of dislocation & graceful unravelling

recklesschants:

“Don’t you hate it when you have this zine crush, and they’re dating someone who doesn’t even make zines. Like, long-term dating. It’s so perplexing. You want to appeal to their sense of reason: Think of all the creative things we could be sharing. Writing letters to faraway friends, as we sit across from one another at the coffee shop. Or taking turns flipping over the record, as we create a cut n’ paste mess in the dining room. We could be so right together. Why are you with someone who owns an Xbox?”

— “For K.” (from Zine Crush) oh. ow. none of the people I’ve ever long-term dated have been zinesters, & it has sometimes made me sad. and my current long-term honey doesn’t own an Xbox, but he sure does watch a lot of TV.

Strongly disagree! This excerpt is cute & all, and I get it — it reminds me a lot of bemoaning the punk boys’ penchant for dating “preppy girls” when I was in high school, and how that used to be so sad and confusing to me.

But in my own experience, I completely treasure and require the solitude of writing, whether it’s zines, letters, or otherwise — it’s something that is truly mine, and even within a mostly happy, functional, monogamous commitment, there are still important things I gotta keep for myself, navigating interpersonal boundaries & stuff… Plus I like that my significant-dude doesn’t do zines or blogs because rather than having a potential co-author, I have a round-the-clock editor who can look at my material with somewhat fresh eyes — at least, fresh in the sense of not knowing ‘bout zine and blog “styles” and tropes, so in that sense his input is more valuable to me for the content and writing itself. Even when I co-wrote zines with some of my best ladyfriends, the actual writing we did separately, privately, and then came together to collaborate on furious and brutally honest editing, layout, and collating sessions.

I’ve mostly dated artistic types and I like that while our creative interests sometimes intersect (writing and printmaking, music and photography) and overlap (in varying degrees of skill), we’re not always just doing the same thing… so there’s this “creative activity” part of the relationship where we can go and make some things individually and then discuss/edit together (“wanna see this thing I did?”) and then sometimes collaborate based on what we’re better at (can you draw some pictures for my zine? can you take some photos for my album liner notes? etc.) and I like those times a lot because of the interplay of experience & inexperience. Having a non-writer critique my stuff is important because I’m not just writing for other writers… so it’s important for me to get an idea about whether or not I’m communicating effectively before I go out and make a hundred copies. And with me being a not-so-serious musician (but a great music-appreciator) I can offer enough knowledgeable input on my dude’s recordings to talk about whether it’s good or needs work. Sometimes it’s like the level of trust we have personally and the levels of inexperience we have with each other’s creative specialties, make for a relatively safe zone for non-hurtful but honest feedback.

& as for the TV/xBox thing, it’s funny, ‘cause my dude spends a lot of time watching TV (or youtubes/netflix) & rarely, like, reads books… which was at first shocking to me BUT later I decided I was being an arrogant smartypants jerk. He doesn’t enjoy reading very often (which, okay, is still shocking to me), but he watches things — whether it’s historical documentaries or the weather channel or Judge Judy or failblog — in a very active, thoughtful, criticizing manner, and learns a lot and bring a lot to the conversational table, from this medium that I’m just not that into. & it ends up being way cool and thought-provoking to me that we can have a discussion about seemingly trite shows like Cheaters and To Catch a Predator and end up relating it to ideas about entrapment, voyeurism, privacy, some academic/philosophical essays on morality and lying that I’ve read, relationships, etc.

I mean I’m not personally partial to TV/screen media for reasons (see obviously, Marshall McLuhan, Gerry Mander, & um, Adbusters, CrimethInc., et al) but it is nonetheless a method of transmitting information. I don’t think it always by default makes or requires the viewer/consumer to be dumb and passive — it’s what you do with it. I mean watching The X-Files together during rainy days sometimes was admittedly a fun bonding moment. Shit, watching Married with Children like, helps improve our relationship, to a certain, humorously sarcastic extent.

PS - Jess, btw, I’m not tryna argue with your own comment/sentiment, just felt compelled to Have an Opinion about the quote since it gave me a good excuse to blag about this stuff. I love writing about ~the creative process~ and also media consumption, but I always feel like a big-headed jerk when I get on a soapbox without the excuse of a relevant prompt. :P So thanks for the post!

feedback from American History II (Civil War to Present), 1/27/11 (second attempt).

The most important criticism about writing.

THE SEMICOLON:

“They are more powerful more imposing more pretentious than a comma but they are a comma all the same. They really have within them deeply within them fundamentally within them the comma nature.” — Gertrude Stein

“All they do is show you’ve been to college.” — Kurt Vonnegut

alanajoy:

Artist Ariana Page Russell has dermatographia, a condition in which lightly scratching your skin causes raised, red lines where you’ve scratched. It affects roughly 5 percent of the population, but Ms. Russell is the only one who has turned her puffy, ruddy, sensitive skin into elaborately patterned high art.

(via brittanytalon)

blake500:

katydidnot:

what should i write songs about

what do people write songs about?

I started writing songs as a teen. They were usually about food because, HELLO, RELEVANT! I moved on to write songs about this girl that I liked and eventually married. Then I wrote songs about communication and mixed messages. Then I wrote songs about partying. Now I write instrumental songs about whales and tigers.

missvoltairine:

leonineantiheroine:

[snipped a bunch of really relevant stuff re: recent post about zines and confessional culture]

I really like this conversation but not all women are culturally valued when they share their victimisation and/or overshare.

I’ve talked about this a few times elsewhere and I’m going to keep on repeating it—black women are not given the sympathy when we are victims. We’re just not.

And I also find that in so-called radical feminist communities, there is a pressure to overshare—like that makes you knowable and fucking transparent. Like fuck building trust or whatever, we’re supposed to just jump into these intimacy bubbles; and as someone who grew up working class until she became a feminist and didn’t share her feelings—that felt like a trap and just fake. 

Oh yeah this was supposed to be about zines. 

Boom.

Yeah, the victimhood-as-cultural-currency thing, combined with the confessional culture of a lot of “alternative” spaces is so seductive but also so fucked. Like, who gets to “profit” from their victimhood in ways that can fuck up their/our healing processes by teaching us to identify first and foremost as victims, and who is seen as being “strong”, cast in “support” roles, etc? Who is considered “knowable” and who gets to “know” them, and how is that knowledge constructed and disseminated, and who benefits directly from it?

I’ve talked a bit before about how there are aspects of my identity and history that I just do not want to share, and how it’s disturbing to me that maintaining any sort of privacy about: my abuse history, my family/cultural heritage, my relationships, my gender history, etc - is seen as being indicative of a lack of transparency and a perhaps even a form of dishonesty. How does that impact people whose experiences of class, race, etc inform how, when, etc they share the details of their personal lives, and does that reinforce ideas that certain people are inherently trustworthy (read: good) and certain people are inherently  untrustworthy (read: tainted, bad)? (Hint: yes, yes it does.)

I can’t even tell all of you how important this discussion is for me right now, by the way, and how great it is to see it happening and how much I think I’ve needed for such a discussion to happen. Especially in the context of zines, and creative projects in general. So important.

(Note, readers are encouraged to follow the original link & read all the iterations of this discussion, as it’s all very relevant/important, but unfortunately getting a bit cluttery on Tumblr.)

I’m not into that whole brevity thing so I took a break from taking a break from the Internet in order to write another thing about writing and the Internet.

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(Source: ineffableshe)

TL;DR: I’m old & bitter & don’t understand this newfangled BS, laterz~!

Hey y’all, I know it’s kind of cliche/annoyingly cryptic move to be all, “I’m Taking a Break from the Internet,” but — I have to Take a Break from the Internet.

Also, I’ve un-followed and/or “hidden” a lot of people from my blogs & Facebook, so please don’t take this as a personal affront. Despite my previous mocking entry, the “constant bombardment of content” “in today’s postmodern society” is actually causing me a lot of nervous/existential distress (everything is the same, nothing is beautiful because everything is beautiful, but everything is terrible, why is anything anything waaahhhh blah blah)… and I have a ridiculous compulsion (or lack of self-control) wherein I have to scroll through everything that everyone’s posted to be sure I don’t miss anything Important (which is debatable), so I’m passively consuming Internet way too much and not actually participating in any kind of community, let alone any kind of creative acts of my own.

If you are a local friend, I would rather be spending time with you in person instead of reading your blog (& I will try to make a better effort at this in a few months when I’m all done with the schooling). If you are a far-away friend, I would rather be exchanging physical letters & photographs or at least longer emails and having more intimate interactions instead of proving my friendship with a “like” or reblog. Send me a message somewhere if you’d like to share contact information.

I also feel that my personal “creative” or serious writing has suffered a lot due to the weirdness (pressure?) of instant publication/feedback, which doesn’t allow me to spend as much time on my writing and revising and perfecting as I’d like, due to the “lightning-fast speeds” of blogging and trending. And I Strongly Dislike the inaccessible academic-speak + references I don’t always understand + Let Me Google That For You set alongside sarcastic LOLing that seems particular to the online atmosphere. It’s just not my thing. I have a hard time taking it in as a body of work and I feel like a moron when I try to match that style. Plus, no matter what I write on the Internet, I think it sounds arrogant when I’m being serious and inauthentic if I try to water it down with sarcasm and jokes.

& I’m totally burnt out on ~theory~. If that’s your thing, NBD dude, but I’m not into it so much anymore. I don’t care. I’m tired of wandering around feeling stupid and guilty all the time, and I’m totally exhausted from analyzing why and how everything forever is totally problematic and terrible all the time. This goes for aesthetics & feminism & technology & consumption & all of the things. Plus I don’t care about pop culture phenomena or really, most subculture phenomena for that matter. I miss enjoying things, enjoying things while also being aware of some of their criticisms, appreciating beauty without deconstructing every aspect of it, making an art without having to be constantly on the defensive…

& for the sake of Not Wanting to Accidentally Offend Anyone on the Internet: I don’t believe whatever I’m doing is better than whatever you’re doing; it’s just better for me right now. I want to strengthen my personal relationships and take care of my own shit and occasionally be “creatively self-expressive” and try to do positive and supportive direct actions locally instead of being angry on the Internet potentially-globally. I was up way too late last night reading a debate about whether a diabetic taking insulin shots is more or less privileged than a non-diabetic with a needle-phobia and I. Just. Cannot. I’m sorry not sorry, as it were. I need to be doing Other Things before my brain completely melts.

I’m not really into the lack of public/private boundary online all the time, and for me, there’s certain value in distance, time, revision, privacy, secrets, and not always having mutual access to every detail about everyone’s life all the time (hellooo ex-BFs on FB). So I’m going to go back to using my blog as a reserve of quotes from whatever I’m reading, updates on my zines & photography, and posts from other artists and writers I like. I don’t want to broadcast a ton of confessional/personal things & Deep Thoughts from my life here anymore. It’s become a little identity crisis-y for me to be constantly in a limbo of performing my “self” on an intensely public forum.

So long, IT’S BEEN REAL……….(?)

peripatetic (ramble)

Most of my writing comes from my 1.7-mile walk home from work at night:

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creativewritingstudentcrane:

Submitted by thapenismightier

"And why don’t you write? Write! Writing is for you, you are for you; your body is yours, take it. I know why you haven’t written. (And why I didn’t write before the age of twenty-seven.) Because writing is at once too high, too great for you, it’s reserved for the great — that is, for ‘great men’; and it’s ‘silly.’ Besides, you’ve written a little, but in secret. And it wasn’t good, because it was in secret, and because you punished yourself for writing, because you didn’t go all the way; or because you wrote, irresistibly, as when we would masturbate in secret, not to go further, but to attenuate the tension a bit, just enough to take the edge off. And then as soon as we come, we go and make ourselves feel guilty — so as to be forgiven; or to forget, to bury it until the next time.

“Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery, in which publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our backs, and not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses don’t like the true texts of women — female-sexed texts. That kind scares them."

Hélène Cixous, from The Laugh of the Medusa (1975) as printed by Pétroleuse Press

(Source: tmills, via crowdmyheart)