I’m Very Into You: Correspondence 1995-1996
Back of the Book
After Kathy Acker met McKenzie Wark on a trip to Australia in 1995, they had a brief fling and immediately began a heated two-week email correspondence. Their emails shimmer with insight, gossip, sex, and cultural commentary. They write in a frenzy, several times a day; their emails cross somewhere over the International Date Line, and themselves become a site of analysis. What results is an index of how two brilliant and idiosyncratic writers might go about a courtship across 7,500 miles of airspace--by pulling in Alfred Hitchcock, stuffed animals, Georges Bataille, Elvis Presley, phenomenology, Marxism, The X-files, psychoanalysis, and the I Ching.
Their corresepondence is a Plato's Symposium for the twenty-first century, but written for queers, transsexuals, nerds, and book geeks. I'm Very Into You is a text of incipience, a text of beginnings, and a set of notes on the short, shared passage of two iconic individuals of our time.
We Love It Because
The intimate exchange presented in I’m Very Into You” overflows with voyeurism, vulnerabilities, and the enthralling realities of a very specific era. To be a bystander is to hold these correspondences with care and intrigue as the privacy presented to strangers causes reflections of intimacy, relationships, and communication amongst a heightened level of strange fascination.
Memorable Passage
Now, a past that has been seen and thrown away. To be without a past. Well. Well. Is this an awful thing to tell you? I mean, invading a kind of privacy, a privacy based on our not knowing each other that long? But then, we are getting to know each other. Well, hell, sometimes one can’t look at some straight men too closely, for the sight causes too much anger. What a way to put it. I’m, not pissed, no, I’m sad. I want a past I can acknowledge. It’s all awful. Oh well.
About the Authors
Kathy Acker (1947–1997) and McKenzie Wark, born in 1961, are two influential and avant-garde writers whose distinct voices have left an indelible mark on contemporary literature. Acker, a provocateur of the punk and postmodern scenes, was known for her daring and experimental approach to storytelling, seamlessly blending genres and challenging societal norms. Her works, such as Blood and Guts in High School, remain iconic for their explicit exploration of sexuality, identity, and power structures. McKenzie Wark, a contemporary of Acker, is a prominent cultural critic and theorist. His work often engages with media theory, critical theory, and the intersections of technology and culture. Wark's notable book A Hacker Manifesto explores the evolving relationship between technology and capitalism. Both writers are worth knowing for their audacious contributions to dismantling literary and cultural boundaries, each offering a unique perspective on the complexities of contemporary existence, language, and rebellion.
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