My brain and I, at work.

[hmpf]

Hmpf reads Judith Butler. It's dense reading, very slow, with a lot of rereading, and marking things with little question marks in the margins.

Brain: Hey.

Hmpf reads.

Brain: Hey.

Hmpf reads.

Brain: You really need to make a doctor's appointment tomorrow.

Hmpf: Yeees. Reads.

Brain: And buy a couple of folders.

Hmpf: Mhmmm. Reads.

Brain: ... And e-mail your local friends. And contact dunkle_feuer.

Hmpf: Yes. Tries desperately to concentrate on feminist philosophy.

Brain: And get that parcel to beccatoria ready. And back up your e-mails and your LJ and your bookmarks. And buy a bag for your laptop. And recharge your mobile. And get introductions to Lacan, Hegel and Freud from the library...

Hmpf reads: "If the body is subordinated and to some extent destroyed as the dissociated self emerges, and if that emergence might be read as the sublimation of the body and the self be read as the body's ghostly form, then is there some part of the body which -"

Brain: You really should write all this down, you know. You'll forget half of it.

Hmpf: ARRRRRRRRRRGH!

Brain: ...

Hmpf: You're right, actually. Puts away book, takes out piece of paper, makes To Do list. Puts To Do list away, returns to Butler.

Five minutes pass.

Brain: Hey.

Hmpf: "... is there some part of the body which is not preserved in sublimation, some -"

Brain: How would you classify that vid you recced recently?

Hmpf: "... some part of the body which remains..." - What?

Brain: Well, it's hard to talk about vids, isn't it? There's no agreed-upon vocabulary, no common terminology. Like, there are difference in approach, aren't there? Some vids retell canon, some interpret it, and some transform it. So, what do we call these? "Mimetic", "interpretive" and "transformative"?

Hmpf: I really don't need vid meta now.

Brain: And then there's the distinction between narrative and non-narrative - some vids are just about motion and rhythm, action, drive... what do we call those? How about "kinetic"?

Hmpf reads: "This bodily remainder, I would suggest, survives for such a subject in the mode of -"

Brain: C'mon, write this down, this might make some nice meta someday.

Hmpf: *deep sigh* Puts away Butler, takes out piece of paper, begins to jot down beginnings of "A Typology of Fanvids".

Brain: Structure can be linear, cyclical, impressionist/non-linear...

Hmpf: Yes, yes, yes. Shut up. Finishes notes, puts away piece of paper, takes up Butler again, notices she's completely lost now and starts at the top of the page again. "The subject not only effectively takes the place of the body..."

Brain: Hey.

Hmpf: Shut. Up.

Five minutes pass.

Brain: You still need to do that 12 things meme for tgifa.

Hmpf: Not. Now.

Brain: Hey, look at that girl. Great necklace. Don't you think something like that could work nicely with those labradorite beads you've been wanting to make into something for your mum for ages?

Hmpf: Hmm. You're right. Takes out piece of paper, begins to sketch labradorite necklace design. Gets stuck after a couple of minutes. So? What now?

Brain: Dunno.

Hmpf: *siiiiiiiiiiiiigh* Puts away sketch, takes out Butler again. Reads: "The subject not only effectively takes the place of the body but acts as the soul which frames and forms the body in captivity. Here the forming and framing function of that exterior soul works against the body; indeed it might be understood as the sublimation of the body in consequence of displacement and substitution."

Brain: Write some fic.

Hmpf: ... Okay. Stares at random work in progress for five minutes.

Brain: Naaaaah. Let's read some Freud instead.

Rinse and repeat.


(Excerpts taken from chapter 3 of The Psychic Life of Power, by Judith Butler, Stanford University Press, 1997.)