Word: fiedler
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...uninspired accounts of genuinely fascinating lives. Most of the bestselling biographies that flood the market fall into the latter categories--loving accounts of tremendously visible figures. People obviously want to know what it was like to be close to a Fred Astaire, or a Marilyn Monroe, or an Arthur Fiedler. But after the reader's curiosity has coaxed the book's price from his wallet, he is likely to come away with the conviction that--yes--what they taught him in Expos makes sense. Unclear organization, general statements, inconsistency and verbosity cripple accounts of even the most interesting lives...
This "irreverent memoir" of Arthur Fiedler and the Pops, written by his assistant conductor for 40 years, is frustrating to read because Dickson simply cannot write well enough to bring Fiedler's evidently singular personality and career to life. Music buffs, if they concentrate hard, can probably glean from Dickson's anecdotes some sense of the excitement it must have been to work closely with Fiedler over the years, and feel the star-watcher's thrill at the Pops parade of brilliant guest performers; those who suffered through piano lessons and drillwork can catch the allusion and laugh at jazz...
...author's love and admiration for Fiedler, which should have been the book's main strength, become a liability as Dickson eschews probing Fiedler's complex personality, and instead mingles anecdotes of the maestro's famed gruffness, inflexibility and stinginess with attempts to attribute to him every good quality imaginable. Fiedler, it seems, was a difficult man to love. Rarely showing any personal warmth, he treated his three children distantly, frequently annoyed guests by refusing to pay taxi fares, and once asked Black guest artist Roberta Flack is she "did floors." Yet, lifelong didactic and male chauvinist, he managed...
Other House leaders suffered similar fates. Public Works Chairman Harold ("Bizz") Johnson, 72, was defeated after eleven terms by California Assemblyman Eugene Chappie of Sacramento. Jim Corman, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was defeated by Bobbi Fiedler, whose chief issue was opposition to court-ordered busing to desegregate schools in Los Angeles County. Ohio's Thomas ("Lud") Ashley, who as chairman of an ad hoc energy committee guided much of President Carter's energy program into law, was upset by Attorney Ed Weber of Toledo. But liberal Warhorse Morris Udall, 58, recently stricken by Parkinson...
...women incumbents who sought re-election were victorious, and at least four were added to their ranks, meaning that there will be a record number of women in the next House, though their representation in the 435-member body is still meager. The new women Representatives, like Fiedler in California, are mainly Republican and conservative. One of them is Lynn Martin, whose budget-cutting assaults as a member of the Illinois legislature earned her a nickname: "the Ax." After criss-crossing her district for 26,000 miles, she won the seat vacated by John Anderson. Former Schoolteacher Marge Roukema knocked...