How and when did the kiss become a vital sign of romance and love? In this wide-ranging book, pop culture expert Marcel Danesi takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the history of the kiss, from poetry and painting to movies and popular songs, and argues that its romantic incarnation signaled the birth of popular culture.
In this triumphant bestseller, renowned novelist James A. Michener unfolds a powerful and poignant drama of disenchanted youth during the Vietnam era. Against exotic backdrops including Spain, Morocco, and Mozambique, he weaves together the heady dreams, shocking tribulations, and heartwarming bonds of six young runaways cast adrift in the world—as well as the hedonistic pursuit of drugs and pleasure that collapses all around them. With the sure touch of a master, Michener pulls us into the private world of these unforgettable characters, exposing their innermost desires with remarkable candor and infinite compassion. Praise for The Drifters “A blockbuster of a book . . . full of surprise, drama, and fascination.”—Philadelphia Bulletin “Rings with authentic detail and clearly descriptive sights and smells . . . The Drifters is to the generation gap what The Source was to Israel.”—Publishers Weekly “[The Drifters] conveys a sense of a new time, a new generation.”—Chicago Sun-Times “Michener has slid open a window on the world of the dropout and has spared no effort to make the reader aware of this new world.”—The Salt Lake Tribune
Arguing that pop music turns on moments rather than movements, the essays in Listen Again pinpoint magic moments from a century of pop eclecticism, looking at artists who fall between genre lines, songs that sponge up influences from everywhere, and studio accidents with unforeseen consequences. Listen Again collects some of the finest presentations from the celebrated Experience Music Project Pop Conference, where journalists, musicians, academics, and other culturemongers come together once each year to stretch the boundaries of pop music culture, criticism, and scholarship. Building a history of pop music out of unexpected instances, critics and musicians delve into topics from the early-twentieth-century black performer Bert Williams’s use of blackface, to the invention of the Delta blues category by a forgotten record collector named James McKune, to an ER cast member’s performance as the Germs’ front man Darby Crash at a Germs reunion show. Cuban music historian Ned Sublette zeroes in on the signature riff of the garage-band staple “Louie, Louie.” David Thomas of the pioneering punk band Pere Ubu honors one of his forebears: Ghoulardi, a late-night monster-movie host on Cleveland-area TV in the 1960s. Benjamin Melendez discusses playing in a band, the Ghetto Brothers, that Latinized the Beatles, while leading a South Bronx gang, also called the Ghetto Brothers. Michaelangelo Matos traces the lineage of the hip-hop sample “Apache” to a Burt Lancaster film. Whether reflecting on the ringing freedom of an E chord or the significance of Bill Tate, who performed once in 1981 as Buddy Holocaust and was never heard from again, the essays reveal why Robert Christgau, a founder of rock criticism, has called the EMP Pop Conference “the best thing that’s ever happened to serious consideration of pop music.” Contributors. David Brackett, Franklin Bruno, Daphne Carr, Henry Chalfant, Jeff Chang, Drew Daniel, Robert Fink, Holly George-Warren, Lavinia Greenlaw, Marybeth Hamilton, Jason King, Josh Kun, W. T. Lhamon, Jr., Greil Marcus, Michaelangelo Matos, Benjamin Melendez, Mark Anthony Neal, Ned Sublette, David Thomas, Steve Waksman, Eric Weisbard
“This book presents practical, real-life stories that you can relate to. In some cases, it might shock you that positive change was even possible. You will find helpful hints that will challenge you to make intentional adjustments in your own lives. New hope will rise within you that it is possible to have long-term, satisfying relationships by ‘kissing breakups goodbye’”. Dr. Randy and Jill Neilson, Canada “Dr. Mungal has been a positive influence to us. His testimony has impacted our ministry, the church and family. The way he leads his family has been inspiring and they are a good example to follow. Our hearts have been touched and encouraged.” Heiller Ferreira and Isabela de Souza, Brazil “We cannot think of a couple more qualified to write this book than our dear friends, Harrison and Kathleen. Knowledgeable and experienced in ministry, they have walked faithfully in what they seek to share with others. ‘Kissing Breakups Goodbye’ are words of hope for this generation”. Fred and Valarie Bennett, USA “Dr. Harrison and Kathleen Mungal are a tremendous couple, committed to the work they do. Their training methods and teachings about the family have aided many couples in restoring and renewing their relationships.” Dr. Moises De Prada Esquivel and Carmen Alicia Morales, Cuba “Dr. Mungal and Kathleen have been a blessing to us and many families in Lempira, Honduras. They have a passion for supporting singles and couples with relationship issues. Many lives have been affected and changed in a positive way. They successfully communicate this concept of ‘kissing breakups goodbye,’ as it has been imprinted on the hearts of many”. Hugo Jr. and Susan Elisol Medina, Honduras “Harrison and Kathleen have walked the journey and overcome obstacles to build a beautiful and healthy marriage and family. No matter where you are in your marriage, Harrison (Dr. Mungal) shines a light on the root causes behind relationship breakdowns. From dating to the altar, to the conflicts that can tear 2 people apart, you’ll discover effective, godly solutions that will empower you to have a marriage that lasts a lifetime.” Alvin and Joy Slaughter, USA
This book is a collection of playlists for any occasion. The music is from many genres, including pop, rock, punk, jazz, hip hop, Western art music, classic country, swing, dance, doo wop, alternative, and many more. It also includes songs from many times periods and many levels of fame. Rather than separated by type of music, they're separated by common themes! Favorites include School, Man-Made Outdoor Lighting, The Deadly Sins, Songs Banned From Radio, and Rodentia! There are 138 themes that range from as broad as Water to as narrow as Bubble Gum, so there is a theme for anyone!
Young Americans take to the road in droves during the volatile 1960's. Some flee a military draft that demands they kill or be killed in a war halfway around the world. Others search for excitement, a temporary reprieve from the prison of work, school, marriage or family. And one, the Drifter, has a particularly compelling reason to hitchhike the country's highways. He carries a dark secret that, if revealed, could cost his freedom. Or his life. Now, it's late 1965. The Drifter, camped in central Idaho, stumbles across a woman's body. Though his first instinct is self-preservation, he decides to give the corpse a decent burial. Bad idea. Discovered by a search party and wounded by a bullet, the Drifter is chased through Idaho's rugged wilderness. He runs for his life, headlong into a baffling mystery involving UFOs and murder. It will take all the Drifter's cunning - and lots of luck - to survive, as Kissing Asphalt pits him in a harrowing life or death struggle against Nature, against his fellow man, and against himself. The first in an exciting new series.
The mountain is a lonely place. Welcome to Sourwood, a small Kentucky town inhabited by men and women unique and yet eerily familiar. Among its joyful and tragic citizens we meet the crafty, spirited Caleb and his curious younger brother; Pearl, a suspected witch, and her sheltered daughter, Thanie; superstitious Eli; and the doomed orphan Girty. In Sourwood, the mountain is both a keeper of secrets and an imposing, isolating presence, shaping the lives of all who live in its shadow. Strong in both the voice and sensibilities of Appalachia, the stories in Miss America Kissed Caleb are at turns heartbreaking and hilarious. In the title story, young Caleb turns over his hard-earned dime to the war effort when he receives a coaxing kiss from Miss America, who sweeps into Sourwood by train, "pretty as a night moth." Caleb and his brother share in the thrills and uncertainties of growing up, making an accidental visit to a brothel in "Fourth of July" and taming a "high society" pooch in "The Jimson Dog." These stories invoke a place and a time that have long passed—a way of living nearly extinct—yet the beauty of the language and the truth revealed in the characters' everyday lives continue to resonate with modern readers.
A book of three hundred saucy, funny and beautiful love poems and sonnets featuring nature and romance. I have included some sad and some tragic poems on life death and war. A must to read for those who like a display of options.
A Hollywood novel of a very different kind by the author of The Player: A timely and “darkly satirical” dystopian thriller (The San Francisco Chronicle). Michael Tolkin is known as a master chronicler of show business culture. Now, in his new novel, the H LYW OD sign presides over a city devastated by a weaponized microbe that’s been accidentally spread around the globe, deleting human identity. In post-NK3 Los Angeles, a sixty-foot fence surrounds the hills where the rich used to live, but the mansions have been taken over by those with the only power that matters: the power of memory. Life for those inside the Fence, ruled over by the new aristocracy known as the Verified, is a perpetual party. Outside the Fence, downtown, the Verified use an invented mythology to keep control over the mindless and nameless. In deliciously dark prose, Tolkin winds a noose-like plot around a melee of despots, prophets, and rebels as they struggle for command and survival in a town that still manages to exert a magnetic force, even as a ruined husk. “Intricate and cleverly constructed.”—The New Yorker “Tolkin creates memorable images and searing moments and peppers the text with sly, dark humor, all while raising provocative social and political issues…NK3 is nightmare and satire, thriller and warning. Crafted by a master storyteller, it is a haunting parable about civilization marching forward, while forgetting what it leaves behind.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “Remind[s] one of how easily people are turned into commodities, how slippery the grip on identity can be, how there’s always someone ready to set themself up as the savior of civilization.”—The San Francisco Chronicle
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, after the shock of Elvis Presley and before the Beatles spearheaded the British Invasion, fourteen gifted young songwriters huddled in midtown Manhattan's legendary Brill Building and a warren of offices a bit farther uptown and composed some of the most beguiling and enduring entries in the Great American Songbook. Always Magic in the Air is the first thorough history of these renowned songwriters-tunesmiths who melded black, white, and Latino sounds, integrated audiences before America desegregated its schools, and brought a new social consciousness to pop music.