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#FridayReads, August 2–Boris Kachka’s “Hothouse” & Lee Child’s “A Wanted Man”

August 2, 2013 /3 Comments/in /by

FridayReads, Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America's Most Celebrated Publishing House, a rich chronicle focusing on Farrar, Straus & Giroux, its charismatic founder Roger Straus, and its talented editorial chief of many years Robert Giroux. Established soon after WWII, FSG has over the decades published dozens of notable authors including Czeslaw Milosz, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Paley, Tom Wolfe, Susan Sontag, Abraham Joshua Heschel, John McPhee, Bernard Malamud, and Flannery O'Connor. Kachka holds his narrative to quite a fleet pace, touching on some books and authors only briefly, but always situating his protagonists in the cultural moment. I have always enjoyed reading in the realm of books on books and I couldn't be happier reading Hothouse. Kachka's book delivers great literary stories in spades.

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I'm traveling this week and so happily succumbed to the purchase of an airport paperback, another terrific thriller by Lee Child, A Wanted Man, which places recurring series character Jack Reacher in a Nebraska winter trying to evade suspicion for several murders and disappearances even while trying to solve the case and convince FBI agent Julie Sorenson that he's not the culprit she and her agency bigs are pursuing. While Reacher is something of a brute when he needs to be, Child has an amazingly deft touch with great finesse as a storyteller.

 

Great New Documentary on the Blues, “Born in Chicago”

July 26, 2013 /6 Comments/in , /by

I tweeted this message last evening with a link to a trailer for the NY premiere of a new documentary I was heading out to see at the Lincoln Society Film Center.

 

The screening was for “Born in Chicago,” a new 90-minute doc on the blues. It was a thrill for Kyle and me to be there. We had learned about the one-night showing from a NY Times article yesterday that began like this:

“Late in his career, Muddy Waters recorded a song called ‘The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll.’ That, in a nutshell, is the story told in the new documentary “Born in Chicago” — how he, Howlin’ Wolf and other black blues musicians working in Chicago in the 1960s schooled young white acolytes from that city who went on to play on some of the most influential pop recordings of the era.”

After reading the paper we quickly went online and ordered tickets for the lone screening, luckily for us because when we arrived it had clearly sold out. It is a joyous film with superb archival footage, moving interviews, and high-quality audio of many great blues performances. It also narrates a moving story about how aspiring teenage musicians like guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboard player Barry Goldberg, from affluent parts of Chicago, began frequenting the clubs and bars where black titans of the blues like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf were then in residence, well on to being the blues legends they ultimately would be known as. Despite their age–Bloomfield was only 17 at the outset in 1960–co-producer Goldberg chronicles the time the two boys borrowed Michael’s mother’s car, drove through the all-black neighborhoods on the South Side to the club, which was called Pepper’s, I believe. They found parking “four steps from the front door,” made their way to a front table, and began listening to the masters. Gratified by the respect shown them and their clear eagerness to learn the music, the musicians soon invited them to sit in with the bands and a fruitful and historic musical collaboration was born. The generosity of Muddy and Wolf, with their sidemen like Willie Dixon, Sam Lay, and others became a hallmark of the era. And, the youngsters really learned to play.

Goldberg recalled that soon when Otis Spann, who often played piano in Muddy Waters’ outfit, was invited to go on the road with another big bluesman of the time, say Little Walter, he was able to take the job because Barry could sit in and play keys for Muddy while Spann was out of town. The bench of blues performers in Chicago got a lot deeper.

