Fuck being pretentious!

Instead of doing lots of homework this weekend (I merely worked at The Job), I read some fun, fun blogs and websites and articles. Here are a few:

One Thing They Aren't: Maternal
About how mothers in nature (which is how one justifies behaviour in humans today) aren't naturally "maternal." It's almost as if the author wants to say that infanticide and abortions are completely NATURAL!!!

Essay about Love and Literary Taste
About the connection betweens books and your love life!! Merely amusing, for the literary minded! Oh, and the high point: there's a dating site for fans of Ayn Rand. Because yeah, you're a very special, special person if you love Ayn Rand. (Though I will admit that my scorn comes from popular opinion, and that Anthem was a very good book to read as a teenager in search of identity. Read: for a juvenile audience.)

Students of Virginity
The subject matter is semi-interesting -- until you read about the students trying to organize this movement. Apparently, you can't get truly secular reasons for not having sex. Probably because sex is as natural as...I've run out of metaphors. But read it for the cattiness of the journalist!! There's a segment on page 5 where he creates a dialogue between the two leaders of True Love whatever-it's-called, and you can just imagine their reactions as they read about themselves. It's almost as if he's trying to break up the org by creating internal drama!! And the last section of the article...also enjoyable. My favorite paragraph:
By underscoring their similarities and demonstrating mutual respect for each other, Fredell said she hoped to suggest to the audience that perhaps True Love Revolution was a friendly force at Harvard — and also deserving of a little respect. The Crimson, though, declared the whole event “boring!” and without open disagreement, the debate seems to have been resolved almost as a beauty contest. Two women sitting side by side, posing a silent question to the audience: which of us do you find more appealing?

Speaking of blogs....Here's my favorite sex blog: Camille It's kind of crazy, and the subjects of her drawings are very subversive. But funny as hell, often.

I want books from Archipelago Books. Just the sort of thing I like: of little renown and brilliant.

Also in the vein of literature: I want to start a book club with my siblings where we read Russian novels. I even made a Facebook group! I'm rather proud of my cleverness. Our last name means "rabbit" in Russian so we've grown up with jokes about being a family of bunnies, our parents having copulated like rabbits, being nicknamed "Bunny" or "Rabbit," etc, etc. So the title translates to "The bunnies read/are reading," and thus, you understand that the pic for the group is especially apt.

I'm looking forward to delving more into Bookslut. Seems entertaining at a first few glances. But as always, Harper Mag has my heart when it comes to websites that have random articles. Especially bc, as I have a subscription, I can read articles from it's inception in 1850. Oh, and have you ever read the advertisements at the back of Harper's??? Funniest, crazy ads ever!!
For example:
--You can buy a "European Beret" for $12 from John Helmer (www.johnhelmer.com for those lovers of berets!)
--Or a "Bush Dynasty" vase or urn at marcusbowcott.com Huh. I might have to check that out.)
--Ooooh! Here's an ad for those who want cryonic suspension. It reads: "Freeze, wait, reanimate." Cute. It even rhymes! Go to www.cryonics.ws if you want Fry's life.
--The usual fancy coffees and teas...
--"Yeshua -- gifted and experienced healer -- www.yeshuaruah.org" Hee hee. Except I probably shouldn't laugh at those still idealistic enough to believe in God.
--"Exquisitely handcrafted leather masks for wearing and display. www.wendydrolma.com" Do they come with gags and restraints, I wonder?
--And here's one for "Tastefully explicit Spanking Erotica"!!! Lovely. www.shadowlane.com (I love that I'm providing the actual contact info as if one of my oh! so many readers will find the need for this item. SusannaMary, this one was just for you!!)
--If you're a woman (no men need apply), you can go to a welding "workshop and retreat."
--Ah, and there's the ad for my favorite dating service: "Date smart/party smart. Join the introduction network exclusively for graduates, students, and faculty[faculty????] of the Ivies, Seven Sisters, Stanford, U of Chicago and others. All ages. The Right Stuff. www.rightstuffdating.com" That's if you can't find a spouse that's WASPy enough for you. ("Damn democracy! Why oh why did they start letting the lower classes in?? My grandfather's grandfather's grandfather founded Blahsville, New England!" -- Too far? Was that a little bitter?)

Anyway...I think that provided enough reading material for the day. I apologize for suddenly become just another pop culture documentarian. I promise not to do this too often.

Eating & Sex are One and the Same

...according to Maggie Kilgour (brilliant, brilliant woman who said "My metaphor's bigger than your metaphor!!") in her From Communion to Cannibalism.

"As Bahktin himself notes, one of the most important characteristics of eating is its ambivalence: it is the most material need yet is invested with a great deal of significance, an act that involves both desire and aggression, as it creates a total identity between eater and eaten while insisting on the total control -- the literal consumption -- of the latter by the former. Like all acts of incorporation, it assumes an absolute distinction between inside and outside, eater and eaten, which, however, breaks down, as the law 'you are what you eat' obscures identity and makes it impossible to say for certain who's who. Paradoxically, the roles are completely unreciprocal and yet ultimately indistinguishable. Ambiguity, however, is difficult to bear for prolonged periods of time; the history of Western tradition, at least, is marked by a recurrent desire to resolve uncertainty....

"Like eating, intercourse makes two bodies one, though in a union that is fortunately less absolute and permanent.
According to Aquinas, sexual incorporation is a substitute for a total identification that is the real object of desire: 'Lovers would wish for two to become one; but since this would result in the physical destruction of one or both they seek the union that befits them.' However, Aquinas may be unrealistically optimistic about the human ability to bear dissatisfaction; Freud, too, will claim that sexual intercourse is always disappointing in its failure to recapture the perfect symbiotic union of the oral stage and argue that unsatisfied energy must be directed elsewhere -- ideally, by being sublimated into culture and civilization. But the fact that sex is an incomplete act of incorporation may be seen as intensifying desire to the point where it becomes transformed into not art but aggression."

Then she goes on to discuss the violence inherent to kissing and to the sexual act, as discussed by George Sandys and Voltaire, ending with "Kissing and eating are obviously both oral activities, and at an extreme level of intensity the erotic and aggressive sides of incorporation cannot be differentiated, so that it becomes difficult to tell at what point the desire for consummation turns into the desire for consumption."

--Kilgour, Maggie. "Introduction." From Communion to Cannibalism: An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990. pp.7-8.


I'm so devious: there's nothing like a little scandalous sex talk to spark some interest. Anyway, this is a fascinating way of looking at sex. Not new, as Freud himself considered it, but something I haven't heard of. And it makes the sex act so much uglier to consider it in this light, as a struggle for power between two people, the winner being the one who has "eaten" the other. (Haha. Have we all had our laugh now?) I wonder what consequence this idea has on lesbianism...? Kilgour's book is based on the binary opposition, the difference between inside and outside. That which is outside one is considered alien, frightening and threatening, and one what to deal with it is to make it a part of oneself, to incorporate it, through consumption, whether literally or figuratively. Therefore, in sex between a man and a woman, there is the eternal struggle to become one whole, with the implication that either partner will lose his/her identity in the process. But in sex between two women, there isn't the same physical invasion of the body (well...perhaps some times...). Does that mean that sex between two women is more...considerate of the other, more democratic in the old sense that all (both) are equal and all (both) have equal rights to happiness and, more importantly, independence and autonomy? Hm... A theoretical reason to become a lesbian. My mother would be so pleased. Anyway, Hélène Cixous would perhaps be the person to look into, as she does discuss bisexuality as the way to go. And I'm sure there are many more knowledgeable ppl studying this than I.

I think the best thing would be to have a few more posts before I alert friends and (maybe) family about this fabulous thing I am doing. One should have some substance before one advertises. Like Wonderbras.

Statement of Purpose (in the style of grad school applications)

First and Foremost: Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't I?

However: I've never been one to do what everyone else is doing, and I firmly believe in what John Stuart Mill said, (and I reference here a class lecture, because it's been years since I've read British lit) which is that one should question society and then decide for one's self the best way to act.

Therefore: The purpose of this blog is not to describe the events of my non-existent life, but rather the literature that I come across in said non-existent life. I am a student of comparative literature, and, furthermore, I intend to become a professor of Russian literature and critical theory. Contrary to what one may think, comp lit students don't just sit around, reading books and enthusiastically discussing plots and styles -- that's what English students do. No. Rather, we consider themes and movements of literature from broader perspectives. Majoring in comp lit, one knows intimately the literatures of two or more cultures and then compare them (duh), and, moving beyond that, you look at Literature as a global phenomena. One must have knowledge of sociology (Foucault, Baudrillard), anthropology (Levi-Strauss), feminism (Irigaray, Cixous), post-Colonialism (Said, Spivak, wa Thiong'o), economics and political theory (Marx, Baudrillard again), psychology (Freud, Lacan), and philosophy from the ancient Greeks to modern day post-modernism.

And now that I've impressed you with my expensively acquired knowledge (looking at you, Smith College) and gotten overly excited about my studies, the simple purpose comes down to this:

1. I read lots of interesting and entertaining texts. (Who knew Roland Barthes was a comedian??)
2. Today, few people have time to read these interesting and entertaining texts.
3. Consequently, I thought to share with you the best parts.

Et voilà: mon blog.