September 23-29, 2004

artpicks

Spirited Discussion

by A.D. Amorosi

books

From the moribund (Augusten Burroughs' Dry: A Memoir) to the gaseous (Griffith Edwards' Alcohol), booze has lately taken a beating in print. Damn, I like liquor. Stopped drinking it, but love the lure and lore of its sociability and its rich, silly literature, even when ripe and dated (The Lost Weekend). Eric Burns' The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol (Temple University Press) is one of the good, even sprightly, ones. Maybe because before this the jovial, self-described "non-academic historian" and weekend Fox-network host (TV's wryest media coffee klatch, Fox News Watch) has taken on the simple joys of headier stuff such as Broadcast Blues: Dispatches From the Twenty-Year War between a Television Reporter and His Medium and The Joy of Books: Confessions of a Lifelong Reader.

Spirits is a historical work, jumping backward to Dr. Benjamin Rush and "spontaneous combustion," and along the way tapping into really illegal Prohibition-era remedies like "Yack Yack Bourbon" (filled with iodine) and "Soda Pop Moon" (rubbing alcohol-based). Burns lives inside the skin of characters that made American drinking a cooler national pastime than baseball—silly teetotalers Carrie Nation and the mom-and-son team Delecta and Diocletian Lewis, whose Visitation Bands were an anti-boozing barroom nuisance. Burns digs diming out presidents for tippling indiscretions (Jefferson liked three glasses a day), but mostly he just likes the ring of his chatter, like rings from the bottom of a glass of beer. He's got a conversational way with a tall, sturdy tale that's just perfect for a backroom booze-athon. Cheers.

"A Spirited Evening," with Eric Burns reading and signing The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol, Mon., Sept. 27, 6:30 p.m., Christ Church, 20 N. Second St., 215-928-1188.