Download or read book Word Freak written by Stefan Fatsis and published by HMH. This book was released on 2001-07-07 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “marvelously absorbing” book is “a walk on the wild side of words and ventures into the zone where language and mathematics intersect” (San Jose Mercury News). A former Wall Street Journal reporter and NPR regular, Stefan Fatsis recounts his remarkable rise through the ranks of elite Scrabble players while exploring the game’s strange, potent hold over them—and him. At least thirty million American homes have a Scrabble set—but the game’s most talented competitors inhabit a sphere far removed from the masses of “living room players.” Theirs is a surprisingly diverse subculture whose stars include a vitamin-popping standup comic; a former bank teller whose intestinal troubles earned him the nickname “G.I. Joel”; a burly, unemployed African American from Baltimore’s inner city; the three-time national champion who plays according to Zen principles; and the author himself, who over the course of the book is transformed from a curious reporter to a confirmed Scrabble nut. Fatsis begins by haunting the gritty corner of a Greenwich Village park where pickup Scrabble games can be found whenever weather permits. His curiosity soon morphs into compulsion, as he sets about memorizing thousands of obscure words and fills his evenings with solo Scrabble played on his living room floor. Before long he finds himself at tournaments, socializing—and competing—with Scrabble’s elite. But this book is about more than hardcore Scrabblers, for the game yields insights into realms as disparate as linguistics, psychology, and mathematics. Word Freak extends its reach even farther, pondering the light Scrabble throws on such notions as brilliance, memory, competition, failure, and hope. It is a geography of obsession that celebrates the uncanny powers locked in all of us, “a can’t-put-it-down narrative that dances between memoir and reportage” (Los Angeles Times). “Funny, thoughtful, character-rich, unchallengeably winning writing.” —The Atlantic Monthly This edition includes a new afterword by the author.
Download or read book Freak the Mighty written by Rodman Philbrick and published by Usborne Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max is used to being called Stupid. And he is used to everyone being scared of him. On account of his size and looking like his dad. Kevin is used to being called Dwarf. And he is used to everyone laughing at him. On account of his size and being some cripple kid. But greatness comes in all sizes, and together Max and Kevin become Freak The Mighty and walk high above the world. An inspiring, heartbreaking, multi-award winning international bestseller.
Download or read book Word Freak written by Stefan Fatsis and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2001 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follows the author, who was originally just a curious reporter and now a Scrabble fiend, as he becomes an expert Scrabble player and delves into the realm of Scrabble culture, where he encounters a vitamin-popping standup comic and the three-time champion who plays by Zen principles, and realizes that Scrabble is more than just a game on many different levels. 25,000 first printing.
Download or read book Freak Nation written by Kate Stevens and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-10-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vegans. Skateboarders. Trekkies. The Cult of the Individual is alive and well and expressing itself all over America--and this book proves it. With this enlightening (and sometimes frightening) field guide, you'll delve into the customs, mores, and motivations behind every type of fan, geek, and superfreak, including: Swingers Hackers Dungeon Masters Happening Artists Cryptozoologists Utopians Bohemians Shriners Oenophiles Deadheads From music to food, sports to fashion, there are people who take their "hobbies" to an extreme the rest of us can only imagine. With this book, you'll get a bird's-eye view of these hobbies gone wild--from sea to shining sea!
Download or read book The Wonders written by John Woolf and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 23, 1844, General Tom Thumb, just 25 inches tall, entered the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace and bowed low to Queen Victoria. On both sides of the Atlantic, this meeting marked a tipping point in the nineteenth century, and the age of the freak was born.Bewitching all levels of society, it was a world of curiosities and astonishing spectacle—of dwarfs, giants, bearded ladies, Siamese twins, and swaggering showmen. But the real stories—human dramas that so often eclipsed the fantasy presented on the stage—of the performing men, women and children, have been forgotten or marginalized in the histories of the very people who exploited them. In this richly evocative account, John Woolf uses a wealth of recently discovered material to bring to life the sometimes tragic, sometimes triumphant, always extraordinary stories of people who used their (dis)abilities and difference to become some of the first international celebrities. Through their lives we discover afresh some of the great transformations of the age: the birth of show business, of celebrity, of advertising, and of “alternative facts” while also exploring the tensions between the power of fame, the impact of exploitation, and our fascination with “otherness.”
