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- [Kathy] Can you hear me?

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- [Audience] Yeah.

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- [Kathy] Can you hear me?

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- [Audience] Yeah.
- [Kathy] You can, cool.

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And if you don\'t understand anything,

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or if you\'re getting confused,

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you know, yell at me.

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(audience laughing)
(ethereal music)

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So, just raise your voices.

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- You know, she uses real words,

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and words that make people go, oh my god.

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I like that about her.

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(suspenseful music)

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- Everybody else thinks that
because the world is sexual,

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that means antifeminist.

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She\'s a pro-sexual feminist.

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(tranquil percussive music)

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- I like and admire how she delved

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into the darker side of being human,

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and darker not meaning the wrong side

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of being human, I guess.

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(tranquil music)

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- Sometimes I was reading it, and I like,

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I felt physically sick.

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(tranquil music)

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- I gained a lot from reading it,

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and kinda, I think,
learned a lot about myself,

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some things I didn\'t wanna
know, and some things I did.

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(energetic rock music)

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- Can you hear me?

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- [Audience] Yes.

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- Alright, let\'s get, can you hear me?

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- [Audience] Yeah.

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- Can you hear me?

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- [Audience] Yeah.
- You can, cool.

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Can you hear that?

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- [Audience] Yeah.
- Yeah?

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I can go that low?

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Alright, I\'m gonna be reading you

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from a novel that\'s just so.

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Like, fuck, this thing\'s not gonna work.

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Ah, the hell with it.

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This is funky.

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(audience laughing)

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I mean, I\'m funky.

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If you ever can\'t hear, just
yell at me or something.

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This is no church.

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Okay, so this is a little poem by Ange,

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\'cause poetry is what fucks up this world.

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(audience laughing)

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While the world cracks open,
and all the rich men die,

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and all the fucks who sat on my face,

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those sniveling shites,

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we come crawling through the cracks,

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orphans, lobotomies.

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If you ask me what I want, I\'ll tell you.

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I want everything.

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Whole rotten world come down and break.

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Let me spread my legs.

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(upbeat rhythmic beat)

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- The work was brand
new, the work was fresh.

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No one had really done it

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in quite the way she had done it before,

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so the fact that she was a
woman was incredibly important.

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This had been very much male domain,

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especially experimental
fiction in America.

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It belonged to men.

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(tranquil music)

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- Burrows said, steal everything you can.

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She was a hoodlum, she stole,

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and unlike the upper-class
thieves and hoodlums,

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she didn\'t cover it.

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(tranquil music)

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- She wasn\'t trying to be
political, she just was political,

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because there was no other option.

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But it wasn\'t an easy ride.

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- [Ira] No one was gonna be
able to save her from herself,

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and that actually was how Kathy lived.

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No one wanna ever able
to save her from herself,

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yet she did just fine up until the end.

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- Kathy went too early,
she died too young.

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The words from almost 20 years
ago are still timely today,

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and I think for younger
women they still resonate.

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There\'s a character in a
lot of her writing, Janey.

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Janey was an alter ego of Kathy,

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clearly an autobiographical reference,

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who was played with
poetically creative license,

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but there\'s a lot of
Kathy in that character,

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and even tied into her
own personal history.

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(typewriter clacking)

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- [Narrator] Janey.

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Janey is a girl.

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The world is red.

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Night is a narrow street.

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Janey is in a room.

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The room is small.

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A wonderful man whose large
prick is in Janey\'s cunt,

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says to Janey, I love you.

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(classic jazzy music)

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- [Announcer] High
fashion, high in the sky.

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To the Rainbow Room, 65
stories above Manhattan,

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atop Rockefeller Center,
come pretty models,

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to get a breathtaking look-see
at the big town below,

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and also to be seen in
their smart new creations

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by Ben Reig.

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High fashions in a sky high city.

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- When I went to school, it
was always great culture,

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this is how you should think,
this is a great work of art.

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It was the same thing with the
formal art in the art world.

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And it didn\'t have anything to do with me.

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I mean, again, it was that feeling of,

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this might be great, be if
there\'s no meaning for me,

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and it doesn\'t relate to my
life, to use that awful cliche,

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what do I care, as if I
had to think this way.

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You know, a novel would
give me a certain way

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that I was supposed to
think, feel, and act,

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to some extent, of course.

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And I didn\'t.

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And if I acted and felt in that way,

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it would be not allowing
again the pain of my own life.

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It\'d be trying to say,

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it\'s as if being a female,
I had to be a male,

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and I had to think in male terms,

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and there was no female language given me.

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- [Narrator] Janey lived in a locked room.

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Twice a day the Persian slave trader came

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and taught her to be a whore.

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Otherwise there was nothing.

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One day she found a pen
and a scrap of paper

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in a forgotten corner of her room,

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and began to write down her life.

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To have, to buy, to want, to see, to come.

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(typewriter clacking)

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- If Janey gets sexually rejected,

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her body becomes sick.

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If she doesn\'t get who she wants,

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she naturally revolts.

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This is the nature of reality.

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No rationality possible.

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Only this is true.

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The world in which there is no feeling,

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the robot world, doesn\'t exist.

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This world here is a very
dangerous place to live in.

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(tranquil music)

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- And maybe part of the writing

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was a way of expressing herself,

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and expressing almost her desire

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to be able to live a different life

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than she was growing up as.

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(tranquil music)

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- She once told me that the
only thing that they ever

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were served at dinner at
Park Avenue, was hamburgers.

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And that a pile of
hamburgers would be placed

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on the dining room table,

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and then her mother would let
the dogs into the dining room,

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and then Kathy would have
to fight with the dogs

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to get a hamburger.

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(woman laughing)

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You know, I just took that as a metaphor.

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(ethereal music)

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- [Kathy] I wanna tell
you about my childhood.

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Nothing will prevent me,

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neither close attention,

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nor the desire to be exact.

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I wanna tell you about my childhood.

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From writing and speaking words.

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Nothing will prevent me.

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That sing.

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Neither close attention
nor the desire to be exact.

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From writing and speaking
words, that sing.

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- We were very fortunate

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to be able to go to private
schools in New York,

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to be able to attend plays and theater.

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My parents knew she was
interested in writing.

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Of course, being the
type of people they were,

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they kept saying to her,
why don\'t you write,

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so you can be on a bestseller list?

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- [Narrator] Even before I was born,

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my mother hated my father,

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because my father left her
because she was pregnant.

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And my mother wanted to
remain her mother\'s child,

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rather than be a mother.

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(sirens wailing in distance)

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- [Wendy] She started going
to Greenwich Village a lot,

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and I think that\'s where a lot

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of the writings came from, too.

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(action music)

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(gasping)
(smacking)

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- [Narrator] I\'m getting very easily

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distracted by sex these days.

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(crashing noises)

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I want to fuck around as much as possible.

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When I fantasize fucking,

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the encounters are always, wild.

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Cold.

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And free.

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(crashing noises)
(men grunting)

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(light rhythmic music)

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- Kathy was a woman who
probably lied a great deal

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about her family\'s story,

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but the lies were as important

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as whatever the truths were,

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because whatever Kathy believed

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was what was interesting to the work.

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- I always think biography is so,

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or autobiography, is so terribly boring.

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- [Interviewer] I don\'t, actually.

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- Oh you don\'t?
- [Interviewer] I think

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it\'s very interesting.
(laughing)

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- Well, I never knew who my father was.

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I\'ll be very brief about this.

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Piece of boredom.

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And my mother disliked me intensely.

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So the first time I ever
got affection, so to speak,

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well from two sources.

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One was from school, \'cause
I was a good student.

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So I\'m sure partly I was a good student,

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\'cause my teachers loved me.

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And the other was sexually.

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That as I lost my virginity
when I was very very young.

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And it was a way people loved me.

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So I always identified sex
and love, until recently.

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I had to grow up to stop that one.

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But I\'m sure that\'s where
part of it came from.

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(crashing noises)
(gasping)

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(upbeat rock music)

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- [Ira] Everyone there, it
cultivated a mythic image.

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\'Cause it was, aggrandizing,
it was the 60s.

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♪ It\'s in my face ♪

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♪ It\'s there for you to see ♪

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- [Kathy] They were all very happy hippies

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having happy hippie free love.

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Whereas my version of
sexuality was quite different.

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♪ Just get relief ♪

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- She really had this image of being this

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kind of androgynous looking genius

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who had been having sex since she was 13.

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One day, she had slit her wrist.

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Not seriously,

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but the way everybody was desperate.

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And two other girls on her floor did it,

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followed right after that.

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It was like copycat.

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The dorm resident rushed in and told Kathy

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that everybody was gonna do it

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if she didn\'t get her
grip and stop because

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she had that kind of magnetism.

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- It was like she wants to

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rebel against any kind of connection,

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and it\'s more about building up herself,

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with this kind of strong force again.

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Even from the early side.

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- You know, it\'s just
life, it\'s experience.

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And the more experience you can have,

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whether it\'s good or bad or painful

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or disgusting or ugly, it\'s there.

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I mean, I think that\'s really

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what makes her so beautiful.

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That she\'s naive yet she does realize,

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this whole world around her.

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- She was very smart.

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She was constantly in the library,

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constantly reading.
(tranquil music)

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- [Narrator] I feel I exist in lineage.

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The poet motet lineage.

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That began with Rimbaud.

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It\'s writers who position themselves

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against the ongoing society and culture.

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In 1871, Rimbaud wrote in
the Letter of the Visionary,

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when the eternal slavery
of women is destroyed,

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when she lives for herself,

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when men will have set her free,

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she will be a poet as well.

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Women will discover the unknown.

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Will her world or her
ideas differ from ours?

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Will she discover strange things?

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Unfathomable, repulsive, and delightful.

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We will accept and understand them.

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- She\'s a lady with a great deal of heart,

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a lot of nerve, and a whole lot of soul.

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I\'m very happy to welcome to
the Poetry Center, Kathy Acker.

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(audience applauding)

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- This piece, good, you can hear me.

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The first piece we\'re gonna do
is called Eat Your Heart Out.

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And I wrote it with the idea,

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I was thinking a lot about

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why do you write fiction, you know.

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And so I wrote this
piece, \'cause I thought,

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well one reason you write fiction

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is \'cause you do it \'cause you
can\'t say something directly.

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So you say it in the way you can,

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like sort of putting this
fictive glaze over it.

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It was written for this guy

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that I was really in love with,

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and I wanted to tell him
that, and I couldn\'t.

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So this piece is totally fictive.

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Dreams.

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Awaken me.

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Don\'t let me live in endless poverty.

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Money, that\'s what love
means to me, money.

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I\'ll take you, honey.

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I don\'t care what other women you fuck.

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I don\'t care what cocks
and asses you suck.

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Just buy me a lunch or a brunch or two.

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At this stage in my game,
a few promises will do.

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- Yeah, I saw her read a few times.

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She was very nervous.

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- She was kind of pouty.

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Her lip came out,

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and she always had this big green book bag

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slung over her shoulder,

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and this kind of loose men\'s shirts.

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She looked very androgynous.

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And very kind of sexy.

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Kind of little girl sexy,
sex kitten, kind of thing.

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(eerie tranquil music)

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(typewriter clacking)

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- [Narrator] Dear David.

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I\'d like to fuck you when you return.

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- She was skinny with short hair,

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just like you see in the tapes.

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And breasts that look a
lot older than she was.

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(typewriter clacking)

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- [Narrator] Dear Sylvere,

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now that I have spent the
last night fucking you,

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I am in love with you.

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- When we had sex,

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it was always kind of
very emotional and sweet,

19:14.053 --> 19:17.334
and there was nothing sadomasochistic

19:17.334 --> 19:18.878
or violent or all that.

19:18.878 --> 19:20.078
She wasn\'t like that at all.

19:20.078 --> 19:22.296
She was a very sweet person.

19:22.296 --> 19:23.896
(typewriter clacking)

19:23.896 --> 19:25.518
- [Narrator] Dear Peter,

19:25.518 --> 19:26.768
I want you wet.

19:29.454 --> 19:31.454
- Kathy was too intense for me.

19:31.454 --> 19:34.734
Maybe she was too intense
for any one person.

19:34.734 --> 19:38.414
For all the toughness,
she was very sensitive.

19:38.414 --> 19:39.581
And emotional.

19:41.034 --> 19:42.089
- [Narrator] Johnny\'s making her cunt

19:42.089 --> 19:44.275
rub very roughly through the cloth,

19:44.275 --> 19:46.108
against his huge cock.

19:47.091 --> 19:49.252
Johnny is taking her off him,

19:49.252 --> 19:52.878
and lifting her dress over her body.

19:52.878 --> 19:55.571
Janey\'s saying, your cock is huge.

19:55.571 --> 19:57.851
His cock is so huge.

19:57.851 --> 20:00.514
It is entering her cunt painfully.

20:00.514 --> 20:03.114
The cock is entering the
bottom of Janey\'s cunt.

20:03.114 --> 20:04.447
Janey is coming.

20:05.598 --> 20:09.265
(bright instrumental music)

20:12.856 --> 20:15.096
Marriage, my father said,

20:15.096 --> 20:17.235
turns women into whining,

20:17.235 --> 20:20.035
passive aggressive liars,

20:20.035 --> 20:23.237
while the men become narcissists.

20:23.237 --> 20:26.734
Whatever good is possible
between any man and woman,

20:26.734 --> 20:28.494
marriage destroys.

20:28.494 --> 20:31.161
(wedding music)

20:39.555 --> 20:42.355
- We were surprised, surprised
that she got married.

20:42.355 --> 20:45.214
So I wasn\'t surprised
that it didn\'t last long.

20:45.214 --> 20:47.656
- [Narrator] A couple is one who loves,

20:47.656 --> 20:49.489
and one who lets love.

20:50.494 --> 20:51.792
(ethereal music)

20:51.792 --> 20:54.856
Couples make up the townspeople world.

20:54.856 --> 20:57.374
If you are not part of a couple,

20:57.374 --> 21:00.195
no one will speak to you.

21:00.195 --> 21:01.862
Go to hell, outcast.

21:03.774 --> 21:05.191
Outside the road.

21:17.875 --> 21:19.176
- [Reporter] In New York, she shooting

21:19.176 --> 21:21.255
of another unarmed black man

21:21.255 --> 21:23.757
raises further questions
about NYPD tactics.

21:23.757 --> 21:26.632
On Thursday, an undercover police officer

21:26.632 --> 21:29.465
shot and killed Patrick Dorismond.

21:39.690 --> 21:40.755
♪ Murder is murder ♪

21:40.755 --> 21:41.971
♪ Why are they confused ♪

21:41.971 --> 21:44.410
♪ Another man dead, I
read it in the news ♪

21:44.410 --> 21:47.075
♪ Who gave them a fucking right ♪

21:47.075 --> 21:49.811
♪ To run around like they own the night ♪

21:49.811 --> 21:53.561
♪ Oh bang bang, oh bang bang ♪

21:54.611 --> 21:56.611
- It was a period of crisis.

21:56.611 --> 21:58.344
I mean, there was no money.

21:58.344 --> 22:02.677
New York was with potholes
and wasteland and danger.

22:05.032 --> 22:07.800
It was difficult to live here, you know.

22:07.800 --> 22:10.632
I mean, you could be killed any second.

22:10.632 --> 22:13.470
♪ In the ghetto, all up in
the mother fucking ghetto ♪

22:13.470 --> 22:17.870
♪ Bang bang, oh bang bang ♪

22:17.870 --> 22:21.703
♪ Oh bang bang, oh bang bang ♪

22:25.491 --> 22:28.049
- [Kathy] Slums of New York City.

22:28.049 --> 22:30.392
Avenues of junkies, pimps, and hookers,

22:30.392 --> 22:32.270
form the northern border.

22:32.270 --> 22:35.971
The southern border drifts
off into even poorer sections.

22:35.971 --> 22:39.729
Sections too burnt out to
be anything but war zones.

22:39.729 --> 22:43.479
And the western border
is the avenue of bums.

22:46.232 --> 22:48.072
- She says come to New York City.

22:48.072 --> 22:51.594
I meet her then, she\'s doing readings.

22:51.594 --> 22:52.750
She\'s different.

22:52.750 --> 22:56.917
She doesn\'t have tattoos
and rings and short hair.

22:58.211 --> 23:02.794
She hasn\'t become her own
configurated Kathy Acker yet.

23:04.507 --> 23:08.589
But she\'s one of the
powerful and visioning kids.

23:08.589 --> 23:09.589
She\'s a kid.

23:11.262 --> 23:13.345
- [Kathy] I\'m really dry.

23:15.642 --> 23:17.975
- Kathy and I had an affair,

23:18.922 --> 23:20.544
and so we arranged,

23:20.544 --> 23:23.056
because I was doing a lot
of video at that time,

23:23.056 --> 23:24.282
we arranged to bring her East,

23:24.282 --> 23:26.325
and I said, well we could
do a video together.

23:26.325 --> 23:28.042
- [Kathy] No.

23:28.042 --> 23:29.792
Come on, concentrate.

23:30.901 --> 23:32.561
Right there.

23:32.561 --> 23:34.894
Oh that\'s good, right there.

23:40.122 --> 23:41.289
That\'s better.

23:42.704 --> 23:44.417
- This is only the second time in my life

23:44.417 --> 23:47.024
that I\'ve had this sensation.

23:47.024 --> 23:48.464
My first time was yesterday.

23:48.464 --> 23:51.464
And the phenomenal logical aspect is

23:52.481 --> 23:54.112
actually what I\'m--

23:54.112 --> 23:55.482
Oh, the tape was pretty extreme

23:55.482 --> 23:57.762
for both of us to make.

23:57.762 --> 24:00.085
Neither of us was really that comfortable

24:00.085 --> 24:01.980
with the sexuality.

24:01.980 --> 24:05.344
Or with what\'s revealed in the sexuality.

24:05.344 --> 24:07.664
I couldn\'t please her at all.

24:07.664 --> 24:09.642
But it really wasn\'t about that.

24:09.642 --> 24:11.718
It was much more about power,

24:11.718 --> 24:13.344
and about both of us feeling

24:13.344 --> 24:16.661
we were losing control over
everything in our lives.

24:16.661 --> 24:19.202
- I didn\'t find it at all interesting

24:19.202 --> 24:22.325
about where in my cunt,
what sections of my cunt,

24:22.325 --> 24:26.336
or what sections around
my clit, or my clit,

24:26.336 --> 24:28.563
are sensitive or not sensitive.

24:28.563 --> 24:30.978
- When we showed it at
Saint Mark\'s on the Bowery,

24:30.978 --> 24:33.201
the audience was silent and shuffling.

24:33.201 --> 24:35.661
And by the end, everybody
was shuffling and silent.

24:35.661 --> 24:37.824
We asked if there were any questions,

24:37.824 --> 24:39.907
and nobody said anything.

24:40.821 --> 24:43.321
And Kathy said something like,

24:44.442 --> 24:48.775
alright, children, you\'ve
had your fun, now go home.

25:10.661 --> 25:13.861
- That\'s the thing about
what Kathy was writing about.

25:13.861 --> 25:14.864
About sex.

25:14.864 --> 25:17.541
The way that she embraced sexuality

25:17.541 --> 25:21.525
was a way that a woman was
not supposed to in public.

25:21.525 --> 25:23.000
- Right, yeah, right,

25:23.000 --> 25:24.922
and it was very comforting to me that--

25:24.922 --> 25:27.301
- In those days, the social
morays about sexuality were--

25:27.301 --> 25:30.384
- Amazing, amazing, they
were old fashioned, ancient.

25:30.384 --> 25:31.962
- They were ancient,
they were old fashioned.

25:31.962 --> 25:34.017
There would be people, actually,

25:34.017 --> 25:38.442
didn\'t lose their virginity
when they were pre-adolescent.

25:38.442 --> 25:41.341
- I can imagine what a
stir it must have made.

25:41.341 --> 25:43.125
Society, people reading that, going,

25:43.125 --> 25:44.499
oh my god, what word did she just use?

25:44.499 --> 25:47.482
- She was able to put it out and say,

25:47.482 --> 25:50.645
I don\'t care what people think about it.

25:50.645 --> 25:51.984
It\'s for me.

25:51.984 --> 25:54.325
It\'s for me to work out my language.

25:54.325 --> 25:57.642
It\'s for me to work out
my pain and just find

25:57.642 --> 25:59.642
whatever answers I need.

26:01.664 --> 26:04.164
(light music)

26:09.301 --> 26:12.884
- There was a class
split in the sense that

26:13.845 --> 26:15.525
we came from middle class families,

26:15.525 --> 26:17.822
or seemed to, or upper
middle class families,

26:17.822 --> 26:21.072
but were living below the poverty line.

26:21.941 --> 26:25.685
And at one point she called
her mother for money,

26:25.685 --> 26:27.637
and her mother said something like,

26:27.637 --> 26:30.741
may the city bury you alive.

26:30.741 --> 26:35.741
(sirens wailing)
(light suspenseful music)

26:43.925 --> 26:45.758
- [Man] Downtown lady.

26:48.421 --> 26:53.421
(light jazzy music)
(people chattering)

27:09.361 --> 27:11.402
- [Kathy] And I worked at this club

27:11.402 --> 27:13.402
where you work three different clubs.

27:13.402 --> 27:15.504
And there was this pink Cadillac.

27:15.504 --> 27:16.645
And you do your show

27:16.645 --> 27:17.962
and you get in the pink Cadillac

27:17.962 --> 27:19.701
and you drive to the next club,

27:19.701 --> 27:21.841
and you do your show, and
you get in the pink Cadillac,

27:21.841 --> 27:24.074
and drive to the third club.

27:24.074 --> 27:25.201
(upbeat dance music)

27:25.201 --> 27:27.445
So I was one of the people who
would last through the night.

27:27.445 --> 27:28.725
So by the end of the night,

27:28.725 --> 27:30.224
we had to do almost all the shows,

27:30.224 --> 27:32.885
\'cause everyone else
had taken acid and speed

27:32.885 --> 27:34.682
and everything else they
could junk in their mouths,

27:34.682 --> 27:36.485
and had passed out.

27:36.485 --> 27:37.482
But before they passed out,

27:37.482 --> 27:42.042
they would tell the most
wonderful stories imaginable.

27:42.042 --> 27:45.042
(suspenseful music)

27:52.843 --> 27:54.304
(woman screaming)

27:54.304 --> 27:57.221
- [Narrator] They stuffed
her into an old black Chevy.

27:57.221 --> 28:00.325
Why don\'t you stop crying,
said the white boy.

28:00.325 --> 28:02.244
I don\'t like it when girls cry.

28:02.244 --> 28:04.805
It reminds me of my mother.
(car door slamming)

28:04.805 --> 28:06.885
The black car made it\'s
way out of the slum

28:06.885 --> 28:09.562
into a section anyone not from New York

28:09.562 --> 28:11.184
would think a slum.

28:11.184 --> 28:13.298
We\'re going to sell
you into white slavery,

28:13.298 --> 28:15.024
the black boy told Janey.

28:15.024 --> 28:19.024
First, we will train you,
then we will sell you.

28:20.345 --> 28:24.095
(sirens wailing in distance)

28:34.933 --> 28:37.516
(wind blowing)

28:43.642 --> 28:46.392
(ethereal music)

28:49.120 --> 28:51.287
(moaning)

28:52.661 --> 28:53.834
- [Man] Oh, I love your pussy.

28:53.834 --> 28:55.882
- [Woman] Yeah.

28:55.882 --> 28:58.965
- [Man] I want you to sit on my cock.

29:02.922 --> 29:04.021
- The people in the brothel,

29:04.021 --> 29:05.781
especially the people who worked there,

29:05.781 --> 29:08.278
are able to see life,
I gather, more truly,

29:08.278 --> 29:10.578
\'cause they\'re seeing it from down up.

29:10.578 --> 29:11.916
You know, it\'s this thing about

29:11.916 --> 29:14.922
the slave sees more
clearly than the master.

29:14.922 --> 29:17.240
So there is that area of
pornography, of course,

29:17.240 --> 29:19.559
that I like, \'cause I saw from that.

29:19.559 --> 29:21.141
\'Cause that was my life.

29:21.141 --> 29:23.178
I was shunted into a world

29:23.178 --> 29:24.858
that I never wanted to be in.

29:24.858 --> 29:28.160
I went from top to bottom, so to speak.

29:28.160 --> 29:31.257
And my politics will come
from that sudden change,

29:31.257 --> 29:32.421
from being on the bottom suddenly.

29:32.421 --> 29:35.920
And seeing the world in that way.

