A Poem at the Right Moment collects, and preserves, poems—called catus—that have circulated orally for centuries in South India. The poems are remarkable for their wit and precision, their lyrical insight on the commonplace, their fascination with sensual experience, and their exploration of the connection between language and desire. Taken together the catus offer a penetrating critical vision and an understanding of the classical traditions of Telugu, Tamil, and Sanskrit. Each poem is presented in a contemporary English translation along with the Indian-language original. An introduction and a concluding essay explore in detail the stories and texts that comprise the catu system. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1998.
Ronald Reagan's first great victory in the 1966 California governor's race is one of the pivotal stories of American political history, a victory that seemed to come from nowhere and has long since confounded his critics. Just four years earlier Governor Edmund "Pat" Brown was celebrated as the "Giant Killer" for his 1962 victory over Richard Nixon, and his liberal agenda reigned supreme. Yet in 1966 political neophyte Reagan trounced Brown by almost one million votes, marking not only the coming-of-age of Reagan's new conservatism but also the first serious blow to modern liberalism. Drawing on scores of oral histories, thousands of archival documents, and personal interviews with participants, Dallek offers a gripping new portrait of the 1960s that is far more complicated than our collective memory of that decade.
The individuals you will encounter here are unique but believable. Follow the trail of mystery and curiosity to the inevitable but surprising end. Albert doesn't just sell magazines, he can see answers for the downtrodden. Mr. Jiggs is a four legged deity with a sense of humor. Meet a florist with a taste for blood.
For a firefighter and his best friend…timing is everything It’s one fire he doesn’t want to put out… After Joanne Brant is dumped at the altar, Hudson Decker must convince his best friend that Mr. Right is standing right in front of her! The firefighter missed his chance back in the day, but they’re not in high school anymore. With maturity and wisdom—and a spark that’s still going strong—it’s time to change the Bad Luck Bride’s luck for the better. If only she’ll say yes…
Ryan Cosgrove and Liliana Delgado are on a collision course with destiny. They don't know it yet, but before the night is over their lives will be forever changed.
All fine artists share a common goal: to combine individual elements into a convincing, cohesive whole that tells a story or expresses an intention. Photography is especially suited to this pursuit because the photographer can create multiple, distinct images of a single subject using a variety of design techniques. The display on a digital camera instantly shows the arrangement of elements in an image, allowing the photographer to make changes and refine their creation as they work. Albrecht Rissler believes that a firm understanding of image design is as important as having an observant eye or having the technical knowledge to operate a camera. Photographic Composition presents the most important concepts of image design and offers 250 beautiful photographs to illustrate these concepts. By applying these concepts to your own work, you will greatly improve your photographic eye and your ability to compose an ideal image. This book's impressive images are in black-and-white, intentionally removing the distraction of color and making it easy to focus on compositional elements and form. With this book, photographers as well as all visual artists will learn how to infuse their own images with excitement, develop and hone their visual language, and express their personal artistic aesthetic. Topics include: The effect of various aspect ratios Perspective and composition Form and contrast Proportion and harmony Symmetry and asymmetry Brightness and darkness Structures and textures The "perfect moment"
"At this very moment There's a mouse There's a small mouse waking up in the early morning sun". Using simple language, this book describes all the wonderful things that are going on around the world right now, this very second, in a heart-felt introduction to ideas of mindfulness and being present.
Buddhists across Asia have often aspired to die with a clear and focused mind, as the historical Buddha himself is said to have done. This book explores how the ideal of dying with right mindfulness was appropriated, disseminated, and transformed in premodern Japan, focusing on the late tenth through early fourteenth centuries. By concentrating one’s thoughts on the Buddha in one’s last moments, it was said even an ignorant and sinful person could escape the cycle of deluded rebirth and achieve birth in a buddha’s pure land, where liberation would be assured. Conversely, the slightest mental distraction at that final juncture could send even a devout practitioner tumbling down into the hells or other miserable rebirth realms. The ideal of mindful death thus generated both hope and anxiety and created a demand for ritual specialists who could act as religious guides at the deathbed. Buddhist death management in Japan has been studied chiefly from the standpoint of funerals and mortuary rites. Right Thoughts at the Last Moment investigates a largely untold side of that story: how early medieval Japanese prepared for death, and how desire for ritual assistance in one’s last hours contributed to Buddhist preeminence in death-related matters. It represents the first book-length study in a Western language to examine how the Buddhist ideal of mindful death was appropriated in a specific historical context. Practice for one’s last hours occupied the intersections of multiple, often disparate approaches that Buddhism offered for coping with death. Because they crossed sectarian lines and eventually permeated all social levels, deathbed practices afford insights into broader issues in medieval Japanese religion, including intellectual developments, devotional practices, pollution concerns, ritual performance, and divisions of labor among religious professionals. They also allow us to see beyond the categories of “old” versus “new” Buddhism, or establishment Buddhism versus marginal heterodoxies, which have characterized much scholarship to date. Enlivened by cogent examples, this study draws on a wealth of sources including ritual instructions, hagiographies, doctrinal writings, didactic tales, courtier diaries, historical records, letters, and relevant art historical material to explore the interplay of doctrinal ideals and on-the-ground practice.
Modern philosophical thought has a manifold tradition of emphasising ‘the moment’. ‘The moment’ demands questioning all-too-common notions of time, of past, present and future, uniqueness and repetition, rupture and continuity. This collection addresses the key questions posed by ‘the moment’, considering writers such as Nietzsche, Husserl, Benjamin and Badiou, and elucidates the connections between social theory, philosophy, literary theory and history that are opened up by this notion.
