Russian spiritual teacher Georgei Gurdjieff force-fed vegetarians hefty meat dishes. Japanese Zen master Lin-chi thrashed his pupils. Indian guru Meher Baba remained silent for 43 years. All employed what Feuerstein, author of books on yoga and religion, calls "holy madness" or "crazy wisdom," using eccentric behavior or shock tactics to communicate an alternative vision. A former devotee of Da Free John (aka Da Love-Ananda, ne Franklin Jones), Feuerstein presents critical cameos of holy fools (Aleister Crowley, BhagwanRajneesh, etc.) as well as guidelines for choosing a wise, enlightened guru and avoiding the exploitative. Yet his gallery of spiritual eccentrics is so diverse--ranging from Christian mystics to Hindu holy men who live on garbage heaps--that it's hard to credit the author's generalizations about the value of holy folly as an authentic path to transcendence.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Music mogul Lissauer has compiled an alphabetical list of over 19,000 songs, covering standards and hits that include minstrel tunes, war songs, operetta pieces, jazz, instrumentals, blues, pop, rock, rhythm and blues, and country and western. Each entry includes writer and lyricist, date of popularity, and usually a sentence or two describing its context and the performer(s) who popularized it. A year-by-year listing follows, and the volume closes with an index of the writers (but not performers). This is a good tool for basic information, but those libraries already owning the 13-volume series Popular Music , edited by Bruce Pollock and Nat Shapiro (Gale, 1975-88), and not concerned with the gay Nineties will find Lissauer unnecessary.
- Robert Aken, Univ. of Kentucky Libs., Lex ington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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