Every character is detailed with their statistics, techniques, secret facts and training tips."

    Nominated for the Edgar Award for best true-crime book of the year, it also marked the debut of an audaciously talented writer, James St. James, who himself had been a club kid and close friend and confidant of Michael Alig, the young man convicted of killing the drug dealer known as Angel. Now the book has been brought to the screen as Party Monster, with Macaulay Culkin playing killer Michael Alig and Seth Green as author/celebutante James St. James.

    Her face is perhaps as well known today as ever it was during her lifetime. And this fall, interest in Marilyn is at an all-time high for, on the 27th and 28th of October, the renowned auction house Christie's will place on sale many hundreds of objects that once belonged to the beloved actress. This specially designed hardcover book features more than 1,500 objects for sale, illustrated with hundreds of beautiful photographs as well as rare and never-before-seen archival photographs of Marilyn Monroe. Personal essays and fashion notes provide a behind-the-scenes look into the life of the world's most famous celebrity.

    His evaluative comments are worthwhile, and his recounting of historical developments is both accessible and informative. Fans will appreciate his attention to detail, while casual readers will benefit from his skilled survey.” — Library Journal

    From Sprite commercials to The Source magazine to Soho art galleries, the elements and vernacular of the graffiti aesthetic are apparent in today's society. This book examines graffiti's influence from its earliest days to its undeniable ubiquity now. Written by an insider, it includes a general history, in-depth interviews with both the progenitors of the form and current artists, and full-color illustrations of the most important works over the last 30 years. Unlike other subcultures that have been corrupted by the media and the mainstream, graffiti has maintained its sense of the underground and its clandestine feel. The purity and integrity that have defined the graffiti writer's mission have never faltered. The Art of Getting Over offers an unprecedented glimpse into this deeply affecting urban art form.

    Best remembered as English-challenged immigrant Latka Gravas on the '70s sitcom "Taxi", Kaufman also appeared regularly on "Saturday Night Live", did stand-up, and wrestled women. Photos.

    Reach for the Sun is the third volume of Bukowski's letters from Black Sparrow Press, selected by Seamus Cooney.

    Why do parachute jumpers yell "Geronimo"?Is it aerodynamically impossible for bumblebees to fly?Will watching too much TV ruin your eyes?Fresh from the popular newspaper column by CECIL ADAMS!WHAT IS CECIL ADAMS'S IQ?"Do you want it in scientific notation? Little Ed, get out the slide rule."--Cecil AdamsFor more than a quarter of a century Cecil Adams has been courageously attempting to lift the veil of ignorance surrounding the modern world.  Now, in his fifth book, he takes yet another stab, dissecting such classic conundrums as--If you swim less than an hour after eating, will you get cramps and die?--What's the difference between a Looney Tune and a Merrie Melody?--Can you see a Munchkin committing suicide in The Wizard of Oz?--Was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre based on actual events?--Did medieval lords really have "the right of the first night"?And much more!THE CRITICS: STILL RAVING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!"Trenchant, witty answers to the great imponderables."--Denver Post

    "The Monster Book" looks at how vampires are created on the show. There are interviews with the series creator, Joss Whedon, as well as the writers, make-up and costume artists, stunt men and actors. It explores the mythology surrounding vampires and other ghouls, in other forms of popular culture. Meet the vampires and other Sunnydale hellmouth creatures, safely, in this monster book.

    Though hilariously funny there is a sharp and biting edge to the humor. He highlights the minutiae of everyday contemporary life—hamburgers, cigarette butts, tacky gifts and dime store combs—that have been taken around the world.

    200 photos.

    That invitation was the start of a career that spanned half a century and culminated with Martin's induction into the International Bluegrass Music Association's Hall of Honor. Always an enigmatic figure, Martin was as famous for his temper as he was for his talent. On assignment from the Oxford American magazine, fiction writer and music critic Tom Piazza drove from his home in New Orleans to Nashville to interview Martin and found himself pitched headlong into a world he couldn't have anticipated. Martin's mercurial personality drew the writer into a series of escalating encounters (with mean dogs, broken-down cars, and near electrocution), culminating in a harrowing and unforgettable expedition, with Martin, to the Grand Ole Opry.Though, or perhaps because, visits to the Opry like the one Piazza recounts were common for Martin, and though he frequently played on its stage and always hoped to become a member, he died before seeing his dream fulfilled. True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass is the funny, scary, and powerfully poignant portrait of one of the legends of American music.Co-published with the Country Music Foundation Press

    Though more unbridled, salacious, subversive, and just plain bizarre than what came afterwards, the films of the period do indeed have the look of Hollywood cinema--but the moral terrain is so off-kilter that they seem imported from a parallel universe.In a sense, Doherty avers, the films of pre-Code Hollywood are from another universe. They lay bare what Hollywood under the Production Code attempted to cover up and push offscreen: sexual liaisons unsanctified by the laws of God or man, marriage ridiculed and redefined, ethnic lines crossed and racial barriers ignored, economic injustice exposed and political corruption assumed, vice unpunished and virtue unrewarded--in sum, pretty much the raw stuff of American culture, unvarnished and unveiled.No other book has yet sought to interpret the films and film-related meanings of the pre-Code era--what defined the period, why it ended, and what its relationship was to the country as a whole during the darkest years of the Great Depression... and afterward.

    These full-color editions — chronicling thelife and works of one of the most acclaimed artists from the worlds ofcomics and Romantic Art — present scores of never-before-published paintings and drawingsfrom the artist's personal collection, while also re-presenting many ofhis classic works from the '70s and '80s. The extensive texts in theseries of books are sure to create excitement and controversy among hislegion of fans, while at the same time attracting new audiences throughWindsor-Smith's involvement in, and observations regarding, theparanormal. The author recounts his life's adventures not so much as apainter, storyteller and comics artist, but in the mysterious realms ofcosmic experience.

    Containing hundreds of original interviews with cast members, guest stars, production people, contemporaries, family, and friends, this book will tell you for the first time what it was really like to work with Lucy.Year by year, episode by episode, television appearance by television appearance, you can follow the meteoric careers of this comedy legend. Her five series--I love Lucy (1951-57), The Lucille Ball-Dezi Arnaz Show (1957-1960), The Lucy Show (1962-68), Here's Lucy (1968-74), and Life with Lucy (1986)--are thoroughly covered, as are her myriad guest appearances on other situation comedies, dramas, games shows, talks hows, variety shows, commercials, and specials. All told, more than 1,000 television appearances are extensively chronicles in this book. The Lucy Book contains:--cast and crew information, along with background anecdotes and current interview quotes for each entry.--particulars about several Lucy TV scripts that were never produced.--a critical analysis of Lucy's enormous effect on the television industry.

    40 photos.

    Originally published under the title The Spectator, this “knowledgeable and perceptive” (Library Journal) look at show business presents the actors directors, playwrights, dancers, lyricists, and others who created the dramatic works of the twentieth century.Among the many highlights in these pages, Buster Keaton explains the wonders of unscripted silent comedy, Federico Fellini reflects on honesty in art, Carol Channing reveals that she is far more serious than she lets on, and Marlon Brando turns the tables and wants to interview Terkel. We learn about crucial artistic decisions in the lives of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee and hear from a range of film directors, from Vittorio De Sica and King Vidor to Satyajit Ray. We even get to witness Terkel playing straight man to a wildly inventive Zero Mostel. Because Terkel knows his subjects’ work intimately, he asks precisely the right questions to elicit the most revealing responses. As the New York Times Book Review noted, “Terkel’s knowledge and force of personality make him fully a player alongside his famous guests.”

    Where romance met with soft porn there was also a surprisingly large population of butch brunettes pursuing and seducing blond femmes. This was an alternate universe of erotic pulp fiction where gals and dolls were exploring the illicit pleasures of lesbian love -- much to the delight of a largely male, heterosexual readership. Before the sexual revolution of the 1960s, these books offered a thrilling peek into the deviant underworld of wild passion and scandalous sex.

    Biafra on Tipper Gore & more.

    Not only that: thanks to a visionary technical staff and unsurpassed psychedelic light shows, the Fillmore East stage was the place where rock music became rock theater. Now available in paperback, the highly acclaimed Live at the Fillmore East tells the story of its heyday with hundreds of behind-the-scenes photographs and exclusive interviews. Included here are photos of the Who's premiere of Tommy in 1969; John and Yoko's surprise encore to a Frank Zappa concert; the jam between the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, and Mick Fleetwood in 1970; Janis Joplin's first performance after signing with CBS records; Jimi Hendrix's New Year's Eve concerts; Van Morrison during the first-ever television taping of a rock concert in 1970; and many other defining moments of rock history.

    This book explores how the greatest campaigns of the 20th century have come to occupy a unique cultural position in the economic, social, political and aesthetic spheres of everyday life.

    Inspired by this classic novel, Salutations! collects many of the humorous and insightful quotations, observations and descriptions of food, friendship, farm life, and the miraculous power of words. Packaged in an irresistible gift format and accompanied by Garth Williams's wonderful illustrations, Salutations! is the perfect gift for graduation, or any occasion.

    The saga of Britain's best-loved martini hound (who we all know prefers his favorite drink "shaken, not stirred") has adapted to changing times for four decades without ever abandoning its tried-and-true formula of diabolical international conspiracy, sexual intrigue, and incredible gadgetry.James Chapman expertly traces the annals of celluloid Bond from its inauguration with 1962's Dr. No through its progression beyond Ian Fleming's spy novels to the action-adventure spectaculars of GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. He argues that the enormous popularity of the series represents more than just the sum total of the films' box-office receipts and involves questions of film culture in a wider sense.Licence to Thrill chronicles how Bond, a representative of a British Empire that no longer existed in his generation, became a symbol of his nation's might in a Cold War world where Britain was no longer a primary actor. Chapman describes the protean nature of Bond villains in a volatile global political scene--from Soviet scoundrels and Chinese rogues in the 1960s to a brief flirtation with Latin American drug kingpins in the 1980s and back to the Chinese in the 1990s. The book explores how the movies struggle with changing societal ethics--notably, in the evolution in the portrayal of women, showing how Bond's encounters with the opposite sex have evolved into trysts with leading ladies as sexually liberated as Bond himself.The Bond formula has proved remarkably durable and consistently successful for roughly a third of cinema's history--half the period since the introduction of talking pictures in the late 1920s. Moreover, Licence to Thrill argues that, for the foreseeable future, the James Bond films are likely to go on being what they have always been, a unique and very special kind of popular cinema.

    But Cookie's favorite time is when all of his Sesame Street friends are seated at the table and he says, "Let's eat!"

    Benjamin Spock, September 1969The connection between all the rhetoric and all the poetry, between the words of a Black Panther and those of a rock star or a pacifist, between the scars of a pop artist and those of a napalm victim, have haunted and informed the structuring of this book, with its own peculiar version of a beginning, a middle, and an end.

    Filled with glamorous visuals that give authentic meaning to the word "kitsch," this must-have collectors' book shows Las Vegas as it was?the town where celebrities, everyday folk, and glamour mixed with glitz, games and sex appeal. See and read about the early days of Sinatra on the Strip, Judy Garland introducing her eleven-year-old daughter Liza to the stage and Ronald Reagan making his Sin City debut performing with a troop of chimps. In these pages readers visit the original Tropicana hotel, the Sahara, the Sands, the Dunes and the Flamingo, as well as numerous spots that existed only in the earliest days of the town. Many rare protographs!

    From the nifty and novel to the chic and sophisticated, this tour guide book includes the best of the Pomona Valley's classic neon signs, Route 66 landmarks, western, polynesian and space age style, drive-in, drive-up and drive-thru architecture of the car culture, fast food stands, restaurants, bowling alleys, shopping centers, the Claremont Colleges, homes in Padua Hills, the work of famous modern architects, the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, the legacy of pomona native artist Millard Sheets and much more.

    It shows how the bewildering array of racialized images first proffered by music hall songsters and social commentators have evolved and become generalized to Asian-Americans.

    This is the long-awaited sequel to Ewing's acclaimed photography collection "The Body." Here, he surveys 150 years of photographic history exploring how the camera has been used to express the elusive ideas, thoughts, & sentiments related to the most turbulent of human emotions. These photos capture the group adulation of a public icon & the showgirl's seduction of her audience, a man proudly posing with his two wives as well as the innocent sensuality of a child clutching his mother's breast. Here are images by the great names in photography, including: Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, Helmut Newton, Sally Mann, Brassai, & Julia Margaret Cameron. Plastic slipcase.

    Blending brilliant satire with slapstick silliness, The Pythons—Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin—spoke to a generation eager to break free of the conventional. Making their way across the Atlantic and the world, the Pythons’ zany approach to comedy would have a monumental influence on modern popular culture, paving the way for farcical entertainment from Saturday Night Live to The Simpsons to Austin Powers.In Monty Python Speaks, David Morgan has collected interviews with Monty Python’s founding members, actors, producers, and other collaborators to produce a no-holds-barred look at the Pythons’ legendary sketches and films, including Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Spamalot), and The Meaning of Life.

    Richard Viladesau's goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts. After briefly considering ways in which theology itself can be imaginative or beautiful, Viladesau concentrates on the theological significance of aesthetic data provided by each of the three major spheres of aesthetic perception and response. Throughout the work, the underlying question is how each of these spheres serves as a source (however ambiguous) of revelation. Although he frames much of his argument in terms of Catholic theology--from the Church Fathers to Karl Rahner, Hans urs von Balthasar, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy--Viladesau also makes extensive use of ideas from the Protestant theologian of the arts Gerardus van der Leeuw, and draws insights from such diverse thinkers as Hans Goerg Gadamer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Iris Murdoch. His analysis is enlivened by the artistic examples he selects: the music of Mozart as contemplated by Karl Barth, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron, the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, poems by Rilke and Michelangelo, and many others. What emerges from this study is what Viladeseau terms a transcendental theology of aesthetics. In Thomistic terms, he finds that beauty is not only a perfection but a transcendental. That is, any instance of beauty, rightly perceived and rightly understood, can be seen to imply divinely beautiful things as well. In other words, Viladesau argues, God is the absolute and necessary condition for the possibility of beauty.