New Releases by John Rendall

C’è tutto quel che conta in queste pagine: amicizia, amore, gioia contagiosa. Un giovane leone adulto nella savana si avvicina da lontano a due ragazzi, prima con cautela, poi travolgendoli, ma di affetto e feste, come chi è felice di ritrovare vecchi amici che non incontrava da tempo. Milioni di persone nel mondo hanno visto il video di quell’abbraccio nella natura selvaggia, uno dei più visualizzati di YouTube, e uno dei più emozionanti e commoventi mai apparsi su uno schermo, tanto da essere diventato il simbolo dell’amore che supera ogni limite e dell’amicizia che infrange ogni barriera. Ciò che ha portato due giovani australiani trapiantati a Londra fin tra le braccia di un leone nella savana keniota è il cammino imprevedibile del destino. Un paio di anni prima, mentre da turisti modello fanno acquisti da Harrods, Anthony e John si imbattono in qualcosa che li fa trasalire. In un reparto dei famosi magazzini, dove per un certo periodo, a patto di poterseli permettere, si poteva comprare qualunque animale esotico, è in vendita un cucciolo di leone di pochi mesi. I due nulla sanno di leoni, ma sanno che non possono permettere che Christian, come lo chiamano prima ancora di averlo, vada incontro a una vita di cattività. Con molto coraggio, e un pizzico di incoscienza, decidono di acquistarlo per una cifra per loro strabiliante. Inizia da qui una meravigliosa convivenza fatta di responsabilità, mobili distrutti, sfide psicologiche e fisiche con un animale dalla personalità complessa e forte, ma soprattutto di amicizia, fiducia, rispetto e amore generoso e indistruttibile. E delle scelte, a volte ardue, che chi ama prima o poi è chiamato a fare...

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This PhD is formed through encounters between painting, writing and insecurity, as embodied by closed circuit television screens (CCTV). What once existed as convex security mirrors, requiring real time surveillance, have been transformed, via digital recording and flat-screen technologies, into an infinite array of fleeting images that are able to be stored for future viewing. These encounters are considered in relation to the existence of both CCTV screens and the position of painting as twenty-first century image-generating systems. As such, painting is considered in relation to the formal attributes and the insecurities embodied by these CCTV screens, resulting in the idea that the work should be considered a triptych of painting, writing and CCTV screens. The theme of insecurity is also played out through the writing about painting, as painting is translated for exegetical purposes. The question of how to proceed with a translation being foregrounded led to the problem of how to proceed as a painter who must produce exegetical writing on a project that is ostensibly about painting. Walter Benjamin and the translators of Derrida''s The Truth in Painting, Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod, demonstrate that the problem of translating is that there can be no perfect translation. This creates another sort of closed circuit and another form of insecurity in the work. This problem of translation flows through all components of the project: given that the paintings are partially based on snapshots of CCTV screens, they are translations of snapshots, which are themselves translations of CCTV screens. CCTV screens might be regarded as translations of the camera''s viewpoint. The writing then finds itself in the unfortunately dubious situation of being a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation. This cascade of translations informs and disrupts the exegetical component. Thus, the exegesis is used to consider the effect of translation as it plays out in different directions, but with close consideration of how the translation of painting into writing affects both painting and writing.

As Ace and John, two friends, are searching for holiday gifts in London, they come across a lion cub for sale in Harrods, the famous department store! Unable to bear the thought of leaving the cub, Ace and John take him home and name him Christian. After a year of fun and mischief Christian has grown up, and Ace and John realize that their pet needs to be among other lions and deserves to live free, in his natural environment. Luckily, friends help introduce Christian to the African wild. Christian the Lion tells the riveting true story of one animal’s ability to adapt to life in the wild, and captures the unexpectedly enduring connection between man and animal.

In 2008, YouTube.com featured an extraordinary film clip that soon became an internet phenomenon. It showed the emotional reunion of two young men and their pet lion, Christian, after they had left him in Africa with Born Free s George Adamson, who would introduce him into his rightful home in the wild. A Lion Called Christian relates how Anthony Ace Bourke and John Rendall visited London from Australia in 1969 and bought a boisterous lion cub in Harrods. For a while, the three of them lived together as flatmates on the King s Road, Chelsea, where Christian became a local celebrity. But he was growing up, fast, and even the church garden in which he exercised was becoming too small for him. How could Ace and John avoid incarcerating him in a zoo for the rest of his life? A chance meeting with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, stars of Born Free, led to Christian being flown to Kenya and placed under the expert care of Adamson. Ace and John did not return to see him for a year. Now, thanks to the internet age, their incredible reunion is again being enjoyed by millions. Originally published in 1971, A Lion Called Christian has been fully revised and updated, telling Christian s remarkable story in words as well as stunning photographs. It is a unique and extraordinary tale of its time that resonates again today with a worldwide audience, and is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature.