Book Review: Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives (1999). Tom Shroder.

In previous reviews I discussed the research and books by two successive University of Virginia psychiatrists over the past fifty years who have done extensive research around the world into the strange phenomenon of small children who appear to remember significant details about previous lives recently lived.   

These two doctors are the late Dr. Ian Stevenson, who started the ongoing study at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s, and Dr. Jim Tucker, who was a student and the eventual successor to Dr. Stevenson.  Both of these doctors have written books about their careers, their research, and the many "solved" and "unsolved" cases in their case files.  

Old Souls, written by a career journalist with long tenures at the Washington Post and the Miami Herald, is an "outsider's" account of his own investigation into Stevenson's work and research methods, which he pursued by accompanying the 79-year-old Stevenson on his last two major foreign research trips, first to Lebanon after the civil war there, and then to poverty-stricken rural parts of India.  

 

It's a  fascinating journalistic account by a skeptical observer, who by the end was forced to a very similar position regarding these cases of children's memories of past lives as that expressed by both Stevenson and Tucker: that is, that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that this phenomenon is real and not fabricated, that Stevenson's and Tucker's research methods and protocols are scientifically sound, repeatable and appear most likely to be evidence of reincarnation, but that we may well never be able to understand or scientifically prove it, or understand it, unless we can somehow learn far more about the scientific nature of consciousness and of reality itself. Recommended.

Movies: Livin' Right Now (2005), and Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy World Tour (2008). Keith Urban.

Hello! It’s Rock and Roll Friday again here at The Memory Cache, the fourth Friday of each month, where for the past few months I’ve been posting reviews of books and shows about music, its history and some of my favorite artists and bands as a fan as well as a musician.

This month I don’t have any major new book or TV reviews, so instead today I’m going to talk about a couple of outstanding concert videos which are among the favorites on my bookshelf. These might be available from the library; otherwise they can probably still be found for sale on Amazon. I know that releasing full-length feature concerts on DVD is probably becoming a thing of the past for most music stars (along with DVDs!), but I want to share a couple of the best from my concert video library.

Today I want to talk about two concert DVDs from earlier in the career of my current favorite major rock star, Keith Urban. Keith Urban is technically considered to be a country music star, but his extensive catalog of music crosses over and includes influences from many strains of popular music, definitely including country and rock, but also folk and blues, pop, and in recent years, hip-hop, R&B and electronic dance music too.

I first discovered his music in 2016, already almost 20 years into his brilliant (and ongoing) career, when I took a listening foray into the world of modern country music after a family trip to Nashville. This was toward the end of Tom Petty’s career and life (my previous favorite), and I was feeling a need to explore some new music, and see if there were contemporary artists in country music that I might like, since there didn’t seem to be a lot new going on in rock music anymore. I actually listened to music from a half-dozen or so of the top country stars of the moment, including Blake Shelton, Thomas Rhett, Chris Stapleton and Brad Paisley, and liked several of them, but Keith Urban’s music stood out as utterly unique among them. It immediately caught my attention.

His songs had plenty of country elements, particularly during the early part of his career, like the sound of banjos and mandolins mixed in, but the songs were more complex in structure than most 3-chord country songs, the lyrics told emotionally appealing and relatable stories, Urban’s wonderful voice and delivery were captivating, and the lead guitar playing (also Urban) was absolutely thrilling to hear.

After I started collecting his albums, and becoming more familiar with my fast-expanding library of his amazing, memorable and addictive songs, I became aware of two full-length movies he had made of earlier concert tours, as his career was on the rise and gathering momentum. The first, Livin’ Right Now, was from 2005; and then he released another one, Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy World Tour, in 2008. I immediately ordered them both, and they were a revelation to see.

The thing I’ve come to believe about Keith Urban is that he is perhaps the most completely realized male rock star of my lifetime, in that he is the whole package of rock star skills and abilities in a single individual. If all we had were the large catalog of his songs and his studio recordings, we would already have more memorable and well-loved music than we have any right to expect from an artist or band. But to see him in a live concert performance setting is even better (even if on a DVD), because then you see the full range of the tools he has as a performing artist with which to work his magic on adoring crowds.

He is a charismatic showman. He is the riveting (and yes, very attractive) front man and leader of the band, generous and sharing with his audience, full of joy, funny, and energetic, running around the stage and out into the crowd, giving off so much warmth and fun, and singing those great songs, with his fans singing along to every word. That in itself should be enough to satisfy any rock fan or concert goer.

But then you see him playing his stunning guitar solos, like on the records but even better, often while he is also singing the lead vocals. I can’t remember ever seeing any other lead singer and front man for a great band who could also seemingly effortlessly play such dazzling guitar parts at the same time he was singing. It is awesome to behold, and I only realized that he could actually do that when I watched these two excellent concert videos.

A lot of folks by now are content to hear the classic songs from their youth (whenever that was), and maybe don’t believe there’s much new out there worth hearing or seeing. But I don’t agree. I believe that some of the greatest performing and recording musicians today, like Keith Urban and Taylor Swift, in fact put on much more amazing shows, and have much higher levels of individual artistic talent across a wider variety of media than the rock stars of decades ago, precisely because they are standing on the shoulders and the achievements of those great artists and music creators of earlier generations.  It also helps that they have far more and better technology at their fingertips, technology they've also had to learn to master.

Keith Urban regularly continues to deliver new bestselling albums, wonderful singles, and YouTube music videos, and continues to play sold out tours around the world. But for a time-capsule view of his live concert performances as a young breakout star, these two concert videos, Livin’ Right Now and Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy World Tour, are a treat. Highly recommended.

TV Review: The Crown. Seasons 1-4. (Netflix).

For those few who aren’t already aware of it, The Crown is Netflix’s recent somewhat fictionalized depiction of the reign of Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. 

Thus far, over the first four seasons, it has covered the period from her youth growing up during World War II during the reign of her father, the popular King George VI, through her ascension to the throne in 1952, her marriage to Prince Phillip, and many of her better-known personal and political experiences as the sovereign of Great Britain and head of the Royal Family from the early 1950s, through the 1960s and 1970s, and into the era of Margaret Thatcher and the young Princess Diana in the 1980s.

The actors in all the principal roles changed after season 2, in order to put older faces and personalities on screen that would better reflect the real-life characters as they aged and changed over time. However, what has been consistent is the quality of the actors in the leading roles, particularly Claire Foy and Matt Smith as the youthful Elizabeth and Phillip, and Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies as the middle-aged Queen and Prince, all of whom turn in impressively authentic and convincing performances.

It makes for fun entertainment, especially for those who just can’t get enough of the lives of English royalty, but there has been a growing uproar around the show's historical accuracy and perspective in season 4, perhaps because the plot timeline is moving closer to our own times, where many of us already have well-formed memories of some of the actual events, and opinions about the personalities from mass media and news coverage.

The portrayal of Prince Charles' behavior toward Diana and of his character, which is fairly odious in the show in season 4, has particularly come in for sharp protests. Many reviewers have now added their caveats that this series should not be taken at face value in terms of the truth of its presentation of the times, the events, the various personalities and their relationships. 

Nevertheless, if seen as art, interpretation and entertainment rather than a slavish portrayal of historical lives and events, it’s a very interesting and enjoyable series. Recommended.

TV Review: The Good Fight, Seasons 1-5 (CBS TV series).

The story of high-powered lawyers in large firms in contemporary Chicago that began in The Good Wife continues, with the focus now on senior attorney Diane Lockhart (played by Christine Baranski), and two of her younger proteges. It begins right after the 2016 presidential election, with a Madoff-type Ponzi scheme scandal and the wreckage it leaves behind.

This series has been both attacked and praised for its overtly liberal sympathies and its portrayal of legal and social life in the Trump era. As with The Good Wife, many of the story lines, particularly with respect to the destabilizing effects of new technologies on personal and social lives, and on laws and the legal system, were up-to-the-minute with the show’s dramatic spin on breaking news stories in real life.

Both The Good Wife and The Good Fight are among the best legal drama series I've ever seen, with consistently interesting plots, engaging characters, fine writing and acting, plenty of outrageous dark humor, and "torn from the recent headlines" legal and ethical issues. Whether they will hold up over time as the social and political issues they explored fade from the news remains to be seen. Recommended.

Book Review: How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going (2022). Vaclav Smil.

This latest book by Vaclav Smil, a distinguished Canadian emeritus scientist at the University of Manitoba, and author of over forty books, is a stern warning and wake-up call to both extreme climate disaster predictors and optimistic climate change remediation advocates. Its main message is that we need to truly understand the extent to which modern life and all of its benefits are predicated on complex systems and materials that are currently impossible to have or maintain without the use and consumption of fossil fuels, in order to have a realistic view of what it will take to solve the problem of human-caused climate change.

It would be easy to misinterpret Smil’s objections to many of the common beliefs about climate change (both fearful and optimistic) held by most of us, based largely on the political statements and mass media reports we all read and hear constantly, as being signs that he is a fossil fuel apologist. That would be a big mistake, because a careful reading of this dense and data-filled book reveals no such thing.

It’s not that he doesn’t agree that we need to act, to try to save the world and its climate from the consequences of our dependence on fossil fuels. Instead, he is arguing strongly that we need to understand just how extraordinarily difficult that process will be in order to have reasonable expectations, and that no outcomes – either extremely positive or negative – can be assumed or confidently predicted based on our current state of knowledge and the existing global political and economic situations.

His chapters lay out his logical and fact-based arguments in a steady, relentless fashion. In chapter 1, he begins with a deep discussion of the history and nature of our energy systems, and how important energy conversion and supplies (from whatever sources) are to the existence of modern society. 

In chapter 2, he focuses on explaining food production: both the extent to which modern industrial farming and its output that feeds the world depend on mechanization that currently requires massive fossil fuel inputs, and the additional role of fossil fuel by-products in fertilizer production which makes current global crop yields possible.

In chapter 3, Understanding Our Material World, he suggests that there are four pillars of modern life, supporting the 7+ billion people alive today. In his view, unfortunately well-supported by the facts he presents and by our own knowledge of the world around us, they are: cement, steel, plastics and ammonia. He then explains in detail why these four materials are essential to sustaining life in our advanced economies, and why at this time it is impossible to jump quickly and fully to alternative materials and products derived from non-fossil fuels and carbon-free processes.  Moreover, he explores how even trying to move to sustainable energy sources like wind and solar, and producing electric cars, will require massive inputs of these fossil fuel derived materials to get there.

Again, he’s not saying we shouldn’t be trying to do so, and he even explores possible alternatives that have been proposed, or ones that could be envisioned. His point is that it is futile to hope that solutions to replacing all the key requirements for supporting modern life can be imagined, designed and implemented on the massive scale necessary to quickly replace today's sources of these materials – certainly not in the short time frame suggested by those who say “we need to get to net zero carbon by” some near future year ending in a 0 or a 5, as he puts it.

In the remaining four chapters, he tackles and explains other key elements of the climate crisis puzzle that we need to understand: globalization, actual versus perceived risks, what is and is not at risk in the planet's environment, and the difficult nature of attempts to predict and control the future. In each case, he carefully demolishes simplistic popular notions, establishes logical inter-dependencies between important factors and considerations, and provides needed rational perspectives on the complexity of the many challenges to be confronted.

At the end of the book there is a References and Notes section, which contains 70 pages of exhaustive footnotes and citations for each of the chapters and topics covered. These notes alone would be a gold mine for serious climate policy analysts, historians, social theorists and others who want to do a deeper dive into the question of how we got ourselves into this climate change situation as a species.

This book provides much needed history of the fossil fuel era, a sober, clear-eyed and data-based analysis of our modern economy and technology, and a rational discussion of what we can and can’t do to solve the climate crisis, within what likely time periods. It’s not surprising that Bill Gates, whose results-based approach to global health and philanthropy is well-known, cites Smil as his favorite author. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Skyfaring (2015). Mark Vanhoenacker.

As an amateur sport pilot and lifetime aviation enthusiast, I have read many stories about the exploits and adventures of pilots, going back to the very beginning of aviation in the early 20th century. 

I've read about the early pilot inventors, the military pilots in wars from World War I through the modern day, the amateur flyers and hobbyists, the early bush pilots in remote and desolate lands such as Alaska and Africa, the "Golden Age" long-distance pioneers like the Lindberghs and Amelia Earhart, the young women who ferried military planes in World War II, the test pilots and the astronauts, and many other variations of aviators and life experiences in the world of human flight. These have all been fascinating to me, although I admit I'm probably more enamored of these flying stories than many people would be.

One type of pilot memoir I'd never previously encountered, though, was an account of the life of the pilots most familiar to most of us, from our experience as airline passengers: the ones who spend much of their professional careers at the controls of modern commercial jet airliners, assuming the risk and responsibility for flying hundreds of members of the public at a time to their distant destinations around the globe in these incredibly complex and marvelous aircraft.

Skyfaring has happily filled in that missing part of the aviation story for me. It is a non-linear, lyrical account of the life and observations of a commercial 747 pilot. It told me a lot of things I didn't know about the lived experiences and work conditions of commercial airline pilots, while also exploring the beauty and transcendence of a life lived constantly in different time zones, and at altitudes measured in miles rather than feet.

I would recommend this book to any member of the flying public, whether you're an aviation fan or not. Because the pilots now fly behind closed security doors, we rarely see or perhaps even notice these consummate professionals, who hold our lives in their hands for hours at a time every time we fly on an airliner.  

This account pulls back the curtain on this small elite group of highly-trained experts who routinely take on such a heavy responsibility for so many of us, without our even really being aware of what they're doing or what it takes for them to be there. They perform this service for us with a coolness and consistency that makes what they do seem unremarkable, as though they're office workers, and it's just another day at the office for them. But what they do is remarkable.

As the author points out, as passengers we now usually take for granted the technological miracle of fast, high-altitude flight above the earth, often closing the windows to take a nap rather than staring out in rapt appreciation at the astonishing view of the world which these airplanes and their pilots afford us, for however brief a period.  It's amazing how fast we have learned to take things for granted that not long ago would have been the most miraculous experience of a lifetime.

Vanhoenacker does a wonderful job of conveying the full range of the commercial pilot experience: the effects of constant rapid travel across time zones, the nature of the work relationships with constantly changing flight crews, the beauty of the earth as seen at all hours of the day and night from 36,000 feet, the teamwork on the flight deck, and with the cabin crew, and many other interesting and revealing insights into the lives and minds of airline pilots. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and Unexpected Solutions (2018). Johann Hari.

This is an excellent and unusual exploration of the psychology of depression, which posits a 9-point spectrum of situations and causes in peoples' life situations that create most depression, rather than the more conventional medical view that depression is primarily a biologically based condition, and therefore something that can be easily treated with medication and other psychiatric therapies.

The author reviews the scientific literature in each of the different life experience areas, then moves on to the second section, which talks about the sorts of changes in lives and society which can help control, reduce and eliminate depression.

This book is ultimately political and economic in its view of depression and its sources in modern society. The main thrust of its arguments is that we live in human societies where too many people are economically disadvantaged, politically powerless, and have too few meaningful and supportive relationships with other people in our families, friendship circles, work organizations and communities.

A well-presented case for the need for major changes in our political, social and economic conditions, in order to live happier and less depressed lives, and avoid many of the negative personal and societal effects of depression. Recommended.

Book Review: Autumn of the Black Snake: George Washington, Mad Anthony Wayne, and the Invasion that Opened the West (2018). William Hogeland.

This is a dense, very well-written history of the early days of American western expansion, and the immediate post-revolutionary war era, particularly its Indian politics and the hostilities between the natives and the white settlers who were moving into the western territories.  

The book reveals and documents the fact that many of our Founding Fathers (especially George Washington) were major land speculators, who also did want a national army, as opposed to many of the "no standing army!" militia supporters who were so vocal during the aftermath of the revolutionary war, in the period when the nature of the United States and its form of government were being negotiated.  

Hogeland uses this background information to provide insight on some of the personal motivations that may have influenced Washington's political decisions and actions with respect to settlement of the western frontier lands, and the new government's relations with the native people and tribes.

As Hogeland describes, Washington used his political skills and influence to have his newly approved national army deal with an immediate Indian war crisis on the western frontier. To accomplish this, he appointed the revolutionary war hero “Mad Anthony” Wayne as the army's founding general, with his prime directive being to take care of the problem with the tribes who were blocking westward expansion.

General Wayne, coming off a disastrous and humiliating period in his post-revolutionary war personal life, proved to be brilliant in his assigned role, and with his leadership and organizing skills, a standing U.S. Army was created, the war was won, and the western land-grab began. Much of the book describes the people, places and events involved as this process played out in the late eighteenth century, during the early years of the new nation.

This is a fascinating and complex story of a short period in American history most of us have never heard or thought much about, but which was a pivotal time in shaping the future of the United States, its territorial expansion across the North American continent, and the beginnings of the U.S. Army, which has continued to play such an important role here and in other parts of the world ever since. Recommended.