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UNDERGROUND HARMONIES

MUSIC AND POLITICS IN THE SUBWAYS OF NEW YORK

A community activist details the culture and conflicts of New York subway music, from bucket-drummers to city bureaucrats. Urban centers must constantly renegotiate the fuzzy boundary between freedom of speech and public nuisance, outdoor art and disturbance of the peace. In this exhaustive and disappointingly academic study, Tanenbaum begins by locating subway music in its cultural and political context, but as music underground is a relatively young phenomenon, this background becomes an incomplete history of street entertainment in New York. The author laboriously defines the difference between official or ceremonial subway music and the ``freelance'' performances of today's troubadours, and provides personal sketches of various players, riders, transit police officers, and subway personnel; she reprints verbatim their written answers to a survey she conducted several years ago. In describing the interactions between musician and audience, Tanenbaum suggests that the presence of spontaneous performance creates a multicultural community in a space normally considered a necessary evil, to be navigated as quickly as possible. Having established subway music as an absolute good and subway musicians as messengers of harmony in a troubled city, she moves into a comprehensive review of the political debate: the Music Under New York Program, which officially sponsors certain performances; ongoing legal battles; poorly defined regulations; pleasure versus noise. Tanenbaum wishes that the Transit Authority would listen to the opinions of the players and their audiences (as she has) and work with them to ``nurtur[e] urban diversity underground.'' But the resolute independence that leads a musician to set out a hat on a New York City subway platform seems incompatible with her vague vision. The New York subway's modern minstrels are a lyrical subject that here undergoes a lengthy and pedantic scrutiny in a prose devoid of lyricism. (27 b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-8014-3051-8

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Cornell Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

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

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