Contemplating The Engine Room
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Contemplating The Engine Room
''Contemplating the Engine Room'' is a punk rock opera by Minutemen veteran Mike Watt. Released in 1997, the album is a punk rock song cycle that uses navy life as an extended metaphor for both Watt's family history and his first band, the Minutemen. The album was critically well-received, though not universally. The cover art features a picture of Watt's father in his Navy uniform. Background In July 1997, Watt posted on his personal website, "I'm gonna call the band mike watt and the black gang crew in honor of engine room folk - the ''black gang'' is boat talk for engine room crew." The album features Watt as the singer, Nels Cline on guitar and drummer Stephen Hodges. It was produced by Watt and engineered by Bobby Seifert. Watt's father joined the navy when he was 17 and retired when he was 37. He served aboard nuclear vessels, and died from cancer when he was 51. Watt was originally from Virginia, but his parents divorced during the Viet Nam War, and Watt and his mother ...
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Mike Watt
Michael David Watt (born December 20, 1957) is an American bassist, vocalist and songwriter. Watt co-founded and played bass guitar for the rock bands Minutemen (1980–1985), Dos (1985–present), and Firehose (1986–1994). He began a solo career with the 1994 album ''Ball-Hog or Tugboat?'', he has since released three additional solo albums, most recently in 2010 with ''Hyphenated-man''. He is also the frontman for the supergroup Big Walnuts Yonder (2008–present), a member of the art rock group Banyan (1997–present) and is involved with several other musical projects. From 2003 until 2013, he was the bass guitarist for The Stooges. Watt has been called "one of the greatest bassists on the planet." ''CMJ New Music'' called Watt a "seminal post-punk bass player." Readers of ''NME'' voted Mike Watt one of the "40 Greatest Bassists of All Time" and ''LA Weekly'' awarded him the number six spot in "The 20 Best Bassists of All Time." In November 2008, Watt received the ''B ...
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Richard McKenna
Richard Milton McKenna (May 9, 1913 – November 1, 1964) was an American sailor and novelist. He was best known for his historical novel, ''The Sand Pebbles'' which tells the story of an American sailor serving aboard a Yangtze Patrol, gunboat on the Chinese Yangtze, Yangtze River in 1925. Biography Early life McKenna was born in Mountain Home, Idaho, on May 9, 1913. Seeking more opportunities than could be found in such a rural part of the country at the height of the Great Depression, McKenna joined the U.S. Navy in 1931 at the age of 18. He served for 22 years, including 10 years of active sea duty. He served in World War II and the Korean War. He retired as a Chief Petty Officer, Chief Machinist's Mate. Because of the benefits of the GI Bill, McKenna was able to attend college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he studied creative writing. He also married a librarian, Eva, whom he ...
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Mike Watt Albums
Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documentaries Arts * Mike (miniseries), a 2022 Hulu limited series based on the life of American boxer Mike Tyson * Mike (2022 film), a Malayalam film produced by John Abraham * Mike (album), ''Mike'' (album), an album by Mike Mohede * Mike (1926 film), ''Mike'' (1926 film), an American film * MIKE (musician), American rapper, songwriter and record * Mike (novel), ''Mike'' (novel), a 1909 novel by P. G. Wodehouse * Mike (song), "Mike" (song), by Elvana Gjata and Ledri Vula featuring John Shahu * Mike (Twin Peaks), Mike (''Twin Peaks''), a character from ''Twin Peaks'' * "Mike", a song by Xiu Xiu from their 2004 album ''Fabulous Muscles'' Businesses * Mike (cellular network), a defunct Canadian cellular network * Mike and Ike, a candies brand Mi ...
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1997 Albums
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of '' Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of the most observed comets of the 20th century; Golden Bauhinia Square, where sovereignty of Hong Kong is handed over from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China; the 1997 Central European flood kills 114 people in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany; Korean Air Flight 801 crashes during heavy rain on Guam, killing 229; Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner land on Mars; flowers left outside Kensington Palace following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 Titanic (1997 film) rect 200 0 400 200 Harry Potter rect 400 0 600 200 Comet Hale-Bopp rect 0 200 300 400 Death of Diana, Princess of Wales rect 300 200 600 400 Handover of Hong Kong rect 0 400 200 600 Mars P ...
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Record Store Day
Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fans, artists, and thousands of independent record stores around the world. A number of records are pressed specifically for Record Store Day, with a list of releases for each country, and are only distributed to shops participating in the event. Record Store Day is headquartered in the United States, where it began. Official organizers operate in the UK, Ireland, Mexico, Europe, Japan and Australia. Background Originally pitched as an idea to create an event similar to Free Comic Book Day by Bull Moose Music's Chris Brown and Criminal Record's Eric Levin, the concept for Record Store Day was created during a brainstorming session at a meeting of independent record store owners in Baltimore, Maryland. Record Store Day was founded in 2007 ...
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Ulysses (novel)
''Ulysses'' is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. Parts of it were first serialized in the American journal ''The Little Review'' from March 1918 to December 1920, and the entire work was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce's 40th birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement." According to Declan Kiberd, "Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking". ''Ulysses'' chronicles the appointments and encounters of the itinerant Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the ''Odyssey'', and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus ...
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People (magazine)
''People'' is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC. With a readership of 46.6 million adults in 2009, ''People'' had the largest audience of any American magazine, but it fell to second place in 2018 after its readership significantly declined to 35.9 million. ''People'' had $997 million in advertising revenue in 2011, the highest advertising revenue of any American magazine. In 2006, it had a circulation of 3.75 million and revenue expected to top $1.5 billion. It was named "Magazine of the Year" by ''Advertising Age'' in October 2005, for excellence in editorial, circulation, and advertising.Martha Nelson Named Editor, The People Group
, a January 2006 ...
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Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became an early proponent of musical movements such as hip hop, riot grrrl, and the import of African popular music in the West. Christgau spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for ''The Village Voice'', during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. He has also covered popular music for ''Esquire'', ''Creem'', ''Newsday'', ''Playboy'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''Billboard'', NPR, ''Blender'', and ''MSN Music'', and was a visiting arts teacher at New York University. CNN senior writer Jamie Allen has called Christgau "the E. F. Hutton of the music world – when he talks, people listen." Christgau is best known for his terse, letter-graded capsule album reviews, composed in a concentrat ...
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Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular culture. The magazine debuted on February 16, 1990, in New York City. Different from celebrity-focused publications such as ''Us Weekly'', ''People'' (a sister magazine to ''EW''), and ''In Touch Weekly'', ''EW'' primarily concentrates on entertainment media news and critical reviews; unlike ''Variety'' and ''The Hollywood Reporter'', which were primarily established as trade magazines aimed at industry insiders, ''EW'' targets a more general audience. History Formed as a sister magazine to ''People'', the first issue of ''Entertainment Weekly'' was published on February 16, 1990. Created by Jeff Jarvis and founded by Michael Klingensmith, who served as publisher until October 1996, the magazine's original television advertising soliciting ...
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The Bluejacket's Manual
''The Bluejacket's Manual'' is the basic handbook for United States Navy personnel. First issued in 1902 to teach recruits about naval procedures and life and offer a reference for active sailors, it has become the "bible" for Navy personnel, providing information about a wide range of Navy topics. The current version, issued in 2017, is the 25th Edition and is given to all enlistees. History Before 1902, the Navy had at least two books for training young men in naval procedure. ''Seamanship'', by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, was the primary textbook about seamanship at the United States Naval Academy but was not used by enlisted men; many sailors at the time were still illiterate and in any case, the oral traditions and procedures of petty officers were the basis of enlisted sailors' education. ''The Seaman's Handbook'' by LCDR Stephen B. Luce, saw general use in the Merchant Marine, but less in the Navy. 1902 saw the first publication of ''The Bluejacket's Manual'', writ ...
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The Sand Pebbles
''The Sand Pebbles'' is a 1962 novel by American author Richard McKenna about a Yangtze River gunboat and its crew in 1926. It was the winner of the 1963 Harper Prize for fiction. The book was initially serialized in the ''Saturday Evening Post'', and in January 1963 it was published by Harper & Row. In 1966 it was adapted into the movie of the same name starring Steve McQueen. Background Richard McKenna served aboard a Yangtze River gunboat in 1936 but set the novel a decade earlier, during the Nationalist Northern Expedition of 1925–1927, aboard the fictional USS ''San Pablo'', a captured Spanish gunboat left over from the Spanish–American War. The phrase "sand pebble" is a pun on the boat's name; thus, the sailors who serve on her are the ''sand pebbles''. Plot The novel describes a life of boredom and sudden battle action, but the chief conflict is between the traditional western ideas, which saw China in racist and imperialist terms, and emerging nationalism. The p ...
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Salon (website)
''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including reviews and articles about books, films, and music; articles about "modern life", including friendships, human sexual behavior, and relationships; and reviews and articles about technology, with a particular focus on the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement. According to the senior contributing writer for the ''American Journalism Review'', Paul Farhi, ''Salon'' offers "provocative (if predictably liberal) political commentary and lots of sex." In 2008, ''Salon'' launched the interactive initiative ''Open Salon'', a social content site/blog network for its readers. Originally a curated site with some of its content being featured on ''Salon'', it fell into editorial neglect and was closed in March 2015. Responding to the question ...
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