Average customer rating:
|
Kurt Schwitters Merzbau: The Cathedral of Erotic Misery (Building Studies, 5)
Elizabeth Burns Gamard
Manufacturer: Princeton Architectural Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Architects, A-Z
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
European
| International
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Specific Styles
| Building Types & Styles
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| History & Criticism
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Schools, Periods & Styles
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
| Abstract Expressionism
| Ancient & Classical
| Art Deco
| Art Nouveau
| Baroque
| Byzantine
| Constructivism
| Contemporary Art
| Cubism
| Dadaism
| Expressionism
| Fauvism
| Folk Art
| Futurism
| German Expressionism
| Gothic
| Impressionism
| Mannerism
| Medieval
| Modern
| Neoclassical
| Pop
| Post-Impressionism
| Pre-Raphaelite
| Prehistoric & Primitive
| Realism
| Renaissance
| Rococo
| Romanesque
| Romantic
| Surrealism
Schwitters, Kurt
| ( S-U )
| Artists, A-Z
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Artists, A-Z
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Design & Decorative Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Mixed Media
| Other Media
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Germany
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
PPPPPP (Exact Change)
-
Dada: Art and Anti-Art (World of Art)
-
Participation (Documents of Contemporary Art)
ASIN: 1568981368 |
Book Description
German artist Kurt Schwitters began constructing the Merzbau, a combination of collage, sculpture, and architecture, in a corner of his studio in Hannover, Germany in 1920. Also called the Cathedral of Erotic Misery, this was Schwitters's private world. It eventually took over his entire living quarters, the apartment above, and part of the yard, and was divided into rooms-the Biedermeier Room, the de Stijl Room, the Goethe Cave, the Mondrian Cave, and the Mies Cave, among others. It was destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in 1943.
Although the Merzbau is of essential importance in understanding the early Modern Movement, this is the first in-depth study in English of this structure. Elizabeth Burns Gamard discusses its physical evolution and its significance within the artist's oeuvre. She also investigates its larger relation to German Expressionism and romanticism and to critical thought of the time. This book offers an in-depth analysis of a single structure through original documents, drawings, and critical examination of the design process.
Customer Reviews:
Too many inaccuracies.......2004-07-05
This study of Kurt Schwitters's Merzbau is very disappointing, particularly coming from a Professor of Architecture, as the largely unexplored architectural aspects of the Merzbau have in general been ignored. The first part of the book is interesting insofar as it provides an introduction to the post-modernist aspects of Schwitters's work, but when it comes to more detail about Schwitters and the Merzbau, there are far too many inaccuracies. For instance, Professor Gamard is unsure about the exact location of the main sections of the Merzbau (placing it both on the ground and second floor of Schwitters' home) and is vague on Weimar history, stating that Weimar was the capital of the Weimar Republic. In all, there is far too much in this book which is plain theorising and which has no substantial factual basis.
Book Description
In their elegant Providence Shop, Italian emigre sisters Anna and Laura Tirocchi sold French couture clothing to an elite clientele. The shop, remained virtually untouched from 1947 until 1990, when RISD Museum curators were given their choice of its contents, which included apparel by Paul Poiret, Lucien Lelong, and dresses in the style of Madeleine Vionnet. All reflect the advent of modernism in the Paris art world of 1920s and 30s, when designers, painters and printmakers were collaborating as never before to create fashion. From "Paris to Providence" catalogues these efforts with beautiful illustrations and six essays that examine the era's social and art-historical issues.
Average customer rating:
- !Me Gusta El Borbah!
- Blah
- Absolutely Fantastic Production!
- Viva El Borbah!
- Viva El Borbah!
|
El Borbah
Charles Burns
Manufacturer: Fantagraphics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
| Authors, A-Z
| Books on CD
| Books on Cassette
| Fantasy
| Gaming
| Large Print
| Media
| Science Fiction
| Writing
General
| Comic Strips
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Graphic Novels
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
Fantagraphics
| Publishers
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Skin Deep: Tales of Doomed Romance
-
Black Hole
-
Big Baby
-
Mad Night, Featuring Judy Drood, Girl Detective
-
Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires
ASIN: 1560976934 |
Book Description
An early classic from the author of Black Hole.
Meet El Borbah, a 400-pound private eye who wears a Mexican wrestler's tights and eerie mask. Subsisting entirely on junk food and beer, El Borbah conducts his investigations with tough talk and a short temper. He smashes through doors and skulls as he stalks a perfectly realized film-noir city filled with punks, geeks, business-suited creeps and mad scientists.
El Borbah features five science-fiction and true-detective episodes: In "Robot Love," rebellious kids in nightclubs replace their "parts" with mechanical substitutes as part of a new fad, only to find that their parents have been automating themselves all along; in "Love in Vein" a mad visionary sperm donor plans a master race and turns "his" kids against their parents; "Bone Voyage" details the exploits of a cult called the Brotherhood of the Bone, a kind of cross between the Masons and the Mansons. The fantastic plots take up the weird fears of a scientific society, but the action is pure pulp. Charles Burns effortlessly spins yarns with gritty punchlines and pictures so perfect they must have existed in some collective memory of junk drama. And through it all crashes El Borbah, trying to make an honest buck from dishonest people.
Burns is the author of Black Hole, the acknowledged masterpiece of the form that Fantagraphics serialized through the 1990s and will be collected into a massive graphic novel in 2005 by Pantheon Books. El Borbah is Burns' earliest work, created in the early 1980s, though the work remains eerily contemporary. Steeped in a "sci-fi-noir" aesthetic informed by Burns' steadily childhood diet of B-movies and comic books, but with a sophisticated sense of humor that is often as disturbing as it is funny, El Borbah is comics as its most entertaining.
Customer Reviews:
!Me Gusta El Borbah!.......2001-01-15
The wonderfully bizarre adventures of El Borbah, a Mexican wrestler type detective. El Borbah is a strange character in even stranger stories, collected in this book.It has a sort of pulp/noir meets science fiction feel that makes for a really entertaining read. !Muy Bueno!
Blah.......2000-01-04
His later work is far superior. While the style is luscious, the content is lacking. The so-called "humor" is very pathetic. Not amusing in the least, even for demented fans of El Santo and mexican wrestling. Pass!
Absolutely Fantastic Production!.......1999-08-29
It's great to see Charles Burns' work get the treatment it deserves, this is one beautifully-made book with hilarious, pulpy stories starring the mad wrestler-detective El Borbah. Well worth the price!
Viva El Borbah!.......1999-07-27
Burns has always been a consistently excellent artist. No one knows how to put black on paper better than him. This collection contains some great artwork and entertaining writing. I can't wait until the next collection....
Viva El Borbah!.......1999-05-30
Years before bands such as Southern Culture on the Skids and Los Straightjackets began to pay homage to masked Mexican wrestlers, Burns gave us El Borbah. The mask wearing Private Dick chain smokes, swills beer and gets into fist fights with just about everyone. Bizarre and beautiful. For those who love B-Grade Sci-Fi, Mexican wrestlers and Film Noir, this is a must have.
Average customer rating:
|
El Borbah
Charles Burns
Manufacturer: Ediciones La Cupula
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
| Baby-3
| Ages 4-8
| Ages 9-12
| Animals
| Arts & Music
| Books on Cassette
| Books on CD
| Authors & Illustrators, A-Z
| Computers
| Educational
| History & Historical Fiction
| Issues
| Literature
| Obsessions
| People & Places
| Popular Characters
| Reference & Nonfiction
| Religions
| Science, Nature & How It Works
| Series
| Sports & Activities
General
| Infantil y juvenil
| Libros en español
| Formats
| Books
Adolescentes
| Infantil y juvenil
| Libros en español
| Formats
| Books
| Asuntos Sociales
| Autores, A-Z
| Biografías y Memorias
| Ciencia Ficción y Fantasía
| Ciencia y Tecnología
| Escuela y Deportes
| Historia y Historia Ficticia
| Horror
| Literatura y Ficción
| Religión y Espiritualidad
| Salud, Mente y Cuerpo
| Series
ASIN: 8478335706 |
Book Description
“Many magazines are informative, insightful, even important, but only one is absolutely essential to understanding the human condition in this postmodern era. That magazine is, of course, The Funny Times.”
— Washington Post
And now . . . the funniest cartoons and stories that you’ll ever read, all in one book.
Including stories by:
Dave Barry, Stephanie Brush, Cathy Crimmins, Allen Ginsberg, Spalding Gray, Molly Ivins, Garrison Keillor, P. J. O’Rourke, Rita Rudner, Hunter S. Thompson, Bailey White . . . and many more!
Cartoons by:
Lynda Barry, Lloyd Dangle, Jules Feiffer, Bill Griffith, Matt Groening, Peter Hannan, Nicole Hollander, Carol Lay, Nina Paley, Dan Perkins (Tom Tomorrow), Ted Rall, Tom Toles . . . and lots more!
Average customer rating:
- Excellent Resource
- Not By a Long Shot
- Big but Bloated
- A must have movie book
|
The Story of Cinema: A Complete Narrative History from the Beginnings to the Present
David Shipman
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Movie Tie-Ins
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Performing Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0312762801 |
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Resource.......2004-11-22
David Shipman turns in a colassal work, filled with facts concerning almost every film ever made (up until the printing of the book, that is). Though his opinions are often controversial, they are not without foundation, and any serious student of film would benefit from being exposed to differing viewpoints (i.e., that Truffault is somewhat overrated, that Cahiers du cinema has had a disproportionate influence on film studies -- these opinions may bristle those who have grown up canonizing the Nouvelle Vague, but Shipman is not alone in his assessment). I often find myself surprised and even offended by some of his statements (the silent "Ben-Hur" is "infinitely superior" to the 1950's version???), but never bored. Shipman is a true movie lover, and his book will resonate with many others who share his passion.
Not By a Long Shot.......2000-06-06
This huge book isn't really the story of cinema -- it's Mr. Shipman pouring old wine (his years of movie-watching, already distilled into the capsule reviews of "The Great Movie Stars") into a new jug. It's comprised almost entirely of short comments (from a sentence to a paragraph) on each of about a gazillion individual films, arranged in handy sections. Shipman seems to have seen everything, although that was the case with the first edition of "Great Movie Stars" and yet he later recanted and rewrote after actually seeing the films he wrote about. And some of his personal obsessions -- the Garbo and Judy Garland worship, the attempt to rewrite film history by harping on the faults of Griffith and Chaplin -- get very old. Sample weird opinion: On Frank Capra, who made entertaining adventure-and-sex movies before he became a self-important windbag... "it was he who taught movies to think." This book has value for its research into some obscure areas, but 2,000 pages of snotty and sometimes ill-informed opinion don't make a history of cinema... sorry.
Big but Bloated.......2000-01-17
Let me put it this way - I don't like Shipman's tastes. He knocks just about every great film from the 60s and 70s in a way that definitely sounds like a generational difference in tastes. He knocks Hal Ashby, he knocks Godard, he knocks Truffaut, he knocks Coppola, he knocks Altman. Basically, he attacks any who differed from the traditions in classical studio cinema up till that time.
Okay, it's subjective you say. It's opinion. Yes. But his reasons for dismissing these filmmakers feels like rationalization, not sound reasoning. Shipman comes off as someone resistant to change, to evolution, and it makes his book a somewhat annoying endeavor.
That said, any book this big on cinema is not bad to have around the house, if only to flip through for fun now and then.
A must have movie book.......1997-10-04
Bravo ! Whether you agree with all the writing in this often opinionated movie survey book, you cannot help by being struck with the accomlishments of Shipmans work. Shipman has his critical eye out for posterity and he takes an historical perspective in his descriptions of movies from the early days till the mid 80's.You may not agree with all of his opinions- he doesn't seem to like critical darlings like Raging Bull or Fassbinder much- but any reader will appreciate Shipmans love -or should I say devotion to the "popular" art of cinema.Unlike the writings of another talented Britisher-David Thompson, Shipman is neither anti Hollywood nor is he a snide about popular tastes. In fact, Shipman rightly commends the public for their rejection of the pretentious and the phony. Shipman is himself an unabashed movie lover and that is what makes the book such a treat. I find myself dipping into it every now and again to see what Shipman has said about something, and then before I look up, at least one hour has gone by! There are a few minor errors I discovered, but in all a remakably, readable tour de force. M. Lamb
Customer Reviews:
Author's Comments.......2005-01-12
This isn't a review, per se; it is a description. Take the stars with that grain of salt.
Cops is about portraying a police officer, detective, or federal agent in a role-playing game setting. The tone is dramatic (think NYPD Blue or Alien Nation), but cinematic play (Lethal Weapon, Supercop) is possible too.
Chapters include:
A short history of policing and police duties
Campaign set-up, departments, sample police agencies (US, UK, Japan, Soviet model), types of officers and agents, and adventure ideas.
Character templates, equipment, and notes on adapting GURPS to a police adventure or campaign.
Typical adversaries, crimes, and other adventure ideas.
A guide to solving crimes including basic crime scene investigation, interviews, and interrogations.
A guide to trials in an RPG context, also a quick guide to doing time, jailbreaks, and extradition.
Four densely packed pages of sources and recommended reading/viewing.
Cops was published in December, 2001. It was in final editing on 9/11 and does not address the significant changes in policing caused by the war on terror, the Patriot Act, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.
The book is designed as an RPG supplement, but may also be useful to writers and those interested in police and crimes.
Book Description
It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of business books flooding the market today. Even more daunting is the task of weeding through them to find the "golden nugget" of wisdom inside. Now David Noonan has simplified the process by providing this well-researched primer of the most essential advice from the greatest business books ever written. Further, in a clever melding of modern business sense and ancient wisdom, he has used the animal-based stories of Aesop as springboards to launch these 50 lessons. Both entertaining and informative,
Aesop the CEO includes advice from well-known leaders such as Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Donald Trump, and Lee Iacocca. The short, easy-to-read vignettes cover every aspect of corporate life: negotiations, hiring and firing, mergers and acquisitions, marketing and sales, and day-to-day management.
Customer Reviews:
Morals From The Past Needed In Today's World........2006-01-13
This is such a novel idea of using a simple moral from one of the two hundred published fables written by Aesop and applying it to fairly recent situations, adjusting to modern times. David Noonan did a remarkable job of pairing the appropriate fable with its corresponding moral to a short story of his own from today's business world with his own "business moral."
The biographical history behind Aesop's Fables, thought to have been intended as children's easy-to-understand literature is what caught my attention. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Even though he gave the animals human traits, as C. S. Lewis did in THE NARDIA CHRONICLES, they were meant for adults and gained wide recognition as they were passed along for centuries through oral (word of moutn, as many of his companions could not read) tradition. His start in life was lowly, born into slavery in 620 B.C. as a hunchback with a speech impediment. His early years were spent on the Balkan Peninsula, a part of Turkey, where "slaves toiled hard as miners, plantation workers, or if they were lucky, household servants. It was possible [then] for a slave to earn freedom (called manumission) through diligent work and loyal service." Freed slaves were permitted to "engage in civic affairs and to travel wherever they wanted."
Aesop served two masters during his enslavement, but was eventually granted his freedom because of his "intelligence, wit and tact as a servant." As he traveled and observed how underlings were treated, he began his story-telling (with morals) and, after a time, "his reputation grew as a wise and 'noble' man." He went to Sardis in Asia Minor where the King sent him on diplomatic missions to Athens and Corinth, and he used his fables to calm tensions. Because of his keen mind, tactfulness and honesty, the King trusted him to distribute a large amount of gold fairly to the citizens of Delphi, which at that time was "the home of the Oracle and the most influential religious sanctuary in ancient Greece." He was unjustly murdered by being thrown off a cliff around 560 B.C.
The people of Delphi eventually atoned and made amends for their crime against Aesop. "Lysippus, a famous Greek sculptor, immortalized the fabulist by erecting a statue to him in Athens." In 300 B.C., two hundred of his fables were compiled in written form as ASSEMBLIES OF AESOP'S FABLES. "Three centuries later, another freed Greek slave named Phaedrus translated the collection of stories into Latin for a much broader audience. About AD 230, a Greek poet named Valerius Babrius combined fables from India with their Greek counterparts and published the entire collection of tales in the most widely read set of fables in world literature today and provides the context for the business tales" in this book.
And so, the forty-seven varied short stories included in this small volume are not all about companies, business conflcits and management; he also writes about war ("General Patton storms Sicily," "The best ship in the U. S. Navy...." and Colin Powell gets an uneasy feelin in Tehran"), sports, celebrities (Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, and Paul Harvey respectively), and politics ("The Founding Fathres make France an ally"). My favorite was about Lee Iacocca and his boss, Henry Ford II in 1975: "You can sit and wait and hope the situation improves, which is most people's first impulse, or you can make the first move and request a transfer or get another job before the ax fall." Business Moral: "Don't sit back and do nothing..."
"The world of business has changed enormously since Aesop's time, but people haven't. Now more than ever, there is a need for strong, ethical leadership and efficient management at every company level. Now more than ever, good people must step up and reaffirm that integrity, honesty, and goodness are as critical to a business' survival as a strong bottom line. So what better time than now in this post-Enron world to reintroduce the lessons taught by Aesop almost six hundred years before Christ?
"Strunk & White" meets "The Tipping Point".......2005-04-11
This little masterpiece of a book is an absolute gem. Marketed as a business book, Noonan has taken a very clever premise -- using the "wisdom" inherent in Aesop's familiar fairy tales -- and structured a book dense with wisdom and extremely entertaining and thought-provoking stories and anecdotes.
Similar to the classic The Elements of Style, which very concisely tells you everything you need to know about grammar and writing, "Aesop and the CEO" succinctly addresses the entire realm of business: hiring and firing, employee rewards, marketing, sales, etc. Each topic is kept to a page or two, and Noonan presents the nugget front and center: no searching required. The true genius of the book is how an animal-based story from 2000 years ago is paired with a current, well-known business figure (Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Howard Johnson, Donald Trump, etc.) through which it becomes clear that truths are timeless, although the names change.
This much alone would have resulted in a book that is well worth the modest price. But what made the book so memorable to me were the compelling vignettes, anecdotes, and stories that were used to provide context to the lessons. Similarly to The Tipping Point, a book with an interesting premise that was made so much more vivid and memorable through the use of great story-telling, Noonan's tome has catapulted itself from being "merely" a business book to an instruction manual about life itself by its master storytelling. It is quite simply a suberb effort.
This book is not the last we will hear from Mr. Noonan, I suspect. [Nor is it the first: he also co-authored a textbook called Groundwater Remediation and Petroleum (no doubt a best seller!)] I for one cannot wait for his next effort.
Ancient Lessons Hold True.......2005-04-01
David Noonan's latest work is brilliant in concept and execution. Noonan has dusted off the 2000+ year old fables of Aesop, accomplished the scholarly research, and demonstrated in a succint yet very readable style that the wisdom of ancients holds true today. A "must read" for students and practitioners of leadership.
Within Its Genre, a Brilliant Achievement.......2005-03-25
Within the limits of this genre which Noonan clearly recognizes, his book is far superior to so many others which also use a prominent historical figure as a source of business wisdom. (For example, Caligula on Values-Driven Leadership.) He carefully organizes his material within nine sections and employs the same format for each. In "Winning Business Strategies," for example, he examines seven of Aesop's fables in terms of (a) a contemporary CEO and/or company and (b) the key lesson to be learned from that fable:
"The Lion, the Bear, and the Fox": Michael Dell demonstrates that sometimes new opportunities exist even in a fiercely competitive society.
"The Fox and the Cat": Dunkin Donuts demonstrates that an organization should not be distracted from what it does best.
"The Fox and the Lion": The success of a small hardware store in direct competition with Home Depot demonstrates that, sometimes, it is both sensible and prudent to find ways to cooperate with the competition.
"The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing": General Patton's invasion of Italy demonstrates that a sound plan executed today is preferable to a perfect plan that's too late.
"The Ant and the Grasshopper": W. Edwards Deming's first principle of management demonstrates that effective long-term planning is the key to survival and eventual success.
"The Farmer and His Sons": Warren Bennis' use of Avis Rent a Car demonstrates that having an appropriate vision will enable everyone involved to know the business inside and out.
Finally, "The Eagle and the Beetle": Ulysses S. Grant's attack on Fort Donelson demonstrates the importance of determining how to get ahead of the competition...and then stay there.
Note the variety of situations, yes, but also the diversity of focal points which range from Dell through Patton and Deming to Grant. The same can be said of each of the other sections. Who else has identified correlations between "The Donkey Eating Thistles" and Mary Kay Ash, Peggy Noonan, and Sumner Redstone? Between "The Fox and the Crow" and Dale Carnegie and Paul Harvey? Between "The Fox and the Goat" and [The] Donald Trump? Highly entertaining material, to be sure, and certainly cleverly presented. However, the business lessons (albeit obvious) are worthy of reiteration and seem so much more vital when each is anchored within an unexpected context.
To David Noonan I now offer an appreciative "Well-done!"
Thought provoking and enjoyable.......2005-02-28
As an avid reader of business and management-oriented titles, I found Aesop and the CEO thoroughly engaging. The central concept draws parallels between Aesop's timeless fables and case studies from the modern business cannon, illuminating some simple truths found in both.
Aesop and the CEO covers a broad range of subjects, in easy to digest chapters. I personally enjoyed the sections on management, leadership and motivation. It was unusual to find "lessons learned" by business, political, sports and cultural leaders (including Mary K. Ash, Rudolph Giuliani, Ulysses S. Grant, Edward Deming, the Beatles and a local hardware store) all in one volume. The book is uniformly well written and a fast read.
The "morals" drawn from Aesop's stories and the business cases recounted in each chapter are widely applicable to today's social, business, civic and professional endeavors. These lessons will stimulate the reader's personal re-evaluation of past experiences and provide a richer perspective for future decision making.
This book is appropriate for for the casual reader seeking a refresher on some of life's simple truths, the experienced manager searching for insights on unifying and motivating teams, and marketers or senior executives charged with defining strategic direction for their product line or business.
Books:
- Lab Fever: Living, Loving and Laughing With America's #1 Pet
- Light and Illusion: The Hollywood Portraits of Ray Jones
- Love: A Celebration in Art & Literature
- Made in Japan: The Postwar Creative Print Movement
- Making Love with Light
- Mapping: An Illustrated Guide to Graphic Navigational Systems
- Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance
- Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France: Art Nouveau to Le Corbusier (Yale Publications in the History of Art)
- Moot points: Deranged drawings
- Narrative: National Gallery Pocket Guide (National Gallery London Publications)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Secret
- The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero
- The Miernik Dossier
- The Grave Maurice
- The Great American Pin-Up
- Secrets of the Soil: A Fascinating Account of Recent Breakthroughs-Scientific and Spiritual-That Can
- The Camera and the Tsars: A Romanov Family Album
- Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond
- Strange Worlds, Fantastic Places
- Rugs and Rollers
