The World of Alphonse Allais

The World of Alphonse Allais PDF Author: Alphonse Allais
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571306098
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In one of his Independent pieces Miles Kington once referred to a volume of Edward Lear's limericks translated into French. Not an easy task, you might think, and in translating Alphonse Allais into English, Miles Kington set himself a similar challenge. He carried it off with panache. As Max Harrison said in The Times, '... has done a difficult job well, even preserving some of Allais's puns'. Alphonse Allais has been described as the greatest humorous writer ever. In the words of Lisa Appignanesi, 'Allais was a consummate absurdist. From an ordinary phenomenon, simple sentiment or situation, he would logically deduce the looniest, most macabre and most unexpected result ... His humour kept all Paris, high and low, waiting breathlessly for the paper which would carry his next tale ...' On first publication, in 1976, Clive James in the Observer said 'Allais has been dead 70 years but his mocking tone ensures him a permanently relevant after-life'. And John Sturrock in the New Statesman, 'Allais stands, along with Jarry, at the head of the most dazzling and highly educated tradition of French humour, as witty as it is whimsical'. Faber Finds offers this rare book as a tribute not only to Alphonse Allais but also Miles Kington, two great humorists in tandem.

The World of Alphonse Allais

The World of Alphonse Allais PDF Author: Alphonse Allais
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571306098
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
In one of his Independent pieces Miles Kington once referred to a volume of Edward Lear's limericks translated into French. Not an easy task, you might think, and in translating Alphonse Allais into English, Miles Kington set himself a similar challenge. He carried it off with panache. As Max Harrison said in The Times, '... has done a difficult job well, even preserving some of Allais's puns'. Alphonse Allais has been described as the greatest humorous writer ever. In the words of Lisa Appignanesi, 'Allais was a consummate absurdist. From an ordinary phenomenon, simple sentiment or situation, he would logically deduce the looniest, most macabre and most unexpected result ... His humour kept all Paris, high and low, waiting breathlessly for the paper which would carry his next tale ...' On first publication, in 1976, Clive James in the Observer said 'Allais has been dead 70 years but his mocking tone ensures him a permanently relevant after-life'. And John Sturrock in the New Statesman, 'Allais stands, along with Jarry, at the head of the most dazzling and highly educated tradition of French humour, as witty as it is whimsical'. Faber Finds offers this rare book as a tribute not only to Alphonse Allais but also Miles Kington, two great humorists in tandem.

The Book of Absinthe

The Book of Absinthe PDF Author: Phil Baker
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802199771
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
A witty, erudite primer to the world’s most notorious drink. La Fée Verte (or “The Green Fairy”) has intoxicated artists, poets, and writers ever since the late eighteenth century. Stories abound of absinthe’s drug-like sensations of mood lift and inspiration due to the presence of wormwood, its infamous “special” ingredient, which ultimately leads to delirium, homicidal mania, and death. Opening with the sensational 1905 Absinthe Murders, Phil Baker offers a cultural history of absinthe, from its modest origins as an herbal tonic through its luxuriantly morbid heyday in the late nineteenth century. Chronicling a fascinatingly lurid cast of historical characters who often died young, the absinthe scrapbook includes Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, August Strindberg, Alfred Jarry, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Allais, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. Along with discussing the rituals and modus operandi of absinthe drinking, Baker reveals the recently discovered pharmacology of how real absinthe actually works on the nervous system, and he tests the various real and fake absinthe products that are available overseas. “Formidably researched, beautifully written, and abundant with telling detail and pitch-black humor.” —The Daily Telegraph

Study in Black and White

Study in Black and White PDF Author: Tanya Sheehan
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271082461
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
In this volume, Tanya Sheehan takes humor seriously in order to trace how photographic comedy was used in America and transnationally to express evolving ideas about race, black emancipation, and civil rights in the mid-1800s and into the twentieth century. Sheehan employs a trove of understudied materials to write a new history of photography, one that encompasses the rise of the commercial portrait studio in the 1840s, the popularization of amateur photography around 1900, and the mass circulation of postcards and other photographic ephemera in the twentieth century. She examines the racial politics that shaped some of the most essential elements of the medium, from the negative-positive process to the convention of the photographic smile. The book also places historical discourses in relation to contemporary art that critiques racism through humor, including the work of Genevieve Grieves, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, and Fred Wilson. By treating racial humor about and within the photographic medium as complex social commentary, rather than a collectible curiosity, Study in Black and White enriches our understanding of photography in popular culture. Transhistorical and interdisciplinary, this book will be of vital interest to scholars of art history and visual studies, critical race studies, U.S. history, and African American studies.

