Editorial: The Big Nest
Tolstoy shares his views about the imprecision of general opinions on art, the time, effort, public funds, and public respect spent on art and artists. The difficulty of meaning in art, and especially what is good, useful art, art for the sake of which we might condone such sacrifices as are being offered at its shrine. So, what is art?
A chronicle of Adams’s rise from alt-country to rock stardom, featuring stories about the making of the albums Strangers Almanac and Heartbreaker.Before he achieved his dream of being an internationally known rock personality, Ryan Adams had a band in Raleigh, North Carolina. Whiskeytown led the wave of insurgent-country bands that came of age with No Depression magazine in the mid-1990s, and for many people it defined the era. Adams was an irrepressible character, one of the signature personalities of his generation, and as a singer-songwriter he blew people away with a mature talent that belied his youth. David Menconi witnessed most of Whiskeytown’s rocket ride to fame as the music critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, and in Ryan Adams, he tells the inside story of the singer’s remarkable rise from hardscrabble origins to success with Whiskeytown, as well as Adams’s post-Whiskeytown self-reinvention as a solo act.Menconi draws on early interviews with Adams, conversations with people close to him, and Adams’s extensive online postings to capture the creative ferment that produced some of Adams’s best music, including the albums Strangers Almanac and Heartbreaker. He reveals that, from the start, Ryan Adams had a determined sense of purpose and unshakable confidence in his own worth. At the same time, his inability to hold anything back, whether emotions or torrents of songs, often made Adams his own worst enemy, and Menconi recalls the excesses that almost, but never quite, derailed his career. Ryan Adams is a fascinating, multifaceted portrait of the artist as a young man, almost famous and still inventing himself, writing songs in a blaze of passion.“Menconi, a veteran music critic based in Raleigh, North Carolina, had a front row seat for alt-country wunderkind Ryan Adams’ rise to prominence—from an array of local bands, to Whiskeytown, and on to a successful and prolific solo career. Here, Menconi enthusiastically revisits those heady days when the mercurial Adams’ performances were either transcendent or tantrum-filled—the author was there for most of them, and he packs his book with tales of magical performances and utterly desperate train wrecks. . . . This interview- and anecdote-laden exposé of the artist's early career will doubtless find a happy home with Adams fans.” —Publishers WeeklyVer libro
“[An] elegantly written account of all facets of the life and career of George A. Lucas . . . of Belle Époque Paris and Gilded Age America.” —Inge Reist, Director Emeritus of The Frick Collection’s Center for the History of Collecting In 1857, young Baltimorean George A. Lucas arrived in Paris, where he established an extensive personal network of celebrated artists and art dealers, becoming the quintessential French connection for American collectors. The most remarkable thing about Lucas was not the art that he acquired for his clients but the massive collection of 18,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and etchings, as well as 1,500 books, journals, and other sources about French artists, that he acquired for himself. Paintings by Cabanel, Corot, and Daubigny, prints by Whistler, Manet, and Cassatt, and portfolios of information about hundreds of French artists filled his apartment and spilled into the adjacent flat of his mistress. Based primarily on Lucas’s notes and diaries, as well as thousands of other archival documents, A Paris Life, A Baltimore Treasure is a richly illustrated portrayal of Lucas’s fascinating life as an agent, connoisseur, and collector of French mid-nineteenth-century art. And, as revealed in the book, following Lucas’s death, his enormous collection continued to have a vibrant life of its own, when—in 1990—Baltimore’s Maryland Institute proposed to auction or otherwise sell the collection. It rose from obscurity, reached new glory as an irreplaceable cultural treasure, and became the subject of an epic battle fought in and out of court that captivated public attention and enflamed the passions of art lovers and museum officials across the nation. “Mazaroff has thoughtfully recreated the legacy of one of America’s best documented late-nineteenth-century French art collections.” —Doreen Bolger, Director Emeritus, The Baltimore Museum of ArtVer libro
A scheming phoney doctor is delighted to discover that his wife has a brain tumor that will kill her in three months! Dr Ferrari knew what kind of woman Nora was the moment he laid eyes on her. She was very beautiful and equally utterly heartless. She was the kind of a woman who wants everything, gives nothing and still thinks she’s a passionate bargain for any man completely unconscious of the fact that he only motivation in life is to humiliate, dominate and finally destroy any man she can get her hands on. But that didn’t matter because she had three million dollars and Dr Ferrari had already made up his mind if his plans worked out that he was going to kill her…Ver libro
Hollywood is indelibly printed in our minds as the ‘go-to’ place for entertainment and has been for decades. When there really did seem to be more stars in Hollywood than in Heaven Hollywood Stage had them performing films as radio plays – on the sponsors dime of course. Classic films now become audiobooks with many featuring the original stars from way back when. Here's A Man's Castle starring Spencer Tracy & Ingrid Bergman.Ver libro
By age four, toddlers in low-income families hear 30 million fewer words than those in high-income families, according to researchers. As a result, these children tend to have smaller vocabularies and fall behind in reading. Special correspondent John Tulenko of Learning Matters reports on one program in Providence, Rhode Island, that gets low-income parents talking more to their toddlers.Ver libro
An evocative collection of essays, poetry, photography and more from some of Akron, Ohio’s best authors, artists, and activists. Between 1910 and 1920, Akron, Ohio, tripled in size, making it the fastest growing city in the United States. Its period of rapid growth coincided with the expansion of the rubber and tire industry, which in turn corresponded with the automobile boom. But since the mid-1970s, industry has abandoned Akron, and the city has lost thirty-one percent of its population. Once-opulent neighborhoods are now swaths of abandoned homes, and the factories that made Akron the Rubber Capital of the World lie dormant. Edited by Jason Segedy, and bringing together established writers like Rita Dove and David Giffels with the work of emerging voices, The Akron Anthology collects essays, poems, and photographs from the writers, artists, and activists who call Akron home. Here you’ll find stories that include: The diaries of a doorman The trials and triumphs of refugees who have relocated to the city A portrait of Jamie Stillman, world-renowned effects pedal manufacturer Archie the talking snowman.Ver libro
