Always entertaining

The Gravy Boys played on a makeshift stage behind the Raleigh Beer Garden this past Saturday, adding a little Celtic flavor to their high-energy set in honor of that Irish-American holiday just around the corner.

Although you might not know it from the surname shared by the men in the rhythm section, they can claim some Irish heritage. Even if they couldn't claim such an affinity, however, that band does right by everything it plays.

If you want a little thinking with your music, you could do far worse than mull over what Scott Kirwin has to say about "cultural appropriation." Kirwin writes thoughtful stuff.

His essay reminded me why it's a shame that so many of the people who get intermittently but righteously indignant over cultural appropriation do not recognize that phenomenon as a collective salute to Sir Isaac Newton. Newton famously opined that if he saw farther than others, it was because he was "standing on the shoulders of giants." Fittingly, Wilkiquote asserts that Newton was himself paraphrasing the 12th-century philosopher Bernard of Chartres when he said that.