academic solipsism and the intellectual jerkoff

Ruth Behar's work The Vulnerable Observer has got me thinking about the state of academia and its self-indulgent properties. She has received both astounding praise and harsh criticism for her (some say daring and other call it exhibitionist) tactics to approach ethnography, not just exposing herself as a part of the story-telling, but in fact inserting her own story as part of the work (check out her last chapter of Translated Woman). In sifting through review after review either building a scholastic pedestal for Behar or hammering this pedestal into the ground, I feel that academics all over are missing a larger looming point: all of academia is self-indulgent.

As an undergraduate senior at UofM trying to write a premature and overeager thesis, i find that the only thing to pull me out of my dark and wildly convoluted mind is to remind myself that this process is entirely masturbatory. My work and all its prefacing research (all of which should be encased multiple sets of mocking air-quotation-marks mind you) is for me to hear myself think through surface-level concepts that i've never quite been able to break into. These are all part of the genre of "theory" that i'v been spoon-fed for at least the past 4 years. And fine. Great. There is nothing like a good ole solo session to clear the mind of all that disturbing white noise of expectations. However, just like self-sex, writing and reading these works from our higher educators gets me thinking about the more legitimately respected types of sexual exploration. Writing pieces to be published, is quite like hoppin in the sack with two or three or thousands of others for a night of intellectual ecstasy - an academic orgy of individuals all searching for self-fulfillment potentially through the fulfillment of others. What we all know and are not saying is that there are times (for some of us, this is more often than not) when we fake it - act like we're more turned on than we are, play into the roles we have set for ourselves or those that others are hoping to see us act out. So how are critics like Daphne Patai or the "vulnerable observers" like Behar much different than the rest of us partaking in this massive group-sex scenario? I maintain that they aren't. So what, if Behar wants to scream her name louder and more often than she does her partners'? And so what if Patai's pissed because Behar's yelling is making her lose her hard on? I'm bored of the culture of peer-criticism because in the realm of academia it is strictly denouncing rather than constructive. Lets call a spade a spade - this is a university dating site, the cultured equivalent to Craigslist casual encounters. The publishing industry is like a massive intellectual brothel, one that privileges the universities as the better pimps, the faculty as the high-class hookers, and scoffs on us streetwalking types who dabble in our self-indulgent writing from time to time, both for us and in the constant pursuit of making a living. If academia isnt a socially acceptable way of letting out those inner-kinks for the most sex-starved individuals, i dont know what is. This is why kids who got laid in high school are stereotyped as being burnouts: they already found their outlet. Maybe the rest of us in higher-education just needed to get our freak on at an earlier age.

The PC culture of sex and education translates just as easily. Some are proponents for rationalizing social norms, others hope to unleash all taboos on their institutional partners and wait with a sadist/exhibitionist's smile for the reaction of the unsuspecting. I admittedly am not as kinky in either realm as i'd like to proclaim, and while i support the process of letting the fetish out of the proverbial closet, let us all take a moment to remember that the items hangin in there dont necessarily fit everyone just as nicely. I look particularly stupid in a number of outfits, and that being said, try to tailor my clothing appropriately. Same goes with sex and writing. Plus, we see that some situations allow themselves for different get-ups - its far too cold in Michigan to wear that strap-up lingerie outside of my house (but we see sorority types braving the chill every night, so you see, its all subjective in the end). So while i spend my time talking the talk, i hardly walk into an academic setting spewing my blogger bullshit into the linoleum-tiled florescent lighting of the classroom, because i would like these particular partners of mine to giveafuck. This, my friends and fellow internet voyeurs, is material reserved for the tiny blinking cursor within a blogspot box, and i'll be damned if i dont look fucking fly in it right now.

