William James (Great American Thinkers) review

I was introduced to William James in a college class. Learned he is the Father of Pragmatism – a simplified philosophy that I cottoned to. So when I recently found a thin, paperback, paperback book about William James at a book sale in a church basement, I grabbed it up.

Called the first original American philosophy, pragmatism comes down to this: the action that brings about the most practical result is the right one. James called practical consequences the “cash value” of an idea. Since that mode of thinking permeates American society today, I believe James is worthy of consideration.

A slim, succinct book (unlike James’s own books) simply entitled William James, it was written in the 1960s by Edward C. Moore as part of the Great American Thinkers series of books. This series also included short bios about Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Thorstein Veblen and others who influenced American thought.

Primarily a summary and evaluation of James’s works, the book also provides brief biographical information about James and the time in which he lived. That is the best feature of this book -- putting James’s philosophy into the context of the 19^th century New England culture he came of age in. Really, I see no way not to read the book when coming upon this sentence on the first page.

“The intellectual history of William James is almost an intellectual biography of America.”

Looking over the beliefs and mythologies that have defined American history, I can see a dichotomy that parallels the opposing poles James struggled with. The Puritans brought to the colonies a Calvinist belief in God’s omnipotence, man’s helplessness and predestination. But those settlers also pioneered the prevailing American spirit of adventure, experimentation and shaping our own destinies.

The two beliefs came to a head at the time James was coming of age. As a man of science, he could not disregard empiricism and Darwinian determinism. As a man of his culture, he could not leave God and morality out of the equation. His genius was in mediating the two extremes, finding a sensible middle ground between John Calvin and Charles Darwin. In that way, you might say he was the last 19^th century man and first 20^th century man.

James’s most interesting – and controversial – idea was his theory of “relative truth.” This idea is easier to accept in the science realm where even the most airtight “scientific fact” (gravity, for instance) is only a theory that can be overturned by evidence. With regard to morals, however, “relative truth” doesn’t go down so well.

I can envision some preacher on Sunday morning, saying, “The world would have you believe morals are relative and can be tossed aside when they aren’t convenient.” That would be a misinterpretation of James’s view. I think of relative truth in the context of a moral dilemma. An action that’s moral under one set of circumstances might be wrong under another.

Most people probably want to believe there are immutable moral truths. I certainly do, but I also recoil at absolutism. It’s not within human power to define with certainty what constitutes meaning in the universe.

Today, the Calvinism that caused such internal conflict for James and his contemporaries is foreign even to the most Presbyterian of us. Pragmatism, we can relate to. It’s not without imperfections and limitations -- no school of philosophy is – but it’s accessible and user-friendly. James rescued philosophy from its aloof and lofty palace in the sky and brought it down to nuts and bolts. A uniquely American approach.

It has been fun reading about William James, learning the definitions of – and chewing on the ideas of – what he termed “meliorism,”” pluriverse” and “pure experience". Now, I plan to free space in my home library by parting with this book. It will be a pragmatic move. (Later) Actually, I sold it for a quarter at a garage sale.

Gateway reading:  William James’s writings, of course, particularly his magnum opus, The Varieties of Religious ExperienceT. Then there are great biographies of James, such as William James:  In the Malestrom of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson. A book I've always wanted to read is The Metaphysical Club is about the young James, future Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Charles Spencer Peirce, logician, scientist, and the founder of semiotics, and a conversational, philosophical club they had in Cambridge, Mass. in 1872.

I would also recommend reading works by writers  who were students of James's at Harvard University: W.E.B. Dubois, Theodore Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, George Santanya, Walter Lippman

Then there are others who were influenced by James:  Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Michael Foucalt.

I cannot not recommend 19th century essayist, lecturer and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, the biggest name in the transcendental movement. He was James's godfather

I would suggest reading biographies of and writings by John Calvin and Charles Darwin.

Lastly, I would suggest reading more slim books from the old Great American Thinkers series. You'll find them in garage sales, library and church book sales and eBay. See where they take you in your reading.

"Strength to Love" review

For Martin Luther King, Jr. the issue of Civil Rights was as Biblical as it was Constitutional. King’s words – in his speeches and writings – make abundantly clear that his social activism was inseparable from his Christian faith. Strength to Love is a collection of sermons by King. In the book’s various essays, most of which begin with a Bible verse, King quotes the poetic words of Old Testament prophets and draws from the parables of Jesus to illustrate his message of social justice.

The Supreme Court decision overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine, King equated with the parting of the waters that cleared a path for the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. The South’s obstinate refusal to release its Jim Crow hold over African Americans, King equated with the pharaoh’s unwillingness to grant the Jews their freedom. Coming to the aid of anyone whose beaten down and oppressed no matter who they are or what religion, nationality or color they might be – King likened to the Good Samaritan who aided the Jewish man, left robbed and beaten by the roadside.

 Strength to Love was published in 1963 – the same year King delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Washington Mall. Fifty years later King and his message of racial equality have been validated by history. Conservatives even laude him, but if King were still alive, people on the right would be calling him un-American, a socialist and communist, just as they were 50 years ago.

The views he expressed from the stage and church pulpit were controversial in the 1960s and still are today. In this series of sermons, as well as other writings and speeches, King speaks out against war, imperialism and capitalist exploitation of labor. Today -- in an age when Christianity appears locked and limited to rigid conservatism, a political party, exclusion,” American exceptionalism” and a belief that the “invisible hand” of capitalism is from God -- it’s refreshing to visit King’s progressive, liberating and expansive interpretation of Christian love.

King did not yield his Christian belief to the chauvinistic view that America is blessed above all other nations. He would never have joined the clergymen who urged Pres. George W. Bush -- by letter -- to go to war with Iraq. A full year before the Gulf of Tonkin incident even sparked the Vietnam War, King was advocating for peace. He was critical of the military industrial complex and nuclear proliferation.  In the Cold War era, as in today, anyone not beating the drum for war is branded “treasonous,” and said to be “aiding and abetting the enemy.” King faced that kind of backlash, but he called for cooled, reasoned minds -- something we’re still desperately in need of today. The following quote sounds sadly appropriate in our time.

“Let us not join those who shout war and who through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days when Christians must evince wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a Communist or appeaser who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers...”

King was a citizen of the world. Drawing on Christ’s words – Love thy neighbor as thyself – he considered anyone in the global community who was suffering to be a neighbor in need of help. The plight of people living under colonial domination in Asia and Africa, in his mind, mirrored the oppression African Americans suffered under slavery and segregation.

"Were he alive today, King wouldn’t be fighting the “Culture Wars.” For the past thirty-some years, the Religious Right has been finding evil in the entertainment industry.  King saw evil in the exploitation of others, in depriving people of their human dignity. Christian conservatives home in on legalistic Biblical passages – ambiguous and open to interpretation – and stick them to peoples’ sex lives. King’s focus was on the spirit – the redemptive power of love and compassion spoken of in the scriptures.

What passes for mainstream Christianity today is small-minded and pitifully anti-intellectual. King demonstrates through these sermons, a thinking person’s Christianity. That’s evident from the first page of the book when he links a Bible verse to Hegelian philosophy.

Throughout these writings, King shows himself to be highly educated (he had a doctorate) and diverse in his reading. He shows the influence of everyone from 19^th century evangelical abolitionist William Wilberforce to Unitarian minister Theodore Parker. In one of his sermons, he uses the word, “soulforce,” a term lifted from Gandhi. In another, he refers to “I-and-thou” relationships, a concept originated by the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. He spoke of the Muslim-Hindu fighting that shattered Gandhi’s dream of peace in India. Clearly, King’s sense of integration stretched far beyond skin color and it’s a sure bet that he wouldn’t be jumping on the Islamaphobia plaguing America today.

One of the chapters in Strength to Love is entitled “Shattered Dreams.” He had a lot of dreams that didn’t come true – dreams that went far and above the passage of Civil Rights legislation. It’s left to the living to advance King’s work and bring those dreams to reality. King was a flawed individual. He wasn’t a saint and should not be seen as such, but his tireless activism and vision were bigger than he was.

For anyone wanting to understand King beyond the basic historical facts, Strength to Love would be a superb introduction. The book reveals the thoughts and influences that motivated King to persevere through endless marches and protests without surrender.

Anyone desiring to have their spiritual, intellectual or social consciences invigorated would benefit from reading Strength to Love. It’s not important that one shares King’s religion or even agrees with him on everything to get something from the book. His humanitarian principles were universal.

"When Religion Becomes Evil" review

Writer's note: The Boston Marathon bombing has brought the topic of religious extremism into the news again. Charles Kimball, the author of this book, has been interviewed on radio and TV frequently in the past few weeks. In that contemporary spirit, I am publishing my review of, probably, his most famous book. I indentify his as the chair of the the University of Oklahoma's Religious Studies program. When this book was published 10 years ago, Kimball chaired the Dept. of religion and divinity school at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/K/Charles.A.Kimball-1/bio.html

I’ve often been baffled by religion. It does a lot of good in the world, but it also does a lot of harm.

Obviously, religion is neither black nor white. But how do we sort through the gray matter to identify where religion crosses the line from righteous to evil? That’s the question religion professor Charles Kimball takes on in his book, When Religion Becomes Evil.

Kimball, who chairs the religious studies program at the University of Oklahoma, makes an interesting distinction between what he calls “authentic religion” and religion that has been “corrupted.” He writes that the world’s enduring, time-tested religions, such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism…were all founded on fundamental principles of love, peace, kindness and harmony.

However, that authenticity is eroded and the essence of those faiths is lost when human corruption takes root within the religions. Kimball is balanced, sparing none of the above mentioned religious organizations as he cites examples – from history and modern headlines -- of how every one of them has been guilty of committing barbaric and ghastly acts of violence.

A Christian minister, Kimball was educated in comparative religions and has worked internationally with interfaith organizations.  He draws on his extensive education and experience and identifies five warning signs that religion is about to turn evil: absolute truth claims, blind obedience, establishing the “ideal” time, the end justifies any means and declaring holy war.

One or more of these patterns are always present when a religion takes a turn for the bad and all religions are susceptible to corruption, Kimball writes. In essence, all five warning signs come down to this: a disregard for humanity in the name of God. Anytime a religious organization uses doctrine or the religious institution itself to justify hurting others, that religion has become evil. When a religion employs violent or anti-social means, when it fails to follow the Golden Rule, the religion has been contaminated. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/28/when-religious-beliefs-becomes-evil-4-signs/comment-page-24/

Religions are “human institutions,” Kimball writes. That’s an important reminder. It explains why a beautiful religion can take a wrong turn.  Throughout history, people have been led astray by charismatic political leaders so it stands to reason that they can be misled by charismatic religious leaders as well.

A religious leader could take a passage from a “sacred text” out of context and use it to justify cruel or violent behavior. These passages are open to many interpretations and any leader who claims to have the “absolute truth” is opening the door to abuse.

When Religion Turns Evil talks about cult leaders like Jim Jones, Ashara Shoko and David Koresh, but what I find interesting is that a religious leader doesn’t have to be that extreme, doesn’t even have to be violent to cross the line into evil. Any time a religious leader demands “blind allegiance” to his authority or to the institution and prohibits questions or dissent, the religion is tainted.

The best message to come out of this book is to have an open mind and keep your critical thinking powers activated. It’s the best defense against manipulation by an abusive religious leader. Kimball makes a case for the individual asking his own questions, defining what he believes and finding his own path, rather than having a religious authority tell him what to think. That sounds intellectually healthy.

I enjoyed his comparative religions approach. It served him well in writing this book and opened my mind to other belief systems. Of course, Kimball was practically born into comparative religions. His Jewish grandfather and nine siblings immigrated to the United States from Russia. His father married a Presbyterian woman he met, while performing in Vaudeville and Kimball became an ordained Baptist minister.

For me it’s fascinating, finding the commonalities between my Christian faith and Islam or Buddhism.  But not everyone will be receptive to the idea of placing the different religions on an equal playing field. I know Christians who consider Islam in any form to be the great Satan, and no doubt, the reverse is true. And that kind of thinking exacerbates the problems. Religious exceptionalism tends to dehumanize those with a different view.

This book re-enforced for me that the spiritual dimension of a person’s life is about more than just doctrines. Theological views may differ, but people across the cultural and religious spectrum can agree on basic morals. Religious views, we take on faith, anyway. We really don’t know anything for a certainty in this life.

I found interesting, this quote Kimball shared from the Qur’n: “If God had so willed, He would have made all of you one community… so compete with one another in good works. To God, you shall all return and He will tell you the truth about that which you have been disputing.”

Watched an interview with this guy on CNN, yesterday, while on the treadmill at the YMCA. Was looking to publish that recent clip, but couldn't find it as of deadline.

Gateway Literature

Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern. A former member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Stern is an expert on worldwide terrorism, having visited refugee camps and interviewed Christian, Muslim and Jewish extremists from Pakistan, Indonesia and all over. That's what I call being a hard-core, investigative reporter.

Many Mansions: A Christian's Encounter with Other Faiths by Harvey Cox. For decades, a professor of divinity at Harvard University, Cox, traveled throughout the world and gained insight, hearing how people of multiple faiths perceive Christ. Cox is a prolific author and this book should help inquiring minds grow beyond the White-Male-Christian-American Exceptionalism box.

Also, I say read all you can about Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucious, Moses...We won't agree with everything from the various faiths, but in a small, multi-faceted world, we'll make it a lot better with one another, knowing a little something about the many beliefs.

'Mean Old Man' review

 It’s been said that if Elvis was rock’s first superstar, Jerry Lee Lewis was its first SOB.

Born out of hellfire, Pentecostal fury, and Original Sin in a patch of Louisiana, the Killer sprang forth upon this earth for the cause of meanness and hell raisin.’

Like Keith Richards, Lewis should have never lived this long. In an alternate universe, Elvis would’ve lived to be an old man (oh, he would lose a toe or two to diabetes, but he’d be around), while Cash and Lewis would have died young, fallen to a drug overdose or the killing end of a bullet. As it is, here in the real world, Elvis could have never grown old gracefully, but Jerry Lee flaunts his longevity with bred-in-the bone bravado.

“If I come on like a mean old man, that’s what I am,” he sings – the first words uttered in the 2010 album’s opening title track, a song written and recorded by Kris Kristofferson sometime back in the ‘80s. Kristofferson contributes vocals and guitar playing, but Lewis steals the song. Lyrics pour out the Killer’s throat as if they were written with him in mind.

“If I come on like a voodoo doll that’s what I am,” he sings as the tempo picks up. “I’d rather scratch you than to have to crawl.

The rock royalty chomping at the bit to jam with Presley and the TCB Band in the early 70s, yet held at bay by the Colonel’s iron curtain, got another chance with Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. With Mean Old Man, Lewis (as he did with his 2006 Last Man Standing album) again gives the biggest names in rock the opportunity to record with him. Mean Old Man features the musicianship and vocalizing of cats like Richards, Eric Clapton, John Fogerty, Kid Rock and a skinny, chickenwalking Swingin’ London veteran, Tina-Turner-emulatin’ crap shooter ___

Mick Jagger.  The greatest cut by a mile is Lewis’s duet with Jagger on the Rolling Stones’ classic Dead Flowers -- enriched by the steel guitar of Greg Leisz -- and it’s appropriate, given that the entire album has something of an early 70s’ Stones-Gram Parsons-Sticky Fingers-Exile on Main Street feel.

The resurgent Last Man Standing was a digital restoration of vintage Lewis -- plenty of pumping piano, the killer summoning young man rhythm and all the boogie-woogie and Little Richard-era style and frenzy implied. Mean Old Man goes another way, drawing back to middle-aged Jerry Lee Lewis and true country-rock.

Lewis and his band of all-stars take an obscure early ‘60s soul-pop hit, “You Can Have Her”, and turn it into southern fried rock, bolstered by the guitar work of Eric Clapton and James Burton, bringing to the tune a lifetime of rhythm and rockabilly flourish. John Mayer’s blues guitar work in “Roll Over Beethoven” is flat out mean. Jerry Lee, with his piano playing and old man voice, surpasses his own 1970 recording of the song, giving this standard, overplayed Chuck Berry tune renewed vigor.

The Beatles have been as overplayed as Elvis, but I'm posting this video because Lewis covers "Roll Over Beethoven" with Ringo contributing drums. In this video, the Beatles cannot always be heard over the screams, but the energy is there in the body language. Here, Starr plays with a ferocity that doesn't come across as lively on his recording with Lewis.

While the country-fashioned superband is stellar, too many times Lewis’s trademark piano is submerged under the weight of it all. Not that he’s ever upstaged. Make no mistake on that one. Clapton, three Rolling Stones and a Beatle perform on this album, and they’re all in deference to Jerry Lee Lewis. Musically, though, there are times when I want more of him and less of them.

There’s always the risk that on an all-star collaboration like this, the party atmosphere will take over and the album will become more of an Event and less a professional objective. Mean Old Man comes close to that line at times, but is ultimately saved by hard musician work and ear-pleasing gems.

Kid Rock is one of the stars whom you might most worry about when facing the danger of pop-rock celebrity overkill, but he actually contributes to some of the best driving rock of the album – and I’m talking about Jerry Lee Lewis. He pounds over the 88 keys in whole lotta shakin’ style and his low voice complements Kid Rock’s screechy ventilator vocals in the Lewis classic, Rockin' My Life Away. Since Kid Rock --  more than any other contemporary rockstar – channels within his soul, the wild ass side of young Jerry Lee Lewis, maybe it’s only organic, the way his excesses actually serve the old man. Even with his two-tables-and-a-microphone Kid Rockisms, the young rock-rapper-country star never comes off as less than humble and with abiding respect in the presence of Jerry Lee Lewis. 

And you got Slash on guitar. Doesn't get much better.

Most of the guest vocals on this album can’t be heard over Jerry Lee and the other musicians – Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, with their high raspy voices being the most prominent exceptions. While Kid Rock wails with rock n’ roll fervor, Sheryl Crow brings in a shot of estrogen and controlled sweetness. You hear in her singing of “You Are My Sunshine” with Lewis. For vocal distinction, harmonizing & a superior song to work with, however, Jagger and Jerry Lee can’t be beat.

Which brings us to a saucy Stones gem “Sweet Virginia,” sung with Keith Richards --  an ingenious guitarist who can’t sing. But Lewis and Richards have an affinity with the tune and each other that comes through with unique style. After all, it’s a song about dissolution, druggin’, depression and all the happiness of the vineyards from California to Ol’ Tom Jefferson’s Monticello.

The only real disappointment on this album is the final track, a remake of Lewis’s 1970s’ country hit, “Middle Age Crazy.” The original version had sincerity, an honesty that conveyed what Lewis was going through in his life at the time. Today it’s just another song, and Tim McGraw’s voice on the revised track sounds like that of a million other country singers. Yes, the authenticity is gone as Lewis crossed the mid-life crisis bridge some time back.

But take him for all he’s still giving. “The real deal right here.” Kid Rock can be heard saying that after Lewis just kills it at the end of Rockn’ My Life Away. Like Willie Nelson, Chuck Berry, Keith Richards and the recently departed George Jones, this old guy is a survivor.

Jerry Lee Lewis and he’s damn sure here to stay.

Gateway Music

Everything from the Golden Age of the Rolling Stones (1968-1972) from Beggar's Banquet to Exile on Main Street. Mick and the boys rode the British invasion, reviving Buddy Holly and turning white kids on to Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, Percy Sledge, Solomon Burke and the Temptations. In their Golden Age, they would harken to cool dead people from Robert Johnson to the Louvin Brothers.

Everything by Gram Parsons from his late 60s work with the Byrds, International Submarine Band and Flying Burrito Brothers and especially his classic early '70s solo albums, GP and Grevious Angel. Gram turned Keith on to country music and Keith turned Gram on to heroin, so they say.

Nashville -- Solomon Burke. The African-American self-proclaimed king of rock and soul paid tribute to country music -- a love of his since boyhood -- about a year or two before he died. A must hear. Posting a link to an NPR story about Burke and this album upon its release. I remember hearing the news story in my car radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6598905

Beaucoups of Blues -- Ringo Starr. Around the time the Beatles disbanded (circa 1969-70), each of the boys explored their own individual voices and interests on solo records. Here, Starr indulges his love of country music with A-list Nashville musicians.  I'm talking guys who'd worked with the likes of Patsy Cline, Chet Atkins, Tammy Wynette, the Statler Brothers -- hardcore Nashville. 

Gateway literature

Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story by Nick Tosches. A kick-ass writer whose taken on everything from journalistic treatments of Dean Martin and boxing legend Sonny Liston to gothic novels about vampires and Dante's inferno. I first read excerpts of his biography of Lewis in an "Entertainment for Men" magazine when I was in junior high. What my buddies didn't know when we were oggling the girls in stolen moments by the water tower after school is that I was also -- in private moments -- reading the Playboy interviews, short stories, jazz reviews and book excerpts and though I didn't realize it at the time, I was studying.

 My favorite version of the song. Wasn't this portrait taken after Jerry Lee got drunk and waved a gun from inside his white Lincoln Continental near the gates of Graceland?

A forgotten artist whom we would do well to rediscover. He had something. "You Can Have Her" was covered by Lewis, Elvis, Waylon Jennings, Charlie Rich & I don't know who else.

