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In reading this book, you will get to know and understand Jesus better. I've read it twice, and I'm planning on picking it up again real soon because I need Sheed to remind of Christ's love just once more.
"Let us look steadily at him. He was a carpenter in a town which, even in insignificant Galilee, was despised as insignificant. He was not playing at being a carpenter, as Marie Antoinette and her ladies played at being shepherdesses at Versailles. He was a carpenter; the household depended on what he made; if trade was bad his mother had to go without. The locals hired him to make and mend in wood. He would name the price and it would be a just price. They would haggle as is the way of the East, beating him down, asking doubtless if he thought they were made of money. In a better mood (having got the price down, perhaps) they might offer him a drink." "And he was omnipotent God, the second person the blessed Trinity, by whom all things were made, including the wood of his carpentry, and the drink, and the customer who was arguing with him about the price: including his own human body and human soul -- that human soul which had to sustain the wonder of his divine self and not be blinded by it."
One should be able to see from this small passage, not only the joy with which Mr. Sheed writes about Christ, but also the love and the reverence he feels for Him. It may be subtle in the passage I quoted, but Mr. Sheed also deftly injects a little humor to round this book out and make it a truly brilliant work.
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Edwards, born in the Delta around 1915, worked the fields as a kid before he learned to play the guitar and began hoboing around the South. He rode the rails, played in innumerable small towns, and polished his craft. Along the way, he hung out and played with the likes of Sunnyland Slim, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, Robert Junior Lockwood, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and yes, Robert Johnson. The book describes how these architects of the modern blues passed songs, licks, and stories back and forth, keeping a form that relies so heavily on tradition dynamic and vital.
A major strength of the book is Edwards' distinctive voice, transcribed by his collaborators to retain its distinctive rhythms and dialect. The book's title sums up his attitude. His memories include violent death, physical and emotional loss, and great material want. Still, you sense strongly that he wouldn't have had his life any other way. His narrative is devoid of self-pity, but it never glosses over the difficulty of the times he endured, which included stints in prison.
The book concludes with useful appendices that define key terms and offer capsule biographies and discographies of musicians Edwards encountered. A good bibliography is also included. Highly recommended for those interested in the blues and in American social history. Great read.
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If you've visited more than a few of Frank Lloyd Wright's creations, chances are they won't all be represented here. He completed hundreds of homes and buildings, which means that this book could have been entitled "250 Favorite Rooms ..." and it still would have been too thin. What you do find are superb photos which are amazingly successful in capturing the perspective and harmony of lines, space, furniture, ornamentation and even lighting. My favorite views are inside the homes, but the public spaces are interesting also. You don't have to be an architect to appreciate the mastery in Mr. Wright's designs.
The chapters are grouped by room type (e.g., living rooms, dining rooms), with each of the pictures taking up AT LEAST one full page, and supported by 20-30 lines of text describing key design aspects of the room. The photos are of the highest quality in terms of exposure, lighting and balance. In some cases, the vantage point allows for a look beyond the windows to the surrounding landscape or greenery. A nice touch, indeed. In short, if you're looking for the definitive image of a room, you'll find a bunch of them right here.
If Mr. Wright had designed a book, I think this is what he'd have come up with. I give this my highest recommendation.
Unlike most architects, Mr. Wright designed in such a way that "the rooms inside would dictate the architecture outside." Even inside, he designed all elements of the room, including floor and wall coverings, art glass in many cases, lighting fixtures, furniture, and where everything should be located. He also specified that those who used the rooms should be limited to bringing in only certain types of objects, and for certain locations. For example, ornamental china was allowed on one ledge of the dining room in Robie House.
I have had the chance to visit many Wright homes and buildings, yet this book greatly expanded my understanding of his work.
Mr. Wright was primarily a home architect, and "the living room was the heart of the home" for him. He would use built-in benches to encourage reading, fireplaces for conversation, windows with designs to inspire contemplation, tables for informal dining and card playing, and views of nature for living more organically.
Clearly, it would be hard to outdo a Wright living room, and most of the best examples of his work in this book are living rooms. I thought the best ones were in the home and studio in Oak Park, Dana-Thomas House, Robie House, May House, Little House, Fallingwater, Taliesin West, Wingspread, Cedar Rock, R.L. Wright House, and Rayward House.
I liked his dining rooms best in the home and studio in Oak Park, Dana-Thomas House, Robie House, May House, and Boynton House.
For nooks and crannies, I liked the Oak Park studio library, and the Storer House Terrace.
Of the public spaces, my favorites were the Unity Temple Sanctuary, Coonley Playhouse, the Guggenheim Museum atrium, and the Marin County Center skylit atrium under the barrel vault.
If you ever have a chance to see any of these, be sure you take advantage of it! Robie House is now being rebuilt in Hyde Park, Illinois, but is open for tours. Final restoration is expected to be done in 2007. The Oak Park home and studio are open every day. Taliesin West is open most days. Fallingwater has an extensive schedule of being open. Unity Temple, the Guggenheim, and Marin County Center are usually open.
After you examine these wonderful living spaces, think about how your life would be improved in such more natural surroundings. How can you make where you live closer to his ideal?
Look for the most natural way to be with others!
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After 75 years of making profit out of the 3,500 workers of Wisconsin Steel in Chicago, its owners, the directors of International Harvester, decided to dump the plant in a phoney sale. They kept the mortgage on the mill, transferred ownership to Envirodyne, a consulting company with 20 employees and no steel making experience, and even lent it the money to buy the plant! They did this to try to cheat the workers out of the $45 million in benefits promised in their union contract. Two years later, they called in the mortgage and closed the mill without notice and without paying the workers' severance pay or health benefits.
The workers there, led by Frank Lumpkin and the Save Our Jobs Committee, fought for 18 years to get the money they were owed, and to stop any company ever again dumping their workers. And they won - in 1988 they got Harvester to pay out $14.8 million, and in 1995 they forced Envirodyne to pay $4 million.
They also fought the wider struggle to rebuild the city's industry and fabric, to get workers back into work on public works projects, where the steel they produced was indispensable. They realised that services depend on industry: like most US cities, Chicago's bridges, streets, sewers, schools, hospitals and houses need structural repairs that would use all the steel its mills could produce.
This book is also the story of Frank himself. He was one of the best workers, never late and never absent; his skills won him promotion to the tool room. He was always willing to pass on his skills to the younger generation, saying, 'If you have knowledge, you have responsibility to share that knowledge. You can't take it easy.' 'In order to learn you have to be able to teach and learn at the same time. That means we must listen and speak. We have to know each other. We have a similar cause. Together we can solve the problem. We need jobs that will feed, clothe and house our families. Nothing else is sufficient.'
John Woodford
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"Analog Days" is a book that does not disappoint and it will be one that you'll want to read over and over again.
Trever Pinch and Frank Trocco's new book, ANALOG DAYS, recaptures that feeling of celestial expectancy. Describing the development of the Moog synthesizer from kit-built theremins to the ubiquitous and glorious Minimoog, the book mainly concentrates on pre-polyphonic modalur synths and how the world embraced them, and then turned them into cheese-making devices a-la "Switched-On Whatever" albums.
Pinch and Trocco give us other ways to look at synths: they discuss women synthesists like Suzanne Ciani who never are mentioned in other histories even though Ms. Ciani's synthesized commercial work is probably the heard electronic music ever. Though Moog-centric, the book gives us the background of the Buchla box, a sort of sprout-and-wheat-germ rival to the Moog modulars. While Moog turned the synthesizer into a keyboard instruments, Buchla kept his machines free of established interfaces, and established musical norms.
As a sythn-freak, I couldn't put this book down, even though much the material is duplicated in Mark Vail's Vintage Synths. Vail, however, choose to be only a technical historian, while Pinch and Trocco aim for a more cultural view of the events surrounding the shifting of musical boundaries.
All your favorites are here; the unexpectedly successful Dr. Moog; the victorious but hubristic ARP company; the offhand eccentricities of EMS and their wonderful VCS3 named by Tristam Cary, son of Joyce Cary, the novelist. Don Buchla haunts the pages too, half Kesian merry-maker, half NASA sub-contractor with his silver, red and blue synths bleeping in the Haight. And good old Keith Emerson's here too, flailing his ribbon controller across the arenas of America.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in electronic music, anyone interested in why their microwave talks to them, anyone interested in the history of 1960's.
Analog Days also has a really cool cover.
My favourite moment is the story of Bob Moog's first major sale of a modular synthesizer. He had to get it to New York City from Buffalo, and in those days, there was one sensible, cost-effective solution: he took the bus. The synthesizer seemed to survive the trip, too.
Lovely book.. If you are interested in synthesizers or the histroy of electronic music, BUY IT!!
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Although that being a successful writer depends on a lot of factors, this book has a way of providing solid guidance for both aspiring writers and the more established ones. Its pool of resources is superb.
It's packed with useful information. It's gives the writer techniques, inspiration and advice. Some of these techniques are discussed how to find more time to write, creating memorable characters and revising your writing. It evens tells you specific wways to market your work, designing your website and writing for niche markets. As an added plus there are over 3000 listings of markets and resources including 2000 magazines in 45 categories ranging from performing arts and religion to adult literary to juvenile. Each one with descriptions and contact information. There's 600 book publishers, plus organizations and a glossary. This is one source that will be referred to many times over. I know I have. This is one of the best writer's resource book you can get. I'm sure this is to be updated in 2003.
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My first books on use cases focused more on UML rather than use cases. I did not give a hoot on use cases, because they look so simple on paper (and that's why I didn't buy a book specifically on use cases!) But as I grew as a developer, I began to believe that use case modelling if done well can significantly reduce development effort and bring about quality solutions. Use cases are the foundation to the understanding of the system that you are trying to develop. Use cases deserve serious attention.
The main problem with use cases is that you either don't know how to start or when to stop. This book tells you both. It tells you how to develop your use case model systematically from scratch and how to make provisions so that your use case model can grow. IMO, that's the main draw for this book.
The authors also give good insights on the possible approaches the reader can take to expand his/her use case model iteratively. It cautions the modeller to keep a balanced model so that stakeholders can understand, rather than one that specifies everything but gets bogged down by the details.
Semantics, you can get it elsewhere, but this book discusses it pretty well too. The examples are clear and relevant.
All in all, Frank and Granville did an excellent job covering the topic.