Pirates And Farmers

Arguably one of Americas most unconventional art/cultural critics

The Pirates Next Door, written by Denette Jenkins Fretz and illustrated by (TBD), tells the tale of five brazen pirates who swap high seas adventures for life on a farm. When your neighbors are mischievous pirates, calamity becomes commonplace. Each member of the unadventurous Sanders family must choose how to respond to the pirates and their antics. Mother forms a Ban the Buccaneers Brigade, eight-year-old Joey imitates everything the pirates do, his older sister keeps her distance, and Dad quietly helps the outcasts find their “land legs.” Humor encases the story’s theme of loving eccentric neighbors... as yourself.

Whatever your ambitions, ideas and challenges, this book will revolutionize the way you live, think and work today, and tomorrow. Pirates didn't just break the rules, they rewrote them. They didn't just reject society, they reinvented it. Pirates didn't just challenge the status-quo, they changed everyfuckingthing. Pirates faced a self-interested establishment, a broken system, industrial scale disruption and an uncertain future. Sound familiar? Pirates stood for MISCHIEF, PURPOSE and POWER. And you can too. In Be More Pirate, Sam Conniff Allende unveils the innovative strategies of Golden Age pirates, drawing parallels between the tactics and teachings of legends like Henry Morgan and Blackbeard with modern rebels, like Elon Musk, Malala and Banksy. Featuring takeaway sections and a guide to build you own pirate code 2.0, Be More Pirate will show you how to leave your mark on the 21st century. So what are you waiting for? Join the rebellion now. ----- 'Unique...reminds me of the fun we've had with our airlines' - Sir Richard Branson 'Totally compelling' Ed Miliband 'I'd rather be a pirate than join the navy' Steve Jobs 'A model for how to break the system and create radical change' Evening Standard 'Be More Pirate feels so important as it looks to history to help us grip the future' Martha Lane Fox 'This isn't a book, it's the beginning of a movement. Be More Pirate should come with a health warning' Tom Goodwin, author of Digital Darwinism

Pirates on the Prairie is a narrative documentary that chronicles the achievements of a remarkable group of athletes, the Pirates, who explode out of tiny Halstad, MN, population 500, in 1952, much to the amazement of the Minnesota media and fans who quickly learn to love them. Author, nurseryman, and American history lover Eric Bergeson, of Fertile, MN, carefully traces the development of Halstad¿s homegrown Pirates, their classmates, and families, while also bringing vividly to life the environment that nourishes them. Readers become part of the seemingly ordinary day-to-day dynamics in Halstad, from the home lives of the players to the play-by-play reports of their movements on the court¿and in the field. Gradually Pirates of the Prairie answers its fundamental question¿how did this happen? What enabled this particular group of boys, at this time, in this place, to perform the large- than-life feats that earned them third place in the 1952 Minnesota state boys basketball tournament and first in the 1953 state baseball tournament¿both against much larger, big-city schools? As excitement builds and hopes grow stronger, readers learn about¿or recall¿life in small-town America, when communities worked hands-on together to support and develop their children. At the same time, we detect a foreboding undercurrent¿a realization that this will also be a story of loss. For Pirates of the Prairie also documents a profound change in rural American culture that those with small-town roots still feel today.

A busy family and their friends spend a day working and playing on the farm. From milking the cows in the morning to closing the gate at night, learn about a day in the life of a farming family. Includes educational endnotes on farming. A QR code on the book provides access to video animation and audio.

When Dave Hickey was twelve, he rode the surfer's dream: the perfect wave. And, like so many things in life we long for, it didn't quite turn out - he shot the pier and dashed himself against the rocks of Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach, which just about killed him. Fortunately, for Hickey and for us, he survived, and he continues to battle, decades into a career as one of America's foremost critical iconoclasts. He's a trusted, even cherished no-nonsense voice commenting on the all-too-often nonsensical worlds of art and culture. This book brings together essays on a wide range of subjects from throughout Hickey's career, displaying his usual breadth of interest and powerful insight into what makes art work, or not, and why we care. With Hickey as our guide, we travel to Disneyland and Vegas, London and Venice. We discover the genius of Karen Carpenter and Waylon Jennings, learn why Robert Mitchum matters more than Jimmy Stewart, and see how the stillness of Antonioni speaks to us today. Never slow to judge - or to surprise us in doing so - Hickey powerfully relates his wincing disappointment in the later career of his early hero Susan Sontag, and shows us the appeal to our commonality that we've been missing in Norman Rockwell. With each essay, the doing is as important as what's done; the pleasure of reading Dave Hickey lies nearly as much in spending time in his company as in being surprised to find yourself agreeing with his conclusions. -- Description from amazon.com.

Regarded as both a legend and a villain, the critic Dave Hickey has inspired generations of artists, art critics, musicians, and writers. His 1993 book The Invisible Dragon became a cult hit for its potent and provocative critique of the art establishment and its call to reconsider the role of beauty in art. His next book, 1997’s Air Guitar, introduced a new kind of cultural criticism—simultaneously insightful, complicated, vulnerable, and down-to-earth—that propelled Hickey to fame as an iconoclastic thinker, loved and loathed in equal measure, whose influence extended beyond the art world. Far from Respectable is a focused, evocative exploration of Hickey’s work, his impact on the field of art criticism, and the man himself, from his Huck Finn childhood to his drug-fueled periods as both a New York gallerist and Nashville songwriter to, finally, his anointment as a tenured professor and MacArthur Fellow. Drawing on in-person interviews with Hickey, his friends and family, and art world comrades and critics, Daniel Oppenheimer examines the controversial writer’s distinctive takes on a broad range of subjects, including Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, academia, Las Vegas, basketball, country music, and considers how Hickey and his vision of an “ethical, cosmopolitan paganism” built around a generous definition of art is more urgently needed than ever before.

A book that argues that lessons in creativity, innovation, salesmanship, and entrepreneurship can come from surprising places: pirates, bootleggers, counterfeiters, hustlers, and others living and working on the margins of business and society.