More on Cunt

Though the general sentiment (a perspective intended to empower women and unite us) is good, this borderline man-bashing is getting to me. Inga Muscio seems to imply that if you (Child of the Universe, Goddess incarnate) so much as go to a male gynecologist, you are somehow either not aware of the knowledgeable respect your body deserves, or else deeply mentally and emotionally subjugated. Sorry, no. Frankly, the only two gynecologists who have ever hurt me were women. (Of the other three, two were men.) One of these sensitive, intuitive women even intentionally lied to me about how much a certain procedure was going to hurt.

Further, that “men dearly love, cherish and respect women until death do us part as long as we’re [subservient to them]” is a bunch of bullshit. Humans of both genders are guilty of this, and neither gender possesses this mentality as a requisite. Part of the process by which I build my life is surrounding myself with people who will not treat me as an inferior.

I am glad to unite with other women for the purposes of support. There are indeed some things which my female friends understand much better than my male friends do. But to take as a unifying principle an unfounded battle against an entire gender is wholly unappealing. That’s not feminism.

On the other hand, the way she talks about the moon (who is my mistress, too) makes me melt. That’s empowering and beautiful, getting to know oneself in the context of the world around. Too bad that for Muscia, this world includes men only as a necessary evil.

It’s entirely possible that her position is not as extreme as I’m making it sound; but, seventy pages into the book, it seems disturbingly one-sided.

The story so far.

Did you know I’m road tripping? Talan and I took a couple of days to drive down to ACH/ALLC 2003. After it ends on Monday, we’ll drive on ’til Los Angeles. I’ll write up the conf itself later.

Blinky rocket, and poppies along the highway thirty by 120. Can’t pick or photograph because nowhere to stop — but a butterfly in the Smoky Mountains will vainly follow you up and down a mountain and pose for the camera. Thistles also, one in full bloom one just awakening, and three daisies twisting white petals into sign language. Two days later, with a mistaken press of a button, the brilliantly crisp flowers are gone, nothing to do but look for others to capture.

Stuck in a car together for hours on end, recipe for a nightmare? Miracle of, no. Ella Coltrane everything but the girl, postal service, David Matheson, Moloko. Darling Buds.

Half-comatose, and the passenger’s nodding off too. Stop at a gas station which sells corn dogs and “broasted” chicken and proudly announces its neighboring high school to be the “home of the fighting cocks.” Walk a mile and a third up a mountain, to see a waterfall and not fall off a cliff. Eat cheese and crackers and potato chips, and nod back at the Kinder Surprise toucan rocking on his perch on the dash board. Try not to get coffee from insta-Nescafe machines, and fail. Watch the sky get farther and farther away laterally, flattening you mentally until you’re belly-down like a snake. Except in a car, bless his mechanical soul, who’s running better than ever at 130K.

Mustafa, the kind Azerbaijani doctor of the sunniest disposition, hosts us in Roanoke. We eat fish and chukhurtma and drink beer and tea. We listen to Tom Waits, sleep in a deep quiet, and reminisce about old Russian movies in the morning.

Southern hospitality in Huntsville, Alabama comes in the form of a beautiful salad and chicken cordon bleu and great conversation and luscious bedding. All of this is provided by lovely people I’d never met live (though Stephen and I had known each other from ifMUD). Bisquits and sun and house finches in the morning, and we drive again. Six hours away, Georgia is practically next door.

Sudden sun! South!

Athens has an Espresso Royale Cafe, I purchase an iced mocha and write this. Then I purchase an espresso with whipped cream, and stir a packet of raw sugar into it. Besides Talan, there are three people in here, plus the invisible cashier counting out coins. Duran Duran and Blondie and Tears For Fears and bitter stretchy time. Two hours last forever on this day off from the conference, when most others are on a plantation excursion and we take off our name badges, blending into the surroundings. Blue sky and red brick out the window, and a whites-on-black painting of a naked boy on the cafe wall.

Off I go to read Cunt a bit. Colleen lent it to me before I left, thinking I might enjoy it. It’s an interesting read, intentionally horrifying in some places and suspiciously us-vs.-them about men in others; but mostly sensitive and passionate and tenderly, intensely true.

[…]

Here’s a passage from Cunt that reflects my thoughts not merely in general, but specifically with regard to the [in]effectiveness of the anti-war demonstration in Boston a couple of months ago.

[T]he fight for human rights does not take place on some bureaucratic battleground with a bevy of lawyers running from congressional suite to congressional suite, sapping resources into laws. The war for peace and love and other nice things like that is not waged in protests on the street. These forms of fighting are a reaction to oppression, giving destructive power that much more energy. The real fight for human rights is inside each and every individual on this earth.

Reading things like this re-affirms my lack of desire to go shout on the streets. That’s ineffective. I cannot change the entire world, so I build my community and educate my children and learn from the people I admire. There’s an awful lot of those people here at the conference. I’ll write more about them later; meanwhile, I will just tingle in my spine and grin like a fool.

Matrix Reloaded: The Article.

If you’ve already seen the movie, this is pretty interesting. If you haven’t, it will make little sense and spoil the movie.

eventful day in the life of

My dear friend and colleague, medievalist extraordinaire Guyda Armstrong had a baby! Happy news, this, and a hyooge kid too: 11lbs 8oz. I wonder if it’d be okay for me to put up a link to the photos: Guyda, Jon and little Ishmael are awfully cool people.

(Yes, even the kid. I knew him when he was a bean.)

A sadder event is Noah’s imminent departure for Australia and the world. Hopefully there will be fun, and few deadlines, along his way.

audio from e(X)literature

I didn’t go to this conference, organized by the Electronic Literature Organization and/around its Preservation, Archiving and Dissemination committee. So it’s really great they put up what looks like all of the audio from the sessions!

sketchy thoughts on materiality

I wrote a paper… a first draft, anyway, in part prompted by this post on Matthew Kirschenbaum’s Web log (and also the discussion that prompted Matt’s post). The paper’s called Three Short Case Studies on Materiality in New Media and can be found here. I’d like to flesh it out more over the summer, and would love feedback! (As long as it’s, you know. Constructive.)

I guess, if I were to write a one-thought synopsis of what I’m trying to get at, it would be: materiality, by whatever name, does matter in new media. Considered on a case-by-electronic-case basis, it can be revealing of our (humans’? Western humans’?) interaction with language and art in general.

Hooray!

I am glad that Anders is blogging again. I met him when he was here a couple of years ago doing some work as a visiting scholar. He has some interesting things to say on the rhetoric of/in new media.

Well.

Looks like I passed my prelims.

I’m now ABD - All But Dissertation.

Wicked!

Untitled.

This is a repeating cycle in my life: I make myself a one-person support network for others, regardless of whether they’d ever think of doing the same for me.

It’s partly a problem with my own expectations of the surrounding world, but really. I’ve got to stop putting energy into situations like this with people who, as a rule, show no interest in me on their own initiative.

Partly this is surely stress talking, but another part is this perception I’ve been trying to articulate for years. If it seems to me that I could do something to make others’ life easier, I do it, for the most part without thinking much about being inconvenienced. My innate assumption is that others think that way too, in general as well as specifically with regard to me; except they don’t. It’s not their fault, it just doesn’t occur to them, but it hurts me because I do not separate tasks from people. I keep putting myself in situations where I wait for someone to remember my existence, and one of two things happens: either they do remember and I am really, genuinely thankful (even if I did them a favor in the first place), or they never do remember and I feel somehow left out.

My god, I’d kick so much ass as an administrator. But I’m nobody’s administrator, even if I do act sometimes as though I were.

Here’s the thing that makes me most bitter: I wouldn’t mind being support girl. That’s what people do, right? Wrong: in my experience, this sort of attitude is not reciprocal.

(There are individual exceptions, of course. I’m talking in ranty generalities, here.)

Mm. I’ll get in trouble for this, but here goes: I perceive this… I don’t know, lack-of-thoughtfulness? oblivion? to be more prevalent in the U.S. than elsewhere I’ve lived. “Elsewhere” being USSR, Italy, Britain, so I feel that I’m not completely talking out of thin air here.

“Yeah, well, you’re in the States now, so deal.”

Yeah, well, I am not blaming anyone in particular, and will leave this country first chance I get anyway.

The easiest answer is, well, you owe nothing to people. Stop volunteering your energy. The fundamental flaw I see with that argument is that it is devolution. So, most likely, I’ll continue doing what feels good and right to me, and continue to be disappointed.

I’m so tired of being disappointed.