History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses

Average customer rating:

Screams out against lifelessness and the will to demean...

Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses
Howard Hampton
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 067402317X

Book Description

Twenty years as an outsider scouring the underbelly of American culture has made Howard Hampton a uniquely hardnosed guide to the heart of pop darkness. Bridging the fatalistic, intensely charged space between Apocalypse Now Redux and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," his writing breaks down barriers of ignorance and arrogance that have segregated art forms from each other and often from the world at large.

In the freewheeling spirit of Pauline Kael, Lester Bangs, and Manny Farber, Hampton calls up the extremist, underground tendencies and archaic forces simmering beneath the surface of popular forms. Ranging from the kinetic poetry of Hong Kong cinema and the neo-New Wave energy of Irma Vep, to the punk heroines of Sleater-Kinney and Ghost World, Born in Flames plays odd couples off one another: pitting Natural Born Killers against Forrest Gump, contrasting Jean-Luc Godard with Steven Spielberg, defending David Lynch against aesthetic ideologues, invoking The Curse of the Mekons against Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism, and introducing D. H. Lawrence to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "We are born in flames," sang the incandescent Lora Logic, and here those flames are a source of illumination as well as destruction, warmth as well as consumption.

From the scorched-earth works of action-movie provocateurs Seijun Suzuki and Sam Peckinpah to the cargo cult soundscapes of Pere Ubu and the Czech dissidents Plastic People of the Universe, Born in Flames is a headlong plunge into the passions and disruptive power of art.

Customer Reviews:

Screams out against lifelessness and the will to demean..........2007-02-23

Howard Hampton's "Born In Flames," is so vividly written, each sentence like a crazed aphorism on some bleak American-gothic apocalypse just this side of redemption-via-imagination, a creatural re-imagining beyond the blood darkness, effluvia, and debris of our times and ordinary lives. One could study how to write essays and to organize cultural collections around wild tropes by such a book. Not sure the introduction gets at what the individual essays are doing alone or in the aggregate, but it is a book that calls out for one to come to terms with it, as a way of reading film and music and US culture as such, as crazed intervention, as a will to create and transform the ordinary in style and cultural-extremity production. He can get from moments in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid to larger shifts in the culture, and from Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia to the blood poetry of some US frontier apocalypse, still to come. That book so wrought is probably more crammed with speculation and implication than whole issues of PMLA in their professionalized repetition of approach and language. That cover screams out against lifelessness and routine modes of writing or being. This is a quest for rebirth, life "born in flames" not death or negation or the will to demean...

Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love

Average customer rating:

new age twaddle
A Really Nice Surprise
An Invitation to Kindom.
A roadmap for what humanity needs to JUST DO!
The time is NOW for co-hearts in the kin-dom to ACT!

Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love
Anodea Judith
Manufacturer: Elite Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0972002898

Customer Reviews:

new age twaddle.......2007-06-21

I read some of this book, a real study in wishful thinking. One of the reviewers mentioned that the book is 'not new age'. Hmm ... begs the question, what his new age, considering the first page starts off with:

"The great unveiling is approaching, a time when the power structures of the world begin to crumble and people of the heart sing out a new truth. .... [E]ach of you plays a part in bringing forth the new dawn."

If it reads like new age, smells like new age and dances like new age --- it IS new age. In this case, Christian new age.

There is no compelling empirical evidence to suggest that human or global history is on the brink of any significant cultural or biological watershed. If anything it looks like humanity is poised for extinction. And that's not a bad thing.

I really do not understand this desperate urge to save the human race, which has arguably caused more damage to the planet than any other species ever has or ever could. If you want to save the planet, let the human race die off. If you want to save humans and the planet, you have your work cut out for you and even if hundreds of thousands of new-agers contemplate a better future, it is highly unlikely to change the course the human race has set for itself over the last century.

A Really Nice Surprise.......2007-06-04

I began reading this book expecting to find another goddess spirituality book telling us about how we need to go back to the "good old days" when women ruled the world, when we were one with nature in idyllic Roussean bliss, and how the presence of male energy on the planet should be eradicated so that women can create a perfect paradise - just like they once used to.

What I found was something else altogether - a detailed and balanced account of the historical, cultural and philosophical development leading to our current culture. While she uses the metaphor of the chakra system to trace this development, it is perfectly syncronous with Spiral Dynamics and other sophisticated models of human development. In other words, there is a total absence of magical, New Age superstition and a great presence of balance, perspective and wisdom.

The book is a clarion call to action, to understand the context of our emergence, appreciate the gravity of our current situation and take total responsibility for it on the level of our personal lives. This is all done without guilt tripping or demonizing any aspect of our development, while not denying much of its brutality.

Having studied both Ken Wilber's and Don Beck's work, I find this book in perfect alignment and the author another in a growing chorus of voices urging us to evolve at the level of consciousness in service of the entire race.

Elegantly written, full of heart and perspective, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand why we're where we're at and what the next step must be.

An Invitation to Kindom........2006-11-08

Waking the Global Heart creates an understandable picture of cultural evolution. More importantly it creates a hope for what humanity can yet become, if we can begin to awaken to what is possible instead of living with what we have come to accept. As a United Methodist pastor, I found Judith's anaylsis of Christian history to be especially helpful for revealing the process of adjusting Christianity to fit political purposes of the Roman Empire. While Judith's summary of this history could not possibly cover all the nuances of that history, her approach reminds us that the heart message Jesus proclaimed and lived was co-opted by the love of power that dominated that time and this. From the perspective of Jesus message of the heart (the power of love), I have long struggled with the use of the word "kingdom"of God to describe Jesus' goal. While Jesus' call is clearly to create a world based on God's love, "kingdom" carries too much of the "love of power" model. I especially appreciated Judith's coining of the word, "kindom" to describe the goal of social evolution. Waking the Global Heart gives us an excellent model as to what the world can be, if we can move past doctrine to discover unity of spirit in the image of the heart chakra. Dana Wimmer

A roadmap for what humanity needs to JUST DO! .......2006-09-24

WAKING THE GLOBAL HEART, will be kept were I can refer to it often. Anodea Judith has touched all the right nerves to awaken humanity's sleeping giant. As J. Krishnamurti put it, to produce "A radical mutation of the mind." She describes the human condition as an adolescent emerging with the crushing awareness of adult choices. Like a teen age girl staring in disbelief at the drug store pregnancy test that signals a personal Tsunami, a 9/11 and a New Orleans, humanity stands in the postmodern era with no MAPS and no consensus. Like a deer frozen in the headlights, we trouble in disbelief at the chaos we see rushing at us with hurricane speed. Anodea's book is a welcome new MAP, and her words ring true as I recognize the truth of her message: "Humanity's Rite of Passage from THE LOVE OF POWER to the POWER OF LOVE." At first glance her three-part index seems to over simplify the world problematique, but the depth of this luminary volume soon changes everything. One realizes, even in the preface, when she describes her love of untangling strings in her mother's kitchen drawer, that Anodea manifested early the tenacity and the patience needed to create this master work. Thank God she had the perseverance and the chutzpah to write this book! It is a handbook for navigating the transformations urgently needed to heal a world in crisis. Anodea draws frequently from some of my favorite visionaries, Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Dr. Fritjof Capra, and Ken Wilber. Her depth of understanding spans the ancient wisdom, years of experience as a therapist soothing pains of the soul, and the history of humanity's rise to walk on the moon where we saw island earth as the only home we have. Read it once, read it twice, and then take my advice and simplify your Christmas shopping. Keep it close at hand as you struggle to come of age in the generation needed to save the world from ourselves. Anodea's book reminds me of the famous line from Walt Kelly's cartoon character POGO, "we have met the enemy and he is us." She makes it clear in her passionate hope, "Someday we will be the ancestors that I pray will be remembered with gratitude rather than resentment." and "...the current crisis will call forth global cooperation like nothing ever has before." I pray she is right! If she is it will be because she and thousands like her with compassion, love, and a noble spirit inspired us all to create the world our children's children can love in peace and joy.

The time is NOW for co-hearts in the kin-dom to ACT!.......2006-09-12

Anodea Judith is a noted teacher and author on the subject of the ancient concept of the chakras. The chakras correspond to various energy centers of the human anatomy and map to various levels of consciousness and stages of development.

Anodea has taken the same chakra system and applied it to the history of mankind's social, political, religious, and technological development over the past 30,000 years. She has mapped this history against various chakras chronologically demonstrating man's social evolution from the lowest chakra (Earth) to the highest (Spiritual) chakra.

Ms. Judith's thesis is that humankind is in the process of an evolutionary transformation, presently in a state of adolescence and entering a challenging time - the rite of passage - moving to adulthood, where the "higher" chakras, in particular the Heart chakra, will come to dominate mankind's future evolution of political, social, economic, and spiritual systems.

Her conclusions are unapologetically optimistic in citing that there is in-fact a groundswell of individual action towards the attitudes and behaviors necessary to reverse the chaos and conflict endemic in the world today. Indeed, today's chaos is seen as symptomatic of mankind's adolescence and necessary transition to adulthood.

That the jury is still out as to whether we make this transition before we destroy ourselves and/or the planet's ecosystem is clearly acknowledged, but the conclusions overall are highly optimistic that the long-term outcome will be positive. The rite of passage may be rather unpleasant however!.

The book is eminently readable and the various mappings of the chakras to human history are helpfully summarized in numerous charts and tables.

For me, the first three chapters (part one) and the conclusions in part three were by far the most powerful portions of the text. The actual chronological mapping of human history to the chakras was intriguing and indeed the core of the thesis being advanced. However, the passion and intensity of Anodea's arguments come through loud and clear in the first and third parts.

Regardless of whether one is convinced that the mapping of the chakras to historical time periods is firm evidence of an inevitable path of human evolution or a convenient model for the purposes of advancing the conclusions is, I believe, less critical than the heartfelt plea that it is getting very, very, late in the game and that "we", the human species, have little time to clean up our act.

That a significant "transformation" is about the only thing that will save the human species seems abundantly clear to most interested observers. Whether framed in the model of the chakras and the transformation to "species adulthood" or some other form, the central thesis is really that things had better happen fast. Utilizing the chakras, and in particular the Heart chakra, provides a compelling set of guideposts with regard to the direction and types of changes that must occur.

Now from a, "glass half-full, glass half-empty", perspective one is left wondering whether this book and many others like it, are desperate attempts to see light at the end of the tunnel - where there is none - or whether humanity really has the will to manifest the enormous transformation that the author believes is essential. The analytical model used - the chakras - indicates that it is not only desirable, but an inevitable result of an evolutionary process. Let us hope she is right!

Once again, the "think globally, act locally" idea is presented. This book may greatly assist those who are concerned, but immobilized at present, find the will, energy, and determination to organize and act decisively in order to be a part of the essential transformation.

Average customer rating:

A wealth of information, with some glaring omissions
IN-DEPTH

The Apocalypse Now Book
Peter Cowie
Manufacturer: Da Capo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0306810468

Book Description

The movie took years to be filmed and edited, and was the subject of endless stories, rumors, and speculation. At a screening at Cannes in May 1979, Francis Ford Coppola said simply, "There wasn't a truthful thing written about [the film] in four years." That year at Cannes, Apocalypse Now won the Palme d'Or, going on from there to worldwide acclaim and etching itself in the memories of audiences with unforgettable sequences like the dawn helicopter attack scored to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" or Lt. Colonel Kilgore's chilling "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." Here, generously illustrated with evocative stills from the film and revealing photographs from the set, is the story behind the movie where Vietnam met Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is the extraordinary saga of Coppola and his crew and actors-who included Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Harvey Keitel, Martin Sheen, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford-battling hurricanes in the jungles of the Philippines, the calamity of a lead actor's heart attack, and crises both psychological and financial . . . in the end giving rise to a modern film classic.

