This book is about the struggles of Italian immigrants in Hartford, Connecticut back in the 1930's and growing up as the son of Italian immigrants. It's about coping with poverty and a hostile environment and surviving. It's about family love, parenting and instilling sound principles in our young. It's about self-reliance and self-esteem, establishing worthy goals and working hard and applying raw determination to attain those goals. It's about the importance of education and the need to become directly involved in local government and community affairs. It's about laughing, learning and improvising. It's about community theatre, about searching for and developing hidden talents, about devoting untold quantities of energy and applying imagination and fantasy to the creation of theatrical illusions and imagery. It's about the immense satisfaction one can derive from striving to become proficient as an actor, director and producer of live theatre. And, finally, it's about magically transforming the flaccid and inert written word into vital third dimensional action and, from the empathy thereby produced, experiencing the exhilarating power and gratification returned by an appreciative audience.

A Scandinavian furniture designer offers insight into his thinking about sitting and explains the philosophy that informs his pioneering chairs. For millions of years humans have led physically active lives. In recent centuries, however, industrialization has fostered passivity and the growing predominance of the sitting posture for more and more people. Increasingly, chairs and furniture for sitting have become standard pieces of equipment in the workplace, institutions, and private homes. These sitting devices were designed according to the established standard of the chair, based on the accepted western manner of sitting. In Rethinking Sitting, Scandinavian industrial designer Peter Opsvik addresses the issue of whether this is the only, and functionally best, design for the human body. When the various authorities on ergonomics promote their one and only “correct” sitting posture, he says all of them are right: Every recommended sitting posture is good. Opsvik sees it as his task to design chairs that allow as many different sitting postures as possible and make it easy to move and change frequently between positions. In this beautifully illustrated reference Opsvik offers insight into his thinking on the subject of sitting and explains the philosophy that informs his furniture designs. Rethinking Sitting contains important information for everyone who is interested, for professional, educational, or personal reasons, in sitting solutions.

Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere? In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished architect and writer Witold Rybczynski chronicles the history of the chair from the folding stools of pharaonic Egypt to the ubiquitous stackable monobloc chairs of today. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He reveals the history of chairs to be a social history--of different ways of sitting, of changing manners and attitudes, and of varying tastes. The history of chairs is the history of who we are. We learn how the ancient Chinese switched from sitting on the floor to sitting in a chair, and how the iconic chair of Middle America--the Barcalounger--traces its roots back to the Bauhaus. Rybczynski weaves a rich tapestry that draws on art and design history, personal experience, and historical accounts. And he pairs these stories with his own delightful hand-drawn illustrations: colonial rockers and English cabrioles, languorous chaise longues, and no-nonsense ergonomic task chairs--they're all here. The famous Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner once remarked, "A chair is only finished when someone sits in it." As Rybczynski tells it, the way we choose to sit and what we choose to sit on speak volumes about our values, our tastes, and the things we hold dear.

The first monograph on the work of the designer of the iconic 40/4 chair The American industrial designer and inventor David Rowland is best known for his signature 40/4 chair. Released in 1964, it is so named because it is possible to stack forty chairs in just four feet - an unprecedented achievement that established an entirely new category of versatile seating. Rowland's wife Erwin and writer Laura Schenone reveal the inspiring story of how he brought his ground-breaking design to market. Initially, it was rejected by all the major furniture brands, including Herman Miller and Knoll, but Rowland persevered, and ultimately, the 40/4 chair became one of the most successful chairs ever produced, winning numerous accolades and selling over 8 million by the early 21st century. Today it is found in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, and gracing public and private spaces of every type - from cathedrals to cultural centres, corporate and municipal buildings, to places of worship, schools, healthcare, hospitality and homes. This fascinating biography of David Rowland and his 40/4 chair, featuring more than 250 photographs and documents (many never seen before), tells the compelling story of his design practice and a singular chair, whose design, through the determination of its designer, became the commercially successful and influential classic that it is. The first monograph on American designer, David Rowland: 40/4 Chair, is published to mark the 60th anniversary of this timeless design and includes the wide range of Rowland's work before and after the development of his masterpiece. David Rowland was a pioneering Mid-Century designer. Born in 1924 in Hollywood, California, he studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. His elegant, perfectly engineered 40/4 chair is one of the most significant and masterful designs of the 20th century.

Expand your practice and attract new clients with chair massage! A practical, visual guide to this rapidly growing field, Chair Massage helps you develop a basic routine and adapt to different clients and situations. Expert authors Patricia M. Holland, MC, LMT, and Sandra K. Anderson, BA, LMT, NCTMB, provide coverage of massage techniques, chair adjustment, body mechanics, and applying pressure, plus specific routines for the lower back, shoulders, neck/head, and arm/hand regions -- with full-color photographs clearly demonstrating each technique. A chapter on the business aspects of seated massage helps you market and manage your practice successfully. - Full-color photographs and drawings clearly depict each technique. - An Essentials of Practice chapter helps you translate your knowledge into revenue by addressing crucial topics such as determining target markets, job-related conditions, marketing methods, introductory letters, setting fees, drawing up contracts, and getting paid, and includes practical advice from practitioners who offer chair massage. - Unique! Coverage of low back techniques includes specific techniques for treating low back pain, its causes, when to perform massage, and when it is contraindicated. - Unique! A chapter on additional techniques and adaptations covers body regions such as the iliotibial band, gastrocnemius, pectorals, anterior neck muscles, and serratus anterior, plus situations such as clients in wheelchairs. - Unique! A segment on closing the session describes positive ways to finalize a chair massage session, including use of percussion as a finishing technique, closing stretches, a post-treatment discussion, and helping the client off the chair. - A Communications and Ethics chapter addresses important topics such as the ethical presentation of self, boundaries, communicating with clients about feedback, pre- and post-treatment interviews, and intake forms. - A review of anatomy and kinesiology covers the specific information that you need to know in order make treatment decisions and perform routines. - Coverage of traditional Chinese medicine points and channels gives you more techniques to use during chair massage practice. - Sample dialogues provide examples of effective communication with clients during their sessions.

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.

Examining the work of three authors: Richardson, Haywood and Burney, and their representation of domestic space, this book argues that to make such spaces accessible to modern readers they need to have information of the real domestic. By recreating specifics of these spaces this book innervates the fictional domestic interior for modern readers.