June 2009 Acquisitions

Books:
Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, 2005.
Art Fein, The L.A. Musical History Tour: A Guide to the Rock and Roll Landmarks of Los Angeles, 1991, 1998.
Thomas Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction, 2006.
John A. Jackson, A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall of Philadelphia Soul, 2004.
Christian Lander, Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions, 2008.
The Onion, Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth--73rd Edition, 2007, 2008.
George E. Stanley and Meryl Henderson, Coretta Scott King: First Lady of Civil Rights, 2008.
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996, 2006.

DVDs:
Ace in the Hole, 1951.
Darling, 1965.
Gran Torino, 2008.
The Omen, 1976.
Soul Plane, 2004.
Yo Gabba Gabba: New Friends, 2009.

Anti-Social Networks

"This is consistent with previous research on online communication, says Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware in Newark, who suspects that heavy users of sites such as Digg and Twitter may have similar characteristics. 'People who prefer online social behaviour tend to have higher levels of social anxiety and lower social skills,' he says."

Peter Aldhous in New Scientist explores research into who contributes to "community-curated" websites like Wikipedia..

Coffee Achievers

"For each of the store's four Synesso stations, water and power conduits connect directly to each station from the ceiling. 'There's a bit of a steampunk vibe,' says Ana Henton, principal of Mass Architecture & Design. Mass developed station prototypes and coordinated with woodworkers, metalworkers, plumbers and electricians. An Intelligentsia technical specialist ensured the mechanics meshed with the espresso machines."

In the Los Angeles Times, Joshua Lurie gets excited as Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea opens in Venice.

Stars of Track and Field

"Murdoch's health has improved remarkably, but he still moves gingerly, as if he doesn’t want to wake his own body. After playing for a while, he rose slowly from the piano and refreshed everyone’s drink. 'We lost a lot of the original fans when I stopped being miserable,' Murdoch told me recently. 'But the only thing worse than being miserable is sentimentalizing misery as a desired state.'"

Stephen Rodrick profiles Stuart Murdoch in The New York Times Magazine.

That Man in the White House

Time presents a special issue on "The Legacy of F.D.R."

Poison Summer

"In Mexico, settled near the capital in the small town of Coyoacán, in a house owned by the painter Diego Rivera (who was married to the radical artist Frida Kahlo), Trotsky and his wife Natalia maintained a bizarre imprisoned court. Unable to go out much because of fear that the NKVD would kill him, Trotsky welcomed a regular supply of visitors, was supported by loyal Trotskyist secretaries and guards, and played on a world stage by writing ferociously trenchant articles about Stalin and the character of the deformed workers' state that the Soviet Union had become. The avant-garde artists and writers who flirted with Trotsky form a sparkling backdrop to the political narrative, and Patenaude provides a series of fascinating pen portraits of a motley crew of believers and fellow travellers (a term invented by Trotsky for those who were happy to join the journey but reluctant about the destination). The most famous was Frida Kahlo, who came quickly under Trotsky's spell and indulged in a brief affair until she tired of it. Hovering a little further out on the ring of friends and colleagues were Soviet moles and agents, waiting for Trotsky to drop his guard."

In Literary Review, Richard Overy reviews Bertrand M Patenaude's Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky.

Pushed Too Hard

"Sky’s wife Sabrina Saxon posted news of his passing on Facebook this morning: 'Sky has passed over and YaHoWha is waiting for him at the gate. He will soon be home with his Father. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep him here with us. More later. I’m sorry.'"

Joe Gross of the Austin American-Statesman reports the death of Sky Saxon of the Seeds.

Ebony and Ivory

The Los Angeles Times reports the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

Bill Flanagan on CBS Sunday Morning explains the meaning of Michael.

Seether

"Swells, as he was often known, swiftly became famous for his brilliant confrontational, pointed style and amazing wordplay as well as his championing of bands and artists that ranged from the Extreme Noise Terror, Napalm Death, The Redskins and Asian Dub Foundation to Daphne And Celeste."

The NME reports the death of music writer Steven Wells.

Twenty-Six Miles Across the Sea

"Catalina was Hollywood's home away from home, and casino gigs were highly sought after. The concerts were broadcast across the country on radio, enhancing the venue's popularity. Thousands of concertgoers paid $2.25 each to take the Great White Steamer from San Pedro on the mainland to Avalon. Then they danced to big band music, thanking their lucky stars that the concerts themselves were often free, thanks to the building's founding father, chewing gum mogul William Wrigley Jr."

Rosemary McClure in the Los Angeles Times marks the eightieth anniversary of the Avalon Casino on Catalina Island.

You Are Correct, Sir!

"Down-to-earth and approachable, McMahon was known to respond freely to fans' questions--as well as to the inevitable requests from fans such as the female tourist in Florida who took his picture and then pleaded, 'Say it for me.'
"'What's your name?' McMahon inquired. Then, after being told, he boomed, 'Heeeeere's Debbie!'"

Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times writes an obituary for Ed McMahon.

"We've Got Nothing to Do but Think"

"Class discussions were often rambling but always fascinating. I assigned only very brief reading assignments summarizing philosophical theories—perhaps four pages per class. All of utilitarianism, for example, got only a couple of pages, written in the simplest possible terms. The students struggled with the philosophical terminology, but most of them made it through. Their books, issued by the state with stern warnings against damaging them, were always open, always dog-eared, and usually marked up. For the first time in my teaching career, several students asked me for extra readings and extra assignments. It was professor catnip!"

Robert Garmong in The Chronicle of Higher Education recalls teaching a philosophy class in prison.

To the End

"Here was a film in which nothing is what it seems and everything seems to take place at once.
"Some declared it a milestone in the evolution of storytelling and formal filmmaking. Others saw only the emperor's new clothes--although, given the dazzling succession of Coco Chanel outfits modeled by its fashion-plate heroine, what clothes they were."

Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times revisits Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad.

Music in the Time of File-Sharing

"If the digital revolution meant curbing such mad excesses, few would complain. But those Masters Of The Universe represented only a tiny fraction of the industry. At the other end of the food chain, NME journalists speak to up-and-coming musicians day-in day-out--and the impact of illegal downloading on them is stark and depressing. Simply put, being in a middle-level indie band with a record deal used to pay the bills. Now it doesn't."

Luke Lewis of the NME considers the state of the record industry ten years after the debut of Napster.

"A Better Place for Ordinary People"

"From the end of the Second World War to the mid-1960s, California consolidated its position as an economic and technological colossus and emerged as the country’s dominant political, social, and cultural trendsetter. Thanks to wartime and Cold War defense spending, a flourishing consumer economy, and a seemingly ever-expanding tax base, the state was at the forefront of the single greatest rise in prosperity in American history. In 1959, wages paid in Los Angeles’s working-class and solidly middle-class San Fernando Valley alone were higher than the total wages of 18 states. This affluence ushered in an era of exhilarating if headlong growth and free spending. The state’s public schools—the new, modernist elementary schools with their flat roofs, gleaming clerestory windows, and outdoor lockers; the grand comprehensive high schools (Sacramento, Lowell in San Francisco, and Hollywood and Fairfax in Los Angeles)—were the envy of the nation. Berkeley, the flagship campus in the UC system, emerged as the best university in the country, probably the world. It was a sweet, vivacious time: California’s children, swarming on all those new playgrounds, seemed healthier, happier, taller, and—thanks to that brilliantly clean sunshine—were blonder and more tan than kids in the rest of the country. For better and mostly for worse, it’s a time irretrievably lost."

In The Atlantic, Benjamin Schwarz reviews Kevin Starr's Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963.


"For all the blessings of California life, however, many of them rested on rickety foundations. Much of the prosperity could be traced directly to Washington, which was briskly arming up for the Cold War. Thanks to Pentagon largesse, fully 400,000 Californians found desirable jobs at companies such as Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed. By 1963, nearly 30 percent of the Los Angeles County–Orange County economy depended on defense spending. Many Californians recognized the hazards of relying so heavily on the business of armaments, but few had the heart to do anything about it. As Starr writes, signs of thaws in U.S.-Soviet relations, such as Nikita Khrushchev’s visit in 1959, tended to throw the region into 'economic panic.'"

As does T. A. Frank in Washington Monthly.

Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen "National Gay-Rights Leader"?

"That movement for equality was later overshadowed by efforts to combat AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s. And AIDS itself is a reason leaders were hard to come by. 'AIDS wiped out a whole generation,' Mr. Eisenbach said. 'What you have is a vacuum. And that still has not been filled.'"

Forty years after the Stonewall Riots, Jeremy W. Peters in The New York Times explores why "Gay people have no national standard-bearer."

"A Fundamental Assault on the Merits of American Objectives"

"It is important to underline one point that some leftist and anti-American ideologues often ignore: the Weltanschauung of America's self-understanding is neither cynical nor evil but is deeply felt by its proponents and proselytizers. 'American leaders,' Williams wrote, 'believed deeply in the ideals they proclaimed.'"

Eric Alterman in The Nation revisits William Appleman Williams's The Tragedy of American Diplomacy upon the book's fiftieth anniversary.

And Greg Grandin, also in The Nation, writes an appreciation of Williams.

"Lovers of the Beautiful"

"'My grandfather designed homes to be occupied by people,' he said in a statement to The Times. 'His homes are works of art. He created the space, but the space becomes a creative force and uplifts when it is lived in every day.'"

Martha Groves in the Los Angeles Times reports that the 1924 Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House is up for sale.

