A captivating photographic meditation full of warmth and charm.
Miller’s photographic portraits explore the profundity of childhood and the evolution of one remarkable kid.
When Aryani Odie was not yet 3, her grandfather Martin Miller took a fascinating photograph of the child confronting the wonders of a deep-space nebula through her grandmother Gail’s big bay window. The child clutches a favorite stuffed Minnie Mouse toy in hand, back to the camera, as grandma Gail sits nearby blithely reading the newspaper, oblivious to the wondrous scene they are composing together. The picture perfectly encapsulates the theme of childlike wonder exceeding the narrow confines of adult vision that the author and longtime photographer had envisioned as his next project. But that project, as Miller states, failed to materialize. What did begin to coalesce instead, like the interstellar gas cloud captured in that initial image, was the burgeoning and ineffable spirit animating young Aryani’s life on earth. Miller likens his muse to Lewis Carroll’s own Alice, and the allusion is an apt one; there are worlds of wonder packed into Aryani’s life as it is chronicled over the next seven years. Her foray into traditional Bharatanatyam Indian dance beginning at age 5 is just one example in which her real life rivals the enchantment that may be encountered on the other side of Carroll’s looking glass. While limited, Miller’s accompanying text provides fascinating insights into the challenges involved in producing his images. As the author explains at the outset, young Aryani wanted nothing to do with the heavy cables and photographic contraptions the project demanded; it was only when she gained mastery of the camera’s remote control that the resulting series could continue. It’s an important tidbit that informs the unique personality seen developing in the ensuing pages. The title refers to the youngster’s rich cultural heritage: “With a father reared in the western tradition and a mother from the Hindu culture, Aryani has a foot in both worlds,” Miller writes. The resulting portrait of that cross-cultural pollination and childhood innocence is transcendent—and, as the author says, “only hints at the depths of this exceptional human being.”
A captivating photographic meditation full of warmth and charm.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780986212734
Page Count: 108
Publisher: The Chelsea Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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