Richard Ashton Books

I thought, well, I'll get this to add to my porn collection of books, but this is a guide I've used to buy at least 13 vids in 2003~! tHERE WERE TITLES I'VE NEVER HEARD OF! aND I've been collecting for 20 years...anyway, i'm very excited to get the info about where to get the movies and where to find titles I've never heard of, and I love the categories, TWINKS, BEST ROMANTIC, BEST LEATHER, BISEXUAL and toher categories. I hope the others are as good as this one

This is a must have reference book for anyone interested in Gay Adult Videos. There are more than 100 reviews here. I look forward to these reviews from Mickey Skee every year, it makes it so easy to rent & buy the best videos with the hottest guys. Whatever your interest there are categories for uniform, leather, ethnic, solo, and many more. Plus you get all the behind the scenes dirt you could ever want to know about. A lot of appreciation goes out to Mickey for putting this very comprehensive selection of the best gay videos together every year. It certainly makes it easy for us. Great job!!

This is far better and more in-depth than the first edition, and the author only seems to get better with every version. He's become more eclectic in his choices, my god, there's some kinky stuff in there (read the review on FIREWATER!) and he has smaller companies, like Brush Creek and Titan, not just the BIG obnoxious ones like Catalina, Centaur etc. Can't wait 'til the 2000 version to see what this expert picks! I thought I knew 'em all!

I have had people that have commented they have searched for years for a book like this about pomegranates. One reader comments "began reading, and could not put it down until finished. - It clearly addresses the full spectrum of growing and using pomegranates." J.H. A noted Los Angles garden writer states "Gardeners and pomegranate lovers will find this book a valuable, irresistable resourse." David Karp.
Includes a lot of information not available elsewhere. With lots of color pictures.

Although some information in this book has been included in CRFG "Fruit Gardener" magazines, consolidated that information along with new information in this book has been a valuable resource for me. This book includes comprehensive propagation information, several lists of cultivars with descriptions, and growing advice. I purchased the electronic version but am now considering purchase the print version, despite the higher price. I believe I'd find it handy to have copies of both since it's easy to search for a term in the electronic copy but sometimes flipping from section to section would be easier in the print version. Thanks for a fine book.

The paperback version sold here is rather expensive compared to the electronic edition (only $7) available from the publisher, Third Millennium Publishing.

If you are not a reader of the CRFG publication "The Fruit Gardener", then the electronic edition is well worth the investment. You will find the quality of photos in the electronic edition is better.

However, if you do read "Fruit Gardener", you will be disappointed to find that the majority of the book is material previously published in that periodical, or repeatedly referenced by the magazine, or found elsewhere in college-level horticultural textbooks, Agriculture Extension publications, etc.

Late in life, Wagner published his complete writings: Gesammelte Schriften (GS). In the 1890's, William Ashton Ellis translated them and they were published in English in 8 volumes. They were originally published by London:Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. as "Richard Wagner's Prose Works". In 1995, they were reprinted in this country. Title not withstanding, this is volume 8 of that set. This volume contains various bits and pieces that were not a part of the original GS, and is more like an appendix to the original series. There are some important pieces, but in the end it is not that much more valuable than the other 7 volumes in the series.

1)The first piece is the complete, original prose poem for Siegfried's Tod (50 pages). It has the happy ending where Siegfried and Brunnhilde enter Valhalla together rather than Ragnarok.
2)The next section (200 pages) is labled by Ellis as "Discarded". These are not really discards, but were not included by Wagner probably because he did not have access to them while preparing GS. These works are essays, letters, and articles of little importance (you can probably skip every other sentence while reading them and not miss anything of importance).
3)The next section contains sketches for potential operas: "Die Sarazenin" (25 pages) whose plot bears a striking similarity to Rienzi, "Das Liebesmahl der Apostel" (5 pages) which Wagner composed as an independent choral piece, and "Jesus of Nazareth" (60 pages), Wagner's risible attempt to rewrite the New Testament.
4)The last section (60 pages) is a mish mash of unpublished fragments found in various manuscripts. It begins with "Kunstlerthum der Zukunft" - Artisthood of the Future (20 pages). In spite of its incomplete state, I found this essay to be more decipherable than most of Wagner's other pieces, but only because it contains his main points without the usual rhetorical conflations. You will also find a brief, one page prose sketch for "Die Sieger", another potential opera but this time about Ananda, Prakriti, and Buddha (here, the theme is unrequited love, and the plot is similar to Tristan).

For those who are interested in the other 7 volumes of this series, here are the titles: The Art-Work of the Future (volume 1), Opera and Drama (volume 2), Judaism in Music (volume 3), Art and Politics (volume 4), Actors and Singers (volume 5), Religion and Art (volume 6), and Pilgrimage to Beethoven (volume 7). Note that the book titles were assigned by the American publishers (Bison Books), and are merely the name of just one of the essays in the book and do not constitute the entire book's contents. The exception is Opera and Drama, which is a book-length essay constituting the entirety of volume 2.

More than just a dry run for his liturgical Christian music drama PARSIFAL, the German composer's personal look at the life of Christ merges the traditional Passion story with his own brand of revolutionary politics, proving true novelist Reynolds Price's words that "virtually all post-Gospel lives of Jesus [have] told us far more about their authors than their subject." Yet for a man so often identified with anti-Semitism, readers will be surprised that Wagner's mystery play is remarkably free of racial bias or slurs. Not only are the Jews not scapegoated as the Christ-killers of Medieval lore, but the portrayal of Judas as a heroic freedom fighter echoes the portrait in Nikos Kazantzakis' THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. (One wonders if this interpretation tricked down to Kazantzakis during his intensive studies of Wagner friend-turned-foe Friedrich Nietzsche.)

All in all, fascinating material not only for musicologists, historians, and Wagnerites, but for those interested in the Christology as seen though the eyes of historical personages.

First of all, I should make a note about the edition. While the bulk of the letters were translated by William Ashton Ellis, the edition that I have (The University of Michigan Press, 1994) also includes additional letters and notes by John Deathridge. Looking this volume up on Amazon, I was a little bit ashamed of myself as selecting it for summer reading. The new price of the book ($70.00!) makes it clear that this was supposed to be a Very Serious Scholarly Volume for Very Serious Wagner Scholars. I picked it up myself second-hand for five euros at Waterlooplein Market, so I am very clearly *not* a Very Serious Wagner Scholar. So bear in mind that this is going to be a review of the book as something for the mostly casual reader and not as a tool for music studies.

I picked it up because it was available and looked interesting, and also because Wagner was working in a period of music and writing about which I have been increasingly interested. It seemed to me that many of his contemporaries and their issues would likely be people about whom I wanted to hear. I also know little more about Wagner than the cliffnotes biography that is widely known, and as such a controversial figure it seemed to me good to get a view of him straight from the horse's mouth.

As summer reading this volume filled its task admirably. It was very interesting. The first thing that caught my attention were the obvious translator wars going on my edition.

Deathridge on Ellis:

"Ellis' translations of Wagner's letters, including those in the present book, are less annoying probably because the original German is clearer and more spontaneous, though the reader still has to endure the bouts of mad-translator disease to which Ellis was always prone."

I also found it interesting as both Deathridge and Ellis discuss problems that exist in assembling this kind of volume of collected letters. They discuss the issue that many similar letters have been lost because they were sold privately to autograph collectors/dealers who are uninterested in the text and may even destroy the rest of the letter-- keeping only the signature.

Wagner himself seemed like a perfectly unpleasant person, pausing only in his supreme self-absorption to be bombastically encouraging to young relatives. As a reader, I applauded the editor's decision to include a note from another relative to Wagner, letting him know what the family thought of him. (Not very much.) As in many books of letters by artists of every variety, there is a great deal of talk about money panic, money troubles, demands for money, schemes to raise money and irritation that no money is forthcoming. There is also a great deal of what I hope for in this kind of book-- domestic detail, discussion of contemporary arts and letters, and Wagner's thinking about his life and work. After reading this, I would also be interested in a good biography if someone could recommend something considered worth the time.

I do feel badly discussing this book at such a superficial level, but that's the only level that I feel qualified to discuss. You'll need to look elsewhere for more depth, I am afraid.

Overall, a good book with good ideas for getaways. Provides 2-3 day excursions, usually themed according to either environment or activities. For instance, there's the predictable Zoo/Wild Animal Park adventure, but it also gives good ideas for trips into the mountains or desert, or even a horseback themed trip. I think the ideal couple who would enjoy this is those who are near enough to make frequent trips to San Diego, but don't necessarily live here (i.e. LA). Even though I live here, I think it will be good to get away for a few of these.

I try to make the most of this city (easy to do since we love it so much!), and this book has some good items that I wasn't aware of, particularly outside the typical San Diego/Coronado/Carlsbad descriptions found in many travel books.

For an overall sightseeing guide, one would do better with Fodor's or Fromme's, but this book has some good expanded-area info, as well as some "preassembled" trips, complete with lodging recommendations.

This paperback is a collection of some of Richard Wagner's writings, viz:

1)
To the German Army Before Paris (a short, and unimportant poem meant to be set to music by another composer);
2)
A Capitulation (a second-rate burlesque, lampooning the French);
3)
Reminiscences of Auber (where Wagner gives a back-handed compliment to the French by praising an obscure French composer and an even more obscure opera);
4)
Beethoven (which is about Wagner himself and his feelings about music much more than it is about Beethoven);
5)
The Destiny of Opera (here, Wagner re-plows the same ground as in "Opera and Drama");
6)
Actors and Singers (a long article where Wagner critiques the theater stage, not to be confused with the opera stage);
7)
The Rendering of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (detailing the "improvements" he made in the orchestration; the performance was for the dedication of the foundation stone laying at Bayreuth);
8)
Letters (to an Actor; to an Italian Friend [Arrigo Boito] on the Production of "Lohengrin" at Bologna; to the Burgomaster of Bologna; to Friedrich Nietzsche);
9)
Some minor (short) essays (a Glance at the German Operatic Stage of Today [detailing his criticisms about the German opera houses he visited while scouting for talent for his upcoming Ring performances at his new opera house in Bayreuth] ; on the Name "MusikDrama"; Prologue to a Reading of "Die Götterdämmerung Before a Select Audience in Berlin").
10)
two reports about Bayreuth (where he is starting the construction of his personal opera house)

In 1893, the London Wagner Society published an English translation of the 8 volume set of Wagner's Collected Works. William Ashton Ellis supplied the rather clumsy English translation, perhaps excusable since Wagner's prose was equally clumsy. "Actors and Singers" is a reprint of volume 5 of that set, which covers the years 1870-1873. Note that the title "Actors and Singers" is merely one of the articles contained therein and does not constitute the entirety of the book (it is, however, the longest one, but not the most important one); in fact, it could have any one of a number of titles, including "Beethoven" or "The Destiny of Opera".

Do I recommend this book? Well, it is all written by Richard Wagner, so it is by nature at least a little interesting. Much of the material here is pretty inconsequential. Only "Beethoven" was of great interest to me, and, to a lesser degree, "A Glance at the German Operatic Stage of Today". I do recommend it for that reason alone, but my endorsement is rather lukewarm.

The German word "Erdball" means "world". It takes a weird translator to want to render it into English as "Earthball". H Ashton Ellis is that translator, a man who, in learning German, forgot all his English. Ellis translates German compound words not with plain English but with strange Germanic formulations, eg "leg-dancers", or "tone-arranger" for a German word that simply means "composer". So while it's good to have these Wagner texts available in English, it's a shame that the re-appearance of these awful translations in a modern edition will publishers from commissioning a new, competent, plain-English translation discourage. Ellis also makes Wagner's "Das Judentum in Musik" harder to evaluate by introducing antisemitic overtones (perhaps of his own) where the Wagner text doesn't justify it. For example, the Ellis text describes Mendelsohn as "a Jew composer", which has a hostile, sneering, sound to it. But Wagner's text has "Judaische"; the correct translation is the merely descriptive "a Jewish composer". There are other, similar examples.

As for Wagner, "Das Judentum in Musik"'s argument is that because [in mod-19th Century Europe] Jews are partly involved in the cultures amongst which they live, and are partly separate and aloof from them, their music and poetry don't have the warmth, depth and humanity that come from having strong folk roots; Jewish art, while Jews remain apart and not assimilated into the mainstream "folk", is likely to be imitative, clever, ironical, and so on, but not deep or passionate.

The essay brings no comfort to Wagner-lovers, but not quite as much comfort to Wagner-haters as is sometimes claimed. Some people, by no means antisemitic, eg Patrick Magee, defend Wagner's analysis (stripped of its few paragraphs of merely racist writing). The essay makes an argument about the need for art to have folk roots if it is to be great. Me, I'd say its too easy to find counter-examples, for Wagner's analysis to stand. Personally, if I were to defend any part of the essay it would be Wagner's valuing of sincere emotional expression in art over irony. We're starting to hear the phrase "post-irony", but it's not yet a reality. I'd welcome a trend back to having the courage to express emotion, in life as well as art, without always hiding behind quote marks. One of Wagner's merits is as supreme non-ironist.

But, point out the detractors, rightly, there's a strong thread of antisemitism in amongst Wagner's discussion of culture and of art in this essay. There is a tone of "balance" in most of Wagner's paragraphs, an assumption of the mask of mere intellectual curiosity over the odd position of Jewish musicians and poets in the mid-19th Century. But in some paragraphs animosity shows through undisguised.

On the other hand, the essay is not the same thing as the political antisemitism that had its horrifying culmination under the Nazis. Wagner's subject was the arts. And his proposed "remedy" was for Jews to assimilate into the mainstream population and lose their separate identity. That's a despicably racist idea (why should they, if they don't want to?), but it's diametrically the opposite of what the Nazis called for - racial segregation followed by mass murder. Reading it, you'll find that the essay contains specific offensive passages, and is permeated by ideas we now find offensive, but that it is not simply a screed of racial or religious bigotry; mostly the text argues about art and music. In sum, anyone who loves Wagner's music will wish he'd never written or published "Das Judentum in Musik". It disfigures the man's posthumous reputation. But nor is it quite the screed of racial vilification it is sometimes made out to be. Wagner was a bigot and a crank, but not a monster. The book gets three stars, because though it is an appalling translation of a bad essay, it does at least make this infamous essay available for people to judge it for themnselves.

Laon