Culture for Vultures (Apocalypse Culture - Adam Parfrey)

Member Name: amygdala

Product:	Apocalypse Culture - Adam Parfrey
Date:	03/08/00 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A classic in its genre.

Disadvantages: Some bad writing and pointless subjects.

Like most things in life, not quite what you hoped for (in this case, for me, not quite as extreme), but this is still required reading for anyone who wants to move in what were called "underground" circles the last I heard. The book is a collection of essays, articles, and interviews on various aspects of late twentieth-century extremity. I've never finished all of them, because some of them simply aren't worth the bother, being either pretentious or obscurantist or badly written, or all three. On the other hand, there's also a lot of worthwhile reading here, including the editor's own "Cut It Off: A Case for Self-Castration"; the case against agriculture ("Demon Engine of Civilization"); a look at the life of a female necrophile, who reveals that she prefers her partners sautée, rather than flambée ("a burn victim, that doesn't attract me very much, but a freshly embalmed corpse is something else"); an interview with the body-piercer Fakir Musafar; another with a soi-disant psychopath who produces a magazine on DIY mass-murder ("the making of a successful masacre involves..."); and a history of ritualistic art pour l’art, with animal intestines and a chuckling Hermann Nitsch. Sick, sick, sick.

Summary: