Book Review: What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era by Carlos Lozada

What Were We Thinking is a work of synthesis by Washington Post book critic Carlos Lozada - and a valuable one. One of the great ironies of the Trump years were the sheer volume of books (in addition to thousands of think pieces) written about a President who made his functional illiteracy a big selling point with his base. Lozada presents a critical account of much of the writing about this time in American history, leaving one with no doubt its been a transformational era into uncharted territory. Here's a rundown:

1) Understanding the Trump Voter: After election night 2016 mainstream media outlets hit readers hard with searching stories of how Trump won and why. Most of these books were torn on whether it was economic or racial grievance that drove these voters. The answer is somewhere in between - according to the books.  These works range from soul searching memoirs from those who came of age in the heartland, famously J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and Heartland by Sarah Smarsh, told from opposing ideologies. Vance blames laziness among working class whites and has since become a radical authoritarian subservient to Trump. Smarsh focuses on the damage of tricke down politics in white rural America, a sense of inferiority of being unable to attain financial independence. Academics and journalists took jaunts into Trump country and tried to understand what was going on in works of sociological analysis. Elements of race and economic anxiety play a role. Yet all these books tend to reinforce a stereotype: either a bitter a resentful and ignorant bigot or the folksy helpless victim of bad policy and misleading propaganda. Many of these books also write of rural America as a monolith of whiteness and decline, when in fact they are becoming more diverse and becoming more reliant on immigrant labor. 

2) Resistance Literature: #Resistance became a staple of Twitter after Trump assumed power, unleashing an all hands-on deck mindset to save democracy. Timothy Snyder's slim volume On Tyranny offered grounded advice on how to oppose creeping authoritarianism based on lessons from the 20th Century. Lozada found much of the resistance genre to be insufficient, too focused on deepening the divide and dunking on Trump and his followers instead of rejecting the polarized mindset itself.

3) Conservatives and Trump: The rise of Trump led to a schism within the Conservative Movement and one that's undergone many phases. A flurry of mea culpa memoirs emerged by ex-conservatives despairing over Trump stomping on many conservative principals, leading to their divorce from the GOP. Lozada sees an insincerity at the heart of these volumes in not coming to terms with how their tactics created the climate for a Trump to rise. Then there are Trumpists writing books heaping praise on their leader as a misunderstood president who wants to save America from "the ruling classes. "Trumpist intellectuals" began to build an argument for Trump, based at the radical right Claremont Institute, branding themselves as ultra-nationalists who believe all Americans who voted for Biden should have their citizenship revoked! Lately, as told in a Vanity Fair article, these "rebels" have found allies in the Tech industry and are attempting to market their brand of reactionary-cultural politics into a viable stance that's extremely authoritarian. 

4) Immigration: Perhaps the most painful part of the Trump years were the agonizing debates on immigration, a leader taking a complicated and sensitive issue and pouring gallons of gasoline into an already raging fire. Lozada read books dealing with new approaches to border policy, memoirs written by immigrants and from those who live on the border. A recurring theme are the contradiction America's high demand for immigrant labor and the hostility of Americans towards people willing to the do work. 

5) Assault on Truth: The chaos of the current media landscape is covered in this chapter from historical explanations by academics to memoirs by journalists on the front lines. Questions are raised like. How do we live in a time when everyone lives in their own truth bubble? There's the sheer spectacle of watching government officials lying for their leader despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Orwell's 1984 is often a starting for a long list of academic studies on the decline of an objective truth. 

6) Race in the Trump Era: Lozada looks at the number of books on identity politics, whiteness, and racial identity in modern America. Discourse on racism, anti-racism, and many memoirs on racial identity in 21st Century America are all covered in this chapter. The murder of George Floyd led to a racial reckoning during the summer of 2020 - and a predictable backlash of white resentment. 

7) #MeToo and Gender Politics: Revelations and reflections on the sexual violence perpetuated by men in positions of power occupied much of the discourse during the Trump era. With multiple allegations against Trump himself and the reveal of Harvey Weinstein's many crimes against women, gender dynamics at home and in the workplace underwent substantial reassessment. From Hillary Clinton's memoir What Happened? on facing misogyny as a presidential candidate to confessional memoirs written by women about the abuse they endured in the workplace to suspenseful journalistic accounts such as She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.

