This is related to Pollack’s drip canvases, although this is a rather more basically random process, there’s no possibility of predicting what patterns you’re going to get.
In an interview with Gregory Ego, entitled “William Burroughs & the Flicker Machine,” as published in David Kerekes’ 2003 “Headpress (the journal of sex religion death),” William explains how he made ths shotgun art painting, and others.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
EGO: Are you still doing your “shotgun art?”
BURROUGHS: Oh, all kinds. Brushwork. Shotgun. Paint. Knife.
EGO: What exact process do you use for your visual art?
BURROUGHS: There is no exact process. If you want to do shotgun art, you take a piece of plywood, put a can of spracy paint in front of it, and shoot it with a shotgun or high powered rifle. The paint’s under high pressure so it explodes! Throws the can 300 feed. The paint sprays in exploding color across your surface. You can have as many colors as you want. Turn it around, do it sideways, and have one color coming in from this side and this side. Of course, they hit. Mix in all kinds of unpredictable patterns. This is related to Pollack’s drip canvases, although this is a rather more basically random process, there’s no possibility of predicting what patterns you’re going to get.
I’ve had some I’ve worked over for months. Get the original after the explosions and work it over with brushes and spray paints and silhouettes until I’m satisfied. So, there isn’t any set procedure. Sometimes you get it right there and you don’t touch it. The most important thing in painting is to know when to stop, when everything is finished. Doesn’t mean anything in writing.
EGO: It does rely to a high degree on chance — the shotgun art?
BURROUGHS: It introduces a random factor, certainly.
EGO: Just like the cut-up method.
BURROUGHS: Yes. But you don’t have to use it all, you can use that as background. There’re a lot of other randomizing procedures like “marbling.” Take water and spray your paint on top of the water and then put your paper or whatever in the water and pull it out and it sticks in all sorts of random patterns. And then there’s the old inkblot. [Ruffles imaginary paper] Like that. Sometimes they’re good only as background or sometimes you get a picture that you’re satisfied with at once. There is no certain procedure.
EGO: Allen Ginsberg proposed to me that the cut-up technique you developed with Brion Gysin is a sort of counter-brainwashing technique. Do you agree with that?
BURROUGHS: It has that aspect in that you’re breaking down the word, you’re creating new words. Right as soon as you start cutting, you’re getting new words, new combinations of words. Yes, it has that aspect, sure.
The complete works of Willy the Shake – the greatest collection of literature on this or any other planet!
01- The Comedy of Errors (1592 -1594)
02- The Taming of the Shrew (1593-1594)
03- The Two Gentlemen o f Verona (1594)
04- Love’s Labor’s Lost (1594-1597)
05- A Midsummer-Ni ght’s Dream (1595-1596)
06- The Merchant of Venice (1596-1597)
07- The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597-1601)
08- Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1 599)
09- As You Like It (1599)
10- Twelfth Night; or What You Will (16 01-1602)
11- Troilus and Cressida (1601-1602)
12- All’s Well that Ends Well (1601-1602)
13- Measure for Measure (1604)
14- The First Part of King Henry VI (1589-1590)
15- The Second Part of King Henry VI (1590- 1591)
16- The Third Part of King Henry VI (1590-1591)
17- The Tragedy of Richard the Third (1592-1593)
18- The Life and Death of King John ( 1594-1596)
19- The Tragedy of King Richard II (1593-1594)
20- The Firs t Part of King Henry IV (1596-1597)
21- The Second Part of King Henry IV (1598)
22- The Life of King Henry V (1599)
23- The Famous History o f the Life of Henry the Eighth (1612-1613)
24- Titus Andronicus (1593- 1594)
25- Romeo and Juliet (1595-1596)
26- Julius Caesar (1599)
27- Ha mlet, Prince of Denmark (1600-1601)
28- Othello, the Moor of Venice (1 604)
29- King Lear (1605)
30- Macbeth (1606)
31- Antony and Cleopatra (1606)
32- Coriolanus (1607-1608)
33- Timon of Athens (1607-1608)
34- Pericles (1607-1608)
35- Cymbeline (1609-1610)
36- The Winter’s Tale ( 1610-1611)
37- The Tempest (1611)
38- Venus and Adonis (1592-1593)
39- The **** of Lucrece (1593-1594)
40- Sonnets (1593-1599)
41- A Lover’s Complaint (1609)
42- The Passionate Pilgrim (1599)
e-books in .pdf format
http://rapidshare.com/The_Complete_Works_of_Willia.rar
e-books in *.lit format
http://rapidshare.com/files/13218156…peare.rar.html
NOTE:
The pot calls the kettle black!
