Other books that might interest you

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  Pablo Picasso and artworks

  Victoria Charles

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  Picasso was born a Spaniard and, so they say, began to draw before he could speak. As an infant he was instinctively attracted to artist’s tools. In early childhood he could spend hours in happy concentration drawing spirals with a sense and meaning known only to himself. At other times, shunning children’s games, he traced his first pictures in the sand. This early self-expression held out promise of a rare gift. Málaga must be mentioned, for it was there, on 25 October 1881, that Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born and it was there that he spent the first ten years of his life. Picasso’s father was a painter and professor at the School of Fine Arts and Crafts. Picasso learnt from him the basics of formal academic art training. Then he studied at the Academy of Arts in Madrid but never finished his degree. Picasso, who was not yet eighteen, had reached the point of his greatest rebelliousness; he repudiated academia’s anemic aesthetics along with realism’s pedestrian prose and, quite naturally, joined those who called themselves modernists, the non-conformist artists and writers, those whom Sabartés called “the élite of Catalan thought” and who were grouped around the artists’ café Els Quatre Gats. During 1899 and 1900 the only subjects Picasso deemed worthy of painting were those which reflected the “final truth”; the transience of human life and the inevitability of death. His early works, ranged under the name of “Blue Period” (1901-1904), consist in blue-tinted paintings influenced by a trip through Spain and the death of his friend, Casagemas. Even though Picasso himself repeatedly insisted on the inner, subjective nature of the Blue Period, its genesis and, especially, the monochromatic blue were for many years explained as merely the results of various aesthetic influences. Between 1905 and 1907, Picasso entered a new phase, called “Rose Period” characterised by a more cheerful style with orange and pink colours. In Gosol, in the summer of 1906 the nude female form assumed an extraordinary importance for Picasso; he equated a depersonalised, aboriginal, simple nakedness with the concept of “woman”...

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  12 Music Theory Hacks to Learn...

  Ray Harmony

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  This is a hacks-only version of Part 1 in the series: Hack Music Theory. Each hack delivers all the vital info you need to know about each topic. Read through all these hacks in a half hour, and you'll be making good music in less than an hour from now. However, you'll miss out on a bunch of bad jokes and deep insights that are only revealed in its companion, so go grab a copy at HackMusicTheory.com
  
  Ray Harmony is an award-winning music lecturer and multi-instrumentalist, who draws on his two decades of teaching experience to break down music theory into its simplest form. After studying 'popular' and 'classical' music theory, Ray created a unique approach that he uses to compose his songs, which feature multi-platinum Grammy winners Serj Tankian (System of a Down), Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), and many more.
  
  "The most brilliant, fast, easy, and fun music theory book I've ever seen!" -DEREK SIVERS, CD Baby founder, TED speaker, musician, author of Anything You Want
  
  "This is the kind of book I wish I had when I first started out." -IHSAHN, Emperor
  
  "Trust Ray, and in no time you'll have a watertight music theory skillset you once thought impossible to obtain." -PAT LUNDY, Modestep, ex-Funeral for a Friend
  
  "Ray manages to make learning music theory fascinating, digestible, and damn right cool!" -JOE COPCUTT, AxeWound, Zoax
  
  "If you have been put off music theory in the past, then this is the book to inspire and empower you." -VICTORIA WILLIAMSON, PhD, Vice Chancellor's Fellow Researcher and Lecturer in Music at the University of Sheffield, UK, author of You Are the Music
  
  "Ray has a totally unique approach of hacking music theory, which gives you the essentials in a fraction of the time." -VESPERS, Warp Academy founder, music producer

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  The Life and Times of the Real...

  Shirley Harrison

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  "Once upon a time an anonymous teddy bear set off, from a factory in a north London suburb with a van-load of similar bears and other toys. His spectacular journey was to take him into the hearts of people of all ages, around the world and that is where we will join him first-in Acton where it all began." -Shirley Harrison, from the introductionThe story truly does begin in Acton, England, at the Farnell toy factory where the hand-made mohair bear was born. This biography traces the steps of the actual stuffed bear from his creation to his final resting place in the Children's Center of the New York Public Library. Winnie-the-Pooh was brought to life as a loveable playmate flowing from the vivid imagination of Christopher Robin and introduced to the world by his father, A. A. Milne. Shirley Harrison uses original documents, photographs, and the diaries of the late Elliot Graham, caretaker to the bear for more than forty years, to give a glimpse into the hidden world of Winnie-the-Pooh and those whose lives he changed forever. Well-researched details flesh out the myths surrounding Winnie-the-Pooh's name, his journey to American, and his brief return to England. Filled with details of the real Christopher Robin, his mother, father, and the impact the stories had on their lives and illustrated with photographs of the people and places that brought the bear to life, this book chronicles the origins of one of the best-loved children's series in the world and focuses on the stuffed toy that started it all.

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  Doug Dynasty

  Doug Benson

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  Doug Benson, High Times 2006 Stoner of the Year, delivers in his first comedy special filmed at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle. He responds to audience Tweets with the blunt truth, performs impressions and tells some hilarious stoner stories.  Enjoy, it’s a real hit from start to finish.

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  Laugh Everyday No Matter What

  Greg MacNeil

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  It's an autobiography mainly covering 35-years in the magazine publishing business featuring successes, failures, amazing people, and crazy stories that really happened. Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic wrote: "Humor is a serious business for happiness and cultivating humor in life, even during the darkest times, can be the secret to keeping us from despair." LAUGH EVERY DAY, NO MATTER WHAT illustrates the value of laughter in life during the good times and the bad.Included are funny anecdotes related to hockey, football, squash, scuba diving, and fly-fishing along with a cast of unique personalities. Excerpts from the Foreward, by Neil Morton, a former magazine writer, and editor: "From the first time I met Greg MacNeil in the 1990s when I was an intern on one of the publications the magazine mogul oversaw, I knew I was around someone genuinely unique and special. Indeed, everyone who has ever been around the guy for any length of time has the same sentiment: Boy, that Greg is a beauty, one of a kind!" The book covers the hurdles, the people, the magazine world, the highs, and lows, the defining moments, and the belly-ache laughter anecdotes.What you do with what you have and the cards you were dealt defines you. The above themes and messages are delivered loudly and clearly while listening to this entertaining gem that is like being at the best dinner party you've ever attended with non-stop stories, jokes, and wisdom."

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  Beautiful Building Block Quilts...

  Lisa Walton

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  “An exercise in modern, modular play, using time-honored quilt blocks and a combination of solid, batik and hand-dyed fabrics to make the quilts sing.” —Fabrications Quilting for You 
   
  Author Lisa Walton shows you how to start with an easy quilt block like Four-Patch or Flying Geese, stitch it up in several different sizes, then build your blocks into striking improvised quilts with up-to-the-minute style using solids, batiks and hand dyed fabrics. The piecing couldn’t be easier, and the design possibilities are endless with two ways to play: make quilts exactly like the ones in the book, or learn to improvise your own unique creations. Includes 8 step-by-step complete quilt projects, 4 bonus projects, plus a gallery to inspire even more possibilities! 
   
  “Lisa Walton presents her debut book sharing her technique of taking a simple geometric block, making it up into multiple sizes then joining those new modules together to create exciting and dynamic quilts. Also learn tips for using color and fabrics effectively.” —Australian Quilters Companion 
   
   
  “Author Lisa Walton encourages quilters to make quilts using one simple shape in a variety of sizes. She starts with the simplest of blocks (Four-Patch and Flying Geese) and progresses to hand-dyeing fabrics and improvisational piecing.” —Quilts & More

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