To read Hal Crowther is to find yourself agreeing with views on topics you never knew you cared so much about. In Gather at the River, Crowther extends the wide-angle vision of Southern life presented in his highly acclaimed collection Cathedrals of Kudzu. He cuts to the heart of recent political, religious, and cultural issues but pauses to appreciate the sweet things that the South has to offer, like music, baseball, great writers, and strong women. Some of these essays invite debate. Crowther gives a balanced perspective on the tragedy of the Branch Davidians at Waco, shedding light on a different world of religiosity and revealing urban media prejudices for what they are. He describes the unique heroism of a fallen Marine in the Iraq war, a war fought by one class and promoted by another. And his solution to racial conflict -- interracial procreation -- will jump-start readers' sensibilities. In other chapters, Crowther discusses the grim portrayal of the South in early film and the triumphs of Southern music. His literary essays include appreciations of William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Elizabeth Spencer, and Wendell Berry, and a biting lampoon of exhibitionist memoirs. Among the Southerners Crowther profiles with pride are the art historian and Museum of Modern Art curator Kirk Varnedoe; the great, cursed baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson; the curmudgeonly realist H. L. Mencken; and the singer Dolly Parton, whose candid artifice inspires the author's litmus test for Southern authenticity.
As American journalism shape-shifts into multimedia pandemonium and seems to diminish rapidly in influence and integrity, the controversial career of H. L. Mencken, the most powerful individual journalist of the twentieth century, is a critical text for anyone concerned with the balance of power between the free press, the government, and the corporate plutocracy. Mencken, the belligerent newspaperman from Baltimore, was not only the most outspoken pundit of his day but also, by far, the most widely read, and according to many critics the most gifted American writer ever nurtured in a newsroom—a vanished world of typewriter banks and copy desks that electronic advances have precipitously erased. Nearly 60 years after his death, Mencken’s memory and monumental verbal legacy rest largely in the hands of literary scholars and historians, to whom he will always be a curious figure, unchecked and alien and not a little distasteful. No faculty would have voted him tenure. Hal Crowther, who followed in many of Mencken’s footsteps as a reporter, magazine editor, literary critic, and political columnist, focuses on Mencken the creator, the observer who turned his impressions and prejudices into an inimitable group portrait of America, painted in prose that charms and glowers and endures. Crowther, himself a working polemicist who was awarded the Baltimore Sun’s Mencken prize for truculent commentary, examines the origin of Mencken’s thunderbolts—where and how they were manufactured, rather than where and on whom they landed. Mencken was such an outrageous original that contemporary writers have made him a political shuttlecock, defaming or defending him according to modern conventions he never encountered. Crowther argues that loving or hating him, admiring or despising him are scarcely relevant. Mencken can inspire and he can appall. The point is that he mattered, at one time enormously, and had a lasting effect on the national conversation. No writer can afford to ignore his craftsmanship or success, or fail to be fascinated by his strange mind and the world that produced it. This book is a tribute—though by no means a loving one—to a giant from one of his bastard sons.
In these essays, one of the most influential Southern journalists of his generation sorts out a whole warehouse of Southern idiosyncrasy and iconography, including the Southern belle, Faulkner, James Dickey, Stonewall Jackson, Cormac McCarthy, guns, dogs, fathers, trees, George Wallace, Elvis, Doc Watson, the decline of poetry, and the return of chain gangs.
If you want to find out what a rock critic, a syndicated columnist, and scholars of American literature have to say about one of America’s most important contemporary novelists, turn to Introducing Don DeLillo. Placing the author’s work in a cultural context, this is the first book-length collection on DeLillo, adding considerably to the emerging critical discourse on his work. Diversity is the key to this striking assemblage of cultural criticism edited by Frank Lentricchia. Special features include an expanded version of the Rolling Stone interview with the author (“An Outsider in this Society”) and the extraordinary tenth chapter of DeLillo’s Ratner’s Star. Accessibly written and entertaining, the collection will be of great interest to both students and scholars of contemporary American literature as well as to general readers interested in DeLillo’s work. Contributors. Frank Lentricchia, Anthony Decurtis, Daniel Aaron, Hal Crowther, John A. McClure, Eugene Goodheart, Charles Molesworth, Dennis A. Foster, and John Frow
One of the nation's finest editorial columnists offers incisive commentary on a variety of issues, taking aim at callous polluters, craven politicians, addle-pated celebrities, image-mongers of every type--in short, everyone who has sold decency and integrity down the river in the name of the almighty dollar.
To read Hal Crowther is to find yourself agreeing with views on topics you never knew you cared so much about. In Gather at the River, Crowther extends the wide-angle vision of Southern life presented in his highly acclaimed collection Cathedrals of Kudzu. He cuts to the heart of recent political, religious, and cultural issues but pauses to appreciate the sweet things that the South has to offer, like music, baseball, great writers, and strong women. Some of these essays invite debate. Crowther gives a balanced perspective on the tragedy of the Branch Davidians at Waco, shedding light on a different world of religiosity and revealing urban media prejudices for what they are. He describes the unique heroism of a fallen Marine in the Iraq war, a war fought by one class and promoted by another. And his solution to racial conflict -- interracial procreation -- will jump-start readers' sensibilities. In other chapters, Crowther discusses the grim portrayal of the South in early film and the triumphs of Southern music. His literary essays include appreciations of William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Elizabeth Spencer, and Wendell Berry, and a biting lampoon of exhibitionist memoirs. Among the Southerners Crowther profiles with pride are the art historian and Museum of Modern Art curator Kirk Varnedoe; the great, cursed baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson; the curmudgeonly realist H. L. Mencken; and the singer Dolly Parton, whose candid artifice inspires the author's litmus test for Southern authenticity.
As American journalism shape-shifts into multimedia pandemonium and seems to diminish rapidly in influence and integrity, the controversial career of H. L. Mencken, the most powerful individual journalist of the twentieth century, is a critical text for anyone concerned with the balance of power between the free press, the government, and the corporate plutocracy. Mencken, the belligerent newspaperman from Baltimore, was not only the most outspoken pundit of his day but also, by far, the most widely read, and according to many critics the most gifted American writer ever nurtured in a newsroom—a vanished world of typewriter banks and copy desks that electronic advances have precipitously erased. Nearly 60 years after his death, Mencken’s memory and monumental verbal legacy rest largely in the hands of literary scholars and historians, to whom he will always be a curious figure, unchecked and alien and not a little distasteful. No faculty would have voted him tenure. Hal Crowther, who followed in many of Mencken’s footsteps as a reporter, magazine editor, literary critic, and political columnist, focuses on Mencken the creator, the observer who turned his impressions and prejudices into an inimitable group portrait of America, painted in prose that charms and glowers and endures. Crowther, himself a working polemicist who was awarded the Baltimore Sun’s Mencken prize for truculent commentary, examines the origin of Mencken’s thunderbolts—where and how they were manufactured, rather than where and on whom they landed. Mencken was such an outrageous original that contemporary writers have made him a political shuttlecock, defaming or defending him according to modern conventions he never encountered. Crowther argues that loving or hating him, admiring or despising him are scarcely relevant. Mencken can inspire and he can appall. The point is that he mattered, at one time enormously, and had a lasting effect on the national conversation. No writer can afford to ignore his craftsmanship or success, or fail to be fascinated by his strange mind and the world that produced it. This book is a tribute—though by no means a loving one—to a giant from one of his bastard sons.
In these essays, one of the most influential Southern journalists of his generation sorts out a whole warehouse of Southern idiosyncrasy and iconography, including the Southern belle, Faulkner, James Dickey, Stonewall Jackson, Cormac McCarthy, guns, dogs, fathers, trees, George Wallace, Elvis, Doc Watson, the decline of poetry, and the return of chain gangs.
The Geographical Distribution of Animal Viral Diseases attempts to shed some light on the global distribution of 110 different viral diseases, mainly of livestock and companion animals. The world literature was screened for 110 different viruses, and maps were prepared. These maps delineate the global distribution of pathogenic viruses based on authenticated reports from a variety of reliable sources. Four viruses were categorized as affecting more than one species to a significant degree (astrovirus, rabies, rotaviruses, and Rift Valley fever). The largest number of maps involved viruses that affect humans. Of the 28 viruses a large number were from the California encephalitis group. Ten of the 28 viruses were reported only in the Eastern Hemisphere, 14 only in the Western Hemisphere, and four were worldwide. Birds were the next most frequently affected group with the 15 viruses, followed by pigs with 14 viruses. Overall the vector-borne viruses appear to have much sharper and clear-cut geographical boundaries than the others.
One of the nation's finest editorial columnists offers incisive commentary on a variety of issues, taking aim at callous polluters, craven politicians, addle-pated celebrities, image-mongers of every type--in short, everyone who has sold decency and integrity down the river in the name of the almighty dollar.
(Book). Ever wonder what it would be like to be the most recorded musician in popular music? This updated bestselling autobiography spotlights Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and drummer extraordinaire Hal Blaine and his remarkable life experiences. From the Sinatras to the Beach Boys, Blaine drumrolled through the'50s, '60s and '70s, driving over 40 songs to the Number One slot. His works with Phil Spector and the Wrecking Crew sessions, his touring experiences and other hitmaking pressure sessions are amusingly revealed in this rare glimpse into a golden age of music. Exclusive scrapbook photos round out this biography to provide an entertaining and educating book for musicians and fans alike. The update brings his life into the 21st century, including info on his inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville, dealing with Spector's infamous trials, and recently, the renewed interest in his golden era of recording with the documentary film on the Wrecking Crew and all the new wave of accocalades that followed.
Since the first baseball movie (Little Sunset) in 1915, Hollywood has had an on-again, off-again affair with the sport, releasing more than 100 films through 2001. This is a filmography of those films. Each entry contains full cast and credits, a synopsis, and a critique of the movie. Behind-the-scenes and background information is included, and two sections cover baseball shorts and depictions of the game in non-baseball films. An extensive bibliography completes the work.
In this groundbreaking work, Harry K. Wong, Laura Lipton, Bruce Wellman, and other top names in the field examine how successful mentoring and induction programs are developed and demonstrate how they can be replicated.
Churchill's 21st birthday and baptism of fire both took place in Cuba in 1895. This was the year he went on his first international adventure, wrote his first military and political analyses and engaged in his first dicey diplomatic mission. Finding his footing as a journalist - and indeed a war correspondent - he also became the centre of controversy in the American and British press and, while shamelessly exploiting his connections and developing the famous 'Churchill style' became known as a public figure in his own right. Attention has previously focused on Churchill's Indian frontier and Boer War experience as the most formative moments in his youth. But now, with original research through untapped access to Spanish and Cuban archives and interviews, this book shows that his much earlier Cuban trip was really the moment when he 'came of age' and started down the path to become a man to be remembered throughout history.
Beginning with Charlie Chaplin's Shoulder Arms, released in America near the end of World War I, the military comedy film has been one of Hollywood's most durable genres. This generously illustrated history examines over 225 Army, Navy and Marine-related comedies produced between 1918 and 2009, including the abundance of laughspinners released during World War II in the wake of Abbott and Costello's phenomenally successful Buck Privates (1941), and the many lighthearted service films of the immediate postwar era, among them Mister Roberts (1955) and No Time for Sergeants (1958). Also included are discussions of such subgenres as silent films (The General), military-academy farces (Brother Rat), women in uniform (Private Benjamin), misfits making good (Stripes), anti-war comedies (MASH), and fact-based films (The Men Who Stare at Goats). A closing filmography is included in this richly detailed volume.
This book is about the war-gaming activities of the Naval War College (NWC) in the late summer and fall of 1946 in Newport, Rhode Island ... [and] how the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War impacted the Naval War College in terms of changing its focus from Japan to the Soviet Union as the primary enemy in the Pacific Basin."--From preface
Imperial Bedlam is an intelligent, elegantly written discussion of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary debates over the nature and determinants of madness in a colonial setting."--Sara Berry, Johns Hopkins University
Product Description: Digesting History: The U.S. Naval War College, the Lessons of World War II, and Future Naval Warfare, 1945–1947, by Professor Hal M. Friedman, studies the contribution of the Naval War College, especially in the presidency of Admiral Raymond Spruance, to strategic thought during the first critical postwar years—that is, between the end of the war and the formulation of Containment. This transition period is especially valuable as a window through which to explore institutions such as the College in transition from a hot war to a cold one. While seminal studies exist of the College’s work in the interwar years, none have been published on this period.
H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Land of the Lost: For a generation of children growing up in the late sixties and early seventies, these were some of the most memorable shows on Saturday morning television. At a time when television cartoons had lost some of their luster, two puppeteers named Sid and Marty Krofft put together a series of shows that captivated children. Using colorful sets and mysterious lands full of characters that had boundless energy, the Kroffts created a new form of children's television, rooted in the medium's earliest shows but nevertheless original in its concept. This work first provides a history of the Kroffts' pretelevision career, then offers discussions of their 11 Saturday morning shows. Complete cast and credit information is enhanced by interviews with many of the actors and actresses, behind-the-scenes information, print reviews of the series, and plot listings of the individual episodes. The H.R. Pufnstuf feature film, the brothers' other television work, and their short-lived indoor theme park are also detailed.
A “smart, honest, and down-to-earth” (Elizabeth Kolbert) citizen’s guide to the seven urgent changes that will really make a difference for our climate. If you think the only thing you can do to combat climate change is to install a smart thermostat or cook plant-based meat, you’re thinking too small. In The Big Fix, energy policy advisor Hal Harvey and longtime New York Times reporter Justin Gillis offer a new, hopeful way to engage with one of the greatest problems of our age. Writing in a lively, accessible style, the pair illuminate how the really big decisions that affect our climate get made—whether by the most obscure public utilities commissions or in the lofty halls of state capitols—and reveal how each of us can influence these decisions to deliver change. The pair focus on the seven areas of our political economy where ambitious but practical changes will have the greatest effect: from what kind of power plants to build to how much insulation new houses require to how efficient cars must be before they’re allowed on the road. Equal parts pragmatic and inspiring—and “full of illustrative stories and compelling evidence” (Al Gore)—The Big Fix provides an action plan for anyone serious about holding our governments accountable and saving our threatened planet.
Product Description: Digesting History: The U.S. Naval War College, the Lessons of World War II, and Future Naval Warfare, 1945–1947, by Professor Hal M. Friedman, studies the contribution of the Naval War College, especially in the presidency of Admiral Raymond Spruance, to strategic thought during the first critical postwar years—that is, between the end of the war and the formulation of Containment. This transition period is especially valuable as a window through which to explore institutions such as the College in transition from a hot war to a cold one. While seminal studies exist of the College’s work in the interwar years, none have been published on this period.
There was a time when "American popular entertainment" referred only to radio and motion pictures. With the coming of talking pictures, Hollywood cashed in on the success of big-time network radio by bringing several of the public's favorite broadcast personalities and programs to the screen. The results, though occasionally successful, often proved conclusively that some things are better heard than seen. Concentrating primarily on radio's Golden Age (1926-1962), this lively history discusses the cinematic efforts of airwave stars Rudy Vallee, Amos 'n' Andy, Fred Allen, Joe Penner, Fibber McGee & Molly, Edgar Bergen, Lum & Abner, and many more. Also analyzed are the movie versions of such radio series as The Shadow, Dr. Christian and The Life of Riley. In addition, two recent films starring contemporary radio headliners Howard Stern and Garrison Keillor are given their due.
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