I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world. —from the IntroductionActual reader feedback: "I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist." "I'll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. I want to bring that kind of joy to people. You're an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you." Now with 16 Pages of Photos and a New Introduction

    This monumental collection compiles history's greatest written works, from the ancient classics to more recent masterpieces. Great Books of the Western World contains 517 works from 130 of the most renowned minds throughout history. Volumes 1 and 2 comprise the Syntopicon®, a unique guide that enables you to investigate a particular idea and compare the perspectives of different authors. The Syntopicon organizes thirty centuries of thought into 102 Great Ideas, subsequently divided into topics and subtopics to effectively explore the different viewpoints over time. Authoritative, accurate, and complete, this collection represents the essential core of the Western literary canon

    A detailed reconstruction of Leonardo's emotional life from his earliest years, it represents Freud's first sustained venture into biography from a psychoanalytic perspective, and also his effort to trace one route that homosexual development can take.

    punk scene—and includes fifty rare photos.Picking up where Under the Big Black Sun left off, More Fun in the New World explores the years 1982 to 1987, covering the dizzying pinnacle of L.A.'s punk rock movement as its stars took to the national—and often international—stage. Detailing the eventual splintering of punk into various sub-genres, the second volume of John Doe and Tom DeSavia's west coast punk history portrays the rich cultural diversity of the movement and its characters, the legacy of the scene, how it affected other art forms, and ultimately influenced mainstream pop culture. The book also pays tribute to many of the fallen soldiers of punk rock, the pioneers who left the world much too early but whose influence hasn't faded.As with Under the Big Black Sun, the book features stories of triumph, failure, stardom, addiction, recovery, and loss as told by the people who were influential in the scene, with a cohesive narrative from authors Doe and DeSavia. Along with many returning voices, More Fun in the New World weaves in the perspectives of musicians Henry Rollins, Fishbone, Billy Zoom, Mike Ness, Jane Weidlin, Keith Morris, Dave Alvin, Louis Pérez, Charlotte Caffey, Peter Case, Chip Kinman, Maria McKee, and Jack Grisham, among others. And renowned artist/illustrator Shepard Fairey, filmmaker Allison Anders, actor Tim Robbins, and pro-skater Tony Hawk each contribute chapters on punk's indelible influence on the artistic spirit.In addition to stories of success, the book also offers a cautionary tale of an art movement that directly inspired commercially diverse acts such as Green Day, Rancid, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wilco, and Neko Case. Readers will find themselves rooting for the purists of punk juxtaposed with the MTV-dominating rock superstars of the time who flaunted a "born to do this, it couldn't be easier" attitude that continued to fuel the flames of new music. More Fun in the New World follows the progression of the first decade of L.A. punk, its conclusion, and its cultural rebirth.

    Unique statements, passionate emotions and favorite interests can all be expressed in these miniature works of art that are always traded, never sold."Artist Trading Cards Workshop" will not only teach you how to create your own cards, combining one or more of the 25+ techniques demonstrated in step-by-step photos, it will also share the ins and outs of trading, finding and organizing card swaps and how to trade with others across the miles or even the continents.Discover ways to create colorful collage backgrounds, make cards from fabric, incorporate painting, stamping, phone book pages, tissue paper, string, stencils and much moreall is revealed in step-by-step photos, but that's not all. You'll also: Learn the ins and outs of tradingwhere to look, what to swap.Find creative ways to store the cards you'll soon be collecting.Be inspired by the cards from 60 talented contributors and over 200 beautiful cards.Become a part of the world-wide phenomenon that starts with "Artist Trading Cards Workshop," and share a piece of yourself today! Create. Collect. Swap."

    All essays are complete except that of Locke, which Professor Richard Taylor of Brown University has skillfully abridged.

    Now the celebrated producer, lecturer, teacher, and bestselling author has updated his classic guide for a new generation of filmmakers, offering a fresh insider’s perspective on the film industry today. From concept to character, from opening scene to finished script, here are easily understood guidelines to help aspiring screenwriters—from novices to practiced writers—hone their craft. Filled with updated material—including all-new personal anecdotes and insights, guidelines on marketing and collaboration, plus analyses of recent films, from American Beauty to Lord of the Rings—Screenplay presents a step-by-step, comprehensive technique for writing the screenplay that will succeed in Hollywood. Discover:•Why the first ten pages of your script are crucially important•How to visually “grab” the reader from page one, word one •Why structure and character are the essential foundation of your screenplay•How to adapt a novel, a play, or an article into a screenplay•Tips on protecting your work—three legal ways to claim ownership of your screenplay•The essentials of writing great dialogue, creating character, building a story line, overcoming writer’s block, getting an agent, and much more.With this newly updated edition of his bestselling classic, Syd Field proves yet again why he is revered as the master of the screenplay—and why his celebrated guide has become the industry’s gold standard for successful screenwriting.

    Beginning his epic study with Baudelaire, whose lurid poetry scandalized French stalwarts, Gay traces the revolutionary path of modernism from its Parisian origins to its emergence as the dominant cultural movement in world capitals such as Berlin and New York. A work unique in its breadth and brilliance, Modernism presents a thrilling pageant of heretics that includes (among others) Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso, and D. W. Griffiths; James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and T. S. Eliot; Walter Gropius, Arnold Schoenberg, and (of course!) Andy Warhol. Finally, Gay examines the hostility of totalitarian regimes to modernist freedom and the role of Pop Art in sounding the death knell of a movement that dominated Western culture for 120 years. Lavishly illustrated, Modernism is a superlative achievement by one of our greatest historians.

    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.

     Growing up in Greenwich Village, Sean Wilentz discov­ered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager; almost half a century later, he revisits Dylan’s work with the skills of an eminent American historian as well as the passion of a fan. Drawn in part from Wilentz’s essays as “historian in residence” of Dylan’s official website, Bob Dylan in America is a unique blend of fact, interpretation, and affinity—a book that, much like its subject, shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion warrants. Beginning with his explosion onto the scene in 1961, this book follows Dylan as he continues to develop a body of musical and literary work unique in our cultural history. Wilentz’s approach places Dylan’s music in the context of its time, including the early influences of Popular Front ideology and Beat aesthetics, and offers a larger critical appreciation of Dylan as both a song­writer and performer down to the present. Wilentz has had unprecedented access to studio tapes, recording notes, rare photographs, and other materials, all of which allow him to tell Dylan’s story and that of such masterpieces as Blonde on Blonde with an unprecedented authenticity and richness. Bob Dylan in America—groundbreaking, comprehensive, totally absorbing—is the result of an author and a subject brilliantly met.

    This book offers more than any previous book in the series. While each main entry profiles and illustrates 1,001 primary songs, it places that song into a contextual web of music history with references to other songs that are musically related. Thus, each entry points to alternate versions, covers, riffs, and influences effectively expanding the total number to 10,000. From the Beatles to Beyoncé, from Elvis to Elvis Costello, from Frank Sinatra to Rufus Wainwright, the full spectrum is covered chronologically and includes additional ancillary lists of "must-hear" songs grouped by subgenre and other special categories. Each song is analyzed by an international team of critics who explain why you must hear it. Included are key details such as lyricist, composer, producer, and label, making this a music treasure trove perfect for anyone into music, addicted to downloading, or those just getting started.

    I'm a rhyming fool and so cool that me, Fritz the Cat, and Mohair Sam are the baddest cats that am. I have so many outrageous stories, too many, and I'm gonna tell 'em all. All the unexpurgated, brain-jangling tales of debauchery, sex & drugs, transcendence & chemical dependence you will ever want to hear." The son of a classical pianist straight out of the Bronx of old Archie comics, Steven Tyler was born to be a rock star. Weaned on Cole Porter, Nat King Cole, Mick—and his beloved Janis Joplin—Tyler began tearing up the streets and the stage as a teenager before finally meeting his "mutant twin" and legendary partner Joe Perry. In this addictively readable memoir, told in the playful, poetic voice that is uniquely his own, Tyler unabashedly recounts the meteoric rise, fall, and rise of Aerosmith over the last three decades and riffs on the music that gives it all meaning. Tyler tells what it's like to be a living legend and the frontman of one of the world's most revered and infamous bands—the debauchery, the money, the notoriety, the fights, the motels and hotels, the elevators, limos, buses and jets, the rehab. He reveals the spiritual side that "gets lost behind the stereotype of the Sex Guy, the Drug Guy, the Demon of Screamin', the Terror of the Tropicana." And he talks about his epic romantic life and his relationship with his four children. As dazzling, bold, and out-on-the-edge as the man himself, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? is an all-access backstage pass into this extraordinary showman's life.

    An art form that has grown hand-in-hand with the independent music scene, heralding small and large gigs alike, the posters have emerged from visually creative street-level notices to prized collectibles rendered in a variety of styles and media. Today's poster artists combine the expressive freedom pioneered in the poster revolution of the 1960s with the attitude and the do-it-yourself approach of the punk scene, creating an unprecedented surge of innovative poster production on an international scale. Featuring over 1,600 exemplary rock posters and flyers from over 200 international studios and artists, Art of Modern Rock is the long-anticipated sequel to coauthor Paul Grushkin's The Art of Rock. Profiles and quotes from the pioneers in the field and their emerging heirs share nearly 500 gloriously packed pages of poster after mind-blowing poster. As brash and colorful as the burgeoning scene it documents, Art of Modern Rock is the must-have book for music and poster fans and collectors.

    Each entry deals with one fallacy, explaining what the fallacy is, giving and analysing an example, outlining when/where/why the particular fallacy tends to occur and finally showing how you can perpetrate the fallacy on other people in order to win an argument. Originally published to great acclaim in 1985 as "The Book of Fallacy", this is a classic brought up-to-date for a whole new generation.

    Tales and sketches dealing with Hudson Valley traditions and life in England as seen by an American observer.