Reading Bones, Clubs, and Vices

Once upon a time I was wont to browse the shelves of physical book stores because… well… it was the most effective way to browse. To be sure, I did buy from mail order catalogues, too, but at least 80% of my purchases were from brick and mortar stores. Nowadays, of course, nearly all my browsing is online – most commonly ER Hamilton and Amazon. There is a difference in outcome. Due to limited time, I would tend to concentrate on only a few sections (sometimes just one) of an actual bookstore per visit (e.g. scifi, history, new releases, or what-have-you), so I tended to walk away on each occasion with books in the same genre. Today, the contents of each “shopping cart” (especially from ER Hamilton) are hodgepodge. There is something to be said for each shopping method, but below are three from one such hodgepodge.

Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton 

Thanks to a backlog of manuscripts on his hard drive, the prolific author Michael Crichton continues to publish books more than a decade after his death. Though the tone and prose style are very much vintage Crichton, the 2017 offering Dragon Teeth differs from his usual genres. It is a historical novel set in the old West in 1876. The backdrop is the very real rivalry between dinosaur bone hunting Professors Marsh and Cope. “Rivalry” scarcely describes it, since it extended to shots fired.

On a bet, effete Yale student William Johnson, from a wealthy Philadelphia family, joins Marsh’s expedition to dig for fossils out West. The paranoid Marsh suspects him of being a spy for his rival Cope and abandons him in Cheyenne. He joins Cope’s expedition in turn but finds himself separated again in the midst of the Sioux Wars. Harrowing experiences follow in the badlands and in Deadwood including with the Earp brothers.

This is a solid adventure tale informed by Crichton’s usual depth of research. It offers a window into 1876 with details about everything from wet plate photography to the demography of Deadwood.

**** ****

CBGB & OMFUG – with text by Hilly Kristal and David Byrne

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this, but it was discounted to a few bucks so there didn’t seem to be much potential downside. It turned out to be more photo album than text, but that is fine given the topic. It covers the whole existence of Hilly Kristal’s dive club CBGB from 1973 to 2006, but of course the highlights are from the 1970s when the Ramones, Patti Smith, the Cramps, AC/DC, Talking Heads, the Police, the Runaways, Lydia Lunch, Blondie, and many many other later-famous bands played there. The letters stand for Country, Blue Grass, Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers, but from the outset proto-punk and punk bands dominated the stage. This caught Kristal by surprise, but he was OK with it.  

Regrettably, I didn’t see any of those bands until after they were famous and had expensive tickets. I did hang out in NYC music clubs in the 1970s, but usually in the Village and Midtown. CBGB was in the Bowery which at the time was run-down and isolated from the major nightlife areas. I was clueless that the ‘70s were happening there. By the time I was fully aware of the club’s importance, it wasn’t so important anymore.

Missed opportunities of this type are not unusual. My footfalls typically alight a few steps behind the times. In the 60s this wasn’t as noticeable since I had a hip older sister who introduced sounds and trends into the house when they were avant-garde rather than last year’s news. By this point in the 70s, however, she was living in Hollywood, so I lacked proper direction. At least this photo album shows what was missed.

The 2013 movie CBGB, btw, didn’t get a lot of love. The main complaint by viewers seems to have been the use of recordings from real bands to which the actors portraying the youthful musicians lip-synch – as opposed to playing live covers. If one makes allowances, however, for the budget and production constraints that led to this decision, the film isn’t bad. (Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scW0Dqims9c)

**** ****

The Good Vices: From Beer to Sex, the Surprising Truth about What’s Actually Good for You by Dr, Harry Ofgang and Erik Ofgang 

Despite the subtitle, none of this is very surprising to those who have followed news about health research in the past couple of decades. However, there is still a lot of resistance to the message in some circles, so the book has some value. Since the Wellness movement of more than a century ago many health enthusiasts have seemed to argue that any satisfying pleasure must be bad for you. Those arguments haven’t gone away entirely. Some of them are even right: it’s hard to find anything redeeming about tobacco, for instance. Yet, a great many more have been undermined by recent studies on everything from egg yolks to alcohol to animal fat. The key, of course, is moderation.

Regardless, the authors remind us, nothing saves us from the reaper in the end. They mention the old Rodney Dangerfield joke about how his doctor told him that if he ate right, exercised, and got plenty of fresh air, he’d get old, sick, and die. So, personal happiness always should count in the equation.

Martha Tilton – A Little Jive Is Good For You (1941)