Wednesday, February 27,2008

Branding “Alternative Culture”

How corporations ape the underground

By Michael Carriere

In the summer of 2005, Nike SB, a division of the shoe giant in charge of producing footwear for skateboarders, created an advertisement for their upcoming skateboarding tour that attempted to connect the brand with the type of music that many skaters loved. Titled “Major Threat,” the ad reproduced the iconic album art of hardcore punk legends Minor Threat’s 1981 self-titled album. The response from many skaters—and from Dischord Records, the Washington, D.C., label run by former Minor Threat frontman Ian MacKaye—was swift and predictable.

Wednesday, February 27,2008

Renoir Revisited

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By Aisha Motlani

Poetry or fiction that extols the virtues of art is certainly not a new phenomenon. Think of Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” In recent years authors like Tracy Chevalier and Jeanne Kalogridis have come to prominence for constructing fictional narratives around specific works of art, using them as a starting point from which to explore the social or historical context within which they were painted. Perhaps more importantly, they allow readers to peek beneath the shroud of mystery surrounding artists and their subjects. Susan Vreeland’s new novel, Luncheon of the Boating Party, belongs to this vein of fiction. Based on Renoir’s painting of the same name, it allows readers to enter the painting’s leisurely scene and capture a view of Parisian society in the late 19th century.

Saturday, February 23,2008

Travel Italia: The Golden Age of Italian Travel Posters

(Abrams), by Lorenzo Ottaviani

By David Luhrssen

By the 1920s, high-end travel by ship, train and airplane had become a thriving business the world over, promoted by colorful posters of great artistry. Travel Italia surveys work by some of Italy’s best commercial artists in the field. The earlier pieces were mostly illustrative of particular destinations.

Friday, February 22,2008

India: Past and Present

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By Aisha Motlani

Since publishing his first novel, The Death of Vishnu, Manil Suri has joined the pantheon of Indian writers gaining widespread recognition for their English prose. The first of his books to use the Hindu trinity to explore the present-day realities of India, it was intended as part of a trilogy, albeit one that departs from the traditional format of continuous plot and characters. “It’s rather like three panels of a triptych in the sense that there are these three faces of the Hindu trinity, Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, and I was trying to distill the essence of each,” Suri says.

Wednesday, February 20,2008

Death Threat

The faith of Easy Rawlins

By Eric Beaumont

There’s never a scarcity of problems for people like me,” proclaims private investigator Easy Rawlins in Walter Mosley’s latest novel, Blonde Faith (Little, Brown), the 10th in a series of Easy’s adventures. By “people like me,” Easy might mean black men in 20th-century America. But, given Easy’s dramatic personality change in this story, the proclamation bears rereading.

Thursday, February 14,2008

Progressive Parenting

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By Aisha Motlani

Anyone who has children is aware of the number of resources available to new and prospective parents. But how much of those are geared toward the progressive punk parent? When activist/musician/teacher Jessica Mills became pregnant, she was struck by the lack of mainstream parenting literature that spoke to her own subculture where, as she puts it, “politics intersects with parenting,” so she decided to write one of her own.

Wednesday, February 13,2008

Tyrant of the Screen

Raving about Otto Preminger

By Steve Spice

Otto Preminger’s stage and screen Nazis (think Stalag 17) may well have provided a perverse, self-styled role model for the famous director, one he developed with tyrannical relish off-screen as well. According to Foster Hirsch in his stunning, eminently readable biography, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would be King (Alfred Knopf), the filmmaker’s Prussians registered with conviction, yielding none of the serpentine sophistication that made Conrad Veidt’s characterization in Casablanca an intellectual delight.

Wednesday, February 13,2008

Entertainment in Early Milwaukee/Milwaukee’s Brady Street

(Arcadia), by Larry Widen and Frank D. Alioto

By David Luhrssen

Milwaukee’s colorful past, more interesting than the history of many heartland cities, is being examined in a series of profusely illustrated books from Arcadia Publishing. Larry Widen, whose previous book examined Milwaukee cinemas, contributes a look at the city’s flourishing cultural milieu through the mid-20th century. During those years Houdini headlined in Milwaukee at the Majestic Theatre, museums sprouted along Wisconsin Avenue and Downtown was crowded with theaters, concert halls and exhibition buildings, many of them architecturally fabulous. Frank Alioto remembers Brady Street’s early ethnic history, its role as a thriving business district and, in the 1960s, mecca for the local counterculture. The pictures in both books are fascinating photo albums of Milwaukee’s past.

Wednesday, February 6,2008

Considerable Memories

John Updike and the world

By Judith Ann Moriarty

On page 10 of Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism (Knopf), John Updike makes it clear that he’s reluctant to be “a subject of extended biographical treatment,” wherein “some callow inquisitor interprets his life.” At age 75, the elegantly reserved Pennsylvania Dutchman says that “a fiction writer’s . . .

Wednesday, February 6,2008

Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?

The Transformation of Modern Europe

By David Luhrssen

After being a battleground for two world wars, Europe’s appetite for warfare declined while America’s willingness to employ force continued. Stanford humanities professor James J. Sheehan lucidly explores the tectonic shift that moved European nations from garrison states to consumer societies . . .

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Elections 2008

Obama seeks greater rein on financial institutions (AP)

AP - President Barack Obama says he wants Congress to pass legislation giving the government greater regulatory authority over financial institutions like American International Group.

Sources: Pentagon to stop forced tour extension (AP)

AP - The Army will substantially reduce use of the unpopular practice of holding troops beyond their enlistment dates and will pay $500 to those still forced to stay in the service, defense and congressional officials said Wednesday.

AIG head shares US anger of bonuses but backs them (AP)

AP - The chief executive officer of failed insurance conglomerate AIG acknowledged Wednesday that the company's multimillion-dollar bonuses were "distasteful" to many and had provoked a firestorm of wrath. "I share that anger," Edward Liddy, chairman and CEO of the American International Group Inc., said in testimony prepared for Congress.

Analysis: White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG (AP)

AP - For the first time since last fall's election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG.

Pence: Return AIG donations (Politico)

Politico - House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence is urging politicians from both parties to strongly consider returning campaign contributions from AIG.

..Search Shepherd Express

Going Out on a Pier to Buy A Home

Late last week, New York City went out on a limb, or a pier to be exact, to help a group of people in Queens. For almost 100 years the 17 houses on Beach 84th Street Pier were owned by the state or