Book Review: "The Telephone Gambit" by Seth Shulman

A thrill-ride, roller-coaster, can’t-put-it-down detective story you can devour in one day. Seth Shulman, a technology writer working in an office at MIT’s Dibner Institute, inadvertently happens upon a mystery regarding Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 patent for the telephone.


Documents that had been sealed for more than a hundred years which were now open to the public through the Library of Congress, online, led him from Bell’s home-life and education in Scotland to courtrooms in the U.S. as he faced challenge after challenge to his questionable patent. But it was just a crucial few weeks in Bell’s 1876 notes that piqued Shulman’s curiosity and urged him to dig deeper into this 100+ year-old mystery. Bell paid a visit to Washington D.C., filed his patent, and then returned to Massachusetts with a completely different idea from the one he had been working on before his trip. Interestingly, his notes (when superimposed on inventor Elisha Gray’s own notes) seem to be influenced by Gray’s invention. The question is, did Bell have access to Gray’s notes, and if he did, how and when would he have done so? And what role did his future father-in-law, wealthy investor Gardner Greene Hubbard, play in obtaining the patent?


It’s all water over the Charles River Dam now, of course, with the humble telephone becoming obsolete while cell phones have supplanted what is now called, derisively, a “land phone,” meaning that contraption attached to your wall. Technology is racing so fast that an invention that, while still perfectly serviceable, is more at home in an antique shop than your home/office/media room.


But Shulman raises more important issues than just the possibility of wrong-doing at the Patent Office. Just who is Alexander Graham Bell? A teacher of the deaf, an elocutionist, an inventor. I can stare at photographs of the real Alec Bell, but in my mind he will look a close second to the iconic Alexander Graham Bell, as played by genial actor Don Ameche in the 1939 film, “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell.” The real Bell spoke with a thick Scottish burr, but the voice of Bell for nearly 70 years has been a mid-west American one. And his famous interjection, when he spilled battery acid [what was he doing with battery acid? It’s complicated; read the book] on himself and cried out, “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you!” in my mind’s eye brings forth another mid-westerner, young star-in-the-making Henry Fonda. (Whether that interjection was ever uttered, of course, is up for debate. History is what happened, but time refines, and what serves the story is what will survive as the truth. As with the rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, between Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi, there is the truth, the myth, and what lies between.


What makes a myth? It needs four key components. First of all, a hero. A handsome young man with a vision and the intelligence and resourcefulness to see it through. Second, a storyline that moves inexorably from the beginning to a foregone conclusion: the man has a dream; he faces challenges along the way; then, when he’s almost at the point of despair, Eureka! suddenly his dream is realized! It helps, too, that there’s a villain – in this case, inventor Elisha Gray, of Western Electric, working on the same technology, claiming that the methodology was his, and that he was only thwarted by the time-stamp on his paperwork at the patent office in Washington D.C. And finally, a love interest for our hero. Mabel Hubbard, a lovely young hearing-impaired lass who was Bell’s student; a bright girl with a quick mind who was his cheerleader and champion. It didn’t hurt that Mabel’s father was a wealthy, influential mogul with the contacts to help Bell “jump the line” past Gray, as rumor has it. With a hero, storyline, villain and the girl, you have an irresistible concoction that is easily swallowed by the public.


Bell got his patent, but the years of litigation seem to have left him uninterested in furthering the technology of the telephone. It’s his name, ironically, that survives through all this: Bell. Bells are ringing; Bell Telephone; the symbol of Bell Telephone: a silhouette of a bell.


Shulman wisely limits his own personal details in the story; I was interested in his research methods, and his colleagues and contacts are described briefly, but they fade into the background and it’s Bell who remains on center stage.


When Alec and Mabel Bell at last retire to their estate in Canada at the turn of the last century, Shulman points out, it’s Bell’s scientific bent that leads him to remark on the greenhouse effect that was already causing the Earth’s temperature to rise. The man, after all, was not just a technician, or a scientist, or a lucky, well-connected patent jumper; he was, indeed, a visionary.

Book Review: "Let's Cook Together" by Bernice Stock

It’s not hard to shop or cook healthy foods for a child – the trick is to get them to eat what you have prepared! In “Let’s Cook Together,” a cookbook/guidebook dedicated to helping today’s child to enjoy healthy, nutritious foods. The meals are not simply presented to the child – the child is very much a participant in the process.

As an Early Childhood Educator, I have seen pre-school children go hungry at lunchtime rather than to eat unfamiliar foods. Bernice Stock gives novel strategies to entice the child into the world of natural, whole, organic foods.

In a word? “Relax.” Introduce new foods little by little, and without comment. Eat your salad without discussion. Be creative: Serve snacks on doll’s dishes.

Ready to begin? Begin at the beginning. Stock advises you take the time to plan a shopping trip with your child to your local health food store, farmer’s market, or even a well-stocked supermarket. Once home, explore ways to prepare the food. Stock gives more than 50 recipes to cover breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with salad, snacks, and special treats. Each recipe lists ingredients and preparation instructions, as well as information on the nutritional value of the dish. The pages are decorated with charming, full-color illustrations by young children.

In her first book, “The Smorgasbord of My Life,” Ms. Stock recounts the ways in which her upbringing, always centered around the Family, both nourished and starved her; in any case, it all came down to Food: the food she was fed; the food she cooked as a young wife and mother; and the food that nearly destroyed her body. Ultimately, though, it was through the thoughtful, intelligent way that she learned to regard food as a friend, not an enemy, and the balm which helped her heal.

Book Review: "101 People Who Are Really Screwing America" by Jack Huberman

Dr. Phil is the LEAST Repugnant Person in this Book

Out of 101+ people in this book, Dr. Phil (#91) comes across as the least repugnant person who is really screwing America. After all, adults who are dumb enough to appear on his show deserve what they get and any child dumb enough to have parents who are dumb enough to appear on his show deserve what they get.

