Powell Books

The Glass Enclosure offers a brief biographical sketch of Bud Powell as it traces the artistic triumphs of his early career that turned to tragedy as mental illness, alcoholism, and mistreatment by his handlers all diminished his musical gifts. The book balances some of the claims made by Francis Paudras in Dance of the Infidels and fills in some of the details of Powell's pre-Paris years that Paudras omits. Still, The Glass Enclosure reads like an extended encyclopedia entry and provides little information beyond that found in other histories of the era or biographies of the principal players. The definitive Bud Powell biography is probably still to be written.

The most useful part of the book is the discography. This is presented first as a critical analysis and then as a detailed chronology of Powell's recordings. Together, these two chapters provide a brief but comprehensive survey of Powell's career and are useful to anyone building a collection of his important recordings. The book also pulls together a number of photos of both Powell and the musicians who influenced him; unfortunately, many of these are so dark as printed in the book, that many details are hard to make out.

This short work should be read in conjunction or shortly after reading "Dance of the Infidels : A Portrait of Bud Powell -- by Francis Paudras". "The Glass Enclosure" frequently refers to Francis Paudras, as any biography of Bud Powell must. It contains many pictures of Bud that help to understand him better, including several pictures of his common law wife "Buttercup". The book assumes the reader is familiar with the general history of bebop and figures such as Miles Davis, Diz, Monk, Mingus, Clifford Brown, etc. It was originally published in 1993, so this is a reprint. The book can be read in a couple of days. The research done for the book is good in terms of people who were interviewed. Bud was a genius but a very troubled on. This books explains, sometimes to the point of being painful to read, the details of Bud's mental troubles. It leaves one feeling sad but full of wonder at Bud's extraordinary musical powers and the recorded legacy he leaves for current and future generations. These two books are probably the sum total of all that will ever be known about Bud Powell. Combined with his recordings, especially from the period 1947 to 1953, it is hopefully enough to satisfy the generations as yet unborn who will certainly revere Bud as a great master.

No, it doesn't have the rhyme or meter of a literary poem. It does have all the mystery, evocativeness, and tantalizing ambiguity that so many people love in poetry. Powell combines past and present with will-be and never-was. He blends gentle fanstasy with the hard gray facts of a world where success is only ever partial, indirect and transient. Events are kaleidoscopic but there's a narrative deep inside, maybe several of them. The black and white art is simple, varied, and without affectation. It carries the text beautifully.

I'll have to go over this again, and maybe again a few more times to tease all the strands apart. It's worth it. If this is what Nate Powell creates, I want more of it.

//wiredweird

PS to people who don't like buying one story twice: This book's content appears again in Powell's later and larger collection, "Sound of Your Name."

IT DISAPPEARS by Nate Powell, Soft Skull Press, 71 Bond St., Brooklyn, NY 11217; www.softskull.com; ammi@softskull.com. 2004. 78 pp. $9.99 trade paper, ISBN 1-932360-37-9. graphic novel.
Powell's graphic, comic-book-like, panels of varying degrees of white and black convey the uncertain, shifting, grounds of existence. When the white predominates, there's an almost mystic feeling of tranquility. When the black predominates, there's a noir-like atmosphere. Most of the panels are in the middle ground of the proportion of the two colors. A man out camping alone in the wilderness when a snowstorm starts up meets a dog-like creature with a philosophical outlook. Identity, one's place in the universe, and modern society are among the topics the two take up as they search for shelter and other characters move in and out of the story. Powell's unpredictable illustrations and reflective dialogue present different angles on the perennial existential questions.

I've been reading this book with my son since he was about a year old. He loves it still, at almost two. Sadly, it got destroyed and these are now out of print. If you can get your hands on this one or the others in the series (Bang! Bang!, Munch! Munch!, or Tap! Tap!), don't hesitate! The pull-out tabs are a great variation.
(Yes, it's supposed to be 5 stars, but it won't let me change it!)

This was a cute book and unique. I think it is well well worth the money.

