Cartoons of the Week, and More
Plus: Allison Russell, John Prine & Bright Eyes, and I appear with NBC's Chuck Todd to talk "Oppenheimer," historic campaigns and music.
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including “Hiroshima in America,” “Atomic Cover-up,” and the recent award-winning “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” He has directed three documentary films since 2021 for PBS (including “Atomic Cover-up”) . You can subscribe to this newsletter for free.
A lot on the old plate today, so let’s start with a little music….
This just in: TIME picks its Person of the Year (but that poor cat).
Paste magazine just named my man Jason Isbell “artist of the year.”
As readers know, we are big and longtime fans of Allison Russell here, and she has broken through this year, with four more Grammy nods, a popular new album and tour, and even an appearance on MTV last Friday. We finally caught her live last Saturday and in quite a spot—the intimate, historic Music Room in the Rosen House at Caramoor (our nearby mini-Tanglewood) in Katonah, NY, a benefit for their arts programs, no less. On the tiny stage she could not fit her electric guitarist but her regular drummer, bassist and keyboardist all did terrific work and she sang with her usual detail and passion. Here are two song from the latest album that they performed so well. The first, “Eve Was Black,” was just picked by my old Crawdaddy colleague Jon Pareles of The New York Times as his #1 song of the year!
Next: Just out yesterday for the holiday season, a Bright Eyes cover of John Prine’s “Christmas in Prison,” with John’s lenghty narration from the original featured, proceeds to the Hello in There Foundation.
Serious note: PBS Frontline's Uvalde shooting probe this week is haunting (could have been longer than 50 minutes). Reminds us again of how assault weapons and deadly rounds have not just horrid effect on victims but also scare police so they don't take life-saving (because life-risking) action.
Next: My “other” newsletter kicked off in July a few hours after I attended a preview screening of the Oppenheimer movie in NYC, which included a panel with director Christopher Nolan, my friend Kai Bird (co-author of the source book), and three notables from fields of science. Chuck Todd of NBC hosted the panel. I’ve known Chuck a bit going back to an appearance on his 9 a.m. weekday MSNBC show (before his afternoon show and Meet the Press) when he interviewed me re: a new edition of my award-winning book on Upton Sinclair’s race for governor of California in 1934. I recently directed a film about it for PBS.
In any case: Chuck now has an NBC podcast via Apple, Pandora, Audible, Spotify etc. called The Chuck Toddcast, and I was a guest yesterday morning for a lengthy segment that touched on the Oppenheimer film, the atomic bombings, my PBS film Atomic Cover-up (watch it here) and companion book of the same title, plus: my Sinclair book, the death of Kissinger, my latest film Memorial Day Massacre, and even Crawdaddy and what music I am listening to today (among those, Allison Russell).
It’s just been posted and you can listen to the segment here via Apple. Or Spotify. Or very simply via NBC online, or any of those other places. It comprises most of the 45-minute show, starts nine minutes in, after Todd’s intro on current events from D.C.
Cartoons of the Day
Purportedly by the great Banksy:
