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Get ready for takeoff. The life of the flight attendant, a.k.a., stewardess, was supposedly once one of glamour, exotic travel and sexual freedom, as recently depicted in such films as Catch Me If You Can and View From the Top. The nostalgia for the beautiful, carefree and ever helpful stewardess perhaps reveals a yearning for simpler times, but nonetheless does not square with the difficult, demanding and sometimes dangerous job of today's flight attendants. Based on interviews with over sixty flight attendants, both female and male labor leaders, and and drawing upon his observations while flying across the country and overseas, Drew Whitelegg reveals a much more complicated profession, one that in many ways is the quintessential job of the modern age where life moves at record speeds and all that is solid seems up in the air.Containing lively portraits of flight attendants, both current and retired, this book is the first to show the intimate, illuminating, funny, and sometimes dangerous behind-the-scenes stories of daily life for the flight attendant. Going behind the curtain, Whitelegg ventures into first-class, coach, the cabin, and life on call for these men and women who spend week in and week out in foreign cities, sleeping in hotel rooms miles from home. Working the Skies also elucidates the contemporary work and labor issues that confront the modern worker: the demands of full-time work and parenthood; the downsizing of corporate America and the resulting labor lockouts; decreasing wages and hours worked; job insecurity; and the emotional toll of a high stress job. Given the events of 9/11, flight attendants now have an especially poignant set of stressful concerns to manage, both for their own safety as well as for those they serve, the passengers. Flight attendants, originally registered nurses charged with attending to passengers' medical needs, now find themselves wearing the hats of therapist, security guard and undercover agent. This last set of tasks pushing some, as Whitelegg shows, out of the business altogether.

Flight attendants --- Containing. --- attendant. --- attendants. --- behind-the-scenes. --- book. --- both. --- current. --- daily. --- dangerous. --- first. --- flight. --- funny. --- illuminating. --- intimate. --- life. --- lively. --- portraits. --- retired. --- show. --- sometimes. --- stories. --- this.

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Blaise Cendrars, one of twentieth-century France's most gifted men of letters, came to Hollywood in 1936 for the newspaper Paris-Soir. Already a well-known poet, Cendrars was a celebrity journalist whose perceptive dispatches from the American dream factory captivated millions. These articles were later published as Hollywood: Mecca of the Movies, which has since appeared in many languages. Remarkably, this is its first translation into English. Hollywood in 1936 was crowded with stars, moguls, directors, scouts, and script girls. Though no stranger to filmmaking (he had worked with director Abel Gance), Cendrars was spurned by the industry greats with whom he sought to hobnob. His response was to invent a wildly funny Hollywood of his own, embellishing his adventures and mixing them with black humor, star anecdotes, and wry social commentary. Part diary, part tall tale, this book records Cendrars's experiences on Hollywood's streets and at its studios and hottest clubs. His impressions of the town's drifters, star-crazed sailors, and undiscovered talent are recounted in a personal, conversational style that anticipates the "new journalism" of writers such as Tom Wolfe. Perfectly complemented by his friend Jean Guérin's witty drawings, and following the tradition of European travel writing, Cendrars's "little book about Hollywood" offers an astute, entertaining look at 1930s America as reflected in its unique movie mecca.

Motion picture industry --- Motion pictures --- History. --- History. --- 1930s america. --- 1930s hollywood. --- 1930s. --- american movie industry. --- cinema journalism. --- cinematic review. --- european travel writing. --- funny hollywood. --- hollywood fiction. --- hollywood history. --- hollywood humor. --- hollywood outsider. --- hollywood reporting. --- hollywood satire. --- jean guerin drawings. --- jean guerin. --- jean gurin. --- los angeles history. --- new journalism. --- parisian in america. --- popular journalism. --- tall tales of hollywood. --- tall tales. --- travel writing humor.

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What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear-a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena? Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects. Drawing on a wide range of Roman writing-from essays on rhetoric to a surviving Roman joke book-Mary Beard tracks down the giggles, smirks, and guffaws of the ancient Romans themselves. From ancient "monkey business" to the role of a chuckle in a culture of tyranny, she explores Roman humor from the hilarious, to the momentous, to the surprising.  But she also reflects on even bigger historical questions. What kind of history of laughter can we possibly tell? Can we ever really "get" the Romans' jokes?

