Tuna Does Vegas

Red, white, and Tuna is the third play in the four-play saga that began wtih Greater Tuna. It is Fourth of July in Tuna, the third smallest town in Texas, and the occasion is ripe with tension ... it's just another typical day in Tuna where nothing ever changes while everything does.

Two performers portray numerous characters in this stage comedy of life in imaginary small-town Tuna, Texas ... "where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies!"

"In this hilarious sequel to Greater Tuna, it's Christmas in the third smallest town in Texas. Radio station OKKK news personalities Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie report on various Yuletide activities, including hot competition in the annual lawn display contest. In other news, voracious Joe Bob Lipsey's production of 'A Christmas Carol' is jeopardized by unpaid electric bills. Many colorful Tuna denizens, some you will recognize from Greater Tuna and some appearing here for the first time, join in the holiday fun."--

Deep in the Heart of Tuna is a "Best Of" Tuna show that follows the story of Bertha Bumiller and her beautifully dysfunctional family. Tuna, Texas is the third-smallest town in the state, where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. The eclectic band of citizens that make up this town are portrayed by only two performers, making this satire on life in rural America even more powerful as they depict all of the inhabitants of Tuna- men, women, children, and animals. -- Publisher website.

Sontag and the Camp Aesthetic: Advancing New Perspectives marks 50 years of writing and cultural production on the phenomenon of camp since Susan Sontag’s 1964 cornerstone essay “Notes on ‘Camp’.” It provides cutting-edge theory and understanding on ways to read and interpret camp through a collection of essays from historical, theoretical, and cultural perspectives. It includes varied subject areas including camp icons, stylistics periods, and important and representative texts from television, film, and literature. These essays create a scholarly conversation that understands camp as not only signifier or aesthetic but also a language, mode, and style that goes beyond its initial linguistic and semiotic guise. The contributors, representing a diverse group of established and rising scholars, explore camp as a largely queer genre that includes varying modes of understanding of desire and of the self outside a hegemonic model of heteronormativity.

“I want to go home with the Armadillo.” ​And you will, too, once you’ve picked up Gary P. Nunn’s new memoir of the life and times of this true Texas original. As one of the founding fathers of the progressive country music scene in Austin, Texas, Nunn helped change the face of popular music. His anthem “London Homesick Blues” was the theme song of the wildly popular Austin City Limits—the longest-running music series in American television history—for over two decades. His hit songs, such as “The Last Thing I Needed First Thing this Morning” and “What I Like about Texas,” have been recorded by artists from Jerry Jeff Walker and Michael Martin Murphey to Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson, and most recently, Chris Stapleton. At Home with the Armadillo is a unique and revealing debut work that showcases Nunn’s exceptional abilities as a storyteller. His obvious songwriting talents have translated naturally into honest, captivating prose as he recounts the story of his life from a humble childhood in rural Oklahoma to playing with members of the famous Crickets to his move to Texas and into the burgeoning Austin music scene of the early 1970s. The story of this extraordinarily talented musician will captivate a broad audience. It’s a book for lovers of country and rock-and-roll music, students of the history of those genres, people who grew up in Austin or Texas in the sixties and seventies, and those who wish they had! This is a heartfelt narrative that doesn’t hold back as Nunn reflects about the good times and the bad of a young musician on his way to a future that wasn’t always clear. As much as this is the story of Nunn’s life, At Home with the Armadillo is also an homage to Texas, to the rich and star-studded history of Austin music, and to all the musicians and other personalities Nunn met on their respective ways through the music world of the last five decades. Personal stories of musicians like Murphey, Walker, and Nelson are integrated with tales of the festivals, clubs, and venues from Los Angeles to Nashville where their careers and Nunn’s were made. Nunn shares wild adventures in Mexico, his personal encounter with the Viet Nam War, and the glory days of Austin when the “Live Music Capital of the World” was coming into its own. Whether you’re a country music fan of any age, a cosmic cowboy, an aging hippie, or anyone who wants to know how it all happened, this book will take you back to the days. To the days of the Armadillo World Headquarters—where, as Nunn states, “It’s been said that our music was the catalyst that brought the s***kickers and the hippies together at the Armadillo.” Nunn notes, “I have been blessed with good health, and I have driven over two million miles alone without an accident—knock on wood! ‘Success is survival,’ as Leonard Cohen told me many years ago.” To readers of At Home with the Armadillo: We’re lucky to be along for the ride!

“There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci. The age of Elizabeth was also the age of Shakespeare, and the new frontier for which I campaign in public life can also be a new frontier for American art.” —John F. Kennedy When the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in our nation’s capital on September 8, 1971, its mission was to be the “national center for the performing arts.” Forty years later the Center has succeeded in that mission and continues to celebrate it—countless times over—in every state and country around the world, and in the hearts and minds of millions of audience members, performers, and artists. In The Nation’s Stage, that history comes alive through a stirring historical and pictorial narrative. An incubator and springboard for some of the most memorable and important theater, dance, opera, and musical productions of the past four decades, the Center has hosted plays by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Tom Stoppard, and August Wilson, as well as theater for young people with Debbie Allen; dance by Antony Tudor, Agnes de Mille, Mark Morris, and Jerome Robbins; orchestral scores by Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Dmitri Shostakovich, and John Cage; and breathtaking performances from the world’s most notable actors, musicians, and dancers. Every year, millions of Americans and people from around the globe gather at the Center to enjoy the arts. This book, an introduction to the Center’s accomplishments and abilities and a commemorative artifact for those who have enjoyed those gifts over the years, is a historical narrative with hundreds of colorful archival photos that allow past audiences to relive the most magical moments at the Center. Those who’ve never been inside receive a backstage pass to all the glamour and wonder this national treasure has to offer.