The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the BrinkA wide-ranging collection of essays on millennial American culture that “marshals a vast pop vocabulary with easy wit” (The New York Times Book Review). From the far left to the far right, on talk radio and the op-ed page, more and more Americans believe that the social fabric is unraveling. Celebrity worship and media frenzy, suicidal cultists and heavily armed secessionists: modern life seems to have become a “pyrotechnic insanitarium,” Mark Dery says, borrowing a turn-of-the-century name for Coney Island. Dery elucidates the meaning to our madness, deconstructing American culture from mainstream forces like Disney and Nike to fringe phenomena like the Unabomber and alien invaders. Our millennial angst, he argues, is a product of a pervasive cultural anxiety—a combination of the social and economic upheaval wrought by global capitalism and the paranoia fanned by media sensationalism. The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium is a theme-park ride through the extremes of American culture of which The Atlantic has written, “Mark Dery confirms once again what writers and thinkers as disparate as Nathanael West, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Sigmund Freud, and Oliver Sacks have already shown us: the best place to explore the human condition is at its outer margins, its pathological extremes.” “Dery is the kind of critic who just might give conspiracy theory a good name.” —Wired |
Contents
The Scream Meme | |
Deconstructing PsychoKiller Clowns | |
Reading Damien Hirsts Entrails | |
Formaldehyde Photography and the | |
Cloned Sheep and Pregnant | |
The Unabomber Meets | |
Heavens Gate and Homo CyberStrange | |
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alien American animal argues Bataille Batman body bomb Books brain called carnival Celebration chaos cloning conspiracy theory Copyright corporate cult cyberpunk cyberspace Damien Hirst David daytime talk death digerati Disney doll Don DeLillo dream economic elite essay evil clown excremental eyes fantasy feminist Fiction formaldehyde freak Freaks Talk Back Gacy geek genetic global Grit Bath grotesque horror human Ibid images increasingly industrial J. G. Ballard Kaczynski kids killer live Magazine mainstream male pregnancy Mark Dery mass meat meme millennial millennium million mind monsters moral movie Munch’s museum nightmare Nike nineties paranoid political postmodern Pyrotechnic Insanitarium Quoted Re/Search reality says Schwa Scream Screamer sense sideshow social society story symbol talk shows teenage There's things twentieth century Unabomber Unabornber's University Press Village Voice vision wild nature Wired womb women workers writes X-Files York