This book follows the life of, Damien Shindelman and the bizarre series of events that shaped his unique personality and path to be coming a professional oboist. From his abusive grandmother, deplorable grade school years, to his early childhood adventures, his unique story is a cleverly woven saga that will leave you shocked, bemused, and openly laughing.

His jaded yet comical portrayals of all the instruments in the orchestra will give you a new perspective on life in the symphony orchestra. From fact to fiction, every instrument has it's roast, as well as the more interesting musicians in the ensemble.You will also be able to follow the history of the Phoenix Symphony with all its struggles, set backs, and triumphs, including all the varied conductors who have graced its stage over the past thirty years.

If you ever wanted to know the inside scoop on the Phoenix Symphony and the town itself, this is the book for you.

Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.
She has seen both these dreams come true.
At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon -- from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.
Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.
("Includes Special, Never-Before-Solicited Opinions on Breastfeeding, Princesses, Photoshop, the Electoral Process, and Italian Rum Cake )"

Cursum Perficio is the name of Marilyn Monroe's last home. "Cursum Perficio," the book, is author Gary Vitacco-Robles' exploration of Marilyn's last home as a touchstone to her brief and extraordinary life.

A definitive testament of Marilyn Monroe's modest nature, simple tastes and spirituality was her selection of a house in which to settle at age 35. The Spanish Colonial hacienda symbolizes Marilyn's unfulfilled dreams and unfinished life. The Latin inscription on the tiles adorning the front doorstep, Cursum Perficio (translating to "My journey ends"), prophesied the screen goddess' death in the home in 1962.

"Cursum Perficio" invites us inside Marilyn's private life through 120 illustrations and previously unpublished photos of her hacienda and its contents. See the interior, Marilyn's art and decorations purchased on a shopping spree in Mexico, and the furniture delivered days before her death. Vitacco-Robles reveals the events during Marilyn's last months, her daily routine, and her random acts of kindness.

"Cursum Perficio" is not a sensational exploitation of Marilyn Monroe but a celebration of the human being behind the legend. It is a rare and refreshing exploration for the most devout fan and an insightful introduction for those just discovering this enduring icon of the Twentieth Century. This expanded second edition contains added chapters and new images by Brandon Heidrick.

'Fascinating, harrowing, courageous, and deeply felt, these explorations of "dangerous stories", harmful past events and trials of the soul speak to all who've encountered dark waters and have had to navigate them.' Margaret Atwood Sarah Polley's work as an actor, screenwriter and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity and deep humanity. She brings all those qualities, along with her exquisite storytelling skills, to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley's life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory and the embodied reactions of children and women adapting and surviving. The guiding light is the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. In this extraordinary book, Polley explores what it is to live in one's body, in a constant state of becoming, learning and changing. As she was advised after a catastrophic head injury - if we relinquish our protective crouch and run towards the danger, then life can be reset, reshaped and lived afresh. '[Polley is] a stunningly sophisticated observer of the world and an imperfect witness to the truth.' New York Times

Are you a country music fan, or a blues, folk, jazz, or rock fan? Better make that "Are you a music fan?"

This is a true story of man - a real pioneer - who was driven to capture the music that came to form the basis of today's popular music. Art Satherley is referred to in many a biographies of stars from yesteryear.

He was born in 1889 in Bristol, England. This Bristolian travelled the southern states of America recording real American music. He said it was like the music from home. No place was too far or too distant for him to take his primitive recording equipment. He used school halls log cabins, hotels, anywhere - even a funeral parlour - as locations to record. Blues artists such as Ma Rainy, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and W. C. Handy were on his recording log, this list could be a hundred names long. Then, there were the hillbilly, down-home country folk, another long list of now legendary names, ranging from Gene Autry to Roy Acuff to Marty Robbins, that Art Satherley was responsible for.

Arthur worked for the great inventor Thomas Edison at the Wisconsin Chair ompany before being installed as recording manager at the company's record-pressing plant called the New York Recording Laboratory, which included Paramount records as one of its labels. Uncle Art Satherley eventually became vice president of Columbia Records, retiring in 1952, and the history and development of the recording industry are intertwined with Art's captivating professional journey

Uncle Art's story is told in it's entirety for the first time in Uncle Art by a fellow Bristolian and musician Alan John Britton. Britton includes his own background and the discovery of this fascinating story. It includes Arthur's childhood and schooling and some history of Bristol and the important role that the city's port played in the movement of settlers and trade to the New World.

At one gilded moment in history, his fame was so great that he was known the world over by his nickname alone: Rubi. Pop songs were written about him. Women whom he had never met offered to leave their husbands for him. He had an eye for feminine beauty, particularly when it came with great wealth: Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke, Eva Peron, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. But he was a man's man as well, polo player and race-car driver, chumming around with the likes of Joe Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Oleg Cassini, Aly Khan, and King Farouk. He was also a jewel thief, and an intimate of one of the world's most bloodthirsty dictators. And when he died at the age of fifty-six--wrapping his sports car around a tree in the Bois de Boulogne--a glamorous era of white dinner jackets at El Morocco and celebrity for its own sake died along with him.

He was one of a kind, the last of his breed. And in The Last Playboy, author Shawn Levy brings the giddy, hedonistic, and utterly remarkable story of Porfirio Rubirosa to glorious Technicolor life.

"Do you think you could teach Rock Hudson to talk like you do?"

The question came from famed Hollywood director George Stevens, and an affirmative answer propelled Bob Hinkle into a fifty-year career in Hollywood as a speech coach, actor, producer, director, and friend to the stars. Along the way, Hinkle helped Rock Hudson, Dennis Hopper, Carroll Baker, and Mercedes McCambridge talk like Texans for the 1956 epic film "Giant." He also helped create the character Jett Rink with James Dean, who became a best friend, and he consoled Elizabeth Taylor personally when Dean was killed in a tragic car accident before the film was released.

A few years later, Paul Newman asked Hinkle to do for him what he'd done for James Dean. The result was Newman's powerful portrayal of a Texas no-good in the Academy Award-winning film "Hud" (1963). Hinkle could--and did--stop by the LBJ Ranch to exchange pleasantries with the president of the United States. He did likewise with Elvis Presley at Graceland. Good friends with Robert Wagner, Hinkle even taught Wagner's wife Natalie Wood how to throw a rope. He appeared in numerous television series, including "Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Dragnet, and Walker, Texas Ranger." On a handshake, he worked as country music legend Marty Robbins's manager, and he helped Evel Knievel rise to fame.

From his birth in Brownfield, Texas, to a family so poor "they could only afford a tumbleweed as a pet," Hinkle went on to gain acclaim in Hollywood. Through it all, he remained the salty, down-to-earth former rodeo cowboy from West Texas who could talk his way into--or out of--most any situation. More than forty photographs, including rare behind-the-scenes glimpses of the stars Hinkle met and befriended along the way, complement this rousing, never-dull memoir.

Wild Geese - Cheerleaders Code is the story of a group of high school students - a cheerleading team - who live on a quiet simple island. Then, when they're faced with a supremely difficult challenge - taking on a violent gang - they must show what they're truly made of. Hope you enjoy it, and take inspiration from it.

Offering insight into the creative processes of a contemporary composer, "Tinman" presents 150 vignettes from author David Cope's life. Some of the notable individuals discussed in this innovative biography are John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, Warren Zevon, Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, Douglas Hofstadter, Arthur Knight, Danny Glover, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Dorothy Freeman, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Philip Jos Farmer. "Tinman" offers a fond music journey including two encounters with Bach, Rachmaninoff's classic "Prelude in isharp minor," Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony," Pierre Boulez, and the sadness of Igor Stravinsky's death.
The title, borrowed from L. Frank Baum's book "The Wizard of Oz," is an aphorism affectionately attached to Cope in the late 1990s. The reference reflects the many attitudes about his work with his computer music program, "Experiments in Musical Intelligence"; critics felt the results of this program lack heart.
Though "Tinman" covers many other aspects of Cope's life-from his love of the cello, to his days as a graduate student at the University of Southern California, and to his work as a composer, author, and teacher-the main theme centers on his search for self-identity.

Choice Magazine (a major library review magazine): "After an introductory section on the history of the piano, particularly as reflected in and influenced by works of the major composers for the instrument, this interesting and informative book describes various compositional "schools," from Austro-German, French, and Italian through English, American, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and others. This section constitutes a brief course in music history beginning with the Renaissance. ... The body of the work consists of historical and stylistic sketches of 17 composers, with brief remarks about several works of each, and lists of selected works, ending with a complete work or movement. These sketches are exceptionally well written, assuming an intelligent reader, and convey a great deal of information concisely.... this book contains much well-organized and useful material. For libraries serving serious amateur pianists, high school upward. ****************** Booklist (The book review magazine of the American Library Association): This authoritative volume will make a solid addition to the public library music collection. After offering a brief opening chapter on the evolution of the piano as instrument and the changing styles of technique, author Pat Hammond provides opinionated but well-reasoned analyses of the works of the major piano composers, with focus on the Baroque era (Bach and Handel), the Classical age (Haydn, Mozart Beethoven), Romanticism (Schubert, Chopin Liszt, and others), Impressionism (Debussy) and Modernism (Bartok). This book's unique feature is its inclusion of musical examples of each composer's work, which are meant to be played as one reads along. Pertinent biographical material is also featured for the great masters. Appendixes include a suggested twentieth-century piano repertoire and a bibliography. Piano music - Bibliography ******************* Clavier Magazine "Compiled and annotated by Patricia Fallows-Hammond. Suitable as a reference source, this handbook supplies concise biographical and stylistic sketches of composers and annotation of selected compositions. ... Fallows-Hammond has a knack for setting and maintaining an appropriate level of sophistication. Writing in a crisp, direct style, she steers the student toward complicated subjects and gives them a palpable hold on them. To explain the concept of the concerto grosso, for example, she explains that, "In Handel's time, Concerto Crosso meant a small group of instruments playing in contrast to a larger body of strings." Her synopsis of the development of sonata form is equally apt....Commentary on the composers is well-researched and written at a uniform level of detail that will make it useful to a wide audience....Fallows-Hammond does a good job of compiling accurate information on the composers she has chosen. If the contents of the book serve your purposes, you will find this handbook a handy reference source. " **************** The American Organist "The author has created a self-instruction course which gives information about the evolution of the piano and changing styles in piano technique, and then discusses topics with emphasis on special composers: ..... Piano students seeking background information will profit from this book. Recommended for public libraries." ******************** Keyboard Magazine "Patricia Fallow-Hammond's 302 page study embraces the proposition that historical context is an important, and frequently neglected, element in building an understanding of classical repertoire. .... she has assembled a fairly basic catalogue of keyboard works, arranged chronologically by composer, and preceded each list with a short biography relating milestones from each composer's life. ....... Her decision to further enlighten the reader with short samples of their handiwork is a happy extra addition. Her efficiency at summarizing and packaging that line is what makes her debut in print a success."

It was Boston in the 1960's - a time when nightclubs, bars and lounges had the city alive at night and a good time could continue after hours; and when entertainers frequented the city taking advantage of the climate. Add the world of the sporting life and Boston's deceiving glamour could not be denied.. In the middle of it all were five best friends, known as "squares," who attended high school by day and received a far different education by night. The girls rode in Cadillacs, drank in bars and explored their sexuality. They made a pact to just have fun and ignore the rest. Their fun was innocent, but the culture wasn't. Their values would be tested. As consequences arise for the girls, prices must inevitably be paid.

"Alan Ball: Conversations" features interviews that span Alan Ball's entire career and include detailed observations and insights into his Academy Award-winning film "American Beauty" and Emmy Award-winning television shows "Six Feet Under" and "True Blood." Ball began his career as a playwright in New York, and his work soon caught the attention of Hollywood television producers. After writing for the sitcoms "Grace Under Fire" and "Cybill," Ball turned his attention to the screenplay that would become "American Beauty." The critical success of this film opened up exciting possibilities for him in the realm of television. He created the critically acclaimed show "Six Feet Under," and after the series finale, he decided to explore the issue of American bigotry toward the Middle East in his 2007 play "All That I Will Ever Be" and the film "Towelhead," which he adapted and directed in the same year. Ball returned to television once again with the series "True Blood"--an adaptation of the humorous, entertaining, and erotic world of Charlaine Harris's vampire novels. In 2012 Ball announced that he would step down as executive producer of "True Blood," in part, to produce both a new television series and his latest screenplay, "What's the Matter with Margie?"