Saturday, October 31, 2009

Reacting to the small amount of Amber Tamblyn's BANG DITTO I read.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I saw Amber Tamblyn read poems at a Newer Poets Reading at the Downtown Los Angeles Public Library two or three years ago. She wasn't bad at all (I especially liked a piece about a teenage love affair of hers), but I wasn't moved to purchase any of her writings afterwards.

[At this point, I realize that I live in a glass house where criticism is concerned. So I'll try to avoid unnecessary roughness toward's Ms. Tamblyn's work.]

Last night, I read a little of Ms. Tamblyn's latest book of poetry BANG DITTO at a Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica--and thought of those sanitized expressions that Meredith Willson included in THE MUSIC MAN, i.e. "Great Honk!" and "Ye Gods!"

My tiny sampling of her poetry, a few years on, struck me as somewhat turbocharged in its pretension and aspirations to Greatness.

And perhaps Ms. Tamblyn wants to pursue Art and Beauty and Truth (she's been praised by poet Jack Hirschman and is now in a relationship with Smart Comic David Cross) to make up for any disappointments in her acting career (her critically-praised indie film STEPHANIE DALEY didn't break through even to an arthouse audience and the quirky-cop series she did for Disney/ABC last spring is now history).

I just hope she won't try so hard to Impress in her next book.

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