The Proverbial Marquee


Book Description

As freelance advertising copywriters, Tina Rabb and Deborah Davies were selling supersonic subwoofers and touting Tijuana getaways on everything from billboards to fast food tray lines when it hit them: They were using their expertise to persuade people to buy things they may not really need -- so why not use that knowledge to help churches get the most mileage from their billboards? Why not promote something people truly need in their daily lives -- the love of God? There are probably more than a million church signs and marquees in the United States, each offering an unparalleled chance to promote the kingdom of Christ. Yet passersby are often greeted with muddled and ungrammatical messages. The Proverbial Marquee is the cure for what ails many church marquees today. It's a complete collection of proven proverbs and original wisdom, all especially suited to signage. And it couldn't be more practical: - Maxims are categorized for easy reference - Each message is formatted line by line for easy drive-by reading - Line lengths are calculated to fall well within the average church sign's width - Best of all, a convenient letter count is provided So while this book may have started out as atonement for their advertising sins, Rabb and Davies discovered that The Proverbial Marquee became a labor of love that was too gratifying (not to mention too much fun) to count as penance. But isn't that how a wise Father often works? A proverbial plethora of inspiration! What a great idea: a portable book of drive-by encouragement. I found it impossible to put down once I started reading. A great gift and super resource. Enjoy! Becky Freeman National speaker and author of several best-selling books (Worms in My Tea, Real Magnolias, Chocolate Chili Pepper Love) In this very interesting collection of messages, Rabb and Davies have given us a wide selection of thought-provoking, humorous, and catchy sayings. They offer churches of all types many options for communicating brief but significant messages to the world. Scott Jones McCreless Chair of Evangelism Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University Tina Rabb and Deborah Davies are freelance advertising copywriters from Greenville, Texas. They have worked for national advertising agencies and for such clients as Southwest Airlines, Cellular One, GTE, and the American Heart Association. In addition to their copywriting, they have been published in several Texas newspapers, including the Houston Post and the Dallas Morning News. Rabb and Davies have been the recipient of numerous awards from advertising associations, the Southwestern Journalism Congress, and the National Press Women's Association, among others. They are both journalism graduates of East Texas State University.




Assembly


Book Description




Branded Nation


Book Description

Branding, says James Twitchell, is nothing more than commercial storytelling; brands are the stories that are associated with products. (For example, the special taste of Evian, says Twitchell, is in the brand, not the water.) Branding has become so successful, so ubiquitous that even institutions that we thought were above branding, antithetical to branding, have succumbed. Such cultural institutions as religion, higher education, and the art world have learned to love Madison Avenue or lose market share. Of course, most ministers, university presidents, and museum directors will insist that branding has nothing to do with them, but as Twitchell brilliantly demonstrates in this witty, insightful examination of three of our most important cultural institutions, wherever supply exceeds demand branding follows. The rise of the megachurch epitomizes branding in religion. From its inception the megachurch was designed not to compete with other churches but to bring in the "unchurched," especially men, worshippers who might otherwise be home watching television or strolling through the mall on a Sunday morning. The megachurches have been phenomenally popular, none more so than Willow Creek Community Church, just south of Chicago, one of the oldest megachurches, which Twitchell analyzes in Branded Nation. Colleges and universities have embraced branding as they have grown more alike. Especially among the top schools in the country, the student bodies, the faculties, often even the campuses themselves are practically interchangeable. What distinguishes each school is the story it tells about itself. Now every institution of higher learning has its image organizers, its brand managers, usually in the admissions or development offices, whose job it is to make their institution seem different from all the rest. Even museums, with their multimillion-dollar Monets, have seen the advantages of branding. The blockbuster exhibitions often put familiar paintings in a new context, that is, they provide a new narrative, branding the art. Museums keep expanding their stores, placing them not just near the entrance on the ground floor but throughout the museum, in the galleries themselves. Some museums, such as the Guggenheim, even franchise themselves, turning the institution itself into a brand. In short, high culture is beginning to look more and more like the rest of our culture. In perhaps his most subversive observation, Twitchell doesn't condemn the branding of cultural institutions. On the contrary, he believes that branding may be invigorating our high culture, bringing it to new audiences, making it a more integral part of our lives. Not since Bobos in Paradise has there been such a trenchant, provocative analysis of our world.




Cinesthesia


Book Description

In this profusely illustrated meditation on the phenomenon of "museum cinema," the screening of films in art museums, Garrett Stewart explores the aesthetic and formal issues raised by the proliferation of screens and films in museums in the digital era. Taking up dozens of screen artifacts over the last six decades, from 16mm loops to CCTV montage, Cinesthesia investigates in exemplary depth an array of landmark innovations from the 1960s down through the latest conceptualist exhibitions. Probing and comparative at once, it is the first study to place individual works under close formal and cultural analysis, and in steady dialogue with each other, not just as intrinsic experimental ventures but as medial challenges: challenges both to their parent forms and genres (theatrical film, broadcast TV) and to the contemplative aesthetic of museum looking. The kinetics of watching are found in this way, repeatedly and often ironically, to reroute or even derange – and ultimately to reform – the apprehending gaze. Cinesthesia includes 44 full-page colour illustrations by nearly 30 artists, including Christian Marclay, Tacita Dean, John Akomfrah, Rodney Graham, Eve Sussman and Matej Kren. "How is it – by what aesthetic criteria – that we, in ticketed public space, go to see film without going to the movies? What happens, that is, when screening times are replaced by the intermittent and elective time of transient viewing in sectored zones of a gallery layout? What new (audio-) visual parameters, in other words, are set in place when moving-image work finds itself welcomed into the environs of the proverbial 'fine' (or plastic) arts?" — Garrett Stewart




Not Like Normal (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 7)


Book Description

When victims of a serial killer are found with their bodies displayed in a dramatic way, FBI Special Agent Ilse Beck is summoned. Can she decode his mysterious signature and enter his mind before he claims his next victim? In this bestselling mystery series, FBI Special Agent Ilse Beck, victim of a traumatic childhood in Germany, moved to the U.S. to become a renowned psychologist specializing in PTSD, and the world’s leading expert in the unique trauma of serial-killer survivors. By studying the psychology of their survivors, Ilse has a unique and unparalleled expertise in the true psychology of serial killers. Ilse never expected, though, to become an FBI agent herself. This killer is more deranged than Ilse could have imagined, but it’s up to her to figure out what his plan is—and why. Will she come out on top in this cat-and-mouse game, or will she fall right into the killer’s trap? A dark and suspenseful crime thriller, the bestselling ILSE BECK series is a breathtaking page-turner, an unputdownable mystery and suspense novel. A compelling and perplexing psychological thriller, rife with twists and jaw-dropping secrets, it will make you fall in love with a brilliant new female protagonist, while it keeps you shocked late into the night. NOT LIKE NORMAL (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller) is book #7 in a new series by bestselling mystery and suspense author Ava Strong. Future books in the series will be available soon.










The Garden


Book Description




Where Two or Three Are Gathered


Book Description

Written for a broadly ecumenical audience, 'Where Two or Three Are Gathered' explores what Harmon Smith calls the universe of discourse between the language of Christian worship and the language of morals. Following the customary order of the church's liturgy, Smith demostrates how worship is meant to engender personal and social holiness, and how, for example, prayer, the eucharist, and baptism are inextricably tied to our moral understanding of such searing and conflicted issues as captital punishment, pacifism and warfare, surrogacy, and physician-assisted suicide.




Helius Legacy


Book Description

The last potential heir to the Helius Energy legacy was quietly eliminated over half a century ago . . . or so they thought In December of 1999, a young reporter discovers an ancient deed in the Travis County archives of Austin, Texas. Hidden a century earlier, the original copy of the deed includes a covenant excised from the version available to the public. This covenant gives the grantor's descendants the right to reclaim ownership of the property if any future owner violates an explicit use restriction: a bar against the extraction of mineral wealth from the land. The reporter is stunned by the discovery--the land subject to the deed is one of the most valuable oil fields in the world. Now, any descendant of the original grantor has the power to reclaim ownership of this billion-dollar asset with the stroke of a pen, and Helius Energy, the energy conglomerate that owns the land, has no intention of allowing this to happen. Within hours of the discovery, the reporter is on the run, desperately racing to stay ahead of a team of killers dispatched by Helius. A second team is winging its way to California, with orders to kill John Caine, the last living heir entitled to claim the legacy created by the deed. Caine is unaware of his ancestry and the nightmare coming his way. His only hope for survival is Andrea Marenna, a beautiful lawyer in Austin who is unwittingly drawn into Caine's race. Together, they must find a way to survive long enough to unravel the century-old mystery that has placed them in harm's way.