A poetics of desire

I dreamt that I reviewed David Lynch's new book on my blog, so here goes.

Already in Inland Empire Lynch has given us an unnervingly female perspective into a disturbed female psyche. Inland Empire's psychodrama takes us on a truly terrifying but ultimately redemptive wander through the mind of a traumatised prostitute. In his latest book he takes us the other way, instead of exploring woman via woman he explores woman via man. The work turns the premise of Inland Empire on it's head and offers us a distorted, mythologised view of what it is to be a woman.

The poetry of feminine fear and desire that traverses the contours of Inland Empire is transformed into a perverse construction of female desire. The story is a simple one, a female assassin is driven to shoot and kill her husband. Unwilling to get caught she goes on a killing spree, shooting anyone who gets in her way, until she befriends a pensioner (not unlike Alvin Straight) who conceals her in his retirement home where they hide from the authorities.

The book portrays a female forced into a Tarantino-esque role which she is increasingly uncomfortable with. In a bid to uphold the figure of adolescent male desire the narrator has her perform acts which he (for surely the narrator is a he) wishes, while the character tries to slip from the narrator's restraints. In scenes not unreminiscent to Mallick's Badlands she is forced to kill again and again when the narrator puts characters in her way which she is forced to escape from. It is when she is hidden by the pensioner that we find Lynch's own voice. The female escapes the grasp of the narrator and the oppression of his desire, to find a place of solitude where Lynchian themes abound.

Throughout the work runs the play of the double narrative that constantly tries to elude the reader. On the one hand a chase occurs where the protagonist is chased by the authorities for killing her husband, on the other the protagonist is chased by a narrator who wishes to place the constraints of his own desire upon her. We discover that it is not the authorities that we want her to escape, but the pomo world of male oppression and "playfulness" where men create women from their own fantasies.

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catharsis

Having broken with thought I'm once again free to think.

Books for sale

More to come soon.

GBx

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Taking the bait

Women can't be friends under capitalism?

I doubt that's true, in fact I have absolute certainty that it is not. I think Nina's statement needs to be ammended to include the phrase "if she ascribes to the tenets of capitalism". Undoubtedly there are some elements of truth to Nina's post (as there are in all parodies) but quite a lot of it is likely nonsensical to the women I know. (Still.... as a female who knows Nina... I wonder if she bitches about me or wants to fuck me).

In any case, why all of this concentration about what is so bad about women? There is an inherent danger in thinking in this way, especially when we are aware of the absolute pervasiveness of capitalism:

If the structures of capitalism are everywhere;

And the structures of capitalism make women hate eachother;

Then all women must hate each other.

Crap logic (never studied it) but evidently true if that is all one concentrates on. If one concentrates upon the problems between a few women then one is liable to ascribe it to all women. The women I know who think that women hate each other, or hate women, are those who are always talking about hating women, or the problems of hating other women, or how they wish they "could find another woman that they liked". Those who are always talking about the problems of competing with other women, who set themselves off against other women instead of other men - boring since who's really 100% male or 100% female?(... surely its preferrable to set up ones adversaries philosophically, or ideologically, or politically, or even economically).

As a woman who is very much surrounded by capitalism (I like shoes, shopping, shit tv and every so often fall for advertising) I don't hate women. I like women.... probably more than I like men. Although this is a delicate balance... I like more men than I do women, but the women I like I love fiercely and far more intensely. Why? Probably because men can't be likeable under capitalism. Another sweeping generalisation, but why not make it? Whereas women must be bitched about or fucked, men must be pitied or despised. Pitied because capitalism has bred them to be so neurotic that they are unable to ever look beyond their own subjectivity. They crave the gaze of the other, but it's only ever actually the gaze of themselves-as-other. And despised.... because they're aggressive, violent, competitive, threatening and misogynistic.

When it comes down to it, it's probably a problem of philosophy. Having spent the past years in academia in a philosopy department I have come to realise that the chances of me making many female friends in Philosophy is unlikely (I have 3, I think) whereas I have loads of male friends. Years and years surrounded by men (theory men, no less) is bound to make one think that men = good, safe, nice, talk about theory; women = bad, threatening, nasty, talk about shoes. Afterall, what females do we encounter in mass media but bitches, girly girls, the occasional wacky "intellectual", & competitive corporate types. (Sex & the City, Desparate Housewives, Ally McBeal, The O.C., Mean Girls, Working Girl - Whoever thinks all women are like that needs a lobotomy).

I like being a woman, and not only because we have better orgasms. Men are crap.

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The inability to start....

I'm having trouble writing in my blog again. I presume this is because I said that I would do it. When I don't feel that I have to write in my blog I think of lots of things that I want to write about, I even plan what I'm going to say. But when I am meant to be writing in my blog I'm unable to write anything down. Now I'm stuck - I have things that I want to write about but am unable to write.

Anyone know of a remedy for this affliction?

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fin

Now that the MA is finished I promised myself that I would return to the blogosphere. Recently I've had ideas for things that I want to write but then have prevented myself from doing it as I would only write something and then leave it for months again. So I've been storing up some ideas of things to write about - some stuff about food, some stuff about sex, some stuff about nintendo.... all things that I like. In the meantime I should start with a brief update:

I have finished my MA - wrote on Hegel, Levinas, Deleuze, Kobo Abe, and Nietzsche. Then I wrote my dissertation on Spinoza and freedom (the choice of topic resulted from a conversation with IT at the kaptain's birthday party). Since I finished I've gotten a job doing admin until I decide what I want to do.

In the meantime I plan on reading, eating nice food, playing my games, writing in my blog and being lazy.

I'm pleased to see that bacteriagrrrrrl has finally made a blog and that johneffay has returned. It's probably a good time to be blogging....

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Having now knocked Nicholas Cage from the top spot in glueboot's most hated person list...

Via dissensus

I hate b*&$, I hate him so much. I hate him more than I can ever possibly articulate. Normally it takes a lot to rub me up the wrong way but even mention of his name makes me grind my teeth. Why are people stupid? Why do people like him? I hope the backlash comes soon and I hope that its huge.

jfdklkhgfjdhgkjdnvmdfnvfdjkngnkldjfklsfsjkdlkfowrjgiornvmxc

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mike L engages in the "chav mentality"

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Springtime for glueboot

After a few weeks of turmoil (conferences, arguments, anger, disappointment) I'm feeling very springtimey. This may be to do with the weather, I'm sure that I suffer from SDD (although that could be yet another excuse for my erratic moods) but it may also be because I'm visualising a one way train away from the hellhole that was once a wonderful place to study philosophy. YAY! No more folk-psychology fuckwits for me!

Also, the ex-Mr P-O has been indoctrinating me into music that I have been turning my nose up at for the past few years. So I've been bouncing about the park listening to Psychic TV and Coil on my mp3 player. I feel like I should write something about it but it's far too affective for me to possibly write something so instead I have posted a picture of a bunny rabbit with an evil flower sticking out of it's arse.

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Scientology Speaks

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It's a meme!

It's been a while but I've been tagged by smokewriting. Actually, I've had this as a draft for about a week as I'm not sure if I know all of the answers.

Seven Things to do before I die

- dye my hair blonde
- get the PhD
- own a smokey bar with a jazz-man playing piano in the corner and a place for me to read and smoke
- finish Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
- learn to cook Baked Alaska (or Norweigan Omelette, as it's also called)
- become more rational
- various unmentionables, not suitable for public consumption

Seven things I cannot do

- sing
- maintain concentration in a lecture for more than about 20 minutes
- drive
- fly
- understand formal logic
- drink Belgian beer
- digest food propely

Seven things that attract me to...

- I'm not sure as to how to respond to this, I am rarely attracted to anything beyond my own face in a mirror and this cannot be quantified

Seven things I say

- Fuck You
- Fucking Idiots
- Can I pay by card?
- Heidegger's philosophy is undoubtedly tied in with the edicts of National Socialism (often abbreviated to: Heidegger's a cunt)
- I don't understand....
- .......
- ........

Seven books that I've loved

- Kobo Abe - The Box Man
- Spinoza - Ethics
- Deleuze and Guattari - Anti-Oedipus
- Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
- Murakami - The Wind-up Bird Chronicles
- Bataille - Inner Experience
- Heidegger - Being and Time (rather embarrassingly)

There are many more but I'll stick to 7.

Seven movies That I've Loved

I'm a bit useless when it comes to films but I can try

- Tarkovsky - Stalker
- Svankmajer - Faust
- Lynch - Twin Peaks (perhaps not technically a movie but better than most)
- Dunno who - Zoolander
- Anderson - The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
- Scorsese - The King of Comedy
- The Sopranos - also not a movie but I've just watched all 5 seasons and it's great

Seven People to Tag

- Catherine @ &so; this is christmas
- joneffay @ sweet effay
- dogmat @ dogmat
- Glen @ Disambiguation
- Tim @ Wrong side...
- Anyone else who can be arsed

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