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Federal Way
by Historical Society of Federal WayLocated on Puget Sound between Seattle and Tacoma, the site that became Federal Way was first settled by loggers, who in the 1860s began using the shore along Puget Sound for easy access to the extensive timber available inland. By the 1880s, about 50 homesteaders had filed claims in the Greater Federal Way area. Five small communities with individual school districts were established. When the five school districts consolidated in 1929, the new school was given the name Federal Way School because of the recently built, federally funded highway that passed nearby. Eventually the entire community came to be known as Federal Way. Still a relatively rural place up until the 1950s, Federal Way has grown exponentially since that time and is now the eighth largest city in Washington.
Feed the Hungry: A Memoir with Recipes
by Nani PowerAn author whose fiction has been praised by Mary Gaitskill ("Passionate, intelligent, and piercingly beautiful. . . an altogether striking debut") and Darcy Steinke ("Nani Power. . . shows that sensuality pervades all of life and is too powerful to be contained in the bedroom alone"), Nani Power turns her incredible storytelling talents to memoir, crafting a sublime work of nonfiction centered around a life of travel, eclectic dining, and dealing with her decidedly eccentric Southern bohemian family. Consumption is the real American pastime. Through the prism of food, we all see our pasts differently. Like the finest food writers, Power brings readers directly into her world through the evocative depiction of the experience of eating. From her childhood on a rambling farm in Virginia -- during which she witnessed a saga of fighting, disowning, silencing, and other regrettable acts -- to her peripatetic and international adult life, Power's reflections are surprising, enthralling, and entertaining. She has a deep understanding of the cuisines of Peru and Mexico, Iran and India; her stints as a sandwich seller in Rio, a waitress in the East Village, a funeral caterer in the Deep South, and on a food junket to Japan all seem familiar as she relates each experience to us through its cuisine. A wealth of detailed recipes throughout the book offer a chance to recreate Power's memories in perpetuity. Lyrical and uplifting, unflinching and brave,Feed the Hungryis a supple, evocative memoir of food, travel, Americana, and family history, written with all the creativity, tenderness, grit, and verve we have come to expect from this uncommonly gifted writer.
Feeding a Yen
by Calvin TrillinCalvin Trillin has never been a champion of the "continental cuisine" palaces he used to refer to as La Maison de la Casa House--nor of their successors, the trendy spots he calls "sleepy-time restaurants, where everything is served on a bed of something else." What he treasures is the superb local specialty. And he will go anywhere to find one.As it happens, some of Trillin's favorite dishes--pimientos de Padrón in northern Spain, for instance, or pan bagnat in Nice or posole in New Mexico--can't be found anywhere but in their place of origin. Those dishes are on his Register of Frustration and Deprivation. "On gray afternoons, I go over it," he writes, "like a miser who is both tantalizing and tormenting himself by poring over a list of people who owe him money." On brighter afternoons, he calls his travel agent. Trillin shares charming and funny tales of managing to have another go at, say, fried marlin in Barbados or the barbecue of his boyhood in Kansas City. Sometimes he returns with yet another listing for his Register--as when he travels to Ecuador for ceviche, only to encounter fanesca, a soup so difficult to make that it "should appear on an absolutely accurate menu as Potage Labor Intensive."We join the hunt for the authentic fish taco. We tag along on the "boudin blitzkrieg" in the part of Louisiana where people are accustomed to buying boudin and polishing it off in the parking lot or in their cars ("Cajun boudin not only doesn't get outside the state, it usually doesn't even get home"). In New York, we follow Trillin as he roams Queens with the sort of people who argue about where to find the finest Albanian burek and as he tries to use a glorious local specialty, the New York bagel, to lure his daughters back from California ("I understand that in some places out there if you buy a dozen wheat-germ bagels you get your choice of a bee-pollen bagel or a ginseng bagel free").Feeding a Yen is a delightful reminder of why New York magazine called Calvin Trillin "our funniest food writer."From the Hardcover edition.
Feeding the Dragon: A Culinary Travelogue Through China with Recipes
by Mary Kate Tate Nate TateThis beautifully illustrated cookbook and travelogue features 100 authentic recipes gathered from Shanghai to Xinjiang and beyond.Mandarin-speaking American siblings Mary Kate and Nate Tate traveled more than 9,700 miles through China, collecting stories, photographs, and lots of recipes. In Feeding the Dragon, they share what they saw, learned, and ate along the way. Highlighting nine unique regions, this volume features Buddhist vegetarian dishes enjoyed on the snowcapped mountains of Tibet, lamb kebabs served on the scorching desert of Xinjiang Province, and much more presented alongside personal stories and photographs.Recipes include Shanghai Soup Dumplings, Pineapple Rice, Coca-Cola Chicken Wings, Green Tea Shortbread Cookies, and Lychee Martinis. Feeding the Dragon also provides handy reference sidebars to guide cooks with time-saving shortcuts such as buying premade dumpling wrappers or using a blow-dryer to finish your Peking Duck. A comprehensive glossary of Chinese ingredients and their equivalent substitutions complete the book.
Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands
by Linda Ronstadt Lawrence DownesRock and Roll Hall of Famer Linda Ronstadt takes readers on a journey to the place her soul calls home, the Sonoran Desert, in this candid new memoir.In Feels Like Home, Grammy award-winning singer Linda Ronstadt effortlessly evokes the barometric pressure of the high desert, a landscape etched by sunlight and carved by wind, offering a personal tour built around meals and memories of the place where she came of age. Growing up the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and a descendant of Spanish settlers near northern Sonora, Ronstadt’s intimate new memoir celebrates the marvelous flavors and indomitable people on both sides of what was once a porous border whose denizens were happy to exchange recipes and gather around campfires to sing the ballads that shaped Ronstadt’s musical heritage. Following her bestselling musical memoir, Simple Dreams, this book seamlessly braids together Ronstadt’s recollections of people and their passions in a region little understood in the rest of the United States. This road trip through the desert, written in collaboration with former New York Times writer Lawrence Downes and illustrated throughout with beautiful photographs by Bill Steen, features recipes for traditional Sonoran dishes and a bevy of revelations for Ronstadt’s admirers. If this book were a radio signal, you might first pick it up on an Arizona highway, well south of Phoenix, coming into the glow of Ronstadt’s hometown of Tucson. It would be playing something old and Mexican, from a time when the border was a place not of peril but of possibility.
Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans
by Roy Blount Jr."Betcha I can tell ya / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Betchadollar, / Betchadollar, / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Got your shoes on your feet, / Got your feet on the street, / And the street's in Noo / Awlins, Loo- / Eez-ee-anna. Where I, for my part, first ate a live oyster and first saw a naked woman with the lights on. . . . Every time I go to New Orleans I am startled by something. " So writes Roy Blount Jr. in this exuberant, character-filled saunter through a place he has loved almost his entire life--a city "like no other place in America, and yet (or therefore) the cradle of American culture. " Here we experience it all through his eyes, ears, and taste buds: the architecture, music, romance (yes, sex too), historical characters, and all that glorious food. The book is divided into eight Rambles through different parts of the city. Each closes with lagniappe--a little bit extra, a special treat for the reader: here a brief riff on Gennifer Flowers, there a meditation on naked dancing. Roy Blount knows New Orleans like the inside of an oyster shell and is only too glad to take us to both the famous and the infamous sights. He captures all the wonderful and rich history--culinary, literary, and political--of a city that figured prominently in the lives of Jefferson Davis (who died there), Truman Capote (who was conceived there), Zora Neale Hurston (who studied voodoo there), and countless others, including Andrew Jackson, Lee Harvey Oswald, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Jelly Roll Morton, Napoléon, Walt Whitman, O. Henry, Thomas Wolfe, Earl Long, Randy Newman, Edgar Degas, Lillian Hellman, the Boswell Sisters, and the Dixie Cups. Above all, though, Feet on the Street is a celebration of friendship and joie de vivre in one of America's greatest and most colorful cities, written by one of America's most beloved humorists.
Felix the Railway Cat
by Kate Moore**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - AS SEEN ON THE ONE SHOW**It will make you laugh and it will make you cry: Felix The Railway Cat is the extraordinary tale of a close-knit community and its amazing bond with a very special cat. 'The global sensation' Daily Telegraph When Felix arrived at Yorkshire's Huddersfield Train Station as an eight-week-old kitten, no one knew just how important this little ball of fluff would become. Although she has a vital job to do as 'Senior Pest Controller', Felix is much more than just an employee of TransPennine Express. Felix changes lives in surprising ways. She is always ready to leap into action and save the day: from bringing a boy with autism out of his shell to providing comfort to a runaway child shivering on the platform one night. So when tragedy hits the team at Huddersfield, it is only Felix who can pull them back together. But a chance friendship with a commuter that she waits for her on the platform every morning finally gives Felix the recognition she deserves, catapulting her to international stardom . . . Royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to Prostate Cancer UK (registered charity 1005541, SC039332).
Fell's Point (Images of America)
by Jacqueline GreffFell's Point, Baltimore's original deep-water port, was founded in 1726 by William Fell, a shipbuilder from England. The community's shipyards developed the famed Baltimore Clippers; built two of the first ships in the United States Navy, the USS Constellation and the USS Enterprise; and financed the privateers that helped win the War of 1812. In the late 19th century, Baltimore was second only to Ellis Island as an entry port for European immigrants, many of whom initially settled in Fell's Point. When the Great Fire of 1904 swept through Baltimore, Fell's Point was the only historic neighborhood that survived. In the 1960s fight to keep from being demolished for an expressway, Fell's Point became Maryland's first district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today in Fell's Point, cultures, lifestyles, and generations mingle in a romantic seaport setting accented by working tugboats, cobblestone streets, tiny brick rowhouses, and a dazzling variety of bars, restaurants, shops, and coffeehouses.
Fell's Point (Images of Modern America)
by Jacqueline Greff Jeffrey Bejma Frank L. Tybush VFell's Point history can be told as a "tale of two cities:" abolitionists and violent secessionists; fire-bombing murderers and community organizers; million-dollar condos and low-income projects; and world champion boxers and a myriad of panhandlers. This dichotomy has created a neighborhood unlike any other in Baltimore. One of the oldest neighborhoods in America, Fell's Point has witnessed much in its 300-plus years. Originally Baltimore's deepwater seaport, Fell's Point's privateers were crucial to winning of the War of 1812. After shipbuilding moved out and waves of immigrants moved through the community, it gradually fell into decline in the first half of the 20th century. In the 1960s, dedicated preservationists began a decade-plus-long battle to defeat city plans to demolish it for a highway. Today, Fell's Point is a thriving, artistic, and eccentric community that welcomes one and all to experience its history, its culture, and its people.
Female Nomad & Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World
by Rita Golden Gelman Maria AltobelliRita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad, celebrates the wonders and joy of cross-cultural connecting with this collection of stories and recipes from more than forty authors. She also includes anecdotes about her own further adventures. Happy reading and bon apptit, selamat makan, buen provecho!
Feminism and Socialism in China (Routledge Revivals)
by Elisabeth CrollFirst published in 1978, Feminism and Socialism in China explores the inter-relationship of feminism and socialism and the contribution of each towards the redefinition of the role and status of women in China. In her history of the women’s movement in China from the late nineteenth century onwards, Professor Croll provides an opportunity to study its construction, its ideological and structural development over a number of decades, and its often ambiguous relationship with a parallel movement to establish socialism. Based on a variety of material including eye witness accounts, the author examines a wide range of fundamental issues, including women’s class and oppression, the relation of women’s solidarity groups to class organisations, reproduction and the accommodation of domestic labour, women in the labour process, and the relationship between women’s participation in social production and their access to and control of political and economic resources. The book includes excerpts from studies of village and communal life, documents of the women’s movement and interviews with members of the movement.
Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy
by Debra M. Kawahara and Oliva M. EspínUnderstanding multicultural feminist perspectives is vital for clinicians working to effectively help women in therapy. Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy provides therapists with valuable insight and research into the identities of Asian and Asian American women, all toward the crucial goal of being more effective when providing therapeutic help. In-depth explorations into the women’s personal experiences and psychological issues provide an empowering multicultural feminist viewpoint that challenges assumptions and stereotypes about their identities while presenting innovative therapeutic approaches.Identity is made up from several factors, such as worldview, beliefs, values, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, and religious orientation. Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy explores how these common factors impact psychotherapy approaches for women of Asian American backgrounds. This unique text presents the current research, what the data mean for adjusting clinical strategies, and personal accounts from Asian and Asian American women. Each chapter is extensively referenced.Topics in Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy include: breaking free of the passive, subservient stereotypes defining gender identity cultural and identity issues emotional parity negotiations in Chinese immigrant women’s marital relationships suicide as a means of agency rather than simply a cry for help the use of feminist and multicultural principles with survivors of domestic violence research on Asian American lesbians’ health integrating multiculturalism and feminism in the treatment of eating disorders innovative therapeutic approach based on Hindu understandings of Shakti approaches to work on body image and eating disorders group counseling with Asian American women training multicultural feminist therapy practitionersFeminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy is an insightful exploration of the culturally sensitive knowledge and skills clinicians need to work more effectively with female clients of Asian ancestry. This stimulating work is important reading for therapists, counselors, psychologists, and others in the mental health and social work fields.
Fenway Park (Images of Modern America)
by Raymond SinibaldiIn June 1967, Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey declared Fenway Park outdated and stated that without help from the city for a new ballpark, he would consider moving his team. That same year, an impossible dream came true as the 100-1 underdog Red Sox won the pennant and a record-setting 1.7 million fans visited Fenway. Since then, approximately 110 million fans have watched the Red Sox play at what is now called "America's Most Beloved Ballpark." While Fenway Park was once known for simply resembling a warehouse, its nearby streets now hold a baseball festival every game. Those festivals have grown to include concerts, hockey, soccer, and high school football. The exterior walls of the park extoll the accomplishments of each Red Sox World Championship team and fly the banners of Red Sox Hall of Famers since the team's birth in 1901. Red Sox bronzed immortals stand watch at the entrance to Gate B.
Ferdinand Magellan: Circumnavigating the World (In the Footsteps of Explorers)
by Katharine BaileyDiscusses the journey undertaken by Ferdinand Magellan and his five ship armada in an attempt to find a western route to the Indies, which ended up being the first fleet to circumnavigate the globe.
Ferdinand Magellan (The First Names Series)
by Candy GourlayAn illustrated biography of the famous explorer with “plenty of engaging action scenes and historical facts” (School Library Journal). Before he led the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth, Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) was a Portuguese noble who loved the sea. A skilled sailor, he led a number of voyages and is known for his incredible navigation skills. Over the course of his sailing career, he faced terrible storms and mutinies but always managed to get his crew home safely. He set off with his crew to circle the globe—a trip that no other ship had ever completed. Though Magellan died in combat in the Philippines before he could complete the voyage, his ship went on to complete the first circumnavigation of the world, and he is still known as one of the greatest explorers. However, as historians today note, many of the places that Magellan “discovered” already had people living there, and his fame is one rooted in colonialism. Ferdinand Magellan tackles the legacy—both good and bad—of this famous explorer.First Names is a highly illustrated nonfiction series that puts young readers on a first-name basis with some of the most incredible people in history and of today!
Ferdinand Magellan (A Primary Source Biography)
by Lynn HoogenboomThis book traces the life and exploits of the Portuguese explorer who sailed under the Spanish flag, challenged mutinies and located a waterway between the South American continent and the island at its southern tip, providing quicker passage to the Pacific
Ferment: A Memoir of Mental Illness, Redemption, and Winemaking in the Mosel
by Patrick DobsonA deeply moving account of one man&’s return to the German town where he first pursued a career in winemaking, and his attempt to reckon with the mental illness, alcoholism, and enduring relationships that defined the most formative chapter of his life.After an attempted suicide by hanging—with his son in the next room—author Patrick Dobson checks into a mental hospital, clueless, reeling from bone-crushing depression and tortuous, racing thoughts. A long overdue diagnosis of manic depression offers relief but brings his confused and eventful past into question.To make sense of his suicide attempt and deal with his past, he returns to Germany where, three decades earlier, he arrived as twenty-two-year-old—lost, drunk, and in the throes of untreated mental illness—in search of a new life and with dreams of becoming a winemaker. The sublime Mosel vineyards and the ancient city of Trier changed his life forever.Ferment charts his days in Trier&’s vineyards and cellars, and the enduring friendships that would define his life. A winemaker and his wife become like parents to him. In their son, he finds a brother, whose death years later sends Dobson into a suicidal tailspin. His friends, once apprentices like himself, become leaders in their fields: an art historian and church-restoration expert, an art- and architectural-glass craftsman, a painter and photographer, and a theologian/journalist. The relationships he builds with them become hallmarks of a life well-lived.In Ferment, Dobson reconnects with the people who stood by him through his dissolution and eventual recovery. In these relationships, he seeks who he was and how his time in Germany changed him. He peers into his memory to understand how manic depression and alcoholism affected who he was then and how his time in Germany made him who he&’s become.
Fernandez de Oviedo's Chronicle of America: A New History for a New World
by Kathleen Ann MyersGonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478-1557) wrote the first comprehensive history of Spanish America, the Historia general y natural de las Indias, a sprawling, constantly revised work in which Oviedo attempted nothing less than a complete account of the Spanish discovery, conquest, and colonization of the Americas from 1492 to 1547, along with descriptions of the land's flora, fauna, and indigenous peoples. His Historia, which grew to an astounding fifty volumes, includes numerous interviews with the Spanish and indigenous leaders who were literally making history, the first extensive field drawings of America rendered by a European, reports of exotic creatures, ethnographic descriptions of indigenous groups, and detailed reports about the conquest and colonization process. Fernández de Oviedo's Chronicle of America explores how, in writing his Historia, Oviedo created a new historiographical model that reflected the vastness of the Americas and Spain's enterprise there. Kathleen Myers uses a series of case studies--focusing on Oviedo's self-portraits, drawings of American phenomena, approaches to myth, process of revision, and depictions of Native Americans--to analyze Oviedo's narrative and rhetorical strategies and show how they relate to the politics, history, and discursive practices of his time. Accompanying the case studies are all of Oviedo's extant field drawings and a wide selection of his text in English translation. The first study to examine the entire Historia and its evolving rhetorical and historical context, this book confirms Oviedo's assertion that "the New World required a different kind of history" as it helps modern readers understand how the discovery of the Americas became a catalyst for European historiographical change.
Ferndale
by Ferndale MuseumThe enchanting "Victorian Village" of Ferndale in the Eel River Valley is designated a "Distinctive Destination" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is a California Historical Landmark. Named by its founders, the Shaw brothers, to honor the six-foot-tall ferns that once choked the thickly forested valley floor, the town became a vital center for goods bound by water for San Francisco and a crossroads for stages to Eureka and Bear River. For many years after the Shaws first paddled their canoe across the Eel River in 1852, travelers forded it by ferry. This changed when Fernbridge was constructed in 1911, at that time the longest reinforced concrete-arch span bridge in the world.
Festival and Event Tourism: Building Resilience and Promoting Sustainability
by Edited by Anukrati Sharma, Jeetesh Kumar, Bakhodir Turaev, Priyakrushna MohantyFestivals and events vary from small, neighbourhood celebrations through to mega gatherings, and both can be attractive to tourists. They come with their own unique challenges and opportunities however, which means destinations must carefully consider their responsibility to local people, and host them in a sustainable manner. Divided into four sections, this book covers the sustainability, community involvement and destination-marketing aspects of festivals and events. This book: - Reviews the common trends, trajectories and competition in the event tourism market. - Discusses the role of event organizers in ensuring the sustainability of events and their destinations, including green activities and cultural preservation. - Considers the role of the community in achieving sustainability through volunteerism, heritage conservation and ensuring events boost community spirit. Covering important issues such as the marketing, branding and promotion of events, this book also unravels the opportunities and challenges associated with sustainable festivals and events. It uses an array of case studies and a global author team to provide an important resource for tourism and event researchers and professionals.
Festival and Event Tourism Impacts (Routledge Advances in Event Research Series)
by Dogan Gursoy Robin Nunkoo Medet YolalFestival and Event Tourism Impacts provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the multi-faceted impacts that festival and events have on a host community, whether positive or negative, and offers recommendations for communities for the successful management of this kind of tourism. Opening chapters define festival and event tourism impact concepts utilized in the field and their evolution throughout the years, followed by an exploration of the current issues facing communities. The second part discusses sustainability and environmental issues that affect destinations and communities as a result of festival and event impacts. Subsequent chapters outline further impacts and finally address cutting-edge event tourism development and impact management strategies and considerations such as innovative management approaches, sustainability, and social responsibility, for example, and identify future trends and issues within a multidisciplinary global perspective. A variety of geographical locations are exemplified throughout as well as a range of diverse event types including the Formula One Grand Prix in Monaco, Pope Francis’ visit to Mauritius in 2019, and the 29th Summer Universiade in Taiwan, among many others. Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of highly regarded academics from around the world, this will be of great interest to all upper-level students and researchers in Tourism, Hospitality, Events, and related fields.
Festival and Events Management: An International Arts And Culture Perspective
by Ian Yeoman Una Mcmahon-Beattie Martin Robertson Jane Ali-Knight Siobhan DrummondFestival and Events Management: an international perspective is a unique text looking at the central role of events management in the cultural, tourism and arts industries. With international contributions from industry and academia, the text looks at the following: * Events & cultural environments * Managing the arts & leisure experience * Marketing, policies and strategies of art and leisure management Chapters include exercises, and additional teaching materials and solutions to questions are provided as part of an accompanying online resource.
Festival And Special Event Management
by Johnny Allen William O'Toole Robert Harris Ian McDonnellFestival and Special Event Management, 5th edition continues the comprehensive overview of the theory and procedures associated with festivals and special events established in previous editions. The new edition of this market-leading text introduces developments and professional tools, and considers the globalisation and subsequent internationalisation of event management. The role of marketing and communication, environmental planning, the increasing role of governments through the creation of event strategies, and the different perspectives of event management are all discussed. This edition aims to embrace and extend the growing body of knowledge relating to event management by tracking many of the recent changes and developments in the field. This offers students a current, relevant textbook for their study and professional reference.
Festival Encounters: Theoretical Perspectives on Festival Events (Routledge Advances in Event Research Series)
by Michelle Duffy Judith MairFestivals and events are of enormous significance to many communities around the world. They can have historic, religious, cultural and traditional significance, and they are also important parts of community building. This book focuses on these small-scale, non-metropolitan events (i.e. rural, regional and peri-urban) to explore the complex relationships between place, community and identity and the ways in which festival events bring these into being. By drawing on the notion of ‘encounter’, this book examines how festivals and events can be seen primarily as spaces where different people meet. This notion of encounter helps us to understand how conviviality and social relations are developed, and what this then means in terms of social cohesion and social justice. It also draws on current theoretical and methodological approaches that can tell us about the role of festivals in contemporary life, and it includes the sensual approach, the geographies of affect and emotion, the notion of the right to the city and nonrepresentation theory. The book brings together these perspectives and examines their relevance in the community events context, identifying and discussing theoretical frameworks drawn from (including but not limited to) human geography, sociology, anthropology, leisure studies and urban planning, as well as tourism and event studies. For these reasons, Festival Encounters will be a valuable read for students and academics working on a wide range of disciplines.
Festival Places
by Chris Gibson John ConnellFestivals have burgeoned in rural areas, revitalising old traditions and inventing new reasons to celebrate. How do festivals contribute to tourism, community and a rural sense of belonging? What are their cultural, environmental and economic dimensions? This book answers such questions - featuring contributions from leading geographers, historians, anthropologists, tourism scholars and cultural researchers. It draws on a range of case studies: from the rustic charm of agricultural shows and family circuses to the effervescent festival of Elvis Presley impersonators in Parkes; from wildflower collecting to the cosmopolitan beats of ChillOut, Australia's largest non-metropolitan gay and lesbian festival. Festivals as diverse as youth surfing carnivals, country music musters, Aboriginal gatherings in the remote Australian outback, Scottish highland gatherings and German Christmas celebrations are united in their emphasis on community, conviviality and fun.