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Applicant
Jesse Reklaw - 2006
The author found discarded, confidential, PhD applicant files for the biology department at an Ivy League university from 1965 to 1975 as he was rooting through the recycling bin for magazines. Photographs of the prospective students were stapled to many of the documents and this book collects these photos and pairs them with accompanying comments from employers and professors. The results are absurdist, confusing, often hilarious, and disturbing. They provide unique insight into outdated, 1970s social attitudes and ephemera yet much of the book’s appeal is found in what the book fails to say: the blank and despondent stares of its subjects, the outdated fashions and hairstyles, and its understated text.
The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stephanie Schwam - 2000
The critics initially disliked it, but the public loved it. And eventually, the film took its rightful place as one of the most innovative, brilliant, and pivotal works of modern cinema. The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey consists of testimony from Kubrick's collaborators and commentary from critics and historians. This is the most complete book on the film to date--from Stanley Kubrick's first meeting with screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke to Kubrick's exhaustive research to the actual shooting and release of the movie.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Dusty in Memphis
Warren Zanes - 2003
In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record.
Catcher in the Rye: New Essays
J.P. Steed - 2002
D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye celebrated its fiftieth anniversary of publication in 2001. The Catcher in the Rye: New Essays presents a variety of new approaches to this extremely popular and intensely influential novel, ranging from the examination of the intertextual relationship between The Catcher in the Rye and Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, to the evaluation of Salinger's mythic place in American film and popular culture, to the interrogation of what it means for a reader to claim that a novel such as The Catcher in the Rye has changed his or her life. These essays provide new commentary and new insights, and demonstrate the continuing relevance of Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, and Holden Caulfield to American culture and literature and, in turn, to American cultural and literary studies.
Confessions of a Record Producer: How to Survive the Scams and Shams of the Music Business
Moses Avalon - 1998
This fully updated and expanded book is not about how the music business should work, but how it does work. Industry insider Moses Avalon tells it like it is how producers dip into budgets, artists steal songs, lawyers write contracts in code and shows you how to survive these and other career-stifling situations. Deconstructing actual major and indie-label record deals, this book dissects each party's involvement and offers perspective on their actual roles, how much they get paid, and what their agendas really are. Engineers, managers, producers, artists, labels and lawyers each take their turn in the hot seat. It also outlines realistic alternatives for newcomers, such as "baby" production deals and vanity labels. This third edition includes: an entire chapter comparing ASCAP and BMI a publishing first * new insights for indie artists, including the lowdown on digital-distribution scams and independent A&R * information on new legislation and its impact on sampling and other legal matters * new music-industry "family trees" that reflect recent consolidation and reorganization * 80 pages of new material * and much more.
Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe
Tara Murtha - 2014
So much for the Summer of Love. "Ode to Billie Joe" knocked the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" off the top of the charts, and Bobbie Gentry became an international star. Almost 50 years later, Gentry is as enigmatic and captivating as her signature song. Of course, fans still want to know why Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. They also wonder: Why did Bobbie Gentry, who has not performed or made a public appearance since the early 1980s, leave it all behind?Through extensive interviews and unprecedented access to career memorabilia, Murtha explores the real-life mysteries ensnarled within the much-disputed origin of Ode to Billie Joe. The result is an investigative pop history that reveals, for the first time, the full breadth of Bobbie Gentry's groundbreaking career-and just may help explain her long silence.Foreword by musician Jill Sobule.
7 Days In Ohio: Trump, the Gathering of the Juggalos and The Summer Everything Went Insane: If We Make It Through November Hugely Expanded Edition
Nathan Rabin - 2016
The "If We Make It Through November expanded edition" augments the original book with twice as much content. This version includes both a lengthy "manifesto" about the nature of Donald Trump's appeal and a prequel chapter chronicling the curious day when Rabin and his long-lost brother were reunited under a scalding sun, setting the stage for their unlikely but glorious Gathering adventure. Rabin's best book to date chronicles a surreal week the veteran pop culture writer spent covering, in rapid succession, the Republican National Convention where Donald Trump was nominated for President, possibly setting into motion a series of events leading to mankind's end, and the 17th annual Gathering of the Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse's notorious yearly festival of arts and culture. Rabin's companion throughout this crazy adventure, Raoul Duke to his Dr. Gonzo, is the author's long-lost half brother Vincent, a street-fighting welder from the mean streets of Saint Louis with a roughneck past filled with knife fights, horrific violence and almost unimaginable darkness. 7 Days in Ohio is a hilarious and surprisingly moving exploration of a unique moment in American life. It's also a story of brotherhood and family, about two very different men who find common ground in their shared affection for Insane Clown Posse. In the tradition of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and Rabin's previous memoirs comes the book Donald Trump doesn't want you to read (in part because he hates literacy) and the most soulful, moving and even tear-jerking text about men who pretend to be wicked clowns ever written. Praise for Nathan Rabin: "Smart and funny"-Mindy Kaling, The New Yorker "Brilliant"-John Green The Big Rewind: "I'm not as interested in anything as much as Nathan Rabin is interested in everything."-- Chuck Klosterman “With his uncanny grasp of cultural zeitgeist, Rabin could unseat Chuck Klosterman as the slacker generation’s vital critical voice.” —Heeb Magazine "Nathan Rabin's life reads like a fanboy's collision with Dostoyevsky. Hilarious, sad, truthful memoir is compulsively readable."-- Roger Ebert "[Rabin] has packed [The Big Rewind], like a cannon, full of caustic wit and bruised feelings. The result is a lo-fi, sometimes crude book that is nonetheless more effective (and affecting) than it has any right to be."-- The New York Times My World Of Flops: "Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops is like watching a genius nurse a score of frightened, wounded baby birds back to life--a superhuman level of care and compassion lavished on That Which Never Had A Right To Exist. Truly brilliant." —Patton Oswalt You Don't Know Me But You Don't Like Me "An extremely funny and engaging book about how fandom provides people with surrogate families and a way to escape day-to-day banality." (Rolling Stone (four-star review) "I Love This Book"-Harris Wittels
A Jello Horse
Matthew Simmons - 2009
When his new roommate's brother dies tragically, the unnamed narrator of A JELLO HORSE offers to drive him home to the Midwest. Feeling anxious and displaced, he embarks on another roadtrip to visit the bizarre attractions and quirky museums in America's heartland. Matthew Simmons has found a beautiful and extraordinary way to tell a story about the sweetness of sadness and the aloneness of loneliness--Michael Kimball, author of Dear Everybody.
The Happy Depressive: In Pursuit of Personal and Political Happiness
Alastair Campbell - 2012
Things Are Meaning Less
Al Burian - 2002
You might know Al from his zines Burn Collector and Natural Disasters or from the band Milemarker or his so-true-it-kicks-your-face-off column in Punk Planet. This, however, is Al's collection of comics published in the late '90s by designer and fellow zinester Ian Lyman. From Portland to Providence, Al patrols his world with a dark, stoic humor. He's a Saul Bellow-ian everyman, up against the wall, suffering the blows, looking for love and loving the metal. Like Al's latest issue of Burn Collector, the comic-heavy #14, the drawing here is simple but it's the kind of simple that doesn't come with beginner's luck. The stuff here is the result of years of fighting and trouble-making, of mistakes made and a life scratched out among the sticks and stones. As says Al, "These are things drawn on napkins in airports, xeroxed illicitly during work." So goes the work and world of Al Burian.
Music for the People: The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Classical Music
Gareth Malone - 2011
In this funny, evocative, personal book, Gareth takes us on a journey of musical discovery that explains and entertains in equal measure. Over the course of three series of the Bafta award-winning The Choir, Gareth has unearthed a passion for classical music in schoolchildren, reluctant teenage boys, and even a whole town. With his infectious enthusiasm and gift for explanation, Gareth's very personal narrative takes you by the hand and leads you through a world of eccentric composers, flamboyant conductors, troubled geniuses and all the colourful personalities that make up the story of Classical Music. It will also provide a foundation of classical music understanding and give the reader the tools to appreciate a whole new world of music. So whether you want to expand your horizons, spend time with the great composers, introduce an almost infinite variety into your iPod playlist, or are just curious about what you might be missing out on, Music for The People will leave you entertained, informed and completely inspired.
The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict
Walter Laqueur - 1969
leaders.
Roots and Branches: Poetry
Robert Duncan - 1969
The poet has said of himself and his work: "I am not an experimentalist or an inventor, but a derivative poet, drawing my art from the resources given by a generation of masters––Stein, Williams, Pound; back of that by the generations of poets that have likewise been dreamers of the Cosmos as Creation and Man as Creative Spirit; and by the work of contemporaries: Zukofsky, Olson, Creeley and Denise Levertov."
Best Music Writing 2011
Alex Ross - 2011
Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz to pop to blues, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sortnovelists, poets, journalists, musicians are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is riveting.
Oasis: The Truth: My Life as Oasis's Drummer
Tony McCarroll - 2011
What started as five young men with a common dream of becoming rock stars eventually disintegrated into in-fighting, ego clashes, and financial disputes, until in 1995, following the release of Definitely Maybe, things came to a head and Tony left the band. Here, Tony reveals the truth about the early years before the band was formed. He discusses the drug consumption, the sexual activities, his much-publicized rift with Noel Gallagher, and how he was duped into signing a less-than-favorable record contract. His recollections include stories involving David Beckham, Prince, Eric Cantona, and John McEnroe. Witty, revealing, and fascinating, this book is a must-read for Oasis fans.