Correction! If we’d ever seen a talking pot and a talking kettle – having not just consumed a full bottle of Jack Daniels! – perhaps then we might grant it some credence!
Anyway, we really do hate seeing a catfight between two best-selling authors.
Let us resolve the issue for you, dear scribes.
You’re both goddamn awful f*cking “writers” !!
OK, happy?
Horror writer Stephen King has served up a fright for Twilight author Stephenie Meyers, insisting she “can’t write worth a darn”. Skip related content
King, the writer of classics like Carrie and Misery, has gone public with his critique of in-vogue Utah-based novelist Meyers in the upcoming issue of USA Weekend magazine.
He starts by complimenting JK Rowling on her Harry Potter books, and then slates Meyer.
He says, “Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people… The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.
“It’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it’s not particularly threatening because it’s not overtly sexual.
“A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet.”
Al’s memoir, the wonderfully titled “Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards,” was reissued in an updated edition in 2008. If anyone wants to send us this mighty interesting tome, please feel free to contact us!!
Al Kooper’s memoir, “Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards,” was reissued in an updated edition in 2008; the Zelig of the music world was on hand last night at Book Soup to take questions about his undeniable musical talent and his propensity for being in the right places at the right (and sometimes the very wrong) times.
But first: the story about the organ.
In 1965, the 21 year-old Kooper found himself at the recording session for Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” A number of session men had already been called in, but Kooper, a young Tin Pan Alley songwriter and no session stranger himself, was on the wrong side of the soundproof wall. Producer Tom Wilson invited Kooper to come watch the recordings, but that was it.
When, after running the song a couple of times, Dylan decided that the organ part would be more suited for piano, Kooper saw his chance and jumped in — even though he didn’t know how to turn the organ on.
The rest is history, or perhaps an eighth note behind history, because Kooper’s tentative organ melody came to be known — hilariously, to both him and Dylan — as the defining signature of Dylan’s new rock ‘n’ roll sound.
Kooper, attired in sunglasses and a swank black jacket, informed the audience that he’d lost 2/3 of his sight, so he would take questions in lieu of reading.
When someone in the audience asked where he got the guts to just hop on to an instrument he didn’t know how to play, Kooper offered, “I didn’t think of it as guts. I thought of it as ambition.”
Kooper’s book tells the ins and outs of his 51-year career in music. Always winking and never self-important, he talks about forming the supergroup Blood Sweat & Tears, only to be summarily kicked out. One night, he saw a promising young band from Atlanta and signed them to MCA, with the only catch being that they’d have to change the spelling of their name to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
In 1980, Kooper faced the mordant task of having to produce a George Harrison session the morning after John Lennon had been shot in New York city. Harrison, who Kooper describes as “visibly shaken,” nonetheless made a full day’s work out of it.
What it was like to play on the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and more, after the jump.
Kooper spoke about playing on the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” He was supposed to have been on vacation when he got cornered on London’s High Street by a very enthusiastic Brian Jones. Kooper caved.
“After we were done recording it,” Kooper said, “they pulled up these two trucks full of food. It was like someone was getting married. I was very impressed. I had dinner and dessert.”
Asked about his feelings on the record industry’s current state, Kooper replied, “It’s dying, and I’m enjoying watching it die. I hope that I live long enough to attend each and every record company’s funeral.”
His “staff employee” status at Sony Records kept Kooper from making millions of dollars in producer’s royalties. This same loophole also bilked George Martin — the man who produced the Beatles but never saw a dime from it. “You’d think the Beatles would have thrown him something. Maybe they did. It must have been very quiet.”
The most interesting story of the night was how, at 12 years old, Kooper met an older boy at summer camp who told him that he should put down the ukulele he’d been strumming and pick up a guitar. “A guitar is much hipper than a ukulele,” the boy informed him. Kooper learned the guitar fast (“It’s only got two more strings.”) and the two became friends.
The older kid, whose name was Danny Schactman, eventually took an eighth-grade Kooper to a meeting with his musical manager. Yes, his manager. And that was how Kooper soon found himself a new member of the band The Royal Teens. You might have heard their big hit. It was called “Short Shorts.”
Of course, as Kooper pointed out, this story, like all the others, “is in the book.”
For more on Kooper, check out his 2004 interview on “Fresh Air”, and his website, which includes diary postings “South By Southwest Jr. A Slight Return” and “Jagged Little Brill.” It’s good stuff.
— George Ducker
Photo: Al Kooper at Book Soup. Credit: George Ducker.
The prim miss took off more than her mask of respectability behind the stacks …. with any man who asked!
We always knew this!
Which is why, as teenagers, roykeanz and I were at the library every afternoon!
This never happened there though!
Sob! Sob!
Anyone got this fine tome of classic pulp fiction, please send it to us!
Reviewed by Robert Sandall
John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman
HarperCollins £25
Written with the co-operation of Yoko Ono, who subsequently disowned it for being ‘disrespectful’, Norman’s life of Lennon is the most complete account yet of an incendiary talent and troubled soul. Fame has seldom alighted on a man who was, from first to last, such an unhappy misfit.
From the upheavals of his early life, as an unwanted child raised by his strict and starchy aunt Mimi, to his last days as a homesick, housebound exile in New York, Lennon never really settled. Not even leading the most famous pop group in history could bring the peace he hymned in his celebrated song Imagine. The reasons why are superbly marshalled in this meticulously researched, compulsively readable book.
ROCK ON by DAN KENNEDY
Harvill Secker £12.99
A rock’n’roll version of The Office, this account of Kennedy’s spell as an employee of the Warner label in New York is a droll antidote to the standard musicbiz memoir. When he arrives in 2002, the budgets for debauchery have been slashed, and nervous marketing types rule.
Desperate avarice is everybody’s default position – from the new proprietors who loot the company for their $20m bonuses to the artists eager to flog their integrity to the first corporate sponsor. Kennedy views this shambles with the eye of a larky obituarist.
Background
WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE EARTH: A Biography of Led Zeppelin by MICK WALL
Orion £20
Led Zeppelin summed up the best and the worst of rock culture in the 1970s, and Wall is one of few biographers to have got the measure of both sides of the band. If he is steadfastly nonjudgmental in the face of all the drinking and drugging, the misogynist abuse of groupies and the psychotic thuggishness of drummer John Bonham and manager Peter Grant, that’s because he appreciates how their callous disregard for normal constraints also allowed Led Zeppelin to make toweringly original music – for a while. Theirs was a Faustian tale that veteran metal-journo Wall tells with authority.
ON SOME FARAWAY BEACH:The Life and Times of Brian Eno by DAVID SHEPPARD
Orion £20
Encapsulating the life of a prolific character such as Eno is, as Sheppard points out, “like folding down a skyscraper into a suitcase”. His preference is for the younger man, the art-school maverick turned boa-wearing synthesizer whiz who lit up the early 1970s with Roxy Music and went on to produce U2. Although Sheppard skimps the last 25 years and doesn’t delve far into Eno’s art projects or complicated marriage, he is strong on the bitter 1970s battle with Bryan Ferry and the working friendship with Bowie. He sheds interesting light, too, on Eno’s fondness for women with large bottoms.
GIG: The Life and Times of a Rock-Star Fantasist by SIMON ARMITAGE
Viking £16.99
Armitage is a writer and poet for whom the template of performance is supplied by the rock gig. In this lively memoir he takes us through his youthful obsession with punk and the “new romantics”, right up to his current interest in Arctic Monkeys and their “engaging narratives and subtle half-rhymes (sung) in a republic of south Yorkshire accent”. Armitage’s taste in music (indie guitar bands such as the Smiths and the Fall) is stuck firmly north of Watford, and the way he weaves it into the story of his life with his wife, formerly the singer with Sue and the Speedy Bears, makes this a must-read for fortysomething teenagers everywhere.
A FREEWHEELIN’ TIME by SUZE ROTOLO
Aurum £16.99
Rotolo was Bob Dylan’s first proper girlfriend, and was with him, on and off, for four formative years in New York from 1961 to 1965. Apart from hugging his arm on the front cover of his second album, Rotolo kept a low profile before publishing a book that has curried her no favour with Dylan anoraks. Her portrait of an unsophisticated and unscrupulous young hick from Minnesota may not burnish the myth, but she tells it with a keen eye for Manhattan’s bohemian folky ethos and, given Dylan’s relentless womanising, a complete lack of vengeful bitterness.
THE REST IS NOISE:Listening to the 20th Century by ALEX ROSS
Fourth Estate £25
Much modern classical composition is a no-go area for many music lovers, and a pointless racket to the general public – hardly a promising subject therefore for a non-academic book. The New Yorker’s music critic Ross, however, has turned it into a gripping account of the last century in which troubled, shady characters such as Richard Strauss and Dmitri Shostakovitch seek refuge in the patronage of Hitler and Stalin, and outlandish avant-garde ideas find shelter in the work of cool jazzers such as Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk. A definitive work of reference dressed as unputdown-able social history.
THE OLIVETTI CHRONICLES by JOHN PEEL
Bantam Press £20
Although he never got feted as a journalist the way he did as a DJ and broadcaster, Peel contributed columns and reviews to a number of publications throughout his career. This selection of his articles (chosen by his children and named after the make of typewriter he always used) reminds you of his wonderfully surreal humour; as in “Aerosmith thundered away with all the careless spontaneity of a telephone booth.” It also contains some surprisingly indiscreet, possibly fictitious personal details, such as “somebody called Anne has written to me from Preston offering to fellate me till I faint…”.
THE FALLEN: Searching for the Missing Members of The Fall by DAVE SIMPSON
Canongate £18.99
MarkE Smith, the prime mover of the Fall, the longest-running punk group on the planet, is a notoriously autocratic band-leader who has fired around 40 backing musicians during his 30-year career. Simpson’s idea – to interview as many of these discarded sidemen (and women) as he can track down – is a good one, given that Smith himself is as enigmatic in interviews as he is on record. The results of Simpson’s picaresque endeavours are a hoot and reveal a surprising amount of goodwill for a capricious and sometimes violent employer. Most believable is the lady vocalist who observes, “Mark’s the sort of person who likes pulling wings off flies.”
THE CLASH by STRUMMER, JONES, SIMONON, HEADON
Atlantic £30
The trend for bands to publish books the size of paving slabs with lots of previously unpublished posters and accompanying “in their own words” blah has gone beyond the point of dullness. The Clash bucks it, thanks partly to the fact that the band’s career was so hectic and short – a little over eight years – and mainly to the individual members’ refreshing candour. Headon apologises for his heroin addiction; Jones forgives Strummer for kicking him out of the band; and Simonon says he wishes that the triple album Sandinista! had been released as a single one.
We really wanted to post this about a year ago – but could never muster up enough energy to do so!
Big thanks to tot167
NOTE:
A manga comic book exploring the fascinating life of the enigmatic Blues God, Robert Johnson!
Yap! Manga! Really!
We want this Mr Publisher! Send us a copy now!!
