&so this is christmas

2009-04-06T19:40:00.001+10:00

I have a new blog.

I Am The Blob.

There won't be anymore posting here.

That is all.

2007-12-22T01:22:00.000+11:00

Wow, this article is so completely convincing:

BBC NEWS | Health | Humour 'comes from testosterone'

And when I say 'convincing', I should clarify and say that I mean 'entirely, desperately UNconvincing'.

Really. How many articles can possibly be published about gender-related trends that are then linked back to hormones-slash-genes-slash-hard-wiring, all without the slightest shred of evidence as to why 'hormones' are necessarily the culprit for trends in behaviour? Evidently the imperative at work in this article and the research it reports is: "link back to hormones".

And thus we see silly, wannabe-Darwinian claims like this:

He suggested men might respond aggressively because they see the other unicycling man as a threat, attracting female attention away from themselves.

Mmmmm. Of course.

Have these people never heard of 'culture'? 'Enculturation'? Socialisation, etc?

2007-12-12T15:42:00.001+11:00

In lieu of having any better ideas post-thesis, I am applying for jobs. This saddens me somewhat, as I feel that I possibly should have come up with something better to do with my time by now. Perhaps I will benefit from the increased value that time will seem to have once I have less of it for myself? Ah, but then there's the other possibility that worries me - perhaps, instead, all that will happen is that I will be too tired to do anything altogether?

In other news, I am not really tempted by the idea of posting psuedo blog posts on my Facebook page. I am comfortable with the blog format - which seems somehow of 'higher quality' than the Facebook page. Even though this is plainly a nonsensical statement, a piece of elitist rubbish.

I am also toying with the idea of starting a new blog. Now that I am no longer an undergraduate I can shed this childish history etc etc.

2007-11-06T16:21:00.000+11:00

I am writing the last smelly essay of the year. It’s more than the last ‘smelly’ essay – all essays being smelly – it’s the last essay altogether. Of my undergraduate career! Of course, when I say ‘I am writing’ this essay, I am lying. I’m not writing it right now at all. No, I’m writing this silly blog post in the hope that the essay will somehow be written by itself.

The thesis was handed in on time, miraculously.

What else – I just made a whopping $1.80 on the Melbourne Cup. Two years ago, I made 20c on the cup. Last year, 80c. This shows consistent progress, does it not? Forecasts for 2008 suggest that earnings for the Cup should top $2.20.

Other smelly things: the Federal Election; Deleuze; a tremendously awful season in Australian Idol; the leaked Madonna single (‘The Beat Goes On’ – have you heard it? It includes the lyric, ‘Here comes the rain / To wash away the pain’. Seriously! I don’t think there is a single instance of new lyric material in the whole song. She seems to have written it by putting chopped up portions of every other one of her songs in a big hat and then pulling them out at random to form the new work).

Things that are not smelly: the Justin Timberlake concert tonight; warmer weather; wilful overuse of semi-colons; the prospects of a Tatu film; the prospect of soon being able to read things that were not written by a certain M. Deleuze.

2007-10-08T02:34:00.000+10:00

Where am I at the moment? At a kitchen table. With empty plates and things all around me. With chapter one of the thesis open in another window. Looking rather pale. Not quite sure if I'm hungry or not. Not quite sure what to write next about Deleuze. Feeling some strange existential angst that is, I know - disappointingly - only related to the thesis' not being finished. So yes. This is the last post until that fateful day.

2007-08-17T14:57:00.000+10:00

Here is a link to the recently-published report into child abuse in the Northern Territory, Little Children Are Sacred. I've been wanting to read it for some weeks now. I think it will cast an interesting light on the Federal Government's recent intervention / takeover, which has been roundly criticised.

2007-08-03T13:22:00.000+10:00

A few unsystematic declarations.

1. I am beginning to think that The Age stinks. Yes, complaining about the declining tone of a newspaper is an old pastime. Complaining about a nominally left-leaning newspaper even more so (those on the left being ungrateful buggers, forever griping about the unwillingness of the existent, actual world to conform to its not-at-all-defined notion of How Things Should Be). All the same, it goddamn stinks. Queue gripes about sensationalist clap-trap, uninteresting lifestyle blogs, &c.

2. No, that's it, actually. I thought I had a list of insights. But it was just a vehicle for me to put forward my venom about The Age. Carry on.

2007-07-15T19:50:00.000+10:00

Once again, I don't really know what to do with this blog. I think it might only be read by friends who check by out of curiosity once in a while. But now that Facebook has soaked up that function (answering the question, 'what's Catherine up to these days') - what is to be done with this thing here? I'm sure someone must still read it.

I'd comment about politics or music or other topical goings-on. But the thing is, I'm very, very unengaged with the world at the moment. That is, all parts of the world that aren't Deleuze or Hegel scholarship. Which, when you think of it, is probably most of it. The world, I mean.

Secretly, however, I like my blog more than I like Facebook. Oh yes, Facebook is fun. It is nice to get a little bulletin everytime someone scratches their arse, or to know that if I was a man named Harry who only watched Lateline to relish the unresolved narcissistic sexual tension between Tony Jones and Kevin Rudd, that I could join a group called "People named Harry who only watch Lateline to relish the unresolved narcissistic sexual tension between Tony Jones and Kevin Rudd". All the same, I think Facebook indulges proclivities of mine that really should be left to wither in the dark somewhere. These include: the temptation to live in the past; and spending too much time staring at my own goddamn face.

And worst of all - after a hard evening of reading Deleuze talk about differential calculus and the wonderful violence of Ideas, is it really refreshing to go to the internet and look at 20 pictures of my friends living it up in Berlin, or cruising around somewhere exotic in the sunshine? Surprisingly, it is not.

I'll have to leave it there, as I'm about to run out of batteries on my laptop. But if I come up with anything to post, you'll be the first to know.

2007-07-06T17:05:00.000+10:00

At the beginning of "Get Me Bodied", Beyonce announces a cryptic set of numbers amid some seriously spacey-sounding reverb: "9... 4... 8... 1." Ominous pause. "... B Day." Now, as it turns out, this set of numbers refers to the day of Beyonce's birth: the 4th of September, 1981. This, it would seem, is her birthday - literally, birth-day, the day of her birth, her B Day. So perhaps what the phrase 'get me bodied' refers to is the incarnation of the godly power of Beyonce in the form of flesh. Previously she'd been just an immanent force in the universe, but what the B Day marks is the becoming-flesh of Beyonce, her getting a body.

So plainly, Beyonce is working with some sort of dualist mind-body distinction. I just don't know if I can find that plausible! Where are her references? Where does she define her terms?

Good song though.

2007-07-06T02:58:00.001+10:00

Ok, I think I've got the Deleuze reading in hand - 164 pages down, 140 pages to go. If I do 15 pages a day, I should at least finish Difference and Repetition before second semester goes back.

The Hegel, however... I wonder. Do you think it's quite common with these things that you can read words, and yet not really have any idea about what's going on? At all?

Oh well. Downloads of recent days include Justice's † plus assorted others - the Freemasons mix of "Ring the Alarm", The Human League's "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of", some others that I can't think of now. Tatu, Kate Bush, various things from Tim's mix CDs and Destiny's Child's #1s have been in high rotation. Oh and weirdly, I found listening to System of a Down invigorating while going for a run. How perverse!

2007-07-03T23:06:00.000+10:00

It would be bad enough if I was only falling asleep while pushing my brain through page after interminable page of Difference and Repetition. But no. Because Deleuze was saying something about Plato's concept of "reminiscence", I now have Madison Avenue's cover of "Reminiscing" playing in my head. Grumble.

2007-06-25T23:28:00.000+10:00

I'm pleasantly surprised. I've decided to hole myself away for the holidays and do some desperately-needed thesis work. I have devised anal little schedules for myself, and instituted a strict regime of breaks (I seem to only be able to do work if I know that I will be stopping work very shortly). Anyway, I just wanted to report that I am actually having fun reading dense academic texts. I am shocked! I associate work with pain: I have not a drop of the Protestant work ethic within my Catholic veins. But the last 45 minutes flew by, I was so immersed.

Perhaps this is what happens when the cloud of guilt lifts? i.e. When I am not trying to write an essay that is 3 months overdue?

Although I imagine that the actual writing process will have more resemblance to a horrid, drawn out 3 month labour, assisted less by numbing pain killers than sharp instruments...

2007-06-16T16:51:00.000+10:00

Whee!

"Brechtian Faux-Lesbian Russian Pop Film Announced"

In other news, I have a hangover.

2007-06-07T05:39:00.000+10:00

I have just made a dubious analogy between Hegel's negativity and Saussure's account of meaning as being negatively-defined in a take home exam (1500 words on 9 pages of Hegel! Aah!) that is due tomorrow / later today.

I hope this is the last time I will ever have to trot out this 'point for all occasions'. It is a pat little thing that I figured out for a third-year essay I wrote in 2004. Admittedly, I did rather a lot of work on that essay. But since then, I have wheeled it out without thinking or trying to make any new observations in approximately one billion essays, class presentations and class discussions. It makes its appearance like Mick Jagger on stage: same tricks, same moves, no alteration, no originality. Just an energetic routine.

In other news, it is very late, I feel very strange, and my life has otherwise been consumed by Facebook.

2007-05-10T00:44:00.000+10:00

Dear Essay on Lacan and Kristeva,

I noticed tonight while writing you that you don't seem to have any space in your introduction in which an overview of Freud's ideas can be given. This is remiss of you: after all, it is I, your writer, that will be chided for not having defined my terms properly, and launching into a discussion of Lacan and Kristeva without situating their ideas.

It really is too much for you to assume that I can just direct my readers to go away and do their research before putting their greedy eyes on my fine exposition. Even if it is the case - and you musn't share this with anyone - that I wish I could tell them to work out their own concise definitions of psychoanalytical terms before coming to me, begging for enlightenment when they have been, frankly, lazy.

In any case, I'll be seeing you soon. I hope you take these suggestions into account and include them in your body by the time we are next together.

Much love,

Catherine.

2007-05-03T15:49:00.000+10:00

Well, shame on me for doubting 2007's pop output! Because here it is: the anthemic r'n'b power hit of this year: Rihanna's "Umbrella". This song is gi-normous. It also manages to rhyme 'each other' and 'um-b-rella'. And! and! and! Do you remember those rumours that Beyonce's "Ring the Alarm" was actually about Rihanna, who'd been spending some time with Jay Z? Well, this is the song with his rap on it. It summoned the wrath of Beyonce's giant snare drum hit!

The clip seems cool too.

Whee. I'm inspired to make a high concept mix cd. Will post more details shortly.

[Update:] Ooh ooh ooh! Just spotted possible actual lyrical reference to Beyonce's aforementioned song: "You'll coming running to my arms / It's okay don't be alarmed..." Do you see? Do you see?

(Hey, I gave a paper on Lacan and Kristeva on 1 hour's sleep this morning after making my way to class despite a) apocalyptic rain and b) a train derailment. I think I'm entitled to a little cutting loose.)

2007-05-02T19:02:00.000+10:00

I am now sitting within the bounds of the first essay extension for the season. It's only been a few days ("Father, since my last being before the actual deadline"). In the interests of placing myself before the judgement of the Big Other, I thought I might post a small list of tasks I have to complete. Perhaps it will go some way towards convincing me that the amount of work I have to do is finite. Besides, all this inventory-taking seems to work for Adam Kotsko. It might work for me as well.

The essay topic is ~~horribly~~ open-ended: 'The psychoanalytic subject of language, according to Lacan ("Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious") and Kristeva (Revolution in Poetic Language). You may compare and contrast their models. (5,500 words)

I have to complete only these flimsy little tasks:

1. Write something about the autonomy of the unconscious.
2. Cobble together a teensy weensy account of the subject coming into language.
3. Determine what my argument is.
4. Figure out what Kristeva's 'thetic' is. Say something concise about this.
5. Compare and contrast the theorists, in circa 1,500 words.
6. Climb moral high horse and write introduction. Perhaps linking my lack of provision of overarching account of subjectivity to something he says in Seminar XI about how we shouldn't try to suture up the split that is opened by the unconscious. For only I, Catherine, have privileged understanding of Lacan, and so can reveal to the reader the trap to which this essay topic leads.

I also have to give a talk at 9am tomorrow morning for my coursework subject. I will, again, be speaking about Lacan and Kristeva. This time, however, I have even less in terms of topic guidelines. But I have an image of myself drawing things on the board and standing in an authoritative manner. Like a drunken memory, however, I can't hear the words that I'm saying in this vision.

Right. Now to read. Or to write. Or both at once.

PS. I forget to herald last week as 'Lesbian Utopia Week'. There was much listening to t.A.T.u.

2007-04-01T16:23:00.000+10:00

Following a tip from Guy, I have just got my hands on t.A.T.U.'s best-of compilation. You remember t.A.T.u.: that Russian pop group with the two girls who have dubious claims to lesbianism and outer-space travel. The album seems pretty good - even their ultimate display of disregard for the sacred in pop history, their cover of the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?", works somehow.

In any case, I did some background reading. The Wikipedia entry about them is startling. Accordingly, I would like to present some highlights. First, about their choice of image:

Ivan Shapovalov and his friend Alexander Voitinskyi developed plans to create a musical project in Russia. Many stories have been told about Shapovalov's purpose of creating the group, and he even admitted to UK's The Sun in February, 2003,

“ I saw that most people look up pornography on the Internet and of those, most are looking for underage sex. I saw their needs weren't fulfilled. Later, it turned out, I was right. This is the same as my own desires. I prefer underage girls.^[1] ”

With this idea in mind, Shapovalov organized auditions in Moscow during late 1999, specifically for teenage female vocalists.

Secondly, on the origins of their paean to persecuted Sapphic love, "All The Things She Said":

Their first single was released very early in 2000, entitled "Ya Soshla S Uma" ("I've Lost My Mind"). The song describes the turmoil in a girl's soul because she is in love with another girl, but is afraid to as she has the society frowning upon her and asks her parents for forgiveness. Elena Kiper has been credited with the song, and has said that the idea came to her when she fell asleep at her dentist's office, and had a dream in which she kissed another woman. She woke up with the words: "Ya soshla s uma."

A surprising summary of one of their later video clips:

Early in January 2002, the girls began recording their English album first in England, then in the United States. In April, it was announced that Elena Kiper had left the group as co-producer, and that she was being replaced by Beata Andreeva, a former MTV VJ. Later in April, the girls recorded the song and video for "Prostye Dvizheniya" ("Simple Movements"). The video was then released in May and showed, according to the girls, "How simple moves are always in our lives, like drinking water, reading a book," which is what Katina does during most of the video, or masturbating, which is what Volkova is doing.

And quite excitingly, they have amazing plans for 2007:

During the group's press time in France, Yulia announced that the group had plans to begin filming their debut film about the love between two girls that meet at one of t.A.T.u.'s concerts. The script is based on a novel called "t.A.T.u. Come Back" written by a deputy of the Russian Parliament, Aleksey Mitrofanov. The movie is titled In Search of t.A.T.u., and is expected to be released in the same time period of the 3rd album.

The good pop drought of 2007 might lift, in other words.

2007-03-27T16:54:00.000+10:00

I'm not feeling terribly productive today. I got off to a good start - at uni circa 12:30pm, with some speedy note typing-up while on the computers in the library that you need to book to use. It must be the sense of urgency and limited time that led me to work solely on the task at hand. For now that I have a laptop all to to myself, I have spent the afternoon in extended time-frittering.

Some of it was spent looking at the webpages of word processing programs that I might consider using instead of Word while writing my thesis.* I was imagining how nice it would be to do work with those interfaces. Similarly, I spoke with a friend over coffee about the virtues of reading philosophy quickly. 'Imagining the pleasures of work instead of working': pretty standard procrastinatory fare.

Oh and look, now it's 5pm - time to leave the library.

* Alas, this one is only for Macs.

Difference and Repetition page count: 76 down, 228 to go.

2007-03-23T14:03:00.000+11:00

So, I'm now a few weeks to Honours, and not nearly as far into Difference and Repetition as I should be. Current page count: 46 down, (=304-46) to go.

Furthermore, I hadn't realised that actually what I needed to have under my belt before reading this text was an inhumanly firm grasp on the entire history of philosophy in all its nuances. Thus, my 'things to look up' list now includes:

- philosophical discussions of genus and species;
- differential calculus;
- Aristotle on difference, genus, Being etc. --> (Metaphysics);
- Duns Scotus' philosophy;
- Leibniz's philosophy.

Furthermore, it seems that it has been an oversight that I have not yet learned Latin and Ancient Greek.

Back to work, I suppose.

2007-03-13T21:01:00.000+11:00

Progress report

So, on Sunday the final footnote was inserted and the last moral high horse climbed in what I believe I termed twenty years ago 'a teeny tiny essay'. This leaves me, for the first time since June or July 2005, with no outstanding work. I haven't noticed any amazing changes in my life so far. I haven't noticed the spectre of lingering guilt fleeing out the window. But I'm glad it's done with.

What I now do have is clear space to make a run at my honours thesis. So I've been sitting around reading Deleuze's Difference and Repetition. It's - well, I considered saying 'unexpectedly tough', but I think I knew it'd be rather ... difficult. All the same, it is pleasant to not need to be constantly elsewhere. This project will be big, but I'm happy it's mine for the next 7 months or so.

In other developments, I've been trying to teach myself things. The language of cats; how to buy laundry powder; the secrets of planning and keeping busy.

I'm not too sure as to what music I'd like to be listening to, either. I have some notion - from reading Deleuze I admit - that I'd like something filled with different intersecting levels of intensity, cool lines criss-crossing, with not so much sentiment and solid, foursquare stature as my usual pop diet. Something inhuman. With lots of difference and - er - repetition. Right now Ricardo Villalobos' "Fizheuer Zieheuer" is fitting the bill.

Because even though I can't listen to music that I know while studying and reading, sometimes a background of semi-regular noise can provide a nice cushion for thought to take place. Nothing that commands one to join in: I was doing well in the cafe in which I was studying today, for instance, right up until they started playing David Bowie - that is, music that I recognised. From that point on there was more absent-minded guitar strumming in mid-air and clicking than note-taking.

Alright, to read - Walter Benjamin on violence, for a lecture I'm "auditing" (is this the term that one uses to describe 'sitting in on a subject you're not doing'?) tomorrow at uni. Bis bald!

2007-02-20T16:59:00.000+11:00

A quick pointer: Infinite Thought has a really excellent post on Britney Spears' newly-bald nonce. Go have a squiz.

One small essay, sitting on the wall... One small essay...

2007-02-19T20:02:00.000+11:00

One essay down!

One to go...

(Oh, and a thesis to commence. But I have nearly cleared the backlog.)

2007-02-13T13:17:00.000+11:00

I should mention - I decided a month or two ago that angsty navel-gazing should no longer be considered a legitimate source of blog material. I didn't anticipate, however, that this would leave me at a total loss for things to discuss...

While waiting for me to sort myself out, I suggest going here and watching the new Scissor Sisters film clip. It features a Matrix-style plate fight at the dinner table using puppets in a way that I don't understand! Quite incredible.

2007-01-21T15:43:00.000+11:00

Song of the moment: Dharma - "Plastic Doll (Remixed Instrumental)", taken from the rather charming Italo Disco compilation, I Robots. Why is it the song of the moment? Because it sounds like music that could be the theme song to the evening news. This is a universal criterion for me: does it have arresting horn or synth hits? Sudden, urgent but momentary increases in intensity? Yes? Then it is good.

Other songs in this category include:

S'Express - Theme From S Express
The Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin
Tatu - All About Us
The Pet Shop Boys - Can You Forgive Her?
A brief few seconds of No Doubt's "Don't Speak", just before the guitar solo
The theme music to the He-Man and She-Ra movie, The Secret of the Sword
Laura Branigan - Gloria

(The theme music from what used to be Channel Nine's "Wide World of Sport" could also fit in here...)