Greetings Gate

This is a lyrical novel with the reader allowed to give opinions right in the story. And at the end of each chapter are discussion questions, ancient historical records cited, and scriptures used as a basis for the story. At the end of the book are suggested chapter readings for special occasions. It also has a three-page bibliography of all books consulted while writing all eight volumes of "They Met Jesus." This is not just a novel. It is much more. ============= Jesus survived death threats, calmed misdirected power, talked with the spirit world. He released people of handicaps, gave an adulteress hope, rested with friends, then raised the dead. And the hypocrite religious leaders finalized plans to kill him. Come meet the people who met Jesus. You are one of them. Probably you are several of them. Go ahead and struggle with them as they did. Laugh. Cry. Do mental battle with him. Emotional battle too. Fight for your faith as they fought. Pause to listen for what you've never heard before. Then touch Jesus. This is the story of faith in the impossible. Hope in the inconceivable. Love for the invincible. It is the dreams of youth, the desperations of infirmity, the hopes of age, and the song of eternity. Follow the suspense as each person in Jesus' life comes to terms with who they are, and who Jesus is. Jesus accepts the as they are. But can they accept themselves as they are? More than that, can they accept Jesus as he is? Both God and man? Both Creator and created? Both King and servant? It is the story of doubts explained away, animosities melted away, misunderstandings cleared away. It is your story and mine. For deep within each of us is everyone who ever met and struggled with Jesus.

The texts of the present Compendium, seemingly the most comprehensive collection of Shi‘i pilgrimage prayers addressed to the Fourteen Infallibles (AS), have been edited by collating reliable sources. Each prayer is preceded by traditions on the merits of visiting the shrine of the Infallible to be followed by the narrations and sources of the prayer. The classification of the prayers is regional, i.e. they are arranged according to the burial places of the Infallibles (AS). Further, mention has been made of the devotional acts to be performed at each shrine. The contents of the volumes include the following: volume one (Medina) includes the pilgrimage prayers devoted to the Noble Prophet (SAW), Fatimat al-Zahra’ (SA), the Imams (AS) and saints buried at the Baqi‘ Cemetery, and the martyrs of the Uhud Battle; vol. 2: the prayers devoted to the Commander of the Faithful, Imam ‘Ali (AS; Najaf) and those said at the Mosque of Kufa; vol. 3: those devoted to Imam al-Íusayn (AS) and Hadrat Abu al-Fadl al-‘Abbas (as) and other martyrs buried in Karbala’; vol. 4: those devoted to the Kazimayn, i.e. Imam Musa (AS) and Imam Muhammad Taqi (AS), and the ‘Askariyayn, i.e. Imam ‘Ali al-Naqi (AS) and Imam Hasan al-‘Askari (AS), and those of Imam al-Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam (AS; Samarra’ and Kazimayn); vol. 5: those devoted to Imam al-Rida (AS; Mashhad); vol. 6: Ziyarat al-Jami‘a, i.e. general prayers and also those devoted to the descendants of the Imams, e.g. Hadrat Ma‘suma (AS).

In this book, the first of a series, Robin D. Gill, author of the highly acclaimed Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! and Cherry Blossom Epiphany, the largest single-theme anthologies of poetry ever published, explores the traditional Japanese New Year through 2,000 translated haiku (mostly 17-20c). "The New Year," R.H. Blyth once wrote, "is a season by itself." That was nowhere so plain as in the world of haiku, where saijiki, large collections called of ku illustrating hundreds, if not thousands of briefly explained seasonal themes, generally comprised five volumes, one for each season. Yet, the great doyen of haiku gave this fifth season, considered the first season when it came at the head of the Spring rather than in mid-winter, only a tenth of the pages he gave to each of the other four seasons (20 vs. 200). Was Blyth, Zen enthusiast, not enamored with ritual? Or, was he loath to translate the New Year with its many cultural idiosyncrasies (most common to the Sinosphere but not to the West), because he did not want to have to explain the haiku? It is hard to say, but, with these poems for the re-creation of the world, Robin D. Gill, aka "keigu" (respect foolishness, or respect-fool), rushes in where even Blyth feared to tread to give this supernatural or cosmological season - one that combines aspects of the Solstice, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, July 4th and the Once Upon a Time of Fairy Tales - the attention it deserves. With G.K. Chesterton's words, evoking the mind of the haiku poets of old, the author-publisher leaves further description of the content to his reader-reviewers. "The man standing in his own kitchen-garden with the fairyland opening at the gate, is the man with large ideas. His mind creates distance; the motor-car stupidly destroys it." (G.K. Chesterton: Heretics 1905)

The golden age of animation stretched from the early 1930s to the mid-1950s, with movie cartoons reaching an extraordinarily high level of artistry and technique--far higher than today's TV cartoons, for instance. Nearly 1000 cartoons were produced by the seven major animation studios in the U.S. between January 1, 1939, and September 30, 1945--the immediate pre-World War II period up to the cessation of hostilities. More than a quarter of the cartoons substantially refer to the war, and thereby are invaluable in helping to understand American attitudes and Hollywood's reflection of them. The meat of Doing Their Bit is a filmography with extremely detailed summaries of the 260 or so commercially produced, animated, war-related shorts, 1939-1945. There is also a good bit of overall commentary on these films as a group. Two chapters wrap up animated cartoons of World War I and the general political tenor of animated talkies of the 1930s. This edition also includes a new chapter on the outrageous government-sponsored Pvt Snafus.

Miles Davis and Juliette Greco, Jackson Pollock and Jack Kerouac, Marlon Brando and Bob Dylan and William Burroughs. What do all these people have in common? Fame, of course, and undeniable talent. But most of all, they were cool. Birth of the Cool is a stunningly illustrated, brilliantly written cultural history of the American avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s -- the decades in which cool was born. From intimate interviews with cool icons like poet Allen Ginsberg, bop saxophonist Jackie McLean, and Living Theatre cofounder Judith Malina, award-winning journalist and poet Lewis MacAdams extracts the essence of cool. Taking us inside the most influential and experimental art movements of the twentieth century -- from the Harlem jazz joints where Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker invented bebop to the back room at Max's Kansas City when Andy Warhol was holding court to backstage at the Newport Folk Festival the night Bob Dylan went electric, from Surrealism to the Black Mountain School to Zen -- MacAdams traces the evolution of cool from the very fringes of society to the mainstream. Born of World War II, raised on atomic-age paranoia, cast out of the culture by the realities of racism and the insanity of the Cold War, cool is now, perversely, as conventional as you can get. Allen Ginsberg suited up for Gap ads. Volvo appropriated a phrase from Jack Kerouac's On the Road for its TV commercials. How one became the other is a terrific story, and it is presented here in a gorgeous package, rich with the coolest photographs of the black-and-white era from Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, and many others. Drawing a direct line between Lester Young wearing his pork-pie hat and his crepe-sole shoes staring out his hotel window at Birdland to the author's three-year-old daughter saying "cool" while watching a Scooby-Doo cartoon at the cusp of a new millennium, Birth of the Cool is a cool book about a hot subject...maybe even the coolest book ever.