April 2019 Acquisitions

Books:
John Byrne, Superman & Batman: Generations, 2003.
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, 1953, 1982.
Jacques de Pierpont and Hervé Bourhis, The Little Book of Knowledge: Heavy Metal, 2017.
Christos Gage et al, The Incredibles 2: Crisis in Mid-Life! & Other Stories, 2019.
Glen Weldon, The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, 2016.

Movies:
Pinocchio, 1940.

Music:
Abba, More Abba Gold, 1993.
Brady Bunch, It's a Sunshine Day: The Best of the Brady Bunch, 1993.
Clientele, Suburban Light, 2000.
Cream, The Very Best of Cream, 1995.
Grass Roots, All Time Greatest Hits, 1996.
Anderson .Paak, Ventura, 2019.
Minnie Riperton, Her Chess Years, 1997.
Ultravox!, The Island Years, 2000. 
Walker Brothers, Nite Flights, 1978.
"Weird Al" Yankovic, Mandatory Fun, 2014.
Various, The Best of Hanna Barbera: Tunes from the Toons, 1998.
Various, Legends of Country: Classic Hits from the '50, '60 & '70s, 2006.
Various, Son of Frat Rock!, 1991.

"The Grand Modern Ambitions"

"Of course, the very quality that made neon fixtures a poor choice for interior lighting made them perfect for signs, de Miranda notes. The first of the neon signs was switched on in 1912, advertising a barbershop on Paris's Boulevard Montmartre, and eventually they were adopted by cinemas and nightclubs. While Claude had a monopoly on neon lighting throughout the 1920s, the leaking of trade secrets and the expiration of a series of patents broke his hold on the rapidly expanding technology.
"In the following decades, neon's nonstop glow and vibrant colors turned ordinary buildings and surfaces into 24/7 billboards for businesses, large and small, that wanted to convey a sense of always being open."

Sarah Archer at The Atlantic calls neon "the Ultimate Symbol of the 20th Century."

"We Tend Not to Make a Fetish of Art–the Way He Did as a Young Man"

"To be clear, however, Ellis also regards Trump as an 'idiot' and 'grotesque'. He did not vote for him, and thus is bewildered–or, at any rate, irritated–to be repeatedly described as an apologist for him. 'Molly Jong-Fast, the daughter of Erica Jong, wrote this piece in the Daily Beast where she asked: How did he [Ellis] turn into this Maga cap-wearing ultra-conservative? These people have been raised to think their reactions to things are completely correct and that the other side is not only totally wrong but also therefore immoral, sexist, racist. All my book argues is: let's have a conversation. But of course it has already been totalled in America. My ability to trigger millennials is insane.'"

At The Guardian, Rachel Cooke talks with Bret Easton Ellis.

"May Rest as Much with a Country's Politicians as They Do with 'Street-Level' Actors"

"'If you had a dad who was down the pit or in a steel mill, you were expected to follow him into that occupation, and if his pit or mill closed, that pulled the economic rug from under you,' Farrall said. 'So the process of deindustrialisation took away young people's hope and aspirations when they were young by making their parents unemployed and hitting their own job prospects. That could lead to them turning to drugs and crime.'"

Jamie Doward at The Guardian reports that "academics claim that their research shows how government policies during the 1980s played a part in kick-starting offending careers."

"Smith's Own Little Flea-Bitten Booby Trap"

"On February 8, 1964, as the House of Representatives debated passage of the bill, Howard Smith, an ardent segregationist from Virginia, rose to propose changes to four pages of Title VII, the section of the bill barring hiring and firing 'because of' race, creed, religion, or color. 'After the word religion, insert sex,' Smith drawled, urging his colleagues to rectify 'this grave injustice … particularly in an election year.'
"The result was two hours of pandemonium on the House floor."

Todd S. Purdum at The Atlantic depicts the odd history of the Civil Rights Act and sex discrimination.

"Nationalise the Oil Companies"

"Take ExxonMobil, which plans to pump an astonishing 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than it did in 2017. As that well-known bastion of eco-socialism, the Economist, puts it: 'If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequence for the climate could be disastrous,' adding that 'the market cannot solve climate change by itself'. According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if we wish to prevent global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels–beyond which climate disasters multiply–then oil and gas production has to fall by 20% by 2030, and 55% by 2050. However, the economic self-interest and political power of the fossil fuel industry is deliberately sabotaging this goal."

