Punk As Public, Punks As Texts: Some of This Is True
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PUNK AS PUBLIC, PUNKS AS TEXTS: SOME OF THIS IS TRUE A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada © Copyright by Janette Platana 2014 English (Public Texts) M.A. Graduate Program September 2014 ABSTRACT Punk as Public, Punks as Texts: Some Of This Is True Janette Platana This thesis is an attempt to explore the role that musical texts played in the development of a public by writing a work of fiction and then applying to it a critical exegesis. Part One, the literary text Some Of This Is True, (re-)creates and remembers punk in its iteration in Regina, Saskatchewan, in the late 1970s. Part two, the critical exegesis, examines how the theories of public formation outlined in Michael Warner’s Publics and Counterpublics can partially explain the creation and behaviour of publics, but not entirely. Similarly Mikhail Bahktin’s theory of carnival helps explain punk, but not entirely. Some gaps can be filled partly with theory borrowed from art history that reveals useful links between punk and Continental art movements; Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia fills other gaps. Literature fills the rest. Keywords: Publics, Counterpublics, Punk, Carnival, Heterotopia, Creative Writing, Punk Girls, Punk Women ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Hugh Hodges for his humour and goodwill, erudition and creativity, which first allowed and then helped form this two-fold artistic and academic project in such a way that neither component was sacrificed to the other. I would also like to thank Professor Joanne Findon, whose mentorship was to me a compassionate and rigorous training in how to be an artist and academic at the same time. I would like to thank Professors Sally Chivers and Suzanne Bailey for serving as members of my thesis committee: they were both simultaneously brilliant and kind. Thank you to Professor Zailig Pollock for early inspiration and encouragement, and for not despairing of me. I would like to thank my colleagues Leif Einarson, and especially Naveera Ahmed, whose support and encouragement was unwavering. I am always grateful to my colleagues Joe Davies, Kate Story and Ryan Kerr. Finally, I would like to acknowledge how much I owe to Roz Platana, Nick Strummer Shepherd and Bill Shepherd for the sacrifices they made while I pursued this work. This writing is dedicated to the memory of Joe Strummer, and to the memory of bpNichol, as always, to whom I owe so much. ! iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ii Acknowledgement iii Table of Contents iv Preface 1 Part One: Some Of This Is True 2 You Know What They Say 3 None Of This Happened, But All Of It Is True 4 Truer Than True 9 True As History 12 Historically True 15 True Story 17 True Fiction 23 True Facts 26 True To Life 30 True As Anything 39 True For True 48 Still True 50 Really Real, Really True 54 True Enough 58 More Of The Truth 64 This Is Also True 65 If It Feels True 67 It’s True 72 True 77 The Part That’s Really, Really True 86 As Much Of The Truth As You Will Get 88 This Part Is All True 88 If It’s True For Her Is It True For Me? 93 Things I Wish Weren’t True 96 The Truth Hurts 100 Part Two: Critical Exegesis Introduction 104 Punk as Public 109 Punk as Art Theory 118 Punk as Carnival 120 Punk as Heterotopia 128 Conclusion 133 End Note 135 Bibliography 136 Discography 142 iv "! PREFACE My project is to make a work of art in language about punk in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1979, to see if writing it might be a legitimate way to engage with Public Texts theory. Some Of This Is True is the first 100 or so pages of the resulting literary text and its writing was the major task of this thesis. Following Some Of This is a critical exegesis. The structure of the Public Texts program at Trent University is such that, before undertaking the literary task, I studied theory relating to publics and public texts and punk, including that of Michael Warner whose work seems central to Public Text theory, Mikhail Bakhtin who punk theorists draw upon to explain punk, and Michel Foucault, whose theories seemed to offer me new insight about punk and, ultimately, about my own writing. When it was time to write the literary text, I tried to put theory aside as much as I could. (Which was, of course, not entirely). Reading the literary text after its writing, however, I turned my attention to the way the text draws on and explores theoretical concepts; so, the critical exegesis engages with theory as it performs in the literary text. The title Some Of This Is True is from “London Calling”, a 1979 song by Joe Strummer of punk and post-punk band, The Clash. The line Strummer sings is “I was there too — and do you know what they said? Well some of it was true”. Like the characters in my literary text, I was there, too: in Regina in 1979. The punks of that public knew we were not in London; we were one of the “faraway towns” to which the singer calls. “London Calling” was a densely narrated dystopian review of political events and social circumstances of its time, a critique of power and its relation to the band and to the band's public, and a galvanizing call for political action. The chapter headings in Some Of This ask the reader to think about the relationships and differences between truth, lies and storytelling. As I did the storytelling, as I wrote Some Of This Is True, I imagined that my imagined reader had been there, too. I imagined her asking me if some of it were true. I would tell her that even if none of this happened, all of it is true. #! Some Of This Is True $! You Know What They Say Everyone knows the real year start of the year is in September. New Year’s Eve is just some stupid night for babysitting. The guy from my dad’s work offers to let me sit his kids. He lives in the cul-de-sac and is in Sales and so he makes way more money than my dad ever did. All the guys in Sales do. Maybe he feels guilty about it. Maybe that’s why he offers to let me babysit. The truth is, I’ve never babysat before, but Salesguy doesn’t know that. He only knows that the guy he worked with who died has a kid who lives down the block and the kid is sixteen and is a girl. That, plus that, plus that, equals babysitter. Me. He’s part right. I’m old enough to babysit, but too young to go out to The Old Gold Disco or some bar, so fuck it: I’ll babysit. I think, though, that Salesguy expected me to look more like a girl when he came to the back door of his house to let me in. Maybe. The truth is, I don’t know what he was thinking. People are always looking at me weird. At school, at church, at the movies. I’m not loud, I don’t make out in public, I don’t even hold hands with anyone. Still, I feel like there are eyeball tracks running up and down either side of my spine like tire marks. Salesguy has the inside door open but just stands there, looking at me through the glass. My jacket is open and the soles of my runners start sticking to the snow while he looks and looks. I shift from sole to sole. I have all my records with me, wrapped in a folded blanket, and I hold them like I’m protecting them, but really, it’s to keep warm. Minus 32 Centigrade is 25 below, so start of the New Year or not, December thirty first, 1978 in Regina, Saskatchewan is cold. %! None of This Happened, But All of It is True Salesguy finally opens the door. He says to his wife, “This is, uh...” and trails off, so I say, “Hi.” She blinks. They leave around nine but their kids are already in bed. The whole time they’re gone, I don’t even look in the kids’ rooms. Instead, I listen to music on the stereo in the rumpus room in their basement, squeezing the padded headphones to my ears so it will be even louder. God, it must be great to be in Sales. It’s a Pioneer component stereo. I am getting a crick in my neck because from hunching over the covers so they're all I see while I listen. From the cover of Horses Patti Smith sees me seeing her and she sees me back. She’s got one eye that looks at me and one eye that doesn’t quite, like she can see two places at once. She sees me and she is seeing herself at the same time, and it’s like she’s saying This is how to look at yourself. I know she’s a woman. Of course I know she’s a woman. It’s her moustache that makes everyone so mad at her, I guess. It really shows. My mom uses Neet. But if you can tear your eyes away Patti Smith’s moustache, there’s a lot more to look at.