IdleRich

IdleRich
Anyone read this book? In some ways it seems quite a dissensus book in that it's sort of experimental and talks about theory and stuff without really being theory. Though it is also a feminist book by a woman so in that respect it's WAAAAY outside our comfort zone. And obviously it's a tricky one to read on the bus or whatever. Gave some tube guy a laugh when I was carrying it round London last weekend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Dick

There is a TV series as well apparently which seems completely weird.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I liked the obsessional slant to it. Enjoyed her pissy biography of Kathy Acker more though.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Ah that's interesting. I liked the Dick stuff least to be honest, I liked it a lot more when she started doing reviews of obscure artists and expounding on her worldview. And particularly, when she was talking about the NY art scene and Kosuth's party etc and how sexist it all was. There was a bit when she mentions finding a book on her husband's shelf with an inscription from Kathy Acker which implies they were lovers.... wonder if that was a consideration when she wrote the biography. Although to be fair she mentions giving a good review to some actor who fucked her over so she at least likes to think she's above such petty considerations.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Probably part of the point of it is to blur the lines between what happened and fiction?

She was (is?) married to Sylvere Lotringer and together they were the main people behind the massively pretentious but actually not bad in places Semiotext(e) publisher.

I was hugely intimidated by all that stuff as a young 'un but have latterly been working my way through some of it.

This interview is OK (assuming the upload works)

View attachment semitextinterview.pdf
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I guess it's well known that the "Dick" of the book is Dick Hebdige who wrote Subcultures and Cut 'n' Mix?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
My understanding is that no-one knew at the time but everyone knows now. I mean she deliberately blurs the lines (as you say) by changing the names of his books and at times making them up or even attributing her own works to him. I guess that's what they are talking about when they say that she has created a new type of literature but that's quite a bold claim really. I mean, she's put together epistolary bits, with reviews and made up bits mixed with real ones and stuff to make a whole but all of those bits existed already and not always in isolation.
Yeah I think she's divorced from Sylvere now.
I will check that interview later, cheers.
 
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