Long a cross between Brian McKnight and R. Kelly, R&B's smooth -- but chiseled -- operator Tank tips the scales toward the Kels side on his 2012 release, filling the album with dreamy, lush productions and adults-only lyrics that sometimes reach the level of shameful adults only. Case in point, the pillowy soft Compliments, which is filled with sweet nothings that escalate to innuendo, that escalates to a (puritans leave now) camel toe compliment when guests T.I. and Kris Stephens join in. I know that you cool/But what we gonna do about mine? is the sentiment behind the misdirected bundle of bedroom encouragement called Don't Give Up, and when Chris Brown talks of the 100 women who want to sleep with him but only your ass can get to me, the album is either the first bedroom effort made exclusively for guys or one of the more risky couples albums, where frank talk could either heighten or kill the mood. Still, it's in this environment that lyrics like Since you don't appreciate her/I'm gonna please her later/Let me take that off your hands sit comfortably, because with This Is How I Feel, doing wrong feels so right when you drop your inhibitions. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi

A musical sorority sister of Alicia Keys and Angie Stone--though she'd doubtless bristle at the suggestion--Philly-reared soul singer Res nevertheless manages to strike a convincing balance between the street and the studio on How I Do, juxtaposing saucy, melodic pop with more ragged funk and R&B. That kind of crossover is impressive, but Res (pronounced Reese) uses her elastic and surprisingly vibrato-free voice to poke around in various corners, even taking tentative steps toward rhyme. Co-conspirator and producer Martin Doc McKinney's thumbprints are evident in the smooth flow of beats and gurgling ambient washes, though unlike his previous work with Toronto trip-hop unit Esthero, McKinney's sonic high jinks are opposite a voice with the muscle to stay in the spotlight. At once smoochy and sassy, How I Do goes a long way toward establishing Res as a powerful new voice on the pop and urban scenes. --Kim Hughes

During the 10 years of the making of this documentary, How Do I Look captured the Harlem Ball traditions that originated in the 70s, which was historically an off shot from the Harlem Drag Balls from the 20s. Because of the loss of hundreds of members and leaders of the Ball community due to the HIV epidemic, How Do I Look was able to record an important aspect of the history and legacy that was still available. How Do I Look focused on the Icon and Legend Pepper Labeija, Willi Ninja, Tracy Africa, Kevin Omni, Jose Xtravaganza and Octavia St. Laurent, who took their talents outside the Ball community successfully and opened many doors for their community. The children are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender African American and Hispanic members of the Houses. Their goal is to be voted into the Ballroom Hall of Fame one day, the ultimate Ballroom achievement. Their highly competitive functions at Balls, builds their self esteem and furthers their performance skills. By living on the edge, their natural artistic progression perfected their improvisational voguing, fashion and runway performance skills on the catwalk and is the reason why they have become such trend setters and inspirations worldwide.

“It is one thing to be informed by Shakespeare that life “is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing”; it is something else to encounter the idea literally presented in a novel by Samuel Beckett. But I am reasonably certain that a sensitive reader who journeys through How It Is will leave the book convinced that Beckett says more that is relevant to experience in our time than Shakespeare does in Macbeth. It should come as no surprise if a decade or so hence How It Is is appraised as a masterpiece of modern literature. This poetic novel is Beckett at his height.” — Webster Schott“A wonderful book, written in the sparest prose. . . . Beckett is one of the rare creative minds in our times.” — Alan Pryce-Jones“What is novel is the absolute sureness of design. . . built phrase by phrase into a beautifully and tightly wrought structure — a few dozen expressions permuted with deliberate redundancy accumulate meaning even as they are emptied of it, and offer themselves as points of radiation in a strange web of utter illusion.” — Hugh Kenner

Beyond memoir, this guidebook offers practical advice on everything from How to Be the Black Friend to How to Be the (Next) Black President to How to Celebrate Black History Month....

HOW magazine's goal is to help designers, whether they work for a design firm, for an in-house design department or for themselves, run successful, creative, profitable studios.

WHEN YOU'RE PERFECT, YOU CAN'T FALTER...Because if you do, the piranhas will get you. Blythe Young, Austin socialite, has two secrets she can't allow to escape: she's actually high-flying trailer trash, and her divorce left her penniless. Before becoming Mrs. Henry Trey Biggs-Dix III, Blythe owned the exclusive catering company Wretched Xcess, and for the second time she's determined to fake it 'til she makes it -- passing off warehouse club taquitos as Petites Tournedos Béarnaise à la Mexicaine and relying on her own private concoction of Stoli and pharmaceuticals as a substitute for sleep.But then a blabber-mouthed accountant puts the IRS on Blythe's trail at a most unfortunate moment -- just when her catering staff turns vicious about missing pay, and a garden party of Austin belles sniffs out the Crisco in the pâté. There's no option except to cut and run. Blythe's been ducking calls from her friend Millie for over a decade, but now Millie is the only person with a heart big enough to take her in. So, just one step ahead of the law, Blythe sputters in on fumes of gas to the fleabag co-op boarding house at the University of Texas where the two met and that Millie still runs.What do you do when you hit bottom? Sharing a bathroom again with anyone -- let alone computer geeks and white Rasta wannabes -- wasn't in Blythe's game plan. But in a time when both new and old money can turn into no money before you can say Jimmy Choo, Blythe's story is a morality tale for the new millennium as, with the help of her reluctant housemates, she faces down the crème de la crème of Austin society one last time, and by doing so finds the way out of her own ethical quagmire.

GET SOLD -- ON YOURSELF! Irrepressible, enlightening -- and extraordinarily successful -- here's Zig Ziglar presented live during one of his electrifying public seminars. This master motivator has adapted his proven techniques for everyone's use -- and endless benefit. One of the biggest excuses people don't set goals is they're not sold on the idea. Zig will sell you -- fast! And convince you that goal-setting is the single most important step you can take on your new road to success. He offers a precise formula for doing just that. Complete with the inspiration to welcome the risks involved, his strategies for boosting your self-image will carry you to the top. Filled with hilarious anecdotes, encouragement and wisdom, Zig Ziglar is the man everyone would want to invite for dinner. That is precisely the personal style he conveys in How to Get What You Want. You will find a dramatic change in your attitude and achievement once you have encountered the inimitable Mr. Ziglar.

Tank is one of the most recognizable names in modern R&B, known for vivid storytelling and sensual lovesongs. He's an icon in the making, with four albums and eight Grammy nominations under his belt. He's also a singer who carries the torch of masters like Marvin Gaye and Al Green, while redefining R&B for a new decade.

By Frank Sinatra. Arranged by Nelson Riddle; Walt Stuart. For big band with male vocal. Swing. Medium. Full score and set of parts. Published by Jazz Lines Publications

By recognizing and understanding particular character traits in ourselves and others, we can all learn who best to love - and who best to avoid....

When your debut album is released on the taste-making underground label Stones Throw and declared fantastic by both John Mayer and Kanye West, you’re unbelievably cool and completely under the microscope. Such is the story of Mayer Hawthorne, the Ann Arbor, Michigan resident who early on did a lot of hip-hop things and such, but for the purposes of his second album and debut for the major label Universal, he’s the neo-soul singer with a gifted voice who uncannily sounds like a ‘60s-era Temptation given the 2011 ability to drop an F-bomb. That may sound like Cee Lo Green, and there’s no doubt that How Do You Do stands in the shadow the Goodie Mob member who got there first, but this particular bespectacled singer looks like a Wall Street intern, making his Motown jones all the more unexpected, and for some, suspect. On top of it, he retains a crate-crawling nerd’s love of nostalgic soul that’s very Stones Throw, so expect some overly authentic numbers where the adherence to an aesthetic is an arguable obstacle. That said, it’s a testament to Hawthorne’s songwriting ability that this wall is easily scaled after one or two listens, and that the man sounds more natural and loose than on his debut might be this album’s greatest asset, making the vulgar drops and other nods to the present feel less mannered than before. New avenues are explored as Snoop Dogg is invited to croon, not rap, on the almost Timberlake “Can’t Stop,” while the jaunty, finger-popping “Dreaming” offers a well-written, surreal vision of the world coming to an end, challenging stuff and well executed within Hawthorne’s retro rules as well. When you add “The Walk” as his greatest songwriting achievement to date, a loving anthem for Detroit called “A Long Time,” plus a bunch of crowd-pleasing moves that come straight out of the Hitsville USA rule book, it's easy to stop being befuddled by Hawthorne’s love letter to the past and start craving it. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi

Grab your favorite munchies, kids. Red and Meth, that dope-addled dynamic duo, are going to Harvard! And while it's not an episode of Masterpiece Theatre, How High is destined to become a guilty pleasure of the cannabis crowd. The plot's a familiar one--take the basic selling points of any Cheech & Chong movie (a pair of shambolic protagonists who smoke lots of weed while slinging slang and driving funky, '70s-style cars), graft them onto a generic raising hell on campus teen movie scenario, and shake vigorously. The result is a prosaic effort that does contain some all-too-brief moments of genuine humor. Red and Meth, a.k.a. Redman and Method Man, may look like the world's oldest freshmen, but both offer genial performances, especially Method Man, who imbues the character of Silas with a dog-eared gentleness that raises him above the film's leaden script and plasticine directing. --Rebecca Levine

Ron Padgett's title poem asks: How long do you want to go on being the person you think you are? / How Long, a city in China. With the arrival of his first grandchild, Padgett becomes even more inspired to confront the eternal mysteries in poems with a wry, rueful honesty that comes only with experience, in his case sixty-eight years of it.I never thought,forty years ago,taping my poems into a notebook,that one day the tapewould turn yellow, grow brittle, and fall offand that I'd find myself on hands and kneesgroaning as I picked the pieces upoff the floorone by oneRon Padgett is a celebrated translator, memoirist, and a thoroughly American poet, coming sideways out of Whitman, Williams, and New York Pop with a Tulsa twist (Peter Gizzi). His poetry has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, and on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. He was also a guest on Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion in 2009. Padgett is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and his most recent books include How to Be Perfect; You Never Know, Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard; and If I Were You. Born in Oklahoma, he lives in New York City and Calais, Vermont.