A mixed bag of mostly common-sense advice on how to better appreciate the theater and poetry.
A cornucopia of “miniature essays” on literary topics.
In the preface, Canadian poet and longtime freelance critic Garebian explains that he got the idea for this book from playwright Sarah Ruhl’s 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time To Write (2014). He doesn’t quite reach 100, but he follows her formula of writing a page or two, or even less, giving the slim book a cleaning-out-the-desk feeling. This often witty but uneven collection, a “breezy conversation with myself and interested readers,” speaks to some of Garebian’s “curiosities and obsessions” about the theater (acting, plays, playwrights) and poetry (on reading it, genres, theory, and practice). The author admires Canadian actor William Hutt, a “theatre giant of enormous skill and stature,” comparing him to Laurence Olivier—a master of “rhythm, pacing, and mood”—and Marlon Brando. An actor himself, Garebian champions the importance of community theater and recounts some of his own performances. He slyly notes that “great acting often demands great feet.” For the author, the often “misunderstood and misjudged” Edward Albee was one of America’s greatest playwrights. Garebian believes too many English teachers “would rather not teach” poetry at all. Their “lack of enthusiasm,” he writes, “filters down to their hapless students.” Unlike some overly academic, “deconstructive” critics of poetry, Garebian eschews “using a lot of learned lumber and a great deal of corny, contrived examples” to make his points. He introduces readers to unusual poetic forms such as found poems, collages, the cento, oulipo, and lipogram, as well as grim Japanese death poems. Garebian admires the “use of political consciousness as a volatile element of poetics” in Amiri Baraka and other militant poets. He also worries, “Can There Be Poetry After Donald Trump.” A lackluster piece excoriating poetry readings is just plain curmudgeonly.
A mixed bag of mostly common-sense advice on how to better appreciate the theater and poetry.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77183-534-3
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Guernica Editions
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.
The acclaimed director displays his talents as a film critic.
Tarantino’s collection of essays about the important movies of his formative years is packed with everything needed for a powerful review: facts about the work, context about the creative decisions, and whether or not it was successful. The Oscar-winning director of classic films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs offers plenty of attitude with his thoughts on movies ranging from Animal House to Bullitt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Big Chill. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides the original reporting and insights only a veteran director would notice, and his engaging style makes it impossible to leave an essay without learning something. The concepts he smashes together in two sentences about Taxi Driver would take a semester of film theory class to unpack. Taxi Driver isn’t a “paraphrased remake” of The Searchers like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? is a paraphrased remake of Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or De Palma’s Dressed To Kill is a paraphrased remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. But it’s about as close as you can get to a paraphrased remake without actually being one. Robert De Niro’s taxi driving protagonist Travis Bickle is John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Like any good critic, Tarantino reveals bits of himself as he discusses the films that are important to him, recalling where he was when he first saw them and what the crowd was like. Perhaps not surprisingly, the author was raised by movie-loving parents who took him along to watch whatever they were watching, even if it included violent or sexual imagery. At the age of 8, he had seen the very adult MASH three times. Suddenly the dark humor of Kill Bill makes much more sense. With this collection, Tarantino offers well-researched love letters to his favorite movies of one of Hollywood’s most ambitious eras.
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311258-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