Me and the Devil Blues: The Unreal Life of Robert Johnson Vol. 1 (Del Rey)
526 pgs. B&W; $19.95
(W / A: Akira Hiramoto)
Friday, 14 November 2008
Unfortunately for RJ, as he’s known, he has a small addiction problem—the Blues. He sneaks away every night to the juke, plinking away on his guitar, aspiring to be one of the best but only coming out a laughingstock. The Blues are his only shot at a way out of Mississippi, and he’s willing to do almost anything to make his dream come true, even if that means taking his battered old guitar to the crossroads at midnight. Legend has it if a man does that, the Devil will appear, take your instrument, play it and hand it back.
You’d walk away an expert bluesman … but you’d have also just sold your soul. Which is exactly what Johnson did. But he soon learns that playing with hellfire will get you burned, as his talents get him into a whirlwind of trouble. Irate plantation owners, gangsters, and a lynch-crazy town are soon all after the bluesman, who has even bigger worries when his playing had starts acting extremely strange.
Hiramoto’s dark and fantastic manga Me and the Devil Blues re-imagines the life of famed blues musician Robert Johnson like nothing I’ve read before. Every detail is so stunningly laid out, every nuance and bead of sweat so expertly placed you wonder if Johnson’s story might just be the real thing. From his bleak and barren wooden flat in the Mississippi plantation to the dusty and strictly dry Prohibition town, Hiramoto lavishly draws everything on oversized pages leaving no line carelessly drawn. And just when you’re starting to think, “oh I wonder if he is going to encounter this”…it happens.
The cover to Me and the Devil Blues by Akira Hiramoto. Click for a larger image.I suspect a preponderance of research went into Me and the Devil Blues, not just because of the story itself, but also with the clarity of artwork and dialogue as well. The characters speak with a Southern twang or Delta dialect so easily it’s a marvel to think this was originally written in Japanese at all.
The interaction between the characters, especially portraying the hierarchy between different classes of people and the tension Johnson faces whenever he crosses paths with whites, is also expertly shown; not so heavy-handed as to be dismissible or clichéd, but woven so well into the dialogue that reading becomes a window into the Depression-era South.
As for the artwork, Hiramoto has a sort of soft realism, where elements of manga style can be seen, but the realistic rendering lends authority to the story. As I read, I swore that I was as hot and tired as Johnson toiling beneath the scorching Mississippi sun; that I could smell the smoke and bitter whiskey of the juke; that the chalky dust of a dying town burned my nose as well. Hiramoto’s shading and tones set the mood of Devil Blues throughout, and his liberal use of full pages emphasized the dramatic nature of the manga as well as made for easy reading.
Even though Devil Blues went for a whopping 526 pages, I was stunned when it ended in a cliff-hanger, and only then realized that this was volume one. This manga is a fantastic read, with a gripping story, outstanding artwork, and wonderful writing. It made me want to know more about Robert Johnson; whether he ever did claim to sell his soul to the Devil and what his music sounds like. I would definitely recommend it. This book is for music lovers, for horror lovers, for anyone who likes a good story, and for those who have the Blues or just want to have a taste of them. Just be sure to hang on to your soul.
It’s the quality of The Go-Betweens’ lyrics that most reflect a love of reading.
The lyrics of the Go-Betweens songs have usually been pure poetry in their own right and have always been remarkably and consistently great.
Broadly, it could be said that the lyrical style of Robert is post-modern and ironic, though he could cut pure moments of beauty too. Grant’s style seemed a little more pastoral, more anecdotal with vivid imagery.
Amongst Robert’s literary choices is Pride and Prejudice by the awful Jane Austen! He’s got to be taking the piss! Maybe he was drunk! I do like his other three choices though.
This interview was conducted when the boys launched their ninth – and very sadly, final – album together, Oceans Apart.
THE Go-Betweens have always been regarded as a literary band.
They launched their ninth album, Oceans Apart (EMI), at Rocking Horse Records in Brisbane, Australia, on May 1, and I asked singer-songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan about their favorite books.
