For the author’s fans and disaffected teenagers of vaguely leftist impulses.
Rant ’n’ roll from D.C. musician/writer/broadcaster Svenonius (Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group, 2013, etc.), who’s not at all happy with the world as it is.
The author might (or might not) balk at the term, but there’s a certain Leninist streak in this screed: if the right-wing media is going to blast out its bilge, if Hollywood is going to churn out “imperialist apologia,” and artists continue with their head-in-the-sand escapism, well, then it’s time to start censoring them—and to hell with the First Amendment and its guarantees of self-expression, which “is a parlor trick, designed by the lords of capital, with extraordinary, insidious implications.” Svenonius doesn’t seem to be saying that it’s not cool to shout fire in a crowded Haymarket Square but instead that anything that doesn’t accommodate his idea of resistance is suspect—unless it can be explained by anomie, in which case the sort of bilious trolling seen in Facebook comments is OK, since it’s simply misguided resistance of a false-consciousness ilk. Sans-culotte fervor is all to the good, though this collection of scattered observations might come with a trigger warning for fans of the Grateful Dead and similar rock bands, responsible for the banishment of dancing from concerts by musicians “who insisted that their audiences sit obediently and consume drugs en masse whilst trapped in enormous arenas, raceways, pastures, and superdomes.” Throughout the book, the author delivers a healthy dose of NPR–is-a-cultural-imperialist and Wikipedia-is-the-antichrist sort of stuff. In advancing such theories, Svenonius gets off a lot of nice slogans and apothegms (“For the Beatles, perhaps sex and death are intertwined, as in so many of the world’s religions”), but it doesn’t go much further than that on the logical-development, sustained-argument front.
For the author’s fans and disaffected teenagers of vaguely leftist impulses.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61775-409-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
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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