I covet this shelf.

I think my favorite book recommendations these days haven’t come from Amazon (sorry, overlords), but from friends and colleagues. As a result, I was inspired by Rebecca Onion’s blog post about her holiday reading docket, and I decided to write a similar post cataloging  my book reading ventures over the next month. These’ll be keeping me very busy for a few reasons: I have a lot to absorb to be able to write a solid MA report this spring (!), and I’m taking a complete break from the internet for a week when I return to Texas (!!) so will have my nose deep in books and articles without distractions.

So, without further ado…

Stephen King, 11/22/63

Already finished this one. It was incredible. I went through a phase in 8th and 9th grade where I read nothing but Stephen King books, so I’ve actually read most of his work. This one deviated from his past work. 11/22/63 is more historical and less fantastic (but with some fantastic elements) – but it’s humane and engrossing nonetheless. Burned in my brain, as I think about my graduate work: the residue of the past, and how that residue attaches to our thoughts and memories.

David Shields, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

Excerpts from this were assigned to a class of mine the documentary medium, and I was intrigued enough to buy the book. It’s not a typical nonfiction book; it extracts quotations about particular subjects on memory, reality, art, fiction, nonfiction, etc. from other authors and thinkers. Included: Wittgenstein, an unnamed  Bush aide, Ross McElwee… it’s interesting. And it seems particularly useful for nabbing other sources on the aforementioned subjects.

Carl T. Bogus, William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism

This will be the latest in my exploration of conservatism and – hopefully – intellectual conservatism. I’ve been deeply troubled by the anti-intellectualism of the contemporary Right, so maybe Carl T. Bogus (awesome name, by the way) can shed some light on what’s happened – and how William F. Buckley is involved. The book‘s gotten rave reviews from several reputable news outlets, so I’m really looking forward to delving into this one.

Harvey Mansfield, Manliness

Mansfield is a former professor of mine, and we read excerpts of this in a seminar I took in college. The book tracks the political and social content of manliness through history, lamenting the feminization of culture. I haven’t given it its fair due, though, so I’m going to slog through the polemical content from cover to cover. Wish me luck.

Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

I received this book as a gift from my senior year English teacher and felt compelled to re-read it this summer – only I only got through the first third of the book. I just want to finish what I’ve started, especially in light of all these apocalyptic narratives going around these days. This one’s more for pleasure, but I’m sure it’ll be useful to my work in some way, too.

Øyvind Vågnes, Zaprudered: The Kennedy Assassination Film in Visual Culture

From the UTexas press website:

The first book devoted exclusively to the topic, Zaprudered traces the journey of the film and its effect on the world’s collective imagination. Providing insightful perspective as an observer of American culture, Norwegian media studies scholar Øyvind Vågnes begins by analyzing three narratives that are projections of Zapruder’s images: performance group Ant Farm’s video The Eternal Frame, Don DeLillo’s novel Underworld, and an episode from Seinfeld. Subsequent topics he investigates include Dealey Plaza’s Sixth Floor Museum, Zoran Naskovski’s installation Death in Dallas, assassin video games, and other artifacts of the ways in which the footage has made a lasting impact on popular culture and the historical imagination. Vågnes also explores the role of other accidental documentarians, such as those who captured scenes of 9/11.

So. Excited.

Errol Morris, Believing is Seeing

This is Morris’s latest book, and focuses on documentary photography and the blurriness of fact and fiction therein, a subject he treated in depth for the New York Times on a few occasions. The book’s received rave reviews, unsurprisingly, but what really convinced me to read the book were Morris’s hilarious tweets. If Believing is Seeing reads anything like his Twitter feed, color me stoked.

Over this summer, I worked with a colleague in my department to create a social media presence for my department at UT. We launched a Twitter feed in July that delivers interesting links of interest to American Studies scholars and researchers, local announcements, news about our illustrious faculty members and students, and blog updates.

And, natch, we have a new blog! AMS :: ATX is our other baby, which was launched in late August and features lengthier content: interviews with faculty members, graduate and faculty research updates, interesting lists, departmental announcements, and more. We also have a centralized space there for calls for papers, a calendar of campus and local events, and updates about local museum exhibitions here in Austin.

Anyway, if you’d like to see what I’ve been writing over there, check it all here.

Needless to say, it’s been a lot of work, and the work continues – so that’s where I’ve been spending most of my blogging/internet time. We’re also hard at work redesigning the website, so keep an eye out for lots of new bells and whistles as far as the aesthetics are concerned.

I’ve also been hard at work writing for LaughSpin, which I’ve really been digging. We’ve been writing and pushing lists a lot lately (like this), so it’s been fun to write lengthier content for the site. Writing for LaughSpin has left me hoping to spend some time meditating on the place of comedy in American life, especially subversive, political comedy. Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, I’m coming your way.

Last, I’ve been fortunate to be in a class on documentary that’s encouraging a little more creative expression than I’ve had in other graduate seminars, so I’ve been really thrilled to expand my creation beyond paper writing and note-taking. In the near future I’ll put up some of the things I’ve made for that class so you can get a sense for how awesome American Studies is (we can do fun things!).

But I digress. I’ve been thinking a lot about representations of America in popular culture, and especially TV. This raises a question that I hope to provide a few answers to: what TV shows should American Studies scholars watch?

I know it’s sort of the hip thing nowadays to eschew TV and hold out not owning TV as some marker of superior intellect or hispterdom. And perhaps that’s true to an extent. The summer TV season always leaves something to be desired, but if you look hard enough, and into the past (thanks, Netflix!), you can find some incredible series that are worth some careful, even scholarly, watching. What better means of tapping into our cultural zeitgeist than through TV, after all?

So, without further ado, a few shows you should watch if you’re in the wonderful field of American Studies – or simply aspire to be:

1. Deadwood - HBO – 2004 – 2006 (RIP)

I finally bit the bullet and watched the first two episodes this past week, following the recommendations of a few professors and colleagues. Needless to say, the show doesn’t disappoint. Based on an actual town in South Dakota, and featuring actual historical figures like Calamity Jane and Wyatt Earp, Deadwood provides what seems like a faithful representation of the lawless 19th century frontier. Faithful history notwithstanding, it’s intense, guys, and that intensity starts right at the beginning. If you have a squeamish stomach or cringe when you hear coarse language, perhaps steer clear of this one. Bottom line: this is a hardcore western show. Watch it.

2. Louie - FX – 2010 - 

Full disclosure: I wrote a final paper about Louie last fall and am also a massive fan of C.K.’s stand-up material. But that’s exactly why I’m recommending it – the show, aside from being absurd and hilarious and uncomfortable – has a lot of layers. The show’s premise is simple enough: Louis C.K. stars as himself in a vaguely autobiographical show about his life as a divorced parent and stand-up comic in New York City. Aside from that, though, Louis comments in various levels of subtlety on race, sexuality, gender, community, and modern America.

Example: this clip made a lot of waves when the episode aired – take a look, but be warned, it’s NSFW (language). It brought commentary from sources like The American Prospect.

3. The Wire – HBO – 2002 – 2008 (RIP)

What Deadwood did for the old west The Wire did for modern Baltimore, but maybe better – many critics argue that this is literally the best TV series of all time. Each season explores a different aspect of the city, like the drug trade or the school system. Fundamentally, though, the show is about the city, urban life, and the American working class. And it’s ridiculous in its realism and depth – it’s deep enough to merit entire college courses centered on the series and what it reveals.

4. Mad Men - AMC – 2007 - 

I always get irritated when Mad Men wins literally every Emmy, but then I remember that it’s a fantastic show. And it depicts some of the grittier realities of the 1960s, realities that we might not normally think about when we look back on the good ol’ days of Woodstock and hippies. Interpersonal drama aside, Mad Men also presents a world of homophobia, racism, sexism, feminism… lots of isms.

5. All in the Family – CBS – 1971 – 1979 (RIP)

Contrary to its name, this isn’t just another family sitcom. All in the Family offers a window onto blue collar life in New York City amidst growing ethnic diversity and social upheaval. More than that, though, the show represents a broader clash of generations following the countercultural 1960s and America’s failure in Vietnam. Those were the days!

6. An American Family – PBS – 1973 (RIP)

Reality TV wasn’t just the result of a few ill-fated decisions in the 1990s.  An American Family was, in many ways, the precursor to The Real World, documenting the lives of the Loud family in Santa Barbara. Bear witness to bickering, divorce, and the values of the middle class American family. What’s also remarkable about this show is the presence of Lance Loud, who left a legacy as being one of the first openly gay men on television.

If you have an addition, leave it in the comments!

So, this week, in preparation for a summer job on film, I watched two documentaries that I think are worth considering alongside each other. They directly confront issues surrounding foreign policy, imperialism, representation [of atrocity], military action, but in starkly different ways. The first is Restrepo, directed by the late Tim Hetherington, and the second is Armadillo, a Danish film directed by Janus Metz…

Restrepo follows an American platoon over fifteen months in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, nicknamed by soldiers “The Valley of Death” because of its high mortality rate and rough living conditions. The ongoing mission is to rid Taliban insurgents and their sympathizers from the area to enable a road to be constructed for the locals – which requires pushing deep into what looks like unspoiled wilderness and establishing a concrete presence in enemy territory. Central to the narrative is the death of Juan “Doc” Restrepo, a soldier who was killed and for whom the newly-constructed advanced outpost “Restrepo” is named. The outpost is a game-changer for the American troops.

Gunfight and Airstrike in Korengal Valley, by the US Army

This is not an easy film to watch. It shocks and awes. We see the difficulties in communicating with local civilians who fear oppression from the Taliban, but also fear retribution for aiding foreign forces. We see damage done to innocent civilians, and attempts to rationalize the decisions directly responsible. The combat deaths of our own soldiers. The crushing blows soldiers are dealt when their friends are killed, and the requirement to keep fighting in that moment to protect self and others. The inadequacy of our psychological support systems at home and abroad to help traumatized soldiers.

The strength of this film is, unsurprisingly, its attention to vulnerability. That’s accomplished in two ways: first, one-on-one interviews with the soldiers in the platoon divorce them from the intensity of the Valley – and social pressure – that encourages (requires?) them to quell their emotional response. We see their fear and sadness in an unmediated way. The disconnect between their battlefield selves and their interview selves is jarring.

Second, the camera work within the Valley itself feels authentic (a loaded word, I know, but go with it). The lenses are frequently covered in dust and smears of sweat and grease and mud, many of the shots are taken by a man running with the soldiers, the sounds are frequently rough, muffled, unmediated. As Susan Sontag tells us in Regarding the Pain of Others, war is not supposed to look pristine or polished in representational media. It certainly doesn’t here:

Armadillo is a horse of a very different color. Of course, there are many commonalities: Armadillo too follows a platoon in Afghanistan for a period of several months in a very dangerous area in the Helmand Province. We too bear witness to the deaths and injuries of those soldiers, the damage done to innocent citizens, the difficulties in communicating with locals who are stuck in a lose-lose middle ground between Taliban and foreign soldier.

Afghan Troops Set Up Security on a Road as the Sun Sets in Helmand, by the UK Ministry of Defence

Armadillo, though, does not traffic in the same  kind of emotional candor or proximity as Restrepo. We see no private interviews with any soldiers; the soldiers do not break the fourth wall to engage in a candid dialogue with the filmmakers (and, by proxy, the audience). Though we catch glimpses of their lives beyond the adrenaline fog of the battlefield – in Denmark, with their families – we never see them surmount the pressures of those surroundings. Whatever emotions they express are completely mediated by place and the expectations that those places confer upon soldiers, and the places that we are invited to weigh heavily. They choke expression.

We’re distanced from the narrative aesthetically, too. Where Restrepo was gritty and raw in its representation of life in the Korengal Valley, Armadillo offers a slicker vision. The camera shots are steadier, no dirt obscures the lenses, noises and speech sound as if they were retouched and enhanced in post-production (and perhaps they were). To put it bluntly, it looks, sounds, feels like a scripted movie.

This isn’t to suggest that Restrepo is more realistic or authentic, and thus better, than Armadillo. The two accomplish different goals, both valuable and germane in considering the modern experience of war and its fallout.

The former documentary breaks down barriers between the audience and ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan. “This is what war looks like,” it says, “and this is how soldiers truly react to their trauma.” For whatever my personal experience is worth, I had a visceral reaction to what Restrepo showed me. We’re meant to.

The latter film, however, suggests that modern war and modern life have become more simulated, both for civilian and, perhaps, for soldier. We naturally distance ourselves from traumatic reality by understanding it as a simulation, a game, a performance (the 9/11 attacks were “just like a movie” for so many of us). And living life as spectator is only more prevalent these days, especially where war is concerned. We experience war through camera lenses. We are not asked to change our behavior, to make sacrifices. We do not encounter tangible consequences that suggest that war is happening somewhere or anywhere.

And acts of war are increasingly simulated. Drone warfare enables soldiers within the United States, or any other friendly nation, to control weapons anywhere else in the world, with nary an encounter with the enemy beyond what can be shown on a screen. This isn’t to disparage the soldiers who do that, nor those who travel to dangerous places and make sacrifices I can’t begin to imagine. But there are elements of modern warfare that seem like they belong more in a science fiction novel than in our present reality.

That’s what we see in Armadillo. War as simulation, as an encounter that is demanding of soldiers and their families and friends but distant to most civilians, an encounter that a participant or spectator can cope with by imagining that it is unreal. The most haunting moment of the film, reproduced in the trailer below, features a wounded, shell-shocked soldier being treated on the battlefield (watch the whole thing, but look for him at 1:27 – if there’s a video version of punctum a la Barthes, that’s it… his eyes are so piercing and haunting). Though we do peel back the curtain to see something real, this soldier is somehow not present. We, the audience, may feel as if we are in the Helmand Province, but where exactly are we?

In considering these two films in conversation, I wonder how we will continue to experience and represent war, and where our civilian, moral duty lies. Do we have an obligation to try to comprehend the psychological toll of war on the soldier, or what battles are really like – and if so, how do we accomplish that? Will we continue sliding into spectacular warfare and trauma understood only at arm’s length, rendering ourselves less able to – or potentially less obligated to – regard the pain of others?

Enter Portlandia.

Portlandia stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein as various characters in the hipster-yuppie haven that is Portland, Oregon. No one is free from lampooning: ultra-feminist bookstore owners, aggressive bikers, locavores, you name it. Short vignettes depict these characters in their element, and it’s at once hilarious and uncomfortable.

The show’s received rave reviews – and for good reason – but a lot of them seem to miss the mark. Newsweek describes the show as “regional comedy at its best,” spending an entire review describing how right Portlandia gets the Pacific Northwest. And they might be right.

But, at its core, Portlandia is not about Portland. It couldn’t be. Comedy shows rely on recognition of experience – the Homer Simpson “it’s funny because it’s true” paradigm, but more specifically, “it’s funny because it’s true to me.” To make a comedy solely focused upon the idiosyncrasies a small city on the geographic fringe of the country would not have broad appeal. Inside jokes do not a successful comedy make.

So, then, what is Portlandia about? It’s an extended character study. We’re shown the most obnoxious aspects of the hipster-yuppie types that any urbanite – or even suburbanite – encounters on a regular basis, not simply Portlanders. We find humor in seeing the characters who bear close relation to our own experience. Upon watching this clip, for example, my first thought was, “Man, I know so many people like that.” My second thought was, “Crud. Am I really that obnoxious?” It can be unsettling to watch.

To dig a little deeper, Portlandia not only illustrates those common types, it also creates a surreal world in the guise of the Portland name. The characters do not recognize the absurdity of that world, being part of it, but we do. That surreality removes the show from a particular time and place and makes the situations, oddly enough, more universally applicable. Not only is the space not Portland, it might as well be part of another universe.

Here’s a case of the absurd: the dumpster divers, while scrounging for cheap wares, find a mute young man in a dumpster. Normal for Portland, right?

So, in the end, Portlandia presents a world that we can see ourselves and our peers in, but remain separate from. That’s how you do good comedy. Fortunately, the show just got picked up for a longer second season – ten episodes, instead of six – so we’ll get to enjoy more of the awkward.