The Creative Destruction of New York City

    From the outset, Dr. Alessandro Busa derides long commutes to work, and shows obvious disgust for tiny rooms. One thing that makes up for it in New York City is the people. To him, tiny rooms are fine as long as he can sit on the fire escape or stoop and watch all the people walking by. His reason for leaving Germany and coming to NYC is to do a degree at Columbia, so I can see how his commute – from Chinatown to Morningside Heights – is either an adventure or a chore. I don’t know how our city’s subway compares to that of Berlin (I’ve never visited) but I know it’s worse than Chicago.

   In the first chapter, Dr. Busa researches how Harlem transformed overnight into a place for the rich (or at least the ones who were not rich enough for the West Village) and how the new stores – Gap, Old Navy, Starbucks, Wholefoods – were of little benefit to those who were already there. Marcus Samuelson’s Red Rooster – discussed heavily in his autobiography Yes Chef – doesn’t really do much for Harlem and probably never will. I find it unlikely that Samuelson would’ve enjoyed Harlem in the 1990’s when he first came over; the kind of people with the money to eat at the Red Rooster did not live there at the time.

    For research, Dr. Busa interviews random Harem residents and he finds some very disturbing experiences. Long- time residents – who lived there during the rough times – are forced out of their apartments and end up in the Bronx. The new arrivals ignore the Mom & Pop restaurants, which end up closing. I personally experienced this on the Upper West Side; the cheaper supermarket had to close because the new residents, with more money to spend, wanted “organic” foods. Back in 2005, I had one meal – and not a good one – at a Harlem diner when I was working up there, and all the customers were middle aged Black men. The food was typical diner grub, and I doubt that someone with more money – even if they wanted a fry-up for breakfast – would want to eat there. McDonald’s has been displacing these diners for years. As for the diner’s atmosphere, it was a very gritty one, and wouldn’t have much appeal for a Columbia Professor. Maybe the problems that Dr. Busa discusses are the same problems seen in all US cities?

    I don’t know if the author read the book Home Girl by Judith Maitloff, who, ironically, was an adjunct at Columbia, where he studied. She bought a Harlem townhouse in 1999, back when it was undesirable except for the price, and she did in fact eat at local places, mainly from the lack of choice. The older Black residents, who refused to flee during the rough ages, welcomed her in. But these weren’t the people in rent-controlled apartments; they were owners of the buildings, and very gentile. They had no interest in the people who were “struggling,” and they were proud of themselves for succeeding on their own merits. They were happy to see a White family moving in. After all, wasn’t theirs a great neighborhood?

    Here’s where Busa puts the blame. First, you had racism, because banks wouldn’t lend to Black home buyers or builders. Then you had Redlining, a practice where the banks – on the advice of Federal research studies – declared Black neighborhoods to be too poor and criminal for mortgages. Then came heroin, crack, and more crime. He points out an interesting fact with regard to credit, using the Apollo Theater as an example. The building was shuttered in 1983, when it was bought by a company owned by Percy Sutton, the Manhattan Borough President. Sutton was an established Black businessman, with lots of connections in banking and in the city government, so credit wasn’t a problem for him. The author cites this as an example of how it takes an established corporation to make positive change, but this is not unique to Harlem. 1983 was a difficult time to get a bank loan, and few banks would loan money to refurbish a building. The book Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street, is all about how another run-down neighborhood, in this case Soho, needed bank loans. The borrowers who fixed up the Soho lofts were all White, and many of them had good credit, but the banks still wanted huge guarantees. Refurbishing a building, whether commercial or residential, is loan-dependent, and the white-collar bankers are more likely to deal with their own kind. Grass-roots projects don’t do well with bankers.

    Mayor Kotch tried to auction off the city-foreclosed buildings in Harlem, but that failed, because banks wouldn’t risk financing a project in blighted 80’s Harlem. The author doesn’t mention the Homesteader program of the 1980’s, which did in fact work, primarily because very little financing was needed. The homesteaders fixed up the buildings with their own bare hands, often waiting months before having hot (or even running) water. I also disagree with Busa’s attitude towards the media’s portrayal of Harlem. It’s true that the 1970’s were all about Blaxploitation movies and crime, but the more positive 1980’s portrayal of Harlem is just a myth. If Harlem was a good place to be, why did not only the Whites, but also middle-class Blacks, avoid it? The Studio Museum, Sylvia’s, The Schomberg Center, The Apollo Theater, and all the other tourist attractions were just a façade in a neighborhood that was unsafe at night. The John Sayles movie Brother From Another Planet didn’t show all of the extreme misery in the community.

   In each chapter, the author shows how it’s the capital investment that makes all the difference. Whoever can get the bank to lend hi money is the one who will get his way. We see in the first chapter how banks wouldn’t lend money to Black landlords, which led to blight, and (though not mentioned in this book) the artist-owned Soho lofts were all the result of banks that did loan money. The old Rivington House on the Lower East Side, once a nursing home, was changed to condos for the same reason; the owner got his hands on the $16million fee to change the deed. The elderly residents ended up scattered to other hospices.

    I disagree with the author’s attitude that everyone is losing. Rent-controlled tenants are very hard to kick out, as seen in the Stuyvesant Town debacle, and the big businesses with their big money ended up bankrupt, while the Stuyvesant Town residents were left warm and comfortable. Rent control tenants who lose in the end are the ones who (a) don’t pay the rent on time, (b) illegally sublet their apartments, and (c) have kids living with them who are a nuisance to the other tenants. The city had the chance to make adjustments to rent control, but every attempt caused an uproar. Few rent-controlled apartments were lost to eviction.

    The next disagreement that I have with the author is the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the so-called historic districts. A lot of the old buildings are crumbling and unsustainable, like the old Tammany Hall building. Never mind that it was old, it was built with stolen money by the thieving Boss Tweed, and the only good thing about it is the pretty stonework. It couldn’t be demolished, so it had to have commercial tenants who could pay the huge rent. It was too small to have lots of low-rent tenants, an wasn’t zoned as a residence, so in the end, the building was pretty much useless. Dr. Busa is so irritated by the lack of affordable housing, but it would break his heart for Tammany Hall to be replaced by an eight-story apartment house. His chapter on “The Rezoning that Killed Coney Island” is all wrong, because Coney Island was a dump for years. All seaside resorts in the USA suffered after the 1950’s, not just Coney Island but also Atlantic City (NJ) and Venice Beach (CA) which lost revenue too. The amusement venues, only profitable in the summer, weren’t enough to keep things going. What does the author expect the owners to do? Hold on to an unprofitable building just for the nostalgia? Brighton Beach was nothing until the Ukrainians moved in, and they’re probably more interested in good housing than an old façade. He waxes nostalgia on the Coney Island Ballroom and the old arcade, but who cares? I visited in 2008, and it was a decaying old wreck. The old Playland, destroyed by fire years earlier, was no a weeded lot. Across the Hudson River, Long Branch had burned in the 80’s, and was derelict until housing was built in 2005. Today it’s completely revamped, survived Hurricane Sandy, and nobody feels nostalgic because nobody remembers!

   The author could benefit from a little more research. Soho is a great example of activism preserving a neighborhood, and there are many in Harlem who have found ways to avoid displacement. He could also benefit from reading Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal; I know it’s an arrogant tome, but it does have valid points about the problem with rent-control and how Mayor Koch’s well-meaning plans didn’t work. As for the old 42^nd Street, gone and replaced by glass office blocks, I have few good memories. The old “Deuce” which entertains with the nostalgic TV drama was of no benefit to the city. Little tax revenue was ever gained, and it was a great place for the mob to launder money.

    He places a lot of the blame on Mayor Bloomberg and his re-zoning laws, but he ignores the fact that a lot of old buildings were barely habitable. While he laments the loss of the “creative types” he ignores (or doesn’t know about) how 30 years ago, the “creative” people were mostly single with no kids, and they left the city when they did have kids. Dr. Busa wasn’t here in 1988, when it wasn’t so good. At the time, few educated Europeans wanted to live in New York. John Lennon’s move to Manhattan was very unusual at the time. The area where he moved to (the Upper West Side) was NOT safe at all, and I know because my parents lived there at the same time he did. You couldn’t go out at night, and even in the daytime you had to be on your guard. Indeed, our city has lost many of the things that made it whole, but at the same time, some buildings are just not meant to last.

     You can’t survive on ideals, nor on nostalgia. It’s true that the old-time residents get screwed by gentrification, and that it wrong. But in every chapter of this book, I see what I’ve long believed; you have to be prepared for the future, and no neighborhood lasts forever. Time waits for no man.

Start Here: A Roadmap to Reducing Mass Incarceration

   Berman and Alder compare the US incarceration policies unfavorably to those of Asia and Europe. According to their sources (mostly from policy institutes) there are 3000 prisoners in Norway’s prisons and 50,000 detainees in the LA County Jail. There are obvious reasons; Norway has no teen pregnancies and they never had a crack epidemic. On the flip side, my research shows that there are a lot of Norwegians who should be in prison, but thanks to Norway’s liberal pacifism, they aren’t.

   The authors provide examples of programs that can keep people out of jail, while at the same time reducing the crime that sends them there. For starters, there’s Brownsville, Brooklyn, an area that deserves its terrible reputation, where the programs are seeking to change the local norms. Efforts are made to discourage the cult of easily avenged honor and violent revenge, which was the subject of the 1995 book All God’s Children. Do young people know that shooting someone over an insult is not allowed? Do they understand that they’re setting themselves up for 15 years in prison if they do it? Then there are nonprofit organizations like Harlem Children’s Zone, which tries to keep kids off the streets (at least until they’re 18) by providing activities. It has a program called The Baby College, which teaches parenting skills as a way to discourage neglect and child abuse.

    One of the problems with poor communities (not just Black areas of Brooklyn, but also White ones like Southie) is that the parents handle meagre annoyances with mean looks, yells, and smacks. Those that read the recent memoir Hillbilly Elegy will see how the idea of “parenting through intimidation” is a problem in Appalachia, and it teaches children to handle everything through aggression. While spanking kids may have been the norm in the old days, most experts now agree that it only teaches “might makes right” and leads to kids handling problems the same way. I’ve had Black kids ask me why the White parents work so hard to discipline their kids (talking to them, time-outs, withholding privileges) while Black parents just slap the kid. My response is always “What are you going to do when the kid is too big to slap? What are you going to do if he’s bigger than the parent and slaps back?” These are the problems that Harlem Children’s Zone (among others) tries to address. They form a “bottoms-up” effort that focuses on the children, because they are the most susceptible to influences.

    Money is another problem in reducing mass incarceration. If a stupid kid punches a store clerk and gets a $250 fine and probation, what happens if the parent has no money? What happens f the kid lives in a foster home and nobody supervises him? He’ll start a long cycle of jail, and learn none of the life skills he needs for independent living. Similar problems were discussed in another recent nonfiction book titled On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, where Philadelphia’s poor are constantly evading police, thanks to unpaid fines and open warrants.

    A recent documentary on Wyoming’s one and only men’s prison shows the connection between crime and local norms. Given the tiny population of Wyoming, it makes sense for them to have only one prison. Out of the prison’s entire population, there’s one Black American (how many Black Americans are there in Wyoming?) and a lot of Native Americans, and I wonder if, at an earlier time, their crimes might have been part of tribal warfare? One of the prisoners, a man with a distinct Native American accent, looks like he has FAS, which might explain his lack of self-control. If so, then the reservations might benefit from the type of social program mentioned in this book, at least if they want to discourage alcoholism. Then there’s the geography angle; as long as Wyoming remains way out west, I doubt things will get worse, because not a lot of people migrate there. However, the shale gas drilling business is increasing in the area, and if thousands of men migrate there for work, then there will be trouble. You’ll have all the problems of a town with a large ratio of men-to-women; drinking, prostitution, gambling, and crime. More arrests will follow, and that will mean another prison.

Inside Private Prisons by Lauren-Brooke Eisen

    I, personally, don’t like the idea of private prisons. I think they’re an excuse to pawn off government responsibility to people who aren’t qualified. They of the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby gets appointed (not elected) to be the school hall monitor and proceeds to play policeman. We had the same thing when I was in grade school, and it annoyed me silly for a whole bunch of reasons. First, I wasn’t going to take orders from a little kid, and second, why would the principal appoint a little kid to rat out other kids? Isn’t it the principal’s job to take care of discipline? I see a similar thing happen in a lot of wealthy families; the parents hire someone else to make their children behave, usually a nanny from Latin American or the West Indies. All over the USA, parents are subcontracting their duties to other people, and now the same thing is happening with government service. What happens if the government subcontracts law enforcement and prisons? Will it be effective, or will the lunatics run the asylum? Private prisons (henceforth referred to as PP) are increasing in the USA, and this book explores their use, importance, and their prospects for the future.

    In the book’s introduction, Reik Raemusch becomes head of corrections for the state of Colorado and tries out the solitary confinement cell. It’s horrible, he goes crazy after 23 hours, and he wants to end the practice. Next, the author cites experienced correction officers who dislike private prison, for reasons that include mass incarceration or the possibility of mass layoffs. Eastern State Penitentiary is also discussed here, because for many years the prison used solitude and prohibited speech. The program made the prisoners worse, with no chance of living a crime-free life on the outside. Then the War on Drugs tripled the number of prisoners, and the prison systems were on the lookout for a cheap solution (just like the parents looking for a quick fix.)

   Eisen points out some benefits to privatization, like the homeowner associations who take responsibility for their block, and that has benefits. Privatization happens in the legal profession too, where lawyers can hire a judge to settle the case quickly and split the fee. I’ve also seen Air National Guard bases that hire private security because there aren’t enough full-time personnel. In the business of logistics, you can use the USPS or pay for fast shipping with UPS, FedEx, or DHL. But what happens when the government hires a private company to manage a prison? It’s one thing to hire contractors to maintain police cars and handle the repairs, but here we’re talking about privatizing public safety.

    Several chapters of this book are devoted to the profit motive (known as the Prison Industrial Complex), where an entire town may depend on prison jobs. We have “prison products” like special pens that can’t be used to stab, or the toilets that don’t have seats, or showers that run on timers. One of the reasons for the huge profits in the PP is that they can hire the unqualified and pay them less (even felons). Phone companies can charge prisoners four times the usual rate, and PP can even charge visitors for the security checks, parking, and package screening. The prison commissary can charge huge markups for the junk food and toiletries, and since the prisoners can be paid less than minimum wage, local businesses can profit too. All the while, the correction officers in the private prisons make a crap wage. They can be recruited from all the applicants who were rejected by the state’s corrections department. More common in the Midwest, thanks to industry loss – also covered in this book – having a prison in the town means money;  jobs in corrections, more business for local food suppliers, visiting relatives staying at local motels, and you can charge them for parking. The future is bright for the operators; private prisons are now being used as immigrant detention centers.

    I expect private prisons to increase, unless state legislatures vote against them. Ever since the early 80’s, you’ve had industries shutting down and whole towns out of work. It’s hard to attract technology to your town when you lack skilled people, and prisons don’t require much in the way of skill. Training a correction officer is easier than training a police officer, and far easier than training a technician. As for the issues like fair wages, unionization, and civil rights, there are plenty of job-desperate red states whose politicians couldn’t care less.

Street Warrior: The True Story of the NYPD's Most Decorated Detective

   

Ralph Friedman holds the record number of combat awards for a NYC cop for two reasons; the South Bronx of the 1970’s was a war zone, and Friedman was nuts. During his wild career as an undercover drug cop he jumps across rooftops, jumps out windows, gets dragged by cars, and has daily gun battles with armed suspects. Starting his post-high-school life as a trucker and finding it boring (no argument there) he opts for the NYPD. Now before we go further, let me warn you (as all other cop memoirs will) that in the early 1970’s, nobody, absolutely nobody, wanted to be a NYC cop! The issue wasn’t the pay (schoolteachers didn’t make much either) or the hours (lots of jobs require night shifts) but the hazards. Cops were getting shot all the time, and the Black Liberation Army was using cops for target practice. Cars full of off-duty cops were following the radio cars, armed with semi-automatic rifles. For Friedman, the attraction was the fighting.

    Street Warrior gives an account of not only the violence of the NYPD in the Bronx, but also the way collars and booking were done. Cops who wanted to get into the detectives or get promoted needed lots of collars, and that could only be done according to convenience. Friedman had an advantage of working in the Bronx over Manhattan; there was less auto traffic and the courts were faster. You could grab a perp on the street, drive him back to the station in ten minutes, book him, be back out on the street in half an hour, and make more arrests. The next morning you drive to court, testify, and be back on the street by lunchtime and make more arrests. On the one occasion that he has to go to Manhattan’s courts, he gets stuck in traffic all day. He’s like “how the hell did the Manhattan cops make more than one collar a week, when the traffic took all day and the courts took all week?” He has a greater dislike for Manhattan traffic than he does for the injuries he gets.

    Unlike a lot of the self-serving cop memoirs, Friedman admits to failed cases, particularly one with the Fraunce’s Tavern bombing.  He gets a tip from a drug dealing informer about the bombers, but just as they’re about to go into a wedding venue to identify the suspect, the dealer brags that he has a gun. Goodbye to the whole operation, it now has to be called off! Friedman regrets it all to this day, it would’ve been the one chance that anyone had of catching the bombers.  

    It seems like it’s not that hard to become a detective when you work in narcotics. Most of Friedman’s work involves stalking around the neighborhood in scruffy clothes, with plenty of shooting and punching.  I imagine that being a homicide detective would involve a lot more patience; knocking on every door, checking dozens of numbers, spending cold nights in a car and watching for a suspect who might, just might, come out of a building. Those who read The French Connection know that the famous drug bust involved spending nights in hotel lobbies, fueled by coffee and dirty water hot dogs, waiting for the suspect to exit the hotel. One word – boring! But Friedman’s career is a lot more exciting and has a lot less of the waiting. In 1970’s South Bronx, you could find an armed thief every ten paces.

    Would I have wanted to be a cop in NYC in the 1970’s? The answer is yes! What other jobs were there anyway? My mother hated being a teacher in private Jewish schools (those people didn’t need any help) and wouldn’t dare teach in the public schools (might as well be a cop, no?) . Then there was my father’s career in Chase Manhattan Plaza, and I doubt he liked the long commute or the expensive suits he had to pay for (this was back in the day when the subway had no air conditioning.) If you’re a cop, you can wear what you like to work, get free parking space, change into your uniform when you get to work, and best of all, get an instant gun-carry license. The gun license was no small asset in 1970’s NYC.

    Friedman’s co-writer is Patrick Picarelli, the same writer who did Jimmy the Wags, another NYC cop memoir that I thoroughly enjoyed. The storytelling is straightforward, nobody tries to wax poetic or put on airs. But I won’t say that I like Ralph Friedman, and I won’t call him brave or tough. Anybody can shoot, kick, and punch, especially if they’re empowered to do it legally. Given, not everyone wants to risk getting shot but this guy wasn’t married and he had no kids, so it wasn’t like he had anything to worry about. I also doubt that anything the police did at the time made much of a difference, if the South Bronx was as hopeless as he portrays it. Still, it’s a fun read, and gives an uncompromising story of policing in the 1970’s.

Un-Standardizing Curriculum

    Un-Standardizing Curriculum was originally published 20 years ago, a time when some districts began a conflicting series of order to teach arts to the kids, while at the same time enforcing a fixed curriculum of math and English. Social studies, gym, and others would have to be worked in somehow. Both authors were classroom teachers, and both saw the results of saddling the teachers with an impossible curriculum; the students lose all motivation and classroom management becomes impossible.

    In the first chapter the authors discuss the benefits of a standardized curriculum and the need to include the students’ identities. Judith  Carmona says she was held back a grade when she immigrated to the USA (a standard practice for non-English-speaking students) and that none of the teachers spoke or understood Spanish. However, thanks to her own efforts, she eventually got into a humanities program for gifted students, where much of the learning was self-reflective. Christine Sleeter, however, had it a little better growing up; her father was a doctor, and her teachers encouraged the students to engage in greater discussions of what they read. Now here was have the gap in learning; for some students, what they learn at school means nothing at home, and it can be even harder to teach low-income students and/or minorities. I also have to wonder if the self-reflective seminar type of learning is any good students in Japan or China, where learning is often done by rote.

    In the second chapter, the authors discuss the teacher’s belief about knowledge and how that can either advance or hold back the learning. They give an example of a 4^th graders studying Native American mythology and customs (kind of like what I did in 4^th grade) which the teacher hopes will encourage balanced understanding. She will assume that the students will gain respect for Native American culture (and by culture, I mean the combination of religion, lore, language, and economy) and help end racist views. But is she glossing things? The students learn about the people, but what about the abuse they suffered? Do they learn how the Anglos slaughtered the buffalo as a means to control the Sioux and Blackfoot? Do they learn how the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Seminole were forcibly relocated? Do they learn why the towns of Nassau and Suffolk counties have Native American names, but the tribes are mysteriously no longer there? Do they learn how the tribes of the Northeast were all murdered? In the end, the teacher’s effort at cultural inclusion is more like “we’re so bloody nice because we learn about it,” yet the students don’t know how bad the tribes have it today.

    After reading this book, I have to wonder if the cultural biases can effect all subjects, not just English and social studies. Mathematics is all about numbers, not people, but what about the illustrations? If the math book for 3^rd graders uses photos of White children only, what does that tell the kids who are not? Will they get the message that they don’t count? If it uses the example of mom and dad + three children = five people in the family, what does that mean to a kid with only one parents? Even if you are racially inclusive, watch out for photos in the illustration. How many kids in the photos are overweight, have braces, crooked teeth, Down’s Syndrome, etc.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

    I often wondered how a parvenu like Princess Diana, a woman with no education, could become such a beloved icon. I also wondered how Steve Jobs, one 1/3 of the brain behind Apple Inc, could be seen as a genius rather than a guru. The answer, according to Maxwell, is in the influence. He shows how leadership is based on a combination of persona, talent, work, ambition, and foresight. Many of our notions of leadership are, according to him, nothing but myth, and he proceeds to shatter them.

     Maxwell uses real-life examples of famous leaders, like Teddy Roosevelt, who went from being a sickly asthmatic child to all-American boxer, lawyer, naturalist, cowboy, soldier, politician, etc. Then there’s Abraham Lincoln, who succeeded at first, then failed miserably; he entered the Black Hawk War as a captain, screwed up, and left the war as a private. Maxwell believes that Lincoln could have done well as a captain, but he was not ready for the job. What he needed was to start at the bottom, learn the needed skills, and work his way up. What the author implies, though doesn’t state directly, is that Roosevelt’s education won him the respect of the upper classes, while his ranching in the Dakotas won him the respect of the lower classes. His muckraking against government corruption was risky for a politician (and still is) but his reputation as a boxer made people give him a wide berth. It brings to mind Vladimir Putin, with his (staged) judo matches and riding his (drugged) bears, followed by riding his horse shirtless in the cold. Yes, it’s likely that he grabs his coat as soon as the photographers leave, but his manipulation of his image is what gets him support.

    The chapter that resonates the most with me is The law of Navigation, where the author uses the example of Robert F. Scott. The story is tragic; Captain Scott took his men to reach the South Pole, a Norwegian beat him to it, and Scott’s entire crew died on the way home. Now before I go any further, let me warn you that I went to middle school in the UK, and we were taught that Scott was a heroic explorer. The young and old believe that he was a brave, upstanding adventurer, who remained a gentleman to the end, even as he froze to death. But today, the gentleman navy officer, full of resolve while he froze to death, is known as a bungler. He planned the wrong route, took the wrong clothes, and used the wrong transportation. Not mentioned in the book is that he dismissed the advice of his subordinate that the ponies were no good. This is an issue that the author brings forth later, when he allows a church member to lead, but only after making the needs of the church known. True leaders are willing to listen, and they accept the expertise of others. It’s a better strategy than saying “I’m in charge, just listen to me.”

