#maybe there will be Recurring Themes that I need to address in a therapy session

[boysrockboys]

okay fine I'll repost my fics from 2007 on ao3

[emmisays]

I’m Scared Stupid! (No, really...)

Hey you! 

It’s been a while since I’ve vomited some words on a page to you lot. And I happen to have my laptop open and a coffee in my hand and an hour to spare here in New York, so I thought I would tap something out to you. Prepare yourself. I’m feeling verbose…

Firstly, let me start with saying how grateful I am to you guys for all the love you’ve shown for ’Scared Stupid’. I’m really glad you’re feeling it! But before we move on to Chapter 4 (FRIDAY!) I wanted to share with you guys what inspired me to write it. Because while it absolutely is a tongue in cheek, neurotic little pop tune, underneath that is a very real and serious theme that’s quite personal to me. And I wanted to speak about a thing called anxiety and share my own story with you. I’ve been deliberating as to whether I should go there or not, but on the off chance that it might resonate with you or help you in some way or even just be of interest as we get to know each other, here goes…

I’ve been afraid of death since I first understood what it was. I’d think about it. Obsess about it even. I was constantly imagining horrible things happening as a child. My mum would be all of 10 minutes late to pick me up from a class and by the time she arrived I’d have already imagined at least three tragic reasons for the delay, played them out in my mind and attended both her funeral and my own. I’ve had a sense of pending doom for as long as I can remember. And for the longest time I just put that down to being a conscious human… aware of my own mortality and powerlessness in this life. But a few years ago I realised that wasn’t the whole truth. I, like so many of us, have anxiety. That feels strange to admit publicly even now.

See when I was a kid my parents worked for a missionary organisation that saw us living in the developing world for some time. And I’d say there is a healthy dose of adrenaline required when you are dropped off in a village on a mountain top next to an active volcano without knowing a word of that tribe’s language and told “see you next week”. I don’t remember being afraid. Mum and Dad made us feeling like everything we encountered was an exciting adventure, something to explore not fear. But any fear or ‘fight or flight’ hormones coursing through my veins (or indeed my parents) then would have, under the circumstances, be considered justified. We had some ttiimmmmesss....

The first instance of irrational fear probably started when I was around 8 years old. We were in Papua New Guinea and I asked my folks if I could go on a sleepover with my school friends at a dorm house at the local American mission school. They said yes. That night us girls went roller skating (yes, in line skates… and we still wore scrunchies because we were frozen in time over there!) had dinner and went to bed, only to be woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of sobbing and wailing. We went out to see what was happening and the teacher informed us that the father of one of the girls there, who had been held captive by militia for some time, had been assassinated. In that moment, stood amidst the shock and grief around me but perhaps not fully understanding it, I developed a fairly illogical (but understandable) idea I would hold onto for many many years to come: when you are away from your parents they die. I didn’t go on another sleepover until I left home at 16 years later. I would make myself sick to get out of school camps. The feeling was real. The thinking was not. 

A few years ago, now living in London and worlds away from that time, that feeling of pending doom I’d carried with me as a dull ache all my life started becoming more prominent. Quietly at first, as a knot in my stomach and then in a more noticeable way (shortness of breath, tightness in my chest, pounding heart). And I would feel that rush of adrenaline and be flummoxed because I’M ACTUALLY SAT IN A LOVELY CAFE IN SOHO! So what was there to be afraid of? I was confused and terrified by these very real physical symptoms that were suddenly presenting themselves in me with seemingly zero cause. And the more confused I became, the more mad at myself I got. This is ridiculous. Pull yourself together! You’re a smart person. There’s no sense to this!  And the madder I got with me, the worst more extreme the symptoms became...

I had my first anxiety attack at home in Oz with my family. Nobody knew what to do. Least of all me. My family knew me as a bit of a jittery character ...  but hyperventilating and publicly falling apart in a pizza joint was a new one on all of us. I was so embarrassed. I felt like I was losing my mind. But I shrugged it off the next day as a ‘one off’ thing and hoped that was the end of it.

Back in London, however, as the weeks passed and I started opting to stay indoors all day because of that heavy feeling in my stomach… and then the next…. and the next…  I knew things had gone from bad to worse. My relationships were suffering too. I wasn’t letting love in, because I had shut down, so I couldn’t have been giving much out either. Much like the videos I made for Scared Stupid, moments of joy or moments with my family and friends would pass me by because they would be immediately accompanied by a sense of foreboding. How will this go wrong? Not only was this thing stealing my own joy, but it was stealing the joy of the people around me too.

So I eventually decided to talk to someone. And I wanted to share my experience of how that went down because a) I want you guys to know me and b) what I was told in that time has helped me no end ever since, and I don’t want to keep that all to myself. 

Perhaps you are sitting there reading this now thinking you’d like to see someone but perhaps it feels ridiculous, or unnecessary, or maybe you just can’t afford it! (That was a struggle for me too) Or perhaps you’re sitting there and you know someone who suffers from anxiety. Well, whatever the case, I hope what I tell you now can be of some help to you, or if nothing else an education. 

