Back At Ya, Maybe

Returning with a top 2021 musical artist, a new film and the usual political cartoon.

As you may have (not) noticed, I halted production of these thrice-weekly newsletters back in November while finishing another film. And, indeed, I finished the doc (see below), but then did not promptly return to Substack. Why? There was still plenty of news and politics to report or mock, cool music to promote, cartoons to present. Well, there was the matter of few subscribers seemingly disappointed that this newsletter was suddenly missing from their mailbox—or at least few asked me why. In any event, I will give this another shot and perhaps you could comment more than in the past, or pass along to friends to subscribe.

First, a musical offering. As I noted way back in the spring, before it was trendy, Dan Knobler, the son of Peter Knobler—my friend and colleague at Zygote and Crawdaddy for almost an entire decade (1970-1979)—produced and plays guitars on the first solo album by Allison Russell. It was hardly high-profile at the start but got nice notices. As the year went on it drew more attention (championed by Brandi Carlile and others) and, lo and behold, has ended up on—and often at top of—critics’ “Best of 2021” lists and earned three Grammy nods. So here is just one of its many excellent cuts and new video—Dan on guitar in far right background—plus live with Brandi here.

Now, here is the trailer for my new film, this time a short of 26 minutes, just completed and submitted to first film festivals two weeks ago. It is derived, but goes beyond, my award-winning1992 book, The Campaign of the Century, which not long ago was named in the Wall Street Journal as one of the five greatest books ever about an American election. It’s produced by the respected filmmaker Lyn Goldfarb (we first worked on a related film thirty years ago). I’ll say no more except those who were surprised by the major Upton Sinclair plot point in the recent David Fincher drama Mank—which I wrote about exactly one year ago for The New York Times—will be especially intrigued. Let me know what you think or request further info.

Meanwhile, my previous award-winning film from 2021, Atomic Cover-up, is now being screened at its 15th festival, this time online only and in Chicago, after appearing everywhere from Rio and Tokyo to Boston, New York City, San Diego, Portland and Honolulu. This is the “short” version (29 minutes) and it’s $5 for the entire block of shorts.

Now, my photo of Blue Heron along the Hudson in fog near sundown, Christmas Day, 2021.

And finally, the usual political cartoons. See you again soon?

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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.