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This time travelling novel illustrates the difficult human experiences behind AIDS and puts the destructive power of hard drugs under the spotlight. |
Tim Murphy is a NYC-based journalist who for two decades, worked on reporting LGBT related topics (Culture, politics, movements, etc.) through his publication in several magazines such as "POZ Magazine" (as an editor and staff writer), "Out", "The Advocate", and "New York Magazine". |
He got nominated for GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Magazine Journalism, for his coverage on HIV-prevention pill regimen PrEP |
He's also a contributor in The New York Times and Condé Nast Traveler. |
He lives in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley. |
Paramount Television has optioned the novel for a limited TV series. Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias will write the adaptation, with Sachs to direct. It will be produced by Cary Fukunaga with his production company Parliament of Owls. |
TekWar is a series of science fiction novels created by Canadian actor William Shatner and ghost-written by American writer Ron Goulart, published by Putnam in October 1989. The novels gave rise to a comic book series, video game, and later TV movies and a series, both of the latter featuring Shatner. |
Partnered with the good-natured and charismatic Mexican Sid Gomez, the two make up a good cop/bad cop partnership with Cardigan's past continually being brought up as a foil for his new career - most honest people he meets distrust him, and most dishonest people attempt to kill him for perceived slights in the drug trade. However, the two prove an effective team and stay a core duo throughout the series, with input from a comprehensive list of informants, employees of both Cosmos, other detective agencies and Cardigan's son Dan and his girlfriend Molly - both of whom are enrolled in the GLA police academy and as such have access through an informant to police files. |
The 22nd century is populated with artificial intelligence such as integrated computer systems and "andies" which range from obvious metal robots to highly sophisticated simulacrums, some of which are accurate enough to deceive an observer into thinking they are human. |
Each novel covers a specific case, all are Tek-related, but most include sub-plots which involve non-Tek issues and travel out of the GLA, occasionally to other countries or as far as orbiting satellites. A shadowy government agency known as OCO - the Office of Clandestine Operations - is a frequent antagonist in the novels, albeit usually keeping to the background and supporting the particular novel's villain. |
Shatner began to write notes that would become the novels on the set of "", and has been quoted as saying that the original book was an attempt to blend elements from "Star Trek" and "T. J. Hooker". |
In 1992, Tekwar was adapted in to a comic book series. |
A new Tekwar comic book adaptation, entitled "Tek War Chronicles", by Shatner and comic book writer Scott Davis with art by Erich Owen and colors by Michelle Davies, was released by Bluewater Productions on June 24, 2009. As of 2010, "Tek War Chronicles" is available digitally exclusively through Devil's Due Digital. |
Trading cards with comic book artwork were published by Cardz in 1993. |
The Tekwar novels became a television franchise with TV movies in 1994 then a series. |
The first three were adaptations of the books, while TekJustice was an original movie. |
Tekwar was also made into a 1995 computer game by Capstone Software using the Build engine. |
Come Back, Little Sheba is a 1950 play by the American dramatist William Inge. The play was Inge's first, written while he was a teacher at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. |
Set in the Midwestern house of Lola and Doc Delaney, the plot centers on how their life is disrupted by the presence of a boarder, Marie, a college art student who has a keen interest in the young men around her. |
Middle-aged Lola engages in mild flirtations with the milkman and the mailman. She sees in Marie a younger version of herself and encourages her pursuit of her hometown boyfriend, the wealthy Bruce, but also her classmate, the athletic Turk. |
Doc, a chiropractor, abandoned a different career in medicine when he married a pregnant Lola, who subsequently lost the baby. |
An alcoholic, Doc maintains a precarious sobriety. To him, Marie represents youth and opportunities long gone; seeing her with Turk brings out resentments against Lola for ruining his life. Ultimately these feelings cause him to fall off the wagon, and act violently toward Lola. Frightened, she calls Doc's AA sponsor, who comes to collect Doc and take him to the police station, where he is detained for drunkenness. Afterward, forced hospitalization sobers him up, and once the boarder leaves, he and Lola reconcile. |
The title refers to Lola's missing dog, who disappeared before the play's opening and remains gone throughout the story. Lola hopes for the puppy's return throughout the play by calling "Come back, little Sheba" daily from the front door, but eventually faces reality and gives up on Sheba's return. |
The play premiered at the Westport Country Playhouse. Presented by the Theatre Guild and directed by Daniel Mann, the first Broadway production premiered at the Booth Theatre on February 15, 1950, and ran 190 performances. The opening night cast included Shirley Booth as Lola, Sidney Blackmer as Doc, and Joan Lorring as Marie. Booth won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play and Blackmer won Best Actor. |
Reprising her Broadway role, Booth starred opposite Burt Lancaster as Doc and Terry Moore as Marie in a 1952 film adaptation. Booth won both the 1953 Best Actress Academy award and Best Actress - Drama Golden Globe for her portrayal of Lola. |
In 1974, Clint Ballard, Jr. and Lee Goldsmith adapted the play for the musical stage. Kaye Ballard portrayed Lola in the Chicago tryout, but the production never reached Broadway as planned. In 2001, it was revived under the title "Come Back, Little Sheba" at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut with Donna McKechnie as Lola. (A recording of this production was released by Original Cast Records.) |
A 1977 television version starred Laurence Olivier as Doc, Joanne Woodward as Lola, and Carrie Fisher as Marie. Granada Television produced the movie as part of its "Laurence Olivier Presents" anthology series. In 2006, Acorn Media released the movie as part of a DVD set with six other productions from the series. |
In 1984, the Roundabout Theatre Company mounted an Off Broadway revival, directed by Paul Weidner and starring Shirley Knight as Lola, Philip Bosco as Doc, Mia Dillon as Marie, Steven Weber as Bruce, and Kevin Conroy as Turk. In his review in "Time", William A. Henry III observed, "Like all of Inge's best plays, "Sheba" is slight of plot but musky with atmosphere . . . Middle age is portrayed as a time of aching sexual frustration, made more acute by the close-at-hand vision of youth . . . Inge did not transform his characters: they end where they began. But he understood them. In their interplay was genuine life, often blunted but ever resilient." |
In 2017, the Transport Group put up a production "Come Back, Little Sheba", which won the Obie Award for performance by Heather MacRae. |
The Crack-Up (1945) is a collection of essays by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It includes previously unpublished letters and notes, along with the three essays Fitzgerald originally wrote for "Esquire" magazine, which were first published in 1936. After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, Edmund Wilson compiled and edited this anthology, first published by New Directions in 1945. |
The main essay starts "Of course all life is a process of breaking down ..." which gives something of the tone of the piece. |
The book also includes other essays by Fitzgerald and positive evaluations of his work by Glenway Wescott, John Dos Passos, and John Peale Bishop, plus letters from Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, and Edith Wharton in 1925 praising Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby". |
At the beginning of "The Crack-Up" Fitzgerald makes this widely quoted general observation:— |
As an example of this "truth," he cites the ability to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. In modern decision theory, the quote has been used by some to explain the bias shown in many experiments, where subjects gather information to justify a preconceived notion. These experiments suggest that the mental ability described by Fitzgerald (being able to see both sides of an argument) is rarer than many assume. |
The essays when originally written were poorly received and many reviewers were openly critical, particularly of the personal revelations. Time has been somewhat kinder to them and the collection is an insight into the mind of the writer during this low period in his life. |
The philosopher Gilles Deleuze adopted the term "crack-up" from Fitzgerald to refer to his interpretation of the Freudian death instinct. |
The title of the 2017 Fleet Foxes album "Crack-Up" was inspired by these essays. |
"Demon in a Bottle" is a nine-issue story arc from the comic book series "The Invincible Iron Man" (vol. 1), published in issues 120 through 128 in 1979 by Marvel Comics. It was written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton and illustrated by John Romita, Jr., Bob Layton, and Carmine Infantino. "Demon in a Bottle" is concerned with Tony Stark's alcoholism. |
The storyline ran in "Iron Man" #120-128 (March–Nov. 1979), plotted by David Michelinie and Bob Layton, with script by Michelinie. John Romita, Jr. pencilled the breakdown sketches, with Layton providing finished art. Issue #122 (May 1979) was both plotted and scripted by Michelinie, penciled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Layton. |
"Demon in a Bottle" was originally only the title of the final issue in the storyline. When the storyline was collected in trade paperback in 1984 and 1989, it was published under the title "The Power of Iron Man". "Demon in a Bottle" later became the popular name for the storyline, and collected editions were then published under that title. |
Hammer learns of Stark's escape and orders the supervillains he keeps in his employ to find him. The supervillains find Stark, who has found the confiscated briefcase containing his spare armor and suited up. Iron Man battles and defeats the villains, then goes after Hammer. Rhodes has convinced the police of his story and the island is attacked by police helicopters. Hammer escapes, and Iron Man flies into the air and crashes down, damaging the island and causing it to sink. Stark returns home and continues binge drinking, and drunkenly yells at his butler, Edwin Jarvis. Jarvis resigns the next day. |
"Demon in a Bottle" has been recognized by critics as "the quintessential Iron Man story," "one of the best super-hero sagas of the 1970s," and "one which continues to influence writers of the character today." The storyline won a 1980 Eagle Award for "Favorite Single Comic Book Story." Praising Michelinie's "clever" writing and Romita and Layton's "highly distinguishable" artwork, J. Montes of the Weekly Comic Book Review said, "Iron Man was never known for having engaging stories, but in this one rare case it happened and that is why we treasure it." Montes felt it was "a bit silly to see [Stark] recover from [the effects of his alcoholism] over the course of one issue," but added that "there's no mistaking the losses and struggles he deals with." |
D.K. Latta of Pulp and Dagger praised Michelinie for "deliver[ing] smart writing and plausible, grown up characters that are a pleasure to read and a rich tapestry of plot threads" and "avoid[ing] the preachy, holier-than-thou route, and instead just tell[ing] a story that happens to concern a costumed super-hero getting a little...lost." Latta found Romita's pencil art "problematic" but added that "Bob Layton's inks help a lot." Win Wiacek of Now Read This! said, "The fall and rise of a hero is a classic plot, and it’s seldom been better used in the graphic narrative medium and never bettered in the super-hero field. An adult and very mature tale for kids of all ages, it is an unforgettable instance of triumph and tragedy perfectly told." |
Stark's alcoholism was revisited in later storylines, and remains a defining element of the character. |
Jon Favreau, director of the 2008 "Iron Man" film, said: "Stark has issues with booze. That's part of who he is." Favreau said that elements of the story would be used in future "Iron Man" sequels: "I don't think we'll ever do the "Leaving Las Vegas" version, but it will be dealt with." In "Iron Man 2", Favreau notes that the scene of Tony drunkenly carousing during a party in his armor at his residence until Col. James Rhodes intervenes is the closest he intended to adapt the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline. |
Collected editions include a trade paperback published in May 2006 () and a Marvel Premiere Classics hardcover in 2008 (). It was published as part of The Official Marvel Graphic Novel Collection. |
Critics liken the personality of Harry Hole to those of the famous literary detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Jules Maigret, and Nero Wolfe. According to Jo Nesbo himself, the character is inspired by and a tribute to Michael Connelly's character Harry Bosch.The novels are frequent bestsellers. |
