See all 3 questions about One Summer…. Lists with This Book. Jan 05, Jim Fonseca rated it it was amazing Shelves: Fifty photos are included. The two main characters threaded throughout the book whose stories provide a framework for the whole are Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth. For young people, sash weights were heavy iron pipes used in the mechanism of wood windows. Rushmore; flag pole sitting; the rise of boxing and Jack Dempsey drew bigger crowds than baseball games Talkies started; Clara Bow was out due to her heavy Brooklyn accent An era of bigotry: Really worth a read.
View all 23 comments. There are some very obvious qualities to look for when choosing a history book. Accuracy is one thing. You want the facts to be factual. You want there to be some meaning to the facts presented. Storytelling is the thing. Yes, factual facts are important. Yes, interpretation and analysis are important. Bill Bryson is a storyteller, first and foremost. A glance through the Notes and Bibliography shows a heavy reliance on secondary sources.
One Summer is a garrulous slice of Americana. A series of snapshots in time. The calendar provides obvious structure, and each month is given a chapter, including September. It must have been an Indian summer. It is content to be a fun read though tackling some dark subjects. This is the work of a talented raconteur.
I feel like I would heartily enjoy having a drink or ten with Bryson. Instead, he is content to cover one subject and then jump to the next. It works because Bryson is a great writer working with good material. One Summer covers a lot of ground. Early on, aviation is the focus. Bryson covers the many attempts some doomed by aviators to win the Orteig Prize for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Eventually, the prize went to a youngster from Minnesota named Charles Lindbergh. The fame he achieved was singular, intensely focused, almost unimaginable today in an age of fragmented media.
For a moment, Lindbergh had almost the entire world at his feet and clawing at his clothes, and rooting through his garbage. Perhaps the most packed category is crime. Bryson covers two trials in particular that captured national attention. One, the Snyder-Gray murder, has faded with the years. It has, however, left a gruesome remnant: The other, featuring the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, is still argued over today. Bryson does a nice job of weighing the facts of the case and suggesting further reading.
Since America was in the midst of Prohibition, Al Capone also gets his moment upon the stage. I've hidden that picture of Ruth Snyder beneath the spoiler tag. It's not super graphic, but it's not puppies, either. Bryson mostly follows the larger-than-life Babe Ruth. As with Lindbergh and Capone, Ruth at first seems too obvious a character to write about. Bryson is so skilled at delivering anecdotes that this never became a problem. Almost at once [in his first year of professional baseball] Ruth displayed the outsized appetite for which he became famous.
The notion of being able to order whatever he wanted in hotel dining rooms was a treat he never got over. He also quickly discovered sex. He had no shyness there either. A teammate named Larry Gardner recalled walking into a room and finding Ruth on the floor having sex with a prostitute. Famed batsman and lover, George Herman Ruth In the political arena, Bryson gets the chance to highlight slightly more obscure personages. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover is introduced after he is put in charge of relief efforts when the Mississippi flooded, submerging some 23, square miles.
His achievements — actual and perceived — helped him snag the presidential nomination the following year. The man he replaced as Chief Executive was Calvin Coolidge. Silent Cal, as Bryson notes, is having a bit of a modern moment as the posthumous standard bearer for a certain strain of libertarianism. Coolidge spent the summer of doing what he did best: If so, then, Coolidge is our greatest president ever. Rumors that Coolidge's hat actually caused the stock market crash are Bryson certainly whetted my appetite to do further reading on both.
Even with a well-known figure like Lindbergh, Bryson managed to present an interesting factoid or two that I had missed. Turns out he was the Robert Baratheon of early aviation! As I read through the various story arcs — space is also devoted to Al Jolson, boxing, flagpole sitting, and eugenics — I tried to discern a theme. If there is, I think it has to do with the intoxicating effects of a spectacle.
