My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy by Katherine Clark - Five Star Book Review

 BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS

My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy by Katherine Clark

In 1972 as fate would have it my wife and I first encountered Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, on the maiden voyage of our dream boat Dursmirg. This was one of the Sea Islands with no bridge or telephone and had just gotten electric. The population was 85 and eleven were white. Pat Conroy had just been there, written his controversial book The Water is Wide and monumental change was about to change this place forever.

It was an enchanting place still locked in a forgotten century with more ox carts than automobiles.

We fell in love with the place and even wrote a book about it, Sailing the Sea Islands: Travels of Dursmirg.

We were so very lucky to to find this once in a lifetime place and the timing was right.

This biographical story of Pat Conroy is a classic and a real gem...we loved it!

Excerpts:

When someone once asked him why he collaborated with me on this book, Conroy replied, “My vanity got the better of my false modesty.” Although I love that response, I believe he was being—as usual—comically self-deprecating. A more serious and true answer to that question can be found I think in The Lords of Discipline, when the protagonist Will McLean reacts to the cruelties and injustices he experiences by vowing to himself: “I shall bear witness against them.” Conroy himself suffered cruelties and injustices throughout his life, from the time he was a child beaten by a violent and abusive father. The man who emerged from the crucible of chronic trauma was a warrior of words, determined to bear witness to the wrongs inflicted on the innocent and vulnerable by the corrupt and powerful. Pat Conroy never stopped being such a warrior, never ceased in his mission to bear witness against all kinds of evil, both individual and institutional.

There was a time when I had blood surging through my veins, when I was young and could not do enough good for the world. So Bernie and I applied to the Peace Corps. When we never heard from that, Bernie found out about this job on Daufuskie Island.

It was the first year of teacher integration, and the county was in a bind. They needed some white schoolteachers on this all-black island, which had two black teachers there already. So Bernie said, “Pat, why don’t you and I go over, rent a house and live there?

In the world of literature I don’t like bindings; I don’t like handcuffs; I don’t like readers who point and say you cannot go there; you are not allowed to go.

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Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex by Owen Chase - book review

 

BOOK REVIEW – FIVE STARS

Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex by Owen Chase

In the early 1800s at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution demand for lubricants and illuminating fuel oil drove demand for whale byproducts to price levels that skyrocketed the whaling industry. This story is a part of that frenzied rush to harpoon every last whale, akin to the manic determination to exterminate every last buffalo and passenger pigeon.

This true and gripping narrative is stranger than fiction. The second half of the book is a collection of more stranger than fiction whaling thrillers.

EXCERPTS:

From the accounts of those who were in the early stages of the fishery concerned in it, it would appear that the whales have been driven, like the beasts of the forest, before the march of civilization into remote and more unfrequented seas, until, now they are followed by the enterprise and perseverance of our seamen even to the distant coasts of Japan.

The ship Essex, commanded by Captain George Pollard, junior, was fitted out at Nantucket, and sailed on the 12th day of August, 1819, for the Pacific Ocean, on a whaling voyage. Of this ship I was first mate. She had lately undergone a thorough repair in her upper works, and was at that time, in all respects, a sound, substantial vessel: she had a crew of twenty-one men, and was victualed and provided for two years and a half. We left the coast of America with a fine breeze, and steered for the Western Islands.

Of the passage of this famous Cape it may be observed that strong westerly gales and a heavy sea are its almost universal attendants: the prevalence and constancy of this wind and sea necessarily produce a rapid current, by which vessels are set to leeward; and it is not without some favorable slant of wind that they can in many cases get round at all. The difficulties and dangers of the passage are proverbial; but as far as my own observation extends (and which the numerous reports of the whale men corroborate), you can always rely upon a long and regular sea; and although the gales may be very strong and stubborn, as they undoubtedly are, they are not known to blow with the destructive violence that characterizes some of the tornadoes of the western Atlantic Ocean.

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The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology by James A. O'Kon - BOOK REVIEW

 

BOOK REVIEW: FIVE STARS

The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology by James A. O'Kon

The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology is an extensive compendium of the stand alone scientific knowledge base that impacts the world’s economic and health environment to this day handed down to us by the ancient Olmec/Mayan civilizations.

This was an excellent book except for the following that were important to development of the world’s economic health and overlooked in the book: 1. Nixtamalization of maize (Indian corn) and numerous medicines such as hypnotic drugs like morning glory blossom seeds. If you eat four seeds you will feel good, but if you ingested forty you will begin building pyramids.

2. The Chontal Maya and their extensive sea going trade network to North America, South America and the Caribbean Sea. Copper from upper Michigan, Inca produce and craftsmanship plus the sharing of sustaining agricultural technology...just a few of the multitude of acquired and innovated achievements that being the hemisphere’s largest exporter of sea salt. This sea salt trade was commandeered from the Maya by the conquistador Spanish and continues production in northern Yucatan to this day.

EXCERPTS:

At the height of their civilization, their scientific and technological achievements were more advanced than any other culture on the planet.

Maya created written almanacs of solar and lunar cycles of Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn with great precision.

Maya mathematical system used a base of 20, rather than a base of 10 (used in European mathematics), and enabled the calculation of massive numbers using only three symbols in addition to the basic functions. Their development of positional mathematics enabled the calculation of numbers in magnitudes of the hundreds of trillions.

These masters of the written word not only chronicled the history of the Maya and executed daily correspondence that managed the city-state, but they wrote thousands of books dealing with numerous and diverse subjects including history, royal lineage, matters of astronomy, mathematics, calendars, technology, medicine, law, ritual, music, and the natural history of plants and animals, among other subjects. During the Classic Period, from AD 250 to AD 900, the sophistication of Maya arts and sciences soared while Europe stumbled through the Dark Ages. When the Maya were enjoying the good life in their grand cities with populations of 100,000, London was a swampy river trading town with 9,000 inhabitants.

A popular part of American and world history books, the chronicles of the King under Spanish Colonial rule, and best-selling novels, all of which brought the romantic story of the Inca and their bridges to the attention of the world. This was not the case for the Maya, whose civilization had collapsed 600 years before the conquest and did not have Spanish chronicles describing examples of their lost technology.????? (only in the state of Yucatan)

Because of the records left by the Spanish chronicles, the Inca had a historic advantage over other pre-Columbian cultures, with the exception of the Aztecs. The Maya did not have this advantage. The Maya civilization and its technology had collapsed 600 years before the conquest. ???? (not so)

Maya society optimized their disposable time for advancing science and expanding ideas. This disposable time was made possible by the bountiful harvests that enabled city dwellers freedom from farm labor. Nixtamalization?

Maya cities were masterpieces of artistic and technological creativity brought to realization by the invention of cast-in-place concrete, tall structures, efficient infrastructure, and city planning. The urban city-states were a tour de force of Maya intellectualism. The Maya transportation systems with all-weather roads and seagoing vessels brought wealth to the city-states by enabling successful trade throughout Mesoamerica and across the seas. Chontal Maya?

Fortune turned against the Maya: between the fateful period of AD 790 to AD 910 the greatest drought in 7,000 years engulfed the Yucatan, brought about demographic devastation on a scale unparalleled in world history, and destroyed their exquisite scientific civilization. (only in the northwestern Yucatan)

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Canoeing with the Cree by Eric Sevareid - book review

 

BOOK REVIEW – FIVE STARS

Canoeing with the Cree by Eric Sevareid

A once in a life time epic adventure brought to fruition by a young high school graduate of Norwegian extraction. Meticulously planned and spurned on by youthful exuberance this escapade would prove to be a dangerous undertaking.

I originally read the book over thirty years ago. This trip had been in my mind my whole life and as adventuresome as I am I was very happy that Eric Sevareid made the trip and documented it so exquisitely to satisfy my dreams of wanderlust.

The book is a real thriller even on the second read.

Excerpts:

Two young men about to graduate from high school, begins as do many youthful dreams. On the cusp of adulthood, with nothing ostensible to lose, Eric Sevareid and his friend Walt Port decide to leave the comforts of their homes to seek adventure—in a secondhand, eighteen-foot, voyageur-style canoe. While Minneapolis was already a mature city in 1930, the wilderness of the great north woods was as close as a train stop, or two, away. Early in the boys’ trip, just a few hundred into the eventual 2,500 miles, they look out over the Minnesota River from a tower at Fort Ridgely. From this high vantage Sevareid muses that there is much more river ahead! Their long trek north along many rivers, passing early trading posts and eventually reaching the great Hudson Bay and sea beyond, would be the first documented canoe trip along this historic route.

I am sure there were tears in his eyes, and I know there were tears in mine, and in Walt’s. Half a mile away, at the first bend, we turned and saw his tall figure at the water’s edge. He was still watching us. The doctor’s parting words repeated themselves in my brain continually during the rest of the day: “Don’t let anyone, no matter who he is, convince you that your trip can’t be completed.

"You have youth and strength, and courage too, I hope, and with a little common sense you can do it.”

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Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire by Eric Berkowitz - book review

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS

Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire by Eric Berkowitz

Extraordinary documentary of the evolutionary progression of organized religion and governmental extremes that taxed, punished and tortured to build a power base while amassing ill-gotten wealth.

This tome is a collection of facts arranged chronologically as civilizations evolved.

Points proven; It is far better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent.

EXCERPTS:

Jesus Christ said much about love, but precious little about sex. Although his own life was relatively chaste by local standards, the fine points of sexual behavior were not his main concerns. He made no statements on carnal relations between the unmarried or homosexuals, he was tolerant of prostitutes, and he was less harsh toward adulterers than the Jews had been. But Jesus the man did not last long in this world, and soon his word was taken up by others. His most influential followers were consumed with sex in all of its permutations and devoted much of their attention to questions of sexual morality. Jesus’s relative indifference never prevented the Christian fathers from devising a violent array of restrictions in the Savior’s name.

First generation of Christian sages was the Apostle Paul, who taught that sexual behavior could be nearly as bad as murder: Homosexuals, masturbators, adulterers, anyone who sought sexual satisfaction for its own sake were, he said, to be barred from the kingdom of God.

Paul was no great proponent of matrimony either.

Marriage was a crutch for those too weak in their faith to give up sex entirely. “It is better to marry than to burn,” so if they could stand it; those who were already married should stay with their husbands and wives. No more divorce, remarriage, prostitutes, or concubines were permitted. To keep a lid on adulterous desires, Paul instructed husbands and wives to submit to each other’s sexual demands

For the common Christian, sex was acceptable in limited quantities, at least until Judgment Day.

Polanski’s crime was an accident of history. It was only recently that encounters between men and girls that age became illegal at all. Had he been caught less than a century earlier, the law would have looked the other way. California’s legal age of consent during the nineteenth century was ten, as in most other states in the Union (in Delaware, it was seven). The state raised it to fourteen in 1889 after a tussle between Christian pressure groups and male legislators.

Depictions of male homosexuality were risky even though private homosexual sex was no longer strictly illegal. There were more prosecutions against homosexual pornographers than there were against homosexuals. “Sapphism” was particularly irksome to the police. Absent special certification, women were not even permitted publicly to wear men’s clothing in public.

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