Books
Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love
by Courtney Love (Faber and Faber, Inc.)
Like her fellow icon Madonna, who then-paramour Warren Beatty once declared wouldn't want to live, much less speak, off camera, Courtney Love's hunger for attention is a force of nature on par with her talent. Cultivating a brash public persona over the years and engaging in tabloid-friendly antics that have come to overshadow her music, she offers both the shame and the thrill of wildly inappropriate behavior as well as the raw honesty of an artist battling both herself and her reputation. That she would put her private thoughts on display for fans and foes to pick apart hardly comes as a surprise.
Among the endless lists, sketches, photos and journal entries on display in Dirty Blonde, two observations stand out from all the others. The first - "I Love being famous...because I get off on it." The second - "I Love playing music...because it affords me the power to feel that I am worth something. In order to DO IT RIGHT i would renounce just about anything." The intersection of these impulses comprises the bulk of what is found within.
Accused at times of not writing her own songs, this collection of ephemera reveals Love to be very much her own creation, a lifelong writer, performer and celebrity watchdog. Her precocious teenage scribblings include sometimes corny but smart-for-her-age lyrics and show that even then she was conscious of the nuances of pop stardom. One early note reads in part, "I think I'll be a rockstar. Get an Oscar too, and be best friends with Elton John." (Later on she includes a snap of herself with Elton, Elizabeth Taylor and Donatella Versace.) Her experiences in boarding school and juvenile hall are well represented; amid progress reports and official documents are shrewd assessments of human nature ("all cool girls are competitive cunts...just don't pretend its otherwise! Celebrate the reality!"). This stuff would fascinate even if its author were unknown.
Once freed of school obligations, Love plunged headfirst into the rock world that she so craved, making obsessive love/hate lists and crafting advice to pass along to her future children ("get enough sleep...be glamorous...Earn your own fame"). We glimpse letters that she wrote to 4AD and John Peel touting Hole, as well as signature doodles that appeared in various forms on that band's album art. As Love's life changes, so do its artifacts - notes to Kurt Cobain ("lets be mountain junkies and breed satanic mall rats"), intimate family photos and acknowledgement from various public figures (David Geffen, Marc Jacobs and others) that reflect her position as one of their peers but also seem to have been preserved as a sort of self-validation.
While fragmented, this material recasts Love outside the caricature of herself that tends to make the papers. She emerges as a fiercely intelligent and curious individual who lives under extraordinary circumstances, but who also has the vulnerability to write of her daughter, "Someday I hope to make her so proud and so happy." Love has been working on an album with Billy Corgan and Linda Perry that's due for release this winter. Some lyrics from the project (tentatively called How Dirty Girls Get Clean) round out the book, along with her thoughts about the present: "I feel ready for a brand new life now." Whatever Love's future holds, it seems certain that it'll be at least as stimulating as her journey thus far - no ghostwriter necessary.
- Amanda Langston
by Courtney Love (Faber and Faber, Inc.)
Like her fellow icon Madonna, who then-paramour Warren Beatty once declared wouldn't want to live, much less speak, off camera, Courtney Love's hunger for attention is a force of nature on par with her talent. Cultivating a brash public persona over the years and engaging in tabloid-friendly antics that have come to overshadow her music, she offers both the shame and the thrill of wildly inappropriate behavior as well as the raw honesty of an artist battling both herself and her reputation. That she would put her private thoughts on display for fans and foes to pick apart hardly comes as a surprise.
Among the endless lists, sketches, photos and journal entries on display in Dirty Blonde, two observations stand out from all the others. The first - "I Love being famous...because I get off on it." The second - "I Love playing music...because it affords me the power to feel that I am worth something. In order to DO IT RIGHT i would renounce just about anything." The intersection of these impulses comprises the bulk of what is found within.
Accused at times of not writing her own songs, this collection of ephemera reveals Love to be very much her own creation, a lifelong writer, performer and celebrity watchdog. Her precocious teenage scribblings include sometimes corny but smart-for-her-age lyrics and show that even then she was conscious of the nuances of pop stardom. One early note reads in part, "I think I'll be a rockstar. Get an Oscar too, and be best friends with Elton John." (Later on she includes a snap of herself with Elton, Elizabeth Taylor and Donatella Versace.) Her experiences in boarding school and juvenile hall are well represented; amid progress reports and official documents are shrewd assessments of human nature ("all cool girls are competitive cunts...just don't pretend its otherwise! Celebrate the reality!"). This stuff would fascinate even if its author were unknown.
Once freed of school obligations, Love plunged headfirst into the rock world that she so craved, making obsessive love/hate lists and crafting advice to pass along to her future children ("get enough sleep...be glamorous...Earn your own fame"). We glimpse letters that she wrote to 4AD and John Peel touting Hole, as well as signature doodles that appeared in various forms on that band's album art. As Love's life changes, so do its artifacts - notes to Kurt Cobain ("lets be mountain junkies and breed satanic mall rats"), intimate family photos and acknowledgement from various public figures (David Geffen, Marc Jacobs and others) that reflect her position as one of their peers but also seem to have been preserved as a sort of self-validation.
While fragmented, this material recasts Love outside the caricature of herself that tends to make the papers. She emerges as a fiercely intelligent and curious individual who lives under extraordinary circumstances, but who also has the vulnerability to write of her daughter, "Someday I hope to make her so proud and so happy." Love has been working on an album with Billy Corgan and Linda Perry that's due for release this winter. Some lyrics from the project (tentatively called How Dirty Girls Get Clean) round out the book, along with her thoughts about the present: "I feel ready for a brand new life now." Whatever Love's future holds, it seems certain that it'll be at least as stimulating as her journey thus far - no ghostwriter necessary.
- Amanda Langston
I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence
by Amy Sedaris (Warner Books)
In certain circles, Amy Sedaris is the patron saint of everything kooky and off-kilter. As the star of Comedy Central's cult hit Strangers With Candy and sister of equally strange and brilliant writer David, she's developed a loyal fanbase of self-identified misfits who hang on her every word. Her new book, then, has a built-in audience ready to embrace its one-of-a-kind point of view.
What America: The Book did for civics, I Like You does for hospitality. Whatever the occasion (ladies' night, entertaining an unexpected visitor), Sedaris has tips for guests and hosts alike, as well as a plethora of real recipes from appetizers to dessert, some of which were contributed by old friends Paul Dinello (who Sedaris more or less credits as her co-author) and Stephen Colbert. If you need tips on keeping a pet rabbit or feel like making jewelry out of vegetables, Sedaris has you covered. As a bonus, all manner of conversational advice is freely offered ("Don't tell everything about yourself, save it for your gynecologist").
The book takes design inspiration from etiquette guides and cookbooks of the 50s and 60s, but replaces their optimism and visions of perfection with an alternate reality in which it never hurts to plan for alcoholic party guests, and the concept of entertainment "sounds charmingly old-fashioned, like courtship or back-alley abortion." This healthy dose of irreverence is at the heart of I Like You, and shoves the formerly delicate business of event planning crudely into the modern world.
Nonetheless, reading the book in one setting may try your patience. Much like the humor of Sarah Silverman, splashes of Sedaris' unique sensibility are always good for a guffaw, but when presented in long form, her wacky observations and weird suggestions start to seem overly calculated to best snag the crafty hipster demographic. One must wholeheartedly commit to the character of "Amy Sedaris," or perhaps just be less cynical than me, to savor every page.
In an ideal world, someone as special as Sedaris would remain an underground secret, free of commodification. In order to really like I Like You, just pretend that she's your own private hostess.
- Amanda Langston
If audio books are your thing, check out the audio version of I Like You. The 4-CD set punches up the book's humor with Sedaris' signature vocal inflections. It would make for inspiring listening while throwing together your next shindig.
