THE CORRECT WAY TO BOIL WATER by Stewart Home. Sabotage Editions, London 2005, ISBN 0954006399

Review by John Eden
By my reckoning this booklet, published on 26th December 2005, is the 14th released by Sabotage Editions. It is part of a trilogy released to commemorate the demise of the International Standard Book Numbering system. Like many of its precursors it collects diverse articles, reviews and other writing by Stewart Home. So, as usual, a mixed bag - and all the better for that.

Major articles this time include an extended look at psychedelia and the avant-garde, which takes in the connections with Lettrist cinema and exploitation movies, along with a large amount of insights gained from Stewart’s extensive research for his novel Tainted Love.

A number of books related to the legacy of of the Situationist International are reviewed with Stewart’s characteristic rigour, humour and lack of romanticism.

I found the large section dealing with Tony Wakeford’s reaction to the publication of the critical We Mean It Man: Punk Rock and Anti-Racism - or, Death in June Not Mysterious especially interesting. Indeed I would urge anyone with a passing interest in that somewhat jaded end of industrial culture to read both pieces.

Those interested in more progressive occultural currents will recall the feature in Rapid Eye on performance artist Andre Stitt. Stewart’s thoughts on Stitt are included here, linking his work with shamanism.

This is a great read and comes highly recommended to anyone whose interested was tweaked after reading this interview with Stewart which has been bigged up by bloggers such as Loki, Psychbloke, Effay et al.

64 pages. Available via the 'BUY' page of this site.

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