Prohibited Sketchbook (Prohibited)

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There's something about Snoopy...

Things I'Ve Had to Learn over and over and over: (Plus a Few Minor Discoveries) (Plus a Few Minor Discoveries)
Charles M. Schulz
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0805012036

Customer Reviews:

There's something about Snoopy..........2003-02-21

... and his friends. Charles Schulz definitely had a gift for looking below the surface for something deeper and then distilling what he found into a line drawing and a single sentence caption. If you want to laugh, cry, and think a little at the same time, this book is perfect. A great gift too.

Highly recommended.

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Things I've Had to Learn Over and Over and Over : Plus a Few Minor Discoveries
Charles M. Schulz
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8T35Q

Amazon.com

How Not to Write a Screenplay is an invaluable addition to any aspiring screenwriter's shelf--and you'd best make the shelf within arm's reach of the computer. Author Dean Martin Flinn, an experienced script reader, details the common rookie mistakes that drive script readers crazy. Flinn makes no pretense of being able to teach anyone how to write the next Great American Film--or for that matter the next Stupid Summer Blockbuster. Instead he offers information that will help keep the novice screenwriter's opus from being immediately tossed on the trash pile (arguably a more valuable service). As Flinn says in his introduction, if you follow the advice in this book, "you may not write a particularly good screenplay, but you won't write a bad one." Flinn offers practical advice on formatting, such as the proper form for a slugline and where to set your margins, and more general rules of thumb on giving the actors room to interpret their roles and avoiding dictating camera angles to the director (who will ignore them anyway). The second half of the book deals with content, also in a remarkably pragmatic way--structure, pacing, plot resolution, and dialogue that really stink are all handily dealt with. Flinn illustrates almost all his points with excerpts from screenplays both good and bad (names have been changed to protect the guilty), giving the reader concrete examples of the difference between poorly and well-structured scenes. Not sucking is an unusual goal for a screenwriting manual, but any script reader will agree it is a noble one. --Ali Davis

Book Description

Finally, what may be the last screenwriting book a writer will ever need to buy!

Customer Reviews:

Almost Worthless.......2007-05-13

There are at least two valuable books on screenplay writing - this is not one of them. Once a writer has read David Trottier's "Screenwriter's Bible" and Robert McKee's "Story", it is obvious that "How Not to Write a Screenplay" is full of obvious points and platitudes that are almost worthless. Most of this book is excerpts from screenplays that blatenly seem to be there so the book has more pages. Don't waste money your money on Flinn's book.

Read this one - but not first........2007-03-12

I have several "How to" books on screenplay writing. If you do too, then you need this one. It tells you what you are doing wrong. I promise many more than one "Oop!" moment from this entertaining and easy to read work.

Entertaining overview of the things most new screenwriters do wrong.......2006-08-29

Flinn has a sense of humor. That is the first thing one notices while reading his book, and that's the one thing that makes it stand out.

"How NOT to Write a Screenplay" is a witty and entertaining tool for learning the DOs and DON'Ts of the screenwriting craft. Packed full of examples drawn from real and make-believe scripts, it can be a definite help to a writer new to the industry. Anyone who has ever read another of the many available books on script formatting will find his commentary amusing. For example:

"Don't use (CONTINUED) at the top and bottom of each page. You're wasting four lines. Anyone reading your screenplay who doesn't know he's supposed to turn the page is a numskull."

Or his comments regarding music suggestions:

"Leave the music track alone: 'THIS SHOULD BE AN UPBEAT SCENE WITH A GOOD MUSIC TRACK.' (Darn. The studio really wanted to use a bad music track.)"

The second half of the book, covering content and story development, provides similar information to that of books by more well-known authors such as Linda Seger or Syd Field, but offers that information encapsulated in smaller sections that make everything quite easy to relate to...sections such as "Suspense", "Believability", "Twists" and "Whammies".

