***Out In The Be-Bop 1940s Crime Noir Night- Otto Preminger’s “Laura”- A Film Review

DVD Review

Laura, starring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, directed by Otto Preminger, 20th Century Fox, 1944
I guess if you get into a crime noir crazed mode as I have been over the past several months then nothing should surprise you as far as plot line, photography (black and white of course), or actors are concerned. Recently I reviewed a film noir , Where The Sidewalk Ends, that no way, no way in hell, when I started out this jail break-out reviewing process of the old time films from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s did I figure to be reviewing. Except that film with its line-up, as here, of Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and director Otto Preminger got me thinking about Laura. From the plot line it appears that I was not alone in thinking of her and I will just have to stand in line until she tires of whoever is next in line to get tired of.

Additionally, there is no way, no way in hell, I would have believed that I would be, seemingly endlessly now, on a Dana Andrews run. Bogie, no question, Robert Mitchum sure, even Dick Powell in a pinch but Dana Andrews? Oh well, at least he has classic good girl (no femme fatale here she is a hard-working career women in advertising) Gene Tierney to keep his eyes on once he gets control of his emotions (and lays off the bottle).

But enough of that. This is a story with great arch dialogue ( if somewhat dated for today’s audiences) although I am sure some would argue that it is not really a noir but more a little Thin Man series mystery comedy fluff whatever. In any case every guy in New York, every guy with eyes anyway and maybe even guys who don’t see so well, has a bee-line straight for Laura (played of course by Gene Tierney). Even a guy, a police detective (played by seemingly perennial cop Dana Andrews) who has never met her and is only “interested” in her because she has been murdered (a little anyway, if there is such a thing) and as a good methodical, if somewhat blasé, cop he has to put the pieces together and see if they fit. In short, who done it.

Wait in line, brothers and sisters. It could have been half the women in New York, well, upper-side New York anyway jealous of Laura’ charms (and tired of their companions’ head-turns). It could have been half the guys in New York who never had a chance at her. But let’s narrow the field a little. Narrow it to her cash-strapped gigolo fiancé Shelby (played by a very young Vincent Price) and Laura’s older gentleman friend (I am being polite as they were then) Waldo (played by Clifton Webb), the great society newspaper writer, who introduced Laura to upper-crust New York society. Of course Waldo has this little problem, this little homicidal problem about his affections for Laura and that’s what drives the twist and turns of the film. As for our good guy detective well for his efforts, in the end, he gets the girl. Natch

In Honor Of Hazel Dickens

Free Private Manning Now!

Free Private Manning Now!

Free Private Manning Now!

Free Private Manning Now !

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Crime Noir Night- Dana Andrew’s “Where The Sidewalk Ends”- A Film Review

guess if you get into a crime noir crazed mode as I have been over the past several months then nothing should surprise you as far as plot line, photography (black and white of course), or actors are concerned. No way, no way in hell, would when I started out this jail break-out reviewing process of the old time films from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s mostly would I have believed that I would be reviewing a film like the one under review, good, bad, or indifferent, with the title Where The Sidewalk Ends. And no way, no way in hell, would I have believed that I would be, seemingly endlessly now, on a Dana Andrews run. Bogie, no question, Robert Mitchum sure, even Dick Powell in a pinch but Dana Andrews? Oh well, at least he has classic good girl (no femme fatale here even though she is a model) Gene Tierney to keep his eyes on once he gets control of his anger.

With all that build-up you may thing that this one is one for the ages like The Big Sleep or Out Of The Past. No way. First of all it is just a police procedural with a little twist, a bad copper/good copper little twist. See “real” crime noir gumshoes are strictly private, not messing up on the public payroll. And certainly not messing up like Detective Mark Dixon, the role played by Brother Andrews. See he is a cop, a big city cop naturally, whose father was a big-time city crook and he is trying to live that idea down. Live it down by busting up the bad guys, literally and physically, in some cases. And most definitely with no concern, no pre-Miranda concern at least, for the niceties of constitutional law.

One thing will lead to another when you try to cut the corners on edge city and so our boy takes a tumble. Seems a “mark” in a big city gambling operation won too much dough and wanted to go home with it. Well the hard boys, or what passes for hard boys in this one, said no go, no go way. And so the mark is taken care of in the way the hard boys do, although they need a fall guy and he just happens to be the “roper.” Needless to say when Brother Andrews come to investigate the roper’s role in the killing his way-his two-fisted, no knock, no guff from hard boys way, he just happened to get a little carried away. And so mark and roper are joined together, R.I.P.

But wait a minute what about Brother Andrews’ pension and his delight with his job. Here is where the tale gets just a little too weird. He decides to use his little problem as a way to get the hard boys, especially their leader played by Gary Merrill, to take a tumble. The problem is when you start down that road, that cover-up the fix is in road, though you don’t know where things are going to fall. And who is going to take the fall. And who takes the fall, or at least the prime candidate, is none other than the taxi-driving father-in-law of that very dead roper. Now I don’t, personally, care if this or that average cab driver takes a fall for some off-hand murder, those guys charge too much anyway and they always want a tip, even the quiet ones. But this particular cab-driver has a, well, fetching model daughter played by Gene Tierney, who would be very upset, very upset indeed, if papa wound up in stir for a long time.

