Semiotexte: Barbara Barg

I'm bored with 4ths of July when we celebrate beer and gunpowder. Bored with the doctrines of crucifying the flesh in order to resurrect the soul. Bored with these trifling customs-those obligatory lounge drugs, dentist office rock and roll and especially that cemetarial adventure of cold sex on an acre of genuine extra-genial disinterest... cabbage patch fucking located squarely in the centerfold while the rest of the body slumbers away in grinding gloom, escaping the moment through fantasy or otherwise so we can blur that knowledge, it isn't enough.

The Origin of the Species collects stories, manifestos, rants and songs by Homer Erotic lead singer/poet/politico Barbara Barg. Raised as the only Jew in her Arkansas town in the mid-1960s, Barg's subject matter ranges from Nietzsche to Lithuanian pogroms to shoplifting and cocktail-waitressing to the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in her town.

What do we belong to
Soul or chromosome?
Boundaries and bloodshed
Earth seems so far from home

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“This book is full of dreamy ditties on the breakdown of the world from Memphis to the Lower East Side. It's about succumbing to the horror and ecstasy that inhabits those exquisite blocks of energy. Her writing is sharp and close to the nose. Tell it like it is, Barbara!”

— Todd Colby, lead singer of the band Drunken Boat