The World of Alphonse Allais

Author: Alphonse Allais
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571306098
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
In one of his Independent pieces Miles Kington once referred to a volume of Edward Lear's limericks translated into French. Not an easy task, you might think, and in translating Alphonse Allais into English, Miles Kington set himself a similar challenge. He carried it off with panache. As Max Harrison said in The Times, '... has done a difficult job well, even preserving some of Allais's puns'. Alphonse Allais has been described as the greatest humorous writer ever. In the words of Lisa Appignanesi, 'Allais was a consummate absurdist. From an ordinary phenomenon, simple sentiment or situation, he would logically deduce the looniest, most macabre and most unexpected result ... His humour kept all Paris, high and low, waiting breathlessly for the paper which would carry his next tale ...' On first publication, in 1976, Clive James in the Observer said 'Allais has been dead 70 years but his mocking tone ensures him a permanently relevant after-life'. And John Sturrock in the New Statesman, 'Allais stands, along with Jarry, at the head of the most dazzling and highly educated tradition of French humour, as witty as it is whimsical'. Faber Finds offers this rare book as a tribute not only to Alphonse Allais but also Miles Kington, two great humorists in tandem.

The World of Alphonse Allais

Author: Alphonse Allais
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description
"Alphonse Allais has been described as the greatest humorous writer France ever produced, and Jean Cocteau called him 'the prince of storytellers,' yet he has hardly been heard of in England -- for the simple reason that he has never before been translated into English. Because his humour is too French? On the contrary, the French have always felt there was something a little too English about Allais...This selecton of some seventy pieces, translated and introduced by Miles Kington, literary editor of Punch, brings the full range of his inspired virtuosity to an English audience (perhaps his true audience?) for the first time" -- Front jacket flap.

The Book of Absinthe

Author: Phil Baker
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802199771
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
A witty, erudite primer to the world’s most notorious drink. La Fée Verte (or “The Green Fairy”) has intoxicated artists, poets, and writers ever since the late eighteenth century. Stories abound of absinthe’s drug-like sensations of mood lift and inspiration due to the presence of wormwood, its infamous “special” ingredient, which ultimately leads to delirium, homicidal mania, and death. Opening with the sensational 1905 Absinthe Murders, Phil Baker offers a cultural history of absinthe, from its modest origins as an herbal tonic through its luxuriantly morbid heyday in the late nineteenth century. Chronicling a fascinatingly lurid cast of historical characters who often died young, the absinthe scrapbook includes Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, August Strindberg, Alfred Jarry, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Allais, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. Along with discussing the rituals and modus operandi of absinthe drinking, Baker reveals the recently discovered pharmacology of how real absinthe actually works on the nervous system, and he tests the various real and fake absinthe products that are available overseas. “Formidably researched, beautifully written, and abundant with telling detail and pitch-black humor.” —The Daily Telegraph

Study in Black and White

Author: Tanya Sheehan
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271082461
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

Book Description
In this volume, Tanya Sheehan takes humor seriously in order to trace how photographic comedy was used in America and transnationally to express evolving ideas about race, black emancipation, and civil rights in the mid-1800s and into the twentieth century. Sheehan employs a trove of understudied materials to write a new history of photography, one that encompasses the rise of the commercial portrait studio in the 1840s, the popularization of amateur photography around 1900, and the mass circulation of postcards and other photographic ephemera in the twentieth century. She examines the racial politics that shaped some of the most essential elements of the medium, from the negative-positive process to the convention of the photographic smile. The book also places historical discourses in relation to contemporary art that critiques racism through humor, including the work of Genevieve Grieves, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, and Fred Wilson. By treating racial humor about and within the photographic medium as complex social commentary, rather than a collectible curiosity, Study in Black and White enriches our understanding of photography in popular culture. Transhistorical and interdisciplinary, this book will be of vital interest to scholars of art history and visual studies, critical race studies, U.S. history, and African American studies.

Dictionary of Gestures

Author: Francois Caradec
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262547996
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Book Description
An illustrated guide to more than 850 gestures and their meanings around the world, from a nod of the head to a click of the heels. Gestures convey meaning with a flourish. A vigorous nod of the head, a bold jut of the chin, an enthusiastic thumbs-up: all speak louder than words. Yet the same gesture may have different meanings in different parts of the world. What Americans understand as the “A-OK gesture,” for example, is an obscene insult in the Arab world. This volume is the reference book we didn't know we needed—an illustrated dictionary of 850 gestures and their meanings around the world. It catalogs voluntary gestures made to communicate openly—as distinct from sign language, dance moves, involuntary “tells,” or secret handshakes—and explains what the gesture conveys in a variety of locations. It is organized by body part, from top to bottom, from head (nodding, shaking, turning) to foot (scraping, kicking, playing footsie). We learn that “to oscillate the head while gently throwing it back” communicates approval in some countries even though it resembles the headshake of disapproval used in other countries; that “to tap a slightly inflated cheek” constitutes an erotic invitation when accompanied by a wink; that the middle finger pointed in the air signifies approval in South America. We may already know that it is a grave insult in the Middle East and Asia to display the sole of one's shoe, but perhaps not that motorcyclists sometimes greet each other by raising a foot. Illustrated with clever line drawings and documented with quotations from literature (the author, François Caradec, was a distinguished and prolific historian of literature, culture, and humorous oddities, as well as a novelist and poet), this dictionary offers readers unique lessons in polylingual meaning.

Art and the Everyday

Author: Nancy Perloff
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
The premiere of Erik Satie's Parade in May 1917 marked the emergence of a new musical avant-garde in Paris. To many young artists Parade exemplified a wish to escape Symbolist purity and fuse 'art' with everyday life--a rallying cry quickly adopted by Jean Cocteau in his celebrated pamphlet on new French music, The Cock And The Harlequin, in 1918.

DK Road Trips France

Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 059395727X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 1111

Book Description
Tranquil valleys, rugged coastline, rolling farmland: France is the perfect destination for a road trip to remember. With Road Trips France, it's yours to explore. Featuring 24 wonderful drives across the country and packed with detailed driving instructions and practical information, this easy-to-use guide helps you discover France at its best. Inside, you will find: 24 easy-to-follow scenic driving tours, each lasting one to five days A laminated pull-out road map of France, which helps you navigate with ease Ways to see more of each area en route, including great viewpoints, delightful detours, walks through historic towns and villages, outdoor activities, and various tours and trips. Our pick of the best places to stay, eat and shop Rules of the road addresses for satnavs, detailed directions for easy navigation, road conditions and parking tips, and useful travel, visa and health information Looking for more on France's culture, history, and attractions? Try our DK Eyewitness France. DK is the world's leading illustrated reference publisher, producing beautifully designed books for adults and children in over 120 countries.

Reading Eco

Author: Rocco Capozzi
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253211163
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 512

Book Description
Examines some of Eco's writings together with secondary sources in order to arrive at a more comprehensive critique of his literary theories and his notions of general semiotics as a cognitive social/cultural practice. Articles on literary semiotics, which comprise the second section, focus primarily on Eco, Peirce, Bakhtin, Greimas, Borges, and Derrida. Part three examines aspects of Eco's fiction. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Original Accident

Author: Paul Virilio
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745636144
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 127

Book Description
Virilio defines the ways in which postindustrial science has merged with out-and-out hyperterrorism to threaten the foundations of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian civilisation, and the future of the planet with them, through innovation of mass catastrophes that are part and parcel of its panoply of inventions.

Humorous Texts

Author: Salvatore Attardo
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110887967
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
This book presents a theory of long humorous texts based on a revision and an upgrade of the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH), a decade after its first proposal. The theory is informed by current research in psycholinguistics and cognitive science. It is predicated on the fact that there are humorous mechanisms in long texts that have no counterpart in jokes. The book includes a number of case studies, among them Oscar Wilde's Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Allais' story Han Rybeck. A ground-breaking discussion of the quantitative distribution of humor in select texts is presented.