Delve into the dazzling world of early 20th-century art and theatre with "Bakst: The story of Leon Bakst's life" by André Levinson. This meticulously prepared republication chronicles the life and career of Léon Bakst, the visionary artist who revolutionized stage and costume design for the Russian ballet. Explore Bakst's pivotal role in shaping the aesthetic of iconic productions. Levinson expertly details Bakst's contributions to art history, revealing the man behind the groundbreaking designs that captivated audiences worldwide. This book illuminates Bakst's innovative approach to visual storytelling. A captivating biography for enthusiasts of Russian ballet, stage design, and costume design. Discover the enduring legacy of Léon Bakst, whose artistic vision continues to inspire and influence the performing arts. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

ABC-TV's Lynn Sherr writes a savvy, witty, and moving memoir about events that have shaped her life and her career as one of the first women to break through in broadcast television As a reporter for 40 years, most of them on television, Lynn Sherr has brought clarity and insight to many of the most compelling news events of our day—from politics to murder trials to the space program. Now this widely respected award-winning journalist lets us in on what she's seen "inside the box" as she steps outside for a reality check. She tells how television journalism has changed over the years, for better and for worse, and explores the critical state of TV news today. Her accounts of the political and cultural upheavals she covered also make this a social history of our time. When she first began in the industry, newspaper editors bluntly told her, "We don't hire girls," but Lynn persevered, both covering and experiencing the emergence of modern feminism. All that despite being fired from her first TV job! She also addresses the heartbreak of her husband's death followed by her own battle with colon cancer. Lynn Sherr opens up about those painful times with an honesty that will touch and inspire readers. Her personal accounts—growing up in Philadelphia, where her father was a pioneering professional basketball player; suddenly becoming a stepmom; slipping off to commune with giraffes—all underscore her insistence on always keeping one foot outside the box.

"Funny, moving, and undeniably sexy. The heady blend of smart dialogue and characters. . .makes it a candidate to be the "Angels in America" of the Bush II decade."--"San Francisco Chronicle" "The two works ["Angels in America" and "In the Wake"] use a volatile chapter in American history as background in their exploration of how the sociopolitical maladies of an age play out in the personal conduct of characters."-- Charles McNulty, "Los Angeles Times" Lisa Kron, author of Broadway's "Well" and the OBIE-winning solo show "2.5 Minute Ride," has taken on the big question of our country's character. On the Thanksgiving after the controversial 2000 election, political junkie Ellen gathers with family and friends in her cramped New York apartment. But she soon discovers--with an unexpected passionate encounter--that ideas about America and our own selves are not as fixed as they once seemed. A play with plenty of humor and passion to go with its politics, Kron's work premiered last year at Berkeley Rep and Los Angeles' Center Theater Group, and debuted at The Public Theater in New York this fall. Lisa Kron's plays have been performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, and around the world. She is a founding member of the award-winning theater group The Five Lesbian Brothers, and teaches playwriting at Yale University.

This volume represents the final publication of the European Seminar in Historical Methodology. The volume reflects on the ground-breaking work of this prestigious seminar in the field of biblical history. In part one, long-term members of the seminar (Bob Becking, Ehud Ben Zvi, Philip R. Davies, Ernst Axel Knauf, Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas L Thompson) provide reflections on its work. Part two presents an opportunity for readers to benefit from contributions that have remained heretofore unpublished. This includes material on the Persian period, questions of orality and writing, and contributions on the Maccabean period. Bringing these papers together in a published form provides a fitting way to round out the work of this significant endeavour in historical methodology.

