P Books

This is on my list of favorite books of all time; it is a great book not because it subtly describes the frivolties of life and not because it shows the persistence of human spirit, blah blah blah... It is a beautiful and great book because it makes you laugh - in its own great non funny way. It is not laughing out loud, of course, more like chuckling to yourself as you read it. You even get to identify with the characters of the book, with their weird perks and idiosyncracies. In our real world, the cronopios have a great cult following (at least online) - in the book, they are what people strive to be: worry-free animals in pursuit of happiness.

I read this book on a regular basis, mostly in short pieces. It is written in short chapters, so even when you are too tired to read anything else, this will cheer you up.

Recommended for all conoisseurs of inventive and experimental literature.

De Profundis, though long for a letter, is not a long work in the conventional sense. Consequently, as many editions of Wilde's collected works are available, buying this on its own may be deemed questionable. I highly reccommend purchasing a Collected Works of Oscar if you have not done so already - it's well worth the price - but, should you desire to have more compact editions of specific works, an edition such as this will be privy to your needs.

I only very recently read it--and "got" it. It rings true to me, and is very, very moving and "profound." It ain't summer beach reading.

Wilde is still and will probably always be best known as a "Personality"--that and the author of a couple of decent period plays, a short novel, a few stories, and lots of forgettable poems and such. But THIS--THIS is IT.

He really WAS a great writer, it turns out, after all.

And this man dared to call himself a "Classicist?!"
Yikes!!!
The best exercise for the reader is to just take
many of the things which Oscar accuses Lord Alfred
of, and turn them toward the self-blind, self-
justifying Oscar, to see their devastating hitting
of the mark. Never having met the young man, but
only having the "benefit" of hearsay (mostly from
Oscar's literary defenders) Lord Alfred seems to have
been calculating, temperamental (using anger to get
his way), manipulative, etc., etc., etc. The best
description of him may be Wilde's referring to him
with the lines from Aeschylus' play AGAMEMNON,
about the lion cub being raised in a house and
being let loose to wreak havoc and ruin.
But Oscar bears his share of blame -- more than just
that of the "sin" of weakness which he constantly falls
back upon in his own justification. Even in the midst
of what purports to be some sort of penitent cry from
the depths of hell...Oscar still is ever the poseur:
"And I remember that afternoon, as I was in the railway
carriage whirling up to Paris, thinking what an impossible,
terrible, utterly wrong state my life had got into, when
I, a man of world-wide reputation, was actually forced
to run away from England, in order to try and get rid
of a friendship that was entirely destructive of everything
fine in me either from the intellectual or ethical point
of view...." Er, when was the last time that the
"everything fine" had last seen the light of day?
Was Oscar an "Artist," as he consistently claims?
Was he the wronged, harmed Artist? Perhaps only the
reader can decide that for himself. Without doubt
he was witty, acerbic, funny, cute, clever, perhaps
even charming (to some -- sort of like a Pillsbury
Dough Boy with flair and a clever tongue), perhaps
stylish (in a frumpy, velveteen sort of way). Was
he wronged by a predatory clinger and manipulator,
and a hypocritical social prudery and class power
play (Oscar is no Socrates--that's for sure!)? He
hardly seems worthy, in some ways, of being a poster-boy
for Gay Pride parades. More likely, he is a better
warning poster boy for the self-excusing, and never
take-responsibility-for-your-own-actions crowd.
But this is an incredible piece to read and think
about. There is some of it that is mordantly hilarious.

Photographer Peter Moore and his wife Barbara moved into the Penn Station neighborhood in the early sixties. They used the building every day, whether they were passing through to the subway or catching a bite in the cavernous coffee shop.

With the railroad's permission, they documented its slow dismantling over the four years from 1963-1967. This book is the first appearance of that work. The black and white pictures are arranged chronologically, showing the faded but still magnificent station from its last days of active use through to its ghostly presence as a metal shell. The photography is beautiful and lyrical and sad beyond words, like a mournful love song to a love lost. The picures of the rubble-filled waiting room, its shape still intact but its side walls gone, are especially hard to take.

