May-June 2007

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

The NY Times Book Review two weeks ago wrote about a new book called Faking It-The Quest For Authenticity in Popular Music (Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor).  I am about halfway through, and want to suggest it as a must read because it has a fascinating focus on the roots of folk music in the South (using John Hurt as an example) and the difficulty in defining folk music, etc. It is a fairly easy read and I think you will be very happy that you purchased or borrowed this book.

Bruce.

Newman, DeCoster & Co.

Bruce S. Newman, Attorney at Law, CPA; Peter J. DeCoster, FCA

I have to tell you about this book I am just finishing called Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich. It is brand new but you can order it from the library. From a fascinating anthropological standpoint she explains how, starting in the neolithic, people have had circle and line dancing and how important it is to humans--something we have evolved with.

And what happens when people are not allowed to have such gatherings, over our history up to the present day.

I know none of US have to be convinced of any of this, but this book gives a whole slant that is new, and things to say to people who don't understand what's so good about participating in gatherings such as ours.

Amazingly, she doesn't seem to even know about modern Balkan dance culture, or a few other things, but that just makes reading it all the more magical and resonant.

Singing and dancing to save the world,

Rebecca Dwan