Lawrence Books

I wasn't sure that I would like this book when I purchased it from Amazon. At the time, there was only one little review on it and some brief publication information. Nevertheless, I took the risk and added it to my cart! AND I am so glad that I did! :) The Look West Series: Kokopelli by Lawrence W. Cheek proves to be a nice little treasure worth reading because it presents some interesting theories about and thought-provoking images on the timeless icon. It also makes the reader hungry for more in-depth Kokopelli studies--beyond the scope of this introductory book.

The book is a great size for reading and examination. The fonts / texts are of a suitable size and clarity, which helps eyeglass wearers. Many pages contain lovely color images depicting various versions of Kokopelli. Some of the notable images are...

Kokopelli Orchestra on Escarpment Near Santa Fe (Page 2) // This is a fun photograph depicting the merry flute-playing figure as he often appears in rock art. In this particular image, a group of Kokopellis are happily playing their flutes, apparently on their way to a large crevice in the rock.

Kokopelli and various other images at Petrified Forest National Park (Page 11) // The rocks appear to be some sort of story captured in stone...a rigid tapestry of images to decipher.

A Contemporary Navajo weaving from Visitors Center, Monument Valley Tribal Park, Utah (Page 16) // This is a wonderful illustration of how the flute-player has captured the modern imagination. The rich earth tones are comforting and warm.

Canyon de Chelly Rock Art (Page 39) // Strange Twin Flute-Players and animal like characters decorate an ancient rock.

To give potential readers a glimpse at what they may expect from this book, I include the following information. The book's jacket offers an intriguing (and amusing!) question to open this discussion on the Kokopelli mystery:

"Just who was this prehistoric Pied Piper? About 1500 years ago [pre-Columbian period], the hunchbacked flute-playing figure we call Kokopelli first appeared in North American rock art. Today he decorates everything from jewelry to potholders. Whether originally he was a deity, a trickster, a wandering Casanova, a fertility symbol, or just a traveling salesman carrying goods on his back, there's no doubt he got around. Kokopelli shows up in rock and ceramic art all across the Southwest--even as north as the Canadian Rockies. Stories of insect-like, fun-loving flute players abound in Pueblo traditions. He seems to have served many cultures, including our own. One thing is clear, however: much of what we think we know about the humpbacked figure known today as "Kokopelli" is based on a modern misunderstanding" (Quoted from book jacket, first flap).

The author sets out to demonstrate that misunderstanding in well-selected slices of research and engaging photographs.

One of the most illuminating parts of the book is the author's presentation of and commentary on Kokopelli theories that suggests that, if the ancient flute player had been a real person, he may have suffered from a painful condition called Pott's disease, which causes deformities and other physical problems--"features" that can be observed in petroglyphs.

To offer more cultural flavor, the book includes also three Southwestern folktales:

Coyote and The Flute Player
Beauty and the Bug
Man Crazy

NOTE: The book contains adult-oriented theme and would not be suitable for young children.

Finally a book for adults that deals with this ancient 'American folk character'. Cheek presents archaeological theories as to who or what this mythic figure may be. I enjoyed it a lot.

From Wall Street intrigues (that lead the author to a white collar prison camp in Pennsylvania), to the unforgiving ring ropes of Brooklyn's Gleason's Gym, Lawrence's LANE CHANGES is a captivating journey chronicled in the poetic genre. Whatever pain Lawrence encountered along the way - and there must have been pain - he has managed to shine a pink light on and make beautiful. A raw anger masquerades as a taunting arrogance, a childlike defensiveness: "Punching is a beautiful way to hurt the sun. When it shines on me I knock its teeth out." This is not braggadocio. If Lawrence is full of himself, he is full of the bad along with the good. Narcissism becomes a protective, distancing device, a way for Mr. Lawrence to duck the punches of the long reach of life. "I see myself astounding the Hollywood sky like a sweet tart." The language is crisp and new, provocative. We smile, we wince, we tear-up. Lawrence knows how to make the face move. Surreal sensibilities trump the ordinary at every turn and are what drives the reader along.

There are no boxing poets, no poetry writing boxers. Which makes David Lawrence's poetry so unique. At Gleason's David's known as the thinking man's trainer. He's the perfect sparring partner both with fists and rhetorics. As a poet he packs a powerful punch as well, drawing on a life so rich, it would take five volumes of biography to cover. Of course the analogies are unavoidable. There's a flow to his words that's rooted in the quick steps of a boxer, his lines have the surprising patterns of a combination that can floor any opponent. But make no mistake. This ain't no rambling slam poetry. This is highly sophisticated wordcraft drawing on classics from both worlds, be it Sugar Ray Robinson or Wallace Stevens.

