false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171294492m/94823.jpg 94823 1 <p> 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 <i>Apocalypse Now Redux</i> 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. </p><p> 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 <i>Irma Vep,</i> to the punk heroines of Sleater-Kinney and <i>Ghost World</i>, <i>Born in Flames</i> plays odd couples off one another: pitting <i>Natural Born Killers</i> against <i>Forrest Gump</i>, contrasting Jean-Luc Godard with Steven Spielberg, defending David Lynch against aesthetic ideologues, invoking <i>The Curse of the Mekons</i> against Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism, and introducing D. H. Lawrence to <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i>. "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. </p><p> 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, <i>Born in Flames</i> is a headlong plunge into the passions and disruptive power of art. </p> 91411 2007 Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses total:13|5:3|4:1|3:3|2:6|1:0| 13 40 29 4 2 0 false false Thu Nov 12 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Oct 26 07:48:43 -0700 2009 Thu Nov 12 10:48:21 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Nov 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 12:01:26 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 12:02:45 -0800 2009 I still enjoyed parts of this.
Maybe it should be called 'Better With Darvon.']]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 11 08:24:13 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 23 10:55:05 -0800 2008 2 0 false false Thu Apr 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 28 17:32:06 -0800 2007 Thu Apr 17 11:42:21 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Tue Aug 18 07:09:54 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 07:09:54 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Jul 23 08:57:57 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 08:57:57 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jul 10 16:25:04 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 16:25:04 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jul 05 01:32:41 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 20:43:50 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jun 03 02:59:37 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 03 02:59:39 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 15 15:56:15 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 15 15:56:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 08 11:02:27 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 11:02:27 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 13 00:04:31 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 00:06:08 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 12 09:37:56 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 12 09:37:56 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Mar 02 19:32:15 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 02 19:32:15 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Feb 17 20:05:14 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 20:05:14 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Nov 15 14:12:58 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 15 14:13:00 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Fri Jul 25 11:54:19 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 25 11:54:19 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sat Jun 28 07:54:08 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 07:54:08 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Apr 23 14:42:34 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 23 14:42:34 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Fri Apr 04 17:29:03 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 04 17:29:03 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=94823