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On Garbage is the first book to examine the detritus of Western culture in full range—not only material waste and ruin, but also residual or "broken" knowledge and the lingering remainders of cultural thought systems.
The explosive story of the Sex Pistols is now so familiar that the essence of what they represented has been lost in a fog of nostalgia and rock ’n’ roll cliché. In 1976 the rise of the Sex Pistols was regarded in apocalyptic terms, and the punks as visitors from an unwanted future bringing chaos and confusion. In this book, John Scanlan considers the Sex Pistols as the first successful art project of their manager, Malcolm McLaren, a vision born out of radical politics, boredom, and his deep and unrelenting talent for perverse opportunism. As Scanlan shows, McLaren deliberately set a collision course with establishments, both conservative and counter-cultural, and succeeded beyond his ...
Easy Riders, Rolling Stones delves into the history of twentieth century American popular music to explore the emergence of 60s “road music.” This music—which includes styles like blues and R&B——took shape at pivotal moments in history and was made by artists and performers who were, in various ways, seekers after freedom. Whether journeying across the country, breaking free from real or imaginary confines, or in the throes of self-invention, these artists incorporated their experiences into scores of songs about travel and movement, as well as creating a new kind of road culture. Starting in the Mississippi Delta and tracking the emblematic routes and highways of road music, John ...
"Powerful . . . well-documented, well-written, and most informative, ("Calculated Kindness") is . . . for all Americans who wish to better understand the often competing policies and principles that have regulated immigrations practices in the United States".--(Rev.) Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., President, University of Notre Dame.
Van Halen are known for classic songs like “Runnin’ with the Devil,” "Panama,” and “Jump,” but also for the drama surrounding the exits of its former members. While many have attempted to discover the secrets of Van Halen through an analysis of their musical role models, John Scanlan looks at deeper aesthetic and philosophical influences in Van Halen, a groundbreaking account of this extraordinary band. Following the band’s pursuit of the art of artlessness, Scanlan describes how they characterize what historian Kevin Starr terms “Zen California”—a state of mind and way of being that above all celebrates the now, and in rock and roll terms refers to the unregulated expend...
Reproduction of the original: The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault
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When we think of getting older, we know we will slowly lose more and more of our memory—and with it, our sense of where we belong and how we connect to others. We might relax a little if we considered the improvements in computer data storage, which may lead us into a future when the limits of our memory become less constricting. In this book, John Scanlan explores the nature of memory and how we have come to live both with and within it, as well as what might come from memory becoming a process as simple as retrieving and reading data. Probing the ways philosophers look at memory, Scanlan reveals that some argue that being human means having the ability to remember, to see oneself as a be...
Speed is Life, More is Better begins with an unknown narrator reminiscing about his former F-18D squadron. Although the story unfolds as the group enforces a NATO no-fly zone imposed over Bosnia in the mid-90s, Speed is Life, More is Better is timeless. It explores how men cope, and could just as easily have taken place in Vietnam or Iraq. Speed is Life, More is Better is a Catch 22 with jets.
A heartrending reassemblage of a life in its waning moments Fifteen years ago, Kathryn Scanlan found a stranger’s diary at an estate auction in a small town in Illinois. The owner of the diary was eighty-six years old when she began recording the details of her life in the small book, a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. The diary was falling apart—water-stained and illegible in places—but magnetic to Scanlan nonetheless. She became obsessed with the object. After reading and rereading the diary, studying and dissecting it, for the next fifteen years she played with the sentences that caught her attention, cutting, editing, arranging, and rearranging them into the composition that ...