THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Sanity is a matter of consensus.”― Robert Sheckley
I started this newsletter initially because my friend Jonathan Abrams created a news website that had a newsletter feature that I wanted to explore. I grew the newsletter to showcase a longer written preamble after my friend Ken Shipley at the Numero Group encouraged me to write more regularly with the credo that twenty of minutes of writing a day would better one’s “penmanship”. I think to a large degree he is right. After almost a year of these longer posts, they do come more naturally…more fluid…and I would encourage anyone interested in bettering the writing muscle to start a newsletter and speak what is on top of mind (substack makes it easy).
HOWEVER, there are some writing assignments that still come hard. I type these words as I watch my wife, mere feet away, designing the Specialty boxset we have been working on for so long. It is getting nearer to the finish line and it is just going to be beautiful (which is not unexpected given her designing talents). And then there is my final piece: the introductory essay that will frame the project, linking the essays that have been written for the project over the last decade…the essay where I will talk about why I began work on this project in the first place and propose to move the date of the big bang of rock n roll to an earlier time (which will be controversial). And I have had the hardest time finishing it…making it flow smoothly while including everything I want to say. Even explaining what I am trying to do in words right now, right here, is easier for me than writing this final piece.
It has been 13 years in the making, this boxset on the early days of Specialty Records. And maybe the epic trail this project has taken and how much it means to me has contributed to my stuck-factor. It is almost…ALMOST…done. So close. Now I just need to finally nail down this last piece. This is the weekend it’s gotta happened…Barb needs it to finish designing the book. If there is one thing many writers have told me: deadlines are sometimes the best things to break the block. Wish me luck.
An excerpt from Genesis P-Orridge's "Non-Binary"
Gen’s memoir was released a few weeks ago and from what I have read so far is a great representation of the artist. Imagine their intense eyes staring you down as they tell of their life accomplishments. Egotistical? Yes. But also true? Yes. Gen was ahead of the game on so many cultural phenomenons. And then there is the music they made: crazy beautiful confrontational timeless. Their work is so cutting edge, with some of it still so “out-there” for many who come in contact with it for the first time. But the world is catching up to Gen, and having a voice like theirs helps us all evolve.
This story is excerpted and adapted from “Women on Waves: A Cultural History of Surfing From Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions” by Jim Kempton, published in July 2021 by Pegasus Books.
Phyllis Diller’s joke cards are in The Smithsonian and available to read online
I was lucky enough to attend Diller’s Friar’s Club roast where an elderly Red Buttons dropped his trousers and preceded to, strait-faced, tell an alternative reality Phyllis life-story ending with just saying that she was the funniest human of all-time. These joke cards are just amazing.
Mirus Gallery Celebrates its Grand Re-Opening with "Phoenix Rising"
As the world continues to open up (please let it continue!) the great Mirus Gallery in San Francisco is having it’s first post-pandemic opening tonight with a group exhibition featuring artists old and new. Oh yeah.
WEEKEND LISTEN: Link Wray: s/t (1971)
Known for his 50’s instrumentals, namely the game-changer RUMBLE which still can be heard regularly bleeding out of the soundtracks of films and tv shows, Wray constantly reinvented his sound with some incredible, criminally under-appreciated records in the early 70s. I had been listening to his 1973 album Fatback and Beans a lot recently—which is not available on either spotify or youtube in its full splendor (you can hear some of it here but it really needs the full listen)—leading me back to his 1971 self-titled beauty where he distances himself from his early guitar stylings and takes on the mastership of swampy, groovy Americana recorded as his own studio, "Wray's Shack Three Track" which was a converted chicken coop on his farm. This record is soooo fine.
When we were corresponding about a possible podcast, Genesis P-Orridge laid out via e-mail how each episode would celebrate a part of their life art. I know they would be fine with me sharing this part of it (I had asked them). The spelling has not been changed since Gen played with spelling as they played with all of our conceptions of reality:
> (The first episode) Focussed more on music and certain important events like thee UK establishment destroying my life there with totally invented allegations that were later admitted. Causing my exile to USA in 1992.
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> Then the PROSTITUTION exhibition that is now largely accepted as thee most seminal art scandal of last century in thee UK.
>
> My inventing and naming INDUSTRIAL MUSIC and TG (Throbbing Gristle) is one / two episodes.
>
> My prosecution for obscene postcards ov our Queen and mail art/ life art another.
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> Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth another.
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> Our championing ov piercing and tattooing and body modification through Modern Primitives book ( our idea)
> with Bale. From ultra secret gay fetish to global phenomenon, now commonplace accesories.
>
> My championing ov Magick and ritual through 80’s is still being amplified. Which we named OCCULTURE.
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> My PANDROGENY end of gender, we first wrote about in 1986 and predicted thee inevitable dissolving of either or gender. identity models.
>
> There’s a few easy powerful episodes. It can work.
> Not many young people realise how really deeply we have adjusted populist culture.
> We call this CULTURAL ENGINEERING
