Kala
August 25, 2008
M.I.A. is UK singer/rapper Maya Arulpragasam. Her 2005 debut album Arular unleashed her devastating dislocated beats, pounding basslines and chant-along vocals. M.I.A.’s unparalleled mongrel mix of hip-hop, ragga, dancehall, electro and punk saw Arular garner praise from far and wide, including being short listed for the Mercury Music Prize. In the USA M.I.A. signed with Interscope and hit the road opening for Gwen Stefani. M.I.A. is now set to release her second studio album, Kala. Amazing talent join forces with her on the new album, including Diplo, Timbaland, DJ Blaqstarr, Three 6 Mafia and producer, Switch.
Customer Review: All Hail M.I.A.!
Attention! M.I.A., one of the most surprising hits of 2005, has released her sophomore album, Kala! And I am pleased to report that she has not been affected by the sophomore slump. This album features more tongue-in-cheek songwriting as well as top-notch production from the likes of Fidget House maestro Switch, and hip-hop powerhouse Timbaland.
Let me start at the beginning. Arular, the debut album from Maya Arul (we affectionately know her as M.I.A.) held some definite hits with Galang, Bucky Done Gun, and Pull Up The People, but it lacked an album cohesion that would have made the entire experience unforgettable. She has found that cohesion with Kala.
From the first song, Bamboo Banger, you can see she’s onto something. While Bamboo Banger doesn’t have the most expansive lyrics ever, what is truly cool about this song is the progressive beat that gets more and more complicated over the duration of the song. This leads quite nicely into Bird Flu, a pounding thumper with what sounds like a group of small children and something that resembles a swan being choked. As strange as that sounds, it works quite well. This is a great track. Next we have the lead single, Boyz, a track produced by Switch. While nowhere near as catchy as Galang, Boyz has its own undeniable charm. You may want to take time off between repeated listens, as I’ve found it starts to grate a little the more you listen to it. Luckily, you have the rest of the album to distract you! Jimmy, the next single off the album, is based on a song from Bollywood’s Disco Dancer. This is probably the tamest song of her career, but it’s great and should not be overlooked.
Other standout tracks include $20, which samples New Order’s Blue Monday, slowed down to a nice hip groove overlayed at first with M.I.A.’s wandering but ethereal voice and then with her lyrics. This song is about the difference of $20 here and $20 where she comes from. A great lyric from this song is I put people on the map that never seen a map. Paper Planes, my personal favorite, is a happy tune with a catchy laid-back r&b beat. Wait, happy What Here is the chorus:
All I wanna do is
BANG BANG BANG BANG
And I
Click Register Sound
And take your money
How pleasant! And absolutely genius. I love this woman.
Summary - This is a DO NOT MISS album, one of the best of 2007, and immensely better than her previous album. This album will go places.
Customer Review: She’s got it
Buy this CD. She’s an original fantastic artist. There’s no false notes and she has a lot to say in between beats. Buy from here…
1st to Die: A Novel
August 25, 2008
Four women–four friends–share a determination to stop a killer who has been stalking newlyweds in San Francisco. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren’t bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women’s Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered–before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong. Full of the breathtaking drama and unforgettable emotions for which James Patterson is famous, 1st to Die is the start of a blazingly fast-paced and sensationally entertaining new series of crime thrillers.
Customer Review: I liked this book, however on thing ruined it for me
I found this book enjoyable enough. It was quick paced and mostly kept me guessing. However, one “clue” was so ludicrous that the entire book was ruined. Without giving anything away, I would just like to tell Mr. Patterson that “boys” can most definitely “get them”.
Customer Review: Disappointing ending
I have read a couple of Patterson’s books in the past,not my favorite author but I have enjoyed the new TV series so I wanted to try one of this series. The premise is good and the hunt for the killer was interesting enough. The characters except for the main character Lindsay were one-dimensional though. I was also somewhat disappointed in the ending. It seemed to have just been tacked on quickly to “get it over with.” I would have preferred more explaination of how and why the crimes were pulled off. Buy from here…
Kylie Minogue - Body Language Live
August 25, 2008
KYLIE “Body Language Live” on DVD includes a special one-off concert where an invited audience of fans and guests witnessed Kylie’s show that combined stunning staging and breathtaking choreography with a selection of songs spanning her career. It features a spectacular Eiffel Tower sequence illustrating an amazing medley of `Je T’Aime’ and `Breath’ Costumes for the show include specially designed outfits by Helmut Lang, Chanel and Pucci.
Customer Review: Kylie Minogue - Body language Live
I really enjoyed this.
Kylie put on a great show.
The highlight for me was Secret (take you home). Brilliant song.
