Dixonia

In the late 1950s, free jazz broke all the rules, liberating musicians both to create completely spontaneous and unplanned performances and to develop unique personal musical systems. This genre emerged alongside the radical changes of the 1960s, particularly the Civil Rights, Black Arts, and Black Power movements. Free Jazz is a new and accessible introduction to this exciting, controversial, and often misunderstood music, drawing on extensive research, close listening, and the author’s experience as a performer. More than a catalog of artists and albums, the book explores the conceptual areas they opened: freedom, spirituality, energy, experimentalism, and self-determination. These are discussed in relation to both the political and artistic currents of the times and to specific musical techniques, explained in language clear to ordinary readers but also useful for musicians.

The role of popular music is widely recognized in giving voice to radical political views, the plight of the oppressed, and the desire for social change. Avant-garde music, by contrast, is often thought to prioritize the pursuit of new technical or conceptual territory over issues of human and social concern. Yet throughout the activist 1960s, many avant-garde musicians were convinced that aesthetic experiment and social progressiveness made natural bedfellows. Intensely involved in the era's social and political upheavals, they often sought to reflect this engagement in their music. Yet how could avant-garde musicians make a meaningful contribution to social change if their music remained the preserve of a tiny, initiated clique? In answer, Sound Commitments, examines the encounter of avant-garde music and "the Sixties" across a range of genres, aesthetic positions and geographical locations. Through music for the concert hall, tape and electronic music, jazz and improvisation, participatory "events," performance art, and experimental popular music, the essays in this volume explore developments in the United States, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, Japan and parts of the "Third World," delving into the deep richness of avant-garde musicians' response to the decade's defining cultural shifts. Featuring new archival research and/or interviews with significant figures of the period in each chapter, Sound Commitments will appeal to researchers and advanced students in the fields of post-war music, cultures of the 1960s, and the avant-garde, as well as to an informed general readership.

“An excellent, balanced history of the 23rd Special Troops . . . may be one of the most important books to come out of World War II.” —Engineer Magazine No history of the war in Europe has ever taken into account the actions of the men of the US 23rd Special Troops. These men took part in over twenty-two deception operations against the German army. Some of these operations had tremendous impact upon how the battles in Europe were fought. The men who participated in these actions were sworn to secrecy for fifty years and are only now willing to talk about their role. The 23rd was composed of four main units. A signal deception unit to broadcast fake radio signals, an engineer camouflage unit to set up rubber dummies of tanks and trucks, a combat engineer unit to construct emplacements and provide local security, and a sonic deception company. The sonic unit was developed to fool German listening posts by playing audio recordings of various sounds, such as tanks moving up or bridges being built. The 23rd was the only tactical deception unit of the American Army in World War II combining all aspects of deception. This book also covers the birthplace of sonic deception, the Army Experimental Station at Pine Camp, and the 23rd’s smaller sister unit, the 3133rd Sonic Deception company that saw action for fourteen days in Italy. “Highly recommended reading as being a simply fascinating military history of a hidden aspect of World War II that would have a profound and lasting influence on military strategy and tactics.” —Midwest Book Review

'the Wacky Misadventures of Warble McGorkle' is a picaresque satire that traces its literary lineage back to 'Don Quixote', 'Huckleberry Finn', and 'A Confederacy of Dunces'. Through the protagonist's zany antics, it pokes fun at the 'get rich quick' and 'get rich by any means possible' philosophies prevalent in today's society.Warble McGorkle, the protagonist, considers himself a genius. In reality, he is a jumble-headed, paranoid megalomaniac. My novel is the (somewhat darkly) humorous account of his meteoric rise from drifter to President of the United States. Warble and his wife Mary crisscross the U.S.A. at breakneck speed, as Warble endeavors to stay one step ahead of pursuers (most of them imaginary). Everywhere he and Mary go, Warble concocts a cockamamie scheme to get fabulously rich and to propel himself to the pinnacle of society, where his fame--so he reasons, anyway--will make him safe from the forces supposedly arrayed against him. Among several other ventures, Warble: Forms a polka punk band in St. Augustine, Florida; Creates a reality-TV show named 'Bad Boyz Behind Barz', which makes use of webcams in federal penitentiaries; Markets himself as a super-hero, 'The Color-Blind Chameleon', using his manufactured fame to land lucrative endorsement contracts; and founds a biotech firm that produces and sells a pill which transforms the pill ingester's personality. Finally, after serving a term as governor of the state of Wisconsin, Warble, along with his wife Mary as his Vice Presidential running mate, is elected President of the United States.

Evolutionary Biology, of which this is the twenty-second volume, continues to offer its readers a wide range of original articles, reviews, and commentaries on evolution, in the broadest sense of that term. The topics of the reviews range from anthropology, molecular evolution, and paleobiology to principles of systematics. In recent volumes, a broad spectrum of articles have appeared on such subjects as asymmetric sexual isolation, biochemical systematics in plants, species selection, DNA hybridization and phylogenetics, modes of evolution in Pleistocene rodents, and development and evolution of the vertebrate limb. We have also attempted to provide a forum for conƯ flicting ideas. Articles such as these, often too long for standard journals, are the material for Evolutionary Biology. The editors continue to solicit manuscripts on an international scale in an effort to see that everyone ofthe many facets of biological evolution is covered. Manuscripts should be sent to anyone of the following: Max K. Hecht, Department of Biology, Queens College of the City University of New York, Flushing, New York 11367; Bruce Wallace, Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, BlacksƯ burg, Virginia 24061; GhilleanT. Prance, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York 10458. The Editors vii Contents 1. Phylogeny of Early Vertebrate Skeletal Induction and Ossification Patterns ... 1 John G. Maisey Introduction: The Fossil Record.. .. .. ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1.