Review of Gary Numan's Memoir (R)evolution

Hey folks, two things. I recently found a bunch of comments filtered into spam by blogger that I never received emails for. I've approved those though sorry that it's years too late. Second, cross posting this from my book review blog since it's a related music memoir worth checking out. This blog is still predominantly a dead archive otherwise. If you are writing or following someone who's taken up the torch of writing about collective liberation and oppression in music, feel free to drop a link in the comments. I'm the meantime check out anti-fascist neofolk. 

 Hope yall are listening to good music and enjoying life! 

Image: the cover of the book is acloseup of gary numan staring into the camera. He is a pale skinned person with black hair falling onto his face and is wearing messy black eyeliner. He is holding his hands adorned with ripped nylon information of his face. Across the top in gold scribbled letters is revolution and in printed gold across the bottom is his name. Under that in smaller script is "the autobiography."

Before writing a review of Gary Numan's memoir, (R)evolution, I decided to catch up on his later releases. To be honest, my interest in this memoir was due to knowing him as a great electronic and goth/industrial adjacent pioneer. But, unlike many who, as detailed in the book, always wanted him to stick to the early hits, I found some of his early stuff a bit too upbeat for me. The saxophones and backup singer style are just not my cup of tea. I've come to find that most of what Numan released after the mid 90s is right up my alley as well as more of his earlier stuff than I realized. He's put out a massive amount of music throughout his career.

Numan discussed his process for many releases, describing some of the later stuff (from Pure onward) as darker and that is certainly the case. I'd also go as far to say that this is his best material. The sound is much more evolved and shows a maturity with electronic media as well as the ability to grow with the technology. I also just love the darkness that comes with a lot of artists' later work who started from a more pop place (Kite comes immediately to mind.) Now that I've started from the end, let's get back to the beginning.

(R)evolution is an interesting memoir and one I chose to listen to as the author himself was reading it. It stands out from many musician stories, especially that of pop stars, in how he chooses to gloss over many of the more wild days and instead focuses on family and career. I don't know if that's just what is most important to him now, or if he is deliberately choosing not to highlight things he's admittedly embarrassed of. I can't help wondering what he meant when he said he was a bad partner or what he was ashamed of when he and other stars interacted with groupies. I get it, though. He also discussed a documentary team doing their best to agitate him in interviews and focus on a small part of his career for entertainment value. I can't blame him for resisting that portrayal, but I would totally read a memory from his former partner.

Based on this memoir, Gary Numan is a nerdy scifi fanatic on the autism spectrum (he uses the term Asperger's,) whose creative expression was truly unique and individual, composing his own material, moreso than many famous pop artists. I never realized how many scifi stories he wrote before then writing songs and albums based on those stories. I love it. I also loved hearing about how gay clubs were a haven as they were when I was a young rivethead/goth kid long before I understood my own gender and sexuality. This sort of crossover always makes me happy even though there can be conflicts and problems with straight folks in gay bars. Perhaps the difference is coming together over subculture and performance rather than the spectacle or exploitation that comes with cishet bachelorette parties or other voyeurs seeking comedic entertainment which is something both lgbtq folks and dark subculture folks deal with.

Something baffling to me is how bad he was with money. I know it's common for people who get a lot of money and fame quickly to screw it up. But, my dude, maybe don't buy a castle if you're in so much debt. I was a little frustrated by how he spoke about his money troubles, maybe because I'm poor and meticulously plan every cent. But, there's also a reality that you could never pay me enough to be famous. I would rather die. So, I know it costs a certain amount to have any privacy or life once you're in it. Also, many of his struggles with money were because of his creative and elaborate set designs for live shows, which seems very wholesome as it's clear that he always wanted the fans to have the best possible experience.

A lot of the book is about things I find boring like trying to have kids, Gemma (his wife) and his endless struggles with IVF, as well as both of their multiple plastic surgeries. It was unexpected again because of my own biases of what I think musicians must be like. Me finding them boring is irrelevant to the books value, just personal taste.

He has interesting takes on mental illness, particularly depression. I liked seeing a middle ground take on the often polarized debates around mental health drugs. In his eyes, depression is curable with a course of meds, but you can also become dependent on the meds and turn into someone you're not. I don't agree with this across the board (some people recover better with no meds, some with lifelong meds, some never recover despite all efforts and hard work, etc) but it's a valuable perspective.

There are sections where he mentions musicians he either worked with or who covered his stuff and generally does not have anything negative to say (with the exception of Bowie who deserved it for acting like a giant baby which he apparently later regrets.) But, some of them like Marilyn Manson have since been outed as serial predators and I felt a little frustrated that there was no mention of that. There also was some glossing over discussions of racism around not liking hip hop despite earlier in the book being flattered by some artists crediting him as inspiration. On public social media Numan has been supportive of BLM and pride along other things, so maybe he doesn't know the details or just made a creative choice not to talk shit.

What I really enjoyed was his discussion of how he processes music. He thinks of music with every possible sense, as a multidimensional exercise. Each album was composed not just for how it sounds, but how it feels, how it looks when performed, how he would move when performing. He discusses wanting to be a pop star from a young age but also having crippling stage anxiety. He partly credits his Asperger's for how he decided to perform as well. Watching him, you would not know, but he would basically think of how things should be and practice movements and expressions he thought were supposed to go along with it. Perhaps this sort of thinking is why he was able to become one of the early electronic music pioneers despite being told that synths were going nowhere, which is hilarious to think back on given the state of music today- most of which contains at least one synth instrument or computerized processing of some sort.

Overall, I enjoyed this peek into Numan's life, career, and creative processes as well as the experience of a multi-decade time capsule. I'm also glad that it inspired me to add a slew of great albums to my music library.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Rammstein: disappointed but honestly not surprised

 This blog is long dead, but since we've been asked about Rammstein in the past and only really had videos and lyrics to go on, here are horrific accounts of tons of women who've come out about their experiences at concert afterparties, specifically with Till Lindemann and Casting Director Alena Makeeva.

https://twitter.com/SamiraCGS/status/1666140834322939904

Jessicka Addams (Jack Off Jill) Speaks Her Truth About Jeordie White (Twiggy Ramirez, MM), Marilyn Manson cuts ties

 Image: “Joy Was Her Name" 2015 Painting by Jessicka Addams, from her facebook page. The painting is a light purple background with a feminine face in the center, red lips, and bluish purple eyes with tears running down her face. Her hair is black and morphs into the faces of three black cats on the top of her head with long whiskers stretching out to the edges of the painting.

 

Content note: This article contains stories (with details in external links) of sexual, physical, emotional and other abuses both institutionally and intimately against both humans and other animals. Read with caution.

This is a story that is from my generation. These were groups that were big when I was in middle and high school and especially in early high school years, I was what some would call a "Mansonite." This eventually lead me like a gateway drug to groups like Skinny Puppy who remain the backbone of my industrial fanpersonhood today.

I was less familiar with Jack Off Jill for whatever reason, but had many friends that listened to them. I remember women-dominated groups being a rare thing at the time (and they still are.) What Jessicka discusses here- both involving the industry mistreatment of her needs and her relationship with a famous man in that industry- is all to common. I can't imagine what she is feeling in deciding to come out about this so bravely and publicly. I know intimately the type of guilt one can feel in not reporting someone- as if we are somehow responsible for their future victims' pain. Rape culture teaches us that survivors are always most responsible for rape and abuse, even of rapists' and abusers' future targets. This is never the case.

While I do not wish to silence any of Jessicka's feelings as feeling any way about all of this is valid, I do want to state clearly for the purpose of this post: Jessicka Addams is in no way responsible for the actions of Jeordie White no matter how long it took her to come out or if she chose to remain silent forever.

On October 20th, Addams posted an account of heinous emotional, physical, sexual, psychological, and other abuses she suffered at the hands of White on facebook. It is not easy to read. What she (other women, her pets, and others around them) went through was extreme and awful. White responded with some bullshit I am not even going to link because it is insulting. But, to give you a snippet, he says he does not condone "non-consensual sex." Sex is consensual, rape is what it becomes when it is non-consensual. According to Addams' post, there has been an outpouring of support as well as many other women sharing their stories with her about White being a violent, dangerous predator.

