tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30287729648114321492024-03-14T03:01:34.263-04:00Motown ReviewA blog about art, culture, and other mattersVince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.comBlogger132125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-10187878970648627632023-11-30T14:46:00.011-05:002023-12-01T11:57:49.082-05:00Shane MacGowan (1957-2023)Shane MacGowan, Moscow, 2010 (Image: Redageg, CC-BY-SA 3.0)Shane MacGowan, genius bard of Éire, has died at the age of 65. When my daughter was an undergrad at U-M, I took her to see the Pogues. MacGowan passed out after the third song and the band carried on nonetheless. Not long after that show, the band got together and kicked MacGowan out. He later did a couple of solo records, the first of Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-48093192480921696502023-05-02T10:32:00.004-04:002023-05-04T15:31:42.262-04:00LL Bean Double-CodingI got the new LL Bean Summer Men's catalog in the mail recently and had to do a double take. At a quick glance, it appeared to portray an interracial gay couple holding hands and walking their dog on the beach. A closer look showed that the two men were actually walking side by side with their hands appearing to "accidentally" overlap. Ironically, Leon Leonwood Bean's granddaughter Linda LorraineVince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-88046910798100885952023-01-26T14:11:00.010-05:002023-04-02T14:42:05.195-04:00Grace Lee Boggs's Next American RevolutionIn 2011, I wrote of review of Grace Lee Boggs's book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, for the current events blog Deliberately Considered, published by my New School dissertation advisor Jeffrey Goldfarb. The blog is no longer active, having morphed into the New School e-pub Public Seminar, which Jeff also founded. I have been co-teaching a class Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-16312324505524380352022-05-16T14:51:00.042-04:002023-01-25T23:03:53.361-05:00 Fuel for Thought: Climate Change as Class WarThe Orroral Valley Fire, Australia, January 2020 (Photo: Nick D, CC BY-SA 4.0) I was asked by the Metro Detroit Democratic Socialists of America to review this book on climate change by Syracuse University geographer and Jacobin contributor Matt Huber for their publication Detroit Socialist where it first appeared. Below is a edited version of my review, which appeared in the New School Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-87900754574186911612021-11-08T18:47:00.004-05:002021-11-08T18:48:39.295-05:00Yaris Varoufakis's Novel "Another Now" Presages and Contests Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse
This review of Yaris Varoufakis's speculative novel Another Now was published by PopMatters on November 8, 2021. * * *Almost immediately upon Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement on October 28 that his company was adopting the new identity Meta, Greek economist and political activist Yaris Varoufakis fired off a tweet, saying: “Hands off our mέta, our Centre for Postcapitalist Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-24059998856755134782021-10-25T14:17:00.006-04:002021-10-25T22:39:56.864-04:00Amy Taubin Interviews Todd HaynesTodd Haynes's documentary The Velvet Underground screening at Outer Limits Lounge, 21 October 2021 The October 2021 issue of Artforum (which I wrote for in the late 80s/early 90s) has this interview with director Todd Haynes about his documentary on the Velvet Underground by Amy Taubin, critic and one of the early hangers on in the 1960s at Andy Warhol's Factory on Union Square. I loved the film Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-8695708678357279222021-09-07T21:54:00.016-04:002023-03-03T14:24:18.722-05:00Fear Factor, Revisted: On the 20th Anniversary of September 11This Saturday is the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center that set off the 20-year war in Afghanistan (with a side trip to Iraq) from which the United States has theoretically been extricating itself. (Whether we will ever be totally out remains to be seen.) I was living in New York City on September 11 (Brooklyn actually, Carroll Gardens to be exact) while getting my MA in Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-64964044505067633762021-08-21T15:21:00.016-04:002021-08-24T22:02:48.076-04:00RIP Peter WilliamsPeter Williams (1952-2021) Photo: Kathy F. AtkinsonOn August 19, we lost one of the great Detroit painters, Peter Williams. He had been in and out of the hospital recently and this time he didn't make it.I remember meeting Peter when first he came to Detroit. At the time he was doing abstract paintings, kind of in the manner of Sean Scully, and quite frankly I wasn't particularly interested in Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-44368829734176638762021-08-18T10:36:00.006-04:002022-07-25T22:28:50.680-04:00New Woman Behind the CameraI wrote a review of The New Woman Behind the Camera for PopMatters. The exhibition surveys the work of midcentury women photographers now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and traveling to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. International in scope, the show presents the work of 120 women from 20 countries.Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-75394366253293466012021-08-11T14:03:00.002-04:002021-08-11T14:08:10.125-04:00Dawoud Bey's American ProjectMy review of the 50-year retrospective of the work of photographer Dawoud Bey, who College for Creative Studies awarded an honorary doctorate to a few years back."Dawoud Bey's American Project," PopMatters, 19 May, 2021.Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-38170707546979134022021-08-11T13:34:00.003-04:002021-08-11T14:07:06.175-04:00PopMatters Best Nonfiction of 2020In December 2020, PopMatters published a list of the best nonfiction books of the year. Three of the books I reviewed were included in the list. I don't write much, but apparently what I do write seems to get some recognition. Since then, PopMatters moved to WordPress and the links from that roundup appear to be broken. Here are the current links to the reviews:"Ignorance, Fear, and Democracy in Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-77273033459167581622020-09-19T12:40:00.004-04:002020-09-21T21:53:40.587-04:00Downsizing DemocracyIn 2002, I reviewed this book for PopMatters. The book by political scientists Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsburg (no relation to Notorious RBG, of blessed memory) takes note of judicial and executive appointments as the new battleground of partisan politics, given all of the other repressions of the democratic process. Since the publication of this book and my review, that point has only Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-42618522773409661462020-09-17T15:53:00.004-04:002020-09-17T17:07:13.187-04:00Ignorance, Fear, and Democracy in AmericaPopMatters published my review of the new Library of America volume on Richard Hofstadter today, which also happens to be US Constitution Day, as well as the ninth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street.* * * As he prepared to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in March 1965 on what was to become known as 'Bloody Sunday', the late civil rights leader and one-day congressman John Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-18281006578004607122020-09-11T21:23:00.009-04:002020-09-14T15:14:47.908-04:00A Tale of Two LouissesOne of the great experiences of my time in the graduate program in
Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research was a class I
took with Margo Jefferson and Elizabeth Kendall on representations of
race and gender in American culture. One of the key things to come out
of that class was the essay "Peter Williams's Black Humor," which was
published in the New Art Examiner (November/Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-26956306246160251252020-09-11T20:41:00.000-04:002020-09-11T20:41:33.231-04:00Ladies Sing the BluesOne of the great experiences of my time in the graduate program in Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research was a class I took with Margo Jefferson and Elizabeth Kendall on representations of race and gender in American culture. One of the key things to come out of that class was the essay "Peter Williams's Black Humor," which was published in the New Art Examiner (November/December Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-8428957460131923672020-09-10T16:02:00.003-04:002021-08-16T12:35:14.912-04:00Notes on Invisible ManI was asked by Cary Loren of the Book Beat to write something about Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, which was this year's WDET Book Club summer read. It was published on the store's Backroom blog on July 15, 2020.* * *At the end of June, Stephen Henderson on Detroit Today announced that this year’s WDET Summer Book Club selection would be Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Published nearly 70 years Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-46334594666645373482020-09-10T14:09:00.003-04:002020-09-10T15:46:10.477-04:00First Tragedy, Then Farce, Then What?This review was posted on Popmatters on June 29, 2020. * * *One of the most often-cited quotations of Karl Marx is a riff on the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel that all world-historical facts and personages appear twice, to which he adds: 'the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce'. This observation first appears in 1852 in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in reference to, inVince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-8686783589895312822020-04-23T11:17:00.002-04:002020-09-14T15:22:31.721-04:00On Pynchon and Monk for International Book DayFor International Book Day, April 23, 2020, Cary Loren of The Book Beat asked me to do a kind of "Desert Island" thing. I focused on the one book and the one record that I couldn't live without. I want to thank Cary for the opportunity. It was fun. To everyone else, support your local bookstore.
* * *
Because of my writing and research, I don’t get to read much
Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-21402093238931410412020-04-08T15:28:00.003-04:002020-04-08T15:48:34.946-04:00The New Economics of True Wealth: A Review of Plenitude by Juliet B. Schor
Before founding The New School online publication Public Seminar, sociologist Jeffrey C. Goldfarb put out a precursor titled Deliberately Considered. Through Jeff, who was my dissertation advisor, I have contributed to both publications. In thinking about recent reporting on how one of the unintended consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the clearing up of the atmosphere, I Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-88470568187939172602020-01-15T07:19:00.001-05:002020-09-10T15:50:11.878-04:00To the Vector the Spoils
Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? is a sequel to McKenzie Wark’s highly regarded 2004 book A Hacker Manifesto. Like its predecessor, Capital Is Dead surveys the mental, social, and physical environment in which the means of economic accumulation and thus power have radically shifted, in which value no longer resides in owning the means of production but in controlling flows of Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-4543182237439221742019-09-24T06:58:00.002-04:002019-10-02T22:46:24.556-04:00Ode to JoyRecently, artist Mary Fortuna published an album of photographs on Facebook of the retirement party held in 2006 for long-time Detroit News art critic Joy Hakanson Colby. At the time, Nick Sousanis, known these days as author of the award-winning graphic novel Unflattening, ran an online publication called thedetroiter.com. (Since defunct and its content taken offline and archived.) He askedVince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-18963692887466639082019-04-10T10:20:00.000-04:002019-04-10T10:20:23.737-04:00Robert Bielat, In MemoriumThe artist and my friend Robert Bielat died unexpectedly on December 13, 2018 at age 69. At the time of his death, he was preparing for a spring show at AtomArt in Ferndale. His partner Veronica decided to continue with the exhibition as a tribute. His friend and fellow foundry rat Todd Erickson cast several unfinished pieces for inclusion in the exhibition. (Had Bielat lived there certainly Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-90467862192030412262019-03-30T15:46:00.007-04:002023-01-26T22:25:16.494-05:00The Medium is (is not) the Message: Marshall McLuhan and His LegacyOn March 19, 2019, I gave a talk in the Valade Family Gallery on the campus of College for Creative Studies in conjunction with the exhibition "Feedback 4: Marshall McLuhan and the Arts." I used a quote from avant-garde filmmaker and critic Jonas Mekas as a preface: "The film critic should not explain what a movie is all about, surely an impossible task; he should help to create the right Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-69342736325698186682019-01-31T13:45:00.000-05:002019-01-31T13:45:49.257-05:00Can Democracy Work? A Disputed Question'Can democracy work?' is a question whose answer in the affirmative seems less and less certain these days. On one hand is the rise of authoritarianism. In a recent segment of his HBO show 'Last Week Tonight', John Oliver expressed concern over the trend, citing the obvious, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Chinese President-for-Life Xi Jinping, but also Hungary's Viktor Orban, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3028772964811432149.post-1718164622312073932018-06-13T10:27:00.000-04:002019-04-03T07:13:44.167-04:00Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life
There's a line, usually misquoted and often erroneously attributed to either Hermann Goring, Henrich Himmler, or Joseph Goebbels, that goes: 'When I hear the word "culture", I reach for my gun.' (The actual line, from the 1933 play Schlageter by the equally despicable Nazi playwright Hanns Johst, translates to: 'When I hear "Culture"... I release the safety catch on my Browning!') The role of Vince Carducci, publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01878013059283905194noreply@blogger.com0