But the rest of the list? Scary. Far from being “Compassionate Conservatives,” the members of the Imperial Presidency (where is Richard Nixon when you need him?) and its Court have pulled a coup against our democratic system, with the result that we have a government of the Bushies, by the Bushies, and for the Bushies.

(To be clear: I am using the term “Bushies” to stand for everyone who stands against whatever I stand for: ending the Iraq War; respecting the environment and the scientific method; First Amendment, Second Amendment – OK, let’s say all the amendments, when interpreted by a fair and balanced Supreme Court – and yes, compassion.)

From the outdoor environment to the privacy of one’s own home, the Bushies do seem to be preoccupied with sex: from raping and pillaging our national natural resources to determining what happens in the privacy of one’s bedroom. Small-minded people, they hoard what they have, and then want more. From Pat Robertson (#55) and his “Christian Coalition” to Bradley Smith 1 (#79) and Bradley Smith 2 (#78), they seem to believe that they are the ones to set the national agenda – and why shouldn’t they? Since January 20, 2001, they have been.

In a prescient and eerie choice, #19, Alberto Gonzales, comes across as the worst Attorney General ever, in a book that was written well before this month’s (March 2007) events: the purge of the U.S. attorneys for purely partisan political reasons. And Condi Rice at #10 ranks even higher (the lower the number, the higher is your Screwing America listing) than Gonzales, most notably for her horrid, heartbreaking joke about 9/11: The Bush government was completely surprised on 9/11, she claimed, despite the title of the President’s Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001: “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” It must have been a joke, because she couldn’t have been serious.

Media figures in all forms come in for a drubbing: Rupert Murdoch (#14,) Clear Channel Communications (#50), and even the so-called Liberal Media (#13) are called on the carpet. In a system where a 24-hour news network, proclaiming itself “Fair and Balanced” (#28), is nothing but a mouthpiece for one political party, a confused Average American (#57 – oh, my, is no one spared from Huberman’s wrath?) had better turn off their Ipods and TV’s and cancel their newspaper subscriptions and curl up with a good book. (My Pet Goat would be an excellent choice. Just ask #2.).

My one quibble? #44. I’ll never forget my first time. And I refuse to give it up.

The book is amusing but infuriating. Keep away if you are a Democrat with high blood pressure. Everyone else, read at your own risk. But read it.

Book Review: "The G-d Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins can read my mind. That's the only explanation I find possible, because as I was reading "The G-d Delusion" I kept exclaiming to myself, "That's just what I always thought!" Except his language is more elegant than mine. Although, not always so elegant; his writing is accessible, engaging and clever, and some of his footnotes are LOL (Laugh Out Loud) funny.

[I Don't Know Why: Because of my religious upbringing, in this review I personally write the name "G-d"; observant Jews avoid writing the name casually because of the risk that the written name might later be defaced.]

Who's Got the Whole World in his Hands?: Dawkins, a respected biologist/philosopher, takes his reputation as Charles Darwin's fiercest supporter and asks how a scientist, or any educated adult, can possible believe in religion (the monotheist ones; he gives Buddhism and Confucianism a pass as "ethical systems or "philosophies of life"). I know I should feel insulted when he calls my G-d, the one I grew up believing in, the G-d of the Hebrew Bible, a "psychotic delinquent," (p. 38), but I like to keep an open mind. I was raised by parents who were themselves raised as Orthodox Jews, but as a family we slipped to Conservative Judaism; then I fell backward into Reform for a few years. I've flirted with the Reconstructionists, as well. I believe in Judaism as a culture, but find it hard to believe in the religion. Right now I'm a Jewish-born Questioner, but as a Questioner, for absolutely no reason, I still don't eat pork.

Teach Your Children Well: Dawkins was born an Anglican child, but rightly points out that a child isn't really a member of a religion, but basically a small human mimicking the words, prayers, and beliefs that were taught by his/her parents, who were obviously taught those words, prayers, and beliefs by their own parents. So the game goes on, and for thousands of years the collected weight of all of those maters and paters impress on the child, leaving him too laden by layers of guilt to make a conscious decision to question his faith. Every religion seems to have the same principle: pile on the guilt, until the child-turned-adult is paralyzed by fear of some version of fire and brimstone, and is afraid to declare himself an atheist, agnostic, or just a questioner with an open mind.

Did You Dance Along the Light of Day?: The book is a real page-turner, careening through space and time, language and culture, from a dissection of the Old and New Testaments, quoting from another recently published book, "Misquoting Jesus" (in England titled, "Whose Word Is It?") by Bart Ehrman on the perils of taking a book that had been translated and transcribed (and modified) by hundreds of translators and scribes over thousands of years, as gospel truth; to an overview of the Universe, with its billion billion available planets, and the probability of life on just one of them; to the political battles over creationism vs. science in school curricula, both in Great Britain and the United States. Along the way we, of course, meet some monkey-obsessed fanatics, and for the gazillionth time, Dawkins must explain, as he did in "The Ancestors' Tale," that we did not descend from monkeys, but do share a common ancestor. He most emphatically does not imply that your mother is a monkey.

The Fools on the Hill: The most devastating comparison in the book (although they are discussed at opposite ends of the book) is between Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Fathers who were most responsible for America's Founding, whom Dawkins describes as "passionate secularists" (p. 43) and the recently-disgraced Pastor Ted Haggard - his disgrace revealed too recently to be included in this first edition - as "the interviewee who most appalled the British television audience." (p. 319). In fact, according to Dawkins, the British are horrified by the influence of religious Fundamentalists in the United States. I must have some British genes, because I am equally horrified.

Now I Don't Claim to be an A Student: The worrisome thing about the anti-science bias promulgated by religious fanatics is the way that they need to subvert scientific knowledge to fit in with their religious beliefs. It's as if their Intelligent Designer just created the Earth about 6,000 years ago - the Young Earth theory - populating his arts and crafts project with both dinosaurs and homo sapiens, disregarding any evidence that biologists, geologists, and anthropologists (and many other -ologists) have discovered over the course of human history. If the Bible is a "major source book for literary culture," (p. 341) and the King James Bible "includes passages of outstanding literary merit," Dawkins will admit that the Bibles and holy books of religion are beautifully written stories, allegories, and a glimpse into the minds of the men who wrote them, but they most assuredly are not science. Thus the religious -ologists must twist the scientific facts to fit their faith.

But I'm Trying to Be: The rigorous scientific method demands measurable evidence and experiments that can be replicated independently by others. Expecting a book or series of books written thousands of years ago to explain phenomena that have been discovered in just the past hundred years is like expecting the Albert Einstein of 1905 to fly a rocket to the moon - he was responsible for making moon rockets possible, but in 1905 he could only imagine the dream, not fulfill it.

Fall In to the Gap: "Gap" is the favorite explanation by the religious of events or processes that are not understood right now, leading them to rush to fill in the Gap with their Designer, rather than using objective, impartial inquiry, with the knowledge that is known to date, and pursuing questions that have not been answered yet.

Dites-moi, Pourquoi (Tell Me Why)?: Dawkins doesn't know it all. I don't know it all. Yet.

I'm a Questioner.

Thank you for reading this review. Give yourself 5 points for every song title or lyric that you recognized.

Book Review: "The Merchant of Power" by John Wasik

The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of; Subtitled: "The more you know, the more you know you don't know."

Coming across "The Merchant Of Power" by John Wasik, I was intrigued by the title and book jacket, but I half expected this book to be a clever spoof, like a book-bound Zelig. It was hard to believe that one person could have had such an effect on the history of the United States, indeed living a substantial part of his life in New York City, but had been almost erased from history less than a century later. In fact, I Googled Mr. Insull, and found that yes, he did exist, and yes, he was that influential in the modern industrialized America of the late 19th- and early 20th-century.

Insull was the business "brain" behind the eccentric tinkerer, Thomas Edison, who comes across as something of an old fool, and in the New York years, Insull was deeply involved in the Edison/Westinghouse/Tesla/AC/DC controversy, and the bitter J.P. Morgan takeover of Edison Electric (which became General Electric). Getting the heck out of Dodge before things got too dicey, he headed west to a primitive outpost on the edge of the American frontier, Chicago. Finally he was able to work his magic without running up against adversaries like Morgan or George Westinghouse; he bought and consolidated several small electric companies that were serving the city and created the complex electric grid that we know today.

Part biography, part history, part science (or, electrical engineering, at least) and part gossip, the book illuminates a forgotten man, and a never-to-be-forgotten period of the American story.

Book Review: "Dangerous Nation" by Robert Kagan

Be prepared to be shocked (and awed) because Robert Kagan posits some of the most controversial theories about the United States' foreign policy including:

Washington's Farewell Address: a speech not for the ages, but one only intended for the first few years of the young republic Monroe Doctrine: much debated, but not implemented, because of the issue that tore apart the nation in the second quarter of the 19th century Hawaiian Statehood: applied for annexation to the United States in the first half of the 19th century, but because it fell south of the Missouri compromise line, and thus would be classified as a slave state, refused, and had to wait more than 100 years to join the nation as a state The Spanish-American War: perhaps the most popular war in U.S. history?

Kagan takes us on an exhaustive, exhausting thrill-ride through the foreign policy decisions of the United States from its pre-Revolutionary War era to the Spanish-American War at the end of the 19th century. (The reader will have to wait for the next volume to find out what happens in the twentieth century.) Forget your dull high school history books; what you'll find here confounds the complacent reader who can name the Battles of each of our wars, but not the battles that were fought before, during, and after the bloodshed.

The saddest, most shocking section of the book focuses on the issue that eclipsed America's external focus of terroritorial expansion in the 19th century as it imploded in the years from the 1820's to the 1860's: slavery. Kagan describes a time when the United States stood alone among the nations of the world as our shameful sin, slavery, was denounced by intellectuals and the common man throughout the rest of the world community. We were founded on a belief that all men were created equal, and indeed had certain inalienable rights, yet we were hypocritically ignoring the denial of rights to our fellow human beings toiling in our own backyards.

The war that erupted between two sections of the country, sections as diametrically opposed to each other as the primary colors of red and blue, was the most wretched, hard-fought, emotionally-charged conflict in our history. And the aftermath was just as devastating as the lead-up to the war, with the South feeling itself to be an occupied country, with its "colored" population hardly any better off than they were before the War.

Kagan introduces us to characters who were the rock stars of their time (think Bono, not Britney). John Quincy Adams emerges from the shadow of a much-respected Founding Father father to become the leading abolitionist in public office. And William Seward, who, alas, has gone down in history attached to the unfortunate moniker "Folly," is revealed as one of New York State's (and the nation's) most principled, distinguished statesmen. (And Seward's Folly? Hardly. The 20th century Cold War would have heated up to a boil if Russia had still maintained a presence in the North American continent.)

Perhaps the biggest revelation in the book concerns the Spanish-American War, over the issue of Cuban independence. Cuban rebels, in an attempt to repel the Spanish, ceased working in any industry in an effort to force the Spanish out; the Spanish, playing hardball, removed hundreds of thousands of Cubans from their homes and settled them in (re)concentration camps, where as many as 300,000 are believed to have died from starvation. The citizens of the United States, Kagan maintains, demanded military action, fueled not by revenge for the sinking of the Maine, not by the lurid stories of the so-called yellow journalists, but by humanitarian concerns.

Heroes and villains, brilliant minds and darkest hearts, Kagan introduces you to a country, a people, who struggled to create a society that reflected the very best in human achievement, sometimes attaining it, sometimes not.

Book Review: "Amazing Grace" by Jonathan Kozol

Jonathan Kozol’s 1995 book, “Amazing Grace,” is intriguing, yet infuriating. While I was drawn to the subject, a study of the children of New York City’s South Bronx neighborhood, I was put off by the “Note to the Reader” at the front of the book, which warns that some names have been changed (I can live with that) but also that “conversations have been condensed” and “some events have been resequenced,” which leaves me wondering what parts of which conversations with whom have been resequenced (a word that Microsoft Word 2003 does not even recognize) and when? Because the book is presented in a chronological order, one would assume a natural progression: as a general rule, time goes by, seasons change, and children mature. In real life we don’t get the chance to resequence

The book is basically a series of conversations, with Kozol trying to be the unbiased questioner, who lets his characters, excuse me, interviewees, write his book for him. Very rarely is his voice heard; he only allows some sadness, and some delight, filter through. Statements are made, facts are reported, but one must keep referring to the Notes at the back of the book to substantiate the facts, and check the dates, because we just never can be sure what has been resequenced. It would almost have been more efficient to include the notes in the body of the book, so one does not have to continually flip back and forth from the text to the notes.

The children in the book are lovely, and it is their amazing grace shining through the constant sorrow that gives this book its title. Although it is true that we are all equal, in truth we are all different, and Mr. Kozol’s skin color, clothing, speech and demeanor mark him as a stranger in this strange land called the Bronx. (The villain of the piece is actually New York’s master builder, Robert Moses, who cut a deep swathe, the “Cross Bronx Expressway,” through the heart of the neighborhood and created a slum where there had once been a thriving community.) And because Mr. Kozol is a foreigner, indeed he wears the skin and clothing of The Powers That Be, one must wonder if his conversations with the children and parents are indicative of their true feelings, or are they just telling him what they think he wants to hear?

Mothers and grandmothers are the true heroes of the piece; guiding their precious children (including one, here called, “Precious,” although who knows if that name has been changed) through a drug- and crime-infested hell, while fathers, sons and daughters bounce from hospitals to prisons to the cemetery. HIV-infection is a very real force here, although since the book is now 12 years old I do not know what effect the disease has on the community today.

The book’s structure is flawed, but the story is inspiring, and makes the reader question how the children can be saved. Is it the obligation of the City government, which seems to have done a fine job relocating its “problem children” from their visibility in homeless shelters in Manhattan to the far, far away, out-of-sight, out-of-mind Bronx? Is it to be solved by mentoring, one-on-one, as 13-year-old “Anthony” is guided in his education by an older gentleman, a writer and poet? Should Kozol have just picked up Precious and adopted her into his Massachusetts family life, thus rescuing her from her certain tragic fate?

And those of us who are teachers, what is our role? Kozol seems to leave us in despair, as if there is nothing that a human being can do to turn this tide. We have to hope that the influence of an inspired teacher could make a dent in the defenses that these children have built up, like a shield, to guard them from the hard knocks of their hard lives. Maybe a teacher can, because if we didn’t believe that such a thing was possible, we might as well turn in our chalk and go home.

Book Review: "Louisa May Alcott, A Modern Biography" by Martha Saxton

I can't remember the last time a book made me cry; it was probably 50 years ago when I first read "Little Women"; Beth's death was unbearably sad, but there is a death in this book that is even more shocking and unexpected, all the more so because it is a biography, and not fiction. Louisa May Alcott (the middle name "May" was not added to her name for the lilt, as in Cheryl "Lynn," but was in fact her mother's maiden name -- a charming custom at the time, but not in the best interest of security, today, almost like my telling you my mother's maiden name) lived a mean, hard-scrabble life. Growing up in a family of four daughters, with a transcendentalist-philosopher father who did not believe in working for pay, owning property, or running a business; Louisa and her sisters subsisted on a diet of raw apples and cold water for much of their childhood, with the occasional hard cracker for fiber. Her father did believe in charity, however, so her life -- and her mother's life -- was a constant scratch for money to support the family, any way they could.

Louisa was a teacher, governess, and paid companion to an invalid woman; until at last she was able to bring in enough money through her writing to keep her parents comfortable; although there were no luxuries in the Alcott homestead, eventually she was able to install a furnace. Even then, it seemed, when she was a famous author, earning large advances for her books, there was never enough money for her to feel secure.

She did indeed have an older sister, who married a steady, boring young man (the Meg and John Brooke of "Little Women") and a frail sister, Beth, who met the same fate as her eponymous doppelganger in "LW", and a young, pretty artist sister, the baby and beauty of the family, named Abigail, nicknamed Abby (after her mother, who was nicknamed Abba) who changed her name to May (to distinguish herself from her mother).

The world of the Alcotts in Massachusetts was populated with the era's greatest thinkers: Ralph Waldo Emerson was their next-door neighbor; as a teenager Louisa had a mad crush on a local gardener, Henry David Thoreau, a misogynistic mama's boy whom one could kindly describe as a "shrub shlub." Nathaniel Hawthorne was another neighbor; Walt Whitman made an appearence in Concord; May, studying painting in Europe, befriended no less a light than Mary Cassatt, the pre-eminent female artist of the time. The Alcotts' world was peopled with women's suffragists (Louisa voting for the first time -- in a school board election!) and abolitionists such as John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison.

Louisa's greatest personal triumph was probably her service as a nurse during the Civil War; although the adventure ended badly, and left her health in ruins for the rest of her life, it was there that she used her hands, and head, and heart to heal the broken young men in the Grand Army hospital. Surprisingly, and sadly, the writing of "Little Women" was not the heartfelt outpouring of a romantic soul, but a simply a work ground out by a sick, tired woman to pay her family's endless debts.

When, towards the end, Emerson appears in the family's parlor -- for he had been asked to "break the news" of yet another sad passing (and you know your family is distinguished when America's greatest living [and perhaps all-time] philosopher is in your home to deliver sad news) -- you'll reach for your Puffs, with Aloe.

But don't cry for Louisa, when death finally comes, it is an almost blessed relief.

Book Review: "The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll -- The Search for Dare Wright" by Jean Nathan

Just as every little girl wonders about the secret life of her dolls -- teddy bear picnics and dolly tea parties when Mommie is not at home -- so we adults wonder about the lives of the authors who have brought us our favorite childhood books. They must have been beautiful princesses, we surmise, or else lonely old maids whose lives were lived through their characters. Dare Wright was an odd combination of the two -- a beautiful child/woman, who was primped and shaped by her mother, Edie, a well-known, well-respected portrait painter of her time, though a devastatingly domineering mother -- but who, after her mother died, indeed became a lonely old maid, bereft of any family ties.

Jean Nathan's "The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright" strips away the pink and white gingham cover facade of the Lonely Doll books to show us the bizarre, unconventional life of Dare Wright, a model/photographer/and author of the books, and her mother, a two-for-one pair all-but conjoined throughout Dare's life.

When first introduced to a child, the adventures of the lonely doll, Edith, and her companions, Mr. Bear and Little Bear, are enchanting. The lonely doll seems to be living in a swanky New York City apartment, but there are no scenes of a little girl's room, or even any evidence that a child lived in that home at all. In fact, Edith doesn't seem to belong to anyone; does she live alone? Is that her apartment? Whose dressing room and jewel box do Edith and Little Bear pillage and plunder? And how exactly did the Bears come to show up on the lonely doll's doorstep?

Reading Jean Nathan's book, it is quite clear to the arm-chair psychoanalyst that Mr. Bear and Little Bear are substitutes for the father and big brother that Edie callusly cast out of her life and her daughter's. For many years, Edie pretended that she had never had a son, while Dare tried to make sense of her buried memories of a family of four people that she could not clearly picture in her conscious mind.

There are parts of the book that don't seem right, and as a doll collector (and owner of a very old cloth doll) I wished had been explored more carefully: the doll in the picture book series is made of fabric (by the Italian doll company Lenci), but doesn't photograph as a 20+year-old doll; the fabric looks immaculate, and shows no signs of wear. In later books, the doll keeps getting makeovers, but somehow the cloth's integrity is sturdy enough to keep up with changing fashions. And I have long been fascinated by the photo of Edith and Little Bear, standing with their backs to the camera, on the totally deserted Brooklyn Bridge. The mechanics of managing that location shoot must have entailed months of paperwork and permits and I would have liked to have just a few details of the artist's creative processes, and the actual task of wrangling those dolls (who truly seemed to have minds of their own) into such perfect poses.

"The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll" is a book for grown-ups; once you have read it, you can never again look at the series of Lonely Doll books with child-like wonder. But for the adult reader it fills in the missing pieces of the books; the lonely Dare Wright created for herself a mother-less universe, with a father and brother who promised to never leave her, and together the three of them would live happily ever after.

Book Review: "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser

(This review was written on December 31, 2006, and is being posted today in light of recent news events concerning beef recalls due to the possibility of diseased cows in the food supply chain.)

This book made me sick. Literally. And figuratively. Figuratively, while reading about sweetheart deals between some members of a certain national political party who are in bed with (literally, in the case of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and his wife) food processing companies and manufacturers (and yes, food is manufactured, just like any other industrial product), my blood seemed to boil.

Literally, while I digested the chapters on slaughterhouses, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow disease) coursed through my body. (Perhaps hypochondriacally, perhaps not.) Author Eric Schlosser follows in muckraking writer Upton Sinclair’s (The Jungle, 1906) muckraking footsteps, and what a lot of muck there is to rake! The book covers such a broad range of issues, political, scientific, and sociological, that there are enough topics for any reader to order from a menu (with more choices than you’ll find at the local McDonald’s) and find a choice sure to enrage. Dead-end career track for fast-food workers? Check. Obesity in America? Check. Union busting? Check.

Wait, whatever happened to unions? In the earlier part of the last century, unions protected laborers and acted with one voice to speak for many. Now food processing companies are forming conglomerates to stifle the voice of the individual worker, demanding greater productivity at cheaper wages, and union-busting techniques are simply business-as-usual.

Back to our menu. Inspiring stories of young mavericks like Carl Karcher of Carl’s Jr. restaurants, and J. R. Simplot, of Idaho potato fame, give a glimpse of what some remarkable individuals with grit, gumption, and not much else, can achieve. It’s only when we reach the 1960’s when the spread, through franchising, of fast-food chains throughout the country (and later the world) that we see nutrition disappearing from America’s dinner tables (and car seats!) as healthy foods are replaced by chemically-processed fake foods.

But by far, the slaughterhouse descriptions are the most revolting chapters of the book. Do you care about unskilled laborers working with barely any protection from OSHA? The accident rate among those workers? The poverty levels of the workers? If you don’t, that’s OK, because I wasn’t referring to that.

I’m referring to the blood and guts of the slaughtering process.

And I’m referring to the hamburgers that the public has been eating. I have eaten my last hamburger. On page 197, line 22, of the paperback edition, you will find out why.

Book Review: "At This Theatre" by Louis Botto

“At This Theatre" is a delicious appetizer for anyone who is interested in the beginnings of the New York legitimate stage. Louis Botto, who was Senior Editor of "Playbill Magazine" (the official program of Broadway productions) at the time of this book's publishing (1984) gives us a tour of the 34 grand old theatres to be found in New York's theatre district which generally runs from 42nd Street to 53rd Street between 6th and 8th Avenues, neatly bisected by that glorious old street called "Broadway." Beginning with the Lyceum Theatre that opened on November 2, 1903, he includes the architecture, ownership, and opening night play of each house, then goes on to give a quick three or four pages listing the most important productions, flops as well as hits, with a very short commentary on the thespians trodding the boards on each of these stages. As appetizers do, the short chapters make one hungry for more.

But it's the pictures....ah, the pictures. Photographs taken 80 and 90 years ago make the price of this book a steal. Having only heard about the grande dames of the stage, I was familiar with the names Katherine Cornell and Lynne Fontanne, Helen Hayes and Gertrude Lawrence, always imagining them as ancient crones. I was surprised to see photographs of them when they were major stars of the New York theatre scene, as stunningly beautiful young women. Ona Munson, who played stately madame Belle Watling in 1939's epic film, "Gone With the Wind," was a flirty ingénue in a dainty, lacy dress when she appeared in "No No Nanette" in 1925. There's even a picture of Antoinette Perry, the actress for whom the "Tony Awards," theatre's highest honor, were named. And a page on which photographs of Fanny Brice in the "Ziegfeld Follies" and the woman who played her in "Funny Girl," Barbra Streisand, both at the Winter Garden Theatre, are placed side-by-side, is priceless.

Young men who later went on to great success are represented here, too, including Marlon Brando in his Broadway debut as a teenager in "I Remember Mama" in 1944, and Leslie Howard, an English actor whom I remembered only as a pale young man in "Gone With the Wind," who was, in fact, one of the mainstays of Broadway in the 1930's. Early pictures of Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman and Robert Redford cause the heart to flutter when encountering them in their stage debuts, as well.

Botto also tracks the various names with which the theatres have been endowed, and answers some questions I've always wondered about: while I know who Neil Simon is (his eponymous theatre was originally the Alvin Theatre, and was only named after him in 1983); but who was Martin Beck? A vaudeville mogul, it turns out, who built his theatre in 1924; and who was Mark Hellinger? According to Botto, "an esteemed columnist." In fact, I attended a production of "My Fair Lady" at the Hellinger in the early 1960's, and still remember the elegance of this magnificent grande dame of a theatre 40 years later.

Botto plays a subtle running joke through the book while noting the designers of these theatres. In the 1910's and 20's, an architect named Herbert Krapp had built so many theatres at such a pace that by 1924 Botto calls him "the very busy Herbert Krapp"; by 1925, when he built the Biltmore theatre, he's called, "the busiest architect in town"; and finally is credited in the book as "an architect who seemed to turn out a theatre every week in the Roaring Twenties." One minor quibble: Botto places the magnificent musical "West Side Story" in the "rumble-ridden Bronx." If you live in New York, you know that the play takes place in the West side of Manhattan. a neighborhood long known as "Hell's Kitchen." In fact a key scene, the rumble, is set under Manhattan's now-defunct West Side Highway. (Although there may have been rumbles in the Bronx, there is no West side in the Bronx.)

Nevertheless, the book is one to cherish for anyone who is interested in the history of New York City's legitimate theatres, and for those of us who have been privileged to visit many of these houses and attend many of the plays and musicals listed here, it serves as a scrapbook of memories of good times gone by.

February 17, 2008

This article was originally published on http://www.amazon.com/

Book Review: "Honey, I'm Home" by Gerard Jones

The Television Sitcom as a Barometer of the Post World War II Zeitgeist

As an avid watcher of family-based situation comedies from the late 1950's to the early 1970's, I looked forward every September to the trifecta of the Jewish High Holy Days, the first day of school, and the new television season, with the last of these in fact the first of these. I couldn't wait to tune in to the family sitcoms broadcast in the early evenings to see what new furniture Lucy had in her apartment, what new apartment Danny Thomas's TV family had moved on up to, and what new fashions Marlo Thomas's "That Girl" modeled. But when in 1975 we were introduced to the family of women who were taking life one day at a time, it marked the first time that a family unit was actually down-sizing, had less than they had the season before, and were struggling to hold onto whatever they could of the declining American Dream.

Jones's book neatly covers the arc of pop mass culture from the early radio serials, most of which I have only heard of second-hand, to the development of prime-time situation comedies that centered around families. Later "sitcoms" such as M*A*S*H and Soap interested me less, but I appreciated the overview that the book provides.

Situation comedies that were centered around World War II veteran fathers and Baby Boom children (although while we were living through the Baby Boom, we didn't know it at the time; we only knew that in our Long Island community new schools were being built on every vacant lot on every available plot of land) and their pearl-wearing, high-heel-while-vacuuming mothers, not only reflected our lives but helped shape them as well. Fathers worked at jobs that required suit and tie, children went to college (but, oddly, usually tried living in a dorm first, then found that they were happier living back home with their parents -- I'm looking at you, Mary Stone), telling us that even when we are grown up with a driver's license and wearing panty-girdles and stockings, there's really no place like home. (What nice girl would want to live away from home before she got married, anyway? Marlo Thomas had to struggle against that question when trying to make "That Girl"s' Ann Marie into a modern career woman, living alone in New York City. Each week that girl was working another zany angle to keep herself financially able to live in her own apartment in the City (while her father impatiently waited for her to fail).

A few touches that I remember so well, but Jones might have overlooked: Donna Reed's perfect wife-and-mother doppleganger Donna Stone did not do her cleaning in pearls and high heels. One time a friend asked her, "How do you do it?" and she replied, "Oh I have a girl in once a week to clean." So you have heard it here: Donna Stone had a cleaning "girl." But she probably made the weekly meat loaf herself.

And Jones misses entirely the unspoken, aching pain of the ironically-named, "Honeymooners." There was no child. There was a husband and wife, in an apartment building in New York City, in the decades after World War II, but no baby. Jackie Gleason had been asked about that, and his reply had been that if there had been a child in the "family," that every episode would have to refer to the child, have the child in one or more scenes, or have to explain where the child was. Indeed, it would have changed the dynamics of the series. But there was one heartbreaking episode when Ralph and Alice Kramden do try to adopt a child, but the birth mother changes her mind, and takes the baby back. After that, Ralph and Alice never speak about a child again.

And Jones' deep pyschological probing of the role that Eddie Haskell played in the world of "Leave it to Beaver"? If you watched the show in the 1950's, you would have seen typical sitcom children living in a world of their own, often with Eddie Haskell pulling something over on Ward and June. But if you can, watch this show again as an adult. Ward and June were very much aware of Eddie's tactics, and the small bits of stage business that they do (knowing glances at each other, and barely-surpressed smiles) and you'll see a different show from the one you watched as a kid.

"Honey, I'm Home" is a treat for the generation that grew up idolizing the suburban sitcom families of post-World War II America. In post-Vietnam, post-Desert Storm, and mid- the endless Operation Enduring Freedom, it returns us to the carefree days of yesteryear, making the past so much more satisfying than the present.

February 14, 2008

This article was originally published on www.Amazon.com

Book Review: "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" by Stephen King

Mr. Stephen King may be a very nice man; he certainly loves his wife and his children, and as far as I can tell, is serious about what he calls "the craft" of writing. But he is not a very good writer. And it is strange to read a book by such a successful author, trying to explain the secret of his success, unfortunately, unsuccessfully.

Here I have to stipulate that I have never read any of Mr. King's books. I have seen a few of the films that were based on his early books: "Carrie," of course, and "The Shining." But since I am not reviewing any of his fiction, my criticism has to come from reading this non-fiction "how to" manual.

The book is roughly divided into three parts: the first section gives his c.v. (curriculum vitae) and life story. His account of his early childhood years, which may well have shaped his writing career, seems unnecessary in the context of the book. For one thing, there are an awful lot of holes in his autobiography, which is understandable if he had subconsciously tried to forget unhappy times, as he implies. But save for an incident with an ear infection, which is briefly referenced in the third section of the book, there's no compelling reason to read the biographical section at all.

Then we come to the largest portion of the book, the toolbox for author-wannabees like me. Mr. King advises on style and the structure of writing, but his advice isn't any different from my high school English teacher's bete noire, the over-use of the damnable passive voice. As for the small samples of his fiction included in the book (and I have to admit I could not always determine which were the "before" and which were the extreme makeover "after" passages), I didn't find his writing very impressive, just rather pedestrian, distinguished by his insistence that story drives the book. That would be fine if he wrote with flair, humor, or a compelling point of view; but the language he employs is not unique, nor especially riveting. His style of editing out so-called "unnecessary words" strips the book of any literary or intellectual interest. I'll stick with the style of Charles Dickens, thank you, and pretend to be paid by the word, because I like using gazillions of words.

Beyond the nuts and bolts of putting words on a page, King offers some advice on the physical structure of your writing room, (which may have worked for him, although I don't think I would be very comfortable in a corner of the closet in my laundry room, lit by a single 40 watt incandescent bulb with a hungry grey mouse my only companion. OK, not literally, but you get my point). He mumbles something about where your desk should be placed, whether the door to your room should be open or shut, and how many pages (or words on a page) you should write a day. I think if I took his advice seriously, I would be so filled with self-doubt that I would have dissolved into a lump of melting Jello slithering gooilly over my laptop, afraid to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard).

The third section of the book is the most moving, because it is not about hard-boiled science-fiction monster-horror novels; it is, in fact, an account of the horrifying 1999 car accident that interrupted the writing of this book, and nearly ended Mr. King's life. I recall reading others' accounts about how bad that accident was, but King's description of it, written with gallows humor, was harrowing and almost painful to read. But it was superbly crafted, and if Mr. King had written the rest of the book that well, I would have read it straight through.

February 17, 2008

This article was originally published on www.Amazon.com.

Book Review: "Gift Children" by J. Douglas Bates

An Untraditional Family, An Unconditional Love

Back in the "bleeding-heart liberal" days of the early 1970's, good-hearted folks like the Bates family, writer J. Douglas and his wife Gloria, wanting to have another child without having another baby, chose to adopt a daughter -- one, and then a second -- without any conditions or preferences with regard to race. They could not forsee how their kind-hearted, thoughtful decision could affect them, their two sons, and the young women their daughters would become. Lynn and Liska, two girls of color who never understood their place in this white family, both saw their situations in mirror images of the love that the Bates family shone on them -- while the Bateses showered them with affection, it only served to increase their fears that one day, for some reason, for no reason, they would be sent away.

Their lives, especially their teen years, were spent in a perpetual game of "chicken," wondering just how far they could push their parents before the guillotine would drop and sever them from their family. In fact, while Liska was adopted to give Lynn a sister who looked like her, it only emphasized to Lynn that she could be easily replaced, and by a younger, cuter, more pliant child, with better hair.

Both grow up to be young women caught in a trap of unstable, dangerous relationships and out-of-wedlock children. But the Bateses never quite gave up on their daughters, and when faced with challenges that they never expected, reflectively wonder how they could have adopted black children without ever having had a relationship (or even a conversation) with any black person.

When in 1972 when the National Association of Black Social Workers took a strong stand against transracial adoption, the Bateses were shocked, but unwavering in their belief that they had done the right thing. And contrary to the words of Spike Lee, the right thing for this family to do was to create an untraditional family, held together by an unconditional love.

February 8, 2008

This review was orginally published on www.Amazon.com.

Princesses

My child’s eye view of life was informed by the Disney Studios’ movie Princesses. Snow White and Cinderella, adapted from the dark, grim fairy tales of medieval Europe, were prettified and presented as a gift to children by the kindly, avuncular Walt Disney. Snow White was first seen on movie screens in 1938, and Cinderella in 1950. I saw these movies in the early 1950’s, and for me, the beautiful Cinderella became an icon. Not only had I seen the movie, I had a little Golden Book, and my father bought me my very first watch, a Cinderella watch by U.S. Time, when I was about 7. The watch itself was presented in a box along with a slender “glass” slipper, probably made out of plastic. I always wondered how Cinderella could dance in a slipper made of glass, until as an adult I learned that the word “verre” had been mistranslated from an old French word for “fur”; either ermine on the high end and squirrel on the lower. It made slightly more sense, although I can’t imagine how she could have danced all night in a slipper made out of fur, either.

Cinderella, Snow White, and their sister/comrade Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, all won the boyfriend lottery, each ending up with a guy named “Prince Charming.” Not only was each a prince, with excellent prospects, but he was a good son, as well, listening to his parents’ admonitions that he should pick a bride soon. While the custom of the royals in marriage in 17th century Europe was to marry to hold onto or acquire property and assets, both the princesses and princes in these stories, or at least in the mid-20th century Disney editions, were holding out for love.

In the late 20th Century Disney Studios went mad with princess-making, and they began to churn out movies starring a heroic, gutsy young woman with different dresses and hair-color, but always with the same plucky spirit. (Curiously, these spunky feminist princesses were developed long after old uncle Walt died.) There was Jasmine, from “Aladdin,” and Belle from “Beauty and the Beast.” Mulan appeared in China, and she proved herself equal to any young man who approached her. Ariel, the Little Mermaid, fell in love with a land-lubber, and Pocahontas saved John Smith from bloodthirsty savages. Except, in real life, Pocahontas was about 13 when the events of the legend actually transpired, but the Disney Studios somehow aged her to be a beautiful, sensual young woman.

There’s a controversy now, over the first “black” Disney princess. The movie was originally set to be named “The Frog Princess,” with the heroine to be called “Maddy,” which was perceived by many in the black community to be a lower-class name, and she was to be a chambermaid (who was once a frog?) who fell in love with a handsome young man in 1920’s Jazz-Age New Orleans. Many civil rights groups protested that the first African American princess should not be depicted as a maid, and her whole backstory has had to be re-written. The movie is now re-named “The Princess and the Frog,” the princess is now re-named “Princess Tiana,” and even the handsome young man was re-named, from Harry to Naveen. Oh, and Maddy/Tiana will no longer be a chambermaid.

Perhaps the most beautiful, elegant, and graceful Disney princess wasn’t a young woman at all; she was a lovely cocker spaniel named “Lady,” with a rich brown coat and long curly eyelashes that were to-die-for. As the precious, pampered pet of the Darling family, she is all-but ignored when an actual human baby comes into the Darling household. No worry, she meets up with a scamp named “Tramp” and their love story is one of the most touching movie romances that I’ve ever seen. He protects and cherishes her, and she elevates him with her love. Their spaghetti-dinner dinner-date in the alley behind an Italian restaurant was intimate and oh-so-romantic. I was 6 when I saw this movie for the first time, but have watched it over again throughout the years, always searching for a Tramp of my own.

Lady didn’t go on to rule a kingdom, or serve as a feminist role model; she was content to be in love, and to be loved, by the Darlings, by Tramp, and by her own puppies. For Lady, that was enough.

It's Not Easy Being Green, or, Was Ronald Reagan Right???

While perusing an old “Nature Conservancy” magazine in a doctor’s waiting room (they were out of Glamour and Vogue) I came across an article about trees, carbon, and global warming. I was shocked to find a scientist make the same claims that Ronald Reagan did 20 years ago – that the CO2 emitting from trees is a contributor to global warming. And the fact that having given up MacDonald’s hamburgers because the cattle ranching was destroying the Amazon rainforest, I was heartened to read that Europeans have forced the ranchers to stop raising cattle there – but now they are destroying the rainforest faster than ever, by growing the soybeans that are being fed to cattle. Only a very small portion of the soybean crop – 5-10% -- actually goes to soy products for human consumption.

As part of my commitment to the environment, I have purchased re-usable grocery bags, to reduce the use of plastic bags. But now, I have a shortage of plastic bags to use in my wastepaper basket (and what, exactly, is wastepaper? I try to recycle that too.) to throw out my garbage.

I carry a canvas bag with me to eliminate the little bags that accumulate on quick shopping trips to the drugstore or post office. I wrestle with using the three incandescent bulbs in my bedroom floor lamp that give off so much heat that I barely have to turn on the heat in my home. And then a situation occurs, like this morning, for example, when I woke up to 15 degree weather and no heat. While I waited for the repairperson to come (mercifully, it was a very short wait) I remembered to turn on the three incandescent bulbs to successfully warm my room. So at least until this spring, those bulbs stay.

My apartment building, for some reason known only to G-d and our mayor, is exempt from recycling. The only way to recycle plastic, paper, and cardboard is to save up a car-load and deliver it by car to the recycling center. So my tiny apartment now serves as a storage unit for plastic containers, newspapers, and cartons. And I have to remember that they are only open Tuesday through Saturday, and not on Mondays, which is the most convenient day for me. But to save the planet, I do it.

Oprah Winfrey has pointed out that I am poisoning myself and my beloved home planet, Earth, by drinking cold water out of Poland Spring Water bottles. (I buy a 6-pack of the product in the supermarket, then refill the bottles from the tap.) Oprah’s green guru recommends aluminum bottles, which are guaranteed to be practically indestructible, while anyone who knows me knows that if something guaranteed to be practically indestructible, I will take advantage of that loophole to destroy it. Or, lose it. With those ubiquitous Poland Spring bottles, if I lose one, it’s no great loss. But Oprah’s favorite bottle costs $20 a pop, and whether filled with pop or water, that’s quite a penalty for doing the right thing.

My expiration date is probably less than 40 years from now, coincidentally the amount of time I’ve heard that the planet, at its current rate, has left. Sometime in the next 40 years I will die without issue. So why do I care? I am quite certain that once I slip the surly bonds of Earth I will not have access to a view of my former home planet, so I will not even know if my efforts had any lasting effect. Perhaps I just want to flaunt my “goodness.” I don’t want to just be holier than thou, I want you to know that I am holier than thou.

Or maybe it’s because leaving nothing lasting behind, I want to leave a mark on the place where I lived. And that mark will be a few more trees, a few less oil wells, and at least one magical, blindingly furious, dazzling snow storm every year.

January 21, 2008