While the book doesn't teach you how to write the perfect screenplay, it does cover many of the practical details. Its strength isn't in storycraft but rather in addressing all the little details screenwriters tend to forget or abuse. Though some of the information is repetitive, there are plenty of examples and excerpts from screenplays -- some good, most bad, and some you may even recognize. Flinn's advice coupled with the many examples can help you avoid the pitfalls so many screenwriters encounter.

Excellent workbook.......2006-08-07

So happy I purchased this before starting my screenplay so I didn't have to do endless edits.

As a reader of many bad screenplays Mr. Flinn certainly knows the pitfalls that will keep a screenplay from even being finished. excellent workbook.

Barbara Gilmer

Okay, Okay.......2006-08-05

This is a book that could have been a long article, or two. But those article would have been interesting. I found the book getting very repetitive in the last half, when we started getting the same material over and over again. But the notions is good: that you need short scenes, with a whammy.

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a primer for the uninitiated

A Catalog of Style Leaps.

Reeling, heady, and fun

What do dada, the Orioles, and the Sex Pistols have in common?

Brilliant, engaging take on a much-covered subject

Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century
Greil Marcus
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Punk | Musical Genres | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll: Fourth Edition

The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice

England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll

Society of the Spectacle

ASIN: 0674535812

Book Description

Greil Marcus, author of Mystery Train, widely acclaimed as the best book ever written about America as seen through its music, began work on this new book out of a fascination with the Sex Pistols: that scandalous antimusical group, invented in London in 1975 and dead within two years, which sparked the emergence of the culture called punk. "I am an antichrist!" shouted singer Johnny Rotten--where in the world of pop music did that come from? Looking for an answer, with a high sense of the drama of the journey, Marcus takes us down the dark paths of counterhistory, a route of blasphemy, adventure, and surprise.

This is no mere search for cultural antecedents. Instead, what Marcus so brilliantly shows is that various kinds of angry, absolute demands--demands on society, art, and all the governing structures of everyday life--seem to be coded in phrases, images, and actions passed on invisibly, but inevitably, by people quite unaware of each other. Marcus lets us hear strange yet familiar voices: of such heretics as the Brethren of the Free Spirit in medieval Europe and the Ranters in seventeenth-century England; the dadaists in Zurich in 1916 and Berlin in 1918, wearing death masks, chanting glossolalia; one Michel Mourre, who in 1950 took over Easter Mass at Notre-Dame to proclaim the death of God; the Lettrist International and the Situationist International, small groups of Paris--based artists and writers surrounding Guy Debord, who produced blank-screen films, prophetic graffiti, and perhaps the most provocative social criticism of the 1950s and '60s; the rioting students and workers of May '68, scrawling cryptic slogans on city walls and bringing France to a halt; the Sex Pistols in London, recording the savage "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen."

Although the Sex Pistols shape the beginning and the end of the story, Lipstick Traces is not a book about music; it is about a common voice, discovered and transmitted in many forms. Working from scores of previously unexamined and untranslated essays, manifestos, and filmscripts, from old photographs, dada sound poetry, punk songs, collages, and classic texts from Marx to Henri Lefebvre, Marcus takes us deep behind the acknowledged events of our era, into a hidden tradition of moments that would seem imaginary except for the fact that they are real: a tradition of shared utopias, solitary refusals, impossible demands, and unexplained disappearances. Written with grace and force, humor and an insistent sense of tragedy and danger, Lipstick Traces tells a story as disruptive and compelling as the century itself.

Customer Reviews:

a primer for the uninitiated.......2006-05-30

a close, "academic" reading of L.T. would render great many imperfections-factitious or otherwise. However, this is a freely associative account offered as post-structural fodder. When written in ('90) there was little stateside interest in situationism/lettrism/fluxus et. and scholars of the a.garde (i can only think of a handful) were slow to consider art/lit. movements beyond the hegelian arc. yes I had read "society of the spectacle" , knew of the lettrists work, dada, lautremont bla bla-all very predictable stuff for those in the "avant know"-but what I found alluring about L.T. was its anti-academic, messy essence- a welcome shift from hackneyed scholasticism.

A Catalog of Style Leaps........2006-02-11

I agree that this book is a page turner. A great balance of text and contexts. If you are intrigued by it's subject matter (Pistols/Dada/etc..) you'll have a hard time putting it down.

Reeling, heady, and fun.......2005-11-21

Don't start this one looking for a textbook - or anything bland, well-researched, and scholarly. The writing style fits well with the Punk idea - Marcus is clearly quite intelligent and well-read, but you can't possibly forget that he's a journalist at heart. The book is sensationalist at times, but that's allowed - I don't think he means for it to be read like a research paper. It's really long and free-associative, so it can be exhausting to read, but if you have the time and the interest it will certainly expand your view of the past century, and maybe change your ideas about the world in general just a little bit.

What do dada, the Orioles, and the Sex Pistols have in common?.......2005-09-13

Very little. But a sometimes interesting stroll through Greil Marcus's random brain farts.

"It's just a bunch of stuff that happened."

-- Homer Simpson

Brilliant, engaging take on a much-covered subject.......2005-07-09

Ludicrously dismissed by punks and academics alike (revealing something that links them: a profound lack of imagination), Lipstick Traces is the most audacious and brilliant book ever written about popular music, one that barely mentions its purported subject (punk rock). In his absurd attack on Marcus, Richard Meltzer quotes some critic's dismissal of LT as a failed version of his (Meltzer's) own The Aesthetics of Rock; in truth, that book itself is more like a failed version of itself, in which brilliant ideas are let down by virtually unreadable prose. What Marcus does is easy to miss at first, but it becomes obvious over the course of the book: he's not just trying to show us the Guy Debord in Johnny Rotten, but the Johnny Rotten in Guy Debord. And so a book devoted almost entirely to obscure artists, barely given a footnote in any "real" history of art or rock or whatever (the Pistols and the Clash aside, none of the punk bands Marcus admires - the Buzzcocks, the Slits, X-Ray Spex, Essential Logic, the Adverts, even Public Image Ltd. - will ever get much time on VH1) becomes unbelievably exciting and visceral.

Marcus doesn't bother writing much about the Sex Pistols themselves, though his descriptions of their records are almost more amazing than the records themselves. The first half of the book is a rambling screed, taking in subjects as unlikely as Adorno and Michael Jackson's Victory Tour. Marcus doesn't dumb down anything he takes on, and he shuttles back and forth between seemingly unrelated topics so often that some readers may be frustrated. Persevere, and you'll find that Marcus's writing, imposing at first, is ultimately vibrant, witty and illuminating. The second half is a much more straightforward account of the "heroes" of Marcus's vision - Tristan Tzara, Michel Mourre, Debord - though he still has room for a lovely meditation on the Orioles' 1948 "It's Too Soon to Know," which he considers the first rock'n'roll record. What's fascinating about this section is that Marcus either digs up information on people you'd never hear of otherwise (Mourre, a deadbeat sometime-surrealist who made headlines around the world by marching into Notre Dame Church dressed as a monk to proclaim the death of God, may be the most intriguing character here) or writes about them in an engaging manner that you wouldn't find in a more traditionally scholarly book. Finally, in the epilogue, Marcus brings it all home, revealing for the first time why he decided to write a book about revolutions that never happened.

There is little historical connection between any of these figures, but that's the point - all these would-be revolutionaries really shared was a certain tone, and Marcus takes on something of that tone himself. It's the voice of Charlie Chaplin's tramp at the end of "The Great Dictator": someone willing, even for a moment, to address the entire world, to refuse to censor oneself, and to accept whatever consequences may follow.

