45 Results for : coaxes

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    The Year's Top Short SF Novels 5 , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 954min
    Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling. In The Man Who Sold the Moon by Cory Doctorow, hardware geeks and Burning Man fanatics band together to overcome challenges such as crowdfunding a space mission, falling in love, battling cancer, and perfecting an open source engineering marvel in order to put a 3-D printing robot that creates ceramic building panels from sand on the moon. The Man Who Sold the Moon won the 2015 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short science fiction. In The Regular by Ken Liu, a cybernetically enhanced private investigator keeps her emotions in check with a piece of hardware called The Regulator while she searches for the murderer of a prostitute whom she suspects is a serial killer. Claudius Rex, by John P. Murphy, is a sci-fi whodunit comedy that pays tongue-in-cheek homage to Rex Stout and Isaac Asimov. A humble PI partners with an arrogant AI to solve the murder of the AI's creator. Ai! In Of All Possible Worlds by Jay O'Connell, an old timeline wizard coaxes a younger man to become his apprentice in an attempt to edit Earth's history so that the planet will escape the ravages of the Long Night and ensure that our timeline is the best of all possible worlds. In Each in His Prison, Thinking of the Key by William Preston, the US government brings a telepathic interrogator who is a veteran of the American war in Iraq to a secret complex in Texas to get a handle on an enigmatic prisoner known as "The Old Man". A test of wills ensues between the two in this homage to Doc Savage. Finally, in The Last Log of the Lachrimosa by Alastair Reynolds, set in the Revelation Space universe, a crew investigates a cav ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Tom Dheere, Nancy Linari. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/atxt/000040/bk_atxt_000040_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.
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    Magic in Manhattan Collection (eBook, ePUB)
    All three novels in the dazzling Magic in Manhattan paranormal historical romance series, available now in one box set. "Allie Therin built a world that came alive and flew off the pages." -Gay Book Reviews Spellbound Arthur Kenzie's life's work is protecting the world from the supernatural relics that could destroy it. When an amulet with the power to control the tides is shipped to New York, he must intercept it before it can be used to devastating effects. This time, in order to succeed, he needs a powerful psychometric…and the only one available has sworn off his abilities altogether. Rory Brodigan's gift comes with great risk. To protect himself, he's become a recluse, redirecting his magic to find counterfeit antiques. But with the city's fate hanging in the balance, he can't force himself to say no. As Arthur coaxes him out of seclusion, a magical and emotional bond begins to form. One that proves impossible to break-even when Arthur sacrifices himself to keep Rory safe and Rory must risk everything to save him. Starcrossed Arthur's continued quest to contain supernatural relics that pose a threat to the world captured Rory's imagination-and his heart. Butwhen a group of ruthless paranormals throw the city into chaos, the two men's strained relationship leaves Rory vulnerable to a monster from Arthur's past. With dark forces determined to tear them apart, Rory and Arthur will have to draw on every last bit of magic up their sleeves. And in the end, it's the connection they've formed without magic that will be tested like never before. Wonderstruck Arthur's search to to destroy the powerful supernatural relic that threatens Manhattan has been fruitless . All it has done is keep him from the man he loves. But he'll do anything to keep Rory safe and free, even if that means leaving him behind. Rory is determined to gain power over his own magic. He can take care of himself-and maybe even Arthur, too, if Arthur will let him. An auction at the Paris world's fair offers the perfect opportunity to destroy the relic, if a group of power-hungry supernaturals don't destroy Rory and Arthur first. As the magical world converges on Paris, Arthur and Rory have to decide who they can trust. Guessing wrong could spell destruction for their bond-and for the world as they know it Don't miss the standalone spin-off in Allie Therin's Magic in Manhattan universe: Proper Scoundrels
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    Kosmogonia
    PIANO DIARIES OF A MUSICAL ALCHEMIST Every single composition on this CD represents a time capsule from my life. Each piece I played and recorded on a different piano, in a different city, and in a different period of my life. In all of the pieces I applied the method I call 'preparation in real time'-the personal performance practice I often use in my live performances. It implies using devices, easily movable objects, and different fingerings to temporarily shift the instrument's timbre from that of the piano to that of a harpsichord or clavichord. For instance, in Genesis (2009) and Kosmogonia (Cosmogony) (2005), following the proverb 'necessity is mother of invention,' I came up with a vibrating glove. When placed on the piano strings, the electromagnets stuffed into the glove's fingertips helped create the sostenuto-sounding strings, mockup flute sounds, and bass clarinet I needed. Mappa della Memoria, for acoustic baby grand piano, was recorded live during my recital at the Bogliasco Foundation in Genoa, Italy, where I held a composer's residency in 2004. Based on the eponymous work by the ingenious Italian visual artist Mario Fallini, the Memory Map is a fitting piece to start this album with. Like a traveler who retraces his own footsteps, Fallini draws his version of the iconic medieval allegory of memory, traditionally depicted as a portly matron in elaborate dress, by 'stitching' the titles of his own works in each fold of her sumptuous attire. Sonatina No.1 was composed in 1996 and recorded in 1997 on an upright piano after I rescued it from the local bar and somehow fit it into the kitchen of my studio apartment in Manhattan. I dedicated this piece to Morpho, a large, mysterious South American butterfly with iridescent wings who lives for only a day before being sealed for eternity into a pendant by a jewelry maker. Sonatina No.2 and Sonatina No.3 were composed in 2004 and recorded on an amplified Chinese-made baby grand piano I purchased at a liquidation sale at the San Francisco Opera. In the already-mentioned Genesis, I wondered what it sounded like when God went about making the world. During my college years, while sitting in the symphony orchestra and counting numerous empty bars in my harp parts, I entertained the idea of getting a job in a planetarium. I recalled that fantasy many years later in Kosmogonia, where I explore the ways to depict in sound the mindboggling theory of the ever-expanding universe. This album is dedicated to my dad, Dr. Vladimir Jordano MD. Victoria Jordanova Los Angeles, May 2012 Notes by Dean Suzuki Victoria Jordanova, an American composer born in Kragujevac, Serbia, is probably best known for her magnificent Requiem for Bosnia for broken piano, harp and child's voice. The current CD is her first for piano since the release of the Requiem in 1994. Unlike the Requiem, which exists only as a recording and cannot be performed live (the namesake broken piano no longer exists), Kosmogonia is comprised of works that can be performed in concert. Born in Serbia, a longtime San Francisco resident, and now living in Los Angeles, Jordanova's aesthetic forebears include West Coast American experimentalists and mavericks, Henry Cowell and John Cage. She is inspired by their innovative piano compositions, and especially by Cowell's 'string piano' (when performers bypass the piano's keyboard and play directly on the strings, variously plucking, strumming, rubbing and otherwise manipulating them), as well as his generous use of tone clusters, and Cage's 'prepared piano,' inspired by and extrapolated from Cowell's string piano, in which items such as screws, bolts, bits of rubber and other materials are inserted and wedged between the strings, thus dramatically transforming the instrument's timbre. It should be no surprise that other important influences on Jodanova include Krzysztof Penderecki and György Ligeti, both composers who experimented with and explored sound masses, unorthodox timbres, and unconventional musical textures and techniques. In an undergraduate class taught by composition professor Dr. Jere Hutcheson, Jodanova encountered Penderecki's Kosmogonia (1970) (a work that inspired her own work of the same title found on this CD), Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960) and Ligeti's Atmospheres (1961). The music left her awestruck. Such inspiration is borne out when Jordanova states that she uses a computer and MIDI-instruments to compose, 'But whenever I really want to test an idea, only the piano will do. I open it, knock on it, touch every part of it, play it inside and out, amplify it to hear it's softest whispers, and present it with all kinds of toys and devices to coax every possible sound out of it. And it always gives back more than I expect, surprising me with new sounds and possibilities.' Jordanova's wide-open ears are on a never-ending quest for new sounds, timbres and sonorities. She says, 'Some of the best times of my life were spent with pianos. I have played many pianos in my life and I've never found one I didn't like. From the old upright, which never could be tuned properly, that I rescued from a local bar and worked on in my Manhattan apartment, to the one that fell down two flights of stairs in the French-American International School in San Francisco, which I used to record my Requiem-all gave me something unique. Sometimes I feel that there is more at play than a mere material object, as in the medieval concept of Anima mundi--a pure, ethereal spirit diffused throughout all nature that animates all matter in the same sense in which the soul was thought to animate the human.' She concludes with a rather cunning and insightful proposal: 'Maybe the piano participates in my compositions as much as I do.' In her Sonatina no. 1 for upright antique piano, Jordanova coaxes beautiful sounds from an instrument that would have horrified Chopin and would be considered beneath contempt by contemporary concert pianists (can one imagine Lang Lang performing on an upright piano, much less an antique one?). Instead of regarding the faults of the antique piano as shortcomings, she views them as opportunities for sonic exploration. Indeed, the Sonatina would be a completely different and much less successful work were it played on a pristine concert grand. Those familiar with the string piano and prepared piano, and with works by composers such as Stephen Scott who also use extended techniques on the instrument, including 'bowing' the strings (for example, strands of rosined nylon fishing line are threaded under the strings then drawn back and forth to excite the strings), will recognized the instrument as a piano, but may be bewildered by the manner of sound generation in Genesis and Kosmogonia. These compositions require a vibrating glove, in which small electromagnets are placed in the fingertips. Jordanova does not insert her hand in the glove to stroke or massage the strings. Rather, she uses the glove as a holder for the electromagnets, which are placed directly on the strings. Further manipulation, including use of the keyboard, sustain pedal and touching the string with the fingers, changes the overtone structure for the purpose of discovering new timbres and advancing the music. The amplification employed in several works on this CD is used only to precisely reveal the subtleties and nuances of the piano, rather than to increase power and volume. By running the sound from the microphone directly into the computer input, the normal recording studio problems of trying to accurately capture acoustic sound are circumvented. The amplification and recording techniques allow the listener to hear everything--harmonics, partials and other acoustic phenomena--in a way that would not be possible using traditional recording methods. As a result, one hears the music differently and in a way that enhances Jordanova's compositions and reveals her special gifts. Dean Suzuki Associate Professor of music
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    Black Angel
    Complex film noir from Cornell Woolrich's novel stars Dan Duryea as Martin Blair, an alcoholic songwriter whose ex-wife, Mavis (Constance Dowling), is found murdered. When Mavis' lover is tried and sentenced to death, the wrongly convicted man's estranged wife (June Vincent) coaxes Blair, who was himself cleared of the crime, to help her search for the real killer. With Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford. 81 min. Standard, Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital mono, Subtitles: English (SDH), audio commentary, featurette, image gallery, theatrical trailer.
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    Angels in Cahoots
    This month, Hendersonville's own Jenny Arch releases her debut album, Angels in Cahoots, a wonderfully-titled effort which will no doubt find a welcome reception amongst the acoustic and contemporary folk crowd, and certainly has the potential for a much wider audience. Having vocal chops rivaling some of her more well-known singer/songwriter peers, I'd still have to say that her strongest asset is in the accessibility of her songs. Arch displays a seemingly effortless talent to write tunes that are new and unique to the ear, but comfortable and familiar to the soul. The songs all come together to create a bittersweet musical journey, some moments so upbeat and carefree, and others so coated with melancholy and longing, reminding me at times of The Sundays or Fisher. Her band - The Hand Me Downs - does a superb job of laying the foundation for Arch's well-crafted melodies, with some beautiful cello work by Aaron Coffin. Coffin's no Yo-Yo Ma, but he still coaxes some great emotion out of the instrument. With the release of Angels in Cahoots, Arch takes a definitive step further into the realm of some of her stated musical influences such as Joni Mitchell or Ani Difranco. This seems like the kind of album WNCW would champion (and I hope they do), and I wouldn't doubt if Angels in Cahoots made their next year's list of Top 100 albums. Reviewed by Brent Fleury Bold Life Magazine.
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