Though this represents the first volume in the Odenkirk Memorial Library, it isn’t likely that the author will abandon his...
A humor collection from the postmodern jack of many trades.
The creator and star of the cult TV favorite Mr. Show, Odenkirk (co-author: Hollywood Said No!, 2013) reached a larger audience with his dramatic role in Breaking Bad and has written for both Saturday Night Live and the New Yorker. There is plenty here that the latter would never print, particularly in its more fastidious days—e.g., the opening “One Should Never Read a Book on the Toilet,” addressed to students at a young women’s finishing school and advising that there “are appropriate postures for both reading and for defecating, and neither is compatible with the other.” Addressing a particular public is one of the collection’s recurring motifs, encompassing the obligatory commencement speech, the attempts by various politicians to come clean with particularly embarrassing revelations (“The media will, no doubt, suggest that there is something weird about me wearing a blindfold while having sex with two people I’d met a few hours before, but I assure you I was on Ecstasy and would have tried almost anything”) and, most audaciously, “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Worst Speech Ever.” Odenkirk takes the concept of sacred cows to greater extremes as the butt of his humor, returning repeatedly to Jesus (or “a fairy tale about someone named ‘Jeebus’ ”). And there are some fairly funny pieces on fairly easy targets, including consumer reviews for the likes of Amazon (“This album aspires to claptrap. No wonder they refused to put their faces on it!! Now I know why it has no title and is called ‘The White Album’—because you can’t put the word ‘SHIT’ on the cover of a record album”) and a BFF’s character testimonial for Phil Spector (“he has enriched my world with music, good conversation, and gunshots”).
Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-938073-88-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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