Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting (National Gallery Of Art, Washington)

Book Description

The first three decades of the sixteenth century represent, visually and intellectually, the most exciting phase of the Renaissance in Venice—when Giorgione and the young Titian, together with Sebastiano del Piombo, Palma Vecchio, and others, were working alongside the older master Giovanni Bellini. This beautiful book presents an innovative survey of sixty Venetian Renaissance paintings of the caliber of Bellini and Titian’s Feast of the Gods in Washington and Giorgione’s Laura and Three Philosophers in Vienna.

Unlike previous surveys of the period, this book refrains from dividing up the artists represented and instead explores the interrelationships between them. Through a series of thematic sections, the authors trace the rise of secular subjects—pastoral landscapes, female nudes, and romantic portraits—and the transformation of religious ones as well as innovations in style and technique. Cutting across genres, the book also focuses on the overarching themes of music, love, and time.

Featuring essays by leading scholars, detailed entries on some of the most renowned pictures of sixteenth-century Italy, and revealing technical information, Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting is an essential volume to own.

Customer Reviews:

The Renaissance at its finest........2007-01-11

A must for the student and lover of the Renaissance and Venice in particular.

High water mark of renaissance painting.......2006-07-29

This remarkable show (and catalogue) is a summary of Venetian painting from 1500 to 1530, allowing a side by side comparison of the work of Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian in what was one of Venice's astonishing high water marks of artistic creativity.

Once you have been bitten by the bug, these paintings are with you for good. Seeing this work firsthand, one can't help be seduced by the ravishing, luminous beauty light and layers of glazing that makes these paintings unique. The stillness in some of these works suggest the real subject here is light and color -- something these Venetians seem to have captured like no other group of artists.

The reproductions in the catalogue are quite good, and there are a very generous amount of close detail shots of the paintings too -- something particularly useful in illustrating the intricacy of detail in Giorgione's work. The essays are interesting, but my favorite is one I almost missed after the technical photographs of xrays in the back: an essay which describes how the Venetian painters were at a remarkable crossroads of shared experimentation in color including glassmakers, creators of fabric dyes, and other tradesmen that contributed to a new world of color effects in paint. For example the painters would use finely ground glass mixed into the oils to give the glazes a more bright, refractory quality.

This is a captivating show and a great catalogue to accompany it.

Product Description

Following a completely fictitious scenario that takes in the converted loft of an absent boyfriend, three curvaceous girls play erotic dressing and undressing games in chic, frilly, titillating lingerie. They have a great time; most of it spent wearing bare essentials only, which ensures they will be infallibly appealing...

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Underdressed
Philippe Santamaria
Manufacturer: UNSPECIFIED VENDOR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UPFJ6K

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Underdressed
Philippe Santamaria
Manufacturer: n_a
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000QBVEQ2

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Fantastic!!!!!!

I'm In Love With Bleu.....Sigh......

Excellent and charming graphic novel!

Archie + Anime + The Ace Face

High School Confidential

Blue Monday, Vol. 2: Absolute Beginners
Chynna Clugston-Major
Manufacturer: Oni Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Blue Monday, Vol. 1: The Kids Are Alright

Blue Monday, Vol. 3: Inbetween Days (Blue Monday)

Blue Monday, Vol. 4: Painted Moon

Scooter Girl

Hopeless Savages Volume 3: Too Much Hopeless

ASIN: 1929998171

Book Description

Things start off bad as a costume party goes all wrong, and the brain-damaged, hormonally-challenged boys videotape Bleu in the bath. From there, Bleu and Clover will stop at nothing to get the tape back, while Erin makes it her personal mission to make sure everything stays screwed up! You see, this deranged action is actually a mating ritual in Alan and Victor's eyes, and Erin can't help but pit them against each other.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic!!!!!!.......2003-07-09

I, like many people bought this book to feed our own Adam Ant obsessions. The whole book is completely entertaining and very realistic when it comes to the way the kids talk to each other. I love the artwork and the little sidenotes she has on the pages. I graduated from highschool in 1993 and so the whole book could have been 15 year old ME sitting in my room pining away for Adam. Although I never got a ride in his limo. Sniff. And even if you have no clue who Adam Ant is (where have you been? under a rock?) but you like teenage highjinx, or comic books, you'll love this!!!!!!

I'm In Love With Bleu.....Sigh.............2002-12-01

Pity poor High-Schooler Bleu Finnegan. In addition to the usual Teen angst she's suffering through, she's just been secretly taped in the shower by a couple of sneaky boys.....and now the tape is making the rounds at school. Will poor Bleu get revenge? Will the tape spoil her hopes for romance with teacher of her dreams? Will Bleu's pal Clover finally admit that she can see the giant kilt-wearing Otter too? These questions and more are answered in Absolute Beginners....

Creator/Writer/Artist Chynna Clugston-Major does her usual great job of making the kids seem like real people, and her art hops effortlessly from semi-realistic to ultra cutesy, depending on the situation. Absolute Beginners is a true joy to read. And Bleu and Clover are babes!

Excellent and charming graphic novel!.......2002-07-29

This graphic novel collects Chynna Clugston-Major's second mini-series about Bleu Finnigan and her circle of friends in a northern California high school during the 80s. This volume is even stranger and more raucous than the first one, with events getting kicked off by Alan and Victor covertly taping Bleu while she takes a bath, followed by a "hooligan rules" battle-of-the-sexes soccer match, with everything coming to a head as the combination of Erin's manipulations and the sudden appearance of a Pooka who follows Bleu everywhere, leading to a "date from hell" between Bleu and Alan.

Clugston-Major's cartoony, Japanese-inspired art style is easy on the eye, although at points the characters look too similar to fully tell apart... but the confusion is usually quickly dispelled by taking a closer look at their dialogue; each of her charactes has a unique voice and personality that comes through clearly in the writing. And her characters are all very likable and charming--one might say that she has the making of an American Rumiko Takahashi!

One interesting note, to me at least, is the fact that the book is referred to as a "teenage sex comedy" on the back. Huh? What's a "teenage sex comedy"? If it's something along the lines of "American Pie" or "Porky's" then I think the marketeers failed to do "Blue Monday: " proper justice. Clugston-Major is never has to resort to the sort of crude humour that marks those films--even if her characters are hilariously foulmouthed at just the right moments. The characters populating "Blue Monday" are like the kids *I* went to school with, and therefore nothing at all like those found in "American Pie" and the like.

I highly recommend "Absolute Beginners," as well as the first volume in the series, "The Kids Are Alright," which revolves primarily around Bleu and her best friend Clover's quest to attend an Adam Ant concert.

Archie + Anime + The Ace Face.......2002-06-13

Archie meets anime down in the the tube station past midnight, resulting in this quirky high-school confidential series stocked with alternakids into ska, mod, punk, and new wave tunes and fashion. The main character is an Adam Ant obsessed 15-year-old girl named Bleu, who is joined in her adventures by her best friend Clover (a feisty Irish transfer student)t and a third girl named Erin. Their perpetual antagonists are Alan and Victor, fellow students at Jefferson high, one of whom is a mod, the other a rude boy. Their running gag is that they're a pair of porn-collecting peeping toms who take pictures and videos of semi-dressed girls and sell them. However, when they're not infuriating the three girls, they occasionally do good deeds for them. This is actually one problem I have with the series in general-the relationship between the guys and girls. The series makes a point of showing how both sides are outside the mainstream, indeed they are more or less in the same tiny subcultures, yet they don't hook up. The girls don't like the guys because they're idiots, but the guys' behavior is totally ridiculous. Any guy at that age into obscurish music would jump out of a window to be with a girl who was equally tuned in (I know, my friends and I all lived it)-especially ones as yummily drawn as Bleu and Clover. Granted, it's a comic, not reality, but I still found it annoying.

In any event, the first two thirds of the book is a running story about Bleu's attempt to score Adam Ant tickets, with subplots concerning a crush on a substitute teacher, and an escalating prank war with the boys. This is followed by about ten short stories which are more artistically rough and scattershot than the main story. Chynna's listing of a soundtrack for each story is a cute device (well, at least it is if you recognize all the songs). In general her artwork is very clever and full of activity, with an obvious Japanese influence in faces and bodies. An interesting technique she employs is when characters get emotional, their depictions turn into highly stylized, more simplistically formed 'toons. Another thing to look for is small details in the backgrounds, like the titles of books lying on the floors and band names on flyers. All good stuff touching on the same stuff I was into in high school-'ll be keeping an eye out for the next volume, Absolute Beginners.

...

High School Confidential.......2002-03-02

Ahh, all the angst, depression, and embarassment of my freshmen year re-lived! Fun fun fun!

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Fred for President!

Useless Drivel exposed by the truth

A Mind that Pierces the Culture Smog

Fred Reed - American Prophet & Good Ole' Boy

A breath of fresh wind.

The Great Possum-Squashing and Beer Storm of 1962: Reflections on the Remains of My Country
Fred Reed
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Journalism | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books
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The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Constitution (Politically Incorrect Guides)

ASIN: 0595151094

Book Description

Insightful, often wildly funny social and political commentary, generally conservative, by a Washington columnist fed up with practically everything.

Customer Reviews:

Fred for President!.......2004-07-19

Perhaps no writer going these days demolishes the liberal scourge as well as Fred Reed. In this collection of essays from his website, Fred On Everything, this longtime reporter sheds light on the issues confronting America with his own brand of political incorrectness, or "truth" as it used to be called. Although this book does contain some entertaining personal anecdotes, Fred's at his best when he's taking on the conventional "wisdom" propagated by modern America's elites. In witty, down-home prose that's typically as hilarious as it is insightful, Fred dispenses a constant stream of facts and common sense, which is of course the perfect antidote to the drivel spouted by the parasites that inhabit the fringes of our society. Although I'm far younger than Fred and I don't know any America other than the one we live in right now, he does write very convincingly of a culture in decline and the actors who are bringing it down. "The Cultural Vandals Come to Roost," along with Thomas Sowell's classic "Barbarians Inside the Gates," is probably the perfect description of the state America finds itself in these days. Fred hands out plenty of other indictments, as well. He's certainly got some easy targets, ranging from feminists to race hucksters to grief therapists to welfare queens. Fred takes them all on, with the kind of colorful and straightforward writing you won't find in your local newspaper. Want to hear the truth about what we call democracy in this country, and why it doesn't work? Pick up this book. Voting, and why you shouldn't do it? It's right here. Why our schools and universities are such a mess? Fred knows, and he writes about it so clearly that you'll know too. Have you ever suspected that multiculturalism might be a bad idea? So has Fred, and his writing on the subject is the most intelligent and unbiased I've ever read. Basically, unless you insist upon being completely ignorant and deluded for your entire life (a state often glimpsed among those who vote for Democrats), then you owe to yourself to buy this book, and check out Fred's website the first chance you get. I've read some of these essays five times (or more), and they don't get old. I'm morally opposed to voting, but Fred Reed is one guy I wouldn't mind seeing in office.

Useless Drivel exposed by the truth.......2004-04-03

Fred Reed has done it again. He exposes the drivel dispensed by Dan Rather and others for the truly useless crap that it is. He explains why middle class America is angry and shows why there is such a credibility gap between the so called "elite" and people that most of us consider real Americans.
Entertaining and disturbing.

A Mind that Pierces the Culture Smog.......2002-04-04

Fred Reed writes with a hillbilly twang, but this hillbilly has a Ph.D. in life thanks to, among other things, the marines and a life in the journalistic trenches. If you've ever suspected that things might be just a bit different from the reality seen by Naomi Wolfe, Dan Rather, and Jesse Jackson, if you've ever suspected that government dispenses favoritism while pretending that it's equality, if you've ever wondered where our leaders are taking us, this is the book for you. Fred Reed often begins his essays like a country lawyer, with the pretense of the uninformed, but then concludes with the kind of insight that our best minds should be capable of, but all too often aren't.

And after you've read it, you can give it to the neighborhood feminist and then take bets on how far she'll be able to read before going into anaphylactic shock.

Fred Reed - American Prophet & Good Ole' Boy.......2002-02-18

This is a great book - entertaining, insightful, funny, and thought-provoking - by a superb author. Fred has written for a number of different journals, including Soldier of Fortune and the Washington Times. He has an extremely refreshing, honest style that cuts through the political correctness, liberal censorship, feminist dogma, and racial hypocrisy that surround so many of today's issues. This would be a far better country if Fred Reed were running it. The book is a bargain, and expands on columns on his website. His works on the military, police work, feminism and race in America today, especially on the reparations scam and African-American attitudes, are some of the most accurate, telling, and honest that I've read anywhere. I work in the same general metro area as Fred does, and keep hoping I'll run into him so I can buy him a drink. Until then, I'll keep rereading the book and checking out his website.... Fred Reed is definitely one of those authors who will be highly revered over the years to come. Why not buy his book and enjoy his writing now?

A breath of fresh wind........2001-10-30

Amazon said my predicted rating was 4, and they are right. I don't always agree with Fred on everything but he is a great antidote for political correctness. Fred says what most of us think, but are afraid to say. A must read for anyone who feels suffocated by the unrelenting feminization of our country.

Book Description

Screen Saviors studies how the self of whites is imagined in Hollywood movies--by white directors featuring white protagonists interacting with people of another color. This collaboration by a sociologist and a film critic, using the new perspective

Customer Reviews:

Incisive Minds at Work.......2003-05-08

This is a neat and smart piece of work on American film. The authors have done their homework, their discussions of seminal Sixties and Seventies films is outstanding. Once you've read about what they have to say about the "Lethal Weapon" series, you'll never look at it the same. Which is a good thing for modern film is a carrier of all kinds of ideas, some of them are obvious, some are subliminal and it helps to know how to recognize both. Obviously the authors have spent a lot of time thinking about certain kinds of films and their intellectual impact. Their style is accessible, and though the terms they tend to use come from the very specialized worlds of contemporary academia, one grows to understand not only why they are used, but what they really mean. I recommend this book for specialists who need to reify their own critical radar as well as for movie buffs anxious to broaden their understanding of the subtexts behind the films they have grown to love.

Amazon.com

Who better to introduce a video gamer to the Net than Duke Nukem? The guy who's never pulled a punch with his animated fist isn't pulling any with his word processor, either. The language is as tongue-in-cheek comic macho as the Duke Nukem games, but the content is down-to-earth smart. It's not surprising that a battler like Nukem emphasizes security as he advises throughout on watching your tail--and your credit card. But the emphasis is on how to enjoy yourself, from finding information to fighting intergalactic scumbags. Extremely sensible and very entertaining.

Book Description

The Internet is the most glorious place on Earth for gamers. Now, one of the Cyber Era's greatest heroes--Duke Nukem, himself--has written a "no-holds-barred" book to help gamers learn the REAL Internet, the COOL Internet--and have fun while they're doing it! Here's the best way to discover what the Internet is, learn to use browsers and searches to find games, play the latest games against other people, download prerelease demos, and share info and cool files with other cyberfans. The book is such a rockin' good read that anyone wanting to get on to the Internet with an interest in games (86% of PC users by one survey!) will groove to this awesome introduction. It's as entertaining a read as a work of fiction!

Customer Reviews:

Good Guide.......1998-11-02

This book is a Kick-butt, take-no-prisoners guide to the internet. Includes sections for every element of the internet, including Security and On-line Gameing. A must for any Vidoe Gamer and Internet Buff.

Good Guide.......1998-11-02

Book Description

Combining best reporting practices with the latest information technology
Finance professionals need to constantly search for more efficient ways to increase the scope and effectiveness of the reporting process, while at the same time minimizing operational costs. Performance Management and Reporting Best Practices weds best practices to the ultimate measures-better business decisions and better results-defining clear action plans for successfully developing, implementing, and profiting from the strategic application of key performance metrics. David Axson's reader-friendly guide combines reporting best practices with the most recent developments in information technology, allowing managers to automate and streamline the reporting process to meet their unique needs. Drawing upon real-world examples, he explains how leading-edge companies are redesigning the financial planning process, making it more responsive, adaptive, useful, simple, powerful, and able to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage.
David Axson (Akron, OH) is Managing Director of AnswerThink Consulting Group's CEO/Solutions practice area.

Customer Reviews:

Best Practices to create value.......2007-07-23

Author David Axson provides practical best practices for the company interested in solving one its most crucial bottlenecks in creating value. It provides a clear roadmap for the "integration" of strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting. In most companies today these are fragmented or disparate processes that lack synchronization.
This book is an excellent reference guide with clear, concise examples. A real interesting read.

At last a reasonable definition for best practice.......2007-06-29

What Axson does is define what a best practice is. How it does not apply only to one company or industry. How anyone can adapt an existing one or, in fact, invent a new one for the benefit of other companies and industries.

Plenty of examples what companies do right and wrong and how to find the "low-hanging fruit" of common mistakes and right those mistakes using best practices.

How to shorten cycle time and implement decisions.......2006-11-15

According to David Axson, traditional planning and management reporting processes "are simply too slow, too detailed, and too disconnected for today's competitive world. Managers are seeking new decision-making processes and tools that enable them to shorten the cycle time to make and implement a decision." This book offers processes and tools to meet that need, what Axson characterizes as "the current "state of the art" practices, based on the benchmarks and client experiences of The Hackett Group of which Axson was a co-founder. As with so many other business books, this one responds to an important question, in fact to two:

What is the best level of performance to be achieved?
How is it to be accomplished?

Axson organizes his material with three Parts. First he explains why best practices can be "a vehicle for performance improvement," then describes the best practices for "each element of the planning and management reporting process - strategic planning, operational and financial planning, management reporting, and forecasting." Finally, in Part III, he provides insights into "the steps required to design a benchmark, build a best practices process, understand the critical success factors for implementation, and the importance of effective leadership. As I read Axson's book, I felt as if I were examining the contents of a "tool kit," with the book serving as an instructions manual.

Over recent years when retained by corporate clients to help them reduce cycle time while improving first-pass yield, I was frequently aware of the fact that the cycle time and first-pass yield of those initiatives were themselves "too slow, too detailed, and too disconnected for today's competitive world." I mention this because the same may be true of initiatives to identify and then implement best practices. Quite properly, Axson does not suggest which best practices to select but he offers invaluable advice as to how to ensure that their implementation is both effective and (key word) efficient.

He asserts that best practices must effect a measurable improvement of performance, be applicable across a broad spectrum of comparable organizations, be proven in practice, take full advantage of proven technologies, ensure an acceptable level of control and risk management, and get the skills and capabilities of the given organization in proper alignment. It is important to note that (a) his observations and recommendations are anchored in an abundance of real-world experiences and (b) are best viewed within a continuous and integrated process rather than as separate, autonomous initiatives.

On pages 19-20, Axson identifies the basic steps of best practice marketing: identify an opportunity for improvement, determine whether or not it justifies taking action, investigate the reasons for a "shortfall" in performance, identify the best practices which can be applied, and then focus on implementing the change(s) to achieve substantial improvement of the given organization's operations. To me, some of the most valuable material in this book is provided in Chapter 6, "Operational and Financial Planning: Translating Ideas into Action." He guides his reader through the step-by-step process.

In this context, I am reminded of what Peter Drucker once said in an article written for the Harvard Business Review in 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." Hence the importance of determining, first, which "shortfall" in performance is in greatest need of reduction, if not elimination. However, when making that determination, beware of responding to symptoms rather than to root causes. It is often helpful to use the "fishboning" technique: When discussing with associates a specific question or problem, ask "Why?" and in response to the answer, ask "Why?" again and continue to do so in this manner to each of least five subsequent responses to it. This admittedly an irritating but frequently productive process.

Decision-makers in any organization (regardless of its size or nature) will benefit substantially from the information, insights, and suggestions which Axson provides in this volume. To repeat, he does not suggest which benchmarks to select but does correctly emphasize that benchmarks must meet four primary requirements. They must be objective, quantifiable, credible, and actionable. Implicit, presumably, is another requirement: that a benchmark is relevant. One final point: What is a best practice today can soon become the norm and then the "shortfall" in need of attention. In that event, Axson's book will have provided an excellent preparation to respond to it effectively.

illuminating insights.......2003-08-05

An entertaining, insightful book - I found it useful in describing how benchmarking can be used to good effect in practise - in real situations - from someone who has definitely been there and done it. Our organization can certainly use the advice here - big time - and save ourselves a bunch of consultancy fees into the bargain!

Practical & easy to read.......2003-07-30

Axson's book offers a practical and easy to read review of best practices in one of the most maligned areas of management. Combining useful benchmark data and implementation guidance this book provides a useful companion for anyone attempting to navigate through a tough change process

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