Born_In_Chicago_Trailer_Screen_smAmong the musicians interviewed for the film are Bob Dylan, who later hired Bloomfield and Goldberg for his backing band; B.B. King, who remembered Bloomfield as one of the best guitarists he ever heard; Keith Richards, who with his Rolling Stone bandmates are shown here in hilarious footage with Muddy Waters and Mick Jagger (in a bright red track suit) swapping lead vocals; Buddy Guy, who we learn would stroll out the open door of a blues club playing his electric guitar on a “100-foot long chord” to make music right out in the streets; Hubert Sumlin, lead guitarist with Howlin’ Wolf, who’s shown here with the aid of medical oxygen, in what would be his last taped interview; Eric Burdon of the Animals, who remembers that growing up in Newcastle, England, new blues albums from Chess Records would arrive in local record stores, allowing him and his bandmates to hear and then play the blues; Charlie Musselwhite, a white southerner who migrated north to Chicago for factory work and soon found himself ensconced in a blues community; Elvin Bishop, who like Mike Bloomfield played in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and who tells such tales as wandering in to a Chicago pawnshop to buy a new guitar, and being waited on by young Bloomfield; Nick Gravenites, who wrote a signature song of the Butterfield Band, “Born in Chicago”; Harvey Mandel, who played in Canned Heat, with John Mayall and the Blues Breaker, and Bob Dylan; Sam Lay, drummer with many of the great blues bands; Jack White, who spoke about the influence of the blues on his music and the challenges young artists face today in gaining access to, say, senior players, in hip-hop or rappers, especially.

In the audience last night were “Born in Chicago” director John Anderson; Chicago bluesman Corky Siegel, of the Siegel-Schwall Band; Marshall Chess of Chess Records, who narrates “Born in Chicago” (not his late father Leonard, as I had mistakenly tweeted); and co-producer of the film, Barry Goldberg. After the film they took seats in front of the audience and Siegel played a blistering harmonica solo, which got everyone pumped for the spirited conversation and Q&A session that followed. During the Q&A, Marshall Chess recalled how eager he was to make an outpost in Britain for Chess Records by forging a relationship with record distributors there. Chess also remembered that Howlin’ Wolf could be stern with a musician who played a wrong note, but was also a gentle giant. Corky Siegel remembered that between sets of music outside of clubs such as the Blue Flame he and Wolf would talk, sip whiskey, and walk the nearby alleys. Siegel said that Wolf’s generosity showed him the blues is not just about music, but a way of living one’s life, with love and freedom.

The film’s theatrical release is still being plotted by the producers. It clearly warrants widespread distribution and I expect it to have major exposure in the months to come. In the meantime, I suggest you ‘like’ their Facebook page, read this Chicago Blues Guide review of a recent reunion concert that brought together many blues musicians from the film, read Larry Rohter’s NY Times story from July 26 and view the accompanying slideshow of great B&W photos, share the above trailer widely with your friends. Here are photos I took after the screening and shots of some of my treasured blues LPs from Chess Records and one I’ve had for years by the Siegel-Schwall Band. Please click here to see photos.
Since you got all the way down here in this post, you must love the blues. So, I recommend my personal essay about Cleveland bluesman Mr. Stress, who I wrote about in the book Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology. Stress was a great local bluesman I followed all the drinking-age years I lived in my old hometown, from 1972 to 1985. A harmonica player, singer, and bandleader Stress was the Paul Butterfield of Cleveland. He still lives in Cleveland.

#FridayReads, July 26–Robert Goddard’s “Fault Line” & Edward McClelland’s “Nothin’ But Blue Skies”

July 26, 2013 /3 Comments/in , , /by

IMG_0944#FridayReads, July 26–British novelist Robert Goddard’s Fault Line, a totally engrossing book that weaves together a Cornwall-based ceramic company’s shrouded background with a local family’s equally buried history. Goddard is a true master of plotting, character, suspense, and surprise by whom I’ve enjoyed nearly 20 earlier books, after first discovering him in a 2008 Paste magazine feature with Stephen King, who made this unqualified endorsement of Goddard’s books:

“The best books—yes, books—I’ve read this year are the mystery/thriller/suspense novels of a British writer named Robert Goddard. I happened on him by accident; a handful of his books have now been issued in America, but I had to get most of them direct from Britain, where he’s a bestseller. Goddard has written at an amazing pace—17 or 18 novels in as many years—but his writing is sharp and sometimes poetic. The stories, which usually center on well-kept secrets from the early part of the 20th century (in Closed Circle, the secret is a group of well-heeled British manufacturers who caused World War I) are amazing tricks of conjury. Here are surprises that really surprise. The protagonists (the books are stand-alones) are decent fellows out of their league who mostly—but not always—find a way to muddle through. These are authentic stay-up-late-to-finish stories, and there doesn’t seem to be a bad one in the bunch. The place to start is with Goddard’s first: Past Caring.”