This is the best book currently available for Lotus Approach. Although it was written for Approach 96, it works perfectly for Approach 97 and with only some minor changes for Approach 2000. as with most application books, this is only very minimal information on scripting.

However the book does give good background information on database concepts and step by step information on developing applications.

This work is ideal for experienced computer users seeking a working knowledge of Lotus Approach 96 and the ability to construct their own databases. While some sections may be a bit advanced for novices, even novices could utilize 80% of the text. It is written in a manner that allows the material to flow easily from topic to topic, and makes it as interesting a read as database building can be. Well worth the purchase price if you intend to create your own databases with Approach 96.

David Lazar is some kind of Renaissance man all his own--his other books include CONVERSATIONS WITH MFK FISHER. Fisher is a talent of such a different sort than Michael Powell's that all we can say about David Lazar's taste is the word, "eclectic."

Lazar reprints (and in some cases prints for the first time) some great interviews of Powell, who's always sparkling and seems to be on in the great tradition of Peter ustinov (i.e., a born interviewee). The brilliant film director Oliver Assayas asks perhaps the most probing questions, whereas Martin Scorcese, who is a special guest star in one of the interviews, doesn't really seem like much of an intellectual, does he--he lobs off all the questions and continually defers to Powell as the one with the brains.

The only trouble with these 13 interviews is the amount of repetition, from questions that Powell has answered many times. It's interesting to find out that John Sweet, the American serviceman who plays basically himself in A CANTERBURY TALE, never made another film but went back to his home town in the states, entered the business world, and years later showed up at a tribute to Pressburger and Powell with his family in tow, a happy man. But then when you hear much the same story again, you lose interest fast. Ditto with the repetitions of the same answers about knowing Hitchcock, Winston Churchill, etc.

And what about the condescending way he refers to CHINATOWN as a studio movie unworthy of the genius of Polanski? Clearly he hated CHINATOWN and he certainly minces no words about NEW YORK, NEW YORK ("horrible film with Liza").

This was one of the weaker entries in the U. of Mississippi series of interviews with filmmakers. Although there are a couple brief interviews from the Forties, the glory years for Powell, most of these interviews come from after "Peeping Tom" was savaged by the British critics. Sadly, as the book makes clear, Powell seemed to think that "Peeping Tom" was his grave and he was content to lie in it. The same questions usually elicit the same answers.

However, there is some good stuff. There are two interviews with French critics from the Sixties in which they try to classify Powell as a horror director, and he rejects this classification. Also, there is an interview by William K. Everson that inspires Powell to go beyond the usual pat answers. You can tell Powell respects Everson.

So there is good stuff here. However, if you have read Powell's two volume autobiography, this book might be superfluous.

We got this book at the library after we bought our 15 mos old son a Radio Flyer. It has a cute message, things like carrying library books, using your wagon at the community garden, taking it to the baseball field. Good for boys and girls, in fact I believe the bear IS a girl (hard to tell). Very few words, sometimes we make some up. A nice solid book with nothing offensive or controversial in it.

My Little Wagon features a cute bear using a wagon in various ways. He uses it for pushing and pulling. He also uses it for cleaning and exploring. His dad also getin the act by loading trash in the wagon for the neighborhood clean up.

The book is made of study board pages. This makes it a great preschool storybook. Little hands can turn the pages easily. There are few words per page, which is great for young kids with short attention spans.

We would recommed this book to families with small children. The story is easy to read and short making it a great bedtime story.

This is a story of love lost (and found) in unexpected places. Set during the early years of WWII, the brilliant scientist in Germany whose speciality is secret radar research. He was sure that because fo his expertise he would be safe and allowed to do his thing, but he was Jewish. It was suspenseful with his attempt to escape. Many came to America and helped us to win that war. Have you looked up into the night sky lately? It is simply gorgeous when the sky is clear and black and most of the planets are visible along with the multitude of stars. Have you seen a flying star -- I have once. Justin and I used to set our alarms to go outside to watch for Halley's comet; alas, we did not ever see it. But now, Pluto has been deemed no longer a planet. The noted astronomers have discovered some which they named with odd numbers, but they superseded Pluto in size and so that association composed of educated astronomers have said "No Way" to a part of our past. I started to call Geoff, my astronomer son, and ask 'how could you let this happen,' but he would only reply "Oh Mom, I didn't do it." Julie lived in England during the war years but was collaborating with the French underground.

The bombing of London had not occurred, and it was merely the calm before the storm of destruction. In France, the criminal in this story did not kill a bear, but his viciousness could vie with that of Troy Gentry of the country duo Montgomery Gentry. The French criminal was interested only in his personal gains no matter who got hurt. Julie was living a dangerouslifestyle, because the idea of war seemed remote and unreal in the United Kingdom at that time. We never know when we will be hit next.

Held onto this book for many years, and finally read it and was thrilled. I could almost feel that I was there during the war. The characters felt real and as if they were people I wanted to know. Couldn't put this book down, and I have searched for her other novels and loved the ones I have read so far. A must read!

This short history of North Carolina is a selective history, told from a very summary level, but that's not a criticism as much as simply a general observation. It's a very rapid read, and a well-written concise history. It's meant for the general reader, and is not intended to be a scholarly work, per se.

The first three quarters of the text are dedicated to the period before the Civil War, and the colonial period gets extensive treatment, particularly the details of foundation. There's very little here about the Civil War at all, and even less about modern North Carolina. I would call this a history of "Old North Carolina."

Powell's narrative style is lovely.

I thought the book gave very detailed facts and important information about our great state and the people in it. The photographs are old, but it is actuallt kind of neat to see people and cars from the sixties. It is also interesting to compare our view of North Carolina now with the view of NC from the sixties.

This is more of a "coffee table book" than a serious history. Nice photos.

This is a very interesting history of Scouting as it began in the United Kingdom and what it has become there today. What was Boy Scouts is now, in Europe, just Scouts and includes boys and girls and makes no distinction in sexual orientation. It is also a much more urban organization.

This book is full of interesting and useful information and great historical pictures about the origins of Scouting and its spread around the globe. On pages 186-187 it lists many countries and how many registered scouts there are in each of them. Indonesia is by far the largest with over eight million scouts (8.9 million). The United States is second with 6.2 million.

Another section of the book provides a paragraph or two of how scouting functions in various countries around the world. And in the appendix there is a chronology of important events in the history of the scouting movement.

If you love scouting, this is a very nice book. However, for Americans with our more conservative approach to Boy Scouting, some portions of this book will seem a bit odd. However, this book is about the GLOBAL view of scouting over history and our BSA is only a portion of it, no matter how much its culture and history matter to us here in the USA.

It is a little known story that the 130,000 Vietnamese evacuated from Saigon in April 1975 went first to Guam, a small mid-Pacific island, and there were processed for the onward journey to the United States. I don't know of any other book about the Vietnamese in Guam. Thus, this brief account is unique.

Richard Mackie has turned out a 61-page pamphlet -- "book" would be an exaggeration -- on Guam and the Vietnamese refugees. He writes of his life as a public health official on Guam and of his work with the refugees, their living conditions, the problems they caused for the islanders, and of the well-founded fear that a hurricane might wipe out their tent cities. Scattered amidst the text are many reproductions of photos of the refugees and their camps.

The Vietnamese now in the United States who spent a few weeks on Guam in 1975 will find this account of interest, as will their children who are looking into family history. I'm not Vietnamese but I also found the book to be worth the read as will others interested in Guam, refugees, and the Vietnam War.

Smallchief

I was just a teenager, but I remember Operation New Life. I helped moving bags, and delivering food to the refugees just after they stepped off the planes. I visited Orote Point, too.

This was interesting from a public health perspective. A member of my immediate family was also there and is now a public health officer. I am interested in his take on this pamphlet. (No, it's a stretch to call this a book.)

Mackie shows an obvious distaste for the military, and seemingly views America as imperialistic in its possession of the Marianas Islands. Local government (GovGuam), though, shines in Mackie's eyes. I found it hard to keep from stumbling over these tonal qualities as I read the narrative.

Overall, though, I did enjoy reading this. How quickly we forget our own history.