Customer Reviews:

A wealth of information, with some glaring omissions.......2003-05-10

Talk about bad timing. After years waiting for a good Apocalypse Now book, Peter Cowie's comes out, right around the same time as "Apocalypse Now Redux." The irony being that Cowie wrote the book in 2000, a full year before Coppola unveiled his reworked masterpiece. This means that, due to how long the publishing process takes, the book has hardly any information about Redux, which is a shame. As Cowie's interview with Coppola took place in 1999, there are no quotes or thoughts from the director about what lead him to create Redux.

That being said, the rest of the book is very informative, in some cases too informative. The background, pre-production detail is nearly staggering. I would have liked to have learned more about screenwriter John Milius' original script idea, "The Psychedelic Soldier," which, after he was inspired by the idea to do a modern tribute to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," became Apocalypse Now. Cowie, however, does do a great job of mentioning many of the early drafts of the script, even quoting from the rarely-seen first draft, in which the VC speak in goofy subtitles, and Colonel Kilgore is known as Colonel Kharnage.

The level of research Cowie has performed leaves me wondering over many glaring omissions. For example, the highlight of the book is a chapter titled "Buried Treasure," in which Cowie goes over the 5 ½ hour work print. Though he gives detailed descriptions of the major scenes that are in the work print, but were not included in the original version (or the Redux), there's no mention of the Photojournalist's death scene, which is a major revelation of the work print. Likewise, Cowie doesn't mention how deadly Martin Sheen's Willard is in the work print; for example, in it he kills a child in the climax.

Cowie also fails to cover little bits and pieces that are interesting in the film. For example, he doesn't mention that Lee Ermey, who would later make film history as the drill instructor in "Full Metal Jacket," plays one of Kilgore's helicopter pilots, during the beach raid sequence. And there is no detail about what scenes, exactly, Harvey Keitel filmed during the few weeks he spent on the set. But these little matters are trivial. The fact is, the book is a pretty good compendium of information about my favorite movie. There are no color photos, but there are some nice behind-the-scenes shots and stills, including a very nice one of Willard's head coming out of the swamp, enshrouded in fog.

The main thing I found interesting in the book was that cinematographer Storaro advised Coppola to end the movie on a pessimistic note. Watching one of the early edits, Storaro urged Coppola to integrate the scenes of Willard hacking at Kurtz with the caribou sacrifice, as well as the shots of Kurtz's compound exploding. The way Storaro envisioned it, Willard would kill Kurtz at the exact same time as the air strike, which would obliterate all of them. A very dark ending, but Coppola obviously didn't like it. The footage of Kurtz's compound being destroyed, by the way, is included as an extra on the Apocalypse Now (original version) DVD.

IN-DEPTH.......2001-08-23

If you loved the movie (either version), you'll love this book. I got it in time to read before Apocalypse Now Redux came to the big screen. I'd previously read Eleanor Coppola's notes and Karl French's Bloomsbury Movie Guide (BMG #1). Notes concerns itself mainly wth the family stuff that the Coppolas were dealing with at the time the movie was being made. BMG #1 is more of an encyclopedic a-z that deals more with subjects. Cowie gets it right by going beyond this by delving into Francis Coppola's private archives to focus on the movie itself. Part one of the book is broken down into such topics as birth of the project, assembling the team, pre-production, the screenplay, shooting (phases 1-3), the perils of post-production, and at last - a movie! Part two of the book deals with the 5 ½-hour rough cut, the characters themselves, the contrasts of the film set in asia as opposed to Conrad's novel set in Africa, and conclusions. While the other 2 books did what they intended to do, the Apocalypse Now Book is more in-depth which will give you a better understanding as to what it took to get this awesome film made and to the big screen. The horror indeed.

Average customer rating:

i enjoyed the book...but i'm a big fan of the movie
A look at film from an interesting angle
Don't waste your time with this book!

Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now
Eleanor Coppola
Manufacturer: Limelight Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0879101504

Book Description

"It may be the most lucid account of the strain of epic moviemaking that we'll ever get. At its center there's a great artist-hero caught in a trap - struggling to find the theme of the picture he's already shooting." -Pauline Kael

Customer Reviews:

i enjoyed the book...but i'm a big fan of the movie.......2001-01-07

to balance the reviews i have to add that i really enjoyed the book. i loved the film, the follow up documentry was as impressive (oscar winning i think), and this is a very interesting addition. i must add that one needs to be 'in' with the film making history already (i.e its no introduction to the most infamous 'touch-and-go' film productions) before one could appreciate this. its a well told tale.

A look at film from an interesting angle.......2000-03-24

I found the book to be very compelling and insightful. It takes a look at what went on behind the scenes of "Apocalypse Now" from the point of view of someone not involved in filmmaking in a direct way.

Don't waste your time with this book!.......1998-07-21

Perhaps a better title for this book would have been Meaningless Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now. The author, who was charged with making a behind the scenes documentary of how the film was made, wastes the reader's time on disjointed anecdotes about her family life during the three plus years it took to complete this film. While the book jacket teases the reader with suggestions of her invaluable insights, the actual text is much more heavily devoted to Ms. Coppola's observations of her children, her husband's (in)fidelity, and what various dinner guests were served while visiting with the Coppola family. We learn much more about how four year old Sofia Coppola spent her days than how Martin Sheen's heart attack impacted the production. Why was Sheen hired to replace Harvey Keitel?...... What about those rumors of animosity between Marlon Brando and Dennis Hopper?...... Why did director Francis Ford Coppola choose to ignore weather experts and watch as the sets were des! troyed by a typhoon? Unfortunately you won't get any answers to those questions in this book. You will however learn in great detail how each of the Copppla clan spend their individual birthdays and how the Phillipines can't compare to California when it comes to health food shops and clothing boutiques. Duh!!! If you are truly interested in learning more about this historic film, I suggest you use your browser in a search of magazine and newspaper archives for appropriate material. Your time will be better spent surfing the net than waiting for Ms. Coppola to tell you why Robert Duvall's character was so hung up on having his Air Cav troopers surf "Charlie's Point."

Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels In End-Time America

Average customer rating:

Entertaining look at some bizarre world views
Things More Frightening Than The Apocalypse...
Joyride to the Future
Whining, revenge-seeking
A "Must-Read" for inquiring minds w/ a sense of humor

Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels In End-Time America
Alex Heard
Manufacturer: Main Street Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385498527
Release Date: 2000-01-04

Amazon.com

Since 1987, New York Times Magazine editor Alex Heard has scouted out Americans with out-there beliefs: people who breed red heifers to hasten Christ's Second Coming and pen books like The Dead Are Alive and If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive; astral-plane sky pilots; homicidal survivalists. The best piece is "Welcome, Space Brothers!" about UFO fans whose leader, Ruth Norman, "combined the couture sensibilities of a drag queen with the joie de vivre of a Frisbee-chasing Irish setter." He conveys what it must be like to be one who sat rapt as Ruth spoke, "sounding like a combination of Julia Child, Aunt Clara on Bewitched, and a bossy little girl telling other little girls the rules of her playhouse."

Heard gets inside their closed systems to poke fun from within, and often puts things in historical context. You'll understand mainstream apocalyptic literature like the bestselling Left Behind thrillers far better once Heard briefs you on the whole range of stranger biblical end-times interpreters. Like David Gelernter's 1939: The Lost World of the Fair, Apocalypse Pretty Soon has a poignant sense of what commonsense culture has lost in giving up its millennial dreams.

Heard is valuable because he's thorough and genuinely interested in why Arthur Blessitt finds it blessed to drag a 105-pound cross across the globe, surviving attacks by mamba snake, crocodile, Nicaraguan firing squad, and LAPD choke hold. His book is madly funny, and deeply sad. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

The inspired madness of America's apocalyptic and pre-millennial organizations may have reached a fever pitch with the turn of the twenty-first century, but intrepid cultural traveler Alex Heard spent a ten-year period witnessing the crescendo firsthand. Heard's enthusiasm led him on errands as diverse as being a voyeur at a Republic of Texas militia standoff, accompanying an expectant UFO "greeting party" to a remote field in Minnesota, and enacting the grief of the California quail at an ad-hoc therapy group for fierce environmentalists who believe the earth is an actual living entity that's preparing to kill off its human population--and soon...or at least pretty soon.

Amazing as it may seem, however, throughout this trenchant subcultural travelogue, Heard never stoops to ridicule his subjects. As one reviewer puts it, "Heard's real achievement may be that he makes us care--in a way that is more than voyeuristic--about the colorful characters he meets on the road to the new millennium. He takes these people seriously, allows his assumptions to be challenged, and lets himself find that some of their beliefs and fears reflect his own" (San Jose Mercury News).

Apocalypse Pretty Soon will appeal to science fiction fans and students of subcultures, as well as anybody interested in way-out alternatives to the brave new world.

Amazing as it may seem, however, throughout this trenchant subcultural travelogue, Heard never stoops to ridicule his subjects. As one reviewer put it, "Heard's real achievement may be that he makes us care--in a way that is more than voyeuristic--about the colorful characters he meets on the road to the new millennium. He takes these people seriously, allows his assumptions to be challenged, and lets himself find that some of their beliefs and fears reflect his own" (San Jose Mercury News).

Now in paperback, this book will have an audience well beyond "millenniamania," from science fiction fans to students of subculture, and anybody interested in way-out alternatives to the brave new world. -->

Customer Reviews:

Entertaining look at some bizarre world views.......2003-07-19

An entertaining, funny and often sad look at some of the various personalities that make up the cultish world of millenial apocalyptic groups. The common thread here is the belief in imminent apocalyptic change by the groups through different means (alien visitation, return of Jesus, cataclysmic Earth changes, etc.).
Heard, it seems, tries to be objective and open-minded about each group at first. But when faced with the absurdity of their belief systems and after getting to know the people that form the leadership of these groups, he can't help but present a slightly more skeptical opinion. By the end of each chapter, after Heard has presented his study of the group, it's leadership, tactics, and beliefs, it's hard to not think these people are out of their minds.
The book is also a fine study in the unusual aspects of the human psyche. From the egomaniacal and seemingly deranged leaders to their willing and needy followers, Heard gives us a hard look at some of the personalities that make up these fringe groups.

Things More Frightening Than The Apocalypse..........2002-11-12

What's more frightening than the idea of an apocalypse? How 'bout all the people out there with so many freaky ideas of how and when it will come... From a psychological standpoint, this book is absolutely fascinating, darkly humorous, and yet undeniably frightening in its portrayal of people who might be neighbors or cousins of yours and mine who await an alien takeover or the return of Christ or what have you and the extent to which these hopes or fears have affected their lives and the lives of those they know and love. Obviously, the author has focused on one particular quirk of the various lives his subjects lead, and yet what is magnified for the reader are some of the most thought-provoking and bizarre ideas and behaviors I have ever encountered in print outside of an issue of Psychology Today. A book that can be aborbed and pondered by anyone with common sense and the ability to seperate reality from fantasy, I would avoid letting this fall into the hands of impressionable or highly imaginative young readers who might become fixated on some particular section and grow fearful because of it. Disturbing in both an entertaining and harrowing way, I couldn't put it down and hope for some sort of a sequel. Amazing.

Joyride to the Future.......2001-05-05

Alex Heard's adventures in the borderlands of culture remind me of the joys of listening to radical idealists of any stripe. I could feel the presence of each of his subjects, whether dreamer of a new Atlantis or channeler of benevolent, alien intelligence, or cross-bearing transcontinental walker. Each individual is a revelation in the spectrum of humanity, and most of them are endearing in distinct and peculiar ways. Heard is not unkind to either his subjects or his readers. He is a translator between "here" and "there," whose writing is so fluid and flawless that these strange world views slide into one another leaving the reader wondering how preferrable his own reality is in comparison. Read this book and be, by turns, amazed, entertained, touched, and more eager to engage the world and try out other lenses on reality.

Whining, revenge-seeking.......2000-12-07

By his own admission, Alex Heard's first chapter (deemed his "best" by reviewers) seems to be a personally motivated, whining, and revenge-seeking diatribe against a New Age nonprofit organization that caught him stealing files and photocopying them from a private back room. After he was discovered and tongue-lashed by the organization's director, Heard, in his own words, "whined and pleaded" but could not understand why members of the organization didn't seem to "like him" after the incident! He goes on and on about wanting to be accepted and liked, and the cooler his reception, the more hurt he seems to be-and bent on revenge. The book seems to have been motivated by his resulting ego deflation, perhaps to salvage some self-esteem, or to prove to himself that, despite his lapse in ethics and law-abiding manners, he was still a "reputable journalist." But he tells on himself: (a) he never met the (deceased) founder of the organization, but that doesn't stop him from lobbing at her the caliber of insults one would think twice about hurling toward a hated enemy; (b) he never read any of the books upon which the organization's beliefs were founded; (c) not finding anything sinister to report, he digresses into a tale about a totally unrelated, extremist organization from the 1950s, whose behavior and beliefs bear no resemblance to the subject of his chapter. By this juxtaposition, he tries to imply some artificial similarity. When this fails, he uses the same tactic to imply parallels to the notorious Heaven's Gate organization-again, completely unrelated in beliefs and behavior. Perhaps because of Heard's affiliation with supposedly reputable periodicals, his unethical "reporting" on this subject has been published in book form. The fact that the subject organization of Heard's first chapter did not immediately telephone police after his break-in, or at the least, ask him to leave the premises and not return, may demonstrate that he might be right on one count, if such extreme tolerance can be called "crazy"! But Heard's chapter goes on. Still not satiated because he is unable to find any "dirt" to dish (beyond criticizing the founder's fashion choices), Heard digs up an article by another writer that he quotes extensively. It features an individual who left the subject organization under a cloud, after his alcoholism and promiscuous homosexuality had come to light (he was soliciting sex from young male members). This quoted former member (now also deceased) had a grudge to avenge after his public exposure, so Heard finds in him a suitable compatriot willing to ladle up enough fabricated slander to curdle anyone's pudding. After that, I put Heard's book down. I hate to think what his other chapters have done to other organizations. Real, reputable, sincere, or out there, I guarantee that Heard's reporting is slanted to his own objectives and therefore not the "objective" tour the book's cover promises. In fact, the book seems to be nothing more than an attempt to cover up for Heard's own lapses of manners and professional ethics. He can whine all day, as artfully as he wants to, and he'll still be the kind of journalist one should never let in the front door. If I wrote about my neighborhood church using his approach, you'd think every God-fearing American was some kind of wacko waiting for pie-in-the-sky "salvation" who should be locked up for "worshipping golden crucifixes gruesomely affixed to the wall"! I could paint the same kind of picture about any group, organization, belief system, or political organization. Let's don't encourage this kind of pre-biased, revenge-seeking "journalism."

A "Must-Read" for inquiring minds w/ a sense of humor.......2000-07-22

How this really informative, well written and highly entertaining book missed being a best-seller is beyond me! We've loaned our copy to several friends who then bought a copy for themselves, and we've ordered additional copies for several others. I've read it over at least three times. If you enjoy excellent writing about off-beat characters you will love this book!

Average customer rating:

Utter Filth
A mixed bag of eccentricities, but I think that was probably the intent.
Now You Know What You Did Not Want To Know...
A big deal before the internet
Apocalypsis Iesu Christi...

Apocalypse Culture

Manufacturer: Amok Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0922915059

Amazon.com

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.

Book 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

Customer Reviews:

Utter Filth.......2006-06-10

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........2005-08-26

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..........2004-12-22

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.

A big deal before the internet.......2003-06-10

The stories in this book were probably much more interesting before the popularity and surge of the internet, which brought these people together in ways easier than they've ever imagined.
The book gets a little boring in the middle but all in all it is quite interesting. Only a couple stories in it worth much hoopla for me but it may make others freak out!

Apocalypsis Iesu Christi..........2003-05-10

"The Apocatastis: We are living during the time of a great apocatastis, the Greek term for the return of all things that have been lost and the revelation of all things at the end of time."

The apparent thesis of Adam Parfrey's APOCALYPSE CULTURE is that all insane, mind-blowing and utterly bizarre ideas, theories and behaviors will be manifested and then the end will come. The book, published in the late 80's, is a collection of essays, short stories, articles, rambling tid-bits and other odds-and-ends from a variety of authors. The prevailing themes in APOCALYPSE CULTURE could be classified as conspiracy theory, paranoia, schizophrenia, apocalypticism, surrealism, ultra-anarchism, nihilism, libertarianism, anti-materialism, Luddite, anti-establishment, occultism, Satanic, and egotism.

A number of the essays stood out. "Infernal Texts" is a collection of quotes from various sources about man's total worthlessness and the need for a massive upheaval to eradicate the false social order that is now in place. "The Invisible War" by ... La Vey is about how constant sensory bombardments upon human beings in the modern world constitutes a collective genocide against humanity. "The Cereal Box Conspiracy" details the negative effects of sugar breakfast cereal marketing towards children, how it takes advantages of their inner fears and sexual ambiguity. "From the Mark of the Beast to the Black Messiah Phenomenon" is about a Christian researcher's theories as to who the antichrist is, and the antichrist will apparently be a black man who will be worshipped by Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others the world over. "Eugenics: the Orphaned Science" presents the pro-eugenics position, and gives quotes of famous people who argued for improving the biological stock of mankind through selective breeding. "The Christian Right, Zionism and the Coming Penteholocaust" is an especially disturbing and interesting study examining the relationship between militant Israelis and their Christian fundamentalist supporters in the US. Their goal is a 'Greater Israel' in the Middle East with a rebuilt Temple and Jewish control of most of Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebannon. This is supposed to be a part of Biblical prophecy, according to the fundies, and it is necessary for this set up to occur before World War III begins and Christ can return. "Vengeance in Secret Societies" studies how secret societies in world history used violence and terrorism to further their political goals, starting with the Assassins in the Middles East during the time of the Muslim Caliphate. "The Call to Chaos" by James Shelby Downard is one of the most ???--huh things I've read--something about a magical bottle at the test site of the first nuclear bomb and it has something to do the the cabalistic/Masonic uniting of the mystical male and female sexual energies. Speaking of nukes, the last essay, "Meditations on the Atom and Time" will blow your mind as it relates how the nuclear bomb has achieved godlike status in our collective psyche.

An important lesson to be learned from APOCALYPSE CULTURE considering the popularity of US meddling in Middle Eastern affairs today: "It is an ancient belief of black magic that manifesting the presence of the diety required sacrifice of human victims. It was also believed that the life energy of the victims would increase the potency and longevity of the sorcerer. A mass sacrifice might even confer enough energy to make the sorcerer immortal. Could this be the reason among the circles of the Christian Right, that the Penteholocaust, the sacrificial burning of death, will invoke Christ the vampire and render his disciples immortal."

Average customer rating:

Vietnam War Clasic

An important mistake

Excellent choice, novel approach

The essential a-z of the essential Vietnam war movie

Great entry in the Bloomsbury Series

Apocalypse Now: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide
Karl French
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Apocalypse Now Book

Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now

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Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions)

ASIN: 1582340145

Book Description

The Bloomsbury Movie Guides feature scores of entries on all aspects of the making and meaning of movies and include historic, cinematic, and literary references; profiles of the actors and directors; and interviews.

Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, received eight Academy Award nominations in 1980. In this book, film critic Karl French provides a critical analysis of a movie that has established itself as one of the greatest films of all time. He provides the reader with insightful behind-the-scenes stories about daily workings on the set. He examines the importance of every character and their contributions to the movie. Also included in this edition are interviews with William Hokanson, a Vietnam veteran, Stephen Bach, a United Artists executive, Richard Marks, Walter Murch, and John Milius.

Customer Reviews:

Vietnam War Clasic.......2006-11-04

This is my favorite all time Vietnam war movie - so naturally I would have to read something like this on the background of the movie. This is of course, a cult favorite even for us Vietnam veterans. The orginal film left out some important elements in the telling of the story - so it was great to see the later version come out in DVD and video.

I still love the smell of naplam in the morning and I love this book as well. It works. Although there is a mis-quote in the book (or two) - over-all, I rate this as good and entertaining information. It is not enlightening or profound nor does it deliver some words of wisdom - but it is what it is and that is very much okay!

An important mistake.......2005-06-12

On page 7 French quotes Kilgore as saying `I've been trying to forget about you' to Willard, but I am sure he actually says `Na Trang forget all about you?' He is implying that Willard's superiors have forgotten about him and his mission. I think this misquoting is important - French implies that Kilgore doesn't care about Willard or his mission but in fact Kilgore is trying to emphasise that their military superiors don't care about them, or anyone in the field really. This is why he cares more for surfing than war.

Excellent choice, novel approach.......2001-08-20

Apocalypse now (BMG #1) is an excellent choice for Bloomsbury to kick off their line of movie guides. It's also good in that it'll tide us over and give us a glimpse into Apocalypse Now Redux (I'm refering to the restored scenes). While the encyclopedic method employed here may turn off some, i find it a novel approach to tackling one of my favorite movies. If nothing else, it'll be easier to look something up at a later date. The 8 pages of color and b&w pictures here were nice but i'm glad to see that Bloomsbury doubled that number by the time Blue Velvet (bmg #3) came out. All in all, this book is a good companion to Peter Cowie's the Apocalypse Now book and Eleanor Coppola's Notes.

The essential a-z of the essential Vietnam war movie.......2001-03-14

I strongly disagree with one reviewer who said this is hardly worth buying. My advice is: buy it - you'll love it.

OK, I'm probably biased in that I tend to enjoy the 'encyclopaedia' format of books like this. I read one entry, then follow the links to another, and another until I'm totally immersed in the arcane and amazing information on offer. Linear readers might find it a bit annoying, I guess. However, even for them, this book is well worth reading. It's an essential companion to Apocalypse Now, and has certainly enhanced my viewing of the film. I love Karl French's terse, opinionated style.

