Curiosity

Some years at this time my mind wants to search around in Sir James G. Frazer's "The Golden Bough." Why, because his was the first detailed description I found in my life about the origins of Christianity, especially of the pagan myths which are conveniently passed over by most Christians, including theologians and the present Republican presidential contenders.

A fellow sailor, who had studied philosophy at the University of Chicago, a steam engineer by trade, had pointed out this huge work of Frazer's in the fifties (originally published in 12 volumes, luckily Frazer's wife suggested a one volume abridgement, which they did together -- evidently, although in the edition I have, The Macmillan Company, c1922 -- it had gone through 12 printings by 1972, she is not given an iota of credit) . It is called "a world classic..." and was the reason he was knighted by the Queen in his lifetime.

The work is a huge monument to human curiosity and intellectual scholarship. I am amazed that it is so little known now-a-days. The copy I got from the local library had to come inter library loan from a high school library in another part of the state (the local library has a beautiful, heavily illustrated version which unfortunately is very short on content). Called "One of the 20th century's most influential books ... Sir James Frazer left a lasting mark on science, literature and history of western thought." Don't miss it, especially at Easter and Christmas times, but any time your curiosity about the past is active and searching.

Hippy & Yippy

A visit to a local middle school English writing class focused on this BLOG and solicited comments and request for improvement suggestions. One of the students wanted to know if I was a "hippy;" fair enough question since I have consorted with hippies, often partied with them and exchanged views, street, community, etc. My response was "no," that I was a "zippy," superficially a high powered "hippy," but the description/descriptions goes much deeper than that.

Like all monikers, the words are fictitious but useful at times. Just as I have always been suspicious and distrustful of diminutives and nick names, I have as well eschewed names which tend to be often used in dismissive way, to typify someone who is, in fact, which more complex and unfathomable when burdened with these names, eg, expletives used on people from minority groups.

Mr. Natural was a comic figure created by R. Crumb as a key person in his panoply of characters which depicted subcultures of that time, including, of course, hippies. Because Mr. Natch was on the zippy part of the spectrum (many of his characters were not, in fact most were not), he held a special place in American life of the sixties and seventies and I found myself putting a decal of him striding down the way on a window of my van (another question, I think by the same fellow, "did you have a van?). Well, this was a mistake, in part, because Mr. Natural then became one of my monikers, whether I liked it or not. With a beard down to my chest, it was if I were a younger version of this amazing comic character.

"So what?", as Andy Warhol would have said. In order to try and illustrate the difference a bit I pointed out to the students that Abbie Hoffman and his gang of merry zippies could be examined as exemplary of zippy activity. For example, throwing hundreds of one dollar bills around to the floor of the N.Y. Stock Exchange as a bit of political satire and avant garde protest antedating by many years the current protests against Wall Street. The spectacle of suited stockbrokers groveling and competing for one dollar bills on camera is certainly one of the most expressive examples of zippyness. Carry on.