kchowell's Full Review: Sarah Vowell - Take the Cannoli: Stories from the ...
Sarah Vowell pays attention to the things that transpire around her. Not just historically significant events and intellectually important happenings, but obscure musical trends and pop culture nuances, as well. In her recently published collection of essays, Take The Cannoli, she chronicles many of the happenings of the 90’s, as refracted through her keen eyes and translated through her pen or keyboard. Vowell is able to take in the swirling mass of news, trivia and personal experience, and emerge with a dead-on rendering of the minutiae, as well as a perfectly connected understanding of how everything fits into the big picture. Take The Cannoli is a thoughtful and funny collection of essays that will make one consider pop culture from another angle.
In addition to her biweekly column on salon.com (which could be no longer in existence, as no new ones have appeared since the approximate date of publication of this book – let’s hope she’s busy touring and taking a break), Vowell is also a regular contributor to NPR’s This American Life. Ten of the sixteen essays appeared initially as pieces on the show, presented by Vowell with her characteristic wry oral delivery. Although these essays were originally conceived as radio pieces, they do not suffer as a result of their translation to paper.
One of the things that I find to be most refreshing about Vowell’s approach is the way in which she understands that a fascination with pop culture and intellectual pursuits are not mutually exclusive. Vowell understands that Melrose Place and Melville can inhabit the same territory. Never succumbing to the notion that pop culture is somehow beneath her, Vowell delves into the best and worst of Americana and frames it in a way that makes it seem as if her conclusions were obvious and effortless. But yet, you’ll realize that you had never thought of the issue in quite the way that she presents it.
All this is accomplished from Vowell’s personal perspective, and she exposes her obsessions and idiosyncrasies as if she were sitting across from you in a boisterous pub, nursing a pint and captivating the attention of everyone at the table. She reveals her obsessions: insomnia, film, mix tapes, history. She’s real, and yet…her insights make her seem somehow greater than normal. After reading her interpretation of the Sinatra standard “My Way”, I could only wish that I had been astute enough to see it as clearly as she had:
The only way “My Way” has ever worked is if the person singing it is dumber than the song. Which is why the only successful rendition of it was perpetrated by Sid Vicious. Frank, and Elvis for that matter, was always too complicated, too full of rhythmic freedom to settle into the song’s simplistic selfishness. “My Way” pretends to speak up for self-possession and personal vision when really, it only calls forth the temper tantrums of two-year-olds – or perhaps the last words spoken by Eva Braun.
Although all of the essays in Take The Cannoli are quite good, there are a few standouts. Shooting Dad tells of Vowell’s conflicts with her father’s politics, and also a day of father/daughter bonding over a homemade cannon. Both Michigan and Wacker and What I See When I Look at the Face on the $20 Bill deal with issues of American history, as filtered through Vowell’s own personal viewpoint and family history. With a nod to Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, Vowell chronicles a failed mix tape romance in Thanks for the Memorex. Also very amusing is Vowell’s recounting of her pale skin / black clothing makeover in American Goth.
The title essay, Take The Cannoli, is a brilliant recounting and analysis of Vowell’s secret obsession with The Godfather during a time of university identity crisis, which eventually takes her all the way to Sicily as she searches for whatever she was looking for as she wore out the buttons on her VCR remote, watching the film over and over again.
Vowell is smart, funny, cranky, optimistic, and in possession of tremendous writing skills. She is consistently interesting and insightful, and reading her work is pure fun. She will move you as she encourages you to laugh at her neuroses. Take The Cannoli is a wonderful collection that will change your perceptions of everyday American life.
One of the most popular commentators on public radio s much-loved This American Life , Vowell explores her own life and the world around her with a di...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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