What became of the democratic republican ideals of the American Revolution? In Wood's account, they gradually were swamped by the pursuit of self-inteWhat became of the democratic republican ideals of the American Revolution? In Wood's account, they gradually were swamped by the pursuit of self-interest (chap. 18), the pressure of what became known as "public opinion" (chap. 19), and the money required to attract public servants (chap. 16). Perhaps most succinctly,
... the entire Revolution could be summed up by the radical transformation Americans made in their understanding of property. (p. 269)
An institution of the Enlightenment that rose and subsided, one that aspired to a cosmopolitan liberalism, was the brotherhood of Freemasonry (chap. 12).
One cannot resist tweaking the noses of members of Congress, meeting in New York 1789, who complained about a meager salary of $6 per day. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania griped, "You have no conception at what extravagant rates every thing is paid for in this place." (p. 292)
Fans of the long-running, oft-rebooted TV series featuring the Cadillac-driving metrosexual Raymond Burr won't necessarily recognize this Perry Mason.Fans of the long-running, oft-rebooted TV series featuring the Cadillac-driving metrosexual Raymond Burr won't necessarily recognize this Perry Mason. Stuttering Bishop one of the first ten mysteries to appear, published in 1936. This Perry is more profane, eager to throw a punch, and doesn't think twice about putting his stalwart secretary Della Street in harm's way if it crack a case. Not to mention his use of a racial slur embedded in a common idiom of the time, one that has fortunately faded away. Paul Drake is not the dreamboat William Hopper, but rather is possessed of a "rather florid face" of "carp-like" aspect....more
Ethan Mordden makes his case that "...the intellectual and academic worlds paid little heed to the musical until Sondheim took hold of it; now the intEthan Mordden makes his case that "...the intellectual and academic worlds paid little heed to the musical until Sondheim took hold of it; now the intelligentsia has raised the form into a discipline all its own." (p. 149) But, oh my, some other Broadway luminaries get brickbats and onions: Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, the Kerrs....more
A story of the Cumming-Maraniss extended family, whose members included a WW II veteran and a volunteer on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil WaA story of the Cumming-Maraniss extended family, whose members included a WW II veteran and a volunteer on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War—and whose members were compelled to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952. The backstory of some of the HUAC principals, per Maraniss's research, is not very nice. Roy Cohn makes a brief appearance (no doubt, briefer than he would like).
Maraniss's complex forward-and-back chronology, revolving around the HUAC hearings in Detroit, serves his story well....more
Bob Gibson pitched 28 complete games in 1968. Last year, 8 pitchers led the leagues in CGs with 2. This book might also be titled The Year of the StarBob Gibson pitched 28 complete games in 1968. Last year, 8 pitchers led the leagues in CGs with 2. This book might also be titled The Year of the Starter.
Pappu dwells on the backstory of Gibson, McLain, pitching coach John, Jackie Robinson, and the social upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s. Many major leaguers had to muster to deal with rioting in Detroit; one-third of the players were in the National Guard.
Indeed, it's not until page 130 that the events of 1968 begin to unfold. Chapter 11 walks forward from the RFK assassination to the baseball strike of 1972 and back again....more
An important first-hand account of life as an English teacher at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. The challenge of any reporting onAn important first-hand account of life as an English teacher at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. The challenge of any reporting on North Korea is getting a deeper understanding of any capricious behavior on the part of the regime, or its citizens. Why were Kim's students sent on a short-notice field trip to the Pyongyang Central Zoo? Kim can only speculate. Why did an essay prompt that included the final success of Mark Zuckerberg result in hostile responses? Kim has her conjectures....more
The story of protagonist Paul, a young gay man in 1993, self-absorbed to the breaking point of credulity, has its engaging, comic moments:
Paul smarted
The story of protagonist Paul, a young gay man in 1993, self-absorbed to the breaking point of credulity, has its engaging, comic moments:
Paul smarted at this unfairness of apartment hunting: you needed an apartment with a phone to get an apartment with a phone, like you needed a job to get a job, or money to get money. But worse—you needed a phone to get a job, so you actually needed an apartment to get a phone to get a job, so the apartment was first, but you needed a jobto get the apartment. Paul felt an incisive critique of capitalism coming on and ordered an expensive latte as a distraction. (pp. 221-222)
And this book is packed with pop culture references from the first half of that decade; I appreciated the riff on Echobelly, a band that I fondly remember from that era.
Alas, polymorphous Paul wears out his welcome. A Turtle Diary subplot in Provincetown fizzles out. Perhaps Paul's story will resonate with some readers....more
Well, not precisely, since his visit with Bobby Matthews, subsistence trapper of bait leeches and general mastDavid Treuer, you had me at the leeches.
Well, not precisely, since his visit with Bobby Matthews, subsistence trapper of bait leeches and general master of getting things to be got, doesn't appear until Part 5. Bobby is just one of the Native Americans that Treuer encounters who has found his own way to Indianness in the 21st century. Treuer's nuanced reading of the Tualip nation in the Pacific Northwest, a complicated story of success and corruption, is particularly fine.
In Treuer's recapitulation of Indian history on the North American continent, we are reminded that there were "code talkers" in the first World War (Choctaw) and that Native Americans served in combat roles in World War II (among them, the Mesawaki in the Pacific theater). And that, as horribly as the Plains Indians may have been treated, the natives of California perhaps suffered even more.
When it's called for, Treuer can turn a phrase.
With each split and each move [in the late 19th century], the Little Shell lost more of their sense of themselves. At stake was not merely some kind of round self-regard: without community and without place, without land, a people becomes leprous, they lose bits and pieces of themselves and the safety net that shared language, experience, lifeway, and place can provide. (p. 261)
TIL that Co-op City in the Bronx is built on land originally planned by Curtiss-Wright to be an airport (oops, LGA and JFK instead) (p. 92) and then aTIL that Co-op City in the Bronx is built on land originally planned by Curtiss-Wright to be an airport (oops, LGA and JFK instead) (p. 92) and then a racetrack for horses (p. 233).
Bring your own map of New York. A particularly perplexing, meticulously detailed passage, concerning a proposed line in Queens:
Both groups preferred a subway through their area but would accept an el. The route they wanted ran along Amity Street to Boerum Avenue (now 150th Street), south to Madison Avenue (now 41st Avenue), east to 16th Street (now 156th Street), and north to either Mathews Place (now Depot Road) or Lucerne Place (now Station Road) to 22nd Street (now 162nd Street). (p. 51)
Raskin structures his narrative around neighborhoods and proposed lines, and the story of each proposed extension (the Burke Avenue line in the Bronx, the 7 beyond its Main Street terminus in Flushing) often unfolds over decades. So, chapter to chapter, there is much back and forthing over the years of the 20th century.
An annoyance: the thousands, millions, or billions of dollars entailed by a particular capital expenditure over the 120 years since New York's unification require a sliding-scale yardstick. Raskin tries to provide appropriate conversions to today's dollars, but doesn't do so consistently. Sometimes a conversion to 2009 or 2011 dollars is presented in the main text (with a distracting, repetitive reference to an online calculator), and sometimes the conversion is presented in an end note....more
Not one of Dick's stronger works. What little narrative momentum there is comes from a political campaign promise. Bits of filler are common. The paceNot one of Dick's stronger works. What little narrative momentum there is comes from a political campaign promise. Bits of filler are common. The pace doesn't quicken until two-thirds of the way in, when the second space-time "rent" appears.
Avant garde composer Harry Partch is ill served by a scene-setting paragraph to open chapter IX (as "Harry Parch"). A stronger hand at the copy edit desk would have corrected howlers like the "islands of Langerhans." In this sentence from chapter XIV,
She smiled at him uneasily, her jessamine lips twitching.
who knows what "jessamine" is supposed to mean?...more
A map of the dense network of collaborations that made the jazz world hum in the 1940s to 1960s. By the 1960s, unfortunately, the hum gradually diminiA map of the dense network of collaborations that made the jazz world hum in the 1940s to 1960s. By the 1960s, unfortunately, the hum gradually diminished by the death of one musician after another, and each passing left a mark on Monk.
Kelley gives us the backstory to many signature Monk pieces, their original names, where the chords came from. He doesn't lean into the harmonic analysis of the works, but TIL that "In Walked Bud" is based (loosely) on the changes of Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" (p. 129).
And that network again: business relationships with Harry and Jules Colomby nearly resulted in a Monk project with Blood, Sweat & Tears and their drummer, Bobby Colomby (p. 402).
A beefy biography that complements Ninth Street Women, as the two books share the venue of the Five Spot in the East Village....more
A hilarious hymn to mayonnaise; an ex-POW strongly suggestive of Col. Kurtz; a shaggy dog story culminating in a skyrocketing fart joke. "Alla time biA hilarious hymn to mayonnaise; an ex-POW strongly suggestive of Col. Kurtz; a shaggy dog story culminating in a skyrocketing fart joke. "Alla time big fun."...more
Haskell elaborates on the pattern he set with The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, closely observing a natural phenomenon and following its weHaskell elaborates on the pattern he set with The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, closely observing a natural phenomenon and following its web of links to other aspects of the world, à la James Burke's Connections series. In the current work, the strands are sometimes perhaps stretched too thin.
Nevertheless, Haskell's comprehension of nature's network is profound, and gracefully expressed.
Ecological beauty is not titillating prettiness or sensory novelty. An understanding of life's processes often subverts these superficial impressions. A burn "scar" can in fact be a long-awaited renewal. The microbial community under our feet may be more richly beautiful than the obvious grandeur of a mountain sunset. In rot and scum we might find the slimy sublime. This is ecological aesthetics: the ability to perceive beauty through sustained, embodied relationship within a particular part of the community of life. (pp. 148-149)
Henry Bech, a writer with all his success behind him, is not much of a compelling character. But the comic description of a failed tryst in "Bech PaniHenry Bech, a writer with all his success behind him, is not much of a compelling character. But the comic description of a failed tryst in "Bech Panics" is quite delightful, sprinkled with Updikeisms:
... the overfilling meal at a boorish roadside restaurant, and their furtive decelerated glide through the crackling gravel courtyard of the motel (where a Kiwanis banquet was in progress, and had hogged all the parking spaces), and his fumbly rush to open the tricky aluminoid lock-knob of his door and to stuff his illicit guest out of sight, and the macabre interior of oak-imitating wallboard and framed big-eyed pastels that embowered them proved in sum withering to Bech's potency.
A poetical, lyrical collection of field notes. With hardly a narrative, this is a book best consumed in small bites. And bites there are: Baker gives A poetical, lyrical collection of field notes. With hardly a narrative, this is a book best consumed in small bites. And bites there are: Baker gives considerable attention to observing the remains of birds eaten by Peregrine Falcons (as we term them in the States) as well as other predators.
In an astonishing shift of POV at p. 140, Baker takes on a literal bird's-eye-view:
And beyond, beyond all, [the hawk] saw the straight-ruled shine of the sea floating like a rim of mercury on the surface of the brown and white land. The sea, rising as he rose, lifted its blazing storm of light, and thundered freedom to the land-locked hawk.
At times, Baker's embroidered imagining of what it must be like to be a raptor gets the better of him, as in this passage on p. 145:
Suddenly [the hawk] jerked in the air as though shot, stalled, wrenched himself violently away from me. He defected in anguish of fear, and was gone before the white necklace of sun-glittered fæces reached the ground.
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