Over 40 years ago, a country music DJ convention (大会) was held every year in Nashville, Tennessee. Many country performers used to attend (参加) the convention to give their performances. Fans would go to Nashville hoping to see their favorite performers. In the end, so many fans began showing up in Nashville that a festival named Fan Fair was born.

    The first Fan Fair was held in April 1972, in Nashville for four days. Some of country music's biggest stars attended. There were about fifty thousand fans. The first Fan Fair was so successful that planning began almost immediately for 1973. The date was changed to June, when the weather would be better. Over one hundred thousand fans attended the second Fan Fair.

    Every year brought so many performers and fans to Fan Fair that, in 1982, it was moved to the Tennessee State Fairgrounds. Fan Fair stayed at the fairgrounds for another nineteen years.

    There was always the unexpected during the festival. In 1974, former Beatle Paul McCartney attended. In 1992, more than six hundred reporters from Europe, Asia, and South America went to cover the appearance of a popular star, Billy Ray Cyrus, who had introduced a new country line dance. In 1996, Garth Brooks, who made a surprise appearance, signed autographs (签名) for 23 hours.

    In 2001, Fan Fair returned to downtown Nashville as the world's biggest country music festival. Now, over one hundred and twenty-five thousand country music fans go to Nashville every June. As you can imagine, those who want to attend Fan Fair must plan ahead. For example, they need to buy a ticket several months ahead of time. Of course, there's much more to prepare.

Mini Book Excerpts (节选)

    Biography

    When Salinger learned that a car park was to be built on the land, the middle-aged writer was shocked and quickly bought the neighboring area to protect it… The townspeople never forgot the rescue and came to help their most famous neighbor.

    J. D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski (Random House, $ 27)

    Mystery

    “You're a smart boy. Benny's death was no accident, and you're the only one who saw it happen. Do you think the murderer should get away with it?” The boy was staring stubbornly at his lap again.

    A thought suddenly occurred to Annika, “Did you... You recognized the man in the car, didn't you?”

    The boy hesitated, twisting his fingers. “Maybe,” he said quietly.

    Red Wolf by Liza Marklund (Atria Books, $ 25.99)

    Short Stories

    She wants to say to him what she has learned, none of it in class. Some women are born stupid, and some women are too smart for their own good. Some women are born to give, and some women only know how to take. Some women learn who they want to be from their mothers, some who they don't want to be. Some mothers suffer so their daughters won't. Some mothers suffer so their daughters won't.

    You Are Free by Danzy Senna (Riverhead Books, $ 15)

    Humor

    Do your kids like to have fun? Come to Fun Times! Do you like to watch your kids having fun? Bring them to Fun Times! Fun Times's “amusement cycling” is the most fun you can have in the United States right now. Why spend thousands of dollars flying to Disney World when you can spend less than half to that within a day's drive in most cities?

    Happy And Other Bad Thoughts by Larry Doyle (Ecco, $ 14.99)

    Blowing bubbles is fun! The best thing about bubbles is that it's easy to make your own bubble solution(溶液). You can make as much as you want and blow as many bubbles as you'd like. If you add a "secret" ingredient(配料), you'll get bigger and stronger bubbles! Do just as follows:

    Measure 6 cups of water into one container, then pour 1 cup of dish soap into the water and slowly stir it until the soap is mixed in. Try not to let bubbles form while you stir.

    Measure 1 tablespoon of glycerin(甘油) or 1/4 cup of corn syrup（玉米淀粉） and add it to the container. Stir the solution until it is mixed together.

    You can use the solution right away, but to make even better bubbles, put the lid on the container and let your super bubble solution sit overnight. The soap mixture on the outside of a bubble is actually made of three very thin layers: soap, water, and another layer of soap. A bubble pops when the water that is trapped between the layers of soap evaporates(蒸发). The glycerin or corn syrup mixes with the soap to make it thicker. The thicker skin of the bubbles keeps the water from evaporating as quickly, so they last longer. It also makes them stronger, so you can blow bigger bubbles.

    Dip a bubble wand or straw into the mixture, slowly pull it out, wait a few seconds, and then blow. If you don't have a ready-made "bubble wand", you can make your own by cutting off the end of the bulb of a plastic pipet. Dip the cut end in solution and blow through the narrow end. You can also make a loop out of thin wire or pipe cleaner. Just twist a round end on your wire to blow the bubbles through. You can even make it heart-shaped, square or use other shapes if you're clever enough to bend it well.

    On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that 42% of Americans could be overweight by 2030. Our expanding bodies not only lead to a medical problem, but also endanger personal safety in some situations—in an airplane crash, for example, according to a recent article in The New York Times.

The New York Times' Christine Negroni reports that engineers and scientists are questioning whether airplane seats are designed to protect overweight travelers. Government standards(标准) for airplane seat strength—first set more than 60 years ago—require that the seats be made for a passenger weighing 170 pounds. Today, the average American man weighs nearly 194 pounds and the average woman 165 pounds. Negroni reports:

     “If a heavier person completely fills a seat, the seat is not likely to behave as designed during a crash,” Robert Salzar, the leading scientist at the Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University of Virginia. “The energy that is built into the aircraft seat is likely to be overpowered and the passengers will not be protected properly”.

     “Nor would the injury be limited to that passenger only,” Dr. Salzar said. “If a seat or a seat belt fails,”he said, “those people who are seated nearby could not be safe from the uncontrolled movements of the passenger.”

    Most complaints(投诉) about airplane seats focus on their lack of comfort and high ticket price, and whether overweight passengers should be made to buy two seats. But The New York Times' article brings up another reason to feel anxious about flying. Investigators(调查者) got in touch with the airplane seat and seat belt makers, but they refused to talk about the problem. Experts agreed that crash testing should be done. Both airplane seats and seat belts should be tested, they said.

    Fortunately, however, according to Nora Marshall, a senior adviser at the National Transportation Safety Board, the board's investigators have never seen an accident involving a commercial plane in which the weight of a passenger was a problem.

    High school biology teacher Kelly Chavis knew smart phones were a problem in her class. But not even the students realized how much of a problem the devices were until Chavis did an in­class experiment.

    For one class period, students used a whiteboard to count every Snapchat, Instagram, text, call that appeared on their phones. Chavis is among a growing number of teachers, parents and health experts who believe that smart phones are now partly to blame for increasing the levels of student anxiety. "One girl, just during the one hour, got close to 150 Snapchat notifications. 150!" she said.

    Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University in California, said it is not a coincidence that youth mental health issues have risen with the number of phones. "This use of phones has led to a loss of sleep and face­to­face interactions necessary for their growth," she said.

    Researchers are still not sure whether phones cause student depression or depression causes phone use. But nearly 60 percent of parents said they worry about the influence of social media on their child's physical and mental health.

    Both schools and parents are starting to take steps to deal with the problem. Many public schools pay outside companies to watch students' social media activity for signs of anxiety. Other schools invite in yoga teachers and comfort dogs to help calm students.

Do you know that junk food isn't healthy? Of course you do! Do you eat it anyway? Of course you do! But a new study shows teaching adolescents about the ways food companies fool them into thinking junk food is cool can encourage kids to fight back—by eating healthier.

The pull of junk food can be super-strong. It's designed to be tasty, which makes eating well one of the great health challenges of our time. Everyone from doctors to the government has been trying to handle it. Yet we keep eating junk food.

Professor Christopher Bryan says, "Food companies want you to want junk food." They spend millions of dollars coming up with new ways to promote junk food consumption. They hire scientists to make new junk food almost irresistible. They might do this, for example, by adding more sugar. Rats fed junk food for six weeks will even walk across a floor that gives them electric shocks just to get more of such food.

Food ads often make unhealthy junk food seem healthy by featuring professional athletes, fit-looking pop stars and smiling, active teens. "We thought when the students learned this, it would matter to them," Bryan says. He worked with 8th graders at a Texas school. Half of them got a lesson Bryan created. It focused on the ways junk food is advertised, or marketed. A second group received lessons that focused on health. These lessons informed students junk food is bad, and that foods like apples or carrots are a better choice. The students learned a bad diet can lead to major weight gain, and that being overweight puts people at risk for serious diseases. They also learned how eating well now can keep you healthy when you're older.

After the lessons, the kids in both groups were asked how they felt about junk food. Most didn't have positive feelings about these unhealthy foods.