists do their thing.

Perhaps his subsequent works got better in that the author solicites potential questions from his readership to be dealt with in later books. I'll never find out.

A BOOK OF SMALL SUBSTANCE.......2007-07-30

There are a number of these books out by this author and I had seen some adds that made them look very interesting. I found a number of problems with this book. There were items that only received a small paragraph that I would have liked to have seen pages, and items with pages that could have been a single paragraph. I also wanted more detail that was there, plus it would have been nice to have seen resources on where the information came from. I gave it a 2 as it was interesting to a very small point.

Great factoids but dated.......2007-03-08

This book is an interesting collection of factoids. However, it is dated.

Great book.......2007-01-19

Great book. I purchased this for my 12 year old nephew last christmas and he loved it, because that is how his mind works. Fortunatly, so does mine - I love to think about things so I had to read it first! What fun!

Great appeal for kids.......2007-01-18

I was leary of this purchase, wondering if it would interest my 8 yr-old daughter, but it turned out to be a GREAT present. She keeps it in the car ; which works perfectly, as she can read each short tidbit in the time it takes us to run here and there. She is really enjoying learning from this book and for us, its been a great way to keep her reading!

Why Don't Cats Like to Swim?: An Imponderables Book

Average customer rating:

Why Don't Cats Like to Swim?: An Imponderables Book
David Feldman
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEYLW0

Book Description

This entertaining and useful book provides a comprehensive survey of films about the ancient world, from The Last Days of Pompeii to Gladiator. Jon Solomon catalogues, describes, and evaluates films set in ancient Greece and Rome, films about Greek and Roman history and mythology, films of the Old and New Testaments, films set in ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Persia, films of ancient tragedies, comic films set in the ancient world, and more. The book has been updated to include feature films and made- for-television movies produced in the past two decades. More than two hundred photographs illustrate both the films themselves and the ancient sources from which their imagery derives.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting book on movies.......2006-05-31

This is an interesting, easy-to-read book on how the ancient world has been depicted in movies. The author primarily focuses on the Greco-Roman world pre-5th century C.E., with a fair bit of attention also given to the Mideast (primarily in terms of biblical epics). The book has more range than some similar works because it gives a fair bit of attention to foreign and non-English-language movies, especially Italian ones, and also discusses plenty of early silent movies, some quite obscure, rather than solely focusing on Hollywood productions and relatively recent big hits.

While I very much enjoyed Jon Solomon's light and humorous writing style -- he clearly enjoys movies, even a number of somewhat outright cheesy ones -- a key point I'd stress about this book is that it's much more about movies than it is about ancient history. Solomon doesn't devote a great deal of time or attention to using the movies he's discussing to explicate ancient history; he's really more interested in the movies themselves than in the history that their stories are based upon.

For the opposite tack (a book on cinematic depictions of historical events that's more focused on the actual history than on the movies themselves) I might suggest "Past Imperfect: History According to Hollywood," edited by Mark Carnes. "Past Imperfect" also covers a much, much broader range of history than Solomon's "ancient" time frame. I'd have to say, though, that "Past Imperfect," being a collection of essays, lacks the consistency and tone that makes "The Ancient World in the Cinema" a fairly fun read.

Finally, at the risk of nitpicking, Solomon's book has quite an appalling number of editing errors, ranging from simple misspellings to repeated or misplaced words. The errors tend to be concentrated in certain sections of the book, which makes me wonder if they were accidentally introduced when the book was being revised for this updated edition. Still, such errors can't help but slightly undermine your confidence in the book's factual statements.

Fun and Intelligent Introduction to a Wondeful Genre.......2001-09-20

What a cool book.

The title says it all, and this new revised and expanded edition of Jon Solomon's THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE CINEMA, first published in 1976, is even more fun and pleasant to read. So much so that, after you finish it, you might just be tempted to read more about antiquity. Now that's really cool!

Solomon, a professor of classics at the University of Arizona, is not one those classicists or historians who turn their noses up at films set in antiquity. As he writes in the preface to the 1976 edition, which is reprinted in the revised and expanded edition:

"My intentions in this book are by no means strictly academic. I examine all these films first as pure cinematic entertainment; then I examine them as cinematic renderings of history; and I also examine them as cinematic adaptations of ancient, biblical, or modern literature."

Solomon is not only unbiased but also flexible. How many professors do you know who would praise two such disparate films like Pier Paolo Pasolini's MEDEA (1970) and Ray Harryhausen's JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) in the same lifetime much less the same book? MEDEA, if you have never seen Pasolini's film, is one of the most serious and harrowing films ever produced set in antiquity (In a caption for a still from the film Solomon writes: "Here [Medea] bathes one of her two sons, knowing full well that she will cut their throats in a few minutes."), while JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a classic of wholesome entertainment (Solomon compliments the two green DynoRama harpies who attack blind Phineas as "the most vivid impression of any Greek mythological monsters seen on film.").

Solomon breaks THE ANCIENT WORLD IN CINEMA into subjects and title his chapters accordingly: "A Survey of the Genre," "Greek and Roman History," "Greek and Roman Mythology," "The Old Testament," "The New Testament and Tales of the Christ," "Babylon, Egypt, Persia, and the Ancient Orient," "Ancient Tragedy and THE SATYRICON," "Ancient Comedy and Satirized Ancients," and "The Muscleman Epics." And if you like movies at all, this last chapter cannot be missed.

They just do not make mindless entertainment for its own sake the way they did back in 1957, the year Steve Reeves took the world by storm as the titular HERCULES. Solomon revisits many of these wonderful films about a "chesty hero," "their less chesty companion," "their chesty but innocent girlfriend," "pointy-bearded despots," and "bowling pin" adversaries. Many of Solomon's insights here are as piquant as those made in his book's other chapters, but you will also find many less-dignified but delightful observations such as "Muscleman heroes are wont to throw things," and that the hero's chesty, innocent girlfriend is typically "adept at virtuously bathing the hero's wounds (generally only flesh wounds on the shoulder)." You get the idea, and the tone.

I could go on...and have gone on too long...but hopefully I have made my point. Jon Solomon's THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE CINEMA is a cool book. A fun book. And an intelligent book. Best of all, this book, like most of the movies Solomon examines in it, is worth checking out. Judging by his writing, I only wish Solomon could have been my classics teacher in college!

Average customer rating:
The Ancient World in the Cinema: Revised and Expanded Edition
Jon Solomon
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORV5FI

Book Description

Karaoke creates its own culture, while reflecting much about the wider culture and the place of popular music as a media form. Its complexities and nuances make karaoke a marvelous ethnographic subject, and Rob Drew is compelling in his experience and understanding. Karaoke Nights is both a keen observation on the external behavior of deejays, performers, and audience and an intimate portrait of the emotional rollercoaster that is the internal life of a karaoke singer.

Customer Reviews:

Karaoke Scholarship.......2005-06-02

It's been a while since I read the book, so my review may not be as informed as one would hope. However, Drew presents here a fun, interesting and unique application of media ethnography that is more familiar than foreign.

I cannot tell a lie. I picked this up due to my own obsession with karaoke. Drew's own interests clearly motivated the project, which he makes no efforts to conceal. While some argue such a position aversely affects ethnographic research, at least in this case, I think Drew's own interest and passion in the topic greatly enhance the book.

Drew explores a variety of aspects of karaoke culture - karaoke abroad, performing, deejaying, industry, audience, etc. While this provides a multifaceted and interesting read, I for one would have appreciated a slightly deeper analysis (the book clocks in at around 120 pages). While the information he does provide is intriguing, there is more to be examined/said, and I think he held back a bit on that front.

Karaoke regulars will find themselves nodding in agreement throughout the book, particularly in regards to audience and performer behavior. While the raw information may not be new to karaoke enthusiasts, it is Drew's analysis which drives it all home. The theoretical framework Drew works within draws heavily on communication and social-psych studies regarding interpersonal interaction (lots of Goffman here), and he pulls it together very well.

The book need not be only for the karaoke initiated nor for a purely academic audience. Drew's book is written very lucidly, is not oppressively academic in tone. Readers who aren't going to karaoke bars on a weekly basis should also find the book an interesting read from an observational perspective in terms of behavior and popular culture. Beyond that, it's one more statement about the central role popular music plays in our lives.

Dr. Drew's the Man!.......2002-04-27

Dr Drew is a man with an amazing gift. He has a great sense of knowledge, and it show in both the way he teaches, and the way he writes. He has the power to move students, and help them to pursue achieving their goals.

Bringing a love of karaoke and music to life in his book, Dr. Drew takes you on a ride through the life of the Karaoke World.

If your a fan of any type of music, you'll love the book, and just imagine the writer of the book performing one of his favorite toons, the Scorpions "Rock You Like a Hurricane!"

Average customer rating:
Karaoke Night An Ethnographic Rhapsody
Drew Rob
Manufacturer: AltaMira Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UF2350

Book Description

Solve murder problems, robberies, see which fishermen are liars, how a blind man can identify color — purely by reasoning! Hours of mind-strengthening entertainment.

Customer Reviews:

Puzzles that can be solved with reasonable persistence.......2006-08-02

The first sixty-three puzzles in this collection have the form:

In a certain bank, the positions of cashier, manager and teller are held by Brown, Jones and Smith, although not necessarily respectively. The teller, who was an only child, earns the least. Smith, who married Brown's sister, earns more than the manager. What position does each man fill?

Most of the rest are arithmetic problems where some of the digits are absent or represented by letters. For example, number ninety-two is

SPEND
- LESS
----------
MONEY

Solutions to all of the puzzles are given at the end.
While the puzzles require some thought, none is of the extreme stumper variety. By using a pencil and paper and working through the possibilities, all can be solved in a short period of time. Puzzles like this are excellent mental fodder and a good way to pass the time productively. In general, I enjoy working such problems and had a lot of fun with those in this book.

Average customer rating:

101 Puzzles in Thought and Logic
C. R. Wylie
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O9VA7O

Average customer rating:

101 PUZZLES IN THOUGHT & LOGIC

Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000CK1H4

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