Other books that might interest you

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  NPR Road Trips: Fairs and...

  NPR

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  From butter sculptures to deep-fried beer, swine races to pickle politics, NPR presents the biggest, best, and weirdest sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of America’s annual ritual.Step right up as the gates swing open at fairgrounds across the USA. This delightful collection explores the unique joys of the public gatherings that take place in cities and small towns, when people of all stripes and sizes meet to gawk at cows, ponder seed art, get hypnotized, compete in husband-calling contests, and eat virtually anything on a stick. Farming, food, politics, parades, shilling, glad-handing, people-watching, and silliness are celebrated here. If you’ve been to a fair or festival, you’ll love this collection. If you haven’t, here’s what you’ve been missing.Contents:Introduction by Noah AdamsGarrison Keillor at the Minnesota State FairPostcard: Texas State FairA Break from Politics at the County FairHard Work, Some Play at the Iowa State FairSwine Bring “Olympig” Racing to County FairsPostcard: Collectibles at the Fair“Lovey” Replaces “Sooey” in Husband-Calling ContestThe Minnesota State Fair on a StickVoices from the National Cornbread FestivalIowa’s Butter Cow LadyCompetitive Wood Chopping in West VirginiaMountain View Folk FestivalMelvin the Human BlockheadThe Phelps of Food CanningThe Funnel Cake KingOn the Midway: A Fairbanks CarnivalLost and Found Sound: Carnival Talkers

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  No Bull Music Theory for...

  James Shipway

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  Music Theory for Guitarists is the ground-breaking guitar theory book for guitar players. Now, guitarists of all levels can understand most of the music theory they'll ever need, without the confusion.  
  Easy to understand language, explanations and practical examples mean you can understand in hours, music theory concepts which can confuse guitar players for years. No music reading or theory knowledge required!   
  An optional free workbook contains all exercises/examples to play on guitar, plus quiz questions to test your understanding. In the audio you hear all examples demonstrated (plus extra ‘audiobook only’ demos by the author). 
  12 bite-sized chapters teach you the following topics and show you how to use them in your playing, improvising and song writing. The Musical Alphabet - the 12 notes used in musicTones and SemitonesThe Major Scale - what it is and why you need itMajor and Minor Triads (used in most pop, country, rock and folk music)Intervals (major scale and chromatic)Major Keys (the secret to writing great songs and solos)Chord Progressions (start writing pro sounding chord sequences/songs) Pentatonic Scales (most common guitar scales ever)The Natural Minor Scale (for minor key soloing)Minor Key Basics - understand minor key songs and chord sequences 
  Perfect for learning guitar music theory at beginner/intermediate level, boosting knowledge to improve playing/songwriting, understanding other musicians use and learning to write better songs. 
  I wrote this as the antidote to the confusing, poorly explained music theory books guitarists (including me) have had to struggle with until now, so grab your guitar and nail 99% of the music theory you need, with Music Theory for Guitarists!

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  Keeping It Active: A Practical...

  Jeannette Nelson

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  Every time you open your mouth on stage you are trying to persuade somebody of something.
  Sometimes referred to as 'the art of persuasion', rhetoric means using language to communicate your ideas and intentions to other people – and to make sure you are heard, understood and believed. This clear and concise guide explains how it works in plays, and how actors can use it to bring their performances to life on stage.
  Drawing on her decades of experience working with actors on major productions, including as Head of Voice at the National Theatre, Jeannette Nelson introduces all the major rhetorical techniques and devices that playwrights use. She offers fascinating breakdowns of dialogue and speeches from across the theatrical canon – from Shakespeare and Ibsen, to Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry and Arthur Miller, right up to contemporary playwrights such as Helen Edmundson and Tanika Gupta. Each chapter also includes a series of practical exercises which combine spoken word with physical action to help you explore and understand these techniques, and harness their power in performance.
  Whether you're an actor, a director or a drama teacher, Keeping It Active will empower you with a greater understanding of the ways that language underpins all dramatic works, and will give you the tools you need to unlock the text, understand characters, connect with the audience, and perform with greater confidence, focus and authenticity.
  'As this excellent book outlines, rhetoric is everywhere. It's not simply in the parliament, the press conference and the court; it's in the workplace, the home and the family. There's no argument, classical or modern, in a play that isn't informed and helped by Jeannette's work' Josie Rourke, from her Foreword
  'A great resource for actors and directors' Ralph Fiennes
  'Jeannette Nelson's revelatory relationship to language is, quite simply, life-changing' Simon Godwin
  'Jeannette taught me so much... I felt like I could persuade anybody to do anything' Sophie Okonedo

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  Household Horror - Cinematic...

  Marc Olivier

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  A scholar examines 14 everyday objects featured in horror films and how they manifest their power and speak to society’s fears. 
   
  Take a tour of the house where a microwave killed a gremlin, a typewriter made Jack a dull boy, a sewing machine fashioned Carrie’s prom dress, and houseplants might kill you while you sleep. In Household Horror, Marc Olivier highlights the wonder, fear, and terrifying dimension of objects in horror cinema. Inspired by object-oriented ontology and the nonhuman turn in philosophy, Olivier places objects in film on par with humans, arguing, for example, that a sleeper sofa is as much the star of Sisters as Margot Kidder, that The Exorcist is about a possessed bed, and that Rosemary’s Baby is a conflict between herbal shakes and prenatal vitamins. Household Horror reinvigorates horror film criticism by investigating the unfathomable being of objects as seemingly benign as remotes, radiators, refrigerators, and dining tables. Olivier questions what Hitchcock’s Psycho tells us about shower curtains. What can we learn from Freddie Krueger’s greatest accomplice, the mattress? Room by room, Olivier considers the dark side of fourteen household objects to demonstrate how the objects in these films manifest their own power and connect with specific cultural fears and concerns. 
   
  “Provides a lively and highly original contribution to horror studies. As a work on cinema, it introduces the reader to films that may be less well-known to casual fans and scholars; more conspicuously, it returns to horror staples, gleefully reanimating works that one might otherwise assume had been critically “done to death” (Psycho, The Exorcist, The Shining).” —Allan Cameron, University of Auckland

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  Public Art in South Africa -...

  Brenda Schmahmann, Kim Miller

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  How does South Africa deal with public art from its years of colonialism and apartheid? How do new monuments address fraught histories and commemorate heroes of the struggle? Across South Africa, statues commemorating figures such as Cecil Rhodes have provoked heated protests, while new works commemorating icons of the liberation struggle have also sometimes proved contentious. In this lively volume, Kim Miller, Brenda Schmahmann and an international group of contributors explore how works in the public domain in South Africa serve as a forum in which important debates about race, gender, identity and nationhood play out.  Examining statues and memorials as well as performance, billboards, and other temporal modes of communication, the authors of these essays consider the implications of not only the exposure, but also erasure of events and icons from the public domain. Revealing how public visual expressions articulate histories and memories, they explore how such works may serve as a forum in which tensions surrounding race, gender, identity, or nationhood play out.

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  Waking Dragon - The Emerging...

  Peter Navarro

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  China has emerged as the “factory floor” for global produc-  tion, providing the world with cheap goods at the astonishingly   low “China Price.” But there is a very steep price to pay for   these low-budget consumables—a price that very well may have   dire consequences for the health and security of the planet. The   stark fact is that the current course of events foreshadows an   extremely difficult future for the United States and for the   world as a whole.   In this eye-opening series of lectures, business professor and best-selling author Peter   Navarro dissects the Coming China Wars and their implications for all mankind.

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