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Staging the Great Circus Parade (Images of Modern America)
by Jim Peterson Donna PetersonMilwaukee was home to the Great Circus Parade for almost 30 years. Beginning in 1963 and continuing until 1972, the parade became an annual tradition, except in 1967 when the event was cancelled because of civil unrest. Revived on a smaller scale in 1980, the parade traveled between Baraboo and Chicago until it returned to Milwaukee in 1985. Each year, it grew in size and scope, gaining national prominence. The old-fashioned circus parade became an event of mammoth proportions, requiring an army of volunteers working behind the scenes.
Staging the New Berlin: Place Marketing and the Politics of Urban Reinvention Post-1989 (Planning, History and Environment Series)
by Claire ColombThis book explores the politics of place marketing and the process of ‘urban reinvention’ in Berlin between 1989 and 2011. In the context of the dramatic socio-economic restructuring processes, changes in urban governance and physical transformation of the city following the Fall of the Wall, the ‘new’ Berlin was not only being built physically, but staged for visitors and Berliners and marketed to the world through events and image campaigns which featured the iconic architecture of large-scale urban redevelopment sites. Public-private partnerships were set up specifically to market the ‘new Berlin’ to potential investors, tourists, Germans and the Berliners themselves. The book analyzes the images of the city and the narrative of urban change, which were produced over two decades. In the 1990s three key sites were turned into icons of the ‘new Berlin’: the new Postdamer Platz, the new government quarter, and the redeveloped historical core of the Friedrichstadt. Eventually, the entire inner city was ‘staged’ through a series of events which turned construction sites into tourist attractions. New sites and spaces gradually became part of the 2000s place marketing imagery and narrative, as urban leaders sought to promote the ‘creative city’. By combining urban political economy and cultural approaches from the disciplines of urban politics, geography, sociology and planning, the book contributes to a better understanding of the interplay between the symbolic ‘politics of representation’ through place marketing and the politics of urban development and place making in contemporary urban governance.
Staging the Past in the Age of Thatcher: The History We Haven't Had (Palgrave Studies In Theatre And Performance History Ser.)
by Anthony P. PenninoThis book investigates how the British theatrical community offered an alternative and oppositional historical narrative to the heritage culture promulgated by the Thatcher and Major Governments in the 1980s and early 1990s. It details the challenges the theatre faced, especially reductions in government funding, and examines seminal playwrights of the period – including but not limited to Caryl Churchill, Howard Brenton, Sarah Daniels, David Edgar, and Brian Friel – who dramatized a more inclusive vision of history that gave voice to traditionally marginalized communities. It employs James Baldwin’s concept of witnessing as the means by which history could be deployed to articulate an alternative and emergent political narrative: “the history we haven’t had”. This book will appeal to students and scholars of theatre and cultural studies as well as theatre practitioners and enthusiasts.
Staging the Peninsular War: English Theatres 1807-1815
by Susan ValladaresFrom Napoleon's invasion of Portugal in 1807 to his final defeat at Waterloo, the English theatres played a crucial role in the mediation of the Peninsular campaign. In the first in-depth study of English theatre during the Peninsular War, Susan Valladares contextualizes the theatrical treatment of the war within the larger political and ideological axes of Romantic performance. Exploring the role of spectacle in the mediation of war and the links between theatrical productions and print culture, she argues that the popularity of theatre-going and the improvisation and topicality unique to dramatic performance make the theatre an ideal lens for studying the construction of the Peninsular War in the public domain. Without simplifying the complex issues involved in the study of citizenship, communal identities, and ideological investments, Valladares recovers a wartime theatre that helped celebrate military engagements, reform political sympathies, and register the public’s complex relationship with Britain’s military campaign in the Iberian Peninsula. From its nuanced reading of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Pizarro (1799), to its accounts of wartime productions of Shakespeare, description of performances at the minor theatres, and detailed case study of dramatic culture in Bristol, Valladares’s book reveals how theatrical entertainments reflected and helped shape public feeling on the Peninsular campaign.
Staging the People
by Elizabeth A. OsborneThe Federal Theatre Project stands alone as the only national theatre in the history of the United States. This study re-imagines this vital moment in American history, considering the Federal Theatre Project on its own terms - as a "federation of theatres" designed to stimulate new audiences and create locally-relevant theatre during the turbulent 1930s. It integrates a wealth of previously undiscovered archival materials with cultural history, delving into regional activities in Chicago, Boston, Portland, Atlanta, and Birmingham, as well as tours of refugee camps and Civilian Conservation Corps Divisions. For a brief, exhilarating moment, the Federal Theatre Project created a democratic theatre that staged the American people.
Staging the Personal: A Guide to Safe and Ethical Practice
by Clark BaimThis book examines the history, ethics, and intentions of staging personal stories and offers theatre makers detailed guidance and a practical model to support safe, ethical practice. Contemporary theatre has crossed boldly into therapeutic terrain and is now the site of radical self-exposure. Performances that would once have seemed shockingly personal and exposing have become commonplace, as people reveal their personal stories to audiences with ever-increasing candor. This has prompted the need for a robust and pragmatic framework for safe, ethical practice in mainstream and applied theatre. In order to promote a wider range of ethical risk-taking where practitioners negotiate blurred boundaries in safe and artistically creative ways, this book draws on relevant theory and practice from theatre and performance studies, psychodrama and attachment narrative therapy and provides detailed guidance supporting best practice in the theatre of personal stories. The guidance is structured within a four-part framework focused on history, ethics, praxis, and intentions. This includes a newly developed model for safe practice, called the Drama Spiral.The book is for theatre makers in mainstream and applied theatre, educators, students, researchers, drama therapists, psychodramatists, autobiographical performers, and the people who support them.
Staging Tianxia: Dunhuang Expressive Arts and China's New Cosmopolitan Heritage
by Lanlan KuangStaging Tianxia explores the ancient Chinese vision of world order known as tianxia (all under heaven) by focusing on the historical, performative, and rhetorical processes of expressive arts and cultural heritages that inform a vision of China as a historically multiethnic and cosmopolitan nation.Author Lanlan Kuang unites multimedia ethnographic research and theoretical insights from ethnomusicology, philosophy, religious studies, performance studies, and cognitive science, with a focus on Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a modern interpretation inserted into the Chinese classical dance and theatrical arts tradition. Staging Tianxia thus aims to redefine Silk Road studies and Dunhuangology, a transdisciplinary field dedicated to studying the texts and art of Dunhuang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that connected China via the Silk Road with Central Asia, South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.Staging Tianxia is a careful ethnographic study that looks at the importance of performance tradition and poetics in the arts and aesthetic theory of China.
Staging Trauma: Bodies In Shadow (Contemporary Performance Interactions )
by Miriam HaughtonThis book investigates contemporary British and Irish performances that stage traumatic narratives, histories, acts and encounters. It includes a range of case studies that consider the performative, cultural and political contexts for the staging and reception of sexual violence, terminal illness, environmental damage, institutionalisation and asylum. In particular, it focuses on 'bodies in shadow' in twenty-first century performance: those who are largely written out of or marginalised in dominant twentieth-century patriarchal canons of theatre and history. This volume speaks to students, scholars and artists working within contemporary theatre and performance, Irish and British studies, memory and trauma studies, feminisms, performance studies, affect and reception studies, as well as the medical humanities.
Staging Violence: Gender and Social Control in Jácaras and Entremeses
by Tania de Miguel MagroStaging Violence explores gender violence in Spanish early modern short theater. This book deals with domestic violence against women, extortion of prostitutes, and violence against men who display non-conventional forms of masculinity. The author argues that many "jácaras" and "entremeses" stage subversive discourses that repudiate or complicate official narratives of gender and the use of violence as a tool for achieving gender compliance. Short comic pieces are read against comedias. Each section of the book is expertly contextualized through an overview of the legal and moral contexts and the analysis of a variety of primary sources (law codes, manuals of conduct, church rulings, transcripts of civil and religious trials, and medical manuals) as well as statistical information. Staging Violence invites the reader to consider the transgressive potential of performance. As the first monograph entirely dedicated to the study of gender in this genre, this book is a vital resource for students and scholars interested in gender studies and theatre.
Staging Voice (Routledge Voice Studies)
by Michal Grover-FriedlanderStaging Voice is a unique approach to the aesthetics of voice and its staging in performance. This study reflects on what it would mean to take opera’s decisive attribute—voice—as the foundation of its staged performance. The book thinks of staging through the medium of voice. It is a nuances exploration, which brings together scholarly and directorial interpretations, and engages in detail with less frequently performed works of major and influential 20th-century artists—Erik Satie, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill—as well as exposes readers to an innovative experimental work of Evelyn Ficarra and Valerie Whittington. The study is intertwined throughout with the author’s staging of the works accessible online. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in voice studies, opera, music theatre, musicology, directing, performance studies, practice-based research, theatre, visual art, stage design, and cultural studies.
Stained Glass
by Roger RosewellFor over a thousand years stories of Christian belief and great moments in British history have filled the windows of our cathedrals and parish churches. The glow of painted and stained glass, its radiant colours and vivid pictures, has inspired generations of audiences and artists. This beautifully illustrated book traces the development of a unique art from its earliest beginnings in Anglo-Saxon England to the present day. It includes fascinating descriptions of medieval and renaissance glass, the religious upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which saw thousands of windows destroyed, the rebirth of the craft in Georgian and Victorian Britain, and the pioneering of exciting new styles and techniques by modern artists.Explanations of how stained glass windows are made, the secrets of medieval glaziers, the subjects that can be seen and where the best examples from the seventh to twenty-first centuries can be found add to its pleasures.
Stained Glass For Dummies
by Vicki PayneDiscover the artist within and create beautiful stained glassBeautiful stained glass isn't reserved solely for church windows-it can be used to create intricate patterns in home windows, decorate cabinet doors, patio doors, ceilings, skylights, mirrors, lighting fixtures, garden decorations, and much more. Stained Glass For Dummies provides all the information you need to express your creativity and spruce up your home with this timeless art. You'll get a full range of art glass instruction, from traditional leaded stained glass to hot glass-working techniques.Gorgeous full-color design throughoutIncludes designs for creating your own stained glass piecesHands-on, easy-to-follow exercises help you perfect your skillsPacked with practical guidance on everything from obtaining supplies to working safely, Stained Glass For Dummies is the perfect guide for beginner and novice artists and artisans who want to try a hand at this centuries-old art.
Stainless Steel Surfaces: A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication and Maintenance in Architecture and Art (Architectural Metals Series)
by L. William ZahnerA full-color guide for architects and design professionals to the selection and application of stainless steel Stainless Steel Surfaces offers an authoritative and comprehensive guide to the application of stainless steel to create surfaces for building exteriors, interiors, and art finishes. The first volume in Zahner's Architectural Metals Series, the book is a visual, full-color book filled with the information needed to ensure proper maintenance of stainless steel and suggestions for fabrication techniques. The author—a noted expert in the field—covers a range of topics including the history of the metal, choosing the right alloy, information on a variety of surface and chemical finishes, and facts on corrosion resistance. Stainless Steel Surfaces is filled with illustrative case studies that offer strategies for designing and executing successful projects using stainless steel. All the books in the Zahner's Architectural Metals Series offer in-depth coverage of today's most commonly used metals in architecture and art. This important book: • Contains a comprehensive guide to the use and maintenance of stainless steel surfaces in architecture and art • Features full-color images of a range of stainless steel finishes, colors, textures, and forms • Presents case studies with performance data that feature strategies on how to design and execute successful projects using stainless steel • Offers methods to address corrosion, before and after it occurs • Discusses the environmental impact of stainless steel from the creation process through application • Explains the significance of the different alloys and the forms available to the designer • Discusses what to expect when using stainless steel in various exposures Architecture professionals, metal fabricators, developers, architecture students and instructors, designers, and artists working with metals, Stainless Steel Surfaces offers a logical framework for the selection and application of stainless steel in all aspects of architecture.
Staircases: History, Repair and Conservation
by James W.P. Campbell Michael Tutton Jill PearceThe staircase dates back to the very beginning of architectural history. Virtually every significant building from the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia to the present day, has not only contained one or more staircases, but has celebrated them. For such an apparently simple part of a building they have been made in a bewildering variety of forms and from a wide range of materials. Every age has sought to out-perform the previous to produce ever more spectacular and gravity-defying designs. 'Staircases: History, Repair and Conservation' is the first major reference volume devoted entirely to the understanding of staircases and the issues surrounding their repair and conservation. Each chapter has been especially written by experts in their respective fields. The book is essential reading for professionals and anyone with an interest in staircases. It deals with the history; dating; archaeology; surveying and recording; engineering; curating; repair and conservation of the staircase in a single volume. No other book offers such a wide range of detail. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1 covers the history, development, identification and dating of staircases, providing detailed drawings and photographs and an introduction to the scientific techniques available to enable the accurate dating of staircases. Part 2 covers the design, engineering and maintenance of the staircase, giving a clear guide to the latest research into the design of safe staircases and their structural stability. Part 3 focuses on the materials commonly used to make stairs, detailing the appropriate techniques for their conservation and repair. The result is a comprehensive study encompassing considerable and far reaching research which aims to inform our understanding and advance the scholarship of the subject for years to come.
Stairs
by Alan Blanc Sylvia BlancStairs are a fundamental and universal feature of buildings. The late Alan Blanc had a lifetime's obsession with stairs and steps and provided a definitive reference source that bridges the aesthetic and practical aspects of staircase design. His wife Sylvia, who worked with him on the first edition, presents this updated, abridged version alongside a complimentary web site where the historical elements of the subjects are described and discussed in pictures and diagrams. The book is a practical guide to designing circulation spaces. It is extensively detailed with working drawings and photographs. Construction methods using a variety of materials are discussed as well as the influence of new technology on vertical circulation. The guidance on codes and regulations covers the UK and US. The latest high profile international case studies inspire and inform the reader.
A Stake in West Texas: Pulling a Chain and Raising a Family Across Big Oil Country
by Rebecca D. HendersonIn 1950, Ann was eighteen and Bob D twenty when he asked her to marry him and hit the road for West Texas. They packed their station wagon, left home and began a life of adventure together on Conoco's West Texas survey crew during the 1950s oil boom. Five kids, twenty-one towns and thirteen years on the road--Bob D and Ann's travels along the highways of West Texas are a portrait in a landscape of oilfields, railroads and ranches. Layering local history with family memoir, author Rebecca D. Henderson reveals a glimpse of mid-century West Texas through her grandparents' adventures as a young couple raising children on the road..
Stakeholder Perspectives on World Heritage and Development in Africa
by Pascall TaruvingaStakeholder Perspectives on World Heritage and Development in Africa argues that World Heritage Sites (WHS) across the African continent should adopt practical, innovative, creative, and alternative management approaches that bring greater socio-economic benefits to society, whilst protecting their Outstanding Universal Value. Drawing on empirical evidence gathered in conversation with stakeholders at WHS across Africa, the book explores the challenges involved in implementing conservation and socio-economic development as a stakeholder-driven process. Demonstrating that heritage can no longer be viewed as totally separate from its socio-economic context, Pascall argues that decisions about the management of heritage need to make sense at the local level if they are to be supported by stakeholders. As the book shows, heritage is still viewed and managed through systems, approaches, and strategies inherited from the colonial period, despite the increasing availability of inclusive governance systems. Stakeholders offer alternative, creative, and innovative approaches that capitalize on the potential of World Heritage to contribute to socio-economic development, whilst ensuring that its credibility and integrity are maintained. Stakeholder Perspectives on World Heritage and Development in Africa offers unique insights into local perspectives on World Heritage and development in Africa. The book will be essential reading for academics, students, development partners, and practitioners around the world who are interested in museums and heritage, conservation, development, and the African continent. Also, the book will be useful in the preparation of nomination dossiers, management plans, development plans, and in disaster risk management at WHS.
The Stakes of Exposure: Anxious Bodies in Postwar Japanese Art
by Namiko KunimotoHow would artistic practice contribute to political change in post–World War II Japan? How could artists negotiate the imbalanced global dynamics of the art world and also maintain a sense of aesthetic and political authenticity? While the contemporary art world has recently come to embrace some of Japan&’s most daring postwar artists, the interplay of art and politics remains poorly understood in the Americas and Europe. The Stakes of Exposure fills this gap and explores art, visual culture, and politics in postwar Japan from the 1950s to the 1970s, paying special attention to how anxiety and confusion surrounding Japan&’s new democracy manifested in representations of gender and nationhood in modern art. Through such pivotal postwar episodes as the Minamata Disaster, the Lucky Dragon Incident, the budding antinuclear movement, and the ANPO protests of the 1960s, The Stakes of Exposure examines a wide range of issues addressed by the period&’s prominent artists, including Tanaka Atsuko and Shiraga Kazuo (key members of the Gutai Art Association), Katsura Yuki, and Nakamura Hiroshi. Through a close study of their paintings, illustrations, and assemblage and performance art, Namiko Kunimoto reveals that, despite dissimilar aesthetic approaches and divergent political interests, Japanese postwar artists were invested in the entangled issues of gender and nationhood that were redefining Japan and its role in the world. Offering many full-color illustrations of previously unpublished art and photographs, as well as period manga, The Stakes of Exposure shows how contention over Japan&’s new democracy was expressed, disavowed, and reimagined through representations of the gendered body.
