Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 111

April 5, 2022: Tree Tales: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

[This month we celebrate the 150thanniversary of Arbor Day, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of tree-tastic stories. Leading up to a special weekend post on the holiday’s histories!]

On historical, cultural, and literary contexts for a beloved novel’s central symbol.

One of my favorite things about this blog is how much I learn from researching just about every post, and especially those where I start with a basic topic—“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn makes sense for a series on tree stories”—and not much more. In this case, I learned (first from the book’s Wikipedia page, natch; but verified with another source to which I’ll link, also natch) a really striking historical context for Betty Smith’s 1943 novel: that it was one of the books distributed to WWII soldiers in pocket-sided Armed Services Editions (ASE); that it was popular enough to be one of the select few ASEs chosen for a second printing; and that Smith received countless fan letters from grateful GIs. Of the letters I’ve seen quoted, the most striking such response seems to me to closely parallel the book’s titular symbolic story, the image of the resilient “Tree of Heaven” outside protagonist Francie Nolan’s childhood window: that Marine wrote to Smith, “I can't explain the emotional reaction that took place in this dead heart of mine...A surge of confidence has swept through me, and I feel that maybe a fellow has a fighting chance in this world after all.”

I can’t imagine a more moving response to, or context for, Smith’s titular image nor her book as a whole. But there are always multiple meaningful contexts for any work, and I would add a couple more layers to the conversation as well. On a cultural level, Smith’s Tree offers a unique but tellingly representative symbol of the multi-generational immigration experience in America: Francie’s father Johnny Nolan is an Irish immigrant and her mother Katie Rommely Nolan an Austrian one, and Francie both witnesses their struggles with early 20thcentury urban poverty and American society and experiences her own 2nd-generation challenges. Yet she not only perseveres but by the novel’s end is (at the age of 17) as mature and thriving as the Tree, which thus becomes as moving a symbol of these multi-generational immigrant American sagas as Tan’s Joy Luck Club, Cisneros’ House on Mango Street, or Lahiri’s Namesake. Smith’s novel would pair with any and all of those books in an Ethnic American Lit course.

That’s of course already a literary as well as a cultural context for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but I would add one other literary context into the mix as well. I’ve written and talked a good bit in the last year and a bit about why and how we might replace To Kill a Mockingbird in our classrooms and curricula, including with the book (and film adaptation) to which I’ll turn in tomorrow’s post. But at the very least, if we’re going to keep Mockingbird I think we should find ways to reframe it, to push past the (to my mind) largely inaccurate sense of it as a novel about racism and justice and to read it for the complicated coming-of-age story it truly is. One way to do so would be to pair it with another such coming-of-age novel like Smith’s, and for example to think about how Smith’s titular Tree might be compared and contrasted with the neighborhood tree that becomes such a pivotal part of the setting and the story of Scout Finch in Lee’s book. One more way and reason to read, teach, and share Smith’s novel and its Tree.

Next tree tale tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other tree texts you’d throw in?

April 4, 2022: Tree Tales: The Giving Tree

[This month we celebrate the 150thanniversary of Arbor Day, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of tree-tastic stories. Leading up to a special weekend post on the holiday’s histories!]

On two ways to frame and teach “one of the most divisive books in children’s literature.”

First things first: I’m a big Shel Silverstein fan (and that was even before I learned that he wrote “A Boy Named Sue”). In my experience, it’s very rare to find children’s literature that genuinely and fully appeals to both kids (of all ages, no less) and adults, and the Silverstein poems featured in classic books like Where the Sidewalk Ends(1974) and A Light in the Attic (1981) absolutely succeed at that tough task. They, like Silverstein’s style and voice overall, are also truly unique, unlike any other children’s lit that I’ve encountered (which is likely a main reason, along with that broad audience appeal, why they have remained popular for nearly fifty years). I say all that not just to praise a very deserving author and artist, but also and especially so that when I say The Giving Tree (1964) is on the short list of books I hate most, you’ll know that I don’t make that claim at all lightly.

I’m not alone in that hate—but at the same time, as my opening quote above (from librarian and author Betsy Bird) illustrates, those who deeply love the bookare likewise far from alone. That kind of incredibly varied range of readings can be enough to make one throw one’s hands in the air and mutter my sons’ and my favorite phrase to diffuse many arguments: de gustibus non est disputandum. But it also offers teachers (in and out of classrooms) a chance to, as a familiar pedagogical saying goes, “teach the controversy”—and in this case, I would add, through highlighting and engaging directly with the book’s divisiveness to teach and talk about the idea of reader-response criticism: how we can read and analyze readers and readings to think about what they tell us about audiences, perspectives, communities, how cultural works work, and more. Just the range of “Interpretations” traced on the book’s Wikipedia page offers a fascinating window into late 20th and early 21stcentury readers, communities, and ways of thinking about what culture does and means.

For all those reasons I don’t think it makes sense to privilege any one reading of the book as more “correct”—but in the spirit of this week’s series, I do want to say a bit more here about what it would mean to take The Giving Tree seriously as an environmentalist parable. I don’t know that there’s any direct evidence that Silverstein was particularly concerned with such issues, either with this book or overall in his career and life; but at the same time, it’s interesting and important to note that he makes a tree one of his book’s two characters, and moreover makes the tree the one who gives so much and is so thoroughly wrecked in the process. To take the reader-response idea one step further—whatever Silverstein may have intended, it seems impossible for any 21st century reader not to think about that tree in the context of all that humans have done to the Earth; and even if children and all of us are deeply bothered by reading Silverstein’s images, indeed perhaps especially if we’re bothered, that particular reader-response feels like a very worthwhile one to produce and engage.

Next tree tale tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other tree texts you’d throw in?

April 2-3, 2022: March 2022 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

March 5-6: Megan Kate Nelson’s New Book on Yellowstone: A National Parks series concludes with a special tribute to the great Megan Kate Nelson’s new book!

March 7: The Pacific Theater: Guadalcanal: For the 80th anniversary of “I Shall Return,” a Pacific Theater series kicks off with three texts to help us analyze the Guadalcanal campaign.

March 8: The Pacific Theater: Midway and The Thin Red Line: The series continues with clear and telling differences between two star-studded WWII epic films.

March 9: The Pacific Theater: Model-making and Tarawa: A childhood building war models and what they can help us understand, as the series rolls on.

March 10: The Pacific Theater: U.S.S. Midway Museum: Trying to make sense of two distinct and even contradictory public roles of a unique historic site.

March 11: The Pacific Theater: “I Shall Return”: On its 80thanniversary, how one moment can exemplify the best and worst of a controversial military leader.

March 12-13: The U.S. and the Philippines: A special weekend post on what we should better remember about three stages of a defining international relationship.

March 14: AmericanThaws: Eliot and Williams: A start of Spring series kicks off with two Modernist poems that exemplary contrasting yet complementary narratives of Spring and hope.

March 15: AmericanThaws: The U.S. and the U.K.: The series continues with how a longstanding animosity began to thaw, and why the specifics matter.

March 16: AmericanThaws: William Mahone: On which late-in-life evolutions impress me more than others, as the series springs on.

March 17: AmericanThaws: Chivalry in War: A unique and amazing moment of wartime humanity.

March 18: AmericanThaws: Nixon Goes to China: The series concludes with two ways to AmericanStudy an undeniable international turning point.

March 21: Rock and Roll Groundbreakers: The Moondog Coronation Ball: On the 70thanniversary of the first rock concert, a groundbreaking series kicks off with three layers to that foundational moment.

March 22: Rock and Roll Groundbreakers: Alan Freed: The series continues with two contrasting sides to the foundational DJ and how to bridge the gap.

March 23: Rock and Roll Groundbreakers: Fats Domino: A few iconic moments in the career of the legendary artist, as the series rocks on.

March 24: Rock and Roll Groundbreakers: Chuck Berry and Little Richard: A pair of foundational icons whose stories represent some of the worst and best of rock and race.

March 25: Rock and Roll Groundbreakers: Elvis Presley (and Frank Sinatra): The series concludes with the differences between influential and interesting.

March 26-27: 21st Century Rock and Roll: A special weekend tribute to a handful of the many contemporary rockers extending the genre’s legacies.

March 28: Stand-Up Studying: Anthony Jeselnik: An April Fool’s series on great stand-up bits kicks off with the darkly sweet humor of my favorite current comic.

March 29: Stand-Up Studying: Roy Wood Jr.: The series continues with an example of how Wood engages social and political issues without preaching (and hilariously).

March 30: Stand-Up Studying: Jim Jefferies: The bit on gun control that’s so smart my son used it in an argumentative essay, as the series jokes on.

March 31: Stand-Up Studying: Katherine Ryan: When an American expatriate in England turns her attention to a #MeToo response to Hamilton, the result is cross-cultural comic gold.

April 1: Stand-Up Studying: Five More Faves: The series concludes with five more great bits from a handful of awesome current comics!

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

April 1, 2022: Stand-Up Studying: Five More Faves

[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to highlight one great routine each from a handful of the many wonderful stand-up comedians doing their thing these days—in case, y’know, you’re (like me) looking to move on from a problematic fave. Add your faves, present and past, in comments!]

On a representative routine from five more great stand-ups:

1)      “Horse in a Hospital”: I know John Mulaney’s been in the news a lot recently for less humorous reasons, but to my mind this segment from 2019’s Kid Gorgeous is not just the funniest bit about Trump I heard, but also perhaps the smartest.

2)      “Prepping His Son for a Racist Bully”: I’m not sure how much folks paid attention to John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons (2018), but it’s a truly unique combination of stand-up, performance art, and actual history lesson. Highly recommended!

3)      “Homeless or Hipster?”: Ali Wong is pretty edgy, at times more so than I tend to go for; but she’s also damn funny, as this bit from Baby Cobra(2016) illustrates quite perfectly.

4)       “Civil Rights Update”: Michael Che might be best known as the co-host of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update for a good while now, but he’s a super-talented and topical stand-up comic too, and this bit is one of the best I’ve seen about our current moment.

5)      “High-Functioning Autism”: Hannah Gadsby’s been the most-covered stand-up comic of the last few years, and at times (to contrast with what I said about Roy Wood Jr. on Tuesday) I find her a bit preachy. But this segment, from her 2020 special Douglas, is not only quite funny but very thoughtful about autism without being the slightest bit pedantic, and one more great example of contemporary comedy.

March Recap this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Takes on these comics and/or other faves you’d share?

March 31, 2022: Stand-Up Studying: Katherine Ryan

[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to highlight one great routine each from a handful of the many wonderful stand-up comedians doing their thing these days—in case, y’know, you’re (like me) looking to move on from a problematic fave. Add your faves, present and past, in comments!]

Yesterday’s subject, Jim Jefferies, is an Australian immigrant who came to the U.S. by way of the U.K., and still incorporates those different cultures and perspectives into much of his comedy (although, to quote a great line from that gun control set-piece when he acknowledges that hostile audience members might tell him to go back where he came from: “No. I’m here legally, I pay my taxes, and your 1stAmendment means I can say that your 2nd Amendment sucks balls”). Whereas today’s subject, the very funny and thoughtful comic Katherine Ryan, is an American expat living in Britain, or at least was when she filmed her wonderful 2019 special Glitter Room.

That culture clash, or at least culture shock, is one main subject of Ryan’s special, particularly when it comes to raising her pre-teen daughter who appears (as Ryan tells it at least, and likely exaggerates it as all good stand-ups do) to be becoming more English by the day. But another, related main subject for Ryan’s thoughtful and funny observations is gender and identity, and particularly the wide range of limiting and oppressive images and narratives around gender that continue to influence both young girls like her daughter and adult women like Ryan herself (and, of course, all of us who live in this moment and global culture).

Those topics inform the special’s best set-piece, which also happens to be one of the most unique as well as smartest commentaries on HamiltonI’ve ever heard (the first hyperlink is the Ryan bit; the second is a Guest Post on the musical from my friend and three-time Guest Poster Emily Lauer). Once again, you can watch the whole of this bit at that first hyperlink, so I’m not going to say too much more—check it out and enjoy!

Last stand-up fave tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Takes on Ryan and/or other faves you’d share?

March 30, 2022: Stand-Up Studying: Jim Jefferies

[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to highlight one great routine each from a handful of the many wonderful stand-up comedians doing their thing these days—in case, y’know, you’re (like me) looking to move on from a problematic fave. Add your faves, present and past, in comments!]

Yesterday’s subject, Roy Wood Jr., is that rare stand-up comic who can talk about social and political issues without sounding the slightest bit pedantic or preachy—and he does so consistently, at least in the newest special on which I focused in that post. Today’s subject, the foul-mouthed Australian immigrant Jim Jefferies, tends not to talk about such issues much at all, at least not in his stand-up comedy (he does so more often on his Jim Jefferies Show, in which he offers similarly foul-mouthed takes on headlines and current events).

Which perhaps is part of the reason why Jefferies’ single most famous stand-up set-piece, drawn from his 2014 special Bare, is a 15-minute long segment(that’s just part one of two; the second video should show up on that page as well) on why he hates guns and is a strong advocate for gun control—I’m sure his audiences at the time were stunned to see Jefferies turn his attention at all to such a controversial political issue, much less to do so at such great length. But while that might have drawn initial attention to the routine, what has made it such a lasting part of our pop culture landscape is that it is both thoroughly hilarious and impeccably well-argued.

Want proof of the latter point? A couple years back, my older son had to write a persuasive essay for one of his classes, and he chose the topic of gun control. We had watched the Jefferies clips some time before then, and my son was not only able to recall them quite fully, but used many of Jefferies’ ideas as jumping-off points for his own arguments (which he was then able to back up with extensive use of sources and statistics). Am I saying it was the funniest student paper about gun control ever written? I just might be—and I know for a fact it had the funniest starting point and source.

Next stand-up fave tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Takes on Jeffries and/or other faves you’d share?

PPS. One note if you're going to watch the clips: like many Australians and Brits alike, Jefferies uses the c-word as a ubiquitous insult, for men at least as often as for women. Very different from our usage of the word in the States, so just FYI. 

March 29, 2022: Stand-Up Studying: Roy Wood Jr.

[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to highlight one great routine each from a handful of the many wonderful stand-up comedians doing their thing these days—in case, y’know, you’re (like me) looking to move on from a problematic fave. Add your faves, present and past, in comments!]

I’ve known about most of the comics I’ll highlight in this week’s series for at least a few years, but only discovered Roy Wood Jr.in the last couple months—or, more exactly, I learned about him during that time from one of my most reliable recommenders of cultural texts and voices, my Mom. I think I had previously known Wood from his longstanding role as a correspondent on The Daily Show, so I suppose it’s most accurate to say (and we know that humorists care a lot about using just the right words, rather than what Twain called the almost right ones) that I only started checking out Wood’s stand-up comedy when my Mom recommended to me his latest special, Imperfect Messenger (2021).

There’s a lot that’s pitch-perfect about Imperfect, but to my mind what makes it particularly excellent is that while a great deal of it focuses on social and cultural issues like race, politics, the age of Covid, and more, it literally never feels pedantic or preachy, a very difficult balance to pull off indeed. As the special’s title suggests, Wood recognizes that he’s not someone who’s necessarily going to feel like a wise voice of authority, that’s just not his persona—but ultimately, at least to this very entertained viewer, both that recognition itself and his natural voice and perspective make Wood feel both wise and authoritative in his pointed and hilarious observations about society, culture, and politics.

As with all of my highlights this week, I highly recommend watching the whole special if you get a chance. But if I were to single out one section from that special which epitomizes all those strengths, I would have to go with the set-piece about Leonardo DiCaprio as “an underrated white ally.” I really don’t want to say much more than that, since in this case (unlike with yesterday’s subject) you can watch the whole thing at that link. Hie thee hence!

Next stand-up fave tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Takes on Wood and/or other faves you’d share?

March 28, 2022: Stand-Up Studying: Anthony Jeselnik

[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to highlight one great routine each from a handful of the many wonderful stand-up comedians doing their thing these days—in case, y’know, you’re (like me) looking to move on from a problematic fave. Add your faves, present and past, in comments!]

This might come as a surprise to anyone who knows me to be the congenital optimist that I am—a critical optimist to be sure, but nonetheless—but I have a serious soft spot for very dark humor, the darker the better. Partly that might be the irresistible appeal of opposites (they do, as Paula Abdul and MC Skat Katknew all too well, attract). But I’d say it’s also and especially my sense that underneath most dark humor—and definitely the best dark humor—is a deep sweetness, a real compassion and care for the world, if one perhaps masked in humor because of the equally real concurrent fear of being hurt by that world.

I see all of that in the best darkly humorous comic—and quite simply one of the very best comics period—working today, Anthony Jeselnik. Jeselnik’s stock-and-trade is writing short jokes that offer darkly comic twists on audience expectations, sometimes in standalone singularity, sometimes as part of a long series (I defy anyone not to crack up at the dropping babiesand murder-suicideseries in his most recent special, Fire in the Maternity Ward[2019]). If there’s a sweetness underlying those jokes, I would have to agree with anyone who’d argue that it’s buried pretty deep.

But each of Jeselnik’s specials to date has ended with a long set-piece, one that still relies on a number of individual jokes of that ilk but that adds up to something more—and, I believe, something more clearly thoughtful and sweet (if still dark as fuck). And the set-piece that ends Fire, a 15-minute long “very true” story about the time he drove a friend to get an abortion (I apologize for linking to The Federalist, but that’s the clearest write-up of this specific set-piece I can find; click through at your own risk), is both a stunning dark humor tour-de-force and, again, a profoundly sweet representation of friendship, care, and love. It’s maybe the best single performance by maybe our best contemporary comic, and that ain’t no joke.

Next stand-up fave tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Takes on Jeselnik and/or other faves you’d share?

March 26-27, 2022: 21st Century Rock and Roll

[On March 21st, 1952, Cleveland Arena hosted the Moondog Coronation Ball, an event widely considered the first major rock and roll concert. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied that concert and other groundbreaking rock and roll figures and stories, leading up to this special weekend post on 21st century rockers carrying the legacies forward!]

On a handful of the many contemporary rockers extending the genre’s legacies.

1)      Dave Matthews Band: I wrote in that post about the ways in which Matthews and his band reflect Cville’s cross-cultural and diverse story, and would say the same, as I’ve argued throughout the week’s series, about rock and roll. But the thing DMB are best known for is their epic concerts & jam sessions, and it’s important to wrap up a series inspired by the first prominent rock concert by coming back around to that idea—at its heart, rock has always been about performance, the experience of live music for all involved, and no contemporary artists have embodied that more than DMB.

2)      The Counting Crows: It’s easy to say that early rock music wasn’t so much interested in lyricism, and it’s true that many of those songs were quite minimal and repetitive lyrically (although some, like Chuck Berry’s “School Days,” were lyrically amazing nonetheless). But soon enough the genre expanded to include folk-influenced voices like Bob Dylan, artists whose lyrics rival the great 20th century literary works (as the Nobel folks recognize). And in the 21st century, I don’t know any rock artists who have extended that poetic lyricism more than Adam Duritz and the Counting Crows (who echoed and name-checked Dylan in their early hit “Mr. Jones”). Listen to “Raining in Baltimore” if ye doubt the claim!

3)      Lenny Kravitz: Long before the Crows engaged with Dylan’s legacy, one of the truly great American rock artists produced a searing coverof his “All Along the Watchtower” that quite simply obliterated the original. That artist was of course the towering talent that was Jimi Hendrix, an artist to whom Lenny Kravitz has been consistently linked and compared throughout his decades-long career. I’m not here to make the case that Kravitz is as great nor as influential as Hendrix (and he doesn’t have to be to be worth our listening of course)—but both of their careers reflect, among other things, the central role of covers and echoes, of comparisons and next generations, throughout rock history. And, for that matter, the still-too-often under-remembered role of Black rock artists.

4)      The Killers: What, you really thought I was gonna get through an entire weeklong series on rock and roll without a Springsteen reference?! Even before they dueted with Brucelast year, remaking one of my favorite of their songs in the process, Brandon Flowers and The Killers had been in conversation with Bruce throughout their long and evolving career. But to my mind it’s their stunning newest album, 2021’s Pressure Machine, that truly echoes and yet challenges and extends the legacies of singer-songwriter storytellers like Bruce (and many others, including another new collaborator with Bruce, John Mellencamp) and their portrayals of profoundly American settings, communities, histories, and lives.  

5)      The Linda Lindas: All those artists have been around for decades, though—and ultimately, as the Moondog Coronation Ball reflected clearly (even if they didn’t get to crown their teenage king and queen), rock and roll has always been a young person’s game. And it doesn’t get much younger, nor much more rock and roll, than this group of badass California teenagers. Moreover, the presence of an artist like Varetta Dillard on that 1952 bill reminds us that women—and women of color in particular—have been part of rock from the jump, as artists just as much as audiences. Here’s hoping that more and more multi-cultural young women like the Linda Lindas keep extending that legacy into the 21st century as well!

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other contemporary (or historical) rock and rollers you’d highlight?

March 25, 2022: Rock and Roll Groundbreakers: Elvis Presley (and Frank Sinatra)

[On March 21st, 1952, Cleveland Arena hosted the Moondog Coronation Ball, an event widely considered the first major rock and roll concert. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that concert and other groundbreaking rock and roll figures and stories, leading up to a special weekend post on 21st century rockers carrying the legacies forward!]

On the differences between influential and interesting, and why even the former can be problematic.

It seems to me that you can’t tell the story of American popular music in the 20th century—and thus the story of American popular music period—without including Frank Sinatraand Elvis Presley in prominent roles. Indeed, given each man’s forays into acting, entrepreneurship, and other cultural and social arenas, I’m not sure you could leave them out of a broader 20th century history of America either. In their own ways, and in their own particular, most successful periods (Sinatra’s career extended well into Presley’s, of course, but he was at his most successful in its first couple decades, between 1935 and about 1955; Presley rose to prominence in the mid-1950s and was at his peak from then until about 1970), the two artists dominated their respective musical genres time and again, leaving legacies that extend well beyond record sales or awards (although both are among the most successful artists of all time as measured in those ways as well).

So I wouldn’t necessarily argue with definitions of Sinatra and Elvis as among the most influential musical artists of all time (although I might, in a moment, argue that point too). But influential isn’t the same as interesting, and on that score both artists fall short for me. Partly that’s just about taste and how there’s, y’know, no accounting for it (de gustibus, non est disputandum, as our Roman friends knew); I’m not a big fan of either crooners or rockabilly, and thus likely outside of the ideal audience for either man’s biggest hits or signature styles. But my point here isn’t simply about my personal tastes, which I don’t expect are hugely interesting either—I’m thinking as well about the nature of the men’s mainstream popularity and prominence. Despite the unquestionable (if, in retrospect, very silly) controversy over Presley’s hips, that is, I would argue that both men succeeded as consistently as they did because they were largely unobjectionable, hitting cultural sweet spots with regularity in a way that doesn’t seem as interesting as artists who push the envelope or challenge norms.

Moreover, I’m not sure that describing these two artists as influential is entirely justified either. After all, a significant percentage of both men’s songs were written by other songwriters or were covers of other artists; clearly their stunning voices and signature styles played a prominent role in making the songs as successful as they were, but I don’t know that simply singing and performing someone else’s songs qualifies an artist as influential. To be clear, I’m not trying to rehash the old argument about Presley exploiting African American music; that issue is part of the Elvis story to be sure, but the truth (as I argued at length in yesterday’s post) is that a great deal of early rock and roll, if not indeed the entire genre, crossed racial and cultural boundaries. Instead, I’m simply trying to differentiate between what we might call performers and artists, and to argue that those whom we would locate in the former category (such as two men whose most consistent successes were as performers singing others’ words, or similarly as actors reciting others’ lines) might be more important than they were influential or interesting.

Special post this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other rock and roll pioneers you’d highlight?