Review: Heavy Metal Islam by Mark Levine

In the 1970’s heavy metal acts like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden created dark, violent music that worked as much as political and social protest as it did as adrenaline-laced sounds energizing the mosh pit. In his new book Heavy Metal Islam, Mark Levine looks at the current Heavy Metal, Punk and Hip Hop scenes of the Middle East in this very way, presenting the backgrounds of each scene and exploring the social import of their messages.

With lyrics crying for political and social change these are the screams of angry youth, but angry youth that for the most part still regard themselves as devout Muslims. It's this dichotomy that makes the core of the book: these musicians trying to understand a bizarre, often violent world that doesn't match up to the promises made in their religion.

Broken into easily read chapters each one examines a different nation and its music scene. Although it’s not surprising that the most active centers are the more westernized nations like Morocco and Israel, the most fascinating chapters are those that cover places like Iran where the music is not just looked at with suspicion but often considered illegal. Many of the musicians are in their late teens and early twenties, making this a book Western teens will be able to read and use to make rare connections with their counterparts in the Middle East.

Unfortunately Levine does a poor job describing the music itself, throwing out terms like Grind Core and Black Metal without defining them. Readers already knowledgeable of different forms of Heavy Metal won’t have a problem with this, but anyone coming from the outside might find all the undefined labels a little confusing. Levine does, however, provide a useful list of websites (mostly Myspace sites) that provide samples of the music; a companion audio CD is sold separately.

What stops me from giving this a rave review more than anything is his writing style. Levine opens each chapter with a first person account of him sitting in cafe, heading to a club or hanging out in a record store. Levine as narrator and arbiter of taste keeps floating into the writing, whether it's an explanation of a band's history, and interview or a well-written description of a concert. It becomes obvious Levine sees these musicians as a force for positive change and this view intrudes quite a bit. I would have preferred he pull back a bit and let the readers make these conclusions for themselves. Sometimes you just have to have faith in the readers to figure things out. Although a more journalistic approach might make this work more convincing, it’s still a fascinating read about a unique subculture few will have the opportunity to experience for themselves.

Excelsior

A Little Bit of Controversy

A few weeks ago I reviewed the book Welcome to Shirley by Kelly McMasters. It's a non-fiction book that I had some misgivings about, mostly because it seemed to want to be both a history and a memoir without fully exploring either form. But If you look at the comments for the blog post you'll see someone named Ken Spooner mentioning a high number of factual errors in her work.

I've spent the last couple of days checking out Spooner's site, and a number of the claims do seem to check out in other sources. I'm not an expert on the town of Shirley, NY and don't really have the time to become one, but it does seem like the book is filled with lazy scholarship. At least that's what I'm thinking it is, rather than a more purposeful glossing over of details. It's a shame this book made it to print without a real fact-check, because I still think McMasters had her heart in the right place in trying to tell the story of this town. My guess is she really wanted to write a memoir but didn't have enough for full a book; the historical sections possibly came later to give a full page count. I could be wrong, but Spooner seems to agree with comments like this on his page:

I am reasonably certain it was witnessing as a young girl, the slow and painful death from cancer of her neighborhood girlfriend Tina's father Jerry, that inspired Kelly to write this book or set her main topic up of environmental stewardship. The true neighborhood good guy with a huge heart, it is her storytelling about Jerry that resonated the strongest with me.

This section Spooner describes is easily the most powerful in the book, and if McMasters had focused on her memories and the emotions behind them she probably would have created one hell of a book.

I was intrigued by this controversy of scholarship, because when I read the book I was surprised by the lack of citations in McMasters's work. Very little of her research was cited so I came away wondering how she pulled together her information for the more factual, less memoir sections. What I had in hand was a preview copy, so I emailed the publisher and was assured that a bibliography of her sources would be published with the final version. Yesterday I found a final version at my local bookstore and it still lacks a bibliography, giving validity to Spooner's claims and, frankly, making me feel guilty about reviewing the book for a major library publication. I'm not saying Spooner is right, and I'm not saying McMasters is right. But if you do read her book read it with some level of caution and decide for yourself.

Excelsior

Review: Welcome to Shirley by Kelly McMasters

Most readers will have never heard of Shirley, a small, working-class town located 65 miles outside of New York City. But essayist Kelly McMasters, whose work has appeared in publications like the New York Times and The Washington Post, called Shirley home for most of her childhood. Her first book takes the tools of memoir, local history and science writing to create a disturbing yet loving portrait of her childhood home.

The town of Shirley began in the 1950’s when Walter T. Shirley, a retired Vaudeville huckster, established it as a place for people tired of big city life to settle down and return to small town values. But Shirley was a town that grew without a plan and never really took off; it faced constant problems with unemployment, poor services and even an unhealthy atmosphere. In the town’s backdrop is the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a government-funded facility that specializes in energy and medical research. In the 1990’s the lab mistakenly leaked tritium into Shirley’s groundwater supply, sparking a lawsuit as many felt the town’s unusual numbers of cancer victims were related to Brookhaven’s experiments.

McMasters’s style simplifies the complicated subjects of environmental science and economics into easily understood explorations of her own life. The personal moments revisited by McMasters are powerful and haunting, particularly the illness and death of her next-door neighbor caused by exposure to Brookhaven’s chemicals. The book includes maps and references that expand on the already information-packed narrative.

This was a review I agonized over. Individually each chapter is well written, thoughtful and meaningful. But the separate sections don't quite tie together, or at least they didn't for me. The chapters flip back and forth from memoir to historical essay to science writing, but it's hard to tell what big point McMasters wants us to take away. It's partly my own fault, my own narrative brain that craves a rising action, climax and epilogue with most everything I read. I wanted to see McMasters doing something to improve her town. But what we end up with is reportage, a book that exposes the world to all the hardships Shirley has endured over the last fifty years. If you go in expecting and accepting this her book will probably be a better read.

There's one thing I never questioned, though. McMasters still loves this town. It comes across so well that it might spur some readers to appreciate and even protect their own hometown. And any book that does that holds a power that makes it well worth reading.

Excelsior

Memories and Poetry: a Quasi-Review

This week I read Words in Your Face, a new book by poet/spoken word artist Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz on the history of the Slam Poetry movement. It's a decent book---maybe a bit overly NY City focused, but still a nice overview from the beginnings, to the mass popularity with shows on MTV and the current trends. All to be expected, I guess.

But what I wasn't expecting was how many memories this book would dredge up for me. I did my undergrad a couple of hours south of DC at James Madison University. I worked at the campus radio station WXJM, and helped edit the school's small literary journal. Like most kids, it was a formative time of my life, a time that exposed me to music, art, fiction and poetry that shaped my tastes and preferences more than any other point in my life. And while my classes certainly played a part it was often my outside-school activities that really shaped me.

I saw a flier for a Slam Poetry night at the Little Grill and I just thought it sounded cool. I had no idea what the term meant when I first heard it my sophomore year. Just the sound of those two words together, Slam and Poetry, was interesting to me. One so aggressive, the other so pensive, I didn't quite know what to make of it. I had to go, just to see what it was all about.

The LIttle Grill was a special place. It was a teeny-tiny vegetarian diner on the outskirts of town. Plain white walls decorated with old guitars and photos of Bob Dylan, it was a pretty popular lunch spot for the veggie crowd. At night the owner put on special events like small concerts, fiction readings and even Slam Poetry.

I went with one of my good friends at the time, a guy who went by the name of MC Legit. No, that wasn't his real name. He was a heavy set white kid with glasses from a posh suburb of northern Virginia and had a normal, white kid name. But he loved hip hop and had already recorded some singles on a DC label by the time he hit college. As odd it sounds now everyone called him Legit or Git, and never by his real name. Even now I barely remember what his real first name was.

We got there a few minutes early, and both got some vegetarian chili and cornbread. After a little bit, the owner of the Little Grill stood up and started to talk. The owner was a soft-spoken aging hippie type. Scruffy beard, ratty hair and so skinny I could have slung him over my shoulder and carried him around campus all day without any problem. Anyway, he went over the rules and who the judges were and people started reading. There would be three rounds and the winning poet would get a free meal.

It wasn't anything like what I would see on MTV a few years later. It was relaxed, casual---just a bunch of people getting up and reading their work straight off of the page. There were confessional poems, folk singers reading lyrics, rappers, imagist stuff, prose work, genre work, and more. Students read, professors from the University read and some people from the town read. It was a great event and I, eventually, got over my own shyness and read my own work aloud for the first time.

Nowadays when I go to readings I often hear people comment negatively about Slam events, all because they have this in your face NYC-MTV image in their minds of what Slam Poetry means. But in my experience, and it seems in Aptowicz's, there is a Slam event out there for every type of writer. Her book draws a wonderful portrait of a movement that's broader, fuller and deeper than I was expecting. And while it may not be as critical as some readers might want, it's a solid, informative read and well worth picking up for anyone interested in more recent trends in poetry, writing and performance that academia often ignores.

Excelsior

Review: Beats, Rhymes and Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip Hop

After more than 30 years of pumping out rhythms and rhymes, there’s no arguing that Hip Hop has made a huge impact on popular culture. And much like Jazz and Rock before it, Hip Hop is now moving through the growing pains of just being a popular form of music to becoming a genuine art form with a respected place in cultural history. Editors Kenji Jasper and Ytasha Womack have done an excellent job with their book Beats, Rhymes and Life in collecting a variety of essays and opinions exploring and deconstructing the music, lyrics and imagery of the music videos surrounding Hip Hop and Hip Hop culture as they try to answer the question of its place in the world.

Several of the essays examine the image of Hip Hop and its obsession with bling, violence towards women and glorification of drugs; are the artists providing social commentary by portraying the worst of inner city life or are they adding to the problems by glorifying it? Other essays, like the forward by critic and academic professor Michael Eric Dyson, remind readers of Hip Hop’s early connections with the civil rights movement but express some regrets over its more recent developments. In fact, if there's one general thrust to most of the content of the book it probably follows Dyson's opinion that Hip Hop, by and large, was about personal artistic expression and serious commentary. The title of the book, after all, comes from an album by Tribe Called Quest, one of the more socially active Hip Hop groups around. But there's a general feeling that Hip Hop's left this behind for the glitz, bling and bank rolls it now generates by way of Mtv.

Along with the essays, the volume also includes a number of pointed interviews with well-known Hip Hop performers like Ludacris and Too $hort as well as Rob Marriot, co-founder of the Hip Hop culture magazine XXL. The interviewers are obviously well informed fans but don’t shy away from asking difficult questions. Too $hort’s interview is particularly interesting as he expresses his opinions of trends in the industry. "My personal theory” he said in the interview “is that rappers don't really lose it lyrically, they just don't pay attention to the production. That first album, when you was broke, came out the bomb, but then [with] that next one you've got some jewelry. You got a car. The girl wants you. And then you go into the studio and you got the ego and the ego can't make records. Records gotta come from within."

Despite the contributions coming from a number of academics and high-minded cultural critics, Jasper and Womack make this book accessible by keeping the hyper-critical jargon to a minimum. Readers should be aware that this is not a history of the music like Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (Picador, 2005), but a collection of writings that assumes readers at least know the big names and events of hip hop. My own knowledge of Hip Hop is pretty limited. I know a good bit about the early days because of its connections with electronic and improvisational music. And I know the early to mid-90’s stuff, because that’s when I was in college and Hip Hop was the party soundtrack every where you went. So while I felt lost at time with the references to names of performers and albums I’ve never heard of, I still got the gist of what the writers and editors wanted to get across.

Smart fans of the art form, though, will get the most out of this. They will find a thoughtful, balanced book that gives them the opportunity to think about the medium and make their own decisions about Hip Hop’s place in history.

Excelsior

Review: Against the Stream by Noah Levine

For whatever reason, I've developed a small passion for books that try to explain Buddhist thought to different audiences. One of my favorites in recent years is Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen, a wonderful book that's part memoir, part guidebook that explains the fundamental ideas of Buddhist philosophy by relating them to punk rock, cartoons and monster movies. Dozens of books like these have been popping out the last few years, and they are particularly enticing to teens interested in religion and philosphy. Noah Levine recently entered the fray with his own book Against the Stream.

Levine’s first book, the memoir Dharma Punx, tells the compelling story of Levine’s self-destructive early years, showing a young man mired in the culture of drugs and violence, and how the principles of Buddhism turned his life around. Although a bit unevenly written, it's a compelling story seeing a young man transcend his addictions and problems and move on to a better life.

After spending the last few years teaching teens at various centers in California, Levine delivers this second book that works as a simplified manual introducing readers to the basics of Buddhist thought. Free of the jargon typically found in modern philosophy Levine strips the complicated and often abstract ideas of Buddhism down to its most basic concepts: escape suffering, live simply and treat yourself and others with ethical respect and love. Levine uses these concepts to explore and tackle issues of particular interest to teens like drug abuse, sexuality, the difficulties of abstinence and being an active part of a community. Probably the most useful parts of the book are the appendices, which include point-by-point directions to transcendtal meditation and lists of print and electronic resources for deeper study.

Unfortunately, this volume offers little in the way of cultural references, humor or other hooks to reel in readers who normally ignore philosophy books. Also lacking the narrative of his first book, I can't help but think the best book for Levine would be a merging of his memoir and this guide. As it is, Against the Stream comes off as informative but a little dry----and far from revolutionary. Despite these failings, Levine’s still managed to create an excellent and concise introductory resource for those who have an interest in Buddhism but have found other books too daunting in their language and concepts.

Excelsior.

Review: Chester Gould: A Daughter's Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy

I have to admit, I know next to nothing about Chester Gould or his comic strip creation Dick Tracy. Most of what I do know comes from reading a collection my dad had when I was a little kid. And, of course, that wretched, almost unwatchable movie directed by Warren Beatty. But judged fairly, in his own time, Gould both pushed the limits of his art form and gave birth to one of the great icons of comics history.

This biography, based upon interviews conducted just prior to Gould’s death and lovingly written by his daughter and creator of the official Dick Tracy Museum, present the highlights of Gould’s personal and professional life. The book traces all the steps Gould made, tracking his humble beginnings in the rural town of Pawnee, Oklahoma to his early cartoons for college bulletin boards and all the way up to his most prestigious successes and awards.

Early in his career Gould worked hard in contract positions for a number of different papers, working fill-in jobs, political cartoons and even theatre reviews in comic strip form. But Gould’s dream was to write and draw his own strip for the Chicago Tribune. The editors of the Tribune paid him little attention until Gould came to them with the fresh idea of a comic strip illustrating the increasing battles between police and organized crime. This was the 1930’s when this was the sexy topic of the day, a topic that made headlines and launched a style of films that still lingers today. Through serious research, colorful characters and a keen sense of drama the fledgling strip grew into a mainstay of comics that at its height was carried by hundreds of newspapers across the world.

This bio includes dozens of photographs of Gould throughout his life, but the real gems of this book are the black and white reproductions of his artwork. From his childhood drawings to drafts of Dick Tracy strips we witness the evolution of Gould’s art as he continually improved his craft at drawing and storytelling. Serious readers will be disappointed that Gould-O’Connell misses several opportunities for real critical thought. But I don’t think that was her intent. This book was written for fans, and fans will find her unique insider view carries us to a delightful, albeit somewhat light, portrait of a man who succeeded through that rare combination of talent, innovation and hard work.

Excelsior

The Paine of Being Thomas

If his new book The Troubles with Tom is any indication, Paul Collins would make one hell of a tour guide. Part travel narrative, part popular (but well researched) history, Collins takes us on an odd, entertaining and informative tour of gay bars, empty lots, office buildings and farms for one goal: to track down the body of Thomas Paine.

Although often considered one of the founding fathers of the United States, Paine is probably one of the ones most overlooked in history class. While most people are aware of his pamphlet Common Sense it's rare to find other mentions of him. Collins's new book attempts to show Paine's influence by way of his death. Or, to be more specific, by way of his dead body.

Despite the extreme popularity of Common Sense and other writings, as well as his close associations with important men like Ben Franklin, Paine was often looked down upon for being a provocateur and a rebel constantly searching for cause. When he died in 1809, no church would bury him in their cemetery, leaving his remains to be interred on his own farm. Shortly thereafter, he was dug up by William Cobbett, an Englishman and revolutionary in his own right, to be buried beneath a monument to be built somewhere in London. But the monument never came together and Paine's remains were passed around for the next several decades, sometimes through inheritance and other times to pay off debts. But the people over the next century who were influenced by his writings and spirit sought his remains and sought to give him a proper burial. Some names, like Ralph Waldo Emerson or Thomas Edison, will be familiar. Others like Dr. E.B. Foote, an early author of self-help and healthy living books, will not be but provide interesting color for the times. Paine's influence reached a wide array of movements: vegetarianism, the age of Enlightenment, Phrenology, and the Thirteen Club (a unique club with the sole function of mocking every superstition under the sun). Collins does a fabulous job in tying all these disparate threads together and leading them all back to Paine's influence.

The travel narrative comes into play as Collins searches for clues to Paine's missing remains. These sections, vibrant, funny and easy to read, not only showcase the unusual turns research can deliver but also bring some levity and a unique sense of pacing to a history book. Highly readable and filled with enough unusual facts and witty anecdotes to entertain people who don’t normally read history, this book is a subtle reminder that history surrounds us and influences us every day of our lives. We just need to take the time to open our eyes, look and learn.

Excelsior.