Cuttin' Up: Wit and Wisdom From Black Barber Shops

Book Description

In Crowns and The Spirit of Harlem, journalist Craig Marberry took oral history to a new level. Here, in Cuttin’ Up, he presents more pitch-perfect portraits so good you’ll feel like you’re eavesdropping. Cuttin’ Up celebrates the laid-back fellowship of men in a barber shop, the place, as Marberry writes, “where we go to be among ourselves, to be ourselves, to unmask.”

Crisscrossing the country from Detroit to Orlando, Brooklyn to Houston, Marberry listened in on conversations that covered everything from reminiscences about the first haircut---a sometimes comic rite of passage---to spirited exchanges about women, to serious lessons in black history and current events. His collection of the wit and wisdom of patrons and barbers---including the small but scrappy subset of women barbers and the father of a very famous celebrity---brings together an irresistible and often touching chorus of voices.

Marberry has created a book that sings with the handsome beauty of the oral tradition that is the cornerstone of the black barber shop experience.

A portion of the proceeds from this book support the Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Health at Wake Forest University.

Customer Reviews:

Rare, Real Look Into Real Black-Barbershop Culture.......2005-11-17

I truly loved this book. My heart leaped in my chest when I saw it on the book shelf. As a "kitchen-barber" for more than twenty-years I was ecstatic to see the subject matter bound with photographs and ready to read.

The barbershop has for men of African decent been a respite from women, life's pressures, etiquette, censorship and sometimes reality for many years. This highly valued institution often serves the community as an outreach center, political platform, advice booth, stand-up comedy tryout club and therapist's couch. Craig Maybery has struck gold again with an enjoyable foray into the subtleties of African American culture. Like his book, "Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats" Mayberry gives the reader a clear insight into the passion Blacks have for their turn at at an American tradition. It was so refreshing to see an accurate view of the black barbershop which isn't exaggerated as in the films, Barbershop I and II or butchered like the Showtime adaptation "Barbershop"; (What a MESS!)

Using 49 short biographical stories the author gives us an authentic look into the motivations, tragedies, humor and passions of the men and women who cut and style the afro-american hair shaft. The portraits of these barbers are as they presented themselves to the author. They are human: Flawed, Dedicated, Unique and Proud.

The only disappointment I had in reading this book was not being able to find present-day photos of all of the subjects interviewed. I intend to give several of these books as gifts. A beautiful tribute to the men (or women) everyone needs and uses and takes for granted and noone wants to lose. Your barber.

Black Hair.......2005-08-04

If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times: black people have a special relationship with their hair. In CUTTIN' UP, Craig Marberry has put together a collection of interesting vignettes that highlight black barber shops around the nation. The stories introduce us to all kinds of people, some barbers, some patrons, some famous, and some lesser known. Each passage includes relevant photographs, usually of the narrator. The book covers a myriad of issues and topics including haircuts as a rite of passage, civil rights and the barber shop, barber shop camaraderie, funny stories and superstitions. Some stories are humorous, others are sad and all are educational.

Marberry has put together a well-organized collection that will remind readers that the ordinary things in life like going to the barber shop for a shape up can have a meaningful impact on one's life. This is a book you can pick up again and again and find at least one or two passages that will speak to you. By sharing stories told by an assortment of contributors, the author highlights our cultural diversity. The accompanying photographs make the stories even more personal and some of them are worth a second, more thoughtful look on the basis of their pure artistry alone. CUTTIN' UP didn't move emotional mountains for me, but the passages did make me smile and leave me with a sense of warmth. (RAW Rating: 3.5)

Reviewed by Stacey Seay
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

tight Book.......2005-06-27

the Barber Shop is the true Black CNN. go there&no matter what the topic you gonna get a Answer. you are gonna hear some of the Best Jokes&story Tellers that will have you ribs hurting. the Barber Shop is a School all unto itself.I ain't even got into the styles the Barbers will hook your Dome up with.everybody has there Favorite Barber as well.Sports,Music,Politics,Society issues,Enviroment Issues,Relationships,etc.... you get it all there&More.

Rising Interest.......2005-06-07

I'm excited to meet this author and hopefully get my book signed at the Printer's Row. I find men to so entertaining, and I always wanted to hang with them when I was little. I never could talk my father/brother/grandfather into letting me follow them to the barbershop and even when I got my tattoo, I was in the back. I was crazy about the first "Barbershop" movie (the 2nd one was cool too) and when I saw this book, I couldn't get my hands on it fast enough. I loved reading the stories about the male barbers facing bad haircuts, capping, crime, discrimination, the younger generation, fatherhood, manners and women. There was even some eye candy: Marcques Tatum, Jabreel Ali, Kola Olosunde, and Lennie Bosley. The beginning stories were a little dry, but it picked up tremendously towards the middle.

"The easy hum of men among men".......2005-05-11

Thanks to the popularity of a recent movie, Barbershop, the public's attention has focused on the central gathering place for black men, the local barbershop. In an oral history that covers every aspect of community life, Marberry gathers stories from across the country, from "Detroit to Orlando, Brooklyn to Houston". This small gem, complete with black and white photographs, captures the wit and wisdom of barbers and their patrons, including a very select few women barbers who wield their scissors on this sacred turf.

Albert Ghee, Jr., a customer, talks about Shorty, a midget with a shoe shine stand, who worked in the back of his uncle's barbershop in Farmville, Virginia. If you gave Shorty an extra dollar, he'd thump out tunes with his rag as he polished your shoes, "The Star Spangled Banner" or "Amazing Grace." But Albert never enjoyed Shorty's unique rhythms until he was thirteen-years old; boys had to be teenagers before they were allowed to partake of the barbershop ambiance.

Wheeler Parker, a barbershop owner, has a cautionary tale to share, a hard lesson forced upon young men in his day, white men terrorizing in the middle of the night. Parker wants more for the younger generation after all the suffering, all the lost opportunities of his youth. He wants them to remember his cousin's name, Emmett Till. "He had a short life. Fourteen years. But if we remember, then it wasn't a wasted life."

Betty Reece was the only other woman besides Clara Poke and forty men in barber school. Betty was so painfully shy that one of her instructors said she was "so slow, she would miss the boat and the bus". Betty never did overcome her shyness and sat all day waiting for customers, lacking the effusiveness to gather regular clients. Sometimes she never had a single customer: "Felt like I was watching hair grow." She quit the business but still has her license and may go back to barbering one day.

Omar Rasul is a barber who enjoys the camaraderie of the shop, always up for a few laughs, which he considers good therapy. He favors "cut down" sessions, where "you target a person's flaw and roll with it. It's all about making people bust out laughing." On the other hand, the Reverend John C. McClurkin, a customer, likens the barbershop to the dinner table, a forum for family members to share stories and fellowship. The shop enjoys a similar dynamic, "except nobody's trying to hide their vegetables".

There are a few barbershop rules: "comments must both entertain and enlighten, proverbs need punch lines and comedy needs a dose of the profound". This thoughtful and humorous collection offers a peek into the rarified world of the black barbershop, still as popular today as when it first began. There's a sound you can hear above the clip and buzz of scissors and clippers: "It's the easy hum of men among men." Luan Gaines/2005.

Book Description

Now updated with a new preface that examines the current conflict in Iraq, this brilliant work of investigative reporting reveals the government's assault on the constitutional freedoms of the American media during Operation Desert Storm. John R. MacArthur's engaging and provocative account is as essential and alarming today as when the first paperback edition was published ten years ago.

Customer Reviews:

He saw it coming.......2007-06-14

This is a good a useful look at the way news and information were managed in the first Gulf War (1990-91). It skewers the media for being more interested in "access" than in reporting anything remotely like the truth about what was going on. Newspaper editors and TV executives are exposed as men and women looking for "product", stuff they can sell that will go down easy with a population they fear and distrust. Like in 2003, they want a simple story line with a designated "good guy" and a designated "bad guy" and no history or context to confuse the narrative. This book should have been read and absorbed by the media, and would have been if they were interested in performing the criitcal watgchdog role of truth-tellers. Most of them, however, are more interested in not rocking the boat and being stenographers to power.

Excellent treatment of undemocratic control of press........2004-12-19

This book will open your eyes to the real threat that press censorship poses to our democratic nation. You will be amazed at how the the Bush administration was able to control the press and public attitudes towards the first gulf war. It is highly relavent today in light current policies in Iraq.

The premise is that the media needs to be proactive and report news, not just what the government wants us to hear.

For example: Did you know that fourty thousand (40,000!!) Iraqis were buried alive on the first day of the '91 Iraq war? Why wasn't this grizzly fact reported?

No wonder we are not welcomed with open arms by the people of Iraq. Propagandists believe their own lies if they tell them enough.

Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War

Average customer rating:

Read this book!
Piece of junk...
It took guts...
A must read before the start of the second Gulf war
Something Wicked This Way Comes

Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War
John R. MacArthur
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520083989

Book Description

While the United States government made noisy preparations to go to war against Saddam Hussein, it was also purposefully planning another war. But this enemy, unlike Hussein, was strangely passive in the face of these threatening maneuvers. John R. MacArthur scrutinizes the government's unprecedented assault on the constitutional freedoms of the American media during Operation Desert Storm. With a reporter's critical eye and a historian's sensibility, he traces decades of press-government relations--during Vietnam, Grenada, and Panama--which helped set the stage for restrictions on Gulf War reporting and for a public-relations triumph by the government.

Customer Reviews:

Read this book!.......2004-05-04

I wish the author of this book had gotten more media coverage prior to Gulf War Redux. It is a fascinating look at the inner workings of the so-called free press, and the difficult and dysfunctional relationship a journalist has with the DOD, Pentagon...all those governmental "powers that be"....Check it out. Definately.

Piece of junk..........2003-12-17

Having to read this book as part of a club for discussion is the only reason I would even spend my time for reading this piece of rubbish. The author is obviously putting his own political leftist views into his view of the war. The author simply spews out outrageous claims with no factual data to back it up. I, being a centrist and not left/right leaning, found this book to be a biased attempt by a leftwing author to denegrate the accomplishments of the US in their attempts to solve problems in this complex world. Based on the authors views the US is responsible for the world's problems. Total BS coming from a guy who probably benefits from the global policies of the country he denounces so readily. The most amazing part of the book is that if he really believes the crap he writes he should get the heck out of here and move to an eastern block or middle eastern country.

It took guts..........2003-11-02

And that's a lot more than the press had in its coverage of Gulf War I: The Prequel. For those of us old enough to have survived the Vietnam Era, we can recollect that some military and intelligence types blamed the loss of that police action on the media. (Even in that era, I found the media to be pretty wishy washy, but they got much worse.) Volumes have been released--some even by the Pentagon--that dispute that claim, but it was popular among Establishment types who argued that the US can do no wrong.

Then there was Granada. That I recall because it was so transparently censored--while US medical students in Granada, the ones whose parents could afford to send them there after they'd been rejected by US med schools, were praising the military's arrival just in time, an obvious placement of the right message at the right time. I thought things couldn't get any worse than this. But then there was Panama...

Up to the present, Gulf War II, following the subject matter of the book, we've evolved to "embedded" journalists, i.e., media personnel accompanying the brave military in staged events to make Cecil B. DeMille jealous. The process and material of this "war" was provided by PR professionals!

This book documents a mid point in that process. And I remember it because I was frequently furious during Desert Storm that every local VFW chapter was called upon to comment while even major newspapers abstained from printing letters critical of the event!

There's a lot in this spectacular volume. The author begins with explaining how the media plan was designed, the "pooling" of journalists covering it, to the objection of few! There is a chapter on the dubious dead babies story (covered in some detail by "Weapons of Mass Deception" in which I heard of this book). The author distinguishes between the journalistic and business voices of the major media. There is even a chapter on Vietnam, to document some of the history to which I've already referred. And one appropriately entitles "Desert Muzzle," a pseudonym to which the author frequently returns.

There's a lot in the book. And be prepared to stay awake if you read it in bed. Lots will make you extremely mad, particularly the absolute gutlessness of some of the "journalists" on whom we rely for the limited information we receive and are allowed to process.

The bottom line is that, if we are to maintain any sense of "democracy," we need information provided by true journalists, not media personalities more intent on getting generals' autographs and invitations to expensive White House dinners than on one-sided, gutless coverage provided by Pentagon PR specialists. And that's all we have now. It's pathetic but true. This book documents it all. Read it and weep.

The book ends with a valuable observation: in the early 90s, just after the "liberation" of our wonderful ally, Kuwait, that little emirate ranked second, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in its incarceration and torture of journalists. Second to China, which is only slightly more populous than Kuwait... Tough to be liberated.

If you want to begin to ponder where changes are needed, i.e., where honesty and integrity in media, prevail, this is a place to start.

A must read before the start of the second Gulf war.......2003-02-14

For anyone who still believes that we have a free, open, and unbiased press in this country, read this book. Before we go to war again against Iraq and start getting the government's highly censored version of events, it will be helpful to understand what we were told last time and why.

Something Wicked This Way Comes.......2003-02-01

A kinder, gentler nation? A compassionate country? Sounds like repeat season. Propaganda indeed, Mr. Bush! Highly recommended!

Average customer rating:

Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War
John R. Macarthur
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000U3NEJQ

The general's groupies. (General Norman Schwarzkopf) (excerpt from Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War): An article from: Columbia Journalism Review

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The general's groupies. (General Norman Schwarzkopf) (excerpt from Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War): An article from: Columbia Journalism Review
John R. Macarthur
Manufacturer: Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Banning | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00091YM7C
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Columbia Journalism Review, published by Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism on September 1, 1992. The length of the article is 577 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: At a gathering of reporters prior to a White House Correspondent's Dinner, General Norman Schwarzkopf received adulation from the assembled journalists. This is ironic given the general's contempt for the press, as shown by his censorship of news reports during the Persian Gulf War. It is disturbing that journalists should be so willing to compromise their professional ethics.

Citation Details
Title: The general's groupies. (General Norman Schwarzkopf) (excerpt from Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War)
Author: John R. Macarthur
Publication: Columbia Journalism Review (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 1992
Publisher: Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
Volume: v31 Issue: n3 Page: p62(2)

Article Type: Excerpt

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Book Description

"These editors have the respect, visibility, and track-record to make this volume a contribution to the field of Internet studies. It will be adopted as an upper-division text and can also serve as a valuable reference work for doctoral students. Given its broad mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches, this work should have wide appeal across the Social Sciences and Information Studies."

-- Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern
California

Within the developed world, much of society experiences political, economic, and cultural life through a set of communication technologies barely older than many citizens. Society Online: The Internet in Context examines how new media technologies have not simply diffused across society, but how they have rapidly and deeply become embedded in our organizations and institutions.

Society Online is not exclusively devoted to a particular technology, or specifically the Internet, but to a range of technologies and technological possibilities labeled "new media." Rather than trying to cover every possible topic relating to new communication technologies, this unique text is organized by how these new technologies mediate the community, political, economic, personal, and global spheres of our social lives. Editors Philip N. Howard and Steve Jones explore the multiple research methods that are required to understand the embeddedness of new media.

Society Online discusses the findings of the Pew Internet and American Life Project and is the first book to bring together leading social scientists to provide the most comprehensive and far-reaching Internet research data sets and to contextualize Internet use in modern life. The book features contributions by leading scholars from across the social sciences using a range of research techniques including systematic content analysis; comparative methods; quasi-experimental methods; probit; ordinary least squares and logistic regression analysis; small focus groups; historical, archival, and survey methods; ethnographic and auto-ethnographic work; and comparative analyses of policy traditions to probe, analyze, and understand the Internet in the context of everyday life.

Society Online is designed for undergraduate and graduate students taking media studies courses in the areas of Communication, Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Information Sciences, and American Studies.

For more information about Society Online, please visit www.societyonline.net.

Sociedad on-line/ Society Online: Internet En Contexto/ The Internet in Context

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Sociedad on-line/ Society Online: Internet En Contexto/ The Internet in Context
Philip N. Howard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Displacement Effects of Online Media in the Socio-Technical Contexts of Households.: An article from: Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media

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Displacement Effects of Online Media in the Socio-Technical Contexts of Households.: An article from: Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
Joseph M. Kayany , and Paul Yelsma
Manufacturer: Broadcast Education Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, published by Broadcast Education Association on March 22, 2000. The length of the article is 7016 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: This study investigated the impact of online media on other media and family communication. Data gathered from 185 persons in 84 households indicate that time spent in television viewing, newspaper reading, telephone usage, and family conversations is affected by online use. Usage of online media is significantly different among genders and generations. A process of functional displacement may be occurring in which television is being gradually displaced by online media as the primary source of information.

Citation Details
Title: Displacement Effects of Online Media in the Socio-Technical Contexts of Households.
Author: Joseph M. Kayany
Publication: Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2000
Publisher: Broadcast Education Association
Volume: 44 Issue: 2 Page: 215

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

This book is written for engineers, students of coastal processes and laypersons interested in beach nourishment, which consists of the placement of large quantities of good quality sediment on the beach to advance the shoreline seaward. The improvement of project performance through proper design and the predictability of performance are emphasized. The overall longevity of a project is addressed as are local erosional areas. The roles which wave height, project length and sediment quality play in project performance are addressed quantitatively. The results are illustrated through reference to a number of monitored nourishment projects. Biological and economic aspects of beach nourishment are addressed.

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