Boob Jubilee The Cultural Politics of the New Economy
For a magazine dedicated to debunking the nation's business culture, the final years of the twentieth century overflowed with bounty. "It was the most spectacular outbreak of mass delirium that we are likely to see in our lifetimes," wrote the editors of The Baffler. What was for others the dawn of a "New Economy" was for The Baffler a cornucopia of absurdity the costliest political and financial hustle in living memory. Reporting from places far from the white-hot centers of the libertarian revolution, Baffler writers were the people of whom it was fashionable to say they just don't get it. While New Democrats turned somersaults for Wall Street and economic commentary became puffery, these bold, talented, and very funny writers observed the crescendo of folly with which the century turned. Here their best writings are selected, updated, and reaffirmed, to sharpen our wits and inoculate us against follies yet to come.
Business & EconomicsEconomic ConditionsInvestments & SecuritiesReferenceHumorTopic
RELEASED2003
PUBLISHERW. W. Norton & Company
LENGTH404
LANGUAGEEN
Studs Terkel was born Louis Terkel in New York on May 16, 1912. The family moved to Chicago in 1922 and opened a rooming house. From 1926 to 1936 they ran another rooming house, the Wells-Grand Hotel at Wells Street and Grand Avenue. Terkel credited his knowledge of the world to the tenants who gathered in the lobby of the hotel and the people who congregated in nearby Bughouse Square a meeting place for workers, labor organizers, dissidents, the unemployed, and religious fanatics of many persuasions. Terkel attended University of Chicago and received a law degree in 1934. After a brief stint with the civil service in Washington D.C., he returned to Chicago and worked with the WPA Writers Project in the radio division. After a year in the Air Force, he returned to writing radio shows and ads. In 1944, he landed his own show on WENR. This was called the Wax Museum show that allowed him to express his own personality and play recordings he liked from folk music, opera, jazz, or blues. A year later he had his own television show called Stud's Place and started asking people the kind of questions that marked his later work as an interviewer. In 1952 Terkel began working for WFMT, first with the "Studs Terkel Almanac" and the "Studs Terkel Show," primarily to play music. The interviewing came along by accident. This later became the award-winning, "The Studs Terkel Program." His first book, Giants of Jazz, was published in 1956. Ten years later his first book of oral history interviews, Division Street: America, came out. It was followed by a succession of oral history books on the 1930s Depression, World War Two, race relations, working, the American dream, and aging. His last oral history book, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith, was published in 2001. Late into his life Terkel continued to interview people, work on his books, and make public appearances. He was the first Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Chicago Historical Society. His last book, P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening was released in November 2008. --From Studsterkel.org
Boob Jubilee The Cultural Politics of the New Economy
by Thomas Frank, David Mulcahey
For a magazine dedicated to debunking the nation's business culture, the final years of the twentieth century overflowed with bounty. "It was the most spectacular outbreak of mass delirium that we are likely to see in our lifetimes," wrote the editors of The Baffler. What was for others the dawn of a "New Economy" was for The Baffler a cornucopia of absurdity the costliest political and financial hustle in living memory. Reporting from places far from the white-hot centers of the libertarian revolution, Baffler writers were the people of whom it was fashionable to say they just don't get it. While New Democrats turned somersaults for Wall Street and economic commentary became puffery, these bold, talented, and very funny writers observed the crescendo of folly with which the century turned. Here their best writings are selected, updated, and reaffirmed, to sharpen our wits and inoculate us against follies yet to come.
Business & EconomicsEconomic ConditionsInvestments & SecuritiesReferenceHumorTopicBusiness & ProfessionalPolitical Science
RELEASED2003
PUBLISHERW. W. Norton & Company
LENGTH404
LANGUAGEEN
Studs Terkel was born Louis Terkel in New York on May 16, 1912. The family moved to Chicago in 1922 and opened a rooming house. From 1926 to 1936 they ran another rooming house, the Wells-Grand Hotel at Wells Street and Grand Avenue. Terkel credited his knowledge of the world to the tenants who gathered in the lobby of the hotel and the people who congregated in nearby Bughouse Square a meeting place for workers, labor organizers, dissidents, the unemployed, and religious fanatics of many persuasions. Terkel attended University of Chicago and received a law degree in 1934. After a brief stint with the civil service in Washington D.C., he returned to Chicago and worked with the WPA Writers Project in the radio division. After a year in the Air Force, he returned to writing radio shows and ads. In 1944, he landed his own show on WENR. This was called the Wax Museum show that allowed him to express his own personality and play recordings he liked from folk music, opera, jazz, or blues. A year later he had his own television show called Stud's Place and started asking people the kind of questions that marked his later work as an interviewer. In 1952 Terkel began working for WFMT, first with the "Studs Terkel Almanac" and the "Studs Terkel Show," primarily to play music. The interviewing came along by accident. This later became the award-winning, "The Studs Terkel Program." His first book, Giants of Jazz, was published in 1956. Ten years later his first book of oral history interviews, Division Street: America, came out. It was followed by a succession of oral history books on the 1930s Depression, World War Two, race relations, working, the American dream, and aging. His last oral history book, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith, was published in 2001. Late into his life Terkel continued to interview people, work on his books, and make public appearances. He was the first Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Chicago Historical Society. His last book, P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening was released in November 2008. --From Studsterkel.org