One note: this is not an exhaustive review of the building and its various spaces. It is a chrono picture of the concourse and waiting room through through their destruction. For more pics of the station in use, try "The Late, Great, Pennsylvania Station."

In the late 80s, I learned what once was on the site of the current MSG/Penn Station monstrosity and became appalled that people could let a beautiful work of art be dismantled and replaced with a horrible building. In the early 1990s, I learned about the 1950s and 1960s and how Americans were obsessed with all things modern and new, rejecting anything with a hint of age or ornament.

Moore & Moore take a pictorial look on how the McKim, Mead and White's neoclassical masterpiece was dismantled over a multi-year period in the mid-1960s. While they really don't go into detail on why the old Penn Station was demolished, the spooky, B & W photos tell more than how an architectural gem was demolished. On a deeper level, the photos tell the tale of how an entire city was becoming irrelevant to suburban America and was sinking into massive decline (the years of municipal bankrupcy and burning neighborhoods in the South Bronx are only a few years away).

It was a very sad book that gets more depressing with each turn of the page, as more and more of the beauty of the old Penn Station gets stripped away. I guess that was the power of the photographs working on me.

Pair this book up with Robert Caro's _The Power Broker_ to get a good picture of New York in the early Baby Boom era.

The amazing work of Old Kingdom (c.2650 - 2150 B.C.E.) artists is splendidly displayed on glossy fact filled pages.

having stated the aim of the book, i should judge it on the quality of the pictures: they are superb!! one of the best pictures i have seen, especially considering that they are indoor pictures! the grain is non-visible, this makes a difference for such a relatively pricy book.

Many of the pictures fill the whole page and this creates a striking image! It is a great buy if you want to collect good pictures on egypt!

One minor disappointment is that they omitted some of the most interesting pictures or artifacts of the old kingdom, which you find in other books. For example and most importantly the bas relief of king djoser at the ny metropolitan museum. yet, i probably know why..

My additional motivation is that I have gone from a size 22W pants to a comfortable 12 and often a 10. I run /walk 3 - 6 miles each day with my son, something I would not have been able to do 6 months ago and this also gives us some special time together.

I will say that this is obsessive, and my family hates to eat with me. Everytime we cook or eat together I do a lot of "do you know how much fat that has" or "I can't believe you ate sausages for breakfast!"

If you are even thinking of buying this book ... DO IT... RIGHT NOW!

I used this diet back in 1992 and lost 48 pounds. However, during the holidays over the years, the weight crept back.

Now my wife and I are both on this diet and in the first two weeks, I have lost:

14 pounds

2 inches in the hips

3 inches in the waist

1 1/2 inches across the breast

My wife keeps her weight secret, even after 14 years of marriage, but she has lost 4 inches in the waist, 3 inches in the hips, and 2 inches across the breasts, in our first two weeks. HINT: Buy a scale with a memory!
I would say the diet still works. In addition, I don't feel any hunger pangs between meals.

The exercise is important, but drinking 64 oz of water each day is more important, to wash out those fatty acids that accumulate from burning your stored up fat. DON'T WAIT until you are thirsty, start with water before the first cup of coffee.

There is no mention of increasing your water intake after drinking caffeinated drinks, that in hot weather would leave you dehydrated. The typical rule is to drink 2 times the amount of water for each amount of caffienated diet soda. Apparently, the fluid intake and outgo with 64 ounces of any liquid is enough to flush the system.

Our sample supper meal for one person:

Fruit: 4 oz high pulp Orange juice

1 Vege: 2 cups salad mix with 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar dressing

Protein; 1 Vege; 2 starch & 1/2 dairy:
2 yellow no fat tortillos
1/2 can no fat refried beans
1/2 can diced tomatoes with green chillies
grated cheese on top

Heated in microwave 2 1/2 minutes. Magnifique!

I whole heartedly recommend this diet. DON"T FORGET to exercise at least 30 minutes every other day. Walk, spade your garden, put up stuff upstairs or like I'm doing this morning...unloading 20 sacks of humas, 40 pounds each, which I found last night @ 49 cents each.