The rare book dealers who delighted readers with the history of their bookselling days in "Old Books, Rare Friends" now offer the other side of their story -- an intimate look at the joys of a relationship that has lasted more than half a century. When their friendship and business partnership began in the 1940s, Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern were pioneers in a man's world. Now approaching their nineties, the duo, who -- among their many discoveries -- unearthed Louisa May Alcott's pseudonymous blood-and-thunder stories, remains a vibrant institution in the rare book trade, even as the Internet changes their field -- and their community -- forever. After publishing "Old Books, Rare Friends," Rostenberg and Stern received a flood of fan mail asking about their personal lives, and they have responded with poignant honesty and the warmth for which they are famous, as they reflect on their lives and their remarkable partnership. "Bookends" recounts their fascinating histories: family backgrounds, business adventures, the men they did not marry, and their approach to the bittersweet trials of aging. More than just a dual memoir, "Bookends" is also a chronicle of the cultural changes of twentieth-century American life and a loving farewell to the golden age of book collecting. Filled with wisdom and humor, this volume is a tribute to Rostenberg and Stern's passion for the written word -- and for life itself. Catching us off guard with their candor, they offer their insights regarding their business, their way of life, and their worldview. Above all, they present the story of a special relationship. At a time when people find it increasingly difficult to connect, here wehave the seamless story of a shared life. It is the unique product of an earlier time, yet it is a timeless reflection on the very nature of friendship. Though their fantastic partnership is un-reproducible, the ideal they have established, for the integration of one life so completely with another, contains lessons for all of us. Without husband or children they created a loving home when this was uncharted territory for women. They nurtured a business and life partnership that has lasted more than half a century and has only gotten stronger with time. When the passing years began to claim one's hearing and the other's sight, they became each other's eyes and ears. A meditation on aging and togetherness, this book is also the narrative of two pioneering single, Jewish women making their way in tandem through a world largely organized to keep them in their place. It is a gentle, wise story, told in their inimitable style, sparse, unadorned, and honest. Their affirmations supersede their uncertainties. As they write, "Bookends support books and come in pairs...If the word encapsulates our past, it looks also to the future, and to the books -- lived together, written together -- that will follow." They confront the challenges of aging in a no-nonsense tone, and, in facing them, give us an ideal of enduring human friendship that can't help but touch the heart.

Imagine that you could really understand the Bible...that you could read, analyze, and discuss the book of Genesis not as a compositional mystery, a cultural relic, or a linguistic puzzle palace, or even as religious doctrine, but as a philosophical classic, precisely in the same way that a truth-seeking reader would study Plato or Nietzsche. Imagine that you could be led in your study by one of America's preeminent intellectuals and that he would help you to an understanding of the book that is deeper than you'd ever dreamed possible, that he would reveal line by line, verse by verse the incredible riches of this illuminating text -- one of the very few that actually deserve to be called seminal. Imagine that you could get, from Genesis, the beginning of wisdom. The Beginning of Wisdom is a hugely learned book that, like Genesis itself, falls naturally into two sections. The first shows how the universal history described in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, from creation to the tower of Babel, conveys, in the words of Leon Kass, "a coherent anthropology" -- a general teaching about human nature -- that "rivals anything produced by the great philosophers." Serving also as a mirror for the reader's self-discovery, these stories offer profound insights into the problematic character of human reason, speech, freedom, sexual desire, the love of the beautiful, pride, shame, anger, guilt, and death. Something as seemingly innocuous as the monotonous recounting of the ten generations from Adam to Noah yields a powerful lesson in the way in which humanity encounters its own mortality. In the story of the tower of Babel are deep understandings of the ambiguous power of speech, reason, and the arts; the hazards of unity and aloneness; the meaning of the city and its quest for self-sufficiency; and man's desire for fame, immortality, and apotheosis -- and the disasters these necessarily cause. Against this background of human failure, Part Two of The Beginning of Wisdom explores the struggles to launch a new human way, informed by the special Abrahamic covenant with the divine, that might address the problems and avoid the disasters of humankind's natural propensities. Close, eloquent, and brilliant readings of the lives and educations of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's sons reveal eternal wisdom about marriage, parenting, brotherhood, education, justice, political and moral leadership, and of course the ultimate question: How to live a good life? Connecting the two "parts" is the book's overarching philosophical and pedagogical structure: how understanding the dangers and accepting the limits of human powers can open the door to a superior way of life, not only for a solitary man of virtue but for an entire community -- a life devoted to righteousness and holiness. This extraordinary book finally shows Genesis as a coherent whole, beginning with the creation of the natural world and ending with the creation of a nation that hearkens to the awe-inspiring summons to godliness. A unique and ambitious commentary, a remarkably readable literary exegesis and philosophical companion, The Beginning of Wisdom is one of the most important books in decades on perhaps the most important -- and surely the most frequently read -- book of all time.