Whether it was a salacious murder or a dude sitting atop a pole or a youngster piloting a rickety plane across the Atlantic, Americans showed an insatiable appetite for distraction. Of course, this is hardly an American trait alone. The French went just as insane over Lindbergh as the Americans. And in , Parisians hardly noticed themselves thundering towards world war because they were so enraptured with the murder trial of Madame Caillaux. Obsession with spectacle is part of the human condition. One Summer is content to be an enjoyable, if not exactly memorable romp through the past.
It does not have much to say beyond the story it is telling. I certainly thought Bryson's scope could have been expanded to include more viewpoints. To put it more bluntly, this is a book that is curiously race-free, to the extent that it talks at length about Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer without ever mentioning the rather mentionable fact that Jolson performed in blackface.
Sacrificed by a man who didn't like property taxes With that said, this is not a sepia-toned trip down nostalgia lane. Bryson does not try to convince us that America in is some perfect moment to which we should all want to return. Indeed, his retelling of half-forgotten terrors — such as the bombing of the Bath School by frustrated taxpayer Andrew Kehoe, killing 38 elementary-school students — subtly reminds us that the past is never too far in the past. View all 19 comments. This is a fun and interesting look at America in the s, but specifically the summer of It is remarkable how much happened in a few short months: The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash.
Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed.
One Summer: America, 1927
President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flo This is a fun and interesting look at America in the s, but specifically the summer of The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed 44 people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before.
Whatever else it was, it was one hell of a summer. For example, Prohibition was still going on in , but Bryson goes back to and explains how it came about. Or take the story of Charles Lindbergh. Before Bryson covers that first famous flight to France, he gives a brief history of aviation and explains how deadly and dangerous it had been.
Those kinds of details really make the book fly, if you'll forgive the pun. That Henry Ford was an ignorant jackass. He did not like bankers, doctors, liquor, tobacco, idleness of any sort, pasteurized milk, Wall Street, overweight people, war, books or reading, J. How ridiculous Prohibition was, and that it lasted for 13 years! It was easily the most extreme, ill-judged, costly, and ignored experiment in social engineering ever conducted by an otherwise rational nation It made criminals out of honest people and actually led to an increase in the amount of drinking in the country.
That Babe Ruth was a hot mess. How widespread bigotry was. There may never have been another time in the nation's history when more people disliked more other people from more directions and for less reason. The incredible impact that American films had, especially after talking pictures were created. Spanish conquistadores, Elizabethan courtiers, figures from the Bible were suddenly speaking in American voices — and not just occasionally but in film after film after film.
The psychological effect of this, particularly on the young, can hardly be overstated. With American speech came American thoughts, American attitudes, American humor and sensibilities. Peacefully, by accident, and almost unnoticed, America had just taken over the world. While I enjoyed finishing up with a printed copy, I did miss Bryson's voice. If you like audiobooks, I highly recommend his narrations. I've lost track of how many Bill Bryson books I've read, but it's never enough. I love his humorous and clever style, and I hope he keeps writing for several more decades.
View all 17 comments. Oct 10, Kemper rated it really liked it Shelves: If you think that you had a busy summer, consider Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic and became a national hero. Babe Ruth broke his own home run record on a Yankees club that would be remembered as one of the best baseball teams ever assembled. The Midwest was devastated by extensive flooding and the Secretary of Commerce Hebert Hoover was in charge of recovery efforts. A routine murder trial in New York became a media sensation for reasons no one can explain.
Sacco and Vanzetti were e If you think that you had a busy summer, consider Sacco and Vanzetti were executed and sparked outrage around the world. Capone also attended a boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney that would captivate the nation and still be controversial today. A young engineer with the awesome name of Philo T.
Farnsworth made a critical breakthrough that would lead to the development of television, and another entertainment milestone occurred when the first full length motion picture with sound began filming. Last but not least, four bankers had a meeting in which they made a decision that would eventually start the Great Depression. It should read like a trivia book of factoids, but what makes it more than that is the deft way that Bryson establishes the history of what came before as well as the long term impact.
By the time he tells the readers about how outlandish eugenics theories became influential which resulted in tens of thousands of people being legally sterilized in the United States, the reader can understand all too well how it could happen in that kind of environment. In fact, one of the things that jumped out at me about this is that most of the popular figures of were basically assholes. Henry Ford was also a notorious anti-Semite, and he was also the kind of ignoramus that despised people with educations or scientific background.
He was a self-made success story who had traveled the world as a mining consultant and was credited with a relief effort that fed millions in Europe during World War I. Yet he seemed to take no pleasure in anything other than work and one long time acquaintance noted that he never heard him laugh once in 30 years. Calvin Coolidge believed so much in limiting the role of government that he spent most of his presidency napping and would refuse to take even the most of innocuous of actions like endorsing a national week of recognition for the importance of education.
The guy may have enjoyed his food, liquor and women to excess, but he never hid who he was. Plus, he was fun at parties! View all 10 comments. Jun 25, Jason Koivu rated it really liked it Shelves: I know I'm Johnny-come-lately on the Bill Bryson bandwagon, but I am fast becoming a full-fledged fanclub member! Honestly, I'd read just about anything that dude wrote.
In fact, if I can convince him to write my obituary, I'm going to throw myself in front of a bus the first chance I get just so I can read it! The title of One Summer: America, explains pretty clearly what's between the covers. And oh boy, what a whole heck of a lot happened that year! The advent of television First real talkie, The Jazz Singer Brings about the sudden death of silent films. Babe Ruth broke the current home run record Lindbergh's story and that of flight in general takes up a large portion of this book.
Babe Ruth and the Yankees also feature prominently. The tragic trial of Sacco and Vanzetti is discussed at length. But it's not just a book about the historic events of '27 or a relating of the principle players and their doings, but rather an all-era-encompassing work that takes in the broad epic of America's strange, exciting, dangerous, and in the very least, interesting happenings.
Bryson is a great storyteller. Here he does an excellent job in putting the reader into the time and place, giving you a feel for the general undercurrent of the people, the importance of an occurrence and its aftermath. But it's not all about What led up to the big happenings that year are just as important to the greater understanding of the thing, and Bryson sets the table admirably.
He also placates the curious by giving us the epilogue of the major players and events of this time, so the reader gets that comforting closure. All in all, One Summer is a very satisfying way to endure a history lesson! Anyone Interested in American History.
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The more things change, the more they stay the same. What struck me most about this book is that the things going on in aren't that much different than the things going on today. In the autumn of [Hoover's] opponents, of whom there were many, began The more things change, the more they stay the same. In the autumn of [Hoover's] opponents, of whom there were many, began floating the notion that Hoover couldn't legally run because he hadn't been resident in America for the proceeding 14 years, as the Constitution required.
From the Archives: John Mendelssohn (2001)
Recently, people try to claim Obama isn't an American. Illinois imposed no restrictions on the sale of tommy guns, so they were available to the general public in hardware stores, sporting goods stores, and even drugstores. The wonder is that the death tolls in Chicago weren't higher. Gun control AND the murder rate in Chicago are still big issues.
Polyamory His private life was equally unorthodox in that he and another man shared the affections of a woman who had once been Baird's girlfriend, was now the second man's wife, and who found it impossible to choose between the two. In true British fashion, the arrangement to share was agreed between all three over a cup of tea. Nowadays polyamory is becoming more accepted.
A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities is published in Palmer was so pleased with the publicity his raids generated and the fear they instilled that he ordered a second, larger set of raids in the new year. This time some 6, to 10, people accounts vary widely were arrested in at least 78 cities in 23 states.
Again, there was much needless destruction of property, arrests without warrants, and beating of innocent people. The Red Scare leads to thousands of arrests without warrants or probable cause. Still happening today, but not with people feared as communists. Referencing the anarchist bombings of prominent officials Still dealing with terrorism and the fear of it today. A lot of the book deals with the overwhelming hatred of Jewish people, black people, and immigrants. Still dealing with all that shit today. The mark, which had traded at about 4 to the dollar before the war, now shot up to , to the dollar.
By summer, the exchange rate was BILLION marks to the dollar and inflation was so rampant that prices were doubling daily, sometimes hourly. People needed wheelbarrows or baby buggies to carry enough paper money to conduct even the simplest transactions. Germany or Argentina ?
In the book, we see that Warren G. Harding fathers a child out of wedlock. We still have scandals with American presidents who can't seem to keep their penis in their trousers. A German man in St. Louis who was believed to have spoken ill of his adopted country was set upon by a mob, dragged through the streets tied up in an American flag, and hanged. A jury subsequently found the mob leaders not guilty on the grounds that it had been a "patriotic murder.
Restaurants stopped serving German food or gave it non-German names; sauerkraut famously became liberty cabbage. The result of all this was quite a lot of anti-American sentiment, especially in France, where the struggling natives had to watch American tourists - many of them young, noisy, and made obnoxious by wine and no doubt sometimes also by nature - living like princes and living it up on Europe's debased currencies.
Still tons of anti-American sentiment abroad for various reasons. Altogether, forty-four people died that day: Besides this, you have some interesting facts about famous people that perhaps you didn't know before. Both Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh were anti-semitic. Both were admired and respected by Hitler. Babe Ruth slept with any woman he could, including the wives of other men and the wives of his teammates. At a party in his rooms at the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit, Ruth famously stood on a chair and shouted, "Any woman who doesn't want to fuck can leave now.
I admire her gumption. It's funny to see how the concept of "morality" was being set up and played with in the s. I mean, we all know how Prohibition turned out. The national murder rate went up by almost a third after Prohibition was introduced. Also, boxing was taking off in popularity among white people for the first time, which raised moral concerns about how white women might become The Reverend John Roach Straton saw a worrisome threat to morals in allowing members of the weaker sex to gaze upon "two practically naked men, battering and bruising each other and struggling in sweat and blood for mere animal mastery.
He was, by universal female consent, an eyeful. However, the book is not a total win. There is A LOT of stuff on aviation and flight. While this was interesting to me, it may not be to other people. And there is A LOT of stuff on baseball. I have no interest in baseball. Reading Bryson ramble on and on and on about baseball and baseball games was making me sleepy. And this wasn't some "little parts" of the book. It's not only a huge portion of the book, but it's scattered all throughout the book same with the aviation stuff.
If you're not enamored of aviation and baseball, you might struggle to get through this book. Tl;dr - As a history tome, this is fascinating and fun. Bryson is right to take a simple three months out of one year and focus exclusively on that for his book. Any more than that and it would have been too overwhelming. As it is, it is just right. Bryson can focus on an entire range of subjects but not let it get out of hand.
However, I'm happy to report that flying in a plane is about a billion times safer than it was in O It was just accepted that if you fly, you might die. I'm so grateful for modern air travel! View all 11 comments. Aug 23, Larry Bassett rated it liked it Recommends it for: America, , I jumped at the chance. Bryson is nothing if not prolific. He cranks them out. Since I received the ARC of One Summer just a month before publication, I was not able to read the entire page book prior to its publication. But I do want to say a few words about it even after publication since Bill Bryson is, for me, a Blast from the Past with this summer of eighty-six years ago.
But many more events are covered in this three-ring circus of a book. The action never stops. It would be hard to say that many of these tabloid news events warrant so much attention so many decades later. However, the entertainment value is high. Bryson, you will not be surprised to hear, was not totally fixated on the year He covers some of the family history of Charles Lindbergh. He writes of the lives and presidencies of a snoozing Calvin Coolidge and a self-aggrandizing Herbert Hoover.
Coolidge was actually President in As the Commerce Secretary Hoover was appointed the head of relief efforts in response to the unprecedented Mississippi River flood of during which the great river was in flood stage for over days. The Spirit of St. With Lindbergh temporarily unavailable, what America needed was some kind of sublimely pointless distraction, and a man named Shipwreck Kelly stood ready to provide it.
At 11 am on June 7, Kelly clambered to the top of a foot flagpole on the roof of the St. Francis Hotel in Newark, New Jersey, and sat there. That was all he did, for days on end, but people were enchanted and streamed to Newark to watch. Bryson detours from Lindbergh for a while to begin to tell us the story of the life of Babe Ruth who was born in leaving some distance to be covered before we arrive in the signature year of But even diversions have their own diversions in this homegrown history of many years rolled somehow into one.
The segues from the Spirit of St. It takes some effort of imagination to appreciate how novel radio was in the s. It was the wonder of the age. In a single day in , the number of American radio stations went from 28 to The canyon-like streets and spiky skyline that we associate with New York is largely a s phenomenon. Prohibition in the U. One of those years was so Prohibition gets a chapter in the book. There is no lack of stories about Prohibition and Bryson tells many of them — poisons being added to some forms of alcohol and padlocked establishments having customers enter through the back door are a couple of examples.
You may think that with four seasons in a year, each would have three months. You will not be surprised, I am sure, to learn that for the purposes of his book Bill Bryson extended the summer of to five months — May through September. You just have to go along for the ride. The flight of Commander Richard Byrd from New York to Paris weeks after Lindbergh is given some considerable attention although Byrd arrived in Paris by train since the plane was forced to land in the ocean along the coast of France.
Evidence is given of serious misinformation given by Byrd and his chief pilot Bert Acosta about the trip; foremost is the fact that the co-pilot Bernt Balchen actually did almost all of the actual piloting as a result of the lack of skill of the pilot Acosta who knew nothing about flying on instruments, an integral part of the journey. Cramming events of other years into continued with abandon: Harding, the summer of was not a good one, which was perhaps a little surprising since he had been dead for nearly four years by then.
When he died suddenly in San Francisco on August 2, … he was widely liked and admired. Frippery may be too strong a word but no one should expect too much of consequence from this book. The ARC I read was missing the bibliography and notes from the end, additions that may be of value to those who are interested in pursuing the historical aspects of the book. But I think you will likely find One Summer more entertaining than stimulating. More weak tangents to Fordlandia was a failed Henry Ford development in Brazil in There were some well known boxing matches in that era, but, again, a summer connection is a stretch.
Much of it is interesting without dwelling overlong on many of the topics. We are talking blurbs here of a page or two for those with a short attention span. History in the form of birdshot. The August segment of the book leads off with a twenty page story of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian anarchists convicted of a payroll robbery and murder that occurred in Massachusetts in and culminated in their execution in August of After dipping briefly into the announcement of President Coolidge that he will not to run for re-election in , we find ourselves in the story of the carving of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
However, one question directly related to the book was asked: He names some who thought they were guilty and boldly states: Many people closely involved in the case, then and later, concluded that Sacco and Vanzetti were certainly guilty of some thing. For himself, Bryson says, Across such a distance of time, it is impossible to say anything with certainty, but there are grounds for suspecting that they were not perhaps as innocent as they made themselves out. He did not specifically note the positions of the tabloids that were often evidently a trusted source.
This is one place I wish I had the final edition complete with notes. I am sure Bryson must have been more forthcoming there. But, here again, I am probably taking this book too seriously. It is not investigative journalism by any means. In fairness I should note that serious consideration and topics are not totally absent from One Summer. The information about the eugenics movement in the s and s is chilling. In a U. Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell was decided 8 to 1 in favor of eugenic sterilization.
