THE
GREAT BRAIN SUCK:
And
Other American
Epiphanies
by
Eugene
Halton
University of Chicago Press, 2008
To
purchase, click:
University
of Chicago Press
From
The University of Chicago Press book description:
More and more information is pumped into our
media-saturated world every day, yet
Americans seem to know less and
less.
In a
society where who you are is defined by what you buy, and
where we
prefer to experience reality by watching it on TV,
Eugene Halton
argues something has clearly gone wrong.
Luckily Halton, with scalpel-sharp wit in one hand and the balm
of wisdom in the other, is here to operate on the
declining body politic. His initial diagnosis is bleak:
fast food and too
much time spent sitting, whether in our cars or on our
couches, are
ruining our bodies, while our minds are weakened by the
proliferation of electronic devices—TVs, computers,
cell phones, iPods, video games—and their alienating
effects. If we are losing the
battle between autonomy and automation,
he asks, how can our culture regain self-sufficiency?
Halton finds the answer in the inspiring
visions—deeply rooted in American
culture—of an organic and more spontaneous
life at the heart of the work of master craftsman Wharton
Esherick, legendary
blues singer Muddy Waters, urban critic Lewis
Mumford, and artist Maya Lin, among others.
A scathing and original jeremiad against modern materialism, The
Great Brain Suck is also a series of epiphanies of
a
simpler but more profound life.
Here is a review by Andrew S. Hughes: Halton
Unclogs 'Great Brain Suck'
and one by Carol C. Bradley: The Great
Brain Suck: A Virtual Life or a Real Life
Listen to Halton on WCUR Kansas City's The
Walt Bodine Show: Walt
Bodine Show Archives, January 8, 2009
Listen to Halton speaking at the Kansas City Public
Library: Kansas
City Public Library, January 8, 2009
And here are: Additional
photos, music, and info to
the book
********************************************
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1. The Great Brain Suck
2. Out of the Fifties
3. Go Man Go
4. The Hunter-Gatherers’ World’s Fair
5. Life, Literature, and Sociology in Turn-of-the
Century Chicago
6. Communicating Democracy: Or Shine, Perishing
Republic
7. Lem’s Master’s Voice
8. An American Epiphany in Nashville
9. The House on Mount Misery
10. The Art and Craft of Home
11. Europiphanies
12. The Last Days of Lewis Mumford
13. Teleparodies
14. His One Leg
Eugene Halton
photo by Gemma Halton
