Ascension: Clubs, drugs and the eternal high Book

Ascension is quite some trip. Cameron Dante, one-time break-dance champion, rapper with the chart-topping Bizarre Inc, DJ, prodigious partaker of raves and class-A drugs, relives his journey in search of the eternal high. It's fast and furious from the start, providing a fascinating insight into the peaks and troughs of the oft-maligned dance culture that took him close to the edge of heaven. Close, that is, because he danced perilously with death (he recounts with brutal honesty the troubles he encountered in descending further into the underworld of clubs and drugs). But close, too, in terms of the ecstasy of the communal "buzz: it feels so deep, so spiritual that I never want to leave". But the simple laws of physics state that what comes up must also go down. While he can't and won't deny the chemistry of cocaine, he spells out the uglier side effects too. Not that he ever takes the been-there-done-that moral high ground--Ascension is refreshing because it doesn't preach. Although he finds God, only a few lines are devoted to his final discovery. There is no triumphal affirmation of journey's end but a sense that it is only just beginning. This is a compelling account of one man's search for depth beyond the shallows of our culture. Try it, and you could be hooked. --Brian DraperRead More