Website Review: 'AltCulture.Com'

What do John F. Kennedy Jr., lesbian chic, Kato Kaelin, and the Sega Channel have in common? They're all represented in alt.culture, the much acclaimed paperback ''an a-to-z guide to the '90s,'' by Steven Daly and Nathaniel Wice. This Web version of the cultural Baedeker, AltCulture.Com (http://www.altculture.com), makes the book's text available in a dizzily free-swinging format: Every time you load the home page, random links materialize — Slick Rick, emoticons, binge drinking, sexual aversion therapy, to take one sample — each leading to mini-essays replete with sound and video clips and links to other relevant websites. It's all smart and lightweight, though when the authors sink their teeth in, they bite hard — as in a deft piece on ''rebel advertising'' that includes a video clip of the infamous ''This car is punk rock!'' Subaru commercial. The clean white interface is lovely as well, though after a while it's like being stuck in an art gallery with a know-it-all. A-