Finally saw "Barbie" on Max and loved it. Here's why...

We finally watched "Barbie" on Max last night as we had tried twice after its release to see it, but missed out due to over-crowdedness with no decent seats, and once, when we walked out after five minutes as too many kids were crying and screaming in a matinee. I mean, we are old people, now, right?

 

My take on the film was that it was a wonderfully crafted film from the dialogue to the sets to the cinematography and direction. I found it a brilliant film not about feminism per se, but gender in the "gender theory" way. It was at least as much about Ken first being confined in Barbieland, but then confined in a different way when he instituted patriarchy. It is also how we see where patriarchy also creates hierarchies among men, but they know they are still "better" than women.

What I found myself grasping toward, but needed our daughter to take me there, was this was actually a "coming-of-age" story for both Barbie and Ken. The review below this post from a young woman writer from India nailed what our daughter explained when I asked her how it was a "coming-of-age" story for both Ken and Barbie. I said she should write up that explanation as I had not seen this. She replied, and I paraphrase, "Dad, if you research the Internet, you'll find something. I saw it, but I was not the only one saying this to all these people who only looked at the film from the 'girl power' angle." She is again correct. This young woman's review below nails it and I urge all to read.

What I was most impressed with the film was director Gerwig's recognition her desire to tell the story of Barbie dolls' relationships to young girls meant she had to always run it by the corporate suits. The film was ultimately green-lighted to sell more plastic dolls and plastic accessories, which was a short term consequence at best. Yet, Gerwig directed a film that should be studied in sociology classes--and not just film-as-literature classes. Gerwig got away with telling a story that one as an adult should first and foremost transcend mindless consumerism. This was even more so than the "Lego Movie," which was itself subversive in that Cheap Trick song, "Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away." But more than that, and most importantly, "Barbie" is a film about human liberation. It is a film about telling us not to confine ourselves to cultural expectations based upon our genitalia. Greta Gerwig and her husband Noah Baumbach crafted a primary color filled and fun series of sets--and a great trip through west Los Angeles area--for an enlightened, yet humor-filled hopeful story for us striving to be better human beings all around. This point also appeared in the film's re-evaluating the meaning of all of the other Barbie dolls that were tried and which failed to make a public impact. That last was definitely brilliant because it was a re-imagination of these now discarded toys through a sociological lens. In that regard, too, the character arcs of Weird Barbie and especially Alan were structured in this idea of giving an individual yet societal meaning to plastic toys on our own imaginations and our own psyches.

With regard to specific scenes in the film, I loved how Gerwig had Helen Mirren as narrator break the fourth wall completely and critically, saying "Note to filmmaker" that maybe having Margo Robbie try to say she is not pretty is actually impossible as Margo Robbie is our era's personification of pretty. That made me laugh loudest in the film, I think. Gerwig also allowed Rhea Perlman to kindly and poignantly tell the real story of Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel and creator of Barbie, including two mentions of the IRS actions against her and the co-founders that ended in her (and their) conviction for tax fraud--and even her breast cancer which ended with a radical double mastectomy. There were multiple instances in the dialogue, which was fast paced in that Preston Sturges manner, where a Chomkyesque analysis of society came through. 

However, as is, alas, usual, amidst the popcorn and soda, and corporate marketing, too many Americans got focused on the "girl power" Sheryl Sandberg "lean in" feminist neoliberalism against what were most definitely atavistic, hateful, reactionary responses of the FoxNews media machine. This film was and is so, so much, more.

Everyone who hated this film, from the right wingers (again mostly men) to leftists too focused on this being produced within a big budget corporate environment, missed the overall brilliance of this film. I think right wingers really need psychiatric help as their responses were so filled with violent and disturbed emotional reactions which revealed, deep down, they emotionally understand these types of analyses. However, they are afraid to engage with that type of analysis for fear of becoming what they fear. Behind right wing violent bravado is fear, and the loathing that arises from that fear. But let's not stop there. 

For those who thought this was essentially about "girl power," such persons (mostly women I think) need to interrogate this much further. They miss the part about gender theory that says patriarchy limits men's conceptions of themselves as human beings, even as it exults men. There is definitely "girl power" in America Ferrera's now iconic speech, where I wanted to stand up and applaud for how many of the levels women suffer even today in our supposedly more enlightened society. But, we need as humans to go beyond mere feminist neoliberalism and recognize liberation is to see beyond gender, genitalia, and physical power. 

As for those lefties who simply accept the corporate assumptions, what I would say is get yourselves more imagination. "Barbie" gives us a way to engage in the important conversations. Gerwig miraculously and mischievously got this by the corporate suits, even the women Board of Directors at Mattel who were left out of the film, as the otherwise odious and shallow Bill Maher noted. I think the reason there were no women was the attack on women neoliberals, and their complicity in continuing the patriarchy in its main form, would have been too obvious--to the point of their not approving them being exposed. Bill Maher, of course, is too shallow to see that dynamic and went for the cheap shot.

Here is the review I spoke of from Mahi Goyal. 

The Fifth Circuit is not interested in free speech, but only owning libs

I have to say, I finally got to read the 5th Circuit opinion, thanks to Talking Points Memo (TPM), granting a preliminary injunction against a variety of government agencies from communicating with FB, Twitter, and YouTube. I found the court decision terribly unpersuasive because there is nothing in the governmental communications rising to the level of "significant encouragement" that amounts to a "coercive threat" from government officials. That the individual government officials were active in the court's eyes only showed me the judges are not used to the level of, and rhetoric people use in, email exchanges that go on these days when any group or institution is facing a hot issue. In that context, it was stunning to me that the rhetoric from the government officials was not anywhere near where the rhetoric from Twitter's pre-Musk-takeover critics made it sound. 

More significantly, the court provided no evidence of the government saying to the platforms it was going to take away FB/YouTube's right to operate, the way US government officials strongly implied or sometimes stated directly to William Paley, CEO and Chair of the Board of CBS, that CBS' license would be removed through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its taking a stand against Joe McCarthy or airing a report on how the Pentagon is tied up with corruption within the military-industrial complex. The most the court could say existed was once--once!--an official said they needed to "review....options" when the official was exasperated with a social media platform company's "too slow" or nonresponse. There is no showing from the court there was any further move, and, what is lacking in the decision, are higher ups or anyone with authority saying, "Oh boy!  The government's gonna shut us down or put us out of business if we don't comply!"

What is outrageous to me is how the court did not even try to distinguish the previous case law it cited that went against its own reasoning, including Senator Elizabeth Warren literally threatening a governmental investigation and recommending a lawsuit, through the Justice Department and the FTC, against Amazon for not agreeing with her being found to be NO VIOLATION of Amazon's First Amendment constitutional rights. Other cases the judges cited, with facts showing more direct or clear threats than in the case they were being asked to decide, led to NO finding of any violation of the First Amendment.  The case the appellate judges seemed to find most analogous was a horse racing agency head in Louisiana which was part of a private entity's decision to remove someone from a horse racing outfit. But there was direct government hand-in-glove evidence in that case, and if we learned anything from the Twitter Files, it was that Twitter's people above those responding to government emails and calls were really not afraid to disagree with the government at all. 

The judges seem to think the government officials implying they might have to go to Congress to change laws is a threat in an environment where open 24/7 coverage abounds is laughable. It is also laughable where the Republicans in Congress were threatening the social media companies for agreeing at all with Biden officials, so the social media companies could have easily said "Stick it!" to the Biden officials.In that context, it was delicious to read the judge's admission that Biden's people were following rules put in place and USED by the Trump administration. They didn't mention, too, how Trump personally tried to get Twitter to shut down an individual singer or another singer's wife. So much for free speech from Trump and his fans. Further, the "Hunter Biden laptop story" was one where the NY Post initial story was shut down from Twitter and FB for one day, and then restored, and how that story went around so much that it is estimated 53 million saw the post in a ten day period in October 2020 (let alone other media coverage). I mean, really, did any voter not know about that story? 

To give credit where credit is due, though, were there instances of changes in algorithms that removed content that was not in violation of the social media companies' revised rules, which again were not shown to be coerced or anything close to that? Sure, say the judges, and I believe them on that. But what the judges don't say is how those people were re-platformed most of the time, if not all the time. In this context, I find it telling of the judges' biases that missing from their decision is the fact showing how many times and at what rate the government requests to Twitter went unheeded or rejected after Twitter's internal meetings. That came out in the hearings, which I admit I can't find the exact link--as I remember being so surprised to hear that in clips I saw of Twitter executives about how many times they rejected the government's requests. Also, let's remember how we learned Twitter gave in to Trump's usual garbage when it went against their own policies, which severely undermined the partisan-based argument Republicans and Matt Taibbi were making, and one Twitter publicly regretted. 

Incidentally, does anyone not wonder how it is that, since Elon Musk took control of Twitter, the social media giant appears to have been more compliant with government requests to remove content than under previous CEO Jack Dorsey?  Irony alert to Musk Fans.

What was really awful in the decision is the judges' discussion of the FBI. All they showed is the FBI, in the 2020 election, was on the lookout for Russian hack and troll farms. The judges' decision never bothers to explain how that activity, and sometimes communications with the social media companies, had any language in the communications that would lead the social companies to believe they were in legal danger in not complying with requests to remove the information, or really most of the time, ridiculously wrong information, such as political operatives intentionally posting wrong times of the election day and wrong times of when polls opened or closed. They simply state that was the case, and don't even think there could be any justification for a government official to contact the social media outlet and say, Let's get that removed so people are not misled. 

As I read through this opinion, I wondered from time to time how William Paley and Lenny Bruce would view the actions of the government the judges were citing. I eventually thought, "Wow. Those two guys would just laugh at this!" I am not saying that should be the legal standard, but the court decision cites to multiple cases that were far more direct where there was no relief, and tried to use factual situations in cases where there was direct action as in the Louisiana horse racing agency.

I have no idea what the six right wing justices of the US Supreme Court will do with this. I used to think of myself as a major First Amendment advocate and free speech absolutist. In the Internet Age, the two main theories behind my position, ones which free speech supporters have said for nearly 100 years, have been undermined. The first is: "We live in an information marketplace where good information will drive out the bad information, so don't get the government involved." Well, that certainly has not worked out that way very well, has it? Second, the reason for First Amendment absolutism is the assumption that "the people" will be able to discern lies from reasonable levels of truth. Well, we see how people are unable to discern differences between an opinion and fact, an argument versus a conclusion, and discern where language is emotional and language which is logical. Worse, despite having a vast library in the palm of their hands, and yet, too many people fall for every meme without any checking or God forbid, researching. Thus, my Jeffersonian free speech arguments, which I have so believed for so long, have faced a direct challenge for which I have yet to find a conclusion that can be categorized in any truly consistent manner.

What I do know is there are 2020 election lies that tens of millions of adult Americans continue to believe. I do know of people who suffered near death or death because they didn't take the COVID vaccine, because yahoos spread so many lies and misunderstood fears--notwithstanding strong evidence that not taking the vaccine leads to higher death rates (the Johnson & Johnson vaccine did appear to have a 5-8% chance of causing someone to develop Guillen-Barre syndrome, though, which I can chalk up to the government not being harder on J&J when the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were already out there and had no such level of rates). And let's remember there are people who are actively promoting lies of various types to, in the words of Steve Bannon, "flood the zone."

First Amendment jurisprudence has still not caught up to the modern social media age, nor are our courts even prepared, due to their economic right wing biases generally, to evaluate context and the significance of corporate media ownership. This decision was cynical in not attacking the private company decisions, and making it sound like the poor social media companies, behemoths all, were being coerced. It is ultimately a decision that makes one think they are standing up to fascism, but they are using anti-fascistic philosophical values and language in the service of promoting people who more likely, in my not-humble opinion would set up a fascist form of government if they had the opportunity. Does that include all of the plaintiffs in this case? No. I see the doctor activists and other activists as sorta flaky and leftover hippies, not fascist, and therefore far more likely libertarian. The State AGs from the states which brought the action, and the Gateway Pundit, however, are enough to scare me if THEY were ever in control of our national government.

Justice Harlan's dissent should not be ceded to the right wing judges

Sad to say, but Jammele Bouie, in a recent NY Times op-ed, has overstated his point regarding Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), just as Roberts and a host of conservatives continue to overstate Harlan the other way. Bouie, however, is definitely closer to reality about the limits of Harlan's dissent and why it should not be treated as a sacred type of document. Bouie is also correct Harlan was no friend of Thaddeus Stevens' worldview, opposed the Reconstruction Amendments when they were enacted, and was at best paternalistic towards African-Americans. Further, Harlan was, sadly, a late 19th Century economic liberal, who did not at that point, believe in the government providing many positive economic benefits that would also constrain private power. 

Bouie links to what purports to be Harlan's full dissent. However, the link does not contain the full dissent, as it misses the opening of Harlan's dissent where his recitation of the facts shows more fealty to the reality of the imposition of segregation than the majority opinion. While the full text is, admittedly, not as important to Bouie's argument, I believe the dissent is best read in full from start to finish. 

I initially posted what I am about to recite at FB. However, I realized I should post it more permanently here as I am seeing too much easy assent to Bouie's position. Where I disagree with Bouie is that Harlan's dissent has important statements which are of use and value to those of us who oppose the right wing's jurisprudence and wish to re-affirm what many progressives wish to see in terms of criminal justice reforms and affirmative action in jobs and educational opportunities. More specifically, this reading of Harlan I propose is helpful for those of us concerned with the 13th Amendment loophole, which leads to much higher incarceration rates and limits on freedom for African-Americans, and to a lesser but still bad extent, Hispanics, through today, starting with the misdemeanor system referred to in the History.com link about the "loophole."

Also, Harlan's language regarding the 14th Amendment shows, beyond John Roberts' crabbed view of that amendment, there is, in fact, an ameliorative intent to directly assist African-Americans that would have allowed for an argument that Harlan may have later agreed to regarding the need for diversity and affirmative action--just as Harlan, in 1908, went against his 19th Century economic pro-capitalist liberalism in holding, as constitutional, an Oregon state law that set maximum hours for women in the workplace--based upon the famous Brandeis brief citing to sociological and economic studies of the time. See: Mueller v. Oregon (1908). Harlan had been a confirmed neo-classical capitalist in the last decade or so of the 19th Century, and against government intervention, but came around in that case based upon reading the sociological information. One may wince at the sexism inherent in how the justices reached that decision in Mueller, however, but it was, as Frances Perkins and Florence Kelley recognized at the time, any port in the storm of the era known as the Gilded Age Court. NOTE: Kelley hired Brandeis for the Mueller case.

 

The following is language from the Harlan dissent I find most interesting, plus my response to Harlan's language, which shows why I believe Bouie is wrong to cede Harlan to Roberts, Thomas, and the other judicial reactionaries who control the US Supreme Court:

HARLAN DISSENT: "The Thirteenth Amendment does not permit the withholding or the deprivation of any right necessarily inhering in freedom. It not only struck down the institution of slavery as previously existing in the United States, but it prevents the imposition of any burdens or disabilities that constitute badges of slavery or servitude. It decreed universal civil freedom in this country. This court has so adjudged." (Emphasis added)

MJF RESPONSE: Hmmm....maybe the entire set misdemeanor laws that were enacted after the US Civil War to ensnare African-Americans, and which continue to ensnare African-Americans far more than white folks, may be constitutionally evaluated under Harlan's pronouncement--especially as the right wing are going to continue to cite Harlan's dissent in Plessy as though it was the new law of the land. 

HARLAN DISSENT: "The words of the (14th) amendment, it is true, are prohibitory, but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity, or right, most valuable to the colored race -- the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored -- exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, Lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy, and discriminations which are steps towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race." (Emphasis added)

MJF RESPONSE: Read the above carefully and note what I have emphasized. Catch the phrase "necessary implication of a positive...right" with the contextual term "unfriendly" with respect to the word "legislation"? Notice a right to a lessening of the security of their enjoyment of the right which others enjoy or discriminations which are steps towards erducing them to the condition of a subject race. Clarence Thomas and the majority opinion want the world to believe the Freedmen's Bureaus set up to directly help African-American slaves after the Civil War were class based, not raced based. The dissent demolishes that argument, as race was certainly on the minds of both advocates for and advocates against the Freedmen's Bureaus. One may wish to consult this monograph to see why the dissent is correct. The fact that a few lighter skinned people got the benefit does not change the main point of an intent that was about race. To think Harlan himself missed the ameliorative intent of the Freedmen's Bureau to positively help African-Americans is to be naive to a cynical degree, particularly because there is direct evidence Harlan supported President Andrew Johnson's racially based veto of the Freedmen's Bureau bill, which went into effect after Congressional override of Johnson's veto. See: page 76, Beth Loren's biography of Harlan, John Marshall Harlan: The Last Whig Justice (1992, U of Kentucky Press). 

Further, Thomas, for decades, has argued there is a stigma attached to any African-American or Hispanic who attains an Ivy League degree or gets a managerial position, as if anyone thinks there is any appreciable stigma for a legacy admit into an Ivy League college and gaining a degree--or gains a top management position. Or if somehow the supposed stigma must override the need to get into the elite college or management position in the first place. Too often, this concern over stigma is used to assuage right wing guilt that their overall intent is, in fact, to deprive present or future African-Americans and Hispanics of the ability to gain access to elite education and promotions at work. It is, in my view, a bad faith argument for right wingers to focus on some supposed stigma in order to judicially overturn Harvard's and UNC's programs as they relate to African-Americans and Hispanics. It shows right wingers intuitively understand that they need to get around Harlan's point that "friendly" pro-African-American legislation may still be consistent with an overall drive for equality under the law. 

Yes, with respect to Asian-Americans, it was a close call, but let's understand right wingers use Asian-Americans they way they use homeless veterans when opposing any laws designed to help immigrants or undocumented workers. In short, the argument about stigma is a rhetorical device, not a true concern. It is why most Asian-American groups filed a brief supporting Harvard and UNC's diversity admissions systems. Also, while a majority of Asian-Americans oppose affirmative action, likely based upon media presentations, Asian-American students at elite campuses support affirmative action as they see up close how those who are arguing against affirmative action are not comrades in the struggle for equality and non-discrimination.

