The exhibition presented at the Musée de l'Abbaye / Guy Bardone - René Genis Donations in Saint-Claude, and then at the Musée d'Art Roger-Quilliot in Clermont-Ferrand, includes more than eighty works (paintings and drawings) brought together in the first study on the theme of landscape in the work of Édouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel. In the 1890s, the two artists were first of all looking to renew the genre of landscape painting by subjecting it to the rather radical experimentations of the Nabis aesthetic. Ten years later however, they turned towards Post-Impressionism and in the 1920s and 1930s their aim was to go back to the tradition of French classicism, a "return to order" that combined the legacy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with Puvis de Chavannes's great decorative works. Three essays shed some light on the rather singular relationship between the two artists, their specific use of pastels as well as the artistic context of the 1890s and the first decades of the twentieth century. Then comes a catalogue of all of the works presented in the two venues, paralleling the exhibition visit, with a number of commentated entries.

As old as a roadway that was once a Native trail, as new as the suburban subdivisions spreading across the American countryside, the cultural landscape is endlessly changing. The study of cultural landscapes—a far more recent development—has also undergone great changes, ever broadening, deepening, and refining our understanding of the intricate webs of social and ecological spaces that help to define human groups and their activities. Everyday America surveys the widening conceptions and applications of cultural landscape writing in the United States and, in doing so, offers a clear and compelling view of the state of cultural landscape studies today. These essays—by distinguished journalists, historians, cultural geographers, architects, landscape architects, and planners—constitute a critical evaluation of the field’s theoretical assumptions, and of the work of John Brinckerhoff Jackson, the pivotal figure in the emergence of cultural landscape studies. At the same time, they present exemplary studies of twentieth-century landscapes, from the turn-of-the-century American downtown to the corporate campus and the mini-mall. Assessing the field’s accomplishments and shortcomings, offering insights into teaching the subject, and charting new directions for its future development, Everyday America is an eloquent statement of the meaning, value, and potential of the close study of human environments as they embody, reflect, and reveal American culture.

Neel, a young dynamic charmer, lives a life designed by the hands of luck. When he recruits a talented young designer, she walks not just into his office, but also into his heart. His own committed status and her disinterest in him rocks his life and sways his sanity. To top it all, life curates customized twists for each one of them along the path. Ruled by passion, dedication, manipulation and hatred, will their fates sink them in their own emotional tsunamis?

"I'm not here to change your mind about Dusty Springfield or Shostakovich or Tupac Shakur or synthpop. I'm here to change your mind about your mind." There are countless books on music with much analysis given to musicians, bands, eras and/or genres. But rarely does a book delve into what's going on inside us when we listen. Michel Faber explores two big questions: how do we listen to music and why do we listen to music? To answer these questions, he considers a range of factors, which includes age, illness, the notion of "cool," commerce, the dichotomy between "good" and "bad" taste and much more. From the award-winning author of The Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin, this idiosyncratic and philosophical book reflects Michel Faber's lifelong obsession with music of all kinds. Listen will change your relationship with the heard world.

'Hollywood' as a concept applies variously to a particular film style, a factory-based mode of film production, a cartel of powerful media institutions and a national (and increasingly global) 'way of seeing'. It is a complex social, cultural and industrial phenomenon and is arguably the single most important site of cultural production over the past century.This collection brings together journal articles, published essays, book chapters and excerpts which explore Hollywood as a social, economic, industrial, aesthetic and political force, and as a complex historical entity.

Wayne Slingluff is a retired software engineer who has lived on Long Island NY for over 40 years. His wife Joan has put up with him even longer. He comments on memories of a computer career, art, family, and life in general _ not so long ago, but gone forever. As great events roiled the world from 1990 to 2010, normal busy lives continued. He writes of theirs fondly, chaotically, nostalgically, and with a patina of current philosophic comments. None involve famous events or people. He claims “Perhaps this is a little like Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy. I too will be executed (by fate) sometime in the not so distant future. Meanwhile, writing can be good for mind and soul. Work without stress.” There is advice, but no get rich quick schemes. No cosmic revelations. “We made our way and fulfilled modest ambitions. We were and continue to be happy, appreciative, and thankful for all those recent times gone by.” The theme is that one need not conquer the world nor win battles against great odds to have a satisfying personal, professional, and family existence.

“Gajda’s chronicle reveals an enduring tension between principles of free speech and respect for individuals’ private lives. …just the sort of road map we could use right now.”—The Atlantic “Wry and fascinating…Gajda is a nimble storyteller [and] an insightful guide to a rich and textured history that gets easily caricatured, especially when a culture war is raging.”—The New York Times An urgent book for today's privacy wars, and essential reading on how the courts have--for centuries--often protected privileged men's rights at the cost of everyone else's. Should everyone have privacy in their personal lives? Can privacy exist in a public place? Is there a right to be left alone even in the United States? You may be startled to realize that the original framers were sensitive to the importance of privacy interests relating to sexuality and intimate life, but mostly just for powerful and privileged (and usually white) men. The battle between an individual’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know has been fought for centuries. The founders demanded privacy for all the wrong press-quashing reasons. Supreme Court jus­tice Louis Brandeis famously promoted First Amend­ment freedoms but argued strongly for privacy too; and presidents from Thomas Jefferson through Don­ald Trump confidently hid behind privacy despite intense public interest in their lives. Today privacy seems simultaneously under siege and surging. And that’s doubly dangerous, as legal expert Amy Gajda argues. Too little privacy leaves ordinary people vulnerable to those who deal in and publish soul-crushing secrets. Too much means the famous and infamous can cloak themselves in secrecy and dodge accountability. Seek and Hide carries us from the very start, when privacy concepts first entered American law and society, to now, when the law al­lows a Silicon Valley titan to destroy a media site like Gawker out of spite. Muckraker Upton Sinclair, like Nellie Bly before him, pushed the envelope of privacy and propriety and then became a privacy advocate when journalists used the same techniques against him. By the early 2000s we were on our way to today’s full-blown crisis in the digital age, worrying that smartphones, webcams, basement publishers, and the forever internet had erased the right to privacy completely.