Abbiamo tutti una collezione di oggetti che ci hanno visto crescere - foto, biglietti, vestiti, souvenir ammucchiati in una scatola, stipati in un cassetto, dimenticati in un armadio - e come noi anche Jarvis Cocker, autore di canzoni indimenticabili, star del Brit Pop e accumulatore seriale reo confesso. In 'Good pop, bad pop' Cocker affronta - letteralmente - il buio della propria soffitta e la stravagante accozzaglia di oggetti che la ingombrano: testimoniano i suoi anni di formazione come musicista, il funzionamento del suo processo creativo, gli esordi dei Pulp, ma anche la terra e i tempi che lo hanno visto crescere, le decadenti periferie urbane dell'Inghilterra del Nord all'epoca della Thatcher. Un vero e proprio tesoro da scandagliare con affetto ma anche con tanta, tanta ironia. Tra le pagine di questo 'inventario', Cocker cataloga reperti e invita a giocare a keep or cob, tenere o buttare. Da una camicia Gold Star in policotone a un pacchetto di Wrigley's Extra, dalla collezione di astronauti in plastica e occhiali rotti ai tentativi adolescenziali di scrivere canzoni, queste madeleine scovate nella spazzatura si trasformano in lenti d'ingrandimento e mettono a fuoco l'eccezionale vita di Jarvis Cocker, dei Pulp e della cultura pop del secolo scorso (nel bene e nel male, come sottolinea il titolo del volume). Da questi apparenti rottami di una vita Cocker trae storie a volte toccanti, a volte spassose, e tra foto, ritagli e giochi di grafica, offre al lettore un libro che è anche un oggetto pop, un lavoro sopraffino di graphic design, un bellissimo esempio di Pop

SUM shows us forty wonderfully imagined possibilities of life beyond death.In one afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and is unaware of your existence. In another, your creators are a species of dim-witted creatures who built us to figure out what they could not. In a different version of the afterlife you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that the afterlife contains only people whom you remember, or that the hereafter includes the thousands of previous gods who no longer attract followers. In some afterlives you are split into your different ages; in some you are forced to live with annoying versions of yourself that represent what you could have been; in others you are re-created from your credit card records and Internet history. Many versions of our purpose here are proposed; we are mobile robots for cosmic mapmakers, we are reunions for a scattered confederacy of atoms, we are experimental subjects for gods trying to understand what makes couples stick together. These tales—at once witty, wistful and unsettling—are rooted in science and romance and awe at our mysterious existence while asking the key questions about death, hope, technology, immortality, love, biology and desire that expose radiant new facets of our humanity.

SUM shows us forty wonderfully imagined possibilities of life beyond death.In one afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and is unaware of your existence. In another, your creators are a species of dim-witted creatures who built us to figure out what they could not. In a different version of the afterlife you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that the afterlife contains only people whom you remember, or that the hereafter includes the thousands of previous gods who no longer attract followers. In some afterlives you are split into your different ages; in some you are forced to live with annoying versions of yourself that represent what you could have been; in others you are re-created from your credit card records and Internet history. Many versions of our purpose here are proposed; we are mobile robots for cosmic mapmakers, we are reunions for a scattered confederacy of atoms, we are experimental subjects for gods trying to understand what makes couples stick together. These tales—at once witty, wistful and unsettling—are rooted in science and romance and awe at our mysterious existence while asking the key questions about death, hope, technology, immortality, love, biology and desire that expose radiant new facets of our humanity.