by Richard Subber | Jan 6, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
television is entertainment at its worst
Book review:
Amusing Ourselves to Death:
Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
by Neil Postman (1931-2003)
New York: Elisabeth Sifton Books/Viking, 1985
184 pages
This is a rare treasure—a can’t-put-it-down kind of book.
I wish I’d read it 35 years ago.
Amusing Ourselves to Death is a 184-page drumbeat of insight and reality about the devastating impact of television on our culture and our prospects of living the good life.
Postman, a media theorist and cultural critic, says television “is a medium which presents information in a form that renders it simplistic, nonsubstantive, nonhistorical and noncontextual; that is to say, information packaged as entertainment.” (p. 141)
He wrote the book before the internet got really started, and before the enhanced horrors of social media like Facebook and Twitter and TikTok.
He continued to write about the failures of our educational enterprises and the negative impacts of technology on our culture.
Don’t let Amusing Ourselves to Death be the only Postman book you read in the near future.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” were afraid
of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Dec 25, 2022 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
doing the right thing is easy…
A man’s job
I won’t sell my trees.
The balsams would go quickly
at “cut your own” prices,
but I tell my neighbors, again this year,
there will be no cutting
on this old slope that spills down
to my little barn.
Day is darkening,
and I move among my trees.
This one, bent and broken
in last winter’s snows,
has grown,
the birds of spring may nest
in its green spaces…
and now, from below,
the boy climbs to me, his head down,
his father’s axe in hand,
he has changed since his father died,
he tries to do a man’s work,
he will have little time
for baseball with the other boys.
“I told Momma I would find a tree,
to make a Christmas for Becky and the baby.”
So.
He holds his axe in both hands,
and he stands straight in my field.
I extend my arm.
“Go find a good one,
I can help you carry it home.”
December 1, 2018
My poem “A man’s job” was published in my third collection of 64 poems, In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, click here
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
“…and dipped in folly…”
only Poe knows how to say it…
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 16, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
…reserved but spritely humorous…
Book review:
Tales from a Free-Range Childhood
by Donald Davis (b1944)
Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, Publisher, 2011
239 pages
Davis is a renowned storyteller, in person and in print.
He offers very believable recollections of his childhood in this exceptionally prosaic collection.
Tales from a Free-Range Childhood is a pleasing succession of reserved but spritely humorous accounts of the kind of joys and scrapes that you probably experienced, mostly.
Davis knows how to put it into words.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Fire in the Lake (book review)
you should have read it in 1972…
by Frances FitzGerald
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Nov 12, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
you don’t have many close friends…
Book review:
Friends: Understanding the Power
of our Most Important Relationships
by Robin Dunbar
London: Little, Brown, 2021
424 pages
This is a great book.
Robin Dunbar fans will recognize his deeply informed, very readable prose, and his comfortable and spectacular familiarity with quite a number of well-researched points of view.
Friends will confirm what you already know, on some level: friends and close family members are essential in your personal and social life, and you don’t have very many of them.
Typically, a person has five close friends/family members with whom she can share anything and everything, as often as possible. These five intimates are part of the circle of about 15 “best friends” who are nurtured and enjoyed in the greater part of the time you spend socializing, that is, being with and being in contact with other people.
Impersonal contact via social media is not a substitute for actually spending time with your friends. (By the way, nobody has 897 “friends” on Faceboook or SnapChat—if you think you do, try calling them and getting them to meet you for coffee or anything else to drink.)
Staying in touch with friends is especially important for old-timers. You can literally live longer if you maintain some active friendships.
The basis thing about friendship is trust: you know the other person well enough to understand how he thinks, and you trust him to act accordingly, and you know you can ask him for help if you need it.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review:
Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene
sincere, but off the mark…
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Nov 2, 2022 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
a life story…
What the hangman hears
I’m scared
will it hurt?
can you make it quick?
I can’t hold it much longer
the rope is so big
my mother is coming
she’ll pay you
she won’t let me die
can’t you wait?
I’m scared
the rope is tight
I know Johnny will get here
I know he’s coming
he’ll bring you money
wait another minute
where are they?
I’m scared
I didn’t do it
October 28, 2021
My poem “What the hangman hears” was published in my fifth collection of 53 poems, My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited (search for “Richard Carl Subber”)
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Boz indeed! Sketches by Boz
Charles Dickens delivers,
in a fastidiously literary kind of way…
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Oct 29, 2022 | Reflections, Tidbits
Pop-Pop’s point of view…
Being the grandfather just fills up my point of view, and the horizon gets pulled in pretty darn close, too! My beautiful granddaughter, our first, is here with me and my beloved, Barb, who is now Gram. This is our first journey of exploration as overnight babysitters in tandem—my son and his beloved, the Mom, are enjoying an interlude of adult conversation in another state.
…and when I say “pretty darn close,” I mean pretty DARN close because Gram won’t countenance my occasional unheeding sailor talk and so I try not to utter the other “D” word, although why we call it sailor talk instead of soldier talk or airman talk I do not know, most of the soldiers I knew could swear like drunken sailors, you betcha…
Anyway, I also try to concentrate on NOT doing baby talk, I never talked baby talk to my son, I intend to model the most correct version of the King’s English with this little girl because I am very well aware that she is already learning language even if she isn’t saying anything intelligible yet. She IS talking, I just don’t know what she’s saying, and I guess she’s in the same boat. So, we both do the best we can in the circumstances, and we smile a lot…and I think she likes to hear singing, so I’m doing some of that too, and it’s OK if I can remember only the chorus of “On The Banks of the Wabash, Far Away,” and she doesn’t mind if I sing it several times in a row.
I think it’s quite refreshing that babies don’t judge, they simply observe, learn, and imitate (or not), it would be a nicer world if more people acted like babies more often…except for the doo-doo diaper part, I confess there’s no thrill in it for me, but as the Pop-Pop, I’m prepared to do my duty when this young lady does the doodie, but, well, you know…
I’ve done some reading about language and the fully-wired facility that all human babies have at birth to learn language, so I’m fascinated to listen to her verbalization at the age of 8 months, she clearly is NOT making sounds at random, and so I am sympathetically responding to her, saying “I know you’re talking but I don’t know what you’re saying yet.” I know she’s working hard on understanding what we say to her. I can’t wait for my first opportunity to listen to my sweet granddaughter and say: “I understand!”
Stay tuned…and if you’re already a grandparent, you know how this story turns out!
September 2, 2011
In case you were wondering: Paul Dresser published “Wabash” in 1897, and his wildly popular ballad was one of the earliest pieces of music to be recorded…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Banks_of_the_Wabash,_Far_Away
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Movie review: Same Time, Next Year
all-American adultery, oh yeah…
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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