There has always been a strong literary influence on the songs of The Go-Betweens. Some of their songs have been compared to the work of specific authors. For example, one of Grant McLennan’s songs on The Go-Betweens’ latest CD Oceans Apart, Boundary Rider, has been described as Cormac McCarthy-esque. And songs like The House that Jack Kerouac Built; Karen; and Here Comes a City; all mention authors’ names, and in Cattle and Cane the narrator remembers a time immersed in “a world of books”. And of course the name of the group conjures up The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley.
But it’s the quality of The Go-Betweens’ lyrics that most reflect a love of reading. So I asked the core of The Go-Betweens, singer-songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, about their favorite books.
On May 1, I attended the launch of The Go-Betweens’ ninth CD, Oceans Apart, (EMI), at Rocking Horse Records, in Albert Street, Brisbane, Australia. The Go-Betweens formed more than 27 years ago; their first single was Lee Remick on the Able Label, Australia, in May, 1978.
(The first time I saw them was in 1981, at the since-demolished Cloudland Ball Room in Bowen Hills, Brisbane, supporting The Sports, and Madness. I’ve also seen Robert Forster and Grant McLennan perform solo, and the re-formed Go-Betweens perform, at various pubs around The Valley area of Brisbane.)
Their romantic and intelligent guitar-based pop songs won over the critics and made some hardcore fans in the 1980s, but they’ve always been musicians’ musicians more than pop chart juggernauts.
Albums from the first Go-Betweens period include Send Me A Lullaby (1982); Before Hollywood (1983); Spring Hill Fair (1984); Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (1986); Tallulah (1987); and 16 Lovers Lane (1988).
After 16 Lovers Lane, The Go-Betweens split up.
During the 1990s, members of The Go-Betweens embarked on other recording projects.
The core of the band, singer-songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, produced a number of solo albums each. Then The Go-Betweens rematerialised in 2000, with new members, for their album The Friends of Rachel Worth.
This was followed by Bright Yellow, Bright Orange in 2002.
Now, Oceans Apart features 10 new songs, five each from Forster and McLennan.
People of various ages, some with toddlers and babies in prams, headed downstairs at Rocking Horse Records for the launch of the new cd on May 1.
Rocking Horse was a long-time source of independent music, like that of The Go-Betweens, in Brisbane. People were standing throughout the small room, surrounded by second-hand LPs lining the walls.
Then Robert Forster came down the stairs carrying a guitar. He said Grant McLennan was just behind him. The two then sat on a couple of chairs on a small stage area next to the stairs, and they thanked everyone for the welcoming applause.
Some people were sitting on the stairs looking down at the stage; one guy had a video camera. Some people around the room took photos.
Robert Forster said he had been informed that a plumber was going to do something about fixing the air conditioning, although he wasn’t sure plumbers knew much about that sort of thing. Grant McLennan said everyone would have to excuse them for a couple of minutes while they had the mics on their guitars, and for vocals, sound-checked. Eventually Grant McLennan said, “That’s good; we can work with that.”
Robert Forster said it made him and Grant very happy to be launching Oceans Apart in Brisbane. Then they started singing a couple of songs from the 10 track cd.
Between a couple of songs, Robert Forster looked at the two or three rows of toddlers sitting on the floor, just in front of the stage. He said he was glad to see so many of The Go-Betweens’ younger fans turn up, and that it boded well for sales of Go-Betweens cds in 20 years’ time.
They sang a couple of Go-Betweens classics like Cattle and Cane (1983),Spring Rain (1986), and Surfing Magazines (2001).
After the concert people formed a queue along the walls with their copies of Oceans Apart for Robert Forster and Grant McLennan to sign. Forster and McLennan stood behind the counter that ran along one wall, and people filed past with CDS and various Go-Betweens artefacts for signing. People brought old Go-Betweens LPs, rare singles, play lists from old concerts, magazines, Oceans Apart posters, and books.
Forster and McLennan would comment on the art work on old LPs, or talk about other people whose signatures were already on things, and they’d try to recognise people’s hand-writing.
They signed the objects with a silver marker, and they’d step around the end of the counter and sign t-shirts little kids were wearing, too.
When they’d finished signing the cds, and other Go-Betweens paraphernalia, I asked Robert Forster and Grant McLennan to list some of the titles of their favorite books of all time.
They came up with these lists:
Robert Forster:
Grant McLennan decided to focus on Australian writers.
- He liked The Service of Clouds by Delia Falconer;
- The Hunter by Julia Leigh;
- Snake by Kate Jennings;
- and Totem by Luke Davies (which he said was a long poem, and which he described as astonishing).
- He also liked American author Thomas McGuane’s Nobody’s Angel.
- I had met Grant McLennan before and he had said he liked the novel Father and Son by Larry Brown, plus Larry Brown’s short stories.
- He had also liked the biography Blake by Peter Ackroyd.
Fine works from the fine Polish poet, Czesław Miłosz.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (The New Cambridge Shakespeare) – Updated Edition
Cambridge University Press | ISBN:0521532523 | 2003 | PDF | 6 MB | 272 pages
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!
– Hamlet Act II, Sc. II
An incredibly well written, dark and complex work, “Hamlet” has never been bettered. Nor will it.
This is the best thing we were ever forced to study in school! This and advanced trigonometry, of course!
Hamlet is believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet’s father, the King, and then taken the throne and married Hamlet’s mother.
The play vividly charts the course of real and feigned madness—from overwhelming grief to seething rage—and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.
– Hamlet Act I, Sc. II
Philip Edwards deals succinctly with the exhaustive commentary and controversy which Hamlet has provoked in the manifestation of its tragic energy.
Robert Hapgood has contributed a new section on prevailing critical and performance approaches to the play in this updated edition. He discusses recent film and stage performances and actors of the Hamlet role as well as directors of the play.
His account of new scholarship stresses the role of memory in the play and the impact of feminist and performance studies upon it.
First Edition Hb (1985): 0-521-22151-X First Edition Pb (1985): 0-521-29366-9
Dante Alighieri “The Divine Comedy”
PDF | ISBN not applicable | 1894 | 233 pages | English | 1.5 MB
This is a majestic piece of literature.
A true classic, in all senses of the term.
[Lat., Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.]
Some words about this supreme work …..
Moreover, it is seen as one of the greatest works of all world literature.
The poem is written in the first person, and tells of Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting during the Easter Triduum in the spring of 1300.
The Roman poet Virgil, being a pagan, guides Dante through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante’s ideal woman, guides him through Heaven.
Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom Dante had met in childhood and admired from afar in the mode of the then-fashionable courtly love tradition which is highlighted in Dante’s earlier work La Vita Nuova.
The poem’s imaginative vision of the Christian afterlife is a culmination of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church.
More than 14,000 lines long, the Divine Comedy is composed of three canticas — Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) — each consisting of 33 cantos . There is also an initial canto which serves as an introduction to the poem (and is generally not considered to be part of the first cantica), bringing the total number of cantos to 100.
Password : goxstb933
Friedrich Nietzsche “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
PDF | ISBN not applicable | 1891 | 410 pages | English | 1.4 MB
Official … God is dead. Superman lives!
Well, this one’s a 19th-century literary masterpiece, which has proved to be tremendously influential not only in the realm of philosophy but also in the various fields of art.
The book employs the conceit of using Persian religious leader Zarathustra to voice the author’s views. These views include the introduction of the controversial doctrine of the Übermensch, or “superman,” a term later perverted by Nazi propagandists.
A passionate, quasi-biblical style is used by Freddy to inspire readers.
There’s no mention of Kryptonite though!
Password : GRxa72g
Check it out here: Dick in a Box
I’ve been reading The Penultimate Truth by Philip. K. Dick and I was struck by a number of things.
