2002-02-07 - 5:56 p.m.
Recently read books:
* A Song Called Youth, by John Shirley. I�d heard of John Shirley as the Godfather of Cyberpunk--what a quaint term, cyberpunk--but I�d never read any of his work and so I started with what�s supposed to be his magnum opus, a trilogy of books first published in the mid-�80s then updated and re-released in 1999. Some of the updates are bone-jarringly awkward (the "New Soviets"?) and what might otherwise make for a terrifying dystopian political thriller from start to finish grinds to a halt at odd moments thanks to action scenes and dialogue as melodramatic as anything Tom Clancy might cough up. Still, given recent events, it�s an unsettling piece of work that speaks to the paranoid lefty in all of us. And it reads about a million times better than Snow Crash. Of course, used toilet paper reads better than Snow Crash.
* Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End-Time America, by Alex Heard. I picked up this book expecting a hellish odyssey through some of the darker reaches of American-style apocalypticism, but as it turns out, most (though not all) of the people Heard writes about are perfectly harmless. UFO buffs, Objectivists, enviro-crazies, extreme Christian fundamentalists, you-too-can-live-forever alternative-medicine enthusiasts--it�s too easy for netgeeks to think of them all as having sprung to life fully formed from the forehead of Usenet and this book helps to remind you that their beliefs have roots as old as, or older than, America itself. Great bedtime reading.
* Turned On: A Biography of Henry Rollins, by James Parker. I got sweated on by Henry Rollins at a Black Flag show once and I haven�t showered since. OK, that�s not true--but if I�d known back in 1984 that Henry would reach the level of post-millennial Uebermenschlichkeit he�s attained today, I would have blotted the perspiration from my face with a Kleenex, carefully preserved it in a Ziploc bag, and eventually gotten 500 bucks for it on eBay. All of which, however, begs the question of why a biography of Rollins is needed in the first place. Hasn�t the guy already--through about a dozen books and God-only-knows how many performances--sliced himself open from sternum to crotch and laid his entrails out in neat rows for us all to play with? That�s probably the main reason Rollins himself refused to cooperate in the writing of this book, resulting in a very limited story, covering the Black Flag years almost exclusively and relying on hilariously biased accounts from friends, former friends, worshippers and enemies, all of whom have axes to grind. If you enjoy catty gossip from the L.A. punk-rock sewing circle, you�ll like this book. Otherwise, don�t bother.
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