Best of
Pop-Culture

1994

Head On/Repossessed


Julian Cope - 1994
    Contents: Julian Cope shot to fame with eighties band 'Teardrop Explodes' during the Punk era. Hailed as a visionary by those people who recognise his genius and a madman by those who find him perplexing, he has become a cult figure in the music world. Head-On has previously only been available via 'Head Heritage' Julian's own company. Repossesed picks up in 1983 where Head On ends and continues up until 1989. Written in Cope's inimitable style it is set to provoke the same kind of media excitement.

A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song


Steve Turner - 1994
    Arranged chronologically by album and packed with color and black and white photographs and illustrations, A Hard Day's Write is hard to put down. Look up one song and you find yourself stopping to read about the others as the mini-stories recount how private incidents influenced the Beatles, collectively and as individual artists. A longtime Beatles admirer, Turner tracked down and interviewed the real-life subjects of the songs, probed public records, and newspaper archives, and spoke in depth to the personalities closest to the Beatles. The result is a book no Beatles fan should be without.

The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno & the Network Battle for the Night


Bill Carter - 1994
    This is the inside account of this high-pressure confrontation.

The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book


Vince Waldron - 1994
    It ran for five years, won 15 Emmys and set the pace for the sophisticated sitcom. Written with the full cooperation of Dick Van Dyke, Carl Reiner and Mary Tyler Moore, The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book is the first and only authorized backstage history of TV's most enduring comedy, an ultimate viewer guide to the dhow, both on and off camera. The book reads like a great dramatic script itself, beginning with the task of getting the show on its feet, moving on to the struggles to keep it alive.The first and only complete, fully authorized "biography" of one of TV's most beloved sitcoms, including the first complete viewer's guide to all 158 episodes, including a rare look at Carl Reiner's Head of the Family, the pilot film that started it all, as well as special behind-the-scenes trivia and a full chapter concordance. 50 black and white photos.

Spirit of '69: A Skinhead Bible


George Marshall - 1994
    From the late 60s to the present, this book gives it to you straight. Style, music, football, aggro. From SHARP to the scourge of the neo-nazis. A wealth of photographs, graphics and cuttings make this a rather indispensable guide.

The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals


Jerry Beck - 1994
    Featuring such beloved characters as Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, this treasury also includes biographical spotlights of illustrating pioneers such as Chuck Jones, plus a look at Disney, Warner Bros., and other great animation studios.

Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief


Donna Kossy - 1994
    A rich compendium of looniness!

Incredibly Strange Music, Volume II


V. Vale - 1994
    French of Family Affair) "singing" songs by Bob Dylan, and tons more

Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball


Kathleen Brady - 1994
    In life, however, Lucille Ball presented a far more complex and contradictory personality than was ever embodied by the television Lucy. In Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball Kathleen Brady presents the actress as a fully rounded human being, often at odds with the image she presented as an entertainment icon. Brady has gone far beyond the typical celebrity biography to present a funny, unflinching and ultimately moving portrait of Lucille Ball as a performing artist, daughter, mother, friend, colleague, and television mogul. Many think they know the story of Lucille Ball’s life, but Brady provides new details and a fresh perspective on this complex woman through a wealth of anecdotes and firsthand accounts.   Lucille Ball is revealed not only as a television archetype and influential icon of postwar American culture, but as a driven yet fragile human being who spent her life struggling to create of life of normalcy, but ultimately failed—even as she succeeded in bringing laughter of millions of fans.   In researching Lucille, Brady interviewed more than 150 people from her hometown to Hollywood. She spoke with her grade school classmates, and those like Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rodgers who met her when she arrived in Hollywood in the 1930s. She gained insights from those who knew her before her fame and from those she loved throughout her life. Film, radio and television history come to life with the appearances on these pages of such greats as The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Louis B. Mayer, and of course Desi Arnaz, who march and pratfall through the pages of this outstanding biography.

The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction


Phil Hardy - 1994
    In The Gangster Film, series editor Phil Hardy has created yet again a landmark in film reference.Included in this lavish volume are critical entries on more than 1,500 gangster films, complete with plot synapses and credits, and 650 black and white photographs to capture the look of this exciting genre. Arranged chronologically, The Gangster Film offers deliciously opinionated and detailed descriptions, statistical information, credits and trivia from early classics such as Public Enemy, Key Largo, Dragnet, and On the Waterfront to contemporary blockbusters such as The Grifters, Chinatown, The Godfather, and Pulp Fiction. Essential, authoritative, and entertaining, The Gangster Film is the guide for serious students of film, film buffs, and home viewers.

This Rimy River: Vaughan Oliver and V23-Graphic Works 1988-1994


Vaughan Oliver - 1994
    This Rimy River is a catalog of an exhibition held at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles in 1994. Long out of print, it has been sought after by designers and collectors who have followed the work of V23.Most admired for his collaborative energy and imagination, Oliver set the stage for a graphic revolution in the eighties and nineties. His impact was left on the post-punk music industry and influenced a generation of designers exploring the possibilities of type and print.The book is produced in very high caliber, the process of production being an important element of the design. Those who have worked with Vaughan Oliver and V23 as collaborators or clients describe their recollections of the V23 design experience in probing commentary alongside the works shown.

The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Stage Plays


Paddy Chayefsky - 1994
    Includes an introduction by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays


Paddy Chayefsky - 1994
    Includes an introduction and notes for each play by the author.

All My Children: The Complete Family Scrapbook


Gary Warner - 1994
    A celebration of the popular soap opera's twenty-fifth anniversary shares profiles of its major cast members, interviews, and discussions of themes and plot lines.

Woodstock Vision - The Spirit of a Generation: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Woodstock Festival


Elliott Landy - 1994
    Elliott Landy has had his finger on the pulse of the Woodstock generation. He was there before the famous festival, hanging out with Dylan and The Band; he was the photographer of record at the Woodstock festival itself; and he still lives in Woodstock today. In this edition of Woodstock Vision, Landy captures and preserves the true vision and pure essence of the festival-what it was like to be part of the sixties, sharing the spirit of unlimited hope, optimism, and belief that the world can be made better through peace and love. The book affectionately chronicles what it was like to be at the Woodstock Festival and to be a part of the spirit of its generation.

Duplex Planet


David Greenberger - 1994
    Over 100 issues later, his magazine has inspired a poetry collection, a 5-vol. CD set, two documentaries, three plays, and this book. Illus.

Absolutely Fabulous 2


Jennifer Saunders - 1994
    Relentless lampooning fashion in particular, and modern life in general, the book isl ike a visit from two old friends you've been dying to see, and couldn't get rid of if you tried. Includes two eight-page color photo inserts.

Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture


Raphael Samuel - 1994
    He argues rather that we live in an expanding historical culture, one which is newly alert to the evidence of the visual and which is altogether more pluralist than earlier versions of the national past.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Robotnik's Revenge


Michael Teitelbaum - 1994
    Sonic, a blue super-fast hedgehog, and his Uncle Chuck once again confront Robotnik and his evil robots.

The Smiths: The Visual Documentary


Johnny Rogan - 1994
    This book includes interviews and photographs, a detailed breakdown of every known performance by The Smiths, and a comprehensive discography. It also contains many previously unpublished photographs.

The Collected Works: The Screenplays, Vol. 1: Marty / The Goddess / The Americanization of Emily


Paddy Chayefsky - 1994
    Includes: The Hospital, Network, and Altered States.

King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era


Edward A. Berlin - 1994
    Led by The Entertainer, one of the most popular pieces of the mid-1970s, a revival of his music resulted in events unprecedented in American musical history.Never before had any composer's music been so acclaimed by both the popular and classical music worlds. While reaching a Top Ten position in the pop charts, Joplin's music was also being performed in classical recitals and setting new heights for sales of classical records. His opera Treemonishawas performed both in opera houses and on Broadway. Destined to be the definitive work on the man and his music, King of Ragtime is written by Edward A. Berlin. A renowned authority on Joplin and the author of the acclaimed and widely cited Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History, Berlin redefines the Scott Joplin biography. Using the tools of atrained musicologist, he has uncovered a vast amount of new information about Joplin. His biography truly documents the story of the composer, replacing the myths and unsupported anecdotes of previous histories. He shows how Joplin's opera Treemonisha was a tribute to the woman he loved, a womanother biographers never even mentioned. Berlin also reveals that Joplin was an associate of Irving Berlin, and that he accused Berlin of stealing his music to compose Alexander's Ragtime Band in 1911. Berlin paints a vivid picture of the ragtime years, placing Scott Joplin's story in its historical context. The composer emerges as a representative of the first post-Civil War generation of African Americans, of the men and women who found in the world of entertainment a way out of poverty andlowly social status. King of Ragtime recreates the excitement of these pioneers, who dreamed of greatness as they sought to expand the limits society placed upon their race.

William Blake at the Huntington


Robert N. Essick - 1994
    His writings are taught frequently in schools and studied intensively by scholars. During the last fifteen years, exhibitions of his art in London, Toronto, New Haven, and Tokyo have attracted large and ardent crowds. His brief lyric 'The Tyger' may be the most anthologised poem in the language. But such fame was not always Blake's lot. In his own life, his works were hardly known beyond a small band of patrons and connoisseurs. Throughout the last century and the early decades of our own, Blake's writings were kept alive by a handful of enthusiasts. An equally small number of collectors treasured Blake's prints and drawings. Among this latter group was the great American bibliophile Henry Huntington. He began to acquire for the new institution some of Blake's rarest and finest works, both visual and verbal. By the time of his death in 1927, Huntington had created one of the world's great Blake collections, particularly notable for the way it represents the full range of Blake's endeavours in many media.

Early Cinema in Russia and Its Cultural Reception


Yuri Tsivian - 1994
    In contrast to standard film histories, Yuri Tsivian focuses on reflected images: it features the historical film-goer and early writings on film as well as examining the physical elements of cinematic performance. "Tsivian casts a probing beam of illumination into some of the most obscure areas of film history. And the terrain he lights up with his careful assembly and insightful reading of the records of early film viewing in Russia not only changes our sense of the history of this period but also . . . causes us to re-evaluate some of our most basic theoretical and historical assumptions about what a film is and how it affects its audiences."—Tom Gunning, from the Foreword"Early Cinema in Russia . . . reveals Tsivian's strengths very well and demonstrates why he is . . . the finest film historian of his generation in the former Soviet Union."—Denise Y. Youngblood, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television"A work of fundamental importance."—Julian Graffy, Recent Studies of Russian and Soviet Cinema