Review: Street Player: My Chicago Story

Street Player: My Chicago Story by Danny Seraphine

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Danny really delivers in this autobiography: The tale of his rise from Chicago gang thug to accomplished professional drummer makes a fascinating first act that leads to the globe-trotting, arena-filling years of Chicago's rule (alongside but over Blood, Sweat & Tears) of rock band with horns and a jazz bent. The tragedies and excess and eventual ousting lead to the most personal third act: Seraphine alone and struggling to find himself personally and professionally, which he does.

[Hear my interview with the author]



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Review: Clint Eastwood: Master Filmmaker at Work

Clint Eastwood: Master Filmmaker at Work by Michael R. Goldman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Mostly pictures, this small hardcover book comes with a DVD box set of 40 Eastwood movies. There are film stills, on-the-set photos, sets (The Black Emerald from "Mystic River", "Edgar" sets), and more. The bulk fo the text is from a Morgan Freeman introduction where he calls "The Outlaw Josey Wales" his favorite Western.



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Review: History Of The Comstock Patent Medicine Business And Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills

History Of The Comstock Patent Medicine Business And Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills by Robert B. Shaw

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This Smithsonia annals of big-time, organized quackery details familial and legal battles of the nostrum firm. Plenty of label illustrations and pictures of the water-side Comstock factory and hotel dress up the narrative. The whole arc is covered from Indian medicine man lies (apparently the old Medicine Man was intimately familiar with flora of the Far East), mail scams that sound like todays Spanish Prison e-mail scams, and an empty warehouse of the 1950s where shuffling septuagenarians fill the last reminaing orders of quackery that laster nearly a century.



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Review: If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



A brief, heartwarming collection of Vonnegut's college graduation speeches ably narrated by Scott Brick. Some repetition is, perhaps, inevitable, but I am surprised at how varied these brief speeches are. Vonnegut obviously felt it fun and important to tweak these newly minted minds before they headed out into the world. I thought it was interesting this curmudgeonly, dismissive, stoic humanist thought taking time to smell the roses and being part of a big, noisy family were so important to happiness. It was also generous of him to speak kindly of his son's memoir [b:The Eden Express|63716|The Eden Express|Mark Vonnegut|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1359525451s/63716.jpg|28720], which does not paint Vonnegut pere in a kind light.



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Review: La Traviata [With 2 CDs]

La Traviata [With 2 CDs] by Giuseppe Verdi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Probably the nicest part of this set is the 2-CD presentation of the opera, featuring Beverly Sills and all the arias occasionally cut in live performance. Also, there are biographies of Sills, Verdi, and others along with a synopsis and full, annotated libretto.



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Review: The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008

The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 by Sean Wilentz

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Wilentz approaches his subject as historian; this is a work of analysis not hagiography. The conditions that brought Reagan to power and the echoes of his colleagues and fellow-travelers (Bushs, Rumsfeld, etc.) mark the gamut of the Age of this study. I was very young when Reagan ruled, but I wasn't too you to recall the hue and cry over his militarism (Granada, Libya), expenditure (SDI), etc. So, I was a bit suprised to his funeral handled like that of a passing saint. Wilentz helps to explain much of that and many other myseteris. Why did Reagan cling to "Star Wars" in spite of technological complexity, high cost, and the fact it irked the USSR? He felt it would bring peace to the whole world and protect America, says the author. How did Iran/Contra happen under his nose? Because Ronnie was in the driver's seat and narrowly avoided impeachement, says this author.

An interesting book, which gives context to the neo-con movement and gives examples of how the Republican party was not destroyed by its own radical right base.



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Review: The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



When I first read this, I was very young. I came away thinking of it as a coming of age story, even a youthful adventure somewhat like [b:The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|2956|The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|Mark Twain|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1274410225s/2956.jpg|1835605]. Now, I see it as a dated tract seeking to instigate radical social reform, more like [b:The Jungle|41681|The Jungle|Upton Sinclair|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1332140681s/41681.jpg|1253187]. Both works and even more so this one thus become topical and have lost depth and impact for losing currency. Additionally, Steinbeck's Joads and their fellow travelers are one-dimensional, pious, saint-rubes as to be unbelievable. The family is so unbroken, unhampered by any character defect that they are perfect ideals requiring now transformation and thus Tom Joad's pronouncement from the bush is unbelievable and hollow since it comes from an impossible creature:

Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where, wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. ...I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an', I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there..."

Steinbeck's hand-waving for even armed social revolution may have seemed the needed reaction back in the socialist '30s, but falls flat, now, and history belied the author's prescription: WW II's economic boom swept up the Oakies who were replaced Mexican-American pickers culminating in the non-violent resistance of Cesar Chavez.




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