Two New Books on Indigenous Culture

I. Talking Skin: Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity Through Skin and Ink

(Princeton University Press.)

“For thousands of years, these communities have etched human experiences into skin, one powerful mark at a time. But sadly, much of that ancient ink is fading fast, along with the knowledge that surrounds it. To me, tattooing isn’t just art; it’s a vital piece of global cultural heritage.”

--Lars Krutak

I’ve always been fascinated with tattoos, ever since I was a kid and used to marvel over my Uncle Johnny’s flamboyantly decorated arms. He was a sailor in the Merchant Marines and often explained to me how every inked image reminded him of some exotic place he had sailed to: “Every picture tells a story, kid, every tattoo sings a song of my travels.” Such a romantic at heart, that Johnny. In the old days, the only folks with tattoos, at least that I knew of, were military guys and members of motorcycle clubs (as they were euphemistically called back then). But that, of course, is merely the popular culture in the West that has celebrated a kind of outlaw status for wearers of the “talking skin.” I don’t have any tattoos myself, never quite worked up the courage to go through that initiation that seemed to lead to an endless road of ink. My Métis wife has some, though, and through her I learned of far older inking cultures for whom the marking of flesh is a significant gesture that embodies a shared communal awareness of place and identity. Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity Through Skin and Ink Lars Krutak’s new book from Princeton University Press, is both a major contribution to that community of bodily markings which is greatly moving to me as a cultural commentator and a poignant reminder to me of how, in my formative years, I was intrigued by these mobile graphic artifacts, artworks that from my earliest days always felt like a kind of visual music. The songs that indigenous tattoos sing are rooted in a combination of ancestral pride and contemporary swag, and Krutak’s fine tome celebrates their singing in a truly poetic manner worthy of such a noble fusing of art and heritage.

White Christmas and A Christmas Carol: Second-Tier Holiday Cheer

Clyde Alves, Jonalyn Saxer, and the company of White Christmas. (Photo: Diane Sobolewski.)

I loved the stage transcription of Irving Berlin’s 1954 Christmas movie musical White Christmas when it came through Boston in 2006 and again in 2015, so I was looking forward to seeing the Goodspeed Opera House version that opened last week, directed by Hunter Foster. But except for Kelli Barclay’s dance numbers it’s a letdown. The major problem is the acting, which is somehow simultaneously flat and overstated. The book by David Ives and Paul Blake, adapted from the screenplay by Norman Krasna, Norman Panama and Melvin Frank has a fairly complicated plot involving the efforts of Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, a pair of Broadway song and dance men, World War II veterans who fought under a beloved general, to round up their unit in order to pay tribute to him at Christmas when they discover he’s running a ramshackle Vermont inn – and to mount a revue there to put the place in the black. Still, it’s light and casual. The jokes aren’t inspired, but on both tours the clowning had the low-key pleasures of a good old-fashioned TV variety special from the decade of the film. And the characters were all satisfyingly human, so you felt drawn in. At the Goodspeed, the humor feels warmed-over and then juiced up so that you’re doubly aware that what you’re not hearing isn’t fresh. The vaudeville touches make you groan, especially a running gag involving a pair of chorus girls who keep trying to chase Phil (Clyde Alves) down at the worst possible moments, when he’s trying to woo Judy Haynes (Jonalyn Saxer), half of a sister act he and Bob discover in a New York club and end up hiring for the show. And the actors aren’t strong enough to make their characters convincing, including Omar Lopez-Cepero as Bob, Lauren Nicole Chapman as Betty, the other Haynes sister, who falls for him until a misguided rumor makes her think he’s a rat, and Bruce Sabath as General Waverly. (In the movie Bob and Betty were played by Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, Phil and Judy by Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen, and the general by Dean Jagger.)