Customer Reviews

Apocalypse Culture II

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Apocalypse Culture II" is the eagerly-awaited sequel to the 1987 underground classic "Apocalypse Culture." Like its predececcesor, "Apocalypse Culture II" is a series of articles chronicling cultural extremes.

The articles take many forms. Some are essays written by the editor, Adam Parfrey, and other contributors (Jim Goad, Crispin Glover, Michael Moynihan). Others are interviews with assorted artists, writers, and mass murderers. Some are documents reprinted from other sources (i.e. an analysis of the song "American Pie" by the Aryan Nations, love letters to Jodie Foster by John Hinckley Jr.). As Parfrey states in his introduction, the book is "designed to assist the reader in finding front-row seats to its perverse pleasures and strange solutions." Much of the content is extremely disturbing, but as Parfrey advises, "Readers are urged to contemplate the strange and often contradictory information within, and make up their own minds regarding its value."

Like real life itself, "Apocalypse Culture II" is simultaneously frightening, thrilling, hilarious, perverse, and disturbing. This book is NOT for the squeamish or easily offended. No matter how "progressive" and "open-minded" you think you are, there is something in here that will DEFINITELY offend you. Given the extremity of the viewpoints and artwork/ photos, it's also not a book to casually leave on your desk at work or on your coffee table.

However, if you have a strong stomach and an open mind, you're in for quite a ride.

Also highly recommended: the original "Apocalypse Culture," "Cult Rapture" (a series of lengthier articles by the editor Adam Parfrey), "Amok Fifth Dispatch" (a 500+ page directory of extreme texts and information), "Psychotropedia" (another 500+ directory of extreme texts, but with lengthier reviews and analyses by the editor, Russ Kick), "Rapid Eye Movement" (a compilation of articles by the late Simon Dwyer), and "Critical Vision" (a compilation of articles from the amazing British journal "Headpress").

_Apocalypse Culture II_ is a fount of billowing, burbling, babbling psychopaths, most of them in some way violent. Cannibal Issei Sagawa, for example, is dispassionately portrayed by prolific badboy Colin Wilson as an innocent soul whose poetic life path just happened to lead him through a brave, experimental pilgrimage involving the casual murder and mastication of a beautiful young white woman. Elsewhere in this tomelike compendium, convicted Unabomber Ted Kaczynski tells an almost convincing fable about our deaf ear-turning, environmentally insentient species denying its way to certain extinction; I say "almost convincing" only because Kaczynski's stilted tone suggests the possibility, however faint, that the author suffers from unresolved personal issues. Don't get me wrong - I don't necessarily think Kaczynski has issues. For me, however, the most powerfully conceived and obviously inspired contribution comes from celebrated murderer David Woodard, whose essay "The Ketamine Necromance" courageously discusses uses of the drug truly intended by its University of Michigan inventor - "illuminative communication," as angelic necromancer Johannes Trithemius would have had it, and practical confidence enhancement during the commission of victim-based crimes. Although this is the essay for which I purchased the book, I am delighted to say I was able to find something worthwhile (however inadvertantly - to the fifth or sixth power) in most of the varied contributions. Finally, editor Parfrey's knowledgeable, at times wryly humorous essay on masturbation, "RealDoll," emblazons on the reader's by now quivering cortical mass the idea that humanity is rattling on its last legs: when grown men gather to share masturbation fantasies about memories of sex with dolls, we are certainly witnessing the final erosion of our own evil, repugnant species. Expect the worst, and you won't be disappointed.

On rereading my original review I realized that I wrote it too soon after finishing the book and reacted to it on a more emotional than intellectual level. I am still of the opinion that this book is not as good as the first Apocalypse Culture in that it is more disturbing than thought-provoking (the first book was both). I do believe that in order to completely understand culture and society, you have to understand its darker aspects as well as the light. Unfortunately, here, the articles (vs the first book) don't shed as much light on society as it does on particular individuals, nor does it really contribute much beyond the first book. The essays in #1 on art, for example, shed more light on culture and the purpose behind disturbing art than the artist profiles featured in this book. Once the emotional impact of some of the articles wears off, you are not left with any better understanding of the subject matter. A rare exception is the article by Peter Sotos, a descent into the mind of a pedophile (an article in which nobody should be able to find humour), which is equally disturbing and thought-provoking, instead of just the former.

Overall, the articles present a disturbing, nihilistic view of society. For example, included is the real-life story (including graphic photos) of a one-time cannibal who has become a beloved celebrity in Japan with many TV appearances, thus it says as much about how sick society can be as it does about the man. (He does appear to be fully remorseful over his act which appears to have been the result of a now absent mental disturbance (thus the reason why he is walking free), but I still find the fact that he can and does cash in on the fame he received from his crime disgusting).

There is a bit of levity, however, in such articles as the one about Mr. Awesome, the ultimate egomaniac, who, e.g., has his own costume and specially decorated automobile, has offered a certain bodily fluid to Madonna, and tries to convince everyone that they can make a fortune by investing in publishing his comic book about his life. In fact, having had more time now to reflect on the book, there is more humour in it than I originally remembered, but the more depressing articles are the ones that stick more strongly in the mind.

I still recommend this book, but not as strongly as number 1, which gets 5 stars.

Adam Parfrey has put together his second volume of what he delicately calls "the extreme societal tendrils" of our culture. Volume II is even finer than the first volume: bigger, more varied and with greater depth.

So what have we got here? From the banal : descriptions of the exquisitely realistic female sex dolls, with orifices (it is said) more pleasure-giving than the real thing, for a mere $5,750.00 plus shipping. From the horrendous: satanism, the sexual vicitimization of children, necrophilia. From the in-between: a writing by Ted Kaczynsky (a rather dull fantasy); Danny Rolling (the Gainesville serial murderer)contributes a letter and a painting from death row; Sondra London has a short, thoughtful piece about "Murder Light," and Jim Goad writes a piece justifying (he thinks) the brutal beating of his girl friend. Jim wrote a very funny and intelligent "Redneck Manifesto," which I reviewed not so long ago. He wrote the Apocalypse piece from the Oregon State Penitentiary, where he resides on account of the above mentioned violence.

This book is full of asperities and venom and razor-sharp protrusions. It is guaranteed to scrape and not to sooth. I cannot think of any normal (or abnormal) person who will not bleed a bit, here and there, just from browsing this book. With that warning, it is highly recommended. 60 articles, lots of pictures, 457 pages.

As assistant book-buyer for a federally funded, institutional library - and having actually read the book, not merely cast a neurotic sidelong glance at it, I emphatically recommend _AC2_ for facilitiies interested in stimulating intellectual curiosity among preoccupied adults. _AC2_ is likely to tear asunder the reader's psychological bearings, signalling the kind of psychic disturbance which may eventually pave the way for genuine appreciation of more classical forms of literature and behavior.

The reason to get this one, aside from the indispensible interview with Bobby Beausoleil (a man coping beautifully after being railroaded by the media and the system into doing life for a crime commited as a teenager), is for its entertainment value. At least three of these articles--the letters to Anton LaVey, "Mr. Awesome" and the convention of female fans of a new genre of pop fiction are tears-running-down-the cheeks hilarious. I don't undrestand why anyone would promote this stuff as an important cultural document of some sort, if any such exist; the agenda here is laughs, and plenty of 'em.

The first Apocalypse Culture (1987, with a revised and expanded edition in 1990) offered a provocative melange of paganism, UFOlogy, art brut, body modification, serial-killer philosophizing, and nonpartisan political paranoia that not only blew away Reagan/Bush-era complacency but helped shape Nineties pop-culture from The X-Files to Jerry Springer to MTV's whitebread rockers covered with pseudo-primitive piercings and tattoos. In fact, now that the mainstream culturemeisters have co-opted fringe thought to appeal to a young demographic considering itself hipper than Britney Spears fans, Apocalypse Culture II might not have the impact its predecessor did--a shame, since this new book contains essays as extreme as the first book's, and sometimes more so.

The new book features contributors famous and obscure, infamous and almost socially respectable. A Holocaust revisionist named Michael A. Hoffman II details a black magic-related conspiracy theory involving the Unabomber. A newsgrouper named Joe rhapsodizes about serial killing. Jim Goad, publisher of the magazine ANSWER Me!, chillingly writes about beating up a girlfriend he depicts as unstable. The actor Crispin Hellion Glover hilariously tears apart the director Steven Spielberg. ("Is it possible that the Columbine shootings would have not occurred if Steven Spielberg had never wafted his putrid stench upon our culture, a culture he helped homogenize and propagandize?") And the Unabomber himself, Ted Kaczynski, closes the book with a non-PC fable about the new international economy.

Obviously, some of the philosophies (such as pedophilia and Nazism) espoused by certain contributors WILL offend most readers, but this nonhomogenizing book has intended that. I should note, though, that Apocalypse Culture II has a near-total lack of female writers. Couldn't the book's editor, Adam Parfrey, find enough women who rail against a blandified world?

It's hard to believe it's been 13 years since the publication of the original Apocalypse Culture. 13 years since Adam Parfrey released his first collection of writing from the Forbidden Zone. And while at that time Parfrey stated that there would be no sequel, shockingly the world has remained a bizarre place and it has warranted a new collection of writings from the real Twilight Zone. A collection of writing, illustrations and photographs from the real world that most seek to avoid, the world where everything isn't an easily digested episode of "Friends." If you take a walk down a crowded city street on any day of the week, you will, without a doubt, see your share of crazy folks. You'll see the man eating out of the garbage can, the street corner preacher, the dirty bearded man swinging his arms about and screaming at the top of his lungs to no one in particular. You will see these people and you will avoid them, you will look at them and see crazy. Now look at the smirking countenance of the person next to you as you both stare at that insane man, the one dressed in ripped and dirty mismatched clothing and cursing to the heavens. Look close and see if anything seems amiss with them. No? They seem normal, straight-laced, and clean cut, right? These are the people you have to worry about, the ones that once you get past that straight world veneer you see something is slightly off center but you can't quite put your finger on it. These are the people that could very easily written something or been the focus of a piece that appears in the pages of Apocalypse Culture II. That's not to say that the 450 plus pages of this book are filled with insane rants, that would be the cheap way out, too easy. A collection of that type would be nothing but a polished best of the Weekly World News. Parfrey is too smart for that. Yes, there are some pieces here that may be looked at as lunatic rants and most readers will easily suss them out, but there are also more cerebral writings in this collection. There are pieces that will make you think, rethink, question and debate, all elements of complete, quality writing. Once you get past the uh, apocalyptic street scene painting by Joe Coleman on the cover and begin to delve into this new collection of writings from Forbidden Zone you will be transfixed. What do you get? Some of the things you'll read about...You get The Clone Jesus project. You get an in depth study by Colin Wilson of cannibal killer Issel Sagawa. You get a well-documented look at Ted Kacynski's Unabomber case. You see a group that strives to reenact the horror of Jonestown as performance art. You get a look at some sad, pathetic letters written to Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan. You see the poems that John Hinckley wrote to Jodi Foster. Parfrey himself pays a visit to a convention of middle-aged women whom pen odd sex books. A glimpse is taken into the lives of two women who claim to have been Government sex slaves. Michael Moynihan takes a great look at one time friend to Charles Manson and Kenneth Anger, Bobby Beausoleil as he sits in prison today. Peter Sotos makes an appearance and offers his take on the JonBenet Ramsay case. Baffler regular Dan Kelly gives his take on marketing techniques. The Aryan Nations analyze Don McLean's "American Pie". Crispin Glover details why Steven Spielberg must perish. Jim Goad offers up his account of the crime that landed him on the wrong side of the Oregon penal system. A one-man group, who calls himself Jews for Hitler is looked at. Parfrey takes a rather sad look at a delusional man who has billed himself as Mr. Awesome. Boyd Rice also pays a brief visit. Finish philosopher Pentti Linkola details where he stands in regards to population reduction and control. To end the collection, Ted Kaczynski gives his take on the state of the world via a short piece of fiction. Add to the mix more than 200 photographs and illustrations and you get a look at a real world outside of the one that the straight media try to spoon-feed you Parfrey states plainly in his brief preface "The editor does not endorse the views expressed within, much less the hobby horses ridden by the authors on their own time, whether they are ignorant, hateful or enlightening. Paying no attention to the material presented here does not eradicate its existence." In short he is just the collector of the documents and he lets the author's either hang themselves or establish their validity purely on their writing, art or interviews. It's up to the reader to take these writings and form their own opinions, a concept too often lost on today's society of lemmings. So, sit down; draw the curtains and block out the world outside your window. For after reading about what is really out there, you won't be able to help but wonder what is going through the heads of the "straights" that you walk among. Once again, Parfrey and Feral House have released an essential collection of writings that should not be missed and cannot be ignored.

This book is horrible.
But horrible in a fascinating way.

Only by plunging into the depths can you reach the summit as Nietzsche said.


There's a thing that modern society, especially America supposedly enshrines called "Free Speech". Free speech is always tested, always needs to be fought for. A book like this presses the edges of it in so many ways, but does so in a way that does have "Literary, Social" value. It's mankind in a dark, shattered mirror that is also part of human existence.


I came across this book accidentally. Years past I'd read it when it was new in the bookstore chain, over a large cappuccino... I was truly fascinated by it's hideousness. I almost bought it, but don't even remember why. Then it was gone later and sadly the bookstore was staffed by nothing but pretty (and super idealistic) college girls and I was scared to order it.


Fast forward to last summer. I just see it, and I bet it's the very same copy, in a nearby used bookstore. "Now, I don't know WHY I kept that book. I kept thinking about throwing it away. I can't believe I even bought it..." said the bookstore owner embarrassingly. But, even though he offered it free I insisted on paying a reasonable price for it, yes half cover! since it's the recession.


Now, actually having it, I'm reminded of a classic story. This guy (I think a bookstore owner) gets a piece of "Obscene" art. It's done so well he can't bear to destroy it or throw it away, so he's trying to pass it on to other people, but it keeps coming back to him. In the case of the story it was a candle holder that had two nude lesbos frolicking around a pole. This book is the opposite of such an expression, man's dark underbelly. I almost tried to give it to the library, as I had given them a box of Von Daniken stuff (saving their funds for education, science, better literature) but remembering the 1/2 a day lecture on what they thought of Mr. Space Gawdz they'd rip my head off and they'd likely just throw it away or make sure it had an 'accident', fearing their budget being lost in a "Tin Drum" type incident.


So the book is on my shelf and staying there. And I just ordered volume 1. I hope that the author makes #3 some day...

Apocalypse Culture II is a huge, 450 page collection of articles, essays and other assorted texts that present the most extreme and bizarre opinions and practices that can be found in society today. That's putting it mildly. An encyclopedia of the taboo including cloning Jesus, cannibalism, necrophilia, pedophilia, conspiracy theories, Satanism, mind-control, vampirism, excretment, genetically engineered hermaphrodites, expensive sex-dolls made of silicon used for masturbation, a short story by Ted Kaczynski, pictures that combine images of Hitler, Holocuast victims and child pornography; the list goes on and on. The views expressed can be largely classified as nihilistic, as another commentator notes--a narcissistic belief in nothing, a cultural vaccuum. Pedophilia is given more space than anything else in the anthology--especially disturbing since this book was published in 2000, a year and a half before the Church scandal and the widely publicized child abductions. The material here is not for the faint of heart or those who are not cynical and optimistic about the human condition.

Most of the material is insanity, and worthless, but very interesting if you want to know what is going on in some people's heads. There are a few good contributions that do tell us a lot about our culture as a whole. The best essay is "America the Possessed Corpse," the preface to James Shelby Downard's autobiography, CARNIVALS OF LIFE AND DEATH. Here's the message--America is not a great big melting pot, but rather a witch's cauldron brewing with sex-magic, ritual murder and race-mixing. Revisionist historian Michael Hoffnman gives his critique of the FBI's handling of the Unabomber case. The man who pled guilty to the attacks, Ted Kaczynski, was a symbolic scapegoat to cover up for the "Cryptocracy's" ritualistic crime involving pagan fertility rites and black magic. "For Fear of Little Men" is a similarly bizarre essay detailing our collective fascination with small, artificial, animated men. This fettish manifests itself in such things as GI Joe, Barbie dolls, cartoon characters, video game characters, Furbies, Telletubbies and robotic dogs. "High Tech Marketing Research" details the methods of how advertisers and retailers collect information on consumers' spending habits--a great threat to people's privacy. The essayist asks this thought provoking question: "Do we really want to give up our privacy for a 10% discount on Pop Tarts?" The final contribution in APOCALYPSE CULTURE II is a short story by Ted Kaczynski, "Ship of Fools." A ship is sailing further and further north into icy and dangerous waters, but the people on the ship are not aware or concerned about this and pester the captain about irrelevant issues that feel good for the moment but offer no hope of collective survival. A woman passenger wants the women to have as many blankets as the men, an animal-lover wants the ship's dog not to be kicked, an Indian wants to be allowed to run a casino, a Mexican sailor wants his orders to be issued to him in Spanish, a homosexual sailor wants to be able to...Anyway, a cabin boy pipes up and says the people have some legitimate grievances, but they better focus on turning the whole ship around. His shipmates denounce him as "fascist" and "counter-revoloutionary," and the ship crashes between icebergs and everyone on the boat perishes.