Brain is the new sexy

... at least that's what I tell myself, sitting here in leggings and an indiscriminate blue top-and-ladsy shirt-combination. It's not a good day for fashion. Nor is it a good day for anything, actually. Not even for spelling - the blog word-processor has to correct very nearly every second word I write. Plus the ones that remain undetected because the words exist, only do they not express what I want to articulate. Sea. You get it. 

I am forcing myself through the remainder of what used to be my Contested Culture notes, but is now a pitiful pile of coffee-stained, grey matter in a plastic folder with the additional neon highlight to communicate to the passing fellow-student that I have read some of it, and had even had the mind frame to highlight. Indeed I have read some of it, most of it, with the exception of a rather dull text of myth-theories - I could't lower myself to do that - now the crucial point is that I don't remember anything. In fact, I don't remember reading most of it. The library drains all spatial and temporal rasters out of my brain and transforms it into a giant pudding, sitting comfortably and uselessly in my head, waiting to be poured onto paper on D day. Also, instead of teaching myself how to crochet over Christmas, I should have started early learning all that rubbish. It's my own fault, really. Or is it? Am I not the victim of the very subject I am supposed to know an awful lot about? Take this blog, for example: it is part of what has been christened the social media, and effectively impedes me from learning. Then the TV Christmas specials (gotta see all of those, right?), they too kept me from expanding my field of knowledge. Add a bit of random facebooking, a couple of cinema sessions, a talk with an ageing Ralph Fiennes (not me obviously, some fat bloke in an ill-fitting jumper) and tada, the cultural and creative industries destroy their most recent offspring before it even glimpsed at the world comprehendingly. Maybe I am just a victim of post-feminist self-determination incompetence? It could well be, given that I cannot rely on a husband with an iron fist to impose his will on me; I have to go and tame the shrew myself.

(the same day, bed time, the protagonist is sitting in bed, typing instead of reading dull slides about culture - computer battery full, human battery in reserve)

I need stage directions for my life. How else am I supposed to know how I feel, where I stand, whereto I belong and how the bloody hell this play is going to end?? Despite the fact that I am possibly the world's worst actress, I can just about manage to be an active agent in my own life and portray more or less convincingly real emotions to my fellow actors. Coincidentally, this metaphor relates to what Judith 'Jude' Butler writes about gender performativity. Ok, well, not quite, but the basic idea, the performative element of life remains the same. A very clever leadership book has taught me that performativity is not the playing of a part like Rowan Atkinson does Mr. Bean, but like Rowan Williams does his long-standing performance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, soon in a church nearby you. Gender works in a very similar way: although it depends on sex in the sense that a sex is already inscribed with a particular set of norms and normative elements, gender is more or less autonomous and a way of method acting 'man' or 'woman' to oneself and to others. So, where are my stage directions? At the moment, it's Samuel Beckett rather than Tennessee Williams, plotless incoherence. Maybe I should try and compensate by becoming an obedient consumer, without an opinion, without a choice. 

Culture: contested!

An unusually fast follow-up; naturally, it’s exam time and anything to procrastinate. Not even a cancelled internet connection keeps me from spending my time in any other way than reading inconclusive and irrelevant articles about the theatre of Genet by some random French sociologist.

Screencap is courtesy of guardian.co.uk. I couldn't write something like that.

 Anything to keep me from taking notes about the nature of culture and the cultivated nature, webs of significance, passive consumers, active authors and dead cocks, in the literal sense. I do not see the point in learning something that by definition, cannot be defined, or has at least, so far, not been defined by anybody in a satisfying way. Essentially, I team up with Sisyphus and help him push his stone up the mountain, with the added bonus of having my liver eaten out every now and again – or was that Prometheus. My Greek mythology like my theory of culture is a site of convergence, like culture itself, according to Stuart Hall. Everything merges and flows and escapes (most of it escapes my memory, actually) to leave me with the prevailing sentiment of despair. I am not alone: Facebook tells me that my fellow students suffer equally as hard as I do, albeit in a more public way than I, excluding this rant, which I expect no one to read. Communal suffering than links perfectly with one of the many theories of culture: rumor has it that cultural texts are not created by the one, but by the many. Social practices are interrelated and together form what we understand as culture. Perhaps. The main reason for my despair lies in the ‘perhaps’ that precedes and follows every single theory I encounter – theories of culture come with a reservation, like Euromillion numbers, the reservation that there might be a mistake in the theory and that the lot could be deconstructed within the blink of an eye. Haha, very funny. I look at the pile of paper that is ten weeks worth of cultural bullshitting, and counting, and wonder whether this exam is not a way of justifying ourselves. Like lawyers and doctors, we are forced to write exams because it makes culture and theories of culture quantifiable. We finally can translate culture into marks and grades, mistakes and definitions and thereby legitimize it within the numerous fields of academic practice. We are told that the exam is not about expression, quotations or perfect knowledge; nor is it about grammar; it is about our understanding of culture.

Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Message

My understanding is that we’re given a couple of vague questions and have to formulate equally blurry answers to those, while remaining close to the canonical texts – and despite of what they say, they want clear formulations of what we’ve read. Generally I like incoherent, messy, and pointless tasks, but this exam seems a first class example in pointlessness. What they want us to reproduce is what Stuart Hall has called theoretical noise, a sort of Bee Gees-techno mash-up of Beethoven’s Ninth with vocals provided by Andrea Boccelli and a guitar solo by Eric Clapton. Not that I wouldn’t want to hear it, but the task seems futile and the assembly of the different components rather difficult. Mind you, Eric Clapton would do anything for money. The resulting noise then is nothing more than one strand of the culture theories, a speck in the landscape of philosophizing sociologists, literary ethnographers, empirical critics, and clueless students. The irony is that in a different context, namely my academic career, this exam is more than just a speck – it is the make or break of 5 years of academia. Everything I’ll do in the future, whether I graduate or not, depends on this exam. In a way, I’m being very barbarous about it, to say it with Bourdieu. I concentrate on the small details of my life and want to see every single one of my actions justified, so that I can feel better about my lower middle-class existence. So, where does this leave me? I have to write this exam if I want to gain my degree – I have a choice to not write it, but it is a false choice, to say it with Benjamin, I could not write this exam, but that would mean that I’d isolate myself and I’d loose all the privileges tied to my status as a student, and possibly a lot of people would just forget me without questioning that I ever existed. I’d have to find my way for myself, without the help of fellow students. Great, so it’s either exclusion or two hours of my life trying to figure out what on earth they want me to write. 

Thoughts on being a grown up

IT has dawned on me recently that all my efforts to remain an under-educated, under-estimated, under-no-obligations twenty-something old are in vain, and that even I have to grow up some time to take my place within society. Argh, essentially, it means shovelling my own grave, doesn't it? Dear anonymous, inexistent reader. I confess, the latest outcomes of my creative, semi-professional life did not include any sign of adult behaviour, ended cataclysmic in public embarrassment or included making pompoms out of plastic bags. The fact that I am writing this at 03:26 after a day's work and a visit to the theatre should emphasise the fact that regulation and routine are slightly off-theme. I do like my routines, ocd-ing is one of my favourite pastimes, but how can anybody expect me to be responsible, empathetic, and mumsy?????? Don't get me wrong, I like other people - well not everybody, but the broader mass - and I wouldn't want to live without them (apart from a few), I just don't always feel with others, care about others or try and help others. Most things I do are created out of unadultered selfishness, with added egocentrism and a pinch of narcissism. I heard or read somewhere that being an adult is when you do things, not for your own benefit,  but for the benefit of others. Right, complete fail on that front, then. But let's be honest, how many people can I name who reason according to this Ghandi-ish mantra. Maybe two or three, and even those have their slips, occasionally, and involve a lot of spirits, in 99% of the cases. I have realised over the past year, that being a grown up has nothing to do with age, it is more, and here I enter the nature vs. nurture debate, a matter of being born an adult, or not being born an adult. I consider grown ups another ethnicity, about half the earth's population is a grown up in addition to whatever else category we want to put them into, and you don't just grow up to be a grown up. Your mind is set to a particular function, and unless you're hit on the head quite hard as a child, or fall into a pot full of magic potion (one has heard of such cases), your grown-up-ness is determined from the start. Ready, set, go, and fuck Simone de Beauvoir, 'on ne naît pas femme, on devient femme' - whom did she date again?? Right, dating a cross-eyed French Nobel Prize-denier does not make you cool enough to judge on nature or nurture or both.

This post does not come out of nowhere, in fact, it's midlife-crisy territoire - the twilight zone, as I would like to call it, had twilight not gained unwanted spotlight through a rather popular film series within the last couple of years. (ironic, isn't it that twilight is now in the limelight - ok ok, my jokes aren't getting better with age). What I want to say, were I not a self-centred idiot, is that I am turning 24 in less than 24 hours. Birthdays don't bother me much. I don't actually like birthdaying, it's a bit of a bother, trying to accommodate other people's well wishes, I don't like saying thank you, I like it about as much as saying I am sorry, or making compliments. If you hear it from me, it means a lot of effort on my side, so it's worth a lot. Celebrating the date of my birth is a bit of a weird idea - I wasn't much involved in the process, almost 24 years ago, as a matter of fact, I was barely present. I couldn't stand, was covered in sticky liquids and screamed cryptically - like an average night out, without the hangover. I think that celebrating the few successes I had in life would be much more appropriate than celebrating that fact that I appeared. Not that I want to get all Tristram Shandy here, but I'd rather celebrate the efforts that I made consciously: graduating,  learning how to bicycle, learning how to drive, learning how to avoid driving on a night out etc.


(P.S. I post-scribe this on the date I publish the post, 12 days after my birthday, like any good underachiever. I still believe what I wrote then, but I have to add that celebrating other people's birthdays is an activity I quite like. Mostly because I can value them for what they have done, and what they mean to me. Celebrating myself, as much as I would like to enjoy it as a self-centred idiot, is just not in my nature, so hurray to all the rest of people celebrating themselves.)

9 months later....

The first post in nine months, talk about wilting..... But there was just sooo much going on (excuse No. 1), I wrote two dissertations (excuses No. 2), moved house (excuse No. 3), started a new school (you get the picture) and had to do lots and lots and lots of socialising (and there is of course Downton Abbey, Nigel Slater and QI for the less social days). Well, I suppose a lesser known philosopher in a bathing gown once said 'What matters is getting there in time, not getting up early'. So getting back here nine months later is still early enough to write. I initiated this blog to publish my efforts in cooking, but taking pictures of what I eat and adding rubbish recipes does not count as proper food blogging, so I resign and do what I do best: complaining. I recently read that the 'agony aunt' had been reinvented - online - so as to take professional complaining on to another level in the 21st century. Great, but in truth, the solutions to my problems are obvious (and involve more often than not the eradication of most of the human species), and I don't want to complain publicly to get solutions. Part of the joy of complaining is that there is no immediate solution, or no easy on for that matter, it is about the art of complaining - complaining for complaining's sake - to get a touch of Baudelaire into the equation. Complaints are the soul's little 'Great Escape'-s; means of letting of the steam, without extinguishing the fire; they are not meant to be answered, they need stoking and salt-in-the-wound-rubbing, not handy solutions before moving to the next, possibly bigger issue. No, no, no, no, as a semi-professional complainer, I advocate the non-searching for solutions or alternatives, because they defy the very essence of the complaint; dilute the issue; or worse, make you aware of other people. Yes - complainers often complain to ignore the fact that there is a world around them that needs attention, and that possibly, needs help that little bit more. By the way, it is really cold here, in my minuscule bedroom with the awful Victorian sash windows..... 

Tea, the new Champagne

The obviousness of most issues is to do with the less serious nature of the complaint: it's the small fry that really warms the complainer's heart, for it is not important enough to give reason to complain, but not unimportant enough not to give reason to - we're talking the grey area, the twilight of importance and neglect, the ferry on the way to hell, where complaints are made or break in tidal movements, following the makers whining and eye-rolling lamentations. True, this is self-justification, but on the other hand, I never complain about really important things. I am too proactive to do so: any problem is tackled offensively, and not a thought is wasted on its problem-ness. Real problems is what I thrive on, because they create the exact opposite tension of the small fry: whereas I as a hobby complainer create cases around nothing, I, the professional solver, act to overcome problems as fast as possible (to be able to return to my lamentations). In a way, the small complaints are the matrix in which I live, the background noises, the annoying crickets in front of my window. I need them to be able to think clearly, and possibly also as test runs for the essential problems in life. Without problems, my life would be flat, uninteresting (it is sometimes, even WITH problems), and I may add, completely senseless. Studying, the very nature of, is the finding of solutions: without problems, King's would be empty, utterly useless and it's costs unjustifiable (some people argue that it already is all of these things). 

Mankind (and I, as an egocentric complainer rarely use that term) needs its problems just like it needs air and food and water and Oyster cards. Aristotle, Hume, Foucault, Grass, Cowell - they ONLY exist through and within their complaints! Had they not continued to bleat about stuff they really, really thought important, we wouldn't know them, at all. (in Foucault's case, it might have been more agreeable that way) Man should be renamed, I think, into 'moan' and 'Moankind', which are, by far, more appropriate terms to describe our species. One should think that the rise of new technology would facilitate life of 'moan', solve problems instantly, and reduce the number thereof altogether. But no! New technology has not just amplified the voice of moan, more over, it has given moankind more platforms where it can whine and make life a misery for others. The iPhone - the megaphone of hell - is designed to allow for the highest number of parallel complaints possible. You can update your twitter, Facebook, Myspace and blog, whilst chatting on the phone to your best friend, writing an email to your mother and scratching pre-pubescent rubbish into the plastic of the bus seat in front of you. It is fantastically appalling how much you can ramble on the 55 to Leyton, if you get on at Tottenham Court Road and leave at Old Street. Especially if you're a bit weak on grammar, and your vocabulary is limited to the words 'f*ck' and 'like'. I was a-mazed..... Not that I would want to complain....

The wilting

As I anticipated, I am a rubbish blog-mother, in the same way that I am a rubbish plant-mother, and a rubbish friend, because I can't look after something for longer than my attention span permits, which is about 10 seconds. Sad - I know but I am back, not that I think anybody reads this, and I have nothing to say. Ha! But, like the people I live with, I simply continue, maybe tell the same story a couple of times more than necessary, simply because I'm bored and cannot come to terms with getting a hobby or so. 

I have an excuse ready, if you like, I have been working on two essays, which I have handed in today, and rewarded myself with a trip to the cinema, to focus on something other than trying to write legible notes and transforming those into legible essays. I failed a bit, but for now, I'm just happy to have them out of the way. There are two dissertations to be written - and I sort of have two ideas/titles/fetishes that I consider making the essence of my life for the next 3 months or so. Due date is May 23rd, and until then, everything is uncanny or simply cinematic. 

God, this is going to be a diary entry, isn't it? I've always been rubbish at those, too. So far, I've collected ideas and made lists and lists of potential titles, and every night I fall asleep thinking -this is the best title so far. I won't have to say that dissertation titles are not like Fiona: ogres by night and first class titles by day, very much the opposite. What seems to be the next Pulitzer at 1 am, is Metro's page 6 by day. Frustrating! However (that's the word to go with) I sort of know (that's probably the most-used phrase among fellow students right now) what i want to do. One title that I'm stuck with is 'A Lift to Die for', which sounds a bit like Arnie's next movie, or something that Mike Leigh could direct. My idea is to analyze how various characters' identities fade (away) until there is nothing left to fade, i.e. they die. Sounds crap, I know, but that's what I'm working with. My other dissertation hasn't even gone as far as to have a crap title: it's just 'work-in-progress' right now, or rather, 'work-in-contemplation-of-progress'. Channel Four is just a hint more interesting at any time of the day, than working out what to write on. Maybe heritage films. Maybe.

Sadly, I have no creative energy left (ever had) to be inspired enough to write something truly original, or at least something that hasn't been done before about one billion times. Right now, all my energy goes into choosing tomorrow's breakfast. And that's where it ends. Or not, I dedicate almost the same amount of energy and time to getting dressed and make-up, only to wear sweat pants and look like a tramp who found two lipsticks. Frustrating. Also, my iPod died last week, my computer is on its way out and I want new shoes, but I can't find any. Now that's something to complain about. I haven't been to the gym in a week, I look sluggish and my lethargy is growing like ivy. It's hopeless! Additionally, the sun's come out in the last few days, and whereas EVERYBODY else is enjoying themselves, constantly talking about the weather, I sit inside with swollen eyes because the first pollen are in the air. Happy days, now it's meds until September. If I am lucky. So here I sit now, at 20 to 10, feel guilty about the gigantic amounts of food I've stuffed myself with in the last couple of days, want to go back to the cinema and watch more of Never Let Me Go and just take a break from, well, taking a break. I want somebody else's life, and face, if that's possible. But only the life will do.

Sip of water, deep breath, and move on, girl! Get your ass up and going. May be I should pick three movies blindfolded and then write about them whatever comes into my head. Hm, maybe that's not a good idea, right now in my head is the thought: god, that scented candle sucks. I cannot recall a single movie  that quote features in. Not even in Mike Leigh's. Though he is definitely the person to to when you're having a bad day and you need a pick-me-up, watching other people get drunk on your behalf. A pound of tiramisu has the same effect, but it's harder to get than a Mike Leigh film, and less improvised, so he says.I'm updating my facebook page about twice per second and nothing happens, apart from all the status updates about 'going home' or partying into the weekend. I think I need to throw up. I don't WANT to party - all I want is a week on my own, nobody else around, just the peacefulness of my own thoughts and the debris that's currently clattering my brain. I am effectively turning into a cat lady, minus the cat, I'm allergic. What prospects. I'll be the crazy old lady in the village who has fictional cats, because she can't afford to keep real ones and is also allergic to anything with fur. Maybe I'll get a parrot, like the old lady in 'The Ladykillers' (1955), the original version, of course, not the rubbish Tom Hanks version. I have some self-esteem left. 

'Da steh' ich nun, ich armer Tor und bis so klug, als wie zuvor', said Faust when he realized that after studyig for so many years, he had nothing to brag about. Like nothing, apart from a couple of majors in Maths, Physics, Theology, Philosophy. Hello? He obviously had no problem writing a dissertation, or two. And yet, he is still complaining. That's the nature of mankind, I suppose. There is not limit to complaining, like a classmate of mine once said: 'Oh, my Cartier is ticking too loud'.

Maybe I just eat myself into an orgasm, like this woman I read about in a Metro article. 

Why Kafka just isn't Brad Pitt

I admit, it's not the most pungent, fresh, exciting and palatable topic, but it's the one I chose to write on. Why? Because I am dominated by food and cannot think of anything BUT food, even when I read stories about a clerk-turned-beetle-turned-compost. In 'The Hunger Artist' ('Der Hungerkünstler'), the starving artist is fed my breakfast when he leaves the cage after 40 days fasting. Not really MY breakfast, but the breakfast I had today. A sort of soupy, semolina pudding with milk and maple syrup (of course Kafka did not have the genius to add the maple syrup - was there any in 1915 Prague??). I love sweet, soupy breakfasts like porridge, pudding, grits, milk rice and semolina, so Kafka's story slightly backfired when I read it. Instead of being disgusted, I actually thought - yum.

I just finished an essay on Babel, and again realize how much I hate the movie. I always have. The first time I saw it, it did not ring the usual 'auteur-film' bells, I was deeply unimpressed. Poppa Pitt with a melancholic expression carrying Elizabeth (I and II) through the Moroccan desert. How tacky can a film be? (I suppose that question was answered with Benjamin Button).
I like the various 'voices' of the movie, the different languages and especially the Japanese bit of it that reminds me of Lost In Translation, in a good way. I even appreciate the Moroccan desert panorama shots, though usually, I despise docu-styly movies hoping to impress with epic images. BUT Brad Pitt as anything but Brad Pitt??????? I quite like him as Joe Black, appreciate his Tyler Durden, love Rusty Ryan - but Richard Jones???? There are other ways of coping with midlife crisis (cf Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp). Was there no pirate-movie casting at the time? Was there no crap action film script lying at Brad's bedside?

I should probably do some proof reading or research my Kafka piece, because my blood pressure rises every time I think about potential casting choices for Richard Jones (along with splitting the movie into four different features). 

A not-New Year's resolution

I have to admit, I am not the person to run, write or organize a blog. I am, and here follows a confession, utterly, utterly lazy, unmotivated, complacent and greedy. If it doesn't come to me within two seconds, it won't come at all. Ever. So about a month after my first post, a second, catching-up thingy.

Yes, I bought these flowers myself, not expecting anybody else to buy me some.

Yes, it's been a busy month, I'm at my parents', where I am left alone with a huge kitchen and sheer endless supplies of food (and a Kenwood food processor), all day long. What else to do than bake, cook and try recipes that I'd never venture doing in our humble student kitchen. Actually, it is more the disposal of the food that is much easier here, because there are always people around to eat what I cook, people that aren't fussy, people that are meat eaters, people that fancy three-course meals every day.

Because, let's be honest, I am a single student with a small kitchen, and recipes rarely adapt to my needs, and what I need is one, or maybe two scones. And a one-portion beef stew, and a one-portion brioche recipe, and a one portion pork pie recipe, and a one-portion... well you get the picture (whoever you is, if there is a you outside my head). Don't get me wrong this is not a frustrated single speaking. No - it's a slightly overweight (muhahaha) student speaking who is sick of reading recipes that could feed the entire British army, if not the entire British population. I'm not a thicko either, although usually preoccupied with letters rather than numbers, I am the offspring of two accountants and I am fully capable of calculating, hence I am able to downsize recipes. What I can't do is quarter eggs or work with thimbles as measures.

ALSO, shops don't sell the stuff I need in single-appropriate sizes. You HAVE to go for the gallon of syrup, the ton of flour, the yard-long bread, the wheelie bin full of sugar and baking powder, enough to make a continent rise. Of course, these things 'keep well', 'are always handy' and 'easily stored'. But did I mention that I am a greedy, fat student with limited space to store my gallons of syrup and milk, and not even enough will power to let a bag of flour sit on the shelf for more than a month. I do my best to cram the stuff I buy into the small space in the cupboard that is reserved for them, and labelled accordingly, a technique referred to as 'tetrising'. But what I cannot ignore is the voice in my head screaming 'flour, butter, sugar, eggs - cookiessssssss' (and trust me, that voice is quite loud). I realize now that my accolade is taking biblical proportion, but, hey, that's exactly my approach to food.

I realized during the last two weeks at my parents' that I should try to 1. get a bigger cupboard and 2. find ways of using the limited content of my food cupboard in order to make tasty stuff in one-portion format that will help me to turn myself into a one-portion size person. OMG, is that a New Year's resolution?