Biff America is a wonderfully funny mix of Andy Rooney and Garrison Keillor. From low-flow toilets to prostate pride, knee surgery to avalanche fatalities, gay marriage to schoolyard bullies, Biff America poignantly writes what the American people need to know. Through it all, Biff America has a gift for revealing the uplifting realities of modern life and, sometimes, his humor will make you blow beer through your nose. With an introduction by John Nichols, author of THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR, and copious illustrations of Biff in action. REVIEWS: "Whether it is on stage, in print or on top of a fourteen-thousand-foot summit, Biff America can make you laugh, cry and feel nauseous-all at the same time." -Rachel Dratch, cast member, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE "Don't let any of that touchy feely crap fool you; Biff America can be a mean drunk, a weasel when confronted and is an unstable individual. He still owes me $67." -Brad Pitt, Baraboo, WI "Biff America's writing is provocative, edgy, insightful and, most important, absorbing. He has a unique gift for mixing comedy with pathos; his observations on life, politics, his family, himself or anything else that strike his fancy are uncannily on point, often with a devilish wit." -NBC "Beneath his blue-collar sensibilities, rough-hewn mountain-town ethos and snort-your-morning-coffee dorm-room humor, Biff America is a surprisingly refined and nuanced writer who finds amazing insights in everyday life. Unrestrained, ribald and slightly off-kilter, he stands as a mad prophet of our times. George W. Bush should read this book." -DENVER POST "The columns in this rich collection form one of the more thoughtful and laugh-provoking journeys that I've taken in a long spell. Think of Lake Wobegon Days meets The Little World of Don Camillo. There's a biting satire aplenty throughout these pages, but it is always couched in a truly humane understanding of our species' tragic-comic fallibility... I found myself repeatedly moved, and moved deeply, by these poignant and funny stories." - John Nichols, author of THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Boston-born writer, comedian and skier, Jeffrey Bergeron, under the alias Biff America, was the recipient of the 2005 Colorado Press Association award for both humor and serious column writing. Recently elected to the Breckenridge City Council on the homeland security and medicinal marijuana platform, Bergeron skis more days than he works and lives in Breckenridge with his hot wife, Ellen. He can be seen on TV, heard on radio, and read regularly in various magazines and newspapers. CONTENTS: Chapter 1: Recreation Chapter 2: Family Chapter 3: People Chapter 4: Dead People Chapter 5: Politics Chapter 6: Connubial Bliss Chapter 7: God Chapter 8: Sex, Love and Body Parts Don't miss out on your Biff fix - get Biff America: Steep, Deep, and Dyslexic today!

Did America really learn to "stop worrying and love the bomb," as the title of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove, would have us believe? Does that darkly satirical comedy have anything in common with Martin Luther King Jr.'s impassioned "I Have a Dream" speech or with Elvis Presley's throbbing "I'm All Shook Up"? In Margot Henriksen's vivid depiction of the decades after World War II, all three are expressions of a cultural revolution directly related to the atomic bomb. Although many scientists and other Americans protested the pursuit of nuclear superiority after World War II ended, they were drowned out by Cold War rhetoric that encouraged a "culture of consensus." Nonetheless, Henriksen says, a "culture of dissent" arose, and she traces this rebellion through all forms of popular culture. At first, artists expressed their anger, anxiety, and despair in familiar terms that addressed nuclear reality only indirectly. But Henriksen focuses primarily on new modes of expression that emerged, discussing the disturbing themes of film noir (with extended attention to Alfred Hitchcock) and science fiction films, Beat poetry, rock 'n' roll, and Pop Art. Black humor became a primary weapon in the cultural revolution while literature, movies, and music gave free rein to every possible expression of the generation gap. Cultural upheavals from "flower power" to the civil rights movement accentuated the failure of old values. Filled with fascinating examples of cultural responses to the Atomic Age, Henriksen's book is a must-read for anyone interested in the United States at mid-twentieth century.

Perspectives on America's greatest living playwright that explore his longstanding commitment to forging a uniquely American theater Arthur Miller's America collects new writing by leading international critics and scholars that considers the dramatic world of icon, activist, and playwright Arthur Miller's theater as it reflects the changing moral equations of his time. Written on the occasion of Miller's 85th year, the original essays and interviews in Arthur Miller's America treat the breadth of Miller's work, including his early political writings for the campus newspaper at the University of Michigan, his famous work with John Huston, Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe on The Misfits, and his signature plays like Death of a Salesman and All My Sons.

Challenging widely held assumptions about postwar gay male culture and politics, this book examines how gay men in the 1950s resisted pressures to remain in the closet.