As Ochs says, “a do-it-yourself guide to working out your own shit,” the last any midlife ordinary Joe will need.
How to keep your sense of humor and discover what matters at midlife while being really vulgar: a guide from funnyman Ochs.
Ochs wrote this guidebook because he was grappling with all of midlife’s little acceptances he didn’t want to accept. Nor did he have any intention of chucking the big stuff, like a good marriage, having enough, and laughing on the outside as he continued to laugh on the inside. A set of simple truths runs through his book: “1. I’m actually getting old. / 2. It’s ultimately going to suck. / 3. Tough shit. I will still need to live life to the fullest until I can’t anymore.” It’s not poetic—actually, kind of splintery—but fruitful in its own rough way. His plan is to approach the challenges with as much rudeness and as many invectives as he can muster, which he deploys here like a lion tamer’s chair and whip to prod midlife men into action as they consider “the schedule of decomposition our genes planned for us.” He doles out pearls of wisdom, some his own, some borrowed from Carl Jung, Kim Kardashian, Gandhi, Pliny the Elder, Buddha, Margaret Mead, and Louis C.K. There will be times when the reader will catch himself nodding his head in agreement—“Midlife crisis...is much less about a loss of flesh and far more about a loss of innocence, the stripping away of the illusion of choice and order”—or unleashing a guffaw: “Sitting in your underwear on top of some other pair of underwear you’re not wearing anymore while watching a game on TV and drinking a shitty beer (seriously, try some Belgian ales) is not officially ‘living.’ ” One longish anecdote involves an erection in a locker room shower. Another section almost breathtakingly explains how to deal with debt and losing your job. After all the zingers have zipped past and the end is in sight, readers may realize that Ochs has hit on elementals: stop being a dick; recognize the interplay of exercise and aging; treat older folks properly; move through the world with more than a modicum of consideration and awareness.
As Ochs says, “a do-it-yourself guide to working out your own shit,” the last any midlife ordinary Joe will need.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1499781861
Page Count: 272
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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