I kept trying to post a Stones video of this song and I'd get this message about it being too big for my player or something like that. Then I googled how to get around that, but the tutorials confused me more. The ADHD set in deeper. This video has only been seen  around 557 times. Some of the best ones are. Anyhow, I was getting so frustrated, I almost said "screw it" & posted some bar band doing a half-assed cover of the song. You know something? Let's do that anyway.

This is where it started for The Killer -- Jerry Lee Lewis.

How the Irish Saved Civilization -- Review

We all know the Irish gave us shamrocks, Notre Dame and St. Patrick’s Day parades. But not too many people would connect the Irish to Homer’s Illiad, Virgil’s Aenid and other such works of classical antiquity.

Medieval historians and people from the Emerald Isle know about the Irish monks who kept classical literature alive after the Roman Empire fell and helped pull Europe out of the Dark Ages. Thomas Cahill gave these monks their due with his 1994 book, How the Irish Saved Civilization. They’re still underrated, but word has gotten around.

Cahill writes with as if he’s talking personally to the reader. He’s like the deft raconteur in an Irish pub, bending your ear over a mug of beer. More a love letter to his Irish heritage than a scholarly work, How the Irish Saved Civilization nevertheless has historical merit.

Common -- and legitimate – criticisms are that the book has a Eurocentric title and doesn’t mention how Islamic scholars paved the way to the Renaissance with their contributions to math, science, literature and the re-discovery of Aristotelian philosophy. But keep in mind, Cahill’s focus is on the re-flowering of Greco-Roman literature, not the sciences. Cahill does mention the preservation work of Byzantine scholars once, but not until nearly the end of the book. In the introduction, he inflates the Irish monks’ role, writing that they “single-handedly refounded European civilization.”

I consider those criticisms to be mild, yet legitimate. Nasty reviews I’ve read, saying the book is full of “lies,” are not. Cahill revels in his Irish roots and at times, he may give way to hyperbole, but overall the book is accurate. I did my own research and confirmed it.

There was, as the book mentions, an Irish monk in the 6th century named Columcille who established a monastery in Scotland called Iona. A monk named Columbanus started famous monestaries like, Luxeil and Bobio. He did travel to present-day France, Switzerland and Italy. Irish saints, such as Brigid of Kildare, Saint Gall of the Alps and Saint Fursey did help restore intellectual life to Europe.

Ireland was renowned for its monestaries; they were the universities of the Medieval period. Irish scholars were instrumental in the Carolingian renaissance of the 8th century, contributing to Charlemagne’s Palatine school. Disciples of Irish monks went on to form their own monasteries and the knowledge proliferated across the continent.

There is a reason Ireland is called the Land of Saints and Scholars. The historical facts bear it out: the Irish helped illuminate the Dark Ages.

                        I'm posting this video because it's by an Irish

                        rock band and it's about Detroit. Like Medieval

                        Europe, Detroit -- original homeland of many

                        great things -- has been relegated to an

                        American Dark Ages and is in need of a

                         Renaissance.

So what made Ireland such an intellectual hub? Location. It was an out of the way island, off the radar screen of the Roman army. Hence, the Barbarians also left it alone. While Germanic Tribes were sacking the Roman Empire and destroying its libraries, learned men retreated to the insular northern isle. When the Irish converted to Christianity, they transcribed the Gospels, followed by the rest of the Bible and went on to the pagan works of the fallen empire.

Cahill does not start talking about these monks until the last quarter of the book, another reason why he might have chosen a different title. At first, it’s unclear why Cahill focuses on the fall of the Roman Empire, St. Augustine and the Latin writer Ausonious. What do they have to do with Irish history? Near the end, it all fits together.

Cahill uses Augustine as a lens from which to view the late Roman Empire, but also as a contrast to St. Patrick. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, was austere, erudite and melancholic. St. Patrick was earthy, unlettered and friendly. Augustine represented the one facet of Roman life that survived when the empire fell – the Catholic Church. St. Patrick represented the unique Irish Catholic Church, “the first de-Romanized Christianity in human history.”

The Celtic cross on the cover of the book is a clue to why St. Patrick was successful in converting the Irish. He met them where they lived and if they wanted to combine their ancient Druidism with their newfound Christianity, it was all good. Such independent thinking enabled the Irish to handle ancient Greco-Roman literature without the hang-ups other European Christians had about pagan works.

   Book of Kells

Cahill describes how the Irish related to and influenced the Catholic Church. I did not know until reading this book that confession used to be public. The Irish started the tradition of private confession before a priest. Cahill expressed an interesting view regarding the Irish and The Church:

“It is a shame that private confession is one of the few Irish innovations that passed into the universal church. How different might Catholicism be today if it had taken over the easy Irish attitudes toward diversity, authority, the role of women and the relative unimportance of sexual mores.”

Cahill’s opinions are informed. While his book is more lighthearted than scholarly, Cahill – a retired professor with degrees in subjects like philosophy and classical literature -- is scholarly. The sources he cites in his bibliography are scholarly.

How the Irish Saved Civilization is far from perfect. The definitive work on the Medieval Irish monks is yet to be written. But Cahill’s book is a fun read and a great starting point for history lovers who want to learn more. It whets my appetite to read more about Augustine and St. Patrick.

Oh, and it also wets my appetite to imbibe in some barley beverages with my friends at our favorite neighborhood dive on St. Patrick’s Day.

Gateway Literature: Cahill has gone on to write books on the contributions Jews, Christians and Greeks have made to civilization. They would be good to check out. With these other explorations of cultures, I think it would be neat if Cahill went ahead and wrote about the Islamic scholars – and maybe others from the East – who influenced Western culture. But I don't think that's his forte.

I mentioned that Cahill cites scholarly sources. All the works cited in his bibliography are worth delving into especially the series of books by retired Princeton University professor Peter Brown. His scholarship in late Roman antiquity, Medieval times and the early church was groundbreaking and Cahill could not have written his book, had Brown not paved the way.

Then there’s the classical works: Plato, Cicero, Virgil, Juvenal, Ovid, Tacticus…I say, read ‘em with relish. I definitely plan to read, compare and contrast Augustine’s Confession and St. Patrick’s Confession.

Hell, I can’t let St. Patrick’s Day go by without speaking up for the top echelon of Irish writers: Frank McCourt (“It was of course a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.”), Seamus Heaney and going back, James Joyce. (Ulysses, lost in veiled sexuality, anxiety and eternal pedantry will screw pleasingly with your mind.)

My friend, Marilyn Parrish -- a Joycean scholar and retired English professor at Wichita’s Newman University – once got to chat with Seamus Heaney for about three hours at some pub in the hills of Ireland. She died a couple of years ago. Miss you, Marilyn. Classic Book Club at Watermark ain’t the same without you.

Gateway Music: Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, the Pogues: They effing rock – and they wear their Irishness like the Kinks wore their Englishness. Is it okay to mention the English alongside the Irish? Well screw it, call me sacrilegious, but I did it.

I can’t leave out The Clancy Brothers, a traditional Irish folk quartet that gained fame across the Atlantic when Irish-American Catholic John F. Kennedy was in the White House. I knew nothing about this group until a few years ago when NPR reported that Liam Clancy, of the group, died at age 74. These Irish folkies influenced promethean American folk-rocker Bob Dylan and apparently they were featured multiple times on The Ed Sullivan Show – a lot more times than The Beatles.

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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation review

Familiarity breeds contempt. That’s never truer than with family. Mix it with holiday stress and you've got tension bordering on combustible. Yet, even if plans go awry and everything turns to bedlam, Christmas gatherings make for our most joyous memories from childhood. So we honor tradition by joining together in a spirit of yuletide hell.

But hey, misery loves comedy.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is the third – and funniest – installment of Vacation movies to come out in the 1980s. The comedy from filmmaker John Hughes follows the madcap formula set by the previous Vacation films except in this film, the Grisswolds stay home and the annoying relatives vacation at their house. If The Breakfast Club was Hughes’s most angst-filled and teen-centered comedy, Christmas Vacation was his most slapstick and familial.

You gotta’ love Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase). If he risks giving his daughter hypothermia, picking out the “perfect Christmas tree” in the forest, it’s only because he wants to create memories for his family. Sure his good-hearted efforts always blow up like exploding sewage against a deep blue sky on Christmas night. But God love this sentimental fool – this most classic of goofball dads. He’s got a heart as big as the North Pole.

He relishes the 25,000 twinkling lights on his house. True, he causes a temporary power outage in Chicago, but you know, he put a lot of work into it. (Christmas Vacation took place in suburban Chicago, as did all Hughes’s films.)

Haven’t we all known a Griswold Christmas house? A gaudy, blinding, incandescent display of Christmas excess. In my hometown it was the house with psychedelic Christmas lights or the one with an iridescent American flag hovering over the baby Jesus. But maybe those people were showing the enthusiasm of a Clark Griswold.

If you don’t that, maybe you’re like Grizwold’s Grinch-like next door neighbors Todd and Margo Chester, played respectively by Nicholas Guest and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (prior to her work as Elaine on Seinfeld). They’re a cold, self-loving, Regan era, pretentious and most bah-humbug couple who disdain Griswold and his incorruptible Christmas cheer. (He accidently sends a Christmas tree flying through their window.)

Then there are the relatives – a comic mélange of older actors playing grandparents, aunts and uncles. (Of these veteran actors and actresses, only Doris Roberts is still living.) There’s the senile old aunt who puts her cat in a gift box and says the pledge of allegiance, when asked to say grace at dinner and the uncle who wears a rug on his head and falls asleep with a lit cigar in his mouth.

But the all out craziest character – can anyone who’s seen this movie not agree? – is Cousin Eddie. Randy Quaid truly brought something inside himself to this role. His mansplainin’ body language, trailer-chawed voice and commanding leisure suit scream Cousin Eddie.

We’ve all had a Cousin Eddie in our lives. In Christmas Vacation, he is the relative from the boughs of hell, the hick who shows up unannounced; parking a dilapidated RV that looks like it came from a survivalist camp next to your house. He and his family plan to stay a month. Oh and the family includes a Rottweiler -bloodhound mix named Snots who likes to get in the trash and go to town on your leg.

The interplay between Clark and Cousin Eddie makes for some of the funniest dialogue in a movie. The physical and situational comedy is complemented by great writing from John Hughes.

Examples:

"They had to replace my metal plate with a plastic one. Every time Catherine would rev up the microwave, I’d piss my pants and forget who I was for about half an hour.”

“You couldn’t hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.”

“Shall I get you some eggnog, something to eat, drive you to the middle of nowhere, and leave you for dead?”

Cousin Eddie’s financial woes coincide with Clark’s own troubles. He’s counting on his Christmas bonus, but finds out at the last minute that his boss, Frank Shirley, played by Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill’s brother) hasn’t given bonuses this year. He’s a nicely comic bad guy, serving as a Scrooge-like character. With Christmas gone to pot, Clark gone a little psychotic (the scene of him punching the plastic Santa in his lawn may be the biggest belly laugh scenes of the movie) and a police car scene reminiscent of The Blues Brothers, the film reaches a comic pinnacle big as the polar express. The comic scenes in the last quarter of Christmas Vacation have been successfully copied in other films.

Released Dec. 1, 1989, Christmas Vacation capped off a decade in which its screenwriter John Hughes was king. A year later, Hughes’s other wonderful Christmas movie – his last truly great movie – Home Alone would be released. There would be a bit more film dabbling, but for all intents and purposes, he was retired. He died in 2009, another vestige of my youth gone.

In an otherwise lackluster decade of yuppie-like plasticity, Hughes wrote with truth, revealing in his teen movies, a feeling of empathy like no one had seen before in the genre. Yet, one also sensed a warm spot for family. He was a little like Clark Griswold. This artist who captured the zeitgeist of the ‘80s teenager so pleasantly, also kept within him a never gone nostalgia for his own 1950s’ and ‘60s childhood and adolescence.

Christmas Vacation was based on a story he wrote entitled Christmas ’59. The original Vacation movie was based on a story he wrote called Vacation ’58 – both of them written for the magazine National Lampoon – the same satirical outfit where comic geniuses like Chase and fellow Saturday Night Live alums Gilda Radner and John Belushi got their start.

In this story, Hughes tapped into something from his own life and yours. Life is too damned serious as we’ve been reminded again this holiday season, so get all the laughs in while you can. Surrounded by your idiosyncratic relatives, watching Christmas Vacation, you can’t go wrong.

One last thing

The older actors and actresses in Christmas Vacation came with impressive credentials, appearing in various films and stage productions over the decades. I was particularly interested to learn that Mae Questel, who played senile Aunt Bethany, was the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl, Popeye's girlfriend, in cartoons dating as far back as 1931. Having seen her as an old lady, it was also neat to learn what a dish she was in her young days. Check her out in this musical number with Rudy Vallee, who was like the Elvis of the flapper set.

The Monkees - Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)

Written by Neil Diamond before he became big as a solo act. Nicely sung by Davy Jones. Sorry we lost him recently.