Jumping on the Glastonbury bandwagon.

It seems everyone's got something to say about Glastonbury, so I'm going to say something about it too. But rather than give a long rant about it's faults here is a list of my top ten favourite things about Glastonbury.

10. The hilarity of seeing someone who is past their prime attempt to recapture their past magic by warbling an acoustic set to gaggles of weeping old gadges.

9. The pleasure of not eating anything bar a packet of noodles and a hamburger for three days coupled with the huge feed when you get home.

8. No one caring that you stink.

7. Inadvertantly wandering into a field of nettles to go to the toilet and not realising until you've squatted down and been stung to shit - much to the amusement of everyone nearby.

6. Dancing in the glade to Eat Static & Aphex Twin (though there's no Glade anymore so maybe that shouldn't be there)

5. Buying out all the nitrus oxide in the festival and giggling manically as Josh Wink's 'Higher State of Consciousness' seems to play from the heavens.

4. People watching.

3. Going into raptures over a cup of tea that has been procured even though you have no money left.

2. Seeing bands that you'd never usually see on random and usually quiet stages and then discovering that they're really good so that's more music to listen to when you get home.

1. Dancing wildly to the best techno at the festival at 7am only to discover that it's actually the sound of the slurry trucks pumping out the portaloos.


I can see the points that various people are making about festivals, they are a bit past their day and they are overly commercial. But I rarely have the chance to go to gigs, at least to gigs that aren't in the Student Union which isn't particularly great. I'd like to go to T in the Park this year to see Bowie and Wu-Tang but I can't afford it. This is very sad because I've always wanted to see Bowie and it's one of my missions before either he or I end up feeding some worms.

Festivals may not be political, they may be full of wankers but sometimes its nice to get away from everything else, to go to a field to listen some music with some friends and get absolutely wrecked.

|

While I should be doing something fun....

... I'm not. This is because I feel like I should be studying. Now that I'm not studying I don't know what to do with myself. One of my missions is to not make too many random posts on my blog but I'll apologise for the few that come out when I feel the need to type something.

Hello to everyone who added me while I was away, I have added you to my blogroll too. It's getting pretty long these days and I imagine that it will grow longer. I've also added the Hyperstition blog which looks like it should prove to be interesting.

In addition to my other plans for the summer I've decided that it would be a good idea to read Bataille on Eroticism. This is because I particularly enjoyed writing on Bataille this year and eroticism is very intriguing so the two together should be great. Expect some posts on that; it may turn out that glueboot takes a strange turn.

Here is a quiz from 86400seconds that I decided to steal. I like quizzes, I do alot of them. It engages me in a pointless task that makes me feel like I might have a point.

1. Do you try to look hot when you go to the grocery store just in case someone recognizes you from your blog?

If someone can directly relate my writing to the way that I look I would be very impressed but no, I doubt I would ever find any bloggers at Morrisons in Byker.

2. Are the photos you post Photoshopped or otherwise altered?

Shrunk a little sometimes.

3. Do you like it when creeps or dorks email you?

Yeah sure, why not? Though no one particularly creepy has emailled me.

4. Do you lie in your blog?

No, not purposely anyway. But really, (get ready for the pretentious philosophy student answer) what is truth?

5. Are you passive-aggressive in your blog?

On occasion (especially after a meeting with a hippie)

6. Do you ever threaten to quit writing so people will tell you not to stop?

No, I feel like it sometimes but then I realise that that would make me a twat.

7. Are you in therapy? If not, should you be? If so, is it helping?

If by therapy you mean I discuss things with my cat then yes. If not, then no, and I don't need to be.

8. Do you delete mean comments? Do you fake nice ones?

No and No

9. Have you ever rubbed one out while reading a blog? How about after?

hehehehehehehehe......

no

10. If your readers knew you in person, would they like you more or like you less?

I'm not sure. I've just met Nina, Bruce, Mike & Ness who are all readers but I didn't ask them if they liked me more as glueboot or more as me. I don't think I would want to know.

11. Do you have a job?

No, I'm a bum / philosophy student

12. If someone offered you a decent salary to blog full-time without restrictions, would you do it?

Yeah, as long as I could study philosophy as well

13. Which blogger do you want to meet in real life? Romantically?

Me, romantically me as well.

14. How many bloggers have you made out with?

That sounds like a challenge.

15. Do you usually act like you have more money or less money than you really have?

I never really thought about it.

16. Does your family read your blog?

I hope not.

17. How old is your blog?

About 4 months

18. Do you get more than 1000 pageviews per day? Do you care?

No, nowhere near. Nor do I care.

19. Do you have another secret blog in which you write about being depressed, slutty, or a liar?

No, but it sounds like a good idea.

20. Have you ever given another blogger money for his/her writing?

Um... no

21. Do you report the money you earn from your blog on your taxes?

I don't pay taxes

22. Is blogging narcissistic?

Yes

23. Do you feel guilty when you don't post for a long time?

No, I'm sure no one would miss my ranting too much.

24. Do you like John Mayer?

Who?

25. Do you have enemies?

I hope so but probably not.

26. Are you lonely?

No (is it hip to be lonely these days?)

27. Why bother?

I don't, hence this post.


Man, that was dull. But if you got this far then you deserved it and I'm not going to delete it because I took the time to finish it. Blogging quizzes seem to be for people who have to say something but have nothing to say at that time so they answer questions in a quiz because they just -have- to write something. I'm not posting again until I have something to say (probably by tomorrow or the next day).

|

It'll be alright on the night

It was my last chance to see Orbital and so I had to take it. Unfortunately I remember little of it but I do know that I danced my little socks off for the entirety of the set. I was thinking about this on the train home today; I was planning on not getting too wrecked as I wanted to remember the night but after a bottle of whiskey plans tend to change. So I can't give a good review of it, I'm hoping that Ness will instead, perhaps it will bring back a few memories.

This made me wonder though if I actually care if I remember it or not. I had two hours of euphoric bliss and rather than remembering the details I remember instead how excited I got when they played Halycon (with a surprise inclusion of 'The Darkness' mixed in with their usual Belinda Carlisle and Bon Jovi) and being gutted when they finished. The details are unimportant, a clear memory is unimportant. What is important is that I was elated and dancing and completely lost. It happened at that moment and now it's over. There will be other moments, other events that I won't remember but that I will thoroughly enjoy anyway.

|

Bright Lights, Big City

I don't like London. It makes me feel dirty. I feel like I should shower three times a day to wash the filth from my skin. I hate getting the tube, a tin can filled with heaving and sweating bodies; everybody stony faced and angry, determined to get to their next destination. It makes me feel anonymous, but not the pleasant sort of anonymity that I experienced whilst in Prague; it's uncomfortable. No one cares about anyone else. No one stops to help anyone else, everyone has to be somewhere, always to be somewhere else.

So.... I've decided to move to London for the summer. This is partly for financial reasons and partly because I quite like the idea of being swallowed and uncomfortable for a while. I'm very settled in Newcastle, everything shimmies along in a straight line; time for a kick up the arse. Also I'm looking forward to spending the summer with my very dear (and very smelly) friend Fay who's been living in London for a year now and it's about time she had someone to have some fun with.

London also has great potential for pissing people off. People in Newcastle are generally laid back and friendly and a bit of street nonsense doesn't get to them but the looks of disgust that myself and Fay have been given recently for just having some fun are priceless. I would like to argue that taking random 'artistic' photographs down each others tops while on the tube is perfectly acceptable but Londoners do not seem to agree. Needless to say, I'm going to enjoy the looks of disgust and hatred that I recieve. If people can't enjoy being idiots, or even watching people making fools out of themselves then they need to get to the nearest hospital and get the very large log extracted from their arse.

10 days to pack and then off I go....

|

The Tragedy of Carmen

I have alot of things to say about my current trip to London, done some fun things and some not so fun things. First of all though I should report back on Carmen which I was so excited about seeing.

IT WAS IN ENGLISH!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!! When the overture started I was on the edge of my seat, a single tear forming at the corner of my eye... I was so excited, so pleased to be there. And then as the Chorus began to sing 'Sur La Place' I realised something was wrong. These weren't the words that Bizet had written but some translation that dengerated it to the level of some Lloyd-Weber musical!! Opera does not do particularly well in English, especially not one like Carmen which is a French portrayal of an idealistic Spain. Once it is transferred to English so much is lost. The singers sound foolish as they harmonise with unmelodious words, retorting to eachother with a blank language. The sonority of the Habanera and the Toreador are lost, they might as well have been in Phantom of the Opera or Cats.

I've never cared particularly about the words of the songs, it's always been about the way that the music makes me breathless, the fact that I can get totally lost in it. But while listening to it in English the words were all too apparent. I tried to lose language, to forgot all my words but it would keep creeping back and made the entire experience an effort rather than a joy.

Perhaps it is my own fault. I should have done more research on the English National Opera but one would generally assume that an Opera would be in the language it was written in. As I flicked through the program I discovered that their next prodution is going to be 'The Ring' .... in English.

Tonight I'm off to see Orbital. I absolutely can't wait. I can only hope that the Hartnoll brothers haven't opted for a translation. It would be terrible to be faced with Orbital by pan-pipes.

|

Anyone going to see Orbital at Brixton Academy on Thursday?

|

Rhizomes & Reality

Mark has made an interesting post over at K-punk on the rhizomatic practise of blogging. To be honest I haven't actually read much of the 'professional' bloggers. Probably because most of them are music blogs and while I am interested in music I am far more interested in digressions, aphorisms, ramblings and nonsensical glue. I've found it interesting to see how my blog has developed over the past few months; I've had emails from people not immediately connected with the 'network' that have spawned offshoots in a different directions. I've found links through other blogs to new blogs that I love to read. I can follow strange and labyrinthine paths that twist and turn and diverge and create. I find the spatial aspect of it particularly interesting. Those in Australia and Canada become as close as those in Newcastle or London, space is destroyed through the medium of our ever fluctuating and widening network.

I came across this particular network not through the usual suspects of blissblog & woebot but on a random espionage mission to find out some information on Warwick Uni before I decided to go there. That's how I first came across undercurrent and k-punk. People find me through strange internet searches such as 'Jon Snow nice tie' and 'Troy sex.' There's never any start or finish, only a middle that continues to blast things off in different directions. If one blog 'dies' the network will continue to offshoot new and exciting branches, There might be sadness over someone leaving but it's not the end for there is neither a beginning nor an end to it.

The reality of the blogging rhizome is fascinating as well. I am only properly acquainted with one other blogger that I know of, who sometimes seems quite far on the rhizome yet sometimes close. Strange that. Yet my thoughts are 'published' more frequently upon this network than they are ever communicated through speech and so the network becomes as real as anyone who I might be able to touch with the tips of my fingers. I sometimes wonder if what people post is a true reflection of who they are but then I realise that it doesn't matter, because within this network, this reality, it is what they are. People without faces are given substance through the articulation of words. I don't know what any of you look like, but you are all there; you read me, I read you. Hello there you, whoever you are.

Perhaps this reality can touch that reality. Or are we different offshoots of the same reality blending together in some strange cyberspaceworldreality? I know for some of the 'bigger' bloggers such as Salam Pax there is a definite affect upon the world. But in the area of thought, of production and becomings might this phenomenon have an affect on the way we think? It's a wonderful way to come into contact with people and thoughts that one would not usually come across. I'm sure that I'll meet people at conferences and the like in the future but this seems more genuine and therefore more real. It will be interesting to see what happens in any case.

|

Eye Candy for Philosophers

I once dreamt that I was married to Deleuze. When he died myself and Derrida were very sad and we consoled eachother and then fell in love.




Derrida... the only philosopher that drips sex appeal. Philosopher of 'fucking hell mine eyes' par excellence

|

travelling hippies

I've been reading Michel Houellebecq's Atomised, which is a very entertaining read. I spent a very pleasurable afternoon lounging in the park and reading. It's wonderful not having to study; I can look for jobs in the morning and then read in the park in the afternoon.

On reading the chapter where Bruno goes to a hippie retreat, under the pretence of learning about holistic and new age nonsense, to satiate his sexual desires I was reminded on an incident that happened when I arrived in Prague for the second time. Here is a little excerpt for those who haven't read:

Most of the group were positively oozing with rapture at having made contact with Mother Earth, Father Sun and family. At last, it was Bruno's turn to read. Mournfully, he intoned:

'Taxi drivers are fucking cunts
They never stop, the little runts.'

'You feel like that....' said the yogi, 'you feel like that because you haven't mastered your negative energy. I can feel deep, powerful desires within you. We can help you - here and now. Let's all stand and focus the energies of the group.'
Everyone stood, joined hands and formed a circle. Reluctantly, Bruno took the hands of the old bag on his right and a revolting little bearded man who looked like Cavanna. Her whole being was focused but calm, the yogi utter a long 'Om' and they were off, everyone droning 'Om' as if they had been doing it all their lives.

.....

When I took the plan back to Prague for the second time I got chatting to a guy in the airport. He must have been in his early forties, something of a hippie with shoulder length black hair and dark skin. He was Israeli but had lived in America for much of his life. I like to chat to people in airports, people are usually excited about going somewhere or have stories from their travels which they like to relate. If I'm not chatting I tend to be positioned at the bar looking over the top of my book at the various passers-by. This guy was alright, seemed quite nice and was interested in the fact that I was reading Dostoevsky. We chatted for a while before we got on the plane and I went off to my seat not thinking much about it.

The next day I bumped into him on Wenceslas Square and offered to take him to the castle. I love showing people around Prague, it's such a beautiful city and people are always overwhelmed by it. So off we went to the Castle which is an absolutely spectacular place. I don't usually judge people by what they're wearing but his white t-shirt was a little bit too short and you could see a hairy pot belly sticking out from underneath it and his waist coat must have been about five sizes too small. Perhaps he was thinner in his younger days.

See, I like to meet people, to hear what they have to say. If they're idiots I tend to just listen and not contribute too much to the conversation. If I find them to be wonderful then I chatter away because there's not much better than talking to someone who is wonderful. On the day in question I was pretty damn quiet.

His first mistake was male egoism. I would not have expected it from a hippie since there's usually a lot of female empowerment but when this guy discovered that I could shoot a crossbow with the skill of one of the fey elves of Lord of the Rings whereas he wouldn't have been able to hit an Orc at a distance of three feet he was pretty pissed off. I, on the other hand, was very amused, and quite elated that I was so good at shooting a crossbow.

His second and third mistakes both occurred while we were having something to eat later on. I was listening to him babble about his home in America, half listening to him and half watching the people wandering past when he started telling me about this 'existentialist retreat' that he was off to in Holland. The subversive affects of extreme eroticism a la Bataille are one thing but the idea of sitting naked in a sweat tent with a load of horny old people seeking to reclaim some hint of their hippie backgrounds in another. However, he promptly told me that I would love it while I inwardly vomited. I cannot think of anything worse than being told to embrace my being and take hold of my chakras by someone in a floaty white dress that wishes profoundly that they were a Druid in a past existence. Seeing that I had no interest at all in what he was saying (although I did try to look like I was interested) he went on to give me a very bad interpretation of Nietzsche to which I just nodded and smiled. I don't remember much of it as it was useless but I do remember it being useless and that I was getting more and more jaded with the idea of being nice to people as the evening went on.

His final mistake, which cause me to up and leave is a warning for all you men out there. Like most people in the extreme heat I wasn't wearing very many clothes and as it turns out, while I was happily sipping my cool glass of Spanish white wine he had been staring down my top and decided to come out with the worst chat up line I have ever encountered in my entire life.

'You have beautiful tits.' He said.

Now what is a girl to say to that? Especially a 21 yr old who quite innocently decided that it would be nice to show an old hippie the sights of Prague. Of course all I could do was return with a fairly bemused look, a raised eyebrow and a goodnight. Where do people get these things from? Does anyone actually ever think that that sort of shit can work? I'm not sure... maybe only idiots.

So what's the point?

Well... I'm not sure about these hippie retreats whether they be existentialist, Zen, tantric, new age or whatever. I imagine that the people who go there are of a few different types. The first being the aforementioned hippie whom I decided to do a good deed for. These types are looking for a fuck and think that there's going to be a load of young girls looking for free love who won't be so cynical as me and give in to their terrible chat up lines and lack of charisma. Another type must be those who find themselves spiritually lacking and seek some sort of fulfilment by giving their money to ex-hippies turned capitalist who will stick them on the path to enlightenment. I guess there must be those who it actually does help but I imagine that they're fairly wet with naive dreams of what the world would be like upon a return to nature.

Perhaps I'm just a cynic, maybe the philosophy has got to me. I don't believe in free love, nor that everyone should love each other. Great things come from conflict and struggle, not from two weeks in a retreat smoking 'um peace pipe' with people you've never met. But I do love the world and can find a lot of joy in loads of places. It's just that when I talk to people who think that the world can be made into a better place by 'Om'ing and hugging and sweat tents and free love that I get a little disgusted. I think that Houellebecq's Bruno puts it well when he says;

"Talking to morons like that is like pissing in a urinal full of cigarette butts, like shitting in a box full of Tampax: everything starts to stink."

|

Back on form... though a little ill

Things are better again. I've gotten everything out of my system with a few days of extreme hedonism which included a beach, 2 litres of vodka, the north sea, a police station and a hospital. The less said about all of that the better but needless to say I'm very ill and my body isn't happy. My lower back's pretty sore so I'm walking about like a cripple but I'm sure a few days rest will get me sorted.

Glueboot plans for summer:

Where to go: 2 trips to London, 1 trip to Warwick, 1 trip to Ireland, 1 trip to Egypt (money permitting)

What to Read: Anything by Beckett and Joyce (feeling Irish again); Zizek 'Organs without Bodies;' Deleuze 'Desert Islands.'

What to see: Fire Walk With Me, Twin Peaks (again), The Passion of the Christ, anything by Tarkovsky (will give it another go), Troy, Mulholland Drive, Spiderman 2

How to get money: Hopefully mindless job in office so I become a drone who discusses Big Brother all day

Things I have to do: Format my computer, clean my house, move house twice, give away half my stuff, say goodbye to my cat :(

Things I'm looking forward to: Seeing some old friends, seeing 'Carmen', starting my MA


With all those things to do, and I'm sure I'll think of more, I don't really know what sort of shape my blog will take. In the past few months it has been about work, essays, studying, philosophy with a bit of politics and art thrown in. Perhaps one of these titles shall suffice:

Glueboot : A genealogical approach to the study of glue fetishes through sound and contemporary dance

Glueboot: An exploration of glue sniffers past and present and their influence on 20th century French thought

Glueboot: One hundred ways to combine glues and boots to amuse your friends at dinner parties

Glueboot: Exposed! An insiders confession of the abuse of glue by New Labour politicians

Glueboot: The Diaries of a 13th Century pig farmer (who eats glue)

Or something along those lines. Inevitably it will include glue.

|

Where did it go?

I'm finished... exhausted. I feel like something has been torn out of me and stuck onto paper. When I was rereading the final draft I kept thinking, 'surely I didn't write that,' although that's quite fitting with the topic that I have been studying. In any case, I'm finished... and I think I miss it. Or maybe its something else, but something's definately missing. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Get a job, work until September. It all seems like such an anti-climax. I was expecting waves of relief, tears of joy... instead I blinked for a while.

In an effort to recover some of the exhuberance that I felt while mulling over various concepts I listened to Beethoven's 9th which always makes me want to have a dance. But that didn't linger for long and now I'm sat at my computer again. I should go to bed and get some sleep, I've got to go get this printed and bound tomorrow. But tearing myself from my computer seems like an impossibility. I've sat here for so long, become so accustomed to looking at this screen, sitting in this chair, the feel of the keyboard beneath my fingers.

What a fucking joke... I should be celebrating, getting drunk, or at least relaxing. Instead I did what I always do... reorganise my philosophy books as they get in such a mess after I use them. I have a certain order for them and I like to spend alot of time getting them in the right place and making sure they look good.

Is this it? Every time I put everything I have into a piece of work am I just going to be left with something missing? I wonder if that's how authors feel when they are published, or musicians, artists, anyone who creates. Every time they create something and finally have to say 'Well, that's it, there it is. I have to stop now,' do they sever it from themselves, give it over to someone else and in turn find that piece of themselves gone? I don't know.

I think that I'll have to do what I always do in such situations, wallow in the feeling of emptiness for a while, let it wash over me. Sit in the bath with a glass of wine and stare blankly, no thoughts, no words, just nothing.

I'll have to be right again by the weekend though. I have a paper to give on Saturday and the parties are starting. After my months of solitude I'm expected back on the social 'scene' and to be my usual flamboyant self. People, seeing people again, man... what am I going to say to them? I don't have anything to say beyond philosophical gibberish which I am loath to talk about in public. I need some nonsense, some glue, although maybe it won't be so hard after half a bottle of whiskey.

|

Early Morning Nausea

It seems to be election day, doesn't it? I wouldn't really know since apparently I'm not registered to vote. I thought that I would be registered at home as I vote in the Northern Ireland elections but as it turns not, according to the electoral role, I do not exist. Anyway, I came across this link on voting at The Rambler.

According to The Times, Labour are up to some dirty tricks when it comes to the voting system. I wonder if Blair has been getting advice from his friends over in America.

An investigation by The Times has discovered that Labour’s General Secretary is urging activists to set up bogus ballot boxes today outside traditional polling stations in all-postal voting areas.

A document issued by Matt Carter, which has been seen by The Times, suggests that the activists should wear red rosettes to maximise the number of last-minute Labour votes collected in the bogus boxes, and to deter supporters of other parties from handing over completed voting slips.

A Labour MP has also told The Times that election cheats are collecting postal votes and changing the choice of candidates using Tipp-Ex correction fluid.

But the spokesman insisted there was “nothing inappropriate or illegal or wrong” about using false ballot boxes. “This is about making sure that people with a postal vote have it counted. This is not about handling ballot papers. We have always taken our responsibility in this area very seriously.”

See, I would have liked to have gotten ballot papers for England although I would not have voted. I vote in NI as there is a need to keep extremist parties like the DUP out but in England there is never anyone that I want to vote for, nor anyone that I actually really believe deserves to be in government. There's all these adverts on TV saying for people to be interested in politics to encourage them to vote. But my political act (however small it will be) will be a non-vote. If enough people don't vote then maybe the crap political parties that we have would take notice because its not a matter of not voting but simply that there is no one to vote for. I for one don't have any confidence in any of our major political parties. I mean, who really wants another Labour government with Blair at its head? But then one couldn't possibly vote conservative and the Lib Dems are just a pack of pussies.

It seems that Blair's sniffing around Bush's arse for the past few years has made for a hell of a lot of stupidity and corruption . And if this voting scandal that The Times is talking about is true then Labour's reputation has been futher sullied (which I didn't think was possible).


When it comes to the next general election I think I'll make my own ballot box and have it in my house. It will say "Glueboot for Prime Minister!" It may only have my vote in it but that will be enough. I'd rather vote for the ridiculous idea of me running the country rather than any of the fucking idiots we currently have.

|

Almost there...

Glueboot is so weary... so weary that she's talking in third person.

Enough of that.

Tomorrow is the last day that I will be working on my dissertation. I would like to say that I've been working on it for the past year but I haven't. I spent quite a lot of time thinking about the things that I'm currently writing about but didn't actually think that I'd put any of them into my dissertation. Again this year I have ended up writing about things that I didn't want to write about. Last I year I promised myself that there would be no Hegel yet a chapter of last year's dissertation is dedicated to him. This year it was Deleuze and Guattari but again they have a chapter. I've also ended up writing about things that I have always found baffling but that are becoming clearer: mainly time, complexity and capitalism. I always seem to end up writing about things that I find extremely difficult, it must be some sort of masochistic side coming out. I didn't really need to write on Deleuze & Guattari, especially since my lecturers said they were 'too hard' (to put it mildly) but it just turned out that way. I think when you spend hours deciphering something you can write well on it, if I write on something I find pretty simple it always end up being shite. But if you think about something really hard, turn it over in your mind until you've looked at all the possibilities then things always end up clicking.

I have to finish my final chapter and write my introduction and conclusion tomorrow and then it will be done. At the moment, apart from procrastinating by making a pointless post, I am attempting to make some images in photoshop for the front of each of my chapters. I've taken a fairly silly picture of me at Glastonbury a few years ago and am attempting to turn it into images that will resemble the concepts I'm playing with (says she who rants about conceptual art). I'm trying to make images that might be folds, chaos, rupture, dynamics and flux out of my silly picture. The first one went well but now photoshop won't work properly and every time I try to convert something using the wonderful liquify tool it crashes. I...am... not... happy.

I have nothing left to say.

|

A rather long but very relevent passage from the man who never fails to make me smile

Couples Everywhere
We sometimes behave as though people can't express themselves. In fact, though, theyr're always expressing themselves. The sorriest couples are the ones in which the woman can't be preoccupied or tired without the man saying, "What's wrong? Say something," or the man, without the woman saying... and so on. Radio and television have spread this spirit everywhere, and we're riddled with pointless talk, insane amounts off words and images. Stupidity is never blind or mute. So the problem is no longer getting people to express themselves, but providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don't stop people from expressing themselves, but rather, force them to express themselves. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, or even the rarer, the thing that might be worth saying.

Deleuze - Mediators

Ah yes, the pleasure of not speaking. I only discovered the pleasure of silence around this time last year when I was sat in the garden of a friend of mine. My friend, who is an absolute Heideggerian told me that I talk a lot and that I should try silence for a change. So I did. This practise was particularly useful while I was in Prague as I had no one to talk to for about 4 weeks so I would go to restraunts and listen to other people's conversations, recording them in my notebook.

Anyway, point being that I don't talk so much anymore, but I don't particularly like listening very much either because people talk a load of shit. Not everyone, but some people, so when I they talk I switch off and focus on something interesting on their shoulder.

My silence though, might not be so attributed to deciding to be silent than to philosophy. I find myself wanting to say something but then realising that I don't have the correct audience. Recent example: At a friend's house watching Big Brother (I'm sure everyone has seen it, its more entertaining this year than others). After watching a certain female 'political activist' I found myself wanting to say "She is definately not a non-conformist, she is -totally- conforming to a molar identity." I bit my tongue though, realising that no one would want to hear my pseudo-intellectual thoughts.

Anyway, I'm procrastinating again.

Hurray for Silence! Hurray for Deleuze! And Hurray for perpetuating pointless statements by putting them on the internet for all to read! HURRAY! HURRAY!

|

My thoughts exactly

Linked from k-punk is & so this is Christmas. voicing the same frustrations as my own in the world of essay writing.

yeah, i'm posting, so obviously it's essay writing time again. i'm not pausing to really think this post out, so it will be a little... well, loose, shall we say. i'm just up in the middle of the night at the same desk i have posted from in the past, albeit with a different essay (or set of essays) lurking in the background.

Also

I'm becoming one of those critical theory/cultural students who can't order a coffee, flick through a catalogue, attend a barbeque - do anything really - without making a comment that is situated in relation to the theories of this or that critical theorist/continental philosopher.

And

Yes, I'm still up. No, I haven't touched my essay. However, I have done quite a lot of reading on and around the topic of the essay.


Exactly what I'm thinking when I'm making a post rather than writing an essay. They're ALWAYS THERE. Until Friday!!

On the subject of essays I've been reading DeLanda's excellent essay 'Nonorganic Life.' This has cleared up alot of things for me on matters of complexity and systems modelling. "phase space" seems like an interesting place to be.

Writing my dissertation has clarified a lot of big words that I've puzzled over for a while. I can now use morphogenesis, transduction, homeostasis and bifurcation (among others) in a sentance so I'm feeling very pleased with myself. At the moment I should be writing s section of chapter 3 of my dissertation on 'Systems and Assemblages' but instead I'm pondering over what to get from the Chinese Takeaway.

Embryogenesis though reminds me of when I went to Prague (this being one of the main points of my dissertation so its pretty interesting). If a group of cells in an embryo are transplanted from one region to another they will develop according to the structure of the second region. When I was transplanted from Newcastle to Prague I began to develop in a more Praguish and Baroquean way; so I must just be a group of embyronic cells who's determination changes depending upon the other systems and structures round about.

In other news, I have been getting ridiculed for writing on my walls with chalk. I like to write words on my walls so that while I'm working on something I can never escape. When I walk into my room I am assaulted by concepts that instantly make me think about writing and if I'm stuck I look at the wall and the word that I need is usually there. Recent accusations have been:

"You're fucking wierd."
"It's just not ordinary."
"You'll never be able to escape that." (which is the point really)

I was going to try to protest these slanderous accusations then discovered that there wasn't much point because everyone would still think that I'm 'fucking wierd' and I don't mind that. If writing 'Schizo' on my wall is the extent of my abnormalities then I think that I'm less crazy than most.

|

Summer Burn

Here's an interesting link that I found at Zero Interrupt. It seems like a great idea, I love the thought of getting some music from a random person somewhere in the world. Here's the details:

Well, all you have to do is this.
1. Leave your address details with us using the form below (don't worry, we're not some nasty spamming site and we won't do anything other than use them for this)
2. When the project starts, you'll get an e-mail from us telling you who you should send 2 CDs to.
3. Burn 2 CDs of your favourite summer tunes.
4. Post them off to the addresses you receive from us you have within a week of receiving the e-mail
5. Sit back and relax, and wait for yours to come through the post from the people that have been selected to send you one!
6. ... and thats it! You get 2 new CDs full of music to while away the summer heat to.

Great innit?
And best of all, this is open to everyone on the entire planet. We had loads of people last year ecstatic with music they'd received from different parts of the globe!

Anyway, check it out. It's a good way to circulate music and maybe find some exciting tunes.

|

"Contains scenes of extended peril"

Went to see 'The Day After Tomorrow' last night. It was my way of taking my mind off the fact that while all my friends were out clubbing I still have work to do and I'm not allowed any fun until I finish.

The film was okay. I don't think it was any better than okay but it wasn't particularly bad. I went to see it because on the trailer that they've been playing on TV it says "Contains of extended peril" and I was in the mood for a little peril. The special effects are pretty good and seeing LA and New York being detroyed is fun. But the film doesn't have much except for effects. The main storyline running through the plot is fairly generic, one guy's a hero, wants to save his son, son is a bit of a hero too and the wife gets her moment of glory. At the start of the film there was a scene in Tokyo so I thought that maybe they'd look at the effects of global warming all over the world but they mainly concentrated on America (the UK was pretty fucked but they didn't say too much about it).

The ending (as was expected) was cheesy as hell. It dripped of American heartwarming endings, everyone had a smile, the President of America apologised to the rest of the world for being an arsehole for so long (oh the irony). If the story hadn't been so dull I would have enjoyed it more, it was pretty much the same as watching Armageddon or Independence day except with a few tweaks here and there.

But the cyclones and the tidal waves (I love tidal waves) were exciting enough. So if you can be bothered sitting through the cheese its worth seeing. And if you do want to see it, it -has- to be seen on the big screen. On a television set it will be really bad.

|

glue : 1

The giant spider lolled within its pile of faeces beneath a giant web of festering stars. Cushions of blood stained velvet, brushed and burnished, provided its terrible seat as it observed the malevolent words and pictures of the Modern Oracle. The Oracle spewed it's terror into the block of mud and water that festered and boiled, shivering in pleasure at the horror of ejaculation. Titters of excitement escaped the lips of the spider as it observed the images of control, it grinned a toothy grin and spiky teeth dripped with amber brown liquid.

|

Another cleric to be extradited?

hehehehe

From The Portadown News

|

"Yes, I have killed her, I - my adored Carmen!"

I first learnt of Bizet's 'Carmen' when I was about 7. At the time I didn't realise the entire breadth of the Opera. The Toreador March was simply the first tune that I learnt to play from memory on the piano. I would sit for hours playing it over and over again, never tiring of playfulness of the melody. Sometimes I would play it faster and faster and faster until my fingers couldn't possibly go any faster. Sometimes I would play it slowly, sombrely as a death march, sometimes staccato, sometimes adagio. I wanted to squeeze every single possibility from it. It didn't matter as long as I was playing that tune. When we went to visit relatives my mum would like to show off her children who could play the piano, again and again they would hear the same glorious melody until I was banned from playing it. My brother particularly despaired, even now he cannot bear to hear it and when I mention it he glowers at me.

As I grew up I listened more to the entirety of the Opera and I loved it even more. Each time I listen to it I feel paralyzed. I can never have it simply 'on in the background,' when Carmen is playing it is -there- and everything else falls into insignificance. When I had the pleasure of seeing Carmen within the beautiful surroundings of the National Opera House in Prague I was trembling with excitement. Even the beautiful murals of the Opera House couldn't distract me from the music.

Carmen breaths passion and life. Carmen herself is that burst of life that can never be pinned down. She subverts and destroys order, flitting from one person to the next and from the moment Don Jose falls in love with her he is doomed. It is not surprising though that Don Jose chooses her instead of Micaela; who would not choose passion over the ordinary? It constitutes the end, his passion for Carmen will end in both their deaths. But in choosing death he has chosen life, I believe that given the choice and knowing of the consequences Don Jose would still rush blindly into Carmen's arms. A brief burst of the absolute intensity of life coupled with a tragic death; for he had to kill her, how could he live with the thought of her in Escamillo's arms. And how could he live knowing that she was dead? Despite the tragic ending Carmen remains not an Opera about death but an absolute affirmation of life.

A note on Escamillo. I absolutely love him, not just from my childhood piano playing but an Escamillo swaggering about the stage oozing sleaze and sex is a beautiful sight. I have two versions of Carmen, in one Escamillo is played slowly, grandiloquently so I rarely listen to that version. In the other his voice is seduction and sleaze, one need not know the story to tell that this is ladies man, it comes across lasciviously in his voice.

On June 19th I will be in my element. I'm going to see Carmen at the Coliseum in London. I imagine that the expense will be worth it. Pins and needles and rushes of energy. What is money when one can be overwhelmed by such an experience that it will linger for long after the event? For it always lingers, for days after seeing Carmen the experience keeps rushing back. I will never get sick of hearing or seeing Carmen, I often listen to it before I start writing something philosophical; afterwards I feel exhilarated, liberated and consumed with fire.

Or, in the words of someone who always has the eloquence to give voice to experience;

And once more: I become a better human being when this Bizet speaks to me. Also a better musician, a better listener. Is it even possible to listen better?- I actually bury my ears under this music to hear its causes. It seems to me I experience its genesis-I tremble before dangers that accompany some risk, I am delighted by strokes of good fortune of which Bizet is innocent.- And how odd! deep down I don't think of it, or don't know how much I think about it. For entirely different thoughts are meanwhile running through my head ... Has it been noticed that music liberates the spirit? gives wings to thought? that one becomes more of a philosopher the more one becomes a musician?- The gray sky of abstraction rent as if by lightning; the light strong enough for the filigree of things; the great problems near enough to grasp; the world surveyed as from a mountain.- I have just defined the pathos of philosophy.- And unexpectedly answers drop into my lap, a little hail of ice and wisdom, of solved problems ... Where am I?- Bizet makes me fertile. Whatever is good makes me fertile. I have no other gratitude, nor do I have any other proof for what is good. - (Nietzsche - 'The Case of Wagner')

|

cat

one day I'll get that cat.....

|

What's in a name?

I'm back to language once again. It seems that this year one of my central themes has been language although I hadn't planned it that way at all. At the moment I'm looking at the use of language for control in the British colonization of Ireland. It's a theme I'm very interested in as I enjoy learning about Irish history. What bothers me at the moment know is not the translation of places into English names. For example the translation of the Irish Abha into 'river' is pretty simple as one can point to a river and it is the same. However, the translation of Irish names into English is a bit stranger. 'Siobhan' translates into the English 'Jane' or 'Joanne.' I wonder who decided that one equates to the other as no two people are ever the same. Perhaps at one point there were a 'Siobhan' and a 'Jane' who were exactly the same and someone said 'Well, Siobhan must be Jane.' I don't know but it seems strange that a name can be so easily translated from one language to the next as if people can be easily translated from singular to particular.

The use of language looks to have been a serious method of control in collonial Ireland. As Lyotard points out 'names grouped into calendars, cartographical systems, genealogies and civil statutes are indicators of a possible reality.' All of Ireland's places were translated into English and placed within statue books, new maps were drawn up and a new reality was created that conformed to the universal narrative that the British Empire was trying to create. A new 'possible reality' was created that was based upon English narratives rather than Irish. Irish children were forced to go to national schools where they were made to speak English, road signs and place names were transcribed into English and the language began to dwindle. Now, according to recent statistics, there are only around 20,000 fluent Irish language speakers in Ireland. This seems to me to be a terribly sad situation, a conflict arose between two narratives; now one has almost been practically eradicated and a different reality put in place. The Irish phrase universe (to use Lyotard's terms) is now little more than an object to be cognized by linguists.

Along the same line of thinking; a friend of mine works in a call centre and has recently been sent to India to train native Indians to work in the call centres. He told me that the employees have to take an Anglicised names to use while they are at work because apparently people in the UK want to hear familiar names. This isn't the eradication of a language but it has a certain wrongness about it. Do we desire the world to be so flat that we cannot bear a name from another culture when we speak down the telephone? The employees also have to go to meetings once a week where they are told things that apparently we will want to talk about: i.e. the Eastenders plotline, what's happening with the Beckhams, who's getting evicted in Big Brother. A very sneaky way to implant the nonsense that fills our tabloids into a different culture but one that I imagine will be quite successful. When my friend gets back I'll be interested to know what he was doing and what sort of set up they have over there. He told me that he's going to suggest our names to the employees. Then there'll be a group of people with the same names as my friends in a different country. -Very- strange. I wonder what name 'Siobhan' will transcribe into in Punjabi or Bengali.

|