Whatcha reading?

[Silent Majority]

33) Searching For Robert Johnson - Peter Guralnick. Kindle. 1989. Short, read it one go yesterday. Just a refresher, really. The one I recommend is Escaping the Delta by Elijah Ward, which is a richer and more read on the same subject.

[Kory]

Just finished this, which brought me back to listening to New Order after taking a few years' break. The thing that stood out the most is Hooky's claim that (despite their obvious feud), Bernard Sumner is a better guitarist than Johnny Marr! That's not even true in a subjective sense.

[Dr. Medulla]

Just finished this, which brought me back to listening to New Order after taking a few years' break. The thing that stood out the most is Hooky's claim that (despite their obvious feud), Bernard Sumner is a better guitarist than Johnny Marr! That's not even true in a subjective sense.

I've read both of Hook's books and Sumner's. Hook was so much more complimentary of Sumner than vice versa. Sumner has a recognizable sound but it's not outrageous to acknowledge that Marr can make a guitar do whatever the hell he wants it to.

[tepista]

Hey, a good friend of mine wrote some punk rock fiction. I bought it yesterday, and will squeeze it in in-between Draculas, but I thought I'd share

Cool—let me know cos I'm looking for punk literature for my class next year.

I just finished it, It's actually NON-FICTION, it's his memoirs about 2 weeks in 1981 when he was 17 and followed Killing Joke and Siouxie & the Banshees around hitch-hiking with a sleeping bag and narrowly avoiding ass whipping by skinheads. It was good, not enough vampires for my taste. Nice and short at 145 pages.

[Dr. Medulla]

Hey, a good friend of mine wrote some punk rock fiction. I bought it yesterday, and will squeeze it in in-between Draculas, but I thought I'd share

Cool—let me know cos I'm looking for punk literature for my class next year.

I just finished it, It's actually NON-FICTION, it's his memoirs about 2 weeks in 1981 when he was 17 and followed Killing Joke and Siouxie & the Banshees around hitch-hiking with a sleeping bag and narrowly avoiding ass whipping by skinheads. It was good, not enough vampires for my taste. Nice and short at 145 pages.

Oh well. Shame about the vampirelessness. At least he avoided the asskicking.

[Dr. Medulla]

Highly recommend Peter Beinart's book (from a couple pages back). The essence of the argument is that American foreign policy since Wilson has arc'd widely from engagement to disengagement, idealism to realpolitik. More particularly, policymakers have taken the experience of the last crisis and sought to apply it to the next until it doesn't work. Then the lesson of that crisis dominates. What I liked about that assessment is that it appeals to a historian's conceit that the lessons of history are local—geographic and temporal. What policymakers did was take their experience and, thinkinging like political scientists, decided they had discovered a universal lesson. So, the lesson of Munich was never back down or it'll lead to a world war. The lesson of Kennan's analysis of the Russian character was that all Communists like the Soviets, so containment has to be applied all over the world. The lesson of Bosnia was that airpower and smart missiles makes soldiers passé. Etc etc.

I also liked his analysis of Reagan's foreign policy, which, for all the aggressive rhetoric, wasn't that divorced from the New Left in the 60s. Reagan didn't fear the Communists; he thought America would win the Cold War. That went contrary to three decades of paranoia and despair on the right. Like the New Left, Reagan thought the Cold War could be won and peace made with Russia (he and the radicals differed in which side was the problem, but were both fundamentally optimistic about a resolution). That fits well with other analyses of Reagan that see him as a very problematic conservative, for his view of human nature and pleasure was rather leftist, and that, despite the posthumous hagiography, made him a figure of suspicion on the right well into his presidency. Anyway, highly recommended and quite readable.


I'm about three hours into this. So far, a pleasant enough narrative of a variety of East German youth whose lives were changed and given focus when they heard punk (often the Pistols). It helped them express their rage against the East German state and dogma. It's straight narrative, but on an unrealized aspect of punk's significance and how people resisted Communism.

[Olaf]

I'm about three hours into this. So far, a pleasant enough narrative of a variety of East German youth whose lives were changed and given focus when they heard punk (often the Pistols). It helped them express their rage against the East German state and dogma. It's straight narrative, but on an unrealized aspect of punk's significance and how people resisted Communism.

Just read the first 50 pages or so of the German version. I did like the German title/cover better, but the book somehow felt like it wasn't written for the German market in the first place. Too much explaining the obvious. Turns out the writer is actually American and also ghostwrote Paul Stanley's memoirs.

[Dr. Medulla]

https://www.hachette.co.uk/wp-content/u ... 868%2C2827
I'm about three hours into this. So far, a pleasant enough narrative of a variety of East German youth whose lives were changed and given focus when they heard punk (often the Pistols). It helped them express their rage against the East German state and dogma. It's straight narrative, but on an unrealized aspect of punk's significance and how people resisted Communism.

Just read the first 50 pages or so of the German version. I did like the German title/cover better, but the book somehow felt like it wasn't written for the German market in the first place. Too much explaining the obvious. Turns out the writer is actually American and also ghostwrote Paul Stanley's memoirs.

It was definitely constructed with an English-speaking audience in mind. And it's popular history—telling a story rather than offering a critical analysis, more journalist than scholar—so it's going to be dumbed down to get people as much on the same page as possible. I'm going to have to overlook the Paul Stanley connection, tho. Sigh.

[Olaf]

https://www.hachette.co.uk/wp-content/u ... 868%2C2827
I'm about three hours into this. So far, a pleasant enough narrative of a variety of East German youth whose lives were changed and given focus when they heard punk (often the Pistols). It helped them express their rage against the East German state and dogma. It's straight narrative, but on an unrealized aspect of punk's significance and how people resisted Communism.

Just read the first 50 pages or so of the German version. I did like the German title/cover better, but the book somehow felt like it wasn't written for the German market in the first place. Too much explaining the obvious. Turns out the writer is actually American and also ghostwrote Paul Stanley's memoirs.

It was definitely constructed with an English-speaking audience in mind. And it's popular history—telling a story rather than offering a critical analysis, more journalist than scholar—so it's going to be dumbed down to get people as much on the same page as possible. I'm going to have to overlook the Paul Stanley connection, tho. Sigh.

Was it Marky who said every thread here eventually turned into a Kiss thread?

You might want to overlook his current project, too. A Joe Walsh bio.

[Dr. Medulla]

Was it Marky who said every thread here eventually turned into a Kiss thread?

Truly, we are the picture of Dorian Gray in the attic.

You might want to overlook his current project, too. A Joe Walsh bio.

If you hadn't mentioned it, I'm pretty sure my reading and browsing habits would have ensured I'd never have come across that information.

[Olaf]

Was it Marky who said every thread here eventually turned into a Kiss thread?

Truly, we are the picture of Dorian Gray in the attic.

You might want to overlook his current project, too. A Joe Walsh bio.

If you hadn't mentioned it, I'm pretty sure my reading and browsing habits would have ensured I'd never have come across that information.

Glad I could help.

[Silent Majority]

34) Everyday Stalinism - Sheila Fitzpatrick. Paperback. 1999. Not exactly a barrel of laughs in this one, it talks about ordinary life in 1930s Russia and the people's interactions with the state. There was some idealism, optimism and a shared striving but above all it was terror and arbitrary power inflicted stupidly.

[Flex]

34) Everyday Stalinism - Sheila Fitzpatrick. Paperback. 1999. Not exactly a barrel of laughs in this one, it talks about ordinary life in 1930s Russia and the people's interactions with the state. There was some idealism, optimism and a shared striving but above all it was terror and arbitrary power inflicted stupidly.

Tankie twitter has told me that's all lies, tho

[Kory]

After reading Hooky's NO book, I went back to re-read the JD one and now I think I want to enter the phrase "kick off" into my lexicon. I like it.

[Dr. Medulla]

After reading Hooky's NO book, I went back to re-read the JD one and now I think I want to enter the phrase "kick off" into my lexicon. I like it.

As in "Ian Curtis kicked off forty years ago"?