After the allegations, Marilyn Manson did fire White and claimed that he did not know about the abuse until now. This may or may not be true- sometimes abusers are good at hiding, other times an entire community is manipulated and responsible. Usually it is a little of both. People tend to turn the other cheek when their friends do something they don't like, people put their careers ahead of callouts (as can be seen in the beginning of Jessicka's account,) and often abusers are charismatic, friendly, well-liked people who save their worst behavior for those closest to them behind closed doors. As a result, people don't want to believe the truth about them.

Please remember the risk someone takes to come out about something like this. They open themselves to doubt, loss of career, public ridicule and shame, future attacks from the abuser, and other dangers. Jessicka did this against all of those odds because she wanted to do the right thing. Believe survivors. Protect survivors. I believe you, Jessicka. Thank you for sharing your Truth.

Ministry Made a Song Called "Antifa" and it is Kind of Sweet

Content note: This entry contains descriptions of violence including racist and misogynistic violence and racist slurs. Please take care while reading.

Also note, I wrote this at like 3am after my night medication had kicked in and I should be in bed. So, please forgive parts of this that are incoherently written.

Image: 5 protestors from NYS Antifascist Alliance stand in the grass holding up a banner that says their name and "100 NAZI SCALPS," referencing the movie Inglorious Bastards, with the anarchy circle-a symbol and the three-arrows antifa symbol on each side. Behind them 3 more protestors are holding up the black and red anarchist antifa flag and holding their fists in the air. 

Ministry has made it to this blog before both as an example of ways industrial videos/lyrics can be radical and ways industrial imagery can be misogynistic. I was more of a Ministry fan in my younger years. That is not to say I've grown out of them but more to make a point that I haven't kept up with them as much. I hadn't heard about anything new until I saw a post about their new song "Antifa" on the Great Lakes Antifa facebook page.

If you have been on the internet at all in the past month you probably know about the rise in visibility of neo-naziism and white supremacist organizing in the United States. I say visibility because they've always existed but have been braver lately due in part by the rise of the Trump administration, Richard Spencer, and others.

In Charlottesville, VA, a group of torch wielding white supremacists marched shouting chants such as "Jews will not replace us" and "Blood and Soil" eventually surrounding and attacking counterprotestors while police did nothing. We all know that leftist protestors with torches would be treated differently. At a later event, one (warning graphic link >) Nazi intentionally drove his car into a group of anti-racist protestors, murdering one and severely injuring many others. During this, police blocked roads and pointed guns at the injured protestors, delaying EMTs being able to give medical care to the group. Anarchist and other leftist street medics were the only medical care available for far too long. In another part of Charlottesville right next to a police station a group of white supremacists beat a Black man on the ground with pipes. In another part of the city a KKK imperial Wizard shot his gun at a Black man while calling him a n****r and a white boy with nazi tattoos and a slayer shirt punched a woman in the face.

Police stood and did nothing through this. Police are notorious for protecting white supremacist groups. This is why you can see white supremacist militias show up with semiautomatic weapons and live to tell about it, while unarmed Black men are shot while laying on the ground with their hands in the air. But, it's not just the cops and conservatives that are at fault.

Image: A meme with a bunch of american flags and the ACLU logo with lettering in different fonts that says "The ACLU pretends that if they were to just let a Nazi's plea for help go to voicemail then the first amendment would magically disappear because they care more about masterbating to how 'principled' they are than American Civil Liberties." source: bottom leftist memes

The ACLU regularly sues on behalf of Nazis and other pieces of human garbage (using the donations of people Nazis want to murder) and liberals decry any kind of violence towards Nazis as if hugging it out with them would stop their murderous tendencies. The same people that would quickly destroy all civil liberties if they gained enough power are allowed by the ACLU to use "free speech" as a carte blanche for cruelty. The media demonized Antifa and the government labeled them a terrorist organization. Yet, they did not label any of the nazi or other white supremacist groups who were beating and killing people as terrorists. During hurricanes, antifa members were doing volunteer aid work while "white nationalists" (white supremacists) were threatening to shoot people looking for food and supplies for survival. Cornel West even said that anarchists and antifa saved him and the clergy in Charlottesville, but many white liberals still sat at home criticizing movements they know nothing about. This same story plays out with both mainstream political parties and the US government with every movement against oppression.

Ministry in this video is obviously quite new to what antifa is and doesn't really understand their long history worldwide. I find this kind of sweet and dorky. I like dorky. But, they made a song called "antifa" to support anti-fascist movements. And, that's pretty cool in my book. Maybe this type of thing will lead Ministry away from ever putting out an album with cover art as misogynistic as that bullshit we wrote about before. That would be nice.

Here's one video (all of them are live as it has not been released as a track yet:)




You may also be interested in learning more about WHAT ANTIFA ACTUALLY IS. It can be difficult to wade through all of the sensationalist garbage in mainstream media. These are a couple quick and accurate things:

Sub.Media Trouble #2: Bash the Fash

Article: “They have no allegiance to liberal democracy”: an expert on antifa explains the group

Video: Mic Inside Antifa

 And finally, for my favorite fancy video on modern fascism:



Note: If you feel really defensive reading this article, ask yourself one question: When thinking about the struggle between anti-fascists and anti-racists against white supremacist groups, do you see more of yourself in the white supremacists?

Chatty review of Cosey Fanni Tutti's new memoir: Art Sex Music

Image: The cover of "Art Sex Music" which is a black and white retro photo with a slightly green tint of Cosey's face and part of her torso. She is staring into the camera with her hands under her chin. She has several silver rings on some of her fingers and her hair is long and dark. A Red rectangle covers her mouth and inside, white lowercase letters say "art sex music."

Tutti, Cosey Fanni. 2017. Art sex music. Faber And Faber.

If you're reading this, you presumably already know who Cosey Fanny Tutti is: a remarkable artist and musician who's been churning out important, challenging, and hashtag controversial work for nearly half a century as part of, and also apart from, Throbbing Gristle. Now she's blessed us with her memoirs. This book is 502 pages, but I read it in 4 days (busy days at that!). The publisher was kind enough to provide Strig with a review copy last month, but I only read library books. It took my library long enough to buy it, but here we all are.

Cosey is a lifelong diarist, and she drew upon these materials to write her life as she lived it, when she lived it. Here's a video from her publisher wherein she describes her methodology. Below is a condensed, edited conversation Strigiform and I conducted across emails and gchat.

Anarchiteuthis: I was kinda astonished that she started this incredibly active independent life in art and music at age 18.

Strigiform: Yes! I lived a really rowdy rockstar sex/drugs/rocknroll life at a very young age, but I did not keep it together AT ALL in any way even close to the way she did.

Ana: She credits much of her toughness and her approach to brutal logistical and emotional situations to being from Yorkshire. She admits that her family was doing economically better than most of their neighbors, but also she describes playing in bombed out sites, engaging in hooliganism, mischief, and petty crime. During her teen and early adult years she vividly describes the scene in Hull- or rather, the array of scenes. She acquaints you with everyone from the skinheads and Hell's Angels to the radical feminists and gay liberation movements. She said she felt more in line with gay liberation than with feminism. Even though she's a straight woman, I wasn't mad, cuz she doesn't strike me as the kinda straight girl who is annoying at gay bars.

Strig: Agreed.

A: Gay liberation was more party-themed, raucous, and its message was more fun and inclusive (in message if not in practice). Meanwhile one of the defining features of feminism of this era was its prescriptivism and trying to identify, define, and enforce the "Politically Correct" way of life (yes, you can blame lesbians for this. On behalf of lesbians, I apologize).

S: A femme dyke friend of mine was kicked out of a feminist bookstore for wearing lipstick and I knew others who had to keep their strap-ons on the down low because they were a no-no in those communities then. So, I agree with you, that some feminists of that era likely made her feel unwelcome as they did other feminists, women, queers, lesbians, etc.

A: Also she put on "phony lesbian" shows for money, hashtag ally.

S: LOL. I admit there were some cringy straight person things in there. But I mean, she's a straight person, so... haha no higher standard deserved than anyone else.

A: But Cosey's theme in life is just like, don't fucking tell me what to do. I don't blame her for feeling alienated from feminism, particularly as it was practiced then. I wouldn't wanna hang out with Sheila Jeffreys either. Plus Cosey's all about the practice (praxis?). She doesn't have time for idle theory when she's got shit to do.

Meanwhile, her compassion for animals is another theme.

S: When she applies for a job at an animal laboratory right out of high school, the researchers ask her if she likes animals. She says she "adores" them. They, of course, deny her the job. There are also many stories about various animals that Cosey adopted throughout her life that are unfortunately in danger in proximity to Genesis, which we will discuss more later.

A: But also when Wax Trax! assumes she and Chris are vegetarian and send them a request for a track along with animal exploitation literature. And she's like, "well, we weren't, but after that we were!"

Image: The front and back cover of the vinyl for the compilation album "Animal Liberation." The front is a young macaque monkey held in a restraining device shot from the torso up. She is staring tensely off to the left side. The border is red and the top says "Animal Liberation" in white uppercase letters on a black background. The back cover of the album shows an image of a battery cage chicken concentration exploitation facility. Some chickens stretch their heads through the wires atop their cages while others are buried below. All are white with yellow debeaked beaks and reddish orange wattles. One chicken stares into the camera in the foreground. In red and white letters are the credits for the musicians on the album.

S: I love that they were assumed veg and turned veg by Wax Trax!

A: But also where she hides and ultimately gives away her childhood rabbit cuz her asshole dad threatened to eat the creature? And she didn't even have the top tier of worst dads, but bad enough to cause enduring logistical and emotional damage throughout her life.

S: Even while doing all of the domestic tasks, her art work, her sex work, other paid work, dealing with the band, and visiting friends in prison, she's also caring for, and often protecting, the animals she has taken in.

A: THAT FUCKING KILLED ME. All "the boys" got to sit around making art, meanwhile she's out quomodocunquizing, busting her ass at factory work, breathing noxious fumes, taking in piece work, doing office work, sex work, and generally selling her time, labor, and precious energy to keep the band living indoors, eating, and making art.

Then she goes home and has to cook food for everyone, do their shopping, wash their goddamn clothes, clean up after them, and basically be everyone's live in maid. AND she's making art on top of all this, which no one would even acknowledge at the time. Even now, she is robbed of credit for so much of her life's work. She writes, "Home didn't feel like home but like more work."

S: The image of her lugging the cart of laundry up a hill in cold weather is in my head forever. Most of us who have ever struggled know what that is like, but to be doing it alone while an entire group of adults leaves you to it?

A: The "pram" that she uses to haul their laundry gets turned into art and then she's like, "but how do I laundry now?"

S: YES. JEEZ. I know Cosey doesn't want us to be sitting here portraying her as some helpless victim so I hope that is not how this all is coming across.

A: This would be a good time to quote some things she says in a really good Jezebel interview that asks basically everything I wanted to know while reading. Asked about events she describes in her book that a 21st century reader would freely describe as abusive, she all but dismisses it: "I felt strong enough to deal with it. It wasn’t a huge problem to me. It was upsetting at times and I couldn’t understand it, but it wasn’t something that I couldn’t deal with. [...] My problem was making sure I could carry on."

S: I think her approach to modeling and sex work was fascinating. It is interesting because her sex work WAS work. Like, she had very little money and was fiercely independent, so it wasn't some sort of poverty tourism for art. Yet she simultaneously was utilizing the experiences to create art.

A: She doesn't say when she left the sex industry. She just says she resumed stripping 5 months after the birth of her son. I don't know about you, but I pulled up all the songs she mentioned stripping to. It gave me great amusement to imagine how a spooky 70s art lady would dance to those tracks.

S: Oh my. I didn't think to do that! I don't even remember what they were.

A: Just check this one.

S: Amazing. Reading this book and this stuff about Gen I was thinking "Jesus Christ, what a tool! I wonder if everyone else is also a massive tool including my beloved members of Coil." And I'm ok with the truth. Like, even if the truth ruins my two Coil tattoos for me, I still wanna know. In short, I was very relieved when we get to meeting Peter Christopherson (who got his nickname Sleazy FROM COSEY) and he becomes one of her old dear friends. I do think Sleazy should have done a way better job, as I believe all of the people around Gen should have, in standing up to that twerp, but we'll get into Gen later.

As far as I am concerned, Chris, Cosey, and Sleazy were Throbbing Gristle's core, and Genesis was the part time singer and stage performer- an important part that Gen was good at, but one that audiences tend to give way too much credit.

A: I uphold your assessment.

Photo by Linda Nylind for the Guardian, which did a great piece on her.

Image: Cosey sits on the floor, one leg out in front of her, the other bent underneath her, her hands folded on the ground in front of her. She is wearing a black button-down shirt and geometric black and white leggings. Next to her is a guiter leaning against a dresser and behind and beside her are many kinds of music equipment with lots of knobs I am not educated enough on the topic to describe.

S: To have a glimpse into those things was really good for me as a huge Coil fan. And also understanding just how bad John's alcoholism was. Near the end of the book, Cosey details her experiences at the funerals of both John Balance (Geff Rushton) and Sleazy (Peter Christopherson) and I read these parts with tears in my eyes. These accounts were beautiful. The Coil song played at John's funeral, Going Up, has been a song that has meant more to me than I can really express. I got really into Coil shortly after John had died. Ironically, I got into them right after I got clean, which is funny to me. And it was somewhat sad to know I could never meet them or see them live. But I have watched lots of videos thank you internet.

But any time it looks like cool people are cool and together, everything is probably terrible for them too. Because everything is terrible and the world is terrible.

A: Yup! Speaking of which HOW WERE WE INSULATED FROM GEN'S SHITTINESS FOR SO LONG?!

S: Because:

1. Gen fronts bands and is therefore near immune to criticism

2. Music culture lifts up shittastic abusive behavior as does most popular culture.

3. Gen is a whiny baby narcissist who wanted the spotlight while the other members were more interested in the art.

4. Narcissists and abusers often make themselves out to be victims and make people care for them while they abuse.

A: Also Gen is merely a minor cult icon, so information is scarcer than it might be for, like, Christian Bale or Johnny Depp and other celebrated famous men who hit women for fun. Without giving too much away for anyone who hasn't read it yet, Cosey describes violent, manipulative, and generally despicable behavior from Gen, including the use of self-harm/suicide threats as manipulation, cat throwing, and at least two events Strig and I recognize as attempted murder. I can't say that any of it really surprised me once I read it, but JEEZUS FUCK.

S: Her story shows how people in abusive relationships are often forced to choose between abuse and dissolution of everything in their life. Basically she had to choose between leaving Gen and losing all the art shit with COUM, TG, etc., or staying there and getting to be present with that stuff.

A: As she responds to Jezebel, "What was I supposed to do, give everything up? [...] It was an extremely complicated situation and I was out there on my own. I had no family or anything. That relationship was my family, so I protected it."

No reason to believe Gen will ever change. Gen slapped Cosey & Chris with a frivolous lawsuit in 2013. And in 2006 Gen was publicly taking credit for all of Cosey's modeling and tampons!

S: Oh yes, the lawsuits! And the tampons. Seriously. SERIOUSLY TAMPONS. Gen believed they owned Cosey's body so much that Gen literally owned the cotton used to mop up menstrual blood. Are you fucking kidding me?

A: The whole thing is nauseating. The financial stuff especially infuriates me. Cosey, Chris, and Sleazy were POURING out their time, energy, and money from their own pockets to make the TG reunion work, and Gen could barely be arsed to show up. When Gen DID show up, it would be with a demand for extra special payments, clauses counter to everything the group had previously agreed to, it was just endless.

S: And here's where I get angry at the other men. Sleazy and Chris and all other men- I knew you were all also under Gen's grip and manipulation, but when you see someone doing this to a woman over a period of years, how could you stand by and do nothing? I mean, at least Chris talked to Cosey and stuck up for her a little bit. But overall, they didn't do enough. That's normal, though. No one ever does enough.

A: Yup! Abysmal that that's just what you get for building your life around men.

S: I wish she said what heart condition it was! I want us to be heart electric abnormality friends. That doesn't sound very fun actually.

A: You mentioned you saw people on the internet talking about her book? And they're all mad that she's "grudging" and "trashing" Gen?

S: On goodreads there are some men on there upset by the book. They say it focuses too much on the abuse, or is "one-sided," or is "grudge" bearing, or didn't focusing on the technical aspects enough. I guess these bros wanted her to be like, "everything was good and nice! Then we plugged this synth into this thing and this other thing made noise. Then we did this, and then we made noise with this. And then we did an interview here, and then we played this show."

A: LOLOLOLOL

S: And yes, there was some of that, but how fucking boring would that have been without context? I don't know if they are coming from fanboyism or if they just wanted a computer science book, but I found their comments to be annoying and showing a lack of comprehension. I am annoyed by gossip when it is only for the sake of gossip or shit talk.

A: I love gossip and shit talk. It's why I'm so attracted to the genre of memoir!

S: But Cosey is obviously not doing this to ruin Gen's life. She did this to tell the story of these art forms and her life- her actual story that includes all the artists and the obstacles they faced. One of the biggest fucking obstacles was Genesis P-Orridge.

Part of the problem with these men: Cosey is only allowed to function as a part of TG. Which is exactly what Gen wanted her as- a tool.

A: And a used tampon generator. CUZ THAT WAS ALL GEN'S IDEA.

S: Art Sex Music was Gen's idea, I am sure we will find out.

A: "But you're my battery- I feed off you," she quotes Gen as saying when she's trying to leave their relationship. Shudder.

Early into the book, it was quite obvious to me that she was trying to fairly redistribute credit and attribution for COUM and TG works wherever it was due- even for her own name. While she'd been going by Cosey, short for Gen's naming her Cosmosis, it was one of her mail art buddies who took to calling her Cosey Fanni Tutti (a reference to Mozart's 1790 comic opera Così fan tutte, which is about how you and your buddy can seduce each other's fiancees if you dress up as Albanians).

S: I thought about the name a lot and I am very glad that a mail art friend rerouted Gen’s culty name bestowal. She recounts such fun exchanges between her mail art friends, in stark contrast to Genesis’ Manson-esque re-naming.

A: Right? Like naming someone is generally an act of ownership.

Meanwhile, you and I talked about how to reconcile Gen's lived trans-ness with a long docket of bad deeds that men do, and the fact that Cosey calls Gen "he." Indeed, everyone close to Gen I've heard or read, including Lady Jaye, called Gen "he." It's probable that Gen doesn't give a fuck. The Jezebel interviewer asks Cosey about this, to which she responds, "I know some transgender people and they’re not like Gen." I giggled, cuz basically yeah. Also this whole thing makes me feel dirty for appreciating the Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye documentary when I saw it, and also for attending a Psychic TV show last fall.

S: As the Resident Trans Person on the Panel who speaks for all Trans people,* all trans people are different and come from different backgrounds. Some trans people have fluid genders- meaning that their gender changes throughout their life whereas other trans people have a more static gender identity.

Transgender people, like all people, can also be horrifically shitty despite their marginalized status. So, I do think Cosey walks a very dangerous line by claiming Genesis cannot be X gender since Genesis was/is abusive. She doesn’t directly say this but gets close. But, there also seems to be a common thread in Genesis’ “Pandrogyne” identity that opens it up to this kind of criticism.

We discuss trans people's life experiences through cisgender lenses. Often, in trying to make cis hets** and gatekeepers*** believe we are real people deserving of respect and validation, we reduce our lived experiences to shorter soundbites. Our actual experiences tend to be long ranges of nuanced events with big changes throughout that cis people don't have, even though we use their gendered narratives as our guide for validation of our genders. Gen was allowed to act that way because Gen moved through the world as a white man, facilitating, allowing, possibly motivating Gen’s abusive actions toward women. I know it is dangerous to talk about that way because Gen now moves through the world being seen as a trans feminine person. But there is no way Cosey would have been allowed to act the way Gen did in TG. That's just a fact.

Also this is my goodreads review.

A: Ha! This is the first I'm seeing of it. But yeah, this book is amazing, Cosey is amazing, read the fucking book, and don’t let its heft frighten you because it goes quickly. 
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*This is a joke alluding to the reality that randos often assume a marginalized person is representative of their entire demographic.

**“Cis hets” is LGBTQ slang for “Cisgender Heterosexicals” and means people who identify with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth (for example: a woman who is not intersex who was assigned female at birth) who are straight.

***Gatekeepers are mostly medical professionals, along with some other authority figures, actuated by an interest in making trans people fit normative gender roles and parrot specific trans narratives to gain acceptance.