The Art Crowd

Book Description

Money and power in the contemporary art world of dealers, collectors, artists and museums. Funny, bitchy, insightful, revealing — it changed the way the art world did business.

"A lot of dynamite."

—John Canady

"Gossipy reading that explodes a well-documented firecracker."

—Publishers Weekly

"Delicious reading."

—Hal Burton

Customer Reviews:

Still Relevant in the 21st Century.......2006-12-29

This book may have been written decades ago, but the issues are still the same. What does it mean for someone to be an artist? Do you just do what you're told or follow some inner vision? If you follow your vision and you don't make money, does that make you wrong? If suddenly you start making money, does that mean that you weren't wrong after all? If you stop making money, were you wrong after all?

Business is business. Many are called, but few are chosen. This book covers the nitty gritty of the daily functions of the artworld and covers the ethics and lack thereof regarding making it or not as an artist. It provides a concise commentary of the structure of the artworld and offers some interesting criticisms as to how it could be different, more fair. It also covers attempts by artist unions to implement changes in the way the market works to no avail.

Is it survival of the fittest or just a bunch of baloney? Do the best artists always win out or is what we experience in museums just a history of capricious decision-making? It is up to the reader to decide. The book is not preachy, although it does lean towards attention to the artworld underdogs who, working as hard as everyone else, don't necessarily make it. In the end, you can't help but have a great deal of respect for those who stick it through. It isn't just a matter of being good. And this book explains why and how.

Do Not Go Naked Into Your Next Presentation: Nifty Little Nuggets to Quiet the Nerves and Please the Crowd

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Shed Your Inhibitions...and STILL Be Decent
Shed Your Inhibitions...and STILL Be Decent

Do Not Go Naked Into Your Next Presentation: Nifty Little Nuggets to Quiet the Nerves and Please the Crowd
Ron Hoff
Manufacturer: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0836227131

Amazon.com

This is Ron Hoff's third book on the trials and tricks of public speaking, and if you've ever faced the prospect of speaking in public with trepidation, this amusing book, filled with anecdotes and pointers, will help you get through it with flying colors! After reading this book and recalling a recent benefit dinner I was obliged to attend, I wished a lot more public speakers had already read it ...

Customer Reviews:

Shed Your Inhibitions...and STILL Be Decent.......2001-03-10

Ron Hoff's "Do Not Go Naked Into Your Next Presentation" is pocket-sized inspiration and common sense when it comes to facing an audience and presenting a speech. It's an easy read--not intimidating in the least--and will set the tone. many times through humor to help make a good speech even better. I use it in my public speaking courses at a local university, and the students get alot out of this little book.Hoff's accounts are a "must have" if you want to improve public speaking skills. In just a few words, he is able to empower you with a "can do" attitude--and reap the rewards of being an effective communicator.

Shed Your Inhibitions...and STILL Be Decent.......2001-03-10

Ron Hoff's "Do Not Go Naked Into Your Next Presentation" is pocket-sized inspiration and common sense when it comes to facing an audience and presenting a speech. It's an easy read--not intimidating in the least--and will set the tone. many times through humor to help make a good speech even better. I use it in my public speaking courses at a local university, and the students get alot out of this little book. Hoff's accounts are a "must have" if you want to improve public speaking skills. In just a few words, you are empowered with a "can do" attitude--and will reap the rewards of being a more effective communicator.

Romancing the Room: How to Engage Your Audience, Court Your Crowd, and Speak Successfully in Public

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Thank you...
Step-by-Step
Boring!
2 Enthuiastic Thumbs Up!!!
I've engaged my audience and courted my crowd.

