This is an introductory book about the history and contemporary usage of the Chinese language. Chinese is generally considered a difficult language. It is also a fascinating and important language that cannot be ignored. A growing number of English speakers are learning the Chinese language to the enrichment of their lives and the admiration of their friends. Chinese does, however, present a number of challenges. Written Chinese looks like a random set of stroke, dots and dashes. In its handwritten form, it looks like a series of undifferentiated squiggles. Spoken Chinese sounds like a rapid series of almost identical monosyllables with rising and falling intonations. This book is a contemporary introduction to the modern Chinese language as it is used in China during the first few years of the twenty-first century. China has changed so much and so dramatically over the past century, and indeed over the past twenty years, and these changes are reflected in the language. Textbooks written only twenty years ago are now quite quaint. Much information on the actual use of putonghua (Mandarin Chinese), the use of dialects or various romanization systems is now out of date. The aim of this book is to present current realities. China is a country with a long history, and to understand modern China we must know something of its past. The same applies to the language. Earlier stages of Chinese still have a deep influence on the current language, and we should at least be aware of such influences. This book is not a language textbook for those wishing to learn Chinese. It does not try to teach the Chinese language. It is a book about Chinese. It has been written for people who are thinking of taking up Chinese and would like some insights into what they are letting themselves in for. As the Chinese strategist, Sunzi said, "zhi ji zhi bi, bai zhan bai sheng."--"Know yourself and know the other: a hundred battles, a hundred victories." The same applies to learning Chinese.

Discover the thrilling exploits of this unlikely hero in China's most famous traditional novel. This classic Chinese epic tells the story of the Monkey King, his incredible origin and downfall, and his epic quest to redeem himself with his trusted companions, as they face fantastic foes, demons, and monsters and during their travels to the Western paradise. The talented, wily Monkey King was used to getting what he wanted--unimaginable strength, eternal life, even a position in the Celestial Realm with the gods. But his mischief gets him into trouble, the Monkey King finds himself wanting to be good and strong enough to help the monk Xuanzang on his mission to bring Buddhist Scriptures--and enlightenment--to China. Readers will thrill to Timothy Richard's retelling of the Monkey King's exploits, whether in the Dragon King's underwater castle, the Halls of the Dead, or the palace of Buddha himself. Featuring a detailed introduction by scholar Daniel Kane, this edition of The Money King's Amazing Adventures is sure to delight readers of all ages.

'Ostentation of Peacock' is, in Kane's own words, 'a serial poem inspired by a vision of a peacock, occasionally interupted by pedestrian vignettes and prophetic flashes'.

During the late 1960s, throughout the 1970s, and into the 1980s, New York City poets and musicians played together, published each other, and inspired one another to create groundbreaking art. In "Do You Have a Band?", Daniel Kane reads deeply across poetry and punk music to capture this compelling exchange and its challenge to the status of the visionary artist, the cultural capital of poetry, and the lines dividing sung lyric from page-bound poem. Kane reveals how the new sounds of proto-punk and punk music found their way into the poetry of the 1960s and 1970s downtown scene, enabling writers to develop fresh ideas for their own poetics and performance styles. Likewise, groups like The Fugs and the Velvet Underground drew on writers as varied as William Blake and Delmore Schwartz for their lyrics. Drawing on a range of archival materials and oral interviews, Kane also shows how and why punk musicians drew on and resisted French Symbolist writing, the vatic resonance of the Beat chant, and, most surprisingly and complexly, the New York Schools of poetry. In bringing together the music and writing of Richard Hell, Patti Smith, and Jim Carroll with readings of poetry by Anne Waldman, Eileen Myles, Ted Berrigan, John Giorno, and Dennis Cooper, Kane provides a fascinating history of this crucial period in postwar American culture and the cultural life of New York City.

By the mid-1960s, New American poets and Underground filmmakers had established a vibrant community. Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, and Frank O'Hara joined Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, and Andy Warhol to hang out, make films, read poems, fight censorship, end racism, and shut down the Vietnam War. Their personal, political, and artistic collaborations led them to rethink the moving picture and the lyric, resulting in an extraordinary profusion of poetry/film hybrids.
Drawing on unpublished correspondences and personal interviews with key figures in the innovative poetry and film communities, Daniel Kane's stunningly erudite and accessible work not only provides a fresh look at avant-garde poetry and film but also encourages readers to rethink the artistic scenes of the 1960s and today. "We Saw the Light "will reframe the very way we talk about how film influences poetry and force us to think anew about the radical ways in which art is created and in turn influences subsequent work.