Tap Dancing To Work

Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into something remarkable— and Fortune journalist Carol Loomis had a front-row seat for it all. When Carol Loomis first mentioned a little-known Omaha hedge fund manager in a 1966 Fortune article, she didn’t dream that Warren Buffett would one day be considered the world’s greatest investor—nor that she and Buffett would quickly become close personal friends. As Buf­fett’s fortune and reputation grew over time, Loomis used her unique insight into Buffett’s thinking to chronicle his work for Fortune, writ­ing and proposing scores of stories that tracked his many accomplishments—and also his occa­sional mistakes. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major arti­cle that supplies context and her own informed point of view. Readers will gain fresh insights into Buffett’s investment strategies and his thinking on management, philanthropy, public policy, and even parenting. Some of the highlights include: The 1966 A. W. Jones story in which Fortune first mentioned Buffett. The first piece Buffett wrote for the magazine, 1977’s “How Inf lation Swindles the Equity Investor.” Andrew Tobias’s 1983 article “Letters from Chairman Buffett,” the first review of his Berk­shire Hathaway shareholder letters. Buffett’s stunningly prescient 2003 piece about derivatives, “Avoiding a Mega-Catastrophe.” His unconventional thoughts on inheritance and philanthropy, including his intention to leave his kids “enough money so they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” Bill Gates’s 1996 article describing his early impressions of Buffett as they struck up their close friendship. Scores of Buffett books have been written, but none can claim this work’s combination of trust between two friends, the writer’s deep under­standing of Buffett’s world, and a very long-term perspective.

Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into something remarkable— and Fortune journalist Carol Loomis had a front-row seat for it all. When Carol Loomis first mentioned a little-known Omaha hedge fund manager in a 1966 Fortune article, she didn’t dream that Warren Buffett would one day be considered the world’s greatest investor—nor that she and Buffett would quickly become close personal friends. As Buf­fett’s fortune and reputation grew over time, Loomis used her unique insight into Buffett’s thinking to chronicle his work for Fortune, writ­ing and proposing scores of stories that tracked his many accomplishments—and also his occa­sional mistakes. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major arti­cle that supplies context and her own informed point of view. Readers will gain fresh insights into Buffett’s investment strategies and his thinking on management, philanthropy, public policy, and even parenting. Some of the highlights include: The 1966 A. W. Jones story in which Fortune first mentioned Buffett. The first piece Buffett wrote for the magazine, 1977’s “How Inf lation Swindles the Equity Investor.” Andrew Tobias’s 1983 article “Letters from Chairman Buffett,” the first review of his Berk­shire Hathaway shareholder letters. Buffett’s stunningly prescient 2003 piece about derivatives, “Avoiding a Mega-Catastrophe.” His unconventional thoughts on inheritance and philanthropy, including his intention to leave his kids “enough money so they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” Bill Gates’s 1996 article describing his early impressions of Buffett as they struck up their close friendship. Scores of Buffett books have been written, but none can claim this work’s combination of trust between two friends, the writer’s deep under­standing of Buffett’s world, and a very long-term perspective.

Tap Dancing to Work compiles six decades of writing on legendary investor Warren Buffett, from Carol Loomis, the reporter who knows him best. Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into something remarkable - and Fortune journalist Carol Loomis had a front-row seat. When Carol Loomis first mentioned a little known Omaha hedge fund manager in a 1966 Fortune article, she didn't dream that Warren Buffett would one day be considered the world's greatest investor - nor that she and Buffett would quickly become close personal friends. As Buffett's fortune and reputation grew, Loomis used her unique insight into Buffett's thinking to chronicle his work for Fortune, writing and proposing scores of stories that tracked his many accomplishments - and his occasional mistakes. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Readers will gain fresh insights into Buffett's investment strategies and his thinking on management, philanthropy, public policy, and even parenting. Scores of Buffett books have been written, but none can claim this combination of trust between two friends, the writer's deep understanding of Buffett's world, and a long-term perspective. Carol Loomis, 82, is at Editor-At-Large at Fortune magazine, where she has worked since 1954. She has written extensively on Warren Buffett since 1966 and is well known as the business journalist on closest terms with him. For the past 35 years she has edited Buffett's famous and eagerly-awaited annual letter to the shareholders of Berkshire-Hathaway. Loomis' many honours include the Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievment Award for business journalism and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Magisterial, revelatory, and-most suitably-entertaining, What the Eye Hears offers an authoritative account of the great American art of tap dancing. Brian Seibert, a dance critic for The New York Times, begins by exploring tap's origins as a hybrid of the jig and clog dancing from the British Isles and dances brought from Africa by slaves. He tracks tap's transfer to the stage through blackface minstrelsy and charts its growth as a cousin to jazz in the vaudeville circuits and nightclubs of the early twentieth century. Seibert chronicles tap's spread to ubiquity on Broadway and in Hollywood, analyzes its decline after World War II, and celebrates its rediscovery and reinvention by new generations of American and international performers. In the process, we discover how the history of tap dancing is central to any meaningful account of American popular culture. This is a story with a huge cast of characters, from Master Juba (it was probably a performance of his in a Five Points cellar that Charles Dickens described in American Notes for General Circulation) through Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Gene Kelly and Paul Draper to Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. Seibert traces the stylistic development of tap through individual practitioners, vividly depicting dancers both well remembered and now obscure. And he illuminates the cultural exchange between blacks and whites over centuries, the interplay of imitation and theft, as well as the moving story of African-Americans in show business, wielding enormous influence as they grapple with the pain and pride of a complicated legacy.What the Eye Hears teaches us to see and hear the entire history of tap in its every step.

The first comprehensive, fully documented history of a uniquely American art form, exploring all aspects of the intricate musical and social exchange that evolved from Afro-Irish percussive step dances like the jig, gioube, buck-and-wing, and juba to the work of such contemporary tap luminaries as Gregory Hines, Brenda Bufalino, Dianne Walker, and Savion Glover.

Annabelle Applegate will not stop tap-dancing no matter what the frustrated citizens of Fiddlers Creek do to make her quit.

Tracing the development of tap dancing from ancient India to the Broadway stage in 1903, when the word "Tap" was first used in publicity to describe this new American style of dance, this text separates the cultural, societal and historical events that influenced the development of Tap dancing. Section One covers primary influences such as Irish step dancing, English clog dancing and African dancing. Section Two covers theatrical influences (early theatrical developments, "Daddy" Rice, the Virginia Minstrels) and Section Three covers various other influences (Native American, German and Shaker). Also included are accounts of the people present at tap's inception and how various styles of dance were mixed to create a new art form.

The icon and legend at last tells his story his way -- without the boring bits Paul Hogan first appeared on Australia's screens in 1971 as a 'tap-dancing knife thrower' on TV talent show New Faces. The then father of four and Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger from Granville did it as a dare, but when the network's switchboard lit up, he was invited back. So popular was he with viewers, Hogan became a regular on Mike Willesee's A Current Affair. The rest, as they say, is history. In collaboration with his business partner and best friend, John Cornell (who played his sidekick, Strop), 'Hoges' went on to become Australia's favourite TV comedian. His hugely popular comedy shows and appearances in unforgettable and ground-breaking ads for cigarettes, beer and tourism, came to personify Australia and Australians here and overseas, helping to change the perception of who we are as people and as a nation. Then, in 1986, Crocodile Dundee, the movie he conceived, co-wrote and starred in, became an international smash hit and earned its star a Golden Globe Award, as well as Oscar and BAFTA nominations. Despite the fact that Hoges claimed to have retired, many more successful movies followed. Yet even as his star rose ever higher, he always expected someone to grab him by the arm and say, 'What are you doing here? You're just a bloody rigger!' The Tap-Dancing Knife Thrower is a funny and candid account of the astonishing life of this 'lucky bastard', as Hoges describes himself. Full of stories never previously shared, and recounted in the comedian's inimitable, funny and self-deprecating style, The Tap-Dancing Knife Thrower is Paul Hogan's story told his way - 'without the boring bits'.