|
Showing 1 - 8 of
8 matches in All Departments
The hero of this book was working in a coal mine at age twelve.
Despite his lack of education, he pulled himself up to become a
highly successful businessman. There is something quintessentially
heroic about defying the hopeless hand one was dealt . . . and
turning it into straight aces. The fact that our hero John lost it
all on another gamble just makes him more truly human and fragile.
"From pride, from greed, he fell anew; by woman's wiles was pierced
through. Like Icarus, he flew too high and tried too hard to touch
the sky."
Take an unusual and wry look at the mass media by joining an
industry insider who recalls the high and low points of an almost
forty-year career.Alan J. Yates, a media professional and academic,
dissects the media business as a consumer, theorist, and
participant. He observes that we tend to be literate when it comes
to information technology but often illiterate regarding media
process and impact.As Yates looks back over his career, he shares
personal anecdotes and lessons learned on the front lines of the
business. He also examines a multitude of issues, including:
various connotations of the truth; ways to improve the training of
media professionals; strategies to break into the news business and
further your career.The physical nature and infrastructure of the
media constantly changes, and as technology becomes faster,
smaller, and handier, the media can begin to have insidious
influences. Yates emphasizes the importance of knowing what to
guard against in this fast-changing world.Whether you are an
observer of the media, a participant, or a student, in " Mirror
Images " you'll find an honest assessment of the media's history,
future, and impact on the world.
Turn, Mill, Turn recounts the cautionary tale of author Alan J.
Yates's bid to restore a mill in southwestern France. We all have
our dreams-our castles in the sky. Some of them have been harbored
for a long time in the deepest recesses of the soul. Most of these
dreams may never be fulfilled. During the long, cold Canadian
winters, Yates dreamed of resting his weary bones in a sleepy
little village in southwestern France. He longed to spend his
retirement writing in a restored water mill, inspired by Schubert
Lieder and romantic literature. Fluent in French after living for
two decades in Quebec, Yates set out to realize his dream. He
expected to blend seamlessly into French rural culture. But things
don't always go as planned, and his long-pursued dream turned into
a nightmare of bureaucracy, escalating costs, outrageous local
characters, gossip-mongering, and outright bigotry. What should
have had all the makings of an enchanting Year in Provence turned
into a bitter, yet hilarious introduction to French rural life
closer to a contemporary but outsider's version of Chevalier's
classic satire on French village life, Clochemerle-les-Bains.
Flickerings is not just an unusual and multi-faceted collection of
the author's poetry. While he uses the poetry form to tackle often
disturbing themes, such as the search for the meaning of life,
death among family and friends and even large social issues such as
consumerism and the environment, he does so with delicacy, wry
humour and, through, a love of the musicality of the 'language' of
poetry. Nor is this anthology of his works by theme a mere
collection of different thematic topics, poetic forms and
structures, but it offers a discussion of the medium of poetry
itself. Yates has an extensive background in the communications
field and has written for print and broadcasting, as well as
teaching Communications and writing. In an introduction to the
collection, he attempts to define the medium of poetry, both as an
art form and as a medium of communication. As he puts it, not every
writer can write deathless and beautiful prose..."so, sometimes,
especially in moments of personal indulgence, some of us write
poetry instead. For, in poetry, there are no holds barred. Mystery
is the staple of the medium and music is the staff on which it is
most often written...there is hardly any point in resorting to the
poetic form if the result just looks and sounds like a shipwrecked
fragment from a novel. What the poem can-and too rarely does- is to
convey a subject or experience more lyrically, perhaps less
explicitly and, ideally, in a nutshell. The poem should also have
the potential to produce resonances or recognitions in the reader
about similar ideas or experiences...and, failing such recognition,
the reader can at least enjoy the mystery and the music..." And he
concludes, "...prose is most often concerned with the denotative
and explicit, while poetry relies more on the connotative and
implicit...delving into the inner dimension...the more private and
mysterious one of the senses themselves-of the 'mindscape,' if you
wish." This, the author illustrates with his anthology and,
especially, with the poem "Flickerings," from which the book takes
its title.
"The work explores the notion that we are all perceptually branded
by the experiences and milieu of early childhood. The author
illustrates this with tales set in his native Edinburgh, Scotland
during the 1940s and 1950s. Through a series of adventures and
misadventures, the young protagonist makes discoveries about life
and people, ranging from the inconsistencies and contradictions of
adult behavior to learning about mortality. In one episode, the
young lad is tricked into having his tonsils removed. As he grows
older, he learns about betrayal by adults and authority figures.
Poems that reinforce each of these learning themes introduce each
chapter and the use of local dialect sharpens the sense of location
and social milieu. Exploring the universal themes of the innocence
of childhood, Figs of the Imagination illustrates how much we are a
product of the formative years and how these key life experiences
prepare children to become adults."
W.O. Mitchell's "Jake & The Kid" captivated radio audiences in
the days before television and enjoyed ratings that rivalled those
for the radio broadcasts of the CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada."
These homespun tales about the hired hand, Jake Trumper and his
sidekick, The Kid, explored very human stories about life on the
often cruel Prairies of Saskatchewan in a humorous vein that made a
household name for the series across the breadth of Canada.
Although he wrote many novels, most notably " Who Has Seen the
Wind," featured during the ceremonies at the 2010 Vancouver
Olympics, Mitchell was as well known for these folksy plays. They
enabled him to hone his writing craft in a mass medium, when few
other outlets were available; to tackle social issues of the day
with a light hand, and to develop many of the themes he would
explore in his later novels. This study analyzes these popular
radio plays, their Prairie and literary roots, the production
process and their contribution and critical reception.
|
You may like...
Home Body
Rupi Kaur
Paperback
(1)
R265
Discovery Miles 2 650
|