culture

Softcover. NY, Skyhorse, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 361 pages, b&w illustrations. Burlesque was one of America's most popular forms of live entertainment in the first half of the 20th century. Gaudy, bawdy, and spectacular, the shows entertained thousands of paying customers every night of the week. And yet the legacy of burlesque is often vilified and misunderstood, left out of the history books.By telling the intimate and surprising stories from its golden age through the women (and men!) who lived it, Behind the Burly Q reveals the true story of burlesque, even as it experiences a new renaissance. Lovingly interviewed by burlesque enthusiast Leslie Zemeckis who produced the hit documentary of the same name, are former musicians, strippers, novelty acts, club owners, authors, and historians--assembled here for the first time ever to tell you just what really happened in a burlesque show. From Jack Ruby and Robert Kennedy to Abbott and Costello--burlesque touched every corner of American life. The sexy shows often poked fun at the upper classes, at sex, and at what people were willing to do in the pursuit of sex. Sadly, many of the performers have since passed away, making this their last, and often only interview. Behind the Burly Q is the definitive history of burlesque during its heyday and an invaluable oral history of an American art form. Funny, shocking, unbelievable, and heartbreaking, their stories will touch your hearts. We invite you to peek behind the curtain at the burly show.

Softcover. Missoula MT, Mountain Press , 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 110 pages, profusely illustrated with photos. "The rugged, lonesome life of the rodeo cowboy is captured in Rosamond Norbury's spectacular photographic journey. This isn't a book full of tall tales or flashy rhinestones; it's about real people making a hard living at a very difficult and dangerous job." Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 245 pages, b&w illustrations, index. He was, according to Pauline Kael, "the greatest American screenwriter." Jean-Luc Godard called him "a genius" who "invented 80 percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today." Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts--including Scarface,Twentieth Century, and Notorious--Ben Hecht was known in his day as ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and the most quick-witted of provocateurs. During World War II, he also emerged as an outspoken crusader for the imperiled Jews of Europe, and later he became a fierce propagandist for pre-1948 Palestine's Jewish terrorist underground. Whatever the outrage he stirred, this self-declared "child of the century" came to embody much that defined America--especially Jewish America--in his time. Hecht's fame has dimmed with the decades, but Adina Hoffman's vivid portrait brings this charismatic and contradictory figure back to life on the page. Hecht was a renaissance man of dazzling sorts, and Hoffman--critically acclaimed biographer, former film critic, and eloquent commentator on Middle Eastern culture and politics--is uniquely suited to capture him in all his modes.

Hardcover. Hamden CT, Archon Books, 1st, 1979, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 221 pages. Hardcover. Previous owners name at top right corner of title page. Faint damp smell. No dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.

Softcover. New York, Oxford University Press, 1st Edition, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 480 pages. Softcover. Wrapper very good, french flaps, small bump to bottom of spine (see image). Pages clean. Binding good. Examines the nature and evolution of ruling bargains, the political systems to which they gave rise, the steady unraveling of the old systems and the structural consequences thereof, and the uprisings that have engulfed much of the Middle East since Dec. 2010.

Hardcover. NY, Viking Adult, 1st, 1996, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 282 pages, with photographs of the artist and her work. Slight foxing on top edge and small stain on fore edge, otherwise, very clean and tight copy. Twenty years after the publication of her autobiography, Through the Flower, the renowned artist and feminist continues the story of her life and takes a provocative look at late twentieth-century American culture and the allocation of our resources.

Hardcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 328 pages. INSCRIBED BY CO-EDITOR GODELIER on the front fly leaf. The societies of Melanesia have been a constant stimulus to anthropological theory. In this collection of essays, anthropologists who have worked in all parts of the Melanesian region of the Pacific bring their expertise to bear on a single theoretical issue. This is a hypothesis formulated by Maurice Godelier concerning the relationship between power, kinship and wealth. Although tightly focused on Godelier's work, the book opens up a major enquiry into the constitution of society in a part of the world where men of prominence come to personify the nature of power. 'Big men', entrepreneurs of exchanges, and 'great men', who flourish in societies characterized by restricted exchanges and ritual complexity, appear to belong to quite different systems. This book considers how substantial the difference between them really is. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Washington, D. C., National Geographic, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 200 pages. INSCRIBED BY DIANA WALKER ON TITLE PAGE. Illustrated with full color and black & white photographs by Diana Walker. Dust jacket with light wear. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2024, Hardcover, very large format-15 X 19", 176 pages. Bill Ward's glamour girls were the staples of countless men's and humor magazines, where they shared the pages with cult models like Bettie Page, Tina Louise, and Julie Newmar, and cartoons by fellow "good girl" artists such as Archie's Dan Decarlo and Playboy's Jack Cole. Imagine if you will, an innocent but stunning young woman boasting wildly exaggeratedly Barbie-like proportions poured into a wisp of lingerie or clingy cocktail dress and adorned in diamond necklaces and opera-length gloves, all perched on top of a pair of dangerously high stiletto heels, and you've got the recipe for the quintessential Bill Ward glamour girl. What set Ward apart-and above-his talented contemporaries in terms of sheer image-making was his use of the conte crayon. When drawn on simple newsprint stock, this potent combination created Ward's trademark gossamer sheen on his women's thigh-high stockings. This Fantagraphics Studio edition showcases the best of Ward's Humorama work and includes a healthy number of what became known as his "telephone girls." Tame by today's standards, Ward's telephone girls were always caught in candid moments when they just happened to be talking on the phone dressed in gossamer lingerie in innocently provocative poses. And did they ever talk on the phone when they weren't in bed? The majority of the images in this volume were drawn between 1955 and 1965 when Ward was at the height of his skill. They have been scanned in super high-solution from original art and reproduced to highlight every sheen and accentuate every curve to its fullest. The book not only reproduces more than 150 of Ward's most beautifully rendered illustrations, but also serves as a time capsule to a more innocent moment in pop culture when these images were shocking. The Fantagraphics Studio Edition also features an introduction by fashion/style icon and burlesque superstar Dita Von Teese. Like new. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, oversize format, pictorial boards. Vintage glamour girl artist extraordinaire Bill Ward gets the full Fantagraphics Studio Edition treatment featuring Ward's most polished, fully-realized pinups from the 1950s and 1960s.Bill Ward's glamour girls were the staples of countless men's and humor magazines, where they shared the pages with cult models like Bettie Page, Tina Louise, and Julie Newmar, and cartoons by fellow "good girl" artists such as Archie's Dan Decarlo and Playboy's Jack Cole. What set Ward apart-and above-his talented contemporaries in terms of sheer image-making was his use of the conte crayon. When drawn on simple newsprint stock, this potent combination created Ward's trademark gossamer sheen on his women's thigh-high stockings. This Fantagraphics Studio edition showcases the best of Ward's Humorama work and includes a healthy number of what became known as his "telephone girls." Tame by today's standards, Ward's telephone girls were always caught in candid moments when they just happened to be talking on the phone dressed in gossamer lingerie in innocently provocative poses. The majority of the images in this volume were drawn between 1955 and 1965 when Ward was at the height of his skill. They have been scanned in super high-resolution from original art and reproduced to highlight every sheen and accentuate every curve to its fullest. The book not only reproduces more than 150 of Ward's most beautifully rendered illustrations, but also serves as a time capsule to a more innocent moment in pop culture when these images were shocking. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Honesdale, Boyds Mills Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 31 pages. Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. SIGNED BY ILLUSTRATOR BARRY MOSER ON TITLE PAGE. Full color illustrations. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 215 pages, b&w illustrations. A history of the diaspora of Neapolitan musicians in New York. This book reviews the period from the unification of Italy to the fascist era through significant Neapolitan performers such as Gilda Mignonette and Enrico Caruso. It traces the transformation of a popular tradition written in dialect into a popular tradition, written in Italian, that contributed to the production of 'American' identity. PLEASE NOTE: ITALIAN TEXT. Simona Frasca is a lecturer on early sound reproduction and Italian migration, and a freelance music journalist. She hold a doctorate in History and Analysis of Musical Culture from La Sapienza University in Rome. Mild sunning to wraps, clean copy.

Softcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, reprint, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 310 pages, b&w illustrations. Few Americans, black or white, recognize the degree to which early African American history is a maritime history. W. Jeffrey Bolster shatters the myth that black seafaring in the age of sail was limited to the Middle Passage. Seafaring was one of the most significant occupations among both enslaved and free black men between 1740 and 1865. Tens of thousands of black seamen sailed on lofty clippers and modest coasters. They sailed in whalers, warships, and privateers. Some were slaves, forced to work at sea, but by 1800 most were free men, seeking liberty and economic opportunity aboard ship.Bolster brings an intimate understanding of the sea to this extraordinary chapter in the formation of black America. Because of their unusual mobility, sailors were the eyes and ears to worlds beyond the limited horizon of black communities ashore. Sometimes helping to smuggle slaves to freedom, they were more often a unique conduit for news and information of concern to blacks.But for all its opportunities, life at sea was difficult. Blacks actively contributed to the Atlantic maritime culture shared by all seamen, but were often outsiders within it. Capturing that tension, Black Jacks examines not only how common experiences drew black and white sailors together-even as deeply internalized prejudices drove them apart-but also how the meaning of race aboard ship changed with time. Bolster traces the story to the end of the Civil War, when emancipated blacks began to be systematically excluded from maritime work. Rescuing African American seamen from obscurity, this stirring account reveals the critical role sailors played in helping forge new identities for black people in America.

Softcover. Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 237 pages. From its beginnings in hip hop culture, the dense rhythms and aggressive lyrics of rap music have made it a provocative fixture on the American cultural landscape. In Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Tricia Rose, described by the New York Times as a "hip hop theorist," takes a comprehensive look at the lyrics, music, cultures, themes, and styles of this highly rhythmic, rhymed storytelling and grapples with the most salient issues and debates that surround it. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Black Dog Publishing, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 189 pages. Blasphemy: Art that Offends is a prescient examination of the perpetually troubled, often explosive relationship between religion, politics and art. This book draws on a rich wealth of visual material, tracing both the history of blasphemy as a concept and re-positioning the term in the twenty-first century. Questions of censorship and freedom of expression are today extremely volatile, a fact evinced by the recent international backlash against the Danish newspaper Islamic caricatures and the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh following the release of his notorious Submission. Blasphemy: Art that Offends provides a vital vantage point from which to view the complicated, compelling interrelations between religion, politics and the visual arts.

Hardcover. NY, Public Affairs, 1st, 2010, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 376 pages, color & b/w illustrations. Blood, Iron and Gold reveals the huge impact of the railways as they spread rapidly across the world, linking cities that had hitherto been isolated, stimulating both economic growth and social change on an unprecedented scale. From Panama to the Punjab, Christian Wolmar describes the vision and determination of the pioneers who developed railways that would one day span continents, as well as the labour of the navvies who built this global network. Wolmar shows how cultures were enriched - and destroyed - by the unrelenting construction and how they had a vital role in civil conflict, as well as in two world wars. Indeed, the global expansion of the railways was key to the spread of modernity and the making of the modern world.

Hardcover. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st US, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Non-paginated. Hardcover. Illustrated with full color photographs. Price clipped dust jacket with light wear to edges. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Bulfinch Press, 1st US, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 327 pages, illustrations in color. Light shelf-wear and rubbing to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy. DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, HarperOne, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 208 pages. B&w art throughout by Krans. Visionary artist and New York Times bestselling author of The Wild Unknown Kim Krans returns with a decadently illustrated and incredibly raw graphic memoir that chronicles her multi-layered search for truth and recovery from an eating disorder and infertility in the throes of a health and wellness-obsessed culture, touching on the healing potentials of creativity and spirituality. Lacks dust jacket.

Hardcover. Chicago, University Of Chicago Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 320 pages. Light marking to several pages in margins, otherwise clean. In Blue Chicago, David Grazian takes us inside the world of contemporary urban blues clubs to uncover how such images are manufactured and sold to music fans and audiences. Drawing on countless nights in dozens of blues clubs throughout Chicago, Grazian shows how this quest for authenticity has transformed the very shape of the blues experience. He explores the ways in which professional and amateur musicians, club owners, and city boosters define authenticity and dish it out to tourists and bar regulars. He also tracks the changing relations between race and the blues over the past several decades, including the increased frustrations of black musicians forced to slog through the same set of overplayed blues standards for mainly white audiences night after night. In the end, Grazian finds that authenticity lies in the eye of the beholder: a nocturnal fantasy to some, an essential way of life to others, and a frustrating burden to the rest.

Hardcover. New York, Fox Duffield & Co., 1st, 1904, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 350 pages, 13 pages of b&w photographs (12 African American portraits by A.L. Coburn). Textured blue cloth covers with dark blue lettering and ruled design. Some light soiling and wear to covers and spine. Internally clean, a few dog-eared pages.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. From the dj: "Is jazz dead? In these pages Tom Piazza takes aim at those who argue that it is... Blues Up and Down chronicles two decades of upheaval in the jazz world - and presents a persuasive argument for the music's continuing role in our culture." Among the chapters are: McCoy Tyner's Present Tense; Mary Lou Williams Keeps the Faith; Black and Tan Fantasy; Portrait of Wynton Marsalis; Keepers of the Flame; The Little Record Labels That Could; How Two Pianists Remade a Tradition; Jazz Piano's Heavyweight Champ; etc. SIGNED BY PIAZZA on the title page.

Softcover. NY, Edition 7L, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Flexible vinyl covers, 232 pages. Out documents an era at once so close and so far away: the wild, glamorous, disco-and-drugs decade between the end of the Vietnam war and the advent of AIDS, when, in certain parts of Manhattan, every night was party night. As the editor of Andy Warhol's Interview from 1971 to 1983, Bob Colacello was perfectly placed to record this life of art openings, movie premieres, cocktail parties, dinner parties, charity balls and after-hours clubs; he wrote about the best of them in a monthly column called "Out." In 1975, Swiss art dealer Thomas Ammann gave Colacello one of the first miniature 35mm cameras, a black plastic Minox small enough to hide in his jacket pocket, and Colacello began snapping photographs too. Sneaking a shot of Henry Kissinger holding forth at a dinner party, or Bianca Jagger letting loose at Studio 54, Colacello was in the middle of the action, "an accidental photographer" more akin to a secret agent than any typical paparazzo. With their skewed angles, multilayered compositions, and moody lighting, his images have an immediacy and grit not often found in the work of professional party photographers. And what subjects! Diana Vreeland, Calvin Klein, Jack Nicholson, Richard Gere, Cher, Raquel Welch, Mick Jagger, Diane von Furstenberg, Barry Diller, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Nan Kempner, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and always Warhol himself. Because space in Interview was limited, only a handful of Colacello's pictures were published each month. Most of those collected in Out have never been seen before.

Softcover. NY, Edition 7L, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Flexible vinyl covers, 232 pages. Out documents an era at once so close and so far away: the wild, glamorous, disco-and-drugs decade between the end of the Vietnam war and the advent of AIDS, when, in certain parts of Manhattan, every night was party night. As the editor of Andy Warhol's Interview from 1971 to 1983, Bob Colacello was perfectly placed to record this life of art openings, movie premieres, cocktail parties, dinner parties, charity balls and after-hours clubs; he wrote about the best of them in a monthly column called "Out." In 1975, Swiss art dealer Thomas Ammann gave Colacello one of the first miniature 35mm cameras, a black plastic Minox small enough to hide in his jacket pocket, and Colacello began snapping photographs too. Sneaking a shot of Henry Kissinger holding forth at a dinner party, or Bianca Jagger letting loose at Studio 54, Colacello was in the middle of the action, "an accidental photographer" more akin to a secret agent than any typical paparazzo. With their skewed angles, multilayered compositions, and moody lighting, his images have an immediacy and grit not often found in the work of professional party photographers. And what subjects! Diana Vreeland, Calvin Klein, Jack Nicholson, Richard Gere, Cher, Raquel Welch, Mick Jagger, Diane von Furstenberg, Barry Diller, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Nan Kempner, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and always Warhol himself. Because space in Interview was limited, only a handful of Colacello's pictures were published each month. Most of those collected in Out have never been seen before.