Full of surprises—who knew that Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash hated Dubya so?
Country is, by definition, the music of country people. But it’s now the province of the suburbanites, and the suburbanites have gone fascist, and so has mainstream country music.
So run the main outlines of Entertainment Weekly writer Willman’s study of country music in the modern era, though his argument proceeds with considerably greater nuance. Country has always been full of politics, but that all changed when Garth Brooks came along and dumbed it down for an increasingly dumb audience. Then along came Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks to profess shame for being from Texas, whose governor-turned-president was now looking for a war. All hell broke loose: The suburbanites had pitchforks and torches, and only one big radio station in the country would play the Chicks’ treasonous (and hitherto hit-making) music. Willman goes into much detail on the Maines event, which had the effect of drawing out the cryptorightists in Nashville to rally round the flag: Travis Tritt, the awful Brooks & Dunn, the still more awful Toby Keith. Even the nonpolitical Vince Gill was heard mouthing Bushian pieties, though his pal Rodney Crowell insists that Vince is really a liberal at heart. (Steve Earle—who admits to packing up for New York because the split-level hicks are getting just a little too scary—vouches for Gill’s credentials, too.) Willman’s stroll through the minefields is engaging, and he tries to be evenhanded, though those scary hicks sometimes move him to passion, as when he notes, relative to an anti-Maines protest featuring a demonstrator who’s been loudly accusing Chicks fans of lesbianism in the presence of his teenage daughter, “nothing says ‘joint custody’ like a night of father/daughter dyke baiting.”
Full of surprises—who knew that Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash hated Dubya so?Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2005
ISBN: 1-59558-017-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
