Book Description
Outrageous, outspoken, and uninhibited, Tallulah Bankhead was an actress known as much for her vices -- cocaine, alcohol, hysterical tirades, and scandalous affairs with both men and women -- as she was for her winning performances on stage. In 1917, a fifteen-year-old Bankhead boldly left her established Alabama political family and fled to New York City to sate her relentless need for attention and become a star. Five years later, she crossed the Atlantic, immediately taking her place as a fixture in British society and the most popular actress in London's West End. By the time she returned to America in the 1930s, she was infamous for throwing marathon parties, bedding her favorite costars, and neglecting to keep her escapades a secret from the press. At times, her notoriety distracted her audience from her formidable talent and achievements on stage and dampened the critical re-sponse to her work. As Bankhead herself put it, "they like me to 'Tallulah,' you know -- dance and sing and romp and fluff my hair and play reckless parts." Still, her reputation as a wild, witty, over-the-top leading lady persisted until the end of her life at the age of sixty-six.
From her friendships with such entertainment luminaries as Tennessee Williams, Estelle Winwood, Billie Holiday, Noël Coward, and Marlene Dietrich, to the intimate details of her family relationships and her string of doomed romances, Joel Lobenthal has captured the private essence of the most public star during theater's golden age. Larger-than-life as she was, friends saw through Bankhead's veneer of humor and high times to the heart of a woman who often felt second-best in her father's eyes, who longed for the children she was unable to bear, and who forced herself into the spotlight to hide her deep-seated insecurities.
Drawn from scores of exclusive interviews, as well as previously untapped information from Scotland Yard and the FBI, this is the essential biography of Tallulah Bankhead. Having spent twenty-five years researching Bankhead's life, Joel Lobenthal tells her unadulterated story, as told to him by her closest friends, enemies, lovers, and employees. Several have broken decadelong silences; many have given Lobenthal their final interviews. The result is the story of a woman more complex, more shocking, and yet more nuanced than her notorious legend suggests.
Customer Reviews:
Curse of the Black Widow on the Author.......2005-09-29
If you're hoping for that "dishy," tell-all, spicy account of Tallulah's life, this ISN'T it! That bio is still to be written. This attempt at capturing the essence of the grande dame suffers from two fatal diseases: tedium and barely tolerable--lethal combinations in any dose. And, there are glaring errors of fact. Someone fell asleep at the research table! Better to view some of la Bankhead's films than try to wade through these waters. Anyone got a Lifeboat?!!!
The artist in context.......2005-09-18
She's been dead for nearly 40 years and she's still controversial. There were certainly bigger stars, but there was one Tallulah. In my childhood I remember her as a deep-voiced woman who carried a long cigarette holder and called everyone "dahling." I had no idea that she had at one time been considered a great actress. She originated two of the great roles of the 20th Century American theatre: Regina in Lillian Hellman's THE LITTLE FOXES and the Sabina in Thorton Wilder's THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH. She received the New York Film Critics Award as Best Actress for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT. Opinon was always divided on whether she was truly a great actress or merely a strong charismatic personality. Her professional achievements were overwhelmed by an oversized caricature of herself she popularized on radio. Rumors of her offstage behavior did not help matters. There have been several other biographies of Tallulah since her death. They have tended to focus on the sensational aspects of her life. Joel Lobenthal has subtitled his book, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A LEADING LADY. He examines the life of the artist and the context in which she lived and worked. This is a detailed work. He gives synopses of every play Bankhead ever appeared in and lets us know how critics, public and co-workers assessed her performances. He does not neglect the seamier side of Tallulah's life. Her alcoholism, drug usage, exhibitionism, numerous sexual escapades with members of both sexes are all recounted, often in more detail than previously reported. But the main focus is on the artist. Lobenthal has great respect for his subject's artistry, and that is very refreshing. The detail of this book may bore some people, but for those with a strong interest in the English speaking theatre of the 20th Century, this book will prove informative and provocative.
