The Graffiti Genius is a bittersweet romantic tale of what inspires a person. It is also a mystery mingled with suspense. Its setting of abandoned warehouses is as much a part of the story as its three main characters: a young woman unaware of her power as a muse, a gifted, young, Hispanic artist who portrays her, and an art conservator more used to salvaging multi-million dollar masterpieces than graffiti in a setting filled with waist-high weeds, drug deals, and homicides. The youthful artist finds his inspiration in the shy but irresistible model, and the art conservator finds her inspiration in discovering their identity while she neglects her restoration of a masterpiece. The artist also wrestles bitterly with his fathers murder as an innocent victim in a South American drug war, his familys journey to America where they struggle to survive, and his desire to join his brother, who has stayed to fight against the drug lords in his native land. As for the art conservator, she finds her toughness tested by the artists lack of loyalty to his talent and the looming demolition of the warehouses that will pulverize his paintings. Desperation makes her more ingenious in her quest to spare his finest works. In such a deadly setting, though, her efforts turn into a race to save the muse, the artist, and his art from violent forces threatening to put an end to all of them.

In 1973, the music scene was forever changed by the emergence of hip-hop. Masterfully blending the rhythmic grooves of funk and soul with layered beats and chanted rhymes, artists such as DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash paved the way for an entire new genre and generation of musicians. In this comprehensive, accessible guide, Paul Edwards breaks down the difference between old school and new school, recaps the biggest influencers of the genre, and sets straight the myths and misconceptions of the artists and their music. Fans old and new alike will all learn something new about the history and development of hip-hop, from its inception up through the current day, in The Concise Guide to Hip-Hop Music.

Metaphysical Graffiti explores the philosophical themes prevalent in the music of the classic rock era. Each chapter is a detailed study of a classic rock performer or ensemble, applying insights from philosophers ancient and modern. It will appeal to an audience that was inspired by the music of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In the words of the author, “Philosophy is in this music and it is of this music and for this music.” The author is an accomplished professor of philosophy and also an accomplished musician, who plays in the folk rock group, Bone Dry River Band. Among the chapters included in this book “Frenzy” applies Plato and mystery religion to the Rolling Stones, “An Everlasting Kiss: The Seduction of Wendy” applies Vico to Bruce Springsteen, “Warm Impermanence” applies Danto and Andy Warhol to David Bowie, “Magic Pages and Mythic Plants” applies Cassirer to Led Zeppelin, “A Touch of Grey: Gratefully Dead?” applies Kant and Whitehead to the Grateful Dead, “Yesterday’s Tom Sawyers” applies Suzanne Langer to Rush, and “Dead Reckoning and Tacking the Winds of Fortune and Fate” applies Machiavelli to Jimmy Buffett.

Crystallizing Chaos is a wryly comic tale of balancing academia with action and replacing footnotes with a sense of fun. A high-brow college student, Daniel Coventry, hopes to be a writer. He encounters the forgotten but immensely gifted pulp novelist Stephen Chidley, who wrote action-oriented novels by the dozens in a month apiece while living his adventures. He is also inspired by the novelists granddaughter Dora, who resides in Stephens home near Daniels dorm. Through Daniel, they become entangled with his best professor, Cynthia Schuler, an outspoken feminist and scholar. Cynthia also wrangles with her chauvinist, unfaithful husband and has fallen for her favorite student after many rounds of lovemaking in her office. Each of them confronts the fear of failure. Daniel is afraid of flunking if he cant complete a novel for his graduation. Stephen is afraid thathe abused his fabulous storytelling talents as a pulp writer who came close to greatness only in a single memorable novel. Dora is afraid of any loss of independence. Cynthia is afraid of failing Daniel and of losing him to Dora. Step by comic misstep, they confront their differences and the chasm that divides the ivory tower from popular culture. With a month remaining, they decide that only one solution will enable Daniel to begin his book and race to finish it in time forgraduation: Let him crystallize the chaos of their year-long battle in a way that blends the best of academia and action!

On the tenth anniversary of its publication, this updated edition of a work ARTNews hailed as “one of the best books ever published on the art world” features new material on the latest art deals, reflections on race and culture, the impact of the pandemic on the art world, and more. Internationally renowned dealer and market expert Michael Findlay offers a lively and authoritative look at the financial and emotional value of art throughout history. In this newly revised, updated, and generously illustrated edition Findlay draws on a half-century in the business and a passion for great art to question and redefine what we mean by “value,” addressing developments in this conversation since the book was first published in 2012: the rise of NFTs and digital art; the auction house as theatre; the pressing relationship between art and society’s fraught political landscape; and the impact of the pandemic. With style and wry wit, Findlay demystifies how art is bought and sold while also constantly looking beyond sales figures to emphasize the primacy of art’s essential, noncommercial worth. Coloring his account with wise advice, insider anecdotes involving scoundrels and scams, stories of celebrity collectors, and remarkable discoveries, Findlay has distilled a lifetime’s experience in this indispensable guide, now updated for today’s sophisticated and discerning audience.

