tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744546558004545112024-03-19T22:35:38.120+11:00Wear Your Skirt Like A Flagsunday mornings in libraries. sunday afternoons in cafes. nights spent face down listening to white noise. swing dresses dried flowers and a pink sofa. ink stains and squids and messy hair. records on repeat. joan didion and middlemarch. words clutched so tightly they might as well be heartbeats. bad temperedness to boot. and a skirt worn like a flagmadeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-84229817997636783822011-05-25T19:45:00.006+10:002011-05-25T22:36:44.319+10:00the dust in the corners of my mind<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">I have been wandering around my head for the past few hours, trippped up by the ethics of the atomic bomb and women's role in revolutions. I wanted to write something about Milan Kundera, who is never far from my thoughts, and I wanted to explain how I don't have an ethnic identity but I can feel a heritage, a stereotype, a stencil fitting over my skin and self. But all that is too hard when I have no sense of bien dans sa peau, so instead, I present a joke, from Milan Kundera
<br />
<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;">A Czech requests a visa to emigrate.
<br />The official asks him, ''Where do you want to go?''
<br />''It doesn't matter,'' the man replies.
<br />He is given a globe.
<br />''Please, choose.''</span><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The man looks at the globe, turns it slowly and says, ''Don't you have another globe?'' </span>
<br /></span><p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Well, don't you?</span></p><p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">(joke from<a href="http://www.kundera.de/english/Info-Point/Interview_Carlisle/interview_carlisle.html"> here</a>)
<br /></span></p><p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p><span><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 100%;">(to clarify, because i had a gigantic freak out on the train home - this is not a racist joke. it isn't intended as such. it is an example of what Kundera calls "the </span>Prague<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 100%;"> spirit" which is "an extraordinary sense of the real. The common man's point of view. History seen from below. A provocative simplicity. A genius for the absurd. Humour with infinite pessimism", which he explains in that interview. Got it? Good. Now, go find me a new globe)</span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" >
<br /></span></p><meta charset="utf-8"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;"> </span>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-78993480061077314402011-05-22T23:00:00.002+10:002011-05-22T23:19:05.923+10:00The Loneliness of the Long Distance House Sitter // IN THREESSo it turns out that I am a social creature. One never would have guessed it. This is something I had to hear from my brother. With only 294 words left to write on my essay on intelligentsia and state-socialism, I have realised that my thesis statement rings true for me. Just as the intelligentsia can never be separate from state-socialism, neither can I. Despite living under a democracy. Don't ruin the neatness of my intellectual epiphany. <div><br /></div><div>I have been living in Leichhardt now for a month, looking after a dog and two cats. There is another five weeks to go. One of the cats, Fat Vivian, took an immediate dislike to me. The other is just a paranoid idiot. The dog eats the kitty litter, and about half an hour ago, she bit me. Hard enough to bruise, not bleed. I responded by sitting down and crying like a two year old. Unlike the two year old, my mummy couldn't come to rescue me. All that was there to comfort me was a near-complete, utterly dodgy essay and the new Wild Beasts album. Desolate and despairing, I dry heaved. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is not quite how I imagined my year was going to be. I had plans, I had theories, I had something brilliant on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I am whinging and whining, I am moving in triplicate. I am saying "I AM I AM I AM" and spending my nights awake. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mind races with these 'white people problems'. My mind throbs with the problem of speaking for others - I will never be a subaltern, I will never have my voice taken from me - even if it is taken, I will still have had a chance at speaking. So why should a dog bite and a dodgy essay cause me more grief than usual?<br /><br /></div><div>Because it is only me here. Boring little me. Little me who thinks in threes, like most people do. I read something about that the other day - I think it was AA Gill who said we speak in iambic pentameter, we think in threes. Like Roman triumvirates. Like Caesar, Pompeii, Crassus. Octavian, Antony, Lepidus. Jeremy, Claudia, Madeleine. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are four of us in this house. A Fat Cat, a paranoid cat, a dodgy dog and me. Four, not three. That's probably why I feel so stuck in a Smiths song, devoid of Morrissey-ian humour. Why I managed to get interested briefly in Czechoslovakia, before I realised how twisted everything is, how inseparable. All I really wanted was to write about Milan Kundera turning his back on a failed socialist dream, not how they all clamoured at Novotny to give them something, anything, that tasted of pure socialism. </div><div><br /></div><div>In class, I have a mouth that runs like a long distance runner, desperate to make noise that is heard. In class, people are confused - is she a genuine idiot, or an idiot savant? What is her deal with Kundera and Forster? In class, there is so much potential that I find slipping through my fingers. It makes me want to cry, the way I did when the dog bit me. </div><div><br /></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>oh god, this is the worst thing ever. but i wanted to make some noise. any noise. w</i>hite noise.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-58296737665941296862011-05-08T22:49:00.004+10:002011-05-08T23:03:36.202+10:00frankenstein's maddieAt the urging of the universe, I went back to university for my final undergrad year. I promptly fell into a term long argument with Henry James*, rediscovered my interest in Indo-Anglo writing**, managed my usual schtick of writing a history essay on something that 'not really historical' *** and fell in love with Eastern Europe****.<div><br /></div><div>Before that I went to Vienna, where this happened.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWbEbhr7SqIx7HEqagMLJEdOI5szYRXEGShzHgziUbvWOx7zgObWDxk50URbAIplhodcZCcuvHLYnkOUDMkmQx2Nr1PXvxab7zRlplKH0BtYh_zqDwLt5VnSdom7pUpcSQNc1-cTReNCL_/s320/P1000946.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604328975165779346" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 181px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div><br />And then I came home, where this happened.</div><div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://a1.twimg.com/profile_images/1309936539/Twitter_Lottie.jpg" border="0" alt="" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 385px; height: 500px; " /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">And now? Well now I am Frankenstein's Maddie, a patchwork of tea consumption, historical generalisations and a marked distaste for Socialist-Christian-Marxists. I am reading too many things with too many words and I am thinking alot about silences. I also work at a place patronised by retirees who have nothing better to do than tell me about how my generation is an evolutionary cul-de-sac. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span><div>*based mainly on his hatred for Germany</div><div>**and the politics surrounding Indo-Anglo writing - should people write in English? What's magic realism got to do with it? Are we all colonialist pigs?!</div><div>***I'm writing a treatise (yes, a treatise) on the importance of American Jazz in WW2 Europe. It's awesome and going to send me to an early grave.</div></div><div>****not really a hardship, seeing as Berlin and Vienna, and now Prague are my three favourite places ever, and grumpy intellectuals like Kundera and Milosz are my role models.</div></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-36984223771723726322011-01-18T23:10:00.003+11:002011-01-18T23:19:17.344+11:00lost relics<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplP0l2hh8-9BHW6F4BpQJ5brlHTACGNFZuw0aCCQBFfWwLxi-B4GOGTaxGP212egBnzpRHL_DVgf6qW_tJEBjQVUACNscy4SRXGLVHfMOYH0AE_0IV_TxtnxLbbn2pqHxY5y5EuiPxG_y/s1600/P1000915.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplP0l2hh8-9BHW6F4BpQJ5brlHTACGNFZuw0aCCQBFfWwLxi-B4GOGTaxGP212egBnzpRHL_DVgf6qW_tJEBjQVUACNscy4SRXGLVHfMOYH0AE_0IV_TxtnxLbbn2pqHxY5y5EuiPxG_y/s320/P1000915.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563498071130505938" /></a>I love going through my computer to find photos of things I can barely remember doing. This is from last years Halloween, which has recently become a big thing in Australia. Chris is a Zombie, I'm Coraline. We have piñatas on our heads. I seem to recall that moments before this, I gave a red wine induced lecture about the gender politics of piñatas and then proceeded to belt the shit out of the poor orange thing, much to the horror of all the men there. Awesome night, despite the devil child on the jumping castle.<div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihxD_xLHH2w9OhVzfZqPCGSghzMQA7qut9ABM0p3v8jjWtwk9EIMmYp4ktBZTUDuYcS6docDb3YSUZ2apAPBqznb6Ki7_b9OIWJ4lbC0WazHF5Vt4wckaBRrgEbjeX-Was9Gt56FwJS9z6/s320/P1000917.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563499060564733794" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 181px; " /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span><div style="text-align: left;"> I have no idea what is happening here, but I suspect Chris was accidentally misogynistic at me. Serves him right. </div></div></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-3497270829570781372011-01-06T21:12:00.003+11:002011-01-06T21:44:20.523+11:00donnerstag delights meThursday. The day Arthur Dent and my mother could never get the hang of. The day when the week starts to get better because you can see the weekend and maybe also the things you've achieved this week. <div><br /></div><div>Donnerstag is Deutsch for Thursday. I know this because Lizzle gave me a diary from Germany, so I'm learning middling German. I like German, and I like the word Deutsch even more. "Like" is such a funny little word, bastardized by the Valley Girls and reclaimed by the crafty indie wannabes like me, who try really hard not to say "like" every three seconds and instead restore it to the original use, which is for similes, metaphors and approval. </div><div><br /></div><div>......I was supposed to be writing about how I'm going to make an effort to chime in on <a href="http://galadarling.com/">Gala Darlings</a> "Things I Love Thursday" this year in an effort to be more positive, but I got distracted by a little word. I love doing that.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Other things I love: Running in the rain. Reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Hollinghurst/e/B000AP9K10/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1294310540&sr=8-1">Alan Hollinghurst</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Miranda-July/e/B001H6IP94/ref=sr_tc_2_rm?qid=1294310569&sr=1-2-ent">Miranda July</a>. Listening to albums that I missed when they were being super hyped - namely Lykke Li, Laura Marling and the Arcade Fire. My new Campers shoes. Being organised with my Deutsch Diary and Bitchy Calendar. Training myself to write every day in my<b> <a href="http://www.kikki-k.com/shop/product/365-days/?by_colour=black">365</a></b> book. Finally filing all of last year's university papers - and rereading articles on Dickinson and Gaskell. Watching<i> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhG_WImjnjM">Stuart: A Life Backwards</a>.</i> Reading <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stuart-Life-Backwards-Alexander-Masters/dp/0385340885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294310595&sr=1-1">Stuart: A Life Backwards</a></i>. Cooking cupcakes that taste like earl grey tea and eating them with a cup of earl grey tea. Plotting cinema visits in cemeteries. Attempting to go to the moonlight cinema and getting rained on. Meeting boys dressed in haute couture drag and teaching them to walk in heels. Going for long ambles with Lottie, and having conversations with her about highly cultured things. Using the word thing. The bookplate stamp Liz gave me, and stamping people with it. Floating in our pool with Pimms and a book on skinheads. Researching weird and wonderful things to do when I'm in Vienna and Berlin and Bratislava and Dresden. Clean sheets. Leopard prints. <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civet">Civets</a>, which are a weird cat-like animal. Eating Clinkers on my veranda at one am while thinking about how weird words are. Making lists. Leaving Post-it notes about that say things like "Blog about how you never really understood Eastern European history but love it anyway". Pretending I'm a Cold War Spy. Sleeping in one day, getting up super early the next. </div><div><br /></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-26829368070447395782011-01-01T15:51:00.003+11:002011-01-01T16:01:55.863+11:00the first incident<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErpS7aTtVtFcAT-XwMhBf_I3ucjcKb7J720G_0r0-PyfTSwoCgbW0NbbqxwEsPhpEnjc7JLGJaA7q_Ol9w_XspF5sCb-VvBBtcnlCP7nI8Ab2xpb0cfQOaxkaMoL15oa-Yp1-bMxBb0rr/s1600/P1000167.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErpS7aTtVtFcAT-XwMhBf_I3ucjcKb7J720G_0r0-PyfTSwoCgbW0NbbqxwEsPhpEnjc7JLGJaA7q_Ol9w_XspF5sCb-VvBBtcnlCP7nI8Ab2xpb0cfQOaxkaMoL15oa-Yp1-bMxBb0rr/s320/P1000167.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557077932594865410" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>(berlintakenbyme2008)</i></span></div>Why helloooooo 2011. How nice of you to show up, all blisteringly hot and dry. I'm sorry about my dreadful hair, runny nose and blocked ear. I have caught a cold, which is just a swell thing to have in January in Sydney. <div><br /></div><div>Despite my cold, I think this year will be a good one. I'm convinced of it, in a prophetic way I usually try to avoid. But how can it not be a good year when in a few days I'll be seeing one of my favourite bands, The National? When I've got my last year of undergraduate classes? When I've got a house-sitting gig that will let me play at being an adult for a few months? When my dog is totally neurotic and gorgeous? When there is roller derby once a month? When there is new Doctor Who and John le Carre movies? When i have a job?! When i am going to Vienna, Prague, Melbourne, Surfers?? </div><div><br /></div><div><b>it is going to be a good year. for me and you. </b></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-82951693235435125562010-12-19T22:05:00.005+11:002010-12-19T22:25:56.621+11:00just because it's over 300 years old doesn't mean it's uselessSome sanctimonious little twit wrote into the Herald a week or so ago, complaining that school hadn't taught him anything useful, just made him study Shakespeare. I wrote into the Herald, carefully illustrating how this twit was wrong. In hindsight (something I never subscribe to) I should perhaps have left out the phrase "<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">sanctimonious</span> little twit"<div><br /></div><div>So. LIFE LESSONS SHAKESPEARE CAN TEACH YOU</div><div><br /></div><div>- If you have three daughters, be on your guard, and trust the good one (for reference, the good one will have the least stupid sounding name)</div><div>- Try not to fall in love with your father's mortal enemy's spawn</div><div>- If you're going to bite your thumb at someone, then commit to the action for the sake of expediency.</div><div>- If you think you kissed an ass, you're probably right</div><div>- If you are one half of a set of opposite gender twins, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">endeavour</span> to have similar hair cuts and body builds. it will prove to be <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">enormously</span> helpful in the long run</div><div>- Don't trust a forest that wasn't there the night before</div><div>- Don't trust the political predictions of witches.</div><div>- Beware the Ides of March, which, for reference, occur on March 15, every year. </div><div>- Don't trust the timing of the almost death potion. Cosmic irony dictates that you won't wake up in time.</div><div>-Henry is a perfectly acceptable name to pass down through 8 or more generations. </div><div>-If you choose to become a playwright, people won't mind if you re-write history just please your monarch.</div><div>- You can also <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">plagiarise</span> from Plutarch and other sources!</div><div>-And recycle your jokes and plot lines!</div><div>- You can tell if your life is a comedy if you end up married, a tragedy if you (and everyone else) ends up dead, and a history if it is long and boring. </div><div>- Naming everyone Caesar is the cause of much unnecessary confusion. Don't do it. </div><div>- If, in your closet, he comes before you with his doublet all unlaced, then he's probably not worth it.</div><div>- If there is something suspicious happening in your family, then you can get to the bottom of it by staging a dummy show that informs everyone of your suspicions.</div><div>- <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Fortinbras</span> is a good dude to call in a crisis.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm sure there are thousands more, but I took Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama two semesters ago, so I'm rusty. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-83136590858548684172010-11-30T22:39:00.002+11:002010-11-30T22:59:06.776+11:00shuffledoh gods. i have a blog, right? apparently? you'd never ever think it. it feels like i only sign on to apologise for not ever signing on. how Beckett-ian of me. <div><br /></div><div>truth is, i spent so much time staring at a computer screen this semester that now i'm on break, most days, i don't even turn my computer on. it's <i>bliss. </i>you oughtta try it. connectivity is overrated, and Moloch is eating you alive. Ginsberg would be so crushed if he knew how much time we spent staring at a screen, guys. do you want to upset Ginsberg?</div><div><br /></div><div>i had a strange term - it was so so so much hard work, with over 30 books to read, not to mention all the extra reading, the american lit discussion board, major essays, minor essays, essays that i didn't need to write but wrote anyway. so much writing and reading, which is what i signed up for. so i probably shouldn't complain too much.</div><div><br /></div><div>but now summer is here in all its muggy glory. which means i am spending my days in John Le Carre novels, fighting over the sofa with Lottie (who is not allowed on the sofa, no matter what she thinks), drinking copious amounts of Pimms&Lemonade&Cucumber and steadfastly not thinking about Christmas. </div><div><br /></div><div>what i am thinking about is 2011. which seems, so far, like it is going to be <b>awesome</b>. my last year of undergrad classes, a european jaunt in feb, employment, housesitting and undoubtedly more forgetting to blog. </div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-18377729398664273222010-11-09T22:13:00.002+11:002010-11-09T22:18:38.026+11:00revolutionariesLizzle and I just saw this:<div><br /><br /><object width="400" height="250"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/msHKuOH9h24?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/msHKuOH9h24?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="250"></embed></object><br /></div><div>And it was utterly wonderful. </div><div><br /></div><div>(<a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.paramountpicturesintl.com/intl/uk/madeindagenham/">made in dagenham</a>)</div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-37613040176116176482010-10-05T11:57:00.004+11:002010-10-05T19:05:46.364+11:00i am tryingI have just handed in my final essay for the term; in which I argued - very loosely - that the courtship art of conversation is the method Elizabeth Gaskell uses to educate her characters and readers in <i>North and South</i>. This was after an essay in which I argued - very loosely - that Kate Chopin's <i>The Awakening</i> and Oscar Wilde's <i>Dorian Gra</i>y<i> </i>paint pictures of dissatisfied fin-de-siecle sexual beings. Which came after I argued - very loosely - the the Whitlam Government changed my family history by handing out free education. And before that, I argued - very loosely - that sometimes Ginsberg and Dickinson freak people out because they approach poetry from a non traditional standpoint. <div><br /></div><div>.........I sense a pattern that I don't want to acknowledge. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And I was going to do a long whiny post about how I have no idea what I want anymore except maybe a big bottle of Pimms and access to the British National Library and to be magically fluent in French, but instead I thought NON! </div><div><br /></div><div>And that was about as far as I got before I got distracted by the books I have to read for tomorrow, which are kind of utterly miserable in a beautiful way. When I have started my own university, which is tentatively titled THE UNIVERSITY OF YOU'RE NOT INVITED in my daydreams, I'm going to teach a course on books that aren't utterly miserable. It will be called "Sometimes Stuff is Nice" and there will be complimentary ice cream. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>#</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-69613064447148365562010-09-14T22:48:00.002+10:002010-09-14T22:53:20.888+10:00lamest post ever?I am supposed to be reading <i>Washington Square</i> by Henry James and rereading <i>Mrs Dalloway </i>by Virginia Woolf for class tomorrow, but I have had a brain melt and feel I need to do some shouting about how, sometimes, I do things other than read books. <div><br /></div><div>Except I can't remember any of them. This concerns me. I think I went to an open poetry night, but I'm pretty sure I spent most of the time worrying about Ginsberg and Dickinson. And I went to see Bre's band play again, but I spent most of the night trying not to embarrass myself in front of a boy and some bongo players. I failed.</div><div><br /></div><div>I do know, that I went to Roller Derby on Saturday and had so much fun that I am considering giving up everything to be a Derby player. I would be Mad the Bad and I would be awesome. I'd have broken limbs, but they would be broken in an awesome manner. </div><div><br /></div><div>That's what I fantasize about at present, when I don't know how to write about Kate Chopin and Oscar Wilde, or Dickinson and Ginsberg, or Elizabeth Gaskell, or how the 70s were good for women. I think "Gosh, all that would have been better with Roller Derby."</div><div><br /></div><div>......I'm very tired, by the by. </div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-22869803382065441852010-08-31T23:12:00.003+10:002010-08-31T23:43:21.745+10:00womb-tomb of decadent closureI recently discovered <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(...err, was forced to read)</span></i> Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin and Kathy Acker. <div>I sort of want to carry on this with "DUUUUUUUUUUDE. DUDE. SO. FREAKING. WONDERFUL." but that's not very classy or articulate.</div><div><br /></div><div>So. Emily Dickinson. Why haven't I read you before? Why did I dismiss you as some sort of American Jane Austen prim princess when you are a masochistic, sadistic, death dancing, church hating, desirous wonder-babe? I have seen the error of my ways, and boy. I <b>love</b> being wrong about words. Dickinson is fantastic - she packs more into a four line poem than Wordsworth ever did. She's so quietly vicious, so uptight. Her poems are like being laced into a corset, they're like shouting in the middle of the night, they are pinpricks of perfection. She is so incredibly stealthy, you don't even notice the bodily language you're using until you read it back.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, none of the boys in my American Literature class are willing to give her any credit. She was "locked away". She had no "life experience". She was "socially inept". Listen, there's a big difference between "locked away" and <b>choosing</b> to reject the world. There's a whole world, a new language in her work that Dickinson created that I <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(and you, smelly boy)</span></i> could never have dreamed up. It's bodily metaphysics. And besides, Allen Ginsberg loved her, so you have her to thank for those three famous lines you know. Talk to me when you've read the rest of <i>Howl.</i><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Ahem. Sorry. The dismissive nature of the boys in some of my classes is beginning to get to me. </div><div><br /></div><div>So. I am in love with Emily Dickinson's words. I have also been heavily influenced by Camille Paglia's work <i>Sexual Persona </i>which recasts Dickinson as a female Marquis de Sade. I cannot get enough of stuff like that. </div><div><br /></div><div>The next woman that has recently entered my life is Kate Chopin. Another American, but from the South. We read <i>The Awakening</i> for Women's Lit, and the best way to describe it is the first of the unhappy married women who undergoes sexual awakening novels. Except that doesn't do it justice at all. It's a powerful novel, powerful and beautiful and warm, with New Orleans and Grand Isle so vivid you can taste the sun. Edna Pontellier, the anti-heroine, is amazing. Her politics of refusal, the way she says <b>no</b> and refuses to give reason, is breath taking. This book is the first fin-de-seicle/Decadent book I have ever read by a woman, and I want to know more. I want to devour all her beautiful words again and again, all that lace, all that choked breath, that female Oscar Wilde, the knowing outsider. It's naturalism, you can hear her Darwinian thinking, her Greek Decadence. I feel like I always say this, but <i>The Awakening</i> is one of the most perfect books I have ever read by a woman.<i> </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Kathy Acker. The third American. The pickpocket. The whore. The woman who took a look at authorship and told it to fuck off. There are no words to describe Kathy Acker and <i>The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec by Herni Toulouse Lautrec </i>apart from nightmare thievery. Like Dickinson, she's bodily. Like Chopin she's refusing. Like neither of them she's pushing her way into and through desire, to satisfaction and away from it again. It's a mindfuck, complete with Henry Kissinger. My family would all hate it. Acker cheats you, cheats you the way she was cheated. Makes you push your boundaries, says "if you're some stupid boy going through a James Dean phase, I'm going to take James Dean and make you rethink him completely without changing a fucking thing."</div><div><br /></div><div>C'est Magnifique, these women. With their desire and their anger. I don't think I knew women wrote like that. They are so refreshing, so terrifying, so beautiful, so dangerous. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*</div><div>Nothing else happens in my life except reading at the moment. Oh, and I saw <i>Inception</i> twice. For the explosions.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><br /></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-50510008195991758262010-08-15T16:40:00.004+10:002010-08-15T17:08:14.760+10:00favouritesThe only reason I picked up the book in the shop was because Joseph Gordon-Levitt was looking devastating on the cover. There, I said it. I didn't expect the book to be amazing. I had no hopes for the film. <div><br /></div><div>Sometimes, I really really love being wrong. </div><div><br /></div><div>I read <i>Mysterious Skin </i>in one night. I remember staying up and having my throat aching the way it does when I'm tired. It was hot, Sydney being indecisive in summer, as I read about Brian Lackey and Neil McCormick. It was heartbreaking. There's not really anything uplifting about this book, except the occasional beauty in the language. It's about trying to find out who you were, and how you were that person. It's growing up in the most awful awful way. And it was all the anger, all the confusion, all the fucking hormones that I had, tied up and presented messily. It was the most believable story about aliens and being an alien I've ever read. </div><div><br /></div><div>And then there's the film. I hate film versions of books<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"> (especially wretched Merchant Ivory)</span></i>. But Gregg <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Araki's</span> film was exactly what I wanted. The dreamy music, the hick town, Brady Corbett as darling Brian, trying to remember the summer he was eight years old. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">cutthroatfragile</span> Neil, who can't forget that summer. Even Michelle <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Tratchenberg</span> was awesome. The whole movie captures that knife edge, when you know you're not quite grown up, but you so desperately want to be <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:x-small;">(I feel like I've been on that edge since I was about 7)</span></i>, when life feels hyper-real and the towns feel too small. It's confronting and gut wrenching. <i>Mysterious Skin</i> is unforgettable.</div><div><br /></div><div><object width="390" height="317"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TvTHh6Qm6UA?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TvTHh6Qm6UA?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="390" height="317"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-10443654557737733932010-08-14T21:06:00.003+10:002010-08-14T21:18:23.993+10:00dotdotdot........I'm beginning to feel like maybe I have a real life beyond a computer screen. This is disconcerting, but not unwelcome. It's a like actually experiencing something, as opposed to wanting to. Of course, this does mean that I'm in a quandary over my position as a subject or an object, but I figure as long as I'm craving macaroons and a houseboat, I'm probably a subject. <div><br /></div><div>I'm currently trying to analyse an utterly stupid passage from Richardson's <i>Pamela</i>. It's stupid, stupid and stupid and I feel stupid about it, which is also stupid. I alienated everyone in one of my tuts by accidentally letting slip the fact that sometimes, the way everyone is so obsessed with the sixties irritates me. But I didn't really explain myself. What I meant was, we go on and on about the sixties being free, and how good it was. We don't do anything to try and make our own sixties. </div><div><br /></div><div>So clearly now, all the boys who think they're Bob Dylan won't talk to me. Which phases me not! For I was always a Mick Jagger girl! Even though these days I find it difficult to look at him! </div><div><br /></div><div>Besides, who needs Dylan when you have <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Bre</span>&Eva?? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Bre</span> is one of the most amazing people I know, and on Wednesday she and Eva played their first open mic night at a pub in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Glebe</span>. It was intimate and wonderful. They did a cover of Aqua's "Dr Jones" which was adorable, and a song in French about Grand Theft Auto. It was so lovely to watch people have fun, and to have fun myself. </div><div><br /></div><div>I spent today having lots of fun. I was supposed to be at a funeral, but I didn't want to spend the day being sad and angry, so I danced around to KISS and thought of funny things. And refused to be guilty, which is what I feel funerals are. A big guilt party. Well, fuck that. </div><div><br /></div><div>And on that poignant note, I better go finish this ridiculous English paper. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>.............if I ever. EVER. look like I'm going to take three English subjects at once, hit me. </div>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-63075015647724312182010-07-29T22:39:00.005+10:002010-07-31T23:04:07.983+10:00not dead yetLurching. That is the best way to describe me at present. Lurching. Possibly creaking, like my bones are made of very precariously patched together scrap metal.<br /><br />This is after two weeks of university, so the thought that the first two weeks have been good fills me with a sort of British Dread, y'know the "oh dear. things are going badly well, it can only get worse" sort of feeling. Optimism does not run strongly in my family, despite my best efforts at morning affirmations, which usually go "you are alive! congratulations, special snowflake!" before I fall back to sleep and dream of giant boots chasing me while brandishing copies of the Yellow Pages.<br /><br />So. Faux-Academics, the only thing we talk about here <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(apart from irritations vexations and agitations)</span></span>. I'm currently studying a course on 18th-19th Century Literature <span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >(not quite sure how Kipling's 'Kim' ended up in that one)</span>, American Literature <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(which, in typical American fashion, refuses to travel linearly)</span></span>, Women's Literature<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> (which rants and raves)</span></span> and an history course that I have renamed "Why the 20th Century is so depressing". It's all terrible fun - I have been swamped by my readings, heading to bed at 2am after writing reams on Whitman and Margaret Cavendish <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(who was amazing)</span></span>, listening to bootlegs of Ginsberg reading his poetry rushing around campus trying to be in the right place at the right time, reading the unfortunately named Northrop Frye, who name drops more than I do. It's not quite the academic dream I had in mind, because people still don't really want to talk about it, but I wear a beret on days I forget to brush my hair and think about how awesome my brain's potential is.<br /><br />I spent tonight at home, ostensibly dog sitting although in reality I was reading about some guy who once met Thomas Pynchon during the 60s and has never quite recovered. I wanted to sneer at him but that would be like sneering at myself <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(I only do that on Tuesdays)</span></span>. So instead I read Tennyson, who's not even on any of my courses, but my brain was hammering out like Ginsberg the night he met Moloch and really, I have to start going out on Saturday nights.<br /><br />...I went out last Saturday night. I did! My siblings took me to see Bill Bailey, who was witty and outraged and called Julia Gillard a Dalek. He's probably right, I've never seen her use a stair case <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(only an elevator)</span></span>. He played<span style="font-style: italic;"> Eine Kleine Nachtmusik</span> on clown horns. We're playing that in our quartet at the moment. His was more orderly. The best thing about Bailey's comedy, for me, was that it's a little meandering, sort of whimsical. He doesn't swear just to make people laugh. My sides hurt the next day, in a good way.<br /><br />This week I have to read <span style="font-style: italic;">Pamela</span> by Samuel Richardson,<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Oroonoko</span> by Aphra Behn, <span style="font-style: italic;">Inherent Vice</span> by Pynchon and some ghastly article about the why colonialism fell to bits. I'm seeing Inception tomorrow afternoon, and planning on eating lots of yoghurt.madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-62641466680170163292010-07-04T14:50:00.001+10:002010-07-07T11:20:18.381+10:00overboiled<span style="font-style: italic;">"If you were an Archibald prize entry, you'd be a perfect portrait of middle class guilt."</span><br /><br />Jason, like me, is extra snarky when he's not being paid attention to. I figured this out about three minutes after I met him, and he probably worked out the same about me. The problem today is that I'm trying to make my bed, listen to his griping/advice, learn the entire Camera Obscura discography and re-read <span style="font-style: italic;">Moll Flanders</span>.<br /><br />It's the latter that's causing me the most grief. I've read it before, sure, but it's the first book we're supposed to read for the ominously titled "The Novel" course, and I want to make sure I've got a decent grasp on it. The fact that the book is currently lying on the floor under my phone suggests that there is no grasping. I got distracted by Jase and his rude comment about my hypothetical Archibald painting. Surely my hair's not that bad, I responded, and would his be any better? We're both from similar backgrounds, both irritated that we're hampered by class in a supposedly classless world, and are both attracted to prints over pastels.<br /><br />Australia can be surprisingly class-centric. Currently our media is fixated on our new PM, a 10pound Pom (like my grandparents?) from Wales. The words "working class background" are tossed around like some sort of exotic salad. What does it mean? What if Gillard was a toff? Isn't she a toff anyway, being our PM and all? Can we say we're a classless society when we're turning people away from our country and always talking about those wretched baby boomers, who have ruined everything? How am I supposed to feel in all of that, when I'm the picture of the problem with our generation, unemployed and unrepentant? It gets under my skin and I can't express how I feel about my spot in life, except to say that I'm worried, probably for all the wrong reasons.<br /><br />When I was thinking all of this, I got so worked up that I had to sit upside down for a bit. And then when I stopped being dizzy, I tried <span style="font-style: italic;">Moll Flanders</span> again. The problem with Defoe is that he writes in first person, and I've never fully reconciled with first person, because there's always an annoying part of me that says "this isn't you. you wouldn't be doing this." The last book I can think of that was written in the first person that really grabbed me was <span style="font-style: italic;">The Elegance of the Hedgehog</span> (I am looking forward, in my own anxious way, to seeing the movie)....oh! and <span style="font-style: italic;">A Month in the Country </span>by J.L. Carr, which I read last week. It's a lovely little book about English summertime. But other than those two, I just don't 'get' first person. It's probably a middle class failing. I hope that my Archibald artist can capture that when they paint my portrait.<br /><br />And that I can decline all telephone conversations until after midday.<br />x<br /><br />When I'm not reading books, then I'm looking at<a href="http://bookshelfporn.com/archive"> them. </a>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-39055089787561026732010-06-29T13:02:00.004+10:002010-07-01T23:04:26.097+10:00bite me.I woke up this morning to find that I had spent the night in bed with a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Frankenstein</span> by Mary Shelley. Considering I'm not even reading this book at present, and it was on my bookshelf when I went to bed, I'm a little concerned. Well, not really, as I knew that I was going to spend today finishing off <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span>, so my subconscious was probably trying to suggest something else<span style="font-style: italic;">.</span> Let me be very clear. I am not reading <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span> by choice. I am reading it because<span style="font-weight: bold;"> it is a required book for my Women's Lit course. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Boo hiss. </span></span><br /><br />I knew my plan of getting all my reading done during the holidays would come back to bite me. Ahem.<br /><br />When I found out <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span> was on the reading list, I wasn't that irritated, because most of my irritation was directed at the fact American Lit wanted me to re-read <span style="font-style: italic;">Beloved </span>by Toni Morrison. Then they decided that they'd rather we read <span style="font-style: italic;">A Mercy,</span> and all of my rage fell upon <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight. </span><span><br /><br />I feel this rage is justified. For I am not a reader of trashy novels. I get no joy out of reading works that rely heavily on dodgy punctuation and overusing the thesaurus. Vampires and werewolves are boring, as are passive-aggressive chiseled male love interests. But you've heard all of that already. The world is divided, after all, into people who love <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight </span>and people who loathe it. I was surprised that it was worse than I expected. The section in which Bella Swan takes her shabby copy of the Complete Austen outside to read, but then can't read because <span style="font-style: italic;">Sense & Sensibility</span> has someone called Edward in it, and then <span style="font-style: italic;">Mansfield Park</span> has an Edmund and it's all too much because it reminds her of nutjob Edward Cullen was just painful. The whole book is painful. Like having a tooth drilled - you're sort of numb from anesthetic but you know it's going to hurt later. And all the <span style="font-style: italic;">Wuthering Heights</span> rubbish. Urgh. I can't even explain my repulsion for Heathcliffe and Cathy. My sister once commented (screamed from a rooftop) that the only way <span style="font-style: italic;">Wuthering Heights </span>would be any good was if it had guns. I have to stop writing about these two books, with their wetfish females who don't like anything at all except the emotionally abusive, physically stupid male love interests and tendency to live in desolate landscapes. Bah.<br /><br />There are lots of fun <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight </span>criticisms out there, much funnier and more astute than me. Two of my favourites are <a href="http://cleoland.pbworks.com/Twilight">Cleolinda</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L253VLwH3w">Alex Reads Twilight</a>.<br /><br />xx<br /><br /><br />To something nicer: I'm also reading Elizabeth Gaskell's <span style="font-style: italic;">North and South</span> which is waaaaaaaaaaay better than I thought it would be (and also better than the two mentioned above) . The books on the reading lists aren't really that bad, although I've already read half of them. I'm enjoying rereading them and thinking about why they've been picked for the courses I'm taking, what makes them special (or not). I hadn't been into a bookstore for months, and then all of a sudden I found myself in Abbeys and whoa. I must look like a big snob, as I'm mostly buying Oxford World Classics. This morning I went out to buy new shoes and came home with <span style="font-style: italic;">Les Grandes Meaulnes </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky. </span>I'm also powerless to resist literary journals like <span style="font-style: italic;">Brick </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Zoetrope. </span>In the face of Etsy's zine section, I'm like Napoleon at Waterloo.<br /><br />............is that pathetic?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-31450157141068787252010-06-16T20:15:00.007+10:002010-06-25T18:24:17.994+10:00go on, go on<span>I often think about methods of repetition, and how my life goes in circles, like Lottie chasing her tail. And I think about how the days bleed into one another, making Thursday the same as Monday. And then I think about <span style="font-style: italic;">Endgame </span>which is my favourite play ever, and how bleakly awesome the human condition is. And now, after Wednesday night when I went to the theatre and saw Ian <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">McKellen</span> and Roger Rees in <span style="font-style: italic;">Waiting For Godot</span> I think about how funny the bleakness of human existence is. That's what Beckett is all about, examining why we go on, even when we can't go on, and should we go on - what's there to do if we don't go on? No, we must go on, because going on is all there is to do. One of the things that makes Beckett accessible to me is that my entire life, my mother has (perhaps unconsciously) spoken like one of his characters. He writes in a language I understand, with his jokes satisfying my immature side. Theatre, no, Art is supposed to make you think, and I will challenge anyone who comes out of a Beckett play not thinking about their existence and motivations. Especially the current <span style="font-style: italic;">Waiting For Godot </span>production - it's mesmerising and awesome, from the heartbeats in the music, to the ridiculous <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Potso</span>, to the relationship between Vladimir and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Estragon</span>, although I admit I was mildly concerned by how old and tired Rees and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">McKellen</span> looked, until they started dancing. Their movements are those of tiredly cheeky old men, and there's an element of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Goon Show</span> in Beckett, some of Spike <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Milligan's</span> sadness. If you've never seen a Beckett play, run out and go to the first one you can find.<br /><br />And if you've never heard <span style="font-style: italic;">The Goon Show</span> then really, you aren't a human being. My dad played me tapes of this radio show when I was a kid, and I've never quite recovered. Libby and I used to sit around reading the scripts together, hooting with laughter. <span style="font-style: italic;">Napoleon's </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Piano</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Flea</span> were two particular favourites. The show consists of the adventures of Ned <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Seagoon</span>, voiced by Harry <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Secombe</span>, and his encounters with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Gryptype</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Thynne</span> and Count Moriarty (voiced by Peter Sellers and Spike <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Milligan</span> respectively). There's also the hilarious brown-paper trousers Bluebottle (Sellers) and the less-than-half-wit <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Eccles</span> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Milligan</span>). The show is surreal, absurd, ridiculous and fantastic, all in one, with bizarre plot lines that make no sense. They used to play it very early in the morning on ABC radio and when I couldn't sleep, I'd listen to it and be in a good mood all day. Now you can buy the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">cds</span>. I presume it's on you-tube somewhere. Prince Charles is also a big fan. Libby and I used to try to get out of PE with the excuse that we had "The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Lurgi</span>", and blowing raspberries <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">ala</span> Bluebottle is common place in my household. I wish there was a radio programme like this on these days. Or just anything decent on the radio, really.<br /></span>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-87498885719627036902010-06-14T23:01:00.005+10:002010-06-16T18:59:30.342+10:00lemonworldOh dear. Just a scant week after term finishes, and I've already gotten my self prepped for my exam, had my birthday and a haircut, been violently ill for three days, read all the books I borrowed from the library, exhausted my dvd collection and become terribly bored.<br /><br />It seems I've been terribly busy without being busy.<br /><br />Part of the problem is that I am<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" > (gosh,this is pathetic) </span>so desperate for next term to start, and also a wee bit lonely. Any attempts to make friends with people last term sort of...fizzled. I must be very scary, due to the fact that in two of my classes I was the only person who wasn't studying education. And possibly because I had to explain who Horatio Nelson was, and people don't like it when you tell them that the telescope was invented before WW1. I don't know, really, it just felt like a weird and lonely term. So I read a lot and learned a lot and thought a lot. Nothing very profound, or if it was profound, I forgot about when some wag nearly knocked me off the train on the way home. The moment they work out a safe non sweaty route from my house to university, I'll be bike riding every day. Even in the rain. That's how much I detest the late running over crowded train ride home.<br /><br />Often the train is so crowded, I can't even get my book out to read. Because the books I've been reading are very thick, or have covers with naked people on, stupid classical art, like the biography of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester that I'm blearily making my way through. It's ridiculously awesome in its detail, but sort of heavy going. So I've my concession to the World Cup, a copy of Terry Pratchett's <span style="font-style: italic;">Unseen Academicals</span>, which is about wizards who try to play football. I don't mind admitting that I'd quite like to be the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librarian_%28Discworld%29">Librarian</a> from Unseen University, even though I'm not that fond of bananas.<br /><br />And that's it, really. No profound thoughts or ranting. Just one tired litle pickle of a girl who's worried that the net four weeks are going to be interminably boring.<br /><br />xmadeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-51973537096919850582010-06-09T12:59:00.002+10:002010-06-09T13:13:09.795+10:00not exactlyfrom <a href="http://jezebel.com/5558065/kims-movie-rumor-chris-brown-barred-from-uk">Jezebel</a><br /><br />"Doctor Who script writer Gareth Roberts would like for Lady Gaga to be on the show! "She is no stranger to dressing up and would be more than a match for the Doctor." (<a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/dr_who_wants_lady_gaga_N6vzih5zTJfMLTFR1KcPyJ">NYPost</a>)<br /><br />...........<br /><br />No.<br /><br />I have absolutely nothing against Lady Gaga, I'd just like her to stay away from the Doctor. As far as I'm concerned, she makes above average pop music that has been super hyped by her costume and staging. The woman is clearly very clever and aware of how fame works, but the thought of her on Doctor Who is a little cringe worthy, mostly because I'm not sure Gaga can step out of her persona, become an alien and let the Doctor save the day. It wouldn't be an episode of Doctor Who, it'd be an episode of Lady Gaga.<br /><br /><br />Hrmphmadeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-7151890554124043622010-06-01T21:25:00.005+10:002010-06-01T22:24:42.974+10:00waterlooI turned my computer off last Tuesday, and didn't turn it on again till this evening. I did the same with my phone.<br /><br />And spent the weekend with my mind on Eurovision.<br /><br />There are guarantees with Eurovision - the Greeks always wear white, the Eastern European entries are particularly bizarre, the wind machines get over worked, the commentators that SBS sends to Europe are awful and snarky. France enters the same song every year and everyone pretends not to notice. Oh, and the English entry will be dreadful.<br /><br />This year though, the English entry's dreadfulness was surpassed by Cyprus. Or Wales, depending how you look at it. For some reason, the songwriters who wrote the Cypriot entry couldn't find one decent singer in the country, which numbers 862.434. According to Google, so that's probably wrong. But still. So they went looking and found a Welshman. There's something about this that seems very dubious. The Welshman in question pulled his shirt up to reveal "I Love You Mum" had been written on his stomach before the performance. Which was, musically and Eurovisionally, a bit woeful.<br /><br />Most of the entries that made it to the finals were woeful, come to think of it. There was the Ukraine's entry, which was an Evanescence meets Kylie apocalypse type song. Belarus did something operatic about butterflies. The highlight of Azerbaijan's entry was Jeremy and I trying to work out how to do the dance move that symbolised a "drip drop drip drop" (you make a figure eight, horizontally and then a dismissive gesture). The English entry, while an improvement on last years Andrew Lloyd Weber fiasco, was still pathetic and confusing. Iceland should have sung about volcanoes, but instead chose to sing in French. There were too many ballads, which made the Romanian duelling piano number twice as exciting as it really is (plus the male singer looked like my cello teacher). Moldova had some thrusting saxophones, Serbia sang about the Baltic-ness, but we were mesmerized by how the singer's hair surpassed Justin Beibers for hilarity. Turkey was just plain weird. The German number, which won, was very cute but needed more oomph.<br /><br />The whole thing was made much more "oomphy" by the addition of a bottle of peach schnapps we found in the pantry, but the fact is, Eurovision was lacking for us this year. This was partly because of the overload of ballads, but also because LITHUANIA WAS ROBBED.<br /><br />um.<br /><br />We're still a bit sore about that. I mean really, Lithuania had the Eurovision package - their song was upbeat, had totally insane lyrics, inflatable instruments, an great costume reveal (plaid pants to sparkly hotpants) and was totally kitsch. Which is what Eurovision was all about. Sadly, Lithuania didn't make it past the 2nd Semi-final. My siblings and I rediscovered our (tenuous) Lithuanian heritage and threatened war.<br /><br />Then my brother fell in love with the adorable Lena from Germany and defected. Traitor. Claudia got fed up with the annoying commentary from the SBS people, and I became interested in whether you could track a country's alliances/historical enmity through their Eurovision votes. Turns out you can. The French and English <span style="font-weight: bold;">still<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>hate one another, all the Scandinavian countries love each other and Georgia and Russia aren't talking.<br /><br />Eurovision. It's kind of like the United Nations, except that they achieve stuff (hilarity and breaking of wind machines, mostly) and everyone else isn't invited.<br /><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-u3sMy22qp0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-u3sMy22qp0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Lithuania<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PByp7LZfbTI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PByp7LZfbTI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Romania (watch the official video clip, it's hilarious)<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qIN8D8UnFa0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qIN8D8UnFa0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Germany - I love Lena's pronunciation, but I wish she'd been more glittery.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br />Two days of term left, and then I can finally, finally, finally, sit down and do some reading. And clean my room. And the Film Festival starts tomorrow!<br /><br />Oh, and it's my birthday in a week.madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-29812830001976250752010-05-12T22:22:00.002+10:002010-05-12T23:16:59.435+10:00anyone's ghostMy nose is always the first thing to freeze, and there was a morning where Claudia and I plotted making nose warmers out of felt and string that always makes me smile. Nowadays we talk about the Revolution, and how irritating it is that the world turns on money, not smiles.<br /><br />The second thing to freeze is my toes, and I know that winter is making a valiant attempt when I wear stockings for more than a week and find myself washing them in the bathroom sink. Lottie is a jumping dog, so I've had to invest in thick stockings that she can't destroy. I caught her trying to pull them off the washing line.<br /><br />And then the mornings are cold all the way through to the afternoon.<br /><br />#<br /><br />I read Coleridge and Foucault and Byron and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Woolfe</span> and Stein today, while listening to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">National's</span> new album. I ducked in and out of a greener land and tried not to think about how David Cameron might ruin my plans of studying in the UK, thinking instead about how terrible Oscar Wilde and I could have been, ripping through the young men of London before Alan dropped his Physics textbook on my leg, demanding I explain David <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Malouf</span>.<br /><br />The really rotten thing about being a Literature-History fanatic is that there's always this bloody wall between you and the things you love. It's beyond frustrating, trying to learn from the past when you can't ask questions of the people who wrote things. <span style="font-style: italic;">But only if you're an idiot</span>, I might add. The thing that's so wonderful about being a Literature-History fanatic is that there's always this bloody wall between you and the things you love. I have spent the past two weeks thinking about E.M Forster and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Radclyffe</span> Hall and all the things they did in the name of love and education. I have been thinking, using my brain, doing the work for all the lazy idiots in my classes who are studying to be teachers but can't be bothered to think independently. I am a terrible snob, but one who is worried about the future of education in Australia. Not worried enough to become a teacher and force children to listen to me, but worried all the same.<br /><br />There's a section in Orwell's <span style="font-style: italic;">1984</span> which talks about how they're going to distill Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and all words until there's just one word. What if that happens?<br /><br />I'll be a dinosaur.<br /><br />#<br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">i have to be careful to read things written recently otherwise the tone of my voice turns into <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">toffery</span> and people think <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">i'm</span> awful. </span></span>madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-38642748422602208222010-05-08T17:11:00.003+10:002010-05-08T21:25:09.502+10:00sometimes, a cigar is just a cigarI have opened a bag of Clinkers, and of the three I've eaten so far, they've all been banana flavoured. This sort of sums up my week. Banana flavoured lollies are gross.<br /><br />I'm reading a biography of Oscar Wilde when I should be writing an assignment about the French Revolution, because I find procrastination to be far less stressful than actually working. Apparently Wilde took this approach also, and considering he churned out <span style="font-style: italic;">The Importance Of Being Earnest </span>in three weeks, I feel confident that I can produce 2500 words of passable tripe on the French for Monday morning.<br /><br />It's that point in the term, when suddenly there are 8 assignments, plus the looming threat of exams, and absolutely no light in the tunnel except for the glare of the computer screen as one tries to find something, anything that makes the smallest amount of sense that can be paraphrased and placed neatly within the confines of an argument that probably doesn't have a real argument at it's heart. The British election process makes more sense than I do at this point. At least they have people who may or may not be in charge. All I have is a packet of Clinkers and a worrying sense that the future will see me turning into my mother. This is not a bad thing, per <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">se</span>, (scads better than turning into my European History teacher, who is a moron) but means I will spend too much time worrying about my work, think that theatre that involves lots of shouting is "brave" and become addicted to <span style="font-style: italic;">True Blood. </span><br /><br />And the Freud will come and hit me with a stick, whilst telling me about the symbolism of the stick. I will respond by saying "sometimes a Clinker is just a Clinker" and he will be incomprehensibly Austrian at me. We looked at Freud this week, and while the silent majority of my class (everyone except me. they must all have lockjaw) seemed to take a very very quiet academic approach to him, I just felt worried by reading Lecture 33, in which he discusses Feminine Sexuality. It worried me because it seems so prescriptive, like one <span style="font-style: italic;">must</span> pass through the Oral, Anal, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">pre</span>-Oedipal, and Oedipal stages in order to be considered a normal female. That we have to be normal. The most worrying thing of all was the way that the Freudian approach to Feminine Sexuality - which is to approach it in terms of way is pleasurable for a man - has remained the dominant ideology in popular culture's thinking of sex. We can talk about how modern we are until the cows come home, but pick up any woman's magazine, and Freud is there, waving his cigar at you.<br /><br />I had a very loud conversation about this on the train home, and a little old woman kept giving us filthy looks. A few men looked decidedly uncomfortable, but when the conversation degenerated into cries of "a banana is just a banana!" "a newspaper is just a newspaper!" "communism is just communism!" and so on, people looked a little relieved.<br /><br />Wouldn't do for one short literature fanatic and one tall physics genius to undo several decades of thought whilst on a late running train, would it?madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-42096140174546291522010-05-01T16:46:00.002+10:002010-05-01T17:03:37.543+10:00minor irritantsAlan is intently trying to explain the Large Hadron Collider to me, using three pencils, two cigarettes (origins unknown, neither of us smoke) a straw, a usb stick and a pencil sharpener. I have had two hours sleep and am trying desperately to understand why everyone thinks the LHC is so dangerously wonderful when he breaks off and says<br />"Whatever happened to that blog of yours?"'<br />I mutter something about Lillian Faderman and Lytton Strachley and Marston and stupid religious reforms before hurling my usb stick towards the pencil sharpener. Nothing happens except they stop moving, and we both pause. Clearly the Swiss have a better set up than we do.<br />"Perhaps we'd get a more realistic reaction if we used glitter."<br /><br />#<br /><br />I am growing used to Sydneysiders and their terrible behaviour on public transport. I have had my bottom pinched by lecherous old men in the crowds at peak hour, my pudgy upper arm pinched by a cranky woman who wanted to be standing where I was. I have had things thrown at me by idiot youths. I once had to endure a very smelly man providing the entire carriage with a running commentary about how bad my posture was.<br />But Wednesday just about had me learning to drive.<br />Sydney trains come in about four varieties, all dated from 1826. The train I was on had a bench seat that seated three, then an aisle, then a bench seat for two. I boarded this train at 8.42am at Ashfield. It was nearly full, and one thing people in Sydney hate is other people. Especially on trains. I agree with this line of thinking, but it was early and I wanted to sit down. So I politely squeezed past the tiny girl who was sitting on the aisle side of a three-seater. She though this was a bit rude, and let out a giant sigh. And threw her bag over the remainder of the seat.<br />I let out an equally huge sigh, and put my bag on top of hers, (it couldn't go in my lap, I had three chapters of Faderman to read before 10am).<br />It was a long journey, this time even longer because this girl would not stop sighing. Clearly I was an affront to decency by daring to sit near her.<br />When we got to Redfern, the two-seater across the aisle became free. She stood up and moved towards it, taking her bag. <span style="font-weight: bold;">And mine.</span><br />"That is taking it a bit too far" I thought. So I politely, and loudly asked<br />"Sorry, do you mind if I have my bag back?"<br />She let out another huge sigh, as if this was a terrible thing for me to have asked her, and I snatched my bag back. I then stormed up into the vestibule, waiting for Central (next after Redfern). Idiot girl got out at Central too, and I was determined not to have to deal with her on the bus to uni.<br />She pushed in front of me in the bus queue.<br />By the time I got to university, I had calmed down a bit, grabbed a coffee and was nearly finished with my Faderman. I sat in the sun, slowly defrosting (mornings are cold here!) and ignoring my watch.<br />When I finally bothered to check the time, I realised I was two minutes late for my lecture, so I ambled off (past the continually sighing girl who was no doubt bitching about me to all her friends. unsw is a small small place sometimes). And was confronted with a sign that said<br />"Dear H.O.S. Students, in case you haven't checked your email, the lecture is cancelled today as Z is sick."<br /><br />I went home, feeling curiously defeated by life. If I had checked my email, then I wouldn't have put myself and that girl in a bad mood.<br /><br />But I still think Sydney public transport users should learn some manners. Its that or facing me on the roads.madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74454655800454511.post-19793779800598777312010-04-18T21:49:00.003+10:002010-04-18T22:23:41.016+10:00more faux academia...Me (thought): Do you think that perhaps reason we start to see more of an awareness of the problems inherent in <span style="font-style: italic;">Othello</span> when we attempt to place it in a modern setting, and that maybe race isn't really the crux of it, not in ways we 21st century beings conceive of it anyway. And couldn't we argue that Iago isn't a sociopath or psychopath, that he's instead displaying some sort of repression crisis emblematic of the stifling society Shakespeare lived in?<br /><br />Me (out loud): Oh god. Othello hurts my head. Oh look, I need new socks.<br /><br />I wish my brain had a better connection to my mouth.<br /><br />I do have an issue with people "diagnosing" Iago though. I think it's stupid. When people say "Iago's a sociopath" what they mean is "I watch SVU religiously and therefore have a deep understanding of mental illness". Iago is a nasty person, beset with jealousy and insecurity. End. Shakespeare didn't put thoughts of mental illness into his characters. I'm sure someone has written a convincing paper about how Iago is a sufferer of mental illness, but until I read that, I'm sticking with my Professor's viewpoint, which is <span style="font-style: italic;">"think not what you think of Shakespeare, but what Shakespeare thought of Shakespeare"</span>, reason being, that viewpoint lets me be a hellion during class, allowing me some sort of revenge for not originally following the viewpoint in the first test. Because apparently Shakespeare didn't have a deep understanding of mental illness, but he had a deep understanding of how important youth apprentices were in his portrayal of women.<br /><br />Ugh.<br /><br />#<br /><br />We finally got to watch the first episode of the new Doctor Who. I'm impressed, but I'm slightly underwhelmed. More explosions would have been good. Matt Smith certainly has energy (and custard and bow ties!!), and it's a different energy to Tennant's. I'm reserving judgment until at least Episode 3, but I've got my fingers crossed that Eleven doesn't turn out to be as sentimental as Ten. I may be the only person who was irritated by Ten's last few episodes, muttering "get on with it" as my mother sniffled over his angst torn face.<br />I fully expect legions of Tennant fans to garrote me tomorrow morning.<br /><br /><br />#<br /><br />Even after spending too much time drinking Coopers last night, talking about the politics of Lady Gaga, singing along to Bon Jovi and Joy Division (god help me), in the back of my mind I was still thinking about this essay I'm writing for History of Sexuality. Normally, if this happens, it's because I know I should be home working, but last night it was because I'm actually really excited about writing this essay. It's only a few thousand words, but I'm looking at the emergence of gay and lesbian Literary Subcultures in the early 1900s, which means looking at the Bloomsbury set (Woolfe, Isherwood, Forster) and The Americans (Stein and Radclyffe Hall). It's completely awesome that during a period when national identity was being fully shaped, literary people began to move their manuscripts out of the closet. Anyway, all that probably solves the mystery of this morning: "Why I woke up with the words<span style="font-style: italic;"> check antiquity chapter and climb state library </span>written on my hand.<br /><br />For a moment there I thought I was planning a heist, but when the morning fog cleared, I realised that no, no I was drunkenly planning to visit the State Library. Because I have no consistent social life to distract me from becoming emotionally invested in my work.madeleinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15172618533208346218noreply@blogger.com2