Ever since he was an infant, Pigeon Jones has lived on the back of an artistically gifted white elephant named Birch. Birch is a loving father, but that doesn't stop Pigeon from wondering about the human parents who abandoned him. Birch has dreams, too—of being a well-known artist, and of finding the acrobat he fell in love with while they performed together in a circus years ago. And so, on Pigeon's tenth birthday, their search for fame and lost loves begins. Pigeon and Birch paint their way across the world, dodging an evil circus ringleader, freeing zoo animals, and befriending singing hoboes along the way. But when they reach the end of their journey, Birch must master the most difficult art of all: letting go and allowing his beloved Pigeon to stand on his own two feet.

A CD-ROM and DVD set extracted from the 'The Art of Africa: A Resource for Educators.' The CD-ROM "contains a PDF of 'The Art of Africa: A Resource for Educators, ' which features forty traditional works of African art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It includes a brief overview of the Metropolitan's collection of African art; a short introduction and history of Africa; an explanation of the role of visual expression in the continent; descriptions of the featured works of art and background about the materials and techniques that were used to created them ... The DVD, 'Ci Wara Invocation, ' "presents the highlights of a dozen ci wara performances in Bamana communities in present-day Mali that were recorded by five different observers between 1970-2002. Among the Bamana, oral traditions credit a mythical being named Ci Wara, a divine being half mortal and half antelope, with the introduction of agriculture to the Bamana. The ci wara performances are part of biannual celebrations that either launch or conclude the farming season."--Container

Leaving their motherland behind, a professor, his ex-wife, and her lover seek a place and voice in America, where they discover that the shackles of their native totalitarian and nationalist ideologies are impossible to break.

Manny Farber (1917–2008) was a unique figure among American movie critics. Champion of what he called "termite art" (focused, often eccentric virtuosity as opposed to "white elephant" monumentality), master of a one-of-a-kind prose style whose jazz-like phrasing and incandescent twists and turns made every review an adventure, he has long been revered by his peers. Susan Sontag called him "the liveliest, smartest, most original film critic this country ever produced"; for Peter Bogdanovich, he was "razor-sharp in his perceptions" and "never less than brilliant as a writer." Farber was an early discoverer of many filmmakers later acclaimed as American masters: Val Lewton, Preston Sturges, Samuel Fuller, Raoul Walsh, Anthony Mann. A prodigiously gifted painter himself, he brought to his writing an artist's eye for what was on the screen. Alert to any filmmaker, no matter how marginal or unsung, who was "doing go-for-broke art and not caring what comes of it," he was uncompromising in his contempt for pretension and trendiness, for, as he put it, directors who "pin the viewer to the wall and slug him with wet towels of artiness and significance." The excitement of his criticism, however, has less to do with his particular likes and dislikes than with the quality of attention he paid to each film as it unfolds, to the "chains of rapport and intimate knowledge" in its moment-to-moment reality. To transcribe that knowledge he created a prose that, in Robert Polito's words, allows for "oddities, muddles, crises, contradictions, dead ends, multiple alternatives, and divergent vistas." The result is critical essays that are themselves works of art. Farber on Film brings together this extraordinary body of work in its entirety for the first time, from his early and previously uncollected weekly reviews for The New Republic and The Nation to his brilliant later essays (some written in collaboration with his wife Patricia Patterson) on Godard, Fassbinder, Herzog, Scorsese, Altman, and others. Featuring an introduction by editor Robert Polito that examines in detail the stages of Farber's career and his enduring significance as writer and thinker, Farber on Film is a landmark volume that will be a classic in American criticism. From the Trade Paperback edition.

"A collection of 200 of Bob White's best paintings and drawings-of fly fishing, upland and waterfowl hunting, gamefish, birds, and dogs, and landscapes from Alaska to Patagonia. Text and sidebars provide background and highlight the artist's process"--

A message in a bottle holds the promise of surprise and wonder, as told in this enthralling picture book by Caldecott Medalist Erin E. Stead The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles, who lives alone atop a hill, has a job of the utmost importance. It is his task to open any bottles found at sea and make sure that the messages are delivered. He loves his job, though he has always wished that, someday, one of the letters would be addressed to him. One day he opens a party invitation—but there’s no name attached. As he devotes himself to the mystery of the intended recipient, he ends up finding something even more special: the possibility of new friends.

Using nearly two hundred color pictures, this guidebook illustrates the charm and adventure of traveling to Thailand and Laos. The guide is aimed at the cost conscious, but not the cost adverse. "A Traveler on a Rope" is neither traveling on a shoestring, nor toting, or having another tote, Hermes luggage. Cost is an object but so is comfort. She recognizes the danger of a luxury cocoon as well as the tedium of a shared bathroom. The guide offers unvarnished recommendations on food, lodging and sights. With this guide you may stay in the same suite enjoyed by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for under eighty dollars a night. Equally important, tips are shared to assist each traveler to plan, and memorialize, his perfect Southeast Asian trip.

With pictures and prose, 'Bangkok and Chiang Mai on a Rope' guides you through the two largest, and most visited cities in Thailand. Well-traveled author Larry Stein outlines the planning process that he follows, and documents the details of the trip itself—including specifics about lodging, costs, shopping, dining, and transportation. Stein explains how to do all of this affordably ('on a rope,' not a shoestring) while still enjoying comfortable accommodations, good food, and realistic travel options between destinations.

Fishing for elephants explains the creative processes of art and life with a conversational, humorous, and informative voice. While it is geared towards artists, it is not a how to paint something to look like something book. It's a how to think for yourself, move forward, get out of your comfort zone, get out of your own way, define your voice, refine your voice, focus on those characteristics of creating that are authentic to you and try new directions kind of book for all levels. Designed to help you discover new artistic directions and open the neural pathways to creative problem-solving, Fishing for elephants is presented in two halves. The first contains everything you need to know about the process of creativity; what keeps you from it, what it is, how to use it and how to get unstuck. It's flipping all your light switches on kind of stuff. The truth is anyone can be more creative with just a few easy steps. The second half, VoiceFinding, is the first half put into action for artists who want to get to their core authentic self, or just want to push out a little. There are more than 150 examples and unconventional exercises designed to break this process into bite-sized chunks so your genius skill-set will expand exponentially. It's year-long class in a workbook format, with areas to answer creative challenges, set goals, write artist's statements, sketch out ideas, apply processes like free association, mind maps, reportage, mixed-media, and continuous line drawing in new and thought-challenging ways. Written by nationally recognized, award-winning artist and creative coach, Larry Moore.