Other books that might interest you

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  Your Band Sucks - What I Saw at...

  Jon Fine

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  Jon Fine spent nearly thirty years performing and recording with bands that played various forms of aggressive and challenging underground rock music, and, as he writes in this memoir, at no point were any of those bands "ever threatened, even distantly, by actual fame." Yet when members of his first band, Bitch Magnet, reunited after twenty-one years to tour Europe, Asia, and America, diehard longtime fans traveled from far and wide to attend those shows, which was a testament to the remarkable staying power of the indie culture that the bands predating the likes of Bitch Magnet willed into existence through sheer determination and a shared disdain for the mediocrity of contemporary popular music.  Like Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, Your Band Sucks is an insider's look at a fascinating and ferociously loved subculture. In it, Fine tracks how the indie-rock underground emerged and evolved, how it grappled with the mainstream and vice versa, and how it led many bands to an odd rebirth in the twenty-first century, in which they reunited, briefly and bittersweetly, after being broken up for decades. With backstage access to many key characters in the scene-and plenty of wit and sharply worded opinion-Fine delivers a memoir that affectionately yet critically portrays an important, heady moment in music history.

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  Seinfeldia - How a Show About...

  Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

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  Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly forty million Americans were tuning in weekly.In Seinfeldia, acclaimed TV historian and entertainment writer Jennifer Keishin Armstrong celebrates the creators and fans of this American television phenomenon. She brings listeners behind the scenes of the show while it was on the air and into the world of devotees for whom it never stopped being relevant, a world where the Soup Nazi still spends his days saying No soup for you!, Joe Davola gets questioned every day about his sanity, Kenny Kramer makes his living giving tours of New York sights from the show, and fans dress up in Jerry's famous puffy shirt, dance like Elaine, and imagine plotlines for Seinfeld if it were still on TV.

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  From the Atelier Tovar -...

  Guy Maddin

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  One of the Village Voice's Top 25 Books of 2003.
   
  Guy Maddin is one of Canada's most celebrated and original filmmakers, the director of such delirious films as Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Careful, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary and the forthcoming The Saddest Music in the World. Few know, however, that he is just as gifted a writer, and his resolutely purple prose, as eccentric and enchanting as his film work, is a true delight.
   
  From the Atelier Tovar gathers, in one volume, the best of Maddin's writing: his journalism (originally published in the Village Voice, Cinema Scope, Film Comment and points beyond), unpublished short stories and film treatments (including the riotous Child Without Qualities), and selections, both lurid and illuminating, from the filmmaker's personal journals. Here are Maddin's feverish musings on hockey, the Osmonds, divas of the Italian silent cinema, Bollywood, his own twisted biography, and much, much more. What emerges finally is both a fragrant potpourri and a treasure trove, a singular portrait of this very unique artist.

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  The Mysterious Miss Empress -...

  Samuel Fort

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  Marie Empress was an English singer, dancer, male impersonator and comedienne who performed in vaudeville and theater around the world at the turn of the twentieth century. She achieved her greatest success as an actress in early American motion pictures and was known as "the sublime vampire woman." She was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, and for a short period, her star was very bright. But her life, like her sudden appearance on the world stage in 1910, and her disappearance less than a decade later, is cloaked in mystery. 
  She had many names and many histories. None were real. Beneath every mask was yet another mask. She claimed to be born in France, England, and the United States, and on different years. She identified several imaginary family members but never a real one. She kept strange company and disappeared for months at a time from the public view. She never once provided the name of a family member as a point of contact on a ship's manifest, despite having crossed the Atlantic more than a dozen times, often with the stated objective of visiting with them. 
  There were rumors that she was connected to the British aristocracy or perhaps the Rothschild family and that her unceasing obfuscations were an attempt to conceal her pedigree. Empress was so gifted at misdirection that the world assumed her mysterious 1919 disappearance was a publicity stunt. It was, after all, a very odd disappearance. The events leading up to it and the events after it were markedly peculiar. Long after she was last seen in public, newspapers continued to proclaim the inevitable, imminent reappearance of the missing vampire woman. 
  They were wrong. But what really happened?

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  Reel Asian - Asian Canada on Screen

  Elaine Chang

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  Founded in 1997 by producer Anita Lee and journalist Andrew Sun, the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is a unique showcase of contemporary Asian cinema and work from the Asian diaspora. The festival fosters the exchange of cultural and artistic ideals between East and West, provides a public forum for homegrown Asian media artists and their work and fuels the growing appreciation for Asian cinema in Canada.
   
  In Reel Asian: Asian Canada on Screen, contributors, many of them filmmakers, examine East and Southeast Asian Canadian contributions to independent film and video. From artist-run centres, theories of hyphenation, distribution networks and gay and lesbian cinema to F-words, new media technologies and sweet n' sour controversies, Reel Asian: Asian Canada on Screen presents a multi-faceted picture of independent Asian film in Canada. The collection highlights the screen as a site forthe reflection, projection and reimagination of identities and communities, and explores the idea that ‘Asian Canada’ is less a demographic category than it is a term of art.
   
  Reel Asian brings together creators of award-winning features and acclaimed experimental shorts; critics, curators, artists and activists; enemy aliens, impersonators, ex-pats and 'Food Jammers' to explore how history and culture have played out onscreen. Whether calling geopolitical and generic categories into question or finding new ways of unleashing the magic of the cinematic image, the anthology showcases the ways in which Asian Canadians are making their distinctive mark on screens from the multiplex to the iPod, across Canada and beyond.
   
  Co-published with the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, this is the first anthology of its kind, and includes a substantial selection of images and stills, as well as a resources section providing detailed artist and distribution information.
   
  Contributors include Nobu Adilman, Jason Anderson, Leon Aureus, Cameron Bailey, Romeo Candido, Lily Cho, Nicole Chung, David Eng, Ann Marie Fleming, Richard Fung, Monika Kin Gagnon, Colin Geddes, Kwoi Gin, Mike Hoolboom, Alice Ming Wai Jim, Cheuk Kwan, Julia Kwan, Anita Lee, Helen Lee, Karin Lee, Keith Lock, Pamila Matharu, Christine Miguel, Tan Hoang Nguyen, Midi Onodera, Mieko Ouchi, Alice Shih, Mina Shum, Mary Stephen, Ho Tam, Loretta Todd, Khanhthuan Tran, Phil Tsui, Paul Wong, Su-Anne Yeo, Iris Yudai and Wayne Yung.
   
  ‘[The Reel Asian Festival] strikes the best balance between cutting edge and community. Strong programming and deep roots attract a super-hyphenated tribe.’
   
  – NOW Magazine

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  Guide to Modern Cookery (Le...

  Auguste Escoffier

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  Le Guide Culinaire can be regarded as the ‘Bible’ of modern cooking. It was Escoffier's attempt to codify and streamline the French restaurant food of the day. The original text was printed for the use of professional chefs and kitchen staff; Escoffier's introduction to the first edition explains his intention that the book be used toward the education of the younger generation of cooks. This usage of the book still holds today; many culinary schools still use it as their core textbook. The book overall is 900 pages long and contains over 2500 recipes. Part 1 is 120 pages long and describes the basic principles and techniques required for the chef, including descriptions of more than 250 recipes and preparations. (Summary by Chris Cartwright adapted from Wikipedia)

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