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What is the meaning of an idea?
There is the thing itself, born in the mind, an association that springs to life as the result of neurons firing, thoughts connected to other thoughts connected to prior knowledge connected to desire connected to the conscious and unconscious, a web of chemical reactions stitched together, constructing a piece of the self, the most intimate piece, which resides in the unknowable part of our identity, built upon language but also on sensory experience, the two things together, sometimes one used to describe the other, silently, in our minds as we name the things we see, as we connect them, as the alchemy of thinking creates a new, unique thought.
It is that, but it is also how we externalize it, how we describe it in the world and, once described, how it is taken up by other minds, perhaps made manifest in some form— an object, an action, a theory, words, language.
It is that, too, but also the result of that externalization in other minds as they collaborate with it, build upon the original, carry it forward, mutate it, replicate it, expand upon it or reduce it to nothing. It can lay dormant, only to be picked up later, it can be everything from an instantly forgotten notion, a mere whim, to the framework of knowledge itself— science, from a single connection between two thoughts to an incalculable network of ideas that generate something powerful and new, a world-shifting ideal, a process for thinking, for quantifying understanding, for building systems of thought that can transform human experience and, thus, history.
Benjamín Labatut's The MANIAC is a book that explores the tangible, knowable history of the development of modern computational systems and the human beings that helped create them, a stunning piece of writing that is both a historical recounting of how science found itself at the center of the arms race for nuclear supremacy and thus, the story of how an idea was realized in our world, inspiring an entirely new form of computational power.
More at The Back Row Manifesto...
https://backrowmanifesto.substack.com/p/notebook-the-maniac-by-benjamin-labatut
I... really liked this?
A sort of inverted HOUSE OF MIRTH about being a closeted teen in LA in 1981, with the horrors and paranoia and secrets of the teenage years placed in a fun house mirror by the looming violence of a serial killer, which serves as both a narrative obsession and as an abstract force of nature that no teen could possibly understand.
The book started a little slow for me, but I found my way into it, as that start established the rhythm of the story, which I started to enjoy, and I was absolutely pulled in during the middle third, and by the final third, I could not put it down. As an admirer of David Fincher's film ZODIAC, I appreciate the book's ambiguities very much and was sort of driven pleasurably crazy by how the book's use of narration gave adult author “Bret” the chance to examine things and parse out the story while teen “Bret” and his friends were all deeply inarticulate and unable to say what they meant in almost every circumstance.
So, this worked for me– Teen “Bret”'s paranoia and naive moral code coupled with a complete lack of self-awareness felt INCREDIBLY accurate to me, and while there were a couple of moments that I found Ellis to be making a point that felt “off”, especially the moments when adult “Bret”remembers his teenage self through Ellis' own contemporary political lens (being sexually manipulated under the guise of a screenplay meeting and then shrugging it off, his off-hand comment about being lectured about antisemitism in CHARIOTS OF FIRE– both moments felt outside the character of the fictional “Brets”), the vast majority of the book does an incredible job of using this fractured relationship between Ellis and his “Brets” as a propulsive force to keep the reader engaged. I also felt for teen Bret, whose struggle between his true self as a gay kid and the fictional self he was constructing for his peers was a key emotional component in making the stakes of the book feel actually, tangibly (see what I did there?) tragic.
As I see it, the titular “Shards” of the book are these fractured layers of the “Brets” and Ellis, and this beautifully choreographed dance between fiction and autofiction had a huge impact on the book as a “horror” or “crime” story for me– the narrative back and forth, with adult “Bret” laying out clues in the form of a first person recollection and teen “Bret” too horny and closeted and drugged up and at war with who he really was to f***ing remember to act on the clues or put the pieces together and the actual author Ellis playing with this dynamic to drive me forward as a reader– this all contributed to the sense of dread which ended up REALLY working for me in a pleasurable way. Ellis can truly deliver the creeps, and the propulsive energy of the book's escalating paranoia and violence in the final third was thrilling– I ended up picking the book up each day like I was a voyeur, I wanted to see what was next and I just could not stop reading.
I am sure your mileage will vary, but I have to say, I'm off to watch Icehouse and Ultravox videos on YouTube and let my Gen X brain enjoy the afterglow of a super fun read...
A seething, heartbreaking, often hilarious book about the emptiness at the heart of the human urge to make transformative, systemic change, to have an impact, to have life mean something in the face of absolute indifference. Throughout HARROW there is a powerful feeling of rage– at being voiceless, at wanting to DO SOMETHING (!!) in the face of relentless stupidity– which is made manifest in direct action which this book does not flinch in exposing as empty, narcissistic fantasy.
I experienced a deep connection to these feelings while reading the book, to the bleak humor that sits atop a wrenching feeling of helplessness in the face of preventable, man-made catastrophe, and I think HARROW truly captures the feeling of impotence– despite our words, our ideas, our hopes, our beliefs– that sits at the center of contemporary experience. I really loved this book and found it immensely comforting to discover so much of my own darkly comic despair reflected in the story (speaking of narcissism ha). It took me a minute to get into its rhythms and style, but this is definitely a book I'll be thinking about for a long, long time.
SPOILER-ISH SIDE NOTE:
The feeling of the book called to mind, for me, an echo of THE LITTLE PRINCE, if that makes any sense at all, with Khristen in the position of the narrator, “crash landing” in a hostile landscape, and brought into a world of loss and isolation before being ultimately left behind prior to her final meeting with Jeffrey, who represented (for me) the infantile, arbitrary self-satisfaction of the state with which she ambiguously reconciles(?). This is more tonal than narrative, but I couldn't shake it.
Mark Harris' MIKE NICHOLS: A LIFE is a rich, beautifully assembled portrait of an artist through the lens of his career and process, and it stands out for being an incredibly fun read. Nichols seems to have been a complex subject about whom to write because there is a clear fracturing of his personality between the smart, droll public persona he affected (which I love) and the artist whose emotional life was cracked open by the process of making theater and films (which I also love). His ability to process the text of a story through performance and staging underscores his inability to deeply analyze his own life; his addictions, relationships, his childhood, himself. Still, Harris gives the sense that there is something in the act of making comedy and drama that released what was inside of Nichols and. as someone who shares that impulse– I am always opened up somehow when the lights go down in a theater or cinema– I found the tension between Nichols' public/creative/inner selves incredibly moving and perfectly conveyed in the book. I was also fascinated by his complex relationship with Elaine May, another hero of mine, and the unique energy between the two of them (she absolutely demands her own book!)... I will 100% be re-visiting his filmography; I already love it, but now feel a much deeper connection to his work. On top of it all, the book is laugh out loud funny (so many absolute mic drops!), dishy, knows which details matter and when to move on (a masterclass in biographical pacing) and is a joy to read. Enjoy!
I absolutely loved it. I can't summarize it here, but I was incredibly moved by it as a story of isolation, loneliness, memory, loss, the relationship between thought and time and art, and how all of our experience combines within our minds to formulate life, experience– ourselves. It is, at its core, a novel of intricately executed interiority, presented as a spiraling fun house filled with trapdoors of self-awareness and the inescapable primacy of subjectivity. It is also laugh out loud funny; it brought me so many laughs and so much joy as a caustic takedown of contemporary culture and thinking. It was a book I looked forward to picking up each night, and now that it is over, I already miss it. As with any art, your mileage may vary, but this is a book to which I feel a deep connection and which brought me so much melancomic happiness. Calcium forever. ❤️
Phenomenal book. Literally everyone should read this exposé of the way in which data and psychological profiling have been combined to manipulate and demolish our democracy. There is no recourse for change, for consequences. You cheat, you win, nothing happens. Until there are real consequences for cheating by spreading disinformation and manipulating voters, we are absolutely in peril. This book clearly demonstrates how we got here.
Just finished reading Ben Lerner's novel THE TOPEKA SCHOOL last night, and the more it sits with me, the more I like it. The book uses the experience of the nuclear Gordon family to dive into the framework of American masculinity, psychosexual insecurity, and ultimately physical violence that has come to frame our current political climate. That said, there are no straight, causal lines drawn between individual behaviors in this 1990's microcosm and today's national dilemma, but instead, the book ferments in the impact that male role playing, and all of its subconscious (and conscious) damage, has had on our ability to be good to one another, male and female and non-binary and beyond.
But, as importantly (and in parallel and again, dominated by male “need” and perceptions of “competition”), the book lays out the strategies of performative intellectual dishonesty as the fundament of anti-intellectual American discourse. Using High School debate competition strategy as the scaffolding, the book compellingly defines the idea of “the spread”- the tactic of splattering as much bullshit against your opponent's wall that, should they even dare to take any of it seriously and at face value, they will never be able to address all of it. And that's how you win, by spreading out your opponent's concern across so many fields of response, that a comprehensive response becomes impossible.
And just look at our country, where the politics of “the spread” mean that if you care about immigration and LGBTQIA+ rights and the environment and racism and gender inequality and income inequality and housing insecurity and corruption andandand, you, like me, may constantly battle the feeling of being completely helpless against the ongoing tsunami of bullshit– real life, actionable, obvious, transparent, strategic bullshit, taken seriously, reported with a wink as if it were the truth– that stands in the way of human progress. THE TOPEKA SCHOOL is the first novel I've read that captures this condition (albeit in the context of High School debate) and gives it meaningful articulation. I will say, I'll always see “the spread” now for what it is, and that is very empowering, to finally have words for the thing you see everywhere.
A very good book, won't be everyone's cup of tea, but what of personal value is? I think “not everyone's cup of tea” is my identity at this point! ha ... Anyway, if you're looking for thoughtful, contemporary fiction, give this one a look.
A GREAT read and, with access to the hindsight of many of its subjects, a very morally complex work of non-fiction. I learned so much about a topic I thought I knew well, and I have not been this engaged by a non-fiction work in a long time. I am grateful to the author for his painstaking work in bringing this level of detail to the story, detail that illuminated individual experiences, emotions, and made visceral the life and death stakes of living through every moment of this historic, bloody period.
That said, and I want to insert a SPOILER alert here:
SPOILER
The book's final act, which is the story of a University archive forced to reveal its secrets and uncover information for law enforcement, is very anti-climactic given the stakes of the main story, but the revelations it makes accessible do help re-frame the book's narrative. From a storytelling point of view, I wish there had been another way to end the tale. Yes, I understand these are the historical circumstances that lead to the revelations that the book expertly sets up, but the story of a mismanaged set of privacy guarantees at a University archive is not on the same level of dramatic and historical interest as the revelations it uncovered, and while I do not have a suggestion as to how better to end the book, I do admit to being slightly dissatisfied by this final section. Still, history deals its own cards, so it is hard to argue too much with the choice.
Quick re-read after finishing BEGIN THE BEGIN, just to see how many anecdotes and stories overlapped (quite a few). I haven't read this since the early 1990's, a fun and lovely book... feels “thinner” than BEGIN THE BEGIN as a deep dive into the scene, but has more detail about THE B-52's and PYLON, which I loved, could have used even more, but was written in the wake of the “scene” exploding and the ending feels hurried, as if trying to get the book done. Still, a lovely walk down memory lane, especially for the B-52's material, which shines.
As a lifelong fan of the band (I found their music in 1985, when I was 14), and a visitor to Athens on multiple occasions, the first half of this book was a treasure trove of anecdotes and memories that made late 70's-early 80's Athens, GA, a mecca for young imaginations like mine. When you're a teenager in the era before the internet, growing up in the industrial Midwest, “scenes” and communities like the one described in the book take on a mythological, almost impossible, sense of magic. I will always have the Athens of my imagination, and this book does an incredible job of humanizing that place and time, making it more “real” to me than it ever had been.
The second half of the book, which spends less time in town as the band branches out, tours, records, and gets bigger, does a good job of staying rooted in the changing scene, but its analysis of the albums focuses more on the lyrical approach than the technical side of the songwriting and recording (although there is enough of each for fans to enjoy).
HOWEVER, the book has, for me, a real flaw, and that is its apologist approach to the Reagan-Bush era of national politics, which transformed the band, especially Michael Stipe. This issue comes to the fore in a particularly egregious section on Stipe's manifestation of mental health concerns during the recording of FABLES, which the author attributes to Stipe's confrontation with his sexual history and his legitimate double fear that he could have contracted HIV & that his privacy and rights would possibly be violated if he were tested for the disease. The legitimate terror and panic of this uncertainty at this time in our history is, in Lurie's telling (and possibly true), a galvanizing force in Stipe's political awakening, as it was in reality for an entire generation of HIV/AIDS activists who fought massive battles against government apathy, shame, hatred, and inadequate service for themselves and their friends and lovers, who were dying all around them.
Instead of painting this picture, Lurie instead writes:
“Is Stipe correct to link so much of his private turmoil from that time to the actions (or inaction) of the Reagan-Bush administration? At a practical level, probably not. The federal government did act quickly to fund AIDS research, and by the time Reagan left office, the annual budget for AIDS-related funding was $1.6 billion, having risen from an initial $8 million in 1982. The figure would increase exponentially under his successor, George H.W. Bush.”
This paragraph is unforgivable coming in a section about the possibility of a personal death sentence in early 1985, when the album was recorded, but more than that, it lays credit for this investment at the feet of the very people who refused to act and were forced into confrontation by brave activists who risked everything to make change and find a cure. It is also hard not to think of the illness and death of B-52's guitarist Ricky Wilson from AIDS, which also happened in 1985, and not see how naive and troubling this analysis is. If the story of Stipe's fear of an HIV diagnosis is true, one would only need to look a few weeks down the road from this recording session to see the facts on the ground for what they were.
I am loath to type the next half of that paragraph, which praises C. Evertt Koop for sending a mailer on AIDS to every household in America.
He goes on, in a fashion typical of this book, to give a little both-sides
“However, if we accept the long-standing convention that one of the President's duties is to reassure the public in a time of crisis... its hard not to conclude that Regan failed here, and may have done real damage with his silence.”
I added the periods because I don't think the paragraph could sustain any more qualifiers.
The author goes on later in the book to offer that the Reagan of his youth didn't seem too objectionable, and spends a great deal of time critiquing, sometimes fairly and often using Stipe's own later reflections on his own effectiveness, the political content of the band's performances and albums.
All of which is to say, while this book does a fantastic job with the band as it existed in the Athens bubble, I really feel the author's curiosity and empathy arrives at a dead-end when dealing with the band's larger meaning and how, through a personal, political crisis, one that shaped an entire generation of LGBTQ+ people and their allies, Michael Stipe became an important voice, one of many at the time (see Minor Threat, Public Enemy, Dead Kennedys, The Fall, ad infinitum) that were challenging the systemic fracture between the greed/elites above and people of color/LGBTQ+ people/the poor below. This was the dawn of the great and ongoing era of American economic inequality (well, for white people anyway, for others it has always been thus), and many in Gen X felt (and still feel) that injustice deeply. How the book misses this, misses how the decision to embrace that discontent contributed greatly to the band's ascent, is a big issue for how the second half of this book is framed. R.E.M. may have been nascent in their impact and the way in which they delivered the message through performance in the years covered by the book (GREEN arrives outside of the book's scope, fair enough), but it was transformative for so, so many of their fans at the time, it was incredibly important and brave not to remain silent, and the band should receive praise for that, not retrospective eye-rolls.
Anyway, I really did enjoy the author's conversational style and the ability to elicit so many wonderful stories about a time that is now lost to us, but I really believe a proper context for the times, especially the way the times “felt” to the band members and to so many of us, would have done this book a world of good.
One of the best collections of film writing I own. Kent is a brilliant thinker and writer. I love this book.
Very enjoyable autobiography of one of my favorite directors... looks at the 1970's radical politics in France with the fresh eyes of an artist.