At a certain point in my college career, I considered pursuing a degree in Intellectual History. Plain old History is one damn thing after another and Intellectual History–according to my professors–makes sense of all those damn things that happened. Johan Norberg’s Open: The Story of Human Progress argues that societies that foster openness do better than societies that are closed.

Norberg presents plenty of evidence that countries that allowed freedom and encouraged innovation had higher standard of livings and more prosperity than the closed countries. But, freedom and innovation threaten powerful elites and they can diminish freedom and reject innovation. Burning libraries and banning books are just tools for the regimes that want to control their populations.

Knowledge is power and dictators fear it. Societies that reject educating women, countries that suppress news on TV and in the press, regimes that poison opponents all face declining economies and civil unrest. Johan Norberg convinced me with his evidence and logic that openness is the way to go. Are you a History buff? GRADE: A

Table of Contents

Introduction: Traders and tribalists 1

Part I Open

1 Open exchange 19

2 Open doors 68

3 Open minds 124

4 Open societies 167

Part II Closed

5 Us and them 213

6 Zero-sum 248

7 Anticipatory anxiety 286

8 Fight or flight 334

Open or closed? 362

Acknowledgements 383

Notes 385

Index 418

I love Chinese food so this new cookbook attracted me. But Xi’An Famous Foods isn’t just a cookbook. It tells the story of how Jason Wang and his family left China and made it in America.

I’m going to give some of the recipes in this book a try:  Spicy & Sour Spinach Dumplings in Soup,  Spicy Asian Cucumber Salad, and  Stewed Pork Hand-Ripped Noodles in Soup. There are dozens of mouth-watering food photos to fire up your appetite! Great food and a great story of business success! Do you like Chinese food? GRADE: A

One of the reasons I’m a fan of Jack McDevitt’s Science Fiction novels–I’ve read over a dozen of them–is McDevitt’s tendency to include a mystery in each of his novels. Infinity Beach (2000) concerns an effort to find alien civilizations. Humans have several populated planets and faster-than-light starships, but they haven’t found any aliens…yet.

Dr. Kimberly Brandywine is in charge of public relations for the Seabright Institute. The Institute plans a spectacular feat of stellar engineering in an attempt to signal hypothetical aliens: blowing up a star!

I like the character of Kimberly Brandywine because she’s smart and tenacious…and a bit reckless.

Brandywine’s receives a phone call from an old teacher that causes her to re-examine the circumstances of her sister’s disappearance and presumed death. Emily Brandywine disappeared twenty years earlier, shortly after the early return of an exploratory mission searching for aliens.

Brandywine starts to investigate the disappearance which police dismissed. What really happened? Was someone on the crew of that exploration starship a murderer? Did the crew find evidence of alien life? And then did they suppress their discovery? Why would they do that?

Infinity Beach was nominated for a Hugo Award. It didn’t win but McDevitt did win a Nebula Award for Seeker in 2006. If you’re looking for a SF novel with plenty of suspense and mystery, I recommend Infinity Beach. GRADE: B+

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought I would introduce you to this Motown anthology of Love Songs. Of course, I’m a big Smokey Robinson fan so I’m delighted by “Tears of Clown” included on this CD. And, of course there’s “Cruisin'”–featured in an Allstate commerical–which is classified as: “A pair of astronauts smoothly traverses the moon as Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin” sets the mood. Not beholden to gravity, these drivers know they’ll be rewarded with savings from Allstate.”

What’s your favorite Love Song? GRADE: B+

Tracklist:

Last Wednesday, I reviewed My Favorite Science Fiction Story (you can read the review here). Then, Todd Mason, learning of the existence of My Favorite Horror Story, reviewed it here. Now, I complete the trifecta with My Favorite Fantasy Story (2000). This is my favorite volume of the three because some of my favorite stories can be found in this volume. “That Hell-Bound Train” won Robert Block a Hugo Award. Jack Vance is celebrated by Robert Silverberg choosing “Mizirian the Magician” and George R. R. Martin choosing ” Liane the Wayfarer.”

Classics like L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Gnarly Man” and Charles Dickens’s “The Bagman’s Story” are represented. I enjoyed Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald’s spy mashup, “Stealing God” where the Holy Grail makes an appearance. And Andre Norton pick’s one of my favorite Manly Wade Wellman stories, “The Spring.” All in all, an excellent anthology! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION by Martin H. Greenberg — 1

• “Ghosts of Wind and Shadow” (Charles de Lint) – selected by Tanya Huff — 7
• “Mazirian the Magician” (Jack Vance) – selected by Robert Silverberg –38
• “Troll Bridge” (Terry Pratchett) – selected by Michelle West — 56
• “The Tale of Hauk” (Poul Anderson) – selected by Mickey Zucker Reichert — 67
• “In Our Block” (R. A. Lafferty) – selected by Neil Gaiman — 90
• “The Gnarly Man” (L. Sprague de Camp) – selected by Terry Pratchett –98
• “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (M. R. James) – selected by Morgan Llywelyn — 121
• “Homeland” (Barbara Kingsolver) – selected by Charles de Lint — 141
• “Stealing God” (Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald) – selected by Katherine Kurtz — 160
• “Shadowlands” (Elisabeth Waters) – selected by Marion Zimmer Bradley — 181
• Mopsa the Fairy (Jean Ingelow) – selected by Gene Wolfe — 192
• “Liane the Wayfarer” (Jack Vance) – selected by George R. R. Martin –303
• “The Spring” (Manly Wade Wellman) – selected by Andre Norton — 315
• “That Hell-Bound Train” (Robert Bloch) – selected by Rick Hautala —328
• “The Dancer from the Dance” (M. John Harrison) – selected by Stephen R. Donaldson — 343
• “More Spinned Against” (John Wyndham) – selected by Matt Costello — 367
• “The Bagman’s Story” (Charles Dickens) – selected by Margaret Weis — 379
• “Unicorn Variations” (Roger Zelazny) – selected by Fred Saberhagen —-394

If you’re a fan of the group Talking Heads, you’ll love David Byrne’s American Utopia. The performance is a mix of music and commentary led by David Byrne, the front man of the Talking Heads. This theatrical concert features a talented group of musicians who are constantly in motion. The action on the stage never stops.

David Byrne’s American Utopia is directed by Spike Lee who manages to keep the dancing and music under control during the performance before an enthusiastic audience. The film was shot in New York City in 2020 before the pandemic shut Broadway down.

If you’re in the mood for a high energy concert, this is the one to watch! Are you a Talking Heads fan? GRADE: A

SONG LIST:

• “Here” (from American Utopia)
• “I Know Sometimes a Man Is Wrong” (from Rei Momo)
• “Don’t Worry About the Government” (from Talking Heads: 77)
• “Lazy” (from Muzikizum by X-Press 2)
• “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” (from Speaking in Tongues)
• “I Zimbra” (from Fear of Music)
• “Slippery People” (from Speaking in Tongues)
• “I Should Watch TV” (from Love This Giant)
• “Everybody’s Coming to My House” (from American Utopia)
• “Once in a Lifetime” (from Remain in Light)
• “Glass, Concrete & Stone” (from Grown Backwards)
• “Toe Jam” (from I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat by The Brighton Port Authority)
• “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)” (from Remain in Light)
• “I Dance Like This” (from American Utopia)
• “Bullet” (from American Utopia)
• “Every Day Is a Miracle” (from American Utopia)
• “Blind” (from Naked)
• “Burning Down the House” (from Speaking in Tongues)
• “Hell You Talmbout” (from The Electric Lady by Janelle Monáe)
• “One Fine Day” (from Everything That Happens Will Happen Today)
• “Road to Nowhere” (from Little Creatures)
• “Everybody’s Coming to My House: Detroit” (End Credits)

If you’re a fan of cartoons in The New Yorker you’ll enjoy Harry Bliss and Steve Martin’s A Wealth of Pigeons. Bliss is provides excellent cartoons and Martin provides the punchlines. Here’s a couple of examples:

About 130 cartoons fill this book. I found about a third of them funny, a third made me smile, and a third were clunkers. You have to find fun where you can get it these days. Do you enjoy cartoons? Steve Martin? Harry Bliss? GRADE: B

I didn’t think the NFL could pull off 256+ games during a pandemic. Yet, here we are at the ultimate game. Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs try to defend their Super Bowl Championship against the home-town Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Chiefs are 3-point favorites. Tom Brady is trying to win the Super Bowl again. I’m rooting for the Chiefs. Who do you think will win today? What’s on your Super Bowl menu?

Helen Andrews lays out her approach in Boomers in her Preface where she writes: “…I found I had no interest at all in writing about buffoons and psychopaths, however colorful some of them were. Instead, I was drawn to the boomers who had all the elements of greatness but whose effect on the world was tragically and often ironically contrary to their intentions.” Andrews quotes David Crosby’s assessment of his generation: “We were right about the war. We were right about the environment. We were right about civil rights and women’s issues. But we were wrong about drugs.” (p.195)

When Andrews tackles Steve Jobs, she goes for the jugular. Not only did Jobs unleash cell phones on an unsuspecting populace–she doesn’t go as far as blaming Jobs for Tinder and Tik Tok–but Andrews suggests Jobs may have sown the seeds to civilization’s impending collapse.

Andrew Sorkin gets blamed for fooling an entire generation about the way politics and Washington works with his fictitious TV show The West Wing. I was surprised that Andrews didn’t blame social media on Sorkin because he wrote the screenplay to The Social Network, a movie about the founding of Facebook.

Jeffrey Sachs gets nailed because his economics doesn’t work. Andrews thinks “the Indian Jones of economics” is goofy and wrong.

Camille Paglia, “the next Susan Sontag,” falls short with her career as an academic superstar. Andrews chronicles the years Paglia labored in obscurity, teaching workers at the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts Night School until she hit the Big Time with Sexual Personae in 1990. Suddenly, Paglia was a hot commodity on the media circuit. “Paglia was able to parlay this initial burst of celebrity in a more lasting fame as a public intellectual.” (p. 105) Andrews uses this case study as one of the reasons our vaulted colleges and universities allow dissertations on The Sopranos.

I did not know that Reverend Al Sharpton worked as James Brown’s tour manager. “Traveling on the road with Brown taught Sharpton as much about business as it did about showmanship.” (p. 128). Despite the debacle of the Tawana Brawley hoax of 1987–where Brawley falsely claimed she had been gang raped by law enforcement officials–Sharpton managed to escape most of the blow-back of that escapade. And Sharpton settled most of the income tax problems he generated with his many “charitable” projects. Basically, Andrews dismisses Sharpton as a phony.

I confess I did not know much about Sonya Sotomayor. Andrews lists many of Sotomayor’s faults which basically reveals her as a diva. According to Andrews, Chief Justice John Roberts has criticized Sotomayor for attacking the majority of the Justices in personal terms. Using her heritage as a lever of power, Sotomayor destabilizes the Supreme Court according to Andrews. Personally, I’m not seeing it.

Boomers shows as much about Helen Andrews’s thought process and beliefs as it does the people Andrews accuses of “delivering disaster.” One has to wonder why Trump isn’t on this list… GRADE: C

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 The Boomers 1

2 Steve Jobs 19

3 Aaron Sorkin 43

4 Jeffrey Sachs 69

5 Camille Paglia 97

6 Al Sharpton 125

7 Sonia Sotomayor 165

8 The Millennials 191

Acknowledgments 199

Notes 201

Index 231