Censorship Now!!

(Paperback)

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Censorship Now!! Is an uproarious new essay collection from Washington, DC's, infamous cult music hero and satirist, Ian F. Svenonius. He tackles such diverse subjects as IKEA, Apple, the weather, the gentrification of punk by indie rock, Marion Barry, the film Heathers (1988), Christian pornography, vampires, hoarding, the role of sugar in empire-building, how to properly tip at restaurants, the return of the hat in men's fashion and other highly topical matters. No one is left unscathed, and more than a few will be left scratching their heads even as they laugh.

Reviews

Ian Svenonius, former Sassiest Boy in America and frontman for legendary D.C. bands Nation of Ulysses and the Make-Up...[has a] new essay collection, Censorship Now, [which] is wild with subject matter, including Ikea, Marion Barry, Christian pornography, hoarding, tipping in restaurants, and, yes, the role of sugar in empire-building...
--KQED Arts

Svenonius has the scholarly chops, unique subcultural vantage, and reputation to be a new kind of public intellectual--an earthy alternative to university discourse, matching its brainy detachment with D.C. punk's searching, media-aware sensibility.
--Baltimore City Paper

Svenonius's third book is a collection of essays, featuring distinctive takes on all sorts of matters cultural and political. (You can read one at The New Republic.) As the title suggests, there's a contrarian streak here, which befits a guy who's been challenging expectations since the mid-1980s.
--Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Put Svenonius on the syllabus....Ian F. Svenonius is a refreshing voice amidst the irony-addled sad-sack defeatism of postmodernity.
--PopMatters

Svenonius' true might with these written words is in his eloquence, his persuasive elucidation of his arguments and his convincing invocation of history as backing evidence.
--Paste Magazine

Svenonius uses fiery rhetoric and grand historical examples to, in many ways, point out not just the absurdity of our modern culture but to place the capitalist norms that we take as quotidian truths in a historical and moral context. Like his music, his writing seems written with some kind of tongue in some sort of general cheek area.
--Vanyaland

Twist yer melon with a series of essays by Ian F. Svenonius, America's punk Barthes. The musician's eponymous slice proposes a code where industrialised artists of all types declare their agenda and responsibility for the cause of futurekind...New Year Resolutions cometh, are we up for that
--DJ Magazine

You might know Ian Svenonius from his music--Nation of Ulysses, the Make Up, Chain & the Gang or his show Soft Focus or perhaps his earlier book Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group--but once encountered, he leaves an impression.
--The Big Takeover

A thought-provoking collection of essays....In a utopian world where we all followed Svenonius' lead by banning all uninspired, toothless, and just plain bad art, you would still find plenty of copies of Censorship Now!! lying around.
--The Couch Sessions

Praise for Ian F. Svenonius:

Svenonius has walked the walk...Even today--as the frontman of Chain & the Gang and the host of the online talk show Soft Focus--he remains cool, cryptic, and impeccably dressed, a mod magician with a trick always lurking up his tailored sleeve.
--The A.V. Club

Like its author, Supernatural Strategies is part tongue-in-cheek, part deadly serious--a satire of rock's consumerist origins but also a thoughtful treatise on what it means to devote yourself to a collective.
--Pitchfork

Author Bio

Ian F. Svenonius is the author of the underground best sellers Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group and The Psychic Soviet. He was also the host of VBS.tv's Soft Focus, a different breed of chat show, where he interviewed Mark E. Smith, Genesis P. Orridge, Chan Marshall, Ian MacKaye, and others. As a musician he has created twenty-one albums and countless singles in various rock 'n' roll combos (Chain & the Gang, Weird War, The Make-Up, The Nation of Ulysses, etc.). He lives in Washington, DC.