I think I like this book. My problem with it though, is that despite being an archive spanning the past five years, too much of the content is too fresh in my mind. It seems like the editors either played favorites with their writers, or maybe they couldn’t be bothered to do too much digging into the vaults, as much of the content is sourced from 2007 and 2008. Maybe I need to clean out my bathroom more often and archive those old issues that have been hanging around like a grungy toilet brush.
Or maybe I’m being too harsh and belong in a Taiwanese pharmacy in the Douche section (yes this does actually exist). Perhaps the articles are still so familiar are because they were just that good, the best of the best even! This is after all touted as the second edition of “Vice’s Greatest Hits”. According to Vice’s Editor-In-Chief, Jesse Pearson, ‘News, Nudity & Nonsense’ is “meant to be seen as the original Vice ethos being opened up and explained. The difference [from the first edition] is that now when we talk about shit and piss and sex, the articles are a bit longer.” I don’t know if this is an attempt to put a high-brow spin on a low-brow product, but what it really comes out is Vice with minimal photos, glossy paper and not a splash of colour to speak of.
Again, I have to stop shitting on this (or does Vice enjoys the scat?), because there is still great content in here. Applause to a recap of all the ‘Vice Guides To..’, including Iraq, Canada, and Cute Things. Heroin chic will never be left alone as at least three stories cover the topic in the Drugs section, thankfully attention is still given to obscure psychedelics, and a non-focus on cocaine. Writers’ traipses with convicted pedophiles and Montreal Police officers will never bore, and the Sammy Davis Jr story outing him as a Satanist is still classic material.
In the tradition of Vice aloofness, let’s give this book a 7 out of 69.
