2007 Favorites

The Late Adopter selects...
Movies:
This Is England (dir. Shane Meadows)
An Unreasonable Man (dir. Henriette Mantel & Steve Skrovan)
I’m Not There (dir. Todd Haynes)
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (dir. Julien Temple)
Control (dir. Anton Corbijn)
Talk to Me (dir. Kasi Lemmons)
The Simpsons Movie (dir. David Silverman)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (dir. Jake Kasdan)
Factory Girl (dir. George Hickenlooper)
Blades of Glory (dir. Josh Gordon & Will Speck)

Albums:
LCD Soundsystem--Sound of Silver (Capitol)
Apples in Stereo--New Magnetic Wonder (Yep Roc)
Arcade Fire--Neon Bible (Merge)
Kanye West--Graduation (Roc-A-Fella)
M.I.A.--Kala (Interscope)
Hives--The Black and White Album (A&M)
Polyphonic Spree--The Fragile Army (TVT)
Rihanna--Good Girl Gone Bad (Def Jam)
Klaxons--Myths of the Near Future (DGC)
Raspberries--Live on Sunset Strip (Ryko)

Songs:
Shins- 'Phantom Limb'
LCD Soundsystem- 'North American Scum'
Rihanna- 'Umbrella'
Arcade Fire- 'Intervention'
Public Enemy- 'Harder Than You Think'
Social Distortion- 'Far Behind'
Apples in Stereo- '7 Stars'
Polyphonic Spree- 'Running Away'
Klaxons- 'Golden Skans'
M.I.A.- 'Boyz'

December 2007 Acquisitions

Books:
Ernesto Chávez, The U.S. War with Mexico: A Brief History with Documents, 2008.
Deborah Curtis, Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division, 2005.
Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, 2001.
Mireille Guiliano, French Women for All Seasons: A Year of Secrets, Recipes, and
Pleasure, 2006.
Chelsea Handler, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, 2005.
Anna Johnson, Handbags: The Power of the Purse, 2002.
Otto Penzler (ed.), The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the
Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s & '40s, 2007.
Matthew Reinhart, Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy, 2007.
Arnold Schwartzman, Deco Landmarks: Art Deco Gems of Los Angeles, 2005.

DVDs:
Blade Runner, 1982.
Charlotte’s Web, 2006.
Grey Gardens/The Beales of Grey Gardens, 1976/2006.
Hootenanny a Go-Go, 1965.
My So-Called Life: The Complete Series, 2007.
The Simpsons Movie, 2007.

The Over-Soul

"But where Emerson advocated a life of withdrawal and contemplation, the better to tune one's ears to the still, small voice within, other Transcendentalists (and fellow travelers) heard that voice telling them to make the world a better place. What both sides of this divide objected to was pretty similar--the materialistic, status-conscious ruthlessness of life under the reign of industrial capitalism. The American promise of a better, fairer society had devolved, in the words of Transcendentalist minister and publisher George Ripley, into 'the inordinate pursuit, the extravagant worship of wealth,' rife with 'temptations to an excess of selfishness.' Transcendentalism offered the spiritual equivalent of political democracy, with each person empowered to find his or her own direct connection to the divine. But in order for everyone to avail themselves of this freedom, the more activist Transcendentalists felt, the inequities of 19th-century society had to be fixed."

In Salon, Laura Miller reviews Philip Gura's American Transcendentalism.

December Deaths

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for former Pakistani Prime Minister Benizir Bhutto, Canadian jazzman Oscar Peterson, and Los Angeles sportscaster Stu Nathan.

Hoovered Up

"Hoover’s plan called for 'the permanent detention' of the roughly 12,000 suspects at military bases as well as in federal prisons. The F.B.I., he said, had found that the arrests it proposed in New York and California would cause the prisons there to overflow.
"So the bureau had arranged for 'detention in military facilities of the individuals apprehended' in those states, he wrote."

Tim Weiner in The New York Times reports the declassification of J. Edgar Hoover's 1950 proposal to imprison thousands of Americans for suspected disloyalty.

And Slate reprints the Hoover memo.

"To Sap and Impurify All of Our Precious Bodily Fluids"

As the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California begins to fluoridate the water for eighteen million people, Mike Anton in the Los Angeles Times reports from the frontlines of the suprisingly continuing anti-fluoridation movement.

Superflat

"Murakami's big idea was to see postwar anime and manga as the progeny of the 17th and 18th century Edo era's two-dimensional artistic techniques. He merged those flat patterns with modern decoration to create a specifically Japanese postmodern aesthetic.
"The resulting canon--with gravity-defying sculptures of bazooka-breasted women, cuddly figurines, abstract paintings of mushrooms, digital animation and, oh yes, his famous Louis Vuitton accessories--has become highly coveted by contemporary art collectors and speculators. The Murakami brand now commands some of the highest of those unearthly prices being fetched in the frenzied bazaar that is the contemporary art market."

Bruce Wallace in the Los Angeles Times considers Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, whose retrospective at MOCA is the first art exhibit attended by Late Adopter, Jr.

In Slate, Mia Fineman presents a Murakami slideshow.

Neoliberalism and Its Discontents

"Kuttner doesn’t dispute the need for deficit reduction, given all the red ink Clinton inherited from his Republican predecessors. He just takes issue with what became a fetish for balanced budgets. It led Clinton to underinvest in areas like infrastructure and research and development, which some economists, including the Nobel laureate and former Clinton adviser Joseph Stiglitz, believe slowed growth. Meanwhile, the alarming rise in income inequality since 2000, coupled with European countries’ record of rapid, evenly distributed growth, suggests that a more activist government might be preferable on both social and economic grounds."

Noam Scheiber reviews Robert Kuttner's The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity in The New York Times.

Deal Us In

"But for our purposes here we had better ask why right-wing pundits have been so busily seeking to desecrate a dead man's legacy, like so many pigeons on a monument. Partly, of course, they act in hope of together, over time, achieving the pigeon effect: no single assault matters much, but add them up and they might destroy the statue. But mostly it's because they worry the party of Roosevelt could return, bringing with it sane extensions of the New Deal--into health care, for example--while providing a responsible strategy for national defense."

In The New Republic, Eric Rauchway argues that Democrats should vocally counter conservative criticisms of Franklin Roosevelt.

As I See It

"The thumbnail version of its influence goes like this: The ways in which the complex successfully took advantage of L.A.'s climate, landscape and culture are worth copying; the ways in which it remained separate from the city, physically and symbolically, or tried to impose an inflexible approach to architecture better suited to Manhattan or Bauhaus-era Germany are worth avoiding.
"Ultimately, however, exploring the question of the Getty's connection to Los Angeles raises another: In a global city as wildly diverse and prone to amnesia as this one, how do we define what fidelity to local context, to the spirit of a place, even means?"

In the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Hawthorne's thoughts turn to the Getty Center, as the museum marks its tenth anniversary.

"Too Liberal for America"

"This message brought to you by Conservative Christians Against the Teachings of Christ," via YouTube.

Respect

"Loved not only by his dedicated fans, the man affectionately referred to as the 'Big O' was also held in high esteem by other musicians. A longtime collaborator, bassist Donald 'Duck' Dunn of the famed Booker T. and the MGs, conveyed to historian Peter Guralnick his respect for Redding as a musician and session leader. 'It was never a routine session with Otis. Otis would come in, and boy, he's just bring everybody up. ... Cause you knew something was gonna be different. You wanted to play with Otis. He brought out the best in you. If there was a best, he brought it out, that was his secret.'
"Another thing Redding brought out of his collaborators and his listeners was raw emotion. 'I almost cry sometimes when I hear Otis' stuff,' Jimi Hendrix admitted. 'Stuff like that makes you actually laugh — not laugh from, "oh, look at that, ha-ha-ha-ha!" But that real good feeling, and then you get lumps in your throat, and [stuff]. Yeah, that's when the stuff is popping.'"

Claudrena N. Harold in The Seattle Times looks back on the life and legacy of Otis Redding, who died forty years ago this month.