I paid special attention to King’s recommendation owing to a personal encounter I’d had with him many years earlier. In 1979 he was already a popular novelist, with bestsellers Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and The Shining already to his name, but his books hadn’t been filmed yet or adapted for TV. Within a year or two he would be much more famous. He was on a book tour for his novel Dead Zone, probably his fifth or sixth published book, and our Viking Press sales rep brought him by my Cleveland bookstore, Undercover Books, to sign our hardcover stock of the current title, and other copies of his books we had on hand. It wasn’t a reading, just a quick drop-by.

While I was gathering up our inventory, King was browsing and saw on display a copy of another then-current Viking novel.  Pointing to it, he said to me and a couple customers nearby, “The really great novel from Viking right now is The Dogs of March by Ernest Hebert.” I was excited at this because I’d already read Hebert’s book, and had loved it, too. Like King from Bangor, ME, Hebert was a New Englander, from Keene, New Hampshire. The Granite State was where I had gone to college, Franconia College in the White Mountains, and I’d found Hebert’s portrayal of working class people in the North Country to be utterly real and believable. I told King that I shared his enthusiasm for Hebert’s book and that I would now recommend it to my customers all the more energetically. In fact, soon after this conversation, I wrote a letter to Hebert c/o Viking and let him know that I’d enjoyed his book, and that he and his book had booster in Stephen King and my bookstore. After, that Ernie–as I came to know him–and I carried on a correspondence for several years and I visited with him and his family on trips I made back to New Hampshire. We later fell out of touch but Hebert has continued writing novels and moved from working as a newspaper reporter to teaching English at Dartmouth, where I believe he still works. He has a number of footprints on the Internet, one via a Dartmouth url called Recycling Reality: A Writer’s View of the World and a blog of his own. From the latter, I see that The Dogs of March is officially in print 34 years after it first appeared Writing this post, I’ve decided to see if I might re-forge a connection with Hebert and so will share this post with him.IMG_0945

Goddard’s books are usually set in rural Britain with plots that also take his characters to such Mediterranean locales as Capri and Rhodes. Like Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer novels, such as The Zebra Striped Hearse, which invariably chronicle multiple generations of a family and secrets that have been long buried and are excavated by private detective Archer, Goddard’s books explore the complicated histories of families that have been on the land sometimes for hundreds of years, though his books don’t feature a private detective or policeman. Instead, there’s a male narrator or protagonist who, as King says, “are decent fellows out of their league who mostly—but not always—find a way to muddle through.” In Fault Line, narrator Jonathan Kellaway is a long-time employee of the ceramics manufacturer whose corporate history is being written by an academic historian. (Like Balzac’s Lost Illusions, in which we learn about paper, ink, and printing technology in 19th century France, here we learn that Cornwall is ideal for the production of household ceramics owing to the local soil that is so rich in clay.)  Kellaway’s elderly CEO details him to help the historian in her work and undertake a search for company records from a vital period of its history that have unaccountably gone missing. I’d agree the fate of a ceramics company doesn’t sound exciting, but from ordinary saplings mighty narrative oaks may grow.

I think of Goddard as a latter-day John Fowles, the notable British novelist who produced such masterworks as The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Along with sharing (above) a picture I took of the copy of Fault Line I finished reading yesterday, here’s a shot of all the other Goddard books I’ve read since I discovered Stephen King’s recommendation of him in early 2009. Goddard's backlist

After finishing Fault Line yesterday, I picked up a new book of literary journalism Nothin’ But Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America’s Industrial Heartland by Edward McClelland. I had already read an excerpt Canoeing the Cuyahoga in the Scene, a local Cleveland magazine, and really liked his approach to writing about my old hometown. His work is full of little-known historical nuggets and on-the-ground reporting, or in this case, on-the-river reporting. McClelland is a native of Lansing, MI, so the book actually begins with some great reportage on his hometown in the 60s and 70s when auto plant culture dominated the town, with freeway ramps being designed to accommodate the auto workers’ daily arrival and exodus from the plants. Chapter One covers the Flint, MI sit-down strike of 1936-37, an event I knew nothing about until last night. As a contributor to Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology, I was glad to see that co-editor of the anthology, Anne Trubek, had enjoyed McClelland’s book and is quoted about it on the back cover: “McClelland assembles old-school reporting, memoir, history, and wit into a brilliant story about the workers and robber barons who created booming economies, the strikes, politics, and global changes that rendered them depressed, and the people from Decatur to Syracuse trying to figure out what’s next. Neither starry-eyed nor despairing, Nothin’ But Blue Skies is the book to read on the past, present, and future of the Rust Belt.”

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No question it’s been a great past week of reading. And it’s going to be a great few more weeks of reading to come with such books in my to-be-read pile as  They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at a Residential Indian School by Bev Sellars, Chief of the Soda Creek First Nation band of British Columbia, Canada; Boris Kaschka’s Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America’s Most Celebrated Publishing House; Jumpa Lahiri’s September novel, The Lowland; and Jayne Anne Phillips’ October novel, Quiet Dell.Summer reading

Please note: All the book links in this blog post are live and go to the website of Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon. Under an arrangement I’ve made with Powell’s, if you choose to buy any books linked, they return a portion of your purchase price to help me maintain this website.

Wintersleep Filling Up My Last Night of NXNE

July 22, 2013 /1 Comment/in , , /by

View from my hotel room windowReaders of this blog may recall I was in Toronto last month for the North by Northeast (NXNE) festival. It was the third year in a row I’d attended, and the second year I’ve gone officially as press, for which I thank festival organizers who granted me accreditation so I could provide my perspective as an NYC-based blogger, reporting on an extravaganza where upwards of 1000 bands play at more than 55 different venues over 4 nights stretching all over the city. NXNE just had its fourteenth year, and they really know their game. Without a doubt, this was the most fun, productive, and musically rewarding NXNE yet for me. By my personal count I heard 35+ live acts over the four days and nights. This shows how futile it is to comprehensively cover the festival; still, thousands of music fans, musicians, and music writers have a great time trying.

I tweeted hundreds of times and published three full posts while in Toronto from June 12-17, and have put up three more posts since returning to NYC, now including this write-up.* I’m glad to be able to continue my coverage with this report on the last day’s bunch of bands I heard and lots of pictures.

On Saturday morning I met friends Michael Martin and Margot Stokreef for breakfast at the popular Lakeside Diner, near Ossington and Dundas. Michael and Margot are longtime sales representatives for many fine independent publishers. We had a nice time catching up and then Michael offered to me drop me back near my hotel. After a quick pit stop there I headed out again to have a beverage at a cafe called the Tampered Press with Toronto friend Patti Henderson, whom I had met in 2012 at Book Camp, an ad hoc publishing conference.  Another publishing vet, Patti is also a marvelous photographer who assembles the excellent blog, Vagabond Photography. When Patti and I split up I walked over to nearby Trinity-Bellwoods Park where the unofficial CBC Radio 3 picnic hosted by Grant Lawrence was slated to begin around noon, an event I covered earlier with this post: Recorded Music I’ve Collected at NXNE + CBC Radio 3 Picnic.

After enjoying all the conviviality at the picnic, where nearly 100 Canadian indie music fans met up, I headed back downtown via streetcar and on foot so I could hear Sarah Harmer play a live outdoor show at David Pecaut Square as part of the Luminato Festival, a Toronto celebration of the arts taking in music, literature, and film that overlaps with NXNE. Harmer played such familiar songs of hers as “Captive” and “One Match” and I left the outdoor performance space very happy.  Taking advantage of the Alexandra Hotel’s central location, as I had been able to do all week, I went back to my room for a cup of tea and a refreshing nap before my final night of music at NXNE (the view I had from my comfortable room, through the window that slid open, is shown at the top of this post).

The first club I visited that evening was Czehoski on Queen Street West, to hear a Chicago solo artist who plays under the provocative name of Briar Rabbit. A tall African-American singer/songwriter, he writes and plays music that examines race and historical perceptions of color. At one point, he told the audience that he’d made a study of American minstrelsy and the tradition of actors singing in black face make-up, next playing a song, “I Feel Invisible,” and then one called “Coon.” Briar Rabbit will be in NYC soon, with a show August 10 at the Living Room and August 13 at Rockwood Music Hall and I plan to hear him again at one of those venues.

My next show was quite a ways across town at Danforth Hall on the east side of Toronto, to hear Dinosaur Bones and the headliner, Wintersleep. Using streetcar and subway, I reached the converted movie theater just as Dinosaur Bones hit the stage. A 5-piece, their set built up a heavy melange of crashing guitars, keys, and drums that always stayed on the bright side of tuneful, with my fave song of theirs being a memorable one called “Ice Hotels,” which you can listen to along with other songs by them at their CBC Radio 3 artist page.  Montreal’s Hour magazine describes their music as “packed with feeling. . .whose delicate darkness almost belies its pop sensibility.”

Next up, Wintersleep, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who played a terrific show. The sound in the hall was outstanding, full and rich, not too loud, with every instrument of their five pieces clear and distinctly audible. Lead singer Paul Murphy was in good form, as the set list ranged across their ample catalog of great songs. The band has been around ten years, releasing five albums since 2003. From the latest, “Hello Hum,” they played “In Came the Flood,” and “Resuscitate.” From earlier albums they played many of my favorites, including “Black Camera,” “New Inheritors,” “Weighty Ghost,” and “Preservation.” Their artist page at CBC Radio 3 has all these songs and more, if you want to hear them for yourself. I was standing at center front near the stage for Wintersleep, and happily hung through it with some great folks I enjoyed meeting. There was Toronto musician Courtney Lynn, who had come to this show with her brother and sister, all of them fun company. Also nearby was  Clayton Drake, keyboard player from The Almighty Rhombus, the Sudbury, Ontario, band I had enjoyed so much on Wednesday night, whose show I had written up on Thursday. In fact, on Sunday, Clayton and I exchanged a droll series of tweets that concluded with quite an amusing line from him:

 

In the middle of Wintersleep’s second encore, I reluctantly left the hall so I could get back to Toronto’s West Side, where the punk band Fucked Up were playing a set at the Horseshoe Tavern. True to form, they played a wild and crazy show with moshing and hijinks from lead singer Damian Abraham.  When they finished it was after 2:00 AM and I happily headed back to my room for a few hours of sleep before waking Sunday to meet Marcy and Abe Fish, cousins of mine who live in Toronto, a day I covered with this post.

For readers who’d like to know, over the next couple weeks I’ll be publishing two more posts related to my NXNE 2013: 1) A large grab bag of photos that I haven’t so far shared in any of the six previously published posts. 2) A tourist guide to Toronto, with additional info on the well-situated Alexandra Hotel; ranking of the music venues; sightseeing tips, and photos of buildings and city scenes. For now, here are pictures from all the Saturday shows I attended. (Please click here to see all photos.)

* For the record, I invite you to read the earlier posts I published from my Toronto trip. They were 1) Day I of NXNE: A Musical Banquet; 2) NXNE Day II–Another Musical Bounty; 3) Recorded Music I’ve Collected at NXNE + CBC Radio 3 Picnic; 4) NXNE Day III–Six More Great Bands w/a “Best Live Show” as the Topper; and 5) Families that Make Art Together, a post not directly related to NXNE, but involving members of the Toronto chamber pop group, Ohbijou.

Did the Late Financier Frank Pearl Commit a Fraud on his Creditors?

