MacArthur Park

MacArthur Park PDF Author: Andrew Durbin
Publisher: Nightboat Books
ISBN: 1937658708
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
After Hurricane Sandy, Nick Fowler, a writer, stranded alone in a Manhattan apartment without power, begins to contemplate disaster. Months later, at an artist residency in upstate New York, Nick finds his subject in disaster itself and the communities shaped by it, where crisis animates both hope and denial, unacknowledged pasts and potential futures. As he travels to Los Angeles and London on assignment, Nick discovers that outsiders - their lives and histories disturbed by sex, loss, and bad weather - are often better understood by what they have hidden from the world than what they have revealed.

MacArthur Park

MacArthur Park PDF Author: Andrew Durbin
Publisher: Nightboat Books
ISBN: 1937658708
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
After Hurricane Sandy, Nick Fowler, a writer, stranded alone in a Manhattan apartment without power, begins to contemplate disaster. Months later, at an artist residency in upstate New York, Nick finds his subject in disaster itself and the communities shaped by it, where crisis animates both hope and denial, unacknowledged pasts and potential futures. As he travels to Los Angeles and London on assignment, Nick discovers that outsiders - their lives and histories disturbed by sex, loss, and bad weather - are often better understood by what they have hidden from the world than what they have revealed.

MacArthur Park

MacArthur Park PDF Author: Judith Freeman
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0593315952
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
A captivating, emotionally taut novel about the complexities of a friendship between two women—and how it shapes, and reshapes, both of their lives "Filled with gorgeous prose and deep emotion . . . Explores what it means to be an artist, delves into the vicissitudes of life and death, and takes us on journey through the splendor (and sometimes ugliness) of the American West—with dollops of Flaubert, Faulkner, Chekhov, Collette, and Chandler along the way."—Lisa See, author of The Island of Sea Women Jolene and Verna share complicated ties that have crystallized over time. Beginning when they were girls discovering their needs and desires, their ongoing stories have been inextricably linked. But when Verna marries Vincent, Jolene’s ex-husband, their paths may have finally, permanently diverged. A successful and provocative feminist artist, Jolene travels the world, attracting attention wherever she goes. Verna, a writer, works from her home near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, where she and Vincent plan to spend the rest of their lives in a contemplative, intimate routine. Then Jolene asks one more favor of Verna—to take a road trip with her to their small hometown in Utah. It’s a journey that will force them to confront both the truths and falsehoods of their memories of each other and of the very beginnings of their friendship, and to reckon with the meaning of love, of time itself, of the bonds that matter most to us, and with what we owe one another.

Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs

Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs PDF Author: Dave Barry
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 1449437583
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
The humorist asked his readers to share their least favorite tunes and chronicles the hilarious responses. When funnyman Dave Barry asked readers about their least favorite tunes, he thought he was penning just another installment of his weekly syndicated humor column. But the witty writer was flabbergasted by the response when over 10,000 readers voted. “I have never written a column that got a bigger response than the one announcing the Bad Song Survey,” Barry wrote. Based on the results of the survey, Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs is a compilation of some of the worst songs ever written. Dave Barry fans will relish his quirky take. Music buffs too will appreciate this humorous stroll through the world’s worst lyrics. The only thing wrong with this book is that readers will find themselves unable to stop mentally singing the greatest hits of Gary Puckett. Praise for Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs “Barry is his usual puckish self, but the real surprise here is how funny many of the survey respondents are.” —Kirkus Reviews “Who can resist such a book?” —Publishers Weekly

MacArthur Park

MacArthur Park PDF Author: Jose A. Gardea
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467133450
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Known as Westlake Park for its first 60 years, MacArthur Park is considered one of Los Angeles's original parks. Throughout its history, it has endured countless challenges as the neighborhood and city that surround it grew to become the current metropolis. Born out of progressive vision and drought, MacArthur Park, due to its elegant design and cultural programming, has been referred as a "civic jewel" and the West Coast version of Central Park. Like many urban parks, it has also been burdened with a negative image due to its many decades of neglect, crime, and municipal disinvestment. Today, MacArthur Park has survived as a critical green and cultural space for one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the country. More importantly, MacArthur Park has served as an authentic democratic space for local stakeholders and visitors to gather, play, and protest.

The Chinchilla Farm

The Chinchilla Farm PDF Author: Judith Freeman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393324266
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
"[A] touching picaresque journey through the deserts of the west and the landscape of memory."--Washington Post Book World