Romancing the Room: How to Engage Your Audience, Court Your Crowd, and Speak Successfully in Public
James M. Wagstaffe , and Bruce Bean
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0609805975
Release Date: 2002-03-26

Book Description

Why is a public speaker like an eager suitor? In this adroit guide to wooing your audience, James Wagstaffe explains how to get your message across by using techniques drawn from more personal encounters. Romancing the Room identifies the most important elements of public speaking: making a great first impression, presenting thoughts and ideas with charm and clarity, and getting people to agree with and commit to your proposals. Wagstaffe, a highly successful trial attorney and public speaking expert, reveals the ingenious tricks of the trade employed by top-notch communicators, including:

* Establishing common ground with an audience
* Using visuals and stories to captivate even the most restless of listeners
* Avoiding filler words and distracting voice patterns
* Winning an audience with substance, not sound bites

Filled with anecdotes and sage advice and written in a witty yet authoritative tone, Romancing the Room will help even novice speakers conquer podium fears, steady their voices, and convey informative messages like a pro.

Customer Reviews:

Thank you..........2005-10-05

...to the reviewer who took the time to say that the book was boring but then referenced many specific points out of the book. "A reader" has shown that even if you do not fully enjoy anecdotal writing you will still remember it. The points that Mr. Wagstaffe makes in his book will no doubt help one become a better speaker. It takes little more than remembering his acronyms and focusing on them to become a better and more confident speaker. Just remember, even the reviewer who did not enjoy the book still showed that they remembered the points.

Step-by-Step.......2004-06-26

This book offers step by step help for those who are just plain not good at or afraid of public speaking. It helped me give a toast at a birthday party for a good friend which was well received. I don't think I would have even attempted it without having read this book. Also learn how to communicate more effectively with family members and co-workers. It's full of great tips for learning the skill of cocktail party conversation. People will like and remember YOU if you apply the skills in this book. The book is built on personal experience and useful for students, spouses, and employees who find themselves in all kids of unfamiliar or uncomfortable social situations. Also clearly and concisely written by someone who knows how to teach.

Boring!.......2004-05-08

This book reads like a lecture, and no wonder--Wagstaffe teaches a university speech class. The text brings back the horrors of the most soporific lectures you've endured in school, as Wagstaffe drones on about the "three Ms of good storytelling" ("It must be meaningful. It must be memorable. It must be moving.") and then moves on into the even more enthralling "ABCs of good storytelling" ("A for Apt, B for Brief, C for Chronological").

Then there are unintentional howlers, like this advice on giving a eulogy: "The fundamental rule...Do not speak ill of the dead." Well, duh!

Maybe this stuff works when you've got a captive audience of students who need a good grade to satisfy the requirements for their degree. But here in the real world, it'll put most people to sleep. I feel that the money I spent on this book was wasted.

2 Enthuiastic Thumbs Up!!!.......2003-01-12

Romancing the Room is a fun book filled with anecdotes, but I feel that the true value of this book is the confidence that the reader can develop when following Wagstaffe's advice. Public speaking is a challenge, but with Romancing the Room, one can develop the art of public speaking and basic communication to any person/people. As a college student in South Bend, I am often faced with the task of presenting my work to fellow classmates. Wagstaffe has helped me earn the A+ that I was looking for. Help yourself develop confidence, public speaking ability, and charisma with Romancing the Room, by James Wagstaffe.

I've engaged my audience and courted my crowd........2002-05-30

I read Romancing the Room right before a big job interview - I stuck to a few guidelines - listen, don't apologize, identify with your audience, and be engaging. Needless to say this was probably the best interview of my life and yes I did get the job.
This book is as entertaining to read as it is useful. The autor's use of anecdotes are well placed and poignant - not to mention humorous. I would recommend this book to anyone who is afraid to give presentations, controlling a room full of people, dealing with their family, or just wants to be entertained. I hope there is a sequel!

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Poor Quality Book
Charles Addams at his macabre best
The macabre cartoons of the great Charles Addams

My Crowd

Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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The Addams Family - Volume One

ASIN: 0760749671

Customer Reviews:

Poor Quality Book.......2007-08-20

I love Charles Addams. In fact, I own five collections of his work. This one is by far the worst. It is printed on paper resembling newsprint and the print quality is low. There isn't enough contrast - areas that should be black are grey and the images look washed out and muddy. You can tell by the completely inappropriate colorization of the characters in bright colors on the front cover that something is wrong with this book. On the back, there is an ad for the Addams Family movie. It's obvious that this book is an exercise in cheap profiteering somehow correlated with the release of the movie. Do yourself a favor and see these cartoons in their full glory with good contrast printing on nice paper. Try getting "The World of Charles Addams" c.1991 used. It's a real, quality art book and well worth a few extra dollars.

