May 2010 Acquisitions

Books:
Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, 2010.
Daniel Clowes, Wilson, 2010.
Aline Coquelle, Palm Springs Style, 2006.
RH Disney, The Princess and the Frog Little Golden Book, 2009.
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Preacher, Vol. 1: Gone to Texas, 1996.
Denise Hamilton (ed.). Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, 2010.
Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, 2010.
Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, Batman: Haunted Knight, 1996.
John Herbert Roper (ed.), C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics, 1997.
Ed Sikov, Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s, 1996.
Hugh Wilcken, David Bowie's Low, 2005.

DVDs:
Get Carter, 1971.

"Existentialist Firefighter Delays 3 Deaths"

"When asked if he felt something, anything, after briefly extending the lives of three human beings, Farber replied in the negative.
"'I was doing what, at that moment, I was doing,' he said. 'Tomorrow, if there is another fire, I will do the same. Perhaps in that fire, I will be the one who is killed. Or, on the other hand, perhaps I will not. Either way, there will be anguish and sorrow at some unknown point.'
"Added Farber, 'There always is.'"

From The Onion.

"Content to Send These Messages Out in a Bottle"

"'I sorta feel like when I was a teenager in the '70s, a lot of unmasking was going on.' It was true of the punk rock of the time, as well as of the absurdist, idol-smashing comedy of Steve Martin, Andy Kauffman and Monty Python.
"'I felt like the cover's been taken off these things and nobody's going to ever fall for it again,' Clowes recalls.
"Materialism, artifice and personal ostentation were especially well-skewered. But by the 1980s, people were driving showy cars again; rock songs had synthesizers. Comedy became guys in suspenders telling jokes for yuppies. Phoniness was back with a vengeance, and it fueled to Clowes' work."

Scott Timberg in the Los Angeles Times interviews Daniel Clowes about the new book Wilson.

The Last Moviemaker

"The story has several versions; the most common is that his refusal to play a scene in the manner that the director requested resulted in Mr. Hopper’s stubbornly performing more than 80 takes before he finally followed orders. Upon wrapping the scene, Mr. Hopper later recalled, Mr. Hathaway told him that his career in Hollywood was finished."

Edward Wyatt in The New York Times reports the death of Dennis Hopper.

Richard Stayton in the Los Angeles Times writes an appreciation.

A Sound You Hear that Lingers in Your Ear

"There are colorful stories behind the making of all of these singles, involving a world of snaky promoters, riotous entertainers, broken promises and the paradox of working in old-style showbiz at a time of political and social turmoil. Nobody is sure who made it to old age or not. Stories are variously reported. It's not that hard to track down a Smokey Robinson or a Quincy Jones. But this is a less-storied environment, the world of one-hit-wonder pimps, retired Etta James devotee Delores Ealy, or the gloriously unhinged 'Farm Song' by troubled folk ranter Leon Gardner."

Gustavo Turner in the LA Weekly interviews drummer Edward "Apple" Nelson.

"The Product of Our Own Contradictions"

"'Deregulation' is wonderful until we discover what happens when regulations aren't issued or enforced. Everyone is a capitalist until a private company blunders. Then everyone starts talking like a socialist, presuming that the government can put things right because they see it as being just as big and powerful as its tea party critics claim."

E. J. Dionne, Jr., in The New Republic casts his gaze toward the oil hemorrhaging in the Gulf of Mexico.

He Said the Darndest Things

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for Gary Coleman and Art Linkletter.

"Speed, in Everything We Do, Is Not Always a Sign of Progress"

"'I always felt as if I had to retain my connection to the empirical record, even as I retained my admiration for the participants. My attitude toward the people shifted from a more uncritical admiration to one of great respect.'"

Robert L. Pincus in The San Diego Union-Tribune interviews Daniel Widener, UC San Diego history professor and author of the new book Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles. (And The Late Adopter's long-ago roommate.)

The Men of Summer

In The New York Times, Sam Tenenhaus and Michael Shapiro review Howard Bryant's The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron and Bill Madden's Steinbrenner, respectively.

"Lincoln Wasn't a Douchebag!"

"Watch as Jen Kirkman has two bottles of wine and tells us the story."

Funny or Die presents the complete Drunk History, Vol. 5: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, starring Will Ferrell and Don Cheadle.

"Excited Firefighters Point Out Kid On Tricycle"

"Unable to contain its enthusiasm, the entire first unit then suited up, jumped inside their fire truck, and followed Sturges down the block in hopes of hearing him ring his tricycle's bell."

From The Onion.

"A Cynical Euphemism for 'Available'"

"Modern readers in the grip of F. Scott Fitzgerald's prose may not recognize the meaning of Tom Buchanan's insight, but Fitzgerald knew his contemporaries would understand. In 1925, when 'The Great Gatsby' was published, the meaning of 'drugstores' was as clear as gin: Those were the places you went to get medically prescribed alcohol, a legally acceptable source of liquor during all 13 years of Prohibition.
"Sound familiar? To any modern Californian, of course it does."

Daniel Okrent in the Los Angeles Times recalls a loophole during Prohibition.

All the Presidents' Money

"One of the most important conclusions of this analysis is that the presidency has little to do with wealth. Several brought huge net worths to the job. Many lost most of their fortunes after leaving office. Some never had any money at all."

Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter, and Ashley C. Allen at The Atlantic caluculate the peak net worth of the Presidents of the United States in today's dollars.

The Hobgoblin of Little Minds

"I don't believe Rand is a racist; I think he is a fool who is suffering from the foolish consistency syndrome that affects all libertarians. They believe that freedom consists of one thing and one thing only--freedom from governmental constraint. Therefore, it is illogical to them that any increase in government power could ever expand freedom. Yet it is clear that African Americans were far from free in 1964 and that the Civil Rights Act greatly expanded their freedom while diminishing that of racists."

Bruce Bartlett at Capital Gains and Games reflects upon Rand Paul's views of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"The Likes of Which I'd Never Seen"

"'These were southern guys, nice folks, quiet, and Otis would be up there in the dressing room while the band was warming the audience up. He'd get his tie on, then put his coat on. One of the other musicians came up and Otis said, "Hey man, you catch your groove?" And he said "Yeah, I caught a groove." And Otis said, "Well, I guess I'll go down." He was totally casual, because he'd done this 1,000 times. I thought, "That's neat—and now he's going to go down and fire up this band like a locomotive and get it going.["]'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Randy Lewis interviews Ry Cooder about Otis Redding's 1966 concerts at the Whisky a Go Go.

The Strongest Visual Birth Control on the Market Today

"'In the beginning, I was half happy when something was destroyed, because it would give me something to post,' said Ms. Brophy, who looks, these days, alternately elated and as if her knees are about to buckle. 'Now I have hundreds of submissions I haven’t even looked at yet.'"

In The New York Times, Susan Dominus talks with Julie Haas Brophy, founder of Shit My Kids Ruined.

"The Next American Capitalism"

"The failed Reagan-Clinton version of American capitalism was just one of half a dozen models that we Americans have tried and discarded. As methods of organizing production in the real economy, there have always been alternatives in the U.S. to the shareholder-obsessed corporation, including somewhat exotic ones like producer cooperatives and public-private hybrids. The U.S. had a banking system only a few decades ago that was an appropriately dull utility."

Michael Lind in Salon wonders what direction the political economy will take.

"Metal Council Convenes To Discuss 'Metal Hand Sign' Abuse"

"Formed in 1972 and comprising 12 of the most revered leaders of the metal community, the council meets annually in its majestic hall atop Vatnajökull, Iceland's largest glacier, to discuss metal affairs. The SMC convened for a special session after Nikki Sixx, Overlord Of Glam Metal Affairs, was sent hard photographic evidence of metal-sign abuse across the nation. Sixx's fellow high priests said they were 'shocked,' calling it 'one of the most serious affronts to metal's integrity since the rise of rap-metal in the late 1990s.'"

From The Onion, 2005.

Teenage Angst Has Paid Off Well

"I see you rolling your eyes. That’s right, you: the one in the fake-vintage rock ’n’ roll T-shirt and thick-framed glasses reading this on an iPhone at the sidelines of your daughter’s soccer game. But you know exactly what I’m talking about, pal. (And by the way: stop trying to be a hip alterna-sports dad. Just cheer, for God’s sake.)"

A. O. Scott in The New York Times identifies the rise in popular culture of the "Generation X midlife crisis."

But Helaine Olen at Slate criticizes Scott for neglecting women.

"When the City Had a Soul"?

"In her invocations of laundries and shoe-repair and hardware stores, Zukin betrays a vague nostalgia, shared by many chronicles of New York (Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, Ric Burns’s documentary New York, Pete Hamill’s memoirs), for the Old Neighborhoods characteristic of what was once an overwhelmingly working-class city. As late as 1950, New York was by far the world’s largest industrial center, and even Manhattan was predominantly and the Village largely a center for labor. There were sewing rooms and small-scale manufacturing lofts in the east-central Village, SoHo, and Tribeca (where, in the late 1970s, I worked in a belt-and-handbag factory); the far West Village had a working waterfront (New York’s port was easily the world’s largest, employing 200,000 people) and a brewery (New York made one-fifth of the world’s beer)."

In The Atlantic, Benjamin Schwarz reviews Michael Sorkin’s Twenty Minutes in Manhattan and Sharon Zukin’s Naked City.

Never Lost a Dime

"It started its life as a script called 'Girl's Gym,' Corman deciding he wanted something to capitalize on the popularity of disco music. After he had assigned the project to Arkush, Corman acceded to his director's notion that no one could blow up a high school with a disco sound track. Arkush inserted The Ramones instead."

Mark Olsen in the LA Weekly interviews Roger Corman.

Huxley or Orwell?

Stuart McMillen at Recombiant Records offers an illustrated depiction of Neil Postman's comparison of Brave New World and 1984.

Get It Signed by the Heads of State

Guardian columnists Jackie Ashley, Julian Glover, and Martin Kettle react to the pact between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats that has allowed David Cameron to become prime minister.

Only Interpretations

"Context is particularly important in Nie­tzsche’s case because his life story was so dramatic. The young Friedrich (or Fritz, as he was known) was, by all accounts, simply the most brilliant student any of his formidable professors had ever encountered, going all the way back to his boarding school days at Pforta. His teacher of classical philology at Leipzig, Friedrich Ritschl, said that in his 39 years of teaching he had 'never known a young man who has matured so early.' Nie­tzsche was awarded a doctorate at age 24 and a professorship at the University of Basel the same year; he was promoted to full professor at 25—a feat not even Larry Summers could duplicate."

In The New York Times, Francis Fukuyama reviews Julian Young's Friedrich Nie­tzsche: A Philosophical Biography.

You're Standing on My Neck

"And Quinn's farewell address to the Fashion Club, admonishing the remaining members to let no chartreuse be 'too chartreusy,' is so full of cutesy made-up words it could have been written by a Lucky staffer. The issues Daria raised were not exactly new; after all, weight drama, racism and ridiculousness in the name of fashion are all American institutions. However, in the '90s, we never thought such empty spectacle would become the norm."

Latoya Peterson in Salon sings the praises of Daria: The Complete Animated Series.

"Exhausted Noam Chomsky Just Going To Try And Enjoy The Day For Once"

"'I just want to lie in a hammock and have a nice relaxing morning,' said the outspoken anarcho-syndicalist academic, who first came to public attention with his breakthrough 1957 book Syntactic Structures. 'The systems of control designed to manufacture consent among a largely ignorant public will still be there for me to worry about tomorrow. Today, I'm just going to kick back and enjoy some much-needed Noam Time.'"

From The Onion.

No Sun Up in the Sky

"Since blacks were not allowed to live in Hollywood, 'Felix Young, a white man, signed for the house as if he was going to rent it,' Ms. Horne said. 'When the neighbors found out, Humphrey Bogart, who lived right across the street from me, raised hell with them for passing around a petition to get rid of me.' Bogart, she said, 'sent word over to the house that if anybody bothered me, please let him know.'"

Aljean Harmetz in The New York Times reports the death of Lena Horne.

"Where Did the Ducks Go"

"It's a Saturday night in December 1950, a few days before the start of winter break, and Holden has just been expelled from boarding school again. His plan, if he could be said to have one, is to hole up in a hotel for a few days before returning to his parents' apartment on the Upper East Side. This shouldn't be a problem: He has some cash, and he knows the city, having lived here all his life. Holden, though, is 16, lost emotionally and physically, and as his world unravels during the next 48 hours, mostly what he does is walk."

In the Los Angeles Times, David Ulin retraces Holden Caulfield's travels in New York.

"The Mother of Mother's Day"

"She nursed long-running feuds about who was the true founder of Mother's Day, and was criticized for ignoring the work of poet Julia Ward Howe, who had instigated a Mother's Day for Peace, observed in June, decades before Miss Jarvis began her campaign. She would protest wherever she felt wronged, even in the store belonging to John Wanamaker, who had been so crucial to the success of her crusade.
"An assistant told a story about going to the tea room at Wanamaker's store one year around Mother's Day. When Miss Jarvis noticed a 'Mother's Day Salad' on the menu, 'she ordered it, dumped it on the floor, got up and left,' says Ms. Antolini."

In a 2008 article, the Ottawa Citizen profiles Anna Jarvis.

Grab Your Board and Go Sidewalk Surfin' with Me

"It started with metal roller skate wheels nailed to wooden crates. The boxy devices later simplified into planks of wood. And as surfing became increasingly popular in the late 1950s, the idea to surf the streets became a natural progression."

Yvonne Villarreal in the Los Angeles Times reviews "Skateboard: Evolution and Art in California" at Santa Monica's California Heritage Museum. (The exhibit also screens the original color version of the first skateboarding movie, 1965's Skaterdater.)

Now, What's the Matter with Britain?

"But Clegg could still snatch an important change in the Liberal Democrats' future status and experience of government–so long as he goes into negotiations with the other two parties in a more grown-up and intelligent way. He must now show that the Liberal Democrats are a serious party of government, able to take responsibility in difficult times. If they turn nervously away for fear of taking office now, the party's fortunes may be wrecked for a generation. The need to push through big changes in state spending, cut public borrowing and get out of the recession provide a perfect rationale for insisting on the UK's first peacetime coalition government since the 1920s."

Patrick Dunleavy in the London Evening Standard sifts through the results of the British election.

All in the Same Gang

"Pretty much no one not in the photo—not even the most hard-core hip-hop heads—can ID the rest of the posse pictured, other than maybe giving a 20-year-old street name. Until now, that is."

Martin Cizmar in the L.A. Weekly tracks down what happened to everyone featured on the cover of 1987's N.W.A and the Posse.

And Karina Longworth interviews Ice Cube about his new documentary about the Los Angeles Raiders.

"Aging Gen-Xer Doesn't Find Bad Movies Funny Anymore"

"Citing such factors as work-related stress, mortgage worries, and the ever-growing duties of parenthood and marriage, Erdman said he has finally accepted the reality that embarrassingly bad films, TV shows, and consumer products are no longer a viable source of amusement for him.
"'I turn on the TV these days, and if I see something that's unbelievably stupid and insulting to my intelligence, all I want to do is turn it off,' said Erdman, pausing to sip from a Tom Collins, a drink he began ordering in 1989 to be amusing but now orders without irony on the rare occasion when he still drinks. 'What's happened to me?'"

From The Onion, 2000.

He Was Happy to Serve You

"A pop-cultural totem, the Anthora has been enshrined in museums; its likeness has adorned tourist memorabilia like T-shirts and ceramic mugs. Like many once-celebrated artifacts, though, the cup may now be endangered, the victim of urban gentrification."

Margalit Fox in The New York Times reports the death of cup creator Leslie Buck.

"It's as if Family Strictures Undermine Family Structures"

"The paradox is this: Cultural conservatives revel in condemning the loose moral values and louche lifestyles of 'San Francisco liberals.' But if you want to find two-parent families with stable marriages and coddled kids, your best bet is to bypass Sarah Palin country and go to Nancy Pelosi territory: the liberal, bicoastal, predominantly Democratic places that cultural conservatives love to hate."

In National Journal, Jonathan Rauch reviews Naomi Cahn and June Carbone's Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture.

Ross Douthat comments in The New York Times.

"You Can't Have Both"

"It is surprising that any progressives are naive enough to fall for the insincere claim of conservatives and libertarians that their cheap-labor policies are motivated by altruistic concern for the foreign poor. The same conservatives and libertarians who claim to be defending poor Mexican immigrants and Chinese factory workers against overpaid, privileged American workers also claim that federal prevailing-wage laws for public contractors discriminate against blacks and that poor Americans are enslaved by 'the welfare plantation.' The faux-humanitarian arguments of the open-borders, cheap-labor right come as part of a larger policy package that genuine progressives should reject as a whole."

Michael Lind in Salon criticizes attitudes some political progressives hold about immigration.

"The Guy that Made Yoga Safe for America"

"It's fair to say that there was an American war against yoga in 1910 and the years afterward. Yoga had morphed from being the pastime of harmless eccentrics to something that was dangerous and subversive and possibly hurting the virtue of American women. It was based on some cases in which women gave away some amount of their fortunes to Indian swamis. In 1911, the Washington Post reported that the government was looking into this, conducting investigations. And certainly the fear that it was unleashing the sexuality of women. In the 1910s, the exoticness of it, the Orientalness of it, always came associated with loose sexuality. This wasn't American Christianity."

Whitney Joiner in Salon interviews Robert Love, author of The Great Oom: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America.

Faces Come out of the Rain

"The images in question, it turns out, were culled from outtakes of Morrison's self-financed 1969 film, 'HWY: An American Pastoral.' And according to Tom DiCillo, the writer and director of 'When You're Strange,' potential doubters wouldn't be the first to question the authenticity of the reel.
"'We were showing it at Sundance and a distributor disgustedly stormed out of a screening,' DiCillo recounted. 'I ran down the street to ask why he'd left and the distributor replied, "I can't believe you'd use an actor in this movie." I laughed and told him that I'd never do such a thing.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Jeff Weiss talks to the makers of When You're Strange: A Film About the Doors.

The Guru of Selfishness?

"Smith saw the task of political economy as the pursuit of 'two distinct objects': 'first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and second, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services'. He defended such public services as free education and poverty relief, while demanding greater freedom for the in­digent who receives support than the rather punitive Poor Laws of his day permitted. Beyond his attention to the components and responsibilities of a well-functioning market system (such as the role of accountability and trust), he was deeply concerned about the inequality and poverty that might remain in an otherwise successful market economy. Even in dealing with regulations that restrain the markets, Smith additionally acknowledged the importance of interventions on behalf of the poor and the underdogs of society. At one stage, he gives a formula of disarming simplicity: 'When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.'"

Amartya Sen in The New Statesman reclaims Adam Smith from market fundamentalists.

"Civility in This Age Also Requires Something More Than Just Asking If We Can’t Just All Get Along"

"Today’s 24/7 echo-chamber amplifies the most inflammatory soundbites louder and faster than ever before. And it’s also, however, given us unprecedented choice. Whereas most Americans used to get their news from the same three networks over dinner, or a few influential papers on Sunday morning, we now have the option to get our information from any number of blogs or websites or cable news shows. And this can have both a good and bad development for democracy. For if we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line with our own, studies suggest that we become more polarized, more set in our ways. That will only reinforce and even deepen the political divides in this country.
"But if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and our beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from."

The Detroit Free Press prints President Obama's remarks at the University of Michigan's commencement.

"The Romans of the New World"

"The book was sent to Spain during the Inquisition, when works written in indigenous languages were banned, and later given to the Medici Library. Largely forgotten until the early 19th century, it is available only to specialists and is seldom on public view. 'It is an incredible thrill to be able to borrow this iconic work,' Lyons says. 'This will be the first time it has returned to the New World.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Suzanne Muchnic reviews "The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire" at the Getty Villa.

"Still Waiting for the Revolution"

"That is why Klein is so unappreciative of what would appear to be a great triumph for her side. Her goal was never merely to change corporate behavior. It was to change the entire economic system. As she sees it, the newfound emphasis on selling authenticity is just further evidence of capitalism’s ability to co-opt dissent and exploit seemingly subversive niches. Reform is always the enemy of revolution, and any change that maintains the overall status quo is to be viewed with suspicion."

In Reason, Andrew Potter revisits Naomi Klein's No Logo.