At its peak in the s, some thirty states had sterilization laws, though only Virginia and California made wide use of them. It is perhaps worth noting that sterilization laws remain on the books in 20 states today. Also toward the end of the book, methods of communication make a strong pitch for notice: The popular authors outsold the F.
Scott Fitzgeralds of the time. In writing about writers, Bryson makes an attempt to pin his subjects down to the summer of since this is, after all, the alleged focus of his book. Among serious writers of fiction, only Sinclair Lewis enjoyed robust sales in the summer of Elmer Gantry was far and away the bestselling fiction book of that year. The novel sold , copies on its first day of sale, and was cruising towards , by the end of the summer ….
Hemingway produced no novel in He was mostly preoccupied with personal affairs — he divorced one wife and wed another …. Scott Fitzgerald, the other American literary giant of the age — to us, if not to his contemporaries — produced no book in Since I have drifted into culture, let it be noted that Bela Lugosi opened on Broadway in the play Dracula in September He made his entire career from that character. We take a brief stroll down Broadway in the neighborhood of, but not the block, of And we are told that the heyday of Broadway ended about that time with the advent of the talking pictures.
The movies took the Broadway audiences, actors and writers. So says Bill Bryson. I have said a couple of times that it would be interesting to see the Notes that appear in the final edition. Seems to me that Bryson may have occasionally sacrificed facts for a good story. Maybe is just another way of being flexible. If you are from Chicago or Indiana, you may be pleased to hear that these two locations get some special attention from Bryson. Actually, you may not be pleased since a lot of the attention is on crime and corruption.
You might not agree that Al Capone was a model citizen. In one short paragraph, Bill Bryson lists the events and people of the summer of that he observed for pages. As any good tabloid, the Epilogue exposes some quirks and tells how the people died. To that short list of objects you might now add this book, One Summer: But to fill pages Bryson had to stretch out the summer to much of the year and the era to all the years the people of lived.
He has entertained me, as he has done in some of his previous books, but he has neither made my spirit soar nor my mind marvel nor my pulse quicken. He has written a three star book that entertained without enthralling and that informed without compelling. View all 15 comments. Aug 17, Mike rated it it was amazing. Only one man could take Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight, Babe Ruth's record setting home runs, the worst flooding in US History, a surprise announcement by President Coolidge, the execution of two Italian anarchists, the introduction of taking motion pictures, television and the electric chair and dozens of other totally unrelated events that happened during the Summer of and connect the dots.
Several years ago I picked Only one man could take Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight, Babe Ruth's record setting home runs, the worst flooding in US History, a surprise announcement by President Coolidge, the execution of two Italian anarchists, the introduction of taking motion pictures, television and the electric chair and dozens of other totally unrelated events that happened during the Summer of and connect the dots. Within a few weeks I had devoured everything BB had ever written and eagerly awaited being one of the first to read his newest works that followed.
This time, I was able to read a publisher's advance copy of "One Summer, America, " a full month prior to the book's introduction to book stores. While you may think that the events of the Summer of are not, high on your list of things to know, please do yourself a favor and pick up this book. I promise you will find yourself LOLing and wanting to reread passages aloud to anyone within an earshot.
Even cataract surgery could not force me to put down this book! View all 4 comments. Nov 07, Miranda Reads rated it liked it Shelves: When I picked this up, I had no idea that it would be so interesting We travel forwards and backwards in history but all events converged to a significant moment during A Short History of Private Life where Bill Bryson looks into the full picture behind centuries of research, we have an account in extreme detail about regarding a single year.
We have Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic - a person whose fame started in and who' When I picked this up, I had no idea that it would be so interesting We travel forwards and backwards in history but all events converged to a significant moment during We have Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic - a person whose fame started in and who's fame haunted him throughout the rest of his life. Picture mobs of fans that never dissipate. Funny, how such a popular man became only a footnote after nearly a hundred years.