When I started therapy it took five minutes to realise that there was a lot more than that pesky knot in my stomach to address here. A whole lot more. I unpacked the whole darn attic of my life and mind and realised I spent most of my life apologising for taking up the space I inhabit... among many other things. And in just a few sessions I was a changed me. (No… correction… I didn’t actually change at all. I was still the same me, but now I was conscious of myself and who I was and WHY and of the people in my life and who they were and why.) And I left with more love and forgiveness for everyone in my life and everyone I encountered because, yep!, you guessed it, I had more love and forgiveness for myself. Bingo!

Then came the day we spoke about my anxiety. I happened to be having a day of it and so she asked me to close my eyes and actually feel what I was feeling and sit with it. So I sat there and closed my eyes and just felt … and tears immediately rolled down my face in the silence. I’d never done that before. Really sat with it. Anxiety was always a war with me. Something I fought. Hard. Something violent. And I was surprised at how sad the feeling was. How tired and weak it felt in the silence now that I’d given it permission to exist. She asked me where I felt it and I pointed to my tummy. She asked me what it looked like and I told her it was a swirling green and yellow blob thing. She then asked me to draw it on a piece of paper. When I finished she said “Well that’s a kidney.” Makes sense I guess.  

(Geeky side note: green and yellow are two recurring colours Shakespeare uses  to describe anxiety or pining too.  “She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like patience on a monument smiling at grief.” - Twelfth Night. Thus ends my geek aside…)

Then she asked me: “What would you like to say to your anxiety?” 

The fight came back in me immediately. I took a deep breath and said clearly and loudly... 

“Fuck off. Just fuck off.” 

“Why?” She asked. (I figured she was being the kidney thing so I went into improv mode. You can take the girl out of acting...) 

“Because you shouldn’t be here.” I said. “I’m a smart person. And you are ruining my life. And you have no point. And you need to fuck. right. off.” 

I opened one eye to catch the lady smiling at me in that all knowing way that counsellors do which is half annoying, half comforting like a parent. 

“So do you feel better now?” she asked.

“No. Worse.” 

“I know.” She said. “We can stop now.”

What she then told me both saddened me then saved me.

“You have anxiety. And you will always have anxiety.” 

WHAAATTTT?!? 

“But see the thing is this. Your anxiety is a good thing. It was there for you when you needed it. It was a survival defence. And as long as it made sense to you, you didn’t mind it sticking around. But now you don’t feel there is a point to it, you don’t want it. And that is totally understandable. But you have to learn to listen to it. Even if you think it is pointless. Even if you think it has nothing to say.” 

I’m a sucker for images and what she said next really hit things home for me. 

“See… anxiety is like a small child. A little kid who will come up to the table while you’re at dinner with friends, or in the bath… or at the most surprising of moments and just tug at you. “Mum! Mum!” It wants your attention. It’ll start as a whisper. Now if your first reaction to that tug is at a 10…  “FUCK OFF! GO AWAY!” and you ignore it, the child won’t understand. They’ll do one of two things. They will get louder and louder until you notice them and give them the attention they crave. “MUM! MUMMMMMM!” Or they will cry and make a scene. Maybe even have a tantrum. But the one thing they will not do is GO AWAY.” 

“Balls. So what do I do then?” I asked. “You listen.” She replied. 

“When that child tugs, you stop what you’re doing and say …oh hey… there you are again… what’s up?” And you spend some time with it and close your eyes and just see if they have something to say. You let them have their moment. Sometimes they will have nothing to say. (Much like kids coming to the table “What is it darling?” …”Ummmm…. I like kittens!” (they skip off into the distance).) They’re  just content to have had your attention. And they will eventually take a seat next to you quietly. Or get on with a jig saw puzzle or something. But sometimes they will have something to say. Something important that you may need to hear. And they may stay with you an hour or even a day, or even a few, and that’s ok. But you take the child’s hand and let it walk with you. And you listen. And let it be what it needs to. Because if you don’t, that child will grow and grow until it’s a giant next to you that you are looking up at and screaming at. No, it’s not going anywhere and that’s not in your control. But you can choose how it stays with you. Hold it’s hand. IT IS SMALLER THAN YOU.” 

For whatever reason that image helped everything. I stopped fighting and started listening. (By the way, I was never really yelling at my ‘anxiety’ ... I was yelling at myself, which was never going to work. Be careful how you speak to yourself. Negative company can be toxic, especially when it’s with you 24/7.) 

And I’ve been holding this child’s hand for a long time now. People close to me have also learned to hold it’s hand with me too, which has helped me no end and I am so grateful. Because when that kid turns up at a family dinner uninvited, or takes over my face while we’re watching a film…  it makes all the difference that someone might notice and say “Are you ok Em?” or just hug me without saying anything because they know. Or maybe we exchange a knowing smile that says “here we go again” ... the way you might if a naughty toddler cousin or your weird uncle started playing up. Cos’ you can’t choose your family. And you can’t choose anxiety either. But neither are going anywhere so you gotta get along right?

But above all... no-one asks WHY? anymore. No one asks me to stop feeling what I’m feeling. And I’m learning not to ask that of myself either. Anxiety is not the enemy. It’s just a part of me that makes me brilliantly sensitive and expressive and aware as much as it can be a negative sometimes. You can’t fix anyone. You can only ever be with them. 

That’s all I got. I have to get on with my day and this has become a blog of EPIC proportions!

But I wanted to share this with you because it helped me so much. And for all the fun videos of me ‘not enjoying myself’ in ball pits and on carousels and around kittens and puppies and cheese… underneath it all is a very real thing. That so many of us deal with. And I want to say, if this is you too I get it! And I hear you. And it’s ALWAYS good to talk about this stuff. And nothing is ever too silly.

I think we have to choose to feel the pain and the fear when it comes. And to sit with it a while. And give yourself time to cry on a bad day. And time to think. And talk it out. That way you stay open. So that when happiness does sneak up on you, or laughter, or love, or joy… you can really sit with those feelings too and really feel those highs and take pleasure in the moment and in the eyes of the people around you and stop time for a second. 

Enjoy that ice-cream and that puppy and that grumpy cat! (Actually… on second thoughts don’t worry about the cat. He was a bully.) But just feel it all. Because it’s a privilege to be alive and feeling anything at all. 

We’re all going to die. Most freeing fact there is! (And this is officially the worst end to a blog. Ever. In the history of blogs.)

EMMI “We’re all going to die.” 

You’re welcome. 

Happy Tuesday folks! Looking forward to seeing you guys on my live feed for more chats. I’ll hit you with a time ASAP.

Em

xxxx

FULL VIDEO OF SCARED STUPID NOW ONLINE: https://youtu.be/hfBYW28bEAU

[aion-rsa]

The Sopranos Questions That The Many Saints of Newark Can Answer

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If the pandemic was good for something, it was giving folks time to catch up on or get reacquainted with the best television series from the modern era. Are you someone who promised you’d watch The Wire if you only had the time? Well, time found you. Were you dying to revisit Breaking Bad now that you’ve had some distance? Well, what a perfect activity for social distancing! Looking to careen through 40 seasons of Survivor? The CDC has spoken!

Many people, myself included, took the opportunity to revisit arguably the greatest series of the 21st century, The Sopranos. If I couldn’t hang with my friends at a bar, I guess I could watch Tony and the gang meet-up at The Bing. If I couldn’t leave the house, at least I could commiserate with Uncle Junior. If my therapy sessions were going to be digital, I might as well have them with Dr. Melfi on my TV screen. 

It turns out that 2020 was a perfect time to revisit these degenerate, yet somehow lovable cast of mobsters, not only because time had to be occupied, but because creator David Chase’s grand return to New Jersey with The Many Saints of Newark, The Sopranos feature-film prequel, is arriving this fall. With six seasons fresh in my mind and special attention paid to the series’ casual mentions and brief flashbacks to Johnny Soprano’s heyday, I’m ready to look for continuity, expansions of lore, and fun Easter eggs galore.

The prequel is a feature film and not a series, so it’s impossible for Chase to deliver endless callbacks and fan service while also telling a satisfying, original story, but here are just a few things we’d love to see The Many Saints of Newark address when it hits theaters Sept. 24, 2021.

Tony’s Connection with Animals

We know that Tony Soprano will appear in The Many Saints of Newark, portrayed by the late James Gandolfini’s son, Michael Gandolfini. While the film looks like it will largely tell the tale of Giovanni “Johnny Boy” Soprano (Jon Bernthal), it seems likely that young Anthony will be getting plenty of screen time to satiate fan desire to see what he was like prior to his involvement in his father’s business. 

How many characteristics will the young Tony share with his considerably darker adult self? We know he’ll likely experience panic attacks, but will he also share many of the other characteristics that made Tony seem human and vulnerable, like his love of animals? From the very first episode, Tony showed real interest and empathy for animals, like the ducks in his pool. 

This is a theme that continues throughout the series, like when Tony goes nuclear on Christopher for killing Adriana’s dog, murders Ralphie over the death of his race horse, Pie-O-My, and loses his patience with his father’s old “goomar” Fran when he discovers that his father regifted their family dog to Fran and her son. It’s a small character detail that may not need a chintzy origin story moment, but maybe the young Tony dreamed of veterinary school?

Paulie Walnuts’ Relationship with Johnny Soprano

For most of The Sopranos’ run, Paulie Walnuts was used as comic relief and shown to be a relic of an era that had passed him by. But from what we heard (or what Paulie says), the young Paulie was a legit tough guy heartthrob that the whole neighborhood either feared or admired. Billy Magnussen (Game Night, Aladdin) will portray the young Paulie, the man that Tony’s father would threaten to sic on his son if he ever misbehaved.

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While the adult Tony’s admiration for Paulie waned throughout the series, it will be interesting to see whether Johnny Soprano thought of Paulie as a useful soldier or a big-mouth liability. How integral was Paulie to Johnny’s operation? The old Carmine Lupertazzi could barely even remember Paulie, was he simply just a handsome hired gun that overstated his importance to Tony’s father?

