MARMALADE ME

by Jill Johnston ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1970

Nominally she's a dance critic for the Village Voice, but you can't keep a good woman down and what with intermedia and a certain amount of self-indulgence anything may turn up in her columns. As her readers know, these can be sketchy, windy, and disingenuous virtually all at once, and the quality of her criticism varies according to her sympathies. Traditional numbers get brushed off (""Another Firebird. . . Argh, they'll pay for this""); but when her interest is aroused, as it almost always is by the personalities and performers of the New York avant garde, she can scarcely be topped for conveying the visual and aesthetic essentials. Unfortunately she doesn't often get down to concrete cases, indicates her preferences instead by dropping names, quotes, inventing crypto-dicta (""Nothing is deleted. That which is deleted has always existed. Whatever is is constantly in deletion. Existence and deletion the same thing""). There's a large selection from her travelogues as well, though their first appearance in the Voice was hard enough to justify. Still, she moves in pretty exciting circles -- Cunningham, Cage, LaMonte Young, James Lee Byers, Yoko Ono, etc. -- and gives her readers a kinky vicarious taste of the inside and its outlook.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION