High Weirdness by Mail

"High Weirdness by Mail", by Ivan Stang (ISBN 0-671-64260-X) is a 1988 book dedicated to an examination of "weird culture" by actually putting the reader in touch with it by mail.

The book is divided into sections—"Weird Science," "UFO Contactees," "Drug Stuff," and others, and each section contains a variety of mini-articles describing organizations. Each organization article concludes with a mailing address (and in some cases, phone numbers). Though an unknown. but probably unknown, fraction of the groups and addresses mention still exist or are accurate, respectively, the book can be seen as an interesting snapshot prefiguring the Internet.

Several years after the book's publication, Stang reported on the newsgroup alt.slack that his inclusion of entries for white supremacist groups in the book caused his name to be mentioned by those groups as a possible target for retaliation. (The book's commentaries on various hate groups were less than flattering.) Stang reported this incident to the FBI, but did not receive any actual harassment or threats from the groups in question.

External links

* [http://www.subgenius.com Home Page of the Church of the SubGenius]
* [http://subgenius.com/hwbw.htm The Return of High Weirdness by Mail]
* [http://www.modemac.com/wiki The High Weirdness Project] : Web-based sequel to "High Weirdness by Mail"