Extensive footnotes

Cultural objects which make me cry like a bastard

2008-07-04T08:30:43Z

In honour of tomorrow's Dr Who finale, which may have that effect.

Micheal Rosen's Sad Book. I picked this up in a bookshop when looking for Christmas presents for children. Fortunately I had someone to cling to. It's about bereavement, and surviving loss. Quentin Blake illustrations are just wrenching.
Also, The Red Tree by Shaun Tan, another book to help explain sadness to the young. (Can't remember if this actually made me cry - xxxlibris showed it to me, not, I think, from malevolent glee or anything.)

The last two stanzas of Memory Unsettled by Thom Gunn:

Once when you went to see
Another with a fever
In a like hospital bed,
With terrible hothouse cough
And terrible hothouse shiver
That soaked him and then dried him,
And you perceived that he
Had to be comforted,

You climbed in there beside him
And hugged him plain in view,
Though you were sick enough,
And had your own fears too.

Martin Luther King's I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. ("But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now.")

Sally Lockheart's pre-detonation speech from The Shadow in the North.

A fairly random lot - no songs or films, although I'm sure there are a few - and that last one I'm irritated by the emotional manipulation of it, but it still finishes me off.

It's Friday! Tell me what makes you weep! if it won't ruin your day.

Art skip

2008-07-02T13:47:07Z

The art skip is half-full all year, but now the end-of-year shows for the various art degrees are finishing, it's being filled and emptied far more often. Canvasses, plinths, brightly-painted sculptures, all jammed in with household goods because the students are also leaving their digs for the Summer.

It makes it look as though art is a byproduct of heavy industry or renovation being carried out in the surrounding buildings, as though there are workmen inside saying 'Well, Geoff, we'd better rip out those faulty Koons homages and get in some video installations before the whole thing just falls down...'

It also brings full circle the great student habit which the Onion described as "Item Found In Garbage To Be Turned Into Lamp Someday". The mockery of that article was the only thing that prevented me from filling my last house with stacks of bobbins, most months. Whereas the art skip is the opposite - stuff which someone did actually turn into a lamp, or some other aesthetic object - which may itself have been found in a skip - which will now go back into the skip.

There's half a piano in there at the moment. Not the good half, alas - if it were the string frame I'd get it home somehow so it could pick up the tones of my conversations and vibrate them. It it was the keys I'd take a bagful (and then not know what to do with them). But it's the hammers and the dampers, which are now themselves getting damp.

I did get a wine-coloured velvet bag, sewn with mirrors and grey satin panels. I think I will not take more from the art skip this year.

Alibi

2008-06-23T12:29:45Z

I did not kill squirrels, I was somewhere else, doing a thing which seems rather low-key now, but the sense that I'd signed up in front of (unknowing) witnesses did help me finish it.

I usually skip solstice but this year it seemed a convenient division to tot up what I'd been doing. I know, my sensitivity to the great cycle is awesome.
I thought about what threads had been running through the last year. Then I felt rather unimpressed by their gradually cumulative nature and wondered if I could artificially draw one to some kind of temporary fruition with a ridiculous badly-planned stunt. I wasn't going to give myself RSI by hacking at the novel all night, and I doubted my grandfather would appreciate a cult-style phone-call stating my feelings of respect for him and the family.

This left my developing habit of 'going for a bit of a run'. I run about once a week. It's cheap and I am chipping off the sense of being terrible at sport which I was awarded in a touching fifth-form graduation ceremony.

(I was also inspired by knowing that xxxlibris would be forging through Brighton the following day.)

So I picked out a long run (on mapmyrun.com) and charged up the batteries on my music thing and went through five parks:
- local (name elided fro the sake of privacy - small, innovative, beautiful)
- Dulwich - a lake with a zigzag wooden bridge, and children on hired trikes
- Brockwell - tempting Lido, now open for the Summer, and a striking ceremonial circle of trees
- Clapham Common - rather dull and flat
- Battersea - magical; rocky outcrops and subtropics.
(I had a persistant tune in my head at this point, not the one coming from my music player (I'd switched to episodes of Nebulous) and realised that jogging through Battersea park was what Bob Geldof did in a milk advert from my youth.)

And across Battersea Bridge. I love moving across the map. When I came to London I thought of the regions as quite distinct (assisted in that illusion by the train network) but actually, one can swoop through Dulwich and Brixton to Battersea, everything is connected, and the larger landmarks provide continuity by bobbing in and out of sight on the horizon. I was planning to go on up to Hyde Park, to make it six parks, but I remembered it (perhaps unfairly) as a dump, and it doesn't actually have a statue of Edward Hyde in it, and the backs of my calves were aching, so left it at five parks and ten miles.

