Category: Book Reviews

The Internet

Recently I read three books that, in one way or another, dealt with the internet. I have also been watching episodes of Catfish: The TV Show.  Felicia Day’s book, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is a memoir that describes how she became involved in a web series and website. A lot of it is very funny because she had an unusual childhood . Day writes about how she found a community online through gaming and social media. One chapter deals with gamergate. Day was not directly involved but she has faced misogyny online.

Crash Override by Zoe Quinn is directly about gamergate since the author was the main actor in that saga. She had a  difficult and unhappy childhood and turned to internet games for a sense of community and identity. A disgruntled ex boyfriend published a screed against which turned into a huge online phenomena at great personal cost to Quinn.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesa Zappia is a novel about a very shy and socially awkward teenage girl who creates a  fictional identity for herself  through an online webcomic forum. On the internet she is a  strong and dynamic creator, Lady Constellation, and she has a large fan base. There are serious consequences when her true identity is revealed

Catfish The TV Show is about people who pose as  someone they are not on the internet and then get romantically involved with unsuspecting men or women. Many of the catfishers are people, most often women who are insecure about their looks and weight. Others are scared to reveal their sexual identity to friends and family so they create a fake persona online. Some catfishers are scam artists seeking money.

The three books and the tv show reveal the ways in which we use the internet to find community, define ourselves and or escape reality.  The internet can be a free and open space for young people  particularly, to try on different ways of being and expressing themselves. It can also help people who do not fit in the real world to feel like they belong.

However it can also be a dangerous and potentially harmful space. The 2016 elections revealed the consequences of fake information and fake personas. The misogyny that Zoe Quin and other women continue to face on the internet remains a serous problem.

Book Review: Tidying Up

The life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo describes the author’s system, Kon Mari, for keeping your house clutter free. Her main claim is that by following her system, you will never have to tidy up again. You will do it once and never have to do it again. This does not seem realistic or practical. She does acknowledge that it could take six months.

Kondo wants you to start with clothes and move on from there. You are supposed to take out all your clothes, look at and hold each one and determine if it brings you joy. You would follow the same process for books, mementos and miscellaneous items.

It is easy to mock her concept of inanimate objects bringing you joy. The recent revival of Gilmore Girls did just that when it portrayed Emily Gilmore in a frenzy throwing out most of her furniture and possessions because they did not bring her joy.

Some of Kondo’s processes make more sense and seem easier to put into practice. She believes you should have a place for everything which is something I agree with.

More fundamentally, Kondo believes you must visualize what you want your space to look like before you start the tidying process. This is because tidying is not a goal in and of itself but rather part of the journey.

As far as mementos go, if you can’t tell right away whether an item brings you joy it is either because “you have an attachment to the past or a fear of the future.” I found this to be very insightful.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. I don’t think I will follow the overall process but I may apply some of the individual principles to specific situations. My goal would be a clean, pleasing to look at and peaceful home.

 

Book Review: Just Kids

Just Kids by Patti Smith is a memoir about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, the photographer.  They lived together in New York City from 1967 – 1972. Their real experiences occurred during the same time frame as the fictional characters of Marge Piercy’s, Small Changes. 

The artistic and musical worlds of New York City were very different from the political and counter-cultural worlds of Cambridge Massachusetts. Although Patti Smith had different encounters with a variety of men she does not write about her experiences from a feminist perspective. Despite the fact that it was very unusual for a woman to front a rock band in the 1970s she does not write about those experiences through a feminist lens. 

Her goal, when leaving her small town in rural Jersey, was to become an artist. While living on the streets, she met Robert Mapplethorpe and they began to purse artistic careers together. While they worked on various artistic projects, they met many people who were already famous and some who became, as they did, famous later. To some extent they were in the right place at the right time. 

In many ways Andy Warhol was the epicenter of the avant garde art world and Robert, especially, sought to enter his orbit.  They went repeatedly to Max’s, a night club, where they did not directly encounter Warhol but met many other artists and musicians. 

Both Patti and Robert were twenty-one when they met and their years together represent the searching and developing of their artistic bent. Robert eventually focused on photography, particularly erotic pictures of men. Patti was more eclectic but became most known for her music. Many people consider her the ‘godmother” of punk rock. 

On one level, Just Kids is a love story. Although Patti and Robert were not always intimate and Robert realized his homosexuality during the time they lived to together, on an emotional level they were deeply connected. 

I enjoyed reading the book and realized I had never really heard her music. I got the album Horses and listened to it. The first time I did not like it at all but the second time around I found some interesting things.  It is clear that, as she says in the book, she was trying to merge poetry and rock.

 

 

 

Book Review: Small Changes

This weekend Marge Piercy was the Scholar in Residence at the Jewish Community of Amherst. I attended the event and it was a great experience. She is the author of many novels, books of poetry, a memoir and liturgical writing. Piercy read some of her poetry, discussed various aspects of writing and read some of her liturgical writings as well.

In preparation for the weekend I read Small Changes, a novel Piercy wrote in 1973. The book is strongly feminist and almost reads like a primary source because she so evocatively describes the early feminist and counter culture environment in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the late 1960s and early 70s.

