Short Takes

by Nina Shengold, February 05, 2008

Miss You, Pat: Collected Memories of NY’s Bravest of the Brave, Captain Patrick J. Brown
Sharon Watts
www.missyoupat.org, 2007, $20
A quilt of reminiscences of 9/11 hero “Patty” Brown—firefighter, yoga practitioner, ex-drinker, Golden Gloves contender, Broadway musical fan—stitched together by his former fiancee. Prompted by a collage tribute in Grand Central Station, Watts’ book packs an emotional punch, reminding us how many lives one man can touch. Reading and candlelight yoga class at the Yoga Coop, Garrison Spa, 2/24 at 6:30pm. Call (845) 224-9909 to preregister.


The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guard’s Journey From Ground Zero to Baghdad
Sean Michael Flynn
Viking, 2007, $25.95
Founded in the Civil War era, NYC’s celebrated “Fighting Irish” National Guard unit slid into deep disgrace by the 1990s. But the multiethnic 69th rose to the challenges of Ground Zero crisis control and, later, deployment in Iraq. Red Hook High School graduate, author, and National Guard company commander Flynn tells a gritty, tough inside story. Reading at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, 2/16 at 7:30 pm.


Punk 365
Holly George-Warren, foreword by Richard Hell
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2007, $29.95
Phoenicia music maven and Gene Autry biographer George-Warren trades her spurs for Doc Martens in this slammin’ photo tribute to ‘70s and ‘80s punk. A year of sneers from Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Debbie Harry, the B52s, Elvis Costello, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks, X, Black Flag, and more, including Chronogram music editor Peter Aaron’s riff on the Bad Brains.

Fear and Loathing in Boca Raton
Steven Lewis
Quill Driver Books, 2008, $14.95
A big-hearted comic manifesto for graybeard Woodstockers who’ve rambled from the Aquarian ‘60s to the sexagenarian sixties with their senses of humor intact. New Paltz’s Lewis delivers the goods on vintage sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll with chapter titles like “Still Getting It On After All These Years,” “Ganga For Gramps,” and “The Gray Album.”
Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology
Peter Lamborn Wilson, Christopher Bamford, Kevin Townley
introduction by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan
Lindisfarne Books, 2007, $20
A 2003 conference in New Paltz, “The Sacred Theory of the Earth,” gave rise to this impassioned collection of essays seeking “a sacred theory of earth” with roots in the hermetic-Romantic tradition of 18th-century visionary Novalis. A mind-bending exploration of such topics as the alchemical nature of concrete (including Rosendale cement), shamanistic animal transformation, and Original Light.
“If You Turned Into a Monster” Transformation Through Play: A Body-Centered Approach to Play Therapy
Dennis McCarthy
Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007, $29.95
In clear and accessible language, Kingston-based therapist McCarthy describes how he empowers troubled children through sandplay, movement, and permission to draw, name, and claim the monster within: “When the child makes a drawing, tells a story, or makes a scene in the sandbox, we have before us in symbolic form the closest glimpse possible of the human psyche.” An illuminating read.