in memoriam
Timeline
A rough guide to Kathy Acker's life
1947
Kathy Acker was born on 18 April 1947. She was named Karen Lehmann. She was the daughter of Donald Lehman and Clare Weill. Donald left when Clare was three months pregnant.[1]
[1] Obituary: Kathy Acker - Peter Guttridge, The Independent ,Wednesday 3 December 1997
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Her mother remarried Albert A. Alexander[2].
[2] Susan Ware - Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the ..., Volume 5 (2005)
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They lived at Sutton Place, on New York’s affluent and fashionable Upper West Side, Manhattan, 57th Street and First Avenue[3].
[3] A Conversation with Kathy Acker By Ellen G. Friedman, “The Review of Contemporary Fiction,” Fall 1989, Volume 9.3
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1961
At high school Kathy studied Latin and especially enjoyed the works of the poets Catullus and Propertius.[4]
[4] Obituary: Kathy Acker - Peter Guttridge, The Independent ,Wednesday 3 December 1997
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Starts dating P. Adams Sitney[5], who was the editor of Film Culture, the magazine of the New York Film Co-op and he introduced her to his neighbour Gregory Corso.[6]
[5] Interview, San Francisco – 8 June 1991, Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews - Nicholas Zurbrugg (18 May 2004)
[6] Encyclopedia of Beat Literature - Kurt Hemmer (2006)
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He introduced her to the second generation of Black Mountain poets: Robert Kelly, Jackson MacLow and to the work of Charles Olson[7].
[7] Obituary: Kathy Acker - Peter Guttridge, The Independent ,Wednesday 3 December 1997
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He also introduces her to underground film-makers such as: Stan Brakhage, Stan Rice, Gregory Markopolos and Jack Smith.[8],[9]
[8] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
[9] Interview, San Francisco – 8 June 1991, Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews - Nicholas Zurbrugg (18 May 2004)
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A the Film Co-op she also sees Maya Deren’s films on voodoo.[10]
[10] Interview, San Francisco – 8 June 1991, Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews - Nicholas Zurbrugg (18 May 2004)
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1963
Around the same time as the Kennedy assassination Jean Cocteau dies and Kathy is at the Film Co-op for the wake. [11]
[11] Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews – ed Nicholas Zurbrugg (2004)
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1964
Kathy went to Brandeis University to study classics. [12]
[12] Obituary: Kathy Acker - Peter Guttridge, The Independent ,Wednesday 3 December 1997
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There are a lot of radical students at Brandeis – Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman, the weathermen.[13]
[13] Interview, San Francisco – 8 June 1991, Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews - Nicholas Zurbrugg (18 May 2004)
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Her tutor is under Roman Jakobson so she also learns about structuralism. [14]
[14] A Conversation with Kathy Acker – Another Chicago Magazine (ACM) #30 (2010)
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Brandeis is also where she met her first husband Robert L. Acker.[15]
[15] Encyclopedia of Beat Literature - Kurt Hemmer (2006)
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Robert had had been in the historic pot bust of 1963 – along with Alice Webber, Richard Lerman, Walter Klavun, James Silin, and James Grossman.[16]
[16] 6 Brandeis Students Win Narcotic Case Dismissals, New York Times, 4 June 1964
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1966
Kathy married Robert Acker. [17]
[17] Obituary: Kathy Acker – Peter Guttridge, The Independent ,Wednesday 3 December 1997
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The two of them transfer from Brandeis to the University of San Diego following Herbert Marcuse[18] – the famous Frankfurt School Marxist.
[18] One or two things to know about Kathy Acker, The Encyclopedia of Rebels, Mel Freilicher (2013)
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The marriage to Robert Acker pretty much marked the end of her contact with her family. [19],[20]
[19] Obituary: Kathy Acker – Peter Guttridge, The Independent ,Wednesday 3 December 1997
[20] One or two things to know about Kathy Acker, The Encyclopedia of Rebels, Mel Freilicher (2013)
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In college Acker was involved in Students for a Democratic Society. [21]
[21] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
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1967
Received a BA in classics from UCSD.[22]
[22] Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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1968
David and Eleanor Antin move to San Diego University[23] and Kathy studies poetry and writing with David ‘apprenticing’ herself to him. [24]
[23] David Antin talking on Kathy Acker, 11/08/02 - https://vimeo.com/4446934
[24] One or two things to know about Kathy Acker, The Encyclopedia of Rebels, Mel Freilicher (2013)
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Studied at UCSD Department of Literature (1968-1970). [25]
[25] Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Kathy also started reading William Burroughs, in particular the articles that were collected into ‘The Third Mind’, which explained his cut-up method.[26]
[26] When She Does what She Does: Intertextual Desire and Influence in Kathy Acker - Douglas A Martin, 2007
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1970
At around this time she is working on ‘Rip-Off Red Girl Detective’.[27]
[27] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
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Her stationery is letter-headed with the return address: “Red’s Detective Agency, Inc.” [28]
[28] When She Does what She Does: Intertextual Desire and Influence in Kathy Acker - Douglas A Martin, 2007
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Having mailed out a section of the Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula she receives a card from Bernardette Mayer which says: “New book Great, but make ‘em longer.” [29]
[29] When She Does what She Does: Intertextual Desire and Influence in Kathy Acker - Douglas A Martin, 2007
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1971
Kathy was in San Diego and helped Eleanor Antin with her 100 Boots project[30] (which began in 1971 and took two years to complete[31]). This was a form of mail art. Kathy also used of Eleanor’s mailing list to send her own work (The Black Tarantula) to many of the most influential critics and artists in America[32]. Mel Freilicher also shared John Perreault’s mailing list with Kathy.
[30] David Antin talking on Kathy Acker, 11/08/02
[31] http://100boots.blogspot.co.uk/
[32] David Antin talking on Kathy Acker, 11/08/02
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Kathy ran off to New York with Lenny Neufeld (at the time he was married to Martha Rosler) [33].
They lived in an apartment above Jerome and Dianne Rothenberg[34],[35]. At that time Jerome and Dianne were in the process of putting together ‘America a Prophesy’ with George Quasha[36]. This was a huge, anthology of American poetics and Kathy and Lenny spent a lot of time helping them with the book and its layout and learning a lot about poetry in the process.
[33] David Antin talking on Kathy Acker, 11/08/02
[34] David Antin talking on Kathy Acker, 11/08/02
[35] Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews – ed Nicholas Zurbrugg (2004)
[36] David Antin talking on Kathy Acker, 11/08/02
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This is also the period when Kathy first started working in the sex industry, first as a model and then as a performer in a sex show on 42nd Street[37]. She also started attending the poetry sessions at St Marks Church, but felt very culturally separated from the people there. [38]
[37] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
[38] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
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During this period she is workings on her piece ‘Politics’ and some of The Black Tarantula work. ‘Politics’ in particular drew on hr experiences on 42nd Street.
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Kathy studied at New York University Classics Department[39], though, according to her friend Mel Freilicher, she probably studied philosophy.
[39] Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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1972
Published her first book – Politics. [40]
[40] Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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During readings at St. Mark’s, Kathy read parts from the diary section of Politics, in which she used what she called ‘cut-ins’ – these were material, such as dreams, political commentary, and her life as a sex worker. They would ‘cut in’ abruptly interrupting one narrative with another, creating a collage effect. This new methodology followed on from her readings of Third Mind by William S. Burroughs and added to her conceptualist experiments.
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Kathy discontinued her studies at NYU and moved back to San Diego[41] where she began living with Peter Gordon. Peter was studying composition at UCSD under Kenneth Gaburo and Roger Reynolds[42].
[41] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
[42] http://www.lovely.com/bios/gordon.html
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Sylvère Lotringer moved to New York in 1972 to teach at Columbia University. Lotringer had completed his doctorate in 1967 at the École pratique des hautes études supervised by Roland Barthes and Lucien Goldmann. He then taught in Australia, before bringing French Theory to the US.
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1973
Published Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula By the Black Tarantula. [43]
[43] Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula was republished by Sol LeWitt and Printed Matter, who became Kathy Acker’s publisher for several years.[44]
[44] Interview, San Francisco – 8 June 1991, Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews - Nicholas Zurbrugg (18 May 2004)
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Sylvère Lotringer founded a journal with a group of Columbia students entitled Semiotext(e) in 1973.[45]
[45] Under the Sign of Semiotext(e): The Story According to Sylvere Lotringer and Chris Kraus http://www.designingculture.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Balsamo_Critique_1996_Semiotexte.pdf
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1974
Published: I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining. [46]
[46] Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Kathy and Peter Gordon moved to the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco when Peter Gordon started graduate studies at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, where he studied with Terry Riley and Robert Ashley, who organised the ONCE Festival in Ann Arbor with Roger Reynolds, Gordon Mumma, and other local composers and artists. Kathy starts learning about the techniques of cutting edge modern music. At this time Kathy was writing Great Expectations.[47]
[47] Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews – ed Nicholas Zurbrugg (2004)
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Kathy produced Blue Tape (film) with Alan Sondheim.[48]
[48] http://www.lightindustry.org/bluetape
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1975
Kathy moves to New York with Peter Gordon[49]. They hang out with the avant-garde scene on the Lower East Side.
[49] http://www.lovely.com/bios/gordon.html
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Received a Creative Artists' Public Services Program New York State Grant For Fiction (1975-1976). [50]
[50] Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Kathy participated in the Schizo-Culture conference (13-16 November 1975) at Columbia University organised by Sylvère Lotringer and the Semiotext(e) collective. This conference introduced many of the most prominent French literary theorists and philosophers to America. It featured: Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jean-François Lyotard, Sylvère Lotringer and also included: William Burroughs, Robert Wilson, and John Cage plus many more.[51]
[51] https://monoskop.org/Schizo-Culture
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"Tasting and Spitting" Performance by Kathy Acker and Lil Picard, 3 Mercer Street, NYC, 29 November 1975. Picard, wearing a white afro wig adorned with bits of parsley, mixed unpleasant newspaper articles with water, nutmeg and Pepto-Bismol in a blender. She then spoon-fed this goo to Acker, who spat it out, sometimes at the audience, some of who left to avoid getting their expensive clothes stained.[52]
[52] http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/kley/lil-picard5-14-10.asp
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The performance is featured in the Village Voice.[53]
[53] http://uima.uiowa.edu/lilpicard/a-performance-by-lil-picard-and-kathy-acker-village-voice/
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1976
Kathy’s Step-father died.
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Peter Gordon performed his first symphony, ‘Symphony in Four Movements’, at New York’s new-music centre, The Kitchen (484 Broome St, NYC) on 4 February 1976, with a band that included Kathy Acker, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Arthur Russell and Rhys Chatham.[54]
[54] http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/prod/PeterGordon-Symphony5-Foom-100975.html
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As the result of a health scare, where Kathy thought that she had cancer, she married Peter Gordon.[55]
[55] Research #13: Angry Women – A.Juno & V.Vale, 1991
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It is probably around this time that Kathy comes across punk rock and starts going to CBGBs, which is mentioned in Blood and Guts in High School.
