Serious.

Watched “A Serious Man,” really liked it. I got a really Dostoevsky-ish vibe from the whole film, maybe because of the absurdity, the religious confusion, the oscillation between moments of intensity verging on catastrophe (but not really getting there) and lament for the mundane fatigue that fills up the spaces between. Plus, quick reference to gambling, creepy dreams, the theme of doubles, etc. The title/content reminds me of Dostoevsky’s distinction between the ‘underground man’ and the ‘serious man’ (did I get that right?) in Notes from Underground. D. is in my brain.
Here is my humble and sloppily-written analysis of one amazing scene.
Larry awkwardly climbs up the roof of his suburban house to adjust the antenna. The camera looks down at his face from the sky as he adjusts one component, then another. As he moves the antenna we hear channel voices coming in and out of focus between bits of white noise. When he turns around he notices his neighbour sun-bathing nude in her yard. Her body is obscured by the fence due to his position. He moves down the roof in order to get a full view of her body. She holds out one hand to the table and moves it around, without moving or taking her sunglasses off, as though blindly looking for something. She finds her cigarette and moves it to her mouth.
The relationship between Larry and the visual image produced by his fidgeting with the antenna is indirect. He is literally disengaged from the image he is producing (albeit production mediated by technology). There are different levels of disengagement and alienation going on here, 1) the image itself 2) the technological medium/mediating tool. A lot of communication in the film is mediated by technology, contrasting the more religious/spiritual component. The television is inside the home, a symbol of security but also constraint. The nondescript suburban home generally symbolizes 1) stagnancy and complacency 2) libidinal sublimation and/or repression. Larry is still connected to his home; he has not escaped it, however, he is at this point outside of it, above it – still within the limits but not entirely contained. There is a lot of concern about this whole ‘transgressing the boundaries’ of home in the film – Larry is often preoccupied about the neighbour crossing the invisible property line separating their lawns. Significaaaaant.
So it is interesting that the sequence of events relating to the naked neighbour directly parallels this episode with the antenna. When he turns away from the antenna, the image of his neighbour becomes immediately visible, but the image of her body is also obscured by another symbol of domestic complacency and libidinal restraint – a white picket fence. This limited and restricted image is only accessible to him ‘outside’ the bounds of his home (ie. outside the standards of ‘normative social behaviour’). Nevertheless, he is alienated from the image of the naked female body and, by extension, alienated from his own desire – he cannot realize this desire within the psychological/material ‘home’ he has established. This is why he only realizes this desire for the neighbour in his dream. Many of Larry’s important relationships are mediated, suggesting that his desire is necessarily sublimated.
It’s also interesting that despite being entirely naked, the woman’s eyes are obscured by sunglasses and she literally gropes around indifferently for the cigarette, echoing Larry’s attempts to fix the antenna and his attempts to get a clearer image of the woman’s body. In both cases, he is attempting to access an alienated and fragmented image but he never really comes into direct relation with these images. Both Larry and the neighbour are ‘blind’ in a certain sense, which perhaps explains their weird connection. But both of their playing-around-with-phallic symbols results in different pleasures: Larry’s searching is desperate and alienated, whereas she is in direct relation to her desires and is capable of pleasure.
The score of the movie is really amazing too, like in all Coen brothers’ movies…in this case, it was so well-timed: the more melancholic score only starts up during these really significant scenes, like cues to pay attention. There’s lots of other sequences of images that I’d like to (and probably will, because I've decided to stay home on this fine Friday evening) write about.
1) all the images in the final Rabbi’s room (especially the painting of Abraham & Isaac)
2) the moment when Larry rummages through his brother Arthur’s crazy notebook (insert crazy music) and the brother being in trouble for 1) gambling and 2) sodomy
3) the dream sequences
4) the teacher struggling to open a locked door while the students stand outside watching a fucking tornado, and Larry’s son is trying to repay a debt to his fellow classmate – argh, so goooood.

Blackberry song.

Kurt Vile's new album makes me feel really good. I bought it yesterday along with the new A Place to Bury Strangers. If only I quit smoking I'd have more money to splurge on actual albums more often. I love being in Soundscapes and Rotate This (ie the best record stores in this city). They were playing this amazing soul album by some dude named Famous L. Renfroe called "Children." I don't know a lot about gospel/soul but the three tracks I heard were...um, fucking great. I want to learn more because music like that makes me so happy, my body just starts moving and I couldn't stop humming on the walk home. I don't think Kurt Vile's face matches up to his voice. He's still really young, his voice is not. It is really cold here today. I'm having a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings because of this fact. The past few days have been good. One of my favourite things to do is unlimited coffee and a smoked salmon bagel sandwich at Nirvana with my friend Shawn. That was yesterday and then I cuddled on his couch with his warm warm knit blankets and his kitten as he sifted through feminist ethics course packs to find me good articles for my proposal. He lent me Berger's small book of essays "Ways of Seeing." I'm going to finish it today, its super good and tiny but powerful. Today was coffee with my friend Julie, who is a dancer and absolutely sweet and beautiful. When I went out for a cigarette I met an interesting cyclist who does triathalons for a living. We talked about buying long johns for the winter. 2 old men wearing non-ironic fedoras approached me later and we discussed mittens and windy days. Everyone is preparing for the widespread seasonal depression that sets in right about now. People are friendly but nervous about it. October is full of simple pleasures.

Impossible cool.

(some of the most amazing melt-worthy portraits of) James Dean, Cary Grant, Kerouac, Tom Waits, Marlon Brando, Hemingway, Bowie (that I have ever seen. So many of my favourite men in one place is overwhelming). This is my new favourite site: the impossible cool.

Nope.

Almost done the proposal (ie plea to the government for study money). Must. Procrastinate.
I got a mean email from a former internet stalker because I won't add him on facebook.
He said: "the only reason people put up with you is because you're good looking."
Harsh.
I kind of said the same thing to my boyfriend (whatever, I use the term loosely) a few days ago. That is the irony. Although I said it in a half-joking manner and apparently, according to him, its okay to say really mean things as long as you're joking. I just meant he's too good-looking for his own good.

Okay, enough drudgery, time for a survey:
Quote:
"Brothers Karamazov is supposedly about the human condition, but it is actually a study of male relationships written by a man, so, as a woman, you will not 'get' the same 'things' from it as a man would."
Questions:
True/False?
Sexist/Non-Sexist?
Is there a problem with men 'getting' something different from a text than women would and vice versa? Is this inevitable? Or old-fashioned? Can gender really determine the degree to which you "understand" the author's message (authorial intent is usually an illegitimate question but I don't give a fuck) or certain elements about the work?


I'm neutral here. Wondering what you think.

Rape Tunnel/Rape as Fetish

But rape is way more extreme than a punch to the face. Is your intention to ruin people’s lives?

Possibly. I’m not necessarily concerned with the positive or negative effects of this project so long as there is some effect on people’s lives. I’ve merely set up a situation where there is potential to impact people in meaningful ways. Maybe I won’t be able to rape everyone who crawls through the tunnel, but the door is open for all kinds of scenarios; rape, serious injury, maybe even death. I might even get arrested. Right now the installation isn’t even complete, and I’ve riled up a substantial portion of the local population. The installation as an idea is powerful enough itself.

- Richard Whitehurst interviewed by Sheila Zareno for Artlurker

The enigma is that of an object which offers itself up in total transparency, and hence cannot be naturalized by critical or aesthetic discourse. It is that of a superficial, artificial object which succeeds in preserving its artificiality, in shaking free of any natural signification to take on a spectral intensity, empty of meaning, which is that of the fetish. The fetish object has no value, Or rather, it has an absolute value; it lives off the ecstasy of value.

-Baudrillard, "Machinic Snobbery" from The Perfect Crime

This article fills me with so much distaste and anger and resentment on so many levels.
What the fuck is going on with the post-pomo art scene? How does a rape tunnel in any way contribute to art becoming 'meaningful' again within contemporary society? If anything, this kind of..."installation" contributes to the increasing meaningless of contemporary art, which has become a scene of increasingly 'weird' people invested in maintaining identities as 'crazy' artists making as much noise as possible to promote increasingly boring ideas about irony and absurdity and the death of the artist, blah blah blah. I think as soon as art took a turn towards absurdity for its own sake, all of its social purpose or 'meaning' disintegrated except as a vehicle for personal self-promotion, under the guise of the artist as a 'non-entity.' Baudrillard talks about this, it is not new. But I think it is an illusion to say that the artist has disappeared, because I think all that remains is the artist as some stupid laughing asshole throwing shit around and demanding an audience.
Why, if art is indeed meaningless, are we only reinforcing this message by focusing more and more on the absurdity of art? Wouldn't it be more radical at this point to create art with a purpose and some sort of social intent, with values and a particular aesthetic manifesto in mind? How does more shock = a return to meaning? Doesn't this method actually result in the opposite? Art is reduced to publicity stunts for attention that evoke little else but shock value. If you read his interview, he doesn't actually give a shit about what is actually going on here, in terms of interpersonal relationships (if you can call it that), hyperreality, any sort of message, etc. The 'artists intent' is literally "evoke a response." Never mind what kind of response or the irrevocable damage it could cause; any response will do, and apparently, the only thing that even evokes mild discontent or concern within our society currently is a pseudo-staged strategized rape scenario. The really frightening thing is that the public becomes increasingly desensitized as a result, and this phenomena produces shit like this asshole's 'rape tunnel.' What the fuck is wrong with our society that makes us so fucking numb to everything except the thrilling possibility of "consensual rape"? And doesn't this whole installation trivialize the experiences of actual rape victims? Doesn't this trivialize the experience in general by turning it into a hyperreal simulacrum of violence? Are people so numb and dead and unaffected that they would enter this tunnel knowing full well that it will lead to sexual assault? It is sad the lengths people will go to feel anything, and the associated absurd attitude that all experience is good experience, which corresponds to the whole paradox of more shock = more meaning. Meaning is not a quantitative value; you can't measure meaningful experience according to its severity or, in this case, the degree to which you are possibly psychologically and physically damaged. There seems to be a general attitude of 'fuck it, I'll try anything once, why limit my experiences' hence, 'fuck yeah, sure, I'll enter a rape tunnel.' There is enough sadness and destruction and rape and violence going on in the 'real' world; why the fuck do we seek out simulated hyperreal versions of this in (of all places) the art scene? I thought art was supposed to detract from this, not contribute. Why do people feel that excess is required to achieve any sort of meaningful existence? Our widespread existential groundlessness results in this compulsion to fill ourselves up with 'new' experiences but the irony is that all of these so-called 'authentic' experiences are manufactured for consumption, they are not genuine, authentic or meaningful experiences. Everyone wants to 'live life to the fullest' but no one ever thinks about picking and choosing experiences in terms of their positive or negative effects. For example, I find it incredibly ironic that people feel they are living 'fun and exciting lives' by going out to bars and drinking their asses off every fucking weekend. I mean, really? This is exciting to you? It all just seems very manufactured and simulated and repetitive to me. And so fucking easy. Art and bars and social situations in general are all laid out for us to pick and choose from (for a price, of course). Everything - 'contemporary art' 'live music' 'the bar/club scene' - are designated spaces purchased and purchasable, we can pick and choose pre-fabricated experiences and then pretend like we've earned it and have some free choice in the choosing. And apparently rape is now on the board of possible experiences produced for easy consumption.
When I read early post-modern poetry, poetics are still meaningful, the artist has a method, a system of values that guides their creative process. When I read this kind of poetry I respond strongly, in ways that I never really do when I read most current contemporary poetry. I mean, there are amazing moments when I read something new and think 'fuck yes, this means something' but for the most part, I just feel kind of bored with the cynical post-ironic, blase tone (of some, dare I say most) of the literature being produced by my generation. Call me old-fashioned or romantic, but I'd like to reinvest some real values into art. Some passion, some ethics. Nobody works hard at anything any more, everybody wants everything to come easy. And, voila, it does. It just doesn't mean anything.

Jack Lemmon still cares about love.

coherent on streets washed free of drunk laughs
for once little italy is not a shameless buffet of sexual parts and pricey alcohol
colour-co-ordinated-bodies you could slurp up from sidewalks
people should wear little pricetags stating measurements dick size the cost of present outfit salary living arrangements number of drinks before I'll fuck you
that way nobody will be surprised when they unwrap the package at home.
a bunch of Americans stopped me in front of cafe diplomatico
they wanted to know like, where the action is, y'know
I asked if they wanted to get laid or meet cool people or just dance
they ignored me and asked where I was going.
Lightning lit up the sky and in the windows of american apparel
all the bright spandex clad legs with asses out
looked pretty fucking ominous.

(Ginsberg's howl generation was still vibrant, still drunk on its own self-destruction, pushing out into something new whereas my generation is inert and locked in a cycle of recycled and simulated immediacy or maybe Ginsberg felt that way too, maybe we misinterpret him. I dreamed of Ginsberg last night, he is still with me I am thankful for good friends and people who create things)

Creeley hit me hard and my anxiety subsided like a cold wave pulling away from my body or clouds dissipating momentarily/releasing warm sun

For Love

Yesterday I wanted to
speak of it, that sense above
the others to me
important because all

that I know derives

from what it teaches me.

Today, what is it that

is finally so helpless,

different, despairs of its own

statement, wants to

turn away, endlessly

to turn away.

If the moon did not ...

no, if you did not

I wouldn’t either, but

what would I not

do, what prevention, what

thing so quickly stopped.

That is love yesterday

or tomorrow, not

now. Can I eat

what you give me. I

have not earned it. Must

I think of everything

as earned. Now love also

becomes a reward so

remote from me I have

only made it with my mind.

Here is tedium,

despair, a painful

sense of isolation and

whimsical if pompous

self-regard. But that image

is only of the mind’s

vague structure, vague to me

because it is my own.

Love, what do I think

to say. I cannot say it.

What have you become to ask,

what have I made you into,

companion, good company,

crossed legs with skirt, or

soft body under

the bones of the bed.

Nothing says anything

but that which it wishes

would come true, fears

what else might happen in

some other place, some

other time not this one.

A voice in my place, an

echo of that only in yours.

Let me stumble into

not the confession but

the obsession I begin with

now. For you

also (also)

some time beyond place, or

place beyond time, no

mind left to

say anything at all,

that face gone, now.

Into the company of love

it all returns.

(Robert Creeley)

Charles Olson.

Charles Olson, drunk and lovely. Keep with it until the middle and then...

there is no strict personal order for my inheritance
no greek will be able
to discriminate my body
an american is a complex of occasions
themselves a geometry
of spatial nature
I have this sense that I am one with my skin

(those are my line breaks, not his)
He has a marvelous epic voice and I have been listening to him before bed, letting his voice pull me into sleep.
I feel like I have my shit together. I'm almost done draft 1 of SSHRC/OGS applications, finished my Duncan seminar for Thursday, completed two more segments of a very long sequential poem dedicated to my sister and several other poems. Maybe I will post them here or something. Not feeling on good terms with blog-land.

Bon soir, lovers.

A good man is hard to find...

say Sufjan Stevens, Flannery O'Connor, Sophie Tucker and Micah: "The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men." (Micah 7:2)

Spinoza's one Substance/non-anthropomorphic divinity 'sees' all the possible manifestations of the universe, all infinite variations, down to the most minute differentiations. God allows only one of these variations to unfold, and, according to Spinoza, this is the best possible variation, the best possible coming-into-being of the universe. For whom and according to what master plan, though? If this is indeed the best way for my life to unfold according to some abstract concept of divinity or 'essence' and a deterministic model of order...well then, I suppose thankfulness is in order, even if happiness for me personally is sacrificed for the sake of some more general 'order.' I'm not an altruist but the idea of my life and its events fitting into some 'larger,' essential and intrinsic order appeals to moi.

I don't enjoy Stoicism but I think it can be useful. It's useful when applied to suffering. And when Epictetus says, "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well," my gut response is a 'fuck dude' groan of exasperation but then, sure, I get it. Stoicism requires you form no attachments to avoid all excess and pain. Recognize that everything is temporary and perishable. Extreme self-discipline to the point of repression. This kind of restraint is not only difficult for me but also seems like a ridiculous approach to life. But its starting to look like a good option. I'm so tired, tired, sad, sad.

I am not a practical or matter-of-fact person, which is why I am drawn to some mystical notion of (shall I say) fate, maybe because of my Christian upbringing, maybe because I am a softy-idealist not far beneath the surface, maybe because I want certainty and direction and a reason not to throw my fucking hands in the air and say 'fuck it' as is so fashionable with my generation. Fuck, I think that I gave up God and replaced it with philosophy, which is essentially the same thing. And now I'm reeling at philosophy, angry at having discovered its tendency to continously point back to God, with subtlety and patience and occasional urgency. All philosophy speaks of a certain kind of 'faith.' I have a deterministic streak. Which is why, when I looked at you that day and I felt something very strong, I knew you were important to me, and I still feel that way. And no, I don't want to give this up. Shit sticks with me, people stick with me. This is my curse and blessing. I feel lonely most of the time because I miss everybody, always. I miss that boy I punched on the school yard in kindergarten and later kissed. I miss the person who taught me how to smoke. I miss God sometimes.

I spent this evening curled up on the floor infront of the fireplace. It is getting cold here. Talking to my brother about his eventful sex life, laughing at and with my Mother, watching home renovation shows, reading Robert Duncan. Family is all I have and all I want to be surrounded with right now.

Things.

I went to this gallery on Queen West yesterday with a giant illustrated installation in the front window, a scene with a giant cat being corralled by tiny hunters. The image is really lovely and whimsical. Here are some other interesting illustrations by the same artist, Kozyndan, a seemingly awesome duo.




Click for bigger images and all illustrations are copyright and sourced from their website and flickr. I think octopi are going to be my next power animal. I also really like Fenando Vincente.


School has started and I love every one of my classes. This semester, Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, Literature and Philosophy and a bad-ass philosophy seminar called "Life, Death, Absurdity and Meaning" with the lovely prof who indirectly compelled me to get a Spinoza quote tattooed on my arm. Next semester, Hegel, 20th century continental philosophy and gender and transgender theory, taught by the transgendered head of the philosophy department who periodically comes to university as a woman. I have to start writing statements of interest for grad applications. I have to get shit done.

The way that Tom Waits sings "come closer, look deeper, you've fallen fast" makes me melt and fall in love. Dead and Lovely is such a sexy sexy song.

I'm writing a lot of stuff. I feel like there is too little life and too much to do. I want to spend a day watching Antonioni and Jodorowsky films.