Bücher veröffentlicht von Catapult

Sheila Callaghan is one of the most distinctive playwrights working in the theater today. Fiercely political, unblinkingly experimental, yet emotionally true, her writing is a refreshing combination of the compelling and the controversial.This volume collects three of her most recent plays to date. It includes: Lascivious Something, a heart-rending and disturbing exploration of failed love and shattered idealism at the dawn of the Reagan era, it follows a lapsed activist’s attempt to start life anew on a vineyard in Greece and what happens when the woman he left behind tracks him down; Roadkill Confidential, a noir-ish meditation on brutality and the intersection between fear and art, focused on an artist who uses the corpses of dead animals found on the side of the road as the medium for her creations; and That Pretty Pretty; Or, the Rape Play, which imagines our girls gone wild culture spiraling out to its most extreme ends while exploring issues of beauty, objectification, perversity, and naturalism in current society.

Understanding the Crash starts with a simple question that still haunts us all: What has happened to the world economy? With the kind of striking precision that only graphic nonfiction can provide, Seth Tobocman and Eric Laursen explain just how we got into this mess — and how we can get out of it.Looking back across more than a quarter century, the authors outline the roots of our current economic crisis. They show how the troubles of a working-class community in Cleveland or a newly built suburb of Miami became an international financial crisis, explaining the complex new forms of credit that came into being because of financial deregulation, and how they created an economic whirlpool. From there they discuss how, over the same time span, a smaller and smaller group of people came to control a larger and larger percentage of the world’s money — a result of rising inequality that, combined with the shortage of affordable housing, a decline in real wages, and our unwavering belief in an “ownership society,” impelled poor people into debt. Tobocman and Laursen conclude with a consideration of a restructured financial system and a look toward a culture of sustainability — one that covets real wealth in the form of security, meaningful work, and community.

""Life is not a dress rehearsal." -- Rose Tremain""It's easy saying what things are not. Life is not a bed of roses, God is not an old man sitting in a cloud, winning isn't everything. Some negations, however, are more informative than others. Thinking about why an egg is not an elephant won't get you very far, whereas realizing life is not a dress rehearsal might. It's a reminder that this life is a one-shot deal, and if you mess it up, there's no second try."In "Should You Judge This Book by Its Cover" philosopher Julian Baggini examines the meanings behind a host of everyday expressions. Is it really always better to practice what you preach? To do as the Romans do? To be safe, not sorry?In his quest for clarity in everyday language, Baggini leaves no saying behind as he considers such expressions as "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" and "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Far from a reference book, this entertaining collection is full of short, stimulating capsules of defiantly clear thinking that are meant to fuel thought and conversation.

The music industry's mighty players have been asleep at the wheel since Napster revolutionized the way music was distributed in the 1990s. A veteran industry reporter tells of the current state of big music, how it got into such dire straits, and where it's going.

In this collection about life as a twentysomething in the twenty–first century, Kathleen Rooney writes with the finesse of someone well beyond her years, but with fresh insights that reveal a girl still making discoveries at every turn. Varied and original, the tales in For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs recount the perils of falling in love with the unlikeliest of people, of visiting the New York apartments of a vanished poet, and of touring an animal retirement home with her parents. Of getting a Brazilian wax, and of chauffeuring a U.S. senator around town. Of saying good–bye to a cousin who's joining a convent, and of trying to convince herself that she's not wasting her life. This is a book about love and longing, poetry and plagiarism, death and democracy, mountain floods and Midwestern cicadas. Here is a young woman struggling to find her place as an adult and a citizen in an America that rarely manages to live up to Whitman's dream of it. With this book, Rooney sings—yes, in fact, she trills—loud and clear.

Combining on-the-slopes experience with off-trail research, author Charlie English follows in the footsteps of the Romantic poets across the Alps, learns how to build igloos with the Inuit on Baffin Island, examines snow-patches in the Cairngorms to detect signs of global warming, and tests his mettle on some of the most perilous peaks on Earth. Along the way, he meets up with a flurry of fellow enthusiasts, from avalanche survivors and resort operators to climate scientists and champion skiers. English is obsessed with snow, and has collected for our enjoyment an amazing array of not-so-random facts about the hexagonal substance that fills the human imagination with wonder. In this "snow handbook," he describes how snow is created, how to build an igloo, how avalanches occur, and (more importantly) how to survive an avalanche. His glossary is filled with snow terms that will delight, such as "coulior," "hoarfrost," "firn," and "sastrugi." Fresh and fun and infused with the adrenaline of adventure, "The Snow Tourist" is a fascinating account of one man's pilgrimage through the world's blanketed fields, ice-capped rooftops, cozy igloos, and snow-covered mountain peaks.

The only thing the writers in this book have in common is that they've exchanged sex for money. They're PhDs and dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $10 crack hos, and everything in between. This anthology lends a voice to an underrepresented population that is simultaneously reviled and worshipped.Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collection of short memoirs, rants, confessions, nightmares, journalism, and poetry covering life, love, work, family, and yes, sex. The editors gather pieces from the world of industrial sex, including contributions from art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle, best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry (Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent), sex activist and musical diva Candye Kane, women and men right off the streets, girls participating in the first-ever National Summit of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, and Ruth Morgan Thomas, one of the organizers of the European Sex Work, Human Rights, and Migration Conference.Sex is a billion-dollar industry. Meet the real people who are its flesh and blood.

A thought-provoking reassessment of religious faith and progressive politics from an author whose “wonderful writing is both a surprise and a relief” (Naomi Klein). In All My Bones Shake, author and political activist Robert Jensen sheds light on the spiritual unrest at the root of our nation’s current political, economic, cultural, and ecological chaos. While popular media has reduced the issue of faith to a talking-heads debate between atheists and believers, Jensen shows the conflict to be far more complex. While fundamentalists on both sides have fought to an intellectual standstill and moderates seem content to ignore the battle, Jensen pushes for a progressive approach to theological questions, offering a path of faith that doesn’t negate the modern scientific world or threaten the rights of marginalized people. More than a simple study of the religious debate in America, All My Bones Shake marks a new communion: a way to use theology to create a sustainable society and meet the uncertainty of our lives with confidence.

Upending Christianity's popular notion of Jesus the comforter, the good shepherd, the Lord, and the Savior, this completely new exploration of Mark's Life of Jesus reexamines the image presented in this earliest of the New Testament gospels--the mysterious stranger, the singular, abandoned, and solitary figure--and rethinks the current role of Western culture through a radically altered view of Christianity. The existential Jesus has no interest in sin, and his focus is not on an afterlife. He is anti-church, anti-establishment, anti-family, and anti-community; a teacher, with himself his only student, he gestures enigmatically from within his own torturous experience, inviting the reader to walk in his shoes and ask the question, "Who am I?"This book argues that Jesus is the West's great teacher on the nature of being. Incorporating a new translation of the Gospel of Mark from its original Greek, this radical reinterpretation identifies the philosophical and cultural significance of Jesus in the modern world, based on his life, actions, and reflections.

Historically, a love of cooking has been left to those considered far from cool: suburbanite Betty Crockers toiling over a hot stove. But the new youth-culture sensibility has taken over, merging the axiom "You are what you eat" with its updated mantra "You are who you listen to." "Lost in the Supermarket"--yes, named for the 1979 hit by The Clash--is a creative compendium of recipes that reclaims the kitchen for the hip crowd. At once a meditation on the connection between food and music and a great culinary resource, this cookbook is full of the favorite recipes of some of indie rock's elite. In chapters on both daily dishes and special event grub, contributions from such indie notables as Animal Collective, Black Dice, Sunset Rubdown, and Country Teasers are included, giving readers plenty to groove on, whether they're in it for the tunes or the tastes or both.