Word: trow
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Despite his occasionally limiting editorializing, Trow does provide here a fine piece of the kind of journalism which shows how vapid some of the powerful and famous actually are. In a way, it is a fun spectacle. Phonies slither around and ooze grease so much that the essay borders on parody. The only celebrity to come out with any integrity is, interestingly, Keith Richards. Predictably frazzled at parties, Richards walks around suggesting ideas like an end to exorbitant concert ticket prices by having the oil companies pick up the tab. The oil companies have a lot of money, he reasons...
...argument has problems. In the way Trow constructs it, it admits no middle ground. Everything appears contaminated and bleak, and Trow makes no allowance for anything redeeming in American culture. In the concept of consensus, Trow has hit on one of the key underpinnings of the culture. But he has not hit on everything, and his presentation--in the form of a series of block notes ranging in length from epigrams to miniature essays strung together into the longer essay--suffers from being overly polemical...
More important, however, Trow fails to delve any deeper into the causes of the emptiness of popular culture. Loneliness, after all, has always existed, but talk shows haven't. Trow's sole explanation, which consists of his pointing a finger at the marketplace and calling it a "con," is facile. Certainly, popular culture has its moguls and manipulators who know how to supply the required "comfort," even how to mold the public yearning for it. Yet one must wonder if the success of the transaction, the apparent (if usually silent) satisfaction of the consumers, does not suggest a widespread desire...
...SECOND ESSAY of Within the Context of No Context, represents Trow's attempt to illustrate some of the conclusions he reached in the first title essay. In it he profiles Ahmet Ertegun, founder and president of Atlantic Records, one of the truly powerful musical taste-makers in rock and R&B, and a quintessentially beautiful person. Trow does a capable job of portraying Ertegun and his set and depicting the rise of someone of Ertegun's entrepreneurial ilk. But Trow falls short when he ladles the commentary and the terminology of the first essay onto Ertegun and company. Undoubtedly...
...Trow's second essay does succeed in getting the reader to shake his head in bewilderment. Yes, it is embarrassing if the height of the social season occurs when Bianca Jagger rides through a Studio 54 party on a white horse led a naked man and woman. And it is ludicrous when geriatric fashion priestess Diana Vreeland comments, "The thing about Bianca is the patrician quality." Trow puts together a good piece of debunking journalism. One only wishes he had not confined it in the thinking of his first essay, and let the sillinessof his subjects speak more for itself...