 | Most Recent Posts BAN THAT BOOK: Yes or No?Posted Jan-06-08 13:38:34 PST
SHOULD THIS BOOK BE BANNED?
The male pair care for the egg and it eventually hatches and they raise the young penguin as their own. Reportedly, this story is based on actual events that occured in a New York zoo. Seems harmless enough. However, the cute little penguins have been at the center of much controversy. Parents of some students at Shiloh Elementary School in Shiloh, Illinois (Obama country) have requested that the book be placed in a restricted section of the library that requires parental permission to check out; In Missouri (Dick Gephardt country) parents had the book reclassified as non-fiction; Superintendent Peter Gorman of the Charlotte, North Carolina (John Edwards country) Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district ordered the book removed from the school libary; The American Library Association named the book The Most Challenged Book of 2006. This means that it caused the most disturbances among parents and/or educators based on its subject matter or content. What is the fuss all about? Those concerned about the book claim that it is a book that glorifies homosexuality, is anti-family, and is unsuited subject matter for the intended age group. I say: "Oh for christ's sake, lighten up." I'd like to know what you think; should this book follow the same banned path as "Of Mice and Men," Huck Finn, Mein Kampf, and others?
RARE BOOK FOUND IN CANADIAN DUMPPosted Nov-25-07 08:25:56 PST
Sources: John Mackie, CanWest News Service, Published: Saturday, October 07, 2006; PBS “American Masters”Man Ray, real name Emanuel Rabinovitch, was an artist and, thus, eclectic and revolutionary in his thought and work. His art of choice, although he was adept in many artistic practices, was photography. The camera took this Jewish boy out of Brooklyn and into the bohemian art culture of Manhattan where Alfred Stieglitz, husband of artist Georgia O’Keefe, taught him the basics of photography. Ray’s photographic abilities quickly reached “revolutionary” levels. Experimenting with minimalism and abstraction, Ray developed the “rayograph,” where real objects are placed in overlapping fashion and with the addition or removal of light, then present the viewer with a totally different object (something like that). His first book of “rayographs” was published in 1922 and titled The Delightful Fields. His later wife Kiki would in time serve as a model for his “rayographs.” Ray would use the lines of her naked body to represent other objects. Anyhoo, New York was growing unsuited to Ray’s experimenting. He had attempted to bring the popular European energetic art movement called “dada” to New York. “Dada was an attempt to create work so absurd it confused the viewer’s sense of reality. The dadaists would take everyday objects and present them as if they were finished works of art.” However, as Ray pointed out, New York was absurd and “dada” like itself, “and will not tolerate a rival.” So our hero Man Ray goes off to Paris, France, dumping his American wife in the process. Besides womanizing and carousing with the jet set artist class in Europe, Man Ray was revolutionizing his own photographic style as well as the universal style of photographic art. Some of the rich and famous that posed for Ray during this time were Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, Gertude Stein, James Joyce (no word on whether Ray used the lines of Picasso’s naked body to represent art). In 1934, while in gay Paris, Ray published a book of surrealistic photographs entitled Photographies 1920-1934. It bombed; didn’t sell. This despite the book containing a drawing contributed by Pablo Picasso. However, the art world shakes its collective head and comes to realize overtime that Man Ray was really a fantastic photographer! His Photographies book becomes to be acclaimed as one of the greatest photography books of all time…heavy statement. Thus, Ray’s original French edition of Photographies soon became a hot, valuable commodity…alas, a rare one. Evidently all of the great citizens of Saanich, Vancouver, Canada, were not aware of our hero’s genius with the camera. But, as is usually the case, a rare book dealer with more luck than brains (personal editorial perhaps) happened on a flea market in Greater Victoria. A man who had been doing the weekly dump-run thing, happened to glance over at pile of discarded cardboard and books and something (Kiki’s naked body?) caught his attention. Turns out his attention was grabbed by Ray’s 1934 French edition photography book. So, here he was at the flea market…not exactly the Louvre. According to an “expert” in Toronto, there were only 3,000 original copies of Photographies and one turns up in a Canadian dump…amazing. The Victoria Photographies isn't in mint shape, but is presentable. It's now for sale for $3,500.
Art saved from the landfill and now available at ALLAGASH BOOKS...
WHAT IS THE MOST POPULAR STOLEN BOOK?Posted Nov-17-07 17:37:13 PST Updated Nov-17-07 17:39:57 PST
The New York Times has it's Best Seller's List and if enough book retailers across the country were polled, there could be a New York Times Most Stolen List. Is it better publicity to be known as the Best Seller or the Most Stolen? On one occasion I accidently walked out of Border's Books & Music with a book, which for some reason did not set off the alarm. This was during my sleepless college days where Border's was my study hall and library. Imagine my surpise when I got home and noticed that I was no longer a shoplifting virgin. However, having a guilty conscience, I returned the book the next day. I thought I might get a free coffee for my efforts, but no, a very weak thank you was all Border's could manage on that day. Obviously, some (most?) people do not return the books that they take out of the store while foregoing the customary checkout process. According to an article by Stacey Solie for the Times Argus (Jan., 2006), there are enough books stolen from places such as Border's that a Most Stolen List can be initiated. Solie's research found the following books as being popular among thefty, thrifty, bibliokleptos: Howl, by Alan Ginsbert; Jack Kerouac's On the Road (everyone does not have a copy of this yet?); and, appropriately so, Steal This Book, a 1970s hippie guide on how to live for free (or read for free) by Abbie Hoffman. However, Solie's research showed that the most sought after book for the slight-of-hand sort is............no, it is not a Harry Potter book..... THE BIBLE!! Incredible. I think if you wanted a Bible there would be a Mormon willing to come over, talk, and give you 1 (say, Mitt Romney)... or more. Or you could stay in a Super8 and get your very own Gideon's Bible. But steal one from a book store? ABC News' Christel Kucharz reported in October, 2007 that a recent poll of German book fair sellers revealed that a German translation of Algore's An Inconvienient Truth is the 7th most popular stolen title. Who knows what goes on inside the heads of thieves.
