Mark Dery goes where many fear to tread. He’s a member of that endangered species, the freelance intellectual, not hindered by careerist academic drudgery, stifling ideological lockstep or commercial pressure. He’s grown beyond his earlier books, which paid too much obeisance to the gods of postmodern cultural theory. Here he seems more truly himself, and the writing has a freer vernacular flow. In this new book of essays he surveys a broad expanse of the current cultural scene with mordant humor.

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