Some of the influences that went into these poems: 60's reruns, 80's performance art, Hitchcock, Aesop's fables, surf culture, Zen, the i Ching, office culture, pop psychology, Dr. Seuss, Dr. Phil, Dr. Benway, and Dr. Caligari.

A dog is troubled by a flea and tries various measures to get rid of the itching.

"James Thurber was a comedic genius. His fables are not simply parodies of Aesop. They are wry, accurate, and powerful reflections of ourselves, our foibles, our follies, and, above all, our self-importance. And they are very, very funny." --Neil Gaiman James Thurber has been called “one of the world’s greatest humorists” by Alistair Cooke (TheAtlantic), and “one of our great American institutions” (Stanley Walker)—and few works reveal Thurber’s genius as powerfully as his fables. Perennially entertaining and astutely satirical, Thurber pinpricks the idiosyncrasies of life with verbal frivolity, hilarious insights, political shrewdness, and, of course, quirky, quotable morals. Now, readers can savor 85 fables by the twentieth century’s preeminent humorist collected for the first time in a single anthology. Here, Fables for Our Time, Further Fables for Our Time, and ten previously uncollected fables—illustrated by ten contemporary artists including Seymour Chwast, Mark Ulriksen, Laurie Rosenwald, and R. O. Blechman—are presented in Collected Fables, a must-have for readers of all ages.

For decades, British children's TV was surely the finest entertainment in the world. From Thunderbirds to The Clangers, Blue Peter to Magpie, Camberwick Green to Tiswas, and Captain Pugwash to The Magic Roundabout, there was a huge variety on offer for kids - and adults - to enjoy. Now, in The Golden Age of Children's TV, Tim Worthington brings back the joy of those times and the programmes we loved, sharing a deep-dive behind the scenes of key programmes, how they came about and the stories behind the shows. From Saturday morning telly to teatime favourites, discover everything you never knew about the programmes you loved as well as the gossip from behind-the-scenes. Written with affection but also with a wry appreciation of the shortcomings of the times, this is the hugely engaging and entertaining story of a key part of our pop culture, from a time long before streaming and the internet, when we sat down together to watch brilliant British telly.

Much more than a word list, the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is a browsable source of inspiration as well as an authoritative guide to selecting and using vocabulary. This innovative thesaurus eatures real-life example sentences, usage notes, literary quotations, and thought-provoking reflections on favorite (and not-so-favorite) words by over two dozen renowned contemporary writers. The third edition revises and updates this innovative reference, enhancing it with new features and adding hundreds of new words, senses, and phrases to the more than 300,000 synonyms and 10,000 antonyms.

Genre is a key means by which we categorize the many forms of literature and culture. But it is also much more than that: in talk and writing, in music and images, in film and television, genres actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world. Understanding genre as a dynamic process rather than a set of stable rules, this book explores: the relation of simple to complex genres the history of literary genre in theory the generic organisation of implied meanings the structuring of interpretation by genre the uses of genre in teaching. John Frow’s lucid exploration of this fascinating concept will be essential reading for students of literary and cultural studies.

For a starter, let's face it; I made it to 94 years and frankly, that is an achievement that dwarf s anything else I can say about my long life so far, (and I ain't through yet.) If I were to point to the most significant event of my life I would have to say that I was a witness to a critical event in American history and perhaps in world history, the devastating attack on our Navy at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The rest of my life was somewhat nondescript in the overall scheme of things in this world. I was born (just like everyone else) in Holland Michigan, way back, a good 200 years ago. I was a musician from the start, playing the harmonica at 10 years old. (Also, later the ukulele, mandolin, Hawaiian guitar, orchestral guitar, and marimba.) My first performance was with the harmonica before my 8th grade class! Later on as a teenager I played in an orchestra and performed at dances, night clubs and church events. Currently, I duo on the classical guitar with my flute player playing occasional concerts. Now that I think of it, I was pretty good. Being a small 109 pound guy I joined the Navy in 1940 so as to not get drafted. WW2 was already raging in Europe. I had to enlist for 6 years. That put me in WW2 from the beginning to the end and then some. Hey, I also performed on the guitar in the Navy aboard ship (between naval battles!) Upon discharge in 1946 I joined with my high school buddy to get the first printed circuit patent. I am really proud of that because printed circuits are in everything that's electronic. And we started it! It was particularly smart of me because 40 years later I needed the printed circuit in my pacemaker! Such foresight! At the same time I entered college at MIT. Our patent royalties helped pay for tuition. As long as I am being proud, I may as well include graduating from that top technical school in the country, which is pretty good for a son of an immigrant from Italy. From thereon my engineering career included teaching at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo lecturing at USC and work in computers and programming. But of course, most of my work was in the Defense industry. Now in retirement I am doing things I like to do: play music and write. Looking back I think that getting an engineering degree was a big mistake. I should have been a gigolo. Look at what I missed! Alas, it is too late!