Part I. "Get prepared, there's gonna be a party tonight" : carving out a territory, 1967-1974 -- Excerpt from The Electric kool-aid acid test / Tom Wolfe -- Excerpt from Morgan's acid test / William J. Craddock -- Dead like live thunder. Jerry Garcia, the Guru / Ralph J. Gleason -- The day they busted the Grateful Dead / Richard Brautigan -- Primal Dead at the Fillmore East : February, 1970 / Steve Silberman -- Purple lights : Grateful Dead dance marathon at the Manhattan Center / George W.S. Trow -- Grateful Dead I have known / Ed McClanahan -- Liner notes to Europe / Willy Legate -- Full circle with the Dead / Ralph J. Gleason -- Now that we've got a moment to stand ... / Robert Hunter -- Some pretty basic tenets of hypnocracy / Robert Hunter -- State of the changes : how the dragon Urobouros (Giga Exponentia) makes us go round and round / Alan Trist -- Dead Heads pay their dues / Robert Christgau -- He was a friend of mine / Robert Petersen -- Robert Hunter : dark star / Robert Hunter -- Part II. "If you get confused, listen to the music play" : back from the hiatus, into the eighties, 1976-1986 -- St. Stephen revisited and beyond / Richard Meltzer -- Still Grateful after all these years in which the Grateful Dead, pinup uglies of the Haight-Ashbury, become the house band of the Age of Certain Doom / Charlie Haas -- Dead reckoning and hamburger metaphysics / Lee Abbott -- Dead heads : a strange tale of love, devotion and surrender / Blair Jackson -- Meditations on the Grateful Dead / Dennis McNally -- An aged Deadhead / Milton Mayer -- Robert Hunter : songs of innocence, songs of experience / Mary Eisenhart -- Jerry Garcia and the call of the weird / Alice Kahn -- Part III. "We will survive" : a top ten hit and all that follows, 1987-1994 -- The swirl according to Carp : a meditation on the Grateful Dead / Jack Britton -- Transformative mysteries : a primer on the Grateful Dead for aficionados, initiates and the wholly uninformed / Steve Silberman -- A tale of two tribes : a gay man's adventure in the world of Deadheads / Edward Guthman -- Reporting live from Deadland / David Gans -- Good use / Al Alvarez -- This darkness got to give : some thoughts on problems in the Dead scene / Blair Jackson -- You don't seem to hear me when I call / Paddy Ladd -- Introduction to We want Phil! An interview, and In Phil we trust : a conversation / Blair Jackson -- Excerpt from The millennium shows / Philip E. Baruth -- Part IV. "See here, how everything led up to this day" : Jerry Garcia's death and the end of the Grateful Dead, 1995-1996 -- American beauty : the Grateful Dead's burly, beatific alchemist / Hal Espen -- Obituary : Jerry Garcia, 1942-1995 / Mary Eisenhart -- An elegy for Jerry / Robert Hunter -- American beauty / Blair Jackson -- The Grateful Dead : a meditation on music, meaning, and memory / Gary Burnett -- The only song of God / Steve Silberman.