A laugh-out-loud funny, informative, and tender read for animal lovers; Cosmo is unforgettable.
Based on two years of columns written for the Athens Banner-Herald, this collection of essays stars Cosmo, a delightfully loquacious African grey parrot with a sense of humor.
Craige, the author of a memoir titled Conversations With Cosmo (2010), purchased the 6-month-old parrot in May 2002 from a pet shop. Bred in captivity, Cosmo had been removed from her parents to acclimate her to life with humans. In December of that year, Cosmo spoke her first word: bird. After a few minutes, she added: “Cosmo is a bird.” A retired professor of comparative literature at the University of Georgia, Craige had long been interested in “how…other species saw the world.” Perhaps an English-speaking parrot could tell her. Make no mistake: Cosmo may have learned to speak by imitating the author’s words, but she quickly began putting that vocabulary to use, forming her own sentences. She enthusiastically echoed all she saw and heard around her. When Cosmo mimicked a siren, Craige realized an emergency vehicle had passed her house. The parrot teased the author by imitating a telephone ring, successfully bringing Craige into her room. Although Cosmo knew the house rules, she sometimes appeared to declare her independence to the author: “Now she is climbing down from the cage and heading toward my bedroom. I beg her, ‘Cosmo, please be a good bird!’ Cosmo answers, ‘Noooo! Cosmo don’t wanna be a good bird. Hehehehe!’ ” Certainly, the most entertaining sections of the essays are the amusing Cosmo anecdotes. But these are also the jumping-off points for intriguing discussions about the behavior of animals and the ways in which many of them—birds, gorillas, chimps, dolphins, whales, and octopuses—communicate with one another. Referencing Cornell University researcher Karl Berg, “who studied green-rumped parrots in Venezuela,” Craige explains that “parrot parents give each” of their chicks an individual “signature call,” or a name. The chicks will then identify themselves by using those calls, not unlike the author’s beloved parrot’s starting most of her sentences with Cosmo. Other chapters in this charming, thought-provoking collection are loaded with factoids and ponder the complex mental lives of Earth’s creatures large and small. They are likely to leave readers questioning many of their preconceptions.
A laugh-out-loud funny, informative, and tender read for animal lovers; Cosmo is unforgettable.Pub Date: April 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-890932-51-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sherman Asher Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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