Reverend Billy Talen

The author made his name at the turn of the century as a performance artist, a sort of fusion of an Elvis imitator and a TV evangelist, who invaded big box stores preaching and performing exorcisms against consumerism and overconsumption. These were great shows, meaningful absurdist entertainments carried out at no small risk to himself and his associates. Latterly, he has broadened his reach to inveigh against other environmental woes as well as leftish causes with no direct connection to the environment. As far as I'm concerned, he's on the side of the angels, but this is no great book, despite the fact that he's a more than competent writer. To the extent that this is a memoir of his activist events, it's annoyingly self-congratulatory, and to the extent that it's attempting to diagnose and remedy our environmental predicament, it's grounded in fuzzy New Age poetics and advocacy for adoption of a fusion of the Christian left and third world spirituality and lifestyles; all evidence indicates that as soon as developing nations increase their incomes, their consumer habits emulate our own very quickly. He's also far too reliant on the now-tired rhetorical trick of lionizing this-or-that of his associates as "an ex-Marine", "a great-grandmother", or "a minister", as though those unusual, elite statuses make somebody an expert on the environment (or anything else). The Rev is an entirely praiseworthy figure, but the book really isn't his genre.… (altro)