Review: Fraternity: An Inside Look at a Year of College Boys Becoming Men

Fraternity: An Inside Look at a Year of College Boys Becoming Men by Alexandra Robbins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is an insightful and revealing look into modern fraternity life on American campuses, particularly in the popular Greek system. There is a lot about hazing and an interesting point is made that, aking to boot camp or cult induction, paying a high cost of entry increases the value of membership in the mind of the member. Also intertwined is the confusing ideals of adulthood and masculinity being sorted by pledges during this pivotal time.

Like many modern works, the author feel compelled to jump around between story lines and with time lines. What, is Quentin Tarantino going to direct the movie version? Anyway, the two main people being followed are a new chapter president and a new frat member. These contrasting views heighten the insight offered here. While I was interested I guess more as the sociological topic; fraternities as a an exclusive, dogmatic subgroup. Beside that interest, there is probably more to offer to students considering Greek life or trying to make sense of it. Also, parents or guardians seeking to guide and advice will find explicit resources here.

[I obtained an ARC to review]

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Review: Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila

Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila by James M. Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanking of MacArthur and the Philippines, I previously thought of: Corregidor, flight before fall w/"I shall return", followed by the Bataan Death March. Well, all that is merely a few paragraphs of the several hundred pages of WW II scholarship here.

Instead, Yamashita and Sanji Iwabuchi (Rear Admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy) lead Japanese marines etc. in a ruthless and hopeless defence of Manilla while exacting a rape and rampage holocaust on internees and civilians during the Battle of Manila recalling The Rape of Nanking. So, this is much more about the grim realities of those left behind waiting for the "return", many of which died in the crossfire and cruelties. The closing act is the hasty trial of Yamashita with its questionable process and conclusion.

[I obtained an ARC to review]

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Review: God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I recently re-watched You Don't Know Jack (2010), one of my favorite Al Pacino portrayals. It got me Googling about on Dr. Jack Kevorkian who hear appears as a sort of Virgil-like enabler of 'controlled NDEs' ("Kevorkian has just unstrapped me from the gurney after yet another controlled near-death experience.") allowing Vonnegut to interview dead people of Public Radio station WNYC from the "end of the blue tunnel of the Afterlife." interview with dead historical figures are witty and brief, such as this one about a personage he personally admired:

During what has been almost a year of interviewing completely dead people, while
only half dead myself, I asked Saint Peter again and again if I could meet a particular hero of mine. He is my fellow Hoosier, the late Eugene Victor Debs of Terre Haute, Indiana. He was five times the Socialist Party's candidate for president back when this country still had a strong Socialist Party.

And then, guess what, yesterday afternoon none other than Eugene Victor Debs, organizer and leader of the first successful strike against a major American industry, the railroads, was waiting for me at the far end of the blue tunnel. We hadn't met before. This great American died in 1926 at the age of seventy-one when I was only four years old.

I thanked him for words of his, which I quote again and again in lectures: "As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

He asked me how those words were received here on Earth in America nowadays. I said they were ridiculed. "People snicker and snort," I said. He asked what our fastest growing industry was. "The building of prisons," I said.

"What a shame," he said. And then he asked me how the Sermon on the Mount was going over these days.

And then he spread his wings and flew away.

Also present are historical villains like a trite but remorseful Hitler who Vonnegut suggests deserves a statue and "James Earl Ray, confessed assassin of Martin Luther
King" spewing racism. I wonder how many complaints went into the formidable WNYC about these...

I actually like more -- and due to the longer length it appears he did, too -- the ones on fellow writers like Shakespeare:

We did not hit it off. He said the dialect I spoke was the ugliest English he had ever heard, "fit to split the ears of groundlings."

...I congratulated him on all the Oscars the movie
Shakespeare in Love had won...

He said of the Oscars, and of the movie itself, "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Also, there is a lauding piece on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley:

...author, again before she was twenty, of the most prescient and influential science
fiction novel of all times...

and similar praise for Isaac Asimov. Vonnegut uses Kevorkian's then contemporary murder conviction as the excuse to end this series, done about a decode before his own death.

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Review: Playing God

Playing God by Charles L. Mee Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Combined with the title, the subtitle "Seven Fateful Moments When Great Men Met to Change the World" makes this seem like a total buy-in to the Great man theory. However, it as much undercuts that as supports it.

Each and all of these figure among the contingencies that operate in the production of historical events, and yet they do not form a complete set of causes. Even if we were to identify all the classes of cause of historical events, we could not construct a complete causal explanation of any given moment. Because each cause has a previous cause, if we were to attempt to explain the complete causes of events, we should soon become trapped in an infinite regression of explanation

An accomplished author of several noteworthy histories, I really enjoyed the context and flavor added to significant events, such as:

* The nature of accomodations Pope Leo would have used enroute to his confrontation with Attila the Hun outside Rome
* The symbolic pageantry and theater of Henry VIII and Francis I's meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold where even costume accessories spelled out messages to the initiated
* The complexities of religion and smallpox behind the tragic meeting between Cortes and Moctezuma
* The ailing Woodrow Wilson with Clemenceau and Lloyd George at the Paris Peace Conference

Basically chronological, this brings us to the unintended consequences of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt's gathering at Yalta and Gorbachev desperate at the G7 nations in London. For the last half of the Twentieth Century, there is so much about those events relevant to today, that Mee can't abstract out circumstance and flavor and this detailed reportage starts then to read more like a textbook. Another thing keeping me from saying four stars is the poort audiobook production: an unimpressive narrator and audio quality that makes me think it the microphone was across the room... in the parka pocket of a man eating potato chips.

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Review: They're Playing Our Song

They're Playing Our Song by Carole Bayer Sager
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Bayer Sager wrote the lyrics for the stage musical They're Playing Our Song, which was loosely based on her relationship with Marvin Hamlisch. However, that musical and its background is just part of one chapter of this book. Basically, there is a chapter on every significant relationship and marriage in her life, including:

* She married record-producer Andrew Sager in 1970, and they divorced in 1978.
* On April 3, 1982, she married composer and pianist Burt Bacharach after over a year's co-habitation. The couple adopted an infant son, whom they named Cristopher Elton Bacharach and divorced in 1991.
* Since June 1996, Bayer Sager has been married to Robert Daly, former chairman of Warner Brothers and former chairman

Mere dates and less serious relationships get covered, including those with George Lucas, Davy Jones of The Monkees. Not all the relationships covered are intimate, some are mostly professional although there always seems to be a blend with her. On the more professional side, there is writing songs with Bob Dylan and a neurotifcally shy Michael Jackson.

More than a songwriter history, this feels more like a romance history. It does cover her career from her first pop hit, "A Groovy Kind of Love", with Toni Wine (Bayer Sager prefers writing partnerships), to "The Prayer (theme from Quest for Camelot)", performed famously by Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli.

More detail is about how she enters relationships with her own fears and insecurities about her weight and shape and height. This includes a lot of first-sex details with men. She often has been concerned she is being taken advantage of for her songwriting abilities, which perhaps was the case with a porn-addicted Bacharach. She characterized this relationship as abusive, albeit not physically.

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Review: The Last of the Mohicans

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a long time since I read this. I was last spurred to read it by The Last of the Mohicans (1992), starring Daniel Day-Lewis . That film adaptation impressed me for showing the Indians as sagacious, valiant, etc. and not just craven thugs familiar from many oaters. On this reading I was impressed with the high level of literary achievement -- certainly could be the first modern American novel. I love the epigrams on each chapter pulling quotes from Shakespeare, Pope, etc.

Also, the idealistic, proto-abolitionist ideas emergencing in such anti-racist notions as:

"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark?" coldly asked Cora.

and

"You'll know, already, Major Heyward, that my family was both ancient and honorable," commenced the Scotsman; "though it might not altogether be endowed with that amount of wealth that should correspond with its degree. I was, may be, such an one as yourself when I plighted my faith to Alice Graham, the only child of a neighboring laird of some estate. But the connection was disagreeable to her father, on more accounts than my poverty. I did therefore what an honest man should—restored the maiden her troth, and departed the country in the service of my king. I had seen many regions, and had shed much blood in different lands, before duty called me to the islands of the West Indies. There it was my lot to form a connection with one who in time became my wife, and the mother of Cora. She was the daughter of a gentleman of those isles, by a lady whose misfortune it was, if you will," said the old man, proudly, "to be descended, remotely, from that unfortunate class who are so basely enslaved to administer to the wants of a luxurious people. Ay, sir, that is a curse entailed on Scotland by her unnatural union with a foreign and trading people. But could I find a man among them who would dare to reflect on my child, he should feel the weight of a father's anger! Ha! Major Heyward, you are yourself born at the south, where these unfortunate beings are considered of a race inferior to your own." "'Tis most unfortunately true, sir," said Duncan, unable any longer to prevent his eyes from sinking to the floor in embarrassment. "And you cast it on my child as a reproach! You scorn to mingle the blood of the Heywards with one so degraded—lovely and virtuous though she be?" fiercely demanded the jealous parent.

"Heaven protect me from a prejudice so unworthy of my reason!" returned Duncan, at the same time conscious of such a feeling, and that as deeply rooted as if it had been ingrafted in his nature. "The sweetness, the beauty, the witchery of your younger daughter, Colonel Munro, might explain my motives, without imputing to me this injustice."

I was surprised to learn Cooper wasn't that committed of an abolitionist:

In his essay on slavery and his book about American notions, Cooper repeatedly stated that slavery was “evil.”19 However, he opposed immediate abolition. The stumbling blocks for him were states’ rights and property rights. He noted that the northern states had pointed the way, and naively assumed that southern states would shortly follow.

-- "Historical Contexts of The Last of the Mohicans: The French and Indian War, and Mid-1820s America", Allan M. Axelrad

Still, this is a literary achievement worth revisiting. I love the footnotes showing the historical research and knowledge poured into setting this during the French and Indian War, and in a region the author knew well. Next time, I will pick an edition with larger type!

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Review: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Narrator Scarlett Johansson does an excellent job narrating this classic. This is something that always bothered me: all this "eat me", "drink me", exploring underground passages. Is this really implicit advice for children? I guess few fairy tales really hold up as solid morality. I commend Carroll for creating an entry in that hallowed canon. I really like the quicky poems the most, then the characters themselves and their vignettes poling fun a the the adult world of caucuses, etc. ... not so much the loose adventure tale as a clothesline to hold it all together.

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Review: Metaphors for the Musician

Metaphors for the Musician by Randy Halberstadt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With a quarter-century of experience teaching jazz piano, Randy Halberstadt approaches the subject of learning music (music in general, not merely jazz piano) sagely and philosophically. While the book's kernels of wisdom can be of benefit to any music student, there does remain a focus that makes Metaphors primarily a useful adjunct to the study of jazz piano.
Halberstadt's personal remembrances, framed to showcase lessons learned, invite the reader to benefit from his experience. Through colorful, imaginary examples, Halberstadt seeks to jumpstart the brain into degrees of freedom required for a successful jazz state of mind. Along the way of fun and prose come well thought-out examples. Embedded in these sophisticated studies is the knowledge of years that makes practice more productive. Halberstadt's method moves away from rote rehearsing simple building blocks into shorter steps of logical progression that add variety to the learning process. To bring it all together, the volume includes sheet music for several tunes, among them "Embraceable You", "How Long Has This Been Going On?" and "My Foolish Heart." From fast fingerings to proper professionalism, Metaphors is a cornucopia of talent catalysts.

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Review: The Manager's Guide to Statistics, 2018 Edition

The Manager's Guide to Statistics, 2018 Edition by Erol Pekoz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Author Erol A. Peköz, on the faculty of the Boston University School of Management, has for at least a decade continued improving and expanding his introduction to statistics for would-be managers and decision makers desiring to move past low-level details of statistical theory. With no mathematical expertise beyond that obtained by an MBA or the typical undergraduate, one can gain from here confidence in developing practical applications and making sense of typical statistical summaries and diagrams...

[Look for my entire review at MAA Reviews]

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Review: Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original "Psycho"

Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original "Psycho" by Harold Schechter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read the paperback in the 90s, shortly after it came out. I still think this a true crime classic and a picture of an exceptional individual. Exceptionally insane? Ghoulish? Devious? One thing that sticks out to me on this reading is how many of Gein's neighbors, etc. felt his insanity was a pose and that he succeeded in elevating his comfort level and stand of living by using his crimes to move out of a decrepit farmhouse where he dwelled alone to an engaging state institution.

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Review: Memoirs of a Captivity Among the Indians of North America

Memoirs of a Captivity Among the Indians of North America by John D. Hunter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an amazing memoir of growing up from captured child to participating adult among the Kickapoos, Kansas, and Osage Indians. The biography of that time is enough, yet this is augments with a the notes of a naturalist. However, Hunter was no naturalist and thus the flora and fauna overview is so cursory it could have been left out. Later, the books picks up with this encyclopedic "Materia Medica" on the plants and minerals employed medicinally. It would be interesting to see someone track these to the proper plant identifications and speak to the basis of any ascribed efficacy. Unlike several other such accounts, this author adapted to civilization with no yearning to returning to the tribes. There is some sad addenda here as Hunter tries to advise on a path forward for Native Americans to find peace and stability. He advises that they do embrace Western civilization and settlement.

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Review: The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II by Gregory A. Freeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, this is a great untold tale of WW II that someone needs to make a movie out of. Hundreds of American airmen shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia where Serbian villagers risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers. Then 1944 and Operation Halyard with enough inherent risks with British Allies and American command elements actively working against rescue due to the greater efforts of the Cambridge Spy Ring, specifically James Klugmann. Despite all this; hunkered airmen sending wireless requests for rescue and villagers making a landing field on a mountainside without much more than bare hands. All this to be suppressed, even to the point of not revealing the Order of Merit to Serbian guerilla General Draza Mihailovich who perpetrated this under the noses of the occupying Germans.

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Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Secondary Phase

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Secondary Phase by Douglas Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This science fiction comedy radio series written saw its broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978. "The Primary Phase"adventures of Arthur Dent and his alien friend Ford Prefect, who writes for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, are the genesis of what Adams adapted into the best-selling novel in 1979 (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). So, even with this later phases we are hearing the emergence of the core stories of the "trilogy". I had not known that radioplay beginnings of the popular books, until now. This edition packing the Phase as an audiobook includes an afterword interview with Adams looking back on the success of his writings as well as biographical details such as his school days and even working with Graham Chapman on the TV series Out of the Trees (1975), during the height of Chapman's alcoholism.

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Review: By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer

By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer by Victor Ostrovsky
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

...there were sensational details about
secret messages in invisible ink, a mysterious document signed with the
letter N. (standing for Nin), and so on and so forth.

- Homage to Catalonia

I began reading this shortly after finishing The CIA And The Cult Of Intelligence. Besides being both about spies and spying, the books are more closely aligned as they purport to be whistleblower documents; a sort of act of civil disobedience to protest intelligence agency overreach. However both now -- and more so this one -- strike me as having a small fig leaf of good intention selling a package of salacious revelations of spies on the job. Don't get me wrong, I am all for responsible citizens publishing books to point out any government wrong, plus I would read the salacious details told just to sell books.

Some of the operational details here that seems to be just juicy insider stuff and maybe really unnecessary to reveal to support the overreach argument include

* only Saudi Arabian source is "in the Japan Embassy"
* surveillance and infiltration techniques, including "methods of dealing with a dangerous agent"
* Mossad training academy maps
* psychological approaches to recruiting and agent
* A sort of 'order of battle' of how Mossad operatives are deployed

However, maybe much of this was widely enough known at the time of publication, like the details of the Panama-Israel connection.

Possibly most revelatory and in the overreach area is Mossad activities in the U.S.

...... organizing, and carrying out covert activities — mainly in New York and Washington, which they refer to as their “playground” — belong to a special, super-secret division of the Mossad called simply Al, Hebrew for “above” or “on top."

and Mossad causing problems leaking things ab0ut the NYC account of Rabin's wife. Apparently, by googling it seems this is still not a widely known Mossad action.

...according to [CIA liaison] Efraim, when Margalit flew to the United States to check out the story, he had supplied him with all the necessary documentation on the account. The subsequent story, and scandal, were instrumental in helping Begin defeat Rabin. Rabin was an honest man, but the Mossad didn't like him. So they got him.

Also, there is the Iraq-Iran war reporting to each side on the on each other's ships to "keep the war hot" and also enabling arms deals that would otherwise have been prevented.

Interesting historically is the inside dope on the American-PLO meetings contravening publicly stated U.S. policy and being a career-limiting problem for . There is also the large-scale yet secretive airlift of Ethiopian Jews. Really, a very impressive operation but one of only a few lengthy narratives here that is actually gripping reading.

There is a paperback postscript here about Mossad pressuring the author in Toronto so that he felt he could be kidnapped, as well as court documents on the failed attempt to block publication including details on embarrassing to Denmark and Israel are they details here about Mossad working through (not with) Danish intelligence.

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Review: The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Born of a German mother to a French father, Sajer was swept up in National Socialist fervor and enlisted to defend the Reich on the Eastern Front. Truck driver in a convoy arriving in Ukraine as Stalingrad fell, Sajer arrived in time to join in a multi-national retreat akin to Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia. Vacuumed up into the Großdeutschland Division, an elite combat unit of the German Army, Sajer retreated and fought until the Reich, his division, and his identity evaporated leaving him to recover in a France unknown to him. This is a fascinating memoir of Eastern Front privation and a detailed, reflective analysis of events by a front-line soldier grappling with the Red Army and his own reasons for fighting and living. Beside battle recaps, material on obtaining and using leave time, encounters with partisans, and fellow fighters not seeing Sajer as truly German make this one of the most revealing and insightful German WW II soldier autobiographies I have read.

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