Humorous anthropology: a collection of Tsing Loh's columns about Southern California in the '90s, reprinted from L.A.'s hip Buzz magazine. Over the hill from glamorous Bel-Air is the San Fernando Valley, home to King Bear Auto Shops, barren mini-malls, and Sandra Tsing Loh, 33, a Chinese-German writer and performance artist who once gave a concert on the Harbor Freeway and lives in Van Nuys. Tsing Loh took over Buzz's Valley column, she says, when Harlan Ellison became bored with it; she was too poor to be bored. And like a Prufrock who gets his furniture at Ikea, she invites us to visit the ``smoggy grid of tract homes'' that is her beloved journalistic beat. Even as Tsing Loh, a wisecracking literary cousin to Merrill Markoe and Carrie Fisher (without the serious underpinning of substance abuse, unless you count Nintendo), bridles against accusations that Southern California is a mindless place—she mines its silliness for all it's worth. She junkets to Vegas to see ``Nudes on Ice,'' visits the set of Baywatch, and travels to Palm Springs for the yearly Dinah Shore Golf Weekend, the occasion for a national gathering of lesbians (including a concert with ``a lesbian rock 'n' roll band banging out covers while a Stevie Nicks type stands to the right, signing for the deaf. `I'm going to leave you, you bitch!' she signs deftly''). Conversant with both Weber Grills and Max Schreck, Tsing Loh drolly interprets the semiotics of her birthplace, with a detour to her memorable Chinese father, a retired aeronautics engineer who dries his torn underpants outside his Malibu home and hitches rides in Santa Monica (``To Mr. Loh, It was a pleasure to have you in my car. Love, Anjelica Huston XXX''). Though her quest for cleverness is occasionally relentless, Tsing Loh is a sharp, earthy observer of an eccentric world.
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-57322-031-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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