Alex Colville: Return

Book Description

Alex Colville was a Canadian war artist during World War II — and one of three painters admitted to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as it was being liberated. To express the unimaginable chaos, Colville sought order, which he found in an artistic style defined as "magic realism." In the shadow of September 11, and in the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Colville's art resonates with a renewed urgency and potency. His work contains complexly coded images that help bring order, coherence, and closure to the disorder and chaos of trauma. Beginning with Embarkation (1994), Alex Colville: Return showcases his paintings and prints from the last 10 years. More than a stunning collection of work by one of Canada's premier artists, the book suggests that the creative process is a personal mode of witnessing and a powerful tool for healing.

Customer Reviews:

Does art require an explanation?.......2005-12-03

I am a little surprised that this book has yet to receive a review here; since it was published over 2 years ago.I must admit,I almost passed on reviewing it,but here goes anyway.Maybe it will trigger reviews by others.
I have enjoyed Colville's work for many years and thought reading this book would give me an understanding of his work.Well,after all's said and done I don't think my understanding is any greater.I guess the old adage of "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" applies to me .
If you are not familiar with his art,the cover of this book is a good example.If you like and enjoy this picture ,you'll likely enjoy more of his work.It so happens that I grew up in Kentville,just a few miles from Wolfville,where Colville lived and did much of his work.I am very familiar with the landscape around Blomindon,St.Croix,Grand Pre,Minas Basin and its tides,marshes ,warves,mudflats,etc.These are so common to people living it the area that Colville's ability to take these things and create art is amazing.
I generally tend to like realism more than impressionist art and I liked the explanation of this being "Magic Realism".
I am reminded of Andrew Wyeth,Pratt,Hooper as I look at this art.While in New Mexico, several years ago, I remember the rolling brown hills dotted with small bright green ,ball shaped bushes,that were so often portrayed in the local art.The artists created scenes more real than real.This is similar to what Colville does.
So,I may not 'understand' what he is trying to convey in his art;but I know what I like,and I like his work.
Maybe it is true of a lot of things;the smell of a rose,the
sound of a foghorn,the cry of a gull,the Northern Lights,the stars in the sky;you can enjoy it without understanding why.

Book Description

The runaway hit manga series continues with even more comedy, action, and military hardware than ever! With a teenaged commando-turned-bodyguard and the beautiful high school girl he's sworn to protect, America's #1 teen comedy blows up the competition!

Customer Reviews:

ISLAND GETAWAY.......2006-03-13

When Sosuke invites Chidori to an island getaway for a few days, Chidori masks her excitement about getting into a romantic relationship and nervousness about a first kiss, but she doesn't have to worry, the tropical vacation is not exactly what she planned. She finds that out when her and Sosuke sky dive out of a plane and parachute into the ocean and then submerge to link up with the Danaan, the super secret Mithril sub. But actually, it's not all bad as the crew is celebrating the Danaan's first birthday. But the fun is interrupted when environmental terrorists take over an island serving as a dismantling site for chemical weapons. If their demands are not met, they will detonate the stockpiled missles! But they're not just any terrorists. They appear to be led by Gauron, whose mecha is virtually invulnerable to attack. Only Sosuke and the Arbalest has any hope of defeating him. So much for Chidori's thoughts of romance!

The first half of this volume is taken up with light-hearted humor while the second half deals with Gauron and the assault on the terrorist-held island. The art is great and disparate elements are handled well by the author and illustrator. It would be nice if the two main characters developed their romance a little beyond Sosuke not even recognizing there IS a romance and Chidori hitting him over the head with a fan because of his ignorance. But I guess this is what supplies part of the charm of the book. If they ever get together that would be boring. Good book.

I would highly recommend the two anime series, Full Metal Panic and Fumoffu.

I can`t wait for the next volume.......2005-11-01

I really recommend this story for all of those people who likes the histories with action, comedy and drama

Book Description

This delightful sequel to Denial Is Not a River in Egypt brings home humor's power to heal. Filled with the timeless wit and insight of recovery slogans and quotations, The Wrath of Grapes reminds us that recovering our sense of humor may be the first step toward a healthy life.

"Sandi Bachom has assembled her 'been there, done that' troops and gathered from them the amazing insights and outrageous humor of addiction and recovery. The new challenge of this remarkable book is to put into action in our own lives the message and spirit of these simple and provocative quotations--all of which are based on the real-life thinking and experience of others."
Dennis Sholey, author of The Miracle of Change and host of PBS's This is America

Customer Reviews:

Healing power of laughter . . ........2001-02-27

What a delightful book! Filled with aphorisms, tried-and-true maxims and humor -- especially humor! -- there's something for everyone, whether or not alcoholism has invaded your life or that of a loved one. They may be short, but it can take a lifetime to fully probe and put into practice the wisdom of some of these sayings. Best of all, it can be enjoyed on many levels. Pick it up for a minute or spend an hour delving into its humor and wisdom; breeze through it or ponder a personally meaningful truism; or find those that will have you nodding with a knowing smile.

The Wrath of Grapes.......2000-10-12

This attractive and well designed book is filled with wonderful, insightful, and heartful lessons. It is a definite stocking stuffer.

Customer Reviews:

It's always after they're gone..........2000-06-17

Jack was a friend of mine. I first saw him perform Thanksgiving night, 1979, up the stairs at the O-P Screen Room in lower Manhattan. He called it a Jungle Jack radio adventure and he read into a big old microphone from pages stored in a shoebox. He had a belly dancer whom he called Scheherezade Thompson read from Somerset Maughn's Rain. The audience was tiny and appreciative, but it went on for hours and hours. I felt privileged to be there, like I was watching the dust settle at the edge of eternity. This collection of essays about Jack is a necessity, because it can evoke his world, and it was a fascinating one. His humor and his eccentricity and his seriousness are all reflected in this collection. Today he is spoken of as a gay icon, but Jack did not regard his gayness as political. He was about glamor. I wish this book wasn't so expensive, because that will put off some of the folks who would benefit most from this. But it's worth it, folks. And, by the way, thanks a lot, Jack.

On Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures" (and other Secret-Flix of Cinemaroc)

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On Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures" (and other Secret-Flix of Cinemaroc)
J. Hoberman
Manufacturer: Granary Books/Hips Road
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1887123520
Release Date: 2001-10-02

Book Description

Reviled, rioted over, and banned as pornographic even as it was recognized as an unprecedented visionary masterpiece, Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures is the most important and influential underground movie ever released in America. J. Hoberman's monograph details the creative making and legal unmaking of this extraordinary film, a source of inspiration for artists as disparate as Andy Warhol, Federico Fellini, and John Waters, as well as a scandal taken to the United States Supreme Court, described by its maker as "a comedy set in a haunted music studio." The story of Flaming Creatures is augmented with a dossier of personal recollections, relevant documents, and remarkable, previously unpublished on-set photographs by Norman Solomon. Expanding on notes originally prepared for the 1997 retrospective on Jack Smith at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the monograph includes further material on his unfinished features Normal Love and No President, as well as shorter film fragments.

Book Description

These clever word games will really make your brain work overtime to come up with the solutions. Each one has a little twist, something unusual to keep crossword and other puzzle lovers on their toes. Around and Abouts will get heads spinning and searching for the letters that fit in a circular grid; "around" answers go counterclockwise, while the "about" clues overlap them in a clockwise fashion. Work it out from Tops to Bottoms, where two letters fit into every square; Crushword also crunches several letters--sometimes more than four--into each grid. Answers to Weavers clues form a continuous chain, with the first letter fitting into a central starred space; the next four go into adjoining numbered spots. The rest shuttle back and forth across and around the diagram. Plus: Quadrants, Crazy Eights, Catching Some Z's, Siamese Twins, Honeycombs, and other great puzzlers!

Customer Reviews:

Fun crossword variations.......2007-06-19

If you've been a reader of Games Magazine, you'll recognize the format of many of these crosswords. Instead of marching left to right and top to bottom as a normal crossword does, you'll find all sorts of variations: answers arranged in circles, multiple letters in a box and some where you don't even know where to start the answer.

The puzzles themselves are well done, although the introduction and explanation for some of the puzzles leaves a little room for improvement. Once you see how a particular kind of puzzle is intended to be filled in it's fairly straightforward, but with some of them the instructions are quite vague and almost seem to assume you already know how to do the puzzle and the instructions are simply pro-forma.

If you're intrigued by unusual word puzzles, this book is definitely for you. Due to the way that the puzzles are organized, although the clues are not always too difficult, not knowing a few of them can make a puzzle very tricky to solve. These are definitely not for someone who gets easily frustrated.

Crosswords with an interesting twist.......2004-06-22

If you are tired of conventional crosswords and want to try something a bit different, Henry Hook's "Twisted Crosswords" might be just what you are looking for. You may have seen puzzles with some of these unusual formats in the pages of Games Magazine, and now you can tackle a complete book of them. The collection contains a generous variety of different puzzle types, each with its unique word placement rules and challenges. Many of them have unconventional, visually pleasing grids that include honeycombs, triangles, weaves, three dimensional cubes, and spirals. Words might be entered diagonally, in a circle, snaking through the grid, or wrapping around the edges. In some puzzles, two or more letters may be entered in every square. In others, there are identical grids with multiple clue sets, and it is up to you to determine which grid the words go into. Words weave, overlap, and intersect with each other in novel ways. Give these puzzles a try!

Book Description

It happens to every crossword lover at some point: a feeling of sameness sets in, and the standard puzzles just don’t pack enough punch anymore. What’s needed is a twist and a tweak—and that’s exactly what Henry Hook, creator of the original Twisted Crosswords collection, provides! These out-of-the-ordinary crosswords offer a higher level of challenge, with some diagrams that literally break out of the box—including “Around and Abouts” that go in a circle. For “Marching Bands,” the solver has to figure out where one answer ends and another begins. And there are also Honeycombs; Intersections, with two clues per number; Mazes; Pathfinders, where the words make right-handed turns; and many more.

Customer Reviews:

Meaty mind-bending challenge.......2007-08-08

Henry Hook's "Terribly Twisted Crosswords" has about 20 different varieties of crosswords, none with a single standard crossword grid. This generally serves to make the puzzles more challenging to finish, because the solver often won't know how long an answer is and/or where exactly it belongs, and most puzzles have no theme to give you a leg up. Hook's clues tend to be a little off-kilter, more indirect than the clues in a standard early- to mid-week crossword. The answers in these oddball grids also tends to be zippy--one puzzle included PIRSQUARED, the math formula, for example.

"Quadrants" is one of the varieties I enjoyed the most. In these puzzles, the grid's segmented into four quadrants with a center quadrant that interlocks with the other four. All the answers are 6 letters long, but you have to strategize to figure out where they go by noting the letters they have in common and where those letters fall in the words.

Another with consistent answer lengths is "Crazy Eights," all 8-letter entries. The answers circle around the clue number clockwise or counterclockwise, and as with "Quadrants," you work off of the letters in common to deduce the answer placement. "Honeycombs" take a similar form, but with 6-letter answers circling the clue numbers in the grid.

"Jigsaw" puzzles are a bit like "Quadrants," only with nine...ninths (is there a word for a section that's a ninth of a square?) containing 5-letter words held together by four 15-letter entries that span the grid. Similar pattern recognition skills are needed to determine where the answers fit.

The "Maze" puzzles are similar to "Marching Bands"--there are two Across clues for each row, and the letters are checked by words traveling through the grid in maze fashion ("Marching Bands" grids have concentric bands rather than one long "Maze" string of answers).

An easier but fun puzzle type is the "Intersections" puzzle. It looks like a standard 13x13 crossword grid, but the clues are given in pairs. If the number 1 appeared in the top left square, all you would know is that 1-Across and 1-Down had that pair of clues, but figuring out which goes where is your job.

"Crossing Paths" were the hardest variety for me. Four zigzagging paths make a lap around, but answer lengths aren't given so you have to work forward and back from the first and last clues for each path. Each path contains about 10 answers, so good luck finding your way!

Second hardest were the "Angling" variety. You're given the first and last square numbers, but not told where the answer takes a 90° turn or which end the word starts on. There's partial checking of the answers via shaded squares that contain a quote, but it takes a good long while to fill in enough to complete the quote so it can help with the rest of the answers.

There are several more varieties of puzzles, each with its own twist on the crossword format.

If you find that standard crosswords don't stretch your brain enough, crossword folks will often encourage you to "come to the dark side" and delve into cryptic crosswords. If you prefer American-style crossword clues over parsing cryptics' clues, though, this book may be just the ticket.

Twisted Lore (Legends & Lairs, d20 System) (Legends & Lairs)

Average customer rating:

Essentially just more monsters
Curious Critters

Twisted Lore (Legends & Lairs, d20 System) (Legends & Lairs)
Fantasy Flight Games , and Various
Manufacturer: Fantasy Flight Games
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1589940938

Book Description

Twisted Lore provides a huge new selection of aberrations, shapechangers, and oozes.

Customer Reviews:

Essentially just more monsters.......2007-02-12

Firstly, I bought this book sight unseen as I have a player who has practically an eidetic memory and he knows the ins and outs of a duck's bum when it comes to the Monster Manual (I to IV). So I was looking for anything different.

The book is well-presented and each monster has its own black-and-white drawing. Editing is excellent and I can't remember any typos and the layout is simple and to the point.

But its the monsters we wan't to know about. The descriptions are good and they are generic enough to fit into any campaign, and there are some really interesting monsters. The skywhale, with its potential to carry its own ecological domain on its back could be a very interesting setting, and the yoeman jelly has some very curious possibilities.

Overall I think that Fantasy Flight Games have done a good job and these critters could be very useful in any campaign.

Curious Critters.......2003-10-21

A rather interesting compendium of creatures each of which has the capacity to boggle the mind. While not entirely complacent with 3.5 (none of FFG's products are so this is of little surprise)conversion is quite simple for anyone with half brain in their noggin. The aberrations and oozes in the book need no conversion but the shapechangers do due t the fact shapechanger is now a quality of other categories of monsers rather than a category unto itself. I can easily recategorize all the shapechangers in this volume as either magical beasts or monstrous humanoids (lycanthropes as a general rule become humanoids but this is the exception that proves the rule). Most of the monster described in this tome are ghastly beasts that will expand the mind of the DM using them as well as the players facing them. Generic enough to plop into any campaign with a little or perhaps no effort on the part of the enterprising GM, Twisted Lore is wicked fun for all gamers.

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Twisted Crosswords
Henry Hook
Manufacturer: ANOVA (CHRYSALIS)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000K204F4

Customer Reviews:

demystify the cloud.......2007-02-17

if you have to present or report complex information to others, this and tufte's other tomes are a very useful and are good reference library books.

Superb analytical writing.......2007-01-04

Tufte is a master of laying out the problem, revealing misguided analysis used in the two studies that he dissects and then shows how to better interpret the data. I found myself slowing down my usual reading speed to half and doubling my concentration to follow him, which is a compliment to the depth of his writing. Tufte is concise and a well-regarded authority on the methods to describe, define, reveal and present problems so that solutions are found honestly. I recommend reading all his work.

Visual and Statistical Thinking....very visual.......2006-08-02

A very good book on a fairly obscure but very important subject. Being able to effectively communicate numerical/statistical information in a graphical way is far more art and aethetics, than science. Anyone who uses charts and graphs to convey important information should get this book. In other works by Tufte, he shows how proper use of explaining critical numerical information could have stopped the Space Shuttle from launching on a cold morning which eventually led to it exploding shortly after tackoff in 1987 - due to an o-ring failing to seal properly. A fascinating read that reveals how important graphs are to making sense of numerical data.

How not to lie with graphics.......2006-06-12

This book is not as incisive as Tufte's classic "The Visual Display of Qantitiative Information". It does, however, discuss in cogent detail how to design a graphical display so that it will clarify ideas and not mislead the viewer. We are subject daily to a blizzard of deliberate dis-information by such means. Tufte's plea for clarity and honesty seems almost quaint by today's standards. Thank you, sir.

waste of money.......2006-03-25

Buy the book instead of this pamphlet. This small guide is a waste of money

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