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PLATO'S GARAGE

Name: PLATO'S GARAGE
Author: Rob Campbell
ISBN: 0-312-20569-4

by Rob Campbell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2000

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Newcomer Campbell serves as guide to quirky travels among the auto-obsessed. As a youth in Bakersfield, California, Campbell discovered the much-touted American symbiosis between man and driving machine. Even before he got behind the wheel of his first Pinto, Campbell was cruising the gay strips as a “Brash Underaged Kid,” learning the ropes of car life, shaping a persona, chafing with impatience. Cruising was “a self-expression in which the automobile was an integral and active element,” and your wheels a symbol that marked you one way or another: as the recipient of a thrown egg, a bashing with a bat, or a sexual advance. Campbell thinks of his car, then and now, not just as a means to self- actualization but as a love object itself, whether fitted with “lustrous contours and flirty fins,” or —voluptuous but tough, built for speed, and bigger than you are.” He finds cars wonderfully grounding as he contends with an HIV-positive diagnosis and a nervous breakdown. They give him a purpose in his journeys at the ragged edge, keeping his curiosity with life piqued, offering adventures outside the security of his cave—the quotidian—to sample the dangers of the outside world. His car, like his body, “didn’t have to be perfect to get me where I was going,” and with enough care it could give him the sturdiness to withstand his “reckless emotional course.” As for the car people he meets: Where else would one find the Breadwoman, who wears a big loaf over her head and chants whale music via karmic exchange with her art-car? The automobile gives you a way to see the world, Campbell’s essays suggest, with standards and ethics that transcend make and year and help to get you through hard times. Intriguing, but for those not enslaved to the car: a strange trip indeed.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-312-20569-4

Page Count: 272

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.