Magic City Rock


Book Description

Birmingham's rock music scene has thrived on camaraderie and collaboration for decades. With no competitiveness, it has maintained a punk rock ethos while also appealing to a mainstream audience, thanks to DIY clubs and alternative radio support. Once one of the country's most successful AAA radio stations, 107.7 The X and the A&R power of station head Scott Register provided the early radio success that helped break Train, Matchbox Twenty and John Mayer. The same scene produced Jim Bob & the Leisure Suits, the Primitons, the Sugar La Las and Verbena. From local legends like Hotel and Telluride to national sensation St. Paul and the Broken Bones, writer Blake Ells tells the story of the Magic City's indelible stamp on the history of modern rock.




The Magic Years


Book Description

"This memoir traces Taplin's life and its intersection with several significant cultural moments, from his early days tour managing The Band, through his producing Mean Streets and several other films, all the way up to his present-day work advocating for a healthier cultural and digital commons"--




Boricuas in the Magic City: Puerto Ricans in Miami


Book Description

People from Puerto Rico have been traveling to Miami for more than a century. The island became a US territory in 1898, and islanders became US citizens in 1917; throughout the 20th century, Puerto Ricans have established communities across Miami-Dade County. They have come as farm workers, garment workers, bankers and investors, or as US service members. By the 1950s, the Puerto Rican community in Miami was strong and diverse. Boricuas in the Magic City: Puerto Ricans in Miami is a photographic voyage through Miami. Boricua is a term of endearment that Puerto Ricans call themselves that identifies them with the precolonial period when the native Tainos referred to the island as Boriken.




Magic City


Book Description

“A thug is someone who stands on his own. He lives by the decisions he makes and accepts the consequences. A thug is comfortable in his own skin. I wear mine like a glove.” Trick Daddy was born a thug—just a stone’s throw from downtown Miami, yet a world away from its dazzling beauty and sparkling wealth. Where grinding poverty, deadly crime, and devastating racial tension taught kids to live by the ’hood rules. Remarkably, Trick came from nothing and made it big just when his chances had run out. Magic City is the extraordinary tale of a boy whose father was a pimp, who learned to hustle to survive, and whose only role model was his brother, the drug dealer he watched plying his trade on the block. It’s the untold truth behind the cult movie Scarface, of the drug money that transformed the city into a shining mecca for the rich and famous while turf wars between smalltime pushers claimed countless lives. It’s also the incredible story of how that potent mixture of extremes—the electric pulse and glittering abundance of South Beach and the crime, corruption, and despair in its shadows—gave rise to the most dominant sound in hip-hop today. Magic City is an ode to Miami, a riveting tale of a paradise lost and a native son determined to infuse it with new life.




The Magic City


Book Description

The Magic City Edith Nesbit The Magic City by Edith Nesbit When young Philip Haldane builds a play city out of odds and ends, the fantastic creation comes to life, and he and new stepsister Lucy are magically transported into it. Now they must try to save the Magic City by fulfilling an ancient prophecy-despite a mysterious adversary determined to steal their glory for herself. How Philip and Lucy come to forge a friendship and together triumph over impending disaster makes for a riveting read. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.




The Magic City


Book Description




Magic City


Book Description

Magic City is the story of one of American music's essential unsung places: Birmingham, Alabama, birthplace of a distinctive and influential jazz heritage. In a telling replete with colorful characters, iconic artists, and unheralded masters, Burgin Mathews reveals how Birmingham was the cradle and training ground for such luminaries as big band leader Erskine Hawkins, cosmic outsider Sun Ra, and a long list of sidemen, soloists, and arrangers. He also celebrates the contributions of local educators, club owners, and civic leaders who nurtured a vital culture of Black expression in one of the country's most notoriously segregated cities. In Birmingham, jazz was more than entertainment: long before the city emerged as a focal point in the national civil rights movement, its homegrown jazz heroes helped set the stage, crafting a unique tradition of independence, innovation, achievement, and empowerment. Blending deep archival research and original interviews with living elders of the Birmingham scene, Mathews elevates the stories of figures like John T. "Fess" Whatley, the pioneering teacher-bandleader who emphasized instrumental training as a means of upward mobility and community pride. Along the way, he takes readers into the high school band rooms, fraternal ballrooms, vaudeville houses, and circus tent shows that shaped a musical movement, revealing a community of players whose influence spread throughout the world.




A Confederacy of Dumptys


Book Description

The next book in John Lithgow's New York Times bestselling series Following the success of New York Times bestsellers Dumpty and Trumpty Dumpty Wanted a Crown, award-winning actor, author, and illustrator John Lithgow presents the third book in his runaway hit series. A Confederacy of Dumptys takes us through a history of twenty-five "American Scoundrels" in this all-new collection of Lithgow's satirical poems and illustrations. While the Trump Era was rife with corruption and abuse of power, it was nothing new. Through Lithgow's cutting humor, you will read about a rogues' gallery of villains that came before Donald J. Trump, powerful men and women who were corrupt, venal, criminal, adulterous, racist, or just plain disgusting. With dark and lyrical stories from across American history, you will learn about long-forgotten figures and bad actors of today, including the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, the perpetrator of 19th century women's pyramid schemes, and participants in both the Watergate scandal and the Capitol insurrection. Trump and Nixon show up, of course, but also Leona Helmsley, Boss Tweed, Typhoid Mary, Newt Gingrich, Ted Cruz, and many more. Skipping through time, and delivered with classic Lithgow wit and style, A Confederacy of Dumptys is an exuberant reminder of how not to repeat history. Digital audio edition read by the author. The perfect book for: • Political satire fans—viewers of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. • American history buffs and trivia enthusiasts—readers of Jon's Stewart's America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction and Josh Clark's Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things. • Poetry, art, and illustration aficionados.




My Hollywood and Other Poems


Book Description

"The wit and daring of his rhymes and phrasing remind me of that old master, Donald Justice, who dazzled us with the elegance of his forms. Dralyuk carries this high style into the 21st century, and I, for one, am thrilled to be in the presence of his marvelous verbal art. Pay attention, readers: a new maestro is in our midst."—Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa "These [poems] are the souvenirs of an almost-vanished glamour, an ethnic, gritty, free-wheeling city, little fantasias encased in rhyme and meter."—Jesse Nathan, McSweeney's My Hollywood and Other Poems is a collection of lyric meditations on the experience of émigrés in Los Angeles. In forms ranging from ballades to villanelles to Onegin sonnets, the poems pursue the sublime in a tarnished landscape, seek continuity and mourn its loss in a town where change is the only constant. My Hollywood draws on the poet’s own life as a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, honors the vanishing traces of the city’s past, and, in crisp and poignant translations, summons the voices of five Russian poets who spent their final years in LA, including the composer Vernon Duke. “Dralyuk embraces rhyme with a rare and admirable enthusiasm for sound and syllable, for musical variety and plays on words . . . [An] air of upbeat sorrow permeates My Hollywood. It’s an émigré mood, defined by the conviction that things could always be worse.”—New York Review of Books "Sophisticated, musical, and often humorous."—Booklist "Byronic rhymes are poetry’s answer to special effects, and Dralyuk’s skill at slipping them in—so that the art seems artless—is worthy of Industrial Light & Magic . . . What’s true of my favorite films is true of this book: the lines are first-rate, but it’s the images that linger.”— Austin Allen, The Hopkins Review "My Hollywood is a first-rate collection of precise, delightfully graceful poems, the poet as Fred Astaire tap-dancing up and down the lines."—Russian Life




You Live Where?


Book Description

Do you live in Scotland, Denmark, China or Peru? Do you live in Paris, London, Moscow or Berlin? You can live in any of these places and still live in America. There is Indiana, PA; Florida, NM; and Honolulu, NC. Many family names (first, second and last) are found in the towns and communities where we live all across America. One may also find a variety of interesting, even fun names, including Asylum, Bamboo, and Cow Yard. These pages contain tens of thousands of names dealing with occupations, animals, plants, and points around the globe.