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Rock the boat,
David

This is the third of three book review posts I am doing on books I read in 2006. The first was on first review was on Richard Viguerie’s “America’s Right Turn,” and the second was on Sanford Horwitt’s “Let Them Call Me Rebel.”

Dream
Re-Imagining Progressive Politics In An Age of Fantasy
By Stephen Duncombe
New Press (January 2007)
224 pages

Do you ever wonder why so many political messages come off as outwardly “political?” That is, do you ever wonder why political advertising and messaging seems so distinct (in a bad way) from advertising and messaging about other products and services? New York University Professor Stephen Duncombe has, and his quirky new book “Dream” asserts that such a distinction explains much of why the Left has been so unsuccessful at engaging citizens over the last three decades. Duncombe draws on an eclectic set of sources – from Grand Theft Auto-style video gaming to Manhattan street theater – to show how the progressive movement has not yet adapted to the cultural moment we now live in. He looks at, for instance, how companies’ most successful advertisements are often those that have nothing to do with the actual products they are selling.

Think of Budweiser’s award-winning “Real Men of Genius” where the product is only barely mentioned at the end of the ad. “The link,” writes Duncombe, “is no longer between the product advertised and what the consumer would like to become, but between the viewer and the advertisement itself…The objects of association don’t matter – merely a response on our part, any human response – a smile, gasp, thought, cry of recognition, or just asppreciation of being entertained – is what the advertiser wishes us to associate with the product.”

Similarly, think of a McDonald’s ad that shows a father picking up his daughter, going to the zoo, and then eating a Big Mac afterwards. The trick is in associating the product with the image.

Progressives could have an even easier sales pitch, says Duncombe, if we started to speak today’s cultural language – that is, if we start to dream. “I have yet to come across an explanation for how a hamburger can give me free afternoons, bring me closer to my children, or make the sun shine on a clean and free public space,” Duncombe writes. “However, it is quite simple to connect all srots of progressive policies and politics to the McDonadland utopia – shorter workweeks and flextime can offer free afternoons, and lower unemployment; Legislation that provides for generous paternity leave for men and maternity leave for women sets the stage for early child-parent bonding; And generous funding of parks, museums and zoos will ensure that our public spaces are clean, safe and free.”

Though some of Duncombe’s examples are a bit out there, his book is nonetheless thought provoking when it comes to all sorts of medium - from TV advertising, to political mail, to interpersonal communication. If his goal was to get the juices flowing in the reader’s right-brain, he was successful, and we should thank him: the progressive movement needs a lot more creative thinking if we are to win over the country’s hearts and minds for the long-term.

Chuck Klosterman IV
A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas
By Chuck Klosterman
Scribner (August 2006)
384 pages

When you read political blogs and news for too long, everything starts to lose its color as you are presented with a boring black and white (red and blue?) world. Profiles are often written by ass kissers who are trying to desperately suck up to power, or by partisan hacks trying to tear an opponent apart. So when you read someone as talented as Chuck Klosterman writing about pop culture and music celebrities, you realize that the world is actually quite a colorful place, and that the schlock that makes up your political reading diet is, indeed, schlock.

Chuck Klosterman IV is a compendium of Klosterman’s work at Spin magazine and Esquire. He interviews more rock stars and actors than I would ever care to meet, much less talk to for hours on end. Among the best of these is his interview with Britney Spears (who denies to Klosterman that she tries to be a sex symbol in a video where her exposed skin is being licked by another dancer) and Val Kilmer (who has come a long way from Iceman).

At times, Klosterman’s signature cynicism/apathy gets a bit tiresome (for a taste, see this recent piece he did in Esquire), while his absorption in his own emotions and feelings can occasionally distract from the subject at hand. Additionally, it’s pretty clear he thinks he’s Really Awesome - which, though he is and though it adds something to his charm, gets a bit irritating.

But as I said, this guy actually IS an awesome writer – and I’m don’t mean this in the usual “wow, he’s a good writer” praise we give to celebrities because we are surprised they can put two words together when they write a book. There are only a few people – Matt Taibbi, Bill Greider, Tom Frank, Duncan Black and now Klosterman – who really make me feel like a bad writer when I read their writing, because their writing is so good. Their stuff is good not because they seem so high-falutin’ – it’s because they can get across complex concepts in the most basic language. Though I am not a heavy metal fan nor a pop culture groupie, Klosterman’s sheer writing force kept the pages in this book turning.

Killing Yourself to Live
85% of a True Story
By Chuck Klosterman
Scribner (June 2006)
272 pages

Having read the compendium of Klosterman’s magazine work, I went out and bought his most recent full book, and was a bit disappointed. Maybe my expectations were inflated because I like his previously published work better, or maybe I was just put off by the mis-packaging of the story.

The reader is led to believe this is going to be a story primarily about Klosterman’s trip across the country for Spin magazine reporting on many of the places where rock and roll-related deaths happened, and on why rock stars seem automatically to be remembered better if they pass away tragically. There is certainly some of that, such as when Klosterman visits the charred ruins of The Station in West Warwick, Rhode Island, where a Great White concert gone wrong killed almost 100 people. There he bonds with distraught victims friends/families over a few snorts of cocaine - all while showing readers how the tragedy has affected the town.

But much of this book is about Klosterman and his many girlfriends. Now, let me say this - the writing about his relationships is great stuff and that’s why I kept reading. Nonetheless, it felt really off track, at least from the packaging of the overall book that gives you different expectations.

Then again, the fact that I kept reading is probably this guy’s genius - even when writing about really, truly mundane things that are way off topic, he keeps you entertained and engaged. If there were more writers able to do that, I’m betting there would be more people reading books.

Activism, Inc.
How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling Progressive Politics In America
By Dana R. Fisher
Stanford University Press (September 2006)
149 pages

This short book’s subtitle tells all about this Columbia University Sociology professor’s main thesis: the progressive movement has suffered because many of its leading organizations contract out their organizing and fundraising work to third parties. Her analysis, though sometimes a bit dry, is undeniable, and makes the reader realize how much the Left has really suffered in terms of grassroots support because of some of our well-intentioned tactics. This book is an important read for anyone running or working in the trenches of progressive politics at the non-profit level.