More or less a transcript from an Air America show on the verge of being cancelled.
Standup comic Cho continues her reinvention as mouthy leftist radical, with mixed results.
Most comedians make a big show of being politically incorrect, trying their best to outrage what little rectitude is left in today’s jaded audiences, and few have been more successful at it than Cho. A potty-mouthed Korean-American worshipper of drag queens and trash pop culture, she’s taken an act based on shock value and impressions (mostly of her mother) and refined it over the years into a self-actualizing ritual of rage and rebellion directed at anyone who would try to define or limit her. Unfortunately, what can seem hilarious and liberating onstage frequently looks pedantic and whiny on the page. Her book certainly aspires to be more than the usual quick-and-dirty collection of warmed-over stage material padded with lots of white space and large typefaces. Refashioning herself into a political radical, the author eschews “people are stupid” complaints in favor of rants about the white male power structure, the idiocy of the media, George W. Bush and his cronies and on and on. In fact, rants are pretty much all she offers, running from topic to topic in no particular order. Her kamikaze approach, akin to that of Aaron McGruder’s faux-radical Boondocks comic strip, can work for a few pages at a stretch, but it doesn’t add up to much in the end. Here and there, Cho gets off a zinger, but for every good line, there’s plenty of blatantly obvious blather and the occasional shopworn accusation, such as calling Bill Cosby an Uncle Tom.
More or less a transcript from an Air America show on the verge of being cancelled.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2005
ISBN: 1-57322-319-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
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
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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