Owen Jones at The Guardian writes that as long as energy companies and banks "remain under private ownership on a global scale, humanity's future will be threatened."

"The Main Condition Holding Them Back"

"The standard measure is that your rent should be no more than 30% of your income, but for poor people it can be 70% or more. After he paid Sherrena his $550 rent out of his welfare cheque, Lamar had only $2.19 a day for the month. When he is forced to repay a welfare cheque he has been sent in error and falls behind on rent, he sells his food stamps for half their face value and volunteers to paint an upstairs apartment, but it is not enough. People such as Lamar live in chronic debt to their landlord, who can therefore oust them easily whenever it is convenient–if they demand repairs, for example, like Doreen, or if a better tenant comes along. Sherrena liked renting to the clients of a for-profit agency that handles–for a fee–the finances of people on disability payments who can't manage on their own. Money from government programmes intended to help the poor–welfare, disability benefits, the earned-income tax credit–go straight into the landlord’s pocket and, ironically, fuel rising housing costs. Public housing and housing vouchers are scarce. Three in four who qualify for housing assistance get nothing."

In a 2016 Guardian article, Katha Pollitt reviews Matthew Desmond's Evicted.

"It Has Its Roots in the Late Days of the Reagan Administration"

"It's been noted before that Trump learned his political attack style from shock, but he's also the only one to successfully translate shock into social media, especially on Twitter, which in turn drives cable news and columns in national newspapers. On radio, it's trash talk. Online, it's shit posting, and say what you will, Trump's troll game is solid gold. He has attacked any number of people for their race, gender, and disabilities, delighting his base and triggering the libs, with stunning success. Trump did not invent shock comedy, but there's no one who has done it better or gained more from it."

Ben Schwartz at The New Republic explains "[h]ow the merger of right-wing politics and dick-joke comedy came to pass."

"There Was No Slaveholders' Ploy"

"A good way to summarize what actually happened inside the convention is to recall the place of slavery in the different plans that the convention considered about electing the president.  The delegates weighed three options: the president would be selected by direct popular vote, by Congress, or by electors who would be chosen either by the people or the state legislatures. Direct election failed, but not because it was intolerable to the slaveholders, as Amar maintains. It failed because it enjoyed little support in the convention, for reasons that had nothing to do with slavery. The real choice for the framers was between the congressional method and the electoral method. Both methods gave the slave states an extra measure of power in selecting the president; so once direct election was scrapped, the convention was bound to grant the slave states some sort of bonus. But this was because the great majority of the convention did not trust in the people at large to choose the president." 

Sean Wilentz at History News Network writes that "like most of my fellow American historians, I have been wrong about slavery and the Electoral College."

"A Single, Grand Reset for American Higher Education"

"Her basic message is that our entire system of financing college for the past 30 or so years has been a mistake, one that has led to higher tuition costs and saddled millennials with debt that's left them poorer, measured by wealth, than previous generations, while possibly hurting the broader economy by lowering home ownership. The idea is that we need to clear the slate and start over, while 'making sure nothing like this ever happens again,' as she put it in a blog post. In other words, she's pitching a collegiate new deal."

Jordan Weissmann at Slate argues that "Elizabeth Warren's Plan to Forgive Student Debt Is Smart Politics and Decent Policy."

"A Devastating Portrait of a Man by Conduct, Character, and Temperament Unfit for the Office of President"

"The report is of course actually the work of the career professionals of American law and government. If some of those professionals are hostile to Trump and Trumpism, it is only because their lives are based on values—the dogged pursuit of truth, a commitment to fairness and due process, respect for the law, support of constitutional government—that Trump openly flouts."

Frank Bowman at Slate reacts to the Mueller Report.

"Astonishingly Unequal, Heavily Concentrated in the Hands of a Tiny Elite"

"The dramatic concentration of land ownership is an inescapable reminder that ours is a country for the few and not the many.
"It's simply not right that aristocrats, whose families have owned the same areas of land for centuries, and large corporations exercise more influence over local neighbourhoods–in both urban and rural areas–than the people who live there."

Rob Evans at The Guardian reports that "Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population."

"Successful Political Campaigns Are Based on Themes and Not on Policies"

"And she has real accomplishments in Washington to boast of.  It may be that her own themes–her attack against a 'rigged system'–have gotten lost in the details of her policy proposals. She is not a thematic politician the way Buttigieg or Sanders is.  Or it may be that the controversy over her Native American ancestry has nullified the impact of her impressive up-from-the-bootstraps biography.  Or, finally,  it may be, as I've heard from other Democrats, that she sounds too 'professorial.'"

John Judis at Talking Points Memo writes that he is "not sure why [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren's campaign seems not to have taken off."

"Your Record Collections Would Not Be the Same Without Him"

"'Gary's name is on a lot of records as a producer,' music producer Andy Zax, one of many who were mentored by Stewart, wrote in a Facebook post, 'but I think his true passion was for compiling, separating out the things he thought were important, the things that really mattered—the greatest songs, the greatest ideas, the greatest people—from the inessential stuff that he could safely leave behind.'
"Despite the volume of releases he ferried into existence during his tenure—the Discogs database lists over 700—Stewart was adamant that the work he oversaw be as complete as possible."

Randall Roberts reports the death of Gary Stewart in the Los Angeles Times.

The New Prophet of Negro Freedom

Columbia University announces the winners of the 2019 Pulitzer Prizes, including Jeffrey C. Stewart for biography and David W. Blight for history.

"I've Seen This Movie Before"

"A press corps obsessed with a complicated judicial investigation. A millionaire television personality turned politician who casts himself as under attack by the courts. A party beholden to that leader, and a base that will stand by him—aware of his deep flaws and his penchant for stretching the truth. A political opposition so divided, it can't easily form a coherent argument for what it stands for, only for what it stands against."

Rachel Donadio at The Atlantic writes that that Silvio Berlusconi "Was Trump Before Trump."

"Was Brexit Inevitable?"

"A misguided narrative is taking hold about Brexit, both here and abroad. According to this argument, David Cameron called the 2016 referendum on whether Britain should remain a member of the European Union solely for party-management purposes. When he did, he unleashed a wave of atavistic xenophobia whipped up by the tabloid media, and uneducated, working-class Britons were consequently fooled by lies and false promises.
"If only politicians hadn't picked the scab, the country could have ticked along quite happily, so the conceit goes."

Henry Newman at The Atlantic writes that the above "interpretation might provide comfort to some, but it's fundamentally specious."

The Milkman of Human Kindness

"Music has maybe lost some of its vanguard role in youth culture, he says. 'Everything you wanted to say about the world, there was only one medium. Music told you how to dress, who to like, who to hate, where to go, where not to go. Obviously, social media has that role now. Music has lost its central place where everyone gathered, so it's bound to be now more about entertainment. But young people still struggle to make sense of their lives. There are a number of ways you can channel that, and music remains one of them."

Sam Wollaston at The Guardian interviews Billy Bragg.

"Became a Pronounced Cultural Conservative"

"Although there was no purge of Communists from universities in England as there was in the United States, to be a known Communist was a disadvantage. He and several others openly formed the Communist Party Historians' Group after the war, and paid a weird visit to Russia over the Christmas of 1954, 'a dispiriting trip for foreign communist intellectuals, for we met hardly anyone there like ourselves,' Hobsbawm obtusely said. He did find a post at Birkbeck College, where he spent 35 years, the last 15 of them as a professor. This admirable institution, part of the University of London, is for mature students who often have day jobs, and teaching them in the evenings left Hobsbawm's own days free for reading. He did little archival research, but his books are founded on a huge breadth and depth of printed sources in numerous languages."

At The New Republic, Geoffrey Wheatcroft reviews Richard J. Evans's Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History.

"Channeling Kafka, Burroughs, Munch, the 20th Century"

"We're all post-punk. Punk happened, and then—at some point—we did. For bands in the era of Joy Division, it meant music that sounded like ideas. Tony Wilson, trickster-broadcaster and high theorist of the Manchester Geist, signed them to his new label, Factory. 'The degraded city was part of Joy Division’s life,' said Wilson. 'The idea of the city is a theme that runs through this whole thing, Manchester being the archetypal modern city.' Martin Hannett became their producer—dimensional slippage was his fixation, the little blips and space-smears and echoes of otherness with which he would open up the Joy Division sound."

James Parker at The Atlantic reviews Jon Savage's This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else.

"Not Just by Winning More Votes, but by Bringing a New Idea of Government"

"Since getting elected, Trump—by being true to himself every minute of his presidency—has pushed educated women, suburban voters, and even a small percentage of his white working-class base toward the Democratic Party. His hateful rhetoric and character are making Americans—white Democrats in particular—more rather than less liberal on issues of immigration, religion, and race. Last November, nonwhite voters made up a record 28 percent of the midterm electorate, and 38 percent of young voters. At the same time, the Republican Party has built its ramparts around the diminishing ground inhabited by older, whiter, more rural, less educated Americans. These are the kind of changes that could bring a new Democratic coalition to power for years to come."
"But don't count on it."

George Packer at The Atlantic looks at political realignments.

"The Epitome of Unprincipled Power"

"Between 2009 and 2013, McConnell's Senate Republicans blocked 79 Obama nominees. In the entire history of the United States until that point, only 68 presidential nominees had been blocked.
"This unprecedented use of the filibuster finally led Senate Democrats in 2013 to change the rules on some presidential nominees (but not the supreme court), to require simple majorities.
"In response, McConnell fumed that 'breaking the rules to change the rules is un-American'. If so, McConnell is about as un-American as they come."

At The Guardian, Robert Reich sums up Sen. Mitch McConnell.

"The Neoliberal Version of Creative Destruction"

"Gibney's film portrays Holmes as an adept liar with a Calvinist work ethic. Yet what the story truly exposes is not an ingenious scammer, but the failures of a system that has come to prize the notion of disruption–where breaking the rules, or hacking the system, is thought an implicit moral good–at all costs. It's a parable not of individual brilliance, but of systemic stupidity.

Hettie O'Brien at New Statesman reviews the documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.

"Vindication!"

"All this malfeasance has led to the creation of a 200-page affidavit, and a bevy of other court documents, that can best be described as a kind of posthumous Tom Wolfe novella, one with a wide cast of very rich people behaving in such despicable ways that it makes The Bonfire of the Vanities look like The Pilgrim's Progress. If you have not read the affidavit, and if you're in the mood for a novel of manners of the kind not attempted since the passing of the master, I recommend that you and your book club put it on the list for immediate consumption."

At The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan reacts to the FBI's college-admission investigation.

"The Urgent and Common Threat That We Face"

"That these two hatreds are linked on the right is clear, and not only in the minds of deranged killers. A recent Pew survey of 15 western European countries found that 'attitudes toward Jews and Muslims are highly correlated with each other. People who express negative opinions about Muslims are more likely than others to also express negative views of Jews.' In the US, a Gallup study in 2010 found people 'who say they feel "a great deal" of prejudice… toward Jews are about 32 times as likely to report feeling "a great deal" of prejudice toward Muslims'. Put simply, the kind of people who hate one of us are more likely to hate the other too."

At The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland and Mehdi Hasan call for Jews and Muslims to unite against white supremacists.

"Death by Data"

"[I]t's particularly chronic among those who grew up in analogue-era conditions of cultural scarcity and have only partially adapted to the digital abundance. People–such as my children–who are digital natives don't have the same compulsion to keep and collect: they might bookmark favorite things but they feel no need to own the MP3s. People from my generation grew up inside that gnawing need for more music than you could then afford to buy or to copy (given that blank cassettes also cost money). That's how come an individual with my particular mix of curiosity, wide taste and sheer greed ends up with thousands and thousands of hours of music stockpiled in an external hard drive, vastly more than I could hope to listen to even once during the remainder of my time on earth. "

Simon Reynolds in Der Tagesspiegel discusses "archive fever."

"It Made Baseball Famous"

"At the time, the concept of amateurism was especially popular among fans. Inspired by classical ideas of sportsmanship, its proponents argued that playing sport for a reason other than for the love of the game was immoral, even corrupt.
"Nonetheless, some of the major clubs in the East and Midwest began disregarding the rule prohibiting professionalism and secretly hired talented young working-class players to get an edge.
"After the 1868 season, the national association reversed its position and sanctified the practice of paying players. The move recognized the reality that some players were already getting paid, and that was unlikely to change because professionals clearly helped teams win.
"Yet the taint of professionalism restrained virtually every club from paying an entire roster of players."

Robert Wyss at History News Network depicts the rise of the Cincinnati Red Stockings as the first professional baseball team 150 years ago.