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Nine reasons I love John Williams [playlist]

Nine reasons I love John Williams [playlist]

I wrote a biography of John Williams, essentially, because I have loved his music since I was nine years old. A lot of children fall in love with Williams’ music, because it’s an irresistible and very tuneful pillar of the movies we all grew up with, whether it was the original Star Wars or Indiana Jones trilogy, E.T., Jurassic Park, or Harry Potter. His scores sang these stories in perfect harmony with the visuals and often provided their deepest emotions, and his themes were as integral to the characters as the actors who portrayed them. But Williams’ music is not childish or simple, and I loved it more powerfully as I got older and learned to appreciate the stunning level of craft and art in his popular family movie music and expanding my tastes to his darker, more complex scores for grown-up films. His music continues to break my heart, and I love that feeling.

My book is, in part, a covert love letter to Williams and a sermon to the unconverted or the half-aware about why you, too, should love his music. I’ve created this playlist as a companion, a bit of church music to go along with my 640-page homily. Here are nine (among hundreds) musical reasons why I love John Williams.

1. “Summon the Heroes”

We’ll start with a non-film piece. Among his many staggering cultural contributions, Williams has composed themes for four separate Olympic Games, beginning with his all-timer “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. “Summon the Heroes” was commissioned for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and it’s a fabulous demonstration of how Williams can write catchy, punchy music for a celebration or pageant like no one else. He is an heir to the likes of John Philip Sousa, and between his Olympics music and his perch at the Boston Pops for many years, he justly earned the appraisal of director Oliver Stone as having come “to stand for the American culture.”

2. “The Asteroid Field” (from The Empire Strikes Back)

One of the reasons I fell for Williams’ music as a kid was because his scores were a perfect marriage of classical music—all the grandeur and scale and tradition of the classical orchestra—and pop music, with their catchy earworm themes and often a verse-chorus-verse structure. This action cue from The Empire Strikes Back—a score that many consider his very best—is a perfect example of this hybrid quality. It’s also a miraculous example of how Williams could accompany an action scene, hitting lots of visual cues in perfect synchronization, while simultaneously composing a piece of tuneful music that makes perfect sense as pure music. In that skill, to my mind, he has no equals.

3. Theme from Born on the Fourth of July

Williams is definitely most famous for scoring Star Wars and the films of Steven Spielberg, but in the late 1980s and early ’90s he scored an informal trilogy of movies for director Oliver Stone that interrogated and lamented the years of the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, and the Richard Nixon presidency. All of these films are worth watching (Nixon is my personal favorite), and the scores are an exquisite tapestry of Americana tinged with melancholy and tragedy. The first was Born on the Fourth of July, the 1989 drama starring Tom Cruise as a real-life figure whose body and patriotism were shattered in Vietnam. Williams wrote an anguished string elegy as well as a solo trumpet theme that together tell the story of a profound, romantic love of country that is severely wounded, but not killed.

4. “Mom Returns and Finale” (from Home Alone)

One of Williams’ great gifts is ennobling even the lowest and silliest of material, and maybe the greatest example of this is Home Alone. On its face it is a juvenile, slapstick, live-action cartoon about a little boy torturing two idiot adults. But when Williams screened it, he saw the potential for a great Dickensian Christmas story, and he not only composed two indelible new Christmas carols, but also enhanced (and perhaps supplied) the emotional depth of its character relationships. The apotheosis of the film, and score, is the scene where Kevin McCallister’s mom finally comes home, they hug, and Kevin sees old man Marley embracing his own family in the falling snow. There’s a reason this movie has become a yuletide staple, and most of that reason is because John Williams treated it with literary respect and gave it an enormous heart.

5. “Remembering Emilie, and Finale” (War Horse)

Steven Spielberg’s unfairly overlooked movie about a horse in World War I—which is really about the tragedies as well as the humanity that war brings about—inspired Williams to write a romantic and very English pastoral score. There’s an homage to Old Hollywood in several scenes and images in the film, most of all in its emotionally cathartic finale, staged against a Technicolor MGM sunset. Williams reprises several of his intimate character themes, then strips away the whole orchestra for a solo piano rendition of an elegiac melody brimming with sadness and weary relief—and then concludes the whole thing with English nobility and heaving sentiment. This, for me, is ambrosia.

6. “Among the Clouds” (from Always)

Another overlooked and (in my opinion) unjustly dismissed Spielberg film, Always was his only “romantic comedy,” but really it’s a story about death and letting go of the person you love. It’s also a film with a lot of flight, a Williams specialty, and he wrote this cue for a scene where Dorinda (Holly Hunter) is flying her plane and the ghost of her paramour (Richard Dreyfuss) is saying goodbye. There’s a shimmering, levitational quality to this tone poem, a complicated mixture of quiet heartbreak and amorous love—with some gorgeous solo French horn playing by studio musician James Thatcher—that I find irresistible.

7. “E.T. is Alive” (from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial)

Most people know the famous “Flying Theme” from E.T., a score that, for my money, is probably Williams’ magnum opus. But most of my favorite moments in his scores (as evidenced throughout this playlist) are the sadder and more intimate ones—and the scene after E.T. dies and Elliott talks quietly to his alien friend, crying, is just so beautiful. Williams scored it with a tender reprise of his friendship theme for E.T. and Elliott on a celeste, an instrument with childlike sparkle that Williams loves, and then on a keening clarinet with empathetic string accompaniment. The cue rallies when E.T.’s heart begins to glow again, and the flying theme blooms like the flowers psychically linked to the character’s health. Williams has such a gift for taking potentially silly scenes and turning them into earnest holy moments.

8. “Cadillac of the Skies” (from Empire of the Sun)

Another “holy moment,” this is one of the all-time greatest standalone pieces of Williams music, for another overlooked Spielberg masterpiece. A young boy named Jim (played by Christian Bale) has been living in a Japanese internment camp for years; he has always been obsessed with airplanes, and when American bombers fly through to liberate the camp, he runs up to a rooftop in a state of euphoria. Williams scored this with choir, turning it into a quasi-liturgical drama; he has strings and brass join in, rising and rising, and then the music suddenly turns queasy and quiet as Jim collapses into his physician friend’s arms and says, “I can’t remember what my parents look like.” The score’s heart breaks from ecstasy to anguish in an instant, with the choir continuing hauntingly as the doctor carries Jim down from the roof like a toddler, the camp exploding behind them. This is definitely one of my “desert island” Williams tracks.

9. “The Search for the Blue Fairy” (from A.I. Artificial Intelligence)

In the summer of 2001, I saw A.I. three times in the theater. I was 16. After the first screening I was confused; by the third watch, I decided it was my favorite movie of all time, and it has remained so. It’s also my personal favorite John Williams score—full of gorgeous character melodies and emotional orchestral passion, but also layers of complex darkness and minimalism. David, an extremely lifelike android programmed to love his “parents,” has spent most of the film searching for the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio in the belief that she can turn him into a real boy and his mother will finally love him back. Williams scored the scene where he finally does find her (or at least a statue of her, in a drowned Coney Island) with his Blue Fairy theme sung by solo soprano. David pleads over and over—almost as if he is praying to the Virgin Mary—and Williams’ music is itself a prayer. A.I. is as beautiful and sad and sacred as any score he ever composed, and this track encapsulates everything that I love about his music.

Featured image by Jake Hills on Unsplash.

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Built on trust: the rigorous review process behind Oxford Law Pro’s Content [infographic]

Built on trust: the rigorous review process behind Oxford Law Pro’s Content [infographic]

Legal professionals need content they can depend on—accuracy, authority, and integrity are non-negotiable. At Oxford University Press, every legal title included in Oxford Law Pro undergoes a thorough review process involving Acquisition Editors, expert peer reviewers, and final approval by OUP Delegates, trusted senior professors at the University of Oxford and other leading institutions. This infographic delves into the detail of the review process, demonstrating how OUP ensures that its legal publications meet the highest standards, earning the trust of practitioners and scholars around the globe.

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Prague: a playlist from the heart of Europe

Prague: a playlist from the heart of Europe

Prague is a city steeped in history, where music has long been intertwined with its cultural identity. This playlist captures that spirit, featuring compositions that reflect the grandeur of its imperial courts, the struggles of its people, and the resilience of its artists. From Mozart’s Don Giovanni, composed specifically for Prague, to Smetana’s Má vlast, evoking the flowing Vltava, these works embody the city’s layered character. Jazz and rock music, too, played a key role in its modern history, fueling movements of resistance and unity.

Beyond its stunning architecture and historic squares, Prague’s music tells a deeper story of triumph and tragedy. This collection of ten pieces allows listeners to experience the essence of the city—not just as a visual marvel but as a place where melodies carry the weight of centuries. Whether through medieval chants, romantic symphonies, or revolutionary anthems, Prague’s soundscape is as enchanting as the city itself, ensuring that, as Franz Kafka wrote, “Prague does not let go; this little mother has claws.”

1. “Overture” from Don Giovanni, W. A. Mozart

Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo da Ponte wrote, “It is not easy to convey…the enthusiasm of the Bohemians for [Mozart’s] music.” Indeed, Mozart achieved some of his greatest successes in Prague, including the premieres of his Symphony no. 38 in D (Prague Symphony), the Clarinet Concerto in A, and the opera La Clemenza di Tito. The pinnacle of Mozart’s career, though, was the world premiere of Don Giovanni at Nostitz’s National Theater in the Old Town. On October 29, 1787, Mozart conducted the opera in front of a cross section of Prague society. Aristocrats sat sipping lemonade in the lower galleries, while the lower classes stood while downing sausages and beers. The singer Joseph Meissner wrote that when Mozart stepped onto the stage, a hush descended, and “one thousand hands lifted up to greet him.” At the end of the opera, the audience burst into “boundless applause,” and Mozart supposedly uttered the now-famous phrase, “My Praguers understand me.”

2. “Vltava” from Má Vlast,Bedřich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana wrote his magnum opus Má vlast (My Country) between 1874 and 1880. The piece comprised six symphonic poems, each celebrating a historical or natural site in Bohemia. The stirring second movement, “The Vltava” (Der Moldau), conveys the river’s journey through Bohemia. The composer explained that his most famous melody mimicked the region’s geography: “The Vltava swirls into the St. John’s Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Elbe River.” Smetana wrote Má vlast while becoming deaf and ill from the effects of syphilis. He remarked that only his fervent patriotism enabled him to complete the work. The man known as the “Father of Czech Music” died in 1884.

3. “Song to the Moon” from Rusalka, Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvořák’s popular opera Rusalka premiered in 1901 at the Czech National Theater in Prague. In this era of national rivalry, the city’s Czech and German speakers maintained their own theaters. Rusalka’s librettist Jaroslav Kvapil based Rusalka on fairy tales gathered by Czech ethnographers Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. While Rusalka has similarities to Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, this opera has decidedly Czech elements, including Bohemian folk melodies and characters like Vodník (water goblin) and the witch Ježí Baba. In this beloved aria, the water sprite Rusalka asks the moon to reveal her love to a human prince.

4. “Ranní mlha” (Morning Fog), Jaroslav Ježek

During the 1920s, Prague became a center of avant-garde culture. Prague’s Liberated Theater was made famous by the comic duo Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich, as well as Jaroslav Ježek, who composed music for the duo and conducted the theater’s orchestra. Ježek combined contemporary genres, including classical, jazz, dada, and incidental film music. He died in 1942, an exile in New York, having escaped the Nazi occupation of Prague. This moody orchestral piece was recorded sometime between 1929 and 1938 at the Liberated Theater.

5. “Motliba pro Marta” (Prayer for Marta), Marta Kubišová

In 1968, the Communist Party secretary Alexander Dubček implemented “Socialism with a Human Face,” restoring the freedoms of expression and movement. In August 1968, Warsaw Pact troops, led by the Soviet Union, crushed the reform movement known as the Prague Spring. Marta Kubišová’s heartfelt balladbecame an anthem during the invasion. The lyrics are by Jan Comenius, the exiled seventeenth-century Protestant theologian: “Let peace still remain with this country! Let hatred, envy, spite, fear, and strife cease!” Kubišová’s music was censored, and in 1977, she became a spokesperson for the Charter 77 movement.

6. “Magické Noci” (Magical Nights), Plastic People of the Universe

Influenced by the Prog Rock movement, this Prague rock band was not overtly political. Yet, artistic director Ivan Jirous and several band members were arrested in 1976 for “hooliganism” and performing illegally. The “Trial of the Plastic People,” inspired dissidents to issue Charter 77, calling for the end of censorship. This song was first recorded at Václav Havel’s country home in the early 1980s. Its lyrics capture the mystical associations many have with Prague:

The time of magic
Night has come…
Delirium
We live in Prague
That’s where the spirit itself will
One day appear
We live in Prague
That is where.

7. “Start Me Up,” The Rolling Stones

In 1990, signs throughout Prague announced: “The tanks are rolling out. The Stones are rolling in.” That August, the Rolling Stones played to an audience of over 100,000 fans in Strahov Stadium, which, only months earlier, had been the site of the largest demonstration against Communist rule. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were so impressed with the enthusiasm of their Czech fans, many of whom had grown up listening to illegal bootleg versions of Stones hits, that they decided to waive their fees and donate all proceedings to a charity for disabled Czechoslovak children. Their choice to open the concert with “Start Me Up” signified to the crowd that a new era had indeed begun.

8. “Paš o Paňori,” Věra Bílá and Kale

The Romani singer from Rokyčany, a town an hour southwest from Prague, became a phenomenon of World Music in the 1990s. Her rich alto voice and charisma led critics to dub her the “Ella Fitzgerald of Romani Music.” Bílá, who performed and recorded with the Roma band Kale, hailed from the Giňa family of Romani musicians. Their songs mixed pop harmonies with traditional Romani instrumentation.

9. “Nad Vltavou,” Lucie Vondráčková

Lucie Vondráčková is a popular stage, television, and film actress and singer. Her aunt Helena was a pop phenomenon who got her start singing with Marta Kubišová in the 1960s. In this wistful song from 2018, Lucie Vondráčková recalls her favorite places in Prague: whispering cathedral arcades, small theaters, and lofty halls. The nostalgic refrain recalls the rhythm of the Vltava River that Smetana captured in his masterpiece: “Over the Vltava River, Prague dances with a swaying gait. No matter where the clouds go, my dreams will remain with her forever.”

10. “Perfect Day,” Lou Reed

 In 1990, Rolling Stone magazine asked President Václav Havel for an interview, and he replied that he would do it only if Lou Reed asked the questions. Havel first heard Reed’s music in 1968, while in New York, and he smuggled the Velvet Underground album White Light/White Heat into Czechoslovakia. Havel frequently cited Perfect Day as his favorite song. In 2009, in a concert marking the twentieth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Reed performed the hit in an unlikely duet with opera star Renée Fleming accompanied by the Czech Philharmonic.

There are also a number of additional songs after these ten in the playlist for your enjoyment!

Featured image by William Zhang via Unsplash.

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Let’s stop talking about conspiracy “theories”

Let’s stop talking about conspiracy “theories”

A few years ago, I taught an undergraduate course on “Cons, Cults, and Conspiracy Theories,” exploring the connections and parallels among those phenomena. Many of my students had some experience with cons, often from work in the service industry. Several also had relatives who had been in cults of various ilks. However, students were overwhelmingly skeptical of conspiracies theories. As we explored the three c’s, I found myself struggling with the term “conspiracy theory.” The term “theory” lends a patina a of scientific thought and rigor that is often lacking in fabulist conspiracy narratives. 

The term “conspiracy theory” has a long history. It is sometimes erroneously attributed to the US Central Intelligence Agency, but, according to Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, the term can be found in nineteenth-century press accounts of trials and in the coverage of the assassination of US President James Garfield.  

In academic use, the term “conspiracy theory of society” was popularized by Karl Popper in a pair of papers delivered in 1948, and later in the second edition of his book The Open Society in 1952. Popper described it as

the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden interest which has first to be revealed) and who have planned and conspired to bring it about

—Popper, The Open Society, 1952, 94

Popper’s discussions sparked spirited commentary among other philosophers, part of which hinged on the distinction between a particular account of something as due to a conspiracy (the 1969 moon landing, the Kennedy assassination, the September 11th attacks, the COVID pandemic, etc.) and the more general tendency of looking for cabals of hidden conspirators behind all sorts of historical events.

As my students and I talked though the distinction and poked at it in various ways, we started to use the term conspiracism to refer to the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. Some studies, such as those of Stephen Lewandowsky and colleagues, refer to this as “conspiracy ideation,” and scholars have studied the attitudes and mindset that go along with it. I found myself preferring “conspiracism” to “conspiracy ideation” because it is more concise and is parallel with other -isms—and because it suggests the self-deluding aspect of many believers in conspiracy theories. “Ideation,” like “theory,” feels academic and reasoned.

In addition, the term “conspiracy theory” itself is problematic in other ways, as scholars such as Jesse Walker (and my undergraduates) have noted. The term is loaded with negative connotations as well as positive ones. Today, “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” suggest tinfoil-hat beliefs in the wildest counter-factual narratives and the fuzziest thinking. And to make matters even more complicated, there are actual conspiracies in the world—political, criminal, business—and before they are confirmed as actual conspiracies, there might be “theories” about what happened. Once the conspiracy is confirmed, we tend not to refer to it with the word “theory.” No one talks about the conspiracy theory of Watergate, for example. Rhetorically, there are conspiracies, theories about conspiracies (which are subject to evidence constraints), and “conspiracy theories” (which are not if you are a conspiracist).

A friend of mine once suggested that such unfalsifiable “conspiracy theories” be treated as fan-fiction about history and current event. That’s a bit unwieldy and does a disservice to fan-fiction, I think. But the notion underscores the way in which conspiracy theories typically have key fabulists and promoters and a dedicated fan base of believers. Maybe we should start referring to them as “conspiracy fiction.”

As a linguist, I know that I can’t control usage other than by example, but I’m going to start referring to “conspiracy fiction” and “conspiracism.” Maybe the terms will catch on.

Featured image by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.

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John Williams and the two notes that changed cinema

John Williams and the two notes that changed cinema

Two notes. Probably the most famous two-note unit of music in modern history.

When a composer has a hit song or an instantly iconic tune, it can be a blessing and a curse. That tune becomes eternally attached to you—and sometimes it can eclipse the rest of your work.

John Williams is no one-hit wonder, and he is culturally affiliated with more than a dozen melodies—the many themes in the Star Wars series, the “Raiders March” from the Indiana Jones movies, the flying theme from E.T., the anthem from Jurassic Park, “Hedwig’s Theme” from the Harry Potter films, and so many more. An embarrassment of earworms.

And it all started with his theme from Jaws, his first “hit” and arguably the two notes of his that almost everybody around the world recognizes, even fifty years later. Jaws itself was a phenomenon: society, en masse, was scared out of its wits and out of the water—and so much of their terror was owed to Williams’ obsessive, predatory score. That film and its score took Williams, who had been toiling as a mostly anonymous film and TV composer for nearly twenty years, into the stratosphere of success and pop culture omnipresence. It cemented his partnership with Steven Spielberg and led directly to Williams scoring Star Wars.

The long, fruitful phenomenon of his career—more Oscar nominations than any individual in history, acclaim from world leaders and cultural icons and audiences around the globe—can be traced back to those ominous, oscillating E and F bass notes that signaled the first appearance of the famous great white shark.

But the Jaws score is so much more than the famous “two-note” signature; it’s an entire symphony of primal tension, tender character notes, and adventurous sea shanties. Those “two notes”—the motif actually includes a third note, D—are undeniably the score’s almost literal heartbeat, its unforgettable signature. This thematic motor is not only memorable, it’s also a powerful and clever narrative device; Williams’ concept was to have the theme stand in for the shark, which is often unseen, to speed it up and slow it down as a way of conveying its proximity to the human protagonists. Without ever feeling cartoonish, it is scoring as storytelling, music as both narrative and mind control—a gift at which Williams would prove to be a wizard.

However, to only remember the two notes is to reduce a masterpiece—a veritable symphony—to its simplest denominator. We do something similar with the opening notes in Beethoven’s fifth symphony, but both compositions are large-scale works that develop a central, hummable theme into an epic musical drama. Williams would never claim that his film scores are symphonies. Technically they are not: they don’t follow strict sonata form, and they are necessarily constructed around the architecture of movie scenes, their durations and interruptions and moods at the mercy of the filmmaker’s blueprint.

But Williams, for several years leading up to 1975, had been on an unspoken stealth mission to elevate his film scores above the perfunctory gebrauchsmusik that Hollywood film music so often was, and to approach each scoring assignment like a symphonist. He adopted the leitmotif tradition from opera—assigning a melody or motif to individual characters and story elements—and he honed a way of serving a film’s needs and all its synchronizations while simultaneously developing themes across the length of an entire score, giving each score its own compositional arc and having individual cues inherently connected to one another. Where movie music had so often been disjointed and reactionary, he labored at giving his scores internal logic and developmental integrity.

The turning point for Williams was a 1968 TV movie, Heidi, and he matured this art even further in two films for director Mark Rydell: The Reivers (1969) and The Cowboys (1972). These were the same two scores that alerted a young, soundtrack-collecting Spielberg to Williams, and that made him want to hire Williams the moment he started directing features. (Their first collaboration was The Sugarland Express, in 1974.)

It was an incredible lightning strike. Spielberg, 29, going against the grain of his peers, wanted old-fashioned, symphonic, explicitly narrative scoring in his big throwback movies—which were already like visual music and primed for big, romantic accompaniment. Williams, 43, was a veteran, trained in the old ways of orchestral scoring, and chomping at the bit to run free with his newfound self-directive. It was a match made in cinematic heaven, and Jaws was the moment when these two artists alchemized and became luminous.

Listen again to the Jaws score—the whole score. It begins with fear and, yes, those two notes—aptly swimming, churning with a brainless, relentless appetite for flesh. The theme proper, which expands from that seesaw motor into a rising-falling melody on solo tuba, a ghostly string line, watery harp arpeggios, and a lot of orchestral angst, evokes the paganistic dance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and Williams goes primal with it in the many scenes of violent dismemberment.

He also introduces, in just one scene, a short passage of humanistic poetry. When Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is sitting at his dinner table one evening, gloomy after being slapped in the face by a mother who blames him for the grisly death of her child, Brody’s own son lifts his spirits when he begins to imitate his father’s hand gestures and facial expressions. Williams scored this poignant grace note with a low pedal tone on double bass and halting, gossamer figures played by piano, harp, and vibraphone. It’s one of the earliest examples of Spielberg and Williams creating a sacred moment in the midst of popcorn action and adventure, and it’s one of the elements that makes Jaws so much more than just a “scary shark movie.”

When Brody, Quint (Robert Shaw), and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) go out to sea for the film’s second half, Williams scored their adventure like a swashbuckling, seafaring ballet—using the language of singalong sea shanties and Old Hollywood pirate movies. All the while the main Jaws theme remains an active participant, and none of this feels incongruous or out of place. Williams deftly mapped a musical story to the needs of the film’s narrative, but one that listeners can also follow as its own exquisitely satisfying journey.

It wasn’t the first time he had done this, but Jaws was by far the best film he had ever scored—and it signaled a new era not just in his career, but in film music as an art form. Working with two young directors with old-school tastes (Spielberg, and soon George Lucas), Williams revived an ancient way of composing and perfected the art of film scoring. His music ennobled and transcended the films themselves, and with Jaws he began his reign as arguably the finest composer for cinema who has ever lived.

And it all started with two notes—but really, it was a whole damn symphony.

Feature image: Photo by Noah Negishi on Unsplash.

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5 books to master your transition to college [reading list]

5 books to master your transition to college [reading list]

As the days get cooler and autumn approaches, it’s the perfect time for a fresh start. Back to school is here. Whether your teen is heading off for another year at college or just beginning the transition, we’ve curated a selection of helpful guides to make the journey smoother. These titles are perfect companions for navigating this exciting new chapter.

Mastering the Transition to College: The Ultimate Guidebook for Parents of Teens With ADHD

Sending a teen off to college is a thrilling milestone, but for parents and caregivers of teens with ADHD, it can also bring unique challenges. Mastering the Transition to College is designed to ease those concerns by offering expert advice, practical strategies, and proven tools to help teens thrive both academically and emotionally during this transition.

Learn more about Mastering the Transition to College by Michael C. Meinzer

College Mental Health 101: A Guide for Students, Parents, and Professionals 

College Mental Health 101 offers more answers, relief, resources, and research backed information for families, students, and staff already at college or beginning the application process. With simple charts and facts, informal self-assessments, quick tips for students and those who support them, the book includes hundreds of voices addressing common concerns.

Learn more about College Mental Health 101 by Christopher Willard, Blaise Aguirre, and Chelsie Green

Supporting Your Teen’s Mental Health: Science-Based Parenting Strategies for Repairing Relationships and Helping Young People Thrive

Teen mental health issues are rising at an alarming rate, and many families are unsure of how to best help their children. Supporting Your Teen’s Mental Health is an essential resource for parents and caregivers looking to support teenagers who are struggling with mental health concerns. Written in a conversational tone by psychologist and fellow parent Andrea Temkin-Yu, the workbook is a thorough, evidence-based guide to essential parenting strategies that have been proven to help improve relationships and behavior.

Learn more about Supporting Your Teen’s Mental Health by Andrea Temkin-Yu

If Your Adolescent Has Autism: An Essential Resource for Parents 

While adolescence can be a tough time for parents and their teens, autistic teenagers may face specific challenges and need targeted support from the adults in their lives. The road ahead can be difficult for parents and caregivers, too, especially because the teenage years can involve surprising changes in their child and in society’s expectations of them.

Learn more about If Your Adolescent Has Autism by Emily J. Willingham

The Parents’ Guide to Psychological First Aid: Helping Children and Adolescents Cope With Predictable Life Crises 

Just as parents can expect their children to encounter physical bumps, bruises, and injuries along the road to adulthood, emotional distress is also an unavoidable part of growing up. The sources of this distress range from toddlerhood to young adulthood, from the frustration of toilet training to the uncertainty of leaving home for the first time. 

Learn more about The Parents’ Guide to Psychological First Aid edited by Gerald P. Koocher, Annette M. La Greca, Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter, and Nadja N. Lopez 

Check out these books and more on Bookshop and Amazon.

Featured image by Tanja Tepavac via Unsplash.

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Back to school for happy and healthy kids

Back to school for happy and healthy kids

Every September, caregivers and kids alike prepare for one big change: the start of a new school year. As the weeks of summer draw to a close, families are cramming in the last moments of summer fun while simultaneously gearing up for school drops offs and new classroom schedules. While it can be an incredibly exciting time, filled with first day of school outfits and new school gear, it can also be incredibly stressful. This can be particularly true for teenagers who, compared to younger kids, are facing higher academic demands and social pressure while experiencing the major physical and developmental changes that come during adolescence. On top of that, a 2023 Center of Disease Control report showed that teens of today have higher rates of mental health concerns, such as anxiety and depression, and that suicidal thoughts and behaviors are increasing. This can make the return to school daunting for teens, as well as parents who are worried about how their child will manage the transition and demands of the year. 

Fortunately, there are several tools that parents and caregivers can use to prepare kids and teens for the first few weeks in September. This includes setting clear expectations, skills to encourage helpful behavior, and strategies that help kids feel supported by their parents.  

Setting expectations 

While many kids prefer to keep their heads in the sand when it comes to a new academic cycle, it can be incredibly helpful to set expectations for the school year a few weeks in advance. The most basic version of this includes outlining differences between summer versus school schedules, such as changes to sleep and wake times, limits to screens, or daily responsibilities. This preview can help kids’ brains prepare for the upcoming shifts in their daily lives and make the transition a little smoother. It’s also a great idea to talk to kids about how the upcoming school year might be different than the last one. This could include providing information on class size, the structure of the day, or increased expectations. The goal is not to scare your kids about everything coming their way, but rather to provide them with simple clear information in a manner that builds excitement. For example, “It’s so fun that you get to go to go off-campus for lunch this year. I bet it will make the day feel way more interesting!” Or, “I know high school is bigger than middle school. It may feel a little overwhelming, but it’s also such a great time for you to see how capable you are.”  

Encouraging positive behaviors 

Once expectations have been set, parents can also work to encourage brave or skillful behavior. This may include things like taking more responsibility (e.g., managing their own communication with teachers and coaches), growing outside of their comfort zone (e.g., joining a new club or social circle), or challenging themselves with new opportunities or roles (e.g., a first job or harder courseload). This most effective way to do this is through a skill called “labeled praise.”  

Labeled praise is when you show appreciation for a specific behavior or characteristic your child is demonstrating. When it comes to a new school year, parents can look for opportunities to praise preparation, flexibility, and bravery. For example, “I know you really loved your teachers last year, and I appreciate how openminded you are about your new schedule.” Another parent may say, “Great call on getting to bed a little earlier this week. It’ll make the start of school so much easier!” For teens who haven’t mastered brave or skillful choices, parents can offer cheerleading and encouragement. Phrases like “I know you’re going to do a beautiful job making friends because you’ve done it before!” or “10th grade is tough, and I have total confidence that you’re going to find a way to balance everything” send a message that they really believe in their kid. This can go a long way towards encouraging positive behaviors.   

Providing validation 

When you do notice your child having a hard time, whether it’s nerves, low mood, or difficulty organizing themselves for a new semester, it’s always a great idea to offer validation. Validation is a skill used to show somebody that you can see their perspective or understand where they are coming from. Validation can be a tricky skill to master for caregivers because it is sometimes hard to put yourself in your child’s shoes, or you are eager to get them to see a new perspective. For example, when your child complains about their new math teacher who they have heard is a hard grader, it’s tempting to say “Nah! I’m sure it’ll be fine!” This may work for some kids. However, it can come off as dismissive and hard to believe for a teen whose anxiety or stress is high. Instead, try validation: “It makes sense that you’re nervous based on what you’ve heard!” While you aren’t agreeing with your child’s worries, you are acknowledging them, and that can help increase a sense of connection and communication. Once your child feels understood, they’ll be better able to think clearly about the situation and problem solve as needed.  

As you navigate another year of permission slips, homework, and extracurricular activities, remember that you have a handful of tools in your pocket to help ease the way. With a little bit of preparation, encouragement, and support, you and child can start the school year off on a great foot.  

Feature image: Photo by Wajih Ghali on Unsplash.

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Caring fish dads evolved prostates faster

Caring fish dads evolved prostates faster

Animals caring for their young, such as a lioness carrying her cub by their scruff or a matriarchal elephant herd nursing young calves, are the kinds of behavior that many would pay good money to watch on a safari. However, fish, especially father fish, caring for their young has received limited popular attention, except maybe for the clownfish father-son duo featured in Finding Nemo. Findings published in the recent article “Parental care drives the evolution of male reproductive accessory glands across ray-finned fishes” in the journal Evolution by a group of scientists in Canada shed new light on the evolution of fish paternal care. Lucas Eckert (McGill University), along with his co-advisors Ben Bolker and Sigal Balshine (both at McMaster University) and their co-authors Jessica Miller and John Fitzpatrick, show that, among ray-finned fish, species in which fathers look after young evolved reproductive accessory organs six times faster than those without male care.

Ray-finned fish, bony fish with webbed fins supported by thin, long rays of bone, represent the vast majority of known fish species. Some of these species have reproductive accessory organs, which are parts analogous to prostate glands in humans. These organs are not directly involved in producing gametes, but they optimize reproductive potential through functions such as sperm storage and nourishment. They also produce fluids that increase the ability of sperm to move and fertilize eggs. Research on how these glands evolved has focused mostly on mammals and insects, with little known about their evolution in fish.

“Accessory reproductive glands are a bit of a ‘mystery organ’ when it comes to fish”, says Dr. Sigal Balshine, fish behavioral ecologist and co-principal investigator of this study. “Some fish have them while some don’t have them at all. We know of their existence only in a very few species out of nearly 30,000 fish species in the world. Even when they are present, accessory reproductive glands show bizarre diversity which has always made me think that there must be interesting evolutionary drivers shaping them. There was a lot we didn’t know regarding how or when they evolved, which is why we started collecting data on them”.

In certain groups of animals, sperms of multiple males compete to fertilize the eggs of a single female, a scenario known as sperm competition. Accessory glands produce secretions that enhance sperm performance, and scientists have long believed that they evolved as a weapon to aid in this post-copulatory war in organisms such as rodents and insects. Most fish biologists assumed fish reproductive accessory glands followed the same evolutionary trend. However, in their study, Eckert and colleagues shift the focus away from sperm competition towards parental care. These authors reconstruct the evolutionary history of reproductive accessory organs, testing whether parental care and/or mate competition among males contributed to their evolution.

“There was evidence that these organs were super important in the species that have them, in securing reproductive success and fitness through a variety of functions. In that context, when some species have them and some don’t, the most obvious question was what were the drivers that selected for their evolution in the first place.” says Lucas Eckert, PhD student and lead author of the study, and one of the many students who have been collecting these data since 2017.

The team approaches this question using a quantitative synthesis of phylogenetic, morphological, and behavioral trait data of ray-finned fish collected from published databases. A plethora of published research data is available on reproductive traits of fishes, owing to their remarkable diversity in reproductive organs and behaviors. However, previous studies mostly only describe these traits, without formally testing any hypotheses regarding their evolution. In this study, the authors compile reproductive trait data for over 600 fish species from research conducted over many decades, to quantify the influence that sperm competition and parental care have had in shaping the accessory glands.

In this study, we have been able to put existing data and methods together in ways that they have not been connected before”, says Dr. Ben Bolker, mathematical biologist and co-principal investigator of the study. “This study has been able to find ways to ask the question and find, how much sperm competition and parental care contribute to the evolution of accessory reproductive organs of ray-finned fish, rather than ask what exactly caused accessory glands to evolve, because in biology everything does everything”.

Left: Upside-down round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) male guarding his eggs. Photo by Sina Zarini. Right: Simplified phylogeny highlighting the main ray-finned fish groups in which accessory glands are present (red branches). Illustration by Lucas Eckert.

The special benefits accessory glands provide male fish for improving their reproductive success explains why they evolved faster in species with paternal care. Unlike in many other animal groups where mothers take care of their young, when it comes to fish, that duty was most commonly delegated to fathers by evolution: they had the resources to maximize the survival of fertilized eggs, such as territory, security and nutrition. Accessory glands produce secretions that protect fertilized eggs against microbial infections and increase sperm adhesiveness and the viable period of sperm after release. These secretions allow these stay-at-home fish dads to multi-task in keeping their sperm viable for newly spawning females even while taking care of their young and defending their nests.

Though the evolution of accessory glands is traditionally thought to be driven by sperm competition, this study uncovers a new angle on drivers of fish accessory gland evolution by considering parental care behaviors. The authors hope that these results will encourage researchers to take a closer look at these mysterious glands and consider their potential importance in the species that possess them.

Featured image: Goby eggs by Olivier Dugornay, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

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China’s state-led financialization for tech supremacy

China’s state-led financialization for tech supremacy

The financialization of Western economies has unfolded as a prolonged systemic failure. What began as a mechanism to support productive enterprise has evolved into a structural dominance of finance over the real economy. Through deregulation, the proliferation of speculative activity, and successive asset bubbles, the sector has prioritized short-term gains over long-term investment. The 2008 financial crisis underscored these dynamics, transferring the burdens of systemic risk to the broader public while financial institutions were largely shielded from the consequences. This trajectory has entrenched income inequality and contributed to the political capture of regulatory institutions, inhibiting meaningful reform.

In contrast, China presents a divergent model. Its state-led financialization exemplifies a proactive deployment of financial mechanisms in service of national industrial objectives. Unlike the market-driven financialization typical of advanced Western economies, China’s approach is characterized by strategic state intervention and institutional design. The government not only participates in markets but reconfigures them—mobilizing state-owned enterprises as venture capital vehicles, directing bank lending toward emerging technologies, and leveraging local government financing platforms to support innovation. This model represents a deliberate recalibration of financial systems to prioritize long-term technological development over immediate capital returns.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs): from asset managers to venture capitalists

Chinese SOEs have increasingly transitioned from passive asset holders to active financial agents, functioning as quasi–venture capital entities with a targeted focus on high-technology sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing. This transformation is rooted in the 2013 reforms under Xi Jinping, which marked a shift in state asset governance from a model of “managing assets” to one of “managing capital.” Central to this new framework are state-owned capital investment and operation companies (SCIOCs)—market-oriented entities tasked with allocating state capital in alignment with national strategic objectives.

Prominent SCIOCs such as Guoxin and Chengtong exemplify this model, channeling investments into key technological domains while retaining mechanisms of state oversight. Notably, their investment strategies increasingly resemble those of global institutional investors like BlackRock, characterized by portfolio diversification and minority equity stakes across a wide range of publicly listed firms. Over time, both Guoxin and Chengtong have reduced the size of their individual holdings while broadening the scope of their portfolios, mirroring BlackRock’s index-based approach. However, unlike BlackRock, whose investment logic is primarily driven by market signals and shareholder value maximization, these Chinese entities operate within a state-directed paradigm. Their capital allocation decisions are subordinated to broader industrial policy objectives, underscoring a distinctive model of “state-capital hybridization” wherein global financial practices are repurposed to advance national technological priorities.

Banks: from conservative lenders to investment partners

China’s banking sector has undergone a significant transformation from a traditionally conservative, loan-centric model—once governed by the “separation principle” that delineated clear boundaries between lending and investment—toward a more integrated, market-oriented system. Since 2015, mechanisms such as “investment and loan linkage” have enabled commercial banks to engage in equity-related activities, particularly in support of high-technology enterprises. Institutions like the Bank of China have introduced “green channel” loans that prioritize lending to startups with venture capital backing, and in some cases have experimented with convertible instruments such as “stock option models,” allowing for the conversion of debt into equity.

This evolution has been further institutionalized through the establishment of bank wealth management companies (BWMCs), which are permitted to make direct equity investments in high-tech firms. As of the end of 2022, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) had approved 29 such entities. One notable example is BOCOM International, affiliated with the Bank of Communications, which manages the BOCOM Science and Technology Innovation Fund—an investment vehicle explicitly oriented toward advancing technological innovation. These developments underscore a broader trend of financial re-engineering within the Chinese banking system, as state-affiliated financial institutions adopt quasi-investor roles to support national strategic priorities, reinforcing the architecture of state-led financialization.

Local governments: trading land speculation for innovation funding

In recent years, Chinese local governments have transitioned away from reliance on Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs), traditionally used to support land-based urban development, toward the deployment of Government Guidance Funds (GGFs). This strategic reorientation marks a shift from speculative real estate-driven financing to a model of purposeful financialization aimed at fostering technological innovation. Rather than leveraging land assets to finance urban expansion, local authorities are increasingly channeling capital into science and technology sectors through state-backed investment vehicles.

A prominent example is the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (NICIIF), with a targeted fund size of approximately USD 95.8 billion, which supports enterprises in strategically vital sectors such as semiconductors. These funds operate not merely as instruments of capital allocation but as policy tools through which local governments execute central industrial strategies. According to the Zero2IPO database, as of 2023, there were 2,086 active GGFs across China, collectively managing assets exceeding USD 1.8 trillion. This proliferation underscores a broader recalibration of subnational fiscal behavior, whereby the objectives of economic development and industrial policy are fused within a state-directed financial architecture oriented toward national technological advancement.

A coordinated push for tech supremacy

This evolving model of state-led financialization reflects a deliberate integration of financial instruments with industrial policy, positioning the state as what we termed as “financial entrepreneur.” In this capacity, the state assumes a dual function: both as a strategic investor in capital markets and as a fund manager whose objectives are shaped through a hybrid of administrative directive and market logic. The recalibration of incentives across state institutions—ranging from banks and SOEs to local governments—facilitates the targeted allocation of financial resources toward sectors deemed essential for national technological leadership.

This coordinated mobilization contrasts sharply with earlier phases of development finance in China, which were heavily reliant on infrastructure-led investment through Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs). The current financial architecture instead orients capital toward innovation and industrial upgrading. As illustrated in the accompanying figure, this shift embodies a paradigmatic change in the underlying logic of state intervention. The empirical results are notable: according to a 2023 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), China now leads globally in 37 out of 44 critical technologies, including advanced batteries, quantum sensing, and 5G communications.

State–finance relationship through GGFs. Figure 8, “Mapping the investor state: state-led financialization in accelerating technological innovation in China,” Socio-Economic Review, 18 June 2025.

A growing network of state agencies in innovation finance ecosystem is to ensure ideological alignment and managerial oversight, forming a core feature of China’s model of state-led financialization. This system also serves as a reminder of the original rationale behind China’s economic reform process where the boundaries between public and private sectors, and between liberal market coordination and socialist planning, become increasingly blurred. Notwithstanding its strategic coherence, China’s model of state-led financialization faces a series of structural and operational challenges. One key risk lies in the emergence of overcapacity within state-targeted sectors such as photovoltaics and electric vehicles. In the absence of commensurate demand, excessive production may generate inefficiencies, underutilized assets, and financial losses. Furthermore, the expansive use of mechanisms like GGFs has the potential to inflate asset bubbles, as state-directed capital may push valuations beyond sustainable levels, raising concerns over long-term financial stability.

The persistence of so-called “zombie firms”—enterprises maintained through state support despite chronic unprofitability—also continues to divert capital from more productive uses, undermining allocative efficiency. Tensions emerge from the dual imperative to stimulate market-based innovation while retaining centralized Party and state control over capital flows. These competing logics often complicate investment decisions and diminish the responsiveness of the financial system. Additionally, fragmented coordination across state entities and growing international scrutiny or resistance to China’s state-capitalist practices further limit the replicability and effectiveness of this model.

For Western economies, the implications are profound. Initiatives such as the U.S. Stargate Project—reportedly valued at $500 billion over four years to support AI and semiconductor infrastructure—and the European Commission’s InvestAI scheme, backed by €20 billion in guarantees, signal a renewed policy interest in public–private coordination. However, these efforts remain constrained by political fragmentation and a reliance on market-led frameworks. China’s approach is characterized by a level of centralized state capacity and institutional discipline that would be difficult to replicate without foundational political transformation in the West.

Should China succeed in sustaining this model without triggering systemic instability, the result would extend beyond technological leadership. It would represent a paradigmatic shift in the global political economy—one that challenges prevailing liberal capitalist orthodoxy and compels a fundamental reconsideration of the relationship between the state, capital, and innovation. In this sense, China is not merely competing within existing rules but reshaping the terrain on which economic competition is conducted.

Featured image by Michael Held via Unsplash.

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Sabotage of the Normandie? [excerpt]

Sabotage of the Normandie? [excerpt]

In the 1940s, the Normandie was the epitome of elegance and engineering—a French ocean liner renowned for its Art Deco splendor and unmatched luxury. When war loomed over Europe, the ship sought refuge in New York Harbor. In this excerpt from Gotham At War, Mike Wallace shows how its transformation from glamourous ocean liner to utilitarian troopship mirrored the world’s descent into conflict.

On February 9, 1942, the Normandie—the world’s most glamorous ocean liner—had been the site of feverish activity, as 1,750 workers from the Robins Dry Dock & Repair Company, and 675 other laborers from sixty assorted subcontractors, worked to convert the rakish, Art Deco, red-and-black vessel—whose elegant staterooms had hosted the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Cole Porter, and Ernest Hemingway—into a drabbed-down, bunk-laden troopship.

The Normandie had been tied up at Pier 88 (at the foot of West 48th Street) since arriving from Le Havre on August 28, 1939, four days before Germany invaded Poland. Rather than have its crown jewel brave torpedoes at sea, or bombs back in France, the French Line, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT), laid up its vessel indefinitely on September 6, leaving on board only a skeleton crew of 113 (out of 1,227) to keep it shipshape. There it stayed, through the fall of France, while other sea queens came and went (at one point, in March 1940, the gray-camouflaged sisters Elizabeth and Mary were berthed in adjacent piers).

On May 15, 1941, the US government took the Normandie into protective custody, leaving French ownership intact but housing a contingent of armed Coast Guardsmen on board to forestall possible sabotage by crew members loyal to the Vichy government. (The Pétain regime was getting increasingly cozy with Germany: Vice Premier Admiral François Darlan had just visited Hitler on May 11.) American thoughts turned to possible uses of the giant ship, in the event of an actual confiscation, and proposals were floated to use it as a dockside super- barracks, or to move it to Brooklyn, where it could serve as a backup power supply for the entire city, capable as it was of generating 150,000 kilowatts. When the Normandie was seized, on December 12, the day after war with Germany broke out, the troopship option won out. The vessel was transferred to the Navy, renamed the USS Lafayette, and turned over to contractors who began carting off the legendary artwork and sumptuous furniture to the Chelsea Warehouse and converting the staterooms, which had housed 1,972 First, Tourist, and Third-Class passengers, into bunkrooms that would carry 14,800 soldiers to war.

With nearly 2,500 workmen (plus Coast Guardsmen and crew) constantly coming and going, the noise, confusion and disorder on the ship attracted the attention of Ralph Ingersoll, editor of PM. Security seemed dangerously casual to him, so Ingersoll assigned reporter Edmund Scott to find out how easily a potential saboteur might penetrate the Normandie’s defenses. It proved to be a snap. Scott joined Local 284 of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and got a job lugging furniture aboard. Once on deck, it proved easy to wander about as he pleased, and he was struck by how simple it would be to set a fire. On January 3, 1942, he filed his story, which Ingersoll decided not to run—it being, in effect, a blueprint for sabotage—and instead got in touch with the authorities, who seemed uninterested.

When a fire broke out at 2:34 on the afternoon of February 9, crewmen discovered to their horror that the fire hoses could not connect to the standpipes, as the latter had been converted to American fittings, while the former still spoke French. Efforts to sound the fire alarm also failed—it had been disconnected a few days earlier, along with the ship’s link to the city’s fire department, by a subcontractor who had forgotten to tell anyone. In the meantime—it was a blustery winter day—the wind whipped through the corridors, spreading the blaze until it was beyond control, with great sheets of flame leaping skyward. Most of the nearly 3,000 on board dashed down the gangplanks and joined the thirty thousand New Yorkers who choked Twelfth Avenue. Fire trucks now combined forces with fire boats to inundate the upper decks: over the next four hours, they poured on 3,000 tons of water. The ship began to list. The French officers who had rushed to the pier realized the danger; their calls to refill the ballast tanks to ground the ship on the slip bottom were rejected, as were their urgings to close the portholes.

The inundation continued, as La Guardia, who had rushed to the pier, said it was out of the question to let a fire rage unchecked in midtown Manhattan. Even after the inferno seemed contained, around 8:00 p.m., the fireboats—ordered by Commissioner Walsh to stop pumping—didn’t get his radioed message; and having gotten dark, his semaphore signals went similarly unheeded. By the time a cutoff was accomplished, the Normandie had taken on 16,000 tons of water, most trapped on the port side, a burden no ship could have borne. At 12:30 a.m., Admiral Andrews gave the order to evacuate. At 2:32 a.m., it rolled over in the gray Hudson ice and came to rest, its funnels just barely above the waterline, slumped ignominiously in the mud.

The U.S. Coast Guard flies over the wreckage of the USS Lafayette (previously known as the SS Normandie) at Pier 88, 12 August 1943. US Navy Photograph.

Rumors of sabotage flew, starting at the top. FDR asked Navy Secretary Knox the next morning if any enemy aliens had been permitted to work at the site. The truth flew almost as quickly yet had difficulty catching up. The first press reports carried District Attorney Frank Hogan’s statement—“There is no evidence of sabotage”—and Admiral Andrews’s concurrence, along with the facts they had ferreted out. The fire, they said, had been an accident, caused by carelessness. One worker had been using an acetylene torch to cut down a metal stanchion in the Grand Salon, the resulting sparks contained by an asbestos board held up by another laborer. When the second man put down his board for a minute to help a colleague, a spark leapt toward a pile of 1,140 life jackets, each filled with flammable kapok, each wrapped in even more flammable burlap. Up they went, in turn igniting a nearby mass of bunk-bound mattresses. On February 12, the FBI staged a re- creation at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; followed up with a full-dress investigation in which they interviewed 760 people, and came to the same conclusion. So did two congressional committees. No sabotage.

Nonetheless, doubts continued. Many refused to buy the verdict, especially after PM published Scott’s original story. The notion that Nazi saboteurs had done the deed was further nurtured by Alfred Hitchcock, then shooting and editing Saboteur (1942). The director inserted a sequence that showed his weaselly Nazi villain (played by Norman Lloyd) being taxied down the West Side past the capsized Normandie (shown in actual newsreel footage). As he surveyed the wreckage, Lloyd gave a perfectly calibrated, wickedly knowing half smile, as if to say: “Ah, our handiwork.” The Navy tried hard to muscle Hitchcock into excising the bit; it failed, and the ranks of doubters grew.

There was one person who did more than doubt—he was utterly certain the Normandie was the victim of foul play, because he himself had ordered the hit. No Nazi, he was the nation’s most celebrated jailbird, languishing up in Dannemora Prison (known as “New York’s Siberia”), doing a thirty-to-fifty-year stretch.

Featured image: SS Normandie at sea, colorized by Vick the Viking. Derivative work of Altair78. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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