Can't touch me!

So hey, get this - I read Toilet Boy's creative writing piece just the other day. And holy-fucking-schmoly, is he a piece of work! And his work is a piece of work too! Not in the literal sense. But come to think of it, yeah, it is. Literal and figuratively. Fuck, this is making my head spin. But whoa there - hang on to your fucking horses. I'll get to the point quick, y'all. Re-al fuckin' quick, y'all. So listen up, all you squat earred, attention span shortened postmodern retards. Like fuck this. Toilet Boy decides to fucking write a fucking observational piece on a fucking bus. Like whoa; hey there - a bus?! Like who the fuck writes on a bus? Don't you get headaches from the crazy fuckin' spinnin' around like it's the bloody fucking end of the world?

But hey get this - Toilet Boy writes like a loutish yobbo on his thirteenth VB. I'm for fuckin' real. He swears every fucking line, like it's the end of the fucking world. Clean out that potty mouth, yo! And Toilet Boy gives everyone unflattering nicknames, like Blue Lips Girl and PSP Boy and Crochety Old Lady and Asian Man. Like whoa there Toilet Boy - a little respect's due, innnit? Like come on man, refer to people by their proper names, the way God made 'em, Capische?

And worst of all - so abhorrently bad is this trait it makes me want to fucking punch some people and hang homeless people up by hooking their tongues through steel bars and stringing them along like a shower curtain - he is fucking violent in his language. Like whoa dude- you've got some real issues there. He talks about violently castrating a guy who refused to abide by his request. When the poor dude wasn't even able to hear him properly and all that, with earphones plugged in and all that. So man! That pisses me right off I think I'm going to sock a punch at old ladies and pregger ladies until they miscarry. That'll fucking show him.

Labels: Boys, Method Writing

As I keep telling Al, it's not the intensity of the gaze, it's the frequency.

When really, it should be, it's not the frequency of the gaze, it's the intensity.

And what happens when it's a bit of both?

BlogWarBot: I'm BlogWarBot. Are you one of those radical feminists?
Me: Yes, I am.
BlogWarBot: Do you expect a cookie just because you're?
Me: Of course not.
BlogWarBot: That's the problem with people like you. You're never constructive about anything.
Me: I am a constructive person. You don't know me well enough to depict me in such a manner.
BlogWarBot: Do you recognize the privilege involved in your calling yourself a constructive person. BlogWarBot don't know you well enough to depict you in such a manner?
Me: It is not a privilege, it is a right.
BlogWarBot: And I suppose your pet issue is so much more important than ending the war.
Me: I do want to end the war.
BlogWarBot: Typical. An expression of ignorant privilege.
Me: I am agreeing with you, fuckhead.
BlogWarBot: Do you expect a cookie just because you're agreeing with BlogWarBot, fuckhead?
Me: NO!
BlogWarBot: That's the problem with people like you. You're never constructive about anything.
Me: we're going into a loop now
BlogWarBot: Are you saying no just to be an asshole?
Me: You're one step behind, blogwarbot.
BlogWarBot: You keep using that word one step behind, blogwarbot. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Me: You are a poorly constructed programme. I do not think Chris Clarke deserves much accolade for this.
BlogWarBot: Do you sometimes wish you were a poorly constructed programme. you do not think Chris Clarke deserves much accolade for this?
Me: No. And no.
BlogWarBot: Yeah, well, Hitler said 'NO' too.
Me: Godwin's Law invoked, I win.
BlogWarBot: You clearly have no idea what Godwin actually said.
Me: Yes I do.
BlogWarBot: Perky, aren't we?
Me: Absolutely.
BlogWarBot: Typical. An expression of privileged ignorance.
Me: You're stuck in a loop again.
BlogWarBot: You keep using that word stuck in a loop again. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Me: Fuck this, I'm out of here.

Labels: Miscellanous

I have a friend - well maybe not a friend, but then again, not an acquaintance either. Lop-sided smile, curly hair, sardonic sense of humour. Blazingly brilliant writer.

My wells of admiration run deep for him. And one day, whether we become friends, or whether we remain acquaintances content to let the buzz of our weekend activities fly over our heads in a polite, nodding manner - whichever it is; even if we never see each other again - I must tell him, and I mean it truly, this:

"Thank you for believing in me."

The film is lush and evocative; it is erotic and deeply emotional; it is the sound of cicadas chirping in the luxuriant green of a forest that has shot out from deep within the sticky fecundity of life-giving mud. It is the roar of the ocean as it crashes with fury against the shore, it is the taste of dancing flames on wilting wicks; it is a concerto or a melancholic air played with rolling intensity on a beach.

I am talking, of course, about The Piano, a 1993 film made by New Zealand director Jane Campion. She is considered an auteur, the first female auteur, to be exact. And is the site of energetic discourse on feminist, pyschoanalytic and postcolonial theory.

I was supposed to do a tutorial presentation on the film. How apt that the film is about a mute woman who expresses herself through means other than language (the law of the Father)! I was the first in the enture tutorial to do my presentation, the one who was supposed to set the bar, the one who gives people an idea of what to expect for when their turn to do their presentations arrive admidst the great fanfare of last minute Sunday night paperwork.

So yeah, no pressures there.

I focused on pyschoanlytic and postcolonial theory (the other person who did her presentation on The Piano focused on feminist theory), delving into ideas I barely understood myself. Lacan and his mirror phase, depictions of Maori culture in New Zealand; I was hanging by a bare thread, trying to keep myself one step ahead.

"I might ask questions for clarification," my tutor explains serenely, and I nod my head, though my mouth has gone dry.

But I plunge ahead, I tell myself to trust my own preparation, which I know on an intellectual level is adequate, more than adequate, but oh so bloody scary people are going to ask questions and I won't be able to answer and people are going to fall asleep and my tutor is going to issue a tough challenge to something I say which will derail my train of thought completely and leave me completely stunned and silent!

Which, funnily enough, didn't happen.

As I share ideas, ideas of theorists so esteemed they bring shudders of admiration deep in my spine; I offer my opinions on them, I deflect counter-arguments, I feel my voice gaining strength and courage as I go on.

And my tutor is pleased. She tells me my presentation is 'weighty' and complex', she tells me I have made a good choice in the clip I showed to the class. She thanks me.

And I am filled with a sort of wonder that I have got through this. Like Ada and her piano, like Ada and her elegant sign language, like Ada and her delightful relationship with her daughter; like Ada with her refusal to capitulate to the 'Law of the Father' through spoken language, my fearful, hesitant presentation, my clumsy wounding of my inner demons, is in no small part a measure of some feminine resistance.

Happy National Day!

A girl steps into my tutorial room, her body svelte, her hair a silky ginger, her eyes dark and flashing, her lips a cherry pout. Tim, who moments ago is engaged in conversation with me, looks up, agog. He cannot take his eyes off her. E___, who only seconds before was telling a joke in her endearingly hesitant way, falters. K___'s smile wavers for a second. Is_____, originally the beauty in the class, stiffens. For a micro second the room falls into silence, a silence so quick and so painful it is like the stillness between heartbeats, or the darkness between the blinking of an eye.

So. Stunningly. Beautiful.

A dull ache creeps up in my spinchter, and I immediately recognise it for what it is. Jealousy. Envy. A throbbing shade of green beneath my lids. Oh, if only I possesed beauty like that! I could have the world between my fingertips, and so much more.

There is something cold about her. She is aloof, uncommunicative. Her chin is held at a high angle, and she peers at us mere mortals beneath her dark, mascared lashes. She stays silent during the tutorial; she does not contribute; she does not even appear to be listening. As the minutes tick by she becomes less beautiful, and much more brittle and glassy. She is someone for whom beauty is an end to itself. An ornamental quality which is not echoed from within.

It only reminds me of a stanzaa from Yeats' poem, A Prayer for my Daughter

"May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend."

Perhaps I will go to every week's tutorial feeling sulky and jealous until I learn to deal with this, but intellectually I know that there is also goodness in not being beautiful, and great fortune in having the love of friends (note: I'm not including family in this one, many of my family members have damaged me enough) make up for what the external lacks.

Labels: Beauty, University

Thursday was film festival night with the MU Film Society!

Poor Roger (the president of the club) had forgot to bring his special identifying hat (a physics vector sign) and was worrying that film society people would miss him and stand around like lost sheep.

"Should I put my hands over my head?" he asked me anxiously.
"Um," I replied.
"Well", he muses, "maybe if I call someone to get the hat from uni..."
"Here," I say, passing him my black eyeliner. "Just write 'film society' on a piece of paper and wave it around. Which he proceeds to do, except he triple underlines the words, wasting one and a half day's worth of eye liner.

The film we watched, Red Road was an immensely draining and intense movie. Hoo-boy! Painfully clautrophobic close-up shots, dizzying hand held camera work, an absence of soundtrack (replaced instead by haunting chimes and whispers), raw and gritty mise-en-scene, meandering editing... what an experience! Halfway through I felt so giddy I had to bend over and grasp my knees just so I wouldn't throw up. This is the stuff that film society dreams are made of, I suppose, films you wouldn't normally watch, films that disturb and disorient you, films that shock so much they are virtually un-rewatchable.

After the film ended I went with Roger and two of three who came (one left early) to discuss the film. The discussion lasted only 10 minutes, and though I ached to make comparisons between Red Road and Hitchcock's films, I felt silly and thought I would sound pretentious and so shut up. Poppy, the only other girl who came, is doing her Honours year in Cinema Studies, and despite being far more advanced in her understanding of cinema than I am, did not condescend to discuss thematic similarities and motifs in the film. Soon, the conversation turned to Physics, and Roger went on quite a bit about his research. He did have funny anecdotes about his lecturers, and I found myself completely mersmerised by his steady blue gaze amidst the flickering yellow light of the bar. At the same time, I was filled with a sort of melancholy - I miss studying Physics, I really do. And his enthusiastic stories and explanations, while very enjoyable, only made more keen my sense of loss. Knowing that my course isn't as highly valued in society and among my family members did not help very much either.

This is it - I guess - the reason for my procrastination, for the late night wanderings which makes sitting down to do work nearly impossible. I'm not sure of what I'm doing with my life - the shame and vulnerability I experience in creative writing class (not helped by having Toilet Boy, of all people, sit next to me as I read out my piece in a trembling voice); the restraint I feel in my gender studies class; the dread that accompanies each film theory tutorial; the barely flickering enthusiasm that I greet each Media lecture.

No, I am not thriving. I am not flourishing. Problems with friends, study complications, troubles with time management - all coming to a tumbling head. I do not lie when I say I love uni. But to pretend it's all fun and games would be a veritable triumph of dishonesty and self-delusion.

Labels: University

It's been a busy weekend so far, and I'm behind in my work. I've drank so much this week alone that when I woke up this morning I could barely move from the giant hangover I was having. My body is still aching from last night, when I went clubbing with a couple of friends at the Docklands. My God, does that club suck! It's small, cramped, cost $20 to enter, has outrageously expensive drinks, is crowded, sweaty, smelly and dank, has poor interior furnishings, crap music and very amaterish DJ-ing. The line outside the club moved like a snail's arse, and even then the club was taking in way beyond its capacity. The cloak room (originally a kitchen - appliances and dishes still visible) was full by the time our group got there, and cost $4 per item besides. Oh, awful, awful. Their Jager bombs cost $15, which would have bought 2 far superior drinks from Barcode. The insanity! Not to mention how not fun it is to have to dance around with your big bag and coat dangling from your arm.

I ended up walking home alone from DFO Spencer (where our group parted) on the hauntingly deserted streets of the city at 4am in the morning. My legs and feet hurt, it was freezing and a huge run had appeared on my stockings. To make things worse I was verbally harassed on the way back.

"Hey Sweetheart," some scary looking guy said as he walked past me along Crown Promenade. "Hey gorgeous, where are you off to?" Fucker.

"Kill me now," another way scarier guy says to his friend, while simultaneously lunging at me and making mock stabbing motions with his hands aimed directly at his own stomach. Fucker.

Fuckers, all of them. I was scared beyond measure, but ready to swing my bag at them and use the stiletto heels of my shoes as weapons if need be. Thank goodness that most of these drunken assholes are like neutered puppies - all bark, no bite. Another instance of men intimidating women, dominating women, using language as a weapon against women.

And for the next post, some happy stories and jokes.

Labels: Clubbing, Feminism