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MADNESS AT THE GATES OF THE CITY ABOUT THE BOOK Madness At the Gates of the City, writes Robert Johnson in his introduction, “shows how America regularly re-enacts old patterns that cause us to subvert our goals and miss the deeper meaning in events. But by looking at American history, politics and popular culture through the lenses of Greek mythology, indigenous wisdom and archetypal psychology, the author discovers new hope in very old ways of thinking. This book should appeal to anyone interested in myth, Classics, history, psychology or progressive politics.” . Our world lives, loves, suffers and triumphs by myth, often unseen and unconsidered. In the tradition of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, Barry Spector makes myths come alive; he helps us in the desperately important task of re-imagining our way. Barry Spector’s Madness At The Gates of The City explores how Euripides’ Bacchae, written to warn his late fifth-century Athenian compatriots of the internal destructive forces threatening their beloved city, might help us look more honestly at the false innocence that sustains our illusions about the American dream and prevents our acknowledging its dark underside. Yet, the book ends with a beautifully voiced “story that could be true”: we could lift these repressive blinders, we could learn to hear and heed an archetypal cry for initiation into a way of being in the world that honors the life-giving energies the Greeks called by the name Dionysos. —Christine Downing, author of The Goddess Madness at the Gates of the City is at once an indictment of America’s obsession with innocence and a treatise on tragedy and myth. Provocative and challenging, it echoes with penetrating ideas and mythic nuances. —Michael Meade, author of The World Behind the World Like Freud, Barry Spector has opened a sealed door to the unconscious. Not of an individual, but to a nation. Perhaps Spector would choose “underground,” for this term best reflects the hidden world, consigned to the dungeons of Americana, where the god Dionysus dwells. But Dionysus doesn’t wait below patiently: he escapes a thousand times a day, in music, in dance, in drama, frenzy and myth, sawing through cold brick and the fevered forefront of consciousness. Madness at the Gates of the City: The Myth of American Innocence explores that underworld of national repression and exhumes ancient gods of the Western psyche that were once thought dead and gone to promote the healing balms of balance against the dystopian present of militarism, consumerism, racism and empire. Spector imagines a New America, one at peace with itself, its real self, not its imagined self. Not its Apollonian, paranoid, imperial self. He knows that imagination is often the precursor of lived change, and he wants to be a part of that process, of a new thing being born. In this disturbing and evocative book, Barry Spector offers us a trenchant commentary on the ignorance, pathos and shadows residing in the American addiction to innocence. Mythologically wise and instructive, the author gives us keys to the hidden kingdom, and the potential to participate in an emerging new and creative story as we once again join forces with the genius inherent in myth and the guidance and warnings that it holds. This is a work that should be read by anyone who wants to make a difference. To respond and become proactive in the mythic tasks that are now upon us, our basic human nature is challenged by Spector to deepen, discover, evolve. We must become mything links.
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NAKED SACRED EARTH POEMS ABOUT THE BOOK "In its passionate embrace of sensuality and society, the poetry of La Tigresa (Dona Nieto) purrs and growls, but rarely meows. This wayward, sometimes reckless writer knows what she’s doing as she plugs touch back into every page — along with voice, heart, gut, and every other sense.
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HOW BELIEF STORIES MATTER
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MIND SPACE AND TIME STREAM |
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SITTING SHIVA FOR MYSELF |
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A LOOP OF STRING
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WHAT IS YOUR BUDDHA?
Each chapter of the book covers one day’s pose containing: a description of the pose itself; the historical legend revealing the background and significance of the pose; the essence or what the pose dissolves; and the proper placement of the image in the environment. In addition, each chapter contains a series of chants and meditations specific to that days Buddha. |
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WELCOME TO THE ZOO |
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AMORETTE'S WATCH Widowed at the age of twenty-four, Amorette raised her son alone. Then, after he had established himself as a physician, she embarked on a professional career of her own. At the age of forty-nine she took a job as matron at the Chicago Training School, which prepared women to be Christian missionaries. From there she went to a similar position at Talladega College, where almost all the students were African-American. Her last two positions were in southern California. Amorette’s story touches on important themes: hard economic times, the unfortunate consequences of debt, the losses brought about by war, the treatment of wounded soldiers, social reform movements headed by women, and evidence of racial and religious prejudice in institutions founded on high moral principles.
Virginia has published an article on Wordsworth and has co-edited, with Richard E. Jensen, a Pike’s Peak Gold Rush diary published in Nebraska History. Excerpts from it appear in Amorette’s Watch. |
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LIGHT VISION |
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SNAPSHOT |
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BLUEPRINT |
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CHERISHED MEMORY |
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NOETIC EXCURSIONS But words and images have become toxic. Today their poisonous showers fall mercilessly on anorexic minds. Overwhelmed and overworked, each field of awareness stands tightly tethered to a well-laundered brain. That brain has been programmed and reprogrammed so many times that its integrity must now be questioned. In the majority of cases the diagnosis is hopeless. As the writhing remnants of consciousness lie buried under mounting layers of garbage, the choking flood is redirected at memories that have yet to be obliterated. The eradication must be complete. Manufacturing zombies has become an industrial priority. At the viral edge of science, where engineers exercise their art, the mass procedure appears effective and relatively innocuous. But it is also irreversible. Natural history tells us that it is at the height of such devastating changes that a resistant minority is sometimes born. Why that is, no one can say for sure. Adaptation or natural selection, are sometimes invoked to make it sound right. But what counts is that something rises from the dying heap as life begins anew. |
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HOLLYWOOD TO VIENNA Donald Ellis Rothenberg was born in Hollywood, California, USA. A part of the sixties counterculture, he is a photographer, a poet, a writer, and a singer/songwriter with four published CD’s. A teacher with a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology, Don has published articles and presented seminars and workshops on the use of video as a therapeutic and artistic biofeedback tool. Today Don continues his creative explorations along with over 30-year practices of tai chi, meditation and jogging. He resides with his family near the Vienna Woods. |
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ALCHEMICAL DIVINATION Ralph Metzner, Ph.D. is a recognized pioneer in studies of consciousness and its transformations. He is a psychotherapist and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was also the Academic Dean for ten years in the 1980s. He collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in the studies of psychedelic drugs at Harvard in the 1960s, and co-authored The Psychedelic Experience. His books include Maps of Consciousness, The Well of Remembrance, The Unfolding Self and Green Psychology. This book is Volume 3 of a new series on The Ecology of Consciousness. |
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THE IMPERFECT GARDEN Bay Area author Adina Sara writes a feature gardening column for the MacArthur Metro, an Oakland, California newspaper. her first book, 100 Words per Minute: Tales From Behind Law Office Doors (Regent Press, 2006) chronicles her unintentional career as an office worker. Sara’s short fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in magazines incoluding Green Prints, Cottage Gardener, Peregrine and East Bay Express. Photographer Rachel Michaelsen, when not photographing or working in her garden, is engaged as a social worker, providing psychotherapy, consultation and training. |
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BEYOND ISADORA After many years of dance training in NY with the Duncan Dance Guild, the New Dance Group, Graham, Limón and Cunningham, Joanna G. Harris came to the Bay Area to study at Mills College with Marian Van Tuyl and Eleanor Lauer. As a graduate student she worked on IMPULSE, the annual magazine of dance, and upon graduation taught at UC Berkeley where she choreographed and performed for the Department of Drama and Music, 1959–69. Joanna formed her own company, the Monday Night Group, toured California, and founded the Dance/Drama Department at UC Santa Cruz and the Creative Arts Therapy program at Lone Mountain College. She is on the faculty of OLLI Institute, Berkeley and an instructor at the Modern Dance Center, Berkeley. She also writes reviews and essays about dance for websites and print publications. |
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UP AGAINST THE CLOCK RONALD C. MENDLIN has over 40 years experience in 14 different business fields. He has reorganized sections of several San Francisco City Departments, including the Board of Education, the Tax Collector’s Office, the Department of Public Health and the S.F. Airport Commission. He has also saved the S.F. Municipal Railway from financial embarrassment. In his 30 years with the City and County of San Francisco, Ronald Mendlin was the recipient of numerous written commendations from mayors and various government administrators for leadership of projects and superior job performance. Working on a part-time basis at the Northern California Service League, he was credited by the California Department of Corrections’ Jobs Plus Program for assisting over 750 ex-felons in getting jobs. He is also the co-author of the Putting The Bars Behind You Series which, in a five-year period, has sold over 40,000 copies throughout the U.S. |
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THE ISRAEL PALESTINE PUZZLE ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Heller was born in Tel Aviv and educated in Jerusalem and London. He is an esteemed historian of Israel and of Zionism and emeritus professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University. Professor Heller is the winner of the President Zalman Shazar Prize for research in Jewish History, 2005, and the author of numerous books, including The Birth of Israel, 1945-49: Ben-Gurion and His Critics (University Press of Florida, 2000); and From Brit Shalom to Ichud: Judah Leib Magnes and the Struggle for a Binational State in Palestine (The Hebrew University: Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2003). |
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TRADITIONAL THEMES IN JAPANESE ART ABOUT THE AUTHOR Charles R. Temple, writer and book publisher, lived in Japan for many years as an editor and book designer for John Weatherhill, Inc., renowned for its publication of elegant and authoritative books on Japanese art. Temple is a collector of Japanese prints and wood sculptures, and of the stories and tales that provide the most popular themes for Japanese artists. In 2001, he was project director and editor of Takarabukuro: Treasure Bag, a handsomely crafted book containing an English translation of a diary kept by Mitsuhiro, a nineteenth-century Japanese netsuke sculptor. Currently, in addition to his own writing, he volunteers time as a writer/editor for various nonprofit agencies in San Francisco, including the city’s prestigious Asian Art Museum. |
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DEAR HOMEFOLKS ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born in 1896, Roy Evans Thompson entered the army during the First World War as a young farmer and part-time auto mechanic. During his twenty-seven months as a soldier he started on the path that led to his becoming a professional mechanical engineer, a patent holder, and a champion of continuing education. |
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THE BLACK WHITE DIVIDE ... STILL ABOUT THE AUTHOR The two authors come from different backgrounds – geographically, culturally and vocationally. However, they share perspectives and concerns about this vital area of human relations in our country. Marlin Foxworth, Ph.D. has spent a long career in education in California, having taught from the 1st grade straight through to masters degree courses and having been a principal five times and a school district superintendent three times. Ralph Gordon attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia and now manages national sales for a high-tech firm. Both authors have done extensive service work. Their writing is not an adversarial “point/counterpoint” text, but rather an illustration of how two men traveled separate roads to reach a common bond of understanding about a profound social matter. |
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VISIONS OF FRISCO An Imaginative Depiction of San Francisco During The Gold Rush & The Barbary Coast Era Collages by Satty • Text Selected and Edited by Walter Medeiros ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-140-9 (paperback) ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-141-6 (hardback) $39.95 (paperback) • $100.00 (hardback, signed and numbered) • 256 pages ABOUT THE BOOK T his is an art historical book, an impressionistic and imaginative one; the 135 illustrations are paired with excerpts from published eyewitness accounts. The artworks were created in the late 1970s by Satty, a San Francisco collage artist. Satty (Wilfried Podriech, 1939-82) emigrated from Bremen, Germany in 1961. He settled in North Beach, where he associated with people of the 1950s Beat era. Through such influences, and inspired by the expansive, energetic “art rush” of the Hippie culture, in 1966 Satty began making psychedelic posters—not for musical events, but as art prints to be sold by poster shops and mail order. At age fifteen Saty was apprenticed as a mechanical engineering technician; he had no artistic training. In his first artworks he often applied his technical drafting skills—in ink—to create complex geometric forms and patterns. These early designs also incorporated images cut from old books and magazines, etc., in the tradition of collage art developed in the Dada and Surrealist art movements. He soon began creating artworks exclusively with images, but precise technique—in the cutting out, assembling and seamless merging of images—remained a hallmark of his art. By 1971 Satty’s art had been included in more than a dozen gallery or museum exhibitions in the U.S. and in Europe. In that year Rolling Stone’s Straight Arrow Press published The Cosmic Bicycle, his first book of collages, and another, Time Zone, in 1973. Satty also worked in color, with cutout images, and also with poster-size experimental color prints created on a printing press. Illustrations for books and periodicals comprised much of his artistic production during the 1970s, including The Annotated Dracula, The Hasheesh Eater, and the award-winning The Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe. His illustrations were seen in numerous periodicals, including The Rolling Stone, the op ed pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post’s Book World section. About 1975, after publication of the Poe book, Satty began work on this series of San Francisco collages. He was impressed by the many historical — and colorful — eyewitness accounts of the Gold Rush era and the developing city. Noting that the pictorial record of this historic time was meager, he decided to graphically re-create the period from about 1846 to the 1890s. To more effectively evoke the visual and emotional experiences, his visionary (and sometimes bizarre) illustrations are matched with relevant published accounts. ABOUT THE EDITOR |
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TO SET A LIGHT IN EVERY TUNNEL The Story of A Life by Phyllis D. Grilikhes ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-145-4 $30.00 • 186 pages • paperback Includes 3 CD's bound into book of author reading the entire work! ABOUT THE BOOK To Set A Light In Every Tunnel presents a poetic, autobiographical narrative. The story is a triumph of the process of building identity. Part confession, part affirmation the book highlights the detailed and tangled pathways of experience and memory. It touches universal themes such as courage in view of fear, trust in view of self-doubt, and intimacy in view of distance that, given the dimension of time, constitute a life. The willingness to refine identity is as natural as a stone being sculpted into form. The author has dexterously woven many threads together in a book flows and is a lean and fast paced read. ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
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THE ROOTS OF WAR AND DOMINATION by Ralph Metzner ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-150-8 $18.00 • 104 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK Domination behavior, using force to control others, is destabilizing and disruptive in families, groups and communities. At the international level, aggressive domination is war – the breakdown of the civilized order. Dr. Metzner tracks the roots of war and domination: in the psychological consequences of violent child abuse; in historical and prehistorical patterns of resource competition; and in mammalian predator behavior gone awry. One can see these ancient predatory patterns operating in the capitalist and imperialist policies of nation states. Seeking still deeper roots, he explores lesser known mythological and esoteric teachings: the Buddhist myths of power-addicted demons; the legend of the corruption of the Atlantean civilization; the Nordic myths of wars among the gods; and the Sumerian myths of dominating extra-terrestrial war-lord colonizers who genetically engineered our human ancestors. Finally, he examines the complex and profound teachings of the mysterious 20th century sage G.I. Gurdjieff, who located the ultimate causes of war in the extra-planetary environment and cosmic history. It is the author’s intention and hope that these explorations of this most intractable of humanity’s problems may lead others to further discoveries and possible solutions. ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
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THE
WINGED AND GARLANDED NIKE ABOUT
THE BOOK |
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THE
EXPANSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS by Ralph Metzner Ph.D. ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-147-8 $20.00 • 83 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK This book addresses the role and significance of consciousness expansion in the psychospiritual transformations of the individual, and in the transformations of culture and society associated with the 1960s. In the first part is a description of how the holistic transformation teachings of alchemy, originating in the sacred science of ancient Egypt, persecuted by the Church in the Middle Ages, and ridiculed by scientific modernism, were revived in the 20th century by the work of two Swiss scientists: C.G. Jung, who identified alchemical symbolism as the objective language of the psyche; and Albert Hofmann, who, with the discovery of LSD reconnected the broken link between Spirit and Matter, the mysterious link known traditionally as the Philosophers’ Stone. In the second part, is a description of how the introduction of consciousness expanding substances into Western culture, synchronous with the invention of the atomic bomb at the height of World War II, was followed by the socio-cultural upheavals of the 1960s. These social transformation movements can be seen as a response of the collective psyche to the unprecedented challenges to civilization posed by nuclear war, environmental destruction and rampant population growth. Though seemingly “counter-cultural” in that they countered the domination agenda of the power-elites, were really the attempt to articulate an expanded consciousness and a vision of society centered around humane, ecological, creative and spiritual values. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ralph Metzner, Ph.D. is a recognized pioneer in studies of consciousness and its transformations. He is a psychotherapist and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was also the Academic Dean for ten years in the 1980s. He collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in the studies of psychedelic drugs at Harvard in the 1960s, and co-authored The Psychedelic Experience. His books include Maps of Consciousness, The Well of Remembrance, The Unfolding Self and Green Psychology; as well as two edited collections on the science and phenomenology of ayahuasca and the psilocybin mushrooms. He is founder and president of the Green Earth Foundation, an ecological educational organization, and teaches a training program in Alchemical Divination. The book is one of a new series on The Ecology of Consciousness. |
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WANDERING
CAIN by Joe Cohen ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-138-6 $14.00 • 102 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK WANDERING CAIN picks up the strands of the bible story of Cain and Abel and explores the psychological consequences of the first fratricide on Cain, and on humankind in general, as the book moves through time. From the Land of Nod, Cain is projected into history, where he encounters, among others, stone-age people, Jesus, Hitler, a mysterious psychoanalyst, an opera diva, and ultimately, himself. We’ve heard from this ancient tale many times over, from the myth of the Wandering Jew, to Steinbeck’s EAST OF EDEN, and its import never fades, in a world where humans routinely and perpetually slaughter other humans. The author confines his exploration to the relatively brief space of a novella, just as the Bible story is confined to only half a page. To continually zap the reader with one florid exploit after another would have plunged the story into melodramatic schtick, where instead we are offered humor, compassion, drama, and awareness of the lightness, darkness and strangeness of existence. Cain and the characters he encounters in his wanderings are drawn succinctly, with deft strokes, allowing the reader to flesh them out in his own imagination from his own depth. The ending comes as a surprise, singing a song of time, turning the tables on “endings” as we usually understand them. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joe Cohen lives in Emeryville, California, and substitute teaches in Oakland high schools. He has been a newspaper reporter, paratrooper, truck driver, gambling shill, billboard poster, meditation teacher, father, and world traveler. WANDERING CAIN is his sixth novel. Others are BILLBOARDS, THE MYSTERY OF EVE, OAKLAND GLIMMER, and THE MINEFIELD, all published by Regent Press. THE TIME OF PEDRO, a novel yet unpublished, was awarded a fellowship grant from the California Creative Arts Council. He has also authored WELL, a book of poetry, and a screenplay for a Hollywood producer. He says he was inspired to write WANDERING CAIN because of his puzzlement over two aspects of the bible story: Why did God prefer the offering of one son over the other, and what and where, actually, was Nod? |
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THE
ROMANCE OF ELSEWHERE A Half-Century of Connecting By Sea, By Air, By Rail by Marcelline Krafchick ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-133-1 $15.00• 158 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK A boa constrictor hijacks her shoe, she falls into an aardvark pit, paddles a reed boat across the San Francisco Bay, dodges a predator at the Metropolitan Opera, and faces the ugliness of racial segregation. Dr. Krafchick, traveler to sixty countries, recounts awakened responses that routine would have left dormant. Krafchick conveys her wonder with eloquence, piquant humor, and the sparkle of specifics: Churchill, Merwin, Welty, Ivins, Brzezinski, King Tut, the twin towers billowing smoke, the CIA, a bombing in Italy, a hurricane at sea. Behind a mosaic of highly readable accounts shimmers a life lived vulnerably and richly. ABOUT THE AUTHOR When not connecting overseas, Marcelline Krafchick, Ph.D., has been broadly engaged at home, with a base as a tenured professor in California for nearly forty years. She has been a board member of a re-socializing program for ex-felons, president of a homeowners' association, and a radio, stage and television actor. She was the first woman member and chair of the Hayward (California) Zoning Board and Planning Commission, and a member of three County and State Commissions. She was the first female professor at Santa Clara University and part of its Honors Program. She authored World Without Heroes: The Brooklyn Novels of Daniel Fuchs (Fairleigh-Dickinson University Press) and a section of O'Neill in China (Greenwood Press), and co-edited Speaking of Rhetoric (Houghton-Mifflin). She has presented many academic papers on classical and American culture and literature, and conducted a music contest for an Arts Commission scholarship. As a photographer, she exhibited for two years at California State University, East Bay. She volunteers for two local school districts, has composed questions for Princeton's Educational Testing Service, renovated a cabin on the Big Sur Coast, and taught modeling on New York's Park Avenue and locally to Native American young women. She cherishes and keeps closely connected with former students in Australia, New Orleans, Japan, Argentina, and Hungary, and now with their children. |
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MISADVENTURES
OF A SCIENTIST'S WIFE by Frances Townes ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-128-7 $19.95 • 213 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK The Twentieth Century has been a time of great discovery for both men and women. Charles Townes, the scientist of Adventures of a Scientist, received the Nobel Prize in 1964 for discovering the principles behind the Laser, the practical applications of which has transformed modern civilization. Frances Townes, his wife, has also been on a trail of discovery, searching for the core of individual relatedness that must lie behind and beyond technology if our civilization is to survive. Her work with homeless and runaway youth in Berkeley, California, has been ground-breaking. Born in 1916, just as women were getting the vote, Frances confronted the conflicting demands of her generation. Her personal experiences, broader struggles and triumphs have helped redefine the role of women in the modern world. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born in New England at the beginning of the 20th century in privileged circumstances, Frances Townes experienced the economic indignities of the Great Depression while at Smith college and then as a "working girl" in Manhattan. Marrying Charles Townes, a physicist and academic who went on to invent the Laser and win a Nobel Prize, she found herself with a ring side seat to many of the major events and discussions of the second half of the century as they traveled the globe and resided in New York, Paris, Japan, Washington, Boston and finally Berkeley, California. In Berkeley, Frances transcended the traditional role of a wife and mother which had filled the first half of her life, and was instrumental in starting the Women's Studies program at the University of California. She later helped found the docent program in Natural History at the Oakland Museum and worked as a docent herself for many years. Her main focus, though, has been as a social activist and advocate for the homeless youth who gravitate to her California town. |
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GODDESSES,
GODDESSES Essays by Janine Canan ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-129-4 $16.00• 305 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK Award-winning author Dr. Janine Canan, M.D., offers her lyrical reflections on art, nature, history, masculine and feminine, the Great Mother, spirituality and love. Journeying with Canan, we meet Iris Murdoch, Else Lasker-Schüler, Marija Gimbutas, James Broughton, Diane Di Prima, Alma Villanueva, Ali Akbar Khan, Mata Amritanandamayi, and other visionaries of our time. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Janine Canan is the author of Journeys with Justine, a collection of stories, and ten volumes of poetry including Burning through Everything (forthcoming), Changing Woman (Small Press Review "Pick"), In the Palace of Creation: Selected Works 1969-1999, Shapes of Self, and Of Your Seed (NEA grant recipient). She edited and translated the acclaimed collections, Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart ("Best Spiritual Books 2004"), Star in My Forehead: Poems by Else Lasker-Schüler (BookSense & City Lights "Pick"), and She Rises like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Poets (Koppelman Award, "One of the best books to come from the Women's Spirituality movement"-Booklist). Her work has been anthologized by Codrescu, Cotner, Harvey, Laughlin and many others. Canan graduated from Stanford with distinction and received her MD from New York University. |
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JOURNEYS
WITH JUSTINE by Janine Canan Illustartor: Cristina Biaggi ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-135-5 $16.00• 204 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK Journeys with Justine is a stunningly original collection of tales describing the adventures and epiphanies of Justine, a contemporary seeker who travels from California to the Olympic Peninsula, New York, France, Bali and India, in search of her Self. On her journey from disillusion to illumination, she encounters artists, lovers and saints, death, Earth and the Goddess. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Janine Canan is the author of a book of essays, Goddesses, Goddesses, and several volumes of poetry including In the Palace of Creation: Selected Works 1969-1999, Changing Woman and Shapes of Self. She translated Star in My Forehead: Selected Poems by Else Lasker-Schüler, edited Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart and the award-winning anthology She Rises like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets. Canan's first book of poems was published through a National Endowment for the Arts grant; other books have been commended by Book Sense, City Lights Books, Small Press Review and anthologized. Born in Los Angeles, graduate of Stanford with distinction and New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Canan is a practicing psychiatrist in Sonoma, California. She can be visited at JanineCanan.com. ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR Christina Biaggi has exhibited artwork and lectured widely throughout the United States and Europe, receiving many awards. Her sculpture, drawings and collages are shown at Ceres and Flywheel Galleries in New York. Biaggi is the author of The Rule of Mars, In The Footsteps of the Goddess and Habitations of the Great Goddess. Born in Italy, resident of New York, a mother and a grandmother, Cristina has a PhD in Art & Philosophy from New York University, along with black belts in Kung Fu and Taw Kwan Do. Her web site is Goddessmound.com |
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Walk
Now In Beauty The Legend of Changing Woman by Janine Canan Illustrator: Ernest Posey ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-137-9 $18.00• 36 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK The story of the Navajo Creation Goddess, Changing Woman, by poet Janine Canan, exquisitely illustrated with contemporary "sand paintings" by artist Ernest Posey. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Janine Canan is the author of a book of stories, Journeys with Justine, a collection of essays, Goddesses, Goddesses, and several volumes of poetry, including In the Palace of Creation: Selected Works 1969-1999, Changing Woman (Small Press Review "Pick"), and Of Your Seed (NEA Grant). She translated the poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler in Star in My Forehead (BookSense and City Lights "Pick"), and edited Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart ("Best Spiritual Books 2004") and the award-winning anthology, She Rises like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets. Canan graduated from Stanford with distinction, received her MD from New York University, and is a practicing psychiatrist in Sonoma, California. Her web site is JanineCanan.com. ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR Ernest Posey is an artist and writer, a native of New Orleans, who now lives and works in rural Mendocino County, California. He has shown his paintings and mixed-media works in over two dozen one-man exhibitions. His work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum, the Achenbach Collection and numerous private collections. He believes that "in our times, the artist's studio has succeeded the alchemist's laboratory." To illustrate the legend of Changing Woman he used "sand painting" (black sand, moved with feathers, on the glass of a photocopier), pencil drawing and collage with found pictures. |
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PI
NARATI (An Opera) Libretto: Michael Besack Music by Joyce Whitelaw ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-136-2 $25.00• 319 pages • paperback ABOUT THE BOOK The theme of the opera is renewal, as in the transition between world ages. It is a very ancient theme, already found in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh and echoed consistently over time under various poetic disguises. It is typically associated with an otherworldly oceanic quest that leads to the navel of the sea, then past the gates of death right down to the Fountain of Life. Here the drama also develops in a futuristic setting. It is set in the 49th century and its central character, known as ZedZed, has been exiled to the system of Alpha-Canopus likewise inhabited by an all-powerful invisible force. ZedZed is the 22nd clone of Sir Basil Zaharoff (1849-1936), the wealthy arms merchant and 'mystery man of Europe', code named ZedZed by British intelligence. As a reward for his services Zaharoff was promised 'chocolate', which on the surface appears as just another code word for the Grand Cross of the British Empire, which he eventually received. Zaharoff had both Greek and Russian origins. In Greek basileus means 'king' and Zaharoff comes from zaharis (sakcariV), or 'sugar'. Basil Zaharoff is therefore the King of Sugar who must eventually straighten out. In that context his craving for 'chocolate' is all the more understandable. People with high blood-sugar levels are known as diabetics. If we go to Liddell and Scott's Greek-English lexicon and look up this word, which comes from the Greek diabêtês, we find the following choices: 1) compass, so-called from its outstretched legs 2) carpenter's or stonemason's rule and also II. siphon. A compass and stonemason's rule are indeed useful items to have if one is to bring back updated 'measures' from the Fountain of Life. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michael Besack is a computer programmer, opera singer and philosopher residing in Berkeley, California. He is the author of the series Esoteric Journeys through Poetry and Song (5 vols.), also published by Regent Press. |
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ANTICS by Carol Bergé ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-088-4 ISBN 10: 1-58790-088-2 $25.00• 319 pages • paperback ANTICS is a delight to read, with witty, engaging tales about the men and women who people America’s flea markets and antique malls, from the high-end shops to the five-n-dime swaps. What’s more, it’s an instruction manual for collectors, as it offers many secrets of the trade. What makes this collection of loosely-related short stories so extraordinary is the large scope of antiquing knowledge set forth by the author. Bergé deftly guides the reader through antiquing how-to’s—like refinishing a prize coffeetable or selecting a hand-sewn quilt—and the red-tape of selling/procuring, all within the dynamic realm of a complex cast of characters and situations. Most of the plots involve romantic relationships, but there are a few that stray to the bizarre, even macabre dealings in the trade. Overall, a sense of authenticity and deep caring about humanity and its precious objects prevails. Many of these 22 stories have been published in quality literary magazines, and her critically-acclaimed works are still loved by fans. Yet ANTICS is not only a book, it’s the first real chronicling of antiquers, traders and collectors and their art. In Carol’s own words: “Antiques sellers are a fascinating subculture. They run the gamut from barely literate to graduate degrees from Ivy League schools, and in age they can be so young as to hardly see the value in the items they purvey, or so ancient as to almost be antiques themselves… Antiquing, like comfort foods, is part of a nostalgia trend which longs for the snows of yesteryear—a simpler life, or so we like to think of it. Everyone who has ever shopped for antiques will enjoy reading the gossipy, emotional stories of the folks selling stuff under the tent, behind the counter, and at the shows. Over forty sellers of gorgeous, funky or sensual antiques are presented in these tales told by many voices.” ABOUT THE AUTHOR CAROL BERGÉ (1928 – 2006) At age 14 she bought a Longwy bowl in an antiques shop for $10; that year, her first poem was published. These passions intertwined throughout her life… In 1960, she co-opened Five Cities Gallery in Manhattan’s East Village; next door was Tenth Street Coffeehouse, where the now-famous Light Years poets began their readings. During the 1970s she taught writing and multimedia by invitation at 16 universities, keeping an antiques-filled farmhouse in Woodstock, New York. From 1970-1984, she published/edited the acclaimed literary magazine CENTER. A stay at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan got her into the crowd at Studio 54, ca. 1981. Later, in bookish Santa Fe, she started Blue Gate Art & Antiques, selling retro merch through the 1990s. Alongside, Ms. Bergé married twice and raised a son as a single mother. One can find more on her 22 works of fiction and poetry on the Internet, and that she was awarded NEA and NYSCA fellowships for her contribution to literature and the arts. www.carolberge.com |
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OUT
OF SILENCE INTO BEING by Rebecca Camhi Fromer ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-127-0 ISBN 10: 1-58790-127-7 $16.95 • 121 pages • paperback Out of Silence into Being resonates with a passionate voice that often spills into humor and fierce or ironic stances punctuated by an unmistakable rhythm in consonance with the experience the poet so deftly captures. She deploys a full range of lyric gifts not only to astonish us with a new perspective of sorrow and deception, love and loss, but also encourages us to grace the world with our care as conscious beings, and in beauty in fulfillment of our own aspirations. Told with a distilled, spare use of language, Fromer writes with a deceptive simplicity that invites reflection and has been acclaimed by writer Cynthia Ozick, who sees her as a philosophical poet and praises her “laying-on of balm.” ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rebecca Camhi Fromer’s writings include: The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando; The House by the Sea, and One Voice, Many Echoes. She has co-authored or edited numerous works on the holocaust, including Rumkowski and the Orphans of Lodz and Bridge of Sorrow, Bridge of Hope, and is represented in Sephardic American Voices, Two Hundred Years of a Literary Legacy. She and her husband, Seymour Fromer, are co-founders of the Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California. |
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THE
BANDIT OF KABUL by Jerry Beisler ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-094-5 ISBN 10: 1-58790-094-7 $29.95 • 251 pages • paperback Real life action in the great American tradition of adventurers / writers reminiscent of Hemingway, Mark Twain and Jack London, The Bandit of Kabul is a tight, fast paced, emotionally driven narrative. This true story spans the decade before the Age of Technology and is filled with cutting edge global views of history during the last days of the legal Afghanistan-Kathmandu to Amsterdam hash smugglers and the rise of the smoke shops in Holland. Go off the beaten path with rebel, Hollywood outlaw artists. HUMOR, hedonism and high jinks in Asia are haunted by the specter of serial killer Charles Soboraj. ROMANCE, mystics, Burma, Bali, and a wild ride through the early days of reggae across the Caribbean. More ROMANCE in the evolving lives of ex-pat close friends through death, divorce, and children. POETS, informants, and nominees for “heroes for that era’s history.” The genesis of the EMERALD Triangle pot plantations . . . peaceniks, museum thieves and Royalty. The Dali Lama. Author JERRY BEISLER has had three books of poetry published: Hawaiian Life and the Pink Dolphins, St. Elvis and Missionary Thought and Mother Asia and Cousins California. He has also published international political commentary, travel articles, historical research papers, film and video reviews and short stories. Jerry produced a public access TV show at BETV in Berkeley in 2001 and 2002 "The Cutting Edge" that won the best music video award (Cutting Edge IV) at the 2002 Hometown Video Festival. He attended Indiana University, Mexico City College and San Francisco State University. E-Mail comments about the book to: thebanditofkabul (at) homail (dot) com. |
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SEPTEMBER
SNOW Book one of THE BLESSINGS OF GAIA series by Robert Balmanno ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-093-8 ISBN 10: 1-58790-093-9 $15.95 • 346 pages • paperback In the world of September Snow global warming and climate change have been rife for decades. Gaia, a new religion, originally devoted to preserving the Earth, has been perverted. A draconian regime controls everything – even the weather. September, a woman of intellect and physical prowess, leads a rebellion. She seeks to save the planet from a corrupt system, so the healing process of Earth can begin. A futuristic, dystopian story where mankind and the physical life of the planet are on a collision course. ABOUT THE AUTHOR ROBERT BALMANNO has worked as a library specialist in a Silicon Valley, California library for the past 19 years. He is a trade union activist and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, working with cattle in small villages in Dahomey (Benin). Balmanno earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara and did post-graduate work at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the University of London, King’s College. |
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UNDER
DRAGON HOUSE by J. Lea Koretsky ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-090-7 ISBN 10: 1-58790-090-4 $16.95• 200 pages • paperback In this fourth Dalton Keys mystery, super sleuth Keys, U.S. Marshal, goes after a group of terrorists bringing shipments of weapons into the California desert through a Capistrano port berth. He discovers the ugly truth about the horrific in this fast-paced suspense novel about Customs. Not all that glitters is glitz he discovers as the bodies begin to pile up. But when he puts the screws on everybody’s favorite escape artist, a priest-turned-convict who is wanted for weapons concealment, he soon learns that charting visibility by tide is the only way to find the boats delivering the goods. ABOUT THE AUTHOR JUDY KORETSKY writes under the name J. Lea Koretsky. She is known for her stories published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. In 2001 she published a journal titled Sitting in the dark, a novella about a woman newly divorced and about the September 11 catastrophe. The following year Regent Press produced Wall of Darkness, a story told from the point of view of a journalist who, as the last of the red diaper babies of the 1940s, brings to the front page the experience of growing up in Berkeley. Then came The Eternity Look, a Dalton Keys mystery set in San Bernardino county featuring U.S. Marshal Dalton Keys, who tracks a viscious killer of a father a paraplegic son; followed by Domino, a close-up look at the transportation of illegal drugs. The third in the series, The Sweat Box, introduces the subject of spy torture in a mystery thriller about corrupt landowners and corrupt land deals in a hard bitten landscape in which small farm owners are without adequate land or monetary reward. Her professional experience is as an investigator of child abuse crimes for a Children’s Protective Services unity. She trained to become a marriage and family therapist, spent six years in the trenches working with broken and severely abused teens, and has worked as a child abuse investigator for twenty years at various private and public agencies. Much of her work is conducted with the police and District Attorney’s office. She has assisted with searches for kidnapped victims and with handling high profile cases, usually in preparation for lengthy courtroom trials. Today she is a member of National League of American Pen Women, Inc., Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. In 1994 and 1995 she served as Regional Vice President for Mystery Writers of America. She also supports Oakland PAL, National Child Abuse Council and Clearinghouse for Victims of Kidnap and Violent Crimes. She was raised in Berkeley, California, the daughter of progressive Jewish parents. She attended California State University at Hayward where she also completed graduate work in clinical psychology. Married for a little over ten years and divorced, she undertook additional study in Administration of Justice courses and went out on beat patrol with friends and to morgues with various coroners. She resides in the delta in central California. |
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100
WORDS PER MINUTE by Adina Sara ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-092-1 ISBN 10: 1-58790-092-0 $15.00• 144 pages • paperback 100 Words Per Minute—Tales From Behind Law Office Doors presents an intimate look inside the quirky world of law offices. The stories of tyrant and tired litigators along with their devoted, though sometimes devious secretaries come alive through a series of essays, punctuated by quick poetic jabs. The author’s career spans over twenty-five years of law office work, from naïve clerk typist in non-profit law, to stressed-out secretary in small plaintiff and large corporate firms, and finally to slightly elevated but no less conflicted office manager. “The hook of my connection to legal work was so gentle that I never noticed when it actually went in, twisted, and then lodged itself for the remainder of my working years.” Weaving humor and pathos together, 100 Words Per Minute takes a hard look back at the author’s unintentional career in the legal field, offering a raw perspective on uncelebrated office workers whose stories are rarely if ever told. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Adina Sara has published two poetry chapbooks: To Be Filed, The Poetry of Office Work, and Garden Grown, inspired by all the mistakes she has made in her garden. Her short fiction, essays and poems have appeared in Peregrine: Journal of Amherst Writers & Artists, Oxygen Press, Cottage Gardener, East Bay Express, and Green Prints Magazine. She lives in Oakland, California, where she writes a feature gardening column, The Imperfect Gardener. |
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LANGUAGE
AND HUMAN NATURE by Mark Halpern ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-089-1 ISBN 10: 1-58790-089-0 $29.95 • 300 pages • paperback Language and Human Nature shows how faults in language usage, far from being merely irritants to pedants and esthetes, are often both causes and effects of serious public problems, and explores the strange role that linguistics plays in this turbulent scene. It argues that language change is very different from what linguists suppose, and in doing this it takes issue with Orwell on the rules of good writing, with Chomsky on why children pick up language quickly, with H. P. Lovecraft on the origin of Cthulhu, and with all who speak of linguistic laws, and claim that linguistics is or can be a science. Mark Halpern is a freelance editor, onetime software designer and programmer, onetime soldier, onetime college instructor in English. He has degrees from City College of New York and Columbia University in English Language & Literature; he’s written a book and several articles on computer programming; and he writes, these days, principally on the topic of the inter-relations among linguistics, language usage, and politics. "If I had to pick three adjectives to describe Language and Human Nature, they would be: iconoclastic, gutsy and deliciously provocative. (Okay, I threw in an adverb.) Read it and think." --- William Safire, "On Language" columnist for the New York Times. "The present book is, to the best of my knowledge, the first thorough discussion of the pros and cons of this debate [between prescriptivists and descriptivists]." --Jacques Barzun, author of From Dawn to Decadence and many other books on education, American culture, and language usage. |
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THE
AFRICAN AMERICAN QUIZ BOOK For ALL AMERICANS By Milton A.Combs, Sr.M.A., M.Div., R.S.T.C. and Karyn M.Combs, M.S., &Ed.D. ISBN 13: 978-1-58790-121-8 ISBN 10: 1-58790-121-8 $29.95 The Combs book is unique in its question and answer format to focus on facts, not trivia,while showing how the history of African Americans in the country is an important part of the story of the nation as a whole.It will be welcomed by students,teachers,and readers of all levels. — Dona The wealth of knowledge and experience you both bring to this body of work is of great value to all Americans.The depth of comprehension in The African American Quiz Book for All Americans is insightful and enlightening for a wide variety of Ethnic Studies cources.For this reason our Ethnic Studies Program will be adopting this book for use in the core curriculum. —Sanford A.Wright,Ph.D.,Coordinator,Ethnic Studies Program Solano Community College The African American Quiz Book for All Americans is a scholarly presentation of the subject,clothed in language for lay persons of all age groups to read. It is exceptionally well done.I highly recommend it and I predict that it will be a best seller. —Dr.J.Alfred Smith,Sr.;Senior Pastor,Allen Temple Baptist Church |
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A
SPY IN THE RUINS by Christopher Bernard 1-58790-111-0 $24.95 • 543 pages • paperback A great American city is destroyed under mysterious circumstances. A lone survivor wanders through its ruins. Out of a wind-tossed wreckage of language appear images of a young, half-orphaned boy, of a perplexed, yet idealistic, student, of a disillusioned, bitter middle-aged man dreaming of lives he might have led, had he chosen differently in early manhood; and of a comatose old man in a hospital ICU, lonely, paralyzed, and dying – and half-seen visions of an adolescent girl, a young woman, an old woman, alone, lost, and abandoned, longing, in an ever-renewed and frustrated search for love. The “debut novel” of the year, and the introduction to a national audience of its author, until now one of America’s best-kept literary secrets, A Spy in the Ruins portrays life in a society in turmoil, at war, divided and afraid, a world driven from its moorings, in quest of significance in a chaotic time – a world like our own, inhabited by people finding what purposes they can, in the creation of meaning out of the chaos of experience. (MORE) |
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CHARLES
DARWIN IN CYBERSPACE a novel by Claire Burch 1-58790-116-1 $19.95 • 339 pages • paperback This novel about Emma Wedgewood, wife of Charles Darwin, centers around her hallucinative mind. Her grief at the death of their child Annie is given a bizarre twist by some ergot mold on the bread she uses for her pudding; her world becomes the twentieth century. Burch presents her husband’s sympathetic letters which contain fragments from Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions In Man and Animals and contributions from other characters such as the social worker and Emma’s unusual later offspring, Ralph Waldo Business Administration. Claire Burch, whose abilities with fiction are complemented by her previous research and publications in psychiatry, experiments with narrative voice by apparently doing away with it. This technique is striking, like overhearing a conversation of strangers in the dark. Are these the imaginings of Charles Darwin’s wife, or is she someone who thinks she’s Darwin’s wife? She lives in our time or does she just think she lives in our time? The reports of Emma’s caseworker place the wife among us struggling with her schizophrenia, her kids and her ex who won’t fork over past due child support payments. Contemporary slang jolts the reader in its juxtaposition to Darwinian ideas. Hundreds of line drawings by the author continue the mystery. The unexpected is well presented here. - Michael Healy I recall “starvation days” in New York City when Claire and James Baldwin and I struggled with early efforts. I remember Jimmy and I agreeing that of the three of us Claire had the only claim to genius. I have been aware during the intervening years of her extraordinary work, both in prose and the visual arts, dealing with the plight of the homeless and dispossessed. If anything, this has given her deeper insights and understanding which, coupled with her artistic gifts have led to a body of rare accomplishments. I consider it somewhat of a national disgrace that her work has not received the attention and acclaim it deserves. - Elliot Baker, author of A Fine Madness. |
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LIKE
A RADIANT WHITE DOVE Selected poems by Allen Cohen 1-58790-077-7 $15.00 • 109 pages • paperback Allen’s poetic line is “so natural and real” (to use one of his phrases) that you feel he’s talking to you with a lilt in Golden Gate Park. And when you read his title poem, “The Radiant White Dove,” you feel you could at most be persuaded that God exists. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti Look, one of the most meaningful voices of the Counter Culture also leaves behind him poems of beauty and soaring consciousness. — Michael McClure |
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THE
COMING OF THE EARTHPEOPLE by Earthman 1-58790-123-4 $40.00 • 76 pages • paperback The Coming of the Earthpeople is about a young, hippie drifter, the Earthman – and his spectacular love affair with a goddess from another dimension. The setting is a crumbling, fog-enshrouded Tibetan monastary in the remote Himalays in 1969. Sheltered and instructed by Tibetan masters – the Earthman ends up sleeping and meditating in the attic of the temple. His spirit ascends into Other Worlds – where he encounters a sexy, female guide to the universe. Through the power of her ecstatic enchantment, the Earthman is absorbed into the engine room of the universe – where he witnesses the Source of creation and destruction in marvelous operation. This true tale is a tantric book weaving sexuality and spirituality. The Earthman lives on the Big Island of Hawaii – sometimes in a coffee shack in Puna, and sometimes in a mythical cave in Waipio Valley. The Earthman is a guide to the sacred sexuality of Tantra – and also, he is a guide to the Big Island itself – think, snorkel naked and let your imagination run wild from there! The Earthman has written twelve books, traveled the Planet, and has directed the Earthpeople (live standup Comedy Club in San Fracisco). The Earthman says that if you are inspired by his book and/or want a private tour of Hawaii – e-mail him at earthpeople3333@yahoo.com. |
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CRACKED
POMEGRANATE |
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AFTER
BEING SOMEWHERE ELSE by Cherryl Smith 1-58790-119-6 $15.00 • 72 pages • paperback After Being Somewhere Else is a moving retrospective that understands the paradoxes of the past, embraces the beauty of the present, and looks forward to tomorrow with infinite possibility. The poet-persona travels the road that is her life, fusing into a wholeness the spaces of the past, present, and future, inviting the reader as a fellow traveler. “Being somewhere else” does not negate where we are now or where we will be tomorrow. All depends on how we understand, and interpret, our life experiences, how we dare to tell with total honesty the narrative that is us. Cherryl Smith is Professor of English and director of the Writing Center at California State University, Sacramento. She holds a PhD in Composition from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her publications include Shoptalk for College Writers (with Sheryl Fontaine). |
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ONE
HUNDRED MILE SUMMERS by Eleanor Guilford 1-58790-114-5 $19.95 • 517 pages • paperback The story of a woman backpacker's journey from Mexico to Canada (or from the Mexican border to the Canadian border) on the 2,638 mile Pacific Crest Trail. The story includes many adventures: snowstorms in Southern California in May, resident's pet dogs deciding to tag along, river crossings where bridges have been washed out, being awakened at night by the voices of mysterious animals, and being tracked down by a Ranger with a message to meet a hiking friend who volunteered to accompany her to celebrate the completion of the trail journey at Monument 78 at the Canadian border. She walked the trail alone during summer vacations. She was 71 when she completed her journey. |
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HEART
OF THE SOUL by Virginia Fox 1-58790-075-0 $15.00 • 62 pages • paperback With compelling themes of love and loss to vanishing footprints in mind and sand, Virginia Fox's poetry and compilation of notable quotes takes the reader on a sensitive and sensual emotional trip. In her third book, Heart of the Soul, Fox includes a special section "New Voices" which showcases the work of young student writers. Heart of the Soul provides inspiration and intuitive insights broken up by a refreshing dose of humor and laughter. Readers and followers of Fox's work say: "I couldn't put it down." "I have it in my guest bedroom for everyone to read." "Every time I pick it up, I read something in a new way." Fox's striking photography accents the narrative trail of these thought provoking contents. Besides her passion for writing and photography, Fox can be found sharing animal stories in elementary school classrooms, providing voluntary marketing and PR services to non-profit agencies and helping others to realize their real estate dreams. Fox enjoys a colorful life based with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
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THE
TESTIMONY OF DOVES by Noel Peattie 1-58790-115-3 $14.95 • 106 pages • paperback NOEL PEATTIE (1932–2005) centered much of his literary work on rural life in the Capay Valley in northern California. A gentle and authentic voice for the region, he wrote of its rhythms and shadings with pride, candor, and sensitivity. Among his published works are five collections of poetry (including The Testimony of Doves), a small book on sea monsters, and a novel. His interests and commitments to the issues of truth, freedom, and social responsibility and justice are represented in Freedom to Lie: A Debate about Democracy (McFarland Press, 1989), a powerful public dialogue with professional colleague John Swan. His newsletter, Sipapu, a review of small press counter-culture literature and ephemera, was collected in A Passage for Dissent: The Best of Sipapu, 1970–1988 (McFarland Press, 1989). In 1995 Peattie was honored as the first winner of the American Library Association’s Jackie Eubanks Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in promoting the acquisition and use of alternative materials in libraries. |
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INNER
LIFE by Noel Peattie 1-58790-113-7 $14.95 • 53 pages • paperback NOEL PEATTIE (1932–2005) centered much of his literary work on rural life in the Capay Valley in northern California. A gentle and authentic voice for the region, he wrote of its rhythms and shadings with pride, candor, and sensitivity. Among his published works are five collections of poetry (including Inner Life), a small book on sea monsters, and a novel. His interests and commitments to the issues of truth, freedom, and social responsibility and justice are represented in Freedom to Lie: A Debate about Democracy (McFarland Press, 1989), a powerful public dialogue with professional colleague John Swan. His newsletter, Sipapu, a review of small press counter-culture literature and ephemera, was collected in A Passage for Dissent: The Best of Sipapu, 1970–1988 (McFarland Press, 1989). In 1995 Peattie was honored as the first winner of the American Library Association’s Jackie Eubanks Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in promoting the acquisition and use of alternative materials in libraries. |
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VIVO
[Voice-In/Voice-Out]: The Coming Age of Talking Computers by William Crossman 1-58790-100-5 $24.95 • 229 pages • paperback A positive look at how talking computers, VIVOs, will make text/written language obsolete, replace all writing and reading with speech and graphics, democratize information flow worldwide, and recreate an oral culture by 2050. Text is an ancient technology for storing and retrieving information; VIVOs will do the same job more quickly, efficiently, and universally. Among VIVO’s potential benefits: 80% of the world’s people are functionally nonliterate; they will be able to use VIVOs to access all information without having to learn to read and write. VIVO’s instantaneous translation function will let people speak with other people around the world using their own native languages. People whose disabilities prevent them from reading and/or writing will be able to access all information. Four “engines” are driving us irreversibly into the VIVO Age and oral culture: human evolution, technological breakthroughs, young people’s rejection of text, and people’s demand for textless, universal access to information. Future generations, using eight key VIVOlutionary learning skills, will radically change education, human relations, politics, the arts, business, our relation to the environment, and even human consciousness itself. Worldwide access to VIVO technology looms as a key human rights issue of the 21st Century. About the Author: William Crossman is a philosopher, futurist, and professor who has spoken about talking computers and other future-related issues at conferences and meetings around the world. He has appeared frequently on TV, radio, and online, and served as a consultant for governmental and non-governmental agencies, think tanks, educational institutions, research and development centers, and corporations. He was named (New York Daily News, Dec. 2, 1999) as a key visionary for the 21st Century along with physicist Stephen Hawking and scientist Ray Kurzweil. Crossman is founder/director of the CompSpeak 2050 Institute for the Study of Talking Computers and Oral Cultures. www.compspeak2050.org |
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ARMS
AGAINST FAITH How the U.S. Has Underestimated the Power of the Islamic World by Eladio Pasqual, Ph.D. ISBN: 1-58790-064-5 $14.95 • 164 pages • paperback An account of the psycholgical and political evolution of recent world events since 9/11 focusing on terrorism, wars, political dissent among allies and the U.S. Government’s loneliness as it confronts the world’s problems. About the Author: Dr. Eladio Pasqual, editor of an earlier bilingual world titled The Art of Counseling, has been involved during his professional life in big disasters. He is very much aware of the sadness and suffering of people who are victims of human tragedies, terrorism and wars. His interviews with families of victims of terrorism highlights the spirit of this book. |
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THE
SOUL OF ROCK 'N ROLL A History of African Americans in Rock Music by J. Othello ISBN: 1-58790-105-6 $19.95 • 201 pages • paperback J . Othello, a scholar of Education, Theology and Political Science, resides in Oakland, California. A professional songwriter since 1990, he was the founder and leader of the all-Black rock bands “The Wanted” and “Othello’s Revenge”. In 1991 he performed on both the Lollapalooza and Gathering of the Tribes festival tours, as well as being featured in a MTV 30-minute News Special entitled “Racism: Points of View”, which ran from 1991-1992. A tireless performer, he toured and traveled nationally and internationally throughout the 1990s, and in 2002, was nominated for a JPF Songwriter Award. Also in 2002, he signed a licensing deal with producers Bunim-Murray, to provide music for MTV shows like THE REAL WORLD and ROAD RULES. Recently, he was featured in a 2003 exhibit at the National Broadcast Museum, chronicling his work on MTV and his views on racism in the music industry. His 2004 work, The Soul of Rock ’N Roll, examines and exemplifies the careers of top African American recording artists in rock music. The Soul of Rock ’N Roll celebrates the creation of Rock ’N Roll by African Americans, and highlights their powerful and unbroken line of influence on the last 50-years of popular music and culture. J. Othello holds a Masters Degree in Educational Leadership, and is a teacher, speaker, and advocate for social equity worldwide. |
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NEW
FROM OLD HEIDELBERG PRESS: CARRYING A BANNER FOR PSYCHIATRIC SOCIAL WORK Essays, Perspectives, and Maida Herman Solomon's Oral Memoir by Maida H. Solomon with contributions from Helen Z. Reinherz & others Edited by John B. Gussman ISBN: 1-58790-065-3 $14.95 • 132 pages • paperback  CLICK
HEREFOR MORE INFORMATION |
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BOOK
OF HATS Poems by Allen Cohen Drawings by Ann Cohen ISBN: 1-58790-062-9 $12.95 • 71 pages• paperback The poems in the Book of Hats were written while the author was working at the Shlock Shop on Grant Avenue in the North Beach district of San Francisco....Old Indian baskets, whales’ teeth, antique dentist tools, sock monkey dolls, political and labor buttons from the thirties, old beer cans, Eskimo knitting tools and hundreds of other old relics are clogged into the many glass cabinets and cases that line the walls and floor space. Hats are everywhere — stacked on shelves, swinging on dummies’ heads from the rafters and hanging on nails from the walls....These poems are transcriptions of his interactions with people who came into the dark shadows of the Shlock Shop and left some part of their being there. The poems reveal the humor and poignancy of the human person that we so often forget to notice in the techno-electro speed of contemporary life. Allen Cohen was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. Moving to San Francisco in the early 60’s, he founded and edited the legendary San Francisco Oracle, the psychedelic, rainbow hued underground newspaper published in the Haight-Ashbury. He also helped originate rites of passage like the Human-Be-In. He is also the editor, with Clive Matson of the PEN award winning An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11. Ann Cohen is an artist from L.A. who has lived in Walnut Creek the past 23 years. Her work is widely collected and has appeared in Beatitude magazine, Relix, and Split Shift. |
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CHANTS
OF A LIFETIME |
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CIA
Betrayal and Deceit in Laos by Freddie Rice ISBN: 1-58790-060-2 $19.95 • 203 pages • paperback This a is the story of a young and idealistic black Marine caught up in the excitement and intrigue of the United States and the CIA in Laos during the Vietnam War. The author worked as a Marine Embassy Security Guard in Laos during the mid-sixties when the war in Vietnam was just starting to escalate and immediately across the border in Laos the CIA was beginning its silent war. Through the machinations of the military and the subversion of the CIA, all tinged with institutional racism, he was caught up in activities that led him to face two death contracts and finally a military Court Marshal. Ultimately, though, President Lyndon Johnson intervened and he was exonerated and protected. This is a squalid and scarry tale, involving many bar girls and many bullets, along the underbelly of the long gone but not at all forgotten Vietnam War. |
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DYNAMITE
DOUBLES Play Winning Tennis Today By Helle Sparre Viragh with Jim Schock ISBN: 1-58790-066-1 $17.95 / 144 pages / Paperback This book teaches club and tournament players how to improve their tennis game in an afternoon. The key is a system of play that answers the 4 big questions about doubles tennis: 1) What should I have done?, 2) Where should I have been?, 3) How could I have gotten that?, and 4) Whose was that? Written in a refreshing personal style and using mini-court illustrations, DYNAMITE DOUBLES gives both new and experienced players insight into how to view the different areas of the court, the nuances of the game, and the strategy of getting to the right place in time to hit a winning shot. Tennis players who immerse themselves in Helle’s talent and experience, while making her techniques and tips their own, will find themselves scoring wins over more powerful, higher-ranked opponents time after time. About the Authors: HELLE SPARRE VIRAGH was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1956. She began playing tennis at age six and by age 18 she won 36 National Championships, including the European Championship for Girl’s 16’s. In 1978 Helle advanced to the round of 32 at Wimbeldon and later on that year she won the U.S. Clay Court Women’s Doubles Championship. Helle married and moved to Northern California where she combined tennis with a successful business career. In 1997 Helle competed for the victorious U.S. Women’s 40’s team in the World Cup and won the 40’s World Doubles Championship. Helle is currently the Head Tennis Pro at Scott Valley Swimming and Tennis Club in Mill Valley, ten minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. JIM SCHOCK’s distinguished career in broadcasting includes stints as a producer for ABC-TV sports. When he produced his first tennis program, he was inspired by the power and elegance of the game, especially doubles matches. When he met Helle and witnessed firsthand her ability to improve doubles players, he immediately agreed to collaborate in assisting her to transfer her skills from the court to the pages of this book. Mr. Schock is also a novelist and screenwriter. His newest screenplay is “Blue Ladies.” |
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MY
WALDEN POND OBSERVATIONS FROM MY WINDOW (Volume 1: Out of the Blue Series) by Ella Hogan ISBN: 1-58790-054-8 $12.95 • 103 pages • paperback The author, home bound by the increasing limitations of accumulating years, spends a great deal of time sitting in her special chair looking out of her picture window at the world. From there she observes that you do not have to be in the North Woods of Maine to find nature all around you. In MY WALDEN POND she presents a collection of free style poems of observation and analysis. They describe her “Walden Pond” and all it offers right here on a golf course edged in an urban area of Northern California. The poems are rambling thoughts from relaxed contemplation, spinning their own web of words almost involuntarily. This is the first in a series of poetry books collectively titled Out Of The Blue. About the Author Ella Hogan has had a highly varied life with 23 different “positions”, from copier repair person (one of the very first) to high school guidance counselor, sex educator to real estate broker. She sold her first story to Nature Magazine at age 8 and by age 10 was a Radio Talk Show hostesss taking calls on local nature. She gave up her motor cycle license at 80 when she retired, moved to Northern California and was finally free to write in her favorite venue, observational freestyle verse and continues writing today at 88! |
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Scratch
a Professor . . . Find a Fisherman Pastoral Letters in Season by Bart Sarjeant ISBN: 1-58790-056-4 $16.95• 178 pages • hardback For twenty-three years, over the span of an equal twenty-three cycles of the liturgical calendar – that is to say, Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to Lent to Easter through Pentecost – Rev. Bart Sarjeant wrote pastoral letters faithfully to his people, letters on belief and on doubt, on joy and on pain and on suffering, on darkness and on light, on life and on death. The substance of this book, “Scratch a Professor . . . Find a Fisherman,” is based largely upon those pastoral letters, beginning with his first letter to the good people of St. John’s (his church), and ending with his last letter twenty-three years later. The chapters reflect the seasons, beginning with Advent and ending with Pentecost, but the letters themselves are not chronological, but rather philosophically ordered.About the Author Bart Sarjeant is a retired Episcopal priest living with his wife, Beverly, in San Anselmo, California. Born and raised in sourhern California, bart served parishes inthe south and north of that state as well as serving an exchange pastorate in England in 1971. |
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THE
THOMSKY FLUKE and Other Tales by JAY DAVIS ISBN: 1-58790-061-0 $9.95 • 103 pages • paperback Shocking and abrupt short fiction in a punk and contemporary yet almost Kafkaesque mode. These short stories present a sometimes grotesque yet glittering distortion of a uniquely perceived reality. About the Author The 33 year old author is originally from Cleveland and now resides in San Francisco. |
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SPRITZ By Stephen Kopel ISBN: 1-58790-048-3 $8.95 / 93 pages / Paperback Inebriated from a hurdy-gurdy wordy brew, these slightly dippy, very much witty poems inhabit their own distinct universe in which the reader is invited to recreate. Spritz is the quintessential American pop culture collection as its fanciful poems – 82 in number – wiggle a sassy confidence that addresses the main concern of our citizens: what’s wrong with having so much fun? In this book, the reader’s associative imagination is the active catalyst to spark the effervescence this poetry is crafted to create. No contemplative musings, speculative notions or personal rants here. The verbal hi-jinx are purposely unsettling, yet, the astute reader will sense Mr. Kopel’s tender bombast to imply never take oneself too seriously. These poems reflect that spirit. Stephen Kopel’s first volume is crux (calliope press, No. Beach) now in the poetry collection of San Francisco’s Main Library. He is a nominee for the series Pushcart Prize XXV and S.F. Poet Laureate 2002/03. His writing appears in Family Celebrations & Baby Blessings (anthologies, June Cotner, editor) and numerous poetry journals worldwide. |
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TESSA,
Autobiography of a dog A True Tale by Hogan’s Countessa by Ella Hogan, Interpreter ISBN: 1-58790-058-0 $12.95 • 116 pages • paperback This book is a charming conceit written from the point of view of an unusually intelligent Australian Cattle dog. From the preface (by the dog): “I am inspired to write a tale of my Life. I want to tell my family and friends all about the things I have done. True, I am a dog. Dogs have memories too. Now that I am 13 years old (70 years people-time) it seems pleasant to recall and relate. Maybe in doing this I can help you understand and appreciate us, your faithful friends. I want the young and the old to be able to read my dog tale and to learn and appreciate their pets. It is quite a responsibility, sharing a home and life style with a human master. We both have to adapt, try to figure out what is expected, be pleasant and learn patience. I am certain that I have been most fortunate in living with a Master who took pleasure in learning to think like a dog. But if she learned to think like a dog, I had to learn to think like a person. This is a state of mutual growth. It takes effort and patience but the reward makes our lives together a wonderful experience.” About the Author: Ella Hogan is the ghost writer for Tessa’s true story. Ella has degrees in Geology and credentials in counseling. Her training in observing behavior is easily transferred from people to a dog. Ella Hogan is also a poet and continues writing into her 90th year! |
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OVER
BY THE CAVES (Short Fiction) by Jennifer Stone ISBN: 1-58790-109-9 $14.00• 63 pages • paperback Jennifer Stone’s work has appeared in magazines which range from Mother Jones to the Wormwood Review. Other books by Jennifer Stone include Stone’s Throw: Selected Essays; Telegraph Avenue Then, a memoir; and Over by the Caves, prose collection. Her radio shows can be heard on FM 94, KPFA Pacifica Public Radio. “. . . like walking a cluttered beach with a new friend. Stone’s gift of selecting an object or incident as an Epiphany, a sudden piercing realization or transcendence, approaches the surreal.” —Toni Chestnut, Plexus “Marvelous, exciting language.” —Ron Tullon, Library Journal |
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MIND
OVER MEDIA Essays on Film and Televison by Jennifer Stone ISBN: 1-58790-110-2 $24.95 • 177 pages • paperback Jennifer Stone’s work has appeared in magazines which range from Mother Jones to the Wormwood Review. Other books by Jennifer Stone include Stone’s Throw: Selected Essays; Telegraph Avenue Then, a memoir; and Over by the Caves, prose collection. Her radio shows can be heard on FM 94, KPFA Pacifica Public Radio. “Jennifer Stone has the mind it takes to mind the media; her essays, armed with wit, irony and informed outrage, are battle hymns of survival for both mind and media.” —Erik Bauersfeld, KPFA “. . . intensely readable . . . unpredictable style . . . an energetic, appealing voice.” —Publishers Weekly “Jennifer Stone is one of the few film critics I’ve read whose reviews are usually more engaging, provocative and witty than the movies themselves.” —Bruce Dancis, Mother Jones |
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