Playing with Fire: Excellent Mystery, Terrible TV

 

So yes!

So no!

  

 

PLAYING WITH FIRE (2004)

By Peter Robinson

Avon Books, 405 pages.

★★★★★

 

I doubt I need to tell the readers of this blog that books are almost always superior to movies made about them. TV is a little bit more complex. We subscribe to Brit Box off and on. Right now, it’s on because we wanted to binge watch the excellent Shetland series, which is based on novels by Ann Cleeves. I liked the TV productions better. I was hopeful that the BBC series Inspector Banks would be equally good. Alas, no! Not even close.

 

To further test my belief, I re-read # 14 of the DCI Banks novels by author Peter Robinson, Playing with Fire. Then I watched the two-part BBC dramatization of the same book. I hated it! But to make sure I wasn’t overly biased because I loved the book so much, I watched a few episodes made from books I’ve not yet read. Same verdict. Part of it is that actor Stephen Tompkinson was unconvincing as DCI Alan Banks. His performances were so wooden that it often looked as if he knew he was miscast. He would have been better off playing a hard-boiled American detective the sort whom likes to throw his weight around. The problem is that Robinson’s Banks is both cerebral and on the world-weary side of life. He’s a music aficionado with a massive record collection and a near-photographic memory of who played with whom, which recordings are definitive, and can even recall labels and their catalog numbers. The genres seldom matter, as he loves rock, classical, punk, jazz, and opera. That guy isn’t Tomlinson.

 

I also fault the ITV’s production choices. Robinson’s writing is more subtle, even when presenting horrible situations. Playing with Fire involves a possible serial arsonist and begins when two canal boats are burned at their moorings in Yorkshire Dales. A burnt body is found in each. The first victim involves an investigation of its own as it was the home of a recluse surmised to be a painter because of the boat remains; the second is 16-year-old Tina Aspern, an emotionally damaged runaway who despises her stepfather. The first suspect is her boyfriend, Mark Siddons, who lived on the boat as well but spent the night in question in a pub and in the arms of another. He is wracked by guilt, both for his infidelity and for his belief that he could have saved Tina if he had been there. The stepfather, a doctor, is perfectly willing to believe that Mark, whom he sees as a rock-the-cradle freeloader, set the fire but Banks doesn’t think so. Is it because he believes Mark or that he sees something of his own son, Brian, in Mark? (Banks has long been divorced and his wife got custody of their two children. He has since been quite unlucky at love.)

 

Robinson gives us meticulous detail on how police investigate arson. Cranky egoist Geoff Hamilton shows how he knew that the first boat was set afire while Tina slept in the second one. That first boat’s resident was Thomas McMahon, who was indeed a local painter, but of little renown. This stands in marked contrast to the TV show, which goes for the gore, showing us McMahon’s charred body and Tina’s as a grotesque “floater.”

 

You name it and Banks’ life is complicated by it. Another fire, Mark’s preference for jail–he’s hard worker but also homeless after the fire–Tina’s stepfather’s arrogance, his own bumbled pursuit of DI Annie Cabot, the emergence of a possible lost painting by J. M. W. Turner, the fact that an old flame is dating an art expert who makes Banks queasy (or is it jealousy?), his sadness over Tina’s life (or is he projecting his daughter’s unsettled life onto Tina?), etc. In other words, the book is nuanced in every way the TV production is gratuitous.

 

As noted, I tried some other episodes as Playing with Fire is among my favorite of Robinson’s novels. My gut tells me that the TV series couldn’t (ahem!) hold a candle to the novels.

 

Rob Weir

Cold on My Shoulder

Normally I’d have posted on this blog this morning. That was the plan but, alas, I brought something back from England that couldn’t be ignored: a raging summer cold. You know the drill: runny nose, stuffy sinuses, coughing, and a throat that feels as if I gargled barbed wire.

It’s not Covid; I’ve had that and it’s worse–high fever, inability to focus, shortness of breath, loss of smell and taste, gastro issues–but colds are no fun either. That said, I had forgotten how frustrating a cold can be. I’ve been retired for nearly a decade and hadn’t had a cold since the day I left.

Those who have worked in schools, social agencies, restaurants, and other public places can attest that catching colds is an occupational hazard. Schools are little incubators for the more than 200 viruses that can cause the “so-called common” cold. In an ideal world, everybody covers their mouth when they cough or sneeze, wash their hands frequently, clean surfaces they’ve touched, and stay home when they are sick and contagious.

Alas, we don’t live in an ideal world. When you’re a good student, you fear falling behind so you go to school sick. Whether or not we like to hear it, schools are babysitters for K-12 students. Parents often shuffle sick kids off to school because they can’t afford to take a day off work. But teachers can be just as bad. I was one of them. Some former high school students of mine probably have nightmares about days in which my voice was shot from illness. I came to work anyhow and made you folks write until your arms were failing off! Or the days in which I salvaged my voice by bringing a giant thermos of coffee to work. By the last period I was so high of caffeine that I was firing out information and questions like a wild man with a Gatling gun.  

I wonder if my immunity systems are off-line from not having had a cold for so long. I had forgotten how fast one regular-sized nose could burn through a box of tissues and consuming cough drops as if they were Oreos. Not to mention beating a path to the bathroom to discharge all the fluids I’ve drunk.

I had also forgotten that every school year, the worst cold I got was just before summer vacation. It was as if I had my defenses on high alert and just as I corrected final exams and completed reading student papers, I sighed, let down my defenses, and Mr. Virus climbed over the walls and kicked my butt. He twirled his thin mustache, sprinkled me with ten thousand germs, and screamed, “Aha!” in his most dastardly voice. Summer colds are just one notch down from being tied to a railroad track as a rushing train speeds around the bend. Sometimes I felt so lousy I would have preferred that my rescuing superhero (Superman? Underdog? Nyquil?) stayed home so my misery could end sooner.

In the few years I didn’t get an end-of-the-school-year cold, other things happened that prevented me going into full Slug Mode until September. One year, spring came early and I got in a lot of tennis after school and on weekends. That was the year I had my only bout of tennis elbow and my right arm was put in a sling. Another year I tore my left rotator cuff and put that arm in a sling for several months. The sling also had a red ball attached to it to squeeze for exercise. I spent several months living in abject fear that a friendly Golden Retriever would happen upon me and demand a game of fetch by sinking his teeth into the ball.

The worst of all was a weekend before Bay Path commencement. It was a gorgeous Saturday morning and I went for a run on the ¾ mile dirt track at Smith College. I was light on my feet after the first lap and decided to put on the afterburners for lap two. That was the plan, except I was paying attention to the music in my Walkman player, not where I was going. As I gained speed, I smacked my left knee into the gate stanchion post I was supposed squeeze past. Down I went like shot, thereby driving bits of stone into my right arm and both knees. The emergency room doctor declared me a “bloody mess” as he picked gravel out of three of my four limbs. I attended commencement on crutches with five stiches in my knee and an oozing bandage over it. A further indignity of being ushed into the tent before anyone else entered. And, yes, it could be worse. It was as awful that weekend as it was warm and sunny the previous one.  How awful you ask? Pelting icy rain that turned to snow!

By rights I shouldn’t complain about my silly cold. But I will!

Rob Weir  

 

Vermont Winter Reconsidered

Not my photo, but it was one of my bad choices!

When I drive into town in the winter and see kids waiting for the bus wearing hoodies and sneakers in February, I often wonder at what age do humans experience WRP (weather-related pain). My theory is that we begin to feel symptoms in our late 20s and WRP full onset comes when we hit 30.

Several of you have made nice comments in texts, emails, or postings about my memories of Vermont winters. Now I must confess that most of my best pre-WRP days came before I reached the big 3-0. I’m more than twice as old now, but 30 bothered me more than any of the other Big-Zero birthdays I’ve had. Maybe it was because I was a teen when Young Turks insisted, “Never trust anyone over 30.” I think, though a 13-year-old eight grader named Julie is the reason.

I contend that hell is a place where bad people must monitor an eighth-grade study hall for eternity. I really liked Julie; she was spunky and funny, but her energy could test the patience of a saint. Especially in study hall! Trying to get “Jules” to sit for 45 minutes was like telling an avalanche to stop being annoying. My birthday is in March–decidedly a winter month in Vermont–and the very day I turned 30, Jules bounded up to my desk and said, “Mr. W, Mr. W., did you know that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?” I ran my fingers through my hair and replied, “You mean The Beatles?” Said she, “Yes, have you ever heard of them?” When I scooped my jaw from the floor I told her, “Jules I promise to explain this to you tomorrow, but right now I need you to go back to your seat and leave me alone, or I might have to kill you.”

You can put Julie’s question in my box of remembrances of how I fell out of love with Vermont winters. She instantly made me feel like a dinosaur peering into the sky and wondering what those giant rock hurtling toward Earth portended. To add insult to injury, at age 31 I fell prey to WRP.

In 1983, Burlington held its inaugural First Night celebration. It wasn’t unusual for Lake Champlain to freeze over, but that usually didn’t occur in mid-December. The Vermont side of Champlain is usually warmer than the New York side, which lies in the shadow of the High Adirondacks. When it does freeze at Burlington, the winds from New York can sweep across a 12-mile ice sheet. One New Year’s Eve the temperature was well below zero as we marched down Winooski Avenue behind giant Bread and Circus puppets. Even dressed head to toe in insulated clothing it was like a cartoon in which we expected our words to freeze in midair and shatter.

That February we had a massive Friday snow storm in which flakes fell so hard everyone at the high school was sure they were going to send us all home. It didn’t happen and it was a tossup who was more off the rails, the students or the faculty. It took me over an hour to drive the four miles to home. I was crestfallen to see a solid blanket of deep snow in the driveway. Only someone burnt would I attempt what might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I backed up until I could gain traction, gunned the engine, and slid into the drive. Call me Rocket Man.  I came to rest starring at the sky through my windshield with an acre of snow under the car’s frontend. It took hours to shovel it level to the drive and chisel snow from the engine. WRP supremo.

The following winter was the Great Blue Freezie caper. On a subzero morning I got a call from a colleague who lived ten miles north asking if I could come get him as his car wouldn’t start. We almost made it to school before my car halted outside of town where the Lamoille River tumbles over a power dam. I opened the hood, and witnessed a ten-inch column of blue ice coming from the radiator. Yes, friend, my anti-freeze froze. People stop if they see a disabled vehicle because one could die from exposure. We were delivered to school by a kind man in a pickup reeking of rancid oil and roughly as clean.

My last Vermont winter was quite a treat as well. It wasn’t all that cold, but the first snowfall came on October 15. We never got a blizzard, but it snowed a few inches a day through mid-April. Doable? Not really. By March there was nowhere to put the snow! It was the same winter our adventurous tabby Garp got stuck in a tree, but that’s a striped tale/tail for another time.

Moving to Western Mass for grad school was like landing in Miami. My new take on the Green Mountain State is that for six months of the year there’s no better place to be. The other six are called winter and I’m on medical leave.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

Blind Democrats: Episode # 519

 

 

Democrats are pathetic when it comes to blowing elections. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and blinder-bound Team Joe acolytes have circled the wagons. That’s Biden’s reward for making Donald Trump look good.

 

Biden defenders tell us that one bad debate doesn’t matter. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it’s an abuse of history to say it doesn’t. Democrats should know better.  An old friend brought up the 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the so- called “first television debate.” Nixon had been ill, refused to use any makeup, and appeared on camera looking like an extra for a zombie movie. Those listening on the radio thought Nixon won the debate, but TV was the forum of the future.

 

We can bemoan the dumbing down of American politics, but 1960 paved the way for impressionistic campaigns. In 1964, the slain Kennedy’s former Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, faced off against Barry Goldwater. Even before that debate Johnson’s Democratic team engaged in downright dirty politics. If you don’t know it, check out LBJ’s “Daisy” ad. In the first debate, Johnson painted Goldwater as a dangerous extremist and he never recovered.

 

Four years later, Nixon got his revenge. In debate he painted LBJ’s Veep, Hubert Humphrey, as a key player in bollixing the Vietnam War. The “New Nixon” promised he had a “secret plan” to end the war. That was as dishonest as most of what he did, but Humphrey did not shed the allegation that he was LBJ’s right-hand flunky. Nor could Eugene McCarthy manage to convince voters that he was more than a one-trick pony in 1972, though Nixon was already perceived as crooked.

 

In 1980, Jimmy Carter managed to turn what pollsters said would be a close election into a Ronald Reagan rout. Carter came off as a stern school master. Reagan spouted nostrums and hokum, but he was sunny and avuncular. When the dust settled, Carter won just five states. Four years later, Reagan did to Walter Mondale what Nixon did to Humphrey. Mondale won only his native Wisconsin and that by a razor thin margin. If you like irony, Reagan was 73 when reelected, which made him the oldest person to win the presidency–until Biden! Reagan was a whopping nine years younger than Joe will be in November.

 

Let’s jump ahead to 1988, when George H. W. Bush tarred Mike Dukakis as an elitist liberal. Both were questionable, but it’s stunning that George “Born with a Silver Spoon in His Mouth” who grew up in Connecticut and Kennebunkport, Maine, and attended Yale could convince anyone he wasn’t an elitist. The Duke was just 55, but  Bush I eviscerated him.

 

In 1992, though, Bill Clinton uttered four words in a debate over the economy that catapulted him to the presidency: “I feel your pain.” In ’96 Bob Dole ran against Clinton and lost because he never made it stick that the impeachment trial against Bonkin’ Bill was about anything other than sex–despite the fact that Clinton committed perjury.  

 

Bush the younger won in 2000, partly because Al Gore failed to prove he wasn’t as boring as summer re-runs. Bush II won again four years later when the Democrats nominated John Kerry, a dyed-in-the-wool elitist who managed to make Gore seem exciting by contrast.

 

I thrilled to Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 but let’s not pretend his campaign was all about substance. He hammed Dole in ’08 on the unpopular Iraq war and Sarah Palin’s gaffes. Romney played Al Gore in 2012 and bland seldom unseats an incumbent POTUS. I think you know what happened in 2016 and 2020. If you don’t think Hillary came off an elitist and Trump as a pompous jerk versus Blue-Collar Biden, pass me some of what you’ve been drinking.

 

The moral is clear: Millions of voters go by their gut not by their undereducated heads. To use marketing language, Biden has damaged his brand and calling Zelensky “President Putin” a few days ago is another nail in his coffin. If the DNC can’t cut him loose–something the rank and file has demanded–the only obstacle to the Return of Lord Voldemort is self-destruction.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

Promise and Failure of the Arts and Crafts Movement

 

Sometimes the very best and very worst ideas are one and the same. Industrialization began to catch on in the early 19^th century and by mid-century was on its way to becoming dominant in how goods were manufactured in Western society. You didn’t have to be a Luddite to be critical of the factory system. It was dirty, unhealthy, wasteful of natural resources, and exploited wage-earners. It did make goods make goods cheaply, but that was a mixed blessing. Even when they cost less, they were also “cheap” in quality, generic, and reduced consumer choices. In clothing and footwear, for example, “bespoke” goods tailored to fit the wearer were replaced by predetermined sizes. Thus was born the old joke “one size fits none.”

 

In Britain various visionaries–some driven by artistic motives, others by social and political ideals–asked a simple question: Should manufactured goods be rejected in favor of all things artisan-made? Proponents of the arts and crafts movement thought that reviving handcraft work would yield well-made and beautiful objects that could be sold at prices the masses could afford. They were right about the aesthetics of their endeavors, but dead wrong on how affordable they would be, as anyone who has ever attended a high-quality craft studio or show can attest.

 

The arts and craft movement fought the good fight. You name it and it was made: wallpaper, metal work, lamps, pottery, furniture, textiles, painting, houses…. You’ve probably heard of some of the key movers and shakers: Charles Robert Ashbee, William Arthur Smith Benson, Walter Crane, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, William Morris, and John Ruskin. The latter two could be considered movement lynchpins. Much of it was a based upon romanticized notions of medievalism. The paintings of Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rosetti went a step further and evinced Greek and Roman tales that were reworked in the Middle Ages! In many respects those Victorians seeking to rediscover the “folk” in everything ending up producing things no laborer or ploughman could dream of affording. Google some of the “cottages” Philip Speakman Webb built in the name of “art of the common building.

 

 

The Arts and Crafts movement made its way to the United States, where it was just as naïve as its European influencers. Frank Lloyd Wright drew inspiration from Webb. Do you live in a Wright home? Many American designers are also acclaimed figures: William Wallace Denslow (illustrator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), Elbert and Bertha Hubbard, William “Dard” Hunter (handmade paper), architect William Lightfoot Price,  Gustav Stickley. The U.S. movement stumbled over the same contradictions as the Europeans in that most acolytes were designers whose work was made by others–often via the same industrial methods they sought to dethrone.

Nonetheless, those designs and finished products are gorgeous. You can see them in many places, including: Ashcroft in North Carolina, the Arden Community in Delaware, Craftsman Farms in New Jersey, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. To whet your appetite here are a few gems from the Museum of American Arts and Crafts in St. Petersburg, Florida. No need to concentrate of the design firms; just enjoy the beauty of these objects. It’s the difference between the artistic and the prosaic.

 

 

Music for April 2024: Otava Yo, Steve Martin, Robby Hecht, Afro-Semitic Experience and more

 

 

I avoided Russian music in protest against the war in Ukraine until I came upon the St. Petersburg-based Otava Yo whose spearhead, Alexey Belkin, also opposes the war; he has a Ukrainian mother and a Latvian wife. Otava Yo has suspended concerts in Russia because of the war, a gutsy move given Putin’s iron hand and a reduced opportunity to shop its new recording Loud and Clear. I don’t speak a word of Russian, but I can tell you it’s one it’s an exciting record. The band is often called a folk rock band because of its emphasis on traditional music. In Belkin’s words, “[in] turbulent times … [when] everything we know literally crumbles before our eyes,” a return to heritage reinvigorates. (They also add modern touches.)

 

Otava Yo display an array of expected instruments–fiddles, guitar, bass, drums–but also those less familiar: glockenspiel, fife, gusli (a psaltery in the zither family), zhaleika (a type of hornpipe), and volynka (Russian bagpipes). Add the female vocal ensemble Vasilisa and the result is something that sounds like a hybrid of Swedish folk/grunge band Garmarna and the high-octane vocals of Finland’s Värttinä. Try “Don’t You Fly, Nightingale” for robust singing. Though it’s one of the more “subdued” pieces on the album you can see and hear what Belkin means about leaning on tradition during trying times. “This One” gives insight into their goofy sense of humor and how a gusli integrates into a tune. For crashing sounds, lusty voices, bagpipes and psychedelic fiddles, “Good Evening” will get you energized. “Timonia” reminds me of Quebeçois music when the performers decide to go full-scale insouciant. It’s over the top, but in a good way! I love Otava Yo and Loud and Clear is my album of the month.

 

 

I vividly recall when Steve Martin did a standup act at my Pennsylvania college before  he was a big star He was so funny that we rolled out thinking, “Who is this guy?” Back then, he had a banjo as comic prop. It’s no longer a secret that he really knows how to play it. If you’ve not gotten the word, listen to him exchange licks with Grammy Award bluegrass banjo artist Alison Brown, mandolin wizard Sam Bush, and Grammy Award fiddler Stuart Duncan. Martin even handles the vocals on “Bluegrass Radio” on a new Compass Records release.

 

 

New Haven-based Afro-Semitic Experience began as the meeting of two jazz-infused minds, African-American pianist Warren Byrd and bass player David Chevan, a white Jew. It grew into a movable feast of up to eight musicians in a mixed-race ensemble that ventures into jazz, funk, world music, swing, group singing, and social justice offerings. You’ll hear most of them on My Feet Began to Pray, words attributed to the late Representative John Lewis when he was a young man on the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. The band commemorates that episode, all so traumatic back then but now a pivotal moment that justifies the group’s sunny  treatment. Check out Byrd leading the band in “Unity in the Community,” which has a decided Black church feel. Then duck into the synagogue for “Rakhmones Nign,” rakhmones being Yiddish for mercy or empathy. “Moanin’” opens with some scat and sways into bebop-influenced jazz with sizzling horns and swinging keys. Get the picture?

 

Anandi is the one-name handle for Portland, Oregon-based jazz singer Anandi Gefroh. A Better Way is jazz-based but contains message music, some rock instrumentation, and tinges of pop. Anandi is Sanskrit for bliss and she brings that, her yoga practices, and her devotion to social justice to the fore. The title track, for instance, probes homelessness and poverty. Producer/keyboardist Greg Goebel lays down solid hooks that add drama to Anandi’s simple-yet-profound condemnation of the status quo: There’s got to be a better way. She gives a big-vocal bluesy soul treatment to “Truth, Peace, and Solitude,” a call to balance body, soul, and mind. Other songs are reverential (“Mandela”), reminders that love can be like Kahlil Gibran’s A Tear and a Smile (“Pleasure With the Pain”), and pleading with a scintilla of common sense (“Please Don’t Go to Bed Angry”). She also does a jazz cover of Jim Pepper’s “Witchi Tai To,” widely regarded to as the first Native American hit single back in 1969. You can decide what you think of a non-Native woman covering a peyote ritual chant. 

  

Robby Hecht titled his new release Not a Number. It’s the title track as well, his attempt to put faces on the Covid’s human toll. His echoey guitar is designed to haunt and hurt. In numerous ways, the same sentiments are personalized elsewhere. This album deals with other forms of misfortune, disappointment, and struggle: divorce, sadness, recovery…. Hecht’s voice is perfect for conveying poignancy–sweet, but with a hint of pain. Note the content and video visuals of “Someone to Dance With.” He sings: I’m trying as hard as I can/To follow the steps of my well-rehearsed plan/To keep my wingtips on the ground/But up in my head I’m spinning around. The vid ends with dog adoption, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the dance he envisioned whilst acting as the proverbial third wheel. “Old Radio” is surface nostalgia, but its folk-styled wistfulness suggests both memory and yearning. As a transition Hecht offers a mirthful homage to “Tattoos.” That’s not my thing, but if it’s yours it’s show-and-tell time. I’m always a fan of well-crafted songs, though, and Hecht delivers.

 

If you don’t know the difference between bluegrass and “old-time” music, the first is recently composed and slicker, whereas the second is traditional and more raw. Listen to Molsky’s Mountain Drifters for a clinic in the latter. Bruce Molsky plays banjo, guitar, and fiddler but it’s the last of these in which he’s in the upper crust. Hence,  in his trio work Molsky leaves the banjo and guitar in the capable hands of Allison de Groot and Stash Wyslouch respectively. All of their recordings are wonderful but I recently took advantage of a two-for-one offer to score Closing the Gap and the eponymously titled Molsky’s Mountain Drifters. Theirs is Appalachian music stripped to its basics, yet filled with verve, energy, and expert musicianship. “There’s a Bright Side Somewhere” ought to get you sashaying. If you know the folk standard “Stewball,” “Old Kimball” is closer to its root. “Old Jawbone” is pure infectious hills music and “Cumberland Gap” is a classic Americana tune.  There’s lots more you can find online to whet your appetite.   

 

Rob Weir

American Made: What Happens when Work Goes Away

 

AMERICAN MADE (2021)

By Farah Stockman

Random House, 432 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

The subtitle of American Made, Farah Stockman’s look at blue-collar work, is What Happens to People When Work Disappears. Labor historians speak of “deindustrialization” to describe exporting factory work out of the United States. Alas, it’s an antiquated label given that far more than factory labor is outsourced.

 

Capital flight is a more accurate term. It has long been linked to negative social indicators: drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, divorce, suicide, medical woes, early death, homelessness, psychiatric problems, imprisonment…. In today’s service industry-driven economy, displaced workers seldom replace income lost to capital flight. Not many non-white-collar jobs pay $26/hour, the starting wage at Rexnord in Indianapolis, a shaft bearings manufacturer. Do the math. At $26/hour, a Rexnord worker made $54,000 per year—without overtime. If laid-off workers are lucky enough to find another job paying half of that, their annual income is $27,000—25 percent below the nation’s median individual income.

 

Few who have studied worker displacement will be surprised by the data in Stockman’s book. Stockman instead puts human faces to capital flight. Many workers are given voice in American Made, but she spotlights three: Wally Hall, an African American who dreams of operating his own barbeque business; Shannon Mulcahy, a white single mother and skilled machinist; and John Feltner, a white family man and union activist. By focusing on a factory in Indianapolis, Stockman highlights how the American Dream was battered in the American heartland. Blue-collar work has declined in such places to the point that those who punch time clocks have become out-of-sight/out-of-mind forgotten Americans. In 1972, sociologists Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb published The Hidden Injuries of Class. It was meant as a warning, but is now an unintended harbinger of what continues to happen to those falling behind in income and social clout.

 

Because professional classes no longer “see” the working class, they are baffled by the 2016 election and the propensity of working-class voters to support politicians whose policies are antithetical to their best interests. Stockman provides uncomfortable explanations for the rise of Donald Trump: free trade and elitism. She traces how the Democratic Party shifted from the ideals of New Deal and Great Society to modified Reaganomics coupled with support for the social concerns and stock portfolios of educated bourgeois elites. In this sense, blue-collar anger toward the Clintons makes sense. Stockman writes, “The Democrats had gotten into bed with corporations when no one was looking.” Tim, a Rexnord worker, put it more graphically: “The dirty bastards sold us out. They allowed millions of jobs to leave the country … good jobs with benefits. They sat on their asses and did absolutely nothing.” Many of those whose jobs fled to Mexico—like Rexnord workers—turned their backs to a party tone deaf to job loss.  

 

Stockman observes, “The Republicans were no better about free trade. They were worse. But at least the Republicans had never pretended to be faithful to the working class.” Parse that and you get a vast segment of American workers that indeed feels sold out. Trump at least acknowledged that blue-collar labor exists, though his vow to stop outsourcing was unfulfilled. (For the record, 58 percent of American workers are non-salaried.) Thus, many Rexnord workers liked the fact that Trump, “didn’t talk like a college boy. He cursed. He bragged. He threatened…. Trump was a hillbilly in a suit. Trump had a chip on his shoulder, like the steelworkers did.” Such perspectives also explain why many wage earners express contradictory admiration for both Trump and Bernie Sanders.

 

A unique twist in American Made lies with Stockman’s admission of her class privilege. This grabs our attention because Stockman identifies as African American. She has much to say about white privilege, but also incisively compares herself to Shannon. Stockman grew up in bourgeois comfort, graduated from Harvard, lives in tony Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has worked at the Boston Globe and the New York Times. Shannon overcame sexual abuse, an abusive husband, raised kids on her own, suffered workplace discrimination, and was ordered to train a Mexican to perform complex tasks on a machine that was about to be disassembled and shipped out of ther country. Is it any wonder Shannon hasn’t been an avid supporter of NAFTA, middle-class feminism, #MeToo, or Hillary Clinton? The kicker is that Shannon is not racist. She did not lash out at the Mexican man about to take her job. Shannon blames Wall Street for her dilemma, not Mexicans hoping to build a better life.

 

American Made is filled with such insights. Another eye-opening observation is that people of color often cope better with job loss than whites. To put it starkly, they have fewer reasons to believe in the American Dream and aren’t shocked when its promise is betrayed. By contrast, Feltner was staggered when union solidarity disintegrated among workers given a choice between refusing to cooperate with plant relocation or collecting a few more paychecks from a company hell-bent on squeezing greater profits from lower-paid brown workers south of the border.

 

Stockman is a lucid writer who knows how to personalize capital flight and make stories live. A review such as mine is by necessity formal and academic in tone. Stockman also culls labor history and sociological studies, but because she got close to her subjects, she writes from the heart. Read her words to see what happens to Rexnord workers, especially Wally, Shannon, and John. Warning: no fairy tales. Stockman references Sherry Lee Linkon, who compared economic “right-sizing,” restructuring,” and other such euphemisms to what really happens when a plant closes. It’s akin to a nuclear detonation that leaves misery and destruction in its wake.

 

Robert E. Weir, Ph.D.

 

2018 Best and Worst in the Arts

2018 Best and Worst of the Arts

Time for the end of the year reckoning of things I loved and didn't. I admit that lists of this sort are often subjective, but here goes. A reminder: I'm not impressed by things that were first released only in New York and/or LA, so a few of these books, films, and recordings, are technically 2017 releases. We should honor things in the calendar year in which most Americans have access to them.

Anything underlined links to longer reviews. The lists below are in preferential order. 

BOOKS

The Best:

1. Michael Ondaatje, Warlight:  Wars don't end when the fighting stops.

2. Richard Powers, The Overstory: Yes, it's about trees and you should care.

3. Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine: You'll laugh; you'll cringe.

4. Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone: Alaska. Mother Nature doesn't care.

5. Walter Mosley, John Woman: Reinvention, of a sort.

6. Stephen Markley, Ohio: Blue-collar grit, hopes, and despair in the Heartlands.

7.  Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing: Memory, history, and slavery's legacy.

8. Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach: Girl power, redemption, and danger.

9. George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo: Spoon River and its ghosts updated.

10. Tim DeRoche, The Ballad of Huck and Miguel: Huck Finn in the 21^st century.

Books that Wasted Trees:

1. Billy Coffey, Steal Away Home: Preaching posing as a baseball novel.

2. Lauren Groff, Florida: Snakes, gators, losers, and who cares?

3. Anna Quindlen, Alternate Side: Well-written book but unworthy characters.

MOVIES

Best on Screen:

1. Leave No Trace: Debra Granik scores again with her tale of damaged people who just want to be left alone.

2. BlacKkKlansman: Spike Lee's improbable but true tale of a black KKK member.

3. A Fantastic Woman: My vote for the best film about a transgendered person.

4. The Insult: Palestinians and Christians failing to exorcise the past.

5. On Chesil Beach: Overlooked gem of young love derailed.

6. Love, Gilda: Documentary that does justice to Radner's genius.

7. RBG: Call this documentary the making of a Supreme Court justice.

8. Roma: Beautifully filmed, though flawed remembrance of a family maid. Best             cinematography of the year.

9. Eighth Grade:  So well done you'll relive the pain!

10. Won't You Be My Neighbor? Great year for documentaries. Good time to remember Mr. Rogers.

Please Turn on the Lights!

1. Three Identical Strangers: If a scandal isn't a scandal, why film it?

2. Victoria and Abdul: Enough with the warm fuzzy Queen Victoria genre already.

3. I Tonya: Billed as a comedy about Tonya Harding. I didn't laugh.

4. Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman: Does it take talent to make a boring  film about fascinating subjects? Not really.

5. Planetarium: What I just said above, with séances.

6. The Circle: This Google-not-Google movie is an episodic mess.

7. The Death of Stalin: Comedy as broad as Siberia left me chilled and surly.

8. From the Land of the Moon: Marion Cotillard imagines things, such as that there might be a point to this movie.

9. Nuts:  What I said in 4 and 5 above, but with goat glands.

MUSIC

This is always the hardest category for me to judge. So much good music. So many talented folks–young and old.

New Releases:

1. Moira Smiley, Unzip the Horizon: Innovative, inventive, bold & miles from her Solas days.

2. Thea Gilmore, Run: A veteran British chanteuse with a powerful voice.

3. Eleanor Dubinsky, Soft Spot of My Heart: Multilingual cross-genre music that's just flat-out gorgeous.

4. Kittel and Company, Whorls; Jeremy Kittel takes bluegrass fiddle deep into jazz  terrain and paints contemplative moods.

5. Gretchen Peters, Sad Songs Make Me Happy: Hear the woman whose pen launched dozens of country hits.

6. Eliza Gilkyson, Secularia: Can an anti-religion album be spiritual? Yep.

7. Vivian Leva, Time is Everything: Spare and pure mountain music vocals.

8. Mink's Miracle Medicine, House of Candles: The miracle is Melissa Wright! Country and folk without gimmicks.

9. Greg Hawks, i think it's time: Time for country-influenced artists to address issues from the left side of the political spectrum.

10. Too many good people to leave off the list, so a collective shout out to Anita Aysola, Big Little Lion, Don Gallardo, Guy Menilow Ensemble, John Gorka,  Newpoli,  and Graham Stone.

Change the Earbuds:

1. Catherine Bent, Ideal: Not! Cello meandering to nowhere.

2. Elena Andukar, Flamenco in Time: Maybe hip flamenco isn't really a thing.

3. UNIFONY, Unifony: Three Euro jazz giants make a dull record.

4. Katie Herzig, Moment of Bliss: Pop grooves that failed to induce bliss.

Best Live Shows of 2018:

1. Richard Shindell: He was 100% on at the Parlor Room with new and old material and an alphabetical set list!

2. Cowboy Junkies: After 6 weeks on my back, the Junkies at the Academy of Music helped me heal.

3. James Keelaghan: James never gives a bad concert and pulled out the stops all weekend at the New Bedford Folk Festival.

4. Musique à Boucher: The surprise hit at New Bedford. A Capella mouth music of the most spirited kind. Surprising as their CDs are restrained.

5. Eliza Gilkyson: An intimate evening at the Parlor Room with a Texas treasure.

6. Jim Henry: Our own Western Mass hero. His Parlor room show was a love fest.

7. Richard Thompson: His electric show at the Academy needed a better mix, but he  rocked the joint.

8. Rory Block and Cindy Cashdollar: The warm-up act trumped the headliners.

9. The Weepies: Amazing harmonies and a refreshing December show with no holiday music!

10. The Kittel Trio: Not your mother's bluegrass at the West Whatley Chapel.

Not Feeling It:

St Paul and the Broken Bones opened well at the Academy of Music, but then everything sounded exactly the same. Better shtick than repertoire.

I simply don't get the hype surrounding Lake Street Dive. I love vocalist Rachel Price, when she sings in a register quieter than Celine Dion at an airport. Lots of glitz and light show bling that makes them more of an experience than a musical act. Boring. I wish Rory Block and Cindy Cashdollar had headlined.