| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-01-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 210 pages | | Height: | 8.0 in | | Width: | 6.0 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 13.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
King-sized beds, comforters, gel toothpaste, razors, underwear, the morning shower--all activities and objects life has invited us to think nothing of--until the publication of this book. In a series of short vignettes endearingly illustrated by the author, Arthur Asa Berger gives America a profound way to understand its morning rituals. Have you ever considered, for instance, that the digital clock, by producing free-floating liquid numerals disconnecting us from both time past and time future, could be interpreted as a metaphor for the alienation many people feel in contemporary society? Or consider our nightclothes: The pajama is the most immediate witness to our sexual activities; thus, we cover our pajamas with a bathrobe to guard against the anxiety of being revealed to other family members. The pajama is intricately connected to human shame. "Bloom's Morning", with thirty-six short chapters bracketed by brief theoretical essays on the nature of semiotic analysis, is a perfect book for the inquisitive mind. It is chock-full of valuable and quirky nuggets from this most interesting of social commentators--items that, taken together, give us a new vision through which to understand ourselves.
Industry Reviews
"If Groucho Marx had been a semiotician and if Karl Marx had a sense of humor, they would have been Arthur Berger."
Ad. - Howard Rheingold
"This is a wonderfully intelligent, delightful semiotic portrait of objects. Both the general reader and the student of culture will learn something he/she may not have known before about things that might appear to be trivial, but are really very significant cultural texts, bearing great meaning."
Ad. - Marcel Danesi
"With a surgeon's scalpel and a poet's touch, Arthur Asa Berger brilliantly reveals the wonder and drama behind the everyday objects and experiences that each of us encounters in our lives."
Ad. - Stan Lee
| See an error? Submit a change request |
All rights reserved.
