It’s a fast line of patter, but, as Maron would say, it’s only rock ’n’ roll, man, only rock ’n’ roll.
Billed as a bright light in the “alternative” branch of standup comedy, Maron has inflated his signature performance piece into a coming-of-age memoir. It’s not exactly Everyman’s story, but it might be Someanxiousjewishman’s story.
Throughout the hipster text, beginning with his unappetizing dedication, the author seems to confuse his reader with his therapist. He seeks, with indifferent success, to engage the audience in his search for his identity through drugs and delusions and a trip home to Albuquerque. Certainly all comics get their best material from within, but Maron’s resolute attempt to mine his navel for laughs leads to more flop sweat than you may care to watch. His defensive protest—“I don’t want you to judge me. I don’t want you saying, ‘The book was interesting, but he had a drug problem’ ”—is rendered disingenuous by his juvenile angst and youthful service as a Beat acolyte. There follow the potent magic powder purveyed at the Comedy Store and the aggression of the late Sam Kinison, Maron’s demented former belief in world domination by secret societies (including an admittedly droll bit on the Founding Fathers as Illuminati-Masons), and a trip to the Holy Land mediated through a Sony camcorder. Despite his weak grasp of theology, this boomer class clown, in faithful accordance with the Jerusalem Syndrome—a widely-recognized phenomenon in which susceptible visitors to the religious capital assume the guise of important Old or New Testament personalities—waited for instruction from the Almighty but failed to land a prophet gig. His trip to a cigarette factory and his tour of the Coke museum give evidence of truly good reporting, but the self-absorption threatens, like a black hole, to swallow all.
It’s a fast line of patter, but, as Maron would say, it’s only rock ’n’ roll, man, only rock ’n’ roll.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2001
ISBN: 0-7679-0810-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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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