Confessions of a Maddog: A Romp Through the High-Flying Texas Music and Literary Era of the Fifties to the Seventies

Book Description

Maddog Inc. was a loose confederation of Texas writers and "picker poets," as Jay Milner calls them, whose heydey lasted from the late 1950s to about the mid-'70s. This self-conscious gaggle of merrymakers (the group even had an official Maddog membership card) frequently got together to party through the nights and days.

The merry pranksters he fell in with included the likes of Billy Lee Brammer, Bud Shrake, Gary Cartwright, Dan Jenkins, Larry L. King, Pete Gent and (to an extent, though only peripherally, it appears) Larry McMurtry. The singers and songwriters were Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver and others.

I highly recommend Confessions of a Maddog, especially for those such as myself who are a bit younger than the author's generation of Texas writers but have heard tell of their legendary exploits. The Dallas Morning News, Tom Pilkington, January 3, 1999.

In the 1960's and '70s, a number of Texas writers began emerging as significant comers on the literary landscape. They were, for the most part, a rambunctious and talented lot who worked hard and played harder, and before they got too old to socialize till sunrise--among them, Larry L. King, Dan Jenkins, Bud Shrake, Gary Cartwright and Billie Lee Brammer--they left an indelible imprint on the world of letters in Texas and beyond. They and some of their friends called themselves Maddog Inc.--a label that, given the culture of the times, seemed entirely fitting to their unequivocal disregard for restraint.

Fort Worth resident, Jay Milner, a native of West Texas, was one of the Maddogs. A former reporter and writer for the esteemed New York Herald Tribune, he published a well-regarded novel, Incident at Ashton, before returning to Texas in 1961 to teach journalism, including duty at TCU and SMU. In Milner's new book, Confessions of a Maddog, published by the University of North Texas Press, Milner recounts the lives, loves and losses of his good friends and fellow writers. From Editor's Note preceding four page excerpt in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, November 15, 1998.

A writer is someone who puts his thoughts into words. Jay Milner has a way of putting everyone's thoughts into words. He knows where he is, therefore, he is able to position everything around him in relation to himself, which seems to be a good spot. His insight into the mental stumblings of an entertainer are uncanny. Maybe it's because he is also an entertainer. In other words and on the other hand and in addition to it all, out of a possible ten, Jay Milner is a twelve.--Willie Nelson

"When I first met Jay Milner, dinosaurs and the one-and-only original Hank Williams were a long time dead; John F. Kennedy and William Faulkner only recently so. Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Gleason, Red Foley, Chet Huntley and a rowdy bunch of hard-drinking, pot-smoking, lady-chasing Texas writers--many of whom make appearances in this book--were alive and semi-well. So were our dreams--collectively and individually--of soon running Norman Mailer out of town, embarrassing Kurt Vonnegut into retirement and reducing Saul Bellow to full-time school teaching. It didn't exactly happen that way, but my-oh-my didn't we have a good time trying?" Larry L. King.

Customer Reviews:

Fun, Thoughtful, and Historical.......2001-04-01

I had a fun time reading this book by Jay Milner. It's a really great chronicle of the exploits of a renegade group of Texas writers, musicians, artists, and politicos, as well a chronicle of Milner's own life as a novelist, university professor, and journalist.

Much of the fun in this book takes place in the mid 60s through mid 70s Texas, when Milner's running buddies include folks such as writers Gary Cartwright, Billie Lee Brammer, Larry L. King, and Edwin Shrake, former Texas Governor Ann Richards, Dallas Cowboy wide receiver turned novelist Peter Gent, and country music legends Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Kris Kristofferson.

Since this book is also autobiographical, it would be easy for Milner to embellish the high points of his life, and choose the frames from his internal "home movie" that would be in the book. Yet Milner does no such thing. He describes his life, and the activities surrounding it, with the objectivity of a trained "old school" journalist--either in the middle of a 60s or 70s scene involving sex, drugs, and country rock and roll--or in his honest and thoughtful analysis of what he considered his own inner demons.

Jay Milner's book is more than just a fun read. It is also a reliable history of a modern, creative period when artistic endeavors coming out of Texas began to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

"Confessions of a Maddog" is an important work in this regard. I predict that it will be required reading in any college course involving the literature of the southwest for years to come.

