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Picture of a musician: Bauhaus
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Bauhaus

Bauhaus are an English rock band, formed in Northampton, England, in 1978. The group consists of Daniel Ash (guitar, saxophone), Peter Murphy (vocals, occasional instruments), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass). The band were originally named Bauhaus 1919 in reference to the first operating year of the German art school Bauhaus, although they shortened the name within a year of formation. One of the pioneers of gothic rock, Bauhaus were known for their dark image and gloomy sound, although they mixed many genres, including dub, glam rock, psychedelia, and funk.

Their 1979 debut single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is considered one of the harbingers of gothic rock music and has been influential on contemporary goth culture. Their debut album, In the Flat Field, is regarded as one of the first gothic rock records. Their 1981 second album Mask expanded their sound by incorporating a wider variety of instruments—such as keyboards, saxophone and acoustic guitar—and experimenting with funk-inspired rhythms on tracks like "Kick in the Eye". Bauhaus went on to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom with their third album, The Sky's Gone Out, which peaked at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart in 1982. That same year, they also reached No. 15 on the Singles Chart with a standalone cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", earning them an appearance on Top of the Pops. During recording sessions for their next album, Murphy fell ill and spent much of his time away from the studio, leaving the rest of the band to compensate for his absence. This created a rift between the singer and his bandmates, culminating in the group's dissolution on 5 July 1983, one week before Burning from the Inside was released. Featuring the hit single "She's in Parties", it would be their final studio album composed entirely of new material for a quarter century.

Picture of a musician: David Bowie
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David Bowie

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( BOH-ee), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft had a significant impact on popular music.

Bowie developed an interest in music from an early age. He studied art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity", released in 1969, was his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of Bowie's single "Starman" and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK fans but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. In 1977, he again changed direction with the electronic-inflected album Low, the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy". "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

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Picture of a book: Anansi Boys
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Anansi Boys
Neil Gaiman
I laughed out loud. While reading. In a Japanese rice bowl joint. Okay, so maybe it was more of a chortle, but it was definitely out loud. And more than just the once. Patrons quietly minding their own business while slogging through their Number Three Specials With Extra Tokyo Beef would be startled into wakefulness to see me - chopsticks in one hand, book in the other - as my grizzled maw broke forth with guffaws and irrepressible smiles.Really, Anansi Boys may be the first thing I've read from Neil Gaiman that I liked. I never got into Sandman (though I'm told I should have persevered). I never finished American Gods (though I'm told I should have persevered). I never finished 1602 (despite guessing that I should have persevered).Still, not only did I like it but I loved it. Enough that I gave my copy to someone else to read and purchased a second copy for another friend. And I'm certain they'll want to do similar things with the book.Anansi Boys is at all times funny, adventurous, and charming. And several other over-used adjectives. In fact, Anansi Boys may be the prototype from which overused adjectives should have come - before they were overused. I'm not sure that Anansi Boys is great literature and I'm not sure that it isn't. What I am certain of beyond any shadow of doubtfulness is that Anansi Boys may be the most fun I have ever had reading a novel.There may be others that I enjoyed more but my experience of this book was such that it pushed (if even momentarily) all other books from my mind. Someone on the back suggests that the book will make you love and be grateful for spiders. Critics and the things they say, huh? Well, I don't love spiders, but dang was this book good.The end.p.s. Anyone thinking of reading Blue like Jazz or Against Christianity or something by Karl Barth should definitely read this first. 'Cuz I mean what if you died after finishing the next book on your queue? It would be an all time tragedy to have wasted hours reading Donald Miller when there is something like Anansi Boys out there. Plus, it's just as spiritual.
Picture of a book: Life of Pi
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Life of Pi
Yann Martel
It is not so much that The Life of Pi, is particularly moving (although it is). It isn’t even so much that it is written with language that is both delicate and sturdy all at once (which it is, as well). And it’s certainly not that Yann Martel’s vision filled passages are so precise that you begin to feel the salt water on your skin (even though they are). It is that, like Bohjalian and Byatt and all of the great Houdini’s of the literary world, in the last few moments of your journey – after you’ve felt the emotions, endured the moments of heartache, yearned for the resolution of the characters’ struggle – that you realize the book is not what you thought it was. The story transforms, instantly, and forever.And in those last few chapters, you suddenly realize that the moral has changed as well.You feel Martel’s words lingering, suggesting, and you find yourself wondering whether you are his atheist who takes the deathbed leap of faith – hoping for white light and love? Or the agnostic who , in trying to stay true to his reasonable self, explains the mysteries of life and death in only scientific terms, lacking imagination to the end, and, essentially, missing the better story?There is no use in trying to provide a brief synopsis for this ravishing tale of a young boy from India left adrift in the Pacific in a lifeboat with a tiger who used to reside in his father’s zoo in Pondicherry. There is no use because once you finish the book you might decide that this was not, indeed, what the book was about at all. There is no use because, depending on your philosophical bent, the book will mean something very different to your best friend than it will to you. There is no use because it is nearly impossible to describe what makes this book so grand.Read this book. Not because it is an exceptional piece of literary talent. It is, of course. But there are many good authors and many good books. While uncommon, they are not endangered. Read this book because in recent memory - aside from Jose Saramago’s arresting Blindness – there have been no stories which make such grand statements with such few elements. As Pi says in his story “Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.” It is the same with Martel’s undulating fable of a book about a boy in a boat with a tiger. A simple story with potentially life altering consequences for it’s readers. As Martel writes, "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?" Like Schroedinger's cat in the box, the way this book is understood, the way it is perceived affects what it is. There has been some talk that this book will make it’s readers believe in god. I think it’s a question of perspective. To behold this gem of a novel as an adventure of man against the elements (the “dry, yeastless factuality” of what actually happened) is certainly one way to go about it. But to understand this piece to be something indescribable, something godlike, is by far the greater leap of faith.Oh, but worth the leap, if the reader is like that atheist, willing to see the better story.
Picture of a book: The Pillars of the Earth
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The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett
Ken Follett is known worldwide as the master of split-second suspense, but his most beloved and bestselling book tells the magnificent tale of a twelfth-century monk driven to do the seemingly impossible: build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known.Everything readers expect from Follett is here: intrigue, fast-paced action, and passionate romance. But what makes The Pillars of the Earth extraordinary is the time the twelfth century; the place feudal England; and the subject the building of a glorious cathedral. Follett has re-created the crude, flamboyant England of the Middle Ages in every detail. The vast forests, the walled towns, the castles, and the monasteries become a familiar landscape. Against this richly imagined and intricately interwoven backdrop, filled with the ravages of war and the rhythms of daily life, the master storyteller draws the reader irresistibly into the intertwined lives of his characters into their dreams, their labors, and their loves: Tom, the master builder; Aliena, the ravishingly beautiful noblewoman; Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge; Jack, the artist in stone; and Ellen, the woman of the forest who casts a terrifying curse. From humble stonemason to imperious monarch, each character is brought vividly to life.The building of the cathedral, with the almost eerie artistry of the unschooled stonemasons, is the center of the drama. Around the site of the construction, Follett weaves a story of betrayal, revenge, and love, which begins with the public hanging of an innocent man and ends with the humiliation of a king.For the Movie tie-in edition with the same ISBN go to this Alternate Cover Edition
Picture of a book: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Tom Stoppard
-----------------------------------------------------------Peasant 1: Did you hear? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead?Peasant 2: Really dead?Peasant 1: Really dead.Peasant 2: Really?Peasant 1: Really, really.Peasant 2: Really, really, really?Peasant 1: Really, really, really.Peasant 2: Really, really, really, really?Peasant 1: Would you stop that? They're dead as dead can be - which is actually pretty dead.Peasant 2: Pretty dead indeed.Peasant 1: But they're not the pretty dead.Peasant 2: Few are pretty when dead.Peasant 1: To be sure.Peasant 2: Was it murder?Peasant 1: Oh yes, t'was a murder of a show. All the crowd demanded their money back indeed.Peasant 2: And who could have done the dirty deed?Peasant 1: Stop that, we're no minstrels to be finishing each others rhymes.Peasant 2: Or cleaning up the other's crimes.Peasant 1: I've half a mind to let you join Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, can't you see our audience is growing tired of such absurdity? Though absurdity may be our part (the peasants together) absurdity for a laugh quickly loses all sense of art.Peasant 1: As I heard it, I believe that Hamlet may be to blame for the deaths of those two men. I heard that he replaced a letter - with instructions to kill him - with one bearing instructions for their death.Peasant 2: Quite the rumour. Where did this original letter come from I wonder? Peasant 1: Oh, that's quite easy to tell. It came from Claudius, Hamlet's dear uncle.Peasant 2: So was said letter - of which we have not seen...Peasant 1: Much as we have not seen Rosencrantz or Guildenstern...Peasant 2: ...therefore a letter to put master Hamlet out of his funky misery?(Enter Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes)John Watson: I say, Sherlock, we don't even belong in this type of fiction.Sherlock Holmes: My dear Watson, you forget that this is now a murder mystery. And murder is quite within our realm of expertise.Both Peasants: (turn to the audience) Aside from committing them we hope.Watson: Then, I presume you have come to a decision about this case by now Holmes?Holmes: Indubitably, my good fellow. The solution is rather obvious.Watson: So it was Hamlet after all, his hands are certainly most guilty.Holmes: Why of course not Watson. Don't be ridiculous. It was not Hamlet after all who initiated the beginnings of this murder.Watson: Claudius then, it was his letter that sent two men to their dooms.Holmes: Ah, Watson, you see but you do not observe.Watson: Surely, you do not mean to insist that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are responsible for the deaths themselves?Holmes: Try to keep up Watson, I said murder, and I meant murder. This is no suicide case, it is a murder following an attempted regicide, most foul.Watson: Why then, Holmes, whatever the dickens could be the solution?Holmes: There is clearly nothing more elusive to you Watson than an obvious fact. We are looking at a murder committed centuries ago, murder that continues to haunt the here and now. In several different worlds at this time, several versions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are being murdered all over again. The true criminal - the one which remains as truth - is clearly the old bard himself. Mr William Shakespeare.-----------------------------------------------------------\ "We're tragedians you see. We follow directions - there is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means."\ The remainder of this review has been moved to my website. If you would care to read it, then please click the following link: FULL REVIEW OF ROZENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD
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