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There are hundreds of ideas for using fresh and dried flowers. The step-by-step sequences make the techniques clear and simple. When you start arranging flowers, you quickly find out you need an "essential kit" in order to complete even a basic flower arrangement. This is where "Practical Techniques" comes into play.
You will want to buy a glue gun, floral wires, pruning knife, florist's scissors, etc. All the essential supplies are listed with pictures. This book is filled with pictures! The first chapter discusses Flowers In Civilization and shows flowers in history and art.
Elements of Design is a visual guide to flower colors and the pages are filled with piles of wonderful petals in every color. I loved the Container Shapes section. There are two sections, with one further into the book.
This book is SO INCREDIBLE! .....Shall I continue..?
Then, we get to Inspiration. You will find page after page after page of mini-floral displays with the page number so you can learn how to make the arrangement with precise instructions. There are arrangements in this book you would not even imagine in your wildest floral dreams.
For instance, on page 96 there is an underwater floral arrangement. There are upside down glasses, with flowers in them, floating in the water and facing outwards in a huge vase. Then, OH MY..I happen upon page 212 and there is a hanging upside down Christmas Tree dangling dangerously from the ceiling. I am not sure I approve! Decorating the tree looked a bit dangerous, but it sure was creative.
A Floral Ice Bowl on page 248 is one of my favorite ideas as the flowers are suspended in their original beauty in ice. Then, in the summer...how about a "watermelon vase?" The Floral Place Setting is a way to beautifully decorate each place setting is a wonderful summer idea or dried herbs could be used in the winter. The mini-christmas trees are an idea even children could help make.
An A-Z plant guide is a huge section. This visual guide will introduce you to just about every flower you would ever want to use in an arrangement. Some useful addresses complete with Web site addresses gives you even more information. An easy-to-use Index helps you locate your favorite flowers.
If you want inspiration and information, this is the book for you!
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Something about it, though, made me buy my own copy in 1998. I started taking voice lessons for singing early last year, and am preparing for a major performance next week. Two weeks ago, I decided to take another stab at reading Free Play. In doing so, I found my key to appreciating the book, and relishing all it has to offer, from beginning to end. Although Nachmanovitch is a musician, he beautifully expands the idea of Improvisation to include any medium through which we express ourselves, and live.
Some friendly advice: When sitting down to read this book, get rid of all negative thoughts and judgments about yourself. While reading it, think of all the things in life you love to do, regardless of how well you or others think you do them. Whoever you are, and whatever you do, this book will help you discover what creativity is, where it comes from, how we block it, and how we can make it sizzle. If you stick with Free Play, you will get to know what's possible when you conquer fear and self-doubt just long enough to do what you love, for its own sake and on your own terms. Stephen Nachmanovitch has written a labor of love, and encourages us to see and live our lives this way. For that, Free Play is a true classic.
Clarke's masterpiece was published in 1874, after being serialized in 1870-72. Critics have lambasted a few of the less believable elements and some of the pat characterization of a number of supporting characters, but these are flaws to be found in most novels of that time (and ours). Clarke redeems himself by taking the cliches and mannerisms of the nineteenth-century English novel and using them to illuminate a whole new society, one practically mythical to the metropolitan consciousness of the Victorian Anglophone world. This work is a great counterpoint to all those English novels of the day where the hero or villain gets packed off to the antipodes and returns mysteriously changed. The main thrust of the novel, though, was the need to tell the true story of (white) Australian society's beginnings. Clarke, in telling the story of the unjustly convicted Rufus Dawes (aka Richard Devine), provides a panoramic view of early Victorian Australia, from the hellish convict settlements of Macquarie Harbor and Norfolk Island to the nascent frontier towns of Hobart and Melbourne, from the aging memories of the "First Fleeters" (the original convicts who arrived in 1788) to the controversial Eureka Stockade Uprising of 1854. The narrative frequently moves at a deliciously whirlwind pace to accomodate the exciting interaction of characters and history.
Clarke's novel is generally cited as nineteenth-century Australia's greatest and points the way towards more nuanced examinations of the colonial experience in the twentieth century (Peter Carey's JOE MAGGS, about the "off-stage" life of Dickens antihero Abel Magwitch, is apparently very much in this vein). Don't read it just for this reason, though. Please be sure to find the longer, original version, as I was fortunate enough to do. Clarke was forced to produce a revised, shortened version for the original publication, one dictated by his editors that turned the novel into a much more "conventional" Victorian literary production (and has a longer title--FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE). I understand a TV series was made in the mid-80s with Anthony Perkins as North. If this was the case, then it badly needs to be remade on celluloid, because I can't seem to find the series. It's a magnificent novel whose flaws, I think, are amply counterbalanced by its unexpected joys.
Richard Devine, an innocent man (under an assumed name of Rufus Dawes) convicted of a crime he did not commit, is sent for transportation and assumed killed in a shipwreck. In reality, he is heir to a vast estate (unbeknown to him) and the convolutions of the tale that evolve from this are wonderfully written; the gradual demolishing of Dawes, the unspeakable duality of Frere, the calculating guile of Sarah and the gullible innocence of Sylvia are woven together in a plot that does not end happily ever after. This I think, serves to underline the barbarism and futility of the transportation system.
Based on actual events, Clarke uses his 'hero' to illustrate the depravation and privations that prisoners (and their guards) had to endure. Graphically showing how degradation degrades and power corrupts, the narrative never dwells on gruesome details, instead it relies for effect on the imagination of the reader, which can be more terrifying.
A book that deserves a wider readership.
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Thus, it could take some time until this book is regarded as it should be: A UNIVERSAL SOLUTION FOR AN ALMOST "RELIGIOUS" CANON. READ AND USE GRADUALY; COMPARE IT WITH ANY OTHER TRANSLATION IN THE PROCESS. YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF TRANSFORMED!
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Flawed by abundant typos. The editing of this book is a great advance over say The Solar System by the same Academic Press, which was a mangled turnip; but they still have a ways to go. It is disappointing to see major scientific works bungled by bottom line that slashes proofing. NASA is probably largely responsible for the Solar System mess (Sally Ride, take a course in remedial english!). Geologists are a lot more meticulous than astronauts. But the buck shd stop with the publisher.
So buy this book and complain to Academic Press. Buy it before it goes out of print and you have to kick yourself; it will be long before the like comes again.
The book is well worth the money as every aspect of volcanology is covered.
I would recommend this book to anyone with a serious intest in volcanology.
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The advantage of owning the galleries is that some cartoons are full page size which is three times the size of the original books. Not all cartoons are full size though just some.
The classic cartoon set in an exam with the bonus question (50 points) "What's the name of that thing that hangs down the back of our throats?" The caption underneath states "Final Page of the Medical Boards," is in this edition.
Another has Noah saying "Now Listen Up. We're Going to do This Alphabetically," the Zebras are thinking "Damn!"
The Classic "Drive George! Drive! This One's Got a Coathanger!" with a lion trying to unlock the car door to eat the woman.
Should you buy it? Of course you should.