I liked this book It's the first Michael Farquhar I've read. I started reading him after he was recommended on the Afterword of Sarah Vowell. The book is about people who use to be famous but have largely forgotten in modern society Did you know that Paul Revere went on his famous ride with two colleges and who went in two different directions so as to avoid being captured by the British ? I didn't, I only knew about Revere, Dawes and Prescott were lost to history.
Do you know who Steven Pleasanton was? I didn't he was a idealistic young Capitol worker who managed to save a important historical document, like the first ever Constitution from being burned by the British in the war of 1812. He was only discovered by the author of The Burning Of Washington, a book I had no interest of reading but now actually might.
Anna Jarvis went crazy I didn't even know who she was much less that she founded Mothers day. In her later years Jarvis would come to hate the holiday she fought for because it was very commercialized another place i didn't know about was A Black encampment Called Belville It was in South Carolina and was founded by a man named Campbell who believe in a lot of the same things as Martin Luther King about a century too early
Im not surprised that a lot of the people who have forgotten were women, minorities, or both we all know about sitting bowl but who has heard of Sarah Winnamucca they were both famous leaders or native American rights. even the entry in this book which is meant to rectify histories own omission was a little bit gossipy as a focus on her repeated failed marriage and her obsession with white, non-worthy men.
we also learn about heady green who reminded me of Leona Helmsley and its famous for about the same reason that is being greedy. Her greed went so far that she refused to have her sons leg treated he eventually had to suffer an amputation. I didn't like heady very much. I was much more of a fan of Zelpa Elong The black preacher woman who coined the phrase " get thee behind me Satan " I also liked learning about Lewis Boyd a woman who explored the Arctic and Bula Henry a late person inventor who was called "The Lady Edison". Those two women broke the glass ceiling while the rest of the gender didn't know it existed.
I rate this book an 8.75 out of 10. Read it you'll learn a lot.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Friday, December 31, 2010
Dancing in the Streets- a history of collective joy (Book 52 of 100)
Those of you who read this blog regularly know how much I enjoy the books of Barbara Ehrenreich. Indeed, 2 of her books Bightsided and Bait and Switch are already part of my 100 book odyssey, Her book, Dancing in the Streets: a history of collective joy is a followup and in this case antithesis of her book Blood Rites, which I haven't read and is about the reasons we go to war and how group dynamics impacts them. Until now, I had no interest in reading it. Perhaps I might now.
Being a person who is interested in dance I was amazed to discover the role a dance played in the expression of ancient cultural joy. She said that ancient cultures “danced and understood dancing as an activity important enough to record on stone.” In the lives of the ancient civilizations, dance was not a secondary activity, as it is today. In ancient cultures, language was “subservient” to dance. While other primates use language in various forms to communicate, only homo sapiens dance. The author says the reason for this is that dance is pleasurable enough for others to do the required actions to complete the work. She further theorizes that there was “sexual selection for the ability to dance well”.
But all this dancing and collective joy seeking changed suddenly during the roman empire and into the days of the early Christians, as well. Indeed, the roman god Dionysus was seen by different people as both representative of both Jesus and Satan. Calvinism especially limited festivities, as Barbara Ehrenreich notes, in much the same that sara Vowell did in last book I reviewed, The Wordy Shipmates. The Calvinists and the capitalists were apparently in bed together. Limiting festivities benefited both groups.
Carnival, that is, festivity, has been linked with revolution since time began. Such festivities often involved “rituals of inversion” where higher class people would for a time become the servants of the lower class. Such class jostling often led to revolutions. For example, 35% of slave revolts are reported to have occurred during the Christmas season, when people are off their guard. Additionally, who can forget the giant puppets at the WTO protest in Seattle in 1999? I was watching from my parent's house in Pennsylvania, but I can still recall perfectly clearly those giant puppet heads. As Ehrenreich puts it, “protest movements have reinvented the carnivalesque”. As an activist, I think this is true and I'm glad of it.
Although this book was very informative, parts of it just made me sad. Did you know, for example, that there are 35,000 articles on depression and only 400 on joy? Did you further know that depression if the fifth most diagnosed illness in the united states? In the early part of last century, there was a disorder called melancholy. I'm not quite sure if this is depression, but it sounds like it. The author speculates, and I agree, that part of the reason for this increase in depression was the removal of joyful events like town festivals. Society lacked the ability to experience the “thrill of the group”. In fact, it was encouraged that people who suffered from melancholy ought to engage in festive behavior, meaning things like good company and sports several times a week. But for society as a whole, it was thought that collective excitement was “synonymous with evil”.
The first really big return to festivity was the rock rebellion of the 60's, when, of course, there was also a bunch of political upheaval occurring. Rock and roll was of course opposed by many authoritarian forces, including the nazis. According to the leader of the black panthers, most white teenagers were “zombies” who were using rock and roll as a way to “reclaim their bodies”. Indeed, rock and roll as an art form had endured “the middle passage and centuries of enslavement”. Nowadays, rock has been bought out, of course, by corporations, and as the author notes, there is “no better way to subvert a revolution” than to join it with money making.
I like this book. I've only highlighted what I feel are the most important ideas here, but I'm sure you'll get more out of it if you read it for yourself. I rate this book an 8.25 out of 10. it lacks much of what I've come to enjoy in Ehrenreich more participatory work, which is Nickel and Dmed, and Bait and Switch, which were more humorous overall. However, the author's voice still shines through a bit. It's definitely worth the read.
Being a person who is interested in dance I was amazed to discover the role a dance played in the expression of ancient cultural joy. She said that ancient cultures “danced and understood dancing as an activity important enough to record on stone.” In the lives of the ancient civilizations, dance was not a secondary activity, as it is today. In ancient cultures, language was “subservient” to dance. While other primates use language in various forms to communicate, only homo sapiens dance. The author says the reason for this is that dance is pleasurable enough for others to do the required actions to complete the work. She further theorizes that there was “sexual selection for the ability to dance well”.
But all this dancing and collective joy seeking changed suddenly during the roman empire and into the days of the early Christians, as well. Indeed, the roman god Dionysus was seen by different people as both representative of both Jesus and Satan. Calvinism especially limited festivities, as Barbara Ehrenreich notes, in much the same that sara Vowell did in last book I reviewed, The Wordy Shipmates. The Calvinists and the capitalists were apparently in bed together. Limiting festivities benefited both groups.
Carnival, that is, festivity, has been linked with revolution since time began. Such festivities often involved “rituals of inversion” where higher class people would for a time become the servants of the lower class. Such class jostling often led to revolutions. For example, 35% of slave revolts are reported to have occurred during the Christmas season, when people are off their guard. Additionally, who can forget the giant puppets at the WTO protest in Seattle in 1999? I was watching from my parent's house in Pennsylvania, but I can still recall perfectly clearly those giant puppet heads. As Ehrenreich puts it, “protest movements have reinvented the carnivalesque”. As an activist, I think this is true and I'm glad of it.
Although this book was very informative, parts of it just made me sad. Did you know, for example, that there are 35,000 articles on depression and only 400 on joy? Did you further know that depression if the fifth most diagnosed illness in the united states? In the early part of last century, there was a disorder called melancholy. I'm not quite sure if this is depression, but it sounds like it. The author speculates, and I agree, that part of the reason for this increase in depression was the removal of joyful events like town festivals. Society lacked the ability to experience the “thrill of the group”. In fact, it was encouraged that people who suffered from melancholy ought to engage in festive behavior, meaning things like good company and sports several times a week. But for society as a whole, it was thought that collective excitement was “synonymous with evil”.
The first really big return to festivity was the rock rebellion of the 60's, when, of course, there was also a bunch of political upheaval occurring. Rock and roll was of course opposed by many authoritarian forces, including the nazis. According to the leader of the black panthers, most white teenagers were “zombies” who were using rock and roll as a way to “reclaim their bodies”. Indeed, rock and roll as an art form had endured “the middle passage and centuries of enslavement”. Nowadays, rock has been bought out, of course, by corporations, and as the author notes, there is “no better way to subvert a revolution” than to join it with money making.
I like this book. I've only highlighted what I feel are the most important ideas here, but I'm sure you'll get more out of it if you read it for yourself. I rate this book an 8.25 out of 10. it lacks much of what I've come to enjoy in Ehrenreich more participatory work, which is Nickel and Dmed, and Bait and Switch, which were more humorous overall. However, the author's voice still shines through a bit. It's definitely worth the read.
Book Review: The Wordy Shipmates (Book 51 of 100)
Yet another Sarah Vowell book. I think, as I mention before, I'm becoming obsessed with this person. I go through that with writers sometimes. So far, on this literary journey, my obsessions have included A.J. Jacobs, Eoin Colfer, J.D. McHale, and now Sarah Vowell. For a while, I was into Barbara Ehrenreich, but that was much more of a flirtation than an obsession.
