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Sunday, November 13, 2011
Anvil Poster - Concert the Story of Hard N' Heavy
- Anvil Poster
- Poster to advertise an Anvil Concert in Seattle
- April 14, 2009
- Poster size 11 x 17 in ches 28 x 43 cm
- Only 300 printed
It doesn't happen on a mostly disastrous European tour organized by a well-meaning but inexperienced fan. It doesn't happen when they reunite with British producer Chris Tsangarides (Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy) but find little interest in the new recording. But Kudlow, despite some bleak moments, is remarkably resilient (of the tour, he says, "Things went drastically wrong. But at least there was a tour for them to go wrong on"). And while it's a sad truth that Anvil just isn't that good--they're nowhere near the level of some of the bands they inspired, like Anthrax and Metallica--only the hardest of heart will resist rooting for them. Bonus material includes deleted scenes and commentary by director (and former roadie) Sacha Gervasi. --Sam GrahamIs Anvil the real Spinal Tap? That's a label that could be applied to any number of hapless hard rock bands, but there's enough evidence! in Anvil: The Story of Anvil to suggest that these guys may have, uh, tapped into the motherlode. The parallels are many, including getting lost on the way to a gig, playing before 174 people in a 10,000 capacity venue (in Transylvania, yet), inept management, ridiculous songs (even Nigel Tufnel and David St. Hubbins couldn't match "Thumb Hang," an Anvil tune about the Spanish Inquisition)… heck, they even visit (the real) Stonehenge. But dig deeper and you'll find some real heart in this 2007 documentary. Two hearts, actually--the ones belonging to singer-guitarist Steve "Lips" Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner (remove one "b" and you've got the director of This Is Spinal Tap). These two were there when the Canadian metal band formed in the early '80s and went on to share festival stages with the likes of Bon Jovi and Whitesnake. Now, a quarter century later (a new bassist and guitarist joined in the '90s), Reiner and Kudlow are in their fifties, living in To! ronto with wives, kids, and menial jobs. But they still haven'! t given up their undying belief that with a new album (their thirteenth) and couple of breaks, they will be rock stars.
It doesn't happen on a mostly disastrous European tour organized by a well-meaning but inexperienced fan. It doesn't happen when they reunite with British producer Chris Tsangarides (Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy) but find little interest in the new recording. But Kudlow, despite some bleak moments, is remarkably resilient (of the tour, he says, "Things went drastically wrong. But at least there was a tour for them to go wrong on"). And while it's a sad truth that Anvil just isn't that good--they're nowhere near the level of some of the bands they inspired, like Anthrax and Metallica--only the hardest of heart will resist rooting for them. Bonus material includes deleted scenes and commentary by director (and former roadie) Sacha Gervasi. --Sam GrahamIn the early seventies, when Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath ruled the world, Steve “Lips†Kudlow an! d Robb Reiner, two young Jewish boys from the northern suburbs of Toronto, vowed to rock together forever. A decade later, their band Anvil released one of the heaviest records in music history, Metal on Metal, which influenced a whole musical generation, including the world-dominating bands Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax. Yet while these bands went on to sell millions of records, Anvil slipped straight into obscurity.
Was it too much sex and drugs and not enough rock ‘n’ roll? Was it the menagerie of pets that accompanied them on tour? Their uncanny knack for setting themselves on fire whenever a record company executive was watching? Now, almost thirty years later, like a real-life Spinal Tap, these unlikely musical heroes are still rocking, and still chasing their dream. Written in their own words, Anvil: The Story of Anvil charts the rise, fall, and eventual triumph of two men whose indestructible friendship, talent, and determination took them on a unique journ! ey in the world of rock. A bittersweet and frequently hilariou! s hymn t o the human spirit, played loud in power chords, it is a story of true brotherly love, living the dream, and never giving up.
Praise for the film documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil:The alien Arcadians always want to fly, not to run. But whatever else she might like to call it, Maeve Cavainna is running. She is chased closely by the infamous bounty hunter, Logan Coldhand, who intends to drag her back to Axis to collect the high price on her head.
When he finally corners Maeve, the long chase seems to be over... until a frightened girl stumbles into the middle of their fight and begs for their protection. Maeve and Logan call a reluctant end to their battle and promise to help the girl, but they have agreed to far more than they know. Can the fragile peace between hunter and mark hold long enough to save the lives that depend on them?The alien Arcadians always want to fly, not to run. But whatever else she might like to call it, Maeve Cavainna is running. Sh! e is chased closely by the infamous bounty hunter, Logan Coldhand, who intends to drag her back to Axis to collect the high price on her head.
When he finally corners Maeve, the long chase seems to be over... until a frightened girl stumbles into the middle of their fight and begs for their protection. Maeve and Logan call a reluctant end to their battle and promise to help the girl, but they have agreed to far more than they know. Can the fragile peace between hunter and mark hold long enough to save the lives that depend on them?Poster to advertise and Anvil Concert in Seattle. One of 300 printed to advertise the show.
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SPRUNG/HELD UP - DVD Movi! eMy Best Friend's Girl:Smart, beautiful and ! headstro ng, Alexis is the girl of Dustin's dreams. But after only five weeks of dating, the love-struck Dustin is coming on so strong that Alexis is forced to slow things down - permanently. Devastated and desperate to get her back, Dustin turns to his best friend, Tank, the rebound specialist. A master at seducing - and offending - women, Tank gets hired by freshly dumped guys to take their ex-girlfriends out on the worst date of their lives - an experience so horrible it sends them running gratefully back to their beaus. But when Tank works his magic on Alexis, he ends up meeting the challenge of a lifetime. Alexis is the first girl who knows how to call his bluff, and Tank soon finds himself torn between his loyalty to Dustin and a strange new attraction to his best friend's girl.
Held Up:
Michael Dawson (Jamie Foxx) is a winner. He is a sexy, smart and successful Chicago businessman on vacation with his beautiful fiancee, Rae (Nia Long). But Michael's wo! rld is turned upside down when Rae dumps him in the desert - his car is jacked by a teenager; and worse, he is taken hostage in a stickup at the local Sip and Zip. What should have been a romantic getaway, turns into one hilarious bungle after another.
Jailbait:
It's not easy being the most popular couple in high school. Adam and Amber are the golden pair of Gaitlin High and are very busy being cool. Yet somehow Adam fins time for extracurricular activities, like "making it" with Gynger, a sophomore, in the bathroom ofa local restaurant. Soon, Adam's tidy world starts to fall apart when he finds out Gynger is pregnant. An ambitious Assistant District Attorney decides to file charges against Adam. Trying to help, Adam's parents hire a third-rate attorney whose every move just makes matters worse! Jailbait! is a wickedly funny look at how far some guys will go to score. Can Adam find a way to keep himself out of jail and his girlfriend by this ! side? Watch this hysterical teen comedy featuring a cool cast ! of young stars and a hip soundtrack. See what happens when hormones rage and you're under age!!
Loco Love:
When Donald's wealthy wife leaves him and takes his restaurant with her, help comes in the unlikely for of his gardener (Gerado Mejia) and recent lottery winner. The gardener offers him a new restaurant if he agrees to marry his beautiful but shrewish sister (Laura Elena Harring) so she can get a green card. Donald's luck seems to have gone from bad to worse as he finds that he has not onlymarried an incredibly feisty woman but also an equally eccentric and wacky family. Cultures clash and roles reverse in this zesty comedy that proves love knows no borders.In Held Up, a romantic trip turns sour when Rachel (Nia Long) learns that Michael (Jamie Foxx) used the down payment for their future home to buy a classic car. Disgusted, she leaves him at a roadside gas station in the middle of the Nevada desert. Soon the car is stolen, thieves descend to ro! b the place, and the untimely arrival of the police creates a hostage situation with Michael in the middle. The circumstances want to cascade into mounting absurdity, but the ending doesn't quite provide a strong capper. Still, getting there is entertaining. Foxx is engaging, and the supporting cast--including Julie Hagerty, John Collum, Barry Corbin, and Jake Busey--create a colorful collection of locals. --Bret FetzerConnect UM02 to your computer (PC) with USB cable included, and view the micro world right on your computer screen! UM02 is a small and light USB camera microscope with 2M pixels CMOS image sensor, and provides 320x magnification on a 22" monitor. It is the most versatile digital microscope in the market today. It has the ability to capture images in high magnifications, take standard photos, record videos, and can be used as a web camera. Moreover, this model includes a powerful measurement function, which allows the user to input the magnification va! lue from the microscope's zoom control, and directly measure t! he lengt h, angle, circumference, diameter and area of the object in view. UM02 fits perfectly and ergonomically in the hand. It is ideal for a variety of applications including textile inspection, detailed repair, printing inspection, computer parts inspection, living creature examination, reading aid, and collectables examination (coins, etc,), education to students and hobbies. Compatibility: Windows 7/Vista/XP. Accessories Included: USB Cable, Software CD, Operation Manual, Stand for Microscope, Calibrator for Measurement Application. Manufacturer's Warranty: 1 year. This microscope has clear and high quality pictures.
ATL (Full Screen Edition)
- Sometimes 17-year-old Rashad and his pals hang out at the Waffle House, trying to figure out what's next after they graduate. But on Sunday nights, they know what's coming. They'll be at the Cascade roller rink: laying down moves, chillin' with friends.and for a few hours leaving what's outside outside.ATL is a Sunday night fever of laughs, drama and crunk sounds. Video director Chris Robinson ma
DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Featurette
Music Video
Theatrical Trailer
Adventures of Joe Dirt, The (2001) - 11 x 17 - Style B
- Wonderful poster to add to any collection
- Arrives rolled in a protective mailer tube
- Brand new poster ready to frame
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 25-JUL-2006
Media Type: DVDAnother of those cut-and-paste comedies from Adam Sandler's production company starring one of Sandler's erstwhile Saturday Night Live colleagues, The Adventures of Joe Dirt finds the magnificently caustic David Spade emasculated by a sentimental script and shapeless, haphazard cutting. Spade plays the title character, a white-trash orphan in search of the parents who abandoned him at the Grand Canyon. The humor is supposed to come from Joe's misadventures, his redneck gullibility, and his encounters with such figures as a serial killer, a wacked-out janitor (Christopher Walken), and a lovable gal (Jamie Pressly) who may, unfortunately, turn out to be his sister. But the squishier requirements of the story, requiring the audience to feel deeply for the p! ain of Spade's caricature, are an irritant and force Spade to veer from the nastier stuff he does so well. With Kid Rock, Dennis Miller. --Tom Keogh Another of those cut-and-paste comedies from Adam Sandler's production company starring one of Sandler's erstwhile "Saturday Night Live" colleagues, "The Adventures of Joe Dirt" finds the magnificently caustic David Spade emasculated by a sentimental script and shapeless, haphazard cutting. Spade plays the title character, a white-trash orphan in search of the parents who abandoned him at the Grand Canyon. The humor is supposed to come from Joe's misadventures, his redneck gullibility, and his encounters with such figures as a serial killer, a wacked-out janitor (Christopher Walken), and a lovable gal (Jamie Pressly) who may, unfortunately, turn out to be his sister. But the squishier requirements of the story, requiring the audience to feel deeply for the pain of Spade's caricature, are an irritant and force Spade to ve! er from the nastier stuff he does so well. With Kid Rock, Denn! is Mille r. "--Tom Keogh"Another of those cut-and-paste comedies from Adam Sandler's production company starring one of Sandler's erstwhile Saturday Night Live colleagues, The Adventures of Joe Dirt finds the magnificently caustic David Spade emasculated by a sentimental script and shapeless, haphazard cutting. Spade plays the title character, a white-trash orphan in search of the parents who abandoned him at the Grand Canyon. The humor is supposed to come from Joe's misadventures, his redneck gullibility, and his encounters with such figures as a serial killer, a wacked-out janitor (Christopher Walken), and a lovable gal (Jamie Pressly) who may, unfortunately, turn out to be his sister. But the squishier requirements of the story, requiring the audience to feel deeply for the pain of Spade's caricature, are an irritant and force Spade to veer from the nastier stuff he does so well. With Kid Rock, Dennis Miller. --Tom Keogh 11" x 17" high quality reproduction pos! ter by Pop Culture Graphics. Printed in the USA. Perfect for framing.
Moneymakers: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Notorious Counterfeiters
- ISBN13: 9781594202872
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
In 1695, Isaac Newton—already renowned as the greatest mind of his age—made a surprising career change. He left quiet Cambridge, where he had lived for thirty years and made his earth-shattering discoveries, and moved to London to take up the post of Warden of His Majesty’s Mint.
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Newton was preceded to the city by a genius of another kind, the budding criminal William Chaloner. Thanks to his preternatural skills as a counterfeiter, Chaloner was rapidly rising in London’s highly competitive underworld, at a time when organized law enforcement was all but unknown and money in the modern sense was just coming into being. Then he crossed paths with the formidabl! e new warden. In the courts and streets of London—and amid the tremors of a world being transformed by the ideas Newton himself had set in motion—the chase was on. This revelatory tale of Isaac Newton’s journey through London’s underworld will appeal to fans of The Professor and the Madman.
In 1695, Isaac Newton--already renowned as the greatest mind of his age--made a surprising career change. He left quiet Cambridge, where he had lived for thirty years and made his earth-shattering discoveries, and moved to London to take up the post of Warden of His Majesty's Mint. Newton was preceded to the city by a genius of another kind, the budding criminal William Chaloner. Thanks to his preternatural skills as a counterfeiter, Chaloner was rapidly rising in London's highly competitive underworld, at a time when organized law enforcement was all but unknown and money in the modern sense was just coming into being.! Then he crossed paths with the formidable new warden. In the ! courts a nd streets of London--and amid the tremors of a world being transformed by the ideas Newton himself had set in motion--the two played out an epic game of cat and mouse.
A Q&A with Thomas Levenson, Author of Newton and the Counterfeiter
A: I first encountered the connection at the heart of Newton and the Counterfeiter when I was working on a very different project in the mid '90s. A long out of print book quoted from one of the few letters between my counterfeiter, William Chaloner, and Isaac Newton--and on reading it I wondered: what on earth was such a scoundrel doing in correspondence with the greatest mind of the age? The question stuck with ! me for a decade, and finally I made the time to dig a little deeper. Once I did, I discovered two things that made this book both possible, and from a writer's point of view, inescapable. The first was a trove of original documents that chronicled Newton's involvement in the pursuit and prosecution of not just Chaloner, but dozens of other currency criminals. The second was the insight this one story gives into Newton himself--and of the real extent and impact of the revolutions (plural deliberate) which he so prominently led. Isaac Newton is best remembered, of course, as the man at the vanguard of the scientific revolution--a status established by his discoveries: the laws of motion, gravity, the calculus, and much more. But I found that this story gave me a sense of what it was like to live through that revolution at street level. It provided an example of Newton's mind at work, for one, and for another, it involved Newton in the second of the great 17th century transfo! rmations, the financial revolution that occurred in conjunctio! n, and w ith some connection to the scientific one.