29:35.920 --> 29:37.562
- [Narrator] I woke up in the attic.

29:37.562 --> 29:39.498
That the wind swept through,

29:39.498 --> 29:42.165
and the world is gray and black.

29:43.002 --> 29:46.002
I saw pine trees, boats, tall trees.

29:49.301 --> 29:51.384
I walked along a highway.

29:52.235 --> 29:55.958
I was looking for a place to sit down.

29:55.958 --> 29:57.515
For grass I could walk in,

29:57.515 --> 29:59.848
for a world I could explore.

30:00.682 --> 30:03.082
I walked for hours.

30:03.082 --> 30:05.162
All around on both sides of the highway,

30:05.162 --> 30:08.480
cultivated in wild, was private.

30:08.480 --> 30:11.098
I had to keep walking on the highway.

30:11.098 --> 30:13.754
I thought that people
today, when they move,

30:13.754 --> 30:16.384
move only by car, train, boat, or plane.

30:16.384 --> 30:18.618
And so move only on roads.

30:18.618 --> 30:22.785
They perceive only the
roads, the map, the prison.

30:24.519 --> 30:28.458
I think it\'s becoming
harder to get off the roads.

30:28.458 --> 30:33.041
Today in my room, the world
is horrible and disgusting.

30:34.135 --> 30:36.385
I don\'t want to be a slave.

30:37.440 --> 30:39.690
I don\'t want to be a whore.

30:40.938 --> 30:43.916
I don\'t want to be lonely and without love

30:43.916 --> 30:48.916
for the rest of my life.
(people chattering)

30:57.973 --> 31:01.242
(upbeat rock music)

31:01.242 --> 31:05.162
♪ Triangles were falling at the
window as the doctor cursed ♪

31:05.162 --> 31:08.042
♪ He was a cartoon long
forsaken by the public eye ♪

31:08.042 --> 31:11.280
♪ The nurse adjusted her
garters as I breathed my first ♪

31:11.280 --> 31:13.573
- [Kathy] I always felt like a freak,

31:13.573 --> 31:15.002
and then suddenly there were other people

31:15.002 --> 31:16.688
who felt the same way.

31:16.688 --> 31:18.101
♪ I belong to the blank generation and ♪

31:18.101 --> 31:22.122
- For that way, there
are these kind of people

31:22.122 --> 31:26.789
that were really on the fringes
of conventional society,

31:28.138 --> 31:32.055
and were very adventurous
and experimented with

31:33.120 --> 31:36.037
how to live, were the French poets.

31:37.298 --> 31:40.048
Beaudelaire writes about hashish,

31:41.655 --> 31:44.322
and Cocteau was an opium addict.

31:45.178 --> 31:47.781
♪ Well I belong to the-- ♪

31:47.781 --> 31:50.538
- Well, we invented a new culture, punk.

31:50.538 --> 31:52.101
You know, it was all the same scene.

31:52.101 --> 31:54.320
CBGBs was around the corner.

31:54.320 --> 31:56.433
It was such a, you know,

31:56.433 --> 32:00.160
we launched something that
went all over the world.

32:00.160 --> 32:02.837
That\'s where it started.

32:02.837 --> 32:05.254
(rock music)

32:07.600 --> 32:11.758
- She was so sweet and
protective, almost maternal.

32:11.758 --> 32:16.320
You know while you\'re also
aware of this side of her,

32:16.320 --> 32:18.437
you know, these other kind of--

32:18.437 --> 32:21.061
The world that she lived in

32:21.061 --> 32:23.280
where she would go to night clubs,

32:23.280 --> 32:27.197
cruising for somebody to
beat her up, you know?

32:28.181 --> 32:29.381
- It was a time of despair,

32:29.381 --> 32:30.597
but it was a time of being able

32:30.597 --> 32:32.355
to act out of despair,
which is more important.

32:32.355 --> 32:35.040
And of being able to show anger.

32:35.040 --> 32:36.560
I mean, for me, it was the first time

32:36.560 --> 32:38.357
I ever could really talk to people.

32:38.357 --> 32:40.754
♪ The doctor grabbed my throat ♪

32:40.754 --> 32:42.960
♪ And yelled, consolation prize ♪

32:42.960 --> 32:45.360
♪ I belong to the blank generation ♪

32:45.360 --> 32:47.632
- So all the wild Kathy, the drugs Kathy,

32:47.632 --> 32:50.098
the fucking around Kathy,

32:50.098 --> 32:51.995
comes in and out, but mainly,

32:51.995 --> 32:54.318
she\'s on a really concentrated course

32:54.318 --> 32:57.626
of reading and writing and writing,

32:57.626 --> 33:00.626
and building this immense vocabulary

33:03.178 --> 33:07.701
of fractured transpose
cultural references as her own.

33:07.701 --> 33:12.000
She makes it her own.
(eerie music)

33:12.000 --> 33:14.197
- [Narrator] Bush announced that he had

33:14.197 --> 33:16.694
complete control of this country,

33:16.694 --> 33:19.621
and could murder whomever he wanted.

33:19.621 --> 33:21.204
Don\'t go, don\'t go.

33:22.298 --> 33:24.794
Bush\'s daughters ran from guest to guest.

33:24.794 --> 33:26.211
She was grabbing.

33:28.513 --> 33:30.593
Don\'t leave us alone with this man.

33:30.593 --> 33:34.036
So what if he\'s trying to turn this place

33:34.036 --> 33:35.781
into isolation and death?

33:35.781 --> 33:38.096
He\'s planning to murder me next,

33:38.096 --> 33:41.381
and do something with my body.

33:41.381 --> 33:43.040
Bush.

33:43.040 --> 33:46.623
If you pay attention
to her, I\'ll kill you.

33:48.181 --> 33:50.681
This was the end of the party.

33:54.277 --> 33:55.978
- You can be alone,
watching a movie alone,

33:55.978 --> 33:57.221
listening to a record,

33:57.221 --> 33:59.301
but it\'s still playing
in the world, you know.

33:59.301 --> 34:00.298
But when you\'re with a book,

34:00.298 --> 34:02.341
it\'s like, there\'s no one
else having that experience.

34:02.341 --> 34:04.355
No one else can see--

34:04.355 --> 34:06.740
Usually, no one else even
sees what you\'re reading.

34:06.740 --> 34:08.960
No one\'s gonna hear your
thoughts, or something.

34:08.960 --> 34:11.957
You\'re just locked into
this really intense,

34:11.957 --> 34:14.858
pure relationship with a book.

34:14.858 --> 34:19.301
- She chose, like Burroughs,
very primary, basic material.

34:19.301 --> 34:22.018
Sex, violence, then politics.

34:22.018 --> 34:23.851
Things that were hard.

34:24.800 --> 34:27.098
- [Woman] And, \'cause they\'re--

34:27.098 --> 34:30.076
And, \'cause they\'re--
(rhythmic tapping)

34:30.076 --> 34:31.358
\'Cause you\'re so obviously.

34:31.358 --> 34:33.418
And, \'cause they\'re, and--

34:33.418 --> 34:35.018
And then, \'cause they\'re--

34:35.018 --> 34:36.320
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:36.320 --> 34:37.578
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:37.578 --> 34:39.360
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:39.360 --> 34:41.701
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:41.701 --> 34:43.953
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:43.953 --> 34:46.277
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:46.277 --> 34:48.437
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:48.437 --> 34:52.218
♪ Airwave girl, mm hmm ♪

34:52.218 --> 34:53.797
- Were you influenced by other writers?

34:53.797 --> 34:54.837
- Oh, well, heavens yes.

34:54.837 --> 34:57.440
That\'s a very important
part of a writers input

34:57.440 --> 34:59.680
is other writers.

34:59.680 --> 35:00.994
Conrad.

35:00.994 --> 35:03.244
Conrad, very strong, Kafka.

35:04.579 --> 35:05.662
Graham Green.

35:08.235 --> 35:12.058
Of course, all of, Shakespeare, Rimbaud.

35:12.058 --> 35:13.840
- William was always amused by her.

35:13.840 --> 35:16.517
He thought she was kind of
great and interesting and smart,

35:16.517 --> 35:18.875
and knew that this was this woman

35:18.875 --> 35:20.000
who was supposed to be carrying the torch.

35:20.000 --> 35:22.000
- They both constructed their writing,

35:22.000 --> 35:25.057
rather than wrote it, in a lot of ways.

35:25.057 --> 35:27.600
Whether it was cut-ups.

35:27.600 --> 35:29.717
It\'s not about self expression.

35:29.717 --> 35:34.467
It\'s not about making some
kind of precious object thing.

35:36.437 --> 35:40.437
It\'s about just moving
around chunks of writing,

35:40.437 --> 35:43.918
and it\'s very kind of impersonal.

35:43.918 --> 35:46.668
(ethereal music)

35:55.814 --> 35:58.218
- I got very bored of autobiography.

35:58.218 --> 36:00.297
I got bored of hearing myself scream.

36:00.297 --> 36:03.714
I got bored of the sound of my own voice.

36:05.817 --> 36:06.821
It\'s about whether you have

36:06.821 --> 36:09.520
a few possibilities or
lots of possibilities.

36:09.520 --> 36:11.280
And those systems of whatever,

36:11.280 --> 36:13.440
journalism, art, schooling,

36:13.440 --> 36:17.200
which the possibilities
are narrowed and narrowed,

36:17.200 --> 36:18.880
was what I was against.

36:18.880 --> 36:20.817
You know, against rigidity of meaning.

36:20.817 --> 36:24.432
Against call it identity or image.

36:24.432 --> 36:25.954
Obviously, there\'s always meaning.

36:25.954 --> 36:27.755
I mean, humans make meanings.

36:27.755 --> 36:31.040
But meaning that doesn\'t
fluctuate, that doesn\'t flow,

36:31.040 --> 36:34.290
is what I was, and am fighting against.

36:35.397 --> 36:37.658
You know, in some stupid
way, by writing books,

36:37.658 --> 36:39.920
which isn\'t the most
direct way of fighting,

36:39.920 --> 36:44.800
but then I guess indirection
is one way, too, of fighting.

36:44.800 --> 36:48.054
(waves crashing)

36:48.054 --> 36:50.517
- She really loved the idea of pirates,

36:50.517 --> 36:52.923
who kind of roamed the seas,

36:52.923 --> 36:57.120
and boarded vessels and
stole everything from them,

36:57.120 --> 37:01.287
and use it in a completely
new and unexpected way.

37:02.917 --> 37:05.834
She was quite open about, you know,

37:06.979 --> 37:11.396
the virtue of pirating bits
from other peoples books,

37:12.960 --> 37:15.040
and putting them together to create

37:15.040 --> 37:17.397
something completely new out of it.

37:17.397 --> 37:20.069
And then that was also
related to the kind of,

37:20.069 --> 37:24.569
the excitement of the idea
of being a pirate, as well.

37:26.458 --> 37:29.208
(ethereal music)

37:32.757 --> 37:36.000
- I never had any desire
to create, to make a story.

37:36.000 --> 37:38.160
You know, there\'s seemed to be
enough stories in the world,

37:38.160 --> 37:40.118
enough fictions, in that way,

37:40.118 --> 37:41.835
you know, full fleshed characters.

37:41.835 --> 37:45.337
But I just wanted to take
what was given me, texts.

37:45.337 --> 37:47.138
Be it from the outside, you know,

37:47.138 --> 37:48.939
what I see, what I hear.

37:48.939 --> 37:52.353
Or mainly, what else is written.

37:52.353 --> 37:55.276
- Great Expectations, Don Quijote,

37:55.276 --> 37:58.298
spoke to a lot of the political issues

37:58.298 --> 37:59.599
she felt as a writer.

37:59.599 --> 38:02.678
The notion of taking mans work, mens work,

38:02.678 --> 38:05.845
classic mens work, and deconstructing,

38:07.378 --> 38:11.059
reconstructing, changing, making new,

38:11.059 --> 38:14.538
making perhaps more female, one might say.

38:14.538 --> 38:17.541
(horse neighing)
(light music)

38:17.541 --> 38:19.219
- Don\'t you understand, Sancho?

38:19.219 --> 38:22.261
Good fortune has guided
our steps as we desire.

38:22.261 --> 38:23.760
- [Narrator] Don Quijote decided that

38:23.760 --> 38:26.181
the only thing is to be happy.

38:26.181 --> 38:27.898
Since the sole reason she
ever went out of the house

38:27.898 --> 38:32.898
was to fuck, she decided
that to be happy, is to fuck.

