The Insanity Of Mary Girard

Brian's older brother thinks he's too small to play ball with them, but he shows them he's not.

"Show me your cemeteries, and I will tell you what kind of people you have." - Benjamin Franklin Discover the historic haunts and frightful specters that make the city of brotherly love a haven for unexplained phenomena. Author Josh Hitchens details the spooky stories of Philadelphia's past and present.

Why is Stephen Girard, a figure from late Colonial America, important today? As a teenager, he left home in Bordeaux, France with meager funds and went to sea as a merchant marine, following his family’s tradition. In early summer, 1776, he landed in Phil

"Madness" is, of course, personally experienced, but because of its intimate relationship to the sociocultural context, it is also socially constructed, culturally represented and socially controlled--all of which make it a topic rife for sociological analysis. Using a range of historical and contemporary textual material, this work exercises the sociological imagination to explore some of the most perplexing questions in the history of madness, including why some behaviors, thoughts and emotions are labeled mad while others are not; why they are labeled mad in one historical period and not another; why the label of mad is applied to some types of people and not others; by whom the label is applied, and with what consequences.

In Battling to the End René Girard engages Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), the Prussian military theoretician who wrote On War. Clausewitz, who has been critiqued by military strategists, political scientists, and philosophers, famously postulated that "War is the continuation of politics by other means." He also seemed to believe that governments could constrain war. Clausewitz, a firsthand witness to the Napoleonic Wars, understood the nature of modern warfare. Far from controlling violence, politics follows in war's wake: the means of war have become its ends. René Girard shows us a Clausewitz who is a fascinated witness of history's acceleration. Haunted by the French-German conflict, Clausewitz clarifies more than anyone else the development that would ravage Europe. Battling to the End pushes aside the taboo that prevents us from seeing that the apocalypse has begun. Human violence is escaping our control; today it threatens the entire planet.

"SETTLING SCORES: A Life in the Margins of American Music" details one life lived in the margins of America's musical consciousness. From a working-class background in gritty North Philadelphia to the sanctity of European concert stages, from imagined dangers lurking along the waterfronts in mysterious Asian cities to the real dangers lurking in the narrow minds of those who uphold the status quo in American music, this book reveals the life of one who embraced change, and, in the process, gained political leverage and intellectual freedom. It is the story of Joseph Franklin and a legion of collaborators, and it is a snapshot view of a slice of America's musical landscape in the final quarter of the 20th century, including a history of Relâche and The Relâche Ensemble. Born in Philadelphia, Joseph Franklin is a graduate of the Philadelphia Musical Academy and Temple University's Graduate School of Music. He has composed works for mixed instrumental/vocal ensembles, film, video, theater and dance. In 1977 he co-founded The Relâche Ensemble, which evolved into Relâche, Inc. a presenting and producing organization in support of the Relâche Ensemble. He served as founding executive and artistic director of Relâche until 1998. Independently, and as Director of Relâche, he has been a producer of concerts, festivals, recordings, radio programs, residency programs, international tours and other related music events, including the NEW MUSIC AMERICA 1987 Festival, NEW MUSIC AT ANNENBERG at The University of Pennsylvania and MUSIC IN MOTION, a nationwide audience development project. He formerly served as Artistic Director for Helena Presents--The Myrna Loy Center, a performing arts and film center located in Helena, Montana. He has published criticism and book reviews in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City Paper. While living in Louisiana he developed and taught courses in arts administration and an overview of 20th century music at the University of New Orleans while serving as an independent consultant to arts organizations. He currently serves as executive director for Chamber Music Albuquerque, a presenting organization dedicated to presenting world-class chamber music ensembles in concert.

playbook

Wedged between the hustle of New York and the grandeur of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia is America's smallest big city, America's biggest small city, and America's most American city. It is also a city in flux. Bruce Buschel is a native Philadelphian who revisits his hometown and, in doing so, revisits his personal history and the city's complex identity. Buschel was born on Broad Street, his father died on Broad Street; he flunked out of college, sold cameras, and purchased drugs on Broad Street; he wrote for a newspaper on Broad Street, touched JFK's left hand on Broad Street, and met his second wife when she worked on Broad Street. On his thirteen-mile walk down the boulevard, Buschel talks to everyone from the old Italian tailor down the corner from the Chinese Mennonite pastor to the Jewish funeral home director across the street from Bilal, the Muslim restaurateur. On Broad Street, he finds livestock just a few steps from Joe Frazier's gym. The newly dubbed "Gayborhood" is just a stone's throw from the home of the heartbreaking Eagles. A world-class ballet rehearses at the Rock School while outcast rockers practice at the Paul Green School. The gas station attendant on Broad Street may be a recent immigrant, but he has already adopted the brusque manners and terse responses of a fourth-generation Philadelphian. Naturally, William Penn oversees the whole insecure, glorious mess from his perch atop City Hall. After 9/11, Americans were drawn to Philly's authenticity and history. After decades of decay, something positive is happening, and dyspeptic Philadelphians are trying to adjust. A lot has changed since Buschel grew up there, but he hasn't managed to shake the attitudes instilled in childhood -- mere mention of the '64 Phillies (and one of the greatest collapses in baseball history) still stings. He has retained his irreverent sense of humor, his distrust of authority, his ambivalence about New York, his disdain for New Jersey, and, above all, his sense of loyalty -- if not outright love -- for his native city.