by Suze Rotolo ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2008
Full of tantalizing tidbits for ’60s junkies, but too scattershot and awkward to merit a wide audience.
One of Bob Dylan’s former paramours remembers Greenwich Village in the ’60s.
Rotolo begins with a chronicle of her adolescence in Queens, where her education in folk and protest music began with her working-class Italian parents. “Most of us were children of Communists or socialists,” she writes, “red-diaper babies raised on Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Pete Seeger.” The author graduated from high school at the age of 16 and spent the remainder of her teen years working odd jobs, hanging out in Washington Square Park and building an interest in politics, music, literature, art and especially theater (particularly Bertolt Brecht). When a planned move to Rome was indefinitely postponed after the author suffered a violent car crash, Rotolo began attending classes at the School of Visual Arts and taking jobs building sets and props for small-theater productions. She gradually became more active in the Village’s burgeoning political and cultural scene and attended concerts at venues including the Bitter End, Café Wha? and the Gaslight. Rotolo—the woman featured on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan—first saw Dylan on stage at Gerde’s Folk City in 1961, and the two formed a quick bond. Rotolo insightfully noted the musician’s “uncanny ability to complicate the obvious and sanctify the banal—just like a poet.” Unfortunately, many of the author’s other observations about this tumultuous time period fail to capture the zeitgeist of the era. (A short anecdote about Charles Mingus, however, accurately portrays the jazz musician’s notoriously stormy temperament.) In language that is occasionally poetic, but more often bland and stilted, Rotolo meanders through her memories, stopping to comment on the endless procession of quirky characters that made that specific time and place so special: John Lee Hooker, Dave Van Ronk, Izzy Young, Albert Grossman, Tiny Tim, Hugh Romney (aka Wavy Gravy) and countless others. Dylan receives better treatment, and Rotolo offers a carefully considered assessment of the mercurial musician’s work, personality and many faults (“Bob was charismatic; he was a beacon, a lighthouse. He was also a black hole”).
Full of tantalizing tidbits for ’60s junkies, but too scattershot and awkward to merit a wide audience.Pub Date: May 13, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2687-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2008
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
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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