38:33.097 --> 38:34.581
She was riding her horse along

38:34.581 --> 38:37.861
in order to find sex that
wouldn\'t hurt too much.

38:37.861 --> 38:41.578
At this point, she saw three or 400 men.

38:41.578 --> 38:43.621
My God, she said.

38:43.621 --> 38:46.181
How full of air they are.

38:46.181 --> 38:48.240
She turned to her dog.

38:48.240 --> 38:49.797
Fortune is guiding our affairs

38:49.797 --> 38:52.639
beyond the most hopeful expectations.

38:52.639 --> 38:56.560
Here are those giants
I\'ve been looking for.

38:56.560 --> 39:01.141
(whipping)
(men laughing)

39:01.141 --> 39:02.437
- You can say she was specifically

39:02.437 --> 39:03.738
re-writing male texts.

39:03.738 --> 39:06.501
There was absolutely a
kind of cultural politic

39:06.501 --> 39:07.658
and a body politic.

39:07.658 --> 39:09.061
But she was also specifically

39:09.061 --> 39:11.898
rewriting the story of her life.

39:11.898 --> 39:14.634
(typewriter clacking)

39:14.634 --> 39:18.053
- [Narrator] I don\'t remember
who I fucked the first time.

39:18.053 --> 39:21.354
But I must\'ve known nothing
about birth control.

39:21.354 --> 39:23.271
Because I got pregnant.

39:24.277 --> 39:26.527
I do remember my abortions.

39:27.372 --> 39:28.372
190 dollars.

39:30.533 --> 39:33.193
Abortions are the symbol,

39:33.193 --> 39:37.136
the outer image of sexual
relations in this world.

39:37.136 --> 39:41.056
Describing my abortion
is the only real way

39:41.056 --> 39:43.973
I can tell you about pain and fear.

39:46.074 --> 39:50.241
My unstoppable drive for
sexual love made me know.

39:54.336 --> 39:56.133
- I haven\'t really seen a lot in the books

39:56.133 --> 39:57.883
that is not true, no.

40:01.651 --> 40:03.914
No, nothing that I can really think of,

40:03.914 --> 40:07.493
pick out, no.
(typewriter clacking)

40:07.493 --> 40:09.169
- [Narrator] On Christmas day,
(ethereal music)

40:09.169 --> 40:12.669
I had to identify my mother in the morgue.

40:14.736 --> 40:18.319
It was the first dead
body I had ever seen.

40:19.754 --> 40:22.213
The two cops were anxious to return home

40:22.213 --> 40:24.713
to their warm Christmas meals.

40:40.218 --> 40:42.160
(typewriter clacking)

40:42.160 --> 40:43.660
Dear Susan Sontag,

40:45.456 --> 40:49.623
would you please read my
books and make me famous?

40:52.654 --> 40:55.637
- She wanted literary recognition.

40:55.637 --> 40:58.236
She really wanted literary recognition.

40:58.236 --> 40:59.760
She was an intellectual,

40:59.760 --> 41:03.593
and she wanted the stature
of an intellectual.

41:04.854 --> 41:07.818
(rhythmic drumming)

41:07.818 --> 41:09.919
- One of the things that
was going on at that time

41:09.919 --> 41:13.898
was male art, and I
understand that at one point,

41:13.898 --> 41:16.960
Kathy would mail her writing to anyone

41:16.960 --> 41:18.127
who wanted it.

41:19.098 --> 41:21.018
And this is a fantastic way

41:21.018 --> 41:24.000
of going against the power relations

41:24.000 --> 41:26.256
of the publishing house
and the proper book,

41:26.256 --> 41:28.320
and the book store that sells it.

41:28.320 --> 41:30.820
(eerie music)

41:32.496 --> 41:34.000
- Well when Kathy and I were coming up,

41:34.000 --> 41:35.613
it wasn\'t about making money.

41:35.613 --> 41:38.080
And there are other
writers that feel that way,

41:38.080 --> 41:40.833
who don\'t care about the money.

41:40.833 --> 41:43.416
- She brought her books herself

41:44.400 --> 41:45.900
to the bookstores.

41:47.520 --> 41:49.597
She went, she published them,

41:49.597 --> 41:54.430
but then she carried them to
the bookstores and sold them.

41:55.600 --> 41:58.767
I noticed books of hers several times.

42:00.298 --> 42:03.257
And I thought they were very interesting.

42:03.257 --> 42:04.257
I read them.

42:13.856 --> 42:17.174
We found her, here in the Village,

42:17.174 --> 42:20.674
and decided to publish two or three books.

42:22.117 --> 42:24.867
(ethereal music)

42:28.480 --> 42:30.240
- [Girl] Blood and Guts in High School,

42:30.240 --> 42:32.480
this is all I know.

42:32.480 --> 42:36.638
Parents, teachers, boyfriends,
all have got to go.

42:36.638 --> 42:40.555
Some like folks, some like
trains, some like ships.

42:40.555 --> 42:42.555
I like waving your hips.

42:44.778 --> 42:48.111
All I want is a taste of your lips, boy.

42:50.597 --> 42:53.514
All I want is a taste of your lips.

42:59.213 --> 43:01.696
- The Picador launch of Kathy Acker

43:01.696 --> 43:04.917
with Blood and Guts in
High School was massive.

43:04.917 --> 43:06.437
It was a media spectacle.

43:06.437 --> 43:09.454
It changed who she was
in the literary world,

43:09.454 --> 43:11.232
especially in the British literary world.

43:11.232 --> 43:15.065
She was thought of as
the new daring American,

43:16.976 --> 43:19.418
the new post-modern writer,

43:19.418 --> 43:21.456
the person coming from the states

43:21.456 --> 43:24.997
who could alter the way
we speak about literature,

43:24.997 --> 43:26.664
language, ourselves.

43:27.578 --> 43:30.496
And she went to England to be a star.

43:30.496 --> 43:32.218
- Welcome Kathy Acker.

43:32.218 --> 43:33.232
- Hi.

43:33.232 --> 43:34.757
- The latest figure to have emerged

43:34.757 --> 43:36.334
is a young writer called Kathy Acker,

43:36.334 --> 43:38.277
who\'s just been published
for the first time

43:38.277 --> 43:39.520
in this country.

43:39.520 --> 43:42.640
Her book, called, Blood
and Guts in High School,

43:42.640 --> 43:44.698
has attracted considerable attention,

43:44.698 --> 43:47.279
and remarkably, sold out
within a couple of weeks

43:47.279 --> 43:48.277
of its release.

43:48.277 --> 43:50.218
- And the extraordinary New York writer

43:50.218 --> 43:51.734
by the name of Kathy Acker,

43:51.734 --> 43:53.174
three of whose novels include

43:53.174 --> 43:55.216
Blood and Guts in High School,

43:55.216 --> 43:56.652
were published here in March.

43:56.652 --> 43:58.736
- [Host] The American author
and playwright Kathy Acker,

43:58.736 --> 44:00.976
best known here for Blood
and Guts in High School.

44:00.976 --> 44:03.931
- And my guests are American
novelist Kathy Acker.

44:03.931 --> 44:06.931
(upbeat rock music)

44:38.036 --> 44:40.000
- Look at that old skeleton,

44:40.000 --> 44:41.456
Ange pointed toward a corner

44:41.456 --> 44:43.997
of the crisscross jungle pass cemetery,

44:43.997 --> 44:46.538
where the pirates were lying.

44:46.538 --> 44:50.218
It was a bigger skeleton
than all the others.

44:50.218 --> 44:52.816
His feet pointed in one direction.

44:52.816 --> 44:55.399
His cock, a bone, in the other.

44:56.938 --> 44:58.413
Look, said Ange.

44:58.413 --> 45:02.560
His fucking boner is
showing us the treasure, O.

45:02.560 --> 45:04.197
I looked down at the map,

45:04.197 --> 45:06.117
and then I gazed at the dead cock.

45:06.117 --> 45:08.938
Now I new why we\'ve
been searching for men,

45:08.938 --> 45:12.355
and hadn\'t stopped \'til we had found one.

45:18.137 --> 45:20.637
Ange and I followed this cock.

45:21.758 --> 45:24.416
We discussed how boners stay alive,

45:24.416 --> 45:27.637
even after men die.
(audience laughing)

45:27.637 --> 45:29.916
Cocks weren\'t treasure,

45:29.916 --> 45:32.176
but pointed to treasure.

45:32.176 --> 45:34.917
That\'s was Ange said.
(audience laughing)

45:34.917 --> 45:35.750
Thank you.

45:36.896 --> 45:38.357
(audience applauding)

45:38.357 --> 45:39.677
- Kathy became very grandiose.

45:39.677 --> 45:42.336
And she wanted always to let you know

45:42.336 --> 45:45.338
that she was more important than you are,

45:45.338 --> 45:46.800
as a writer.

45:46.800 --> 45:49.895
But by then, see, I didn\'t
think it was about, necessarily,

45:49.895 --> 45:51.840
anything personal.

45:51.840 --> 45:54.777
It was that she always had around her

45:54.777 --> 45:56.610
a coterie of groupies.

45:59.434 --> 46:00.517
And cultists.

46:07.136 --> 46:08.554
- I followed Kathy\'s success,

46:08.554 --> 46:10.174
but you couldn\'t help
but follow it at the time

46:10.174 --> 46:12.314
because it was everywhere.

46:12.314 --> 46:15.056
- Put your lips together.

46:15.056 --> 46:15.889
Relax.

46:19.397 --> 46:21.397
Turn your head this way.

46:23.216 --> 46:24.049
Down.

46:24.952 --> 46:29.119
Bring the cap down so it
just covers, yeah, there.

46:31.717 --> 46:33.134
Back to the wall.

46:34.357 --> 46:36.974
You have to be dead staring, yeah, there.

46:36.974 --> 46:38.974
Turn your head this way.

46:42.871 --> 46:45.738
Back to me a little bit, there.

46:45.738 --> 46:49.174
That\'s it.
(ethereal music)

46:49.174 --> 46:50.778
More, a little bit.

46:50.778 --> 46:52.016
Hold it.

46:52.016 --> 46:55.552
- She invented herself as a
deacon of sexual character.

46:55.552 --> 46:58.056
But she wasn\'t the woman
that she pretended to be.

46:58.056 --> 47:01.018
She was performing her books.

47:01.018 --> 47:04.268
There is no difference between the two.

47:21.498 --> 47:25.674
- Couldn\'t say, I want this,
I deserve this, I am this.

47:25.674 --> 47:27.157
What I could do is say,

47:27.157 --> 47:29.696
you want me to be this
little, this stupid,

47:29.696 --> 47:32.732
this helpless, this much of a sex figure.

47:32.732 --> 47:33.873
Let me show you.

47:33.873 --> 47:37.114
I\'ll be so little, stupid, helpless,

47:37.114 --> 47:39.914
and such a horrendous sex figure,

47:39.914 --> 47:42.334
that you\'re gonna puke on it.

47:42.334 --> 47:44.033
- I told you I was afraid of her

47:44.033 --> 47:46.618
after I read her books.

47:46.618 --> 47:48.154
- [Interviewer] What are you afraid of?

47:48.154 --> 47:49.987
- Maybe of castration.

47:56.233 --> 47:58.554
- As the person who was booking her tours,

47:58.554 --> 48:00.350
I would go on the road to make sure

48:00.350 --> 48:02.192
everything was being managed properly.

48:02.192 --> 48:03.628
It was always very personal.

48:03.628 --> 48:06.773
If she fucked the promoter
the night after the show,

48:06.773 --> 48:10.609
I knew it either because
I heard it across the hall

48:10.609 --> 48:12.212
from my hotel room,

48:12.212 --> 48:15.594
as did happen one year in Toronto,

48:15.594 --> 48:17.498
when I remember waking up in the morning

48:17.498 --> 48:20.175
and asking Kathy, there were
all these barking noises

48:20.175 --> 48:21.872
I heard in the hall.

48:21.872 --> 48:26.209
I think someone had a
dog in their hotel room.

48:26.209 --> 48:27.594
And she just kind of giggled and said,

48:27.594 --> 48:28.976
oh dear, that was me.

48:28.976 --> 48:31.136
I had a really good time with
the promoter the night before.

48:31.136 --> 48:32.752
And she was just kind of glowing,

48:32.752 --> 48:33.893
and enjoying herself,

48:33.893 --> 48:36.448
because she knew we\'d be
out of town the next day,

48:36.448 --> 48:38.952
and that was that, and she
was able to have a good time.

48:38.952 --> 48:40.272
(beeping)

48:40.272 --> 48:42.074
- [Radio Producer] Kathy, can you hear me?

48:42.074 --> 48:43.493
- Yes, I can.

48:43.493 --> 48:44.609
- [Radio Producer] Okay.

48:44.609 --> 48:46.690
- [Meridian] Kathy Acker.

48:46.690 --> 48:49.374
- Hi, I\'m gonna read you
a little piece from a book

48:49.374 --> 48:52.336
that will be published in January.

48:52.336 --> 48:56.592
Pirates, you see, are
hot to puncture through.

48:56.592 --> 48:58.394
After they\'ve done this,

48:58.394 --> 49:02.188
they need to piss or
shoot into another person.

49:02.188 --> 49:04.355
This is why this, my body,

49:05.792 --> 49:08.375
is the beginning of pirate sex.

49:09.813 --> 49:13.396
All of us girls have
been dead for so long.

49:14.853 --> 49:17.686
But we\'re not going to be anymore.

49:19.493 --> 49:20.496
- [Meridian] Kathy Acker.

49:20.496 --> 49:21.493
Kathy, thank you.

49:21.493 --> 49:23.569
Kathy, I\'m interested in that you want

49:23.569 --> 49:25.513
the language that you turn to

49:25.513 --> 49:27.696
in moments of the greatest emotion,

49:27.696 --> 49:29.776
and you want that to
be unmediated language,

49:29.776 --> 49:31.332
but I think a lot of us probably turn

49:31.332 --> 49:33.232
to the language of the media.

49:33.232 --> 49:35.616
These are precisely the
times for me, actually,

49:35.616 --> 49:39.354
when my language is probably
at its least inventive,

49:39.354 --> 49:41.594
and its most borrowed.

49:41.594 --> 49:45.053
- I think that what I was
looking for in the book,

49:45.053 --> 49:46.656
what I think we\'re probably talking

49:46.656 --> 49:49.136
on slightly different subjects.

49:49.136 --> 49:52.592
But what I was looking for
in the book was to look,

49:52.592 --> 49:53.594
it seems to me a lot,

49:53.594 --> 49:56.336
with so much language being manipulated,

49:56.336 --> 49:59.136
and I\'m talking a bit in the context

49:59.136 --> 50:02.074
of what\'s going on politically
in the United States now,

50:02.074 --> 50:04.853
that we can see things
like the Persian Gulf War

50:04.853 --> 50:08.256
being called, whatever,
the war of liberation.

50:08.256 --> 50:10.634
We can see Newt Gingrich using

50:10.634 --> 50:13.855
that he\'s a revolutionary,
and his is the revolution.

50:13.855 --> 50:16.176
So there\'s so much where, you know,

50:16.176 --> 50:18.492
and this was a problem that
Karl Krauss talked about.

50:18.492 --> 50:20.652
To talk about another philosopher.

50:20.652 --> 50:24.293
And certain, Walter Benjamin talked about,

50:24.293 --> 50:25.994
back in the turn of the century,

50:25.994 --> 50:29.392
and later on in Walter Benjamin\'s time.

50:29.392 --> 50:32.874
There\'s so much a feeling that
any word can mean any thing

50:32.874 --> 50:35.696
when used by an authority in media

50:35.696 --> 50:37.952
that I was very interested in, well,

50:37.952 --> 50:39.813
what do things look like when not being

50:39.813 --> 50:42.449
dictated by an authority?

50:42.449 --> 50:45.274
- [Meridian] Kathy Acker,
any unmediated voice.

50:45.274 --> 50:46.693
Kathy, thank you for that.

50:46.693 --> 50:47.754
- Thank you very much.

50:47.754 --> 50:50.234
- [Meridian] You\'re with
Meridian on Radio National.

50:50.234 --> 50:53.317
(upbeat funky music)

50:55.591 --> 50:59.733
♪ And you ran loaded with
lyrics rough enough ♪

50:59.733 --> 51:03.730
♪ Rough enough so that I
can step on your agony ♪

51:03.730 --> 51:05.952
♪ Your pride, your simplicity ♪

51:05.952 --> 51:08.736
♪ Gonna wake you up from
your dead end dream ♪

51:08.736 --> 51:10.976
♪ Yes I\'m mean ♪

51:10.976 --> 51:13.456
♪ But as they say ♪

51:13.456 --> 51:14.472
(beeping)

51:14.472 --> 51:15.470
- [Radio Producer] Kathy, thank you.

51:15.470 --> 51:16.749
- Oh, thank you so much.

51:16.749 --> 51:18.592
- [Radio Producer] Kathy, so you\'re free.

51:18.592 --> 51:20.314
- I\'m free, oh thank you.

51:20.314 --> 51:21.456
- [Radio Producer] When
we said tomorrow night,

51:21.456 --> 51:22.634
this goes to air on Sunday.

51:22.634 --> 51:24.474
So we\'re talking about Monday night.

51:24.474 --> 51:26.253
- Lovely, thank you.
- [Radio Producer] Okay,

51:26.253 --> 51:27.086
bye bye.

51:31.693 --> 51:35.026
(upbeat rhythmic music)

51:45.439 --> 51:47.197
- Is your attitude towards sex

51:47.197 --> 51:48.896
one that got you into
trouble with feminists?

51:48.896 --> 51:50.455
The feminist brigades.
- Oh yes, oh yes.

51:50.455 --> 51:52.058
(laughing)

51:52.058 --> 51:53.520
- [Melvyn] Can you describe it for us?

51:53.520 --> 51:55.216
- Well, feminists didn\'t want anything

51:55.216 --> 51:57.338
to do with my writing at first.

51:57.338 --> 52:00.573
- When you seem to speak
out in a first person,

52:00.573 --> 52:04.016
you do from the standpoint of incest,

52:04.016 --> 52:06.778
or of perversity within the family.

52:06.778 --> 52:10.974
There is absolutely no notion of harmony,

52:10.974 --> 52:15.676
or of disruption within
a unified family setup.

52:15.676 --> 52:18.426
Your starting point, if you like,

52:20.811 --> 52:23.637
is one of complete perversion.

52:23.637 --> 52:25.216
In Blood and Guts in High School,

52:25.216 --> 52:26.618
there is a strong degree of brutal

52:26.618 --> 52:29.578
alienated sexuality, and
this seems to take precedence

52:29.578 --> 52:31.520
over almost everything else.

52:31.520 --> 52:33.836
It seems to shake off, in a sense,

52:33.836 --> 52:36.238
all the trimmings, all the
things that we usually expect

52:36.238 --> 52:37.760
with when we talk about sex,

52:37.760 --> 52:39.696
or when we write about women\'s sexuality.

52:39.696 --> 52:42.240
The kind of soft focus reign,

52:42.240 --> 52:45.414
even the gently polymorphist perversity

52:45.414 --> 52:48.240
we see in a film like
Nine and a Half Weeks.

52:48.240 --> 52:50.412
- [Man] Oh, your pussy.

52:50.412 --> 52:51.794
- [Woman] Yeah.

52:51.794 --> 52:54.555
- [Narrator] Janey and her
boyfriend, named Father, talk.

52:54.555 --> 52:56.976
- [Man] I want you to sit on my cock.

52:56.976 --> 52:57.996
- [Narrator] Father.

52:57.996 --> 52:59.077
Come here, Janey.

52:59.077 --> 53:00.757
He wants to make love to her.

53:00.757 --> 53:02.007
Janey knows it.

53:03.018 --> 53:04.685
Janey, running away.

53:05.738 --> 53:07.216
Go to sleep, Johnny.

53:07.216 --> 53:10.117
I\'ll see you in the morning.

53:10.117 --> 53:11.519
Janey, a half an hour later.
(eerie music)

53:11.519 --> 53:14.186
I can\'t sleep by myself, Johnny.

53:16.698 --> 53:19.840
Can I crawl into bed with you?

53:19.840 --> 53:21.340
Father, grumbling.

53:22.938 --> 53:25.877
I\'m not going to get any sleep.

53:25.877 --> 53:26.710
Get in.

53:27.797 --> 53:30.092
Janey gives him a blow job.

53:30.092 --> 53:33.519
Johnny isn\'t really into
having sex with Janey,

53:33.519 --> 53:36.602
but he gets off on the physical part.

53:45.936 --> 53:47.056
- She had a little bit of safety,

53:47.056 --> 53:49.933
like putting Janey as the person,

53:49.933 --> 53:51.614
doing the same thing.

53:51.614 --> 53:53.313
But clearly, I mean, if you read that,

53:53.313 --> 53:54.656
you\'re gonna know that she\'s also going

53:54.656 --> 53:56.138
through that stuff as well.

53:56.138 --> 53:58.896
- You know, it was good
that she wrote these things

53:58.896 --> 54:00.816
because some people, they just like,

54:00.816 --> 54:02.080
keep them inside themselves,

54:02.080 --> 54:03.818
and by expressing out loud,

54:03.818 --> 54:07.418
you\'re able to tell the world about this,

54:07.418 --> 54:09.313
so they can also, so they know.

54:09.313 --> 54:10.146
They\'re aware of what\'s going on.

54:10.146 --> 54:15.146
(eerie music)
(distant sirens wailing)

55:43.378 --> 55:45.361
(ethereal music)

55:45.361 --> 55:47.028
- Harmful to minors.

55:50.780 --> 55:52.460
Does that mean young children,

55:52.460 --> 55:57.076
or does that mean people
who are in mines, shoveling?

55:57.076 --> 55:59.601
(laughing)

55:59.601 --> 56:00.434
To miners.

56:05.238 --> 56:06.801
- What do you think of Kathy Acker?

56:06.801 --> 56:08.956
- I think that Kathy Acker
really isn\'t a writer.

56:08.956 --> 56:10.481
You described her as a writer,

56:10.481 --> 56:11.718
but she\'s gone through the works

56:11.718 --> 56:12.798
of Dickens and Shakespeare,

56:12.798 --> 56:14.098
and made this kind of scrapbook.

56:14.098 --> 56:16.376
T.S. Eliot did this 60 years ago.

56:16.376 --> 56:17.458
She was speaking as though

56:17.458 --> 56:19.500
it was a totally new idea.

56:19.500 --> 56:21.681
You take quotations, and
then you rearrange them

56:21.681 --> 56:23.601
and you make your own book out of it.

56:23.601 --> 56:26.721
She writes rather obscene words
in between the quotations.

56:26.721 --> 56:29.420
- She said something
profoundly true, you know.

56:29.420 --> 56:32.022
When she said that culture can be

56:32.022 --> 56:34.380
a very rigorous control system.

56:34.380 --> 56:36.321
And how you\'re brought
up from the word go.

56:36.321 --> 56:38.695
You know, with the Greeks and the Romans,

56:38.695 --> 56:40.838
and Shakespeare.

56:40.838 --> 56:42.460
- Not just to intervene,

56:42.460 --> 56:44.937
Kathy Acker decided to become a writer

56:44.937 --> 56:47.378
when she saw Sid Vicious
and the Sex Pistols

56:47.378 --> 56:48.982
performing in New York.

56:48.982 --> 56:50.295
So this is what we\'re talking about

56:50.295 --> 56:52.276
when Mrs. Castle loses my--
- But I think you\'re revealing

56:52.276 --> 56:56.278
exactly the sort of thing she\'s attacking.

56:56.278 --> 56:58.262
Namely, account of snobbery.

56:58.262 --> 57:00.081
A literary snobbery.

57:00.081 --> 57:02.060
And I didn\'t go with any snobbery.

57:02.060 --> 57:03.740
I thought, well here\'s
an avant garde person,

57:03.740 --> 57:05.096
I\'d like to listen.

57:05.096 --> 57:06.518
See if she\'s got anything to say to me.

57:06.518 --> 57:08.102
- What did you enjoy about it?

57:08.102 --> 57:09.238
What did she have to say to you?

57:09.238 --> 57:11.500
- I found that I liked her as a person.

57:11.500 --> 57:12.641
- [Andrew] Yes, I liked her as a person.

57:12.641 --> 57:13.976
I thought she was sweet as a person.

57:13.976 --> 57:15.474
- I liked her immensely,
she was very attractive.

57:15.474 --> 57:16.982
- She had painted her flat tooth.

