History Repeating is a new feature here at Piffany! A semi-regular, or perhaps regular, column examining just how much time exists on a flat circle (perhaps a record album?!) as the old ways and means and just plain mean become new once more.
But first, a happy theme song for the occasion! Hit it, Shirley Bassey and Propellerheads!
Today is 11/12/21. Nice palindrome, if you forget it’s 2021, or that the rest of the world puts the day before the month, or that our calendar feels pretty arbitrary when placed in context with the age of the Earth, or our actual time upon it. Or that it’s not even a palindrome as I typed it! Anyhow. What have we got this week that feels like an old, old weak week coming back to haunt us?
It’s A Small Astroworld After All
Too soon? At least nine people have died, with many more injured and/or traumatized, from a massive crowd surge that crushed and trampled upon each other last Friday night to see Travis Scott perform at his “Astroworld” music festival at NRG Park. While everyone involved — in putting on the event, providing security for it, promoting the conditions and/or not doing enough to prevent the disastrous conditions — while everyone involved points fingers at one another and sternly announces a thorough investigation, all I thought about was The Who general admission tragedy in Cincinnati in 1979. You might have your own tragic reference point, precisely because this kind of tragedy has happened before, sadly will probably happen again. One generation’s “fire” in a crowded theater begets another generation’s “fire sale” on Black Friday. For me, though, I immediately thought back to how one of my favorite sitcoms growing up, WKRP in Cincinnati, dealt with a real-life tragedy on its fictional turf. Not quite falling turkeys, but a seminal sitcom moment, all the same.
The “In Concert” episode aired Feb. 11, 1980, just two months after 11 fans died in the crowd-rush at The Who concert in Cincinnati on Dec. 3, 1979. Steven Kampmann wrote the episode. In lighter fun-fact news, Kampmann later co-starred on Newhart, and co-wrote the screenplays to Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School, as well as Clifford (not the Big Red Dog version, but rather, the infamous Marty Short plays an obnoxious weird kid movie!).
We’re Back To Banning Books, Again?!
Are we really doing this again? In America? First they came for “Critical Race Theory” in our public schools, despite the fact that our public schools weren’t teaching that in the first place. Now they’re coming for the books in the school libraries. Again.
Whereas a lot of these arguments happen at the local level at school board meetings, it’s Texas where we find everything getting a lot bigger.
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a letter to the executive director of the state’s Association of School Boards last week that parents have the right to “shield their children from obscene content in schools” and public schools shouldn’t provide “pornographic or obscene material” to students.
The letter did not provide any specific examples of such content.
A Republican state representative in Texas, however, has come up with a big ol’ list of books that are too DANGEROUS for our kids to read.
https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/94fee7ff93eff9609f141433e41f8ae1/krausebooklist.pdf
16 pages!!! Single-spaced, even, in a small font size. And most of these titles are just covering books published since 1990?
I guess these folks got the wrong idea from Banned Books Week, sponsored by the American Library Association.
If it’s any consolation to those of us who actually enjoy freedom, the courts historically side with the book-writers and book-providers over the book-banners. Also, this from my friend Sara Benincasa, whose 2014 book “Great” reimagined “The Great Gatsby” made this year’s list of suggested books to ban in Texas:
You tell us, Sara!
Please, Give It Up For The Troops!(?)
Yesterday was Veterans Day in the United States, or Remembrance Day as European-leaning nations call it, honoring our fellows who served in the military, and timed to the end of World War I on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. 11:11 on 11/11!
Over there, they call it Remembrance Day because they’re remembering those who died in battle. Over here, we call it Veterans Day to include recognition for the surviving veterans of foreign wars.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, we’ve heard “support the troops” countless times in America, and yet, 20 years later, how well are we actually supporting the troops? Especially when they come home? You know the answer, even if you don’t want to acknowledge it. We’re failing our troops.
“Veterans Need Help Becoming Civilians Again,” an essay published yesterday by Daniel Gade, co-author of “Wounding Warriors: How Bad Policy Is Making Veterans Sicker and Poorer,” is behind a WSJ paywall.
But my friend Benari Poulten, an Iraq War veteran and former producer on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, has a Tweet for all to see. And a comic book tale from his service in this compilation graphic novel, “True War Stories.” Check it out!
OK. That’s enough history repeating itself this week. Let’s go out with a banger! Encore!
Outstanding writing and research.