In 1966, Burlingame was only 31 but was just starting to receive professional accolades as a stage designer on Broadway in...
In this candid memoir, Broadway and opera stage designer Burlingame (Sets, Lights, & Lunacy: A Stage Designer’s Adventures on Broadway and in Opera, 2013, etc.) shines the spotlight on his broken childhood and his painful—but enlightening—loss of eyesight.
In 1966, Burlingame was only 31 but was just starting to receive professional accolades as a stage designer on Broadway in addition to his working with the renowned producer David Merrick. Burlingame ultimately became co-chair of the design department at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, but he continued to grapple with turmoil caused by his past. As a gay man who grew up in the 1930s and ’40s in Arlington, Virginia, Burlingame had learned to hate himself and his abusive, alcoholic father, who once threatened his mother with an ax. To make matters worse, the author discovered that he was slowly going blind. His job at NYU allowed him the financial privilege of receiving psychological help from Edward Edinger, an influential Jungian analyst. This honest, swiftly paced account details Burlingame’s 20-plus-year journey of self-discovery as he came to terms with the past and prepared for a future without eyesight (he’s now fully blind). A fan of Jungian analysis, Burlingame includes color pictures of his own dream-inspired artwork, as well as descriptions of some meetings with Edinger. He first thought of his blindness as a curse from an evil god who poked out his eyes, and he wondered how a blind artist could be any good. Yet as he realized his own self-worth, he eventually considered his blindness to be a blessing: “Going to the heart of the matter, maybe one way to understand ‘what good is a blind man?’ is to ask the fundamental question ‘what good is any man or woman?’ ” Burlingame admirably reinvented himself: Unable to design sets due to his failing eyesight, he embraced the art of quilting. Though at first he was afraid to walk with a cane through the sometimes-hostile streets of New York City, he eventually fell in love with two guide dogs who helped him navigate. Unlike his father, who committed suicide, Burlingame made peace with the past and at almost 80 has learned to love his inner child and “inner gay brother.”Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500190927
Page Count: 276
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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