Charles Addams at his macabre best.......2006-06-22

Addams is the cartoonist with the twisted sense of the macabre whose characters were the impetus for the excellent television comedy "The Addams Family." They are a group of people modeled after the icons of the horror genre. The parents are Count Dracula types and their house is broken down in the classic haunted house sense.
This book contains some of best efforts ever and they are funny. His twisted sense of humor extends beyond the Addams family to many other absurd situations. Two men are stranded on a desert island in the ocean and it looks like the continental United States. A man in a suit and top hat is walking by a nursery school and a schoolmarm type is sitting in a tower holding a Tommy gun. She has a stern expression and is facing inward towards the children. A man is in a dilapidated boarding house and has his head in the gas oven. A shrewish looking woman is telling him that he doesn't have kitchen privileges.
I smiled my way all through this book, no one makes the macabre more funny than Charles Addams and this book is 192 pages of his best efforts.

The macabre cartoons of the great Charles Addams.......2005-03-24

The argument can be made that Charles Addams is the father of American "sick" humor, starting when "The New Yorker" publishes his first cartoon in 1935. Of the 189 drawings in this 20th anniversary reprinting of "My Crowd," a collection of the best cartoons from the first six Addams books, 185 originally appeared in "The New York" between 1937 and 1969. Of those 50 are of the Addams family, and if all you know is the classical television series or the pair of theatrical films, then you owe yourself a chance to see the inspired original. From Lurch giving Morticia a start (19) to Uncle Fester smiling while everybody else in the audience is weeping copiously (192), these are among the best cartoons in the book and evince a dry wit that could never really translate onto the small screen or the silver screen.

My father had a collection of cartoons from "The New York," which had several choice efforts of Addams' work, all of which seem to be included here. But even in my pre-teen years it was clear that Chas. Addams was something special. One of my favorites was of a patent attorney pointing a strange weapon out his window and telling the applicant: "Death ray, fiddlesticks! Why it doesn't even slow them up" (181). One of the things I picked up on this time around through this book were those Addams cartoons that do not look like Addams cartoons. By this I simply mean those in which the artistic style is not what we are used to from his pen (e.g., his explanation for Stonehenge on page 30). There are also several cartoons dedicated to turning the traditional fairy tale on their head (or some other body part), and I like the one where the alien invasion arrives on Halloween night (161), and the one where Leonardo Da Vinci is trying to get Mona Lisa to smile (187), and stop me now before I name half the cartoons in the book.

But so many of the classic Addams cartoons do not even involve captions, leaving it to the viewer to figure out "what is wrong with this picture" (e.g., a baby carriage with bars on it, the list of ingredients on the side of the Witch's gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel, and Uncle Fester sharpening the points on the top of the iron fence). The world of Chas. Addams is just slightly a skewed, but in a ghoulish and macabre way. The only complaint would be that seeing the Addams family colored in on the cover seems so wrong (I prefer to think of them as all have pale and pasty complexions). But that is not going to be enough to stop you from tracking down "Drawn and Quartered," "Monster Rally," "Favorite Haunts, "Creature Comfrots," "The Dear Dead Days," and the rest of the collections of the cartoons of Charles Addams. Just be sure you read them all before you die.

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Aernout Mik: 3 Crowds (Art)
Aernout Mik , and Mik Aernout
Manufacturer: Institute of Contemporary Arts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Revolutionary Tides: The Art of the Political Poster 1914-1989

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Revolutionary Tides: The Art of the Political Poster 1914-1989
Jeffrey T. Schnapp
Manufacturer: Skira
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Modern | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Studies on the History of Society and Culture, 27)
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Graphis Poster 2005 (Graphis Poster Annual)

ASIN: 8876242104
Release Date: 2005-09-13

Book Description

Public assemblies and multitudes in action are fundamental to our notion of political life. Through 120 posters-many never previously reproduced-the book examines the impact of large gatherings of people in politics and society concentrating on the turbulent years of the first half of the 20th century. The posters will be presented in a nearly year-long US exhibition, drawn from the massive collection of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and augmented by works from the Wolfsonian Museum, Florida International University, and the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. The exhibition catalog, published in conjunction with the Cantor Arts Center, explores the decisive importance of large gatherings of people and its correlative, the mass medium of poster art, and considers the complex nature of the portrayal of political crowds in the modern period.Schnapp's text frames the featured works within a broader history of the images of the crowd in Western art. The essay aims to sharpen the reader's perspective by creating a synthetic understanding of how emerging principles of popular sovereignty in politics shaped new images and myths of a new, collective sense of our humanity.

Faces in the Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors, and Filmmakers

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a classic essay collection

Faces in the Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors, and Filmmakers
Gary Giddins
Manufacturer: Da Capo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 030680705X

Amazon.com

Being a great jazz critic is hard enough. Gary Giddins, however, is much more than that--he's one of the smartest, wittiest, and most versatile critics this country has produced. All of his collections are well worth owning. But in Faces in the Crowd, Giddins ranges beyond his customary jazz-and-pop beat, delivering superb assessments of Robert Altman, Jack Benny, James M. Cain, Spike Lee, Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Goldwyn, and Myrna Loy. His enthusiasms are hard to resist, and on almost every page he makes you think about his subject from a novel (and enlightening!) angle.

Book Description

Thirty-seven profiles of major figures in the culture of our century

Customer Reviews:

a classic essay collection.......2000-10-01

This is one of the books I keep on the night table, because I find myself rereading my favorite sections over and over. When I was in school there were a couple of essay collections, like Robert Warshaw's The Immediate Experience and Dwight Macdonald's Against the American Grain, that were notable for their range and style, and Faces in the Crowd is a book I treasure for the same reason.

Book Description

As an essayist and Village Voice columnist, Gary Giddins is widely known as a preeminent jazz writer. Walter Clemons, writing in Newsweek, hailed him as "the best jazz critic now at work," praising his "elegant prose" and "encyclopedic knowledge." Yet he has won a devoted audience for his reflections on popular culture, books, and movies as well--including a marvelous essay on Jack Benny that Gay Talese selected for Best American Essays of 1987. In Faces in the Crowd, Giddins once again demonstrates his graceful style and sharp wit in a brilliant collection of critiques, assessments, and profiles of major figures in the culture of our century. Faces in the Crowd is a virtual Gary Giddins reader, a potent collection of his finest writing from the last fifteen years. Ranging from fond reflection to interview-and-commentary to close critical analysis, Giddins explores the achievements of thirty-seven artists: show people, divas, musicians, and writers, ranging from Irving Berlin to Spike Lee, Billie Holliday to Kay Starr, Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis, Elias Canetti to Philip Roth. Through every essay, his observations are sharp, his reactions honest, his judgments right on target. In "This Guy Wouldn't Give You the Parsely off his Fish," for example, he shows how Jack Benny revolutionized comedy, creating a memorable character who was the butt of every joke. He takes a new look at the great Dinah Washington, remarking that "few performers have taken a stage or stormed off one with quite the noblesse oblige of the Queen." Giddins also offers a fresh assessment of James M. Cain and other masters of hard-boiled detective fiction, and he delivers an aggressive critique of the liberties academics have taken with such classic texts as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Along the way, he reveals how he uncovered the true birthdate of Louis Armstrong; chats with Clint Eastwood about Charlie Parker; and exposes the curious plagiarism of Katherine Anne Porter by her own biographer. And of course, he writes with power and authority on the great jazz musicians, providing an original perspective on Benny Goodman, tracking the evolving musical adventures of Sonny Rollins, and offering a musicological study of two Dizzy Gillespie solos separated by forty years. Pete Hamill has written, "Nobody writes with greater authority about American music than Gary Giddins," and Ken Tucker has called him "the John Updike of jazz criticism." In this provocative and immensely entertaining collection, Giddins shows why he has become one of the most influential critics of his generation.

Cool Story Programs for the School-Age Crowd

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Grabber Activities for Kids in the Library

Cool Story Programs for the School-Age Crowd
Rob Reid
Manufacturer: American Library Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 083890887X

Customer Reviews:

Grabber Activities for Kids in the Library.......2005-05-14

Librarian-humorist Rob Reid, author of Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Library, offers 18 new wacky and offbeat programs designed to delight the elementary school-age crowd. Each program opens with a thumbnail overview, followed by combinations of poetry, picture books, chapter book excerpts, and short stories. Audience involvement includes word play, reader's theater, dramatics, writing, music, sports, or crafts. Reid also shows how these programs can be adapted for younger (preschool) or older (fifth and sixth grade) children. (summary by South TX Library System)
My Children's Services staff is always on the look out for ideas like these. Several years ago, they launched a pre-teen/early teen library club for after school. It really changed the dynamics of our unruly afterschool crowd. I strongly recommend that libraries work with (instead of against) this age group.

The Cities, the Towns, the Crowds:: The Paintings of Robert Spencer

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The Cities, the Towns, the Crowds:: The Paintings of Robert Spencer

The Cities, the Towns, the Crowds:: The Paintings of Robert Spencer
Brian H. Peterson
Manufacturer: University of Pennsylvania Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Impressionism | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Pennsylvania Impressionism

ASIN: 081223829X

Book Description

In 1906 a young painter named Robert Spencer moved from the hustle and bustle of New York City to the bucolic Bucks County region in nearby southeastern Pennsylvania. Over the next twenty-five years, Spencer became one of the most prominent artists in the Pennsylvania impressionist art colony, a group of nationally known landscape painters centered in the picturesque village of New Hope. His first major success came when the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased Repairing the Bridge in 1914. He won a gold medal in 1915 at the prestigious Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. After Spencer's death, the celebrated collector Duncan Phillips praised him as "a rebel always against the standardized and stereotyped in art." Phillips believed that there was "no other painter, not John Sloan, or Edward Hopper, more pungently American in expression."In matters of style, Spencer differed radically from his Pennsylvania impressionist colleagues. He made his reputation with skillful, evocative renderings of the everyday life of his community, often depicting the mills, tenements, and factories of New Hope and the surrounding areas. "A landscape without a building or a figure," he said, "is a very lonely picture to me." Later Spencer began to experiment with a looser, more spontaneous style, and he painted more fanciful European scenes, many of which were done from his imagination. Spencer's canvas Mountebanks and Thieves won a prize at the 1926 Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh, and juror Pierre Bonnard said, "Mr. Spencer . . . is in the full vigor of his talent, which is great. His art does not resemble European art, a rare fact in America."Spencer battled depression throughout his adult life and committed suicide in 1931. This book tells the story of Spencer's colorful yet tragic life, using as sources the written recollections of his two daughters as well as extensive new research. Illustrated with nearly seventy-five color images from major museums and private collections, the book examines the artist's work in depth, from his unformed beginnings to his mature New York City and European images. Extensive excerpts from his correspondence with Duncan Phillips and from press articles and reviews are also included, making The Cities, the Towns, the Crowds the definitive study of this important American painter.

Customer Reviews:

The Cities, the Towns, the Crowds:: The Paintings of Robert Spencer.......2007-08-10

I'm sorry to say this book is VERY disappointing! The text is good, but the images and reproductions are of poor quality. After all, why does one buy an art book? For reasonably faithful images! I have seen actual Spencer paintings before, and the colors of the reproductions in this book are so far off from the colors of the original paintings that it is a shame to attribute them to the wonderful American painter Robert Spencer.

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