Christopher Frizzelle
Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio
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edited by Michele Hilmes and Jason Loviglio
(Routledge, $29.95)
Nostalgia for the age when radio was king has lent an air of quaintness befitting a Norman Rockwell painting to our popular perception of the medium; the sight of the family huddled around the console rapt by some momentous speech or popular drama is awfully easy to conjure (wasn't that Woody Allen movie just adorable?). Despite its subordination to television and the Internet, though, radio—unlike newspapers—still plays a role in the daily lives of most people. At least that's the premise of Radio Reader, a book that offers fresh and learned reflections on radio's past and present. The essays are largely produced by and for academics and are thus written in the sometimes-oppressive scholastic lingua franca that few who haven't experienced the joys of a graduate-level humanities course will appreciate. (Marx is referenced twice; Foucault, three times.) I'd have preferred a greater emphasis on some of the musicological implications of recent radio scholarship, but community and personal political concerns predominate—every aspect of this short history is projected through the lens of class, race, and gender. Still, the territory covered here—including radio's role during the Depression and World War II as a propaganda tool, the growth of underground and microwatt stations, the history of religious programming, and the ascendancy of the political talk format and the "shock jock" character—is essential for anyone with an interest in media history. And, as the volume's inevitable (and correct) final essay suggests, new technology and recent political and corporate maneuvering ensure that radio's story is far from over.
Paul Fontana
Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities
by Kerry Segrave
(McFarland & Company, $32.50)
Tipping is a strange little book that will probably end up on thousands of library shelves and, 20 years from now, in the clutches of Marxist sociology students writing with great sincerity about the relationship between tips, wages, and American society. It doesn't tell you how much to tip, nor when, but it does deliver an exhaustive history of the custom (once referred to as "democracy's deadly foe") and its changing popularity. Beginning at least as early as the 15th century (probably even earlier), tipping has been reviled as demoralizing to the "lower classes" and demeaning to the upper crust, unaccustomed as they are to actually paying to be treated with servility. Labor unions have historically hated tipping because it keeps wages low, especially for minorities and women. Efforts have been made to ban it—the earliest right here in Washington state in 1909—but tipping has proved resilient. Americans may grumble, but when it comes time, they just can't kick the habit—mostly, it will surprise few to know, because we're all so afraid of looking cheap. (That's another reason, it turns out, the Europeans hate us.) Laden with anecdote after repetitive anecdote (women got paid less than men in 1910! and in 1929! and in 1977!), this tedious little book does one remarkable thing: It manages, at 154 pages, to read like a dictionary and feel like a tome. But the Library Journal, whose glowing review is quoted on press materials, loved it.
Erica C. Barnett
The Corset: A Cultural History
by Valerie Steele
(Yale University Press, $39.95)
These days, the corset is regarded as a historical torture device: a tight-laced, tummy-tucking embodiment of "fashion hurts" and oppressive male ideals of female beauty. Sucking it in and lacing it up doesn't sound exactly comfortable—or healthy. But Valerie Steele's got some news for the corset-fearing world. She says it's time to stop yer snivelin', because the corset wasn't as bad as it's cracked up to be. Sure it was confining, but so were Brooke Shields' Calvins. And, yeah, maybe it was eroticized, even fetishized, but what's so bad about that? Steele's large, attractive, photo-heavy book would be a fine addition to any coffee table, but it's not just a photographic tribute to the wasp-waisted women of the olden days: It's actually academic, as anomalous as that seems for a book about fashion. And Steele, chief curator of the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology, is in a position to educate. She cites a broad range of historical and cultural sources, and makes a few good points of her own. We learn, for example, that the 15-inch cinched waists we associate with Scarlet O'Hara types were, in actuality, more like 22-inch waists, from the look of the corsets preserved in modern museums. And, moreover, that most women wore corsets because they wanted to; they weren't fashion victims but fashion vixens. The Corset will satisfy those who enjoy serious discourse on historical fashion, but I suspect most people would rather just look at the pictures.
Katie Millbauer
Who Cut the Cheese: A Cultural History of the Fart
by Jim Dawson
(Ten Speed Press, $9.95)
A guy is pretty much critic-proof once he decides to devote an entire book to farting. We're given the obligatory recognition of legendary French fartiste Le Petomane (who could toot "La Marseillaise"), the gradual entry of the fart into mainstream media acknowledgement, and the physical act's omnipresence in every facet of our society—including a chapter titled "Religious Farts," in which Dawson spoofs the whole "Get thee behind me, Satan" business, and calmly states that "as it turns out, the human asshole has held grave importance in most religions." Your older brother is going to get a big kick out of this thing. But here's the "this guy has no business writing about farts" part: He got something wrong. You'll hate yourself if you catch it but, in a passage devoted to Whoopi Goldberg's prominence as a fart connoisseur, Dawson claims that when she "hosted the Academy Awards in March 1996, Bette Midler's 'Wind Beneath My Wings' won an Oscar for Best Song, prompting Whoopi to remark to the world-at-large that she had her own wind but it wasn't beneath her wings." Sorry Jim—"Wind Beneath My Wings" from Beaches did not win an Oscar in 1996; Beaches was made in 1988, and it wasn't even eligible then because it was not written for the film. And furthermore, guy, you're clearly referring to Whoopi's remark concerning actual 1996 Oscar winner "Colors of the Wind," from Disney's Pocahontas. Take that, fartknocker.
Steve Wiecking
info@seattleweekly.com 
