This book divides Ms. Leister's poems into six categories: Seasons reveals her deep love of nature; Small Voices gives an intimate glimpse into her delightful relationship with her five children; Visions provides a channel into her thoughts about people and events; Soul Singing reveals Ms. Leister's deep faith in God; Love Lines gives voice to the emotions of anyone who has loved and lost; Just For Fun will make you laugh along with Ms. Leister as she laughs at her own foibles. Her poetry bears her distinctive signature in its powerful closing punch lines.
A sudden lack of fossil fuels creates a disintegrating economy. In cities, people cannot meet their basic needs. Those who are wise enough flock to the countryside where life is at least a possibility. Jason Banderman, born into this new world, survives his motheras death and must journey in search of his missing father. His odyssey takes him hundreds of kilometres from his home, following a trail that is years cold, in a world slowly returning to its once wild splendour. Even though there are new dangers and new lessons to be learned, Jasonas primary obstacle is one manas greed. He must overcome all to find his father and fulfill his hope of rediscovering the one thing that he cherishes above anything elsea]family.
During the latter months of 2008 a financial calamity was unfolding and fears of another Great Depression were sweeping across the globe. In America, once all-powerful behemoths of corporate finance were collapsing into a mere shell of their former selves under a debt avalanche of unknown proportions. Unemployment was rising rapidly and showing no favorites among white and blue-collar workers. Personal and business bankruptcies and foreclosures would skyrocket. In March of 2009, with the U.S. stock market averages down over 50% from their record highs of a couple of years earlier, Uzanas set out on a road trip through much of the Middle Atlantic and Southeastern United States. From the coal country of western Virginia to the gilded avenues of Palm Beach, Ray visited places and met people that mirrored a wide swath of Americas complex profile. True Grits is a collection of his stories from those travels that portray the varying challenges faced by Americans as they adapt to an uncertain, but decidedly altered economic landscape.
This book was purchased by the US Olympic Committee and given to each member of the US Olympic Team of the Summer 2004 Games as well as those participating in the Special Olympics. Nothing draws people together quite like sports. This book explores exactly why that is. In anticipation of the nostalgic return of the Games to Greece in 2004, mythologist and life-long athlete Phil Cousineau has produced a work that, unlike other titles on the subject, delves deeply into the spiritual dimension of the Olympics and potentially all athletic activity. Reaching far back to the mythic and historic origins of the Games nearly 3,000 years ago, Cousineau examines the driving motivation behind these first ancient gatherings, which was peaceful competition in an atmosphere of fair play and brotherhood, as well as the pursuit of excellence in mind, body, and spirit. And following through to the present day, he describes how these same ideals still compel coaches, athletes, and fans to sports arenas today, despite obstacles with doping and bribery we occasionally find in the modern Games. A collector’s dream, this book contains ancient and contemporary illustrations, historic facts, anecdotes, famous quotes, and interviews with Olympic athletes, including three-time medalist Sarunas Marciulionis of Lithuania and legendary swimmer Matt Biondi. Also featured are excerpts from Cousineau’s interviews about the cultural role of sports with mythologist Joseph Campbell and religious historian Huston Smith. The Olympic Odyssey is written for all fans of the game of life who esteem true leadership, aspire to personal wholeness, and seriously question the cultural obsession with winning at all costs. Ultimately, it suggests the deepest reason we so love great athletes is for how they encourage us to achieve the highest level of being possible in our own lives, no matter what the arena in which we play.
This provocative story illuminates the lives of 2 wayward adventure seekers. It's the unfortunate true account of myself and equally neurotic traveling companion. As young, naive gringos, we sought a mood altering pilgrimage to South America. We followed our siren's call towards drama, chaos and confusion in the jungles and mountains of the Inca Empire. For nearly a year, we played hide and seek from military police, danced the jig of civility while dodging the bullet of sanity. Exploits contained in this work are not intended for the squeamish, timid, faint of heart or too delicate. Graphic episodes may offend fragile, tightly wrapped and emotionally stable individuals. That being said, this narrative is equally seductive to extreme travel junkies and adventure seekers. A burgeoning population of recovery oriented Baby Boomers, will discover a niche of paradoxical insight. Arm chair travelers will be shocked, amused, entertained and educated. Hipsters will marvel at the high drama and drop dead humor.
Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes books contain complete plot summaries and analyses, key facts about the featured work, analysis of the major characters, suggested essay topics, themes, motifs, and symbols, and explanations of important quotations.
From Homer's Iliad (bite the dust) to Plato's Phaedo (swan song), this fascinating fun-filled sequel to Brush Up Your Shakespeare! reveals the classical origins of many common English phrases. Macrone is an erudite guide.--San Francisco Chronicle. 40 illustrations.
For more than 40 years, Ken Russell has directed some of the most provocative, controversial, and memorable films in British cinema, including Women in Love, The Music Lovers, Tommy, and Altered States. In this anthology, Kevin Flanagan has compiled essays that simultaneously place Russell's films within various academic contexts-gender studies, Victorian studies, and cultural criticism-on the one hand and expand the foundational history of Russell's career on the other. Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist recontextualizes the director's work in light of new approaches to film studies and corrects or amends previous scholarship. This collection tackles Russell's mainstream successes (Tommy, Altered States) and his seldom-seen masterpieces (The Debussy Film, Mahler), as well as his critical flops (Salome's Last Dance, Lady Chatterley's Lover). The book also includes information on Russell's most obscure television films, insights on his controversial films of the 1970s, and a new consideration of Russell's career in light of his recent return to amateur filmmaking. Representing a significant collaboration among scholars, Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist reflects a newly revived interest in the work of this important filmmaker.
James Vincent is a "world class" musician. That he is not a household name is entirely by his choice, yet almost all who have seen him perform or heard his recordings have become his fans. He has written a unique, brutally honest account of his life... his childhood and discovery of the guitar; his going on the road at seventeen to play in seedy dives and military service clubs; later, in famous upscale clubs across the country; then making records and playing huge concert venues. James gives us an inside look at the recording industry... the studios, the performers, producers and promoters. He gives us behind the scenes insights into many famous personalities... names like Santana, Garcia, Harrison and Cetera, and acknowledges some unsung heroes in the music world. His cast of characters includes the very rich and the down and out, the saint and the prostitute, the famous, the infamous and the very bizarre. This is a story about learning the hard way; about dysfunctional families, choices and consequences, lust, infidelity, despair, triumph, tragedy, friendship and betrayal. Most of all, it is a life's journey to discover the meaning of unconditional love and spiritual fulfillment. It is indeed, an odyssey. -R.J.M.
The Leamington Italian Community intertwines personal and family stories with both empirical and intuitive writing to offer new historical insights into the complex social, economic, and psychological causes and effects of the migration phenomenon. Walter Temelini meticulously reconstructs the history of immigration and settlement in Leamington, Ontario, of Italians from the southern regions of Lazio, Molise, and Sicily. He explains how, despite their regional differences, three generations between 1925 and the 1990s forged a cohesive, socially conscious, and unique agricultural community by balancing their inherited values and their newly adopted Canadian economic opportunities. Temelini's groundbreaking research draws on testimonial and documentary evidence gathered from in-depth interviews with hundreds of residents, as well as on original archival information and Italian-language histories translated by the author and previously unavailable to English-speaking readers. He concludes his study with an investigation into the award-winning novel Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci, one of the community's most celebrated descendants. Drawing parallels between Ricci's narrative and the development of the community, Temelini demonstrates that ethnicity can be transformed successfully into a powerful universal archetype, and a creative force of identity. A pioneering and authoritative work, The Leamington Italian Community creates an intimate portrait within a global framework, delving into issues both timely and timeless, that will interest and inform the general and specialized reader alike.
