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Discover one of the world s most fascinating and beautiful cities
through 30 dramatic true stories spanning the rich history of
Paris. John Baxter takes readers through 2,000 years of French
history with tales of the kings, queens, saints, and sinners who
shaped the city. Essays explore the major historic events from the
martyrdom of Saint Denis near today s Abbesses Metro station to the
epic romances of Heloise and Abelard, Josephine and Napoleon, and
George Sand and Frederic Chopin. Learn about the labyrinth of
catacombs snaking under all of Paris and the artists who called the
seedy Montmartre home in the 19th century. Then see it all for
yourself with guided walking tours of each of Paris s historic
neighborhoods, illustrated with color photographs and period maps."
First published in 1980. At their most successful, Shakespeare's
styles are strategies to make plain the limits of thought and
feeling which define the significance of human actions. John Baxter
analyses the way in which these limits are reached, and also
provides a strong argument for the idea that the power of
Shakespearean drama depends upon the co-operation of poetic style
and dramatic form. Three plays are examined in detail in the text:
The Tragedy of Mustapha by Fulke Greville and Richard II and
Macbeth by Shakespeare.
Thrust into the unlikely role of professional "literary walking
tour" guide, an expat writer provides the most irresistibly witty
and revealing tour of Paris in years.
In this enchanting memoir, acclaimed author and long- time Paris
resident John Baxter remembers his yearlong experience of giving
"literary walking tours" through the city. Baxter sets off with
unsuspecting tourists in tow on the trail of Paris's legendary
artists and writers of the past. Along the way, he tells the
history of Paris through a brilliant cast of characters: the
favorite cafes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James
Joyce; Pablo Picasso's underground Montmartre haunts; the bustling
boulevards of the late-nineteenth-century flaneurs; the secluded
"Little Luxembourg" gardens beloved by Gertrude Stein; the alleys
where revolutionaries plotted; and finally Baxter's own favorite
walk near his home in Saint-Germain-des-Pres.
Following the popular Chronicles of Old Paris, in The Golden
Moments of Paris, John Baxter has uncovered more fascinating true
stories about the characters that gave Paris its character in the
years between World War I and World War II. Explore more about one
of the world's most beautiful and loved cities in twenty-six
fact-filled, humorous, and dramatic stories about the famed Annees
Folles--the Crazy Years at the turn of the 20th century in Paris.
Learn about Gertrude Stein and her famous writers' salon, Salvador
Dali and the Surrealists, the birth of Chanel No. 5, and the antics
of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the lost generation.
Then see what these areas look like today by following along on the
guided walking tours of Paris's historic neighborhoods and the
cafes, clubs, and brothels that were home to the intellectuals,
artists, and Bohemians, illustrated with color photographs and
period maps. If you enjoyed Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris,
you'll love this book.
The hey-day of the British gypsy caravan was short, only about 70
years, during which period it grew from a simple utility vehicle,
blossomed and flourished as a mobile work of art, then disappeared
from common sight. These caravans were masterpieces of woodcraft
and design, and the best of them cost as much as a small house.
Unlike any small house, almost half the cost was in the decoration.
This beautifully illustrated book presents the different types of
caravan and the great variety of art which was carved and painted
upon them and their brothers-in-transport, the old narrowboats.
While there were certain rules and conventions of style, the
decoration on and in all the types was ultimately governed only by
how much money could be spent. The caravan in particular was the
supreme status symbol among travelling people and its art the prime
means for expressing where one stood in the world.
For generations of film and theatre audiences, Charles Boyer was
the archetypal Frenchman - cultured, courteous, seductive, yet
never quite at home in a culture not his own. Even his murmuring
baritone voice echoed that loss, giving him the very essence of
romance. While one might have expected that the real-life Boyer was
a playboy and serial seducer, in reality, he was intensely private,
thoughtful, and fidelitous in love - and very professionally
astute. The Great Lover is the first biography of Boyer to exist in
English in almost forty years. In an insightful analysis of Boyer's
choice of roles during and after World War II, author John Baxter
reveals how Boyer, realizing his accent would always mark him as an
outsider, both embraced and subverted that identity. Baxter relates
how Boyer established himself in the theatre and cinema of France,
confidently transitioning from silent film to sound and making a
name for himself as a romantic leading man in Hollywood through the
early 1940s. During World War II, Boyer put his career on hold to
become politically active on behalf of his occupied home country.
Upon returning to acting, Baxter shows how Boyer adapted
effortlessly to postwar character roles in both Europe and the
United States. He entered television in the 1950s as producer and
performer, and then remade himself as a comedy performer in the
1960s. A four-time Academy Award nominee, he was honored by the
Academy only once for his activities on behalf of France during
World War II. Far from clinging to the performances that made him
famous, Boyer showed a readiness to break the mold. Yet above all,
Baxter argues that Boyer's greatest achievement lies in being the
embodiment of exiles everywhere.
First published in 1980. At their most successful, Shakespeare's
styles are strategies to make plain the limits of thought and
feeling which define the significance of human actions. John Baxter
analyses the way in which these limits are reached, and also
provides a strong argument for the idea that the power of
Shakespearean drama depends upon the co-operation of poetic style
and dramatic form. Three plays are examined in detail in the text:
The Tragedy of Mustapha by Fulke Greville and Richard II and
Macbeth by Shakespeare.
The most complete account yet of one of the most original and
stimulating film-makers of the post-war years: Paths of Glory, Dr
Strangelove, Lolita, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The
Shining, Barry Lindon, Full Metal Jacket ... A biography of this
pre-eminent cultural figure is long overdue. Few film-makers have
managed to maintain their mystique over forty years; Kubrick
succeeded by preparing his films for years, so that each distilled
the essence of the zeitgeist. To the generation of the 1950s, he
was one of the few directors to achieve, with Paths of Glory, the
dignity and stature of the European cinema in an American film. To
1960s audiences, he's the man who made both Dr Strangelove, the
ultimate anti-war movie, and the counter-culture classic 2001: A
Space Odyssey. In the 1970s he created that archetypal hymn to
urban violence, A Clockwork Orange. In the 1980s, he put Stephen
King on screen in The Shining. In continental Europe especially,
Kubrick is regarded as one of the handful of great living
film-makers. Born in the Bronx in 1928 of Central European stock,
Kubrick still lives in moody seclusion in Borehamwood, where he
bought a house soon after moving to the UK in 1961.
Get swept up in the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera as
author and filmmaker John Baxter takes readers on a whirlwind tour
through the star-studded cultural history of the Cote d Azur that s
sure to delight travelers, Francophiles, and culture lovers alike.
Readers will discover the dramatic lives of the legendary artists,
writers, actors, and politicians who frequented the world s most
luxurious resort during its golden age. In 25 vivid chapters,
Baxter introduces the iconic figures indelibly linked to the South
of France artist Henri Matisse, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco
Chanel, and many more. Along the way, Baxter takes readers where
few people ever get to go: the alluring world of the perfume
industry, into the cars and casinos of Monte Carlo,
behind-the-scenes at the Cannes Film Festival, to the villa where
Picasso and Cocteau smoked opium, and to the hotel where Joseph
Kennedy had an affair with Marlene Dietrich. These luminaries
celebrated life and created art amid paradise and this book is the
ultimate guide to the Riviera s golden age."
Why Do So Many Kids HATE School?
A Paradigm Shift Is Necessary In Education. And Now, A Colledge
Football Coach Offers Such Reform.
As coaches, we have opportunities that teachers do not. Coaching is
a performance based working relationship that relies on the mastery
of fundamentals and technique to create a competitive advantage.
Coaches are held accountable for an athlete's performance on and
off the field. This leads us very quickly to a fork in the road. We
can bend the rules academically, and manipulate the system so that
they can get through and stay eligible, or we can invest deeply in
them and help them technically and fundamentally so that they can
become legitimate, independent performers in all areas of life.
I see myself at the center of the paradigm shift, which is based on
skills and ideas, not subjects and orders. Study hall, medication,
tutoring and other conventional forms of intervention aren't what
we need. They aren't the long-term solution. We need sustained
performance based change that is built on fundamentals and
technique. If we are going to effect permanent, long-lasting,
fundamental change, the paradigm shift has to begin somewhere other
than in the schools. Therefore, parents and educators must pursue
such change individually through a program like Academic Gameplan.
Academic Gameplan is a coaching based program that teaches the
rules, fundamentals and techniques to the game of school. The life
skills we teach are SOLID, SIMPLE, and REPEATABLE. AGP is the ROCK
upon which students are building lifelong success
Paris, by custom and design, is a pedestrian's city - each block a
revelation, every neighbourhood a new feast for the senses, a place
rich with history and romance at every turn. The Most Beautiful
Walk in the World is your guide par excellence to the true,
off-the-beaten-track heart of the City of Lights.
Despite his frank dislike of directing, George Lucas has made himself one of the most important figures in the history of film-making. His production company, Lucasfilm, is phenomenally successful, and his Industrial Light and Magic is the finest special effects studio in the world. Yet, for all his achievements, Lucas remains an elusive, almost anonymous figure, shunning the limelight and spending much of his time on his isolated Skywalker Ranch complex in northern California. Now John Baxter, acclaimed biographer of Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and Woody Allen, sheds new light on the originator of the 'New Hollywood.', tracing his small-town origins in Modesto, California (brilliantly recreated in his first major film as director, American Graffiti) and his subsequent phenomenal success with 'Star Wars', its successors and the tree 'Indana Jones' films. Together, these comprise the most popular group of films ever made. John Baxter has compiled the most complete portrait to date of a man who has done as much to shape popular culture as anyone alive. 'This book is undoubtedly the best that could be written on the inventor of Luke Skywalker, the Force and trans-global product merchandising.' NIGEL ANDREWS 'Finacial Times' 'Baxter reveals in his mastery of the anecdotal stuff that shows he has researched his subject as fastidiously as ever.' BIRMINGTON POST 'Detailed and informative.' IRISH INDEPENDENT
Robert De Niro is the pre-eminent Hollywood character performer of our time: film portraits like the young Don Vito Corleone in THE GODFATHER II, Jake La Motta in RAGING BULL and Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER are some of the most vivid ever put on celluloid. De Niro cannot be cast to type, prefers to work for old friends like Martin Scorsese, and (apart from FRANKENSTEIN) has never played anything but 20th-century roles.
John Baxter calls him ?the archetypal empty bottle which only becomes visible when it?s filled by a role?: which makes him such a tempting subject for one of Hollywood?s finest historian/biographers.
As well as his film roles, Baxter examines De Niro?s often controversial private life, his collaborations with directors like Martin Scorsese and performers like Harvey Keitel and Meryl Streep, and his increasingly ambitious off-screen activities.
In the third portrait of his series Great Parisian Neighborhoods,
award-winning raconteur John Baxter takes readers on a dazzling
excursion of Montparnasse. By the IACP Award-winning author of the
national bestseller The Most Beautiful Walk in the World,
MONTPARNASSE reveals the history and present delights of the iconic
neighborhood that is best associated with the vibrant 1920-30s-era
Paris-a romantic time and place evoked in Hemingway's memoir A
Moveable Feast and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. From the first
meeting of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald to their friendship's
bitter conclusion; from the courage of the anti-Nazi resistance to
the clubs where German generals partied; from the attempted murder
of Samuel Beckett to the rise of Josephine Baker to stardom; from
the high life of the Coupole and the Cafe du Dome to the bawdy
music halls of rue de la Gaite; no Paris quarter has witnessed more
tumultuous events than Montparnasse. In a ground-breaking
reappraisal of this most glamorous of Paris's districts, Baxter
looks beyond the nostalgia to the secret history of Montparnasse, a
district where desire effaced memory and every taste could be
satisfied-even those which were unexpressed. If, as Oscar Wilde
suggested, all good Americans went to Paris when they died, it was
Montparnasse that brought them back to life.
The preeminent expat writer on Paris and author of The Most
Beautiful Walk in the World takes you on an unforgettable nocturnal
stroll through five iconic Parisian neighborhoods and his own
memories. John Baxter enchanted readers with his literary tour of
Paris in The Most Beautiful Walk in the World. Now, this expat who
has lived in the City of Light for more than twenty years
introduces you to the city's streets after dark, revealing hidden
treasures and unexpected delights. As he takes you through five of
the city's greatest neighborhoods-Montmartre, Montparnasse, the
Marais, and more-Baxter shares pithy anecdotes about his life in
France, as well as fascinating knowledge he has gleaned from
leading literary tours of the city by dark. With Baxter as your
guide, you will discover the City of Light as never before, walking
in the ghostly footsteps of Marcel Proust, the quintessential night
owl for whom memory was more vivid than reality; Hungarian
photographer Gyula Halasz, known as Brassai, who prowled the
midnight streets, camera in hand, with his friend Henry Miller;
Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault, who shared the Surrealists'
taste for the city's shadowed, secret world; and Josephine Baker
and other African-American performers who dazzled adventurous
Parisians at late-night jazz clubs. A feast for the mind and the
senses, Five Nights in Paris takes you through the haunts of
Paris's most storied artists and writers to the scenes of its most
infamous crimes in a lively off-the-beaten-path tour not found in
any guidebook.
A preeminent writer on Paris, John Baxter brilliantly brings to
life one of the most dramatic and fascinating periods in the city's
history. From 1914 through 1918 the terrifying sounds of World War
I could be heard from inside the French capital. For four years,
Paris lived under constant threat of destruction. And yet in its
darkest hour, the City of Light blazed more brightly than ever.
It's taxis shuttled troops to the front; its great railway stations
received reinforcements from across the world; the grandest museums
and cathedrals housed the wounded, and the Eiffel Tower hummed at
all hours relaying messages to and from the front. At night,
Parisians lived with urgency and without inhibition. Artists like
Pablo Picasso achieved new creative heights. And the war brought a
wave of foreigners to the city for the first time, including Ernest
Hemingway and Baxter's own grandfather, Archie, whose diaries he
used to reconstruct a soldier's-eye view of the war years. A
revelatory achievement, Paris at the End of the World shows how
this extraordinary period was essential in forging the spirit of
the city beloved today.
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