Also needless to say Brother Andrews is starting to go for said daughter in a big way. So he has to clean up the mess with the father, the mess with the mob, and his own misbegotten mess before the film ends. Tough work, very tough work indeed. But here is where it gets really weird, especially if you have read any newspaper from 1940 to this very day, this cop who gets the bad guys, straight up no questions asks, gets dear cabby papa off from the caboose, and throws an off-hand wink toward darling daughter, decides that he has to take the fall for his improper police procedure. Gone is that pretty little pension, and gone, long gone is the suspicion of disbelief on this one. Where are Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe when you need them.

 

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- The Non-Essential Elvis- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis Presley performing the essential That’s When Your Heartache Begins.

The Essential Elvis Presley, Two CD set, Elvis Presley, Sony Music 2007
There are a thousand, thousand ways to package, Elvis Presley the be-bop rock and roll minute king of the 1950s teenage angst night. And for his early work he should be packaged, packaged to eternity. It is the rest of his work that is the problem and hence the problem with this two CD set of what the producers have picked as essential. There are just too many duds, and semi-duds from his later period (the 1960s and 1970s Las Vegas flame-out period). Any essential product has to be top-heavy with 1950s stuff get a nod from me.

From this compilation the obvious classics That’s All Right, Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel, Jailhouse Rock and It’s Now or Never rate a nod. The rest though are strictly a mishmash. And I know from where I speak. Why? Until very, very recently I actually, if you can believe this, did not think much of Brother Presley’s music. And I was (and still am somewhat) nothing but a be-bop rock and roll baby boomer boy who could listen to the stuff all day and night. A while back I got hold of a five CD set of Elvis’ work from the Sun Record days mainly. That’s the Elvis who will live in rock and roll history. Stuff like It’s All Right, Mama, I Forgot To Remember To Forget, Good Rockin’ Tonight, That’s Where Your Heartache Begins, Your Right She’s Left and a ton of others. Yah, the stuff from the days when he was hungry, and we were too. This compilation will not satisfy that hunger.

***You Don’t Need Thomas Wolfe To Know You Can’t Go Home Again

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Damn memory twist. Damn memory stick. No, not the techno-gismo gadget, the old noggin, noodle, gray matter or whatever you call the place, the dark hidden place mainly, where memory haunts you every once in a while. And won’t let go of you. Won’t let go of you like it will not let go of me lately. Damn stick.

Who knows when you first realized that, to use Thomas Wolfe’s book title as reference and refrain, you can’t go home again ever, even in deep memory recess, in deep memory haunt. Certainly it was not when you were young, a mere child, memories then came and went like the flittering light, or like some unwashed foam-flecked ocean wave receding as fast as it hit the receiving shore sand. Later, in young adult time, you were just too freaking busy, busy making the stuff of memories, to actually pay attention. So, maybe, it works like this once you get that memory bank filled and overflowing filled they come back, come back in memory haunt fashion. All I know is that a few years back, bank filled or not, I felt that old time feeling, and worst, tried to do something about it.

See, memory makes no sense, makes no stored-away sense, unless it can be properly subjected to certain tests. The could have, would have, should have tests. Like a penitent reprobate you think through, seriously think through, a variation of the theme of how you could have kept that old chestnut from Sunday school times about obeying and honoring parents and kin better. Stuff like that. Hey, after all that is where you got your memory chance anyway. And probably, like me, you have your armful of regrets about why you missed this thing and that, did or did not do the other thing. But I am here to speak of no avails, no avails at all when the deal goes down.

The storm and stress of any growing up absurd in any period in America (or anywhere else for that matter but I am here so I will keep it narrow) need not detain us here. The where-were-you-late last night-did-you-know-Johnny X-did-(or didn’t)- do-this-or-than-what-are-you-going-to-make-of-your-life and I have run out of hyphens drill. The maddened jail break-out from the home nest has taken many forms, especially in the 1960s, but the fall-out lasted much longer, much, much longer. Then just when you were ready to call a truce, an adult to adult armed truce, ten thousand childhood foam-flecked ocean waves came washing to shore and you had to start over from square one. Then some dark shadow hovered over the earth and you didn’t get to observe that truce, or anything else. Then you realized that some hurts, harms, and just plain orneriness could not (the could have test, see) have been resolved this side of heaven’s door. It was just too basic, to primordial to get resolved. Next.

Two young tow-headed boys walking along the beach throwing stones, really trying to skip stones to see who can skip theirs the farthest. Eighteen young boys “bucking up” sides in a game of baseball. One young boy, walking, endlessly walking in the 1950s fetid night, passes a certain she’s house afraid to glance in the window for fear of discovery. Another boy, a little older, walking some fugitive streets mulling over this or that endless question, that endless he-she question. A teenage boy, late at night, a sultry sticky summer’s night, clad in tee-shirt, Chuck Taylor sneakers, black of course, long, un-cuffed chino pants runs dustbowl oval laps in search of glory. Two teenage boys, one clad in tee-shirt, Chuck Taylor sneakers, black of course, and those vagrant black, un-cuffed chinos, the other a variation of the same, sit on the steps of some granite-gray high school and talk of dreams, small dreams but dreams. A teenage boy does not drive a ’57 Chevy, does not belong to the school great books club, does not belong to the glee club, does not go to the senior prom, and, emphatically does not go on Saturday night, honey she girl in tow, to watch the “submarine” race down at that eternal foam-flecked wave ocean beach. And no amount of late money, no amount of time, early or late, and no amount of desire, ditto, can change that. None. Next

Two teenage boys, one clad in tee-shirt, Chuck Taylor sneakers, black of course in the 1960s night, and those vagrant black, un-cuffed chinos, the other a variation of the same, except no Chucks, some sleek-toed running shoes, sit on the steps of some granite-gray high school and talk of dreams, small dreams but dreams. Well, maybe no so small dreams but small expectations. But with a fierce desire to get out from under, and the key is to run, run like there was no mercy in the world. One boy, the Chuck Taylor sneaker-less boy, ran like the demons and had his glory, his fifteen minutes, although he did not know that was what he had then. He thought he could fuel himself forever on such fumes. The other, ran like he was running in cement, but he had big dreams, big social dreams anyway, and he never did get his fifteen minutes of fame. Secret: he didn’t need them although he desperately wanted them, wanted his hero moment. And, maybe, when the great Mandela made its unseemly turn, that was why that schoolboy shared memory on granite-gray steps could never sustain ancient times, or should have. Next

An old man, a 2009 old man if you must know although the year only framed the frenzy, an overwrought man, endlessly pacing within a few feet parameter, endlessly speaking of Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans, maybe Trigger too, who knows, as if they were right in front of him, nodded to another man, a little younger but still old, 2009 old, and who rolled his eyes every time a reference was made Roy, Dale, The Cisco Kid, or some Annie Oakley of the older man’s mind. The younger man, who had known the older man in his youth, known him well, although they had not spoken for many years, started to speak about some movie, some movie like The Gladiator just to change the topic. The older man, listened for a few seconds, then spoke of black and white television cowgirls and their fates, maybe Belle Starr, old-time rustlers and desperadoes, and occasionally of black-hatted Hopalong Cassidy. The younger man, sensing an opening, spoke of Neal Cassady. Who? Futile. Totally futile. Next

A young man, brown hair starting to fill out, a brown beard starting to go beyond wisp, sporting slightly scuffed high-top black boots, hell army boots, denim bell-bottom trousers, army-jacket one size too large, always one size too large, stared across the great hall. The garment “style” just described reflecting a recent discharge from some army, some shooting army, that aimed to join another less rigid army, if less rigid are the right words for the explosion among the young of his generation, the generation of ’68. He eyed, fierce piercing blue-eyes that spoke of ancient sadnesses and a little treachery eyed, a young woman on the other side of the room, a dark-haired, pert, petite young woman, who was also present at that same umpteenth helter-skelter workshop to save this or that part of this wicked old world. And she eyed him right back. And they kept eying each other through immediate snows, gentle first kisses, leafy bikes rides, be-bop dead of night drug hazes, east coast hitch-hike trips, massive explorations of the blue-pink great American West night, some misunderstandings, some serious misunderstandings, some rages against the night, some double rages against the day and night, some fitful irresolute break-ups, some infidelities (agreed to, or not), some two-roads-taken, and then, strictly reflecting that young man’s broken-down sense of the world, silence, no more words spoken, in anger or otherwise. Except later, much later, some cosmic message spoken by him speaking of that helter-skelter meeting, the snowy night, the walk, and the “moment” when he first held her firmly, to keep her from falling, without a kiss, but with an understanding that their stars had crossed, and he, they, knew some high adventure was ahead. And the unadorned cosmic message was all that was left. Next.

No, no next, didn’t you get it, you can’t go home again.
 

From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website

Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.

http://www.mcadp.org/

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Markin comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences.

***Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He wrote of small-voiced people, the people who fell between the cracks, who survived down among the bushes and the ruts, the great fellahin unwashed (or refusing to wash) who needed a voice, a literary voice to tell their prosaic tales. He wrote big balloon valentines to the small-voiced people, the invisible denizens (right word) of the cities tucked away on trash-filled back streets, suffocated by the oppressive stinks of the alley way (watch out for dead-assed hipsters shooting up, lurking jack-rollers craving just cashed paycheck pockets, sullen corner boys, ready, ready, hell, just ready to do something other than holding up that all-night drugstore wall.

Let’s be clear here he did not speak, how could he a back street city dweller himself, of the small- voiced pleasant up at dawn (his bedtime) Midwestern farmers providing breadbaskets to the world out of the heartland loams. He did not speak of the prosperous small town drugstore owners, how could he staring down those ready for hell corner boys in front of that neon-lit all night storefront, with their coca-cola-lime rickey-milk shake soda fountain filled with blossom youth and an occasional thirsty parent, closed at nine sharp. He did not speak of Miss Millie’s beauty salon, how could he when he was up against round heel street quick trick-turners, flat-out by-the-numbers whores and whiskey-bloated bar girls, where matrons and junior leaguers worked out the kinks and spread the gossip about who was, or was not, sleeping with whom.

One suspects that he could have, could have written elegant prose to titillate the romance-sated reader although in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses, their flaks already. Nor to put it bluntly was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice, the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world. All those left behind as the steely 1940s turned into the go-go 1950s

And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous crack of dawn Midwestern farmer (assuming as we must that he was not short-weighting the world), the stainless steel soda fountain gold mine drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market, to Frankie machine’s kindred), know everybody’s business Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she was not running a call girl service on the side), the grey flannel suit banker (assuming as we must that he was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the hustle-bustle newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the glad-handing politician (assuming as we must that he was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could. Some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, some to face the wreaker’s ball, some to face a police line-up (you know the drill -round up the usual suspects so the farmer-drugstore owner-beauty parlor operator-banker-editor and pol can rest easy). Others to sort of sleepwalk amble, hell stumble is more like it, along in the urban wilderness purgatory.

Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, walking ding-dong daddies, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word, needing something, something quick to get well, until the next time), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, of the down side of the be-bop night, of the night of the long knives, of the losers in the aptly named neon wilderness. One, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with a hole in his vein where junk flowed like the river, flowing endlessly, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century (20^th century okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks to take the world away (the world being outside Division Street) in that mid-century parlance.

And two, that hungry boy, Christ born hungry, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up from the back lots, the wheat fields, the Ozarks, and the bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention. I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the saga of the poor white trash, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. Those who one way or another missed the boat with the tide rising.

Whoever made the observation was right, of course, as I found out after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop over to these shores from thrown out Europe (for pig-stealing, horse-stealing, maybe the genetic jack-rolling, who knows but for some sin against the proper order) are explored. The population of California after World War II, the slack savage hot rod boys in tee-shirt and jeans, eternally giving off a faint whiff of motor oil, speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways; those chain-wielding, chain-smoking wandering Madonna hell’s angels; and, the sullen (oops I said that already) corner boys hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, making noise all night to prove their existence, put paid to that observation. The cutthroat world, or better cut-your- throat world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.

He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm. They had no existence in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small. They needed the anonymous rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid row flop-house, the ten- cent beer hall, the smoke-filled dank tavern, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world.

He identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, his blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, midnight police line-ups, plebeian entertainments (take your girl to the carnival, brother), sweat, a little dried blood, pock-marked veins, reefer madness (sweet dream marijuana for the unknowing , swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners, the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.

He spoke of jazz and the blues, not upfront but as a backdrop. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, absolutely no sense, and so it went.

He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. Or when the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love, sacred love, a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man gets his woman well. Hard, hard love. Not pretty, not at all. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.

To Those Who Come After- As We Approach The 12th Anniversary Of The Endless War In Afghanistan 


                                      Karl Liebknecht

Markin comment:

Every time you and I, we, get weary of rolling that big old rock up the hill, Prometheus –style, in fighting against the American imperium’s endless wars, now centrally focused on getting U.S/Allied (whatever is left in that dwindling pack) troops out of Afghanistan and its environs think about revolutionary German Social-Democrat leader (and later Spartacist leader and Communist Party founder)    Karl Liebknecht and his trials and tribulations fighting against German imperialism in the heat of World War I at a time in Germany, and not just in Germany but on all sides,  when opposition  to war could get you shot, or thrown in the bastinado for good. Very few of us today in the anti-war struggle of the past dozen years (with the exception of Private Chelsea [Bradley] Manning and precious few others) have faced that kind of decision to make a life or death statement. So every time you are standing alone, or in a small crowd, with your handmade hand-held poster, being ignored or worst laughed at remember that name, Karl Liebknecht. Oh yeah, and remember we still have a fight on our hands right now- President Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American Troops From Afghanistan .            

         
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And Always Appropriate For Those Who Have Rolled The Rock Up The Hill..

Bertolt Brecht's-

To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

II

You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:

Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.

And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.

 

 

From The Marxist Archives- In Honor Of The 64th Anniversary Year Of The Chinese Revolution of 1949- Irish Independence and the English Proletariat

Markin comment (repost from 2012):

On a day when we are honoring the 63rd anniversary of the Chinese revolution of 1949 the article posted in this entry and the comment below take on added meaning. In the old days, in the days when I had broken from many of my previously held left social-democratic political views and had begun to embrace Marxism with a distinct tilt toward Trotskyism, I ran into an old revolutionary in Boston who had been deeply involved (although I did not learn the extend of that involvement until later) in the pre-World War II socialist struggles in Eastern Europe. The details of that involvement will not detain us here now but the import of what he had to impart to me about the defense of revolutionary gains has stuck with me until this day. And, moreover, is germane to the subject of this article from the pen of Leon Trotsky -the defense of the Chinese revolution and the later gains of that third revolution (1949) however currently attenuated.

This old comrade, by the circumstances of his life, had escaped that pre-war scene in fascist-wracked Europe and found himself toward the end of the 1930s in New York working with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in the period when that organization was going through intense turmoil over the question of defense of the Soviet Union. In the history of American (and international) Trotskyism this is the famous Max Shachtman-James Burnham led opposition that declared, under one theory or another, that the previously defendable Soviet Union had changed dramatically enough in the course of a few months to be no longer worth defending by revolutionaries.

What struck him from the start about this dispute was the cavalier attitude of the anti-Soviet opposition, especially among the wet-behind-the-ears youth, on the question of that defense and consequently about the role that workers states, healthy, deformed or degenerated, as we use the terms of art in our movement, as part of the greater revolutionary strategy. Needless to say most of those who abandoned defense of the Soviet Union when there was even a smidgeon of a reason to defend it left politics and peddled their wares in academia or business. Or if they remained in politics lovingly embraced the virtues of world imperialism.

That said, the current question of defense of the Chinese Revolution hinges on those same premises that animated that old Socialist Workers Party dispute. And strangely enough (or maybe not so strangely) on the question of whether China is now irrevocably on the capitalist road, or is capitalist already (despite some very un-capitalistic economic developments over the past few years), I find that many of those who oppose that position have that same cavalier attitude the old comrade warned me against back when I was first starting out. There may come a time when we, as we had to with the Soviet Union and other workers states, say that China is no longer a workers state. But today is not that day. In the meantime study the issue, read the posted article, and more importantly, defend the gains of the Chinese Revolution.
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Workers Vanguard No. 969 19 November 2010 TROTSKY LENIN Irish Independence and the English Proletariat (Quote of the Week) Writing when all of Ireland was under British rule, Karl Marx stressed that for the proletariat in England to develop its class consciousness, it must champion Irish independence. Today, the emancipation of the working class in Britain remains inextricably linked to that of the workers in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, posing the need for proletarian revolutions that establish a voluntary federation of workers republics in the British Isles. I have become more and more convinced—and the thing now is to drum this conviction into the English working class—that they will never be able to do anything decisive here in England before they separate their attitude towards Ireland quite definitely from that of the ruling classes, and not only make common cause with the Irish, but even take the initiative in dissolving the Union established in 1801, and substituting a free federal relationship for it. And this must be done not out of sympathy for Ireland, but as a demand based on the interests of the English proletariat. If not, the English people will remain bound to the leading-strings of the ruling classes, because they will be forced to make a common front with them against Ireland. Every movement of the working class in England itself is crippled by the dissension with the Irish, who form a very important section of the working class in England itself. The primary condition for emancipation here—the overthrow of the English landed oligarchy—remains unattainable, since its positions cannot be stormed here as long as it holds its strongly-entrenched outposts in Ireland. But over there, once affairs have been laid in the hands of the Irish people themselves, as soon as they have made themselves their own legislators and rulers, as soon as they have become autonomous, it will be infinitely easier there than here to abolish the landed aristocracy (to a large extent the same persons as the English landlords) since in Ireland it is not just merely an economic question, but also a national one, as the landlords there are not, as they are in England, traditional dignitaries and representatives, but the mortally-hated oppressors of the nationality.... In fact, England never has and never can rule Ireland any other way, as long as the present relationship continues—only with the most abominable reign of terror and the most reprehensible corruption. —Karl Marx, Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann (29 November 1869)

 

***Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind

He wrote of small-voiced people. He wrote big time about the small-voiced people. Not the small voice pleasant Midwestern farmers providing breadbaskets to the world, the prosperous small town drugstore owners, or of Miss Millie’s beauty salon (although one suspects that he could have) for in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses. Nor was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice, the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world.

And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous farmer (assuming as we must that he was not short-weighting the world), the drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market) , Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she was not running a call girl service on the side), the banker (assuming as we must that he was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the politician (assuming as we must that he was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could, some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, other to sort of amble along in the urban wilderness purgatory.

Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, one, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century(20^th century okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks in that mid-century parlance, and, two, that hungry boy, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up from the back lots, the wheat fields, the Ozarks, and the bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention.

I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. And he or she was right , of course, after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop from thrown out Europe are explored. The population of California after World War II, the hot rod boys speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways, those wandering hells angels, the corner boys hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, put paid to that observation. The cutthroat world, or better cut your throat world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.

