Author: Denes Striny File Type: epub Denes Strinys international singing career brought him to the major opera houses of the world in leading roles. At the same time, he was evolving his vocal technique in a quest to find his full vocal potential. This book documents his struggles and successes with himself, teachers, coaches, and other singers. Striny, while maintaining his singing career, also had a full studio of singers studying with him in New York City. In this his first book, Striny confronts and explains the universal problem in singing today. This problem is at the center of an important dilemma in the world of opera today-namely, where have all the great operatic voices gone? Striny dissects the problem and offers the solution, which is a return to singing in the Head Voice, the only true operatic sound. For the past sixty years, the knowledge that there are thirty-two muscles, bones, ligaments, and sinewy masses of tissue located around the larynx led teachers and students to chase this anatomical knowledge in search of answers to vocal theories. However, they have not learned the basic fundamental truth-those who sing in the head voice are the only true operatic voices. The late Birgit Nilsson, international opera legend and long-time friend, mentor, and teacher to Striny, shares her insights with Striny and the reader throughout the book. Head First is a must for teachers, students, professional singers, and opera lovers who will gain valuable insight into the voice of opera.**
Author: Jonathan Grotenstein
File Type: epub
All In is the story of the greatest tournament in the worldthe World Series of Poker. It began in 1970 as a mere gathering of Texas road gamblers who rendezvoused at Binions Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas each spring. Today it has become a cultural phenomenon, attracting exhaustive national television coverage, legions of fans, and thousands of players, from legendary professionals to amateurs with little experience outside of their home games. And with good reason. The prize money for the 2005 tournament was more than the purses of the Masters, the Kentucky Derby, and Wimbledon combined.Professional poker players themselves, authors Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback combine interviews, firsthand accounts, and extensive archival research into a comprehensive and highly entertaining look at this incredibly unique experience, recounting its history through the breathtaking and sometimes brutal hands played at the Horseshoes tables. They introduce colorful and seemingly fearless characters who, over the tournaments thirty-five-year history, have been lured by huge paydaysand the chance to play against the best in the world, including the legends Veteran road gamblers like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim, whose success at the tables helped push poker into the national spotlight The troubled poker savant Stuey The Kid Ungar, who would eclipse his unlikely debut at the World Series with an even more improbable comeback And many others like Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth, who proved that you didnt need to be old or from Texas to master the game, and Chris Moneymaker, the man with the impossible name who parlayed $40 into $2.5 millionAll In is a no-limit look at the phenomenal transformation of poker from a vice hidden in shady back rooms into the hottest game on the planet. Where some of the World Seriess simple charms have been lost, they have been replaced by a complicated human drama, huge in scope, where luck and skill forge an exciting and unpredictable intersection. Simply put, there is nothing else like it in the world.If my old pal Benny Binion were still with us, hed wet his britches seeing that his little publicity stunt in 1970 between a few Texans became a tournament with over $25 million in prize money. If youve ever played a hand of Texas Holdem, you wont want to miss this book. Amarillo Slim Preston, 1972 World Series of Poker champion and author of Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat PeopleReading this book is like having Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, and every single one of the World Series of Poker champions over to the house for dinner, a beer, tall tales, and a fine game of No Limit Texas Holdem. Phil Gordon, coauthor of Poker The Real Deal and cohost of Celebrity Poker Showdown**
Author: John W. Davis
File Type: pdf
For weeks in 1902 it commanded headlines. All of Wyoming and much of the West followed the trial of Tom Horn for the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy. John W. Daviss book, the only full-length account of the trial, places it in perspective as part of a larger struggle for control of Wyomings grazing land. Davis also portrays an enigmatic defendant who, more than a century after his conviction and hanging, perplexes us still. Tom Horn was one of the most fascinating figures in the history of the West. Employed as a Pinkerton and then as a range detective, he had a reputation as a loner and a braggart with a brutal approach to law enforcement even before he was accused of murdering young Willie Nickell. Cattlemen saw Horn as protecting their way of life, but most people in Wyoming saw him as a hired assassin, an instrument of oppression by cattle barons willing to use violent intimidation to protect their assets. The story began on July 18, 1901, when Willie Nickell was shot by a gunman lying in ambush the killer was apparently after Willies father, who had brought sheep into the area. Six months later Tom Horn was arrested. The trial pitted the Laramie County district attorney against a crack team of defense lawyers hired by big cattlemen. Against all predictions, the jury found Horn guilty of first-degree murder. Despite appeals that went all the way to the state supreme court and the governor, Horn was hanged in Cheyenne in 1903. The trial and conviction of Tom Horn marked a major milestone in the hard-fought battle against vigilantism in Wyoming. Davis, himself a trial lawyer, has mined court documents and newspaper articles to dissect the trial strategies of the participating attorneys. His detailed account illuminates a larger narrative of conflict between the power of wealth and the forces of law and order in the West. **Review Well-known as a scout, cowboy, range detective, and sometime assassin, Tom Horn was one of the most famous gunmen of his era. Put on trial for the murder of a teenage boy, he was supported bywealthy cattlemen and defended by a team of expensive attorneys, and for a time it appeared he might be found not guilty.John W. Davis takes the reader through every twist and turn of the trial, the appeal, and the plea for clemency with both a lawyers insight and an engaging style that makes the work nothing less than riveting.Roger D. McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes Violence on the Frontier A well-documented work, a must-read for those interested in Western frontier justiceand an exciting page-turner to boot.Chip Carlson, author of Tom Horn Blood on the Moon Dark History of the Murderous Cattle Detective About the Author John W. Davis, who resides in Worland, Wyoming, has practiced law in the Big Horn Basin for more than forty years. He is the author of A Vast Amount of Trouble A History of the Spring Creek Raid andGoodbye, Judge Lynch The End of a Lawless Era in Wyomings Big Horn Basin.
Author: David Kloos
File Type: pdf
How do ordinary Muslims deal with and influence the increasingly pervasive Islamic norms set by institutions of the state and religion? Becoming Better Muslims offers an innovative account of the dynamic interactions between individual Muslims, religious authorities, and the state in Aceh, Indonesia. Relying on extensive historical and ethnographic research, David Kloos offers a detailed analysis of religious life in Aceh and an investigation into todays personal processes of ethical formation.Aceh is known for its history of rebellion and its recent implementation of Islamic law. Debunking the stereotypical image of the Acehnese as inherently pious or fanatical, Kloos shows how Acehnese Muslims reflect consciously on their faith and often frame their religious lives in terms of gradual ethical improvement. Revealing that most Muslims view their lives through the prism of uncertainty, doubt, and imperfection, he argues that these senses of failure contribute strongly to how individuals try to become better Muslims. He also demonstrates that while religious authorities have encroached on believers and local communities, constraining them in their beliefs and practices, the same process has enabled ordinary Muslims to reflect on moral choices and dilemmas, and to shape the ways religious norms are enforced.Arguing that Islamic norms are carried out through daily negotiations and contestations rather than blind conformity, Becoming Better Muslims examines how ordinary people develop and exercise their religious agency.**From the Back CoverBecoming Better Muslims provides an engaging, sophisticated, and meticulously documented account of the ways ordinary Muslims negotiate the complex entanglements of religious authority, ethical self-fashioning, and moral uncertainty in a precarious world. David Klooss clear, crisp prose and carefully crafted arguments make significant contributions to current debates on subjectivity, ambivalence, everyday religiosity, and lived Islam. Scholars in a number of different disciplines will greatly appreciate this important book.--Michael G. Peletz, Emory UniversityIn this rich ethnography, David Kloos argues for ways of taking inner dimensions of Islam seriously, in which the contingencies of everyday living are set in dynamic relation to, rather than as a foil for, long-term projects of religious engagement. These insights speak well beyond the specific context of Aceh to make important contributions to the academic study of Islam, and to current debates in the anthropology of ethics.--R. Michael Feener, Oxford Centre for Islamic StudiesBecoming Better Muslims is unique in being at once theoretically informed, with its own clear argument to make, and ethnographically superior to many of the anthropological works available on Islam and ethics. Polished and compelling, it will be widely read.--Joel Robbins, University of CambridgeProviding an eminently well-balanced historical introduction to Islam and society in Aceh, this comprehensively researched book examines the question of how ordinary Muslims respond to the pervasive efforts of the state and religious establishment to promote more standardized varieties of Islam. Offering a deeply important and novel perspective, Becoming Better Muslims is a major achievement.--Robert W. Hefner, Boston UniversityAbout the Author David Kloos is a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden.
Author: Andrew Yang
File Type: epub
From entrepreneur Andrew Yang, the founder of Venture for America, an eye-opening look at how new technologies are erasing millions of jobs before our eyes-and a rallying cry for the urgent steps America must take, including Universal Basic Income, to stabilize our economy. The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future--now. One recent estimate predicts 13 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next seven years-jobs that wont be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation software are making millions of Americans livelihoods irrelevant. The consequences of these trends are already being felt across our communities in the form of political unrest, drug use, and other social ills. The future looks dire-but is it unavoidable? In The War on Normal People, Yang imagines a different future -- one in which having a job is distinct from the capacity to prosper and seek fulfillment. At this visions core is Universal Basic Income, the concept of providing all citizens with a guaranteed income-and one that is rapidly gaining popularity among forward-thinking politicians and economists. Yang proposes that UBI is an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy, one he calls human capitalism.
Author: Uwe Jens Rudolf
File Type: pdf
Malta, has been visited and influenced over the centuries by many different peoples and cultures. The site of the oldest free-standing, man-made structures known to exist, Malta has been occupied by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Arabs, Normans, the Knights of St. John, Swabians, Angevins, French, and British. Most recently, Malta has elected a new government replacing one that had been in office for many years, major improvements in infrastructure, a significant growth in population, the liberalization of laws permitting divorce and same-sex marriage. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Malta contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Malta. **About the Author Uwe Jens Rudolf Berg is Professor Emeritus of Accounting and Management after a distinguished forty-year career at Luther College, is a native of Chicago and the first Fulbright lecturer posted to Malta. He established a bond between Malta and Luther College that continues today. He has taught German, accounting and international business courses at Luther College since 1971 and traveled extensively as a business consultant in Germany, France, Japan and China.
Author: Dmitri Volkogonov
File Type: mobi
In a notably revelatory biography, Volkogonov presents the most compelling evidence to date that Lenin, not Stalin, was the true father of Soviet totalitarianism. The author draws heavily on newly declassified KGB archives that he oversees as special assistant to President Boris Yeltsin. Quoting extensively from Lenins once top-secret communications, Volkogonov shows that Lenin personally created a system of terror that laid the foundations for Stalins dictatorship. We see how Lenin created the omnipotent Cheka, or political police, and immersed himself in its daily activities launched an onslaught against religious institutions initiated systematic extermination of the land-owning peasantry, or kulaks and ordered the murder of Nicholas II and his family, then commended the executioners. Historian and former Soviet General Volkogonov (Stalin) provides new details on Germanys covert financing of the Bolshevik Party and, on a more personal note, of Lenins 10-year affair with Inessa Armand, a relationship his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, tolerated. Volkogonovs narrative is indispensable for understanding the Bolshevik coup, their crushing of the democratic opposition and the tragic aftermath. Photos not seen by PW. 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalDirector of the Institute of Military History until the 1988 publication of his critical Stalin (LJ 91591) forced his resignation, Volkogonov is now chair of the presidential committee examining formerly classified State and Party archives. As such, he is in an excellent position to provide a revisionist view of Lenin from the inside, and he delivers. From the beginning, Volkogonov challenges the assumption that Lenins legacy was perverted by Stalin, documenting in detail how on every point-peace, land, liberty, Constituent Assembly, freedom of the press and all the rest-[the Bolsheviks] promises rapidly changed into cruelty, limitation, alteration, a different reading or outright denial. Accounts of Lenins cooperation with Germany during World War I and of the new governments using funds to further revolution abroad even as millions of citizens starved are among the books most chilling passages. Ocassionally, Volkogonov hammers home a point overmuch, but that is to be expected of a disillusioned man with an important message. A sobering and authoritative book highly recommended.Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Author: Joshua Coffin
File Type: epub
Title An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, and Others, Which Have Occurred, or Been Attempted, in the United States and Elsewhere, During the Last Two Centuries. With Various Remarks. Collected from various sources by Joshua Coffin
Author: Edith Nesbit
File Type: epub
The Enchanted Castle and Five Children and It, by Edith Nesbit, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classicsseries, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the readers viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influencesbiographical, historical, and literaryto enrich each readers understanding of these enduring works.I love E. Nesbit. . . . Her children are very real . . . and she was quite a groundbreaker in her day.J. K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter seriesConsidered the first modern writer for children, Edith Nesbit wrote wonderfully imaginative tales about magical adventures in the everyday world. In Five Children and It (1902), a group of children are digging in a sandpit one day when they discover a small, bad-tempered sand-fairy known as the Psammead, who is allowed to grant one wish per day. The children wish for many thingsto be beautiful, to be rich, to grow wingsbut none of the wishes turn out right. Luckily, the magic wears off at sunset, but will that be soon enough?The Enchanted Castle (1907) begins when three children stumble upon a mysterious house and discover an invisible princess and a magic ring. At first it all appears to be a great adventure. When the children need an audience for a play they have mounted, they make their own out of old clothes, pillows, and umbrellas. Then things go inexplicably wrong. To the young dramatists horror, as the curtain falls, there is a ghastly applause. The creatures have come aliveand they prove to be most disagreeable!Features illustrations by H. R. Millar.Sanford Schwarz teaches English literature at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of The Matrix of Modernism and various essays on modern literary, cultural, and intellectual history. He is currently writing a book on C. S. Lewiss science-fiction trilogy.