For the past 20 years in America, our society has grown up with everything at easy reach. We simply went to Walmart and we could pick and choose anything we wanted at a “low price guaranteed.” We never thought about where all these things were produced. China as a result has grown on a large economic scale and in the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai we have an astounding growth of civilization. As new visitors come to the big city they are discovering a brand new world. This reimagined...

From 1981 to 1994, music patron and art collector Betty Freeman (1921--2009) hosted a series of monthly musicales, or salons, in Los Angeles. Most of these salons were held in a room off the den of Freeman's Beverly Hills home--a space she dubbed "the music room." Freeman saw these salons as an important space to foster the development of contemporary composition among leading and upcoming composers in both America and Europe. Over the span of thirteen seasons, 144 composers, performers, a...

When Leigh Harline and Ned Washington penned "When You Wish Upon a Star" for Disney's 1940 film Pinocchio, the song came like a bolt out of the blue. Like Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg's "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz one year earlier, "When You Wish Upon a Star" comes on the heels of the Great Depression and just shy of America's sudden jolt into a second global conflict. Both tunes reach outward and upward with their memorable octave leaps. Both have aged into ...

Singular and star-studded writings on America’s neon-lit playgroundAt once a Technicolor wonderland and the embodiment of American mythology, Las Vegas exists at the Ground Zero of a reverence for risk-taking and the transformative power of a winning hand. Jake Johnson edits a collection of short essays and flash ideas that probes how music-making and soundscapes shape the City of Second Chances. Treating topics ranging from Cher to Cirque de Soleil, the contributo...

The local and regional shows staged throughout America use musical theater’s inherent power of deception to cultivate worldviews opposed to mainstream ideas. Jake Johnson reveals how musical theater between the coasts inhabits the middle spaces between professional and amateur, urban and rural, fact and fiction, fantasy and reality, and truth and falsehood. The homegrown musical provides a space to engage belief and religion—imagining a better world while creating opportunities to expand w...

The funeral business is changing. Don't let it bury you.Since its inception, the funeral and cemetery business has stuck to the status quo. After all, other than taxes, death is the only sure thing in life. But the world is changing more rapidly than ever. As a funeral or cemetery professional, you have to keep up if you don't want to get buried.Written by Jake Johnson, president and CEO of the premier consulting firm for the funeral and cemetery business, Staying Alive in th...

Welcome to Jake's Monthly. This month's trip around the best and strangest genres has taken us to Alternate History- a popular subgenre of SciFi where history turned out differently.We have all sorts of flavors here, including light fantasy, steampunk, military, and Bizarro. These stories are intelligent, well-written, and overall good examples of the genre.So, sit down, pull up a chair, and gaze into worlds where you never did.We hope you enjoy your stay.

Welcome to Jake's Monthly. This literary voyage into the obscure and the bizarre is celebrating its six-month anniversary with Bizarro, a literary movement dedicated to the strangest and most entertaining stories possible.This volume is intended for people who want a change of pace, an injection of unadulterated, nonsensical fun in their lives, and high-quality stories that they won't find anywhere else.These stories contain an ammunition-wearing cow, a horse whisperer, a p...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adopted the vocal and theatrical traditions of American musical theater as important theological tenets. As Church membership grew, leaders saw how the genre could help define the faith and wove musical theater into many aspects of Mormon life. Jake Johnson merges the study of belonging in America with scholarship on voice and popular music to explore the surprising yet profound link between two quintessentially American institutions. Through...

Welcome to Jake's Monthly. This look at the weirdest and best genres out there has taken us to Locked-Room Mysteries- Mystery fiction where the crime is specifically impossible.These stories are largely contemporary with a bit of Western flair. Some of them are incredibly immersing and others are opportunities for a shrewd reader to solve the mystery before the investigator.So, welcome. Take a seat.We hope you enjoy your stay.

This is the fourth monthly collection published by Jake's Monthly. In a change of tone from the past two collections, this month's theme has been Science Fantasy- a focus on the optomistic and the miraculous coexisting with the rational.Collected here are nine stories, some artistic, some action-packed, but all wonderful. Watch poor, overworked Puck try to save the world and see Tesla and Merlin fight face-to-face; read hope brought to a literally gray world, and enjoy a decidedly ...

Welcome to Jake's Monthly, a voyage through the best and weirdest of genres which now takes us to Thriller. Suspense, action, chases, and shootouts abound, here, and the writers have made sure that the ride is well worth the price of admission.This collection has modern and SF thrillers packed with explosions and mystery. There's even a Dark Fantasy thriller and, strangely, a Bizarro one.Buckle up if you're tall enough, because this is Thriller.We hope you enjoy the...