New Blog Name etc

I’ve been “groovy” on the web for around 10 years now (my how time flies). I thought I would be an early-re-adopter of the term, but it never really re-attained the popularity it once had. Plus, now it is so 1995. I mentioned the change to some folks at school and they heard the old name and fell over laughing. “What did you rename it to? ‘Gnarly Place’?”

Ok, maybe the new name is equally stupid. I’d have a name-that-blog contest, but I don’t care what you think.
My real website will shortly be re-christened as well, but the process is more complicated as it involves changing graphics, which means doing more than typing something in a little box at blogger. And I have this final exam thing to worry about.
There’s an official question and answer post coming up soon covering moving to france, xena’s fate and the uses of devoir. Submit your questions for inclusion!
Tag:

pass NO PASS

If you have an BA/BS degree, you need an 80% to get a pass at UC Berkeley. I am going to fail my french class. It is too late to drop. I cannot switch to a letter grade neither.

This knowledge is not encouraging my studies. Quite the opposite. Maybe if I studied like a madman . . . but I’d rather take a nap.
this is fucking great for applying for phd there. maybe it means i’m not cut out for it.
Tag:

oversharing while i procrastinate on chapter 20 and the uses of “devoir”

I am annoyed that I’m still asking the same questions I was asking when I was 12 and 17 years later, I still don’t have answers. Isn’t my saturn return supposed to be done by now? I was searching my blog archives yesterday for “gender binary” to find a quote by Cixous and damn if I don’t have hundreds of posts about it. “I’m fine with my body.” “I don’t know if I’m fine with my body.” “No, I really mean it, I’m fine.” “Well, I dunno.” “Fine! I’m fine!” “I’m really fine this time.” “I’m finally fine.” “Of course, things are great, fine, really.” yeah, periods of unsureness followed by protesting too much?

[TMI warning Skip to next paragraph] Friday night I was looking on the internets and pictures of naked men and damn are they’re kind of weird looking. Of course, they were models and I also think women models are kind of weird looking.
If I do the academic route, I’ll be 30 when I start PhD program, probably 35(?) when I finish, probably at least 40 when I get tenure, if I get tenure. My attempts to talk Cola into bearing my young have been for naught so far. So let’s say I go and have kids. I can either do it after coursework and god knows if I finish my thesis or I can do it during a sabbatical when I’m supposed to be publishing or something or I can wait until I’m too old. Or I can adopt, also when I’m kind of old.
And if I’m still having gender issues and have become reasonably convinced I’m not going to look like a “straight college guys” pron model, um, I can start tweaking my hormones, take a break from that, have a kid and go back to tweaking? Wait until I have a kid and then start tweaking while it’s still young? It’s so hard to figure out how to be a dad in a postmodernist society… ha ha ha.
tomorrow i’ll change my mind again. “i’m fine.” meanwhile, this biological clock ticking thing is a patriarchal lie designed to oppress women by creating a false dilemma where they are forced to chose between career goals and the supposedly “innate” desire to reproduce. Just ask me 10 years ago.
I think I might go to a support group for cross-dressers for one meeting before I’m off to europe. oh my god, i’m so weird.
Tag:

Liminal Spaces: thinking aloud

Several months ago, I read Cixous and started posting about binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are bad because they’re inherently hierarchical. The use of hierarchies on one context reinforces the use of hierarchies in other contexts according to Cixous. Or, as she writes, “Is the fact that Logocentrism subjects throughout – all concepts, codes and values – to a binary systems, related to “the” couple, man/woman?” (From “Sorties” in The Newly Born Woman, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Trans Betsy Wang. Exerpted in The Hélène Cixous Reader, New York: Routledge. Ed. Susan Sellers p 38 – 40) In other words, when things are placed in binary opposition, the gender binary is reinforced. The gender binary as such is closely related to other hierarchies. When you think in terms of binary oppositions, you reinforce hierarchical systems, sexism, racism etc. So we attack the gender binary by attacking the logical system behind it.

But then she goes on about how writing is women’s. Doesn’t the use of categories reinforce the binary?

Categorization is, of course, socially constructed. There are, for example, animals in the world that have hair and nurse their young. There are other animals in the world who have feathers, beaks and lay eggs. We call the former group “mammals” and the latter group “birds.” Categorizing animals in this way is useful to us because we can generalize about the categories that we have created. We can use our constructed categories to talk about things that birds tend to have in common with each other. However, it’s important to remember that these are constructed. It causes us confusion that the duck bill platypus has a bill, hair, lays eggs and nurses it’s young. It causes the platypus no angst whatsoever.

The reality of the physical, of our bodies, may place us within a category, but it doesn’t make the category anything other than constructed. God created birds and mammals, but god did not create the category “birds” nor the category “mammals.” Creation is more complicated than our categories and a fair number of beings inhabit liminal spaces between our neatly defined boxes.

Most things in nature are chaotic. They tend to fall near poles, but can also fall in between. We have our categories “male” and “female” and most people’s bodies seem to fall near these poles. But around 4% of people’s do not. Moreover, gender and sex are not equivalent. Again, we have poles regarding social roles, the largest being “heterosexual male” and “heterosexual female” but there are poles in other places and some percentage of people who fall nowhere near any of them. We all vary from ideals. We all, in some way, inhabit liminal spaces, some of us more than others.

Biology is not destiny. If the very concepts of “woman” and “man” are socially constructed, then the binary opposition is also socially constructed. Women and men are not opposites and not even a reflection of genetics or genitals. Unless you are taking an androgen blocker, the hormone that you have in the largest quantity in your body is testosterone, a hormone which also, before birth, dictates what shapes our genitals will take. We’re all just people with different hormone levels and histories. We have the power to construct our own bodies and our own categories.

The categories “mammal” and “bird” are useful for doing scientific research. The categories “male” and “female” are useful for creating new humans. Another use of categories of people is, as Cixous hints at, the creation of the “alien other.” A certain kind of man is the standard, everyone else is part of an out group. The out-groups then organize for their own interests, but this action supports the initial division, created by the in-group to cement a power system benefitting itself.

So why not attack the binary by attacking the binary?

Tags: , , ,

Political roundup

I head an interview with Santorum on NPR this morning. He was basically frothing at the mouth (or elsewhere) but Bob Edwards mopped the floor with him. It was awesome. I love Bob Edwards.

During one especially whiny sequence, Santorum (tee hee hee) read a list of insults directed at him off his PDA. “on drugs.” “stupid.” etc. Somehow I doubt these comments were from the New York Times. Boo Hoo! People on blogs are saying bad things about him. Once the blogosphere is silenced, will he go on national media to complain that somebody said something nasty about him in a pool hall? Is anything less than perfect adoration intolerable or what?
While listing naughty names directed at him, he failed to mention “a frothy mixture of fecal matter and lube” which was rather disappointing. I giggle every time I hear his name.
Meanwhile, in right-wing land, Roberts worked on the Romer decision on the winning side. Holy santorum! Maybe this guy really is a swing vote.
Tags: , , ,

Playing Sunday

I just got email saying “bring XYZ on Sunday.” What’s happening on Sunday? I’ve searched my email to discover that somebody asked me if I could play tuba on Sunday. There were a couple of weblinks with information including the orchestra cues, etc. It’s a five hour commitment. I was thinking “oh, well, that’s a lot of time, but I guess I want to do it. I wonder who else is playing?” Well, I am (scroll down). My name is already on the list. So, uh, I guess I don’t need to ask if they still need tubas.

It would have been very annoying to have not known about this and not shown up and then gotten a reputation for being flaky, which would have hardly been my fault. On the other hand, I guess I’m considered reliable. Or psychic. Or something.
416 25th St @Broadway
Near 19th Street BART

Oakland CA 94612
Sunday, Aug 7 2005 8:00 PM
Tags: , ,