Fine and Dandy: The Life and Work of Kay Swift

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Kay Swift (1897-1993) was one of the few women composers active on Broadway in the first half of the twentieth century. Best known as George Gershwin's assistant, musical adviser, and intimate friend, Swift was in fact an accomplished musician herself, a pianist and composer whose Fine and Dandy (1930) was the first complete Broadway musical written by a woman. This fascinating book - the first biography of Swift - discusses her music and her extraordinary life. Vicki Ohl describes Swift's work for musical theatre, the ballet, Radio City Music Hall's Rockettes, and commercial shows. She also tells how Swift served as director of light music for the 1939 World's Fair, eloped with a cowboy from the rodeo at the fair, and abandoned her native New York for Oregon, later fashioning her experiences into an autobiographical novel, Who Could Ask for Anything More? Informed by rich material, including Swift's unpublished memoirs and extensive interviews with her family members and friends, this book captures the essence and spirit of a remarkable woman.

Fine and Dandy: The Life and Work of Kay Swift Review

Kay Swift has been a nebulous figure for generations, best remembered as a married woman who had a long affair with George Gershwin. This affair has never been discussed in much detail in anything I've read. After Gershwin's early death, Swift destroyed all his letters to her and asked Ira Gershwin to burn her letters to his brother. Very little documentation of this relationship exists. Swift was Gershwin's social Pygmalion as well as his assistant, his teacher and his lover. Born to artistic parents who held responsible positions in society, Swift was a music student when she met and married banker James Warburg. Unlike most women of the era, Swift was intent on a musical career in addition to her marriage and three children (whom she mostly ignored until they were mothers themselves). With money and connections, Swift worked her way into the Broadway mainstream, beginning as pit musician and rehearsal pianist, then Geshwin's assistant, and then composer of the hit Broadway musical, FINE AND DANDY. She divorced the wealthy Warburg in order to make herself available to Gershwin (who had other girlfriends besides Swift). The proposal never came. Supposedly Oscar Levant quipped, "Look. There goes George Gershwin and the future Miss Kay Swift." While she always claimed that her being a woman made no difference in her success or lack of it, it seems to me that having a connection to the Warburg money certainly did make a difference, though. Although she was not yet forty, her life jumped the track when she divorced Warburg. She did marry twice more (once to a cowboy), compose music for Radio City Music Hall and three World's Fairs, write a best-selling novel that became a film, she nonetheless wasn't a "contender" any more. There's a big difference between being a Broadway composer and being a RICH Broadway composer.

This book has 238 pages of actual text, but it seemed more like 500 because of all the unnecessary and boring details. The book does not go into the important personal events like the marriages and divorces, but is chock-full of detailed verbal descriptions of obscure musical compositions. Example: "Both Swift's and Debussy's mazurkas feature a three-sharp key signature suggesting F sharp minor, although harmonies wander through unrelated keys and hit at fleeting tonal areas. Both use mostly triadic harmonies and seventh cords yet abandon strict functional harmony. Debussy uses half cadences and plagal cadences to avoid finality until the one authentic cadence at the end. Swift's cadences are more evasive. They feature traditional linear approaches to tonic in the melody, while the waltz bass confounds convention, moving to the tonic by third or tritone. Her chords often progress by intervals of a third or move in parallel motion by step, featuring planes of dominant seventh chords in an impressionistic style. Fluctuations from major to minor occur in several places." There are pages and pages like this. There are also detailed synopses of Swift's shows and other compositions. Other pages appear to be rehashes of the programs at late life tributes. I didn't read this book to find out which singers-nobody-ever-heard-of performed which forgotten song from an unproduced show at Merkin Hall in 1986. I appreciate the small bit of useful information contained in this book, but I resent having to wade through all the minutiae to get to it.

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Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts

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This text challenges hallowed American traditions of juidicial review and judicial supremacy, which allow U.S. judges to invalidate "unconstitutional" governmental actions. By examining a wide range of situations involving constitutional rights, the author urges the reader to to take responsibility for protecting their liberty. The book puts forward the idea of the creation of a constitutional law in which judicial declarations deserve no special consideration, citing the McCarthy incident in the 1950s as a prime example of how the judicial branch failed to enforce the will of the people.

Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts Review

We know the stereotype: liberals love the courts, conservatives attack them as undemocratic. Like most stereotypes, it is based on truth, but out of date. Nowadays, many on the right are calling for more judicial action -- e.g., striking down laws passed by Congress as outside the Commerce power, or violative of the Second Amendment. And many on the left are now advocates of judicial restraint. One may explain this away by noting that the switch is suspiciously correlated with a switch in the ideological attitude of the courts. But Mark Tushnet's book can't be explained away on these grounds. As Tushnet notes: "we have to remember that we buy judicial review wholesale: In getting the decisions we like, we run the risk of decisions we despise." (p. 141). More importantly, Tushnet notes that winning in court doesn't mean as much as you might think. Roe v. Wade energized the antiabortion movement and took the wind out of the sails of prochoice forces; a series of legislative victories producing the same result may have been less divisive, and more final.Tushnet's solution is given away by the title: taking the constitution away from the courts, and returning constitutional interpretation to the people. He also argues -- rightly, I think -- for paying far more attention to the principles set out in the Declaration of Independence. Early commentators, like Justice Joseph Story, saw the Declaration as the animator of the Constitution. More recently the Declaration has been largely ignored -- perhaps by those who fear its radical implications. Tushnet is right to suggest reversing this trend.I am rather dubious about whether Tushnet's populist enterprise will succeed, but his book raises some excellent questions. It is certainly the case that constitutional debate over the past several decades has been too elitist, too narrow, and too influenced by academic fashion and interest group politics. In calling attention to this fact, Tushnet has produced an interesting, provocative book that should be read by anyone interested in the future of constitutional debate and decision. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse | PermalinkComment Comment

