A choice cut of Bangs’s work, more than enough to understand why he developed so ardent a following, much of it post-mortem.
A cerebrally smoking (dope-fueled?)—but sharp, very smart—collection of writings from the late, legendary rock journalist, who never had an opinion he couldn’t set on fire.
This second reader (after Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, 1987) features 54 pieces ranging from memoir to criticism to travelogue. They encompass short cherry bombs written for Rolling Stone (of MC5: “the hype, the thick overlay of teenage-revolution and total-energy-thing which conceals these scrapyard vistas of clichés and ugly noise”), where the concision almost bends the page, to more discursive articles for Creem and the Village Voice, where Bangs (1949–82) happily digs into Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Bob Dylan (“Dylan merely used Civil Rights and the rest of the Movement to advance himself in the first place”—and, as for his demonology, stick with Black Sabbath), or sings praise to Anne Murray: “a hypnotically compelling interpretix with a voice like molten high school rings and a heavy erotic vibe.” The travel writing—Austin, Paris, and Jamaica for starters—is more reflective and willing to take the middle of the road with fluid and canny perceptions, while the autobiographical material has a not-necessarily-memorable cub-gonzo-reporter sound. But the music criticism is furious, seemingly written in the heat of battle; graceful for all that, but no prisoners. That Bangs knew music was obvious, but also that he knew personalities and what irked him about them (Mick Jagger: “flopped around in his jumpsuit and just looked more like a society creep every new picture.” David Bowie: “that chickenhearted straw man of suck rock you love to hate.” Jim Morrison: “would never be so much Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Villon as he was a Bozo Prince”). The writer also could pull a volte-face, taking a diametrically opposed view, not simultaneously, but from the same perspective.
A choice cut of Bangs’s work, more than enough to understand why he developed so ardent a following, much of it post-mortem.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-71367-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2003
Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature.
The undisputed champion of the self-conscious and the self-deprecating returns with yet more autobiographical gems from his apparently inexhaustible cache (Naked, 1997, etc.).
Sedaris at first mines what may be the most idiosyncratic, if innocuous, childhood since the McCourt clan. Here is father Lou, who’s propositioned, via phone, by married family friend Mrs. Midland (“Oh, Lou. It just feels so good to . . . talk to someone who really . . . understands”). Only years later is it divulged that “Mrs. Midland” was impersonated by Lou’s 12-year-old daughter Amy. (Lou, to the prankster’s relief, always politely declined Mrs. Midland’s overtures.) Meanwhile, Mrs. Sedaris—soon after she’s put a beloved sick cat to sleep—is terrorized by bogus reports of a “miraculous new cure for feline leukemia,” all orchestrated by her bitter children. Brilliant evildoing in this family is not unique to the author. Sedaris (also an essayist on National Public Radio) approaches comic preeminence as he details his futile attempts, as an adult, to learn the French language. Having moved to Paris, he enrolls in French class and struggles endlessly with the logic in assigning inanimate objects a gender (“Why refer to Lady Flesh Wound or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?”). After months of this, Sedaris finds that the first French-spoken sentiment he’s fully understood has been directed to him by his sadistic teacher: “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.” Among these misadventures, Sedaris catalogs his many bugaboos: the cigarette ban in New York restaurants (“I’m always searching the menu in hope that some courageous young chef has finally recognized tobacco as a vegetable”); the appending of company Web addresses to television commercials (“Who really wants to know more about Procter & Gamble?”); and a scatological dilemma that would likely remain taboo in most households.
Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-316-77772-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
PERSPECTIVES
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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