Copywriter: A Life of Making Ads and Other Mistakes

Book Description

Chronicles an advertising man's journey from Young Turk to scarred veteran --- with pit stops and side trips along the way.

Customer Reviews:

What a time -- well remembered........2002-12-02

I was there too. Bit player at another agency, but saw, heard, smelled (OK, tasted too -- I had a Saab with a Scotch compartment) the same wonderful ambiance that was advertising in the Renaissance '80s. Ray has it down. He records a time loved -- and lost -- to mega business. Oh, well.

Love advertising as art? Okay, how about as humor?.......2002-11-16

For close to 20 years, ending in the late 1980s, Ray Welch dominated New England advertising awards. He was the Woody Allen of the industry, writing self-deprecating (but hilarious and strategically spot-on) ads, and later becoming one of the area's most effective voice-over announcers. He was also one of the most well-liked personalities in the community -- I should know, I was there -- and a great story-teller.

These are his stories. They're all funny. Many of them also reveal truths of ad agency life, the kinds of people attracted to that business, and the thinking that goes into a great campaign.

Welch had art-director friends each design a separate chapter, and told them to go wild. The designs are readable -- these are top-level art directors we're talking about -- and range from whimsical to surprising. Not a bad thing in a book of stories.

The book reads the way I remember that era. Except Welch obviously had a lot more fun.

Book Description

The Bill Schonely Story is a celebration of the life of one of the Pacific Northwest's most storied broadcasters, whose booming pipes and colorful lexicon have entertained listeners for nearly half a century. The voice of the Portland Trail Blazers for over twenty-four years, nicknamed "The Schonz" by his fans, Bill Schonely gets help telling his stories from those who have been close to him during his sportscasting years.

In his book on Schonely, author Kerry Eggers rekindles fond memories of the Blazers' early years, championship season, and present popularity. Eggers faithfully documents Bill Schonely's meetings with sports stars and Hollywood celebrities, and relates the lasting friendhips that sprang from a life full of famous people and events.

Customer Reviews:

Hear it from the best.......2000-01-05

Any Portland, Oregon or Pacific Northwest sports fan will dig heavily into Schoneley's story. He's a great bridge between a time when major league sports was still a family operation and now. And it's more than just one man's story: It's a fascinating microcosm of the business in the second half of the century.

Bingo...Bango...Bongo.......1999-05-17

Eggers and Schonely have put together a great book that covers Schonley's Pro Wrestling, Seattle Pilots, and Portland Trailblazer days. A great read!

Wherever you may be: The Bill Schonely story

Average customer rating:

Wherever you may be: The Bill Schonely story
Bill Schonely
Manufacturer: Bookpartners
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006R6O2K

Book Description

A continuation of More Theatre: Stage to Screen to Television, this new volume brings the previous volumes into the new millennium, covering the years 1993-2001. All volumes cover productions that have been performed in all of three media: stage, screen, and television.

Book Description

A highly sought cultural commentator, J. G. Ballard has provided thoughtful remarks on the state of the world for decades. J.G. Ballard Conversations brings together several of Ballard's latest interviews and gives readers penetrating insight into the mind of one of the freshest thinkers at work today. Covering topics such at the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the evolution of sexual relationships, and our strange, immersive celebrity culture, this book is a fount of provocative takes on the things that matter. Rounded out with rare photographs of Ballard and supplemental resources, J.G. Ballard Conversations is a necessary item for anyone interested in the modern world.

Customer Reviews:

Another 'must have' book for the Ballard enthusiast........2007-02-15

"Re/Search 8/9: J G Ballard", which dates from 1984, is the single best book that's been published on Ballard. This latest offering from Re/Search brings us right up to date, containing a variety of interviews and discussions with the author taken over the period 1983 to 2004. There's lots here on Ballard's usual themes - psychopathology, death of affect, and so on. But the guts of the book lies in the three lengthy interviews in 2003 and 2004, in the course of which Ballard also visits such contemporary issues as 9-11, neo-cons, globalization, the end of the 'Age of Reason', and terrorism. As a counterpoint, there's a series of more informal, and often amusing, discussions that the Re/Search people have had with Ballard over the years they've been associated with him.

Whilst the interviews don't quite reach the heights of those in "Re/Search 8/9: J. G. Ballard", it's a worthy addition to Re/Search's portfolio of books by or about J.G.B., and a great companion to "J. G. Ballard: Quotes".

conversion via conversation.......2006-07-14

like a chisel blow to marble, each interview within the pages of "jg ballards: conversations" reveals the fascinating form that is the mind of one of contemporary fictions most innovative writers. 'conversations' is a collection of, funnily enough, conversations with the science fiction author, along with contributions from friends, colleagues and assorted associates, rounding the man and provocative thinker into one of the most astute in literature.
especially illuminating is an interview with david pringle, the editor of the magazine 'ambit' who has worked with ballard for more than 30 years.
if you are already aware of ballard's sensibility and vision then this compendium is a MUST. if you aren't already aware of ballard, then this compendium is DEFINITELY a must.

sparkling bathers in near-futuristic water-slide playground utopias somehow magically growing out of vast deserts.......2005-12-31

The work that has earned J.G. Ballard his reputation as a prophet of the present runs the full gamut from the perverse to the catastrophic, from the utterly Surreal to the deeply personal. In J.G. Ballard Conversations, a new collection of interviews from RE/Search, Ballard exercises his trenchant observations live and uncensored. Running jags on the politics of paranoia are illumed with scientific/poetic clarity and a critical sense of the absurd on every page. But to say that Ballard is ahead of his time or a proponent of "science fictions" is misleading. The opposition that at one time may have existed between realistic fiction and "fantasy" or "science fiction" has been dismantled. Society's skewed relationship to realist fiction is explained by Ballard as the failing imaginations of contemporary men and women of letters to ascertain a world quickly leaving their ilk in the perfumed car exhaust.

"I think realist fiction has shot its bolt--it just doesn't describe the world we live in anymore. We're not living in a world where you can make a clear separation (as you could, say during the heyday of the 19th-century realist novel) between the external world of work, commerce, industry and a fixed set of values, and the internal world of hopes, dreams and ambitions. It's the other way around--the external world is a fantasy nowadays. It's a media landscape generated by advertising, and politics conducted as a branch of advertising.
There's an envelope of fantasy that is just pouring out of the air all the time, shaping all of our most ordinary perceptions... Fiction surrounds us--it's more than fiction, it's fantasy of a very peculiar kind that creates our environment. And to describe you've got to get away from realism. Yet the bourgeois novel survives and of course it's immensely popular--which is a bit of a problem."

Ballard's ability to lay open our present like a surgeon with a scalpel never fails, although his often satirical wit more closely resembles a butcher hacking us to pieces on his block. The real gravity in reading Ballard's musings lie in mapping his recurring obsessions, which even in the candor of casual conversation articulate the core themes of his novels. Ballard literally seems pathologically transfixed with the collective pathologies of modern society, how these pathologies manifest themselves and grow through individuals and in culture at large. His often fatalistic perspective on how individuals may or may not be able to cope with this transforming psychological landscape is a major concern throughout much of Ballard's thinking spanning years of acute insight:

On page 60, interviewed in 2003,
'I don't want to make an apocalyptic prophecy--I hardly ever do anything but make apocalyptic prophecies [!]--but I see elective psychopathy as the coming thing."

Or on page 136 discussing the politics of unconscious media manipulation embodied in figures like Ronald Reagan, in an interview from the 1980s,
"He clearly has the possibility within himself for people to impose their fantasies on him. That's the key thing... It's almost as if what one needs is a sort of reverse charisma now. Not a light that shines outwards, but the ability, like a black hole, to draw light inwards."

Or on page 100, from an interview in 2003 speaking of more direct modes of herding the masses:
"Psychopathic behavior seems to appears to immensely increase the possibilities of life--that's how whole nations can embrace, quite voluntarily, psychopathic acts. One could argue that both Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia were elective psychopathies on a nationwide scale... There may be profound masochistic strains running through modern industrial man, that every now and then summon forth these demons like Hitler and Stalin who then do what is expected of them. It's a frightening prospect, but I think the Age of Reason is over."

And on page 166, in a 1991 interview with Lynne Fox, on the larger implications of the Surrealist legacy and whether creative insight into these cultural phenomena can serve as a satirical antidote or if it is never more than a harbinger of the end:
"It would be very difficult to make the Dali/Bunuel films made at the end of the 1920s today because the sight of people dragging dead donkeys through a drawing room would [seem to be] some sort of advertising stunt--a beer commercial. The external world is so strange, so full of fantasy, that you can't use the classic Surrealist approach."

The affinity Ballard feels with the Surrealists comes from the need to map a new mythology, one which recognizes the deeper strata of human consciousness skewered out on the pig poles of the everyday. "I'm trying to suggest that there is a new psychological order awaiting us, I'm as convinced of this as an ordinary individual as I am as an imaginative writer..." (167).

Whether discussing the co-optation of Surrealism by product advertisers, the ever-evolving romance of technology and human sexuality, or how the fictions of our day-to-day existence are now more fantastic than the bravest works of literary endeavor, Ballard's ability as a conversationalist and thinker never leaves a moment dull.
RE/Search has done a marvelous job in assembling and maintaining a recorded archive of an extraordinary and sadly-overlooked point of view. The photographs illustrating this collection create a pervasive feeling of some bizarre and quintessentially Ballardian mental landscape. Airbrushed models pouting their desirous and desiring faces juxtaposed upon dirty and transpiring buildings, sparkling bathers in near-futuristic water-slide playground utopias somehow magically growing out of vast deserts, and campy-looking old laboratory portrait photographs where without much suggestion the scientists could easily be mistaken for costumed sadists committing acts of sexual barbarism upon comely supine machines and more-than-willing control consuls. The publishing brilliance of RE/Search shines through in this perceptive coupling of words and images. This is the same sensibility that expertly paired the illustrations of Phoebe Gloeckner with the text of the Atrocity Exhibition to create the definitive and now infamously classic RE/Search edition of that twisted masterpiece. J.G. Ballard Conversations, with little doubt, will garner a similar following amongst those who know and appreciate Ballard's genius.

Converting Conversations........2005-12-31

This excellent volume from the seminal underground SF publisher RE/Search is a definite must for anybody who is a fan of JG Ballard or of intelligent, thought-provoking discourse in general. Transcripts of conversations with various people with Ballard from over a couple of decades veer, often presciently, over subjects as diverse as internet sex, 9/11, the psychology of George W Bush and Tony Blair, the Stockholm syndrome/masochistic victim mentality methodology necessary to keep Western society running, psychopathology, violence, literature, and a thousand other subjects Ballard always has an original opinion on.

I found myself stopping frequently when reading this book to digest the information (overload) I had just ingested, and it certainly gave me food for thought and many interesting topics of conversation with my wife. Subsequent readings after the first reveal different layers of thought and theory after the initial culture shock of reading about things like religions regulating against a sane, peaceful society wears off. Buy this book. You won't regret it. Seriously. It certainly opened my eyes in a brilliant, innovative way to many latent strands and strains of faulty or faultline thought in modern life, and I'm definitely grateful for that.

Check out www.laurahird.com/newreview/jgballardinterview.html for more information on this and J.G. Ballard Quotes.

CONVERSATIONS is a rich collection of Ballardian riffs.......2005-10-24

J.G. Ballard has spent most of his adult life quietly in a UK suburb. This collection of conversations is like being able to spend a surreal tea time with Ballard himself. Spanning discussions held in the early 1980s up through interviews held in the past few years, CONVERSATIONS is a compendium of Ballardian thought in the raw, composed freestyle like jazz music only between two people speaking.

The 20 year time span allows a good perspective on how political and social patterns predicted by Ballard in his writing during the 60s and 80s have come to pass as cultural reality. A Cronenberg Brundlefly will be quite at home on the wall overhearing these conversations.

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Conversations
J G Ballard
Manufacturer: AIRLIFT BOOK COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K19EOW

Book Description

Complete instructions, game boards, and markers for playing all twelve games.

Average customer rating:

Nice thinking package

Theory of Constraints -- the practical book on the topic

This Book Will Help You!

A must for management and a should for anyone else.

Worth Way More Than [$]

Thinking for a Change: Putting the TOC Thinking Processes to Use (St. Lucie Press/Apics Series on Constraints Management)
Lisa J. Scheinkopf
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Management Dilemmas: The Theory of Constraints Approach to Problem Identification and Solutions (The St. Lucie Press/Apics Series on Constraints Management)

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ASIN: 1574441019

Book Description

The book begins with an overview of the constraint-based perspective on systems and organizations, commonly referred to as the theory of constraints or synchronous management. The first section will guide you through the fundamental principles and processes that are the backbone of the thinking process application tools. The second section contains the step-by-step guidelines for each of the five thinking process application tools. These tools utilize sufficient cause thinking and necessary condition thinking. Third section introduces two ways that two or more of the thinking process application tools are combined, providing robust processes for the understanding and communicating problems and solutions. This book can be used as a field guide to learning the five thinking process application tools as needed, based on their own particular issues. You will have a full understanding of the theory and practical application of these powerful processes, including when and when not to use each tool. The total benefit is not just to apply the thinking process, but to develop intuition and have the ability to combine logic and intuition in the same thinking process.

Customer Reviews:

Nice thinking package.......2007-06-06

Edward De Bono had the wonderful insight of bringing together many disparate and orginally isolated ideas and repackaging them with a binding theme he called lateral thinking. The world has never looked back. De Bono's insight and salesmanship have been a wonder to behold.

So too, Eli Goldratt has taken critical thinking skills from various areas, put a graphical front end on them, and repackaged them with a binding theme he calls Thinking Processes. Not as powerful as De Bono, but certainly in the same ballpark.

Lisa Scheinkopf does quite a marvellous job in providing a didactic introduction to these Thinking Processes. At the end of the day, she unfolds a systematic way of problem solving - and this is, indeed, what the thinking tools are all about.

I understand that Scheinkopf's choice and ordering of chapters was meant to reflect her belief that the individual tools can be used independently of each other. It would have been nice if she had provided a bit more detail showing how the tools complement each other; but, her book, her prerogative. In regard to matters which require the the systematic and complementary use of each and every tool in the toolset, I think Bill Dettmer's provides better insight.

The book is generally clear, with one or two minor slips into obscurity.
I think Scheinkopf falls into the same trap that most authors who present these type of tools. They occasionally have a rush of too much Oxygen to the brain and push their product beyond its elastic limits and start to hand-wave a little too much. In this regard, I find the "So What Test" which forms part of her discussion of Current Reality Trees one of those hand-waving areas. Apart from being something to do with simplifying a current reality tree by means of a review of "entities" from a systems perspective (whatever that really means), I find the actual application of the test as described quite obscure. (As an aside, Bill Dettmer also hand-waves at this point too. I think that both authors attempt to transform craft into some sort of science in a manner which needs a rethink).

Anyway, overall, I think Scheinkopf's work is very good. I think it deserves to be read in support of an understanding of the TOC Thinking Processes, but, it simply isn't enough to read as the only source of understanding. I recommend reading some of Dettmer's work too. Between the two (and Goldratt himself of course), the whole system of TOC and Thinking Processes adds a useful set of tools to problem solving.

Theory of Constraints -- the practical book on the topic.......2006-10-24

You may have heard of "Theory of Constraints" or "TOC" as a project management method that focuses on placing buffers on GANNT charts. But that's just one application of this general analysis and decision-making method called Theory of Constraints.

If you've ever wanted to "brainstorm" or "think outside the box," or just want to plan your next big task in a more complete way, but didn't know where to start, this book is for you. It actually offers a lot more than a start: methods, a simple notation, and when to do what in great detail.

A lot of what you read may seem like "just common sense," but perhaps that's what makes it fun: a powerful, verifiable thinking tool that's also simple and makes sense.

You don't have to read the whole book at once. Try reading some, and then applying it. See how it goes.

This Book Will Help You!.......2006-09-13

I read various books regarding the Theory of Constraints. Except for the chapter on prerequisite trees, this book explains how to use the theory very well to solve your daily problems. It also gives you a wealth of exercises that you can use to improve your practice of the theory.

A must for management and a should for anyone else........2004-10-14

This book puts it all together and can lead anyone down the path of logical thinking, be it solving a problem or creating a plan. Combine the teachings of this book with the other TOC principles and you've got a recipe for success. I highly reccommend this book to all my consulting clients and friends for use in both business and personal life.

Worth Way More Than [$].......2003-06-17

I really hesitated to pay [$] for a book that is not directly related to my profession, somewhat short, and had an unkown beneficial value. Being casually familiar with the thinking processes from It's Not Luck, I went ahead and bought the book. I'm not disappointed. In about a month it has paid for itself several times over. It's not an easy read, but if your curious enough to be reading this, you can understand it. If your a professional with a wife and kid(s), it is a must for both work and home.