Uncle Junior’s Relationship with Young Tony

To say that Tony and his Uncle Junior had a complicated relationship throughout The Sopranos would be an understatement the size of Bobby Baccalieri, but were things always this bad? In a spot of pitch perfect casting, Corey Stoll (Ant-Man, House of Cards) will be portraying the young Uncle June and we’re curious to see how he interacts with his nephew. 

By all accounts, Junior was always a tough nut to crack with a chip on his shoulder, is it possible he gave the same attitude to Tony in his youth, which led to built up animosity years later? Or was their relationship close before competing for head of the family? It’s one of the dynamics we’re most anxious to see play out on screen.

Tony the Music Fan

Along with his love of animals, it seems like one of Tony’s other passions was music. Always singing along to some AM Gold or quick with some music trivia from the era that The Many Saints of Newark will be covering, will a young Tony Soprano be far more interested in catching episodes of Ed Sullivan than the family business?

David Chase’s one other feature film Not Fade Away focused on a suburban rock band in the late ‘60s, will Tony dabble in trying to start a group of his own? Ultimately this one is a stretch, but it would be cool to see a young Tony pouring over an issue of Music Maker or posted up by the jukebox.

Dickie Moltisanti and His Cousin, Carmella

Described as the protagonist of The Many Saints of Newark, Chrisopher Moltisanti’s father Dickie will be portrayed by Alessandro Nivola. We only know what we’re told about Dickie, and what we know is that he was a tough soldier in the Soprano crew that served in Vietnam, then went to prison soon after. Christopher said he struggled with drug and alcohol abuse as well, but Tony remembers the man as being “a standup guy” who once took on a whole crew from New England on his own. 

Perhaps we’ll see Dickie bringing a war to the Soprano’s turf in Jersey and struggle with addiction in a similar way as his son Christopher. Learning about Dickie and his history will be key to unlocking many of the wrinkles in the DiMeo crime family. It’s also worth mentioning that Dickie’s cousin is Carmela, who claims they were close, as does Tony. Will a young Carmela appear in The Many Saints of Newark and will Dickie be the one to introduce Carmella to Tony? It’s a possibility. 

Tony the Athlete

A constant point of strife between Tony and Uncle Junior is June reminding Tony that he “never had the makings of a varsity athlete.” Tony’s high school football career is alluded to often, and Tony even still has recurring dreams late in life about his old high school football coach. Will we witness young Tony lose his interest in football a la Pink in Dazed and Confused? 

Perhaps we’ll get to relive some of Tony’s interactions with his strict coach. Michael Gandolfini looks a lot like his dad, which means he’s certainly the size to portray a believable football prospect. How much time will the young Tony, if any, spend on the field in The Many Saints of Newark?

Fran the Mistress

In season 5 episode 7 of The Sopranos, Tony meets his father’s old goomar Fran Felstein, and she reveals many missing details about Tony’s father, his uncle, and close family friend, Hesh. It’s unclear if Hesh will play a role in The Many Saints of Newark, but Fran reveals a dislike of Hesh, claims that Junior was obsessed with her, and also unveils the secret that Johnny was with her the night that Livia Soprano had a miscarriage, which caused Tony to have to lie on behalf of his father. This seems like a pivotal moment in the lives of Johnny, Livia, and Tony, so it will be interesting to see if it will appear in the film, or whether Fran will be mentioned at all.

Tony and his Dad

Several times throughout the series, Tony states how he never knew where he stood with his old man. Ideally, their relationship will be the crux of the film, or at least a considerable part. It will be enlightening to see not only Tony’s relationship with his father, but how his father’s dealings impact the rest of his life. 

Tony states how, later in life, he feels like he has no contemporaries and no one to talk to. Other than Silvio, Tony’s colleagues in the gang are either old friends of his father or young upstarts, and the older members of the gang can’t help but see Tony as his father’s son. We get what it must have been like for a teenage Tony through AJ, who realizes that most of his “friends” and the people he surrounds himself with only care about his connection to crime. 

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The Many Saints of Newark will be released in theaters and on HBO Max on Sept. 24, 2021

The post The Sopranos Questions That The Many Saints of Newark Can Answer appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[lone-hand]

A JOURNEY INTO THE INNER & OUTER COSMOS OF LINDA FOX

Though we were unable to reach Linda Fox, we managed to get a hold of a long term client and comrade of the sleep therapist / new age pop singer to discuss the making, meaning and musings of her first official album available for public consumption ‘Leopards Break Into My Heart’. Join us as we peer into Linda’s elusive world of dreams and nighttime existentialism.

“I think Linda encourages us to witness the Tragedy Of Being™ while we are awake, and then dream up a corresponding wealth of hope and courage while we are asleep.”

How do you know Linda Fox? What is your relationship to her?

I first met Linda when I was just ten years old. She was my sleep therapist. What happened is that I’d gone away to scouts camp in ’95, it was a winter camp at Manning Park, and we slept in snow caves, and when I returned home I was incredibly feverish and sick. One night I fell into a deep delirium and ran around my house screaming, a nightmare hallucination kind of an awful ordeal that my poor brother had to bear witness to, and then after that I had these crazy nightmares every night and would sleep walk. It got really bad so my parents eventually took me to a sleep therapist, Linda Fox, and she made me a personalized cassette with a guided meditation on it to help get into a good sleep state. It worked! After that I had NoMoreNightmares™.

How would you describe Linda? What is she like?

I haven’t seen her in person for quite some time. When I was young I remember she was incredibly gentle, she could maintain eye contact indefinitely which always pulled me into her energetic field. Basically contagious vibrations of pure goodness. I remember she was so calm and intense when dealing with dream stuff, but then when we’d be talking about normal life she would get super playful and goofy, make jokes and impressions like she didn’t really care about things outside of dreams, like it was all just imaginary stuff and dreams were where the real important things in life took place.

Was it an intentional decision to stay out of the spotlight or is she just reclusive and hard to reach?

When I tried to reach Linda for the first time eleven years after our therapy sessions (2006) I was unable to get ahold of her. I assumed she had moved away or something. Then I received an email about a year later from a company called LEP-E Alternatives© who said they were contacting me on Linda’s behalf. All of my contact with Linda since then has been mediated by LEP-E Alternatives©. I believe she’s most likely not interested in the spot-light as it exists now in relation to the commodification of lifestyle. Her interest is in the collective unconscious and how dreams can gain access to this realm of human experience. I believe that Linda remains in the spotlight of the collective unconscious. If you look you’ll see her center stage, maintaining eye-contact with anyone who’ll dare to look.

How did this album come to be? what inspired the creation of it?

From what I understand Linda began to add ambient synth sounds to her guided meditation tapes that she was giving to clients, helping guide them into sleep. I think she started singing her words more and more, adding more and more layers and rhythm sections, until the tapes were no longer guided meditations. They were pop songs with a Meditative Twist™.

“The heart must be cracked by life, it’s a fundamental quality of life to chip away at the heart”

What is her creative process like? how are the songs created? how was the album recorded?

Leopards Break Into My Heart is her first official album for public consumption and it is essentially a best of from all her personalized guided meditations. All the ones that were just a little too poppy to end up on a sleep tape for a traumatized client.

Does she have any favourite or integral pieces of music gear? What’s the set up?

Definitely the Korg M-1 Music Station. It is jam packed with the best in synthetic world music sounds. Linda is drawn to artificial sounds, because through the artificial one can gain access to the ‘real’. If the right combinations of artificial elements are organized together they can cause a sort of short circuit in the listener, which jams up the artificial façade that stands between them and the chaos of reality. Similar to the way a zen koan uses words to collapse the mediating powers of language, leaving us in the immediate presence of ThatWhichStandsOutsideOfLanguage®™.

So Linda uses the Korg M-1 with a loop station, creating loops that repeat endlessly during jams. Linda spends hours listening to them and slowly adding to them, building a sonic environment whose boundaries meet and blur and become seamless.

Is ‘Leopards break into my heart’ a concept album? How do the songs relate to each other?

The main theme that underlies the songs on Leopards Break Into My Heart is a conceptualization of time that is non-linear. This non-linear temporal frame is present in the content of songs, like Strangers for example, where Linda asks “who were those strangers in my dreams? / Their symptoms are the cause of my disease/ who were those strangers in my dreams? / They’re symptoms of my cognitive disease”. It’s an order of time that characterizes feedback loops, where effects cause their own causes, like the symptom of a disease that is also what caused the disease. This temporal logic seems to be primary in dream consciousness. Things are constantly happening because of themselves

Similarly, there are two songs on the album that were sampled by electronic bands, The KLF and The ORB. Linda’s songs are the originals, but they were made 15 years after they were sampled.

The lyrics evoke much curiosity, what are the songs about? Do you think there are any messages or sentiments she wished to convey?

“Hope is the sun of tomorrow’s cold embrace”. I think Linda encourages us to witness the Tragedy Of Being™ while we are awake, and then dream up a corresponding wealth of hope and courage while we are asleep. She is a nighttime existentialist, perhaps.

“It's like surfing waves of ontological uncertainty, if you swim too far out you might get sucked out past the break and not make it back, but if you do it right you can find your way back to the shores of stability.”

What does it mean for a leopard to break into ones heart?

Leopards represent a kind of change from the outside. Kafka wrote an aphorism that goes like this:

“Leopards break into the temple and drink all the sacrificial vessels dry. It keeps happening. In the end it can be calculated in advance and is incorporated into the ritual”

There is a certain quality of change that cannot occur from within a system, be it biological or cultural. This kind of change comes from the outside, and for Linda this change is represented by the leopard. Linda sings “There’s a crack in my heart where the Leopards get in”, which addresses her vulnerability (and I think a collective vulnerability) to changes occurring within the boundaries of our deepest source of identity. The heart must be cracked by life, it’s a fundamental quality of life to chip away at the heart, and it is also a fundamental quality of life to bring forth agents of change to infiltrate those cracks, aspects of the environment that enter into our deepest sense of self and reconfigure it. And we can’t fight the leopards. We Are The Leopards™.

