IN WHICH WE LOST A GREAT WRITER, A GREAT HISTORIAN, AND A GREAT MIDGET ACTRESS
Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 5:30pm by Axl RosenbergHoward Zinn, Zelda Rubinstein, and J.D. Salinger all died within twenty-four hours of another. That’s crappy on all fronts, but right now I’d like to concentrate on Salinger.
On the one hand, it’s very sad that he’s dead because I happen to think he was a brilliant writer; on the other hand, it’s not like he’d written anything in a long, long, long time anyway, so it doesn’t feel like we’re really losing anything; on the other hand, his son Matt was one of the frat douches in Revenge of the Nerds and played the title role in the straight-to-video live-action Captain America movie, which is to say he and Mr. Salinger’s other remaining kin folk will almost certainly sell away his father’s ideals ASAP. Look for Catcher in the Rye 3-D, starring Zac Efron as Holden Caufield, to hit screens sometime in 2011.
Now that that’s off my chest, here’s a recap of what happened in the metal world this week:
- We definitely spoke to Lamb of God’s Chris Adler and think we spoke to the guy who may or may not actually be Andrew W.K.
- Eyal gave us a recap of NAMM, and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley told us how he got into metal.
- Norway finally caught up with the nu-metal trend.
- The Insane Clown Posee have made multiple feature-length films. Gee, I wonder how we didn’t know that?
- Footage of a new Cynic song!!!
- Also, this.
Alright, it’s fucking freezing as fuck out there, but I’m gonna try and get my ass out and enjoy what’s left of my youth anyways. If you live in the NYC area, don’t forget that The Austerity Program play this Sunday January 31, in Brooklyn at Public Assembly (70 N 6th St) with White Suns, Immanent Voiceless, Daniel Malinsky. This your chance to thank Justin for all the awesome writing he did for us, or to tell him off for all the terrible writing he did for us, depending on your perspective.
See ya Monday!!!
-AR
Rumor has it that Salinger had written at least 14 manuscripts that he kept under lock and key. He had no interest in appeasing the masses, hence, he never released these books. He claimed to only write for himself. Methinks J.D. was a tr00 metalhead.
i heard about that too, seems that he disliked being famous which may have been the motivation for his decision not to publish them.
Yeah I also heard that the reason that he didn’t release those manuscripts was because he couldn’t bear to have his works criticized, but wrote in his will that his family can release them after his death
Great historian? Debatable, at best.
JD Salinger was a goddamn phony.
Howard Zinn is a revisionist who doesn’t deserve to be called a historian. Its insulting to those of us that actually study history. Screw Howard Zinn.
Care to explain why he wasn’t? And why you’re qualified to make such an ssertion? What, exactly, did he revise, and in what way does what he wrote qualify as such?
Where do you study history, and what history (or “whose history”) do you study?
Further, please cite specific examples (actual cited quotes w/page numbers, etc, if possible) of Zinn’s work that qualify as revisionist history, and what the true/actual history is of the events/times in question.
sure man, great place to be debating Zinn’s shitty work. Want me to send a 50 page dissertation on it? Just google for some info, don’t be lazy.
I’m not sure Googling “Jason H’s opinion on the work of Howard Zinn” would yield any results…
He revised a bunch of propaganda by applying actual facts. Techinically revising but correcting for the most part.
Although I think Zinn is extremely biased, he does challenge the status quo of history. Some of the things he discussed in A People’s History of the United States are rather thought provoking and do have some truth. History is not objective, and he is just one of many people trying to get you to look at another view. I can’t say whether what he is saying is bunk, as I have never exclusively researched his research, but any history is cleaned up by the dominant civilization in order to cover it’s flaws. Look at the two differing educations of the American Revolution. In the US, whole semesters are dedicated to it, but in the UK, it is either referenced in passing, or hardly taught. The old adage of the winner’s write the history books is still a dominant frame of mind. Zinn is just playing the other side.
When he discusses slave ships from the slave’s perspective or the Demise of the Aztecs from the calculated delivery of smallpox he is telling the truth. He is “biased” in perspective, not in the observation of fact. Calling someone biased invokes thoughts of selective delivery or application of facts to meet a desired conclusion. I don’t think he did that, he was very clear in stating what his persective was. While his perspective is not that of the establishment, facts are facts and PHOTUS is basically a compilation of accounts written at the time the events occured. I don’t buy this as biased.
Please. Someone please tell me how Howard Zinn isn’t a historian. PHOTUS was written in 1980 and is still – 30 years later – giving people a revelatory experience of how they understand their own country’s history and their place in it.
Look, I may know deep in my soul that Ayn Rand is a total piece of shit, straw-man contstucting, lazy-ethicist garbage writer, but I would still have to acknowledge that she’s a novelist. I would certainly qualify what kind of novelist she is, but I wouldn’t say she’s not one.
So let’s hear how Zinn is not a historian. Please provide some counter-examples. Of course, your own personal contribution to the field would be appreciated, but we won’t rely on ad-hominem arguments, right?
Riiiight.
= Justin
+10000
Bingo.
Hell yes.
Rule of Three
What, were completely taking off fridays now to?? MLK day wasnt good enough now you just quit on fridays all together.
A Radical Treasure, by Bob Herbert: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/opinion/30herbert.html?ref=opinion
RIP Mr. Zinn. And thank you.
I personally think that Catcher In The Rye is a shitty book and that Holden Caufield is the original whiney emo kid, but sucks about Salinger’s passing none the less.
Agree with you, sir. Not an awful book, but not worth the praise. And god damn that character got so annoying about halfway through.
You guys are “goddamn phonies” I enjoyed this book a lot. Holden’s character is mentally unhealthy, so that was Sallinger’s point in make him crabby.
Zinn was great. His critics are mostly those whom he showed to be revisionist. If you read Poeple’s History you would know that it is made mostly first-hand accounts assembled into a narrative.
Jason H, I know we have CIA revisionism in the non metal media. That shit has no place in the metal community where a pride is taken in social objectivity and the throwing aside of political and religous propaganda. Zinn embodied his spirit, you embody the spirit of mindless pop music and the controlled response of the manipulated. Eat shit bro.
yo I just traded my beyond the permafrost shirt for a broken (i’m gonna gorilla glue it) GWAR drumstick my friend knocked some dude out for at a show.
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/119/l_9cb8c75e26424031874e054164eb5305.jpg
This was the first place I could think to brag, and I really wanted to brag.
Actually i’m going to leave it broken so I can mug people with it. I have to think economically.