1994 Miller Essentials of U.S. Taxation: Cpe Program

Book Description

Glen Baxter's world became seriously unhinged one fateful day in 1954 when he was wrestling a turnip to the floor of the gymnasium at St. Mildred's Academy for the Listless and Wayward. At exactly that moment the door was flung open by the portly Deputy Sheriff McClain. He began accusing Baxter of tampering with the bunkhouse collection of modernist paintings. Having successfully subdued the vegetable, Baxter nimbly parachuted out the window and landed feet first in his uncle's prized dandruff display. He immediately decided to become an artist.

That's one explanation. It may not be true. But whatever the circumstances of Baxter's beginnings, he is now revered among legions of misdirected fans as the creator of the world of images so startlingly offbeat that they evoke chortles and choking laughter even among the moribund. And his characters actually do wrestle with vegetables; his cowboys ponder abstract art; his students devise contraptions for writing letters with their heads. Forks that explode, seafood salads that act ferociously, apricots in peril, goatees that are removable, invisible newspapers, and vast mounds of glutinous cauliflower all contribute their efforts to ensure that the delightful madness of Baxter's psyche is aptly expressed.

Glen Baxter (English, b. 1944) has written numerous books, including The Billiard Table Murders and Blizzards of Tweed. His work has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Elle, Vogue, and The Independent on Sunday (London). "Colonel" Baxter lives in London; his art is often exhibited in London as well as in New York, San Francisco, and Paris.

Customer Reviews:

Very subtle, thoughtful humor.......2007-06-27

The best cartoonists see the world in ways the rest of us do not. A simple, routine act committed by nearly everyone can be turned into an event of cosmic or humorous proportions. While the cartoons of Glen Baxter are certainly good, they lack the sheer absurdity power of people like Larson in "The Far Side." Baxter's cartoons are subtler in their delivery; in most cases a little bit of thought is necessary to understand the entire message.
The book also includes a few brief essays, the message in these pages is more difficult to discern. A combination of parody and satire, some of them are only a short distance above the level of nonsense. At times, it takes a careful reading to get to that point.
As the cartoons and text demonstrate, Baxter is indeed a bit unhinged, but in the entertaining sort of way. This is entertainment for the mind, as the point is often not immediately obvious, requiring the reader to actively seek out the message.

Unhinged and off the hook.......2005-09-14

This book is absolutely delightful, especially if you've ever tried making an omelette with a hatchet. Glen Baxter is proof that there are still people out there who exist uncrushed by the mindlessness of today's society, people who don't mind wondering out loud what a Native American working on his English might say to the white teacher whose head happens to be on fire.

sophisticated humor at its most absurd.......2003-10-21

Besides his delightfully cheeky artwork, Glen Baxter's captions can't help but make you laugh. If you appreciate the wry and weird, by all means buy this book, if only to learn a few synonyms for the word "said."

Genius!.......2001-12-19

I'm a new convert to Baxter's work, but brother am I converted! From cowboys discussing modern art to strange trips through Imperialism and girl's schools, never has the tenuous connection between word and image been so funny. My favorites include the bandit with the bagel trunk and the man who checks his boulder. Gary Larson wishes he could be this clever.

Customer Reviews:

An uncommon Approach to wry smiling........1998-11-27

Although this book is not a side splitter it does create a warm sense of total insanity. The Fusco Brothers are unique and not formed from cookie cutter thinking. It will give you a laugh and remind you of someone you know immediately. The wolverine alone is worth the price...

Average customer rating:
White Columns in Hollywood Reports from the GWTW Sets
edited introd Richard Harwell Susan Myrick
Manufacturer: Mercer Univ Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JD08IM

Average customer rating:
White Columns in Hollywood: Reports from the Gwtw Sets
Susan Myrick
Manufacturer: Mercer University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0865542457

Average customer rating:
White Columns in Hollywood: Reports from the GWTW Sets

Manufacturer: Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1994
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GZGIZA

Amazon.com

A collection of essays by Douglas Coupland, whose first novel Generation X received critical acclaim. In his mid-30s, Coupland writes about what it means to grow up and the realization that he is not young anymore. Essays include observations on parents his age at Grateful Dead concerts who seem intent on preserving a youthful reckless and carefree lifestyle at the expense of their children, to the "gristled leather bachelors" and "straw-permed sex androids from Planet 1971," to mourning his own sense of youthfulness as he revisits old haunts in his native Vancouver.