VèVè Amasasa Clark, 1944-2007

"Clark was also the co-editor in 1978 of' 'Kaiso! Katherine Dunham: An Anthology of Writings' and in 1985 of 'The Legend of Maya Deren,' a work about the author of an important book on Haitian voodoo.
"In 1997 UC Berkeley began offering what is believed to be the nation's first doctorate program in African Diaspora studies. The interdisciplinary, multinational program prepares students to 'use and develop theoretical, analytical and methodological approaches to critical issues relating to the study of people of African descent,' Taylor said."

Jocelyn Y. Stewart in the Los Angeles Times writes an obituary for VèVè Amasasa Clark, professor of African American Studies at U.C. Berkeley.

Jesus Is My Health Insurance

"As long as I place my $10 weekly premium in the Holy Redeemer collection plate every Sunday, my spirit is full with the Lord. He maketh me lie down in green pastures, leadeth me beside the still waters, and covereth hospital stays for up to 90 days per benefit period."

From The Onion.

Race or Counterculture?

"The key moment in the History Channel's '1968 with Tom Brokaw' comes when Brokaw interviews my onetime colleague, the historian Alan Brinkley. Brokaw prompts Brinkley, 'The left went too far, excessive in its behavior on a daily basis?' Brinkley replies, obligingly, 'Well, there were excesses on the left, needless to say--' and then: Wham! Down comes the editor's digital X-Acto knife. We don't hear the end of that sentence, nor do we hear any real historical analysis in the rest of Brokaw's two-hour film, whose secret subtitle is 'How Hippies Ruined America.'"

In The New Republic, Eric Rauchway disputes Tom Brokaw's account of the impact of the 1960s on the Democratic Party.

Cover Me, NYC

Gridskipper offers the New York addresses of ten notable record covers.

You're Gonna Miss Me

"'Easter Everywhere' was the last gasp. Though the band performed sporadically throughout 1968, Erickson was frequently absent, increasingly unhinged at the prospect of going onstage. A year later, it had fully blown apart. Sutherland was hooked on smack, Hall was dealing drugs and Erickson, whose grip on reality had slipped, was persuaded by a public defender to plead insanity to avoid hard time for possession of a small amount of pot. He was charged with offending 'the peace and dignity of the state,' diagnosed as schizophrenic by the court and spent nearly four years in a maximum-security asylum. As Drummond puts it: '[T]he vision of utopia that many tried to achieve by "turning on" led to a massive toxic overload by the end of the decade.' By the end of the 1970s, Sutherland was dead and Erickson had legally declared himself a Martian."

Erik Himmelsbach reviews Paul Drummond's Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, the Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound in the Los Angeles Times.

Hickory Wind, or Hero or Villain?, part III

"'Americans need to realize that it wasn't just Jackson who removed the Indians, it was the American people who did it. And not only that, we've kept on doing similar things. We "removed" Japanese Americans during World War II, and the Congress and the Supreme Court and the vast majority of Americans approved of it. And we, as a nation and as a people, continue to do morally questionable things today.'
"It's an interesting point. Maybe one reason we celebrate and vilify our presidents with such intensity is because it makes us more comfortable to think that they alone are responsible for what's going on."

Carl Byker considers Andrew Jackson in the Los Angeles Times.

Eight Is Enough

Liam at sententiae et clamores has tagged The Late Adopter with the "eight meme," so here goes: 

8 Passions in my life: Mrs. Late Adopter and Late Adopter, Jr.; friends; history; music; movies; books; art; ideas. 

8 Things to do before I die: Raise Late Adopter, Jr.; finish my degree; publish a book; get stable employment; pay off debts; learn to play guitar; travel the world; and take Mrs. Late Adopter back to Paris. 

8 Things I often say: "What's the matter, Baby C?" "That's a big yawn for a little girl"; "Should I check her diaper?"; "What do you want to eat?"; ''Do you want to get coffee?"; "Wake me up in half an hour"; "OK, let's pick up where we left off last time"; and "Any questions?" 

8 Books I read (or reread) recently: Alternadad by Neal Pollack; Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979 by Tim Lawrence; Hotel California: The True-life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends by Barney Hoskins; The Who's The Who Sell Out by John Dougan; The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico, by Joe Harvard; Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott; The Ramones' Ramones by Nicholas Rombes; and 300 student bluebooks. 

8 Films that mean something to me: The Limey; The Filth and the Fury; The Royal Tenenbaums; Gangs of New York; Bad Santa; Mayor of the Sunset Strip; The Squid and the Whale; and Art School Confidential. 

8 Songs that mean something to me: "Hideaway" by The Olivia Tremor Control; "Swastika Eyes" by Primal Scream; "Digital Love" by Daft Punk; "(Drawing) Rings Around the World" by Super Furry Animals; "In da Club" by 50 Cent; "Yeah!" by Usher; "Come On/Let's Go" by Paul Weller; and "Country Girl" by Primal Scream. 

8 Living people I'd like to have as dinner guests: Tina Fey; Debbie Harry; Christopher Hitchens; Nick Hornby; Ralph Nader; Simon Reynolds; Chris Rock; and Martin Scorsese. 

8 People I'm passing this on to: The Late Adopter tags Rain seven times plus one.

We Like Ike, or Hero or Villain?, part II

Bob Tourtellotte of Reuters reports the death of Ike Turner.

And the Los Angeles Times publishes dueling assessments by Ann Powers and Elijah Wald.

Donald Fagen adds an appreciation in Slate.

A Richard Nixon Christmas

Via YouTube, CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite shows an interview excerpt with President Nixon from Christmas Eve, 1971.

"I'm...a Klutz, Captain"

"These frenetic epiphanies are usually accompanied by Martin's endlessly inventive sounds--'Durp,' 'Faglork,' 'Kloonk,' 'Thwop,' 'Skroinch,' 'Glong,' 'Ook Ook' and many others. (In the final panel, the frazzled and wide-eyed character often looks directly out from the page, as if asking the reader to share in his bewilderment and discomfiture.) Martin's colleagues and admirers revere his onomatopoeic diction almost as much as they do his drawings of slack-jawed urban yokels."

Michael Dirda reviews Don Martin's The Completely Mad Don Martin in The Washington Post.

Vote Federalist

The Adams in 1800 Committee produces an ad on YouTube to attack presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson.

And Gil Troy reviews Edward J. Larson's A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign in The New York Times.

"You Can Never Go Fast Enough"

"This would appear to set the stage for a tense showdown, but the contest, far from streamlining or galvanizing the plot, unravels it. A significant chunk of the movie takes place in cars and to the sound of roaring engines--Hellman said he had to convince the money men that there were enough camera angles within such close quarters (he came up with 24)--but there are plenty of pit stops and a fair amount of hanging out. The generational conflict never materializes. The racers don't seem especially interested in winning and the race fizzles out, well short of the nominal destination."

As The Criterion Collection prepares a DVD release, Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times looks back to 1971's Two-Lane Blacktop.

Where Sunset Meets the Sea

"'Beverly Hills and Hollywood are where the stars work and get photographed,' said a local Realtor, Brett Duffy. 'The Palisades is where they live if they want privacy.' And although the Palisades has some of the highest housing prices in Los Angeles, limousines, paparazzi, bodyguards and other accouterments of wealth and fame ubiquitous to adjoining neighborhoods are virtually invisible there."

Finn-Olaf Jones in The New York Times visits L.A.'s Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

Black Exploitation Television?

"Indeed, BET is in a difficult position--caught in its legacy, its ambitions, its financial limitations and the long-standing hopes that the network should be an all-inclusive stop for contemporary African American culture.
"'There's this older black audience that is nostalgic for what they hoped BET would be,' said Mark Anthony Neal, a teacher of black popular culture and director of the Institute for Critical U.S. Studies at Duke University. 'But the folks who run BET really have to be honest about the demographic of their audience. If we're talking about African Americans over 35, that's not their audience. Older audiences are turned off by a lot of stuff they do, like "Hell Date."'"

Greg Braxton in the Los Angeles Times wonders if BET can shake its reputation for low-quality programming.

Stock, Hausen, and Walkman

The New York Times runs an obit for composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Watch the Skies

"Instead of a man perhaps taken from his family by forces outside his control, we see a man with his foot halfway out the door. If the kids can't appreciate Pinocchio, how are they going to understand what Roy's seen? Other additions include a harrowing scene of Roy, tortured by his need to sculpt Devil's Tower, breaking down and showering while fully clothed. Ronnie makes an apparently sincere offer for the family to seek therapy together, but as the kids start screaming, she lets accusations of selfishness and neglect fly.
"The scene hews closer in tone to John Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence than It Came From Outer Space. Garr plays Ronnie as a bit of a harridan, but who would react well if their spouse suddenly began following lights in the sky? And what did the kids do to deserve any of this?"

Keith Phipps in Slate reassesses Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Biblioteque

"To a certain kind of rabid reader, Powell's is an almost perfect blend of the massive scale of a chain bookstore and the bohemian vibe of a neighborhood independent.
"The mystery section includes popular fare and rare early editions, and is stocked by someone well-versed enough to recognize that William Irish was one of noir author Cornell Woolrich's pen names. The staff is known for its bibliophilism: Jon Guetschow, 36, the store's head buyer and a comics fanatic, says that he can't afford to leave Powell's because the loss of the employee discount would ruin him.
"Between staff, stock and its online muscle, Powell's looms over other beloved independent stores such as Denver's Tattered Cover and New York City's Strand."

Scott Timberg in the Los Angeles Times checks in with the owners of Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, to see how "the nation's preeminent independent bookstore" will face an uncertain future.

"An America Where the Separation of Church and State Is Absolute"

Salon offers video and a transcript of John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech to Protestant ministers on religion and the presidency.

The End of Photography

"In the late 1970s, however, the concept of fiction in photography reared its little postmodern head. 'The big change in attitude from realist photography,' says Lawrence Miller, who owns a prominent photography gallery in New York, 'was when Metro Pictures [one of the hippest galleries in SoHo] showed Cindy Sherman in 1980.' Sherman's fictional self-portraits—fake 'film stills' with the artist posed as a negligeed blonde on a bed, or a dark-haired femme fatale in a chic apartment—weren't photography's first turn away from the straight, nonfiction reportage most people think of as great photography. But her pictures represented something new in the way that photography was considered as art. It wasn't just for reportage anymore. The Talbotian esthetic door was now fully opened for photographers to make photographs just as well as to take them. The advent of digital technology only exacerbated photography's flight into fable."

Peter Plagens in Newsweek traces the transformation of the medium.

Hero or Villain?

Andy Newman in The New York Times and Bill Shaikin in the Los Angeles Times gauge reactions to the announcement that former Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Canvassing

"After the 1970s and even in the face of a sputtering 'return to painting' in the 1980s, the actual practice of slapping paint around on canvas took a back seat to academically inspired Conceptual art. 'Ideas about painting,' which is one strategy the inspiring first generation of Conceptual artists employed to shake-up the status quo, superseded painting itself. But the ideas were getting monotonous by the time the second- and third-generation Conceptualists came around.
"Today, by contrast, actual painting is a staple in gallery exhibitions from Santa Monica and Culver City to mid-Wilshire and Chinatown. And paintings made by L.A. artists are everywhere. Lots of them are by younger artists, under 45. When California's deep recession of the early 1990s eased, galleries exploded across L.A. Now they number well into the triple digits. The number of painters, promising and accomplished, has likewise mushroomed. Painting--of all kinds--is as prominent as any other art in the city's galleries."

Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times notes the health of contemporary painting.

Here's What You Missed!

"Each episode leads in with pop culture news, touching recently on topics such as Marie Osmond's fainting on 'Dancing With the Stars,' the outing of the character Dumbledore in 'Harry Potter' and the wildfires in California. What's best about the show is when its commentators, largely made up of New York comedians, sink their teeth into the material. Mocking the media's obsession that celebrity homes were not immune to the fires, frequent contributor Paul F. Tompkins asked, 'You're telling me celebrities don't have control of the elements? I thought that when there was a mudslide, Cher would hold out her hand and go, "Hold, foul earth. I command thee!"'"

In the Los Angeles Times Claire Zulkey praises VH1's Best Week Ever.

For the Day You Die, You Gonna Touch the Sky

Richard Severo in The New York Times pens an obit for daredevil Evel Knievel.