Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test edited by Mark D. White (2009)

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Jess

I love Watchmen, it is up there as one of my favourite books. Not one of my favourite graphic novels, but this re-imagined past populated by retired costumed heroes is one of my favourite stories ever. I think it comes down to not only the quality of the storytelling, the philosophical implications of the story, and the artwork, but also the time of my life that I discovered it. I’ll save divulging that sad sorry story for another time, but of all the titles in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, Watchmen seems the most deserving of in-depth philosophical enquiry.

Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test collects a number of different essays exploring the Watchmen universe and how it relates to different philosophical theories and concepts, from the problem Dr. Manhattan’s morality, to the feminism of the Silk Spectres, to the Kierkegaardian humour in Rorschach and The Comedian. It seems a little ironic that a graphic novel that is so intent on questioning all forms of authority and power has been given a treatment which relies solely on “legitimate” ways of analysis. The problem here being that all of the discussions, all of the issues raised in these essays seem implicit in Watchmen itself, so eloquently explored through the graphic medium, character and themes that these essays seem, well, a little extraneous.

Familiarity with the Watchmen universe will help the uninitiated wrangle with the philosophical jargon and get to what the writers are trying to get across, but other than a few moments of “hey, I never thought of it that way!”, there’s not much that isn’t, in some way, already evident within Watchmen. There are some interesting discussions about the morality of different characters and the virtues of different philosophical ethical motivations, but the most engaging essays are those which operate on more of a cultural level. Only one of the essays seemed utterly pointless, an attempt at an ironic (I think?) exploration of homosexuality within Watchmen which reiterated all the usual hateful arguments and came across as immature and repulsive. The argument may have been well intentioned, but the approach was completely off.

There is a tendency in the essays to rely on the more philosophically and ethically complex characters of Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias, but other characters do get a minor look in. Watchmen offers an obviously hyper-real version of our own reality, giving a heightened story through which to ask questions about identity, change, time and space. However, most of these essays use Watchmen to highlight and elaborate particular concepts rather than using the concepts to illuminate Watchmen. Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test is one for die-hard Watchmen fans only.

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad (2001)

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Jess

It’s easy to get romantic and nostalgic about independent music, at the same time getting tangled up in messy arguments about authenticity and integrity. Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 avoids this problem and instead maps out the formation of the American independent music scene with a clear perspective and an evident fondness for the music and the energy such a scene provided.

Azerrad, an American music journalist, sets out to tell the origin stories of thirteen bands that played an important role in the formation and success of the American independent underground scene: Black Flag, The Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr, Fugazi, Mudhoney and Beat Happening. These stories end either when bands break up or, the real death knell, sign to a major label.

They were replaced by a bunch of toughs coming in from outlying suburbs who were only beginning to discover punk’s speed, power and aggression. They didn’t care that punk rock was already being dismissed as a spent force, kid bands playing at being the Ramones a few years too late. Dispensing with all pretension, these kids boled the music down to its essence, then revved up the tempos to the speed of a pencil impatiently tapping on a school desk, and called the result “hardcore.”

What struck me about these stories is how key figures featured across many of the stories, creating the sense that in particular geographical regions and across the nation this really was a scene. An organic, thriving, cultural scene that managed to shape the sound of “alternative” music. This isn’t indie as a sound (you know, those guitar based bands on major labels that are relentlessly described as indie) or an aesthetic, but independent as prerogative. These bands were indie because there was no other option or outlet for the sounds they wanted to make.

I’m a punk/hardcore nerd, so the most interesting chapters for me were those related to Black Flag, Minor Threat, Big Black and Fugazi. However, even the chapters on bands who I’d never really connected with before (Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth), managed to keep my interest. These are not always the stories of righteously independent minded individuals, the bands histories are marked by petty in-fighting, drugs, alcohol, strained relationships, the usual “creative differences” – there is a wealth of great melodrama here that Azerrad is not afraid to explore. A little more about gender inequality would have been interesting as only a handful of women feature in these bands, but I’m sure this topic has been covered in depth elsewhere. As a history of the time, the music, and establishing why and how these bands were so important to a form we take for granted now, Our Band Could Be Your Life is engaging, and dare I say it, even a little inspiring.

