Infotainment short on diversity for fans of jejune humor and pop-cultural curiosities.
Two popular podcasters opine on topics skewed—intentionally or not—toward real or stereotypical masculine interests, such as cars, guns, and military derring-do.
About two-thirds of podcast listeners are men, typically ages 25 to 49, and slightly more than half are White, so perhaps it’s natural that in their first book, Stuff You Should Know co-hosts Clark and Bryant gravitate to topics likely to appeal to that demographic. What’s harder to fathom is why they omit or underrepresent so many others—female, Black, and LGBTQ+ readers among them—in breezy essays on pop-cultural miscellany laced with hit-or-miss humor. With ghostwriter Parker, the authors set the tone in an early section called “How To Start or End a Facial Hair Trend,” which follows 13 thumbnail sketches of a youngish White man showing varied beard and mustache styles. Then come chapters on traditionally male interests—cars (“Demolition Derbies”), guns (“The First Gun(s)”), and military exploits (“Kamikaze”)—and on things men invented or popularized: “Mezcal,” “Do(ugh)nts,” “Backmasking,” “Mr. Potato Head,” “The Pet Rock,” and more. “Dog Smells” begins with the intriguing fact that dogs’ feet often smell like Fritos (which were “invented” by Charles Elmer Doolin), a phenomenon known as “Frito Feet” that occurs when paws pick up yeast and bacteria on walks, but the chapter soon turns adolescent: “Poop smell…generally carries the message that it comes from some kind of poopy pathogen and we should, therefore, move along and not hang around said poop.” The only chapter that focuses primarily on a woman, “The SCUM Manifesto,” deals with Valerie Solanas, Andy Warhol’s mentally ill lesbian assailant. Monardo partly masks the problem with her cartoonlike illustrations, which represent women and minorities more fairly than the text does. For readers other than White men under 50, however, this brand extension remains—as the authors might say—“kind of a bummer.”
Infotainment short on diversity for fans of jejune humor and pop-cultural curiosities.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26850-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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