The Joy of Sax
Walt Brasch (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
2001 Lighthouse Press
ISBN: 0967635454 Amazon's price is: Paperback - $17.95
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America During the Bill Clinton Era.
Okay, for all you nostalgia folks who yearn for a far, far better time, grab your magic carpets & let Walt Brasch take you for a fast & funny ride down memory lane.
The Joy of Sax is, for its genre, a long book lasting all of 384 pages. Of course it's covering eight full years of one president while making flying leaps at anything ridiculous from all preceding presidencies. The Clinton Era was turbulent times, & Walt Brasch's inane insights into what held our fancies & titillated our tongues will make you squirm...& guffaw!
What Walt Brasch has reconstituted, for us 10-minute-memory folks, are his columns about what it was like “back then” (1993-2001), when we wallowed in Democratic elation from gaining political ascendence after 12 years of Republican rule during the Reagan-Bush marathon.
& what a time it was! Walt Brasch spends a few pages bringing us “up to speed” & easing us, like a woman reluctant to enter a corset, into our recent past. His enquiring mind makes hilarious & bizarre connections, & while you may find yourself nodding in wise agreement, you will also find yourself gagging: “You don't say!”
The essays are short, well written, with their full quota of absurdity laced with acidic wit, as well as profoundly embarrassing facts. Some of them downright funny, in the same way the contents of those boxes containing your college years' momentoes are. The titles alone will get you chuckling: Long Island Lolita Meets the Journalistic Lowlife; United We Lobby; The Lawyers are Coming! The Lawyers are Coming!; By a Sneeze, They Shall Be Known; But Can a Frog Lead? A NAFTA Primer; Waffles and Nuts; Scheduling Peace in Bosnia; A Kernel of Truth; A Citadel of 'Maledumb'; Coattails for Two; Creating Historical Fiction; Socially Statistical Amnesia; White Elephant Sale; Legalized Bank Robbery & that's just a handful from The First Term.
The Joy of Sax is like a smorgasbord -- there's something to fit just about every person's tastes. You want to remember it all, the horrible as well as the crass; you want to take a taste of everything so you can mutter: “Were we really like that for eight whole years?” You can gorge yourself by reading straight the way through, or nibble here & there. Either way, you will have consumed thousands of cerebral calories, added inches to your ego, & had some resounding belly laughs.
The Joy of Sax deserves a place of honor on your throne-room shelf, a perfect companion for when you're about the most important business of your life...& remember to wash your hands afterwards!
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