Reader’s Corner: Faulkner and the Trumps

On June 27, 2020June 26, 2020 By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

Late next month, Simon & Schuster will publish Too Much and Never Enough, the inside story of the creation of Donald Trump from a close source: his niece Mary.

Unlike her uncle, Mary seemed to enjoy school, earning several degrees in psychology. While attending Tufts University, she studied William Faulkner, whose novels became a favorite. She appeared to be drawn in particular to his stories of the Compsons in novels like The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! According to the Washington Post:

The Compsons bore some similarities to her own family: Like Donald Trump’s mother, the Compsons immigrated to the United States from Scotland, and the family was riven by dysfunction. At the time, Donald Trump was running his Atlantic City casinos, which went into bankruptcy, and preparing to divorce his first wife, Ivana, and marry Marla Maples…

She may still see a connection. Last year, she created a company named Compson Enterprises. In order to maintain secrecy, her byline for her bombshell book was originally listed as Mary Compson.

Screening Room: ‘John Lewis: Good Trouble’

On June 19, 2020 By chrisbarsantiIn Film-DocumentaryLeave a comment

To celebrate Juneteenth, and also to act as a kind of counter-programming for tomorrow’s Trump rally, Dawn Porter’s new documentary about civil rights legend John Lewis (who will be also the subject of a new biography by Jon Meacham coming out this fall) is having a free screening in Tulsa today.

John Lewis: Good Trouble opens elsewhere on July 3. My review is at The Playlist:

Like any successful politician, John Lewis has a supply of anecdotes and applause lines to pull out whenever he is needed. One of the go-to bits we hear in the movie involves a memory from his childhood on a farm where, as a deeply religious and studious boy, he would preach to the family chickens. They would nod along, he says, but could never quite get to “Amen.” He more frequently pulls out a line that serves as his call to action. Arrested dozens of times over his career, Lewis cites the need for people to get into what he calls “Necessary trouble. Good trouble” in order to enact change…

Here’s the trailer:

Writer’s Desk: Write Like the Ukraine Whistleblower

On September 29, 2019September 29, 2019 By chrisbarsantiIn Books, WritingLeave a comment

Jane Rosenzweig, director of the Writing Center at Harvard, has some surprising advice for where to find good writing: Follow the example of the government whistleblower who filed a complaint about how the *President has been degrading the office (most recently). According to Rosenzweig, this might be a government report, but it does what all good writing must:

Right to the point!

He wastes no time on background or pleasantries before stating that he is writing to report “an ‘urgent’ concern.” And then he immediately states it.

Subheadings!

The whistle-blower’s subheadings do what the best subheadings do: They structure the complaint and provide a clear outline of what the document contains.

Great topic sentences!

Strong persuasive or expository writing features topic sentences that tell the reader what to focus on.

Active verbs!

Passive constructions leave us hanging about who did what, which can be useful if you’re trying to deflect responsibility for something. But if you want to keep your reader focused on who is accountable for what, tell them by making sure your sentences feature real people performing actions.

The whistle-blower could turn out to be a writer in their free time. They could also just be a person who understands that it’s not enough to tell somebody something, you have to tell them well.

So pay attention to your writing. You never know when the fate of democracy could depend on it.

Friday Music Break: Tom Waits and the Resistance

On November 9, 2018 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnicultural, Omnium Gatherum, politicsLeave a comment

For his latest album, Songs of Resistance 1948-2018, guitarist Marc Ribot collaborated with other musicians on a numerous of old and new protest songs.

He enlisted Tom Waits to sing the old anti-fascist Italian folk ballad “Bella Ciao” (“Goodbye Beautiful”). You can hear it here, via the video directed by Jem Cohen (who also shot the classic Fugazi documentary Instrument) which collages footage from recent demonstrations in Washington, D.C. behind Waits’ growling protest lyrics.

Reader’s Corner: ‘Russian Roulette’

On April 25, 2018April 25, 2018 By chrisbarsantiIn Books, politicsLeave a comment

Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s new book Russian Roulette is, well, timely. My review is at PopMatters:

The intent here was not to write an all-inclusive study of the history of the Washington-Moscow power dynamic, the full legacy of Trump’s law-skirting business dealings, or the noxious way those two elements have meshed together. Something like that wouldn’t be a book. That would require a multi-volume Robert Caro-type of effort which some future generation—assuming deep-dive narrative nonfiction survives Peak TV and Instagram—can take up to figure out what the hell happened. In the meantime, we’ll resort to Russian Roulette…

Reader’s Corner: ‘Fire and Fury’

On January 10, 2018January 12, 2018 By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

My review of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, currently on backorder at bookstores around the country and potentially turning into the president’s Harvey Weinstein moment, is up now at PopMatters:

Here we are, just 12 months into the presidency of Donald J. Trump and already just about every writer in the nation has sharpened their pens into knives. But despite the reams of Trump denunciations that have hit screens and bookshelves, none will probably be seen to have cut as deep as Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury…

Nota Bene: Top Risks for 2018

On January 3, 2018January 4, 2018 By chrisbarsantiIn Nota Bene, Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Earlier this week, the risk assessment firm the Eurasia Group published their take on the Top Risks that the world is going to face in 2018. It starts with China (which “loves a vacuum,” particularly the one left by the United States) and ends with Africa and a list of possibly surprising red herrings (among them, “Trump’s White House”):

In the 20 years since we started Eurasia Group, the global environment has had its ups and downs. But if we had to pick one year for a big unexpected crisis—the geopolitical equivalent of the 2008 financial meltdown—it feels like 2018. Sorry…

The full report is here.

Screening Room: DOC NYC 2017

On November 8, 2017 By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Festivals, Film - New, Film-DocumentaryLeave a comment

The eighth edition of the DOC NYC film festival starts tomorrow. Among the 250-odd movies screening over about a week and a half are movies about Dutch nationalists, the Russian athletic doping conspiracy, high school dance teams, a cult leader named Father Divine, and CIA experiments with LSD (the last is Errol Morris’ killer four-hour epic Wormwood, image at bottom).

Tomorrow’s opening night movie is The Final Year, a behind-the-scenes look at the last year in office of President Obama’s foreign policy team (that’s them, above) which plays out with unexpected drama against the darkening shroud of Trump’s rocketing rise to the presidency. It’s getting released either later this year or in January and will show up eventually on HBO.

My preview of the goodies on show at DOC NYC is at Film Journal‘s Screener blog:

Today there seems to be a film festival for almost every taste and locality. In addition to the grand dames of the festival circuit like Toronto, Venice, Cannes and Telluride, with their red-carpet premieres and B-list stars getting A-list attention, there are more tightly focused cinematic gatherings, from Los Angeles’ Screamfest to the Ottawa International Animation Festival (both just what they sound like). So it can be refreshing to find a festival that simply wants to show as many amazing movies as possible…

More to follow next week.

Screening Room: ’11/8/16′

On November 3, 2017November 3, 2017 By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-DocumentaryLeave a comment

Remember Election Day last year? Feel like living through it all again? If you have the constitution for it, check out the new documentary 11/8/16, opening this week in limited release.

My review is at Film Journal International:

The disputatious and fractured omnibus documentary 11/8/16 nibbles at too many stories in too short a time to make the one great American tale it seems to be aiming for. There are glimmers of larger import here, various signifiers of this or that impulse from a certain slice of the electorate. But much like the news media in its breathless coverage of the 2016 presidential election, its onslaught of 16 points of view creates more of a cacophony than anything else…

Here’s the trailer: