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Thomas S. Bremer

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Reviews

Trekking through the Yellowstone “Museum of Wonders”

September 1, 2019 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Upper Geyser Basin

Wonder-Land Illustrated by Harry J. Norton, published in 1873, was one of the first tourbooks recounting the Yellowstone experience for a general audience.

Filed Under: Places, Reviews, Sacred Wonderland Tagged With: geysers, Montana, nature, tourism, Yellowstone

Holy Dirt: Review of The Healing Power of the Santuario de Chimayó

July 28, 2019 by Thomas S. Bremer 2 Comments

Review of “The Healing Power of the Santuario de Chimayó: America’s Miraculous Church” by Brett Hendrickson.

Filed Under: Places, Reviews Tagged With: Chimayo, New Mexico, pilgrimage

Making heroes of church pioneers in the wild west

September 5, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Bible and cross in Montana chapel

For early twentieth-century historians, the story of church in the wild west involved a racially informed moral tale of transforming savage disorder to settled order.

Filed Under: History, Reviews Tagged With: American west, church, frontier, pioneers, religion

Mesa Wisdom of the Hopi People

August 30, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Mesa sunset, Arizona

Though a product of colonial violence, Frank Waters’ Book of the Hopi offers an alternate vision and a critique of our ultimately self-destructive assumptions, values, and modes of living.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: change, colonialism, Hopi, Native Americans, wisdom

On the road with scholar Andrei Codrescu

August 27, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Freeway angels

Review of the 1993 documentary film “Road Scholar” featuring Romanian American poet Andrei Codrescu in a sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming commentary on the American dream.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: America, American dream, consumerism, film, immigrants, materialism

Listening for the wisdom

August 14, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Woodcut illustration from The Adventures of Philip on His Way Through the World

Listening is more than being still and letting the other person talk. Skillful listeners are actively involved in the conversation. They build trust and hear the deeper messages.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: interviews, listening, social media

The Narrow Road to Bashō: a short review of travel sketches

August 1, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

“Xiao, He chases Han Xin” by Yosa Buson

A short review of The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by renowned seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō.

Filed Under: Poetry, Reviews Tagged With: haiku, Matsuo Bashō, meditation, religious tourism, Travel

In the between of who we are: contemplating the bardo

July 17, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

A young robin dances on a fallen headstone

The moment of “between,” that instant of bardo in dreaming, in meditating, and in the pause between every breath, quivers with ambiguity. In the bardo between people awaits a double potential.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: afterlife, bardo, between, Buddhism, comparison, George Saunders, Lincoln, Walt Whitman

Finding Don McLean all along the roads we’ve traveled all our days

July 13, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer 2 Comments

Don McLean’s 1972 self-titled album

A review of Don McLean’s nearly forgotten self-titled album that explores alienation, separateness, the agony of memory, the deeply painful dimension of nostalgia.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: Don McLean, memory, music, nostalgia, vinyl records

Tracing Land and Race Across America: book review of Trace

November 12, 2017 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

View from near Point Sublime on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, 1900-1930

Review of Trace: Memory, History, Race, & the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy, which weaves history, geology, and personal memoir in profound tales that peel back layers of a place called America.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: book review, geology, history, memoir, race

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I write about religion and tourism, especially in regard to national parks. I am currently working on a history of religion in Yellowstone National Park. Read More…

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