Discussion of Men's Adventure Magazines
Weasels Ripped My Flesh! Two-Fisted Stories From Men's Adventure Magazines. Editors Robert Deis, Josh Allen Friedman, Wyatt Doyle. New Texture, 2013. 436 pages.
As Co-Editor Wyatt Doyle writes in the forward, "If you want to know where a society's head was at, dig thorough their stuff." If you want know where American men's heads were at in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, check out the Men's Adventure magazines that were popular during the day. They were sort of like comic books for adult men or a continuation of the action-packed, and a little seedy, dime novels popular in the late 1800s. Looked down on as low-brow and slightly pornographic, these magazines published crime, fantasy, sci-fi, and war stories, often written under pen names by writers who would become famous novelists, with titillating and graphic illustrations aimed at males yearning for adventure. Doyle continues, " The magazines were entertainment, first and foremost, diversion without pretension. They were impulse buys, aimed well south of the brain for the softer targets of gut and groin. Cheap, lurid, and sensational."
Weasels is the first collection edited by Deis, Friedman, and Doyle in the Men's Adventure Library. (Check out the website https://www.menspulpmags.com/) They've collected a representative sample of stories including ravenous packs of wild animals, Nazi experimentation, jungle escapes, crime, war, etc. Totally politically incorrect on many levels because they are sensationalized versions of their time, but entertaining and revealing.
Author talk
Backroads of Paradise: A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida. Cathy Salustri. University Press of Florida, 2017. 256 pages.
As part of the New Deal in the 1930s, the federal government extended paychecks to writers, artists, actors, and other creative professionals by employing them in various cultural pursuits. The Federal Writers Project hired writers to submit historical and cultural stories that have proven to be invaluable to later historians, the well-known slave narrative interviews, for example. In Florida, writers plunged into the largely undeveloped state of the time and submitted accounts of 22 driving tours, exploring the small towns and natural wonders of the state. These stories, written anonymously by writers including Zora Neale Hurston and Stetson Kennedy, were collected and published as a guidebook to the state that was largely unknown and unfathomable to most other Americans (still is). The guidebook became a time capsule of sorts as the interstate system and the tourism industry transformed these small towns and the Florida of the 1930s forever. Some of the towns stagnated and even disappeared, wilderness was leveled, and ways of life and industries like cattle and citrus started the decline which continues today.
A few years ago, journalist Cathy Salustri was inspired by the guidebook to recreate the road trips and to compare the two Floridas. She traveled roughly 5,000 miles, and her book becomes a new guidebook, inviting the readers off the interstates and away from the strip mall-, car wash-, and storage unit-filled, traffic-congested homogeneity that Florida is becoming.
Author talk
Homage: Recipes and Stories From an Amish Soul Food Kitchen. Chris Scott. Chronicle Books, 2022. 272 pages.
I love food and cooking and the huge role food plays in culture and history. If you had told me that one of the greatest books I've seen about soul food in the past couple of years was about AMISH SOUL FOOD, I would have called you crazy. But here it is, and it's a great addition to my cookbooks.
Chef Chris Scott is a former competitor on "Top Chef" and a successful restaurateur, and his book is a really personal history of his family history, the African Diaspora, and the Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish immigrant experience. His formerly enslaved ancestors left the South after the Civil War and settled in Pennsylvania Dutch territory, and they blended their African, southern, soul food with the Amish traditions of their new home. That's how food and culture work, always blending and evolving. And why shouldn't these seemingly distinctive foodways blend? What is soul food but food that takes you home to family, traditions, and history and comforts you? So every culture has its own version of soul food. Scott grew up with both soul food traditions, and he makes it his mission to prepare and serve food that showcases all of the elements of his background.
The book has great stories, absolutely beautiful photos - some of the best photography I've seen in recent cookbooks, and delicious recipes that I look forward to trying soon.
Audiobook Preview
The Rumor Game: A Novel. Thomas Mullen. Minotaur Books, 2024. 368 pages.
You may know Thomas Mullen from his Darktown series, novels about the first black members of the Atlanta Police Department and the barriers they faced. He's back, and he's switched things up. Instead of the pervasive and overwhelming racism of 1950s Atlanta, Mullen's new novel takes on the pervasive and overwhelming racism of World War II Boston. But wait there's more: Boston is not just incredibly racist, it's also a city of pervasive ethnic and religious hatred, affecting everything and everyone.
The Rumor Game has all the hallmarks of a new series. The two protagonists are Irish Catholic FBI Agent Devon Mulvey, a rakish rule-breaking, impetuous young agent who has to fight anti-Irish and anti-Catholic discrimination within the Agency, and Anne Lemire, a young half-Catholic and half-Jewish reporter, part Lois Lane and part Nancy Drew. Mulvey's job is to keep an eye out for cases of industrial espionage or sabotage that might harm the US war effort. Lemire's job is to fact-check the plethora of war-related rumors and gossip items that swirl around the city and which are also dangerous to the war effort. After bumping into each other for the first time since junior high school days in the old neighborhood, they find themselves embroiled in a major plot involving counterfeiting, racist hate-spreading, and insurrectionist conspiracies, and their loved ones are also in the mix.
The characters are interesting, and the story is good. If it is the beginning of a new series for Mullen, I'll go along for the ride.
Crash Course "The Mughal Empire"
The Moghul. Thomas Hoover. Public Domain. Kindle, Legare Street Press, 2023. 560 pages.
Are you enthralled by the current remake of James Clavell's Shogun? When the original miniseries aired in September 1980, I was a high school freshman, and it quickly became one of my greatest TV memories. I read the 1975 novel on which it was based, and it became a favorite. I began reading all of the other Clavell books. Author Thomas Hoover had read the Clavell book also, and said to his literary agent "Why don't I do a Shogun novel set in India? " The Moghul was originally published at about the same time the original Shogun series hit TV screens. (The Moghul also received the TV series treatment, in two other countries, not the U.S.) A friend recently suggested Moghul, and it's free on Amazon Kindle, so why not?
There are many similarities. Both books are set in approximately the same time, early 17th century. The leading character in both books is an English seaman (pilot in Shogun, captain in Mogul) leading a mission to a thoroughly foreign and strange place to initiate trade. Both men have to deal with evil and corrupt Portuguese priests and merchants who will do anything to preserve their commercial and spiritual monopolies. Both men find themselves embroiled in extremely complicated political struggles, plots, and civil wars that weaken Japan and India. Both men find forbidden love with native women. Both men are seen and treated as barbarians by their hosts, but they witness horribly bloody actions that make their hosts barbarians in their eyes.
The Moghul was entertaining but falls far short of Clavell's work. I found myself skimming a lot, partly because Clavell did it so much better and partly because Hoover's intricate and elaborate political and economic explanations were too complicated and boring for me. I don't remember Shogun being that hard too follow (But I was a high school freshman, so, of course, I was much smarter then.). As far as I can tell, and as much as he explained in his notes, Hoover did do a good bit of research, so the historical glimpse of Moghul (Mughal) India was interesting. Overall, I give the book a 3 out of 5.
Famous Recipes from Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House in Historic Savannah.
Mrs. Wilkes' Boardinghouse Cookbook.
Why did it take me so long? I grew up knowing about Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House. I knew she and her husband were from my hometown, and her husband may have been related to me --- my maternal great, great grandmother was a Wilkes. Mrs. Sema Wilkes took over the Savannah Georgia boarding house, already up and running for decades, in the 1940s, providing rooms and meals to railroad men and other travelers. It's still run by the family, with her granddaughter there most days. I knew that people lined up to eat old-fashioned southern food there, and that it is one of the most famous restaurants in the city. Yet, I had never eaten there until this past February, because of the long lines, schedules not working out, and maybe fear of being disappointed. It turned out to be one of the greatest meals of my life, hands down, and, offhand, I can't think of any other restaurant that has lived up to its own reputation as well.
The restaurant is only open on weekdays, for lunch only. People start lining up at 10 AM or earlier, and there are no reservations. We waited an hour and a half in line, something that I have never done before, for any restaurant. Usually, if I hear 30 minute wait or longer, I leave. At 11 AM, they start seating groups of 10 or so strangers at large tables. The tables are filled with 20 or more bowls of food including fried chicken, roast beef, peas, beans, greens, rutabagas, potato salad, corn, biscuits, cornbread, etc. Each one is different. Then, you and your newfound friends start passing the bowls around, and the staff swiftly replaces the bowls as they empty. Everything was amazing, and continuing the family style-ness, you are expected to clear your own dishes when you leave the table.
As soon as we got home, I ordered copies of two of the books published featuring Mrs. Wilkes' story and recipes. If you're interested in southern food, these are great additions to your collection.
author lecture
Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream. Gregg Jones. NAL, 2012. 464 pages.
The Spanish-American War was called "a splendid little war" by Secretary of State John Hay. It was launched in 1898 from Tampa Florida; a half hour from my house. Within six months, American forces had defeated the cruel and vicious colonial oppressors, the Spanish, liberated the oppressed peoples of Cuba and the Philippines, and acquired overseas possessions which would increase American prestige and economic clout. Americans had unified in a common effort, helping to heal festering wounds of the Civil War, and (comparatively speaking) few Americans had died. (The majority of those that did died of disease and bad canned meat, not enemy fire. For flag-waving politicians and industrialist robber barons, it seemed indeed to be "splendid."
Then, lo and behold, reality set in. Those ungrateful little oppressed heathens did not possess the common sense to be thankful for swapping Spanish oppressors for American benefactors offering progress, education, civilization, and salvation, that only Americans could bestow. Whaaaaaatttt? How dare they? The Filipinos launched a new war for independence which was much less splendid. American troops were forced by the ungrateful savages into a protracted jungle guerilla war which brought a few thousand more American deaths and tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of Filipino deaths, committing horrible atrocities against men, women, and children along the way.
Jones' book is a through account of the Spanish-American and Filipino Wars, America's giant leap into imperialism, and the anti-imperialist movement. It's a worthy companion read to Stanley Karnow's book about the Filipino War, In Our Image.
