Running the gamut in topic and style from faux-political to faux–New Yorker, David Berman’s lo-fi cartoons incorporate strains of high and low comedy, wistful Americana, contemporary art, dream visions, and a visual analog to the semipenetrable personal allusions found in his music and poetry. His drawings invite the same deeper thought as his writings, making use of wordplay, cultural references, and offbeat observations. The sparse illustrations are complemented by poignant one-liners, and reveal moments of lightness within the author’s dark humor, providing a wry, erudite commentary on American culture.

Praise for Your Portable Empire "In a sea of snake oil and get-rich-quick nonsense about fast money on the Internet from people who haven't really done it, O'Bryan's book is a ship of sanity to an island of commonsense e-commerce? This works." —Mark Joyner, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Simple.ology "The Internet has leveled the playing field, making it possible for anybody to start a business. O'Bryan, however, has given us the easy-to-follow instruction manual on how to first discover your niche and then build it into a big enterprise that can run itself from almost anywhere-all from his successful and proven formulas. A great book for anybody serious about a better quality of life." —Joseph Sugarman, Chairman, BluBlocker Sunglass Corporation "This amazing book can free all working people to make money doing what they truly love!" —Dr. Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor and Zero Limits "I know O'Bryan as a friend and colleague. He has painstakingly put together a book, with no frills or fanfare, that straight-up shares his hard-won wisdom. May I urge you to get it and read it? Not only will you enjoy it-but once you act on what you learn, you can profit mightily as well. Why? Because what's in this book lets you stop making the victim's compromise on a daily basis-and start doing the victory dance, whenever you want!" —David Garfinkel, author of Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich "O'Bryan lives the portable empire, running his business from a laptop with a cigar and a glass of fine wine. There is no one better to be your guide as you create your own, because he's laid out every step for you in his inspiring and easy-to-read book. There is no need to be chained to a desk or locked in a cubicle, and your business can take you far beyond your kitchen table with the blueprint O'Bryan shares from his own successful journey." —Craig Perrine, www.maverickmarketer.com "Freedom-O'Bryan's new book makes you understand exactly how to obtain it and create the lifestyle of your dreams. Anyone who can go from being a dead-broke musician living in a mobile home to generating six figures in a single month is worth reading." —Bill Hibbler, coauthor of Meet and Grow Rich

Back in print for the first time this era is David Berman s Actual Air. Released in paperback in 1999 by the now-defunct Open City and praised everywhere in the then-ascendant print press industry, David Berman s first (and only) book of poetry is a journey though shared and unreliable memory. Features of the second edition are: new larger dimensions and enlarged typeface, new dustjacket artwork variant, deluxe cloth boards, and updated full-colour endpapers.

From the internationally bestselling creator of Wreck This Journal, an interactive guide for exploring and documenting the art and science of everyday life. Artists and scientists analyze the world around them in surprisingly similar ways, by observing, collecting, documenting, analyzing, and comparing. In this captivating guided journal, readers are encouraged to explore their world as both artists and scientists. The mission Smith proposes? To document and observe the world around you as if you’ve never seen it before. Take notes. Collect things you find on your travels. Document findings. Notice patterns. Copy. Trace. Focus on one thing at a time. Record what you are drawn to. Through this series of beautifully hand-illustrated interactive prompts, readers will enjoy exploring and discovering the world in ways they never even imagined.

In addition to being an uncompromising defender of liberty, esteemed diplomat, and successor to George Washington, John Adams was a passionate and prolific writer. Adams biographer John Patrick Diggins gathers an impressive variety of his works in this compact, original volume, including parts of his diary and autobiography, and selections from his rich correspondence with this wife, Abigail, Thomas Jefferson, and others. The Portable John Adams also features his most important political works: “A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law,” “Thoughts on Government,” “A Defense of Constitutions,” “Novanglus,” and “Discources in Davila.” There is no finer introduction to the protean genius of this seminal American philosopher. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Something is off within Peter Traxler. Born and raised in Mississippi in the last quarter of the 20th century, he is sick with nostalgia at 30 for his upper-middle class upbringing. The stories begin with his sexual initiation in a cotton field and follow him and three close friends as they make their blind way through their 20s, as Peter's father dies, his friends establish stable adult versions of themselves, and Peter carries himself from one location to another, trying to locate life as a man. The Portable Son is a collection of linked short stories in the tradition of early Updike, the Michigan-era Hemingway, and Stuart Dybek-stories of sensitive boys bumbling between friends and women. Here the milieu is the contemporary South-but not the South of degenerate freaks and cartoonish rednecks, but rather the polite, well-behaved South, the South of relentless good manners, the South of Polo shirts and thank you notes, the South that no one else writes about.

This book explores the various ways in which individuals use music and culture to understand and respond to changes in their natural and built environments. Drawing on over 15 years of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and participant observation, the author develops the thesis that the relationships, networks, and intimate forms of social interaction in the “portable” community cultivated at bluegrass festival events are significant cultural formations that shape participants’ relationships to their localities. With specific attention to the ways in which the strength of these relationships are translated into meaningful sites of community identity, place, and action following devastating local floods that destroyed homes and businesses, displacing residents for years, The Portable Community: Place and Displacement in Bluegrass Festival Life sheds light on the strength of such communities when tested and under external threat. A study of the central role of arts and music in grappling with social and environmental change, including their role in facilitating disaster relief and recovery, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in symbolic interactionism, the sociology of music, culture, and the sociology of disaster.