Volume 79 of the influential international art journal "Parkett" features Jon Kessler, Marilyn Minter and Albert Oehlen. In the tinkered gadgetry of Kessler's retro sci-fi installations, we peek through surveillance cameras to see our own image among his analog programs crammed with detritus of all kinds. Kessler's vista of (d)evolved cyberstuff is in a manic state of accumulation, as this data-diving artist masters the ecology of pure information. Within Marilyn Minter's fetishistic, flawless pictures, we find a painter obsessed with the clear articulation of magnified sweat beads and pore-smeared glitter. In each successive lip-smacking painting, Minter sets out to perfect beauty's disguise, affirming both her pleasure in fashion imagery, and an appreciation of its vulgar mishaps--say, a drag queen's eyelashes clumped together with too much mascara. According to essayist John Kelsey, Albert Oehlen's collage-paintings "seem almost bored of their own shock-value." And yet this artist, one of the most significant German painters of the past 20 years, can make boredom look like a rigorous, if not delirious experiment. Also featured: Spencer Finch, Gelitin and Mark Wallinger, as well as essayists Paul Bonaventura, Mark Godfrey, Glenn O'Brien, Katy Siegel, Andrea Scott and Pamela Lee, to name a few.

Deep in the tropical jungle of southern Veracruz, Mexico, close to the Gulf of Mexico, a large number of indigenous people are tucked back in the mountains. They are the Isthmus Aztecs whose language is officially called Isthmus Nahuatl. For hundreds of years they've spoken this aboriginal language that had never been written. Consequently, there were no books or access to the Holy Scriptures in the language of their hearts. Carl and Marilyn Wolgemuth, as members of Wycliffe Bible Translators, felt God's call to translate the Scriptures for these deserving people who welcomed them. They had to learn the language by careful listening, scientifically analyze it, create an alphabet and teach the people to read it. As they became more fluent then they were able to begin Scripture translation. For twenty years the Wolgemuths, along with their young daughter Carrie, braved rushing rivers, tropical diseases, insects, and lack of amenities such as electricity, telephones and refrigeration. Those were minor inconveniences compared to the joys of seeing faces light up when they discovered they could read and comprehend "God's Talk" Here you will read about how a pre-literate group of people accepted salvation, began to study the translated Scriptures and eagerly shared "God's Talk" in neighboring Aztec villages.