Kooks
Vs. ZaniesKooks
Vs. Zanies
Two rather interesting tomes have come into the offices of Interzone
lately . Each one dealing with a different kind of unusual thinker. One
new book called Kooks and another picked up in a used bookstore in
Baltimore called Zanies. How can you pass up books with these titles?
Kooks, subtitled "Guide To The Outer Limits Of Human Belief"
deals with folks who are sincere about their outlandish beliefs, "Their
main intent is not to deceive or defraud; to the contrary, they are trying
to impart an essential truth ." Some of the kooks profiled in Kooks
include Samuel Birley Rowbotham, an English gentleman who believed
in Zetetic Astronomy, which stated that the earth is shaped like a pancake,
Damien Royce & Jason Zolot, who believed the dinosaurs to be
the creation of Satan, and Howard B. Rand, a student of the school
of thought that said the British are the true Jews. Unconventional thinkers?
I think so.
The book is broken into chapter that cover entire movements or like minded kooks. Those who don't believe the earth to be round, black messiahs, men having babies, how opening a hole in your forehead brings enlightenment, and alien contactees. Some really make you think, others will make you laugh out loud.
One of the most informative chapters deals with former Naval Intelligence officer William Cooper, who has seen the documentation that Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a treaty with the aliens and Nelson Rockefeller, John Foster Dulles, J. Edger Hoover & George Bush are in on it.
In Kooks, author and former zine editor Donna Kossy concentrates on the lesser known eccentrics, choosing to exclude the better known, and better documented, kooks like Jack Chick, Lyndon LaRouche, Nikola Tesla, Roky Erikson, Richard Shaver & Charles Manson. This may be a mistake. Towards the end of the book the pickings get kind of slim. Reprints of rant tracts and short chapters about the ranting of some present day thinkers prove to be dull and unintelligible. I was a little disappointed with Kooks, because it contains a list of people who contributed source material to the book, R. Seth Friedmen, Mike Gunderloy, Janor Hypercleets, John Marr, Paul Marvides & The Reverend Ivan Stang. All usually a good sign as a contributor, but somehow the total package just doesn't hold up. The chapters in Kooks that are good, are very good. The ones that aren't good, are very dull.
On the other hand, Zanies is a resource you can't do without. Between it's covers you find an alphabetical list of eccentric thinkers, millionaires, religious leaders, artists & actors. Author Jay Robert Nash has collected fascinating stories about people who break everyday conventions, live life as they want and see the world in the way only they can see. Not content with profiling just the outlandish exploits of folks like Joshua Abraham Norton, who proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States in 1854, Mathew Robinson who spent most almost every waking moment in water, or practical joker Hugh Troy, who once opened a jar of moths is a movie theater thus obscuring the lens and making the movie impossible to watch, Nash also goes into the quirks of Salvador Dali, Aleister Crowley and William Frawley (Fred Mertz of I Love Lucy).
This is a book I open from time to time, usually when I can't sleep, and just read. I flip to a random page and dig in. Just about every page has a fascinating entry about some past loon. Best of all, it's always entertaining. Page after page of original thinkers.
Sadly, Zanies and Kooks are out of print, though Amazon.com does make it's claim that it will try to find it for you within two weeks. Kooks was available through the WFMU catalog, but last time I heard, they had discontinued the catalog. Let me know if they find it for you.