Spontaneity, immediacy and feeling characterize the blues as a genre. Whether it's the movement of call and response, the expressive bends and wails of voice and instruments or the synergistic relationship between audience and performers, the blues embody a kind of "living in the moment" aesthetic. At the same time, the blues genre has always responded in a unique way to its historical moment, its formal characteristics, figures, and devices constantly emerging from--and speaking to--the s...

This book presents a new approach to understanding contemporary personal life, taking account of how people build their lives through a bricolage of ‘tradition’ and ‘modern’. The authors examine how tradition is used and adapted, invented and re-invented; how meaning can leak from past to present; the ways in which people’s agencies differ as they make decisions; and the process of bricolage in making new arrangements. These themes are illustrated through a variety of case studies, ranging...

Welcome to Vizby's world!Welcome to Vizby's world! Vizby is one of the happiest, naughtiest and cleverest dogs of them all. Vizby is an irrepressible Hungarian Vizsla. She just lives her life to the maximum and everyone loves her. Here you will join Vizby's universe in New Farm (Brisbane) with her amazing Ma and neighbours. Find out just how naughty Viz can be!Aimed at 7 to 12-year olds, this book is great fun for all and i...

This timely book offers a fresh perspective on the issue of contemporary migratory labor, otkhodnichestvo, in Russia-the temporary departure of inhabitants from small towns and villages for short-term jobs in the major cities of Russia. Although otkhodnichestvo is a mass phenomenon, it is not reflected in official economic statistics. Based on numerous interviews with otkhodniks and local experts, this stunningly original work focuses on the central and northern regions of European Russia....

It's dinnertime at Oskar's house, and his parents have lots of luscious suggestions: chicken skewers? A peanut stew? Maybe he'd like a shrimp ragout?But Oskar would prefer something off the menu—he wants to eat his brother!Hélène Gaudy's tale is a charming read-aloud packed to the gills with wordplay that's perfect for bedtime."An extremely silly book that is reminiscent of Maurice Sendak … Oskar is a picky eater, but there's no way he could be so picky that he'd on...

In 1921, Sergei Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges**—one of the earliest, most famous examples of modernist opera—premiered in Chicago. Prokofiev's source was a 1913 theatrical divertissement by Vsevolod Meyerhold, who, in turn, took inspiration from Carlo Gozzi's 1761 commedia dell'arte*****–***infused theatrical fairy tale. Only by examining these whimsical, provocative works together can we understand the full significance of their inte...

Renowned for his influence as a political philosopher, a writer, and an autobiographer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is known also for his lifelong interest in music. He composed operas and other musical pieces, invented a system of numbered musical notation, engaged in public debates about music, and wrote at length about musical theory. Critical analysis of Rousseau’s work in music has been principally the domain of musicologists, rarely involving the work of scholars of political theory or lit...

A powerful memoir of redemption from the son of blues legend John Lee HookerBorn in Detroit and exposed to the music world from an early age, John Lee Hooker Jr. began singing as a featured attraction in his father's shows as a teenager. His father was a sharecropper's son who became known for hit songs like “Boogie Chillin,” “I'm in the Mood,” and “Boom Boom,” and in 1972, he and his father performed live and recorded an album in Soledad Prison. Junior seemed to have a golden ticke...

While all music genres incorporate religious imagery, the blues has its origin in the soil of the church. In its infancy, the blues was often dismissed as undermining the church’s gospel songbook. The initial resistance, however, could not suppress the organic development of a genre of music born from suffering. The great Mississippi Delta bluesman, Muddy Waters, once said, "The blues was born behind a mule." Behind a beast of burden, the working man found in the blues a way to console the...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The definitive cookbook on French cuisine for American readers: "What a cookbook should be: packed with sumptuous recipes, detailed instructions, and precise line drawings. Some of the instructions look daunting, but as Child herself says in the introduction, 'If you can read, you can cook.'" —Entertainment Weekly“I only wish that I had written it myself.” —James Beard**Featuring 524 delicious recipes and over 100 instructive ...

Millions know Simone “Simca” Beck as Julia Child’s French partner in creating the two unforgettable volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Simca’s Cuisine offers the delectable recipes that Beck personally treasured most. She presents family specialties from the well-thumbed notebooks of her mother and grandmother as well as recipes from her life in Normandy, Alsace, and Provence where she gardened, cooked, and entertained. Skillfully adapting French ways to Amer...

Lonnie Johnson is a blues legend. His virtuosity on the blues guitar is second to none, and his influence on artists from T-Bone Walker and B. B. King to Eric Clapton is well established. Yet Johnson mastered multiple instruments. He recorded with jazz icons such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and he played vaudeville music, ballads, and popular songs.In this book, Julia Simon takes a closer look at Johnson’s musical legacy. Considering the full body of his work, Simon pres...