Book Description
While the movies of Frank Capra once celebrated the triumph of good over evil, George Bailey has given way to Hannibal Lecter, who through raw power and bold creativity lives "beyond good and evil." Professor Hibbs follows the trajectory of evil in American film and television, linking it to the spread of nihilism-a state of spiritual impoverishment and shrunken aspirations to which, both Tocqueville and Nietzsche warned, democracies are especially susceptible. The most recent product of Hollywood's fascination with evil is the comic nihilism of Seinfeld, in which the distinctively American pursuit of happiness is endlessly frustrated by dark forces beyond our understanding or control.
Professor Hibbs probes the themes and artistry of the landmark works of the cinematic quest for evil. A series of grisly films from The Exorcist to Cape Fear and Silence of the Lambs reveals a preoccupation with the power of evil. When evil ceases to terrify, it becomes banal, producing a comic view of the meaninglessness of life (Forrest Gump, Natural Born Killers, Titanic, The Simpsons). Seinfeld and Trainspotting represent nihilism's last stage, but not the last word, and Professor Hibbs considers how classical ideals-partially recovered in recent comedy (Pulp Fiction) and film noir (L.A. Confidential, Seven)-might point the way out of nihilism.
Customer Reviews:
Q: What's on TV tonight? A: Nothing........2005-10-06
Thomas Hibbs reveals a new dimension to American popular culture with his book, Shows About Nothing. Many people are not going to know what nihilism is, or who Nietzsche was, but they can quote Seinfeld. Hibbs spends much time expanding this common thread, and examines the philosophical undertones of popular movies like Cape Fear and se7en. By doing so, he demonstrates that what the themes these movies teach us are either dangerously close to, and sometimes outright, nihilistic.
Before this book, I thought of nihilism as full-blown anarchy, and modern American society as only 'halfway down the road' to Nietzsche. Hibbs provides a more refined explanation of what nihilism is, and it is not necessarily the nightmarish struggle between 'ubermensch' one imagines. Sometimes nihilism can be quite pleasant, since you are 'beyond their good and evil' and see all morality as mere constructs of man. The flight from responsibility is one possible reason nihilism hangs around - human nature, another - and perhaps is why some dedicate their lives to 'deconstructing' our civilization to a collection of artifices. But there is great danger in this newly acquired freedom. As Hibbs once said in a speech, nihilism brings you both Seinfeld and Columbine.
It seems to me that nihilism, existentialism and deconstructionists are all sides of the same triangle. Many people blow off these schools of thought, because 'who cares what's in some book?' Well, Marxism also started out in book form, and ultimately grew to an opponent in the nuclear stalemate of MAD. Therefore, even bad ideas have power if professors or governments choose to endorse them. We spent thousands of years crawling out of the jungle; nihilism returns us there, and to this I feel there are only two logical ends. One is looking to a lonely sky and merely blinking at what was once God's kingdom to your forefathers. The other ends on your knees, bloodied, looking up the barrel of a gun.
Pretty good.......2005-09-02
If you have any knowledge of modern philosophy you will probably find this book an engaging application of Nietzsche in pop culture. Otherwise you may have some trouble getting into it. I liked it well enough but I have read better (Neil Postman and Roger Scruton come to mind). The book will become dated as the examples used pass away into the forgotten archives of memory. But for now it does the trick.
I agree with the theory that influential philosophy (such as Nietzsche) eventually trickles down from its lofty intellectual heights to the lowest levels of society. From the episodes of popular film and TV the author teases out the underlying philosophic assumptions our culture has accepted. Some are overt but many operate below our personal radar--we simply take it for granted.
Overall the book was like a very long but very good film criticism. Fun.
An eye-opening expose of our Nihilistic culture.......2001-08-13
Nihilism comes in many forms, a natural result of the democratic liberalism that our culture has enshrined in its desire for individual self-actualization. Such is the assessment of Thomas Hibbs in "Shows About Nothing". In his inimitably prescient perspective, Hibbs sees this reflection of Nietschian thought especially predominant in the kind of entertainment that we watch.
