Its rich, interesting characters and honestly portrayed relationships make the show’s portrait of West Texas life compelling and relatable in ways that have nothing—and everything—to do with touchdowns.A Friday Night Lights Companion celebrates the show, its fearlessness, and what it’s meant to those who love it.• Dave Campbell’s Texas Football managing editor Travis Stewart provides a moving tribute to the power of high school football, by way of unlikely hero Matt Saracen• Jonna Rubin shares the lessons she’s learned from the best marriage on television: Eric and Tami Taylor’s (lesson number one: drink more wine)• Television Without Pity writer Jacob Clifton offers a meditation on one of Friday Night Lights’ most fundamental values: being a part of something bigger than yourself• The Washington Post’s Jen Chaney reminds us what we love most about all our favorite Dillon residents, from Tim Riggins to Buddy Garrity to Jess Merriweather• And more writing and reflections on Friday Night LightsA Friday Night Lights Companion takes you from series pilot to series finale, through all five masterfully crafted seasons’ worth of love, loss, family, and football.

    Cannato illuminates the Christian concepts of grace, empathy, and the kingdom of God by examining them in light of cutting-edge scientific theory.

    

    As if to spite the pollsters and talking heads, the frank and brilliant former governor, Jed Bartlet, captures the White House to become President of the United States. Surrounding himself with the best and the brightest, the president chooses his staff from the team responsible for putting him in the White House. Leo McGarry, the president's oldest friend -- and the man who convinces Bartlet to run -- is named chief of staff. One of the most powerful men in his party, Leo presides over the West Wing of the White House with a firm hand and a fatherly tone. With uncanny prescience, Leo puts his faith in Toby Ziegler, the only original staff member to make it through the campaign. Despite six previous failures, Toby's work along with a new team of friends and strangers, helps get Bartlet nominated and elected. Now, as the communications director for the White House, Toby holds an important role in crafting the president's word.Using the power instilled in him as an old family friend, Leo McGarry brings Josh Lyman to the campaign with a simple request to come hear Jed Bartlet speak. In a VFW hall in Nashua, New Hampshire, the skeptical Josh does come and is amazed to finally find a candidate to believe in. Convinced that the man should be president, Lyman gets his friend Sam Seaborn to quit his job at a major law firm where he is about to become a partner and join Bartlet's campaign. Gladly serving at the pleasure of President Bartlet, Sam is now the White House deputy communications director and his friend Josh is the deputy chief of staff. Two men from different backgrounds from opposite ends of thecountry are united not just by friendship but by their devotion to the president."Is Jed Bartlet a good man?" is all that C.J. Cregg wants to know before she agrees to work for him. Toby Ziegler's assurance is all she needs to hear. In an age where the news cycle can last mere seconds, C.J. is the press secretary to the most demanding pool of reporters in the world, the White House Press Corps.With a staff of more than 1,100 people, the West Wing overflows with offices and personnel. Although the upper echelon provides the very public face of the White House, a support staff of hundreds regularly carries out the duties of the executive branch of the government. Filling these desks are numerous aides and assistants, like Donna Moss, who started working for Josh Lyman during the nomination campaign and is now "deputy-deputy chief of staff." Among her many responsibilities is to make sure that her boss is on time for meetings and fully prepared -- which sometimes means making sure that he is dressed.While the White House is very much a public institution, there is one man in particular whose job requires him to be either an imposing figure or totally invisible, often at the same time. Charlie Young, personal aide to the president, truly determines who has access. Among the many tasks laid out before this brilliant young man, he is first and foremost the keeper of the schedule.These people, and a staff of hundreds more, lead America from the most privileged office in the world, from insideTHE WEST WINGStep inside the Bartlet Administration in this richly detailed, perfectly imagined official companion to television's most sophisticated dramatic series, "TheWest Wing. Created by Aaron Sorkin, "The West Wing won nine Emmy(R) Awards, the Humanitas Prize, the Peabody Award, and three Television Critics Association Awards in its first season alone -- and is acclaimed for its superb writing, marvelous portrayals by a stellar cast, and an intelligent, authentic depiction of White House life. Now, the show that has set television's new standard brings you this insider's guide -- which not only presents fascinating details into how groundbreaking television is made, but captures the colorful world of "The West Wing and the nation's capital under the Bartlet Administration.The prestigious Peabody Award cited "The West Wing as "a magnificent episodic series that depicts the tension and back-room drama of presidential politics with an unusual mixture of maturity and humanity." Now, experience the excitement and authenticity of "The West Wing as never before, with this unique, in-depth tribute.

    But in the ensuing decades, many vilified the show as an embarrassment that needed to be swept under the rug if Batman -- and super-heroes -- were to be taken seriously. Now, we can return to Adam West's Gotham... to the unapologetic fun of colorful, cackling villains hatching bizarre schemes... to phrases like "Atomic batteries to power!" and "Same bat-time, same bat-channel!"... to deadpan heroes climbing walls and defying deathtrap cliffhangers... and find these aspects rich with cultural meanings we may have ignored. GOTHAM CITY 14 MILES offers the series the critical reevaluation it deserves. The book's diverse essays examine Batmania, camp, the role of women, the show and '60s counter-culture, the show's celebrated actors, its lasting cultural effects, and other subjects. From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http: //Sequart.org

    Along the way, he also addressed Batman with his multi-layered ARKHAM ASYLUM and his literary "Gothic" storyline. Callahan examines all five works in detail, drawing out their evolving themes and exploring Morrison's sometimes difficult texts in plain language. Rounding out the volume: an exclusive interview with Morrison, a foreword by popular comics writer Jason Aaron, and an appendix addressing Morrison's even earlier, shorter work. From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http: //Sequart.org

    But it's also frequently written off as incomprehensible. Using a conversational, accessible style, Patrick Meaney (director of GRANT MORRISON: TALKING WITH GODS) opens up THE INVISIBLES through in-depth analysis that makes sense of the series's complicated ideas, fractured chronology, and delirious blend of fiction and reality. Meaney also explores how the series's fictional conspiracy theories fare in the wake of 9/11 and the War on Terror. The book includes an extensive interview with Grant Morrison and an introduction by Timothy Callahan (author of GRANT MORRISON: THE EARLY YEARS). From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http: //Sequart.org

    The vilification of popular music by government and individuals has been going on for decades. Now, for the first time, Parental Advisory offers a thorough and complete chronicle of the music that has been challenged or suppressed -- by the people or the government -- in the United States.From Dean Martin's "Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma'am" to Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar; from freedom fighters such as Frank Zappa and in-your-face rappers such a N.W.A. to crusaders such as Tipper Gore, this intelligent and entertaining book shows how censorship has crossed sexual, class, and ethnic lines, and how many see it as a de facto form of racism. With nearly one hundred fascinating photographs of musicians, record burning, and controversial cover art; illuminating sidebars; and a decade-by-decade timeline of important moments in censorship history, Parental Advisory is by turns frightening and hilarious -- but always revealing.

    As listeners have grown increasingly eclectic and adventurous in their tastes, The Wire has emerged as the most authoritative source on modern music.In Undercurrents some of the best music writers of our time uncover the hidden wiring of the past century's most influential music. Ian Penman discusses how the microphone transformed the human voice and made phantom presences of great singers such as Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson, and Brian Wilson. Christoph Cox demonstrates how the pioneers of live electronic music, the West Coast ensemble Sonic Arts Union, redefined virtuosity for the electronic age. Philip Smith and Peter Shapiro examine Harry Smith's Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk Music, which led to a massive reappraisal of musical values that went far beyond the folk music revival.Music explored in Undercurrents ranges through avant rock, jazz, hiphop, electronica, global music, and contemporary "classical."

    An excellent, comprehensive overview of the life and work of the groundbreaking artist who broke down the boundaries between photography and graphic design with his innovative techniques.

