The time is 1887. From any window in Georgia O'Keeffe's Sun Prairie, Wisconsin birthplace home she only saw the Wisconsin prairie with its traces of roads veering around the flat marshlands and a vast sky that lifted her soul. At twelve years of age Georgia had a defining moment when she declared, "I want to be an artist." Years later from her east-facing window in Canyon, Texas she observed the Texas Panhandle sky with its focus points on the plains and a great canyon of earth history colors streaking across the flat land. Georgia's love of the vast, colorful prairie, plains and sky again gave definition to her life when she discovered Ghost Ranch north of Abiquiu, New Mexico. She fell prey to its charms which were not long removed from the echoes of the "Wild West." These views of prairie, plains and sky became Georgia's muses as she embarked on her step-by-step path with her role models--Alon Bement, Arthur Jerome Dow and Wassily Kandinsky. In this two-part biography of which this is Part I covering the period 1887-1945, Nancy Hopkins Reily "walks the Sun Prairie Land," as if in Georgia's day as a prologue to her family's friendship with Georgia in the 1940s and 1950s. Reily chronicles Georgia's defining days within the arenas of landscape, culture, people and the history surrounding each, a discourse level that Georgia would easily recognize. The book includes bibliographical references and indes. NANCY HOPKINS REILY was a classic outdoor color portraitist for more than twenty years and has taught portrait workshops at Angelina College in Lufkin, Texas where she had a one-woman show of her portraits. Her advance studies included an invitational workshop with Ansel Adams. Reily graduated from Southern Methodist University and lives in Lufkin, Texas. She is also the author of "Classic Outdoor Color Portraits" and "Joseph Imhof, Artist of the Pueblos," both from Sunstone Press.

We developed reputations real fast. We treated our entertainers right. We got them paid. Other agents and promoters and managers showed them the money. We got them the money. We brought respect to the African American artist in America. We brought them prestige. We really cared about our artists and those who worked for us, and it was obvious because we fought like hell for them. So when you listen to some of that music today an Otis Redding record or Percy Sledge or anyone from our shop you re not just hearing music but also the sound of iron being hammered and bricks being laid for those especially African Americans who are in the business today. Southern Man is the memoir of a life in music during one of the most racially turbulent times in American history. It presents the voice of Alan Walden a remarkable, sensitive, humble, and brilliant man; a boy from the country who, serendipitously, along with his brother Phil and best friend Otis Redding, helped to nurture a musical renaissance. It is the story of a son of Macon, Georgia, and his passion for R&B and rock n roll at a time when it took wits and a Southern persistence to overcome the obstacles on the hard scrabble road to success the tragedy of loss, disappointment, and betrayal, along with the joy of victory, optimism, and hope and taking a dream right over the mountain. That dream led him to work with and nurture the talents of a virtual who s who of Southern music, from Sam & Dave and Percy Sledge to Boz Scaggs and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Anyone who was alive during the golden age of R&B and Southern rock remembers the music, but Alan s narrative invites the reader to the centre of the story, into the studio and on the road, to backroom deals and backroom brawls. It wasn t always peaches and cream. The music business is tough, and Alan Walden was one of the toughest kids on the street. He had to be, in order to survive in a world of guitars, guts, and guns. This is rock n roll noir the story of a few pioneers who cut the rock and laid the pipe under the hard scrabble terrain so that the water of creativity can more freely flow today.

Cleveland, 1910: For a poor girl whose father has abandoned her, the prospect of becoming an artist is almost non-existent. But Bernice Abbott is resourceful and will happily challenge convention in order to succeed. Setting out to fulfill her dream, she embarks on a journey that will take her from bohemian Greenwich Village to the giddy cafes of 1920s Paris to a New York rising from the ashes of the Great Depression. On the way, illness and a tragic romance test her mettle, but a lucky coincidence leads her to the emerging art form of photography. Transforming herself from `dull' Bernice to cosmopolitan Berenice, she sets the tone for life as a portrait photographer in the Paris of Hemingway and Picasso, and prepares to take on the men who are threatened by her vision and strength.

With Danny Turner, Stansberry uses an epistolary to advance, color, and develop characters created in his two earlier novels, So Sings The Chattahoochee and 234 Whitehall. The book focuses on Danny Turner, high school friend of Dewey Favers, and the Campbellton children whose relationships were so solidly formed back in that magical summer of 1912. Watch for the companion book, Dewey Favers: Aviator Angel which contains the other side of this conversation. Coming soon. The book is a collection of letters detailing a year in the life of minor league baseball star Danny Turner, as he is called up to the majors for a glorious season with the 1926 St. Louis Cardinals......the eventual World Series Champions. Perhaps life, is more important, and surprising, than baseball?

Offers a brief description of the life and career of the popular country and western singer, and includes interviews and an evaluation of Williams' music.

From Neal Gabler, the definitive portrait of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American entertainment and cultural history.
Seven years in the making and meticulously researched--Gabler is the first writer to be given complete access to the Disney archives--this is the full story of a man whose work left an ineradicable brand on our culture but whose life has largely been enshrouded in myth.
Gabler shows us the young Walt Disney breaking free of a heartland childhood of discipline and deprivation and making his way to Hollywood. We see the visionary, whose desire for escape honed an innate sense of what people wanted to see on the screen and, when combined with iron determination and obsessive perfectionism, led him to the reinvention of animation. It was Disney, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films--most notably "Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, "and "Bambi--"who transformed animation from a novelty based on movement to an art form that presented an illusion of life."
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We see him reimagine the amusement park with Disneyland, prompting critics to coin the word "Disneyfication" to describe the process by which reality can be modified to fit one's personal desires. At the same time, he provided a new way to connect with American history through his live-action films and purveyed a view of the country so coherent that even today one can speak meaningfully of "Walt Disney's America." We see how the True-Life Adventure nature documentaries he produced helped create the environmental movement by sensitizing the general public to issues of conservation. And we see how he reshaped the entertainment industry by building a synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise in a way that was unprecedented and was later widely imitated.
Gabler also reveals a wounded, lonely, and often disappointed man, who, despite worldwide success, was plagued with financial problems much of his life, suffered a nervous breakdown, and at times retreated into pitiable seclusion in his workshop making model trains. Gabler explores accusations that Disney was a red-baiter, an anti-Semite, an embittered alcoholic. But whatever the characterizations of Disney's personal life, he appealed to the nation by demonstrating the power of wish fulfillment and the triumph of the American imagination. Walt Disney showed how one could impose one's will on the world.
This is a masterly biography, a revelation of both the work and the man--of both the remarkable accomplishment and the hidden life

The first book in twenty-five years from Jerry Seinfeld features his best work across five decades in comedy. Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub Catch a Rising Star as a twenty-one-year-old student in autumn of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything. 'Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation, or working it out on my preferred canvas - the big yellow legal pad - I kept it in one of those old-school accordion folders,' Seinfeld writes. 'So I have everything I thought was worth saving from forty-five years of hacking away at this for all I was worth.' For this book, Jerry Seinfeld has selected his favourite material, organised decade by decade. In page after hilarious page, one brilliantly crafted observation after another, readers will witness the evolution of one of the great comedians of our time and gain new insights into the thrilling but unforgiving art of writing stand-up comedy.

Autobiography. How relationships enhanced my life.

This is a man's journey through addiction and his quest for recovery. It is a story of hope, faith and strength that will lead one man from the pits of despair to the heights of recovery, and through that process find himself and his calling: to help others find their way.

It is 1965, and Swinging London is coming into its prime years. The streets are alive with mods and rockers, playboys and good-time girls, all revelling in the blossoming artistic, creative and cultural energies of the decade. Amid the colour and chaos is a boy sporting drainpipe jeans, an immaculately tailored sports coat and a half-inch wide tie. A devoted fan of The Who, he looks the part in his pristine mod gear. As the lead singer of the Lower Third, his talent is shaping itself into something truly special. His name is Davie Jones. In ten years, he will be unrecognisable as fresh-faced boy of 1965, and in just over fifty years, his death will be mourned by millions, his legacy the story of the greatest rock star of all time. And through Bowie's transition from pop group member to solo performer, Phil Lancaster was by his side. As the drummer in Bowie's band, the Lower Third, Phil was there as the singer's musical stripes began to show, and was witness to his early recording techniques, his first experimental forays into drug-taking, and the band's discovery of his bisexuality in shocking circumstances. In this riveting - and often very funny - memoir, Phil tells the story of life alongside the insecure yet blazingly talented boy who became Bowie, at a critical crossroad of time and place in music history. What follows is an intimate, personal and important perspective on the genesis of one of the most iconic musicians of the twentieth century - one that gets under the skin of the man himself, before the personas and alter-egos masked the fascinating figure beneath them. At the Birth of Bowie is essential reading for anyone who knows what happened on Bowie's journey, but wants to understand how, and why, it ever began.

Anyone who aspires to lead and be successful in any endeavor will profit from reading the Joe Francis story. No matter what your goals might be, you can bet that Joe Francis would encourage and support them in any way he could, even if you were a competitor of his. His credo, to make a poor man rich, came to fruition while he tread his journey and it is indelibly printed in the hearts of many of those who did become rich as a result of following Joe s lead.
Joe Francis had an iron core but was a kind and gentle man with an abundance of dignity and class. His passion was fueled by his love for his wife Flo, who was with him every inch of the way, providing new wind under wings as he faced challenges that seemed to be insurmountable.

Lillian Russell was the Victorian era's symbol of talent, charm, and beauty. She was introduced by impresario Tony Pastor in 1880, and was considered an emblem of feminine beauty until the turn of the century. Although her voice still set a standard of excellence, by that time America's vision of loveliness had changed, and her middle-aged body could not meet the new challenge on the musical stage. Russell responded with extraordinary resilience. She adapted with the times and became the Igrande dameR of the American theatre in non-musical plays, burlesque, variety, and the lecture circuit. She wrote widely-read newspaper columns in which she pioneered an optimistic philosophy of self-help, and she used her numerous connections to champion the causes that she held dear.

Carefully researched, this reference book is a comprehensive and thoroughly documented guide to Lillian Russell's life and career. A biography places her in the social and cultural context of her time and adds previously ignored information about her parents, birth, coming-of-age in the Midwest, early career, daughter, and death. A chronology then gives a detailed listing of events in her life and career. The chapters that follow are devoted to her many performances. Entries in each section provide cast and credit information, plot synopses, review excerpts, and critical commentary. Several appendices offer additional information about her work, and an extensive annotated bibliography lists sources of additional information.

Feathers of Color What it was like playing the Famous BigBird " An American Icon" is about the journey of a man who became one of the world's biggest stars. In this book Lionel Douglass shares the days before he reached stardom as the Sesame Street character, and the book will touch on several phases of his life, giving you a glimpse of his life's paths. This book will make you realize that we all have a destiny. Part of Lionel's destiny was to secure a spot in history, and join the ranks of those who have been affiliated with one of the biggest television shows for children. This book touches upon the life of a middle-class, small-town boy with dreams, which were answered as a young-adult by becoming one of the famous Bigbirds, on stage and screen. Learn the interesting story of how Lionel became one of the famous Bigbirds, and how Jim Henson, Caroll Spinney, Anita Mann, as well as Kermit Love helped school and condition him to represent and portray the work of this Muppet great Travel along with Lionel and find out how he was snubbed by members of the Sesame Street organization despite his vital contributions to the show's survival. Ride with him, and share his journey as he tells the world about a dreamer who embraced the opportunity to become one of the world's largest icons, and some of his fascinating adventures along the way. Just sit back and relax, and enjoy Lionel Douglass' story of an African American who relished the chance to portray such a world-renowned icon.

William Forsythe s reinvigoration of classical ballet during his 20-year tenure at the Ballett Frankfurt saw him lauded as one of the greatest choreographers of the postwar era. His current work with The Forsythe Company has gone even further to challenge and investigate fundamental assumptions about choreography itself.

William Forsythe and the Practice of Choreography presents a diverse range of critical writings on his work, with illuminating analysis of his practice from an interdisciplinary perspective. The book also contains insightful working testaments from Forsythe s collaborators, as well as a contribution from the choreographer himself.

With essays covering all aspects of Forsythe s past and current work, readers are provided with an unparalleled view into the creative world of this visionary artist, as well as a comprehensive resource for students, scholars, and practitioners of ballet and contemporary dance today.