I mentioned a while back that I was doing some research related to material found in the flyers--remember this post? Long story short, after six months of trying to find a copy of the "Compassion Over Passion" book referenced in this flyer as well as many others, I finally managed to snag a used copy. Here it is:
This book is purported to be written by Mike Milken, a fellow whose name appears repeatedly in the series of flyers, most prominently in the "Mike Milken for Congress" flyer. Having now read through this mysterious book of his, I'm about 99 percent sure that Milken is a folk hero composite made of some "kindness schools" ideas from the flyers and the real Milken, the junk bond fellow from the 80s who is now a philanthropist focused on medical research. And I'm about 99 percent sure that the author of the flyers is the author of this very strange book. Check out these pull quotes on the back of the book:
As the "Dignity of Humans" flyer mentions, this book is available from Amazon--or at least it used to be available. It was self-published, and the self-publishing company that put it out was bought by Amazon. Presumably when that happened, the authors whose work was printed there had to sign new contracts, and the contract for this book was never renegotiated, so it's functionally out of print, save for very rare and occasional copies of it that come up for sale, not counting that $2000 specimen on the Amazon page for the book.
I ordered a copy several months ago which never arrived--it must have gotten lost in the mail. I must admit that I became suspicious that it didn't really exist when the package never came, but then another came up for sale!
I was hoping for a bit of biographical information on the book's author, but the title page is virtually blank other than it's attribution to Milken. The publishing company's info isn't actually printed in the book, either:
Ostensibly, the book offers dating advice, but as you might imagine, it veers off into many surrealist twists and turns, talking about all kinds of weird things. It's also written with the same kind of idiosyncratic language/syntax as the flyers. And though it tries to be gender-neutral, it's ultimately written from a female perspective. All of this points to "Mike Milken" as a pen name--and the author is almost certainly the same author as the Paradise on Earth flyer series.
The "Dignity of Humans" flyer indicates that there are two more books, Parts 2 and 3, to accompany this volume. Unfortunately, I've contacted the hospital referenced in that flyer, and they don't have them. So for now, just this one book seems to actually exist. But hey, it's another 171 pages of this stuff!
Faithful readers, I'm tempted to scan the book and include it on the blog. It's certainly a related object. I hesitate because of the copyright assertion in the book, but on the other hand, it's out of print, and if a cease & desist ever arrived, it would clarify the author...
For now, though, even though it's out of print, you can use Amazon's "search inside this book" feature to look at a few pages of the text. It'll block you from reading the whole thing in sequence, but you can at least get a general feel for the writing style and content. Am I right here?
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