Drinking in America

[fasstrack]

Just piled in and I can see this is gonna be a page turner. Heard of it before but picked it up for that ever-popular price: free. History books can be a laborious read but I can see the authors are good at terse prose that moves and has humor-like Nell Painter's History of White People, which I experienced Readus Interruptus w/and will get back to. So being that I only just started feel free to begin w/o me. I'll be out doing, um, research. 'Where's my damn Rob Roy? What, the guy went alj the way back to get the Mayflower stash?'

[fasstrack]

  On 9/9/2012 at 3:29 PM, fasstrack said:

Just piled in and I can see this is gonna be a page turner. Heard of it before but picked it up for that ever-popular price: free. History books can be a laborious read but I can see the authors are good at terse prose that moves and has humor-like Nell Painter's History of White People, which I experienced Readus Interruptus w/and will get back to. So being that I only just started feel free to begin w/o me. I'll be out doing, um, research.

This is too rich not to share: p. 5. (my set-up) The colonists couldn't get decent ingredients for beer-making. One wrote this paean to ingenuouity: If barley be wanting to make into malt/We must be cmtent and think it no fault/For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips/Of pumpkins, and parsnips, and walnut-tree tips. The authors' deadpan response: 'One suspects that the beers produced from such recipes were little better than the poetry'. Agreed, Ogden Nash can rest easy (;

[Pete C]

I assume you're not talking about this:

[fasstrack]

  On 9/9/2012 at 8:50 PM, Pete C said:

I assume you're not talking about this:

No-but thanks for the offer (; Seriously, the book came first. But maybe Bogosian was how I knew the title. Hacks borrow, talents steal. Or something.

[Tom Storer]

  On 9/9/2012 at 10:53 PM, fasstrack said:

  On 9/9/2012 at 8:50 PM, Pete C said:

I assume you're not talking about this:

No-but thanks for the offer (; Seriously, the book came first. But maybe Bogosian was how I knew the title. Hacks borrow, talents steal. Or something.

I suppose I could Google it, Joel, but what the hell, I'll just ask. Who wrote the book you are talking about and when was it published?

[Pete C]

Boy was there drinking in early America. The temperance movement was not a response to casual, "social" drinking...

[fasstrack]

  On 9/10/2012 at 9:02 AM, Tom Storer said:

  On 9/9/2012 at 10:53 PM, fasstrack said:

  On 9/9/2012 at 8:50 PM, Pete C said:

I assume you're not talking about this:

No-but thanks for the offer (; Seriously, the book came first. But maybe Bogosian was how I knew the title. Hacks borrow, talents steal. Or something.

I suppose I could Google it, Joel, but what the hell, I'll just ask. Who wrote the book you are talking about and when was it published?

Thanks for asking, my bad. Guess I figured everyone knew-jazz fans being as big drunks as the musicians, what with poverty and unheralded genius (; It was written by 2 academics (and is not only very readable but hilarious. These 2 are hams from the old country), Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin and published originally in '82 by Free Press. I have the revised '87 edition.

[fasstrack]

Did anyone else read this? I'm getting through it very slowly, with little time to read these days. But it's very good---like readable, populist history. I guess someone else agreed, b/c it came out in '82 and was reprinted not long ago.

Edited September 24, 2012 by fasstrack

[fasstrack]

Guys: You GOTTA read this! I don't know whether it's the Colonials or the authors documenting them who are such a laugh riot. All I know is every page has me in stitches, even as I learn. I wonder now if Bogosian's play really WAS based on the book. If so, what a gimme! He wouldn't have had to write a word...