My Ubuweb feed just brought forth another little treasure, this time Kathy Acker reading excerpts from her book My Mother: Demonology (1994) which is set to music and titled Redoing Childhood. This album was released by Kill Rock Stars after her death in 2000. It’s a haunting series of track, perfect for my mindset these days, and “President Bush” is particularly twisted. You can red more about the conception of this project here (which provides an interesting look at Acker, who after reading Blood and Guts in High School (1984) I began to idolize). Hal Wilner, the producer of the album, notes that Acker
was concerned the about “the Bush” reference (Bush as in the former president) that they would be outdated, for Clinton became president between the recording and the mix. She went back and forth on this issue – and decided that it was fine to keep the “Bush” stuff.
In honor of our last emperor, here’s an arresting track that is full of some tightly wrought Apocalypse Now! imagery, that became all too true less than a decade after see wrote it—prescient, indeed. And do your self a favor and listen to them all here, trust me, they’ll help you stay up latte at night.
Download President Bush
Her ideas of plagiarism as art, and re-writing Great Expectations and Don Quixote are pretty wild. She was both an early punk figure of lit, and a rip and remix artist extraordinaire. Not sure if you read her short work New York City in 1979, but it is wild. Also her whole take on violence and taking rabid stances is something I need to re-visit.