A review by xterminal
Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Stories of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox and Unusual from the magazine Morbid Curiosity by Loren Rhoads
4.0
Loren Rhoads (ed.), Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues (Simon and Schuster, 2009)
One of my favorite books of the nineties was Apocalypse Culture, the Adam Parfrey-edited compendium of the weird and wonderful. I'd never found another book quite like it, and while Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues doesn't entirely qualify, it's about the closest I've seen in the past couple of decades, and that's good enough for me.
This is a collection of personal essays (for the most part) that appeared in Morbid Curiosity magazine during its all-too-brief existence. (It's the “personal” aspect of the essays that differs from the more—I hate to use the word “scholarly”, but there you go—aspect of Apocalypse Culture.) Rhoads breaks the essays up into loose conglomerations of subject, but had they used a different grouping, you probably wouldn't notice. It doesn't matter what these people are writing about, it's usually fascinating. The subject matter ranges from a young boy wandering around an asylum by himself to the exploits of a chap who like to hang out in mausoleums for a year or so to tales of paranormal activity to spinal surgery, and a lot of places in between. Some of it is less fascinating than other bits (and what parts fascinate me may bore you to tears, and vice versa, so we won't go there), but the good definitely outweighs the bad. And you should probably jump at any chance you get to expose yourself to the work of cabaret artist Jill Tracy, who contributes my favorite essay here; it has nothing to do with music and it's still awesome. How cool is that?
I have no idea whether it will actually cure your blues or not. I do know that it will make you want to read pieces of it again and again, just like Apocalypse Culture does (and if you don't have a copy of that, then my god, what are you waiting for?). Definitely one to pick up. ****
One of my favorite books of the nineties was Apocalypse Culture, the Adam Parfrey-edited compendium of the weird and wonderful. I'd never found another book quite like it, and while Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues doesn't entirely qualify, it's about the closest I've seen in the past couple of decades, and that's good enough for me.
This is a collection of personal essays (for the most part) that appeared in Morbid Curiosity magazine during its all-too-brief existence. (It's the “personal” aspect of the essays that differs from the more—I hate to use the word “scholarly”, but there you go—aspect of Apocalypse Culture.) Rhoads breaks the essays up into loose conglomerations of subject, but had they used a different grouping, you probably wouldn't notice. It doesn't matter what these people are writing about, it's usually fascinating. The subject matter ranges from a young boy wandering around an asylum by himself to the exploits of a chap who like to hang out in mausoleums for a year or so to tales of paranormal activity to spinal surgery, and a lot of places in between. Some of it is less fascinating than other bits (and what parts fascinate me may bore you to tears, and vice versa, so we won't go there), but the good definitely outweighs the bad. And you should probably jump at any chance you get to expose yourself to the work of cabaret artist Jill Tracy, who contributes my favorite essay here; it has nothing to do with music and it's still awesome. How cool is that?
I have no idea whether it will actually cure your blues or not. I do know that it will make you want to read pieces of it again and again, just like Apocalypse Culture does (and if you don't have a copy of that, then my god, what are you waiting for?). Definitely one to pick up. ****