Lee Leatherwood Austin, TX 31 March 01

A heady trot thru the era of great fun loving Texans.......1998-12-14

Milner has exceeded himself with this book. His compassionate record of the exploits and traumas of several of his friends as they hone their writing skills is superb. I refer you to page 222 for the most touching prose regarding one's journey up to and into the abyss of the dark night of one's soul. Billy Lee chose to go into the abyss and stay. Obviously Milner chose to take theever so rickety ladder out. His book is testimony to that choice.

Book Description

Motion pictures have been one of the forces that have both shaped and reproduced adolescent femininity. Films not only reflect culture--they help to create it. So it is worth looking at films to see what messages they gave girls--and adults--about what girls were and should be like. Scheiner uses film as a window into the cultural meanings of female adolescence, and explores how those meanings changed over time. She looks at how female adolescence has been constructed in film, focusing on the period from 1920 to 1950. She contextualizes representations of female adolescence by looking at the actual experience of adolescence in each period and by examining the material conditions and film industry processes that contributed to these portrayals. As Scheiner makes clear, historical interpretations of film messages must be expanded to determine what conclusions girls themselves reached from film images. Girls are hardly passive consumers of film. Rather, they choose how to respond to the films they see. This is perhaps best illustrated by fan activities, where girls actively define what is important about films and film stars, and create their own understandings of female adolescence. Scheiner also looks specifically at adolescent girls as fans to decode their responses to filmic representations of adolescence. She uses some nontraditional sources such as fan columns in fan magazines, fan publications of various stars, reviews in young women's literature, fan mail, and letters to film companies to find evidence of audience reception. Scheiner opens up a world often at odds with the actual experience of female adolescents, and she makes clear that films about adolescent girls are not only a formative part of the nation's history in the early 20th century, but a formative part of becoming a girl. Scholars, students, and other researchers of American film and women's studies, popular culture, and 20th-century history will find this study of particular interest.

Book Description

Blues for Cannibals continues the quest Bowden began in Blood Orchid-to discover the headwaters of the sickness that seeps through the American soul, and to consider what it might mean to come fully alive in a time of exalted consumption, global pillage, gated communities, and wholesale destruction of the environment. Down, down he leads us, in intoxicating, nearly hallucinogenic prose-past the Yaqui, the Anasazi, and other ghosts of our collective history, past the hookers, winos, and assorted have-nots outside the prosperous circle by the fire. We meet a prisoner obsessed with painting presidents, sex offenders whose desires are not as alien as we wish, a murderer whose execution does not cure what ails us. "I wound up looking at a world where cannibalism is life," Bowden writes, "and of course, given the diet, a life without a future." He mourns a young artist who couldn't find a reason to keep living and tends a mesquite tree that won't die. And down among its metaphoric roots, he reacquaints us with the appetites-fierce, flawed, human-that might save us too. Blues for Cannibals is scripture for an age when bushes no longer burn.

Customer Reviews:

beautiful writing, scary images, life.......2002-12-14

Blues for Cannibals can be a hard book at times to work through. The ideas become circular and repetitive but the beautiful writing often smooths over these rough spots, while at other times there is true beauty, touched with both horror and sadness, in its words and thoughts. Charles Bowden writes near the beginning that if he had life to live over again he "would never think that wars are events recorded in the book of history but realize they are actual and always take my hands from my ears and hear the cries of the slain." Much of this book is filled with those cries, and not only from war. He also would never say no to a woman or skip a meal. From evidence in this book, one gets the feeling he never has. The section on food and his dying friends is the best part of the book and reverberates with a quiet power. An unique book.

Dirt, water, sex, and food........2002-10-07

Charles Bowden places himself as a steel wedge into the crevices, what we've created of ourselves and our environment, the unsavory places, the mirror that we all shield our faces from, the places that we are all afraid to venture. He drives himself into these places because he knows that he ... we ... have become fearful hypocrites.

Once set, he kicks violently at the business end of that wedge with his feet to drive himself in further, going as far as a man can go without letting go: dirt, water, sex, and food, with a little booze and drugs thrown in to soften the edge of our brutal contemporary reality.

But now that he's found the courage to go to these places in our stead and make it back, he found it necessary to write about it and we find it necessary to read it. We know that we will likely never visit these places. We will only read vicariously and reflect nervously, remaining sadly and ultimately, fearful hypocrites to the end.

Bowden's Mesquite Manifesto........2002-03-04

Charles Bowden's got the blues. "I am a fallen man and I know it," he writes, "and I accept the torture of living this fact. But I will be damned--and they say I surely will be damned--if I accept God's answer. So I do not pray. Nor do I worship. I can love, I can comfort. I am the tree struggling in the hot ground of my desert. No bended knee and please no messages from on high. The messages must come from here, from the ground itself or away with them. That is what I learn from the mesguite, my brother-in-arms" (p. 6). In his 293-page book of revelations, he looks deeply into our cold, modern culture of gated communities, suicide, death row inmates, and sexual predators, to discover we are cannibals now--"we can devour and take but cannot give" (p. 28)--living a life of unrestrained consumption without future.

For too many of us, Bowden may be the best writer we've never read. His prose is powerful, prophetic, hallucinogenic, and poetic. Using mesquite as a metaphor to connect his essays, he encourages us to face the truth about American culture, and to question the people who try to give us easy answers. "I believe in dirt and bone and flowers and fresh pasta and salsa cruda and red wine," he writes. "I do not believe in white wine, I insist on color. I think death is a word and life is a fact, just as food is a fact and cactus is a fact" (p. 246). Although Bowden's "Mesquite Manifesto" is rooted in despair, in the end it encourages us to celebrate life: eat, lust, caress, fight, and swallow. "Now," Bowden tells us, "choke it down" (p. 277).

G. Merritt

"I am not a man of the center. I am from somewhere else.".......2002-02-17

Bowden's prose is actually a long tone poem, and if you read it this way, you will not be disappointed. The mesquite is the metaphor: once you read it, you'll understand, and you'll want to read more. Bowden is one of our most brutally honest writers practicing the trade today, but he writes with velvet gloves. He teaches us how to rejoice in our despair--he's a practicing buddhist, he just doesn't know it.
If you are new to Bowden's writing, this book is as good a place to start as any. For a man who has probably seen and witnessed the worst we can do to each other, he somehow holds out hope for the best. What else can we do but sink our taproots and satisfy our appetites?---at least that is something, as Bowden says...

Book Description

Forty brain-teasers — with objectives, restrictions and routes testing mental dexterity — ask players to collect coins for vending machines, "build" bridges to islands, collect rings for a peg, pass through a series of ghostly forms and much more. Directions and solutions included in this special treat for older children and adults.

Book Description

The Linux Enterprise Cluster explains how to take a number of inexpensive computers with limited resources, place them on a normal computer network, and install free software so that the computers act together like one powerful server. This makes it possible to build a very inexpensive and reliable business system for a small business or a large corporation. The book includes information on how to build a high-availability server pair using the Heartbeat package, how to use the Linux Virtual Server load balancing software, how to configure a reliable printing system in a Linux cluster environment, and how to build a job scheduling system in Linux with no single point of failure. The book also includes information on high availability techniques that can be used with or without a cluster, making it helpful for System Administrators even if they are not building a cluster. Anyone interested in deploying Linux in an environment where low cost computer reliability is important will find this book useful. The CD-ROM includes all of the software needed to build a Linux Enterprise Cluster, including the Linux kernel, rsync, the SystemImager package, the Heartbeat package, the Linux Virtual Server package, the Mon monitoring package, and the Ganglia package. All figures in the book are also included on the CD-ROM.

Customer Reviews:

Lots of information, but poorly structured.......2007-04-12

Theres plenty of information in here, but the biggest problem I had with working my way through the book is it's structure. The book presents the topics in a bottom-up way, kicking off with low-level xinetd & init configuration, and doesn't actually get down to an overview of clustering until page 196! Thats fine if you already know what you're aiming for, but for the novice looking for an overview of clustering in the Linux environment, it's almost better to read the book backwards - start with Chapter 20 (an overview of the whole environment), read through Chapters 11-13 (cluster architecture and components), and finally hit Chapters 6-8 (heartbeat) and the remaining chapters (which go into detail on the various different components).

The other cluster flavor.......2006-09-11

Clusters, like many things, come in various flavors. These can be roughly stated as `high throughput', `high performance (HPC)', and `high availability'. The "Linux Enterprise Cluster" is a good read for those looking for the `high-availability' cluster flavor, for perhaps a mission-critical computing resource. There is thus more emphasis on fail-over and service request handling than, for example, MPI, exacting operation calculations, and HSI maximizing techniques typical of HPC endeavors. This is not to say this book is not applicable to the other cluster types. Could you do with a chapter on SystemImager? How about Ganglia? Rsync & SSH? Building a kernel? All this step-by-step? Awesome! I was building an HPC cluster at the time, and found this a good book for drilling into deeper cluster software infrastructure details while at the park or waiting for a class to start. It was however sparse on hardware details and proper supporting infrastructure, but no book under 10 pounds is going to cover everything so be prepared to read a lot. I did not evaluate the included CD-ROM, which is loaded with goodies, because I simply downloaded the packages from the Internet as needed.
4-stars

Great Explanations and Recipies.......2006-08-08

If you want to build any HA cluster, this book is for you. The author has the ability to write from entry level to advanced Linux admin skillsets. His recipies for HA and LVS clusters are complete and realistic. We all know there are few Linux books we read from cover to cover. This is one of them.

The perfect book for small clusters.......2006-06-14

Karls book seems for me the perfect book for small clusters. He describes every single install and configuration aspect I could possible think of.

The book is extremly readable and described each single step and its considerations easy understandable. It does read at times a bit theoretical like it was made by a teacher, ruther than a technichian, but perhaps that is why it is so comprehensible.

For the details found inside it is very compact which makes it easy to carry it with you when you go onsite.

Whats not described in the book:

Environmental considerations like Heat, Power consumption, Budget calculations on several technologies etc.

Those are described in Roert W. Lubkes - Building clustered Linux systems.

Those 2 books compliment each other very nicely.

very well conceived and written book!.......2005-09-11

When you find something you really like you want to have/know more of it, not really being important if it is food, an idea or a piece of art. And part of liking something is getting greedy+opinionated+political about it.
One little thing that bothered me about this book was the constant changed of fonts from like 12 points to 8 and then 6 with a gray background. Usability anyone? But this is not something the author should be blamed for.
I am more of a software person, but IMHO here are my comments about the book. More aimed at the next version of Karl's book or in case some wants to pick up these ideas where he left them off.
Karls book was slashdotted also (go slashdot and search (underneath to he left) on 1593270364),
[...]
but I found more flame baits and slashdot'ing that attempts to talk about this excellent book intelligently:
// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
._ considering the 2.4 version of the kernel? fine! But why even talking about ipchains if the whole LVS idea is based on Netfilters and who uses ipchains nowadays anyway?
._ more on power management of the primary and back severs, does heartbeat do some kind of interfacing to APMD on both?
._ have these ideas been ported for *BSD? I mean, I really find silly these "Give me Linux or give me dead" battle cries from us, OSS techies, when we should actually love the fact that we have more options as robust (if not as popular) as Linux.
._ more on the reasons why the different pieces of hardware in a cluster would fail and how to work around these issues (just the basics of it with points to more info (we sw people some times code without consideration to the fact that RAM is very expensive nowadays and using in-memory Data Structures would make HDDs give us their blessings)).
._ there are NICs with two (and 3?) connectors out there, why not using them in an LVS env.? And if there are reasons, why not mentioning them? NICs are cheap and available, PCI slots on a mobo aren't.
._ page 140; ... "the system time between the two servers should be within minutes of each other" ... why? It is vital on a cluster having all boxes accuraelky synchronized!!! This should have stressed/elaborated on.
._ more on the measurability of the whole concept of availability, the requirements/issues relating to a 99.99% uptime are very different to the ones of a 99.999% uptime, and the issues relating to it (both hw and sw).
Also, on the fact that absolute ha/uptime (100%) is just an ideal state. We should not go totally crazy about. Eventually we will have to make decisions that might affect 1 in 10,000 users and we will have to live with it (instead of taxing all 10,001 users with a less performant app). Because even if we put the effort to achieve 100% uptime, say, a cosmic ray could run through our box and change the parity of a byte running ...
._ I could not quite get why the backup server does not functionally take the role of the primary one entirely
._ page 158; more on the exceptions of filesystems regarding heartbeat configurations
._ more on the implications that using different kinds of applications have.
I wouldn't complicate firewall rules with the ftp protocol when the http can do the job as well even with the option of more/better coding through a web interface and you can safely (checking MD5SUMs, etc) stream data from point A to B. But I would like to see a more detailed handling of the HTTPS protocol. Separating an SSL cluster from the HTTP one (not doing port affinity between ports 80 and 443) I think is better, because you don't have to spend money on SSL accelerator cards for all boxes in the cluster, the access paths to back end data stores could be better optimized/controlled, for security reasons it is better to not have the same applications listening on insecure and secure ports, more accurate logs, ...
._ at least -some- figures on the performance differences between LVS-DR and LVS-NAT configurations. Didn't he recommend doing LVS-NAT as a step towards the more performant LVS-DR installation?
._ I think using software for ha performance and maintenance-wise is good to, especially since RAM is so dirt cheap and processors so powerful (hyper threading, pipelining, ...) I use several Tomcat instances 'directed' by an Apache one and it works well, letting you, within the same box, reconfigure apps without taking the app offline.
._ page 366; "Another technique to avoid a single point of failure for SQL data ..." I would just changed the word "Another" for "THE". Karl, buddy, have you started to see "clusters" everywhere? ;-) Let's do DBMS what they have been designed for? Taxing clustered systems with extra, unnecessary, care for DBMS does not make any sense, I think. Or?
// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An here comes what I think it is the lie behind the whole idea of doing packet filtering just based on the kernel's packet headers handling.
As it is rightly pointed out in the book whole organizations face the Internet through a single IP address (NAT) (I have even heard about whole countries like Saudi Arabia, ...), how would you go with these cases.
Users' session handling (inside of the HTTP application headers, not just simply the packets) in order to actually tell apart new user connections is VITAL to actually and truly do clustering.
.
Albretch

Average customer rating:

Surprising

I use it often, year after year

The one absolutely indispensable chronological volume

Ingenious concept, but don't take it at face value

A rich and valuable historical resource unlike any other

The People's Chronology: A Year-By-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present (Henry Holt Reference Book)
James Trager
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Reference | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The New York Chronology: The Ultimate Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present

ASIN: 0805037314

Customer Reviews:

Surprising.......2007-07-01

Really interesting to see how so many of the social problems we have today have been the same throughout the years.

However, while I don't expect everyone to be of my faith or any faith, as a Christian I was surprised that the author treated the birth of Jesus Christ with one paragraph and even it reflected the author's scepticism. I also couldn't help notice a vein of anti-Catholicism running through the entries. I thought society had passed beyond prejudices like that.

I'm not saying this is wrong or wrong, just very surprising to me.

I use it often, year after year.......2005-11-05

This reference book has been on my desk for years. I find it most useful to get a perspective on a historic or historic fiction that I am reading. For example, if I am reading about Henry VIII, I will look up the relevant years and read about the other events taking place during this time. These include inventions, agricultural information, progress in treatment and prevention of disease, economic concepts, philosophy, religion, natural disasters, culinary patterns, technologies, and the arts. Small icons in the left margin next to each entry help guide the reader so that it is possible to read all the entrys related to agriculture and skip the rest, if agriculture is your topical interest area.

Thus, for any historic book you are reading, you can get a quick view of the times in which the events take place. Because the book is witty and well written, it tends to hold you captive while you read one item after another.

I find the best use of the book is to give me perspective on a time in history, with clues and suggestions on other routes of study and reading that will give me a more complete picture. This book stimulates study, so it is a great gift to give to a graduating high school senior to take to college.

The one absolutely indispensable chronological volume.......2003-08-14

There are several good chronological overviews out there, but this one (overdue, after 11 years, for a newly revised edition) is the best I know of and the one I reach for most often. No matter what historical period your greatest interest falls in, you can browse through it year by year. You can look up your own birth year and those of friends and relatives and find out what was happening then, or refresh your memory of past times. You can follow the repercussions of a given incident from beginning to end while noting how the world continued to spin all the while. Of course it's heavily weighted toward more recent events (the 19th and 20th Centuries occupy 68% of the volume), but the detail is superb. You'll find *everything* in this book--kings and presidents and prime ministers, wars and assassinations, financial landmarks, inventions, new developments in science and research, the founding of universities, newspapers, paintings, sculpture, theater, ballet, music, industry, population, and that's just the year 1801! If you have any prospect of ever needing to know "what happened when," you need to own this book.

Ingenious concept, but don't take it at face value.......1999-12-25

What a great idea: take nearly every year of human history and discuss the events as they unfold into a chain of causality. The effect on the reader is unparalleled.

However, there are historical innacuraccies throughout the work. The reader is best advised to get a "twenty-thousand-foot-level" view of the era that interests them from which to pursue more exhaustive texts.

A rich and valuable historical resource unlike any other.......1999-05-25

Every time I pick up this book I am sucked in, following one historical trail through the years and being distracted by another path, and then another. It is set up so brilliantly, each year broken down by category--politics, music, food, religion, etc--and covering both Western and some Eastern history, that it puts all of history into accessible context and perspective. After looking up a detail in 1099 about English royal politics, it is easy to trace the repurcussions year by year, and to quickly glance at the music, the French situation, the new foods, the new theater, the global exploration, the current Chinese dynasty, and myriad other details all the way up to the present. Or just follow Mozart's career, or the Industrial Revolution, or agricultural innovations. Sure, it is not intensely detailed on each event, but it makes a great jumping off point towards other reference material. It is also the most appreciated gift I have ever given. Let's just hope the publisher decides to reprint!

The People's Chronology: A Year-By-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present

Average customer rating:

The People's Chronology: A Year-By-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present
James Trager
Manufacturer: Harcourt School
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OA5G3C

Average customer rating:

The People's Chronology: A Year-By-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present
James Trager
Manufacturer: H. Holt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JHS2MM

Book Description

From East Baltimore to Forest Park to Park Heights, from Nates and Leon's deli to Hutzler's department store, Jewish Baltimore tells stories of neighborhoods, people, and landmarks that have been important to Baltimore's Jewish experience. Gilbert Sandler, whose popular columns have appeared in Baltimore's Jewish Times and the Baltimore Sun, offers a wide-ranging history of the region's Jewish community from the 1850s to the present, covering both German Jewish and Russian Jewish communities. Sandler's archival research uncovers new details about important people and events, but the heart of his book lies in its anecdotes and quotations--the reminiscences of those who recall the rich tapestry of days gone by. More than a hundred nostalgic photographs help to bring the memories to life.

Many of Sandler's essays invoke famous names in Baltimore history--names like Jack Pollack, the ex-boxer turned politician; Joseph Meyerhoff, who gave his city a symphony hall; Samuel Hecht, founder of the last surviving local department store chain. But just as often, these essays remind us of unsung heros: rabbis, merchants, teachers, and camp counselors. Sandler tells many inspirational stories, including how one young woman, escaping from Germany in 1939 on a ship headed to Bolivia, seized an opportunity when she learned the ship would stop in Baltimore. She sent a cable to her boyfriend in Richmond, Virginia, telling him to meet her at the dock, and the two were married onboard--which eventually allowed her to enter the United States. Sandler always uncovers the "human interest" in his stories. His account of the S.S. President Warfield--refitted as the Exodus to carry food, supplies, and 4,500 European refugees to Palestine in 1947--contains personal recollections from one of the local businessmen who played a key role in the secret operation, and even a statement from someone who, as a young workman, helped to load the ship.

Jewish Baltimore also highlights fondly remembered institutions. Hutzler's s department store, for example, was a common meeting place for weekend shoppers; a notebook in Hutzler's balcony allowed friends to trade messages and track each other down in the large store. Hutzler's celebrated return policy stated that "anything could be returned within a reasonable amount of time"--with the word reasonable conveniently left to the customer's discretion. There was also Hendler's ice cream, whose advertisements featured a kewpie doll, proclaiming "Take home a brick!" When a competing chain bragged about producing twenty-eight flavors, Albert Hendler counted fifty flavors in his father's stock--including licorice, eggnog, and tomato aspic (the last flavor produced as a speciality for the Southern Hotel).

Focusing on religious education, Sandler tells of the Talmud Torahs, the area's first highly visible, community-wide system committed to providing a Jewish education--two hours of instruction daily, in addition to a Jewish student's other lessons. The Talmud Torahs, dating from 1889, laid the foundation for later Jewish schools, such as the Isaac Davidson Hebrew School. Sandler also visits P.S. 49, a public school remembered for its high concentration of Jewish students. For recreation, the Monument Street "Y" was a popular site, providing a health club, game rooms, six-lane swimming pool, soda fountain, and library. In his essays on summer vacations, Sandler discusses family visits to Eastern Shore beaches and describes the summer camps that were frequented by Jewish children. Sandler has a knack for getting the people he interviews to recall every detail, from the names of favorite teachers or rabbis down to the price of a movie at the Avalon theater and which streetcar line they used to get there.

Baltimore has a strong and historically important Jewish presence, and this book engagingly tells the story of that community.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful Reunion.......2007-05-14

What a wonderful experience it was to turn the pages of this book. Imagine seeing your high school after many decades or being reintroduced to foods, customs, and places that you have long forgotten about. Each page brought the return of memories of my life growing up, or reviews of people and places before my time that had an influence on my life. There were many pictures of people in my family (especially those of older generations)and I will look forward to sharing this family tree with my children. I even learned some new things about my family and my birth city. Memories abound.

My life, practically, in pictures.......2001-02-15

This is a book that could describe my life in pictures.

I was born in Pikesville and had lived there all my childhood. I grew up living nearby my grandparents on Park Heights Avenue, grew up knowing every place of Reisterstown Road. And I grew up as a Jewish girl who went to Camp Louise every summer of her life and spent those lazy summers on the White House (Camp Louise) lawns making friends with girls who even now I still keep in touch with.

It's a book that'll describe your life. Trust me: it described mine.

Growing Up Jewish in Baltimre.......2001-01-21

_________________________________________________________________

At the moment this book on "Jewish Baltimore" is most popular in Baltimore (#1) and Pikesville, MD (#3). Little wonder it should be selling well in Baltimore and Pikesville, a suburb adjoining Northwest Baltimore, part of the Greater Baltimore Jewish ghetto.

In "Jewish Baltimore" Gilbert Sandler recounts the long, slow trek of Baltimore's Jews from East Baltimore (where my father was born) through Northwest Baltimore (where my parents first lived after they married) to the neighborhoods of Forest Park and Park Heights Avenue (where my grandmother Julie lived) on to Pikesville (where I grew up) and even further northwest to Owings Mills.

"Many of Sandler's essays invoke famous names in Baltimore history," says the blurb on the book's dustcover. Included among the "famous names" Sandler invokes is my family's name, which never seemed famous to me when I was a child (or thereafter).

The book has two main features: essays and photographs. A number of the essays are based on columns Sandler has written over the years for the Baltimore Sun newspaper and for the Baltimore Jewish Times. The book is subtitled quite aptly "A Family Album. " It is a photo album of all of Baltimore's Jewry. The photos are superbly chosen and the captions are well researched, nicely written, and enhance the excellent pictures.

Historically, Jewish Baltimore was decidedly not a single community. There were separate German Jewish and "Russian" (really Central and Eastern European) Jewish communities. And they were truly separate. The German Jews had come first to Baltimore and they looked down on the "Russian" Jews.

This book is bittersweet for me. It brings back some wonderful people to me, some who are now dead. But it also brings back to me the feelings of discomfort, even pain, I felt about the highly segregated situation in which we then lived where the "colored people" lived separately from the "white people," where Jews lived separately from those who were not Jewish, and where German Jews lived apart from the "Russian" Jews. All of these and other ghettos around Baltimore were based on "restricted housing" covenants and on the ingrained narrow customs of prejudice.

