Review: Getting Even

Getting Even by Woody Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah, I think this is my favorite Woody Allen humor anthology - it still makes me laugh. "The Metterling Lists" with its plot of supposedly intellectually brilliant people acting like still imbeciles, unable to handle basic tasks like socks still hits my funny bone, like Monty Python's "Philosopher Football" skit. "Viva Vargas!" has a lot in common with one of of my favorite Allen films, Bananas . Indeed, The mock philosophical arguments of "My Philosophy" here was later used in the films Bananas and Love and Death. As someone that has actually played chess-by-mail and also likes philosophy-based humor, "The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers" still works for me on this re-reading of the enjoyable audiobook performed by Allen himself. "Mr. Big" is an excellent climax, a parody of the style and structure of hardboiled detective stories flavored with assaults on philosophy and deism.

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Review: AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War

AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War by Tom McNichol
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From Ben Franklin to industry after Edison and Westinghouse, this is a thorough examination of AC vs. DC electricity standards with an important role played by eccentric and unreliable Tesla. I have heard the story about Edison's stubborn and short-sighted clinging to DC and Westinghouse getting the AC edge thanks largely to Tesla's insights and his visionary induction motor, but this goes into much, much more detail of the horrific canine electrocutions done when Edison supported the similarly monomaniacal Harold P. Brown. Along the way this tells the story of the birth of electrocution as a capital punishment and the denouement of the Edison's side's animal cruelty in using electricity (AC, of course) to put down circus elephant Topsy. Topsy outgrew her value as a "baby elephant" and no longer of use for entertainment, was worth more for the grisly souvenirs that could be made from her carcass. Filmed and still available in video, this 1903 act proved to be the first step to culminating over a century later in the modern circus saying goodbye to elephants.

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Review: The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Thomas J. Sugrue
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a largely scholarly work with plenty of tables, graphs, and endnotes. The author manages to tip the content to compelling and away from dry, however. This the story of institutional lack of opportunity for African-American Detroiters largely tracked from the WW II-era boom of the city as an industrial 'arsenal' to the eve of the '67 riots. The story of racist loan, real estate, and owner association covenant policies is told on a municipal scale through data with interspersed incidents of particular individuals. It is a sad and disheartening litany of abuses perpetrated upon a population. I understand there are updated and enlarged editions other than this one.

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Review: Without Feathers

Without Feathers by Woody Allen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The original books really made me laugh out loud when I first read them. It is great to hear the stories narrated by Allen himself, even if I don't find them as funny, now. It is like hearing a favorite friend tell a funny story, even though I have heard it before. I especially like the cartoonishly absurdist imaginings as "Fabulous Tales & Mythical Beasts" and the hilarious etymologies for 'cat's pajamas', etc.

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Review: Only Yesterday

Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very well narrated by Grover Gardner, this was an enjoyable re-read of a history classic. Allen really brings the '20s into an exciting light. It seems like wedged between WW I and The Depression was a time of exuberance and exciting changes during a period of enlarging freedom (Women Granted the Right to Vote in U.S.) and improved quality of life (radio frenzy). This all jibes peculiarly with sociological pathology (crimes and trials "of the century" like Leopold and Loeb Murder a Neighbor Out of Boredom; "Fatty" Arbuckle Scandal) and loosening of sexual mores in flapper lifestyle and shortening skirts much documented by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The intensely interesting decade gave birth to fads and crazes: mah jongg, hobby radio, crossword puzzles, etc. That wireless invention was bringing in the world's exciting changes and discoveries: Tomb of King Tut, Not all knowledge was embraced and the radio made the nation ringside to The Scopes (Monkey) Trial and the imperiled

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Review: Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation 1776-1914

Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation 1776-1914 by Marc Pachter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The twenty-nine essays here are by writers expert in the culture being covered. Each essay is a synopsis, biography, and commentary on writings and recollections of foreign travelers on their journeys to American. This summary of observations of European, South American, Asian, and African visitors covers the first century-and-a-half of the U.S.'s existence as a nation. (This was issued to accompany the "Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation 1776-1914" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in 1976) Even from so many different vantage points consistent themes arise of America's noisy democratic approach, lacking in manners and supporting racism while eschewing elitism. I have come to understand this culture I am in supports a cult of individuality; personal freedom extends maximally and personal liability is absolute. Argentina's Domingo Sarmiento has an aspect on the same feature and here is quoted as saying the each Yankee,

"is his own keeper, and if wants to kill himself, no one will interfere. If
he is running after a moving train and dares to jump and hang from a railing, barely missing the wheels, he has a perfect right to do so; if the rascally paperboy, possessed by the desire to sell one more newspaper, hops off after the train has resumed full speed, every one will applaud the skill with which he lands on his feet and continues his way. This is the way the character of a people is formed and how it profits by personal freedom! Perhaps there are a few more accidents and victims but, on the other hand, there are free men and not disciplined prisoners . . .

(also quoted in Michigan Alumnus QUARTERLY REVIEW, DECEMBER 19, 1942)

Other standouts include Frances Trollope who traded retail investment for bitter loathing, Charles Dickens,a Japanese castaway, Antonin Dvorak falling in love with American native music, and Swami Vivekananda seeking sane religious devotion.

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Review: Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy by Kenneth P. O'Donnell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I recently watched the documentary The Kennedys' Irish Mafia (2016) and it prompted me to finally get to this Kennedy memoir written by two of the insiders: O'Donnell, David Powers with journalist Joe McCarthy. I saw complaints about this being a whitewash and expected as much, but, honestly, I have had plenty of revelations and conspiracies. With a peek into Camelot, there is also some interesting history: Dave Powers "who was watching the president and Connally carefully during the shooting" thinks there were four shots at the assassination being three hits and a miss. Also, "Kennedy had made up his mind not to involve any American combat troops or planes in this fight [Bay of Pigs Invasion] between two Cuban political factions even though the rebels had his approval and the support and direction of his government's Central Intelligence Agency. When the reports of failure came from the beachhead, he refused to give in to his military advisers, who had accepted his earlier order against any American participation in the invasion, but now argued that we had to change the plan and send in American reinforcements to beat Castro and save the prestige of the United States. Kennedy firmly disagreed. As sorry as he felt for the stranded rebels on the beaches, he preferred the embarrassment of defeat to the use of American military force against a small and independent nation."

On a lighter note, I appreciate his love for poetry, both reading and reciting it, including this excerpt from a poem by Domingo Ortega:

Bullfight critics ranked in rows
Crowd the enormous Plaza full;
But he’s the only one who knows—
And he’s the man who fights the bull.

The penultimate chapter tracking the life up to the assassination feels like Kennedy was crossing off a bucket list as if he knew subconsciously of his pending demise: tips with no political or negative political value for pure enjoyment to Ireland and Rome and making such potentially politically harmful decisions as a draw down of troops in Vietnam and his Kennedy's 'yes' to Wheat For Russia.

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