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Sleep Disorders (Psychological Disorders)

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Sleep Disorders (Psychological Disorders) Review

Everyone needs sleep. Without it, accidents happen. Moods change, and people get downright cranky! This book discusses disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea, movement disorders, and other conditions that keep us up at night. Sleep cycles, sleep tips, sleep research, and more have been well-covered too.

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"All Shall Be Well": Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann

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"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
Lady Julian of Norwich

Universalism runs like a slender thread through the history of Christian theology. It has always been a minority report and has often been regarded as heresy, but it has proven to be a surprisingly resilient "idea." Over the centuries Christian universalism, in one form or another, has been reinvented time and time again.

In this book an international team of scholars explore the diverse universalisms of Christian thinkers from the Origen to Moltmann. In the introduction Gregory MacDonald argues that theologies of universal salvation occupy a space between heresy and dogma. Therefore disagreements about whether all will be saved should not be thought of as debates between "the orthodox" and "heretics" but rather as "in-house" debates between Christians.

The studies that follow aim, in the first instance, to hear, understand, and explain the eschatological claims of a range of Christians from the third to the twenty-first centuries. They also offer some constructive, critical engagement with those claims.

Origen (Tom Greggs)
Gregory of Nyssa (Steve Harmon)
Julian of Norwich (Robert Sweetman)
The Cambridge Platonists (Louise Hickman)
James Relly (Wayne K. Clymer)
Elhanan Winchester (Robin Parry)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (Murray Rae)
Thomas Erskine (Don Horrocks)
George MacDonald (Thomas Talbott)
P. T. Forsyth (Jason Goroncy)
Sergius Bulgakov (Paul Gavrilyuk)
Karl Barth (Oliver Crisp)
Jaques Ellul (Andrew Goddard)
J. A. T. Robinson (Trevor Hart)
Hans Urs von Balthasar (Edward T. Oakes, SJ)
John Hick (Lindsay Hall)
J �rgen Moltmann (Nik Ansell)

"This is a lively and illuminating collection of essays.� Its well-judged blend of theological analysis and historical context makes it accessible to the general reader as well as raising provocative questions for theologians about the place of universalism in Christian tradition.� I will certainly use it in my teaching."
--Morwenna Ludlow
Lecturer in Patristics, University of Exeter, UK


"Is universalism the heart of the gospel or an idea concocted by the 'devil' to desensitize human beings to the possibility of eternal damnation? The stakes could not be higher! This volume shows why many of the great theologians in the Christian tradition responded positively to the former question even as their engaging the arguments back-and-forth will equip readers to formulate their own answers to the latter and other associated rationales rejecting the universalist notion. For all booklovers, the riveting theological biographies in chapter after chapter will keep readers tuned in from start to finish to follow the twists and turns that have perennially characterized the quest to understand universal salvation and its implications."
--Amos Yong
J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology, Regent University, Virginia Beach

Gregory MacDonald is Robin Parry, an Acquisitions Editor with Wipf and Stock.

"All Shall Be Well": Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann Review

I found it encouraging to see how and why different Christians have come to believe in Universal Salvation through-out Church History. The Introduction and chapter on Origen were particularly interesting as they explained the complexity (& dodginess) around the anathemas against Origen and why UR is still orthodox. The chapter on C.S. Lewis' hero, George MacDonald, was also excellent.

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Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing

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There's a fresh take on an old standby, the book of quotations. The difference with Wisdom for the Soul is in the selection and organization of the quotations. Each has been chosen for its universal application and poetic quality, grouped into one of 220 themes. While the usual subjects, are represented, the collection encompasses newer psychological territory such as Actualization, Avoidance/Denial, Chaos/Uncertainty, Polarity, Synergy, Unconscious, and more. Although the primary aim of the collection is self-help for the individual, with extensive cross-references to factors that foster or deter growth and well-being, the material will appeal to the quotation collector, speech-writer, and the general reader. 824 pages

Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing Review

Painstakingly compiled, accessible organized, and expertly edited by Larry Chang, Wisdom For The Soul: Five Millennia Of Prescriptions For Spiritual Healing is an extensive collection of quotes, sayings, commentaries, texts, insights and perspectives on issues and considerations relevant to spiritual growth and development. Providing seekers of wisdom, knowledge, metaphysical understanding and spiritual advancement with an impressive collection of more than 10,000 quotes about personal empowerment, advancement, and mastery through 220 areas of growth and challenge drawn from over 2200 authors and sources both ancient and contemporary, Wisdom For The Soul offers readers an accessible anthology of inspiring and encouraging contributions from the collective history of philosophy, theology, poetry, metaphysical intuition, perspective, spirituality, and religion. A welcome reference for personal, seminary, academic, and community library "Religion, Spirituality, and Metaphysical Studies" collections, Wisdom For The Soul is very strongly recommended for readers searching for encouraging and empathetic words of wisdom for the conduct and improvement of their lives.

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