Sarah Vowell is, I think, one of the only people who could make the puritans seem funny. She makes every seem funny. Her take on puritanism and the bible were a refreshing look for someone like myself who has been so immersed in biblical studies. I never knew anything about the puritans except that they were anti-sex, anti-fun, and anti-self. They practiced a very strict doctrine of Christianity called Calvinism. This is, according to Vowell, "capitalism in disguise." People are taught to just obey authority to the detriment of themselves and their communities.
John Winthrop, who was a major puritan leader, however, seemed to have a very similar leanings to the United Church of Christ which I attend. In the UCC, we believe, as Winthrop in "mourning together, suffer together." Of course in our belief system at the UCC, we also believe in celebrating together. The Puritans were not much for celebrating. I like the way Vowell equates the Puritan dedication to community to New Yorkers' dedication to community after 9/11. She lives in New York and so can talk about this without sounding cliche. She tells about a time when people were relieved that they could so something besides mourn that following her request for toothpaste for rescue workers, her entire local bodega was cleaned out. She said it was so nice to have something else to do besides inhale "incinerated glasses of steel but also we knew incinerated human beings." Buying toothpaste givers her something to do that was productive and helpful in addition to "breathing the cremated lungs of the dead." They could help to "clean the teeth of living."
As frequently happens to me when I read Vowell's works, something I never thought of but in retrospect makes a lot of sense occurred to me. The Puritans are as Vowell puts it "America's Medieval people." They didn't have what we would consider a very evolved society. They were very sexist, racist, xenophobic, and other bad things. But I don't think there would be an American without them.
The clashes with Native Americans were, as they should have been, a big feature in this book, especially since Vowell is partially Vowell is partially Native American. She's part Cherokee like me--something else we have in common. She spends a lot of time discussing one particular Mohegan leader named Uncas. He actually sided with the English against his fellow tribes. But Vowell doesn't take him to task too much over this because as she says his goal was "Mohegan survival." She further adds, "What he did was not pretty, it wasn't even right, but it worked." As an organizer, myself, I am frequently faced with making similar decisions, although with no where as severe consequences. I'm sure lots of Jews got into bed with Nazis just to survive, not because they like it. I know within both the LGBT and disability rights movements, we have sometimes had to limit protections so bills would get passed. This is not ever a happy occurrence. And most modern organizers feel bad about doing it. Sometimes, it is a choice between a bill that covers some people and a bill that never gets passed. When you have to make these kinds of decisions, the ideal plan is to make them knowing that you will eventually come back with a part of the community that was included in the first bill and includes them in future versions thereof. I don't know if that was ever Uncas' plan,. but I hope so.
Some of the surviving remnants of the Pequot tribe were actually recognized in federal court in the 80s and went on to found Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. Miss Vowell, her twin sister Amy, and her nephew Owen stayed at the Mohegan Sun hotel while she was finishing this book. A conversation she had with her nephew during this visit is one of the saddest dialogs I've ever seen between an adult and a child. It follows:
Owen:name a state where there was never a war.
Sarah:"I'm not sure a I can."
Owen: "Name the state where there was the least war."
Sarah: "I don't know. Idaho?"
It turned out she was wrong.
The last thing I would like to comment on is the fact that I never knew Ann Hutchinson was such a cool person. I never knew anything about her at all. I didn't even know the Hutchinson Parkway which runs between New York and Boston was named for her. Like me, Hutchinson believed that every person's salvation was due to his or her own personal relationship with God. You didn't need a minister to help you interact with God, you could do it yourself. In Puritanical New England, however, such beliefs were considered seditious. In the end, Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts and labeled a witch because she said God talked to her directly. I think, on several occasions, God has talked to me as well. I guess we would have both been banished. Unlike Hutchinson, I think I would have had the presence of mind to simply deny this truth to the magistrates, all the while believing. But she had a "contentional, chatty bent" that got her into trouble and in this case got her banished along with her 15 children, husband and several followers. I want to learn more about Anne Hutchinson. There were so many amazing women in American history, but we never learn about them.
I rate this book a 8.75. You'll like it. It teaches you a lot about the country, but doesn't groan on and on like high school history classes. In this way, Sarah Vowell is very similar to Barbara Ehrenreich except that Vowell's specialty is history not economics. A little laughter goes a long way towards making the brain more receptive to data. I must admit, I am sad that at this point Sarah Vowell has written no other books. She has an essay in several anthologies (all of which are in my to-be-read file). Didn't I tell you I was a bit obsessed. I'm eagerly awaiting her next book. Maybe she'll come to Pittsfield again. That's close to where I live. Maybe I'll get to meet her. I wonder if I'll be able to say anything.
Sarah Vowell is, I think, one of the only people who could make the puritans seem funny. She makes every seem funny. Her take on puritanism and the bible were a refreshing look for someone like myself who has been so immersed in biblical studies. I never knew anything about the puritans except that they were anti-sex, anti-fun, and anti-self. They practiced a very strict doctrine of Christianity called Calvinism. This is, according to Vowell, "capitalism in disguise." People are taught to just obey authority to the detriment of themselves and their communities.
John Winthrop, who was a major puritan leader, however, seemed to have a very similar leanings to the United Church of Christ which I attend. In the UCC, we believe, as Winthrop in "mourning together, suffer together." Of course in our belief system at the UCC, we also believe in celebrating together. The Puritans were not much for celebrating. I like the way Vowell equates the Puritan dedication to community to New Yorkers' dedication to community after 9/11. She lives in New York and so can talk about this without sounding cliche. She tells about a time when people were relieved that they could so something besides mourn that following her request for toothpaste for rescue workers, her entire local bodega was cleaned out. She said it was so nice to have something else to do besides inhale "incinerated glasses of steel but also we knew incinerated human beings." Buying toothpaste givers her something to do that was productive and helpful in addition to "breathing the cremated lungs of the dead." They could help to "clean the teeth of living."
As frequently happens to me when I read Vowell's works, something I never thought of but in retrospect makes a lot of sense occurred to me. The Puritans are as Vowell puts it "America's Medieval people." They didn't have what we would consider a very evolved society. They were very sexist, racist, xenophobic, and other bad things. But I don't think there would be an American without them.
The clashes with Native Americans were, as they should have been, a big feature in this book, especially since Vowell is partially Vowell is partially Native American. She's part Cherokee like me--something else we have in common. She spends a lot of time discussing one particular Mohegan leader named Uncas. He actually sided with the English against his fellow tribes. But Vowell doesn't take him to task too much over this because as she says his goal was "Mohegan survival." She further adds, "What he did was not pretty, it wasn't even right, but it worked." As an organizer, myself, I am frequently faced with making similar decisions, although with no where as severe consequences. I'm sure lots of Jews got into bed with Nazis just to survive, not because they like it. I know within both the LGBT and disability rights movements, we have sometimes had to limit protections so bills would get passed. This is not ever a happy occurrence. And most modern organizers feel bad about doing it. Sometimes, it is a choice between a bill that covers some people and a bill that never gets passed. When you have to make these kinds of decisions, the ideal plan is to make them knowing that you will eventually come back with a part of the community that was included in the first bill and includes them in future versions thereof. I don't know if that was ever Uncas' plan,. but I hope so.
Some of the surviving remnants of the Pequot tribe were actually recognized in federal court in the 80s and went on to found Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. Miss Vowell, her twin sister Amy, and her nephew Owen stayed at the Mohegan Sun hotel while she was finishing this book. A conversation she had with her nephew during this visit is one of the saddest dialogs I've ever seen between an adult and a child. It follows:
Owen:name a state where there was never a war.
Sarah:"I'm not sure a I can."
Owen: "Name the state where there was the least war."
Sarah: "I don't know. Idaho?"
It turned out she was wrong.
The last thing I would like to comment on is the fact that I never knew Ann Hutchinson was such a cool person. I never knew anything about her at all. I didn't even know the Hutchinson Parkway which runs between New York and Boston was named for her. Like me, Hutchinson believed that every person's salvation was due to his or her own personal relationship with God. You didn't need a minister to help you interact with God, you could do it yourself. In Puritanical New England, however, such beliefs were considered seditious. In the end, Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts and labeled a witch because she said God talked to her directly. I think, on several occasions, God has talked to me as well. I guess we would have both been banished. Unlike Hutchinson, I think I would have had the presence of mind to simply deny this truth to the magistrates, all the while believing. But she had a "contentional, chatty bent" that got her into trouble and in this case got her banished along with her 15 children, husband and several followers. I want to learn more about Anne Hutchinson. There were so many amazing women in American history, but we never learn about them.
I rate this book a 8.75. You'll like it. It teaches you a lot about the country, but doesn't groan on and on like high school history classes. In this way, Sarah Vowell is very similar to Barbara Ehrenreich except that Vowell's specialty is history not economics. A little laughter goes a long way towards making the brain more receptive to data. I must admit, I am sad that at this point Sarah Vowell has written no other books. She has an essay in several anthologies (all of which are in my to-be-read file). Didn't I tell you I was a bit obsessed. I'm eagerly awaiting her next book. Maybe she'll come to Pittsfield again. That's close to where I live. Maybe I'll get to meet her. I wonder if I'll be able to say anything.
