Alisa Soloman

It’s important to understand how the right is thinking and organizing, so first I’d recommend such astonishing documents as the Luntz memo, spelling out Republican strategies for language and issue-framing, and the pro-business strategy set forth by Lewis Powell in 1971 that has shaped Republican policy since.

Then, some good progressive analyses of the current state of affairs, such as Thomas Frank’s What’s Wrong with Kansas?, Esther Kaplan’s With God on Their Side and George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant.

After such informative, analytical – but let’s face it, depressing – reading, take a look at some alternative approaches, such as Jeffrey Sach’s The End of Poverty and the practice of solidarity economy.

And some random recommendations of things that have inspired me lately:

For a genuinely radical idea of how art intervenes in scientific and political spheres, stretching the boundaries of those spheres, as well as those of art, read the mind-blowing material by the Critical Art Ensemble, such as Molecular Invasion.

Doing some preparation for an upcoming trip to Vietnam, I just read Marilyn Young’s compelling history, The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990, in which she notes, “After a decade of intense engagement in Indochina, the categories of America’s understanding of the Third World remained pristine of historical experience. The abstract mythological model, applicable to any nation, upon which United States policy based itself, reflected not so much ignorance of the history, culture and society of others as indifference. This in turn reflected American history, culture and society, which had always denied that traditions or social constraints had to matter. The United States and created itself and it could help other nations to do the same.” Déjà vu all over again.

Musically, I’ve been excited by a few things lately: a relatively new club in Chelsea that is low-key, of course smoke-free, and that books a range of world music and ethno-experimentation; the tropicalismo of 1960s Brazil (both for its smooth sounds and for its ideas); a CD of songs of the Lodz Ghetto by the band Brave Old World.

Visually, I was thrilled recently to find an amazing website chronicling the 1913 Armory Show.

Finally, I am looking forward with great eagerness to Ariane Mnouchkine and the Theatre du Soleil’s arrival in New York in late July with their Odysseus at the Lincoln Center Festival.

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