The point is this: Harlan clearly recognized legislation regarding issues of racism in our society can be friendly or unfriendly to African-Americans, and recognized a Congressional law or private sector program that has a stated good faith intent to help African-Americans may be appropriate and constitutional under the 14th Amendment. Harlan, in the tradition of John Marshall (and James Madison), also recognized there are by "necessity, implied rights" in constitutional pronouncements, including the 14th Amendment. See my blog post which cites Marshall and Madison stating there are implied powers as well as express powers delegated to the US Congress. Once this is understood, one sees how Harlan could be cited to support affirmative action, notwithstanding the soaring rhetoric he mostly uses about the Constitution being colorblind. 

Yes, again, Bouie is right that Harlan is not the most reliable guide, and his own personal shortcomings come out in his phrasings, even when Harlan sadly but correctly notes the 14th Amendment was written in the context of anti-Chinese prejudice--as Harlan's language in the dissent is horrible and awful in its racism against Chinese people becoming American citizens. But, let's not leave Harlan's dissent to the right wing, particularly when the right wing does mean to enshrine white supremacy, knowing, with a wink and a nod, that America's culture and economic systems would support white (and Christian nationalist, as opposed to Christian) supremacy despite the law now saying "Don't discriminate on the basis of race." 

Victor Navasky (1932-2023)

The Los Angeles Times provides a great capsule bio of the now late Victor Navasky.  As editor and later publisher of The Nation, Navasky was not perfect nor even the greatest editor, but definitely in the top three or four.  Navasky was a genial person and very much an open book. But, the strange thing for me is his (and Eric Alterman's) strong dislike of Freda Kirchwhey, The Nation's first female editor (Katrina vanden Heuvel would be the second) during the tumultuous left period of the 1930s through mid 1950s. Freda did end badly, wanting to sue various people for libel, but I tended to agree with Alexander Cockburn that Freda was no Stalinist, and penned one of the greatest short editorials of the 20th Century, Red Totalitarianism in May 1939.  She allowed Stalinists some space in The Nation pages, to be sure, but she was very clear where the disagreement was, and where the absurdities and murder were in the Stalin era of the Soviet Union--something the late Susan Sontag seemed to have missed in her admittedly off-handed praise of Readers' Digest while dissing The Nation. 

For me, I adored Navasky's book, Kennedy Justice, about a 35 year old RFK taking over the Justice Department, and learning from his staff as much as leading it through the heart of the African-American Civil Rights era. His book on the blacklist suffered from his ironically liberal's view of the Red Scare, and one recalls with some wincing, after Allen Weinstein's book was released, his attempt to deny Alger Hiss was a Communist Party member or affiliate, instead of hitting the main question head on: Was Hiss really a spy for the Soviet Union any more than Allen or John Foster Dulles were in the latter brothers' footsie relationships with various and leading Nazis? Navasky was unable to properly articulate how American foreign policy, within the DC power corridors, is really about leverage, maneuvering, and power relations--and how American domestic politics drives American foreign policy politics in nearly any particular time or era.  One thinks back even to the 1790s and how Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians accused each other of treason. The anti-New Deal right, in the immediate post-FDR period, successfully used the mass corporate media to push an anti-Communist hysteria, and its initial focus was to purge from government the New Deal Internationalists, meaning those who sought what was ironically a premature detente with the Soviet Union. Thus, it was necessary to make the usual diplomatic relationships various people in the FDR orbit maintained with Soviet officials from the late 1930s through World War II into something far more nefarious than any sober analysis would have revealed.  I once met Navasky at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival in the early aughts, and sought a chance to explore this point as part of a defense of Hiss and certainly Harry Dexter White. I don't blame him for a lack of interest as I remain a nobody. :). Still, he could have used the insight, if I may be so bold and perhaps arrogant to say. LOL.

Navasky's brilliance was to brand The Nation, something which his immediate successor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, even more fully embraced and developed. I used to proudly wear my black baseball cap of The Nation logo and t-shirt of the same style till they could not be worn anymore.  Over the years, though, The Nation faded as a place where I learned all that much--too many other outlets arose on the Internet--so that it is only the NYRB where I find I learn something profound in every issue.  I don't know if that speaks as much to my activist side or my antiquarian side as I myself age.  I hope Navasky's legacy in his works will burn bright, and his leadership of a political magazine continue to inspire. 

Another high point in progressive and classic rock/fusion jazz: 1973

 We are now beginning fifty years from 1973. Here is a nice post from the Lawyers Guns & Money blog about music, film, and literature which enters the public domain in this year, 2023.  

However, I am here to list great albums released in 1973--and even some not so great albums from people and bands who were and remain well known.  I am too lazy today to list the albums in monthly order, and will just list the bands and individuals off top of me 'ead, as The Who would have sang in slang for their great 1973 double album, Quadrophenia.  But, despite some clunker albums, 1973 is a definitely a high water mark for progressive rock and for classic rock.  I may have forgotten some obvious and not so obvious albums, but I hope this is comprehensive. :)

The Who, Quadrophenia.  I consider this The Who's best album, even better than 1967's clever The Who Sell Out, 1969's brilliant Tommy, and 1971's definitely remarkable and wonderful Who's Next, which I consider a perfect single album.  Quadophenia, though, flows right through two whole album disks, and is continually remarkable again for two albums.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. Any questions? Really? Any? I didn't think so.

Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy. Zep at its most aggressive and adventurous. It is a classic. Bar none.

Gentle Giant, Octopus (American release was in March 1973; British release was December 1972). Amazing album. Sublime all the way through.

Gentle Giant, In a Glass House (an import only album at the time of its release in the fall of 1973). Super amazing album.  Doubly sublime all the way through.

Gryphon. Self-titled. Amazing first album.

Jethro Tull, A Passion Play. I consider this perhaps the greatest single prog rock album of all time.  I recently listened to it again and was struck that I could call this a concerto that is deeper and richer than Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. It is just a powerfully brilliant album, which one may analyze the music even more than the lyrics, which themselves are Ian Anderson's final set of critiques of the way in which human beings distort theology and operate religions as institutions. 

Genesis, Selling England by the Pound. I have considered this album, released in November 1973, as the most beautifully produced Genesis album, and its most perfect flowing album--start to finish. It is a journey of gorgeousness, with Collins' drumming perhaps the most astonishing part of the album, despite being able to also say how great are Banks' keys and Hackett's beautiful guitar phrasing. 

King Crimson, Lark's Tongue in Aspic.  Fripp was paying homage to Ralph Vaughan William's The Lark Ascending, but with far more atonality in the title opening track. This is a perfect album to listen to, but it is not for the feint of hearts.  It is a rough album, but one Stereo Review called the most perfectly recorded album its staff had ever heard anywhere in any recorded musical work. That was high praise at a time when the attacks on progressive rock were in full force at The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Creem, and Circus magazines, as well as the NYT and LA Times.  Only Melody Maker and Trouser Press in Great Britain were showing respect and love for progressive rock--though the technical journals, Guitar Player, Keyboard Player, and Modern Drumming, were showing respect, as well.

Yes, Tales from Topographic Oceans. A double album that simultaneously is outstanding, and yet the excess that Yes was criticized for shows up to make those critics' point.  This is a double album that would have been better broken up or cut to one disk without excess phrasings and long-winded deviations from a clear musical path.  Jon Anderson's lyrics were never more dense, unfortunately, but the first side or song of the four sides/songs remains some of the most compelling musical work from the legendary band. It still doesn't top 1972's Close to the Edge, but it comes within the distance to be compelling on its own.

Rick Wakeman, Six Wives of Henry VIII. This was an amazing album, and ironically showed up his band, Yes.  Just start to listen to these six songs on this album and you won't stop till its done.

Renaissance, Ashes Are Burning. This is the greatest pop-prog album of all time. All. Time. Why this album did not transport Renaissance into a top selling band is a crime against the arts.  This is a gorgeous album that even non-prog fans, especially females of the time (Females who came of age starting in the 1990s became far more likely to embrace progressive rock than female Baby Boomers. It was a joke that was true that, at prog rock concerts, there were no lines for the women's bathroom halfway through--but there were lines at the men's bathrooms.).

Strawbs, Bursting at the Seams.  Some of the greatest progressive folk came from The Strawbs, and this album is a continuing delight from start to finish. This album will knock you over if you've never heard The Strawbs--and even if you have. The Strawbs is another band that should have had Top 40 hits but never achieved that in the US at least.

Kayak, See See the Sun.  This is the first album by this prog pop band, which should have had multiple hits in the US, but never did. The melodies they created were so clever, and made you want to jump around. Great stuff. 

Magma, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh.  Yeah, hard to pronounce, but for prog fans, fun to listen to.

Veloso, from Brazil, Araca Azul.  Wild stuff from a band I missed the first time around.

Som Imaginario, Matanca do Porto. A master work from this Brazilian prog band. Again, missed this the first time around.

Al Stewart, Past, Present, and Future. This is the greatest of Al Stewart progressive folk albums and, apart from a weak opening track, is perfect. I mean it. Perfect. It is a brilliantly conceived album, with eight tracks, one for each decade of the 20th Century (history buffs will be amazed!), and the last song called Nostradamus, which is iconic.

Cat Stevens, Foreigner. Cat's most progressive of his progressive folk albums, with side one consisting of one song (title track) for over 18 minutes. The Hurt is on side two, and that is enough for most people--but this is a great album overall.

Steeleye Span, Parcel of Rogues. I have placed the progressive folk in one section as I type, and this is a classic Steeleye Span album.  My favorite remains the 1972 release Below the Salt, but this is a close second.

Horslips, The Tain. This is an amazing progressive folk and rocking album from my favorite Irish band of all time.  This is a concept album about Irish mythology that is a knockout.

Tranquility, Silver.  Just for the title track, one must hear this album. It is a classic that the title track alone should have gone major popular. The commercial failure killed this otherwise amazingly talented band.

Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon. This was not as strong as his debut album overall, but it contains Kodachrome and American Tune, so those are two important Simon works.

Kinks, Preservation Act 1.  This album is not as strong as Preservation Act 2, but it will more than do.

Peter Hammill, Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night. An eccentric album, to be sure, but for Hammill and Van Der Graaf Generator fans, always a pleasure.

Harry Nilsson, A Little Touch of Nilsson in the Night. An eccentric album of Nilsson doing 20th Century standards from the Great American Songbook. Out of place and time, and poignant to listen to in the early 21st Century. 

Victor Jara, Canto por travseura.  Jara's last album before his murder during the Chilean military coup, which our nation criminally supported.  The meaning of this title is Mischievous Songs.  Ironic. Or daring Fate. Sad and angering either way.  People call him the Bob Dylan of Chile. He is much more Phil Ochs, but as popular in Chile as Dylan has been here in the US.

Allman Brothers Band, Brothers and Sisters. This post-Duane Allman album contains Rambling Man and Jessica. Need one say more?  Nope.

Poco, Crazy Eyes. A surprisingly powerful album where its lead guy, Richie Furay, had just left.

Tom Waits, Closing Time. The Waits sound begins here. It is important.

The Stooges (Iggy Pop), Raw Power. Yeah. Just listen.

Queen, self-titled album. This is worth listening to if only to hear the beginning of a sound that resonates through today.

10cc, self-titled album. Same as with Queen. Hear the etiology of the sound that became well known, though not anywhere near as known as Queen.

Hatfield and the North, self-titled first album. This is an album one has to listen to at least twice to realize how brilliant it is--and how powerful it is.  It is powerful. It is wonderful. It is as perfect example of Canterbury progressive rock as one may hear.

Caravan, Girls Who Go Plump in the Night. One thing about Canterbury bands of the early 1970s were their sexist sort of humor, and naughty lyrics--not obscene in the crass way, but sorta Eton British-public-school sort of way.  A sort of Pythonesque approach to lyrics.  The music, though, was and remains very serious, and more fusion jazz than anything pop oriented.  It is powerful stuff. 

Henry Cow, Legend. Another Canterbury fan of which I was not so enamored, but respectful of. This is a classic Henry Cow album, and as good an album to try.  Henry Cow was not as enamored with the usual Canterbury band humor, and I think this is because there was a female vocalist, which kept the guys from being, well, sexist in their orientation. 

Soft Machine, Six and Seven, two very serious instrumental oriented jazz oriented rock from the Canterbury scene. Soft Machine was perhaps the original Canterbury rock band.

Frank Zappa, Over Nite Sensation.  I don't like this album as much as most Zappa fans. It has Dinah-Mo-Hum, Montana, and Zomby Woof, but those songs never moved me as much.  Still, it is a classic album and deserves the notoriety and fame it has among Zappa fans.

Nektar, Remember the Future. The true prog album from this band, which went more in a pop direction and gained some fame that Renaissance never could achieve. 

Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery. This is an album that is not as consistent as Tarkus (1971) or Trilogy (1972), but its highs are the highest highs in the ELP repertoire.  The strongest tracks are Karn Evil no. 9 (both parts) and Jerusalem. 

Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells.  This was an event, which even the progressive oriented rock stations in NY and LA had to cover, even though this was essentially one song on two sides of an album. It became an unlikely hit because, unbeknownst to Oldfield, Virgin Records sold the rights to Hollywood to use in the horror film, The Exorcist, which pissed off Oldfield to no end--at least until the big royalty checks came rolling in. He was still righteously angry, but how could he not cash the checks? :)

Premiata Forneria Marconi, Photos of Ghosts (the English version of 1972's Per un Amico).  You just start with the song, Celebration, and it is a joyous ride throughout this album.

Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Lo Sono Nato Libero. Another brilliant gem from this Italian rock band (as was and is PFM).

Le Orme, Felona e Sorona. An extraordinary album from a band that would continue well into our unfolding century, again from Italy.  It has been called one of the finest examples of Italian prog rock, which is saying something pretty strong.

Argent, In Deep. This is a highly unappreciated album, which contains God Gave Rock & Roll to You, but a great many others. This is an album one can simply drive through and say, "How did I miss THIS album?!"--right down to one of the greatest power ballad songs of all time, which closes the album (the song is Losing Hold).

Mahavisnu Orchestra, Birds of Fire. This may be the most complete album of the orchestra, right from the opening track, which is in 7/8 time.  This is four musicians who are at the top of their respective games, but still not done.

Return to Forever, Light as a Feather. This is a perfect album that is far more jazz than even fusion, with the beautiful vocal work from Flora Purim, and as cool a sound as ever produced in this era for any jazz album. Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke reshape the band the same year and produce a second album....

Return to Forever, Hymn to the Seventh Galaxy, which turns the band into a space age, psych-prog rock instrumental band that is the true rendition of jazz-rock fusion. The opening track is worth the price of admission to the rest of the album, even as it falls off.  It is just that hard driving to hear fifty years later.

Electric Light Orchestra, ELO 2, which contains the greatest version of Roll Over Beethoven, but has some outstanding progressive rock tracks, culminating with Kuiama, an anti-war song that is 11 minutes of compelling, hard-driving bliss.  This was the album Jeff Lynne took over the band and reshaped it from The Move--Roy Wood's band--to The Idle Race, Lynne's band before Lynne joined The Move as it was transitioning to what became ELO.  The first ELO album, No Answer, was more of a Roy Wood affair, with Lynne following Wood's lead. In ELO 2, it was now Lynne's vision. This second album was released early in 1973. Then, later in 1973, a third album from the band was released, which was both prog oriented but pop starting to assert itself....

Electric Light Orchestra, On the Third Day. This has some juicy prog-pop tracks throughout, and one can again just let the needle start and you will find yourself never picking up that needle until you turn the other side, and then start over again.  It is a flowing album.

Alice Cooper Band, Billion Dollar Babies. This is the last of the great Alice Cooper Band albums, before Alice Cooper went solo--and for me at least stopped producing compelling music. The run of albums going back to Love it to Death (1971), Killer (1971), and School's Out (1972) remain some of the most underrated albums in the annals of rock. These albums, including BDB, contain sophisticated rock tracks that make you stand at attention to listen to over and over.

Black Sabbath, Sunday Bloody Sabbath. This is where Black Sabbath went into its full metal mode, even more than Black Sabbath Vol. 4 (1972). It is an iconic album that defines the genre for the next several decades, it is that outstanding.

Todd Rundgren, Wizard: A True Star.  Rundgren's great progressive solo album, from start to finish. It is a continual joy ride where, despite the album cover saying there are separate tracks, this is akin to Tull's A Passion Play in being one album long song.  It is so much fun to listen to, and hear the overdub power, with beautiful melodies, throughout. One of the last lines of the album is "Wait another year/Utopia is here/But there's more..." which I had no idea meant a Rundgren band, Utopia, was coming in 1974--with a deeply progressive rock sound. That album is a knock out, too!

Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Journey.  This is an album, which, when I heard it the first time in 1974, I said to a then-semi-girlfriend (who hated it), "This is so great an album that, when kids in the year 2000 hear this album, they will be amazed and awed!"  She just said this album stunk. It is still almost scary to listen to this album. I strongly advise keeping the lights on when listening.  But this album can't beat Kingdom Come's Galactic Zoo Dossier from 1971. That is one of the truly greatest progressive rock albums of all time.  All. Time.

Darryl Way's Wolf released two albums in 1973 that may as well have been one album. They are Canis Lupus and Saturation Point. The musicianship is as great as Mahavishnu Orchestra, and the songs often even more compelling. It is a tragedy this band did not get airplay in the US, as it should have. Really. It should have. 

Beach Boys, Holland. This is a great album, not even remotely appreciated as a very different sort of album from the classic Beach Boy albums. It is more Eagles oriented, but I loved this album more than the Eagles' work--which says more about my taste than most others.  Still, those who hear this album are nearly always more than pleasantly surprised and wonder why they did not hear more than Sail on Sailor on most commercial radio stations.

