One day, Edsel Relic, high school outcast who became a performance poet, gets a phone call from his unrequited high school sweetheart, asking if he will attend the upcoming 25th reunion. This sets Edsel off on a freewheeling remembrance of his life up to that point.

He was picked on in high school by the jocks because of stuttering (later diagnosed as Tourette's Syndrome). After surviving high school, he went to New York City to become the next Great Hipster Poet (this was during the time of the Beat Generation). When that didn't work, he was forced to return home to his parent's house, and enroll in a local college. Edsel's coming-of-age was fueled with pot, and a "soundtrack" by people like John Coltrane.

Frazer writes this story as a very worthy equivalent of improvisational jazz. He switches points of view from Edsel, to the jocks who picked on him in high school, to the local hipsters, and back again. He also changes the story from straight prose to TV scripts to stream-of-consciousness ranting, and includes a special guest appearance by the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite.

I really enjoyed this story. It's a very good novel for those of us whose high school memories were less than happy. It also belongs right up there with the best of people like Jack Kerouac.

Dr. Fraser was one of my favorite professors at Grove City College, so I come to this book with some bias. However, I do think that he does a good job introducing film to Christians. One of the book's strengths is its exploration of why sinful themes are not necessarily sinful in themself. The book offers a great start for anyone interested in exploring movies, but for more thorough analysis, you'll want to do further reading. Fraser includes some pointers for where to go.

I liked it alot and I learned quite a bit about politics, but it gets kind of heavy at some parts. This girl tells about an orgy and everything. I didn't really need that much information but it didn't kill me. But whatever your tastes are! It was a good book besides that.

The author was given access to RKO records that had been unseen for decades. This book combines the beautiful photos of any number of Hollywood studio coffee table books with the insights of a great storyteller and cinema historian. Highly recommended for the film fan - wherever you can find it.

La evolucion de la musica afrocaribena tiene dos epocas importantes: antes de la revolucion cubana y despues. Una vez que Cuba quedo aislada por el bloqueo, La poblacion hispana de N.Y. tomo el control de la musica y entre los boricuas y los cubanos en el exilio, nacio lo que se conocio como "salsa". Este libro presenta varios ensayos en los que se destaca a los personajes y las circunstancias y lugares hist-ricos en que se forjo esa deliciosa mezcla musical que hoy mueve el mundo.

And excellent little book about several children whose parents become Anabaptists. The book is written from the perspective of the childen. And has a fabulous story line. It is good reading if you want your children to have a deeper faith in God.

mr McGee says it all in chapter 8. "If you do not understand the background, you will miss the whole point". McGee takes you step by step thu history to give you a full understanding of the text. and than conpares it with real life experiences for moderen times. his everday exp are refreshing.

What a great Bible teacher. If you like McGee, let me make another suggestion. If you want to understand prophecy (specifically the Premillennial/Pretribulational model) within the context and flow of the Bible, I suggest you check out the book "The History of the Future: A Commentary on Revelation and Matthew 24" by Marvin Blackburn, Timothy D. Blackburn. This is an excellent book for the beginner and more advanced student.

Although this is a mainly a design book for the Victorian home owner, and a good one, with several excellent pictures on every page, it is also a history book. The author explains how each new wallpaper style, or window treatment, or ceiling ornament, and so on, is a consequence of this Paris Exhibition, or that widely circulated pattern book, or the writings of this influential person.

And considerable research and effort went into the book. In addition to the pictures, which cover subjects in Britain, America, and occasionally Australia, there are cutaway drawings showing construction of masonry and wood houses, and, at the close of every chapter, a page or two of drawings to illustrate typical ballusters, wall lamps, wardrobes, etc.

It was written for an American audience, going by the spellings and the list of suppliers in the appendix, by an Englishman, who occasionally gets things wrong. Like saying that at the turn of the century porches fell out of favor here and were replaced by conservatories. But his advice on restoration is always good.

Although it's an engaging history of the era, it's not a how-to book. The final chapter on repairs is familair material, although it might contain something you've not seen before: sample floor plans for a typical basement or attic conversions.

VIOLENCE IN INSTITUTIONS is written by four authors, all of whom are involved with the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada. Three of the authors are psychologists, the fourth is a staff instructor. As the authors themselves put it "the book is the culmination of over 15 years of effort on the part of the authors to understand the problem of violence in psychiatric institutions, and to develop a staff training course designed to control it."

The book is divided into three parts: 1. Literature review & background research 2. Description of a staff training course, including background and rationale 3. Information for those developing their own course and/ or preparing to act as trainers

In their introduction the authors clearly state their starting-point in suggesting that violence in institutions is in large part a product of the ways staff customarily deal with patients. Staff members may unwittingly provoke escalation and assaults. Therefore meaningful changes in the behaviour of patients might best be accomplished by modifying staff behaviour.

The book therefore mainly deals with changing behaviour, more so than with understanding behaviour.

The first part of the book which aims at understanding institutional violence is itself divided into three: a review of the literature, results of two (previously published) background studies and a selection of violent incidents which are described and commented on.

The review of the literature leads to the conclusion that institutions with a high level of violence have the following characteristics: - rapid turnover of large numbers of young individuals with histories of institutional aggression - many individuals with backgrounds of poor community adjustment - staff who are generally inexperienced and approach residents in an authoritarian manner while attempting to maintain control through the exclusive use of aversive or punitive consequences - an environment in which residents have fairly unrestricted and unsupervised access to each other in a crowded area with little structured activity, and in which assaultive behavior is excused and staff impose no cost for its occurrence. Many large correctional and psychiatric facilities or institutions for the mentally retarded have many or all of these characteristics.

Most literature is realting to violence in institutions is atheoretical in nature: violence is seen as a problem to be eliminated. Research on the effectiveness of strategies used to eliminate violence is therefore relevant as well. The authors provide a useful overview concerning the effectiveness of strategies used to prevent or stop violence. The conclusion must be that little is known about the effects of most of the strategies. The attempts to reduce institutional aggression include: - drug treatment, which meets with many difficulties while there is a lack of insight on what causes the effectiveness of certain drugs; - seclusion and mechanical restraint - behavioral treatments consisting of either suppressing aggressive behaviour immediately or teaching prosocial skills The authors synthesis points to a mixed strategy consisting of careful management of contingencies, cautious application of drug treatment, practices that reduce crowding and increase the stability of the social environment and increase of structured activities for residents. In line with their starting point, the authors find support for their idea that significant reductions in institutional violence could be achieved by a staff training programme aimed at teaching: - nonrestrictive, nonauthoritarian and nonprovocatiove ways of interacting with residents; - behavioural cues and situational characteristics associated with assaultiveness; - effective verbal strategies for use with highly upset individuals. The first of the two long-term studies discussed by the authors seems to indicate that frustration and anger arousal are important instigating components to the aggression of psychiatric patients. The second study on staff injuries indicates that restraint situations where staff physically control patients are more dangerous than assault situations.

So the authors see more than enough reason to present their staff training course as a useful means to prevent and control violence. Not surprisingly the course builds in many ways upon courses used by the police. The police is faced by similar problems in dealing with violence and has long ago found out that violence is the result of an interaction and rarely erupts without warning. In this light it is also enlightening to have knowledge of studies - also referred to in the book - where "normal" people are secretly admitted to psychiatric hospitals or are assigned a role of "guard" or "inmate" in a prison.

In general, VIOLENCE IN INSTITUTIONS is a highly readable book with an approach that for many professionals will be a fresh one. To professionals involved in instutions it can be useful. From a scientific point of view, possibilities for future research become visible. More systematic data are needed and more attention for a theoretical inbedding of different strategies used. In this respect sex-differences are interesting as well: in institutions (as in the real world), males (both male patients and male staff) are more likely to use violence. Almost completely lacking is attention for possible functions of violence. Although there is some space in the book devoted to the follow-up of violent incidents, in the form of negotiations and conflict resolution, more attention for processes of social repair and reconciliation seems in order.