The Rogovoy Report 3.25.24

From around the corner to around the globe...

Mar 25, 2024

The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers

(New Yorker) by Adam Gopnik - The historian Timothy W. Ryback’s choice to make his new book, “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” (Knopf), an aggressively specific chronicle of a single year, 1932, seems a wise, even an inspired one. Ryback details, week by week, day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, how a country with a functional, if flawed, democratic machinery handed absolute power over to someone who could never claim a majority in an actual election and whom the entire conservative political class regarded as a chaotic clown with a violent following. Ryback shows how major players thought they could find some ulterior advantage in managing him. Each was sure that, after the passing of a brief storm cloud, so obviously overloaded that it had to expend itself, they would emerge in possession of power. The corporate bosses thought that, if you looked past the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you had someone who would protect your money. Communist ideologues thought that, if you peered deeply enough into the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you could spy the pattern of a popular revolution. The decent right thought that he was too obviously deranged to remain in power long, and the decent left, tempered by earlier fights against different enemies, thought that, if they forcibly stuck to the rule of law, then the law would somehow by itself entrap a lawless leader. In a now familiar paradox, the rational forces stuck to magical thinking, while the irrational ones were more logical, parsing the brute equations of power. And so the storm never passed. In a way, it still has not.

FASCIST TAKEOVER WATCH:

Far from a kink, Donald Trump’s dictator fetish puts him squarely in the mainstream (The Nation)

There are four postelection scenarios, and not one is good (TNR)

Trump’s latest rage-rant reveals a major political weakness (TNR)

Documents shed light on shadowy US far-right fraternal order (The Guardian)

Why Trump won’t stop suing the media and losing (The Atlantic)

Republicans who do not regularly watch Fox are less likely to back Trump (NYT)

With and Without Raspberries, Eric Carmen, Who Died at Age 74, Was a Power-Pop Pioneer

(Forward) by Seth Rogovoy - Eric Carmen, who died in his sleep earlier this month at age 74, was best known as the frontman for the early-1970s group Raspberries and as a hitmaking solo artist after the band split in 1975. With Raspberries, Carmen is widely credited with helping have pioneered a new subgenre of rock music called “power pop,” along with contemporaries including Todd Rundgren, Badfinger, and Big Star. Power pop revived several elements of the best 1960s rock, including Beach Boys-style harmonies, Beatlesque hooks, and the “maximum R&B” guitar-based approach of the Who and the Rolling Stones. Raspberries added a few unique twists to these influences, including Carmen’s expressive, near-operatic tenor vocals (at times reminiscent of Paul McCartney), complex chord changes, and the significant use of piano and saxophone in their arrangements. Early hits by the group, including “Go All the Way,” “Let’s Pretend,” and “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” exemplified their new approach.

Penny Arcade dissects cultural conformity in one-woman show at Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill, N.Y. (Everything Is Broken)

Witnessing the power of the human body through dance: A new season at Jacob’s Pillow (Berkshire Edge)

At WCMA, 7 artists reflect on the Emancipation Proclamation and the lasting legacy of enslavement (Berkshire Eagle)

Troy Savings Bank Music Hall plans $14 million expansion (ATU)

The Local brings world-renowned musicians to Saugerties (Daily Freeman)

For great musicals, New York’s Public Theater is the room where it happens, by Ed Siegel (WBUR)

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NEWS FROM THE BERKSHIRES

People stood in the line in the early morning to secure tickets to Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass. (photo Lauren Lancaster/NYT)

In Frigid Early Spring, Lining Up for a Rite of Summer in the Berkshires

(NYT) LENOX, Mass. - The temperature was 25 degrees at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, with wind-whipped flurries in the air, as Gary Soldati pulled his pickup truck into the parking lot at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s outdoor concert venue in the Berkshires. Four hours remained before tickets for the summer season went on sale. Even in the wintry darkness, Soldati, 72, of West Stockbridge, could see he was the first one there. Now all he had to do was wait: for the box office to open at 10 — and then for summer to begin. According to the calendar, it was the first day of spring. But in New England, it would be weeks before the air turned reliably balmy. In the meantime, residents were clinging to signs that the cold would eventually retreat: a stray crocus in the yard. An extra hour of daylight. The annual unlocking of the Tanglewood box office. By late June, the town of 5,000 will be crowded with visitors from New England and beyond, many of whom could not fathom summer without Tanglewood and its open-air concerts.

READ MORE:

Union workers, management remain at loggerheads as MASS MoCA strike continues (WAMC)

Lee officials: New lawsuit against GE, Monsanto proves companies knew dangers of PCBs as early as 1972 (WAMC)

Castle Street firehouse renovated; Mahaiwe to lease first floor (Berkshire Edge)

Mahaiwe will be first tenant of old Castle Street firehouse in Great Barrington (Berkshire Eagle)

Attorney representing cannabis companies suing Great Barrington for $6 million explains case (WAMC)

Amazon billionaire MacKenzie Scott gives $2 million to CATA (B Eagle)

Former Berkshirite and Cox heir ‘Fergie’ Chambers, a recent convert to Islam, now fomenting revolution in Atlanta from new home in Tunisia (Mother Jones)

Feds put Olde Heritage Tavern on market after seizing it from former crypto exec Ryan Salame (B Eagle)

Ramsdell Library showing its age, library trustees asking town meeting voters, state for funds (Berkshire Edge)

NEWS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

Inside Kasuri — The Hidden Avant Garde Fashion Boutique in Hudson

(Vogue) HUDSON, N.Y. - Painterly Vivienne Westwood corsets, Yohji Yamamoto caps, glittering Noir Kei Ninomiya dresses, and bulbous Comme des Garçons creations. These final looks from the labels’ notoriously intriguing runway shows in Paris are just a few of the things you might find at Kasuri — a boutique in Hudson celebrating 10 years of business in 2024. Layla Kalin, who originally helmed her own small fashion label open for one-off commissions, founded the boutique in 2014 alongside Jonathan Osofsky, then a recent graduate of the Division of Arts at Bard College. The two shared a love for all things avant-garde and Japanese fashion, and when their paths crossed, the rest was history.

READ MORE:

As EPA prepares Hudson River report, NYS lawmakers and advocates say cleanup not complete (WAMC)

Kingston Mayor Steve Noble on ruling upholding city’s rent regulations (WAMC)

Hudson’s beloved Cascades restaurant reopening as food truck (HV360)

Big Towel Spa reauthorized for Oakdale Lake, Hudson waterfront (HV360)

Proposed Stockport Dollar General causes concerns (HV360)

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