Archie's Archery Depot

If someone ever put together a what-were-they-thinking top 10, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues would surely make the list. Based on Tom Robbins's '70s ode to freedom, whooping cranes, and ambisexuality, this Gus Van Sant film sat on the shelf for almost a year before its brief release. More of a curiosity than anything else, it tells the convoluted story of Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman), the world's greatest hitchhiker by virtue of her mammoth, um, thumbs. She falls in with a lesbian collective at a dude ranch and, well, the rest is kind of a mess. Kind of? Let's say it's a monumental mess, one of those films that's like a 25-car pileup on the interstate that you have to stop and look at, just to figure out what people like Keanu Reeves, Roseanne, John Hurt, and Angie Dickinson are doing there. A great score by k.d. lang, by the way. --Marshall Fine

Gus Van Sant's often-beautiful 1991 film stars River Phoenix as a narcoleptic, Seattle male prostitute and Keanu Reeves as the rich friend who agrees to help him find his mother. After a solid hour or so of the two traveling on this quest through Idaho and Italy, Van Sant throws a wrench into the works by conjuring a gay version of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, with Reeves's character as Prince Hal and filmmaker William Richert (who directed Phoenix in the 1988 Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon) as a variation on Falstaff. The experiment is interesting to watch, but you can't help wondering what on earth happened to the movie. Still, the film has a cult status one can't argue with, and Phoenix gives a tragic performance that stays in the memory. --Tom Keogh

Mapping the spaces between fortune and degeneracy, Shakespeare and street cant, Europe and the Pacific Northwest, and gay and straight, My Own Private Idaho is the 1991 masterpiece by director Gus Van Sant. River Phoenix gave the most generous and memory-searing performance of his tragically shortened career as Mike Waters, a narcoleptic street hustler in search of his mother. His best friend, Scott, played by Keanu Reeves, is a son of privilege who fosters plans of rejoining the moneyed world of his father after gallivanting with assorted urchins and ne'er-do-wells. The beautifully symmetrical story that emerges between the two is one of friendship, yearning for lost time, and sexual identity conveyed with a poet's eye for landscape. The camera lingers on abandoned houses in golden fields and time-lapse clouds, providing what T.S. Eliot called "the objective correlative"--external representations of interior emotional states. We're treated to striking iconic sequences like a barn falling from the sky and still-life scenes of carnal entanglement. The supporting cast is a rogues' gallery that includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Udo Kier, director William Richert, and a variety of "nonactors" pulled literally off the street to provide documentary veracity to a film that gleefully careens into riffs on Henry IV. It's beautiful. What's also beautiful is the Criterion Collection's treatment of the film's DVD debut. The director-approved transfer successfully conveys the warmth of the film's palette of oranges and browns, and preserves the whimsical atmospherics of the yodeling country music soundtrack. Many members of the original crew contribute their fond memories to the documentary features, which include a conversation between Phoenix's sister Rain and producer Laurie Parker. There are also two lengthy audio-only conversations--one between Van Sant and Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes, and another between author J.T. Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette about their experiences on the street. The deleted scenes mostly suggest alternate endings that Van Sant wisely left on the cutting room floor. A superb example of a beloved film on DVD. --Ryan Boudinot Stills from My Own Private Idaho (click for larger image) The Cast River Phoenix Keanu Reeves Keanu and River Udo Kier Gus Van Sant

A disturbing, stylish and affecting story of two male hustlers (River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves) who travel from Portland to Idaho to Italy in order to find Phoenix's long-lost mother. Their relationship and the people they meet--including a German cabaret performer, a beautiful Italian girl and a band of thieves--help make this another triumph from director Gus Van Sant ("Drugstore Cowboy"). With William Richert, Udo Kier. 104 min. Widescreen; Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital 5.1; Subtitles: English; deleted scenes; "making of" documentary; interviews; theatrical trailer. Two-disc set.

Mapping the spaces between fortune and degeneracy, Shakespeare and street cant, Europe and the Pacific Northwest, and gay and straight, My Own Private Idaho is the 1991 masterpiece by director Gus Van Sant. River Phoenix gave the most generous and memory-searing performance of his tragically shortened career as Mike Waters, a narcoleptic street hustler in search of his mother. His best friend, Scott, played by Keanu Reeves, is a son of privilege who fosters plans of rejoining the moneyed world of his father after gallivanting with assorted urchins and ne'er-do-wells. The beautifully symmetrical story that emerges between the two is one of friendship, yearning for lost time, and sexual identity conveyed with a poet's eye for landscape. The camera lingers on abandoned houses in golden fields and time-lapse clouds, providing what T.S. Eliot called "the objective correlative"--external representations of interior emotional states. We're treated to striking iconic sequences like a barn falling from the sky and still-life scenes of carnal entanglement. The supporting cast is a rogues' gallery that includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Udo Kier, director William Richert, and a variety of "nonactors" pulled literally off the street to provide documentary veracity to a film that gleefully careens into riffs on Henry IV. It's beautiful. What's also beautiful is the Criterion Collection's treatment of the film's DVD debut. The director-approved transfer successfully conveys the warmth of the film's palette of oranges and browns, and preserves the whimsical atmospherics of the yodeling country music soundtrack. Many members of the original crew contribute their fond memories to the documentary features, which include a conversation between Phoenix's sister Rain and producer Laurie Parker. There are also two lengthy audio-only conversations--one between Van Sant and Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes, and another between author J.T. Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette about their experiences on the street. The deleted scenes mostly suggest alternate endings that Van Sant wisely left on the cutting room floor. A superb example of a beloved film on DVD. --Ryan Boudinot Stills from My Own Private Idaho (click for larger image) The Cast River Phoenix Keanu Reeves Keanu and River Udo Kier Gus Van Sant

Presenting the Major League Baseball Collector's Edition Monopoly. Buy, sell and trade all 30 teams including the Yankees, Braves, Giants, and Dodgers. In place of the Chance and Community Chest cards are American League and National League cards with instructions such as Pitched a no-hitter, advance to go and Visit the House that Ruth built, advance to the New York Yankees. Six new pewter figurines in the forms of a catcher's mask, baseball glove, baseball hat, hot dog, pitcher and a batter make this edition of Monopoly extra special for the baseball fan in your life. Game includes: Game Board, Deed Cards, MLB Money & Banker's Tray, American League & National League Cards, 6 custom pewter Tokens and Dice. Game is for 2 to 6 players ages 8 and up.

Two Bestselling Kindle Novels Together in One Omnibus:CADES COVEA Novel of TerrorBuried deep in a ravine in the picturesque Smoky Mountains is a very dark secret. David Hobbs, vacationing with his wife Miriam, inadvertently stumbles upon a small cloth 'keepsake' bag and a broken tooth. A human tooth. Miriam begs David to hand the bag and tooth over to park officials, but he ignores his wife's pleas and secretly keeps the 'harmless' items. The action opens a doorway that had been closed for nearly a hundred years and unleashes hell on earth, or at least hell in the lives of David and Miriam.Following the brutal murder of his best friend in Denver, and an aborted attack on his oldest son, David desperately seeks to understand why a mysterious teenage girl has chosen to terrorize him and the males closest to him. To prevent further devastation to his family and end the wanton bloodshed, he returns to the enchanted hills of eastern Tennessee, where a terrible truth awaits discovery...one that forces him to face the consequences for the unpaid sins of his ancestors.THE RAVEN MOCKEREvil Returns to Cades CoveSomething evil has awakened beneath a forgotten ravine in the Great Smoky Mountains. After lying in peace for centuries, an ancient deity watches.... David and Miriam Hobbs celebrate their fifteenth anniversary in Gatlinburg, unaware that a violent wraith, Allie Mae, will follow them home on a determined quest for vengeance. After surviving this harrowing experience, David's new friend, John Running Deer, unwittingly aids the desecration of an ancient burial site while recovering Allie Mae's remains from a sacred Cades Cove ravine. What John hoped would be the final gesture of peace in giving her a proper burial turns out to be a terrible mistake. Now something much worse than Allie Mae is on the loose. Teutates, the ancient Gallic entity unearthed, sets out on a murderous rampage. David is called upon once more to find a way to stop the angry demon before it leaves a trail of bloodshed from Denver to the sacred ancient hills of Tennessee.***1/10/2012 update. This is the revised version of the Cades Cove series, based on the invaluable feedback I have received from my readers during the past year. I greatly appreciate all of you. ~ Aiden***Acclaim for the Novels of Aiden James:"Aiden James has written a deeply psychological, gripping tale that keeps the readers hooked from page one."-Bookfinds review for THE FORGOTTEN EDEN"Not only is Aiden James a storyteller par excellence, but his material for his story is riveting."-Huntress Reviews"The hook to this excellent suspense thriller is the twists that will keep readers wondering what is going on as nothing is quite what it seems. Adding to the excitement is that the audience will wonder whether the terror is an evil supernatural creature or an amoral human...Aiden James provides a dark thriller that grips fans from the opening."-Harriet Klausner, Amazon's #1 book reviewer for THE FORGOTTEN EDEN"Aiden James writing style flows very easily and I found that CADES COVE snowballed into a very gripping tale. Clearly the strengths in the piece were as the spirit's interaction became prevalent with the family... The Indian lore and ceremonies and the flashbacks to Allie Mae's (earthly) demise were very powerful. I think those aspects separated the work from what we've seen before in horror and ghost tales."-Evelyn Klebert, author of A GHOST OF A CHANCE and DRAGONFLIES"Aiden James is insanely talented!"-J.R. Rain, author of MOON DANCE and THE BODY DEPARTED

Two Bestselling Kindle Novels Together in One Omnibus:CADES COVEA Novel of TerrorBuried deep in a ravine in the picturesque Smoky Mountains is a very dark secret. David Hobbs, vacationing with his wife Miriam, inadvertently stumbles upon a small cloth ‘keepsake’ bag and a broken tooth. A human tooth. Miriam begs David to hand the bag and tooth over to park officials, but he ignores his wife’s pleas and secretly keeps the ‘harmless’ items. The action opens a doorway that had been closed for nearly a hundred years and unleashes hell on earth, or at least hell in the lives of David and Miriam.Following the brutal murder of his best friend in Denver, and an aborted attack on his oldest son, David desperately seeks to understand why a mysterious teenage girl has chosen to terrorize him and the males closest to him. To prevent further devastation to his family and end the wanton bloodshed, he returns to the enchanted hills of eastern Tennessee, where a terrible truth awaits discovery...one that forces him to face the consequences for the unpaid sins of his ancestors.THE RAVEN MOCKEREvil Returns to Cades CoveSomething evil has awakened beneath a forgotten ravine in the Great Smoky Mountains. After lying in peace for centuries, an ancient deity watches…. David and Miriam Hobbs celebrate their fifteenth anniversary in Gatlinburg, unaware that a violent wraith, Allie Mae, will follow them home on a determined quest for vengeance. After surviving this harrowing experience, David’s new friend, John Running Deer, unwittingly aids the desecration of an ancient burial site while recovering Allie Mae’s remains from a sacred Cades Cove ravine. What John hoped would be the final gesture of peace in giving her a proper burial turns out to be a terrible mistake. Now something much worse than Allie Mae is on the loose. Teutates, the ancient Gallic entity unearthed, sets out on a murderous rampage. David is called upon once more to find a way to stop the angry demon before it leaves a trail of bloodshed from Denver to the sacred ancient hills of Tennessee.***1/10/2012 update. This is the revised version of the Cades Cove series, based on the invaluable feedback I have received from my readers during the past year. I greatly appreciate all of you. ~ Aiden***Acclaim for the Novels of Aiden James:“Aiden James has written a deeply psychological, gripping tale that keeps the readers hooked from page one.”—Bookfinds review for THE FORGOTTEN EDEN“Not only is Aiden James a storyteller par excellence, but his material for his story is riveting.”—Huntress Reviews“The hook to this excellent suspense thriller is the twists that will keep readers wondering what is going on as nothing is quite what it seems. Adding to the excitement is that the audience will wonder whether the terror is an evil supernatural creature or an amoral human…Aiden James provides a dark thriller that grips fans from the opening.”—Harriet Klausner, Amazon’s #1 book reviewer for THE FORGOTTEN EDEN“Aiden James writing style flows very easily and I found that CADES COVE snowballed into a very gripping tale. Clearly the strengths in the piece were as the spirit's interaction became prevalent with the family… The Indian lore and ceremonies and the flashbacks to Allie Mae's (earthly) demise were very powerful. I think those aspects separated the work from what we've seen before in horror and ghost tales.”—Evelyn Klebert, author of A GHOST OF A CHANCE and DRAGONFLIES“Aiden James is insanely talented!”—J.R. Rain, author of MOON DANCE and THE BODY DEPARTED

Randall Jarrell's only novel features a Bryn Mawr-like women's college in which whispers and verbal shivs and sycophancy rule. "Half the campus was designed by Bottom the Weaver, half by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Benton had been endowed with one to begin with, and had smiled and sweated and spoken for the other." The institution's star-struck head is a Clintonesque young man particularly adept at raising money in Hollywood and who "wanted you to like him, he wanted everybody to like him--it was part of being a president; but talking all the time was too." Unfortunately, his new creative-writing hire only likes him the first time they meet. Thenceforth, she not only stirs things up but skewers them as well. When the book was first published in 1954, most considered Gertrude Johnson to be a none-too-veiled portrait of Mary McCarthy. (The Partisan Review, for instance, failed to run a planned excerpt for fear of litigation.) "As a writer Gertrude had one fault more radical than all the rest: she did not know--or rather, did not believe--what it was like to be a human being. She was one, intermittently, but while she wasn't she did not remember what it had felt like to be one; and her worse self distrusted her better too thoroughly to give it much share, ever, in what she said or wrote." Pictures from an Institution is a superb series of poisonous portraits, set pieces, and endlessly quotable put-downs. One reads it less for plot than sharp satire, of which Jarrell is the master.

Beneath the unassuming surface of a progressive women’s college lurks a world of intellectual pride and pomposity awaiting devastation by the pens of two brilliant and appalling wits. Randall Jarrell’s classic novel was originally published to overwhelming critical acclaim in 1954, forging a new standard for campus satire—and instantly yielding comparisons to Dorothy Parker’s razor-sharp barbs. Like his fictional nemesis, Jarrell cuts through the earnest conversations at Benton College—mischievously, but with mischief nowhere more wicked than when crusading against the vitriolic heroine herself.    “A most literate account of a group of most literate people by a writer of power. . . . A delight of true understanding.”—Wallace Stevens   “I’m greatly impressed by the real fun, the incisive satire, the closeness of observation, and in the end by a kind of sympathy and human warmth. It’s a remarkable book.”—Robert Penn Warren   “Move over Dorothy Parker. Pictures . . . is less a novel than a series of poisonous portraits, set pieces, and endlessly quotable put-downs. Read it less for plot than sharp satire, Jarrell’s forte.”—Mary Welp   “One of the wittiest books of modern times.”—New York Times   “[T]he father of the modern campus novel, and the wittiest of them all. Extraordinary to think that ‘political correctness’ was so deliciously dissected 50 years ago.”—Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph   “A sustained exhibition of wit in the great tradition. . . . Immensely and very devastatingly shrewd.”—Edmund Fuller, Saturday Review   “[A] work of fiction, and a dizzying and brilliant work of social and literary criticism. Not only ‘a unique and serious joke-book,’ as Lowell called it, but also a meditation made up of epigrams.”—Michael Wood

Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone returns, tracking the path of a pair of thrill killers. Investigating a serial killer in an affluent suburban town is difficult, and dangerous, and with the added pressures from the town selectmen and the media, the heat is turned up on Jesse. He's spending too much time with the bottle-and with his ex-wife-neither of which helps him, or the case. And the harder these outside forces push against him, the more Jesse retreats into himself, convinced-despite all the odds-that it's up to him alone to stop the killing. As tough, clear-eyed, and sardonic as Jesse Stone himself, this is the Grand Master working at the peak of his powers.

he campaign begins a few months after the events of the original, with Major Sarah Parker and her comrades looking to get a way off the planet Krig-7b, on which they are stuck. Battling through Order of the New Dawn stragglers and newly-arrived Crayven Corporation forces, the initial missions focus on getting deep space communications working, at the end of which Deacon Jared Stone is apparently killed. Sarah avenges his death, but feels the situation is lost as the comm. array was also destroyed. Help arrives in the unlikely form of an Order command cruiser that suddenly drops from hyperspace. Its surprise entry enables it to quickly destroy its Crayven counterpart, later dispatching dropships to the planet surface for Sarah and company. The onboard superior, Cardinal Kila Balor, explains the situation. The Order forces on Krig were a splinter faction, the Second Dawn, not following official Order authority. The Order cannot move against the faction directly, fearing open civil war. Rather, they have devised a plan involving Sarah. By supplying her with untraceable information and finances, she can fight the Second Dawn on their behalf in secret. In return, they tell her pursuing them is the only way she can uncover the truth behind Krig-7b. She accepts and contact is made with the new faction, the Phoenix Mercenaries. Taking command, the campaign takes them against the Second Dawn, and much later original Order and Crayven forces. When all is said and done, the conspiracy is found to be even deeper than imagined.

2009-10 SP Game Used Six Star Swatches 65 #6SBAMPSA - Amare Stoudemire/Ray Allen/Tony Parker/Carmelo Anthony/Shawn Marion/Kobe Bryant