His special favorite was Alice, who returned his attentions. Her husband George came home from the war, and set out to prove his love and reclaim his wife by shifting a hill with a wheelbarrow to improve the view. Now, decades later, Alma's 'in lieu of' payment is revived so that an abandoned mother living in a depressed town can make her way. For the other townspeople looking to escape various corners of despair, drawing classes provide the answer. For when you draw, the only thing that matters is what lies before you.

    and asked if I wanted to play piano on the song.A - Which you agreed to do despite not knowing how to play piano.W - Yes...A man who acts under the name Will Oldham and a singer songwriter who performs under the name Bonnie Prince Billy has, over the past quarter of a century, made an idiosyncratic journey through, and an indelible mark on, the worlds of indie rock and independent cinema, intersecting with such disparate figures as Johnny Cash, Bjork, James Earl Jones, and R. Kelly along the way.These conversations with longtime friend and associate Alan Licht probe his highly individualistic approach to music making and the music industry, one that cherishes notions of intimacy, community, mystery, and spontaneity.

    It is the ultimate in conspiracy theories, a wholesale rejection of everything we know to be true about the world in which we live. Where did this idea come from? Weill draws a straight line from today’s conspiratorial moment back to the early days of Flat Earth theory in the 1830s, showing the human impulses behind divergences in belief. Faced with a complicated world out of our individual control, we naturally seek patterns to explain the inexplicable. The only difference between then and now? Social media. And, powered by Facebook and YouTube algorithms, the Flat Earth movement is growing. At once a definitive history of the movement and a readable look at its expansive, absurd, and dangerous present, Off the Edge introduces us to a cast of larger-than-life characters, from 19th-century grifters to 20th-century small-town tyrants to the provocateurs of Alex Jones’s early-aughts internet, whose rancor sowed the early seeds of our modern division. We accompany Weill to Flat Earther conferences, where we meet moms on vacation, determined creationists, scammy YouTube celebrities and their victims, neo-Nazi rappers, and even a man determined to fly into space in a homemade rocket-powered balloon—whose tragic death proves as senseless and absurd as the theory he set out to prove. Incisive and clear-eyed, Off the Edge tells a powerful story about belief, exploring how we arrived at this moment of polarized realities and explaining what needs to happen so that we might all return to the same spinning globe.

    The Louvre Palace was expanded, Notre-Dame Cathedral was restored and the French masterpiece of the Second Empire, the Opéra Garnier, was built. A very large part of what we see when we visit Paris today originates from this short span of twenty-two years.The vision for the new Nineteenth Century Paris belonged to Napoleon III, who had led a long and difficult climb to absolute power. But his plans faltered until he brought in a civil servant, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, to take charge of the implementation. Heedless of controversy, at tremendous cost, Haussmann pressed ahead with the giant undertaking until, in 1870, his political enemies brought him down, just months before the collapse of the whole regime brought about the end of an era.Paris Reborn is a must-read for anyone who ever wondered how Paris, the city universally admired as a standard of urban beauty, became what it is.

    Here's the first book to dissect the trio that countless critics and musicians have cited as one of the most influential bands of the 1980s. Author Andrew Earles examines how Hüsker Dü became the first hardcore band to marry pop melodies with psychedelic influences and ear-shattering volume. Readers witness the band create the untouchable noise-pop of LPs like New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig, and Candy Apple Grey, not to mention the sprawling double-length Zen Arcade. Few bands from the original American indie movement did more to inform the alternative rock styles that breached the mainstream in the 1990s. Hüsker Dü truly were visionaries.

    The deft literary touch that readers have grown to love in novels such as Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn and The Book Borrower, as well as story collections such as In Case We’re Separated, combine in a marvelous narrative of friendship and family, with rich, complicated characters who grow and change together over the course of seventy-five years. Fans of generational stories such as East of Eden, or novels of friendship such as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, will be swept away by the intimate beauty of Mattison’s latest triumph, When We Argued All Night.

    Each of the 251 episodes are reprised, complete with interviews of the people who made it and acted in it. More than 200 photos capture key scenes as well as intimate backstage moments.

    This striking book showcases the treasures from first ladies throughout history, ranging from Martha Washington's silk dress and dressing mirror to Michelle Obama's 2009 inaugural gown and jewelry. These and many other unforgettable objects--including gowns, tableware, and invitations from beloved first ladies such as Mamie Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy, Barbara Bush, Hilary Clinton, and more--tell the story of the first ladies as public and private figures. They illustrate how these women, thrust into an influential and visible role by happenstance of marriage, adapted themselves and the role of first lady by taking on responsibilities as campaigners, hostesses, and policy advocates.The Smithsonian First Ladies Collection features many treasures not on view at the exhibit. Complete with an insider's look at the acquisition, conservation, and exhibition of the pieces as well as a timeline of all forty-six first ladies, this is a must-have for anyone fascinated by these incredible women and their roles in American culture and political life.

    In the center of the collection is the title poem, "Voyage of the Sable Venus," an amazing narrative made up entirely of titles of artworks from ancient times to the present--titles that feature or in some way comment on the black female figure in Western art.Bracketed by Lewis's own autobiographical poems, Voyage is a tender and shocking meditation on the fragmentary mysteries of stereotype, juxtaposing our names for things with what we actually see and know. A new understanding of biography and the self, this collection questions just where, historically, do ideas about the black female figure truly begin--five hundred years ago, five thousand, or even longer? And what role did art play in this ancient, often heinous story?Here we meet a poet who adores her culture and the beauty to be found within it. Yet she is also a cultural critic alert to the nuances of race and desire--how they define us all, including her own sometimes painful history. Lewis's book is a thrilling aesthetic anthem to the complexity of race--a full embrace of its pleasure and horror, in equal parts.From the Hardcover edition.

    The unprecedented scope of this collection provides the opportunity to study his more composed, aesthetically structured images alongside his snapshots, which offer a more anecdotal account of Doisneau's Paris. Organized thematically, the book leads us on an entrancing tour through the gardens of Paris, along the Seine, and through the crowds of Parisians who define their beloved city. More than 600 photographs-many rare, forgotten, and previously unpublished-are assembled in this beautiful volume to create a unique portrait of Paris. From toddlers scrambling to cross rue de Rivoli to fresh-faced accordionists, from elegant dog walkers to exuberant roller skaters, and from the indelible kiss in front of the Hétel de Ville to cyclists beneath the Eiffel Tower, the magic of Paris in black and white is a timeless treasure. The photographs, edited by Doisneau's daughter, are complemented by citations from the photographer himself, which reveal his profound fascination with the city where he lived and worked.

    David Graeber explores political strategy, global trade, violence, alienation and creativity looking for a new common sense.

    A leading Catholic cardinal and scion of one of the most distinguished families in France stood accused of forging the queen's signature to obtain the most expensive piece of jewelry in Europe: a 2,800-carat diamond necklace. Where were the diamonds? Was the cardinal innocent? Was, for that matter, the queen? The revelations from the trial would bedevil the French monarchy as the country descended into a bloody revolution. In How to Ruin a Queen, award-winning author Jonathan Beckman tells of political machinations and enormous extravagance; of kidnappings, prison breaks, and assassination attempts; of hapless French police in disguise, reams of lesbian pornography, and a duel fought with poisoned pigs. It is a detective story, a courtroom drama, a tragicomic farce, and a study of credulity and self-deception in the Age of Enlightenment.

    Art critics gave them the name "the School of Paris" to set them apart from the French-born (and less talented) young artists of the period. Modigliani and Chagall eventually attained enormous worldwide popularity, but in those earlier days most School of Paris painters looked on Soutine as their most talented contemporary. Willem de Kooning proclaimed Soutine his favorite painter, and Jackson Pollack hailed him as a major influence.Soutine arrived in Paris while many painters were experimenting with cubism, but he had no time for trends and fashions; like his art, Soutine was intense, demonic, and fierce. After the defeat of France by Hitler's Germany, the East European Jewish immigrants who had made their way to France for sanctuary were no longer safe. In constant fear of the French police and the German Gestapo, plagued by poor health and bouts of depression, Soutine was the epitome of the tortured artist. Rich in period detail, Stanley Meisler's Shocking Paris explores the short, dramatic life of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.

    The glamour of Paris and the world of haute coutere before and after World War I is the setting for this story - a tale of glamour, romance and a passionate love lost and found again.

    Strange, scary, beautiful, funny and with a sense all their own, these are tales of the inner psyche.