This book was a great book in my opinion. It was a real eye opener, and I reccommend this to anyone and everyone.

This is an excellent book. It depicts an outstanding role of a person struggling with relationships and hardships. I would defiantely recommend this book.

This is a fantastic read. The language is beautiful, a great translation, and it's great to look at, too, full of the author's own photographs. The interesting thing is: you can read it on many levels, and it's definitely worth re-reading it because each time you begin to see more and more connections and layers. Nothing is what it seems at first glance. And that is also what the author is trying to tell us, I guess. It has a powerful flow that takes you in.
Sometimes you don't know if you should laugh or cry. For me, that's the best kind of humor. Another strong point is that even though much of the action takes place in Serbia, during the demonstrations in the nineties, somehow it becomes universal, even if you don't know much about the events or the culture of the region. Because besides being a lot of fun, the book deals with major issues such as innocence, freedom, identity and hope.
I definitely recommend The Last Window- Giraffe, there's something for everyone in this book. Here is a description of the bullet-ridden walls of the author's hometown:
'We climbed walls, stuck our fingers into the holes and with our eyes shut tried to imagine the bullets. A Braille modern history of Budapest - a city that cannot be seen by the eye, only felt with fingers, read between the lines: house-wallsized hieroglyphs, epic and lyric variations, wartime graffiti, crude erotic messages, an inside-out archive.'
I hope to see many other books by this writer in translation!

So Péter Esterházy describes Peter Zilahy and this fascinating book. Zilahy describes a stage in Yugoslavia's post Communistic disintegration, and in particular the anti-Miloevic protests in Belgrade 1996-1997.

Zilhay describes the chaos of the period using the structure of an ABC primer for young Hungarian children. The Hungarian words for 'window' and 'giraffe' are 'ablak' and 'zsiráf', respectively, and are the first and last words of a famous Hungarian school-primer. Zilhay explains: "'The Window-Giraffe' was a picture book from which we learned to read when we didn't know how. I already knew how by then, but I had to learn anyway, because what else was school for." He was struck by how a dictionary "juxtaposes words that you never find together in real life", and uses it as an effective symbol for the era.

The book is illustrated with apparently innocent children book pictures and snapshots taken by Zilhay himself, each with a bite of its own. (Zilahy.net presents several of the images.) The entries jump from one era to another with very little order imposed by the alphabet. In fact, Zilahy's structure demonstrates his view that every attempt at creating order of Belgrade at the time is artificial and arbitrary.

A few quotations will give you a flavor of Zilahy's writing:

"If the US is a human melting pot, then Eastern Europe is a scrap yard. There is a little of everything here -- but not enough of anything."

The favorite song of the protesters is based on a pun on the Serbian words for "voice" and "vote". "MTV have made a clip from it."

"The riot police come by bus with packed lunches, like a bunch of tourists from the countryside. After a quick city tour, they form a cordon, march down the Road of Revolution, and barricade Republic Square. Bobby-soxers pin flowers on their shields and offer them cakes. It gets smeared all over their visors."

"The cops chat amiably with old partisans, joke with students, show girls their gas masks. Five minutes later they send them running in all directions: an order had come in over the radio. An invisible hand twirls a rubber truncheon, pressing my head against the wall. Then, just as suddenly the cordon melts away. There's no knowing if they're heading somewhere else, or just that the daily allowance has run out, since they are paid by the hour."

"I'm having a drink with a Croat and a Bosnian and my two Serb mates. We converse in English and swear in our respective mother tongues. We reminisce about a sunken country where the stars were red, the girls were roses, the young men were fiery, and the mountain goatherds swifter than mountain goats."

Zilahy's memoir gains great strength from his personal experiences in the Hungarian transition from Communism. Visiting Belgrade allows him to be more dispassionate than others, while he feels their passion and compares their experiences with his own past. The rich illustrations, the dense text printed in two columns, the breaks determined by the alphabet -- all give the superficial impression that this is not a memoir. Nonetheless, Zilahy and the chaos of Belgrade come through loud and clear in this wonderful memoir.

Goldsmith has been painting his watercolors since he graduated from Yale in the 1930s after studying under the noted watercolorist Eliot O'Hara. His travels to the Caribbean, Central America, and Southeast Asia after graduation infused his characteristic paintings done mostly in Maine and Vermont with a use of color both deft and delicate and an almost calligraphic sense of line and organization. Carl Little's title "Passion of Place" for his Introduction refers especially to Goldsmith's use of color. As Little notes, Goldsmith's paintings are essentially evocative rather than representational even though scenes are recognizable in them. Drawn early in his career to Turner's watercolor sketches, Goldsmith himself allows this. Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth are other detectable, but indirect influences. All but a few of the 62 full-page, full-color plates were done after 1990, Goldsmith's mature period when his distinctive, absorbing style was fully developed.

A master of watercolor, a lovingly-produced book, and paintings that balance mood and color and white space perfectly!

Enjoyed this thoroughly, as I do all of the BFI "classic" series (barring The Matrix volume). Well documented research and sources cited. Of interest to both newcomers as well as those well-versed in "Lawrence" lore. Great quotes from living and deceased contributors to the film. Informative backstory regarding various incarnations of script, pre-production, and censorship controversies. Would love to see expanded edition put out by BFI as a coffeetable pictorial glossy hardcover ;)
*Sidenote: BFI needs to increase their output and selections of both Modern and Film Classics. Both their selections and output have decreased since their launch in the mid-nineties. Since they've got the niche, you'd think they'd want to exploit the market, but it seems to have petered out. Step it up BFI (if you're listening).

Lovely little book packed with great information. Nice pics and well-organized. Learned a lot that will bring even more enjoyment of this film.

This is an amazing book. I have read several biographies about T. E. Lawrence that deal mostly with his campaign in the Middle East and his life in the ranks. What a surprise to meet Lawrence , the sensitive man of letters, in this well documented book which, by the way, is not a biography. Lawrence's criticism of famous and less known writers and poets never leave you indifferent.I highly recommend it to readers who are interested in literature and who, like me, believe that T.E. Lawrence was a far more profound man than "Lawrence of Arabia".

Okay, so I haven't actually read the book, but there haven't yet been any reviews and so it might be useful to provide something which fills the space. I do know, however, that Mr. Orlans is my uncle, and so I have at least some idea of the care, work, and time that went into writing this book. It's probably well-done and worth reading.

Personally,i loved this book because it is a great begining for those, like me, that know absolutly nothing about pop art. It has a lot of basic information that helps you understand how it started and the ideology of this movement. It is one of my favorite books

I own the original edition of this book, first published in the early 70s. I picked it up at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis during a visit there many years ago. My casual interest in pop art has led me to collect a number of books on the subject since then, and this one has remained the definitive work for combining a decent collection of photos with intelligent supporting text. (See Tilman Osterwold's _Pop Art_ for another worthy take on the subject, also available on Amazon.)

Lippard shows herself to be an expert art historian, but thankfully doesn't slide into the pretentiousness and hard-to-read scholarly style that plague other books of the genre.

This book was responsible for igniting my interest in pop art long ago, and I can still recommend it as a great addition to the library of anyone who shares an interest in the subject.

Learn HTML on the Macintosh is the Best Beginers HTML book I have read. It is perfect for a person who is just starting out with HTML. I highly recomend this book. David Lawrence and David Mark make this book very easy to understand, and provide great e-mail support.

Although this manual is written for Mac users, the concepts arerelevant to anyone new to HTML and will teach you what you need toknow to get started, with directions on where you can go next. The authors have written this book to teach the reader HTML basics their way--the way documentation should be presented to anyone new to the subject. It is fun, it is easy to follow, and it immediately sets the novice at ease. It has an excellent layout, lots of graphics, and every word is relevant. With its accompanying CD-ROM, the book is well worth the price. You can even email David Lawrence with questions. Talk about support! For anyone who has browsed the bookshelves thumbing through the endless daunting and voluminous HTML manuals--mostly written for the PC--this comparatively brief (less than 300 pages) guide is a welcome relief. Let's look forward to a Volume II from these two sorcerers when we graduate from apprentices to webmasters.

I had just finished "Last Full Measure" when I started this book. It was a wonderful, imaginative work that kept me wondering just what the bag limits would be on major issues addressed and historic military, sports and political figures brought into the picture along with the fictitious "father" of sports agents. Hilarious combinations of characters, circumstances and events left me shaking my head in amazement, while I still was made to focus on the real, not- so-funny issues that challenged our society and country in 1896 and still challenge us today. The image of Gens. Longstreet and Sickles laying out a football field on the Gettysburg battlefield is one not easily purged from my mind, sort of like the rest of the book, a combination of the absolutely unthinkable and the "Why not?".

What a fun ride through the turn of the century attitudes toward sex roles, race, athletics, and social class. I loved every minute of it. After having read a lot of serious history of the Civil War, I found this to be a welcome change.