You can steal the following title from ALLAGASH BOOKS...
AN ALLEGORY OF THE BOOKPosted Nov-16-07 09:36:26 PST
There you sit, one among many. Words hanging vertically on your spine. Words that often hide the real substance of your inner self. Maybe a hint, maybe a clue, often a riddle, to the real story.
You are chosen, picked form the lot, slammed into circulation of other beings merely, by the package you wear. That mask, that illusory covering that binds a hidden reality.
Often, perhaps, another soul, sensing symbiosis, so unlike you but with a part that yearns for a parallel reading, looks beyond the opaque title, beyond the aesthetic first glance, beyond the commercially accepted, commercially tainted you, and finds words, words that bridge separate realms of thought.
Words that flow together forming abstract sentences from which no meaning is gleaned, until these same sentences snowball into transparent paragraphs, thus revealing a story, a thought process, a goal, a means to an end.
Words, that reveal the theme of your story, the framework of your plot, the cause of your climax, and your eventual conclusion.
A structure so thought out, so contrived, so blatantly conceived, that the pages of your epic lie in numerical sequence.
The stages of your voluminous being are chaptered, indexed with key words for those, for those with but a momentary purpose, a fleeting interest. For those without the time, for those without the desire, or the ability to completely know, the rest of the story.
And yet, Still others sit, amongst the same from whence you come.
They sit as the unchosen. They sit as souls unread, as souls in unimmortalized existence, as souls with no revised editions on the literal horizon.
No chance to market. No chance to reveal. No chance to circumvent perceptual rejection. Shelved.
Yet they still sit, In plain view, just as you. Containing words that flow, Words that construct, that construct a life, a life born form the pen of hope, and now lying in forlorn type. They lie in perpetual plainness; A paradoxical ruin.
But yet, their spines remain clean, their spines remain straight, their pages of thought remain crisp, their pages of thought remain white, their binding still strong, protecting their inner self from indexing interlopers.
Yes, others still sit, waiting for the lover of an unopened book. © Walt Kienia 2004
The masked meanings in the poetry of D.L. LAWRENCE available at ALLAGASH BOOKS!
THE LONGEST NOVEL EVER WRITTENPosted Nov-13-07 14:49:42 PST Updated Nov-13-07 14:51:27 PST You sit in your freshman college lit class and erupt with delight when Professor Tolstoy tells the class that they will be required to read only 1 novel this semester. You figure you can knock out 500 pages without interfering with the frat parties. However, from reading the blog at ALLAGASH BOOKS, your joy quickly turns to agony as Prof. Tolstoy assigns a novel by Henry Darger. Henry Darger had settled into a simple lifestyle as a janitor at a Chicago area hospital, some where around the age of 30 (circa 1922), after a young life as an orphan and runaway from a Chicago hospital for the “feeble-minded.” It wasn’t until after his death in 1973 that diagnosing Darger as “feeble-minded” appeared to be a feeble-minded diagnosis. Aside from much sketching and other art work found in his effects, which was widely praised by art experts, was a novel that Henry had written over the previous 50 years. Titled , The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, Henry’s novel filled over 15,000, single-spaced, typewritten pages, and was held in 10 volumes: the longest novel ever written.
(one of only 3 known photographs of Henry Darger) However, Henry’s novel was never published. So what is the longest novel ever published? That would be Madeleine de Scudery’s Artamene, published in the 17th century in 10 volumes with approximately 2.1 million words (using todays 250 word per page standard, Artamene would then consist of approximately 8,400 pages). Artamene is available online at Artamene.org if you are interested in downloading more than 8,000 pages…available in French only. Where is everyone’s favorite long-assed novel, War and Peace? Well, Mr. Tolstoi’s classic ranks #16 on the list of the longest ever written novels. Other notables on the list: at # 4, L. Ron Hubbard with Mission Earth; Alexandre Dumas comes in at #12 with The Count of Monte Crisco; #15, Ayn Rand with Atlas Shrugged; Carl Sandburg is at #17 with Remembrance Rock; and Victor Hugo comes in at #18 with les Miserables. And we moaned and groaned in college when we had to write 10 pages!! (Sources: Wikipedia.org – yeah, I know; Andrew Edlin Gallery, www.edlingallery.com) How can you digest 3 classic novels in approximately 30 hours, without ever reading a word? Audio Books at ALLAGASH BOOKS!!!
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