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. 

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.