For Texas rancher Cole Gentry, the realization that a major part of his life is unexpectedly coming to an end leads him to examine how he came to be so alone and mired in the closet, when in reality he wants so much more with a partner who���ll stick with him through thick and thin.

This collection of poems was chosen from among 10, 000 gathered from cowboy reciters, ranch poets and from a library of over 200 published works of cowboy verse. One third of the poems are classics that have proven their vitality by having lived in the hearts and minds of cowboys and ranchers for decades. The remaining two-thirds are new, created within the last few years. "Most cowboy poems speak of real events and people, from bucking horses and cagey cows to old Stetson hats and long winter travels. Although they focus on the ordinary stuff of life, their truths . . . seem no less eternal than those penned by William Shakespeare. Some cowboy poems are bust-a-gut funny; a few are downright dirty . . . most carry an honest, primitive power." --Michael Riley, TIME Magazine

A fun, fact-filled, and thoroughly researched journey of country and western dancing from the roots of Western Swing to Hank Williams, the Urban Cowboy two-step of John Travolta, and the nationwide sensation of country line dancing. Country & Western Dance turns the spotlight on a uniquely American form of dance, one that has been scuffing the floorboards for nearly a century but is often overlooked. Fun, lively, and thoroughly researched, this revealing volume tells the full story of country and western dance music from the days of Bob Wills and Tulsa to Oklahoma's Cain's Ballroom to John Travolta and Gilley's of Houston, Texas. Each chapter provides information on the historical roots of the most popular country and western dances as well as the pioneers of the music of a particular era, all in the context of changing cultural, social, political, and economic forces in America. The book also examines the seminal impact of radio, television, and the movies in helping spread the music, the moves, and the good times on the country dance floor.

'After dinner a small mountain of coke was emptied onto a glass surface, the music was turned up and the party continued. This is what Colombians did. And everyone danced, including the men.' When a free-spirited young woman from Sydney's northern beaches left Australia to dance her way around the world, little did she know she would be catapulted into the middle of a European cocaine ring on her first day in Paris. A dancer with the Moulin Rouge, Robyn Windshuttle's life changed irrevocably the moment she met Daniel, a handsome and charismatic Colombian. Drawn together by an irresistible chemistry, Robyn takes Daniel at his word. But he is not, as first thought, a photographer for the Nikon Gallery and she becomes an unwitting accomplice to the cutthroat dealings of Daniel's Colombian drug syndicate. Honest, evocative and full of spirit, Dancing with a Cocaine Cowboy moves from Sydney to Paris, Ibiza, Monte Carlo and Bogota in a rich, exciting and exotic swirl. And with great strength and resilience, Robyn eventually reclaims her own life and that of the son she had with Daniel from this turbulent world.

What are the connections between cattle branding and Christian salvation, between livestock castration and square dancing, between rustling and the making of spurs and horsehair bridles in prison, between children's coloring books and cowboy poetry as it is practiced today? The Cowboy usesliterary, historical, folkloric, and pop cultural sources to document ways in which cowboys address religion, gender, economics, and literature. Arguing that cowboys are defined by the work they do, Allmendinger sets out in each chapter to investigate one form of labor (such as branding, castration,or rustling) that cowboys perform in their "work culture." He then looks at early oral poems that cowboys recited around campfires, on trail drives, at roundups, and at home in their bunkhouses, and at later poems, histories and autobiographies written by cowboys--most of which have never beforebeen studied by scholars. He discovers that these texts not only deal with work but with larger concerns, including art, morality, spirituality, and male sexuality. In addition to spotlighting little-known texts, art, and archival sources, The Cowboy examines the works of Twain, Steinbeck, Cather,Norris, Dana, McMurtry, and others, and features more than 60 historic photographs, many of which have not been published until now.

"This book began in 2014 as an introduction to the book I was then writing about a small group of dance theorists-five Germans and an Englishman-and their treatises published between 1703 and 1721: obviously a very narrow conspectus in subject and years. The aim of the introduction was to place these largely ignored writers (epecially the Germans) in a broad historical context that would demonstrate how essential and pivotal they were. As I read further in dance theory I found more and more sources on the subject that turned out to be far more interesting and complex than I had originally imagined. The introduction kept getting longer, until it became an albatross on the book's actual text, not only because of its ever-increasing length, but more gravely, because I had assumed it would trace a teleological ascent in dance theory culminating in my authors and their works, followed by a degenerative aftermath. This tendentious viewpoint threatened not only to deter readers from a sympathetic reading of the book as a whole; it turned out, the more I read and learned, to be simply wrong. The history of dance theory, as I gradually came to realize, is too interesting and important to be exploited for spurious purposes. Also, it's an untold story. Dance historians are familiar with many or most of the authors and titles, but not what they have to say about dance theory. That's the part usually at the beginning of books that is skimmed through in order to get to the more urgent preoccupations of historical dancers and dance historians: performance practice, reconstruction, technique, and repertoire. Viewed superficially, moreover, it can seem as if the same self-evident and obligatory themes keep getting repeated like clichés in these sections under the general rubric of theory: a definition of dance and/or dance theory, or at least a list of their basic components; the relation of dance to the other arts and other areas of knowledge; dance's origin and history; and its utility (i.e., health, social conduct and success, recreation). Finally, and contrary to what I had long believed, dance theory is not dead. In fact, it is thriving in the twenty-first century. Yes, I was fully aware that something called dance theory was being copiously written and talked about, and that "theory" and "theorizing" and "theorist" had become wildly ubiquitous in dance scholars' lexicon, but I believed that what they were talking about was no genuine dance theory, had no kinship with what was historically accepted as dance theory, and did not meet the criteria of what a theory should be. I was convinced that what I considered dance theory had been swept away in the iconoclastic, irreverent, and nonconformist spirit of postmodernism. Luckily, early readers tactfully convinced me to address my folly. As I wrote, I learned. Writing this book has already served as a textbook in my own learning experience. There are some excellent compilations of readings in dance history. The common format is to devote each chapter to a historical period, with an introductory essay followed by relevant readings. The number of readings tends to increase as history marches on, peaking in the nineteenth century. A sampling of such compilations follows. Each book differs from this one in different ways, but in general, and by intent, none of them does everything this book sets out to do: treat theory in depth and as a discrete topic; treat theatrical and social dance equally; include readings dating from classical Antiquity to the twenty-first century; and link the readings, through brief introductory essays, from end to end by a narrative thread based on salient topics as seen from evolving perspectives"--