High Art

"Surely make you lose your mind . . ." So the Eagles warn us about the outrageous and ruthless lifestyle of the ambitious rock-n-roller. In fact, Don Henley could barely listen to the track "Life in the Fast Lane" when they were recording it. He was so high that it made him sick. The band that embodied the American dream with globe-straddling success, impossibly luxurious lives, and almost supernatural talent also descended into nightmare with betrayal, hate-filled hubris, the skeletons of perceived enemies, brutally discarded lovers and former band mates left unburied in the road behind them.

Just as William Goldman, the ultimate screenwriter, took us inside Hollywood, Simon de Pury, the ultimate art player, will take us inside an even more secretive business, whose staggering prices, famous collectors, and high crimes are front-page news almost every day. The former chairman of Sotheby's Europe, the former owner of Sotheby's rival Phillips de Pury, and currently a London-based dealer and advisor to great collectors around the world, Simon has one of the highest profiles of any nonartist in the art world.

Story captures our hearts and feeds our imaginations. It reminds us who we are and where we came from. Story gives meaning and direction to our lives as we learn to see it as an affirmation of God’s love. Drawing upon her own experiences, well-known tales in literature, and selected narratives from Scripture, Madeleine L’Engle gently leads the way into the glorious world of story in The Rock That Is Higher. Here she acknowledges universal human longings and considers how literature, Scripture, personal stories, and life experiences all point us toward our true home.

From merely managing to boldly leading: Take your skills (and your career) to the next level with just 7 simple, yet highly effective strategies! Being a manager is a role filled with a lot of responsibility. It can be a heavy load to bear, knowing that your team members’ productivity, your company’s success, and your own career could be affected by your actions and decisions. But while this is a difficult undertaking, you also have a unique opportunity as a manager to inspire, transform, and take your team to new heights.

From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan exploded out of the early 60s roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels of the counterculture. Dennis McNally, the band's historian and publicist for more than 20 years, takes listeners back through the Dead's history.

Jews have a centuries-old tradition of telling jokes, from the ghettos of Europe to Hollywood and the Catskills. Jewish jokes are entertainment, the oral history of a culture, insightful social criticism, and survival tactic rolled into one. In 2008, Hollywood director and producer Sam Hoffman launched a website called Old Jews Telling Jokes. It’s just what it says: Jewish men and women over 60 sharing their favorite stories, tales, riddles, and punchlines.

UNLOCK YOUR AUTHENTIC DIVINE SELF AND EMBRACE TRUE LUXURY LIVING Discover the revolutionary approach to high-frequency living that transforms ordinary existence into an extraordinary journey of spiritual abundance and authentic luxury. In this transformative guide, spiritual coach Ammanuel Santa Anna reveals the profound connection between your divine essence and the life you create. DISCOVER: ✓ How to recognize and embody your authentic divine light ✓ The spiritual essence of true luxury beyond material possessions ✓ Practical rituals to strengthen your connection to source energy ...

Ready for college? Take a confident approach to college admissions with this definitive guide – all without stressing yourself out. Getting into college is a magnificent stepping stone that can definitely give you an edge in your professional career and in your life. Unfortunately, the part that comes before all this is not so easy.

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

Marijuana edibles are so much more sophisticated than years ago when the world was first experimenting with weed. Occasions where you are traditionally cooking for, and entertaining guests can now be taken to the next level when you introduce cannabis. If you are a fan of cannabis edibles, you will definitely love this audiobook. I have done in-depth research on cannabis, its uses, dosage, and other aspects that you will find vital in your cooking. The audiobook has outlined over 20 unique recipes in various food types.

Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.

The Monks of New Skete are known for their unique approach to raising and training dogs; they maintain the philosophy that "understanding is the key to communication, compassion, and communion" with your dog.

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of 300 people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period - people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.

In this thoughtful collection of essays, Andrea Barrett draws from her experiences writing some of the most acclaimed historical fiction of our time to explore the mysteries and delights of the genre. Inspiration found in the past, she argues, can illuminate fiction, just as dust scatters light and makes the unseen visible.

In So Much Longing in So Little Space, Karl Ove Knausgaard sets out to understand the enduring and awesome power of Edvard Munch's work by training his gaze on the landscapes that inspired Munch and speaking firsthand with other contemporary artists, including Anselm Kiefer, for whom Munch's legacy looms large. Bringing together art history, biography, and memoir, Knausgaard tells a passionate, freewheeling, and pensive story about not just one of history's most significant painters, but the very meaning of choosing the artist's life, as he himself has done.

In the age of Trump and Brexit, every crisis is instantly overridden by the next. The turbulent political weather of the 21st century generates anxiety and makes it difficult to know how to react. Laing makes an inspiring case for why art matters more than ever, as a force of both resistance and repair. Art, she argues, changes how we see the world. It gives us X-ray vision. It reveals inequalities and offers fertile new ways of living. Funny Weather brings together a career's worth of Laing's writing about art and culture, and their role in our political and emotional lives.

We are naturally drawn to smooth, harmonious movement. Both social and physical graces have been taught since the dawn of civilization. Yet grace seems forgotten in our pushy, hectic modern world. Sarah L. Kaufman argues that we bring it back. She celebrates grace in the way bodies move, exploring how to stand, walk, and dress well. She deplores the rarity of grace among public figures and glories in it where found (Beyoncé at a fashion show).

Arguably the greatest choreographer who ever lived, George Balanchine was one of the cultural titans of the twentieth century—the New York Times called him "the Shakespeare of dancing." His radical approach to choreography—and life—reinvented the art of ballet and made him a legend. Written with enormous style and artistry, and based on more than one hundred interviews and research in archives across Russia, Europe, and the Americas, Mr. B carries us through Balanchine's tumultuous and high-pitched life story and into the making of his extraordinary dances.

Alexandra Petri's US History contains a lost (invented!) history of America. (A history for people disappointed that the only president whose weird sex letters we have is Warren G. Harding.) Petri's "historical fan fiction" draws on real events and completely absurd fabrications to create a laugh-out-loud, irreverent takedown of our nation's complicated past. A witty, absurdist satire of the last 500 years, Alexandra Petri's US History is the fake textbook you never knew you needed.

In January 1959, Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and founded the Detroit-based record company that in less than a decade was to become the largest Black-owned business in the United States. It also became one of the most productive and influential producers of popular music anywhere in the world. The Story of Motown is the story of Berry Gordy's triumph over powerful, established financial interests, entrenched popular taste, bigotry, and racism.