New & Novel: History of Punk

What is punk? Simply put, a music genre with a heyday in the 1970s, but also, culturally, an anti-establishment movement rooted in freedom of expression.  A lot of people have embraced punk, from fashion designer Vivienne Westwood to musician Billie Joe Armstrong to actor Noomi Rapace.  Musicians like Robert Smith, Kurt Cobain, Jack White, Beth Ditto, Florence Welch, Sufjan Stevens,and Moby have all talked about the impact punk played on their lives. Here's a few quotes from some of the major players of punk in an attempt to encapsulate the movement:

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom not to be successful, freedom to be who you are.  It's freedom.
~Patti Smith

Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.
~Henry Rollins

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s.
~Jello Biafra

People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse.  It allowed us to be aggressive.
~Siouxsie Sioux

To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am.'
~Joey Ramone

I never wanted to go back and relive the glory days; I just wanted to keep moving forward. That's what I took from punk.  Keep moving.  Don't look back.
~Paul Simonon

We recently saw an internet meme that showed a picture of punk rockers Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins (as they look today) with the caption "Punk rock is not dead. It is, however, graying, balding, and going to bed at a much more reasonable hour..." With that on our minds, and the recent memoirs published by Patti Smith (M Train) and Carrie Brownstein (Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl) in the library catalog, and with a little help from the folks at Book Riot, we thought it might be a good time to revisit the history of one of our favorite genres. Here's some items dealing with history of punk from the library catalog:


From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History For a Post-Punk World by Clinton Heylin [eBook]

Girl In a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes; Music, Music, Music; Boys, Boys, Boys: A Memoir by Viv Albertine

Punk: The Whole Story edited by Mark Blake

Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds  [eBook]

Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone by Marky Ramone with Richard Herschlag

Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol

Anger Is an Energy: My Life Uncensored by John Lydon

Punk by Stephen Colegrave & Chris Sullivan

The Punk Rock Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay  [eBook]

Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1977-1981 by Liz Worth [eBook]

Punk Rock, So What?: The Cultural Legacy of Punk edited by Roger Sabin [eBook]

Punk Rock: An Oral History by John Robb [eBook]

For Kids 

The Story of Punk and Indie by Matt Anniss (J)

DVDs

The Punk Singer: A Documentary Film About Kathleen Hanna 

Punk Revolution NYC

The Decline of Western Civilization Collection 
(See the Penelope Spheeris' "crucial, compelling statement of the most significant and influential youth movement and musical transformation of the past 3 decades" at The Guild Cinema November 20-21!)

We Are the Best!


For more punk, try a subject search of "Punk rock musicians" or "Punk culture". You can even find some fiction with punk rock themes, like Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, I Am China by Xiaolu Guo, The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway, Tyler McMahon's How the Mistakes Were Made, The Predictions by Bianca Zander, and The Listeners by Leni Zumas.

The Darker Side of Art History

Sometimes you just need a little scandal to give your day that frisson of excitement. The art world is no stranger to scandal - art history is full of it! The art world has often been rocked by radical ideas (for instance, the 1913 Armory Show), forgery, theft, censorship, and the like. In early August, we were reading about scientists re-testing the authenticity of Belgium's iconic bronze statue, the Manneken Pis - a centuries-old statue that has "been pinched, rediscovered and replicated so many times that historians say they have lost track of the original." Also this year, the film Woman in Gold was released - the compelling story of an elderly Jewish woman's battle to retrieve family possessions seized by the Nazis. 

We are fascinated by the twists and turns of art history's litany of forgeries, heists, mysteries, looting, and scandal. We've compiled a list of some materials from the library catalog that we hope will help explain our fascination, and perhaps even pique your own interest.

Books 

The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World by Anthony M. Amore

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo 

Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World's Greatest Art Heist by Stephen Kurkjian

The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick

The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Edward Dolnick

Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft by Simon Houpt

Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World by Sharon Waxman

The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr

Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis [eBook]

Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece by Noah Charney 

Stolen, Smuggled, Sold: On the Hunt for Cultural Treasures by Nancy Moses

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter 


DVDs 

The Rape of Europa

Mona Lisa Is Missing: The True Story of the Man Who Stole the Masterpiece

The Art of the Steal 

Art and Craft
 

Links

5 Scandals that Rocked Art [Neatorama]

10 Scandalous Artists from History [HuffPost]

Are Art Forgers Scoundrels, or Merely Deluded Enthusiasts? [Vulture]

The 5 Best Museum Heists in History [Time]

Who Was Maria Altmann? The Real Story Behind 'Woman in Gold' [Biography] 
 

Off the Derech

For memoir lovers, there is yet another genre to enjoy: Ex-Frum Memoirs. A wave of ex-Hasidic writers have emerged to share their personal stories of life after leaving the insular world of Hasidism. For members leaving these communities, the challenges include insufficient education, language barriers, and crushing custody and divorce battles.

The first memoir I was introduced to was Leah Vincent's memoir, Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood. This riveting memoir was impossible to put down, so I simply gave up and read it in a single sitting. Vincent details her life as a rabbi's daughter in the ultra-Orthodox Yeshivish community and the events that propelled her into the secular world, where she pursued a master's degree at Harvard. Vincent doesn't shirk from sharing her family's heartless rejection, the following years of isolation, and psychological torment that included self-injury and sexual exploitation . However, this is also a testament of perseverance and realness, when conformity isn't an option. Leah Vincent also became a member and board member of the non-profit Footsteps, a non-profit dedicated to helping men and women "Step Off the Derech" (path). 

The next set of compelling memoirs I discovered were Deborah Feldman's memoirs. Feldman was raised by her grandparents in the Satmar Hasidic dynasty, after her mother left and her disabled father was unable to care for her. Feldman poignantly conveys her sense of isolation and longing through her reminiscences of childhood literature, the reading of which was a borderline subversive act in her community. The breaking point for Feldman came in an arranged marriage and a tightening vise of expectations and restrictions. Following the birth of her son, Feldman courageously left her community with her son and managed to do something that most women in her position are unable to do; retain custody of her child and obtain a divorce. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection Of My Hasidic Roots, details her self-actualization through education, free-thinking, and the chutzpah to be herself. Her follow up memoir Exodus, is a refreshing and liberating reading experience that allows us to follow her on a pilgrimage of self-discovery and travels through Europe, where she pays homage to her beloved grandmother by visiting her village in rural Hungary. 

Shulem Deen is the founder and editor of the blog Unpious, and author of the outstanding memoir, All Who Go Do Not Return, a revelation about the particular heartbreaks a man can face in the Skverer sect, where his roles as husband and father were usurped, due to his intellectual curiosity and questioning that branded him an apostate. Deen's first so-called transgressions came merely from listening to the radio, visiting a public library, reading encyclopedias and then bringing a computer and TV into his home. Deen's excerpt of his book in Salon.com "This Is How Lost My Faith: Science Helped, Yes - But Finally I Accepted the Holy Texts Were Written by Man" sums up his experience as a non-believer, who has to honor his authentic self and embark on a new path, gathering new found values along the way.

Shalom Auslander is a remarkable essayist and his fiction is bitingly funny. His memoir Foreskin's Lament recounts his rebellious upbringing in an ultra-Orthodox, exceedingly dysfunctional family. Auslander's anxious childhood concept of G-d is a temperamental, smiting, and adversarial entity. His humor is reminiscent of David Sedaris, but infused with a blistering sarcasm that readers can live vicariously through. His short stories Beware of God and novel, Hope: A Tragedy is like enjoying Woody Allen's short stories with an even sharper edge.

More books about Hasidism:

Here and There: Leaving Hasidism, Keeping My Family by Chaya Deitsch

The Religious Thought of Hasidism:Text and Commentary translated and edited by Norman Lamm

The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch by Sue Fishkoff 

Around Around Sarah's Table: Ten Hasidic Women Share Their Stories of Life, Faith, and Tradition by Rivka Zakutinsky and Yaffa Leba Gottlieb                

Jewish Wisdom: Ethical, Spiritual, and Historical Lessons From the Great Works and Thinkers by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin