Pseudepigrapha

When I was a religious studies major many moons back, I learned about pseudepigrapha, the practise of attributing authorship of one's works to another of greater renown and authority. The Gospel of Thomas is one famous example. At the time, I accepted this ancient custom on an intellectual level⁠— but it just made no sense to me on a personal level, young and idealistic as I was, and holding the individualist values that I did. If your message is profound enough to resonate with the world, I reasoned, why would you deny history the truth of whom it came from?

Well… I'm starting to really, really get pseudepigrapha now. Because, man, when you're a nobody, nothing you say or do matters! Nothing counts, because you don't count. All the thought and energy that goes into each individual project of yours, at the end of the day, still has to be multiplied by the zeroness of your actual being. What's ten times zero? Zero. A hundred times zero? Zero. A thousand times zero?… and so forth.

Based on initial reactions from the labels and press, it looks like my prediction is coming true: The Rosalind Franklin comic book album isn't impressing any of the powers that be. I can argue all I want about the promise it holds for combining unrelated mediums to create new storytelling possibilities; or that, as a female scientist she was robbed of her place in history, and this album hopes to correct that injustice; or even simply that the songs are really, really good. But none of these arguments matter, because I don't matter.

In fact, the whole "female scientist" angle is a pretty good analogy for my position, I think. When you read about educated women and Blacks in the 19th century, it's always the same story about how their accomplishments were ignored. But really, it's not like everyone around them was trying to be a jerk. People back then simply weren't capable of accepting scientific insights coming from Blacks and women, any more than I'm willing to accept relationship advice coming from a talking banana. You can't take it personally. When you're a zero, you're not being ignored because they hate you. You're being ignored simply because people and things that don't count… well, don't count.

By now, everyone knows about Beck's plan to release an album solely as lead sheets. Given that there are plenty of genres such as gospel music where sales in this format have always been strong, this by itself isn't noteworthy, of course. We find it new and exciting because it's Beck. Meanwhile, what would happen if Beck were to release a comic book album? I'm guessing there'd be a bit of talk about the promise of combining unrelated mediums to create new storytelling possibilities. Beck is a somebody, so anything he does, multiplied by his nonzero self, will actually be, like, multiplied. That utterly blows my mind.

And suddenly, the idea of giving authorship of my work to a somebody like Beck starts to sound really, really nice. I just have to cross out "Bobtail Yearlings" and scribble in "Beck" on this comic book album. That's all it would take to have my work appreciated by millions! Seriously, how awesome would that be?

Footnote: Actually, truth be told, I'd happily take relationship advice from a talking banana. Lord knows, I need all the help I can get.