Stalag 17
by Billy WilderStalag 17 (1953), the riveting drama of a German prisoner-of-war camp, was adapted from the Broadway play directed by José Ferrer in 1951. Billy Wilder developed the play and made the film version more interesting in every way. Edwin Blum, a veteran screenwriter and friend of Wilder's, collaborated on the screenplay but found working with Wilder an agonizing experience.Wilder's mordant humor and misanthropy percolate throughout this bitter story of egoism, class conflict, and betrayal. As in a well-constructed murder mystery, the incriminating evidence points to the wrong man. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction enriches the reading of Stalag 17 by including comparisons with the Broadway production and the reasons for Wilder's changes.
Stalingrad: Death of an Army (Battle Craft #4)
by Ben SkipperThe very name Stalingrad has become synonymous with military folly and political arrogance. Its capture by the Wehrmacht was a crushing defeat, both militarily and politically, for the Red Army. The 6th Army was a highly experienced key element of Army Group South. In late June 1942 it rolled eastwards as part of the summer offensive to capture the vital oilfields of Baku and secure the city on the Volga that bore the name of the Soviet leader. The 6th Army was the acme of German military might and on paper it should have easily overwhelmed the defenders of Chuikov’s 62nd Army. However its commander, General Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus, lacked field experience. His army would pay the price. Stalingrad was a new type of battlefield and it would test the mettle of attacker and defender to the very limit, all the while the thermometer plunged. This BattleCraft title also looks at four pieces of military hardware. Innumerable T-34’s, which often rolled off local assembly lines unpainted and straight into battle took on the Stug III assault gun as it supported troops fighting for mere meters of territory. Overhead, in the frigid air, deadly V, Ju87 Stuka and Yak 9s, were locked in battle for air superiority over the shattered remains of a once vibrant city. A selection of historical and contemporary photos and illustrations are included in this book alongside stunning showcase builds, providing the modeler with subjects to whet the creative appetite. It also features details of model kits and extras that can really help the modeler bring military history to life.
Stalin's Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow
by Deyan SudjicThe story of Boris Iofan—designer of the iconic but unbuilt Palace of the Soviets—whose buildings came to define the language of Soviet architecture.What would an architect do for the chance to build the tallest building in the world? What would he sacrifice to stay alive in the midst of Stalin&’s murderous purges? This is the first major publication on the remarkable life and career of Boris Iofan (1891–1976), state architect to Joseph Stalin. Iofan&’s story is an insight into the troubled relationship of all successful architects with power. A gifted designer and a committed Communist, Iofan became the Soviet Union&’s most celebrated architect after Alexei Rykov, Lenin&’s successor, persuaded him to return to Moscow from Rome with his aristocratic wife, Olga Sasso-Ruffo. Iofan was at the heart of political life in the Soviet Union and his work is key to understanding its official culture. When Stalin&’s henchmen crushed the architectural avant-garde, it was Iofan who created the new national style, from the grand projects he realized—including the House on the Embankment, a megastructure of 505 homes for the Soviet elite—to even more ambitious unbuilt projects, in particular the Palace of the Soviets, a baroque Stalinist dream whose image was reproduced throughout the Soviet Union. His career took him to New York and Paris, and to the destroyed city of Stalingrad. He was a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright; a rival of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Erich Mendelsohn; and an enemy of Hitler&’s architect Albert Speer, whose Nazi pavilion faced Iofan&’s Soviet one at the Paris Expo in 1937. He kept silent when Stalin executed his friends, including Rykov; he also sacrificed his own talent by following the dictator&’s instructions to the letter in creating the regime&’s landmarks. Generously illustrated, with a wide range of previously unpublished material, this book is an exploration of architecture as an instrument of statecraft. It is an insight into the key moments of 20th-century politics and culture from a unique perspective, and the personal story of a remarkable individual who witnessed many of the most dramatic turning points of modern history.
Stalin's Armour, 1941–1945: Soviet Tanks at War
by Anthony Tucker-JonesWith over 60 photos, this look at the role of Red Army tanks in Hitler’s defeat “will be of interest to modelers and military historians alike” (AMPS Indianapolis).Stalin’s purge of army officers in the late 1930s and disputes about tank tactics meant that Soviet armored forces were in disarray when Hitler invaded in 1941. As a result, during Operation Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht’s 3,200 panzers ran circles round the Red Army’s tank force of almost 20,000—and thousands of Soviet tanks were disabled or destroyed.Yet within two years of this disaster the Red Army’s tank arm had regained its confidence and numbers and was in a position to help turn the tide and liberate the Soviet Union. This is the remarkable story Anthony Tucker-Jones relates in this concise, highly illustrated history of the part played by Soviet armor in the war on the Eastern Front.Chapters cover each phase of the conflict, from Barbarossa, through the battles at Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk to the massive, tank-led offensives that drove the Wehrmacht back to Berlin. Technical and design developments are covered, but so are changes in tactics and the role of the tanks in the integrated all-arms force that crushed German opposition.
Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953
by Claire KnightStalin's Final Films explores a neglected period in the history of Soviet cinema, breathing new life into a body of films long considered moribund as the pinnacle of Stalinism. While film censorship reached its apogee in this period and fewer films were made, film attendance also peaked as Soviet audiences voted with their seats and distinguished a clearly popular postwar cinema. Claire Knight examines the tensions between official ideology and audience engagement, and between education and entertainment, inherent in these popular films, as well as the financial considerations that shaped and constrained them. She explores how the Soviet regime used films to address the major challenges faced by the USSR after the Great Patriotic War (World War II), showing how war dramas, spy thrillers, Stalin epics, and rural comedies alike were mobilized to consolidate an official narrative of the war, reestablish Stalinist orthodoxy, and dramatize the rebuilding of socialist society. Yet, Knight also highlights how these same films were used by filmmakers more experimentally, exploring a diverse range of responses to the ideological crisis that lay at the heart of Soviet postwar culture, as a victorious people were denied the fruits of their sacrificial labor. After the war, new heroes were demanded by both the regime and Soviet audiences, and filmmakers sought to provide them, with at times surprising results. Stalin's Final Films mines Soviet cinema as an invaluable resource for understanding the unique character of postwar Stalinism and the cinema of the most repressive era in Soviet history.
Stalking Shakespeare: A Memoir of Madness, Murder, and My Search for the Poet Beneath the Paint
by Lee DurkeeA darkly humorous and spellbinding detective story that chronicles one Mississippi man&’s relentless search for an authentic portrait of William Shakespeare.Following his divorce, down-and-out writer and Mississippi exile Lee Durkee holed himself up in a Vermont fishing shack and fell prey to a decades-long obsession with Shakespearian portraiture. It began with a simple premise: despite the prevalence of popular portraits, no one really knows what Shakespeare looked like. That the Bard of Avon has gotten progressively handsomer in modern depictions seems only to reinforce this point. Stalking Shakespeare is Durkee&’s fascinating memoir about a hobby gone awry, the 400-year-old myriad portraits attached to the famous playwright, and Durkee&’s own unrelenting search for a lost picture of the Bard painted from real life. As Durkee becomes better at beguiling curators into testing their paintings with X-ray and infrared technologies, we get a front-row seat to the captivating mysteries—and unsolved murders—surrounding the various portraits rumored to depict Shakespeare. Whisking us backward in time through layers of paint and into the pages of obscure books on the Elizabethans, Durkee travels from Vermont to Tokyo to Mississippi to DC and ultimately to London to confront the stuffy curators forever protecting the Bard&’s image. For his part, Durkee is the adversary they didn&’t know they had—a self-described dilettante with nothing to lose, the &“Dan Brown of English portraiture.&” A lively, bizarre, and surprisingly moving blend of biography, art history, and madness, Stalking Shakespeare is as entertaining as it is rigorous and will forever change the way you look at one of history&’s greatest cultural and literary icons.
Stalking the Nightmare: Stories and Essays
by Harlan EllisonPure, hundred-proof distillation of Ellison. A righteous verbal high. Here you will find twenty of his very best stories and essays, including the four-part 'Scenes from the Real World," an anecdotal history of the doomed TV series, The Starlost, that he created for NBC; "Tales from the Mountains of Madness"; and his hilariously brutal reportage on the three most important things in life, sex, violence, and labor relations. With an absolutely killer foreword by Stephen King.