More than just a history of a musical genre,Looking Up at Downtraces the evolution of the various strands of blues music within the broader context of the culture on which it commented, and discusses its importance as a form of cultural resistance and identity for Afro-Americans. William Barlow explores the lyrics, describes the musical styles, and portrays the musicians and performers who created this uniquely American music. He describes how the blues sound-with its recognizable dissonance and African musical standards-and the blues text, which provided a bottom up view of American society, became bulwarks of cultural resistance.Using rare recordings, oral histories, and interviews, Barlow analyzes how the blues was sustained as a form of Afro-American cultural resistance despite attempts by the dominant culture to assimilate and commercialize the music and exploit its artists. Author note:William Barlowis Associate Professor in the Radio, Television, and Film Department of Howard University. A music programmer for alternative radio stations for more than fifteen years, he currently produces "Blue Monday" on WPFW-FM.

Photographs present objects and scenes from different perspectives, some viewed from below and some from above.

A witty, psychedelic, and telling novel of the 1960s Richard Fariña evokes the Sixties as precisely, wittily, and poignantly as F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age. The hero, Gnossus Pappadopoulis, weaves his way through the psychedelic landscape, encountering-among other things-mescaline, women, art, gluttony, falsehood, science, prayer, and, occasionally, truth. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. From the Trade Paperback edition.

This book is about an unusual journey: a unique journey through everyday surroundings. Rob Walters decided to become a shoeshine boy. He stowed his shoeshine kit, a tent, and a few items of clothing in a trailer, connected the trailer to his push bike and set off from Oxford to visit the old shoe-making cities of middle England. Along the way he polished many shoes, met lots of interesting people, pedalled many miles, and gained a fascinating insight into his own country from a rather unique perspective.Rejected by some, welcomed by many, he polished shoes in shopping centres, solicitor's offices, a kite festival, railway stations, campsites, street corners, and a bewildering selection of pubs. He polished the shoes of dossers, company directors, criminals, Morris dancers, publicans, bikers, policemen, schoolboys, reporters, a bowling green groundsman, an Icelander, and a Latvian - to name just a few. He slept in fields, in woods, and on the edge of golf courses. He was ejected from the Norfolk Show and welcomed into the offices of lawyers and fruit importers.During his journey he met members of the Household Cavalry, topless protestors, a homeless joss stick seller, a man who stole baths in hotels, a submariner, a beaten housewife, a disenchanted solicitor, a rubber recycler, a toyshop owner, and two ghost guides - amongst others. All of them had a story to tell: some sad, some amusing. It is their tales and Rob's own incisive observations that are related in this unusual book. Reading it will transport you to Northampton, the centre of the English shoe making tradition; then through the Fens to East Anglia; back across the country to the Midlands; down along the River Severn to Gloucester; and then over the Cotswolds to Oxford. Progress is at a comfortable cycling pace along the country roads and through the sleepy villages, yet interrupted regularly by diversions into the vibrancy of the cities.

Raised on a Midwestern farm after World War II, Eric was considered worthless in his childhood. He was restricted by a body that did not allow him to walk. With stubborn determination, he struggled to cope with his disability, cerebral palsy. Eric endured abuse, discrimination and neglect and yet found the courage to face his challenges directly. In adulthood, he lived independently and was proud to have a job to pay his own way. He loved baseball, longed to play the game and be part of a team. Instead, he watched from the sidelines. He released pent-up emotions of his triumphs and tragedies through writing stories and poems. Connie Rubsamen's memoir of her brother is driven by his many writings. Down, Looking Up is an inspiring story of fighting against and coming to terms with a disability. This story illustrates how a disability impacts one's life. There is no escape.

My prayer for those who are reading this book is that the spirit of change will take control of your total being, and drive you from Lodebar to grace. One of the saddest parts about the unexpected challenges that life brings is that, people around you do not always understand what you are suffering or why. This kind of misunderstanding validates why Job maintained his integrity; in his challenges, he said: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him" (Job13:15). Job did what some of us do in suffering; we get the source of our affliction twisted. We blame God for what is wrong, not realizing that what is meant for evil, God meant for our good. We need to learn how to trust God when everything around us is falling apart. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). We must activate this truth during our time of despair. We must trust God even when we cannot trace Him. When everything is pointing in the opposite direction, we need to have our faith in God. No matter what you feel like in your downward state, God is in control. He "works all things after the council of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11). "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" (Psalms 30:5). Don't give up or give in to the tactics of the enemy. Joyce Carelock's mission is to bring hope and healing to the wounded through biblical teachings, retreats, seminars and conferences. Her purpose is to encourage people to walk in God's purpose and plan for their individual lives. Motto: "If I Can Have It, God Can Heal It!" www.joycecarelockmin.org

Thoughts, Poems, and Prayers for those in the hospital.