As the 2008 Olympic Games heat up in Beijing, China in August, it’s educational and extremely important to look back and see how other Olympic Games fared. That’s why the new book from Kevin B. Witherspoon is so important. It’s aptly named Before the Eyes of the World: Mexico and the 1968 Olympic Games. It reminds me how edgy countries can be when they take the international stage and host the games. In 1972 in Munich, the Germans botched security and allowed a disaster to ensue when Israeli athletes were held hostage and ultimately killed by a Palestinian terror group. The Germans did not know what to do, and even restarted the games in the face of a hostage crisis. Mexico in 1968 had its serious problems as well, and Witherspoon, a professor of history at Lander University in South Carolina, highlights the intersection of sports held on an international stage with the historical, political and social climate of 1968.
The “Mexican miracle” of the previous twenty years came to a screeching halt in Thatelolco, a neighborhood in Mexico City where riot policeman gunned down hundreds of peaceful student demonstrators in cold blood. These protests were part of an international student movement for peace and reform, and Mexico’s President at the time, Gustavo Diaz Ortiz, was determined to stop the protests at all costs. It gives pause to think if the government of China today might not stop at mass murder to allow the games to go on without a seeming hitch. Appearances can be deadly, and the desire for apparent normalcy in the games, and the idea of the splendor of the host country can reach proportions of sheer mania. Reading Witherspoon’s account of what happened in Mexico will offer valuable perspectives.
Racism took center stage in Mexico when award-winning American Olympic runners Tommie Smith (gold metal) and John Carlos (bronze metal) raised their black-gloved fists in the Black Power salute while on the Olympic stand. This gesture galvanized the Civil Rights movement and became a lasting symbol of struggle of African Americans for their freedom and self-determination. Smith poignantly recounts the backlash and death threats he received after the protest in his cool autobiography from Temple University Press called Silent Gesture, written with David Steele, a sports columnist for The Baltimore Sun. This simple act has become an iconic image in Olympic history.
Witherspoon recounts how the cold war between the USA and USSR was played out at the Mexico games, and various machinations that took place. There were protests over whether South Africa should be allowed to compete because of their policy of Apartheid. In addition to this, the pollution in China today that is reported to possibly threaten to mar the games and affect the athletes ability to perform, is recalled in the Mexico games because of the high elevation and thin air in Mexico City. The 1968 games were also the first to introduce drug testing of athletes. All in all, we have a fascinating history of the 1968 games, and Allen Guttman, sports history expert and professor of English at Amherst College, calls Witherspoon’s book, “one of the best books I have read on Olympic sports.”
Enjoy the games, but take an instructive look back with Witherspoon’s excellent history and come to know what transpired beforehand. The book is published by Northern Illinois University Press in De Kalb.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
The vagaries of history come through loud and clear in two new books from Brookings
History is a tricky thing to ignore, and it tends to repeat itself under different guises. A poignant new book, just being issued in paperback from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Brookings, distributor), is Savage Century: Back to Barbarism, by French global affairs expert Thérèse Delpech. The critics raved about this one, as Rolf Ekéus reminds us “contemporary leaders of the West {are} sleepwalking into the new century without any strategic concepts and suffering from collective historical amnesia.” Ekéus is a former UN official with experience in Iraq, and currently serves as a commissioner with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Delpech is a French academic, and director of strategic affairs with the French Atomic Energy Commission.
You might not expect a book that’s been described as philosophical, psychological, or even literary from a professor of International Relations, but this book vividly reminds us that clear warning signs were ignored, and the “civilized” world failed to prevent two world wars, the Holocaust, the Soviet death camps, the Cambodian killing fields, and a host of other atrocities that plagued the 20th century. Delpech warns that these things can easily happen again, and she describes various flashpoints throughout the world where violence and lawlessness could slip out of control. There’s a “fierce argument against repeating the mistakes that have led to our dire straits,” says Peter Brooks, professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University.
Continuing with Brookings French connection, we have a new book by Hubert Védrine, author of a previous book from Brookings called France in an Age of Globalization (2001), with Dominique Moïsi, translated from the French by Philip H. Gordon, a senior fellow at Brookings. The new book is called History Strikes Back: How States, Nations and Conflicts are Shaping the 21st Century. This is also translated by Gordon, and carries a foreword by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It was a bestseller in France. Védrine offers an overview of world politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and he illustrates the pitfalls that the U.S. has experienced in their erroneous beliefs that with the collapse of the East bloc they had won a complete battle of history. Védrine thinks that the U.S. has been too bellicose in dealing with the world, and the Europeans have been too meek to overcome such daunting challenges as relations with emerging powers, managing runaway globalization, and dealing with the devastation of the environment. Nations still matter in Védrine’s brave new world, and this is a hyper-realistic look at the past, and it shows how Westerners have been misguided by illusions that globalization and free markets will ultimately make a better world for everybody. Leaders need a good tonic of history and common sense to fashion a better world, and Védrine lays out for Europeans what they can expect from the new U.S. Administration to come. He lays out his arguments with an acerbic wit and a French sensibility that will reward readers with a renewed sense of “Realpolitik.”
You might not expect a book that’s been described as philosophical, psychological, or even literary from a professor of International Relations, but this book vividly reminds us that clear warning signs were ignored, and the “civilized” world failed to prevent two world wars, the Holocaust, the Soviet death camps, the Cambodian killing fields, and a host of other atrocities that plagued the 20th century. Delpech warns that these things can easily happen again, and she describes various flashpoints throughout the world where violence and lawlessness could slip out of control. There’s a “fierce argument against repeating the mistakes that have led to our dire straits,” says Peter Brooks, professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University.
Continuing with Brookings French connection, we have a new book by Hubert Védrine, author of a previous book from Brookings called France in an Age of Globalization (2001), with Dominique Moïsi, translated from the French by Philip H. Gordon, a senior fellow at Brookings. The new book is called History Strikes Back: How States, Nations and Conflicts are Shaping the 21st Century. This is also translated by Gordon, and carries a foreword by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It was a bestseller in France. Védrine offers an overview of world politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and he illustrates the pitfalls that the U.S. has experienced in their erroneous beliefs that with the collapse of the East bloc they had won a complete battle of history. Védrine thinks that the U.S. has been too bellicose in dealing with the world, and the Europeans have been too meek to overcome such daunting challenges as relations with emerging powers, managing runaway globalization, and dealing with the devastation of the environment. Nations still matter in Védrine’s brave new world, and this is a hyper-realistic look at the past, and it shows how Westerners have been misguided by illusions that globalization and free markets will ultimately make a better world for everybody. Leaders need a good tonic of history and common sense to fashion a better world, and Védrine lays out for Europeans what they can expect from the new U.S. Administration to come. He lays out his arguments with an acerbic wit and a French sensibility that will reward readers with a renewed sense of “Realpolitik.”
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Two books that offer a much-needed historical perspective on presidential elections
Click here for an interesting report on a late-breaking development from the 2004 election in Ohio
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/2008/07/ohio_attorney_files_motion_to.html
The presidential election in Ohio in 2004 is still very much in dispute, as the link above will attest. Electronic tabulations of votes are clearly wide open to manipulation and fraud, and this is one of the most under-reported stories in the country. The New York Times recently ran an editorial in its July 16 issue stressing the need for a paper trial in elections to verify votes (even these election receipts need to carefully checked, according the book, The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World, by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, since hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated). http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/opinion/16wed1.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22Check+That+Vote%22+&st=nyt&oref=slogin
Kansas is putting out two books by eminent historians as part of their series, American Presidential Elections. A recent book in this series, Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of 1932, by Donald A. Ritchie won the George Pendleton Prize. The forthcoming books have strong relevance to our time, and can be extremely instructive and enlightening reading as the campaign season for 2008 starts up in earnest after Labor Day. By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876, by Michael F. Holt, a professor of American History at University of Virginia, outlines this key election between the ultimate winner, Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, and Samuel Tilden, a Democrat who actually won the popular vote (shades of the infamous 2000 election between Bush and Gore). In fact, the Hayes defeat of Tilden by one electoral vote was dubbed “the fraud of the century.” Professor Holt is a first-rate scholar of the period, having done previous books on the Whig Party, and the lead up to the American Civil War. He looks for answers to what exactly happened and why. He shows how the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives erred in the timing of admitting Colorado into the Union, when without its votes in the mix Tilden would have won. He notes there was a huge turnout in the election, as fears of a Confederate takeover of the government were successfully stoked by the Republicans. In fact, this election helped establish the label GOP for the Republicans, and the outcome was particularly notable as the Republicans were able to hold onto the presidency in the midst of a severe economic depression, after having lost the congressional elections of 1874. Professor Holt shows that the specter of the Civil War was still very much hovering over the American people, and he manages to convey the political mood of the country in that time, in what is being called “a masterly retelling of this controversial episode.”
