Author: Bernard Lord
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1401023037
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Get Book Here
Book Description
Bruce Hastie, a young, naive Scottish engineer, comes to live in a London flat while he works as a graduate apprentice in a turbine factory. It is 1958. He has two contrasting flat-mates, selected by a special agency, a disillusioned actor, Benjamin Garrick, and a rough, crude washing machine salesman, Edward Flunk, also known as Skunk. Bruce starts work at General Turbines Limited in the smoke, grime and heat of the foundry. One lunch-break he finds his chargehand boss, a huge, strong, Yorkshireman nicknamed Heavy, reading and enjoying some Dylan Thomas poetry. This is a paradox that mystifies the class-conscious Bruce whom Heavy brands as an intellectual snob. Heavy expounds on his soapbox that the arts have been kept away from the working class, that they and society at large need saving from rampant materialism and its attendant viciousness by a good dose of the spiritual values that only poetry, art, theatre and classical music can offer. Then follows two chapters that develop the character of Skunk and Benjamin. Skunk, a self-appointed sexual conqueror of women, has the tables turned on him when he encounters an educated, beautiful but unbalanced seductress when called to fix her washing machine that supposedly has electrocuted her dog. Benjamin is sent home sick from rehearsal, accompanied by fellow actor Sally Frinton-Jones. His malaise is psychological for he is disillusioned by the theatre and his performance in it. By this time, Heavy has Bruce believing in his ideas about the need to educate the common masses in the arts. Benjamin, also a convert to Heavy’s “renaissance” through Bruce’s dogmatism, cannot persuade Sally of the practicality of those ideas. Bruce goes into action by piping Beethoven’s 5th Symphony into the motor assembly shop at General Turbines where 300 women work. The music is well received but when his report on allowing the foundryworkers time off to listen to writers, actors and poets is read by the crass managing director, Mr. Crumhorn, Bruce is fired on the spot. Undaunted, Bruce, Benjamin and fifteen members of the arts world are smuggled into the factory and, along with Heavy, begin teaching the foundryworkers the elements and meaning of theatre, music and poetry. At a de-briefing after this first experiment it is deemed a total failure by all except Heavy who urges continuance and patience with what has been started. Bruce runs out of money and needs a job so he buys a taxi and pumps beer in a local pub. By now he is friendly with Sally, and one night, while driving her to rehearsal, they make a detour to track Skunk around Soho. He makes a subterranean disappearance into a strip joint. Bruce and Sally follow but only find Monique of the Louvre doing her erotic show. Bruce, as expected, registers his disgust but follows Monique to the dressing area and there finds Skunk who turns out to be the proprietor of the establishment. Bruce unbends a little and ends up taking Monique, real name Penelope Scragg, back to her seedy flat. As when he first found Heavy reading poetry in the foundry, he is surprised again when Monique plays him her favorite piece of music, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Bruce begins to see Penelope with different eyes and he and Heavy take her to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall. She learns of the Renaissance Group’s activities and is highly amused until Bruce wants her to join the group. He wants her and Skunk to soften the degrading aspects of the strip joint by requiring its customers to enter an adjoining room after the performance and receive “spiritual” renewal in the guise of poetry, music and art. Penelope laughs her head off but Skunk smells money in it and gives it a try. Love blooms between Sally and Benjamin, and they decide to get married. Bruce’s relationship with Penelope deepens, and all is going well with the artistic education of
Author: Richard Spoon
Publisher: Old Man River Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 9781938222016
Category : Cooperativeness
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
This manual of business and management know-how includes stories, specifics, and immediate takeaways crafted to illustrate and explain the dynamics of great teams—and how to create those change-producing forces in teams everywhere. The unconventional collection of applicable narratives, individual and team exercises, and sound management insight invites personal growth for everyone from business executives and parents to coaches and college students. Based on the Team Arch model from ArchPoint Consulting, the book provides deeper information focused on leveraging strengths and solving problems. Its whole team approach in the context of storytelling offers specific steps for individual team members to reach greater productivity and enjoyment at the workplace. The poignant real-life stories woven throughout additionally illustrate that team building and getting the job done right is not just about business plans and strategic workshops, but about the meaning that happens when people move toward each other and build relationships.
Author: Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107003601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book argues that new groups and radically new concepts of group identity emerged throughout the world during the Renaissance.
Author: Gerard Noel
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9780786718412
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
Between the years of 1447 (Nicholas V) and 1572 (Pius V), the Vatican became the official home of the Church, and a succession of Renaissance Popes — who were statesmen, warriors, and patrons of the arts as well as churchmen — turned Rome into an unparalleled center for culture, and turned the Church into the world's largest bureaucracy. These mercurial popes, such as Alexander VI, the infamous Borgia patriarch, and Julius 'Il Terrible' II, contributed to cultural achievements — the Basilica of St. Peters and Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel — through the sale of indulgences, and targeted heretics with Inquisitions and witchhunts. In the midst of this explosion of great culture and violent debasement, Alexander VI, father of the ruthless Cesare and jezebel Lucrezia, came to be seen as the embodiment of this iniquity. But Gerard Noel shows that Alexander's legacy was tainted by false confessions and historical myth. In fact, Alexander created the blueprint for reform — the first of its kind — that would eventually lead to the Counter-Reformation. In his survey of the colorful reigns of the seventeen Renaissance Popes and his examination of the great Borgia myth, Noel brings to light the true legacy — political, artistic, religious — of an extraordinary time.
Author: Alexander S. Blum
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030507548
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Get Book Here
Book Description
This contributed volume explores the renaissance of general relativity after World War II, when it transformed from a marginal theory into a cornerstone of modern physics. Chapters explore key historical processes related to the theory of general relativity, in addition to presenting a thorough treatment of the relevant science behind these episodes. A broad historiographical framework is introduced first, thus providing the broad context in which the given computational approaches and case studies occurred. Written by an international and interdisciplinary group of expert authors, these chapters will bring readers to a more complete understanding of Einstein’s theory. Specific topics include: Social and citation networks The Fock-Infeld dispute Wheeler’s turn to gravitation theory The position of general relativity in theories of fundamental interactions The pursuit of a quantum theory of gravity The emergence of dark matter in relation to cosmological models Institutional frameworks for gravitational wave search in Europe The Renaissance of General Relativity in Context is ideal for historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science. Students and researchers in physics will also be interested in the topics explored.
Author: Diane Dreher
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
ISBN: 1600940013
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Get Book Here
Book Description
Renaissance keys to discovering your talents, finding your purpose, and charting a happier, new direction in life
Author: Theodore K. Rabb
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465008623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Get Book Here
Book Description
There is little debate that the Renaissance began at the end of the fourteenth century. Its end, though, is much more difficult to pin down. Here, for the first time, renowned classicist Theodore Rabb defines the changes that marked the shift away from the Renaissance to Modernity, and explains why these changes took place. The European Renaissance is usually characterized by the belief that a distinct antique civilization represented the ideal for all human endeavors. But there were other unities that defined the era: a shift in the role of the aristocracy from a warrior class to a cultural elite, a growth in education, a more thoughtful probing into the sciences, and the use of the arts for nonreligious purposes.By the dawn of the seventeenth century, four developments had swept over the world, altering these unities and ending the Renaissance: a break with the period's obsession with the past, which invited openness to innovation; a quest for central political control to cure increasing instability; a change in direction of people's passion and enthusiasm; and a new commitment to reason. With thoughtful, wide-lens scholarship and close, detailed looks throughout at the significant moments of change, Rabb offers us a radically new understanding of one of the most pivotal shifts in modern history.
Author: E. Natalie Rothman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501758489
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419
Get Book Here
Book Description
In The Dragoman Renaissance, E. Natalie Rothman traces how Istanbul-based diplomatic translator-interpreters, known as the dragomans, systematically engaged Ottoman elites in the study of the Ottoman Empire—eventually coalescing in the discipline of Orientalism—throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rothman challenges Eurocentric assumptions still pervasive in Renaissance studies by showing the centrality of Ottoman imperial culture to the articulation of European knowledge about the Ottomans. To do so, she draws on a dazzling array of new material from a variety of archives. By studying the sustained interactions between dragomans and Ottoman courtiers in this period, Rothman disrupts common ideas about a singular moment of "cultural encounter," as well as about a "docile" and "static" Orient, simply acted upon by extraneous imperial powers. The Dragoman Renaissance creatively uncovers how dragomans mediated Ottoman ethno-linguistic, political, and religious categories to European diplomats and scholars. Further, it shows how dragomans did not simply circulate fixed knowledge. Rather, their engagement of Ottoman imperial modes of inquiry and social reproduction shaped the discipline of Orientalism for centuries to come. Thanks to generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through The Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Author: Eleanora E. Tate
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0316040460
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Get Book Here
Book Description
When Celeste Lassiter Massey is forced to live with her actress Aunt Valentina in Harlem, she is not thrilled to trade her friends and comfortable North Carolina for scary, big-city life. While Celeste experiences the Harlem Renaissance in full swing, she sees as much grit as glamour. A passionate writer, talented violinist, and aspiring doctor, she eventually faces a choice between ambition and loyalty, roots and horizons. The decision will change her forever.
Author: David A. Horner
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830869352
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Get Book Here
Book Description
For young Christians about to embark on the collegiate experience, David Horner provides a guide to thinking as a Christian. Carefully exploring how ideas work, he gives students essential tools for thinking critically, contextually and coherently, unpacking worldviews and discerning truth.
