I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams

by Mark Dery

From the cultural critic Wired called “provocative and cuttingly humorous” comes a viciously funny, joltingly insightful collection of drive-by critiques of contemporary America where chaos is the new normal. Exploring the darkest corners of the national psyche and the nethermost regions of the self—the gothic, the grotesque, and the carnivalesque—Mark Dery makes sense of the cultural dynamics of the American madhouse early in the twenty-first century.

Here are essays on the pornographic fantasies of Star Trek fans, Facebook as Limbo of the Lost, George W. Bush’s fear of his inner queer, the theme-parking of the Holocaust, the homoerotic subtext of the Super Bowl, the hidden agendas of IQ tests, Santa’s secret kinship with Satan, the sadism of dentists, Hitler’s afterlife on YouTube, the sexual identity of 2001’s HAL, the suicide note considered as a literary genre, the surrealist poetry of robot spam, the zombie apocalypse, Lady Gaga, the Church of Euthanasia, toy guns in the dream lives of American boys, and the polymorphous perversity of Madonna’s big toe.

Dery casts a critical eye on the accepted order of things, boldly crossing into the intellectual no-fly zones demarcated by cultural warriors on both sides of America’s ideological divide: controversy-phobic corporate media, blinkered academic elites, and middlebrow tastemakers. Intellectually omnivorous and promiscuously interdisciplinary, Dery’s writing is a generalist’s guilty pleasure in an age of nanospecialization and niche marketing. From Menckenesque polemics on American society and deft deconstructions of pop culture to unflinching personal essays in which Dery turns his scalpel-sharp wit on himself, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts is a head-spinning intellectual ride through American dreams and American nightmares.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Cultural Studies, Politics, Philosophy, History, Psychology

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

From http://markdery.com/?page_id=130

Mark Dery is a cultural critic, essayist, and book author who has taught at NYU and Yale. He coined the term “Afrofuturism,” popularized the concept of “culture jamming,” and has published widely on American mythologies and pathologies. His books include Flame Wars (1994), a seminal anthology of writings on digital culture; Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century (1996), which has been translated into eight languages; The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink (1999), a study of cultural chaos in millennial America; and the essay collection, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams (2012). His is the author, most recently, of a biography, Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey, published by Little, Brown in 2018.

Reviews

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remember when Gozer the Gozerian tells Venkman and the boys that the form of "the Destructor" will be determined by the first meme that pops into their noodle?

"So empty your heads! Don't think of anything!" Dr. Venkman exhorts.

In perhaps my favorite comic-philosophical scene from the '80s, the would-be Gozer-slayers attempt an on-the-fly Buddhist purge of the ego, fumigating their Cartesian theaters. I still remember the prickly chill in my 8 year-old gut at the thought of Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston having to brainwipe themselves indefinitely, in a hideous feat of negatory willpower, to keep the Destructor at bay.

"The choice is made!" Gozer booms, two seconds later.



Mark Dery never tries to empty his head or not think of anything.

He knows that every Stay Puft planetary destroyer needs to be yanked from our hindbrain and gurneyed over to the dissection theater for a postmortem of what ails us. (Heck, even wang cancer gets a BoingBoing prose poem for its troubles.)



During a recent talk in NYC, Dery went on a side-rant over Susan Sontag's phrase "Jewish moral seriousness" (from "Notes on Camp"), accusing her of having had a "humorectomy," becoming so animated he splashed his amber cocktail onto the keyboard of his Mac. I mention this only because my swipe-card to Dery's headspace is what humor theorists call Benign Violation Theory, wherein the culture critic induces pleasurable vertigo in the reader, stage-managing cabarets of the Uncanny which might trigger a defensive brainfreeze if not for the jibing Willy Wonka deportment of the MC, cloaked in a Sixth Doctor raiment of sesquipedalian syntax that, read aloud, would put weaker tongues in traction.



Susan Sontag in bear costume. Not photoshopped.

Bad Thoughts is a comedy of re-cognition, a festive spree of overthinking-it. Dery tunes his nightvision optics to a giddy parallax, sight-lines of mordant inquiry from here to absurdity. His humor thwacks against its target to help us think about the world in peculiar new ways. Laughter is the whooping turbine of this crafty neophile, as he reshuffles the cultural code, clicking the Refresh tab on our media-numbed thinkbox.

