November 2011 Acquisitions

Books:

Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, 2007.

Christian Lander, Whiter Shades of Pale, 2010.

Mae Ngai and Jon Gjerde (eds.), Major Problems in American Immigration History, 2012.

Joe Shuster et al, Superman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, 2004.

Ben Smiley and Victoria Ying, Tangled, 2010.

Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, Crisis on Infinite Earths, 2001.

DVDs:

The President's Analyst, 1967.

Superman: The Movie, 1978.

"As Much a Testament to the Exalted Claims Made for Culture in Midcentury America as It Is a Casualty of What Has Happened Since"

"These days, it’s hard to recognize that America. The wage stagnation that began in the late ’70s has since bestowed on us the kind of income inequality more typical of a third-world oligarchy. The real minimum wage is less than it was in 1968, and the richest 1 percent of Americans take home nearly 25 percent of the country’s income, as compared with the 9 percent they earned in 1974. All of which gives Macdonald’s complaint the feel of a time capsule, one that contains no foreshadowing of how quickly and completely everything would change. Macdonald failed to anticipate what would happen not only to art but also to its audience. The middlebrow flourished because the middle class was flourishing: this much he got right. Yet he wrote as if the middle class would necessarily continue to prosper, as if the profusion of 'money, leisure, and knowledge' could be taken for granted, when in fact he was bemoaning the cultural fallout from the Great Prosperity in the last days before its demise. Middlebrowism is still with us, of course, but its growth required a middle class that was upwardly mobile as well as a link, whether real or perceived, between culture and status. Macdonald’s Midcult shit list—which includes the likes of Saturday Review, The Reporter and the Book-of-the-Month Club—is a catalog of species that are either endangered or extinct."

Jennifer Szalai in The Nation revisits Dwight Macdonald's "Masscult and Midcult" in post-middle class America.

A Taste of More Lisztomania

The Los Angeles Times publishes obituaries for educator I. Michael Heyman, playwright Shelagh Delaney, singer Andrea True, journalist Tom Wicker, and director Ken Russell.

"The Modern Conservative Movement Began 60 Years Ago"

"The crusading sentiment made more sense during the Cold War, when America faced a truly collectivist, atheistic and nuclear-armed adversary. It is becoming increasingly discordant with the times, and that is why some Republican candidates with considerable support strike non-conservatives as weird."

In the Los Angeles Times, Carl T. Bogus looks to the sixtieth anniversary of William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale.

"A Man of This Dimension"

"Take, for instance, the story of Herb Abramson, who returned from the Army in 1955 and was eventually booted from the label. According to Gillett, Abramson returned to find that 'Jerry Wexler was in his seat and couldn’t be moved.' According to Wade and Picardie, Abramson—whose wife, Miriam, ran Atlantic’s day-to-day operations—returned from Germany with a girlfriend (or, as Wexler put it, 'a Brünnhilde!'). In Greenfield’s account, Abramson returns with the girlfriend and a drug habit. ('"Herb was snorting cocaine," someone who knew Abramson well during this period would later confirm.')"

Alex Abramovich in The New York Times reviews Robert Greenfield's The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun.

"Some of My Fictions Percolate Out into the Material World"

"He sees parallels between the dystopia predicted in the story and the world today. The book foretold the prevalence of CCTV cameras on city streets, for instance; and Moore takes a particular satisfaction in a strand of the plot that seemed to anticipate the sort of internet-based dissent that has made groups such as Anonymous and Assange's WikiLeaks such major agents of protest. 'The reason V's fictional crusade against the state is ultimately successful is that the state, in V for Vendetta, relies upon a centralised computer network which he has been able to hack. Not an obvious idea in 1981, but it struck me as the sort of thing that might be down the line.' Moore is not computer-literate. 'This was just something I made up because I thought it would make an interesting adventure story. Thirty years go by and you find yourself living it.'"

Tom Lamont in The Guardian talks with Alan Moore about the popularity of Guy Fawkes masks with current-day protesters.

The Disappointed and the Delusional

In New York, Jonathan Chait and David Frum explore problems facing liberals and conservatives, respectively.

"The Hothouse Brand of American Malice"

"Whatever the similarities between Obama and JFK, the differences are substantial. Kennedy devoted little attention to domestic affairs, and Obama has no interest in replicating JFK’s entertaining give-and-takes with the press. Obama has yet to show bravery to match JFK’s standoff with Khrushchev, but he can boast the legislative achievements that eluded Kennedy. But this much is certain: Both presidents were centrists in the Democratic parties of their respective eras. Neither could be remotely described as radical, let alone 'socialist,' as critics of both have contended. Both are ardent capitalists largely content to leave corporate America to its own devices. Both are wary of the institutional left. Both are hawkish by their party’s standards. But for all this moderation, they, like the similarly centrist Bill Clinton, who was accused of enabling drug running and murder on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, have inspired a hatred so nightmarishly disproportionate to their actual beliefs, actions, and policies that it’s worthy of Stephen King’s fiction."

Frank Rich in New York uses the publication of new books about John F. Kennedy to compare the Dallas, Texas, of 1963 to the nation today.

You Can Do What You Wanna Do

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for boxer Joe Frazier, rapper Heavy D, and cartoonist Bil Keane.

Out of My Brain on the Train

"Unfortunately, the rock opera is also a bit of a cheat, as any classical music fan knows. If you're used to kicking back with a little Verdi, and someone comes along and plays you Pink Floyd's The Wall, declaiming, 'Behold! Here is another kind of opera to blow your mind,' you might point out that a rock opera isn't really an opera at all, but more, maybe, like a cantata, or a suite. Or even a musical, without the choreography. Rock operas aren't usually acted out, and you won't find much in the way of recitative. You get a cycle of songs, a main character, and, generally, a pretty trippy, gappy, plot. But on occasion, you can also get an album that numbers amongst rock's finest, one that is perfectly tailored to the sizable strengths of a singular band and a singular writer."

Colin Fleming at The Atlantic argues that the greatest rock opera is the Who's Quadrophenia.

New York to East California

"Much new wave music was notable for its upbeat, dance-inspired tempos…an element that had largely gone missing from rock music in the 1970s when groups instead shaped their sound to fit the spectacular stadium and arena settings that defined the era. It is no accident that new wave thrived during the late 70s and early 80s in small clubs and the numerous rock discos that had begun to appear as the original disco movement itself was beginning to fade. New wave rock bands often drew on dance-related styles—whether it was disco and funk or reggae and ska in a way that few mainstream rock acts did. In doing so, new wave refused the older late 60s hippie and hard rock legacy that prevailed among groups like Foreigner and Journey."

Theo Cateforis discusses his new book, Are We Not New Wave? Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s, at the University of Michigan Press's blog.

"A Tahrir Moment"

"But if pithy slogans are particularly good at rallying a broad base of support, they are less adept at instilling a coherent program of action among their adherents. It’s as if, having succeeded in planting the seed of desire in activists’ minds, Adbusters was always more interested in watching it take off than in fixing it to a particular program or cause. In the marketing world, the concept might be said to have gone 'viral'—an achievement of which any of Lasn’s former adman colleagues would be exceptionally proud."

Thomas Stackpole at The New Republic depicts how Adbusters magazine inspired Occupy Wall Street.

"A Lack of Power and Belonging"

"For example, in March 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, a North Carolina ex-slave named Peter Price walked into the local office of the Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency established to regulate the transition from slavery to freedom by enforcing labor contracts, adjudicating disputes, encouraging education and, at times, distributing rations. Price’s complaint was a common one. His landlord refused to turn over his share of the previous year’s crop. Price found a receptive ear in Hugo Hillebrandt, a Hungarian revolutionary who had fought with Garibaldi in Italy before joining the Union cause as a federal agent. After listening to Price’s story, Hillebrandt wrote an order demanding that the landlord turn over Price’s share of the crop.
"But when Price carried the order back to the farm, his landlord tore it into pieces, threw it on the ground, and declared that 'you might send ten thousand Yankees there and he did not intend to be governed by no such laws.' As a judge of practical power, the landlord was right. Hillebrandt could not enforce his orders outside of his office. In desperation, Price asked for help up the bureaucratic ladder, but without success. Some people—like Hillebrandt–would help him but could not; others perhaps could have but didn’t."

Gregory P. Downs and James Downs at The New York Times question the meaning of freedom after the Civil War.

"Yin WAS Searching for His Yang"

"Yes, Spinal Tap is a group of actors playing characters. If that were a disqualifying factor, how then to explain Robert Zimmerman playing 'Bob Dylan,' John Graham Mellor playing 'Joe Strummer,' or the guy from Animal Collective playing 'Panda Bear'? Rock and roll has always been a costume drama, a comedy, and more then occasionally a minstrel show. The 'realness' of a given band could not be a more ludicrous criterion for taking their measure."

Timothy Bracy and Elizabeth Nelson at NPR analyze the 1984 soundtrack to This Is Spinal Tap on Nigel Tufnel Day.

"We Did Try 'Sisters' Out on People, and They Thought It Was about Nuns"

"For radical feminists like me, Ellen Willis, and Jill Johnston, we had a different kind of magazine in mind. We came out against marriage and motherhood. Gloria was uptown; we were downtown. She hung out with Establishment figures; we had only ourselves. It very quickly became obvious at that first meeting that they wanted a glossy that would appeal to the women who read the Ladies’ Home Journal. We didn’t want that, so they walked away with it."

In New York, Abigail Pogrebin presents an oral history of Ms. magazine.

Where They Teach You How to Be Thick

"Taken together, this work has amounted to an interrogation of punk’s essence—an attempt to figure out why this explosive and self-destructive-seeming movement has proven so persistent, and what it has meant to all the different people who have embraced it. According to Anne Cecil of Drexel University, who oversees punk programming at the annual meeting of the Pop Culture Association, the reason for the apparent surge of interest in punk among academics comes down to simple demographics. What’s happening, she said, is that people who participated in the scene as kids during the late ’70s and ’80s have reached a point in their careers where they can spend time studying what they’re really passionate about."

Leon Neyfakh in The Boston Globe reports on the emergence of Punk Studies.

Off the Wall

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for shoemaker James Van Doren, Cahuilla Indian linguist Katherine Siva Saubel, and essayist Andy Rooney.

Stuff Happened

"A group of Republican neoconservatives and other political and government figures quickly gathered not only to respond to the 9/11 attacks but also, as they saw it, to restore the nation’s confidence and ideals. Cheney and Rumsfeld had privately deplored the decline of American power in the Nixon and Ford administrations during the Vietnam War. They saw in 9/11 an opportunity to revive American power and superiority, or as Cheney put it, to 'get it right this time.' Much of what happened after the attacks would very likely have occurred no matter who was in charge—the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the building up of intelligence organizations and other changes. But from the start, Cheney and Rumsfeld began pushing for a much wider change, what the president called a 'war on terror.'
"But what did a 'war on terror' mean?"

Alan Brinkley in The New York Times reviews two recent memoirs from Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Hail Victory?

"In 1945, the team again played for the league title, losing to the Cleveland Rams. That was the last championship game the Marshall-owned Redskins would reach. In fact, from 1946 until the early 1960s, when Marshall’s deteriorating health prevented him from overseeing day-to-day operations, the team amassed just three winning seasons. There were many reasons, but prominent among them was the virulent racism of the owner."

In The New York Review of Books, Michael Tomasky reviews Thomas G. Smith's Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins.

"The Story of Modern American Cultural Criticism Is the Story of Three California Girls Who Went East—Pauline Kael, Susan Sontag and Joan Didion"

"For Kael, Didion’s work suggested a familiarity with the high life that pushed all the wrong buttons. Kael was raised partly on a chicken farm and worked a string of bad jobs as a single mother before getting her feet set. She harbored a lot of bitterness toward people she thought had it easy, as Kellow shows. To be 'swank' was to risk her enduring disdain. The existential zero at the bone that Didion absolutely conquered often had nothing to do with material need. It was going to bother Kael no matter what. 'I did my own share of soul-wrestling,' Kael once said, 'and it’s not too tough to do.'"

Evan Hughes at The Awl resurrects a feud from the 1970s.

Copyrights and Wrongs

"The idea that the Internet is somehow immune from law or regulation or the protection of people’s rights has been seen as a progressive idea. It’s the 'free and open Internet.' But if you really think about that for a second, that’s not a progressive argument. It’s a libertarian argument, because the same regulations that annoy you might be the regulations that protect me."

Scott Timberg in Salon interviews Robert Levine, author of Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back.

And Jeffrey Rosen in The New York Times reviews Levine's book.