    John C. Maxwell doesn’t pull any punches when discussing the skills and personality needed for leadership. He goes through the many factors that can make or break a leader – character, skills, work ethic, personality – and how famous leaders used them.

All the Answers

    The tragedy of the former child star is a story often retold, on talk shows, tabloids, documentaries on MTV. However, what makes this book different is that the former child star is not an actor, but a genius mathematician; one of the “Wiz Kids,” who wowed radio audiences in the days before television. The child prodigy genius, be he a mathematician, scientist, or writer, usually turns out okay in the end (for some reason you don’t see as much drug use among the mathematicians.) But in All the Answers, we’re faced with two questions about the lives of the child prodigy genius’ upbringing and adult life. First, does the kid really know everything, or is he a coached actor? Second, does all the attention he receives in childhood curse him in adulthood?

    Michael Kupperman’s father was once the star genius of a long-running (and long-forgotten) kid’s show. Anyone born during the Baby Boom or after won’t remember it, and I myself hadn’t heard of it until I read this book. My research shows that reporters tracked them down over the years; most of them did well in adulthood, one was on the skids, and one wrote a book about it. As for the elder Kupperman, he never speaks of it, but as his dementia worsens, his son is desperate for more information. Why won’t the old man talk about it?

    The Wiz Kids were the cast of a radio show, where they’d be asked extra hard math questions. The prize was just $75 a week (not bad in 1942), and the elder Kupperman says that it was in fact an act; he was coached beforehand, and his mother was the ultimate stage mom. Not that he holds any grudges, by the way, since the family was poor and they needed the money. As for the story’s place in history, there are several undercurrents; for one thing, WWII was a time when America needed role models, even if they were children, and it was important for Jewish media moguls to show how patriotic their people were. Jewish boxers weren’t seen as role models (it may have had to do with a prejudice against the working classes) so why not let the “smart Jew” stereotype dominate?

    The author gives an unusual retelling of his relationship with his father, the child prodigy math genius turned obscure college professor. It was as though he was told “do as you please, because you can only learn from your mistakes.” Growing up, he gets busted for shoplifting, gets kicked out of school, gets into mischief, and all the while his college professor father doesn’t get mad. He tells his boy “I don’t want you to be a successful child, just a successful adult.” As for the father’s career, she chooses to teach in a college in some remote part of Connecticut. Clearly the guy is an intellectual, but doesn’t want any pressure or attention. The last time the elder Kupperman goes on the airwaves is a short stint on The $64,000 Question, and yes, according to him, it was rigged. He wasn’t supplied with answers, but the producers were careful to ask only the kind of things that he knew. He testifies to it before Congress, and fortunately, it doesn’t hurt his career. Or does it? Maybe that’s why he ends up teaching at a less-prestigious college.

    The artwork isn’t especially exciting, it’s mostly plain black and white drawings, with none of the intensity of Maus or Persepolis. But maybe it’s the kind of artwork that this story needs? Much of it takes place in the Baby Boom, and that was a boring era. Everyone had settled down into their homes in Levittown, into the cult of domesticity and conformity. Still, there is a slight deficit to the artwork, in that it doesn’t illustrate the time and place of the story, which would be distinguished by clothing styles, hairstyles, décor, etc. We’ve seen how shows like The Wonder Years, Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire made effective use of period details, and it’s lacking in All the Answers.

    Those who are unfamiliar with US history may not know about the Baby Boom era, a time when children were being indulged more than ever (blame it on Dr. Spock) and there was a push for more science education (blame it on Sputnik.) They’ll also be unfamiliar with The $64,000 Question (even if they saw the movie Quiz Show, which is not well-known in Europe.) Something tells me, this book will mean a lot more to people with an interest in American life. It shows the pitfalls in the obsession with success.