Marketing the Moon - David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek

If only people knew what NASA was doing!  It's possible that this great institution was shut down with the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle.  The US public are quite likely to believe that their government doesn’t support the ongoing and planned missions to the moon, Mars and, to quote Buzz Lightyear "to infinity and Beyond!" But as much as Pixar creates dreams, so did NASA - in fact it was vital - for funding, for ongoing support beyond the term of a single government and through the Korean and Vietnamese wars, the Iraq conflict and every possible distraction. 


Scott and Jurek are not space historians.  They're but rocketeer-marketeers!  In Marketing the Moon, detail the propaganda of a young space agency eager to use their public affairs office and public relations strategy to sell the \Apollo program. This was, believe it or not,  fifty years ago, when NASA, racing the Soviets to the Moon was or at least became a national past time.  

Early in their book we're affronted by marketing jargon. “We show how NASA’s Public Affairs staff, operating with a limited budget, made the most of what they had by adopting a ‘brand journalism’ and ‘content marketing’ approach to educate the public through the press and broadcast media,” or so reads the intro.   “Brand journalism”? Oh dear.  Please no!  Fortunately, the book also is a treasure trove of ephemera about the moon, from earliest trips in the mind's eye by the likes of Jules Verne, etc to the actual trips and the ongoing legacy on their return.  

While NASA wanted to tell the story of Apollo, there were limits to what it would do, part fiscal and part philosophical. “We are not buying refreshments, we are not supplying free trips,” Scheer wrote in a memo from that era; NASA was not performing “flackery.” Yet there is plenty of this because when you think of it, you're asking the public to buy in to the greatest fantasy of the day.  A question conveniently left out is the conspiratorial narrations about moon landings inHollywood studios.  Our authors will not entertain any ideas that any hoax's in fact occurs.  Armstrong's walk really happened.  No doubts.  


My favourite chapters examine a variety of other aspects of communicating the Apollo missions to the public, from the use of live television on the Apollo missions and how the television networks covered the missions, to publicity efforts before and immediately after Apollo, the latter including a fifty-state tour of the Apollo 11 command module and lunar rock in 1970 and 1971. While not a comprehensive history, it certainly ticks off all the major events.

But not all this marketing went well.  Eventually the public became jaded, perhaps due to the associations with military marketing, which used similar phrases and delivery.  Television showed even this, including the tragic loss of a teacher in a shuttle launch.  Questions of trust and viability started to creep in.   So, we’d be on Mars today if NASA was better at marketing? Probably not.  Even during Apollo, the public’s interest in NASA’s lunar expeditions didn’t translate into support for NASA: as the authors acknowledge, public opinion polls throughout the 1960s indicated the majority of the public thought the nation was spending too much on space. Mixed with the turmoil of the day and a disinterest in bold space exploration plans Nixon, had NASA been able to create clear and widely accepted visions of space exploration after Apollo, it would have been one of the greatest marketing feats of all time.


Marketing the Moon is a fascinating look at the marketing of Man's first missions and a reminder that space exploration  do not sell themselves and that getting buy in to do this stuff really is rocket science!

The Quick - Lauren Owen - Random House

"London, 1892: James Norbury, a shy would-be poet newly down from Oxford, finds lodging with a charming young aristocrat. Through this new friendship, he is introduced to the drawing-rooms of high society, and finds love in an unexpected quarter. Then, suddenly, he vanishes without a trace. Unnerved, his sister, Charlotte, sets out from their crumbling country estate determined to find him. In the sinister, labyrinthine city that greets her, she uncovers a secret world at the margins populated by unforgettable characters: a female rope walker turned vigilante, a street urchin with a deadly secret, and the chilling “Doctor Knife.” But the answer to her brother’s disappearance ultimately lies within the doors of one of the country’s preeminent and mysterious institutions: The Aegolius Club, whose members include the most ambitious, and most dangerous, men in England."

This is Owen's first novel, though it doesn't seem naive or undercooked.  She knows how to create the world. And what a world she's created.  I loved this.  At the same time I was terrified.  It's a sophisticated Ripper Street, with hints of Conan-Doyle gothicism!  beguiling and terrifying. The suspense is almost agonising, but like a beautiful corpse you can't look away.  Nor should = but do not read this before sleeping - it will give you nightmares!

The Rise and Fall of National Women's Hospital - A History - Linda Bryder (AUP)

 

A little over four years ago social historian Linda Bryder suggested that the infamous investigation into the so called 'unfortunate experiment' at National Women's hospital, the Cartwright Report held over 1987 -88 somehow got it all wrong. Her book 'A History of the Unfortunate Experiment at National Women's Hospital' opened the academic levy, although for her she'd been heavily investigating the treatment of women in our medical system ever since her ground-breaking history of the Plunket Society, 'A Voice for Mothers'.

Early in her introduction she revisits the 30-year-old scandal but this time it's really just a reminder of why the place featured so prominently in our papers back then, and even now.

"The publication of Professor Linda Bryder’s revisionist volumes denying the occurrence of the Unfortunate Experiment, or harm to patients aroused controversy in the New Zealand Medical Journal in 2010.

Professor Ron Jones, a gynaecologist at National Women’s Hospital who had been a consistent critic of the ‘unfortunate experiment’, asked why, if there was no experiment, there were marked increases in the development of invasive cancer during the period of the research, especially among the women with minimal or no initial curative treatment.

Professor Bryder responded in the same edition of the Journal. Jones and Bryder are here divided by two key issues; the ability to distinguish clearly adequate from inadequate treatment and the implications of the fraudulent nature of Green’s methodology."    http://www.cartwrightinquiry.com/?page_id=35 

Auckland University Press, and Bryder herself were dragged over the coals and challenged at every turn.  Bryder was not quite ridiculed in the streets, but the experience, in an academic peer sense must have come pretty close.  But was she right? I believe so.  The enquiry was very political  then as now, and the battle for control over women's bodies steamrollered over the good intentions and genuine concerns to solve serious medical problems for the benefit of all,  But if so, was the deaths and mutilations of so many worth it?  History can only provide facts, not empathy, in this case. 

A Baby on the Way (1971)

Just over 50 years ago National Women's hospital was a flagship for medical care and innovation.  It pioneered many new procedures and there are plenty of children, now adults, who have the staff and doctors of this fine institution to thank for their very lives.  It was a centre of excellence, compared teaching hospitals in Europe and America,  It was even a household name in England.

Bryder's new work attempts to complete what she actually started out to achieve in her first book, before it veered off down the blind alley of the Cartwright investigation.

"When I put a proposal in [for funding] a decade ago,' she told the NZ Herald (A headline-making hospital by Andrew Stone Feb 18 2014) "I pretty much said I didn't want the story to focus on Cartwright because I was interested in reproductive health....I thought I would simply summarise the inquiry findings and draw on Sandra Coney's [co-author of a Metro article which blew the scandal wide open] work. I didn't realise I was entering a minefield."

Indeed the incendiary devices can be found most deeply in the lush fields of the chapter "Feminists, Midwives and National Women's Hospital", which recounts the tireless push by activists to criticise the stalwart reproductive practices and the very core of the established medical order not only in NWH but all over the country.  Specialists with the tile of "Mr" could no longer hide in the bubbles of arrogance or command blind respect without proving their credentials to the wards every day, from now on.

Staring gently, almost like flipping through the Architect's digest or Popular Mechanics, Bryder paints the scene - a primary coloured, glossy dream - a jewel in the crown of the State's vaguely socialistic fantasy of medical care and nutrition for all, post war and into the future.  Her history details the life and times of the purpose-built hospital, and we're reminded that although the final years were blackened, during the golden years National Women's was a world-leader for research that produced breakthroughs which altered the way science came to understand the miracle of childbirth and foetal growth. 

In 1965 the Hospital gained media rock-star status when Shirley Lawson gave birth to quintuplets.  Remember this was just the fifth set of surviving quintuplets in the world. The photo of Shirley Lawson with her four girls and a boy sitting up in bed two hours after giving birth has become a national icon.  And the 26-year-old miracle mum was only one of tens of thousands of New Zealanders whose lives were touched in some way by NWH over the second half of the 20th century.  My own wife included.  And, we learn, The author, who in 1992, had first child there, despite the initially planned homebirth.  And Bryder' second child was also born at National Women's, in 1997. So, if you were searching for conflicts of interest, then perhaps they lay here.  Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The hospital was a catalyst for the work of medical stars such as Bill Liley, who pioneered antenatal blood transfusions in the early '60's, and Graham "Mont" Liggins and Ross Howie who saved many, many premature babies from respiratory failure by applying steroids prior to delivery.  A few cheap injections saves thousands of dollars in intensive neonatal care and ongoing care for handicapped infants, Liggins argued. He advocated for the practice to be widely adopted throughout the country and it finally was accepted in the 1990s.  Bryder argues the reason for the delay was discussed at two big London conferences -  "territorial jealousies" between rival disciplines existed and were fiercely defended by arrogant parties.  And the core evidence and research, and sheer disbelief that this incredible finding could emerge from a "primitive backwater" was a definite slap to the pride of world health professionals. "It was a tight international community, of which New Zealand was a part despite the tyranny of distance, but at the same time it seems that national and personal rivalries abounded."

Surprisingly, at least to me was Bryder's revelation that it was Liggins, in the 1970's who found the trigger for the onset of labour in sheep, leading to solving the initiation of labour in humans.  But how exactly he discovered it remains a mystery.  And it remained so when Liggins died, in 2010, the mystery remained. 

And this is only one case study ...

Professor Bryder likes to look at the interplay of social forces on science and medicine.  She argues that the hospital folded in the end because it lost the hearts and minds and trust of the public.

She argues further that the Cartwright and the chest-tapping investigation under Helen Cull, QC were, at the core, about distrust in the medical profession.  Beyond the wards the hospital came under such pressure from the feminists, turf wars between doctors and midwives, political funding and pie carving and a blood thirsty medial, gnawing on the fleshy bones of scandal.

All in, this is a fascinating journey and in some ways a miracle that it is written. Thorough, opinionated, at times personal but fair this is a good book, weighing up facts and evidence against the need to tell clear and concise stories to a public dumbed by twitteratti and 30 second sound bite.  In a world of OIAs and veiled information it's good to know someone is willing to risk hay fever to delve into the dust files of National Archives and uncover truths the internet cannot provides us, especially something so close to our loins.

Thanks to Auckland University Press: http://www.press.auckland.ac.nz/en.html

 

 

The Hotel on Place Venedome - Tilar J Mazzeo - Harper Collins

Tilar Mazzeo was a teacher and is a pretty good author, too. She was  fascinated by the Hotel Ritz in Paris while looking at declassified documents about the wartime adventures of Coco Chanel.

This expanded to include the German military, wealthy French civilians and expatriates.  She realized that this diverse group had a significant part in shaping Europe not only after WWII but far into the future. “We all live in the long shadow of this history,” she claims - almost as rationale for this vignette-laden history of the world's most famous hotel. 

Her main focus is between 1941–1945, but also traces the Hotel’s history from construction in the late 1800s to now.  She deliberately eschews the traditionally dry litany of facts commonly used in historical accounts, using the Hotel Ritz as a lens to present the events of World War II in very human—and very memorable—terms.  You get the fly on the wall account, with the before and after of the events.   

Each chapter is dense with everyday incidents and even with Paris under siege during World War I, dinner parties continued; the intrigues were endless.  There was hunger throughout the capitol, but the Ritz was isolated—and indifferent. The history is almost immune to the suffering in this respect, like the description of a painting, ignoring the state of the building it hangs in. 

The stage was set for the Treaty of Versailles, intended to shame and impoverish Germany but also to tempt them.  And during WWII they came back - to the Ritz. 

German soldiers occupied a separate wing of the hotel during World War II. General Hermann Göring took up residence as Hitler’s aide de camp. Well-heeled expatriates, war correspondents, and French citizens all coexisted. As fortunes were lost a brisk trade in jewelry and furs between residents and the Nazis thrived.

