Book Review: Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 novel, Mother Night, dealt with the questions he tackled later in his more widely read novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Questions of war, morality, and the 20th century stand front and center in both works.  Vonnegut's like the mad professor enticing you into his office and then proceeds to rip apart the fabrics of your belief system.  

Mother Night's protagonist, Howard W. Campbell, is an American native who has spent most of his adult life in Germany.  He's well known in the German theater as a crowd pleasing, apolitical playwright. While Campbell feels some antipathy towards the Nazis, he also acknowledges they are just "people after all."  Before the war, he is approached by an American spy who recruits him to provide information to the Allies. In time, Campbell rises to the top in Goebbels' propaganda ministry by way of his radio broadcasts endorsing the Nazi philosophies of racism and paranoia.

Throughout the book, Vonnegut often vears into meta-fictional asides.  In one instance he summarizes Campbell's play, A Nation of Two, which imagined a couple in wartime Germany who put all their politics aside and pledge loyalty to nobody (or idea) but their love towards each other.  If only things were that simple.  For the world Vonnegut paints, there's no middle ground between embracing a cause and standing completely outside of it.  During the Second World War any thinking person faced the temptation to stand back and scoff at fascism, communism, and democracy with equal amounts of cynical resignation.  But only if one had the luxury of distance.  No matter what we do or don't do; history's footsteps have a way of catching up.  

When intellectuals try to rationalize war you know some bad stuff is about to go down. Ezra Pound invented modernism and championed the careers of many great writers, but also evangelized for Mussolini.  Ivy League educated WASPS masterminded the Vietnam War.  Or think of all the tracts written to justify the "War on Terror" with titles likes "The End of Evil."  Even Albert Einstein, one of the greatest spokesman for peace, had a part in creating the A-bomb. Modern history thrives on moral relativity and that's an issue, possibly the most worthwhile, for 21st century literature to take up.  

Mother Night begs many questions: What is the use of art?  Does being "cultured" make you a moral person?  A better person?  Not really, I believe Vonnegut would say.  There's something Fascistic about making grand all embracing statements about anything whether one be critic, historian, or philosopher. 

Campbell's belief in art fails him at every turn as the Nazis use him to espouse an aesthetic of purity and hatred.  Art did not prevent the holocaust nor did love prove enough to save Campbell's loved ones.  As Vonnegut wrote, "The hare of history once more overtakes the tortoise of art" (261).  Nazi propaganda helped Germans rationalize their crimes against humanity. As part of the "spin" machine, Campbell can never distance himself from the moral ambiguities of his world.  In the end, Who are we anyway? The identity by which the world knows us? Or what we believe to be the truth in our minds?  Haunting, Haunting, questions. . 

Farewell Breaking Bad

Remember the chorus to the Malcolm in the Middle theme, "You're not the boss of me now!" Prophetic.   As a postmodern family sitcom, Malcolm brought the irreverence and goofiness of The Simpsons to the live action format.  Bryan Cranston played the father Hal as an overgrown child. When the show ended after six seasons, it seemed Cranston's take on the sitcom father would pass into the TV ether as a Trivial Pursuit question. Far from it.

Few saw Walter White coming.*  Over the course of five seasons, Bryan Cranston played a mild mannered chemistry teacher who transformed into a ruthless drug lord of the American Southwest (or from Mr. Chips to Scarface in the words of the show's creator, Vince Gilligan).  A grim cancer diagnosis drove Mr. White to cook crystal meth to provide for his family before he succumbed to the Big C. Along the way, he partnered with a former student Jesse Pinkman to produce the wonder drug.  Walt also contended with Hank, his macho brother-in-law who also happened to be a DEA agent.  At the beginning, his wife Skyler remained clueless about her husband resorting to criminal activity, but eventually found out and faced some tough decisions of her own.  With each season, Walt matched wits with new antagonists who threatened his burgeoning meth empire.

Protagonists of TV shows rarely evolve like characters in a novel.**  J.R. Ewing remained a greedy oil man throughout the entire run of Dallas and Archie Bunker stayed frozen in time as the lovable bigot.  The gang from Cheers rarely ventured outside the friendly confines of their bar. The characters on Seinfeld never transcended their stone cold narcissism.  Even a more complex character like Tony Soprano pretty much remained the same man throughout the Sopranos (an amoral gangster modern psychiatry failed).  As a viewer, it can be comforting to usually know how characters will react in situations.  But in the past decade TV has embraced embraced complex story lines with some real character development.  While Breaking Bad will be grouped among these shows, I think it's importance will persist for other reasons.

Breaking Bad premiered on January 2008, as the Bush era came to a grim conclusion.  By the end of 2008 America faced economic collapse.  In a coincidence, the government shut down the day after the finale aired.  During those years, rhetoric crisscrossed social networks about the 99 percent getting screwed by the one percent. Class proved pivotal during the 2012 election between the venture capitalist and the community organizer.  In such an unforgiving political climate: What happens when one takes business into their own hands and refuses to play by the rules?  

Walt's new occupation brought him a pride and prestige he never attained as a teacher.  Like Michael Corleone, Walt wanted to save his family and build his power, but lost both in the process. Nevertheless, he did gain a self-reliance; a sense of controlling his own fate.  Although we celebrate Walt's triumphs over some repugnant people including psychopathic cartel leaders and viscous modern day Nazis, he made his own moral compromises along the way. Audiences can emphasize with Walt's dilemma in the political maelstrom of 21st century America.

Mr. White now stands as television's great anti-hero.  Anti-heroes were celebrated in 1970s cinema used eccentricity, rage, and intelligence against a system up to its neck in hypocrisy.  Jack Nicholson set the tone with his performances in Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  Nicholson's anti-heroes were loners who dropped out of the American mainstream.  Now we've entered new territory where the everyman feels the whole world aligned against him.  Breaking Bad spoke to that anxiety.

All the credit goes to the entire cast of Breaking Bad for creating a modern day fable steeped in the tradition of the West. Every character had depth.  The third to last episode, "Ozymandias" stands one of the most intense hours ever aired on television.  The final two episodes had a biblical sense of justice as Walt searched for redemption in the existential void he created for himself and the others in his life.  Rock on, Heisenberg.  

*Cranston starred in the X-Files episode "Drive" written by Vince Gilligan where he played a man pushed to the edge due to secret government experiments conducted on his family.  The part win him the role of Walter White.

** A generalization with many exceptions.

A Blurb for Leonard Maltin: The Book

Every year, usually around September, my family made one of our most important book purchases of the year: the Leonard Maltin film guide.  As a kid, and even to this day, the book has the aura of final judgement.  It's like the bible.  The book lists every film ever made (not really), rates them from one to four stars, and includes a pithy capsule review with all the harsh finality of a decree from some divine source.  I'd like to imagine that every year Leonard Maltin treks to some mystical mountain and the book materializes from some mysterious source. That's why the book never leaves my sort of coffee table.  

21st Century Moviegoing

At a recent press conference, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg predicted the major
 studios are doomed to crash if they continue bankrolling gargantuan summer blockbusters. They see ticket prices going as high as $150!  Thus the question is raised: Why bother going at all these days?


First of all, tickets are expensive enough, but concessions are another story.  I know theaters depend on concessions to make profits, but the prices amount to outright theft. And theaters already charge higher rates for films shown in IMAX and 3D.  But if I had to choose between watching Ironman 3 or Jaws 3-D - I'll go with Jaws 3-D anytime.

Manners and politeness are another casualty of digital age.  I've witnessed some maddening behaviors in the movie house: people taking off their shoes, treating the place like they own it, cellphones and texting, pretentious commentaries from self-appointed film experts (I'm not sure who's worse 16 years olds or middle aged couples).   During Looper,  a husband spent the whole movie translating the plot to his clueless wife.  

So, why bother going?  Who wants to brave all the rudeness and sense of entitlement? These days one can easily watch movies at home without all the distractions. I grew up during the heyday of the VHS boom when a video stores appeared on every block.  If you couldn't go you could always wait for it to come out on video. Those with the means can create their own "home theaters." 

Cultural commentators used to pontificate on the movie theater as the church of the 20th century.  In many respects, that's true.  Where all else could people of varying backgrounds come together and share a common experience for two hours?  Not many.  The power of cinema is its ability to allow a spectator to feel all sorts of things.  When you're in the theater you cannot stop the movie or hit the pause button.  Nope, you pay the money and sacrifice a few hours of your life to sit in the dark to experience something oddly familiar and new.

A NY Times article celebrated the Midnight showing as a truly unique theater experience. Fans of a franchise can gather at the midnight premier and enjoy their film with others who share their passion for a particular series.  In a midnight screening of Star Trek: Into Darkness I attended, the crowd sat in silent reverence for the entire film.  Only the die-hards will head to the theater at Midnight on a Thursday.  And what's better than being alone together with friends?

Recently, I experienced the drawbacks of home viewing.  Watching a DVD of Dr. Zhivago at home left me cold.  These days, with all the distractions around us, it's almost impossible to sit through a three hour movie. So, what happens?  You watch the film in segments.  Movies, unlike books, are designed to be experienced in one sitting. Sometime I need to make a list of films I want to see on the big screen.  Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey would top my list.

So, how can the movie going experience be salvaged?  For starters, it would be nice to see more revivals of classic films on the big screen and I don't just mean the classics, but b-movie classics as well (like Jaws 3-D).  Maybe we need another Roger Corman to gather young talent and allow them to make quality films on a limited budget (so many crucial filmmakers got their start with Corman's American International including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich to mention a few. Or let's see what some of the most skillful directors today can do on a limited budget.  No matter what happens theaters will endure because the experience remains truly unique.

Book Review: 11/22/63 By Stephen King

Stephen King's 11/22/63 begins with an intriguing premise: What would America look like if JFK had lived?  Would history have taken a different course? The question has long haunted the baby boom generation who lived through the agony of Vietnam.  Many believe America never recovered from that awful day in Dallas.  Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK added more fuel to the fire by suggesting the assassination amounted to nothing less than a military coup d'etat.  King's novel, like most of his long fiction, hits some rough spots in the middle, but recovered as it moved towards a gripping climax.

Jake Epping, the tale's protagonist, teaches High School English.  As a character, Jake's an all around good guy who finds himself caught in extraordinary circumstances.  When his friend Al, who owns the local diner, introduces him to a time portal, he convinces Jake to travel back in time to save Kennedy from Oswald (the time portal always goes back to October 1958).  He quickly learns the travails of time travel and the dangerous consequences of meddling in past events (the butterfly effect).  Even when Jake tries to prevent the murder of his friend's family he learns nature will resist in the most uncanny ways.

The first half of the novel allows King to revisit some familiar territory as returns to Derry, Maine, the locale of of his well known novel It (Jake even interacts with some characters from that story).  King does a great job of illustrating some subtle differences between the 1950s and 2000s. But the novel doesn't romanticize the past either, as Jake witnesses firsthand the shame of segregation and racism.  Also, post-war America remained painfully close minded about the place of women in society.  Women were expected to bear the humiliation of bad marriages and their presence in the workplace remained strictly in a servile capacity.

When the setting shifts to Texas the novel loses some steam. Jake finds a teaching job in a small town outside of Dallas and falls in love with the kindly school librarian, Sadie.  Sadie's a bit too good to be true at times, but she adds some poignancy to the tragic arc of Jake's story. When he plays detective the novel gets caught up in trivial details surrounding Oswald's life in Dallas.  Epping follows Oswald to learn if he acted alone or was the "patsy" of a much larger conspiracy.  Another novel, Libra by Don Delillo, handles Oswald's tale in a far more effective way by portraying him as an ignorant kid exploited by a nefarious intelligence community.  In 11/22/63, he's a hateful, one dimensional drone.

Despite the meandering lead up to the climax, the final 150 pages are tension filled and thought provoking.  Without revealing too much, there is something to be said for avoiding hero worship when it comes to Kennedy.  In King's version of time travel, every decision made, no matter how mundane, will have consequences.  And when you start changing major events in history things can quickly spiral out of control.

Fans of King's fiction will find much in common with his 1979 novel, The Dead Zone, in which the protagonist suffers a brain injury. After coming out of a coma he has the power to see into the future.  In time, he learns a man destined to become President will trigger a nuclear war.  The story asks, Would such knowledge justify murder? The David Cronenberg starring Christopher Walken stands as one of the best adaptations of a King novel.

From a historical standpoint, King challenges his audience to be wary of nostalgia.  Yes, an exhaustive list of challenges loom for 21st century America.  We are reminded of those constantly.  At the risk of sounding too optimistic, it is useful to think of the progress America has made in the past 50 years - and to consider how things could always be way, way worse. In other words, don't let anyone tell you live in a time of decline and moral erosion - those arguments always stem from false premises and a selective memory. Instead, remember Kennedy by living up to his words "ask not what you're country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

Heartless Bastards Live - August 4, 2013

Don't be misled by their name: this band has heart.  Erika Wennerstrom, the band's lead singer and songwriter, has a powerful and versatile rock and roll voice.  At the Greaves Concert Center within Northern Kentucky  University, coming off a performance at Lollapolozza in Chicago the night before, the bastards played two sets for a hometown crowd.  The majority of their songs came from their past two albums, The Mountain (2009) and Arrow (2012).

Each band member made a separate entrance: Dave Colvin gave a drum solo, then bass player Jesse Elbaugh added a bass riff, then some lead guitar from Mark Nathan, and finally Erika taking over on lead vocals as they played their hit single "Parted Ways."  Other excellent moments included a song about Dayton, "Skin and Bones," old school rock in "Got to Have Rock and Roll," and the bluesy rock of "Sway."

Heartless Bastard's sound often gets compared with the classic rock of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Faces, and Tom Petty.  Their music encompasses folk-rock, country, blues, and elements of punk. A no nonsense stage presence conveys one thing: they are all about the music.  On Arrow, there's a Western influence as well with songs evoking the West of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone, especially on "The Arrow that Killed the Beast." Their recent output has gone for a more epic sound evoking the grandeur of America.

These days, despite all the choices of music available, the power of rock continues to endure. Heartless Bastards would be at home in almost any era.  Their straight up rock and roll and unpretentious stage presence will win over any crowd.  Their best work is yet to come. 

Never Travel Far Without a Little Big Star

Rock and Roll is replete with its own mythology   For example, there's the one about the obscure band who made a few albums no one appreciated at the time, but ended up influencing countless others who went on to much greater success.  Big Star stands as one of those bands who laid the groundwork, but received none of the spoils.

From 1972-1975, Big Star made three albums for the Memphis label, Ardent Records. Chris Bell and Alex Chilton, both rising stars in Memphis music scene, formed Big Star in 1971. As a teenager Chilton had been part of The Box Tops who had number of chart topping hits, most famously, "The Letter."  The first Big Star album, #1 Record, featured a splendid assortment of British infused rock owing more to the Beatles than anyone else (apparently in 1972 the Beatles were considered passe). The first track, "Feel," sounds like an outtake from Abbey Road with lyrics full of angst, "feel like I'm dyin/I'm never gonna live again." Thematically, "Feel" set the tone for most of of their music: emotional turmoil, unrequited love, and wounded romanticism.  Bell's, "the Ballad of El Goodo," is a melancholy epic in which he pledges "to fight on against long odds."  The third song, "In the Street," later made famous as the theme to That 70's show, blends Byrds like harmonies with a tinge of Southern soul.  "Thirteen," one of most fragile love songs ever recorded, includes lyrics like "won't you tell your dad to get off my back/tell him what we said about paint in black" displays a tenderness rare in pop songs.  Another highlight, written by bassist Andy Hummell, "The India Song," imagines India as a paradise of indolence, "drinking gin and tonic and playing a grand piano."  Between its Lennon/McCartney harmonies, Byrds riffs, and delightfully inane lyrics, #1 Record stands as a classic reverberating through the decades.

Unfortunately, the Bell-Chilton partnership lasted for only one album.  Resenting Chilton's growing influence on the band, Bell embarked on a solo career.  But Big Star soldiered on as a trio.  Their second album, Radio City, in many ways surpasses the first in terms of scope and ambition. Listening to the first track, "O My Soul," overwhelms the senses with its ramshackle guitar sound evoking frustrated desires with Chilton screaming "dying to see you/i'll knock off your doors."  There's a harsher and less compromising attitude throughout Radio City as if they feel fate closing in on them.  On "Mod Lang" Chilton finds refuge in booze as he declares in slurred speech, "I can't be what you want me to be." Other amazing tracks include "She's a Mover," "September Gurls," and" "Daisy Glaze."

Rock critics loved Big Star, but due to poor distribution and marketing from Ardent they failed to sell albums.  Chilton's refusal to tour didn't help matters.  Nevertheless, he made a follow up to Radio City that's known as both Sister Lovers and Third.  Some debate whether Third qualifies as a Big Star album at all since only Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens played on it.  Third sounds far more experimental.  The lyrics weave between despair and absurdity. Strange juxtapositions occur throughout with the pro-Christian "Jesus Christ" to a cover of Lou Reed's "Femme Fatale." Peter Buck of REM cited Third as one of the chief influences on their music and it has it's own cult following.  Third stands as a bizarre, but fitting, epilogue to Big Star.

For most of the 1980s, Big Star albums were out of print and forgotten by all except a few devoted fans.  Sadly, Chris Bell died in 1978 at age 27 in an auto accident just as he was finishing work on a solo album, which included the magnificent, "I am the Cosmos." Interest in Big Star revived as "alternative bands" like REM, The Replacements, Teenage Fan Club, and many, many others sang their praises to the four guys from Memphis.  Paul Westerberg, in a song entitled "Alex Chilton" declared "he never travels far without a little Big Star." In 1993, the surviving members performed at the University of Missouri and came together for one more album in 2005 properly entitled, In Space.  Chilton and Hummell both passed away in 2010.  Jody Stephens has continued to perform through the years, notably as the drummer for Golden Smog.

In many ways, Big Star foreshadowed the rise of indie or alternative rock way before those terms entered the culture.  Their music favored the underdogs.  It's the type of record that sounds great at full blast on a Saturday afternoon or on low volume at 2am on a Wednesday morning.