His is an exercise in intellect and art, asking us to override all the art cliches and art history in our mind, and look at things differently.

In addition to the more classical canvases, Connor has also created a number of shirts with messages for our times (an illustration from Picasso's "Guernica" on a Right-to-Life shirt or Raphael's "Madonna and Child" on a Planned Parenthood shirt.)

Iconoclast to many, Russell's hijacking of the masters tweaks our mind, tests our wit, always just short of "STOP THIEF!"

What shines thru is his "mastery of the artist." His are skilled reproductions of the Masters, albeit a bit rearranged. While he describes himself as a "pirate," he is truly "an artist of his own time."

This published collection is well worth owning and sharing; it will provoke lively discussion.

As someone who in the past has struggled even with one of the Dummies guides I found this book very straightforward as it cuts its way through the jungle of faxing, blocking or routing messages, security settings and conferencing with Net Meeting. Not to mention how to set up a distribution list or a Newsgroup account.

The section on Administrative Tools Demystified is very useful. As the authors point out, data has an inherent tendency to fragment and no user, no matter how expert, can avoid this problem. The advice on checking for disk errors and defragmenting files is lucid and to the point. With this guide every XP user should be able to optimize their system for peak performance.

The book has a pretty neutral tone (unlike the sometimes irritatingly folksy tone of the Dummies series), though a dry wit sometimes surfaces. The section on what the authors' call XP's plumbing aims to supply "all the information you need to appear very knowledgeable the next time that bad-tempered tech-support guy barks his questions at you".

A final section is devoted specifically to business projects. Topics include setting up a small network, working with a client/server network and last but not least troubleshooting system problems and errors (including guidelines for setting up a diaster recovery plan). A useful glossary defines terms like "Ethernet address" and explains enigmatic acronyms (IAB, IANA, ICANN, ICS, IETF etc).

For business users this is definitely the authoritative guide to XP Professional but XP Home users should find it useful too since it also covers features like Media Player and Movie Maker, printing photos, protection from viruses, working with floppy disks, and all those other things which the home PC user is likely to use.

...If you haven't tried this game, it's a great deal at theedgeman price. The game is emminently playable, the artwork is mostlyexcellent, with only a few stinkers, and it's a very economical way to get into a great collectible card game, without that collector's pinch that many manufacturers put on you.

By the way, I have no affiliations with Edgeman, but I can say that...they are coming out with a new product called LORE which has all the same cards, same art, but according to ICE, much simplified rules. I didn't find the rules of Unlimited overcomplicated, though they are detailed. According to ICE, LORE will come in six large decks, and collecting all six will yield a complete set of cards, though the suggested retail price will be about 18-20 dollars per deck. They did say that the new game will be playable with the old cards, if the new card text is used in place of the old.

You are one of the five wizards, and it is your goal to either destroy the One Ring or to unite the people of Middle Earth to bring the evil Sauron down. Will it be you or your opponent who succeeds?

This was the period of such Mingus works as "Pithecanthropus Erectus" and "Ah Um." Both Coleman and Young followed Mingus to New York City, where at clubs like the Bohemia, Mingus' "Jazz Workshops" (people pay to hear us practice), musicians such as Jacki Byard, Dannie Richmond, Jimmy Knepper, Jackie McLean followed Mingus' spontaneously combusting arrangements. We get a glimpse of Mingus the musician, the writer, and general connoisseur of life. As Coleman puts it, I knew Mingus during "his Shotgun, Bicycle, Camera, Witchcraft, Cuban Cigar, and Juice Bar periods, and was familiar with his Afro, Egyptian, English banker, Abercrombie and Fitch, Sanford and Son, and ski bunny costumes. I ate his chicken and dumplings, kidneys and brandy, popcorn and garlic . . . " There are several good clues to the puzzle of Mingus' autobiography "Beneath the Underdog," a work which Coleman, among others, helped edit. I recommend reading "Mingus/Mingus" before tackling his Joycean autobiography.

We also see the political Mingus, rightly protesting the treatment of black musicians, as well as racism and militarism generally. After all, this is the genius who wrote such pieces as "Oh, Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me (with the great line, "don't drop it, bebop it"), "Remember Rockefeller at Attica," and the great "Fables of Faubus," which courageously lambasted the segregationist governor. Cole's memoir is perhaps the more literary of the two (Coleman is a writer), and gives us a very personal view of Mingus' profound effect. Coleman may have been the closer friend and she offers some rarely heard and often humorous anecdotes. Both Coleman and Young knew Mingus for more than 20 years, and the book is rich with material recalling Mingus and the social and creative forces of the period: For example, Mingus played Genghis Kahn in a "psychedelic Western" written by Coleman's husband and filmed at Timothy Leary's ranch. Mingus criticizes Leary's approach: "You can't improvise on nothin', man. You gotta improvise on something." The book is filled with Mingus' humor and anger and appetites; his idealism and his realism. A titan of a man and at times, a study in contrasts, Mingus the subject is as compelling as the music he composed. (No index, but you get Mingus' recipe for eggnog!) Highly recommended, I just wish there were more to read! Highly recommended for fans of Mingus, jazz and the sociopolitical climate of the era.