Life of Mo is a musical satire based on the life of the Prophet Mohammed. These explanatory notes, which include the full text of Life of Mo, attempt to determine the sources of the play's material, and offer further explanatory notes regarding the themes and ideas raised in the play. Superficially, Life of Mo is a musical fantasy romp, combining stories with re-writes of songs by popular artists like Dolly Parton, Freddy Mercury, Mick Jagger, Billy Joel, Led Zeppelin, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman and others. But Life of Mo has a deeper grounding, and its sources include original texts (the Qur'an, ahadith, and Bible), and commentaries by writers like William Muir, Robert Spencer, Ali Dashti and Ali Sina. In addition, the writer has also used Internet sources, like Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit. CF Hibbot's Notes and Commentary to Jock's Life of Mo traces through the humour and the tragedy to render a deeper appreciation and understanding of the play and the subject matter covered.

The Wild Tchoupitoulas is a definitive expression of the modern New Orleans sound. From "Hey Pocky A-Way" to "Big Chief Got a Golden Crown," the album draws on carnival traditions stretching back a century, adapting songs from the Mardi Gras Indians. Music chanted in the streets with tambourines and makeshift percussion is transformed throughout the album into electric rhythm and blues accented funk, calypso, and reggae. The album bridges not only genres but generations, linking the improvised flow from group leader George Landry, better known as Big Chief Jolly, to the stacked harmony vocals by his nephews Aaron, Art, Charles, and Cyril--the core members of the soon-to-be-formed Neville Brothers, playing together here for the first time. With production from Allen Toussaint and support from The Meters, the city's preeminent funk ensemble, The Wild Tchoupitoulas brings an all-star brigade, pressing these old anthems into new arrangements that have since become carnival standards. In the process, the album helped to establish the terms by which processional second-line music in New Orleans would be commercialized through the record industry and the tourist trade, setting into motion a process that has raised more questions than it has answered about autonomy, authenticity, and appropriation under the conditions of a new cultural economy.

A visionary work from one of the most distinctive voices in independent literary fiction, The Ghosts of Hawthorn, Missouri takes James Peet's poetic prose and razor-sharp perceptivity into themes of identity, oppression, survival, and love, and blends them together to craft a story that is both accessible and esoteric. The first stand-alone novel in his Heroes of Hawthorn anthology, Peet recounts the victories and tragedies in the small town of Hawthorn, Missouri, and one boy's search for a sense of self through friendship. Eric Redmond and Daniel Wright were two adopted brothers who grew up together, and died a world apart. They met in the middle of an American heartland that seemed perpetually in decline: shambolic trailer parks, a meth epidemic, and indifference between neighbors, but with the refuge of religion. Here, communities of blue-collar workers resigned to a lifetime of beige depression, themselves descendants of two centuries of cultural calamities, armed only with the faint hope of one day living their dreams. They give up their anxieties and weekly tithes to the Lord as well as to a charismatic pastor, Eric's father Harold Redmond. On the surface, it seems Father Redmond leads Hawthorn to the prosperity of which the townsfolk had always dreamed. However, every dwelling has its secrets; secrets that the citizens of Hawthorn intertwine with their tired spirits. Even with these new positive developments, the underbelly of Hawthorn still thrives: crime, drugs, and wealth disparities. The fiercest rebel against this newly established version of Hawthorn resides in Father Redmond's own home: his son, Eric. After his best friend Daniel's mother dies, they become adopted brothers. Their bond carries them through a tumultuous life, weighed heavy with dark secrets. It endures even after Eric has grown up to be a respectable man, and Daniel has become a shadow of his former self. Their bond is broken somewhere in the murky depths of the dysfunctional family unit -- or does it continue to endure? Horrifying, humorous, irreverent and tragic, The Ghosts of Hawthorn, Missouri is a work that bursts with pain, and with life. It explores the deep valleys between love and lives well lived, the cyclical nature of time, bigotry, the cult of personality, and the complicated dynamics of subjection and dominance. While the story spans centuries and steps its toe into the near future that Peet has shrewdly predicted, it is a novel that is as timely as it is timeless. It delves headfirst into American anxieties of The Other. The Ghosts of Hawthorn, Missouri is a vibrant portrait of a mad world that shines a light in the darkest of places.

A New York Times bestseller—over one million copies sold! A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live. With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and black-and-white interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.