Customer Reviews:
A very interesting work.......2006-03-30
It might perhaps be difficult to think of something called "progress" as occurring in the arts. Works of art are to be contemplated for their own sake, and taste, subjective as it is, is supposed to govern the evaluation of art. Along these same lines, the appreciation of new forms or works of art may be highly variable from person to person, but it is probably fair to say, even without comprehensive statistical analysis, that originality or novelty in art is always welcomed by art lovers, and that as time wears on, these new works are gradually taken for granted. It then takes a new collection of works to grab one's attention, to effectively knock the art lovers out of their aesthetic equilibrium. The author of this book proposes a quantitative theory of how artworks evolve that has as its central thesis that artists are driven to produce novel works as their main goal. It is a highly interesting book, and one that might be given even greater support using more contemporary evidence. For example it would be a fascinating and possibly very fruitful project to connect the author's results with what is known in cognitive neuroscience.
Of utmost importance for the author's thesis is the concept of `primordial cognition.' According to the author, this is a mode of cognition that is to be differentiated from the `conceptual' mode of cognition. The latter cannot produce novel ideas the author argues, but is directed towards analysis and discrimination. Primordial cognition, on the other hand, is `free-associative', irrational, and undirected, and when one engages in it this will increase the likelihood that novel combinations of mental elements will be generated. Therefore it is the primary method for producing creative works of art. The author is careful to note however that primordial cognition is not enough to produce innovative ideas. One will also require a large quantity of diverse `mental elements.' The main contribution that the author makes in this book is the construction of mathematical models that detect the degree of primordial cognition in an artist's work. It is the pressure to create novel works that drives the artist he argues, and to prove this he must examine various historical epochs with the goal of understanding to what degree poets, artists, and musicians made breaks with the styles or genres that came before them. His thesis, which he designates as a `psychological theory of aesthetic evolution', is an interesting one, and is a formidable undertaking considering the subjective nature of evaluating whether a work of art is novel.
If a work of art is new, then it must induce feelings of excitement or elation on the part of the spectator. The author refers to this as the `arousal potential' of the work, and it can be measured according to its novelty, complexity, or variability. These measures should increase monotonically over time, he argues, if his thesis is valid. Primordial content should increase over long periods of time, and periods where it decreases should coincide with periods of stylistic change. Any talk of monotonic increase or periodicity of course is best done with mathematics, and luckily the author does not hesitate to use it in the book. His analysis involves mathematical tools such as time series, autoregressive processes, analysis of variance, multidimensional scaling, and to a small degree the theory of chaotic dynamical systems. The author however does not present all of these techniques at once, but draws on them as needed in the flow of the book. Autoregressive analysis in particular is applied very heavily in the book, since the value of primordial content at a given point in time is determined from prior values of primordial content. As in all mathematical and statistical analysis, the amount of available data will determine the accuracy of the results. The author is of course aware of these issues and addresses them throughout the book.
To illustrate his analysis and techniques, the author has included chapters on French and British poetry and American poetry and literature. An interesting discussion that is included in these chapters regards the notion of `metaphor distance', which is a kind of data mining notion and which "locates" metaphors in poetry. And French poets, the author argues, increased arousal potential by increasing stylistic change or `depth of regression.' The latter is a moving away from `secondary-process cognition' (abstract and logical thinking) toward `primary-process cognition' (primordial cognition). Plotted throughout these chapters is the average percentage of primordial content versus time periods, which show for some examples (French poetry) that an initial increase of primordial content was correlated with the rise of the romantic style, and a decrease with the rise in surrealism. The author argues with supporting data analysis and fitting techniques that the data indicates that the arousal potential is increased by a combination of primordial cognition and stylistic change. Explicit equations relating the dependence of arousal potential to primordial cognition and stylistic change are given throughout these chapters.
A statistical approach to stylistic change in art.......2004-02-27
Colin Martindale approaches the question of what drives artistic change (using the term in the broadest sense possible) by focusing on elements of art that can be quantified and analyzed statistically. He focuses on two variables -- arousal potential and primordial content -- and gives impressive evidence that genres as diverse as pop music, French poetry, Gothic architecture, and Italian paintings evolve in similar ways with respect to these variables. Through this approach, the author gives a unique and important contribution to our understanding of how styles change over time.
Briefly, arousal potential is a measure of how stimulating a work of art is, and includes elements such as novelty, incongruity, intensity and surprise. Arousal potential increases over time within a given artistic genre. Primordial content is a little more difficult to define and to grasp, but it is a measure of how much mental regression the artist goes through while creating new art, and includes elements such as free association and a loosening of previous rules. He found that primordial thought content increases at the founding of a new style, and decreases over time within the style.
I can understand that this approach to analysis of art would turn off many contemporary art critics because 1) It can be threatening to think that analysis of art can be approached so dispassionately and that artistic change is predictable. Perhaps there is concern that this trivializes art. 2) This approach is novel and goes against traditional approaches, by instead of looking at the details looking at broadest trends. Many people, fairly, are not interested in the big questions of artistic change, although they very well may be interested in one particular artist or another. 3) Most who are trained in the humanities are not equipped to perform similar analysis, and could well feel threatened by such a powerful, broad-based, generalizable, technical approach, especially by an "outsider."
Overall, I rate the book as excellent, and heartily recommend it to anyone who cares about the theoretical aspects of artistic change.
Book Description
This handsome book examines English and French fashion from 1750-1820 by studying the art of the period, and it shows how changes in dress reflected social, political, and cultural developments in the two countries. It will be essential and delightful reading for those interested in eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century art or fashion.
Customer Reviews:
Visual Feast.......2003-08-20
The Art of Dress uses paintings from the period 1750 to 1820 to place period examples of clothing before the reader's eyes. Fashions from Rocco splendor through the Directorate's simple classicism are paraded before our eyes in exquisite reproductions of numerous paintings. The text of the book provides an informed overview of the period with enough detail to bring the time alive. My only complaint is that a very little more detail would have better conveyed the changes and vogues in fashion during this exciting and varied period in fashion history. This is an excellent book that narrowly misses setting a benchmark.
Gorgeous reference material.......2001-12-18
I have so many costume history books that I have a hard time remembering which is which. This one stands out. It's one of my favorites. The photos are fabulous. The book shows not only high fashion of the time, it also has a whole chapter on fancy dress, or masquerade costumes from the period. Here are reproductions of paintings like the one by Gainsborough of the Hon. Frances Duncombe, a beautiful lady all done up in an 18th century version of 16th century costume. All I can say is it's a great book with images that you will not find anywhere else.
A great book! Lovely pictures and tremendous amount of info........2000-04-15
Art of Dress is essential in its information about the evolution of men's and women's clothing from 1750 to 1820. I bought this book in helping me to research the empire style dress of 1790s and early 1800s. It has helped me in my researching and placing me within the world of fashion during the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The fashion trends of underdress and overdress as well as hairstyles and clothing are shown in excess in this fabulous book. There are marvelous pictures of royalty of France (Empress Josephine Bonaparte) and her sisters. It is a definite 10 in my book!
Book Description
You just can't keep a good cat down. And with Garfield you'd need muscles to do it, anyway. This is the frisky feline's tenth collection and is full of the antics and acrobatics you know and love him for. As a bonus it also features an inteview with Jim Davis about how he became a cartoonist!
Customer Reviews:
Garfield keeps on going and going and..........2004-04-02
Having been a fan of Garfield for twenty years, it is difficult for me to pick a favorite book out of the forty books of Garfield comic strips. I will say that "Garfield Rolls On" is certainly in my top 20 favorite Garfield books. For me I can never tire of laughing at the fat, orange tabby and his neverending quest to gorge himself on lasagna, sleep until noon, kick Odie off the table as many times as he can, and make wisecracks at his owner Jon Arbuckle. One of my favorite moments in the book is when the power goes off. I literally laughed out loud when Jon tries turning on the radio and then suggests playing cards all when there is no power available. And the trip to visit Jon's parents on the farm is pretty funny too but I loved it when Jon's family pays a visit to their son in the big city. That was like a fish out of water. My all time favorite moment in the book is when Garfield runs into his biological mother after he finds himself locked out of the house. It was both funny and poignant, and it spawned the tv special "Garfield on the Town". No matter how many times I have read the same joke over and over, Garfield remains relevant to me as he did back in the '80s. I can never tire of the fat cat.
Not very funny........2002-11-22
"Garfield Rolls on" was a disappointment. The wise cracks weren't as funny as the later strips and the "story lines" were a tad boring. I suggest reading the later books of Garfield. I do not recommend.
HA HA! Garfields 11th book is great.......2001-05-17
Ths is the first Garfield book I bought. I especially like the comic or comics with Nermal. Garfield and Nermal are always a funny combination.This book is so funny. Make sure you get this one.
HA HA! Garfields 11th book is great.......2001-05-17
Ths is the first Garfield book I bought. I especially like the comic or comics with Nermal. Garfield and Nermal are always a funny combination.This book is so funny. Make sure you get this one.
GARFIELD RULES!.......2000-06-24
Everybody out there keep buying Garfield books! They can be worth a lot of money someday and can become collector's items! I'm always going to keep all of mine so when I have kids they can read them!
Average customer rating:
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GARFIELD ROLLS ON
Jim Davis
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Instructional & How-To
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Cartooning
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
Garfield
| Comic Strips
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0099906406 |
Average customer rating:
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GARFIELD ROLLS ON HIS ELEVENTH BOOK
Jim Davis
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Garfield
| Comic Strips
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000JWHWCI |
Average customer rating:
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Archaeological salvage of the Alpowa Creek burial site (45AS8)
Tom E Roll
Manufacturer: Washington State University, Laboratory of Antrhopology
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Pacific Northwest
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Excavation Reports
| Archaeology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B00073029Y |
Average customer rating:
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Garfield Rolls on
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GRO31O |
Average customer rating:
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Garfield Rolls On (Volume 11)
Jim Davis
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Garfield
| Comic Strips
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000TBKFJG |
Product Description
Collection of Garfield the Cat cartoon strips
Book Description
From the author of "Me and Orson Welles" comes a parody of the "Cat Who . . ." series, performed by comedian Arte Johnson. Unabridged.
Customer Reviews:
Great reading of an even better parody.......2006-07-19
If you're sick of walking through the mystery section of your local bookstore and being inundated by the sheer number of Cat Who... mysteries by Lilian Jackson Braun (there were almost 30 at last count), then Robert Kaplow's The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun just may be the book for you. Combining satire with clever plotting, Kaplow has made more than a simple parody -- he's made a laugh-out-loud reading riot.
Best known for his other, more serious novels for young adults like Me and Orson Welles, Robert Kaplow is also the man behind "Moe Moskowitz and the Punsters" from NPR's Morning Edition. In The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun, he gives the wit and imagination he has brought to many a bored commuter's morning drivetime to the mystery novel, sure to be a hit with those same commuters in the form of the audiobook read by Arte Johnson (who gets to refer to himself within the text, yet another brilliant idea).
"America's most beloved author," Lilian Jackson Braun's headless body has been found in a public restroom (so much for being beloved). Her friend, children's book author James Qafka, and his two preternaturally intelligent cats, Yong-Ting and Poon-Tang, get involved in the solution of her murder. This leads him and his assistant Sally into an underworld the opposite of the one Braun depicted in novels like The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern. The jokes fly fast and furious in the spirit of Airplane!, with loads of quirky characters and even an entire chapter written around a single pun.
I've read a couple of these books myself over the years, but you don't have to in order to enjoy Kaplow's take. He really lets his imagination run free, and The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun is liable to bring a flush to the cheeks of Braun's regular readers. The book is full of sex, whether it is being done or just talked about (he even refers to it himself when he speaks of catching up readers who are skipping around for the dirty bits). But sex and parody of Braun's world would wear thin eventually, so Kaplow offers up a side mystery for those of us who actually enjoy a little story with our parody (something fellow mystery parody ...Go to Helena Handbasket sorely missed). It involves Harry Houdini, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Huston, and the sexually explicit diaries of Mary Astor, connecting them all in a plot reminiscent of The Maltese Falcon: the search for a raccoon with connections to The Honeymooners.
There is also a scathingly funny portrait of author Philip Roth, who manages to find anti-Semitism in the pages of Braun and then goes on to insult practically every other living author in addition to proclaiming how every one of his own novels should have won the Pulitzer Prize. Kaplow leaves practically no stone uninsulted in The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun, making it a sure-fire humor bet for those who don't mind a big dollop of tastelessness with their parody (one character's gaseous emissions "wailed like an artillery shell"). Arte Johnson's reading of the audiobook only makes the blend sweeter, levying a snide George Guidall impersonation (the reader of all the Lilian Jackson Braun audiobooks) along with his insightful reading (and a chance to do some of his old Laugh-In voices again).
Tour de Force Performance.......2006-04-24
I saw the author reading chapter three of this novel at Word Fest at the Forum Theatre, and I tried to find the novel, but found instead the audiobook. It's a wonderful performance of a very funny and sarcastic book. Arte Johnson, the reader, attacks the piece like an actor, and he invests each character not only with a distinct voice but with a distinct attitude. Perhaps his best characterization is a Sydney Greenstreet impersonation (from THE MALTESE FALCON) that he manages to hilariously sustain for about ten minutes. Definitely for "adults only" but a terrifically funny piece of work.
Customer Reviews:
Disapointing Parody.......2007-06-09
Parody can be a difficult style to write well, and Robert Kaplow does not live up the challenge he set for himself in attempting to parody Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who..." Series. I was hoping for a book poking fun at the very sterile universe Ms. Braun has created in her mystery novels, however this parody falls flat. Although Ms. Braun's bestselling novels are said to be the target of parody they seem to be merely a vehicle for Mr. Kaplow to rant about modern life -as many of the positive reviews have pointed out he takes aim at many public figures and popular trends. He may be lambasting "The Cat Who" in one sentence by making a vague reference about the spelling of the main character's name, but for the rest of the page he is poking fun at, say, Oprha. Sadly he does neither one well. Mr. Kaplow's device for tying his disparate subject matter together is weak sex oriented humor. For example a repeated theme in Mr. Kaplow's book is that of describing his characters as "masturbating violently". I found this to be uninventive and uninspired. While this may appeal to some, those looking for a true parody of "The Cat Who..." series should pass this book by.
Disgusting, don't buy it........2007-05-17
This is a thoroughly disgusting book that is porn ridden with many references to body effluvia. I find it slanderous of a perfectly respectable elderly writer whose works I happen to like. I'd give it zero stars if there were such a category.
Armadillo Becomes Raccoon?.......2007-01-31
I agree with most of the comments from other reviewers. The first few pages were the funniest and best. After awhile I got lost in the literary allusions and became puzzled by whatever was going on and why. My main question though is, "Was there any significance to the mysterious armadillo changing into a raccoon?" This is definitely not a "must read." It's mildly amusing, but not much more than that.
Satire, Parody, lampooning...Huh???.......2006-12-09
This is a very very strange book. The author clearly clenches his teeth when discussing Lilian Jackson Brown, and he also dislikes much of modern American literature and culture. As a result, he writs this book in a tone that veers between weird parody and manic satire. The title character dies in a gay bar, beheaded in the men's room, and so a writer she knew begins to try and solve the case of her murder. The author of this book (not Qafka, the character in it) is relentless in his harpooning of everthing in his path, from the conventions of mystery writing (one of the police detectives, in the early stages of the book, bemoans the fact that he won't solve the mystery because he's a supporting character) to the vulgarities and egotistical moanings of American literatary figures (Philip Roth at one point insists that each and every one of his books should have won a Pulitzer). He does almost everthing differently from Lilian Jackson Braun. Her books are (according to characters in this book, anyway) all lily-white, so they're different here, for much of the book. Her characters are almost sexless, and never even get near sexual innuendo or double entendres, so Kaplow's spend half the book masturbating or discussing sexual practices. Her cats help solve the myster, so Qafka's do nothing of the sort, just provide comic relief.
This is one of those books that's hard to judge. You've got to have a pretty strong tolerance for sex and profanity to like this book. If you have such then you probably won't have read any of the Cat Who books and won't get half the satirical references. On the other hand, you'll probably loathe the Cat Who books themselves, which could be a good thing when reading this one.
SAVE YOUR MONEY... .......2006-07-08
This book is not funny! The only amusing material in this book was a description of the main character trying to give his cat a pill. What a waste of money!
Book Description
America's most beloved writer, Lilian Jackson Braun, author of twenty-four Cat Who... mysteries is now the subject of a mystery herself. In this spoof by one of her most ardent admirers, her beheaded body has been discovered in the men's room of a gay bar in Lower Manhattan. The police are baffled, and so it is up to Braun's eccentric writer friend, James Q. (Qafka), and his Siamese cats Ying-Ton and Poon-Tang to solve the ghastly mystery. Q.'s quest leads him on a hilarious, ribald chase that's a cross between a story by Lenny Bruce and Dashiell Hammett. Before it's done we've encountered Pulitzer Prize-winning Philip Roth, a sex-starved suburban housewife, a mysterious Hollywood diary, Britney Spears, an ancient secret society, and two gifted cats whose trail of urine and hairballs leads Q. and his spunky undergraduate assistant to finally unravel the riddle of The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun.
Customer Reviews:
WILDLY FUNNY BUT NOT FOR EVERYONE.......2007-08-03
This is a breathlessly funny and inventive novel. It takes all the conventions of mystery series books, with their beloved characters and their narrative caution, and it throws them into the wood chipper. It is a fearless comedy, willing to take on Philip Roth and The New York Times and Dashiel Hammett and send them into a whirlwind of musical comedy and raucous, sometimes explicit, sexual farce. The novel IS a farce, and either you've got a taste for that kind of anarchy or you don't. It's the literary equivalent of one of the Farrelly brothers movies. Or maybe the Smith brothers. Or maybe the Karamazov brothers. At any rate, it's a delight if you don't mind seeing literary icons reduced to slapstick cartoons!
The Cat Who Killed Lillian Jackson Braun: A Parody.......2007-07-31
The Cat Who.... Series have been my favorites. I was excited to read this parody. What a disappointment. The writing was very pedestrian and very unappealing. Using the "gutter language of the times" makes me think of a young person who is using words to shock his/her parents. I don't use that kind of language and really don't want to read it. My suggestion would be for the writer to invest in a good dictionary and find words that are acceptable to most people who read good or even great books. Just because it is a parody there is no need for base language. Cleverness is in the idea not the use of poor language.
Average customer rating:
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The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun: A Parody
Robert Kaplow
Manufacturer: RB Large Print
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Cats, Dogs & Animals
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Parodies
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1402562020 |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In this wildly funny, biting satire, in which James Qafka, noted children's book author and his cats, Ying-Tong and Poon-Tang, investigate the ghastly murder of Lilian Jackson Braun, Kaplow's shotgun approach shatters his main targets and does a lot of collateral damage as well. Like Mad magazine humor, the zingers come quickly, lancing Britney Spears on one page, delivering a glancing blow to "Murder, She Wrote" on the next and giving a resounding slap to Oprah Winfrey a couple of pages after that. The copious puns range from the simple to the elaborate, and include a perfect gem complete in a one-page chapter. As is true with the author and sleuth the book parodies, readers are more likely to be along for the joy of the journey than for the nominal mystery. But where the real Lilian Jackson Braun chronicles a whitebread world of gentility and graciousness, Kaplow's fevered imagination brings forth a torrent of insults, invective and invention. Who else would create a confluence of Mary Astor, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jackie Gleason, while at the same time paying particular tribute to The Maltese Falcon? LJB purists may not be amused, and the same might be said of staunch Philip Roth fans, for Roth plays a unique role in Kaplow's opus. The rest of the reading public may read and roar.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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