Essays on pop culture by longtime Rolling Stone contributor Gilmore, steeped in the same sensitivity to moral and emotional darkness that made his memoir, Shot in the Heart (1994), a classic American horror story. Gilmore constructs here what he calls ``an outline, a shadow, of rock & roll history'' out of his rock journalism. Although many individual musicians go unmentioned, Gilmore draws a refreshingly inclusive arc of rock history from Elvis through Tupac Shakur, encompassing not only disco, punk, and speed metal, but also Miles Davis, Phil Ochs, and Timothy Leary. While a few of the essays here read as boilerplate, the great majority reflect the author's deeply felt responses: Long pieces on the Allman Brothers Band, Bruce Springsteen, and Jerry Garcia manage to encourage new respect for the music and worldviews of these much-maligned warhorses, and when Gilmore writes about Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, he recreates the incalculable thrill of their impact on the '60s American status quo. A fine obituary of Allen Ginsberg warrants inclusion because he too ``helped set loose something wonderful, risky, and unyielding in the psyche and dreams of our times.'' But rock 'n' roll is not always about edification: A 1980 profile of the (then) excess-prone Van Halen yields singer David Lee Roth's admission that onstage ``there's no pause for thought. My basement faculties take over completely.'' The basement faculties of Jim Morrison and Megadeth are also carted out, but Gilmore is always primarily interested in what rock musicians reveal about their own and the culture's deeper concerns: He stresses the often contradictory political impulses of both performers and audiences, probing SinÇad O'Connor's and the Clash's tumultuous careers and Michael Jackson's inexplicable, inevitable ``moonwalk to his own ruin.'' Not an essential volume, but Gilmore's angles are consistently provocative.
Pub Date: Jan. 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-48435-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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