Twenty-eight African cultures are represented here by artifacts created to communicate with ancestors, spirits, and gods, about such issues as health, conception, and determination of guilt or innocence. Issued in conjunction with an April-July 2000 exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, this catalog contains extensive ethnographic, descriptive, and interpretive text in connection with each of 50 pictured pieces, as well as a 13-page essay about divination in Sub-Saharan Africa (by John Pemberton III) and an introductory essay by LaGamma. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Written over 350 years ago, The Pocket Oracle and the Art of Prudence is a charming collection of 300 witty and thought-provoking aphorisms. From the art of being lucky to the healthy use of caution, these elegant maxims were created as a guide to life, with further suggestions given on cultivating good taste, knowing how to refuse, the foolishness of complaining and the wisdom of controlling one�s passions. Baltasar Gracian intended that these ingenious aphorisms would encourage each reader to challenge themselves both in understanding and applying each axiom.

In this book, Cheryl Rose-Hall shares the unique painting technique that she has developed. As a sensitive, she shares how she paints by attuning to her subjects through the eyes and spirals out from that central point. Using historical data along with her psychic impressions, she creates empowered works of art based on sacred sites and their mythology. This book includes photos, images, and research that the public has never seen before. This is reiterated in the brilliant forward by Dr. Jean Houston. The book is divided into the four mythic lands where Cheryl lives and creates. Narnia (Northern Ireland), Lemuria (Mt. Shasta), Avalon (UK), and Bohemia (Prague, Czech Republic). There are 120 color photos and 60 color paintings and their stories. Some of the highlights include The real portrait of Mary painted by St. Luke, the actual Kingdom of Narnia, and the rarely seen ancient Lemurian petroglyphs near Mt. Shasta documented by archeologists.

This book presents 123 calling cards of artists (painters, sculptors, photographers, architects, graphic designers, illustrators etc.) from the 18th century to the present day. The facsimiled cards are slipped like bookmarks into a book by several authors on the history of the use of calling cards, the social context in which they were produced, and related historical and fictional narratives. The often unexpected graphic qualities of these personalized objects, each designed to capture an individual identity within the narrow confines of a tiny rectangle card, implicitly recount a history of taste and typographic codes in the West. But this calling card collection also lays the foundations for a microhistory of art, inspired by the Italian microstoria, or a looser narrative that breaks free from geographic contexts and historical periods. We can imagine how social networks were formed before the advent of Facebook, and how artists defined themselves in the social sphere, whether they were students or teachers, dean of the art school or museum curator, founder of a journal, firm, restaurant or political party, and so on. Superimposed on this imaginary or idealized network formed by chance encounters is a living network of students of art or history, historians or anthropologists, librarians, archivists, gallerists, museum curators and artists themselves, the network upon which this pocket museum is constructed. The sheer variety of perspectives and stories brought together here makes this book a prodigious forum for discussion. (source : éditeur).

After the loss of her husband, Michelle Mann went searching for meaning and found the tarot. In London specifically, she began discovering the answers she so soundly sought and eventually created Gold Lotus. The Gold Lotus Oracle Deck is multifaceted in that the deck can be used alone for guidance, in readings for others, or included in healing practices. Gold Lotus Oracle Book is a guidebook that accompanies the oracle deck. This guide contains crystal vibrations, numerology, yoga poses, meditations, and affirmations that vibrate with each card, making this deck and book an invaluable healing tool for yourself or others. Used together, the book and deck are powerful instruments for healing and enlightenment. The process of using these cards is a comforting ritual. The cards are an instant focus to inspire you for the day or to ask questions about events that you are experiencing. Sit in a relaxing spot to find clarity. Take a few deep breaths, and ask in that moment, What do I need right now? We all have the gift of intuition; the key is quieting the mind and listening to your heart and soul.

The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.

* Presents an innovative, philosophical approach to Oracle database administration, and shows how to think about the whole complex problem of performance tuning, how to break it down, how to root out the cause of performance bottlenecks. *Covers all practical aspects of Oracle performance tuning. * Filled with hands-on lessons and accounts. * Teaches an innovative and effective "Physician to Magician" approach, showing how to understand the problem, uncover the root cause, and choose and implement the most effective solution.

Following the tragic events of Infinite Frontier #1, Batman and his new ally, Ghost-Maker, must reckon with a new gang operating in Gotham City-but are they connected to the reemergence of the Scarecrow? Meanwhile, shadowy billionaire Simon Saint pitches an advanced law-enforcement system to the new mayor! The creative team behind the epic “The Joker War” returns with a thrill-packed, dangerous new storyline called “The Cowardly Lot.” Plus, the backup story “Demon or Detective” begins as Damian Wayne is on the run! After everything Damian has gone through, can he escape Gotham and find his way back to where his journey started-to his mother, Talia al Ghul? This two-part tale concludes this month in Detective Comics #1034!Following the tragic events of Infinite Frontier #1, Batman and his new ally, Ghost-Maker, must reckon with a new gang operating in Gotham City-but are they connected to the reemergence of the Scarecrow? Meanwhile, shadowy billionaire Simon Saint pitches an advanced law-enforcement system to the new mayor! The creative team behind the epic “The Joker War” returns with a thrill-packed, dangerous new storyline called “The Cowardly Lot.” Plus, the backup story “Demon or Detective” begins as Damian Wayne is on the run! After everything Damian has gone through, can he escape Gotham and find his way back to where his journey started-to his mother, Talia al Ghul? This two-part tale concludes this month in Detective Comics #1034!

How does sleep--or its absence--change us? At the end of another wakeful night, High Winds tears off on a hallucinatory road trip in search of his estranged half brother, led by cryptic signs and coincidences. Part modern-day pillow book, part picture book for adults, and told in an associative, elliptical style, the narrative takes readers deep into a dreamlike Western landscape. Jessica Fleischmann's atmospheric imagery amplifies the words on every page, referencing 1980s graphics, net art, and something yet unseen; Sylvan Oswald's text inhabits and draws meaning from this visual environment. Gas stations, local legends, and unlikely rock formations become terrain for explorations of fear, fantasy, masculinity, medication, spatial structures, and bodily functions--inspired by the author's experience of gender transition, insomnia, and moving to Los Angeles. Poetic and funny, surreal and beautiful--High Winds makes a delightful companion, before or instead of a good night's sleep.