It fills our Facebook feeds. It keeps afloat a whole armada of late-night comedians, YouTube auteurs, and twitter wits … an endless stream of "Worst Things Ever." Recall, if you will, Rebecca Black's chart-topping disasterpiece, "Friday." Or “The Room”, Tommy Wiseau's cinematic tragedy turned cult farce. Or the devout Spanish septuagenarian who produced an infamously botched, and now stunningly ubiquitous, retouching of a 19th-century fresco of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Internet era has fueled an obsession with these and other acts of cultural cluelessness. Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without some new aesthetic travesty spreading across the globe in the form of ones and zeros, spawning countless remixes and riffs, like the world's biggest inside joke. And once more the cry goes up: Fail! Epic Fail!But what, exactly, draws us to these futile attempts at making songs, movies, and art? What are the essential ingredients that render a ridiculous failure sublime? More important, what does our seemingly insatiable appetite for the "succès d'incompetence" say about our aesthetic impulses? Our ethical ones? Is our laughter all in good fun or is something more sinister at work?

    What it is and why it is embraced by punks all over the world. The failure of "bought and paid for" politicians has ensured a counterculture receptive to the idea that we would be better off without these vampires.Gender Issues: Sexism, feminism and open homosexuality.Environmentalism and Ecological Concerns: The ideas and techniques of Earth First, ALF, and others have found a comfortable home in the punk scene.Straight Edge: A movement that went from being a minor threat to a convervative, conformist no threat.DIYBibliography

    And I make my analogy through the slave citizen's music—through the music that is most closely associated with him: blues and a later, but parallel development, jazz... [If] the Negro represents, or is symbolic of, something in and about the nature of American culture, this certainly should be revealed by his characteristic music."So says Amiri Baraka in the Introduction to Blues People, his classic work on the place of jazz and blues in American social, musical, economic, and cultural history. From the music of African slaves in the United States through the music scene of the 1960's, Baraka traces the influence of what he calls "negro music" on white America—not only in the context of music and pop culture but also in terms of the values and perspectives passed on through the music. In tracing the music, he brilliantly illuminates the influence of African Americans on American culture and history.

    Now, more people are listening to more music from a greater variety of sources than at any time in history. And big corporations such as Viacom, Clear Channel, and Sony are no longer the sole gatekeepers and distributors, their monopoly busted by a revolution -- an uprising led by bands and fans networking on the Internet. "Ripped" tells the story of how the laptop generation created a new grassroots music industry, with the fans and bands rather than the corporations in charge. In this new world, bands aren't just musicmakers but self-contained multimedia businesses; and fans aren't just consumers but distributors and even collaborators.As the Web popularized bands and albums that previously would have been relegated to obscurity, innovative artists -- from Prince to Death Cab for Cutie -- started coming up with, and stumbling into, alternative ways of getting their music out to fans. Live music took on an even more significant role. TV shows and commercials emerged as great places to hear new tunes. Sample-based composition and mash-ups leapfrogged ahead of the industry's, and the law's, ability to keep up with them. Then, in 2007, Radiohead released an album exclusively on the Internet and allowed customers to name their own price, including $0.00. Radiohead's "it's up to you" marketing coup seized on a concept the old music industry had forgotten: the customer is always right.National radio host and critically acclaimed music journalist Greg Kot masterfully chronicles this story of how we went from $17.99 to $0.00 in less than a decade. It's a fascinating tale of backward thinking, forward thinking, and the power of music.

    Lewis' The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, as historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It describes the image discarded by later ages as the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe. This, Lewis' last book, was hailed as the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind.

    In a series of coruscating set pieces, Greif asks why we put ourselves through the pains of exercise, what shopping in organic supermarkets does for our sense of self-worth, what the political identity of the hipster might be, and what happens to us when we listen to too much Radiohead. From such counter-intuitive observations, Greif exposes the fundamental contradictions between our actions, desires and the excuses that we make to ourselves in hope of consolation. With the wit and seriousness of David Foster Wallace, Against Everything is the most thought-provoking study and essential guide to everyday life under 21st-century capitalism.

    In this book, Miller writes about each of the past 53 years in popular music-1957-2009- via countdown song lists, blending the perspectives of a serious musician, a thoughtful critic, and an all-devouring music fan. Miller not only tells you why he loves particular songs, but also what was going on in the musical world in which they competed to be heard.

    However, the iconic women of the 1990s—such as Hillary Clinton, Courtney Love, Roseanne Barr, Marcia Clark, and Anita Hill—earned their places in history not as trailblazers, but as whipping girls of the media. During this decade, American society grew increasingly hostile to women who dared to speak up, challenge power, or defy rigid expectations for female behavior.Deeply researched yet thoroughly engaging, 90s Bitch untangles the complex history of women in the 1990s, exploring how they were maligned by the media, vilified by popular culture, and objectified in the marketplace. In an age where even a presidential nominee can be derided as a “nasty woman,” it’s clear that the epidemic of casting women as bitches persists. To understand why we must take a long, hard look back at the 1990s—a decade in which female empowerment was twisted into bitchification and exploitation.Yarrow’s thoughtful, clear-eyed, and timely examination is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand gender politics and how we might end the “bitch epidemic” for the next generation.

    As Michael Curtis indicates in his introduction to this edition. Public Opinion qualifies as a classic by virtue of its systematic brilliance and literary grace. The work is divided into eight parts, covering such varied issues as stereotypes, image making, and organized intelligence. The study begins with an analysis of "the world outside and the pictures in our heads, " a leitmotif that starts with issues of censorship and privacy, speed, words, and clarity, and ends with a careful survey of the modern newspaper. The work is a showcase for Lippmann's vast erudition. He easily integrated the historical, psychological, and philosophical literature of his day, and in every instance showed how relevant intellectual formations were to the ordinary operations of everyday life. Public Opinion is of enduring significance for communications scholars, historians, sociologists, and political scientists.

    The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. On Palestine is the sequel to their acclaimed book Gaza in Crisis.

    Indeed, in this pioneering exploration of the cinema of fear, Barry Keith Grant and twenty other film critics posit that horror is always rooted in gender, particularly in anxieties about sexual difference and gender politics.The book opens with the influential theoretical works of Linda Williams, Carol J. Clover, and Barbara Creed. Subsequent essays explore the history of the genre, from classic horror such as King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein to the more recent Fatal Attraction and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other topics covered include the work of horror auteurs David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, and George Romero; the Aliens trilogy; and the importance of gender in relation to horror marketing and reception.Other contributors include Vera Dika, Thomas Doherty, Lucy Fischer, Christopher Sharrett, Vivian Sobchack, Tony Williams, and Robin Wood. Writing across a full range of critical methods from classic psychoanalysis to feminism and postmodernism, they balance theoretical generalizations with close readings of films and discussions of figures associated with the genre.The Dread of Difference demonstrates that horror is hardly a uniformly masculine discourse. As these essays persuasively show, not only are horror movies about patriarchy and its fear of the feminine, but they also offer feminist critique and pleasure.

    The words and images that have come to define many young women's lives have long been overlooked and under appreciated. A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World exists because these voices have refused to be silenced.

    Savage brings to life the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid implosion of the Pistols through layers of rich detail, exclusive interviews, and rare photographs. This fully revised and updated edition of the book covers the legacy of punk twenty-five years later and provides an account of the Pistols' 1996 reunion as well as a freshly updated discography and a completely new introduction.

    and covered in blood!Demonic possession! Haunted condominiums! Murderous babies! Man-eating moths! No plot was too ludicrous, no cover art too appalling, no evil too despicable for the Paperbacks From Hell.Where did they come from? Where did they go? Horror author Grady Hendrix risks his soul and sanity (not to mention yours) to relate the true, untold story of the Paperbacks From Hell.Shocking story summaries! Incredible cover art! And true tales of writers, artists, and publishers who violated every literary law but one: never be boring. All this awaits, if you dare experience the Paperbacks From Hell.

    Detailing the lifestyles of each class, from the way they dress and where they live to their education and hobbies, Class is sure to entertain, enlighten, and occasionally enrage readers as they identify their own place in society and see how the other half lives.