felis_ultharus

It hasn't been my best day, but far from the worst. Work was pretty quiet, mostly because they're installing new computers and a new server so we weren't able to work for twenty- or thirty-minute stretches. One of my co-workers made a fudge cake, and I got a signed card from everyone.

I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow. I'm at a critical point in my writing, and I'd really like to have a full day to work at it. Eight pages left on the heavy edit, and I probably won't have a chance to finish it before Tuesday. After that, I have a couple of short edits planned.

Still not entirely satisfied, but I like it better than anything else I've written so far.

I'm reading American Gods right now, and I'm about one-third of the way through. I also finished Death Note, which is one of the best animes I've ever seen. I'll put up a review sometime when I have the time.

Yeah, the book I was so eager about -- The Soul Beneath the Skin -- is starting to become tedious. The first two chapters were wonderful. They were about volunteerism and the much lower levels of violence in the gay male community than in the general public.

The third chapter, though, is basically the author's attempt to graft his own particular sexual fetishes and relationship styles on to a general gay cultural identity, as if these things were interchangeable.

I rather resent non-monogamy made to sound as if it is the proper choice for gay relationships. The author is extremely dismissive of monogamy -- along with the usual obnoxious quips that protray monogamy as somehow a neurosis that treats people as objects. He also treats S&M and public sex as somehow defaults for us. That's not my life, and shouldn't be some sort of requirement for being part of the community.

Sadly, this is the longest chapter thus far. I'm only halfway through the book, but it's turning much more into something about "skin" than "soul" -- which would be a far more radical conversation to be having. So far, there's been hardly anything about queer spirituality, which is what I was really hoping for.

On the other hand, I'm watching what may be the best anime I've seen thus far, in terms of sheer artistic brilliance. Death Note is very dark -- what you'd expect of a series about a boy who gets the power to kill anyone, anywhere in the world so long as he knows their real name and has seen their face. He decides to use that power to cleanse the world of violent crime.

It's an old story, but done very originally.

A few things:

As of this morning, I'm two-thirds through my massive edit of my novel, hoping to be 70% through it by tomorrow morning.

I'm slowing down my posts to my other blog, making them once-a-week on Sundays. The stuff I'm doing is too research-intensive to do well in such a short time -- I've have 25 years of criminal indictments to go through at the archives by next post.

I'd also like time to relax and do fun stuff (like playing Kingdom Hearts).

For the anime group, I assume we're still meeting tonight at my place? I'll be here, in any event.

Gah. Starting today, I'm working the next six days. I kept my birthday free, but that's about it. I'm going to be quite worn out by then.

Oh, well. Beltaine was fun, even if we didn't do much -- just got together and got caught up (none of us have seen foi_nefaste in ages). But I guess that's what the holidays are for.

Still enjoying One of the Boys: Homosexual in the Military during World War II, though I'm reading it slowly. And I'm looking forward to Gankutsuou tonight -- the grand finale. I guess holding out for a happy ending is pretty pointless, though.

Politics

From an article on CBC where Margaret Atwood lashs out at the Conservatives for trying to kill the anadian arts scene:

"They [the Conservatives] basically just hate us. You know it’s people who have never seen any arts in their own lives — they would rather not have gardens, they would rather have parking lots. They just think it’s a frill probably."

Like for everything else worthwhile, the Conservatives have slashing the arts. Our own literary festival in Montreal, Blue Metropolis, lost $150,000.

Atwood focused her article on the economic benefits of the arts in Canada. It's sad art is reduced to defend itself on such a level. Since our society's lost the ability to see the bigger picture -- something the arts help us to do -- nothing can be defended except on the grounds that it brings in money.

Societies should not be run for profit. They exist to promote a larger, more holistic kind of human happiness and security. Art is the lifeblood of a society, embodying and transmitting its values, helping it to see itself, drawing attention to its problems, and healing its wounds so we don't keep repeating the same stupid and costly mistakes over and over.

If art was a money-losing proposition -- and in this country, it's not -- it would still be more vital than a lot of things we waste money on.

Social Life

Just wanted to make sure with the anime group that we were meeting same time, same place for Psychedelic Gay French Vampire Wednesday...? Nothing else has changed but the day?

I really should be reading Moby Dick. I'm fairly prepared for my exam next Friday -- I was already prepared the first time around -- but more material would always help.

Still, there's only so much I can read about the differences between methods of rope-tying between British and American whaling ships before I flee to YouTube and anime.

( Only of interest to Fullmetal Alchemist Fans, and anime fans in general. Otherwise, nothing to see here. Will contain spoilers and severe psychological trauma. )

The worst of my two exams is over. The test was really difficult, but I think I did well on two of the three essays, if slightly incoherent. There were only four of us in the room, including a friend of mine.

I found out after the test, though, that it shall be marked by Bina, the program's most extreme postmodernist. I've been avoiding any class with her name attached to it, mostly because they're about postmodernism, and not really about the books studied in those classes.

Now I have to read a few thousand pages for next Friday. Right now, I've reading a very, very sincere 700-page novel by Rohinton Mistry about an unusual friendship that strikes up between two upper-class Parsis and two Hindu untouchables.

It's a good (though thorough) novel. But I really just want to watch anime right now, and I've got "Cloud Age Symphony" stuck in my head (Grainy video with SOUND here).

Anyway, we're considering a party and a D&D game next week, after my last exam (probably the last of my academic career, ever). The game will probably be Sunday, as per usual, but I'm happy to take suggestions for the party.

It hath now been hours and I'm still trying to figure out how an intelligent, well-educated francophone employee of a major federal government ministry could have thought that the standard English word for "les gens" was "the gigolo."

I can only assume it's the result of a prank by a malicious English-speaker. I'm not really allowed to point out people's mistakes during these placement tests, so I couldn't actually ask her.

I also wonder how many times she's written "gigolo" in place of "people" on government documents. If you get any government documents with the word "gigolo" in it where the word "people" should be, you know I've spoken to that woman.

So, yeah -- it was an interesting day giving English-as-a-second-language placement tests.

Another breakthrough in my editing has put me about one-fifth of the way through my major edit.

I present to the thermonuclear warhead of annoying, the postmodern mime (from Linda Hutcheon's book):

"The very walls of the traditional museum and the very definition of art come under fire in the performances of Albert Vidal, for instance. His "The Urban Man" is a kind of anthropological performance ritual in which Vidal spends five hours a day in a major public place in a city (Miami's Metro Zoo or the Place d'Youville in Quebec City) offering to passers-by an "exhibit" of postmodern man about his daily business."

What is "postmodern man's" daily business? Deconstructing his groceries? Turning office memos into historiographic metafiction? Informing his boyfriend/girlfriend that love is a bourgeois concept and a construction of language, and that the "I" in "I love you" is a signifier that cannot be tied to a signified beyond language?

Oh well, there are reasons to be happy. I finally polished off more than 8 pages yesterday on my writing, though I've hardly done any today. Plus there's Advent Children to look forward to. And there was a gorgeous gay guy sitting next to me this evening in the internet place, so that made me happy :)

As for work, wish me luck. I'm going to be leading the placement test tomorrow, from 9 am to 4:30 pm. I even have a one-member "team" to help me with the interviews.

First, some news stuff:

1. Canada will soon have a new Governor General named Michaëlle Jean. Most people in English Canada have never heard of her, though she's well-known enough in French Canada. Most of the comments have been good, but a few of the letters at the CBC and The Globe and Mail show that racism and sexism are alive and well in this country, unfortunately (Madame Jean is Haitian). Apparently, the fact that Canada has had two women of colour in row for GG indicates some kind of pandering political correctness, according to some of these people. The post has been held for 126 out of 138 years by men, and 132 out of 138 years by white people.
   
   
2. And speaking of unloved minorities in high places, the Crown Prince of Qatar -- the man groomed to be the next Emir -- was caught in a barfight in a British gay bar with his boyfriend. Qatar, as I understand it, is an absolute monarchy, except that the monarches are required to follow Sharia law, which prescribes death for homosexuality. No word on whether the 25-year-old prince can return to Qatar and not be afraid for his life :/

And now, for personal stuff, which is a lot more cheerful:

1. First, congratulations are in order to snowdaemon for her permanent residency status. She'll make a great addition to the country.
   
   
2. My writing continues apace. I think I'm coming out of one of my worst slumps, now, and I'm working on far too many pieces at once.
   
   
3. I think everyone's a go for Gravitation tonight. Just so we're on the same page, 8pm tonight, at foi_nefaste's, and I'll be bringing the video (episodes 7, 8, and 9 tonight, I guess...?)