The two main characters, Beth and Miriam, interact with men within a pronounced patriarchal society. None of the men in the book can really see or treat woman as human beings. Rather they exist as sex object, mother, housekeeper, and caregiver but not as fully autonomous beings.

The women, particularly Miriam, are unable to completely escape the narrow definitions that the men impose upon them. Miriam is a very smart and well-educated person who so desperately seeks love and validation that she is unable to assert herself at critical moments and maintain an independent identity.

Miriam, who is not overtly political and does not have a feminist perspective, is determined, in the beginning, to not be like her mother who spent her life trying to please a husband who was indifferent to her. Despite this determination and the fact that she obtains a Ph.D. in the new field, at the time, of computer science, she ultimately marries a fellow computer scientist, has two children, and cooks gourmet dinners. Her husband, Neil, does not seem to have married her for her brains or personality but rather to have a decorative object who will provide children and be a help in his career.

Beth comes from a working class family who discourage her from going to college.  Instead she marries her high school sweetheart who essentially views her as a cook and house cleaner. She sours on this life fairly quickly; her husband, sensing her dissatisfaction, decides to force her to have a baby. Facing this prospect, Beth flees and winds up in Cambridge.

The part of the book which deals with Beth is an exploration of her development and growth into an independent person with a strong feminist and political consciousness. She becomes involved with another woman, Wanda. Eventually they have to go into hiding because of Wanda’s past associations with radicals who are wanted by the government.

The book does not end on a happy or particularly hopeful note. Although Miriam is trying to dig herself out of the domestic hole she is in, it is not clear whether her marriage will survive. Beth is living under an assumed identity and is far from the community and connections she had developed.  Neither Beth nor Miriam are able to be an independent autonomous being and live fully in mainstream American society.

It was interesting to read Small Changes forty years after it was written. What struck me was how much still needs to change for women to be full participants in American life and society.

 

Statistics

Since  I  moved my website from Network Solution Servers to Bluehost servers, the statistics for the site have been reset. I thought it would be interesting to look at what were my top blog posts for the almost three years that WordPress has been compiling statistics.

My Home page has drawn the most visitors. The next most popular post was Mary Poppins on the Roof. I wrote about this phenomenon here. For a long time this was by far the most searched item. More recently the most seen post was Fall: Oktoberfest and Pumpkin Beer. This continues to be a popular post.

The other eight posts in the top ten posts of all time ( 3 years)  were  Your Liver on Drugs, Jewish Beer and Brewing, Book Review: Revolutionary Road, 76 Years of Beer Cans, Why I Don’t Care About Steve Jobs, Book Review: Good Morning, Miss Dove, A Day in New York City, and This and That. The number of views for these ten posts range from  10, 715 for Poppins  to 167 for This and That.

It is hard to come to any conclusions about which topics attract the most visitors. Several are about beer, two are book reviews and This and That is about, among other things, giant jellyfish.

Giant Jellyfish Washed Ashore

In the same period of time I  had 110,424 spam comments. Much more spam than visitors.

Aurora

On Monday I attended a writing group where the leader prompted us to write about the shootings last week in Colorado. Below is what I wrote.

When I heard about Colorado and what had happened, at first I didn’t really focus. When I finally comprehended what had happened my first thought was why aren’t people be nicer to people? Why do we live in a world where such horrible things occur?

I had just finished reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave. The book is about a Nigerian refugee. Horrific things happen to her. Again why do these things, these bad, bad things exist? The holocaust was over seventy years ago but the world keeps doing the same terrible things over and over. Not letting people in, not rescuing people, and not treating people how you would want to be treated.

If the Colorado shooter was Islamic or a person of color he would be called a terrorist. Because he is white he is just a killer. What did he do but cause terror? Can people go to the movies again without fear? Can the people of Aurora go about their business without fear? The world should be safe place. Safe from violence. Safe from crime. Safe from hunger.

The gun rights people, the NRA, say guns don’t kill people, people do. Doesn’t having easy access to guns make killing easier? Of course there are other ways to kill, to cause terror. On 9/11 they used planes. The person in Colorado could have used a bomb. His apartment was booby trapped with explosives. Still does anyone besides the police or the military need an assault weapon?

The person from Colorado is obviously mentally ill.  A sane person could not knowingly harm so many people. If he knew what he was doing though, he may not be found legally insane. Recently I listened on cd to Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard. Charles Guiteau was completely crazy and delusional. He believed that people would be happy that he had killed the president. He was not found to be legally insane. He was found guilty and executed. There is a huge stigma in this society against mental illness. Many, many people who need help do not get it.  Although the Colorado terrorist apparently showed no sign of disease something was obviously terribly wrong.

A society where we cared for one another and found peaceful ways to resolve conflict would be beautiful place.

 

 

Book Review: Gilded: How Newport became America’s richest resort

Gilded: How Newport became America’s richest resort by Deborah Davis is a history of Newport Rhode Island with a focus on its wealthy inhabitants. In many very short chapters she tells interesting anecdotes about some of the famous and not so famous people who passed through Newport.

I read this book because I am always looking at popular non-fiction to see if there are ways to make the book I am working on more marketable. The book was easy to read but it was a little light on substance.

I didn’t really know that much about Newport before I read the book. I have been there once and saw the Touro synagogue (which she doesn’t talk about) and one of the Gilded Age mansions – the Breakers I think.

Her narrative goes from the colonial period to the present. Newport gained its identity during the Gilded Age. Davis’s depiction of twenty-first century Newport does not seem that different from the nineteenth century period. She describes opulent, extravagant parties in both eras. The book is similar to taking a tour of one of the mansions where you get to peek in on the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

 

Book Review: Revolutionary Road

Richard Yates in Revolutionary Road, published in 1961, examines the post war suburban life and its conformity. In particular, he focuses on marriage. His main character, April Wheeler is deeply ambivalent about motherhood. The novel takes place in 1955, and describes the lives of April and her husband Frank both before their marriage and after. She is pregnant three times and wishes to abort two of the pregnancies. This is, of course, when abortion is not legal and for dramatic purposes Yates has her rely only on advice from a friend rather than seek medical help. Middle and upper class women were able to access abortions despite its illegality.

Yates portrays April as someone who pregnancy traps. Her first pregnancy propels Frank into a job he hates and eventually they move to the suburbs of Connecticut. They have a second child without comment but a few years later April feels completely suffocated by her life and plans an escape. They will move to Paris and she will work while Frank decides what great thing he will do. April needs to feel there is a point to her life; working in a foreign country appears to fulfill that need. Frank is more ambivalent about this plan but they proceed.

Before they can bring the plan to fruition, April is pregnant again. This third unwanted pregnancy propels the story to a tragic denouement. Throughout the whole story it is clear that April desperately wanted to determine her own life and have autonomy over her decisions.

Although abortion was illegal in all states and only two states allowed therapeutic abortions in the interest of the women’s health, many women received abortions every year. The largest group of women who sought abortions were married and already had children. Thus, Yates’s portrayal of April Wheeler was a very representative one. One fifth of the women Alfred Kinsey interviewed for his study of sexual behavior had had abortions. Middle class women, in general, had access to services including abortion that poor women did not.

When April is pregnant for the third time and wishes, once again, to abort, Frank wages a fierce battle to prevent her from doing so. Eventually he persuades April that she needs psychological help. Although Yates has Frank somewhat cynically use this argument to prevent the abortion, the portrayal of a woman who did not wish to have another child as mentally ill was a very prevalent idea in the 1950’s. Popular psychology decreed that if a woman wanted to both work and be a mother she had to be in conflict. A woman who denied procreation was denying pleasure.

The book is very well written. It has many fans; one is Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men. In2008 a movie version of it with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett opened. No one in the book is very likeable but he is trying to show you the trap that the characters are in. In the movie which must externalize much of the novel’s internal drama,  April does become more sympathetic because Frank is such a dog.

 

Better Late Than Never

The current issue of The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs has a review of Brewing Battles. The book was published over three and a half years ago but such delays are fairly common in academic reviewing.

If you want to read the full review you must be subscribed to the journal. If you have any interest in the topic I would encourage you to do that.

Martin Stack reviewed both Brewing Battles and Maureen Ogle’s Ambitious Brew. Here is an excerpt:

“Mittelman’s approach is quite different. She provides a more complete chronological overview, beginning decades before Ogle does. While she doesn’t spend as much time as does Ogle in connecting changes in the beer and the brewing industry to broader cultural and social developments, she is excellent on two key topics that Ogle downplays, regulation and worker-brewery relations. Mittelman examines thoroughly the history of the complex regulatory environment connecting beer, breweries, and the state and federal government, highlighting how and why this set of interconnections has changed over time. … Mittelman makes a significant contribution in her detailed discussions of how breweries and the federal government set about to develop a post-repeal regulatory system. …

Another topic Mittelman handles very well concerns worker-brewery relations. This discussion draws from some of her earlier work, and she provides some excellent analysis here. Of particular import is her discussion of brewery workers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; she notes that brewery workers, as did workers in many industries, focused too much on their internal struggles. For brewing this proved particularly short sighted, as workers and owners did not ‘form a self-conscious alliance … to combat prohibition forces … until 1913.’ (p. 61)

Together, the Mittelman and Ogle books bring much needed attention to an understudied topic. … As a student of this industry, I greatly prefer Mittelman’s book.”

It is never too late for such praise.

 

Beer Cookery

While doing some research for my new book, I came across a review, in the New York Times of Beer Cookery by Michael Harrison. It was  published in 1954. “From England comes, not so oddly, “Beer Cookery.” There recipes are inclined to be of the squeeze-of-this and a pinch-of-that variety. They sacrifice accuracy to breeziness. And I believe than most people are looking for improved techniques rather than warmed-over witticisms.”

Obviously, the reviewer did not like the book very much. I thought it was interesting that the cookbook is from 1954 since, at least in America, we think of that period as the dark days  before craft beer appeared. Cooking with Bud is not appealing. If anyone has a copy of the book let me know.

%d bloggers like this: