Turrini's theatre works extend far beyond their Austrian origins in expressing the hopes, frustrations, and hypocrisies of life in the modern world. The plays contained in this volume -- A Crazy Day, Joseph and Mary, A Social Engagement, and The Slackers -- offer English-speaking readers a representative sampling of Turrini's work. As varied as they may seem, two unifying threads run through them all: Turrini's use of language to admonish society and his articulation of the element of tragedy which informs and defines modern man in his isolation.

From the bestselling author of Swindle, Restart, and Slacker is another hilarious story about an underachiever who learns to go above and beyond. Cameron Boxer, king of the slackers, has found something worth his time. By playing video games online in front of an audience he can find both fame AND fortune -- especially with Elvis (a beaver who seems to love video games as much as Cam) at his side.The only problem? Things keep getting in Cam's way. Like school. And the club he accidentally started. And the misguided people in his life who don't think beavers should be playing video games.It's going to take some trickery, some close calls, and a fierce devotion to slacking in order for Cam to get to his goal -- conquering the game's infamous Level 13. But if any slacker can do it, Cam can.

Everyone has responsibilities, obligations, and problems to deal with in the workplace and in life. Some people, however, have mastered the art of shifting those monkeys onto the backs of others. They claim they don t know how to solve a problem or do the task, they say they don't have time, they complain, they perform poorly, they find any and every way to avoid the work - and yet somehow, they're never held accountable. Instead, hardworking, loyal employees who care about results end up shouldering those burdens for their lazy or unmotivated colleagues. The slackers get just what they want - less work - while the best employees become alienated and overworked. Who is to blame for those misplaced monkeys? Shifting the Monkey shows how to shift an organization's focus from compensating for, excusing, and working around problem people to cultivating and rewarding the best employees. --Publisher.

From the bestselling author of Swindle and Ungifted comes the funny, fantastic story of an underachiever who ends up achieving much more than any overachiever could ever imagine. Cameron Boxer is very happy to spend his life avoiding homework, hanging out with his friends, and gaming for hours in his basement. It's not too hard for him to get away with it . . . until he gets so caught up in one game that he almost lets his house burn down around him.Oops.It's time for some serious damage control--so Cameron and his friends invent a fake school club that will make it seem like they're doing good deeds instead of slacking off. The problem? Some kids think the club is real--and Cameron is stuck being president.Soon Cameron is part of a mission to save a beaver named Elvis from certain extinction. Along the way, he makes some new friends--and some powerful new enemies. The guy who never cared about anything is now at the center of everything . . . and it's going to take all his slacker skills to win this round.

From the author of Crying, a witty, wide-ranging cultural history of our attitudes toward work—and getting out of it Couch potatoes, goof-offs, freeloaders, good-for-nothings, loafers, and loungers: ever since the Industrial Revolution, when the work ethic as we know it was formed, there has been a chorus of slackers ridiculing and lampooning the pretensions of hardworking respectability. Reviled by many, heroes to others, these layabouts stretch and yawn while the rest of society worries and sweats. Whenever the world of labor changes in significant ways, the pulpits, politicians, and pedagogues ring with exhortations of the value of work, and the slackers answer with a strenuous call of their own: "To do nothing," as Oscar Wilde said, "is the most difficult thing in the world." From Benjamin Franklin's "air baths" to Jack Kerouac's "dharma bums," Generation-X slackers, and beyond, anti-work-ethic proponents have held a central place in modern culture. Moving with verve and wit through a series of fascinating case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, Doing Nothing revises the way we understand slackers and work itself.

Player. Jock. Slacker. Competitor. Superhero. Goofball. Boys are besieged by images in the media that encourage slacking over studying; competition over teamwork; power over empower - ment; and being cool over being yourself. From cartoons to video games, boys are bombarded with stereotypes about what it means to be a boy, including messages about violence, risktaking, and perfecting an image of just not caring. Straight from the mouths of over 600 boys surveyed from across the U.S., the authors offer parents a long, hard look at what boys are watch ing, reading, hearing, and doing. They give parents advice on how to talk with their sons about these troubling images and provide them with tools to help their sons resist these mes sages and be their unique selves.

This second volume of Felix Mitterer's plays in English trans-lation offers further evidence of this dramatist's powerful artistry. A mythological Wild Woman changes the lives of five wood-cutters, exposing their loneliness and desperation. Home reiterates the dictum that "you can't go home again", especially where prej-udice, brutality, and hatred reside. An historical drama based on actual court records, Children of the Devil depicts institutional superstition and cruelty as perpetuated upon the most vulnerable members of society, its children. One Everyman is a modern ver-sion of the traditional medieval morality play, complete with a Devil from Wall Street, while the Biblical analogy, Abraham, concerns the scourge of AIDS -- but even more, the love between a father and his son. The Austrian playwright Felix Mitterer, born in 1948 in the Tyrol, is one of today's leading European dramatists. His two four-part television series, "Piefke-Saga" and "Verkaufte Heimat" were seen by millions of viewers in the German-speaking coun-tries.

The movie Slacker unfolds during a 24-hour period in Austin, Texas, in which hundreds of characters wander about in a timeless entropy, working hard at doing nothing. Now, to coincide with the national video release of this cult classic, a book that is a ricochet of the movie and the phenomenon. Includes a foreword by bestselling author Douglas Coupland. Illustrated.

This second volume of Austrian Folk Plays gives further evidence of the popularity of this form among contemporary writers. In the late nineteenth century the folk play had fallen into disrepute as trivial literature but in the 1920 it began to be restored to prominence and after World War II writers rediscovered the form and believed that it was ideally suited to treat contemporary social problems.