Hole is a chain-smoker and heavy drinker who is introverted and prone to depression. He later stops drinking after realising he is an alcoholic. His encounters with assassins, corruption, and serial killers throughout the novels often strengthen his cynical attitude. His problematic and often unsocial behaviour, as well as his obsessive tendencies during investigations, brings him into repeated conflict with his superiors and some colleagues, many of whom dislike him while grudgingly respecting his work and abilities. Møller often shields Hole from being fired, believing he is a brilliant detective and that the Oslo Police Department needs him. Along with standard police training, Hole undertook specialised training in interrogation techniques and firearms at the FBI. |
Harry Hole's home address is in Sofies Gate in Bislett located in the author's own home city of Oslo. Many of the stories involve detailed background and descriptions of real locations such as the actual Oslo Police Department headquarters. Hole regularly interacts with city residents and immigrants from a variety of ethnic and social backgrounds. Many of the novels feature his favourite "watering hole," Restaurant Schrøder (Schrøder's, for short) in St. Hanshaugen. |
The seventh novel in the series, "The Snowman", was adapted as a film in 2017 and starred Michael Fassbender as Harry Hole, with Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ronan Vibert, Val Kilmer and J.K. Simmons. |
The Cup of Fury is a 1956 non-fiction work by Upton Sinclair describing how alcohol affected the lives of many writers including Jack London, Ben Hecht and Hart Crane. |
The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1946, the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 9, 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling, where it ran for 136 performances before closing on March 15, 1947. |
The title ("The Iceman Cometh") refers to a running gag between Hickey and the dead-enders about coming home after traveling his sales route to find his wife "rolling in the hay with the iceman" (akin to the more contemporary joke about the "milkman"). Ironically, he has murdered her due to his inability to accept his own infidelities. Confessing his crime, Hickey must confront the consequences, including the prospect of execution. |
The central contention of the play is the human need for self-deceptions or "pipe dreams" to carry on with life: to abandon them or to see them for the lies that they are is to risk death. It is in this context that the story concludes with Larry Slade calling himself “the only real convert to death Hickey made here” as a response to witnessing Parritt's suicidal leap from the roof. Having stopped lying to himself and come to terms with his real motivation behind informing on his mother and her West Coast anarchist coterie, Parritt can no longer live with himself and dies, while Slade continues lying to himself and thereby lives. |
The play contains many allusions to political topics, particularly anarchism and socialism. Hugo, Larry and Don are former members of an anarchist movement. Two other characters are veterans of the Second Boer War. One is British, and one is an Afrikaner. They alternately defend and insult each other, and there are many allusions to events in South Africa. Both wish to return to their home countries, but their families do not want them there. |
Emma Goldman, whom O'Neill admired, inspired the play's anarchist subplot. |
Joe is the only African American character, and makes several speeches about racial differences. |
"The Iceman Cometh" is often compared to Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths", which may have been O'Neill's inspiration for his play. |
O'Neill uses the phrase "The Big Sleep", but it is not known if this was an intentional or unintentional allusion to Raymond Chandler's use of it. In a letter to Hamish Hamilton dated May 18, 1950, Chandler wrote, "He used it [ The Big Sleep ], so far as one can judge from the context, as a matter of course, apparently in the belief that it was an accepted underworld expression. If so, I'd like to see whence it comes, because I invented the expression. It is quite possible that I re-invented it, but I never saw it in print before . . ." |
When O'Neill was alive, he delayed its performance on Broadway for seven years, fearing American audiences would reject it. O'Neill was at the height of his fame when he relented in 1946, and the production was a commercial success, though it received mixed reviews. |
James Barton, in his performance as Hickey, was reportedly not up to the massive emotional and physical demands of such a titanic part, and sometimes forgot his lines or wore out his voice. |
The young Marlon Brando was offered the part of Don Parritt in the original Broadway production, but famously turned it down. Brando was able to read only a few pages of the script the producers gave him before falling asleep, and he later wrote a lengthy critique describing the work as "ineptly written and poorly constructed". |
1956: An Off-Broadway production staged after O'Neill's death featured Jason Robards as Hickey and was directed by José Quintero. This production was an unqualified success and established the play as a great modern tragedy. |
1973: A Broadway revival staged at the Circle in the Square Theatre ran from December 13, 1973, to February 16, 1974, with James Earl Jones as Hickey. |
1985: A Broadway revival staged at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre featured Jason Robards as Hickey with a cast that included Barnard Hughes as Harry Hope, Donald Moffat as Larry Slade, and again directed by José Quintero. It ran from September 29, 1985, to December 1, 1985. |
1990: Chicago's Goodman Theatre mounted a production directed by Robert Falls, starring Brian Dennehy as Hickey, Jerome Kilty as Hope and James Cromwell as Slade. |
1998: A London production featuring Kevin Spacey had a successful and critically acclaimed run through 1998 and 1999 at the Almeida Theatre and the Old Vic in London. |
1999: A Broadway revival from the 1998 London production staged at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre with Kevin Spacey as Hickey. It ran from April 8, 1999, to July 17, 1999. |
2012: A revival at Chicago's Goodman Theatre featured Nathan Lane in the lead role of Hickey, Brian Dennehy this time as Larry Slade, and was directed by Robert Falls. It started its run at the Goodman Theatre in April 2012, slated for a six-week engagement. It was a huge success for the Goodman Theater, whose management stated it was the most successful production in its history. This production omitted the character of Pat McGloin. |
2015: The Goodman Theatre production directed by Falls, starring Lane and Dennehy and the rest of the original cast with the creative team from Chicago was produced at the Harvey Theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a six-week engagement starting on February 5, 2015, that featured Nathan Lane and John Douglas Thompson. For his performance, Thompson won an Obie Award. |
2018: Denzel Washington starred as Hickey and Tammy Blanchard as Cora, in a Broadway revival directed by George C. Wolfe. The production ran for 14 weeks at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, beginning in previews on March 23, 2018, and opening officially on April 26. The cast featured Frank Wood as Cecil Lewis, Bill Irwin as Ed Mosher, Reg Rogers as James Cameron, Colm Meaney as Harry Hope, and David Morse as Larry Slade. The sets were by Santo Loquasto, costumes by Ann Roth, and lighting design by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer. |
1960: TV Production for Play of the Week on the National Telefim Associates (NTA) syndication network, directed by Sidney Lumet. This production featured Jason Robards as Hickey, Tom Pedi from the original 1947 stage production as Rocky Pioggi, Sorrell Booke as Hugo Kalmar, and Robert Redford as Don Parritt. It is presented as two separate episodes of the series due to the length of the work with a total run time of 210 minutes. It is notable in view of TV standards of the time that while much dialog was omitted for time, that which was retained was not changed to soften its language. For example, at the end of Hickey's breakdown Robards says the words "that damned bitch" exactly as O'Neill had written. |
The 2013 short video game The Entertainment features numerous references to The Iceman Cometh, including characters named after Evelyn Hickman, Larry Slade, Harry Hope, and Pearl. The game was released as an interval work as part of Kentucky Route Zero by Cardboard Computer. |
2020: "The Iceman Cometh" was broadcast as a two-part Zoom Premiere on YouTube Live as a benefit for the Actors Fund. The cast featured Austin Pendleton as Cecil Lewis, Arthur French as Joe Mott, Paul Navarra as Hickey, Patricia Cregan as Pearl, Mike Roche as Larry Slade, Holly O'Brien as Cora, Marygrace Navarra was the stage manager. The event was produced by Caroline Grace Productions, in association with the 2020 Theatre Company. The event was a benefit for the Actors Fund during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. |
Calling a Wolf a Wolf is a confessional collection of poetry written by Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar. The collection of poetry is a personal narrative that follows a path through addiction and to recovery. Akbar claims this collection, along with a chapbook, "Portrait of an Alcoholic," was his own personal way of processing what he experienced as an addict and even solidifying and making sense of his sobriety. The collection is written to mold what Akbar felt through not only the process of and recovery from addiction but elaborates on how Akbar's addiction completely isolated him from society and made the world around him so surreal. |
Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar wrote this confessional poetry collection to share his experiences as an alcoholic. He elaborates on how ethereal the world around him feels and how isolated his own addiction has made him and writes of the path that he ventured on his way to recovery. |
The themes of the collection center mainly around Akbar's path through addiction and finding his way to recovery. Akbar uses deft language to mentally recreate the isolation that addicts feel and how the world around them may feel hypnagogic or unreal. He tells of story of how a man transformed entirely, then had to push against addiction to become a new man to better life for oneself. The narrative highlights the enjoyments and agonies through addiction that could cause addicts to battle their own inclination and even isolate themselves from everything and everyone to fulfill their addictions, resulting in the loneliness Akbar experienced throughout. |
The structure of the collection intends to display a transformation of a man into a new better man or the man inside changing oneself. The collection almost chronologically displays his enjoyment of being an alcoholic and being able to escape the world then the collection changes tones into the pain of addiction and the battling of self-persuasion to escape addiction. The poems then shift to a sense of recovery and coming to understand that instead of escaping the world that is around, find something to enjoy. |
"Calling a Wolf a Wolf" was originally published by Alice James Books on September 12, 2017 in the United States and was later published by Penguin Books in the United Kingdom on January 2, 2018. |
De conviviis barbaris or De convivis barbaris (Latin for "On banquets of barbarians" or "On barbarian guests") is an epigram preserved in the Codex Salmasianus (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Codex Parisinus Latinus, 10318) of the Latin Anthology, copied in Italy 800 AD. It is noted for containing a few words in a Germanic language that historians believe to be Gothic or Vandalic: in either case, this makes it a rare attestation of medieval East Germanic. |
The poem's date of composition is unknown, but postulated to be penned between the sixth and eighth century AD. Although the text states that it is referring to Goths "per se", several features mark the Germanic words as Vandalic, and it is likely that the text simply uses the term 'Gothic' loosely: correspondingly, Procopius refers to the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepids as "Gothic nations" and opines that they "are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic". |
Translation of the Germanic words in the epigram is disputed, but the text means something like: |
There is no doubt that the text is hexametrical, although there has been dispute about the scansion. One likely interpretation is thus: |
Īntĕr "ĕ|īls" Gŏtĭ|cūm "scăpĭ|ā mătzĭ|ā iā | drīncăn!" |
Cāllĭŏ|pē mădĭ|dō trĕpĭ|dāt sē | iūngĕrĕ | Bācchō. |
nē pĕdĭ|būs nōn | stēt || ēbrĭă | Mūsă sŭ|īs. |
The Wild Party is a book-length narrative poem, written by Joseph Moncure March. |
Published in 1926 by Pascal Covici, Inc., the poem was widely banned, first in Boston, for having content viewed as lewd. The poem was a success notwithstanding, and perhaps in part due to, the controversy surrounding the work. March's subsequent projects were more mainstream. |
The poem tells the story of show people Queenie and her lover Burrs, who live in a decadent style that March depicts as unique to Hollywood. They decide to have one of their parties, complete with illegal bathtub gin and the couple's colorful, eccentric and egocentric friends, but the party unfolds with more tumultuous goings-on than planned. |
Some love is fire: some love is rust: |
But the fiercest, cleanest love is lust. |
And their lust was tremendous. It had the feel |
Of hammers clanging; and stone; and steel: |
And torches of the savage, roaring kind |
That rip through iron, and strike men blind: |
Of long trains crashing through caverns under |
Of engines throbbing; and hoarse steam spouting; |
And feet tramping; and great crowds shouting. |
A lust so savage, they could have wrenched |
The flesh from bone, and not have blenched. |
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