A great buy for any Kylie fan.
Customer Review: The Language is Perfection
Great show. I loved every minute of it. Kylie always has fun and that shows. Buy from here…
Baby 81
August 25, 2008
After the surprisingly spare acoustic diversion of 2005’s acclaimed Howl, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s fourth album returns the San Francisco group to the big guitars and rock swagger of their earlier albums. Baby 81 is a loud affair, and with each track polished to a high shine (the album was self-produced by the band, co-produced by Michael Been, who formerly led the Call), the results are slick and serviceable rock. BRMC are sometimes accused of rehashing courses charted by earlier bands, and here that tendency occasionally works in their favor (”All You Do Is Talk” opens on an airy organ, recalling U2’s majestic “Where the Streets Have No Name”), but also leads inevitably to comparison (much of Baby 81 evokes Oasis or a T-Rex-lite sound). Here’s hoping BRMC won’t shy away from following their noses down some previously unexplored musical paths in the future. –Ben Heege
Customer Review: Love it love it love ittt !!!
I can’t get enough of this album, its incredibly good!!! Honestly, I don’t know much about this genre, usually I listen to pop music but this band is soooo so good that I’m making an exception. Its a must have, ppl go ahead and buy it!!!
Customer Review: Among my top 3 albums of 2007
“Weapon of Choice” wins the “best alternative rock radio hit that never was because RCA didn’t hire anyone for radio promotion” award. I have a wife that, regardless of the mix CDs I have burned and the iPods I have bought her, still spends a few hours each week listening to the local modern rock station. I was beginning to have a little faith, hearing two of the best singles of 2006 get heavy airplay in 2007 (Silversun Pickups “..Twinkles” and PB & J’s “Young Folks). Hell, they were even playing Placebo in heavy rotation. Somehow BRMC received no such love. Alternative radio should not only be an alternative to hip hop, R&B, country, & bad metal. It should also be the alternative ethics behind building a playlist for your listeners. This is what is killing your local FM programming. Those wanting to hear new indie rock tracks on a daily basis with a warm voice to guide them have no choice but to plug into KEXP’s online stream or maybe KRCW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic. You always hear that the majors are not into careers anymore, they are into “hits” - immediate gratification by means of spins and record sales. But there are a few major label bands that have been able to build their audience slowly and effectively, without selling out to commercial radio. Their fans are few, but mighty. They are lifers. Dandy Warhols, Flaming Lips, Placebo, and even Radiohead before they split from EMI. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is the next band to enter this club. They may never have a radio hit or appear on SNL, but hey will be able to tour forever and put out records on a modest budget, making a modest living in both fields. Have you been to their website (http://www.blackrebelmotorcycleclub.com)? They actually have a continuously updated ranking of all their songs as decided by their fans. Fans register on the BRMC website and then are able to post comments for each song, often giving their own interpretation of the lyrics. Bands on top 40 radio and even bands on commercial alternative can’t claim this level of connection with their fans. If BRMC ever gets dropped by RCA, their fans are going with them. And more power to them. They may be one of the only artists that could actually get the new Radiohead model to successfully work for them. Buy from here…
INTERNATIONALE Long Sleeve T-Shirt
August 25, 2008
Pop-art is defined by themes from popular mass culture,advertising,comic books, pop art is a reaction to dominant ideas of abstract expressionism and expansion upon them. Pop art aims to employ images of the popular,the banal or kitschy any given culture. Category: Anarchy Buy from here…
The Saddle Club, Vol. 2: Storm at Pine Hollow
August 22, 2008
Lisa takes a beautiful, but violent, foster horse named Storm to be rehabilitated at Pine Hollow. Storm has been abused and, having not responded to previous training, is scheduled to be put down. Stevie and Carol notice that Drew seems more than preoccupied with Pine Hollow operations, but are even more concerned that Lisa is heading for an emotional fall if efforts to re-train Storm are unsuccessful. When Stevie & Carol are cleaning up Drew’s office they discover the source of his concern: bank loans are due and Pine Hollow is in deep financial straits. With the banker demanding payment, Red decides to sell the surrounding land and riding trails. The Saddle Club girls must help save Pine Hollow and the magnificent horse, Storm.
- Based on a bestselling book series by Bonnie Bryant
- One of the most successful PBS launches ever! Buy from here…
The Poisonwood Bible
August 22, 2008
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband’s part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father’s intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.
Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver’s previous work, and extends this beloved writer’s vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.
Customer Review: A Marvelous Book
This is one of the best novels I have read. Well-written, original and insightful. It is a book about relationships, broken families, and the cultural chasm that separates idealistic Westerners from the reality of the lives they seek to change. I read this book years ago, but there are lines and images that I have never forgotten. A masterpiece. Pity, she is not producing more.
Customer Review: Whose Africa?
One way to review this book is as a political/social statement. It is unambiguous in this sense. It is humanist, pro-environment, anti-White-European-Christian-male and argues for a more socialist state. In short, the author echoes the widely diverse platform taken up by many anti-globalization advocates. I’m not sure I know exactly where I stand on the individual issues the author addresses and I probably come down as often on the liberal side as I do the conservative. But the important point is that these problems are complex and are not a simple matter of good guys fighting bad guys. Everyone in power has to be a “bad guy” to some degree - otherwise they wouldn’t get there. Complex issues call for insight. The problem with the book is that the author offers no new insights into these important matters - just standard rhetoric and opinions. After reading the book, I felt that I would have gained a better understanding of the Congo’s politics and history by reading a good non-fiction book on the subject.
One may also review the book as literary fiction. This is the way I started to read it. I was hopeful that I would gain insight into how it would have been to live in the Congo, day to day, as a foreigner, during the 1960s independence movement. I also liked the idea of experiencing Africa through characters of many different ages. The first half of the book met my expectations. The writing was excellent and captivating. The characters had potential for change, they were funny and the plot was exciting. The father was believable and I looked forward to seeing how the conflict with him would play out. Then, abruptly, the book started to drag. Rachel’s malapropisms became too frequent and started to annoy me. I got tired of reading Adah’s sentences backwards to see what they said. The characters went flat. At one point, Leah’s character completely evaporated and I was listening directly to the author put her spin on the events surrounding the 1960s CIA intervention in the Congo and eventually, to her views on world politics, consumerism, capitalism, localized farming, etc. The plot and characters now seemed like an afterthought. Toward the end of the book, I became disoriented. One of Leah’s children, living in the Congo, had his belly bulging out from malnutrition in one paragraph, and in the next, Leah talked about periodically flying her children back to the US for their booster shots.
By the end, I was being told everything and shown nothing. It seemed I was reading a novel grafted onto a political tract. In spite of the author’s clearly stated, and perhaps well-founded, distaste for Americans’ limited view of the world, I felt like I was being preached to by a conventionally educated white American woman
When I finish a good novel, I get the feeling that I know something new that I can’t put into words myself. That feeling was missing here. For me, this book ended up failing as literary fiction (after a very promising start) and also did not give me any new insights into African culture and politics.
Buy from here…
The Lemonade Club
August 22, 2008
Everyone loves Miss Wichelman?s fifth-grade class?especially best friends Traci and Marilyn. That?s where they learn that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade! They are having a great year until Traci begins to notice some changes in Marilyn. She?s losing weight, and seems tired all the time. She has leukemia?and a tough road of chemotherapy ahead. It is not only Traci and Miss Wichelman who stand up for her, but in a surprising and unexpected turn, the whole fifth-grade class, who figures out a way to say we?re with you.
In true Polacco fashion, this book turns lemons into lemonade and celebrates amazing life itself.
Customer Review: amazing book
This is the first children’s book that ever made me cry. The next night it had my husband tearing up. It is a great story — and even more amazing because it is a true story. My 7 year old is fascinated by it — in part perhaps because of the strong reaction of her parents to it. And, of course, it prompts discussion of friends (adults and children) we know who are fighting cancer.
Customer Review: The Lemonade Club
My daughter and I read this book cover to cover. She and I discussed many of our friends and family members who have had cancer and how this book relates. It was a wonderful story with a great ending. I have recommended this book to many people.
Thanks for giving us a wonderful story to share with our children!! Buy from here…
Material World: A Global Family Portrait
August 22, 2008
We are witnessing the emergence of a unified world economy, as exemplified by NAFTA and GATT, that will, in theory, make goods available at cheaper prices, create new jobs throughout the world, raise standards of living, and benefit the average family. However, population growth and resource exploitation will also affect these potential benefits as patterns of consumption change. In stunning photographs and text, Material World demonstrates the present context for the emerging global economy, what it means to be “statistically average,” by displaying families in more than thirty nations outside their homes - with all their possessions in view.
Among the 350 stunning images are those of a family in lush Samoa juxtaposed with a Kuwaiti family and the two Mercedes-Benzes parked outside their desert home; a family in Iceland posing with their treasured string instruments while a family in Sarajevo huddles outside their bullet-ridden apartment. The text describes what it means to be “average” in each of thirty very dissimilar cultures and the impact of each way of life on the local environment. Statistical information about each country accompanies the photo-essays so that readers can easily compare one culture with another.
Material World is a fascinating portrait of multicultural diversity and a preview of emerging issues raised by the impact of the global economy on the cultural heritage of the human community.
Customer Review: Beautiful book!
This book is a fascinating look at materialism, or the lack of it, around the world. Oddly enough, the American family was not the most obviously materialistic; there was a Saudi family with a 42 foot long couch! I have put this gorgeously photographed book in my classroom for independant reading time for my 9th graders. It is filled with statistics, information about the countries and the families and the stories of the photographers themselves. Also check out The Hungry Planet, a visual look at what people around the world eat, photographed and written by the same authors of Material World.
Customer Review: A beautiful achievement
“Material World,” written during the 1990 U.N. International Year of the Family, is a major achievement and, although it can seem dated in areas, is still timely and relevant for our world today.
Profiling 30 families from across a wide spectrum of the 183 U.N. member states, “Material World” depicts these families’ struggles and triumphs in words, pictures, and statistics. Many of these vignettes are uplifting–the Cuban family holding on to each other as their nation suffers through communism–and many are very saddening–the three Carballo children sleeping in fear of being robbed each night. It is highly useful in perspective building and also a good way to see how others live elsewhere in the world. It is not going to make one “proud to be an American,” but it is also not an “America-bashing” book. “Material World” demonstrates very powerfully the old proverb: ‘It’s not getting what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.’
The Albanian family, with its minute amount of belongings; the Brazilian family, struggling to survive the slums; the Mexican sisters, window shopping before getting the very special treat of an ice cream bar–all exemplify this ideal. The children are in particular very inspiring, rising as they do above the conditions many sadly live in. This is their life, their daily bread–and in a powerful example, they make the most of it.
“Material World” is inspiring, beautiful, and still timely, even over ten years after its publication. Buy from here…
Don Quixote
August 22, 2008
Edith Grossman’s definitive English translation of the Spanish masterpiece. Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. You haven’t experienced Don Quixote in English until you’ve read this masterful translation.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Customer Review: Don Quixote is my Spanish Bible.
“Time ripens all things. No man is born wise.”
Don Quixote is one of my ten favorite novels, and I confess I read it as my Spanish Bible. Miguel de Cervantes’s novel follows a disconnected series adventures of the self-proclaimed “Don Quixote de la Mancha,” a fifty-year-old country gentleman named Alonso Quixano, who has an obsession for reading books. Eventually, because he has lost so much sleep reading books, he deludes himself into believing he is a knight errant. He puts on an old suit of armor, mounts his skinny horse Rocinante, and then sets out with his dull-witted neighbour, Sancho Panza, “for there were evils to undo, wrongs to right, injustices to correct, abuses to ameliorate, and offenses to rectify” (p. 24). Don Quixote’s muse and courtly love interest is Dulcinea del Toboso (a neighbouring peasant girl, Aldonza Lorenzo), who is totally oblivious of Quixote’s feelings for her. She never actually appears in the novel. Soon we find Quixote attacking windmills, believing they are giants. On his Quixotic quest, he repeatedly becomes the butt of outrageously cruel practical jokes, all because of his self-deception. Even his humble squire Sancho is forced to play along with Quixote’s delusions. Although Quixote’s quest for adventure leads him to complete disillusionment, melancholia, and to the renunciation of chivalry, ultimately (as Harold Bloom suggests in his excellent Introduction) Cervantes’ novel may be read as a lesson in Quixotism (note the capital Q), the act of being caught up in idealism or in the romance of noble deeds, and the pursuit of unreachable goals (fighting with the Windmills of one’s own Head).
Dostoyevsky called Don Quixote “the ultimate and most sublime work of human thinking.” There are many translations of Don Quixote (at least twenty in English), the two most recent by John Rutherford and by Edith Grossman. While I am not qualified to say Grossman’s is the definitive edition of Don Quixote, there are several reasons to read her translation. First, she is an award-winning translator respected for her previous translations of Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, and Nobel laureate, Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude;Love in the Time of Cholera). “Fidelity is surely our highest aim,” she has said about the art of translation; “but a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation.” Her translation of Don Quixote has been praised by such writers and as Carlos Fuentes and Harold Bloom, and is quite readable. Second, Grossman’s translation includes an insightful introduction by Bloom, making this a highly-recommended edition, if not a definitive edition of Don Quixote.
G. Merritt
Customer Review: Such a Beautiful Book
This is the book to answer to all books. It is the book that makes all other books question their bookness. It is the essence of book.
No, but really.. I feel like Don Quixote was a real turning point in my life as a reader. It changed me from a person who loved books into a Reader, and by Reader I mean a person who reads as an artform, like a painter paints or a musician plays. Can a person read creatively? Can they actively express themselves through the act of reading? Yes. Buy from here…
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