Book Review: The Partly Cloudy Patriot ( Book 38 out of 100)
I have been a Sarah Vowell fan since I discovered that she was the voice of Violet in The Incredibles. Sarah and I have a lot in common. We’re both workaholic fact nuts. Her thing is U.S. history. My thing is disability rights. I’m not much of an American history person, but this memoir made me appreciate it a little more.
In the first chapter, she says “You don’t cross state lines to attend the 137th anniversary of anything unless something is missing in your life.” At times, I felt like this. I spend way too much money on planes, trains, and buses going somewhere to do something that in my darkest moments I don’t know will make any difference to anyone ever. But I keep plugging ahead because I don’t know what else to do.
Her family relationship is similar to mine. We both love our parents dearly, but after about 72 hours we’re done. Of her parents’ visit on Thanksgiving, she says something to the effect of “[We don’t talk much we go to movies]…Tommy Lee Jones… does the talking for us.” My parents and I go to movies too when I’m home for the same reason.
Sarah’s relationship to her mother seems remarkably similar to mine as well. Our moms both love us no doubt, but wish we could be a little more normal. Sarah and I apparently both have the same response. ‘I think I am normal. What’s your problem?’
Another favorite part of the book for me was the fact that she listed the inauguration of George W. Bush the first time as a “national tragedy.” Like me, she went to Washington to object to the coronation. Why is it that lots of writers were there that day? Myself, Jonathan Franzen, and Sarah Vowell!
Perhaps we all thought that we should record this moment that is sure to be remembered by future generations as the day the Supreme Court handed the presidency to a drunk frat boy and there wasn’t rebellion in the streets. At least, I won’t be telling my kids I sat there and did nothing. The least I could do for my democracy was sit in the rain for a few hours and object.
I never heard my political views expressed so well as by the expression “partly cloudy patriot.” In my heart of hearts, I want to be patriot all the time, but being a patriot in my opinion does not mean blindly following whatever your government does.
I rate this book an 8.5 out 10. If you’re in fact not like Sarah and me, you’ll enjoy all the strange historical factoids she feeds you. Did you know, for example, that Teddy Roosevelt had asthma and was confined to his bed as a child? Hardly the image one has of the robust, buffalo hunting president. I also enjoyed listening to someone talk about voting with as much passion as I discuss it, much to the chagrin of my friends.
In the first chapter, she says “You don’t cross state lines to attend the 137th anniversary of anything unless something is missing in your life.” At times, I felt like this. I spend way too much money on planes, trains, and buses going somewhere to do something that in my darkest moments I don’t know will make any difference to anyone ever. But I keep plugging ahead because I don’t know what else to do.
Her family relationship is similar to mine. We both love our parents dearly, but after about 72 hours we’re done. Of her parents’ visit on Thanksgiving, she says something to the effect of “[We don’t talk much we go to movies]…Tommy Lee Jones… does the talking for us.” My parents and I go to movies too when I’m home for the same reason.
Sarah’s relationship to her mother seems remarkably similar to mine as well. Our moms both love us no doubt, but wish we could be a little more normal. Sarah and I apparently both have the same response. ‘I think I am normal. What’s your problem?’
Another favorite part of the book for me was the fact that she listed the inauguration of George W. Bush the first time as a “national tragedy.” Like me, she went to Washington to object to the coronation. Why is it that lots of writers were there that day? Myself, Jonathan Franzen, and Sarah Vowell!
Perhaps we all thought that we should record this moment that is sure to be remembered by future generations as the day the Supreme Court handed the presidency to a drunk frat boy and there wasn’t rebellion in the streets. At least, I won’t be telling my kids I sat there and did nothing. The least I could do for my democracy was sit in the rain for a few hours and object.
I never heard my political views expressed so well as by the expression “partly cloudy patriot.” In my heart of hearts, I want to be patriot all the time, but being a patriot in my opinion does not mean blindly following whatever your government does.
I rate this book an 8.5 out 10. If you’re in fact not like Sarah and me, you’ll enjoy all the strange historical factoids she feeds you. Did you know, for example, that Teddy Roosevelt had asthma and was confined to his bed as a child? Hardly the image one has of the robust, buffalo hunting president. I also enjoyed listening to someone talk about voting with as much passion as I discuss it, much to the chagrin of my friends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)