The Devil S Playground

As Times Square turns 100, New York Times Magazine contributing writer James Traub tells the story of how this mercurial district became one of the most famous and exciting places in the world. The Devil’s Playground is classic and colorful American history, from the first years of the twentieth century through the Runyonesque heyday of nightclubs and theaters in the 1920s and ’30s, to the district’s decline in the 1960s and its glittering corporate revival in the 1990s. First, Traub gives us the great impresarios, wits, tunesmiths, newspaper columnists, and nocturnal creatures who shaped Times Square over the century since the place first got its name: Oscar Hammerstein, Florenz Ziegfeld, George S. Kaufman, Damon Runyon, Walter Winchell, and “the Queen of the Nightclubs,” Texas Guinan; bards like A. J. Liebling, Joe Mitchell, and the Beats, who celebrated the drug dealers and pimps of 42nd Street. He describes Times Square’s notorious collapse into pathology and the fierce debates over how best to restore it to life. Traub then goes on to scrutinize today’s Times Square as no author has yet done. He writes about the new 42nd Street, the giant Toys “R” Us store with its flashing Ferris wheel, the new world of corporate theater, and the sex shops trying to leave their history behind. More than sixty years ago, Liebling called Times Square “the heart of the world”—not just the center of the world, though this crossroads in Midtown Manhattan was indeed that, but its heart. From the dawn of the twentieth century through the 1950s, Times Square was the whirling dynamo of American popular culture and, increasingly, an urban sanctuary for the eccentric and the untamed. The name itself became emblematic of the tremendous life force of cities everywhere. Today, Times Square is once again an awe-inspiring place, but the dark and strange corners have been filled with blazing light. The most famous street character on Broadway, “the Naked Cowboy,” has his own website, and Toys “R” Us calls its flagship store in Times Square “the toy center of the universe.” For the giant entertainment corporations that have moved to this safe, clean, and self-consciously gaudy spot, Times Square is still very much the center of the world. But is it still the heart?

The Devil is part of the Cards of Love Collection. You do NOT need to read any other books in the collection in order to read The Devil. They'll tell you I seduced them. Used my looks and body to lure them into my playground. They'll tell you I'm a sinner. A demon who held them captive with temptation and lust. They'll tell you I'm evil. A monster obsessed with the both of them. They'll tell you they made a deal with the devil.What they won't tell you...is how much they liked it. Please note: This story contains content that may be offensive to some readers.Please also note: The Devil is a full-length prelude novel

The most significant book to date on this influential contemporary photographer.

Fred Schepisi's film, 'The Devil's Playground' is an intimate portrait of Tom, a thirteen-year-old struggling in spirit and body with the constraints of living in a Catholic seminary. It is also the story of the Brothers and how they cope with the demands of their faith. Made in 1976, this semi-autobiographical films established Schepisi as one of Australia's most talented directors and was one of the first Australian films to be selected for Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Christos Tsiolkas invites you into his twenty-five year journey of viewing, reviewing and re-imaging the film. He remembers his first illicit experience of the film at the age of thirteen and describes how his views of it changed in later years. As he chronicles the impact of 'The Devil's Playground' on the development of his sense of self and of his love of cinema, he also explores the film in terms of sexuality, politics, history and aesthetics. Tsiolkas' account of what 'The Devil's Playground' said and didn't say to him is a passionate tribute to the power and possibilities of cinema.

Tragic and Twisted fell in love... Ave Satanas, something wicked this way comes.It's time for the reckoning to begin.Enter the Devil's Playground wary where you tread, for demons are lurking with trickery up their sleeves.Here good and bad cease to exist, and not all will make it to the end.The price of freedom will be revealed only after bloodshed and rapture. A claiming of one and purging of others. That audio recording played exactly three minutes before the crash.It was a riddle, a warning, and a promise. But they didn't know that until it was too late.Now stranded with two friends and a group of apprehensive strangers, Liliana Serpine must decide who and who not to trust as they navigate their way through hell in the form of an opulent city.There's one person who stands out among the others. He's got a gorgeous face and darkly enigmatic aura. Being drawn to him is inevitable but staying by his side becomes necessary to survive.When secrets start being revealed in blood, everything changes. From dabbling in the taboo, being tempted by the forbidden, and falling in lust with the carnage.For those that make it out of this alive, they'll never be the same people they once were. **Warning** Devil's Playground is a dark new adult (not high-school) series. There are graphic situations and content some readers may find objective. If you need fluff and sweet romance this is not the series for you. Books 1 & 2 tie together. The remaining books in the series are individual standalones.

This is the true story of an elite Massachusetts boarding school that for years employed a ring of pedophiles in positions of power over boys ages 8 to 14. It is a true account of how these sexual predators singled out children to victimize, how they got away with it, and how the school could cover it up for decades. John Sweeney was one of the children violated at The Fessenden School and in the beginning he thought he was the only one. (Wrong.) When he called his mother to tell her about the first sexual assault she didn't believe him. When he ran to the headmaster's office his story was dismissed as the active imagination of a pubescent boy. Once a favored student with special privileges, Johnny then became a target for pedophile faculty living in his dorm and the damage done to his young psyche manifested itself for decades in otherwise inexplicable anxiety, shame, secrecy, self-hatred, guilt and depression. Like other sexually-abused children, John gravitated toward living on the edge, where sex, drugs and danger allowed him to forget. After decades of struggling with his childhood secret out of the blue one day in 2011 Fessenden admitted to the public that the school had for years employed a child molester as assistant headmaster and there was the possibility that misconduct may have occurred on school grounds. The named assistant headmaster, Arthur Preston Clarridge, had been Johnny's chief sexual and psychological torturer. The shock of the truth emerging from the school after all these years was almost harder for John to deal with than the original crimes. When his father begged John for his forgiveness--because he and Johnny's mother had not believed him when Clarridge first sexually assaulted him--he was faced with a choice: did he undergo years of intense therapy to address the trauma of what had happened at Fessenden and seek justice? Or did he just crawl away in shame and die like a classmate? At turns fascinating and horrific, cringe-worthy and laugh-out-loud funny, THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND by John Sweeney details the kinds of crimes that were committed at The Fessenden School and the kinds of damage they did to some of its students. So while the school continues to boast of famous alumni--General George S. Patton, Howard Hughes, Ted Kennedy--Fessenden can now also boast of giving birth to a movement to eradicate the sexual abuse of children from every school, led by one of its less-heralded students, former Green Beret John Sweeney.