New notebooks excuses to buy thick old dog-eared books that smell of basements and coffee stains thick wool knits and heads under hoods cold sunny days autumnal poetry dark wood tables early evenings bundled up in duvets with warm purring cats elliott smith and nick drake and crisp afternoons spent on park benches with mugs of apple cider proximity with limits candlelit patios and pints of amber beer long baths and the goosebumps before you dip your foot in - Olson and Duncan - nostalgia, windy looming overcast days barren beaches and gray sand movies about sadness and the human condition professors that dance and give second chances the twilight of the idols on tv crimson and brown prayers,
loneliness.
16.9.09
7.9.09
Movies.
Lots of people ask me why I take cinema so seriously, why I can't "let myself be entertained" and chill out. Zizek says something in part 3 of "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema" that is so perfect.
"Our fundamental delusion today is not to believe in what is only a fiction, to take fictions too seriously. It's, on the contrary, not to take fictions seriously enough. You think it's just a game? It's reality. It's more real than it appears to you. For example, people who play video games, they adopt a screen persona of a sadist, rapist, whatever. The idea is, in reality I'm a weak person, so in order to supplement my real life weakness, I adopt the false image of a strong, sexually promiscuous person, and so on and so on. So this would be the naïve reading. But what if we read it in the opposite way? That this strong, brutal rapist, whatever, identity is my true self. In the sense that this is the psychic truth of myself and that in real life, because of social constraints and so on, I'm not able to enact it. So that, precisely because I think it's only a game, it's only a persona, a self-image I adopt in virtual space, I can be there much more truthfully. I can enact there an identity which is much closer to my true self."
Images are very very important. Watching a movie is like re-experiencing the mirror stage over and over: the formation of primary identifications, the literal and metaphorical articulation of the symbolic and imaginary registers in opposition to one another, the projection of Self onto a screen and the introjection of the imago. The images that seem harmless are actually the ones we should pay most attention to; the 'easy' entertainment that doesn't require any sort of conscious deciphering is potentially dangerous. Not because the content of these images is any more or less revealing or complicated, but due to the way we approach them. So, yeah, I refuse to believe that anything should be easy. That images can be easy and opaque. I want to condition myself to see as clearly as possible.
So the quote brings up a lot of problematic issues for me. The cause and effect relationship between the producer and product. In the case of the cinematic apparatus, which is which? This dichotomy exemplifies the illusion of the Subject-Other relation in general: neither one is entirely stable or grounded in either position. Thus, the instability of the mirror image - we form an identity based on the stability of an image reflected on a screen before us, but that image is really only the distorted and idealized vision of our own 'reality' - the 'reality' is formed from a fiction and the fiction is simultaneously a reflection of that inevitably fractured and inconsistent Self.
Where do these cinematic tropes develop? The fact that we take certain motifs and character types for granted tells us about ourselves and our vision of 'who we are.' Why is a lame stock comedy even entertaining unless we can form identifications with the characters on some level? Do we all want to identify with these characters? Is this, as Zizek says, a form of enacting or experiencing an identity much closer to the 'truth' because we can't submit to the excesses of cariacture in reality as a result of social constraints? And what does that say about us, taking into consideration the stock characters we choose to identify with and indirectly produce and reproduce in popular films?
Cinema is important because it is like a threshold between the imaginary and the symbolic registers, or, in any case, the closest we can get to a threshold. Zizek: "Illusion persists. There is something real in the illusion, more real than in the reality behind it." Oi. Watch "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema" if you have not, I think my brain short-circuited due to the sheer amount of amazing going on.
I'm probably in love with him. Zizek, that is.
I watched Pasolini's 120 Days of Sodom (Salo) last week. The full effect of the film didn't really hit me until last night, while watching The Last House on the Left. If you've watched both, you'll understand, I think.
LHotL - torture porn, very short shots, 'documentary' style, unstable cinematography, washed out sepia colour tone, the illusion of a narrative that functions to justify the viewer's investment, the drawn-out high-intensity emotion that reeks of melodrama and only evokes indifference, inane and trite dialogue that exposes 1) the importance of dialogue 2) the complete insufficiency of dialogue in film, stock characters, typical score. The scary part for me in watching movies like this is that I feel nothing while watching a girl brutally raped and her friend sexually assaulted and murdered. I don't like watching rape scenes in film because I don't want to be confronted with the brutual reality of my own indifference to that image. I don't like the games that the director plays on the viewer: we're all aware that we're watching this for entertainment, that we obviously enjoy on some fucked-up level watching people die simulated brutal deaths. And the directors add some stupid shit like an upper-class family with a dead kid and marital problems to ease our minds and soothe us into thinking we watch because its a story that we are invested in with characters and real people who somehow overcome their suffering. We may as well cut out all of that shit and just be honest with ourselves. We just want to watch people suffer. We want to see girls victimized and see the rich white people overcome their complacency and seek revenge. It's a sadomasochistic viewing experience; we punish ourselves for the desire to see these acts played out for us by following through with it and feeling nothing, not horror or enjoyment or anything but a numb void. And what the characters say means little to nothing. The dialogue doesn't really change our experience of the film at all. The voice is on mute, words are nothing, just glossed over decoration necessary but not vital in terms of the viewing experience. We're here for the images and movies like this expose the degree to which dialogue is superfluous in most popular films. I think most people could watch Transformers 2 with no dialogue and still enjoy the movie.
Salo - long, painfully drawn out shots, very stable cinematography, mainly wide and mid shots, high attention to framing and composition, an absurd score that contrasted the content of the screen images, a degree of surreality, severe emotional disconnect, almost like an aloof indifference of the camera in relation to the action, deliberate dialogue consisting mainly of pornographic stories and demands or rules given to the victims, a lack of a typical narrative structure in that there is no introduction that cushions our perspective of the violence - it starts immediately. The characters are blank slates with no identity except as archetypes - but no one is pretending otherwise. This includes the director, the actors, and thus, as a viewer, we can't form these connections because they are not provided and manufactured for us. We remain suspended at the entrance to the image, struggling for something 'human' within the narrative, wanting a flimsy security blanket to maintain some degree of illusory moral security. This film forced me to feel uncomfortable with my position as 'audience.' The film involves you while remaining disengaged, it pushes you into the events; you are victimized by your own curiosity, while the camera maintains a particular distance from the characters and the horrific acts going on. So basically, this film does the opposite of what typical, contemporary 'horror' films do. I could write about this film forever, it is so fascinating and has had such an intense impact on me.
I've been writing a lot recently but I don't feel comfortable on the interwebs at the moment. I feel like writing for a blog conditions my creative process in a negative way. Like I assume I am writing for an audience immediately, which is usually a bad way for me to start.
I am so so happy with my life. The last few weeks have been insane with new experiences people images and ideas. And a new year begins.
"Our fundamental delusion today is not to believe in what is only a fiction, to take fictions too seriously. It's, on the contrary, not to take fictions seriously enough. You think it's just a game? It's reality. It's more real than it appears to you. For example, people who play video games, they adopt a screen persona of a sadist, rapist, whatever. The idea is, in reality I'm a weak person, so in order to supplement my real life weakness, I adopt the false image of a strong, sexually promiscuous person, and so on and so on. So this would be the naïve reading. But what if we read it in the opposite way? That this strong, brutal rapist, whatever, identity is my true self. In the sense that this is the psychic truth of myself and that in real life, because of social constraints and so on, I'm not able to enact it. So that, precisely because I think it's only a game, it's only a persona, a self-image I adopt in virtual space, I can be there much more truthfully. I can enact there an identity which is much closer to my true self."
Images are very very important. Watching a movie is like re-experiencing the mirror stage over and over: the formation of primary identifications, the literal and metaphorical articulation of the symbolic and imaginary registers in opposition to one another, the projection of Self onto a screen and the introjection of the imago. The images that seem harmless are actually the ones we should pay most attention to; the 'easy' entertainment that doesn't require any sort of conscious deciphering is potentially dangerous. Not because the content of these images is any more or less revealing or complicated, but due to the way we approach them. So, yeah, I refuse to believe that anything should be easy. That images can be easy and opaque. I want to condition myself to see as clearly as possible.
So the quote brings up a lot of problematic issues for me. The cause and effect relationship between the producer and product. In the case of the cinematic apparatus, which is which? This dichotomy exemplifies the illusion of the Subject-Other relation in general: neither one is entirely stable or grounded in either position. Thus, the instability of the mirror image - we form an identity based on the stability of an image reflected on a screen before us, but that image is really only the distorted and idealized vision of our own 'reality' - the 'reality' is formed from a fiction and the fiction is simultaneously a reflection of that inevitably fractured and inconsistent Self.
Where do these cinematic tropes develop? The fact that we take certain motifs and character types for granted tells us about ourselves and our vision of 'who we are.' Why is a lame stock comedy even entertaining unless we can form identifications with the characters on some level? Do we all want to identify with these characters? Is this, as Zizek says, a form of enacting or experiencing an identity much closer to the 'truth' because we can't submit to the excesses of cariacture in reality as a result of social constraints? And what does that say about us, taking into consideration the stock characters we choose to identify with and indirectly produce and reproduce in popular films?
Cinema is important because it is like a threshold between the imaginary and the symbolic registers, or, in any case, the closest we can get to a threshold. Zizek: "Illusion persists. There is something real in the illusion, more real than in the reality behind it." Oi. Watch "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema" if you have not, I think my brain short-circuited due to the sheer amount of amazing going on.
I'm probably in love with him. Zizek, that is.
I watched Pasolini's 120 Days of Sodom (Salo) last week. The full effect of the film didn't really hit me until last night, while watching The Last House on the Left. If you've watched both, you'll understand, I think.
LHotL - torture porn, very short shots, 'documentary' style, unstable cinematography, washed out sepia colour tone, the illusion of a narrative that functions to justify the viewer's investment, the drawn-out high-intensity emotion that reeks of melodrama and only evokes indifference, inane and trite dialogue that exposes 1) the importance of dialogue 2) the complete insufficiency of dialogue in film, stock characters, typical score. The scary part for me in watching movies like this is that I feel nothing while watching a girl brutally raped and her friend sexually assaulted and murdered. I don't like watching rape scenes in film because I don't want to be confronted with the brutual reality of my own indifference to that image. I don't like the games that the director plays on the viewer: we're all aware that we're watching this for entertainment, that we obviously enjoy on some fucked-up level watching people die simulated brutal deaths. And the directors add some stupid shit like an upper-class family with a dead kid and marital problems to ease our minds and soothe us into thinking we watch because its a story that we are invested in with characters and real people who somehow overcome their suffering. We may as well cut out all of that shit and just be honest with ourselves. We just want to watch people suffer. We want to see girls victimized and see the rich white people overcome their complacency and seek revenge. It's a sadomasochistic viewing experience; we punish ourselves for the desire to see these acts played out for us by following through with it and feeling nothing, not horror or enjoyment or anything but a numb void. And what the characters say means little to nothing. The dialogue doesn't really change our experience of the film at all. The voice is on mute, words are nothing, just glossed over decoration necessary but not vital in terms of the viewing experience. We're here for the images and movies like this expose the degree to which dialogue is superfluous in most popular films. I think most people could watch Transformers 2 with no dialogue and still enjoy the movie.
Salo - long, painfully drawn out shots, very stable cinematography, mainly wide and mid shots, high attention to framing and composition, an absurd score that contrasted the content of the screen images, a degree of surreality, severe emotional disconnect, almost like an aloof indifference of the camera in relation to the action, deliberate dialogue consisting mainly of pornographic stories and demands or rules given to the victims, a lack of a typical narrative structure in that there is no introduction that cushions our perspective of the violence - it starts immediately. The characters are blank slates with no identity except as archetypes - but no one is pretending otherwise. This includes the director, the actors, and thus, as a viewer, we can't form these connections because they are not provided and manufactured for us. We remain suspended at the entrance to the image, struggling for something 'human' within the narrative, wanting a flimsy security blanket to maintain some degree of illusory moral security. This film forced me to feel uncomfortable with my position as 'audience.' The film involves you while remaining disengaged, it pushes you into the events; you are victimized by your own curiosity, while the camera maintains a particular distance from the characters and the horrific acts going on. So basically, this film does the opposite of what typical, contemporary 'horror' films do. I could write about this film forever, it is so fascinating and has had such an intense impact on me.
I've been writing a lot recently but I don't feel comfortable on the interwebs at the moment. I feel like writing for a blog conditions my creative process in a negative way. Like I assume I am writing for an audience immediately, which is usually a bad way for me to start.
I am so so happy with my life. The last few weeks have been insane with new experiences people images and ideas. And a new year begins.
4.9.09
We discover, indeed, that we do not know our part: we look for a mirror; we want to rub off the paint, to remove all that is artificial, and to become real. But somewhere a bit of masking that we forget still clings to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our lips are twisted. And thus we go about, a laughingstock, a mere half-thing: neither real beings nor actors.
-Rilke
-Rilke
27.8.09
I was stirring my brandy with a nail
Lying on my floor again, eating strawberries and reading early hunter s with the mount eerie on full volume. I told my psychiatrist that I feel like a cliche. He often looks at me like he's slightly confused and doesn't know how to respond to certain things. It's awkward. I Just finished watching masculin/feminin. There are some great lines.
We'd often go to the movies. We'd shiver as the screen lit up. More often we'd be disappointed. The images flickered. Marilyn Monroe aged badly. It saddened us. It wasn't the film we had dreamed, the film we all carried in our hearts, the film we wanted to make and secretly wanted to live.
To have a conscience is to be open to the world.
To be faithful is to act as if time didn't exist.
Wisdom would be to see life, truly see it. That would be wisdom.
Ever notice there's the word "mask" in masculine? And also "ass"?
And in feminine?
There is nothing.
(pow! that's a fucking great line. Oh, Lacan, how you haunt me. Seriously, I really am haunted by Lacan.)
I flirted with the dude at the video store, not the asshole who wears the beret, the nice one that I would actually chill with, and he told me I was awesome because my favourite Godard movie is 2 or 3 things I know about her (oh my god that's his favourite toooo!!! what a goddam coincidence!!!!) and then reduced my late fees. It's like all you need for street cred in this fucking city is to "appreciate" Godard and know the definition of conceptual poetry and spout on about "the meaningless of art in our time" in a cynical blase tone like its "no big deal," etc. Excuse the "quotes." I really suck at floating on the surface of things. Apparently the psychiatrists are going to "fix" this so that I no longer feel performance anxiety in groups of people. Hm. Pyschiatry is a really funny thing. I find the process fascinating, the lists of questions, the questions that come from answers.
In an interview when asked about his favourite director, Bradford Cox said "not Godard." Classic. There are two different ways I respond to this. 1) he's safe because he confirms that he "knows what the cool artsy kids like" 2) and yet manages to secure a place for himself out of the new mainstream by disdaining what the cool artsy kids like. Insert reference to increasingly obscure film maker. Its such a fucking game and shit. I still love Bradford though.
Feeling good, feeling good.
25.8.09
convoluted things coming out of my brain.
"Drama is what happens when people get together and live"
this is a profound statement adam coates, this is exactly what I should have said last week when a man said that he "didn't want to be involved in my drama" this is exactly what I thought, while feeling very sad. instead I think I started to cry and stared at the ceiling for a little bit, feeling that something was ending. maybe he didn't think anything except 'get me the fuck out of this girls life.' I think a lot of men think that a lot about me, maybe I felt "this is starting in the same way and will end in the same way and I feel sad because I don't have the naivete to be excited anymore." there is a certain fatigue in that but we all keep on keeping on, etc. also, that song on your blog is so so beautiful.
I have only cried 5 times in the past two weeks. twice have been in the past two days as a result of blog posts. Here and here.
I know that noah cicero does not read my blog or whatever and I feel that if he did notice that I linked to that post he would probably feel some degree of disdain or distaste toward me. Fuck, that sounds like a lame disclaimer. But...these lines really hit me, really really hard, because this is something I have been trying to say to people over the last few months without feeling like anybody really knows what I'm saying at all:
but i don't want a lot of people around
they've really begun to drive me nuts
really crazy with their stupid shit
It is like I'm constantly overwhelmed by the present
there it is
the objects, the now, everything talking place
observing
hearing
other people have the knack of turning it off or not noticing it all
People say things like this all the time but I don't really feel it from them. But, truly, I always really feel stuff that Noah Cicero writes. I guess thats a sign of a good writer. Fuck I'm really lame tonight, I apologize.
I am oscillating between feeling very very alone and feeling very very free. when one component shifts or removes itself from my life I start throwing everything out the fucking window, I feel like every important component in my life has changed or dissipated in the last two weeks. This is somewhat terrifying and I am sorry if you are one of those people who has periodically been deleted from my life. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.
I just want to feel important and loved by one single person for one single day. Someone, please, I need this very badly.
when I jumped into the air over the water for that split half-second before my body hit I felt shocked and euphoric and light and out of control. and then my body was submerged and everything was open and I felt like my skin was tearing and my brain was tugging out of my ears and then I was up again with the sun shining all over my naked exposed shoulders
"the condition of renewal means you cut your roots"
-Zizek
this is a profound statement adam coates, this is exactly what I should have said last week when a man said that he "didn't want to be involved in my drama" this is exactly what I thought, while feeling very sad. instead I think I started to cry and stared at the ceiling for a little bit, feeling that something was ending. maybe he didn't think anything except 'get me the fuck out of this girls life.' I think a lot of men think that a lot about me, maybe I felt "this is starting in the same way and will end in the same way and I feel sad because I don't have the naivete to be excited anymore." there is a certain fatigue in that but we all keep on keeping on, etc. also, that song on your blog is so so beautiful.
I have only cried 5 times in the past two weeks. twice have been in the past two days as a result of blog posts. Here and here.
I know that noah cicero does not read my blog or whatever and I feel that if he did notice that I linked to that post he would probably feel some degree of disdain or distaste toward me. Fuck, that sounds like a lame disclaimer. But...these lines really hit me, really really hard, because this is something I have been trying to say to people over the last few months without feeling like anybody really knows what I'm saying at all:
but i don't want a lot of people around
they've really begun to drive me nuts
really crazy with their stupid shit
It is like I'm constantly overwhelmed by the present
there it is
the objects, the now, everything talking place
observing
hearing
other people have the knack of turning it off or not noticing it all
People say things like this all the time but I don't really feel it from them. But, truly, I always really feel stuff that Noah Cicero writes. I guess thats a sign of a good writer. Fuck I'm really lame tonight, I apologize.
I am oscillating between feeling very very alone and feeling very very free. when one component shifts or removes itself from my life I start throwing everything out the fucking window, I feel like every important component in my life has changed or dissipated in the last two weeks. This is somewhat terrifying and I am sorry if you are one of those people who has periodically been deleted from my life. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.
I just want to feel important and loved by one single person for one single day. Someone, please, I need this very badly.
when I jumped into the air over the water for that split half-second before my body hit I felt shocked and euphoric and light and out of control. and then my body was submerged and everything was open and I felt like my skin was tearing and my brain was tugging out of my ears and then I was up again with the sun shining all over my naked exposed shoulders
"the condition of renewal means you cut your roots"
-Zizek
20.8.09
Don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning.
I'm just kind of sitting in the dark on the ground writing a long, frustrating paper with a coffee and endless cigarettes, listening to Neil Young Live at Massey Hall 1971 and the skies are dark and windy and on the verge of downpour. I have some candles going and I want to be in this dark candlelit thunderstorm head space for as long as possible. It's a very good vibe going on. Why do I feel the need to ruin it by writing about it in a blog post, that is the question. Reaching out for some sort of pseudo-human contact. Wanting someone to understand how I feel right now. I wish experiences could be shared. Too bad there's not a formula to reproduce the same feelings in other people, so I wouldn't feel "alone" all the time and little beautiful moments could actually be shared and I could look at you and think, yes, we are having a deep profound moment of mutual self-recognition right now, how interesting, maybe we have some deep spiritual connection or maybe we should have sex. Like it happens in the movies while an appropriately melancholic song plays in the background. We are all elaborate productions and producers of life and my little moments of feeling deeply connected to people or the universe or whatever the fuck are little stage plays that I create and relish in. Producing machine-bodies, c'est tout. I'm feeling cynical but willing to invest.
Music hasn't been a large part of my life in the past few weeks because sometimes I'm afraid. There are some albums that I put on and instantly feel like I'm cuddling in a bed with a friendly person who knows me really well. Like my body unwraps itself. These are those albums:
1)Elliott Smith. Either/Or
2)Jeff Buckley. Live at Sin-e
3)Neil Young. Live at Massey Hall 1971
4)Goldfrapp. Felt Mountain
5)Microphones. The Glow Pt.2
6)Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton. Knives Don't Have Your Back
7)Nick Drake. Pink Moon
8)Wilco. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
9)Atlas Sound. Let the Blind...
10)Bonnie Prince Billy. The Letting Go
11)My Bloody Valentine. Loveless
12)Talk Talk. Spirit of Eden
13)Grouper. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
In no way is this a "GREATEST ALBUMS EVER" declaration. They're just the ones that keep me sane and feel like friends.
What are your favourite comfort-food albums? I'd like some suggestions.
Music hasn't been a large part of my life in the past few weeks because sometimes I'm afraid. There are some albums that I put on and instantly feel like I'm cuddling in a bed with a friendly person who knows me really well. Like my body unwraps itself. These are those albums:
1)Elliott Smith. Either/Or
2)Jeff Buckley. Live at Sin-e
3)Neil Young. Live at Massey Hall 1971
4)Goldfrapp. Felt Mountain
5)Microphones. The Glow Pt.2
6)Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton. Knives Don't Have Your Back
7)Nick Drake. Pink Moon
8)Wilco. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
9)Atlas Sound. Let the Blind...
10)Bonnie Prince Billy. The Letting Go
11)My Bloody Valentine. Loveless
12)Talk Talk. Spirit of Eden
13)Grouper. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
In no way is this a "GREATEST ALBUMS EVER" declaration. They're just the ones that keep me sane and feel like friends.
What are your favourite comfort-food albums? I'd like some suggestions.
15.8.09
This photo makes me feel so uncomfortable, its excellent.
The new Mount Eerie is blowing my fucking mind, I suggest listening to it. It'll be the perfect fall record. Phil Elverum is quiet but immense. His voice never breaks out of that space, even when the noise under it explodes. No music better describes how my brain works.
District 9 is probably one of the best movies I've seen recently. I kind of gave up on current movies having any impact on me whatsoever.
I don't know how to function on streets full of people wearing fedoras and high-waisted skirts and big glasses, pulling their vintage bikes along sidewalks. If I spend more than 20 minutes on the internet I get frustrated at the levels of irony going on. Ironic ironic irony/satire/what? and the number of 'post-posts' added onto the everything and the ever-receding levels of meta-bullshit. I feel that the last two years of my life have consisted in people whining about me "not living my life to the fullest" and "allowing anxiety to hold me back" as though their version of "living life to the fullest" is somehow preferable. I'm sick of beating myself up for not buying into some lifestyle brand obsession, a capitalized version of Youth that somehow requires I avoid difficult relationships and start taking artsy pictures of myself to post on facebook and network with other "like-minded creative individuals" and smoke weed and drink myself to oblivion on the weekends. None of that shit has ever made me happy, and I'm sick of people acting like it should, and if I could only "take life less seriously" I'd be a lot "happier" whatever the fuck that means. The more happy I am with myself, the more contempt I feel for society and the less I'm willing to buy into other people's bullshit versions of happiness. And its not some profound angsty contempt about whatever, the loss of meaning, blah blah blah. It's just a lingering fatigue. I'm finding peace in small things, like succint lines in Jacqueline Rose's theory and subtle movements in songs and my hands running over vegetables in Koreatown markets and Italian opera heard all the way down Queen from Dundas and men with scarred hands stopping me in Kensington to trade cigarettes and tell me I'm beautiful.
6.8.09
Drunk and sad with a crush and a grudge.
It must have been hard to exit the womb
with your hands clenched so tight
already fighting against walls
that only wanted to protect you
I cannot waltz through these doors,
indifferent
like you can.
I tried to dance but my legs and my tongue
periodically abandon
the rules of nerve centers
your body learns to move because it must.
I am not so invincible to escape the placenta
and the mediocrity of perfection
or sleep,
the pain of god telling me:
accept the emptiness of your vagina.
and Lacan telling me:
accept the emptiness of the words that describe your physiology
escape routes are still closed to me and
My raging hormones
and gender-bending,
my body's desire
is very open
for you to describe
with pretty
adjectives
you learned in text books
adapt me to suit a song
then leave me like you found me
you ought to be proud that I'm getting good marks.
with your hands clenched so tight
already fighting against walls
that only wanted to protect you
I cannot waltz through these doors,
indifferent
like you can.
I tried to dance but my legs and my tongue
periodically abandon
the rules of nerve centers
your body learns to move because it must.
I am not so invincible to escape the placenta
and the mediocrity of perfection
or sleep,
the pain of god telling me:
accept the emptiness of your vagina.
and Lacan telling me:
accept the emptiness of the words that describe your physiology
escape routes are still closed to me and
My raging hormones
and gender-bending,
my body's desire
is very open
for you to describe
with pretty
adjectives
you learned in text books
adapt me to suit a song
then leave me like you found me
you ought to be proud that I'm getting good marks.
29.7.09
I feel like I'm doing so many things but not really getting anything done.
I am writing a lot of poetry and editing a lot of old poems. I have about 500 poems on my computer, some no longer than a few lines, some pages long. I'm trying to sift through them and all the corresponding memories. I have been writing a lot of poems to my little sister. I wonder if she would like them if she ever read them. She doesn't like Kurt Vonnegut very much. She misses Japan a lot. She was rejected by her first boyfriend.
I'm getting wanderlust again. Someone move to the country with me. I want to throw paint on to walls, walk around with no pants on all the time, make delicious pies, roll around in grassy fields and listen to music at top volume. I want to live someplace that resembles here. Animal skeletons optional, but preferable.
I am so emotionally exhausted.
I am writing a lot of poetry and editing a lot of old poems. I have about 500 poems on my computer, some no longer than a few lines, some pages long. I'm trying to sift through them and all the corresponding memories. I have been writing a lot of poems to my little sister. I wonder if she would like them if she ever read them. She doesn't like Kurt Vonnegut very much. She misses Japan a lot. She was rejected by her first boyfriend.
I'm getting wanderlust again. Someone move to the country with me. I want to throw paint on to walls, walk around with no pants on all the time, make delicious pies, roll around in grassy fields and listen to music at top volume. I want to live someplace that resembles here. Animal skeletons optional, but preferable.
I am so emotionally exhausted.
21.7.09
Shakespeare's sister is a bitch.
I'm feeling highly fucked-up and extremely poor. Job doesn't appear to have worked out for me. Too bad I had that one day of being happy and spent $40 on jewelery-making supplies that I could have used to eat food for an extra week. The situation is pretty dire when $40 is a major loss.
I feel pretty much excluded from all social situations. I realize this is because I have a very difficult time 'performing' without being self-conscious about it. As a result, I just back down and get sullen. When in groups of men, I feel excluded by their tension and obvious investment in performing gender, performing what it means to be a 'male.' I'm sure the same phenomena applies to women, but to be honest, the last time I was in a group of more than 3 women was probably 8 years ago (thanks to traumatic preteen experiences, of course). The construction of male social identity is so painfully obvious to me. Let's talk about girls with big tits and a phenomenal ass. Let's talk about how you picked her out of the crowd and pointed to declare 'I will possess that.' What position am I left in as a woman within this discussion? I am immediately given the choice to perform in several different ways, all of which position me as an outsider/observer with no voice.
I can:
1) laugh at your "casual misogyny" and pretend to be "one of the boys" who "gets it"
2) remain quiet
3) respond in a critical manner
Which of these is the best way to respond? None of these responses are effective or useful for a woman within that male discourse. I'm set up to fail within this discourse of male-male bonding. So a lot of dudes would say, "then stay out of it." But what kind of time are we living in? Apparently we're still down with alienating people of both genders. Anyone with a vagina is automatically 1) prompted to reject her identity as a woman in order to fit in and let the boys be boys 2) relegated to silence, given no voice or position to respond 3) demonized as an outsider "bitchy-feminist." A lot of people are not self-aware enough to recognize when things they say are translucent attempts to perform gender as it is 'supposed' to be performed. And most of the shit that comes out of peoples mouths is self-admittedly 'not the reality' of the situation. It's all just a fucking show, and when I question men about sexist comments they're like "oh, I'm just joking" or laugh it off as "natural" (!!) male posturing. Regardless, that doesn't magically make such comments neutral.
If only I didn't let anything bother me, if only I wasn't such a bitch, right? Too bad shit sticks with me and I have an opinion.
Sorry this post is so ranty and possibly unintelligible. I am heavily drugged post-panic attack. And the panic returns. I was huddled in a bathroom stall trying to control my breathing and someone wrote "this too shall pass" on the door.
Thanks.
I feel pretty much excluded from all social situations. I realize this is because I have a very difficult time 'performing' without being self-conscious about it. As a result, I just back down and get sullen. When in groups of men, I feel excluded by their tension and obvious investment in performing gender, performing what it means to be a 'male.' I'm sure the same phenomena applies to women, but to be honest, the last time I was in a group of more than 3 women was probably 8 years ago (thanks to traumatic preteen experiences, of course). The construction of male social identity is so painfully obvious to me. Let's talk about girls with big tits and a phenomenal ass. Let's talk about how you picked her out of the crowd and pointed to declare 'I will possess that.' What position am I left in as a woman within this discussion? I am immediately given the choice to perform in several different ways, all of which position me as an outsider/observer with no voice.
I can:
1) laugh at your "casual misogyny" and pretend to be "one of the boys" who "gets it"
2) remain quiet
3) respond in a critical manner
Which of these is the best way to respond? None of these responses are effective or useful for a woman within that male discourse. I'm set up to fail within this discourse of male-male bonding. So a lot of dudes would say, "then stay out of it." But what kind of time are we living in? Apparently we're still down with alienating people of both genders. Anyone with a vagina is automatically 1) prompted to reject her identity as a woman in order to fit in and let the boys be boys 2) relegated to silence, given no voice or position to respond 3) demonized as an outsider "bitchy-feminist." A lot of people are not self-aware enough to recognize when things they say are translucent attempts to perform gender as it is 'supposed' to be performed. And most of the shit that comes out of peoples mouths is self-admittedly 'not the reality' of the situation. It's all just a fucking show, and when I question men about sexist comments they're like "oh, I'm just joking" or laugh it off as "natural" (!!) male posturing. Regardless, that doesn't magically make such comments neutral.
If only I didn't let anything bother me, if only I wasn't such a bitch, right? Too bad shit sticks with me and I have an opinion.
Sorry this post is so ranty and possibly unintelligible. I am heavily drugged post-panic attack. And the panic returns. I was huddled in a bathroom stall trying to control my breathing and someone wrote "this too shall pass" on the door.
Thanks.
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