With no Wifi, I had plenty of time in Maine to catch up on some reading, and finished two books I’ve been nibbling at for awhile.

Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequality by Lawrence M Eppard et al, with an Afterword by Noam Chomsky; Lehigh University Press, 2020.

The US has a poverty rate, significantly higher than many European countries, despite being the wealthiest country in the world. Why? This book proposes that it is due largely to the underlying American belief in “rugged individualism” combined with entrenched racism–so deeply entrenched that most people are unconscious and unaware of it.

The authors distill a vast number of sociological research studies looking at the root causes of American poverty, as well as extensive survey data, and their own interviews with people representing two different demographics, to reach their conclusions. It’s an impressive and essential read if you want to explore why the American Dream has become more myth than reality for most Americans.

However, note that the book is an academic work replete with footnotes and a lengthy bibliography, and it is undeniably expensive ($115 hardcover or $98 Kindle, on Amazon!) but definitely worth the effort.

Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, by Robert Walser, Wesleyan University Press, 2nd ed., 2014

About Van Halen, Walser writes, “Eruption…[is] a violinist’s precise and showy technique inflected by the vocal rhetoric of the blues and rock and roll irreverence…Van Halen’s guitar playing displays an unprecedented fluidity, due to his skillful use of string bending, two handed tapping, and his deft touch on the vibrato (or “whammy”) bar.” Eruption is the solo that transformed rock guitar, when it was released in 1978. Check out this astounding video.

Walser is a musicologist and professor of music on the faculty of Case Western Reserve University, and he takes the deep dive into the technical details of the music, as well as looking at the issues of gender and some of “myths” about metal. If you are a musician, you’ll find this book fascinating as it includes transcriptions of various guitar solos, and detailed breakdowns of classic metal songs.

First published in 1993, the book focuses on classic metal and the founders of the genre. My only complaint is that the 2014 edition provided little update, discussing nothing from the 2000s. nevertheless, the book opened my eyes–or rather, my ears–to the classical influences, especially Bach and Vivaldi, on metal music.