O'Keeffe At Abiquiu

Customer Reviews:

If You Love O'Keeffe...........2000-07-08

If you love New Mexico, O'Keeffe or just fine photography this is a book for you. This intimate look at O'Keeffe through text and photos gives us a better look at this complicated artist. The photos by M. Wood are outstanding, as he takes you through how he contacted Ms. O'Keeffe, through the subtle games she and her gardener played. It was easy to see the love of the land that not only Ms. O'Keeffe had, but the same feeling seems to to just pop out of each photogrpah that Mr. Woods shows us.

Reluctant Runaway (To Catch a Thief Series #2)

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Enjoyable AND sharp.
Another gripping tale by Jill Nelson
Don't "Runaway" from this book! =)
Don't Be Reluctant!
Entertaining Who Done What...

Reluctant Runaway (To Catch a Thief Series #2)
Jill Elizabeth Nelson
Manufacturer: Multnomah Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1590526872
Release Date: 2007-03-20

Book Description

Stolen Indian artifacts…A murdered museum guard…A missing woman…A baby in danger…

Only Desiree can unearth the horrifying secret that links them all.

Museum security expert Desiree Jacobs doesn’t mean to get in danger’s path. Really she doesn’t. But when a friend is in trouble you don’t just walk away. No matter what your overprotective FBI agent boyfriend says! So when Desi and Tony’s date at a presidential ball is interrupted by a frantic Maxine Webb, Desi doesn’t hesitate to jump in.

Soon Desi is neck-deep in a confusing array of villains. Did Max’s niece run away or was she taken? Is she still alive or the victim of a perverse ritual? And who wants her infant son–and why?

Then Tony’s organized crime case collides with Desi’s investigation, throwing them both into the path of something dark and sinister. Something that craves blood…

From the streets of Desi’s beloved Boston to the mountain desert of New Mexico, Desi and Tony must rely on God to thwart unseen forces–and save a young woman and her baby from a villain more evil than any of them can imagine.

Customer Reviews:

Enjoyable AND sharp........2007-10-11

In her novels Jill Nelson has a way of simplifying some of the most prickly issues Christians face today. One of my favorite scenes in her latest novel, The Reluctant Runaway, involves the heroine, Desiree Jacobs and her Native American kidnapper, Pete Cheama, a member of the Zuni tribe. Pete has made plenty of bad choices in his life, and he ultimately blames his mistakes on Christians, whose system "was forced upon [his] people centuries ago and has made [their] spirits weak and [their] minds confused." No Christian wants to feel her faith has weakened or confused anyone, so sometimes we refrain from even discussing Christianity. But Desiree merely responds, "Jesus is not an oppressor." Right there, concisely--the difference between true Christianity and any faith that demands, rather than invites.

Nelson's novel is a fun read, with plenty of suspense and action (and some clever romance, to boot). You could enjoy the entire reading experience without stopping to focus on the choice tidbits about faith with which she occasionally peppers the story. But those tidbits deepen the novel and make it stay with you well after you finish the last page. I'd recommend Reluctant Runaway for teen-through-adult readers.

Another gripping tale by Jill Nelson.......2007-07-03

In this engaging sequel to Reluctant Burglar, museum security expert Desiree Jacobs, once again becomes drawn into a mystery when Max's niece goes missing. Could her disappearance have anything to do with Tony's organized crime case? As their romance heats up, so does the trail that leads to stolen artifacts, leading them both to the New Mexico dessert. They must learn to trust God, not only with their surmounting dangers, but with their romance. Is it possible that this new religious cult, is at the center of these mysteries?
As in Reluctant Burglar, Jill Nelson has once again masterfully weaved a tale of suspense and drama while demonstrating the power of faith to overcome the worst of our fears and obstacles. As the romance develops between Desiree and Tony, an FBI agent, the reader is shown the hand of God in even this, our most intimate of human relationships. Is it possible for these two, an over-protective cop and an independent, sometimes risk-taker security expert, to find a peaceful coexistence in which their love can blossom?
Although the plot can be read independently from the book's forerunner, Reluctant Runaway, has achieved the best of sequel writing. Not only has the author improved on her story telling techniques, but has added depth and challenge to an all-ready intriguing story. Very enjoyable read.

Don't "Runaway" from this book! =).......2007-06-26

Okay, cheesy title for this review, I know - but guys, this was a super fun read! I liked it even better than the first in this series, and I didn't think that would happen! Jill Nelson has somehow managed to create a book that is at the same time fun and serious, intense and light, funny and shocking...what a combo! My favorite part of Jill's books are by far the characters - so realistic. They crack me up, yet two pages later, they have me tearing up.

Job well done, Jill.

As for the rest of you - check out this series ASAP! You won't regret it!

Don't Be Reluctant!.......2007-06-21

Security expert Desiree Jacobs' friend and business associate Maxine has a problem. Max's niece is missing. Kidnapping victim or a runaway? No one knows, but it seems everyone has an opinion. The niece also works for a museum that was recently robbed of priceless items. Right before the niece's disappearance. Now things are getting worse. Desi has to step in and help. But wait! She's promised her FBI boyfriend Tony that she won't get involved in such things anymore. But she has to, right? This is her friend we're talking about. And when Desi and Tony's individual cases collide sparks aplenty fly.

If you'll pardon the obvious pun, I was reluctant to read this novel which is book two in the series. See, I'm ashamed to say I hadn't read book one. And Jill Nelson is my pal. Oh I'd read a chapter of book one that was posted to her website once. That was enough to convince me she was a good writer. I knew that. I've been swamped with books that I had to read. It seems there's never an end sometimes. Oh the horrors! :-)

The opportunity came for me to read book two, Reluctant Runaway. As a member of Christian Fiction Blog Alliance we're plugging this novel this week. I received a copy of it to read a review. So glad I did. And the fact that it was the second in a series never tripped me up. Jill's sprinkles enough backstory to set you at ease with the characters, all the while taking you on a thrill ride like no theme park you've ever been to.

It was a pleasure to read this novel. Jill's writing is tight and easy to read. Her characters are engaging and endearing. And the cliff hangers at some of the chapters! Shesh! I was already to put the book down for a while at one point to do some other things and then a gun went off at the end of the chapter. Ack! Who's dead? I couldn't stop reading there. Nuh uh. :-)

Now I'm looking forward to going back in time and reading book one in the To Catch A Thief series, Reluctant Burglar. And then there's the upcoming book three, Reluctant Smuggler.

Can't wait!

Entertaining Who Done What..........2007-06-20

Part action packed who-done-what and part romantic suspense, I found myself sucked into Reluctant Runaway. I didn't meet the crime fighting duo of Desi and Tony in the Reluctant Burglar but Nelson did a great job at sharing enough details of the first book without oversharing and intruding on the story at hand.

Several amusing scenes interspersed with cliffhangers made the read roller coasty. Forgiveness is a huge spiritual theme as is discernment and the danger of tiny shifts in the Gospel message.

If you enjoyed book one in the series, you're going to want to get your hands on Reluctant Runaway as soon as possible. If you like romantic suspense, strong female leads and sassy talk -- you'll likely enjoy this novel.

New Tendencies in Mexican Art: The 1990s (New Directions in Latino American Culture)

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Ruben Gallo is a Genius!

New Tendencies in Mexican Art: The 1990s (New Directions in Latino American Culture)
Ruben Gallo
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 140396100X

Book Description

The decade of the 1990s was one of the most turbulent periods in recent Mexican history marked by political assassinations, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, the signing of NAFTA, a catastrophic economic crisis, and the defeat of the PRI after seventy years of one-party rule. How did art respond to these events? To answer this question, Gallo examines some of the most radical artistic experiments produced in this period, from Daniela Rossell's photographs of Mexican millionaires to Teresa Margolles's manipulations of human remains, from Santiago Sierra's controversial work with human subjects to Vicente Razo's creation of a Salinas museum.

Customer Reviews:

Ruben Gallo is a Genius!.......2004-08-29

Ruben Gallo is a genius. Never before has art been better used to explicate the weird, wooly, cilantro-ey world of Mexican culture. This is the rare thing -- an art-culture page turner. This book is the perfect dinner guest -- smart, witty, and with perfect phrasing. I endorse it!

