Kirshenbaum submits a vibrant, educational look at his days as creative director of his New York City advertising company.
“Advertising people by nature tend to be quirky, fun, and loquacious,” which may only be half true, but the author certainly fits snuggly into that camp. He rose in the industry during the 1980s and cut a broad swath as an unconventional, inventive adman, tackling everything from Reynolds Wrap to cognac. In this jaunty memoir, he starts with a little familial background material before moving on to tales from the trade: encounters with the rich and famous and, better yet, the not-so rich and hardly famous; the crazy shoots; the whole milieu of high-stakes advertising. Yet there is plenty of hard business information in these pages, for Kirshenbaum appreciates discipline, old-school politesse and plain hard work. Much of his wisdom is reduced to aphorisms, and he knows the power of laughter as a business model as well as the fact “that unless you have a killer strategy, you might go down the wrong path creatively.” What stands out in particular is the author’s ability to convey the exigent art of the creative process at work. His outlook is part liberal and socially conscious—he came up with the Kenneth Cole campaign that featured characters du jour: Imelda Marcos and her 2,700 shoes, Dan Quayle and Oliver North (“Isn’t it time America focused less on arms and more on feet?”). Kirshenbaum’s bracing, often ribald humor carries right through the page and onto the sidewalk, where he stenciled such ads as that for Bamboo Lingerie: “From here it looks like you could use some new underwear.” A shimmering piece of work, in which the flash illuminates the creative act.
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1144-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This competent biography of California senator Feinstein, who in November will be up for reelection, hews to the new archetype in political drama: It's the tale of the child who triumphs over the dysfunctions of family life and grows up to become an influential public figure. Roberts, editorial page editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, offers a tepid round-up of Feinstein's life and career. He sketches Feinstein's parents, a successful doctor and an abusive mother, and suggests that in childhood Feinstein learned to transform emotional pain into ambition. After Stanford, Dianne Goldman returned home to San Francisco in 1956, began learning politics, and eloped with lawyer Jack Berman. Divorced within three years, she raised a daughter, developed her political profile as a member of the state parole board for women, and found lasting love with neurosurgeon Bert Feinstein. In 1969, she won election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, casting her crusade—as throughout her career, the author notes aptly—``in terms that threatened neither men nor the status quo.'' Insecure and imperious, Democrat Feinstein gained a reputation as a ``paradoxical liberal'' (most notably by abandoning her opposition to the death penalty). In 1978 her husband died, San Francisco was rocked by the Jonestown tragedy, and Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Feinstein became acting mayor, and her stewardship lasted nine years, earning her a national reputation. She lost the 1990 race for governor to Pete Wilson but rebounded in 1992, when she was elected to fill out Wilson's uncompleted Senate term. She won on the strength of her campaign style, big spending, and the postAnita Hill ``Year of the Woman'' campaign of the Democratic National Committee. Though Feinstein once aspired to be president, she now says the Senate's high enough. Indeed, this book, though mainly respectful, should not garner her new acolytes. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) ($50,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-258508-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
Strong language and strong medicine about the decline of the American economy, but marred by overwrought prose and Monday- morning quarterbacking. Rowen, a columnist for the Washington Post, attributes America's economic decline not to unfair trading practices by Japan or other external factors. It is, he says, a case of ``self- strangulation.'' Rowen examines the men and women who have made economic policy since the Johnson administration. Without attributing any venality (other than perhaps the playing of partisan politics) and admitting that people did the best they could, he nonetheless does assign blame for the low economic state to which the nation has sunk. Emerging from WW II as the only country with an industrial base untouched by war, the US was the most powerful nation on earth. Then, from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, it went from the world's largest creditor to its largest debtor. Rowen ignores JFK, whom he knew personally and who arguably set in motion events leading to the problems Rowen cites. The current crisis, he argues, was initiated by Johnson's Vietnam adventure, which crippled the Great Society and set up a virulent inflationary cycle in its attempt to have both guns and butter. The blunders of LBJ gave way to Nixon's disastrous wage- and price- control attempts, and the abandonment of the gold standard. Ford and Carter were hamstrung by OPEC and were, according to the author, nothing short of inept. By far his harshest criticism is leveled at Reagan's ``voodoo economics,'' with its vain hope that wealth would trickle down from the top. Rowen also attacks Congress, describing it as spineless. For the future, he says, Americans will have to adjust to the economic rise of Asia, focus on high-tech industries, and become less greedy. Rowen's case is compelling, if not totally convincing. He also gives readers a poignant mini-memoir about the life of a newspaperman covering the powerful.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8129-1864-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
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