notanotherbookreview

MIAMI MY VENICE, a Photo Essay by Rafael Manresa Manresa's lovely photo essay is a journey to a timeless city of canals and waterways, evocative of and yet contradictory to Venice. In MIAMI, which is accompanied by a wise and sensitive text, Manresa says that if Venice is the serenity, Miami is the agitation. Yet his images of Miami have much of the same ageless, meditative quality as Venice. His distressed images of Miami in feeling resemble the palazzos of Venice. The titles, in Italian further the link. Below are some images from the ebook, which can be purchased and the images viewed at  https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/miami-my-venice/id624066113?mt=11 .

The Orphanmaster's Son by Adam Johnson is a book I wanted to like, lots of people I respect do, and I am always willing to champion a book that's against totalitarian repression and meglomaniacal dictators. So what's the problem? It's unrelenting in its narrative of atrocities so viscerally frightening in this "no exit" world that they would have been the envy of Kafka's Castle or Dostoyevsky's The Lower Depths or Solzenetsyn's Gulag or any concentration camp history....and that's my problem. I don't know if Mr.Johnson's N.Korea is meant to be mythic or real or a combination of both. Why does this matter? If it's historical truth or fiction based on it, then I accept the necessity to shock so we can be outraged and perhaps contribute to some change or resolve it won't happen again. If he's created this world in order to indict N.Korea, that would be an endeavor made more believable by a novel with more than one note--des...

From Dixon Place Production 5/1/2016. https://vimeo.com/269716307 The Wapshot Whatever: The Secret Lives of Computer Programs. Tonight is dress rehearsal of The Wapshot Whatever, small but decent stage. Thanks to all coming to show. And to the terrific Director,  Vincent Santvoord  and Cast,  Sara Minisquero ,  Chelsea Rodriguez ,  Nathaniel Taylor-Leach , D.Anisfield Tay. T he Wapshot Whatever: The secret lives of computer programs previously received a staged reading @manhattanrep   Random Dialler Worm, circuit boards, the inhuman souls of an Off-shore Server & a Rogue Program bundled together. The secret life of your devices?  Ever wonder what happens, after you have shut down?  Sparks fly, when a Rogue meets an Off-Shore Server. Then there's a Dialing worm, App book, Data miner and more in this unnatural play. The Wapshot Whatever: The Secret Lives of Computer Programs full script on NPX, New Play Exchange n...

THE CHAPERONE by Laura Moriarity, THE TESTAMENT OF MARY by Colm Toibin, FORGED BY FATE by Amalia Dillon explore mythic duality in women’s lives.  At first glance, these three novels would seem to have little in common. THE CHAPERONE tells the story of a fictional Wichita matron, who in 1922 chaperones fifteen year old Louise Brooks in New York City. The Testament of Mary tells the story of Christ from the viewpoint of his mother. Forged by Fate combines Norse, Greek, Hindu and Buddhist mythology in a world, where an estranged Adam and Eve must forever be apart.  Yet in each of these novels the heroines struggle to reconcile their internal understanding with the role in which they find themselves. Yet they are aware of being participants in multi-layered dramas, as the fate of the world,and personal happiness, hinges on their strength to fulfill a unique destiny.  In THE CHAPERONE, modest pleasant-looking Cora has had the luck of marrying Alan, an uncommonly h...