Minority Victory: Gilded Age Politics and the Front Porch Election of 1888, by Charles W. Calhoun, a professor of History at East Carolina University, is another example of an incident where the ultimate winner won the election in the Electoral College, while losing the popular vote. This election was hotly contested, as Professor Calhoun outlines, in a horse race between incumbent President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison. It is said that Harrison was a firebrand campaigner, and could give a dozen riveting speeches on different subjects in a single day. The front porch campaign reference in the title of the book is to Harrison’s penchant for espousing his views almost daily from a front porch for visiting voters and reporters. Professor Calhoun notes that this campaign set an important precedent for future campaigns, leading up to the present day. It also shows how economics played a significant role in politics and in the election, and how Harrison as President adopted innovative new leadership strategies and governing techniques, including extensive travel, legislative intervention, and a focus on foreign affairs that would be a forerunner to modern times.
Harrison was the grandson of the 9th President William Henry Harrison, who died in office after only 31 days. He was what is called a “one term wonder,” as Cleveland came roaring back in the election of 1892 and recaptured the White House with the popular vote and the Electoral College counts. Another interesting thing about Harrison he is the subject of an enduring song from a cool Walt Disney movie from 1968 called The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. That movie has an awesome soundtrack, with songs written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, including the classic song, “Ten Feet Off the Ground.” There is a scene where competing Democrats and Republicans sing festive campaign songs in the heat of the 1888 election, even though this happens in the Dakota Territory which has yet to claim statehood. “Let’s Put It Over With Grover” is paired with “Oh, Benjamin Harrison,” which has the classic refrain, “Oh, Benjamin Harrison, you’re far beyond comparison …” For more information about this movie, click here
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063389/plotsummary
As the 2008 election intensifies between Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain, it is instructive to go back and look at previous elections, even if it is through these two fascinating books, the ongoing controversy over the 2004 election that is making the news, or through an old Hollywood movie that teaches us various things about the past and entertains.
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/2008/07/ohio_attorney_files_motion_to.html
The presidential election in Ohio in 2004 is still very much in dispute, as the link above will attest. Electronic tabulations of votes are clearly wide open to manipulation and fraud, and this is one of the most under-reported stories in the country. The New York Times recently ran an editorial in its July 16 issue stressing the need for a paper trial in elections to verify votes (even these election receipts need to carefully checked, according the book, The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World, by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, since hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated). http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/opinion/16wed1.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22Check+That+Vote%22+&st=nyt&oref=slogin
Kansas is putting out two books by eminent historians as part of their series, American Presidential Elections. A recent book in this series, Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of 1932, by Donald A. Ritchie won the George Pendleton Prize. The forthcoming books have strong relevance to our time, and can be extremely instructive and enlightening reading as the campaign season for 2008 starts up in earnest after Labor Day. By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876, by Michael F. Holt, a professor of American History at University of Virginia, outlines this key election between the ultimate winner, Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, and Samuel Tilden, a Democrat who actually won the popular vote (shades of the infamous 2000 election between Bush and Gore). In fact, the Hayes defeat of Tilden by one electoral vote was dubbed “the fraud of the century.” Professor Holt is a first-rate scholar of the period, having done previous books on the Whig Party, and the lead up to the American Civil War. He looks for answers to what exactly happened and why. He shows how the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives erred in the timing of admitting Colorado into the Union, when without its votes in the mix Tilden would have won. He notes there was a huge turnout in the election, as fears of a Confederate takeover of the government were successfully stoked by the Republicans. In fact, this election helped establish the label GOP for the Republicans, and the outcome was particularly notable as the Republicans were able to hold onto the presidency in the midst of a severe economic depression, after having lost the congressional elections of 1874. Professor Holt shows that the specter of the Civil War was still very much hovering over the American people, and he manages to convey the political mood of the country in that time, in what is being called “a masterly retelling of this controversial episode.”
Minority Victory: Gilded Age Politics and the Front Porch Election of 1888, by Charles W. Calhoun, a professor of History at East Carolina University, is another example of an incident where the ultimate winner won the election in the Electoral College, while losing the popular vote. This election was hotly contested, as Professor Calhoun outlines, in a horse race between incumbent President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison. It is said that Harrison was a firebrand campaigner, and could give a dozen riveting speeches on different subjects in a single day. The front porch campaign reference in the title of the book is to Harrison’s penchant for espousing his views almost daily from a front porch for visiting voters and reporters. Professor Calhoun notes that this campaign set an important precedent for future campaigns, leading up to the present day. It also shows how economics played a significant role in politics and in the election, and how Harrison as President adopted innovative new leadership strategies and governing techniques, including extensive travel, legislative intervention, and a focus on foreign affairs that would be a forerunner to modern times.
Harrison was the grandson of the 9th President William Henry Harrison, who died in office after only 31 days. He was what is called a “one term wonder,” as Cleveland came roaring back in the election of 1892 and recaptured the White House with the popular vote and the Electoral College counts. Another interesting thing about Harrison he is the subject of an enduring song from a cool Walt Disney movie from 1968 called The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. That movie has an awesome soundtrack, with songs written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, including the classic song, “Ten Feet Off the Ground.” There is a scene where competing Democrats and Republicans sing festive campaign songs in the heat of the 1888 election, even though this happens in the Dakota Territory which has yet to claim statehood. “Let’s Put It Over With Grover” is paired with “Oh, Benjamin Harrison,” which has the classic refrain, “Oh, Benjamin Harrison, you’re far beyond comparison …” For more information about this movie, click here
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063389/plotsummary
As the 2008 election intensifies between Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain, it is instructive to go back and look at previous elections, even if it is through these two fascinating books, the ongoing controversy over the 2004 election that is making the news, or through an old Hollywood movie that teaches us various things about the past and entertains.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Lament for the White Haven Motor Lodge
I have been staying at the White Haven Inn in the greater Kansas City area for twenty years. I was checking out today and I told the proprietor I would see her when the snow flies next time around, and she told me nope, she had sold the place. This after 51 years in business and 4 generations of the same family running it: -- is someone going to keep it open, I asked her. She told me the buyers were going to knock it down. It’s really a shame because the place is an icon.
I once told another sales rep about how I always stay at the White Haven, and he replied, “Oh, Eric, you’re so old-school!” That’s what the place was, my friends, a real throwback to the 1950s. It features real keys with the room number etched in on a copper plate; walk-in closets; Rococo furniture and antique fixtures; leaded glass windows in every room; a grandiose neon sign in the front that belongs in a book about kitsch; free coffee and donuts in the morning for 5 cents; a swimming pool; a gazebo in the back courtyard; rooms of various sizes, but all the rooms were oversize; and the friendliest service you’ll ever expect to get anywhere. They know me by name, and all I had to do was call up and say I was coming, and they made me welcome with no credit numbers necessary.
Someone told me that the White Haven Inn was one of the original motels in the Kansas City area. The place is a compound with two sprawling buildings and two parking lots, located on Metcalf Avenue and 80th Street in the City of Overland Park, Kansas. A really fine location, on a main drag: -- some of the houses around the joint are built in the same style, and were clearly constructed at the same time. There’s a permanent sense to the place, and it shocked me that it was going to be knocked down. I lingered at breakfast this morning in the gazebo and wondered at how progress can sometimes be bad.
I’m sure the place is really hard to maintain. You don’t ever get a break, the proprietor told me. Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving you are always on call; people staying all the time. She was looking forward to freedom, and she said the next time she sees me she wants it to be in a bar! But I’m going to miss this place, and after October 1, 2008 it’s going to be toast.
There was another place that I had less of a personal connection with, but I thought also had great character: the New Tower Inn on Dodge and 72nd Street in Omaha, NE. It was almost a village onto itself, and I remember the swimming pool was in a separate building in the front parking lot. The rooms had outside entrances going all along two sides, and there may have been other buildings on the grounds as well. There was also an incredibly long hallway with poor lighting, and you could reach the rooms from the inside in the winter. The breakfast place was funky, and it had some wonderfully eccentric neighborhood characters in there every morning. The motel was pretty rundown in spots, but had a real urban feel to it that I really appreciated.
The thing that was most memorable about the place was the bar called the Crystal Tree. It had the original crystal tree from the Hollywood set of the Julie Andrews Hour on ABC TV in 1972. I remember I really liked that show when I was in high school. It was a really cool place to have a drink late at night. It was delightfully cheesy, and it was located in its own building next to the pool. http://www.tv.com/the-julie-andrews-hour/show/6816/summary.html
I never used to make a reservation whenever I want to Omaha. The New Tower Inn was so huge they always had rooms, and I would show up at any hour and I was always accommodated there. One time I went and the place was razed! I remember it was during the day and I drove around and I just couldn’t believe it. They built another strip mall there. Just what the City of Omaha needed, another strip mall!
I once told another sales rep about how I always stay at the White Haven, and he replied, “Oh, Eric, you’re so old-school!” That’s what the place was, my friends, a real throwback to the 1950s. It features real keys with the room number etched in on a copper plate; walk-in closets; Rococo furniture and antique fixtures; leaded glass windows in every room; a grandiose neon sign in the front that belongs in a book about kitsch; free coffee and donuts in the morning for 5 cents; a swimming pool; a gazebo in the back courtyard; rooms of various sizes, but all the rooms were oversize; and the friendliest service you’ll ever expect to get anywhere. They know me by name, and all I had to do was call up and say I was coming, and they made me welcome with no credit numbers necessary.
Someone told me that the White Haven Inn was one of the original motels in the Kansas City area. The place is a compound with two sprawling buildings and two parking lots, located on Metcalf Avenue and 80th Street in the City of Overland Park, Kansas. A really fine location, on a main drag: -- some of the houses around the joint are built in the same style, and were clearly constructed at the same time. There’s a permanent sense to the place, and it shocked me that it was going to be knocked down. I lingered at breakfast this morning in the gazebo and wondered at how progress can sometimes be bad.
I’m sure the place is really hard to maintain. You don’t ever get a break, the proprietor told me. Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving you are always on call; people staying all the time. She was looking forward to freedom, and she said the next time she sees me she wants it to be in a bar! But I’m going to miss this place, and after October 1, 2008 it’s going to be toast.
There was another place that I had less of a personal connection with, but I thought also had great character: the New Tower Inn on Dodge and 72nd Street in Omaha, NE. It was almost a village onto itself, and I remember the swimming pool was in a separate building in the front parking lot. The rooms had outside entrances going all along two sides, and there may have been other buildings on the grounds as well. There was also an incredibly long hallway with poor lighting, and you could reach the rooms from the inside in the winter. The breakfast place was funky, and it had some wonderfully eccentric neighborhood characters in there every morning. The motel was pretty rundown in spots, but had a real urban feel to it that I really appreciated.
The thing that was most memorable about the place was the bar called the Crystal Tree. It had the original crystal tree from the Hollywood set of the Julie Andrews Hour on ABC TV in 1972. I remember I really liked that show when I was in high school. It was a really cool place to have a drink late at night. It was delightfully cheesy, and it was located in its own building next to the pool. http://www.tv.com/the-julie-andrews-hour/show/6816/summary.html
I never used to make a reservation whenever I want to Omaha. The New Tower Inn was so huge they always had rooms, and I would show up at any hour and I was always accommodated there. One time I went and the place was razed! I remember it was during the day and I drove around and I just couldn’t believe it. They built another strip mall there. Just what the City of Omaha needed, another strip mall!
Friday, July 11, 2008
Texas is coming out with another great book from photographer Keith Carter
A Certain Alchemy is the name of Keith Carter’s new book. It has an introduction by Bill Wittliff, another renowned Texas photographer who founded the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University – San Marcos, and is the author of the recent bestselling book from University of Texas Press, A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove. There is also an afterword by Patricia Carter, Keith’s wife, who offers another perspective on his work. Carter has made himself a major name in fine art photography circles in the last twenty-odd years, and this new book will attest to his relentless creativity. Photography has to do with what is chosen to be inside the frame, what is left out of the frame, how the image is lighted, and what the perspective is, among other things. Carter has been called a “poet of the ordinary” and he has taken mundane happenings around his home in East Texas and made these seemingly everyday things look extraordinary. His photographs of animals are legendary, see the book he did with Texas in 2000 called Ezekiel’s Horse (Booklist called the book, “Majestic, intelligent, sculptural”), and here he does not disappoint readers. He expands his range of subjects and locations to put together a gallery of photographs that is haunting, arresting, and attempts to seeks out the profound hidden meanings of the real world.
You can view photographs by Carter and get some deep background on this key artist by going to his web site http://www.keithcarterphotographs.com/ -- a Keith Carter book is always entertaining to look at closely, and you never know quite what to expect from his camera. A Certain Alchemy is his tenth book, and here we see a visual artist at the absolute top of his game.
You can view photographs by Carter and get some deep background on this key artist by going to his web site http://www.keithcarterphotographs.com/ -- a Keith Carter book is always entertaining to look at closely, and you never know quite what to expect from his camera. A Certain Alchemy is his tenth book, and here we see a visual artist at the absolute top of his game.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Minnesota to publish a book on radical Serbian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev
Lorraine Mortimer is a social science lecturer from Melbourne (La Trobe University), and she has written a critical assessment of the films of Makavejev, Terror and Joy: The Films of Dušan Makavejev. Amazingly, this is the first book-length critical study of this key Serbian filmmaker. The book spans his career from 1965 to 1994.
Man Is Not a Bird (1965) is an amazing film, his first feature, and the film "blends actuality with fiction in a manner so unselfconscious as to seem almost natural …” according to International Film Guide.
WR: Mysteries of an Organism (1971) is an offbeat, counter-cultural classic. Inspired by the writings and life of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the WR in the title, Makavejev describes it as "a black comedy, political circus, a fantasy on the fascism and communism of human bodies, the political life of human genitals, a proclamation of the pornographic essence of any system of authority and power over others...If you watch for more than five minutes, you become my accomplice." It’s interesting to note that Tuli Kupferberg, legendary beat poet and band leader of the 1960s group The FUGS, has a role in the film.
Sweet Movie (1974) helped establish Makavejev as “one of cinema's most controversial, original and exciting directors,” according to Facets Multimedia in Chicago. This is one hard-to-find movie, since it was banned in several countries, and helped get Makavejev exiled from Serbia for close to 15 years. Facets has several Makavejev films in their video collection, among which is an early experimental film called Innocence Unprotected (1968). This film is described by Facets as a “cinematic collage” that is “a funny and daring (in both content and form) mix of a wide variety of film footage--including documentary, narrative, agitprop, and various other bits and pieces of found footage.”
Any Makavejev film is going to be interesting to watch, especially the early ones. He did make an attempt at doing a Hollywood film. In Australia, he directed The Coca Cola Kid (1985), starring Eric Roberts and Greta Scacchi. That was a pretty entertaining film, his stab at doing a romantic comedy, but it ultimately failed at the box office.
Mortimer’s book is a groundbreaking look at seven of Makavejev’s films, and she puts his films in historical context with political upheavals such as World War II, the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the fall of communism. True to the spirit of Makavejev, Morimer takes what the publisher calls “a radically interdisciplinary approach” in her critical assessment of Makavejev’s work. Complete with 25 b/w photos, this should be one cool book.
For more information about Makavejev, along with an extensive interview with the director and lots more information, visit this web site http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/makavejev.html
Man Is Not a Bird (1965) is an amazing film, his first feature, and the film "blends actuality with fiction in a manner so unselfconscious as to seem almost natural …” according to International Film Guide.
WR: Mysteries of an Organism (1971) is an offbeat, counter-cultural classic. Inspired by the writings and life of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the WR in the title, Makavejev describes it as "a black comedy, political circus, a fantasy on the fascism and communism of human bodies, the political life of human genitals, a proclamation of the pornographic essence of any system of authority and power over others...If you watch for more than five minutes, you become my accomplice." It’s interesting to note that Tuli Kupferberg, legendary beat poet and band leader of the 1960s group The FUGS, has a role in the film.
Sweet Movie (1974) helped establish Makavejev as “one of cinema's most controversial, original and exciting directors,” according to Facets Multimedia in Chicago. This is one hard-to-find movie, since it was banned in several countries, and helped get Makavejev exiled from Serbia for close to 15 years. Facets has several Makavejev films in their video collection, among which is an early experimental film called Innocence Unprotected (1968). This film is described by Facets as a “cinematic collage” that is “a funny and daring (in both content and form) mix of a wide variety of film footage--including documentary, narrative, agitprop, and various other bits and pieces of found footage.”
Any Makavejev film is going to be interesting to watch, especially the early ones. He did make an attempt at doing a Hollywood film. In Australia, he directed The Coca Cola Kid (1985), starring Eric Roberts and Greta Scacchi. That was a pretty entertaining film, his stab at doing a romantic comedy, but it ultimately failed at the box office.
Mortimer’s book is a groundbreaking look at seven of Makavejev’s films, and she puts his films in historical context with political upheavals such as World War II, the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the fall of communism. True to the spirit of Makavejev, Morimer takes what the publisher calls “a radically interdisciplinary approach” in her critical assessment of Makavejev’s work. Complete with 25 b/w photos, this should be one cool book.
For more information about Makavejev, along with an extensive interview with the director and lots more information, visit this web site http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/makavejev.html
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Catholic University of America Press to publish a key 19th Century Spanish novel
Juan Valera’s The Illusions of Doctor Faustino (Las illusions del doctor Faustino) came out in 1875, and was considered to be one of the most important novels of its time in Spain. It was favorably compared to Flaubert’s A Sentimental Education (L’Education sentimentale) because of the negative affect of Romanticism on Faustino’s life. Valera had written a blockbuster the year before, Pepita Jiménez, and that book clearly established Valera as a writer of brilliant prose. This previous book deals realistically with the struggle between love and religion in an ardent young man who is studying for the priesthood, and who falls desperately in love with the title character, who is supposed to marry his widowed father. Valera takes it one step further with Doctor Faustino’s character, who seems to be unlucky in love at every turn, through no fault of his own. His love life is a series of nonstarters and missed opportunities, as he either scorns or is scorned by three different women in the course of his life. The story starts out in Andalusia, in Southern Spain, and then moves on to Madrid, where the denouement takes place and Faustino meets his sad end in a Romantic malaise.
This edition is deftly translated by Robert M. Fedorchek, a professor emeritus of Spanish at Fairfield University., with an introduction by Agnes Money, a professor of Spanish at Temple University. Fedorchek is a veteran translator, and he previously translated another Valera book for CUA Press in 2006, Juanita la Larga. According to an expert, Harriet S. Turner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “Fedorchek’s translation of Juanita la Larga captures the light, sinuous line of the original Spanish. In a masterly series of sleights of hand—transpositions, pauses, and ellipses—Fedorchek informs his translation with the wit, delicacy, and playfulness of Valera’s novel." It is evident that Fedorcheck does the same thing with The Illusions of Doctor Faustino, and allows English readers a rare opportunity to encounter a classic Spanish-language work.
This edition is deftly translated by Robert M. Fedorchek, a professor emeritus of Spanish at Fairfield University., with an introduction by Agnes Money, a professor of Spanish at Temple University. Fedorchek is a veteran translator, and he previously translated another Valera book for CUA Press in 2006, Juanita la Larga. According to an expert, Harriet S. Turner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “Fedorchek’s translation of Juanita la Larga captures the light, sinuous line of the original Spanish. In a masterly series of sleights of hand—transpositions, pauses, and ellipses—Fedorchek informs his translation with the wit, delicacy, and playfulness of Valera’s novel." It is evident that Fedorcheck does the same thing with The Illusions of Doctor Faustino, and allows English readers a rare opportunity to encounter a classic Spanish-language work.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Personal Struggles and Triumphs Can Make For Great Reading
Ohio University Press published a pioneering book in 1997 with Linda Spence’s Legacy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History. The book was designed to prod a story out of people about the different phases of their lives. The focus was on getting older people to talk about their experiences, and the end-result was a set of writing that was “mesmerizing and revelatory,” according to Booklist. A new book along the same lines is coming out from Ohio, it's called Catching Stories: A Practical Guide to Oral History. The book has five authors, all of whom are professional historians and researchers: -- Donna M. DeBlasio, director of the Center for Applied History at Youngstown State University; Charles F. Ganzert, a communications professor at Northern Michigan University; Davis M. Mould, a research dean at Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University; Stephen H. Paschen, an archivist and librarian at Kent State University; Howard L. Sacks, director of the Rural Life Center at Kenyon College. These experts tell readers with little or no experience how to plan and implement an oral history project. These are the kind of stories from everyday people that the media and certain history books tend to overlook. The guide is practical in that it tells readers everything thing they need to know, from recording devices, legal issues, and the interview process, that will assist readers in the important work of documenting memories, and in collecting the stories of community and family. This book should find a place on library shelves and in bookstores across the country.
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