One With Everything On It;

'Cause this post is going to be a little bit like one of those pizzas. I figured I was going to do a post for each of the “toppings”, but then I got lazy and decided to do this for reasons threefold; 1) I am a woman, and women multitask; 2) none of the “toppings” could really make a satisfying “pizza” on their own; 3) I am about to embark on a mega-tight schedule set by the mother who will decapitate me if I do not stick to it, so this is like my farewell. When I come back (if I come back) I may vividly resemble a yeti. I’m just warning you.

Alright, onto the “pizza”. First topping is;

Philosophy; I had my Knowledge & the World resit on Monday, and I came out wanting to get on the bus instead of flinging myself under it, so I’m taking that as a good sign. I didn’t start studying until the week before and even then I didn’t study much because, firstly, my lazy-ass-self-deprecating ethos was “I didn’t get it the first time around. How am I supposed to get it seven months later?” and also because I was hoping that the theory of osmosis would kick in during the exam. To make me feel better, my dad spun me a yarn about me going back in time to kill Descartes. It was rather cathartic. I don’t have anything against the guy, it’s just that my brain is incapable of absorbing his philosophy. Anyway, I’m not picking philosophy as an elective in second year (uni seems to have turned me into one of those “path of least resistance” types) and this makes me kind of sad, because, I did end up loving it. I learned a lot about arguing and rhetoric, about historical beliefs and perceptions, about logic and how I don’t have any, about the origins of politics, and I got panoramic views of controversial issues like abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and animal rights. Maybe that sounds totally grim, but I found it really interesting. I’m going to miss the gorgeous Sir Charles Wilson building all the lectures were held in and the security man I made friends with who always listened to pop music on his crackly radio. I’m going to miss my seat! I’m going to miss the lecturers; Platchias the Greek cowboy and how we always ran into one another, the Pepsi Addict who never missed a chance to slag off Russell Brand, the Jack Whitehall lookalike who wore clothes you needed sunglasses to look at. I’m going to miss my second semester tutor who took a shine to me and called me Rosie Posie and who sat and worked out one night exactly the grade I had to get in my exam to pass the course. I’m going to miss that whole tutorial group, how I was the only one who was there every week and how I had my own seat that everyone respected and how we were like a weird family who had debates about retributive robot rape and polar bears eating their cubs (they goddamn well do, Dave!). I’m going to miss the malevolent glint in my tutor’s eye as he put the two Daves in one team with the full expectation that the world would implode and be swallowed in white. I’m going to miss the whole cast of characters; my friend Dave with the sapphire eyes, Nickelback Guy (who was actually more into Metallica, so he’d probably hit me for that), The Other Chick who it transpires works with Meejin and remembers the polar bears, Big Fat Johnny and our Whiteboard of Punishment, Dreadlocks and our discussions about my essay and his dreadlocks, Andrew Pretty Boy and his poser beanie and how he always held the door open and how we almost got run over on Great Western Road. I’m very much going to miss standing outside the old crumbly stone building on a Friday, inhaling smoke and God knows what else, standing talking to the guys and stamping the cold away. I’m going to miss non-coffee. I am going to miss being one of the guys and always arriving totally breathless because I had to run from the top of the hill and down and up and along. And I’m going to miss the fact they all appreciated my hat. I will even look back fondly on the final comment my first semester John Lennon tutor wrote at the bottom of my F-yielding Descartes essay: “This reads more like a blog post”. I didn’t have to learn that it was possible for me to fail—I already knew that. I learned a ton of other cool stuff. But it’s been kind of a lesson to other people in my life that I can and do fail, sometimes, and that’s okay!

Boy, this old bird sure does ramble on a bit, doesn’t she?

Seagulls in Suburbia; It all started a few months ago on an overcast Sunday when the mother, the father and the me were coming home from the weekly Tesco shopping trip and looked up in alarm at the loud squawking to see two seagulls atop our roof...going at it. Fast-forward to now, and there are a nest of them in our chimney. We are the talk of the neighbourhood. We have even become a bit of a tourist attraction. Some people dislike our gulls because they make a hell of a noise in the morning/at night/when strangers walk past, but the residents of our four-in-a-block have become just as protective of the gulls as the gull parents are of their chicks. Which is very. I for one like the sound of seagulls because I love the sea and when I close my eyes at night I can imagine I’m there and I can almost hear the waves whispering against the shore. During my gap year I took it upon myself to learn some enlightenment, so on my father’s recommendation, I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and it’s now one of my favourite books. It’s just so beautiful and simple and inspiring. It has gems like this: “You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.” So, as soon as I learned there were three adorable little fuzzy seagull chicks living on our roof, I knew I had to name them accordingly. I watched their behaviour for a while, documenting their tentative progress in photographs, and decided that the boldest one should be named Jonathan. The other two are named Jonah and Joanna. I know this all makes me sound completely and utterly bonkers, but I don’t care. The seagull parents have long since accepted me as One of Them, and they no longer dive bomb me on my comings and goings. They are better than guard dogs. And it is rather funny watching women with prams and bands of small children run in terror down the street. Reminiscent of The Birds, I guess. Which is possibly another reason I so enjoy the seagulls being here. However, our neighbour across the street who is currently building the Great Wall of China in his front garden and has been doing so for the past ten years, does not like the seagulls so much and tolerates them through a tight grin, and has tried to conspire a plan with my father to climb up onto the roof and smash the eggs should the gulls return next year. I dare say he will be pecked to death before ever reaching the nest. The baby gulls have now begun to fly and soon they’ll be off and this is all timing in rather well with my ascendency into adulthood! Which leads me to the next topic...

Harry Potter & the End of Childhood; (Also known as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. But that’s just a mouthful.) Okay, I feel it would be negligent of me to carry on with this blog, and general life, without stopping to note this cinematically historical moment. If you haven’t seen the film or read the books or still don’t know what happens and don’t want me to spoil it, then you are a troglodyte I would skip ahead to the next heading. Now, it’s been a while since I read the books, but from what I remember the final installment of the HP series stayed pretty true to the original text, gladly cutting down on the deux-ex-machinas that were sprinkled like vermicelli through the pages. At 130 minutes I think this might be one of the shortest HP films, if not the shortest, but do correct me if I’m wrong. HP7A was two and a half hours long, and I guess if you’re in the camp of taking the two films as one then you’ll be pretty satisfied with the total running time. But within that camp there are also some indignant “deeply devoted fans” expostulating about the apparent consumer exploitation of having to buy both films separately and therefore spending more money. I’m sorry, if you are so devoted to Harry and the gang, surely you don’t mind buying part 1 & 2 to complete the series? You have just spent how many years obsessing over the books, spending how much money on new editions and cinema tickets and DVDs? You probably went to the cinema with a felt-tip lightning scar on your forehead and your Great Aunt Mildred’s reading glasses and you’re complaining about spending a few more quid on a franchise you profess to love? I’m sorry, you are obviously under some kind of Cheap Twat charm and have no argument, Expelliarmus. Ahem. Had to get that off my chest. Anyway, back to the main point; HP7B should have been longer. And I’m not the only one who thinks this. It missed out some of the best and most eagerly-awaited moments including Harry’s speech to Voldemort at the end, and skipped over the deaths of characters we’ve spent ten years getting to know and love, and what was with the lacklustre delivery of Molly Weasley’s Moment of Awesome? It was as if Molly had read the book and knew she was going to get Bellatrix and just thought “Oh well, I’ll get it over and done with. Flickety-flick. Done.” And why relocate the final showdown between Harry and Voldemort outside, away from the Great Hall, where no one was around to witness it, the pivotal moment eight films had been building towards? In the moment I kind of got on board with it but then afterwards I was like, no. After being so let down by the battle in Hogwarts in the sixth film, I was really looking forward to the war in the eighth, which for the most part was fantastically thrilling, but without everyone else there, all the allies and all the enemies, all the people fighting for their cause, and without Harry’s speech, it didn’t feel explosive enough. I wanted it to feel like someone had stuffed a firework under my seat and lit it. And the tragic and heroic deaths of all those favourite characters were kind of glazed over by shock and numbness in the books, but you understood that, whereas in the film as the camera pans over those certain dead bodies, the observation feels almost passive. And Meejin didn’t realize who any of them were until Harry was talking to their ghosts in the forest. However, despite my misgivings, I loved this film, and I think it definitely met, if not exceeded, expectations for the final HP film, considering how much pressure the whole crew were feeling from the whole world. It’s quite a feat, really. I cried practically the whole way through, and at some points I actually had to bite down on my knuckles to keep from bawling. For instance, the whole Snape-Lily storyline was handled beautifully, and I felt his agony much more viscerally and bought the whole Protect Harry for Lily thing much more than in the books. Alan Rickman’s performance was absolutely heartwrenching, and I think one of the most beautiful and understated in the whole series. Ralph Fiennes' performance as Voldemort was equally stunning; he brought a humanity to the character that I really did not want to see, but by the end I found myself on the border of feeling sorry for him, having lost everything while under the illusion of victory. The trio were fantastic, as was everyone else, too many to mention individually. The much anticipated final scene (you know the one) was handled with convincing subtlety, excellent aging technology, and Harry as a dad wrung yet more tears from my eyes. It was electrifying and I came out feeling completely numb and traumatized. Millions of people across the world had just witnessed the end of their childhood. It’s a couple of weeks later and I still tear up and smile every time I hear correspondence from fans with the same trepidation and sentiment read out on the radio. The Harry Potter series has touched people across the globe and brought them together in a way that couldn’t otherwise be done, and as much as I am sad to let it go, I’m so grateful to have been a part of it. When I have kids I’m going to rear them on the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione, and if they don’t like it they can go to Azkaban.

