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Not happy to be back from promoting Rebelarse Vende in Spain. As some wise person once wrote, the business trip is the only authentic form of tourism. Great country, great time. Will get around to blogging again some day. In the meantime, in order to convince Degen that I do things other than promote my 1/2 book on this blog, may I draw your attention to yet another extremely negative review.
This one is written by one Gordon Phinn, for Books in Canada and was just posted to the Amazon.ca website. It’s quite well-written, although I’m astonished that Mr. Phinn was able to take time out from talking to the dead to write it.
At any rate, he makes the usual mistake, of confusing our critique of the political effects of counterculural thinking with an opposition to the cultural effects. For the record, I’m a huge fan of countercultural culture.
Finally, I’m always amazed at the assumptions people feel entitled to make when reviewing the book. Phinn writes:
What’s really going on here is the guilt-tripping drama of two post-punk adolescents buying into the rage-against-the-machine ethos of their generation but finding their career-struck selves as well placed profs with money to burn on real estate and world travel and only their burnished intellects to separate them from the hoi-polloi who actually live out the trends they so peremptorily dismiss (“Ever notice that the masses have incredibly bad taste?”). Maybe what Heath and Potter really need to do is quit their jobs and get a life.
Trust a brain-dead hippy to miss the irony in the sentence about the bad taste of the poor. But man, this really hurts. First of all, I have no real estate, no money to burn, and no job. I’d be happy to get a life, if only someone would hire me. Maybe Mr. Phinn can put in a good word with the afterlife for me.