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The Crack In The Picture Window
''The Crack in the Picture Window'' is a 1956 book of social criticism by the American writer John Keats. Background During the post–World War II economic expansion of the late 1940s and the 1950s, many persons from rural and urban backgrounds moved to single-family detached homes in the suburbs or in horizontally developed cities. It was not uncommon for some of these homes to have a picture window, in contrast to the smaller sash windows typical of urban and rural housing; although many of these new suburban homes did not necessarily have picture windows, Keats in his title used the term to characterize this new housing in general, and by extension the new social forms arising from this change in how people housed themselves (as well as other social changes of the time, such as those stemming from the popular adoption of television). Keats's thesis Keats, in this his first book, took at dim view of the social changes brought on by the influx of population to the suburbs. Accor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Keats (writer)
John C. Keats (1921 – November 3, 2000) was an American writer and biographer. Biography Keats was born in Moultrie, Georgia. He attended the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania before serving in the United States Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II. Keats worked for the ''Washington Daily News'' in the 1950s. His debut as an author came in 1956 with '' The Crack in the Picture Window'', a broadside at sprawling suburban housing developments. He also wrote numerous magazine articles, which led to non-fiction books and biographies. In the 1950s, Keats bought "Pine Island", one of the Thousand Islands, as a vacation home for himself, his wife and their three children. However, at the time of his death in 2000, he was living in Kingston, Ontario, where he had moved in order to be close to the island featured in his 1974 book ''Of Time and an Island''. From 1974 to 1990 Keats taught magazine writing at Syracuse University. Keats died o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supermarket
A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or Big-box store, big-box market. In everyday United States, U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is synonymous with supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries. The supermarket typically has places for fresh meat, fresh produce, dairy, Delicatessen, deli items, baked goods, etc. Shelf space is also reserved for canned and packaged goods and for various non-food items such as kitchenware, household cleaners, pharmacy products and pet supplies. Some supermarkets also sell other household products that are consumed regularly, such as alcohol (where permitted), medicine, and clothing, and some sell a much w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1956 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are killed for trespassing by the Huaorani people of Ecuador, shortly after making contact with them. * January 16 – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser vows to reconquer Palestine (region), Palestine. * January 25–January 26, 26 – Finnish troops reoccupy Porkkala, after Soviet Union, Soviet troops vacate its military base. Civilians can return February 4. * January 26 – The 1956 Winter Olympics open in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. February * February 11 – British Espionage, spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean (spy), Donald Maclean resurface in the Soviet Union, after being missing for 5 years. * February 14–February 25, 25 – The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is held in Mosc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Boxes
"Little Boxes" is a song written and composed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962, which became a hit for her friend Pete Seeger in 1963, when he released his cover version. The song is a social satire about the development of suburbia, and associated conformist middle-class attitudes. It mocks suburban tract housing as "little boxes" of different colors "all made out of ticky-tacky", and which "all look just the same". "Ticky-tacky" is a reference to the shoddy material supposedly used in the construction of the houses. Background Reynolds was a folk singer-songwriter and political activist in the 1960s and 1970s. Nancy Reynolds, her daughter, explained that her mother wrote the song after seeing the housing developments around Daly City, California, built in the post-war era by Henry Doelger, particularly the neighborhoods of Southern Hills on San Bruno Mountain. My mother and father were driving South from San Francisco through Daly City when my mom got the idea for the son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ginia Bellafante
Ginia Bellafante (born March 31, 1965) is an American critic and columnist for ''The New York Times''. Career Bellafante worked at ''Time'', as a senior reporter covering fashion, until 1999. She then joined ''The New York Times'' as a fashion critic, and later worked as a television critic before joining the Metropolitan section covering New York City. In 2011, she began writing "Big City", "a weekly column dedicated to life, culture, politics and policy in New York City". Criticism In 1998, Bellafante wrote a cover story for ''Time'', "Is Feminism Dead?", claiming that young feminists care primarily about "their bodies" and "themselves". The story was critiqued by Erica Jong of ''The New York Observer'', who said, "''Time''s idiotic cover story on feminism is, in short, a symptom of what's wrong, not an analysis." Janelle Brown of ''Salon'' called it "poorly thought-out". Bellafante's ''New York Times'' review in 2011 of ''Game of Thrones'' was criticized by some as sexis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revolutionary Road
''Revolutionary Road'' is American author Richard Yates's debut novel about 1950s suburban life in the East Coast. It was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1962, along with ''Catch-22'' and ''The Moviegoer''. When published by Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1961, it received critical acclaim, and ''The New York Times'' reviewed it as "beautifully crafted ... a remarkable and deeply troubling book." In 2005, the novel was chosen by ''TIME'' as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. When DeWitt Henry and Geoffrey Clark interviewed Yates for the Winter 1972 issue of literary journal ''Ploughshares'', Yates detailed the title's subtext: A film adaptation of the book, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Kathy Bates, directed by Sam Mendes, and written by Justin Haythe, was released in 2008. Plot summary Set in 1955, the novel focuses on the hopes and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, self-assured Connecticut suburbanites who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Yates (novelist)
Richard Yates (February 3, 1926 – November 7, 1992) was an American fiction writer identified with the mid-century "Age of Anxiety". His first novel, '' Revolutionary Road'', was a finalist for the 1962 National Book Award, while his first short story collection, '' Eleven Kinds of Loneliness'', brought comparisons to James Joyce. Critical acclaim for his writing, however, was not reflected in commercial success during his lifetime. Interest in Yates has revived somewhat since his death, partly because of an influential 1999 essay by Stewart O'Nan in the ''Boston Review'', a 2003 biography by Blake Bailey and the 2008 Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning film '' Revolutionary Road'' starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Life and career Born in Yonkers, New York, Yates came from an unstable home; his parents divorced when he was three and much of his childhood was spent in many different towns and residences. He first became interested in journalism and w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Alienation
Social alienation is a person's feeling of disconnection from a group whether friends, family, or wider society to which the individual has an affinity. Such alienation has been described as "a condition in social relationships reflected by (1) a low degree of integration or common values and (2) a high degree of distance or isolation (3a) between individuals, or (3b) between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment '' numeration added'". It is a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists. The concept has many discipline-specific uses, and can refer both to a personal psychological state (subjectively) and to a type of social relationship (objectively). History The term ''alienation'' has been used over the ages with varied and sometimes contradictory meanings. In ancient history it could mean a metaphysical sense of achieving a higher state of contemplation, ecstasy or union—becoming alienated from a limited ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post–World War II Economic Expansion
The post–World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism, was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning after World War II and ending with the 1973–1975 recession. The United States, the Soviet Union and Western European and East Asian countries in particular experienced unusually high and sustained growth, together with full employment. Contrary to early predictions, this high growth also included many countries that had been devastated by the war, such as Japan (Japanese economic miracle), West Germany and Austria (Wirtschaftswunder), South Korea (Miracle on the Han River), Belgium ( Belgian economic miracle), France (Trente Glorieuses), Italy (Italian economic miracle) and Greece (Greek economic miracle). Even countries that were relatively unaffected by the war such as Sweden (Record years) experienced considerable economic growth. The boom established the conditions for a larger series of global ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Down Payment
Down payment (also called a deposit in British English), is an initial up-front partial payment for the purchase of expensive items/services such as a car or a house. It is usually paid in cash or equivalent at the time of finalizing the transaction. A loan of some sort is then required to finance the remainder of the payment. The main purposes of a down payment is to ensure that the lending institution has enough capital to create money for a loan in fractional reserve banking systems and to recover some of the balance due on the loan in the event that the borrower defaults. In real estate, the asset is used as collateral in order to secure the loan against default. If the borrower fails to repay the loan, the lender is legally entitled to sell the asset and retain enough of the proceeds to repay the remaining balance on the loan, including fees and interest added. A down payment, in this case, reduces the lender's risk to less than the value of the collateral, making it more like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Housing Development
A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, they are often areas of high-density, low-impact residences of single-family detached homes and often allow for separate ownership of each housing unit, for example through subdivision. In major Asian cities, such as Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo, an estate may range from detached houses to high-density tower blocks with or without commercial facilities; in Europe and America, these may take the form of town housing, high-rise housing projects, or the older-style rows of terraced houses associated with the Industrial Revolution, detached or semi-detached houses with small plots of land around them forming gardens, and are frequently without commercial facilities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
