Are you there, God? It's me, Kristin. I remember when I was nine or ten and a babysitter gave me her old copy of Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, thinking that dated narrative would prepare me for my first period. This is a scary book! It teaches pre-teen girls that periods are controlled with pink leather belts with hooks and buckles! God, please tell Judy about "adhesive strips" so she can stop scaring little girls. But don't tell her about "the keeper." You already goofed up letting Cosmo in on that one.

I know I've never confessed to you before, so this might be "too little, too late," but keep in mind, I'm not even Catholic! I'm here to ask you about Kathy Acker's spoken word album, Redoing Childhood. Specifically, a reading of the segment of "My Mother-Demonology." She begins, "I wanna tell you about my childhood. Nothing will prevent me-- neither close attention nor the desire to be exact-- from writing and speaking words... that sing." God, can't anyone prevent her?

But Acker not only redoes childhood, she redoes Judy Blume! And I don't just mean Are You There, God, either. New York's feminist beat-punk darling offers her take on the steamy content Blume reserved for the hallowed pages of Forever. Here's an excerpt from "Miss Savage's School for Girls:" "I was forced to dance with a boy for the first time. I did, without knowing that my body was female, and that the liquid which dripped onto my thighs once a month was not carrot juice. My whole body expanded and became... hot."

This release continues down the path Kill Rock Stars' Wordcore series explored, and actually makes me want to retreat back into the retrospective comforts of Judy Blume's weird belts, buckles, and meandering letters to God. And trust me, God, I don't usually want this! Blume paused on awkward pre-teen fears and firsts; Acker pauses on words like "hot," and real shockers like "cunt," "cock," "come," "fuck," and "Jesus." Vomit lingers long enough for the coffee-house crowd to snap their fingers vigorously before each predictably dirty phrase.

God, I want you to know that I always shave my legs for my country on the fourth of July, which is today. So, while I was listening to Redoing Childhood, I was also reading Cosmo's Too Close a Shave: Stories from the Bikini Battlefield because I wanted to embrace the danger lurking beneath my patriotic commitment. My attention was split, so there were some parts of this album I missed, but each time I tuned into Acker's words through the potpourri of avant-jazz, spooky woodwinds, tinny percussion, and cliché bursts of punk guitar, she'd be saying something like, "This day was the birthday of the nun whose cunt was hungriest," or referencing "a hill of her own excrement." Sure, that might be a metaphorical hill, but it's still a gross one.

I feel a little guilty, though, God. Kathy Acker is considered an important feminist writer, and sadly, she recently died of breast cancer at a relatively young age. She's a hero to some girls, and I think I understand why: when I read Blood and Guts in High School, I remember thinking Acker didn't seem afraid of any of the rules. And there's certainly more to her writing than it's worth in shock value. In that book, Acker's creative segment on George Bush negotiated politics with fantasies of sermon-like political prophecies, wrapping them both around a science fiction/horror template. So, while I feel guilty, I don't think I should lie to you-- I find Redoing Childhood practically unlistenable.

You've heard the way Acker's slow, deliberate voice at times slips into a reverb-heavy vocal effect inspired by Darth Vader's performance at the Death Star's bi-millennial poetry slam. And the redundancy of hearing the word "cunt" delivered in the same pedantic poetry tone is annoying. The music labels itself "improvisational," but in this case, that sounds like an excuse for boring instrumental backing that wasn't at all thought-through. I don't like it, but I also can't believe that people who really do like it will ever listen to it more than once or twice. Are you still listening even though I'm not into Kathy Acker's spoken word recordings, God? If so, please forgive me, and let's keep this between the two of us.

-Kristin Sage Rockermann