The Saint Makers: Contemporary Santeras Y Santeros

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Saints in wood

The Saint Makers: Contemporary Santeras Y Santeros
Chuck Rosenak , and Jan Rosenak
Manufacturer: Northland Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0873587189

Customer Reviews:

Saints in wood.......2002-11-27

This is a really beautiful book that features the works of some forty New Mexico artists. The featured artists are those that work with wood as wood carvers. Each artist has at least one piece featured, some with multiple examples of their artistry. The contemporary artists in this book are those that create bultos and retablos which have a long standing tradition in the southwest, predominatelyly in New Mexico. These beautiful offerings to the various saints can be found in many homes as well as houses of worship. Each artist gets one or two pages and a short biography which gives good background information on the artist, including their accomplishments in the field. Some of the artists are the more well known , like Charlie Carillo but there are many talented artists for your discovery. The daughter of legendary wood carver and santero(one who makes saints) Felix Lopez is featured and her work is as lovely as she is. One of the more interesting aspects of this book is that these artists have revived the tradional methods that were used centuries ago utilizing gesso and natural pigments. There are a variety of styles, including the application of tin and gold leaf for some stunning results. This is a truly inspiring book that is a marvel. I'm so grateful to have this book and always look it over and seem to learn something new everytime I view it. Included is a complete gallery and museum guide, that includes adressess and phone numbers where the artists work can be found or has been featured. Also there is a comprehensive list of each and every artist and how to contact them, suggested books on the subject, a glossary of terms and saints. A fantastic book to get as a gift or to give someone, this book is a treasure for those that love the arts of the southwest.

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Contemporary Art in New Mexico
Jan Ernst Adlmann , and Barbara McIntyre
Manufacturer: Craftsman House (AU)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Crafting Devotions: Tradition in Contemporary New Mexico Santos

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Divine Inspiration
Paraphrased from the Jacket

Crafting Devotions: Tradition in Contemporary New Mexico Santos
Laurie Beth Kalb
Manufacturer: University of New Mexico Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Santos, or Hispano Catholic religious images, are an important expression of Hispano New Mexican culture, and have been since santos were introduced in the sixteenth century by Spanish colonists. Santos are also becoming more and more marketable to a growing audience of museums and private collectors. This interest is abundantly clear in galleries around Santa Fe and in northern New Mexico, especially at the annual Spanish Market each July.

In this first serious study of contemporary santeros working in northern New Mexico, amply illustrated throughout with beautiful color photographs, Laurie Beth Kalb examines the role and meaning of tradition in the work of a number of artists, both living and deceased, including Luis Tapia, Patrocinio Barela, Marco and Patricia Oviedo, Enrique Rendon, and many others. For each of these artists, the meaning of tradition varies, and the issues of self-representation, cultural expression, preservation, innovation, and market demands are all complex, powerful, and delicate. It is both troublesome and rewarding to be able to support a family on the sales of religious images to Anglo buyers. The mainstream fine art world, tourism, religion, and ethnic politics all play roles in the creation of traditional works in a contemporary world.

For all the santeros, the tangle of religious, commercial, political, and aesthetic forces requires complicated choices far beyond the basic relationships between themselves and their saints. Laurie Beth Kalb tells a fascinating and revealing story about a unique art form and its significance.

Customer Reviews:

Divine Inspiration.......2000-07-12

If you are interested in wood carving and the tradition of the wood carvers in New Mexico this is a must have book. The secular and non-secular images displayed are excellent and inspiring works of art. The book is easy to read and entertains in a quasi-sholarly way. The glimpses into the various artists featured are interesting as they share insights into the way of life of these Santeros. The various profiled artists are unique, diverse, deceased or living and extremely talented. The section on Patrocino Barela and his family is fascinating and worth the cost of the book alone as it features some of his works which are extremely rare. This is a book that you will enjoy reading but more than that you will love looking at the works of art. Add this book to your art or religious section of your personal library. Be warned, you may not shelve the book as you will want to look at it over and over.

Paraphrased from the Jacket.......2000-03-29

This study of contemporary santeros working in northern New Mexico is illustrated throughout with color photographs. Kalb examines the role and meaning of tradition in the work of a number of artists, both living and deceased. For each of these artists, the meaning of tradition varies, and the issues of self-representation, cultural expression, preservation, innovation, and market demands are all complex, powerful, and delicate. It is both troublesome and rewarding to be able to support a family on the sales of religious images to Anglo buyers. The mainstream fine art world, tourism, religion, and ethnic politics all play roles in the creation of traditional works in a contemporary world. For all the santeros, the tangle of religious, commercial, political, and aesthetic forces requires complicated choices far beyond the basic relationships between themselves and their saints. Laurie Beth Kalb tells a fascinating and revealing story about a unique art form and its significance

My Time There: The Art Colonies of Santa Fe & Taos, New Mexico, 19562006

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My Time There: The Art Colonies of Santa Fe & Taos, New Mexico, 19562006
R. H. Dick
Manufacturer: St. Louis Mercantile Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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This is an over-rated book.
A "must" for students of Native American art history

Pablita Velarde: Painting Her People
Marcella J. Ruch , and Joyce M. Szabo
Manufacturer: New Mexico Magazine
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Binding: Hardcover

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Old Father Story Teller

ASIN: 0937206679

Book Description

Author Marcella Ruch spent many hours with Pablita Velarde recording her stories as first person reminiscences, which the artist has fully endorsed. These anecdotes go back to Pablita's childhood Pueblo life, to her mother's early death from TB, and starting at St. Catherine's Indian School at age 5. Pablita recalls her later years at the Santa Fe Indian School, working with Dorothy Dunn to develop her art, and painting murals at Bandelier under the WPA. She reflects on raising her children alone, and her eventual fame as a American Indian painter. Her stories are about the struggles of a Native American woman in the 20s, 30s and 40s, but even more, reveal an artist who triumphed over many difficulties with strength, talent, and courage, to inspire later generations.

Each story is illustrated with one of Pablita's paintings of Pueblo life, a photograph from her personal collection, or a historical photograph from the Museum of New Mexico photo archives.

New Mexico Magazine Artist Series

This beautiful art book combines the historical memoir of a beloved artist with her art, featuring twenty-eight paintings in full color, some previously unpublished and rarely seen.

Customer Reviews:

This is an over-rated book........2007-09-28

I read about this artist in New Mexico magazine and it heavily promoted her book. The full page ad showed her standing next to a painting of three tribal people dancing and implied the painting was included in the artist's book; it was not. I found her work interesting but not nearly as it was promoted. Once again, for the casual reader, look up back issues of NM magazine featuring Pablita Velarde for comprehensive editorial and pictorial reviews of her work. This book is second rate in comparison, in my opinion.

A "must" for students of Native American art history.......2002-01-09

Pablita Verlarde: Painting Her People is an impressive artbook that beautifully presents an historical and compelling memoir of the artist, enhanced with twenty-eight of her paintings in full color, including some previously unpublished and rarely seen. Biographer Marcella Ruch spent many hours with Pablita Verlarde recording her stories as first person reminiscences and includes anecdotes drawn from her Pueblo childhood, her mother's early death from TB, her experiences at St. Catharine's Indian School at age 5, her later years at the Santa Fe Indian School (working with Dorothy Dunn to develop her art), and painting murals at Bandelier under the WPA. There are personal reflections on the struggle to raise her children alone, and her eventual fame as an Native American painter. Here also are stories about the experiences of being a Native American woman in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, as well as being an artist able to triumph over many difficulties. Each story is illustrated with one of her paintings of Pueblo life, a photograph from her personal collection, or an historical photograph from the Museum of New Mexico photo archives. A "must" for students of Native American art history in general, and the work of Pablita Verlarde in particular, Pablita Velarde: Painting Her People is also available in paperback (0937206652, $18.95).

Santos, Statues, and Sculpture: Contemporary Woodcarving from New Mexico

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Santos, Statues, and Sculpture: Contemporary Woodcarving from New Mexico
Laurie Kalb
Manufacturer: Univ of New Mexico Pr
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Binding: Paperback

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Soq: Contemporary Art In Southern New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 23-April 25, 2004

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Soq: Contemporary Art In Southern New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 23-April 25, 2004
Museum of Fine Arts
Manufacturer: Museum of New Mexico Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

Writer James Baldwin earnestly championed the civil rights movement in both his fiction and nonfiction, a fact which, coupled with his extraordinary writing talent, assured not only his historical importance, but also his place as one of the finest African American writers of his generation. Collected Essays is a comprehensive collection of his most memorable prose, including "Stranger in the Village," "The Harlem Ghetto," and "Many Thousands Gone." Clear in voice and vision, the essays communicate the emotions of an entire historical movement. Combining politics, prophecy, and passion, Baldwin's essays are truly as thought-provoking today as they were some 30 years ago.

Customer Reviews:

A must for the Serious Scholar's library.......2006-07-22

This collection of Baldwin's writings is priceless because not only is it a showcase of an agile and fertile mind, it also brings together in a single volume some of his most popular and more famous as well as some of his less formal writings and speeches.

Always well ahead of his times, Baldwin's essays remain fresh and as relevant in today's more quiescent racial times as they were during the more troubled times of his life. They remain fresh because they tell in Baldwin's own inimical and elegant way, the deeper truths about our troubled racial past and present. Most of all they reflect how Baldwin used his quick and restless mind to critique the social and artistic scenes of our troubled era: His strategy, reflected in this collection, was always to mine the substance from the subtext upwards. Those of us who try to mimic his techniques can learn a lot from this and the companion volume of his collected works.

At the same time, Baldwin's psychological analysis remains unerring and at least as sharp as, if not sharper than those of some of his French contemporaries, including his friends and compatriots in the struggle, Franz Fanon and Jean Paul Sartre, who also were both not only revolutionaries and revolutionary thinkers like Baldwin, but also a Psychiatrist and a Philosopher, respectively.

No library on the history of race in America or France is complete without this well designed and well-organized volume. Five stars.

Like Nothing Else You've Read.......2005-06-03

A lot of reviewers have talked about owning this book if you are distinctly interested in collecting works by black authors or in black studies. I think that this book is an essential element to anyone's library, in particular people interested in the craft of writing. Toni Morrison calls Baldwin the greatest essayist of the 20th century and I couldn't agree more.
In this collection of essays, it becomes clear that Baldwin has truly perfected the craft of the essay. Not only is Baldwin's content, his concepts of honesty and truth, of light and dark, right and wrong, of white and black, and much more straight up revolutionary, but he manages to have his content reflected in the craft and style of each essay, which should really be the goal of all writers.
More than anything, Baldwin has an exquisite ability to reveal a complex truth in a simple concise way. All of these essays, indeed all of Baldwin's works, have one common thread. And that is that TRUTH is found within contradiction, because contradiction is honest. I think anyone who browses this page should immediately try and at least check this out of their libary (though it's definitely worth owning, every time I reread it I discover new things) because it really will effect you in meaningful ways.

A great book -- A worthy part of a great series.......2004-02-23

I love James Baldwin--I think he's a tremendous writer, so Toni Morrison could hardly go wrong in selecting essays for this volume. All of the selections are excellent. Notes of a Native Son contains a touching eulogy for Richard Wright ("Alas, Poor Richard"), explaining the lonliness and problems Mr. Wright had at the end of his life. Baldwin displays his tremendous range as both a political commentator and a literary critic. The Devil Finds Work, in particular, is very insightful--and several parts humourous.

What I don't understand--and why I struck a star off this collection--is why Ms. Morrison did not include "Evidence of Things Unseen," Baldwin's analysis of the Atlanta child murders from the early eighties. Perhaps Library of America is planning later volumes of Baldwin's works--The companion volume to these essays is his "Early Novels," most notably "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "Giovani's Room." I can't imagine that Library of America would not produce a volume including Mr. Baldwin's later works--especially "Just Above my Head."

This particular edition is well worth having--despite the price. First, this is a good collection of Baldwin's essays, many of which are difficult to find. Second, the Library of America really does a commendable job in paper quality and binding. This is not a leather bound edition on 50 pound paper, so stiff you can't open it and printed so the back binding looks impressive on your bookshelf--this is tightly bound, cardboard cover that lies flat, and is easy to read. The paper is not heavy--but acid free, and tear resistant. The Library of America series are good collections that are meant to be read many times, by many people--these books hold up very well.

I am afraid that Mr. Baldwin's works and opinions may fall by the wayside as time passes. The fact that Ms. Morrison--one of our best and most respected authors--put these collections together will certainly help keep Mr. Baldwin's works alive. But if you have any interest in what it means to be African American--in the twenties, to contemporary america--through even tomorrow--You need to read and appreciate Mr. Baldwin's insights. And you will also enjoy his clear, careful, and pointed writing.

review.......2002-05-10

This book was very interesting and i enjoyed the courage of a young black man to stand up for his rights.