July 22, 2013 /0 Comments/in /by


The tweet above came after I read a gobsmacking Washington Post story today which reported that the estate of venture capital big Frank Pearl, who died last May, is being accused by creditors–including big banks and even his former companies of refusing to pay obligations and legitimate debts. Plaintiff’s documents suggest they believe that in 2009 and 2010 Pearl may have falsely certified that his personal assets totaled $400 million dollars. Yet, as of September 2012, the Frank Pearl Estate claims assets of only $302,480.70 (that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars, no longer hundreds of millions.) Claimants also suggest that Pearl, an international financier, art and antiques collector, and philanthropist, arranged his affairs such a way that his obligations are not being paid. His widow Geryl is his sole beneficiary. Major law firms are involved and this is looking like something that could go on for months, if not years. Perseus Book Group, which includes Basic Books and Public Affairs, is one of the companies Pearl left behind. I recommend you read reporter Thomas Heath’s fairly startling story.

Today’s Stupid and Cruel News–All Encountered Before 9:30 AM

July 19, 2013 /0 Comments/in /by

In stupid and cruel news–

I hope the day gets better after this.

Andrew Pochter, 21 Years Old, RIP

July 14, 2013 /0 Comments/in /by


Amid the sadness over the murder of one young man, Trayvon Martin, I’ve also been terribly saddened by the violent death of another young man, Andrew Pochter, who went to Egypt to try and do some good. Reporter Karen Tumulty chronicled the story in the Washington Post:

“Andrew Pochter, a 21-year-old Kenyon College student from Chevy Chase, Md., was stabbed to death on June 28 during anti-government protests in Alexandria, Egypt. Pochter, a bystander to the demonstrations, was in Alexandria on an internship for a non-profit organization to teach English to Egyptian 7- and 8-year-olds. His family said the young man ‘went to Egypt because he cared profoundly about the Middle East. He had studied in the region, loved the culture, and planned to live and work there in the pursuit of peace and understanding.’
Pochter’s compassion and his determination to make a difference had begun much closer to home. For most of the past five summers, starting when he was 16, he had volunteered as a counselor for a program called Camp Opportunity. It is a weeklong sleepaway camp for at-risk children, aged 6 to 12, from the Baltimore area.
Each camper is assigned his own counselor, and the relationship continues each year. In June, Andrew Pochter’s camper had turned 12, and was moving on from the program. Unable to attend the ‘graduation’ picnic, Pochter sent the child a letter—one that summed up the way he was living his own life, and what he hoped to have passed along. It was read by Andrew’s sister Emily at Pochter’s funeral on Friday (text of Pochter’s letter is below):”
Andrew Pochter letter

#FridayReads–Lee Child’s “Bad Luck & Trouble” & Gerard Helferich’s “Theodore Roosevelt & the Assassin”

July 12, 2013 /0 Comments/in , /by

#FridayReads, July 12–Bad Luck and Trouble is a deceptively simple thriller that I found compelling throughout. Only the second Jack Reacher novel I’ve read, I’m finding these books are real easy to get hooked on. Reacher is a very interesting character, a drifter and loner, he’s an unconventional investigator–actually more of a crusader for justice and decency than a typical problem solver, a real knight errant, as many of the best protagonists are in suspense fiction.

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Just picking up a galley of a fall title, Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin: Madness, Vengeance, and the Campaign of 1912, that was sent to me by my friend, and long time Carroll & Graf colleague, Keith Wallman, who is now Senior Editor at Lyons Press. He’s been signing up great narrative nonfiction there, and this book on the failed attempt on Teddy Roosevelt’s life, in the midst of a presidential campaign, is a too-little known historical drama. Author Helferich is himself a former publishing executive who worked at Doubleday, S&S, and Wiley before becoming an author. I’m just getting started on this one, but I already like how it begins–with a map showing the separate but intertwining travels of candidate Roosevelt and his maniacal pursuer, a Manhattan saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank, over the summer of 1912, when Schrank stalked the man he crazily believed was going to leave the USA open to foreign invaders.