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Kathy begins to perform her work. Along with the writers Lynne Tillman and Constance De- Jong, Acker began to perform in bookstores and clubs like the Kitchen, the Mudd Club, and CBGBs. This group of writers also published their work in the magazines such as X, Top Stories, Evergreen, Benzene Between C &D and later Bomb (from 1981) which Acker’s friend Betsy Sussler ran. [56]
[56] Death (and Life) of the Author - Peter Wollen on Kathy Acker, London Review of Books, Vol. 20, No. 3, 5 February 1998
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Kathy Acker performs with Diego Cortez at the Kitchen, NYC and also at the artists’ reading ‘Live or Dead,’ at Franklin Furnace, NYC.[57]
[57] https://diegocortezlostobject.wordpress.com/
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Sylvère Lotringer introduces Acker to the works of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari. Anti-Oedipus becomes her bible for a couple of years.[58]
[58] Interview and Reading hosted by Charles Bernstein at SUNY-Buffalo as part of the Wednesdays @ 4 Plus Series, April 12, 1995
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1977
2 February 1977, Kathy Acker performed at the Western Front, Vancouver, Canada and read from: Fairy Tale Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec, Raw Heat and Kathy Goes to Haiti.[59]
[59] https://vimeo.com/39280856
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Kathy wrote the lyrics for two songs: ‘Lullabye’ and ‘I’m Dreaming in the Sun and Dreaming in the Moon’ for Peter Gordon’s album ‘Star Jaws’.
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The relationship with Peter Gordon breaks up. [60]
[60] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
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Kathy starts going out with Sylvère Lotringer.[61]
[61] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
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Kathy wrote and copyrighted Blood and Guts in High School, but could not get it published. In My Death, My Life by Pier Paolo Passolini she suggests that it is because the publisher (probably Station Hill) wanted to change it and remove all the violence.
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Kathy Acker taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and Karen Finley was one of her students.[62]
[62] Shock Treatment (Revised edition), Karen Finley, 2015
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Sunday, December 4, 1977, Kathy Acker: Blood and Guts in High School, at Hallwalls, 341 Delaware Ave. Buffalo, NY. Kathy Acker read from Blood and Guts in High School and presented her video work.[63]
[63] http://www.hallwalls.org/perflit/449.html
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1978
Published: Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec, Florida, Kathy Goes To Haiti.
Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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At the height of punk insurgency the writer Kathy Acker, wearing a Farrah Fawcett T-shirt with the eyes burned out, stood outside Studio 54 and hurled abuse at people going in.[64]
[64] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/magazine/the-party.html
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Mudd Club opened by Steve Mass, art curator Diego Cortez and downtown punk scene figure Anya Phillips[65]. The opening night is on Halloween.[66]
[65] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudd_Club
[66] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/magazine/the-party.html
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Diego and Anya are close friends with Kathy.
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Anya also managed James White and the Contortions[67], who are also friends[68].
[67] http://thequietus.com/articles/04586-james-chance-interview-twist-your-soul
[68] Kathy Acker Interview, Fist, #1, 1988
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Kathy divorced Peter Gordon.[69],[70] (Note – the divorce may be later, in the 1983 Bomb Magazine interview with Mark Magill Kathy publicly asks Peter for a divorce, in the Sylvère Lotringer interview she initially says that she was with Peter until 1980, but then says she split up with him in 1977).
[69] Encyclopedia of Beat Literature – Kurt Hemmer (2006)
[70] Obituary: Kathy Acker – Peter Guttridge, The Independent ,Wednesday 3 December 1997
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On Christmas Eve 1978 her mother suicided.
(This is the date given in Great Expectations, this is roughly confirmed in an interview in East Village Eye, Vol. 3 No. 22, June 1982, and also in the Arena documentary.)
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Performed “The Diseased” and “The Slave Trader” from Blood and Guts in High School at Poem Talk in Greenwich Village, New York City.[71]
[71] http://jacket2.org/podcasts/me-no-one-will-take-poemtalk-88
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On 13 November 1978 Kathy Acker read with Lorenzo Thomas at the Ear Inn as part of the Segue Series.[72]
[72] http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Ear-Inn.php
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1979
In September of 1979 her grandmother (mother’s side) dies.[73]
[73] Great Expectations
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Monday, December 10, 1979, Fiction Diction: Kathy Acker and Sylvere Lotringer at: Hallwalls, 341 Delaware Ave. Buffalo, NY. Reading of new work by Kathy Acker, back by popular demand, and a reading by Sylvere Lotringer, French philosopher and editor of Semio-Texte. Sylvere Lotringer was a no show, so this was really a solo reading by Kathy Acker.[74]
[74] http://www.hallwalls.org/perflit/669.html
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On 12 and 13 December 1979 Kathy Acker did an interview with Robert Creeley and a talk at SUNY-Buffalo. This is available as MP3 where Acker discusses and reads from Pierre Guyotat's Eden Eden Eden.[75]
[75] http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Acker.php
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1980
Worked as an instructor at The San Francisco Art Institute, Video and Performance Department (1980-1981).
Guide to the Kathy Acker Papers, 1972-1997 and undated - http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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October 1980, Kathy Acker was living at 111 Bell Street, Seattle.
Spread Wide, Kathy Acker and Paul Buck, 2004
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1981
April 1981 working on Research magazine and living at 70 Langton Street, San Francisco.
Spread Wide, Kathy Acker and Paul Buck, 2004
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Anya Phillips died, 19 June 1981.[76]
[76] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anya_Phillips
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August 1981, Kathy Acker curates “Extravaganza” with Factrix and Lyn Hejinian as writer-in-residence at New Langton Arts, a former coffin factory at 80 Langton Street, San Francisco.[77]
Published: N.Y.C. in 1979.[78]
[78] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Won the Pushcart Prize for her short story New York City in 1979.[79],[80]
[79] http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/fales/acker/bioghist.html
[80] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Fall of 1981 – moved to San Francisco, staying with Denise Kastan of Small Press Traffic.[81]
[81] Robert Gluck – Long Note on New Narrative, Biting the Error, 2004
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Jeff Weinstein is one of the founders of the National Writer’s Union and so Kathy joins as Jeff is one of her friends.[82]
[82] Kathy Acker by Mark Magill, BOMB #6, Summer 1983
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1982
Started bodybuilding and trained with Lisa Lyon.
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European poetry tour with John Cooper Clarke and UK tour with John Cooper Clarke, Attila the Stockbroker, Benjamin Zephania, plus an appearance at the third Poetry Olympics at the Young Vic in London in October 1982.[83]
[83] Interview, Kathy Acker, NME, 22 Jan1983
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1983
Published: Great Expectations. [84]
[84] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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The publishing of Great Expectations was self-financed, through Re/Search magazine. There were problems as Vale pre-paid the printer without a contract. The printer only produced 300 copies and refused to give back the boards. Then the book started to get great reviews, including one by Alain Robbe-Grille, who says: "the most completely unified work of art Acker has yet produced. One that by its formal concentration and its unified shape at every depth of reading fulfils the sort of demands that Sterne or Canetti makes of the novelist.”
Spread Wide, Kathy Acker and Paul Buck, 2004
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Worked with Robert Mapplethorpe on photos.[85]
[85] Kathy Acker Documentary by Alan Benson, 1984
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1984
Published: Algeria: A Series of Invocations Because Nothing Else Works and Blood and Guts in High School.[86]
[86] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Moved to London.[87],[88]
[87] Kathy Acker, Novelist and Performance Artist, 53, By RICK LYMAN, New York Times, 3 December 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/03/arts/kathy-acker-novelist-and-performance-artist-53.html
[88] In the tradition of Cervantes, sort of, New York Times Book Review, 30 November 1986
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Dated Alan Jenkins, the poet, who was also the poetry and fiction editor at the Times Literary Supplement.[89]
[89] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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Kathy had also briefly dated Melissa Benn and had gone with her in tuxedos to the Women's Ball at Islington Town Hall. [90]
[90] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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Appeared in the Richard Strange video for his single ‘Damascus’, which was filmed at the Fridge in Brixton.[91]
[91] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf6h_BbmhgU
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Performed at ICA with Psychic TV on 1 August 1984.[92]
[92] https://www.discogs.com/Psychic-TV-Kathy-Acker-The-Ica-1-8-84/release/5335358
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1985
Kathy worked with Richard Foreman on Ma Mort, Ma Vie, de Pier Paolo Pasolini, a play version of My Life, My Death, which was presented at the Theatre de la Bastille, Paris, 5 February to3 March 1985 and then toured to Lille, Bordeaux, Prato and Bari.[93]
[93] http://www.ontological.com/plays.html
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May 1985 performed at Thee Fabulous Feast Ov Flowering Light at London's Hammersmith Palais a day-long event with Psychic TV. The Virgin Prunes, (the pre-Sugarcubes) KUKL, Bee The Process, The Death and Beauty Foundation.[94]
[94] http://www.compulsiononline.com/PsychicTV_Haciendaplus.htm
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July 1985 Kathy’s Lulu Unchained is performed at the ICA London[95]. Directed by Peter Brooks and with music by Jeremy Peyton Jones.[96]
[95] BLITZ magazine, issue no 34 Sept 1985
[96] http://www.jeremypeytonjones.com/works-list.html
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Summer 1985 Kathy is in Paris.[97]
[97] BLITZ magazine, issue no 34 Sept 1985
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Collaboration with the Ontological Hysterical Theatre, who produce her opera Birth of a Poet, directed by Richard Foreman with music by Peter Gordon; as part of the 1985 Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival at the BAM Opera House on 4 December 1985.[98],[99],[100]
[98] http://www.ontological.com/film.html
[99] Opera: 'Birth of a Poet,' Avant-Garde, by John Rockwell , New York Times, 5 December 1985: http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/05/arts/opera-birth-of-a-poet-avant-garde.html
[100] When Avant-Garde Meets Mainstream, by Stephen Holden, New York Times, 29 September 1985: http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/29/arts/when-avant-garde-meets-mainstream.html?pagewanted=all
1986
Published: Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream (1986). [101]
[101] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Friday 13 March 1986, Kathy Acker was supported by Husker Du at Newcastle Riverside.
The German courts banned Blood and Guts in High School for being a threat to minors.[102]
[102] Hannibal Lecter, My Father (1991)
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Interviewed Alasdair Gray at the ICA.[103]
[103] http://www.alasdairgray.info/q_03.htm
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Saturday 3 May 1986 — Friday 30 May 1986, By Request: Performance, Music, Fiction, at: Hallwalls, 341 Delaware Ave. Buffalo, NY. Video viewing room featured show including performers: Yoshiko Chuma, Hal Barbar, John Jesurun, Spalding Gray, and Ethyl Eichelberger; musicians Christian Marclay, Pauline Oliveros, Ben Neil, Scott Johnson, Jerry Hunt, Glenn Branca, and Yvar Mikhashoff, and fiction writers/readers Constance DeJong, Jay Cantor, Mark Leyner, Marianne Hauser, and Kathy Acker.[104]
[104] http://www.hallwalls.org/media-arts/1292.html
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Kathy Acker talks to Peter Wollen at ICA London about Don Quixote; 8/5/86.[105]
[105] http://www.marysialewandowska.com/waa/detail.php?id=4913
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Psychic TV and Kathy Acker performed at Heaven, Charing Cross, London on 23 December 1986.
