It’s one thing to write the darn thing; it’s entirely another matter to find readers.
Moderator: Bernice Lerner
Panelists: Debby Applegate, James Bradley, Yen Cheong, Anne C. Heller, Lissa Warren
Duration : 1:30:18
Sep
3
Sep
3
Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/18/Christopher_Buckley_In_Conversation_with_Calvin_Trillin
Political satirist and author Christopher Buckley tells of how he fabricated the “About the Author” section of his latest book. Among the many fibs, one claim returned to haunt him in surprising ways.
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Political satirist, humor writer and novelist, Christopher Buckley is the author of fourteen books, including Supreme Courtship, Boomsday, and Thank You For Smoking.
He is the only child of Patricia Taylor Buckley and William F. Buckley, Jr, the father of the modern conservative movement and founder of The National Review. For his writing, Christopher Buckley has been awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Buckley wrote a column for the right-leaning National Review, in which he endorsed Barack Obama.
He subsequently resigned from the magazine in the wake of a reader outcry. His forthcoming memoir, Losing Mum and Pup, chronicles the year in which both his parents died. With grace and warmth, Christopher Buckley illuminates their larger-than-life personalities, even as he relates the pain of losing them. – City Arts and Lectures
Christopher Taylor Buckley is an American political satirist and the author of several novels. He is the son of William F. Buckley Jr. and Patricia Buckley. After a classical education at the Portsmouth Abbey School, Buckley, like his father, graduated from Yale University, as a member of Skull and Bones. He became managing editor of Esquire Magazine and later worked as the chief speechwriter for Vice President George H. W. Bush. His novels include God Is My Broker, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat a First Lady, Wet Work, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, and, most recently, Supreme Courtship.
Duration : 0:2:13
Sep
3
To purchase: http://tinyurl.com/randyweston Composed by Randy Weston, arranged by Willard Jenkins.
The pianist, composer, and bandleader Randy Weston is one of the world’s most influential jazz musicians and a remarkable storyteller whose career has spanned five continents and more than six decades.
Packed with fascinating anecdotes, African Rhythms is Weston’s life story, as told by him to the distinguished music journalist Willard Jenkins. It encompasses Weston’s childhood in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, where his parents and other members of their generation imbued him with pride in his African heritage, and his introduction to jazz and early years as a musician in the artistic ferment of mid-twentieth-century New York.
His music has taken him around the world, where he has performed in eighteen African countries, in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Japan, and for the Princess of Morocco, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the grand opening of a new library in Alexandria, Egypt. Africa is at the core of Weston’s music and spirituality. He has traversed the continent on a continuous quest to learn about its musical traditions, produced its first major jazz festival, and lived for years in Morocco, where he opened a popular jazz club, The African Rhythms Club, in Tangier.
Weston’s narrative is replete with tales of the people he has met and befriended, and with whom he has worked. He describes his unique partnerships with Langston Hughes, the musician and arranger Melba Liston, and the jazz scholar Marshall Stearns, as well as his friendships and collaborations with Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Billy Strayhorn, Max Roach, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, the Cuban percussionist Candido Camero, the Ghanian musicians Kofi Gnaba and Kwabena Nketia, the Gnawa musicians of Morocco, the novelist Paul Bowles, the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many other artists.
A full discography of Weston’s recordings includes song titles and the names of all of the musicians who performed on the records. With African Rhythms, an international jazz virtuoso creates cultural history again.
Duration : 0:10:57
Sep
3
Bravo SE is an “all-in-one” disc publishing system. It combines fast, automated robotic CD / BD / DVD duplication along with full-color, 4800 dpi direct-to-disc printing – all in one compact, desktop unit.
Bravo SE is ideal for producing either one at a time, unique discs or jobs of up to 20 discs at a time. Models include both Windows-based PC and Mac duplication software.
Find out more at http://www.primera.com/
Duration : 0:1:10
Sep
3
TIME LIFE RELEASES
EPIC JOE FRAZIER VS. MUHAMMAD ALI DOCUMENTARY
THRILLA IN MANILA
ON DVD
June 2nd
Acclaimed Film
Debuted at 2009 Sundance Film Festival
And Broadcast on HBO
Throughout April
For The First Time,
Joe Frazier’s Inside Story Behind The Fight
Considered To Be The Greatest Match Ever
Fairfax, VA (April 8, 2009) — Time Life will release the critically-acclaimed documentary THRILLA IN MANILA on DVD on June 2nd, a powerful film that reveals a previously unknown side to the final fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali in the Philippines through the eyes of the oft-overlooked Frazier. Variety describes the film as “unavoidably fascinating,” while Salon.com declares it “riveting,” the Boston Herald called it “a knockout” and GQ.com says “this film is worth its weight in gold.” The DVD comes with 30 minutes of bonus material not seen in the original film, including archival interviews with Frazier, Larry Holmes, and Frazier’s own son.
An Official Selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, THRILLA IN MANILA chronicles one of the most bitter face-offs the sports world has ever seen, recounting a tale of personal betrayal that was stoked by the racial politics of 1970s America. Featuring archival footage and exclusive interviews with boxing insiders, including Ferdie Pacheco, Butch Lewis and Dave Wolf, as well as Imelda Marcos (former First Lady of the Philippines), the documentary tells the story of two great fighters forever linked by three epic bouts, and looks at their final fight, considered the most brutal, from Frazier’s perspective for the very first time. The match was a near-death experience for both of them – highlighting the contrasting styles with which they fought, and the vitriol they hurled at each other for so long. It has come to represent an extraordinary personal battle and captured a particular moment in US social history.
Directed by John Dower (“Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of The New York Cosmos”), THRILLA IN MANILA tracks an extraordinary personal battle between two friends, and captures the poignant moment in the socio-cultural history of the country when they became American sports icons and legends. While Ali was a symbol of the civil rights struggle and anti-Vietnam War movement, Frazier was cast as the symbol of the pro-war, conservative segment of American society, some would say unfairly.
In 1967, Ali was stripped of his heavyweight crown after refusing induction into the armed forces. The film reveals how Frazier subsequently befriended Ali and supported the renewal of his boxing license and status, showing the intense feelings of betrayal he felt after Ali returned to the ring in 1970 and subjected him to race-baiting attacks.
In the ring, Joe Frazier was a fighter who refused to be defeated. It was that relentlessness that defined Frazier’s boxing career, carrying him to an Olympic gold medal and to the heavyweight championship of the world. And it was that relentlessness that made him the perfect foil for his rival, Muhammad Ali.
Using incredible archival footage and music of the time THRILLER AND MANILA is the definitive account of this iconic event, which remains controversial to this day.
About Time Life:
Time Life and the Time Life logo are registered trademarks of Time Warner Inc. and affiliated companies, used under license by Direct Holdings Americas Inc., which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc. or Time Inc. Headquartered in Fairfax VA, Direct Holdings Americas Inc.’s history began in 1961 as Time Life a direct marketing division of Time Incorporated specializing in music and books. The business has been operated as a separate company since the mid-1970s when it relocated to Virginia, and has since grown to become one of the world’s largest direct marketers of audio and video products throughout North America, Europe and Australia. The Company has set the standard in the direct response industry by pioneering direct marketing techniques and building one of the most trusted and recognized brands in commerce. The Company now also sells its products through major traditional and non-traditional retailers around the world as well as via the Internet. The Company was sold in 2003 to private investors.
Duration : 0:2:30
Sep
1
Here’s the scoop: In a college class, I am assigned to write a biography on a famous individual since 1500. I don’t know where to begin, and I need some guidance on how to write a research paper on an individual’s biography. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
First, find a compelling individual. Famous doesn’t necessarily mean compelling.
You need access to the specific details of a person’s life as well. You’ll need to decide what exactly makes a person compelling; is it things they overcame in their youth? Is it personal traits, tragedy, extraordinary skills?
You’ll likely be able to do a much better job if you can identify with the particular individual.
Find someone who has some extraordinary skill / traits / events that you are able to identify with. Choose your starting point well. You don’t have to begin with "So and so was born on the tenth of ….." You can begin with an event and describe it in detail. Perhaps a basketball player is shooting the winning shot of a game just as the buzzer sounds. A car narrowly avoids careering off a road. A midwife barely makes it to a home through a Northeaster and saves a young mother’s life. Starting with a significant and exciting event can be a powerful technique.
Find more than one source of information. Reading a single book about an individual only provides you one author’s viewpoint. Read about the area in which the person was raised. Read about historical events that happened while the person was growing up. Find out what shaped the person and molded them into who they are.
All of this takes time, but to write a compelling biography, you really need to know and understand the subject. You can’t do this with input from only one author.
Read other biographies; not necessarily about your particular subject. What makes a good biography; what keeps you on the edge of your seat; what keeps you from wanting to put the book down? That’s what style is about. What tools did they use to keep you entranced in the book?
So:
Find an interesting subject.
Learn about them from multiple sources; Movies, books, personal interviews, radio recordings, etc.
Try to identify with the subject.
Learn about multiple biographical styles and choose one, or elements of many that you would like to emulate.
Try to find an interesting way to tell the story; it doesn’t need to be chronological.
Try to avoid common writing errors.
Have someone else read it and mark areas that are confusing, ambiguous or even boring. Make changes as necessary.
If something doesn’t add to your story, get rid of it. Don’t include content just to increase page count. Each word should have a purpose.
Tailor the language to the intended audience. A biography written for a scholarly audience will necessarily read differentlly from one written for the general public or for children.
Anyway, these are some of my thoughts. Hope they help.
Sep
1
I have never done it before. I have written plenty of fiction stories, but I’m clueless how to begin a biography. Any good tips? Thank you to all who help!
I would be writing someone else’s biography. I don’t know how long it would be. Maybe a book though.
Do you mean an autobiography? Try reading a few. I have read a number in recent months and find that they are fairly similarly structured. Something really interesting to get the reader started, then usually back to childhood, and on from there. I’m hoping to write one myself one of these days and plan to start by writing little stories first, little biographies of important people in my life, then looking at how I can put them all together into a cohesive whole. Or not.
Sep
1
Okay, so for a school project I have to write an autobiography about myself and I need a few starting sentences..
And a list of interesting hobbies and interests.. Thanks!!
Let me get this straight… you need us to list interesting hobbies and interests so you can pretend you’re into them to make your autobiography interesting? Am I missing something here? Help me out.
It’s an autobiography… it’s about yourself… I don’t see how that would be hard for anyone.
Sep
1
Hi,
I have seen the other similar questions about playing region 1 DVD’s on a UK PC or Laptop, so i understand that the region on the player is set and can only be changed 5 times. So my feeling is that if i buy an external DVD drive and set it to region 1, or better yet buy the external drive from the USA so its pre set then i will be able to watch Region 1 DVDs without making any alterations to my Laptop.
I’m wary of installing software from unknown publishers off the internet you see and since something like AnyDVD costs $49, i may as well buy the external DVD drive off ebay for about the same price.
What are your thoughts on this?
Hardware or Software?
External DVD-Rom
Sep
1
I am looking for some good but new movies.
Baby Mama —> hilarious! Amy Poehler was really funny in this one.
September 30th —> Iron Man! Incredible Movie! Definitely one of my all-time favorites! Robert Downey Jr. owns 2008!