put-on

The mediatized performance of extremism in the cause of politics may be as old as mass media, and adaptive across its various forms, but as Craig Peariso argues persuasively, something changed in the 1960s when radical protest elevated the "put-on" (a phrase he borrows from Jacob Brackman) into a political tactic.

His book, Radical Theatrics: Put-Ons, Politics, and the Sixties, was published in 2014 by the University of Washington Press.

Asked whether her going into rages at the Senate are put-ons, Santiago conceded that ''that is part of me; my mother has a mercurial temper.''

However, these anecdotes are more about remembrances of a select group of people who are commercial musicians (Glenn Miller, Fred Waring, and others), jazz musicians (Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, and so on), managers, agents, and teachers; the places that they played, and the people with whom they interacted; and the many pranks, practical jokes, insults, put-ons, and numerous other devious activities in which they engaged.

One can't help suspecting the author has been taken in by the put-ons of the pop artists to whom she attributes a deeper level of appreciation for the "weight and gravity" of human flight.