A behind-the-scenes tour of the inner sanctum of one of the world’s most prominent scientific thinkers. In 2021, The Science Museum made a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition of the contents of Stephen Hawking’s office. This book delves into that remarkable collection, using the seminal papers, items, and curiosities in his office to explain his theories and reveal more about one of the greatest minds in modern science. It’s an unprecedented glimpse into the life of the best-known scientist of modern times. Artifacts include: A Simpsons bomber jacket gifted to him following his appearance on the show A copy of Hawking’s PhD thesis: Properties of an Expanding Universe Singularities and the Geometry of Space, written at the beginning of his vital collaboration with Roger Penrose His blackboard, where he debated ideas and doodled with his contemporaries Scientific bets made with colleagues to prove (and sometimes disprove) his theories His Permobil F3 wheelchair and communications systems Hawking’s Franklin medal and his CBE "In this unique book, Roger Highfield's clear expositions of Stephen Hawking's ideas are supplemented by fascinating illustrations that convey how he lived and worked. It's a beautifully-presented celebration of Stephen's amazing life – how his insights and discoveries were achieved against heavy odds." - Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow and Astronomer Royal

Learner Choice, Learner Voice offers fresh, forward-thinking supports for teachers creating an empowered, student-centered classroom. Learner agency is a major topic in today’s schools, but what does it mean in practice, and how do these practices give students skills and opportunities they will need to thrive as citizens, parents, and workers in our ever-shifting climate? Showcasing authentic activities and classrooms, this book is full of diverse instructional experiences that will motivate your students to take an agile, adaptable role in their own learning. This wealth of pedagogical ideas – from specific to open-ended, low-tech to digital, self-expressive to collaborative, creative to critical – will help you discover the transformative effects of providing students with ownership, agency, and choice in their learning journeys.

In his brief career Jimi Hendrix transformed rock music, established himself as the greatest guitarist of all time, and left a rich legacy of original songs and dazzling recordings. In Jimi Hendrix and Philosophy, philosophers come to terms with the experience and the phenomenon of Hendrix, uncovering some surprising implications of Hendrix’s life and work. Much of this book is concerned with the restless polarities and dualities that reveal themselves through Hendrix. His compositions display a preoccupation with the tragic nature of life, moving between the polarities of Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea and and Platonic philosophy. Jimi’s “guitar-being” has surprising implications for the philosophical relation between mind and body. There is in Hendrix a duality between innovation and tradition—innovation in psychedelic sonic adventures and tradition in the form of the blues. Hendrix exemplifies the interaction of technology and art, as seen in his use of feedback, varieties of noise, and backwards reel-to-reel playing. How much of the Hendrix phenomenon can be explained by the technological situation and how much by his own unique genius? Everyone knows about Hendrix’s use of feedback in the narrow sense, but feedback can also be viewed as a general phenomenon that arises in complex dynamical systems and emerges at the border of chaos and order. Although critics associate Hendrix’s lifestyle and early death with self-destructive patterns of the Sixties, his actual thoughts as revealed in his songs and writings show a more positive and constructive concern with authentic freedom. What did Hendrix mean when he spoke of “the realities” of conflict conveyed in “Machine Gun”? What is a “Voodoo Chile”? When does noise become music? These and other questions are addressed in Jimi Hendrix and Philosophy. Hendrix’s undying popularity following his death in 1970 has led to the release over the years of a large body of material which Hendrix would never have chosen to make public, raising serious questions about what we owe to the dead and how we view the construction of the artist’s public persona.

This book argues that Hip Hop’s early history in the South Bronx charts a course remarkably similar to the conceptual history of artistic creation presented in Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics. It contends that the resonances between Hegel’s account of the trajectory of art in general, and the historical shifts in the particular culture of Hip Hop, are both numerous and substantial enough to make us re-think not only the nature and import of Hegel’s philosophy of art, but the origin, essence and lesson of Hip Hop. As a result, the book articulates and defends a unique reading of Hegel’s Aesthetics, as well as providing a philosophical explanation of the Hip Hop community’s transition from total social abandonment to some limited form of social inclusion, via the specific mediation of an artistic culture grounded in novel forms of sensible expression. Thus, the fundamental thesis of this book is that Hegel and Hip Hop are mutually illuminating, and when considered in tandem each helps to clarify and reinforce the validity and power of the other.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.