In Dery's digression on autoerotic fatalities, for example, a man is found chained by the neck to the bumper of his VW Bug on a secluded back road. The vehicle had been rigged to drive slowly in circles, while the clanking love-collar tugged amorously at his windpipe, noosing the gag plexus into oxygen-debt raptures of Ballardian autogasm. Sadly, the gentleman hadn't foreseen the chain getting tangled in the rear axle of his Love Bug. Or did he? (from "Grey Matter: The Obscure Pleasures of Medical Libraries" 212-18).

Why would anyone recount such a tale?

Dery's humor is a trifecta. First, the booming gob-smack of how lavishly depraved our species can be, how enduringly the Bizarro brain-fart can erupt from the Zoloftian sleepwalk of everyday life. Second, the gay science of probing the flash chambers of our culture's roiling Pyro Mysterium, the hot reciprocal flows of masscult psychosis and private fetish. And lastly, a reassertion of moral gravity in the Vulcan embrace of "infinite diversity in infinite combinations," a secular stand against the monocultures which attempt to euthanize their weirdos.

If satire is ignited by hyperbole, by blowing up or enlarging cultural hazards like a swab of contagion on a microscope slide, you could almost say that America satirizes itself, requiring only a sharpwitted and unrelenting spectator to creatively reframe these semiotic overkills, tapping the ley-lines of analogy and interrelationship, scavenging far-flung ingredients for a combustible epiphany.

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained" -Mark Twain

Why is all this funny? Because the stress toxins being squeezed from our lymph by Dery's half-joking affidavits help deflate the tension of living and suffering on this oft-deranged planetary endzone.

The oncologist doesn't "love" cancer, but may morbidly admire its febrile inner workings, keeping his enemy closer. In Dery's essays on Nazi media-ecology, for example ("Endtime for Hitler," "Triumph of the Shill," "Shoah Business"), the culture critic wants to nudge us close enough to the horror for a chastened self-understanding, right before blasting these squalid exhibits to the underworld.



What if the world became Deryan? What if the apocalyptic-neophile toolbox of Bad Thoughts became the standard software package of every strapping young millennial?

Would a planet of J.G. Ballard-thumping postmodern Hamlets swallow their own tails by uprooting the very pathologies that spawned them? Who is Mark Dery without Jack Chick pamphlets (182-87) and wax anatomical Venuses (252-59) and Borg erotica (151-58) and viral Hitler videos (101-11) and gay supercomputers (135-45) and Wallace Stevens / decapitation mashups (219-33) and the Facebook undead (122-34) and Dadaist spam-email poetry (146-50) and teenagers wearing Megadeth tour shirts at the Auschwitz Museum (87-93)?

Perhaps the dandy Deryans would be like the Nova Police in William Burroughs' narco-cosmology: unlike the real cops, they disappear once the trouble is over.

But dystopia isn't going away anytime soon, and it'll be a while before we can pack this Dery fellow in excelsior and nail the crate shut, like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders.

Until then, may this Nova detective remain on active duty.



Dery about to chow down on some escamoles (eggs harvested from the abdomens of giant ants) and fried grubs, Mexico City 2009 (photo c/o No Fear of the Future)


Portuguese edition of Bad Thoughts

Includes the following pieces cut from the American edition, but worth sniffing out:

“Paper Trail,” essay on information anxiety and the agony of all those unread copies of The New York Times, Bookforum, Fall 2001.

“Black to the Future: Afrofuturism,” from Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture, first published in the “Cyberculture” issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly, ed. Mark Dery, Fall 1993.

“Killing Time,” a social history of time famine and cultural vertigo, Artbyte, July/August 2000.

“Memo Mori,” a melancholy meditation on the corporate memos that fluttered down from the Trade Towers, Bookforum, Winter 2001.

“‘A Terrible Beauty’: Aesthetics After 9/11,” Print, January/February 2004.

“Axles of Evil,” the SUV as a totem of Ugly Americanism, Vogue Hommes, fall/winter 2004-2005.

“Fashion Victims,” the morality of wearing camo-themed fashion during wartime, ID magazine, November 2006.

“Golf War Syndrome,” class warfare on the golf course, Suck.com, June 2000.

“Dimed Out,” the elitist anti-consumerism of the Buy Nothing Day, Shovelware, January 20, 2005.

[Jay Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more since it comes with the imprimatur of J.G. Ballard, whose insights into postmodernity were cutting edge at the time, but the essays presented here don't advance much beyond them. They're well written but journalistic and without much penetration or depth, handy for picking up one or two references to add to the TBR pile but not vivid, angry, or comedic in the way essays on the same topics might be coming from Burroughs or Hunter S. Thompson. What America deserves is ridicule and anger, and not with the soft targets selected here but its very heart. It's as if Dery doesn't have the confidence in his own intellect and emotion to let rip.

[Kate Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Voluptuously lustrous and uncannily lifelike," the antique mannequin on the cover of Mark Dery's latest essay collection, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, "glows, if not with life, with a robust undeath." Her skin is so perfect you could eat off the surface of it. Her eye, unbowed, is cracked and bruised, maybe from an injury sustained in the dumpster where they found her before bringing her back to present glory. Reading the book over the last week, she's had a special place on my pillow, an intellectual "Real Doll," if you will.

I've paid close attention to the work of the writer Mark Dery over the last few years, reading and re-reading a number of his iconoclastic essays in a variety of forums. Yet even I found a smattering of fresh essays I'd not read before in this invigorating new collection of his work.

It's refreshing to read these essays in book format where they are decoupled from the rabble of internet message boards. Dery inspires strong feelings in readers, and the inevitable arguments that transpire in the comments sections following his posts can be harrowing, and often beside the point. Here, the work stands alone, as it should.

Dery is a gifted prose stylist, performing complex, nuanced analysis of pop culture in his signature, breath-catching style. The sentences are so crisp, they echo in your head, like the sound of someone walking briskly, on the street, after the rain.

Dery treks deep into the many layers of meaning and symbol laden in every subject at hand. Whether writing about the seedy underbellies of mass culture fixtures like the Super Bowl, toy guns, Lady Gaga, and the Pope, or fringe fascinations like Star Trek porn, dental fetishism, and apocalypse culture, Dery indefatigably explores the dark matter of our collective unconscious in scholarly, reference-studded strides.

Inevitably, Dery takes it just a couple of steps too far in his mad spelunking missions, at least to my sheltered eyes, (the fine points of bukaake, for example, are not those I feel particularly enriched by reading about) but I certainly admire the gusto with which he plumbs the depths.

A piece of the mysterious puzzle of my enduring affinity for Dery's work was suddenly revealed to me in the intriguing 13 Ways of Looking At A Severed Head. Reading this essay, I was gratified to learn that I am not the only one who has harbored recurring fantasies of, to put it delicately, the guillotine treatment to the neck. It's an extreme thing, I almost never admit it, but then I read the essay and see I am not alone in my peculiar fixation.

What Dery does is take a morbid topic like decapitation and he shines the illuminating light of his scholarship on the subject. We get delicious slivers of fact and anecdote. Did you know a decapitated head maintains consciousness for 13 seconds? What do you suppose those last 13 seconds are like? Dery considers the limits of our understanding:

"Here is where words wink out like dying stars, lost in the endless night of the unthinkable. Shorn of the organ that makes meaning, the decapitated never ask what a severed head means. Or, perhpas, by losing their heads, they find out at last, but cannot tell us. Their lips tremble, their eyelids flutter, two for yes and one for no, but thirteen seconds is too brief an eternity to tell the living the meaning of life."

To my mind, Dery is at his most affecting when he writes about his boyhood in Southern California. He describes the specific place and time where he grew up, while capturing something universal about childhood itself.

In Facebook of the Dead, his masterful mash-up of personal history, literary study, and philosophical rumination, Dery captures that feeling of discovery during those moments when our normal frame of reference suddenly expands and we discover something new on the very edge of our previous experience. He leads us through, "creepy, shadowed glades, cloaked by tumbleweeds and wild fennel, that seemed darkly luminous with the paranormal aura of bad things waiting to happen. One summer day, I rode my Stingray alone, through the scrub-covered back country, out where our stucco-box sprawl lapped at the wild edge of canyon country. And stumbled on the remains of somebody's secret hideout, a trash-strewn lair camouflaged on all sides by a thicket of wild grass, high as my sixth-grade eyebrows."

I was reminded of the bike flying scene in E.T. where the boys stare in amazement as they soar above their neighborhood into another realm. Although the tone of his essay is self-consciously noir, I couldn't help but pick up notes of innocence, which put me in mind of the classic film.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c9Y39...]

