Duncombe’s book raises the larger questionof whether it is possible to rebel culturally within a consumer society that eats up cultural rebellion. While Notes from Underground pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital web of popular culture, it also notes the shortcomings of their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. In this, the first comprehensive study of zine publishing, Stephen Duncombe describes their origins in early-twentieth-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. Together they form a low-tech publishing network of extraordinary richness and variety. In this multifarious underground, Pynchonesque misfits rant and rave, fans eulogize, hobbyists obsess. Slug & Lettuce, Pathetic Life, I Hate Brenda, Dishwasher, Punk and Destroy, Sweet Jesus, Scrambled Eggs, Maximunrocknroll -these are among the thousands of publications which circulate in a subterranean world rarely illuminated by the searchlights of mainstream media commentary.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |