im am a 10th grader and my high school just put on THE GOOD DOCTOR i was the man in the DOWENED MAN its was great my favroit is the DEFFENSLES CREATUR. great
BUY THIS PLAY

They put this play on at my school, and I was laughing the whole way through, especially in the "War" section with the Army and the Navy. Oh who am I kidding, THE WHOLE THING was that funny. You will never regret buying this, it is a buried treasure to literature just waiting to be performed, or read, with enthusiastic gusto!

A few friends and myself did "The Defenseless Creature" for a drama/large group speech contest. I was Pochatikin, so had very little to do other than keep myself from breaking out laughing during the performance! Needless to say, we did VERY WELL at contest recieving a perfect score!

As a Clinical Massage Therapist at a hospital, I use these books almost daily. In fact, I just ordered my second set. . . The first is so threadbare it's barely usable. ANYTIME I have a patient with a pain that I can't immediately identify I grab my Travell's. This set is an absolute BIBLE for anyone in the health care industry. Travell and Simons have esentially written "The Instruction Manual" for elliminating myofascial pain by going to it's source!

Janet Travell, MD and David Simons, MD were absolute pioneers when it came to myofascial pain and it's treatment. What makes these books even more amazing is that they were written a full quarter of a century before doctors even acknowledged that myofascial pain actually exsisted. . . What makes them interesting is that, in this, the most current edition, they have re-evaluated about 65% of the sites that before would only be considered for cortizone or saline injection and now recommend these areas be attended to by a Massage Therapist. They even go into strong detail as to stroke, direction and stretching. There are still plenty of sites that they recommend for injection, but only in a last resort situation.

The chapters are laid out in an incredibly easy to understand manner, though that's not even the beauty of the book's design. If you know the name of the muscle in question, you simply look inside the front cover; the muscle are all listed with their coresponding page numbers next to them. Don't know the name or not sure which muscle it is in the group? No problem. You again open the front cover and there, in 5th grade simplicity, are charts for all the areas covered in the book. Flip to the area in question and look through the diagrams. When you find (in the super well drawn diagrams) the pain you are trying to treat, you are given, not only several treatment plans, but etiology and most likely direct verve aggravation associated with the pain.

My only problem with the set is that the book are not as well bound as maybe they could be for the price. You'll notice, however, that it didn't have enough of an impact on me to give it any less that a perfect score.

I STRONGLY recommend this book for ANY health care practitioner that deals with pain control and alleviation.

Janet Travell MD and David Simons MD spent a lifetime studying the patterns and treatment of muscular and soft tissue pain in patients. It is a specialty in itself, and provides an amazingly detailed review of anatomy. These books are the bible on the subject written by the "mother" and "father" of the specialty. There will hardly be a day in the professional life of a busy primary care practitioner, rheumatologist, orthopedist, neurologist, physiatrist or physical therapist when these books will not be used. The more one knows of this field, the more revelations one gets into those difficult chronic pain patients. The etiology and muscular complexity of the huge field of "tension headache" syndromes now become clear. With these books you will have the tools to diagnose and treat effectively (usually dramatically) the entire spectrum of myofascial pain from head to toe, muscle by muscle. Why do so few physicians know of this vital area of medicine?

The Trigger Point Manual is a two volume set detailing the current state of knowledge of trigger points and myofascial pain for both the upper body, vol. 1, and the lower extremities, vol. 2. It also contains fascinating analysis of how muscles work in different situations, offering insight into aspects of human movement. These wonderful books are essential reading for all manual therapists.

If you're thinking of traveling to Europe to catch any games, you must get this book. Not only will it help get about town to the match but inspire you to go catch a match, even if it's a lower division club like FC Paris. :)

Covers every major club in every European city. Trophies, players, great moments all covered in very readable style. Excellent tips on transportation, lodging and dining. Perhaps the most interesting section is the "Ultra Culture", detailing the hooligan aspects of the respective teams and cities. In other words, where not to go. Fantastic reading. Can't wait for the next edition

I was interested in trying to bone up on my soccer so I could converse intelligently with my relatives in Italy, and this book fit the bill perfectly. Written most directly for use by English-speaking fans who might actually travel to see the powerhouse teams covered, the book is still a fantastic primer on the history of the clubs, and the current gossip as of time of publication (1998.) If you're new to soccer and looking for a little insight into the world of Europe's beautiful game, or just want to read a comprehensive overview of the field that's not afraid to voice a strong opinion or two, this book will not disappoint.

... Clea Simon, truly, is a very gifted writer. I found this book to be engaging, personal, reflective, sensitive, and wonderful. I could almost put myself in her shoes as I read about her thoughts and feelings, her stories about the lives of other women in similar circumstances, and her commentaries on our sociological condition as a generation of people who are struggling to make our own, new ways out of the old paradigm of the patriarchal past, a paradigm which has certainly paid its toll on all of us.

... Nevertheless, this is not a book about politics; far from! It is a book about one woman's journey through life, specifically relating to the issues surrounding the loss of her beloved father, and how she reconciled all of her feelings concerning this loss. Along the way, she weaves a tapestry of the tales of other women who also dealt with issues surrounding their fathers, and how the loss of their fathers may have affected them in positive and / or negative ways. The inclusion of all of these other stories makes this a far richer and more interesting book than if it were only about the life of the author. In fact, I can see this book being used as a textbook in college sociology courses on family values. It is that good!

... Here is an example of one insight she shares with us, from pages 64 and 65: "Indeed, the best indication of how we will grieve and recover from our loss may not lie in how our fathers die, but in how we dealt with them living. And for those of us who were unable to make peace with our fathers during their lifetimes, our way to peace and to healing may lie in accepting this lack of resolution, accepting our own and our fathers' flaws. Even if our fathers cannot at this final crisis abandon their illusions about their role, and our relationship, we must. For only by letting go of the fantasy of the perfect daddy, and of the perfect deathbed reconciliation, can we achieve anything resembling closure." ... How intuitively profound!

... You know, I picked up this book in order to help me better understand people who are close to me who have lost their fathers at an early age, in order to be more sympathetic toward them and more considerate of their feelings and experiences. I was well rewarded, for, not only did I gain a greater understanding of the feelings of the loss of one's father from the perspective of a daughter, I also learned that many of these emotions are shared by ALL of us. Ultimately, we ALL have to one day face the inevitable loss of BOTH our parents - our fathers AND our mothers. Reading this book, somehow, makes that inevitable, one-day reality just a bit easier to accept and understand. It's a great comfort to the soul. ... BRAVO, Clea Simon! ... YOWZA! - The Aeolian Kid

I was in London on vacation and happened to see a write-up on this book in one of the tabloids! It sounded so great that as soon as I got back to the States, I picked up a copy. Simon is a fabulous writer and this is a truly important book.

This book is really outstanding. I recommend it to anyone who has just lost their father or for someone who has not gotten a handle on their loss however long ago it was.

Clea Simon writes as though she is speaking directly to you. She tells her own painful story and comforts her reader in doing so. Ms.Simon tells of many other women's experiences of losing their fathers so the reader gets many different perspectives on father/daughter relationships and how these daughters dealt with losing their fathers.

Fatherless Women, for me, chronicled all the feelings I had felt, did feel and would feel during the grieving process. I was very comforted by this book. It made me feel I was part of a group so I stopped feeling so alone and isolated. It made me familiar with my feelings so I could give a name to what I am/was going through.

Her book is an easy to read, informative, reassuring and very personable account of one of the most difficult things women go through.

I would not have been able to begin my healing without this book. I thank you from the depths of my soul, Clea Simon.

I'm currently teaching Intro Hebrew and have looked at a number of books on this topic. This Primer is the best text for this purpose that I've found by a long shot. Lessons are well arranged and, though simple, are not simplistic. Students have the opportunity to progress at a very high rate. The selection of vocabulary is wonderful with every word being a high-frequency word in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The downfalls of this text are: 1) use of non-standard terms for grammatical features of the language - this is both a positive and a negative: positive in that it keeps the intimidation factor down for new students; negative in that for those students who go on from this book (and I suggest many will want to do so) need to learn the standard terms used by nearly every other grammar and text. 2) that's it; no other real downfalls.

For what this text purports to be (A First Hebrew Primer) it succeeds magnificently! This book will not leave the student proficient, but that's not its purpose. My wife learned Hebrew by using Seow's Grammar for Biblical Hebrew - a great intro grammar, but horrible as an intro text. She can tell you about the minutiae of Hebrew, but has no love for it. I learned using the Primer and have seen many others who have learned by using it. The common factor is that a high-percentage of us now LOVE Hebrew, and couldn't wait to learn more about the finer points found in Seow.

This book was such a blessing to me. I am not in a place where I can get formal Hebrew instruction, and this book is so easy to learn from. I have not seen another Hebrew book like it, that teaches the grammar and vocabulary in such an easy to follow manner. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to study Hebrew.

Studying Hebrew can be a terrifying prospect for seminary students, and because many of the textbooks (such as Kelley, Weingreen, Mansour) are so inaccessible, lots of young pastors immediately forget most of what they learned. "The First Hebrew Primer" offers Hehrew without tears. Students who use this book (and it is used in many seminaries, but not enough) will learn easily and without pain. The book assumes students don't know the alphabet, then goes from there. Each day's work builds easily on the day before. If for each chapter one spends an hour with flashcards and two hours doing some of the exercises, one should have no trouble at all earning an A. The book has a whole year of Hebrew in a one semester textbook. The trick is leaving out a lot of the explanations for the many exceptions in Hebrew (often rare). The result is very fast progress. With every lesson the Hebrew Bible opens wider. In ten class periods my class was reading through Genesis, haltingly, but recognizing 50% to 75% of the words. By semester's end . . . reading just about anything with the help of a dictionary here and there. One could go through this by oneself, but it really is easier in a class. It's nice to have a teacher to answer questions and force one to prepare for a quiz. It's worth the tuition fee to have that help. But the nicest thing is that it's such an easy book to use that students don't feel their brains have frozen, leaving them unable to comprehend anything else. The person below who complained of gutterals not being called gutterals will be happy to hear that has changed, though if one isn't careful, one can learn about constructs, waw-consecutives, and various tenses without learning what they're called. A minor problem. It's true that one might like more examples from the Bible to translate, but when it comes down to it, we all have the Bibles anyway, so why not sinply turn to the source? Someone earning a Ph.D. in Hebrew would want something more detailed, perhaps, but when it comes down to it relatively few scholarly papers dealing with Hebrew actually require that level of expertise. Even the experts tend to turn to Hebrew grammars when they're working on that level.

A surprising success. Though the appeal may be quite narrow, this book does a surprisingly good job at what it attempts to do. For anyone who has enjoyed a ride on the Underground, or who has marveled and the (mostly) clean, efficient, and occasionally spectacular Underground stations, Mind the Gap provides a new, fun, and provocative perspective. James takes his camera to all (literally all) those stations that those of us who spend our time in "Zone 1" see at the fringes of the Underground map but never visit. There he captures simple, carefully composed almost documentary images that give us unique view of the history, health, and scope of the Underground system. Though the photographs are individually nothing special (I really could have taken most of them myself, and done better in many cases) the collective effect is balanced and enjoyable.

Certainly a worthy addition any collection of Underground books, and a nice alternative for one that already includes the other fine books of photographs of the Underground and its stations.

Such a charming, descriptive book with off-beat, revelatory photos, that I bought copies for a grandson who lives in London and uses the tube, and for several American friends who used it this summer. History and lots of entertaining comment. I've used the subway in Washington, Berlin, and Moscow but never in London. Now I can hardly wait to wide to the end of the various lines James tells about so winningly. Great gift for anyone visiting London or anyone who lives there.

The cover of the book draws the eye immediately because of it's unique (to me) design, and the title attracted me because it repeats the phrase heard over the loud-speaker in the "tube" as the doors begin to close. The photographs are excellent because they give a hint of mystery, solitude, history and loneliness -- all at the same time. The text just adds to the information in the photographs and shows James' thoroughness in presenting his subject to the readers.

This book is truly a masterpiece and will delight all readers, from the inveterate George Harrison fans to people just becoming familiar with his works. Leng has a real flair for written expression and research. His extensive knowledge of Eastern music and how Harrison incorporated Eastern styles into his music enrich this work. Leng offers extensive coverage to people who influenced the late guitarist such as Klaus Voorman, an artist who had known George since the inception of the Beatles and who later drew the 1966 album cover for "Revolver," pianist John Barhman and Ravi Shankar, the man who taught George to play the sitar.

Leng plainly respects the intelligence of his readers and his writing is clear, clean and crisp. There is no extraneous matter. Leng has a gift for piquing the interest and curiosity of readers. In reading this, one wants to know more about John Barham and the other people who influenced George Harrison. Leng's work is expansive; he excites interest and curiosity in an almost "ripple" effect form; each person named in his book "interlocks" in the way they influenced George Harrison. It is this approach that maintains readers' interest. Leng has researched his information well and his respect for George and the many people who influenced him and his art comes through plainly in this work. I like the way Leng accepts and acknowledges George, warts and all and the musical analysis he provides in this work.

The writing's on the wall - try some, buy some and please try and buy this book! This is a superior work!

Simon Leng's book not only provides wonderful insight to George Harrison's music, but manages to do so in a thoughtful, informed and unbiased manner. Leng's knowledge of Indian music and its application in Harrison's work is particularly welcome in light of the many critics, Iam MacDonald in particular, who overlooked Harrison's talents in their haste to credit the Beatles' success to the genius of John Lennon. In addition, Leng refutes much of the criticism heaped on Harrison's work in light of commentary given by musicians who toured with Harrison and documentary footage of live performances. Even so, Leng never excuses all of Harrison's shortcomings nor forgets to acknowledge his indebtedness to other artists.
This is a very enjoyable book, and one could only wish Leng had been able to include material on Brainwashed and the Concert for George given in his honor at Albert Hall. The inclusion of drawings by George's longtime friend and fellow musician Klaus Voorman are a wonderful addition. Read this work near your stereo, and have ready George's "I, Me, Mine" for additional reference.

I agree with the praise given this book by other Amazon reviewers, but would like to add a few points. First, Simon Leng discusses Harrison's musical relationship with pianist, composer & arranger John Barham, ranging from George's first interest in the sitar through their work on Ravi Shankar's "Chants of India" album. I would like to read more about Barham. Secondly, the book gains quite a bit from Klaus Voorman's involvement. Voorman is the artist and bass player who met the Beatles in Hamburg, produced the covers for "Revolver" and the Anthology CDs and played on Harrison's early solo albums. Voorman also contributed two nice sketches of George for this book. There are extensive quotes from others, including Doris Troy and David Bromberg (the latter of whom, although very insightful, may be quoted a bit too much considering his brief acquaintance with Harrison). This book may be the best available work on George Harrison.

Dr. Simon's book addresses many of the issues that are so often not dealt with by modern conventional cancer treatment centers. Too often cancer patient feel as if their real needs are not being met by doctors and hospitals. Dr. Simon focuses on treating the person, not just the diseasse. His books creates an entirely new perspective for the cancer patient by simply remembering that they are a person. He addresses the emotional issues cancer patients face as well as treatments for common side effects caused by conventional treatment. His advice on nutrition, sensory tools for healing, and assessing alternative treatment modalities is easily succint, but very insightful. Futthermore, his five day seminar lets you explore these issues much deeper. Realizing that I am much more than the sum of my phsyical parts is an important gift that Dr. Simon has helped to give me.

This phenomenal book is a must have in a library of self-care literature. It reads easily and resonates with truth, leaving a profound impact. I recently returned from a week seminar with Dr. David Simon at the Deepak Chopra Wellness Institute in La Jolla,CA. My personal experience was transformational. I not only walked away with concrete, tangible tools to work with my cancer, I also deepened my relationship with myself and was taught many loving ways to embrace and empower myself through this difficult time in my life.

The nurturing environment was so safe and invitational to self-discovery of each individuals particular experience with cancer. I strongly recommend anyone facing cancer to invest in themselves with this wonderful program.

Dr. Simon has shared insights into healing that take into account the coventional and integrative approaches to healthcare. He reminds us that we have entered into a phase of medicine that needs to consider a person's conscious awareness of health, so the appropriate modalities of care can be administered. David Simon utilizes eastern and western knowledge to make his work thorough and comprehensive. He takes into account the need for practicioners to be sensetive to the direction(s) a patient finds meaningful in their movement toward wholeness. This emphasis on consciousness incorporated in healthcare is a movement toward modern medicine paralleling the evolution of our time. I also recommend: What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living by Samuel Oliver

I enjoyed this play when I saw it performed live. I was extremely skeptical before, but there are many parts that I laughed the hardest I ever have. It is not perfect, but if you can see it live, go do it.

As an actor, I've been in many plays (comedies especially), and I can honestly say that this is one of the funniest plays I have ever seen (or performed...). The great thing about this one is it NEVER gets old. You can watch it four nights in a row, listen to the jokes over and over again (both of which were done), and it stays funny, and entertaining! An incredible masterpiece by Neil Simon. Filled with one-liners, insanity, funny personalities and character traits, sarcastic comments, visual gags, and all other types of comedy you can think of, this one does not stop entertaining!

Comedy is difficult to write, especially a play. Comedic plays (especially farces) must move quickly, or the audience is lost. Humor can get very stale if the situations do not change dramatically. Neil Simon said that Rumors was the hardest play he had to write because every line had to further the plot. I had the privilege of acting in this play, and I say with all sincerity that there is never a dull moment in this play. It is hilarious, with absolutely no redeeming social value. In an age where plays and movies must either be stupid comedies with outlandish plot twists and completely unbelievable characters or have dark humor with a depressing hidden message, it is nice to see a well written, straight forward farce where the jokes never get old, no matter how many times you see it and it is very easy to lose yourself completely when either watching it or acting in it. In Rumors, Neil Simon has written a gem of a play.

Simon Callow's thick and detailed biography of Orson Welles is a staggeringly thorough account of the actor/director's life, from his birth up until the release of his most famous picture, CITIZEN KANE. Callow goes to great lengths to separate the man from his inhumanly grandiose reputation. Armed with years of research, his personal interviews, and a keen sense of humor, Callow sets off to discover the real early life of Orson Welles. He finds a man smaller than his gargantuan myth, yet fascinating and brilliant all the same.

Orson Welles is a notoriously difficult man to write about with any great degree of accuracy. This is attributable to the fact that Welles seems to have spent almost as much time publicizing his work as he spent creating. The difficulty arises when one realizes that the majority of what he said wasn't strictly accurate, and yet it's that publicity which has been accepted for many years. Not to say that Welles was lying, or making up facts (at least, not all the time). It would be closer to the truth to say that Welles was prone to exaggerations, sometimes wild ones when it concerned himself. For the sake of his image, and for the sake of his career, he would embellish and overstate what he was doing and what he had done. Some of the more hysterical (and insightful) portions of the book are those where we see Welles describing something that had occurred several chapters previous. The story that gets told later can be almost totally at odds to what the actuality of the situation was. The further on one goes into the book, the farther away from reality these descriptions become. Welles was obsessed with constantly reinventing himself, creating a gigantic legend that became increasingly difficult for any mortal man to live up to.

This is not to say that Simon Callow is merely running down Orson Welles, or making his achievements seem unworthy. Indeed, Callow appears genuinely impressed by what Welles achieved in such a short amount of time. While Welles apparently preferred his fantasy image of himself, the truth was quite remarkable by itself; Welles packed more living into his first twenty-five years than most people do in a lifetime. The respect that he commanded as an actor/director was unprecedented for someone of his young age. But Callow emphasizes with how Welles thought of himself. He sees Welles' drive to continually achieve more. As a fellow actor, Callow understands and relates to the need for constantly promoting oneself for the benefit of one's career. He compares events in Welles' later life to the man's childhood, looking for the reasons for the overriding desire to drive farther and faster.

The book does tend to take slight detours on its road to CITIZEN KANE's Xanadu. Many of the subjects tangentially related to the main feature are given adequate descriptions. Welles' parents, his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, the state of the American theatre in the 1930s and other assorted topics all benefit from Callow's in-depth research and his wonderful attention to detail. These asides and tangents are vital to understanding Welles in his context, and this biography is much the richer for these additions.

As for the portions of Welles' early life that Callow chooses to focus on, it is Welles' theatre work that receives the lion's share of attention. These sections are remarkably detailed, and I simply cannot imagine the book containing any more information. All of his productions are covered, the bulk of the spotlight being aimed towards those plays that Welles approached as both director and actor. Numerous memorable stories are contained in these sections, one of my favorites being the description of Welles directing a collapsing production by punctuating his screams at the cast with intermittent swigs straight from his omnipresent bottle of bourbon.

Descriptions of Orson Welles' other endeavors can only pale by comparison, though they themselves are also covered meticulously. The portions dealing with his radio career aren't given nearly the same attention, and the chapter involved with his WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast seems remarkably brief given how big a place it holds in the Welles Legend. On the other hand, Callow is quick to point out how little input Welles had in the writing side of that radio play, so in retrospect it shouldn't really be all that surprising to see it neglected here. Still, even Welles' work as The Shadow is only briefly mentioned; again, probably based on Welles' lack of creative input on that series. However, it would have been interesting to see the same flurry of facts, and anecdotes directed towards the radio and film work as it was towards the stage.

For anyone who is slightly curious as to actor Simon Callow's ability to write, let me put your mind at ease. Not only is Callow a competent writer, but he's a very engaging one. The subject of Orson Welles is not a simple one for any biographer to attempt, yet Callow has put together a superbly researched and diabolically entertaining portrait of a man who surrounded himself with so much misinformation that sorting through it all must have been an exhausting task. Callow himself is never far from his descriptions, injecting his wry sense of humor into numerous observations. His style of writing makes it very clear when he's talking about verifiable facts, or when he is basing something on conjuncture. Further to this, there are twenty-five pages of references, as well as two and a half pages of bibliography. This is both a lively read and a superbly researched book --a rarity, but an extremely welcome one. In the preface, Simon Callow states that this is merely the first book of two and the second will deal with Welles' descent from the peak of his career. That second book has yet to be published, but based on the extraordinary achievement of this volume, it should be well worth the wait.

In his later years, Welles often complained that he spent more time trying to find money to make films than he did actually making films. And seeing Welles still scrambling for cash in his last days as a commercial pitchman for such products as Dark Tower and Paul Masson Wines ("Where we will sell no wine before it's time"), you know he was right.

This entertaining and exhaustive book by Simon Callow doesn't deal with most of his film career - only covering up to 1941. (We're still waiting on part two to cover the rest. Simon? Simon?). However, what it does do is clear up much of Welles' confusing past (he often told conflicting stories in interviews) and delve into the two main works that set Welles up for stardom...and the fall...in Hollywood - The War of the Worlds radio broadcast and Citizen Kane. And no wonder they were sharpening knives for the boy wonder when Welles publicly put down the Hollywood community, his Kane script bit the hand that feeds him by taking obvious shots at newspaper mogul Randolph Hearst and he was given the kind of directorial freedom veteran directors could only dream of.

Some people may tire of reading about Welles' theatre days with Houseman, anxiously waiting to get to the meat of his film career. But to understand why Welles became a "has-been" at 26 and the long slide to come, this is required reading.

.... "He wandered it's corridors, looking for money." Simon Callow gifts us with the deep portrait of Orson Welles from a gay man, an actor, and, like Welles, a virtuoso of many fields of endeavor. Like Shakespeare, Orson was comfortable, and indeed dependent upon, those of us who lean toward the familiar in the search for love. (Because, perhaps, of his own stoney heterosexuality). Be that as it may, Mr. Callow's own insights are what add volumes to this biography beyond what all else has already been written. His chronicle of America's Depression-era Federal Theater Project, and Orson's impact upon it, invites us in to the exiting era of the 1930's.

Orson's Road to Xanadu is sad, and it's glorious -- amazing. Read Simon Callow's biography of America's Great Voice -- Orson Welles.