In big cities; major museums and elite galleries tend to dominate our idea of the art world. But beyond the cultural core ruled by these moneyed institutions and their patrons are vibrant; local communities of artists and art lovers operating beneath the high-culture radar. Producing Local Color is a guided tour of three such alternative worlds that thrive in the Chicago neighborhoods of Bronzeville; Pilsen; and Rogers Park.These three neighborhoods are; respectively; historically African American; predominantly Mexican American; and proudly ethnically mixed. Drawing on her ethnographic research in each place; Diane Grams presents and analyzes the different kinds of networks of interest and support that sustain the making of art outside of the limelight. And she introduces us to the various individualsmdash;from cutting-edge artists to collectors to municipal plannersmdash;who work together to develop their communities; honor their history; and enrich the experiences of their neighbors through art. Along with its novel insights into these little examined art worlds; Producing Local Color also provides a thought-provoking account of how urban neighborhoods change and grow.
#918671 in eBooks 2011-04-01 2011-04-01File Name: B004CFBLAM
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Good tactics workbook for more advanced club playersBy Christopher J. FalterGerman grandmaster Karsten Muller has gathered 565 instructive and challenging tactics-rich positions into this fine collection. The first half of the book classifies the positions according to themes (pins. skewers. deflections. and so forth). Some. but not all. of the positions have significant hints. Next comes a section of mixed "easy" positions which were actually plenty challenging for me. and Im rated 1900+ at the Free Internet Chess Server. After chapters on opening traps. endgame shots. and defensive stunners. Muller closes with 160 mixed positions arranged into tests. If you want hints on the test positions. you can find them in the rear of the book. along with solutions to all of the books problems.Several qualities make this book worth your while:* Most of the positions occurred in games from the late 90s and early 2000s. so you will not encounter many "classic" positions from other collections.* I have not detected any errors in the diagrams or solutions. which is nice.* The printing. binding. and paper are durable and pleasing to the eye.Unfortunately. Muller does not always analyze the moves that a grandmaster might quickly reject but a club player might find attractive. For example. in position 152 white leaves his f5 knight hanging 3 moves into the combination. but black plays a prophylactic defensive move rather than just accept the piece sac. Why? Muller does not tells us. and I couldnt find a convincing continuation for white after a few minutes of analysis.While such omissions in analysis are not rare enough for me to award the book 5 stars. its still a good value for players rated upwards of 1700 or so. I would suggest 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners: The Tactics Workbook that Explains the Basic Concepts. Too for players with less experience.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Challenging puzzles; ebook version not well thought outBy P. A. ConnorsThis puzzle book might be useful for some if one caution is taken into account. and one problem:Caution: quite a few of the puzzles are hard. and I would expect anyone rated below 1700 to have great difficulty with a lot of the puzzles.Problem: all the solutions are placed together. directly one after the other. with numerous solutions per page. This makes it tricky not to see succeeding solutions when looking up the solution of one of the puzzles. (For the ebook version. this problem could be solved by having one puzzle per page. and one interlinked solution per page.)42 of 42 people found the following review helpful. Tactical problems from real games. organized by motifBy CustomerI have a large collection of books of tactics and tactical problems. but I had avoided this one because the title misled me (and at least one other person I talked to) into believing it consisted of artificial studies. whereas I prefer my problems to be from real games. When I finally saw this book at the local chess club. I was pleasantly surprised to find the positions are from real games. labeled with the players. dates. etc.There are 565 problems in all. organized by motif (pin. fork. etc.). with some problems further labeled with hints like "Whites position looks shaky. How to make it crumble?". Most of the problems are recent. from games in the 21st century. though there are a scattering of classics all the way back to Morphy. Almost all are from GM games. which of course means the difficulty is fairly uniformly high.Because of the high quality of the diagrams and solutions. this book has replaced Reinfeld at my bedside for motif-based practice. I also recommend "Sharpen Your Tactics" which presents 1125 problems organized by difficulty. rather than motif. I believe the approaches of these two books. both high quality. complement each other in fully rounded regime of tactical study.
