A collection of letters from one of the 20th century’s most satirically witty writers.
It’s no surprise that Southern, the author of The Magic Christian and Candy, among other then-controversial books, should have taken an unusually thorough interest in genitalia. Among the admonitions in this entertaining gathering of letters is a note t friend and partner in crime Mason Hoffenberg that a certain young woman “is pointing your way, Mace, her loins heavy with the desire of you. She asked me what I thought her chances of getting some of your teencie.” Teencie? Well, if Keith Richards can write of a certain rock star’s “tiny todger,” the word will have to stand. Though loins and organs figure heavily in these pages, elsewhere Southern is given to business, pleading with Whoopi Goldberg here to allow him to write a vehicle for her (“When, oh when, shall such a grand showcase for your ultra-fab talents present itself again?"), there suggesting to Chuck Barris that the two of them might just cook up a game show together (“I have formats aplenty for some quite outlandish (though wholly credible) game shows, which could serve your purpose in ultra fab stead!”) Still elsewhere, Southern is more restrained, as when writing to William Saroyan and Philip Roth, though no less playful. To read through these letters, written to the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Ringo Starr, and Stanley Kubrick, is to take a wide-ranging tour of popular and literary culture during the golden age of the 1960s and ’70s. Southern begins to run out of steam after those anni mirabili, and some of the later letters have a get-off-my-lawn quality, as when he chides Phil Donahue for being nice to Rush Limbaugh. Still, to read of Southern’s demise while still hard at work is sobering—hard at work establishing a reputation beyond that of a writer’s writer, that is.
A must for fans of Southern, that great satirist, and a revealing look into the litbiz of old.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9838683-9-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: ANTIBOOKCLUB
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
Did you like this book?
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
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
Did you like this book?
Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
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.
