that it is

What is Emily Bronte: Heretic by Stevie Davies? Is it literary criticism, biography, some kind of prose poem? It's all of those things and not strictly any of them. Like, it's so personal and poetic that it would be hard to use it in an essay, but it's essentially an academic book. 

identical

Just based on his artwork I imagined that Francis Bacon would be kind of brooding and neurotic, but recently I learnt that he was actually very sociable and outgoing, with a magnetic personality. 

frenetic samples

There are books from which you can pick random excerpts and read them, and each excerpt is like a segment of an orange. It's self contained. You get something complete from each bit that you read. Novels are never like that and we don't want them to be. 

reading and writing

For most of my primary/ elementary school years, I hated school. But then, as time went by, to some extend in 5th grade, and then especially in 6th grade, I started to like school a bit more, because I got to do things that I enjoyed and found interesting. I liked a subject called 'themes', which was kind of about being creative. It was like a cross between English, social studies and art. We had a book and you would read a passage from the book and then answer the questions, and it was this that I really took to, but for me it wasn't about writing. It was more about designing the page with lettering and colors and designs. So, I would write the answers and then color in the page. 

I also started to get more into reading around that time. 

Our teacher was radical. He had the idea that we would work on a contract basis. So, at the beginning of the week we would fill in the contract with what we were going to do for each of the different subjects, and then, at the end of the week we would meet with him and discuss how we went and get his input about what to work on for the future. For me, everything else except 'themes' became like a side-gig and themes was my full-time job. I didn't really care about anything else. 

serenidipity

In general, I don't see many possibilities for myself, but at times I realize that there's no reason why exciting things can't happen. I'm constantly thinking about why they can't happen, but that thinking is distorted and I think it's characteristic of my old self so it's a thing of the past. 

There's part of me that wants to make a whole life out of loss and lack, blinded to the possibility of anything good. 

voacation

The best teaching is a balance of preparation and spontaneity. 

corporeality

What I really liked about Tiphaine Samoyault's biography of Barthes is the way that she weaves together the story of Barthes's life and his intellectual work and life and his contribution to theory, all together into a single story. 

It's a bit like what you get when you read Sylvia Plath's journals and letters. You're getting her masterful writing, but also, each letter or journal entry has a context within her life, so there's the story of her life along with the story(s) she's telling in her writing. 

the reverse alchemy of reality

Books get a sense of identity from not being what people think they are. Frankenstein is a good example of this. It's ostensibly a story about a monster but I think it's really more about humanity. 

The real monster or villain in Frankenstein is neither Victor Frankenstein nor the being he creates. Through the novel’s nested narratives, the reader comes to sympathize and identify with both of the main characters. The sense conveyed is that the tragedy is not perpetrated by malevolent individuals but rather by reality itself, and the tragedy is rendered all the more profound because it seems to arise as a result of impulses and enterprises that are positive. Frankenstein desires to learn and to discover secrets that will be of great benefit to humanity. His is an intellectual quest to discover new realms of knowledge and his motivation is essentially altruistic or, at least, not malevolent. He sees himself as being on this great scientific quest right up until the moment that he creates life, and then it turns into a nightmare. 

I think one of the major issues represented in Frankenstein is the way that, fineness and goodness held in one's inner world, become monstrous and malevolent when we try to squeeze them into the 'real' world. Something happens to these ideal good things when they are realized - made real. Intelligence is an example of this. People with higher intelligence are at greater risk of suffering from mental illness, simply because there's so much going on in their mind, which in abstract and ideal terms is good, but when it comes into contact with the realities of this world, can be destructive. 

We see it in religion as well. During Jesus's life on earth, the people who were most serious about religion and righteousness were the pharisees, but they were the people who Jesus criticized and rebuked the most. He said that they were far from God. Ironically, that was because they were so serious about being close to God. They had good ideas and even good intentions, but when those ideas were translated into the real world, the result was something bad. 

more than cosmetic

Sometimes I have wondered why the Bible doesn't have pictures. The basic Bible I mean. I know that study Bibles and Bibles with extra resources have images, like maps and representations of things the Bible talks about. The basic text though, is text. Words. 

I'm glad about that. It's like that for a reason. We're meant to engage with the text as words and sentences, and that includes the whole thing. 

'The Readable Bible' tries to make reading the Bible easier (that's their claim) by reformatting the text more appropriately and adding in charts and images and maps. They say on their website: "Reading the Bible is hard. We fix that." I think that's highly problematic. First of all, difficulty is not the enemy. The Bible ought to be hard. Yes, we can use commentaries and paraphrases and teaching and diagrams and maps, etc. to help us understand the text, but interfering with the text to make it 'easier' is verging on (maybe more) blasphemy. 

Some more text from the website:

If you find the Bible hard to read, you're not alone. Many people wish they read it more often. But let's face it. With page after page of plain text, the Bible is hard to read.

Until now.

That's not a Christian view. That's saying that, while it's good to read the Bible, it's understandable if you don't, because it's hard. That's not what Christians believe. They believe that the Bible is the word of God and that it's our spiritual food - that it's the 'bread of life' that comes from heaven. That's also what the Bible teaches about itself. Reading it is not an option, it's indispensable. It's part of having a relationship with God. Also, it's not that difficult. If you can read, you can read it. Yes, as you go, you encounter difficult and challenging parts, but that's good. 

draught

I bought a secondhand copy of Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors for a couple of dollars. It's her second novel. The first was Cleopatra and Frankenstein, and the third, which comes out April, 2027, is Grenade.

Something that really impresses me is the aesthetic of these books. The covers I mean. It's one of the most effective designs I've ever seen. There's something very elegant and, at the same time, crafted and rustic about it. The second and third books, even though the colors and fonts are different, are in the same style as the first.  

substance and form

I first came across the work of Michel Foucault in a class about legal history. His subject was power, and I was really impressed by the truth of what he wrote. It was deep and profound. I can't remember the content. I just remember how compelling it was. 

clue

My overall impression of my art is that it doesn't look very good, but still, as I create it there's usually a feeling that I've captured something that I like. Occasionally, but rarely, I don't feel that, and I just put the image out there because, for better or worse, I've made it. 

I've noticed that there's a big discrepancy between what I think about the works and how they are received. Often when I think something's really good, I won't get much response, and vice versa - I won't think it's that good but people like it. 

a strange claim

In an ad for a business automation platform, the young guy in the ad says:

I literally owe everything I have to *******. If you take out *****, all of my dreams and my whole life disappears. 

The problem is that I don't even think it's possible to do anything close to that with this platform. What you can do with it is to automate tasks, more efficiently use data across different apps, and incorporate AI into processes. The only way I think it could encompass your whole life and all your goals is if it was your own business, and even then, you'd probably have other concerns and goals....like relationships and family, for example, or hobbies. Or, even if you were fully consumed with your career and your whole life was about that, a tool that is used to improve efficiency is not going to become the source of all your ambitions. You have to bring that yourself and you use tools to help you achieve them. 

from here

I was surprised to learn that, when it was a new development, impressionism was considered to be radical and transgressive. People wondered if it was even art, because it was so different from what was called art at that time. 

At first, I was surprised because, to my mind, impressionism is the epitome of fine art, but when I thought about it, it made sense. That's how art develops. 

exigency

When I'm feeling tired, there are two ways to wake myself up. I can either have a coffee or read Simone Weil. 

dark times

Years ago, I read Leon Uris's Mila 18, about one of the darkest periods in human history - a book about war, terror, depravity and triumph. There's a scene early in the book when one of the main characters pulls this book of poetry off his shelf and reads from it, seeking a kind of consolation. I remember that more clearly than anything else in the book, although, when I look for it, I can't find it. That's OK. The idea of it is probably better than the text. 

something made

To represent something in a book or a film, accurately, you have to distort it and craft it. Anything absolutely authentic would be unbelievable. 

moodible

The reason you have two ears is so that you can listen to two things at once. If you're just listening to one video or podcast at a time, you're missing out. 

out of body

I was listening to Ethel Caine when my dog attacked. I said, 'Don't sink in me with your dog teeth'. 

freedom and bondage

We long for freedom, but we think that freedom is about doing what you want, when actually it's as much about doing what you don't want than it is about doing what you want. 

When you just do what you want and only that, you aren't free, you're a slave to your desires. 

a kind of selflessness

I'm reading my way through all of Patrick White's novels and short story collections. I finished The Vivisector, which I've actually read before, and today I started on A Fringe of Leaves. At first I felt like it was OK, but then, once it got going with the main story, it was like - yes, this is good stuff...this is great literature. 

There's that unmistakable thing. Is it always the same thing? It feels like it in a way. It's a kind of vividness and immediacy. It's a kind of flow, where you cease to be aware that you're reading a book, and you experience the story. 

signs and portents

Being able to be interested in things seems like such a small matter. It's a low bar. But to me it's huge, because depression takes that from you, so to be able to hold that interest is a precious gift. 

human

The ability I have to create in writing and in art, brings me life even in the midst of darkness. 

stimming

I was reading a book the other day, and someone asked me what the book is about. I answered the question and then straight afterwards I had to go off and do something else, but I felt pretty good about my answer. I hadn't realized that's what I thought until I said it, and then afterwards I was pleased because I thought it was a good take on the book. I summed up the whole thing in a few words on the spot without any warning. 

Then afterwards it occurred to me that I wasn't really giving the other person an overview of the book or an outline of its thesis. In some ways I was giving them that but more so I was giving them my response to the book. 

appreciation

After exhibiting Andy Warhol's set of 32 Campbell's soup cans, Irving Blum told Warhol that he thought they were truly profound. He promised Andy that the set would be kept together and that, one day, they would be housed in a great art museum, and that's what happened. 

Blum bought the set for $1,000.00 in 1962, sending Warhol a cheque for $100 each month for 10 months. Now they're in The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and they are estimated to be worth at least $250 Million. 

academise

There are some academic type books where it's very clear you're reading that kind of book. They are verbose, and with all the words there is a lack of substance. The writer wants to get into the intricacies of their great ideas, and I could be wrong, but it seems like they're more intent on demonstrating their knowledge and intelligence than helping the reader to understand. It becomes so ethereal and sophisticated that it loses all bearing on the real world or any questions that are interesting. It's a performance mainly for the benefit of other academics. 

I have to confess though....the reason I recognize it and hate it so much is because I do it in my academic writing. I want to use language well and sound 'academic' but all that machinery actually obscures the point. It doesn't project the point.

When you read the really great scholars though, it's never like that. Like Harold Bloom for example. There is power and meaning behind his words. He conveys very complex ideas and uses language masterfully, but when you read Bloom, you're always getting something, whether it's just a joke or some new insight into the subject. His work is accessible whatever level you're at. If you're a beginner you will get something from it, and if you're advanced, you will still get something from it. 

That is true genius - that ability to communicate great ideas in a way that people get them. Think of Shakespeare. He wrote 400 years ago and we're still captivated by him, still studying him, reading him and watching his plays. 

the thing

Nothing and no one can stop you from doing what you want, but we place so much importance on other people's response to what we do that we feel like we can't do things unless we're going to make money from them or be critically acclaimed. 

So, the actual activity becomes secondary, and the most important thing is the response, which is crazy. Doing that thing ought to be what it's all about. 

now for something else.

Andy Warhol said: "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."

I love that quote and I think it applies to writing as well. I obsess over my writing, wanting to include all the right points in the right order, but I've learnt to just get it done and then move onto the next thing. There are so many things I want to write about, so I end up trying to include a lot of things in each piece, when it's better to express something that embodies the tension between the fullness of the idea and the limits of time and corporality, and complete it and then move on to something else. 

The end of this post but not this blog. 

gimme shelter

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. - Hebrews 12: 7 - 11

The most trying challenges are the ones that you can't see the end of. You can't see a good end. For me it's depression and anxiety. I fall into these nasty vicious cycles. For example, not being able to sleep and depression, and they fuel each other. Earlier in my taper I could say that I was going through this particular challenge because I'm still tapering, and that's probably true. Then, as I continued to taper - once I got down to around 2 x 2 mg of Valium a week - my sleep dramatically improved, and it was so good. But then, a couple of weeks ago, I started having trouble sleeping again, and I'm back in that cycle again. It seems unrelenting. Night after night after night, for weeks, having disturbed sleep and waking up already exhausted and feeling dizzy and disoriented and heavily fatigued all day. 

What I want is relief, but I've learnt that relief is not the answer. The way forward is to achieve a kind of battle-hardenedness, where you're going through all the challenges but you do what you need to do anyway. Your joy returns. Your strength returns. It feels good because your challenges aren't on top of you. You are on top of them. 

scientific fact

The biggest ant is the LFant. 

essense

We have this idea that we're so fragile and under immense pressure and on the verge of breaking, and that's all just a story that we tell ourselves. Your inner self, your soul, your spirit is not just strong, it's unbreakable, unquenchable. 

As Emerson wrote, The soul will not know either deformity or pain.

a kind of hangover

I'm used to building sandcastles right on the edge of the surf and they just get washed away completely, but lately something endures. 

ebb and flow

The past seems more real and tangible. We think of the past as leading us to where we are now, but because the future hasn't happened yet, we don't think of it as having any substance. The truth is that it's probably as real as the past, and as much as our will, decisions, experiences from the past push us forward, our future pulls us forward into itself. 

making a mark

With the best writers, you feel like something is being depicted beyond what they are depicting. It's like how an artist can give an impression of a highly expressive face or gesture with just a few squiggly lines. 

the voice

I appreciate that books don't audibly speak. They speak in other ways, but they don't have an audible voice. They just wait. They don't compete with each other or try to sell themselves, and yet, when you choose one to read, it will give you all it has. Then, if you decide not to read further, it's not resentful. It won't complain or take things personally or be passive aggressive or self-pitying or sabotage your reading by holding back important information.

would you fight for my love

It's surprisingly hard to put down the weight that is crushing your spirit, because you think that if you let go it will crush you for sure. 

deferrance satisfied

The first book I read by James Fenimore Cooper, the main impression I had was how boring it was. It was very earthy and basic, like a cabin in the woods. 

I didn't finish that book even though I had to read it for a course I was doing. Then, later I felt differently about his work. I recognized something of value in it, even if my initial feeling was that it was boring. 

I collect books that I haven't really enjoyed, because of their literary merit. Like Ulysses by James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett's trilogy of novels, and The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, and Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and many others. That sense of literary merit independent of enjoyment or even appreciation, is a value shared by a lot of my books. Sometimes, of course, there's both - enjoyment and literary merit, and I find that literary merit feeds into enjoyment, although not always directly. 

different reactions

Going to the Kinokuniya bookshop in Sydney, and looking in the 'literary criticism' and 'essays' sections often makes me want to write. No other section has that effect, and no other bookstore either. 

At the start of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy tells us that happy families are all the same but unhappy families are all different. They're unhappy 'in their own way' he tells us. I would say that, with bookshops, it's the opposite. All the really good bookshops I know are very distinctive. They have their own flavor. 

Somehow, they don't even have the same books. You would think they would - that being good bookshops they would have the good books - but it seems like there are so many good books out there that each good bookshop can stock a different selection of good books. 

new eyes

When I first read The Catcher in the Rye, I didn't really get it. I didn't understand the symbolism or see the artistry in Salinger's work. If I read it now, I would probably have a better sense of those things. 

ig

I sometimes forget that Instagram is used for things other than art. 

the key of change

I remember when I was studying English at uni and I was really getting into literature. I read and studied Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, Portrait of a Lady, Passage to India, and lots of other great literature. Some film versions of Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights came out and I was so excited to see them. I imagined that they would do justice to these great novels. Again and again I was disappointed, until I came to the conclusion that it can't be done - you just can't make a great film of these great novels. 

I still think there's some truth to that. You can't really do justice to a novel in film or a TV show, at least in the way that I once thought. A film is never going to do justice to what I find in these novels. What I've discovered through watching some really good shows that are based on some great novels, is that you have to change the story radically in order to do justice to it. 

You have to make something of it - something new. For example, at the center of the TV show, The Man in the High Castle, is a subversive film but at the center of the book, is a book. In the TV show, Brave New World, pretty much everything - at least all the action of the story - is different from the novel. Some key things are the same, like the names of some characters, but more importantly, what is the same between the two is the issues and the context, the dilemmas, the human story. In order to tell that same story in a TV show and in our era, you have to change it. You have to get the idea - or your own sense of the idea - and then make a TV show about that idea. 

hold fast

Another reason we don't perceive the speeds we're actually going at is because they remain consistent. It's like when you're in a car or a train that's travelling at 80 kmh. You can read or play a game or eat. You can sleep even though you're moving at 80 kmh. But if the vehicle were to suddenly stop completely, you would fly forward and get injured. 

perspective

At the equator, the earth is spinning at 1,040 miles per hour. The earth moves through space at 67,000 miles per hour. Our solar system spins around the galaxy at 490, 000 miles per hour.

The reason we don't perceive those immense speeds is because of the magnitude - the size - of the earth and space. 

sin tax

I would maintain a certain rhythm and then bring in a different rhythm superimposed on the earlier one, so that both were going at the same time, and there was an element of spontaneity. Once you've got the two rhythms going on their respective levels, there becomes a third rhythm made up of the other two, so you're just playing one rhythm. 

æsthetic

What interests me about Andy Warhol and some other artists is the creative audacity they manifest. They do something real and interesting in the artistic realm. 

just

Subtle effects can have major consequences, especially when it comes to the mind and things that affect the mind. That's something I've really come to appreciate anew as I have tapered off benzos. 

I'm down to less than 2 x 2 mg of Valium a week now, most weeks. Most days I take .25 x 2 mg, which works out to 1.75 x 2 mg a week. So, you'd think that the amount of Valium in my system would mean that I don't really need it anymore and it wouldn't affect me much anymore, but no, that's not the case. I'm getting close to the end. As of this month - September 2026 - I started to have some days when I didn't take any Valium at all. Passing through that barrier was exciting. For the first two weeks of this month, I had 2 days each week of no Valium, but then, towards the end of those 2 weeks, it hit me really hard. It wreaked havoc with my sleep and mental health, and I still haven't recovered - still struggling. So, I've gone back to .25 x 2 mg a day, for the moment, and when I've stabilized, which should be soon I think, I'll have another go at some zero days. 

I've also rediscovered the effects of caffeine. For a long time I only drank decaf, but then lately I've been experiencing a really oppressive kind of fatigue. The combination of being so exhausted and not being able to sleep is exquisite torture. So, I had the idea of trying a decaffeinated coffee, maybe 2 or 3 times a day. I wasn't sure if it would work, but I wanted to give it a go, and it turned out to be really effective. I don't know if it was just psychosomatic, but the first sip I felt a difference, felt re-energized. Just having that little extra bit of control again, is very encouraging. It's intoxicating, but in a good way. 

path taken

The first time I went to university was in 1986. I was doing a combined commerce/ law degree, but I didn't end up finishing it. I chose commerce because I really liked economics when I studied it in high school, but I bombed out of commerce. I failed all 3 of my commerce subjects in that first semester. The kind of economics I liked was macroeconomics but none of the courses in first year commerce were about that. There was accounting, microeconomics and quantitative methods. 

So, after that I transferred to doing a combined Jurisprudence/ Law degree, which was basically a lot of law, with a minor stream of some other subject of my choice. I ended up choosing economic history.

That first time, I got through 2 years of studying full-time but then ended up doing some other things - working, travelling, etc. Then, in 1996 I went back to uni and this time I was doing a combined Arts and Education degree majoring in English and History. Again, it didn't work exactly as planned and I didn't finish the education degree but I did finish the Arts degree. 

I still worked in education. I did a lot of English tutoring, and in 2009 I did my Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, then I worked in vocational education as a trainer and developer for around 7 years. 

book to screen

Some of the TV shows I've enjoyed the most recently have been based on books...The man in the high castle, Brave New World, Mr Mercedes. That seems to be what all the best shows, in my view, have in common. I notice though, that they depart very dramatically from the book, but they do that to be faithful to the spirit of the book.

for knowledge to count

Why is it that, when I have ideas about something, if I don't express that view to anyone, I feel like it doesn't count? It's not enough for me to know. I have to tell other people. 

The stronger the view and the more thought and work I've put into it, the more I feel like that. If I don't 'use' my knowledge by expressing it, I feel like it's wasted. 

forgive

Expression is the opposite of depression. 

It's funny how wielding this instrument instills life in you. It's weird because you're not taking something in, you're giving out, and yet that action gives you life, brings yourself back.