Goin' down underground

In real life conspiracy theories have never interested me. I could just never trust the sources. Nor could I ever feel like I could trust any evidence enough to buy it as truthful. I do believe the CIA tested LCD on some people in the 60s and I do believe the US government gave some black dudes syphilis—that’s enough to disturb me enough to not want to know anymore. 

     But in movies it’s different. Still, why am I more likely to engage in a fictional story about white people perpetrating some heinous conspiracy against black people? Well, there’s history for one reason.

 

They Cloned Tyrone (2023, Juel Taylor) is a black conspiracy comedy that feels like when Hollywood makes a genre film that reminds you how fun they're supposed to be. When people talk about a good story, that’s stupid—story could mean so many different things. But I really enjoyed the way the first and second acts of They Cloned Tyrone take on a Nancy Drew format. YO-YO’s even got that full collection of Nancy Drew books and SLICK CHARLES says something like damn how many adventures does this bitch go on? Okay a minor possible gripe though is maybe there’s a little too many pop culture references. The number of them is staggering. But they’re mostly all funny.

     And so the best thing about how They Cloned Tyrone does the conspiracy genre is that it doesn’t have a message; instead, it utilizes its subject matter through its plot. The movie is about the white man doing mind control and experiments only on black people in the hood. And through its tone we get this midpoint where we feel how helpless and defeated FONTAINE is. That lottery ticket he scratches says it all: you lose. Also I don’t think this is giving anything away (the movie is about clones) but early on in that drive-by I couldn’t get over how cinematic the set piece became when they gun him down. The way the camera uses an open frame and we don’t see the other car or the gunman, how suspensefully and scary it is to see the glass shatter and the body stagger, struggling in its final throes of death.

 

The three main cast also do so much for why They Cloned Tyrone works. Because despite what they do for a living and the dirt they do, they’re friends. And they do right by one another. So we got a great Nancy Drew premise, protagonists we love, some sci-fi, but more than all—comedy. When I see new releases in the theater, I’m always asking myself why don’t I ever get to see more comedies?

     I found myself letting myself laugh at some stupid shit. Like when ISSAC pulls that gun on Slick Charles in the hair salon, and he shows the piece but gets tripped up because Slick Charles doesn’t react—then he realizes it’s because he’s still got his smock on from getting a haircut. And as messed up as the mystery gets, it only proves to be that much more conducive to all of the race humor. How many ways does Slick Charles have for describing white skin? And way funny when the trio discover the conspiracy and Slick Charles mentions other cover-ups by the white man like the Berenstein Bears.

     They Cloned Tyrone handles its story elements simple but well. And something that I left the theater with was the disturbing memory of those black dudes down in the lab that were subjects of some experiment that turned them white (but they still had a fro). That’s what sci-fi means to me. Relevant. But not overt. And again of course imaginative.

7/14/2023 Midtown Art Cinema

Atlanta, GA

DCP

The discreet charm of the proletariat

Can La ilusión viaja en tranvía (1954, Luis Buñuel) be read as an allegory of Buñuel’s travels through the film industry? If the streetcar is Buñuel’s art cinema, then it can be seen as having to hijack the tracks so it can travel its route, because the authorities wouldn’t otherwise allow it to do so. And even though this movie is Buñuel lite, it still really works as a comedy.

     Back to the metaphor. Okay so, the first really big laughs for me are when the streetcar stops at the slaughterhouse and the huge crowd of poor passengers board. These are like Buñuel’s people. All of these Mexicans packed in this space, beggars, butchers, and the shit talking, and slabs of meat and pigs heads hanging from hooks along the aisle is Buñuel’s populist cinema, fondly affectionate towards them. The very next stop, when they pick up the two women in black with their religious icon is of course his criticism of Catholics—they’re full of fear, sorrow, and self pity.

     And later on when the streetcar picks up the kids, it’s Buñuel’s youthful imagination. And here I’ll segue into a perfect example of the kind of Mexican humor at the expense of others I’ve been trying to describe. Yeah there’s a kid calling another kid corpse because he’s skinny. Yeah there’s a kid calling another kid chocolate because he’s dark skinned. But what about the scene where the kids make fun of the boy named LORENZANA for being an orphan; then their teacher is having a conversation with CAIRELES and she mentions an orphan, but looks for the word and spontaneously uses Lorenzana as example of the word she was looking for! And Buñuel films a reaction shot of the little boy perplexed in recognition, pobresito.

     To close, there’s also a lot of talk in this movie about inflation—the scene where the two drunks discuss economics is brilliant. And there’s the masa gouging revolt. But when the streetcar happens upon the smuggling black market maíz, if you think about it, what does the label used to disguise the sacks say? “US fertilizer.” Is this Buñuel saying that the commercial film industry is monopolized by Hollywood shit mediocre product, and he’s taking back what belongs to the people? Okay, and then just gotta mention the Christmas pageant play is such a treat in this movie, especially the angel Lucifer as a Mexican drinking beer and firing a single action rifle at a dove, the Holy Spirit, in heaven. Don Luis with what imagination again delivers some comedy glory.

Poison arrow

The only rule in movies is that they have to have a story. Why? To varying degrees films have proven adept in character, dialogue, genre, setting, and tone; but they can get away with lacking in any of these categories and still work as long as they have a plot. Audiences don’t want cinema for the sake of art. They want a story. Because some part of them is so afraid of the possibility that their own life doesn’t follow a clear path that gets resolved in the end with a specific purpose that they need reassurance, and to buy into these little simulations of meaning to numb their own existential dread.

     What do audiences call a movie without a discernable plot? An art film. What do they call a film that otherwise neglects to tell a clear story with a satisfying resolution? Unreliable narrator. The audience doesn’t have the capacity to process these kinds of narratives. Nor should we be expected to—because they’re always off-putting, conceptual, tedious, or from the perspective of a character losing their grasp on reality.

     But what if there were a film that communicated an emotional truth, while despite breaking these rules nevertheless maintained a cohesion of order through a storytelling that corresponded to its own internal design, and was easy and satisfying to follow? Is to communicate through emotions an impossible contradiction?

 

Él (1953, Luis Buñuel) concisely depicts the masculine ego in relation to its intense sexual desire for a woman. Whereas domestic melodrama, sometimes referred to as woman’s picture, expressionistically utilizes heightened emotion, Él expresses its own delirious reasoning from the perspective of the male genitals. And what makes this satire so much fun is Buñuel puts a bourgeois Catholic who doesn’t have a job or any family—a character who only exists to capture a woman—at the center of this work of art that uses cinema to prove through analogy that with infatuation there is no distinction between illusion and delusion. 

     The image system used in Él is set up in the first scene. During a Catholic mass, PADRE VELASCO is anointing the feet of a queue of altar boys, adoringly, bestowing each with a soft lingering foot kiss. As DON FRANCSISCO assists him with the holy water, we get a camera dolly of the feet of congregants that halts and doubles back to those of a woman in high heels. The rest of the film will hinge on Don Francisco’s conflict between guilt based repressed sexual desire and its resultant confusion with what to do with GLORIA as object of his amorous lust. 

 

The greatest strength of Él is that each aspect of its form that’s intentionally ambiguous is so in order to convey a sexual/emotional truth. Illusion/delusion. None of this film is meant to be read literally. Of course, there is clearly the possibility to read it as none of it ever even happened. As early as the honeymoon in Guanajuato, in a scene where Gloria snaps a photo of Don Francisco in front of some antique architecture, when it’s his turn to take her picture, he declines. How far would I be reaching if I said maybe it’s because in the diegesis of the narrative he has a picture of himself in front of that building but not one of Gloria because they never actually went there together? Or maybe they did. Intentionally ambiguous.

     Él speaks to me. The scene in the belltower when Don Francisco takes Gloria up there to reconcile after a nasty fight, then looks at the crowd below and tells her they’re all worms and no one would see him if he strangled her and threw her body off the top is so much already, but when he adds “I was only joking,” that’s the Buñuel touch on full display. Él is like one big joke you shouldn’t be allowed to laugh at. And how about when Don Francisco is at his wit’s end, a broken man, crying to his confidante butler PABLO, desperately asking what he should do about his wife Gloria and Pablo says divorce her. Don Francisco replies “What about kill her?” That is the funniest dialogue in the movie for me. That’s what surrealism is for me.

     Él isn’t subject to the healthy morally right way women should be treated that’s deemed fit and approved by society. It’s about the opposite. It’s about how there can be a man who everyone sees only through his public persona, and the difference with which he shows himself to be in the privacy of a woman who entices his sexual desires. Yeah it’s wrong. But Él dares to make a comedy out of it. Maybe it’s okay to laugh at how scary it can be to know the penis wants what the penis wants as long as we know it’s wrong?

Slaughterhouse noir

Film noir is not a genre. Neither is surrealist cinema. Too often, audiences label anything in a movie that seems weirdly incongruous as surreal. It’s not at all the same thing.

     What both of these styles have in common is a way to visually express any parts that a film is constructed of in ways that go beyond any intellectual cognition. The language of emotions. A lexicon of textures. Speaking through the senses.

 

El bruto (1953, Luis Buñuel) depicts the brutality of how it feels to lose your true love. In cinema, a home can signal the image system of one’s heart. It’s an outward manifestation of our willful resistance against our own mortality. We’re here for such a short time, but much like our very identity, we build something to last. Something that we rest assured in knowing will be with us for the rest of our lives.

     The community of poor blue collar wretches being evicted from the barrio slum are an emotional transcription of what it’s like to lose the love of your life. That home was where their inner life was nurtured and safe. And then all of the sudden, without any reason, without knowing what they did wrong, they can be kicked out on the street never to return. When they fight the eviction in that first scene, desperately pleading for any kind of answer as what they’re to do now, think about how their landlord ANDRÉS answers them: “That’s your business. There are plenty of other houses.” After having your heart broke isn’t that all your friends really can offer: there’s someone else out there for you.

     And like the most cynical of film noirs, here humans are no better than cattle, despite any sensitivity, optimism, hope or love they may aspire to. BRUTO works in a slaughterhouse. When he has to leave that job, he goes to work with PALOMA in a butcher shop. The tenement building is too small and has too many people packed in there. And when they finally put him down, it’s fittingly by “one to the head.”

 

El bruto is the first film through which I’ve really fully appreciated the genius of Buñuel’s talent with visual motifs. Most obvious a burning flame as sex. One could read something into the three instances of Bruto having sex as follows: (1.) He could have raped Paloma or at the very least it was rough, not shown at all of course, but what is shown is him putting the candle out by smoldering the wick between his fingers, i.e., through force. (2.) When Paloma visits Bruto with the full intention of seducing him, when they go off to the bed, what is shown are the two raw steaks sizzling on the grill and could be read as more like an animal lust. (3.) When Bruto brings his newlywed bride MECHE back to their hovel, we see the candle melt down to nothing on its own—something like purity.

     The whole length of the narrative where Bruto and Meche fall in love is tenderly romantic. The scene on their wedding night is so simple. She’s a virgin. She’s chaste. She’s shy. And offscreen as the candle melts down we only hear their voices, and she starts crying after they’ve finished. And when Bruto goes to sleep on the floor, leaving her to have the small bed he made for her she adds one last comment: “good night.”

     But most of the film is brutally disturbing. One more note about visual motifs that could be deciphered from the chickens is like, Bruto kills Meche’s father and when Bruto flees the mob of carpenters and unwittingly hides at Meche’s house he kills her hen with his bare hands to keep it from making any noise. But Bruto later brings her a new hen along with a bunch of baby chicks. And the last scene of the movie, after Andrés has been slain, when Paloma is confronted by that ominous apparition rooster of course it feels like Andrés in a scary as shit way.

 

Brutality is the theme of this movie in many ways. Bruto is the beast who takes advantage of his size to intimidate and assert his will through oppressive dominance. But Paloma is his double. She’s emotionally brutal and takes advantage of her sexuality to assert her own will in the same way. She’s cold to her husband Andrés and fends off all of his sexual advances. She manipulates Andrés by making him think Bruto assaulted her. She wants to own and control Bruto, not love him.

     But whereas Bruto internally fights his oppressive nature, Paloma does not. She’s the worst. Another evocatively coded image is how when she puts the idea into Andrés’ head about eliminating the agitators she does so by decapitating the flowers from their stems.

     And just a few scattered notes in closing: the slaughterhouse location is obviously real, and filmed with such a photographic quality it adds so much to the noir canvas, along with the chase scene through the lumberyard with its geometric dark shadowy world. The scene where Meche removes the nail from Bruto is an overt reference to Catholicism, or at the very least a vague allusion to the crucifixion. After Meche’s father dies and she pawns his toolbox with his name on it (Carmelo González), what a tearjerker moment, it can also be read through a Catholic lens in that an innocent carpenter was sacrificed for leading the people of their barrio to salvation.

A cruel picture

Most of the Mexicans who put up such a macho front are also momma’s boys. The foundation of Mexican society is the longsuffering mother. Why do you think they’re so obsessed with their venerable Virgin Mary? 