Tuesday

Tuesday, fucking tuesday, there's something vile and rotten, sour tasting about this particular one. A tuesday that has been sitting in our broken fridge for a month and some past its expiration date. Label reads: this tuesday best by friday, september 30th 2011. It's been a tuesday that is stuck in monday's hangover clothing, a particularly wrinkled tuedsday with a pad thai stain on its left sleeve, a tuesday that wednesday regrets to be sitting next to in our weekly seminar. Fucking tuesday, tumbling in and out of bedspreads, a tuesday that listens to too much music and has temporarily lost its sense of sound. Talking too loud and too much, sloshing 2009 malbec over the side of its inappropriately chosen champagne glass, a tuesday that hasnt done the dishes since the tuesday before. I'm sure there is and should be more to come, but that's a thursday-friday task not ideally suited for a tuesday such as this

2:13 in just-laying time

I've had dreams of insects pouring out of unexpected places, like the tips of my fingers and those unimaginably deep holes in my three cushioned couch. They invade, armies of them, and like Enders Game alien forces weave elaborate formations around my body, but never bite nor do they sting. Aha, so just threat with no painful consequence you're inner Jungian shouts as he flips through his leather bound journals and puffs an extended breath from his pipe. It's always fear of the future or unresolved issues of the past. But as i took a break to lay, just lay, in the university grass today, i felt the ants begin to crawl up my left leg, scamper across my midsection, hide themselves in the crevices of my shirt. For 20 minutes in just-laying time (which is about 4 minutes of normal functioning future-driven time, for reference sake) i continued to smack sections of my body attuned to the tingling sensation of something foreign, thinking i could warn them off, scare the critters and hope they tell their friends. How disturbing is it to hope to lay, just lay, and be continually bothered by other beings' agendas. Or is it me disturbing myself with the slapping and kicking and constant notice of their presence. Maybe it's time to learn to let the creatures crawl as they may, nestle in my present shorts if need be, for a moment of shelter from this october's Indian Summer sun, because in a couple of just-laying hours i'll be on the go again, and they will have taken to the force of gravity and movement, eventually shaken off.

The woman and the washboard

The man with the harmonica is perched as a symbol of all the good and bad and beautiful in all of my relationships. As his hand moves up and down clickity clackiting my thoughts out on a worn out washboard, glasses perched atop his bridge, dirty jean hat countering the many rumors and projections of his supposed "professorship" or "research position". No one gets an interview, no one gets a word, but we all have forged quite the relationship with this man, thinking, egotistically, that it is only ours. I watch as students morph into momentary cartoons as their feet lift a little higher, arms swing a little harder, smiles stretch a little wider for that 30 by 30 foot square of university pavement. I let my delusion get the best of me, thinking that he values me as much as I him. I dance, you see, every time, without fail, and he nods, and his eyes smile (mouth still busy harmonicing of course) and we prolong our moment as best we can, me to the beat of my shoulder swings and bouncing hair, him to the humming and strumming, complementing each others' art. I think, "yes, now. this is the time. this is the time when i should finally stop, and talk, and break the routine we've established, push it further, find out something new." But my feet have shuffled and sidestepped me on, and suddenly, out of the direct line of his magical influence, it seems so silly, so farfetched, so i keep on walking. I could talk, you see, clarify his role, tell him i like it, point at his importance. But such risk running is not actually part of the confidence i exude. What ifs come shooting to the surface - what if he doesnt in fact notice that im the one dancing for and because of him, that smile just the reaction of a self-involved man? what if he has many other boppers, millions of boppers, counting me as just another number? what if he's not the man behind the music that i expect him to be? and mostly, what if it's in the not talking that everything exciting and mysterious lies? There are no expectations, not even projections, that come to mind. Just speculation based on past smiles and head nods, the extended relationship, the fact that we built it all on top of a teetering jenga set, and one wrong pull may bring it all crashing down. Such is the game. Tense and fun and full of potential for disaster, which is, in the end, the final expectation. I still can't get myself to stop, change routes, or walk straight on through. Still, i'm increasingly disappointed on the many a days that he's not there. Such is the game.

