Peter Stromberg's "Caught in Play"

Peter Stromberg is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa. His books include Symbols of Community (University of Arizona Press, 1986) and Language and Self Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 1993).

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Caught in Play: How Entertainment Works on You, and reported the following:

I wrote Caught in Play to address an intriguing disparity: there is so much entertainment in our society and so little serious discussion about entertainment. To take an example that is appropriate to the moment I write this (July 3, 2009), currently there is overwhelming public concern with the death of Michael Jackson and comparatively little public concern about the obvious question of why people care so much about the death of Michael Jackson.

Turning to page 99 of the book, I encounter a discussion of anthropologist/psychologist Gregory Bateson’s thoughts on play among otters. This doesn’t look promising, does it? How do we get from otters to Michael Jackson in the space of one blog post?

Bateson, watching otters play at fighting at a zoo, asked himself how the otters knew that the bites and cuffs they were delivering and receiving were not real fighting. He concluded that they must be sending and receiving signals that allowed them to understand something along the lines of “this bite isn’t a real bite, it’s a play bite.”

That even non-human animals are able to engage in what might be loosely termed “pretending,” and that they are able to communicate this “pretend” stance to one another, alerts us to the fact that play is a very basic social mechanism, far older than our species. Play is built into us, and we play for some of the same reasons that animals do, above all to regulate our social relationships. Those playing otters are creating a certain kind of relationship, and the far more complicated play of human beings can create far more complicated relationships; in fact, such play helps to build and sustain our social groups.

So, I’m OK, page 99 really is relevant. The tremendous volume of entertainment in our society is a form of play that accomplishes some elemental cultural functions: it helps us to create a particular sort of community. Entertainment does this by sustaining and strengthening certain values, often the values of consumption.

Back to the otters. They can sort of pretend, we can really pretend, so much so that we can become so caught up in a book or movie that we lose track of time and place. It is in these powerful bodily experiences--experiences that often happen as we engage entertainment--that we learn and indulge the values of consumption. But at the same time, we tend not to take these experiences seriously because, after all, they are not real. Can you think of a better way to ensure that certain of our values and practices—such as treating the death of a popular singer as a world shattering event—remain largely outside the realm of public discussion?

Read an excerpt from Caught in Play, and learn more about the book and author at the official website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathleen Collins' "Watching What We Eat"

Kathleen Collins is an experienced author and researcher who has studied and written about television, media history, popular culture and food. Her work has appeared in the magazines Working Woman and Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture and in the anthology Secrets & Confidences: The Complicated Truth About Women’s Friendships.

She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Watching What We Eat: A Long Look at Television Cooking Shows, and reported the following:

I’m always glad to read a random page from my book and to try to be objective for as long as it takes to read it. I would like to imagine what a reader experiences reading my words. Of course, it’s impossible to do so – but it’s still fun to try. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being “This is the one page of my book that I want everyone to read!” and 1 being “This is the worst possible page to choose from my book; no one will ever want to read more.”), page 99 of Watching What We Eat is about a 7. This page comes near the end of chapter 3 which is titled, “Julia Child and Revolution in the Kitchen.” In these 2.5 paragraphs, I’m discussing the cultural changes going on in the U.S. in the 1960s that made a hospitable environment for “The French Chef” and the enormous impact Julia had on the way we Americans eat and cook – and live.

Here’s an excerpt: “Increased self-awareness, both on the societal and individual levels, seemed to express itself in a global sense as well. In addition to a more pronounced and objective interest in American culture and society—coupled with increased international travel—Americans also looked beyond their backyard fences and national borders with more curiosity. The insularity of the 1950s began to dissipate.”

What is representative about this page is that my approach throughout the book is to trace the evolution of the cooking show genre as it corresponds to changes in society. So, that’s good. What is missing on this page is a taste of what I consider to be the really lively bits where I describe the personalities and mannerisms of some of the TV cooking show hosts. There’s lots on Julia Child, for example, just before p. 99. And Joyce Chen, a Chinese host who used the exact same set as the much taller Julia.

In general, the page includes a good sample of my tone and level of discourse. One reviewer described the book as “somewhat scholarly” which I think is dead on. That’s me! It’s a book not just for people who love cooking shows (though it is for them), but for anyone interested in 20th century social history and popular culture in America. I address the topic with this reader in mind: someone who listens to NPR but is overjoyed at the sight of a People magazine in the doctor’s office.

Read an excerpt from Watching What We Eat, and learn more about the book and author at the Watching What We Eat website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Frances Osborne's "The Bolter"

Frances Osborne worked as a barrister and investment research analyst before becoming a full-time writer. Her first book, Lilla’s Feast: A True Story of Love, War and a Passion for Food, was listed as a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book.

She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her latest book, The Bolter, and reported the following:

The Bolter is the true story of Idina Sackville, an extremely adventurous English aristocrat who divorced five times in the 1920’s and 30’s, had lovers without number and hosted partner-swapping party games in her farmhouse in Kenya. Page 99 is in fact the turning point that sets her off on this turbulent course. It is July 1918, Britain is four years into the First World War, and Idina realizes that her first husband and lasting love, Euan Wallace, might leave her for a younger, prettier woman. Idina decides that, unlike her mother, Idina was going to do the leaving – the “bolting” - rather than be the one left behind. She went, as she did everything, in style and fled to Africa. This was an era of women’s liberation and several of Idina’s girlfriends were divorcing their “unsatisfactory” husbands and seeking adventure abroad – the new gentlewomen explorers. In Idina’s case this was a decision that she would spend the rest of her life striving to make up for – not least because she was unable to take her two tiny sons with her. The elder of those two sons was my grandfather.

Idina’s first marriage was partly a casualty of the social upheaval of the First World War. Beforehand, extra-marital affairs had been near institutionalized amongst Britain’s Edwardian Upper Classes. There was a strict code of practice which was “you can do what you like in the bedroom, but don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.” Absolute discretion needed to be maintained and this was principally achieved by only becoming involved with other married friends, and never divorcing. The death of so many young men changed all that, and even married men became targets. In the rest of page 99, Euan Wallace returns to the Front and we follow his diaries. Whereas only a year earlier he was spending every spare minute writing to Idina, he now spends up to “half a morning” writing to another woman.

Read an excerpt from The Bolter, and learn more about the book and author at Frances Osborne's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Vincent J. Cannato's "American Passage"

Vincent J. Cannato teaches history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York and has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, and reported the following:

Opening American Passage to page 99 puts the reader inside one of the few chapters that does not take place at Ellis Island. This is a chapter that tells the story of the Boston Brahmins, those Anglo-Saxon Protestants of the late 19th and early 20th century who greatly feared the influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. These men and women were already losing the demographic fight in Massachusetts to the Irish Catholics and now a new crop of immigrants threatened to destroy even more thoroughly Anglo-Saxon America.

This page discusses the case of Prescott Hall, a young Harvard grad and co-founder of the Immigration Restriction League. A melancholic man, Hall was deeply pessimistic about the future of America.

Insecurity and melancholy went hand in hand with these New Englanders’ fears of being displaced, in terms of absolute numbers as well as political power and cultural influence. By the late 1800s, Boston Brahmin society was in decline. An increase in divorces and suicides and a decrease in birth rates among native-born Protestants—especially when compared with large Irish Catholic families—only added to the sense of loss and pessimism. The new immigration from eastern and southern Europe provided the double whammy to the Brahmin psyche, reinforcing whatever gloom and insecurity was caused by their loss of control to the Irish.

The respected economist Francis Walker tried to give a theoretical interpretation for the decline of the Anglo-Saxons. New immigrants created such degraded conditions in America, Walker argued, that native-born Protestants were simply refusing to bring children into such a world. The page ends with another patrician, New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, exhorting Americans toward the “strenuous life.” Unlike his Brahmin friends, Roosevelt would try to balance his fears of the new immigrants with a more pluralistic approach.

This backlash of the “nativists” is a common story when discussing immigration. While the fears of these Anglo-Saxons play an important role in the book, I try not to overemphasize them, as so much historical writing about immigration does. I focus much more on how the larger debate about immigration influenced immigration laws and how those laws get implemented at Ellis Island.

Browse inside American Passage, and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

Visit Vincent J. Cannato's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Matthew Amster-Burton's "Hungry Monkey"

Matthew Amster-Burton writes frequently for Gourmet.com, Culinate, Seattle Magazine, and the Seattle Times. He has been featured in the Best Food Writing anthology repeatedly. His food blog is Roots and Grubs.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater, and reported the following:

Hungry Monkey is about the joys and challenges of sharing food with a baby and young child. Wow, that sounds sappy, doesn't it? Let's open it to page 99 and have a look:

"We can share one cupcake because they're big," said Laurie.

"Sure!" replied Iris. "I can have my frosting and you can have the bottom. Isn't that a good idea, Mama?"

I did my best to write something other than the typical books about kids and food, which tend to be about making homemade organic purees (boring), vegetables arranged into faces (scary), or allergies and other medical issues (really scary). This is a humor book for parents. It's about having food adventures with your kids. There are recipes and stories and lots of bad jokes.

Page 99 is typical, because it is mostly about cupcakes, and children are mostly about cupcakes. It falls in the middle of a chapter called "Sugar Makes Parents Hyper," which is about how five-year-old Iris and I enjoy sweets together and about how research has consistently shown that sugar doesn't make children hyper.

Yes, as I freely admit in the book, I'm as likely to convince parents of this as I am to convince them that getting hit on the head with an anvil doesn't cause concussions. Relax. Have a cupcake.

Read an excerpt from Hungry Monkey, and learn more about the book and author at the official Hungry Monkey website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Noralee Frankel's "Stripping Gypsy"

Noralee Frankel is the Assistant Director, Women, Minorities, and Teaching at the American Historical Association. Her books include Freedom's Women: Black Women and Families in Civil War Era Mississippi and Break Those Chains at Last: African Americans, 1860-1880.

She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her latest book, Stripping Gypsy: The Life of Gypsy Rose Lee, and reported the following:

For those who do not remember the plot of the musical, Gypsy, let me recap. Born in Seattle in 1911 Louise Hovick, as she was known, toured vaudeville with her driven stage mother and her younger sister. When her sister ran off to marry and with vaudeville dying, Louise performed in burlesque theaters. In 1931, Louise, now Gypsy Rose Lee, worked Minksy’s burlesque theaters, where she became one of the very few women to talk as she undressed on stage. Later she was known as the intellectual stripper.

My page 99 (below) refers to her reputation as a sophisticated stripper. The book deals primarily with her life as an adult. Her love affairs, movie career, writings, and her political activism leading to her being blacklisted in 1950 are major topics.

The article from Hobbies described her collections in a manner to make the magazine’s appeal more erotic. It published one of the sexiest articles ever written about Gypsy. A photograph of Gypsy admiring a piece of glassware showed a great deal of her long, slender legs. Such an approach sold magazines--and Gypsy.

When the interview referred to on page 99 was published, Gypsy had purchased a mansion on 63rd Street New York City that showed off her possessions. Her collecting sprang from her insecurity about what constituted home. Possessions helped block out her childhood deprivations. She also hoped her writing, two mystery novels and a play, (years later, she would write her famous memoirs), her collages shown at Peggy Guggenheim’s Century of the Art gallery, and collections would bring her the respectability she craved.

Page 99, Stripping Gypsy:

photograph of Gypsy admiring a piece of glassware showed a great deal of her long, slender legs. Such an approach sold magazines—and Gypsy. The Hobbies author wrote, “Stroking the silky texture of her figure, my hand was following the exquisite curve lines. I was entranced with admiration of her, I was thrilled by the most perfect thing in the world—the divine female form.” He finished, “It was a Satin glass vase with a repousse figure of Venus. It was not Gypsy Rose Lee at all.”

The author did, of course, write about her collections. Eager to talk about her belongings rather than discuss stripping or burlesque, Gypsy proudly showed him her possessions. She owned a few treasured pieces of expensive Meissen porcelain. Her glass collection consisted of Mary Gregory—at least she believed it did. Discovering her first piece of Gregory glass in a secondhand store, Gypsy paid twenty-five cents for it. Since Mary Gregory is very rare, Gypsy’s pieces may have been good fakes, but they were beautiful nonetheless. She loved the characteristic blues of Royal Copenhagen china. She collected and restored frames, matchboxes, and even a small house made from shells. She also bought numerous objects adorned with cherubs, including lamps and vases. With their chubby bodies, cherubs appeared both innocent and sensual.

Remarking that as a child she had few dolls and little time to play, Gypsy described her paper doll collection wistfully. She liked to decorate objects such as tables and trays with paper dolls she purchased. Gypsy even confessed that she enjoyed dressing and undressing the dolls. She preferred “children, but I do have some lovely ladies. Some are partially dressed as actresses ... ballet dancers, I should imagine. Their legs and arms are flexible and they have real hair. Needless to say, they are my favorites.”

Gypsy acquired drawings by the tattoo artists Charles Wagner and John Bonzles, an early practitioner, proudly displaying them on velvet matting in a gold shadow box. The writer for Hobbies wittily observed that while Gypsy was “probably the only one in the country who prefers to see tattoos on paper, she can also appreciate a well-painted arm or chest.”

The Berkshire Museum located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and the Museum of the City of New York displayed Gypsy’s plate collection in special exhibitions. She owned rare plates painted by Charles Dana Gibson, who originated the “Gibson Girl” in pen-and-ink drawings of the epitome of the modern independent white woman at the turn of the twentieth century. From one set of twenty-one plates, Gypsy lacked only three. The series was called Life and Friends of a

Read more about Stripping Gypsy at the Oxford University Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kevin Mattson's "'What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?'"

Kevin Mattson is Connor Study Professor of Contemporary History at Ohio University and serves as a faculty associate of the Contemporary History Institute. He is author of Upton Sinclair and the Other American Century (2006); When America Was Great: The Fighting Faith of Postwar Liberalism (2004, 1^st edition, 2006, 2^nd edition); Engaging Youth: Combating the Apathy of Young Americans Towards Politics (2003); Intellectuals in Action: The Origins of the New Left and Radical Liberalism, 1945-1970 (2002); and Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era (1998).

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his latest book, 'What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?': Jimmy Carter, America's 'Malaise,' and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country, and reported the following:

Ah yes, 99 tells all (I’ve always thought Ford Madox Ford was a smart dude): This page explains how the Moral Majority formed. There’s Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms, the battle against the ERA and abortion, and numerous activists in the “New Right” pressing Falwell to form an organization. And then the page ends…

In essence, this is the story of the right wing getting organized in the midst of some of the worst times for the Carter administration. So 99 is a quick view of the future victors in the political and culture wars to follow. It’s fascinating to note here that Jimmy Carter was perhaps one of the last, famous liberal evangelists known to Americans. Falwell would talk about America as a “chosen people,” about its mission blessed by God. Carter instead was well-read in the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr who had warned about conflating a nation’s cause in the world with God’s will. Carter was all about national humility – after all, wasn’t this the nation that had battled for ten years or more in Vietnam only to wreck destruction and never accomplish its goals? Wasn’t this a nation that had become too reliant upon foreign sources of oil and too unwilling to talk about “limits” and now faced an energy crisis? Chosen people?, you could imagine Carter wondering.

So the book’s ending is prophesied on page 99. There’s a lot more to come, of course, but once the New Right mobilizes around this message and once they find their candidate – Ronald Reagan – they’re ready to outgun Carter. And they do. But not before he gives the speech that serves as the center of this book. And that’s a good story too. And there’s nothing about it on page 99. For that the book has to be read in its entirety.

Learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and at Kevin Mattson's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susan A. Brewer's "Why America Fights"

Susan A. Brewer is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Her publications include To Win the Peace: British Propaganda in the United States during World War II.

She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq, and reported the following:

“Many of the deeply antifascist men and women already engaged in propaganda work were frustrated that so many Americans had been ambivalent about the threat posed by Nazi Germany. As much as they might have believed in the ideal of the informed citizen knowing the right thing to do, they thought the common man was in need of enlightenment and education.”

Page 99 of Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq addresses a dilemma confronting U.S. government propagandists during World War II. The Office of War Information (OWI), created by President Franklin Roosevelt in June 1942, was charged with instructing and inspiring the nation to mobilize for total war. Headed by the respected CBS broadcaster, Elmer Davis, the OWI dedicated itself to a “strategy of truth.”

The men and women of the OWI believed that democracy must prevail. They despised the Axis regimes for glorifying the leader, crushing dissent, burning books, and spreading hate. After observing the rise of fascist dictatorships, OWI staffers feared the power of propaganda to manipulate people. Yet, they knew they needed to exercise some of that power.

As confident as they were in American potential, officials at the OWI worried that U.S. citizens might be too self-centered to make the sacrifices necessary to defeat the Axis. They also knew that the American public distrusted official propaganda. After World War I, many Americans had concluded that propaganda meant lies and they should stay out of other people’s wars. When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, most Americans did not want Hitler to win, but they opposed U.S. intervention.

In the months following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and U.S. entry into the war, the OWI sought to regain the trust of the American people and rally them for a long, tough fight. With the help of Hollywood, radio shows, and glossy magazines, propagandists repeatedly told the story of individuals faced with the choice of remaining isolationist or doing the right thing. A selfish Donald Duck or a cynical Humphrey Bogart examined their consciences and committed themselves to the war effort. Such stories showed that the informed citizen can make the right decision. They illustrated the superiority of democracy over political systems where the people had no freedom to choose.

As it portrayed the war as a global contest between the “free world” and the “slave world,” the OWI grappled with issues of democracy, citizenship, and official manipulation. Its adoption of the “strategy of truth” makes U.S. propaganda during World War II stand out in contrast to strategies deployed in other wars. “We stick to the truth,” explained Elmer Davis, “for we believe the truth is on our side.”

Learn more about Why America Fights at the Oxford University Press website.

Visit Susan A. Brewer's faculty webpage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jay Wexler's "Holy Hullabaloos"

Jay Wexler teaches at the Boston University School of Law. He studied religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and law at Stanford, and worked as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He has published numerous academic articles, and reviews, as well as nearly three dozen short stories and humor pieces in outlets such as Spy and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his latest book, Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars, and reported the following:

Kind of the main point of Holy Hullabaloos--though I don't say it explicitly in the book--is that we should see if we can get anywhere in our perennial debates over church and state by just chilling out a little. So much of our "conversation" about these controversial issues takes the form of angry shouting, intolerant badmouthing, and cruel ridiculing. I don't mind ridicule, so long as it's good-natured and parceled out equally to all parties (including to oneself). The experiment of Holy Hullabaloos is to see what happens when we use humor to talk about religion and government. Not "look at what an idiot you are" kind of humor but more of the "boy the world is confusing and difficult and we're all trying like a bunch of goofballs to try to make sense of it" kind of humor.

On page 99 of the book, I wrap up an imagined conversation among the Justices of the Supreme Court regarding a real case from a while back involving a challenge by the ACLU to a holiday display in Pittsburgh. The display included a very large Christmas tree, a large but not quite as large menorah, and a sign about religious pluralism. The question was whether this display, taken as a whole, "endorsed" religion in violation of the First Amendment. Pretty much each justice had his or her own idea of what message the display expressed. It's kind of standard for professors, when teaching cases like this one, to ridicule the justices for engaging in such a silly exercise. But in my little play, when I have Justice Brennan freaking out about the display, Justice Stevens breaking out into a "small dance," and Justice O'Connor adjourning the meeting for lunch, my point is not to criticize, but rather to show that--like all of us--these judges are simply trying their best to navigate the murky mess of our religiously-clothed public square.

Read more about Holy Hullabaloos at the publisher's website, learn more about the author at Jay Wexler's faculty webpage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chris Grabenstein's "Mind Scrambler"

Chris Grabenstein won the Anthony Award for "Best First Mystery" (given at Bouchercon 2006) for his debut novel Tilt A Whirl—the first in a series of John Ceepak stories to be set "Down The Shore" in a New Jersey tourist town called Sea Haven. It was followed by Mad Mouse, Whack A Mole, and Hell Hole.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to Mind Scrambler, the 5th John Ceepak mystery, and reported the following:

As an homage to Barbara Feldon and Get Smart, I decided to put my new John Ceepak mystery Mind Scrambler to the page 99 test.

Open the book to page 99 and yes, I think, the “quality of the whole will be revealed to you.”

I attempt to write the Ceepak mysteries, all named after amusement park rides or Boardwalk games, to resemble a good roller coaster ride: you’re laughing right before you’re scared to death; you’re all giggles as you climb up that first hill -- all screams on the wild ride down.

My narrator, Danny Boyle, the young rookie cop, looks at the world with a somewhat cynical eye and relates what he sees with a smart-alecky mouth. But then he and Ceepak get down to business and figure out whodunit.

On page 99 of Mind Scrambler we have the uphill laughs and the downhill horrors of a police procedural all on the same page.

The top of the page gives us the end of a search for the missing children of Atlantic City casino headliner, Richard Rock, the world famous illusionist. The two kids were the last ones in the room before their nanny (a friend of Danny and Ceepak from Sea Haven) was brutally murdered. They might be witnesses, which means they might also be the killer’s next targets. Our guys, aided by Cyrus Parker (another old friend from a previous book, Hell Hole), the head of security at the Xanadu Casino, find Britney and Richie Rock on the Atlantic City boardwalk and escort them back to the hotel and safety. Britney is, well, a monster. She is also a great character to have some fun with….

The kid talks faster than those TV commercials for prescription drugs listing side effects that may include death and anal leakage.

“Richie, on the other hand, still eats his boogers and blows snot rockets when he isn’t busy floating air biscuits. Air biscuit means fart.”

“Here we go, kids,” says Parker. Holding open a door into the casino. “Your parents would like to talk to you.”

“Why?” asks Britney.

“I guess because you took off like that.”

Britney freezes. Plants both hands on her hips. “We only did what our stupid nanny told us to do!”

“We know,” Parker says, leaning down and grinning like he’s the friendly ol’ bear in a picture book. “I think they want to talk to you about, you know, something else, too. Something pretty serious. Kind of grown up.”

“Oh. Like Jake and Katie doing the nasty?”

Somehow, Parker keeps smiling. “Your mom and dad are downstairs. Uncle Chang’s Ice Cream Parlor. Do you like ice cream, Britney?”

She blows Parker the lip-noise equivalent of one of those air biscuits. “Well, duh.” She marches into the casino, shaking her head, muttering, “Do you like ice cream? Jesus!” like the big man is retarded, too.

And then, after a two line break (ah, a passage of time) we’re right on to the nitty-gritty of the murder investigation.

Unfortunately, on page 99, everybody thinks Danny dunit. His image was the first one captured by backstage security cameras after the magic show curtain came down. He discovered the dead body.

And this time, as they say in movie trailers, it’s extremely personal: the murder victim is Katie Landry, Danny’s girlfriend form the second book in the series, Mad Mouse (no spoiler alert needed -- I give it away in the first sentence of Mind Scrambler).

The Atlantic City Homicide Detective has arrived and wants to talk to us. More specifically, he wants to speak to me -- the guy who discovered the body and, if the digital video in the surveillance control room is to be believed, the only human being to set foot backstage after “Rock ‘n Wow!” started.

Up then down. Twist then turn.

I think page 99 gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect when you read one of my Ceepak books -- a wild and fun roller coaster of a read.

Read an excerpt from Mind Scrambler, and learn more about the book and author at Chris Grabenstein's website.

--Marshal Zeringue