    She wasn't on assignment. She chose the subjects simply because they meant something to her. The first place was Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, Massachusetts, which Leibovitz visited with a small digital camera. A few months later, she went with her three young children to Niagara Falls. "That's when I started making lists," she says. She added the houses of Virginia Woolf and Charles Darwin in the English countryside and Sigmund Freud's final home, in London, but most of the places on the lists were American. The work became more ambitious as Leibovitz discovered that she wanted to photograph objects as well as rooms and landscapes. She began to use more sophisticated cameras and a tripod and to travel with an assistant, but the project remained personal.Leibovitz went to Concord to photograph the site of Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond. Once she got there, she was drawn into the wider world of the Concord writers. Ralph Waldo Emerson's home and Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott and her family lived and worked, became subjects. The Massachusetts studio of the Beaux Arts sculptor Daniel Chester French, who made the seated statue in the Lincoln Memorial, became the touchstone for trips to Gettysburg and to the archives where the glass negatives of Lincoln's portraits have been saved. Lincoln's portraitists--principally Alexander Gardner and the photographers in Mathew Brady's studio--were also the men whose work at the Gettysburg battlefield established the foundation for war photography. At almost exactly the same time, in a remote, primitive studio on the Isle of Wight, Julia Margaret Cameron was developing her own ultimately influential style of portraiture. Leibovitz made two trips to the Isle of Wight and, in an homage to the other photographer on her list, Ansel Adams, she explored the trails above the Yosemite Valley, where Adams worked for fifty years.The final list of subjects is perhaps a bit eccentric. Georgia O'Keeffe and Eleanor Roosevelt but also Elvis Presley and Annie Oakley, among others. Figurative imagery gives way to the abstractions of Old Faithful and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Pilgrimage was a restorative project for Leibovitz, and the arc of the narrative is her own. "From the beginning, when I was watching my children stand mesmerized over Niagara Falls, it was an exercise in renewal," she says. "It taught me to see again."

    Pause. Fast-forward. Rewind. It has become part of our vocabulary when talking about the momentum of our lives...Since Phillips launched the compact audio cassette at the 1963 Berlin Radio Show, our relationship with music has never been the same. Portable, inexpensive, and durable, the new format was an instant success. By the early 1970s, we were voraciously recording music onto blank cassettes: LPs, concerts, tunes from the radio. It allowed us to listen to music in a new way, privately.Artist and musician Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) looks back at the plastic gadget that first let us make our own compilations. Mix Tape shares the treasured works (and the stories behind them) of over 50 dedicated home tapers, including Elizabeth Peyton, DJ Spooky, Jim O'Rourke, Allison Anders, and Mike Watt. From the Romantic Tape to the Break-up Tape, the Road Trip Tape to the 'Indoctrination' Tape, the art and text that emerged was of the mix cassette as a new way of resequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings—a way of explaining ourselves to someone we love, or to ourselves. Ask any ex of yours from the early '90s about the amorous mix tapes you once made, and chances are, Sonic Youth appears somewhere among the track listing. So, perhaps it's fitting that Thurston Moore is working on a book that takes a nostalgic look at that most humble vehicle of adolescent expression. Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture explores the sound mixes and art we created in our bedrooms long before iTunes and Photoshop.-- Michael Dougherty, Blackbook Magazine. Fall 2004

    Featuring 31 favorite tiny stories and illustrations by 45 writers and artists from the 2,312 contributions to wirrow's endlessly popular Tiny Stories collaboration; plus a special introductory interview by RegularJOE & wirrow. Designed for hitRECord by Marke, wirrow, & 45 hitRECorders.

    Tackles a wide array of subjects including: The Passion of the Antichrist; The Celtic Roots of Quantum Theory; Paranoia; Black Magic and Curses; LSD, Dogs and Me; Left and Right: A Non-Euclidean Perspective; Sexual Alchemy; Cheerful Reflections on Death and Dying; and, The Relativity of Reality.

    Who can resist Chocolate-Dipped Melting Moments Cookies or moist Mini-Cheesecakes with Lemon Curd . . . or David Shamah's Jumbles, a fabulous cross between a chocolate-chip cookie and a chunky candy bar bursting with raisins, chocolate chips, and pecans. Whether you need a cookie to decorate your tree or grace your mantelpiece (cookies like Stained Glass or Christmas Wreaths), a sweet to send (Mahogany Butter Crunch Toffee, Maple Macadamia Bars), or a special holiday treat for your dinner party (Praline Truffle Cups, Chocolate-Pistachio Marzipan Spirals), you'll find that perfect something here. Complete with 60 cookie recipes and a color photograph of each cookie for handy reference, this easy-to-use and fun-to-read book will result in scrumptious, festive, and splendid-looking cookies every time.