By the end, readers may feel they are suffocating in lint, but Bing would advise them to never let their lips—or their...
Rules and tools for the business road, sold amusingly but on a depressing foundation of inanity, by novelist (You Look Nice Today, p. 869, etc.) and CBS executive Bing, a.k.a. Gil Schwartz in his everyday corporate pajamas.
This collection of pieces, originally published in Fortune and Esquire, graze wittily upon the workplace’s human dimensions, with all their annoying, grand, and bizarre displays. Bing is the kind of guy it would be fun to run into at the water fountain, always ready with a barbed insight. About toadyism: “After laughing at four or five unfunny jokes, you do feel kind of alienated from yourself. . . . But yearly raises and promotions compensate for the existential problem.” On bullshit: “When people want bullshit, give it to them. . . . Conversely, even the highest quality bullshit won't do when the real goods are called for.” Analysts are whores, consultants are after your job, wine aids the bonhomie factor, but don’t take bonhomie too far: “Scream at people, if you can. At the same time you’re asserting your human rights, strip others of theirs.” Blame stress. There is enough fresh, unvarnished, cruel wisdom in these pages to set business students agog and trembling: the pecking order that never goes away (“The idea that a person can be my age and still get into trouble makes me feel a little sick”), the way toxic gases always rise to the top, the conceptual totems of status and pretension that melt into air. Do these pieces gel into a philosophy? Only if you can juggle a sense of humor, a sense of paranoia, and a sense of venality, all the while keeping your nose alert to the atmospheric conditions. But, sadly, maybe the best advice is to learn to pull your own leg.
By the end, readers may feel they are suffocating in lint, but Bing would advise them to never let their lips—or their smile—drop below the ever-roiling surface.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-052955-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2003
British journalist Downer has bitten off appreciably more than she can chew in this interpretive history of the house of Tsutsumi, one of the wealthiest and least conventional families in conformist Japan. Drawing on interviews (though not with the principals) and on the public record, the author offers a generation-spanning narrative more notable for its gushy, graceless style than for any insights into an upstart dynasty or the closed society in which, against the odds, it has prospered. In 1907, 18-year-old Yasujiro Tsutsumi quit his rural village for Tokyo. Despite a tangled personal life complicated by womanizing, the enterprising young man amassed a great fortune, with business interests (conducted under the Seibu corporate banner) ranging from railways through golf courses, hotels, and retail outlets. Japan's defeat in WW II proved a blessing in disguise for the go-getting Yasujiro, who snapped up property at distress prices. When he died in 1964, he left a vast empire and considerable political clout to two favored sons. The elder, Seiji, assumed nominal control but focused on making a name for himself in the department-store trade. By the mid-1970s, Yoshiaki (a chip off the old block) was ready to take his place at the head of the Seibu table, and the two brothers went their separate ways. Both are reportedly multibillionaires, and Yoshiaki ranks among the world's wealthiest individuals. Nearing 70, the less active Seiji appears to have reconciled with his sibling rival. The guessing game as to who might inherit what they have built has been under way for some time. At best, Downer has a shaky grasp of commerce, and she's given to tedious stretches of speculative chat on the relationships among members of the extended Tsutsumi clan. The Tsutsumis await a savvier Boswell to bring them to life.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-42554-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
If the thought of a farm straight out of Woody Allen's Sleeper, overrun with mammoth chickens and gargantuan vegetables, scares you, then this book will fuel a thousand nightmares. Mather, food editor of the Detroit News, raises the specter of an industrial agriculture run amok, a system of food production governed by short-term economics and quick-fix technological solutions to profound problems. In this milieu, feed costs are cut by filling animals with growth hormones, some known or suspected to be dangerous to humans, and increased market demands are met by accelerating vegetable production with a Pandora's boxful of petrochemical fertilizers. Mather visits farms, markets, and laboratories in her tour of the new biotechnology, indicting along the way the likes of Upjohn, Monsanto, and Dow for their role in reducing food to an industrial commodity but reserving her harsher criticism for a society that demands that foods be quick to prepare and cheap to consume. Those demands, Mather argues, have led to a disconnectedness with the simplest element of life: putting food on the table. She writes that few of us have ever seen up close how our food is raised, humorously recalling that one of her readers asked whether the direction ``skin chicken breasts'' meant removing the plastic wrapper from the package. Mather offers reasonable solutions to our overdependence on technologically produced foods. She argues that New York State could grow a local broccoli crop rather than importing broccoli from California, saving money and fuel, creating local jobs, and getting fresh produce in the bargain. And she prescribes a regimen of home cooking with fresh produce that she calls ``the first key act in a life that supports [small] farmers struggling to stay on the land.'' Full of good sense and good reportage, Mather's book deserves wide attention. (author tour)
Pub Date: June 19, 1995
ISBN: 0-525-93864-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
