BOOKS
Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility
by Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger (Houghton Mifflin)
In 2004, Nordhaus and Shellenberger cowrote the now infamous essay, “The Death of Environmentalism,” which suggested that modern environmental policy would have to die so that a new kind of green thinking could be born. Break Through, their latest collaboration, is a much deeper, more thoughtful examination of the same themes, and a wake-up call for the environmental movement.
Using specific examples — Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Robert Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas? — the authors explain what is wrong with the current politics of doom and gloom. They provide real, meaningful discussion about the way to frame debates so that everyone — rich and poor, Democrat and Republican — can get involved.
This is not the book to read if you feel that any attack on the sacred cows of liberalism is unwarranted; the authors assault some previously-untouchable ideas. But the end result is a book that makes everything look different. This kind of rethinking only happens once a generation, and this book will prove a watershed moment for years to come. — Paul Constant
Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body
by Jennifer Ackerman (Houghton Mifflin)
As the subtitle so aptly explains, this book takes a closer look at what’s going on inside the average body on a given day. From coffee’s effects on morning grogginess to whether post-lunch napping is a good or bad idea, this chatty, compulsively readable narrative answers questions with scientific accuracy and a suitable sense of wonder.
Ackerman uses her own body as a model, and this biographical perspective makes the various everyday experiences — working out, having a few glasses of wine, dreaming — a much more comfortable study than it could have been in the hands of a less-skilled writer. Not many authors could explain the makeup of the average bowel movement and make the experience compelling, funny, and enjoyable, but Ackerman’s curiosity and charm are the lifeblood of what quickly becomes a wonderful read. — P.C.
DVD
Talk to The Hand: Live in Michigan
Barenaked Ladies (Shout Factory)
Following in the footsteps of artists like Bonny Raitt, Dave Matthew and their good pals Guster, Toronto’s The Barenaked Ladies are making what seems to be an earnest effort to green their little corner of the music universe. The group fuels their tour buses with biodiesel, buys carbon-offsets from clean-energy companies and packages their product in 100 percent recycled materials, including a biodegradable media tray. In this case, the media in question is BNL’s first live DVD — Talk to the Hand: Live in Michigan. The show, recorded in June of this year at the DTE Energy Music Theater in Clarkson, Michigan, is Barenaked Ladies at its best. It not only highlights fifteen of the boys’ melodious quirk-pop tunes — including hits “One Week,” “Be My Yoko Ono” and “If I had $1,000,000” — but also includes the surprises, impromptu joking around and improvisational antics that have earned BNL an enormous and devoted following throughout the 19 years of their existence. Devout fans will dig the DVD extras as well, which include some backstage storytelling, the sound check featuring “Angry People” and a photomontage of the show.
10 Questions for the Dalai Lama
Written & Directed by Rick Ray (monterey movie company)
thedalailamamovie.com
Rick Ray lives the dream. He’s made a career of traveling to far-flung locations, capturing fascinating people and cultures on film, and pondering their differences or — more often — their fundamental similarities.
In his latest effort, Ray takes questions that have arisen over the course of his many journeys and goes in search of one particular person, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to find some answers. The result is a detailed, well rounded and, at times, beautiful portrait of one of the most prominent, tireless and beloved peace advocates of the past century.
Much of the film cuts between stunning shots of the northern Himalayan mountainscape; the villages and monasteries therein; Dharmasala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile; rare footage of the Dalai Lama as a young boy; as well as Mao’s China during the cultural revolution, before and during the 1949 invasion and subsequent destruction of Tibet.
With these images, Ray assembles the story of how this once-mischievous boy from a poor Tibetan family came to be the ubiquitous Dalai Lama we know today — the grinning leader-in-exile, the political and spiritual icon, the unwavering advocate for peace, the avid reader and tinkerer and, as the man himself so often reminds his admirers — the simple human being.
As striking as some of these images may be, Ray’s footage of his forty-five minute personal audience with the Dalai Lama — during which, he was instructed that he could ask only ten questions — is priceless. The intensity of the man’s attention, his presence, is palpable, even through the filters of lens and screen.
The ten questions Ray asks are big and important, if not terribly surprising.
“Should a society abandon its traditions in order to progress?”
“Why are poor people always smiling?”
“Does there come a point when nonviolence should be abandoned for the greater good?”
The Dalai Lama handles each question with both the delicacy of a diplomat and the bluntness of a man who has nothing to lose. In doing so, His Holiness reveals himself as the compassionate, wise, deliberating, and funny human that he is.
Toward the film’s conclusion, Ray explains that China is, cynically, doing its best to usurp the process by which Tibetans traditionally find the next Dalai Lama. When the 72-year old passes away, the loss might mean much more for the world than just the end of another great man’s life. This lends a feeling of somberness to the film, but also serves as a great reminder. For as any decent Buddhist knows, attachment and a desire for things to be different from how they are is the root cause of suffering; precisely what the Dalai Lama has been trying to teach all along. — Eric Larson
MUSIC
Global Drum Project
Mickey Hart & Zakir Hussain (Shout! Factory)
Before these two outstanding drummers met in 1972, the idea of global percussion was relegated, mostly, to single-culture “world music” albums (and often field recordings). Hart learned the rhythmic patterns of India from Hussain’s father, Alla Rakha, and integrated them into the music of the Grateful Dead. But it was his excursions with Hussain that defined the possibilities of true global percussion. Thirty-plus years later, these two musicians have released what might be their most expansive and well-produced collaboration. The successfully uptempo beats and finger-perfect precision of Hussain’s tabla make “Under One Groove” one of the record’s dancier songs. But for the most part, they lay back in the cut with meditative grooves that allow the listener space and distance to slip inside. When invited into the crawling “Kaluli Groove,” which features a brilliantly tempered guitar and the stunning “Heartspace,” you enter, feel engaged, and leave renewed. — Derek Beres
The Killion Floor
Orgone (Ubiquity)
One of the most ironic consequences of technology has been the reversion to vintage. Artists like Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones seek out crinkly, dusty R&B/soul, much like Wu-Tang and other hip-hoppers tinkered with in the past. California is a current hotbed, and LA-based Orgone mingles Afrobeat with their muddy — yet, damn clean — funk and soul. Hijacking former Dakah hip-hop orchestra frontwoman Fanny Franklin was a smart move — she rivals Jones in intensity and demeanor. “Do Your Thing” is a lush, creeping throwback to some serious Aretha. Every note she touches drips with sensuality — even when the beat heats up, as with “Who Knows Who.” In the various instrumentals, the supporting players shine in their varied and dexterous roles. If Fela released on Motown, you would have had Orgone. Good thing we have them now. — D.B.