Bob Vint, architect. The Golden Age Is In Us, by
Alexander Cockburn: Cockburn writes for The Nation and
other publications. His column is usually on what's happening
politically and culturally in this country. He's really an acerbic
wit, like Jonathan Swift. This book is a collection of journal
entries and essays from the mid-eighties onward. His criticisms
of Reagan and Bush are incredible and his piece on the riots in
L.A. is very good. He mixes political criticism with cultural
criticism. He has a quote from Swift in one piece, which he compared
to some of the current welfare proposals in Congress. Swift wrote
in the 18th century that we could solve the problems of the nation's
economy if we just slaughtered the children of the poor and sold
them for meat. He did an analysis that showed how it would revive
the economy right away. That kind of proposal should probably
be floated out again. The book is intelligently written by a really
brilliant guy.
José Galvez, photographer and gallery owner: Mother
Tongue, by Demetria Martinez. She used to cover religion for
one of the Catholic weeklies, and a lot of her writing was concerned
with the Sanctuary Movement. The primary sanctuary movement was
basically safe havens for people escaping the violence in Central
America, usually churches and civic organizations, almost like
an underground railroad. What the churches were doing was well
known, but the authorities weren't going to do anything much about
it: You're not going to go raid a church because they're harboring
10 or 20 Guatemalans or Salvadorans. So what the government would
do instead was target certain individuals. Martinez herself got
arrested and sent to trial because they felt she was part of this
movement, although they eventually acquitted her. I was curious
to see how she was going to treat this situation in novel form.
What she does is to take a woman character who's involved with
the movement and get her involved with one of the refugees. Ninety-five
percent of what I read is by Latino writers: Márquez, Fuentes,
Llosa. They're much more magical and mystical.
Suzie Dunn, DJ/Program Director, KFMA-FM. Rush Limbaugh
is a Big Fat Idiot, by Al Franken and The Wind in the Door,
by Madeline L'Engle. I'm on a kick where I'm reading a lot of
kids' books again. The Wind in the Door is a book I read
when I was young. When you read it as an adult it has these very
interesting spiritual overtones which I hadn't picked up on as
a kid...I thought it was neat I was drawn back to it. I went for
a hike and sat on a rock and read it from cover to cover. In the
book, supposedly the mitochondria are part of your DNA, and one
of the kids in the book has a problem with his mitochondria--they're
attacking him--so in the story all these other kids go into his
body to fight this battle. He has mitochondritis "...the
destruction of ferrandele, which are minute creatures of the mitochondria
in the blood." But it also addresses issues about family
and the world around you in addition to the world of your own
body.
Bob Vint, architect. The Golden Age Is In Us, by
Alexander Cockburn: Cockburn writes for The Nation and
other publications. His column is usually on what's happening
politically and culturally in this country. He's really an acerbic
wit, like Jonathan Swift. This book is a collection of journal
entries and essays from the mid-eighties onward. His criticisms
of Reagan and Bush are incredible and his piece on the riots in
L.A. is very good. He mixes political criticism with cultural
criticism. He has a quote from Swift in one piece, which he compared
to some of the current welfare proposals in Congress. Swift wrote
in the 18th century that we could solve the problems of the nation's
economy if we just slaughtered the children of the poor and sold
them for meat. He did an analysis that showed how it would revive
the economy right away. That kind of proposal should probably
be floated out again. The book is intelligently written by a really
brilliant guy.
José Galvez, photographer and gallery owner: Mother
Tongue, by Demetria Martinez. She used to cover religion for
one of the Catholic weeklies, and a lot of her writing was concerned
with the Sanctuary Movement. The primary sanctuary movement was
basically safe havens for people escaping the violence in Central
America, usually churches and civic organizations, almost like
an underground railroad. What the churches were doing was well
known, but the authorities weren't going to do anything much about
it: You're not going to go raid a church because they're harboring
10 or 20 Guatemalans or Salvadorans. So what the government would
do instead was target certain individuals. Martinez herself got
arrested and sent to trial because they felt she was part of this
movement, although they eventually acquitted her. I was curious
to see how she was going to treat this situation in novel form.
What she does is to take a woman character who's involved with
the movement and get her involved with one of the refugees. Ninety-five
percent of what I read is by Latino writers: Márquez, Fuentes,
Llosa. They're much more magical and mystical.
Suzie Dunn, DJ/Program Director, KFMA-FM. 