BOOKS and PUBLICATIONS by William D. Coffey
To Order: Mail check or MO to Fixy Populist Publications, PO Box 1367, Frankfort, KY 40602
RENEWAL: Old Stories, a Godly Algorithm, and Choices for the Earth Today
This magnum opus is a serious exploration of the interface of science and spirituality, with special focus on how both relate causally to the existential threat posed by global warming in decades immediately ahead. Viewing evolution as the driving force of emergent, rising change through four phases—cosmic, biological, cultural, spiritual—RENEWAL draws on the enormous database of evidence from near-death experience reports to present an umbrella perspective so broad it subsumes all manmade religions and native spiritualities under two simple divine mandates: Help Others and Attain Knowledge. The choice every human being must make—to serve self or help others—is elaborated in context of acknowledgment that we can choose the kind of economic system we will use henceforward. Employee-owned cooperatives are presented as ethical replacements for the out-of-control capitalist juggernaut that is destroying our habitable environment and, unless stopped, will collapse our civilization in this century.
Published 2021. Total 582 pages as a two-volume set, paperback.
Volume 1 $23;
Volume II $23.
Option: An oversized single volume of 475 pages, paperback: $35 while limited supply lasts.
POPULIST CORRECTIONS: Third Options for Our Next Lifestyle and Economic Paradigms
This tongue-in-cheek satire provides chapter, verse and exquisite detail on replacing the U.S. capitalist economy with third options “that are ethical.” In dry humor waxing hilarious at times, POPULIST CORRECTIONS presents a ninety-five-section legislative bill–the Capitalist Free-Market Corrections Act (CaFMaC)—self consciously patterned after Martin Luther’s little ninety-five-theses tome with observation that “Luther did not intend to foment revolution that transformed western civilization.” CaFMaC places “natural monopolies” under strict control and abolishes all other monopolies. All too-big-to-fail corporations—and then all corporations controlling 5% or more of the U.S. marketplace—are subdivided into pieces that become employee-owned co-ops. Corporations as such are outlawed. Formation of new small entrepreneurships is encouraged, ensuring genuine free market competition for the first time ever. Co-ops and entrepreneurships must compete with each other and any that grow over 5% of market will be subdivided.
Profit is abolished in the USA and replaced with the concept of “Surplus.” Specified Economic Rights for every American are enacted into law. Federal initiatives transform the nation to renewable energy with wartime urgency. Every product needed by 320 million Americans—the world’s third-largest consumer market—is manufactured and provided by Americans, creating millions of new jobs paying a Living Wage—replacing the minimum wage which is abolished. Children are taught to appreciate “adequacy.” And much, much more, with surprises.
Published 2021. 303 pages, paperback. $25
WELL SPENT: Value-Laden Verses and Essays
The collection features selected essays and poetry from the author’s writings over the past half century. Various perspectives on human values are a common theme throughout the collection. An emergent theme considers what those values should be.
Published 2021.
168 pages, hardbound with dust jacket. $20
Paul Sawyier, Kentucky Artist:
An Historical Chronology of His Life, Art and Times from Old Frankfort to the Catskills
Significant new research findings not previously published in any of the several writings about Sawyier’s life (1865-1917) set the record straight on his oil portraits and watercolor/impressionist paintings, his sporadic employment, his twenty-three-year romance with Mayme Bull, his father’s bizarre indebtedness, and the quite mistaken popular perception that Sawyier was a lifelong drunkard. His development and evolution as an artist are traced through four life stages: his youth and art studies; the young artist and his friends in old Frankfort; the mature but ever-impoverished artist painting central Kentucky environs, including years of living on a houseboat; and his final unhappy five years—and descent into alcohol abuse—in New York City and the Catskills. New materials include selections from Mayme Bull’s poems during their relationship, and court-records detail on his father’s acquired debt while declining into senility.
Published 2010 by Frankfort Heritage Press.
196 pages, hardbound with dust jacket. $22
Legends of the Great Hall:
A Stately Frolic & Mid-Winter Celebration of Ancient Music, Dances, Traditions and Delights
This two-hour scripted extravaganza celebrates AngloAmerican traditions of folk dancing and music, storytelling, mummersdrama and ancient English ritual dances. These artistic traditions constitute an important component of the ancestral—but mostly forgotten—cultural heritage of the many Americans descended from English, Irish and Scottish immigrants who came on great sailing ships to the American colonies. Over the past half century this heritage—notably the old dances and associated music—has expanded to engage Americans of every ethnic heritage in many cities across the nation. Folk dancing is fun! LEGENDS is designed to engage whole communities. The cast may easily engage a hundred dancers, musicians and performers, plus twice that number of audience—theaudiencerepeatedly interacts with the show, and joins in a grand finale of combined cast and audience, everybody on the floor, immersed in singing and joined-hands movement. The script presents complete details that enable anyone, familiar or not, to perform all the dances, songs and dramatic action.
Published 2007, free to all who will, NO rights reserved.
54 pages, spiral bound. $10.
THE PARABLES:
Adventures of the Prodigal Son
A Contemporary Operetta
Music and libretto for this one-hour operetta incorporate a variety of Biblical parables (the rich fool; the good Samaritan; etc) into the overall parable of the prodigal son’s misadventures (Luke 15, 11-24) and their timeless relevance for the ill-considered urges of youth.
Published 1972; reprinted 2021.
120 pages, spiral bound. $15.
Half-Century Treasury of Traditional Tunes for String Bands
Publication pending. Some 260 traditional tunes—sorted as reels, jigs, hornpipes, breakdowns, waltzes, grand marches, Celtic traditional tunes, and English court and country dance tunes in string-friendly keys, plus a few oddballs—may be viewed elsewhere on this blogsite (click on Operetta and Folk Dance Tunes). I collected them quite randomly over fifty years of traditional dancing, playing music for dances, producing dance camps and making new friends from all over the nation and the world, and writing not a few new tunes myself.
Feel free to print them out and use them as you will, for folk music belongs to everyone. Don Coffey, November 2021.
