Get outta here!

So the latest news is: A woman gave birth to octuplets in California (octuplets, funniest word ever. When those kids are grown up, they must found a music formation or something like that; and I'll be their manager. I can just picture it: Starring tonight - The singing octuplets). In any case, to get back to my story: So far, so stupid. I mean - dah! - hormonal therapy and IVF obviously make a lot of things possible these days.

But, believe it or not, apparently mommy wants to breastfeed all her darlings. Bloody hell! You must be kidding me, woman, breastfeeding eight babies? Pause, you who read this, and think for a minute how long it takes to breastfeed eight - ocho, acht, huit, otto, in numbers: 8 - babies. If you ask me, by the time you're done with the last one, you can start all over again. I have an advise for that lady: I read The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter again the other day, and the godlike Mother of Beulah has surgically applied to herself the breasts some of her followers donated. So, super-mom, use plastic surgery and turn yourself into the first human with eight breasts.

Makes you wonder though. People sneer at transsexuals for wanting to change sex, by the use of hormones, among other things. But apparently no one has a problem with the fact that a woman is turned into a human milking machine.

10 things I hate about you

You know what really annoys me? People who are non committal. I'm not talking about amorous relationships here, I'm talking about friendship. Like when I say I'll call you, I call you; and if I don't intend to do it, then I don't say I will. But what even annoys me more is the kind of implicit non-committal. You know, I think when you're friends with someone, you have a certain kind of responsibility; i.e. by giving notice now and then of what and how you're doing, and ask how the other person is doing. For me, it's an indirect way of saying: I care for you, even if I don't see you on a daily basis. I don't expect huge declarations of love; just little gestures now and then that make me feel like I matter to someone.

The pigeonhole - part 2. Or: How life sometimes has its own way of solving problems that aren't really problems

Okay, so the question "to mime or not to mime" has been answered, and although it was me who took the decision not to do my little poetics of mimesis, I also feel like it's kinda been taken out of my hands by reactions of the people around me. I've now decided to start my presentation with talking about doing gender as a violent play; a play that exacts costly gestures; a play we can and do play only by agreeing to pay a price.

The pigeonhole

I've been hatching an idea these days. I have to do yet another presentation in a seminar next week; it's actually my first presentation in my new academic context that isn't about my PhD project, but about a Butler text.

My academic surrounding here is a lot less queer or feminist than it has been the past years. Consequently, and quite strangly, I feel that I've been sort of identified as the gender person; I mean, there was no question as to who should present the Butler text, it was pretty clear that people expected me to be the expert and volunteer. And, all in all that's fine and dandy; I somewhat willingly or unwillingly resign to the role that others have cut out for me (or that I presume the others have cut out for me).

So, the big gamble is: My idea, the one I've been carrying with me the past days, involves more or less starting my presentation with a fairly personal statement; a sort of poetic text (in the broadest sense) about that good ol' game of doing gender. It really centers around a tie which I intend to wear on that particular occasion, and what that has to do with the other people's expectations towards my sex, gender, desire and so on. (The text itself, which I've already written, is, of course, much grander than this pitiful summary.) The point being to sort of mime Judith Butler's text and feminist tradition itself, you know the whole idea of writing the personal into the public/academic, and Butler's reluctance to resign to the categories of feminism (or categories in general); so it's a mimesis of a mimesis of a mimesis, sort of (needless to say: the seminar is about mimesis). It's meant to be a kind of mimetic performance, I guess.

I really feel like doing this sort of thing; and particularly in this context. But I'm also feeling like I'm putting myself at risk; exposing myself in a way I have no idea whether the other would consider appropriate. In any case, I'm quite sure I can get away with it, you know, being sort of boxed as the gender person already, that presentation will just fortify the impressions about me. Which will, and here's the problem, have quite the contrary effect of Butler's attempt to fluidify categories, cementing them instead. It's a bit of vicious circle, really. (And it reminds me of that most funny scene in Life of Brian, see below. Not that I pride myself as the new messias...)

The unexpected thing would probably be to make not only a very regular and straight-forward presentation (and wear a nice little skirt instead of a tie), but also (maybe?) to critizise Butler (and that is quite impossible, of course).

The quandaries of identity, ladies and gentlemen.

Communications 101

No.
Just no.
Niet.
Nein.
Non.
Nada.
NO!
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
What part of "no" don't you get, the "n," the "o," or the fact that they're put together?
N
o
n
o
o
o
o
o
n
o
n
o
!

Declaration of love

I've been reading Judith Butler again recently (as you might've guessed from some of my posts); and I am enthralled yet once again by her thought, the starting points of her critique and particularly the way she writes. Interestingly enough, in Undoing Gender, she seems to directly or indirectly reveal lots of autobiographical stuff, for whatever reason.

What I find most intriguing as I read her now is the fundamentality of the concept of recognition; recognition as the drive of desire; and recognition, most basically, as the condition under which one is able to live a viable life as she would have it (though I am somewhat disappointed that she now also starts talking about all this Deleuzian stuff: life, the human, becoming and what have you not). I find it interesting, I presume, because I feel that much of my (current) life and desire (more forward-pressing than at other times) circles around precisely this, the desire for recognition. Though I've been wondering and asking myself if this recognition of the Other (in both senses) isn't only about the question of becoming or being real, but also of becoming or being lovable. It seems to me that I have somewhat lost the sense of what it means to be lovable, and thus of what it means to be real. Can one, really, separate the two? Is an unloved existence (which is not, I believe, the same as an unwanted existence) really conceivable, or, indeed, viable?

Get real

Of course I was one of the first ones to be sceptical about all this Obama-mania. I'll wait just a little while and then I'll become a full-pledged Obama-maniac; just to counter the mainstream of Obama critics. The tediousness of avant-garde life.

Speaking of Obama, I read an article the other day which said that his plans to withdraw from Iraq are quite impossible, for the simple reason that to get all of the stuff and people out of Iraq would take at least 3 years. Just to give you an example of the dimension: If you were to make a huge parade of all the vehicles currently used in Iraq that belong to the US military, you would have to stand there watching for 75 days, 24/7.

(Don't you just love these spatial comparisons that make you visualize the numerary dimension of things? I know another one: All the cells in your head lined up one after another equal a distance from here to the moon and back. It's as if we could grasp quantity more easily through visualization in space. So here goes the next task for this kinda play of thought: If you were to align all the dollar bills lost during the financial crisis, they'd go from here to ... Can anyone please figure out that equation for me?)

Quote of the day

Heterosexuality

It would be a mistake to say that I am against it. I just think that heterosexuality doesn't belong exclusively to heterosexuals. Moreover, heterosexual practices are not the same as heterosexual norms; heterosexual normativity worries me and becomes the occasion of my critique.

Judith Butler The End of Sexual Difference

Die Reklamation

I'm still not sleeping, and it's starting to be a problem. The problem isn't really that I'm tired (although that isn't grand either); the problem is that I get somehow sad and depressed and thin-skinned. Like I feel annoyed within two seconds when people bug me (okay, maybe that isn't due to the lack of sleep, after all); and not only annoyed, but on the verge of tears. On top of all that, it's that time of the month again pretty soon, plus I have literally no free weekend and loads of work until the middle of February. Finally, of course, a more personal problem I won't go into now that probably causes my sleeping problems.

Hello 2009? I thought we had a deal? I thought I had an agreement with the year-destiny-distribution-company that considering 2008 was crap, 2009 was going to be better? If the year continues to go on like this, I want my money back. Period.

Best song line ever.

You gave me nothing/
now it's all I've got.

Fucking minimal pairs

(I'm going to be a bit manichean now, just for argument's sake.)

I hate couples. I don't find them comfortable to be around, I don't find them beautiful to look at. More than anything else, I hate heterosexual couples who have an open relationship. When straight people have an open relationship, what they really mean is that they revive their own relationship, and especially their sex lives, through an occasional one night stand or short affair. Within the daily routine of couple-landia, the single person is the rollercoaster-ride (hop-on, hop-off; ha ha) that boosts the adrenalin (of both people in the couple, and not only the person you're sleeping with; that's the joke, of course). And they feel very good about it too; they feel like they're being very unconventional and enlightened; in short: they feel like the true heirs of '68. None of them would, of course, have the guts to really risk something, either leave the secure little homes they've cut out for themselves, or try to live something different, like a ménage-à-trois.