(Note: I fear the following may devolve into an aimless rant.)

English Literature; Actually, it’s pronounced litratyooah. So, in about six weeks I’m starting my second year of English literature at Glasgow University and after a huge kerfuffle with the booklist I am just about at the end of my tether. I’m just going to be blunt: literature does my head in. ‘Cause, you know, there’s a difference between “pulp fiction” commercial reading and litratyooah. A big difference. Litratyooah is all about The Human Condition whereas “pulp fiction” is all about lowering the human IQ. Then there’s the canon of English and how it’s totally impregnable for today’s authors because anything worth saying has already been said, and better. Personally, I don’t believe that pulp fiction is any less valuable than literature, and neither do I think literature is really the big elitist snob it is purported to be. I’m like a Venn diagram or a really good CIA agent, or maybe a really unfaithful lover; I live in both worlds. I love reading, period, and I hate all this border control bullshit between pulp fiction and literature. A lot of people are much less inclined to pick up a book by, say, Charlotte Bronte, simply because it’s considered a classic and therefore inaccessible to the average person. But you know what? That’s crap. I reckon the biggest reason literature has this austere reputation as being like some kind of elite society you need a golden ticket and a degree to get into is because of the people around it, not because of the texts themselves. And the same happens to people who have been conditioned all their lives to read only what belongs to the canon; when they try to integrate their reading taste into the more mainstream, they feel alienated and out of place. It’s a foreign land, and they have no map. And there’s this kind of tribal rivalry between pulp fiction and literature, and it’s not good. I’m lucky because my dad read to me as a kid, and instead of CDs I had audio tapes, so I feel comfortable in the world of reading, but not everyone has had that and it’s a shame because there is so much out there, reading wise, they will never be brave enough to expose themselves to because it’s unknown and scary and they might not get it. Reading is such an important part of life. It’s a communication of ideas and it’s wish fulfilment and it is the constant exploration of humankind, in whatever capacity. And I don’t think we can afford to have this distance between different types of writing. I know for a fact if I was to go into uni and freely admit that some of my favourite books fall into the dreaded YA category, I’d be laughed at and then promptly kicked out. In the same way, if I struck up a conversation with an average person and said one of my favourite authors is Jane Austen, they’d automatically think “snob”. That’s just wrong. Another thing that annoys me is this kind of demure/patronizing approach on the one hand from commercial writing, and this obsession with lurid detail in literature.

Dear YA writing, if your characters are facing typical issues like sex/drugs/alcohol (which by the way is FINE and not IMMORAL), could you please SAY THE FUCKING WORDS AND DIRECTLY ADDRESS THE ISSUES instead of skirting around them with purple prose and poetic metaphors as transparent as the nightgown your heroine is wearing, thank you.

Dear contemporary litratyooah, could you please find the line of decency and stop throwing specific details in for shock value. In a book about racial tensions in 1960’s New York, I do not care that whilst having UNF-UNF sex on the veranda of your friend’s apartment with a stranger your hair down there began to itch. If I’m reading through a randy male’s proxy, I do not care to read what flavour of tit he is currently munching on, nor what they resemble--no, not even if they look like the top of an Empire State biscuit. I DON’T CARE. Vice versa, if I’m reading through a femme fatale's proxy, I do not want you to describe your lover’s genitalia with cringe-inducing metaphors such as “giant love wand” just because this is more "lady like". You know what’s lady like? Ending the chapter before you invite me in to witness. I’ve had quite enough sadomasochism, thank you.

Please understand this is all like when you are so familiar with someone you feel comfortable laughing at them without running the risk of hurt feelings. I love both kinds of literature really, despite their flaws. I realize there are reasons for being tentative and/or graphic. But if pulp fiction and litratyooah sat down together and worked out their problems, I think it’d be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.


And since it's the beginning of a new month;

Notches at the Wharf, Woy Woy, Australia, October 2009.

Alright, if I stick to my schedule I'll see y'all on the 17th. If not... s'been nice knowing ya.