Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else

Book Description

Like one of the movie moguls of old, Michael Eisner is a titan -- feared, powerful, and almost magically successful. After rising through ABC television and Paramount Pictures, he awoke the sleeping giant of Disney and sent it stomping across the entertainment landscape. But since the tragic death of Frank Wells in a helicopter crash in 1994, he has lacked -- for the first time in his career -- a colleague who could temper his personality.

The result, writes Kim Masters, has been a slide into a Nixonian paranoia and isolation. In The Keys to the Kingdom, Masters crafts a gripping account of this larger-than-life story of larger-than-life hubris, combining an insightful analysis of power in Hollywood with a vivid, deeply researched narrative that brings the personalities, the enmities, and the corporate mayhem to life.

Customer Reviews:

digging into disney.......2005-03-26

A very well written account of the movie business--detailing a lot of the major players. Discussion how decisions are made and how grown men act like little boys most of the time. This industry is ruthless and this book gives the reader on all the inside scoop about how that happens. A fascinating read. The pictures stink but thats ok.

Prescient Book.......2004-04-12

Keys to the Kingdom predicted the current situation at Disney with remarkable accuracy. The insights about Michael Eisner turned out to be right on the mark.

pretty terrible.......2004-02-25

Oh Lord, this book is so unbelievably frustrating....more than any book I've ever read. Eisner, his life and his actions are so completely fascinating and Masters somehow manages to take all this great material and make it mind-numbingly boring...what was she thinking? That you could write a "nuanced" portrait of someone by throwing in hot gossip, sound bites, bits of articles from Time and Newsweek, as well as a bunch of stories that don't remotely relate to the main subject but are "dishy"? There was so much I wanted to know as I read this book, so many questions I had and she didn't answer any of them. Masters discusses Eisner's charm vs. his ruthlessness, she brings up provacative examples of his relationship to his family, his friends and his colleagues, and then steamrolls all of them by emphasizing how "aloof" he is and "imperial." Doesn't she know that when sketching a complicated portrait of someone, you can't just throw a bunch of facts around but you have to maintain interest by putting them TOGETHER to form a PERSPECTIVE, a CONTEXT. Much more time should have been spent on Eisner's days at Disney (rather than the completely gratuitous tales of his time at Paramount, and Star Trek, and Nimoy, and Gene Roddenberry, and Don Simpson, and Barry Diller, and...well you get the picture). I liked the parts about his childhood and his relationship to his parents, they should have been given much more space...but the biggest flaw of this book is the lack of info on the Eisner-Katzenberg relationship. Sure, Masters give plenty of space to financial issues about Katzenberg's bonus, but aside from Wall Street enthusiasts, who the hell cares? She COMPLETELY glosses over the roots of the Eisner-Katzenberg bond, and we never get an idea of WHY IN THE WORLD DID THESE TWO PEOPLE REMAIN TOGETHER FOR 19 YEARS IF THEY WERE SUCH ENEMIES? What held them together? How exactly did they meet? She talks about how Katzenberg was won over, like others, by Eisner's self-deprecating charm and his (Eisner's) confidence in him, about Katzenberg's not-so-great childhood and his problems with his own parents (very vague descriptions there as well) and how Katzenberg constantly "sought Eisner's approval". Why? What did Eisner offer him that no one else did? Why did Katzenberg follow Eisner from Paramount to Disney? She spends a whole lot of time talking (in a dry, Variety-kind-of-way) about the break-up, but the real question she (and other writers) have often missed is NOT why this relationship crashed and burned but why it was born in the first place. Why did Eisner need Katzenberg? Why did Katzenberg become so enamoured with animation, with his role at Disney, with a potential role as Eisner's number 2? These people are not carbon cut-outs, they are people. They are fascinating, complex characters and Masters gives them with about as much focus as subjects of an obituary. She seems more interested in how much money Captain EO lost, how much money Eisner allegedly cheated certain people out of, how much money Eisner paid Michael Ovitz, how much money Katzenberg wanted, how pissed Leonard Nimoy was at Paramount, what a disaster Star Trek: The Motion Picture was to produce. I don't know about you, but I didn't pick that book up to learn about this stuff. It's SO DIFFICULT to really learn about these people (Eisner and Katzenberg) despite their famous "relationship" or "feud" extremely little is really written about their interactions together as people...you have to research a ton of articles to even find out anything...this is such an interesting subject but whatever Master's knows that the rest of us don't, she isn't sharing. Her book (like many articles) unfortunately is pervaded with the "Everyone knows this" kind of tone that drives me nuts...well, I'm not a Hollywood producer, or director, or actor. I've never met either of these people, but that's why I'm interested! People buy books on Spielberg because they're interested, why the hypocricy? Masters book is slanted, glib, gossipy, disorganized, unfocused,and worst of all, insulting to the reader.

Not a full view of the man -- which proves the point!.......2002-10-11

Some may say that Masters' book is biased against Eisner, but she does nothing except reiterate the feelings about him that have been voiced by many others in other forums. Maybe you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the duplicity, wishy-washiness, undercutting, second-guessing, micro-management and all around malevolence that is evidenced shows that's pretty much impossible. What we can't figure out is just why he is the way he is? Why does he casually cast aside decades-long friendships? Why doesn't he cultivate relationships with valuable talent instead of alienating them? What is most important to him that would cause him to make some the decisions he does? Eisner seems to be capable of cutting off his nose to spite his face--he fails to do things that would be beneficial to the company's bottom line which is what he claims to be most interested in. It doesn't add up. Still, it is fun reading about the Paramount years, the Katzenberg trial, etc. At this point in time (summer of 2002) when many believe Eisner is in danger of losing his job, this book gives us as much insight as possible as to the inner workings of Eisner's brain.
instead of burning

Masters Paints a Grim Picture of Disney's Inner Sanctum.......2001-09-24

After reading Hit and Run and an excerpt from the this book in Vanity Fair, I couldn't wait to read "Keys to the Kingdom." I was not disappointed. Masters does a fine job of telling Eisner's (and the stories of those around him--Katzenberg, Diller, etc)story. Something about Eisner has always bit a bit unreal--even smarmy at times--and Masters holds nothing back. It isn't always balanced, but overall is fair. The details and stories are terrific--until the last 1/5th of the book. I was engrossed until the story turned the Katzenberg trial--where Masters drowned us in the details. I love details, but at times one needed a road map to keep. Masters is to be commended for a journalistic/insiders account of that dark time for Disney, but wow...I just had a time staying focused. However, on the whole the book is well worth the paper back price. You'll learn how Disney has never really gotten over the death of Frank Wells and why all those executives keep leaving. It is indeed a grim place; Eisner's inner sanctum. It is also another fascinating book.

Amazon.com

A compelling presence on the field, Orlando Cepeda is equally compelling off of it. The only player to win unanimous Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player titles, the former slugging first baseman for the Giants and Cardinals was part of the first wave of Major League stars to come out of Puerto Rico in the 1950s, yet it's his postcareer that supplies Baby Bull with its power. After the fullness of a baseball life lived in the spotlight, Cepeda spiraled downward in the late '70s into shadows of his own making. Tapped out financially, carousing in discos, and deep into drugs, he served a prison sentence for smuggling marijuana before finally finding and righting himself through Buddhism: "All the records and cheers and the celebrity do not, and did not, create inner peace," Cepeda admits candidly. "Buddhism ... gave me the tools to turn my pain into medicine." Now back in baseball with the Giants as a kind of goodwill ambassador, and content as a husband and father, Cepeda looks back on a life worthy of a novel. Mercifully, he relates the story of his life without defensiveness, self-pity, or second- guessing. If it is, in part, a cautionary tale, it's at least a cautionary tale with a happy ending. --Jeff Silverman

Book Description

This book is Orlando Cepeda's story, told in his own words and with refreshing candor and great drama.

Customer Reviews:

Try another book.......2007-04-20

I found the book very boring, as is typical of most books by former ballplayers. I should have known better. Orlando talks about his life growing up in PR, briefly about the minors, the majors, and his post-career life. He is very frank about his life. Orlando didn't care for Al Dark or Willie Mays. OC was the first SF Giants hero, as Willie was considered a NY guy.

Cepeda vs. Franks: He said/he said.......2002-11-10

I tend to prefer my baseball books pure, untainted by "larger" themes (as though there were any).

I knew that this book, billed as a frank autobiography of Orlando Cepeda, would deal with his conviction for smuggling marijuana. But I am interested purely in his baseball career and was planning not to take much interest in what happened afterwards.

