[PDF] The Thrill Makers eBook

Author : Jacob Smith
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 10,61 MB
Release : 2012-05
Category : History
ISBN : 0520270894

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“Starring human flies, daredevil aviators, bridge jumpers, and lion tamers, The Thrill Makers is a great read, as evocative as it is theoretically savvy, and convincingly argued. Culling telling details from a host of long-overlooked sources, Jacob Smith’s account of sensational, high-risk public performance from the Victorian age to the 1930s unearths and illuminates the interwoven histories of public spectacle, masculinity, the motion picture industry, new forms of celebrity, and the expanding American metropolis.”—Greg Waller, Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University. “The Thrill Makers is an historical tour-de-force that illuminates the origins of risk-taking performance in American entertainment, and shows how its practitioners were gradually marginalized as invisible stunt doubles during the rise of the motion picture industry. Smith’s analysis of the lion tamer, the human fly, and the airplane wing-walker—as well as the many others who thrilled audiences before and during the advent of cinema—inspires us to reconsider the nature of media spectacle, masculinity, performance, celebrity, and labor at the turn of the last century. Impeccably researched, this book is a captivating read that re-frames the emergence of cinema in the context of its relationship to other forms of modern entertainment.”—Barbara Klinger, author of Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home.

Author : Jacob Smith
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 29,11 MB
Release : 2012-05
Category : History
ISBN : 0520270886

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“Starring human flies, daredevil aviators, bridge jumpers, and lion tamers, The Thrill Makers is a great read, as evocative as it is theoretically savvy, and convincingly argued. Culling telling details from a host of long-overlooked sources, Jacob Smith’s account of sensational, high-risk public performance from the Victorian age to the 1930s unearths and illuminates the interwoven histories of public spectacle, masculinity, the motion picture industry, new forms of celebrity, and the expanding American metropolis.”—Greg Waller, Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University. “The Thrill Makers is an historical tour-de-force that illuminates the origins of risk-taking performance in American entertainment, and shows how its practitioners were gradually marginalized as invisible stunt doubles during the rise of the motion picture industry. Smith’s analysis of the lion tamer, the human fly, and the airplane wing-walker—as well as the many others who thrilled audiences before and during the advent of cinema—inspires us to reconsider the nature of media spectacle, masculinity, performance, celebrity, and labor at the turn of the last century. Impeccably researched, this book is a captivating read that re-frames the emergence of cinema in the context of its relationship to other forms of modern entertainment.”—Barbara Klinger, author of Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home.

Author : Stephen Dolginoff
Publisher : Offstage Drama Publishing
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 36,48 MB
Release : 2024-01-18
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN :

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Stephen Dolginoff's Off-Broadway musical Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story was called "breathtaking" by The New York Times. It was honored with both Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for Best Musical. It then went on to have over two hundred productions spanning twenty-five countries and seventeen languages-and counting! His thirty-year odyssey with Thrill Me began in 1994 when he first started writing the script and score. Once it was finished, he experienced a series of "thrilling" events that he never could have predicted. From putting on staged readings himself in New York City, to attending opening nights of the show all around the world, he's collected plenty of behind-the-scenes stories, secrets, and surprises to share. What was the key to the success of Thrill Me? Determination? Luck? Talent? All three? In Thrill Maker, Stephen takes an honest look back over the past thirty years to help discover how a non-household-name musical-about two notorious murderers-could fly under the radar to become a bona fide worldwide hit. You may have never even heard of the musical Thrill Me-but after reading Thrill Maker, it's a good bet that you'll be "dying" to see it!

Author : David Pawson
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 17,86 MB
Release : 2014-01-14
Category : Religion
ISBN :

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King Alfred is perhaps best remembered for allowing cakes to become burnt, but he did something far more significant and of lasting value. He used ten commandments, given to the Jewish people centuries before, as the foundation of English law. He instinctively knew they contained the recipe for a safe and successful society. The secret they all contain is respect. Respect for God first, for his uniqueness, his nature, his name, his special day; then respect for each other, our families, life itself, marriage, property and reputation. Churches have urged members to memorise the Ten Commandments, along with the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed, often putting all three up on the wall as summaries of the Christian faith and life, as well as using them in worship. But how can principles laid down so long ago and so far away be relevant to contemporary society? Well, as one New Testament translator (J B Phillips) puts it: ‘By the straight edge of God’s law we find out how crooked we are.’ Only after this discovery are we ready to consider the gospel of Jesus.

Author : Brendan Dooley
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 550 pages
File Size : 39,32 MB
Release : 2014-03-10
Category : History
ISBN : 0674369106

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A Mattress Maker’s Daughter richly illuminates the narrative of two people whose mutual affection shaped their own lives and in some ways their times. According to the Renaissance legend, told and retold across the centuries, a woman of questionable reputation bamboozles a middle-aged warrior-prince into marrying her, and the family takes revenge. He is don Giovanni de’ Medici, son of the Florentine grand duke; she is Livia Vernazza, daughter of a Genoese artisan. They live in luxury for a while, far from Florence, and have a child. Then, Giovanni dies, the family pounces upon the inheritance, and Livia is forced to return from riches to rags. Documents, including long-lost love letters, reveal another story behind the legend, suppressed by the family and forgotten. Brendan Dooley investigates this largely untold story, among the various settings where episodes occurred, between Florence, Genoa, Venice. In the course of explaining their improbable liaison and its consequences, A Mattress Maker’s Daughter explores early modern emotions, material culture, heredity, absolutism, and religious tensions at the crux of one of the great transformations in European culture, society, and statecraft. Giovanni and Livia exemplify changing concepts of love and romance, new standards of public and private conduct, and emerging attitudes toward property and legitimacy just as the age of Renaissance humanism gave way to the culture of Counter Reformation and Early Modern Europe.