Anthology of Black Humor

Anthology of Black Humor PDF Author: André Breton
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 0872868494
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This is the first publication in English of the anthology that contains Breton’s definitive statement on l’humour noir, one of the seminal concepts of Surrealism, and his provocative assessments of the writers he most admired. While some of the authors featured in The Anthology of Black Humor are already well known to American readers—Swift, Kafka, Rimbaud, Poe, Lewis Carroll, and Baudelaire among them (and even then, Breton’s selections are often surprising)—many others are sure to come as a revelation. The entries range from the acerbic aphorisms of Swift, Lichtenberg, and Duchamp to the theatrical slapstick of Christian Dietrich Grabbe, from the wry missives of Rimbaud and Jacques Vache to the manic paranoia of Dali, from the ferocious iconoclasm of Alfred Jarry and Arthur Craven to the offhand hilarity of Apollinaire at his most spontaneous. For each of the forty-five authors included, Breton has provided an enlightening biographical and critical preface, situating both the writer and the work in the context of black humor—a partly macabre, partly ironic, and often absurd turn of spirit that Breton defined as "a superior revolt of the mind." "Anthologies can aim to be groundbreaking or thought-provoking; few can be said to have introduced a new phrase—or a new concept—into the language. No one had ever used the term "black humour" before this one came along, unless, perhaps, it was from a racial angle."—The Guardian Andre Breton (1896-1966), the founder and principal theorist of the Surrealist movement, is one of the major literary figures of the past century. His best-known works in English translation include Nadja, Mad Love, The Manifestoes of Surrealism, The Magnetic Fields (with Philippe Soupault), and Earthlight. Mark Polizzotti is the author of Revolution of the Mind: The Life of Andre Breton.

Dictionary of Gestures

Dictionary of Gestures PDF Author: Francois Caradec
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262547996
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
An illustrated guide to more than 850 gestures and their meanings around the world, from a nod of the head to a click of the heels. Gestures convey meaning with a flourish. A vigorous nod of the head, a bold jut of the chin, an enthusiastic thumbs-up: all speak louder than words. Yet the same gesture may have different meanings in different parts of the world. What Americans understand as the “A-OK gesture,” for example, is an obscene insult in the Arab world. This volume is the reference book we didn't know we needed—an illustrated dictionary of 850 gestures and their meanings around the world. It catalogs voluntary gestures made to communicate openly—as distinct from sign language, dance moves, involuntary “tells,” or secret handshakes—and explains what the gesture conveys in a variety of locations. It is organized by body part, from top to bottom, from head (nodding, shaking, turning) to foot (scraping, kicking, playing footsie). We learn that “to oscillate the head while gently throwing it back” communicates approval in some countries even though it resembles the headshake of disapproval used in other countries; that “to tap a slightly inflated cheek” constitutes an erotic invitation when accompanied by a wink; that the middle finger pointed in the air signifies approval in South America. We may already know that it is a grave insult in the Middle East and Asia to display the sole of one's shoe, but perhaps not that motorcyclists sometimes greet each other by raising a foot. Illustrated with clever line drawings and documented with quotations from literature (the author, François Caradec, was a distinguished and prolific historian of literature, culture, and humorous oddities, as well as a novelist and poet), this dictionary offers readers unique lessons in polylingual meaning.

The Original Accident

The Original Accident PDF Author: Paul Virilio
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745636144
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
Virilio defines the ways in which postindustrial science has merged with out-and-out hyperterrorism to threaten the foundations of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian civilisation, and the future of the planet with them, through innovation of mass catastrophes that are part and parcel of its panoply of inventions.

Humorous Texts

Humorous Texts PDF Author: Salvatore Attardo
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110887967
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book presents a theory of long humorous texts based on a revision and an upgrade of the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH), a decade after its first proposal. The theory is informed by current research in psycholinguistics and cognitive science. It is predicated on the fact that there are humorous mechanisms in long texts that have no counterpart in jokes. The book includes a number of case studies, among them Oscar Wilde's Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Allais' story Han Rybeck. A ground-breaking discussion of the quantitative distribution of humor in select texts is presented.

Bohemian Paris

Bohemian Paris PDF Author: Dan Franck
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802139979
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Explores how the atmosphere and people of Paris lead to the development of modern art at the beginning of the twentieth century and profiles influential artists and writers of the era.

My Mother, The Bearded Lady

My Mother, The Bearded Lady PDF Author: Miles Kington
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783526521
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
A journalist, columnist, humorist and musician, Miles Kington began his writing career at Punch, where he created Franglais, a hugely popular fictional language, before going on to write a daily column for The Times, followed by the Independent. He wrote over thirty thousand newspaper columns in his lifetime, as well as contributing to countless magazines and other publications. When he died in 2008, he left behind an enormous archive of correspondence. Effortlessly funny and entertaining, this collection is full of Kington’s inimitable style. He had kept copies of every letter he had sent or received for the best part of fifty years, letters to and from the great and the good of the arts – Terry Jones, Melvyn Bragg, Joanna Lumley, John Cleese, Andre Previn, Philip Larkin, Alan Coren, Kenneth Williams, and many more. My Mother, The Bearded Lady is a selection of these captivating letters, chosen and edited by his wife, Caroline Kington.

Art and the Everyday

Art and the Everyday PDF Author: Nancy Perloff
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The premiere of Erik Satie's Parade in May 1917 marked the emergence of a new musical avant-garde in Paris. To many young artists Parade exemplified a wish to escape Symbolist purity and fuse 'art' with everyday life--a rallying cry quickly adopted by Jean Cocteau in his celebrated pamphlet on new French music, The Cock And The Harlequin, in 1918.