Download or read book Florida Studies written by Carole Policy and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2010-04-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains a variety of essays about Florida literature and history by scholars from across the state representing every kind of institution of higher learning, from community colleges to small liberal arts institutions to large universities. The first section, Pedagogy, includes essays about using Florida’s environment to its fullest in the composition classroom. The essays in Old Florida explore Florida Cracker Westerns and slave shipwrecks off the Florida coast, as well as works by James Weldon Johnson, Rex Beach, and Zora Neale Hurston. Contemporary Florida is the largest section with essays that discuss, among other topics, Stephen King, Hunter Thompson, Elizabeth Bishop, and the “Dexter” novels. The essay in Natural Florida focuses on Florida ecocriticism.
Download or read book Myth of Catastrophy written by Vance Jasen Garrison and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2018-06-22 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Read with understanding how it used to be, and how it's supposed to be regarding the inconvenience known as cerebral palsy. In an ever-changing world, I have watched as society has slowly but surely changed their way of thinking toward the cerebral-palsied and for that matter all types of handicaps, embracing positive instead of negative connotations. The purpose of this book is to present an opinion as to why there is such a large amount of stigma associated with the condition known as cerebral palsy. This stigma affects all facets of one's life such as social, emotional, mental, as well as physical handicaps. Chapters 1 through 14 parade different facets we all encounter in this journey and how cerebral palsy alters these different aspects of life. I encounter these aspects not as an observer but through the eyes of one that has cerebral palsy.
Download or read book Confusing Discourse written by K. Janicki and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-12-18 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We easily hear and see when people are talking and writing, but we often do not understand what they are talking or writing about . This book addresses some sources of confusion in discourse and offers suggestions for diminishing it.
Download or read book The Red Bridge written by Garfield McAdam and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2014-05-16 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Red Bridge is real, the stories are not; they come from a confabulation of ideas and facts in my memory. All the stories have a mention of a Red Bridge in them. In some, the stories are connected to it, but in others, the bridge is but a cameo in the story. The bridge depicted on the cover is how I remember it from my childhood. It is a sister bridge which still stands while the actual Red Bridge has been replaced by concrete, and is not near as beautiful as the original one. I must say I am the only one with this memory and attachment to the Red Bridge. Along with memories of my Grandmother and Grandfather McAdam, it is a strong pull to my roots in my hometown of Perth, Ontario. While there may be a hint of the real, my characters are totally fictitious and are not meant to symbolize anyone real, living or dead. They are created for fun and enjoyment.
Download or read book Exile and Pride written by Eli Clare and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999, the groundbreaking Exile and Pride is essential to the history and future of disability politics. Eli Clare's revelatory writing about his experiences as a white disabled genderqueer activist/writer established him as one of the leading writers on the intersections of queerness and disability and permanently changed the landscape of disability politics and queer liberation. With a poet's devotion to truth and an activist's demand for justice, Clare deftly unspools the multiple histories from which our ever-evolving sense of self unfolds. His essays weave together memoir, history, and political thinking to explore meanings and experiences of home: home as place, community, bodies, identity, and activism. Here readers will find an intersectional framework for understanding how we actually live with the daily hydraulics of oppression, power, and resistance. At the root of Clare's exploration of environmental destruction and capitalism, sexuality and institutional violence, gender and the body politic, is a call for social justice movements that are truly accessible to everyone. With heart and hammer, Exile and Pride pries open a window onto a world where our whole selves, in all their complexity, can be realized, loved, and embraced.
Download or read book Praise Pain Lust written by Asale Lara and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2008-02-28 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True to its title, this volume chroniclesthe journey through the darker regions of the mind and the valleys of the heart inthe quest for redemption. These tales of a neo-romantics spiritual quest take the reader on a rollercoaster of spiritual highs and carnal depths presented in a variety of forms ranging from traditional sonnets to urban verse. After years of musical and spoken word performances throughout themidwest, Asale Lara unleashes his first book of poetry, Praise, Pain & Lust. Asales bicultural heritage and Midwestern upbringing, as well as the various cultures surrounding him make themselves evident in this eclectic yet cohesive volume of work demonstrating enormous command of the English language while occasionally dipping into Spanglish. The themes of romance, spirituality, and the heartache often associated with both provide a truly universal scope making Asale Lara Americas dark poet for the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Understanding Language written by Dominic W. Massaro and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Language: An Information-Processing Analysis of Speech Perception, Reading, and Psycholinguistics focuses on the progress of approaches, principles, and practices involved in speech perception, reading, and psycholinguistics. The selection first offers information on language and information processing, articulatory and acoustic characteristics of speech sounds, and acoustic features in speech perception. Discussions focus on vowel and consonant recognition, production of speech sounds, general acoustic properties and occurrence of speech sounds, vowel phonemes of English, and information, auditory, and visual information processing. The text then examines preperceptual images, processing time, and perceptual units in speech perception, theories of perception, and visual features, preperceptual storage, and processing time in reading. Topics include processing time, visual features, summary of information-processing analysis of speech perception, role of linguistic structure in model building, and preperceptual images and processing time. The manuscript takes a look at an analysis of psychological studies of grammar, word and phrase recognition in speech processing, and linguistic theory and information processing, including psychological function of certain transformation rules, psychological reality of constituent structure, and linguistics and psychology. The selection is a vital source of data for researchers interested in speech perception, reading, and psycholinguistics.
Download or read book Conjoined Twins written by Christine Quigley and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-17 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When two human ova fail to fully separate during pregnancy, the result is conjoined twins. The twins may be connected by ligament, bone, or just flesh, and they often share organs, but what captures most people’s interest is whether the twins share sensations, thoughts and even souls. This encyclopedia presents entries on conjoined twins throughout history, the biological causes and effects of twins being born conjoined, and ethical issues such as self-support and separation surgery. It also includes entries on the modern standardized terminology used when discussing conjoined twins, the categories into which conjoined twins have been sorted, doctors past and present who have performed separation surgeries, and hospitals, such as Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, that are known for the separation of conjoined twins. This book even covers fraudulent conjoined twins and fictional ones in books written by such authors as Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabakov, and Katherine Dunn. Other entries cover relevant films, websites, and institutions.
Download or read book Motor Cycling and Motoring written by and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 992 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Scene of Foreplay written by Giulia Palladini and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Scene of Foreplay: Theater, Labor, and Leisure in 1960s New York suggests "foreplay" as a theoretical framework for understanding a particular mode of performance production. That mode exists outside of predetermined structures of recognition in terms of professionalism, artistic achievement, and a logic of eventfulness. Foreplay denotes a peculiar way of working and inhabiting time in performance. It is recognized as emblematic of a constellation of artists in the 1960s New York scene, including Ellen Stewart, John Vaccaro, Ruby Lynn Reyner, Jackie Curtis, Andy Warhol, Tom Eyen, Jack Smith, and Penny Arcade. Matching an original approach to historical materials and theoretical reflection, Palladini addresses the peculiar forms of production, reproduction, and consumption developed in the 1960s as labors of love, creating for artists a condition of “preliminarity” toward professional work and also functioning as a counterforce within productive economy, as a prelude where value is not yet assigned to labor. The Scene of Foreplay proposes that such labors of love can be considered both as paradigmatic for contemporary forms of precarious labor and also resonating with echoes from marginal histories of the performing arts, in a nonlinear genealogy of queer resistance to ideas of capitalist productivity and professionalism. The book offers much for those interested in performance theory as well asin the history of theater and performance arts in the 1960s.
Download or read book Pan African Spaces written by Msia Kibona Clark and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the transcultural nature of Black and African identities, globally based on the shifting identities and experiences that have been precipitated by increased migration by Africans and African diasporans.
Download or read book Sideshow U S A written by Rachel Adams and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-12 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A staple of American popular culture during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the freak show seemed to vanish after World War II. This book reveals the image of the freak show, with its combination of the grotesque, horrific and amusing specimens.