8) White House Chaos, Russia, future of democracy: The last three chapters look at the plethora of accounts from insiders and journalists on the day to day chaos of Trump. Lozada admits these books make for compelling reading, but all fall into a similar trap: They seem too enthused on just reporting on the chaos without much insight into the larger significance. Books on Trump and his Russian connections also became a cottage industry of varying accounts. Books on American history and its meaning were also topped the bestseller lists.  

What We Were Thinking is a useful read on the state of the American psyche during Trump and where it might be going. Lozada shies away from pushing a thesis or agenda, more of a commentary track searching for meaning through a challenging time in history. An extensive bibliography is also included. 

Book Review: The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan by Tom Shone

In one of the first book length studies of Christopher Nolan's films, author Tom Shone presents his subject as something of an enigma. In an age when many are writing obituaries for cinema and lamenting the glut of comic book movies or the rise of streaming - a new Nolan film is considered something of an event. While he built his reputation by revitalizing the Batman franchise, the three films he made (Batman Begins (2005); The Dark Knight (2008); The Dark Knight Rises (2012) exist in their own universe and stand on their own. They're more a part of Nolan's own mythology, rather than Batman lore. So, we have a rarity: an auteur who makes big budget movies during a time it's considered a passé. Nolan revels in being both anachronistic and futuristic simultaneously. To quote the author:

His films are deeply personal fantasies lent urgency and conviction by their maker's need to view fantasy not as some second rate version of reality but its equal, as vital as oxygen. He dreams with his eyes open and asks that we do the same. (15)

Shone conducted a series of interviews with Nolan over the past 20 years, their first meeting during the promotion of Nolan's 2000 film Memento. Despite the generous access Nolan provided Shone on his creative process and views on everything from philosophy and art to his youth spent shuttling between America and the England, Shone finds Nolan to be an enigma, often inscrutable. It would be easy to compare Nolan to Stanley Kubrick since both were directors who managed to construct their own worlds and follow their own artistic preoccupations. But Nolan is far more outgoing with the public than Kubrick despite his mysterious reputation. Highly secretive about his projects, Nolan views cinema as a means to explore a myriad of philosophical, scientific, and historical possibilities. The book is especially useful for insight on Nolan's influences for each film ranging from the paintings of Francis Bacon, the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, and Victorian ideas of time.

Time and its many forms border on obsession in Nolan's filmography, as well as connections between perception and space. Whether it be the backwards narrative in Memento or the disorienting levels of dreamscape in his 2008 film Inception or the bending of spacetime in his 2014 film Interstellar. Packaging these weighty themes into blockbusters goes back to Nolan's fascination cinema history and the filmmakers who pushed the medium forward under the guise of being a mainstream filmmaker whether it be Spielberg or Lean. By this point in his career, Nolanesque has become its own adjective for a specific type of high concept film. 

A chapter is devoted to each film, Shone including details on the production and the genesis of each project. The James Bond franchise, in particular Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, influenced all the Batman movies. Crime films and noir influenced The Dark Knight, while the Charles Dickens classic A Tale of Two Cities played into the The Dark Knight Rises. Nolan avoids explaining his films, sheepishly claiming his first objective is to entertain, and shrugs off the idea his movies are intricate puzzles designed for endless Reddit discussions. 

The book includes photographs and illustrations to along with the text. The author's professional relationship with Nolan provides an inside view of Nolan who keeps living a low key lifestyle with his wife Emma Thomas (and producing partner) and four children (and continues collaborating with his brother Jonathan Nolan on scripts.) There's a lot of fascinating background on his working relationship with the film composer Hans Zimmer. I would highly recommend to any film devotee, even those who are not fans of Nolan who will gain insight from it. 

Marching with The Doors

 

Atlantic Privilege

From the Atlantic article 

"Where I Live, No One Cares About COVID"

Few articles provoke rage, but this one from the tweed wearing twit who bragged about flaunting restrictions (I spent 100s of hours in bars unmasked) and then engaged in gauche finger wagging (in oh so pristine prose) towards those concerned about covid. Did he lose a loved one? Watch them get really sick or die because of some entitled dumb ass like him. Well, I'm glad he's pleased with himself. Good for him. According to the article, this was the most embarrassing moment of his life:

"When I read such things, I experience the same secondhand embarrassment I felt upon witnessing an American tourist in Rome ask a waiter at a trattoria to remove the ashtray from the outdoor table at which the employee in question had just been smoking."

Seriously, fuck this guy.

Book Review: Strange Rites: New Religions For a Godless World by Tara Isabella Reed

Tara Isabella's Reed incisive work of non-fiction Strange New Rites: New Religions in a Godless Culture looks at how the digital world has changed spirituality in America and how it's now shaping culture and politics. Reed provides the historical context between conflicting impulses towards religious belief in America: the institutional vs the intuitional. Online life allows anyone to find meaning, purpose, community, and ritual among the like-minded. While the spectrum of belief emerging is wide ranging, they all share a fundamental distrust of institutions and are embracing alternative belief systems. These communities reflect both progressive and reactive impulses driving cultural discussions. 

The 21st Century has witnessed a dramatic rise in "nones" who check the "spiritual, but not religious" box on surveys. During the 2000s secularism and atheism appeared to be on the rise with bestselling polemics and viral YouTube clips by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins "destroying" religious thinkers in debates. Yet the past ten years have revealed there's a deep spiritual hunger among Millennials and Gen Z. The famous Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan predicted the global village we now see appearing in digital and real life. Reed writes of a new generation of "remixers" combining and blending various spiritualities to suit their own personal tastes. Practice traditional Catholic liturgy by morning, some meditation on your Headspace App after a stressful work day, and maybe experiment with Tarot cards over the weekend. 

What I like about the book is that it reads like Sci-Fi film from the 70s that never got made. We're now in a world where a pop culture phenomenon can evolve into religious ones based on Star Wars or Harry Potter. Reed traces the mass popularity of Harry Potter contributing to a rise in beliefs in magic, witchcraft, and astrology among millennials. In recent years Potter fandom even turned on author J.K. Rowling for her controversial views on gender, of course it's nothing new for fandoms to turn on a creator. Reed writes, "Stories now exist not to teach us or inform us, but serve us." (87). In other words, fan service. While online toxic fan culture has been written about ad nauseum, there are some compelling possibilities in this new landscape, a chapter is dedicated to the Sleep No More experience, an interactive version of Macbeth that gained popularity a decade ago. Blurring the lines between creator, audience, and culture does hold untapped possibilities. 

Tom Wolfe's famous essay on "The Third Great Awakening" took a satirical approach to new spiritual currents during the 1970s, in some ways we're living in a more streamlined version of it. SoulCycle promises physical fitness and inner piece, only asking in return your heart and soul - and money of course. The same with various self-care products whether Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop or hyper-masculine products hawked on extreme right-wing outlets. Dating Apps offering services catered to specific tastes make huge profits. There's always a profit angle whether selling customized beads or dropping $200 an hour for a therapy session with Dr. "clean up your room" himself - Jordan Peterson. Megachurch pastors make millions of tax-free dollars, Hollywood celebrities moonlight as entrepreneurial influencers. 

Yet it's not like the 1970s either. Tribes forming and coalescing on various web platforms are influencing and changing political culture. Reed sees three distinct groups: the social justice left, the atavistic right, and the libertarian minded "tech-utopians." The "Gamergate" controversy from 2014 when angry dudes launched online verbal attacks on female video game designers and journalists marked one of the first notable confrontations. "Gamergate" was mere preliminary to the 2016 election, hailed as a victory for reactionary forces everywhere raging at the social justice movement, yet at the same time gave the social justice movement a common enemy to resist. 

Reed identifies religious thinking since the three groups have specific visions of the future. Right wing atavists, in their white supremacist world view long for an apocalypse, wanting the world to revert to a pre-modern ethos as preferable to a technological/ gender fluid civilization. Techies believe advances will pave the way for immortality and a capitalist paradise, maybe even the colonization of Mars (it will be Total Recall).

Social justice activists hope for a future almost free of injustice based on race, gender, or sexuality. The "call out culture" of social justice, a mass attack on social media towards someone expressing regressive views is according to Reed, the mark of a religion. Maybe? While the atavistic right revels in being overtly racist and sexist, triggering and harassing progressives defines their own identity. Right wing violence has spilled into the real world from self proclaimed incels (young men who blame feminism for all of their problems) and conspiracy theory fueled white supremacists. The January 6, 2021 terrorist attack on the Capitol marked a dangerous escalation, a point when a reactionary movement embarks on political violence.

Much of the divide also comes down to the classic nature vs nurture debate, or biology vs sociology. Social activists believe (aligning them with liberals) identity is shaped by social conditioning, while those on the right believe biology is fate. Yet much of their reasoning rests on pseudoscience rooted in 19th Century racism. Silicon Valley technocrats are lost in Sci-Fi fantasies, oddly emulating the antagonists of those stories. 

I don't think Reed is equating social justice activism with right wing extremism, since the goals of each are quite different, but many make the equivalency, arguing social justice is just as illiberal as the right (I would argue that's a false equivalency) One is rooted in the darkest forces of the past, the social justice movement is a continuation of the Civil Rights Movement in that both fight against injustice. That doesn't mean any movement, even if working for just purposes, should be above criticism.

Reed seems both fascinated and anxious with the growing tribalism in America, pondering if fragmentation become the driving narrative of the coming decades.  Did the election of Biden signal a rebirth of the center? What does the center even look like in this swiftly evolving landscape? Class is often left out of the conversation, a subject Reed also avoided, but it does warrant more coverage in this sociological puzzle. While a lack of economic opportunity does translate into reactionary politics gaining traction, it also begs for alternatives to capitalism. There's so much static these days, Strange Rites is a work that rises above the static.

And Summer 2021 is Ending Playlist . . .

 1) That Summer Feeling - Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers

 2) The Ballad of El Goodo - Big Star

 3) Total Trash - Sonic Youth

 4) You Never Know - Wilco

 5) Fall Breaks and Back to Winter - The Beach Boys

Book Review: Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the '80s Changed Hollywood Forever by Nick De Semlyen

For better or worse the debut of Saturday Night Live changed American comedy, the 2019 book Wild and Crazy Guys provides a group portrait of the male performers (there really needs to be a book on the female cast of SNL who are mostly ignored here). The book's focused on Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, John Candy, Eddie Murphy, and Rick Moranis. For what the book lacks in providing insight on the era, it does provide a compelling rise and fall narrative. 

The debut of SNL, an outbranch of National Lampoon, is often cited as the moment boomer comedy went mainstream. Chevy Chase emerged as the star, his detached wisecracking persona and physical comedy propelled him to fame. Leaving the show in the middle of the second season, Chase embarked on a movie career. Chase looms large in the book, a difficult man but a constant presence throughout the Eighties. 

So much has been written on the early years of SNL, none more than on John Belushi. In the wake of Chase's departure (which he resented) Belushi raised to even greater heights of fame, at one point in 1978 simultaneously having a hit TV show, movie, and record album. His early death in 1982 from a drug overdose became a case study on how not to handle fame. While Belushi's exploits have been covered elsewhere, his quick fall continues to haunt those who knew him decades later. 

Meanwhile SCTV based in Toronto, more acerbic and polished than SNL, propelled the careers of many comedy stars. Avuncular John Candy and the cerebral comedy of Rick Moranis would also break into movies (among many others from SCTV). 

Steve Martin, a Californian, filled arenas with is "anti-comedy" stand up act and became a regular host on SNL. Comedy prodigy Eddie Murphy joined the show at age 19 and became the biggest star of them all. 

The shadow of Belushi hangs over the era despite his early departure. The 1980s became an age of excess and drugs, which often fueled the comedy. The fame and money that came to them tended to complicate their lives above all else. Chase became known for the amount of bombs he made, scoring the occasional hit. Bill Murray eschewed the spoils of fame and chose his projects with more caution. Martin grew tired of standup and embarked on a movie career, scoring a hit with the The Jerk, but would agonize over never being able to replicate the success of that film, although like Murray he graduated into more serious roles and became a critical darling. 

Murphy swiftly became the most versatile cast member on SNL and scored a string of early hit movies like 48 Hours and Trading Places. Ready to take over Hollywood, Murphy signed a major five picture deal with Paramount. He avoided drugs and alcohol, but totally embraced an extravagant movie star lifestyle. By the end of the 1980s, Murphy's career had also suffered after a string of misfires, mirroring the pattern of his peers, always trying to recapture the magic of the early years. 

Wild and Crazy Guys is built on anecdotes. Murray arrived on Ghostbusters after months of traveling the world filming his own ambitious film The Razor's Edge, tired and grouchy on the set but eventually taking to the material. During the filming of one of his most loved films Groundhog Day he was in the midst of a divorce and clashed with his director/friend Harold Ramis. John Candy was liked by everyone, generous to a fault. Tired of the game, Moranis retired from acting and now lives the quiet life. There's also the pariah of John Landis who directed so many comedies of the era, he's one of the book's primary raconteurs.

A breezy and engaging read, Wild and Crazy Guys covers a bygone age of comedy, which for all its faults, will continued to be studied.