Conclusion: I think Judith Butler is right; we need to think and live desire outside the dyad; and bonds of caring outside the heteronormative pattern of kinship.

Contingence

How wonderful, after all, that a day (or life, if you wish) has the potentiality of surprising you.

Trait d'esprit

Ces jours-ci, je n'ai pas de patience pour perde mon temps à dormir.

Ce que l'on remarque tout de suite quand on ne dort pas (ou guère), c'est que la journée devient sensiblement plus longue. Chose étrange de vivre la nuit; non seulement un sentiment de solitude, mais aussi un sentiment de jouer un tour à la vie, au monde, aux autres; puis à soi-même aussi, finalement. Ne pas dormir, c'est faucher son propre corps, malgrè lui et à cause de lui.

Oh wie schön ist Panama!

Die senile Bettflucht treibt mich um 6 Uhr morgens aus dem Bett, was sehr vorteilhaft ist, weil ich so bereits um 8 Uhr gestriegelt und geputzt vorm Supermarkt meiner Wahl stehen kann. In der zwei Personen umfassenden Schlange schreie ich laut "Zweite Kasse, zweite Kasse", um anschließend beim Zahlen meiner Habseligkeiten der Kassierin (keine Illusionen bitte; auch 2049 sind die meisten Kassierinnen weiblich) das Kleingeldfach meines Portemonnaies hinzustrecken, damit sie sich den Betrag von 4,87 Euro in Münzen herausklauben kann.

In öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln kneife ich wahlweise in rosige Wangen von Babys und Kleinkindern oder weise Jugendliche mit einem strengen Blick durch meine Gleitsichtbrille, begleitet von wohltemperierten "tsts" und Schütteln meines ergrauten Kopfes in die Schranken. Überhaupt hat das Alter ja den Vorteil, Autorität und Narrenfreiheit zu verbinden (insofern ähnelt es dem Kindsein nicht, weil Narrenfreiheit ja, Autorität nein). Dergestalt kann ich mich so unhöflich verhalten, wie ich nur möchte, ohne auch nur das geringste Aufsehen zu erregen; Leute, die so unklug sind, Kritik an meinem Verhalten üben zu wollen, werden sofort von verständnisvoll dreinblickenden Mitmenschen beiseite genommen und aufgeklärt.

Jeden Friseurladen - wobei der Friseurbesuch mittlerweile ein tagfüllendes Programm für mich darstellt - verlasse ich geschmückt von einem uniformen, helmartigen Pudelkopfkurzhaarschnitt mit leichtem Blaustich. Mit der Friseurin im Speziellen (und meinen Mitmenschen im Allgemeinen) rede ich vorzugsweise über meine Krankheiten, die Krankheiten meiner Freundinnen oder Familienangehörigen, sowie die Vor- und Nachteile künstlicher Gelenke, während sie mir ins Ohr versichernd schreit, dass der Schnitt mich um Jahre verjünge und außerdem noch den Vorteil habe, praktisch zu sein.

Ich koche, wenn sich Besuch ankündigt, Quantitäten die ein Regiment versorgen könnten und backe zu Weihnachten mindestens 50 Sorten von Keksen, nur um dann am Tisch zu sitzen und wie eine Maus von meiner Mini-Portion zu knabbern, mit der Versicherung, ich habe keinen Appetit, und überhaupt, so spät abends (sprich um 18 Uhr) zu essen schlage mir auf den Magen. Trotz mehrmaligen Versicherns, ich sei überhaupt nicht müde, schlafe ich um 20 Uhr 40 ein (was das Erwachen um 6 Uhr früh natürlich erklärt), und zwar vor meinen Lieblingssendungen "Herzlichst Ihr Hansi Hinterseer", "Musikantenstadl" oder "Jubiläumskonzert mit André Rieu" (auch hier bitte keine Illusionen über die Qualität des Fernsehprogramms 2049). Ich drücke Enkelkindern beim Verabschieden zwischen Tür und Angel 10-Euro-Scheine in die Hand.

Ich wähle, da mich ja niemand kontrollieren kann (und der guten alten Zeiten wegen), rechtsextreme Parteien, da ihre Führer wenigstens so laut in die Mikrofone kreischen, dass sogar ich sie verstehe (NB: Ich denke, die ganze WählerInnenforschung würde sich revolutionieren, wenn man den Zusammenhang von Lautstärke der Reden und Wahlverhalten analysieren würde. Womit natürlich noch nicht garantiert ist, dass die Leute das, was sie hören, auch tatsächlich verstehen.)

In Summe: Ich freue mich jetzt schon darauf, wenn ich alt und in der Pense bin.

My half pipe

Dear God,

if heaven is an endless dinner with Judith Butler and Michel Foucault talking and debating, lots of good food and beer and me in the midst of all of it, then I'm in for this whole religion shit.

Yours proselyte.

Superstition 2.0 - the answer

No, it isn't.

Quote of the day

I think instead that one mourns when one accepts the fact that the loss one undergoes will be one that changes you, changes you possibly forever, and that mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation the full result of which you cannot know in advance. So there is losing, and there is the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned.

Judith Butler Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy

Prominent gossip

I don't know whether that story is true, but it oughta be...

Apparently U2 were giving a concert in Glasgow, and at one point Bono (aka Mr. I'm-saving-the-world-with-by-pal-Bob-Geldorf) asked the audience to be quiet. In the total silence, he started clapping his hands every 4 seconds, and then said: "Each time I'm clapping my hands, a child in Africa is dying of starvation." Upon which a person in the audience brilliantly replied: "Then stop clapping already, you bastard!"

Getting down to business

We all know, of course, that New Year resolutions are kinda absurd. Most of the time, we forget about them within the first couple of weeks of the new year, or - even worse - we drive ourselves crazy by trying to fulfill these (sometimes quite impossible) demands that no one but we ourselves inflicted upon us. But I am just going to pretend I don't know anything at all about the impossibility of resolutions and formulate a couple of them just for the fun of it, and for the sake of the prospective, stunning moment I am going to have in a year's time from now, when looking back on these daring claims I set out for myself to live up to.

# 1 Write a substantial part of my thesis. (This is actually not a resolution, but an obligation. After all, I get paid to write my thesis, so there's no way I can really escape writing it eventually one day.)

# 2 Have more sex than in 2008. Considering the amount of sex I had in 2008, this shouldn't be too difficult. (And yes, that's sex with another person than myself.)

# 3 Do sports for at least an hour at least twice a week. (hahahahahahahahahaa!)

# 4 Ammendment to # 2: Have good sex. (A bit trickier than just have more sex.)

# 5 Go away for a two-week vacation to a place that is not Austria or France, and without any work related books. (It's getting trickier & trickier...)

# 6 Make some essential progress or breakthrough in my analysis. (A bit out of my hands that one...)

TGIHome Or: Becoming nomad

I'm so glad to be back home, meaning back in my appartment, back in Munich. Regardless of the fact that I am happy to have survived yet another holiday season (my New Year's resolution - if you'd like to call it that way - is to spend Christmas and New Year's in some deserted island next year), I'm just glad to be back here, and stunned at the same time; stunned by the fact that this already feels like home at all, and even more so by the fact it already feels so much like home. Surprised when looking back just a few months, and how uprooted I felt when I moved here. I guess it's not about places and cities (although that is important too), but about getting back to a somewhat familiar routine (in the positive sense); and about people, of course. Not only do I feel at home here, but I feel, strangely enough, more like myself, more like "this is my life, and my life is here". I feel like I've literally lost any connection or warm feelings towards my home country as a place where I belong to or could ever imagine living. I know I've had times (and witnessed them here in my blog too) when I suffered from this kind of nomadic life; times when I felt disoriented and not really very positive about having no home or home country (in the broadest sense). Right now, I just realize how much I love all of this; how much I love moving away; how much I love going back to Austria with the secure feeling of: this is just a visit. I am not meant to stay here for long. Home is some place else.

Aesthetic nerd post

I don't really have anything to say, I just wanted to have the pleasure of posting on the first day of the new year.
So in lack of anything wise, witty or useful to say, let me simply write the following:
2009, beware, here I come!