Rock Music: Culture, Aesthetics and Sociology

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Sociologist analyzes rock
Rock Music as a Phenomenon of Social Actions

Rock Music: Culture, Aesthetics and Sociology
Peter Wicke
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521399149

Book Description

Rock music--powerful, sensual, loud, and full of energy. It has changed the face of modern music. But what is its appeal and its significance within contemporary society, and what cultural values does it reflect? Peter Wicke addresses these issues and offers a stimulating and insightful study of rock music tracing the genesis and influence of this diverse aspect of popular music. Beginning with the advent of rock and roll, Wicke chronicles the development through Elvis Presley, and the Beatles to the current music industry, its performers, and the impact of the music video. The book will be of interest to students of music history, popular culture, and media studies.

Customer Reviews:

Sociologist analyzes rock.......2002-07-14

As Kurt Blaukopf, an renowned Austrian sociologist of music pointed out, sociologists have a tendency to pursue minutely specialized approaches and then overgeneralize about them. Fricke's prose is somewhat professorial (maybe the translation from German helped), but he seems to have a better handle on the rock phenomenon as a whole than the great majority of academics. David Szatmary's social history of rock is more meaty and interesting, but Fricke gets the big picture better.

Rock Music as a Phenomenon of Social Actions.......2001-04-02

Peter Wicke sees Rock Music as a phenomenon of social action. This phenomenon produces new experience in art, that, within the framework of a highgrade, technology-dependent mass culture. Of course, while this characteristic of rock music functions as a aesthetical developement in the history of mass culture especially, it makes possible to express the real estates of teenager's life. Peter Wicke, as an analysist and social scientist, introduces a new vision to understand, not only for the rock music, but for the mass culture as a experience of everyday-lives. I think music, as a culture, must have a support which maintain its existence. In this sense, rock music also must have any kind of support for its existence. Wicke structures the support of rock music with the need of teenagers and midea industry. This vision of social-structural idea become a yardstick to explain the social phenomenon of teenagers' rock-cult. So we, from the vision of social-dependent characteristic of rock music, understand the real estates that rock music and its industry. Now from this book, we have establish a landscape of mass culture that is dominant to our everyday-lives.

Book Description

Russ Meyer is the breast-fixated filmmaker who started as a nude pin-up photographer and progressed through his own startling brand of B-cinema to direct probably the most bizarre film ever funded by a major Hollywood -studio-Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Meyer's 1960s films-including Mudhoney, Motorpsycho! and the legendary Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!-are now venerated as modern classics, and Lips Hips Tits Power examines Meyer's entire cinematic oeuvre in -detail, affording it the serious analysis it undeniably warrants.

Featuring famous girls from Meyer's repertory company such as Tura Satana, Kitten Natividad, Uschi Digard, Haji and Erica Gavin, Lips Hips Tits Power offers a visual feast of buxotic female flesh to offset its critical commentary, resulting in a book which operates on two-equally stimulating-levels.

Customer Reviews:

Unique perspective.......2004-07-27

Hopefully, this book will start a new trend of getting more precise information on RM's films in print.

I thought the films produced prior to 'Lorna' were virtually ignored, however, the analysis of the films that were included rekindle some old memories and bring to light different insight.

I highly recommend this book.

EXCEPTIONAL ANALYSIS OF A FILM GENIUS!.......2004-05-09

Doyle Greene's new book is a marvelous, thoughtful and insightful analysis of those great "Bustoons" of cult film legend Russ Meyer. Greene brings these beloved films to life in a way I don't believe any other writer has done.

Having always loved Meyer's unique serio-comic treatises on the battle of the sexes, yet not always able to articulate why, I found Greene's astute observations to be a bonafide revelation.

Reading this terrific book, you will not only understand exactly what makes films like LORNA and FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! so enduring and memorable, you will see the brilliant set of themes which run through all of Meyer's work (centering, of course, on the awesome political and psychological power of sexual relations).

There is an entire chapter devoted to Meyer's masterpiece BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, which features a breathtaking scene-by-scene breakdown that not only brings this glorious film to life in a way you've never experienced before, but proves once and for all that Meyer is not merely an exploitation filmmaker or a cinema painter, but a sexual philosopher of the first order.

Finally, Greene's compelling thesis convinces any open-minded individual that Meyer is, indeed, a modern film artist as important as Hitchcock, Godard or Fellini. No kidding.

Bravo, Mr. Greene!

Book Description

Play and development are key topics for all who work with young children. Based on the pioneering work of Mary D. Sheridan, Play in Early Childhood is an introductory text which explains how children's play develops and how they develop as they play. It includes descriptions of play at each stage of development, outlines of different play sequences, children with special needs, and the adult's role in providing for play. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to meet the needs of early years workers and students on courses leading to awards in children's care and education.

Spontaneous Play in Early Childhood from Birth to Six Years

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Spontaneous Play in Early Childhood from Birth to Six Years
Mary D. Sheridan
Manufacturer: Nfer Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

Pen and Sword Books are proud to be reissuing this, the only book written by the legendary 'legless' ace Douglas Bader (immortalized by the film Reach For the Sky).

He tells the inspiring story of the Battle of Britain from the viewpoint of 'The Few'. Using superb illustrations he traces the development of the Spitfire and Hurricane, and describes the nail-biting actions of those who flew them against far superior numbers of enemy aircraft. As an added bonus, other well-known fighter aces including Johnnie Johnson, "Laddie' Lucas and Max Aitken contribute to Douglas's book, no doubt out of affection and respect.

This is a really important contribution to RAF history by one of the greatest - and certainly the most famous - pilots of the Second World War.

Customer Reviews:

Very Interesting and well written........2007-01-10

Most Americans probably don't hold Bader in quite the same esteem that the Brits do, but they should. He was an extraordinary person, pilot, warrior, and gentleman. I really enjoyed his discussions of the Hurricane and Spitfire. A must have for any warplane enthusiast.

Douglas Bader: Fight for the sky : the story of the Spitfire and the Hurricane

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Light Read For Serious WW2 Readers.
A wonderful book with as stunning of photos!

Douglas Bader: Fight for the sky : the story of the Spitfire and the Hurricane
Douglas Bader
Manufacturer: Fontana
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Light Read For Serious WW2 Readers........2006-01-09

I purchased and just got a used copy of this hardcover edition book and was very surprised. It is pretty light on the words and very very heavy on photos. I bought this after reading "Reach For The Sky" the biography of Bader's war years, a highly recommended book. This I guess since it's autobiographical, and Bader not wanting to crow to loudly talks a little about himself and a little about his fellow pilots. Its about 180 pages long and I'd say has about half of that with solid text and half filled with cool photos, many in colour. A worthwhile book but didn't really enlighten any past "Reach For The Sky". A good chapter on Hurricat's though, Hurricanes that were rocket catapulted off merchant ships decks to defend against Condor bombers. The pilot would have to bail out after action because not enough fuel to reach land! Desperate times and all that, eh old boy?

A wonderful book with as stunning of photos!.......2000-03-27

Douglas Bader was my Fathers Hero when he was growing up. The reason for this is douglas Bader lost his legs in a aircraft crash. And my father was unable to walk due to Polio. He loved this book as did I. There are some very very good photos of spitfire's and Hurricanes, these tell what it was like!

Ever wondered what it was like to be back in WWII flying the most beautiful aircraft in the sky, the spitfire? If so you need to buy this book!

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Fight For The Sky..The Story Of The Spitfire And Hurricane
Douglas Bader
Manufacturer: Sidgwick and Jackson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SJG98U

Product Description

192 Pages of Text and Photographs

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Douglas Bader : fight for the sky : the story of the Spitfire and the Hurricane
Douglas Bader
Manufacturer: Fontana
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8MNCG

Fight For The Sky The Story of the Spitfire and Hurricane

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Fight For The Sky The Story of the Spitfire and Hurricane
Bader Douglas
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UCOY3W

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FIGHT FOR THE SKY: THE STORY OF THE SPITFIRE AND HURRICANE.
Douglas. Bader
Manufacturer: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORN196

Book Description

In a book that is at once deeply personal and intellectually savvy, Homegrown Democrat is a celebration of liberalism as the Â“politics of kindness.Â” In his inimitable style, Keillor draws on a lifetime of experience amongst the hardworking, God- fearing people of the Midwest and pays homage to the common code of civic necessities that arose from the left: Protect the social compact. Defend the powerless. Maintain government as a necessary force for good. As Keillor tells it, these are articles of faith that are being attacked by hard-ass Republican tax cutters who believe that human misery is a Dickensian fiction. In a blend of nostalgic reminiscence, humorous meditation, and articulate ire, Keillor asserts the values of his boyhoodÂ—the values of Lake WobegonÂ— that do not square with the ugly narcissistic agenda at work in the country today. A thoughtful, wonderfully written book, Homegrown Democrat is KeillorÂ's love letter to liberalism, the older generation, John F. Kennedy, the University of Minnesota, and the yellow-dog Democrat city of St. Paul that is sure to amuse and inspire Americans just when they need it most.

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"We Democrats are deeply flawed people, we can be earnestly boring and awfully righteous about moral issues in faraway places. We can be weenies, capable of doing dumb things in the name of the common good. But we do stick to our guns. We believe in decency and public spiritedness and have refused to hitch our wagon to yahooism and have supported government as a necessary force for good. And we are passionate. This is a time for passion."" ?from Homegrown Democrat ""I didn't become a Democrat because I was angry,"" says Garrison Keillor, writer and host of A Prairie Home Companion, ""I'm a Democrat because I received a good education in the schools of Anoka, Minnesota, and attended a great state university and when I was eighteen, John F. Kennedy ran for president."" Here, with great heart and and wit and a dash of anger, Keillor describes the democratic values of the hard-working God-fearing people of Lake Wobegon and the idea of the common good-the civil compact that Republicans have been attacking for the past decade. The simple code of the Golden Rule that underlies Midwestern civility. The politics of kindness. The obligation to defend the weak against the powerful. ""Despite the gaggle of corporate shills, hobby cops, misanthropic frat boys, dittoheads, gun fetishists, shrieking midgets, and nihilists in golf pants, and their Etch-a-Sketch president with a voice like a dial tone, this is a great country. And what unites us is our moral duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger."" A reminiscence, a political tract, and a humorous meditation, Homegrown Democrat is a deeply personal work from one of America's best-loved voices"

Customer Reviews:

Great Book.......2007-10-03

Very good reading.
A hard book to find anywhere else, especially at this great price.

The service from Amazon was exceptionally good.I thought.

Entertaining prose but simplistic thesis.......2007-08-26

The thesis can be summed up in just a few words: Democrats good. Republicans bad.

Luckily, Keillor takes his time with the argument and I got the most enjoyment from the book reading the little stories and limericks that he uses to get his point across. The style is wonderful, but the content was very boring.

A GOSPEL OF LIBERALISM FOR PREACHERS AND OTHERS.......2007-07-12

This is an incredible book that explains in a very serious--but often humorous--way what a good Christian perspective on politics is and ought to be. The religious right has been king-on-the-hill far too long. This is a must-read for anyone claiming to preach the gospel. Our politics should incorporate the parable of the Good Samaritan and much more. Here is Keillor: "This is Democratic bedrock: we don't let people lie in the ditch and drive past and pretend not to see them dying." If I were still teaching my seminary courses ("My Calvin Seminary Story"), I would include this book on a reading list----especially before the 2008 election. This book is still as fresh as it was the day it was published. Buy up copies and pass them out to your religious-right friends.

Spot on!.......2007-06-07

People who are so far to the right they've fallen off the platform will hate this book. It's not for the wealthy with the mindset of "me, me, me for free, free, free." It's not for funadmentalists. But for those of us who grew up in the 1950's and 60's in an America where people were decent, and for others of a liberal mindset, Garrison Keillor's intelligent political rant will seem like a healing balm for the badly chafed.

