Shapinsky's Karma, Boggs's Bills, and other True-Life Tales
San Francisco: North Point Press, 1988. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. ix, [1], 260, [2] pages. DJ is price clipped. Small stamp on bottom edge. Includes Author's Preface, Shapinsky's Karma; Art's Father, Vladek's Son; Jensen's Shangri-la; Lennie's Illusion; Slonimsky's Failure; and Bogg's Bills, as well as Preface. The opening essay, "Shapinsky's Karma," tells the story of Akumal Ramachander, an English teacher from Bengalore, India,who, on his first trip to America, stumbles upon the work of a completely unknown, utterly reclusive, virtually destitute sixty year-old abstract painter named Harold Shapinsky. Ramachander decides it is his karma--his destiny in live--to bring this unlikely subject to fame and worldly success--and, surmounting all obstacles, he proceeds to de exactly that. Like the other essays in the collection, this true-life version of a contemporary art-world fairy tale is what Mr. Weschler calls a "passion piece"--these are stories of people merely going about their everyday business and ending up somewhere entirely different from where they thought they were headed. These stories are marked not only by the rare enthusiasms of their subjects but equally by the energy, empathy, intelligence, wit, and insight that Mr. Weschler brings to them. These are stories of people merely going about their everyday lives, when suddenly they seem to catch fire, becoming utterly obsessed, and ending up somewhere entirely different from where they though they were headed. These fascinating stories are marked not only by the rare enthusiasms of their subjects, but equally by the energy, empathy, intelligence, wit, and insight that Mr. Weschler brings to them. Lawrence Weschler (born 1952) is an author of works of creative nonfiction. A graduate of Cowell College of the University of California, Santa Cruz (1974), Weschler was for over twenty years (1981–2002) a staff writer at The New Yorker, where his work shuttled between political tragedies and cultural comedies. He is a two-time winner of the George Polk Awards—for Cultural Reporting in 1988 and Magazine Reporting in 1992—and was also a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award (1998). His books of political reportage include The Passion of Poland (1984); A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers (1990); and Calamities of Exile: Three Nonfiction Novellas (1998). Weschler has taught, variously, at Princeton, Columbia, UCSC, Bard, Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, and NYU, where he is now distinguished writer in residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He recently graduated to director emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, where he has been a fellow since 1991 and was director from 2001–2013, and from which base he had tried to start his own semiannual journal of writing and visual culture, Omnivore. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Akumal Ramschander, Harold Shapinsky, Nicolas Slonimsky, Russian Revolution, Conductor, Lexicographer, Leonard Durso, Counterfeiting, Knud Jensen, Museum, Bankruptcy, Cartoonist
ISBN: 086547317X
[Book #82736]
Price: $45.00