aspiration and desire

Composing anything, even a list, involves a shift in thinking. You have to stop thinking about how the thing is supposed to look, and think about how you want it to look. 

covers

best cover versions: 

no quarter by tool (originally by led zeppelin)

lose yourself by Kasey Chambers (originally by Eminem)

crazy in love by Sofia Karlberg (originally by Beyoncé)

we can't stop by Boyce Avenue with Bea Miller (originally by Miley Cyrus)

wild horses by the sundays (originally by the rolling stones)

sweet dreams by Marilyn Manson (originally by the eurythmics)

knockin' on heaven's door by Avril Lavigne (originally by Bob Dylan)

I love you more than you'll ever know by Amy Winehouse (originally by Al Kooper)

with a little help from my friends by Joe Cocker (originally by the Beatles)

I'm shakin' by Jack White (originally written by Rudy Toombs and sung by Little Willie John)

California dreamin' by Jose Feliciano (originally by the mamas and the papas) 

maybe I'm amazed by Rod Stewart and the faces (originally by Paul McCartney)

isolation by Johnny Depp with Jeff Beck (originally by John Lennon)

where is my mind? by Placebo (originally pixies) 

immortality by seether (originally by Pearl Jam)

the sound of silence by disturbed (originally by Simon and Garfunkel)

all along the watchtower by Jimi Hendrix (originally by Bob Dylan)

sweet child o' mine by Sheryl Crow (originally by Guns n roses)

feeling good by muse (originally by Nina Simone)

I just don't know what to do with myself by the white stripes (originally by Dusty Springfield)

the scientist by Avril Lavigne (originally by coldplay)

voodoo child by orianthi (originally by Jimi Hendrix)

I heard it through the grapevine by creedence clearwater revival (originally by Marvin Gaye)

while my guitar gently weeps by Powderfinger (originally by the beatles)

are you experienced? by Eric Johnson (originally by Jimi Hendrix)

bad gasoline by Justin Townes Earle (originally by Lightnin' Hopkins)

acute

No one really comprehends depression, even people who experience it. When you're not currently going through it, you don't appreciate how bad it is. 

I remember looking at lists of side effects of benzo withdrawal, and the worst ones pass more quickly, but depression and other mental health issues linger for a longer period of time, and I'm like - that's not too bad. I can handle that - because it sounds mild and manageable, but depression and anxiety can be anything but mild and manageable. 

unthinkable

I watched a video that came up on my youtube feed. It was a news report about a priest who allegedly bit a member of the congregation coming up to take communion. I thought, I have to hear this. 

So, I watched the video and, like pretty much everyone who commented on the video, I was actually on the side of the priest. 

You got to hear her side of it first and she said that she just wanted one of the 'cookies' - yes, she used that word to describe the eucharist multiple times. She said that the priest was refusing to give her a cookie (again, her actual words) and he explained to her that she hadn't met the necessary requirements - because apparently he knew her and they had talked before about what she needed to do to accept the body of Christ in an appropriate way. There's nothing unreasonable about that. As a non-Catholic who went to a Catholic high school and also went to mass many times, I know that I can never take communion at mass, unless I become a Catholic. 

So, she goes on to say that, because the priest wouldn't give her 'the cookie' she grabbed a whole handful of the 'cookies' and scrunched them up, knocking some to the floor....that's when the tussle between the two happened. When they interviewed the priest, he was very calm and reasonable and he just explained that he was trying to stop her from committing this act of desecration. 

To hear someone refer to the eucharist as a 'cookie' - something I've never heard before - and then to have a tantrum and desecrate the eucharist because they couldn't have one, is disturbed, repulsive and abhorrent. I found it hard to believe that anyone would ever talk and act like that, but apparently they did. 

get out of the way

I really loved Tiphaine Samoyault's biography of Roland Barthes. It was perfect - the weaving together of his life, his intellectual development, the development of his theory, his connection with other key figures and historic developments. A masterpiece. 

So, I thought, I really like this genre - the biography of an influential scholar that treats their life and their work, and I bought another one. I was really looking forward to it, but I was disappointed, probably because I was expecting something like Samoyault. 

The main problem, from my point of view, was that the writer wanted to insert themselves into the book. They talked about their friendship with this scholar and why they wanted to write their biography, and they just had their own things to say, and everything was over-dramatized. Like she talked about one academic who had promoted and protected the work of the subject of the biography, 'to his very last breath'. She shared all this insider information about the relations and interactions between famous figures....and I'm like - who cares?! I'm interested in the life and work of the person that the biography is about. That's why I'm reading the book. I have zero interest in the person who wrote the book, to be honest. 

It made me think that, to write a good biography, takes a kind of humility. It's interesting that a biographer of Barthes should embody the death of the author so nicely. 

can I read?

Even though I am a Christian, I don't agree with the usual Christian critique of critical theory, because critical theory has been and still is an important part of my education. It's never been ideological, for me. It's not about dividing everyone into oppressors and oppressed. It's not about social change. 

For me, and for a lot of other people, critical theory provides a framework for understanding texts. It's an academic pursuit, and it was really liberating for me to learn about the different theoretical approaches. In high school they taught us one way of understanding texts as if that was the only way, and I didn't get it. I didn't like English in high school. But then, years later, I studied English at university and in the first year we learnt about all the different theoretical approaches, or at least some of them, and I engaged with each of them. They were helpful and interesting in understanding literature and how it works. So, it taught me that there are lots of different ways of approaching literature, which was really exciting. 

I understand that it's possible to make the connection between critical theory and activism, social and cultural change, ideology, worldview, etc. but I'm not interested in doing that, and there's no imperative for me to do that. I'm a Christian. That's my ideology. For me, critical theory is a framework for understanding texts and academic discourse. 

theory

I've been listening to and watching videos of Gabriel Rockhill. It's fascinating what he says about how the CIA took an interest in French theory (Barthes, Foucault, Lacan, etc) for the purpose of opposing the global left. 

I'm not completely convinced though. His thesis is a little bit far-fetched, and he doesn't make it accessible. He's very critical of Zizec, which I don't like. I like Zizec.