Word: milieu
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...known that one of the first books about the war in Afghanistan came from a cartoonist. Ted Rall's "To Afghanistan and Back" (NBM Publishing; 112pp.; $15.95) describes itself as a "graphic travelogue" but belongs in the milieu of war-torn foreign correspondence trail blazed by Joe Sacco's "Palestine" and "Safe Area Gorazde." Unlike those carefully rendered books, however, Rall's has come out quick and dirty, like a dispatch from the front lines of an on-going war. Rall, a syndicated political cartoonist whose weekly "Search and Destroy" appears in alterna-papers, felt the only way to discover...
...observation that the tops of the Billboard charts are filled with music that blends different popular styles (No Doubt, Linkin Park), while rock's rebel fringe (The Strokes, The White Stripes) has gone retro, inspired by ancient garage rock and punk. Sanneh allows that in many cases the latter milieu cuts better albums. But the story also seems to equate the mix-and-match stylistic approach of the popular bands with innovation and originality, and the apparent purism of the fringe with originality's opposite. Of Linkin Park, Sanneh writes...
...their singer, Julian Casablancas, writes songs infused with nostalgia for the Television album that played during his conception? His songs suggest he knows his late-'70s New York punk bands backward and forwards, but a distinctive voice emerges in every one, one that reflects the been-there-done-that milieu of early '00s Manhattan prep school youth rather than the conspicuously aggravated, dope-addled CBGBs crowd of twenty-five years ago. My guess is The Strokes would sooner die than hold forth with a Patti Smith-style poetry-reading-over-extended-jam-session, a jazzy, Tom Verlaine guitar solo...
...This was an inside job - a story that could have been written only by a press agent. In the early 40s, Lehman had ground out flackery for the noted press agent Irving Hoffman, who was close to Winchell. A-brim with fascination-repulsion for the Broadway milieu, Lehman wrote a long story about a columnist and a press agent. He sold it to Cosmopolitan. But before the issue hit the stands, Hoffman was leaked (what else?) the story and felt betrayed, not just for himself but what he saw as calumny toward the powerful columnist. To Lehman, the complaint must...
Extremist centers like Finsbury Park and radical groups like the British-based Al-Muhajiroun may provide the milieu, Ranstorp says, "but these talent spotters and handlers are the really worrisome parts of al-Qaeda. They can tap into new recruits and dispatch them as well. Unless we get them, we're not making any inroads." Though Britain has some new anti-terrorism laws, there is no sign yet of apprehending or even identifying them...