In clear, understandable language, Jourdian expertly guides the reader through a continuum of musical experience: sound, tone, melody, harmony, rhythm, composition, performance, listening, understanding—and finally to ecstasy. Along the way, a fascinating cast of characters brings Jourdian's narrative to vivid life: "idiots savants" who absorb whole pieces on a single hearing, composers who hallucinate entire compositions, a psychic who claims to take dictation from long-dead composers, and victims of brain damage who can move only when they hear music. Here is a book that will entertain, inform, and stimulate everyone who loves music—and make them think about their favorite song in startling new ways.

    The chapters follow a progressive sequence that teaches basic skills through practical, accessible exercises–how to handle a brush, achieve the right paint consistency, mix color, and create dimension–building a solid foundation that readers can rely on as painting projects grow more challenging. A special feature is the artwork and commentary of real students, which helps beginners set realistic goals and shows them how other artists at the same level of experience have worked through inevitable setbacks to achieve success.

    It's this juxtaposition, the poet's gift for poignant love songs paired with a comedian's timing and self-deprecating wit, that has earned Jann a legion of loyal fans on the stage as well as the page. Two years after the success of her first publication if i knew, don(c)^t you think i'd tell you? (Insomniac Press), acclaimed singer / songwriter and now bestselling author Jann Arden is at it again with her second book, i'll tell you one damn thing, and that's all i know. Little escapes the observant and immensely creative Jann whose musings and entertaining ramblings travel beyond goose poop (if you don't remember, buy the first book) to ponder the state of the world, the state of the States, and the state of her hair (she really is a blonde).

    As a child, he endured the intergenerational trauma that resulted from his family attending residential school. Growing up Cree in downtown Winnipeg, Canada, Clayton faced systemic racism and violence in school and on the streets, which led him to use his fists to defend himself and earn his livelihood. He escaped the hold that drugs and alcohol had on his life by reconnecting with his Cree heritage. For twenty years, he has been a campaigner with organizations including the Indigenous Environmental Network and 350.org, on the front lines of stopping the assault of industry on Indigenous peoples' lands. Using a nonlinear, oral storytelling style, Life in the City of Dirty Water offers the reflections of a man in midlife, telling his inner child, "I'm here now and I'm going to keep you safe."

    

    The preeminent historian of the American musical (New York Times), he brings boundless energy and enthusiasm buttressed by an arsenal of smart anecdotes (Wall Street Journal). Now Mordden offers an entirely fresh and infectiously delightful history of American musical theatre.Anything Goes stages a grand revue of the musical from the 1700s through to the present day, narrated in Mordden's famously witty, scholarly, and conversational style. He places us in a bare rehearsal room as the cast of Oklahoma! changes history by psychoanalyzing the plot in the greatest of the musical's many Dream Ballets. And he gives us tickets for orchestra seats on opening night-raising the curtain on the pleasures of Victor Herbert's The Red Mill and the thrill of Porgy and Bess. Mordden examines the music, of course, but also more neglected elements. Dance was once considered as crucial as song; he follows it from the nineteenth century's zany hoofing to tap combinations of the 1920s, from the injection of ballet and modern dance in the 1930s and '40s to the innovations of Bob Fosse. He also explores the changing structure of musical comedy and operetta, and the evolution of the role of the star. Fred Stone, the avuncular Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, seldom varied his acting from part to part; but the versatile Ethel Merman turned the headlining role inside out in Gypsy, playing a character who was selfish, fierce, and destructive.From ballad opera to burlesque, from Fiddler on the Roof to Rent, the history and lore of the musical unfolds here in a performance worthy of a standing ovation.

    In the mid-1970s Times Square was the seedy symbol of New York’s economic decline. Its once shining star, the renowned Shubert Organization, was losing theaters to make way for parking lots. Bernard Jacobs and Jerry Schoenfeld, two ambitious board members, saw the crumbling company was ripe for takeover and staged a coup amidst corporate intrigue, personal betrayals, and criminal investigations. Once Jacobs and Schoenfeld solidified their power, they turned a collapsed theater-owning holding company into one of the most successful entertainment empires in the world, ultimately backing many of Broadway’s biggest hits, including A Chorus Line, Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, and Mamma Mia! They also sparked the revitalization of Broadway and the renewal of Times Square. Now Michael Riedel tells the stories of the Shubert Organization and the shows that re-built a city in grand style, revealing the backstage drama that often rivaled what transpired onstage, exposing bitter rivalries, unlikely alliances, and—of course—scintillating gossip. This is a great story, told with wit and passion.

    In this beautifully told novel that crosses borders, cultures, and generations, a young man returns home to care for his aging mother, who suffers from dementia. In his efforts to help her and by turn make amends for their past estrangement from one another, he is compelled to re-imagine his mother’s stories for her before they slip completely into darkness. In delicate, heartbreaking tones, the names for everyday things fade while at the same time a beautiful, haunted life, stained by grief, is slowly revealed.

    Sharp-tongued and quick-witted, he lives alone in rural Cape Breton, but he still cooks breakfast for his wife, who's been dead for thirty years. He silently starts to question his own mind after stopping to pick up a hitchhiker -- a hitchhiker who turns out to be his neighbour's mailbox.Everything shifts, though, when Emily, a pregnant teenager, shows up at his house with no place else to go. Determined to help Emily as best as he can, John must also keep the wolves from his door and maintain some semblance of sanity.The Unlikely Redemption of John Alexander MacNeil is a compelling, witty and heartwarming novel by renowned Nova Scotia author Lesley Choyce.

    It is the product of preparation and effort, and it's within reach of everyone who wants to achieve it. All it takes is the willingness to make creativity a habit, an integral part of your life: In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative. In The Creative Habit, Tharp takes the lessons she has learned in her remarkable thirty-five-year career and shares them with you, whatever creative impulses you follow -- whether you are a painter, composer, writer, director, choreographer, or, for that matter, a businessperson working on a deal, a chef developing a new dish, a mother wanting her child to see the world anew. When Tharp is at a creative dead end, she relies on a lifetime of exercises to help her get out of the rut, and The Creative Habit contains more than thirty of them to ease the fears of anyone facing a blank beginning and to open the mind to new possibilities. Tharp's exercises are practical and immediately doable -- for the novice or expert. In "Where's Your Pencil?" she reminds us to observe the world -- and get it down on paper. In "Coins and Chaos," she provides the simplest of mental games to restore order and peace. In "Do a Verb," she turns your mind and body into coworkers. In "Build a Bridge to the Next Day," she shows how to clean your cluttered mind overnight. To Tharp, sustained creativity begins with rituals, self-knowledge, harnessing your memories, and organizing your materials (so no insight is ever lost). Along the way she leads you by the hand through the painful first steps of scratching for ideas, finding the spine of your work, and getting out of ruts into productive grooves. In her creative realm, optimism rules. An empty room, a bare desk, a blank canvas can be energizing, not demoralizing. And in this inventive, encouraging book, Twyla Tharp shows us how to take a deep breath and begin!

    Suspended for a few seconds, they float in their own space and time with their own hidden prospects. For want of a better term, we call these moments “magical” and when we remember them they are cloaked in a halo of special meaning.’For 14-year-old Johnny Clegg, hearing Zulu street music as plucked on the strings of a guitar by Charlie Mzila one evening outside a corner café in Bellevue, Johannesburg, was one such ‘magical’ moment. The success story of Juluka and later Savuka, and the cross-cultural celebration of music, language, story, dance and song that stirred the hearts of millions across the world, is well documented. Their music was the soundtrack to many South Africans’ lives during the turbulent 70s and 80s as the country moved from legislated oppression to democratic freedom. It crossed borders, boundaries and generations, resonating around the world and back again. Less known is the story of how it all began and developed. Scatterling of Africa is that origin story, as Johnny Clegg wrote it and wanted it told. It is the story of how the son of an unconventional mother, grandson of Jewish immigrants, came to realise that identity can be a choice, and home is a place you leave and return to as surely as the seasons change.

    In less than one year, she transformed herself from pop singer to pop icon, thanks to her talent, drive, and oh yes--her fashion. She's reached a new level of "living the fame" with her collection of extreme, often controversial couture. Lady Gaga: Critical Mass Fashion takes an in-depth look at Gaga's litany of eye-popping leotard, asymmetrical dresses, and fashionably impractical heels.Top designers love the Lady--everyone from Armani to Hussein Chalayan to the late lamented Alexander McQueen has taken her under their wings. On message twenty-four hours a day, Lady Gaga never stops. From the fake eyelashes to the faux nails down to her toes, she's living out her ideas of celebrity to the last detail.Visual explosion on screen, on stage, and on the page: that's Gaga's goal. All the of the 120+ images in this book showcase the gorgeous insanity of her vision.

    This project is animated by a hope that debate—in the spirit of the catechesis itself—will take place in book clubs across the country, composed of people who like discussion and are energized, engaged, and jazzed by the journey of rebuilding, reconciliation, and renewal.This collection of essays returns us to the proper work of dialogue, answering some questions but inevitably, and necessarily, provoking more. I hope it will prod us to get off our big fat complacencies. We must investigate our own histories, asking questions about the land on which we work and live. What is the history of this land? Who was here before us? How did we come to occupy and define it? What was my family’s relationship to Indigenous peoples?” — Shelagh RogersDrawing from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation’s three-volume series Truth and Reconciliation—which comprises the titles From Truth to Reconciliation; Response, Responsibility, and Renewal; and Cultivating Canada—acclaimed veteran broadcast-journalist and host of The Next Chapter on CBC Radio Shelagh Rogers joins series editors Mike DeGagné and Jonathan Dewar to present these selected reflections, in reader format, on the lived and living experiences and legacies of Residential Schools and, more broadly, reconciliation in Canada.This book is available at: http://www.speakingmytruth.ca/

    Since its publication, a whole new generation of painters has emerged, some inspired by the artists who appeared in that book, others taking cues from new sources.? Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting introduces this new wave of painters to the world.The vast medium of painting continues to be a central pillar of artistic practice, and Vitamin P2 presents the outstanding artists who are currently engaging with and pushing the boundaries of the medium. Over 80 international critics, artists and curators have nominated the 115 artists who have made a fresh, unique or innovative contribution to recent painting. All of the artists in Vitamin P2 have recently emerged onto the international scene, and none appeared in the first Vitamin P.An introduction by Barry Schwabsky, who also wrote the introduction for Vitamin P, provides a broad overview of recent developments in the medium while also looking towards its future.

    Filled with fun anecdotes, quirky photos, and off-the-wall business advice, the provocative sequel to "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How good You Want to Be" reveals the surprising power of bad decisions.