57:16.982 --> 57:19.121
- Painted, yeah, it was
brought in as a punk touch.

57:19.121 --> 57:20.437
Perhaps Shakespeare isn\'t the end of human

57:20.437 --> 57:24.770
literary development.
(mellow music)

58:03.772 --> 58:06.355
- You should probably know, with Kathy.

58:06.355 --> 58:10.878
She had written a work that
was considered plagiarism.

58:10.878 --> 58:11.934
And maybe you didn\'t know this.

58:11.934 --> 58:12.937
Did you know this?

58:12.937 --> 58:13.951
Yeah.

58:13.951 --> 58:16.574
And she went to court
over it and whatever,

58:16.574 --> 58:18.074
and she was just trying to show how,

58:18.074 --> 58:20.937
I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous

58:20.937 --> 58:23.017
that she\'d be charged with plagiarism.

58:23.017 --> 58:26.995
But anyway, she was trying to
show how the copy operated.

58:26.995 --> 58:29.235
- One of the most horrifying
moments of Kathy\'s life

58:29.235 --> 58:32.355
was when she received the lawsuit

58:32.355 --> 58:33.598
from Harold Robbins in London.

58:33.598 --> 58:35.013
The publishers were so afraid

58:35.013 --> 58:36.995
of the potential for a plagiarism suit

58:36.995 --> 58:41.198
that they immediately
put pressure on Kathy

58:41.198 --> 58:44.115
to apologize for the material,

58:44.115 --> 58:46.532
and pull it from publication.

58:48.275 --> 58:51.374
- She fell out of fashion with
the literary establishment,

58:51.374 --> 58:54.776
was essentially banned,
as she liked to say,

58:54.776 --> 58:56.734
not only from particular social circles,

58:56.734 --> 58:59.677
but literally banned in a court case.

58:59.677 --> 59:02.052
At that time in her life,

59:02.052 --> 59:03.977
her moment had come and gone.

59:03.977 --> 59:05.977
She was like a rock star

59:07.572 --> 59:12.137
whose meteoric rise was
destined to burn out,

59:12.137 --> 59:14.304
as any meteoric rise does.

59:15.395 --> 59:17.614
- That\'s what they do to women here.

59:17.614 --> 59:19.198
They give you your minute,

59:19.198 --> 59:20.595
even if you don\'t want it,

59:20.595 --> 59:23.914
and then they tell you you\'re over.

59:23.914 --> 59:25.331
- [Kathy] I feel,

59:34.154 --> 59:34.987
extremely,

59:38.494 --> 59:39.661
tired and sad.

59:43.257 --> 59:45.840
I feel extremely tired and sad.

59:58.933 --> 59:59.766
I\'m--

01:00:16.995 --> 01:00:20.328
I\'m used to being by myself most of the,

01:00:27.315 --> 01:00:28.148
time.

01:00:35.374 --> 01:00:38.124
And having my own space and time.

01:00:39.235 --> 01:00:41.771
I\'m used to being by
myself most of the time,

01:00:41.771 --> 01:00:44.521
and having my own space and time.

01:00:55.454 --> 01:00:59.371
(\"Keep on Livin\'\" by Le Tigre)

01:01:09.412 --> 01:01:13.113
♪ You hide inside, so not okay ♪

01:01:13.113 --> 01:01:14.452
♪ Keep on, keep on living ♪

01:01:14.452 --> 01:01:17.110
♪ What if you remember more today ♪

01:01:17.110 --> 01:01:19.556
♪ Keep on, keep on living ♪

01:01:19.556 --> 01:01:22.516
♪ You tell them to go when
you wish they would stay ♪

01:01:22.516 --> 01:01:24.254
♪ Keep on, keep on living ♪

01:01:24.254 --> 01:01:26.734
- I think a place like San Francisco

01:01:26.734 --> 01:01:31.311
was probably more open and
receptive and welcoming

01:01:31.311 --> 01:01:34.061
to Kathy\'s voice and sensibility,

01:01:36.233 --> 01:01:38.552
and maybe it did represent
more people there

01:01:38.552 --> 01:01:40.469
who are more outsiders.

01:01:41.567 --> 01:01:44.607
♪ Fucking queers ♪

01:01:44.607 --> 01:01:46.494
♪ You\'re not using your gift ♪

01:01:46.494 --> 01:01:49.328
♪ My boy is working, now what do you do ♪

01:01:49.328 --> 01:01:50.334
- In San Francisco,

01:01:50.334 --> 01:01:52.414
there\'s a really vibrant women\'s movement,

01:01:52.414 --> 01:01:55.476
that\'s very sexually based.

01:01:55.476 --> 01:01:58.090
About women working
with their sexualities,

01:01:58.090 --> 01:01:59.749
doing stuff with their bodies.

01:01:59.749 --> 01:02:01.716
- The ladies of Lexington,

01:02:01.716 --> 01:02:05.299
came to San Francisco
from a far away land,

01:02:06.194 --> 01:02:09.993
and is now the most
popular queen of the scene.

01:02:09.993 --> 01:02:12.410
(rock music)

01:02:16.050 --> 01:02:18.676
♪ You took the train and it\'s
running through my head ♪

01:02:18.676 --> 01:02:21.534
♪ Can not see my face,
I\'m fine with the stares ♪

01:02:21.534 --> 01:02:23.273
♪ Aren\'t I pretty, can you see me go ♪

01:02:23.273 --> 01:02:25.191
♪ Into the city, we got to let it go ♪

01:02:25.191 --> 01:02:27.396
♪ I\'m so great, I\'m so drunk ♪

01:02:27.396 --> 01:02:29.392
♪ Come on baby let\'s all have fun ♪

01:02:29.392 --> 01:02:32.793
- At that pub where Kathy would teach,

01:02:32.793 --> 01:02:36.470
even though she was really teaching

01:02:36.470 --> 01:02:40.094
for the San Francisco Art Institute,

01:02:40.094 --> 01:02:41.193
instead of teaching there,

01:02:41.193 --> 01:02:43.092
which is a really expensive school,

01:02:43.092 --> 01:02:44.992
she felt that was elitist.

01:02:44.992 --> 01:02:48.325
And it excluded too many talented people

01:02:49.556 --> 01:02:51.190
that she wanted access to,

01:02:51.190 --> 01:02:52.974
and she wanted them to have access to her.

01:02:52.974 --> 01:02:55.454
So she would hold the class at this pub,

01:02:55.454 --> 01:02:57.189
and then anybody could come.

01:02:57.189 --> 01:02:58.393
And people would come,

01:02:58.393 --> 01:02:59.751
and they would order a pint of beer,

01:02:59.751 --> 01:03:01.488
and they would sit and listen to her

01:03:01.488 --> 01:03:05.487
talk about de Sade and
Bataille and what have you.

01:03:05.487 --> 01:03:06.633
- I teach at an art college

01:03:06.633 --> 01:03:09.732
where most of the students come
from very wealthy families.

01:03:09.732 --> 01:03:12.814
Maybe two of them have
read a Shakespeare play.

01:03:12.814 --> 01:03:15.249
And these are people who
are over 20 years old.

01:03:15.249 --> 01:03:19.370
What I find is that
there\'s no common language.

01:03:19.370 --> 01:03:23.930
- As a teacher, I notice
that many of my students,

01:03:23.930 --> 01:03:25.374
and particularly my female students,

01:03:25.374 --> 01:03:26.552
are not that different,

01:03:26.552 --> 01:03:29.033
and have experiences not
that different from Kathy,

01:03:29.033 --> 01:03:31.972
that are mostly not
reflected in the culture.

01:03:31.972 --> 01:03:35.074
I see that there are a great many women

01:03:35.074 --> 01:03:36.687
who are extremely bright,

01:03:36.687 --> 01:03:39.433
who sort of had to fight
to become who they are,

01:03:39.433 --> 01:03:41.812
and to be creative and intellectual.

01:03:41.812 --> 01:03:43.513
(upbeat rock music)

01:03:43.513 --> 01:03:45.572
♪ I just tell my friends ♪

01:03:45.572 --> 01:03:49.433
♪ Why don\'t we get high ♪

01:03:49.433 --> 01:03:53.193
♪ Then we go to every
fucking bar in town, yo, yo ♪

01:03:53.193 --> 01:03:55.454
- She asked me, so I\'m gonna get teary,

01:03:55.454 --> 01:03:57.876
she asked me why I wrote,

01:03:57.876 --> 01:04:01.113
and I said that I felt like
nobody had ever listened to me

01:04:01.113 --> 01:04:03.873
my whole life, and I just
wanted somebody to hear

01:04:03.873 --> 01:04:05.513
what I had to say.

01:04:05.513 --> 01:04:06.676
She was like, you should be in a band.

01:04:06.676 --> 01:04:08.932
Afterwards, I ended up going
home and starting a band.

01:04:08.932 --> 01:04:12.932
And that\'s been my career
for the past 15 years.

01:04:15.124 --> 01:04:16.467
She had all kinds of troubles.

01:04:16.467 --> 01:04:18.308
She was in all that kind of stuff that

01:04:18.308 --> 01:04:20.206
I go through, too,

01:04:20.206 --> 01:04:22.399
and knowing someone else
has been in this place

01:04:22.399 --> 01:04:24.846
before me and navigated it in some way,

01:04:24.846 --> 01:04:27.513
and that it gives me a calmness,

01:04:29.383 --> 01:04:32.425
to think other women have
gone through this before me,

01:04:32.425 --> 01:04:34.644
and they will after.

01:04:34.644 --> 01:04:37.086
And we\'ll figure it out.
(upbeat rock music)

01:04:37.086 --> 01:04:39.065
♪ Rebel girl, rebel girl ♪

01:04:39.065 --> 01:04:42.225
♪ Rebel girl, you are
the queen of my world ♪

01:04:42.225 --> 01:04:45.108
♪ Rebel girl, rebel girl ♪

01:04:45.108 --> 01:04:48.958
♪ Rebel girl, you are
the queen of my world ♪

01:04:48.958 --> 01:04:50.366
♪ Rebel girl ♪

01:04:50.366 --> 01:04:54.724
- She was really into
jerking off and writing.

01:04:54.724 --> 01:04:56.345
And like Jean Genet.

01:04:56.345 --> 01:04:58.126
See what would happen.

01:04:58.126 --> 01:05:00.729
She wanted everybody to do that.

01:05:00.729 --> 01:05:03.908
Like get into some weird head space.

01:05:03.908 --> 01:05:05.039
- When I started actually writing

01:05:05.039 --> 01:05:07.222
as I went through orgasm,

01:05:07.222 --> 01:05:09.764
thanks to the use of
vibrators, I must say.

01:05:09.764 --> 01:05:12.401
\'Cause you have to have
one hand and the other,

01:05:12.401 --> 01:05:13.764
or it would\'ve been difficult.

01:05:13.764 --> 01:05:15.623
(audience laughing)

01:05:15.623 --> 01:05:18.265
So a lot of what you heard was just,

01:05:18.265 --> 01:05:19.924
I wanted to see what language

01:05:19.924 --> 01:05:22.708
just passes through my mind.

01:05:22.708 --> 01:05:24.126
I don\'t know how to say this precisely.

01:05:24.126 --> 01:05:26.722
As I\'m going through sex,

01:05:26.722 --> 01:05:28.825
what does that language look like?

01:05:28.825 --> 01:05:30.425
I don\'t know anything about cyber sex.

01:05:30.425 --> 01:05:32.825
Anyone else wanna talk about cyber sex?

01:05:32.825 --> 01:05:34.868
I\'ve never had sex on the net.

01:05:34.868 --> 01:05:38.102
As far as sex goes, I like relationships,

01:05:38.102 --> 01:05:39.519
and I like flesh.

01:05:40.526 --> 01:05:43.276
(ethereal music)

01:05:46.363 --> 01:05:49.268
- There was an affair
with a German journalist.

01:05:49.268 --> 01:05:52.518
They had a very, very intense emotional

01:05:53.364 --> 01:05:55.204
relationship to one another,

01:05:55.204 --> 01:05:59.871
and he had trained her to
have an orgasm at his command.

01:06:05.443 --> 01:06:07.760
And her most successful story was

01:06:07.760 --> 01:06:10.964
sitting on a bar stool
somewhere in Germany,

01:06:10.964 --> 01:06:13.382
in a hotel bar, and he
was across the room,

01:06:13.382 --> 01:06:16.363
and he gave her the
signal to have an orgasm,

01:06:16.363 --> 01:06:19.204
and apparently she had multiple orgasms,

01:06:19.204 --> 01:06:20.945
as this man was across the room.

01:06:20.945 --> 01:06:23.785
And this was triumphant to her.

01:06:23.785 --> 01:06:25.097
Entirely triumphant,

01:06:25.097 --> 01:06:28.185
and the true sign of a great relationship.

01:06:28.185 --> 01:06:31.922
And I just remember thinking,
God bless you, Kathy Acker.

01:06:31.922 --> 01:06:34.672
(ethereal music)

01:06:35.924 --> 01:06:40.740
- I remember a young man
wanted to study with her,

01:06:40.740 --> 01:06:42.990
and he really adulated her,

01:06:44.484 --> 01:06:45.986
and revered her.

01:06:45.986 --> 01:06:48.204
And so he took one of her workshops.

01:06:48.204 --> 01:06:50.708
He said, I\'m so honored.

01:06:50.708 --> 01:06:53.483
Anything you could say, any
criticism you could offer

01:06:53.483 --> 01:06:55.733
would be a great joy to me,

01:06:58.044 --> 01:06:59.284
and I would learn so much.

01:06:59.284 --> 01:07:01.726
And she said, what are you talking about?

01:07:01.726 --> 01:07:03.865
When are we gonna fuck?

01:07:03.865 --> 01:07:06.366
And the guy was so shocked,

01:07:06.366 --> 01:07:08.449
and so hurt and appalled.

01:07:11.504 --> 01:07:13.426
And she told me this.

01:07:13.426 --> 01:07:14.627
What a waste of time he was.

01:07:14.627 --> 01:07:16.294
And I thought, well,

01:07:18.463 --> 01:07:21.883
didn\'t you want somehow
to repair the damage?

01:07:21.883 --> 01:07:24.105
And she looked at me, I looked at her,

01:07:24.105 --> 01:07:27.065
and there was no translation.

01:07:27.065 --> 01:07:29.862
I mean, it was untranslatable to me.

01:07:29.862 --> 01:07:33.124
And yet I was untranslatable to her.

01:07:33.124 --> 01:07:37.166
Like, why the fuck would she
want to appease this teenager?

01:07:37.166 --> 01:07:39.749
(bell dinging)

01:07:57.086 --> 01:08:01.003
(random banging and shuffling)

01:08:21.094 --> 01:08:24.011
Once we had a photo shoot together.

01:08:25.536 --> 01:08:27.157
And she just came running in late,

01:08:27.157 --> 01:08:29.795
and I said, thanks for
showing up, you know,

01:08:29.795 --> 01:08:31.794
in a kind of rude way.

01:08:31.794 --> 01:08:34.632
And she said, well I just had an abortion.

01:08:34.632 --> 01:08:36.382
And I said, oh, okay.

01:08:37.217 --> 01:08:38.214
Are you okay?

01:08:38.214 --> 01:08:40.278
And she said, fuck you,
of course I\'m okay.

01:08:40.278 --> 01:08:42.014
So she immediately, you know--

01:08:42.014 --> 01:08:46.118
At that moment, I wanted to embrace her,

01:08:46.118 --> 01:08:49.157
and take care of her, and
she didn\'t allow for that.

01:08:49.157 --> 01:08:51.115
- Kneel down, girl.

01:08:51.115 --> 01:08:52.635
Prepare yourself.

01:08:52.635 --> 01:08:54.336
For you are now going to experience

01:08:54.336 --> 01:08:58.292
the sufferings that are in this world.

01:08:58.292 --> 01:08:59.959
That are this world.

01:09:01.638 --> 01:09:04.278
You have to learn how to stop grasping,

01:09:04.278 --> 01:09:07.515
so that you can ascend into Heaven.

01:09:07.515 --> 01:09:11.798
I hadn\'t known that
Buddhists believed in Heaven.

01:09:11.798 --> 01:09:13.515
A door creaked.

01:09:13.515 --> 01:09:15.457
Then hands blinding me,

01:09:15.457 --> 01:09:17.910
drew aside the clothes than I had thrown

01:09:17.910 --> 01:09:21.755
across my body to protect
myself from the bitter cold.

01:09:21.755 --> 01:09:23.172
My ass was bared.

01:09:24.134 --> 01:09:25.051
My asshole.

01:09:26.174 --> 01:09:29.478
I have been told that
when my asshole opens,

01:09:29.478 --> 01:09:32.573
it looks like a rose blooming.

01:09:32.573 --> 01:09:35.398
Is it true, as Buddhists say,

01:09:35.398 --> 01:09:37.981
that appearances are deceptive?

01:09:39.435 --> 01:09:41.556
Answer.
(some laughing)

01:09:41.556 --> 01:09:44.657
My pirates dwell in freedom.

01:09:44.657 --> 01:09:47.324
(strange music)

01:09:48.438 --> 01:09:50.475
- [Narrator] Janae kicks Janey,

01:09:50.475 --> 01:09:53.915
and tells her to be worse than she is.

01:09:53.915 --> 01:09:55.498
To get down, there.

01:09:56.694 --> 01:09:58.875
Down in the shit.

01:09:58.875 --> 01:10:00.235
To learn.

01:10:00.235 --> 01:10:02.155
Go to the extreme.

01:10:02.155 --> 01:10:04.631
To make the decision.

01:10:04.631 --> 01:10:07.238
Janey girl still has pretension.

01:10:07.238 --> 01:10:10.238
She has to be drained of everything.

01:10:11.835 --> 01:10:14.085
She has to be disemboweled.

01:10:19.153 --> 01:10:21.615
- I think she was a bottom.

01:10:21.615 --> 01:10:24.758
So, bottoms have to do what the top wants.

01:10:24.758 --> 01:10:28.315
Because she takes on the
persona of being so tough,

01:10:28.315 --> 01:10:31.478
and the leather, and all of that,

01:10:31.478 --> 01:10:33.214
that underneath it,

01:10:33.214 --> 01:10:35.381
she needs to put it aside.

01:10:37.134 --> 01:10:40.384
And become sexually fulfilled that way.

01:10:41.238 --> 01:10:42.849
A lot of women don\'t like S.M.

01:10:42.849 --> 01:10:44.758
They think it\'s
anti-feminism, and all that.

01:10:44.758 --> 01:10:45.777
But it really isn\'t.

01:10:45.777 --> 01:10:48.978
It has all much more to do with

01:10:48.978 --> 01:10:50.561
your most intimate,

01:10:51.714 --> 01:10:55.297
you\'re the most vulnerable
that you can be.

01:10:56.694 --> 01:10:58.361
And not many women--

01:11:00.174 --> 01:11:01.275
Women aren\'t used to that,

01:11:01.275 --> 01:11:04.134
or else they\'re forced
into being submissive.

01:11:04.134 --> 01:11:06.459
Which is not at all the same thing.

01:11:06.459 --> 01:11:10.155
If you\'re forced into it, it\'s the worst.

01:11:10.155 --> 01:11:12.209
But if you choose it,

01:11:12.209 --> 01:11:13.959
it can be very, very,

01:11:17.558 --> 01:11:20.454
enlightening, and it can give you power.

01:11:20.454 --> 01:11:23.204
(ethereal music)

01:11:25.030 --> 01:11:27.250
- Everyone thinks you understand
why you want pleasure,

01:11:27.250 --> 01:11:28.449
but you don\'t want pain.

01:11:28.449 --> 01:11:31.174
But pain can be interesting.

01:11:31.174 --> 01:11:33.035
I think there\'s a way in which you play

01:11:33.035 --> 01:11:35.558
with what you most fear,

01:11:35.558 --> 01:11:37.831
in order to learn how to deal with it.

01:11:37.831 --> 01:11:40.453
Another thing is to find
you\'re curious about your body.

01:11:40.453 --> 01:11:42.017
How will your body react?

01:11:42.017 --> 01:11:43.158
It\'s not only just pain.

01:11:43.158 --> 01:11:45.773
How will you react in
terms of being controlled?

01:11:45.773 --> 01:11:48.294
So you play with various areas.

01:11:48.294 --> 01:11:51.755
Now sexuality and play are very close.

01:11:51.755 --> 01:11:54.755
(suspenseful music)

01:11:55.675 --> 01:11:57.814
- I did go with Kathy when she

01:11:57.814 --> 01:12:00.257
wanted to get her labia pierced.

01:12:00.257 --> 01:12:02.017
She got it pierced,

01:12:02.017 --> 01:12:04.850
and did not seem to mind the pain.

01:12:10.131 --> 01:12:11.718
Of course, she was a masochist,

01:12:11.718 --> 01:12:14.934
so I don\'t know whether there
was pain and she enjoyed it,

01:12:14.934 --> 01:12:16.977
or whether it was just not that painful.

01:12:16.977 --> 01:12:19.798
But what did happen afterwards,

01:12:19.798 --> 01:12:21.537
we got on her motorbike.

01:12:21.537 --> 01:12:26.037
She claimed, when we were
standing at the stop lights,

01:12:28.038 --> 01:12:29.355
and at the stop signs,

01:12:29.355 --> 01:12:31.814
that the vibration was turning her on.

01:12:31.814 --> 01:12:35.535
And in fact, she claimed
that she was going

01:12:35.535 --> 01:12:38.715
to have an orgasm on the bike.

01:12:38.715 --> 01:12:40.838
And that made me quite nervous,

01:12:40.838 --> 01:12:42.005
for my safety.

01:12:43.751 --> 01:12:46.501
But we did survive the trip home.

01:12:48.417 --> 01:12:49.995
- My race,
(rock music)

01:12:49.995 --> 01:12:51.894
said my husband,

01:12:51.894 --> 01:12:53.477
came from far away.

01:12:54.953 --> 01:12:57.773
Vikings, the first heroes,

01:12:57.773 --> 01:13:00.358
who slashed into their own bodies,

01:13:00.358 --> 01:13:03.174
then drank down their own blood.

01:13:03.174 --> 01:13:06.657
I\'ve inherited this love
of blood, of tattooing.

01:13:06.657 --> 01:13:08.115
I\'ll be as ugly as one of them

01:13:08.115 --> 01:13:09.782
for I know who I am.

01:13:11.937 --> 01:13:14.253
- She had lost that inner wonder,

01:13:14.253 --> 01:13:15.503
and that inner,

01:13:19.078 --> 01:13:22.433
that inner integrity, to
some sort of addiction,

01:13:22.433 --> 01:13:26.516
or some sort of pain that
she was trying to numb.

01:13:31.033 --> 01:13:36.017
And just wanting to be able
to experience so much of life,

01:13:36.017 --> 01:13:38.354
and put it into literature.

01:13:38.354 --> 01:13:40.177
I can relate to that, exactly.

01:13:40.177 --> 01:13:41.427
It\'s beautiful.

01:13:43.334 --> 01:13:45.195
- Even though she\'s been through so much,

01:13:45.195 --> 01:13:46.678
she still has this innocence.

01:13:46.678 --> 01:13:49.158
There\'s this innocence
about her, you know?

01:13:49.158 --> 01:13:51.052
Like, she\'s still kind of innocent.

01:13:51.052 --> 01:13:53.937
Like a bad but innocent girl.

01:13:53.937 --> 01:13:55.958
- I don\'t know if she\'s
jaded, necessarily,

01:13:55.958 --> 01:13:58.054
\'cause I think she keeps her
childlike innocence, in a way,

01:13:58.054 --> 01:13:59.435
or tries to.

01:13:59.435 --> 01:14:02.553
But this second section is
definitely like, later on,

01:14:02.553 --> 01:14:06.220
sort of after life has
had its way with her.

01:14:07.544 --> 01:14:10.961
- [Narrator] Teach me how to talk to you.

01:14:13.935 --> 01:14:14.768
Want.

01:14:17.115 --> 01:14:19.198
Is my wanting you so bad,

01:14:20.518 --> 01:14:22.395
wanting your cock so bad,

01:14:22.395 --> 01:14:25.158
wanting the feel of your lips on my lips,

01:14:25.158 --> 01:14:28.158
just me being selfish and egotistic?

01:14:40.358 --> 01:14:42.358
Teach me a new language.

01:14:45.217 --> 01:14:48.657
- I really like the way Kathy could

01:14:48.657 --> 01:14:52.096
create female characters
that were, at once,

01:14:52.096 --> 01:14:53.096
so powerful.

01:14:54.438 --> 01:14:56.473
In their desire and in their essence,

01:14:56.473 --> 01:14:58.278
and in their--

01:14:58.278 --> 01:15:03.278
I mean, I found them quite
charismatic and fascinating.

01:15:03.617 --> 01:15:07.034
Even when they were disturbing and awful.

01:15:08.311 --> 01:15:10.475
And then at the same time,

01:15:10.475 --> 01:15:13.558
she could show those same characters,

01:15:14.790 --> 01:15:18.737
as you say, as victims,
as suffering, struggling.

01:15:18.737 --> 01:15:22.737
And I think that that\'s
basically our condition.

01:15:23.734 --> 01:15:25.937
- Women are not treated well

01:15:25.937 --> 01:15:29.671
if they don\'t coincide with
what society wants them to do.

01:15:29.671 --> 01:15:31.238
And Kathy was trying to strip away

01:15:31.238 --> 01:15:33.329
what society wanted women to do,

01:15:33.329 --> 01:15:35.974
and get to what women want to do.

01:15:35.974 --> 01:15:38.358
What she wanted to do.

01:15:38.358 --> 01:15:40.534
- [Narrator] By using each other,

01:15:40.534 --> 01:15:42.294
each others texts,

01:15:42.294 --> 01:15:45.961
we keep on living,
imaging, making, fucking.

01:15:48.614 --> 01:15:51.447
And we fight the society of death.

01:15:53.355 --> 01:15:55.938
(cars honking)

01:15:59.915 --> 01:16:02.034
- I don\'t think the people in my novels,

01:16:02.034 --> 01:16:04.614
or I\'ve never felt that, you know,

01:16:04.614 --> 01:16:08.038
feel that they are little, weak.

01:16:08.038 --> 01:16:10.934
They\'re worthy of being
beaten up all the time.

01:16:10.934 --> 01:16:12.598
They really should be in these horrendous

01:16:12.598 --> 01:16:14.275
relationships with men.

01:16:14.275 --> 01:16:16.534
I think they\'re looking to get out.

01:16:16.534 --> 01:16:18.210
They\'re looking to act back.

01:16:18.210 --> 01:16:20.737
They\'re looking to find what they want.

01:16:20.737 --> 01:16:23.320
(mellow music)

01:16:27.195 --> 01:16:29.377
- [Narrator] The Persian
slave trader decided

01:16:29.377 --> 01:16:32.795
that Janey was ready to hit the streets.

01:16:32.795 --> 01:16:35.133
She had demonstrated
that she knew how to make

01:16:35.133 --> 01:16:36.633
impotent men hard.

01:16:37.478 --> 01:16:40.017
Give blow jobs and rim jobs.

01:16:40.017 --> 01:16:41.453
Tease.

01:16:41.453 --> 01:16:44.518
Figure out exactly what each man wants,

01:16:44.518 --> 01:16:46.101
without asking him.

01:16:46.955 --> 01:16:50.622
Make a man feel secure,
desirable, and wild.

01:16:52.974 --> 01:16:54.891
Now, she was beautiful.

01:16:56.134 --> 01:16:57.674
There was only one thing wrong.

01:16:57.674 --> 01:17:01.574
At least, according to
the Persian slave trader.

01:17:01.574 --> 01:17:05.241
At this moment, he found
out she had cancer.

01:17:08.610 --> 01:17:13.610
(distant sirens and horns)
(rhythmic footsteps)

01:17:19.078 --> 01:17:20.835
When I walked out of the surgeons office,

01:17:20.835 --> 01:17:23.094
and didn\'t know where to go,

01:17:23.094 --> 01:17:26.579
I asked myself what I could know.

01:17:26.579 --> 01:17:29.398
Did I have anything in myself, in my life,

01:17:29.398 --> 01:17:31.398
that could help me know?

01:17:32.577 --> 01:17:34.577
And so deal with cancer.

01:17:35.777 --> 01:17:37.297
Answer.

01:17:37.297 --> 01:17:38.694
My work.

01:17:38.694 --> 01:17:39.611
My writing.

01:17:41.174 --> 01:17:42.976
Imagination.

01:17:42.976 --> 01:17:43.809
And will.

01:18:02.757 --> 01:18:05.924
- She was a wonderfully obsessive soul

01:18:06.758 --> 01:18:09.334
in her loves and her
commitments to people.

01:18:09.334 --> 01:18:12.751
And that in itself can make you a victim.

01:18:14.555 --> 01:18:15.555
But I think,

01:18:17.532 --> 01:18:19.974
victim\'s probably, in
the end, the wrong word,

01:18:19.974 --> 01:18:21.755
because what she would do is she would

01:18:21.755 --> 01:18:23.195
take this victimization.

01:18:23.195 --> 01:18:25.494
She would take it back into her writing.

01:18:25.494 --> 01:18:27.174
She would rework it,

01:18:27.174 --> 01:18:31.341
and she would make it into
a literary work of art.

01:18:32.598 --> 01:18:37.015
And you can\'t really call
someone like that a victim.

01:18:40.577 --> 01:18:42.198
- [Narrator] The hardest part of my cancer

01:18:42.198 --> 01:18:45.217
was the walking away from that surgeon,

01:18:45.217 --> 01:18:47.494
and from conventional medicine,

01:18:47.494 --> 01:18:49.494
belief in conventional medicine,

01:18:49.494 --> 01:18:51.574
and what our doctors tell us

01:18:51.574 --> 01:18:55.331
is so deeply ingrained in our society.

01:18:55.331 --> 01:18:58.454
But to walk away from
conventional medicine

01:18:58.454 --> 01:19:01.454
is to walk away from normal society.

01:19:04.134 --> 01:19:06.801
- Kathy said she wanted to live.

01:19:07.755 --> 01:19:12.338
And Kathy really believed
she was going to beat cancer.

01:19:13.777 --> 01:19:16.610
Kathy announced that she was going

01:19:18.918 --> 01:19:20.774
for a double mastectomy.

01:19:20.774 --> 01:19:23.798
That she was turning her
back on Western medicine.

01:19:23.798 --> 01:19:27.798
And that she was pursuing
an alternative course.

01:19:28.678 --> 01:19:32.345
The decision to say no
to that which we know

01:19:33.457 --> 01:19:36.577
as an appropriate treatment, to me,

01:19:36.577 --> 01:19:37.660
struck me as,

01:19:39.974 --> 01:19:41.457
perhaps the most self destructive

01:19:41.457 --> 01:19:44.290
and suicidal decision of her life.

01:19:45.355 --> 01:19:47.994
But the great contradiction
was she said to all of us,

01:19:47.994 --> 01:19:50.934
she was going to live,
she was going to beat it,

01:19:50.934 --> 01:19:53.434
and she was going to fight it.

01:19:57.377 --> 01:19:59.460
- The blackness I now see

01:20:01.195 --> 01:20:02.945
comes from perverted,

01:20:04.598 --> 01:20:06.681
because unrealized wants.

01:20:08.577 --> 01:20:09.494
I see this.

01:20:12.075 --> 01:20:15.878
I won\'t be able to pretend
the world isn\'t horrible.

01:20:15.878 --> 01:20:20.315
For the roads are getting
so super paved, and big,

01:20:20.315 --> 01:20:23.414
and light, and loaded with
Big Macs and Howard Johnsons,

01:20:23.414 --> 01:20:25.835
that the only time people are forced

01:20:25.835 --> 01:20:29.168
into danger or reality is when they die.

01:20:33.937 --> 01:20:36.417
Death is the only reality we have left

01:20:36.417 --> 01:20:40.274
in our nicey nicey ice cream TV society.

01:20:40.274 --> 01:20:42.274
So we better worship it.

01:20:43.932 --> 01:20:45.849
S and M sex, punk rock.

01:20:49.592 --> 01:20:52.897
Don\'t you know you can step into the show?

01:20:52.897 --> 01:20:56.230
The raging ocean, and the freezing snow.

01:20:58.054 --> 01:21:01.804
You can step into danger
any time you please.

01:21:04.155 --> 01:21:05.238
Step into me.

01:21:07.937 --> 01:21:10.520
(man growling)

01:21:14.834 --> 01:21:15.667
To see.

01:21:16.774 --> 01:21:18.438
To come.

01:21:18.438 --> 01:21:19.355
To beat up.

01:21:20.737 --> 01:21:21.570
To eat.

01:21:22.412 --> 01:21:23.245
To rob.

01:21:24.177 --> 01:21:25.010
To kidnap.

01:21:26.278 --> 01:21:27.111
To kill.

01:21:31.014 --> 01:21:33.476
- She did not want to say goodbye,

01:21:33.476 --> 01:21:37.798
and she saw the fear and
the sadness in my face,

01:21:37.798 --> 01:21:39.675
at certain times.

01:21:39.675 --> 01:21:41.758
And she would comfort me.

01:21:43.377 --> 01:21:44.544
Astonishingly.

01:21:47.595 --> 01:21:48.595
Or tried to.

01:21:50.210 --> 01:21:51.478
And tell me not to worry,

01:21:51.478 --> 01:21:52.817
\'cause everything was going to be okay,

01:21:52.817 --> 01:21:54.934
and she was going to get better.

01:21:54.934 --> 01:21:55.851
But I knew.

01:21:56.812 --> 01:21:58.278
It was obvious.

01:21:58.278 --> 01:22:00.361
Her body was giving away.

01:22:02.918 --> 01:22:05.501
(mellow music)

01:22:14.017 --> 01:22:17.017
(people chattering)

01:22:19.373 --> 01:22:23.297
- I have the pale blue eyes
of my Gaelic ancestors.

01:22:23.297 --> 01:22:27.630
Their narrow skull and their
clumsiness in fighting.

01:22:28.534 --> 01:22:32.038
I think that my clothes
are as barbaric as theirs.

01:22:32.038 --> 01:22:34.795
From them, I inherit idol worship,

01:22:34.795 --> 01:22:36.628
and love of sacrilege.

01:22:37.995 --> 01:22:39.828
Oh, and all the vices.

01:22:41.318 --> 01:22:42.318
Anger, lust.

01:22:44.017 --> 01:22:46.350
Lust magnificent, above all.

01:22:51.014 --> 01:22:53.777
(light instrumental music)

01:22:53.777 --> 01:22:55.394
Wasn\'t there once a time when I felt

01:22:55.394 --> 01:22:57.035
my youth was a fabulous thing?

01:22:57.035 --> 01:22:58.955
To be written on sheets of gold.

01:22:58.955 --> 01:23:00.955
Good luck, and to spare.

01:23:03.638 --> 01:23:06.395
I was the great creator of festivals,

01:23:06.395 --> 01:23:09.035
or triumphs, of dramas.

01:23:09.035 --> 01:23:11.355
I tried to invent new flowers,

01:23:11.355 --> 01:23:14.022
new planets, new kinds of flesh.

01:23:14.897 --> 01:23:16.064
New languages.

01:23:17.334 --> 01:23:20.001
(steam hissing)

01:23:25.734 --> 01:23:28.292
I thought I had acquired
supernatural powers.

01:23:28.292 --> 01:23:31.709
I who thought I was a magician, an angel.

01:23:33.537 --> 01:23:35.204
Outside in the wild.

01:23:38.758 --> 01:23:41.008
(pounding)

01:23:48.072 --> 01:23:51.158
- [Narrator] So the doves
cooed softly to each other.

01:23:51.158 --> 01:23:53.137
Whispering of their events,

01:23:53.137 --> 01:23:55.478
over Janey\'s grave in the gray,

01:23:55.478 --> 01:23:57.895
Saba Patra Cemetery in Luxor.

01:23:59.452 --> 01:24:01.833
So many other Janeys were born,

01:24:01.833 --> 01:24:04.583
and these Janeys cover the Earth.

01:24:16.518 --> 01:24:19.601
(broken jazzy music)

01:24:25.078 --> 01:24:26.678
- [Kathy] I don\'t know what to do

01:24:26.678 --> 01:24:29.761
about all that I see, and experience.

01:24:31.195 --> 01:24:33.028
I can only ask, dream.

01:24:38.809 --> 01:24:42.309
(man singing in distance)

01:24:49.537 --> 01:24:52.198
(rhythmic ticking)

01:24:52.198 --> 01:24:55.457
♪ That\'s what my, that\'s
what my daddy said ♪

01:24:55.457 --> 01:24:58.790
♪ And I read them to me ♪

01:25:20.918 --> 01:25:24.585
(mellow instrumental music)