Amazon.com

Captain James Cook's three epic 18th-century explorations of the Pacific Ocean were the last of their kind, literally completing the map of the world. Yet despite his monumental discoveries, principally in the South Pacific, Cook the man has remained an enigma. In retracing key legs of the circumnavigator's journey, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz chronicles the cultural and environmental havoc wrought by the captain's opening of the unspoiled Pacific to the West, as well as the alternately indifferent and passionate reactions Cook's name evokes during the writer's journeys through Polynesia, Australia, the Aleutians, and the explorer's native England. Horwitz skillfully weaves a biography and travel narrative with warm humor that is natural and human-scale, and his restless inquisitiveness quickly infects the reader. While striking dichotomies abound throughout that journey--Maori toughs who adopt Nazi imagery to symbolize their own fight against white domination, millennia-old Polynesian sexual mores that would shame the Reeperbahn, a sense that Christianity decimated native cultures at least as effectively as Western venereal diseases did--few are more poignant than the ones that abound in Cook's own life. This fine work is an adventurous reminder that answers to historical riddles are elusive at best--and seldom as compelling as the myriad new questions they pose. --Jerry McCulley

Book Description

Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone BeforeTwo centuries after James Cook's epic voyages of discovery, Tony Horwitz takes readers on a wild ride across hemispheres and centuries to recapture the Captain's adventures and explore his embattled legacy in today's Pacific. Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Confederates in the Attic, works as a sailor aboard a replica of Cook's ship, meets island kings and beauty queens, and carouses the South Seas with a hilarious and disgraceful travel companion, an Aussie named Roger. He also creates a brilliant portrait of Cook: an impoverished farmboy who became the greatest navigator in British history and forever changed the lands he touched. Poignant, probing, antic, and exhilarating, Blue Latitudes brings to life a man who helped create the global village we inhabit today.

Customer Reviews:

Captain Cook For A Day.......2007-09-28

Well, I'm not ashamed to admit my hand just went right out and chose this book for title alone, on the strength of another travelogue I have in my library with "Blue" in the title (William Least Heat Moon's excellent Blue Highways). The boat on the cover helped; I'm a sucker for seagoing stories.

There is no denying Tony Horwitz has a gift for getting you to read; I was absorbed immediately. He makes history vastly more interesting than my Western Civ professor did in college, and presents a credible reasoning for what lead up to the death of Captain James T. Cook (that's right, sportsfans, the captain of the starship Enterprise is named after the 18th-century explorer).

Because of a lifelong passion for the sea and, apparently, Captain Cook, Horwitz embarked upon the novel notion of retracing the great man's voyages, 21st-century style. I thought this a bit of a cheat throughout the book; he VISITED the same sites, but couldn't have been said to truly get the flavour of any of the journeys. He started out promisingly, signing onto a trip for not quite a week aboard a replica of Cook's ship Endeavour by blatantly lying his way through the application, checking "yes" to questions he probably should have, in retrospect, reconsidered. A more-or-less total greenhorn, he schlepps his way through days of screwups with safety gear on that Cook's hapless sailors never enjoyed, along with far better food, no threat of corporal punishment and far less crowded conditions. Predictably, his first destination after getting off for the last time is a tavern - at least there he follows the pattern of sailors of old.

Thereafter his retracings take the form of flying to each port of call and investigating Cook's explorations on foot and by far safer land transportation (usually). The book is an excellent insight into the South Pacific of today; it seems to have no resemblance whatsoever to the South Pacific of Cook's time, which is probably the point. I have harboured a passion to visit Rarotonga all my life. After reading what the islands are like now, I think I will live with my fantasies. Things seem very shabby and dirty from Horwitz's perspective; not a paradise anymore. The one place which seems close, an island nation called Niue, is a curious mix of Christianized, very proper islanders and dubious offshore money-laundering concerns, and here Horwitz succeeds in making an unwelcome nuisance of himself by pestering the locals to show him a plant which causes them noticeable embarrassment. He doesn't take the hint when he gets the cold shoulder from almost everybody he asks about it but gets off the island, seemingly, just prior to being invited to leave.

"Blue Latitudes", as a whole, probably wouldn't supplant a recognized treatise about Captain Cook - although he does present the man's failings, it's clear he slants in favour of the explorer - but does effectively touch on almost every aspect of Cook's life and career, with intriguing insights into his dealings with native peoples, his prowess as a cartographer (some of Cook's charts were in use until the mid-1990s), and his expertise as a commander and seaman. He made three transoceanic voyages with minimal loss of life or property before possible burnout brought him to a set of unfortunate circumstances which culminated in his death at the hands of an infuriated mob of natives at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, on February 14, 1779.

Horwitz is enthusiastic in his efforts to get information, points of view, previously-unknown sidebars, and support from a huge cast of characters, accompanied almost throughout by a droll fellow named Roger who appears to be as amenable to foregoing any investigation that doesnt involve a rum bottle as he does in giving Horwitz moral support in the out-of-the-way places they visit. Overall, this was a highly entertaining book. I know far more now about Cook and the South Pacific - both former and present day - than I did before I read it, and was left, also, with a curious sense of loss at the end. I quite enjoyed circumnavigating the globe with Horwitz and his merry crew.

Good Read, a little long near the end..........2007-06-08

I am big fan of Tony Horwitz, and this was a very good book and a lot of great information on Captain Cook. My only complaint was that the book gets a little long near the end. Roger, Tony's accomplice throughout the journey is a real character and was enjoyable throughout.

A wondrous journey!.......2007-03-09

I had little idea of Captain Cook's comings and goings until a friend recommended this book to me. Coincidentally, I began reading it while on a trip that included Hawai'i -- and found myself on Big Island on the anniversary of the great captain's death (which I celebrated with a bird's eye view of the monument in his honor and a toast). The book makes fascinating and constantly entertaining and informative reading, and I liked Horwitz's idea of retracing Cook's steps, trying to balance what he came across with how things have changed (usually for the worse) in the past 230+ years. Cook's views on scurvy -- way beyond his years --, his normally open and respectful attitude towards native peoples, his huge talent for navigating and mapping what he encountered and his courage in the face of great peril and adversity have made me admire him a lot. It is interesting to note that most native peoples regard Cook as a bane, the man who brought so-called civilization to their previously untouched existences. I really do think Cook was the smaller of evils...

Cook and the New World.......2007-01-23

This is a book that could start the curious reader on a search of their own for the elusive Captain Cook. What is so good about this book is that Horwitz has been honest about his successes and failures in following in the footsteps of the great explorer. There are plenty of laugh out loud passages as Roger, his fellow traveller, and he confront the realities of travelling in places both isolated and altered since the days of Cook. Yet the book is far more than a merely amusing travelogue.
Horwitz manages to twine together his own travels and those of Cook in a manner that makes the reader realise how the world, and its people, have changed since the latter half of the eighteenth century. He clearly admires Cook, and most of his fellow sailors, whilst at the same time drawing attention to how their missions of exploration on behalf of what would become the British Empire altered the world for ever. One of the best aspects of the book is that he does not bludgeon the past into a politically correct framework but instead offers the reader insights into a past that many readers will find fascinating. The fact that Horwitz allows the reader to compare his abilities to cope with disappointments and difficulties to those of Cook makes the book more enjoyable.
A lengthy read but well worth the time.

Hit and miss.......2006-12-19

I really enjoyed Horwitz's CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, so I thought I'd try his Captain Cook travelogue, BLUE LATITUDES. My reaction was mixed. I loved the stuff about Captain Cook, but was less enthusiastic about Horwitz's attempt to follow Cook's explorations.

Cook set out on three explorations, essentially looking for the Southern Continent. As a result Horwitz starts with the South Pacific islands, New Zealand, and Australia. The most interesting segment of this account for me was Cook's contact with the Australian aborigines who wanted nothing to do with Cook and told him, in their own language, to "Go Away." Later on Cook discovered the Great Barrier Reef and came close to being shipwrecked.

In my mind Horwitz spends too much time on trivial matters. For instance, when Cook tried to land in modern Niue (Savage Island) the natives chased him away. He mistook them for cannibals since they had painted their teeth with red banana juice. Horwitz spends an inordinate amount of time looking for red bananas. In another instance, he travels the globe looking for an arrow supposedly made out of Cook's shin bone.

In some ways BLUE LATITUDES is inspirational. For one thing, Cook was born of poor parents in Yorkshire, England. He worked his way up from clerk, to sailor on a coal barge, to captain in the Royal Navy in a much more hierarchal society. He also went where "no man had been before." If that sounds familiar it's no accident. James T. Kirk was modeled after Captain Cook.

Captain Cook himself was a rather dour sort of person, but some of his shipmates had eccentric personalities. Joseph Banks, the botanist on board The Endeavor, was a nobleman who sailed with Cook rather than go on a grand tour. His journal entries can be poetic at times. David Samwell, surgeon's mate on board the Resolution, spent most of his time "admiring `Fair Damsels' and `nymphs' and calculating how to bed them." Cook, himself, comes alive when he philosophizes about the harm he may be doing to native cultures. Although he was ready with the musket when natives crossed him, he showed his human side when he tried not to expose the Hawaiians to venereal disease.

On the modern side, we visit Cooktown in northern Australia, where Horwitz and his pal Roger Williamson spend most of their time drinking, and the Aleutian Islands where Horwitz and his buddy Roger board a ferry that endures hurricane force winds resulting in almost terminal seasickness. Roger grates on your nerves after a while; he seems to have a one-track mind; he never goes anywhere without a ready supply of alcohol.

Whenever the book rotates back to the Cook biography, interest picks up. The most riveting part of the book is when Cook lands in Kealakekua Bay, for the second time, and you know that this is where he met his death. Horwitz also spends some time analyzing Cook's mental pathology. He seemed to suffering from "burn-out" on his third exploration. He flogged his crewman more than he ever had before, he forced them to eat walrus meat, he gave in to his temper, and he treated the natives inconsistently, which ultimately led to his death.

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before

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Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
Tony Horwitz
Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0965047393

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Blue Latitudes - Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
Tony Horwitz
Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K1KXZQ

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Blue Latitudes : Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
Tony Horwitz
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Company, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000R557S8

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Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
Tony Horwitz
Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MC14U6

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Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
Tony Horwitz
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTMGPE

Blue Latitudes CD: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before

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Blue Latitudes CD: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before
Tony; Daniel, Gerroll Horwitz
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OA7RQ6

Book Description

Discover ancient African civilizations. Explore the devastating Middle Passage and see the famous March on Washington. Find the answers to your questions about African American history . . .

Did blacks fight in the Revolutionary War? See page 18.

What was the Underground Railroad? See page 30.

Who were the Buffalo Soldiers? See page 59.

What is the NAACP? See page 64.

What was the Harlem Renaissance? See page 77.

How did the civil rights movement begin? See page 112.

What was the Black Power movement? See page 131.

What is affirmative action? See page 146.

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The Optimistic Jew

Great find

Excellent questioning of commonplace ideas!

Important messages

a much-needed mind walk

The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture
Fritjof Capra
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Occult | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Capra, Fritjof | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
General | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems

The Tao of Physics

The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living

The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences)

Uncommon Wisdom

ASIN: 0553345729
Release Date: 1984-08-01

Customer Reviews:

The Optimistic Jew.......2007-08-31

The back page of Capra's book contains the following: "We have reached a time of dramatic and potentially dangerous change, a turning point for the planet as a whole. We need a new vision of reality, one that allows the forces transforming our world to flow together as a positive movement for social change." The book was written before the fall of the Soviet Union and European Communism, before the advent of the Internet Revolution, and before the rise of international stateless terror. Much of what seemed exotic at the time - alternative wellness treatment, alternative energy, and environmental concern - have since become mainstream. Other problems he presents as potentially catastrophic have become obsolete because of the productivity potential of the Internet and the knowledge economy.
Yet the above quote is still relevant as an apt description of our present world and the book can still be read with benefit by the inquisitive and concerned world citizen. The title served as a useful metaphor for me when writing "The Optimistic Jew" -- it seems to me that Jewish civilization itself is at a "turning point" within the general "Turning Point".

Great find.......2006-06-05

Found this today at the annual library sale for $2 and this was right after showing my class the movie "Mind Walk" which is based on the book. Talk about coincidence! I have "The Web of Life".

Excellent questioning of commonplace ideas!.......2005-01-05

The text contains criticism on several commonly accepted concepts, from drugs advertising to public health to physics (almost a summary of The Tao of Physics) to agriculture to nuclear power, all extremely relevant topics to anyone.

As I graduated in Business Administration, one of chapters I liked most is about Economics - exposing the lack of proper concepts to start with, then the common weak and biased conclusions reached based on those weak and biased concepts. Ecology discussions are also great, though alarming - but I think few people can stay calm reading about that in any media today.

The title refers to a bigger idea, that of an overall crisis and upcoming transformation of our society. The "jump" from criticism of specific issues (above) to this conclusion is highly subjective, and so many will disagree to it. Even if you do disagree, read the specifics anyway; they are still interesting.

It's also wonderfully written; in almost every paragraph you can take out one or two thoughts. I ended up underlining most of the book.

I highly recommend it. The exercise of questioning our concepts helps understanding. Even if you reach other conclusions yourself, it's still worthy to question!

Important messages.......2003-10-03

I think Fritjof Capra is making some very important observations in this book. Through his observations, the author states that Western Civilization is gradually approaching the climax of a major turning point in its evolution. He suggests that the cause of this is in our consciousness, a certain way we are seeing and understanding our experiences. This is leading to many of our present day environmental, social, political, and financial crises. We are all sitting on a treebranch that is gradually getting too heavy. Many modern theorists try to explain this phenomena but Capra articulates this in a way that many people can understand. This book as well as "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato do a very fine job in trying to open the public eye to these issues. Both of these books are highly recommended for people who want to understand things from a wider, larger, and deeper perspective.

a much-needed mind walk.......2003-02-01

This landmark, timeless work and the movie based on it (Mindwalk) are great accomplishments that have much relevance to today's events and where the world is headed.

Read before it is too late!

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The Turning Point - Science, Society, & the Rising Culture
Fritjof Capra
Manufacturer: New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Capra, Fritjof | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000NXEVF4

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The Turning Point - Science, Society, And The Rising Culture
Fritjof Capra
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Capra, Fritjof | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000HIY9QQ

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The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture
Fritjof Capra
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Capra, Fritjof | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000H5Y96O

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The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture
Fritjof Capra
Manufacturer: Bantam Doubleday Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Capra, Fritjof | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0553341480

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THE TURNING POINT: SCIENCE, SOCIETY, AND THE RISING CULTURE.

Manufacturer: Fontana Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Capra, Fritjof | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000HL93MS

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The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture
Fritjof Capra
Manufacturer: Fontana Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Capra, Fritjof | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000NDWSU4

Book Description

Far into the Atlantic Ocean, the outflow from the Amazon River creates a "sweet sea" of fresh water. At the river's mouth, a vast delta of river channels and marshes, floodplain and upland forests, open and scrub savannas, floating meadows, and mangrove swamps hosts an astonishingly diverse assemblage of plant and animal life. So rich is this biological treasure house that early European explorers deemed it inexhaustible. In this highly readable book, Nigel Smith explores how human use of the Amazon estuary's natural resources has been affected by technological change, rapid urban growth, and accelerated market integration. Avoiding alarmist rhetoric, he shows how human intervention in the estuary has actually diversified agriculture and helped save floodplain forests from wanton destruction. His findings underscore the importance of understanding the history of land use and the ecological knowledge of local people when formulating development and conservation policies. The book will be of interest to everyone concerned with the fate of tropical forests, conserving biodiversity, and developing natural resources in a sustainable manner.

Customer Reviews:

WATCH, READ AND LEARN - AMAZON MEETS ATLANTIC.......2005-05-16

Nigel Smith is a longtime student of the Brazilian Amazon. In this illustrated book, he attempts to capture the social, economic and environmental reality of the estuary region of the Amazon river, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean.

This is a wonderfully illustrated book, with the pictures going a long way in capturing the reality of the region. The region is quite peculiar even within the Amazon in that it suffers the influence of the Ocean, with ingredients such as daily tides and beaches that are not common elsewhere in the Amazon.

The social and economic contrasts are vast: on the one hand, there is the city of Belem, with over 1 million people and a cosmopolitan feel to it; on the other hand, you have the people who live in the banks of the thousands of rivers that crisscross each other on the way to the Ocean, living very simple lives, often without electricity. The book depicts, with few words and many images, the distinct local living conditions.

The environmental aspect, which makes the region all the more interesting, is present throughout. Despite an economy heavily dependent on natural resources, especially in the Marajo island, the author presents an ecossystem that is often well integrated with man. For example, he demonstrates how people survive off gathering acai (a local plant), crab or eels, in such a way that the resources are naturally replenished.

The sweet sea is clearly a distinct region from the rest of the Amazon, and hence deserves unique attention. The books gives one a full view of life there (human or not), which is quite amazing. I highly recommend this book for the armchair voyageur, or to someone considering visiting Belem and surroundings. It will definitely give you a perspective that most of the locals don't even have.

Historical and natural history of the Amazon estuary.......2004-04-08

Author's field works and photographs document changes in the way people and their environment interact. Book design: Heidi Haeuser.

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