The National Geographic Directions series is proving to be a winner, not quaint but quirky. Mamet comes out swinging and...
A sidelong, inferential portrait of Mamet’s (The Cabin, 1992, etc.) Vermont hometown, with a spirited indictment of American political perfidy and cultural poverty.
“I see the romantic residue of Vermont humor, self-regard, circumspection, and patience; call it culture or philosophy, it is quite the most attractive thing,” writes Mamet. By these qualities, he measures Vermont against the greater America, where a “bloated plutocracy” runs a show of deceit, theft, whining, and international bullying. Vermont looks pretty good by comparison, though Mamet works toward this point only askance. The state’s values of common sense and intuition, thrift, directness, and self-sufficiency—no one cuts their food for them—are iconic and appealing, especially when delivered in Mamet’s clipped, no-flimflam voice. Of the human landscape: “Much of the charm of these houses lies in their rational situation, their active relationship with geography. They have the human beauty of an act of understanding, the beauty of a tool.” Of doing business: “There is, as part of the Mountain ethos, a clear line between sharp practice and fraud. One may embellish and distract, but one may not lie.” Vermont still values craft and skill, enjoys easy socializing, will only be dazzled by the new when it shows its stuff. Mamet worries that these bedrock attributes are being corrupted by an influx of year-round weekenders who don’t know any better than to track in the mud, among whom he counts himself in an act of excessive modesty—an act Vermonters would find disingenuous. The author hits his targets so surely, from politicians to bread-bakers, that his screed against computers feels out of place: “The computer is a solution to no known problem.” How about not having to retype the whole page? A Vermonter could appreciate that.
The National Geographic Directions series is proving to be a winner, not quaint but quirky. Mamet comes out swinging and singing, and the sense of place falls neatly in between. (Photographs)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2002
ISBN: 0-7922-6960-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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