I was innocently reading a thing about the Beats in NYC, when I came across the name Genesis P-Orridge.
What a story! Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an artist/provocateur who decided to turn himself into his wife, a dominatrix known at Lady Jaye. They spent $200,000 on surgery and other procedures, in an effort to turn themselves into identical beings who would then metaphorically become a Third Person. Or something.
Lady Jaye died before the project was completed but P-Orridge now refers to him/her self as “we.”
Read more here, or google his/her/their name to find more images. Or maybe everyone already knows about this, just like the ponies. No one ever tells me anything!
Genesis P-Orridge is amazing! His band Psychic TV make/made phenomenal neo-psychedelic music that takes the occultish aura of the Stones’ ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’, 1966-era Brian Jones and early Syd Barrett as inspiration. He’s incredibly astute, provocative and switched on. One of my cultural heroes!
He also founded a band called Throbbing Gristle — which were a seminal proto-noise/industrial act.
PS A truly amazing doco to check out is Flicker. It’s about Brion Gysin — one of William Burroughs close friends, who played a huge role in Burroughs development as an experimental writer (he introduced Burroughs to the cut-up technique). Gysin was like a mentor to Genesis P-Orridge. The doco offers a really interesting synchronicity between Brian Jones, Brion Gysin and Genesis P-Orridge (as a Stones, Beat Generation and psychedelic music fanatic this was a very exciting discovery!).
This is new to me….and very interesting.
Thanks Femme Wolfie.
Hmmm… so there is Orlan, Mr/Ms Lady Jaye, the woman who wants to look like a cat, and totally un-artistic Heidi Montag. Didn’t I say humans are weird? Bring it on, Sister Wolf!
It’s +22C today in the morning, will be +31C in the afternoon. For some reason weather people call it “relief from heat”.
Just read the first paragraph so far and am enthralled. Thanks for pointing this out. Clearly no one besides you tells me anything!
Wow! Doppelganger bangers! I love the part where s/he says “I know it sounds weird” – fuck the understatement and irony there, where was the “WE”?! The whole article It gave me the heebie jeebies and creeped me right the fuck out every time It referred to itself as “we”, only to revert to using “I”? Damn it! Ruined my fun.
I love Genesis P-Orridge. He is down to earth and is incredibly talented.
He was one of the first to do what he does back in the late 1960’s, early 70’s with COUM Transmissions, an avant garde troupe of artists.
To see where Industrial and experimental music started, look no further than Throbbing Gristle. They were and still are, brilliant. I was fortunate enough to see them in February last year in San Francisco.
He is peculiar, but fascinating to listen to.
All my current knowledge is gleamed here! Ponies, performance and punch ups (comments) where else would I go.
Gosh, I used to read articles written by him, but had no idea about this. That’s nuts! And here I thought I was just edging towards some semblance of eccentricity. Just to be blown out of the water completely and realise that I stand in Plainville. Oh man…
I know Throbbing Gristle but this…no. Thanks for the intel.
aaahhh i love him and I love that you wrote about him! The we thing is amazing, and him continuing with this is so beautiful and tragic at the same time.
Throbbing Gristle, Physic TV, Coil (which I saw 2 times before the tragedy), my life for them!
i actually read any article about them/him/he-she/it in an unnamed women’s magazine… effing psycho(s).
The World would be a less interesting place without people like this…it may be far from my own life-experience, but there’s no reason not to allow artistic/life expression to transpire as long as it’s not hurting anyone…even the “pony” people.
Giddy-up, I say!!
Ponies, spending an entire cute day talking about Kate Bush, and becoming your own wife… people have WAY too much time on their hands.
Well, after $200,000 of plastic surgery he’s still not her, and she doesn’t live “within him” any more than any dead person lives within our memory. Interesting that no-one is outraged by the price of this experiment; after all, you could get 2.35 croc Birkin bags for the amount. Or feed an Ethiopian village for a few years. I’m just saying.
By the way, 13 penis’ piercings seem a bit excessive – but I agree, world would be a less interesting place… I find it rather tragic than beautiful.
Wow. Amazing.
Thank you
I didn’t know either but am enthralled. Great share, Sister.
Even with a massive wing wang, (description stolen from a 5 year old) where do you even put 13 penis piercings?
There has to be some in the scrotal sac and the external meatus also. Ouch.
Sorry, I just wanted to type the words external meatus.
Very interesting though, thank you. I had never heard of pandrogyny before.
I reckon that couples do morph into each other to some degree over a long period of time, but they took it to the next level.
Transexuality, cross-dressing, cosmetic surgery, piercing and tattooing, that’s quite a bag.
“Who is the third that walks beside you?”
Genesis P. will be speaking at the New Museum NYC on 7/15, as part of the BRION GYSIN show. Sincerely, Nosy Parker.
PRESS RELEASE :Founder of the bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge was also a friend and an acolyte of Brion Gysin. P-Orridge met Gysin in the 1970s, and was deeply influenced by him, and particularly his Cut-Up Method. Along with P-Orridge’s partner, the late Lady Jaye Breyer, P-Orridge created and lived by the notion of pandrogeny, which advocated the merging of the sexes via the Cut-Up. Through a series of operations, P-Orridge and Lady Jaye became examples of a “third sex,” a riff on Gysin’s lifelong collaboration with William Burroughs that culminated in the collage work The Third Mind.
I can’t get past the hyphen. Why not just Porridge?
Now I’m hungry…
If there is anybody interested in what happened with the rest of that revolutionary crowd here are some search proposals:
Hipgnosis,Throbbing Gristle,Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, Psychic TV, Coil, John Balance, Peter Christopherson aka Sleazy, Soisong (very pretty), The Threshold HouseBoys Choir…
Coil used to make such beautiful, intelligent, darkly poetic, music I’ve ever heard of ( how do Musick To Play In The Dark or Black Antlers album sound ???)
Some of these people are dead, half alive and hurt, the element of rebellion is as present as ever only enriched with the new perspective that’s all real-life experience. It made their work and music more intimate, escapist and pleasurable. They have specific view on happiness and beauty which sounds almost naive and childish, but only because it’s so sarcastic, they don’t aim to please anybody but themselves and their dusturbed Gods. Great scene… I don’t think this writing made you curious, but I had to went out.
Now, if any of you dares… wins…
Oh, Alicia, it was 70’s, who can remember why?
Love
$200,000 and I’m having a hard time seeing the resemblance. This is more interesting to me as a comment on plastic surgery.
I know of him. I thought he was at least interesting, he was banned and kicked out by his government – A subversive thumbs up – until reading about this new development a few years ago and it just made me sad for him. It takes mourning to a whole new level.
<3 you dust. =D
So, what if I want to look like my cat? Is that bolinegeny (bovine & feline). Who says I can’t make up words too! Me thinks this is what happens when art panders to the bourgeoisie, but I could be so fucking wrong. What do I know? I’m only a fucking cow living in a factory farm -warehouse situation, and enlightenment rarely finds its way to my shadowy part of the cave.
Cow, you may be entirely right – somehow I don’t trust too much these “living my life as art” experiments involving lots of $. Can’t get excited about Orlan’s vials of fat, people with super-small waists due to wearing corsets day and night, 13 piercings in a schlong, and so on. The woman who wanted to look like a cat got very poor results after all that surgery.
Have to look up the famous Brion Gysin and even more famous cut-up method, although I’m a bit lost about who, at the end, influenced whom.
I actually did already know about this, but I’m not sure where I read about it. It’s a really interesting idea about the nature of love…imagine how devastating it must be for him (her? them? …) now that his wife is gone though.
Dust, Sleazy is a good friend of a friend and is living in Bangkok.
Call me a creep but I somehow find this story intriguing, sweet and sad.
Ah, memories! Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle, Church of the Psychic Mind. Whoa nellie how’s this… last time I saw him was over 20 years ago when he was DJ’ing for a party, and the venue was such that there was pony play going on! (Actually there was loads of other types of “play” going on as well…)
XXX
Suzanne
Ohh so many stories bout this guy. He used to eat the adrenal glands of young homeless boys. Not sure if that’s a high want to try, but you know, whatever floats your boat. (I so did not meant to rhyme two whole phrases there… )
. . . and on that note Kat just killed my little wistful rambling.
I never knew exactly why Genesis P-Orridge made himself look like a woman. I’m amazed at their commitment to each other.
Blimey – takes me back, I saw Genesis/Psychic TV as a student many moons ago. Do you know the track Godstar (about Brian Jones’ death)? Check it out.
Recently saw Genesis P-Orridge at the “Reading from the Diaphragm” series by Vaginal Davis. SERIOUSLY AMAZING. Check out this video of an amazing quote given by Genesis about the future: http://sangbleu.com/2010/06/08/the-future-2/
I remember reading about Genesis and his wife–in the New York Times, perhaps? Thanks for the reminder; I had forgotten!
Oh, of course it was in the NY Mag! Thanks for the link . . .
How would everyone feel if it would be a woman trying to remake herself as her husband?
This is another one of those things that people know but it is such an obscure thing….really.
I was truly entertained by your discovery because I am sure everyone has had a similar reaction.
Genesis is/was a hero of mine. Since being exiled to America by the British government he’s become a lot less interesting, but it would be wrong to remember him as anything less than an inspirational force. Flaws and all, he remains a fascinating speaker with many valuable insights into the nature of society, sexuality and consciousness. 23 Skidoo.
Beautiful. I learned a lot from the comments.
I’m with Cricket9. $200,000 to turn yourself into someone else? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like there’s a certain level of creepiness and almost immature insecurity. It’s like they’re middle school BFF’s. “omg I just love you soooooooooo much. wouldn’t it be like totally awesome if we were the same person?!?!?!?! *squeals*”
Oh, Felicia, let’s say it out loud: it’s nuts!
Cricket I dont totally agree. On one level… o yes totally it is nuts. On an another one…. I think if we didn’t have people to test the limits of sanity, to push things further than normal, to be completely focused on things that some of the rest of us get over and dismiss quickly, i think we would never move forward.
Some things are nuts, but they make you think. I would never alter the body i was born with by making my self into my partner. I don’t have a partner, and i don’t want one. i like being me all on my own. If i was to change anything i would have to change myself into a mountain that stands alone, and plastic surgery is not big on that. But mr. p-orridge makes me think. And as much as i t makes me feel al ittle like vomiting, i applaud his weird romantic ideals.
It was a clever move to have this kind of weird after the ponies, cuteness and plain grossness Sister, thank you.
There is a huge difference in motives between those two. One of them is just a superficial indulgence.
Patni- yes! the mountain, beautiful.
patni,
yeah, once my boyfriend showed me a clip of the guys from jackass trying to inhale their own farts. I thought about that too. what a beautiful romantic ideal.
Oh boy!!!!!!!
David Duff
Can we have a comment from you please? And wear your long johns while you do it.
I lust after you in your long johns.
Andra
PS
I am drinking white wine!!