Product Description

"Apocalypse Culture is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our times. An extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the twentieth century."-J.G. Ballard

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #309453 in Books
• Published on: 1990-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 362 pages

Amazon.com Review
For years I've been a little leery of this book. First published in 1987, this anthology of doomster essays has become a fixture on the bookshelves of every Tom, Pierced Dick, and Harry. After finally reading it, I have to admit that my prejudice against those who think that being cool means reading lots of ReSearch magazines kept me away from what is actually a fascinating volume, wherein the most absurd, inexcusable positions are defended with calm intelligence and witty rationality. With essays ranging from the sexual liberation of necrophiliacs to strong cases against art and agriculture, editor Adam Parfrey's collection is one that Tristan Tzara would enjoy, if he were to rise from his mouldy grave in search of good bathroom reading.

About the Author
Since his influential collection, Apocalypse Culture, was first released in 1987, the award-winning writer Adam Parfrey has been credited for discovering and revealing the inner workings of cults and unusual pop culture histories. With "Love, Sex, Fear, Death," Parfrey has captured the cooperation of primary players in the most secretive and talked about cult of our time.

Customer Reviews

Utter Filth
well, where should i start?

this book seems little more than a collection of articles written by deranged individuals.

it takes a lot to shake me but i felt dirty after reading it.

one of those article seem to glorify a killer who cracked the skull of a child with a hammer and dismissed charle manson because he had his killings done by others.

the only non article part of the book was a few pages at the end extolling the virtues of free speech.

i suspect the "author" of this book is less interested in our free speech and more interested in his freedom to publish such garbage.

there is absolutely no redeeming value in this piece of trash.

maybe it could serve as toilet paper?

i'm glad i didn't have to pay for it.
i found it in a toilet when i was living in a room in a skid row hotel, infested with mice and cockroaches.

a fitting place for such a book...

vince

A mixed bag of eccentricities, but I think that was probably the intent.
Someone once said of this book (or maybe it was the second, I don't recall exactly) that if nothing in it offends you, then you aren't thinking. I think thats a decent assesment, and given the often conflicting material in the book, I doubt anyone is expected to agree with everything (or even anything) inside it. Some of the material is just curiosities, and some of it I find fills a place in my music collection (the entries by Monte Cazazza and so on. Sure, they aren't musical, but I like to collect everything I can, musical or not.)

Although its been a while since I read the piece, I recall finding the section on the Process Church quite fascinating, and it was the first actual in depth work I read on that subject. Same with the Jack Parsons piece, a subject I had heard about due to my prior interest in conspiracy theories, but had never delved too deep in to it.

The Monte Cazazza and Michelle Handleman piece is enjoyable and is in many ways a forerunner to much of the modern concerns over excessive consumerism and advertising, covering this ground long before Adbusters was formed, or Fatland and Affluenza hit the best seller lists.

Its actually surprising, now that I look back at the book and compare it to the world now, how some of the more political topics in it, such as the chapter titled "How To Kill" (regarding whether or not African Americans are subjects of a secret program of white supremacist genocide) have, in various forms, entered mainstream political discourse.

One of my favorite parts, since its just so unintentionally amusing due to the content, are the unusual letters to the editor, which elicit some decent laughter.

Also on a more humorous note are the Charles Fort quotes, since, despite the seriousness with which people take "fortean" phenomenon today, Charles himself was quite the humorist and approached often these matters with tounge firmly in cheek. Thats not to say he enver had anything serious to say; he certainly did, but as some fo these quotes show, he never wanted to say it as a prophet of doom or finger wagger.

The most serious, and I think "prophetic" section, (no pun intended) is the one titled "The Christian Right, Zionism, and the coming of the Penteholocaust." This essentially details, without going in to too much specifics here, how a small cadre of right wing christian fundamentalists wanted to trigger the end of the world. As insane as that sounds, its all too real, and the reality of it has become even more frightening in the 20 some years since the book was released. Back then, I'll grant that this may have been a fringe phenomenon even in the religious right, but the idea that christians must somehow "accelerate" the coming of Jesus has become much more common in the religious right. Its what drives fundamentalists to do things like pay for Jews to return to Israel en masse (as they think all Jews must return to Israel before the end of the world can occur.) This chapter was my first exposure to this frightening ideology, and I'm sad to say that no one has heeded the warnings, and these people who would try to bring about the end of the world are all the more powerful today. That piece alone makes the both worth buying, and I think its a good introduction to the myriad of writings on that subject.

Two more points of minutae;

1.The book, as is often claimed provided inspiration for Chris Carter of X-Files fame, and loving the X-Files as much as I do, that just adds to the books favor.

2.Content aside, the book is a great piece to own for the excellent Joe Coleman art that graces the cover.

Now You Know What You Did Not Want To Know...
I am not by any means a squeamish person. In my relatively brief tenure on this planet, I've seen first-hand a great many things the 'average' individual might deem repulsive, repellent, unsavory, unseemly. Finally purchased this book ( a first-edition, no less ) at an independent record store, owing primarily to it's hipster cred as 'the' book to own for those in-the-know. While there is very little in this title that was a complete surprise to me ( in my varying lines of employment, I discovered early on that the human animal's capacity for cruelty and attendent perversion is virtually limitless ), to have all the various pecadilloes ( and their sub-genres ) represented between the pages of a single book that could be carried around as easily as the latest Tom Clancey crapfest was something akin to discovering that you possessed a vial containing every known social disease, and a few that were as-yet unclassified - good to know, but do you really want this thing lying around your house? In my case, no. Interesting book, I 'get' the point ( the human race is bipedal ape scum, and we're all going to hell in a handbasket ), but this is the first time I have ever felt moved to drop a book in the trash, and I am a compulsive book-buyer/reader, with literally thousands of titles lining the shelves. Just not this one. Not anymore.