Gilbert Sandler evokes with warmth the history of Jewish Baltimore and he neatly skirts most of the less warm and cozy memories some of us have who lived as members of Jewish Baltimore.

A lovely "Family Album" it is. An account with balance between the bitter and the sweet it is not.

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Jewish Baltimore: a Family Album.(Book Review): An article from: American Jewish History
Joseph L. Arnold
Manufacturer: American Jewish Historical Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008DXPRY
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Jewish History, published by American Jewish Historical Society on September 1, 2002. The length of the article is 885 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Jewish Baltimore: a Family Album.(Book Review)
Author: Joseph L. Arnold
Publication: American Jewish History (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 2002
Publisher: American Jewish Historical Society
Volume: 90 Issue: 3 Page: 350(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century? Here, too, is a rare, private glimpse of Sagan's thoughts about love, death, and God as he struggled with fatal disease. Ever forward-looking and vibrant with the sparkle of his unquenchable curiosity, Billions & Billions is a testament to one of the great scientific minds of our day.

Customer Reviews:

forceful and persuasive .......2007-09-12

Sagan covers much more than environmental issues in this book. However, his writing is so forceful and persuasive on environmental issues that this theme overshadows all others in my mind. Before reading this work, I was under the impression that global warming was still a theory and that things were happening so slowly that there was little need for action. Now I'm convinced that we are in the midst of a global crisis, a crisis with the potential for the most catastrophic and irreparable of consequences. The issues covered here are of extreme importance. We all have a responsibility to be informed. Please read at least part 2 of this book, which runs from pages 75 to 178.

At the end of a remarkable life.......2007-05-16

As he knowingly faced the end, Sagan bravely shared his views on a number of subjects: science, politics, philosophy, and the environment. Here are the departing words from a man who spent his life in search of knowledge about nature, not in pursuit of wealth. His admonitions come across as genuine, and his motivations are altruistic. He suggests that some of mankind's present course is noble, while some of it may be terminally perilous. He wisely advises us to choose the path of progress, not the path of confrontation and destruction.

This is an atypical Sagan work. Those wanting him to stick strictly to science will have to modify their expectations somewhat. There's a good amount of science here, but this is his final public farewell to everyone he loved, knew, or influenced. To me, it's a profoundly moving work.

A brilliant mind but dangerous.......2006-12-05

I remember watching Cosmos on television when I was a kid. I didn't question him then or for some time after. The book is entertaining, with good story telling. Sagan makes many excellent points and he is easily understood. These are his final words before his death. If you are looking for hard science, this isn't the book. Politics and propaganda enter a few chapters. Carl was a brilliant mind but dangerous.

Carl discusses society, ethics, morality, rules to live by, and gives us a feel for large numbers. Life maybe not that scarce? His philosophy on a better world is all well and good, but he forgets or ignores there is true evil in the world. He concludes that God and the supernatural as myth, but falls in the same trap by treating theory as fact. What is the amazing brain of evolution, where does it come from? He gives us no real answers. He does not realize or purposely ignores problems with his theories. The new fear is the environmental and climatic warnings. According to Sagan, at the time this book was written, we should be in dire straights in the near future--are we? Is life as fragile as he says? His thoughts come from a secular humanist mind. I still recommend the book.

How does he propose such world wide changes, except by government intervention?

"Our ancestors came from the trees"------------what???????

Wish you well
Scott

Feel Smarter, BE smarter !.......2006-10-17

Thoroughly enjoyed this. Sagan never claims to have ALL the answers, but encourages the reader to think in a non-conventional fashion. As a community college instructor of the Natural Sciences, I appreciate Sagan's ability to describe and relate the micro- and macroscopic nature of the universe. Each chapter reads well on its own. Especially enjoyed the chapter on the myths of Croseus and Cassandra and their applicability to today's political approach towards current environmental and social issues.

A very important book.......2006-09-15

I have read this book a couple of times and I think it's value lies in making you want to go out and protect the enviroment, work for peace, increase science education, etc..... I liked it because he was a wonderfully eloquent person and really made you want to understand more about the enviroment. I also enjoyed demon haunted world and would recommend either book.

Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

Average customer rating:

Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

Manufacturer: Random House Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HJO8CU

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