America became enraptured in the first big tabloid driven murder trial Ruth Snyder murdered her husband and did an extremely poor job of covering it up. Al Capone continues what he does best - smuggling booze and murder. Herbert Hoover does a incredible job with relief efforts from the Mississippi basin flood. There's so many fun micro-histories covered in this novel. They read somewhat like vignettes but he connected them so well that the full novel was completely cohesive. I hope that someday there will be a sequel of the same nature. Audiobook Comments Read by the author and it was a delight to listen to.
He was so enthusiastic about his book - made it a lot of fun! Jul 04, Dedra rated it it was amazing. A five star review from an avowed fiction reader for a non fiction book is pretty rare. But this book kept me just as enthralled as a great novel. What a summer was and what a storyteller Bill Bryson is! From the fascinating little known facts about Charles Lindbergh's flight and all the disastrous attempts before him that I had to read aloud to my husband saying, "Did you know this? Don't let the size of this book stop you. When I finished it, I wished it were longer.
Nov 07, Paula rated it liked it. I have very mixed feelings about this book. I gave it 3 stars because I did like the wealth of information in the book. Meltzer made a point of dropping soggy facial tissue all over my apartment. Take that, running dog lackey of The Industry!
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DeRogatis is, in my experience, a backstabbing scumbag. He phoned me out of the blue to interview me for the book. I put aside things I was working on and tried to be both cordial and helpful. During our conversation, I recounted, in a clearly apologetic tone, having been a power-mad little twerp in my days of greatest influence. I find this unconscionable. I think if we had anything in common, it was irreverence, but I suspect that they found me insufficiently irreverent.
Certainly our tone was extremely different. I enjoyed affecting a sort of patrician hauteur while they often pretended to be Joe Sixpack. I would far sooner be compared to Mr. Tosches than either of the other two, as he was by far the best writer of the three. My dear friend Mr. In retrospect, what do you think of the music of your old group Christopher Milk?
I find it embarrassing, and no one more to blame than myself. The others could play a bit, and the guitarist was capable of real brilliance, though he was forever overextending himself.
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I should never have allowed myself to be talked into being lead singer. No, I believe that people who love music enough to write about it ought to be forcibly restrained if they try to purchase musical instruments. Their bodyguards would beat me senseless just before I went on stage. My performance would suffer. Nik Cohn was a huge rock writing influence on you. What was it about his writing that you connected to? He was screamingly funny, with apparently absolute confidence in his own taste. My own star began to rise very quickly after I perfected my imitation of him.
What other music writers did you like in the beginning and later during the 70s? Lester Bangs used to change his mind all the time about records he once slammed. My review was very sober and boring. I hate it much more confidently than I did at the time.
All that infernal screeching! All that showing off on the guitar! All those interminable versions of Joan Baez songs! And not a trace of the things I adore—melody, vocal harmony, expressive musicianship, and intelligence, or at least wit. I was duly amused, and used it as the title of a chapter in my autobiography. I began dressing up like a rock star as soon as I was old enough to buy my own clothing. As a year-old senior at Santa Monica High School, I bought myself a pair of Thom McAn Beatle boots and a plush velour turtleneck that inspired some of my classmates to question my heterosexuality.
In fact, it was my heterosexuality that inspired me to dress like the musicians I idolized. What I wanted mostly was to shame groups like Motley Crue, which I regard, along with Kiss, as the worst in the history of the music, off the face of the planet. Creem always looked woefully amateurish. It was my wonderful taste in graphic design, we pause to note, that led to my becoming a graphic designer in the 90s. Rhino offered me money.
The Kinks were a band that moved you when you were younger. Do they still move you? Powerman , still gives me great pleasure. I believe that Ray Davies went off his game in around and has never been remotely the same. Are there any newer bands in rock that make you feel like The Kinks once did? Do you read rock journalism today and if so, what mags and writers do you like?
Gina Arnold, whose work has always struck me as a remarkable meeting of completely unfounded self-assurance and glaring incompetence. I believe her to be the worst critic of anything in the English language.