Newton, I found, was a bureaucrat, a man with a job running England's money supply at a time with surprising parallels to our own: new, poorly understood financial engineering to deal with what was a national currency and economic crisis. He was asked to think about money, and he did--and at the same time, he was given the job of Warden of the Mint, which among other duties put him charge of policing those who would fake or undermine the King's coins. So there I had it: a gripping true crime story, with life-and-death stakes and enough information to follow my leading characters through the bad streets and worse jails of London--and one that at the same time let me explore some of critical moves in the making of the world we inhabit through the mind and feelings of perhaps the greatest scientific thinker who ever lived. How could I resist that?
Q: Are there comparisons to be made to the financial times ! we are living in today in this country?
A: When I started writing this book, (c. 2005) the American and the global economy was seemingly in robust health. The American housing market was booming; financial markets the world over were trading happily back and forth, the Dow in June, when I started working in earnest on the project, stood comfortably over 10,000, with a 40% rise to come through the first and second drafts of the work. And then, of course, things changed--and by that time (too late to do my own financial situation any good) I realized that in the story of Newton's confrontation with Chaloner I could see many of the pathologies that define our current predicament. England's currency and its system of high finance--the big loans and big banks behind them needed to fund government--were both under increasing strain when Newton arrived at the Mint.
Part of the damage was being done through imbalances of trade, as silver flowed out of! England to the European continent and ultimately to India and! China. (Sound familiar?) That loss of metal had huge economic consequences when you remember that money itself was made of silver back then. No silver, no coins. No coins--and how are you going to buy a loaf of bread, a pound of beef, a barrel of beer (which was a staple, and not a luxury given the state of London’s drinking (sic) water). At the same time, England was waging a war it could not pay for. (Sound familiar?) The Treasury was broke. Financial engineering got its start in the ever more desperate attempts by the government to raise the money it needed to keep its army in the field against France. Newton and his counterfeiting nemesis William Chaloner both found themselves operating on unfamiliar territory, with paper abstractions standing in for what used to be literally hard cash. This was when bank notes were invented--and Chaloner forged some. This was when the government began to issue what were in essence bonds--and Chaloner forged some of those too. Personal chequ! es were coming in, and--you guessed it--Chaloner passed a couple of duds. Most significantly, the Bank of England invented fractional reserve lending--lending out a multiple of the actual cash reserves it held at any one time. This was the birth of leverage. Put it all together and you have most of the crucial ideas in modern finance appearing at almost the same instant. These are fantastically useful tools; the enormous expansion of wealth, of material comfort, of human well being that we’ve seen over the last three centuries, derives in part from the fact that the English and their trading counterparties were so impressively inventive in those decades. But at the same time, as we know now all too well, each and every one of those financial ideas are capable of abuse. Now add to the usual temptations to financial sin the besetting danger of ignorance, of the sheer unfamiliarity of the new instruments, and you have the makings of an almost inevitable disaster.
! In 2009, we are dealing with that double trouble: deliberate ! frauds c ombining with the larger problem that the complexity and sheer deep strangeness of new financial products allowed a lot of so-called smart money to make big bets they didn’t understand. Exactly the same kinds of pressures were building in Newton's day, and the financial crisis that Newton helped resolve in the 1690s kept spawning sequels, until in the 1720s, Newton himself got caught up in a disaster that in many ways eerily anticipates the one we are living through now. The South Sea Bubble of 1720 was born of a good idea--what we would now call a debt-for-equity swap--but rapidly turned into a fraud and then at the last a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme. What I found most striking is that Newton, who of all men had the mathematical chops to figure out that the South Sea promises couldn't possibly be met, still got sucked in by the promise of outsize returns. Avarice, desire, or perhaps in Newton's case just the agony of the thought that others were getting richer while he was ! not, propelled him into investing in the bubble at its very peak. According to his niece, he lost 20,000 pounds in a matter of months--which in today’s money would be roughly three million pounds, or close to five million dollars. The moral, at least the lesson I took from this personally? No one, not even Newton, and certainly not me, is smart enough to be smarter than one's own emotions. And that grim fact, as much as any specific financial innovation, lies behind our current economic woes, and surely caught that great thinker Isaac Newton in its grip as well.
Q: Tell us about your research.
A: I was fortunate in this project--in fact, I only took on the book--because there was a rich lode of little-known documents that told the story of the clash between Newton and Chaloner. Five large folders survive of Newton's own notes, drafts and memos covering his official duties at the Mint. Examining them, especially drafts of replies to som! e of Chaloner's most audacious attacks on him at Parliamentary! hearing s, it is possible to see across time to Newton's mounting frustration and anger at his antagonist: his handwriting gets worse, more cramped, swift, and in general ticked off as he works through his responses. I was also able to find the handful of documents that can be unequivocally attributed to Chaloner: a couple of pamphlets he had printed to display his expertise in the making and manipulation of coin, and to allege incompetence, or worse at Newton's Mint. To that I added a marvelous, if not entirely reliable, moralizing biography of Chaloner, hastily written and published within days of his execution. That was one of the early examples of what became a staple pulp genre--edifying and titillating accounts of the wicked, in which any admiration for the rascals being chronicled were carefully wrapped up through the appropriate bad ends to which all the subjects of such works were doomed.
But of all the wellsprings of this book, none were more important than the ! file it took me over a year to find. I knew that some of the records Isaac Newton's criminal interrogations survived, because I found reference to them in a couple of the older biographies and other secondary sources. But in the reorganization of British official records that took place in the decades after World War II, the cataloguing systems for Mint files had undergone enough changes that this crucial set of documents had slipped out of sight of the contemporary Newton scholarly community. I managed to track it down to its current location in the Public Records Office, and then I had writer's gold: more than four hundred separate documents, most countersigned by Newton himself, that allowed me to retrace his steps as a criminal investigator informer by informer. Most fortunately--Newton’s nephew-in-law reported that he helped his wife's uncle burn many of his Mint interrogation records. But the entire Chaloner case remained in the one surviving folder, and it made for! fascinating, gripping reading. Once Newton realized how formi! dable an opponent he had in Chaloner, he proved relentless in reconstructing not just particular crimes, but the whole architecture of counterfeiting and coining as it was practiced in London in the 1690s. You get to see, smell, hear how the bad guys worked, in their own words, as elicited by a man who (surprise!) proved to be exceptionally good at extracting the evidence he needed to solve a problem.
(Photo © Joel Benjamin)
Art Williams was a precocious student with a bright future, but his dreams shattered when his father abandoned the family and his bipolar mother lost her wits. Living in one of Chicago’s worst housing projects, Williams was breaking open parking meters at age twelve and by his mid-teens he was robbing drug dealers. His quest for both a father figure and stable income would merge at the age of sixteen, when a criminal master nicknamed “Da Vinci†taught him the centuries-old art of counterfeit! ing. Following a stint in prison, Williams returned to society to find that the Treasury Department had issued the most secure hundred-dollar bill ever created: the 1996 New Note. He spent months trying to circumvent its security features before arriving at a bill so perfect that even law enforcement had difficulty distinguishing it from the real thing. Williams went on to print millions in counterfeit, selling it to criminal organizations and using it to fund cross-country spending sprees. Spending his fake money as quickly as he could print it but still unsatisfied, he dropped everything to track down his long-lost father in the wilds of Alaska, setting in motion a chain of betrayals that would be his undoing. The Art of Making Money is a stirring portrait of the rise and inevitable fall of a modern-day criminal mastermind.A young artist pursues a search for knowledge through the treatment of homosexuality and the collapse of morality in middle class France.The l! ively and enthralling tale of three notorious counterfeiters o! ffers in sights into the makings of the American financial mind.
In Moneymakers, Ben Tarnoff chronicles the lives of three colorful counterfeiters who flourished in early America, shedding fresh light on the country's financial coming of age. The speculative ethos that pervades Wall Street today, Tarnoff suggests, has its origins in the craft of counterfeiters who first took advantage of a turbulent American economy.
Few nations have as rich a counterfeiting history as the United States. Since the colonies suffered from a chronic shortage of precious metals, they were the first place in the Western world to use easily forged paper bills. And until the national currency was standardized in the last half of the nineteenth century, the United States had a dizzying variety of banknotes, making early America a counterfeiter's paradise.
In Moneymakers, Tarnoff recounts how three of America's most successful counterfeiters-Owen Sullivan, David L! ewis, and Samuel Upham- each cunningly manipulated the political and economic realities of his day, driven by a desire for fortune and fame. Irish immigrant Owen Sullivan (c. 1720-1756) owed his success not just to his hustler's charm and entrepreneurial spirit, but also to the weak law enforcement and craving for currency that marked colonial America. The handsome David Lewis (1788-1820) became an outlaw hero in backwoods Pennsylvania, infamous for his audacious jailbreaks and admired as a Robin Hood figure who railed against Eastern financial elites. Shopkeeper Samuel Upham (1819-1885) sold fake Confederate bills to his fellow Philadelphians during the Civil War as "mementos of the rebellion," enraging Southern leaders when Union soldiers flooded their markets with the forgeries.
Through the tales of these three memorable counterfeiters, Moneymakers spins the larger story of America's financial ups and downs during its infancy and adolescence, tracing its ! evolution from a patchwork of colonies to a powerful nation wi! th a sin gle currency. It was only toward the end of the Civil War that a strengthened federal government created the Secret Service to police counterfeiting, finally bringing the quintessentially American pursuit to an end. But as Tarnoff suggests in this highly original financial history, the legacy of early American counterfeiters lives on in the get-rich-quick culture we see on Wall Street today.
Author Q&A with Ben Tarnoff
Q: Can you explain the significance of the title Moneymakers?
A: “Moneymaker†was the colonial word for counterfeiter. When Owen Sullivan, the first counterfeiter profiled in my book, gets into a drunken fight with his wife in Boston in 1749, she calls him a “forty-thousand-po! und moneymaker.†The neighbors overhear this remark and tell the police, who discover fake bills and printing materials at Sullivan’s house and arrest him. I liked the word “moneymaker†because it’s so literal: of all the ways to acquire money, only “moneymaking†involved actually manufacturing it. A disgruntled silversmith could disappear for a week and return richer than the city’s wealthiest merchant. Getting rich quick inspired as much awe and envy back then as it does today. For those riches to be fabricated by hand, and not earned the old-fashioned way, made counterfeiting seem like magic. It’s easy to see why counterfeiters became the outlaw celebrities of their day. They embodied the enduring fantasy of instant wealth. Their fortunes were, in every sense, self-made.
Q: What initially drew you to the topic of counterfeiting?
A: When I started reading about the subject, I became fascinated with the stories of the in! dividual counterfeiters. Very few began as professional crimin! als. Mos t started out as craftsmen: silversmiths or engravers, usually. Creating a plate for printing counterfeit bills required tremendous dexterity. The success of an entire operation essentially rested on one pair of hands. So counterfeiters tended to be talented artistsâ€"but they were also aggressively entrepreneurial. They needed to think on several levels: quality of the craftsmanship wasn’t the only factor determining the success of a counterfeiting enterprise. There was the sale of the notes themselves, whether to regional distributors or to gangs of “passers.†There was the geographical question of which communities to target. Perhaps most importantly, counterfeiters had to elude law enforcement and, as their notoriety grew, the prospect of lifetime imprisonment or execution. For these reasons they came to understand the political and economic landscape of early America far better than most criminals of the era.
Q: Do you think your book has special! relevance today?
A: The financial crisis reminded us how rapidly wealth can evaporate. It reminded us that, despite huge advances in technology, we still live in a very precarious system. What Moneymakers brings into focus is that financial volatility hasn’t been the exception in American history: it’s been the rule. It’s tempting to think of our economic trajectory as one continuous ascent since the 18th century. But America’s path to prosperity has been anything but linear: it’s run from boom and bust, through wars and political upheavals, and impoverished people at least as often as it’s enriched them. Men and women two hundred years ago were not substantially different from us. They were just as delusional about the prospect of inexhaustible growth in the 19th century as we were in the early part of the 21stâ€"and just as shocked and angry when those delusions gave way. Of course, many specific circumstances have changed since then.! Counterfeiters were once ubiquitous in American life; today, ! they’v e virtually disappeared. Until the final decades of the 19th century, counterfeiters provided a significant portion of the nation’s money supply, feeding America’s addiction to paper credit with fresh infusions of fake currency. These days, counterfeit bills account for a negligible portion of the total in circulation. But though physical counterfeiting has declined, the spirit of counterfeiting endures. Counterfeiters’ core insight was that confidence creates value. If a paper rectangle carried the right marks in the right places, and the person holding it appeared trustworthy, then it became valuable. Much of today’s financial trickery proceeds from the same principle.
Q: What surprised you most while researching and writing?
A: There was a lot that surprised me. Maybe the most surprising single fact was how many different private paper currencies circulated in the United States before the Civil War. I’d thought we’d always had ! a single federal currency, but it wasn’t until the 1860s that it became politically possible for Congress to phase out the bills of some sixteen hundred state banks and replace them with national notes. More surprising than this, however, was how long the American people enduredâ€"and in many cases, endorsedâ€"a system with so many evident flaws. From the Revolution until the Civil War, they dealt with hundreds, and eventually thousands, of different banknotes, each fluctuating in value. They were victimized by predatory lenders, speculators, and a banking sector that swung from prosperity to panic, with devastating effects. The federal government could’ve stepped in to simplify and stabilize this state of affairs. But the American people generally resisted the idea of a federal government powerful enough to make meaningful interventions in the economy and the currency, even if it would be to their benefit. The resistance to federal power was rooted in a particular inte! rpretation of the Constitution and a long legacy of limited go! vernment . It led people to act against their economic self-interest, en masse and for long periods of time. Outdated notions of proper governance proved remarkably persistent, even when modern circumstances demanded something very different.
Q: Your book focuses on three counterfeiters. What made you decide on these people in particular?