My only complaint is that with a tiny bit more effort the references could have been complete enough to make this a useful academic work as well as the popular paperback it already is. For example, I would have loved to follow up Nguyen Khac Vien's essay 'Apocalypse Now Viewed by a Vietnamese', quoted on p. 230, but couldn't since it doesn't appear in the bibliography. Having said that, there are plenty of leads here that I *am* going to follow up.

Great entry in the Bloomsbury Series.......2000-07-08

This first book in Bloomsbury's movie guide series is, so far, the best of the lot. Full of interesting and often hilarious insights and observations, this A to Z guide to the film actually works fairly well as a straight-through read. I particularly enjoyed the references to the place of water buffalo in classical dramatic structure.

Average customer rating:

One thing not mentioned in this book: 9/11
Well, it _woulda_ been good...
Various warped perceptions of reality
A look on the wild side
adam's da man

Apocalypse Culture II

Manufacturer: Feral House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0922915571

Book Description

When it was published in 1987, Apocalypse Culture was the first of its kind. No other book examined such disturbing cultural extremes, and no other book looked at the dark sides of society within the framework of the apocalypse. In the intervening 12 years, it has become clear that Apocalypse Culture inspired a new genre of cultural commentary that has been embraced by both independent and large mainstream publishers and eagerly sought after by the culture at large. Among its fans is X-Files creator Chris Carter.

Now Adam Parfrey offers a follow-up to that first book. Apocalypse Culture II is an entirely new collection of essays that reflect the most recent revelations of the New World Order. Through the extremes of postmodern culture it details the moral disintegration of the old world. Essays cover biological warfare, taboo art, sexual fetishism, mind control for corporate gain, government sex-slavery, creepy superstars, and more.

Customer Reviews:

One thing not mentioned in this book: 9/11.......2004-02-13

I have to say a lot of what this book talks about sounds VERY hokey. But there is one extremely good thing about this book that puts all the other seeming silliness in a scary new light: Please note the copyright date this book was released on. At least a full year before 9/11. And the information obviously arrived to the publisher's hands well before this date. This is the best example of a written work that chronicles a man who actually KNEW what was going to happen before 9/11. And nobody believed him. He went to the CDC, the FBI, the CIA, and no one listened. He asked these people in power, "Does America have a plan in case of biological attacks?" The answers will surprise you, and if anything, you will get a chilling sense that there is DEFINITELY something wrong with a country that denied a man the right to warn his country of impending danger. Think how that man must feel today... A MUST READ...

P.S. For those further interested in some of this book, an excellent interview was done with the musical rock group The Hidden Hand. Many things were explored, like the Moon landing, and secret societies in power. The interview will be run hopefully by the end of February 2003, so look for it in the 38th issue of Vibrations of Doom Magazine.
http://vibrationsofdoom.com

Well, it _woulda_ been good..........2003-08-05

If it hadn't been for the kiddy porn section, I would have given it 4 stars. As it is, I can't recommend it to anyone, and revulsion forced me to throw the damn book away myself. I guess this is what I get for not reading reviews before I order. :-P

Various warped perceptions of reality.......2003-04-18

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.

A look on the wild side.......2002-06-04

Anyone interested in reading about deviant behgavior, this book is for you. It contains material about all sorts of deviants and while some passages may have you laughing at the sort of absurb things people say and do, others will have you trying to keep your breakfact down!

adam's da man.......2001-11-15

yo dogg, whattup. We be headin to the Apocalypse, and Parfrey's here to tell us why. Listen to the man. He's the man with the plan. I can especially dig the Cannibal stories in there, cause with the overpopulation, that's where we be headin to.

Average customer rating:

Apocalyptically Excellent
Dense, but rewarding
Disapointing
1/2 of an interesting conversation
Hope in Unexpected Places

Everyday Apocalypse
David Dark
Manufacturer: Brazos Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 158743055X
Release Date: 2002-12-01

Book Description

The term ''apocalypse'' usually evokes images of mass destruction-burning buildings and nuclear fallout, or even rapture and tribulation. Often, our attempts to interpret the imagery of the book of Revelation seem to carry us far away from our day-to-day existence. David Dark challenges this narrow understanding in Everyday Apocalypse, calling his readers back to the root of the word, which is ''revelation.'' Through readings of Flannery O'Connor stories and savvy discussion of The Matrix themes, Dark calls us to imagine the apocalypse as a more watchful way of being in the world. He draws on the sometimes unlikely wisdom of popular culture-including The Simpsons and films like The Truman Show-to highlight how the imagination can expose our moral condition. Ultimately, Dark presents apocalypse as honest self-assessment and other-centeredness in the here and now. This engaging book holds enormous appeal for readers interested in the pursuit of everyday spirituality. It will delight lovers of literature, popular music, and movies, as well as anyone concerned with a Christian response to popular culture.

Customer Reviews:

Apocalyptically Excellent.......2006-08-10

In contrast to the pop-theology of our time, "Everyday Apocalypse" is overdue and a welcome addition to my library. The thinking is crisp, straight up and spiritually profound without being pompous or boring. I am telling everyone I know about David Dark and "E.A".

Dense, but rewarding.......2004-07-17

Some reviewers tend to find Dark's prose directionless, but I found quite the opposite to be true. David is certainly a student of the intracacies of prose, and for me that opened up a whole new world of ideas. Reminds me very much of G.K. Chesterton's style. I wonder if Mr. Dark has ready any Chesterton. Given his stunning breadth of knowledge in the written word, I'm sure he has.

Didn't quite understand a sentence? Re-read it carefully to see how each sentence lends itself to the next. Despite its intracacies, this is a book whose message transcends the sum of its parts. Reccomended to anyone who is interested in making the radical assertion that Christ is Lord, and anyone willing to see a truer reflection of what Christ-following and Christian culture should entail, rather than what the mainstream media is willing to depict.

By the way, since when was Flannery O'Connor a pop-culture icon?!

Disapointing.......2004-03-26

"The meat of the book, the inner six chapters, was a disappointment to me. Unsure what to expect I looked forward to seeing how Dark would integrate faith and pop culture, how the messages could be used to change lives, to see together how God's message shines through, intentional or not, in the products of our culture. Instead I felt that I was reading the personal journal of someone who was recording his thoughts on varying items, with no real point, reason or direction"

The above quote written by another reviewer sums it up for me.

The best lines from the book were the quotes he used from other people.

1/2 of an interesting conversation.......2004-03-13

Everyday Apocalypse begins with a description of the author's view of the word apocalypse. It defines apocalypse as revelation, the type of revelation that forces a change in lifestyle, a re-evaluation of priorities, a type that "cracks the pavement of the status quo." Dark's view of the current state of Christianity is best summed up in this statement: "I'm personally convinced that such market-driven theology will be viewed, historically, with at least as much embarrassment as, say, the medieval sale of indulgences."

Dark's opening is indeed intriguing. I can resonate with his frustration at a Christianity that serves only to make us comfortable rather than to change us. Indeed Jesus the revolutionary is rarely present in the big-hair world of TV preachers or in the conform-to-the-culture sensibilities of many of the mainline denominations.

The meat of the book, the inner six chapters, was a disappointment to me. Unsure what to expect I looked forward to seeing how Dark would integrate faith and pop culture, how the messages could be used to change lives, to see together how God's message shines through, intentional or not, in the products of our culture. Instead I felt that I was reading the personal journal of someone who was recording his thoughts on varying items, with no real point, reason or direction.

First up was the chapter on Flannery O'Connor, an author I am not familiar with. Dark reveres Ms. O'Connor, viewing anyone who enjoys her work as "electrocuted by divine fire." He goes on to provide superficial summaries of many of her works, and extract the items that make those stories interesting to him. The problem I found was that I did not see a point, other than Mr. Dark adores Flannery O'Connor in this chapter. The themes discussed are not unique, indeed I wonder if Mr. Dark has ever read things such as Stephen King's Needful Things, or any number of popular writings that delve into these themes very deeply and effectively.

The Simpsons is a show that I am very familiar with, and have been espousing the virtues of to many skeptics for years. This chapter I found laborious, as if I was reading Simpsons for Dummies or something of that ilk. While Dark does manage to accurately portray many elements of the program, he fails to address many of the subtleties of the show, nor to direct the reader on what to look for. Instead a journal of sorts again recounts favorite episodes in a manner wholly unfulfilling.

I have never listened to Radiohead. Feeling that perhaps I should engage this book on a different level, I made a trip to Best Buy and purchased OK: Computer as it was highly regarded by Mr. Dark. I spent time listening to this CD very carefully. I looked over the packaging, read through the booklet and studied the artwork. I listened to the CD again. I played it in my car. I listened to it at home. I then re-read the chapter on Radiohead. In short, I made every effort to take Mr. Dark's view of this band as apocalyptic and make it my own.

As I reflect on this experience I am again disappointed. While the music is interesting and indeed complex, I do not feel that it deserves the accolades presented by Everyday Apocalypse. One clear reason is that this is very inaccessible music, very anti-pop culture in its pure essence. While not a bad thing, some of the things that make it so are problematic to me. Dark rarely references the music (other than adjectives of beautiful, complex etc.), only the lyrics. The lyrics, while clear, are eminently unsingable and are swallowed up by the complex music behind them. As such, the listener is likely to miss them entirely if not paying close attention, hearing them only as another element to the complex sound. While interesting and unique, this approach does not often leave the audience pondering the meanings buried within.

Contrast Radiohead's Subterranean Homesick Alien with Tourniquet by Evanescence. The Radiohead piece is one that quickly blends together into a mood, a feeling, in which the guitar is the primary point of interest. Tourniquet drives hard, but leaves the listener wondering what exactly it all means and drives them to the liner notes, to the Internet, to conversation with others to discuss its meanings. To me that is far more apocalyptic in its effect on culture as a whole than Radiohead can ever hope to be.

I focus on the first three chapters because each of them represents a different level of familiarity with the material being discussed for me. The remaining three chapters are more of the same, journaling by Dark of the reasons he likes the movies & music discussed. This book is a one sided discussion of the material with little point or conclusion to me. Each of the points made would be interesting in a conversation, but without the opportunity for interaction they are hollow and unexciting.

Everyday Apocalypse is not without merit. The true stories of "living apocalyptically" in the last chapter are a fascinating example of what can happen if we take to heart the idea of Jesus as a cultural revolutionary. The point of the book is best summed up to me in this phrase:

If "God" then is to be more than the word we use as shorthand to describe what we prefer to believe, there will be tension between what we're doing and settling for and the in-break of divine revelation, the good purposes of God.

In summary I found glimpses of glory, but on the whole an unfulfilling book that felt like one side of a potentially interesting conversation. I found it interesting on the back to see one of the reviewers gush "He has been doing this in my living room for years." And indeed, I think that is where this conversation belongs.

Hope in Unexpected Places.......2003-03-07

David Dark's book is an encouraging one for Christians, reminding us that an accurate understanding of reality is our birthright---ironically, this 'accurate understanding' consists of apocalypse, or, the irreducibly mysterious hope toward which all reality points. Reading this book refreshes the hope we have in Jesus, even as Dark discusses chiefly non-Christians who, in his view, see apocalypse clearly, since a clear rendering of apocalypse is always commensurate with the mysterious redemptive hope-through-suffering of the cross. It does seem odd that he finds so few Christian artists worth a chapter in his book. Dark revels in the goodness and unexpectedness of reality, and the goodness and unexpectedness of the God it reveals.

Dark concerns himself with contemporary media. Through unusual juxtapositions (Bakh