Blazing a Trail from World War II to Vietnam!

Rinehart, Lorissa.  First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female 

        War Correspondent.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2023.  ISBN: 9781250276575

 

How many war correspondents can you name?  Okay, now for a even trickier question - How many female war correspondents can you name?  If you can name any, it might all be due to the path Georgette "Dickey" Meyer Chapelle created for all who came after her.  In First to the Front, Lorissa Rinehart seeks to tell the whole story of Dickey Chapelle.  

Georgette "Dickey" Meyer was born and raised in Wisconsin, In 1935 she flunked out of MIT, and ended up in Coral Gables (FL) as the city editor for the Miami Airshow at $15 a week.She wrangled her way into an assignment for the New York Times covering the Havana Air Show.  This led her to a job as assistant publicity chief for Howard Hughes's airline - TWA.  There she met Anthony "Tony" Chapelle who was teaching photography.  Dickey became a photojournalist after she married Tony.  After December 7, 1941, Dickey Chapelle got a job with Look to cover the 14th Infantry Regiment training in the jungles of Panama.  Then she got a break - she was accredited as a photographer in the Pacific Theater of Operations..  On board the USS Samaritan, she took photos of blood drive that the Red Cross used for a decade at blood drives.  She also captured the faces and stories of soldiers and Marines loaded on board the hospital ship.  She spent time on Iwo Jima and then Okinawa managing to endear herself to Marines while ticking off the higher brass who arrested her and revoked her credentials. Seventeen was the one magazine who would still employee her.  

After the war, Dickey and Tony traveled around Europe for the Quakers bringing in supplies and photographing conditions in Poland, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, and  France.  After several trips through Europe, the duo made a sweep through Iraq, Iran and India for the US State Department's Point Four program documenting their work.  Dickey managed to get articles in National Geographic, World Magazine and Reader's Digest along with the documentaries for the State Department.  After finally divoracing Tony, Dickey returned to Europe to cover the Hungarian Revolution which lead to a stint in Hungarian prison.  Next, she traveled to Algeria to cover the Algerian Liberation Front's fight against French colonialism.  She covered Castro's fight with Batista in Cuba.  Then she went to cover the conflict in Laos.  She wrote a primer on guerrilla war for the Marines before covering the conflict in South Vietnam.  She spent time with the Sea Swallows, Marines in helicopters, and the Vietnamese Marines.  Then on November 2, 1965, while on patrol with U.S. Marines, a booby trap tripped by a Marine killed her.  She died doing what she enjoyed most - taking photos.

The bare details given above does not cover the depth of detail that Lorissa Rinehart provides in this well-written biography of Dickey Chappelle, who that deserves far greater recognition than she has received.  If you are interested in female journalists, especially photojournalists, First to the Front is a title to read!

Screens-R-Us

Hickey, Walt.  You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everything.  New York: 

        Workman Publishing, 2023.  ISBN: 9781523515899

Pop culture - how much do you consume in a day?   Walt Hickey knows.  Well he knows the amount of time the "typical" American spends watching television/movies/reading/writing - about 3 hours and 22 minutes a day.  If you want to find out what all our media consumption does for and to us not to mention the world, dive in with Walt and find out!

In You Are What You Watch, Walt Hickey does several deep dives into pop culture.  He opens with a chapter on how movies, television and other parts of pop culture affects our bodies and shapes what we do. the next chapter looks at how social media, movies, television and books capture our attention and keep us coming back for more.  Two chapters guides us into the twisted mirror-scape where movies, television, and other aspects of pop culture reflect us as we are and how we change ourselves to reflect what we see in pop culture.  Of course there is a chapter on the role money plays in shaping pop culture and how pop culture shapes money making opportunities.  The final three chapters examine the empires created by pop culture (yes, Disney is part of the focus, but so is the United Kingdom!), what culture does to survive and thrive, and how stories and the creation of stories shape their creators.

So, if you ready to find out how pop culture has shaped the world in the past (can you name which movie led to a world-wide decline in sharks) and into the future, pick up Walt Hickey's You Are What You Watch, read it, and explore the whole spectrum of pop culture!

What is the Body's Biggest Organ?

Lyman, Monty.  The Remarkable Life of the Skin: An Intimate Journey Across Our Largest 

       Organ.  New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020.  ISBN: 9780802129406

So you think you know all about anatomy?  Can you name the largest and one of the most important organs in the body?  If you called out anything other than skin, you need to go and listen to John Lithgow crooning "You Gotta Have Skin!"  As Monty Lyman makes very clear in this interesting tome, your skin does so much more than just keep your insides in!

In ten informative chapters, Monty Lyman takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of skin.  He starts off with a look at instances when the skin fails, and then dives into all the intricate layers of your skin.  He looks at how your skin reflects what is going on in your gut, how skin deals with light and sun exposure, and how it ages.  Skin plays a key role in your sense of touch, for both good an ill. How our skin looks and feels affects us psychologically while what we ink on our skin can affect us socially.  And then skin plays a part in our impression of others and their impression of us.  Finally Monty Lyman discusses how skin shapes our thinking in regard to religion, philosophy, and language.

Skin is so much more than just a container for bones and guts.  The Remarkable Life of the Skin provides the reader a readable entrance into the world of skin!