http://www.nytimes.com/
Sunday Routine | Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
One Body, but Often Second Person
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, 62, a British performance artist and lead singer of the industrial band Throbbing Gristle and the experimental group Psychic TV, lives in a tiny apartment on the Lower East Side that she calls “the nest,” and rarely ventures out on Sundays. Ms. P-Orridge, who was born male, embarked on a “pandrogeny” project, which included breast implants, in an effort to merge identities with her soul mate, Lady Jaye. Their love affair was chronicled in the documentary “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye,” by Marie Losier, which will be released on DVD in the fall. Lady Jaye died suddenly in 2007, though Ms. P-Orridge believes they are still together and often refers to herself in the first person as “we.”
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
WAKE-UP DRINK I’m afraid we’re not very exciting on Sundays. I go to bed between 6 and 7 a.m. Then we get up at about 10. We never drink coffee because we can’t stand the taste. And we could only ever drink it with sugar, and now we’re diabetic. We drink one of those super five-hour drinks with no sugar that’s supposed to wake you up. We have a row in the kitchen — we take it to bed so it’s right there in the morning, to grab it, and then we drink a glass of ice water to trigger my metabolism.
FANTASY READING Then we stay in bed. We have a bedspread made of about 18 wolfskins, and we lie under the wolves and read a book and that’s considered luxury time. We read what we call airport books — trash fantasy action books. At the moment we’re really into Clive Cussler. It’s a way of switching off my brain. We read really fast; we’re speed readers. It’s my way of escaping and just not having to think about work.
CLEANUP Around 1, I look at the mess in my apartment and I think, “Uh-oh,” and tidy up, basically. And then usually we have one of my assistants come over. There’s so many different things happening. An art exhibit here, collages, three books. There are bits of paper all over the floor. It becomes something of an explosion during the week. At the moment, we’re going to record a new record, with Psychic TV, and after that a poetry project and organizing concerts and exhibits abroad. It’s interesting. Since Lady Jaye dropped her body, everything has exploded in the way she wanted and predicted.
SUSTENANCE Around 6 or 7 p.m. we’ll look in the fridge and see if there’s anything to eat, and then decide what to snack on. We’ll usually cook something simple — one of my favorites is mashed potatoes, peas and poached eggs. Very English, comfort food.
A VISITOR We’re not a very social being. We have a new friend, James, who’s actually female, from New Orleans. She would usually come here with her dog, Sydney, a cocker spaniel, named after Sid Vicious. We always take the dog for a quick walk, but apart from that we don’t venture out. When your job is being in crowds of people and touring with people, being alone is a luxury. Obviously we’d rather not be fully alone. We’d rather Jaye be here.
WHITE NOISE Around 10 we’ll sit on the bed and drink some ice water and turn on mindless television, because that’s the time of day when we really miss Jaye. That’s when it’s really quiet and you feel the emptiness and sometimes we just forget and think she’s going to come through the door. Not to watch TV, there’s nothing on. Just to keep the space agitated so the loneliness is not so bad.
LATE-NIGHT GYM Between midnight and 1 a.m. — the housing co-op where the apartment is has its own gym. Nobody’s ever there at that time. It’s my own gym. I take a stupid book, an airport book, turn on the treadmill and walk for an hour, reading. We’re so drawn in we forget even doing it. And then we return to the little nest, write in the journal and read books until we fall asleep around 6 or 7.
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