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Beneath the Underground
Beneath the Underground is the first in-depth exploration, from within, of the rapidly growing cultural phenomenon which received its name from author Bob the "marginals milieu." You could also call it the do-it-yourself subculture. It consists of the perhaps 20,000 self-publisher's of micro-circulation "zines" and other self-produced art, music, pamphlets, and posters. Bob whack has been a major figure in this subculture since the late 1970s. His previous books, The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (1986) and Friendly Fire (1981), collect some of his contributions to the milieu. In this book, he illuminates the zine milieu itself. Beneath the Underground; The Sphinctre Of Anarchism; Pullers Of The Church Of The SubGenius; Left Bankruptcy; Looking Back On Leaving The Twentieth Century; Marginals Demigods; Culture Wars; The Panic Catalog; And Now For Some Things Completely Different; and, Taking Culture With A Grain Assault.
- GenresNonfiction
190 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 25, 2017
Whilst Millennials will digitally call each other out constantly, only to stare at the floor, shuffling their feet and muttering "I dunno..." when forced to be in the same room as each other Generation Jones would spend a decade putting together books that were thinly veiled attacks on everyone who had wronged them.
Hard to imagine reading a collection of Tumblr call outs 30 years from now, but here I am in 2017 reading Bob Black's call out book from 1994 that's mostly discussing issues from the mid-80s.
Reading it now it manages to be fascinating, vital, pedantic, flippant, unecessary, laughable, funny, overly serious, and trite all at the same time.
Hard to imagine reading a collection of Tumblr call outs 30 years from now, but here I am in 2017 reading Bob Black's call out book from 1994 that's mostly discussing issues from the mid-80s.
Reading it now it manages to be fascinating, vital, pedantic, flippant, unecessary, laughable, funny, overly serious, and trite all at the same time.
June 13, 2018
there are many things that can be said about Bob Black, but one of those things is not that he is a poor writer. i picked this up after reading a few 3-stars-or-less reviews which said things like this book is the pre-internet version of Bob Black rambling about his Twitter-style beefs from the 80's and early 90's. It is not that.
What it is: a massively erudite yet succinct, varied, punchy, and compellingly individual take on the world of DIY publishing of the aforementioned decades. It's a window into the so-called "marginals milieu," (a term that has lost whatever currency it may have once had) and into what that milieu was writing about. whether it's Black's reviews of other zine authors (whether skewering or, more often than i expected, praising them) or his own self-produced essays that first appeared in this sub-subterranean circuit, in under 200 compulsively readable pages a number of still-fascinating subjects are treated, ranging from the reasons for the failure of anarchism to become a mass phenomenon, a number of withering critiques of leftist garbage publications (including an invaluable critique of the syndicalist favorite "You Can't Blow Up a Social Relationship") and bashings of conformist, opportunistic pretenders to the mantle of the marginals, 2 or 3 short and accessible essays on the Situationists and their influence which i found to be quite useful for someone trying to contextualize them, writings on art, literature, culture and varied strains of wingnuttery, on the stranglehold that evangelical christians had (have) on american life, and more, all peppered with some interviews, anecdotes of personal encounters, and tributes to unsung heros of the milieu like Gerry Reith and Ed Lawrence.
A close reading will reveal Black's incipient, or occasionally blatant, prejudices, and his strange and shitty handling of Hakim Bey's pedophilia which ranges from indifference to some kind of mild adulation. The careful reader will also easily pick up on the irony that Black's detailing of his personal squabbles with other writers and publishers of this era (including conflicts that escalated into physical attacks on him, etc.) includes Black's declarative statements about his enemies becoming "police snitches," which is exactly what Black would become a few short years later. Black and the various defenders of his character have since accused anyone who would identify him primarily or just largely as a snitch of being moralists or whatever, even if the way they speak about it is exactly the way Black speaks about it here when it was done to him. More proof that an avowedly anti-moralist position is just as capable as any other of cloaking a moralistic, arbitrary, or hero-worshipping reaction.
i don't think Black is a good person. i think he's a great writer. god damn can he write when he's on. and unlike many other bad persons/great writers (or bad persons/bad writers like, say, Karl Marx), he is one who has written a great many things of nearly inestimable worth and power for considering the prospects for various strains of authentic anti-authoritarianism. His critiques of work and its world, and of Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, libertarian municipalism, democracy, and more are sadly still badly-needed correctives for an anarchist milieu in which, in 2018, critical thinking seems to be all but extinguished. that he is admittedly a hypocrite, a vindictive opportunist, and in some ways a bigot doesn't make this untrue, however it may tarnish it.
all in all, a much better and smoother read than the author's prior scattershot "Friendly Fire," although if Part One of that book– which contains a good deal of Black's suite of writings on work and anti-work (follow-ups to his most famous essay "The Abolition of Work" like "Primitive Affluence," "Smokestack Lightning," and "No Future for the Workplace")– could be combined with this collection, i'd probably give it 6 stars.
What it is: a massively erudite yet succinct, varied, punchy, and compellingly individual take on the world of DIY publishing of the aforementioned decades. It's a window into the so-called "marginals milieu," (a term that has lost whatever currency it may have once had) and into what that milieu was writing about. whether it's Black's reviews of other zine authors (whether skewering or, more often than i expected, praising them) or his own self-produced essays that first appeared in this sub-subterranean circuit, in under 200 compulsively readable pages a number of still-fascinating subjects are treated, ranging from the reasons for the failure of anarchism to become a mass phenomenon, a number of withering critiques of leftist garbage publications (including an invaluable critique of the syndicalist favorite "You Can't Blow Up a Social Relationship") and bashings of conformist, opportunistic pretenders to the mantle of the marginals, 2 or 3 short and accessible essays on the Situationists and their influence which i found to be quite useful for someone trying to contextualize them, writings on art, literature, culture and varied strains of wingnuttery, on the stranglehold that evangelical christians had (have) on american life, and more, all peppered with some interviews, anecdotes of personal encounters, and tributes to unsung heros of the milieu like Gerry Reith and Ed Lawrence.
A close reading will reveal Black's incipient, or occasionally blatant, prejudices, and his strange and shitty handling of Hakim Bey's pedophilia which ranges from indifference to some kind of mild adulation. The careful reader will also easily pick up on the irony that Black's detailing of his personal squabbles with other writers and publishers of this era (including conflicts that escalated into physical attacks on him, etc.) includes Black's declarative statements about his enemies becoming "police snitches," which is exactly what Black would become a few short years later. Black and the various defenders of his character have since accused anyone who would identify him primarily or just largely as a snitch of being moralists or whatever, even if the way they speak about it is exactly the way Black speaks about it here when it was done to him. More proof that an avowedly anti-moralist position is just as capable as any other of cloaking a moralistic, arbitrary, or hero-worshipping reaction.
i don't think Black is a good person. i think he's a great writer. god damn can he write when he's on. and unlike many other bad persons/great writers (or bad persons/bad writers like, say, Karl Marx), he is one who has written a great many things of nearly inestimable worth and power for considering the prospects for various strains of authentic anti-authoritarianism. His critiques of work and its world, and of Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, libertarian municipalism, democracy, and more are sadly still badly-needed correctives for an anarchist milieu in which, in 2018, critical thinking seems to be all but extinguished. that he is admittedly a hypocrite, a vindictive opportunist, and in some ways a bigot doesn't make this untrue, however it may tarnish it.
all in all, a much better and smoother read than the author's prior scattershot "Friendly Fire," although if Part One of that book– which contains a good deal of Black's suite of writings on work and anti-work (follow-ups to his most famous essay "The Abolition of Work" like "Primitive Affluence," "Smokestack Lightning," and "No Future for the Workplace")– could be combined with this collection, i'd probably give it 6 stars.
July 12, 2024
A COLLECTION OF BLACK'S WRITINGS FROM THE "MARGINAL MILIEU"
Bob Black (born Robert Charles Black, Jr. in 1951) is an American anarchist, and author of books such as 'Abolition of Work and Other Essays,' 'Anarchy After Leftism,' and 'Friendly Fire.'
This 1994 book is a collection of Black's writings, reviews, and other creations that were first published in what he calls the "marginals milieu"; that is, the sub-underground, samizdat, avant-garde, and ephemeral world of zines, reader-written publications, and hand-photocopied publications that surfaced in the 1980s and later.
There are chapters on Anarchism; The Church of the SubGenius; Situationism; Loompanics Unlimited, etc. He introduces each chapter with an explanatory and often revealing essay (e.g., "Anarchism has always been problematic for me. It helped me to arrive at an unconditionally anti-statist, anti-capitalist perspective... (yet) By dictionary definition, I am not an anarchist"; pg. 31).
If you like Black's brand of anarchic, and savagely satirical writing, these pieces will definitely appeal to you; it's amazing that they've actually been published in book form.
Bob Black (born Robert Charles Black, Jr. in 1951) is an American anarchist, and author of books such as 'Abolition of Work and Other Essays,' 'Anarchy After Leftism,' and 'Friendly Fire.'
This 1994 book is a collection of Black's writings, reviews, and other creations that were first published in what he calls the "marginals milieu"; that is, the sub-underground, samizdat, avant-garde, and ephemeral world of zines, reader-written publications, and hand-photocopied publications that surfaced in the 1980s and later.
There are chapters on Anarchism; The Church of the SubGenius; Situationism; Loompanics Unlimited, etc. He introduces each chapter with an explanatory and often revealing essay (e.g., "Anarchism has always been problematic for me. It helped me to arrive at an unconditionally anti-statist, anti-capitalist perspective... (yet) By dictionary definition, I am not an anarchist"; pg. 31).
If you like Black's brand of anarchic, and savagely satirical writing, these pieces will definitely appeal to you; it's amazing that they've actually been published in book form.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews