Told in eloquent, honest prose, Art’s Cello is a story about coming to terms with the past and letting go of the failures we allow to define us — and, in the process, honoring the lives of those we’ve lost. Jim McKean is an international award-winning violinmaker, author, and corresponding editor of Strings Magazine. He is a graduate of the first violinmaking school in America and the former president of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. His novel, Quattrocento, was published in 2002. Cover design by Evan Twohy.

    But the powerful influence of the blues, with its dramatic, artful storytelling about the elemental experience of being alive, is found in the works of some of our most important literary voices as well. This volume -- a companion to the groundbreaking seven-part documentary series "Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues" -- represents a literary sampler every bit as vibrant and original and diverse as the films and music that inspired it. Included in this stunning collection are newly commissioned essays by David Halberstam, Hilton Als, Suzan-Lori Parks, Elmore Leonard, Luc Sante, John Edgar Wideman, and others; timeless archival pieces by the likes of Stanley Booth, Paul Oliver, and Mack McCormick; evocative color illustrations and rare vintage photography; illuminating and in-depth conversations and portraits of musicians, ranging from Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith to John Lee Hooker and Eric Clapton; lyrics of legendary blues compositions; personal essays by the series directors Martin Scorsese, Charles Burnett, Richard Pearce, Wim Wenders, Marc Levin, Mike Figgis, and Clint Eastwood; and excerpts from such literary masters as James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, Eudora Welty and Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and William Faulkner. The result is a unique and timeless celebration of the blues, from writers and artists as esteemed and revered as the music that moved them. In these pages one not only reads about the blues, one hears them, feels them, lives them. "Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues" is more than atimeless collection of great writing to be savored and shared: it is an unforgettable initiation into the very essence of American music and culture.

    Shea Serrano deftly pays homage to the most important song of each year. Serrano also examines the most important moments that surround the history and culture of rap music—from artists’ backgrounds to issues of race, the rise of hip-hop, and the struggles among its major players—both personal and professional. Covering East Coast and West Coast, famous rapper feuds, chart toppers, and show stoppers, The Rap Year Book is an in-depth look at the most influential genre of music to come out of the last generation.    Complete with infographics, lyric maps, hilarious and informative footnotes, portraits of the artists, and short essays by other prominent music writers, The Rap Year Book is both a narrative and illustrated guide to the most iconic and influential rap songs ever created.

    A pioneering noise musician and countercultural maven, from the late 1970s to the present Rice has worked in an array of capacities, playing the roles of: musician, performer, artist, photographer, essayist, interviewer, editor, occult researcher, filmmaker, actor, orator, deejay, gallery curator and tiki bar designer, among others. First coming to prominence as an avant-garde audio experimentalist (recording under the moniker NON), Rice was a seminal founder of the first wave of industrial music in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, through collaborations with Re/Search Publications, Rice further established his position in underground with recountings of his uproarious pranks and the promotion of "incredibly strange" cult films and "industrial" culture. Rice's influence on subculture was further exerted through his vanguard exhibition of found photographs and readymade thrift store art, as well as his adamant endorsements of outsider music, tiki culture and bygone pop culture in general. Rice is also notorious for his public associations with nefarious figures both infamous and obscure, including friendships and ideological collusions with the likes of cult leader Charles Manson and Church Of Satan founder Anton LaVey, among others. His work continues to profoundly affect the countercultural underground at large, inspiring and enraging in equal measure. STANDING IN TWO CIRCLES contains: Essays 1986-2007 / Lyrics 1988-2007 / Art & Photography (38 plates) STANDING IN TWO CIRCLES also includes an extensive biography of Boyd Rice from the 1970s to the present, by the book's editor, Brian M Clark.

    These twenty-three prose poems are thoughtprovoking, witty, and thoroughly unexpected observations of a bygone era, and through the lens of Feinstein's camera they speak volumes about the faces and places that have graced the City of Angels. Images like those of Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, and Steve McQueen resonate with our collective memory, while photographs of hopeful starlets, movie studio backlots, and sunny, palm tree'd boulevards evoke the timeless allure of all things Hollywood."Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric" marks a unique collaboration: With his unerring eye, Barry Feinstein captured unforgettable moments in stunning black-and-white, such as Marilyn Monroe's swimming pool on the day she died, and Frank Sinatra celebrating at John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Ball. In the provocative accompanying text, Bob Dylan's quixotic, expressive lyricism redefines silver screen nostalgia.

    Their sound was inventive and tetchy, and front man Jello Biafra’s lyrics were incisive and often scathing. This chronicle—the first in-depth book written about Dead Kennedys—uses dozens of firsthand interviews, photos, and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group that was mired in controversy almost from its inception. It examines and applauds the band’s key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening and enormously funny. Author Alex Ogg puts the local and global trajectory of punk into context and, while not flinching from the wildly differing takes the individual band members have on the evolution of the band, attempts to be celebratory—if not uncritical.

    . . a blueprint for this moment and the next, for where Black folks have been and where they might be going."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) What does it mean to be Black and alive right now? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work--images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more--to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics.In answering the question of what it means to be Black and alive, Black Futures opens a prismatic vision of possibility for every reader.

    Coverage explores the on-board effects, low-light settings, and automatic HDR shooting. Clear explanations detail the ways in which you can use the new features of the Nikon D5100 to add unique shots to your portfolio while an explanation of photography terms gets you confident and savvy with this fun DSLR camera.Covers basic camera controls and functions, shooting in auto mode, setting photo quality, and navigating menus and the view screen Introduces the basics of photography, including the settings that control lighting, exposure, focus, and color Addresses the new low-light and HDR settings Encourages you to use the new onboard effects features and shares tips for improving images with editing software Get a grasp on the fun Nikon D5100 with this fun and friendly guide!

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Sometimes, it feels as if the last few years have encompassed a few decades. . . . You might have heard my voice on the radio, seen me onstage and on the red carpet, or in a music video, but that’s only a part of the story. In these pages, I’m revealing a more complete picture of what my life is really like. It’s not all glamorous and it’s not all pretty, but it’s all real. . . . I want you to come on a whirlwind journey with an all-access pass to My Crazy Beautiful Life.

    Photographer, filmmaker, novelist, poet, and composer, Gordon Parks is one of the most inspiring success stories of our time. Now in a trade paperback edition, Half Past Autumn gives us the first complete retrospective of his photographic career, along with his own account of his amazing life. Half Past Autumn chronicles Parks's remarkable documentary images for the Farm Security Administration, his hard-hitting work for Life magazine, elegant fashion photos for Vogue, insightful portraits of notables, and his more recent abstract color images. With engaging anecdotal text that gives us the stories behind the images, this is an inspiring memoir of Parks's life and his struggle against racism.

    The finished product is a document of a year’s worth of moments filled with joy, sorrow and unexpected beauty. The book y creates the sense that present moments do not just disappear and provides a visceral understanding of how these moments fit into the context of the rest of our lives.The short verses in Haiku Year stab and elate. They hint at both the transcendence and mediocrity of everyday life. The power of Michael Stipe’s southern, twilight drenched lyrics from early REM albums is present in the volume. Douglas A. Martin’s sparse yet descriptive prose gleams throughout. The thoughtful storytelling of Grant Lee Phillips is pared down to the simplest words to describe an instance.The Haiku Year is about the appreciation of small moments of beauty, ultimately adding up to the appreciation and respect not only for our individual lives but for all the lives that intersect with ours. The Haiku Year effortlessly urges readers to enjoy details and to let spare moments pierce through the numbness of everyday routine.

    Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, we travel to Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul in Mexico; to the fertile moon terrain of Iceland; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York's Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; to the West 4th Street subway station, filled with the sounds of the Velvet Underground after the death of Lou Reed; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima.Woven throughout are reflections on the writer's craft and on artistic creation. Here, too, are singular memories of Smith's life in Michigan and the irremediable loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith.Braiding despair with hope and consolation, illustrated with her signature Polaroids, M Train is a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. It is a powerful, deeply moving book by one of the most remarkable multiplatform artists at work today.

    Features: - Same great Essential Elements 2000 method - 15-minute video/"super lesson" for learning the basics- Play-along mp3* tracks for all 185 exercises (featuring a professional player on your instrument)- Tempo Adjustment Software- Duets and Trios- Music Listening Library- SmartMusic Software for Exercises 1-100 (for use on PC/Mac) - practice, record, and email a performance with on-screen assessment *mp3 files will play on most current CD or DVD players Authors: Tim Lautzenheiser, John Higgins, Charles Menghini, Paul Lavender, Tom C. Rhodes, Don Bierschenk

    Bayles now turns that same attention to his native West.When European Americans “discovered” the American West, they fell in love with the resplendent landscape. The love affair and its congenital flaws persists to this day.Bayles writes: “. . . the question is why my people bungled our occupation of the West so badly when no one really wanted to, when there was every chance to get it right, when voices of caution were constantly raised, when what needed to be done was frequently obvious, and when, occasionally, we did get it right (think: National Parks).”Notes on a Shared Landscape engages the issues that make the West the West—widely ranging over the autobiographical and the cultural, the ecological and the epistemological, the cow and the potato. This is an intensely personal book, and though the Western library is huge, there is not another book like it. Much of the text unfolds in Yellowstone, where Bayles writes:In the Lamar valley of the Yellowstone, beaver gnaw the trunks of cottonwoods, elk browse their leaves. The shadows are long, even in summer. Even so, it is just another place. In it, just as elsewhere, we see the marks of our own hands faintly because we don’t have to know very much about the land we live in, because we are equally a part of and apart from nature, and because there is hardly any moment when humans are more delusional than when self recognition is required.