The New Society For Universal Harmony

Essays by Nancy Princenthal, Jonathan Ames, Pepe Karmel, Geoffrey O'Brien, Mark Thompson, Jim Long, Susan Canning, and Barbara Tannenbaum.

The intent of Universal Harmony is to make a statement of what IS. The book explores the Ethereal and Metaphysical Universe through spiritually inspired statements intended to give rise to the reader's judicious challenges. Within these pages one will discover the wisdom of knowing, investigate the meaning of Spiritual Reality, explore the Conscious Mind, behold the origin of nature, unearth the experience of Peace and Freedom and align with the spirit of Universal Harmony.

“Utterly delightful” essays from the creator of the HBO’s Bored to Death reveal intimate details of his life as a famously neurotic New York writer (Brendan Halpin, Los Angeles Times). Jonathan Ames has drawn comparisons across the literary spectrum, from David Sedaris to F. Scott Fitzgerald to P.G. Wodehouse, and his books, as well as his abilities as a performer, have made him a favorite on the Late Show with David Letterman. Whether he’s chasing deranged cockroaches around his apartment, kissing a beautiful actress on the set of an avant-garde film, finding himself stuck perilously on top of a fence in the middle of the night in Memphis, or provoking fights with huge German men, Jonathan Ames has an uncanny knack for getting himself into outlandish situations. In I Love You More Than You Know, Ames once again turns his own adventures, neuroses, joys, heartaches, and insights into profound and hilarious tales. Alive with love and tenderness for his son, his parents, his great-aunt—and even strangers in bars—Ames looks beneath the surface of our world to find the beauty in the perverse, the sweetness in loneliness, and the humor in pain in essays that are “both poignant and silly—an irresistible mix” (John Dicker, Philadelphia Weekly).

M/E/A/N/I/N/G brings together essays and commentary by over a hundred artists, critics, and poets, culled from the art magazine of the same name. The editors—artists Susan Bee and Mira Schor—have selected the liveliest and most provocative pieces from the maverick magazine that bucked commercial gallery interests and media hype during its ten-year tenure (1986–96) to explore visual pleasure with a culturally activist edge. With its emphasis on artists’ perspectives of aesthetic and social issues, this anthology provides a unique opportunity to enter into the fray of the most hotly contested art issues of the past few decades: the visibility of women artists, sexuality and the arts, censorship, art world racism, the legacies of modernism, artists as mothers, visual art in the digital age, and the rewards and toils of a lifelong career in art. The stellar cast of contributing artists and art writers includes Nancy Spero, Richard Tuttle, David Humphrey, Thomas McEvilley, Laura Cottingham, Johanna Drucker, David Reed, Carolee Schneemann, Whitney Chadwick, Robert Storr, Leon Golub, Charles Bernstein, and Alison Knowles. This compelling and theoretically savvy collection will be of interest to artists, art historians, critics, and a general audience interested in the views of practicing artists.

The era known as the Thaw (1953-64) was a crucial period in the history of the Soviet Union. It was a time when the legacies of Stalinism began to unravel and when brief moments of liberalisation saw dramatic changes to society. By exploring theatre productions, plays and cultural debates during the Thaw, this book sheds light on a society in flux, in which the cultural norms, values and hierarchies of the previous era were being rethought. Jesse Gardiner demonstrates that the revival of avant-garde theatre during the Thaw was part of a broader re-engagement with cultural forms that had been banned under Stalin. Plays and productions that had fallen victim to the censor were revived or reinvented, and their authors and directors rehabilitated alongside waves of others who had been repressed during the Stalinist purges. At the same time, new theatre companies and practitioners emerged who reinterpreted the stylized techniques of the avant-garde for a post-war generation. This book argues that the revival of avant-garde theatre was vital in allowing the Soviet public to reimagine its relationship to state power, the West and its own past. It permitted the rethinking of attitudes and prejudices, and led to calls for greater cultural diversity across society. Playwrights, directors and actors began to work in innovative ways, seeking out the theatre of the future by re-engaging with the proscribed forms of the past.

There have been several biographies of George Eliot but this is the first study to focus on her intellectual development. The book provides an analysis of the biographical and intellectual factors which encouraged George Eliot to decide upon fiction as her chosen mode of expression, and demonstrates how that decision was influenced by, and an echoing of, J.S.Mill's and Carlyle's critiques of philosophy.