Something in the Air

Something in the Air
Author: Marc Fisher
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2009-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307547094

A sweeping, anecdotal account of the great sounds and voices of radio–and how it became a bonding agent for a generation of American youth When television became the next big thing in broadcast entertainment, everyone figured video would kill the radio star–and radio, period. But radio came roaring back with a whole new concept. The war was over, the baby boom was on, the country was in clover, and a bold new beat was giving the syrupy songs of yesteryear a run for their money. Add transistors, 45 rpm records, and a young man named Elvis to the mix, and the result was the perfect storm that rocked, rolled, and reinvented radio. Visionary entrepreneurs like Todd Storz pioneered the Top 40 concept, which united a generation. But it took trendsetting “disc jockeys” like Alan Freed, Murray the K, Wolfman Jack, Cousin Brucie, and their fast-talking, too-cool-for-school counterparts across the land to turn time, temperature, and the same irresistible hit tunes played again and again into the ubiquitous sound track of the fifties and sixties. The Top 40 sound broke through racial barriers, galvanized coming-of-age kids (and scandalized their perplexed parents), and provided the insistent, inescapable backbeat for times that were a-changin’. Along with rock-and-roll music came the attitude that would literally change the “voice” of radio forever, via the likes of raconteur Jean Shepherd, who captivated his loyal following of “Night People”; the inimitable Bob Fass, whose groundbreaking Radio Unnameable inaugurated the anything-goes free-form style that would come to define the alternative frontier of FM; and a small-time Top 40 deejay who would ultimately find national fame as a political talk-show host named Rush Limbaugh. From Hunter Hancock, who pushed beyond the limits of 1950s racial segregation with rhythm and blues and hepcat patter, to Howard Stern, who blew through all the limits with a blue streak of outrageous on-air antics; from the heyday of summer songs that united carefree listeners to the latter days of political talk that divides contentious callers; from the haze of classic rock to the latest craze in hip-hop, Something in the Air chronicles the extraordinary evolution of the unique and timeless medium that captured our hearts and minds, shook up our souls, tuned in–and turned on–our consciousness, and went from being written off to rewriting the rules of pop culture.

There Is Something in the Air

There Is Something in the Air
Author: David Yarbrough
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2008-04-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781436308472

There is something in the air. Are you ready for a journey? Buckle up and accompany me for a close up view of what really goes on behind the wire to keep nerve gas and other chemical agents out of our air here in the United States. Is the wire to keep nerve gas inside or to maintain secrets? Observe the pathways for nerve gas and other chemical agents to enter our environment and the air we breathe, then you decide. Would you report safety problems regarding the nerve gas to your superiors. What should you do? Experience how it feels to be labeled unpatriotic, watch your employer embarrass and lie about your children then ward off conspiracy after conspiracy to defend yourself in an effort to save your career until your superiors use the United States Court and federal prosecutors to indict you for eight counts of felonies. Watch your excellent reputation be destroyed, almost overnight to become evil, in order to ruin your credibility so the safety problems can be ignored. Watch federal whistle blowing protection laws be thrown out the window because the army has learned a way to circumvent the law to retaliate by incarcerating you in a federal penitentiary. The only retaliation that could be more extreme would be to murder the whistle blowers but don't discount murder! Continue with me for a trip through the federal government rehabilitation program behind the wire at the most secure federal correction complex in the United States, the home of the Supermax nick named the Alcatraz of the Rockies in Florence, Colorado and prison chambers for the most wicked men in our society. Be brave, my word is my sword and it is true so I promise you will return safely and honorably. We will have fun times and at times we will smile but we will also experience tragedy and some of vilest ordeals life has to offer. A life of education is filled with opposites and we will experience a seemingly unending array of them. Meet some new friends. Enjoy their company and conversation but guard yourself at all times and pray that you will never meet some of the other men and women you read about in person. The few individuals who do not want to be counted among my friends and who participated against me appeared to believe the mission was infallible; at all costs the chemical agents must burn baby burn, full speed ahead, and any other course to destroy these weapons would be unpatriotic, satanic, and blasphemous. I promise that you will be rewarded by reinforcing your own determination to be the same type of person in your professional life at work that you profess to be at home with your family and friends. You will add a more clear definition to family, service, deceit, freedom, friendship, love, hate, patriotism, service, conspiracy, and sabotage. This journey is my book. It is a story that must be told to embolden future references to chemical agent destruction efforts with factual discovery and honesty. You should be aware of this story before determining your own conclusions. As for me I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. I felt the pain and joy as I lived it. I climbed up the ladder before I fell. I was defeated, I was lost, then I was awakened, and now I am climbing again. We will see the story together by using the full set of puzzle pieces to form a complete picture and I will explain why the lines exist in between the pieces regarding the chemical agent destruction program. The army will give you a perfect picture then describe the border as being safe and pretend the lines between the pieces do not exist. They will say trust us, we care about safety, safety is of utmost importance, don't ask specific questions, and stay away. Free agency is yours so you be the judge. Why were the deadly weapons made? Are the deadly weapons being destroyed and validated as destroyed safely by our sampling and analytical procedures? Or, are the deadly weapons just being destroyed? My friends and I have bee

Something in the Air

Something in the Air
Author: Richard Hoffer
Publisher: Free Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-02-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781416588955

Sports Illustrated senior writer Richard Hoffer records the unforgettable athletic achievements of the 1968 U.S. Olympic team in Mexico City.

Stories Behind the Best-loved Songs of Christmas

Stories Behind the Best-loved Songs of Christmas
Author: Ace Collins
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2001
Genre: Carols, English
ISBN: 0310239265

Describes the origins of thirty-one famous Christmas songs, including "Jingle Bells," "O Holy Night," and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and provides the lyrics to each.

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory
Author: John Seabrook
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2015-10-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0393241939

"An utterly satisfying examination of the business of popular music." —Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic There’s a reason today’s ubiquitous pop hits are so hard to ignore—they’re designed that way. The Song Machine goes behind the scenes to offer an insider’s look at the global hit factories manufacturing the songs that have everyone hooked. Full of vivid, unexpected characters—alongside industry heavy-hitters like Katy Perry, Rihanna, Max Martin, and Ester Dean—this fascinating journey into the strange world of pop music reveals how a new approach to crafting smash hits is transforming marketing, technology, and even listeners’ brains. You’ll never think about music the same way again. A Wall Street Journal Best Business Book

All that is Solid Melts Into Air

All that is Solid Melts Into Air
Author: Marshall Berman
Publisher: Verso
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1983
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780860917854

The experience of modernization -- the dizzying social changes that swept millions of people into the capitalist world -- and modernism in art, literature and architecture are brilliantly integrated in this account.

Batman: Reptilian

Batman: Reptilian
Author: Garth Ennis
Publisher: DC Comics
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1779518722

What strikes fear into the hearts of those who terrorize Gotham? It used to be Batman, but something far more frightening stalks the shadows-and it’s after Gotham’s villains, leaving a trail of carnage through the underworld. Now, with Riddler, Penguin, Two-Face, and many more left bloodied and broken in its wake, Batman opens the case on this mysterious reptilian menace and finds himself vexed by one very important question: What on Earth is it? Collects Batman: Reptilian #1-6.

The Snowman

The Snowman
Author: Raymond Briggs
Publisher:
Total Pages: 64
Release: 1995-01-01
Genre: English language
ISBN: 9780194220255

Ideal for the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Call Me Cassandra

Call Me Cassandra
Author: Marcial Gala
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2022-01-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374602026

Finalist for the 2023 PEN Translation Prize and the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction “Dazzling." —Marcela Valdes, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) "A spellbinding novel by one of the best writers of the Americas." —Junot Díaz, author of This is How You Lose Her Ten-year-old Rauli lives in a world that is often hostile. His older brother is violent; his philandering father doesn’t understand him; his intelligence and sensitivity do not endear him to the other children at school. He loves to read, especially Greek myths, but in Cuba in the 1970s, novels and gods can be dangerous. Despite the signs that warn Rauli to repress and fear what he is, he knows three things to be true: First, that he was born in the wrong body. Second, that he will die, aged eighteen, as a soldier in the Cuban intervention in Angola. And third, that he is the reincarnation of the Trojan princess Cassandra. Moving between Rauli’s childhood and adolescence, between the Angolan battlefield, the Cuban city of Cienfuegos, and the shores of ancient Troy, Marcial Gala’s Call Me Cassandra tells of the search for identity amid the collapse of Cuba’s utopian dreams. Burdened with knowledge of tragedies yet to come, Rauli nonetheless strives to know himself. Lyrical and gritty, heartbreaking and luminous, Rauli’s is the story of the inexorable pull of destiny.