Lewis Lapham has died

I am glad his "documentary film" got a mention.

"In 2005, Mr. Lapham wrote and appeared in 'The American Ruling Class,' a documentary-style film featuring fictional characters as well as interviews with real celebrities, including Bill Bradley, Walter Cronkite, Pete Seeger, Robert Altman and Barbara Ehrenreich."

Unfortunately as described it doesn't capture quite how unusual, innovative, and special this film is.

It's a "dramatic-documentary-musical." A mixture of dramatic filmmaking, documentary filmmaking, and even some elements of musical.

Its main topic/idea is to show two promising college students on graduation day, one pursuing a career of money and power (in high finance) and the other pursuing art (via writing). Lapham uses this lens to analyze all aspects of American society from a class and power direction. Mainly to show the draw of power and conformity for the college-educated elite, and the way a struggling working class subsidizes their ambitions with their labor.

In the film, Lapham himself is both a narrator and a principal, acting as a mentor to one of the two "characters," who are played by actors, but thrown into conversation with real people, including some people holding powerful positions, and some intellectual celebrities.

Ehrenreich, who had recently completed the book "Nickel and Dimed" (2001), in which she goes "undercover" as the working poor, has a role in the film, too. She "plays" the role of a worker at a restaurant, and she and the other workers, at one point, break out in song, a song titled "Nickel and Dimed." I read a review of this movie that called this scene "divine madness," and I agree.

This is one of a small collection of movies I have on DVD, because it's so small and interesting as a film, that I rewatch it from time to time. I sometimes struggle to find it on streaming networks or online. It acts as a little bit of a life decoder for me, since I grew up as a public school educated child of immigrants with not-that-much class awareness, graduated from a top college around the time the film was made, got recruited to work on Wall Street (much as the film portrays in its opening scenes), then left a Wall Street job after 3 years to co-found and work on a tech startup for many years.

Anyway, I was influenced by a lot of Lapham's work, especially his moral clarity in anti-war writing during the Iraq War years. But this one little film really stuck with me. RIP, Lewis Lapham.

I read Harper's Magazine for years without knowing who was behind it. The mixture of literary criticism, political analysis and in-depth reporting Lapham shaped was hard to top in terms of informativeness and calm inquisitiveness, something sorely missing from online media. The one piece of writing by Lapham that is etched into my mind is his introduction to McLuhan's Understanding Media [1], which helped me at last grasp how fundamental and unavoidable the "medium is the message" dictum is. RIP.

[1] https://worrydream.com/refs/Lapham_1994_-_The_Eternal_Now.pd...

I first encountered Lapham in the Notebook column of Harper’s while avoiding studying in the magazine room at Uris Library. often Learned more about understanding the world from his missives than my coursework. He will be missed, the cliche of understanding the past is key to understanding the future was never more true.

Listen to his charming and deeply entertaining story of his early years at SF Examiner, told at The Moth in 1999: https://themoth.org/stories/rookie-reporter

15 minutes you won't regret!

LQ's own LL obit: <https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/lewis-h-lapham-1...>

As a Harper's and Lapham's Quarterly subscriber, I have been a huge fan of his quirky editorial style.

Specifically, I'd like to call out his podcast ("The World In Time"). Its past episodes remain treasure troves of wisdom, with LL's resonant voice asking the kind of engaging questions that are a rarity these days. Highly recommended.

RIP. His opening essays in Laphams Quarterly were forming for me. I have quite a few of them on my bookshelf. Thank you for your contributions to our world.

Wow, I had no idea his great-grandfather was one of the founders of Texaco. I guess that's how you get the money and time to start a publication! I subscribed to Harpers and the first few years of LQ when I was in college/early-20s. I wonder how I'd like it these days, but I appreciate what it did for me in those earlier years of development.

One of the editors who worked with him has started a Bookstore/Bar called Clio's in Oakland. If you're interested in picking up a copy of the quarterly in person, check it out.

Loved his writing and curation. 89's a good run, but I'll miss him being around.

That is sad. I really feel the world needs curmudgeons like this. Especially, now.

Here are his last two interviews. I hope I can be as insightful at that age.

2022: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lewis-lapham-money-and...

2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glcTLgnEEGE

Lapham’s Quarterly is great. Sad to hear about his passing. I also recall hearing that the publication would stop several months back but it seems like they’re still going?

Next time I'm asked for an example of someone who was prolific, I'll say Lewis Lapham!

Always loved this story about Lewis Lapham getting a bit of revenge: https://thelocalyarn.com/article/mr-lapham-gets-his-way

I wonder if there's going to be a social cycle where every 80 years we have to FAFO why authoritarianism is not such a good idea after all.

It's easy to say something like 'War am Bad", but are you willing to be civil to sh*theads?

Lapham: "America in 1957, I sought enlistment in the CIA and sat for an interview with a credentials committee...prepared for nothing less, I had spent the days prior to the interview reading about Lenin’s train...the width of the Fulda Gap, the depth of the Black Sea. None of the study was called for. Instead of being asked about the treaties of Brest-Litovsk or the October Revolution, I was asked...questions bearing on my social qualifications for admission into what the young men at the far end of the table clearly regarded as the best fraternity on the campus of the free world:

'When standing on the thirteenth tee at the National Golf Links in Southampton, which club does one take from the bag? On final approach under sail into Hay Harbor on Fishers Island, what is the direction (at dusk in late August) of the prevailing wind?'"

Very sad to hear.

Does anyone know where I could get issues of Laphams Quarterly in person in London?

Anytime I look online the price is extortionate because it is coming from the US.

Lapham, along with Gore Vidal (who died in 2012) were really some of the last public intellectuals that were intelligent and qualified enough to have nuanced, insightful takes on 90% of issues. Lapham in particular is relevant to HN because he was from the old money of San Francisco, long before tech happened. The SF he grew up in doesn’t exist anymore.

Unfortunately one of the consequences of the ad and attention-based technocratic economy is that people like them aren’t valued anymore. Making silly memes or offensive jokes gets you about 10x the attention, and as far as I can tell, every platform is optimized for this. Even the better ones like Substack end up being dominated by loud people with narrow viewpoints.