I like the parks of South London. They're very obvious staged fights between 'nature' and 'civilisation' like a Punch and Judy match in every flowerbed. I come from Dorset, and we have proper greenery, vicious woods, saturated expanses of bluebells, badgers etc. But the parks aren't annoying because plants are gorgeous however much they've been tinkered with, and the seasonal change from starkness to exuberance always has some moving, unexpected elements.
Also, parks smell fantastic - elderflower at the moment, odd twilight blossom a few months ago that I had to trace to some insignificant white-dotted shrub at ankle level, lavender roses that smell of sherbert.
And they have wildlife, predominantly squirrels, but also including flying stag beetles - alarming, armoured, whirring, airborne. Nesting jays gathering materials around the feet of the concrete dinosaurs, fearless wagtails.

I ran into Victoria station, bought a paper and took the train home. It's been a fantastic year. Skills and tools that I required were easy to my hand. I am theoretically all for accepting limit and loss and the tears of things but I'm not being required to do it at the moment. Thanks to everyone who contributed. Many thoughts for everyone having a tough time.

The next day I thought I should invest and research a bit to do this properly, so I spent 1.95 on a book from the Red Cross on running. The book tells me I shouldn't have done it at all. Increase by 10% a week on long run distance maximum! Otherwise legs seize up, toes drop off, etc.

Mission accomplished, PayPal my bail

2008-06-20T21:55:52Z

There isn't a squirrel left alive in the Borough of Lewisham.

I couldn't have done it without your kind, generous messages of support.

Newly vague

2008-06-20T09:17:53Z

Might I ask if my readers are going to BiCon? I am wondering about the outlay.
If I don't go, I could put the money towards some Things I fancy getting, also some Places I fancy going to. Obviously in general I like people better than Things. Plus Things don't get ticked off if I temporarily prioritise people, whereas people (IMHO) don't like being ditched for Things. However, People are portable, whereas Places are pretty static. Places might win.
I won't even bring in Experiences I fancy having, that makes it all five times more complex.

Also, I'm planning to do something slightly taxing and potentially impressive this evening, but I don't want to say what it is in case it goes wrong. Can I still get the 'Whooo go you' with only this minimal disclosure, or is that only accorded when a person actually sticks their neck out and names their goal?

A proper post may follow. I went to the Transfabulous ball in a facial outfit I am calling 'school-play emo Jesus'. The building was hot, the attendees were hot, the French rappers were fantastic, and I very much enjoy queer space.

Boots for sale!

2008-06-16T16:16:56Z

Buckles up the back, laces down the front, steel toecaps, size 9. Be two inches taller, and yet more appealing to Goths!

These were my pride and joy, but they knacker my legs. I'm not sure why, as I find my six inch platforms very comfortable. But last Sunday I had muscular aches not explained by dancing to 'Walk Like An Egyptian' the night before.

When I got them they were secondhand but unworn - I've worn them perhaps ten times since. Underground are selling them for a little over 100 quid, I'd like to sell them for forty. The postage may be exorbitant, so I thought friends visiting or living in London might like first dibs (particularly if I can meet you centrally and drop them off).

I'd also be happy to consider a swap for other, plainer boots anywhere between ankle and knee (e.g. Dr Martens).

Comments screened so I can haggle and arbitrarily bestow favour.

Things I have said to people I have kissed during recent dreams Part II

2008-06-16T09:22:03Z

'Mmm, you look really good in that shirt... Hang on, that's my shirt! I didn't say you could borrow my shirt!'

There Is Not an Acronym For Everything Yet

2008-06-12T11:13:18Z

Or, as I will be abbreviating it, TINAFEY.

(Oh, go on, this is my best shot at transient notoriety.)

Careering

2008-06-06T11:55:03Z

I was introduced (conceptually) to Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell at a motivational event yesterday, and I feel motivated. Discovered pulsars. Thought they might be alien signals. Found they weren't, but were something fantastic in themselves. Her supervisor got the Nobel prize, she didn't - debatable as to whether that was an enormous swizz or not. Quaker (here I nod enthusiastically at thornbushrosy). I feel I should have heard of her before, possibly as an iconic screenprint on a geek T-shirt.

The rest of the workshop included fascinating discussions about work and parenting.

I was buttonholed for a quick talk by an older academic over the first tea-break, who thought (possibly from the cut of my jib as I tackled the pineapple slices) that she could rehash 1970s feminism without me saying 'What, man-burning and bra-hating?'. She noted (from the morning's discussion) that the debate about work and parenting seems to have retreated from the question of reforming the structures of work, and been thrown back on the question of individual women's choices.

That was an incredibly useful frame for the rest of the workshop. My small discussion group batted the idea of children around, veering between choice and change, and frequently raising then troubling the idea of public and private spheres. One woman pronounced that all personal matters should be kept out of the workplace, and if you had an ill child, just as if you have a hangover, it's information that your colleagues didn't need. I asked if there was an equivalence between getting drunk the day before work and raising the next generation. Not quite that sharply. What I really wanted to say was 'What does it mean where we have a work system where those two things are seen as equivalent?' but I was having trouble shifting between the abstract and the concrete on a breakfast of pineapple slices.

People swayed between the two positions - your manager should know everything, your manager should only need to know you can do the job; I don't mention my children because I think I'll be stereotyped as less reliable, I don't mention mine because I think anyone who needs time off work to deal with them is unreliable. Towards the end of the discussion people did start mapping the complexity of the middle ground.

(Other aspects of stereotypical femininity were also debated with similarly mixed results: 'I think many of us may be in this line of work so we can use our communication skills and have a chance at a work-life balance...' 'Actually, I'm in this job to cut a bloody swathe through all who stand against me and earn stupid money.' Earnest nodding greeting both comments.)

As someone who intends not to have children, I noticed again that while I may not be what society in general wants from its women, I'm probably really convenient for working environments. And I don't want to benefit from that, and undoubtedly will, and it is therefore my job to be aware of how, and whether I can do anything to ameliorate it.

On a similar but more frivolous note, there were also a fair few comments about having to dress like pseudo-chaps to be taken seriously in the workplace. I dress like as I do - dark trouser suits, flat shoes, collared shirts - in part to look less straight. But I'm very aware that it probably also may make me look more solid and more reliable (up to a certain subjective point where I may be perceived as an unreliable transvestite). I don't know what the solution is (apart from novelty waistcoats, and that's not happening).

In an inspired mood, I then outed myself to my line manager, but I don't think he noticed.

Sense of foreBoden

2008-06-03T09:08:36Z

Unsolicited voucher from Boden has now been snaffled, text of sinister letter that accompanied voucher remains under the cut for ms_bracken and others interested in offbeat whacky wrong marketing strategies.

Hello Dr Foxed,

This is a tricky letter to write. You see, sometime ago we sent you one of our catalogues. Perhaps you don't remember. If not, let me recap, I have ginger hair, we make clothes, they're really quite nice.

Perhaps you do, but can't quite bring yourself to give us a go. Or maybe you thought we sold cafetieres and chucked it away.

Whatever the reason, it strikes me that an extra nudge may be called for. I was wondering if a free Tenner might help move things along?

[...]

What do you have to lose?

Johnnie Boden

I won't send this response, but a much more polite one, asking them to take me off the mailing list.

Hey, Johnnie,

This isn't a tricky letter to write. Some time ago the Great Little Trading Company sold you my name and address, and I'm vaguely annoyed at both of you. I only ever bought one box of pencils from the Great Littles; the pencils were personalised with embossed gold queer rage slogans. I like that this didn't, in their eyes, rule me out of of being a high-income-bracket parent, and that they still think I'd like a 500 pound Wendy house.

Nevertheless, please stop addressing me like a reproachful stalker.
I have no money. I could finance my purchases with illicit work but then I'd want something that showed off the wares better than your cropped linen chalkstripe city shorts (p.26), or projected a more hardcase demeanour than the olive crochet slouch top (p.43).

I am rarely pursuaded by 'an extra nudge'. Someone gave me one on the train this morning, it was painful and intended to move me somewhere I didn't want to go. There is nothing inevitable about our relationship, Johnnie.

I have 9.50 to lose, which is the least I could spend in your catalogue to redeem your ten pound voucher, which would get me some socks. Could you take me off your mailing list? Ta.

URAQT

2008-05-29T13:49:38Z

The Office in which I work is being merged with another Centre to create a Unit. It's not a bad thing at all - I'll get to spend more time talking to learning technologists, and they're so pleasant I might even start bringing in home-made biscuits.

However, the new Unit has a terrible proposed name. Let's call the place I work Gradgrind University. The new unit will be the Gradgrind Learning Enhancement Unit - GLEU. We are the GLEU that holds everything together. We are GLEUsniffers. This shoudn't happen.

Alternative acronyms welcomed. (I might try to sneak in something with an alternative, obscene meaning, but my boss is quite sharp.) You can chuck in any generic management terms and use 'excellence' if you need a vowel.
Currently I am deciding whether I'd rather be in the Pedagogic Unit for the Direct Development of Learning Enhancement (PUDDLE), or the Strategic Academic Development Central Unit for Learning and Teaching (SADCULT).

Queer event at the British Museum tomorrow

2008-05-28T10:41:59Z

On the rise of the city, and the associated development of the no-tell motel, pulp fiction and physique art. Five quid, bring your own melancholy deep-eyed stranger.

Ivory oubliettes

2008-05-27T14:33:44Z

I want to work in academia because it is a rigorous, open-minded meritocracy! Pass me my eyeplugs!

1. A student in Canada has been hauled up for using Facebook to facilitate plagiarism. Or to set up a study group. I have no idea about the specifics of the case, but it rings alarm bells for me.

I'm working on guidelines for our college tutors to help them help students avoid plagiarism. The gap in most of the literature I've read, and the plagiarism guides of other Universities (from which I'm ruthlessly copying) is around acceptable collaboration. There's a lot of material on stealing from texts - helping students avoid it by teaching them good referencing skills, planning assessments to make it less easy or appealing, detecting it after work has been submitted. But there's not a lot at all on how to teach students to distinguish between unauthorised collaboration and the good, beneficial practiecs: groupwork, peer mentoring, informal discussions.
All these practices are potentially excellent, and currently being promoted (at my college, at least) - particularly as:

student numbers rise, staff numbers drop, and Universities see peer assessment, for example, as a way to supplement contact hours

what is valued in Higher Education shifts emphasis - the capacity of a student to apply what they've learned (which can be well demonstrated through discussion and debate) becomes favoured over the repetition of facts. Also, 'soft skills'/'transferable skills' such as teamwork become seen as a useful part of a degree (partly because of employability, which is an incresing concern as fees rise).

social software becomes better at facilitating peer pedagogic interactions - and Universities, in part because of the above points, invest in technology which can allow their students to collaborate on University networks.

I'm not an ideal tutor in this respect myself - I've often hoped my students might discuss work outside the seminar room, and to take this kind of initiative, but I've not given clear, explicit information on such activities (and I haven't checked my employer's policies on it, either).
I hope this case is either dropped, or proved to be more clear-cut malpractice. And I hope more Universities develop clear policies on how to define, warn against, detect and deal with unauthorised collaboration.

2. People arrested for printing off Al-Qaeda Handbook when researching Al-Qaeda. I have less to usefully add to this, but more enraged snarling. A culture collectively asks: 'Oh why can we in the liberal West not understand the minds of these Mysterious Others?' but then expects people applying to research the subject to do so by telepathy.

(I am aware that 'applying to do a PhD' covers a lot of ground, a lot of procrastination and sometimes, some really dodgy downloading. But staff who knew his work have backed him, which would seem to be a useful yardstick.)

slightlyfoxed @ 2008-05-25T11:56:00

2008-05-25T11:11:17Z

I'm a little fuzzy from my cold; have you seen the sensory homunculus? It (to crib) 'shows what a man's body would look like if each part grew in proportion to the area of the cortex of the brain concerned with its sensory perception'.

Mine feels out of kilter; my throat is cavernous, my legs uncontrollably lengthy.

However, I have tried a spot of editing (mainly chunk-shunting) and it's not going badly. I'm trying to be a bit more reflective about my criticism, rather than churning things out to augment my CV.
I like fiction which doesn't completely do an injustice to the complexity of life. Not that it has to be vast in scope or have a microscopic eye for detail. And there's always some whittling and selection involved. But some nuance and complexity, an ear for the texture, is good.

In turn, I want to be able to write criticism which doesn't then do an injustice to the complexity of the fiction. At the moment, I see myself boiling everything down to a single idea or a couple of opposed interpretations. I can convince myself that I'm just drawing out an interesting thread, but really, if I've been rending the text with carding combs for hours to create that thread, and I've had to cram most of a luxurious oily particoloured fleece into the wardrobe to hide what I've missed, I'm not doing a very good job.

My latest piece has dozens of strands but I'm not sure they're presented in a neatly-woven argument. Working on that at the moment.

Sleep paralysis round-up

2008-05-21T12:57:11Z

Tips on avoiding sleep paralysis, from the researcher who tortured me for a tenner ("You will hear some white noise. Listen to the white noise until you hear a voice. Who is the voice telling you to kill? Write your answer in Box A.")

- Regular sleep patterns help. Don't set an alarm clock to split your sleep into shorter intervals - this will make it worse. The usual sleep-disrupters (booze, caffeine) can be avoided.

- Sleep on your side rather than your back (if hardcore, sew tennis ball into neck of pyjamas to prevent rolling onto back during sleep).

- Get up and move around after an episode to prevent immediate relapse.

- 'Break' the muscle paralysis by flicking eyes to and fro, moving tongue, wiggling fingers and toes.

- Try to remember not to struggle and instead adopt alternative routes out of the situation (floating away, staying still). If you can seperate out the fear which is often an intrinsic part of the process, that's good. (The article I'm reading* puts that more elaborately, and makes it sound more impressive than 'Not being scared is nicer than being scared'). French and Santomauro also suggest that having a reasuring authoritative source pointing out that it's harmless can be very helpful (which is partly why I've put the citation at the bottom, to increase the air of authority of this otherwise haphazard assemblage). I will also stick in a quick plug for lucid dreaming as a useful skill for staying calm during episodes (and for some, it's a fascinating voyage through the self - I mainly use it to go flying over the Blackmore Vale).

- Drugs - various people have been prescribed tricyclic antidepressants (imipramine, clomipramine) or seratoninergic agents (l-tryptophan, with or without amitriptyline). In person, the researcher said that SSRIs have had some effectiveness, but the other sheet I'm looking at only mentions prescribing anti-depressants which actually suppress REM sleep - as I understand, they're more hardcore and temporary, but I welcome clarification.

- Cognitive Behaviour Therapeutic techniques directed at panic attacks have also had effect on the participant's sleep paralysis, possibly just because they improved sleep quality.

- The article also suggests that 'Sufferers for whom the experiences are interpreted in terms of some kind of spiritual attack are likely to benefit from whatever traditional practices are said to prevent further attacks. This is, of course, not to endorse such interpretations...'. I think the person I promised to write these down for will be amused by both the suggestion and its tentative tone. Presumably treating it as a spiritual attack isn't entirely compatible with the point above about being reassured that it's a harmless tic. (Although the sleeping mind being a confused shambling thing, I wonder if you can juggle both without harm to either - lock the bedroom door with much emphasis and also tell yourself that any presences are hallucinations).

*French and Santomauro "Something Wicked This Way Comes: Causes and interpretations of sleep paralysis." in Tall Tales about the Mind and Brain ed Sergio Della Sala

I also experience hypnogogic hallucinations - short vivid hallucinations that coincide with the onset of sleep (they're the result of a back-stage run-in with Doctor Mephisto and his Amazing HypnoGoggles).
Usually I see a spider on the wall, but in a holiday bonanza special last month, I saw an eight foot goth in a gas mask leaning over the bed. More initially alarming, but a lot easier to check if it was still in the room and had scuttled under the chest of drawers.

slightlyfoxed @ 2008-05-19T19:25:00

2008-05-19T19:10:52Z

I've got a cold with elements of confusion and doddering, so obviously I'm thinking about extreme memory loss (I'm also a cultural studies person so after a quick trawl through medical sites, I'm mainly thinking about it in terms of fiction, wistfulness, and as a lever to examine perception and identity.)

A lot of the ways I filter information are learned, but now feel instinctive. So I built them up through individual incidents and conversations and things I read, but I don't specifically recall all of those every time I use the guidelines I derived from them. (I try to stay aware of it, so I can tweak them and rearrange them, but I'm sure I don't keep on top of that process.) If I forget the learning process, would I lose the instincts? Would I start processing information differently - would I be monumentally vulnerable to social messages telling me to process things in a certain way, which I currently gently remove, ant/sleeve style?

Would I be me, basically. I used to be so calm about the idea of fragmented, non-continuous identity! I can't believe two days of snot and snoozing and soup has reduced me to clingy solipsism.

Do you ever wonder, if you had serious amnesia, what parts of your current life would give you the best clue to who you are? Old photographs, the anecdotes of loyal companions, the CV, the fridge, the ticket collection? Littering my room I have things I grabbed in my youth, gifts I'm displaying for a set amount of time before I slyly retire them, obscure private jokes, objects about which I am absolutely fiercely sincere - how would that make any sense, with the context gone? My grandfather has a stash of letters which would give the basic information about what I've been up to, but they're masterpieces of minor misdirection.

I'm writing notes for my successor for when I leave my job, and I suppose one could do something similar for one's life - or just go round and put Post-It notes on everything, in case of emergencies. The wardrobe gets 'YOU WERE ON A TIGHT BUDGET'. Family have 'DECENT SORTS/SLIGHTLY UNRELIABLE NARRATORS'. Friends - I think I'm incredibly lucky to have gathered them, and I'm terrible at giving them appropriate upkeep, but if I've just fallen off a bike or something I'll need cheering up, so I'll give them 'ACCURATE REFLECTION OF YOU, HONEST'. My books would be useful ('NO, YOU HAVEN'T READ ALL OF THEM').

And I imagine the room coming into focus, and my diligent companion passing me a laptop ('Oooh, am I a Mac person?' 'No, you're too skint and pedestrian.') and the DC says: 'Luckily for you, you kept a blog! For years!' Hurrah! None of this 'mirror darkly' bollocks! Unmediated contact with self! - and there'll be links to baby anteaters, and complaints about the quality of A/U crossover Harry/Jack Bauer h/c schnoogles, and I'll be utterly mystified.

Things I have said to people I have kissed during recent dreams

2008-05-16T10:43:29Z

"Wait, I should check with my partner whether this is OK. Don't go anywhere!"

"We may as well make the most of it, I wouldn't touch you with a bargepole if this wasn't a dream."

"It's amazing that you're still exactly how I remember you. I mean, the time I put your name into Google Image Search I got a much older bloke, with no hair, wearing an anorak. But you, you look - just great."

Friday philosophical fun!

2008-05-09T10:40:25Z

I didn't go to parallelgirl's workshop last weekend on exploring my embodied identity through plasticene. That was in part because she's already seen me examine my identity twice (which was enormously helpful to me, but how much does everyone else want to know about me, expressed through glitter and half-remembered Heidegger)?
But I should have gone, because the sun is poking awake cumbersome thoughts, and I could have examined them with safe space and safety scissors. That night I dreamed I was on hajj; I flew in low over Mecca, the Great Mosque to my left, streams of pilgrims in white below me. All the domes and minarets were made of plasticene.

Anyway, it's Friday - what are the significant questions around which you structure your life, selfhood, and philosophical and political approaches? I like questions, I need some new ones.
(If I get any responses, please be nice to one another.)

Mother of the more famous Tim

2008-05-08T09:15:06Z

janinazew, plumsbitch, xxxlibris and other high-shine fashionistas - Vivienne Westwood is speaking this evening at Goldsmiths and has already sold out, but there's live streaming of the event here from 6pm. It's called 'Active Resistance to Propaganda' and it's being chaired by Angela McRobbie.

Freecyle my brain

2008-05-06T19:08:59Z

It's balmy early Summer, and the smell of freshly cut rhizomes reminds me: I'm looking for an online site where I could give people access to my reading lists and seminar plans. I found one a few years ago - it was small at the time, but so was The Internet.

I've forgotten the name of that site. I've found pages listing materials held elsewhere (e.g. on academic's own institutional pages), but I'd prefer to have someone else host them - I don't have any hosting space at the moment, and I'm sure the site I saw previously had a rather useful search facility. Also, it might be best to do it anonymously, or pseudonymously (I'm not sure about my legal position, and also I'd have to go over them endlessly checking for factual inacuracy, oversimplification and doodles of Ood).

(This is following on from a conversation at the weekend about the gift economy in academia - the massive amount of unpaid work that people do for each other tracking down quotes, finding articles, proofreading and so on. I was wondering why I'd become relatively stingy lately, and realised that it was because I've been rather busy with teaching. But I can convert that time back into something more generally useful by putting my course materials up for grabs.)

I'd mention potlatching here but I don't want to balance out all my redistributive endeavours by a half-arsed cross-cultural terminology-grab.

Dodds and Benedict would be, paradoxically, proud.

2008-05-02T10:00:43Z

The current circulating meme forces me to confess: I have done obscene things with my entire friends list.

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore

2008-04-29T20:58:06Z

It was a pleasant coincidence that I ended up editing an article on the uncanny while holidaying at Whitby as the Goths descended. (Inasfar as my entire life revolves around three topics, and that focus will tend to generate "coincidences".) I was looking at uncanny doubles, specifically - a joy when the streets are full of superficially identical Goths.

I'm interested in how the uncanny double of 19th century Gothic fiction is often a bloke coughed up from the id, who will persuade you to terrible deeds, or get fed up with waiting and go off and commit them himself, leaving your sepia carte de visite on the scene (Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde). But the double of sensation fiction is a working-class woman who is 'swapped' for the heroine and buried under her name, for financial gain (Lady Audley's Secret, The Woman in White).
(Both kinds were in evidence at Whitby: the chaps headbutting a flaming football around on the beach, and the immaculately dressed Victorian Ladies with vivid earthy vocabularies.)

Both sorts of double highlight and hinge on fears about class, sex and ambition (not a hugely original observation - much does).
However, much as I love them, I'm not sure how actively useful/socially progressive the doubles are - the uncanny is hard to direct and resonates after the basic mystery is solved. Getting in a ghost or a monster to tackle the subtleties of social oppression is like doing brain surgery with a sparkler - showy but inaccurate, with lingering unintended effects.

Just when I was feeling underdressed, a secondhand stall at the bazaar (I believe they're called 'Second Coming') offered me another coincidence - a three-piece suit with a wondrous long coat, from the ENO's Tales of Hoffman - the very stories Freud uses to develop his theory of the uncanny. However, I couldn't have worn it for work (unless I took up a new post as a circus barker, in Nuremburg, in 1865) so I repressed my desires.

Extreme Images

2008-04-21T18:26:45Z

I was tagged! To discuss how critical discourses can still be of interest during a legislative fight which seems to call for a more simple discourse of rights and harm! Absolutely true.

I'm interested in the legislation currently passing through the House of Lords governing the possession of 'extreme images', and the Critical Sexology seminar this month was a chance to hear more about its aims and flaws.

Discussions of pornography - of a highly abstract and rambling nature, no pics - under the cut.

The seminar covered some useful background and it was great to hear all the speakers. I was surprised that the several sessions tended to unify around a few positions, mostly refuting the claims/assumptions of theorists who were arguing against pornography.

So, in the form of accusation: rebuttal...

Porn makes people do bad things: the 'media effects' model isn't useful, and behavioural psychology has been equally wobbly in proving the individual effects of pornography on its viewers
Something specifically bad and unique is happening now: this is a moral panic and the current situation has few unique elements
Porn is definable, recognisable and used in predictable ways: ‘porn’ is not monolithic, but highly various, and its uses are also various and difficult to map accurately.

In terms of that first point, the discussion seemed to return to a key argument: Text A will not make person B commit act C.
This is central to the proposed legislation which has been inspired by a campaign against pornography which was brought about by a murder - it's precisely the capacity of pornography to make person B commit crime C that is at stake.

However, in the context of the seminar, this seemed an odd line to be taking. Most people in that room were probably familiar with, if not wholehearted subscribers to, the idea of the cultural construction of sexuality – that sexual impulses and desires don’t develop in each person in an impenetrable bubble, but rather interact with and are informed by cultural contexts. I'm not arguing that one text can make one person do one crime, but I do believe that there's a complex interraction between individuals, representations and desires.

I felt that the immediacy of the legislation was forcing the discussion back onto certain terms. I hope not - I think that often one needs to consider and debate a larger field than one can usefully eventually put to work. (And ideally, one doesn’t loose too much subtlety in that scaling down – I’ve had very simple conversations that were informed by quite complex theories.) Most hazardously, I think some of the speakers were in fact simplifying the anti-porn arguments (to those italicised slogans above) thus making their foundations less solid.

I definitely don’t want to end up in a situation where, because of what’s at stake, people end up dismissing theories which they would consider in relation to non-erotic films or texts - if I’m happy to talk about the "implied reader" in novels, or Laura Mulvey’s ideas about the visual pleasure in film, then I can’t shelve that kind of discussion when I’m considering erotic images.

So, for my own future reference, but also in a lazy, gesturing way, some questions I'd like to see dug into around pornography.

* the gaze - power relations within it – scopophilia – how gender is constructed through (exaggerated? coded?) visual difference
* economic and industrial considerations – there was some mention as to how economics interracted with desires, but I felt it was prematurely closed down (an image can’t make you want something you didn’t previously want). I don’t think any cultural critic can claim that representation is always responsive to demand, rather than formative of that demand.
* The formation of identities within representations and through the consumption of the representations – hopefully not in the simplistic way it's sometimes been used previously ("who do you identify with, is it the bird or the bloke? If you're a bird, and they're both blokes, do you identify with the bloke with the slightly longer hair?").
* Political anxieties – one of the most interesting points was from the Backlash speaker, who noted the trend towards transparent government which has been accompanied by increased surveillance – we can look at the government, but they want to look at what we’re looking at. Also, potential similarities to other situations in which the possession of extreme material is being criminalised, e.g. terrorism legislation.
* The role of fantasy - anti-anti-porn often argues that viewers know the difference between fantasy and reality (and this was touched on interestingly by the speaker from the British Board of Film Classification). However, this is another fair-enough argument which I'd like to interrogate - I'm not sure about the idea of dividing reality and fantasy ever, at all, I think they infuse one another, that fantasy is always within people's sexual 'realities'. I'm interested in how fantasy investments crop up all over the debate - including fantasies about pornography, its content and how it's used.

Lots of similar stuff was approached a while back by writers like Gayle Rubin, Carol Vance and Feminists Against Censorship - I may take my copy of More Dirty Looks on holiday with me. To contribute properly to the discussion, I'd probably have to reread the "anti-porn" theorists as well, and a lot of that’s not pleasant reading. But I wanted to record my thoughts in a shambling, badly-thought-out form before I did any research. And there was LJ!

In short, rights/harm/reality is the debate I'd use to a colleague or a stranger. Complexity and fuzzy definitions are what I'd I'd highlight if I had more time to talk with someone. In the context of a critical seminar (and my journal, I suppose) I'd want to pull other rabbits out of the hat and give them some excercise.

Neal Stephenson speaking in London, 8th May

2008-04-11T09:59:39Z

Neal Stephenson is the keynote speaker at a free afternoon conference on Science Fiction as a literary genre, organised by Gresham College, on the 8th of May.

I've reserved a place, but marking essays may prevent me from attending (rage, sorrow). I'm particularly disapointed as Stephenson is quite reticent about getting into conversations with his readers.

The other speakers/topics also sound interesting - bit of 19th century SF in there.
Excuse me while I rush through the Five Stages of Quite Trivial Grief before lunch.

March books

2008-04-05T09:27:22Z

Lost track of these, so this is a reconstruction from the piles around the flat.

The Lure - Felice Picano

An oddity. Picano claims it's the first Gay Book (for complicated reasons - I think he means 'first book set in the post-Stonewall gay club scene'). Picano is a Big Gay Writer writing a thriller in which a straight anthropologist studies The Gays. Undercover! It wasn't a totally straight-eyed freak-stare - and indeed, many queer men also encounter gay nightlife for the first time and ogle it and ask daft questions - but still, that whole plot jarred me somewhat. Possibly it felt odd because of the implied heterosexuality of the reader, rather than of the author. 'Oh, must I wear the tight jeans that show my danglies so clearly? This new world is so alien to my own!'
Near the close, he has a transcendental vision when they feed LSD through the ventilation systems at a chic new club. He goes to tell a friend and realises he could never describe it in words, it would take forever - but the reader knows that to describe it in words would take four pages, and would be a bit dull.
Good bits, bad bits. Useless sadist (and frankly confused notion of sadism: 'We have to have entirely vanilla sex here on Fire Island,' anounces our hero, 'because you didn't pack any equipment!'). Non-evil bisexuals. Deliciously simplistic psychology in which a man can be poked like a bagatelle ball until he goes into a hectic trance and has to shoot someone.

How's Your Romance? - Ethan Mordden

Charming, but not the deliciously satisfying conclusion I'd hope for. Made me think about the balance between nice characters who generate no tension, and unpleasant characters who attract little sympathy.

The Mathematics of Love - Emma Darwin

Alternates between post-Napoleonic Europe and England in 1976. Crisp and pleasant. A not-evil bisexual has a minor supporting role.

Three Women

Lesbian pulp - uneven with moments of menace.

Alchemy - Maureen Duffy

Wanted to like this (another historical/modern novel) but was underwhelmed. Lesbian detective novel welded to historical fiction, neither quite coninced - historical heroine had modern priorities and opinions on science, witchcraft (possibly not anachronistic, but felt it). Detective novel didn't thrill - the dodgy people were dodgy in the way posited from early on. Also, Evil bisexual. Good God! Have any bisexual women reading this ever dumped a lesbian girlfriend by saying: 'I like privilege, power and societal approval too much to date you for long! Mwaha! You're braver than me, but pitiful in the face of my heteronormativity!' Because we do it all the time in books.

Paintings at an Exhibition - Patrick Gale

Wide, but a bit static, possibly as a deliberate 'paintings' approach to depict many short scenes from different points in different lives within a family. Like him a lot but should probably not gulp another Gale immediately.

Grief - Andrew Holleran

Less satisfying than The Beauty of Men, which covered similar material.
Read a bit of the Violet Quill reader, in which Holleran and another gay man were writing each other letters - at a mention of Oscar Wilde ('if they did that to him, what will they do to us?') a footnote states that despite the comparison the men had not come out to one another yet. The letters are incredibly camp; one begins 'I have just finished my new novel. Stop screaming and calling me a slut.' I hope neither was unduly surprsed when the revelation arrived.

Crocodile Soup

Exactly what I expected - there's a genre of jocular semi-memoir, in which terrible things happen but described with period detail from Northern locations in the 60s or 70s, and thus made comic, often with a lesbian protagonist. So: Auntie Vi shut us in the kitchen and somehow they forgot about us for the rest of the weekend. But we found a tin of fruit salad and munched at its divinely sickly contents until Uncle Timmy arrived and said "Where are the children?" and Vi said "I thought they were with you" and Timmy unbolted the door and said "Your mother's been found on the M23." She was under a busload of daytripping pensioners from Crewe, but at the time I was too distracted by the sensation of sticky peach juice on my bare knees, and then I threw up all over the anagylpta.
This one reminded me a lot of Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit which might be their onlie begetter, and another couple whose names I forget. I'm sure someone's written an article on 'lesbian tragicomedy' but when I google that phrase I get strings of random filth, including 'blowjobv encomium is shapeless backslapper festoon'.

Some Book of Short Stories About Dracula
Mostly terrible.

Doctor Haggard's Disease - Patrick McGrath
Boody sinister.

Other misc texs: Ginsberg's Kaddish, Moore's Watchmen, Darwyn and Cooke's New Frontier.