DPS crime alert: good mood mugged by naturopathic sleeping pills

i sense the blinking light on recent personal developments. from the edge of my covers i see tissues and papers, garbage and empty grocery bags, pant leg after pant leg entwining in a form surely to be scolded by the school principal catching kids at prom, and if the next episode of the west wing weren't taunting me so i'd give it all a good stern talking to. pause, for everything. its gotta be biological, an unwarranted and unpredictable sexual and mental hiatus, although completely self-piloted, has got all sides of my instinctual body worn to threads, thinking and fucking passed out in their respective corners of the ring. It's been great, still in the quivering moments of total lacking. It's been a thrill, despite however i communicate it. It's still groundbreaking, even if over half comes from my untuned computer speakers. And as i etc. etc. etc. i keep in the meat freezer of my mind this reminder: It's 9 more days i got overstaying my welcome here.

g'mornin

Car horns sound and shoes scuff the pavement and people shout and life stays in motion as i slip under the scratchy grey blanket and stare up at my tiny barred window in this rented room. Gently placing my computer over my growling stomach, i let my hunger and the hardrive fans battle it out, winner determines my next set of actions. something is looming, hovering, dangling above me like a miny mobile of potential responsibility. I'm surprisingly soothed, as a baby should be, to the twisting and turning of test dates, flight dates, conversation dates, inscription dates. They dance to the car horns and the scuffing of shoes and the shouting and the rush of life through this city. Huddled deeper now in a pile of blankets, i think i should get dressed, join the honking and scuffing and shouting. And i would too if it were not for the unexpected hardrive fan victory, i hear it hum violently in celebration as my stomach growls the occasional whine of a sore loser.

i reach into my pocket of my jeans spawled like a murder scene from last night's debauchery. My phone pops out along with a crumpled peice of pink paper, the tail ends of girlish curling handwriting peeks out from the corner and i'm transported back into that eternal drunk-bitch conversation. its always the same, this one may wear the long droopy mc hammer pants of porteña style, but its got the same build, the same animated insides. "y me llamás? porque me gustás mucho! y tenemos que salir juntas, ay que suerte que nos encontramos acá, vamos a ser amigas, no? así que me llamás!" and theres shoulder pushing and hair tossing and we both flit off (because flitting is absolutely necessary in times like these) to other ends of the bar. I cant figure out why this number, with its curly-q's and light pink backing, exhausts me so, still shouting at me from across a noisy bar. Pull blankets tighter and twist to let the remnants of alcohol drain down my system. My stomach starts to growl with newly revived passion, and though i turn up the volume on my speakers to drown out reality with a catchy french tune, the mobile of to-dos whips rapidly around my head and the honking and scuffing and shouting and growling all wag their fingers and nag, "get the fuck up".

Do you remember your grand entrance? The scaled seats fill with town members into that theater, you wait behind red velvet, and suddenly like all theater majors nightmares realize you cant remember your lines? Thats probably why babies cry upon entering this world. They just werent readily prepared. Oh, but weve all heard the story. I was born of a mother sensitivity and a father sarcasm. Weaned on defensive humor and washed in nervous laughter, i began to embody my character. The plot develops: i played in a sanbox stocked from the beaches of ambiguity where the shores bearn no marker in particular and the constant whispers of an ocean tide seems to mutter your name. The worms i ate were imported from a monestary in indonesia, and there i devoured my silence. They wore soot robes and bowed their heads (or was it their tails?), spending all day inching in parrallel form, converting my one person playpen into a kempt zen garden. Thus i grew, with certain detatchment, anxious habits, an excess of words and too few spaces to stoe time. My ubringing surges to the tips of my persona the further i move away from it. With this continual restructuring of my internal feng shuei, some of the staples get pushed into a back room or kept in storage, for the time being.

¿sos una chica debil¿ his question was hardly spiteful, its genuine nature dances around his bluegrey iris, the opening act with an extended curtain call for a show ive caught snippits of, but only from back stage. He stared, posed, lids refusing to shut even for the slightest of moments until they sense my response. Si, puede ser, the audience claps. I feel dizzy, not the thrilling version of the sense but the kind that makes you nauseated and give you the shits. Its a dizzy pepto bismal could extinguish, or a dizzy missing its partner and with a few shots of whiskey would dance a dizzying pomerade around my feet. Dizzy not from my own spinning, absolved of all volition, but yanked by my big toes and tossed into the air, i tuck into fetal position and bounce across the hands of thousands crowded at the now rock concert. No, its not weakness, but the constant sensation, or perhaps reminder, that i belong to everyone else. Theirs to watch, to welcome, to whisper, to harrass. Their to touch, to shove, to fondle, to fight. Theirs to call chiquita, amorcita, mona, nena. And theirs to have, to hold, to know. In a week and a half i morph from one object to the next: a memory, a roof, a notch on a belt buckle, a miror, a love scene from a 1920s flick where no matter how cold hearted i inevitably wilt into the arms of my savior, a philosophy article to be digested and reintepreted, a new experience. So i decided to probe said weakness, take a scaple to its pulsing limb, peel its layers like string cheese, letting each one dangle alone and vulnerable before its consumed. Ahh, this piece is burnt, a flavor of lingering tobacco on a dive bars upholstered seats. This one spoiled, for it sat too long in the sun. Mmm, this section tender and young, fresh enough to be picked but lacking in profundity like a cheap wine. Part by part i tear and swallow, noting where the weakness stikes my pallate, sound humming off my teeth, my molars sing baratone. And the weakness twangs and wanes in achord and it strips itself bear until the curtain rises and it stands, knock-kneed and naked on that broadway theater stage. Lights hit, front and center, and the audience gasps in unison as all sensitivity, weakness, vulnerability, and feel seeps out and files into the pores of the observers. Y? Bueno? Soy debil? Who isnt.

Dear Candice,

Disclaimer: this is a complilation of just the tips of my sensations on overdrive. make sure your computer has a working cooling system and that youre feeling plenty empathetic to my clichés. Also, pardon the lack of apopstrophies... i have yet to master a spanish keyboard.

The Boeing 1640 hums quite a different tune when ascending, particularly when the passengers have mentally prepared for arrival. Like the hook of any great top 40, it lead astounding well into the string of indiscernable spanish swear words the foul mouthed middle aged woman seated next to me spit without hesitation. A nice pick up to surprise the crowd, we felt our organs push down against our lower intestine as we lifted again. Just as well im sure. I hardly feel ready to disembark into my utter lack of preparation. I switched on my music, eyeing the flight attendant to make sure i wasnt spotted, i had already felt the heat of his beedy glare. We recircled and i felt my the weight of my thoughts push back against their cranial cage, like ideas on a tilt-o-whirl. Hard they not been so tightly buckled, i assure you theyde still be recircling at a cruising altitude, passing on that heafty responsibility of adjustment, acceptance, and acknowledgement to my most instinctive of readtions. I gues the most rational, or maybe responsible, or all questions to ask for the time being would be WHY? Ah, but it seems so redundant, and yet exceptional, even phonetically speaking. The wh rolling its eyes at me, as if i didnt know it was everso cliché to begin with. A cliché so typical it needs no voicing but i decide to tattoo it on my tongue. And then the y lingering at the end, nervous and self-consciously shuffling its feet. Oh the burden that the y carries, but only sometimes. For such an occasional letter it sure has a lot to uphold. Why to too many circumstances, so ill start with the most immediate, as always, and hope to answer or rationalize at the very leasy the more more groundbreaking at a later date. Why chronical, journal, detail, explain, evade, or simply annote what im doing? is it more for now or maybe later? to fill the time (and abounding amounts of it mind you), give it some purpose, or give off some aparent purpose to tohers? Maybe its to empyt out the rogue words clogging the ancient brainage drainage so that the original issues clogging the system have a fight chance of surfacing and passing through. Have i ever stuck my toe into that enigmatic pool of so-called writing, the kind that drips ink on concrete after i take a dip into its fridgid waters? or do i just present myself as such? Im afraid im simply too afraid, because we are beings accustomed to the idea-editing culture. When your utensil is topped with a cap instead of eraser, well, what comes out? at this point, nothing truly significant. But im sure it requires practice, as all challenging sports do, so i desperately scribble, quite cognizant of the chance that only the first 10th or this book will be filled, and the contents are just as precarious. But in the spirit of all good intentions, new years resolutions, or intellectual epiphanies, i write, and commit, and i title it Day 1.