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A review by rebus
The Big Book of the 70's by Jonathan Vankin
4.25
A delightful account of my late childhood and early adolescent years, the art is top notch as always, and the only thing I didn't recall from that time period was meat shortages and the attendant price gouging (which clearly led to it becoming one of the most subsidized products in human history). It still amazes me to this day that someone as evil as Kissinger became a hero and sex symbol in the eyes of so many (though he was right that the moderately bright think more of themselves than they should, while the truly brilliant realize brilliance means nothing). It's probably an incorrect interpretation to say that he cunningly seized control of foreign affairs, when it was really Nixon's alcoholism and incompetence that created the power vacuum that allowed him to do so. It's wildly incorrect to suggest that Sly and the Family Stone invented funk, when James Brown beat them to it by more than a decade.
Sadly, we've seen our society become the Brady 50s world that was supposed to be the 70s. The current culture may be far more bland. It's also not true that the 70s were the first decade where language came from TV, as my parents and grandparents both--as I would later learn from seeing both old films and TV from their generation--used language that they got from TV. Early visual media was never a perfect reflection of society, though some of it was of course influenced by local slang from large cities, which was later adopted by people at the further reaches of dense population centers.
I especially loved seeing the Chuck Barris story--a great book I read in the late 80s--done by one of my all time faves in Rick Geary, enjoyed the Marvin Barnes tale and want to explore it further, and was utterly delighted to find that the bland, boring, bar band Springsteen was truly one of the first of the hugely manufactured stars of the rock era.
Sadly, we've seen our society become the Brady 50s world that was supposed to be the 70s. The current culture may be far more bland. It's also not true that the 70s were the first decade where language came from TV, as my parents and grandparents both--as I would later learn from seeing both old films and TV from their generation--used language that they got from TV. Early visual media was never a perfect reflection of society, though some of it was of course influenced by local slang from large cities, which was later adopted by people at the further reaches of dense population centers.
I especially loved seeing the Chuck Barris story--a great book I read in the late 80s--done by one of my all time faves in Rick Geary, enjoyed the Marvin Barnes tale and want to explore it further, and was utterly delighted to find that the bland, boring, bar band Springsteen was truly one of the first of the hugely manufactured stars of the rock era.