Claims Department Robin Williams Memorial

Christopher J Garcia, JC Arkham, Violente Seraph, Chuck Serface, and others look at the impact, work, and legacy of Robin Williams, from his days as a stand-up to his rise in films, to the impact of his death on those that admired him.

Learn design theory and practical know-how from the award-winning author/design team, Robin Williams and John Tollett! Robin Williams introduced design and typographic principles to legions of readers with her best-selling Non-Designer's book series. Now she and designer/co-author John Tollett take you to the next level of creative design with practical advice and lessons in composition, visual impact, and design challenges. Presented in Robin and John's signature style—writing that is so crystal clear, it's accessible to absolutely anyone—and illustrated with hundreds of full-color design examples, the ideas in this book tackle design theory, visual puns, and layout and graphics strategies for real-world projects. Developing designers will appreciate the authors' imaginative approach and well-chosen examples. Discover practical and effective design principles and concepts—and how to apply them to virtually any project. Learn why some designs are attention-getting and others are not. Learn how to choose just the right look—corporate or casual, classic or trendy—for specific types of projects, such as business cards, letterhead and envelopes, newsletters and brochures, logos, advertising, and more. Test your design acumen by comparing before-and-after examples. Find a wealth of inspiration for your own design projects. Gain insight into the design process by studying the work of guest designers, who offer their personal commentary and insights.

From his first appearance as Mork from Ork on the 1970s sitcom Happy Days, Robin Williams was heralded as a singular talent. In the pre-cable television era, he was one of the few performers to successfully transition from TV to film. An Oscar-winning actor and preternaturally quick-witted comedian, Williams became a cultural icon, leaving behind a large and varied body of work when he unexpectedly took his own life in 2014. This collection of new essays brings together a range of perspectives on Williams and his oeuvre, including beloved hits like Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Morning, Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, The Fisher King, Dead Poets Society and Aladdin. Contributors explore his earlier work (Mork and Mindy, The World According to Garp) and his political and satirical films (Moscow on the Hudson, Toys). Williams's darker, less well-known fare, such as Being Human, One Hour Photo, Final Cut and Boulevard, is also covered. Williams's artistry has become woven into the fabric of our global media culture.

1979. As the turbulent decade wound down Disco was still ruling the airwaves, but more complex music was rushing towards the scene. Boiling anti-American sentiments were fermenting in the Middle East, culminating in the hostage-taking of American embassy personnel and others in Tehran after the Shah fled to Egypt. The United States established full diplomatic relations with China. Using the “Twinkie” defense Dan White is only convicted of manslaughter in the murders of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. Michael Jackson broke through as a single artist with his album Off the Wall. Worldwide per capita oil production reached an historic peak. The Soviet Union launched its invasion of Afghanistan. With all the turmoil in the world people were still excited about reaching a new decade with all the promise underlying the negativity bubbling at the end of the 1970s. Big hair and shoulder pads were on the horizon. In the small city of Keene in southern New Hampshire strange murders have begun, starting with the decapitations of hitchhikers by a man who pays an ironic price. They continue in different manners with different victims, slowly revealing a dark pattern that intensifies the elusiveness of the perpetrator. People from different walks of life band together to uncover the truth and bring the killer to justice: a crime novelist; a young police detective and his associates; a diligent, determined reporter; and a reclusive Asian man with a mysterious past who isn’t all he seems and might be something no one would suspect. As they pursue sharing investigations, theories, and clues, the twisted killer is stalking the city with a focused ruthlessness that is stacking up bodies and keeping his pursuers at bay. The climax of the hunt rushes towards an unexpected and heart-pounding conclusion in the wild White Mountains of New Hampshire. But that climax is far from the end of the story, a twist no one would have imagined, or prepared for ...

Death, Culture and Leisure: Playing Dead is an inter- and multi-disciplinary volume that engages with the diverse nexuses that exist between death, culture and leisure. At its heart, it is a playful exploration of the way in which we play with both death and the dead.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Grave takes a ground-level view of how burial sites have transformed over time and how they continue to change. As a cemetery tour guide, Allison C. Meier has spent more time walking among tombstones than most. Even for her, the grave has largely been invisible, an out of the way and unobtrusive marker of death. However, graves turn out to be not always so subtle, reverent, or permanent. While the indigent and unidentified have frequently been interred in mass graves, a fate brought into the public eye during the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice today is not unlike burials in the potter's fields of the colonial era. Burial is not the only option, of course, and Meier analyzes the rise of cremation, green burial, and new practices like human composting, investigating what is next for the grave and how existing spaces of death can be returned to community life. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

To our knowledge nothing with The Suicide Funeral (or Memorial Service): Honoring Their Memory, Comforting Their Survivors' scope and depth has ever been published. This is an aid to anyone who will be called upon to do a funeral for the nearly 43,000 suicides in America each year. This book is designed to assist clergy, chaplains, and other faith leaders as they develop sermons and homilies for a funeral service. Its mandate is to help those searching for inspiration even though they may feel confused or uncertain undertaking such a daunting assignment. Those who plan and lead a funeral service may enable family and friends to understand and participate intentionally in their grief process. Clergy can have a significant impact on how people react to the suicide as well as provide comfort and assistance to those left behind on their journey through grief. Your leadership will influence how the suicide's bereaved are treated by others in the days, weeks, and months following the death. Because suicide does not discriminate by race, socio-economic status, or religion, a broad range of faiths and denominations are represented in this book's sermons, services, and perspectives.