Back home, he studied and then abandoned law, offended when his first case involved the eviction of a widow for failing to pay rent. He next pursued a year-long independent study at Union College, followed by a year in Germany. Bellamy instead desired a military career but was devastated when his frail health ended his West Point ambitions. His father was the town’s longtime Baptist minister, and his mother, a strict Calvinist, dreamed he would follow him into the ministry. Bellamy was born in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, which exhibited the class divisions and industrial problems that troubled the sensitive writer. Best known for his utopian novel Looking Backward, 2000–1887 (1888), Edward Bellamy (b. 1850–d. 1898) authored short stories and novels that also explored social themes and employed similar literary devices.
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The Marvel Cinematic Universe has its Stan Lee in Kevin Feige. (We’re not there yet! Even Eternals made $400 million.) Lately, the Marvel movies have felt as though they’re winding down, even as each of them grows more desperate to impart some vital bit of trivia that the consumer can carry to the theater on their next outing. The question is less whether Marvel’s grand experiment in interlinked superhero films can continue forever than how long it will take for the experiment to run through all of the MCU’s interesting configurations of living actors and familiar characters, and how long after that it would take for people to get sick of them. Actors and directors-and yes, even superproducers like MCU maestro Kevin Feige-get old, run out of ideas, and eventually die. That’s not a feat anyone can duplicate on the silver screen, as Disney demonstrated so forcefully with its horrifying computerized golems of Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing in Rogue One. Alex Ross can make a Fantastic Four comic decades after Kirby’s death and it comes off as a tasteful homage because the characters whose lives he’s prolonging are drawings, not actual human bodies. By definition, the Marvel Cinematic Universe can’t last as long as the Marvel Comics Universe. I never believed that until the night Astrid opened her door to me and made this feral beast want to be human again. Zarek : They say even the most damned man can be forgiven. Brave and strong, she is a point of light in the darkness. I want the truth about what happened the night I was exiled-I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.Īstrid (Greek, meaning star): An exceptional woman who can see straight to the truth. Truth : I endured a lifetime as a Roman slave, and 900 years as an exiled Dark-Hunter. The only thing I trust in is my ability to do the wrong thing in any situation and to put a hurt on anyone who gets in my way. Trust : I can’t trust anyone…not even myself. But I don’t suffer from my insanity-I enjoy every minute of it. Insanity : A condition many say I suffer from after being alone for so long. The only part of that Code of Honor I got was eternity and solitude. Original Publication Date: October 28, 2003ĭark-Hunter : A soulless guardian who stands between mankind and those who would see mankind destroyed. Her beginnings are similar to those of Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo, who created her own avant-garde revolution as a self-taught fashion designer. She had previously worked as a fashion editor as a photographer, she was self-taught and projected a distinctly solemn taste in her art. She enjoyed altering her film, making scratches and tears to give the images a faded, mystical look that set her aesthetic apart from bright, clean-cut fashion spreads of the time. Turbeville’s haunting photographs were often printed in black and white or sepia. In Comme des Gar ç ons images, models wear veils, loose-fitting button-downs, and tulle skirts in exaggerated shapes that the brand is known for. Titled “ Deborah Turbeville, 1977–1981,” the gallery show features three series of photos: Comme des Garçons, Women in the Woods, and The Glass House. Opening May 4 in conjunction with the Metropolitan Museum’s Comme des Garçons retrospective, a new exhibition at the Staley-Wise Gallery in Soho revisits photos of Comme des Garçons clothing by the late fashion photographer Deborah Turbeville. Photo: Deborah Turbeville/ Courtesy Staley-Wise Gallery Women in the Woods, Vogue Italia, Montova, Italy, 1977. There was actual interpersonal conflict they could have had, but instead Kleypas used “I have evil blood in me” nonsense.Įrin: She always has that though, with the villainous external threat. So now our issue is going to be that she’s the secret illegitimate child of someone. And now in book two, the heroine is like, JK, I’m not going to be like that anymore. Or rather, that was the issue in book one of the series, where we first met them. Their main problem is that they come from different backgrounds and our heroine is very shy so they have a lot of miscommunication. They were engaged, then they weren’t engaged, now they want to be engaged again. Holly: Basically I read this book and said I’m never reading another book by Lisa Kleypas ever again. Kleypas heroes are basically my kryptonite, and Winterborne was no exception. Plot: Angsty unworthiness and unsolicited advice all around! Heat Factor: There are a couple of sex scenes, but it’s mostly angsty piningĬharacter Chemistry: They don’t spend a great deal of time together, but somehow I still felt they had great chemistry The girls have committed suicide over the issue of wearing the veil – or rather the issue of being forced to not wear the veil. A Turkish poet(who writes poems throughout the book, whose titles are revealed but never the words), Ka, travels to Kars, a cut off town in Anatolia, searching for love, and also to uncover the mystery surrounding a group of “suicide girls”. Pamuk, in Snow, an openly political novel, will be dissapoint many polemicists, but thrill many readers, as he examines the contradictions and complexities in a small Turkish town covered in snow.įrom the outset, the novel confounds expectations. Pamuk, after the publication of Snow may well be viewed as the devil, by Bush, and by both the western looking elites that look forward to a Turkey integrated into the European Union, and by Political Islamisists who brook no examination of life, love and (whisper it) sex, outside of strictly regulated rules. Bush, in Istanbul in June of 2005 was caught quoting IMPAC literary prize winner Orhan Pamuk, presumably to give a smattering of local flavour, akin to an “Istanbul, you rock”. ‘The Devil can cite scripture for his own purpose’ as we know, whenever complex contradictions in holy books are unearthed. This makes the book a valuable resource for anyone working in this field, regardless of their background or experience. The book provides a broad overview of the most important concepts and best practices for designing and implementing data-intensive applications, rather than focusing on specific technologies or programming languages. One of the key strengths of Designing Data-Intensive Applications is its focus on big ideas. He has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities that come with designing and implementing large-scale data systems. The author, Martin Kleppmann, is a well-known figure in the technology industry and has extensive experience in building data-intensive applications. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and best practices for designing and implementing scalable, reliable, and maintainable systems that can handle large amounts of data. The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems by Martin Kleppmann is a must-read for anyone who is looking to build high-quality, data-intensive applications. In many places you can see the stitching in the final film, in an introduction that sets up the film in seconds where clearly more was filmed, and in story elements introduced and then dropped without fanfare. When Crichton came out on top the edits and reshoots resulted in a different, more action-oriented film than what McTiernan had planned. The 13th Warrior became infamous during production for interminable delays, cost overruns and for the power struggle between credited director John McTiernan and author Michael Crichton. Crichton’s in-character afterword has fooled many into thinking that a real manuscript containing the events of the novel was indeed unearthed, and it’s actually pretty convincing, but the throwaway reference to Alhazared’s Necronomicon should give the joke away. The premise of the story is interesting: using the fragmentary text of Ahmad ibn Fadlan‘s journey among the Volga Rus in 922 AD, Crichton filled in the gaps in the historical account with what we’re intended to take as the real historical story that inspired the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, with a tribe of remnant Neanderthals thrown in for good measure. One of my favorites is the 1999 film The 13th Warrior, based on Michael Crichton’s 1976 novel Eaters of the Dead. Around this time each summer I tend to go through a number of ancient and medieval films, usually from a short list of movies that I’ve seen many times before. She often confides in K about her fears and desire, and he takes on the role of listener, never revealing anything particularly substantial about himself, keeping readers and Sumire at arm’s length. She’s messy and in the throes of an existentialist crisis. When we first meet him he is a college student who has fallen in love with Sumire, who is very much the classic Murakami female character, in that she’s Not Like Other Girls. Anyway, we are stuck with K and his creepy male gaze. I mean, I honestly think this could have been a much stronger novel if the narrative had alternated between Sumire and Miu. While K acknowledges that it may be unusual for him to tell Sumire’s love story, he doesn’t provide a particularly satisfying answer. That he chooses to tell their story through ‘K’, our male straight narrator, is also somewhat iffy. It often went from being slightly ridiculous to straight-up ludicrous. I cringed many times while reading Sputnik Sweetheart: his portrayal of the romantic/sexual relationship between Sumire and Miu, the two women at the centre of the narrative, was yikes. The main reason why I do not get on with his work is that, well, his women are on a league of their own when it comes to female characters written by male authors. Over the last couple of months, I have picked up several of his short story collections but never felt compelled to finish them. It would be safe to say that I do have a bit of an uneasy relationship with Murakami’s work. Rosetta’s International Academy, he’s lived an isolated existence-until Jaya Rao bursts into his life, but he can’t shake the feeling that she’s hiding something. Thanks to an ancient curse by a Rao matriarch, Grey knows he’s doomed once he turns eighteen. His Lordship Grey Emerson is a misanthrope. There’s simply no way she and her sworn enemy could find their fairy-tale ending…right? But much to Jaya’s annoyance, Grey’s brooding demeanor and lupine blue eyes have drawn her in. She knows what she must do: Make Grey fall in love with her and break his heart. Then Jaya finds out she’ll be attending the same elite boarding school as Grey Emerson, and it feels like the opportunity of a lifetime. When the loathsome Emerson clan steps up their centuries-old feud to target Jaya’s little sister, nothing will keep Jaya from exacting her revenge. For Princess Jaya Rao, nothing is more important than family. |