When it comes to humor, it's the printed page that separates the men—like Woody Allen—from the boys. . . like Steve Martin. Without the Martin stand-up persona to project them, these 50 or so mini-pieces mostly fall flat—and the lack of variety is numbing. Stories, poems, anecdotes, jokes; whatever the form, nearly all of these bits are based on a single comic notion: deadpan, mildly absurdist parody. So: "How to Fold Soup." Or pseudo-existentialist parables. Or: "Dr. Fitzbee's Lucky Astrology Diet." Or parodies of artsy poetry, pompous art criticism, or the literati—all of which have been done better before, often in college humor magazines. And, without Martin's sneakily subversive all-American demeanor (his only inspired joke), one can't make much of a selection that reads in entirety: "La la loo de doo. . . . Oh gawsh. . . . Hey, buddy. . . . Hey, cumon back. . . . la la la la. . . . Dime fa a cuwa coffa? Hey. . . . la la la." Budding comics may want to use this book to find out if they have what it takes to read these whimsies aloud in a way that makes them funny—and Martin's young fans, who don't understand what most of the jokes are about, will probably enjoy it most. (Their parents, however, may not be pleased with some of the stuff here that could never be heard on TV).
Pub Date: June 15, 1979
ISBN: 0517330806
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1979
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
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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