The final essay of the collection, Cortex Envy, gives us a view into some of the psychodynamic dramas that helped shape the writer. Dery can be ferocious in taking down his ideological opponents and defending himself against his critics. With this essay, we get a bit of the backstory behind the ace argument maker. Is it a blessing or a curse, or is it both, I wonder, to grow up, locked in battle, forever defending your emerging self? Why do the words to the song A Boy Named Sue suddenly fill my ears?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-hYLL...]

To quote Jim Morrison, "Critical essays are where it's at." To be sure, thoughtful, well-written, long-form essays such as these are hard to beat.

You can pre-order his book (I got an advanced reading copy, a first) and prowl around his website, here: http://markdery.com/

[Supervert Supervert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find it impossible to discuss Mark Dery's I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts in anything other than the first person. The book speaks so eloquently of its time that, uncannily, I can't help but feel it speaks of me. So many of my own interests and obsessions rise from its pages -- death, deviance, intellect. I recognize my iTunes library in Dery's tours de force on David Bowie and Lady Gaga. I recognize my bookshelf in Dery's essay on Amok Books, whose productions were once textbooks in the éducation sentimentale of the counterculture. I recognize my own rhetorical strategies in the move Dery makes in "Toe Fou," updating George Bataille's meditation on the big toe by riffing on a picture of Madonna's bare feet. Weirdest of all, I recognize what I thought was my own obscure fondness for "invisible literature" in Dery's essay on the New York Academy of Medicine Library -- a place I too have plundered in quiet hours of mad and horrible research. Was I sitting across the table from you, Mark? I feel as though you, like Baudelaire, have addressed your book to "mon semblable, mon frère."

How is it that Dery is able to produce this uncanny feeling of identification? You get the sense that, while the rest of us were living the zeitgeist, Dery was holding a stethoscope to its heart. His essays are EKGs showing that our pulse goes haywire in the presence of extremes -- perversion, violence, satanism. In an introduction, Dery declares that it is "the writer's job" to "think bad thoughts": "to wander footloose through the mind's labyrinth, following the thread of any idea that reels you in, no matter how arcane or depraved, obscene or blasphemous, untouchably controversial, irreducibly complex, or preposterous on its face." All of us take in these abominations as they play across our flatscreens and iPhones, but Dery's distinction is to really think about them -- reflect on them, contextualize them, pursue their logic to sometimes unpalatable consequences. "The writer's job," he means to say, "is to transform 'bad thoughts' into good ones -- insights and observations -- through a process of examination." Will this thankless job now compel Dery to go in search of even worse thoughts? Perhaps the worst of all lies in the realization that there are so many bad thoughts, an inexhaustible supply, yet to be confronted.

[Spencer · Rating 2 out of 5]

its a little bit jumbled and jivey. maybe its supposed to be like a poem, where the author just sort of throws out stuff and you sort of make "connections" between "ideas" in your "head". ? Its heady, and its crass, and hes just calling it like he sees it. . . or its just a bunch of pretentious garbage that looks like intellectual honesty because the subject matter and approach seem so "keepin it real". Reminds me of Jim Goad stuff, I guess I just dont have the intellectual stamina for it, (or is it a poets heart thats needed?). There is probably rich truths in there, I just cant see through the fog on the page. (the fog of my own mindbrain!) And i'll stand by this -one of us is a rambling idiot. Back to picture books.

[Jack Goodstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Transgressive cultural critic opines on everything from Lady Gaga to Santa Claus and necrophylia.

[Mark Mikula · Rating 5 out of 5]

While browsing in Garrison Keillor's book store (Common Good Books in St. Paul), I came across this volume of contemporary essays and instantly knew I had found a riveting read. It's possible that other writers are producing this sort of material, but because I haven't plumbed the depths of metafilter or BoingBoing or neatorama or a hundred other cool websites out there, I'm not finding them. I was so glad to find these essays anthologized in a hard cover. Most had been published elsewhere, primarily in the last decade.

Mark Dery is a fantastic and fascinating writer with a fresh point of view on a wide array of topics. The language he uses is playful and dynamic. Despite the heady thrust of most of the essays, I was happy to have spent very little time needing to re-read any of the essay sections. It is a true testament to the talent of a writer to be able to present such material in an entertaining, informative, and clear manner.

Having recently read the critique of Celine Dion Let's Talk about Love: A Journey to the End of Taste this year, I was especially drawn to the essay "Aladdin Sane Called. He Wants His Lightning Bolt Back" on Lady Gaga's popularity. "World Wide Wonder Closet" on blogging, "Goodbye, Cruel Words" on suicide notes, and "Gun Play: An American Tragedy in Three Acts" were among my favorites because of my own personal interests in self-publishing, language, and social issues.

Even when I went into an essay knowing very little about the subject, I found myself picking up momentum and enthusiasm as I progressed through it. How can you resist following the idea of Santa around the world along parallel and divergent timelines in an effort to determine whether he is a good or evil force in the universe? These were energizing reads, occasionally provocative, never boring, and infused with a compelling point of view. I look forward to reading his other work.

As an aside, I am proud that the University of Minnesota, in our adopted state, published this book.

Completing this book brings me half way to the goal of reading a book a week this year. I'm a little ahead of schedule, and this book is propelling me forward as I move along to the next one.

Highly recommended for anyone with a rooting interest in technology, medical science, pop culture, or religion. Or for anyone with a beating heart and an active mind.

[Melinda · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Exploring the darkest corners of the national psyche and the nethermost regions of the self"? If the scariest stuff found within these cultural forbidden zones is a "is he or isn't he?" expose' of 2001's HAL, an anti-Lady Gaga rant, and a meditation on the lost souls on Facebook, I'd say the most unsettling thing about our national psyche is not its darkness or depth, but rather how painfully well-lit it is.

[Wolverina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as insightful or clever as I was hoping. The subtitle is somewhat misleading IMO.

Though individually as a series of news column style articles, quite fun? I was just hoping for a little more substance and engagement with the title.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had hoped for deeper insight into the American psyche.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

To be clear, I rather liked a lot this newest book of essays by subversive Gladwellesque philosopher/columnist Mark Dery, which is actually the first work of his I've ever read, because of seeing a plethora of fantastic things about it online from places like Boing Boing and people like Warren Ellis; and so why I was a bit disappointed despite its pedigree is that this turns out to not really be better than someone like Warren Ellis, but really just more a repeat of Ellis and other anarcho-nerds' ideas, only filtered through a Noam-Chomsky style of writing. (And indeed, the introduction to this high-profile academic publication was written by none other than fellow anarcho-nerd Bruce Sterling.) That still makes it great, don't get me wrong, and absolutely essential reading for those not yet familiar with the anarcho-nerd mindset; but for anyone already a veteran of Mondo 2000 and the like, Dary's transgressive thoughts on Lady Gaga and David Bowie, the cultural significance of so many zombie stories these days, and the homosexual overtones of the Super Bowl will not really be that much of a surprise, a bit of preaching to the choir for Happy Mutants, Pastafarians and Biscuit Biblers. If you don't know who any of those groups are, immediately read this book; but if you do know them, this book doesn't need to be as big a priority on your own reading list.

Out of 10: 8.8

[Ben Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I judged this book by its cover (it's really a great cover), but found the content pretty underwhelming. Many of these essays dealt with interesting subject matter, but I just really don't like Mark Dery's writing style, apparently. Seemingly every other page has an "x is like if y wrote/directed/enacted/interpreted z" kind of cultural mash-up metaphor, almost all of which involved a y and a z that I wasn't at all familiar with, making the description completely meaningless to me. Maybe that's my own fault, but his entangled web of references gave the whole collection a very smug/pretentious tone. A lot of these essays are several years old now and some haven't aged that well, either. Oh well.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, is this guy ever sounding pretentious!
So puffed up about his showy vocabulary, in spite of the reality that it seriously detracts from the intended effect, or perhaps it's actually the strived for goal here....hard to say.
There's a certain lugubrious aspect to many of the offerings, often parasexual, shock value intense.
My wife touched on two pieces, then couldn't be bothered with any more. I read the whole thing, and enjoyed some of the many references..... worth giving it a go.

[Kate Peckham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but it was a little hard to read. He writes about fascinating (and disturbing) topics, but his writing style made it hard for me to connect. Very intellectual, with a lot of references and big words. I’m educated, well-read and pretty smart, but I think I’m too dumb for this book. There are a couple of stellar essays though (My favorite is “When Animals Attack!”) and I’ll probably keep it to go back to those again someday.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing that could have made this collection more enjoyable would have been the opportunity to disagree with Mark Dery more often.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ludovico D’Amore

The Ludovico Technique is a form of compulsory deprogramming featured in both the book and film A Clockwork Orange. It consists of forcing a patient to watch horribly graphic murders, rapes, and other severe brutality while under the influence of an addictive, nausea-causing drug. The therapy’s intent is to train the patient to reflexively respond to violent impulses, acts—even thoughts—by undergoing debilitating nausea, thereby discouraging antisocial behavior.

In the title sequence of the stop-action animated series Robot Chicken, a mad scientist straps a cyborg chicken to an electric-chair, pries both her real eye and her Borg-red eye open, and forces her to watch a wall of tiny TV screens: an onslaught of pixelated pop culture.

Essayist Mark Dery regularly volunteers for both treatments.

Unblinkingly, Dery examines America's Bizarro-World facets, taking notes on what must an asbestos keyboard. His stickleback-funny collection of diatribes is an incredibly satisfying disemboweling of an array of topics which—although disturbing to most of us in a vague, “that’s just wrong” sort of way—warrant examination by just such an acidic–encyclopedic mind.

Here's the book's equivalent of a mission statement: [Dery has…] “…the unshakable conviction that, while some beliefs may be ethically indefensible, morally repugnant, or universally unpopular, no subject should be ruled out of bounds, no thought forbidden; intellectual freedom is unimaginable without the right to think the unthinkable.” Hear, hear.

It's a very wild ride; the reader is often left breathless. Dery's critiques remind me of a rogue scientist engaging in some para-ethical experimenting-for-experimentation’s sake. “Let’s see how the gerbil responds to extreme cold, a strobe light, smell of sulphur, being shown a picture of Nosferatu, listening to Churchill speak, being hit on the head with a sage sachet.” He shines an assortment of litmus-lights on an assortment of topics, and the result is something dense, ornamented, and wise—and often spit-take hysterical. Here's a random handful of my fave quotes:

“The New Age sentimentalization of the dolphin as a guardian angel with a blowhole.”

“Hitler's demonic talent for graphic branding reminds us of Walt Disney, the mediocre cartoonist and self-described benign dictator of the Happiest Place on Earth…”

“…These are the people who brought you Saint Bartholomew, the flayed martyr with his skin flung jauntily over his shoulder, like Frank Sinatra on the cover of Songs for Young Lovers, and the beatified truck-stop waitresses Saint Lucy and Saint Agnes serving up their plucked-out eyeballs and severed breasts on platters, like blue-plate specials.”

“Where most hetero-guy porn sites obsess over double-D cups, the Fantasy Decapitation Channel rejoices in double decaps…”

Pretty great stuff. There's tons more.

As I've already egregiously flirted with mixed metaphors above, I'll just give in to the impulse and say that reading I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts feels like:

Agreeing to compete in a hot-pepper tasting contest
Sitting in a room fully of flea-bit taxidermy
Learning how to say “You have a fatal illness” in all the World's dying languages
Sprawling spread-eagle on the hood of your friend's car—going 40 on a summer night—and enjoying the bug buckshot
Wearing Bubblewrap undergarments
Trying to ignore that creepy portrait’s eyes following you across the room
Giving in to a Harryhausen “emerging tentacle” fantasy at the gravesite of your best friend’s husband
Reading your parents’ dirty loveletters
Having a nun wake you at 3 AM by shining a flashlight in your face
Realizing you have the opposite of Alzheimer’s
Yelling “Eureka!” Then bursting into tears

I love lists. And Mark Dery’s variegated, kaleidoscopic, and clever book.

When you procure your own copy, tape your eyes wide open and have a notebook handy. Or a razor blade—if you’d rather take permanent notes on your arm.

[Frank Hestvik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is, much like its description, a carnival ride through a whole bunch of (relatively) topical subjects: on blogging, the nauseating[1] popularity of zombies in recent popular culture, the dark underbelly of the concept of IQ, "Holocaust" as a multi-billion industry, the disputed history of Santa, the (also nauseating[2]) 2012 eschatology fad, America's gun-obsession, American masculinity, and so on.

It's not a totally smooth ride, of course. I found most of the essays extremely informative, many riveting, some actually made me laugh out loud, but a few of them I went through more or less on autopilot (e.g. the essays about foot fetishism, HAL's sexual orientation (not really about that), the Gothic element of Catholicism, the one about severed heads). I feel this as an almost innate trait of all such disparate collections though, rather than a fault of this particular collection.

Two unifying elements, though, are

a) the writing: the man writes in "snappy" puns to such a manic degree I can only picture his working environment featuring a stereo which just plays the CSI: Miami's opening guitar riff on endless repeat. Oh yes, very manic writing style. At first it's funny ("what is this guy on?"), then it becomes a bit irritating and lame ("dude, seriously, you need to stop, you have a problem"), but eventually, as he blithely continues his sprint/diarrhea/masturbation, I ended up feeling amused and vague endearment. It's not unlike spending extended time around a hyperactive puppy.

and b) the opinionated perspective: if you're a privileged white intellectual armchair liberal like me, you're often going to find yourself just nodding and smiling at his reassuring and humorous stabs at the things we P.W.I.A.L.s like to take reassuring and humorous stabs at, your brain having by this time switched on "he-he-that-is-so-true" cruise control. That happened dangerously often, even as he's taking way-too-easy potshots at way-too-easy targets (e.g. Dworkin). It's definitely not a book that will coax you away from an already-present deeply held opinion or strong perspective. (If you didn't throw it away in contempt before finishing, his wham-bam style alone would probably leave you grinding your teeth dangerously by the end, if you yourself care for the things he's wham-bamming. I've been on the receiving end of similar manic riffing, targeting things I have emotional connections to, or things I identify with, and it turned me into a pedantic, petulant child surprisingly quickly.) But, that being said, it's a great book to read about new and interesting random things, presented entertainingly, in a perspective harmonizing pleasantly with your existing P.W.I.A.L. orientation. (That might sound like a put-down, but come on, this is about enjoyment and entertainment; this is why The God Delusion was a bestseller for atheists.)

Hovering somewhere between three and four stars, I half-really liked it. Erring on the side of generosity as I still felt I learned a lot.

1. my own opinion
2. Ibid.

[Virginia Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book the politics of which "stand foursquare against the faux-populist demagogues, brownshirt pundit...........And against the Stalinist though police of the left at its most inquisitional" this is a snappy and entertaining read by a well rounded intelligence, familiar with art, history and current events seen with an open though squinted eye. Fun.

About Madonna, fashion and Versace, "the boundary pushing edginess of couture" linked to "sexual perversions" and fashion as "the ultimate commodity fetish, existing in the context of consumer culture that is at once hedonistic and puritanical" and so on and on- good articulate ravings by an interesting mind well honed in its craft of writing, the next paragraph starts "Ironically", which is a flavor this book is infused with to good & amusing effect.

A chapter on the commercialization of the holocaust is titled "shoah business", facebook described as "mind-gouging visual cacophony" with relevant commentary, "the medieval barbarity of the whole gory business" of contemporary dental offices and the description of the self help community as one of "thumb sucking self absorption" give a good idea of the satisfying nastiness found in these pages.

[Thomas Hale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up due to the title, not having heard of Dery before. He's a cultural critic, described in the foreword (by Bruce Sterling) as the intellectual equivalent of a shock jock, puncturing the trite politeness of cryptofascist conservatism and boring political correctness (paraphrasing, of course). I was expecting to find Dery a grim libertarian "the answer must be somewhere in the middle" bore.

In actuality, he's a rather excellent writer, whose politics are much more interesting than promised. He does have a few fixations (boo Andrea Dworkin! Yay Christopher Hitchens!) that are eye-rolling, and he leans on a few writers in particular (Camille Paglia is a favourite of his, unless she's talking about Sarah Palin or Lady Gaga, in which case he is Not A Fan). But a few discomforting missteps aside, I found a lot of his discussions hard to argue with. The essays span a decade and a half, from 1997 to 2010, and cover topics as diverse as David Bowie (awesome, inspiring, genius), Madonna's toes (semiotically fascinating), US gun culture (frightening and sick), queer readings of 2001 and Star Trek: TNG.

All in all I'm really glad I picked this up. It gave me a lot of food for thought, and distressed and entertained me in equal measure.

[Jon Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know where you are with this collection from the dedication; it’s a paean to the late J G Ballard. Dery shares Ballard’s fascination with poking into what we consider the darker side of the human psyche, the dark and nasty undercurrents that lurk beneath the veneer of civilisation, waiting for a chance to rise to the surface. It means this is an intoxicating dark mix of queer theory, religion, twisted sexuality and body parts.

The first section is the shady side of conventional, covering guns, Mark Twain and Lady Gaga before moving onto foot fetishism and Nazi iconography. He progresses through ponderings about the internet, the absurdity of religion and ends by shading into the darkest section which covers a Church of Euthanasia, severed heads and the literary merits of medical textbooks and suicide notes. It ends at perhaps its darkest and best, with an essay on IQ tests shading into the bizarreness of Dery’s upbringing and the musing on the dark potential for his future that his mother’s Alzheimer’s brings. As dark, bracing and shocking as a double strength black coffee first thing in the morning.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. At one point, while reading the book’s second essay – “Gun Play: An American Tragedy in Three Acts” – I laughed so long and hard that I was sure my neighbor would call the cops. It was the laughter of a bitter cynic, you must understand. This is what they mean by “cuttingly humorous:” it’s only funny if you have the ability to laugh at the worst stupidity of your fellow man.

The first section opens with a pondering of zombies and what they mean to us now in post-econ-meltdown days. He had me at zombies.

From there, he moves on to American’s love of firearms. “Gun Play” had me laughing at several passages, shaking my head sadly at others. In it, Dery establishes firmly that while this is by no means objective journalism, he has the intelligence and sense to see the terrible flaws on either side of an argument.

(Want more of my thoughts? "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" on Books and Bad Habits"

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The "drive-by" description is apt. Dery doesn't get bogged down in deep analysis but instead serves as a sharp-tongued tour guide for some memorable curiosities and bizarre themes: hungry tourists stuffing their faces in an Auschwitz cafeteria, the subconscious reasons we're scared of teeth, the relationship between Santa and Satan, fan fiction, various fetishes, Facebook weirdness and lots more. He could stand to add a few new reference points - seriously, sir, step away from the Bowie albums and J.G. Ballard books - and, for better or worse, the book doesn't deliver on the book jacket hype of plunging recklessly into the darkest, deepest corners of the secret American psyche or whatever (we're talking about essays about HAL's sexuality and the "Hitler reacts to ___" videos). Overall: a unique, engaging collection of essays.

[Bradley Somer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because....
- Mark Dery is obviously having fun with the language and content and it is contagious.
- I agree with most of his assertions, which makes us both right.
- The span of topics is insightful, off-kilter and amusing... Hal the computer may be gay... A literary critique of suicide notes... and on and on.
- Even at his most self-masterbatory (playing the unapologetic vocabularian in the final essay), you can tell he's getting his kicks and it's funny.
- Bold, argumentative, confrontational and over the top fun of the lit-geek variety.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like any book of pop culture essays, some are bound to be more compelling than others according to the interests of the reader. In my case I was particularly drawn to the pieces on Twain and Bowie, and the wonderful "Jocko Homo," a brilliant piece on why American sports culture sucks balls. At his best, Dery is that rarest of two-legged unicorns, an American intellectual with a sense of humor.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this second decade of the 21st Century, I MUST NOT THINK BAD THOUGHTS is the book for me. A veritable cluster munition of commentary and erudite ranting. A series of illumination rounds lighting up disparate blasted patches of America's cultural landscape. War reporting from the front lines and back alleys of modernity.

[Aretha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great read for anyone who wants to think about American cultures, subcultures, fringe cultures etc., in interesting (and sometimes bizarre!) ways. I love it when writers make explicit the politics of all cultural manifestations and expose the constructedness of our everyday realities and society at large.

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dery builds sentences of overwhelming length bearing incredible payoffs - if you can cruise through some some real linguistic quagmires for the payoff. A must-read for the discerning logophile in your life!

(But maybe not for the frustrated writer… they’re likely to drown themselves in the bathtub after reading, if prone to jealousy. Not speaking from experience or anything…)

[Meg]

Very occasionally picking this up and reading an essay or two. His style doesn't seem to be one I want to immerse myself in for very long, though all the pieces are interesting, and the essay on Lady Gaga is hilarious.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dery is best when he is playing critic and most boring when he is guiding the reader through a sidestep history lesson. Only downside to his essays in anthology form is the occasional repeat reference.

[Lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended. Weirdness & perversity under a microscope.