trans*autobiography and the slippery nature of truth

i have written here before of the slippery nature of trans*narratives and autobiography and i have always wanted to write an autobiography without a narrative which can be unpicked or relied on.

i finally began work on this today.

the completed text will be printed with some passages cut out, sections cut from pages, pages printed on transparencies and any other trick i can think of to break the narrative.

this is the first draft of page one

the past comes back to haunt you

quite some time ago i parted ways with a label owner over their increasing drift towards far right politics. before this they had asked to publish my harsh noise work so my own bandcamp could be given over to drone and improvisation.

i will not go into the particulars of the dispute with this person and that is not the subject of this post.

when my work was deleted from their label i republished it as two separate albums - one dealing with drone and the other with harsh noise but, at the time, i believed three albums to be lost including one of the releases under my harsh noise wall side project green shadow.

thankfully two of those albums where found on an external drive and have been republished on my own bandcamp.

sadly one album, the deeply personal 'three christmas ghosts' (where i spoke about my brother's death and seeing the woman who had raped me several years previously) is lost and may be lost for good. perhaps it is fitting that an album about letting go of pain should itself fade away, a poetic end to it's life but still something in the back of my mind wants it to be preserved. alas it appears this is not to be so.

a few points on this album: the sound quality is not fantastic as it comes from mp3s converted to flac files and some of the files where uploaded as mono tracks even though i sent the individual stereo tracks. to get over this i i copied the mono track, panned each track to different channels and created a false stereo track much as you will find in early stereo releases (i myself have one of these in the shape of the rolling stones 'his satanic majesties request.') this should be thought of as an archive release rather than as part of any ongoing projects or thematic concerns.

in praise of knowledge (aka. 'your work is pretentious' yea, like i care)

i've been accused of pretension recently and it's hardly been the first time.

i don't mind, indeed the term has taken on a meaning for many, particularly anti-intilectuals, which makes it a badge of honour: it no longer means that you parade knowledge that you do not have but that you are not afraid to show what knowledge you possess.

while i have no desire to alienate people by talking over their heads i am not willing to keep my interests in history, philosophy, film, literature, music and poetry out of my work and will explain where my ideas have came from rather than (as an elitist would) assume knowledge.

i know a little about and am interested in the history of fascism in europe so i felt it was not pretentious to produce a three part work on the subject.

i have lived with the often obtuse text of t.s. eliot's 'four quartets' for most of my adult life so felt i could produce work around that subject

i have read quite a bit on early 20th century exploration of the north and south poles so felt i could produce work around that subject

i have both read about the marian cult and was brought up catholic so i felt i could produce work around that subject

i have read much anglo-saxon poetry and prose so...well you get the picture.

i see no problem with handling complex issues and i have no problem with people having greater knowledge than me. likewise i have no problem with obscure and difficult musical forms such as drone, minimalism and free improvisation so why should i produce work other than that which interests me?

the academy often seeks to limit access to culture and learning to those outside it's circle and this is met by an equal but sadly not opposite force outside the academy which seeks to shame those who look to gain knowledge. i will have no part of either.

when i was growing up my parents would do what they could to feed my interest in literature and felt a great pride in my growing intellect. i still remember my father taking me to buy two bookcases and proudly telling everyone in the shop that i 'liked to read.' no one should be ashamed of knowledge either having knowledge, seeking knowledge or having little knowledge in a field but wanting more.  

my work is pretentious? yea like i care.