A: With this subject there’s no shortage of colorful characters and engaging anecdotes. But I wanted to focus on people who, in some way, illustrated the story of America’s financial evolution. These three men stood out because they intersected with the broader currents of their respective eras in exceptionally interesting ways. They were each active at moments of major change in the American monetary landscape. For example, Owen Sullivan launched his counterfeiting career in 1749, the same year that the Massachusetts legislature passed a highly controversial bill phasing out the colony’s paper currency within ! the next two years. Decades later, David Lewis picked a similarly momentous time: just as the rapid proliferation of note-issuing banks flooded the early United States with new bills, with obvious benefits for counterfeiters. Samuel Upham took advantage of the unique circumstances brought about by the Civil War. He forged Confederate money with impunity from the safety of Philadelphia, peddling his fakes openly to soldiers and smugglers headed South. Sullivan, Lewis, and Upham gave me a way to connect the story of American counterfeiting with the story of America as a whole.
Q: What did you learn about America through writing this book? What did you learn about Americans?
A: When you write history, you begin to see a lot of common ground between the past and the present. Almost every day, I would encounter a fact or a story that called to mind current events. America may look a lot different in 2010 than it did in 1690-1865, which is roughl! y the period covered by my book. But there are certain resonan! ces. One theme that seems to have persisted, despite the major realignments of the last century, is the notion of getting “something for nothing.†America’s first settlers thought of this country as a blank: “vacuum domicilium,†in John Winthrop’s words, or vacant land. This was a fantasy, of course: the land wasn’t vacant, and clearing it involved a centuries-long struggle. But the idea of forging value in a void remained a powerful one.
Paper money belongs to this tradition. It makes something out of nothing by investing an otherwise worthless material with monetary value typically reserved for gold or silver. In fact, the American colonies were the first governments in the Western world to print paper currency. The notes first appeared in 1690 in response to the severe shortage of precious metals that plagued colonial life. Faced with a scarcity of coin, colonial America needed a way to fund wars and collect taxes and conduct trade: more broadly, it n! eeded a way to convert the ambitions of its inhabitants into real economic growth. Paper currency met that need. It provided a country with few natural resources and little political or economic leverage the fuel to colonize an entire continent. Our economy ran on paper promises that, in many cases, couldn’t be keptâ€"yet our collective faith in these promises helped produce real things, like canals and railroads. By postponing the present in anticipation of the future, paper promises helped America grow.
Q: Did you develop a new appreciation or understanding of the American economy through writing this book?
A: Our economy has grown so much in scale and sophistication that it’s hard to draw exact parallels. But there are certain patterns that feel very familiar. In the book I write a lot about confidence. It sustains the economy by underpinning the value of our currency; it also enriched counterfeiters over the centuries, who grew very ad! ept at cultivating it. In the period covered by the book, Amer! icans te nded to have a confidence problem: they either had too much of it, taking risks as everything surged, or too little, fleeing the market as everything crumbled. As long as everyone believed something had valueâ€"whether a piece of colonial money or a stock certificateâ€"it did. But when that faith faltered, mistrust spread throughout the system, triggering a panic. The essential features of our most recent crisis would be familiar to people living through the Panics of 1819 or 1837 or any of the several subsequent disruptions in the following decades. The issue of how crises are created is very contentious, and I’ve tried to be careful about not drawing unfair comparisons. Without diminishing the complexity of the debate, though, there are fascinating convergences between past and present when it comes to America’s turbulent finances.
Q: What do you hope readers take away?
A: I think the most exciting thing about history is that it’s ! filled with real people. They felt pain when they lost their life savings in financial panics. They argued bitterly about the role of government in the economy, just as bitterly as we do today. The more time I spend reading about the past, the more I’m reminded of people I know today. The correspondences aren’t perfect, but enough of them exist to suggest human that nature hasn’t changed much in the last three centuries. If there’s a larger lesson to the book, that might be it.
Bordertown 4 pc Boxed Set
- BORDERTOWN (DVD MOVIE)
When editor of the Chicago Sentinel George Morgan (Sheen) sends ambitious reporter, Lauren Adrian (Lopez), to Juarez, Mexico to investigate the murders, what she finds is the story of a lifetime. Eva, a young woman who was raped and left for dead in the desert, is the only woman to survive an attack. Unable to go to the police for help, she turns to a local newspaper run by Diaz Alfonso (Banderas), former friend and colleague of Lauren s. Hiding Eva is incredibly dangerous, but Lauren knows that publishing her story is the only way to expose the tr! uth behind the murders. She is determined to find Eva s attackers but soon finds herself immersed in a dangerous web of corruption that extends to both sides of the border.In the five years since human traffickers kidnapped his daughter Vincent has traveled the world and left a bloody wake behind him. Now he has found the town where his daughter is being held and the pimp who s keeping her. Over one night in Solo, Mexico Vincent is determined to fulfill the promise he made years ago; get his daughter back and kill the man who took her.
First published in 1934, Border Town brings to life the story of Cuicui, a young country girl coming of age during a time of national turmoil. Like any teenager, Cuicui dreams of romance and finding true love. She's spellbound by the local custom of nighttime serenades, and she is deftly pursued by two eligible brothers. But Cuicui is also haunted by the imminent death of her grandfather, a poor and honorable ferryman who is her onl! y family. As she grows up, Cuicui discovers that life is full ! of the u nexpected and that she alone will make the choices that determine her destiny.
A moving testament to the human spirit, Border Town is a beautifully written novel, considered Shen Congwen's masterpiece for its brilliant portrayal of Chinese rural life before the Communist revolution.
Featuring 28 Episodes. In 1880, Pemmican lay at the western edge of the Great Plains. Nearly a decade later, surveyors of the 49th parallel reached the community of 180 to find it straddling the new Canada-U.S. border. Pemmican became Bordertown. It wasn't until the mud had settled that Bordertown's awkward, if not unique, character came to light. Law and order were dealt with on one side by Clive Bennett, a Mountie, and on the other by U.S. Marshal Jack Craddock. Whiskey traders, buffalo hunters, gold prospectors, silver miners, drifters and drunks kept the lawmen busy. Still, clashes were inevitable; they shared an office divided only by a black line--the 49th parallel. Acut! e rivalry in the pursuit of justice was further complicated by their pursuit of the same woman. Marie Dumont was a widowed Parisian, a sensitive lady of considerable breeding and the town's doctor. Thomas And Friends Wooden Railway - Harold The Helicopter
- Handmade from REAL WOOD
- Moving propeller
- Durable paint job
- Realistic details
- Recommended Age Range 2 to 5 Years
Was it worth it, this awful struggle to survive, no matter what the cost?"
Harold is Hal Holbrook’s affecting memoir of growing up behind disguises, and his lifelong search for himself. Abandoned by his mother and father when he was two, Holbrook and his two sisters each commenced their separate journeys of survival. Raised by his powerful grandfather until his death when Holbrook was twelve, Holbrook spent his childhood at boarding schools, visiting his father in an insane asylum, and hoping his mother would suddenly surface in Hollywood. As the Second World War engulfed Europe, Holbrook began acting almost by accident. Thereafter, through war, marriage, and the work of honing his craft, his fear of insanity and his fearlessness! in the face of risk were channeled into his discovery that the riskiest path of allâ€"success as an actorâ€"would be his birthright. The climb up that tough, tough mountain was going to be a lonely one. And how he achieved itâ€"the cost to his wife and children and to his own conscienceâ€"is the dark side of his eventual fame from performing the man his career would forever be most closely associated with, the iconic Mark Twain.
All aboard the next stop along the learning curve . . . kids three and up will enjoy the magical adventures of the ever-popular Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway System. Featuring characters from the Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends video series and the Thomas and the Magic Railroad feature film now out on video, this system allows children to re-enact their favorite Thomas tales or create new adventures of their own. Besides encouraging imagination, wooden train-play helps kids develop motor and social skills. The Thomas Wooden! Railway System is designed to grow along with kids' increasin! g skills , offering years of enjoyable play and new adventures around each and every bend. Harold is Hal Holbrook’s affecting memoir of growing up behind disguises, and his lifelong search for himself. Abandoned by his mother and father when he was two, Holbrook and his two sisters each commenced their separate journeys of survival. Raised by his powerful grandfather until his death when Holbrook was twelve, Holbrook spent his childhood at boarding schools, visiting his father in an insane asylum, and hoping his mother would suddenly surface in Hollywood. As the Second World War engulfed Europe, Holbrook began acting almost by accident. Thereafter, through war, marriage, and the work of honing his craft, his fear of insanity and his fearlessness! in the face of risk were channeled into his discovery that the riskiest path of allâ€"success as an actorâ€"would be his birthright. The climb up that tough, tough mountain was going to be a lonely one. And how he achieved itâ€"the cost to his wife and children and to his own conscienceâ€"is the dark side of his eventual fame from performing the man his career would forever be most closely associated with, the iconic Mark Twain.
Thomas and his friends bring personality and fun to wooden train play. All aboard for adventure on the Island of Sodor! Good-hearted Harold brings welcome but noisy visits to the quiet Sodor landscape. For use with Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway System sets (sold separately).Kindhearted but noisy, Harold the Helicopter likes to drop in on the Island of Sodor to visit his railway friends. This 4-inch sturdy wood helicopter is white with a sleek red racing stripe above his name. With a rotating propeller and plastic landing pontoons, Harold is ready for action. Based on the popular Thomas the Tank Engine series by Reverend W. Awdry and the PBS television show Shining Time Station, this flying fellow is part of the much-loved wooden railway system, which is compatible with other magnetic train sets. You can reenact all the exciting stories in the series or make up new ones. Th! omas fans won't want to miss out on any of these fun, well-built railway characters. --Emilie Coulter