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1987
Published: Literal Madness: Three Novels and Wordplays 5 : An Anthology of New American Drama.[106]
[106] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Kathy went to the Groucho Club with Roz Kaveney and Neil Gaiman for the launch of Bret Easton Ellis’s Rules of Attraction. [107]
[107] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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Kathy got involved with various people from the Titan Books crowd. She had affairs with Nick Landau, the boss of Titan and Forbidden Planet bookstore, and Igor Goldkind, the publicist. Kathy recycled one date with Nick, transcribing a conversation in which he had talked at length about grinding the faces of his work force, she later included it in In Memoriam to Identity. [108]
[108] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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ICA London, David Cunningham with Kathy Acker, 1987.[109]
[109] http://www.stalk.net/piano/adcbio2.htm
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November 1987, Kathy interviews Juan Goytisolo and then on Thursday 19 November discusses Goytisolo’s ‘Landscapes After the Battle’ with David Widgery and Tariq Ali on BBC2’s ‘Cover to Cover’. [110]
[110] Signs of Identity, Kathy Acker Interviews Juan Goytisolo, City Limits, 5-12 November 1987, #318
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1988
Published: Empire of the Senseless (1988). [111]
[111] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Kathy provided a message of support for Alan Moore’s project – AARGH (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia) which was published in March 1988 in protest against Clause 28, a British law which was designed to outlaw the promotion of homosexuality. [112]
[112] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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Kathy is a regular at the S&M club Maitresse. [113]
[113] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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Performed – The Tell Tale Heart – with Captain Sensible (Narrator), Peter Sinclair (Mechanical Orchestra), Liz Aggis (Choreographer/Dancer), Roger Ely (Film-maker/Poet), Grand Theatre of Lemmings (Cabaret Theatre), Holly Warburton (Images) and Ian Smith.; at the Purcell Rooms, South Bank Centre, 9 - 16 September.[114]
[114] City Limits, #362, 8-15 September 1988
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June 1988 Kathy Acker interviewed with William S. Burroughs at October Gallery in London (1 June–2nd July 1988) at the inaugural show of his shotgun paintings, filmed by Fenella Greenfield.[115]
[115] http://theendofbeing.com/2011/11/07/william-s-burroughs-with-kathy-acker-a-filmed-interview/
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Kathy is in Robert Finch’s video about Robert Mapplethorpe.
Arena – Robert Mapplethorpe (1988)
KA opens the programme reading Arthur Rimbaud's 'Season In Hell'[116]
[116] https://vimeo.com/96609085
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1989
Paris, 03/02/1989 photo-shoot with Sophie Bassouls.[117]
[117] http://www.sophiebassouls.com/index.php?page=ecrivains&langue=en&alias=Acker_Kathy_1989-02-03
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Published Young Lust. [118]
[118] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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A journalist at Publishing News noticed the sections of Young Lust that were a reworking of The Pirate by Harold Robbins. Her editor at Pandora – Kate Figes – did not understand the importance of the cut-up method to Kathy’s early work and panics over copyright issues under pressure from Harold Robbins’s agent. The whole thing developed into a huge row and Young Lust was pulped.[119]
[119] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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Following the Young Lust fiasco Kathy moved back to New York. [120]
[120] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
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Starts getting tattoos. [121]
[121] Devoured by myths, interview by Sylvere Lotringer, 1991 (Hannibal Lecter, My Father)
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May 1989 Kathy Acker teaches a workshop at Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle. It is attended by Kathleen Hannah who Kathy tells to join a band rather than becoming a writer. Kathleen went on to form Bikini Kill and put together the first Riot Grrl fanzine spawning that movement.[122]
[122] Hanna And Her Sisters, by Sasha Frere-Jones, The New Yorker, 26 November 2012
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1990
Published: In Memoriam to Identity. [123]
[123] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Kathy is living at a plush apartment on at 39 East 12th Street, complete with sunken beds. [124]
Continuing to get work done to her tattoos – specifically the chrysanthemum.[125] Tattooist – Jonathon Shaw?[126]
[124] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
[125] Just because cathexys showed an interest, an abortive biography of Kathy Acker by Roz Kaveney: http://rozk.livejournal.com/158882.html
[126] Kathy mentions Shaw in ‘In the Underworld’ – a 1990 article for the New Statesman
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5th to the 9th of June 1990, Word Up Festival, The Knitting Factory, New York City. Kathy headlined on Thursday 7 June, also headlining on other nights were Lydia Lunch and Richard Hell.[127]
[127] http://www.fromthearchives.com/ll/LL06_Jun_90.jpg
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1991
Published: Hannibal Lecter, My Father. [128]
[128] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Interviewed for: Research #13: Angry Women – A.Juno and V.Vale.
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Photo shoot with Bob Berg for cover of Hannibal Lecter My Father in New York in August.[129]
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Becomes an Adjunct Professor, San Francisco Art Institute (1991-1995). [130]
[130] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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December 1991 Kathy Acker goes to Washington and does some readings.[131]
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1992
Becomes interested in French feminism, especially Irigaray and spends three years reading her work and other French feminists such as Cixous.[132]
[132] Interview and Reading at SUNY-Buffalo as part of the Wednesdays @ 4 Plus Series, April 12, 1995
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June 1992 photo-shoot with Ullstein Bild.[133]
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1994
Published: My Mother: Demonology. [134]
[134] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Recorded Pussy September 1994 in Brighton, UK, Released 1995 on CodeX Books and Records, Hove, UK. [135]
[135] http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Acker.php
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Kathy Acker performed – Subversion In The Street Of Shame – a three day event (14-16 July 1994) organised by Paul Smith (founder of Blast first Records). It also included performances by Alan Moore, Stewart Home, Derek Raymond/Robin Cook, Aaron Williamson and others.[136]
[136] https://www.ica.org.uk/blog/interview-paul-smith-subversion-street-shame
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Becomes a Visiting Professor at UCSD, a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and a Visiting Professor, University of Idaho. [137]
[137] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Re-reads Anti-Oedipus in relation to the sections on Antonin Artaud that she is writing in Pussycat Fever. [138]
[138] Interview and Reading at SUNY-Buffalo as part of the Wednesdays @ 4 Plus Series, April 12, 1995
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1994 photo-shoot with Chris Felver in San Francisco.[139]
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September 1994 Kathy Acker is forced to leave town after ‘gun trouble’ while teaching at the University of Idaho.[140]
[140] Interview and Reading at SUNY-Buffalo as part of the Wednesdays @ 4 Plus Series, April 12, 1995
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1995
Published: Pussycat Fever and Dust. [141]
[141] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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Appeared as a guest performer on the Oxbow album Let Me Be a Woman.[142]
[142] https://www.discogs.com/Oxbow-Let-Me-Be-A-Woman/release/2270451
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1996
Published: Pussy, King of the Pirates. [143]
[143] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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April – discovers lumps on her breast and got them removed – biopsy confirms breast cancer, she had a full mastectomy.[144]
[144] http://charlesshaarmurray.com/journalism/tha-kulcha/kathy-acker-remembered/
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July – moved back to London.[145]
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1997
Published: Bodies of Work : Essays. [146]
[146] http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/acker/
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May 1997 Kathy’s Interview with the Spice Girls is published in the Guardian.[147]
[147] All Girls Together, The Guardian, 3 May 1997
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September 1997, Kathy did four performances of "Pussy, King of the Pirates" with the Mekons in Chicago.[148]
[148] http://www.mekons.de/pirate.htm
Died 30 November 1997 (aged 50), Tijuana, Mexico
Post-Mortem
The Kathy Acker Papers are established at Duke University Library, in Durham, North Carolina. This contains 3,860 items (2015). It comprises of, for the most part, of manuscript drafts of her novels, short stories, and other miscellaneous writings, including Acker's spiralbound notebooks recording dreams, fantasies and events. It also includes audio cassettes (primarily recordings of interviews or lectures given by Acker), correspondence (twenty-five letters from other poets and writers, including Andrei Codrescu, Kenneth Rexroth, Jack Hirschman, Fielding Dawson, Ed Dron, Ed Sanders, Laura Chester, Peter Gordon, Rex Pickett, Opal Nations, and Barbara Baracks), and artwork (original artwork for Empire of the Senseless, In Memoriam to Identity, Blood and Guts in High School, I Dreamt I Became a Nymphomaniac, and Pussy, King of the Pirates; plus black and white photographs of Acker by Robert Mapplethorpe and Marcus Leatherdale).
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