Creative nonfiction is the literary equivalent of jazz: it's a rich mix of flavors, ideas, voices, and techniques--some newly invented, and others as old as writing itself. This collection of 20 gripping, beautifully-written nonfiction narratives is as diverse as the genre Creative Nonfiction magazine has helped popularize. Contributions by Phillip Lopate, Brenda Miller, Carolyn Forche, Toi Derricotte, Lauren Slater and others draw inspiration from everything from healthcare to history, and from monarch butterflies to motherhood. Their stories shed light on how we live.

"Blending precise research and astute observation with flavorful, fascinating narratives."--Publishers Weekly, starred review (for Vol. 1) From Lee Gutkind, the "Godfather behind creative narrative nonfiction" (Vanity Fair), and the staff of the landmark literary journal Creative Nonfiction comes this fresh collection of fact-based personal narratives, mined from literary blogs, 'zines, and other fringe publications. In "My Glove: A Biography," Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak and a Wall Street Journal reporter, traces the history of his baseball glove--"the one thing I would be devastated to lose, my last, best connection to the baseball that defined my life as a kid"--as he relinquishes it to the glove designer at Rawlings for an overhaul. Heidi Julavits, editor of The Believer, imagines a future in which book-related fatalities--"Death of the intellect is one thing, but actual death is quite another"--revolutionize the writer's market. This new volume of The Best Creative Nonfiction continues to engage and delight with exceptional work from writers old and new.

20 Writers Play Ball in 17 New Essays and 3 Classics. Stefan Fatsis sends his ?stunningly perfect, consummately perfect, why-would-anyone-use-anything-else? perfect” glove to be restored by the Glove Designer at Rawlings; Susan Perabo considers retiring from her imaginary career in the majors and assesses the likelihood of women finding actual careers on the baseball field; Sean Wilentz imagines a Cooperstown Fans’ Hall of Fame, with its cowbells, frying pans, bedsheet banners, and more. And in one of the three previously published, now-classic pieces in the collection, George Plimpton reflects on the slow demotion of aging or slumping players from pitcher to first base, to the outfield. United by the authors’ fervent love of the game, these essays remind us of the unique role baseball plays in our national history and collective imagination.

Drawing on both Western and Eastern medicine aligned with Quantum physics, Laura Baumann offers a whole-body, whole-mind kind of yoga that is becoming one of the most important contemporary disciplines in the field. This accessible guide is the key to creating the ultimate individualized practice. Quantum Yoga instructs the reader to recognize, construct, and vary dynamic yoga sequences ideally suited to personal needs. Part 1 provides a thorough explanation of the history, philosophy, and varying traditions of yoga, and also outlines the body’s gross and subtle anatomies, the basic principles of Ayurveda, and how the modern insights of Quantum physics illuminate the ancient spiritual teachings of yoga. Part 2 delivers a step-by-step approach, with clear illustrations, to creating a personalized and flexible vinyasa-yoga practice. Quantum Yoga takes into account your body-mind constitution, and how circumstances might be changing around you. Creativity, mental focus, and clear intention are supported through the choice of a theme and peak pose. This is a spiritual system that adopts the holistic approach to health from the ancient Indian healing science of Ayurveda, while embracing the modern insights of Quantum physics to maximize one’s power of conscious manifestation. Develop the skills and enjoy the freedom of finding your own authentic yoga path to health, happiness, and enlightenment.

An illustrated history of motorcycling traces the development of motorcycles over the past decades and presents important facts, figures, and notable feats

A memoir by a man born with disabled legs traces the history of his body from birth, through the many reconstructive surgeries he underwent, to his sexual awakening, all the while touching on the life of his working-class, Jewish family

This book showcases the drawings of Ken Adam, the man who has created some of the most iconic and memorable sets in the history of film. Presented chronologically, the book takes us from design sketches for his earliest movies, including Around theWorld in Eighty Days, through his Oscar-winning work with Stanley Kubrick, to production designs for what are probably his most celebrated films - the first seven James Bond movies, including Dr No, Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker. Also included are production drawings for classics such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Goodbye, Mr Chips, Sleuth and The Last Emperor. Adam's virtuoso sketches for films and other projects are accompanied by illuminating commentary from the eminent Sir Christopher Frayling, and together present an unrivalled archive of breathtaking and inspirational production design.

Zusammenfassung: Katja Petrowskaja's family story is inextricably entangled with the history of twentieth-century Europe. There is her great-uncle, who shot a German diplomat in Moscow in 1932 and was sentenced to death. There is her Ukrainian grandfather, who disappeared during World War II and reappeared forty years later. And there is her great-grandmother - whose name may or may not have been Esther - who was too old and frail to leave Kiev when the Jews there were rounded up, and was killed by a Nazi outside her house. Taking the reader from Berlin to Warsaw, to Moscow, to Kiev, from Google searches, strange encounters and coincidences to archives, anecdotes and jokes, Katja Petrowskaja undertakes a journey in search of her own place in past and present, memory and history, languages and countries. The result is Maybe Esther - a singular, haunting, unforgettable work of literature.

The Memory of All That is Katharine Weber’s memoir of her extraordinary family. Her maternal grandmother, Kay Swift, was known both for her own music (she was the first woman to compose the score to a hit Broadway show, Fine and Dandy ) and for her ten-year romance with George Gershwin. Their love affair began during Swift’s marriage to James Paul Warburg, the multitalented banker and economist who advised (and feuded with) FDR. Weber creates an intriguing and intimate group portrait of the renowned Warburg family, from her great-great-uncle, the eccentric art historian Aby Warburg, whose madness inspired modern theories of iconography, to her great-grandfather Paul M. Warburg, the architect of the Federal Reserve System whose unheeded warnings about the stock-market crash of 1929 made him “the Cassandra of Wall Street.” As she throws new light on her beloved grandmother’s life and many amours, Weber also considers the role the psychoanalyst Gregory Zilboorg played in her family history, along with the ways the Warburg family has been as celebrated for its accomplishments as it has been vilified over the years by countless conspiracy theorists (from Henry Ford to Louis Farrakhan), who labeled Paul Warburg the ringleader of the so-called international Jewish banking conspiracy. Her mother, Andrea Swift Warburg, married Sidney Kaufman, but their unlikely union, Weber believes, was a direct consequence of George Gershwin’s looming presence in the Warburg family. A notorious womanizer, Weber’s father was a peripatetic filmmaker who made propaganda and training films for the OSS during World War II before producing the first movie with smells, the regrettable flop that was AromaRama. He was as much an enigma to his daughter as he was to the FBI, which had him under surveillance for more than forty years, and even noted Katharine’s birth in a memo to J. Edgar Hoover. Colorful, evocative, insightful, and very funny, The Memory of All That is an enthralling look at a tremendously influential—and highly eccentric—family, as well as a consideration of how their stories, with their myriad layers of truth and fiction, have both provoked and influenced one of our most prodigiously gifted writers.

"Nearly every family has a skeleton in its closet, an ancestor who "sins" against custom and tradition and pays a double price. Karen Tintori refused to allow the truth to remain forgotten. This is a book for anyone who shares the conviction that all history, in the end, is family history."--Frank Viviano, author of Blood Washes Blood and Dispatches from the Pacific Century "Many books are called ‘page-turners' by reviewers, but this one will truly have you glued to the turning pages for hours."-- Comunes of Italy Magazine " Unto the Daughters reads like a nonfiction version of the film Godfather II--if it had been told from the point of view of a female Corleone."--Eleni N. Gage, author of North of Ithaka Karen Tintori thought she knew her family tree. Her grandmother Josie had immigrated from Sicily with her parents at the turn of the century. They settled in Detroit, and with Josie's eight siblings, worked to create a home for themselves away from the poverty and servitude of the old country. Their descendants were proud Italian-Americans. But Josie had a sister that nobody spoke of. Her name was Frances, and at age sixteen, she fell in love with a young barber. Her father wanted her to marry an older don in the neighborhood mafia--a marriage that would give his sons a leg up in the mob. But Frances eloped with her barber. And when she returned a married woman, her father and brothers killed her for it. Her family then erased her from its collective memory. Even 80 years and two generations later, Frances and her death were not spoken of, her name was erased from the family genealogy, her pictures burned, and her memory suppressed. Unto the Daughters is a historical mystery and family story that unwraps the many layers of family, honor, memory, and fear to find an honor killing in turn of the century Detroit. "Many books are called ‘page-turners' by reviewers, but this one will truly have you glued to the turning pages for hours. It's a must read for anyone researching their Italian ancestry."-- Comunes of Italy Magazine KAREN TINTORI is a writer and journalist who lives in Michigan with her family. Karen's books include Trapped, a 2002 Chicago Tribune favorite book, and The Book of Names (co-author), among others. Visit her website at: www. karentintori .com

Are we fated to follow in our parents' footsteps? Is what we experienced at home as children automatically transposed by us onto our own children? When do you break the chain? How do you stop personal history from repeating? These are just some of the questions the author tries to answer as she confronts the cancer that killed her mother in much the same way it threatens to kill her. But this is a book of therapy as well. We follow Julie, her husband and children through their journey into fear of the unknown, through diagnosis and missed diagnosis, through successful and not-so-successful operations. We watch her reaction to those miracle medicines that can destroy the patient even as they help cure her disease, and we see how alternative medicines and their practitioners touch her soul while helping her in her fight to reclaim her body.

'Julian Schnabel' (b. 1951) is regarded throughout the world as one of the most important artists of our time. Yet, remarkably, there has never been - until now - a book that addresses the extraordinary range of his entire creative output. This lavishly produced volume presents many artworks that have never before been exhibited, published, or even seen, filling a major gap in the history of contemporary art. More than 300 of Schnabel's works - paintings, photographs, sculptures, and film stills spanning a career of nearly 40 years - are reproduced here, along with texts drawn from the artist's interviews, essays, and notes. From the broken-plate paintings of the 1980s that brought him fame, to the recent, massively scaled Big Girls series, the artist's work is set in the context of his overall sensibility, becoming part of an ongoing pictorial diary of a life. Rather than a retrospective look at Schnabel's work, the book provides readers with a view of life and art as they collide. 'Julian Schnabel' is certain to be welcomed as one of the season's most significant art publications.

Technological change is often seen as something that follows its own logic – something about which we may protest, but which we are unable to alter fundamentally. This reader challenges that assumption. In it, a collection of distinguished authors demonstrate that technology is affected at a fundamental level by the social context in which it develops. The first section introduces the reader to general arguments about the relation of technology to society. In subsequent sections the editors examine three types of technology in particular: the technology of production, domestic technology and military (especially nuclear) technology. In each case a variety of examples is used to demonstrate how technologies reflect such features of the social and economic environment as the social relations of the workplace, gender divisions in society, or the dictates of the state. The editors argue that social scientists have devoted disproportionate attention to the effects of technology on society, and have tended to ignore the more fundamental question of what shapes technology in the first place. Drawing both on established work in the history of technology and on newer feminist and Marxist perspectives they show how important and fruitful it is to try to answer the deeper question.

"Scruples, Judith Krantz's electrifying, world wide bestseller appeared fifteen years ago and made book publishing history. Now that unforgettable story, a story that marks an era, a story that millions of readers wish had never ended . . . continues. Only a single night's sleep seperates the lives of the characters in "Scruples from this mesmerizing sequel. Billy Ikehorn is a contemporary woman living on a grand scale. A self-made beauty and the exquisite owner of a fabled Beverley Hills boutique called Scruples and married to the Oscar-winning producer Vito Orsini. To those who only know her from afar, she seems to lead a dream existence, wrapped in all the power of glamout, riches, and success. Then a stranger arrives in Billy's life--Gigi Orsini, Vito's sixteen-year-old daughter by an early marriage. Independent, deeply interesting, street-smart, and enchantingly humorous, Gigi captures Billy's heart and sets in motion a train of utterly unexpected events. Life with Gigi hold both joy and pain for Spider Elliot and Valentine O'Neill, Billy's partners in Scruples. The many new freinds Gigi makes during the next five years will grow important to Billy in ways she could never have forseen. "Scruples Two moves swiflty and unexpectadly, filled with breathtaking change, from California to New York to Paris, following two of the most fascinating and touching females in modern fiction, Billy Ikehorn and Gigi Orsini. "From the Paperback edition.