Not Anonymous

*Deep breath*

Hi guys.

It has been... a long summer. Putting it mildly.

A lot has happened and in fact not that much at all.

But the main thing that happened to me today was that I handed in my final papers and I have officially finished all the academic obligations for my BA in Literary Theory and Women & Gender studies.

Four years.

I can't believe it's been four years. How does that happen?

Soon, I'll be starting the Library Science program at a different university and I'll be going flat "shopping" with my future room mate who is going to be studying along with me.

I am so sleep deprived, I have no idea if any of the above is even coherent.

Suffice to say, I'm back after a summer of way too much on my plate and I'm here to stay.

I hope you all find a reason to stay as well.

Thank you for sticking around.

<3

Well, not really. Just, second day of the Semester and I wonder if I'm going to make it.

I managed to create, without meaning to, a Sunday course schedule in which I have seminar called "Hysteria and Paranoia in the 19th century novel", followed by a course named "The Poetics of Trauma" and I finish off with "Between the Tragic and the Tragedy: A critical theory".

Totally unintentional I swear.

Hilarious, I know.

Once again, my past academic failings have come back to haunt me and I'm taking intro to Sociology and woe I am to read "The Communist Manifesto", again. And Emil Durkheim, again.
I do, however, have the same TA I had last year for Anthropology and that makes me happy as I really enjoyed his exercises.

Tomorrow should be more relaxed, still, an 8:30 class *headdesk*

I met up with roga yesterday and today and I had really fun talking to her, I may sign up for Yuletide.

Speaking of fannishness!

Two creative women on my f-list, rm who I have been reading for a while now and mithrigil who I've started reading recently, are making a musical!
And we get to help them!
You can do so by going to the Kickstarter page of Dogboy and Justine, a new musical about life, love and head injuries.

I'm super excited about this project, because I love off-beat musical theatre and I have a yen for stories of marginalised bodies and sexualities, so when you have a show about dominatrices and nueroatypical brains and minds, this gets the thumbs up.

Not to mention that it's by two women about women.

It's awesome!

rm commented and added a few details about the project, FYI:

In case your readers are curious, the show is 5W, 3M in its current configuration. All the women except one may be cast as any age/race/ethnicity/size (the other has to fit with one of the male characters a certain way). I would also be happy to cast transwomen in any of the roles, and we are also open to women living with disabilities -- although some would fit with the nature of the characters better than others and would not be a plot point.

The 3M may also be cast any any race/ethnicity/size, although age is a specific factor in the casting for at least two of them. While we don't know if it will be possible, we're open to casting neurologically atypical character with a actor living with a relevant disability.

And we have a lesbian romance b-plot!

It's a really affirming show that totally isn't about equality, but because of its setting, lets us really try to provide opportunities for actors who aren't always easy to cast in mainstream theater. The catch? We're determined to make this relatively mainstream theater, without compromise, because we believe that people want to see people like themselves on stage.

I didn't write about my birthday, which was awesome! Let me just say that Simon and Garfunkel tribute duos are a whole lot of fun. 400+ stodgy audience members who don't sing along to the "La la lai" part of "The Boxer" suck.
Seriously, I was singing the loudest there and was the youngest adult by far.

My mother and I sang a duet during "Homeward Bound", because no one else was singing.

But it was lovely. We had a picnic in the park, it was the entire fam - siblings, sibs-in-law, the "babies" (none of them are by now), parental units and little ole' me.

25 years.

Geez Luiz.

I got prezzies too :) none of which are of great interest. Though I shall talk about some of them at a later date as they are fandom related... I think. Pictures of the abstract TARDIS cake forthcoming.

My mother made a cake as well... it was eaten. Quickly and with relish.

It was a good weekend.

Ack!

My paper on Slash and Porn is due on Sunday and it is not done! It's been a few busy days and I'm really going to be pushing the coming couple of days. OMG!
OMG!
OMG!
Going to write now. Will probably write a whole bunch tomorrow and do the final push Wednesday to send it off for proof reading and hopefully to make sure I don't sound like a total idiot!
AHHHHHHHHHHHH

Relax.
Mel.
You can do this. You write about this stuff all the time.

*deep breaths*
.
.
.
*hyper ventilates*

*sigh*

Going to write.

I haven't seen Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes yet, and I fully intend to.

As those of us who follow the media and enjoy movies know, there's been a huge amount of talk and play regarding the more homoerotic facets of the new movie.

I've only seen the trailers, and even there, despite Ms. Adler's fetching lingerie, the Slash Factor between Holmes and Watson is apparent.

RDJ and Jude Law have been playing up on that for promotional reasons.
It wouldn't surprise me if either of these men were queer, but for convenience sake and because Hollywood is a conservative corporate town, chose not to disclose this and had public heterosexual relationships.
Hollywood is not conductive for being out of the closet.

That's beside the point.

The point is, that slash is a way of interpreting text. Finding homoeroticism is the original Doyle books is so easy - Watson being divorced (or widowed) twice, Holmes not actually even appearing to be in a relationship, Ms. Adler being possibly the only woman that misogynist (if you contradict this by saying that Holmes is a misanthrope, I will be annoyed, if he were really such a misanthrope, he wouldn't tolerate Watson as much as he does... besides which, misanthropes are not immune to societal misogyny) considered intelligent enough to find human and interesting.

I hear Carole Nelson Douglas Irene Adler stories are worth reading, is this true?

Back to my point. Not every interpretation of the text is a good one, you have to be able to create a cohesive and essentially un-contradictory (in- ?) analysis and give good, clear examples and indications from the text that what you say is indeed supported by the words, images, metaphors, Synecdoche, etc.

I apologise for the Literary Lingo, there's more of it coming, please don't hold it against me! Thanks.

The Queering of Sherlock Holmes is about as out there, as Queering Star Trek, that is, it's bloody easy and people do it.
A lot.

But again, it's a reading that does travels along the weaving of the plot and focuses on the relationship between the two men, or rather, on the fact that Watson's admiration of Holmes has an erotic edge to it.

In the movie, which I have yet to see, because it isn't in fact the story as seen through Watson's eyes, but an action adventure movie in which we, the audience is sucked in via diegesis that we are shown and not told, which makes the queering both easier to see and easier to refute.
Why?
Because while there is a revealed text (i.e. what we see on the surface, the text itself) there is also subtext which contains hidden meanings which are more subtly revealed via interaction with the reader and the narrative as it goes along.

There is a reason why slashers call "Subtext", "Buttsex" (anagrams are teh awesome).

Thus, when Andrea Plunket who claims to hold the remaining US copyrights of Doyl'es estate is quoted:

"I hope this is just an example of Mr. Downey's black sense of humor. It would be drastic, but I would withdraw permission for more films to be made if they feel that is a theme they wish to bring out in the future." She then added, "I am not hostile to homosexuals, but I am to anyone who is not true to the spirit of the books."

Emphasis mine.
Regarding RDJ's antics regarding the more-or-less obvious (I'll let you know when I see it) homoeroticism between Holmes and Watson, I call foul.
Foul, I say!
Because who the fuck are you, Ms. Plucket, to say what is and what isn't in "the spirit of the books"?
Being that, a) it's a movie! b) it's based on the books and isn't in fact telling a story Doyle wrote and c) there isn't, in fact, anything wrong with Watson and/or Holmes being Gay *gasp* Together!

Oh, and when you use the term "Homosexuals" when talking about gay and/or queer folk, it sounds as though you think we're sick, because that's the psychiatric term when speaking about the identity of many an LGBT.
It's also the term used by right wing conservatives who do their best to misname us as a group, under the guise of neutrality: "But you are attracted to your own sex, so you're homosexual".

So, yeah Ms. Plunket, it actually sounds like you kind of are hostile to the Homosexuals, deviant text manipulators that we are. The mere fact that you felt the need to defend your position pretty much gives away your homophobic ass.

Hopefully, I'll get to see both Sherlock Holmes (and Avatar) over the coming weeks.

Edited To Add: I now want an icon that says "Deviant Textual Manipulator". Alas, I have no skillz!

One of my favourite courses in Uni this year is Intro to Queer Theory.
It's taught by Amalia Ziv, which I've mentioned on this blog before in various contexts, mainly to fangrrl, because she's a queer academic icon [dykon].

One of the requirements of the class is to write and hand in commentary on at least three articles that we are reading throughout the Semester.
I took my time writing these commentaries, because I wasn't sure what to expect from the class and I wanted to see how I managed in the actual class discussions.
I do very well, by the way, if I may brag for just a second. I'm a participant, I always find myself saying something, or responding to something someone else has said.
Amalia knows my name and looks at me when there's a lull in a discussion.
It is quite awesome.

The article I wrote a commentary for is "Oral History and the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Community: Buffalo, New York, 1940-1960" by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy.

A large portion of the article is detailing the unique historiography of the pre-Gay Liberation Lesbian Community, especially the Bar Scene and the Butch-Femme dynamic within the community.
Butch-Femme relationships were the norm of that time and place and what's really great is that all the information comes straight from the women who were a part of that community - hence oral history.

What's really interesting is that the Butch-Femme dynamic (as presented in the article) is part of a working-class community. That the social norms formed the sexual practice of Butch/Femme sexuality.
I'm not sure what my own view on gender are, other than the fact that it is a socially constructed category and that there are many facets and ranges on the various gender expressions. So when I first encountered the idea of Butch/Femme, which is arguably the most known Lesbian stereotype found in various mainstream ideas about how Lesbians behave, I was sure what it was just that.
A stereotype.
The realisation that I was mistaken came long before reading this article (well, not too long, but enough time to not be completely floored by what was written in the article), that Butch and Femme identities weren't just Lesbian women who took on specific roles that replicated Straight ones - I mean, that's such a reduction of the dynamics and relationships!

I'm a bit ashamed of myself for ever thinking that sort of thing.

I think what impressed me the most is the parallel development of this specific Lesbian community in the 1940's and 1950's with mainstream culture. I mean, it's well known that during WW2 women found themselves working and supporting themselves without men. It's really not too far fetched to imagine some of them making the most of this period of time to explore other avenues of sexuality. The War is not mentioned explicitly in the article, though I think it was certainly a factor.
In the 1950's the whole Domestic Goddess ideal and being supportive for the husband. Not to mention that it was probably the most sexually repressed time since the Victorians.
While Straight society was doing their best to have sex for reproductive purposes (this of course merely the ideal of what went on - Kinsey showed things to be quite different) the Lesbian community was all about experimenting with sexuality.
The Lesbian scene was actually an arena of openness and expression.

What really impressed me in the article was the sexual mentor role that Femmes played in the 1940's and how it expanded in the 1950's to older Butches teaching younger Butches proper sexual etiquette.

I think that's something that's really missing from our current modern society.
We're expected to get into bed with a partner and "know" them by virtue of being human - "let nature take its course" - but that that's such bullshit.
I mean, sex is something we have to learn, some part are intuitive, but certainly not all.
I mean, why is intercourse still considered the be all and end all of "proper" sex still, when for half the population (women), having a piece of flesh pressing inside them isn't the highlight.

I think if the conflation between love/sex were actually culturally separated it would be easier for people to find people to teach them how to gain pleasure from their bodies and create pleasure for another.
Basically, if the perception wasn't that people are for gaining sexual gratification, but rather than it is gratifying to be sexual with other people, maybe sex in Western culture wouldn't be so fucked up.

And Lesbian sex would actually be regarded as sex and not, you know, an empty space waiting for a cock.

That ended on a rant didn't it...

Still worth thinking about.

---

Oh!
And have a...
Happy Hannukah!
Merry Yule!
And may this long Solstice Night pass quickly and may the days be lengthy.

Ahhhh-Mennnnnnnn!

( Light My Candle )

My tolerance for people has never been particularly high. I'm very picky about the people I'm willing to be friends with and I unfortunately tend to form strong opinions very quickly, so if someone said, done or have an attitude that grates me... I'm afraid it would take a hell of a lot to make me consider that someone worth any kind of positivity from me.

The one kind of attitude I can't fucking stand, really, it pisses me off beyond grating, is the "I'm so speshul" attitude.

A small disclaimer; I have my own incidences in which I'm completely narcissistic and think I'm the best thing that ever happened. This is a normal thing for people who know they're smart, I think.
But when [editorial] you are only saying something in a class discussion that isn't in aid of putting forth a standpoint, but in fact to put yourself in the spot light, you're an ass.
No, really.
You are.
I'm sorry I'm being vague, but I dislike demonizing particular people on the Internet, especially since I'm not locking this post as it's actually something worth talking about.

In a class forum, especially in a class in which sexuality and gender identity is on the table (it being a Queer Theory class), your own individual personal sexuality isn't what's being discussed.
It's one thing and a very good thing, to say out loud, that the discussion is excluding certain sexualities and identities (e.g. bisexuality and genderqueer). It's another to say that it affects you personally.
No, sorry, that's someone with an attitude problem.
And I may sound harsh, but I cannot stand it when people decide to use a class forum to show off their "spedhulness".
It's neither the time nor the place.
You want to talk about your own sexuality, there are breaks and after-class discussions. I mean, c'mon, we're a bunch of intellectual queers... this is what we do.
It rubs me the wrong way.
I (try to) participate in classes. I have things to say. I try to make them a standpoint and not a "personal opinion" or a "personal issue" mainly because, every word I say is ideological and very obviously a "personal" thing, unless I'm very specifically playing Devil's Advocate - but that's a whole different kettle of fish (where does that saying come from).

There are certain types of "speshul" people.
Not just the type described above.

There's also the type that feels the need to tell you, that because they like something in a certain way, then liking that same something in a different way is wrong.
For example, I was talking to this person about Alan Moore and how I'm really pre-supposed to hating the new "Watchmen" movie, mainly because I hate, despise Zack Snyder.
Hate. That. Director.
A lot.
Aesthetics mean a lot... but not enough to cover up the badness and complete lack of directorial abilities.
But I digress.
Any way, this person totally agrees and inside I'm all "yay, Moore fan!" and then he says "I really hated the Vendetta movie as well".
And I was like "What? How come? I mean, it was a very cute adaptation? Wachowski Sibs!"
He goes: "It completely butchered the meaning of the book, which is one of the few works that managed to show Anarchy as interesting".
(I refrain from bringing up "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin).
I say: "I enjoyed it and..." before I can finish my thought about the movie making it's own statement about freedom, government and other things like that, he interrupts and says:
"I guess I'm more of a political hard-liner than you"

What is with people?
Seriously?
Do you know me? I think not. I'll tell you something, I now know this guy a hell of a lot better now than before and I hope the hostility I transmit reaches him loud and clear.

People are people, I know.
And I can understand how misanthropy develops and becomes ones default position when it comes to interaction with others.
I really hope I retain my love for humanity for a little bit longer, despite the fact that I'm encountering these characters.

Yeah I slept for four hours.
What of it?

As stated before, at least I finished that bloody paper and won't have to pull a White Night (an all nighter) again.
I'm not optimistic enough to think that this will be my last White Night... though it is my last in this particular course, which I will hopefully pass without too much humiliation.

With an exam in the same course in which I wrote the aforementioned paper on Wednesday and actual formal exam season starting in two weeks, my stress is up, though not as much as you'd think.
Staying up all night and going to sleep at dawn tends to mellow you out.

In any event, have a ( GIF )

Because of the holiday I had a very long weekend in which I managed to actually meet friends, earn some money, write a short paper for Lit. (about Foucault, don't tell me that takes five minutes, because I will have to kill you).

There's a lot in the News about stuff that may or may not go on in Gaza, which is worrying, because that means a whole lot of dead people.
Always a negative.
A positive is that the Shalit family have received a letter.

Another plus is that Hamas and Fatah are communicating. Yes, actual communication between the Palestinian factions which makes me feel optimistic, though again, my cynicism is getting the best of me and I have the feeling they're just doing it for show in order to try and get more sympathy from governments while leaving the actual people to rot in Gaza and the West Bank.

Leadership in these parts is quite nauseating.

I was discussing with a friend of mine who we were going to vote for in the elections, which have yet to be confirmed, but with the way things are looking it's not a long shot that Israel will be having elections not too long after good ole Uncle Sam.

Who are my options do I hear you ask; well it looks like every time I think about I can't help but shudder. The only person I wouldn't "mind" so to speak, out of the big three (Netanyahu, Barak and Livni) is Livni. I would never vote for Kadimah as it lacks any kind of moral or social fiber and stands on a platform of "security".

Axing the top three of Labour *snort*, Likud *vomit* and Kadimah *aforementioned above*, I'm left with Meretz (social-democrats), Hadash (communists) and the Green party (yes, the environmentalists).
I'm leaning towards the greens, as they've yet to get any seat in the Knesset and haven't been corrupted beyond recognition.

Ach, this is very frustrating!

I think I need to go back to Foucault and read about how as a Subject my identity is established by language and that if I'm not in the discourse I cease to exist.
Neato!

Ah, Uni.
I love Uni.

My fave course is probably, and funnily enough, the Feminism and Law course.
The lecturer is political and angry.
I love that.
She gave us a quick overview of the different kinds of feminism we'll be using in order to interpret a law and the feminist issues surrounding certain laws in Israel and what its societal affect is.
So cool!
One of the articles I'm reading at the moment, and taking a break from, is about "Honour" Killings in the Arab/Palestinian sector is Israel.
Can I just say the injustice if fucking infuriating!
Another article is about the clashes of different kinds of feminism in Israel - like the The Israel Womens Network and the anti-militarism organisations, like New Profile.
Fascinating I tell you.

The Lit. classes are getting a more interesting and they're still intros and I think they will only get interesting next year when I'm done learning what the tools are and actually use them in a way I find interesting.
So, less fascinating so far, but we'll be talking about Marxism and social atmosphere as a way to interpret a text in front of us, and not just look at the way it looks or structured "physically" - like in Formalism (bleh).
Okay, so it is a little fascinating.

Did I mention I love Uni?!

Yay, Mummy's coming home tomorrow!
Just in time for her to go back to school and teach.
Poor Mummy, won't even have time to get over the Jet Lag.
But at least she'll be home and I'll be seeing her for a significant amount of time and not a few weeks at a time, since this summer have been fractured when it came to us being at home together, what with all the traveling we both did.

But tomorrow she'll be home.
Which is lovely.

morin came over today to help me stop freaking out about my University schedule, which I'm glad to say is under control.
Seeing as morin studied the Lit. half of my double major (Lit. and Gender) she helped me understand what goes where, what (in her opinion) were good courses, and I could thus figure out how to arrange the courses I want.
Monday I'm going to a course consultant who should help me with tweaking my hours.

Soon I'm going to be a student.

Wow.

It's a bit overwhelming, seeing as this is the first time I really have no idea what's going to happen next. I mean for all I know I could end up hating Lit. or Gender, or GDess forbid both.

Gah! No that is too horrible to think about, so I won't be.

But really, this is the first time where no one is handing me off to my next station in life, since after Junio High, came High School, after High School immediately came the Army and I knew that after the Army I'd be off to America (since the family and I discussed this) and I knew I'd be taking these two years off so that I could live outside a structured environment and actually do what I like.
Theses past two years were nothing like I imagined they'd be, but c'est la vie, you gotta roll with the punches and all that shit.
So now I'm going back into this frame of study, for myself, what I want, in order to get a degree.

How lovely.

In addition, the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.

וכמו כן, צריך לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.