The Fate of Nature by Charles Wohlforth - Book Review

The Fate of Nature by Charles Wohlforth. I have no idea how this book crossed my path but it stared at me on the bookshelf for a while challenging me to open. I side stepped it with a Jimmy Buffet Biography and the excellent U.S. Grant Biography by Chernow. Slightly annoyed and finally out of fresh reads I opened her up thinking I had a preachy research book. I was wrong. What I didn't account for was the author's talent, his story telling ability and the unfolding adventures that fire out one right after the other chapter after chapter. "The Fate of Nature" reads like a novel and a damn good one.

 

Charles Wohlforth is a seasoned author beginning as a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News covering the Exxon Valdez oil disaster (spill my ass). His experience and research of nature, history, science, politics and adventure all coalesce in "The Fate of Nature"

 

The book proffers the question are humans even capable of correcting their greedy, piss in our well water, destroy our food system behavior of arrogance? But more than a screed about our knuckle dragging consciousness "The Fate of Nature" articulates and entertains with history, science, personality and context the vast array of interconnection that frames our collective lives.

 

We're talking about property rights versus community rights, the birth of conservation, the integration and survival of the indigenous populations living in harmony with their environment and the destruction of their way of life from unregulated capitalism, and it's nascent rebirth. 

 

This is not a romanticism but a look at the breadth of human activity impacting the entire globe with the Northern Gulf of the Alaska Coast and Prince William Sound as back drop. 

 

The book begins with the fascinating Killer Whale Culture and human spirituality, the spirits of Nature and the Chugach culture. Fur traders and Captain Cook then arrive followed by the Russian conquest of Alaska and then the equally egregious American conquest. Chapter after chapter it plows through history. It's an informative brisk page turner and you can't wait to see what the next chapter is going to hit upon. 

 

A book of this breadth could easily bog down in technical specificity and moralizing yet Wohlforth spins a narrative of anecdotes, adventures and events punctuated by short chapters building out his observations, research and thesis.

 

You are definitely going to want to visit Alaska after reading about the foreboding sumptuous landscape he pulls together. I'll be checking out his other work. In the meantime this is a good one folks from a guy you never heard of and a title that is unfamiliar. Dive in!

 

 

#thefateofnature

#charleswohlforth

#Alaska

#killerwhales

#ExxonValdez

#princewilliamsound

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#anchorage

Growing Up With Chico by Maxine Marx - Book Review

Growing Up With Chico by Maxine Marx. Who doesn't love the Marx Brothers? When I discovered they existed my mind was blown. I couldn't believe it and immediately fell in love. I watched their movies, roared at their bits and loved their shtick. So much so that even when fully ensconced in the legal profession suit and tie matching belt and shoes I still referenced the "Sanity Claus," to see who was paying attention or knew what I was talking about. I never really delved into the Brothers background or looked behind the curtain until this little gem crossed my path. 

 

A lightning quick read by Chico's daughter doesn't pull any punches about her dad, her uncles or herself. Random paragraphs begin with sentences like, "Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy were sitting around..." But the beginning always the beginning on the road starving trying to break into vaudeville hustling on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. I love these snap shots of time and windows into worlds gone by. Even though time has changed the human experience is always at the center some how consistent no matter what the trappings of culture and locality present.

 

Back room card and dice games, the touring troupe gathering onto the train for the next town, the rise of and finally the retirement of the Brothers I would have loved to have seen Chico in a cabaret with his touring orchestra. There he was still hustling after the Marx Brothers stopped making movies shooting down the piano keys, telling stories, throwing dice.

 

Maxine's book gets you a little closer and inside to that world the good bad and ugly it was all there. Same as it ever was only with grease paint a honking automobile horn and lots of leering puns. The Marx Brothers in full gallop were just good fun. Behind the scenes the real world was very much there. Growing Up With Chico peals the curtain back almost like a backstage pass.

 

 

"Otis Redding An Unfinished Life" by Jonathan Gould - Book Review

What I loved about this biography written in cooperation with the Redding family was the social history and much needed context in fleshing out Otis Redding as a human being. His live performance captured in 1967 at Monterey Pop is seared into our collective consciousness. "I've got to go you all but I don't want to go..." His voice power, passion and success so unmistakably legendary as to make James Brown jealous.

"I was pretty sure that I'd seen God on stage" Bob Weir.

 

But what of the real person? Who was Otis? How did he grow up? Rocketing through that volcanic time period of change from the 1940's through the 1960's like a meteor across everyone's bow before the Summer of Love what was his life like in those short twenty six years? He was hustling hard. He was moving fast. Working with everyone and everywhere; The Apollo, Stax Records, New York, Europe, The Whiskey, Sam and Dave, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, the whole Walden family, Phil, Alan and their dad all while racism screamed at the change that was gonna come. The drive, bravery, talent and vision of that man, fierce and kind the portrait that emerges is why we read.

 

This book surprised me. It really did. The background and time Otis was born into is very much a part of the story. The musical history and social history of the men and women of his time contemporaries, characters, hustlers, thieves, racists, the music business is a cesspool let alone the political, social upheaval all swirling. All of those tangential intersections, crossing paths and currents make for a rich, deep, fascinating read and then he bought a plane. Music fans will lap up the artists, producers and managers and session players in Otis's life. History buffs will soak up the important Redding family history and the time Otis grew through.

 

 

 

Special thank you to Alan Paul for his bibliography in Brothers and Sisters that lead me to this gem.