Tired of outrageous textbook prices? Can’t sell back any of your books? Can’t find any used books? Sick of all the extra CD-ROMs and workbooks that you don’t ever us

As any student knows, college textbooks are expensive. Not matter what course you are taking, college textbooks are not cheap. So what do we do when we are required to purchase these textbooks. Read the information on how to buy cheap textbooks below. And check out what  MASSPRIG has to say about this.

Where to shop for College Textbooks.

1. Bookswaps. Swap used books with other students. Ask around, check Facebook, or visit campusbookswap.org
2. Online. Search stores like amazon.com, comparison sites like campusbooks.com and used booksellers like textbooks.com.
3. Rentals. Websites like chegg.com rent college textbooks like netflix, and cost 50-80% less!
4. Library. If you’re really stuck, see if the library has a copy.

TIPS TO SAVE$

• Be prepared. The info you’ll need is the ISBN, author, title, publisher & edition.
• Search wisely. Search by ISBN to find the exact book. Use title & author to find older or unbundled editions.
• Do the math. Consider the up front cost and the cost after buyback. Loose leaf and ebooks can end up costing more!
• Start early. Don’t limit your options by waiting. Shipping can take weeks!

Josef Albers

This week we got our first look at the Obamas’ White House art, and it contained a few surprises. The 45 works the First Family chose to display, borrowed from various government institutions, range from simmering meditations on geometry and color by the great and under­appreciated Josef Albers to depictions of Native Americans by the ever-mysterious George Catlin to a glowing abstract Zen TV screen by Mark Rothko to otherworldly still lifes by the minor modern master Giorgio Morandi. They topped off the collection with three geeky U.S. Patent models (a paddle wheel, a telegraph and a prototype for a gear cutter), a realist portrait of Harry S. Truman, works by Native American artists (including a fantastic ceramic by Maria Poveka Martinez), Jasper Johns‘ super-strange low-relief 0 Through 9, and paintings by Sam Francis, Winslow Homer, Richard Diebenkorn, Alma Thomas and Susan Rothenberg, among others.

Critics were quick to put a gloss on the collection’s meaning. On the right wing, the more aggressive contemporary work in the collection came in for a predictable beating. The focus was on Ed Ruscha‘s apparently banal, almost-monochrome conceptualist work made in 1983. “I Think I’ll. . . ” is an infinitely optical, obtusely cerebral fire-red/Popsicle-orange minimal field, streaked with floating phrases like, “Maybe. . . yes,” “Maybe. . . no,” and “On second thought.” Predictably, a clueless anti-Obama website groused that the painting was “celebrating indecision.”

And just as inevitably, art insiders were disappointed in the choices. The esteemed if reliably irascible Artnet critic Charlie Finch, author of Most Art Sucks, pointed out to me that there were all of six works by women artists, and wrapped it up by calling the Obamas “as right wing as Bush in the art department.” Washington Post critic Blake Gopnik sneered that some of the taste on view was “mild” and mentioned that the ballet dancers rendered in bronze by Edgar Degas were once “considered one step up from prostitutes.” (Those two points would seem to contradict one another, but never mind.) Gopnik went on to slag the Morandis (“painted by a once-proud Fascist who’d sucked up to Benito Mussolini”) and wondered if Catlin’s uncanny 1860s renditions of the American West were “all about a white colonialist gawking at exotic conquered peoples.” Are these people kidding? Do they really think the Obamas should have hung (let’s say) a Kara Walker paper silhouette of a slave girl performing fellatio on a slaver who excretes a pickaninny? Do they remember that only a year ago George W. Bush was decorating his office with generic cowboy paintings — plus Saddam Hussein’s pistol? In nine months we’ve gone from generic Western landscapes and photo-­realist images of cacti to a painting by one of the most prickly contemporary artists around.

Glenn Ligon

In my lifetime, I’d never have expected to see something like a Glenn Ligon 1992 text painting, based on a line in the 1961 book Black Like Me, hanging in the living quarters of the White House. Ligon’s hauntingly beautiful, difficult-to-parse painting looks like a self-replicating printout or a hard-to-read gravestone or poster. A repeating representation of the sentence “All traces of the Griffin I had been were wiped from existence,” whatever else it is, the painting evinces a willingness to look race directly in the face and not settle for easy answers.

But back to the Ruscha and its purported embrace of indecision. In fact, what it conveys perfectly is not waffling, but thinking. Like so much of the work the Obamas have chosen, it highlights a central difference between two states of mind, the progressive and conservative. “I Think I’ll. . .” effortlessly and efficiently transmits a psychic inclination that accepts paradox and allows that the world is not only good or evil. The hallmark, so far, of Obama’s administration has not actually been indecision, or Clintonian triangulation. It’s been a hanging back, waiting till all the facts come in, and for all the ideas to be floated, and then making a (decisive) move. This painting embodies that inclination, and it’s not the only one in the collection that does so.

JERRY SALTZ is art critic for New York magazine, where this essay first appeared. He can be reached at jerry_saltz@nymag.com.

By Bob Flaherty

Created 10/06/2009 – 04:00

column local news northampton

NORTHAMPTON – The airplane, one made of paper, soared ever higher into the Northampton night. As if programmed to a flight plan, the craft caught improbable currents and kept rising, rising, rising over a deserted Main Street at 3 a.m., while a city slept.

But Elliot Tarry, who had just moved to Northampton, was watching with his girlfriend from the open window of their third-floor apartment. They saw the plane climb higher still, to where they could almost reach out and grab it, and then they saw it descend and swoosh in for a long, graceful landing on the sidewalk below.

“We stuck out our heads, and there’s this little elf of a man down there, just grinning up at us,” said Tarry.

The elfish man was Tim Young, the eternal night owl, who, despite being deaf, loved music and the people who listened to it almost as much as he loved life.

So began what Tarry calls “a silent acquaintanceship” with the Zelig of Northampton, a man seemingly capable of being everywhere at once, a man with whom he had shared an indelible memory.

“To be able to achieve that level of greatness in something so simple as a paper airplane, you knew he was special,” said Tarry, a licensed massage therapist. “We made a connection that night that carried with me for 20 years.”

It’s been nearly two weeks since Young died alone in his condo at the age of 59.

He was not an office-holder, business owner or street cop, but we all knew him. He was the guy who walked around all day telling everyone who was playing in town that night and ran around all night trying to make their shows.

Lonesome Brothers singer and guitarist Jim Armenti speaks of Young’s sacred sheet: “He’d pull out this wrinkled handwritten page and describe all of the events he would see, all with a look of total amazement on his face, like each one was from another dimension, each show held the possibility of some kind of magic transformation,” said Armenti.

The handwritten sheet, known as “Tim’s Entertainment Report,” evolved into a neater, typewritten one he downloaded every morning at Forbes Library. But the approach never varied. From shop to cafe to people passing in crosswalks, he’d share the list and tout everyone on it – in a voice all his own. Some could make out every word, to others it was: “Tonight****Pearl Street****you gotta go*****very good!”

He’d get right in your face and make you feel guilty if you failed to commit. “I went to this show – where were ya?” he’d admonish.

“He sounded like the Martians in (the movie) ‘Mars Attacks,’” said Bill Dwight. “He was as much a fixture downtown as the cuckoo crosswalk sound and the crenellations on City Hall.”

But Tim Young’s patented fist bump was communication of the highest order. As Armenti describes it: “Whenever he appeared he came with a fist bump followed by the fist opening into a floral hand accompanied by ‘psssshhh,’ the sound of fireworks. For a guy who could barely hear, even with aids, he got a lot of sound into his head.”

Young’s connection

People have tried to explain the deaf man’s love of music, but that’s as hard to do as explaining your love of a particular genre to one who’d block his ears at the mention of it. Was it the beat, the sneeze of a high-hat, the unleashing of Jim Armenti’s fingers on the neck of a guitar, or the idea of someone getting up there and baring her soul? Young thrived on all of it. He heard it in a different way than most, but felt it like no other.

Of course, in crowded clubs nobody can hear anything anyway. It must have amused Young to see everyone strain to hear as they yelled across tables at each other. Some speculate that might have been the great equalizer for Timmy – here we are, all in here together, and none of us can hear.

The all-in-here-together part seemed a piece of the equation. “He was tuned in to that collective energy,” said Tarry. “Exhilarated by what everyone else was exhilarated by.”

“If you saw him in the audience, you knew he was listening and enjoying for the right reason,” said bassist Max Dermer of the band School For the Dead. “It was the perfect volume for him, when you think of it.”

For the record, Young grew up in Northampton. His dad was a professor at Smith College, his mom worked at the school he graduated from in 1970, the Clarke School for the Deaf. Four years later he graduated Northampton High. From there he got a degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, went to work helping design games at Milton Bradley and later worked as an actuary at Mass Mutual for years before being downsized.

Downsize away, he’d seem to say with his ever-present grin, it’s all good.

He started working for Al Houghton, the jack-of-all-trades guy with the big white beard whom concert-goers always see at Northampton nightclubs and halls. Together, Houghton and Young painted over 100 apartments and concert halls. He’d check in with Houghton every day at the Iron Horse: “Need some help? I’m available.” When Houghton didn’t have work for his pal and just had errands to run in his pickup, Young said, “I’ll keep ya company,” and climbed in.

“How many times had I heard that in 22 years?” Houghton mused. “‘I’ll keep ya company.’”

“He was like a golden retriever,” Houghton said of the pair’s relationship. “You feed him once in a while and all you get back is love. He was hard to understand, but we didn’t talk much anyway. But you didn’t have to communicate, he was so smart.”

A music lover working for nightclubs – how much more smart do you need? He knew all the bands, and all the players’ names. He watched them evolve, mature, get record deals, bomb, break up and get back together.

One day Houghton and Young were doing some carpentry downtown and Timmy was yelling out to half the people on the street. “Who are you yelling at?” asked Houghton, a kind-hearted soul who always appears grouchy.

“That’s the bass player for Fancy Trash!” cried Young. “Don’t you know that?”

“The only time I ever saw him mad was after a show at the Calvin and I’ve got him sweeping up out front,” said Houghton. “He gives me this look. He had a band to see – he had to get going.”

“We could have Bob Dylan playing here and the worst band in town at the worst hole-in-the-wall and it made no difference,” said Houghton. “Two, three songs, and he’s off to the next one.”

Grim discovery

It was Houghton who found him, in his bathtub; he knew something was wrong two nights before. “It was at the Los Lobos show. He said he didn’t feel good, had the sniffles. I sent him home. But he had this eerie look in his eyes, as if the spirit had left him. I never saw him like that before.”

Two days went by. No one had seen Timmy Young on the street, a shock in and of itself.

“I’m gonna find him dead,” thought Houghton, who called police, got the key from management and let himself into Young’s Raymond Place apartment. “I heard the dripping faucet, not another sound in the place, just the dripping faucet. I can’t get it out of my head. I went in, saw what I saw, and mechanically walked out. I’m in shock now, but I knew what I was going to find.”

By last Friday night the word was all over town. Gabe Bon, who handles security at The Elevens, knew instinctively that something had to be done. Bon got on his cell phone, called every band in town and threw a show together, the “Timmy ‘Fist Bumpin’ St. Peter at the gates of the Big Show in the Sky” memorial show, to be exact. For once, Tim Young’s beloved musicians made it easy – everyone played three songs. Which was about all Timmy was good for, before he got itchy for the next venue down the street.

“This is the show he’d be wishing he could come to,” said Rich Tardy, lead singer of one of the night’s headliners, the Swill Merchants. Tardy calls Fist Bump Timmy a fixture in his life. “I’ve only been here three years and I saw him five times a day,” said Tardy. “Matt (Silberstein) and I were walking downtown today and it hit us that we’re not gonna see Timmy again.”

“The second I moved here I knew he was a presence in Northampton,” said singer and keyboardist Carolyn Zaikowski, who goes by the name of Carolyn Conspiracy.

Aside from all the rockers hauling their gear in and out, there was a large contingent from the Clarke School, signing to each other from every corner of the joint. Young was secretary of the Clarke Alumni Council. Fellow alum Dick Mahaffey, 45, says he keeps looking around, thinking Tim and his smiling, caring face will magically appear. “He was the best supporting actor Community Sign Theater ever had,” said Mahaffey.

Young’s love of performance was not restricted to watching from the audience.

Greg Malynoski, who works in the development office of Clarke School, said that Young’s “connection to the hearing world is the epitome of what we teach.”

Clarke alum Rodney Kunath, class of ’58, roomed with Young for two years before the latter bought his Randolph Place condo in 1998. This New Year’s Eve will be hard to take for Kunath, the first one he won’t spend with his longtime friend watching the ball drop from Hotel Northampton’s roof and jumping around with all Hamp’s characters afterwards. “Tim never had an angry spirit,” said Kunath. “‘Things will get better,’ he’d say. Such a remarkable attitude.”

A story from a child that has moved countless number of times:

My name is Chris, my friends call me CJ and I am 14 years old and in the 8th grade. DSS took me away from my real parents when I was little; I think I was 2 or something like that. They tried to keep me with my brother but the family said they couldn’t handle me. I moved around a lot and I don’t remember how many times or all the homes until I moved into a program.

I was 7 years old the first time I went into a program. I was scared. The staff told me to go into my room and put my stuff away. All my stuff was in trash bags, someone must have thought it was trash and one of the bags that had my toys in it got lost. I was only there for a short time, but it seemed like it was forever. The things that I remember most was that al the windows had locks on them and were covered with hard plastic and there was no privacy.

I used to wet my bed and the first night I was so scared that I was afraid to use the bathroom. The next morning when they woke us up the staff walked in the bedroom I sharing with three other kids and announced to the entire unit that “CJ pissed his bed and he needs to take a shower”. I hated him. Looking back I spent most of my time sitting in a chair facing the wall. I was determined not to let them see me cry.

I left there and went to my next foster home, again in trash bags this time they were the heavy green ones. I was careful this time not to pack all my toys in one bag. The home was okay but DSS moved me again after only a few months. They had already thrown all my stuff into the cheap white kitchen trash bags. The pictures of my real family were just thrown in and some of them were torn or bent. After leaving this home DSS sent me to a hospital because they said I had “anger problems.” I tried to fight it by throwing rocks at the DSS workers car but that just brought the police and an ambulance. I was 8.

While I was at the hospital they put me on meds to “help control my anger” I hated the meds, they made me slow and I gained a lot of weight. After leaving the hospital I was sent to a program. I was there for about a year. They said I was better and they sent me to another foster home in trash bags.

The next two years was spent going from home to home with a few hospitals thrown in. Each time I left in trash bags, I became grateful when the family that was getting rid of me gave me the heavy green trash bags. During those 2 years I think moved 8 times, I was 10 years old.

The next home was a home that was good they were able to put up with me and all the bad behaviors that I had. I was there for 3 years when they gave up. This sucked the most as I was just beginning to trust them. I don’t know how many times I have actually moved but it’s been a lot. I am in a new home now and I really want it to work.

Suitcases4kids

Honda Civic 2000, Not Honda Civic 1995

Bay State residents, are you driving one of the most-stolen cars in Massachusetts? The list of most stolen cars in Massachusetts is similar to the national list of the most-stolen cars. Both of these reports have been released by the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s (NICB).

Most Stolen Cars in Massachusetts

Date: July 9, 2008

Similar to the national list the Honda Civic is the number one most stolen car in Massachusetts. The next two vehicles on the most-stolen car list also mirror national car theft.

Honda Civic 1995, Honda Civic 2000

The national list of the most-stolen cars in 2007 is lead by the Honda Civic 1995. In Massachusetts, it’s the Honda Civic 2000 that takes the number one spot of the most-stolen cars.

Most Stolen Cars in Massachusetts

Honda Civic 2000

Honda Accord 1994

Toyota Camry 1991

Acura Integra 1995

Jeep Cherokee/Grand Cherokee 1999

Toyota Corolla 2006

Ford Taurus 1997

Dodge Caravan 2000

Ford Explorer 1997

Oldsmobile Cutlass 1993

Most Stolen Cars in Massachusetts vs. the Nation

The Jeep Cherokee/Grand Cherokee, which holds the number five spot on the list of the most-stolen cars in Massachusetts does not even make the national top 10 most-stolen vehicles. Also appearing on the Massachusetts most-stolen vehicle list, but not on the national top 10 list are the Ford Taurus, the Dodge Caravan, the Ford Explorer, and the Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Safer in Massachusetts

The vehicles on the national most-stolen list which did not make the top 10 list in Massachusetts are the 1997 Ford F-150 Series Pickup, the1994 Chevrolet C/K 1500 Pickup, the 2004 Dodge Ram Pickup, the Nissan Sentra and the Toyota Pickup.

Pickups appear to be a safer choice if you are worried about car theft and you live in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Car Insurance

The most stolen car list and which vehicles you purchase and drive can affect your car insurance. Earlier this year, the over-regulated car insurance industry in Massachusetts was opened up to allow Massachusetts drivers a greater choice in selecting car insurance. Massachusetts calls it “managed competition.