RECOMMENDED. <>Music. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. / <>Literature. John Steinbeck books.

Music. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen, released in 1975. The album that “made” The Boss after the relative failure of his first two LPs: “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” and “The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle,” both released in 1973. With this set, Mr Springsteen entered mainstream popularity. I may be exaggerating but suddenly Bruce is the rock `n roll John Steinbeck. 

       “Born…” garnered widespread acclaim on release. It has since been considered by critics to be one of the greatest albums of all time. If you’d want to stretch your fandom fix, score the remaster of the album, released in 2005, as a box set including two DVDs: a production diary film and a concert movie. I don’t have that set though. I am fine with the LP and CD. 

       This collection chronicles Americana with evocative lyricism, bold howls of stubborn hope, and glorious fatalism told in dramatic earnest. Yet this collection is also solid rock defiance, the sound. No revolutionary inventiveness, in fact—this is old school rock `n roll with a new telling and more robust delivery. 

       Easily, my favorite cuts are also the most popular: “Thunder Road,” "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," and the title cut. 🎼🎹🎼

Literature. John Steinbeck books: “Of Mice and Men” 1937, his 7th book, and “The Grapes of Wrath” (1939), 10th book. All Steinbeck books are, of course, recommended reading but these two are my most favorites. 

       For me, John Steinbeck, who died at age 66 in 1968, is the best narrator of economic hardship. Devoid of exaggerated dramatics, almost journalistic. The universal themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to everyday people are central in Steinbeck’s work, which pulled me deeper since at the time of my reading/s, it was the years of my so-called awakening to sociopolitical realities back home in the Philippines, during dictatorship. 

       The novella “Of Mice and Men” narrates the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression. “The Grapes of Wrath” is also set during the Depression, this time the story focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. 

       Both books draw from John’s own experiences working alongside migrant farm workers as a teenager in the 1910s. The title “Of Mice and Men” is taken from Robert Burns' poem "To a Mouse,” which reads: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." Many of Steinbeck's works are required reading in American high schools. Should be. 📚✍️📚