"I'm Not Interested in Other People's Track Records"

"'Blue Jeans just makes me feel like being in love, and moving to this part of London, and falling in love with the place,' he tells me. 'There's an innocence to it. It sounds like being 23.'"

John Harris in The Guardian interviews the members of Blur on the eve of their reunion concerts.

Dressed Right for a Beach Fight

"'It has been fully restored and is in great condition. We are expecting a lot of interest.'"

BBC News reports that the "Jimmy Cooper" Lambretta from Quadrophenia has been sold at auction for 36,000 pounds.

Disappearing From My View

"The theft of the election, however, raises more foreign-policy implications than any clean result could have. For one thing, at this point if Mousavi and his followers somehow manage to prevail, it will be a victory not for a 'reform' movement but for something more like a revolution that holds the promise of completely changing the context of U.S.-Iranian relations. Unfortunately, a more likely scenario is that the opposition will be crushed, with uncertain consequences for American policy."

Matthew Yglesias in The American Prospect ponders what the United States should do in light of the weekend's events in Iran.

Sue Pleming of Reuters reports that the State Department "contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election."

Just Shoot Me

"This was an era, Elterman says, in which the culture could still thrive below the constraints of organized publicity. He would hang out at the Tropicana Hotel on Santa Monica Boulevard (now a Ramada Inn), the Starwood, and Chasen's, at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Doheny Drive. He made friends with Rodney Bingenheimer, the one-time 'Mayor of the Sunset Strip,' who brought the young man to parties and on out-of-town rock trips.
"'Everybody was friendly. Frank [Sinatra] would pose, Sammy [Davis Jr.] would pose, Cher. You fast-forward 30 years and you have bedlam.'"

Nicholas White in the Los Angeles Times profiles paparazzo Brad Elterman as a display of his 1970s and early 1980s photographs opens at Equator Books.

Don't Call the Whole Thing Off

"The first example of policy in a liquidity trap comes from the 1930s. The U.S. economy grew rapidly from 1933 to 1937, helped along by New Deal policies. America, however, remained well short of full employment.
"Yet policy makers stopped worrying about depression and started worrying about inflation. The Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy, while F.D.R. tried to balance the federal budget. Sure enough, the economy slumped again, and full recovery had to wait for World War II."

Paul Krugman in The New York Times warns against declaring victory over the recession too early.

Searching for Order

"What Lears makes of that is clear from the quote he takes from Herman Melville at the book's outset: 'Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.' To summarize his sense of the transformation almost to the point of oversimplification: An earlier 19th century notion of 'manliness' gave way to an amoral militarism, which fused with a muscular new Protestantism and evolving theories of racial supremacy; these, in turn, conjoined with a new economic order in which capital made way for capitalism. All were able to meld because each began in the post-Civil War hunger for 'regeneration.' The result was an assertive, aggressive, frequently intolerant national identity."

Tim Rutten reviews Jackson Lears's Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 in the Los Angeles Times.

The High Cost of Low Prices

"But it's coming at a cost, and that’s one of the things that we try to point out. They're invisible costs; you might not see them at the checkout counter. One-third of all Americans born after the year 2000 are going to have early-onset diabetes. That's going to bankrupt the healthcare system. Environmentally, we’re going to have tremendously high costs. Ultimately a large part of our carbon footprint is due to this food system. This food is grown in an unsustainable way, it's based on gasoline and it’s based on pollution. When gasoline prices spike, it's going to make this food very expensive. We can no longer drink the water in some farm states. Our topsoil has become totally depleted. And this food that we’re eating has far less nutritional value than the food we used to eat, so we have to eat more and more food to get that nutrition. All these invisible high costs of our food system are starting to become more and more obvious."

Andrew O'Hehir in Salon interviews the director of Food, Inc.

"Joining Hands with the Lunatic Fringe"

"Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that 'some' called Dr. Tiller 'Tiller the Baby Killer,' that he had 'blood on his hands,' and that he was a 'guy operating a death mill.' But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
"And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased."

Paul Krugman in The New York Times points out how "right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment."

And Art Winslow in the Los Angeles Times reviews Leonard Zeskind's Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement From the Margins to the Mainstream.

It's Time to Get Things Started

"Each week, our smart yet neurotic lead character has to manage a group of wacky misfits and put on a weekly sketch comedy show. Which show am I talking about?"

Brian Lynch on his blog argues that 30 Rock is really a human version of The Muppet Show.

The Buying Mind

"But even if Miller, like many a marketer who came before him, flogs his product too hard, his broadest point is well taken: We are awash in an ocean of consumerism, and we can't fully understand that ocean (much less struggle out of it) until we recognize that it wells up from evolved biology as well as culture. We live in a turbulence of signals and counter-signals, with every human madly displaying his personal qualities, tribal affiliations, and social position at all times."

Jonathan Gottschall in Seed magazine reviews Geoffrey Miller's Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior.

The World's Greatest Englishman

"In the first years of the 19th century political radicals latched onto Paine's attacks on 'Old Corruption' and how they might dismantle the privileged aristocratic rule inherited from the 18th century. These ideas spoke to artisans and small producers and laid the foundations to 19th-century examinations of wealth and its distribution, even if Paine's analysis which attacked the landed aristocrat would later be replaced by an indictment of the capitalist."

David Nash in History Today recalls Thomas Paine on the bicentennial of Paine's death.

Leapin' Lizards!

"By 1932, the villains in the strip are increasingly identified with the political left: snide bohemian intellectuals who mock traditional values, upper-crust class traitors who give money to communists, officious bureaucrats who hamper big business, corrupt labour union leaders who sabotage industry, demagogic politicians who stir up class envy in order to win elections, and busybody social workers who won't let a poor orphan girl work for a living because of their silly child labor laws. Gray started to identify liberalism with elitism, a potent bit of political framing which continues to shape political discourse in American [sic] today."

At Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee interviews Jeet Heer, who reveals the politics of Little Orphan Annie.

"The Manipulation of Things Rather Than Ideas"

"The truth about most white-collar office work, Crawford argues, is captured better by 'Dilbert' and 'The Office': dull routine more alienating than the machine production denounced by Marx. Unlike the electrician who knows his work is good when you flip a switch and the lights go on, the average knowledge worker is caught in a morass of evaluations, budget projections, and planning meetings. None of this bears the worker's personal stamp; none of it can be definitively evaluated; and the kind of mastery or excellence available to the forklift driver or mechanic are elusive. Rather than achieving self-mastery by confronting a 'hard discipline' like gardening or structual engineering or learning Russian, people are offered the fake autonomy of consumer choice, expressing their inner selves by sitting in front of a Harley-Davidson catalog and deciding how to trick out their bikes."

Francis Fukuyama reviews Matthew B. Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work in The New York Times.

Unchained Melodies

"Como summed up the new sound; he was all about security, soda, and a short back and sides. A poll once claimed Como was America's ideal husband, but he was nobody's ideal lover."

Bob Stanley on The Guardian's music blog looks back to the pop music of the pre-rock 'n' roll era.

Vital Forms

"All of his work exudes a joy of painting freely, but he devised three categories for his art. 'Hunch' paintings are unplanned works that begin with a shape and continue with intuitive additions. 'Geometrics' are rhythmic orchestrations of geometric shapes. 'Organics' are composed of curving forms."

Suzanne Muchnic in the Los Angeles Times writes an obit for Frederick Hammersley.

Nothing Can Change the Shape of Things to Come

"The culture was changing, too, as a new generation of artists and writers crashed through their own sets of barriers--and attracted growing audiences that, amid the newness all around them, were suddenly, even giddily, receptive to the iconoclasm."

Fred Kaplan in New York portrays turning points from fifty years ago, adapted from his new book, 1959: The Year Everything Changed.

And Kaplan discusses his book in Slate.

Walk the Earth

Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times reports the death of actor David Carradine.

"We Have Made You Into Nations and Tribes so That You May Know One Another"

"The issues that I have described will not be easy to address. But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek--a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together."

Salon prints President Obama's speech in Cairo.

Buy Then; Pay Now

"We weren't always a nation of big debt and low savings: in the 1970s Americans saved almost 10 percent of their income, slightly more than in the 1960s. It was only after the Reagan deregulation that thrift gradually disappeared from the American way of life, culminating in the near-zero savings rate that prevailed on the eve of the great crisis. Household debt was only 60 percent of income when Reagan took office, about the same as it was during the Kennedy administration. By 2007 it was up to 119 percent."

Paul Krugman in The New York Times blames the Reagan administration for the decline in personal savings.

But Brink Lindsey in Reason accuses Krugman of promoting "nostalgianomics."

And Andrew Leonard in Salon points out the Democratic Party's culpability.

Robert Scheer in The Nation points to Bill Clinton.

Goddess Demolition

"That may explain why few people expect any new uprising here on Tiananmen Square. The party eased its control over people's daily lives, as the protestors wanted, and in exchange for keeping its power... it let the country get rich."

Barry Petersen of CBS News' Sunday Morning ponders the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

"And Vice Versa"

"This is the lesson of GM's bankruptcy, and it has little to do with market share and miles per gallon. It's a rebuff of the notion of exceptionalism. Any organization that fails to sufficiently safeguard its means of self-correction and reform, that forsakes long-term investment for short-term gain, that piles up debt year after year, will eventually fail, no matter how grand its history or noble its purpose. If you don't feel the tingle of national mortality in all this, you're not paying attention."

Dan Neil in the Los Angeles Times depicts the decline of General Motors.