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Well, we lied. We weren't agents for the Vatican yesterday. We were at a seminar in Kalamazoo.

A spawn-of-Satan boring seminar. One presenter was almost a caricature of poor speaking. She spent the first five minutes reminiscing about her early years and making inside jokes with fellow-panelists, and then the rest of her presentation was "off" somehow. She was cocky, but horrible in her comportment, and her line of thought was really hard to follow. Possibly the worst lecture we've heard, and we've heard hundreds. We went from a state of irritation to shock to pity. The other speakers were better, but not much.

One nice thing: it was a videotaped lecture, so we didn't risk offending the presenters with naps–which we did three times, having imbibed too many beers the night before at the Elks Club.

We were also able to read sixty pages of Joseph Pearce's Unafraid of Virginia Woolf: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell. We often have troubles reading during these videotaped seminars, but for some reason biographies block out the blaring audio and we can stay focused. If you experience similar troubles reading while the TV is playing, you may want to try it.

Anyway, the book is good so far. Not surprising. We're Pearce fans: Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, Literary Converts, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile. We've read them and they're all excellent.

We met Pearce once. He and Eric spoke at the 2003 Chesterton Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota. They wouldn't have hooked up, except Eric's children and wife inadvertently corralled him in a quiet garden while he was trying to get some work done. Mrs. Scheske beckoned Eric, who was standing on a ridge about thirty yards away thinking about his speech, to come down and meet the great biographer. Fortunately, Pearce knew of Eric through the Gilbert connection, and he seemed pleased to meet him. A fine fellow.

The Punchy Journal
The other four guys got to the bar first. Scott was putting money into the jukebox. The regulars at the bar were giving him dirty looks.

"What the *!@#," Scott said as he came and sat down. "You see those decrepits at the bar? They were looking at me like I was a child molester."

"You were putting money in the jukebox. Now they can't hear the TV," I said.

"Screw 'em," Scott replied. "Tell them to go home and watch TV. A bar is for music and talk and babes. I like a good game on the screen, but keep the volume down."

"No !*@*," Mike added. "It seems like more and more people are coming to the bar to watch TV. I see it all the time nowadays."

What's a bar for? I thought to myself. What is its purpose; why do they exist? To get at the root of the "TV v. Jukebox" issue, you have to know the essence of the bar.

It's this type of interaction that's interesting. My friends and I are talking about proper entertainment in a bar–by all appearances, a perfectly frivolous topic. But its implications are vast and profound. (I also find it fascinating that it's not possible to explore the vast implications in such social circles without getting mocked, but that's another topic.)

The bar in English-speaking countries traces its roots back to Roman Britain where drinking establishments flourished. The establishments declined with Rome, but they came back in the Middle Ages, largely through the efforts of monasteries to provide for travelers. By the fifteenth century, three different drinking establishments were found in England: inns, which provided rooms for travelers; taverns, which provided food and drink; alehouses, which solely provided beer and ale.

What I wonder is, "Why the taverns?" Inns provided necessary beds. Alehouses were often necessities for the poor, a place where they could get ale as a substitute for water (that was often polluted and dangerous). But why taverns?

The taverns were the places where the professional classes met to eat, drink, and relax. Dr. Samuel Johnson was a big fan of the tavern and the fine conversation he could find there: "No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

So, people went to the taverns to congregate and meet others. If that's the essence of a tavern, then music–at moderate volume–should be preferred over TV (TV being almost as inherently anti-social as tear gas).

A similar thing goes for bars in the United States. After the Pilgrims came in 1620, taverns were among the first structures erected, and there were dozens in Boston alone by the 1680s. The taverns were accommodations for travelers, but they were also the forum for social intercourse. Daniel Dorchester, an anti-drinking historian of the nineteenth century, described the tavern scene of the early American years as places where "motley assembly . . . came together to hear the news, gossip and talk politics."

So basically, taverns have always been used for socializing. If that's true, background music should be preferred to TV. That's my two-bit analysis.

Some people dismiss such historical analyses as irrelevant because the historical antecedents are so different than today's situation. "Alright, so people went to the bars to socialize. That was before TV and recorded music and videogames. Now that those things are available, the bar is transformed into something different. "

They're right, to an extent. The bars today are different than they were one hundred years ago. The historical analysis isn't conclusive.

But it's still helpful. In today's confusing world, it helps to single things out and analyze them through history's lens in order to get a feel for what they are in their simplest form. If I analyze something solely by what it is today, I get dizzy and fumble around hopelessly.

Consider today's mega-bars, like the Hard Rock Cafés. They have many layers and attractions: Drinking, socializing, TV watching with rows and rows of screens, games, shops, atmosphere, and the tourists.

If you only look at the mega-bars and their smaller cousins that are found in almost every county in America, what will you conclude? Difficult to say; there's so much to consider. It's complex.

But looking at a nineteenth century tavern, there's much less to consider; it's much simpler. You can find the essence quickly and effortlessly.

That's important for a simpleton like me. I'll let the scientific researchers test the consumers at Hard Rock Café and measure their cognitive status and give them questionnaires to complete. It's enough for me to see British Bill at the Bull and the Woolpack three hundred years ago.

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