Minor Threat epitomized one of hardcore’s major strengths: It was underground music by, for, and about independent minded kids. These kids weren’t on the hipster-bohemian wavelength, either because they weren’t hip or bohemian or because they simply felt the whole trip was needlessly exclusive and elitist. So it figures that hardcore would become popular in a definitively uncool city like Washington D.C. Hardcore wasn’t some druggy pose copped from Rimbaud, it was about things its audience encountered every day, and it certainly wasn’t some lowest common denominator corporate marketing ploy; hardcore kids knew the consequences of the former and grasped the larger implications of participating in the latter. And it had a beat they could dance to.

Our Band Could Be Your Life has me thinking about the possibility or viability of a contemporary underground/independent culture. Much is made in the book of how the lack of communication technology beyond the telephone meant that much of the networking was done through old-school means, namely mail, telephone and zines. With the current saturation of internet technologies aiding communication and social networking, doesn’t that also offer ready-made niche audiences to sounds and ideas that would previously have to either wait for audiences to adapt to new sounds or actively seek out those who would “get it”? Then again, much of the creation of these audiences is due, in part, to the efforts of the bands mentioned here.

The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace (1986)

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Jess

Marjorie Wallace’s The Silent Twins is an observational account of the lives, crimes and unusual psychology of two twin sisters, June and Jennifer Gibbons. In the late 1970s, they were two girls of West Indian background living and growing up in an air force community in Wales. Inseparable from the start, as they grew older they refused to speak to anyone, family included. They spoke only to each other, and even then in secretive and unintelligible code. The Silent Twins follows June and Jennifer through their childhood and troubled adolescence, and is a sad, yet endlessly fascinating, portrait of a very disturbing relationship.

The Gibbons twins silence (or “elective mutism” to use the phrase of the psychologists that worked with them) was problematic throughout their school life, though their mother remained strongly insistent that they were both just shy. Subjected to numerous tests, surgery, and different educational approaches, they retained their silent bond. Attempts to separate the two are useless, and their physical reaction to potential separation is so chilling. There is almost something strangely supernatural about their dedication to their silent pact. The education system fails to help the twins, though they both possessed a rich and creative inner world.

June and Jennifer emerge, through these diaries, as two human beings who love and hate each other with such intensity that they can neither live together nor apart. Like twin stars, they are caught in the gravitational field between them, doomed to spin round each other for ever. If they come too close or drift apart, both are destroyed.

After dropping out of school and receiving unemployment benefits, the girls became recluses in their own home, talking only to their younger sister and each other. In their bedroom they enacted elaborate social lives through their dolls, created and recorded their own radio programming and wrote countless stories. June eventually published a novel, The Pepsi-Cola Addict, through a vanity press which is now a highly sought after artefact. The excerpts of the novels aren’t particularly great, but the interest lies mainly in the personal history of the author.

In their teenage years, June and Jennifer begin to desire the attention of the local neighbourhood boys. Losing their virginity, drinking, drugs, and misperceptions of love may be usual teenage coming of age rites, but combined with their silence and the twins love/hate relationship with each other these rituals become somewhat eerie. Boredom and social isolation lead them to crimes ranging from petty theft to arson, frustrated by their surrounds and their unbreakable connection to each other, but is this really much different from any other perpetrator of petty suburban crime? Even in the controlled and isolated environment of prison, the tension between June and Jennifer continues to build, their games once them against the world begin to be turned against each other.

[from June's diaries] Someone is driving her insane. It is me.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the straightforward details of their lives, and the ceaseless power struggles and disturbing games they play against each other, but this is how Wallace portrays it. Much of the Silent Twins is told in a clinical, observational style that doesn’t leave much room for analysis. We may not come to a greater understanding of the whys, but we know their story, we hear their voice – though there is an over-reliance on their dream diaries – and that seems so important for two young women who were continually frustrated by each other in their attempts to communicate with the outside world. This lack of analysis makes their psychology even more confounding. It’s a story that would be very easy to sensationalize, and Wallace’s detached approach manages to avoid the tabloid course.

The Silent Twins ends with June and Jennifer barely in their twenties, and is in dire need of an update almost twenty five years since the original publication. (Though my edition is an older one, newer printings may have been updated?) The ending is unspeakably bleak, with no feeble offer of hope. June and Jennifer are left institutionalized in a place that doesn’t understand them, and has given up on the possibility of understanding. They’re drugged and forced to conform, and find themselves with no ambition or inclination to write, even in their previously extensive diaries. To me it seems that for all their crimes, their life sentence is much heavier than deserved. The Silent Twins is deeply unsettling. This is one that is going to haunt me for a long time.

Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker in Training by Tom Jokinen (2010)

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Jess

After quitting a comfortable government job, Tom Jokinen takes up a position as an apprentice undertaker. Working in a family run funeral home in Canada, Jokinen begins to feel increasingly perturbed with the way much of the Western world treats death, in particular the evolution of the funeral itself. As more people begin to turn to cremation as a viable option for post-mortem disposal, and secular rituals begin to take place of the religious, what becomes of the humble funeral home? Jokinen uses his own on the job experience, some journalistic investigation and a good sense of humour to explore this idea further in his memoir Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker in Training.

People don’t want to know. There’s a time, from when someone dies to when they magically pop up at the funeral or the cemetery or as a bag of ashes, that remains a black hole, invisible to the rest of the world, and everyone’s happy with that arrangement. We in funeral service cover the gap. People pay us to keep to ourselves what goes on there.

The changing socio-cultural value of the funeral is at the heart of what Jokinen is investigating. Through a look at the funeral business itself, and how it has had to adapt to changing attitudes toward the funeral, he reminds the reader that undertaking is, above all, a business. And that in business, and the commercial world, people will seek value for money, even if it is at the expense of respect and dignity for the dead. The growing trend of personalized memorial services is also being capitalized on by the industry, and it’s not hard to see why. As the popularity of cremation grows the funeral industry loses their profit from embalming, caskets, flowers, services, etc, and so they’ve had to adapts their services in an increasingly secular world that ultimately aims to celebrate the individual.

What Jokinen is really mourning is the loss of communal ritual and tradition. He provides indepth descriptions of how people of different faiths ritualize death, and how the tradition of that is waning in the face of growing religious scepticism. Now, he argues, with no religious links or community to guide our actions and reactions to death, we’re gradually becoming a generation that has lost touch with the inevitability of death, we’re insulated from it to the point of ignorance. We’ve replaced faith and the tribe with an overzealous faith in science and medical technology, which, obviously, cannot prevent death and fails to offer a way to deal with it.

Scatter where you want, bury where you wish, but do something with intent, don’t be passive and follow what commissioned pre-need salesmen consider the norm. Use your imagination, balance your spiritual beliefs with guesswork, but do the work: accept we know nothing about death, take a leap of faith, and have the courage to act anyway.

Through his examination of the various rituals we use, Jokinen comes to a conclusion that could work as an effective market for the environmentally and socially aware or perhaps just an ideal vision of how he would like to be seen off. Either way his conclusion and the progression of his thoughts feels natural, he makes everything he argues for seem so logical, almost obvious. He is able to see the humour in what may be an otherwise dire occupation and weaves many hilarious anecdotes into his discussion. Jokinen’s deft touch stops the memoir from getting too bogged down in the seriousness of the issues he explores, and his consideration of the industry and our cultural relationship with death is thought-provoking and insightful.

Sweet Sorrow: A Beginner’s Guide to Death by Mark Wakely (2008)

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Jess

Here comes morbid Jess again, harping on about death. I only picked up Mark Wakely’s Sweet Sorrow: A Beginner’s Guide to Death because the library catalogue suggested it to me when I was looking for something else (although along similar lines, Kenneth McKenzie & Todd Harra’s Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt. Now looking at the Book Depository I realize it hasn’t even been released yet, so it must’ve been one of the titles I came across when going through new release lists at work.) I thought I was in for something appealing with Sweet Sorrow when I saw the epigraph was from a Philip Larkin poem, but this is a brief introductory look at the death care industry and its aims are too broad to explore any of these endlessly fascinating issues in detail. However, if you’re not familiar with what goes on at a funeral home, a morgue or a palliative care unit, Sweet Sorrow is a gentle guide through these industries that care for us before, during and after death.

Motivated by a growing need to confront his own anxieties about death, Mark Wakely sets out to investigate the rituals surrounding mortality. He states from the very beginning that Sweet Sorrow is intended to be read as a personal enquiry rather than a comprehensive report. Between chapters are fictional excerpts about a woman losing her father which I thought I would find grating and unnecessary but added an emotional dimension to Wakely’s investigation. Written in a conversational tone, Wakely guides the reader in an informative, considerate and sensitive manner.

Did you know that until the 1940s and 1950s most people died at home? Compare that to now where 80% of Australians can expect to die in hospital, thus making a look into the palliative care industry necessary. Here he describes the physical deterioration of death, the psychological aspects of a patient’s inevitable death, the impact on families and the ways palliative and hospital staff cope with the constant confrontation with death. Wakely visits a morgue to learn about how autopsies are conducted – for those concerned, this is the most visceral the book gets – and what circumstances require an autopsy. Wakely’s visit to a coffin factory is interesting, seeing how they’re made and the different options available, including decorative designs, custom designed coffins and environmentally friendly coffins. Say, bookworms, how about a bookcase that can be converted into a coffin?:

Just when I was reassuring myself that there would be no space to store a coffin in the small apartment where I live, along comes British designer William Warren with yet another twist to the story of coffin-making. The furniture designer has created a shelving system called ‘Shelves for Life’, a set of floor-standing plywood bookshelves that come apart and can be reconfigured into a coffin. William wrote to me about his design:
“The Shelves for Life are part possession, part preparation. They are not a coffin yet; they simply have the potential to be a coffin in the future. We’re all going to die and we will all need a coffin, so why not make your coffin something you’ve owned and loved for years and save your bereaved family having to choose one for you at an already difficult time?”

Visiting funeral homes Wakely learns about the differences between independent and conglomerate funeral companies, outlines how and why an embalming procedure is completed, and how people express their grief. Other funerary rituals that are discussed are the delivery of the eulogy, choice of flower arrangements and the most popular songs played at funerals – Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” being one of the most popular here in Australia, although Monty Python’s version of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” is another popular choice. (Always wanted The Rolling Stones’ “Shine a Light” myself.) The choice between burial and cremation is also explored, however briefly.

It is this brevity that makes Sweet Sorrow an ideal choice for a reader wanting a basic and gentle introduction to the rituals and routines surrounding death in the Western world, particularly in Australia. I would have liked to see more about how different cultures and religions view and treat death but Sweet Sorrow is firmly situated in the traditions of the Western world. For those wanting something more in depth Sweet Sorrow provides a broad overview of our social and cultural rituals but ultimately offers nothing that couldn’t be learned from watching a couple of seasons of Six Feet Under.

Columbine by Dave Cullen (2009)

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Jess

Chances are you remember the footage. The two figures clutching guns stalking the abandoned school cafeteria, the frightened students outside. More likely you remember how Columbine came to mean so much more than just a high school massacre, it incited debate about gun legislation and the availability of weapons, bullying, subcultures, violent movies, music, parental responsibility, school security, antidepressants, religion. In his astoundingly powerful Columbine Dave Cullen painstakingly reconstructs April 20th, 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed their high school and killed 12 students, 1 teacher, and injured over twenty others before committing suicide; Cullen also looks at the aftermath of the massacre, and questions everything we think we know and believe about Columbine.

Cullen opens his report with coverage of the weekend leading up to the massacre. He outlines the things Eric and Dylan did that weekend – not so much the meticulous and obsessive planning and preparation – but the everyday, teenage routines. Dylan went to prom, Eric received a promotion at the pizza joint they worked at, their interests, activities, personalities, emotions, their strengths and weaknesses, their family and active social lives. Cullen creates portraits of these boys which, disturbing as it may be to some, humanizes them. Rather than using the tired “monster” image, Cullen looks at them as humans. This, I think, is effective in raising questions about motivations and reasoning. Despite their heinous crimes, dismissing their actions as those of monsters or evil is just a way of avoiding confrontation and fear that two average, suburban teenage boys did this. It shifts responsibility away from them as individuals and on to society, culture, whatever – which doubtlessly played a role, but it takes a lot of strength to look into the darker parts of the human psyche to try and see what really caused them to kill.

We remember Columbine as a pair of outcasts Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-standing feud. Almost none of that happened. No Goths, no outcasts, nobody snapping. No targets, no feud, and no Trench Coat Mafia. Most of these elements existed at Columbine – which is what gave them such currency. They just had nothing to do with the murders. The lesser myths are equally unsupported: no connection to Marilyn Manson, Hitler’s birthday, minorities or Christians.
Few people knowledgeable about the case believe those myths anymore. Not reporters, investigators, families of the victims, or their legal teams. And yet most of the public takes them for granted. Why?