And yet, it must be confessed that Orlando's story of the disgrace that he suffered among his fellow Puerto Ricans after his arrest and conviction and how Buddhism helped him to overcome his difficulties and make peace with the world and find his way back into major league baseball was a moving one. Especially touching is the story of his reunion with a son sired out of wedlock.

But the story of his personal experience with weed is uncomfortably vague. He acknowledges having smoked it as a youth in Puerto Rico and that he picked up the habit again in 1965, while still with the Giants, to relieve stress after a particularly bad run-in with The Evil One, Manager Herman Franks.

Yet Orlando appears to have become as happy as a clam after having been traded to the Cardinals in 1966, and this is certainly reflected in his performance while with the Cardinals and in the championship seasons that "El Birdos" compiled with him on the roster.

So with the stress gone, did he continue to smoke pot as a Cardinal? And with the teams that he played on afterwards? How did this affect his performance at game time? Orlando simply does not tell us.

Still, it's "Baseball Forever", and baseball purists will be glad to know that most of this book is set in between the foul lines. This is a familiar-sounding story of a youngster who grew up in poverty, despite having been born the son of Puerto Rico's most celebrated ballplayer, the great Perucho Cepeda. Perucho was known as "The Bull", and Orlando's nickname, which is the title of this book, was naturally passed onto him.

He used his natural ability (presumably also inherited from his father) and effort to overcome prejudice in the United States and build a storybook career.

The year-by-year recapitulation of his performance and that of the teams he played on is interesting but unremarkable and gives the reader a chance to reacquaint himself with the players from that era. What I primarily wanted to hear was Orlando's version of his alleged refusal to move from first base to left field in order to enable the Giants to get both his big bat and that of Willie McCovey into the lineup in a way which would not sacrifice too much defense (McCovey was not mobile enough to play left field effectively).

It is remarkable that a team laden with as much talent as the San Francisco Giants of the 1950's and 1960's won only one National League pennant, and many blame this on Cha-Cha's alleged refusal to make the switch to left.

In interviews conducted by Steve Bitker for his book, "The Giants of `58", Herman Franks repeats this charge, and Orlando sidesteps it. But even Bill Rigney, revered by Orlando as a father figure, states that he thinks that the Giants would have won the pennant in 1959 (McCovey's Rookie of the Year season) if Orlando would have been more cooperative.

Again, Orlando is uncomfortably vague in dealing with this issue, stating only that by 1966, he was ready to try to become the best left-fielder in baseball but that Herman Franks was already set on getting rid of him. But McCovey and Cepeda had played together for six years before 1966 (Cepeda was hurt for virtually all of 1965). What of those years?

The statistical comparisons from those years of how often Orlando played the outfield and of McCovey's at-bats and Orlando's might provide a slightly better defense of Orlando than he does of himself.

After 1959, 1962 seems to be the only year in which McCovey, while healthy, might have been deprived of at-bats because of Orlando's possible resistance to playing left field. Yet the Giants won the pennant that year and so this resistance appears not to have cost them.

But while McCovey does not appear to have been deprived of at-bats during those other years, he mostly played left field in 1963 and 1964, and played it poorly, while Cepeda was anchoring first. Would a switch have made enough of a difference to mean a Giants pennant? The statistics show that Orlando played creditably in left field in 1960 and 1961.

Cepeda also responds to Herman Franks's charge that he was a poor clutch hitter by pointing to his 553 RBI's garnered over his first five seasons. It's an astounding number, but it includes a monstrous 1961 season in which Orlando produced 142 "ribbies", which staggers the five-year total somewhat. From 1958 to 1960, he averaged slightly under 100 RBI's a season.

100 RBI's is usually a sterling number, but RBI's, by themselves, do not a clutch hitter make. Runs batted in during the early stages of a close game might make a difference later but are not the stuff that heroes are made of.

And runs produced when one's team is hopelessly ahead or behind are meaningless. But situational statistics weren't kept in Orlando's day so the case for him having been a good or a bad "clutch" hitter can only be made through anecdotal evidence, which is lacking in both the Cepeda and Franks accounts.

So to this day, it remains unresolved whether Orlando's complaints about being under-appreciated are valid - or just a lot of Baby Bull.

Amazing story.......2002-08-15

Orlando Cepeda is one of the greatest baseball players of our time. His personal life story is even more inspiring than any of his professional achievements. I was so moved by his accounts of overcoming drug addiction and other tribulations. I was also inspired by his encounter with Soka Gakkai and Buddhism. I recommend another book filled with wise quotes from the Buddhism Orlando Cepeda practices titled "Open Your Mind, Open Your Life: A Book of Eastern Wisdom." by Taro Gold. Wonderful.

Nice re-read the day that Cepeda went into the BBHoF.......1999-07-26

I saw Orlando Cepeda play throught his career (mostly in person during the time he was with St. Louis). He was my hero then, he is a hero now. The book captures it all. I just wished that its publication could have waited to include a chapter on his 1999 induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame (maybe the paperback will). But with all the times he just missed out on the honor, who can blame the man for writing his story now.

Is an upbeat, worthwhile book........1999-04-17

If you are a real fan of Cepeda or any of the teams he played for, you will probably enjoy this book. It does not fit the "tell all" biographies that have flooded the market, but it gives the man's honest interpretation of his life. Many references are made to all of the people who were "in my corner from the very beginning" but overall it is an enjoyable reading experience.

Baby Bull : From Hardball to Hard Time and Back

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Baby Bull : From Hardball to Hard Time and Back
Orlando; Fagen, Herb Cepeda
Manufacturer: Taylor Publishing company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HMRNZG

Book Description

Inviting us to "wallow in the middle," Judith Roof offers a fresh, inventive look at female comic secondary characters who, though never on center stage, play an indispensable role in enriching and complicating the course of the narrative. Paying attention to these characters shows that narrative is not always as straight as it might seem.

Focusing on such superb comic seconds as Eve Arden, Thelma Ritter, Rosalind Russell, and Whoopi Goldberg, Roof explores what is queer about the middle--in the sense of eccentric and in terms of desire--and how that queerness functions as a part of and an antidote to narrative. Shrewd, pragmatic, self-denying, perceptive, outspoken, and witty, these female characters are able to cross the bounds of social groupings, gender expectations, and propriety, presenting possibilities that threaten the "fitting ends" of narrative closure: norms such as heterosexuality, production, reproduction, knowledge, and victory.

Roof characterizes female seconds as modern-day versions of the Shakespearean fool, able to speak the truth without being punished for it. Discussing films ranging from Mildred Pierce, Auntie Mame, and Rear Window to Stage Door, Sister Act, and The Associate, she shows how Hollywood's recasting of the wise servant figure as female, unattached, and lower class reflects more general cultural anxieties about the role of women, gender confusion, race, and class distinctions. She also tracks changes in the form and function of the minor and middle from the stylized, hierarchical economy of classical Hollywood film to the expanded, serial variety fitted to 1990s commodity culture.

A meticulous, playful rereading of Hollywood classics from the margins, All about Thelma and Eve registers both delight in these female characters and discernment of their integral role in unseating narrative and other norms.

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All About Thelma and Eve: Sidekicks and Third Wheels
Judith Roof
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQ8AV6

Customer Reviews:

Well founded, but faulted too.......2007-01-27

Very interesting book. It exposes several modern day myths for what they are--myths, and provides the scholarship and research to demonstrate the shaky foundations on which they are constructed. The book is subtitle, "The Epidemic of False Knowledge", and Thornton begins with an overview of how false knowledge permeates our society. But it is not a modern problem. He goes to the roots of it, the Romanticism and Enlightenment movements, and how they became strange bedfellows. Then he examines three particular myths in deep detail to demonstrate just how false they are and how pervasive the myths have become. However, he indulges in his own bit of false knowledge by demonstrating how little he knows about creation science by insisting it is based entirely on feelings and faith, with no empirical evidence. Also, in his hurry to dismiss the lie about goddess worship being the true religion of the past, he lets his cynical chauvinism show. So for all the good the book does, he undermines that with his own shortsightedness, looking down his nose from the pedestal he has erected, indulging in his own snideness, which he sees so clear in others but not himself.

Good, but not Thornton's best.......2006-12-13

I think this is a solid book, even if he goes overboard on occasion. He is at his best in challenging the cliches which pass for facts at many modern universities. He is criticized for not criticizing conservative theories as much but look at the class list of any modern university--there is hardly a conservative class or professor left to criticize. Over the last ten or fifteen years even moderates are becoming scarce, even in the classics departments, formerly bastions of conservativism. There needs to be a few brave souls like Thornton who will challenge the academic status quo.

Welcome to the twenty first century.......2006-10-22

I loved reading all the literary allusions, and I loved the flow of language, but, ultimately, this book should be titled "Plaques of MY Mind". Dr. Thornton commits every error of logic he criticizes other for. Intriquing though it is to think that all psychological theory is bunk, it is not true. Although it is refreshing to read someone who has carefully read Greek and Roman literature, as well as most literature before the twentieth century, I feel that one needs to have a responsible attitude towards the problems of our times. His ideas have just enough of a ring of truth about them to make them dangerously misleading.

Thornton's Plagued Mind.......2006-02-20

I'm glad I read this, at the urging of a conservative friend, but my bottom line is that I don't have much use for the thoughts of a classicist trying to reason from first principles. They're readable and sometimes interesting, but mostly polemical and based on axioms beyond question, or on attitudes beyond admission. Thornton seems to believe a debate is won to the extent that opponents have been ridiculed and insulted. Perhaps this is classicist snobbery in action? How are formal debates scored, anyway? Who knows? Who cares? That's an activity best left to lawyers in training. It would have been a nice touch to attempt at least one demolishment of an identifiably conservative idea, but this didn't seem to be in the cards.

Thornton's treatment of the area of "false knowledge" of greatest interest to me, "romantic" environmentalism, provides a great example of the above. Thornton disses McKibben (with whom I'm not familiar, so cannot defend) as advocating a "flaccid" pantheism "redolent" of J F Cooper (The Prairie; Last of the Mohicans). IMHO, the use of these terms reveals a deep-seated insecurity on Thornton's part, which is enough for me to discount much of what he says. "Pantheists are pansies" is not exactly an argument that rises to the level of "classical". Presumably, bible-thumping christian soldiers are by comparison chomping at the bit to go riding out and do manly battle with nature, its predators and vicissitudes, as well as any heathens who may happen to get in the way of the glory of god. What a crock. Thornton would soil himself if he ever came face to face with angry lions or tigers or bears or aborigines, just like the rest of us. The difference is that he is so insecure about this natural reaction, that he would at least claim to relish a chance to prove he could rise to the occasion and survive it (or get a Darwin award trying). Whereas, a pantheist would stay out of sight with a camera and catch some good shots, while setting some traps if there were a legitimate threat to human settlements.

There is much about "new age" philosophy or religion to ridicule and discredit, and Thornton misses no opportunity to do so. But, like most of his arguments, this consists mainly in setting up straw man advocates that discredit themselves and then extending the conclusion to a much broader area of thought. For example, he cites Ted Kazinsky as a guru of environmentalism. That not being enough, he dredges up the purported enthusiasm of the Third Reich for environmentalism. Well, the Nazi's had enough nastiness to go around for everyone, evidently.

Does the existence of lions, tigers, and bears (or tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, impacting bolides) mean that nature is "inhuman", and "unlovely"? Perhaps it depends on how one approaches it. If we were planted here out of the blue by a playful god, perhaps Thornton is right. But I'd say one can learn a great deal more about how the noble natives and goddesses have dealt more or less successfully with nature and with each other by reading Jared Diamond, rather than Thornton. That said, I am glad I gave the book a look...

Fighting False Knowledge with False Knowledge.......2005-11-06

Though I have not finished reading the book, when I got into Chapter 5 I had such a strong reaction to the argument I felt I could not wait to comment.

In answer to the author's invitation in the first paragraph of his Preface, that his "own ideas be subject to the same scrutiny", I submit what I see as one of the most glaring difficulties with this book: Bruce Thornton's use of Darwinian Evolutionary Theory to argue against Romantic Environmentalism. He appears to have swallowed--hook, line and sinker--this massive body of debatable (perhaps false) knowledge, the science of which he does not seem to question. As an antidote to this strain of the virus, I would strongly recommend a dose of Phillip E. Johnson, e.g., [...]

In spite of this flaw, I still found most of Part I to be helpful reading; especially as one who is a 'member of the choir'.

Plagues of the Mind: The New Epidemic of False Knowledge

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Plagues of the Mind: The New Epidemic of False Knowledge
Bruce S. Thornton
Manufacturer: Isi Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KCZIN2

Book Description

Written as a cultural weapon and a call to arms, Howl touched a raw nerve in Cold War America and has been controversial from the day it was first read aloud nearly fifty years ago. This first full critical and historical study of Howl brilliantly elucidates the nexus of politics and literature in which it was written and gives striking new portraits of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs. Drawing from newly released psychiatric reports on Ginsberg, from interviews with his psychiatrist, Dr. Philip Hicks, and from the poet's journals, American Scream shows how Howl brought Ginsberg and the world out of the closet of a repressive society. It also gives the first full accounting of the literary figures--Eliot, Rimbaud, and Whitman--who influenced Howl, definitively placing it in the tradition of twentieth-century American poetry for the first time.
As he follows the genesis and the evolution of Howl, Jonah Raskin constructs a vivid picture of a poet and an era. He illuminates the development of Beat poetry in New York and San Francisco in the 1950s--focusing on historic occasions such as the first reading of Howl at Six Gallery in San Francisco in 1955 and the obscenity trial over the poem's publication. He looks closely at Ginsberg's life, including his relationships with his parents, friends, and mentors, while he was writing the poem and uses this material to illuminate the themes of madness, nakedness, and secrecy that pervade Howl.
A captivating look at the cultural climate of the Cold War and at a great American poet, American Scream finally tells the full story of Howl--a rousing manifesto for a generation and a classic of twentieth-century literature.

Customer Reviews:

Hooray for Howl!.......2005-12-21

Jonah Raskin indirectly makes the case that Ginsberg's "Howl" was the epicenter of the Beatquake. He never comes out and says that but it's clear he believes that Ginsberg's work and the Six Gallery reading in 1955, connected many strands in the Beat movement.

Ginsberg was close friends with Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, the other titans of Beat literature. He had a sexual relationship with Neal Cassidy who was the inspiration for Dean Moriarty, the leading character in "On the Road." He used heroin and other drugs in the 1940s and lived with Herbert Huncke who was a Beat prototypical character; junkie, thief, hustler, poet and rebel. Ginsberg bridged the coastal divide of the Beat movement. He lived in New York City during forties when it was the breeding ground for the movement, helping to hone the movement's sensibility and giving people the urban anonymity where they could live on the fringes of society. But the Beat movement only became visible when it flowered in San Francisco, a city that celebrated eccentricity and rebellion and the place where he chose to first read "Howl."

"American Scream" is not a critique of "Howl." While it does reference sections of the poem and talk about many iterations and traces the origins of specific images and allusions, it in no way purports to be a thorough analysis of the work. Instead the book gives us a fresh look at the young and struggling Allen Ginsberg who wanted to deny his sexuality and fit in with the intelligentsia. His precarious mental state and quirky genius made that pose impossible for him to maintain. The reading of Howl came at a time when Ginsberg had embraced both his homosexuality and his mental illness and that gives the poem a sense of giddy rage.

Raskin always makes sure that all roads lead back to Howl, both in the moment it was sprung on the world at the Six Gallery Reading and the text that Ginsberg kept re-working for many years after. "American Scream" covers a lot of ground from post-war American political, cultural and intellectual history, literary criticism, a courtroom drama over censorship and the emergence of a poetic genius All of it is written in very engaging, readable prose and easily makes the case that Howl was a watershed moment and text in nineteen fifties' America.

The beat goes on.......2005-01-24

This vignette of the poetic birth of the now classic _Howl_ by Allen Ginsberg puts those radical years in cameo and also provides biographical wherewithall leading up to the seminal moment, the same moment as that of the beats, thence the brouhaha of the sixties generation, so dearly beloved of current cultural conservatives, now gone to the dogs and deserving all howling echoes still reverberating. Interesting is the early Ginsberg, and the discombobulation of his neuroses maturing into a creative tide.

Worthwhile introduction to the poem and the era.......2004-10-12

A worthwhile treatment of the history of the writing of an important American poem. However, this book is not a history of the Beat Generation. It covers Cassady, Kerouac, and Burroughs, but only insofar as they intersected with Ginsberg. This is mostly a literary biography of Ginsberg. That doesn't diminish its value, but it does point to the book's main focus.

The book is best in its focus on Ginsberg's formative years and the themes of alienation and fear that went into the creation of "Howl." The book has less to say about the poem's aftermath: the infamous reading in San Francisco, the seizure of the book by customs officials, and the susequent obscenity trial are dispensed with in a chapter, and Ginsberg's subsequent life is summarized in a few pages.

The book is also written in what is frequently a bloodless, dry style that fails to do justice to the feverishness of the times and the people involved. You never get away from the fact that you are reading a book written by an academic, albeit a thoughtful and sympathetic one. There are other books out there that capture the times more passionately. However, if you are intrigued by the era and are looking for a jumping-off point to explore other work about the Beats, you could do a lot worse than using this book as an introduction.

Raskin Uncovers Some Remarkable Information.......2004-07-23

AMERICAN SCREAM is a well-done precis of everything that was happening in American culture at the time Ginsberg wrote HOWL and in the months that succeeded his breakthrough.

Better yet, Raskin has had quite a coup and he has persuaded Ginsberg's psychoanalyst (Dr Hicks) to talk about the mental and emotional torments Ginsberg had first to overcome before he could begin the writing proper, and he has ventured into the dusty file bins and uncovered for us the actual records of Ginsberg's stays in mental hospitals and psychiatris facilities. Heretofore such records were only vaguely guessed at. Raskin uses the new information wisely, much as Diane Wood Middlebrook was able to use the testimony of Anne Sexton's analyst when writing her biography some years ago of Sexton.

There are a few places where I disagree with Raskin's implications. Regarding the now-notorious "6 Gallery" reading in San Francisco where AG premiered HOWL, Raskin states, "Many of the notable local poets--Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, and Robin Blaser--were not included in the program, and so the gala event at the Six Gallery was a cultural snub of sorts to the poets who thought they embodied the best of Bay Area poetry." This is disingenuous, as Raskin knows: neither Duncan, Spicer nor Blaser was living in the Bay Area at the time. Duncan was at Black Mountain College, Spicer living in NYC, and Blaser in Boston. How is this a "cultural snub"? It's also a shame that such a classy book should be spoiled by the numerous typos. On one page alone the names of two poets who spoke at Ginsberg's funeral are mis=spelled, so we have Andrew "Shilling" instead of Schelling, and Robert "Haas" instead of Hass. They show up in the index thus abused as well.

Interesting Book on the Myth of the Beat Generation.......2004-06-09

The myth of the Beat Generation has become cliche. That's what author Jonah Raskin has to say in this new book. According to Raskin, the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs were not devoted artists who shunned fame and fortune.

Instead, Ginsberg actively sought fame and fortune, but did so in an unconventional way. Specifically, Ginsberg's epic poem Howl was purposely written to create controversy which lead to notoriety and eventually a lot of money. Ginsberg also set up a Bhuddist institute in Colorado to capitalize on his fame.

The institute also served Ginsberg's need to cultivate publicity and raise large amounts of money without appearing to "sell out." The institute also ran a school for aspiring writers that included a faculty consisting of many other leading Beat Generation writers.

In recognizing fact that so many Beat Generation writers praised poverty while enjoying quite materialistic lives, author Raskin has shattered the myth of the Beat Generation. If anything, the Beats's writing had more in common with the hackneyed horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft than with anything truly original.

This book is an excellent contribution to the literature about the Beat Generation.

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Great adventure in the barbarian lands of Greyhawk

Howl from the North (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons/Greyhawk Module WGS2)
Dale "Slade" Henson
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1560761431

Customer Reviews:

Great adventure in the barbarian lands of Greyhawk.......2000-05-02

An epic Greyhawk adventure that finally exposes the barbarian lands of the farthest north, WGS2 takes you on a daring raid to recover the magical Blades of Corusk from the clutches of evil. Of course, the greatest powers within the Rovers of the Barrens and the Hold of Stonefist have their own schemes for the eldritch weapons... a great, very challenging adventure for levels 8-10.

Book Description

This well-written, comprehensive book strikes the perfect balance between both the managerial issues and quantitative techniques of operations. A major thrust of the revision includes increased emphasis on information technology and the effect of the Internet and e-business on operations management. A four-part organization covers the strategic importance of operations, designing the operating system, managing the supply chain, and ensuring quality. For project managers and other business personnel who need to manage and improve processes.

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