Urban Magic

Urban Magic - Vibrant Black and Brown Communities Are Possible, offers a powerful argument for confronting the endemic and longstanding obstacles to economic growth and development of Black and Brown neighborhoods in Los Angeles and anywhere else in America where city council members have the skills and motivation to bring about sustainable change in partnership with communities. This book provides a blueprint, we can start RIGHT NOW to develop the strategies needed to transform Black and Brown communities into modern places to live, work, and visit. It stresses the need to be relentless, consistent, and work together continuously to nurture our youth and help our communities to become self-sustaining and to afford the quality of life that each person needs to be successful. The book's purpose is to create tangible economic and community development changes that so many are asking for and deserve.

Drawing on the graphic and revealing evidence recorded by the different courts in early modern Saragossa, this book captures the spirit of an age when religious faith vied for people's hearts and minds with centuries-old beliefs in witchcraft and superstition.

Fantasy might bring to mind wizards in caves, heroes on mountaintops, and elves in forests, but don't forget urban magic. Yes, magical beings are found in the foul sewers of cities and in the darkest alleys of the tallest buildings. An ordinary man on the street may be a paranormal investigator. This inventive volume teaches young artists fundamental drawing techniques through step-by-step projects. Additional tips and tricks featured throughout will ensure that drawing skills rise to the next level, while inspiring pictures and engaging text will prompt hours of creative storytelling through illustration.

The impoverished graduate Li Hao occasionally obtained the broken treasure of the Immortal World and became a dragon from then on. Stone gambling made a fortune. He gained the reputation of being a doctor. He became rich in casinos. From then on, his wealth surged, he had endless luck and his most beautiful first date and so on entered his world. With so many beauties present, to Li Hao, who was lacking in willpower, this was a severe test.

"Cities, more than ever, are the engines of our economies and the ecosystems in which our lives play out. This means that questions about the perfectibility and sustainability of urban life are all the more urgent. Joe Berridge, one of the world's leading urban planners, takes us on an insider's tour of the world's largest and most diverse cities, from New York to London, Shanghai to Singapore, Toronto to Sydney, to examine what is working and not working, what is promising, and what needs to be fixed in the contemporary megalopolis. We meet the people, politicians, and thinkers at the cutting edge of global city making, and share their struggles and successes as they balance the competing priorities of growing their economies, upgrading the urban machinery that keeps a city humming, and protecting, serving, and delighting their citizens. We visit a succession of great urban innovations, stop by many of Joe's favorite restaurants, and leave with a startling view of the magical urban future that awaits us all. "--

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian. When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones. Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles—the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California—Daniel is trying to go straight. But his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch's storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian's sword, an object of untold power. For this dangerous mission, Daniel will need a team he can rely on, so he brings in his closest friends from his years in the criminal world. There's Moth, who can take a bullet and heal in mere minutes. Jo Alverado, illusionist. The multitalented Cassandra, Daniel's ex. And, new to them all, the enigmatic, knowledgeable Emma, with her British accent and her own grudge against the powers-that-be. The stakes are high, and the stage is set for a showdown that might just break the magic that protects a long-corrupt regime. Extravagant and yet moving, Greg van Eekhout's California Bones is an epic adventure set in a city of canals and secrets and casual brutality--different from the world we know, yet familiar and true. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This book examines how gay place-making challenged the juggernaut of neoliberal urbanization in the Malate district of Manila. In this ethnography, Collins explores the creation of place, characterized by neighborhood renewal, gay community and entrepreneurialism, and informal gay sexual labor. Malate teaches us that the power of sexual community to sustain a transgressive, inclusive, gay neighborhood is circumscribed and fleeting, and that urban livability, justice, and freedom must be pursued through organized grassroots political projects if the magic of Malate is to be revived for all its residents.