"1959: The Year that Changed Everything"

Just finished reading Fred Kaplan's "1959: the Year Everything Changed", and while I'm not convinced  1959 qualifies as the singular hinge year of the 20th century, I'm not sure that matters (even to Kaplan), and it's a good book in any case.

He analyzes and weaves together a wide variety of events, e.g.: Castro seizing power in Cuba; Allen Ginsberg reading poetry to rapt audiences in New York; the Lunik 1 spacecraft breaking free of Earth's orbit; William Burroughs publishing "Naked Lunch"; John Howard Griffen publishing "Black Like Me"; Miles Davis recording "Kind of Blue"; John Coltrane, "Giant Steps"; Dave Brubeck, "Time Out"; Ornette Coleman, "The Shape of Jazz to Come"; Jack Kilby introducing the integrated circuit (the microchip); IBM selling the first 'modern' computer: the model 1401;  Malcolm X traveling to Mecca; the opening of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum;  Searl Pharmaceuticals submitting Enovid, a.k.a. the birth control pill, for FDA approval, etc., etc .

The common theme is a sense of liberation from traditional constraints (e.g., hackneyed art, pervasive racism, the 'tyranny of numbers', and an optimism (and dread) toward the emerging "new frontier" in politics, technology, and art.

Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan)

Michael Pollen's Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, 4 chapters:

1. Desire: Sweetness / Plant: The Apple
2. Desire: Beauty / Plant: The Tulip
3. Desire: Intoxication / Plant: Marijuana
4. Desire: Cotrol / Plant: The Potato

Reading Lists

What various smart and famous people are currently reading, as gathered by the New York Observer. For example, Harold Bloom has "been rereading all of Henry James and all of Faulkner and all of Whitman in preparation for a book ... "

Johnson's Dictionary

Rutgers English professor Jack Lynch has 7/2/05 op-ed piece in the New York Times on occasion of 250th anniversary of Samuel Johnson's dictionary. Compares Johnson's achievement favorably with that of Noah Webster, whose celebrated 1828 dictionary turns out to be little more than "a terse utilitarian spelling guide." Despite Webster's patriotic credentials, it is still Johnson to whom constitutional lawyers and supreme court justices turn when they want to know the original meaning of 18th century words. Ironically, Johnson had little affection for the American adventure, especially as it pertained to slavery and money-grubbing. "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American," he wrote. "They are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." Webster, for his part (according to David Littlejohn, 1971) was disgusted by Johnson for using the profane Shakespeare has one of his principle authorities.

Yashar Books (open access full text)

Reading Room includes links to source materials, including daf yomi site that includes audiovisual commentary to each page (?)

Books Available for Review

[2005-04-19]
AJL Books for review, e.g., Joseph Lowin's Hebrew Talk, Ivan Marcus's Jewish Life Cycle

Books (Solomon Maimon)

[2004-12-30]
Disgusted by the apparent ignorance of his fellow 18th century Poles--Jews and gentiles alike--he eventually makes his way to Enlightenment-era Berlin, and the acquaintance of such luminaries as Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant.

Begins with a discussion of his grandfather, arrested for murder when a young boy's corpse was planted in his house. He was tortured but refused to confess, and was eventually vindicated after the real murderer was captured.

Maimon's father kept a library of Hebrew books, some on secular topics. One book in particular, David Ganz's "Zemah David", opened his eyes for the first time to modern science. Rabbi Ganz studied astronomy with Tycho Brahe in Copenhagen. Also on the father's bookshelf was a garbled Hebrew translation of Josephus. The astronomy was what most appealed to the 7-year old Solomon.

Despite his general dislike for the Talmud, Maimon reports having excelled at it. This made him (within the traditional Jewish community, at least) by the time he reached age 12, an exceedingly eligible bachelor. At one point he was betrothed to two women at the same time. Around this time he taught himself Latin and German alphabets by studying the printer's marks on the signitures of Hebrew books. He also discovered the Zohar, the principal work of Kabalah, and studied it intensely. He identified with a description of 1st century Rabi Meir (who studied with the heretic Elisha ben Abuya?): "He found a pomegranate, and he ate the fruit but cast the rind away." He found Jewish mysticism fascinating, but confessed some of the imagery hard to take. God's Beard, for example, "in which the hairs are divided into numerous classes with something peculiar to each, and every hair is a separate channel of divine grace. With all my efforts," he writes, "I could find no rational meaning in these representations." At one point, he experimented with "Kabalah maasit," or Practical Kabbalah, invoking the "roeh ve-eno nireh" (seeing but not being seen) technique, and attempted to box a friend on the ears, but, not really being invisible, the friend immediately turned around and hit him back.

Eventually Maimon made his way to Berlin, where he befriended (and later estranged) Moses Mendelssohn and other maskilim, and, after a period of extreme poverty, began a study of Kant's critical philosophy, won the philosopher's praise, and composed a philosophical work of his own entitled "Transcendental Philosophy".

In ch. 16, he describes an encounter with new "secret society", the "New Hasidim", who, unlike their traditional namesakes, eschewed self-mortification, and tried, to paraphrase Woody Allen, to confuse the evil inclination by giving in to it without a fight. He seemed to admire the group at first, since they moderated and celebrated human appetites, rather than trying to destroy them, but found them ultimately unsympathetic since they based their actions on expectation of reward in the afterlife, rather than practicing virtue for its own sake. Also, he notes, their behavior was guided "by obsure feelings rather than distinct knowledge" which led them into various extravagances, and "are vain enough to consider themselves organs fo the Godhead, which of course they are, but to an extent lmited by the degree of perfection they attain. The result is that at the charges of the Godheard they perpretrate the greatest excesses; every extraordiary suggestion is to htem a divine inspiration, and very lively impulse a divine call." (p. 51).






The Master, by Colm Toibin, a fictional biography of Henry James, reviewed in NYTBR June 20, 2004.

"Plot Against America" (Book)

Philip Roth's The Plot Against America (Houghton Mifflin, 2004) an exceedingly well-plotted and meticulously researched (if also too predictable and cautiously written) alternative history of the 1940s. Instead of Roosevelt assuming third term as president, as we remember from our history books, Republican candidate Charles Lindbergh is innaugurated January 1941. Burton Wheeler is his vice president, Henry Ford is senior cabinet member.

Roth's narrator is 8 or 9 year old Philip, with insurance salesman father Herman, and mother Bess. Orphaned cousin Alvin, who lives with him, joins Canadian army to help fight Germans, loses lower half of left leg in grenade explosion. Brother Sandy, a gifted portrait artist, cajoled into becoming poster-boy for relocation/absorption program "Just Folks", where jewish youth are sent away to live with 'real' Americans on farms in the heartland.

Lionel Bengelsdorf is celebrity rabbi, eventual husband to Philip's Aunt Evelyn, director of the Office of American Absorption (which sponsors relocation and deracination programs), and eventual (Rasputin-like?) spokeman for first lady, Ann Morrow. Both Lionel and Evelyn are star-struck by Joachim von Ribbentrop, Germany's minister for foreign affairs (and signatory to 1939 non-aggression pact with Molotov of USSR) during reception at White House. Incrementally, civil rights of American Jews are eroded, leading up to relocations and pogroms in 1942. News reporter Walter Winchell, reviled as a muckraker, but respected as cultural whistleblower and political conscience, tries to wake up fellow citizens to encroaching fascism. Another hero of story, Fiorello La Guardia (born to Jewish mother and Italian father), mayor of New York, major opponent to Lindbergh.

True facts described in story, and confirmed in postscript: Regarding Lindbergh: after having flown the Spirit of St. Louis 33 1/2 hours non-stop from Long Island to Paris in 1927, viewed across country and around world as hero. Married Anne Morrow in May 1929. Two-year-old son Charles kidnapped, found dead May 1932. October 1938 Lindbergh receives Service Cross of the German Eagle "by order of the Fuhrer" (as does his friend, owner of Dearborn Independent, and publisher of 91-article series "The International Jew: The World's Problem", Henry Ford). By 1938, viewed by many Jewish families with the same trepidation as his friend Father Charles Coughlin, Catholic priest radio commentator from Detroit, editor of weekly Social Justice.

October 1940, America First Committtee founded at Yale Law School to promote isolationism, with major address by Lindbergh who advocates American recognition of "the new powers in Europe." Also October 1940, Anne Morrow Lindbergh publishes best-selling The Wave of the Future, condemned by Secretary of Interior Harlod Ickes as "the Bible of every American Nazi". September 11, 1941 Lindbergh delivers speech "Who Are the War Agitators" to America First Rally in Des Moines, eliciting applause from 8 thousand attendees when citing "the Jewish race" as major cause for American war involvement. Following December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor, however, America First Committee disbanded.

Hebrew books

Nehora.com seems the only site for purchasing "Simanim" tikkun online. We ordered one for Yossi's bar mitsvah gift.

Reading List

[2004-12-11]
Many interested titles reviewed recently, e.g., "Earth: an Intimate History." By Richard Fortey, rev. by Simon Lamb. History of the planet as narrated, so to speak, through the rocks. "This enticing book deserves to be read many times over," writes Fortey, presenting our planet to a wide audience in a way that they may never have imagined in their wildest dreams, and yet all this is the unavoidable message in the rocks."

"Tiger in a Trance" by Max Ludington. (Paperback Row, p. 30), novel set among followers of Grateful Dead touring circuit, per Bruce Barcott, "a merry romp through a wholly American subculture."

Kenneth Pollack's "The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America", reviewer ernest R. May writes, "For a background understanding of U.S.-Iranian relations, "The Persian Puzzle is matchless"; Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan's "De Gooning: An American Master", reviewered by Red Grooms, on the Rotterdam native who sailed as stowaway to U.S. in 1926, settled among other "Abstract Expressionists" in Greenwich Village (the hangouts of which, e.g., Waldorf Cafeteria, Cedar Tavern, "looks like a cockpit where visoionaries fight for the world's soul.

Editor's of NYTBR list "10 best books of 2004", inluding Colm Tibin's "The Master," which it describes as a "Novel about Henry James, his life and art--beautfilly written, deeply pondered, startingly un-Jamesian", Roth's "The Plot Against America, and "ingenious anti-historical novel." Chernow's Alexander Hamilton", an "exemplary biography"; David Hackett Fischer's "Washinton's Crossing," which is "impresseively researched" and "highlights the Battle of Trenton." Stephen Greenblattt's "Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare," where "scholarship, speculation, and close reading combine in a lively study that gives shape to the life and context to the work."

Amoz Oz's "A Tale of Love and Darkness"John Leonard review's Nicholas de Lange's translation of Amos Oz's memoir. Oz's mother Fania Klausner, of Ukrainian bourgeoisie, philosophy student in Prague, leaving for Haifa in 1934, predicted that son would become man who is "quiet and full and closed like a well in a village that has been abondoned by all its inhabintants. Like me." She killed herself in 1952 in overdose of sedatives. Father diesd 20 yeawrs later. THis memoir mourns death of parents, but also death of socialist zionist dream. Oz writes, "Living memory, like ripples in water or the nervous quivering of a gazelle's skin in the moment before it takes flight, comes suddenly and trembles ina single instant in several rhythms or various focuses, before being frozen and immobilized into the memory of a memory." Fania met and married Arieh Klausner, "nephew of smugly famous right-wing scholar Joseph Klausner, so slysly satirized in S. Y. Agnon's novel 'Shirah'". This translation is "rendered from hebrew into supple, acrobatic English by Oz's longtime trnalator, Nicholas de Lange."

[2004-12-06]
Yale Bookstore offering 20% discount from Dec. 6-11.

[2004-10-01]
Perused entire "gifts" category of Signals Catalog . Nothing too exciting. Might be worth checking later though.


[2004-12-11]
New York Times reviews: Best Classical CDs of 2004, 2 of particular interest to me (out of 25 listed):

"Bolcom: 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience', UYniversity of Michigan School of Music Orchestra and Choruses, Leonard Slatkin (Naxos) william Bolcom worked on his settings for [these 46 Blake poems] for 25 years. Leonard Slatkin conducts a gripping live performance of this ambitious masterpiece, over two hours of music for orchestra, multiple choruses and solits that audaciously synthesizes wildly diverse musical styles" --Anthony Tommasini

"Zippo Songs: Airs of War and Lunacy: Theo Bleckmann vocalist; Phil Kline, guitarist; others (Cantaloupe) from the words American G.I.'s in Vietnam etched on their Zippo lighters, Phil Kline has fashioned brilliant amerciian lieder fotr 21st century. Tinged with elements of the psychadelic 60's , as in an elegaic fugue on a Doors song, they communicate with a direct vernacular eloquence." -- Anne Midgette