He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm. They had no existence in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small. They needed the anonymous rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid row flop house, the ten- cent beer hall, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world. He identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, his blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, plebeian entertainments, sweat, a little dried blood, marked veins, reefer madness, swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners, the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.

He spoke of jazz and the blues, not upfront but as a backdrop. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, absolutely no sense, and so it went.

He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. When the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man get his woman well. Hard, hard love. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.

***Frankie Riley Holds Forth- On The Aches And Pains Of Aging -With Jim Cullen, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, And All Other AARP-Worthy Brethren In Mind

"Do not go gentle..

...into that good night." First line of Dylan Thomas' poem of the same name.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT- Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Frankie Riley here. Ya, I know its been a while since you have heard from me and I have seen or heard from most of you. Now some of you know, know full well, that back in North Adamsville days I could, well, you know “stretch” the truth. Stretch it pretty far when I was in a fix, or one of my corner boys like my right-hand man Peter Paul Markin up at our old "up the Downs" haunt, Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, needed some outlandish excuse to get right. And fellow women classmates and some other women non-classmates as well know I would outright lie, lie like the devil in church or out, to get, well, “close” to you. Hope you forgive me about the lying, not about the trying to get close to you part. But that is all water of over the dam or under the bridge, take your choose. Today I am a new man, a truth-teller, or trying to be, except of course when I am practicing my profession as a lawyer. Then the truth might just be as elusive as it was when I was making up excuses for my corner boys or, if you were a woman, trying to “feel” you up. But enough of that as I am not here to speak of my repentance or about me at all, as hard as that might be to believe, but of the hard fact of age, ya, that creeping up thing that just kind of snuck up on us. So I am here to say just one thing- “won’t you take my word from me” like the old blues singer used to sing when he had the miseries. Listen up.

I am, once again, on my high horse today like I used to be when I had the bee in my bonnet on some subject in the old days. I have heard enough, in fact more than enough, whining from fellow AARP-worthies that I have been in contact with lately and others of my contemporaries from the "Generation of '68” about the aches and pains of becoming “ a certain age.” If I hear one more story about a knee, hip, heart, or, maybe, brain replacement or other transformative surgery I will go screaming into that good night. The same goes for descriptions of the CVS-worthy litany of the contents of an average graying medicine cabinet. Or the high cost of meds.

If I am not mistaken, and from what that old gossipy Markin has told me, many of you fully imbibed in all the excesses of our generation from crazed-out drug overkill to wacky sexual exploits that need not be mentioned in detail here (although I would not mind hearing of a few exploits strictly in confidence, attorney-client type confidence, of course), and everything else in between. Admit it. So come on now, after a lifetime of booze, dope, and wild times what did you expect? For those of us who have not lived right, lo these many years, the chickens have come home to roost. But I have a cure. Make that THE cure.

No I am not, at this late date, selling the virtues of the Bible, the Torah, the Koran or any of a thousand and one religious cures we are daily bombarded with. You knew, or at least I hope you knew, I wasn't going to go that route. That question, in any case, is each individual's prerogative and I have no need to interfere there. Nor am I going to go on and on about the wonders of liposuction, botox, chin lifts, buttocks tuckers, stomach flatteners and the like. Damn, have we come to that? And I certainly do not want to inflame the air with talk of existentialism or some other secular philosophies that tell you to accept your fate with your head down. You knew that, as well. No, I am here to give the "glad tidings," unadorned. Simply put- two words-graham crackers. No, do not reach for the reading glasses, your eyes do not deceive you- graham crackers is what I said.

Hear me out on this. I am no "snake oil" salesman, nor do I have stock in Nabisco (moreover their products are not "true" graham). So, please do not start jabbering to me about how faddish that diet was- in about 1830. I know that it has been around a while. And please do not start carping about how wasn't this healthful substance "magic elixir," or some such, that Ralph Waldo Emerson and his transcendentalist proteges praised to high heaven back in Brook Farm days. Well, I frankly admit, as with any such movement, some of those guys went over the top, especially that wacky Bronson Alcott. Irresponsible zealots are always with us. Please, please do not throw out the baby with the bath water.

Doctor Graham simply insisted that what our dietary intake consisted of was important and that a generous amount of graham flour in the system was good for us. Moreover, in order to avoid some of the mistakes of the earlier movement, in the age of the Internet we can now Google to find an almost infinite variety of uses and helpful recipes. Admit it, right now your head is swirling thinking about how nice it would be to have a few crackers and a nice cold glass of milk (fat-free or 1%, of course). Admit also; you loved those graham crumb-crusted pies your grandmother used to make. The old chocolate pudding-filled ones were my favorite. Lime was a close second. Enough said.

Here is the closer, as they say. If people have been mistaking you for your father's brother or mother's sister lately then this is your salvation. So scurry down to your local Whole Foods or other natural food store and begin to fight your way back to health. Let me finish with this personal testimonial. I used to regularly be compared in appearance to George Bush, Sr. Now I am being asked whether Brad Pitts is my twin brother. Or is it Robert Redford? .....Oh well, that too is part of the aging process. Like I say-“won’t you take my word from me.” Get to it.
******
To “jump start” you here is a little recipe I culled from my own Google of the Internet.

Graham Crackers Recipe
November 10, 2004
I'm nostalgic about graham crackers because they remind me of my Grandma Mac. Her full name is Maxine McMurry and she is now 90 years old. She lived just a short drive from our house (when my sister and I were kids) and we would tag along after soccer games when my dad would go by on Saturdays to check up on her, trim hedges, wash cars, or do any handyman work she needed. Heather and I didn't mind at all because she had a huge driveway that was flat as a pancake and smooth as an frozen pond -- perfect for roller skating. This was in striking contrast to our house that was on a steep hill which made skating perilous at best.

Grandma Mac always had snacks and treats for us when we arrived. She had a beautiful cookie jar in the shape of a big red apple which was always filled with oatmeal raisin cookies (I admittedly picked out all the raisins). Around the holidays she would fill old See's candy boxes with with perfect cubes of chocolate fudge, and if we were really lucky she would have a plate full of sweet, graham cracker sandwich cookies in the refrigerator. It was a pretty simple concept, but I've never had it since. She would take cream cheese frosting and slather it between two graham crackers and then let it set up in the fridge. I couldn't get enough.
So I thought of her when I saw this recipe for homemade graham crackers from Nancy Silverton's pastry book. I've cooked a few other winners from Nancy's books in the past; the Classic Grilled Cheese with Marinated Onions and Whole Grain Mustard, and Spiced Caramel Corn, and have quite a few more tagged for the future.

Most people think graham crackers come from the box. Period. But making homemade versions of traditional store-bought staples is worth the effort if you have some extra time or enthusiasm -- in part because the homemade versions always taste better, but also because people LOVE seeing and tasting homemade versions of foods they have only tasted out of a store-bought bag or box. I've done marshmallows and hamburger buns in the past, as well - both a lot of fun.

As far as Nancy Silverton's take on graham crackers goes - this recipe was flawless. I didn't even have to make a special trip to the store because I had every ingredient in my pantry - flour, brown sugar, honey, butter. The dough was easy to work with, and the best part of the whole thing is that the cookies actually taste exactly like graham crackers. They are delicious. I included a recipe for the cream cheese frosting in case you want to make sandwich cookies out of your homemade crackers.

Graham Cracker Recipe
2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
7 tablespoons (3 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes and frozen
1/3 cup mild-flavored honey, such as clover
5 tablespoons whole milk
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
For the topping:
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade or in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse or mix on low to incorporate. Add the butter and pulse on and off on and off, or mix on low, until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse meal.

In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, milk, and vanilla extract. Add to the flour mixture and pulse on and off a few times or mix on low until the dough barely comes together. It will be very soft and sticky.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and pat the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.

To prepare the topping: In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon, and set aside.

Divide the dough in half and return one half to the refrigerator. Sift an even layer of flour onto the work surface and roll the dough into a long rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. The dough will be sticky, so flour as necessary. Trim the edges of the rectangle to 4 inches wide. Working with the shorter side of the rectangle parallel to the work surface, cut the strip every 4 1/2 inches to make 4 crackers. Gather the scraps together and set aside. Place the crackers on one or two parchment-lined baking sheets and sprinkle with the topping. Chill until firm, about 30 to 45 minutes. Repeat with the second batch of dough.

Adjust the oven rack to the upper and lower positions and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Gather the scraps together into a ball, chill until firm, and reroll. Dust the surface with more flour and roll out the dough to get about two or three more crackers.

Mark a vertical line down the middle of each cracker, being careful not to cut through the dough. Using a toothpick or skewer, prick the dough to form two dotted rows about 1/2 inch for each side of the dividing line.

Bake for 25 minutes, until browned and slightly firm to the tough, rotating the sheets halfway through to ensure even baking.

Yield: 10 large crackers

From Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery (Villard, 2000)

Cream Cheese Frosting1
8-ounce package of cream cheese
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups of powdered sugar, sifted

Beat the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until creamy. Mix in the cream cheese and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla extract and when fully incorporated add the powdered sugar. Mix until smooth and creamy. Place in the refrigerator for an hour before using.

from Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery - reprinted with permission

***The Once And Future King- “The King’s Speech”-A Film Review

The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth, Helen Bonham Carter, directed by Tom Hooper, 2010
No question Mr. Darcy (oops) Colin Firth deserved every accolade, including the coveted Oscar, for his performance as the stammering King George VI (the current monarch’s father). Anyone from king to kid (including this writer) who has had even a passing acquaintance with stammering can relate to the story line here, and the sheer talent necessary for an actor to convincingly produce such a realistic portrayal (especially that climatic pep talk speech to the empire). And hats off to Geoffrey Rush as the unorthodox tutor who sees the king through his travails. However, at the end of the day and as the good king himself was painfully aware, good republican that I am I was left with the gnawing feeling that the monarchy (and the monarch) portrayed add nothing to our accumulated historical experience. Old Oliver Cromwell and his boys had it right in 1649-and it hasn’t been right since 1660.

***Writer's Corner-The Rough And Tumble of American Post-Revolutionary Politics-Gore Vidal's "Aaron Burr"

BOOK REVIEW

Aaron Burr, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1978

This first paragraph below has been used previously to introduce author Gore Vidal’s’ output of other interesting historical novels (that, however, when necessary hew pretty close to the historical record- hence their value).

Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that work so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible. That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the old bourgeois historical novelist, Norman Mailer nemesis and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics are somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period (I don’t think he ever got over being related to Jacqueline Kennedy) he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.

Vidal, as is his style, combines fictional characters with the makings and doings of real characters. In Burr we once again meet Charles Schuyler the narrator/protagonist of his novel 1876. There he was a world weary old journalist seeking politically to get back to his pleasant long time voluntary exile in France after the dust of the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune and the establishment of the Third Republic had settled down. This return was projected by way of a sinecure in the American Embassy courtesy of a victorious Samuel Tilden in that controversial 1876 presidential race against Rutherford B. Hayes. In the present novel Charles is just beginning his career as a writer in the mid-1830’s while also in the throes of becoming a lawyer in ante bellum New York. But he apprenticed, as was the norm in those days, not with just any lawyer but the controversial American historical figure- an aged Aaron Burr- successful lawyer, Revolutionary war soldier, ladies’ man, leading Republican politician, political foe and physical killer of Federalist political leader Alexander Hamilton, putative emperor of the Western American frontier (via Mexico) and almost President of the United States in the hot-disputed presidential election of 1800 (the famous tie with Jefferson).

Vidal lashes the action together here by having Charles commit, as a partisan political act, to writing Burr’s memoirs in order to get Burr’s side of the story about the various controversies that swirled around his life. As a subplot, and something of a ruse, the need for this information is alleged to be necessary to help (or hinder) the efforts of President Andrew Jackson’s then Vice President, the Red Fox of Kinderhook, Martin Van Buren by clearing up the relationship (possible fatherhood) between Burr and Van Buren. Whether Van Buren, the wily leader of the Albany Regency and premier political operative in his own right, needed such help from the outside is a separate question but it allows Schuyler (through access to Burr’ papers, mementos and personal remembrances) to present us with a broad and interesting look at the first fifty years or so of the American Republic.

Vidal has mentioned in connection with this series of historical novels that he has produced over the years (some six in all, I believe) that part of the interest for him was to provide, while hewing as close the historical record as possible, through his characters some motive for the actions that they did (or didn’t take) under the pressure of particular events. That approach is generally frowned upon in the academy. Thus, while this particular novelistic approach to Burr’s life is not an apologia it nevertheless gives Vidal’s’ interpretation of what he thinks Burr’s motives were from the historical record. Since Burr is something of a murky, shadowy character in the annuls of early American republican history (especially as most people know of him mainly through his deadly duel with Alexander Hamilton) even this novelistic opening up of his side of the story accrues to his benefit.

And what is Burr’s side of the story? Aside from the self-proclaimed bravado of his claim, in the end, to be as pure as the driven snow in his ultimate motivation in defense of the American republican interest and to have been the “last true patriot” his story belies some of that image. Along the way Burr (Vidal) takes the traditional potshots that, until recently, most historians of the period had to take at George Washington’s leadership of the military forces against the British in the Revolution and his essentially regal reign as first President of the United States. He also highlights the long term rivalry between himself and the previously mentioned Hamilton as the competing class interests (mercantile/agrarian/urban plebeian) of the early Republic got encapsulated into political factions- the Federalist/ Republican controversy that in various guises continue until this day.

Needless to say Burr rips into the Adams presidency, especially the Adams policy toward the French under the Directory and Napoleon that put the country on the cusp of war. A bit surprisingly he also tears apart that “paragon” of democratic virtue Thomas Jefferson- the man who defeated him during the odd-ball presidential election of 1800 that was held under the bizarre and severely undemocratic) old constitutional rules (They were amended, although no more democratically. Some things do not change). Along the way he takes other potshots as Washington and Jefferson’s fellow Virginia presidents Madison and Monroe (not all of them so far off the mark). Finally we get Burr’s take on his duel with Hamilton, his role in the infamous Western expedition that lead to his trial (and acquittal)on treason charges and his rather puzzling positive take on the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

Okay, so here is your prescription for dealing with this period of history and of the Honorable Mr. Burr. Read Vidal’s little book (well, maybe not so little at over five hundred pages). Then go and get some books on the period to read about these other figures. I have addressed the question of Martin Van Buren elsewhere in this space in his political biography by Richard Remini and that of Andrew Jackson (Arthur Schlesinger Jr, of course) as well as John Adams (David McCullough). Read on.