—New York Times Book ReviewNo writer I know of comes close to even trying to articulate the weird magic of poetry as Ruefle does. She acknowledges and celebrates in the odd mystery and mysticism of the act—the fact that poetry must both guard and reveal, hint at and pull back... Also, and maybe most crucially, Ruefle’s work is never once stuffy or overdone: she writes this stuff with a level of seriousness-as-play that’s vital and welcome, that doesn’t make writing poetry sound anything but wild, strange, life-enlargening fun. -The Kenyon ReviewProfound, unpredictable, charming, and outright funny...These informal talks have far more staying power and verve than most of their kind. Readers may come away dazzled, as well as amused... —Publishers WeeklyThis is a book not just for poets but for anyone interested in the human heart, the inner-life, the breath exhaling a completion of an idea that will make you feel changed in some way. This is a desert island book. —Matthew DickmanThe accomplished poet is humorous and self-deprecating in this collection of illuminating essays on poetry, aesthetics and literature... —San Francisco ExaminerOver the course of fifteen years, Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every six months to a group of poetry graduate students. Collected here for the first time, these lectures include "Poetry and the Moon," "Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World," and "Lectures I Will Never Give." Intellectually virtuosic, instructive, and experiential, Madness, Rack, and Honey resists definition, demanding instead an utter—and utterly pleasurable—immersion. Finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award.Mary Ruefle has published more than a dozen books of poetry, prose, and erasures. She lives in Vermont.

    . . that blurs the boundaries between life and performance, dance, art, and viral video.”—Slate“Deftly blending highbrow intellectual concerns with the informality of Facebook-era communiqués, Browning’s newest is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.”—Publishers Weekly, starred reviewIn the midst of Occupy, Barbara Andersen begins spamming people indiscriminately with ukulele covers of sentimental songs. A series of inappropriate intimacies ensues, including an erotically charged correspondence and then collaboration with an extraordinarily gifted and troubled musician living in Germany.Barbara Browning teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale University. She is the author of the novels The Correspondence Artist (winner of a Lambda Literary Award) and I’m Trying to Reach You (short-listed for The Believer Book Award). She also makes dances, poems, and ukulele cover tunes.

    Researched and written during the quarantine of 2020.

    In this new essay collection, Földényi considers the continuing fallout from the collapse of religion, exploring how Enlightenment traditions have not replaced basic elements of previously held religious mythologies—neither their metaphysical completeness nor their comforting purpose. Realizing beautiful writing through empathy, imagination, fascination, and a fierce sense of justice, Földényi covers a wide range of topics including a meditation on the metaphysical unity of a sculpture group and an analysis of fear as a window into our relationship with time.

    Art has been replaced by postart, a term invented by Alan Kaprow, as a new visual category that elevates the banal over the enigmatic, the scatological over the sacred, cleverness over creativity. Tracing the demise of aesthetic experience to the works and theory of Marcel Duchamp and Barnett Newman, Kuspit argues that devaluation is inseparable from the entropic character of modern art, and that anti-aesthetic postmodern art is in its final state. In contrast to modern art, which expressed the universal human unconscious, postmodern art degenerates into an expression of narrow ideological interests. In reaction to the emptiness and stagnancy of postart, Kuspit signals the aesthetic and human future that lies with the old masters. The End of Art points the way to the future for the visual arts. Donald Kuspit is Professor of Art History at SUNY Stony Brook. A winner of the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism, Professor Kuspit is a Contributing Editor at Artforum, Sculpture and New Art Examiner. His most recent book is The Cult of the Avant-Garde (Cambridge, 1994).

    This book is about building a deeper understanding of this rangy mental terrain so that you can more productively think about and discuss aesthetic phenomena and experience in your life and in your work. Until now theoretical aesthetics has been a rather unwieldy and impractical subject. This lucid and easy-to-read book—rendered in a graphically engaging format—should be of genuine value to museum-goers, professional artists and designers, and students of the arts and crafts.This book should be of particular interest to those who have enjoyed Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, also by Leonard Koren.Leonard Koren trained as an artist and architect. He is the founder and publisher of WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, one of the seminal avant-garde publications of the 1970s. Koren writes and consults about design- and aesthetics-related issues.

    With an introduction by Alan Johnson. 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.' This selection of George Orwell’s writing, from both his novels and non-fiction, gathers together his thoughts on the subject of truth. It ranges from discussion of personal honesty and morality, to freedom of speech and political propaganda. Orwell’s unique clarity of thought and illuminating scepticism provide the perfect defence against our post-truth world of fake news and confusion. 'The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.' Includes an introduction by Alan Johnson and passages from Burmese Days, The Road to Wigan Pier, Coming Up for Air, The Lion and the Unicorn, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell’s letters, war-time diary, criticism and essays including ‘Fascism and Democracy’, ‘Culture and Democracy’, ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’, ‘As I Please’, ‘Notes on Nationalism’, ‘The Prevention of Literature’, ‘Politics and the English Language’ and ‘Why I Write’.

    The architect Rem Koolhaas itemized in delirious detail how our cities are being overwhelmed. His celebrated jeremiad is updated here and twinned with Running Room, a fresh response from the cultural critic Hal Foster. Junkspace describes the bleak and featureless world of capitalism, while Running Room seeks to find a space within the junk in which the individual might still exist.

    Forget about Letterman's Top Ten, Amy Krouse Rosenthal's random ponderings on quirky topics are refreshingly clever and zany. Her humor is of the great everyday observational type that everyone can relate to.

    Some of the stories motivate, some are spiritual, and some provide strategies for excellence. All promote positive feelings, encouraging confidence, direction and vision. The stories contained in The Magic of Metaphor focus on values, responsibility, and leadership in all its forms. Specially selected to promote change in people's ideas, attitudes, beliefs, visions and behaviours they act as reframes, challenging and disturbing our existing frames of reference, recharting our accustomed maps of the world, and shifting us away from our limited thinking towards new learning and discovery through the use of effective metaphor. Containing sixteen suggestions (or tips) for effective story telling, advice on organisation, style and story telling skills, and a selection of stories that can be adapted and developed, The Magic of Metaphor is an inspirational sourcebook for counsellors, health workers, psychologists, professional speakers, managers, leaders and NLP practitioners, as well as for teachers, trainers, therapists. Providing tools that assist people in making beneficial changes in their lives, the stories contained in this book will bring pleasure and power to all those that listen to or read them.

    This Boston-based alternative pop/German-like cabaret duo hand-designed this book which includes art, photos, commentary and 11 songs from their 2004 release. Songs included are: Bad Habit * Coin Operated Boy * Girl Anachronism * Good Day * Gravity * Half Jack * The Jeep Song * Missed Me *Perfect Fit * Slide * Truce.

    Dick robot, which Mr. Ellis confesses to swiping off the back of a plane.) Take a look at the world of graphic storytelling through its hazy android eyes, a rattling ghost-train ride through the history of comics. David Bowie, the CIA, mad architects, Will Eisner, Frank Zappa, Tintin, the designer of Skylab, a train station in Paris, Arthur C. Clarke, the circus, the Black Panther Party, and William S. Burroughs: all of these things are connected by Jack Kirby, all part of the secret history of comics, and all illustrating the special nature of this exciting medium as the place where you can do anything.

    The author argues for the preservation of the time and space in which to walk in an ever more car-dependent and accelerated world.

    A young woman named Pagan, just graduated from a writing program at a very prestigious university, is left with one burning question--Now what? She then takes an unusual step by deciding to invent her new self--the one the public will know--by creating her own magazine, written, created by, and starring none other than herself.

    Decades later she has written a deeply personal, profoundly intimate reflection on love and female creativity, and what happens when the two collide in a man's world.Dissolve is a conversation. A conversation with the young women of Gemmell's teenage daughter's generation, and of course with men.'Reading this memoir is like therapy for the soul' ArtsHub'one of the most enriching, yet debilitating reads I've experienced... tremendous, moving writing' Jessie Tu, Women's Agenda'Nikki Gemmell wrote this book for me, and I suspect there will be many women who feel the same way... Each page is imbued with startling self-awareness and profound wisdom... Vulnerable, honest and raw' Better Reading