Thursday, February 19, 2009

Life as a Sideshow Tattoo Artist or Natural Obsessions

Life as a Sideshow Tattoo Artist: Stoney Knows How

Author: Alan B Govenar

Step into the world of carnival freaks... and meet a man who lived and loved it. Leonard "Stoney" St. Clair, associated himself with various sideshow acts, and bestowed his talents on any willing flesh. Alan Govenar retells Stoney's story as it was told to him, accompanying his text with more than 150 amazing photographs of Stoneys flash and his subjects . This fascinating book delves into this subject more than any other of its kind, with only the fictional tale The Elephant Man coming close in comparison. For designers, flash fans, tattoo artists, and even carnival enthusiasts alike, this classic book has been brought back in print to delight and inspire a whole new generation.



Look this: Staying Connected While Letting Go or Power Tennis Training

Natural Obsessions: Striving to Unlock the Deepest Secrets of the Cancer Cell

Author: Natalie Angier

As dramatic as The Double Hex and as absorbing as The Soul of a New Machine, Natural Obsessions explores the advanced reaches of molecular biology, the nature of the human cell, and the genes that control cancer. It unforgettably portrays some of the best young scientists in the world, the rewards and discouragements of scientific research, and the very process of scientific inquiry.

Publishers Weekly

Two rival teams of eminent biologists studying oncogenesthe coils of DNA that control cancer growth in cellsare the focus of this overlong, detailed report by a New York University Graduate School instructor. One group, at the MIT-affiliated Whitehead Institute, is led by molecular biologist Robert Weinberg, portrayed here as the father figure of a bickering but close-knit tribe of underpaid graduate students and ``postdocs.'' Michael Wigler, a flamboyant, eccentric prodigy, heads the other team at the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory in New York. The significance of cancer-fighting discoveries tends to get lost here amid soul-searching, petty rivalries and tentative experiments. Scientific research, we learn, is an enterprise beset by ridiculous mistakes and false results. A fondness for solving puzzles seems to motivate these scientists more than a desire to help suffering humanity. Photos not seen by PW. (June)

Library Journal

In recent years, molecular biology has developed so rapidly and become so complex, it is difficult even for a scientist to follow the latest manipulations of genetic material and related discoveries, such as the role of oncogenes (mutant genes, apparently triggering the development of cancer). Journalist Angier spent several months at two laboratories that are in the forefront of this research, observing the work of graduate students, postdoctorate fellows, and technicians, all under the command of senior scientists. Her involvement with their lives, work, triumphs, and failures overshadows her attempts to colloquialize and clarify the scientific results of the research, so the reader eventually abandons the science being done for Angier's vivid and absorbing portrayal of the people doing it. Recommended for this reason, rather than for its exposition of the oncogene search. Eleanor Maass, Maass Assocs., New Milford, Pa.



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