Can you talk about the album art?

Linda rides a 1988 Suzuki Katana. It is a means by which Linda can find the cracks in the heart of this city:

Vancouver, BC, TheMostBeautifulCityInTheWorld™. 

Once inside the heart of the city Linda can smile at the mayor, Gregor Robertson™, and say “you’ve gone too far”.

Are there any specific musical influences that informed the sound of this album? what music inspires her?

Enigma, Julee Cruise, Opus III, Future Sound of London, Harold Budd, The KLF, Orbital, Seefeel

What does it mean to be 'Horsin In the Void'?

Horsin in the Void is when you get outside of the stable. The endless task of conscious beings is probably to negotiate with their environment and maybe try to extract stability out of the chaos(!) This process leaves us worn out to say the least, and here's why: Chaos is unrelenting. Chaos has a multi-dimensional configuration, so its like, we finally stabilize things and then what the heck (?) here comes chaos from a dimension we didn't even know existed, so here we go on and on adapting to the new dimensions of instability that haunt us in Sisyphean fashion. Tiring stuff. So sometimes you relax and wander out of the stable, like a horse without a home. It's like surfing waves of ontological uncertainty, if you swim too far out you might get sucked out past the break and not make it back, but if you do it right you can find your way back to the shores of stability. Horses Surfing in Waters of Madness. 

Will Linda's guided meditation tapes ever become available for public consumption?

Linda's guided meditations are strictly for those in need of her patented SleepCorrectiveTechnology™. That being said, there is a small section on Leopards Break Into My Heart that uses a sample from my original sleep meditation, and when I first heard that section I flashed back to a recurring nightmare I used to have where I was in an infinite black, empty space, and there was a giant, green, weightless cube that I was passing back and forth with an unknown opponent. It was a sort of game we were playing. At some point in the game I lost my focus and the cube drifted past me, out of reach. And as I watched the cube fade slowly into the endless dark abyss I realized all at once that by missing my chance to return the cube I had lost the game, and by losing the game I had ended the world. An enormous sense of guilt and dread filled me at that time. Enormous. I looked over at my friend who was listening to the album with me and she gave me a big thumbs up. Gosh that felt good to see that thumbs up symbol, and to know that the Green Cube Delirium (GCD) was long behind me.

Do you think we will hear more music from her in the future?

I'll be sure to pass your inquiry on to the customer service desk at LEP-E Alternatives™ for a comprehensive answer (within 10 - 12 business days[!]) 

Where do you think she is right now? What do you think she is doing at this very moment?

I don't know where exactly but I'd bet a horses handful she's sitting on a bench in one of Vancouver's fabulous public parks. I know she's been working on a groundbreaking cosmogony and that takes up most of her time so she's likely busy piecing that together. From what I understand she posits that the universe that we inhabit now is hollow, the only real part of the universe is the outer most boundary, the skin. By her logic, it is self evident in the concept of a universe that the only thing that could be said to truly exist is the boundary that separates it from the non-universe. But Linda's cosmogony also suggests that the boundaries of the universe are porous, open to exchange with the non-universe, like any functioning membrane must be. And that's why the universe is expanding, because non-universe is always sneaking in. THIS IS GREAT NEWS, because so much for entropy, the universe is an open system. And anyway here we are, probably just off shoot pieces of non-universe trying to fit in, and I'd guess that's where Linda is too.

[post-discourse-blog]

On Tyranny

I have a sort of cautious respect for anarchism. I'm fond of the ideal, but there a lot of of details and object-level concerns that I've never had addressed - but then, I've also never really engaged with the literature on it

And since a lot of people I consider to be smart identify as anarchists or with anarchy, I've always assumed that there were convincing responses to all of my presumably obvious objections that I simply hadn't been exposed to.

One of those objections, incidentally, is articulated by Jo "Joreen" Freeman, in her influential essay "The Tyranny of Structurelessness":

If the movement continues deliberately to not select who shall exercise power, it does not thereby abolish power. All it does is abdicate the right to demand that those who do exercise power and influence be responsible for it.

You can read the full article here and I highly recommend doing so. It uses the women's liberation movement of the seventies as a medium for talking about structure and organization of activist groups, and does so very (in my opinion) effectively.

If it has any flaws, it would be that it makes a couple of fairly concrete and falsifiable claims about group dynamics without providing much evidence beyond an anecdotal assessment of the efficacy of the feminist movements it was contemporary with.

So, when I came across a post on my facebook feed praising Cathy Levine's response, I was expecting a discussion of why those assumptions about group dynamics are wrong, maybe with evidence drawn from the current body of sociological research. At the very least, I was hoping Levine would be able to articulate why the "obvious flaws" with anarchy (at least in the context of activist groups) are less problematic than Joreen (and I) assumed.

This was, unfortunately, insufficiently pessimistic, as Levine's article is more of a temper tantrum marinated in the impenetrable language of academic feminism than anything resembling an "argument".

Joreen's thesis is essentially that "unstructured" groups are not actually structureless - they in fact have an implicit, informal structure, in which there do exist individuals who hold more power than others; but because of the nature of the group's superficial structurelessness, these power structures can neither be directly challenged (because no one acknowledges they exist), nor held responsible for the welfare of the group (because they were not given their power voluntarily by the group).

She concludes with a list of seven principles "essential to democratic structuring and are also politically effective", which are briefly:

Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks by democratic procedures.

Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be responsible to those who selected them.

Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably possible.

Rotation of tasks among individuals.

Allocation of tasks along rational criteria.

Diffusion of information to everyone as frequently as possible.

Equal access to resources needed by the group.

Joreen elaborates on these in her article, providing detail and justification for each of them. Again, I recommend that you read them for themself, to get a clearer idea of where she's coming from.

In short, despite the fact that Joreen is arguing for explicit, formal, structures, she clearly has in mind something fluid, democratic, and egalitarian. Certainly not a hierarchal beaurocracy.

So what does Levine have to say about this?

Well, there's

A large group functions as an aggregate of its parts — each member functions as a unit, a cog in the wheel of the large organisation. The individual is alienated by the size, and relegated, to struggling against the obstacle created by the size of the group — as example, expending energy to get a point of view recognised.

(which she contrasts with

Small groups, on the other hand, multiply the strength of each member. By working collectively in small numbers, the small group utilises the various contributions of each person to their fullest, nurturing and developing individual input, instead of dissipating it in the competitive survival-of-the-fittest/smartest/wittiest spirit of the large organisation.

and

The origin of the small group preference in the women’s movement -and by small group I refer to political collectives — was, as Joreen explains, a reaction against the over-structured, hierachical organisation of society in general, and male Left groups in particular. But what people fail to realise is that we are reacting against bureaucracy because it deprives us of control, like the rest of this society; and instead of recognising the folly of our ways by returning to the structured fold, we who are rebelling against bureaucracy should be creating an alternative to bureaucratic organisation.

and

...well, that's it. I encourage you to read the article for yourself - it's entirely possible that I've missed, misread, or misinterpreted parts of it - but as far as I can tell, to the extent that Joreen's thesis is "structure is a useful and underused tool (in feminist activism)", this is the totality of Levine's response.

And it's kind of absolute garbage. It caricaturizes Joreen's lucid, compassionately democratic structure as a crushing beaurocratic machine, - and even then doesn't have any deeper argument then "structure is bad".

I want to also point out the subtle shift in focus from the first excerpt - Joreen is talking primarily about structured and unstructured groups, not large and small groups. She does bring group size up; but it's largely to make the point of activists wanting to mobilize larger groups to meet more ambitious goals, and formal structure serving that purpose. Levine reducing this to "big beaurocracies v. small friendships" is a gross mischaracterization of what Joreen is saying, serving more to leverage emotional connotations than actually make a point. This will be a recurring theme in Levine's writing.

Oh, I actually lied about her not having any deeper argument agains formal structure. She makes lucid, englightening claims as

A central problem Of women determining strategy for the women’s movement is how to relate to the male Left; we do not want to take their, Modus Operandi as ours, because we have seen them as a perpetuation of patriarchal, and latterly, capitalist values.

and

when a meeting of a Leftist group becomes indistinguishable in style from a session of a US Senate, we should not laugh about it, but re-evaluate the structure behind the style, and recognise a representative of the enemy.

That's right. God forbid feminism incorporate any techniques that men use.

That's not entirely fair, she also has this to say:

Contrary to the belief that lack of up-front structures lead to insidious, invisible structures based on elites, the absence of structures in small, mutual trust groups fights elitism on the basic level — the level of personal dynamics, at which the individual who counters insecurity with aggressive behaviour rules over the person whose insecurity maintains silence. The small personally involved group learns, first to recognise those stylistic differences, and then to appreciate and work with them; rather than trying to either ignore or annihilate differences in personal style, the small group learns to appreciate and utilise them, thus strengthening the personal power of each individual. [...] But in the meantime we should guard against situations which reward personal style with power.

This echoes something Levine says earlier in the article,

Friendships, more than therapy of any kind, instantly relieve the feelings of personal shittiness — the revolution should be built on the model of friendships.

This appears to be directly contradicting Joreen's subpoint - that groups modeled on friendship fundamentally fail to "guard against situations which reward personal style with power"; and that replacing personal dynamics with explicit structure, groups are made more inclusive. I'll let her speak for herself:

So if one works full time or has a similar major commitment, it is usually impossible to join simply because there are not enough hours left to go to all the meetings and cultivate the personal relationship necessary to have a voice in the decision-making. That is why formal structures of decision making are a boon to the overworked person. Having an established process for decision-making ensures that everyone can participate in it to some extent.

The characteristics prerequisite for participating in the informal elites of [an unstructured] movement, and thus for exercising power, concern one's background, personality, or allocation of time. They do not include one's competence, dedication to feminism, talents, or potential contribution to the movement. The former are the criteria one usually uses in determining one's friends. The latter are what any movement or organization has to use if it is going to be politically effective.

It is unfortunate that while Levine apparently disagree with Joreen's claim, she fails to provide any reason or justification. As someone whose beliefs, prior to entering the discussion, were more aligned with the latter's, I can't say I'm very persuaded by an argument whose content amounts to little more than "nuh uh".

Levine also argues at great length (six paragraphs, beginning with "Contrary to Joreen's assumption, then, the consciousness-raising phase of the movement is not over"), that, Contrary to Joreen's assumption, then, the consciousness-raising phase of the movement is not over.

This seems largely irrelevant, because, while Joreen does strongly imply that she believes this, the thrust of her point is coming not from "we are done raising consciousness", but "we want to beging doing other things as well". Regardless of how much you romanticize posting feminism memes to facebook, there in fact continue to be other activist goals.

So, that's the extent of Levine's response to Joreen's actual point. What is the rest of her article saying, then?

Well, there's

The question of our lost humanity brings up the subject that vulgar Marxists of every predilection have neglected in their analysis for over half century — the psycho-sexual elements in the character structure of each individual, which acts as a personal policeman within every member of society. Wilhelm Reich began to describe, in narrow, heterosexual, male-biased form, the character armour in each person, which makes people good fascists or, in our society, just good citizens.

Which I find pretty much impentrable. I have only the barest idea what Levine is actually claiming here, let alone how it relates to the discussion of group organization. Of course, in the interest of full disclusure, I graduated university with a mere undergratuate degree (in the humanities), so perhaps I'm simply unqualified to participate in a discussion of this academic caliber.

That being said, I think it's elucidating to compare this to Joreen's lucid, clear, and concrete writing. I won't claim that Levine is using the opaque language of ivory tower academia to obscure the fact that she does not have a real point, at least one that pertains to the object-level world - I think her writng implies it strongly enough on its own.

We also have an absolutely delightful collection of fnords:

capitalist, imperialist, quasi-fascist Amerika perpetuation of patriarchal, and latterly, capitalist values. in the absence of feminist activity, women take to tranquillizers, go insane and commit suicide. a post-technological, military/industrial bulldozer translate their personal dissatisfaction into class-consciousness The psychic crippling which capitalist psychology coerces us into believing is the problems of the individuals, is a massive social condition which helps advanced capitalist society to hold together. post-neo-Freudians and the psycho-surgeons For the umpteenth time, let it be said that, unless we examine inner psychic shackles, at the time we study outer, political structures and the relationship between the two, we will not succeed in creating a force to challenge our enemy; in fact, we will not even know the enemy. The tyranny of tyranny is a deeply-entrenched foe. revisionist tyranny among the Bolsheviks that the new Left would come to deride with sophomoric callousness Marxist-Leninist dogma Housewife for the revolution or prostitute for the proletariats

But that's not the worst of it.

Men tend to organise the way they fuck — one big rush and then that “wham, slam, thank you maam”, as it were. Women should be building our movement the way we make love — gradually, with sustained involvement, limitless endurance — and of course, multiple orgasms.

(Male over-involvement, on the other hand, obviously unrelated to any sex-linked trait of self-sacrifice, does however smell strongly of the Protestant/Jewish, work/ achievement ethic, and even more flagrantly, of the rational, cool, unemotional facade with which Machismo suppresses male feelings.)

The polarisation between masculine and feminine roles as defined and controlled by male society, has not only subjugated women, but has made all men, regardless of class or race, feel superior to women — this feeling of superiority, countering anti-capitalist sentiment, is the lifeblood of the system.

There's subtler language throughout the entirety of the article, but these excerpts capture the point most saliently. Levine seems to see feminism not as a movement to solve specific, concrete problems centered around gender, but as a grand war between the sexes, with Women on the white light side, and the Male sex acting as their evil foil. (Though did you notice the casual antisemitism?)

(I'm also not even going to touch the other ways that that first excerpt manages to be terrible, on the axes of sexism (against women as well as men, if that's all you care about), sexuality, transphobia, and ableism at least. I'll leave enumerating precisely all the ways Levine's language, rather than subverting, reinforces oppressive power structures, as a fun game for the readers.)

Interestingly, Levine also has this to say:

The aim of feminist revolution is for women to achieve our total humanity, which means destroying the masculine and feminine roles which make both men and women only half human. Creating a woman’s culture is the means through which we shall restore our lost humanity.

The first sentence here is a goal that I basically share! I am just baffled as to how "creating a women's culture" is a means to achieve that goal at all; let alone an effective one.

Levine concludes her article by segueing into a discussion of anarchy proper - and ultimately it is the most disappointing section as well, as she begins:

Like masturbation, anarchism is something we have been brought up to fear, irrationally and unquestioningly, because not to fear it might lead us to probe it, learn it and like it.

And continues in that style through the final paragraphs. The best defense Levine makes for anarchy is that people only oppose it because it is taboo.

As someone with very positive feelings about the anarchist eutopia aesthetic, and primarily only concrete, mundane concerns about what the details of its implementation would look like, and how it would deal with certain specific problems, I find this incredibly disappointing. At least I can say that Levine has inspired me to finally do the research I really should of the anarchist ideology.