Turnin' Pages - Book Update

March was a busy month in terms of book reading. In addition to Douglas Coupland's Jpod, which was quickly passed around the office, quite a few other books made their way through our fingers.

John Sellers' auto-biographical essay, Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life, caused much chuckling, for his insights into the nature of the indie rock fan (any fan really) were quite funny and many of us could see ourselves reflected in his work at different points. Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets was something of a different story however. Ehrenreich attempted to tackle the sublimation of desire that has taken place in most Western nations, she sees the rise of Protestantism and mass industrialization as working to rid daily life of passion and ecstasy. This is not a new argument, though it is one that we tacitly support, however not for any reasons that Ehrenreich gives. For a child of the Sixties, Ehrenreich really ought to be able to do a better job. Numerous books from the Sixties speak to this same topic, from the writings on sexual repression of Wilhem Reich, to the expressions of free love of Charles A. Reich and Norman Brown. Even Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counter-culture covers the same ground. It's hard to believe that Ehrenreich never came across any of these authors. By the same token, she devotes a chapter to rock n'roll and later mentions Guy Debord and the role of the Spectacle, but never talks about Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, a book that served as an introduction to the Situationists for many a rock fan, and even has the same topic for its thesis.

If you've never read any of the above, then Dancing in the Streets may make for a good introduction to a topic that has seen much more written about it than Barbara Ehrenreich would have you know.

Elsewhere, the graphic arts ruled. First through Tara MacPherson's lovely collection of work, Lonely Heart, comprising her first series of paintings, posters, sketches, and concert posters. Playful yet full of gothic brooding, we were instant fans. Second, Susie J. Horgan's earliest photographs have been released in Punk Love, documenting the early days of the D.C. hardcore scene. Horgan was responsible for taking the Teen Idle's album cover of the boy with the x's on his hands, as well as the legendary picture of Alex MacKaye (brother of Ian) sitting at the bottom of some steps with his head in his hands - the image thta was later used for the Minor Threat cover. Horgan's pictures include scenes from the early Minor Threat shows, shots of Ian MacKaye skateboarding, and images of Ian MacKaye and an equally young Henry Rollins goofing around in Rollins' ice cream shop. Finally, Hilly Kristal's photo-collection documenting over thirty years of CBGBs turned up on our desks. How do we rank this? Yes, CBGB's is/was an institution, though we all have our own CBGB's in our own neighbourhoods. Filled with photos of people who have performed or visited the club and interspersed with quotes, CBGB & OMFUG is a good afternoon of reminiscing. A lot of the early photos are available elsewhere, though it is handy to have them all in one collection. The best part perhaps is David Byrne's essay on the nature of the interaction between club and community.