It is somewhat confronting to realize how deeply the myths about Columbine – the supposed outcast and bullied victim status of Dylan and Eric, the trenchcoats, etc.- run, primarily thanks to saturated media coverage. Cullen never resorts to conspiratorial theories about why the media so openly propagated these myths, and instead offers a sound reasoning as to how and why these stories took hold. He is careful to never lay blame on the victims or the witnesses, but is unrepetent on the media which used the testimonies of unreliable witnesses – being that their horribly traumatic experiences – without question. Of course the brain and memory functions differently in such high-stress situations, and yet the media took these accounts, even off the cuff remarks as absolute truths. His ruthless attitude toward the abused responsibility and power of the media seems to be, at least in part, a redemptive act – making up for mistakes he may have made in his original reporting on the situation. It’s interesting to consider the delay in the relay of information – local papers would print information one day and it would filter out to more national outlets the following day – and how today’s faster dissemination of information and news could leave it prone to further mistakes. Even the martyrdom of Cassie Bernall (who it was originally claimed was asked if she believed in God by Eric, she said yes and he shot her. This has since been disproved – although another student did have this exchange with Eric, she survived.) survives due to the infiltration of false information. Here however, it was used – effectively – by the religious sector to further their own cause, as though we were so desperate for a symbol of hope in amongst all the horror than even one based on misinformation would do. Nonetheless, Cullen provides a powerful symbol of hope in the figure of Patrick Ireland, shot multiple times and escaped from the school via the library window, Cullen takes us through Ireland’s painful recovery process and forgiveness, through to Patrick overcoming his physical ailments and dancing at his wedding.

The uncovering of Eric and Dylan’s previous arrests, search warrants, threats of violence, violent stories seems to have been strangely covered up, Cullen discusses these criminal histories not so much to shift the blame or to show where the Columbine attack could have been prevented, but who these boys were, what happened in the lead up to April 20. An FBI investigator deems that Eric was a psychopath – he used violence for pure enjoyment and to demonstrate his superiority; Dylan was a depressive who was willingly roped into Eric’s plans. This distinct lack of motive is what drives the curiousity and continuing search for answers, and perhaps is the most frightening aspect of the whole saga: it seems we cannot accept that there may never have been a logical reason behind their acts, so we keep looking for scapegoats, easy answers, for someone or something to blame.

Dave Cullen so effectively erases his own authorial voice that it is very easy to accept everything he writes as the definitive version of the massacre, and yet so much remains unanswered and contradictory. I still feel like it is important to note that despite his indepth research, conjecture and consultation with experts on the case, it is still only one journalists interpretation of events. The only two people who could ever answer the many questions their actions raised died that afternoon in the library, but Cullen does an stellar job of debunking the myths and tracing the boys’ evolution from high school kids to mass murderers. The book trailer on youtube features Dave Cullen speaking about the book and makes me want to read Columbine again. This story will get inside your head, it’s intense, frightening and confronting but absolutely necessary.

Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan (1958)

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Jess

In the late 1930s, at the tender age of sixteen, Brendan Behan is a junior member of the Irish Republican Army and is arrested in London with a suitcase of explosives in his possession. Borstal Boy follows his journey through the British juvenile detention system and overcoming his prejudices. While Borstal Boy is full of an infectious boyish warmth, the differences between correctional facilities then and now gives it a sense of innocence, even naiveté, that is difficult to ignore.

[...] but it was not reallly the length of the sentence that worried me–for I had always believed that if a fellow went into the I.R.A. at all he should be prepared to throw the handle after the hatchet, die dog or shite the licence–but that I’d sooner be with Charlie and Ginger and Browny in Borstal than with my own comrades and countrymen any place else. It seemed a bit disloyal to me that I should prefer to be with boys from English cities than with my own countrymen and comrades from Ireland’s hills and glens.

Considering the intentions of his crime – to bomb English shipyards – Behan’s political views are rarely spoken about. They come up in his various trials, where he prepares speeches that sound as though all the information and rhetoric has been passed down to him by his superiors, but when brought up by his fellow prisoners and his friends, his allegiance to his home country isn’t spoken about in political terms. Behan seems more concerned about the conflict between his political leanings and his Catholic faith – especially as he is excommunicated and not to attend special prison services.

The use of slang and the different dialects of the prisoners and the prison officers establishes the class and race differences effectively, without putting too much of a didactic point on it. Behan has so many charming phrases at the ready, and the rhyming slang is infectious. Brendan’s ease of relating to others, even those who presumably he should be against, gradually allows him to overcome his prejudices, but this occurs in such a subtle manner. It doesn’t come across as Brendan learning to look past differences, but of the strength and importance of his friendships with individuals from all classes. The dialects give the characters such strong voices – you can hear them perfectly in your mind. Brendan’s constant referencing and singing of songs, to himself, to and with his peers, or as part of church services, also give the text a strong, almost audible voice.

He was dead lonely; more lonely than I and with more reason. The other fellows might give me a rub about Ireland or about the bombing campaign, and that was seldom enough, and I was never short of an answer, historically informed and obscene, for them. But I was nearer to them than they would ever let Ken be. I had the same rearing as most of them; Dublin, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, London. All our mothers had all done the pawn–pledging on Monday, releasing on Saturday. We all knew the chip shop and the picture house and the fourpenny rush of a Saturday afternon, and the summer swimming in the canal and being chased along the railway by cops.
But Ken they would never accept. In a way, as the middle-class and upper-class in England spend so much money and energy in maintaining the difference between themselves and the working-class, Ken was only getting what his people paid for but, still and all, I couldn’t help being sorry for him, for he was more of a foreigner than I, and it’s a lonely thing to be a stranger in a strange land.

Borstal Boy shows us the monotony of an imprisonment, the routines and the expectations. However, Behan’s colourful turns of phrase and the heavy use of slang and dialects, as well as the surprisingly warm friendships he makes with his inmates – Charlie in particular – doesn’t turn this monotony onto the reader. As he walks around his cell, reads literature provided by the prison library, works, and finds new ways to keep warm, Behan always remains lively. The routine is lost somewhat once Brendan is sent to the Borstal Institution, as he has his friends with him and the rules seem to be considerably less strict than in detention.

Still, it’s hard not to notice the comparative innocence of it all. Surely it is unlikely that today a young boy captured with the intent to use a suitcase full of explosives would be sent to a Borstal, free to roam the grounds and mingle with others? Likewise, his friends have committed serious crimes – everything from petty theft, to rape and murder. Rather than detention or prison, the institutions Brendan finds himself in are almost camp like, not what we would expect today at all. There is even a sense of excitement about being moved to the Borstal by the sea. Is it likely that Charlie and Brendan would be kept together since their arrest? While Borstal Boy is surprisingly warm, and Brendan Behan a hugely likable character, it’s difficult to consider it as an accurate look at juvenile correctional facilities – as a period piece though, it’s definitely a gem.

Pop: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company by Constance L. Hays (2004)

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Jess

With the release of the iPad and the growing popularity of the Kindle, Nook and other e-reading devices, a few outlets such as The New York Times and Meanjin are contemplating the fate of the book cover. Not only do they act as the outward display of our undeniably exquisite reading tastes (or something to be bent back to hide what we’re reading from prying eyes, should our tastes lapse ever so slightly), but they can draw us toward a book that we wouldn’t otherwise pick up. Such is the case with Constance L. Hays’ Pop: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company. Some savvy librarian had placed the book on a display shelf at the end of the 300s, and myself, unable to resist a pup looking sadly hopeful at a rosy cheeked woman and her old-fashioned bottle of Coke held daintily in gloved hands, took it home.

One Wall Street analyst liked to describe Coke and Pepsi in terms of two diametrically opposed college students: Coke was the studious one, the one who was always in the library and aced his exams. Pepsi, meanwhile, was the fraternity brother who lived to socialize, studying just enough to get by and occasionally surprising himself by doing very well – often enough to make him believe that his approach worked just fine. In product development, in marketing, and in overall strategy, throughout all the years of their competitive relationship, Coke had been the diligent one and Pepsi’s record had been hit-or-miss. By 1997, when Goizueta died, analysts all believed fervently in Coke, that Coke could do no wrong, while Pepsi was regarded as a joke.