Amy Sedaris appears at the Georgia Center for the Book at the DeKalb County Public Library (215 Sycamore) on Tuesday, November 28 at 7:15 PM. For more information, call 404-370-8450.
by Amy Sedaris (Warner Books)
In certain circles, Amy Sedaris is the patron saint of everything kooky and off-kilter. As the star of Comedy Central's cult hit Strangers With Candy and sister of equally strange and brilliant writer David, she's developed a loyal fanbase of self-identified misfits who hang on her every word. Her new book, then, has a built-in audience ready to embrace its one-of-a-kind point of view.
What America: The Book did for civics, I Like You does for hospitality. Whatever the occasion (ladies' night, entertaining an unexpected visitor), Sedaris has tips for guests and hosts alike, as well as a plethora of real recipes from appetizers to dessert, some of which were contributed by old friends Paul Dinello (who Sedaris more or less credits as her co-author) and Stephen Colbert. If you need tips on keeping a pet rabbit or feel like making jewelry out of vegetables, Sedaris has you covered. As a bonus, all manner of conversational advice is freely offered ("Don't tell everything about yourself, save it for your gynecologist").
The book takes design inspiration from etiquette guides and cookbooks of the 50s and 60s, but replaces their optimism and visions of perfection with an alternate reality in which it never hurts to plan for alcoholic party guests, and the concept of entertainment "sounds charmingly old-fashioned, like courtship or back-alley abortion." This healthy dose of irreverence is at the heart of I Like You, and shoves the formerly delicate business of event planning crudely into the modern world.
Nonetheless, reading the book in one setting may try your patience. Much like the humor of Sarah Silverman, splashes of Sedaris' unique sensibility are always good for a guffaw, but when presented in long form, her wacky observations and weird suggestions start to seem overly calculated to best snag the crafty hipster demographic. One must wholeheartedly commit to the character of "Amy Sedaris," or perhaps just be less cynical than me, to savor every page.
In an ideal world, someone as special as Sedaris would remain an underground secret, free of commodification. In order to really like I Like You, just pretend that she's your own private hostess.
- Amanda Langston
If audio books are your thing, check out the audio version of I Like You. The 4-CD set punches up the book's humor with Sedaris' signature vocal inflections. It would make for inspiring listening while throwing together your next shindig.
Amy Sedaris appears at the Georgia Center for the Book at the DeKalb County Public Library (215 Sycamore) on Tuesday, November 28 at 7:15 PM. For more information, call 404-370-8450.
Jancee Dunn
But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl's Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous (Harper Collins)
I love magazines. Love 'em. I'm not as geeky about it as I'd like to be, simply because I'm too broke to get the subscriptions. But I take notice of magazine editors and writers. I distinctly remember flipping through Rolling Stone's "Random Notes" section and paying attention to a name on the byline - Jancee Dunn. (I remember because after I did it, I called myself a dork.)
Anyhoo, this is just to say I'm a Jancee Dunn fan. Luckily, after reading her bio, I still am. She mocks herself while maintaining a sense of awe without dipping to "golly-gee-whiz" levels. She opens by describing that all-too-familiar fear of seeming cool when hanging out with the popular chick. (Dunn was handpicked to hang out with said chick because she liked cool music. When she reveals the concert she attended, you will laugh out loud.) Her pride at wearing Rolling Stone swag, her hive-inducing nervousness when appearing on MTV2, her descent into the role of a rock 'n' roll junkie's girlfriend - Dunn covers it all in a funny, conversational tone.
But what about the celebrities, right? Well, when Dunn has blabbed enough about herself in one chapter, she gives scoop-getting pointers in the following chapter, using her stories as examples. The one with her catching the Holy Ghost in order to get Destiny's Child to open up is hilarious (amen). It's a great way to balance out the book. This bio is great for those dreamy-eyed music geeks who still decorate with posters.
- Shalewa Sharpe