A gathering of savories, many revelatory, each a delight and a small work of art.
Smooth and snazzy collection of travel and set pieces from New Yorker staffer Orlean (The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, 2001, etc.).
Orlean’s not just a sharp writer, but a generous one, giving the most unlikely places a chance to show her their stuff. Like Midland, Texas, the bleached and searing town where George H.W. Bush made his fortune and George W. Bush never made a dime. Or Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan, where she hobnobs with the class president and pokes her head into the detention hall: “The pent-up annoyance and disaffection and peevishness, the teenage fury of the fifty or so kids inside the room, almost blew me out the door.” She climbs Mount Fuji in a wild storm and marvels that “Thailand, the most pliant of places, has always accommodated even the rudest of visitors.” Orlean’s sly humor perfumes her writing with a wonderful quiet crackle, like pine needles on fire. “The Bannicks are among the last people in the state of Michigan, and possibly in the entire known universe, who still have their telephone service on a party line.” She creates an atmosphere of surprise and amazement when attending a fertility blessing in Bhutan (depicted in a peerless, vest-pocket travelogue) or visiting an African music shop in Paris. She is a master at grabbing attention with a story’s first few lines: “When I went to Scotland for a friend’s wedding last summer, I didn’t plan on firing a gun. Getting into a fistfight, maybe; hurling insults about badly dressed bridesmaids, of course.” Orlean closes with some short items that highlight the devil in her: a tour of the Maidenform Bra Museum, an explanation of why she is glad Tina Turner didn’t stay in her apartment when she was away—nothing against Tina; all visitors are homewreckers.
A gathering of savories, many revelatory, each a delight and a small work of art.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2004
ISBN: 0-679-46293-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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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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