Adam Parfrey
Related: subversion - transgression - underground - American literature - cult fiction
Rants and Incendiary Tracts: Voices of Desperate Illuminations : 1558-Present (1989) - Bob Black, Adam Parfrey (Editors) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK] [...]
Apocalypse Culture (1987) - Adam Parfrey [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK] [...]
"Apocalypse Culture is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our times. An extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the twentieth century."-J.G. Ballard
For years I've been a little leery of this book. First published in 1987, this anthology of doomster essays has become a fixture on the bookshelves of every Tom, Pierced Dick, and Harry. After finally reading it, I have to admit that my prejudice against those who think that being cool means reading lots of ReSearch magazines kept me away from what is actually a fascinating volume, wherein the most absurd, inexcusable positions are defended with calm intelligence and witty rationality. With essays ranging from the sexual liberation of necrophiliacs to strong cases against art and agriculture, editor Adam Parfrey's collection is one that Tristan Tzara would enjoy, if he were to rise from his mouldy grave in search of good bathroom reading. --amazon.com
Biography
Adam Parfrey (born 1957) is an American journalist, editor, and the publisher of Feral House books.
Born in New York to actor Woodrow Parfrey (his mother, Rosa Ellovich, was Jewish, his father was not). He moved to Los Angeles, California in 1962. Upon graduating from Santa Monica High School, the young Parfrey enrolled at UCLA before transferring to UC, Santa Cruz where he studied theater and history without graduating. While at UCLA, he wrote for the student newspaper, The Daily Bruin, and later became co-Editor.
He collaborated on George Petros' EXIT magazine.
Following a stint at the tabloid newspaper Idea Magazine, Parfrey returned to New York. In 1989 he started Feral House with $5,000.
He now lives in Los Angeles, California. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Parfrey [Aug 2005]
Feral House
Feral House is a publisher of "high quality books on forbidden topics", which means that they publish pulp non-fiction books on the occult, punk rock, cultural criticism, serial killers, kink, and other "cult" topics.
They were founded by Adam Parfrey in 1989, and are headquartered in Los Angeles.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_House - forbidden - books - cult fiction - cultural criticism
SIN-A-RAMA: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties (2004) - Lydia Lunch, Adam Parfrey
SIN-A-RAMA: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties (2004) - Brittany A. Daley, Adam Parfrey, Lydia Lunch, Earl Kemp, Miriam Linna, Jay A. Gertzman, John Gilmore, Michael Hemmingson, Robert Silverberg, Lynn Munroe, Stephen J. Gertz [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"Earl Kemp edited smut and went to prison for it..." (more)
From Publishers Weekly
Older readers may remember the lurid soft-X-rated paperbacks-titles like Topless Waitress, Lake of Lust, Casting Couch and so on-that crowded the shelves of newsstands and candy stores but more often adult bookstores in the 1960s. What most distinguished these paperbacks wasn't their narratives but their frequently amazing covers, swashes of erotic eye-candy that, as surely as a Warhol soupcan, now define an era. And so the emphasis in this first-rate celebration of these paperbacks is on the covers, with hundreds reproduced in what looks like accurate (i.e., soul-shocking) color.
Most of these reproductions appear in the editors' grouping of sex paperbacks into various themes (Asphalt Jungle, Sex at Play, Butch Swish, etc.) but more show up in the startling essays and profiles that precede these groupings-startling for the several well-known authors profiled (Donald Westlake, Ed Wood, Lawrence Block) and for the praise-going by the illustrations, well justified-for a handful of the star cover artists.
The book opens with overviews of the history of softcore paperback publishing by Jay A. Gertzman and Stephen J. Gertz and, most notably, by acclaimed SF author Robert Silverberg, who in "My Life as a Pornographer" recounts how by 1962 he was "turning out three Nightstand books a month" and earning enough money to buy "an enormous mansion in the finest residential neighborhood of New York City." A catalogue of "sleaze publishers" and a list of author pseudonyms (Miriam Gardner: Marion Zimmer Bradley; Paul Merchant: Harlan Ellison, etc.) close this informative and giddily entertaining book. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Boston Globe, March 20, 2005: The Golden Age of Sleaze
Deeply satisfying...a lavish tribute to the courageous authors, illustrators, and editors...There is much to admire about SIN-A-RAMA.
see also: Jay Gertzman - 1960s - sin - sleaze - pulp - exploitation - erotic books
It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps (2003) - Adam Parfrey
It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps (2003) - Adam Parfrey [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Men's adventure is a genre of pulp magazines that had its heyday in the 1950s and early 1960s. Created for a male audience, these magazines featured pinup photography and lurid tales of adventure that typically featured wartime feats of daring, exotic travel, or conflict with wild animals. These magazines are generally considered the last of the true pulp magazines; they reached their peak of circulation long after the genre fiction pulps had begun to fade. These magazines were also called the sweats, especially by people in the magazine publishing or distributing trades.
Titles of notable men's adventure magazines include Argosy, the longest running and highest in reputation among the magazines classed in this category; others include Real, True, Saga, Stag, Swank, and For Men Only. During their peak in the late 1950s, approximately 130 such magazines were being published simultaneously.
The adventure tales contained within their pages usually were written in a realistic style and claimed to be true stories. Damsels in distress, usually in various states of deshabille, often featured in the painted art that illustrated their pages and their covers. They were notoriously depicted being menaced or tortured by Nazis or, in later years, Communists. Artist Norman Saunders was the dean of illustrators for these magazines, occupying a classic position similar to that enjoyed by Margaret Brundage for the classic pulps; many illustrations are credited to corporations or are anonymous. Historical artist Mort Künstler also painted many covers and illustrations for these magazines. A number of well known figures worked on these publications; Bruce Jay Friedman wrote for and edited them, as did Mario Puzo; Playboy photographer Mario Casilli started out photographing pinups for these publications.
The title of Frank Zappa's album Weasels Ripped My Flesh was borrowed from a man-against-beast cover story in the September, 1956 issue of Man's Life.
These magazines' circulation began to drop precipitously in the mid-1960s. Their tales of wartime adventure appealed to American male readers of the World War II and Korean War generations and these men were reaching an age that they were no longer quite as interested in girlie pictures. For those who wanted pornography, more explicit and less old fashioned forms were available by this period in different publications. The Vietnam War and the social controversies surrounding that war in the USA did nothing to create an appetite for similar entertainments that would have involved rescuing damsels from the Viet Cong. The vision of adventurous, fighting masculinity presented within their pages also became unfashionable during this period. Some of the publications survived by turning into explicitly pornographic magazines; others ceased publication during this period. There have been several attempts to revive the Argosy title; one in the 1990s, and most recently in 2004. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_adventure [Apr 2005]
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