Bücher von Phil Cousineau

Who Stole the Arms of the Venus de Milo? is an exhilarating, course-correcting account about one of the most iconic sculptures ever created. Carved by an obscure Greek sculptor, Alexandros of Antioch, in the first first century BCE, and inspired by the Greek myth of the Judgment of Paris, the Venus was discovered serendipitously in 1820 by the French ensign Olivier Voutier and a local farmer, Yorgos Kentrotas, on the Cycladic Island of Melos. Her celebrated arrival in Paris a year later helped transform the Louvre into the most famous museum in the world. Phil Cousineau's long-awaited book is a mosaic of meditations on the marvelous attributes of Venus, such as beauty, love, desire, pleasure, and happiness, as well as her shadowy connections with envy, war and violence. Cousineau's work is a curiosity cabinet chockfull of art history, mythology, archaeology, poetry-and tales from the author's years of travels around Greece. This is a polyfabulous, many-storied, book that reveals the secret strength of sublime art as a means of further experiencing beauty beyond museums and in our everyday lives.

La Odisea Olímpica lleva al lector hacia un viaje mítico desde los antiguos JuegosOlímpicos hasta los modernos, contando historias de dioses, atletas, y entrenadoresen todo su esplendor. Pero sus fabulosas medallas de oro sólo constituyen una partede la historia. La auténtica fascinación del autor y eterno atleta Phil Cousineauestá en lo que Jesse Owens llamó la "vida interior" del atleta, la misteriosa fuentedel instinto de sobresalir por un ideal que está más allá de uno mismo, que es másprofundo que el de ganar -trascendiendo el género, la raza, la nacionalidad, yquizás incluso la línea entre lo humano y lo divino.Para explorar este territorio tentador, Cousineau intercala la mitología, lareligión y la historia del deporte, citando desde Homero a Whitman, desde JimThorpe hasta Babe Didrikson, y desde Yeats hasta Yogi Berra. Su llamamientopara reavivar el antiguo ideal griego de la integración del cuerpo, la mente y elespíritu nos recuerda que los Juegos proporcionan metáforas maravillosas sobrecómo emprender cualquier empresa: con pasión y compasión, concentración yjusticia, y con un sentimiento hacia el juego sagrado del corazón de la vida.

For nearly three thousand years, King Sisyphus of Corinth has been one of the most compelling characters in world mythology. The iconic image of Sisyphus putting his shoulder to the boulder and pushing it to the summit of a mountain in the Underworld is recognizable the world over. To many poets and philosophers, from Homer and Aeschylus to Lucille Clifton and Albert Camus, the rebel hero has been a powerful symbol for hard-earned wisdom and the struggle to transcend suffering, while more skeptical commentators have interpreted Sisyphus'' defiance of the gods as futile and doomed.In this mythopoetic novel, Phil Cousineau reimagines Sisyphus as telling his own tale through notebooks he kept while enduring his notorious punishment, which include surprising revelations about the self-sacrifice he made for his fellow Corinthians, his bold fight against the injustice of the gods, and the unbounded love for his wife and sons that earned him a second chance at life.The Lost Notebooks of Sisyphus is a timeless allegory that helps us come to terms with our own daily struggles and shines new light on Camus'' existential conclusion that, "We must imagine Sisyphus as happy."I am Sisyphus, King of Corinth, great-great-grandson of Prometheus, great-grandson of Deucalion and Pyrrha, grandson of Hellen and Orseis, son of Aeolus and Enarate, husband of Merope, father of Glaucus, Ornytion, Almus, and Thersander, and grandfather of Bellerophon, slayer of the Chimera.I am a champion of navigators, sailors, athletes, merchants, poets, and playwrights, and an enemy of tyrants, despots, bullies, ruffians, and demagogues. I honor the gods and goddesses by building splendid temples, holy shrines, and sacrificial altars worthy of their glory. Many men deep am I, as my mentor, the deep-browed, long- bearded, wise-counseling Alexandros of Milos described me. What I am not is a scoundrel, as scandalmongers have impugned across the centuries while exonerating the cruel gods who condemned me.

A captivating, multidimensional collection of writings on the soul--from creation myths to beat poetry, religion to rock-n-roll. "Inspiring, often mind-blowing, sometimes even a little scary."--Los Angeles Times