Una mujer sin amor (1952, Luis Buñuel) is a bourgeois melodrama that centers on how sad it is ROSARIO has to endure the stifling obligations of her domestic role; except for a quick affair she indulges and its long-ranging consequences that her shitty sons rub her face in.

     It’s supposed to attack the hypocrisy of society. I guess. There isn’t much going on here. It’s like a kitten whose claws haven’t grown in yet. I do like the scene early on in their house where the husband’s dinner in the fancy house in the fancy dining room is just tamales on his plate and nothing else on the table.

The seven year itch

Are Mexicans so lusty because the climate down there is so hot? Do Catholics have a thing for forbidden fruit? One thing that’s for sure is part of being macho is cruising a sidepiece.

     Also, when it comes to what Mexicans think is funny, I can’t overemphasize how much mileage you can get from making fun of other people’s misfortune, flaws, and personal appearance. It’s different for Mexicans. I don’t think it’s seen as mean spirited as it is to wokesters.

 

Subida al cielo (1952, Luis Buñuel) drips with all the hothouse eroticism its tropical climate and surrealist imagery can evoke. The Eve in this garden is Lilia Prado, as RAQUEL. And if you’ve ever heard one of those gender inequality discussions where someone suggests that what were to happen if genders were switched between two people or characters in question would be either unacceptable or acceptable—the opposite of the source the comparison was based on—you’ll have an idea of how Raquel can stand as ideal of a male unabashedly racking up a list of all the women he’s bedded. You know, like what it means to one who plays the field—a sportfuck.

     In other words think of it sounding something like: why is she perceived as a slut for making sexual advances to OLIVERIO and ELADIO but if a guy did it he’d be seen as virile, or at the very least free of condemnation. (Also it bothers me how in that early scene when Raquel is trying to get Oliverio’s attention and he flees from her the other men in the saloon cackle like a pack of hyenas.) But the magnificence of the plot of Subida al cielo is how well it playfully subverts genre conventions—so much so as to be to the point of feigning innocence.

     Raquel wants to get laid. When she wants. With whom she wants. Forget all that crap about Oliverio’s terminally ill mom having her kids chiseling away at their inheritance on her deathbed; that’s boring and inessential. Although it feels like in a way this movie has to concede to deceptively be about Oliverio. Even better. It’s like because he’s a guy who just got married and is trying to do what’s right by the estate of his mother he’s noble or something.

The twist ending is a stunner. In a way it’s such a subtle twist I’d never noticed it before. But, that scene where Oliverio has that vision of Raquel eating of the apple and she says “I got what I wanted,” it’s as if she ate the forbidden fruit of the garden but irl gets away clean. And as if that weren’t thrillingly mischievous enough, Oliverio doesn’t suffer any punishment either—aside from him feeling swindled of his faithfulness to his newlywed bride.

     Buñuel’s cinematic artistry is on full display, with say, starting with the intoxicating eroticism of Raquel hiking her wet skirt up as she exits the bus to wade in the shallow river and going for a dip in her swimsuit. And then foremost a whole giant chunk of the movie gives way to a full on surrealist dream sequence. What is essentially a sex fantasy Oli has about Raquel becomes charged with a moral gravitas as his desperate struggle against the will of his libido to submit to his faithful wife turns on him, revealing her face to now be that of Raquel as well. But visually, so much to appreciate. The tropical jungle in the bus! Eating his mother's knitting! What are those sheep doing there running around while Raquel and Oli are having sex? Oh, Don Luis. What a master.

El infierno

Mexican society is male dominated. And among these men, the most highly esteemed values are being macho, having money, and protecting their women and children. The lowest values are being a coward, and poverty. Does this sound so outdated?

 

La hija del engaño (1951, Luis Buñuel) is a throwaway commercial assignment with very little to offer cinematically. It relies too heavily on its plot about the inevitable reconciliation between a father and the daughter he abandoned when she was an infant.

     But it still packs a wallop of a caricature of hombres sinvergüenzas. While La hija del engaño is a broad comedy that suffers from too often indulging uninspired instances of hamming it up, it nevertheless includes domestic abuse toward spouse and child from a belligerent alcoholic guardian, and a fair amount of gun violence. 

     Two scenes had me hollering with boisterous laughter. The first takes place in DON QUINTÍN’S casino, when a short fat Mexican gambler named EL JONRÓN repeatedly threatens the staff that if they don’t cater to his beck and whim he’ll give them a “homerun” (his slang for firing his pistol?!). The gunman is confronted by the bouncer, another short fat Mexican. This conflict escalates into a duel of monosyllabic grunts that is the most effectively perfect epitome of idiot Mexicans desperately trying to prove their masculinity in public through violence I’ve probably ever seen; guns drawn, they yell at each other like children daring each other to shoot first, because each of them know the one to shoot first will be the one to face criminal punishment from the law. 

     And operating on a similar code of conduct, the scene later when Don Quintín and his men throw food at MARTHA and PACO’S table slays just as hard. For me what is so effective about this olive throwing business is how effectively I felt the humiliation and its rising tension. There were higher stakes between these two tables and some breadcrumbs than I’ve encountered in some of the hugest Hollywood action sequences.

Le Journal d'une femme de chambre

Before you let misogynist be the first thing that pops into your head, don’t be in such haste as to judge the old-fashioned Catholic value system upheld by Mexicans without attempting to at least appreciate it as just being different, and hopefully maybe even admit that their sexual politics and hierarchies mirror how life really is. Ongoing my further investigation into Buñuel’s films he made while in Mexico, I find even more cogent proof of how compelling it is to get to watch movies with the kinds of characterizations of aspects of the cultural identity of Mexicans that I’d always known from first-hand experience but never so adequately found depicted in cinema.

     This time it’s spiteful, vindictive, vengeful personal attacks aimed at someone with loose morals. Sure, throughout history there’ve been tons of examples of religious persecution, but with Mexicans it’s so vivacious, so gleefully mean-spirited it’s fun. Our closest counterpart to what I’m describing is John Waters. 

 

Susana (1951, Luis Buñuel) has as its titular heroine a conniving, wantonly manipulative, 20 yr old sexpot sociopath who's morally rotten; yet soo cute, perky, and fun as to bring a defiant radiance to any scene she’s in. Take that Hayes Code. 

     She’s actually hot too. I love this actress. That she’s also blond is an especially nice touch. The opening of the movie sets her up as being incarcerated in the state reformatory, for what we can only presume is being slutty. She gets thrown into solitary (one can only imagine what she did to elicit that punishment) and prays to God, and the god of prisons, that she be set free—and instantly she’s able to rip the barred window from her prison cave.

     Okay as I write this I realize this could sound like cheesy bad sexploitation but Buñuel eschews any semblance of shabby sleaze by polishing this melodrama with prestige. One of my favorite images from any Buñuel movie is the iconic shot when Susana escapes and the pious family sit for supper as she appears outside their window drenched by a rainstorm. And here it is when the old crone hardcore Catholic head servant FELISA warns that this apparition is a devil.

     Yeah sure Susana seduces all the men, causing them to sacrifice everything they are because they're enamored with her. But that’s not anywhere near as interesting as the battle between the women of the household and Susana. It gets so ugly. The rancor with which Susana exclaims that the men will take her over them because she’s young! I don’t see this film as misogynist. And I don’t see Susana as evil. I just think she’s empowered, and resorting to what she has to in order to survive, and fuck it.

     And lastly, did anyone else notice the scene with ALBERTO and the dragonfly he’s studying? This might be I wanna say one of the earliest appearances of etymology in a Buñuel film, which will of course be a recurring motif throughout the rest of his work on into France in the 60s and is one of his lasting trademarks. (Listen, I know there was already that Silence of the Lambs moth in Un chien andalou alright.)

Human garbage

What can sometimes happen with Mexicans or the poor is that any outward show of decency or respect for your neighbor sheds in favor of a more useful way of adapting to your environment—treating everyone like shit. Self-preservation is innate. And so is baring your teeth when faced with threats from other animals in a hostile environment. 

 

Los olvidados (1950, Luis Buñuel) centers on three boys, none of whom have fathers. PEDRO begs for his mother’s affection, attention, and acceptance. But she hates him because she got pregnant with him after being raped by a stranger. And the force of this figure and what it represents has now shown itself to be more oppressing than I’d ever picked up on before. For even in this community of social outcasts, there exists the stranger. This unknown assailant is the double of another of these three boys: JAIBO.

     Jaibo never knew his mother or father. Is Los olvidados an indictment of society or the responsibilities of parents in the home? Both, probably. Jaibo is a sociopath. A predator. A career criminal. (I’ve always loved his intro where he orders that chorizo torta from a street vendor, spots the heat and bolts, providing the exposition that he’s on the run from just breaking out of juvie.) But he’s also got swagger. He boasts the confidence and roguish sense of adventure that attracts so many misguided youths to the street in the first place. And Buñuel’s ability to evoke this specific type of Mexican masculinity is keen. Because as depressing and bleak as this movie is, don’t forget it’s also fun and often hilarious. (How can this movie even make that scene with Pedro and the pedo come across as a comedic skit?)

     Yet lest we forget, Jaibo is a harbinger of the erosion of morality in this community of impoverished peasants. And Pedro must choose whether he’s to follow this path or preserve what good is still left in himself. So far I’ve mentioned Pedro, who must choose between doing what’s right or wrong; and Jaibo, who represents the pursuit of vice. All that leaves is the boy who embodies pure virtue: OJITOS.

     Ojitos has only recently been abandoned by his father (so recent that he still waits in vain in the mercado for him to return). We never hear anything about his mother. And maybe all we’ll ever know about him is that his sense of decency is indomitable. Also, I’m not going to spell anything out, but I see a definite significance in how when Pedro first meets Ojitos he refers to him as a fuereño, which can be translated as stranger or outsider; and when he addresses him as such, Ojitos replies in the negative—not recognizing or identifying with that label.

 

If I liken the three boys to stray dogs, then in contrast to their transient nature are the domestic residents. Specifically, Pedro’s mother, the waif ragamuffin MECHE and her family, and the blind busker DON CARMELO. And it’s with this other half of the ensemble from which Los olvidados gets its full effectiveness. Or how its milieu coalesces into such a relatable narrative.

     It goes without saying that Buñuel illuminates all of the players here with their own individually unique humanity. Like the unexpected flourish when we cringe at Jaibo’s advances toward Meche, cornering her, desperate for a kiss, only for her to acquiesce and demand “show me the two pesos.” And while the tone of the film is abrasively cynical, it’s got no problem sprinkling in a little sentimentality—Ojitos and Meche with that tooth he swiped from a corpse is adorable.

     And no talk of Buñuel would be complete without mentioning his surrealist cinematic stylings. Sure, the dream sequence; easy. But the mangy dog apparition affords us the grace with which to glimpse something like empathy with even Jaibo's sorry ass. Such is the poetry of surrealism. And what a perfect fit that style is with rural Mexican folklore and superstition. The imagery of magic and animal. Ojitos sucking from the cow’s teet. And on top of all of that, how often does the subject matter, the slayings, feel wrought out of the Old Testament? Or the gospels: Don Carmelo cleansing Meche’s mom with the paloma as symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Thoughts on Books I Finished, May 2023

Bad Actors, Mick Herron 

The library finally came through with a copy of this, the most recent entry to date of my favorite COVID-era series obsession (Slough House / Slow Horses, running ahead of Dalgliesh, even a bit ahead of Muderbot), and it was, entirely predictably, entirely satisfying. I like almost everything about these books, especially Herron’s unmatched ability to balance consistency and change in his recurring characters, and I liked this one a lot.  

 

Dolphin Junction, Mick Herron 

Evidently, I’m in a Mick Herron completist phase. If you have a line on his early poetry career output, drop a line. This was a fun, illuminating set of short stories. Herron’s way with a fun twist reveal is, and this is a compliment, Twilight Zone level, and nobody plays with hiding info in a way you can only do on the page better. Super fun read. 

 

This Is What Happened, Mick Herron 

Classic non–Slough-House Herron: great twists, grim, probably glad to be described as “a nasty little piece of work”. Without spoilers, this is a dark look at three people, one of whom is a very bad person, and all three people are well observed: eacy variously upsetting, infuriating, and sad. Herron’s humor is tamped way down here, but he rremains the unchallenged depictor of people’s exasperated responses, and his narratorial sardonic encapsulations of society’s failings have a kind of … charm. (The difference between urban anonymity for poor people and rich people hit me particularly hard.) 

 

Black Ball, Theresa Runstedler
This wonderful work of history offers both a detailed account of the labor history that influenced the NBA throughout the 70s, with particular reference to the way that history played into the NBA / ABA competition (and then the NBA / ABA merger), and a series of case studies, including Spencer Haywood (once married to Iman!), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (once considered violent and inarticulate!?), and others, which illustrate and illuminate the living workers who made that history. If you think the “modern NBA” started with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson “saving” the league from drugs and bad marketing, you owe it to yourself to read this.