A painful, powerful experience.......2001-10-11

In Egypt, I met an extraordinary American.
"I was born in New York, but have only lived in pockets of it. In Paris, I lived in all parts of the city - on the Right Bank and on the Left, among the bourgeoisie and among les miserables, and knew all kinds of people from pimps and prostitutes in Pigalle to Egyptian bankers in Nueilly. This may sound unprincipled or even obscurely immoral: I found it healthy. I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and almost everyone, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen," he said.
"The perpetual dealing with people very different from myself caused a shattering in me of preconceptions I scarcely knew I held. This reassessment, which can be very painful, is also very valuable."
His name is Mr. Baldwin, and I cherish this new acquaintance because his ideas have had such profound impact on my views of Egypt. I wanted to know the people, but as I reach out for them, sometimes, I'm shocked by what I see. I see people sleeping on the concrete patios along the Nile - many of them have migrated from the farmlands because they can make more money for their families if they work in Cairo. But desert nights can be bitter cold in January, and it cuts my heart. Yet, Mr. Baldwin's message is well heeded. The same problems of inner city growth that come with development in Egypt also came with development in Britain one hundred years ago. American inner city schools and slums still reflect this challenge.
Would I have walked into the slums of Chicago if I were there? Would I have strolled through the southwest side of Kansas City or east St. Louis? Would I have walked into the anti-developing city blocks of L.A. if I were in America? Of course not. So why is it that traveling abroad opens my eyes to poverty in America? Why couldn't I see it when I was there? I don't know why this happens, but James Baldwin was right - absolutely right when he said that this reassessment, which can be very painful is also very valuable.
I have been told that the housing shortage in Egypt provided the impetus for many people to move into the spacious mausoleums in the old city graveyard. The international visitors call it, "The City of the Dead," and tourists go there and gawk at poverty creating a makeshift freak show out of human suffering. Then I learned that the housing shortage in Los Angeles provided the impetus for many people to move into mausoleums, but no one goes to gawk at them. In fact, there seems to be a kind of American denial that such things could ever happen in the land of milk and honey.
As I hear of people talking about human rights violations in Egypt, I think of the title of James Baldwin's book: Nobody Knows My Name. I think of James Byrd who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck. I think of the threats of millennium violence that frightened black American families so much that they bought guns and stayed home for the New Year. I think of the tiny city in Texas who voted Spanish as their city's official language and then received death threats from all over the nation. Of course, if you asked any American about human rights violations, they would tell you that this is something that happens in China or Africa. It's a painful realization that it might happen in MY country. Growing up in the American school system, I came to idolize Abraham Lincoln's courage and George Washington's integrity. The universal ideas of human value and dignity that we believe to be inalienable are not, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so wisely told us, being applied universally in our country. These facts go against the ideals and values of our nation - they don't support the concepts of the free and the brave.
"It is a complex fate to be an American," Henry James observed. James Baldwin awakened me to that complexity in a way so subtle, so gentle and yet, so powerfully painful.
He awakened me to the hard realities of the American people, most of whom will never read or digest his work. They would dismiss him. But his vision is not to be dismissed. His writing illustrates that the responsibility of this future lies in the hands of blind people. People who refuse to see American neighborhoods and American people for what they really are. We can't improve until we accept the starting point. This lofty ideal of what we should be and blind obstinacy to what we are is killing us.
"Europe has what we do not have yet," Baldwin said. "A sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a new sense of life's possibilities."
Egypt has what we do not yet have - a clear and present sense of unity - an admiration for sacrifice for the whole of the group - the nuclear family, the extended family, the community. And we have absolutely nothing that Egypt needs, except, if you ask the younger generation: Nike shoes. In fact, this is precisely what Egyptians do not need. They do not need the destructive, greed-inspiring and greed-glorifying economic development of the West.

"In this endeavor to wed the vision of the Old World with that of the New, it is the writer, not the statesman, who is our strongest arm. Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have tangible effect on the world." - James Baldwin

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Publish or perish

Down These Mean Streets Too Many Times

A stunning achievement

Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir
Andrew Dickos
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0813122430

Book Description

Flourishing in the United States during the 1940s and 50s, the bleak, violent genre of filmmaking known as film noir reflected the attitudes of writers and auteur directors influenced by the events of the turbulent mid-twentieth century. Films such as Force of Evil, Night and the City, Double Indemnity, Laura, The Big Heat, The Killers, Kiss Me Deadly and, more recently, Chinatown and The Grifters are indelibly American. Yet the sources of this genre were found in Germany and France and imported to Hollywood by emigré filmmakers, who developed them and allowed a vibrant genre to flourish.

Andrew Dickos's Street with No Name traces the film noir genre back to its roots in German Expressionist cinema and the French cinema of the interwar years. Dickos describes the development of the film noir in America from 1941 through the 1970s and examines how this development expresses a modern cinema. He argues that, in its most satisfying form, the film noir exists as a series of conventions with an iconography and characters of distinctive significance. Through stylized lighting and urban settings, these films tell a melodramatic narrative involving characters who commit crimes predicated on destructive passions, corruption, and a submission to human weakness and fate.

Unlike other studies of the noir, Street with No Name follows its development in a loosely historical style that associates certain noir directors with those features in their films that helped define the scope of the genre. Dickos examines notable directors such as Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, John Huston, Nicholas Ray, Robert Aldrich, Samuel Fuller, Otto Preminger, Robert Siodmak, Abraham Polonsky, Jules Dassin, Anthony Mann and others. He also charts the genre's influence on such celebrated postwar French filmmakers as Jean-Pierre Melville, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard.

Addressing the aesthetic, cultural, political, and social concerns depicted in the genre, Street with No Name demonstrates how the film noir generates a highly expressive, raw, and violent mood as it exposes the ambiguities of modern postwar society

Customer Reviews:

Publish or perish.......2005-11-26

Which is the presumed motive for this extended revisitation of an extensively analyzed subject. This book is bizarrely organized which somewhat masks the fact that it has almost nothing new to say. Odd comments aside ("...the casual amorality of Chandlerian violence"?!?), the text is little more than a series of introductory remarks with thumbnail bios of hardboiled writers and auteurist asides that cobble together plot summaries and allusions to the writings of other critics. Chapter 4 starts off with promise but fizzles. The extended closing comments on the French New Wave, the epilog, and the needlessly repeated selected credits are pure filler.

Down These Mean Streets Too Many Times.......2005-05-12

To give Dickos credit, he has an interesting discussion of pre-war French "poetic realism" and post-war French films of the noir era and notes the differences between them. That is new and different.

However, much of what he does in this book has been done elsewhere and better (books by Spicer, Naremore, Palmer, and Christopher for example.) I found the book's organization to be poor. For example he opens with a discussion of German Expressionism in the pre-1933 era, but then leaps to a discussion of Fritz Lang's films and then Robert Siodmak's films. Then he has the discussion of French proto-noir. When he gets to the classic noir era of 1941-58, he has some topics but mostly he does director surveys, and I couldn't see why he dealt with the directors in that order.

So if you don't have many books on noir, you may find something of interest here. If you have read the books I've mentioned earlier, or have the Silver and Ursini encyclopedia, you don't need to get this book.

A stunning achievement.......2002-11-11

Andrew Dickos has written both a brilliant overview of the history and development of film noir -- tracing it back to German films of the 20s and French movie from the 30s -- and an astute examination of individual works and filmmakers.

The author's writing style is sharp and lively and his critiques of the movies are incisive, original and provocative.

Book Description

This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early conciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain—the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his retum to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.

Customer Reviews:

Trials, assassinations, and funerals.......2005-01-15

His father arrived on the scene when James was two. His mother stood between the children and the father. When King died, Baldwin was working on a screen version of the Malcolm X story. James Baldwin appeared with Martin Luther King at Carnegie Hall in a newly purchased black suit, and wore the black suit to the funeral two weeks later. Then he gave the barely worn suit to a friend.

Baldwin observes that the French did not dare to think that the Algerian situation could be existentialist. When he went to France he went there to escape racism. He could live with Africans in Paris in comparative peace. Baldwin went to Paris with no money. He frequented Arab cafes. Baldwin could not undertand why Camus produced William Faulkner's REQUIEM FOR A NUN. James Baldwin claims that Faulkner is attempting to exorcise a history which is also a curse in his work. He argues that the cultural pretensions of history are nothing more than a mask for power.

He knew by 1956 when he saw a picture of a school child being jeered by a crowd while seeking to integrate her school that he would be leaving Europe to return to America to take up the cause. Returning in 19576 he saw New York in a different way and went to the South. James Baldwin relates that he has always been struck in America by an emotional poverty. He says he really didn't know much about terror until he went to the South. In large ways and small Baldwin found the people in the Civil Rights Movement, facing Southern terror, heroic. Before his trip to the South the author had never seen the horror or the poverty.

Malcolm X, unlike Frantz Fanon, operated in the Afro-American idiom. In 1968 James Baldwin was sharing a flat with is sister Paula and his brother David in London. He learned there of Malcolm's death. A former resident of Harlem, he distrusted the legend of Malcolm X until he had the opportunity to meet him.

Uncomfortably, Baldwin came to realize later that in those years, in the fifties and sixties, he was a sort of great black hope of the great white father. Malcolm X considered himself to be the spiritual property of those who produced him. He was dangerous because he apprehended the horror of the black condition. Writing an epilogue in 1971 Baldwin noted that the book had been delayed by trials, assassinations, and funerals.

A brutally honest and searingly raw memoir.......2005-01-10

It seems strange that this crisp and concise essay is less known and less read than Baldwin's earlier collections. True, he is angrier, rawer, less forgiving here, and his earlier diplomatic hopefulness has given way to a deeply cynical and contemptuous view of American society. Yet, given the atrocities Baldwin, along with his friends and colleagues, personally witnessed and underwent during the years immediately preceding this book, his fury is, at the very least, understandable.

Baldwin's recollections of the 1950s and 60s are not presented as linear narrative. Instead, he intertwines, among other topics: the cowardice of liberals during the McCarthy era; the French-Algerian conflict; his investigations and travels in the South; the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X (and his own reminiscences of them); his experiences in Hollywood with commercial filmmakers; his encounters with Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton and the Black Panthers; his bemused reaction to the flower children in San Francisco; and his four-year battle to rescue his former assistant, Tony Maynard, from an arrest and conviction for a murder he didn't commit. (Maynard's conviction was overturned after this book was published.) The supporting cast of his friends and adversaries in these personal and societal struggles is a veritable who's who: Elia Kazan, William Styron, Fred Shuttlewsorth, Andrew Young, Harry Belafonte, Billy Dee Williams, Marlon Brando, Robert Kennedy.

Baldwin's self-effacing willingness to reopen old wounds and expose the evidence of his own folly is still on hand here. He opens with an anecdote about a visit with a childhood friend in the south Bronx: his humorous and humiliating arrival in a limousine, the all-too-apparent difference between his own prosperity and his friend's meager (but contented) subsistence and his shameful condescension toward his friend's "job at the post office," and their explosive argument over the war in Vietnam. He also recounts his own naivety in a chronicle of his first traumatic exposure to Jim Crow laws in Montgomery: "It is not difficult to be a marked man in the South--all you have to do, in fact, is to go there."

Baldwin admits to the impossibility of objectivity in his writing, comparing his task to Shaw's writing "Saint Joan": "he had the immense advantage of having never known her." And his account of two decades of struggle is by no means impartial. But I prefer this version of Baldwin, who no longer seems to care about kowtowing to the mostly white New Yorker readers who made up his audience for his earlier work. "No Name in the Street" is uncomfortably honest--and that bluntness lends the work a faithfulness to the spirit of the times.

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NO NAME IN THE STREET

Manufacturer: THE DIAL PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HGOKKI

Tent Show: Arthur Names and His "Famous" Players (West Texas a&M University Series, No. 6)

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Tent Show: Arthur Names and His "Famous" Players (West Texas a&M University Series, No. 6)
Donald W. Whisenhunt
Manufacturer: Texas A&M University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 089096954X

A landmark history of New York;: Also the origin of street names and a bibliography (Empire State historical publications series, no. 70)

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A landmark history of New York;: Also the origin of street names and a bibliography (Empire State historical publications series, no. 70)
Albert Ulmann
Manufacturer: I. J. Friedman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

London, Ohio Telephone Directory 1948-49; Street Guide & Householders' Cosmopolitian ; Full Name (Husband's or Wife's Name, No. Of Chrildren , Home Ownership, Position & Employer; Con Survey City Directory Master Ed. Volume 1

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London, Ohio Telephone Directory 1948-49; Street Guide & Householders' Cosmopolitian ; Full Name (Husband's or Wife's Name, No. Of Chrildren , Home Ownership, Position & Employer; Con Survey City Directory Master Ed. Volume 1

Manufacturer: MADISON PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UUQQTY

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No Name in the Street
James Baldwin
Manufacturer: The Dial Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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No Name in the Street
James BALDWIN
Manufacturer: Michael Joseph
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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NO NAME IN THE STREET
Gillian Tindall
Manufacturer: Pan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SD26NI

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