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Butt Rot and Bottom Gas: A Glossary of Tragically Misunderstood Words
The English language is full of words that sound obscene but aren't. Terms like arsole (an organic chemical compound) and crack spread (a calculation showing theoretical market values of petroleum). Words like cunctator (a person who procrastinates, delays, or wastes time) and spotted dick (a traditional English dessert made with hot, thick custard). Seventh-grade language arts teacher Eric Groves Sr. has spent years listening to his students giggle after he used words like thespian, coccyx, and masticate. Now he has compiled hundreds of these foul-sounding terms into a delightfully innocent dictionary, complete with illustrated definitions of their true meanings. From air cock (a valve on a boiler) and bushmaster (a large venomous snake) to cummingtonite (a mineral) and beyond, Butt Rot and Bottom Gas is a wonderful reference for word lovers and the snickering seventh grader in all of us..
Price: $3.81
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Totally, Tenderly, Tragically
Phillip Lopate's reputation in American letters resides primarily in his championing of the personal essay, both as an editor ( The Art of the Personal Essay, The Anchor Essay Annual) and as a writer ( Against Joie de Vivre, Portrait of My Body). So it might seem odd, at first, to imagine him as a film critic--but as his thoughtful considerations of Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris demonstrate, the movies are as likely a subject for a skilled essayist's reflection as any other. Like his favorite critics, "I have sought out," Lopate writes, "precisely those films that would take me to a place where the uncanny, the sublime, the tragic, the ecstatic, the beautifully resigned, all converge." These are not, then, so much reviews--although Lopate happily discusses the strengths and weaknesses of his chosen films--as they are meditations. In his best pieces, such as his essays on Godard's Contempt (the film from which this collection derives its title) and Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, Lopate performs extended readings that tease out the richness of the films' texts with delicate intricacy. But this artful approach can only be carried so far--not even Lopate can quite redeem Jerry Lewis's Three on a Couch, which the most ardent Lewis fans acknowledge as a lesser work, no matter how earnestly he probes it for Freudian subtext. Folks who simply want to enjoy the movies may find the high culture assumptions of Totally, Tenderly, Tragically, including Lopate's overwhelming emphasis on foreign directors, a bit much, but if even one reader is inspired to seek out a film by Luchino Visconti, Kenji Mizoguchi, or Yazujiro Ozu on the basis of the descriptions herein, Lopate's efforts at conveying the artistic value of film will have been a success. --Ron Hogan.
Price: $9.89
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Tragically I Was an Only Twin: The Comedy of Peter Cook
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Tragically I Was an Only Twin: The Complete Peter Cook
To his many friends as well as his legion of fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man ever. His unique gifts and the way he led the transformation of British comedy (from music hall to perverse absurdity) and his clear comic influence on Monty Python's Flying Circus and every show since, has been much written about. But never before has there been a collection of Cook's own writings. Tragically, I Was an Only Twin gathers the treasures of Cook's comic career, from school and university via Beyond the Fringe alongside Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore, to his sureal, satirical journalism for Private Eye. It includes his monologues, the cream of his irreverent essays, and highlights from his much celebrated partnerships with Dudley Moore as Pete & Dud and Derek & Clive. Illustrated with his own drawings, this is the first, the only, and certainly the definitive collection of the transformative genius of comedy that was Peter Cook. .
Price: $8.48
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Tragically hip: Hollywood and African-American cinema. (Race in Contemporary American Cinema, part 2): An article from: Cineaste
This digital document is an article from Cineaste, published by Cineaste Publishers, Inc. on October 1, 1994. The length of the article is 1524 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. From the supplier: Hollywood has become a 'relationship business' rather than a 'business business,' a reality that has negatively affected the image of the African-American filmmaker. In such a 'relationship business,' the profit motive is only a component, while status is of prime importance. Thus, African-American films are never seen as vehicles of glamour, prestige or celebrity. They are also believed to generate limited local business and have almost no foreign box office potential. Citation DetailsTitle: Tragically hip: Hollywood and African-American cinema. (Race in Contemporary American Cinema, part 2) Author: Dennis Greene Publication:Cineaste (Magazine/Journal) Date: October 1, 1994 Publisher: Cineaste Publishers, Inc. Volume: v20 Issue: n4 Page: p28(2) Distributed by Thomson Gale.
Price: $5.95
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Virtually Safe Cigarettes: Reviving an Opportunity Once Tragically Rejected (Stand Alone)
Cigarette smoking is risky. Yet, official epidemiologic evidence indicates that less risky cigarettes are both desirable and feasible Indeed, during the '70s, the National Cancer Institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the US Department of Agriculture, and the cigarette industry cooperated in an intensive and promising program to develop less hazardous cigarettes. That program was shut down in the late '70s by intervening abolitionist policies aiming at a smoke free America by the year 2000. Predictably, those policies have failed and by the end of the '90s the number of smokers in the US alone has stabilized around 50 million. Thus, countless preventable illnesses and deaths could be attributed to an abolitionist intransigence blind to the opportunities of less hazardous cigarettes. The world could do well without tobacco, but over a billion people on the planet will continue to smoke for a long foreseeable future. Declaring cigarettes illegal would only succeed in creating an illegal black market with ugly consequences. In the US such realities have led virtually all States and the tobacco industry to negotiate settlements, with the open acknowledgement that smokers are here to stay. The settlements guarantee a steady stream of hundreds of billions of dollars into federal, state, and local revenues, predicated on a continuing, thriving, and legal cigarette market. On ethical grounds, these new official arrangements could not avoid raising again the moral obligation to reconsider less hazardous cigarettes, and their once tragically rejected opportunities. A program in this direction could be funded with a negligible fraction of tobacco tax revenues, and could prevent millions of premature deaths even if only partially successful..
Price: $5.46
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Well-Controlled Asthma Can Spiral Downward Rapidly--and Tragically.(Brief Article): An article from: Family Practice News
This digital document is an article from Family Practice News, published by International Medical News Group on August 1, 2001. The length of the article is 480 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. Citation DetailsTitle: Well-Controlled Asthma Can Spiral Downward Rapidly--and Tragically.(Brief Article) Author: Betsy Bates Publication:Family Practice News (Magazine/Journal) Date: August 1, 2001 Publisher: International Medical News Group Volume: 31 Issue: 15 Page: 20 Article Type: Brief Article Distributed by Thomson Gale.
Price: $5.95
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