January 2017 Acquisitions

Books:
Nick Hornby, Funny Girl, 2016.

DVDs:
Four Christmases, 2008.

"An Angry Screed of a Campaign Speech"

"I've been watching and listening to inaugural addresses since John F. Kennedy's, in 1960. I've never heard anything like this one in terms of its divisive content and complete lack of uplift. Even its call for the blessings of the Almighty was to a nationalist God Trump seemed to be charging with protecting the country—if and only if our military and police forces failed. And absent any admission of his own fallibility, his appeal to unity sounded more like a threat of repression than a call for mutual understanding and bipartisanship."

Ed Kilgore at New York reacts to Donald Trump's inaugural address.

"'I Promise To Work Tirelessly To Achieve My Campaign’s Goals,' Threatens Trump In Terrifying Address"

From The Onion.

Mark Joseph Stern at Slate credits Mitch McConnell for the rise of Trump.

And Jonathan Chait at New York reacts to the anti-Trump marches the day after the inauguration.

"Looking at Historical Experience, There Is No Obvious Relationship between the Minimum Wage and Unemployment"

"This conviction that the minimum wage hurts the poor is an example of economism in action. Economists have many different opinions on the subject, based on different theories and research studies, but when it comes to public debate, one particular result of one particular model is presented as an unassailable economic theorem. (Politicians advocating for a higher minimum wage, by contrast, tend to avoid economic models altogether, instead arguing in terms of fairness or helping the poor.) This happens partly because the competitive market model taught in introductory economics classes is simple, clear, and memorable. But it also happens because there is a large interest group that wants to keep the minimum wage low: businesses that rely heavily on cheap labor."

James Kwak at The Atlantic argues that "introductory economics can be more misleading than it is helpful."

"The Source of the Triple-A Attack Line"

"The smear is being mentioned in some of McGovern's obituaries, but most of these leave out the phrase's weird provenance, which remained a secret until 2007. In that year, Robert Novak revealed its source (in his memoir, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington) to be none other than Sen. Tom Eagleton."

In a 2012 New Republic article, Timothy Noah explains how George McGovern "became the candidate of Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion."

California Dreamer

"Starr captured the state's rise in influence, and its singular hold on the public imagination, in 'Americans and the California Dream,' a sweeping book series that moves from the Gold Rush into the Progressive Era, the 1920s, the Great Depression and other distinct chapters of California’s past.
"Throughout his work, Starr celebrated the state's creativity and its openness to new ideas. And he demonstrated a familiarity with a vast range of topics central to the state's development and its image of itself: architecture, agriculture, literature, water infrastructure and the entertainment industry, among others."

David Zahniser and Matt Hamilton in the Los Angeles Times writes an obituary for historian Kevin Starr.

And Carolyn Kellogg, Peter H. King, Shelby Grad, and William Deverell provide appreciations.

"They Spring from Four Strategies of Approaching the Problem of Authenticity"

"First, autofiction: narratives that appear to do away with much of fiction's familiar scaffolding — plots, scene-setting, the development of characters other than the hero; that eschew familiar modes of storytelling in favor of the diary entry, the transcript, or the essayistic digression; and that collapse the distance between the hero-narrator and the authorial persona by investigating that dual figure's claims to authenticity. Second, fables of meritocracy, often satiric: social novels and comedies of manners in which higher education and its professional aftermath are both crucibles that allow characters to reveal their authentic selves and alienating systems that strip them of their native identities. Third, many historical novels have been set in the near past, locating in recent decades the romantic grit and violence their nostalgic authors find lacking in the sterile present. And, fourth, a set of narratives have placed the experience of trauma—rape, pedophilia, homophobic abuse, incarceration, the horrors of war—at their center, where it assumes an animating role: Suffering bestows meaning on an otherwise comfortable world."

Christian Lorentzen in New York explores "the Novel in the Age of Obama."

"Now We Know Nixon Lied"

"But Nixon had a pipeline to Saigon, where the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, feared that Johnson would sell him out. If Thieu would stall the talks, Nixon could portray Johnson's actions as a cheap political trick. The conduit was Anna Chennault, a Republican doyenne and Nixon fund-raiser, and a member of the pro-nationalist China lobby, with connections across Asia.
"'! Keep Anna Chennault working on' South Vietnam, Haldeman scrawled, recording Nixon's orders. 'Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN can do.'"

John A. Farrell in The New York Times discusses notes written by H. R. Haldeman about Vietnam in 1968 that establish that Richard "Nixon directed his campaign's efforts to scuttle the peace talks."

And Jason Daley in a 2017 Smithsonian article and Colin Schultz in a 2013 Smithsonian article cite other evidence.

"Making the Great Man Theory of History Great Again"

"As a professional historian, this sort of analysis is entirely contrary to the way I was trained, which was to see social change developing across broad swaths of society, not emanating from particular individuals. Moreover, I was partly trained in France, under the aegis of the so-called Annales school, whose vision of history could not be more different from the heroic one. Fernand Braudel, one of the leaders of the school, taught his followers to pay attention to the deep, slow, geological, and climactic forces that, in determining the shape of the continents and patterns of global warming and cooling, ultimately shape human societies as well. After that, Braudel directed us to study centuries-long patterns of economic and social change. He compared all these subjects to the deep currents moving through oceans. Mere 'event history,' by contrast, including decisions taken by powerful individuals, he likened to the insignificant foam tossed up on the ocean's surface. Much of the history influenced by Braudel barely even mentioned particular individuals, let alone attributed a decisive influence to them. In short, my instinct was long to treat the 'heroic mode' as simplistic and misleading."

David A. Bell in Foreign Policy says that Donald Trump's "unpredictable rise is forcing historians and social scientists to rethink their most basic assumptions about how the world works."

"Tonight It's My Turn to Say Thanks"

"My fellow Americans, it has been the honor of my life to serve you.  I won't stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my days that remain.  For now, whether you're young or young at heart, I do have one final ask of you as your president–the same thing I asked when you took a chance on me eight years ago.
"I am asking you to believe.  Not in my ability to bring about change–but in yours."

The Los Angeles Times runs a transcript of President Obama's farewell address.

Danielle Kurtzleben at NPR provides statistics from 2009 to 2017.

And The Onion "looks back at the historic legacy of Barack Obama, a post-racial president for a pre-post-racial America."

"The Great Irony of the Moment"

"Obama rejected Wright's vision with a speech that saved his campaign and made him president. Given our present circumstances, it's clear he could have used a little of Wright's insight. Obama saw his candidacy and ultimately his presidency as part of the story of American progress. But governments change, the pastor said. Things can and will get worse, our ever-perfecting union be damned."

Jamelle Bouie in Slate argues that "The optimism that helped Obama reach this office—the same faith in our ever-perfecting union—is wholly inadequate in the face of the revanchist rage that gave us President Trump."

But Jonathan Chait at New York contends that "the specific changes Obama wrought may prove far more durable than either his gloating enemies or his despairing supporters believe."

"An Artistic Activist"

"Though he was a critic, and a great one, Gleason didn't review art or life from the sidelines; he wrote from inside the moral, political, and artistic crises of the times, and he perceived them clearly and understood them passionately. His standard of critical practice and his model of critical responsibility are awe-inspiring."

Richard Brody in The New Yorker reviews Ralph J. Gleason's Music in the Air.

"But Also About the Things and Attitudes That the Music Embraces"

"One of the first assignments he gave Lydon–which wound up becoming the main story on page one–concerned money missing from the Monterey Pop Festival. 'Jann didn't want a fanzine," says Lydon. "He wanted investigative reportage.' Many articles–including pieces on David Crosby getting fired from the Byrds and the Dead's big drug bust–didn't have bylines. 'We didn't put our names on everything,' says Lydon, 'because that would have showed how few people were working for the paper.'"

For the fiftieth anniversary of Rolling Stone, Andy Greene writes about the magazine's birth in San Francisco.

K, Owed

"What went wrong? The 401(k) began as a technical adjustment to the tax code, one meant to mostly impact high-earning executives using profit-sharing plans. People like Benna, a benefits consultant, convinced the Reagan administration that the language of the statute allowed for all employees to put aside a portion of their salaries on a tax-deferred basis. It was supposed to supplement corporate pensions. Instead, in something almost no one foresaw, the 401(k) replaced them.
"In 2017, we know that this historic accident isn’t working out for many people."

Helaine Olen at Slate writes that "Life has become too expensive for many of us to save adequately."

"Having a Remarkable Resurgence"

"The film is set in the deteriorating cities and countryside of southeastern England—vividly rendered with alarming realism and minimal use of sci-fi futurism—amid geopolitical chaos that has led to a massive refugee crisis, which has in turn led an immigrant-fearing and authoritarian U.K. to close its borders to outsiders who seek its shores. Terrorist attacks in European capitals are just routine items in the news crawl. The world stands on the brink, and no one has any clear idea of what can be done. The film, in hindsight, seems like a documentary about a future that, in 2016, finally arrived."

Abraham Riesman in New York revisits Children of Men.

"We Do Not Need to Take Sides in These Battles to Do Justice to Their Histories"

"In books like 'Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s' (1984) and 'Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination' (1992), Dr. Appleby challenged this view.

"She argued that the revolutionaries were more individualistic and optimistic than they had been given credit for. John Locke and Adam Smith had as much influence—or even more—than the radical Whigs on founders like Thomas Jefferson. In her view, the revolutionaries believed that the public good would arise out of the harmonious pursuit of private interests in a market economy."

 

Sewell Chan in The New York Times writes an obituary for historian Joyce Appleby.

And Randy Kennedy reports the death of critic John Berger.

And Robert D. McFadden reports the death of author and journalist Nat Hentoff.

2016 Favorites

The Late Adopter selects...
Albums:
Primal Scream--Chaosmosis (First International)
Moles--Tonight's Music (Fire)
Parquet Courts--Human Performance (Rough Trade)
Death Valley Girls--Glow in the Dark (Burger)
Richard Ashcroft--These People (Harvest)
Allah-Las--Calico Review (Mexican Summer)
Bleached--Welcome the Worms (Dead Oceans)
Bob Mould--Patch the Sky (Merge)
Monkees--Good Times (Rhino)
Anderson .Paak--Malibu (OBE)

Songs:
Stone Roses--'All for One'
Anderson .Paak--'Come Down'
OnDeadWaves--'California'
Primal Scream--'Trippin' on Your Love'
Parquet Courts--'Dust'
Richard Ashcroft--'Hold On'
Bob Mould--'Hold On'
Meilyr Jones--'How to Recognize a Work of Art'
Death Valley Girls--'Disco'
Mike Posner-'I Took a Pill in Ibiza [SeeB Remix]'

December 2016 Acquisitions

Books:
Françoise Bernard, La Cuisine: Everyday French Home Cooking, 2010.
Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, 2016.
Jim Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation, 2004.
Eric Foner, Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Vol. 1, 2016.
Eric Foner, Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Vol. 2, 2016.
Madhur Jaffrey, Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, 2002.
Jack Kornfield, Meditation for Beginners, 2008.
Sue Lawrence, Scots Cooking, 2000.
Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, 2014.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2000.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2001.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 1999.
Martino Stierli, Las Vegas in the Rearview Mirror: The City in Theory, Photography, and Film, 2013.
Peter J. Tomasi et al, Batman: Arkham Knight, Vol. 3, 2016.
Peter J. Tomasi et al, Batman--Detective Comes, Vol. 8: Blood of Heroes, 2016.

DVDs:
The Sound of Music, 1965.
A Taste of Honey, 1961.
Young Adult, 2011.

"The Problem with Individualism"

"What rescued the U.S. economy from the economic crisis of the 1970s was a massive wave of consumer capitalism. And behind it were the forces of finance, because they offered credit to millions of people for the first time. In another series I made called The Century of the Self, I tried to show how the other essential component in that wave of consumerism was the idea of self-expression. People were encouraged to buy all kinds of stuff, not to be like each other as they had in the past, but instead to express themselves as individuals. In this way the very idea of self-expression became central to the modern structure of power.
"We look back at past ages and see how things people deeply believed in at the time were actually a rigid conformity that prevented them from seeing important changes that were happening elsewhere. And I sometimes wonder whether the very idea of self-expression might be the rigid conformity of our age. It might be preventing us from seeing really radical and different ideas that are sitting out on the margins—different ideas about what real freedom is, that have little to do with our present day fetishization of the self. The problem with today's art is that far from revealing those new ideas to us, it may be actually stopping us from seeing them."

Lonie Abrams at Artspace interviews Adam Curtis.

"A Continent-Spanning, Gun-Running Network"

"As his end notes demonstrate, all the evidence has been right there under our eyes for centuries, in expedition narratives, ship manifests, military correspondence and the testimonials of Euro-Americans who spent time as captives of American Indian tribes. It just required a prolific synthesizer who saw the big picture—that the gun frontier 'was a creation of Indian savvy and power, not white American Manifest Destiny.'"

Casey Sanchez in the Los Angeles Times reviews David Silverman's Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America.

Take Seventeen

The Village Voice publishes its 2016 film critics' poll results.