House Parties Research Articles

Max Finder Mystery Collected Casebook by C. Battle and R. Pérez

Battle, Craig and Ramón Pérez. Max Finder Mystery Collected Casebook, Vol. 6, 2012. Toronto: Owlkids Books. Series created by Liam O’Donnell. Print. Max Finder comics will be familiar to readers of OWL magazine, where the comic strip has been a regular feature. The strip, originally created by Liam O’Donnell, is anthologized in the series Max Finder Mystery: Collected Casebook. The sixth volume in this series features the work of writer, Craig Battle and illustrator, Rámon Pérez, and includes ten illustrated stories, two textual stories, tips for holding a Max Finder mystery party and advice for teachers. Each strip sets up a perplexing mystery that youngster Max Finder and his friends unravel with keen observations and intricate deductions. Readers must study the details in the story and illustrations in order to match wits with the sleuths. It’s a bit like Encyclopedia Brown meets Where’s Waldo. The puzzles are not easy to figure out, and it takes discipline not to flip ahead to the answer. The dedicated reader, though, learns to exercise powers of careful reading (and seeing) not normally required for tweets and texts. The stories feature: a diverse cast of heroes and villains that seems designed to appeal to girls and boys; memorable situations (e.g., two competing house parties on the same night); and elements of contemporary culture (e.g., gaming tournaments). Readers are led to consider motive and opportunity, and look for logical inconsistencies. The collection is a convenient format for Max Finder fans who really want to dig in and flex their brains. It could also be an introduction to OWL magazine for some. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: John HuckJohn Huck is a Metadata and Cataloguing Librarian at the University of Alberta. He holds an undergraduate degree in English literature and maintains a special interest in the spoken word. He is also a classical musician and has sung semi-professionally for many years.

Energy Drinks: What Teenagers (and Their Doctors) Should Know

1. Kwabena L. Blankson, MD* 2. Amy M. Thompson, DO† 3. Dale M. Ahrendt, MD‡ 4. Vijayalakshmy Patrick, MD§ 1. *Maj, US Air Force, Adolescent Medicine, Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, VA. 2. †Maj, US Army, Adolescent Medicine Fellow, San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium (SAUSHEC), San Antonio, TX. 3. ‡Lt Col, US Air Force, Program Director, Adolescent Medicine, Fellowship, SAUSHEC, San Antonio, TX. 4. §Psychiatrist, Brooke Army Medical Center Associate Professor, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX. Hundreds of different energy drinks are available and are marketed to adolescents, carrying the potential for substance abuse that involves caffeine and alcohol. Clinicians must be educated to deal with their patients’ use of these products. After reading this article, readers should be able to: 1. Understand the size and scope of the energy drink market and recognize common energy drink brands. 2. Know that adolescents are high consumers of energy drinks and use them as performance enhancers. 3. Know the contents of energy drinks and their adverse effects and safety concerns. 4. Know that energy drinks can be a cause of tachycardia, hypertension, obesity, and other medical problems in adolescents. 5. Know the dangers of mixing energy drinks with alcohol. 6. Understand the relationship between caffeine tolerance/dependence and alcohol tolerance/dependence. 7. Understand the importance of screening teenagers for energy drink use in the office setting and offering appropriate counseling. Energy drinks are caffeinated beverages advertised as boosting the immune system, enhancing performance, and creating a “buzz” or a “high.” Some of these drinks contain alcohol, and sometimes consumers mix them with alcoholic beverages. This article reviews current information about the content, benefits, and risks of the use of these energy drinks by adolescents. Adolescents are no strangers to energy drinks, and over the past 2 years, media reports have heightened the awareness of doctors, parents, and lawmakers. In 2010, nine university students in Washington State were hospitalized and one almost died; their illness was attributed to a fruit-flavored, caffeinated alcoholic drink. A month earlier, on a college campus in New Jersey, 23 students were hospitalized after becoming intoxicated, again reportedly after drinking the same …

In Memoriam, Daniel S. Lev, 1933–2006

In Memoriam, Daniel S. Lev, 1933–2006 Sebastiaan Pompe (bio) Dan S. Lev passed away five years ago. He left a gaping hole that is impossible to fill. Those close to him, and there were many, miss his friendship, advice, and trust. His knowledge, experience, and authority are sorely missed in the academic community, legal institutions and professions, and civil society in Indonesia. We will not find someone who can speak as clearly and forcefully, with as much historical perspective and authority, on legal–political issues in Indonesia. Most of all, we miss his integrity. The real significance of his person, the prism through which all else acquired that unique quality, is that Dan refused to distinguish between his academic and political engagement. He was devoid of petty self-interest, and it was through his actions that he demonstrated his unique value. Dan was born in a working family that lived on the rough side of town, a source of quiet pride. Youngstown, Ohio, was, for a time, the most corrupt and criminal city of the United States, as Dan would cheerfully recall. Perhaps it was this background that gave Dan a soft spot for the right kind of rascals with whom he could get along famously, as well as a deep dislike for sly, manipulative characters. He would tell stories about city corruption and how Irish, Italian, and Jewish gangs would fight it out on the streets of Youngstown during his youth. He did some boxing himself in his day, even if it is not fully clear how he applied that skill outside the ring. While stocky and agile, he never came across as a very physical man. His parents had escaped the misery of the Pale and the vicious discrimination of Europe. When a young adolescent, his mother, all by herself, had walked from the depths of Russia to the coast and worked her way across to the United States. Dan never said much about it, for after all, “every second family in the US has a similar family background,” as Arlene, his wife, would comment—her own grandfather had been held in bondage-like conditions in Eastern Europe, escaped, and traveled the same route when a boy. Perhaps like most immigrants, Dan’s parents were not much given to looking back. Even so, a young girl walking to the end of the earth in search of an ideal, against the backdrop of that looming disaster, remains a glorious image. Dan’s recollections of his Youngstown days were pretty down to earth. He would comment that one of the traditions that his mother had taken from the old continent included very poor cooking—”shoving a chicken in the oven until it burned.” This perhaps explains why Dan loved good food, yet would also eat almost anything uncomplainingly, even my own cooking. Dan was a weak and sickly child, and recalled not being given a name as a toddler to deter the evil eye (his parents called him “the boy,” which must have been confusing in a family of five boys, until Dan began to notice and asked them his true name), and at one point he found lucky coins [End Page 197] sown in his pillow cover. He learned about kosher only when he was thrown out for eating a hearty ham sandwich in a Youngstown synagogue, where he did a carpentry job with his father. You fool, his father said with a grin when he found him on his backside in the street, and told him about kosher rules. They never stuck—decades later one of Dan’s great joys when visiting Ong Hok Ham’s famous house parties, besides the good company and the good whiskey, was the traditional suckling pig. He was a carpenter’s son, the youngest of five brothers. He loved his father, who barely ever spoke a harsh word to him, and Dan named his son after his father. It was a bustling household, with a fair bit of competition among the boys, who were taught early on to stand on their own feet. The boys turned out different in many ways. Some stuck with the world of the father, of wood...

Table of Contents

Abstract Ethical conundrum: Execs serve on each other's boards From The Board Doctor Ease board into budget season Fair warning: IRS will come down hard on excess benefit transactions Consider a CEO's roundtable for your community Include these resources in your orientation packet Resource Guide to Interacting with Board Members Try this with the board member who won't fundraise Policy: Board Member Authority Create major donors through board‐hosted house parties Tips From The Trenches Visit Board & Administrator on Facebook Help your board feel great about the person they hired Ten tested ideas for board member recognition Engage board members with these tips Plan your role in the audit

Measuring Impact: The Importance of Evaluation for Documentary Film Campaigns

ABSTRACT Most people would agree that films can significantly impact individual attitudes and cultural narratives, but little research has sought to empirically measure these impacts. It is becoming increasingly important for documentary (and other issue-based) films to justify costs by providing data on the social “return on investment”, but care must be taken to ensure that both the questions asked and the methods used to answer them are valid and respectful. This paper introduces an emerging research agenda for the study of documentary film impacts, discussing both why such evaluation is important and key issues relevant to assessing impact. Author Keywords Film, Impact, Evaluation, Social Change INTRODUCTION Documentary film has grown significantly in the past decade, with high profile films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Supersize Me, and An Inconvenient Truth garnering increased attention both at the box office and in the news media. In addition, the rising prominence of web-based media has provided new opportunities for documentary to create social impact. Films are now typically released with websites, Facebook pages, twitter feeds, and web videos to increase both reach and impact. This combination of technology and broader audience appeal has given rise to a current landscape in which documentary films are imbedded within coordinated multi-media campaigns. New media have not only opened up new avenues for communicating with audiences, they have also created new opportunities for data collection and analysis of film impacts. A recent report by McKinsey and Company highlighted this potential, introducing and discussing the implications of increasing consumer information being recorded on the Internet as well as through networked sensors in the physical world. As they found: "Big data—large pools of data that can be captured, communicated, aggregated, stored, and analyzed—is now part of every sector and function of the global economy" (Manyika et al. iv). This data can be mined to learn a great deal about both individual and cultural response to documentary films and the issues they represent. Although film has a rich history in humanities research, this new set of tools enables an empirical approach grounded in the social sciences. However, several researchers across disciplines have noted that limited investigation has been conducted in this area. Although there has always been an emphasis on social impact in film and many filmmakers and scholars have made legitimate (and possibly illegitimate) claims of impact, few have attempted to empirically justify these claims. Over fifteen years ago, noted film scholar Brian Winston commented that "the underlying assumption of most social documentaries—that they shall act as agents of reform and change—is almost never demonstrated" (236). A decade later, Political Scientist David Whiteman repeated this

Life of the Party

In this essay, Regine Basha examines how the Iraqi-Jewish community in Los Angeles builds and consolidates cultural ties by throwing late-night musical house parties, called Chagli, and exchanging recordings of them.

Where I Belong (review)

Reviewed by: Where I Belong Karen Coats Heasley, Gwendolyn. Where I Belong. HarperTeen, 2011. 291p. Paper ed. ISBN 978-0-06-197884-5 $8.99 Ad Gr. 7–10. With their investment-banker father laid off and the family’s savings wiped out in a Ponzi scheme, Corrinne and her younger brother, Tripp, are sent to Broken Spoke, Texas, to live with their maternal grandparents while their dad goes to work in Dubai and their mom sells their New York apartment. Corrinne is not at all thrilled to give up her lifestyle of dressage and dieting in exchange for cowboy hats and carbohydrates, but she reluctantly learns the ways of the recessionista, trading thousand-dollar dresses at Barney’s for $24.99 versions at no-name department stores, workouts at the gym for shoveling manure at a local stable, and house parties [End Page 374] with fruity cocktails for field parties with keg beer. She doesn’t transition with good grace, but the locals forgive her snotty attitude for reasons of their own—sweet, affable Kitsy wants to move to New York herself one day, emo rocker Rider wants access to Corrinne’s music-industry connections, and laid-back good guy Bubby just likes her as much as his dad once liked her mom. Corrinne’s resilience rings true, especially when she applies her Manhattan party-planner and charity-gala skill sets to taking the profile of the local rodeo up a notch, but her total personality makeover, where she recognizes the superficiality of her New York friendships, drives a stick-shift pickup with more excitement than irony, and learns to value the simple things like pancakes and late-night Sonic runs, is a little too quick for credibility, especially as Heasley has taken pains to establish the depth of Corrinne’s immersion in her Gossip Girl lifestyle. However, the rich city girl adapting to poor small-town life has as perennial an interest factor as transitions in the opposite direction, so those who are recessionistas themselves as well as those who live the Broken Spoke way in good times and bad will find characters to relate to here. Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

GHB and synthetic cathinones: clinical effects and potential consequences

Designer drugs belong to a group of legally or illegally produced substances that are structurally and pharmacologically very similar to illicit drugs. In the past, designer drugs were often used during all-night dance parties, but they are now consumed in multiple settings from college bars to parks to private house parties. Most of these club drugs can be bought on legal websites and home-delivered for private parties. Recently, legal highs have once again become a burning media issue across the world. Our review will focus on GHB and synthetic cathinones. Literature searches were conducted for the period from 1975 to July 2010 using PubMed, EMBASE, PsycInfo, Internet underground and governmental websites using the following keywords alone or in combination: designer drugs, club drugs, party drugs, GHB, synthetic cathinones, mephedrone, methylone, flephedrone, MDAI, and MDVP. Available epidemiological, neurobiological, and clinical data for each compound are described. There is evidence that negative health and social consequences may occur in recreational and chronic users. The addictive potential of designer drugs is not weak. Non-fatal overdoses and deaths related to GHB/GBL or synthetic cathinones have been reported. Clinicians must be careful with GBL or synthetic cathinones, which are being sold and used as substitutes for GHB and MDMA, respectively. Interventions for drug prevention and harm reduction in response to the use of these drugs should be implemented on the Internet and in recreational settings. Prevention, Information, Action, and Treatment are the main goals that must be addressed for this new potentially addictive problem.

The Healthy Connections Project: A Community-Based Participatory Research Project Involving Women at Risk for Diabetes and Hypertension

The Healthy Connections (HC) project was a community health worker (CHW) intervention that built upon existing social networks to encourage African American and Latina women to obtain screening for type 2 diabetes and hypertension. This community-based participatory research (CBPR) project involved identifying and training CHWs, known as HC Advocates (HCAs). The HCAs provided screening through House Parties and shared health information and practical support with members of their social networks and broader networks of individuals. Data collection methods included project documentation, participant observation, group interviews, closed-ended surveys, and written examinations to ensure HCAs had the required knowledge and skills to perform their roles. Data collection and analysis incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methods, and used a formative approach that integrated results from key aspects of the project into ongoing decision-making and project activities. Eight community residents completed training and the required exams to become HCAs. Together, they conducted 124 House Parties, screened 1,428 individuals for high blood pressure and glucose levels, and shared health information with those individuals as well as 218 additional members of HCAs informal social networks. Of those who attended the House Parties, 93% were African American, 4% Latina, 2% non-Hispanics whites, and 1% other racial and ethnic groups. The HC project demonstrated the potential for using a CBPR approach to develop, implement, and evaluate a CHW intervention designed to reach African American and Latina women at high risk for hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Participation from relevant communities in the design of the intervention and evaluation, with particular attention to recruitment and retention of representatives from communities who face challenges accessing health care, can help to increase involvement of community residents in screening and educational programs aimed at addressing disparities in type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

The Healthy Connections Project: A Community-Based Participatory Research Project Involving Women at Risk for Diabetes and Hypertension

Background: The Healthy Connections (HC) project was a community health worker (CHW) intervention that built upon existing social networks to encourage African American and Latina women to obtain screening for type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Objectives: This community-based participatory research (CBPR) project involved identifying and training CHWs, known as HC Advocates (HCAs). The HCAs provided screening through House Parties and shared health information and practical support with members of their social networks and broader networks of individuals. Methods: Data collection methods included project documentation, participant observation, group interviews, closedended surveys, and written examinations to ensure HCAs had the required knowledge and skills to perform their roles. Data collection and analysis incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methods, and used a formative approach that integrated results from key aspects of the project into ongoing decision-making and project activities. Results: Eight community residents completed training and the required exams to become HCAs. Together, they conducted 124 House Parties, screened 1,428 individuals for high blood pressure and glucose levels, and shared health information with those individuals as well as 218 additional members of HCAs informal social networks. Of those who attended the House Parties, 93% were African American, 4% Latina, 2% non-Hispanics whites, and 1% other racial and ethnic groups. Conclusion: The HC project demonstrated the potential for using a CBPR approach to develop, implement, and evaluate a CHW intervention designed to reach African American and Latina women at high risk for hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Participation from relevant communities in the design of the intervention and evaluation, with particular attention to recruitment and retention of representatives from communities who face challenges accessing health care, can help to increase involvement of community residents in screening and educational programs aimed at addressing disparities in type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

Experience of Health-Related Problems during House Parties in the Netherlands: Nine Years of Experience and Three Million Visitors

The objective of this study was to report on a nine years of experience of providing medical support during house parties (raves) in the Netherlands, where they can be organized legally. This was a prospective, observational study of self-referred patients from 1997 to 2005. During raves, first aid stations are staffed with specifically trained medical and paramedical personnel. Self-referred patients were diagnosed, treated, and recorded using standardized methods. During a nine-year period with 219 raves occurred, involving approximately three million participants, 23,581 patients visited the first aid stations. The medical usage rate (MUR) varied from 59-170 patients per 10,000 rave participants. The mean age increased from 1997 to 2005 from 18.7 +/- 2.7 to 23.3 +/- 5.7 years. The mean stay at the first aid station was 18 +/- 46 minutes. Most health problems were mild. Fifteen cases of severe incidents were observed with one death. Unique data from the Netherlands demonstrate a low number of serious, health-related, short-term problems during raves.

Evidence to suggest that nightclubs function as human sexual display grounds

Summary Young, sexually mature humans Homo sapiens sapiens of both sexes commonly congregate into particular but arbitrary physical locations and dance. These may be areas of traditional use, such as nightclubs, discotheques or dance-halls or areas that are temporarily commissioned for the same purpose such as at house parties or rock festivals etc. This type of behaviour is seen in a variety of animals although there are no apparent attempts to monopolize particular areas within these locations as is often seen in species that lek. The present studies were conducted in order to investigate this phenomenon in a commercial nightclub environment. Data revealed that more than 80% of people entering the nightclub did so without a partner and so were potentially sexually available. There was also an approx. 50% increase in the number of couples leaving the nightclub as compared to those entering it seen on each occasion this was measured, indicating that these congregations are for sexual purposes. Within the nightclub itself more than 80% of bouts of mixed sex dancing were initiated by a male approaching a female, demonstrating that males are stimulated to approach females rather than vice versa. In consequence, females are placed in competition with each other to attract these approaches. Various female display tactics were measured and these showed that whilst only 20% of females wore tight fitting clothing that revealed more than 40% of their flesh/50% of their breast area and danced in a sexually suggestive manner, these attracted close to half (49%) of all male approaches seen. These data reveal the effectiveness of clothing and dance displays in attracting male attention and strongly indicate that nightclubs are human display grounds, organised around females competing for the attention of males. Females with the most successful displays gain the advantage of being able to choose from amongst a range of males showing interest in them.

Youth (and) Violence

AbstractYouth violence is a major concern. Everyday the news and entertainment media feeds the public a fresh supply of school shootings, stabbings at house parties and random gun violence involving young people. These narratives do not just entertain, they fundamentally alter our existence. But, should they? Are our fears warranted? This essay considers how youth violence shapes our ontology, that is, the way we view and interact with our world. Towards this end, I examine the prevalence of violence in North American society. However, before sliding into this discussion, I highlight the nuances involved in asking the question, ‘what is violence’? Next, I ask what is the aetiology or ‘causes’ of violence? This section surveys a variety of experts on the subject including: Freud, sociologists, criminologists and philosophers. I conclude by suggesting that violence is irreverent and to begin an exegesis requires that we, all of us, avow all life.

Dame Sybil Von Thorndyke and the Queen's Birthday Balls

Dame Sybil is one of Brisbane's most famous drag personas. In 1962 Dame Sybil was one of the founders of Brisbane's annual Queen's Birthday Ball, the longest continuously running annual gay celebration in the world. The balls have become extravagant dance parties, far removed from their humble origins in a house at Mt Tamborine. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, gays and lesbians were a persecuted minority who held private house parties and preferred to stay out of sight. The groundbreaking Queen's Birthday Balls were an important part of the cultural and political ‘coming out’ of the modern queer community. It is difficult to appreciate the importance of the balls as ever more popular meeting places where Brisbane's gay and straight worlds mingled. Now the dance parties are attended by thousands of mainly young people, and rigid gender and sexual boundaries have become less obvious. The venues have changed over the years, moving through various nightclubs in Fortitude Valley and most recently to the Ekka pavilions. They are replete with great stage performances and wonderful costumes. With Dame Sybil and some of the original partygoers in attendance, the Queen's Birthay Balls remain a special marker of Brisbane's not-so-accepting past and the resilience of the city's gay subculture.

The Chemnitzer Concertina: A History and an Accolade (review)

Reviewed by: The Chemnitzer Concertina: A History and an Accolade James P. Leary The Chemnitzer Concertina: A History and an Accolade. By Lavern J. Rippley. Northfield, MN: St. Olaf College Press. 2006. The Chemnitzer concertina, sometimes dubbed the "German concertina" in America's Midwest, is a boxy bellows and reed instrument less well known than such "squeezebox" cousins as the English concertina, the button accordion, the piano accordion, and that mainstay of Argentinian tango music, the bandonion. Invented in the Saxon city of Chemnitzer in 1834, and manufactured thereabouts through the mid-1960s, the concertina was brought to Chicago by promoters and performers in 1893 where it flourished, eventually captivating musicians on either side of Lake Michigan and, especially, throughout the hinterlands of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Ever a working class instrument with strong ethnic associations, the Chemnitzer concertina has been embraced in the new world by Saxon, German Bohemian (Sudeten German), Czech, and Polish immigrants and their offspring. Nowadays all but forgotten in the land of its invention, the instrument continues to be made by skilled craftsmen in small Midwestern shops. And thanks to several influential bandleaders—particularly Chicago's Walter "L'il Wally" Jagiello and Hans "Whoopee John" Wilfahrt of New Ulm, Minnesota—the concertina is a mainstay of the German American or "Dutchman" and the Chicago Polish "Honky" and "Dyno" polka sounds. Drawing productively on a pair of his prior books—The Whoopee John Wilfahrt Dance Band (1992) and German Bohemians, The Quiet Immigrants (1995)—Rippley's well-researched Chemnitzer study traces the instrument from its German origins to its establishment in the American Midwest, considers its diffusion throughout the region by zealous promoters and distributors, profiles two generations of enormously influential concertina makers and performers (Minnesotans Christy Hengel of New Ulm and Jerry Minar of New Prague), offers a primer on "How the Concertina is Played," and sketches the experiences of performers amidst house parties, dance halls, and festivals, and on record, radio, and television. Amassing hard-won evidence from field research with concertina players and makers in Germany and America, Rippley likewise constructs the instrument's story from business records, correspondence, promotional fliers, trade journals, and photographs—hundreds of them! Nearly every page is enriched with several images, most accompanied by succinct remarks detailing some phase of the instrument's history or profiling one of its players. In addition, a trio of appendices offers portraits of 201 inductees to the Concertina Hall of Fame, album covers for 141 concertina-driven polka bands, and color plates of 48 concertina models extending from the 1830s to the early 21st century. Hence The Chemnitzer Concertina succeeds as both A History and a richly illustrated encyclopedia. Rippley's book is also, as he puts it, An Accolade. His warm relationship with scores of concertina players is evident throughout. Their personal collections and collective memories constitute the critical "archive" upon which the book is based, and they will likely figure as its primary market. Yet this book belongs in every university library and on the shelf of every scholar interested in the profound relationship between musical instruments and ethnic identities in such multi-cultural societies as America's. We have only a few such studies—on the Ojibwe dance drum, the Cajun accordion, the African American banjo—and so we welcome Rippley's illumination of The Chemnitzer Concertina. [End Page 91] James P. Leary University of Wisconsin, Madison Copyright © 2008 Mid-America American Studies Association

KATHLEEN DROWNE. Spirits of Defiance: National Prohibition and Jazz Age Literature, 1920-1933. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 2005. Pp. xii, 189. Cloth $59.95, paper $21.95, CD $9.95

Historians will find much that is enlightening and entertaining in Kathleen Drowne's book. Drawing on Prohibition-era fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, and a host of others, Drowne compares the authors' portrayals of drink culture to those that appeared in newspapers, magazines, and scholarly analyses during and after the “dry decade” (1920–1933). “Collectively,” she argues, “the works of fiction addressed in this book offer a realistic, historically accurate picture of how different kinds of Americans responded to the legal, social, and cultural changes wrought by the passage of National Prohibition” (p. 5). Historians may be more skeptical about the reliability of such literary evidence than Drowne, whose training is in literary, not historical, analysis. Nevertheless, her study provides a gold mine of contemporary references to Jazz Age free spirits who gleefully drank spirits in open defiance of the Eighteenth Amendment. Drowne focuses on what she terms the “culture of National Prohibition” (p. 13), in which a sense of rebellious playfulness found expression in the period's language, music, movies, and literature. She devotes chapters to the principal actors and settings of this national rebellion, including liquor providers, youthful consumers, drinking establishments, and house parties. The chapter on drinking in private homes is particularly informative. In the chapter's first section, “Cocktail Parties,” Drowne examines fictional portrayals of upper and middle-class drinkers, nicely complementing Catherine Gilbert Murdock's study, Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870 to 1920 (1998). Even more intriguing are the sections featuring Harlem Renaissance writers such as Wallace Thurman and Langston Hughes on “Rent Parties,” and Claude McKay and Zora Neale Hurston on “Good-Time Flats.” Drowne selects vivid passages from their earthy accounts of Harlem's flamboyant social scene and brings to light many overlooked aspects of African American drink culture in the 1920s.

Louisiana Hayride: Radio and Roots Music Along the Red River (review)

Louisiana Hayride: Radio and Roots Music Along Red River. By Tracey E. W. Laird. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. (American Musicspheres Series.) [x, 208 p. ISBN 0-19-516751-1. $29.95.] Maps, photos, bibliography, discography, filmography, index. With this book, Tracey E. W. Laird returns to her hometown of Shreveport to examine forces that shaped distinctive culture and music of northwest Louisiana and created one of most significant radio barn dance shows in American music history, Louisiana Hayride. Using Hayride and its host radio station KWKH as centerpiece, Laird questions how intersecting forces of geography, history, demography, and economics shaped character of region and set stage for this unique radio program of singular influence. Shreveport's history of musical dynamism between blacks and whites, with relatively equal numbers of each living in close proximity, results in inevitable musical exchange. This blurred racial boundary points to central issue of book: that neat and tidy black-and-white musical categories handed down through commercial and academic discourse are a distorted exaggeration of realities of musical life in early part of century. Laird's detailed focus on one influential locale offers strong support for a reassessment while at same time providing a detailed description of how one corner of American music impacted whole. The book proceeds in three major sections, each given two chapters. Section 1 presents a historical background of area focusing on founding of Shreveport as a commercial river in 1830s. The area is portrayed as a frontier region caught between two identities: the burgeoning commercial center and lawless hedonic port (p. 23). Musical life along waterway of Red River straddles these identities with a wide variety of contexts and styles including showboats, brass bands, tent shows, house parties, and entertainment venues amidst legalized prostitution of Fannin Street district. Laird uses genre-crossing repertoire and style of Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter), who lived and worked around Fannin Street, to illuminate her portrait. His career attests to a broad range of musical experiences, most of which predate era of commercial records and his songs fall under a variety of genre headings: ragtime, blues, country ballads, folk songs, children's songs, and Tin Pan Alley. Laird asks: how much did formulaic thinking and myopia of commercial profit shape recorded output of black and white rural musicians alike? How often by late 1920s and early 1930s were artists encouraged to fit their repertoire and performance styles to whichever audience record company wished to target (p. 36)? Although most often historicized as a blues artist, Leadbelly's songs and his performance style fit 1920s-1930s 'country' criteria more completely, pointing to a richer dynamic within southern roots music than artifacts of phonograph records (and many early histories) portray. This musical fluidity across racial and cultural borders emerges from day-to-day realities of life in Shreveport and lays foundation for unique qualities of Hayride. While this first section may be driest and least original part of Laird's book, it is, nonetheless, central to her argument and important for those readers not familiar with early foundations of blues and country music in United States. Though geography is stated to be central to her thesis, Laird concerns herself minimally with issues of space and migration-career moves to Grand Ole Opry notwithstanding. With exception of one large-scale, minimally detailed, map of Red River, there is little in book to give reader a sense of locale or human geography. A map of city of Shreveport (Fannin Street and Bossier City) would have helped in presentation of this early history. …

Party people: Personality and MDMA use of house party visitors

Personality characteristics have been linked to substance use, however research on the association between personality and MDMA use is scarce. This study examined differences on Big Five personality dimensions between a population sample of non-hard drug using Dutch adolescents and young adults ( n = 265), and a sample of young people visiting house parties, including both MDMA- and non-MDMA-users ( n = 541). Results showed that 71% of the party visitors indicated using MDMA. Group differences were found on conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism-emotional stability, but not on resourcefulness-openness to experience. Compared to the non-hard drug using National respondents, MDMA-using party visitors reported higher levels of extraversion and both MDMA and non-MDMA-using partygoers showed less conscientiousness. Non-MDMA-using partygoers reported less agreeableness and emotional stability than National Sample respondents. MDMA-users actually high on the drug at the moment of administration of the questionnaire did not differ from their non-high counterparts on any of the personality dimensions.

Scanning the Satellite Signal in Remote Western Australia

Scanning the Satellite Signal in Remote Western Australia

Disneyfied Sprawl, Blue-Collar Bogeymen, and Bourgeois Jeremiads: The Legacy of Investment in Suburbia

In a turn of events that perhaps only Jean Baudrillard could have foreseen, a video game called The Sims has recently become the number-one best seller of all time based on its unique premise the re-creation of contemporary suburban culture within an interactive computer simulation.1 The Sims offers an eerily familiar portrayal of life in the American suburbs: players enjoy crafting personal lifestyles for their electronic avatars through intense consumerism at virtual malls, completing the mundane household tasks that the game insistently throws before them, and socializing at house parties with their electronic peers. As a representation of suburban life that also reproduces its object, The Sims might be best understood via a contrast with suburban studies, a multidisciplinary academic project that has developed significantly in the last two decades. Rather than produce yet another suburbia-as-text as the game does, the research done in this subfield attempts to render visible the events and relationships that have shaped suburbia's self-production and social construction.2 By examining such diverse sources as blueprints, advertisements, personal narratives, and now video games, critics seek to account for suburbia under its various guises, as an architecture, an economic pattern, a politics or