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In Watermelon Sugar
''In Watermelon Sugar'' is an American postmodern post-apocalyptic novel by Richard Brautigan written in 1964 and published in 1968. Set in the aftermath of a fallen civilization, it focuses on a commune organized around a central gathering house which is named "iDEATH". In this environment, many things are made of watermelon sugar (though the inhabitants also use pine wood and stone for building material and fuel made from trout oil). The landscape of the novel is constantly in flux; each day of the week has a different colored sun which creates different colored watermelons, and the central building also changes frequently. The novel's narrator, who is left unnamed, claims to be writing an investigative book on his experiences at iDEATH. Its first-person narrative is sparse and minimalist, granting the novel a detached and alien quality. Plot Through the narrator's first-person account, we learn the story of the people and the events of iDEATH. The central tension is create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Brautigan
Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – c. September 16, 1984) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. A prolific writer, he wrote throughout his life and published ten novels, two collections of short stories, and four books of poetry. Brautigan's work has been published both in the United States and internationally throughout Europe, Japan, and China. He is best known for his novels ''Trout Fishing in America'' (1967), ''In Watermelon Sugar'' (1968), and ''The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966'' (1971). Brautigan began his career as a poet, with his first collection being published in 1957. He made his debut as a novelist with ''A Confederate General from Big Sur'' (1964), about a seemingly delusional man who believes himself to be the descendant of a Confederate States of America, Confederate general from Big Sur. Brautigan would go on to publish numerous prose and poetry collections until 1982. He died by suicide in 1984. Early life Background Braut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Instruments
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies. The date and origin of the first device considered a musical instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some scholars refer to as a musical instrument, a simple flute, dates back as far as 50,000 - 60,000 years. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 40,000 years ago. However, most historians be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Klaxons
Klaxons were an English rock band, based in London. Following the release of several 7-inch singles on different independent record labels, as well as the success of previous singles " Magick" and " Golden Skans", the band released their debut album, '' Myths of the Near Future'' on 29 January 2007. The album won the 2007 Nationwide Mercury Prize. After playing festivals and headlining tours worldwide (including the NME Indie Rave Tour) during late 2006–07, the band started working on their follow-up album in July 2007. Klaxons' second album, ''Surfing the Void'', was released on 23 August 2010. Their third album, ''Love Frequency'', was released on 16 June 2014. The band has been on indefinite hiatus since 2014. History Formation (2005–2006) Jamie Reynolds grew up in Bournemouth and Southampton. He dropped out of studying philosophy at Greenwich University to work in a record shop, Essential Records in Southampton, before moving to London and being made redundant. Si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Rave
New rave (also typeset as nu-rave, nu rave or neu rave) is a genre of music described by ''The Guardian'' as "an in-yer-face, DIY disco riposte to the sensitive indie rock touted by bands like Bloc Party." It is most commonly applied to a British-based music scene between 2005 and late 2008 of fast-paced electronica-influenced indie music that celebrated the late 1980s Madchester and rave scenes through the use of neon colours and using the term 'raving' to refer to going nightclubbing. Use of term The British music magazine ''NME'' is largely responsible for popularising the term throughout 2006 and 2007, until claiming in mid-2008 reviews that "New Rave is over". The genre has connotations of being a "new" version of music heard at raves, as well as being a play on the term "new wave". Aesthetics The aesthetics of the new rave scene are similar to those of the original rave scene, being mostly centred on psychedelic visual effects. Glowsticks, neon and other lights are common, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Farm (Tennessee)
The Farm is an intentional community in Lewis County, Tennessee, near the town of Summertown, Tennessee, based on principles of nonviolence and respect for the Earth. It was founded in 1971 by Stephen Gaskin and 300 spiritual seekers from Haight-Ashbury and San Francisco. The Farm was the setting for "the rebirth of midwifery in the United States" and the creation of "the modern home-birth movement." Its members have founded a number of nonprofit organizations, including Plenty International, a relief and development organization, and Swan Conservation Trust, who established the Big Swan Headwaters Preserve. The Farm has approximately 200 members and residents. Origins The Farm was established after Stephen Gaskin and friends led a caravan of 60 buses, vans, and trucks from San Francisco on a four-month speaking tour across the US. Along the way, they became a community, lacking only in land to put down roots. After returning to California, the decision was made to buy land ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Gaskin
Stephen Gaskin (February 16, 1935 – July 1, 2014) was an American counterculture Hippie icon best known for his presence in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1960s and for co-founding " The Farm", a spiritual commune in 1970. He was a Green Party presidential primary candidate in 2000 on a platform which included campaign finance reform, universal health care, and decriminalization of marijuana. He was the author of over a dozen books, political activist, a philanthropic organizer and a self-proclaimed professional Hippie. Life Gaskin was born in Denver, Colorado and served in the US Marine Corps from 1952 to 1955. In the 1960s, he moved to San Francisco and taught English, creative writing, and general semantics at San Francisco State College, where he was a student of S. I. Hayakawa. His writing class evolved into an open discussion group known as Monday Night Class, which involved up to 1500 students. Through 1968, the class was held San Francisco State U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Mungo
Raymond Mungo (born 1946) is an American author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books. He writes about business, economics, and financial matters as well as cultural issues. In the 1960s, he attended Boston University, where he served as editor of the ''Boston University News'' in 1966-67, his senior year; and where, as a student leader, he spearheaded demonstrations against the Vietnam War. In 1967, Mungo co-founded the Liberation News Service (LNS), an alternative news agency, along with Marshall Bloom. LNS split off from Collegiate Press Service (CPS) in a political dispute. The founding event was a notably tumultuous meeting that transpired not far from the offices of CPS on Church Street in Washington, D.C. Mungo descriptively details this event in his book, ''Famous Long Ago: My Life and Hard Times with the Liberation News Service''. In 1968, he moved to Vermont with Verandah Porche and others as part of the back-to-the-land movement. Mungo continued to write ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts such life in an idealized manner, typically for urban audiences. A ''pastoral'' is a work of this genre, also known as bucolic, from the Greek , from , meaning a cowherd. Literature Pastoral literature in general Pastoral is a mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to place the complex life into a simple one. Paul Alpers distinguishes pastoral as a mode rather than a genre, and he bases this distinction on the recurring attitude of power; that is to say that pastoral literature holds a humble perspective toward nature. Thus, pastoral as a mode occurs in many types of literature (poetry, drama, etc.) as well as genres (most notably the pastoral elegy). Terry Gifford, a prominent literary theorist, define ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticism toward the "meta-narrative, grand narratives" of modernism, opposition to epistemological, epistemic certainty or stability of meaning (semiotics), meaning, and emphasis on ideology as a means of maintaining political power. Claims to objective fact are dismissed as naïve realism, with attention drawn to the instrumental conditionality, conditional nature of knowledge claims within particular historical, political, and cultural discourses. The postmodern outlook is characterized by self-reference, self-referentiality, epistemological relativism, moral relativism, pluralism (philosophy), pluralism, irony, irreverence, and eclecticism; it rejects the "universal validity" of binary oppositions, stable identity (philosophy), identity, hierar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bolinas
Bolinas is an unincorporated coastal community and census-designated place in Marin County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,483. It is located on the California coast, approximately (straight line distance) northwest of San Francisco, and by road. The community is known for its reclusive residents. It is only accessible via unmarked roads; any road sign along State Route 1 that points the way into town has been torn down by local residents, to the point where county officials offered a ballot measure to which the voters responded by stating a preference for no more signs. History Prior to the European colonization of California, the Coast Miwok lived in the area, possibly calling the area "Bali-N". Bolinas and present-day Stinson Beach were once encompassed by Rancho Las Baulines, a Mexican land grant given by Governor Pío Pico to Gregorio Briones in 1846. The first post office in the town of Bolinas opened in 1863. In 1927 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam And Eve
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin that are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam. In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, chapters one through five, there are two creation narratives with two distinct perspectives. In the first, Adam and Eve are not named. Instead, God created humankind in God's image and instructed them to multiply and to be stewards over everything else that God had made. In the second narrative, God fashions Adam from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden. Adam is told that he can eat freely of all the trees in the garden, except for a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Subsequently, Eve is created from one of Adam's ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-apocalyptic
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, such as an impact event; destructive, such as nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, such as a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or more imaginative, such as a zombie apocalypse, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion. The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or it may be post-apocalyptic, set after the event. The time may be directly after the catastrophe, focusing on the psychology of survivors, the way to keep the human race alive and together as one, or considerably later, often including that the existence of pre-catastrophe c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