Chanel, the catalyst for all this, was just to blame.  She amassed a fortune selling her signature Chanel No 5 fragrance to the Germans.  She was truly one of the most colourful characters in this human drama and the most audacious/  She was an equal opportunity opportunist.

No group was spared their share of intrigue and betrayal. Competition for scoops among war correspondents superseded all manner of fair play, especially as the allied troops landed at Normandy. The author describes one man’s determination to get back to the front by entrusting his rolls of film (106 images) to a courier in London (only 11 survived). Wounded, he was back on the beaches the next morning.

Ernest Hemingway, in competition with then-wife Martha Gellhorn “poached” her press credentials from Colliers. Undaunted, Martha boarded a medical rescue ship  (still without credentials). “When the nurses landed onshore, Martha was among them. She joined the ambulance team and worked side by side with the other medics. Only later would she return to London to file with Collier’san not loo as a freelancer. The magazine had too much sense not to publish them.” Yet in spite of whatever had gone before, these unlikely competitors found their way back to the Ritz as colleagues (and more).

This is a book littered with the undocumented personal histories - the ones that were likely gossip of the day, perhaps innuendo - and now truth of sorts.  How the other half lived.  But like a beautiful car crash - we can not look away.  This will no doubt be a film, and I will pay to see it!

Groove Book Report - Dear Leader - Jang Jin-Jung - Random House

Kim Jon Un, who was succeeded on his death by his son Kim Jong Un, was apparently so moved by a particular poem that he highlighted various sections and wrote out the title by hand. It's author was invited to become one of Kim’s “Admitted”, an elite group entitled to better food rations and certain protections under the auspices of the police state. 

The poet now writes under the pen-name Jang Jin-sung.  He fled North Korea in 2004.  Dear Leader is an account of his arduous escape through China to the west and also a reflection on his life as North Korean propagandist and counter-intelligence officer. It's billed as a unique insider’s account of how North Korea’s totalitarian state is actually run.  It opens as Jang is summoned to see our Dear Leader (yes, that's what they call him!). After several hours of travel through the night, Jang is disappointed with his first sighting of Kim. Being older than in his propaganda pictures and playing distractedly with a Maltese puppy, ignoring the fervent shouts around him of “Long live the General!” Kim approaches Jang and him (then in his twenties) if he wrote the poem that he loves so much. He intimidates him: “Someone wrote it for you, isn’t that right?” because “Don’t even think of lying to me. I’ll have you killed.” Kim really is an arsehole dictator, straight out of a Hollywood cliché'.

And you'd be forgiven for wondering if all this is really true!  Because one of the problems of Jang’s interesting, gripping book is that so much is impossible to verify.  There is seemingly fantastical revelations about how the system works must be taken entirely on trust and I wonder how the people have not found the courage to rebel!  Despite the complete shut out, how come there is no internet rebellion, smuggled movies or even the adoption of Jeans and Rock'n'Roll.  Surely it can't be all one way with no gratification.  North Koreans can't be that dumb! Can they? 

I mean what, for example, are we to make of the 3,000 researchers working in a special unit to prepare medicines and dishes for the express purpose of extending Kim’s life? (He died age 70 so that clearly failed! ) Or what about the department that scours schools for the prettiest 13-year-old girls to be groomed for Kim’s appetite? That was truly gross.  I really hope that wasn't true!
 
In the end, we can only take Jang's word for it.  If it's true then this is  a brilliant case for foreign intervention.  So why hasn't the West intervened? You'd also wonder how far Jang has gone to protect credibility.  Essentially, I can't handle the truth.  And I wonder if you could, either.

When Jang originally published the book in Korean, it focused almost entirely on his escape, which starts when he obtains a special pass to take him to the Chinese border. Jang had become disillusioned with the North Korean regime, whose brutality became glaringly evident to him during a trip home when he witnessed old friends dying from starvation. The story of his flight through China has its exciting and humorous moments, though some of the reconstructed dialogue is a bit clunky.  The English version  begins with a longer account of the North Korean regime and his role within it. That seems to have been partly at the suggestion of translator, who in a preface notes that Jang was slow to realise what a cache of secret information he had. These revelations are absolutely terrifying.  Korean experts, eager for any scrap of information to improve their knowledge of the Hermit Kingdom, will no doubt comb this for clues. But what we really make f this depends on what you are prepared to believe.

Groove Book Report - The Trigger by Tim Butcher - Chatto & Windus (London)

Foreign correspondent Tim Butcher is a British best-selling author and the kind of explorer that blend history with travel.  His latest, "The Trigger", documents the 'story' of the young man who sparked the First World War a hundred years ago by shooting dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand on a street corner in Sarajevo. In the introduction Tim talks about how he was in Sarajevo during the Serbian siege of the city, which was at the heart of the Serbian/Bosnian war in the 1990's.  He noticed how, during a lull in the fighting locals were out on the streets.  He followed some, thinking they were heading to a secret location, only to discover the town's only public toilet was in fact the tomb of a Serbian: Gavrilo Princip - the assassin.  This, in turn leads to a trek across Bosnia and part of Serbia on the trail of Princip, making a number of discoveries missed by a century of historians.

His first book, "Blood River - A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart", was an epic solo journey through the Congo. Translated into six languages, it topped the Sunday Times best-seller list in Britain and was shortlisted for various awards from the Samuel Johnson Prize in London to the Ryszard Kapuściński Award in Warsaw.  And his second, "Chasing The Devil" was a  350 mile hike  through Liberia down a trail walked by the whisky-sozzled Graham Greene in 1935, discovering along the way that Greene's life was saved by his indomitable cousin Barbara Greene.

As the foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, Tim specialised in covering awkward places at awkward times: Kurdistan under attack in 1991 by Hussein; Sarajevo during the Bosnian War; the Allied attack on Iraq in 2003; Israel's 2006 clash with Hizbollah in southern Lebanon;  God loves a trier.  He must love and watch over Tim!

"The Trigger" is a tough read.  Nothing in this part of the world is tidy or romantic and Butcher tells many tales that are both hair raising and challenging.  His work is impeccable and you wonder how he found out what he knows.  It almost borders on insane.  Why don't the historians know this.  Butcher relies a lot on local knowledge, with his skill being the talent of listening and only asking the few questions that get results.  In the year of commemoration of WWI there will be plenty of books about the hardships of the troops, of the mud and the blind loyalty that ruined a generation for little reason other that blind ignorance.  Butcher's tries to find the real reasons for the assassination, which was less about a political catalyst and more about genuine rebellion against an empire that was hell bent on domination.  That same sentiment re-emerges in the 1990's during the Serbian/Bosnian war.  He's not slow to see that the same people a few generations on are affected by the same tyrannies as in the past.

An intimate, raw memoir by a founding member of one of NZ’s iconic rock bands, Hello Sailor; a tale of creativity, misadventure, success and excess.

It was like David and Goliath. Only Goliath wasn’t about to be blown away, and David was stoned. Dave McArtney’s description of Hello Sailor’s campaign to conquer the American music scene is as funny as it is accurate. In this long-awaited memoir, completed just weeks before his untimely death, Dave gives the reader an access-all-areas pass to the life of a working rock’n’roll musician. From the band’s earliest days at the notorious ‘Mandrax Mansion’ in 1970s Ponsonby, to becoming the biggest band in the land and then taking on the world, Gutter Black is a story of music, mateship (Mandrax) and a good deal of madness. It is also the memoir of a uniquely creative musician, who went on to further success with his band the Pink Flamingos, and a very personal story of love, family and facing one’s own mortality. Complete with previously unpublished photographs and band memorabilia,Gutter Black is the definitive account of the man, the bands and the music that rocked a nation.

 

 

 

 

About the Author:

Dave McArtney was one of New Zealand's best known musicians and songwriters. As a founding member of the legendary Hello Sailor, he wrote or co-wrote most of their best known songs, including 'Gutter Black', one of the country's best known and best loved hits.