What is less known until now is that Jonathan Biss writes about music in a most compelling and engaging way. For anyone who has ever enjoyed a Beethoven concert or a Beethoven recording or one of the many films about Beethoven, this Kindle Single is an inspiring reading experience. For those of you who have heard Beethoven in concert or listened to a Beethoven recording, Jonathan Biss takes you behind the scenes of those performances. If your musical interests are much broader than Beethoven or if your interests focus on the creative process , this Single will fully engage you.“On April 24th, 2007, Beethoven’s Sonata Opus 109 made me lose my mind.”

    Music. Through manifestos, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, contributors to this in-depth anthology address composing, playing, improvising, teaching, and thinking in and through music. Rather than attempting to distill or define musician's work, ARCANA illuminates it with personal vision and experience.

    But when the president of the synagogue absconds with a small fortune, far deeper—and more troubling—rifts emerge...In "The Closet," Evelyn's sister flees her family to take up residence in the attic—while the shunned Evelyn finds herself slipping into the waters of her sister's soul....In "Wish List," an expert on terrorism, vacationing at an academic retreat in England,receives a late-night phone call from National Public Radio. Asked for commentary on a hostage situation of which he is ignorant, Ed can whisper only: "It's unspeakable."Total ImmersionIn these and other exquisite stories, Allegra Goodman fills rooms with laughter and voices, captures dinner parties, seaside picnics, academic grudges, shul politics, and the kind of hurts that only families and lovers can know. Featuring two new stories previously published in The New Yorker, Total Immersion is Allegra Goodman's first collection of short fiction—a masterful work from one of the most powerful and eloquent voices on the American literary landscape.

    With influences ranging from hip hop to zombie slasher movies, Hewlett emerged in the mid 1990s as cocreator of the zeitgeist-defining Tank Girl comic. With then-roommate, Blur frontman Damon Albarn, he went on to create the unique cartoon band Gorillaz, a virtual pop group of animated characters, which recorded four studio albums and mounted breathtaking live spectacles. Since then, Hewlett has continued to collaborate with Albarn on projects including an elaborate staging of the Chinese novel Monkey: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng en, complete with circus acrobats, Shaolin monks, and Chinese singers. In 2006, he was named Designer of the Year by the Design Museum in London, and in 2009, Hewlett and Albarn won a Bafta for their Monkey animated sequence for the Beijing Olympic Games. More recently, an exhibition of prints at the Saatchi Gallery in London demonstrated an exciting new direction in Hewlett s practice. This new TASCHEN edition, Hewlett s first major monograph, illustrates this thrilling creative journey with over 400 artworks from the Tank Girl era through Gorillaz and up to the present day. Through stories, characters, strips, and sketches, we trace Hewlett s exceptional capacity for invention and celebrate a polymath artist who refuses to rest on his laurels, or to be pigeonholed into a particular practice.Text in English, French, and German"

    The branding they employ may contain complex systems of meaning and emotion; it conveys the group's beliefs and capabilities. Branding Terror is the first comprehensive survey of the visual identity of the world’s major terrorist organizations, from al-Qaeda and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to the Tamil Tigers. Each of the 60-plus entries contains a concise description of the group’s ideology, leadership, and modus operandi, and a brief timeline of events. The group’s branding — the symbolism, colors, and typography of its logo and flag — is then analyzed in detail. Branding Terror does not seek to make any political statements; rather, it offers insight into an understudied area of counter-intelligence, and provides an original and provocative source of inspiration for graphic designers.

    The only definitive collection of photographs spanning the entire career of war photographer Robert Capa.

    Jim, on the other hand, is Woodring s cartoon alter ego, the fictional doppelganger who has for 30 years inhabited Woodring s alternate universe where shifting, phantasmagoric landscapes, abrupt, hallucinatory visual revelations, and unexpected eruptions of uninhibited verbal self-flagellation are commonplace. Jim is a mind-bending collection of all of Woodring s best non-Frank creative work comics stories, prose stories, drawings, and paintings, with a new introduction and afterword by the man himself. Abounding in metaphors if you choose to see them and naked self-disclosure if you don t, this volume of comics, prose, and images collected here for the first time is a bounty of Woodring s inspired artistry."

    Would the new man be good enough to evade his chosen killer? Which made for fascinating and exciting viewing, compelling enough to distract the public’s attention while the Big Five industrial complexes ran the world. Then, in 2203, with the choice of a member of a maverick cult as Quizmaster, the system developed a little hitch…Solar Lottery was Philip K. Dick’s first published novel, brilliant and idiosyncratic, powerful and affecting.

    In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms.Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a surfeit of aliveness. In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness.Scarry, author of the landmark The Body in Pain and one of our bravest and most creative thinkers, offers us here philosophical critique written with clarity and conviction as well as a passionate plea that we change the way we think about beauty.

    Only Skin is a grim exploration of the hallucinatory and tragic landscape of modern rural America, as seen through the eyes of a pair of orphaned siblings, searching for answers in a world filled with terrible, terrible questions.

    Go inside the creative process behind the most anticipated film of the century. The latest trilogy in the Star Wars film series brings the Skywalker Saga to a close and The Art of The Rise of Skywalker will take readers into the creative process behind visualizing the epic worlds, creatures, characters, costumes, weapons and vehicles of the landmark conclusion more than 40 years in the making.

    She paints rainbow-colored rooftops, striped pears, birds in hats, teacups, cats, and more—all drawn to bring joy to anyone who views them. When the weather is rainy and gray, Sevig paints herself some sunshine. When she feels sad, she paints something colorful to cheer herself up; when anxious, something soothing and repetitive; when overwhelmed, she makes a series of small decisions about what to put on the page and begins to feel empowered.In Striped Pears and Polka Dots, Sevig invites readers into her cozy, sunny world of snail mail, patterned socks and knitted sweaters, ice cream and flaky croissants, and dachshunds in sweaters. This perfect gift book will inspire readers to look around and notice all the little happy-makers that surround them in their daily lives.

    Covering the dynamic period 1960-1976, Valerie Wilmer powerfully evokes a remarkable revolutionary musical era that continues to inspire generations of musicians. Valerie Wilmer evaluates the musical careers of both the famous names of the time - Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor - and those of less well-known artists. It is her unique approach - placing the 'new jazz' in its political and social context - that makes As Serious As Your Life a classic of jazz criticism.

    Her collection is both international and democratic--dime-store pins share pride of place with designer creations and family heirlooms. Included are the antique eagle purchased to celebrate Albright's appointment as secretary of state, the zebra pin she wore when meeting Nelson Mandela, and the Valentine's Day heart forged by Albright's five-year-old daughter. "Read My Pins" features more than 200 photographs, along with compelling and often humorous stories about jewelry, global politics, and the life of one of America's most accomplished and fascinating diplomats.

    They reveal one of the millions of intimate human moments that make up a life. In Beyond Portraiture, renowned photographer Bryan Peterson shows how to spot those “ah-ha!” moments and capture them forever. A teary child...old people laughing together...a smiling girl with big, big hair. Everyone remember pictures like these, usually taken by a mother, a father, a friend holding a camera, forever preserving small yet revealing vignettes of our personal histories. But we always relied on pure luck and chance to catch those moments. Peterson’s approach explains what makes a photo memorable, how to spot the universal themes that everyone can identify with, and how to use lighting, setting, and exposure to reveal the wonder and the joy of everyday moments. Beyond Portraiture makes it easy to create indelible memories with light and shadow.