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Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America's First Celebrity
by Tana WojczukFor fans of Book of Ages and American Eve, this illuminating and enthralling biography of 19th-century queer actress Charlotte Cushman portrays her radical lifestyle that riveted New York City and made headlines across America. From the very beginning, she was a radical. At age nineteen, Charlotte Cushman, America&’s beloved actress and the country&’s first true celebrity, left her life—and countless suitors—behind to make it as a Shakespearean actress. After revolutionizing the role of Lady Macbeth in front of many adoring fans, she went on the road, performing in cities across a dividing America and building her fame. She was everywhere. And yet, her name has faded in the shadows of history. Now, for the first time in decades, Cushman&’s story comes to full and brilliant life in this definitive, exhilarating, and enlightening biography of the 19th-century icon. With rarely seen letters, Wojczuk reconstructs the formative years of Cushman&’s life, set against the excitement and drama of New York City in the 1800s, featuring a cast of luminaries and revolutionaries that changed the cultural landscape of America forever. A vivid portrait of an astonishing and uniquely American life, Lady Romeo reveals one of the most remarkable women in United States history, and restores her to the center stage where she belongs.
A Ladybird Book About Donald Trump (Ladybirds for Grown-Ups)
by Jason Hazeley Joel MorrisAs we prepare to wave the President out of the White House, commemorate the past four years with this charming introduction to his very important life and his many, many friends - the perfect stocking filler this Christmas._________'When Donald won the election, he did not believe it."This election was a bad, unfair election," said Donald, about the election that he won.One day, Donald might lose an election. He will not like that election at all.And when Donald is told it is time to stop being the President, who knows what exciting things will happen next?'_________'Anyone can grow up to become the President.Or they can become President first and think about growing up later.'_________This delightful book is the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them.Something the President himself could do with.The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope.Featuring original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text.Praise for The Story of Brexit:'Hilarious' Stylist'One of the Best Comedy Books of 2018' The List'The latest offering in the hilarious Ladybird for Grown Ups series is a funny mickey-take of the Brexit debate (and boy, do we need some fun)' Sunday Post
Laguna Beach: Life Inside the Bubble
by Kathy Passero Beth EfranWelcome to Paradise. Otherwise known as Laguna Beach. You've seen the backstabbing, betrayal, and small-town gossip set against the wealthy beachside paradise that is Laguna Beach, California. You've seen hook-ups, break-ups, screw-ups and make-ups -- and all just during two years of school. Now find out what life was like for the stars of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County before the hit MTV series. Think you know Kristin, Talan, Stephen, Taylor, LC, and their friends? Think again. You'll find out: How and when Stephen and LC hooked up and the "drama" that followed How Stephen and Kristin started dating Why Trey got interested in activism and politics How Lo learns that it's better to go to a party in Laguna Beach than to give one Talan's life as a pre-teen football star Taylor and Alex M.'s early fights over boys What their lives were like growing up What they all thought of each other when they first met, how their friendships formed, and more Packed with tons of exclusive material from embarrassing baby photos to first-kiss stories, here is everything you ever wanted to know about Laguna Beach's teen royalty.
Laid Back in Washington
by Art Buchwald"Who is that man in the white hat on the palomino horse riding down Pennsylvania Avenue?" the lady asked. "That's Art Buchwald, who's come to town to help rid President Reagan of fraud, waste and corruption in the government." "What's that on his hip?" "That's a Smith-Remington typewriter. Buchwald has the reputation for being the fastest hunt-and-peck man in the East. I've seen him hit three congressmen with one paragraph, at 100 yards." "He sure looks laid back in the saddle." "Don't let that trick you. He's picked up the California style ever since the Reagans moved into the White House. Nobody messes with him when he's looking for a column. He's taken on six Presidents, eight Vice Presidents, the FBI, the CIA, and the entire Department of Energy in his time." "He looks awfully fat for a gunslinger." "That's what fools most people. Under that soft underbelly is a thin hostile man screaming to get out." "Where's he going now?" "Heaven only knows, but I would hate to be anywhere near him when he pulls out his Smith-Remington and starts shooting up the town." "How can he tell the bad guys from the good guys?" "He works under the assumption that there( are no bad guys in Washington-only good guys doing bad things." "I guess we can all sleep better knowing he's here." "You can say that again. He's the only one who can save us from ourselves." "Oh my God, he just fell off his horse." "That's just a trick of his so no one in Washington will take him seriously." Following in the profoundly unserious spirit of Down the Seine and Up the Potomac and The Buchzvald Stops Here, Laid Back in Washington leaves no turn unstoned, but no feelings hurt for long. In this dazzling yet dizzy portrait of the new Washington, Art Buchwald not only reveals himself as the master chronicler of our leaders' foibles, but as a sophisticated wit in the elegant tradition of Oscar Wilde and Snoopy.
Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip
by John GilmoreA powerful chronicler of the American Nightmare through his gripping examinations of near-mythic Southern California murders (the Black Dahlia, Tate-La Bianca), John Gilmore now draws upon his personal experiences to turn his sights on our morbid obsession with Celebrity and the ruinous price it extracts from those who would pursue it. With caustic clarity and 20/20 hindsight, Gilmore unstintingly recounts his relationships with the likes of Janis Joplin, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Jane Fonda, Jean Seberg and Lenny Bruce on the way up and at the peaks of their notoriety. In baring his role in James Dean's attempts to push the bounds of sexual experimentation, Gilmore explores the actor's legendary fascination with speed and death. With hip, vivid prose, Gilmore describes his illuminating and often haunting first-hand encounters with Hank Williams, Ed Wood, Jr., Briggite Bardot, Sal Mineo, Eartha Kitt, Charles Manson, Jayne Mansfield, Vampira, Steve McQueen and many other denizens of the 20th century's dubious Pantheon.
Laid Bare: My story of love, fame and survival
by Gail PorterGail Porter burst on to our TV screens in the late 90s presenting The Movie Chart Show, Alive and Kicking and Top of the Pops. Bright, sparky and beautiful she soon attracted an entirely different audience, posing for a number of men's magazines and rapidly becoming the pin-up of the lad-mag generation. FHM, in a now famous stunt, even projected her naked form on to the Houses of Parliament. But beneath her cheery public façade, Gail was struggling with anorexia and bi-polar disorder. After nine years of extreme dieting, she collapsed and through sheer determination forced herself to begin eating properly again. Having been told she would never be able to conceive, her new healthier lifestyle led to a much desired pregnancy by her then husband, Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave. But the intense pressures of juggling motherhood with her career, led to crippling post-natal depression and precipitated the breakdown of her marriage. Overwhelmed by single motherhood, one day after dropping her daughter Honey off at nursery, she took an overdose and her world very publicly began to unravel.But Gail's ability to stay afloat as her life crumbled in the public spotlight made her an icon all over again for a new audience of ordinary women who recognised her pain. She refused to hide-away as stress-induced alopecia caused her to loose her hair, famously appearing at a charity event sporting a startling pink Mohican. Her stunning features and her unwillingness to wear a wig to hide her bald head have made her a contemporary icon.But despite all her troubles, Gail remains upbeat and positive. She has become a role model for coming through it all as a good mother and a working woman unbowed. As iconic as Jordan, smart as Billie and as wild as Kerry, Gail Porter has written her autobiography herself - a raw, honest account of her own troubled life and the world of celebrity we now live in.
Lake Quinsigamond and White City Amusement Park (Images of America)
by Michael Perna Jr.In the 1800s and well into the 1900s, the area around Lake Quinsigamond, in Shrewsbury and Worcester, was one huge summer resort. Hotels, ethnic and social clubs, boat clubs, a horse racing track, picnic grounds, and two amusement parks, Lincoln Park and White City Park, lined the shore. Steamboats and smaller steam launches transported tourists to the area. Canoes, rowboats, sailboats, and motorboats crowded the lake on weekends. Crew boat regattas, which started in the 1850s, continue to this day. Lake Quinsigamond and White City Amusement Park lets readers experience the attractions, such as the shoot the chutes and White City roller coaster, and enjoy the fun atmosphere during those long-ago summers.
The Lake Shore Limited (Vintage Contemporaries Ser.)
by Sue MillerThat's what the play was about, she was thinking abruptly. The wish to imagine what life could be, how it could change, if you were unencumbered. Did everyone who was married do this from time to time, imagine an unencumbered life? Three years after the death of her younger brother Gus, Leslie still thinks about what might have been: if Gus hadn't got on that plane on September 11th, if her husband understood the nature of her grief, if she had made different choices. As she sits down to watch The Lake Shore Limited, a disquietingly autobiographical play written by Gus's former girlfriend Billy, she can't help but wonder whether she also holds on to the past, and whether she really knows Billy at all. Meanwhile, Sam, Leslie's divorced friend, finds in the play inescapable echoes of his troubled life and begins to fall for Billy's distinctive, enigmatic beauty. A powerful love story; a mesmerising tale of entanglements, connections and inconsolable losses; a marvellous reflection on the meaning of grace and the uses of sorrow, in life and in art: The Lake Shore Limited is Sue Miller at her dazzling best.
Lakewood Park (Images of America)
by The Guinan FamilySituated in the coal regions of northeast Pennsylvania, Lakewood Park was established in 1916 by the Guinan family as a place to bathe, picnic, and camp. It became known as a nature retreat for the nearby miners and their families, and it developed into the destination for swimming, amusement rides, skating, big band dances, boxing matches, ethnic celebrations, summer stock plays, and political banquets. The park boasted a 150-yard cement pool, hand-carved Spillman carousel, and grand ballroom. It was the host of the longest-running ethnic festival in Pennsylvania, Lithuanian Day, from 1914 to 1984. Using vintage images, Lakewood Park recalls the various festivals and celebrations, amusements rides, and celebrity performers, such as Dick Clark and Doris Day, that made the park an entertainment mecca for 68 years.
Lakewood Theatre (Images of America)
by Jenny ObyBeginning as a humble vaudeville hall in the Skowhegan-Madison trolley park, Lakewood Theatre has graced the southwestern shore of Lake Wesserunsett in Madison, Maine, since the turn of the 20th century. Under the masterful guidance of Herbert L. Swett, a Bangor native and Bowdoin graduate, Lakewood eventually developed into a nationally renowned playhouse that was called the “Broadway in Maine” by the New York Times in its heyday, from 1925 until World War II. In the years following the war, Lakewood was operated by Swett’s heirs and became a virtual who’s who of both Broadway and Hollywood, until it nearly went dark in the early 1980s. Operating today as a nonprofit community theater, Lakewood is the official state theater of Maine and the oldest continually running summer theater in the country.
Lamb at the Altar: The Story of a Dance
by Deborah Hay"The intention of my work is to dislodge assumptions about the fixity of the three-dimensional body."--Deborah HayHer movements are uncharacteristic, her words subversive, her dances unlike anything done before--and this is the story of how it all works. A founding member of the famed Judson Dance Theater and a past performer in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Deborah Hay is well known for choreographing works using large groups of trained and untrained dancers whose surprising combinations test the limits of the art. Lamb at the Altar is Hay's account of a four-month seminar on movement and performance held in Austin, Texas, in 1991. There, forty-four trained and untrained dancers became the human laboratory for Hay's creation of the dance Lamb, lamb, lamb . . . , a work that she later distilled into an evening-length solo piece, Lamb at the Altar. In her book, in part a reflection on her life as a dancer and choreographer, Hay tells how this dance came to be. She includes a movement libretto (a prose dance score) and numerous photographs by Phyllis Liedeker documenting the dance's four-month emergence.In an original style that has marked her teaching and writing, Hay describes her thoughts as the dance progresses, commenting on the process and on the work itself, and ultimately creating a remarkable document on the movements--precise and mysterious, mental and physical--that go into the making of a dance. Having replaced traditional movement technique with a form she calls a performance meditation practice, Hay describes how dance is enlivened, as is each living moment, by the perception of dying and then involves a freeing of this perception from emotional, psychological, clinical, and cultural attitudes into movement. Lamb at the Altar tells the story of this process as specifically practiced in the creation of a single piece.
Lame of Thrones: The Final Book in a Song of Hot and Cold
by The Harvard LampoonFrom Harvard's legendary humor publication comes an outrageous, uproariously funny parody of Game of Thrones, in the tradition of their previous bestselling parody book classics Bored of the Rings, Nightlight, and The Hunger Pains.An affectionate but take-no-prisoners send-up of the massive literary and television franchise, Lame of Thrones offers fans a way of reentering the fictional world they have come to love and merrily explodes all of its conventions -- as well as their expectations of the characters -- to hilarious ends. It may even leave you more satisfied than the actual TV ending of Game of Thrones. In fact, if it doesn't the Lampoon has really dropped the ball. Lame of Thrones will take you to Westopolis, where several extremely attractive egomaniacs are vying to be ruler of the realm and sit on the Pointy Chair. Our hero Jon Dough was a likely bet, but his untimely murder at the hands of his own men of the Night's Crotch has made that seem less likely. Will Dragon Queen Dennys Grandslam escape from her Clothkhaki captors and return to conquer the world? Or will she just get left in the desert counting grains of sand for the rest of the book? And what about Jon Dough's siblings? Will they be mentioned? Probably? Almost definitely, yes? It would be weird if they weren't prominent characters in the book, you say?To find out, read the book you wish George R.R. Martin would write but never will. The Lampoon -- the place where such comedy writers and performers as Conan O'Brien, Colin Jost, B.J. Novak, Patricia Marx, Alan Yang, Andy Borowitz and many more all got their start -- is ready to serve parody notice to the most entertaining, infuriating, and inescapable cultural phenomenon of the past decade.
Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception (Books of Faerie #1)
by Maggie StiefvaterA dark faerie fantasy that features authentic Celtic faerie lore, "Lament" follows 16-year-old Dierdre Monaghan, who discovers that she is a cloverhand -- one who can see faeries. Dierdre soon finds herself trapped in the middle of a centuries-old faerie war.
Lamp and the Lute: Studies in Seven Authors
by Bonamy DobreeFirst Published in 1964. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Contemporary Film Directors)
by Cael M. KeeganLana and Lilly Wachowski have redefined the technically and topically possible while joyfully defying audience expectations. Visionary films like The Matrix trilogy and Cloud Atlas have made them the world's most influential transgender media producers, and their coming out retroactively put trans* aesthetics at the very center of popular American culture. Cáel M. Keegan views the Wachowskis films as an approach to trans* experience that maps a transgender journey and the promise we might learn "to sense beyond the limits of the given world." Keegan reveals how the filmmakers take up the relationship between identity and coding (be it computers or genes), inheritance and belonging, and how transgender becoming connects to a utopian vision of a post-racial order. Along the way, he theorizes a trans* aesthetic that explores the plasticity of cinema to create new social worlds, new temporalities, and new sensory inputs and outputs. Film comes to disrupt, rearrange, and evolve the cinematic exchange with the senses in the same manner that trans* disrupts, rearranges, and evolves discrete genders and sexes.
The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds Ser. #Bk.1)
by Aleron KongAleron Kong has written five novels in his bestselling LitRPG saga, The Land. The journey of Gripping Action, Dark Humor and Epic World Building begins here. Welcome to the greatest game you've never played. When Danger Zone Industries had released the latest and greatest Virtual Reality MMORPG, James, and millions of other virtual reality players, sought purpose and self-definition in this new world. The tag line "Live the life your soul was meant for," captured the hearts and minds of his entire generation. "The Land," was the largest and most dynamic virtual reality game of all time. James and his friends had devoted countless hours to become one of the top teams in the game. None of that mattered after James was actually summoned to The Land. What had been an engrossing game became a daily struggle of life and death. James struggles to survive while becoming embroiled in an age old war between the sprites and goblins, avoiding the machinations of the local king and helping an enslaved woman know freedom once again. Join the sensation! Welcome... to The Land!
The Land of Oz (Images of Modern America)
by Tim HollisIn 1966, North Carolina tourism moguls Grover, Harry, and Spencer Robbins began exploring ways to utilize their new ski facilities atop Beech Mountain during the summer. They brought in their associate Jack Pentes to come up with an idea. As a long-time fan of The Wizard of Oz, Pentes planned and developed the Land of Oz theme park, opening in June 1970. The park did not resemble the famous 1939 MGM movie or the Oz as depicted in L. Frank Baum's book. Instead, Pentes interpreted his own vision of Oz, with a comical Wicked Witch and a wizard who did not turn out to be a fake. The Land of Oz closed after its 1980 operating season and was left to deteriorate. Since 1990, however, its remnants have been secured and restored. The property is now available for special events, and a giant Oz celebration takes place each autumn.
Landscape and Film (AFI Film Readers)
by Martin LefebvreFirst published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Landscape and Memory in Post-Fascist Italian Film: Cinema Year Zero (Routledge Advances in Film Studies)
by Giuliana MinghelliThis study argues that neorealism’s visual genius is inseparable from its almost invisible relation to the Fascist past: a connection inscribed in cinematic landscapes. While largely a silent narrative, neorealism’s complex visual processing of two decades of Fascism remains the greatest cultural production in the service of memorialization and comprehension for a nation that had neither a Nuremberg nor a formal process of reconciliation. Through her readings of canonical neorealist films, Minghelli unearths the memorial strata of the neorealist image and investigates the complex historical charge that invests this cinema. This book is both a formal analysis of the new conception of the cinematic image born from a crisis of memory, and a reflection on the relation between cinema and memory. Films discussed include Ossessione (1943) Paisà (1946), Ladri di biciclette (1948), and Cronaca di un amore (1950).
Landscapes between Then and Now: Recent Histories in Southern African Photography, Performance and Video Art (Photography, Place, Environment)
by Nicola BrandtIn Landscapes Between Then and Now, Nicola Brandt examines the increasingly compelling and diverse cross-disciplinary work of photographers and artists made during the transition from apartheid to post-apartheid and into the contemporary era. By examining specific artworks made in South Africa, Namibia and Angola, Brandt sheds light on established and emerging themes related to aftermath landscapes, embodied histories, (un)belonging, spirituality and memorialization. She shows how landscape and identity are mutually constituted, and profiles this process against the background of the legacy of the acutely racially divisive policies of the apartheid regime that are still reflected on the land. As a signpost throughout the book, Brandt draws on the work of the renowned South African photographer Santu Mofokeng and his critical thinking about landscape. Landscapes Between Then and Now explores how practitioners who engage with identity and their physical environment as a social product might reveal something about the complex and fractured nature of postcolonial and contemporary societies. Through diverse strategies and aesthetics, they comment on inherent structures and epistemologies of power whilst also expressing new and radical forms of self-determinism. Brandt asks why these cross-disciplinary works ranging from social documentary to experimental performance and embodied practices are critical now, and what important possibilities for social and political reflection and engagement they suggest.
Landscapes in Between
by Monica SegerSince its economic boom in the late 1950s, Italy has grappled with the environmental legacy of rapid industrial growth and haphazard urban planning. One notable effect is a preponderance of interstitial landscapes such as abandoned fields, polluted riverbanks, and makeshift urban gardens. Landscapes in Between analyses authors and filmmakers - Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gianni Celati, Simona Vinci, and the duo Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco - who turn to these spaces as productive models for coming to terms with the modified natural environment.Considering the ways in which sixty years' worth of Italian literary and cinematic representations engage in the ongoing dialogue between nature and culture, Monica Seger contributes to the transnational expansion of environmental humanities. Her book also introduces an ecocritical framework to Italian studies in English. Rejecting a stark dichotomy between human construction and unspoilt nature, Landscapes in Between will be of interest to all those studying the fraught relationship between humanity and environment.
Landscapes of Loss: The National Past in Postwar French Cinema
by Naomi GreeneIn Landscapes of Loss, Naomi Greene makes new sense of the rich variety of postwar French films by exploring the obsession with the national past that has characterized French cinema since the late 1960s. Observing that the sense of grandeur and destiny that once shaped French identity has eroded under the weight of recent history, Greene examines the ways in which French cinema has represented traumatic and defining moments of the nation's past: the political battles of the 1930s, the Vichy era, decolonization, the collapse of ideologies. Drawing upon a broad spectrum of films and directors, she shows how postwar films have reflected contemporary concerns even as they have created images and myths that have helped determine the contours of French memory. This study of the intricate links between French history, memory, and cinema begins by examining the long shadow cast by the Vichy past: the repressed memories and smothered unease that characterize the cinema of Alain Resnais are seen as a kind of prelude to a fierce battle for national memory that marked so-called rétro films of the 1970s and 1980s. The shifting political and historical perspectives toward the nation's more distant past, which also emerged in these years, are explored in the light of the films of one of France's leading directors, Bertrand Tavernier. Finally, the mood of nostalgia and melancholy that appears to haunt contemporary France is analyzed in the context of films about the nation's imperial past as well as those that hark back to a "golden age," a remembered paradis perdu, of French cinema itself.
Language and Manipulation in House of Cards
by Sandrine SorlinThis book is to date the first monograph-length study of the popular American political TV series House of Cards. It proposes an encompassing analysis of the first three seasons from the unusual angles of discourse and dialogue. The study of the stylistic idiosyncrasies of the ruthless main protagonist, Frank Underwood, is completed by a pragmatic and cognitive approach exposing the main characters' manipulative strategies to win over the other. Taking into account the socio-cultural context and the specificities of the TV medium, the volume focuses on the workings of interaction as well as the impact of the direct address to the viewer. The book critically uses the latest theories in pragmatics and stylistics in its attempt at providing a pragma-rhetorical theory of manipulation.
Language and Metadrama in Major Barbara and Pygmalion: Shavian Sisters (Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries)
by Jean ReynoldsThis book focuses on two important topics in Shaw’s Major Barbara and Pygmalion that have received little attention from critics: language and metadrama. If we look beyond the social, political, and economic issues that Shaw explored in these two plays, we discover that the stories of the two “Shavian sisters”— Barbara Undershaft and Eliza Doolittle—are deeply concerned with performance and what Jacques Derrida calls “the problem of language.” Nearly every character in Major Barbara produces, directs, or acts in at least one miniature play. In Pygmalion, Henry Higgins is Eliza’s acting coach and phonetics teacher, as well as the star of an impromptu, open-air phonetics show. The language content in these two plays is just as intriguing. Did Eliza Doolittle have to learn Standard English to become a complete human being? Should we worry about the bad grammar we hear at Barbara Undershaft’s Salvation Army shelter? Is English losing its precision and purity? Meanwhile, in the background, Shaw keeps reminding us that language and theatre are always present in our everyday lives—sometimes serving as stabilizing forces, and sometimes working to undo them.
The Language and Style of Film Criticism
by Alex Clayton Andrew KlevanThe Language and Style of Film Criticism brings together original essays from an international range of academics and film critics highlighting the achievements, complexities and potential of film criticism. In recent years, in contrast to the theoretical, historical and cultural study of film, film criticism has been relatively marginalised, especially within the academy. This book highlights the distinctiveness of film criticism and addresses ways in which it can take a more central place within the academy and develop in dynamic ways outside it. The Language and Style of Film Criticism is essential reading for academics, teachers, students and journalists who wish to understand and appreciate the language and style of film criticism.