Billy Joel, Piano Man. This is the album that put Billy Joel into permanent stardom. It is a much recognized album and I don't have to say a word one way or the other. For me, it was an initial disappointment, because I knew Joel from Attila, the great progpsych album from 1971. But, for most Americans, this is a classic.  I enjoy it, I admit. 

Stevie Wonder, Innervisions. This is Wonder at his most prog oriented while maintaining a funk pop sound that makes him a visionary and well, wonder.  For Living for the City alone, this is an iconic album.

Spoken word/Comic albums:

George Carlin had an album, Operation: Foole, which I don't find all that important. However, Robert Klein released a comedy album, Child of the 50s, which is must listening. It is so damned funny fifty years later. I mean it.  It is fantastically funny!

More politically incorrect in various parts in 2023, but still laugh-out-loud and pee your pants funny, was the late Chris Rush's first album, First Rush, released in 1973. Rush was a cultural leftist of the time, and likely political and economic leftist, too. He never went right wing as far as I could tell, though he essentially stopped producing albums, with one in 1981 and one in 1997, both a decline from the first album--though the 1981 album had some high moments. Rush would show up at NYC clubs from time to time, but I never got to see him.

What were the individual Beatles up to in 1973?

John Lennon, Mind Games. I did not appreciate this album at the time of its release. However, by the 1980s, with the demise of prog rock from any radio stations and pre-Internet, I found this album and was shocked at myself for not seeing its brilliance, starting with its title track.

George Harrison, Living in the Material World. Another album that grew on me as the years went by.

Wings (Paul McCartney), Red Rose Speedway. I leave the weight of this double album to others, but respect Sir Paul too much to put in the clunker album pile below.

Ringo Starr, Ringo.  Oh My My, You're Sixteen (ew), and I'm the Greatest.  For me, this is awful and frankly embarrassing, but it's an album from a Beatle.  These songs remain popular on commercial radio, which I don't get at all.  Beatle or no Beatle. 

Bands who put out albums that were not my cuppa tea, but others adore:

Rolling Stones, Goats Head Soup. Angie is on this album, but, for me, nothing else is compelling. This was already in what I see as the Stones' decline into mediocrity and branding. But, YMMV.

Bob Dylan, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. Soundtrack album. I am not sure what to say here, as it is not my cuppa tea, but I blow mostly cold on Dylan after 1972, meaning after Tangled Up in Blue.

Eagles, Desperado. An iconic West Coast sound album. Simple, direct. Not my cuppa tea, but I know that is just my elitist taste. :)

Jackson Browne, For Everyman. Another classic West Coast sound album I am admittedly not inclined to be listened to in my meh-ness for it. :)

Nazareth, Razamanaz and Loud N Proud. Another band, this one from Scotland, I was not into, but others swore by.

Now, for some albums released in 1973 that were very weak for these bands. However, as stated above, 1973 remains such an amazing year for music that even these relatively weak albums do not tarnish 1973 for its greatness:

Grateful Dead, Wake of the Flood. This is the first Dead album without Pigpen, its keyboardist who had died. Pigpen's replacement was a keyboardist with more jazz tastes, and, with the new keys player's wife in backing vocals, produced a different sort of Dead album that Dead fans may claim to love, but I personally did not find listenable at all. Maybe if I listened again?  Not sure. 

The Band, Moondog Matinee. Sadly, not a memorable album at all from this legendary band--at least in this not-humble guy's opinion. YMVV.

David Bowie, Aladdin Sane and Pin Ups. Other than The Jean Genie and perhaps a couple of other songs from Aladdin Sane, these two albums are in-betweeners for Bowie. Diamond Dogs is coming in 1974, which is sublime and iconic.

Santana, Welcome. A weak album from the legendary band. The previous three albums were the key albums, as even Classic Rock stations will show by what they play. 

Camel. Not a memorable first album (self-titled), but watch out for the next several albums that begin in 1974.

Uriah Heep, Sweet Freedom. A weak follow up the powerful 1972 album, The Magician's Birthday. 

Van Morrison, Hard Nose the Highway. A weak album, with nothing much one can begin to say.

Bee Gees, Life in a Tin Can. A forgettable album, in between The Bee Gees as a Beatleseque progressive folk act to a disco act. 

Flash, Out of Our Hands. Yup. Too bad, though.

Esperanto, Esperanto Rock Orchestra. A weak opening album, but its next album in 1974, Danse Macabre, is one of the greatest progressive rock albums of all time.

Charlene Mitchell (1930-2022): Justice seeker

One reads this obituary and sees the pattern. A nice then young person who recognized the rot and racism inside the American Dream joined the only political party in the late 1940s which was foursquare for African-American civil rights--the Communist Party. She came from a family which escaped the white southern American terror against African-Americans, and had a dad in what was one of the greatest unions of its time, the porter union. She then rose in the Communist Party ranks just as the Party was decimated--but note the article said at its height there were only 75,000 Communist Party members, so one wonders what the massive fear ever was. As those who know me know, Bill Buckley let the cat out of the political bag when he wrote (with his brother in law Brent Bozell) that the true purpose of the Red Scare was to defeat liberalism overall (see page 333 of "McCarthy and his Enemies" 1954).

 

But, despite all the challenges she faced as a leftist black woman in the 1950s and 1960s, Ms. Mitchell became fairly expert in organizing defenses of black women who were caught up in the criminal (in)justice system. She eventually split from the Party, as she obviously realized the Party was, again, too decimated--and also demonized to be of any continuing value.

If anyone wanted to say her life is ultimately a failure, that would be using the wrong historical lens. Her failure to be more politically successful is in the context of the triumph of fascist, reactionary, neoliberal, and general corporate elements in our politics. Charlene Mitchell represented a meaningful grass roots type of politics that, due to the structures of our political system, mostly only achieves success in the margins. Too many of us are either ignorant of how to recognize and see reforms of systems that repress regular folks, or are complicit in that system.

Thoughts about Gordon Wood's historiography

I was in a local ABQ used bookstore today (Organic Books) and found a book of book reviews from Gordon Wood entitled, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (2008). I have read a couple of essays already, and found them fascinating and brilliant--but also beginning to notice Wood's frustration with various modern historians, which has left Wood open to what I still see as harsh judgments against Wood. What I found interesting is several reviews in the book first appeared in the New York Review of Books. When checking with the NYRB archive on line, though, I found instances of historians whose books he reviewed who failed to respond in the NYRB letters section. For me, I have said failing to respond to a negative or critical review in the NYRB is a sign of intellectual cowardice, though I would hesitate to make an overall judgment of those historians for that failure to respond. 

Be that as it may, while doing a wider online search of Wood and the historians whose books he was reviewing, I came across a critical review of Wood's recent book on Jefferson and Adams in Law & Liberty magazine, a culturally conservative, yet pro-capitalist libertarian magazine. The review was from a former doctoral student of Wood's, C. Bradley Thompson, himself is known as a cultural conservative and libertarian of the hard line capitalist persuasion.

I post here to say Thompson's criticism of Wood's book is one I strongly support and agree with. As with Thompson, I have long believed Wood has remained too devoted (though he does not downplay Jefferson on slavery issues) to the late 19th through much of the 20th Century historians' over-veneration of Jefferson, and, simultaneously, dismissal of John Adams. Thompson makes the type of case I would hope to have been able to make on behalf of Adams, while revealing Jefferson's limitations as being a man devoted to "democracy" and being a "man of the people." The essay (more than a review) is an excellent and compelling read--though I am surprised Thompson did not cite Adams' remarks concerning his fear of a commercial aristocracy, though that link is from a book written nearly seven years after the review.  I don't think Thompson chose the title of his essay-review, which I believe is more dismissive of Wood than Thompson likely intended.

This leads me to say the following: It continues to be both sad and amusing for me to see how Wood, who in 2007, was the subject of criticism from Stephen F. Hayward for being too "anti-capitalist" and the "liberals'" favorite historian, is now too often viewed as a conservative, even reactionary historian--particularly as a result of Wood's essentially correct critique of the "1619 Project." 

In the last four or five decades, Wood has really not fundamentally changed his essential view of American history. Wood has definitely deepened, and made room for modifications of, his views, yes. But has he fundamentally changed his essential view of US History? No. I say that, however, not as a criticism, but as a testament to Wood's greatness as an overall scholar from the time he began as a professional historian--particularly with books such as Radicalism of the American Revolution, The Creation of the American Republic, and Empire of Liberty. Yet, the world of historians and political commentators have gone from viewing Wood as a liberal anti-capitalist, devoted to New Deal values, to a pro-Establishment and even conservative historian--all without Wood moving much in any particular direction from where he has nearly always been. Wood himself, at age 89, must be scratching his head over this perception with the same elements of sadness and amusement.

Other than his conclusions about Jefferson and Adams, what I most admire about Wood is his consistent recognition of ironies in history. This recognition has kept Wood from falling into historical trends that turn into fads. For example, Wood recognized our Founders were mercantilists, not capitalists, which caused Wood to be less enamored with Charles Beard's historiography than other historians of Beard's time. Wood came of age in the 1950s, and was definitely influenced by consensus-historians, which has its virtues and limitations. Wood has certainly never been a Marxian sort of historian, even as Wood again recognized and wrote reasonably positively about anti-capitalist tendencies in American ideals and society during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Recently, Wood's same sense of ironies in history has led him to avoid becoming attached to modern historians who appear to seek to turn American history into a continuing cultural war, which even Marxian oriented historians, such as the outstanding Adolph Reed, have been critical of such historians for either misunderstanding or obscuring diverse and countervailing economic and political patterns within US History.  It is of a moment to note the first major attack on the "1619 Project" came from the Worldwide Socialist Web.

Nonetheless, as I hinted near the start of this blog post, I can sense, in reading the last and another essay in the book of essay-book reviews, there is an element of "old guy" frustration (crankiness?) embedded in some of Wood's criticisms of younger historians' (and, most amusingly, the late Theodore Draper, who was older than Wood by nearly two decades!) focus away from the role of ideas in US History. Too many critiques of Wood are now insinuating Wood was and is against women's history, African-American history, etc. However, Wood has been clear these newer histories have enhanced the study of history, and made our nation's history vibrant for modern readers. Where the critiques against Wood then tend to go is to question Wood's integrity as to whether he believes what he claims--which, in my view, is unfair to Wood as an individual person. 

Also, Wood is not a presentist type of historian, but it is wrong to deny, in any way, that Wood wants us to learn from our history. He most certainly does want us to learn from history. What Wood the historian wants, however, is for readers and citizens to remember, not obscure or forget, context when discussing historical figures and making judgments regarding such figures. The irony of his former doctoral student's, Thompson's, review from Law & Liberty is how Thompson revealed where Wood has been still, in both our views, wrongly clinging to the earlier historian consensus regarding Adams and Jefferson, a "tradition" which goes back to Claude Bowers and even to George Bancroft. My criticism of Bowers and Bancroft, and now Wood, is they often failed or fail to provide sufficient context in the worlds in which Adams and Jefferson were operating, and, worse, not adequately recognizing Jefferson's cynical political maneuvers compared to Adams' stubborn, though, also naive, belief that statesmen and leaders of the then-new Republic should remain above partisan politics.  Those of us who admire Adams, though, cannot get around the Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798, and Jefferson's strong, fairly consistent, and ultimately correct, opposition to those heinous acts.  It is where Thompson and I must yield space and merit to those critical of Adams. 

The ultimate irony for me is Thompson's criticism of Wood in Law & Liberty magazine may just as easily be seen as a left-oriented critique of Wood as much as a libertarian, and possibly a culturally conservative critique--all at the same time. This is why I find myself frustrated at the way in which modern historians and commentators are tossing Wood from one political persuasion to another, without giving Wood his due as an historian and scholar, and not evaluating Wood in a good faith manner. Thompson clearly reveres his former doctoral adviser, and is willing to debate Wood in good faith.  Would (pun intended?) that be the case in the way I am seeing Wood portrayed, particularly from those I otherwise find myself in political agreement.  I find myself in a strange place, but I persevere. :)