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archiefm · 5 years ago

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... claws my way up from hell once more and vomits onto the dash.... hello. its nora. i used to write rory bergstrom, but if u were here before that u might remember me as greta or alma putnam or..... som1 else.... an endless carousel of trash children..... this is finn, who i actually wrote for an early version of this rp abt 5yrs back now...... grits teeth..... so forgive me if im rusty i havent written him in a long time but seein honey boy gave me a lotta finn muse n im keen to get Back On The Horse yeehaww...

DYLAN O’BRIEN / CIS-MALE — don’t look now, but is that finn o’callaghan i see? the 25 year old criminology and forensic studies student is in their graduate year of study year and he is a rochester alum. i hear they can be judicious, adroit, morose and cynical, so maybe keep that in mind. i bet he will make a name for themselves living off-campus. ( nora. 24. gmt. she/her )

shakes my tin can a humble pinterest, ma’am....

finn has a bio pasted at the bottom (n written in like.... 2015.... gross) but it’s long so if u don’t wanna read it here’s the sparknotes summary..... anyway this was written years ago n a lot of it seems really cliche and lame now but..... we accept the trash we think we deserve

grumpy, ugly sweater wearing, tech-savvy grandpa

very dry sense of humour and embraces nihilism.

if ron swanson and april ludgate had a baby it would be finn

he was raised in derry, just south of dublin.

from a big family. elder sister called sinead. he also has a younger sister (aoife), a younger brother (colm), and a collie named lassie because his father lovs cliches (finn hates cliches but loves his dog).

his father was a pub landlord and his mother worked at the market sellin fruit n veg when they met but got a job as a medical receptionist when she had kids cos it meant she cld be there with them in the day and work nights.

his parents met when they were p young and fiesty and rushed into marriage cos they were catholic n just wanted to have sex. his family were literally dirt-poor, but they had a lot of love i guess

hmmmmm his relationship w his father wasn’t the best cos i can’t write character who have healthy relationships w their parents throws up a peace sign. yh, had a pretty emotionally distant, alcoholic violent father n so gets a lot of his bad habits i.e. drinking as a coping mechanism and poor anger management from him BUT anyway

as a kid he was never very motivated in class, he always had a nervous itch to be off somewhere doing something else. struggled under government austerity bcso there just wasn’t the resources to support low income families where the kids had learning difficulties n needed support. fuck the tories am i right

his mum suggested he try sports to help w his restless energy but he was never any good at football so he took up boxing and tap dance instead. he took to tap dancing like a fish to fuckin water. as adhd n found this as a really good way to use his excess energy in a creative way

had a few run ins with the police in his early teens for spray painting and graffiti, but he straightened himself out n now actually considering becoming a detective inspector??? cops are pigs.

he had a youtube channel where he posted videos of him tapdancing and breakdancing as a kid, basically would be a tiktok boy nowadays, n had like... a small fanbase in his early teens. attended several open auditions unsuccessfully, until he was finally cast in billy eliot when he was fifteen.

during billy eliot he began dating an italian dancer called nina. they became dance partners soon after and toured across the republic with various different shows (inc riverdance lol the classic irish stereotype). their relationship was p toxic tbh, they were both very hot tempered people and just used to argue and fight all the time.

he went semi-pro at tap dancing, and nina couldn’t stand being second best so she moved back to italy with her family. ignored his texts, phone calls, etc, eventually he was driven to the point where he used his savings to buy a plane ticket, showed up at her house and she was like wtf?? freaked out and filed a restraining order accusing him of stalking.

he was fined for harassment and then returned home to derry, but after the incident with nina he quit dancing for good and finished his leaving cert before heading to university in the US to get as far away from nina and his past life as poss. and basically since he quit dancing to study forensics (death kink. finn cant get enough of that morgue. just walks around sayin beat u) he’s become a massive grump and jsut doesn’t see the good in people any more.

u’ll find finn in an old man bar drinking whiskey bc he is in fact an old man at heart or sat on his roof smoking a joint, drawing wolves and lions and skeletons and shit, playing call of duty or getting blazed or at the corner of the room in a house party ignoring everyone and scrolling through twitter. is a massive e-boy. always up-to-date on memes and internet slang. has reddit as an app on his phone

not very good at communication. rather than solve his issues by talking, he’d prefer to just solve them through fighting or running away from his problems hence why he has come halfway across the world to get away from an issue which probs cld have been solved w a few apology emails.

takes a lot to phase him, but when his beserk button gets pressed he can become a bit pugnacious like an angry lil rottweiler. in his undergrad he was in a few fist fights but doesn’t really do tht any more as he doesn’t condone violence.

in the previous version of this rp he was hospitalised like 5 times. pls, give my son a break. stop tryin to kill him. he literaly got a bottle smashed over his head and bled out all over his favourite angora rug that was the only light of his life

works at the campus coffee shop n always whines about how he’s a slave to capitalism. always smells of coffee

lives off campus with an elderly woman named Marianne, and basically gets reduced rent bcos he makes her dinner / keeps her company. they have a great bond

fan of karl marx. v big on socialism

insomniac with chronic nosebleeds

cynical about everything. too much of a fight club character 4 his own good n has his head up tyler durden’s sphincter

always confused or annoyed

statistics

basic information

full name: finnegan seamus o'callaghan nickname(s): finn age: 25 astrological sign: aries hometown: derry, ireland occupation: phd student / former street entertainer fatal flaw: cynicism positives: self-reliant, street smart, relaxed, intelligent, spontaneous, brave, independent, reliable, trustworthy, loyal. negatives: hostile, impulsive, stubborn, brooding, pugnacious, untrusting, cynical, enigmatic, reserved.

physical

colouring: medium hair colour: dark brown, almost black eye colour: brown height: 5’9” weight: 69kg build: tall, athletic voice: subtle irish accent, low, smooth. dominant hand: left scar(s): one on the left side of his ribs from a knife wound that he doesn’t remember getting cos he was drunk distinguishing marks: freckles, tattoo of a wolf howling at a moon allergies: pollen and the full spectrum of human emotion alcohol tolerance: high drunken behaviour: he becomes friendlier, far more conversational than when sober, flirtier, and generally more self-confident.

psychological

dreams/goals: self-fulfilment, travel the globe, experience life in its most alive and technicoloured version, make documentary films, help the vulnerable in society, grow as a human being.

skills: jack-of-all-trades, very fast runner, good at thieving things, talented tap dancer, good in crisis situations, dab-hand at mechanics, musically-intelligent, can throw a mean right hook and very capable of defending himself, can roll a cigarette, memorises quotes and passages of literature with ease, can light a match with his teeth.

likes: the smell of the earth after rain, poetry, cigarettes, shakespeare, whiskey, tattoos, travelling, ac/dc, deep conversations, leather jackets, open spaces, the smell of petrol, early noughties ‘emo phase’ anthems.

dislikes: the government, parties, rules, donald trump, children, apple products, weddings, people in general, small talk, dependency, loneliness, pop music, public transport, justin timberlake, uncertainty.fears: fear itself, drowning alignment: true neutral mbti: istp – “while their mechanical tendencies can make them appear simple at a glance, istps are actually quite enigmatic. friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, istp personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. istps can seem very loyal and steady for a while, but they tend to build up a store of impulsive energy that explodes without warning, taking their interests in bold new directions.” (via 16personalities.com)

full bio (lame as fuck written years ago..... pleathe...)

tw homophobia

born in quigley’s pub on the backstreets of sunny dublin, young finnegan o'callaghan was thrown kicking and screaming into the rowdy suburbs of irish drinking culture. the son of a landlord and a fishwife, he never had much in the way of earnings, but there was never a dull moment in his lively estate, where asbo’s thrived, but community spirit conquered. at school, finn was pegged as lazy and unmotivated, though truly his dyslexia made it hard for the boy to learn in the same environment of his peers and only made him more closed-off in class. struggling with anger management, finn moved from school to school, unable to fit the cookie-cutter mould that school enforced on him, though whilst academic studies were of little interest to the boy, he soon found his true passions lay in recreational activities. immersed into the joys of sport from as young as four, finn was an ardent munster fan and anticipated nothing more than the day he could finally fit into his brother’s old pair of rugby boots.

his calling finally came unexpectedly, not in the form of rugger, but through dance. to learn to express himself in a non-academic way, he began tap dancing, finding therapy in the beat of his soles against the cracked kitchen tiles (much to his mother’s disgrace). it wasn’t a conscious choice, finn just realised one day that dance was something that made him feel. a king of the streets, finn made his fortune on those cobbled pavements – dancing and drawing to earn his keep. by default, finn became a street artist, each penny he earned from his chalk drawings saved in a jam jar towards buying his first pair of tap shoes. though many of his less-than-amiable neighbours called him a nancy and a gaybo, finn refused to quit at his somewhat ‘unconventional’ hobby, for the young scrapper found energy, life, and released anger through the rhythm of tap. soon he branched out into street dance, hip hop, break dancing, lyrical, his days spent smacking his scuffed feet against the broken patio into the night.

when he was thirteen he took up boxing, and as expected, his newfound ‘macho’ pastime conflicted with his dancing. the boxers called him ‘soft’; the dancers called him ‘inelegant’. he felt like two different people; having to choose between interests was like being handed a knife and asked to which half of himself he wished to cut away. he couldn’t afford professional training in dance, with most schools based in england and limited scholarships available. instead, he made the street his studio, racking up a small fanbase on youtube. when he was fifteen he made his debut in billy eliot at the olympia theatre in dublin. enter nina de souza, talented, beautiful and italian; ballet dancer, operatic singer, genius whiz kid, and spoiled brat. she was selfish, conceited, hell bent on getting her own way, and every director’s nightmare. finn fell for her like a house of cards. he’d always had a soft spot for girls who meant trouble. and so their hellish courtship began.

by the time they were seventeen, the two young swans had danced in every playhouse across the republic. they were known in theatres across the country for their tempestuous personalities, their raging arguments with one another, their tendency to drop out of shows altogether without any notice, yet the money kept rolling in and the audiences continued to grow. for three years, their families continued to put up with their hysterical fights followed by passionate reconciliations. he was too possessive, and she was too wild. their carcrash of a relationship finally came to a catastrophic halt when nina broke off the whole affair and returned to italy with her family. for months finn tried to contact her, yet his phone calls, texts, facebook messages were always ignored, until finally he was driven to drastic measures and used his savings to get a plane to her home town. when finn turned up uninvited at nina’s house she freaked out – and rightly so – she contacted her agent, accused him of stalking her, and had a restraining order placed against him. finn was arrested, held in a station overnight, and charged with harassment before he was allowed to return to dublin.

after the incident with nina, finn lost the fight in his eyes. he became far more hostile, far less likely to retaliate with his own fists, and picked fights not for the thrill of feeling his own fists pummel another into a wall, but for the sensation of his own brittle bones cracking. he dropped his tap shoes in a dumpster, stopped talking to his friends, followed his father’s advice and went back to school to complete his leaving certificate. a few short months later, and finn was packing his bags, saying his bittersweet goodbyes, and travelling half-way across the globe to be as far away as possible from his past self, his mess of a life, and most of all nina. it seemed somehow ironic that the boy who had been cautioned by the garda so much during his youth for spray painting, busking without a liscence, and raucous parties would become the grumpy, aloof overseas student studying a degree in criminology; that his once reckless spirit could be crushed so easily.

of all things that finn could be called, straightforward would never be one of them. ever since his first days in atticus, the boy was pegged as hostile, hot-headed, cynical, rude. he seemed to spend more time in his thoughts than engaging in conversation. like a ticking time-bomb, finn’s anger was of the calm kind, liable to explode without a moment’s noticed. his unpredictable personality make him something of an enigma to those who aren’t amiable with the lad, though hostile as he may appear, he harvests a good heart. loyalty lies at the centre of his affections, and whilst his friends are few in number, he makes a lifelong partner. somewhere within finn, there’s still some fight left, but mostly he has recognised that his hedonistic lifestyle did little to leave him fulfilled – mostly, it just emptied him out – and over his three years at university has resigned himself to a nihilistic predicament.

if u wanna plot with me pls pls pls im me or like this post!! i am always game for plots i love em so excited to write with you all here r some ideas

study buddies. finn is now a phd student so has to start takin shit seriously. he gon be in the library every day doing that independent study. if he had ppl who were also regular library goers n they get each other coffees to save time.... tht wld be sweet

ppl who love techno dj sets and going super hard on the weekends!!! fuck yea

friends with benefits. exes on bad terms. ppl he tried to date but couldnt because he’s always emotionally hung up on someone else. spicy hook up plots

ppl he met touring?? maybe ppl who were also in the entertainment industry..... anyone got a character who is ex circus hit me up

does anyone else study criminology / forensics / criminal psych / law? phd students sometimes lecture so he cld be an assistant lecturer / tutor if ur character is in a younger year

gamers !!! social recluses !!! hermits !!

finn goes to the skatepark and all the young boys there think he’s a gradnpa which he is!

#huntingtonintro #is tht the tag....... idk..... msg me xo

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marginalgloss · 5 years ago

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There is no doubt that the elegant formulation of a clue for a cryptic crossword has a poetry about it. They are simultaneously so much more and so much less complicated than the words suggest. They are an intensely serious form of play; a test of will between a setter, invariably concealed behind some mysterious codename, and their audience, who are sometimes far more like a community than one might assume.

The problem is that I find crosswords intensely interesting in the abstract, but I have never been any good at solving them. There is a part of me which resists the whole exercise in the same way that I once resisted my maths homework. Often when reading the explanation for a clue I’m tempted to fling the whole puzzle across the room. Too often I feel like I’ve been tricked, as if by sleight-of-hand. I can see that the answer must be hidden somewhere, and I’m vaguely aware of how it has been done, but perhaps I just don’t have the patience to work it out by myself?

Except that a patient, attentive, methodological approach often isn’t enough either, because cryptic crosswords aren’t like mathematics. Many clues rely on a certain kind of lateral associative thinking which is difficult to teach, let alone learn via reverse engineering. Like most people I can get perhaps halfway through a ‘quick’ crossword (where the definitions are essentially literal, and you either know them or you don’t) but I am left utterly stumped by the strange verse of the classic cryptic still beloved of the British broadsheet papers.

I think I was expecting Two Girls, One On Each Knee by Alan Connor to be something more like a guide to solving these puzzles for the general reader. This isn’t what it is at all; it does devote a chapter to introducing some of the typical forms of clues and how to approach them, but this feels somewhat rushed and general. As we will later find out there isn’t really any single formula that one can adopt when tackling a clue. Veteran solvers will notice signs and signifiers everywhere, but even if one has a basic idea of what to do, many clues require a considerable leaps in deductive reasoning, not to mention a dash of humour. (Incidentally, the answer to the clue that is the title of the book is ‘PATELLA’; as in the bone found ‘on’ each knee; and as in ‘Pat’ and ‘Ella’, two names for girls. Of course! Of course.)

For the most part this is a book about the history and cultural importance of crosswords, aimed at the general reader. Famous setters and solvers both real and fictional, media depictions from Brief Encounter onwards, the role of crosswords in espionage, the various crazes for crosswords and social concerns this brought up. The book even touches upon the different approaches and personalities of some of the most prolific setters, and it offers plenty of clever and amusing clues that demonstrate different facets of the setter’s skill. Some are rigorous in terms of the ‘rules’ at work, with no word nor punctuation wasted; others are freewheeling, anarchic, and sometimes extremely rude (even I can tell that much from the crossword in the back pages of Private Eye magazine). The answers to all the clues in the book are given in an appendix in the back, but I still found myself mystified as to how many of the solutions had been reached from the clues on offer.

There’s a certain tendency here to wave away the difficulty of some of the most infuriating clues with the suggestion that this is all part of the mystery and magic of the game. And it is. But at times it’s difficult to avoid the sense of being swindled. To take a random example, at one point the book deigns to explain the clue ‘Relaxed when lying in grass (topless) (5)’ — we are asked to remove the ‘top’ letter of ‘reed’ and insert ‘as’ for ‘when’ to make the answer: EASED. But this only reads like half of an explanation. (Where has ‘reed’ come from, again?) There’s a sense throughout of ‘it’s easy when you know how’ that anyone aspiring to actually learn the art of solving is likely to find frustrating.

And this, I think, says something about the contradiction that underlies the nature of the cryptic crossword. Because they are more about wordplay than general knowledge, in theory anyone can learn to do them. It’s no longer the case that a classical education is a prerequisite for the average clue. And yet for the most part they remain something of an exclusive pastime. In fiction, they are still a signifier of genius. To an extent the format preserves its own rarified status, in that the average serious crossword offers little to nothing to the reader who isn’t prepared to put in the hours to study its arcane art. This being the case, I wonder how many more years we can expect to see them in the media; to some extent they have already been overtaken in popularity by number games like Sudoku (and digital variants like Picross).

But those games operate according to rigorous, specific rules, the nature of which is always clear to every player. Solving them is simply a matter of completing an equation, parts of which are already known. The charm of the cryptic crossword is that it resists this kind of straightforward processing. It is, as far as I can tell, an entirely unique form of art that has no close relatives in gaming or literature. That being the case, I suspect the nature of clue-writing will endure, even if it has to move to a different kind of puzzle altogether.

#books #crosswords #two girls one on each knee #alan connor

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slaaneshfic · 5 years ago

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There is No Reason for you to Live. Part two: Excess

This is part of chapter I have written in the last two weeks, which uses the game Sticky Zeitgeist: Episode 2 Aperitif by Porpentine and Rook to draw out processes of art practice. I presented the beginning of the first part of this chapter at Beyond The Console: Gender and Narrative Games in London at the start of 2019. This is still very much a work in process, I’ve not even read this section back before posting it here. But I am very interested in the overlaps between Cixous’s figure of “woman”, “Becoming-Woman / Becoming-Girl” in Deleuze and Guattari, Bataille/Kristeva’s “Abjection” and “Johanna Hedva’s Sick Woman Theory” in regards art practice and trans* identity.

Part two: Excess “Small salvage is $5. Hear that sis, you’re $5. Nooooo” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018).

Excess is a concept which arises in many areas of George Batailles work which spans art, literature, politics, economics, anthropology and mysticism. The concept, or rather an aspect of it, is particularly near the surface and therefore easy for us to grasp here, in Bataille’s essay “The Notion of Expenditure” (Bataille, 1985). Bataille begins by stating that while “there is nothing that permits on to define what is useful to man” (Bataille, 1985). Classical utility can be understood as follows;

“On the one hand, this material utility is limited to acquisition (in practice, to production) and to the conservation of goods; on the other, it is limited to reproduction and to the conservation of human life” (Bataille, 1985).

In contrast to utility Bataille positions “pleasure”, which he argues society judges to be lesser than utility in the eyes of society and is therefore permissible as a “concession” (Bataille, 1985). However Bataille proposes that just as a young man’s desire to waste and destroy demonstrates that there is a need for this kind of pleasure even while this cannot be given a “utilitarian justification”, “human society can have, just as he does, an interest in considerable losses, in catastrophes” (Bataille, 1985). Bataille sets this up as the tension between the ideological authority and the real needs for “nonproductive expenditure” which are at times not even articulable through the language of that authority. As examples of unproductive expenditure Bataille offers the following list;

“Luxury, mourning, war, cults, the construction of sumptuary monuments, games, spectacles, arts, perverse sexual activity (i.e., deflected from genital finality)” (Bataille, 1985).

A handful of these examples are examined further, but Bataille argues that in each “the accent is placed on a loss that must be as great as possible in order for the activity to take on its true meaning” (Bataille, 1985). Just as Lyotard identified affect as the point of excess which marks art apart from other things, and Cixous defines her figure of woman in terms of an unending outpouring, Bataille has identified “the principle of loss” (Bataille, 1985) as essential to a range of activities including but spreading beyond art and literature. The excess in Lyotard as deployed by O’Sullivan is that which is beyond the system of accounting for art, namely affect. In Cixous the excess is the capacity of the artist-figure woman when enacting ecriture feminine, to operate beyond the system prescribed by power to the production of art. As Allan Stoekl notes in his introduction to the edited volume “George Bataille Visions of Excess Selected Writings, 1927 - 1939”, for Bataille “People create in order to expand, and if they retain things they have produced, it is only to allow themselves to continue living, and thus destroying” (Stoekl, 1985). Bataille’s nonproductive expenditure is what is being freed in Cixous’s process of Ecriture Feminine, and I would therefore further argue, is being deployed in Aperitif, an artwork which deals with excesses both offered and implied (and therefore to be created at the point of interface with audience). More than this though, Bataillian excesses appear within the world of the game which the characters, and by extension us as players occupy. I would like to explore how different kinds of excess appear in Aperitif, and how these fit with Bataille’s observations around class struggle and manner in which those in power retain control of non-productive expenditure, including the expenditure of other beings. Finally I will consider these excess as areas which clarify Aperitif as abstracted horror and Ecriture Feminine.

A point where waste is rendered visible in Aperitif, in The Laugh of The Medusa, and in the work of Bataille, in the act of masturbatation. The character Ever, from whose perspective we begin Aperitif is the sole player character in the episode of the “No World Dreamers: Sticky Zeitgeist” which precedes it, “Hyperslime” (Heartscape & Rook, 2017) [KEYWORD Link to Smeared into the Environment]. Ever’s story in Hyperslime begins with a scene of anal drug use and masturbation which is interupted by the call to attend work. In the following episode, Aperitif, we learn that this work is in fact community service after Ever “whacked off in public” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018). This detail of Ever’s life is exposed by Brava but in Ever’s interior monologue we learn that she herself does not fully understand why it occurred. Ever can only speculate on the reason for her doing something she identifies as harmful, and that the experience was like “watching through a window” after which she “blacked out” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018). As an aspect of Ever’s character masturbation points to her isolation and desire, and to her struggle with the unbearable tension of shame which she alludes to when considering that “maybe I just wanted what they thought about me to come true” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018). This enfolding of personal desire, the projection of being seen by another, the need to resolve an uncertainty, and the potential shame which runs through it is precisely how Cixous describes the struggle to produce Ecriture Feminine;

“[Y]ouv’e written a little, but in secret and it wasn’t good because you punished yourself for writing because it didn't go all the way; or because you wrote irresistibly, as when we would masturbate in secret, not to go further but to attenuate the tension a bit, just to take the edge off” (Cixous, 1976).

Ever, who the artists attribute the title/archetype/role “The Loser”, seems perpetually to be trying to manage the tension of her desires, with the only temporary resolution occurring in some kind of overwhelming loss of self. The struggle for a creative process which Cixous describes is not something I can identify in Aperitif because it is very much embedded in the experience of the process of making, which I do not have access to. However, I would argue that Aperitif is open to being played in a manner which is analogous if not in a similar affective register to the tension and collapse cycles of Ever. We begin both Aperitif and its prequel controlling Ever, but prior to the narrative beginning and still within the context of the title menu the game instructs us that we can “hold escape until you black out” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018). On one hand this instruction is informing player-audience of the keypress which will allow them to exit the game. On the other hand, the use of the term “black out” echo’s Ever’s use of the same. When playing the game-artwork, I feel that the means of exiting has been embedded with an emotional resonance. Playing the game-artwork now has a resonance with Ever’s narrative, even outside of the points of play where I am controlling her character. The emotional content of the game is foregrounded, and the promise of the opportunity to in a manner, ‘lose consciousness’ as an escape from it invites/dares the audience-player to engage more with that content. We have permission to be a loser, to fail.

The concept of failure here is made complex when it is brought into the parameters of the game itself. It becomes an action. Ever berates herself for failure, but the artwork-game does not pass this judgement, and in aligning us with her and with failure, it invites us to not pass judgement either. Returning to Cixous, the other resonance of the allegory of masturbation to Ecriture Feminine is that the writer is given permission to write for themselves and for the act of writing to be self gratifying rather than requiring it before another. In “The “Onanism of Poetry”: walt whitman, rob halpern and the deconstruction of masturbation” the poet and lecturer Sam Ladkin notes the contradiction in the considered works “between masturbation as the failure of fecundity, spent energy without the returns of an investment” and something which has value in sowing “male seed across the typically female gendered earth” (Ladkin, 2015). In Ladkin’s work, the discourse around Onan, the poets being discussed, and the particular queer theory used tends toward the image and language of male homosexual desire but the author emphasises that beneith this the structure of “failed or suspended address” is not specific to a particualr “gendered identification fo desire” (Ladkin, 2015). In Cixous this contradiction between value and waste is articulated as fight to develop one’s own value system. To engage based upon the subjects desire, rather than exchange within an external economy which ascribes or denies a degree of value based on adherence to preexisting parameters. Ladkin explores the potential to “recuperate the wasteful excess of masturbation via the general economy of Bataille” yet in the author’s focus on the ejaculatory “economy of finitude” and the monetary economy of pornography, this avenue is effectively discounted and not further pursued (Ladkin, 2015). However I think there is a different dialectic at play in the systems of Bataille, and which are played out in the world of Aperitif as the struggle between the individual release of excess of the player characters, and the destructive forms of excess employed by power and authority, which render both landscape and those same player characters, as waste.

Bataille lays out his position that “Man is an effect of the surplus of energy: The extreme richness of his elevated activities must be principally defined as the dazzling liberation of an excess. The energy liberated in man flourishes and makes useless splendor endlessly visible” (Bataille, 2013). In Aperitif, this dazzling liberation of an excess is attempted by characters such as Brava, but it is always curtailed by the tyranny of an outer authority, the call to attend community service, the police. The motif of masturbation in Aperitif points to repeated denial of excess in the following of individual desire. As previously noted, character’s remain in a limbo of struggling survival, to “never perfectly live or die” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018). In this state the following of individual desire into the expression of excess is denied to everyone except those who can afford it, as Brava recalls;

“When the internet 3 was invented the economy of really extra fucked, most stores were automated. Except the usual dollhouse experiments ran by rich people who fantasized about running a restaurant or cupcake shack of some shit” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018). Bataille argues that “As the class that possesses the wealth -- having received with wealth the obligation of functional expenditure -- the modern bourgeoisie is characterized by the refusal in principle of that obligation” (Bataille, 1985). Bataille maps how earlier structures of social and material power would have led to the possessors of such power and wealth to express this through expenditure such as feasts, sacrifices and the construction of elaborate religious and cultural objects. In contrast to this, the logic of accumulation unders Capitalism leads to a “hatred of expenditure” (Bataille, 1985). In Aperitif this is demonstrated in the quote above from Brava showing that even with full automation, the bourgeois can only either imagine, or allow itself, a useless expenditure which takes the surface form of work by running a “cupcake shack” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018).

There is a second manner in which excess plays out through the agency of the authority in Aperitif and this is concerned with the rendering of subjects as objects, and then waste. Cultural theorist Sylvere Lotringer attempted to reexamine the concept of ‘Abjection’ in the work of Bataille, identifying a different trajectory from that subsequently developed by Kristeva in “Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection” (Kristeva, 1984). Lotringer’s short essay “Les Miserables” (Lotringer, 1999) positions Bataille’s fragmentary addresses of abjection written in the early 1930s as specifically in response to the “only truly original political formation to have emerged since the end of WWI [...] fascism” (Lotringer, 1999). Lotringer notes that in “The Notion of Expenditure” Batialle deplores the manner in which the bourgeoisie attenuate the damage done and “ameliorate the lot of the workers” (Bataille, 1985) as “abysmal hypocrisy” (Lotringer, 1999); “The ultimate goal; of industrial masters, he asserted, wasn’t profit or accumulation, but the will to turn workers into pure refuse. Instead of extracting surplus value from the wretched population working in [the] factory, they enjoyed a surplus value of cruetly” (Lotringer, 1999).

The world of Aperitif presents a world in which authority has still not passed through its hypocrisy, but nevertheless continues to render the workers as waste. The company that employers Ever and the others to scavenge is represented by a character called “The Therapist”, which at least suggests a role of care, yet the job remains one of collecting scrap from a toxic environment which degrades and destroys their bodies (Heartscape & Rook, 2018). Lotringer’s published his essay Les Miserables in the edited book “More & Less” along with Bataille’s essay “Abjection and Miserable Forms” and interview with Kristeva titled “Fetishizing the Abject” (Bataille, 1999; Lotringer, 1999; Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). Both Lotringer’s essay, and the line of questioning in the interview are in part concerned with a bifurcation within Bataille’s concept of abjection, which has not been given as much attention in its rearticulation and development by Kristeva in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection and that works continued influence. Lotringer draws from Bataille a distinction between “The union of miserables reserved for subversion” and “wretched men rejected into negative abjection” (Lotringer, 1999).

The difference between the positive abjection which leads to action, solidarity, and perhaps martyrdom, and the negative abjection which leads simply to inertial, apathy, and alienation. The tension between these two forms of Abjection is something which appears throughout Aperitif, as its protagonists navigate a world of trash, see themselves to degrees become or be made trash, and navigate the threshold between agency and alienation. In his summary, makes the following statement about Abjection without differentiating between the positive or negative form;

“Abjection doesn't result from a dialectical operation- feeling abject when “abjectified” in someone else’s eyes, or reclaiming abjection as an identity feature- but precisely when dialectics breaks down. When it ceases to be experienced as an act of exclusion to become an autonomous condition, it is then, and only then, that abjection sets in” (Lotringer, 1999).

It is unclear in this text whether Lotringer is arguing that what he elsewhere describes as people “becoming things to themselves” (Lotringer, 1999) defines Abjection in both positive and negative forms, or whether he is arguing for the primacy of the negative form. It is possible to read this as Lotringer trying to shift the definition of Abject to the negative, and the interview with Kristeva that will be addressed shortly in some ways supports this view.

Returning to Goard’s text on the trans* body and the cyborg it is worth nothing the importance of the process by which either are rendered Abject is addressed, though with different terminology;

“The dream of a world without surplus, illegitimate bodies is not feasible without a society that relies on surplus” (Goard, 2017).

Goard makes steps toward a politics whereby “bodies-made-surplus” (or trans* people and others) are not redefined, rearticulated and included, but simply allowed to exist (Goard, 2017). The politics not of “defining but defending” (Goard, 2017). Goard’s position seems to cut across Lotringer, proposing the act of oneself making and being made a thing as still containing revolutionary agency. In Lotringer’s reading of Bataille’s Abjection, at least in its negative form, is a place without hope of agency, a kind of living death. However Goard does seem to offer a position which is neither that living death, nor the simple dialectical struggle of being labeled abject and owning this label. Goard’s proposal becomes about a surplus yes, but an undefinable surplus which crosses categories of gender, class, race, ability, and attempts to tactically use such categories whilst aiming to ultimately destroy them. Goard articulates this party with the statement that “we should be deeply skeptical of placing value on the acquisition of formal rights when they are used in the legitimation of a violent border regime” (Goard, 2017). At the same time, Goard refuses the dialectic of power vs resistance by pointing out that the tactic entering into established modes of identity such as the gender binary are important at times for safety and so should not exclude a person from solidarity toward a common project of gender abolition for example.

[Footnote: The acquisition of rights for one group used as a means to justify is articulated by post-colonial theorist Jasbir Puar as “Homonationalism” in the 2007 book “Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer times” and developed further in the text “" I Would Rather Be a Cyborg Than a Goddess": Becoming-Intersectional in Assemblage Theory” (Puar, 2007, 2012). In the latter text Puar focuses on expanding upon the form’s negotiation between Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of “intersectionality”, “analyses that foreground the mutually co-constitutive forces of race, class, sex, gender, and nation” and an assembalge model which identifies “ the “retrospective ordering” of identities such as “gender, race, and sexual orientation” which “back-form their reality” (Puar, 2012). Puar sees these too positions not as “oppositional but rather,[...] frictional (Puar, 2012).]

As has been indicated throughout this chapter, Aperitif frequently plays establishing categories, names, structures, or identities, and having things which are surplus to these, which disrupt with either a counter-order, or the refusal of any order. Characters in some places self-define their identity on an axis of the gender binary, whereas the the game leaves other identity markers not only unknown but unacknowledged. The game frames and withholds information through its limited graphics showing animal ears, and text which trails off to convey emotion through lack of definition. An implication through explicit and implied information is that all characters in Aperitif are “girls”. However this category is broken open so wide as to be more in line with Cixous use of woman as catagory abstracted from sex, gender, or identity. “Girl” can be a category if it is deployed in that way, or it can something less stable.

Something about the four protagonists in Aperitif that remains consistent, and is presented unambiguously, is that the society they inhabit does not value their existence. Throughout the narrative, each protagonist struggles with whether or not they themselves value their own own existence. Society is ordered in a way that each of the four girls needs to undertake a job which is extremely damaging to their physical and mental health. A common thread throughout their conversations and many interior monologues is the consideration of whether than can, or should, survive this. In the interview with Lotringer titled “Fetishizing The Abject”, Kristeva describes her development of the concept through researching “borderline” clinical states in psychoanalysis;

“Without going as far as psychotic persecution, without going as far as autistic withdrawal, [the patent] creates a sort of territory between the two, which he often inhabits with a feeling of unworthiness, of even deterioration, a sort of physical abjection if you like” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999).

It would be out of the remit of this research to follow further into these pathologies. However; the oscillation of internal states, struggle, exploded categories, the question of self worth and being made thing invites another text to placed alongside Aperitif and Abjection. “Sick Woman Theory” by writer and artist Johanna Hedva (Hedva, 2016) is an examination of the politics which intersect in the bodies of disabled people, and offers a figure of protest in the form of the Sick Woman. As Hedva states, “Sick Woman Theory is an insistence that most modes of political protest are internalized, lived, embodied, suffering, and no doubt invisible” (Hedva, 2016). Applying Sick Woman Theory to hypothetical borderline case described by Kristeva repositions them as a political agent;

“The Sick Woman is all of the “dysfunctional,” “dangerous” and “in danger,” “badly behaved,” “crazy,” “incurable,” “traumatized,” “disordered,” “diseased,” “chronic,” “uninsurable,” “wretched,” “undesirable” and altogether “dysfunctional” bodies belonging to women, people of color, poor, ill, neuro-atypical, differently abled, queer, trans, and genderfluid people, who have been historically pathologized, hospitalized, institutionalized, brutalized, rendered “unmanageable,” and therefore made culturally illegitimate and politically invisible” (Hedva, 2016).

As the quotation marks around medical terms indicate, Hedva’s Sick Woman Theory is a kind of tactical categorization in order to refute a larger number of categories. Sick Woman Theory reads Abjection not from the position of analyst, but “the person with autism whom the world is trying to “cure”” as well as a multitude of other positions whose comonolity is that they are disenfranchised, suffering, and abused (Hedva, 2016). From the former position, categories become the norm, and things which transgress them a deviation or disruption. From the latter position of the multitude, the transgression across categories is the norm. It is possible to read the category of “girl” in Aperitif as Sick Woman, just as both, like Cixous’s woman’s writing, serve to encapsulate a sea of difference with an act of refusal against categories.

As mentioned previously in this chapter, a focus of Lotringer’s interview with Kristeva is questioning whether Abjection can form an oppositional function to power. Lotringer is particularly concerned with what he sees a broad tendency or movement within art and culture which attempts to reclaim the process of being made Abject and instil it with emancipatory potential. When asked at one point on this Kristeva responds “I feel very ambiguous in relation to this movement [...] I don’t adhere to it, and at the same time I realize that, as a kind of strategy, it is opposed to some kind of intolerable conservatism, so it's hard to adhere to that” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). Kristeva’s concession is based in dialectic of Abjection against what must be imagined as a kind of totalitarian homogenous cultural sterility. Sick Woman Theory, is presented as “an identity and body” not against but in place of one of intolerable conservatism (Hedva, 2016). Hedva at point identifies this conservatism as the privileged existence, or “cruelly optimistic promise” (Hedva, 2016) of this existence, embodied by the;

“white, straight, healthy, neurotypical, upper and middle-class, cis- and able-bodied man who makes his home in a wealthy country, has never not had health insurance, and whose importance to society is everywhere recognized and made explicit by that society; whose importance and care dominates that society, at the expense of everyone else” (Hedva, 2016).

However, Kristeva seems to be describing an oppositional practice in line with what Lotringer describes as “reclaiming abjection as an identifying feature” (Lotringer, 1999). This Abjection is oppositional, it uses the definition given to it by what it opposes, and defines itself through that opposition. Sick Woman Theory instead repositions itself as the exclusion of what it can be seen to be opposing. Hedva argues that capitalism sets up binary between a default position of “wellness” and deviation from this in the form of “sickness”. To simply embody this deviant category of “sick” would be exactly the oppositional process of Abjection described by Lotringer and Kristeva. However, Hedva also argues that under capitalism “wellness” is positioned as a temporal norm, whilst “sickness” and therefore “care” is positioned as temporary. Hedva’s position can be seen as arguing that a broad encapsulation of vulnerabilities, oppressions, and suffering should be considered the norm. Crucially, care for oneself and for others, could and should follow as another norm. It can then be proposed that Sick Woman Theory, is not a struggle with another, but a reconfiguration of the context underneath both which shifts perspective. This reconfiguration is analogous to an operation I have elsewhere discussed as occurring within horror narratives, using the example of the film “Ringu” (Nakata, 2000). [LINK TO “FROLIC IN BRINE” performance SCREENPLAY]

Hedva’s call for the centering of their broad category of sickness, which includes not just sufferers of illness, but also victims of the violent enforcement of acceptable categories of gender, sexuality, class, etc. does find a direct parallel in Kristeva’s thought;

“These states, far from being simply pathological or exceptional, are perhaps endemic. And it is perhaps against this sort of structural uncertainty that inhabits us that religions are set in motion, at once to recognise them and to defend ourselves against them” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999).

I am wary of pursuing an argument regarding the subjectivities included within Hedva’s Sick Woman predating, and perhaps causing the social structures which their existence transgresses. Such an enquiry would move beyond the scope of this project, which is concerned with the practice of art.

In Fetishizing The Abject much of Lotringer’s direction of the interview focuses on ways in which further discourses, including art, have misincorporated Abjection following Kristeva’s popularisation of the term. While a number of art tendencies and specific exhibitions are critiqued, it is the speculation on what Abjection could do in art that is most relevant here. Both Lotringer and Kristeva agree that when something is placed in a gallery, it “becomes a new identity” and thus “fetishised” it joins other “[i]institutional objects” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). Regarding potential to move beyond this, Kristeva proposes that “verbal art, insofar as it eludes fetishization, and constantly raises doubt and questioning [...] lends itself better perhaps to exploring those states that I call states of abjection” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). I am skeptical about the claim that any art form including verbal art might elude fetishization, but the operation of constantly raising doubt and questioning resonates with other observations in this chapter, as well as this PhD project overall. Elsewhere I discussed a concept from my research which I call Incomplete Provocations [LINK TO TEXTS]. Also, the use of unreliable narrators occurs in the majority of what might be called the fiction elements of this project. Something which is important to note regarding at least my use of unreliable narrators is that there is a rarely deliberate deception on the part of the narrator. Deception would necessitate that the narrator knows more than the audience who learns only from that the narrator reveals, at least initially. The application I am more interested in, is the unreliable narrator as point of which by either being cognitively compromised or simply different, has another perspective on events. The ideological position implied through this is that there is no one narrative which could encapsulate the entire event and therefore resolve it. There is always doubt and questions, each of which solicit speculation from the audience. In Deleuze and Guattari’s “A Thousand Plateaus” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) the line that illustrates this non-deceptive unreliable narrator occurs at the start of the chapter “1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible…”. While beginning an account of a film, the authors offer the disclaimer, “My memory of it is not necessarily accurate” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). The author’s uncertainty in their memory would fall within my description of the cognitively compromised unreliable narrator, and before even getting to the recounted film, doubts and questions are ready to be raised. These doubts and questions do not all have to be positioned in the gap between recollection and what was witnessed, though in this case we could look for differences between Deleuze and Guattari’s account, and the film itself. The other doubts and questions that I am interested in project not backwards in time to the witnessing but forwards. What is interesting to me is not what is lacking from the film in the recounting, but how the recounting is a process of addition which grows from the film even while it might leave out parts of that source material. In this way, the unreliable narrator offers a provocation not for a return to the stillness of certainty, but for the movement of more emerging possibilities. Kristeva proposes something similar in her proposal for future Abject art, which involves processes of “anamnesis on the one hand, and gaming on the other” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). In terms of amnesia Kristeva expands this as “a sort of eternal return, repetition, perlaboration, elaboration” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). Within Aperitif the process of amnesia enacted as the player returns to walking a path through the same environment with different characters, as well as through the game form which allows itself to be replayed.

[FOOTNOTE: For a radically different analysis of a comparable creative terrain to Kristeva’s Anamnesis see Mark Fisher’s “Ghosts of my life: writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures”. “This dyschronia, this temporal disjuncture, ought to feel uncanny, yet the predominance of what Reynolds calls ‘retro-mania’ means that it has lost any unheimlich charge: anachronism is now taken for granted” (Fisher, 2014).]

Kristeva follows Anamnesis with Gaming which involves “compositions, decompositions, recompositions” and is presented as a continuation of the “trajectory” as Anamnesis (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). Examples provided for this process involve the process of chance through rolling dice, and the “glossolalia in Artaud, or like Finegan’s Wake” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). This resonates with Aperitif on multiple levels. At the game level Aperitif, despite being fairly linear in form, composes, decomposes,and recomposes itself continually. From the position of the player audience, this is perhaps most clear as the game shifts its genre and method of play at points. At points the player controls characters which walk around an environment and interact with one another in the manner of a role playing game. At other points the game switches to the form of a medical simulator where the player but diagnose and repair a robotic character with a completely different mode of interaction from the role playing game sections. This medical simulation then decomposes further as the performing of a specific repair sakes the form of side scrolling “shoot ‘em up” as a game within a game within a game. What would however be more in keeping with what Kristeva is describing would be evidence that at some level the making of this artwork included a shift to a less consciously direct mode. The reference to dice alongside glossolalia leads me to conclude that Kristeva’s Gaming is about the movement between conscious decision making, and something else which destabilized it, before potentially returning to conscious decision making. This destabilisation could be through the cold probability of a dice roll, the path for the works creation decided by the resulting number. The inclusion of Finegan’s Wake and Artaud’s glossolalia suggests that the destabilisation does not have to be the surrender to chance. Destabilisation could include the shift to using or creating words based on their sound rather than meaning for example. Cultural theorist Michel De Certeau described glossolalia as “vocal vegetation” not an exceptional thing constrained to the devout and artists, but the “bodily noises, quotations of delinquent sounds, and fragments of others' voices [which] punctuate the order of sentences with breaks and surprise” (De Certeau, 1996). The language in Aperitif, particularly where it comes to building its world through this language feels full of moments of shifts to a destabilised mode. Swamp-Dot-Com is populated with things like “bombo cabbage bludbud”, “lichen mommy board” and “whackback” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018).

[FOOTNOTE: A methodological decision has been made not to include research drawn from Heartscape and Rook’s other work, in order to focus on how this can inform methods of art practice, rather than drawing out the tendencies of these specific artists. However, it is worth noting that the processes of Kristeva’s Gaming are evident throughout Heartscape’s individual art practice. Heartscape curated the 2018 exhibition at Apexart in New York, entitled “Dire Jank” (Apexart, 2019). Dire Jank included artist Tabitha Nikolai’s video game “Ineffable Glossolalia” (Nikolai, 2018) and “Divination Jam” which invited the audience to “use divination, randomization, etc to make your game. when you get stuck, instead of feeling like shit, let some arcane system decide for you! rolling a die, i ching, tarot, anything that invokes fate! many ancient systems have been digitized, or you can look for randomness in the world around you…” (Heartscape, 2018). Furthermore, Heartscape’s 2016 novel “Psycho Nymph Exile” both contains the same collapsing worldbuilding language as Aperitif, and features such processes within its plot. “The crystal gives them an allergic reaction to language. Each girl has a unique combination of trigger words. They sit on the floor in rows, mumbling under their breath, reading from dictionaries until they find their combination” (Heartscape, 2016).]

This play in language is subtle, but I believe it a shift away from the direct conveyance of meaning to sounds and the joy of what words written down can do.

An area the gap between Kristeva and Lotringer’s Abject Art, Hedva’s Sick Woman Theory, and Aperitif widens is with the issue of the abject and identity. Lotringer sees Abjection’s relation to Fascism which he stresses is its origin in Batialle’s text “displaced” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). He broadens this further with the claim that “politics has become the politics of the notion of identity” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). This broad position is agreed by Kristeva who replies “everything has been taken up by the “politically correct” which are in fact identity related claims” (Lotringer & Kristeva, 1999). It is this identity that Kristeva and Lotringer see in what they consider the problematic Oppositional Practice already outlined. I would like to argue though that their perceived problem with Abject identity would not apply to the way identity figures in Sick Woman Theory. Hedva sets out their position with clarity;

“The sick woman is an identity and body that can belong to anyone denied the privileged existence, or the cruelly optimistic promise of such an existence- of the white, straight, healthy, neurotypical, upper and middle class, cis and able-bodied man” (Hedva, 2016).

Sick Woman Theory is not a politics of sexual identity, but a broad identity which encapsulates sexual identity along with bodily, cognitive, and class differences. This is not the sidestepping of class struggle and opposition to fascism Lotringer in particular is concerned with in his observations about previous attempts at an Abject turn in art. Hedva creates an amorphous, fluid grouping, brings to the centre difference and care under the banner of the Sick Woman. Returning to The Laugh of The Medusa, Hedva’s project has strong resonances with Cixous’s; “If there is a “property of woman,” it is paradoxically her capacity to depreciate unselfishly: body without end, without appendage, without principal “parts.” If she is a whole, it’s a whole composed of parts that are wholes, not simple partial objects but a moving, limitlessly changing ensemble, a cosmos tirelessly traversed by Eros, an immense astral space not organised around any one sun thats any more of a star than the others” (Cixous, 1976).

Cixous frames this “property of woman” within a text which is concerned with the practice of making art, but this practice is part of process which includes woman putting herself “into the world and into history” (Cixous, 1976). Writing, is embedded in a politics of living. For Cixous’s woman to write only in the dominant mode of man’s writing, is to be restricted not only from writing herself (as Cixous would put it) but to enter into the world as a subject, as an agent. If we read Cixous’s woman not in terms of an essentialist category which might be attached to some biological marker, but as a class category, she readily aligns with Hedva’s Sick Woman. Cixoux’s contemporaries Deleuze and Guattari describe the process of “becoming-woman” which can be considered like the former’s woman but now not a class but a process (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). MacCormack gives a succinct explanation of Becoming-Woman, “Woman as minoritarian is defined by lack and failure so an element of woman - gesture, fluid libidinality - taken in or as part of the self will necessarily alter the self” (MacCormack, 2008). In Hedva’s text, the woman is named for the “subject position [that] represents the uncared for, the secondary, [...] the non-, the un-, the less-than” (Hedva, 2016).

Even when addressing cisgendered women, the call Cixous is making entails Becoming, which MacCormack describes as selecting “certain specificities and intensities of a thing and [dissipating] those intensities within our own molecularities to redistribute our selves” (MacCormack, 2008). Cixous calls us to redistribute into ourselves the intensity of fluid libinality which she calls the “unflagging, intoxicating, unappeasable search for love” (Cixous, 1976). This pull of desire and connectivity reads like an antithesis of Valerie Solanas’s description of “the male” as an “unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness” (Solanas, 1971).

[FOOTNOTE: For a trans* reading of gender in Solanas as creative process see writer Andrea Long Chu’s proposal that “Here, transition, like revolution, was recast in aesthetic terms, as if transsexual women decided to transition, not to “confirm” some kind of innate gender identity, but because being a man is stupid and boring.” (Long Chu, 2018).]

The Woman in Sick Woman Theory is similarly a source of creative desire, which Hedva explains through a description of some of their own symptoms;

“Because of these “disorders,” I have access to incredibly vivid emotions, flights of thought, and dreamscapes, to the feeling that my mind has been obliterated into stars, to the sensation that I have become nothingness, as well as to intense ecstasies, raptures, sorrows, and nightmarish hallucinations” (Hedva, 2016).

These descriptions form part of Hedva’s consideration of political agency of those, who for bodily, social, or other reasons cannot engage in the direct politics of public action. However the language, as with Solanas’s, is as concerned with emotion, affect, aesthetics, and creativity. Solanas’s Male is “incapable of empathizing” (Solanas, 1971) while “Sick Woman Theory asks you to stretch your empathy” (Hedva, 2016). Solanas’s manifesto is explicitly a response to the boredom society provocokes as it is dominated by the “psychically passive” figure of the Male (Solanas, 1971). Without exoticising and objectictifying illness, mental or otherwise, the subject of Sick Woman Theory is undoubtedly a creative force.

I hope that I have demonstrated that the world, characters, and player-audience experience of Aperitif have a resonance with theories of Abjection, and creative difference connected to a broad category of Woman. Aperitif is on one level, a video game about a group of runaway broken robots, and hybrid animal kids trying to improvise through wasteland failures, emergent tactics of living through giving and receiving care.

Throughout Aperitif, many things are left undefined, or only implied. Dialogues are full of the pointed absence of speech in ellipses. Delivery of information gives way to Gaming. Character’s themselves are unsure of what has happened, cannot remember, are too traumatised, or simply offer a conflicting view of events to one another. Finally the game itself, with its limited interface and graphics which hark back to games long before the turn of the millenium, makes clear that details are being withheld. With this in mind, the group of protagonists being self identified as, or implied to be “girls” rather than Women, can be understood through another Becoming proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, and explored further by MacCormack. Within the context of Becoming-Woman Deleuze and Guattari ask “What is a girl? What is a group of girls?” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). They consider Marcel Proust’s protagonist’s search for “fugitive beings” (Proust, 2010) and conclude that the Girl whether singular or in a pack, is “pure haecceity” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).

[Mark Fisher defines Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of Haecceity as “non-subjective individuation. [...] the entity as event (and the event as entity)” (Fisher, 2018).]

MacCormack states that the Girl is the “larval woman”, but “It is not the girl who becomes a woman; it is becoming-woman that produces the universal girl [...] the girl is the becoming-woman of each sex, just as the child is the becoming-young of every age” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). For Deleuze and Guattari, Girl is the individuation of Becoming-Woman, not attached to any substance or function, or “age group, sex, order, or kingdom” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Girls in Aperitif are undefined, only self identified in one instance and they move “between orders, acts, ages, sexes; they produce n molecular sexes on the line of flight in relation to the dualism machines they cross right through” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). They speak in irony, silence, thoughts of sex and unspeakable past trauma and modify their bodies with drugs and used parts. They are elusive, arising moment to moment from encounters. MacCormack notes that the “less defined a term is within majoritarian culture the more larval the becoming and thus the move open to unique and unpredictable folding and unfolding the becoming” (MacCormack, 2008). Girls are capable of Abject art practices in the manner argued by Lotringer and Kristeva, slipping between dualisms, rather than in reactive opposition. As Deleuze and Guattari write, Girls “draw their strength neither from the molar status that subdues them nor from the organism and subjectivity they receive; they draw their strength from the becoming-molecular they cause to pass between sexes and ages” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). So it is no wonder that the Girls in Aperitif improvise in the wasteland of Swamp-Dot-Com. They are ungraspable in their identities, and forever on the way to something. They tell as much, even though for them the process might be traumatic, to “never perfectly live or die” (Heartscape & Rook, 2018).

#games #.theory #gender #play #waste #excess #porpentine #Deleuze #Kristeva

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years ago

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How SparkNotes' social media became LIT ✨📚

Chelsea Aaron, a 31-year-old senior editor for SparkNotes, is a huge part of the success. She started managing the site's Instagram in September 2017, and her meme approach has helped the account grow from 5,000 to 134,000 followers.

"When I first started managing the account, I tried a bunch of different things," Aaron explained in an email. "I ran illustrations and original content from our blog, and I also borrowed memes from our Twitter ... The memes seemed to get the most likes, so I started making and posting those on a regular basis, and now I try to do four to five per week."

Image: screengrab / Instagram

Aaron discovered the account's recipe for success by not only making memes about some of SparkNotes' most popular, highly searched guides — which include Shakespeare's plays, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice — but by mashing them together with a few modern television shows that she's personally passionate about, such as The Office, Parks and Rec, Arrested Development, and John Mulaney's comedy specials. She's also known for hilariously retelling entire works (SparkNotes style, so, abridged versions) using the account's Highlight feature.

Image: screengrab / instagram

The brilliantly sharp, comical posts seem effortless, but Aaron explained the process takes some serious concentration. Essentially, she stares at a large collection of collected screenshots "in a state of panic" until an idea strikes. "It's wildly inefficient and incredibly stressful, but I haven't figured out another way to do it," she admitted.

Luckily, Aaron always has the SparkNotes Twitter account to turn to for inspiration, which is managed by Courtney Gorter, a 26-year-old consulting writer for SparkNotes who Aaron calls "a comedic genius."

Gorter has been managing the Twitter account for about a year and a half now, and joined the SparkNotes team because she utilized its resources growing up and wanted to help "make classic literature feel accessible" to others.

"I wanted this stuff to seem slightly more fun (or, at the very least, less intimidating) to the average stressed-out student who's just trying to read fifty pages by tomorrow and also has a quiz on Friday," she said. The memes definitely help her achieve that goal.

Scrolling through the SparkNotes Instagram account, you notice it generally uses a recurring but reliably satisfying meme format. Most of the posts consist of a white block filled with introductory text and a screenshot from a television show, like so.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SparkNotes Official (@sparknotes_) on Apr 16, 2019 at 10:25am PDT

Gorter, on the other hand, ensures the Twitter account showcases a far more widespread representation of the internet. She posts everything from out-of-context screenshots, GIFs, and videos, to altered headlines from The Onion and trending meme formats of the moment, like "in this house" memes, "nobody vs me" memes, and more. The account is full of variety and gloriously unpredictable.

Hades: Orpheus I’ll let you bring your wife back from the Underworld, but if you turn and look behind you she’ll be lost to you forever. Orpheus: pic.twitter.com/FWD9P2nO0m

— SparkNotes (@SparkNotes) April 16, 2019

Normal heart rate: /\⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ /\ _ / \ __/\__ / \ _ \/⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ \/ The old man you just killed, whose heart lies hidden beneath the floorboards yet continues to beat: ⠀/\⠀ /\⠀ /\ _/ \ /\_/ \ /\_/ \ /\_ ⠀ \/⠀⠀ \/⠀⠀ \/

— SparkNotes (@SparkNotes) April 12, 2019

Gorter, who describes herself as "constantly on the internet" feels a lot of her ideas are the result of "cultural osmosis ... our collective tendency to consume references and jokes without realizing it just by being on the internet a lot."

"Sometimes I’ll be reading a book, and I’ll remember a joke I saw earlier that fits. Sometimes a new meme format will crop up over the weekend, and I’ll think, 'That could work for Macbeth,'" she said.

Though the two accounts are clearly distinct from one another, they both give off the same hip English teacher energy and running them has become a truly collaborative effort. "I constantly send her [Gorter] emails asking stuff like, 'Can I still say 'big mood' or is that over?' and 'What's the deal with this whole 'wired vs tired' thing?'" Aaron said.

Together, the two women spend their days discussing iconic works of literature, making pop culture references, and keeping up with the latest memes. (A dream job.) Their separate styles fuse together to make each other's posts the best they can be.

The meme approach works wonders

One might not initially think that Boo Radley and John Mulaney have much in common, or that Michael Scott could effortlessly embody Romeo, Julius Caesar, and Holden Caulfield if you simply alter your perspective. I certainly did not.

But Aaron and Gorter's work will convince you. Once you start merging the worlds of classic literature and modern television series, you won't want to stop.

The SparkNotes instagram is my favorite thing pic.twitter.com/FCc6sXjJly

— Jessie Martin (@jessie_martin97) March 29, 2019

Fun fact, the official Sparknotes Instagram account is probably the best one: pic.twitter.com/sIR6tsw7ZP

— Tommy (@tommy_jacobs92) February 28, 2019

When describing why the posts work so well, Aaron explained that Hamlet, Mr. Darcy, and Gatsby — three of her favorite characters to meme — have super relatable personalities, which makes the process so simple.

"They're dramatic, and awkward, and obsessive, which makes them identical to about 97% of the people on The Office," she said. "I've learned that you can use Michael Scott as a stand-in for pretty much any classic lit character, and it isn't even hard. (That's what she said)."

What wow the @SparkNotes Twitter is extremely good???? It all appears to be this good!!! https://t.co/PyEqTdQ3Ly

— Rachel Kelly 🥛 (@wholemilk) May 2, 2019

Why is @SparkNotes's Twitter so good it has no right to be this good https://t.co/eFBQpLMpe3

— Kelsey [Version 2019.05] (@flusteredkels) May 2, 2019

Gorter thinks the accounts are so appealing because they create a deep sense of community — an online space that isn't so isolating, rather a place where where bibliophiles, television enthusiasts, and meme lovers can all come together and geek the hell out. There's really something for everyone.

"When Steve Rogers said, 'I understood that reference,' I felt that deeply. I think people enjoy being in on a joke, especially when the source material (classic literature, for instance) isn’t particularly hilarious," Gorter said. "There’s a delicious juxtaposition there. I know that I personally get a secret little thrill when I understand something as contextually layered as a really niche meme, and a slight sense of frustration when I don’t."

Engaging followers and changing with the times

SparkNotes as a whole has come a long way since it was launched as TheSpark.com by a group of Harvard students in 1999.

What started out as a budding web-based dating service quickly transformed into a trusted library of online study materials, and over the years, as the publishing industry, technology, and the internet evolved, so did SparkNotes.

Like the social media accounts, SparkNotes' SparkLife blog — full of quizzes, artwork, rankings, advice, and trendy posts like "How To Break Up With Someone, According To Shakespeare" and "Snapchats From Every Literary Movement" — perfectly encapsulates the site's commitment to catering to its audience.

Whoever runs the Sparknotes twitter and Instagram pages deserves a raise

— louise🌻 (@_Fallxn_) February 21, 2019

SparkNotes does a remarkable job of shifting with the times to stay relevant and interesting in the eyes of its readers — and the quest to balance fun and education really seems to be paying off. Recently, the Instagram account tested out a post that called upon students and teachers to request custom-made memes by reaching out via email with the title of a book or subject they want meme'd, along with a message for the intended recipient.

"The response was amazing!" Aaron said. "We got almost 250 emails, and it's so great to see the genuine affection and admiration that teachers have for their students, and vice versa."

Thanks to the social media accounts, SparkNotes is not only helping students learn, but helping entire classrooms bond with their teachers. (And hopefully teaching educators who follow a thing or two about good memes.)

Print isn't dead, it's just getting some help from the internet

Aaron and Gorter are having a blast running the accounts, but ultimately, they hope their lighthearted posts will inspire people to pick up a book and read.

"I hope what our followers take away from this is that classic literature doesn’t have to be totally dry," Gorter said. "If our memes encourage our followers to engage with classic literature and be excited about reading, that's so rewarding," Aaron added.

The present-day approach to selling classic literature is undeniably unconventional, and the crossovers are absurdly ambitious, but they work so damn well. What's great about the memes is they're created in a way that doesn't diminish the literature plots, because in reality, one would have to have such a comprehensive understanding of the text to make such good jokes.

The memes are actually pretty high-brow when you think about it, sure to delight intellectuals with great taste in pop culture. I have no idea how the legendary writers would feel about their greatest works getting the meme treatment, but people online are definitely loving it.

It's refreshing to see a brand account succeed at such a genuinely funny level, but perhaps even nicer to see it thriving off of wholesome content that doesn't drag other accounts or get its laughs at the expense of tearing others down, as we've seen accounts do in the past.

SparkNotes social media accounts are genuinely just nice corners of the internet dedicated to making people laugh and hopefully igniting a love of literature.

WATCH: Steve Carell to reunite with 'The Office' creator for Netflix's 'Space Force'

#_uuid:9b22ebd8-ea58-31ce-9978-8521a7e4e858 #_category:yct:001000002 #_author:Nicole Gallucci #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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learnarabiconline · 3 years ago

Text

Learning Arabic Online

Have you been thinking about learning Arabic but you struggle with having the time and finding a good tutor to start with you from scratch or at your own level? Are you skeptical about learning Arabic online via video conference platforms like Skype or Zoom because you are not sure it will really work for you?

We, at Studio Arabiya, hear you and are eager to solve any of your problems or concerns, and invite you to join us for a successful Arabic learning journey online! Keep reading to know all about what we can do for you.

Studio Arabiya Institute, founded in 2011, has swiftly grown to become one of the major online Arabic and Quran schools, offering education in all elements of the Arabic language, the Quran, and even Islamic Studies, for all ages and levels.

As one of the most significant and largest Arabic and Quran centers for non-native speakers of Arabic and the Quran, we teach both online and live classes in Egypt.

Because our aim is to provide high-quality Arabic education to people all over the world, Studio Arabiya Institute provides a variety of Arabic courses taught by professional native speakers who have extensive experience in teaching people of all ages.

All these classes can be taught online via our online student portal - which seamlessly integrates Zoom - to those who can't take them in person or live across the world with no reliable institution to teach Arabic.

The courses vary from very basic Arabic lessons to short Arabic courses for even the most sophisticated literature. Both the fundamentals of the language, such as the Arabic alphabet and verb conjugation and advanced topics, such as Arabic poetry and deep etymology, are taught.

Can I Really Master The Arabic Language Online Via Zoom?

Some people doubt the process of learning a new language merely via online sessions. However, Studio Arabiya's classes are not just online sessions. We provide you with structured classes, premium educational materials, and professional tutoring in a variety of class settings.

So, YES! You can master the Arabic language online via Zoom with Studio Arabiya insha'Allah. All you have to do is register for the course you wish to take by filling the enrollment form, and the Studio Arabiya team will get in touch with you. Then you leave it all to them, confident that you'll learn the proper way.

What Can I Learn With Studio Arabiya?

You can learn all about the Arabic language from the most basic fundamentals to the more advanced topics.

The study of classical Arabic encompasses numerous sciences, all of which are addressed in our courses. Here you will discover lessons and activities to help you improve your reading, writing, pronunciation, lexicology and vocabulary, grammar and syntax, morphology, etymology, rhetoric, and poetry.

Here's what you can learn with Studio Arabiya courses on Zoom in detail:

1. Arabic Reading

The Arabic reading course includes learning the Arabic Alphabet (Abjad) and how the letters are read and written.

There are a total of 28 letters in Arabic (Abjad). The basic shape of each of the 28 Arabic letters varies depending on whether the letter is at the beginning, middle, or end of the word. You won't be able to comprehend Arabic transcripts until you can read and write each of these letters.

We even offer an Arabic Reading course specifically designed for children!

2. Arabic Pronunciation

To learn Arabic pronunciation you need to learn the vowel marks (Tashkeel) that helps the reader make the Arabic sound correctly.

Tashkeel refers to the tiny symbols - or diacritical marks - put above or under Arabic letters. They may or may not appear in all types of Arabic writing, such as the Modern Standard. They are, nevertheless, required in order to learn how to read and comprehend Holy books like the Quran or Ahadith (prophetic narrations ﷺ).

If Tashkeel is not understood correctly, it might shift the meaning of words and cause confusion or misunderstanding.

3. Arabic Conversation

Arabic conversation can easily be learnt by listening to audio materials featuring common situational contexts in Arabic. The course provides audio conversations that you can listen to at your pace, repeat and practice, as well as a lot of vocabulary needed for everyday conversations in Arabic and exercises.

4. Arabic Syntax (Nahw)

Arabic Nahw teaches you the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences. So, in order to create a useful structured sentence, you need to use Nahw rules.

As a side remark, syntax (nahw) is often what we study while learning how to create appropriate speech, whether written or spoken. Without Nahw rules you can't make logical arrangements of words and your speech will sound confusing.

5. Arabic Morphology (Sarf)

Arabic Morphology (sarf) is a branch of classical Arabic that focuses on the meanings derived from patterns and additional letters inside a word's structure. Tense, voice, and other implications, such as the concept of searching in the attached sample, are examples of these meanings.

This is considered to be an advanced level of Arabic learning, which you also find among Studio Arabiya courses.

6. Classical Arabic

Classical Arabic is the standardized literary form of the Arabic language which was in use from the 7th century through the Middle Ages (in the 1500s), reaching as far West as today's Portugal and as far East as India. It is the language of the Quran (although Quranic Arabic is really its own kind - more on that below) making it the original language of Islam, as well as many other religious and non-religious literary texts of that time period, including poetry and scientific works.

#learn quran online #online quran teaching

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purple-spring · 7 years ago

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How long did it take you to become this well of a writer? Do you have any tips or suggestions? I want to make my writing more exciting and vibrant like yours is. I feel like it's not as good as yours and I want it to be the best it can be.

Hey there, @fangirlthatreads! I’ve been sitting on this ask for a while and I do apologise for that, but I was so incredibly touched that you came to me with this kind of question that I wanted to answer it as best as I could, and create a sort of masterpost for writing in the process. I’m devoting my whole day to answering this, so hopefully it’s worth the wait :)

So, to answer your first question, I guess I’ve always enjoyed and have been fairly competent in writing. I wrote all throughout school, but never really got the opportunity to continue that in college, so I got a bit rusty. I only really started again recently (Sprousehart and Bughead were too tempting to resist), which has just been the most joyful, creativity-unleashing thing. I started simply by writing the beginning for “Tomorrow” because I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and I had a very vocal cheerleader (hi, @jandjsalmon) encouraging me to write the whole thing. I haven’t looked back since then.

As for tips and suggestions, I thought about this for a long time and came up with the following, which I’ve tried to divide into three sections after the cut - READ, LISTEN, WRITE.

Anyway, without any further ado, I give you –

paperlesscrown’s personal guide to writing

—-READ—-

I mean, your account name kind of gives it away, but I’m sure you read a lot! But my #1 tip for writers is to read voraciously. I often think of it as fuel for the tank: you can’t put out what you don’t put in. When I run into writers’ block, it’s the first thing I do - I purchase a book for my Kindle and bunker down and read.

Three kinds of reading that I do:

Fanfic - This is a no-brainer. It’s important to expose yourself to the different interpretations of the canon and the characters you are writing about. I must admit that I’m not always the most up-to-date fanfic reader, but I am always hitting up @blueandgoldoffice and my dear friend @theatreofexpression for suggestions and recommendations.

Literature - This is important, too. As amazing as fanfic writers are, there is a whole other universe out there of incredibly written original fiction (and poetry!). Anything I can get my hands on, I get onto it. It’s why I bought myself a Kindle - I carry it around with me everywhere to make sure that I am constantly feeding my brain with exciting plots and engaging characters and beautifully turned phrases.

I often try to read specifically, too. What do I mean by this? So, for example, when I was writing “Apparitions”, which included huge chunks of dialogue between Cole and Lili, I chose to read One Day by David Nicholls, which I knew had a lot of earthy, realistic dialogue between a couple in love. When I was writing my first smutty fic (“In here, too”), I made sure to read The Boss by Abigail Barnette, which is an INCREDIBLE Dom/Sub series (which honestly every Dom!Jug writer should read) with amazingly written sex scenes.

I also make sure I read different formats - not just chapter books, but also longform articles, poetry, etc. I read a lot of short stories because I write exclusively in one-shots, so reading them allows me to see how writers develop plot within a limited word count.

Writers’ resources - This is something I’ve started doing recently, and it’s made such a huge difference. There is a whole world of writers’ resources out there. I recently bought the Emotion Thesaurus, which is described as “a writers’ guide to character expression.” It. Is. Amazing. It catalogues an emotion and the different ways a character could express them (that way I’m able to avoid cliches or vary the way that the emotion is expressed). It’s formatted like this:

It’s quite cheap on Amazon and such a worthwhile purchase. You should also check out websites such as Reference for Writers, which has SO MANY amazing resources for writers, plus links to similar websites.

Meta - Read analysis on your characters, whether it’s a recap from website like Vulture and AV Club or (with Riverdale specifically) meta posts from places like @riverdalemeta, which compiles all the incredible theorising from around the fandom. It helps you think about your characters more clearly. A good story always comes from a good grasp of character, and sometimes meta posts make a world of difference in understanding a character.

—-LISTEN—-

Listen to…

1. A beta. I cannot emphasise this enough. Betas make all the difference between a good piece of writing and a great one. My forever beta, @jandjsalmon, has saved from terrible writing decisions and has also steered me towards incredible ones. @theatreofexpression is a constant source of ideas, headcanons and discussions about the show. The thing about betas is that they are essentially your first audience and an important first filter for your work. They are able to pick up on inconsistencies, disruptions to flow, awkward phrasing, spelling and grammar errors, etc. I often think about them as the midwives for our stories. I may be the one giving birth to it, but it’s the beta who guides me with how to breathe, stand, position myself, etc. and essentially get the baby out into the world (sorry for the weird metaphor, lol). Always, always try and work with one.

2. The characters you are writing about. A handy tip - whenever I am writing, I put the show on in the background (as long as it’s not distracting), or interviews with the actors (if I’m writing RPF). It helps me to get a good grasp on their voice. With Bughead, I’m not much of an AU author - I prefer writing and expanding on canon scenes, so it’s important for me to try and get the voice, tone and phrasing of each character right (as well as the overall tone and atmosphere of the scene).

3. Music. Music can activate some really strong emotions and neurological reactions in us that help us to write well. Some people like writing to playlists (I made one for “What she wanted”), while others like listening to instrumental music. Both are fine, although sometimes I can find lyrics quite distracting. In terms of instrumental music, I listen to a lot of Philip Glass (classical and heavy) and Explosions in the Sky (indie and atmospheric) when I write.

—-WRITE—-

I guess there’s nothing left to do but to write!

Start small. I write a lot of drabbles, as you may have noticed, and those are just small writing exercises for me to keep the words flowing. Not everything you write will contribute to an amazing story, but it’s important to keep putting ideas to paper.

Engage in writing prompts. These don’t have to be Bughead-specific. There are plenty of writing prompts on the net - Pinterest is a great place to find some good ones!

Do writing sprints. I actually learned about this idea from the incredible @tory-b, who does this with other writers on the wonderful Bughead Family Discord. It’s basically stretches of 30 minutes to an hour where you do nothing but write. It doesn’t have to be perfect - it just needs to be written down. It’s a way for you to knuckle down and focus and not have any sort of pressure in terms of getting everything perfect. While my job and life often prevent me from engaging in these, they’re an awesome idea for any budding writer.

Practical tip: Google Docs is your friend. This is a tip just for logistics, but I write on Google Docs rather than Microsoft Word because it’s a lot more portable and I work on multiple devices throughout the day. I have Google Docs installed on my phone and I access it via my web browser off my laptop. This just means I can work on a story when I’m travelling, when I’m at home, even when I’m standing in line at a grocery store. I’m often hit by inspiration quite randomly, so this works really well for me. It’s also the best tool for betas - they are able to edit and make comments in a way that’s easy for them and doesn’t involve multiple file-sending.

…

Anyway. I truly apologise for that insane essay, but I hope this can help you (and anyone else). If you have any other questions, please feel free to send them to me! I hope we can read more of your work soon! xx

#paperlesscrown writes #guide to writing #writing tips and suggestions

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awed-frog · 7 years ago

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This is going to be a mess - I had to erase the original post because the bots just wouldn’t stop coming, so here is how it all started -

And here are your kind requests -

So - thank you for your lovely asks and PMs - here we go.

(Keep in mind that those moments were hugely embarrassing to me, so you shouldn’t find them funny or anything. They’re tragic stories I’m relating for your moral betterment - that is all.)

1) The ‘The Greeks Made Me Do It’ story

As a bit of background, I was eighteen and had just moved to another city to start my studies. I’d been there for a month, knew literally no one, had no idea where half my classes were and my ideals of switching to a Sophisticated Look and becoming A Lady had miserably failed, which means I was walking around wearing this insanely expensive, Managing Director of the IMF coat plus combat boots and frayed jeans plus a lopsided handmade scarf and 'Marilyn going on Morticia’ lipstick (I worried - a lot - about being the only weirdo and the only unfinished person in the entire town, because that was before I met Hamster Girl and Colour Matching Girl and I spend as much on weed as you do for rent but everything I own is see-through, threadbare or ripped Guy). Plus, I couldn’t speak or understand the local language all that well, and I’d taken to nodding and smiling whatever people said, which generally made me look like an idiot and meant I never knew what was going on.

(And, yes, it’s tempting and it seems like the easier option, but seriously - don’t do that.)

All of that means I was more or less living in the university library so I could pretend I had a purpose in life and, well, going from a high school library to a real academic library was like stepping into the Restricted Section - I mean, of course, I read what I was supposed to read, and I lost myself in serious books that had little to do with my actual subjects (that was my Minoan period - I’m sure every Classics student had one), but there were also the - uhm - other books, you know? All those studies about homosexuality in the Greek world, and how Mapplethorpe’s pictures were connected with frescoes of Saint Sebastian, and people having sex with statues and kings trying to trick their young wives into anal and truly lurid collections of Greek art which my high school teacher had once described as ‘Something you should probably have a look at, but if I let you borrow my copy your parents would not be happy with me’. And on that particular day, I had actually devoted my afternoon to a no-nonsense book about Eastern influences in Greek art, and well, the study of lovers and concubines on Greek amphorae was a sort of a plan B to relax a bit between chapters, because I was reading in a foreign language and it was hard work and when you don’t know anyone, it’s like you’re the only one working, right, and everyone else is off to wild parties and poetry lectures and screenings of a Guatemalan movie you never knew existed and that’s depressing af, so yay for weird art - but at around five I realized the day was done and I didn’t want to give the dirty book back because, come on, it wasn’t that dirty and I had a right to read it and it was complemented with passages by Theophrastus and Plato, plus it had come to me via the now defunct goblin-based system of tunnels underground the reading room -

~note - for younger readers, these things~

- so I didn’t want to give it back and go through the hassle of requesting it again, and I remember the fuck it moment that came over me - I was eighteen, I was studying the damn stuff, so I’d borrow the damn book and if the librarians disapproved, well, they could bite me.

(Obviously, they didn’t disapprove. The bored guy at the service desk didn’t even look at me, because nobody looks at you, ever, and your life is your own, so go live it.)

And next, I had to go shopping because there’s only so much time you can survive on cold cereal - and suddenly there I was, in a big and foreign supermarket, a dirty book burning a hole through my old Invicta, my Queen of England coat clashing with everything else I was wearing, and I was moving from aisle to aisle without making eye contact and trying to remember what spices were called in French, and I’d almost made it - I was collecting my mismatched groceries on the other side of the till when the bloody alarm started blaring, and two uniformed guards appeared out of thin air and it was like one of those slow-motion scenes in movies, right, when the dust in the air glimmers like gold and sound is no longer a thing and someone’s talking and everybody is staring and when God pushed the ‘resume normal speed’ button the two men were gesturing and smiling smugly and there was this old lady next to me and she was taking in my luxurious coat and my frayed jeans and putting two and two together - I physically felt her horrified, gleeful gaze on me like scalding water - and Jesus, I could see the headlines in my local paper already ‘Young Promise of Sci-Fi Literature Arrested’ (I was writing fantasy back then, but most normal people don’t seem to know the difference) and there were my parents, okay, my poor parents walking with their heads down as formerly friendly neighbours threw garbage at them and someone would interview my history teacher and he was bound to say, ‘She was something of a strange girl, but I never thought she’d end up in prison’ and next, of course, came the walk of shame in front of all twelve tills, with dozens of proper adults (people with families and eggs in their baskets, women with tasteful lipstick and women with kids and doggies instead of books about dead prostitutes) staring at me in disapproval, and What has the world come to and I heard that today, young women are as likely to commit crimes as young men and Do you think she’s on drugs? and then I was forced into the Small Room of Humiliation and asked to please empty my bag, so out came the frosting I was planning to eat raw and the crown of garlic I’d bought because it looked pretty and had no intention of ever using and a giant-ass bag of rice and as I looked on, horrified, I realized nothing made sense with anything and even those burly, middle-aged men could see that just fine - but, well, every single horrifying, meaningless item was on the receipt, so they had me empty my pockets (one condom, safety pins, a Swiss knife, an IKEA pencil and a very smooth and round rock, God have mercy on me) and next we all looked at one another like, What now? and that’s when I truly gave up on rational thinking, okay, because my first instinct is always to be of service, and so I said, in my heavily accented French, ‘The library book has a barcode, maybe that’s the problem?’ and of course, they hadn’t really looked at the book yet - it was face down on the formica table, looking all prim and innocent in its unassuming dark blue cover, but when the older man picked it up with his bear paw, I suddenly realized the front of it was quite different - I sat there and saw his eyebrows disappear into his hairline as he took in the big-ass picture (a painting of a woman fellating a much younger man) and the title (something along the lines of, THE JOYLESS SEX - TALES OF THE PLEASURE WOMEN, in all capitals, because books about Greek art don’t sell all that well, so anything to do with sex is pimped up to trick the unsuspecting general audience into giving it a shot) and of course he had to open it, because that’s how humans are wired, okay, and the thing right in the middle was a goat-like creature doing unspeakable things with two women and every single cell in my body wanted to explode and disappear and shout ‘IT’S MANDATORY READING FOR THIS CLASS I’M TAKING’, which was a lie, anyway, and I couldn’t get the words out and I couldn’t look up and I couldn’t look away - after a few excruciating minutes (seconds? hours?), the guy scanned the book on his barcode machine and yep, that’s when we all learned that library books respond to the same anti-theft thingies that pick up on stolen wine and cookies and fine cheeses, and Sorry, miss, and You have a good evening, now, and he was extremely uncreepy about it, but it was still hard to find my way out because of the WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOUNG PEOPLE UP THESE DAYS bewilderment that was shining like a beacon around his entire body, so, yeah - that was pretty embarrassing.

2) The ‘A Four-Part Seduction’ story

This actually happened almost one year before my adventure with the scanning machine - I was in my last year of high school, had kissed exactly 1 (one) boy, failed to seduce 3 (three) other boys despite my fox-like cunning and my sunny disposition, and I was now ready to sacrifice everything (well: my sanity and my dignity) for The Boy - a basketball player with a long, horse-like face and zero talent in anything whom for some reason I fancied the pants off.

(Looking back, I think I liked he was quiet and kind, and the age-old problem when you’re attracted to mysteriously self-effacing people is that you’re never quite sure - is there a colourful and occasionally wild ocean behind their silent lips and far-off gaze, or are they not saying anything because an evolutionary mishap converted half their brain into a second spleen, and therefore they were left with the mental capacity of a vivacious Mexican mole lizard? The joy is in finding out.)

Anyway, I have a feeling things haven’t changed all that much, but back then when you were intent on romantic hunting, you usually enlisted the help of your closest friends - people who inevitably were:

your age

unexperienced

not very familiar with The Boy and

generally speaking, completely unsuited to hatching a failproof seduction plan of any kind.

On this particular occasion, my advisors were:

a girl who’d been the better half of a couple for time untold (three months, two weeks and five days) and was thus The Expert

another girl who’d done ‘not it, but almost’ with an unnamed boy she’d met over the summer

a third girl who still didn’t quite understand what ‘it’ meant and

my only guy friend who was actually in love with me and I only found out about that twenty years later and that was one true what the fuck moment, because then I wondered what else I hadn’t seen when I was a teenager even if it was there in plain sight (like the fact my German teacher preyed on young boys, for instance,but that’s another story).

So, well - part A of The Plan - getting to know him better - had failed miserably, because what can you discuss with someone you only see once a week in French class and you have a monster crush on? I mostly pestered him about homework dates and then stared mutely at his hands as he turned the pages of his school diary and my God, he must have thought I was an anxious, forgetful idiot with absolutely zero life, ‘which means he already knows you better than most people,’ my best friend said consolingly, before trying out her married name signature (Alice DiCaprio) one more time. And as for part B - that had succeeded, but at what cost? Because through a string of sleights of hand and corruption, we’d managed to shift half our classmates around on the seating chart, so I was now sharing a desk with The Boy himself, but so far that had resulted in some awkward staring (mine), a couple of embarrassed smiles (his) and about 50 000 volt of electricity going through my entire body every time his elbow bumped into my arm by mistake (which happened a lot, because he was left-handed and I’m not and we were sitting the wrong way around).

Now, this had been going on for weeks when the skies suddenly opened above me and the teacher, an I’m frankly disappointed in how everything turned out ‘68 hippy, assigned us a written essay on Victor Hugo and socialism, something that, as an anxious, forgetful idiot with absolutely zero life, I knew quite a lot about. Plus, I was good at French, and that’s how The Boy turned towards me and asked if I’d be willing to help him, his hazel eyes all clear and earnest, shining like stolen jewels on his horse-like face, and being a Cosmo reader, I heard myself laugh throatily and ask, ‘Sure - what will you give me in return?’ and fuck, how do these things happen and why are we not in control of our own bodies and also thank God, because he blinked at me and then said, in a slow voice I read as flirtatious, ‘I’ll buy you a drink’. And that’s how we all entered part C - there were weekly meetings with him in the library to write the essay together, and daily meetings with my girlfriends to analyse everything we’d ever said to each other and I think he was looking at you during break and I saw him blush twice now, he must be sensitive and My sister knows his cousin, I can tell her to ask him if he’s seeing anyone and also long walks by the river with my long-suffering guy friend during which I rambled on and on about how shiny The Boy’s hair was and he contributed to this mind-blowingly fascinating conversation mostly in uhms and grunts.

(Again, how could I have been so stupid? I mean, it was for the best in the end, but - ouch.)

And one windy evening of March, lo and behold, it was finally time for part D (no pun intended) - a bona fide D-A-T-E with The Boy, and possibly there’d be fireworks and he’d say, I’ve been wanting to kiss you for weeks and some tourist would snap a candid photo of us and then marvel at it, years and years later, because Do you ever wonder what happened to this couple, Mabel? Look at how happy and in love and beautiful they are and I’m not saying cover of the National Geographic, but cover of the National Geographic. Also, movies had taught me what was supposed to happen, you know?,

which is why I borrowed make up and rollers from one of my friends and did a clothes pre-selection with her and then a second selection with my guy friend -

(I remember him sitting cross-legged on my bed and strumming my mom’s guitar as I hid behind the closet door to try on The Makeover Outfit and how his expression barely changed when he saw me in a skirt for the first time - how he said, ‘You look - good. He’s an idiot if he doesn’t go for it,’ and how the music turned into something slow and mournful as I disappeared again to put my jeans back on, and what the hell?)

- and at nine pm, I was ready - I had leveled up and transformed, or so it seemed - gone was the windbreaker, and the crappy Converse, and the overlarge plaid shirt - instead, my hair was curled in the right way and my skirt was short but not too short and I’d even bought a push-up bra which was uncomfortable as hell but Who cares, uh?, who cares? And let’s pretend my make-up was still perfect after biking twenty minutes in the half rain, because when I walked into the bar, some catchy song was on and my brand-new hoop earrings were catching the light just so and I was the Goddess of French and Sex and WITNESS ME and we saw each other at once - he was sitting with his friends, the Popular Good-at-Hockey Guys, and he turned as he heard the door open, as if he’d been expecting me, and he immediately smiled and came towards me and ‘So, what can I get you?’ and of course I ordered wine, because I was Sophisticated and also A Lady and as he pushed his way towards the counter I sat down at the only table for two and subtly (I hope) adjusted my cleavage and crossed my legs and wondered whether I should whip my copy of Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations out of my (well: my mom’s) purse just to make it extra clear I meant business, or if that would be considered impolite - a kind of, ‘You took forever to get me that drink’ reproach - and as I was still trying to decide, he came right back, all perfect and tall and horsey-looking in a grey shirt, and he was carrying my wine and a pint of dark beer and some idiotic voice in my head said, ‘Yes, we’d known each other for months, but I remember the night we truly fell in love - your father used to drink these strong beers, you know, and that evening-’ and before that thought could go anywhere, The Boy was there, at my table - he handed me the wine (our fingers touched) and he said ‘Thanks again, really - I would have been dead without you’ and then - and then he walked away and fucking sat down with his friends again because apparently he was a damn sophist underneath that equine disguise and he’d promised me a drink and now I had a drink and what the fuck? and for the second time that night I considered turning to Rimbaud, but you should never turn to Rimbaud because he was an addict and a killer, so I drained my wine in one gulp, looked around desperately, my vision already fogging over, for someone I could bother - there was no one I really knew, only older people and party people and cool people who were already looking at me weirdly - I shrugged my coat on and waved joyfully at The Boy on my way out and man, it’s been twenty years but sometimes I still wonder at it - I don’t think he wanted to be rude, I’m sure he was like me, awkward and empty-headed and inexperienced, and he now works with snakes in Canada so maybe there was something interesting about him, but after I never go to the movies guy and Do you go to this school? guy and Sorry, I’m looking for someone who’ll choke me during sex guy and - mostly - the ghost music / still not sure he existed for real guy, well - that was a crushing moment and the end of my grand plans and when I started to simply tell guys ‘I like you’ and also follow them home before they could realize what was going on and, whatever, if you’re looking for dating advice, that works much, much better.

[Thanks again for your messages - if you like my writing, please visit my AO3 page!]

#ask #short stories #short story #embarrassing teenage memories #wow it's good to be a grown up #anyway #i hope you liked these!#it feels weird to write about myself #but i expect you guys can relate about this stuff?#we've all been there and stuff #:)

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elleleuthold · 8 years ago

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Get to know the writer:

I was tagged by @caffeinewitchcraft in the Writer’s info meme. Thanks, this was fun!

1. Name?

Elle. It’s been a nickname for a while, and is now a penname.

2. Five words that describe your writing?

A mess of character emotions.

3. Literature / art / films you’d recommend?

I always have trouble with this question. But if you like history, I recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Lowen for American history, and I just got Rejected Princesses for Christmas and am quite enjoying it. In fiction, I heartily recommend the Discworld series (don’t feel like you have to go chronologically) and Every Heart A Doorway (<3 multiple worlds and an ace protagonist). For classic fantasy, I go Belgariad for the cleanest, clearest hero’s journey I have ever read, and for classic sci-fi I’ll say the Ender’s Game series, because it was the first to really open my eyes to the ways adult actions and popular narratives shape children/the future. If I had to choose only one book to read over and over forever it would be Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. My favorite short stories are You, an Accidental Astronaut by Sonja Natasha (@heysonjanatasha), and How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps by A. Merc Rustad (just go read all their stuff). My favorite poet is Richard Siken; Crush destroys me every time I pick it up.

I’ve also read a lot of good books this fall (I started following @lgbtqreads, @disabilityinkidlit and @richincolor which are great if you’re looking for more diverse options). Lies We Tell Ourselves is a really impactful story about desegregation, racism and lesbian coming-of-age in the South; Not Otherwise Specified is Contemporary YA about a black bi girl in Nebraska and I loved it to pieces, and I’ve been reading the Wings of Fire series at work, which is a highly-addictive kids series about dragons and prophecies.

Gah, this is turning into an essay, um. I like a lot of art, but I am terrible about remembering pieces or artists. The stuff I like best usually has evocative linework and minimal, but bright, colors. For film, I’ll say Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ghost in the Shell (the anime, subbed), Steven Universe and the first two seasons of Elementary. Also Life, by NBC (it’s on Netflix), which is the best detective show I have ever seen, hands down. Characters, writing, plot, music, cinematography, everything is amazing. I also play a lot of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, which are games where you fight against injustice and other threats the government refuses to acknowledge exist, and also you can kiss love interests of whatever gender you feel like.

4. Images, symbols, and settings you associate with your work?

Smooth, damp rocks by the riverside, a blank sketchbook page and a cheap pen, too many research tabs in the browser, worn book spines, copper glinting in sunlight and the wind in my face. Also, I seem to write a lot stories that involve escaping various types of prisons for some reason.

5. Themes / concepts you are hesitant to write about?

Abuse and assault, and also non-mainstream-American/English/Japanese cultures, mostly because I’m afraid of getting things wrong. I very much want to write a multiplicity of situations and cultures but am still mostly in the research stage. On the abuse and assault topic, I am also squeamish.

6. What would you tell someone who’s nervous about starting out?

Everyone’s nervous. The greatest writers you idolize have self-doubt. You gotta start anyway, because no one else can tell the stories you can. Start with whatever your favorite pet idea is. Frame it in words. Get it on paper. But don’t confine yourself to that. Write it when it’s fun, and write other stuff the rest of the time. You might need to practice more to really do it justice, and that’s okay. Take prompts, write sprints and drabbles and fanfic and poetry. Do NaNo, enter challenges with daunting deadlines. But above all else, finish a story. However long, however short. Finish something. I learned more from finishing one piece and editing it than writing 100 unfinished snippets, and each successive piece I finish adds to that knowledge.

And if you’re comfortable, post it. If you’re not, share it with someone, even if it’s unfinished and you’re just stuck. An alpha reader, a beta editor. Ask your friends and followers to look at a carefully controlled google doc. Ask me. If I can’t look something over for you myself I’ll do my best to put you in touch with someone who can. Writing gets about 1000 times more fun when you’re not doing it in a vacuum.

7. Three of your writings you’d recommend to people who’d like to know more about you?

Well, I haven’t posted much here yet! But this faerie snippet is based on my favorite fairy tale ever, The Ballad of Tam Lin (the original has some skeevy bits but I have a few novel adaptations I adore), bridesmaid is probably the most personal of what I’ve posted so far, and Exit Arc is the most polished piece. I’ve been writing in fandom for years (Heroes, Doctor Who, Marvel, Band of Brothers, etc), but I’m trying to keep this account just slightly separate from my fanworks. If you’re interested in my fics, I’d be happy to share that info via ask or message.

8. What pushes you to keep writing?

I’ve learned in the last few years that words are even more important than I realized, and stories are on a whole level above that. I spent a few years in academia, and a few years in magazine editing, and while I still loved words in the end, those experiences conspired to convince me that words were infinitely mutable and no story could be true in any lasting way. But then I started working in schools, with kids of every age between six and 18, and I could see, again, how important words were, and how much impact stories could have. I started reading more nonfiction and stories other than fanfiction again. And I looked at the state of published fiction and determined that most of it is not a vision of the world I want those kids to grow up with. Most published fiction I see on shelves and in magazines doesn’t even represent my own generation, let alone theirs. Things are getting better, more inclusive and representative, but a lot of publishing companies are run by people like my old boss, who gladhand around in an exclusively white, straight and male club and think that trying new things and helping people achieve their dreams should take a distant backseat to making money.

So I guess what I’m saying here is that what drives me is a desire to see more stories that reflect a world I want to live in, where people who haven’t been traditionally recognized in popular literature not only exist, but go on adventures and save the world, because everyone should have access to that dream. I want more stories about hope and friendship and the importance of taking care of ourselves and standing up for each other, because we need more of that in the world. I want to see more stories that break genre barriers and refuse to follow the same old patterns, and stories that actively criticize those patterns, because those are the stories that teach people to think outside prescribed lines. And I can’t sit here, feeling these things, and not contribute.

and i will tag... @fontess, @mm-mendell and @eggletine (only if you feel like it, of course!)

#about elle #tag meme #about writing

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years ago

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Stuart Buck

is a poet and artist living in North Wales. When he is not writing or reading poetry, he likes to cook, juggle and listen to music. He suffers terribly from tsundoku – the art of buying copious amounts of books that he will never read.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I started writing poetry after a particularly troubling time in my life. I was working as a chef and had what the doctor called a ‘not insignificant nervous breakdown’ so had to stop working. Until that point I can honestly say, other than at school, I had never read or been interested in poetry at all. But I had a lot of spare time after I finished work and decided to write haiku as I had heard from somewhere or other that the practise was very calming. I guess that’s where the addiction started.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Myself I suppose. The first poet I properly fell for was Basho and his wonderful haiku. So much can be said in just three lines. For me, that is mastery of the craft. From there I picked up some of Kerouac’s books of poetry, then fell in to the Beats – Ginsberg, Burroughs etc. Nothing too in depth, I was just dabbling.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Massively aware since that was what I was reading. It is only once you scratch the surface that you realise that the majority of the quality work that is produced is coming from the younger poets. At school you only ever learn about the old white guys, maybe a bit of Maya Angelou. But poetry is so much more isn’t it?

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Honestly, I don’t have one. I can go days and weeks without writing. But then I get this feeling in my throat and my stomach and it’s telling me I need to write. That I need to create something. So I do. I have a huge, fantastic imagination and a lot of my poems are vignettes, little scenes that I have dreamt up and stories that I feel need to be told. I open Word Online, write it down and that’s it. I NEVER edit my work (unless it is a commission) so once something is out its out. I tend to post most of my work on Twitter and don’t submit much to places anymore. I used to but I realised I was looking for validation from people through submitting work. I think even if your work is good the acceptance rate is pretty low, so it can be disheartening for a lot of writers. But in reality, you are trying to get 5000 poems down to 50 and people are going to miss the cut.

5. What motivates you to write?

Because I have to. That’s the short answer. I have an awful lot inside me and if you have a lot of things turning around your mind and don’t have anywhere to put them, they can pickle and turn bad. That’s why poetry is so important.

I also love it when someone connects with my words. It’s like a neural-link. I think any poet who says they aren’t interested in validation is lying. We crave acceptance and love, especially from fellow writers. I am not going to sit here and tell you otherwise. I’m like a sponge. A good comment can see me through a bad day. And that’s why I write.

6. What is your work ethic?

Poor! I read a lot of poetry but I write very little compared to a few years back. I was churning out one or two pieces a day back then whereas now it’s one or two a month. But I feel like the quality is there with my work now. Or at least, its somewhere near where I would like it to be. I have struck a decent balance I think although I do procrastinate like an absolute champion.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

They don’t! Because the only thing I ever read when I was young was the Doctor Who novels and as far as I know they haven’t influenced me at all. I am not a massively academic person and I only really fell for poetry/literature in general in the last few years. I got a good degree and qualifications etc but they were not to do with english/the classics/poetry. Sometimes when I sit in on a conversation and people are being overtly academic I get a bit bored to be honest. I am all about passion and grit, not what some dead guy wrote about orchards.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Andrew McMillan is my favourite living poet. He deals with some really stark issues but writes beautifully and his poetry never fails to engage with me. But I read endless poetry now and so much of it is of a good quality. I don’t think poetry has ever been in a stronger position in terms of standards. That’s a lot to do with the internet I think which has allowed writers who would otherwise not stand a chance of being read to get their work out there.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I think words are the perfect medium. You can paint with words, sculpt with words, make music with words. I want people to understand what is going on in my head and while a painting or a song could tell them half of the story, words can tell the whole sordid tale.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Write something! Honestly, I don’t subscribe to this ‘everyone is a poet’ aesthetic. It’s hard work to create something that is good enough to be classed as poetry. But if you start writing things then you are a writer. Then I would say read. You CANNOT possibly create good art if you don’t indulge in the art that surrounds you.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I have just finished recording a poetry podcast called ‘Bedtime Stories for the End of the World’ where I was asked to update a piece of ancient folklore and adapt it to the modern world.

My second book ‘Become Something Frail’ has just been reprinted as we sold out so that is wonderful. I am working on a third book but I also create visual art so some of my time is spent designing book covers etc for other people.

I sound busy but don’t worry I mainly spend my days on Twitter @stuartmbuck or playing pointless games.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Stu Buck Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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theattainer · 6 years ago

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This Question Will Change Your (Reading) Life

http://theattainer.com/this-question-will-change-your-reading-life/

This Question Will Change Your (Reading) Life

When I was a teenager, I began a habit that would change the course of my entire life. I don’t mean to overstate it — it was simple, just a question I would ask the people I met — but without it, I’m not sure who I would have turned out to be.

Every time I would meet a successful or important person I admired, I would ask them: What’s a book that changed your life?* And then I would read that book. (In college, for instance, I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Drew, who was the one who turned me on to Stoicism.)

Who I asked the question to first, or how I came to the habit, I can’t recall, but the results stayed with me. I can reel off the titles of the books that came out of it like they are tattooed on my body:

48 Laws of Power

Meditations

Autobiography of Malcolm X

History of the Peloponnesian War

What Makes Sammy Run?

Man’s Search for Meaning

The question that produced these books as answers was not borne of idle curiosity. It was my way of cutting through a personal conundrum, which was this:

I loved books and was very hungry for the good stuff — what Tyler Cowen has called “quake books.” The ones that shake you. That knock everything over and turn it upside down. But I also understood that there are so many books out there, and only so much time. It was overwhelming.

Which books should I read? Should I read books about physics or books about history or books about self-improvement? And even if I knew the genre I preferred, which authors should I read and why? Should I read new books or old books? The books getting rave reviews or the classics or the ones on the featured table in the front of the store?

I didn’t know. So this question was my hack.

If a book changed someone’s life — whatever the topic or style — it was probably worth the investment. If it changed them, I thought, it might at least help me.

What resulted was a kind of ad-hoc reading list of transformational books and surprise rabbit holes that I would have never expected. Because the books that change people cut across the entire spectrum of intellectual pursuits: philosophy, psychology, literature, poetry, and self-help. The discrete topics of those books, individually, are as varied as the individuals who answered this question.

You could fill up an entire life of reading with just these books and that would be enough.

Literature is the accumulation of painful lessons humans have learned by trial and error.

Eventually, I applied this little trick beyond just people that I met. Whenever I read interviews of interesting people and they mentioned a book that was particularly influential or important to their development, I would buy it.

I didn’t need to be told in person. I didn’t even need to be the one asking the question. (The New York Times By The Book column is a good place to start)

I read an interview where Neil Strauss mentioned John Fante’s Ask the Dust, so I bought it, read it, and fell in love with it… and in reading about John Fante, I learned that he’d been influenced by Nietzsche and Knut Hamsun, so I read both of them. Napoleon and Alexander Hamilton were changed by Plutarch’s Lives (and so were about a million other people across history), so of course, I read it. I heard that Phil Jackson recommended his players read Corelli’s Mandolin, and that Pete Carroll recommends The Inner Game of Tennis. Lots of successful people have reading lists that they either post on their blogs or that their biographers have compiled after their deaths. I made my way through those, too, book by book.

This strategy has led me to some busts, of course. Elon Musk supposedly loves Twelve Against the Gods, but I didn’t quite get what the fuss was about (the used copy I bought cost $139). Entrepreneurs I admired swore by Ayn Rand so I read Atlas Shrugged, but even in my early twenties, I thought it was a bit ridiculous. Tim Ferriss loves Zorba the Greek, but it didn’t do it for me. But even in these books, I got something out of them. I got more out of them than I would have from most of the forgettable titles the New York Times was slating for review or whatever was tearing up the bestseller lists at the moment.

Socrates supposedly said that we should employ our time improving ourselves by other men’s writings, and that in doing so we can “come by easily what others have labored hard for.” Yes. That’s the point of literature — it is the accumulation of the painful lessons humans have learned by trial and error. For 5,000 years we’ve been recording this knowledge in books. The more hard knocks we can avoid by reading them, the better. (This quote, attributed to Mark Twain, says it well: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”)

Not only have we been creating books for thousands of years, but humans — particularly the smart and successful ones — have been reading them for just as long. We’ve been reading on cuneiform tablets, on scrolls, on books created out of stretched animal skins, and now on mass-produced paperbacks and via Audible. Over those centuries, there has been an incredible filtering mechanism working for us, finding and highlighting the books that contain the most wisdom.

That’s why I started asking people for the books that changed their lives. We should seek out the literature that has shaped the people we admire and respect — we can cut down even on the discovery costs of looking for those books. They’ve given us a shortcut to the treasure map.

Everybody seems to want a mentor. Meanwhile, they’re passing up the opportunity to learn directly from the people who taught the people you aspire to be. When someone like John McCain spends his whole life raving about For Whom The Bell Tolls, why would you not check it out? Clearly, it got him through some shit. Peter Thiel credits Rene Girard and Things Hidden Since the Foundation Of the World with shaping his worldview. Clearly, it’s made him some money — you’re not going to pick that up? Angela Merkel — Forbes’ number one most powerful women for 12 of the last 13 years — lists Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov as her favorite reads. Add them to the list!

We’re trying to filter the good stuff to the top — to upvote it — to make it even more readily available than it was in our own lives.

Every person you admire has influences. They didn’t come out of the womb the way they are now, and it wasn’t only lived experience that contributed to what they know or how they think. Right now, I am reading How The Classics Made Shakespeare… which is literally a book about all the books that taught the greatest playwright who ever lived.

Why not try to find these books? You’re just going to figure it all out on your own? You’re going to just pass on this opportunity for connection? (I’ll tell you, there is nothing people like hearing more than thoughtful questions about their favorite book or author.)

C’mon.

Send an email. Raise your hand and ask a question. Stop by office hours. Dig through old interviews.

Then…

Go to the library. Pull up Amazon and buy the cheapest used copy you can find. “Borrow it” from a friend.

Whatever it takes.

And after these books change you, as wells as other books you discover on your own, you have one important job: You have to pay it forward.

Because that’s what we’re trying to do here — we’re trying to help others learn from the wisdom of other’s experiences. We’re trying to filter the good stuff to the top — to upvote it — to make it even more readily available than it was in our own lives.

That’s why I keep my own list now, of books to base your life on. It’s why I run my reading list newsletter each month. And it’s why I’ll almost always stop, no matter how tired I am or how many emails I have in my inbox, to respond when people ask: What books changed your life? What do you think I should read?

Because it’s the most important question in the world.

* There are other versions of the question you can ask:

“What book do you wish you read earlier in life?”

“What book shaped your career as a _______ more than any other?”

“Is there a book out there that really changed your mind?”

“I’m dealing with ___________ right now; what authors would you recommend on that topic?”

What do you think?

#All #Books

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poetryofchrist · 6 years ago

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Has translation of the Bible into English reached its apogee?

Discussion of Alter's translations are not new in the blogosphere. Here is an early mention in the archives of the NY Times from 1996

Two independent translations -- from authors widely known in circles of literary and biblical scholars -- now appear among the spate of books about Genesis. Stephen Mitchell is a poet of religious sensibility who has previously adapted the Psalms and translated Job. Robert Alter is a professor of comparative literature whose studies of biblical narrative and poetry have become classics.

I have in the first half of February, reviewed in detail the symposium on Alter from the Jewish Review of Books. I know from my own writing history how I have agreed with Alter about his complaints. About soul, about recurrence, about the distractions from story that Biblical scholars have with specialization. It sounds as if he learned to walk before he ran. I did not. I am sure that many teachers of Hebrew that I have met would suggest that I be mute. It is a wise suggestion that I have ignored. I have been wondering how a translation should be judged. In my intense analysis this month (links below) what criteria do I use to judge a translation? And is it a sufficient list? Music: My first and consistent measure has been the music represented in the accentuation of the Hebrew text. (Don't be discouraged if you don't 'get' the accents. Just listen to the music.) Does this tie me too much to a Rabbinic interpretation? I can only say - which one? But Bob, there is no consensus on the key to the music that you are learning. Where are these signs in manuscripts prior to the 8th century? These are both true considerations, but the music convinces me by the transparency it gives to the text, whether I understand where the signs came from or not. I have not set my English underlay to the music for the entire Bible. If I had the time to do this, I know I would change some of my text to fit it better. So my work has not reached the apogee - nor has Alter's. Concord: My second measure, of equal importance, and always in competition with the music, is the requirement for concordance. I know exactly where my compromises are. I do not have enough information to judge Alter's but my initial investigations are not encouraging. A literary translation will take liberties that I would not consider justified. I made this provocative comment about Psalm 137 and Alter's use of recall.

remember or recall? As it happens, I don't ever use the gloss recall, but the resonance of remember will be lost if this is a variation for זכר, The Name itself is at stake here.

Why is the Name at stake? Because memory is directly associated with it. See Exodus 3:15. My rendering is: This is my name forever and this is my memorial to the generation of the generation. I did not use call here as NIV does, nor invoked as JB does. I don't know what Alter used. The word is זכר. It is used 378 times in TNK. 88 of those are for the gloss male as in male and female. Of the remaining 290, 1 is a name, 11 I have associated with archive, and all the rest are about memory. Suppose I admitted, with KJV, that I am invoking the idea of the Eucharist, this do in remembrance of me. Is that the intent of Torah? I am not saying I did that, but without respecting the word used, I could not draw that conclusion. And it is not implausible. Consider Deuteronomy 5:3 for instance. Remembering is of the essence of both Christianity and Judaism. In any case, the act of invocation, or calling is not in the same semantic domain, and the forcing of that sense on the text is not justified unless there is a clear homonym implied by usage. And there is not. Again - where is the apogee? Have we achieved it? I don't think so. So go easy on the hype. We need the comparative language studies that Alter downplayed to tell if our concordance is sensible, if possible. (We need the music more, but how many scholars and preachers also study music?) Given concordance, I think the English reader should have a greater advantage in seeing the patterns of recurrence evident in the Hebrew text. It is still not easy of course. Much of my criticism of what I have seen in Alter's translation has to do with concordance. I had 8 significant disagreements in 4 verses of Psalm 91. Do I have a third criterion? If I look at the rest of my posts in this two-week period, I see music only in Ruth. In discussing the Song, I concur with his recognition that foreignness is suitable for an old text. Familiarity makes us read without thinking. Also that a translation should not explain but report. And like him, I have avoided a lot of loaded words, not just soul as he has done, but punish, loving-kindness, atonement. There's a bunch of others. This uncovers a third criterion: a translation should not reinforce one religious framework over others. Have we reached the apogee? I doubt it. I do not neglect parallelism, but the music never conflicts with it, so it is rarely needed except for word choices as to whether one is looking at a synonymous or an antithetical parallel. This comes up here: Qohelet 12:5-8. I do not neglect story line. Job is a book that can be destroyed if a pro-religious framework is chosen and the friends are praised for their one-liners. If Alter does as Hart suggests and sees raw rage in chapters 29-31, I would be very disappointed indeed. Here I hope that the reviewer is speaking from his own ignorance. Then there is the problem of mistakes. I know I have mistakes I have not yet seen. And I have pointed out several of Alter's in the post on a snippet of Torah, missing words, missing other jots and tittles. Consistency: [Stir carefully at a rolling boil.] In the area of consistency, I have some control and still some trouble, because translation is a hard job, and a one-person translation both easier and harder. Anyway, Alter is not alone. John Hobbins and Samuel L. Bray have recently begun a new old translation, and at the same link is a review of The First Testament, a new translation by John Goldingay, and I have completed a translation which will appear in e-book form soon with hundreds of musical examples as illustration, and a full 2500 page glossary as well as an English Hebrew alphabet book, so you all can see a copy and be able to critique it. The whole canon that we have received is really rather remarkable. I sure wouldn't have bothered if I didn't think so. Audience: Adele Berlin is not effusive in her praise, but allows that dark might be a better choice than black in Song 1:5, 'for an American audience'. Clearly a translator must be clear on audience? Really. I am not so sure. And I certainly would not want to have influence only in one market for fear of reinforcing assumptions. I think my audience is sometimes for those who can no longer read in this life, my teachers from the '50s, and for those who can read, the biases I see in my culture. The Bible is a book that undermines and questions assumptions. A translation should retain the criticism that it was to its first hearers. In summary: music and concordance arm-wrestle. Religious framework bias has to be avoided, parallelism has to be considered, mistakes have to be corrected, consistency needs feedback from others, audience is of limited consideration. One last comparison, Psalm 23. Alter: In grass meadows He makes me lie down, / by quiet waters guides me. / My life He brings back. ... And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord / for many long days”

I have to agree with some of Alter's decisions here. My rendering has a few differences.

2 In verdant loveliness he makes me recline.

Psalm 23:2

By waters at rest he refreshes me.

3 My being he repairs. ...

6 Surely goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life,

and I will sit in the house of Yahweh for length of days.

Psalm 23:6, note how the final verse begins on a high recitation note (as does verse 4). This technique explicitly connects a verse to what precedes it.

recline רבץ to distinguish it from שׁכב, lie down. sit ישׁב, or settle, or inhabit. This was an early Psalm, probably as much as 10 years ago. (It is here - Nov 22, 2008. Funny, I used settle there, I wonder what made me change it.) ארך I rendered as length about 2/3 of the 157 times this stem occurs. I don't use long any more for that stem. I did 10 years ago. I would allow prolonged as an adjective. I.e. I doubt it is about long life. (Certainly not for ever which would involve עד or עלם.) Another potential post. I just noticed that Alter may not distinguish clearly the divine names, Lord, Yahweh, etc in Scripture. Issues with names abound. But addressing God is an important distinction from addressing a lord or master in another context. I wonder what his strategy is? Links referenced: More on the Song of Songs, A snippet of Isaiah, A snippet or two of Torah, Snippets of Job, Qohelet 12:5-8, The Song 8:13-14, Ruth 2:3-7, Psalm 91, Psalm 137:1.

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arheco-pro · 6 years ago

Text

No Remains but Oeuvres remain

Joyful memoirs on reading Kazuo Ishiguru

A selection of my own

The author of a book I first recall fully enjoying was awarded, today, the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kazuo Ishiguru in 2017.

"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world"

I came across his name on a book review published at the university's magazine. That was over twenty years ago. The book is still around; I saw it recently while collecting my childhood remains at my parents' house. All aside my current reading regarding Student-ran magazines devoted to collect, preserve and publishing the Oral Tradition heritage. Profitability is one of the main objectives to achieve in order to persist amassing General Knowledge and Historical Sources.

Oral Tradition heritage, as noun, is all knowledge that has been preserved and inherited on the continent today named after Amerigo Vespucci. In current theories it stands as grounds of Freedom to Gather. On public places the People gather to listen to each other and share meaningful advice. People speak like this on that first book I mentioned. By doing so I can clearly visualise how a dinning table should look elegant and appealing; I read it late at night on a chit-chat with the characters. It was barely lit and rather whispers. We liked it. Very much. Yes.

Hence, Gladness was my emotion as I watched the announcement. And here is, as well, a due homage to all nerdy typists: I posted his name as Kazuo Izziguru; I guess my Soul beat was expecting a name akin to Iggy Pop or a Guru alike. I corrected once noticed; the first post remains as a Timestamp.

The years about reading as much

By the times I read Ishiguro's work I starved for words. The hunger was maelstrom. Much more was the appeal to read than it was for typing. Handwriting has never stoped. Afterwards we all succumbed before the mighty word-processor. Later on the Text Editor confused all and empowered those who much read on the screen.

So set your memories & History recalls in the middle of the 1990's decade. Mine remind me of many bookshops I visited and shopped at all across the city. After such a point, I do not recall where did I acquire the book of his authorship.

Nevertheless, I remember the joy of closing it for the last time. Those were the Coffee Times as well. Very well mixed indeed. Such was the way of my delight; such is the way I am meant to be. So I am. The book tasted as words meant to be chewed with a slow pace; into another space and time sphere. For dreams and affirmations still wander my mind up to date; plenty of those aroused by paragraphs trapped on paper. Just as the last drop of coffee encourages you to pursue, finishing a book frees you to start living it at its full.

Neither can I remember how long I enjoyed carrying it around; the goal those days was to apprehend as many meaningful readings as possible, as long as the pace remained pleasurable. Such grounding principle remains. Even the author can attest how different was the way of waving Art with words back then. However, letting such beauty come alive into your universe can only abide by your own time. Then again, read as much as feasible.

The Paper Reign remains nowadays. Hence, by then, the amount of books to carry around remained a parameter worth bearing in mind all the time. I bet many of us match the book's volume with length of time meant to be carried on. This was a book to enjoy anywhere. And so it was. Passages and scenes alive remain, as fresh as they were on such days. And so will do the joy of listening the very first time this year's prize was being announced. It all fits in a book many will regard as a weekend-reading.

For the first time in my life I learned the news as they occurred, and it happened to be about an author I knew about; even better: I had read a book of my selection payed for with my own income. Such was the case with coffee. Plenty of pages studied about the Gourmet Tradition, along with sufficient experimentation and self-financial investment, had lead to pin in the map a vendor with the required quality of my delights. The mix became a habit which remains rather ritualistic.

Rite scenes rewind my memories as these words are on the type straight after such a warm delight with the sole intent of them to be. Be them then. Be now.

A lecture to slow down

First joy, then surprise. It was my first time watching the announcement on real time; broadcasted via the Internet. By the time I read Kazuo's book such an achievement remained a fiction for the long_to_wait_for future. But such a rush of excitement does not belong neither to his book, nor to this article. In much we celebrate the Art of words. Today's laureate wrote in such a manner capable of inspiring many of us.

In my appreciation his style is rather a Feasible Fiction. It might be happening right as you read. Stylish and harsh, as required; moods mingle with atmospheres which depict more the characters' psychology than their acts do. For their acts rather depict prevailing manias of a meaningful life. A reading to slow down provides space and time apt for healing and replenishment; both mentally and physically. In such a manner, words mean more than mere sentences arranged in a knowledgeable array, but in a flow of emotions and awareness. By then not so many books have kept my attention delighted. But it made sense.

Empathy was an overall state of mind I experienced while reading. At times I caught my mind on an internal dialogue with either any of the characters or with the author. Those were the Literate Nights as well; certainly on paper. Computers were rather expensive, so I typed at the University's Computer Center and handled my paper_notebooks by night. Mobile communications were not a hazard to focus as they are nowadays; it all was limited to TV, radio and your reachable surroundings. Still, typewriting was falling on a clear oblivion. Now fellow words complice, lets wave a wave out of here.

Does a good coffee deserves multiple slow sips or long hot swallows? Since caffeine has a long lasting effect plenty of tales expect a type to bring them into life. Back then no computer was available at home; that gave me time to write on paper quick notes in order to gain reading time and focus. By then music was the sole potential distractor; but my uncle's example was good advice. Classical music at a comfortable distance.

A rencounter in Prague

Years later I found again his books in Prague, certainly in English as well as in Czech. This is a country where people enjoy learning and using foreign languages. And books abound.

Once again I am blocked from remembering where another book by Ishiguro came to my hands. But beautiful memories from those years flash back. Many books and authors more were now wandering my mind, as well as a broader taste of topics and styles had been rearranged within my preferences. Still, the good taste prevailed. By means of gained privileges several conversations got shared via Internet with authors from diverse mother tongue and preferred style and format.

These were the years of mobile computing. These were the very first years of the century; and we all were proud owners of portable computing and communications devices. Many books were being published in digital formats meant to be read on a screen. Whereas many claimed the death of the book, paper consumption for printers connected to a personal computer rose. Literature survived. Poetry Bloom.

Many of us got wounded on the Digital Transition; one rule prevails: become an early adopter As Soon As Possible. Another one withstands alongside: never underestimate the language of your handwriting.

Hence I wrote, plenty of pages. I received pretty notebooks from different sources; some as personal gifts, other from Literary events. I always wrote down whatever I noticed, letting go away many words arriving either late, or early. Calmness, clarity and peace of mind. Plenty Poetry Poped Op. And notebooks got lost as well; or for good. Fate in a well.

Ishiguro was among the authors I read by then. Certainly a book from a local library. Nor do I recall having shared an interview with each other. However, having met and read many authors over there assures me the Joy of Today ignites from acknowledging the prize was awarded to the Fine Art of Waving Words into Literature. Such is my taste.

The Years about reading & broadcasting

And there most be a good reason to let this story linger; or at least it seems so. How long does it take to deliver words worth awards? For some Poetry may seem as painter traces. But perhaps it was a hidden word which kept the poem trapped away from a paper; it just happened to yield a delightful meaning.

That was certainly the Semantic Era. It means making sense of it all. It actually is about abiding by the Laws of Life. Maieutics, ironically, was my method of preference. By the end of each day I closed the eyes; I gave myself into another mystery of our existencial nature. Hence happiness floated amidst a valley of questions.

It was a radio show which lead me into Literary events; and some authors dared to step into the studio. By so I can attest that publishing words in printed version is an entire different Art domain. Take a pause and imagine the role of silence in radio. Keep the waves in silence until solitude haunts you.

Abruptly fade in sounds of wonder.

'Is silence an enjoyable factor around your reading?'

The Joy of Today assures us Ouvres remain to be waved and sewn onto Beautiful Hardcovers worth collecting.

Long Live those devoted to a form of Fine Word Arts. Long Reads & Thanks to Nicanor Parra; 103 years old active writer in 2017.

But today, Respectful Reader, you are reading words born a week after the prize was awarded; one week old are the main ideas on it. Just because a calmed editing session is worth it. Just because, ironically, I found several typos and grammatical misbehaviours across the Nobel Prize's official website. All in all I consider starkly important to calm down, pay attention to the world, and revalue Time as an inherent element of our Artistic Understanding of the Universe; Einstein did.

Hence, fresh and aged words here are left for a pleasurable reading. A session left to your entire delight: the flesh of occasion's excitement, glazed with the age of a long awaited proof-reading.

Please bare in mind there is plenty of information about the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature at the official Nobel Prize's webpage: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/

Dear Authors

These words were assembled the very same day this Nobel Prize was announced, originally published at. Publishing is even more important for the sake of Global Knowledge. Type and share.

#nobel prize #novel #Literature #laureate #Art

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