But What I Really Want to Do Is Direct

But What I Really Want to Do Is Direct PDF Author: Ken Kwapis
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250260116
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
For over three decades, director Ken Kwapis has charted a career full of exceptional movies and television, from seminal shows like The Office to beloved films like He’s Just Not That Into You. He is among the most respected directors in show business, but getting there wasn’t easy. He struggled just like everyone else. With each triumph came the occasional faceplant. Using his background and inside knowledge, But What I Really Want To Do is Direct tackles Hollywood myths through Ken’s highly entertaining experiences. It’s a rollercoaster ride fueled by brawls with the top brass, clashes over budgets, and the passion that makes it all worthwhile. This humorous and refreshingly personal memoir is filled with inspiring instruction, behind-the-scenes hilarity, and unabashed joy. It’s a celebration of the director’s craft, and what it takes to succeed in show business on your own terms. "Ken Kwapis always brought out the best in the actors on The Office. Whenever Ken was directing, I always felt safe to go out on a limb and take chances, knowing he had my back. Every aspiring director should read this book. (I can think of several 'professional' directors that should read it too!)" -Jenna Fischer "A vital, magnificent manifesto on the art and craft of directing, written with emotional, instinctual and intellectual depth by one of America's most beloved film and television directors" -Amber Tamblyn "In the years that I was fortunate to work with Ken on Malcolm in the Middle, he had an uncanny ability to guide actors right to the heart of a scene and reveal its truths. He admits that he doesn’t have all the answers, he’ll make mistakes, and at times he’ll struggle, but as he says in the book, 'It’s the struggle to get it right that makes us human.'" -Bryan Cranston "Good luck finding a more kind, passionate, and talented director alive than Ken. Seriously, good luck." -Tig Notaro “'Action!' is what most directors bark out to begin a scene. But Ken Kwapis starts by gently intoning the words 'Go ahead...' That simple suggestion assures everyone they’re in smart, capable, humble hands. That’s how you’ll feel reading this book. And so, if you’re anxious to discover how a top director always brings humor, honesty, and humanity to his work, all I can tell you is...Go ahead." -Larry Wilmore

Voyage of the Sable Venus

Voyage of the Sable Venus PDF Author: Robin Coste Lewis
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1101911204
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
This National Book Award-winning debut poetry collection is a "powerfully evocative" (The New York Review of Books) meditation on the black female figure through time. Robin Coste Lewis's electrifying collection is a triptych that begins and ends with lyric poems meditating on the roles desire and race play in the construction of the self. In the center of the collection is the title poem, "Voyage of the Sable Venus," an amazing narrative made up entirely of titles of artworks from ancient times to the present—titles that feature or in some way comment on the black female figure in Western art. Bracketed by Lewis's own autobiographical poems, "Voyage" is a tender and shocking meditation on the fragmentary mysteries of stereotype, juxtaposing our names for things with what we actually see and know. A new understanding of biography and the self, this collection questions just where, historically, do ideas about the black female figure truly begin—five hundred years ago, five thousand, or even longer? And what role did art play in this ancient, often heinous story? Here we meet a poet who adores her culture and the beauty to be found within it. Yet she is also a cultural critic alert to the nuances of race and desire—how they define us all, including her own sometimes painful history. Lewis's book is a thrilling aesthetic anthem to the complexity of race—a full embrace of its pleasure and horror, in equal parts.

The Choirboys

The Choirboys PDF Author: Joseph Wambaugh
Publisher: Delta
ISBN: 030748288X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
“Each wears his cynicism like a bulletproof jockstrap—each has his horror story, his bad dream, his nightshriek. He is afraid of his friends—he is afraid of himself.”—New York Times Partners in the Los Angeles Police Department, they’re haunted by terrifying dark secrets of the nightwatch–shared predawn drink and sex sessions they call choir practice. “A master storyteller . . . authenticity oozes from this book . . . freewheeling and chilling and certainly Wambaugh's best.”—Houston Chronicle

Unforgetting

Unforgetting PDF Author: Roberto Lovato
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062938487
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
An LA Times Best Book of the Year • A New York Times Editors' Pick • A Newsweek 25 Best Fall Books • A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year "Gripping and beautiful. With the artistry of a poet and the intensity of a revolutionary, Lovato untangles the tightly knit skein of love and terror that connects El Salvador and the United States." —Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes and Nickel and Dimed An urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history and reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central American migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time—and one in which the perspectives of Central Americans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten. The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s and 80s San Francisco as MS-13 and other notorious Salvadoran gangs were forming in California. In his teens, he lost friends to the escalating violence, and survived acts of brutality himself. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for human rights advocacy in wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist military government responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres and crimes against humanity in recent history. Roberto returned from war-torn El Salvador to find the United States on the verge of unprecedented crises of its own. There, he channeled his own pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how trauma affects individual lives and societies, and began the difficult journey of confronting the roots of his own trauma. As a child, Roberto endured a tumultuous relationship with his father Ramón. Raised in extreme poverty in the countryside of El Salvador during one of the most violent periods of its history, Ramón learned to survive by straddling intersecting underworlds of family secrets, traumatic silences, and dealing in black-market goods and guns. The repression of the violence in his life took its toll, however. Ramón was plagued with silences and fits of anger that had a profound impact on his youngest son, and which Roberto attributes as a source of constant reckoning with the violence and rebellion in his own life. In Unforgetting, Roberto interweaves his father’s complicated history and his own with first-hand reportage on gang life, state violence, and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and the United States. In doing so he makes the political personal, revealing the cyclical ways violence operates in our homes and our societies, as well as the ways hope and tenderness can rise up out of the darkness if we are courageous enough to unforget.

Rock Me on the Water

Rock Me on the Water PDF Author: Ronald Brownstein
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062899236
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein—“one of America's best political journalists (The Economist)—tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles’ creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. At a time when Richard Nixon won two presidential elections with a message of backlash against the social changes unleashed by the sixties, popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture. Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year. Ronald Brownstein reveals how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo. Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Brownstein shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future.