Posthuman Blues

Another blast from the past that I unreservedly recommend (especially to readers of blogs like this one):





Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End-Time America by Alex Heard

It was a journey of about ten years, during which Heard met and interviewed starry-eyed UFO contactees, grim "Earth Changes" survivalists, wannabe astral projecters, radical life extension proponents and Christian fundamentalists. The book APOCALYPSE PRETTY SOON: TRAVELS IN END-TIME AMERICA collects these stories.

Not all of the subjects of APOCALYPSE are people who believe that the end of the world is around the corner. Sure, APOCALYPSE has its share of raving delusional paranoiacs, but for the most part, the people profiled in APOCALYPSE are earnestly dealing with modern society's big issues - loss of traditional spirituality, overpopulation, pollution, anomie - in the best ways that they know how, through science or faith, and even when their solutions are wrong you have to admire their sincerity. It certainly seems like Heard does; the only people who really get skewered in APOCALYPSE are cynical money-makers and ego-trippers.

(Via The Anomalist.)