ENJOY THE ECSTASY OF AGONY. Amy and Jordan are just like us: hoping for the best, even when things go from bad to worse. They are menaced by bears, beheaded by ghosts, and hunted by the cops, but still they struggle on, bickering and reconciling, scraping together the rent and trying to find a decent movie. It’s the perfect solace for anxious modern minds, courtesy of one of the great innovators of American comics. Now if only Amy’s skin would grow back ... This NYRC edition features a recreation of the original, pocket-size, slipcovered, paperback, designed by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly.
Luigi Pirandello is best known for his ability to create farcical tragedies that pit reality against appearance in such a way that objective truth is never revealed. Time magazine called Pirandello's work a fascinating precursor of the entire theater of the absurd -- the anguish over existence in Sartre and Camus, the guerilla warfare against ossified language and the mass mind in Ionesco, the bleak, alienated vision of Beckett, the sense of man eternally acting a role in Genet, and the use of the stage as a self-contained universe in Pinter. In new translations by acclaimed playwright and translator Eric Bentley, these versions of four of Pirandello's most celebrated plays -- Six Characters in Search of an Author, Emperor Henry, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth, and Right You Are -- are considered to be the standards for American productions. They capture the playwright's unique voice with remarkable precision, while at the same time attending to the rigors of the American stage.
The Agony of Life is a book about unconditional love, a comedy, a tragedy, a cry for the people, a cry for the nation, a cry for humanity, an agony of life and a social commentary. It is a book that narrates the agony and the hurdles that the author had to pass through in life from his birth and the abandonment by his mother, was again abandoned and left for dead during the Nigerian-Biafran war, miraculously survived the war and severe malnutrition and was reunited with his family long after the war. How he survived the countless illnesses and other obstacles that life presented to him.
The task before us, in a nutshell, my fellow humans, is the clear and present danger of finding out, who we really are. That is the impossible feat I have given this poor creature, V. Virom, and each of us with him. The proof of the pasta is always in the tasting. So says the author at the beginning of his book as he invites the reader on a detective story, offering a beautifully written book with a rather remarkable synthesis of modern thinking, one that builds from the ground of existence alone, to a spirituality both secular and sacred. That single paragraph on the cover of the book says what needs to be said it seems to me. When I thought about this further and longer requested description of the book for the web site, T. S. Eliot came to mind. I am referring to the time when he was asked what his poem Prufrock was about and kindly replied, Read the poem. I do think he made a valid point, because asking for a description of a book is the same when you think about it. Shouldnt a person rather be reading the book itself? At the same time, I certainly can understand a person wanting to get a feel for the book before purchasing it, and since you dont have the book to handle and page through to do that (which I myself always do to see if there is going to be a love affair between the book and me), I will give the viewer some of the Overture at the beginning of my book as an overture here as well, hopefully to help accomplish the tangential absence. Call it virtual foreplay if you want. First Review From the Free Venice Beachhead News June 2004 Book Review QUEST: A SEARCH FOR A SOUL MODERNKIND, by Vincent Coppola Reviewed by Steve Goldman (a former editor for Encyclopedia Britannica) With great passion, yet without a scintilla of mawkish sentimentality, Coppola here makes the strong compelling case for love as the direct and primary implication of human consciousness. That would be laudable by itself, but these are not merely the pleasant musings of a decent well-intentioned person. This is (and it is astounding) tightly reasoned philosophy, based on acute, astute observation and profound and powerful argument. Building on Descartes (whom he explicitly reverses on the fundamental matter of proof of personal experience) and Kant, who seems indispensable to all who came after, Coppola emerges with a distinctive and compassionate American existentialism that is unlike anything heretofore. With strongly grounded links to modern cosmology, evolutionary theory and sheer phenomenology of consciousness in space/time, Coppola delivers a ringing statement of free will, so sorely needed in this era of burgeoning biological reductionist determinism. This in turn yields a ringing adduction of the ontological primacy of self, with commensurately devastating attacks on any variety of teeny-bopping reductionism, chemical, biological, physical or psychological: and as well on any religio-philosophical tradition (usually Asian), which explicitly denies or tries to eradicate the self. I myself exist, and I can love is the rigorously derived, powerfully demonstrated theorem, which is the first principal here. What is more, the revolutionary optional theology Quest proposes seems to at last settle that huge and perennial question for contemporary times. Additionally and astonishingly, and with philosophical deftness and gracious style, Coppolas secular Christology evinces sacred humanitarian values, again so needed in this era. Coppola is a highly trained professional philosopher, a prodigiously well-read and deeply thoughtful theorist and analyst, whose similarity to the preponderant mentality in his field is only superficial. That is because Vincent (V. Virom) is a philosopher in the all but abandoned grand tr
From the world-renowned agony aunts of award-winning podcast 'Dear Joan and Jericha' comes an unputdownable bible of sex and relationship advice on how to find, satisfy and maintain a husband, from dating right up until you or hubby pass away. We dedicate this tome to Mahmoud: surgeon, prophet, model and friend. Capable of performing up to 30 hysterectomies a day (often blindfolded), it was Mahmoud that begged us to put pen to papyrus and share our wisdom with all the lost ladies suffering in the world today. As much revered celebrities, living glamorous and wealthy lifestyles, we do of course come under fire. There has recently been vicious slander circulating, regarding a small handful of folk who have written to us with a problem, and having listened to our response, gone on to take their own lives. As if the two were somehow connected. These naysayers are generally bitter and jealous spinsters, taking perverse and sadistic pleasure in being vindictive and nasty, while no doubt masturbating at the same time. To these lonely ladies we would say, 'Go look in your own heart, knock ye there and ask yourself some difficult questions. Because you will find the real guilt writhing within ye, like maggots mating in yesterday's apple'. What we offer here is a lifeline, a service, much like the NHS, or perhaps more accurately, the AA. Joan and Jericha: AA for the heart. Affording you the opportunity to have a breakdown, call for a pick-up truck, stop off for a Full English whilst a hairy guy in a grubby onesie fumbles under your bonnet and tweaks at your wiring, before sending you on your way, lubricated, primed, pumped and pretty. With kind regards, Joan Damry and Jericha Domain OBE MBE (etc)
This New York Times bestselling Trump biography from a major American intellectual explains how a renegade businessman became one of the most successful -- and necessary -- presidents of all time. In The Case for Trump, award-winning historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson explains how a celebrity businessman with no political or military experience triumphed over sixteen well-qualified Republican rivals, a Democrat with a quarter-billion-dollar war chest, and a hostile media and Washington establishment to become president of the United States -- and an extremely successful president. Trump alone saw a political opportunity in defending the working people of America's interior whom the coastal elite of both parties had come to scorn, Hanson argues. And Trump alone had the instincts and energy to pursue this opening to victory, dismantle a corrupt old order, and bring long-overdue policy changes at home and abroad. We could not survive a series of presidencies as volatile as Trump's. But after decades of drift, America needs the outsider Trump to do what normal politicians would not and could not do.
To understand comedy is to understand humanity, for the comic sense is central to what it means to be human. Nearly all the major issues with which human beings have exercised themselves are touched upon in some manner by the comic spirit. Yet education in the art of comedy and in comic appreciation is given little attention in most societies. The Spirituality of Comedy explores the wisdom of comedy and the comic answer to tragedy (in both popular and classical senses of the term). Tragedy is seen as a fundamental problem of human existence, while comedy is its counterweight and resolution.Conrad Hyers has taken a fresh look at comedy from the standpoint of comparative mythology and religion, and thus comedy's spiritual significance. In his unique study of the comic tradition, Hyers explains the difficulty in pinning down themes, structures, plots, or characters that are common to all comedy. Instead he argues that there is an essence of comedy in the area of pattern. He draws upon the rich historical ensemble of types of comic figures: the humorist, comedian, comic hero, rogue, trickster, clown, fool, underdog, and simpleton. He shows how each type incarnates a comic heroism in its own unique manner, offering a profound wisdom and philosophy of life.The approach of this book is broadly interdisciplinary, with materials and interpretations introduced from the various fields of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences as they illuminate both the tragic and comic sensibilities. The methodological thread that draws this all together is an analysis of the major types of comic figures in terms of the myths and legends associated with them, the rituals they produce and enact, and the symbolism of the comic figures themselves. Written in a very readable literary style, The Spirituality of Comedy will appeal to psychologists, social scientists, clergy, philosophers, and students of literature.
