This unconventional memoir, as life-affirming as it is hip, shows and tells all about the author's self-published, Xeroxed magazine, which helped her survive and flourish during her postcollegiate years. After completing Johns Hopkins University's graduate writing program, cultural critic and fiction writer Kennedy (Stripping and Other Stories, 1994, etc.) was highly ambitious but creatively frozen. So instead of competing to be a ``famous young writer'' in New York, she decided to move to the Boston area and make herself a star, and while she was at it ``trick people into liking me . . . get dates. . . and transform my boring life into an epic story.'' Thus her 'zine (called ``Pagan's Head'') was born. Distributed to friends and acquaintances, and using a mix of text, cartoons, and clip art, it featured tributes to childhood pals, reflections on the Nixon era, paeans to platform shoes, thrift stores, and the Partridge Family, and her crushes on Friedrich Nietzsche and Henry Adams. And it worked, Kennedy says; she became ``the 'zine queen of Boston.'' Each of the eight issues is reprinted here, accompanied by essays about the making of ``Pagan's Head.'' Here she explores the contrast between the bold and witty public persona she created and her ``real-life-Pagan'' self, a semi-insecure, brainy woman who discusses seriously such matters as her dad's death from cancer, the Gulf War, her ovarian tumor, and her ancestors' slave-owning past. But eventually, with the help of her 'zine and the self- discovery that follows, she pools her resources and becomes the unified, present Pagan. Kennedy's delightful chronicle is enough to make you want to pick up a pen and start your own personal fanzine or put on some platforms and dance in the streets.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13628-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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