Laughter --- Latin wit and humor --- History --- History and criticism. --- Rome --- Social life and customs. --- ancient literary criticism. --- ancient rome. --- anthropology. --- approachable scholarship. --- classical literature. --- conversational. --- cultural studies. --- essays on rhetoric. --- funny. --- history of ancient rome. --- history of laughter. --- history. --- humor and drama. --- humor. --- inviting. --- jokes. --- laughter. --- literary analysis. --- monkey business. --- performing arts. --- purpose of laughter. --- roman culture. --- roman history. --- roman humor. --- roman joke book. --- roman writing. --- sather classical lectures. --- theories of humor.

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A Connecticut Yankee is Mark Twain's most ambitious work, a tour de force with a science-fiction plot told in the racy slang of a Hartford workingman, sparkling with literary hijinks as well as social and political satire. Mark Twain characterized his novel as "one vast sardonic laugh at the trivialities, the servilities of our poor human race." The Yankee, suddenly transported from his native nineteenth-century America to the sleepy sixth-century Britain of King Arthur and the Round Table, vows brashly to "boss the whole country inside of three weeks." And so he does. Emerging as "The Boss," he embarks on an ambitious plan to modernize Camelot-with unexpected results.

Knights and knighthood --- Americans --- Arthurian romances --- Time travel --- Knighthood --- Civilization, Medieval --- Nobility --- Chivalry --- Heraldry --- Orders of knighthood and chivalry --- Arthur, --- Arturus, --- Artur, --- Arturo, --- Artus, --- Artù, --- Artús, --- Артур, --- Arzhur, --- Artuš, --- Αρθούρος, --- Arthouros, --- Arthur Pendragon --- Pendragon, Arthur --- Adha, --- 아서, --- 아서 왕 --- Asŏ, --- Asŏ Wang --- ארתור, --- Arthur Gernow --- Arthurus, --- Arturius, --- Arturs, --- Artūras, --- Artúr, --- アーサー, --- アーサー王 --- Āsā-ō --- Āsā, --- Èrthu, --- Arthwys, --- Great Britain --- 19th century. --- adaptation. --- adventure. --- american lit. --- american literature. --- arthurian legend. --- arthurian. --- arthuriana. --- britain. --- classic. --- comedy. --- england. --- fiction. --- funny. --- historical fiction. --- humor. --- king arthur. --- literary fiction. --- medieval. --- modern camelot. --- modern king arthur. --- mythology. --- round table. --- satire. --- social commentary. --- speculative fiction. --- time travel. --- yankee.

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Fred Astaire: one of the great jazz artists of the twentieth century? Astaire is best known for his brilliant dancing in the movie musicals of the 1930's, but in Music Makes Me, Todd Decker argues that Astaire's work as a dancer and choreographer -particularly in the realm of tap dancing-made a significant contribution to the art of jazz. Decker examines the full range of Astaire's work in filmed and recorded media, from a 1926 recording with George Gershwin to his 1970 blues stylings on television, and analyzes Astaire's creative relationships with the greats, including George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer. He also highlights Astaire's collaborations with African American musicians and his work with lesser known professionals-arrangers, musicians, dance directors, and performers.

Jazz musicians --- Dancers --- Motion picture actors and actresses --- Astaire, Fred. --- 1930s movie musicals. --- 20th century dance. --- 20th century film. --- 20th century jazz. --- 20th century musicals. --- 20th century. --- african american musicians. --- american choreographers. --- american film. --- american jazz. --- american music culture. --- american musicians. --- dance. --- easter parade. --- funny face. --- george gershwin. --- history of film. --- history of jazz. --- history of music. --- irving berlin. --- jazz and blues. --- jazz icons. --- jazz musician biographies. --- jerome kern. --- johnny mercer. --- music and dance. --- music and race. --- music legends. --- musicians. --- performing arts. --- top hat.