Best Bio of Tallulah.......2005-09-07
If you're looking for dish, this biography on Tallulah Bankhead, is not for you. Granted there is dish here, but this is a scholarly, well reseached biography that tries (perhaps too hard) to establish Tallulah as a talented actress of her time, rather than concentrate on her offstage antics. Using her autobiography, memoirs and interviews of people who worked with her, reviews and letters, this book is exhaustively researched. I did find some of the text rather dry, especially the background and plots of her various plays, but there is so much new material here one can forgive the author his occasional lapses. Sadly, the real Tallulah still remains somewhat of a mystery (even to herself) when one finishes the book. A talented, beautiful actress whose personal excesses led to an early death (she was only in her mid 60's) and trapped her in her later years as a caricature who no one took seriously anymore. In many ways, she was her own worst enemy. The chapters on her final years are especially sad. The definitive Bankhead biography has yet to be written, but in the mean time this one will do very nicely!
A Book For The Ages.......2005-08-17
Joel Lobenthal's book is a remarkable feat. He has rescued Tallulah Bankhead from her fans.
I can't understand the horrid reviews this book has gotten from others on the site. I found his work utterly compelling and a vast improvement on every other book I've seen (all of which I've enjoyed by the way). It's just that Lobenthal has done something no other biographer has attempted-he has gone back and attempted to recreate the actual performances that she gave, by various means, including locating fellow castmates, some of them of extreme age but all of them with amazing, never before heard memories and anecdotes. They build up a picture of Bankhead as being the exact opposite of the coke-addled personality-driven dilettante we have been used to for a long, long time.
And Lobenthal's research has deep roots! He worked on this project for close to 30 years, and it shows. He seems to know everything about Bankhead, but about American and British theater throughout the 20th century. Plus, he has persuaded his witnesses to spill all the beans and you'll find things out in this book which you never imagined about all of your favorite actors, writers and directors.
What a roller coaster ride Bankhead had for a career. Things looked pretty bleak for her by the mid 1930s and then in rapid succession she landed a series of parts which put her once again in the thick of the theatrical action and even returned her to movies. As Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellman's THE LITTLE FOXES, she brought her Southern gentility into play, and got out the claws. As Lily Sabina in Thornton Wilder's THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, she brought European expressionism onto the Broadway stage during World War II. Philip Barry's FOOLISH NOTION, though not a commercial success, was an amazing dream play in which Bankhead's character imagined herself acting out alternative scenarios a la Pirandello. She made a personal success out of Noel Coward's PRIVATE LIVES, eclipsing the memories of Gertrude Lawrence and replacing them with a raw wit that attracted many gay fans.
These fans, who stuck with her thick and thin, responded to something about her-both her emotional fragility and her perdurability. When she came to play Blanche in STREETCAR for Jean Dalrymple, in the 1950s, this claque dismayed her by hooting and carrying on as though they were watching Dame Edna. Bankhead's attempts at shading Blanche with vulnerability founding purchase in the wall of knowing laughter that greeted her every speech.
Soon we will have the first DVD of LIFEBOAT, a propitious moment for those of us who, intrigued by Lobenthal's account of her acting, want to see it first hand. (We also have the late products FANATIC-a/k/a DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! and the animated THE DAYDREAMER, for which Bankhead provided a character voice.) Let's get those early Paramount films available, and A ROYAL SCANDAL, and number one on my want list MAIN STREET TO BROADWAY, in which she apparently plays herself, advising a young playwright on breaking into the writing biz.
He is a master biographer, the theatrical equivalent of a Robert Caro or a Leon Edel. If he decided to write the life of his cat I'd line up for a copy.
Alas, STILL no definitive biography, .......2005-03-22
but then perhaps Tallulah doesn't need one. Despite Lobenthal's cloying efforts to 'legitimize' Tallulah's 'talents;' the fact seems to remain that as an artist she was marginally 'talented,' and a classic (and perhaps one of the first) example of one who became famous for being infamous. There is an abundance of research, cataloging, and protracted and downright boring review of plots of plays that nobody ever heard of...again, Lobenthal's desire to create something out of nothing...and one is left with the sense of 'so what.' It seems, from the many other accounts I have read of Tallulah, that one of her desires in life was not to bore people...would that Mr. Lobenthal had shared her desire.
Amazon.com
This is a scholarly assessment of the American composer Charles Ives, whose life and work have remained enigmatic since his death in 1954. A successful insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut, Ives used a considerable part of his tidy income to promote serious modern music, and despite his day job maintained a prolific output of scores himself. He was a robustly opinionated and confident individual who eschewed easy listening; his atonal works were considered almost un-American. Yet he also sought recognition that just eluded him in his lifetime. Ives is increasingly known around the world. Jan Swafford, himself a composer, should help win even more interest with this sympathetic biography.
Book Description
An illuminating portrait of a man whose innovative works profoundly influenced the course of twentieth-century American classical music. Jan Swafford's colorful biography first unfolds in Ives's Connecticut hometown of Danbury, then follows Ives to Yale and on to his years in New York, where he began his double career as composer and insurance executive. The Charles Ives that emerges from Swafford's story is a precocious, well-trained musician, a brilliant if mercurial thinker about art and life, and an experimenter in the spirit of Edison and the Wright brothers.
A National Book Critics Circle nominee and a New York Times Notable Book.
Customer Reviews:
A Great American Composer Brought to Life.......2003-05-13
Charles Ives (1874-1954)was the first, and still probably the greatest, composer of a distinctly American art ("classical") music. His relationship to American music seems to me roughly parallel to Walt Whitman's relationship to American poetry and to Charles Peirce's relationship to American philosophy. Like Peirce, Ives was little-known during his lifetime. Furthermore, while many people may be aware of Peirce and of Ives, a much smaller number have much acquaintance with their works.
Ives was born in Danbury, Connecticut and remained throughout his life attached to his vision of the post-Civil War small-town New England of his childhood. His father, George Ives, was a bandmaster and the greatest influence on Ives's life. Ives was a musical prodigy who began composing at an early age, quickly picking up experimental styles. He showed great proficiency at the piano and organ. (Through young manhood, we worked Sundays as a church organist.) He studied music at Yale where his teacher was Horatio Parker, a then famous American who was trained in the music of German Romanticism. As a college student, Ives wrote music played for the inaugaration of President William McKinley.
After graduation from Yale, Ives became a millionare in the insurance industry where he pioneered many marketing techniques. He also became increasingly Progessive and politically active and actually proposed a constitutional amendment which would increase the power of the democracy in government decision-making. At the age of 32, he married Harmony Twitchell who, after his father, was the greatest influence on his life.
Ives wrote music in the midst of an extraordinarily busy life. Most people think of Ives as a trailblazer and iconoclast. He was indeed, but may of his earlier works, such as the Second and the Third Symphonies are easily accessible and have a feel of America about them similar to the feelings Aaron Copland evoked some three decades later.
Jan Swafford's biography movingly and eloquently describes the life of Charles Ives. This is a reflective, thoughtful discussion of Ives, his America, his music, and its reception. In addition to a thorough treatment of Ives' life and works, Swafford has three chapters which he titles "Entra'acets" which consist of broad-based reflections on Ives's music and its significance. Swafford's entire book is full of ideas which are intriguing in themselves. Of Ives's work, Swafford gives his most extended treatment to the Fourth Symphony (he sees Ives as essentially a symphonist) and to the Concord piano Sonata. But many works are discussed in detail which will be accessible to the non-musician. The book has copious and highly substantive footnotes and an extensive bibliography.
Ives's Americanness, humor, romanticism, modernism, optimism, and generosity ( Ives gave large amounts of money to his family and to musicians and music publications. He also paid for the publication of several of his important works when commercial publishers showed no interest in them.) come through well. Swafford sees Ives as the last American transcendentalist in the tradition of Emerson. At the conclusion of his book, Swafford writes of Ives (p. 434)
" [I]n his music and his life he embodied a genuine pluralism, a wholeness beneath diversity, that in itself is a beacon for democracy and its art. Aesthetically he is an alternative to Modernism, an exploratory road without the darkness and despair of the twentieth century. In spirit he handed us a baton and calls on us to carry it further. He suggests a way out of despair, but leaves it to us to find the route for ourselves. If we are alone with ourselves today, Ives speaks incomparably to that condition."
This book made me want to learn more about and to hear the music of Charles Ives. In its own right, it is a joy and an inspiration to read.
Ives, the Bucky Fuller of American music!.......2002-03-18
Charlie Ives was a visionary, an idealist, and apparently a manic-depressive. Swafford tells his story in a compulsively readable fashion, and wins you over to the side of the irascible composer. Ives never made any money from his music, in fact he subsidized it with the fortune he made in the insurance industry. But he was generous in supporting the work of other sympathetic composers as well, including Henry Cowell. Ives was rare in that he was a genius not only in music, but in business. Ives made a fortune in developing the modern, mass-market life insurance industry. He wrote a tremendously influential pamphlet in 1910, "The Amount to Carry," which pioneered estate planning. Ives was an idealist and an altruist even as he became wealthy -- he convinced himself that insurance was socially progressive, and motivated his sales staff with his lofty vision of cooperation. Later in life, he developed this into a plan for a People's World Union!
Ives' great successes all came together, early in life, following his marriage. He composed on the side as he built his company, burning the candle at both ends. Swafford speculates that Ives was literally manic during those heroic years of the Teens, and that he subsequently crashed, enduring more depression than mania for the rest of his life. Interestingly, the Great War was such a blow to his idealism, he reacted physically, compounding his collapse. Ives retired very young, but rather than turn to composing, he found that he was unable. The rest of his life was devoted to trying to find an audience for the works of his glory years. I found the book most interesting here, in situating Ives in relation to the more well-known Modernists of his time -- Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Varese and the others. The irony is that while Ives' music came about independently, it was "popularized," only through association with the European revolutionaries, and so he was widely perceived as an imitator. The world was only ready for Charlie's music after the ground had been broken! The story of Cowell, Slonimsky, Carter, Gilman and Bernstein, who championed Ives over many years until he was finally recognized, is fascinating.
This is supremely enjoyable reading. Jan Swafford clearly loves Ives, and I found his account irresistable.
A high-water mark in musical biographies........2001-07-16
Quite recently, I had the privilege of reading a copy of this book that was the personal copy of a musician who had been involved, in a rather unique way, in the centennial observation of Charlie Ives's birthday back in 1974. For reasons of geography, then musical interest, he "got to know" Charlie quite well, even if only 20 years after Charlie's death. I immediately ordered my own copy, while continuing to read the heavily-annotated copy of my musician friend. (It was rather vicarious pleasure, "looking over the shoulder" of this musician, to see what it was about the music, life and times of Charlie that fascinated him.)
In his early years, Ives was a one-man dynamo. Learning much of his music theory and practice from his father George Ives, who had been a very young (perhaps the youngest) Civil War band leader, and then from Horatio Parker at Yale University, he had more than a "thorough grounding" in the basics. However, unlike most American composers, particularly those of his and the following generation, he did not go to Europe for a post-grad internship with any known European composer, but simply set out on his own after matriculating from Yale. He went to New York City, employed as an insurance clerk for one full-time job, wrote music constantly for another full-time job, and had yet another career, had he wanted it, as organist and choir director for the Central Presbyterian Church in New York. During this period - leading up to his marriage in 1908 - he literally burned the candle at both ends. (Swafford goes on, later in the book, to posit why Charlie had this incredible burst of energy for the first 15 or 20 years of his adult life, but it's best that his reasons for this - and for Ives's shortened composing career - be left to you, the potential reader.)
Most anyone who knows anything about Ives knows that he became comfortably wealthy in the insurance industry, that during his active composing days little of his music was played by anyone, and that he was - literally and figuratively - burned out by the time he was only 40. For the remaining half of his life, much of it was spent editing, publishing and promoting his music and the music of others, including many friends, using the proceeds from his insurance success to underwrite projects for many composers who would have gone unnoted had it not been for him. Musical success - unlike business success - came too late in life for him to truly enjoy at least its artistic, if not financial, rewards. He was in his last years when Leonard Bernstein premiered his Second Symphony, and never lived to hear his masterpiece - his Fourth Symphony - premiered by Leopold Stokowski in 1965. Despite this, he was far from an unhappy man in his later years; philosophically resigned yet optimistic that his day might yet come would be the more accurate description.
Swafford's writing is simply wonderful. It tells the story of a true American iconoclast; an "original." The narrative flows beautifully without omitting anything of significance in Ives's life or about his music. (The book contains nearly 80 pages of endnotes, in which the musical marginalia are explained in exhaustive, but emminently readable, detail, to preserve the flow of the main narrative.) In parts, it is incredibly moving. I particularly enjoyed the extended "mating dance" of his courting of Harmony Twichell, who was to become his life-long helpmate (and who did live long enough to attend the Stokowski premiere of his masterpiece, as the guest of honor). Ives, ever the Victorian man if something else as a composer, would always refer to her, to third parties, as "Mrs. Ives." Yet their fifty years together could be a model for today's dysfunctional families. A beautiful chapter; one of the best in the book.
There's a curiously cryptic endnote that suggests a "what might have been." It is a fact that very little of Ives's music saw public performance before the early 30's, when Nicholas Slonimsky championed Ives and other "moderns." Yet another two decades were to pass until Bernstein premiered the Second Symphony. Yet, in 1910, while shopping in a music store in preparation for his final return to Vienna, where he would die in less than a year's time, Gustav Mahler purchased a fair copy - one of only two or three in existence - of Ives's Third Symphony. Swafford doesn't make that big a deal about this, but I do. I've always thought that Ives and Mahler, aside from being near-contemporaries, had more in common than they did in opposition. It is just conjecture - but truly fascinating conjecture - to think what might have happened had Mahler premiered Ives's Third Symphony at a time in the life of Ives when it really might have made a difference.
Just what was Ives, as a composer? Bernstein did him no favors by calling him "a primitive; a Grandma Moses of music" while at the same time championing his music. Back in those days, there were no labels like "atonalist," "serialist," "avant-gardist," "post-modernist," what-have-you, that we tend to use today to compartmentalize a composer. To me, Ives was, well... an iconoclast, an "original," and, if a label must be applied, our first "pre-post-modern." He was never imitated, at least not successfully, not only because he didn't have his own students as did other composers, but because by the time his music enjoyed sufficient - if not plentiful - performances, composers' agendas were different.
Fortunately audiences think differently, and do enjoy Charlie's music. And you will enjoy this book.
Bob Zeidler
Accessible tale of a musical maverick with a business head.......1998-07-09
Well written and accessible, the book describes the life of America's preeminent composer in the European tradition. A man who successfully forged a truly personal musical vocabulary on strong and deep American musical rootstock. Yet his only commercial success came through his equally great (though far less consequential) business talents. A continuing cautionary parable about the creative arts in the United States. I wish there were more score excerpts included.
Great combination of erudition and accessibility.......1996-11-15
Not being a music professional, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book not only made Ives come to life but explained the music in a way that neither addressed the lowest common denominator nor spoke exclusively to the ivory tower crowd. The love letters between Ives and his wife Harmony (yes, that really is her name) are incredibly moving for an insurance exec. Saw a good review in Newsweek; agree with its assessment: "one of the best biographies in recent years."
Average customer rating:
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Charles Ives, A Life with Music.: An article from: American Scholar
Robert C. Jones
Manufacturer: Phi Beta Kappa Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B00097JK1E
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from American Scholar, published by Phi Beta Kappa Society on January 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1562 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Charles Ives, A Life with Music.
Author: Robert C. Jones
Publication:
American Scholar (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 1998
Publisher: Phi Beta Kappa Society
Volume: v67
Issue: n1
Page: p187(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
Thwarting Cosmic Evil is Just Another Day's Work.......2006-07-03
Chaosium has a reputation for producing some of the finest RPG adventures and "Spawn of Azathoth" for the Call of Cthulhu game is no exception. Originally released in 1986, this world-spanning campaign of nine linked adventures set in the 1920s places the players' investigators into a cruel catch-22 of cosmic proportions - literally. Circling around the Earth is a piece of the god Azathoth - its spawn, as it is generally known - that appears to be a twin dark star circling our own sun. The spawn has caused mass destruction on our pale blue planet for eons and will do so in its future. Once the investigators are drawn into adventure's plot they discover that there are individuals and groups that either want the spawn of Azathoth to destroy the Earth, or that want to save humankind from its ravages by putting them into a form of magical suspended animation. Neither prospect is very promising for the fate of humankind, but like all good investigators, they must take action to help the better of the two.
The nine adventures in this 200-page book are fairly short, probably only taking one or two evenings to play. The two starting adventures take place in Providence, Rhode Island. From the there the players are free to go on adventures set in Montana, Florida, the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, in the Dreamlands, and finally in Tibet for the grand climax of the campaign. Additionally, there are numerous handouts for the players - 45 in all - that serve as clues to help out the investigators.
My only problem with this Chaosium product is its poor graphic design - unusual for a company that has been a touchstone for quality for so many years. The location maps have been crudely rendered on some sort of basic computer publishing program and they have a slightly blurry look about them as if the were a copied from a photocopy. Likewise, most of the artwork is amateurish and crude, and those that are not (presumably some of the art from the original issue) have the same blurry quality about it that plague the maps.
Like most classic Call of Cthulhu adventures, "Spawn of Azathoth" does not disappoint. It has both mundane and exotic locales, bizarre creatures, well-developed personalities, and great plotlines. This second edition expands and updates the original 1986 issue, but since I've never seen the first edition I do not know what changes and additions have been made.
Product Description
Back Cover Text: "Few attended the funeral of the old man. And even fewer saw the headless apparition which appeared in an investigators room. The keen-witted investigators find significance in the unfortunate death. Through their persistence they begin to unravel a secret implying doom for everyone. Monstrous peril confronts the intrepid investigators as evidence leads them across the United States and into the depths of Asia. SPAWN OF AZATHOTH is a new supplement for CALL OF CTHULHU, the roleplaying game which recreates the atmosphere and adventures of the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, world-famous horror-tale author. Within this box are three books the parts for seven distinct linked adventures, each of generous play time. The first book, From Beyond the Grave, contains keeper introduction and orientation material, and presents Providence, the first adventure. The second book, The Spawn Approaches, contains the other six adventures, Garrison, St. Augustine, Andaman Islands, Ulthar and Beyond, The Eternal Quest, and the climax of the campaign, The Spawn of Azathoth. Lovecraft created a special fantasy world, the Dreamlands, and two of the adventures take place there. Special rules included govern the behaviour of investigators in that other place, including transformation of physical objects and nightmare effects. The third book, The Azathoth Papers, contains more than 60 news clippings, tome and diary excerpts, letters, and other clues. Three special sections of optional clues quotations from Mythos tomes, gleanings from historical research, and news clippings allow keepers to expand upon the clues that their investigators find, to emphasize certain kinds of information or to introduce lines of reasoning not otherwise uncovered."
Book Description
The old media strategies advertisers used for decades no longer work. Here's what does!
Traditional advertising, in the form of print, radio, and most notably, television, is far less effective than it used to be. Advertising strategies using only these mediums no longer work. Life After the 30-Second Spot explains how savvy marketers and advertisers are responding with new marketing techniques to get their message out, get noticed, engage their audiences-and increase sales! Covering topics such as viral marketing, gaming, on-demand viewing, long-form content, interactive, and more, the book explains the new avenues marketers and advertisers must use to replace traditional print, TV, and radio advertising-and which strategies are most effective. This book is every marketer's road map to "new marketing."
Download Description
A revised and expanded Second Edition of the classic book for inventors Don Debelak is a leading expert on invention and innovation. Because new technologies, including the Internet, have drastically changed the world of inventing, Debelak has wholly revised his classic work to include many new marketing strategies, including turbo-outsourcing, that allow inventors to bring their products to market much faster and more cheaply than ever before. This edition offers the same sound advice that has launched thousands of inventors and entrepreneurs to success in the marketplace, as well as new need-to-know information on funding, outsourcing, and Internet marketing and promotion. Bringing Your Product to Market, Second Edition is a complete inventor's resource, covering product design, manufacturing techniques, patenting, licensing, distribution, financing, and more with an expert hand.
Customer Reviews:
Pontification At Its Most Verbose.......2007-04-18
The 30 second spot is dead. The 30 second spot is dead! THE 30 SECOND SPOT IS DEAD! Alright, I get it already. At least I did after the first 60 pages or so. Unfortunately this book does not end at 60 pages. Never have so many words been used to say so little.
The first third of this book (plus one chapter online) (parenthesis meant as a tribute to Jaffe) tells you why the 30 second spot is dead. To illustrate the demise of the 30 second spot, Jaffe uses a dead horse and beats it repeatedly.
Perhaps Jaffe is quite funny and clever at a party, but his schtick gets a little old when trudging through 276 pages of his quips (plus one chapter online). Jaffe fashions himself as a modern day Don Rickles, passing out insults to everything and everybody who uses a 30 second spot. Unfortunately, this increases the page count of the book by about 90 pages.
The final two-thirds of the book is a survey of everything you can use instead of the 30 second spot. Jaffe says you have 10 options and he has designed 10 little logos for each of them (which you can see on his website) (again parenthesis meant as a salute to Jaffe). This is not any ground breaking information. If you have been paying attention and made occasional contact with society, you will have realized that you can use the internet as a marketing tool.
Mostly, Jaffe's observations are re-hashes of stuff you can find in a trade journal or two. And because this is an ADWEEK Book, I suspect most of this stuff was available in an ADWEEK article. The important thing about this survey portion of the book is that it gives you very little insight on how to use these tools more effectively. It's just Jaffe telling you that you are ignorant if you are not using his 10 alternatives to the 30 second spot.
Save yourself $20 and get a subscription to Adweek instead.
The best digerati marketing book yet.......2007-02-15
As a crusty old ad guy, I approach most popular, catchy-titled business books with a mix of skepticism and loathing. Not this one. Jaffe captures the basics of integrated marketing techniques in short, interesting prose, along with asides from some industry leaders worth hearing.
Sure, it's the basics, but well done. Don't expect much on how this changes agency profitability models, nor on why so-called "traditional" advertising will remain the primary driver for lots of brands.
The only trouble is that this world is evolving so quickly, this book will be dated inside a year or two. Which merely means you'll need to know everything Jaffe writes about here--and lots more.
Joe Jaffe get's it, the agencies don't. A must read!.......2007-01-16
Joe Jaffe has a real handle on New Marketing, he lives it with his book, blog Jaffe Juice and podcast Across The Sound. He is a true leader in this space and I highly recommend that all marketers read his book, his blog and listen to his podcast.
Jay Berkowitz, CEO, www.TenGoldenRules.com
The Future of Advertising is Now.......2006-06-24
Joseph Jaffe in his first book lays out the case that traditional advertising is broken and need change in large part to the Internet and rise of consumer generated media. The death of the 30 second spot is in large part do consumer rejection and frustration of ever intrusive ads that aren't relevant to them. With consumers now in control of when, where, and how they consume media, advertisers must figure out new ways of reaching them without annoying them.
The book is an easy read, though backed up with an impressive arsenal of facts and figures that back up Jaffe's points. He outlines where advertising has been and where it must go. If you are an advertiser, media producer, agency, or consumer you need to read this book.
Where is the originality?.......2006-05-02
I honestly didn't liked the Life After the 30-second spot, maybe the book was aimed at "beginners" to the world of media and advertising, it seemed like the ideas I was reading were obvious and I was waiting for that punch line where the author was going to tell me something different and original; and that didn't happened. It is a good book if you are a freshman at college and thinking about studying Communications/Journalism (Advertising, PR, Marketing), but if you are a senior in college, or if you are already involved with advertising/media world, than this book will not give you something new and original. Scale of 1 to 10, i'll give it 6 (it was very easy to read...i appreciate the author for writing something that was very easy to read)
Books:
- The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg
- The Digital Film Event
- The Evil Dead Companion
- The Film Festival Guide: For Filmmakers, Film Buffs, and Industry Professionals (Film Festival Guide)
- The Gardener's Son
- The Life and Humor of Robin Williams: A Biography
- The Magic World of Orson Welles
- The Man With the Movie Camera: The Film Companion (KINOfile)
- The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (Popular Fictions Series)
- The Moon's a Balloon
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Elementary Social Studies: A Practical Guide
- Under Cover: The Promise of Protection Under His Authority
- Scarfe on Stage
- Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House: Writings 1973-1994
- StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your
- The Tenth Circle: A Novel
- The Bastard of Istanbul
- Research in Banking and Finance, Vol. 3
- Source Book On Collective Bargaining: Wages Benefits, And Other Contract Issues 2004
- The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Road: Tales of Life on the Move
Tallulah: My Autobiography (Southern Icons Series)
Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood
I Love the Illusion: The Life And Career of Agnes Moorehead
The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis - A Personal Biography
The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson
