by David Burn | Jun 20, 2007 | Literature
Will Blythe writing a review of Jim Harrison’s ninth novel, Returning to Earth, for The New York Times Sunday Book Review section says:
As a rough rule, it seems that writers fall into two camps. There are those who delight in rousting the truth from its concealment amid pieties and convention. If they must strip-mine the world to expose its hypocrisy, they will do so, even if they leave a landscape barren of hope. Then there are those writers who prefer to remythologize life on earth, finding it rich with strange congruences and possibilities. Jim Harrison is a writer of the second type, and Returning to Earth is his extraordinary valediction to mourning. It sharpens one’s appetite for life even at its darkest.
That’s eloquent criticism and Harrison deserves the praise.
In my estimation, readers love Harrison’s novels for two central reasons—his evocative sense of place and his creation of full-blooded characters. Naturally, Returning to Earth shares these traits with Harrison’s other works. The man made a lifelong fan of me with his depictions of my native Nebraska in Dalva and The Road Home. In Returning to Earth, it’s his own pine-scented northern Michigan that he so superbly reveals. Having once camped in a dark and desolate Forest Service campground along Lake Superior, I’m lucky to know this land slightly as a visitor. Harrison’s prose certainly makes the desire to return to the area for more instructive visits palpable.
A couple other notes on this book…It takes the Faulknerian form in both its reliance on stream-of-consciousness and in its consecutive use of first-person naration by four different characters (although I have yet to read it, I’m told The Sound and the Fury uses this same structure). Harrison is also unabahsed about weaving parts of himself into any and all of his characters. In this book, he is very much the David character, right down to his obsession with Mexico and preference for Subaru wagons. Critics say that mature novelists tend to leave their autobiographical writing behind after book one. Not so with Harrison, and I’m glad for this. It seems to me that we’re seeking mental and spiritual intimacy when we read important books. Harrison generously provides this to his readers yet again by looking at himself, this continent’s native people and their various traditions and modern culture’s finer distractions like drink, food and sex.
Lastly, Harrison mentions Rites of Conquest by Charles Cleland several times throughout his 280-page story. This historical inquiry clearly informs Returning to Earth; thus, it piques my interest.
by David Burn | Jun 17, 2007 | Architecture, Music, Nebraska, The Environment
Metropolis Magazine published a feature last September on the rapid acceleration of New Urbanism in Omaha.
The magazine claims much of the groundwork for Omaha’s urban-design plan was put in place by the Omaha Community Foundation, which started working on a vision for the city in 1999. In 2002 the foundation asked Connie Spellman from the chamber of commerce to spearhead Omaha by Design, a nonprofit set up to focus their efforts, and they brought in Fred Kent of Project for Public Spaces to help.
Omaha by Design came up with 73 urban-design recommendations as part of the Omaha Master Plan. The plan encompasses everything from the landscaping of street corners, the design of important civic sites, and streetlamp choices available for neighborhoods to regional development, protection of watersheds, and the creation of a citywide trail system.
“Corporations were realizing that Omaha didn’t have the energy that a lot of young workers were looking for,†Steve Jensen, Omaha’s planning director says. “They’re saying, ‘It’s important to have a city that’s interesting and active—and a little edgy.’†That’s something community leaders appreciate about Saddle Creek Records. According to the Omaha World Herald, the city helped finance Saddle Creek’s new entertainment complex in NoDo. The 56,000 square feet complex consists of Saddle Creek Records, live music venue Slowdown, the Film Streams art-house theater and spaces in which artists can work and live.
Joe Gudenrath, spokesman for Mayor Mike Fahey, said the mayor’s office was “active in encouraging them to locate in north downtown.”
“We didn’t want to take the chance of losing Saddle Creek Records to another city,” Gudenrath said.
by David Burn | Jun 10, 2007 | Film, Politics
Independent documentary film, One Bright Shining Moment, offers a compelling look at the 1972 Democrat Party nomination, which went to the rogue Senator from South Dakota George McGovern.
It’s uncomfortable and sad to realize the issues the nation faced in 1972 are exactly the same issues we face today—total and utter corruption of the executive branch, an unpopular and illegal war and the inept response from the opposition party. Yet, no matter how dark it gets in America, real men and women of conscience continue to fight for change. Activist, author and actor Dick Gregory is one such man. He appears in the film several times and each time he has nothing but truth to share.
by David Burn | Jun 10, 2007 | Music
With The White Stripes’ sixth album, Icky Thump, waiting in the wings (it will be released on 6/19), Alan Light of The New York Times paints Jack White as a meticulous control freak who believes deeply in theatre.
While indie-rock tastemakers tend to champion bands that look like them, Mr. White still believes that smoke and mirrors, the kind of approach that once caused detractors to dismiss the White Stripes as a gimmick, are integral to successful art. “Everything from your haircut to your clothes to the type of instrument you play to the melody of a song to the rhythm — they’re all tricks to get people to pay attention to the story,” he said.
“If you just stood up in a crowd and said your story — ‘I came home, and this girl I was dating wasn’t there, and I was wondering where she was’ — it’s not interesting,” he said. “But give it a melody, give it a beat, build it all the way up to a haircut. Now people pay attention.”
The article also mentions how the band will be playing arenas this summer–something more than a little odd for a two-piece band. Another sign of The White Stripe’s maturity as an act is the fact that Icky Thump is licensed to Warner Brothers, with the band retaining ownership of the master recordings. Mr. White said he has no qualms about working with a major label, given some bad experiences with small indies and promoters during the band’s early years.
“We’ve been ripped off by so many independent labels and so many people from the underground,” he said. “All that stuff left a really bad taste in my mouth.”
by David Burn | Jun 9, 2007 | Politics
The immigration debate in the country is one of the more complex issues we face as a nation today. It’s about border security in a post-9/11 world, law and order, race, human rights and the economy. In an odd and rare juxtapositon, Senator Kennedy sponsored the Senate bill that was backed by the pro-business White House but not by socially conservative Republicans. It seems like everyone has their own angle. Kennedy wants to “take care” of immigrant communities and end the vigilante actions of citizen border patrols. The Bushies want a steady stream of cheap labor.
According to BusinessWeek:
Top U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbyist R. Bruce Josten said this week that the immigration issue is “divisive in the Republican base, it’s divisive in the Democratic base, it’s divisive in the business community. It splits organized labor, it splits the immigration community.”
Republican senators who backed the immigration bill felt particularly exposed to fierce attacks from conservative activists in their home states, including talk show hosts and local GOP officials.
It was this groundswell of public reaction that stymied the legislative process and left Reid, Kennedy and Bush holding their jocks this week. With all this confusion, let’s turn to Vermont’s Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders, for his view of the issue.
What most concerns me about this legislation are the provisions that would bring low-wage workers into this country in order to depress the wages of American workers, which are already in decline. With poverty increasing and the middle-class shrinking, we must not force American workers into even more economic distress.
The CEOs who want this bill aren’t even embarrassed by their hypocrisy. One day they shut down plants with high-skilled, well-paid American workers, and move to China where they pay desperate people 50 cents an hour. The next day, they have the nerve to come before the U.S Congress and tell us that they can’t find skilled workers to do the jobs that they need. Give me a break.
Sanders said on C-SPAN that the same business forces that supported NAFTA are supporting the Bush/Kennedy agenda on immigration. That’s a bad sign.
by David Burn | Jun 6, 2007 | Media, Politics
BBC News reports on Amnesty International’s efforts to keep censorship from the interwebs.
“The Chinese model of an internet that allows economic growth but not free speech or privacy is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers,” said Tim Hancock, Amnesty’s campaign director.
“Unless we act on this issue, the internet could change beyond all recognition in the years to come.
More and more governments are realising the utility of controlling what people see online and major internet companies, in an attempt to expand their markets, are colluding in these attempts,” he said.
According to the latest Open Net Initiative report on internet filtering, at least 25 countries now apply state-mandated net filtering including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
See Amnesty’s Irrepressible.info for more.
by David Burn | Jun 6, 2007 | Music
Live Downloads is offering Carolina Chocolate Drops’ five-song set from Merle Fest’s Cabin Stage this past April. The group of young African-American stringband musicians is keeping the rich tradition of fiddle and banjo music native to the Carolinas’ piedmont alive. While often thought of as an Appalachian creation, the antebellum combination of banjo and fiddle used to be a tradition in most black rural communities in the South.
The band is mentored by fiddle player Joe Thompson of Mebane, NC. They seek to carry on his tradition and the tradition of black musicians like Odell and Nate Thompson, Dink Roberts, John Snipes, Libba Cotten, Emp White, and countless others.
[MP3 Offering: “Georgie Buck” live from Merle Fest, 4/27/07]
by David Burn | Jun 4, 2007 | Media
Award-winning journalist Nancy Cleeland ended her employment at the Los Angeles Times last month, along with 56 newsroom colleagues who also accepted the latest round of boyout offers from the Tribune company which owns the the paper.
Cleeland is troubled by the move. She explains why on Huffington Post.
The Los Angeles region is defined by gaping income disparities and an enormous pool of low-wage immigrant workers, many of whom are pulled north by lousy, unstable jobs. It’s also home to one of the most active and creative labor federations in the country. But you wouldn’t know any of that from reading a typical issue of the L.A. Times, in print or online. Increasingly anti-union in its editorial policy, and celebrity — and crime-focused in its news coverage, it ignores the economic discontent that is clearly reflected in ethnic publications such as La Opinion.
Of course, I realize that revenues are plummeting and newsroom staffs are being cut across the country. But even in these tough financial times, it’s possible to shift priorities to make Southern California’s largest newspaper more relevant to the bulk of people who live here. Here’s one idea: Instead of hiring a “celebrity justice reporter,” now being sought for the Times website, why not develop a beat on economic justice? It might interest some of the millions of workers who draw hourly wages and are being squeezed by soaring rents, health care costs and debt loads.
With the Los Angeles Economic Roundtable, Cleeland is exploring the development of a nonprofit online site to chronicle the regional economy from a full range of perspectives.
[via Counter Spin]
by David Burn | Jun 4, 2007 | Music
Steve Earle and his wife Allison Moorer have a garden apartment in Manhattan’s West Village. Their place is on the same block depicted on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
Earle told The New Yorker’s John Seabrook:
“This is where they invented what I do,” he said. “And it happened only because there were these three groups–the folksingers, the musicologists, and the writers–who happened to be living in this several-block radius. If that scene doesn’t happen, then rock and roll never becomes literature. It just stays pop.”
Seabrook refers to Earle as an historian of the early folk scene in the Village and describes his present-day work at Electric Lady, the studio that Jimi Hendrix built to record his own music. He also ponders aloud if Earle isn’t 45 years late to the scene.
“No way,” he said emphatically. “It’s still a neighborhood. And Suze Rotolo’s still here. And she looks so great!”
Rotolo was Dylan’s girlfriend. She appeared alongside the legendary performer on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
by David Burn | Jun 3, 2007 | Music
Kevin Bronson of the Los Angeles Times abhors exclamation points, modern country and any notion that New York City is the center of the cultural universe. He’s also older than any music blogger he knows.
Given that he was feeling under the weather the other night, he asked Times Correspondent Charlie Amter to attend The Hold Steady’s show at the El Rey Theatre in his stead. Amter reports:
Finn, looking not unlike a bearded, bespectacled and crazed street preacher on crystal meth, immediately commenced gesticulating wildly in time with the music. The crowd, probably 75% of them men, ate it up and sang along. With very little prodding, Finn had nearly the entire front section of the El Rey (the show was sold out and had been for weeks prior to their sole L.A. engagement) clapping in time with the music — hands over their head. One guy stage-dove.
Amter also notes that Finn drops literary references into his songs and that 30-something Ivy-educated citizens of LA like to drink. “I’d be willing to bet the bar receipts at the El Rey were higher than at any show so far this year,” he suggests.
[MP3 Offering: “Massive Nights” from Paste Sampler #31]