I expected, or wanted perhaps, an overview of the cultural and historical impact of Coca-Cola. Pop does cover some of this ground, but for the most part it is an insight into the fraught business of Coca-Cola, from the turbulent relationship between the company and the bottlers, to internal politics, to stock options and stock prices and aggressive marketing campaigns. I’m not exactly what one could call business-minded, but Hays tells the story of the intense business of selling Coca-Cola in a way that makes it accessible to readers. The numerous chief executive officers and their tribulations are told as great overarching narratives that represent the changing world in which Coke existed. Sometimes, it is hard to believe the stories. At one point, Roberto Guizueta the CEO of Coca-Cola from 1980 to 1997, and the man who tried to introduce the world to the infamous New Coke, owned one billion dollars worth of shares. At that stage, the gross national product of his home country of Cuba was ten billion dollars. This is what I don’t really understand about business, how much money is enough? What kind of life would you be living if no amount of money is ever enough? Okay, one of gold-plated cars and money vaults like Scrooge McDuck. The strategic moves made in order to make profit and keep the shareholders are astronomical, such as the dramatic dismissal of Doug Ivester after creating billions of dollars in value to the company and only two years in the top job. And yet, employees were disappointed that Ivester’s business strategy had become solely about “the bottom line.” Although with the severance payouts, I don’t see cause to complain too much, we’re talking double figure millions here.

Thankfully, Pop isn’t all about the business side of Coca-Cola, and interesting tidbits are supplied in abundance by Hays extensive research. Such as the use of Coca-Cola in World War 2, in which it was used as a patriotic symbol through which homesick American soldiers were reminded of home. Between 1941 and 1945, ten billion bottles of Coke were sold to troops; a clever ruse through which to create patriotism and marketing value home and abroad. Prohibitionists displayed concern over the caffeine levels of Coca-Cola from the introduction of the beverage, but little attention is given to the concerns over sugar content that seems to have exploded over the past few years. (A recent article compares excessive soda consumption to tobacco usage.) The New Coke fiasco, basically an attempt by Coca-Cola to undo the damage of the Pepsi Challenge, altered the recipe for Coke and caused widespread outrage among consumers, who rallied and lobbied for the return of the old recipe. Eventually New Coke was scrapped altogether, but the experiment exemplified the cultural significance of Coke, as well as the nostalgia consumers attach to the product; through and after the ordeal, sales of the old recipe soared and stock prices were raised – causing no real or lasting financial damage to the company, though it would be used as an example of what not to do in business.

Pop: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company is packed a wealth of information about the business of Coca-Cola, from those mentioned above to product recalls, lawsuits charging the company with racial discrimination and the ruthless introduction of the company into foreign markets. Though focused primarily on the business aspect of the company, Pop provides insight into what has made the Coca-Cola Company a dominant strength, not only within the beverage industry, but in the global economy.

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll (1978)

Posted on March 17, 2010 by Jess

The Basketball Diaries features excerpts from musician, poet, and author Jim Carroll’s adolescent journals, kept from age thirteen to sixteen; a time where he acquired a nasty junk habit between committing petty crime, attending classes and playing basketball. Written in New York in the mid-1960s, there is the distinct intonation of baby Beat in Carroll’s rhythms and hip slang, but none of the energy or enlightenment. Rather, Carroll’s constant nodding out on heroin becomes repetitious to the point of boredom. The Basketball Diaries lacks the narcotic cadence of other drug-fuelled memoirs or prose, most likely due to the age of the author at the time of writing them.

You just got to see that junk is just another nine to five gig in the end, only the hours are a bit more inclined toward shadows.

Carroll’s descent into heroin begins when he starts shooting up under the mistaken belief that marijuana, not heroin, is the habit forming drug. Young Jim guides us through his journey toward and through (but not out of) his addiction and the risks he takes in order to get his fix. The beginning of the diaries start off innocently enough, his peers are his school and neighbourhood friends, they commit crime and take lighter drugs, engage in sometimes funny pranks, and the usual boyish behaviour you’d expect. It is only through comparison that we can see any evidence of the loss of innocence/childhood/faith (delete as appropriate), because Carroll himself doesn’t seem to want to expand upon this. It seems, through his bleary eyes, that the drug addiction is to be seen as something of a gain, an extension of himself, something that offers a better version of himself through the purer state of existence that he aims for.

Now there’s one set of gimmicks hid up there and it’s the filthiest spike you ever could see, been used by guys I prefer not to think of out of the fact my stomach is a bit upset. But you bet your ass there is not one bit of hesitation in drawing your shot into that harpoon and shoving it into your mainline. If you got dope you will get it inside you no matter how and I will too I can’t deny that. But here’s what I can’t get. Willie asks me for a slug of soda so I pass him the bottle and what the hell does he do but pull that old second grade bullshit of wiping off the top of the bottle before he takes some. Shit, I men anything I can give him from that bottle he’s gonna get a lot easier from using the same spike. None of these lames think twice, or once, in fact.

It’s difficult to feel any sympathy for Carroll, and he wouldn’t want it if we did. Though there are very few moments of inspired prose, Carroll jerking off on the roof under the stars and moon stands out as one instance of vivid imagery, the majority of The Basketball Diaries is tediously boring.

Hoax Nation: Australian Fakes and Frauds from Plato to Norma Khouri by Simon Caterson (2009)

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Jess

Hoax Nation: Australian Fakes and Frauds from Plato to Norma Khouri is a refreshingly different look at the variety of hoaxes perpetrated throughout the annals of Australian history. Rather than recount our colourful history through the usual method of what we have deem truth, Simon Caterson takes a look at the events, publications, and cultural ephemera that were discovered to be elaborate hoaxes. As the subtitle suggests, the history of Australia has always been marked by misunderstandings and falsified accounts, and Caterson relishes in reviving these historical deceptions. A selection of quotations from everyone from Marcel Proust to Matt Damon on the art of the lie or the fallibility of truth adds an extra dimension to the work.

What I appreciated about Hoax Nation was the breadth of topics covered, however the limitations of space in Arcade’s signature small sized books meant that some foundational information was left out, leaving this particularly ignorant reader to seek out more about the Ern Malley affair and Bodyline scandal in order to better understand the hoaxed material related to them. Nonetheless, Hoax Nation works as a brilliant starting point for the reverse side of the official Australian history. Covering the famous literary hoaxes of Norma Khouri and Helen Demidenko which played to cultural perceptions and caused debate about the accountability of publishers, it seems that for every hoax that was executed for fame, fortune and glory, there were many that worked on a multitude of levels.

It certainly seems as though hoaxes originate in response to a demand, or are created to fill a perceived gap in culture (in the 1980s and 90s there’s little doubt the advent of multiculturalism coincided with a proliferation of ethnic and indigenous identity frauds in the arts, especially literature – impostors, in particular, flourish when we regard the background and identity of the singer as being as important as the song). And in the heat of the battle, whether the conflict is over politics, culture, history, science or religion, truth is often the first casualty and hoaxes can appear on any side.

While many of the hoaxes seem to have been carried out for the sheer joy of mischief, many including the curious case of George Barrington, appear to have been committed for more politically motivated reasons. A pickpocket sent to the convict colony of Australia in the late 18th century, a number of best-selling books telling of the imagined life in the new colony were published under Barrington’s name. Known as something of a celebrity criminal in England, the move to Australia saw Barrington eventually become a police superintendent, and supposedly, halt a potential mutiny on the journey over. Largely plagiarized from other sources – and yet still quoted today as legitimate historical sources! – there is little to suggest that Barrington actually wrote the stories. Nonetheless, the books not only whet the appetite for tales from Australia and narratives of convict life, but also as proof, as it were, that criminal reformation in the antipodes was a successful endeavour.

Hoax Nation: Australian Fakes and Frauds from Plato to Norma Khouri features a wide array of hoaxes – from art, literature, fauna, landscape, and Australian legends – bursting with fascination and a salute to the numerous bullshit artists who have peppered our history with intrigue and humour. Not always merely for the fun of deception, many of these hoaxes force us to ask important questions about identity, about authenticity and about our preconceived cultural perceptions.

[Disclaimer: publisher supplied copy, with thanks to the team at Arcade Publications. For my reviews of other Arcade titles, please see: Madame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium, E.W. Cole: Chasing the Rainbow and Our Girls: Aussie Pin-Ups of the 40s and 50s.]

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