The Man In The Flying Lawn Chair

Caroline Cromelin, Eric Nightengale, Monica Read, Kimberly Reiss, Troy W. Taber and Toby Wherry Comedy Characters: 2 male, 3 female Unit set. This high altitude comedy of errors based on the true story of Larry Walters, a man dedicated to getting the best view, was developed through improvisation at the78th Street Theatre Lab. Larry, with the help of fifty surplus weather balloons, launched himself to 1,600 feet in an aluminum lawn chair and lived to tell about it. After being spotted by passing aircraft, he descended by shooting several of the balloons with a pellet gun, got entangled in power lines and was arrested by the FAA for violating commercial airspace in an unauthorized vehicle. Mr. Walters dropped out of sight after a brief time in the spotlight including an appearance on the David Letterman show, but not before securing his place as a cult hero for weird daredevils everywhere. A radio version aired on the BBC. Winner of the Edinburgh Festival's Best of the Fringe.

George Plimpton needed no encouragement. If there was a sport to play, a party to throw, a celebrity to amaze, a fireworks display to ignite, Plimpton was front and center hurling the pitch, popping the corks, lighting the fuse. And then, of course, writing about it with incomparable zest and style. His books made him a legend. "The Paris Review, the magazine he founded and edited, won him a throne in literary heaven. Somehow, in the midst of his self-generated cyclones, Plimpton managed to toss off dazzling essays, profiles, and "New Yorker "Talk of the Town" pieces. This delightful volume collects the very best of Plimpton's inspired brief "excursions." Whether he was escorting Hunter Thompson to the "Fear and Loathing movie premiere in New York or tracking down the California man who launched himself into the upper atmosphere with nothing but a lawn chair and a bunch of weather balloons, Plimpton had a rare knack for finding stories where no one else thought to look. Who but Plimpton would turn up in Las Vegas, notebook in hand, for the annual porn movie awards gala? Among the many gems collected here are accounts of helping Jackie Kennedy plan an unforgettable children's birthday party, the time he improvised his way through amateur night at Harlem's famed Apollo Theater, and how he managed to get himself kicked out of Exeter just weeks before graduation. The grand master of what he called "participatory journalism," George Plimpton followed his bent and his genius down the most unbelievable rabbit holes-but he always came up smiling. This exemplary, utterly captivating volume is a fitting tribute to one of the great literary lives of our time. "From the Hardcoveredition.

3m, 3f / Dramatic Comedy / Unit Set Up invites us into the life of Walter Griffin, a failed inventor obsessed with Philippe Petit's famed 1974 wire-walk between the twin World Trade Center towers. Walter's greatest moment of glory - a flight on a lawn chair festooned with helium balloons - is now long behind him, though Walter dreams of inventing something wonderful once more. His wife, Helen, has become disillusioned and frustrated at being the family's only breadwinner. Their teenage son, Mik

The hilarious New York Times bestselling phenomenon and the perfect funny gift! The Darwin Awards II: Unnatural Selection brings together a fresh collection of the hapless, the heedless, and the just plain foolhardy among us. Salute the owner of an equipment training school who demonstrates the dangers of driving a forklift by failing to survive the filming of his own safety video. Gawk at the couple who go to sleep on a sloping roof. Witness the shepherd who leaves his rifle unsecured—only to be accidentally shot by one of his own flock. With over one hundred Darwin Award Winners, Honorable Mentions, and debunked Urban Legends, plus science and safety tips for avoiding the scythe of natural selection, The Darwin Awards II proves once again how uncommon common sense can be.

Writing the Heavenly Frontier celebrates the early voices of the air as it examines the sky as a metaphorical and political landscape. While flight histories usually focus on the physical dangers of early aviation, this book introduces the figurative liabilities of ascension. Early pilot-writers not only grappled with an unwieldy machine; they also grappled with poetics that were extremely selective. Tropes that cast Charles Lindbergh as the transcendent hero of the new millennium were the same ones that kept women, black Americans, and indigenous peoples imaginatively tethered to the ground. The most popular flight autobiographies in the United States posited a hero who rose from the mundane to the miraculous; and yet the most startling autobiographies point out the social factors that limited or forbade vertical movement—both literally and figuratively. A survey of pilot writing, the book will appeal to flight enthusiasts and people interested in American autobiography and culture. But it will also appeal strongly to readers interested in the poetics and politics of place.

A little boy floats away on his balloon across mountains, plains, cities, and the sea, til he lands on a desert island.

Did you know A famous French chef created her greatest recipe BEFORE she learned to cook! The first airmail letters went by train. McDonald's opened its first restaurant as a barbecue stand. The best way to prevent a toothache is to wear a dead mole around your neck. These and many other wacky but true facts serve as springboards to research about people, places, food, animals, and historical events. Students are asked to create poems, games, quizzes and other products in lieu of traditional written reports in this new book of ideas keyed to standards in writing, reading comprehension and information literacy. Based on one of Nancy Polette's most popular workshops (Research Without Copying), this book will appeal to school librarians and teachers in grades 4-8. Extensive bibliographies of recommended resources add to the usability of this title.

This volume is a comprehensive collection of critical essays on The Taming of the Shrew, and includes extensive discussions of the play's various printed versions and its theatrical productions. Aspinall has included only those essays that offer the most influential and controversial arguments surrounding the play. The issues discussed include gender, authority, female autonomy and unruliness, courtship and marriage, language and speech, and performance and theatricality.