Customer Reviews

La Dolce Musto: Writings by the World's Most Outrageous Columnist

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Village Voice's longtime chronicler of New York's demimonde appears here between two covers in a sort of Best of.... compilation. Musto's gift for verbal wordplay, over-the-top observations, and risque puns makes him fun and interesting to read, even for those with little interest in the nightlife "scene." My favorites, some of which appear here, have to do with Blind Items, brainteasers wherein he drops tidbits about the various doings of the rich and infamous, and you're supposed to guess who it is. The trouble is, he'll never tell you when you're right! I guarantee you will love reading and rereading this book!

I love Musto's appearances on Keith Olberman's show, which is what lead me to purchase this book. Each "chapter" is one of his pieces written for the Village Voice over the years, which makes a chapter the perfect size for reading over your coffee in the morning to start your day off laughing. But, of course, he is not just funny, he is also very clever and a master of the pun.

La Dolce Musto is a book which obviously cries out for its successor yet it still stands on its own, which is a remarkable achievement. Each section has its own appeal but the parts which really blew me away were the ripe dishy columns which covered the celeb/club scene from the 80s and early 90s. Musto caught Brad Pitt just starting out, Madonna when she still bantered in her own voice to the audience from the stage, the mid-90s Paris Hilton who was Bijoux Phillips -does anyone even remember her now for all her antics so admirably described by Musto. And what a supporting cast! It was such a memory lane to read about Andy Anderson -whatever happened to him? or Marc Berkeley? and the magazines like Seven Days, and so many clubs like Tilt etc that I had forgotten about even though they had ripped me off. I had almost forgotten Rosie O'Donnell's infatuation with Tom Cruise too. Musto's prose fits it all perfectly too, quick and sharp, often about himself but not distracting from others somehow. It is hard to believe that those columns could stand the test of time but actually I think they have gained somehow which is extraordinary. It would be great if there were an internet site where selected additional columns could be read. Great job here!!!

A ragtag collection of columns -- some of them vaguely amusing, a couple of them making some interesting comments and observations, but too many of them far too involved in the intricacies of 1990's NY nightlife. I'm sure that many of these articles were interesting and clever at the time if you had been to last night's party at Limelight but now they're just obscure and/or dull. Musto specializes in commenting on the day-to-day ephemera of celebrity, a topic which does not age gracefully. A decade or more later, it's hard to care much about his observations on things like the Madonna/Sandra Bernhardt faux-romance, a Reagan inaugural ball or Andy Warhol's funeral.

a must! hysterical--he takes you "THERE"--i only read the VILLAGE VOICE for his column--here iyts a book of those witty columns--GET IT
no holds bar

I first started really paying attention to Musto because of his television appearances, since there's no Village Voice where I live. Live, he's hilarious, snarky and loves to skate the line of what the FCC would have palpitations over. I wouldn't be surprised if his appearances on Keith Olbermann's shows have a five-second delay.

I wasn't all that sure about how the collections of his columns would work, since Musto is at his best with his off-the top quips and oblique references of how much he really knows about celebs and may not be willing to say out loud. I ended up feeling sort of disappointed with the amount of celebrity snark that was replaced with his travelogue and stomach ailments as a result of his partying.

That's not to say there aren't juicy bits and random arrows slung at Hollywood types. I loved his little ongoing feud with Rosie O'Donnell and the evil eye turned towards the Hilton sisters. He's wonderful at alluding to scandals, but too often doesn't follow through the way I expected. It's nowhere nearly as bad as reading a blind item, but some passages left me feeling like I really wanted him to dish more.

This gets a solid four stars because Musto is a compelling author that writes with unabashed honesty and a real sense of humor, even when the topic seems a little boring. I would love to see him write a book independant of his columns, something fun like Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.) or Six Degrees of Paris Hilton: Inside the Sex Tapes, Scandals, and Shakedowns of the New Hollywood.

Michael Musto should write his memoirs next. This man has been mingling with a pantheon of celebs, from Kitt to Pitt, for over twenty years and this book only hints at the dirt this guy could dish.

He doesn't talk much about himself in this book -- I would've liked to have heard about him younger, you know, hanging out on the stoop in Brooklyn -- but he does provide a short biographical sketch, albeit in the third person:

"She's an omnipresent party girl with beet-red hair, bulbous lips, and the winningly woozy demeanor of an inflatable doll who only comes to life when a camera's in the room. Floating from soiree to soiree with a silicon smile . . . exuding a good-natured alien appeal, like a top-heavy escapee from a sci-fi porn comedy."

Wait! That's Musto's description of Amanda LePore. Sorry

This is himself:

"I couldn't exactly pass for straight. And so I gayed it up like crazy, mocking all the bold-faced liars, screaming at anyone who held back the fight against AIDS, and relentlessly promoting gay talent, from drag queens to porn stars, while wearing a fetching assortment of my own braids and boas. I was stunned that the queer community didn't instantly crown me queen."

Well, persistence has paid off, and Musto is butcher than he thinks he is. In my humble opinion, nobody does irony better on television. Musto is the only reason I watch MSNBC (Keith Olberman, great show) and his self-effacing remarks do nothing to alter the fact that he is, and has been, considered one of the top gossip columnists in NYC, alongside Liz Smith, Cindy Adams and Page Six, for years now. Musto is the best thing in the Voice too. These columns will have you laughing out loud, guaranteed.

Five Stars. Get the book!

Often self-consciously tawdry and sneering, Mr. Musto's gossipy tome remains a good airplane book, or one for the beach-- easy to set aside now and then, easy to pick up again, and occasionally challenging: giving us awful bits of slander about nameless Broadway luminaries lifted from his newspaper columns.

Richard Green
St. Louis

VERY funny man. Got this as a travel gift for my wife,
& we'lll test "drive" it on the flight to NYC this
Friday. Good price, fast delivery. Thanks!