Confessions NOT on a dancefloor

1)      I used to be a Hanson fan.

There, I said it.

No. I have to tell you that it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was an active member on a Hanson fan forum! I got mad at my sister when told me that Taylor Hanson looks like a girl! I read Hanson fanfic! I wrote Hanson fanfic! I thought Taylor was misunderstood by the world and the hambrained Hanson-haters and only needed to get to know me in order to live a happy and fulfilling life! I made friends on the Hanson fan forum, friends with whom I exchanged postcards, letters, mixtapes, mix CDs, posters, books, and phone calls! Actually, this last thing was the best thing of all. I haven’t talked to any of them in about 12 years, which suddenly makes me feel sad.

Taylor Hanson married someone else and had someone else’s babies, and life went on.

I was reminded of this because I just read this great piece on Rookie. The part that made #lolsob:

Though I am way too old to believe that my teenage fantasies will save me, I still find myself taking comfort in them. A few weeks ago, I stayed up all weekend watching Hanson videos on YouTube and I came across a clip of Taylor forgetting the lyrics at a concert and then endearingly asking the audience to help him, and suddenly I was all, What a magnificent person, I wonder if he and his wife are going to get divorced, even though they have four kids. He would probably be more intrigued and fulfilled by someone really creative and unhinged like, um, me.

(Jenny, who wrote that piece, writes a really great blog called Fashion for Writers. And it just occurred to me that we’re both using the same WordPress template, as are a few other WordPress blogs I frequent, and it’s always a little bit embarrassing, like going to a party and finding out that you and a bunch of other people you really admire are all wearing the same outfit. Or another way of looking at it: There is only one decent WordPress outfit theme and we all have to use it.)

The Hanson brothers

2)      I haven’t properly read Marx. I read The Communist Manifesto but I think it’s the least you can do and not something you’re allowed to brag about. So my project for 2012 is to get through Capital, with David Harvey’s help. (A sub-confession: this is 2011’s resolution, brought forward.) And about 20 minutes into David Harvey’s introductory video, he makes a joke and I do not laugh: “One of the best things about reading Hegel before reading Marx is that makes reading Marx pretty easy. So get yourself a dose of Hegel before you do Marx and everything will be okay.” I DO NOT LAUGH because-

3)      I have not read Hegel. Not even a sentence, I don’t think. Maybe a phrase. Maybe I’ve glanced at some Hegelian words. (Do I need to read Hegel before Marx? Should I go back to the Greeks? Perhaps reread Shakespeare? WHEN DOES THE PROJECT START AFTER I’VE READ EVERYTHING EVER WRITTEN HOW THE FUCK HOW HOW HOW FOR THE LOVE OF ISSUS OF BARSOOM I HAVEN’T EVEN READ ADAM SMITH UNLESS EXCERPTS COUNT WHY DO I NOT KNOW A DAMN THING WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LIFE WHAT DO I READ WHEN HOW HOW)

The Karl Marx

4)      Instead of starting on Capital as I had planned to, I read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars last weekend in preparation for John Carter because I had no say in the matter. (The choice of movie, that is.) I think I liked the book, despite taking the time to laboriously type notes in my Kindle along the lines of, “Bahaha!” and “LOL!” and “For fuck’s sake!” Books that you can simultaneously mock and enjoy possess a certain form of power. I love that John Carter has gone to Mars but all the rules of heteropatriarchy still apply. I mean, that’s just how our world the universe works. I just got such a kick out of this hypermasculine wish fulfillment fantasy that is also one of greatest sci-fi classics of all time or something.

5)      I watched John Carter and I think I liked it and maybe you might like it too IF YOU IGNORE the nice Disney-liberal sheen, when John Carter tells some Confederate soldier dude, “You started it. You finish it!” and soldier dude goes, “Oh-ho, gone all native have we?” and John Carter replies, “No, damn the Apaches too,” or something to that effect and we’re meant to relate to and agree with this hunky embodiment of rational (white) male subjectivity, who is an Individual and who sees the robbing of American lands from the natives as a fight among equals, you know, damn you all to hell all of you I AM JOHN CARTER AND DO I NOT LOOK GOOD WITH MY DIRTY BLONDE LOCKS and when the Therns talk about how the human race is overpopulating itself and fighting to the death because THERE ARE SO MANY HUMANS and you’re meant to think OH THAT’S WHAT WAR IS ALL ABOUT NOT REALLY ABOUT GEOPOLITICS AND POWER MATRICES IT’S BECAUSE THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY OF US WELL WHY DON’T WE GET RID OF A FEW and maybe it should be the Tharks because they’re not aesthetically pleasing like John Carter of Earth and Dejah Thoris of Barsoom who are PRETTY PRETTY PEOPLE AND NOBLE AND GOOD AND PRETTY AND REALLY WOW GREAT BODIES TOO and the Tharks are just so strange looking aren’t they and none so noble as a human as Tars Tarkas and Sola, because the rest of them are brutes but hey John Carter’s loins say save Helium and Dejah Thoris and so, for that purpose, let us harness the labour of the Tharks to fight on behalf of Helium even though John Carter told Sola earlier that she is the only Thark worthy of the honour of her father’s legacy of kindness and nobility but that’s okay coz none of the other Tharks heard him say that and now they’re all really excited to fight for him even though they called him a white ape earlier, the brutes, but John Carter was really exemplary in dealing with all that hatred and racism from the uncivilised Tharks and you see the lesson here? John Carter may have benefited from white supremacy on planet Earth but he went to Mars and he was discriminated, just like the rest of us, DO YOU SEE, he just triumphed and showed the Tharks the way by staying true to the course and so if you can ignore all that, then yeah. It was pretty enjoyable, and you might like it.

The script was co-written by Michael Chabon.

The lovely people of our various planets

6)      The only book by Michael Chabon I have ever attempted to read: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The attempt was unsuccessful. I really, really, really did not like it. (Related question: What fuels the Chabon-mania? I do not understand. Do I really want to? No.)

7)      I willed myself to stay away from Twitter for a few days and I did and those few days became a week and then I was scared to go back there but then I went back and all my time is gone, again, because I read and wrote more in my spare time than I would have while tweeting, retweeting, and madly favouriting, which is what I’m doing now, having gone back. How do people hold down a job, be married, make babies, write books, write poetry, direct films, sing songs, play musical instruments, go to the gym, bake a fucking cake, and STILL ACTIVELY TWEET AND BLOG? I don’t know.

8)       I can’t stand Don Draper. I finally watched Season 4 of Mad Men and I realise that we sat through a whole season of smugbum privileged pricks just so that we could enjoy what was engendered by the various hypermasculine charades: interaction between Peggy and Joan, for like 5 glorious minutes, in the final episode. In general, I just don’t know about the adult characters this season. I’m #TeamSallyDraper all the way. I’m really sad that she has Father Issues and that her Father is Don Draper. (In summary: #nodads.) I’m amazed at how quickly Betty became the wholly unsympathetic witchmother/wife. I felt like her character was made to stand in for much of the audience’s rage and disgust over the treatment of Carla although neither Don Draper or Betty’s new husband Henry Francis gave a shit about Carla until she was fired. (And then, specifically on Don’s part, it was about how it would affect him when he takes the kids with him to California.) Yes, they’re all racist, the show vaguely and quickly assures us, but Betty is just a little bit worse for being so bitchy about it. Meanwhile, Don Draper carries on with the DonDraper Guide to Life which goes along the lines of, Secretaries: use or marry. “You don’t want to start giving me morality lessons, do you? People do things,” says Don Draper to Peggy, in reference to him sleeping with his former secretary while drunk and not taking any responsibility for the fallout. Oh, but he TRIED! How he tried! He attempted to write a letter, wrote one sentence, and threw the letter away because words on a lousy letter cannot bear the significance of the complexity that is Don Draper. Meanwhile… next episode! (File this under: “How Don Draper’s Creators Allow Don Draper to Get Away with Shit.”) Seriously. I cannot stand Don Draper. (Does Betty say the same thing? I think so.)

9)      Since reading Joan Riviere’s “Womanliness as a Masquerade” a few months ago and identifying myself as one of the intermediate types, I keep asking myself, What went wrong during the oral-biting stage? This is the question to ask (your)myself. And this made me realise that although I’ve read quite a bit of Freud I haven’t quite properly read Freud, either, and even less of the feminist critiques/engagement with Freud, and WHY DO I NOT KNOW A DAMN THING WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LIFE WHAT DO I READ WHEN HOW HOW

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