In a particularly rigourous way, we are shown how seemingly disparate films or TV shows exhibit ways that we have approached issues of Good and Evil, ultimately indicating our collective agreement that there is little meaning in either term; instead we are subjected to coincidences and the capricious desires of a dark God who often makes lilfe one great comedy of the absurd. Hibbs shows the link between a movie like Pulp Fiction and Seinfeld, two sides of the same nihilistic coin.
The reader is left wondering where we will go next, once evil is merely and banal as goodness, and God is relegated to a being conspiring to make us unhappy and evil is always just around the corner.
At times Hibbs writes in a way that does not make his point clear. It is not always obvious if he approves of the film or movie he is discussing; on the other hand, perhaps his very ambiguity is indicative of the very problem we face.
What is remarkable is that Hibbs cannot contain his clearly Christian perspective. It is refreshing to see a Christian write a thoroughly engaging and scholarly analysis of where our culture is at. With the death of God comes comic meaninglessness and quests for meanings that ultimately have no end. He convinces us that we may indeed be Nietsche's last men.
A philosophical perspective on movies & TV.......2000-02-24
Dr. Hibbs writes how Seinfeld and Trainspotting have anesthetized their viewers to the fundamental concepts of good and evil. Although most people understand and welcome the change, most viewers seem unaware how their beliefs have changed over time. Unfortunately, Dr. Hibbs spends few pages explaining how to escape the pervasive nihilism of Seinfeld. Albeit, Seinfeld is raucously funny Dr. Hibbs admits.
Much Ado About "Nothing".......2000-02-02
This is a must read. Dr. Hibbs' message may not be what many people want to hear but it is something we ALL should hear. Without a doubt, the mediums of TV and film have a profound effect on Americans despite what some may say, and that thought alone is downright scary. For thought-provoking analysis, I would encourage you to read this book.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful book.......2007-05-30
This book brings back wonderful memories of my childhood travelling to Missouri to see my grandparents. Great to know these sayings have been preserved!
Remembering old roads.......2006-03-10
A short and decently written account of the Burma Shave phenomenon that had me, as a child from the 1940's, searching along the northwestern two-lane road sides for those pithy and succinct phrases which always ended in "Burma Shave". They never failed to delight and I carried several sayings with me well into adulthood. This book brings back the delight and gives a nicely written history of what it was all about.
Gift to Dad.......2005-07-22
This was purchased as a gift for my Dad and he loves it.
Captivating story of one of advertising's greatest triumphs.......2000-08-05
With the low-brow humor of "whazzzzzup" and high-speed editing of MTV-style ads dominating the landscape, it's almost hard to imagine how memorable the quaint multi-sign Burma-Shave ads were. The combination of clever verse and brilliant exposition -- stretching along the wide-open road until the punch line could be delivered -- is unlike any other ad delivery in history.
Author Frank Rowsome, Jr. tells the story of the campaign's creation and life, and provides a listing of all signs from the first in1927 ("Shave the modern way / No Brush / No Lather / No Rub-in / Big Tube 35-c Drug Stores / Burma Shave") through their last in 1963 ("Our Fortune / Is Your / Shaven Face / It's Our Best / Advertising Space / Burma-Shave"). In between is an amazingly clever collection of poems, including contest winners, shorter signs for smaller displays, spin-off tooth powder and lotion jingles, and regional ads.
Great reading for those remembering the signs as well as those who just want to get a smile from some great advertising - one of the USA's most underappreciated art forms.
Best of nostalgia.......1999-03-06
I read this book twenty odd years ago, and I loved it. It brought back such fond childhood memories of my days on the farm in Belsano, PA, where a set of the signs stood soldier-like in the lower field of my grandad's farm. I heard from the grown-ups that someone paid him to put them there, and money was scarce in those days.
I was always intrigued by those signs, so when I saw the book advertised for the first time, it was a must-have for me. I cherished owning a complete set of the verses, most of which I'd never seen.
The book is well-written in that it has a lot of historical fact, loads of humor, and the story-telling holds your interest to the last page. One of those "can't put it down" types.
Somewhere in my travels, I've lost my copy and have mourned it's loss. Thanks to Internet, I will once again have my own cherished copy of "Verse by the Side of the Road."
Book Description
For thirty years, the series of six signs posted along roadways were an icon of American life. The little jingles that touted a brushless shaving cream entertained travelers across the country. Many of us who lived during those thirty years could recite favorite jingles by rote. Then super highways and the hectic pace of modern life made them obsolete. Still, for those of us older than thirty-five, Burma-Shave signs are part of our history and treasured childhood memories.
Customer Reviews:
so many smiles.......2006-11-05
Young and old have sat around together, reading and smiling the messages by turns.
Great thing to do among friends and strangers. People merrily identify with the content.
Gift to Dad.......2005-07-22
This was purchased as a gift for my Dad and he loves it.
Customer Reviews:
iKNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT........2001-10-20
I ONCE HEARD A SONG BY CHUCK BERRY HE SANG A SONG ABOUT A CHOCOLATE BROWN CADDILAC WELL INEVER HAVESEEN A CHOCOLATE BROWNCADILLAC BUT I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HE MEANS WWHEN HE SINGSIT.WHEN KATROVASWRITES IN HIS UNIQUEWAYHE CARRIESUS TO PLACESTHAT ARE FOREIGN TO US BUT IN A WAY THAT WE KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT.IT MAKES YOU FEEL AS IF HE IS SHAREING A DIRTY LITTLE SECRET WITH A FREIND. YOU WANT TO HERE MORE.
Book Description
The Burma-Shave craze reached its zenith during the 1950s, with more than 7,000 signs posted across the United States.
To market Burma-Shave, Allen Odell, an advertising wordsmith, devised the concept of sequential signs to sell his shaving cream. Typically, six signs were erected, with each of the first five containing a line of verse, and the sixth trumpeting the brand name.
Burma-Shave signs appeared in every state except Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. The creative people at Burma-Shave, as well as customers who sent in jingles of their own, ultimately created more than 600 of the rhymes.
In the world of advertising, Burma-Shave stood as unique, creating signs that became a part of the popular culture.
Although the Burma-Shave company is no more, these fun little rhymes hold great nostalgic value for those of us who fondly remember them from our Sunday drives.
Customer Reviews:
Great for Non-Counting Beginners.......2003-02-04
This book is primarily for non-counting beginners who want to improve their basic strategy. Although there is no counting, the strategies provided are pretty good. There are some statistics for the different approaches, but not an abundance of support. It is basically a simple intro guide with some good hands-on information like how the dealing takes place, how to handle the IRS, how to play some other variants (which I do not care about), etc.
For both the novice & experienced recreational player.......2003-01-31
Having read dozens of books on the subject of blackjack, I found this one to be exactly what it is intended to be... a guide for anyone who wants to beat the multiple blackjack game. While it is a great primer on the game for anyone who has never been inside of a casino, it can also serve the more experienced player as well. It does not offer any anecdotal accounts of the author's experiences at blackjack. It does not offer card counting strategies at all. If you're an experienced player who's looking to hone your card counting skills, this book is not what you're looking for. But even an experienced player can benefit from all but the book's first chapter which details rules, equipment and blackjack terminology. It is probably the best book I've come across covering basic strategy. It not only shows you the correct basic strategy to use based on the number of decks and house rules, the author explains the "why", making it easier for players of all levels to recall what their correct play should be. It also offers a formula for determining the house advantage on the games that you may face by adding %'s of house advantage rules and deducting player advantage rules. Based on the various house rules, it gives you the variations of basic strategy that the player should employ. Whether you're an experienced player who wants to brush up on your game, a novice that wants to learn what variations of basic strategy to use, or you're simply a beginner who wants to get ready to hit the tables for the first time, this is the book to get.
Book Description
A revised printing for this book will be available in June 2007!
Whats New in the Third Edition, Revised Printing
The same great book gets better! The revised printing features all of the original content along with these additional features:
Appendix A (Assemblers, Linkers, and the SPIM Simulator) has been moved from the CD-ROM into the printed book
Corrections and bug fixes
Click here to request a desk copy of the revised printing!
About the Third Edition
In addition to thoroughly updating every aspect of the text to reflect the most current computing technology, the third edition
*Uses standard 32-bit MIPS 32 as the primary teaching ISA.
*Presents the assembler-to-HLL translations in both C and Java.
*Highlights the latest developments in architecture in Real Stuff sections:
+ Intel IA-32
+ Power PC 604
+ Googles PC cluster
+ Pentium P4
+ SPEC CPU2000 benchmark suite for processors
+ SPEC Web99 benchmark for web servers
+ EEMBC benchmark for embedded systems
+ AMD Opteron memory hierarchy
+ AMD vs. 1A-64
New support for distinct course goals
Many of the adopters who have used our book throughout its two editions are refining their courses with a greater hardware or software focus. We have provided new material to support these course goals:
New material to support a Hardware Focus
+Using logic design conventions
+Designing with hardware description languages
+Advanced pipelining
+Designing with FPGAs
+HDL simulators and tutorials
+Xilinx CAD tools
New material to support a Software Focus
+How compilers Work
+How to optimize compilers
+How to implement object oriented languages
+MIPS simulator and tutorial
+History sections on programming languages, compilers, operating systems and databases
Whats New in the Third Edition
New pedagogical features
Understanding Program Performance
-Analyzes key performance issues from the programmers perspective
Check Yourself Questions
-Helps students assess their understanding of key points of a section
Computers In the Real World
-Illustrates the diversity of applications of computing technology beyond traditional desktop and servers
For More Practice
-Provides students with additional problems they can tackle
In More Depth
-Presents new information and challenging exercises for the advanced student
New reference features
Highlighted glossary terms and definitions appear on the book page, as bold-faced entries in the index, and as a separate and searchable reference on the CD.
A complete index of the material in the book and on the CD appears in the printed index and the CD includes a fully searchable version of the same index.
Historical Perspectives and Further Readings have been updated and expanded to include the history of software R&D.
CD-Library provides materials collected from the web which directly support the text.
On the CD
CD-Bars: Full length sections that are introduced in the book and presented on the CD
CD-Appendixes: The entire set of appendixes
CD-Library: Materials collected from the web which directly support the text
CD-Exercises: For More Practice provides exercises and solutions for self-study
In More Depth presents new information and challenging exercises for the advanced or curious student
Glossary: Terms that are defined in the text are collected in this searchable reference
Further Reading: References are organized by the chapter they support
Software: HDL simulators, MIPS simulators, and FPGA design tools
Tutorials: SPIM, Verilog, and VHDL
Additional Support: Processor Models, Labs, Homeworks, Index covering the book and CD contents
Instructor Support
+ Instructor Support is provided in a password-protected site to adopters who request the password from our sales representative
+ Solutions to all the exercises
+ Figures from the book in a number of formats
+ Lecture slides prepared by the authors and other instructors
+ Lecture notes
System Requirements
Operating System
Most of the content on this CD can be used under any operating system that includes an HTML browser and a PDF viewer. This includes Windows 98 or later, Mac OS 9 and OS X, and most Linux and Unix systems. Some contributed software on this CD is operating system specific. See the installation instructions on the Software page for details.
HTML Browser
The navigation framework and some of the content on this CD is delivered in HTML and JavaScript. It is recommended that you install the latest version of your favorite HTML browser to view this CD. The content has been verified under Windows 2000 with the following browsers:
Internet Explorer 6.0, Mozilla 1.6, Netscape 7.1, Opera 7.23. Under Mac OS X with the following browsers: Internet Explorer 5.2.3, Mozilla 1.6 , Netscape 7.1, Safari 1.2. And under Mandrake Linux with the following browser:
Galeon 1.3.8.
The content is designed to be viewed in a browser window that is at least 720 pixels wide. You may find the content does not display well if your display is not set to at least 1024x768 pixel resolution.
PDF Viewer
The CD material includes PDF documents that you can read with a PDF viewer such as Adobe® Acrobat® or Adobe Reader®. Recent versions of Adobe Reader for supported platforms are included on the CD. Visit the Adobe Reader home page for more information.
Browser Plugins
Some of the material on this CD makes use of Flash® animations. To view this material, you will need to have Macromedia® Flash Player installed. You can install the Shockwave® Player (which includes Flash) on Windows and Macintosh from this CD. Visit the Macromedia homepage for more information. Note that recent versions of some browsers, including Internet Explorer, Netscape, and AOL, already incorporate Flash Player.
Some of the material on this CD contains photographic panoramas that can only be viewed with the iseemedia Zoom Viewer browser plugin on Windows and Mac OS 9 platforms. Visit iseemedia's website for download instructions.
For instructor resources click on the grey "companion site" button found on the right side of this page.
This new edition represents a major revision.
New to this edition:
* Entire Text has been updated to reflect new technology
* 70% new exercises.
* Includes a CD loaded with software, projects and exercises to support courses using a number of tools
* A new interior design presents defined terms in the margin for quick reference
* A new feature, "Understanding Program Performance" focuses on performance from the programmer's perspective
* Two sets of exercises and solutions, "For More Practice" and "In More Depth," are included on the CD
* "Check Yourself" questions help students check their understanding of major concepts
* "Computers In the Real World" feature illustrates the diversity of uses for information technology
*More detail below...
Customer Reviews:
Not a very good textbook.......2007-09-17
The examples are cheesy and the author assumes the reader knows more than what the user has to know in a college course at this level. But if you're already knowedgable of this stuff, this can make, probably a descent reference book.
I don't like.......2007-06-27
It's good, but have a lot of errors... so i just don't like.
But it's not a bad book
Disorganized and "uncut".......2007-02-19
I had to purchase this book for a graduate school course. There is a lot of good information here. Unfortunately lengthy examples and tangents muddy it up pretty badly. Also, I think the author(s) could have safely assumed that readers are familiar with programming; maybe that perspective could have grounded and guided the chapter flow a little better.
Looking at any 1 section, the writing is good and the explanations are clear for the most part. The catch is that the book as a whole is a collection of enormous disorganized chapters; chapter 2 is almost 100 pages. This work is dire need of editing and some understanding of its intended audience.
very good but hated the topic.......2007-01-12
goes beyond simple digital logic and into more boring technical details like the true calculation of CPU cycle run time - hated the class and my professor almost failed me - make sure you take the right professor with the college course - very time consuming and not fun at all
Nice book.......2007-01-03
This book is one of the better books that I have used for my courses. Even though the subject taught at hand is not trivial this book makes it a lot simpler. Trust me this book is a lot better than some other books I have seen. 500% better than Digital Design by Mano.
Books:
- Somewhere in Time: The Screenplay
- Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction (Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy)
- Spider-Man Confidential: From Comic Icon to Hollywood Hero
- Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins
- Standing Up
- Star Pilot (DK READERS)
- Starlets: Before They Were Famous
- Swept from the Sea: The Shooting Script (The Shooting Script Series)
- Tattoos, Desire And Violence: Marks of Resistance in Literature, Film And Television
- Ten Years of Terror: British Horror Films of the Seventies
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
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- The Last American Man
- Life Insurance Mathematics, 3rd Edition With Exercises Contributed by Samuel H. Cox
- Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2002-2003 Edition
- PCs For Dummies
- The Stanley Kubrick Archives
- The Kanji Dictionary
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- Property and Values: Alternatives To Public And Private Ownership
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General
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society
New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (S U N Y Series in Western Esoteric Traditions)
Seinology: The Sociology of Seinfeld
Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing
