At first blush, it doesn't seem as though the musical composition technique of sampling should have a history, but it does! Joseph Schloss does an excellent job of explaining the "art of sample-based hip-hop" and placing it in the context of music history. If you want to better understand emerging musical genres, check out Making Beats (Vairo Library ML3531.S35 2004)
Check out this website that is a living history of the planet. 10x10™ ('ten by ten') http://www.tenbyten.org/ "is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life." (About Us from the site).
Dr. Priscilla Clement recommends:
"The Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl has just opened at the Wilma Theater and
will run till Jan. 9. The play is a comedy about the various meanings of a
clean house. Ruhl takes on some tough subjects (including disease and death)
and handles them deftly and with great compassion. It is brilliantly acted by a
cast of experienced Broadway and off-Broadway actors. Ruhl is a young
playwright, and this is only the second production of this particular play.
This is a great opportunity to see a fine production of a play that is likely
to be widely produced.
In answering a reference question, we ran across this interesting Duke University website on the history of advertising http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/. The site describes its scope as follows: "presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University." Assignments at our campus frequently ask students to look at old ads, this may be a useful source for those students.
If your credit card is on your mind this holiday season, you'll want to check out this web site on the Secret History of the Credit Card. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/. It is the companion site to the PBS/NYTimes program on the same topic. Be sure to take the credit card quiz. Suffice it to say the national debt is multi-dimensional!