Wagner Books

Barbara Kruger is widely regarded as one of the most significant (and delightfully contentious) artists of the 20th century. Called a "second-generation" feminist, Kruger's work broke vital ground in the male-dominant art world of the 1970s along with that of other controversial icons like Sherrie Levine Jenny Holzer and Cindy Sherman. (Slatkin, 1992) Kruger draws on her early work as a graphic artist, art director, and photo editor to inform the media and advertising oriented imagery she uses in her work. She sites photographer Diane Arbus and artist Marvin Israel as major influences in her early work.

Kruger works with mixed and multi media installations, typically involving text and images - some original and others found - to examine the cultural stereotyping of women, personal identity, socio-political authority and global consumption. By re-working images with powerful, superimposed textual messages Kruger pushes her audience to question the way conventional paradigms limit individual and national thinking/actions. Her most infamous works forces discussions about classicism, consumerism, feminism, social habit and cultural addiction/desire.

Veit Gorner's catalogue is a tangible representation of Twelve, the 2004 Kruger video installation. Twelve plays out over four large video screens set in a square and serves to insert the viewer into a series of short private dialogues. Each video is a commentary on a common human theme - love, family, friendship, control, opinion, obligation, identity - and each has a connection to the other via a similar premise. Gorner provides translations of the videos and commentary made about Kruger's work. Among those is this apt comment by Bertrand Russell:

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. (85)

This statement lets slip the strength of Barbara Kruger's work. To my mind Kruger is most admirable for her ability to engage in the critical dismantling of many of society's conventional modes of thought. Her use of publically recognized media or media styles and pithy but unrelenting statements (i.e.: the now familiar, "I Shop Therefore I Am.") allow the average art consumer to be a part of her creation process and to engage critical think skills even if they lack previous experience- both crucial jumping off points when engaging in a war against the status quo of zombie-like conformity.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is an excellent novel, portraying the down ward spiral that almost anyone could take. In The Bell Jar, Plath allows the reader to see first hand what it is like, to be truelly depressed. Unsure of your future, and not sure if you want to continue your life. Using Esther Greenwood, Plath tells her own story of suicide attempts, and thus is able to add real insite. The story brings you on Esther's downward spiral into the depths of despair and allows you to follow her on her path to recovery. I found the book extremely interesting, it really digs deep within the human physci.

Horror writer, heroic fantasy writer, columnist, genre scholar, editor, anthologist, publisher, small-press champion, and one of the founders of the World Fantasy Convention, Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) was a significant force in the fantasy community, loved by those who knew him and admired by most of those who only knew of him until his untimely death. A sizeable portion of Wagner's posthumous collection Exorcisms and Ecstasies published by Fedogan & Bremer in 1997 was devoted to tributes to the author from his friends and colleagues, and an assortment of interviews, analyses, reminiscences, and appreciations has appeared from a number of venues during the author's lifetime and since his death. This chapbook published by Gary William Crawford's Gothic Press, however, is the first attempt to present a wide overview of Wagner's life, fiction, and editorial activities.

The book consists of a biographical/autobiographical foreword by Wagner's long-time friend John F. Mayer, a brief introduction by editor Benjamin Szumskyi, two different studies of Wagner's early horror fiction by John Howard and Darrell Schweitzer, an overview of Wagner's small output of western horror fiction by James Reasoner, an article tracing the evolution of Wagner's Kane from the realms of heroic fantasy to noirish pulp detective territory by Gary Hoppenstand, a discussion by N. G. Christakos of the three lists of recommended horror classics Wagner submitted to T. E. D. Klein's Twilight Zone Magazine in 1983, and Wagner's own essay about his goals and modus operandi after taking over the editorship of D.A.W.'s anthology series The Year's Best Horror Stories.

Mayer's dark, powerful, and deeply moving foreword has much to say about Wagner as man, friend, and artist, and he has also contributed the fine cover illustration of Wagner in the guise of his antihero Kane, a depiction that must have appealed to the author as much as Lovecraft appreciated Virgil Finlay for portraying him as an 18th century British man of letters. Mayer leaves the editor little more to do in his introduction than present a few essential facts he had omitted about Wagner's life and introduce the other contributors.

N. G. Christakos's discussion of Wagner's lists for Twilight Zone Magazine is illuminating in what it has to say about how Wagner's wide reading and tastes in fiction helped shape his own work, but it would have been better had Mr. Christakos been fortunate enough to be able to discuss these works from the vantage point of having read them all. Since Wagner's lists contain several rarities, which even the best read and wealthiest collectors have yet to locate, most discussions of these lists are rendered more than a little paradoxical.

Each of the essays offers some insight into Wagner's fictional world, and it is particularly interesting to see two different writers covering essentially the same stories, because these different perspectives offer a glimpse of the depths to which Wagner was capable in his best work. Nonetheless, Wagner wrote enough short stories to fill two further collections after In Lonely Lands appeared, and his heroic (or more accurately anti-heroic) adventures of Kane receive only a few scattered comments instead of the full, detailed article accorded the horror fiction he wrote with a 19th or 20th century setting. The dozen or so stories and three novels featuring Kane in a fantasy milieu inspired by the work of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and Fritz Leiber constitute the largest portion of Wagner's fiction, much of it written at the same time as the contents of In Lonely Lands, and sharing with the best of his fiction a peculiar resonance and emotional impact that makes even the most outré events ring true. It is to be hoped that this volume is only the first, and that future volumes will correct this omission.

By that time also, perhaps enough time will have elapsed for critics to be able to adopt a more approach constructive approach to Wagner's late fiction, the graphic sexuality and aberrant psychology in much of which has proven less acceptable than the more restrained usage of some of these same themes in his earlier work. One line from Darrell Schweitzer's essay on Wagner's early fiction proves rather haunting in this regard, "He is explicit enough where he needs to be, but also (as many modern horror writers do not) understood restraint and the uses of controlled ambiguity." This is not, alas, true of much of his late work, though among these later stories there remain a number of very finely wrought, subtly suggestive, and powerful stories even among those focusing on sexuality.

Citing Schweitzer's essay brings up another point about the booklet, which is far from ideal: the lack of documentation concerning the date and place of publication for essays reprinted from earlier publications. This would have been particularly helpful for Wagner's piece, and makes some of the, now dated, statements in Schweitzer's essay a trifle puzzling for those reading it as if it had been newly penned.

Unfortunately, the text is not immaculate, with the appearance of occasional typographical errors and odd phrases reflecting incomplete alterations to the text, such as "Obviously, tastes very" and "I hope that I have been avoided giving away any particularly important or surprising plot twists". None of these are unduly distracting, but one cannot help wishing the editor had seen and corrected them.

Not a perfect book, then, but a valuable and informative one put together by people who understand and value the man's work and his memory. It is a very good introduction to a fine writer of horror and fantasy.

The dustjacket has a lovely combination of two city scenes. Very colourful, and it is a pity that Amazon's product page lacks this image.

Perhaps the cover acts as an optimistic setting for the book. The contributors talk about the future of American cities. Looking at cultural, demographic and economic trends that might or could impact how the future will turn out. There are warnings about how it is quite possible, if not probable, for a city administration to muck things up. Minimal taxes and regulations on businesses are advocated, to encourage a vital economy. But the problems of disadvantaged underclasses is not ignored. Suggestions are made for greater inclusion of everyone in a future prosperity.

This is a good workbook, although it gets right into challenging dictionary skills. It is well labeled as 4th and 5th grade. We are using it as part of our homeschool program.

The is the best book for Building Facebook Apps I have found so far, yet it won't help you if you plan to integrate Flash as the app to display profiles, friends, etc. In fact, I have yet to find a book that helps you with that. Fortunately the FB Dev forums are very helpful and there are several good online sources that cover pretty much everything you can think of doing in FB, including Flash integration. This book is a good reference and doe sit a decent job showing how to build your first basic app.

the author of this book of poems uses formal poetic measures to describe his physical and emotional landscape -- a farm, women, a baby boy. I was moved by many of the poems, they are funny, at times clever, and some of them are deep. For instance, I could only read one poem at a time. sometimes I just read one poem a day, and let it sit with me. The poems made me think, and that's a good thing.

This book focused more scientifically on the plight of Chicanos rather than the usual collaboration of emotional essays. It was a nice change of pace.

Color Atlas of The Autopsy is a good book for an introductory class on autopsies. I'm a Pathologists' Assistant student and think this book would have been a great text for our autopsy class. It contains all of the important points that we studied in the class, plus provides great pictures to follow along with. The pictures alone are worth getting the book for. I would recommend it to anyone in an introductory class on autopsies.

Wagner has always been one of my favorite composers; his music has such incredibly intense emotional power. These transcriptions by Franz Liszt are the work of genius, in bringing off Wagner's orchestral music on the piano. From the Tannhauser "Abendstern" aria to the Tannhauser overture to the Rienzi fantasy to the Walhall transcription, this is great music displaying Wagner's harmonic and melodic genius and Liszt's brilliant pianistic ability.

There are a number of textual mistakes that I've noted in the text, however (actually, quite a few mistakes); but it's worth putting up with to get this edition. You'd have a hard time of finding these pieces in any other edition.

Extremely difficult music, though (even for Liszt) - not for the faint of heart or fingers.