Here, Keillor talks about what life was like growing up in Minnesota, what the people were like, and why the politics of the state are as heavily Democratic as they are. He remembers an America when neighbors knew each other and treated each other kindly, where there was tolerance, and where people wanted things to be better - for everyone, not just for themselves.

Keillor remembers his roots in the 1950's and 60's, in a time and place where people had a social conscience and wanted our country to be better, to offer more to those in need. In 1960, when he started college at the University of Minnesota, $50 a semester paid the0 tuition for residents of the state. Worthy students could get a college education and not have to go into debt up to their eyeballs whereas nowadays, only the wealthy have that privilege. The public schools K-12 were funded well enough to be excellent. Now they're not. The difference seems to be that, back then, people thought a well-educated populace was essential for a thriving democracy. Keillor still thinks so, apparently, and I say he's right.

I was heartened by this book, because I, too, believe it's time to get America back on track, a country where anyone can practice the religion they choose or none at all, one in which a major hospitalization need not necessitate a bankruptcy filing for those who have to work an ordinary job at ordinary pay to make a living, where the public schools haven't been deprived of their operating budgets by wealthy people who want to pay taxes at third-world tax rates (or none at all) but have a first-world quality of life.

So, to sum up, if you are moderate or liberal, read this book. It will warm your heart in cold political times. If you're so conservative you have to get out of the shower to tinkle, Im sure this book will annoy you no end and, therefore, I'd be thrilled if you read it. Go, GK!

Not Quite Lake Wobegon.......2006-12-17

First, I have to disclose that aside from liking Garrison Keillor, I am frequently mistaken by people for him. A few times a month, someone will come up to me and ask me if I am Garrison Keillor or tell me that I look just like him. It's not a bad situation in many regards. I just wish I could write like him, though I'm trying. I sent Mr Keillor an e-mail describing this situation several years ago, and he very graciously sent me a return message apologizing for our shared looks as well as some tips on how to cope. In that message we also briefly exchanged political views. I am more conservative as well as being a Christian and he questioned how that could be. That was all there was to it. We moved on. I still listen to and appreciate his wit on the radio and have read most all he has written. It seemed the least I could do, what with our mutually shared burden. ;)

So, I finally got around to listening to this work in which Mr. Keillor expounds more on his political views.

Overall, despite my not being in complete agreement with some of the points, I enjoyed most of the book's reading by Garrison in CD format. A good portion of it intertwines his experiences growing up in Minnesota where being a Democrat is pretty much a foregone conclusion and tied into the warp and woof of life. As such what is appealing about the book is the idealism and grass-roots America reflected therein. As Garrison describes it, I could be the type of Democrat he describes. That's because a great deal of what he describes is not unique to Democrats. What he is describing is middle class America, where people are decent, wanting to help each other and willing to join together to face a common adversary, whatever form that foe may take.

What disappoints me a little, is that in rejecting and seeking to take down what he sees as the "evils" of Republicanism, he pretty much uses the same tactics he claims to deplore. Republicans are stereotyped. Oh, sure, There's the obligatory, "there are some Republicans who I have liked" lines interspersed. George W. Bush by his standard rates somewhere just slightly better than Attila the Hun.

That's really why I can't give this a 5 as I would with most of his work. Some of this is just plain mean and vitriolic, despite the nice folksy trappings. I can understand some of it though. It hasn't been easy to be a Democrat, lo these past 10 plus years. Some of the tactics employed in portraying this once great party are arguably not fair and most Democrats are decent caring people. Sadly, rather than promoting this on its own merits, Garrison goes the extra mile and seeks to send some of what he's apparently tired of hearing, right back at them. Sadly, in my opinion, there's enough venom in places that he sounds more like that what he's decrying. It's not always an appealing tone and one which seems just a little foreign.

All that said, I enjoyed the listen and the insight further into Mr Keillor's politics and personal views. He's an enjoyable person to listen to.

I just hope someone doesn't mistake me for him stepping out of a car with McCain 2008 bumperstickers and thinking he's finally lost it. He already thinks I have. ;)

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