Book Description

Douglas Coupland takes his sparkling literary talent in a new direction with this crackling collection of takes on life and death in North America -- from his sweeping portrait of Grateful Dead culture to the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe and the middle class.

For years, Coupland's razor-sharp insights into what it means to be human in an age of technology have garnered the highest praise from fans and critics alike. At last, Coupland has assembled a wide variety of stories and personal "postcards" about pivotal people and places that have defined our modern lives. Polaroids from the Dead is a skillful combination of stories, fact and fiction -- keen outtakes on life in the late 20th century, exploring the recent past and a society obsessed with celebrity, crime and death. Princess Diana, Nicole Brown Simpson and Madonna are but some of the people scrutinized.

Customer Reviews:

Take a picture.......2004-02-22

Skeleton fairy tales. Deadheads. Youths who hang around cemetaries. Marilyn Monroe. Fires. All these crop up in Douglas Coupland's atmospheric collection of essays and short stories, "Polaroids From the Dead," topped by the picture of a curiously blank-faced Sharon Tate.

Coupland populates "Polaroids" with people who contemplate the past, and how it fringes on the present: mothers telling their children parables, an older woman revelling in a Dead concert, a younger group observing aging hippies. And he himself is in quite a bit of it. There are essays on Brentwood (the site of Marilyn Monroe's mysterious death), a trip to Germany post-Berlin Wall, a letter to late rocker Kurt Cobain, descriptions of Palo Alto, and musings on the human preoccupations with crime, celebrities, fame, aging, death, and dead celebrities.

"Polaroids From The Dead" seems like an apt title for this book. Each short story isn't really a story. There's no true beginning and no end. It's just a snippet that shows the outlook and some of the life of the people in it, and their thoughts. While this type of writing is very vivid while you're actually reading it, it makes the characters difficult to remember later. Likewise, the essays show one of the facets of Coupland's outlook. It's pensive, a little sad at times, and at other times just provokes your thoughts and makes you wonder.

Likewise, the black-and-white photographs sprinkled through the book are curiously intimate; some of them (like a burning stick of dynamite) don't make sense until you're partway through the story. OJ and Nicole, models of T-Rexes, the Vietnam monument, flowers and skeletons turn up in the photographs. They don't add a great deal, except perhaps to underline the words Coupland writes.

"Polaroids From The Dead" is a collection of snapshots of all kinds -- photos, experiences, and stories. Meditative, melancholy and atmospheric.

Polaroids from an amazing author.......2003-07-29

Every time I pick up a Coupland book I am always pleasantly surprised. Polaroids is a quick and easy read. The sections are split up into 5-10 page short stories. These small pieces are set in three parts. The first being short observations of the many different people you would find at a greatful dead concert. Coupland delves into the reasons each person comes to the concert and their daily lives outside of it. He compares the opinions of true hippies to wanna-be hippies. There is a charming tale near the end of this section that is told by a mother to her children as they wait for their father to finish watching the show.

The second part is a variety of observations that range from the majestic beauty of the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, Canada to postacards from friends and a painting of an F-111 that speaks to the author on a spiritual level.

The Last section brings us to Brentwood, California. This section shows us many different ways of looking at Brentwood. Coupland lists advertising displays, answers the question: what sort of person lives in Brentwood, The relationship between Brentwood and O.J.Simpson, the colors that are predominant in Brentwood, etc..etc..

This amusing book makes one take a harder look at people and their surroundings. It asks you the questions no one else bothers to ask: "Who are these people around me and why do they do the things they do?" I was quite pleased with this book and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading social commentary.

Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez

DeadHeads, Baby.......2002-09-14

I enjoyed this book. It's not as strong as Generation-X or Shampoo Planet, but the prose style is in the same vent. The letter to Kurt Cobain here is the most interesting, especially for those of us who miss him and love his music.

But Coupland's FUN "expose" of Bay Area culture, especially DeadHead culture, is right on. Anyone who has walked down Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley will smile upon reading the opening paragraphs here. And anyone who has seen (or been around) any of the Deadhead carnivals around the Greek Theater in Berkeley will also laugh and smile knowingly....

This is a groovy book, baby.

Middle of the road.......2002-08-17

Lukewarm collection of stories, essays, and observations from Generation X's primary author and voice. The first part of the collection (the titular "Polaroids") consists of short vignettes involving Deadheads at a Grateful Dead concert, of which only "How Clear Is Your Vision of Heaven?" seems to be effective. In that tale, Columbia tells her young children a bedtime story (about an enchanted city beset by drought that continues on a downward spiral with the appearance of a skeleton) as they all bunk inside an Econoline van while Columbia's husband Ezekiel enjoys the concert alone.

The middle of the book is the best read. "Portraits of People and Places" is a collection of essays, letters, postcards, pictures, and rants about different places that Coupland has visited and experienced. His piece of Lions Gate Bridge is perhaps one of the best pieces I've ever read about Coupland. I loved the image he created with the trumpeter playing tunes for the gridlocked drivers/passengers while the suicide jumper teetered over the edge of the bridge. Coupland's descriptions of Palo Alto, CA, Los Alamos, NM, and Vancouver are magnificent. I've never been to these places, but Coupland effectively recreates them without much effort.

The final part is the "Brentwood Notebook," an interesting piece on suburban Brentwood, California, site of Marilyn Monroe's suicide in 1962 and the Nicole Brown Simpson-Ron Goldman murders in 1994, of which football great OJ Simpson was tried and acquitted in what has become the trial of the 20th century. Coupland goes through every detail of the suburb, from the fact that it is NOT an actual city, just a suburb, to details about nearby cemetaries and places of interests. A map would have been nice, however.

Overall, I have to give this one a three. The first part did nearly next to nothing for me. The middle was wonderful; the end was anti-climactic. The numerous photos helped, especially the cover photo of the beautiful actress Sharon Tate, who, within the book on pp. 14-15, eerily shares space with the man who had her killed, infamous murderer Charles Manson.

never read it.......1999-04-01

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Average customer rating:

Douglas Coupland's worst book! Do not judge him by this book!
Totally Trashy!
I don't know what to think
Entertaining and witty, but too thin on plot
not his best work

Miss Wyoming
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: RANDOM HOUSE @ TRADE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Similar Items:

ASIN: 067931010X

Amazon.com

The eponymous heroine of Miss Wyoming is one Susan Colgate, a teen beauty queen and low-rent soap actress. Dragooned into show business by her demonically pushy, hillbilly mother, Susan has hit rock bottom by the time Douglas Coupland's seventh book begins. But when she finds herself the sole survivor of an airplane crash, this "low-grade onboard celebrity" takes the opportunity to start all over again:

She felt like a ghost. She tried to find her bodily remains there in the wreckage and was unable to do so.... Then she was lost in a crowd of local onlookers and trucks, parping sirens and ambulances. She picked her way out of the melee and found a newly paved suburban road that she followed away from the wreck into the folds of a housing development. She had survived, and now she needed sanctuary and silence.

She's not, of course, the only Hollywood burnout who'd like to vanish into thin air. Her opposite number, a producer of big-budget, no-brainer action flicks named John Johnson, stages a similar disappearing act. After a near-death experience, in the course of which he is treated to a vision of Susan's face, he roams the western badlands. And even after his return to L.A., Johnson is determined to unravel the mystery of this woman's fate.

Throughout, Coupland displays his usual gift for capturing the absurdities of modern existence. The distinctive minutiae of our age--junk mail and fast food, sitcoms and Singapore slings, and the "shop fronts bigger and brighter and more powerful than they needed to be"--come to vivid, funny life in this author's hands. And while Susan and John occupy center stage, Coupland is just as generous with his peripheral characters. A scriptwriter and his supernaturally intelligent girlfriend, a recluse who spends his evening generating Internet rumours--all manage to be blessed and cursed, numbed by their pointless existences but full of humanity when put to the test. Picture Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut collaborating on a Tinseltown version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you come halfway to grasping Coupland's brand of thoughtful, supremely funny storytelling. --Matthew Baylis

Book Description

From the bestselling author of Generation X and Microserfs,comes the absurd and tender story of a hard-living movie producer and a former child beauty pageant contender who only find each other by losing themselves.

Waking up in an L.A. hospital, John Johnson is amazed that it was the flu and not an overdose of five different drugs mixed with cognac that nearly killed him. As a producer of high-adrenaline action flicks, he's led a decadent and dangerous life, purchasing his way through every conceivable variant of sex. But each variation seems to take him one notch away from a capacity for love, and while movie-making was once a way for him to create worlds of sensation, it now bores him. After his near-death experience, John decides to walk away from his life.

Susan Colgate is an unbankable former tv star and child beauty pageant contender. Forced to marry a heavy metal singer in need of a Green Card after her parents squander her sitcom earnings, she becomes the alpha road rat. But when the band's popularity dwindles, the marriage dissolves. Flying back to Los Angeles in Economy, Susan's plane crashes and only she survives. As she walks away from the disaster virtually unscathed, Susan, too, decides to disappear.

John and Susan are two souls searching for love across the bizarre, celebrity-obsessed landscape of LA, and are driven, almost fatefully, toward each other. Hilarious, fast-paced and ultimately heart-wrenching, Miss Wyoming is about people who, after throwing off their self-made identities, begin the fearful search for a love that exposes all vulnerabilities.

Download Description

From the bestselling author of Generation X and Microserfs, a smart, funny, fast-paced mystery with a heartfelt American romance at its core. Susan is a former child-beauty-pageant contender. John is a hard-living movie producer. She walks away from a plane crash without so much as a scratch. He comes away from a near-death experience with a unique, vivid plan. Susan refuses to spend one more day peddling herself for cheesy TV sitcom parts and takes advantage of a very weird situation to disappear. John turns his back on a hedonistic life making blockbuster action flicks. Shedding their self-made identities, each sets out on an uncharted course across the Gap-clogged, strip-mall landscape of California, searching for the thing -- Love -- that neither has ever really known, but that they now think they just might, actually, desperately want. Assisting Susan and John are a blackmailing pageant mom, a pair of suburban eggheads, a rust-belt refugee, and a salad bar of other twentieth-century Americans who all share the dream of one day taking center stage. In Miss Wyoming, Douglas Coupland has combined the literary and the popular in a sparkling and witty caper that quietly resonates into the eternal.

Customer Reviews:

Douglas Coupland's worst book! Do not judge him by this book! .......2007-01-15

Whatever Miss Wyoming is--a publishing-quota filler, a bout of writer's block, evidence of exhaustion (the man is prolific)--the writing is not representative of the writer.
Why's it stink? Well, mostly because it's just lazy, and ill-conceived. Coupland spends these 311 pages taking aim at the easiest target, Hollywood phonies, filling Miss Wyoming with insufferably obnoxious characters and their tirades of referential dialogue. Normally in his books, this character/type is the exception, a trivial anomaly who's mostly there to mock. Here, though, they're the rule, and there's not one tolerable character because of it. Even the two "heroes" are tossed off, lame approximations of outsider underdogs. The writing is weak too, bereft of Coupland's usual incisive wit and shrewd perception, instead given to sassiness and stupid similes. The book at times even verges on self-parody (Chapter Four), where the prose is so stereotypically rote it could have been spat out from a machine, or a beginning college creative writer.
Anyway, Douglas Coupland is a great author. Almost all of his other work is gold-plated gold. This is his dud. All authors have them; so be it. Read literally any other of his works.

Totally Trashy!.......2006-03-06

If you are addicted to reading the tabloids then you'll love this book. If you're looking for depth, and intellectual stimulation stay away!

I don't know what to think.......2005-10-27

I hated it, then I was indifferent, then I briefly liked it, now I'm indifferent. I think I agree with the other posters who said the characters were not well developed. It's one of those works where you shouldn't think too much; otherwise you'll spoil it for yourself and the author. At the end of the day, if a novel brings me to Amazon to read other reviews, it must deserve at least 3 stars.

Entertaining and witty, but too thin on plot.......2005-08-05

Coupland creates some highly developed characters in Miss Wyoming; Susan, a former child/teen pageant queen turned minor TV celebrity who is currently all washed up, John, a former Hollywood player turned drug addicted hack, and Ryan and Vanessa, two unbelievably smart twentysomethings with too much time on their hands. Coupland provides in-depth backstories for his characters and makes them sympathetic to the reader, and his observations about L.A. and modern pop culture are often sharp and funny, but the book somehow falls short in the plot. Normally, books that don't have a chronological arc are written to enhance the plot, but Miss Wyoming feels a bit jerky in this regard. Coupland spends so much time describing things that happened to the characters years and years ago that don't seem to move things forward. Three quarters of the way into the book, I wondered where Coupland was going with it; once I was finished, it seemed incomplete. If you're a fan of Coupland's writing style, you'll probably still enjoy this quick read. If not, the plot is nothing to write home about.

not his best work.......2005-07-30

I am a fan of Coupland (Microserfs, especially, and also Hey, Nostradamus). Miss Wyoming seems hurriedly put together. The characters' motivations for their romantic and sexual liaisons are not believable. Which would be okay except that these are central to the book's plot.

Average customer rating:

Polaroids from the Dead
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Canada, Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JC5TKU

Average customer rating:

Polaroids from the Dead -
Douglas Coupland -
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishing -
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PSQ7YA

Average customer rating:

Polaroids From the Dead 1ST Edition Uk
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: HARPERCOLLINS @ PUBLISHERS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SNGDHS

Review essay: Canada in a Coma.(Douglas Coupland books) (book review): An article from: American Review of Canadian Studies

Average customer rating:

Review essay: Canada in a Coma.(Douglas Coupland books) (book review): An article from: American Review of Canadian Studies
Jefferson Faye
Manufacturer: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008IK9VE
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Review of Canadian Studies, published by Association for Canadian Studies in the United States on September 22, 2001. The length of the article is 4102 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: Review essay: Canada in a Coma.(Douglas Coupland books) (book review)
Author: Jefferson Faye
Publication: American Review of Canadian Studies (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2001
Publisher: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
Volume: 31 Issue: 3 Page: 501(11)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Polaroids From the Dead
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: Regan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O5ZYV6

Book Description

If you can't afford to let the Web get ahead of you, you can't afford not to have this guide. In this best-selling Visual QuickStart Guide, you'll find all the friendly, step-by-step instructions you need to start using DHTML and CSS to add visually sophisticated, interactive elements to your Web sites. Completely updated to cover the new browsers, standards, and DHTML and CSS features that define the Web today, the one thing that hasn't changed in this edition is its task-based visual approach to the topic.

Using loads of tips and screenshots, veteran author Jason Cranford Teague covers a lot of ground--from basic and advanced dynamic techniques to creating effects for newer browsers, migrating from tables to CSS, and creating new DHTML scripts. If you're new to DHTML and CSS, you'll find this a quick, easy introduction to scripting, and if you're a more experienced programmer, you'll be pleased to find practical, working examples throughout the book.

Customer Reviews:

Good Reference Material.......2007-08-13

All the Peachpit Press Visual QuickStart books are organized well and progress in an appropriate logical manner. The index for this book helps to quickly find the information you need. I build website's regularly and this book extended my knowledge. A good buy.

Hard to follow.......2006-06-07

After reading Elizabeth Castro's HTML book I thought this would be a good next step. However, this book does not stack up anywhere as readable as Castro's book. The CSS part is OK, but the javascript part is poor with hard-to-follow examples using Alice in Wonderland images.

Good purchase.......2006-02-01

I am about half way through the book and like it so far. I wasn't quite sure what to expect though I have purchased Visual QuickStart books before and have been happy with them. All in all I feel like it was a good purchase that I can use.

Sloppy editing--typos all over!.......2005-12-10

I don't know how all the mistakes in this book got past the editors. It is more than just careless typos. There are numerous inconsitancies between the CSS examples given and the web page results. Only as far as the second chapter, I've lost count of the inconsistancies--enough to make me give up on the book. I've checked out the companion web site, and the corrections are not to be found. The poor quality of the book also shakes my faith in Peachpit Press's Visual Quickstart series, which up until now I have enjoyed using.

Excellent Introduction to Dynamic Web Coding.......2005-12-05

This book is for people who already understand programming languages and who have hand-crafted HTML before.

If you are such a person, this book will be very helpful in learning how to create dynamic web pages: CSS plus Javascript plus DOM equals Dynamic HTML.

The skills you will learn in this book will take you to the next level. It does not insult your intelligence with overviews of basic stuff but it does step you through the new material.

I liked it, it helped me and I recommend it.

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