Et In Arcadia Ego

If you've known me for a while, you'll have heard the Pretentious Film Studies Class anecdote in which a lecturer asks:

"In this film, do you locate the 'fuck' as a phenomenon or an act?"

This morning it occurs to me that, with the passage of time, I've started taking the notion quite seriously.

We were studying experimental cinema - short movies made as Art. It's the greatest class I attended at Kings, and the only film class that got me trying to make movies. We saw *everything* in that class. Week 2, the lecturer noted that not many people had shown up, perhaps because they'd already read the essays. I hadn't read the essays. She also noted that people tended to vomit or walk out, but we weren't allowed to do either. Well now I'm terrified. So we watched an 8-minute silent video of real world autopsies. Followed by an amazingly tender video of a childbirth-in-close-up. If ever I tell you I don't want kids, you can hold Stan Brakhage to blame. Another notably wanky week was spent debating whether Sadie Benning - a young white dyke who didn't leave her bedroom for four years and made movies on this horribly cheap camera which couldn't be edited - was oppressing black people by recording music by black artists off the radio. My hunch is, she was a teenager just mucking around with music she liked...

We also had the Is It Art Or Is It Porn week, which was less awkward-boner-ific than you might expect, though I still kept a lot of my thoughts to myself. One of the films we watched was strange, made of disconnected body parts - though in a cuddly, not objectifying way. Which is when the famous comment was made. I guess because you didn't really get characters doing things, sex just kinda occurred between the frames.


Two months later, tuition fees were raised despite protests and violence, and our very depressed class tramped to the pub together. This afternoon was what uni was meant to be like. And they were talking about the violence, and though the same phrase wasn't used, the concept was the same.

They noted that in the papers, violence was a "phenomenon" - something that just spontaneously occured - instead of an "act", which implies an "actor" with motivation. No one was asking why people were doing violence, but violence "happened". A phenomenon, not an act.

The distinction is really powerful, and I now see it all the time. Been thinking about my brain recently, and what things in there are phenomena which are meaningless and random, and what things have motives, and reasons, and causes to blame.

I have to tell you what's gone on with the househunt!

I'm now sitting at Guy's campus with the loveliest view, one of my favourites. A mix of huge modern buildings, 50s brick, 1880s grimey white tile, hundreds of windows, walkways, scaffolds and smoking chimneys intersecting with pipework and stairwells. Yes, it's ugly. But I'm not sure anyone quite understand how much this breed of London ugliness makes me happy. To cap it off, I can also see trees, and lights and shadows playing through it all, and a huge sky of clouds peppered by regular planes. I'm happy.

I'm at a strange campus because I've spent the last two days papering student-haunts, and this is the end of my toils. Today, because I have no shame, I have also been carrying about a placard reading "HOUSEMATE WANTED". Unfortunately, the only offer that has gleaned has been from a yellow foam pig, whom we established probably couldn't afford make rent every week.

Yesterday was a sort of special hell. We were going to sign up Segnor Espania and Miss Interpreter at 11.30AM, so I came home specially only to discover that they had flaked out on us that very morning. Calypso and I did some calming painting (she's doing, as she calls it, "Mucha Sci Fi Tarot") but finally resigned ourselves to tromping back to Central. It was a crushingly miserable moment, but my motto is if you can't feel fantastic, you can at least look fantastic.

So I got out the tub of "man gel" Oceanic had abandoned there - mum had got it for her by mistake, not being the brand she needed. I've been intending for some time to attempt Agent Cooper-style slicked-back hair, and my day wasn't going to get any worse. My hair is too long to do it properly - it's heavy, so it scrapes the style back flat instead of achieving the foppish "puff" short haired folk get - but I shoved it into a pony at the back. With a bit of practice, I might be able to get a little puff. Calypso noted it had rather a boyish effect, though I thought it was a bit more 80s power-dressing. Very much like the photo to the left. It certainly made my face look good, if artificially giving my hair the greasy-unwashed look. I then pushed it over the top with a fake cravat and the Sixth Doctor frock coat. Looked worse (probably), but felt better.

We hit Central like a plummeting lift. Calypso manned the internet machine, and shrapnelled the web with adverts. I photocopied adverts, then went and papered every student building I could find. We'd already done the Strand Campus. It was a lovely, dark evening - glowy lights of all colours, public transport, glittery shops. I walked up to Bloomsbury and hit every college in the area: UCL, SOAS, Royal College of Surgeons, Birkbeck. Guess what else I found up there?

RADA.

I snuck in nervously, avoiding the urge to attack the smug, irritating types I found scattered all over the place, and went to the reception desk. As I had at the other Colleges, I stumbled over a request that the receptionist take my poster and have it put up. He accepted it, and replied "I'll make sure it's put up, sir." I thanked him and left, and it was only once I'd left and shut the door that what he'd said sunk in.

Sir?!

Being mistaken for a man didn't actually upset me as much as you'd assume it should - in fact, I grinned for the next fifteen minutes. While "passing" for male wasn't exactly what I'd intended that morning, nevertheless I had consciously styled my appearance after my male fashion icons, so I suppose I was sort-of asking for it. And it made some sense - that coat broadens my shoulders, what shape I have was hidden under a baggy jumper and as per usual, I wasn't wearing make up. Plus, this was RADA: they must be used to ludicrously effete fellas.

But I wasn't upset. While I've no desire at all to be a man, there is a fairly significant chunk of my brain which operates in a stereotypically "male" manner; and part of me would love to be a proper Victorian gentleman, hence the cravats and pretentions to chivalry. On a shallow, purely aesthetic level, it's a torment that I can't wear suits. I mean, I have the right to, and do my best with cravats and top hats and the rest, but I will never have the ability to make it look good in the way I want it to. Rather like that dress my sister and I accidentally bought on the same day. We both kept it, and it looks marvellous on both of us - but it looks like two different dresses when we wear them together, because we've different shapes. To illustrate my point, I've peppered this post with some of my favourite suit-wearers: Doctor number ten; 30s actress Jessie Matthews in First a Girl; Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks; 30s actress Marlene Dietrich in Morocco and singer Janelle Monae, who I've never heard of before but the picture looked great. My point being, they all look very fine - but fine in different ways.

But avoiding the obvious biological differences, I've little time for the gender binary. I feel that dividing people into two categories which influence the way they behave, dress, speak, move, and are treated is a shame on so many levels, not to mention unfair. Why would anyone want to limit themselves like that?

Bizzarely, the whole experience left me very conscious of how feminine I am. Going back on the tube, it occured to me that no one could possibly mistake me for a man for longer than the 5 seconds I had talked with the receptionist. The way I was standing, sitting, walking, positioning my legs, moving my hands - even, I felt, my range of facial expression would be different had I been raised male. No space or time, or indeed point to going into nature vs. nurture here - I think it's predominantly the way we learn to behave. Properly paying attention to the way men and women move is actually an exercise I'd recommend to everyone.

All in all, it was a fascinating occurrence. My first instinct was "eeek, won't do that again" - but a moment after, I amended that to "I will be careful how I use this in future". After all, with great hair comes great responsibility. There are many situations in my life where appearing manly is not an advantage - i.e. most of them. I'm glad I've been warned, so I never give off this effect by accident.

But I'm tempted. Very, very tempted to have a go at it properly. Work out how to sit and stand, and (assuming, for a moment, that I am convincing) see how people treat me differently.

Of course, the main downside of this whole scenario is the fact I spent my entire evening walking about with dead animal fat smeared all over my head. It's now gone all crusty, and I somehow respect movie gangsters and the rest less for knowing how nasty it feels in the morning. I've washed it once now, and it's still pretty gooey - today, I've been sporting the cancer-outpatient look, with a hair-concealing hat so concealing that it makes obvious something nasty has happened up there...

I've got a plan, however, for what to do next. I'm going to get my hair to frizz, then slick down the very top. It works, in my head, with a flapper dress and pearls.

This story concerns the bus driver who drove me home today. He was a real sweetie - most turn into robots, but he was evidently new because he had a laugh at something said over the intercom, and stopped to help a fellow bus-driver round a difficult corner. It was while we were stopped that the old man sitting next to me started mumbling. At first I didn't think it was directed at me - he was clearly too old to be on public transport on his own. But it was, and when I worked through the mumble he said:

"Ruddy foreigners" [the driver was black] "Why do we want foreigners driving our buses?"

I've never thought racism was a big problem before being in London - yeah, so shoot me - because it is something I have never encountered first hand. So I was a little shocked, but more peeved off at him making me a part of his bad attitude. It's hard not to feel that, by not disagreeing with someone, you are tacitly agreeing.

"Where you from?" he muttered conspiratorially.
"Here," I replied.
"Me too..." and he trailed off into dribbling again.

I got as far as turning back to him, to point out that the bus driver lives here too, before deciding to stay silent. It's all about choosing your battles, and I knew this was a pointless one. He was too old to change his ways, and probably too crazy as well. That's not what I regret.

All last term I lived in a liberal bubble - all my friends were gay, and black, and Jewish, and if they weren't, well they were working on it. It was a bit of a shock to come home and realise that actually, outside the student populace, the world is filled with judgemental bigots. Like discovering a forgotten sandwich that has turned into green fluff, somewhere you least expected it. Even though I knew the man was old, mad, and had no idea what he was talking about, it still really depressed me because his is a view shared by young sane people who should know better.

It reminded me a little of a a monestary we visited in Santorini. I picked up a leaflet in which the author explained why monks were not meant to help those in need, and why seclusion from the outside world was the best way of helping it. He drew a comparison to the radio operator in an army. Everyone else fights, which appears to be helpful - but if things get dire the radio operator can use his radio to summon air support. Now of course, if you're not a Christian - or indeed, not Greek Orthodox - this must strike you as useful as calling in your imaginary elephant friends to trample the enemy.

I'm still not convinced of the ethics - it suggests God is up there counting prayers, and when enough monks sing at the same time he deigns to intervene. A bit like Noel Edmond on Comic Relief night, sitting on his cloud with a big white beard and a big holy thermometer. Surely it would be better if the monks were out there doing good works instead of indirectly influencing things with the power of their minds. Though it does suggest that secretly, all monks are Timelords - refusing to interfere, but shaping the big curves of history.

That mad dude on the bus has really been the final straw. All summer, I've been looking forward to retreating back to my circle of pagan, Guardian reading, vegitarian, recycling, pro-everything reactionaries and shutting out the world. Guernsey is a nice place to have come from. But now I think of it, that's exactly what the monks have done. Instead of engaging with the world and actively helping, they are hiding away among their peers and not taking first-hand stock of its problems. It's making me wonder whether I've been wrong. Though it goes against everything I admire, instead of missing an atmosphere where everyone is happy and liberal, I should have been hammering people with my wit, knowledge and superior attitude until they were happy and liberal too.

I think I've discovered something beautiful, but daunting, about the world. You shouldn't try to find a better place - instead, you should be striving to make the place you are in a better place.


And that's it for me - tomorrow, I'm off. You might not hear from me for a while, as there is no internet at the new house yet. Two more ideas for house names: Castle Anthrax, and Traken. The latter is the chief planet in Doctor Who of a Union "held together by everyone being terribly nice to one another". It seems apt.

So. The rest is silence.

"I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire - why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither..."

~ Hamlet

Whenever I feel emotionally under the weather, this speech occurs to me. It seems such a perfect depiction of melancholy, so perfectly phrased. This state of being is the biggest bane of my existance - like Hamlet, I recognise how fantastic the world, the miracle of life, of nature, of art, take your pick. And yet, some days, I just don't feel it. Now within Hamlet, this speech can be performed however you like. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, it's played as nonsense to confound the spies - in Branagh's "Eternity Version", it is a moment of honest clarity in a stream of lies. My heroic English teacher points out that he explains how he is feeling, but not why to prevent R and G discovering his secret.

Whether or not Hamlet is being sincere, the speech still stands as perfect. Were you to ask me how I was feeling for the last six days or so, this could be my only response. But I'm sure it'll go away soon. It usually does.

Well I woke up today
And the world was a restless place
It could have been that way for me

And I wandered around
And I thought of your face
That Christmas looking back at me

I wish today was just like every other day
'Cause today has been the best day
Everything I ever dreamed

And I started to walk
Pretty soon I will run
And I'll come running back to you

'Cause I followed my star
And that's what you are
I've had a merry time with you

I wish today was just like every other day
'Cause today has been the best day
Everything I ever dreamed

So have a good life
Do it for me
Make me so proud
Like you want me to be
Where ever you are
I'm thinking of you oceans apart
I want you to know

Well I woke up today and you're on the other side
Our time will never come again
But if you can still dream
Close your eyes it will seem
That you can see me now and then

I wish today was just like every other day
'Cause today has been the best day
Everything I ever dreamed

I wish today was just like every other day
'Cause today has been the best day
Everything I ever dreamed

Suitable for all sorts of reasons. Today, I saw Arcadia at the Duke of York, a statement which means far more to me than it possibly can to you. Today, they announced the identity of the new companion. Yesterday, I saw Moths ate my Doctor Who Scarf. Today, Phil Spector has been jailed. And I could explain why each of these things are relevant, how I feel about them, and why the song sums it up perfectly - but it'd take me several hours (my blogs always do), and go off onto tangents, and because it'd get angst ridden (have you seen my recent Twittervomit ?!) and because, well, sometimes it's just damn fine to be secretive and mysterious. Which rather goes against the mandate of blogging - but today, nothing could be finer.