When the Czar proclaims that he will marry his daughter to the man who brings him a flying ship, the Fool of the World sets out to try his luck and meets some unusual companions on the way.
It's the 1980s and the rock landscape is littered with massive hair, synthesizers, and monster riffs, but there is an alternative being born in the sleepy East of America-we just don't know it yet. Before the Internet, MTV, and iPods provided far-off music fans with information and communities-and before Nirvana-kids across the world grew up in relative isolation, dependent on mix tapes and self-created art to slowly spread scenes and trends. It was under these conditions that four young musicians found one another in Boston, Massachusetts, and started a band called Pixies. During their initial seven-year career, Pixies would play some of Europe's most gigantic festivals, keep the press guessing, and cultivate a fervid international fan base hungry for more and more of their unique surf punk. The band worked fast, cranking out four albums at a breakneck pace, but ultimately pressures and personality clashes took their toll: Pixies broke up just as bands were singing their praises as the rock'n'roll innovators. For twelve years, a Pixies reunion seemed impossible, but a sudden announcement in 2004 proclaimed the unthinkable-Pixies were getting back together. Their extremely successful reunion tour finally gave the group something they'd always lacked in their homeland: proof that their bone-rattling music had left an indelible impact. Fool the World tells Pixies' story in the words of those who lived it, from the band members to studio owners, from A&R executives, producers, and visual artists who worked with them to admirers of their music, such as Bono, PJ Harvey, Beck, and Perry Farrell. With new cartoons by Trompe Le Monde illustrator Steven Appleby, Fool the World is a complete journey through the life, death, and rebirth of one of the most influential bands of all time.
In this lively work, Beatrice K. Otto takes us on a journey around the world in search of one of the most colorful characters in history—the court jester. Though not always clad in cap and bells, these witty, quirky characters crop up everywhere, from the courts of ancient China and the Mogul emperors of India to those of medieval Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. With a wealth of anecdotes, jokes, quotations, epigraphs, and illustrations (including flip art), Otto brings to light little-known jesters, highlighting their humanizing influence on people with power and position and placing otherwise remote historical figures in a more idiosyncratic, intimate light. Most of the work on the court jester has concentrated on Europe; Otto draws on previously untranslated classical Chinese writings and other sources to correct this bias and also looks at jesters in literature, mythology, and drama. Written with wit and humor, Fools Are Everywhere is the most comprehensive look at these roguish characters who risked their necks not only to mock and entertain but also to fulfill a deep and widespread human and social need.
This “dazzling” National Book Award finalist set aboard an ocean liner in 1931 reflects the passions and prejudices that sparked World War II (San Francisco Chronicle). August 1931. An ocean liner bound for Germany sets out from the Mexican port city of Veracruz. The ship’s first-class passengers include an idealistic young American painter and her lover; a Spanish dance troupe with a sideline in larceny; an elderly German couple and their fat, seasick bulldog; and a boisterous band of Cuban medical students. As the Vera journeys across the Atlantic, the incidents and intrigues of several dozen passengers and crew members come into razor-sharp focus. The result is a richly drawn portrait of the human condition in all its complexity and a mesmerizing snapshot of a world drifting toward disaster. Written over a span of twenty years and based on the diary Katherine Anne Porter kept during a similar ocean voyage, Ship of Fools was the bestselling novel of 1962 and the inspiration for an Academy Award–winning film starring Vivien Leigh. It is a masterpiece of American literature as captivating today as when it was first published more than a half century ago. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Katherine Anne Porter, including rare photos from the University of Maryland Libraries.
Meet Mulla Nasruddin, a legendary character whose adventures and misadventures are enjoyed across the Islamic world. This witty collection of stories portrays his eccentric, engaging and irreverent character. Nasruddin always has a twinkle in his eye, a sliver of wisdom in his ramblings and a few good surprises up his sleeve! AGES: 6 and up AUTHOR: Shahrukh Husain writes for both adults and children and is the author of THE BAREFOOT BOOK OF STORIES FROM THE OPERA. When she is not writing, Shahrukh practices as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, specialising in transcultural work. Micha Archer has always loved the way words and pictures go together. Her illustrations are created using gouache, watercolour, pen and ink, and collage. She is influenced by her travels in West Africa, Mexico and Central America and the folk arts and crafts she saw there. She has also illustrated LOLA'S FANDANGO. REVIEWS: ". . . Husain's accessible and lively prose delivers satisfying morals that are rarely predictable; for example, when the Mulla concocts an inventive story to keep his pupils from eating his baklava and returns to find the plate empty, he praises a pupil who tells a tall tale of his own. Rendered in vibrant golds, greens, and blues, Archer's collages, created from a variety of papers and homemade stamps, seamlessly intermesh with the spirited vignettes" -- Publishers Weekly
The enchanting true story of a girl who saw fairies, and another with a gift for art, who concocted a story to stay out of trouble and ended up fooling the world. Frances was nine when she first saw the fairies. They were tiny men, dressed all in green. Nobody but Frances saw them, so her cousin Elsie painted paper fairies and took photographs of them “dancing” around Frances to make the grown-ups stop teasing. The girls promised each other they would never, ever tell that the photos weren’t real. But how were Frances and Elsie supposed to know that their photographs would fall into the hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? And who would have dreamed that the man who created the famous detective Sherlock Holmes believed ardently in fairies — and wanted very much to see one? Mary Losure presents this enthralling true story as a fanciful narrative featuring the original Cottingley fairy photos and previously unpublished drawings and images from the family’s archives. A delight for everyone with a fondness for fairies, and for anyone who has ever started something that spun out of control. Back matter includes source notes and a bibliography.
Who is the Fool and what does he mean to us? Pre-1900 scholars thought him a Renaissance fashion, a continental import of note in the British Isles only between 1486 and the 1630s, per his appearances in Shakespeare's plays. However, as Sandra Billington shows in this pioneering study, the Fool has been with us from medieval times and has worn many guises: village idiot and sophisticated comedian, embodiment of Satan and God's own jester. He has managed, as Billington notes, 'to inspire or infect our thinking for at least eight hundred years'.
The Path of the Holy Fool: How the Labyrinth Ignites Our Visionary PowersThe Path of the Holy Fool summons each of us to become a Holy Fool: one who is accountable, stands for equality and social justice, embraces an ecological vision, and encourages community spirit. Lauren Artress, who established the two permanent labyrinths at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, is a leading force in the Labyrinth Movement. Her new book The Path of the Holy Fool: How the Labyrinth Ignites Our Visionary Powers expands upon her earlier work in Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice. Through the Parsifal story Artress suggests the labyrinth serves as a Grail that is discovered in the invisible, imaginative, in-between world symbolized by the Grail Castle. Most importantly this book invites readers to explore and reflect upon their own uniquely configured imaginations. It is through the imagination that self-reflection and raw experiences of the Holy occur. Once we navigate our imaginative processes without fear, the labyrinth experience ignites our creativity, heals our wounds and opens our big picture vision that nurtures empathy and gives us eyes to see and ears to hear-even through the sorrows of the pandemic-the call for a life-enhancing future. The labyrinth offers the Holy Fool an unwavering path as we learn to takes risks, create new modalities and find a way to contribute to our evolving world. ISBN (eBook): 978-1-7359188-0-8