Paine, Tom

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Roxy Paine: Bluff
Michael Crewdson , Tim Griffin , Margaret Mittelbach , and Roxy Paine
Manufacturer: Public Art Fund
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Mixed Media | Other Media | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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Roxy Paine: Second Nature

ASIN: 0960848819
Release Date: 2003-07-02

Book Description

If a 50-foot-tall stainless-steel tree falls in Central Park, will anybody believe it? Sited among the park's famous American elms, Roxy Paine's Bluff, a 50-foot-tall stainless-steel tree, stood last spring as a gleaming, perennial fake surrounded by a man-made natural setting that changed with the seasons. For Paine, the process of constructing the tree is most significant--the difficulty of painstakingly creating an object that closely resembles an organic one, and the impossibility of quantifying nature by breaking it down into component parts. Through photographic chapters and schematic diagrams that individually illustrate the tree's large branches, small branch systems, fungus, assembly, and installation, this volume acts as a how-to manual, illustrating the process Paine undertook to make Bluff. A Public Art Fund project, Bluff was on view from March through May of last year as part of the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

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Story Magazine [Summer 1995]
Richard Dooling , Brad Watson , Tim Gautreaux , Elizabeth Gilbert , Vinayak Vatsal , Ursula Hegi , Kathleen Tyau , Tom Paine , Ellen Douglas , and David Lansing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000F1VK12

Product Description

Mapping Gods Voice (Richard Dooling); Bill (Brad Watson); People on the Empty Road (Tim Gautreaux); Elk Talk (Elizabeth Gilbert); Mosaic (Vinayak Vatsal); Hotel of the Saints (Ursula Hegi); Moon Baby (Kathleen Tyau); All Lips (Kathleen Tyau); General Markmans Last Stand (Tom Paine); Grant (Ellen Douglas); The Last Party Boat Out (David Lansing); The Opposite of Loneliness (Brad Udall); The Vigilante (Victor Schiff);

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an almost magical travel story
Fear and Loathing meets Catch-22
Dumb and Dumber in the Gulf War
Destined to be a classic
Rock the Casbah

The Pearl of Kuwait
Tom Paine
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

War | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Kuwait (Enchantment of the World. Second Series)

ASIN: 0156028980

Book Description

Private Tommy Trang is the best marine imaginable; he's smart, daring, physically fit, and patriotic to the core. California surfer Cody "Cowboy" Carmichael acts as his
co-conspirator and Boswell during the Gulf War as the two AWOL marines sneak through the Iraqi lines to rescue the sixteen-year-old Princess Lulu, who has captured Trang's heart. In an adventure filled with humor and heroism, mellow Carmichael gets to know the fervent heart of Tommy Trang--and what it means to be a true patriot.
In his first novel, award-winning author Tom Paine has created an enthralling, joyful, and picaresque tale of love and war.

Customer Reviews:

an almost magical travel story.......2005-01-08

Wow, this book was great! The Los Angeles Times called it "a straight-ahead adventure tale in the vein of HUCKLEBERRY FINN" and they were so right. Trying to remember back to High School English and the terms for Mark Twain-style novels...pastoral, perhaps? Whatever it is, this book is a gem. I don't normally read novels about the Marine Corps, but this is SO much more than just the USMC in the 1st Gulf War (OOORAH!!). It's a lovely, slightly mythical narration of the adventures (or mis-adventures) of two unexpectedly AWOL marines. There's a Kuwaiti princess to rescue, a mythical pearl, camel racing, beduoins...it's a great travel yarn that has the war as an often distant backdrop. Made me think about patriotism, etc without ever really getting preachy. The narrative style is very innocent and genuine. Private Carmichael (formerly a stoner-surfer from CA) tells his story faithfully and openly. Very wonderful. I'm so glad I picked it up. I'd love to see this novel in an English class...lots of meaty things to sink ones teeth into. Also, I'm sure there's a lot of meanings behind the rock and roll lyrics that Carmichael thinks of throughout the story. Great fun!!

Fear and Loathing meets Catch-22.......2003-10-29

The book promises a rollicking adventure of story after story; it delivers with the whipcrack of hilarity reserved for a Tarantino movie.

The prose is based on attitude, not on literary style, and the surfer style speech is not so different from A Clockwork Orange in that you KNOW you are in a different world. Don't fault the story premise for a style of writing you may not be used to, and in fact, find annoying at times: the same way Chaucer wrote - he couldn't help it!

Rarely do I read a book and laugh out loud, but this one was a pleasure in that it was light and funny and had sexy Arab babes, daring adventures, macho stupidity, confusing culture clashes like KFC meets Felafel Bell but it is funnier than Hell.

The characters reminded me of T.C. Boyle's book Water Music, another underrated adventure story, in that they don't move, they bounce from place to place, like Kerouac on Ecstasy.

Dumb and Dumber in the Gulf War.......2003-07-03

Like, this is the story of jarhead Marine Cody Carmichael, a former stoner-surfer dude from Huntington Beach, his main man Tommy Trang, and their wild adventures in like Saudi and Kuwait both before and after the beginning of the Gulf War of 1991! They have a lot of really cool adventures, like, rescuing the babe Kuwaiti Princess Lulu, and going AWOL, and meeting a nasty old Saudi colonel dude, and riding camels . . . it's so cool! They even almost get a chance to like, knock off Saddam! It doesn't quite work out but that's okay because they had like so many other cool adventures, and his main man the grinning Tommy Trang is like this amazing dude and they slap each other high fives a lot whenever anything totally, like, excellent happens!

The above is a pretty fair rendition of the prose style contained in this novel--which is told in the first person by Carmichael--and if you found your eyes glazing over by the end of the paragraph, imagine reading three hundred and ten pages of it. In case you missed the point, Carmichael is a moron. This pretty much ruins the novel, which is too bad, particularly since there's the outline of a pretty good story in here.

Yes, they do rescue a Kuwaiti Princess after she tries to drown herself in the Gulf. After the war begins, they go AWOL so that they can go to Kuwait to rescue her from the Iraqis. Along the way they meet many unusual Arabs, encounter bizarre customs, and have some truly remarkable adventures. Remarkable, unfortunately, to the point of almost being unbelievable, and almost unbelievable because the narrator, simple-minded as he is, is incapable of putting them in perspective. How nice it would have been for him to have had offered an explanatory note once in a while, or even to comment on how surprised HE was at some of these goings on. But nope, all we get is child-like, wide-eyed wonder, expressed in the voice of a buffoon.

Here are some examples of the profundities: " . . . Trang and me were discovering these Arab folk were way different from us Americans, and it was kind of a bummer." Wow. "And it was so cool, and put me right into the ancient past with caravans and all, and I looked down at my own robe, and thought: Cool! Cool! Cool!" How revealing. "Anyway, that song [American Band] kind of cracked me up, because we were sort of an American band, heading to the town of Kuwait, and maybe we would even get a chance to teach the locals to party American-style!" This is what passes for enlightenment.

It's a shame. Because there really is a good story in here trying to get out, and at least the hint of a theme as well, having to do with Americans imposing their values on other cultures. But as presented here, the story comes across as a Scooby-Doo cartoon, with the wit and intelligence to match. Don't believe the hype. Huckleberry Finn this ain't.

Destined to be a classic.......2003-04-19

Tom Paine's first novel is a picaresque tale of adventure set in the first Gulf War. Tommy Trang and Cody Carmichael are two Marine corps privates AWOL on a mission: to rescue a Kuwaiti princess (hence the title), assassinate Saddam, or die trying. The novel can be read on many levels: an adventure story, a romance, an inquiry into Arab culture, and an exploration of the warrior mentality that makes our armed forces tick. His humor reminds me of both Tom Wolfe and Tom Robbins. Many was the time I had to stop reading I was laughing so hard. There are a few scenes, such as the camel race in chapter two, that are destined to be classics. But this book is more than just a comedy; it has some moving insights into the conditions faced not only by our American soldiers, but also the plight of the Iraqi soldiers forced to fight for Saddam. The novel puts a human face on war, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to better understand the dynamics of our current situation in the Arab world.

Rock the Casbah.......2003-03-13

Try reading this book with the TV news in the background and your head will spin. Tom Paine has grounded his story so deep in the sand of the Middle East that we are happy to take this wild ride with our Marine guide Cody "Cowboy " Carmichael and his buddy and muse Tommy Trang. This is a book for when my buddies ask if I've read anything good lately I can say, "Have I got a book for you." It's every boy's fantasy of war: guns, guts, glory, and girls. And you can read without guilt because it's so much more. Like "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," the adventures are merely the engine for digging out deeper truths. Paine's two Marines Cody and Trang are unable to do anything by the book but carry the Bill of Rights in one pocket and a heart in the other. They believe the two things can change the world along with an occasional act of heroism. It's a recipe for life and for a great story.

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Gosh, he breathes life into this.
No more self-tanning lotion for you
WRITER'S CRAMP
You have got to be kidding!
Predictable

Scar Vegas: And Other Stories
Tom Paine
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

United States | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Amazon.com

An urban legend making the rounds goes something like this: a guy accepts a drink from a good-looking woman in an airport bar and, three hours later, wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney. This apocryphal tale of involuntary black-market organ donors figures in the title story of Tom Paine's debut collection, Scar Vegas. But though a purloined kidney provides a twist, Paine has already delivered the knock-out punch much earlier as he catalogs the black comedy of errors dogging the marriage of Janey "Fruit" Loop to semipro football player Breezy Bonaventure. At the center of the nuptial confusion is Johnny Loop, ex-con brother of the bride and the tale's narrator: "We are the Loops. Someone sure as hell is Fruit if you are the Loops." As he negotiates his sister's beer-guzzling fiancé and the fiancé's belligerent teammates, Johnny maintains his sang-froid: "I ain't never surprised. This world ain't never sprung nothing on me. Some people get themselves hit by lightning and other strange things but that ain't me at all." By the time Johnny discovers, in fact, that that is him, Paine has already led his character and readers on so vividly surreal a tour of the Loser's Las Vegas that the ending seems less a surprise than the only possible conclusion to such an adventure.

But the weirdness and pathos in "Scar Vegas" pales in comparison to what Paine gives us in "General Markman's Last Stand" in which a Marine Corps officer long idolized by his men faces his greatest challenge yet: his retirement party. Suffice it to say there's more to Markman than meets the eye. And in "Will You Say Something, Monsieur Eliot?" the author hits home with an agonizing encounter between a wealthy, shipwrecked American and the boatload of Haitian refugees who rescue him. Each of the 10 stories in this collection is larger than life--not for this writer carefully understated dissections of personal relationships or quiet domestic drama. Instead Paine gives us white slavers, Romanian brothers on a road trip to Reno, Myanmar witch doctors, and delegates to an Anarchist convention. The voices are fresh, the stories unflinchingly true to themselves; Scar Vegas is as compelling as it is edgy. --Sheila Bright

Book Description

With explosive narrative skill, Tom Paine pulls you into the worlds of a cross-dressing Army general, a confused lowlife being offered an incredible opportunity, and a despairing man whose mother hates him for no reason. Paine's stories feature exotic locales and take you on adventures you never imagined. His work has been published in the New Yorker, Playboy, Harper's, and Zoetrope and has received O. Henry awards, prizes from the Boston Review and Pushcart, and a National Magazine award, and has been optioned for film productions. Like Ernest Hemingway, Robert Stone, Richard Ford, and Russell Banks, Tom Paine grips the reader with his passion and vision.

Customer Reviews:

Gosh, he breathes life into this........2005-10-09

Gosh, this is really lively work. Which in this instance should be read as a synonym for "labored." If you'd like a roadmap, or blueprint, or whatever figure of speech pleases you, of everything wrong with a ritzy diploma mill like Columbia's MFA program in creative writing, pick this up. Plus I'd second the other reviewer's observation about Mr. Paine's bain de soleil look and add that he looks like someone left him sitting a little too close to the stove for too long.

No more self-tanning lotion for you.......2004-12-28

I'm going to have to make it a rule not to look at the author's photo before i start a book. Tom Paine's airbrushed face is on the jacket, and oh boy, he looks like he fell asleep in a tanning booth. That, combined with the Abercrombie & Fitch styling predisposed me not to like this book.

But the writing did not help either! The first story is about a wealthy man caught in a hurricane while sailing. His boat sinks and he is rescued by a group of Haitians floating their way to the US in very dire conditions. These poor people believe that by rescuing an American they will have no trouble being accepted in the country. But the way things turn out is very different.

The second story is what really did me in. A burly Marine general, on the day of his retirement, decides to "come out" by undressing to his female underwear during his farewell banquet.

There was something so contrived and forced in that story that i couldn't take it any more. Like the critic who got up in the middle of a play said, "I don't need to eat the whole omelette in order to tell you that the eggs were rotten".

WRITER'S CRAMP.......2004-07-11

After picking up this book at the state library ... I wished I hadn't. Paine is a confused writer to say the least and his short stories refelect that. His stories could have been condensed down to a half a dozen pages, but add up to 20+ of verbiage simply reflecting a writer who likes to hear himself write. O'Henry Mr. Paine is not. If you have never felt you wasted your time reading a book .... then read 'Scar Vegas'.

You have got to be kidding!.......2003-03-17

I bought this book based upon the (at that time) glowing reviews on Amazon. I found the stories boring (when comprehensible), moralistic and wholly uninteresting. Perhaps I failed to comprehend some oblique deeper mmeaning here--but I doubt it. It was literally a struggle to finish the book. I would definitely skip this one. The worst book I have read in a long time.

Predictable.......2001-09-25

Author Tom Paine delivers 10 short stories in his collection, "Scar Vegas". While the premise of many of the stories appear clever and promising, they too often end with the familiar and cliché. Mr. Paine clearly is a talented writer, and this first experience with his work would not stop me from reading what may follow.

The author deals with many serious issues with social and moral implications. The issues themselves are not in general that unique, so he has raised the bar for his task of writing new and insightful commentary. He has chosen, in the case of the opening story, a troubling facet that continues to hamper our species reaching closer to a humanity that is appropriate. Again a familiar theme, which he then compounds with additional familiarity by telling his tale through an episode in recent history, that is just too easy. The ending will be clear very shortly after you begin. Indeed with the first tale, the story may lie revealed after reading the description on the book's jacket.

The author also makes editorials of many of the stories. The edge these stories would need to make the reader feel uncomfortable, or perhaps become introspective, is made harder by the tone that approaches preaching. If a statement about war is the goal of a story, unless you happen to adhere to this author's opinions, it becomes difficult to concentrate on how he demonstrates his skills as a writer, when as a person he intrudes in his fiction. War can be commented upon without ever mentioning a specific nation or a specific conflict. War is unconditionally horrid. It can stand on its own and be criticized and judged, it need not be identified in meticulous detail to make its point. The conduct of war can certainly be more extreme in certain notorious historical examples. I truly think the author is capable of making his point without relying on events from the news, and his personal views that consistently shadow his words.

The Best Restaurants Great Britain, 1993
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The Best Restaurants Great Britain, 1993
Tom Jaine , and Tom Paine
Manufacturer: Globe Pequot Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Hospitality, Travel & Tourism | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Great Britain | Europe | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 156440286X

Reflections on the revolution in France / The Rights of Man
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Reflections on the revolution in France / The Rights of Man
edmund / paine, tom burke
Manufacturer: Dolphin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HJT3RU

JOHN DOS PASSOS PRESENTS THE LIVING THOUGHTS OF TOM PAINE
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JOHN DOS PASSOS PRESENTS THE LIVING THOUGHTS OF TOM PAINE
Tom Paine
Manufacturer: Fawcett Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000E3WW04

Product Description

Paine was called the "morning star of the Revolution [against England]," and regarded as one of the most influential pamphleteer of the US colonial period ("Common Sense," etc.) This compact little anthology captures well the essential elements of Paine's thought and his propaganda appeal to the common person of US colonial and revolutionary times. Pages: 160, 7" x 4.25"

Artists Emerging-Sustaining Expression Through Drawing

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Artists Emerging-Sustaining Expression Through Drawing
Sheila Paine , and Tom Phillips
Manufacturer: Scolar Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Drawing | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0754602001

Test ban treaty: Let's finish the job. : An article from: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Test ban treaty: Let's finish the job. : An article from: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Tom Z. Collina , and Christopher Paine
Manufacturer: Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. on July 1, 1999. The length of the article is 3594 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. From the supplier: The Clinton administration submitted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate nearly two years ago, but Jesse Helms, the Chmn of the Foreign Relations Committee has not even permitted debate on the topic. This is very unfortunate because ratification of the treaty would help reduce international nuclear weapons threats. Citation Details
Title: Test ban treaty: Let's finish the job.
Author: Tom Z. Collina
Publication: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 1999
Publisher: Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc.
Volume: 55 Issue: 4 Page: 24 Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Back to Basics
Not the Tom Paine I Know--Good List of the Obvious
Great guide for pundits and candidates alike
Wake Up Democratic Party Leaders!

How Democrats Can Take Back Congress
"Tom Paine"
Manufacturer: Pamphleteering Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Leadership | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Political Parties | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Human Rights | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0977775909

Customer Reviews:

Back to Basics.......2006-05-09

Brevity in the age of instant communication and instant distraction is sometimes a good thing. This small book makes some critical points that seem like common sense. But, for whatever reason, have not been well articulated recently by the Democratic leadership or rank and file. Instead of unwieldy plans with complex solutions, perhaps it is time to get back to sponsorship of fundamental concepts and let the details get worked out in the doing. Today, we seem to spend huge amounts of time on the minutia and lose the concepts to the lobbyists.

This is certainly not a panacea for the problems of the Democratic Party in the US. But it does cause one to ponder the possibilities of proposing a positive agenda versus reacting to the Republicans.

Not the Tom Paine I Know--Good List of the Obvious.......2006-05-01

This book reads like the last gasp of the old guard Democratic staff weenies who think that soundbites (one for every issue in this book) and platitudes will make up for ineptness. This book, for example, proposes programs such as eliminating social security taxes for 94% of the workers and paying for everyone's college tuition, without in any way suggesting how the Federal budget might be balanced. There is, in short, no tax reform focused on eliminating subsidies and loopholes and corporate fraud combined with corporate exclusion from the tax base.

Sorry, but on balance, this book is very loosely thought through, and I personally resent anyone using Tom Paine's great name in vain.

The only thing in this book that I think is right on target (sure, the issue positions are acceptable, but any high schooler could have put this list together) is the emphasis on the need to get back in touch with American labor, support the unions, and restore the vitality (the opposite of disposability) of the American worker.

This books makes no mention of Matthew Miller's "The 2% Solution" or Rabbi Michael Lerner's "Left Hand of God," or any of a myriad of good books on Cultural Creatives, New Progressives, Ecological Economics, Immoral Captialism, etc.

Bottom line: YUK. The author gets the third star for good intentions, otherwise this would have a been a two star vote.

At 57 pages, this book is light-weight in every possible sense of the word.

Great guide for pundits and candidates alike.......2006-04-08

This isn't a long book, and that is but one of its many virtues. Long books are not necessarily more substantive books, and this one is both helpful and substantive. It's split into two parts: the first laying out why the upcoming elections pose a particular opportunity for Democratic candidates. That material is nice, but it recapitulates much that others have written. The real strength of this book is in part two, in which the author goes through more than a dozen specific issues in a neat, capsulated way, that gives candidates issues, statistics, both the advantages and possible disadvantages of each position, and then even a nice soundbite. Many of the ideas are good ones, and the whole setup is a perfect primer for anyone interested in helping end the Republican stranglehold on Congress. If you are tired of being ashamed of a leadership apoligizing for torture, squandering the nation's future, and starting wars for false reasons, then this is a great place to get ready to change things.

Wake Up Democratic Party Leaders!.......2006-03-21

Good medium, sound ideas and analyses abound. Excellent sense of humor lightens a heavy subject for easy reading and comprehension. An email or letters to our leaders pointing to this excellent resource material from every reader would have to put get Democrats back on top. We can put our emphasis first on food, clothing, housing, education, jobs and health care for everyone; respect and tolerance for all. (This is of course beyond the scope of the book, but with the proper working tools in place everything is probable.)

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Authors

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